"Irregularity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... determines the association. Yet, by this too, the imagination is frequently reconducted to the former series. The interruption in the course of the preceding occurrences is remarked, and the power of abstracting similarities is in search of the cause of this irregularity. Hence, in such cases, there usually happens some unfortunate event or other, which occasions the interruption of the story. The representing power may again suddenly conduct us to another series of ideas, and thus the imagination may be led by ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... highest admiration for Poe's genius, and a willingness to let it alone for more than ordinary irregularity, we were led by common report to expect a very capricious attention to his duties, and occasionally a scene of violence and difficulty. Time went on, however, and he was invariably punctual and industrious. We saw but one presentiment of the man-a ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... was the one thing needed to complete the negotiations for peace, and the British arguments on the injustice and irregularity of the treatment accorded to the Loyalists were so strong that the American Commissioners were finally driven to the excuse that the Government of the Confederation had no power over the individual States by whom the necessary action must be taken. Finally, in a spirit of mutual concession ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand
... Rick and Scotty parted soon after their return to the base. Each went back to his own unit, more on guard then ever before for the slightest hint of irregularity in ...
— The Scarlet Lake Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... there is occasionally found a slight irregularity in the thickness of slugs, and thin fins are sometimes cast around the forward edges. For the purpose of reducing them to a uniform thickness, they are driven on their way to the galley between two vertical knives, ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... of Lady Mary is by Spence, who met her at Rome, in the ensuing January:-" She is one of the most shining characters in the world, but shines like a comet; she is all irregularity, and always wandering; the most wise, most imprudent; loveliest, most disagreeable; best-natured, cruellest woman in the world; 'all things ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... should be cultivated as eagerly as their own little farms by freed men? Especially could we ask it, if the masters undertook to exercise their old sway over political economy, and paid less wages than the market-rate, and even these with irregularity? Should we be rightfully shocked, if the products of these large estates even entirely failed through want of labor? What ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... anywhere within Nature's dearest precincts, when you can as well go on foot. You cannot see things flying by you. Do not adopt the custom of most pedestrians, that of getting over the ground as rapidly as possible. Take daily walks, no matter what the weather is; but do not go too far. Irregularity in this exercise is harmful. It is far better to walk two miles daily than ten miles at one time, and fifteen a week hence. Go to see something on your walks, if you discover nothing more than a great hole in ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... too small to belong to an imperial residence; but, on the other hand, it would be hard to find one more beautiful or better arranged. The park of Versailles is grander and more imposing; but it has not the picturesque irregularity, the fantastic and unexpected beauties, of the park of Schoenbrunn, and more closely resembles the park at Malmaison. In front of the interior facade of the palace was a magnificent lawn, sloping down to a broad lake, decorated with a group of statuary representing ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... as we do not know the practice which prevailed at the time of Scaurus's intervention; but it is probable that the restriction imposed by the censors of 169, who had confined the freedmen to a single tribe,[786] had not been observed, that great irregularity prevailed in the manner of their registration, and that Scaurus's measure, which was a return to the arrangement reached at the end of the fourth century, was intended to restrict the voting privileges of the class. This interpretation of his intention would seem to show that the increasing liberality ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... to light these facts, as it has also taught the real causation of the disfigurement once attributed to the mother's mind. Departures from the usual form of the body occur during the earliest days of pregnancy and arise in consequence of some irregularity in the process which molds the body-form from a simple spherical mass of cells. Why irregularities sometimes occur is not altogether clear; except in so far as it has been determined that the fault lies within the embryo ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... conceded to be a most important power, and of a fundamental character. In the light of recent history and of the violence, fraud, corruption, and irregularity which have frequently prevailed at such elections, it may easily be conceived that the exertion of the power, if it exists, may be necessary to the stability of ...
— Messages and Papers of Rutherford B. Hayes - A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • James D. Richardson
... require a solar atmosphere to be distributed symmetrically around the sun, while the corona is enormously irregular in form. The sun is irregular in outline, which would make its diffracted phenomena show the observed irregularity, but it is symmetrical as regards density. 3. The most interesting discrepancy of the theory of the solar atmosphere is the fact that while it is supposed to extend for millions of miles from the sun, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... irregular in a strictly military view. But the people argued that they had done all that in them lay; that they had fought nobly until convinced that it was futile; that they had brought off five thousand effective men, who, but for that very irregularity, would have been lost to the army of the West; and, finally, that General Johnston had approved, if not that one act, at least their tried courage ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... include the time occupied in setting up or taking down, which would probably average 30 min. more per shift. It is believed that this figure will also apply very closely to drills working on the bench, though no actual observations were taken to determine this, on account of the irregularity with which they ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 - The Bergen Hill Tunnels. Paper No. 1154 • F. Lavis
... the Equal-sidedness of the Father?" I reply that no Lady of any position will mary an uncertified Triangle. Square offspring has sometimes resulted from a slightly Irregular Triangle; but in almost every such case the Irregularity of the first generation is visited on the third; which either fails to attain the Pentagonal rank, or relapses ...
— Flatland • Edwin A. Abbott
... puts the number at twenty-seven. The right honourable gentleman, the Recorder of Dublin, who of course puts the number as low as he conscientiously can, admits twenty-four. But some gentlemen maintain that this irregularity, though doubtless blamable, cannot have had any effect on the event of the trial. What, they ask, are twenty or twenty-seven names in seven hundred and twenty? Why, Sir, a very simple arithmetical ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... opera "The Vestal," produced at the Grand Opera. Napoleon awarded to him the prize for the best dramatic work of that year. In 1810, Spontini became the director of the Italian opera, and there staged Mozart's "Don Giovanni." Dismissed in 1812, on charges of financial irregularity, he was reappointed as court composer by Louis XVIII. His stage pieces in glorification of the Restoration only achieved a succes d'estime. He was glad to accept an appointment to Berlin as court composer ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... Another irregularity is a single strong syllable commencing a line complete without it. This might often be printed in a line by ...
— The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] - Introduction and Publisher's Advertising • William Shakespeare
... found indications that everything was not quite right in the Currumpaw pack. There were signs of irregularity, I thought; for instance there was clearly the trail of a smaller wolf running ahead of the leader, at times, and this I could not understand until a cowboy made a ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... uncouth figure, a diseased constitution, and an irritable temper. The manner in which the earlier years of his manhood had been passed had given to his demeanour, and even to his moral character, some peculiarities appalling to the civilised beings who were the companions of his old age. The perverse irregularity of his hours, the slovenliness of his person, his fits of strenuous exertion, interrupted by long intervals of sluggishness, his strange abstinence, and his equally strange voracity, his active benevolence contrasted with the constant rudeness and the ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... children who come to the arcade on leaving school, to make a noise by stamping their feet on the tiles as they run along. Throughout the day a sharp hurried ring of footsteps, resounds on the stone with irritating irregularity. Nobody speaks, nobody stays there, all hurry about their business with bent heads, stepping out rapidly, without taking a single glance at the shops. The tradesmen observe with an air of alarm, the passers-by who by a miracle stop before ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... Francesca, scenting an irregularity on the part of the tenants, for her master looked surprised; and she felt pleased, for life was dull and irregularities helped it along at ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... question the legality of the Court, Hutchinson expresses a deep sense of the irregularity of its proceedings; although, as he says, "the most important Court to the life of the subject which ever was held in the Province," it meets his unqualified censure, in many points. In reference to the instance of the Jury's bringing in a verdict of "Not guilty," in the case of Rebecca ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... river-side details: the three great purple-tiled masses of Saint Germain, Saint Pierre, and the cathedral of Saint Etienne, rising out of the crowded houses with more than the usual abruptness and irregularity of French building. Here, that rare artist, the susceptible painter of architecture, if he understands the value alike of line and mass of broad masses and delicate lines, has "a subject made ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... According to this it is high-water on the full and change at 19 minutes past 9 in the morning: I observed the flood to come from the southward, though at Restoration Island I thought it came from the northward. I think Captain Cook mentions that he found great irregularity in the set of the ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... firm belief in the community that somewhere in this cave is concealed $100,000 in gold, seven "pony loads" in all, which was put here by an old squaw, sole survivor of a massacre by which her tribe was exterminated. Much of the irregularity of surface noted in the deposits is due to the efforts of persons trying ...
— Archeological Investigations - Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 • Gerard Fowke
... leave of him, when opening the door of a little boudoir he showed me a room with an air which seemed to say, "Is there any way by which the least irregularity should occur without my ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... That hitherto so peculiar Beauty in King Lear, of preserving the Character even in Madness, appears strongly in Clarissa: the same self-accusing Spirit, the same humble Heart, the same pious Mind breathes in her scattered Scrapes of Paper in the midst of her Frenzy; and the Irregularity and sudden broken Starts of her Expressions alone can prove that her Senses are disordered. Her Letter to Lovelace, where, even in Madness, galling Reproach drops not from her Pen, and which contains only Supplications that she may not be farther persecuted, speaks the ...
— Remarks on Clarissa (1749) • Sarah Fielding
... From its irregularity, and from other circumstances, Boston is much more like an English town than New York. The names are English, and the inhabitants are by no means so uniformly sallow, as they are in many other parts of America. This town is considered the head quarters of Federalism ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... menstruation often coincides with the onset of epilepsy, and in some cases irregularity of the menses seems to be ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... that, the poetry being given equal in the two cases, the more perfect plot will merit the greater share of praise. And it may seem to agree with this view of his meaning, that he pronounces Euripides, in spite of the irregularity of his plots, to be, after all, the most tragic of the Greek dramatists, inasmuch (i. e.) as he excels in his appeal to those passions which the outward form of the drama merely subserves. Still there is surely too much stress laid by the philosopher upon the artificial ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... from one even, nicely finished cigar-end to the next, in his hope to discover signs of meddling. It was not until he came to the end cigar that he caught at the slightest irregularity. Here, ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... He understood the irregularity of such a marriage, but he knew it would reassure Marie-Anne's troubled conscience. Poor girl! she was suffering an agony of remorse. It was that which ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... was altogether a work of darkness. The law by which the Parliament of James had subjected the press to the control of censors was still in force; and, though the officers whose business it was to prevent the infraction of that law were not extreme to mark every irregularity committed by a bookseller who understood the art of conveying a guinea in a squeeze of the hand, they could not wink at the open vending of unlicensed pamphlets filled with ribald insults to the Sovereign, and with direct instigations to rebellion. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... crime. The first step in his downward career begins with the loss of employment; this sometimes happens through no fault of his own, and is simply the result of a temporary slackness of trade; but in most instances a job is lost for want of punctuality or some other boyish irregularity which can only be properly corrected at home. To lose work is to be deprived of the means of subsistence; the only openings left are the workhouse or crime. It is the latter alternative which is ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison
... railway between Shanghai and Wusung was opened in 1875. The fate of this pioneer railway may be mentioned as an introduction to what follows. The railway was really built without any regular permission from the Chinese government, but it was hoped that, once finished and working, the irregularity would be overlooked in view of the manifest benefit to the people. This might have been accomplished but for an unfortunate accident which happened on the line a few months after it was opened. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... surrounded by men who kept a constant watch on him. At the bottom of the steps to which he had driven up with such a dash the day before with Andrey's three horses, two carts stood in readiness. Mavriky Mavrikyevitch, a sturdy, thick-set man with a wrinkled face, was annoyed about something, some sudden irregularity. He was shouting angrily. He asked Mitya to get into the cart ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... concealed during the day. At night it was impossible to prevent boats laden with contraband goods, or conveying the bearers of secret despatches, slipping across the river from the northern side, and running into the concealment afforded by the irregularity of the Virginia shore-line. Even at this early period of the war, the vigorous blockade of the Confederate seaports had created a great lack of many necessaries in the Southern States. Particularly did the lack of quinine afflict the people ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... or, at most, written evidence; and therefore shall exercise it with great lenity and some diffidence; but when we meet, and that I can form my judgment upon ocular and auricular evidence, I shall no more let the least impropriety, indecorum, or irregularity pass uncensured, than my predecessor Cato did. I shall read you with the attention of a critic, not with the partiality of an author: different in this respect, indeed, from most critics, that I shall seek ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... preliminary investigations of the physiologist, physicist and chemist are still incomplete. The general fact of increasing nigrescence from temperate towards equatorial regions is conspicuous enough, despite some irregularity of the shading.[53] This fact points strongly to some direct relation between climate and pigmentation, but gives no hint how the pigmental processes are affected. The physiologist finds that in the case ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... gossip and dawdle have disappeared from the parochial charity, but with them has gone a good deal of the social contact, the sympathy of rich with poor, in which its chief virtue lay. The very vicar sighs after a little human imperfection and irregularity as he reads the list of sick cases "to ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... irregularity prevailing in the street architecture. George Street is the main thoroughfare, and is two miles in length, containing many stores furnished as well as the average of those in Vienna or Paris. There are fine business edifices, having massive ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... dislocated, indulging in such work, and donning coloured stockings and fantastic shirt the while to make the matter all the more absurd!" He seems to forget that "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," and the real meaning of a dull boy and a dull man is irregularity and vexation in the counting-house and office. There are amusements and amusements, and recreations and recreations, but I know of none adapted for the winter months which can be so cheaply indulged in, with so much profit to health, ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone
... my father grope about in the dark for the hearthstone; he was always mislaying the hearthstone. How much better, helping to clean the knives or running errands than wasting all one's morning dwelling upon the shocking irregularity of certain classes of French verbs; or making useless calculations as to how long X, walking four and a quarter miles an hour, would be overtaking Y, whose powers were limited to three and a half, but who had started two and three quarter hours sooner; the whole argument ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... member of the grand jury, and you may or may not know that when a fellow is impaneled in that body he's got a sworn job on his hands that is powerful exacting. He is on his oath to report to the authorities any criminal irregularity that comes under his notice. Now! I have had the word and the judgment of a respectable and truthful lady that the boy bound to you by law is dangerously and critically sick, and, calling here ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... youthful radiance of look that was very winning. If she had ceased to be the goddess she looked across the length of the salon, she had gained much by becoming an extremely lovely young girl; and her teeth, when she spoke, showed a fascinating little irregularity that ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... operations, as you well know. The men were daily—I may say hourly—under my sight, and I considered their conduct in every particular an example to the troops. During the whole period I was associated with the Shannon's Brigade, I never once saw an irregularity among the men. They were sober, quiet, and respectful; and often I remarked to my staff the high state of discipline Sir W. Peel had got them into. From the cessation of active operations until I was detached to Azimghur, I commanded all ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... writing enabled me in time to decipher the hieroglyphics of this shorthand, the result of impatience and a frenzy of passion. Carried away by his feelings, he had written without being conscious of the irregularity of words too slow to express his thoughts. He must have been compelled to copy these chaotic attempts, for the lines often ran into each other; but he was also afraid perhaps of not having sufficiently disguised his feelings, and at first, at any rate, he had probably written ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... for Mother Superior's Golden Jubilee proceeded steadily, and Marg'ret, Teresa, and Alanna could talk of nothing else. The delightful irregularity of lessons, the enchanting confusion of rehearsals, the costumes, programme, and decorations were food for endless chatter. Alanna, because Marg'ret was so genuinely fond of her, lived in the seventh heaven of bliss, ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... all the wayward little fancies of the river, piercing the wild wood, curling around the base of the granite hills, now let loose a space to shoot across the glade, joyful of the permission to indulge its railroad instinct of straightness; and, amid so much irregularity and headlong wilfulness, a straight line is really refreshing. Up the sides of its embankment wild vines have twisted and climbed, and wild-flowers have ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... pleasing objects of sight. On account of the symmetry of their forms, the pyramidal trees are made ugly by the loss of a limb, as the porch of a temple would be ruined by the removal of one of its pillars. Hence we may understand the charm of that irregularity that prevails in the forms of vegetation. If we remove a branch from an Elm or an Oak, or even from an Ash, we destroy no positive symmetry; it is like removing a stone from a loose stone wall; we do but slightly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... the Louisiade Archipelago the reefs seen by us exhibit great irregularity of outline, continuity, and width. Some are linear reefs, others atolls* more or less distinct in character, and the remainder are usually round or oval. Viewed as a whole they form an interrupted chain, with numerous deepwater ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... love, brandy-and-water and cigars, that he scarcely knew how he reached home. He only remembered that he was very dizzy, and that his charming widow—his guide and friend—had remonstrated with him upon the elevation of his style, and the irregularity of ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... yards ahead in this direction were several large trees standing in a group. With one exception, they all had straight trunks. This deviated from the others in that it possessed an irregular, bulging trunk, or else half-shielded the form of Wetzel. So indistinct and immovable was this irregularity, that the watcher could not be certain. Out of line, somewhat, with this tree which he suspected screened his comrade, lay a huge windfall large enough to conceal in ambush a whole band ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... collection of Wren's designs and drawings; to the Archdeacon of Middlesex for information concerning the inscriptions on the stalls; to Canon Milford, successor to Wren's father as Rector of Bishop-Knoyle, for communicating to me the irregularity about the registration of Wren's baptism, and for the loan of Mrs. Lucy Phillimore's Life and Times of Wren, a work out of print and not to be procured at the London Library; to Mr. Peter Cazalet for kind assistance in drawing ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of St. Paul - An Account of the Old and New Buildings with a Short Historical Sketch • Arthur Dimock
... us: for it is through our fault, negligence, and avarice, that so many and such shameful corruptions occur in the church (both the temple and the Deity are offered for sale), that such sordidness is introduced, such impiety committed, such wickedness, such a mad gulf of wretchedness and irregularity—these I say arise from all our faults, but more particularly from ours of the University. We are the nursery in which those ills are bred with which the state is afflicted; we voluntarily introduce them, and are deserving of every opprobrium and suffering, since we do not afterwards encounter ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... him. When he looked towards the scene that was to form the termination of his journey, the glade below escaped from his sight. But when he descended to the plain, it was otherwise. One swell of the surface he had to traverse succeeded another; and the irregularity of the ground caused him sometimes to be lost, in a manner, in the length of the way, and took from him the consolation of being able so much as to perceive the object of his destination. As he passed the hills, and climbed each successive ascent, a murmur rose in his bosom; ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... and the splitting appears often to be intentionally produced by crossing these extreme variations with the original form, but the possibility remains that the conditions of domestication, abundant food, security and reduced activity, lead to irregularity in the process of heredity. In any case the mere separation among different individuals of factors originally inherited together in one complex does not account for the origin of the complex or of the factors. This ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham
... occurred in the Filipinas ships, and the sailors have been permitted to take two or three very large boxes, under pretext that these contain wearing apparel, and thus cumber the ships. We order that no irregularity be permitted in this, and that the utmost circumspection be exercised; and that the sailors be not allowed to carry more boxes or clothing on the said ships than that indispensably needed for the voyage. [Felipe III—San ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various
... in spite of the fact that we were then in the Christmas holidays with one year just closing and the other opening, each with its unclaimed appropriation. I suggested that to the powers that were, but they threw up their hands: that would have been irregular and quite without precedent. Oh, for irregularity enough to throttle precedent finally and for good! It has made more mischief in the world, I verily believe, than all the other lawbreakers together. At the very outset it had wrecked my hopes of getting the first ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... kitchen, Nurse's witch-eye followed him animal-like; no movement of his, no expression, seemed to escape it. A curious observer might sometimes have remarked in her, during the few moments after the man's entrance, a muffled agitation, an irregularity of the breath, an obscure anxiety and suspense. This, however, would soon subside, and rarely recur during his stay. The phenomenon had been observable daily for nearly a score of years, yet nothing had meantime happened ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... with such striking vividness that people are startled at the sight of them. These pictures, however, are neither real nor true. On the other hand, ordinary scenery, of familiar mountains, of calm streams of water, and of dwellings just before our eyes, may be sketched with an irregularity so charming, and with such excellent skill, as almost to rival Nature. In pictures such as these, the perspective of gentle mountain slopes, and sequestered nooks surrounded by leafy trees, are drawn with such admirable fidelity to Nature that they carry ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... there, Sir W. Coventry having so great a pique against him, and herein I first learn an eminent instance how great a man this day, that nobody would think could be shaken, is the next overthrown, dashed out of countenance, and every small thing of irregularity in his business taken notice of, where nobody the other day durst cast an eye upon them, and next I see that he that the other day nobody durst come near is now as supple as a spaniel, and sends and speaks to me with great submission, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... about from one room to another, with a quivering candle and shaky hands. Here's the wine papers, here's the sawdust, here's the coals; here's my letters to Calcutta and Madras, and replies from Major Dobbin, C.B., and Mr. Joseph Sedley to the same. "He shall find no irregularity about ME, ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... with their open chimnies, may be compared to great aerial funnels, constantly pouring out their warm air through a large opening, and constantly requiring to be replenished; and where, from the irregularity of the supply or of the discharge, the temperature is ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 272, Saturday, September 8, 1827 • Various
... Puritan background ties symbolical of everything the Anglo-Saxon shudders at and abhors; of anarchy and mob rule, of bohemia and vagabondia, of sedition and murder, of Latin revolutions and reigns of terror; of sex irregularity—not of the clandestine sort to be found in decent communities—but of free love that flaunts itself in the face of an outraged public. For there were women in the band. All this, and more, the invaders ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... a resolution unanimously passed by the French Senate a few years after the State had taken over certain lines, beginning: "The deplorable situation of the State system, the insecurity and irregularity of its workings." He gives figures demonstrating the invariably greater efficiency, economy and superiority of service of private management as compared to State management in countries where these two systems ...
— Government Ownership of Railroads, and War Taxation • Otto H. Kahn
... obstruction of the eighteenth century. One fancies Dr. Johnson's disgust over this new Scotch monstrosity, which had every quality that he disliked except blank verse; or Gray's delight in it, tempered by a critical disapproval of its loose construction and irregularity. Scott's romances in prose and verse are still so universally known as to make any review of them here individually an impertinence. Their impact on contemporary Europe was instantaneous and wide-spread. There is no record elsewhere in literary ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... of those in power that their administration of the public affairs has been honest, may perhaps, produce too great a degree of indignation; and those characters, wherein fear predominates over hope, may apprehend too much from these instances of irregularity. They may conclude too hastily, that nature has formed man insusceptible of any other government than that of force, a conclusion not founded in truth nor experience. Societies exist under three forms, sufficiently distinguishable. 1. Without government, as ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... looked down at her, his expression comically compounded of sympathy and humour. At that moment, despite the irregularity of his features, he looked wonderfully like his ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... to his father's desire, that he some few days after sent his servitor to intreat Mr. Sheldon to his chamber next morning. But it seems Mr. Sheldon having—like a young man as he was—run into some such irregularity as made him conscious he had transgressed his statutes, did therefore apprehend the Proctor's invitation as an introduction to punishment; the fear of which made his bed restless that night: but, at their meeting the next morning, that fear vanished immediately by the ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... eleven, which is a portion of the twenty-four hours when the Mediterranean, in the summer months, is apt to be as smooth as a mirror and as calm as if it never knew a tempest. Throughout the morning there had been some irregularity in the currents of air; the southerly breeze, generally light and frequently fickle, having been even more light and baffling than common. Still, as has been seen, there was sufficient air to force a vessel through the water; ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... gazette of the Court, the town, the provinces, and the academy.' Voltaire wrote to her rhymed epistles. Says Madame du Deffand, 'Her mouth is fallen in, her nose crooked, her glance wild and bold, and in spite of all this she is beautiful. The brilliance of her complexion atones for the irregularity of her features. Her waist is thick, her bust and arms are enormous. yet she has not a heavy air: her energy gives her ease of movement. Her wit is like her face, brilliant and out of drawing. Profusion, ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... day on the Amoor was much like the first in the general features of the scenery. Hills and mountains on either hand; meadows bounding one bank or the other at frequent intervals; islands dotted here and there with pleasing irregularity, or stretching for many miles along the valley; forests of different trees, and each with its own particular hue; a canopy of hazy sky meeting ranges of misty peaks in the distance; these formed the scene. ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... other matters for which the term "irregularity" would have been only mildly descriptive, Gregor Lang sent Sir John a report which was not favorable to Frank Vine's regime. Sir John withdrew from the syndicate in disgust and ordered Lang to start a separate ranch for him; and Gorringe himself began to investigate ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... Nearly all wore broad-brimmed sombreros, with jacket, sash, and calzoneros. They carried lances, lazoes, and carbines or escopettes. We could distinguish sabres and machetes—the universal weapon of the Mexican ranchero. They could not be drilled troops. Their costumes, as well as a certain irregularity in their manoeuvring, forbade this supposition. Their lances, moreover, were borne in all sorts of ways—some couched, some resting in the stirrup and held correctly, while others were carried over the shoulder like a firelock! No, they ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... said calmly, "Let the record show that I recognize the irregularity of this procedure and that I permit it only because of the unique aspects of this case. Were there a Jury, I would dismiss them until this verbal exchange of ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... plutonium and carried the block to the tube opening. He tried it, removed a slight irregularity with his torch, ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... nothing more than a radium generator diffusing radio-activity in all directions to a distance of a hundred yards or so from the flier. Should this enveloping force be interrupted in any direction a delicate instrument immediately apprehends the irregularity, at the same time imparting an impulse to a magnetic device which in turn actuates the steering mechanism, diverting the bow of the flier away from the obstacle until the craft's radio-activity sphere is no longer in contact with the obstruction, then ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... "Yes, I knew, and I sent her to the station in the motor. I had promised a strict neutrality, Jean, and she was right to go. Some women, good women, may be strong enough to bear all the suffering that is entailed upon them by a known irregularity in their lives. She is not. It would probably have killed her though I am not saying that she would not have been happy sometimes, when she could ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... great irregularity found in the working of the iron affords evidence that it has been ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... "let's settle this thing. The fact remains that the firm owes a note to Heinzman, which it cannot pay. You owe a note to the firm which you cannot pay. All this may be slightly irregular; but for private reasons you do not care to make public the irregularity. ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... delightful to see a vigorous young girl run a race, with her head thrown back, her limbs moving more friskily than they need, and an air between that of a bird and a young colt. But Priscilla's peculiar charm, in a foot-race, was the weakness and irregularity with which she ran. Growing up without exercise, except to her poor little fingers, she had never yet acquired the perfect use of her legs. Setting buoyantly forth, therefore, as if no rival less swift than Atalanta could compete with her, she ran falteringly, and often tumbled ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the child's distinction between and among the persons who constantly come into contact with him grows on apace, in spite of the element of irregularity of the general fact of personality. As he learned before the difference between one presence and another, so now he learns the difference between one character and another. Every character is more or less regular in its irregularity. It has its tastes and modes ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... regularity, that, conscious of his frontier habits and experience, he felt at once repulsively incongruous. "I cannot expect, Mr. Bly," said Mrs. Brooks resignedly, "that you can share my son's extreme sensitiveness to disorder and irregularity; but I must beg you to avoid as much as possible disturbing the arrangement of the book-shelves, which, you observe, comprise his books of serious reference, the Biblical commentaries, and the sermons which ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... structural difference between the organs of animal life and the organs of organic life is in man and the higher animals at least, the symmetry of the one set and the irregularity of the other—compare the symmetry of the nerves and muscles of the animal life with the asymmetrical disposition of the visceral muscles and the sympathetic nerves, which belong to ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell
... their laps with the palm of their hand, and accompanying the noise thus produced with their voices. It is surprising to see the perfect time that is kept in this way, and the admirable manner in which the motions of the dancers accord with the music. There is no confusion, irregularity, or mistake. Each person is conversant with his part; and all exhibit a degree of elasticity and gracefulness in their movements which, in some of the dances, ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... Reginald Maltravers, his natural son, and took steps to have him legitimatized. For all of the bend sinister upon his escutcheon, Reginald Maltravers was as fanatical concerning the family as his father. Perhaps more fanatical, because he secretly suffered for the irregularity of his ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... prejudice the interests of the houses. The superior at Lichfield availed herself of this plea. When questioned as to the state of the convent, she and the sisterhood refused to allow that there was any disorder, or any irregularity, which could give occasion for inquiry. Her assertions were not implicitly credited; the inspection proceeded, and at length two of the sisters were discovered to be "not barren"; a priest in one instance having been the occasion of the misfortune, and a serving-man in the other. No confession ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... have not the same regularity in their meals, or time for sleep, as we have, but consult their appetites and inclinations like other animals. But they make amends for this irregularity, by a very strict and punctilious observance of festivals, which are regulated by the motions of the sun, at whose rising and setting they have their appropriate ceremonies. Those which are kept at sunrise, are gay and cheerful, like the hopes which the approach of that benignant ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... was shaken by a storm of murderous anger. That Pyne had planned this trick, with Rita Irvin's consent, he did not doubt, and his passive dislike of the man became active hatred of the woman he dared not think. He had for long looked upon Sir Lucien in the light of a rival, and the irregularity of his own infatuation for another's wife in no degree ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... was glad to remain at head-quarters, because I knew that there my conduct would be observed by my superior officers. There were temptations enough to act differently, but I knew that a few glasses of whiskey or any irregularity would in a minute cloud all my prospects. I had, it must be understood, no advantages above the rest of my comrades. I was but myself a country lad, about the youngest in the regiment, but I had heard an officer remark that there ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston
... with their guns or with other people's property hanging from trees, projecting beams, and other convenient places. The usual rough justice of the affair did not, in his eyes, mitigate the offensiveness of its irregularity. ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... at Eagle that thrusts itself into notice at the other place. Whether it were the longer training in Christian morals that lay behind these people, or better hap in the matter of post commanders (certainly there was never such scandalous irregularity and indifference at Egbert as marked one administration at Gibbon), or the vigilance during a number of consecutive years of an especially active deputy marshal and the wisdom and concern through an even longer period of a commissioner much ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... window-frame. I had no hope that I could move it, even after I had stirred the heavy locks; but, with the pressure of all my weight against it, slowly the two sides of the casement opened out. As the dusty panes of glass swung away from before me my eye caught a singular irregularity in the surface of the wall. About on a level with the window-sill was a niche in the masonry, perhaps three feet square, and looking to be the depth of the wall itself. The back of it seemed to be made of a dark substance—darker ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... even thirty, per minute. The blood-pressure synchronously falls, and the heart is arrested in diastole. Immediately before arrest the heart may beat much faster than normally, though with extreme irregularity, and in the lower animals the auricles may be observed occasionally to miss a beat, as in poisoning by veratrine and colchicum. The action of aconitine on the circulation is due to an initial stimulation of the cardio-inhibitory centre in the medulla oblongata (at the root of the vagus nerves), ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... been for some time expecting, and to which he was not yet appointed. He perfectly knew that the public could never have got him in, but he grimly gratified himself with the idea that the public kept him out. Under the influence of this injury (and perhaps of some little straitness and irregularity in the matter of wages), he had grown neglectful of his person and morose in mind; and now beholding in Clennam one of the degraded body of his oppressors, received him with ignominy. Mrs Gowan, however, received ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... mail through France to Marseilles, embarked in a vessel for Alexandria, and in a few days from the time I first heard of my destination set foot in the office there. All the postal arrangements had fallen into considerable irregularity and confusion; for, as I was informed immediately on my arrival, Mr. Forbes had been in a dying condition for the last week, and of course the absence of a master had borne the usual results. I took formal possession of the office, and then, conducted by one of the ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... uncle in his sleep attracted my notice. He had turned restlessly on the cot several times during the latter half of the first hour, but now he was breathing with unusual irregularity, occasionally heaving a sigh which held more than a few of the qualities of ...
— The Shunned House • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... of this enormous green floor of foliage rose our grassy hill, and it appeared to be the only irregularity which broke the level wilderness as far as the base of the dim ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... troubled by the irregularity, but taken by this highly entertaining scheme of telegraphing across the street. And Rex, his arts exhausted in vain, watched hopelessly while, one after another, five telegrams were sent to The Montana, a hundred feet away. The first being short two of the regulation ...
— A Good Samaritan • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... place the Doctor suffered from dysentery—it is his only weak point, he says; and, as I afterwards found, it is a frequent complaint with him. Whatever disturbed his mind, or any irregularity in eating, was sure to end in an attack of dysentery, which had lately become of ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... with the level at which the cord is injured, and the diagnosis as to the nature and site of the lesion is to be made by a careful analysis of the symptoms. By gently passing the fingers under the patient's back as he lies recumbent, any irregularity in the spinous processes or laminae may be detected, but movement of the patient to admit of a more direct examination of the spine is attended with considerable risk, and should be avoided. Skiagrams are indispensable, as they show the exact site ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... matter; she had thought she was dead; now all at once she knew that she was alive in every fibre, and that it mattered fearfully. The idea of Mr. Masters stung her, not as novel-writers say "almost to madness,"—for there was no such irregularity in Diana's round, sound, healthy nature,—but to pain that seemed unbearable. No confusion in her brain, and no dulness now; on the contrary, an intense consciousness of all that her position involved. She had made a mistake, like many another; ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... he was glad not to commit himself in advance before the moment when his special gift might come into play. All his life he had been carrying through agreements between conflicting interests: he was a great mediator and negotiator. Now, he advocated what was, in strictness, an irregularity. A task had been delegated to us: he asked us to delegate it again to a smaller group. The whole case, he said, had been fully opened up; further debate would be no use; we all knew all the arguments. He deprecated formal procedure; it was plainly a family quarrel, and we should treat ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... swept from central gables to flying wings, over pents, crooks, curves, peaks, cowled porches, balconies, recesses, projections, away to a red village of stables and dependent cottages; harmonious in irregularity; and coloured homely with the greensward about it, the pines beside it, the clouds above it. Not many palaces would be reckoned as larger. The folds and swells and stream of the building along the roll of ground, had an appearance of an ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... savage. Chromatic sensibility, on the contrary, is decidedly defective, the percentage of colour-blindness being twice that of normal persons. The field of vision is frequently limited by the white and exhibits much stranger anomalies, a special irregularity of outline with deep peripheral scotoma, which we shall see is a special characteristic ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... only kindled the wrath of the king but also gained for him friends among the bishops. A council which Henry summoned at Worms (in 1076) was attended by more than two thirds of the German bishops. Here Gregory was declared deposed owing to the alleged irregularity of his election and the many terrible charges of immorality and ambition brought against him. The bishops renounced their obedience to him and publicly declared that he had ceased to be their pope. It appears very surprising, at first sight, that the king ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... great irregularity of the ground, most of these plantations were easy of access. We had, indeed, all given him our advice and assistance, in order to accomplish this end. He had formed a path which wound round the valley, and of which various ramifications led from the circumference to ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... danger and the irregularity of the enterprise, I shall not persuade or urge any person on board to accompany me; and the tug will take on shore all who prefer to leave the vessel, with my best wishes for their future. Those who prefer to go ...
— Taken by the Enemy • Oliver Optic
... GRAY, died 15th May. Had a narrow escape of being vetoed, but, there being some irregularity in the making up of the roll of heads of families, his ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... This bureaucrat was continually refusing Roosevelt's applications because they were irregular. In each case Roosevelt would appeal to the Secretary of War, with whom he was on the best of terms, and would get from him an order countenancing the irregularity. After a number of experiences of this kind, the harassed slave of red tape threw himself back in his chair and exclaimed, "Oh, dear! I had this office running in such good shape—and then along came the war ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... favour to hand, and contents noted. You are a man of the world; I am a man of the world, and proud to deal with you as between man and man. The little irregularity shall be no consideration, all shall be squared, and the man wanted run in with punctuality and despatch. Expect him at Calais ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang
... Armenian, "but there is certainly a kind of irregularity in your features. One eye appears to me larger than the other—never mind, but rather rejoice; in that irregularity consists your strength. All people with regular features are fools; it is very hard for them, you'll say, but there is no help: all we can do, who are not ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... living death. Perhaps occasion could again have stung him into jealousy, but Adela was no longer a vital interest in his existence. He lived in external things, his natural life. Passion had been an irregularity in his development. Yet he would gladly have had his wife's sympathy. He neither loved nor hated her, but she was for ever above him, and, however unconsciously, he longed for her regard. Irreproachable, reticent, ...
— Demos • George Gissing |
