Literary notes about Inspect (AI summary)
The term "inspect" in literature carries a multifaceted significance, often connoting a careful examination that can be both literal and metaphorical. Writers employ it to describe the physical act of observing or investigating surroundings—whether it is a town being surveyed before an impending journey [1], military entrenchments being examined [2], or even a room perused for familiar portraits [3]—as well as to denote a more abstract reflection on a subject’s deeper attributes, like inspecting one’s own thoughts or historical records [4, 5]. It can imply a formal duty, as when a magistrate checks the details of a property [6] or an official scrutinizes military lines [7], and even convey a sense of personal scrutiny in mundane or intimate situations, such as inspecting a letter [8] or a family member’s condition [9]. This versatility underscores the word's ability to bridge the tangible and the introspective within narrative prose.
- The waiter had just time to accomplish this feat before Paul Ivanovitch Chichikov set forth to inspect the town.
— from Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol - Do you remember at Braunau he commanded an army for three weeks and did not once mount a horse to inspect his entrenchments....
— from War and Peace by graf Leo Tolstoy - For an hour or two I walk about the room from corner to corner and inspect the long familiar pictures.
— from The Bet, and other stories by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - Yet the fact that reflection originates in a problem makes it necessary at some points consciously to inspect and examine this familiar background.
— from How We Think by John Dewey - I knew quite well what was going to happen, because I could date back in my own life and inspect the record.
— from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain - 'We had better inspect the premises first, and examine the servants afterwards.
— from Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens - On the contrary, he caused his infantry to rest until their strength was recruited, riding along round the lines to inspect them.
— from The Anabasis of Alexander by Arrian - I should want to inspect the letters, of course.
— from The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle - “This is one of his good days, sir,” she said to Dr. Craven, who dropped in to inspect him.
— from The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
