"Freak" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... no means of a sane mind. In short, to speak plainly, he was mad, and deserved a strait-waistcoat as richly as any straw-crowned monarch in Bedlam. A single instance, in my opinion, fully substantiates this. I allude to his absurd freak at Frederickshall, when, in order to discover how long he could exist without nourishment, he abstained from all kinds of food for more than seventy hours! Now, would any man in his senses have done this? Would Louis ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 290 - Volume X. No. 290. Saturday, December 29, 1827. • Various
... an exhibition of love—or, at least, not necessarily so. You might exhibit sensibility before a famous poet, or a gallant soldier, or a celebrated traveler—or, for that matter, before a remarkable buffoon, like Cagliostro, or a freak, ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... military men of a certain age, grizzled officers, who walked rather stiffly and seated themselves with circumspection. Evidently old friends, they always dined at the same time, entering one a few minutes after the other; but by some freak of habit they took places at different tables, so that the conversation which they kept up all through the meal had to be carried on by an exchange of shouts. Nothing whatever prevented them from being near each other; ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... and again worked until evening, and by that time had made sufficient progress in their simple movements to begin to feel that there was after all something more in it than they had fancied. For the first hour it had seemed to them a sort of joke—a mere freak on the part of their young chief; but they were themselves surprised to find by the end of the day how rapidly they were able to change from their rank two deep into the solid formation, and how their spears ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... followed Meade Burrell saw much of Necia. At first he had leaned on the excuse that he wanted to study the curious freak of heredity she presented; but that wore out quickly, and he let himself drift, content with the pleasure of her company and happy in the music of her laughter. Her quick wit and keen humor delighted him, and the mystery of her dark eyes seemed to hold the poetry and beauty of all the ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... me, but I am not very well to-night." And so at last I got rid of him, still brandishing his pencil and his note-book. My troubles may be bad to hear, but at least it is better to hug them to myself than to have myself exhibited by Wilson, like a freak at a fair. He has lost sight of human beings. Every thing to him is a case and a phenomenon. I will die before I speak to ...
— The Parasite • Arthur Conan Doyle
... won praise from all who came to know her. But that small part of the Springs—alien and exclusive—which considered itself higher if not better than the rest of the Western world, looked askance at "the gambler's wife and her freak friends," and Mrs. Crego, who was inclined to be very censorious, alluded to the Haneys as "beggars on horseback" as she met them on ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... peculiarities—the snarling habit and that high-pitched animal voice, for instance—which made him a being different from others—one separate and far apart? Was he, so admirably formed, so complete and well-balanced, merely a freak of nature, to use an old-fashioned phrase—a sport, or spontaneous individual variation—an experiment for a new human type, imagined by Nature in some past period, inconceivably long ago, but which she had only now, too late, found ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... true—as sure as plug hats don't grow on fig trees! Only not in the way I meant then. Not as a freak. But as a lawyer." ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... There's nothing else so lean and fine produced on the globe to-day. I was next door to them at Pozieres and saw them fight. Lord! Such men! Now and then you had a freak, but most looked ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... like a curious freak of fate that such a sovereign, at such a time, should have had to get rid of the Duke of Wellington and accept Lord Grey as his Prime Minister. The Duke of Wellington was himself simple, plain, and occasionally rough ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... heard, at this moment, was the official United States broadcast announcing the ending of all real menace of atomic attack. By a fortunate freak of fate, somebody in authority realized that it was more important to get the news out than to make a professionalized production of it. So a tired but confident voice said very simply that American technicians seemed ...
— Long Ago, Far Away • William Fitzgerald Jenkins AKA Murray Leinster
... a square hole right now, fellows. But he ain't going to stay round much longer, because, you see, he's getting all the fat rubbed off and will soon be a living skeleton. I'm going to look out for a job in some freak museum after this trip." ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... could, of course, but how would he get the fun out of doing a thing like that? No, we have to look either for a freak or a poor neglected child. Now, True Treds, ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... freak'd with tissue of images olden, 50 One whose curious art did blazon valour of heroes. Gazing forth from a beach of Dia the billow-resounding, Look'd on a vanish'd fleet, on Theseus quickly departing, ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... the garden end, Which to the pair much ease was found to lend; Old Aldobrandin, when he built the same, Ne'er fancied LOVE, would in it freak and game. In cuckoldom he took his full degrees; The horse he daily mounted at his ease, And so delighted with his bargain seemed, Three days, to prove it, requisite he deemed. The country house received him ev'ry night; At home he ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... came to tracking. If the merman said that the snake-devil had a definite goal in view, he was right. But the scout was still a little bemused by a monster who was able to have any goal except the hunting and devouring of meat. Either the one who fled was a freak among its kind or—There were several possibilities which could answer that "or," and none of them were very pleasant ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... attempt they strained to the utmost with the paddles, and each time, with hearts nigh to bursting from the effort, they were played out and swept back. They succeeded finally by an accident. In the swiftest current, near the end of another failure, a freak of the current sheered the canoe out of Churchill's control and flung it against the bluff. Churchill made a blind leap at the bluff and landed in a crevice. Holding on with one hand, he held the swamped canoe with the other till Antonsen dragged himself out of the water. Then ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... and hiding Pollyooly had played the important part. It had been a freak of nature to make her and Lady Marion Ricksborough so closely alike, that even when they were together it was hard to tell which was which. The duchess had taken advantage of this likeness to substitute Pollyooly for Lady Marion at Ricksborough Court, the duke's ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... actress in America! This man Douglass has got you hypnotized. Honestly, there's something uncanny about the way he has queered you. Brace up. Send him whirling. He isn't worth a minute of your time, Nellie—now, that's the fact. He's a crazy freak. Say the word and I'll fire him and his misbegotten ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... he had a moral right to be a republican. A person whose imagination is quick and warm, whose feelings are acute, and whose intellect is wholly untrained, can find no comfort except in belief. His scepticism is a mere freak of vanity or self-will. Coming upon the stage of life when unbelief was fashionable in high drawing-rooms, he became a sceptic. But Nature will have her way with us all, and so this atheist at fifteen was ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... extremes did my imagination carry me before I reached home. But I was clear in my mind about one thing. I meant to present myself at the office in the morning, and if the chance were given me, to apprentice myself for a while. It was indeed a strange freak of destiny, that he should have been confronted by me with the same appeal that I had heard him make so short a time ago. Perhaps it were better called a strange freak of my caprice, for though of course my position was not premeditated, ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... my dear Eva, things which appear very extraordinary, may often be explained by a chance resemblance or a freak of nature. Marvels being always the result of optical illusion or heated fancy, a time must come, when that which appeared to be superhuman or supernatural, will prove to be the most simple and natural ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... preferable far to the dull monotony of his southern home; and when at last he was graduated, and there was no longer an excuse for tarrying, he lingered by the way, stopping at the then village of Springfield, where, actuated by some sudden freak, he registered himself as Harry Rivers, the latter being his middle name. For doing this he had no particular reason, except that it suited his fancy, and Rivers, he thought, was a better name than Graham. Here he met with Helena Nichols, whose uncommon beauty first attracted his attention, ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... spiteful. But I'll tell YOU something. Such friendships as you speak of are only possible where the woman is old—or ugly—or abnormal, in some way: a man-woman, or a clever woman, or some other freak of nature. Now, our women are, as a rule, sexually healthy. They know what they're here for, too, and are not ashamed of it. Also, they still have their share of physical attraction. While yours—good God! I wonder you manage to ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... tradition that a vast serpent once lived in the waters of the Mississippi, and that, taking a freak to visit the Great Lakes, he left his trail through the prairies, which, collecting the waters from the meadows and the rains of heaven as they fell, at length ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... some heavy blow, and rested upon others that had proven better able to stand up against the wind. A few were fashioned in weird shapes, too; and to tell the truth, it looked as if Nature had taken pains to gather together on that one particular island all the freak things possible. ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... Al-Maamun's Wazirs. The Caliph married his daughter whose true name was Buran; but this tale of girl's freak and courtship was invented (?) by Ishak. For the splendour of the wedding and the munificence of the Minister see Lane, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... away to carry out my instructions, Robbins, whose sharp eyes had seen the freak in the kettle, said to Ovide in an undertone, "Thou hast not forgotten, lad, to take the frost ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... The Empress of Russia, Catherine II., in a magnificent freak, built a palace of ice, which was a nine-days' wonder. Cowper has given a poetical description of it in The Task, ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... of knickers forms the subject of admiring comment from his mother to a friendly curate: the mother herself being a wonderful study of low life. In "Going It" (page 59) the artist harks back to the theme of "freak-study," if such a term is permissible, the expressions on the faces of the two figures exhibiting well his acute ...
— Frank Reynolds, R.I. • A.E. Johnson
... George out of this notion, which Mac and I regarded as a freak, unnecessary in the first place, and impossible anyhow. But he was persistent, and I had to start out and try. I expected an expense of $1,000 and a delay of two weeks, but fortune or the devil favored us. So, purchasing at the exchange ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... a real millionaire, McGivney positively assured him; and so Peter was free to admire him in spite of all his freak ideas, which the rat-faced man explained with intense amusement. Young Lackman conducted a school for boys, and when one of the boys did wrong, the teacher would punish himself instead of the boy! Peter must pretend to be interested in this kind of "education," ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... brilliant eye. And Health, with rosy cheek,— Manhood, with forehead stern and high, And youth with many a freak. ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... worked out that table!" he said stridently. "Nobody! Morgan said you'd appreciate my work! He said you needed my talent! But what good do you see in it? You think I'm a freak!" ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... beside their own. Fred sent enough money to have a frame building put up but the twins decided that logs were more romantic and cheaper. It was a remarkable structure when they were through with it, stuck against their own house, as if by accident, and resembling in its irregularity the growth of a freak potato. Cables were freely used; binder twine served as hinges on the doors ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... silhouette by a wandering artist of the scissors, and interchanged by all the thirty-eight. Hawthorne disapproved the proposed plan, and steadily refused to go into the Class Golgotha, as he styled the dismal collection. I joined him in this freak, and so our places were left vacant. I now regret the whim, since even a moderately correct outline of his features as a youth would, at this ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... some freak of memory, it all came back to him through the dream-inducing haze of tobacco smoke. And there, on his writing-table, stood a full-length photograph of Lance in Punjab cavalry uniform. Soldiering on the Indian Border, fulfilling himself in his own ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... outrage women; and now, when our Empire calls for men to go out and stop these devilish things, you sit here and let this traitor insult your country. You are all braver than I am, too; I am only a joke to most of you, a freak, a looney,—you have said so,—but I ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... bump was so large a lump (Nature, they said, had taken a freak) That its summit stood far above the wood Of his ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... has had a limited amount of recognition in law, unfortunately not always wise or timely. Freak legislation and half-baked schemes are the familiar preliminaries which precede the grim onset of a real attack supported by public sentiment. Typical examples of such premature legislation may be found in the setting up of the Wassermann test ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes
... to the camp, And the poor comrade shivering stood the watch Till dawn of day and I was made aware. Among the true were some vainglorious fools Called by the fife and drum from native mire To lord and strut in shoulder-straps and buttons. Scrubs, born to brush the boots of gentlemen, By sudden freak of fortune found themselves Masters of better men, and lorded it As only base and brutish natures can— Braves on parade and ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... and that other, which, by some freak of Providence, has found its way to Philadelphia, have backgrounds which carry our imagination very far. Is this primordial ice, with its livid steel-blue shadows, the stuff out of which the gods make other planets than ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... will! I believe you've hit on the very best possible solution of our difficulty. The episcopal palace at Blanford is absolutely the last place in the world where any one would think of looking for a political conspirator, and, by some freak of fortune, the police are entirely ignorant that I'm in any way ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... of horn and shaped like that of a parrot—opened and closed vertically. Its tongue, also of horn substance and armed with several rows of sharp teeth, would flicker out from between these genuine shears. What a freak of nature! A bird's beak on a mollusk! Its body was spindle-shaped and swollen in the middle, a fleshy mass that must have weighed 20,000 to 25,000 kilograms. Its unstable color would change with tremendous speed as the animal grew irritated, passing successively ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... induced Cassidy, who knew little of impressions and feelings in the absence of facts, to believe that no other head than his ever concocted the crime. Still, from the manly sincerity with which his young client spoke, he felt inclined to impute the act to a freak of boyish malice and disappointment, rather than to a spirit of vindictive rancor. He entertained no expectation whatsoever of Connor's acquittal, and hinted to him that it was his habit in such cases to recommend his clients to be prepared ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... returned George. 'These English folk might not thole to see my father's son in their hands without winning something out of him, and I saw by what passed the other day that thou and thy father would stand by me, hap what hap, and I'll never embroil him and peril the lady by my freak.' ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... He yelled again as he felt stone cut and crash into bone, though himself swept aside once more as a great paw, sidestruck, hurled him into the bushes. He bounded to his feet and saw something huge and dark and gasping floundering in the pathway. He thought not but ran on panting. By some strange freak of forest fortune abetting might the man wandering of mind had driven his ax nearly to the haft into the skull of his huge assailant. It may be that never before had a cave man, thus armed, done so well. The slayer ran ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... statements that grapes would bring a good price this fall." Well, we found that half of them could be saved and that the terrific hailstorm had extended over only two vineyards—the path of the storm not half a mile across in either direction, a curious freak, but one that in ten minutes took away all ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... to the wall. Through chattering teeth he babbled, "... enough radioactives ... kill a thousand men ... freak ... a freak ..." In his agitation he forgot for a moment to inhale through ...
— The Moon is Green • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... tower, the clock struck twelve with a very deep intonation, and immediately some chimes began to play, and kept up their resounding music for five minutes, as measured by the hand upon the dial. It was a very delightful harmony, as airy as the notes of birds, and seemed a not unbecoming freak of half-sportive fancy in the huge, ancient, and solemn church; although I have seen an old-fashioned parlor-clock that did precisely the same thing, in its ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... dead! They spake not thus,—(their patron here) When they were proud to break his bread, To watch his faintest smile, and fear His latent frown; they did not speak Of vices, follies, meanness: then A crime in him, had been, "the freak Of youth," and "worthiest he, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 381 Saturday, July 18, 1829 • Various
... to avoid contrasting this beautiful account of elegant dissipation with the noted freak of Sir Charles Sedley, to whom it is addressed. In June 1663, being in company with Lord Buckhurst and Sir Thomas Ogle, in a tavern in Bowstreet, and having become furious with intoxication, they not only exposed themselves, by ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... rather, it was. Mrs. Bawdrey's father was a doctor, and it once belonged to him. Properly, it ought to have no place in a collection of this sort, but—well, it's such an amazing thing I couldn't quite refuse it a place, sir. It's a freak of nature. The skeleton of a ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... it is a wolf, at this time of year they are tame, and would never attack two people." Thus Riasantzeff sought to reassure her, while secretly annoyed at Yourii's childish freak. ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... them to think of the despised grub-rider in the light of a rival, so they decided it was just a freak ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... was resorted to for the last time during the Peloponnesian War (417 B.C.). The people then, in a freak, ostracized a man whom all admitted to be the meanest man in Athens. This was regarded as such a degradation of the institution, as well as such an honor to the mean man, that never thereafter ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... you I know nothing of this place!" he cried—"I never saw it before! Some trick has been played on me ... who brought me here? Where is Elzear the hermit? ... the Ruins of Babylon? ... where is, ... Good God! ... what fearful freak of fate is this!" ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... can know nothing of women," was the end of his reflections, "if you do not know that what seems most improbable is what is most likely to be true. This maid is certainly not one of the flute-players or the like. Who knows what incomprehensible whim or freak may have brought her here? At any rate, it will be easier for her to keep her eyes open ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... a few guarded words. Though Joyce by no means looked upon Jared as a protege of his organization, yet his essential sympathy with the country still held full sway, and he felt it possible to regard young Stiles not as a mere freak, but as a human creature like ourselves, and struggling upward, like the rest of us and to the best of his powers, toward the light. But the town did not want restraint and reason just then, and Joyce's well-considered words ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... the courtyard. Broken tiles littered the ground. Here and there, lay bricks and bits of mortar. Some freak of backblast had torn a shutter off the house and it lay brokenly a few feet from him. He looked back ...
— The Best Made Plans • Everett B. Cole
... catch hold of, like the tannin in its overdrawn tea. It loved to stand before this poster and pick out the easily recognized characters and argue (as Sypher, whose genius had suggested the inclusion of the freak had intended) what the hairy creature could represent, and, as it stood and picked and argued, the great fact of Sypher's Cure sank deep into their souls. He remembered the glowing pride with which he had regarded this achievement, the triumphal progress he made in a motor-car around the London ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... monoplane was wheeled out, and he was strapped, or harnessed, into his seat. "Was the machine a 'freak' monoplane?" we wondered. ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... energetic wife to follow her own will about details. There was no doubt in that lady's mind as to the methods to be pursued. Her husband had been culpably weak, and had allowed himself to be swayed by the freak of a boy who hated work and wanted an excuse for idleness. Honore must be brought to reason, and be taught that "the way of transgressors is hard," and that people who refuse to take their fair share of life's labour must of necessity suffer from deprivation ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... age when a young girl, strong, beautiful, impetuous, entered under the sloping eaves of his father's huge gray shingle roof. The girl was a niece on the maternal side. Her New England mother had, by freak of love, married a reckless young Englishman of gentle blood who was settled on a Canadian farm. Pining for her puritan home, she died early. The father made a toy of his daughter till he too died in the fortified town of Kingston, on the northern shore ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... a freak of a sick man's brain? Then why do you start and shiver so? That's the sob and drip of a leaky drain? But it sounds like another noise we know! The heavy drops drummed red and slow, The drops ran down as slow as fate— Do ye hear them ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... * Authors freak out. Authors have been schooled by their peers that strong copyright is the only thing that keeps them from getting savagely rogered in the marketplace. This is pretty much true: it's strong copyright ...
— Ebooks: Neither E, Nor Books • Cory Doctorow
... of time when it will reach the high lands. It is in the Dismal Swamp that Lake Drummond was discovered, by whom I do not know, but is said to have been found by a man named Drummond, whose name it bears; that will make no difference with me, the question is, how came it there? Was it a freak of nature, or was it caused by warring of the elements, is a question for the consideration of those who visit it? That it was the effect of fire caused by lightning setting fire to the turf, or some dead tree, there can be no doubt. At what time in the Christian era this eventful ...
— The Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond, Early recollections - Vivid portrayal of Amusing Scenes • Robert Arnold
... freak was at the bottom of the furious meeting at the Bunk. Philip Price, the tutor, sympathising fully with the ardent pursuits of boyhood, had been over-indulgent in the matter of granting whole Wednesdays, instead of half-holidays. Any excuse sufficed. Skating on inland ponds in the winter; fishing ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... happened that at the moment I found surprising and extremely startling, yet which I took for a mere carnival freak, while later on I could scarce review the occurrence ...
— The Gray Nun • Nataly Von Eschstruth
... please her, and it is but a harmless freak," answered Mistress Audley, "though I acknowledge that her Indian costume becomes ...
— The Settlers - A Tale of Virginia • William H. G. Kingston
... policy and advantage which render the union of Scotland and Ireland with England a necessity apply with even more force to the several States of our Union. To let one, or two, or half a dozen of them break away in a freak of anger or unjust suspicion, or, still worse, from mistaken notions of sectional advantage, would be to fail in our duty to ourselves and our country, would be a fatal blindness to the lessons which immemorial history has been tracing on the earth's surface, either with the beneficent furrow ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... world. But the interest is not what is commonly called philosophic, it is personal. Because the Revolution is the dominant fact in modern history, therefore people suppose that the doings of this or that provincial lawyer, tossed into temporary eminence and eternal infamy by some freak of the revolutionary wave, or the atrocities committed by this or that mob, half drunk with blood, rhetoric, and alcohol, are of transcendent importance. In truth their interest is great, but their importance is small. What we are concerned to know as students of the philosophy of history ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... floor, a second-hand clothes-dealer on the first story, and a seller of indecent prints on the second, Samanon carried on a fourth business—he was a money-lender into the bargain. No character in Hoffmann's romances, no sinister-brooding miser of Scott's, can compare with this freak of human and Parisian nature (always admitting that Samanon was human). In spite of himself, Lucien shuddered at the sight of the dried-up little old creature, whose bones seemed to be cutting a leather skin, spotted with all sorts of little green and yellow patches, ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... release a story saying the baby was a freak. The kid was born at home, you see. The only other person who saw her, besides me and my wife, was this doctor we had. And he died ...
— Get Out of Our Skies! • E. K. Jarvis
... fleck flick cake sock deck meek flock pack yoke slick shock poke track hack dock snake neck stuck clack sleek strike crack freak pluck truck stroke brake drake shake black struck sneak spoke ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett
... their way through the village Terry explained Ohto's decision, concluding with: "And so he awaits one of their 'signs,' the appearance of the limocons, or some freak of weather or natural phenomenon like an earthquake—they ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... wings, rose here and there, startled from their quiet nests by the approaching inundation, which by this time had completely hidden what was called in that region the public road. De Fervlans, at a loss what to make of this singular freak of nature, sent a horseman to the right, and one to the left, to examine the ground, and learn whence came the sea of slime, and how it might be avoided. Each of his messengers returned with the information that the slime was flowing in the direction he had ridden. The ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... grandeur. Nothing daunted, the adventurers kept steadily on their course. They knew that through those dismal portals they were to arrive at the most magnificent country in the world; they knew that awful screen concealed loveliness itself. It was a coquettish freak of nature, when dealing with European curiosity, as it came eagerly bounding to the Atlantic wave, to herald it through an avenue so sombre as to cause the wonders of the great valley of the Mississippi to burst with tenfold more force upon the bewildered ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... the little case over and over in his hands, again examining the clasps of it. His next freak was to snatch his pistol and look to the priming. I burst out laughing, for his antics seemed absurd. My laughter cooled him, and he made a great effort to regain his composure. But I began ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... bookman's trivial adventures and discoveries. They would be worse than trivial indeed if they led him to forget or ignore that by which Goldsmith earned his immortality, or to regard Traherne merely as a freak in the history of literary reputations, and not primarily as the writer of ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... perfectly natural, and not altogether unpardonable. Those who intrust a petulant, hot-blooded, ill- informed lad with power, are more to blame than he for the mischief which he may do with it. How could it be expected of a lively page, raised by a wild freak of fortune to the first influence in the empire, that he should have bestowed any serious thought on the principles which ought to guide judicial decisions? Bacon was the ablest public man then living in Europe. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... who crosses their path. Why should not a woman go to the City? She has as much right there as man, and yet if she is in the least degree superior to the flower girls (?) who surround the Royal Exchange, she is looked on as a freak of nature, a positive curiosity, and is followed by every pair of ...
— Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl - Sister of that "Idle Fellow." • Jenny Wren
... persuaded to go; and she bore her aunt's putting a stop to her weekly lesson in fine-work at the Chase without the least grumbling or pouting. It must be, after all, that she had set her heart on Adam at last, and her sudden freak of wanting to be a lady's maid must have been caused by some little pique or misunderstanding between them, which had passed by. For whenever Adam came to the Hall Farm, Hetty seemed to be in better spirits and to talk more than at other times, though she was almost sullen when Mr. Craig or ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... she contemplated some idle freak that might try his gallantry, perhaps his purse. But she was in earnest, ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... came before me Vaness's well-dressed person, panting, pale, perplexed; and beside him, by a freak of vision, stood the old darky's father, bound to the live-oak, with the bullets whistling past, and his face transfigured. There they stood alongside the creed of pleasure, which depended for fulfilment on its waist measurement; and the creed of ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... what I took to be the rail, breathed, and breathed the sweet air again. I tried to rise, but struck my head and was knocked back on hands and knees. By some freak of the waters I had been swept clear under the forecastle-head and into the eyes. As I scrambled out on all fours, I passed over the body of Thomas Mugridge, who lay in a groaning heap. There was no time to investigate. I must get the ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... echoed with a sensation of relief: then, after all, her secret had not been guessed: it was truly some freak of the Queen's, and she ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... condescended to the unfair expedient of kidnapping a candidate's wardrobe, leaving her to decide between the alternative of staying at home or attending the examination room attired in a robe de nuit? On other occasions it appeared that by some unaccountable freak of memory one had forgotten about the examinations until the very hour had arrived, and was running, running—trying to overtake a train that would not stop, not though one leapt rivers and scaled mountain heights in the ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... /n./ [prob. from ad-agency tradetalk, 'house freak'] A hacker occupying a technical-specialist, R&D, or systems position at a commercial shop. A really effective house wizard can have influence out of all proportion to his/her ostensible rank and still not have to wear a suit. Used esp. of Unix wizards. ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... been to Early and his followers to note the panic and confusion into which McCausland's predatory riders once more threw the capital and the border States, this absurd freak produced far-reaching consequences that were not in the thoughts of any one on either side. Its first effect was to stop the withdrawal of the Sixth Corps, and to put Wright and Emory once more in march ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... effect of producing a silent verdict against Shakespear. Mr Harris tackles the question openly, and has no difficulty whatever in convincing us that Shakespear was a man of normal constitution sexually, and was not the victim of that most cruel and pitiable of all the freaks of nature: the freak which transposes the normal aim of the affections. Silence on this point means condemnation; and the condemnation has been general throughout the present generation, though it only needed Mr Harris's fearless handling of the matter ...
— Dark Lady of the Sonnets • George Bernard Shaw
... reached. Fifty thousand Russians, in a single band, were marching through Germany to cooeperate with the Austrians on the French frontiers. The more polished Germans were astonished at the barbaric character of their allies. A Russian officer, in a freak of passion, shot an Austrian postilion, and then took out his purse and enquired of the employer of the postilion what damage was to be paid, as coolly as if he had merely killed a horse or a cow. Even German law was compelled to wink at such outrages, for an ally so ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... tangled web of influence, all the clashes of will with destiny, of desire with convention, that have led to the crisis depicted. Fra Lippo Lippi gives no consecutive history of his life, only such snatches of it as partially account for his present mad freak, but the strife between his own nature and instinct on the one hand and the conventions and traditions of religious art on the other could hardly be more vividly presented. In a Balcony, the one ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... More than that, which of them would herself have dared ridicule in order to save him from ridicule? And in what light should he regard this suddenly prompted action on her part, which seemed to him so bewildering at the time, but which she appeared to look on as only a sort of half-humorous freak of friendship? ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... A freak hunch hit me and I couldn't shake it: I guess I wanted to see what would happen. So ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... senior, explained that while sitting in his study at midnight on the date named he had heard the Gipsy song from "Il Trovatore," which had been a favourite of his boy's, and being unable to trace the origin of the music, had finally thought that it was a freak of his imagination. The test connected with the quick-step had reference to a tune which the young man used to play upon the piccolo, but which was so rapid that he never could get it right, for which he was chaffed by ...
— The Vital Message • Arthur Conan Doyle
... San Giobbe's wealth of sculptured frieze and floral scroll; the Ponte di Paradiso, with its Gothic arch; the painted plates in the Museo Civico; and palace after palace, loved for some quaint piece of tracery, some moulding full of mediaeval symbolism, some fierce impossible Renaissance freak of fancy. ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... their heads that a certain teacher is partial, in whatever relates to their standing, I have been almost forced to the conclusion that it is best not to attempt reasoning with them. Under such feelings, indeed, by a singular freak of human nature, scholars are often driven to do, in sheer bravado or defiance, the very things which they imagine to be unjustly imputed to them. Allow me, my young friend, to ask you candidly and in all seriousness to turn this matter ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... have the best right, which of course they have if they pay, to enter the most select places; so the conglomeration even at Sherry's sometimes is too amusing, and at the mirror place, which society would only go to as a freak, the company is beyond description. But they all seem such kindly, jolly people, all amusing themselves, and gay and happy. I like it, and the courtesy and fatherly kindness of the men to the women is beautiful, ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... have plunged into the open gate, when suddenly they wheeled round, re-entered the forest, and in spite of the hunters resumed their original position. The chief headman came forward and accounted for the freak by saying that a wild pig[1], an animal which the elephants are said to dislike, had started out of the cover and run across the leader, who would otherwise have held on direct for the corral; and ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... gable could see that the innocent had climbed to the top of the peat-stack in some elvish freak, and sat there cracking his thumbs and singing with ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... treasures adorned the walls, and she ran from one to another rejoicing over them. There was even a further surprise. Years ago an artist cousin had sketched her portrait in pastel crayons upon the color-wash of the wall. It had been done as a mere artistic freak, but like many such spontaneous drawings it had been an admirable likeness and a very pretty picture. It bore her name, "Ingred," in flourishy letters underneath. The whole of this had now been protected with a sheet of glass and enclosed by a frame. A ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... left the State apartments. It was a painful and difficult business to ascend that thin and yielding ladder in such a confined space, but Racksole was managing it very nicely, and had nearly reached the top, when, by some untoward freak of chance, the ladder broke above his weight, and he slipped ignominiously down to the bottom of the wooden tube. Smothering an excusable curse, Racksole crouched, baffled. Then he saw that the force of his fall had somehow opened a trap-door at his ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... to hear you say so, makes me feel like a man. Then I shall do for my mother what you did for yours, and get Josephine out of that school-teaching freak of hers. She has actually gone and done it, Scheffer.... Worth money, eh? Then I shall do some things as well ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... of its worth. Will you? To-morrow, satisfy your friend. I take the subjects for his corridor, Finish the portrait out of hand—there, there, And throw him in another thing or two If he demurs; the whole should prove enough To pay for this same Cousin's freak. Beside, What's better and what's all I care about, 240 Get you the thirteen scudi for the ruff! Love, does that please you? Ah, but what does he, The Cousin! what does ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... Thackeray—a genuine citizen of Vanity Fair. Apart from his correspondence, his friendships, and his American achievements, he might have passed through life, deserving nothing more than some few references in memoirs of the earlier nineteenth century. But by one freak of fortune he found himself transported to Canada in 1842, and, by another, he became one of the foremost figures in the history of Canadian constitutional development. There have been few better examples of the curious good-fortune which has attended on the growth of British ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... not we; but that is what we are anxious about, and after breakfast you must tell us what freak drove you to this country, and how it happened that you were in Tom's tent at such an early hour in ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... proprietor or lessee of the mine to deliver the coal or iron-stone at so much per ton, himself hiring the labourers, using his own horses, and supplying the tools requisite for the working of the mine. The contract price was known as the 'charter price' or 'charter'. Thus by a freak of language the Staffordshire miner knew by the same word the 'butty's charter' which was the symbol of his oppression, and the 'people's charter' which was the ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... the physician, amazed at this intelligence. "That woman—Mrs. Walton—told me that he was her son, only at times he denied his own name, so when he told me his name was 'Palmer' that day I imagined it only a freak produced by his mania." ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... long before the invention of freak verse and Freudism, I was standing in front of the Cafe Royal in Regent Street when there emerged from its portals the most famous young writer of the day, the Poet about whose latest work "The Book Bills of Narcissus" all literary ...
— A Jongleur Strayed - Verses on Love and Other Matters Sacred and Profane • Richard Le Gallienne
... time of year," he said. "Folks expect no better from that reckless, harum-scarum Joe Raymond. He'll drown himself some day, there's nothing surer. This mad freak of starting off down the shore in November is just of a piece with his usual performances. But you shouldn't have let Chester ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the animals in its tribe, for it has no locomotion, stability, or endurance, neither goes to pasture, gives milk, chews the cud, nor performs any other function of the horned beast, but is a mere creation of the brain, begotten by a freak of the fancy and nourished by ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... got some news for you," went on young Crawford, "did you know that Sam Redding has entered that freak motor boat he's been building in the yacht club regatta? He's ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... benevolence, it was in December, 1860, that Almira Fales began to prepare lint and hospital stores for the soldiers of the Union, not one of whom had then been called to take up arms. People laughed, of course; thought it a 'freak;' said that none of these things would ever be needed. Just as the venerable Dr. Mott said, at the women's meeting in Cooper Institute, after Sumter had been fired: 'Go on, ladies! Get your lint ready, if it will do ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... the primary disturbance had long lost its psychical accompaniment. It worked its mischief in a physiological sphere but was probably still the starting point for the persistent obsession. My aim was to remove this cause. It would have brought little improvement simply to suppress the freak idea as long as that physiological source was active. On the other hand I should not have the means to stop the physiological after-effects of that real experience: I had to sidetrack it and to secure thus a reduction. I decided therefore to work on the ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... they reached home, they found the Maynards quite hopeful. It had occurred to them that, by some strange freak, Marjorie had decided to visit Grandma Maynard, and had started ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells
... drifting steadily southward, by the strange freak of the antarctic current, came in view of the lookouts on the ships, who had been posted as soon as the boys were missed. The boats were at once despatched, and headed for the ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... The Governor, either by qualm of conscience or further freak of selfishness, got him the place of head of the Oomana, the three Administrators of Customs at Tangier. He held the post six months only, to the complete satisfaction of the Kaid, but amid the muttered discontent of the merchants and tradesmen. Then the Governor of Tetuan, a bigger town lying ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... which then consisted of dry field stone, could never be kept plumb, but obstinately bulged toward the east; and as often as it was rebuilt, just so often it tottered to ruin. There was a tradition that this singular freak was caused by the spirit of an Indian chief whose grave lay in the garden, and whose resentment toward the village improvements of a paleface civilization found vigorous expression in kicking down the wall. It was at last decided to replace the retaining ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... Mrs. Forbes, and recounted her grievances. "She's the oddest child in the world," she finished, "and her last freak is that she doesn't want to have ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... you look like a little tigress," he exclaimed, admiringly. "Really, rage becomes you vastly, but it's wearisome, after all, my dear. So drop high tragedy, like a sensible girl, and tell me what is the meaning of this new freak." ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... freak of psychology, suddenly recalled a wild, windy day in the forest. He had stood on the top of a height. He saw again the sharp puffs of snow, exactly like the smoke from bursting shells, where a fierce swoop of the storm struck the laden tops of pines; the dense swirl, again exactly like ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... bloom in northern New England, why should not a poet or a painter come to his full growth here just as well? Yes, but if the gorgeous tree-flower is rare, and only as if by a freak of Nature springs up in a single spot among the beeches and alders, is there not as much reason to think the perfumed flower of imaginative genius will find it hard to be born and harder to spread its leaves in the clear, cold atmosphere ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... overboard, to follow it into the water, if alone in a boat under sail. This Pellew did, on one occasion, when he was old enough to know better; being at the moment in the open Channel, in a small punt, going from Falmouth to Plymouth. The freak nearly cost him his life; for, though he had lashed the helm down and hove-to the boat, she fell off and gathered way whenever he approached. When at last he laid hold of her rail, after an hour of this fooling, barely strength remained to drag himself on ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... Casiquiare is infested with myriads of tormenting insects. A few miserable groups of Indians and half-breeds have their small villages along its southern portion. It is thus seen that this marvellous freak of nature is not, as is generally supposed, a sluggish canal on a flat tableland, but a great, rapid river which, if its upper waters had not found contact with the Orinoco, perhaps by cutting back, would belong entirely to the Negro branch of the Amazon. To the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... they saw me unmoved they took the dust of my feet, saying that I was above all human weaknesses. That is to say, they saw that day the vaporous envelope which was my idea, but failed to perceive the inner me, which by a curious freak of fate has been ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... mind—some freak of fancy, sent him at last to the other side of the ship—then to the prow. Here sailors were busy,—here one passenger stood alone: but if there had been twenty more, Dr. Harrison could have seen but this one. He was standing with arms folded, in a sort of ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... broken into the office system that they think they are perfectly happy—don't know how much fun in life they miss. Still, they're no worse than the adherents to any other paralyzed system. Look at the comparatively intelligent people who fall for any freak religious system and let it make their lives miserable. I suppose that when the world has no more war or tuberculosis, then offices will be exciting places to work in—but not till then. And meantime, if ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... full wages of a fireman for the trip and when he said he wasn't worth so much, was good-naturedly told to shut up and advised that if he refused to take money that was offered him in that town he was likely to be caught and exhibited as a freak. He shed his jumper and overalls and exchanged hearty good-byes with the whole crew of the steamer. He walked through the saloons, but it was early, most of the passengers were yet in their berths and neither ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... depth and breadth of the tracks, too, surprised him not a little. They were much deeper and broader than those caused by any species of cart he had yet seen or heard of in the country, and the width apart was so great, that he began to suspect he must have mistaken a curious freak of nature for the tracks of a gigantic vehicle. Following the track for some distance, he came to a muddy spot, where the footprints of men and horses became distinctly visible. A little further on he passed ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... saying just then instantly riveted the attention of the listeners, for as though by some strange freak it had an intimate connection with the object of the scouts' coming ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... men, who, in the flourishing provinces of Languedoc, in the darkest ages, and when the understandings of human creatures by a force not less memorable than that of Procrustes were reduced to an uniform stature, shook off by some strange and unaccountable freak, the chains that were universally imposed, and arrived at a boldness of thinking similar to that which Luther and Calvin after a lapse of centuries advocated with happier auspices. With these manly and generous sentiments however they combined a considerable portion of wild enthusiasm. ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... than Wildeve. There is nobody so poor as these professional fellows who have failed; and if you shouldn't like my redness—well, I am not red by birth, you know; I only took to this business for a freak; and I might turn my hand to something ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... enough for anybody, whatever he'd done. Fancy existence without your bright conversation. It doesn't bear thinking of. You do look a freak with that eye and that lump on your forehead. You ought ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse
... admiralty; besides Pitt who alone among them sat in the commons. Richmond again became master of the ordnance and a little later re-entered the cabinet. Dundas was treasurer of the navy. Pitt's acceptance of office was regarded by the opposition as a "boyish freak"; his ministry was "a mince-pie administration which would end with ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... said Correy, "will probably be some little ball of mud with a tricky atmosphere or some freak vegetation they want to study. ...
— The Death-Traps of FX-31 • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... "What freak is this?" Sir Ralph said, angrily, when they entered. "Your mother has been anxious about you for the last two hours, and I myself was beginning to think that some ill must have befallen you. Why, what has happened to you, Albert, there ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... to all else. He merely gazed out across that deceptive flat and wondered. Why—why had this thing been done, and what strange freak had induced the "hustler" to conceive such a form of imprisonment for his captive? Horrocks struggled with his confusion, but he failed to fathom the mystery, and never was a man's confusion ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... of that freak," said the jester. "There be a dozen tailors and all the Queen's tirewomen frizzling up a good piece of cloth of gold for the lion's mane, covering a club with green damask with pricks, cutting out green velvet and gummed silk for his garland! In sooth, these graces have left me so far behind ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... get a chance to tell you. This man was a freak. I found it out last night. He had two hearts. ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... knife had sculptured it. No hand had given a support to its uplifted arm. Even the dog which followed us appeared deceived, for he barked furiously at the strange intruder. There was to me a singular fascination in this solitary freak of nature; and, surrounded though I was by immeasurably greater wonders, I turned again and again to take a farewell look at this dark, slender figure, raising its hand, as if in threatening gesture to ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... you get older you will, perhaps, see as I do—that to carry out the spirit of your father's will would be better than to follow so closely the letter of it. But you are still very young, and Jock is younger; and, fortunately, you can afford to indulge a freak of this sort. I shall let Mr. Rushton know that I withdraw all opposition. And now, give me a kiss, and let us forget that there ever was any controversy between us—it never went further than a controversy, did it, ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... is, by what strange freak of fashion and blindness to artistic rules, women of the present day think that a deformed and ill-proportioned waist is a requisite of beauty, we do not know. Certainly they never derived such an idea from a contemplation of those monuments of perfect beauty bequeathed ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... n't do it from vanity, or ambition, or any abnormal love of it. She did it, so far so I can find out, because she wished to do good that way. She's been a little notional, she's had her head addled by women's talk, and she's in a queer freak; but it's only a girl's freak after all: you can't say anything worse of her. She's a splendid woman, and her property's neither here nor there. I could ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the true Cavalier, gay, devil-may- care in disposition, but by some freak of fate a clergyman of Dean Prior, in South Devon, a county made famous by him and Blackmore. Here, in a country parish, he lived discontentedly, longing for the joys of London and the Mermaid Tavern, his bachelor establishment consisting of an old housekeeper, a cat, ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... delay it grievously. We divided seventeen times, and between every division this vexatious Irishman made us a speech of apologies and self-condemnation. Of the two who had supported him at the beginning of his freak one soon sneaked away. The other, Sibthorpe, stayed to the last, not expressing remorse like Shaw, but glorying in the unaccommodating temper he showed and in the delay which he produced. At last the bill went through. Then Shaw rose; congratulated himself that his vow was accomplished; ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... "But her greatest freak was seen when th' Assizes came. Sir, she wouldn' even go to the trial. She disdained it. An' when, that mornin', the judges had driven by her window, same as they drove to-day, ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Boston mob; with McCormick, whose first reaper was called "a cross between an Astley chariot, a wheelbarrow, and a flying-machine"; with Morse, whom ten Congresses regarded as a nuisance; with Cyrus Field, whose Atlantic Cable was denounced as "a mad freak of stubborn ignorance"; and with Westinghouse, who was called a fool for proposing "to stop a ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... is doubtful if he felt it acutely. Nature was gradually dulling his sensibilities with that wonderful anaesthetic of hers, which is so much kinder to the patient than it is to his watching friends. After the first wild freak of selling the house, he showed, for a long time, no marked signs of mental impairment, beyond his lack of interest in the things which he had once cared about—even in the growth of the city he loved. And in a lonely ...
— The Story of a New York House • Henry Cuyler Bunner
... Dover, and of all places in Dover to the Lord Warden Hotel, which was sure to be filled with fear-stricken foreigners, waiting for the sea to calm. Waters, as he packed the small portmanteau, could not at all understand this freak on ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... whiz, and he wares white wings dose he, and jumps up in the air. Some angel beleeve me, say mebbe he is a angel that has fallen from the sky? or a acrobat from Barnums? only I guess if he comes from Barnums he must be a freak al-rite. Ennyway until this yere ends you are my godchild and I am your godfather, and I forbid you to tuch enny more of that Teddys eats, understand? If you are hungry you just tell me, and I will send you the proper food; and it will not be gum, or cold-cream or candels ether, I can tell you. ...
— Deer Godchild • Marguerite Bernard and Edith Serrell
... of manhood, Ted soothed his wounded soul by appearing in collars of an amazing height and stiffness, and ties which were the wonder of all female eyes. This freak was a sort of vengeance on his hard-hearted mother; for the collars drove the laundress to despair, never being just right, and the ties required such art in the tying that three women sometimes laboured long before—like Beau Brummel—he turned from a heap of 'failures' ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... was indeed respectful then, but who knows what horrid freak his mind may take, and they do say that he be cruel beyond compare. Again, forget not that thou be Leicester's daughter and Henry's niece; against both of whom the Outlaw of Torn openly swears his hatred and his vengeance. Oh, Bertrade, wait but for ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... I waited as long as I could for you to come over this side to look after me, that I might cease wandering and settle down. As you know, I've tried my hand at a good many occupations, often for the freak of the thing, but always with a reserve force for doing the right thing at last, and somehow I've mostly made bread and cheese and a little more. The gold fever was over long before I reached Australia, but I had a turn at the cradle and pan for all that, ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... Through a queer freak of fate, Thad Brewster and his comrades of the Silver Fox Patrol find themselves in somewhat the same predicament that confronted dear old Robinson Crusoe; only it is on the Great Lakes that they are wrecked instead of the salty sea. You will admit that those ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... fretted the Professor, glorying in his inability to classify this marvelous specimen. "No fish could ever attain such mental development. Evolution working backward from human to reptile and then fish—or a new freak of evolution whereby a fish on a short cut toward becoming human?" He sighed and gave it up. But more ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... was a great poet who sometimes nodded. . . . Coleridge was a muddle-brained metaphysician who, by some strange freak of fortune, turned out a few real poems amongst the dreary flood of inanity which was his wont. . . . I have been through the poems, and find that the only ones which have any interest for me are: (1) 'Ancient Mariner'; ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... yet! for the summer-house towards which she sped had already been occupied by the three schoolgirls, and there they sat staring at her with big solemn eyes, as if, forsooth, a girl who had broken off her engagement was a new and extraordinary freak of humanity. ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... because they no doubt had me enchanted; for I swear to thee by the faith of what I am that if I had been able to climb up or dismount, I would have avenged thee in such a way that those braggart thieves would have remembered their freak for ever, even though in so doing I knew that I contravened the laws of chivalry, which, as I have often told thee, do not permit a knight to lay hands on him who is not one, save in case of urgent and great necessity in defence of his ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... their defiance; his scornful smiles and keen cutting jests had mortally offended many a partizan; and when positive work was to be done, Simon with all his fierceness and cruelty was far more to be depended on than Henry, who might at any time fly off upon some incalculable freak. To Richard's boyish recollection, if Simon had been the most tyrannical towards him in deed, Henry had been infinitely more annoying and provoking in the lesser ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that they are the custodians of the mortal remains of Christopher Columbus. The same honor is claimed by Spain, but a Dominican would consider it almost treasonable to doubt the justice of the Dominican claim. It is a strange freak of fate that not only should the great navigator have been denied in life the rewards promised him, not only should the new world he discovered have been given the name of another, but that his very ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... her sweet, bell voice, she murmured an expression of concern for her grandfather and, when Marian bluntly said, "He's dead," she endeavored to convey her sorrow. To which Miss Pettis, staring at her with hard, bold eyes, as at some puzzling freak, made no reply, being engaged in uneasily wondering what "graft" the Frenchwoman was "on." Marian disliked being reminded of her grandfather's demise, having been largely responsible for it when she had run ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... saw his mistake, was fain to make his retreat; but we would not hear tell of it, till he came in, and took a dram out of the bottle, as we told him the not doing so would spoil the wean's beauty, which is an old freak, (the smallpox, however, afterwards did that;) so, with much persuasion, he took a chair for a gliff, and began with some of his drolls—for he is a clever, humoursome man, as ye ever met with. But he had now got far on with his jests, when lo! a rap came ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... neither cultured, rich, stylish, nor pretty. She is stupid!" Ah, girls, girls, do you really know what she is, or what she may become? A girl commonplace! Suppose she is not lively, is not fond of parties, does not use slang appropriately at all, is utterly ignorant of the last freak of fashion, and hardly knows whether her skirt is draped or plain; suppose she has, on the whole, a rather forlorn appearance, being pitifully unconscious of what is unbecoming in dress, or gait, or habit; suppose, in fact, she does not at once show you she has any special ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... street. I now thought myself in the fair way, and I gave him a stroke with the whip, which I nearly repented, for he kicked up with his hind legs, and had not I seized the after part of the saddle I should have gone over his forecastle. I held on until he righted. After this freak, which was nearly knocking up my cruise, we jogged on steadily until we came to a narrow street, down which he turned in spite of all my endeavours to prevent him, and again hove to at the door ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... present age, Mildred Carr had never known a single touch of love: she had not even felt particularly interested in her numerous admirers, but now this marble Galatea had by some freak of fate found a woman's heart, awkwardly enough, without the semblance of a supplication on the part of him whom she destined to play Pygmalion. And, when she examined herself by the light of the flame thus newly kindled, she shrank back dismayed, like one who peeps over the crater ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... similar freak of nature, this instinct which prompts one bird to lay its eggs in the nests of others, and thus shirk the responsibility of rearing its own young. The cow buntings always resort to this cunning trick; and when one reflects ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs |
