"Irregularity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that I went home vexed and disappointed, and only relieved myself a little by writing a few verses. I wonder if you will mind very much when I tell you they were suggested by you. You must forgive the poet's license I take. Here is one verse. The metrical irregularity is intentional, because I want, as it were, to put you apart: to change the lilt and the mood altogether ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... originally exist identically in both sexes. This process of sexual differentiation is highly complex, so that it cannot yet be said that there is complete agreement among investigators as to its details. When some irregularity or arrest of development occurs in the process we have one or other of the numerous malformations which may affect this region. If the arrest occurs at a very early stage we may even find a condition of things which seems to approximate to that which normally exists in the adult ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... and allowed for his excited manner. "I can trust you," he said, "Montagu, and shall take no further notice of this irregularity. And now get instantly to ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... twice, I had 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 remark ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... But Sylvia, though she had never enjoyed the advantage of any training, moral or religious, had no bad impulses even if she had no good ones, was of a rather cold character, and extremely prudent. She recoiled from the life of riot, and disorder, and irregularity, in which she had unwittingly passed her days, and which had terminated so tragically, and she resolved to make an effort to secure for herself a different career. She had heard that Mrs. Ferrars was in want of an attendant, and she determined to apply for the post. As one of the chief customers ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... 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 for Frederick William ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... length Paul of Samosata was degraded from his episcopal character, by the sentence of seventy or eighty bishops, who assembled for that purpose at Antioch, and who, without consulting the rights of the clergy or people, appointed a successor by their own authority. The manifest irregularity of this proceeding increased the numbers of the discontented faction; and as Paul, who was no stranger to the arts of courts, had insinuated himself into the favor of Zenobia, he maintained above four years the possession of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... the gunners require a week's clear notice before firing a salute.[B] There is no locomotion save in boxes and on the backs of quadrupeds; and quadrupeds of the inferior order are usually, when overtaken by death, thrown in the streets to decompose. But if the irregularity of the town would galvanize the late Monsieur Haussmann in his grave, its situation would satisfy the most exacting Yankee engineer. It is huddled in a sheltered nest on the fringe of a land of milk and honey; it has the ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... left in place, and resolutely drilled his way to the top, inserting eye-bolts five to six feet apart, and making his rope fast to each in succession, resting his feet on the last bolt while he drilled a hole for the next above. Occasionally some irregularity in the curve, or slight foothold, would enable him to climb a few feet without a rope, which he would pass and begin drilling again, and thus the whole work was accomplished in a few days. From this slender beginning he proposed to construct a substantial stairway which he hoped to complete ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... a portion of this ancient road in going from Riobamba to Cajabamba. It is well paved with cut blocks of dark porphyry. It is not graded, but partakes of the irregularity of the country. Designed, not for carriages, but for troops and llamas, there are steps ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... are not set in straight lines: they were at first, but some have died away and left an irregularity; the trees lean this way and that, and they are scarred and marked as it were with lichen and moss. It is the home of birds. A blackbird had its nest this spring in the bushes on the left side, ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... take 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 ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... kind of tracks I left, Mart," and the two men bent over the depression. They saw with astonishment that the cut surface was perfectly smooth, with not even the slightest roughness or irregularity visible. Even the smallest loose grains of sand had been sheared in two along a mathematically exact hemispherical surface by the inconceivable force of ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... academic career—if such it may be called—since he was certainly in Paris, much in want of money, at the end of 1742 and the beginning of 1743. It is probable that he had gone down from Oxford for some irregularity; he ultimately was obliged to leave the University for the same reason. For though he re-entered his college in 1744 he only remained there until the following year, when he was sent down for an irreverent jest after dinner, having taken more to drink than was good for him. His ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... the slight irregularity in the line of the steps which "the artistic sense of the Greeks preferred to mathematical accuracy," he read in ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... this verse seems to be this: if all things rest on Consciousness which is an attribute of Ignorance or Delusion, why then this uniformity instead of the irregularity that characterises all perceptions in dreams? The answer is that the uniformity is the result of past acts, of acts which are due to Consciousness. These produce uniformity of perceptions even as time, subject to its own ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... Forecasts of movements, based on general causes, are of little or no value in Persia. To this must be added the difficulties of examining and counting coins—weighing is not practicable owing to the irregularity of each coin—of the transmission of funds to distant places, and the general ignorance except in mercantile circles—of banking methods as we ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... irregularity and violence of Garnerin's descent was the giving way of one of the stays, which had the effect of deranging the balance of ...
— Up in the Clouds - Balloon Voyages • R.M. Ballantyne
... carried to that height, that some Persons have pretended to fix false Grammer on one of the most celebrated Writers perhaps at this Time in Europe, but how justly, I leave to the Determination of those who have perused the Bishop's incomparable Answer; but admitting his Lordship had permitted an irregularity of Grammer to pass unobser'd [typo for "unobserv'd"?], he is not the first of his Sacred Character that has done it, and small Errors of this kind are easily looked over, where the Nominative Case is at a distance from the Verb, or a Performance ...
— A Vindication of the Press • Daniel Defoe
... of the alien are closely related to the general question of unemployment. He suffers in an acute degree from the want of system in the regularization of industry, and the fact that we have failed to recognize unemployment, and all irregularity of employment as a condition to be met and provided against ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... almost as numerous as the trees in the forest, and it is somewhat fresh to come upon something that is novel. In these lamps the carbons are consumed as the current flows, and it is the variation in their consumption which occasions the flickering and irregularity of the light that is so irritating to the eyes. Special mechanical contrivances or regulators have to be used to compensate for this destruction of the carbons, as in the Siemens and Brush type, or else refractory materials have to be combined with the carbons, as in the Jablochkoff ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various
... cells, but they have not displayed such ingenuity as the bees have done. Their combs have only one course of cells, and they have not the foundation which serves the bees for their double rows. Hence there is less strength, more irregularity, and a loss of time, of material, and of room, which really means that a quarter of the labor employed and a third of the space occupied is lost. We also find certain other domesticated bees, not so far progressed in civilization, which only ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... act a grand Roman official is not above trying to blast Appelles' reputation by falsely charging him with misappropriating public moneys. Appelles, who is too proud to endure even the suspicion of irregularity, strips himself to naked poverty to square the unfair account, and his troubles begin: the blight which is to continue and spread strikes his life; for the frivolous, pretty creature whom he brought from Rome has no taste for poverty and agrees to elope with a more competent candidate. Her presence ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... turned to ice in my veins, and I felt convinced I looked upon His Satanic Majesty. The vast wall of rock, arising a sheer hundred feet directly opposite to where we lay, appeared densely black now in the shadow, but as my glance swept higher along its irregularity, the upper edge, jagged from outcropping stones, stood clearly revealed in the full silver sheen of the moon, each exposed line, carven as from marble, standing distinctly forth in delicate tracery against the background ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... deceived, too, in respect to the shape of the enclosure. In feeling my way I had found many angles, and thus deduced an idea of great irregularity; so potent is the effect of total darkness upon one arousing from lethargy or sleep! The angles were simply those of a few slight depressions, or niches, at odd intervals. The general shape of the prison was square. What I had taken for masonry seemed now to be iron, or some other metal, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... stirring of my 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 a ...
— The Shunned House • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... man now whose cottage is ornamented much in the way I have described, a man of sixty, who can neither read nor write, and is rude and uncouth in speech, yet everything about him seems pleasant and happy. To my eye the thatch and gables, and picturesque irregularity of this class of cottages, are more pleasing than the modern glaring red brick and prim slate of dwellings built to order, where everything is cut with a precise uniformity. If a man can be encouraged to build his own house, depend upon it it is better for him and his neighbours than that ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... as though by magic, for such was the power of the wind that the slightest irregularity of surface, the slightest lift of a wave, was at once torn off and swept away to leeward in the form of spray so dense that it was impossible to see farther than a few yards in any direction. And perhaps ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... even these in varying and often in sufficient quantities. To this diet may be attributed the prevalence of skin diseases, and ulcers on the legs and joints. The scurfy skin disease so common among savages has a close connexion with the poorness and irregularity of their living. The Malays, who are never without their daily rice, are generally free from it; the hill-Dyaks of Borneo, who grow rice and live well, are clean skinned while the less industrious and less cleanly tribes, who live for a portion of the year on ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... quarters nursing a hot and uneasy indignation. He dreaded the chaff of his comrades almost as much as the anger of his superiors. He felt as though he had been entrapped into a damaging exposure. The truth was confoundedly grotesque and embarrassing to justify; putting aside the irregularity of the combat itself which made it come dangerously near a criminal offence. Like all men without much imagination, which is such a help in the processes of reflective thought, Lieutenant D'Hubert became frightfully harassed by the obvious aspects of his predicament. He was certainly ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... landed. But he found his situation very far from such as comported with his ideas of royal authority and state. Charles was a gay, dissipated, reckless young man. The men whom he had to deal with were stern, sedate, and rigid religionists. They were scandalized at the looseness and irregularity of his character and manners. He was vexed and tormented by what he considered their ascetic bigotry, by the restraints which they were disposed to put upon his conduct, and the limits with which they insisted on bounding his authority. Long negotiations and debates ensued, each ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... often coincides with the onset of epilepsy, and in some cases irregularity of the menses seems to be a ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... produced which 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 calculation will show that the irregularity was of grave importance. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... her, Lawson—land, house, trade, and money. You're pretty sure there's no irregularity in that ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... reduction in size of nut, especially with oblong varieties in length, (2) increased proportion of faulty kernels, (3) increased irregularity of crop, (4) practical crop failure, and lastly the (5) partial, then ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fifteenth Annual Meeting • Various
... no names on the streets; where there are numbers they have no sequence, and I met no Europeans on foot to help me in my difficulty. Yokohama does not improve on further acquaintance. It has a dead-alive look. It has irregularity without picturesqueness, and the grey sky, grey sea, grey houses, and grey roofs, look harmoniously dull. No foreign money except the Mexican dollar passes in Japan, and Mr. Fraser's compradore soon metamorphosed ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... experienced in procuring supplies, for the villages were found deserted and the inhabitants had carried off, destroyed, or hidden their stores of grain. The force was embarrassed by a horde of Hazaras, who swarmed in wild irregularity on its flanks, plundering and burning with great vindictiveness, eager to wreak vengeance on their Afghan foes. And it had another although more distant companionship, in the shape of several thousand ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... prolonged absence of her husband, and the irregularity of tidings, for they came at uncertain as well as wide intervals, her yearnings after her vanished Molly, which had become more patient, returned with all their early vehemence, and she began to brood ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... when he recognised the handwriting in which the address was written. The hand which had penned those lines had been somewhat tremulous, that was plain from the irregularity of the script, but he recognised ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... affections. I have heard an official person declare, that the spectacle of her desolation and frantic anguish was the most frightful thing he had ever witnessed, and so harrowing to the feelings, that all who could by their rank venture upon such an irregularity, absented themselves during the critical period from the office which corresponded with the government; for, as I have said, the affair took place in a large provincial city, at a great distance from the capital. All who knew this woman, or who were witnesses to the ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... 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 ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... appeared to be an opening. When it was taken out of the water it stood upright on its legs and crawled a little like a large beetle, but soon died. In the water it swam with the legs, and the last joint appeared to be feathered. It will be seen that there is a great irregularity in the position of the legs of this insect. The specimen appeared to me to be in some respects imperfect; but I figured it exactly as it was, without blindly guessing at its perfect state. It was not thicker than ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... sedulously respectable conscientiously manly, conforming, well-behaved men, who never, to the knowledge of their pupils and the public, at any rate, think strange thoughts do imaginative or romantic things, pay tribute to beauty, laugh carelessly, or countenance any irregularity in the world. All erratic and enterprising tendencies in him have been checked by them and brought at last to nothing; and so he emerges a mere residuum of decent minor dispositions. The dullness of the scholastic atmosphere the grey, intolerant mediocrity that is the natural ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... smooth and flowing to those in which the vertical section has a deep indentation at both the stem and opposite ends, and those in which the horizontal section is broken by deep indentures and sutures often disposed with great irregularity. ...
— Tomato Culture: A Practical Treatise on the Tomato • William Warner Tracy
... and lasting regard. "I've lived under four dukes and four 'ousekeepers, and I'm not going to be put upon in my old age!" was the exclamation of an ancient poultry-woman, whose dignity had been offended by some irregularity touching her Christmas dinner. When the daughter of the house married and went into a far country, she was sure to find some emigrant from her old home who welcomed her with effusion, and was full of enquiries about his Lordship and her Ladyship, and Miss Pinkerton the governess, ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... religion the two things were inseparably bound together; the fury of the Hebrew prophets, for example, is continually proclaiming the extraordinary "wrath" of their God at this or that little dirtiness or irregularity or breach of the sexual tabus. The ceremony of circumcision is clearly indicative of the original nature of the Semitic deity who developed into the Trinitarian God. So far as Christianity dropped this rite, so far Christianity disavowed the old associations. But to this day the representative ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... bow-legged from much riding, with sallow, freckled face, a thin fuzz of beard, weak mouth and chin, and eyes remarkable for their small size and piercing quality and different color. For one was gray and the other was hazel. There was no scar on his face, but the irregularity of his features reminded one who knew that he had once been kicked in the face ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... she were much better and happier with "Sister" always at her service, and Paula and Thekla were delighted to amuse her. Paula was in a state of delight with Sister Angela, only a little puzzled by the irregularity of her course, though it was carefully explained that she had never been under any vows. To hear of her doings among the Australian women was a romance, often as there had been disappointment. "Paula is a born Sister," said Angela, "a much truer ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... 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 him with condescension. He found her a courtly old lady, formerly a Beauty, ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... and what wholesome order in the gastric region, are betokened by slumber so entirely undisturbed with starts, cramp, twitches, muttered dreamtalk, trumpet-blasts through the nasal organ, or any slightest irregularity of breath! You must hold your own breath, to satisfy yourself whether he breathes at all. It is quite inaudible. You hear the ticking of his watch; his breath you do not hear. A most refreshing slumber, doubtless! And yet, the Judge cannot be ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... building bridges. On good roads there is greater inducement to individuals to erect inns; and in well arranged streets to build good houses—than where uncertainty as to the permanent direction of the one, or irregularity in the plan or line of the ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... side seemed to comprehend the object or intentions of the other; each was waiting for the other to deliver the first blow. A more beautiful battle-ground could not have been chosen. Not a bush or even the slightest irregularity of ground intervened between the two lines, which now stood frowning and facing each other. Chiefs could be seen riding along the line, as if directing and exhorting their braves to deeds ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... turned his eyes toward the battle where the shooting sometimes crackled like bush-fires, sometimes sputtered with exasperating irregularity, and sometimes reverberated like the thunder. He saw the smoke rolling upward and saw crowds of men who ran and cheered, or stood and blazed away at ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... juries according to his personal hatred or his personal interest.—We have lately had a very melancholy instance of the terror created by this tribunal, as well as of the notions that prevail of its justice. A gentleman of Calais, who had an employ under the government, was accused of some irregularity in his accounts, and, in consequence, put under arrest. The affair became serious, and he was ordered to prison, as a preliminary to his trial. When the officers entered his apartment to take him, regarding the judicial procedure as a mere form, ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... a 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 ...
— Archeological Investigations - Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 • Gerard Fowke
... life that is nearly normal—much more normal than I dreamed could be possible forty miles from the front. We are still in the zone of military operations, and probably shall be until spring, at least. Our communications with the outside world are frequently cut. We get our mail with great irregularity. Even our local mail goes to Meaux, and is held there five days, as the simplest way of exercising the censorship. It takes nearly ten days to get an answer ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... India. The ethical concept and the moral significance of life are beginning to grip India very thoroughly. And I believe that the day will soon come when sin will cease to be connected with intellectual delusion and ignorance, and also with ceremonial irregularity, and will be recognized in its true moral hideousness as a thing of will, and not of intellect, a thing of deepest life, ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... suddenly disappeared, to show that there are mighty disturbances in the sidereal heavens which entirely negative the idea of "conservation" as a geognostic law. But the phenomena of variable stars, with all their apparent irregularity of motion and fluctuations in luminosity, are now being traced to definite and well-determined laws of motion, if not of light, while the theory of extinguished and disappearing stars belongs exclusive to the age of Tycho Brahe. ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... coldness of the climate; they were more brown than green—far browner than the ripe grass of the little hay-garths. Here, as at Wanlockhead, were haycocks, hay-stacks, potato-beds, and kail-garths in every possible variety of shape, but, I suppose from the irregularity of the ground, it looked far less artificial—indeed, I should think that a painter might make several beautiful pictures in this village. It straggles down both sides of a mountain glen. As I have said, there is a large mansion. ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... One of the ships near one wing of the wedge must have passed over unusually soft ground, or perhaps some irregularity in the control of its canopy generator caused it to dig deeper into the earth ahead of it, for it gave a sudden downward lurch, and on coming up out of it, swerved a bit to one side, its offense beam slicing full into the ship echeloned ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan
... 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. A Chinaman was run over and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... England are constructed; the front projects into porticos and vestibules, and rises into many gables, some in a row, and others crowning semi-detached portions of the structure; the windows mostly open on hinges, but show a delightful irregularity of shape and position; a multiplicity of chimneys break through the roof at their own will, or, at least, without any settled purpose of the architect. The whole affair looks very old,—so old, indeed, that the front ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... for want of men, but more so from indolence and irregularity. None were in a posture of defence; few but might be surprised with the greatest ease. At one fort, the Indians rushed from their lurking-place, pounced upon several children playing under the walls, ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... polite 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 on the 26th ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang
... obedient 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 ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... "Tuan! Tuan!" and I stepped from my bed to meet a friendly looking man in a mackintosh, who proved to be Mr. B. Massey, the manager. We talked together for an hour in the calm of a Bornean night. What he said about the irregularity of the climatic conditions interested me. Two years previously it had been so dry for a while that prahus could move only in canals made in the river-bed. His friends had thought him mad to come to Borneo, but he liked the climate better than that of Java. His ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... world, with indications by which its inmost secrets may be searched out. In fine, criticism should examine with a stricter, instead of a more indulgent eye, the merits of females at its bar, because they are to justify themselves for an irregularity which men do not commit in appearing there; and woman, when she feels the impulse of genius like a command of Heaven within her, should be aware that she is relinquishing a part of the loveliness of her sex, and obey the inward voice with sorrowing reluctance, like the Arabian maid who bewailed ...
— Biographical Sketches - (From: "Fanshawe and Other Pieces") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... secured the triumph of legal virtue and the punishment of irregularity, and the play might be dismissed as uninterestingly orthodox were it not for the fourth act, showing how the wronged wife came to the woman she had once wronged to ask and grant forgiveness. Strangely as it may sound, they found their love for one another unchanged. ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... exposed land consists of several unlike formations, sedimentary and igneous, the denudation produces changes proportionably more heterogeneous. The formations being disintegrable in different degrees, there follows an increased irregularity of surface. The areas drained by different rivers being differently constituted, these rivers carry down to the sea different combinations of ingredients; and so sundry new strata of ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... within the clusters indicate an occupancy extending over a considerable period of time. A reference to the ground plan will show that continuous wall lines are the exception, and it is seldom that more than two or three rooms are grouped together in regular order. In irregularity of arrangement the inhabitants of this village followed a general habit, the result of which can be seen today in all the inhabited villages and in most of the large pueblo ruins. It indicates a steady growth of the village by the addition of rooms, one or two ...
— Aboriginal Remains in Verde Valley, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... left, somewhat to the rear, was another tank, and at this the native levies were placed. The main position was held by the sepoys, with the two six-pounders. As the Burmese advanced, a sharp fire was opened upon them; but they availed themselves of every irregularity of the ground, and of cover of all kinds, and threw up shelter banks with such rapidity that the fire was, by no means, so effective as had ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... week of February and in the beginning of March, attacks of pain in the region of the heart, with irregularity of the pulse, became frequent, coming on indeed nearly every afternoon. A seizure of this sort occurred about March 7, when he was walking alone at a short distance from the house; he got home with difficulty, and this was the last time that ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... soil. This we propose doing by the aid of figures. Soil examined mechanically, is found to consist entirely of particles of all shapes and sizes, from stones and pebbles, down to the finest powder; and, on account of their extreme irregularity of shape, they cannot lie so close to one another as to prevent there being passages between them, owing to which circumstance soil in the mass is always more or less porous. If, however, we proceed to examine one of the smallest particles of which soil is made ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... 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 ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... variance with the majority, are either constantly interrupted in their own arrangements, or else are interfering with the rights and interests of others. This is exemplified in the case of schools. In families where late rising is practiced, either hurry, irregularity, and neglect are engendered in the family, or else the interests of the school, and thus of the community, are sacrificed. In this, and many other matters, it can be shown that the well-being of the bulk of the people is, to a greater or less extent, impaired by this self-indulgent ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... seriously obstructed by ice, which was now seen to extend from the south cape of the inlet, in a solid mass, round by E. to E. N. E.; owing to this circumstance, the shallowness of the water, the rapidity of the tides, the tempestuous weather, the irregularity of the coast and the numerous inlets and rocks for which it is remarkable, our progress was no less dangerous than tedious, yet we succeeded in penetrating below the latitude of 70 north, in longitude 92 west, ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... irregularity, pettiness, ill-health, and unserviceableness of modern woman seems to lie, therefore, along educational lines. Not in a general and cultural education alone, but in a special and occupational interest and practice for women, married and unmarried. This should be preferably gainful, though ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... wriggling it in a fork, as shown. Weight the board very slightly, so as to give the small necessary pressure, and produce the cut by rotating the tube by hand. When a cut is nearly completed take great care that the two ends join, or irregularity will result. This is not always easy to do unless the tube happens to be straight. Having got a cut, start a crack by means of a fine light watchmaker's hammer, or even a bit of fused glass, and entice the crack round the cut by tapping with ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... subjects so interesting to her as a farmer, that it was past nine o'clock before she looked round for her children. Healthy as Lucilla was, her frame was so slight and unsubstantial, and her spirits so excitable, that over-fatigue or irregularity always told upon her strength and temper; for which reason Honor had issued a decree that she should go to bed at nine, and spend two hours of every morning in quiet employment, as a counterbalance to the ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... am aware of it. But by what right have they done so? Everywhere else in Genesis we find events recorded in chronological order, and there is no reason why the historian should in this instance commit the irregularity of passing from the end of the seventh day to the beginning of the sixth: it is certainly much more likely that in the story of the second chapter and seventh verse he has passed on to an event which transpired at the close of the seventh day, or, still more ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Mental Progress. Analysis of the "Learning Curve." Irregularity. Rapid Progress at Beginning. The Plateau. ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... sounded the "taboor," the troops fell in, the irregulars (late slave-hunters) formed in line with that charming irregularity which is generally met ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... Cuvier speaks of certain supernumerary teeth occasionally developed in each of the jaws. There is much irregularity accompanying them; and they have even been supposed to have extended to seven or ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... 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 ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... instead of extremes and fluctuations. But in England, the apartments, 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 Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 272, Saturday, September 8, 1827 • Various
... of Newcastle- -"His Grace loses an hour in the morning, and is looking for it all the rest of the day." Everybody with whom the unpunctual man has to do is thrown from time to time into a state of fever: he is systematically late; regular only in his irregularity. He conducts his dawdling as if upon system; arrives at his appointment after time; gets to the railway station after the train has started; posts his letter when the box has closed. Thus business is thrown into confusion, and everybody ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... are not weak on the island, but they are so subordinated to the instincts of the family that they rarely lead to irregularity. The life here is still at an almost patriarchal stage, and the people are nearly as far from the romantic moods of love as they are from the impulsive life ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... difficult to say what a shock it was to her to be greeted cheerfully by Sanchia. To see one in so painful a situation occupied by anything less painful, interested in anything at all, was truly shocking. Mrs. Devereux's idea of irregularity was that it absorbed the devoted victim, kept her aghast. If it did not, surely, there was no reward left to the virtuous. But here we had a highly irregular young woman behaving with extreme regularity. Was the world turning ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... it did not 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 ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... the ground at which the trunk begins to branch and the extent of the branching should be noted. The direction taken by the branches, as well as the regularity and the irregularity of their position, should also be ...
— Trees of the Northern United States - Their Study, Description and Determination • Austin C. Apgar
... was some trifling irregularity, some misappropriation in the house accounts; and fearing to hasten the death of the sufferer by the shame of the confession of a fault, he sent word that he heartily forgave him, that he might die tranquil, and refused to see him. Baulieu expired, taking his ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE COUNTESS DE SAINT-GERAN—1639 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... resided; but the valley of the river was shallow and bald, for as far up as ever I had the heart to follow it. There were roads, certainly, but roads that had no beauty or interest; for, as there was no timber, and but little irregularity of surface, you saw your whole walk exposed to you from the beginning: there was nothing left to fancy, nothing to expect, nothing to see by the wayside, save here and there an unhomely-looking homestead, and here and there a solitary, spectacled stone-breaker;[12] and you were only accompanied, ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... battlements are square. At short intervals there are walled-up gateways, round-headed or ogival in form, and the whole surface is rent and patched. Centuries of war and earthquakes, rain and fire, have given it a pleasant irregularity, the record of ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... the house have been turned off, and consequently there is a greater amount of gas available for the jets still burning, which therefore feel an increased pressure. As a matter of fact, the pressure of gas in the main is constantly varying, owing partly to the irregularity of the delivery from the gasometer, and partly to the fact that the number of burners in action is not the same for many minutes together. It must also be remembered that houses near the gasometer end of the main will receive their gas ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... hypostyle hall, the capital is 10 feet high, the shaft 33 feet, and the base diameter 6-3/4 feet. At the Ramesseum, the capital is 5- 1/2 feet high, the shaft 24-1/2 feet, and the base diameter 5 feet 10 inches. We find the same irregularity as to architraves. Their height is determined only by the taste of the architect or the necessities of the building. So also with the spacing of columns. Not only does the inter- columnar space vary considerably between temple and temple, or chamber and chamber, but sometimes—as ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... better." He then turned to Michael and looked at him earnestly a moment. "The fact is, sir," said he, "there is a little irregularity about this bill which must be explained, or your son might be called on ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... England, and even went so far as to give England to the Pope as a perpetual fief. In token of his vassalage he agreed to pay to the Papal See the annual sum of 1000 marks. This tribute money was actually paid, though with very great irregularity, until the seventeenth year of the ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... place for that purpose, and may after such appraisement sell them to the best advantage. The rent may then be taken, including all expences, and the overplus left in the hands of the constable for the owner's use. If a landlord commit an unlawful act or any other irregularity, in making distress for rent which is justly due, the distress itself will not on that account be deemed unlawful; but full damages may be demanded by the injured party, with full costs of suit; either in an action of trespass, or on ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... her reasoning imperturbation, prudent foresight, and love of order and activity, with his excessive irritability and sensitiveness, wanton carelessness, and unconquerable propensity to idleness and every kind of irregularity. While George Sand sat at her writing-table engaged on some work which was to bring her money and fame, Musset trifled away his time among the female singers and dancers of the noiseless city. In April, 1834, before the poet had quite recovered from the effects ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... over them, that from one reign to another* all maxims upon all subjects may be changed. The Russians, both men and women, generally carry into love their characteristic impetuosity, but their disposition to change makes them also easily renounce the objects of their choice. A certain irregularity in the imagination does not allow them to find happiness in what is durable. The cultivation of the understanding, which multiplies sentiment by poetry and the fine arts, is very rare among the Russians, and with these fantastic and vehement dispositions, love is rather a fete or a delirium ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... mistresses, without the protection of lanterns, by which they were enabled to gallant in a way that never could have before happened: for lanterns are kenspeckle commodities, and of course a check on every kind of gavaulling. Thus, out of the lamps sprung no little irregularity in the conduct of servants, and much bitterness of spirit on that account to mistresses, especially to those who were of a particular turn, and who did not choose that their maidens should spend their hours a-field, when they could be profitably employed ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... He served the State," Blondel answered quietly. He had winked at more than one irregularity on the part of Grio, and at the sound of the name anger gave place to caution. "I have also," he continued, "my eye upon him, as I shall have it upon Basterga. Will that ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... it is another," growled the husband. "I'm getting tired of this irregularity. There'd soon be no breakfast to get, if I were always ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... was used and there was nothing by which to check in order to determine the correctness of the number on the certificate. In many cases no unused ballots were returned. The poll lists did not tally with the number of votes and even a recount could not reveal whether fraud or carelessness had led to irregularity. ...
— Woman Suffrage By Federal Constitutional Amendment • Various
... Further, if a man do something which may cause death, by striking, or by sentencing, and if death does not ensue, he does not contract irregularity: but he would if death were to ensue. Therefore the consequence of an action increase its ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... certain, irregularities and deficiencies which are not only signs of life, but sources of beauty. No human face is exactly the same in its lines on each side, no leaf perfect in its lobes, no branch in its symmetry. All admit irregularity as they imply change; and to banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyse vitality. All things are literally better, lovelier, and more beloved for the imperfections which have been divinely ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... of the Kalendar[588] and the correction of the irregularity in the reckoning of time were handled by him skilfully, and being completed were of the most varied utility. For it was not only in very ancient times that the Romans had the periods of the moon in confusion with respect ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... which at its junction with his trousers in front was securely held by a large nail. His hair presented an appearance not unlike the negligent architecture of an eagle's nest, which is of the bungalow type in its loose irregularity. He had not the slightest reason for supposing that Pee-wee was equipped with commissary stores, but on general principles ...
— Pee-Wee Harris Adrift • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... the first swoop of the hurricane that the surface of the ocean was as it were crushed flat by it, and the slightest irregularity that presented itself was instantly torn away and swept to leeward in the form of spray. Thus for the first hour or so it was impossible for the sea to rise. At the end of that time, however, the tormented ocean began to assert itself, and, although their crests continued to be torn ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... were oval and lifted the least bit at the outer corners. The bow of her upper lip drew up a little most engagingly at the middle (like Teresa Durbeyfield's), an irregularity more endearing to the eye than any flawlessness. There was the possibility of tenderness in this mouth; more than the promise of strength in the finely cut chin. Her thick lashes began pure gold, but changed their minds abruptly in the middle, and ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... To prevent the irregularity in stitches, the needles should never be allowed to protrude more than 1 or 11/2 c/m, from the work. All exaggerated movement of the arms, which renders knitting a very tiring occupation, should ...
— Encyclopedia of Needlework • Therese de Dillmont
... following morning, we started for the place at which it had been arranged that we should cross the Morumbidgee, but, though no more than five miles in a direct line from Whaby's house, in consequence of the irregularity of the ground, the drays did not reach it before noon. The weight and quantity of our stores being taken into consideration, the task we had before us was not a light one. Such, however, was the industry of the men, that before it became ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... 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. Am ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... and small d may be mistaken for it, with the i undotted and t uncrossed. Despite its geometrical and caligraphic inaccuracy in detail, this hand is generally written with great regularity, that is, the characters, though incomplete, are always uniform in their irregularity. The e is never open, but is an undotted i, and n is u, but when the peculiarities of the writer become familiar this hand is often ...
— The Detection of Forgery • Douglas Blackburn
... and obvious application of this mode of geographic study of cities appears the criticism, and; when possible, the amendment of the city's plan, the monotonous rectangularity of the American city, and the petty irregularity more common in our own, being alike uneconomic and inartistic because ungeographic, irrational because irregional. With the improvement of communications, the physicist's point of view thus introduced—that of the economy of the energies of the community—is ...
— Civics: as Applied Sociology • Patrick Geddes
... Augustus against the world at large, and against the band of creditors, till the world at large and the band of creditors began to think that he was leagued with Augustus,—so as to be one of those who would make large sums of money out of the irregularity of the affair. This made him cross, and put him into a very bad humor as he went back ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... good work with her needle. She was my seamstress and the thick fur clothes worn on the trip to the Pole were sewn by her. The Esquimos lived as happily as in their own country and carried on their domestic affairs with almost the same care-free irregularity as usual. The best-natured people on earth, with no bad habits of their own, but a ready ability to assimilate the vices of civilization. Twenty years ago, when I first met them, not one used tobacco or craved it. To-day every member ...
— A Negro Explorer at the North Pole • Matthew A. Henson
... although at times many crevasses must be crossed, particularly at what is called the Junction, just above the point where the Glacier des Bossons and the Glacier de Taconnaz are divided by the Montagne de la Cote. Here some underlying irregularity of the rocks, deep beneath the surface of the mighty river of ice, causes the formation of a labyrinth of fissures and crevasses, overhung with towering seracs, or ice turrets; and the ice descends between the Grands Mulets and ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... inauguration in the holy office—their assistance at his coronation without protest, when some at least might have been safe beyond the walls of Rome—their acceptance of honors, as by the cardinals of Limoges, Poitou, and Aigrefeuille—the homage of all—might seem to annul all possible irregularity in the election, to confirm irrefragably the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... into the editor's hands, this is by far the most uncouth and savage. It is usually chaunted in a sort of wild recitative, except the burden, which swells into a long and varied howl, not unlike to a view hollo'. The words, and the very great irregularity of the stanza (if it deserves the name), sufficiently point out its intention and origin. An English woman, residing in Suport, near the foot of the Kershope, having been plundered in the night by a band ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... his weaknesses,—principally an almost hilarious political irregularity,—but two Republican hands were raised against him in the Senate when he was nominated for the Court of Saint James. When he rather unbecomingly filliped John Bull on the nose in his maiden speech as the premier ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... in to her meals with much irregularity; and her remarks about the imperfections of her clock met with no rejoinder. And yet one can scarcely be so severe as had been Mrs. Taylor, and become wholly as mild as milk. There was one recurrent event that could invariably awaken hostile ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... artillery the lugs or ear-shaped rings fashioned on the larger bombs or mortar-shells for their convenient handling with shell-hooks. The irregularity of surface caused by the ears is intended to be modified in future construction by the ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... 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 the spectator in imagination ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... seen lots of Turkish soldiers walking in comfortable irregularity; and, after feeling ourselves to be dreadful guys for two hours, returned to the hotel whence we were to start for the canal boats. You may think this account is exaggerated, but it is not; the pertinacity, vigour and screams of ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... Muse a liberty must take— Start not! still chaster reader—she'll be nice hence- Forward, and there is no great cause to quake; This liberty is a poetic licence, Which some irregularity may make In the design, and as I have a high sense Of Aristotle and the Rules, 't is fit To beg his pardon ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... had read scores of times, as everybody has, that a man floating in the water has only to throw his head back, to keep his hands down, and to rest quite still to be safe. I tried this promising experiment, and whether from the weight of my wet clothes or the irregularity of my breathing, I found that it would not answer, and that I was compelled to keep in motion. I could feel that the current was carrying me, and as I paddled along, most carefully husbanding my strength, ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... is also attributed to Raleigh. If it has less brilliance of fancy, it has none of the faults of the preceding, and is far more artistic in construction and finish, notwithstanding a degree of irregularity. ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... accurate in the distinctions they made between things than in the use of the terms applied to them. There was nothing new about this form of taxation. Glimpses which we get here and there of feudalism in operation lead us to suspect that, in small matters and with much irregularity of application to persons, it was in not infrequent use. These particular payments, pressing as they did heavily on the Church and exciting its vigorous objection, carry us back with some interest to the beginning of troubles between Anselm and ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... feeling of personal independence is apt to impair their confidence in one another. Their habit is to obey the individual impulse. They do not wait to take their temper from their neighbor right and left. Hence their irregularity—the difficulty of restraining them—of making them act in routine, and with entire reference to the action of other bodies. So far from deriving strength from feeling another's elbow, they much prefer elbow room. Could they be assured of one another, they were the greatest ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... easy landowners, with their treble amount secured on their estates. The improvident owners, or the careless heirs, were soon entangled in the usurer's nets; and, after the receipt of a few years, the annuity, by some latent quibble, or some irregularity in the payments, usually ended in Audley's obtaining the treble forfeiture. He could at all times out-knave a knave. One of these incidents has been preserved. A draper, of no honest reputation, being arrested by a merchant for a debt of L200, Audley bought the debt at L40, for ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... Borneo, Celebes, New Guinea, Siam, and the other innumerable isles of the archipelago. These were more or less connected with prahus laden with the rich and varied merchandise of the eastern seas. As each man in the town had been permitted to build his house according to his own fancy, picturesque irregularity was the agreeable result. It may be added that, as each man spoke his own language in his own tones, Babel ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... reign of Lewis XIV. It covers a space of three hundred and sixty toises[1] long by one hundred and sixty-eight broad. To the north and south, it is bordered, throughout its length, by two terraces, one on each side, which, with admirable art, conceal the irregularity of the ground, and join at the farther end in the form of a horse-shoe. To the east, it is limited by the palace of the Tuileries; and to the west, by ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... Hence, when it came to the question of the naturalisation of the Uitlanders, the books which should have recorded their registration were either withheld or missing. Settlers in the Transvaal between the years 1882 and 1890, owing to this irregularity, were debarred from proving their registration as the law required. Speaking of this period, Mr. Fitzpatrick, in ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... was a day of triumph for Frank Duryea. Writing Charles about his success the next day he said, "Took out carriage again last night and gave it another test about 9 o'clock." The only difficulty he mentioned was a slight irregularity in the engine, caused by the tiny leather pad in the exhaust-valve mechanism falling out.[35] Speaking of this trip, Frank ...
— The 1893 Duryea Automobile In the Museum of History and Technology • Don H. Berkebile
... ruddy complexion, which he was irreverently inclined to call the coarse tint, that is believed the great charm of English beauty. There was a freedom in her step and whole little womanhood, an elasticity, an irregularity, so to speak, that made her memorable from first sight; and when he had encountered her three or four times, he felt in a certain way acquainted with her. She was very simply dressed, and quite as simple in her deportment; there had been one or two occasions, when they had both smiled ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... I now suffered were insomnia, melancholia, heart irregularity, and a train of mental symptoms and feelings which common words could not begin to describe. It would have required an assortment of the very strongest adjectives and adverbs to have told any one how I felt. For the first time, ...
— Confessions of a Neurasthenic • William Taylor Marrs
... Their other aunt also visited them frequently, and always, as she said, with the design of cheering and heartening them up—though, as she never came without reporting some fresh instance of Wickham's extravagance or irregularity, she seldom went away without leaving them more dispirited than ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... itself in the individual. The chairs and the pictures must come out from the wall before we can see them. The tree must detach itself from the landscape, either by form or color, before it becomes cognizable to us. There must be irregularity and contrast. Our bodily senses relate us to things on this principle; they require something brought out and disencumbered from the mass. The eye cannot see where there is no shade, nor the hand feel ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... bottom. Instead, however, of remaining permanently where it first lodged, which would soon fill up the channel and cause the river to overflow, the scouring of the water on the bottom forces a large portion along with the current, though it be not suspended. Pursuing its course for a while, some irregularity or obstruction falls in the way—a sunken log, perhaps. This obstacle checks the progress of the moving earth—it accumulates; the next wave brings down more—the accumulation becomes greater; until, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the thumb upon the other, and tracing the inner and outer splint bones from their heads downward to their tapering extremities. Any actual enlargement will at once arrest the hand; any rising or irregularity will create suspicion and lead to close examination. Horses, especially young ones which have lately been put to work, not infrequently develop splints before any swelling appears. For this reason, in examining a case of obscure lameness, particularly if the animal is ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek
... descended it was impossible to see from its irregularity, the sides projecting in great buttresses here and there, all of grey rock, while what had seemed to be the softer portions had probably crumbled away. Here and there, though, glimpses could be obtained of what looked like profound depths where ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... 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
... letter. Mr. Furlong professed to recognise the handwriting as his uncle's. It was a cramped hand, not easy to read, and the signature was so peculiarly formed that I was hardly able to decipher it. The peculiarity consisted of the extreme irregularity in the formation of the letters, no two of which were of equal size; and capitals were interspersed promiscuously, ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... with a great laugh. "Your apology is of the finest feather, the most gracious down," said he, "but our friends must remember that in an irregularity often lie some of the most precious ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read |
