"Singular" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... water comes spouting over a crag of perhaps two hundred feet in altitude between two hills, one south-east and the other nearly north. The southern hill is wooded from the top, nearly down to where the cataract bursts forth; and so, but not so thickly, is the northern hill, which bears a singular resemblance to a hog's back. Groves of pine are on the lower parts of both; in front of a grove low down on the northern hill is a small white house of a picturesque appearance. The water of the cataract, after reaching the bottom of the precipice, rushes in a narrow brook ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... not a little singular to notice the enthusiasm with which this eighteenth-century change was greeted. Bentham says[23] it was "an alteration which had long been wished for, by all persons of true taste." And again: "It is allowed by the best judges to be one of the most useful ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ely • W. D. Sweeting
... especially of the sovereign power, is called the polity" ([Greek: politeia], Ar., Pol., III., vi., 1),—a word immortalised by the judicious Hooker, and happily recovered recently to the English language. The polity then is the distribution of the sovereignty. The person, singular or collective, in whose hands the full sovereignty rests, is called the ruler. Be it observed that what we call the ruler is never one man, except in absolute monarchy. By the theory of the British Constitution, the ruler is ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... enquire if they will bear the tug of life. He is trying them, however, on the "tug of war." Pen and needle are set to work philosophically, methodically, benignly. In this he is but a unit out of many thousands. His opinions are not singular. Amiable moralist!— delightful is the dream, sweetly sounding the wisdom; but is it practicable? John Bell's warfare, "The Assault," is, without a doubt, "confusion worse confounded;" it is not easy, at a view, to find legs and arms and heads in their anatomical order. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... manner, which a little later became once more predominant in the writers of the Flavian period. His simple and dignified style is much above the level of a mere technical treatise. His prose, indeed, may be read with more pleasure than the verse in which, by a singular caprice, one of the twelve books is composed. In one of the most beautiful episodes of the Georgics, Virgil had briefly touched on the subject of gardening, and left it to be treated by others who might come after him: praetereo atque aliis post me memoranda relinquo. At the instance, he ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... a singular phenomenon, that, whilst the sans-culotte carcass-butchers and the philosophers of the shambles are pricking their dotted lines upon his hide, and, like the print of the poor ox that we see in the shop-windows at Charing Cross, alive as he is, and thinking no harm ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... The Sanskrit word Sindhu is in the singular the name of the river Indus, in the plural of the people and territories on its banks. The name appears as Hidku in the cuneiform inscription of Darius' son of Hystaspes, in which the nations tributary ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... haughtily; "I am one of those who believe the gulf is impassable. Yes," she added, slightly but with singular grace waving her hands, and somewhat turning away ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... Ysolinde reached a hand for her husband to kiss, which he did with singular gentleness. But, so far as I could see, she neither looked at him even once nor yet so much as spoke a word to him. Presently he questioned her directly: "And who may this fair young damsel be, who has done me the honor to journey to ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... knew, a truce till August, the mere semblance of accommodation with the foe forced tears of vexation from eyes which were for ever after dry. If she felt a gleam of satisfaction before leaving Le Zephyr, it was at the singular accident by which Juste, always so bent upon being a soldier, shared the honours of a military funeral. Juste and Tobie were buried with the soldiers who had fallen in the defence of the house; and to the father, who ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... other anecdotes are related, which even, though they may be a little exaggerated, are nevertheless worth preserving, as showing the spirit of that singular period. [The curious reader may find an anecdote of the eagerness of the French ladies to retain Law in their company, which will make him blush or smile according as he happens to be very modest ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... Man, a very good inn at Ashbourne, the mistress of which, a mighty civil gentlewoman, courtseying very low, presented me with an engraving of the sign of her house; to which she had subjoined, in her own hand-writing, an address in such singular simplicity of style, that I have preserved it pasted upon one of the boards of my original Journal at this time, and shall here insert it for the amusement of ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... This ancient record is said to have been written about the year 1217, by a monk named Hugh Candidus. It is a MS. account of the History of the Abbey from its foundation. Dean Patrick gives the following account of its singular preservation:—"One book indeed, and but one, still remains, which was happily redeemed from the fire by the then precentor of the church, Mr. Humfrey Austin, who knowing the great value of it, first hid it, in February, 1642, under a seat in the quire: and when it was found ...
— The New Guide to Peterborough Cathedral • George S. Phillips
... getting too much distinguished society. But I want to talk to you about that institution, Hazel. I have a great deal to talk to you about. It is very singular that you have nothing ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... and take possession of the wreck on behalf of the crown. This was done accordingly, and the property and crew were removed to Owyhee. The royal bounty appears to have been but scanty in its dispensations. The crew fared but meagerly; though, on reading the journal of the voyage, it is singular to find them, after all the hardships they had suffered, so sensitive about petty inconveniences, as to exclaim against the king as a "savage monster," for refusing them a "pot to cook in," and denying ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... Ireland, and is said to have passed over to Iona to join the community there, in which his virtues and talents placed him high in the estimation of the monks. He was characterised by a special devotion to the Mother of God, which won for him a singular purity of soul. He was made tutor to the three sons of Eugenius IV, King of Scotland, and brought them up carefully and wisely. Later on he became a Bishop. St. Conan was greatly honoured in Scotland. His name survives at ...
— A Calendar of Scottish Saints • Michael Barrett
... Walnut Street Theatre, whenever 'Hamlet' has been performed, and as 'Yorick's skull' has been handled in that play, from Edmund Kean down to Henry Irving and Edwin Booth. It is preserved with care, and mounted on a piece of polished black marble. Surely here is a skull whose experiences are singular above all ordinary skulls, and in whose career its original owner might be not unreasonably expected to cherish some interest or to have followed its fortunes with some little attention. Untold possibilities for ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... to believe that lost human beings were being sought for. Daylight enabled him to see little feet which darkness had concealed from the Norsemen, whence he concluded that children were being sought for. Following out his clue, with that singular power of following a trail for which savages are noted, he came to the cave, and peered through the bushes with his great eyes, pounced upon the sleepers, and had his pug nose converted into a Roman—all as related in the ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... I have often drawn your attention to the singular emphasis and repetition with which that phrase 'in Christ' occurs throughout the letter. Just take the two or three instances of it that I gather as I speak. In this first chapter we read, 'the faithful in Jesus Christ.' Then comes our ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... but this time with a heart full; much too full to think of anything she saw by the way. It was with a singular feeling of pleasure that she entered the church alone. It was a strange church to her, never seen but once before, and as she softly passed up the broad aisle she saw nothing in the building or the people around her that was not strange, no familiar face, no familiar ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... recently widowed by the death of a husband who never understood her, meets a fine, clean young chap who is ignorant of her title and they fall deeply in love with each other. When he learns her real identity a situation of singular power is developed. ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... readiness to go to sea with the squadron at Spithead," wrote Nelson; "but in my poor opinion we shall go no further at present. The French have eight sail in Brest water ready for sea: therefore I think we shall not court the French out of port,"—singular illustration of the unreadiness of Great Britain in the years immediately preceding the French Revolution. He looks for war, however, the following summer. As not only ships, but men also, were urgently needed, ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... It is a singular fact that the three leaders of the revolution, in the Massachusetts colony, John Adams, Sam Adams, and Oxenbridge Thatcher, were all trained originally to be clergymen, and all afterwards determined to be lawyers, and get their ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... singular of all the Poems of Goethe, and to many will appear so wild and fantastic, as to leave anything but a pleasing impression. Those at the beginning, addressed to his friend Behrisch, were written at the age of eighteen, ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... 'Eh? mais de quoi parler,' etc. Well: a Blackbird is singing in the little Garden outside my Lodging Window, which is frankly opened to what Sun there is. It has been a singular half year; only yesterday Thunder in rather cold weather; and last week the Road and Rail in Cambridge and Huntingdon was blocked up with Snow; and Thunder then also. I suppose I shall get home in ten days: before this Letter will ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... so many persons, for if so be he hadn't he might marry her and settle down, whereas now he can't do it, as he says he is "unhappy." But he gives her a ring—a ring he has stolen from the dupe—and flies. Presently the dupe, who has come to life in a singular but eminently theatrical manner, is brought into the cellar. He discovers the ring upon the servant girl's finger—servant girl states that she is innocent, and the dupe, with the remark that he sees his mother, ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 7 • Charles Farrar Browne
... the forecastle to rank and distinction. One of the most eminent of these officers was Sir Christopher Mings, who entered the service as a cabin boy, who fell fighting bravely against the Dutch, and whom his crew, weeping and vowing vengeance, carried to the grave. From him sprang, by a singular kind of descent, a line of valiant and expert sailors. His cabin boy was Sir John Narborough; and the cabin boy of Sir John Narborough was Sir Cloudesley Shovel. To the strong natural sense and dauntless courage of this class of men England ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... admixtures of black and white, with the various "crosses" as they are physiologically, but erroneously termed, to white. We are thus explicit in stating these points, because we are determined to be understood by all. We have then, two colored to one white person throughout the earth, and yet, singular as it may appear, according to the present geographical and political history of the world, the white race predominates over the colored; or in other words, wherever there is one white person, that ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany
... very unpleasant picture of Mr. John Heritage. The poet had loosened all his placid idols, so that they shook and rattled in the niches where they had been erstwhile so secure. Mr. McCunn had a mind of a singular candour, and was prepared most honestly at all times to revise his views. But by this iconoclast he had been only irritated and in no way convinced. "Sich poetry!" he muttered to himself as he shivered in his bath (a daily cold tub instead of his customary hot one on Saturday ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... secure until the turning of the tide. My only hope was that she would not suffer from the tremendous strain to which she was necessarily being subjected. It seemed to me every minute that she would free herself from her singular position between the rocks, and glide down bows foremost into the sea to disappear for ever. But the sails kept her back. How earnestly I watched the rising of the waters; and night came on as I waited. Slowly and surely they crept up the bows, and the ship gradually ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... have well-defined, though often singular, ideas as to what Almighty God does and does not allow; and among the pursuits which are irrevocably condemned by local oracles is dancing. The laxity of "foreigners" on this article of the Creed is proverbial. ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... movement of surprise, then strove to read in the features of the captain an explanation of this singular apparition. The captain remained stupefied, regarding his new guest with ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... corner at the height of his prosperity; his happiness will have been my work. For two days I have been asking myself whether it would not be better that the Princesse d'Arjos should die of some ailment—say brain fever. It's singular how many plans a woman ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac
... move on among the sweating and groaning hordes. Being of a sympathetic turn of mind, I cannot help being distressed by the prevalence of this singular practice among so large a portion of the human race. How is it possible that none of them should suspect the futility of their procedure? Or can it really be that I am uncomprehending? That in some way they ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... up there with the boy's cap? Yes; that's the same woman. I wonder whether you could guess who she was. A singular being, is she not? The most marvellous creature, quite, that I have ever met: a wonderful elegance, exotic, far-fetched, poignant; an artificial perverse sort of grace and research in every outline and movement and arrangement of head and neck, and hands and fingers. Here are a lot of ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... been the originals, and on the whole resembled a very ancient hamlet. The beach was strewn with tools and drawn-up boats. The water in the little bay stank of castaway fish, catfish and others which, on account of their singular appearance, were supposed to be possessed of devils, ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... curiosity to see Brann, of the ICONOCLAST. His pyrotechnic vocabulary, his strange admixture of erudition and slang, his almost womanly sympathy and the more than Apache ferocity with which he pursued his enemies, the tender and poetic metaphor that gemmed his iron prose, and the singular blending of optimism and pessimism that characterized most of his work suggested an anomaly that appealed to the imagination, and I was anxious to ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... persuade The eyes of men without an orator; What needeth then apologies be made, To set forth that which is so singular? Or why is Collatine the publisher Of that rich jewel he should keep unknown From thievish ears, because it is ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... Muhammad Din laboured for an hour at effacing every trace of the dust bank and pottery fragments, and it was with a tearful and apologetic face that he said, 'Talaam, Tahib,' when I came home from office. A hasty inquiry resulted in Imam Din informing Muhammad Din that, by my singular favour, he was permitted to disport himself as he pleased. Whereat the child took heart and fell to tracing the ground-plan of an edifice which was ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... maintained, and it was more than likely that a boy so well supplied with special information would be worth translating. So they translated him. They must have suspected him, though he protested that his information was due to singular talents of his own. Now, much of this story, including the after-history of the missing envelope, you must fill in for yourself, because there are reasons why it cannot be written. If you do not know about things Up Above, you won't understand how to fill it in, and you ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... the Christian life. Each spoke only when called upon by Mr. Rhys; and each was answered in his turn with a word of counsel or direction or encouragement, as the case seemed to need. Sometimes the answer was in the words of the Bible; but always, whatever it were, it was given, Eleanor felt, with singular appositeness to the interests before him. With great skill too, and with infinite sympathy and tenderness if need called for it; with sympathy invariably. And Eleanor admired the apt readiness and kindness and wisdom with which the answers were framed; so ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... Fanny,—and she paused to make up her mind as to the words of her message,—"tell him to come himself." And, hurrying from the room, she left the parson alone, to meditate on the singular success of his mission. He stood for about half an hour, thinking over what had occurred, and rejoicing greatly in his mind that he had undertaken the business. "What fools men are about women!" he said at last, to himself. "They know their ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... the room, which Meir beheld from the open door, presented a singular appearance. In the depth of it, between the wall and a table, sat Rabbi Todros in his usual worn-out garments with his cap pushed to the back of his head. The upper part of his body bent forward; he sat perfectly motionless except for his eyes, which roamed along ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... Paris about the middle of February, 1780. John Adams mentioned a singular coincidence in his letter announcing their arrival. "I have the honor to be lodged here with no less a personage than the Prince of Hesse-Cassel, who is here upon a visit. We occupy different apartments ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... of German Baroness, the proverbial wealth of the bankers of Frankfort, to whom the people were accustomed to attribute everything that was singular and bizarre, had been most admirably combined by the Count de Fersen, to account for anything strange or remarkable in the appearance of the royal equipages; nothing, however, excited attention, and they arrived without interruption ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... know how a great merchant of the fifteenth century loved to be housed, go visit Crosby Hall. It is the only specimen left of the ancient wealth and splendour of a City merchant. But as one man lived so did many. We cannot believe that Crosby was singular in his building a ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... tinges the home or family life in the Old Testament. Crimes against the person or property committed by Jews are rare. They likewise do not figure in either police courts or penitentiary records; they are not inmates of our poor-houses, but, what is also singular, they are never accused of many silly crimes, such as indecent exposures, assaults on young girls; nor do they figure in any such exposures as the one recently made by the ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... for everybody. Hee, hee"—rushed off, followed by Harree and the tassel. Out of the corner of my eye I watched the tall, ludicrous, extraordinary, almost proud figure of the bear stoop with quiet dignity, the musical fingers close with a singular delicacy upon the ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... some great truths, and he applied them, both in his own thoughts and self-development and in his popular teaching, with great force. He realised two things with a depth and intensity which give an awful life and power to all he said about religion. He realised with singular and pervading keenness that which a greater man than he speaks of as the first and the great discovery of the awakened soul—" the thought of two, and two only, supreme and luminously self-evident beings, himself and the Creator." "Alone with God," expresses the ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... a singular compound of great and mean qualities. Superstition was one of its features. It is said that having suffered a defeat in the course of the Social War, in Italy, he drew from his bosom a little image ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... singular man, acting on a nature already tried beyond reason, should bend it to his will, to which it was, in some radical ways, inclined? Well, if that should be, then I would go forth and never see her more. She must make her choice out of her own heart and spirit, and fight this ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... he seemed among savages to be held in deep respect, and yet here he was, the ally of the white man against his race. His lean, supple figure, his passionless face, and his high, masterful air had a singular nobility in them. To me he was never the servant, scarcely even the companion, for he seemed like a being from another world, who had a knowledge of things hid from human ken. In woodcraft he was a master beyond all thought ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... him; and very fit for the office, having been regularly bred in the navy, in which he was that time a master, and having, as marine surveyor of Newfoundland and Labradore, and on several occasions, exhibited very singular marks of good understanding and abilities. Sir Hugh Palliser, applied to by the Board for his opinion on the matter, most warmly, from his own knowledge, espoused Mr Stephens's recommendation of Cook, who was accordingly appointed to the command, and promoted ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... of this book appeared (1897) a considerable number of new and startling ghost stories, British, Foreign and Colonial, not yet published, have reached me. Second Sight abounds. Crystal Gazing has also advanced in popularity. For a singular series of such visions, in which distant persons and places, unknown to the gazer, were correctly described by her, I may refer to my book, The Making of Religion (1898). A memorial stone has been erected on the scene of the story called "The Foul Fords" (p. 269), ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... trail of brown vat-liquor followed him, dripping from his clothes, for he was soaked to the skin. His long gray hair had partly dried in strings about his ears, and his fine lace collar was a drabbled shame; but there was a singular untroubled smile ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... dignity of the man, the sudden change of his condition, his extraordinary adversity, his incredible patience under them, his restoration to a much happier state than he had ever before enjoyed, and lastly the singular nature of the illness ...
— Medica Sacra - or a Commentary on on the Most Remarkable Diseases Mentioned - in the Holy Scriptures • Richard Mead
... one of his journals, mentions some curious coincidences in his family, which, to a mind disposed as his was to regard every thing connected with himself as out of the ordinary course of events, would naturally appear even more strange and singular than they are. "I have been thinking," he says, "of an odd circumstance. My daughter (1), my wife (2), my half-sister (3), my mother (4), my sister's mother (5), my natural daughter (6), and myself (7), are, or were, all only children. My sister's mother (Lady ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... shadow, crouched, intense. It seemed to him that the hand of Bull Hunter hung motionless at his side while the gun flashed out from Hood's holster. He groaned at the thought, but in the last second, there was a move of Hunter's hand that no eye could follow, that singular convulsive twitch which Pete Reeve had taught him so long before. Only one gun spoke. Jack Hood spun sidewise and crashed to the floor, and his gun rattled ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... picture this venerable man presented as he stood there. Wrapped in a great-coat, with fur mittens in his hands; a long grey beard sweeping his breast; hair abundant and white, crowning a face of singular strength and refinement, he seemed the very embodiment of health and hearty cheer. No ascetic this, but a man in whose veins flowed the fire of youth, and whose eyes twinkled with quiet, honest laughter as they looked into ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... of Scott. As what constitutes the great man is more commonly some extraordinary combination and balance of qualities, than the highest development of any one, so you cannot but here be struck anew by the singular combination in Scott's mind of love for the picturesque and romantic with the plainest common sense,—a delight in heroic excess with the prudential habit of order. Here the most pleasing order pervades emblems of what men commonly esteem disorder ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... word: "And what is to become of Thimble-rig Jem, sir?" These words, addressed to Mr. Lascelles, produced a singular effect. That gentleman gave an immediate shiver, as if a bullet had passed clean through him and out again, then opened his eyes and looked first at one door then at the other as if hesitating which he should go by. Robinson continued, addressing him with marked respect, "What I mean, sir, ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... meals at Miss Fortune's were silent solemnities; an occasional consultation, or a few questions and remarks about farm affairs, being all that ever passed. The breakfast this morning was a singular ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... was made, soon after the reading of the last letter, through the medium of the Chevalier de Ternant, from the celebrated Marquis de la Fayette of France. The Marquis signified the singular pleasure he had received on hearing of the formation of a committee in England for the abolition of the Slave Trade, and the earnest desire he had to promote the object of it. With this view, he informed the committee that he should ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... World, and is therefore essential to the principles and arrangement of our work. Ample opportunities will occur in the sequel, for inserting more extended accounts of the countries which were visited lay this early navigator, whose singular good fortune has raised him an eternal monument infinitely beyond his merit, by the adoption of his otherwise obscure name for designating the grand ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... Rosemary's and so unique in appearance that I doubt if there was another in the world like it. Indeed, I have a distinct recollection of being told that the child's father had painted in the extraordinary features and had himself decorated the original flaxen locks with singular stripes of red and white and blue, a sardonic tribute to the ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... to the northward until mid-afternoon, making no great headway with one propellor missing, but leaving the main gulf steadily, and at length, raising, a faint blue loom on the sky, the long oak-crowned heights of those singular geological formations, the heights known as "islands", that bound the head of this great bay. Here the land, springing out of the level marshes and alluvial wet prairies, thrusts up in long reefs, hundreds ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... tribute of an express acknowledgment of your services, and our sense of them. You came to us, Sir, through all the perils which encompassed us on all sides. You found us struggling and suffering under difficulties, as singular and trying as our situation was new and unprecedented. Your magnanimous nation had taken side with us in the conflict, and yourself became the centre of our common councils, the link which connected our common operations. In that position you ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... thinking death was like this well," said Biatritz, without any cessation of her singular employment—"so dark that we may see nothing clearly save one faint gleam which shows us, or which seems to show us, where rest is. Yes, yes, this is that chaplet which you won in the tournament at Montferrat when ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... stationed at Charlestown; but more by your late resolution in frustrating the attempts of the Spaniards, when nothing could have saved us from utter ruin, next to the Providence of Almighty God, but your Excellency's singular conduct, and the bravery of the troops under your command. We think it our duty to pray God to protect your Excellency, and send you success in all your undertakings for his Majesty's service; and we assure your Excellency, that there is not a man of ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt
... 1829, summed up in most wonderful way the work of all his predecessors and the mycologic science of his time. In reading Fries the modern student hardly knows which most to admire, the author's far-reaching, patient research, the singular acumen of his taxonomic instinct, the graceful exactness of the Latin in which his conclusions are expressed, or the delicate courtesy with which he touches the work even the most primitive, of those his predecessors or contemporaries. Nevertheless in our particular group even the ...
— The North American Slime-Moulds • Thomas H. (Thomas Huston) MacBride
... it is rare—rare like kingfishers, and sandpipers, and herons, and black eagles. And so men always shoot it down, as they do the birds, and stick up the dead body in glass cases, and label it, and stare at it, and bemoan it as 'so singular,' having done their best to ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... epicycloidal gears correctly was one Pyecroft, when he was told that Mr. Vickery would go up country that same evening to take over certain naval ammunition left after the war in Bloemfontein Fort. No details was ordered to accompany Master Vickery. He was told off first person singular—as a unit—-by himself." ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... him, with a singular expression in those level gray eyes—eyes the look of which could allure or wither, ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... square before the Cathedral when the cannonade began, and its roar seemed to build a roof of iron over the glorious ruins of Ypres. The singular distinction of the city is that it is destroyed but not abased. The walls of the Cathedral, the long bulk of the Cloth Market, still lift themselves above the market place with a majesty that seems to silence compassion. The sight of those facades, so proud in death, recalled a phrase used soon ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... Cecy slipped down stairs like an eel, and fled on the wings of fear along the path which led to her home. Mrs. Hall, as she bade Aunt Izzie good-night, and shut Dr. Carr's front door behind her with a bang, might have been struck with the singular fact that a distant bang came from her own front door like a sort of echo. But she was not a suspicious woman; and when she went up stairs there were Cecy's clothes neatly folded on a chair, and Cecy herself in bed, fast asleep, only with a little more color ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge
... the sight of it was awe-inspiring, and a far more formidable picture than any dingo in the world could possibly present. Tasman and Lupus glared at this picture for fully two minutes, while themselves emitting a continuous snarling growl of singular, concentrated intensity and ferocity. This savage snarl was not the least among their weapons of offence and defence. Its ferocity was very cowing in effect, and had before now gone more than half-way towards deciding a combat. It introduced something not unlike paralysis into the muscles ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... with few words. The other member of the firm was in complete contrast to his partner. His round, jolly face was always wreathed in smiles, a joke, a pun, or story always forthcoming, and business the last thing to be considered. He was a college graduate and a poet of local reputation. It is singular in my boyhood how often I happened to be dropped in the vicinity of small poets. This gentleman was, like myself, a native of Bellingham, and on that account he sometimes noticed me and made inquiries after my well-being. He seemed to ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... assigned as a reason for his gloom and seeming inattention, that he apprehended Johnson had relinquished his purpose of furnishing him with a Prologue to his play[116], with the hopes of which he had been flattered; but it was strongly suspected that he was fretting with chagrin and envy at the singular honour Dr. Johnson had lately enjoyed. At length, the frankness and simplicity of his natural character prevailed. He sprung from the sopha, advanced to Johnson, and in a kind of flutter, from imagining ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... Inhabitants in half that Time. The Truth is, the matter of Fact is so incontestable, that I need not recollect all the Proofs, on which they ground their Assertion; but I shall only observe to you, Dean, that this is a very singular Advantage, since it is certain, that we out breed the Jews, and in spite of our Wars and Massacres, we seem to multiply like the Polypus, by being cut ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... sophistical. This writer really thinks that he acts a straightforward honest part, when he says "A Catholic Priest informs us in his Sermon on Wisdom and Innocence preached at St. Mary's," and he thinks that I am the shuffler and quibbler when I forbid him to do so. So singular a phenomenon in a man of undoubted ability has struck me forcibly, and I shall pursue the train of thought which ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... hundred or more, families. These houses differed among themselves in their plan and structure as well as size; but a common principle ran through them which was revealed by their adaptation to communistic uses. They reflect their condition and their plan of life with such singular distinctness as to afford practical hints concerning ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... indignity caused a singular change in the man. As he picked himself up and walked away, an expression of absolute relief came upon his features. The specious and conciliatory smile that had been graven there was succeeded by a look of calm and sinister resolve. "Beelzebub" had been floundering in ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... in reference to sacred poetry, has long ago fallen into disrepute. It seems singular indeed, how it ever obtained credence, even although supported by one of the most powerful pens that ever wrote in Britain, when we remember that, previous to that author's day, the best poetry in ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... Hincks showed that he must be placed between Amenothes III. and Harmhabi, that he was first called Amenothes like his father, but that he afterwards took the name of Baknaten, which is now read Khunaten or Khuniaton. His singular aspect made it difficult to decide at first whether a man or a woman was represented. Mariette, while pronouncing him to be a man, thought that he had perhaps been taken prisoner in the Sudan and mutilated, which would have explained his effeminate appearance, almost like ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... said I. "Any friend of Raffles Holmes may command my services. I know Tommy Markoo very well, and as this is a pretty busy time with him, getting his stuff out for the fall productions, I have little doubt I shall be able to help you. By Jove!" I added, as I glanced over the cafe, "that's a singular coincidence—there is Markoo himself just ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... herself came to the door, and Hilda, with ruffled hair and a sleepy face, looked out of the little window in the thatched roof. There was nothing in his appearance a few hours earlier than he was expected to alarm them, and their surprise and pleasure were complete. Even to himself it seemed singular that he should sit down at the little breakfast-table with them, the almost level rays of the morning sun shining through the lattice window, instead of in the dingy ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... The singular charm and intelligence of Beatrice made a deep impression upon Maximilian, who could not but contrast her brightness and cleverness with the dulness and ignorance of his own Milanese wife. And the duke's polished manners and cultured ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... nature—in all the energy of their deeply-felt conviction—in all the potency of their strength—in all the splendor of their magnificence, and in all the glory of their triumph; it is because of all this that this singular man—who was born and has lived at such a distance from Rome—is now admired, is now wept for by you, as if he had been born in the midst of you. Hence it is that this great character, this sublime nature, has ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... few of the hardiest and most adventurous pioneers had penetrated the desert in the southern part of that vast upland. And with them came some of that wild breed of riders to which Slone and the Stewarts belonged. Horses were really more important and necessary than men; and this singular fact gave these ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... distinction of one from more than one. There are two numbers, singular and plural; the singular denotes one, the plural two or more. The plural is generally formed from the singular by the addition of s ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... the Creatures Nature does provide, To stock the World from Ignorance to Pride; Of all that from her various Bosom spring, A Beau I think the oddest kind of thing; A selfish Compound, singular, and Vain, Half Ass, half Puppet, and the least of Man; One that seems just for Nature's Pastime made, A Gawdy Carcass, with an Empty Head; Whose only Knowledge lies in modish Dress, And seldom looks much further than his Glass. A Creature only Govern'd ...
— The Pleasures of a Single Life, or, The Miseries Of Matrimony • Anonymous
... civilized man? And was that period now arrived, or were we premature in seizing upon our inheritance before it was thoroughly prepared for our reception? Many times have we asked ourselves this last question. This singular country appears to represent the ancient character of the earth in one of the earlier stages of formation. It represents that epoch when animal life was first developed in the ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... succumbed to weakness and illness, until one only, a pilot from Huelva, was left. He also was sinking, and when it was obvious that his end was near at hand, he beckoned his good host to his bedside, and, in gratitude for all his kindness, imparted to him some singular knowledge which he had acquired, and with which, if he had lived, he had hoped ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... Granada had risen to splendor on the ruin of other Moslem kingdoms, but in so doing had become the sole object of Christian hostility, and had to maintain its very existence by the sword. The Moorish capital accordingly presented a singular scene of Asiatic luxury and refinement, mingled with the glitter and the din of arms. Letters were still cultivated, philosophy and poetry had their schools and disciples, and the language spoken was said to be the most elegant Arabic. A passion for dress and ornament pervaded all ranks. That ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... for bravery in the French wars of the fourteenth century. A Sir Everard Fielding led a Lancastrian army during the Wars of the Roses. Sir William, created Earl of Denbigh, fell fighting for the king in the Civil Wars, where, says Clarendon, "he engaged with singular courage in all enterprises of danger"; a phrase which recalls the description of Henry Fielding "that difficulties only roused him to struggle through them with a peculiar spirit and magnanimity." Lord Denbigh fell, covered with wounds, when ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... companion. Fine and accurate as the portrait is, much as it surpasses its pendant in subtle truth of characterisation, it has in the opinion of the writer been somewhat overpraised. For once, Titian approaches very nearly to the northern ideal in portraiture, underlining the truth with singular accuracy, yet with some sacrifice of graciousness and charm. The daughter of the learned and brilliant Isabella looks here as if, in the decline of her beauty, she had become something of a precieuse and a prude, though it would be imprudent to assert that she was either the one ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips
... singular," muttered the perplexed lad. "I don't understand it at all. There's something wrong, ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... Mr. Soulis that something had put them frae their ordinar. He wasnae easy fleyed, an' gaed straucht up to the wa's; an' what suld he find there but a man, or the appearance of a man, sittin' in the inside upon a grave. He was of a great stature, an' black as hell, and his e'en were singular to see. {144} Mr. Soulis had heard tell o' black men, mony's the time; but there was something unco about this black man that daunted him. Het as he was, he took a kind o' cauld grue in the marrow o' his banes; but up he spak for a' that; an' says he: ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... yet fresh in the public mind Mr. Wise published a pamphlet giving a fanciful account of their adventures, as if related by the aeronaut. In the light of the Wise-Burr tragedy its concluding paragraph has a singular significance: "In the end I ask the world to deal charitably with me. Should my body be found, give it decent burial and write for an epitaph: 'Here lies the body of a man whose reckless ambition and fear of being accused of want of nerve have sacrificed his own life and betrayed a fellow-mortal ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... true," said George, "how irrational many things in the Christian religion are! And how singular that men like him, who 'search into the reason of things' for wisdom, and hold opinions contrary to the orthodox notions of those whom we call Christians, should be looked upon with ...
— Life in London • Edwin Hodder
... Then a singular sadness, one quite distinct from the shadow of their known sorrow, settled upon both brother and sister. Was it a sorrow of apprehension? one of those divinations which we call presentiments. Neither David nor Maggie questioned it; they ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... ordinary lines, and substituted her own control, with powers almost equal to those of a Viceroy. They enabled her to displace Englishmen from various posts in Northern China and to clog the efforts of their merchants at every turn. The British Government, we may add, showed a singular equanimity ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... his light blurred eyes looking out straight before him, with a singular yet blind intentness, as though, while seeing nothing round about him, they passed beyond the walls of the little room to some ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... when a little lamp that hung above cast its sorrowful light over him, could I catch a glimpse of his pale countenance, on which the youth was not yet extinguished. His costume was singular, in two colors, yellow and red. Heavy chains weighed upon his feet. Behind him moved a face whose physiognomy indicated a lusty goat-nature. And I saw at times long, hairy hands seize assistingly the strings ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... urchin of ten or twelve, who can scarcely drag it a hundred yards without resting. It is to be supposed that the instruments are all rated according to their quality. There is at this moment wandering about the streets of London a singular and pitiable object, whose wretched lot must be known to hundreds of thousands, and who affords in his own person good evidence of the strictness of the rule above alluded to, as well as of the rigour with which the trade is carried on. We refer to a ragged, shirtless, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 430 - Volume 17, New Series, March 27, 1852 • Various
... It therefore follows, that the critical periods of the system will arise when the relative rotation is zero, that is, when the earth's rotation on its axis is performed with a velocity equal to that with which the moon revolves around the earth. This is truly a singular condition of the earth-moon system; the moon in such a case would revolve around the earth as if the two bodies were bound together by rigid bonds into what was practically a single solid body. At the present moment no doubt to some extent this condition is realized, ...
— Time and Tide - A Romance of the Moon • Robert S. (Robert Stawell) Ball
... contented himself with rising to his feet; he turned quite pale, and a singular expression ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... in our Language: Ipsa mollities. But I must not omit to tell you, that I now onely owe you thanks for intimating unto me (how modestly soever) the true Artificer. For the work it self I had view'd som good while before, with singular delight, having receiv'd it from our common Friend Mr. R. in the very close of the late R's Poems, Printed at Oxford, wherunto it was added (as I now suppose) that the Accessory might help out the Principal, according to the Art of Stationers, and ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... the bribes. Contrivances, rather than continence, will be the method. How audacious, and how disconcerting to Nature, to baffle her thus! Even into her shrine they must thrust their bold paws to control her. Another race viewing them in the garlanded chambers of love, unpacking their singular devices, might think them grotesque: but the busy little simians will be blind ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day
... book is a great evil," said an ancient writer,—an axiom which an unfortunate Russian author felt to his cost. "Whilst I was at Moscow," says a pleasant traveller, "a quarto volume was published in favor of the liberties of the people,—a singular subject when we consider the place where the book was printed. In this work the iniquitous venality of the public functionaries, and even the conduct of the sovereign, was scrutinized and censured with great freedom. Such a book, ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 5: Some Strange and Curious Punishments • Henry M. Brooks
... world have, with singular unanimity, recognized this change, and have changed their laws to meet the new conditions. The change which they have made was indicated to them by their maritime laws, which in this respect have been alike in all civilized ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... here," said Pius VII., "in the apartments of another saint." What singular vicissitudes! The same place occupied in turn by Madame Elisabeth, the members of the Committee of Public Safety, and by ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... with Princesse Louis Bonaparte, has assured me that, had it not been for Napoleon's singular inclination for his youthful stepdaughter, he would have divorced his wife the first year of his consulate, and that indirect proposals on that subject had already been made her by Talleyrand. It was then reported that Bonaparte ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... long as men felt their original meaning, they must have been full of awe and glory. Being of another parish, I looked on coldly, but not irreverently, and was glad to see the funeral service so well performed, and very glad when it was over. What struck me as singular, the person who performed the part usually performed by a verger, keeping order among the audience, wore a gold-embroidered scarf, a cocked hat, and, I believe, a sword, and had the air of ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... enchanted the sage, and they used to talk together with all imaginable ease. A singular instance happened one evening, when she insisted that some of Sterne's writings were very pathetic. Johnson bluntly denied it. 'I am sure,' said she, 'they have affected me.' 'Why,' said Johnson, smiling, and rolling himself ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... then so deeply in love with her already?' he asked himself. His spirit seemed imprisoned within a circle in which the phantoms of all his sensations in presence of this woman surged and wheeled around him. Suddenly there would emerge from this tangle of memory, with singular precision, some phrase of hers, an inflection of her voice, an attitude, a glance, the seat where they had sat, the finale of the Beethoven sonata, a burst of melody from Mary Dyce, the face of ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... of fair play so characteristically British, and to which we are proud heirs, that I would appeal. Everything is being said and done to prejudice the public against those who are accused of instigating Kelly to the assault on Smith; but, singular as it may seem, Kelly is patted on the back and called a good fellow. Why? Admitting the truth of Kelly's story, is he less guilty because he had confederates? A strange feature of the case is that Kelly willingly came back to Canada, when ...
— The Story of a Dark Plot - or Tyranny on the Frontier • A.L.O. C. and W.W. Smith
... within the old walls; it has undergone no change, and in 1900 a marble tablet was put up to record the fact that Campbell lived and died there. The other founder of the University of London, Brougham, by a singular coincidence was also closely associated with Boulogne. [Among the occupants of the English cemetery will be found the names of Sir Harris Nicolas, Basil Montagu, Smithson Pennant, Sir William Ouseley, Sir William Hamilton, and Sir C. M. Carmichael. And among other literary ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... he might walk on the water, when suddenly he heard a bubbling sound in the brook, near the shore. He looked there, and saw some bubbles of air coming up out of the bottom, and rising to the top of the water. He thought this was very singular. It was not strange that the air should come up through the water to the top, for air is much lighter than water; the wonder was, how the air could ...
— Rollo's Museum • Jacob Abbott
... good-natured, had broad and ever open pockets to accommodate that worthy characteristic, which no one thought it any harm to relieve, he gave his (Smooth's) assurance that the charge of neglect never should be laid at his door—that he would watch the Tomkinses! To deny the existence of a singular prompting to kill time over aught that Sam stood sponsor for, was a very good-natured absurdity; few indeed could be found who did not consider him an old foodle, who had fathered more expensive abortions than any other individual, and was willing to father more. How, then, ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... "off there to the south is the eccentric swamp home of a singular man, a philosopher and a doctor. He's Keela's foster father. I've met and smoked with him. I want you to go to him and rest. The Indians do that. He's what you need. And tell him you're down and ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... every way, and very good in the singing and some of the acting. The play was "Anno 66," but I could only catch a few words here and there, so have very little idea of the plot. One of the characters was a correspondent of an English newspaper. This singular being came on in the midst of a soldiers' bivouac before Sadowa, dressed very nearly in white—a very long frock-coat, and a tall hat on the back of his head, both nearly white. He said "Morning" as a general remark, ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... two singular examples of the power of imagination in this way; he had them from Francis Pico de Mirandola. "I know," says the latter, "a priest, seventy-five years of age, who lived with a pretended woman, whom he called Hermeline, with whom he slept, conversed, and conducted ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... cabin opposite to the iron box which he had done so much and waited so long to gain. He was a sunburned, reckless-eyed fellow, with a net-work of lines and wrinkles all over his mahogany features, which told of a hard, open-air life. There was a singular prominence about his bearded chin which marked a man who was not to be easily turned from his purpose. His age may have been fifty or thereabouts, for his black, curly hair was thickly shot with gray. His face in repose was not an unpleasing one, though his heavy brows and aggressive chin ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... did not tell my tale in my last, Fairfax; it would have been spoiled. I knew it only by halves. It has ended in the most singular combination of circumstances ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... attendant demons. Indeed, throughout the cave, Martin's pictures are continually brought to mind, by the unearthly effect of intense gleams of light on black masses of shadow. In this Council Chamber, the rocks, with singular appropriateness, change from an imitation of Gothic architecture, to that of the Egyptian. The dark, massive walls resemble a series of Egyptian tombs, in dull and heavy outline. In this place is an angle, which forms the meeting point of several caves, and is ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... outbreak in Villa Elsa was followed by something still more singular to Kirtley, or at least out of his reckoning. It was to stir the depths of his contemplations and comparisons and give him the sharpest look into German character he had yet received. It was to show him that a gaping abyss might be separating the Teuton from other western humanity. Having latterly ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... is no ordinary human memory, and we have to explain its singular perfection either as the natural endowment of her solitary subliminal self, or as a collection of distinct memory systems, each with a communicating spirit ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus
... thou art a singular God! and a most amazing philosopher! Thou goest shooting about with thy electrically charged arrows, bringing to one common level human hearts, however diverse ...
— The American Prejudice Against Color - An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily The Nation Got - Into An Uproar. • William G. Allen
... Jerusalem. They are called people of the "blood" or "tribe" of the 'Abiri (B. 106), and of the "land" of the 'Abiri (B. 199), showing that the term is derived from the 'Abarim, or mountains east of Jordan. The Abiru chiefs are mentioned in the singular (B. 102, 104), and none of these facts can be reconciled with the view that they were "allies." They are distinctly said to have come from Seir (Edom) in one letter (B. 104), and to have left their pastures (B. 103), and are probably the "desert people" ...
— Egyptian Literature
... appropriate to my own use the sums which I have already passed to their credit, by their unworthy, and pardon me if I add dangerous reflections, which they have passed upon me for the first communication of this kind"; and he immediately adds, what is singular and striking, and savors of a recriminatory insinuation, "and your own experience will suggest to you that there are persons who would profit by such a warning."[43] To what Directors in particular this imputation ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... individual, practically stark naked, who came out of your house, in such singular fashion, at ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... Like you, I am an aristocrat by birth and by principle; because I find a marked aristocracy in nature. In a word, madam, like you, I love to sleep by day and be stirring by night. There I stop; for in mind, energy of character, and in the mode of life, so singular and so dignified, which you lead, not every one who would ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... children sometimes saw that singular bird, the Avoset, with its curious curved bill, its noisy clamor, and its long legs, bending and tottering under him, as he ran about the marsh or waded into its pools. He was a ...
— Frank and Fanny • Mrs. Clara Moreton
... Singular to say, his first remark was pretty near a bull's-eye, showing that he must have been thinking about the ex-hobo as he wound the waxed red silk around ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson
... word capable of number is better provided therewith in this language, then [sic] by any other: for instead of two or three numbers which others have, this affordeth you four; to wit, the singular, dual, ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... this strange ceremony was singular enough. It was the solemn administering of an oath to each of the combatants, by which oath they severally swore that the cause in which they were to fight was true, and that they did not deal in any witchcraft or magic art, by which they ...
— Margaret of Anjou - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... influence on her, for, so far as I am aware, I am the only friend she ever had at whom she never threw a plate or a book, or attacked with a dagger, poker, broom, or other deadly weapon.... I always had a strange and great respect for her singular talents. There were few, indeed, if any there, were, who really knew the depths ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... is remarkable for a singular episode. The Regents and other high authorities in Peking decided, at whose instigation can only be surmised, to send an embassy to the various countries of Europe and America, in order to bring to the notice of foreign governments China's right, as an independent Power, to manage her internal ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles
... tell you it is Fox, a nephew of the late Charles James Fox. That you may not be too much elated at this morsel of praise, I shall add that he did not appear to like Mansfield Park so well as the two first, in which, however, I believe he is singular.[345] ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... direction proveth what is that good, that acceptable, and perfect will of Thine: yea, Thou teachest him, now made capable, to discern the Trinity of the Unity, and the Unity of the Trinity. Wherefore to that said in the plural. Let us make man, is yet subjoined in the singular, And God made man: and to that said in the plural. After our likeness, is subjoined in the singular, After the image of God. Thus is man renewed in the knowledge of God, after the image of Him that created him: and being made spiritual, ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... would have said) the "burning marl" of the London Bohemia. Very shortly afterwards he was chosen Chairman of Quarter Sessions, and established himself in Bow Street. The Bow Street magistrate of that time occupied a most singular position, and was more like a French Prefect of Police or even a Minister of Public Safety than a mere justice. Yet he was ill paid. Fielding says that the emoluments, which before his accession had but been L500 a year of "dirty" money, were by his own action but L300 of clean; and the ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... toil of his novitiate, his rapid advancement in both knowledge and skill, and his gradual recognition as a man of original mind and wise enthusiasm are but the normal characteristics of his fraternity. Circumstances, however, give a singular prominence and pathos to these usual facts of artist-life. When Crawford began his professional career, sculpture, as an American pursuit, was almost as rare as painting at the time of West's advent in Rome; to excel therein was a national distinction, having ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... be doubted that MR. WILKINSON has traced with singular acumen the manner in which the spirit of geometrical research was diffused amongst the operative classes, and the class immediately above them—the exciseman and the country schoolmaster. Still it is not to be inferred, that even these ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 57, November 30, 1850 • Various
... retained the power of the purse. The Continental nations ought to have acted likewise; as they failed to conserve this safeguard of representation with taxation, the consequence was that everywhere excepting in England parliamentary institutions ceased to exist. England owed this singular felicity to ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... profusion of red handkerchiefs about their heads and shoulders; and from an unpicturesque habit they have of making an upper waist immediately under their arms by a ligature of some sort, and tying their apron-strings about a foot below, they have the singular appearance of being double-waisted or three-story women. They carry their children on their backs, much after the fashion of Digger Indians, and suckle them through an opening in the second or middle story. Doubtless this is a convenient ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... sea at the bottom. Your heart would rejoice over the great heaths. I saw one, the bole of which split into nearly equal trunks; and one of these was just a metre in circumference, and had a head as big as a moderate-sized ash. Gorse in full flower, up to 12 or 15 feet high. On the whole a singular absence of flowering herbs except Cinerarias and, especially in Teneriffe, Echium. I did not chance to see a Euphorbia in Madeira, though I believe there are some. In Teneriffe they are everywhere in queer shapes, and there was a thing that mimicked the commonest Euphorbia but had no milk, ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... Yes, indeed! he stood watching the scene with a most intent and singular expression ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... Southampton Row, however, is chiefly remarkable nowadays for the fact that you will always find a man there trying to sell a tortoise to a tailor. "Showing off the tweed, sir; what the gentry wants is something singular to catch the eye, sir—and clean in their habits, sir!" ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... presuming that, in the Province of Ilocos, mines of virgin copper exist, a singular production of nature, or at least, not very common, if the generality of combinations under which this metal presents itself in the rest of the globe, are duly considered. This is partly inferred from the circumstance of its having been noticed that the Igorots, who ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... drew its name from that distinguished event. Frantzius, in particular, says, that in his day the castle of that place was still shown to travellers with the reverential interest attached to such a pretension. But, after all, he gives his own vote for Ingelheim; and it is singular that he does not so much as mention Aix-la-Chapelle. Of his education and his early years, Mr. James is of opinion that we know as little as of his birth-place. Certainly our information upon these particulars is neither full nor circumstantial; yet ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... at these wonderful speeds the train moved with singular smoothness. Moments there were of some anxiety, when the cars swung round a curve or dashed through the streets of a town. At such times there were those among the passengers who would perhaps gladly have sacrificed a few seconds of the record. Except for those occasions, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various
... from this moment sensibly to decline. Elizabeth had showered wealth and influence upon him, although she had refrained, at her most doting moments, from lifting him up to the lowest step in the ladder of aristocratic preferment. But although her favour towards Raleigh had this singular limit, and although she kept him rigidly outside the pale of politics, in other respects her affection had been lavish in the extreme. Without ceasing to hold Hatton and Leicester captive, she had now for five years given Raleigh the chief place in her heart. But, ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... alike to the French musicians, in this main point—that while the Ca ira and Marseillaise were essentially songs of blame and wrath, the British bards wrote, virtually, always songs of praise, though by no means psalmody in the ancient keys. On the contrary, all the three are alike moved by a singular antipathy to the priests, and are pointed at with fear and indignation by the pietists, of their day;—not without latent cause. For they are all of them, with the most loving service, servants of that world which the Puritan and monk alike despised; and, ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... the delusion that Bill was dangerous; even years of singular rectitude on Bill's part had failed to alter his original opinion on this one point, and he often told Custer that he would have felt lost with a horse just anybody could have driven, for while Bill might not and probably would not have suited ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... the conduct of France towards Switzerland. It is very satisfactory to find so zealous and steady an advocate for Freedom as Mr. COLERIDGE concur with us in condemning the conduct of France towards the Swiss Cantons. Indeed his concurrence is not singular; we know of no Friend to Liberty who is not of his opinion. What we most admire is the avowal of his sentiments, and public censure of the unprincipled and atrocious conduct of France. The Poem itself is written ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... by the singular appearance of his visitor that he remained fixed without uttering a word, until the old gentleman, having performed another and a more energetic concerto on the knocker, turned round to look after ...
— The King of the Golden River - A Short Fairy Tale • John Ruskin.
... did not reply, for he had got something to meditate on. Close beside him, you must know, lay a singular little thing which he simply couldn't make out ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald |
