"Eccentric" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... treated my visitor so cavalierly if I had not felt sure that she was eccentric and unconventional—qualities extremely tiresome in a woman no longer young or attractive. If she were not eccentric she would not have persisted in coming to my door day after day in this silent way, without stating her errand, leaving a note, or presenting her ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... Scots were slain. True, her gallant general was no longer extant, though this was scarcely astounding when one considered the fact that he had voluntarily entered the melee quite unarmed. A touch of age, perhaps; Hastings was always an eccentric man: in any event, as epilogue, this Neville congratulated the Queen that—by blind luck, he was forced to concede,—her worthy secretary had made a prisoner of the Scottish King. Doubtless, Master Copeland was an estimable scribe, and yet—Ah, yes, Lord Neville quite followed her Majesty—beyond ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... greatly admired by the contemporaries of the poet. Marini was a voluminous writer, and was not only extolled in his own country above its classic authors, and in France, but the Spaniards held him in the highest esteem, and imitated and even surpassed him in his own eccentric career. He had also innumerable imitators in Italy, many of whom attained a high reputation during their lives, and afterwards ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... eccentric men living in Princess Anne in the early half of our century, and both of them ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... symbolism of the feminine foot or its coverings, and to regard them as a special sexual fascination, is not without significance for the interpretation of the sporadic manifestations of foot-fetichism among ourselves. Eccentric as foot-fetichism may appear to us, it is simply the re-emergence, by a pseudo-atavism or arrest of development, of a mental or emotional impulse which was probably experienced by our forefathers, and is ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... eccentric genius, Charles Townshend, whom no system could contain, is whirled out of existence, our more artificial meteor, Lord Chatham, seems to be wheeling back to the sphere of business—at least his health is declared to be re-established; but he has lost his adorers, the mob, and I doubt the wise ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... it might be Count Storri?" said Dorothy demurely, taking her pretty nose—the nose Richard saved—out of the flowers. "Those Russians are so extravagant, so eccentric!" ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... deeper than the superficial biography furnished by the newspapers—the old Hollander had done more than one piece of exquisite jewelry work for him. The old fellow was a character that beggared description, eccentric to the point of extravagance, and deaf as a post; but, in craftmanship, a modern Cellini. He employed no workmen, lived alone over his shop on one of the lower streets between Fifth and Sixth Avenues near Washington Square—and possessed a splendid contempt for such protective ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... Eccentric! There you are! He wasn't eccentric in the least. The only society he avoided was ...
— The Great Adventure • Arnold Bennett
... of medium fame, but of real genius, whose delightful home was always open to him. Mrs. Fortescue probably knew all about Paul's eccentric menage, but she had been an opera-singer in her day, had known a good many open secrets of the kind, and was a woman of the world. It was not her business to pry into that kind of secret, and she liked the young fellow for many reasons. Considering ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... up an odd-looking building, unlike anything they could remember or connect with any purpose. It was not specially high, but it was too high for its breadth to be called anything but a tower. Yet it appeared to be built entirely of wood, and that in a most unequal and eccentric way. Some of the planks and beams were of good, seasoned oak; some of such wood cut raw and recent; some again of white pinewood, and a great deal more of the same sort of wood painted black with tar. ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... appearance was most unprepossessing. He was very short, with a huge head and a remarkable shock of coal-black hair. Having hastily risen from bed, he had retained his pyjamas, but a long frock-coat hung nearly to his slippers, and in one hand he carried a pair of gloves, and in the other a huge eccentric silk hat of the true chimney-pot type. These were details, and one might have passed them over. But the man's face was sadly against him. He had the slyest eyes I have ever seen; that peculiar shifty glance which invariably sets one against an individual. And thus I became more and more convinced ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... pass a few hours near her he had tacitly suffered the mistake to continue. How he had been sorely perplexed in what way to make a decent retreat, until the baron's goblin stories had suggested his eccentric exit. How, fearing the feudal hostility of the family, he had repeated his visits by stealth—had haunted the garden beneath the young lady's window—had wooed—had won—had borne away in triumph—and, in a word, ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... was regarded as an eccentric, because he was rich by accident, and by choice—a doctor. That a man of independent means should devote his time to doctoring, chiefly doctoring folk who could not pay, passed their comprehension entirely. The native nobility ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... were in college it was necessary that he should help. In these years, as through all his youth, he was loved, spurred on in his intellectual life, and keenly criticised by his aunt, Mary Moody Emerson, an eager and wide reader, inspired by religious zeal, high-minded, but eccentric. ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... mortar; and the law will defend your wall. Build up in writing an edifice of your thoughts; and it will be open to any one, without serious impediment, to abstract stones from it, even to take the whole, if it suit him. A rabbit-hutch is property; the work of the mind is not. If the animal has eccentric views as regards the possessions of others, ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... of Gordon, who had effectually aided and abetted the riots in Scotland. Of all men in the world Lord George Gordon was the most unfit to preside over a Protestant Association. He was a member of parliament it is true, but he was chiefly remarkable there for his eccentric habits, slovenly dress, and by a progressive insanity, which on some occasions partook of the nature of oratorical inspiration. He was, however, known to be firm in his hatred towards the Papists, and adverse to any relief being afforded to them. Thus, in May, 1779, when ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... little shining box held out upon his snow-white palm. He was a type and leader of a strange breed of men which has vanished away from England—the full-blooded, virile buck, exquisite in his dress, narrow in his thoughts, coarse in his amusements, and eccentric in his habits. They walk across the bright stage of English history with their finicky step, their preposterous cravats, their high collars, their dangling seals, and they vanish into those dark wings from which there is no return. ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... stealthily, yet I think I lost not one. I watched her as keenly as she watched me; I perceived soon that she was feeling after my real character; she was searching for salient points, and weak; points, and eccentric points; she was applying now this test, now that, hoping in the end to find some chink, some niche, where she could put in her little firm foot and stand upon my neck—mistress of my nature, Do not mistake me, reader, it was no amorous influence she wished to gain—at that time ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... are many and various causes. One author states: "Mental abnormality is always due to either imperfect or eccentric physical development, or to the effects of inborn or acquired physical disease, or to injurious impressions, either ante-natal or post natal, upon the delicate and intricate physical structure known as the human brain." Some physical imperfections, more than others, give rise to mental derangements, ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... is more eccentric than the long sermons upon abstruse points of divinity and ecclesiastical history which the English ambassador delivered from time to time before the States-General in accordance with elaborate instructions drawn up by his sovereign with his own hand. Rarely has a king been more tedious, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... signature was being put to the treaty of the triple alliance, the sovereign of most distinction in Europe, owing to the eccentric renown belonging to his personal merit, the czar Peter the Great, had just made flattering advances to France. He had some time before wished to take a trip to Paris, but Louis XIV. was old, melancholy, and vanquished, and had declined the czar's visit. The Regent could not ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... many of them his suspicions were allayed, and the factor thought that, after all, though his master wanted the hut for flight-shooting, still he must be getting softening of the brain, for it was very eccentric that he should take up this new ...
— Welsh Fairy-Tales And Other Stories • Edited by P. H. Emerson
... the larders presented; Such wondrous confections the bakers invented: Such pasties and cates of eccentric design; Such sparkling decanters of rarest old wine; And ready at hand was the great wassail-bowl, And the jolly old boar's head, with lemon, so droll. The nook for musicians was carefully planned, And carols and glees would be played ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells
... The free use of white paint all over the sloping tiers of pews has prevented the interior from being as dark as it would have otherwise been, but the result of all this painted deal has been to give the building the most eccentric and indecorous appearance. ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... out before long that his master for the summer was eccentric in his habits, judging from the Sorrentine point of view in regard to order and punctuality. Ruggiero's experience of fine gentlemen was limited indeed, but he could not believe that they all behaved like San Miniato, whose temper was apparently as changeable as his tastes. ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... unless we are accustomed to live very much alone, we shall not live very much with God. But on the other hand, if you cut yourself off from the limiting, and therefore developing, society of your fellows, you will rust, you will become what they call eccentric. Your idiosyncrasies will swell into monstrosities, your peculiarities will not be subjected to the gracious process of pruning which society with your fellows, and especially with Christian hearts, will bring to them. And in every way you will ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... he ran up a wing to the westward. He then found that it was necessary to erect a southern wing to keep that side up also. Hence the present appearance of the house which has always been a subject of wonder and remark by strangers at its eccentric ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... Messrs. B. Hick and Son, engineers. This pulper is one of the most perfect in every respect that has yet been brought into use, the disadvantages belonging to the old machine having been entirely remedied. The sieve crank has a double eccentric action. The chops are regulated by set screws, and the sieve suspended in a novel and secure manner, the whole combining strength and efficacy, together with an elegance of form, ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... at eccentric varieties of this autumn flower, such as those having the petals longer and more curly than usual. To show off the flowers every branch was tied to a stick, which caused Yoshi-san to think the bushes looked a little stiff and ugly. Near the warrior was a chrysanthemum-robed lady, Benten, ...
— Child-Life in Japan and Japanese Child Stories • Mrs. M. Chaplin Ayrton
... business matters. The doctor owned considerable property, and Miss Regina proved a capable manager; as a collector of rents she certainly had no equal—to that I can cheerfully testify. She was not popular in A——, nor was her eccentric brother. Unpleasant tales were told about Matthai. I never knew all the particulars, but they had something to do with the murder of a slave in antebellum days. The townsfolk were extremely reticent on the subject, and very mercifully so, for, as I have since learned, the tragedy occurred ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... asylum here for two months, after one of his numerous indiscretions, writing tales during the day, which he read to the duchess at night. Again he came with his "divine Emilie," the learned Marquise du Chatelet, who upset the household with her eccentric ways. "Our ghosts do not show themselves by day," writes Mlle. de Launay; "they appeared yesterday at ten o'clock in the evening. I do not think we shall see them earlier today; one is writing high facts, the other, comments upon Newton. They wish ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... you have yourself to thank for her having done so; did you never treat her with coldness, and repay her marks of affectionate interest with strange fits of eccentric humour?" ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... represented—frankly—everything that he thought he most approved in woman. But nothing under the starry heavens at that moment could have forced him to lead her as a partner into that dazzling maelstrom of Mode and Modernity, because she looked "so horridly eccentric and conspicuous"—compared to the girls that he thought he didn't approve ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... that the war is popular, and that it is foolish and eccentric to oppose it. I doubt if the war is very popular in this House. But as to what is, or has been popular, I may ask, what was more popular than the American war? There were persons lately living in Manchester who had seen the recruiting party going through ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... to watching his fellow-gamesters around the table, the seemingly eccentric individual ever and anon turns his eye upon the dealer—its expression at such times being that of intense earnestness, with something that resembles reproof—as if he were annoyed by the latter handling his cards so carelessly, and would sharply rebuke him, ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... of course, have heard of the Water Cure; and many of them, we doubt not, have in their own minds ranked it among those eccentric medical systems which now and then spring up. are much talked of for a while, and finally sink into oblivion. The mention of the Water Cure is suggestive of galvanism, homoepathy, mesmerism, the grape cure, the bread cure, the mud-bath cure, and of the views of that gentleman who ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... observations through the medium of a wine-glass. His long fidelity to this method was rewarded by some remarkable results, for his private journals show that on several occasions he was able to discern as many as eight sister satellites swimming in eccentric orbits around the moon - a discovery which our much-vaunted modern science has never been able to equal or even ...
— The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Jr. (The Rubiyt of Omar Khayym Jr.) • Wallace Irwin
... true meaning, and of course in her heart she agreed with it. She was town-bred and therefore was intended for the town. Yet so strangely stubborn and eccentric is a woman's reasoning that she can feel resentment toward a man because he has brains enough to comprehend the same simple ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... Mickle, who was one of those eccentric and unhappy men who always look upon the dark side of things, went on, until Benjamin really began to feel dismayed. But on the whole, he believed that the evidence of his own senses was to the contrary, and so he soon forgot the interview. Mickle continued to live there some years, refusing ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... all expectations. As he went further out he noticed a great buoy floating a long distance away. His evil genius suggested that it would be a good thing to paddle out to the buoy and back. Many men can drink champagne and show no sign, but few can drink success and remain sober. The eccentric airs assumed by noted authors prove the truth of this. De Plonville was drunk, and never suspected it. The tide, what little there is of it in the Mediterranean, helped him, and even the gentle breeze blew from the shore. He had some doubts as to the wisdom of his course before he reached the gigantic ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... eyes. Probably that is the reason why the spectacle of the Twelve Temptations is so dear to the aged eyes of the gray-haired old gentlemen who occupy the front seats at the Grand Opera House. It is certainly a brilliant spectacle, though, like the ideal scene to which Mrs. NICKLEBY's eccentric and vegetarian lover once referred, it consists principally of "gas and gaiters." Not that it is exclusively an Old Folks' entertainment; for, as the critics say of portentously dull juvenile books, "it will be found as interesting to the young as to the old." ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 6, May 7, 1870 • Various
... age. But any one intimately acquainted with Latin literature as a whole, and not merely with the more savoury passages commonly selected, will necessarily incline to the belief that novelistic historians have too often been taking what was exceptional, eccentric, and strongly disapproved by contemporaries, for the usual and the normal. If we read about Romans swallowing emetics after gorging themselves, so that they might begin eating afresh, we may feel both disgust and pity, ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... month. The Judge spends his evenings here—when I don't actually force him to go out with me—and I spend mine down in the pleasanter quarters. I have the Liscombes and the Latimers in very often, but he never comes down if he can avoid it. They understand he's eccentric, and we let it go ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... "Drake" was in condition to sail, Jones put her in command of Lieut. Simpson, and the two vessels left the bay. This choice of commander proved to be an unfortunate one. Simpson was in many ways a most eccentric officer. He was a violent advocate of equal rights of all men, and even went so far as to disbelieve in the discipline without which no efficiency can be obtained on ship-board. He was an eighteenth-century Sir ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... in me a noteworthy but unsympathetic personality, but still her tone of voice was without that touch of ironical superiority that I thought I detected in Prince Albert's. She continued to be amiable and courteous like one unwilling to treat an eccentric fellow ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... the midst of the students. "In you, mademoiselle," he added in a tone yet lower, "I find the woman and the artist divorced. That is a vast advantage—an immense source of power. I am growing more certain of you; you are not merely cleverly eccentric as I thought. You have a great deal that no one can teach you. You have finished that—I wish to take it downstairs to show the men. It will not be jeered ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... shrewd and distrustful expression, while his keen, dark eyes, too narrowly set, were curiously shifty and searching. When absent, as he often was, a young fellow named Shipley acted as locum tenens, but so eccentric was he that even Shipley knew nothing of the engagements which took him ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... in colored sheen. Fantastic pink-and-orange crabs sidled awkwardly but nimbly this way and that. Tiny sea-horses, yet more fantastic, slipped shyly from one weed-covert to another, aware of a possible peril in every gay but menacing bloom. And just above this eccentric life of the shoal sea-floor small fishes of curious form shot hither and thither, live, darting gleams of gold and azure and amethyst. Now and again a long, black shadow would sail slowly over the scene of freakish life—the ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... quickly to restore warmth I muse upon my eccentric friend, and cannot help asking myself this question: Did he really replace the gilded image of the god Mercurius with the rest of the treasures? He seemed to do so; and yet I could not testify to the fact. Probably, however, he was as good as ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... dead kind unaccompanied by activity. He could lift a ton, but could not leap a rivulet; he looked mild, and his address was civil—neither assuming nor at all ferocious. I knew him well, and from his countenance should never have suspected him of cruelty; but so cold-blooded and so eccentric an executioner of the human race I believe never yet existed, save among the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 559, July 28, 1832 • Various
... of the Exchequer would never see Godfrey's letter. It would be opened, I supposed, by some kind of clerk or secretary. He would giggle over it and show it to a friend. He would also giggle. Then unless the spelling was unusually eccentric the letter would go into the waste-paper basket. Nothing whatever ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... having laid hold of me in this eccentric fashion, have never loosened their grip. I have no pretension to be an expert in either subject; but the turn for philosophical and historical reading, which rendered Hamilton and Guizot attractive to me, has not only filled ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... consulted: they talked of a shock to the nervous system; of great hope from time, and their patient's strength of mind; and of the necessity of acceding to her wishes in all things. Then, the advice of the aunt was sought. She was a woman of an eccentric, masculine character, who had herself experienced a love-disappointment in early life, and had never married. She gave her opinion unreservedly and abruptly, as she always gave it. "Do as Jane tells you!" said the old lady, severely; "that poor child has more moral courage and determination ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... discussing crops and cattle and lapsing into silence, frequently, that bore the signs both of expectancy and reflection. Young men and young women sat together on one side of the house whispering and giggling. Alone among them was the big and eccentric granddaughter of Mrs Bisnette, who was always slapping some youngster for impertinence. Jed Feary and Squire Town sat together behind a pile of books, both looking very serious. The long hair and beard of the old poet were now white and his ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... The eccentric John Randolph once sprang from his seat in the House of Representatives, and exclaimed in his piercing voice, "Mr. Speaker, I have found it." And then, in the stillness which followed this strange outburst, he added, "I have found the Philosopher's ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... MSS. that once belonged to the Grand Dukes, and were kept in their Palatine Galleries. There have been many later additions; but the whole mass is now dedicated to the worthiest of its former possessors, and remains as a perpetual monument of the most learned and most eccentric of bookmen. ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton
... wild-ox). It is of a bluish colour—hence the name, and "brindled," or striped along the sides. Its habits are very similar to those of the common gnoo, but it is altogether a heavier and duller animal, and still more eccentric ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... that he had interested himself in English literature at the risk of being called an eccentric. Modern languages then offered no avenue to preferment, and why, forsooth, did men attend lectures and take examinations except to gain the means of earning a livelihood? He justifies his interest, however, by the seriousness and industry with which Shakespeare is studied in ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud
... which proved to be of very little value, Samuel was entered at Pembroke College, Oxford. When the young scholar presented himself to the rulers of that society, they were amazed not more by his ungainly figure and eccentric manners than by the quantity of extensive and curious information which he had picked up during many months of desultory but not unprofitable study. On the first day of his residence he surprised his teachers by quoting Macrobius; ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... are disposed to exercise some discernment or moderation in terrorism, Camille Desmoulins, Danton and their adherents; and lastly, many others who are more or less doubtful, compromised or compromising, wearied or eccentric, from Maillard to Chaumette, from Antonelle to Chabot, from Westermann to Clootz. Each of the proscribed has a gang of followers, and suddenly the whole gang are obliged to do a volte-face; those who were able to show initiative, grovel, while those who could ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... show. No doubt, Ecelino used such things, and many worse, of which even the ingenuity of Signor P—— cannot conceive. But he is an eccentric man, loving the horrors of history, and what he can do to realize them he has done in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... the doctor, sare—so eccentric! He call for a glass of water and he dip his handkerchief in and then lift up his foot and with rapidity incredible he wash the ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... consideration, he allowed himself to admit that he had seen Mrs. Ransom during the last three days and that he had every reason to believe that there was a twin sister in the case and that all Mrs. Ransom's eccentric conduct was attributable to this fact and the overpowering sense of responsibility which it seemed to have brought to her—a result which would not appear strange to those who knew the sensitiveness of her nature and the delicate ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... then this man's home, and quite near also to Dartwood Hall, where the elder brother, Richard Fourtenay-Carew, lived. They are not a rich family at all, you know. Dartwood Hall and estates and money came to Richard Carew through a very eccentric godmother, who brought him up, and he could do as he liked with it all. His younger brother, Peter Fourtenay-Carew, and his wife had, I think, only a very small income between them besides his pay as a captain. ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... or a drive in a dog-cart. If a group of them should be seen by him laughing and talking, he instinctively concluded their topic must be ribaldry, whereas they would perhaps be only joking at the expense of some eccentric professor, or else chaffing one of their own number. And so it happened that Tom failed in time to distinguish between the really bad and such as he only imagined to be bad; and from his habit of looking ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... visit the model farm and dairy. As the American still looked indifferent the porter pointed out with some importance that it was a Ducal courtesy not to be lightly treated; that few, indeed, of the burghers themselves had ever been admitted to this eccentric whim of the late Grand Duchess. He would, of course, be silent about it; the Court would not like it known that they had made an exception to their rules in favor of a foreigner; he would enter quickly and boldly ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... cocks in the neighbourhood should first be killed; for the wizard, so the story runs, had a special aversion to Chanticleer on account of his having caused the repentance of St Peter by his crowing. In any case, the reigning Prince of Salerno gladly complied with the eccentric request, and at his command every cock in or near the place was accordingly slaughtered, with the solitary exception of one old rooster, who, being very dear to the heart of his aged mistress, was ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... way in his somewhat eccentric gait, compounded of a hop, and a skip, and a dawdle. He had made about half a mile when the path curved to the mountain's brink. He paused and parted the glossy leaves of the dense laurel that he might look out over the precipice at the distant heights. How blue—how ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... upon a word of friendly advice—not in a professional spirit, but as between man and man—I should warn you against wasting your time and fortune upon a useless pursuit. If Mrs. Holbrook has vanished from the world of her own free will—a thing that often happens, eccentric as it may be—she will reappear in good time of her own free will. If she has been the victim of a crime, that crime will no doubt come to light in due course, without any ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... singular personage, a young fellow who was "working his passage"; a sort of disconnected unit, whose place became everywhere in the train, and who belonged to nobody. How he got smuggled into the company no one has since been able to recall. He was a sort of desert stowaway; tolerated because, though eccentric and quite alarming in appearance, he was always in good humor, and often useful, having a willingness to do as many of the chores as others would trust him to perform. He was notable as a physical curiosity, ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell
... Philadelphia editor was the eccentric social wit, Hugh Henry Brackenridge, the author of the capital political satire, "Modern Chivalry" (1792), the first satirical novel written in America. He was a native of Scotland, born in 1748, but was only five years of age when ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... Zadkine live permanently in Paris; while Kisling, whom I take to be the best of the Poles, has become so completely identified with the country in which he lives, and for which he fought, that he is often taken by English critics for a Frenchman. Survage (with his eccentric but sure sense of colour), Soutine (with his delicious paint), and Marcoussis (a cubist of great merit) each, in his own way, working in Paris, adds to the artistic reputation of his native country. In the rue La Boetie ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... It was his whim for weeks on end to wear on his head the mask of a goat. At other times, "as a mark of his confidence in devils," he would appear hidden beneath a plaited straw extinguisher which fitted him from head to foot. He was eccentric in other ways which need not be particularized, but he was never so eccentric ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... (says Sterne, in his preface to his Sermons) "was printed by itself some years ago, but could find neither purchasers nor readers." When it was inserted in his eccentric work, it met with a most favourable reception, and occasioned the others to ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... and, because of his great physical weakness, led the existence of a hermit. He rarely, if ever, went out, and his habits were so essentially sedentary that a pair of shoes lasted him for fourteen years. It is hardly necessary to add that he was eccentric. But he was a man of a certain amount of culture. He had read largely, his opportunity for so doing being great. He was attracted by Mary, whom he soon discovered to be no ordinary girl, and he interested himself in forming and training her mind. ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... his successor, himself a learned man, to the complaint of his rustic parishioners, that for all his erudition no "immediate language of the Holy Ghost" was ever to be heard from him. On the whole the Rev. John Coleridge appears to have been a gentle and kindly eccentric, whose combination of qualities may have well entitled him to be compared, as his famous son was wont in after- life to compare him, ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... him the soft voice of Madame Choudey, the hostess, could be heard. She was frankly gossiping and laughing a little. The name of the Marquise de Caron was mentioned. Delaven had told him of her—an aristocrat and an eccentric—a philanthropist who was now aged. For years herself and her son had been the patrons—the good angels of struggling genius, of art in every form. But the infamous 2d of December had ended all that. He was one of the "provisionally exiled;" he had died in Rome. Madame La Marquise, ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... gears and a worm gear. The end lifts which transfer the weight of the bridge to the piers when the span is closed consist of massive eccentrics having a throw of 4 in. The clearance is 2 in., so that the ends are lifted 2 in. This gives a load of 50 tons per eccentric. One motor is placed at each end of the span to operate the eccentrics and also to release the latches and raise the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... Mrs. Robert Falkner of Torso. The lonely old rancher, it seemed, had remembered the pretty, vivacious blond girl of eighteen, who had taken the trouble to show him the sights of Denver the one time he had visited his sister ten years before. Bessie, amused at his eccentric appearance, had tried to give "Uncle Billy" a good time. "Uncle Billy," she would say, "you must do this,—you will remember it all your life. Uncle Billy, won't you lunch with me down town to-day? You must ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... his arm-chair, and advanced to greet his eccentric sister-in-law. Suddenly he drew back, and looked like a ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... heaven. To imagine that God will, in consideration of some technical device, place in heaven a man whose character fits him for hell, or, in default of that conventionality, place in hell a man whose character fits him for heaven, is to represent him as acting on an eccentric whim. And surely every one who has a worthy idea of God must find it much easier to believe that men have mixed mythological dreams with their religion, than to believe that the infinite God is capable of despotic ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... view to saving labour—the cells being fed, stoked and clinkered automatically. There is no drying hearth, and the refuse carts tip direct into a shoot or hopper at the back which conducts the material directly on to movable eccentric grate bars. These automatically traverse the material forward into the furnace, and finally push it against a flap-door which opens and allows it to fall out. This apparatus is adapted for dealing with screened rather than unscreened refuse, since it suffers from the objection that ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... lining. This she had turned inside out so that the gray was uppermost; while over her neat black bonnet she had flung a long veil, also grey, which not only hid her face, but gave her appearance an eccentric look as different as possible from her usual aspect. The hallboy, who had never seen her save in showy black or bright colours, said she looked like a ghost in the daytime, but it was all done ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... De Rilly, "that behind that serene countenance goes on the mental activity necessary to keep the throne in possession of her favorite son, who spends fortunes on his minions, taxes his subjects to the utmost, and disgusts them with his eccentric ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... Fabre is little known and little appreciated. To tell the truth, folk regard him as eccentric; they have often surprised him in the country lying on his stomach in the middle of a field, or kneeling on the ground, a magnifying glass in hand, observing a fly or some one of those insignificant creatures in which no sane person would ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... soldiers would be likely to follow on the way to the lake. It was not the shortest way to the world outside the Park. It was considerably longer than a footpath would have been. But Lockley expected tanks, at least, against which eccentric unearthly weapons would be useless. So they headed down the main highway. Lockley was unarmed. They had no food. He hadn't eaten ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... sober, humble, pure-minded, zealous, consecrated to the truth as he saw it, he labored in and out of season for the faith he held so dear; yet as the years went on, he noted that Ansel, notwithstanding his eccentric views, lived an honest, temperate, Godfearing life, talking no scandal, dwelling in unity with his brethren and sisters, and upholding the banner of Shakerism ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... married Sophia, the youngest daughter of the wealthy London banker, Thomas Coutts. One son and five daughters were born to them, the youngest Angela Georgina (April 21, 1814), now the Baroness Burdett-Coutts. Mr. Coutts was an eccentric and independent man, who married for his first wife an excellent girl of very humble position. Their children, from the great wealth of the father, married into the highest social rank, one being Marchioness of Bute, one countess of Guilford, ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... stage-doorkeepers of the different variety-theaters. His sight was beginning to fail. She wanted smartness; wasn't—how should he put it? The husband looked for a word—wasn't "Tottie" enough. However, they managed somehow, as "eccentric duetists." Lily thought that very nice, those two talents combined, very original; but could they give her any news of Ave Maria ... a great artiste ... ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... some of IBSEN'S plays to be performed, Ghosts for example, or Hedda Gabler, no doubt most of the dialogue would be given right at the back of the stage, out of ear-shot of the audience. In ordinary dramas the Villain who may have to use strong language, or in farce the Eccentric Comedian who frequently has to utter more or less playfully a meaningless "big big D," would by Imperial command be compelled to "retire up" to deliver himself of the expletive, and then would have to "come down to the front" and continue the ...
— Punch, Or the London Charivari, Volume 101, November 21, 1891 • Various
... creatures, but so dull'; they're all doing capitally in the Indian Civil! Philip was the only one he liked. I've heard him talk in the queerest way; he once said to me: 'My dear fellow, never let your poor wife know what you're thinking of! But I didn't follow his advice; not I! An eccentric man! He would say to Phil: 'Whether you live like a gentleman or not, my boy, be sure you die like one! and he had himself embalmed in a frock coat suit, with a satin cravat and a diamond pin. Oh, quite an ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... adjusted so that they normally run concentric with the shaft, but weighted so that the center of gravity is slightly displaced from the center. The centrifugal strain due to this is balanced by helical springs. But when the speed increases the centrifugal force moves the ring into an eccentric position, when it strikes a trigger and releases a weight which, falling, closes the throttle and shuts off the steam supply. The basic principle upon which all these stops are designed is the same—the centrifugal force of a weight balanced by a spring at normal speed. Figs. ...
— Steam Turbines - A Book of Instruction for the Adjustment and Operation of - the Principal Types of this Class of Prime Movers • Hubert E. Collins
... thongs, covered with quills, which, when they move, make a round rattling noise, almost equal to that of many small bells. It seems doubtful, however, whether this part of their garb be intended to strike terror in war, or is only to be considered as belonging to their eccentric ornaments on ceremonious occasions. For we saw one of their musical entertainments, conducted by a man dressed in this sort of cloak, with his mask on, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... buildings of that time. The people of this arrondissement and their neighbours in the arrondissement of Dunkirk were almost as famous before 1789 as the Dutch for their skill as florists and their success in developing all manner of eccentric varieties of roses, tulips, primroses, and pinks. I do not know that they ever managed to produce a blue rose, but they came very near it, and at the present time their rich and level country is gay with cottage gardens. They are given to sociability also, for the arrondissement ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... in the first cab we found. We tossed for it, and he won, for which I thank the gods. Then, acting on the impulse of the moment, I came back to say something to you. A very unusual—very eccentric thing to do, no doubt. But when something involving great issues has to be done or said, I think the best plan is not to wait for a favourable opportunity. Don't you ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... narrow range of temperature that life can be maintained, it is needful that our planet should be at a definite mean distance from the source of light and heat, the sun; and that the form of her orbit should be so little eccentric as to approach closely to a circle. If her mass were larger or less than it is, the weight of all living and lifeless things on her surface would no longer be the same; but absolute weight is one of the primary elements of organic construction. A change in the time of her diurnal rotation, ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... flighty character!" cried Mr Monckton, "yet of uncommon capacity, and full of genius. Were he less imaginative, wild and eccentric, he has abilities for any station, and might fix and distinguish himself almost where-ever ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... given is compounded from two different sources, almost of necessity. Stanzas 1-19 were given by Scott, compounded from W. Tytler's Brown MS. and the recitation of an old woman. But at stanza 20 Scott's version becomes eccentric, and he prints such ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick
... in his pockets. Susan took advantage of his back to give way to her own feelings of utter amazement and incredulity. She certainly was not dreaming. And the man gazing out at the window was certainly flesh and blood—a great man, if voluble and eccentric. Perhaps to act and speak as one pleased was one of the signs of greatness, one of its perquisites. Was he amusing himself with her? Was he perchance taken with her physically and employing these extraordinary methods as ways of approach? She had seen many ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... is forbidden to shoot rubbish here," and the like. My very black hair, ever inclined to run riot, was encircled by a craftily conceived band of crochet-work, such as only a fond mother's hand could devise, and I was doubtless colouring some meerschaum of eccentric design. My fellow-student, the now famous Matthew Maris, immortalised that blouse and that piece of crochet-work in the admirable oil-sketch ...
— In Bohemia with Du Maurier - The First Of A Series Of Reminiscences • Felix Moscheles
... dealt almost wholly with noumena, were absorbed. As matter of fact, none of them is now in existence, nor can we trace them, speaking broadly, beyond the tenth century. Here and there, indeed, may be a temple bearing the name of one of the sects, or grades of doctrine, and occasionally an eccentric individual who "witnesses" to the old metaphysics; but these are but fossils or historical relics, and are ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... been carried to the spot where he lay, and would have been left to die uncared for if Blindi Bobi had not chanced to pass that way. After administering such consolation as lay in a little weak wine and water from his flask, the eccentric but kind-hearted man had gone off in search of the Padre, who was always ready to hasten at a moment's notice to minister to the necessity of slaves in sickness. Too often the good man's services were of little avail, because ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... who heard his money chink, And saw the house he rented, And knew his wife, could never think What made him discontented. It never entered their pure minds That fads are of eccentric kinds, Nor would they own That fat ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... fatigue, tear for tear, blood for blood, life for life, we see every day illustrated. The act of substitution is no novelty, although I hear men talk as though the idea of Christ's suffering substituted for our suffering were something abnormal, something distressingly odd, something wildly eccentric, a solitary episode in the world's history; when I could take you out into this city, and before sundown point you to five hundred cases of substitution and voluntary suffering of one ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... catch his breath, Hugh elevated his eyebrows. Apparently his interest no longer flagged, for he instinctively guessed that something unusual must come out of Thad's mention of the strange old place, where, as he well knew, Owen Dugdale and his eccentric grandfather ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson |
