"Oddly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... turn out very oddly; don't they?' said Mark with a sly glance of complacency, and his hands in his pockets. 'But I know you'll hold the tiller till I get through; hang me if I know the soundings, or where I'm going; and you have ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... mortuary prattle with a face from which no impatience of it could be inferred, and Mr. Ferris made no comment on what was oddly various in character and manner, for Mrs. Vervain touched upon the gloomiest facts of her history with a certain impersonal statistical interest. They were rowing across the lagoon to the Island of San Lazzaro, where for reasons of her own she intended ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... wake of a pleasure-party of young men and girls, strolling along the beach after an early supper at the Point. Here, with hand kerchiefs at nose, they bend over a heap of eel-grass, entangled in which is a dead skate, so oddly accoutred with two legs and a long tail, that they mistake him for a drowned animal. A few steps farther, the ladies scream, and the gentlemen make ready to protect them against a young shark of the dogfish kind, rolling with a life-like motion in the tide that has thrown him up. ...
— The Village Uncle (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... "Oddly enough, I received no telegram from my wife, but under the circumstances I could do nothing else than return to my home at once. I sought my wife, to whom I expressed my horror and my sorrow, but she said very little. The dog I found in the basement, and he seemed very ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... does not certainly spare the coat any more than Jack in our Tale of a Tub, when he is rending away the embroidery. Here, however, the parallel must end; for Jack, though zealous, was never accused of burning the lace, if I remember right, and putting the gold in his pocket. It happened oddly, that chatting freely one day before dinner with some literary friends on the subject of coat armour, we had talked about the Visconti serpent, which is the arms of Milan; and the spread eagle of Austria, which we laughingly agreed ought to eat double because it had two necks: when the ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... peace; and he had to remind her of it more than once. Her scattered resources for argumentation sprang up from various suggestions, such as the flight of yachts, mention of the shooting season, sight of a royal palace; and adopted a continually heightened satirical form, oddly intermixed with an undisguised affectionate friendliness. Apparently she thought it possible to worry him out of his adhesion to the wrong side in politics. She certainly had no conception of the nature of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of a Christian. Langlande's writings remained in manuscript until the reign of Edward VI.; they were printed then, and went through three editions in one year. The English used in the Vision is the Midland dialect— much the same as that used by Chaucer; only, oddly enough, Langlande admits into his English a larger amount of French words than Chaucer. The poem is a distinct landmark in the history of our speech. The following is a specimen of the lines. There are three alliterative words in each line, with a ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... to me, when first I read 'Fungoids,' that, oddly enough, the Diabolistic side of him was the best. Diabolism seemed to be a cheerful, even a wholesome, ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... no answer. Somehow she felt she could not put any direct questions about this man whose changing, oddly contradictory moods had baffled her so completely and—although she would not have acknowledged it—had caught and held her imagination with equal completeness. Perhaps she was hardly actually aware how much the queer, abrupt owner of Heronsmere occupied her ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... purple and fine linen to me like this. Go to bed gorgeous, and dream that my portmanteau, bag, and self-respect are all restored to me by the afternoon boat.... There must be something in dreams, for, oddly enough, this is exactly what ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 4, 1892 • Various
... something in my thanks, or else saw, in the quiet manner with which I turned to my letters or paper, that which was unsatisfactory, and she would sigh as she left the room. Her gentle, patient efforts to please me, which oddly combined maidenly shyness and childlike simplicity, often touched the depths of my heart, and the thought came more than once, "If this is more than a girlish fancy, and time proves that I am essential to her happiness— which is extremely doubtful—perhaps I can give ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... tale he had told me of that Cairene inferno, oddly enough—yet why oddly, for the world is all coincidence!—had thrown a flood of light on certain events which had happened some three years previously and which ever since had remained shrouded in mystery. The conduct of the business afterwards came into my hands,—and briefly, ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... exaggerated politeness; but, when, at last, in walking away, he unavoidably does it, I no longer wonder at his unwillingness, as his coat-tails decline to meet within half a mile. His forefathers must have been oddly framed. ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... knew the Lady Elizabeth well in those days, as fairest and gayest of the Princesses. She was King Henry's favourite sister, though that royal gentleman showed his favour rather oddly, by granting her a quantity of damaged goods of her late husband, among which were sundry towels, "used and torn." During the terrible struggle which had just occurred, she had sided with her brother, against King Richard, of whom her husband Exeter was a fervent ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... And oddly enough, but significantly too, it has found its way into all our Nonconformist hymn-books, and we, 'the sects,' are singing it, with perhaps a nobler conception of what the oneness of the body, and the unity of the Church is, than the writer of the words had. 'We are not divided,' though we ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... forester do not end here, for it sometimes happens that the glades left by felling the older trees are not sufficiently seeded, or that the species, or essences, as the French oddly call them, are not duly proportioned in the new crop. In this case, seed must be artificially sown, or young trees planted in the vacancies. Besides this, all trees, whether grown for fruit, for fuel, or for timber, require more or less training in order ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... was bright, the coffee was excellent, the little party so oddly thrown together were happy in mutual confidence and sympathy. Such hours are not too common, and a certain kindly recognition of this one sat upon every face. Gyda was busy preparing a room for Miss Kennedy ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... visit, and to see the machine performing its functions. One day, about the middle of the month of March, as they were passing the Pont d'Arcole, having to do some commission for Rosanette in the Latin Quarter, Frederick saw approaching a column of individuals with oddly-shaped hats and long beards. At its head, beating a drum, walked a negro who had formerly been an artist's model; and the man who bore the banner, on which this inscription floated in the wind, "Artist-Painters," was no ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... scholar there when I arrived—a tall, awkward-looking girl, somewhat my senior—whom Mr. Summers introduced as 'Helen Legram.' Her only beauty was a pair of very clear eyes, that seemed to comprehend me at a glance; for the rest, her face was oddly shaped, her figure bad; and a narrow merino scarf, tied around her throat, was not a ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... with an air and a smile that might have been dispensed with, oddly said, High pleasure and high pain are very near neighbours: they are often guilty of excesses, and then are apt to mistake each other's house. I am one of those who think our whole house obliged to the chevalier ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... the Superior of the Jesuits, also accompanied the Bishop. His close, black soutane contrasted oddly with the gray, loose gown of the Recollet. He was a meditative, taciturn man,—seeming rather to watch the others than to join in the lively conversation that went on around him. Anything but cordiality and brotherly love reigned between the Jesuits and the Order of St. Francis, ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... half a block, the man's lips pressed hard together under his mustache, the girl's heart beating suffocatingly. When he spoke, his voice sounded oddly clear in the ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... How oddly her round, catlike head, with its prominent cheek bones, and the white wig combed high on the top, contrasted with the rouged, sunken cheeks and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... active in uncounted modes, still eternally holds its peace, and ignores you, though you dig foundations for cathedrals. Yet was this half-horrible stolidity in him, involving, too, as it appeared, an all-ramifying heartlessness; —yet was it oddly dashed at times, with an old, crutch-like, antediluvian, wheezing humorousness, not unstreaked now and then with a certain grizzled wittiness; such as might have served to pass the time during the midnight watch on the bearded forecastle of Noah's ark. Was it that this old carpenter had ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... severe yet salutary history of Paul. But Peter, oddly enough, made exactly the opposite request; he said he had long wished to be a pigmy about half an inch high; and of course he immediately became one. When the transformation was over he found himself in ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... like a fairy. She is at home amid green fields once more, for the ocean was to her a dreary desert, and the many strange faces made her uncomfortable. She is oddly exclusive and delicate, even chary about herself, but alone with her father she is ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... Minister who employed him whether he did well or ill. Now everybody says he is the finest fellow imaginable, and that he alone can pacify Canada. Nor do I mean to say he is unequal to the task he has undertaken, but the opinion of the world seems oddly produced, and to stand upon no very solid foundation. If he had continued plain John Lambton I doubt if he ever would have been thought of for Canada, or that the choice (if he had been sent there) would have been so approved. Why on earth ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... her hand into his with the confidence of a child. It was strange to feel her prejudice against this man evaporate at a touch. It made her oddly unsure of herself. He was the last person in the world to whom she would have ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... This is a well-known Mongol characteristic; and it is rather oddly attributed by Arabic writers to the Jinn. "Two of them appeared in the form and aspect of the Jarm, each with one eye slit endlong, and jutting horns and projecting tusks."—Story of Tohfat-el-Kulub (Thousand and One Nights, ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... my execrable pun. Steele leaned against the counter, his gray glance studying the man I had so oddly introduced. ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... bricked, and scrupulously clean, although so damp that it seemed as if the last washing would never dry up. As the cellar window looked into an area in the street, down which boys might throw stones, it was protected by an outside shutter, and was oddly festooned with all manner of hedge-row, ditch, and field plants, which we are accustomed to call valueless, but which have a powerful effect either for good or for evil, and are consequently much used among the poor. The room was strewed, hung, and darkened with ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... ball of lead gone through that man's body, I don't think he could have staggered back with a more startled expression on his face. He looked more than bewildered; he looked vaguely humiliated, oddly and wordlessly affronted, as he stood leaning against the table-edge, breathing hard, his skin a mottled blue-white to the very lips. He made an effort to speak, but no sound came from him. For a moment the dreadful thought raced through me that I had indeed shot ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... whispering that the task he had set for himself was but poorly done; that the image of Marcia still smiled unbanished above the altar of his heart; and, with all his pride and strength, this suspicion of his weakness was, oddly enough, a source of positive exultation. Caius had been with him through much of his work, for Caius served in the same legion. It was evident, however, that the young man had received strict orders on one subject; for, in all their talks, the name of Marcia never ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... horror upon the large and rather hollow features which I did not know, smiling very unpleasantly on me; and the moment it was plain that I saw her, the grey woman began gobbling and cackling shrilly—I could not distinctly hear what through the window—and gesticulating oddly with her long hands ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... shade and colour. No wonder the legend put Christ into a manger—what more devotional than the eyes and moon-white horns of a chewing cow in the warm dusk! He called again. No answer! And he hurried away out of the coppice, past the pond, up the hill. Oddly ironical—now he came to think of it—if Jon had taken the gruel of his discovery down in the coppice where his mother and Bosinney in those old days had made the plunge of acknowledging their love. Where he himself, on the log seat the Sunday morning ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the future approach of man towards immortality on earth seems to be rather oddly placed in a chapter which professes to remove the objection to his system of equality from the principle of population. Unless he supposes the passion between the sexes to decrease faster than the duration of life increases, the earth would be more encumbered than ever. But leaving this difficulty ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus
... One of these dead, oddly enough, had been named Stella Ethel Smythe, daughter of Sir Thomas Smythe, whose family lived at the old hall now in the possession of the Layards. This Stella had died at the age of twenty-five in the year ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... people whatever they wished for. You know fairies have always been able to do this. Cyril, Robert, Anthea, and Jane now found their wishes come true; but, somehow, they never could think of just the right things to wish for, and their wishes sometimes turned out very oddly indeed. In the end their unwise wishings landed them in what Robert called 'a very tight place indeed', and the Psammead consented to help them out of it in return for their promise never never to ask it to grant them any more wishes, and never to tell anyone about it, because ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... leave: I know he was. He was promoted to my company last month,—confound the luck!—and was to have six months' leave before joining. I wish it was six years. Where is he now?" And the captain peered excitedly around from under his shaggy cap. Oddly, too, his ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... Oddly enough, this pleasant speech seemed to bring a shade of sadness to Eddring's face. "A gentleman?" said he, smiling slightly. "Well, don't shake hands with me yet, sir. I don't know. You see, I'm a railroad man, ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... urged her to let him come and fetch her, but she was quite unpersuadable; and this being the case, she had ere long the pleasure of seeing them set off together in high spirits. They were gone, she hoped, to be happy, however oddly constructed such happiness might seem; as for herself, she was left with as many sensations of comfort, as were, perhaps, ever likely to be hers. She knew herself to be of the first utility to the child; and what was it to her if Frederick Wentworth ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... of the number, a tall youth seated at his elbow, and conspicuous, even in that modish company, for the exaggerated elegance of his dress. This young man, whose awkward bearing and long lava-hued face crowned with flamboyant hair contrasted oddly with his finical apparel, returned Odo's look with a gaze of eager comprehension. He too, it was clear, felt the thrill and wonder, or at least re-lived them in the younger lad's emotion; and from that moment Odo felt himself in ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... mouth wide, and disclosed a gold band around the upper part of his teeth, thereby making it apparent that every one of his brilliant grinders and incisors was a sham. This discovery affected me very oddly. ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... towered a wilderness of trees. But such trees! Without branches, shooting up and over in graceful, tangling curves, their trunks oddly flat and ribbonlike and yellow-green. It was impossible to look on them as ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... excellent girl was equal to her goodness of heart; and this is saying everything: but one instance of it, which is present to my recollection, is worthy of being related. I had told her Klupssel was a minister, and chaplain to the prince of Saxe-Gotha. A minister was to her so singular a man, that oddly confounding the most dissimilar ideas, she took it into her head to take Klupssel for the pope; I thought her mad the first time she told me when I came in, that the pope had called to see me. I made her explain herself and lost not a moment in going to relate the story to Grimm ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... this time intended to restrict suffrage permanently and definitely to white males, specifically prohibiting all "mulattoes, negroes, and Indians." This was referred to the committee of the whole, but, oddly enough, failed of adoption.[38] The intermittent debate on the subject of emancipation, led on the one side by Stephenson, and on the other by McKinney, was resumed a few days later when the latter gave an additional ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... curiously-cut patterns and cyphers. The place is so dark that it is difficult to read the inscriptions on many of the mouldering monuments, fixed together without order or symmetry on the walls. Outside are some Saxon arches, oddly built of black slate-stone; and the window-mouldings are ornamented with rough carving, which at once proclaims its own antiquity. But it is in the tower that the interest attached to the church chiefly centres. Square, thick, and of no extraordinary height, it resembles in ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... hastily through three rooms, in which there were old cabinets and trunks filled with books and music scores. There was also a piano in one. He then took a key from his pocket, and unlocked a fourth room, which had closed shades and was in fact otherwise quite oddly arranged. ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... of heads of uninvited guests poked in the door and apologetically withdrawn; and the anxious pucker of hospitality on the face of the little hostess imposed an added restraint and formality upon the oddly assorted company of guests. Beatrice Egerton played with her rings, yawned without dissimulation, and wished she had stayed at home; Eleanor bravely parried Nettie Dwight's incisive questions about "her set"; and Betty, stirring and ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... Oddly enough, the Life article did not cause a flood of reports. The day after the article appeared we got nine sightings, which was unusual, but the next day ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... the hidden and abscondite springs of his actions. Indeed, it is with some violence to the imagination that we conceive of an actor as belonging to the relations of private life, so closely do we identify these persons in our mind with the characters which they assume upon the stage. How oddly does it sound, when we are told that the late Miss Pope, for instance,—that is to say, in our notion of her, Mrs. Candor,—was a good daughter, an affectionate sister, and exemplary in all the parts of domestic life! With still ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... have been not a few who declare positively that they have seen them; and even been close in with their shores. It was Captain Guy's intention to make every exertion within his power to settle the question so oddly in ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... lifted him above the prejudices of Reason. He sat there cheerless, his college cap between his knees; and was seeking the moment to say good-bye when the Master suddenly sat down beside him. To any one looking in at the window, the two seated side by side on the hard sofa would have seemed an oddly assorted pair. Stewart's length of frame, the raven black of his hair and beard, the marble pallor of his delicate features, made the little Master look smaller, pinker, plumper than usual; but his face, radiating wisdom and affection, ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... about the lint of a factory causing consumption, and it worried him; people say he couldn't keep from talking about it. She was on his mind constantly. He was still going to see the other girl, but he acted so oddly that she became angry with him and, to spite him, began to go with another young man. But Tobe didn't seem to care. He kept going to the factory and—well, the upshot of it ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... flew on over the undulating miles. But presently we came on an aviation camp spreading its sheds over a wide plateau. Here the khaki throng was thicker and the familiar military stir enlivened the landscape. A few miles farther, and we found ourselves in what was seemingly a big English town oddly grouped about a nucleus of French churches. This was St. Omer, grey, spacious, coldly clean in its Sunday emptiness. At the street crossings English sentries stood mechanically directing the absent traffic with gestures ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... he had promised himself that he would strive to win back that friendship; but well he knew that first he must reinstate himself in Armstrong's respect; and how could he hope for that so long as he surrendered to the fascinations that kept him dangling about the dainty skirts of Witchie Garrison? Oddly enough the boy had hardly bothered his head with any thought of what Frank Garrison might think of his attentions or devotions, whatever they could be called, to this very captivating and capricious helpmate. When a husband is so overwhelmed with other ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... whose existence in Ireland we can be said to know anything are commonly asserted to have been of Turanian origin, and are known as "Formorians." As far as we can gather, they were a dark, low-browed, stunted race, although, oddly enough, the word Formorian in early Irish legend is always used as synonymous with the word giant. They were, at any rate, a race of utterly savage hunters and fishermen, ignorant of metal, of pottery, possibly even of the use of fire; using the stone hammers or hatchets of which ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... which Rangely asked this question was one oddly mingled of regret and of hope. He had flirted too seriously with Miss Merrivale to wish to meet her at Mrs. Staggchase's, although he had never seriously cared for her; and he reflected with a humorous sense of relief that if the pretty New Yorker should really visit ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... up, thoughtful. My gaze wandered toward the study window. The rays of the rising sun, shimmered on the smoky patch in the lower corner, causing it to fluctuate from green to red, oddly. Ah! that was undoubtedly another proof; and, suddenly, the horrible Thing I saw last night, rose in my mind. I looked at the dog, again. I knew the cause, now, of that hateful looking wound on his side—I knew, also, that, what I had seen ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... down into a terraced garden; the portraits of obscure ancestors: lawyers in powdered wigs and wearing the robes of the members of the Third estate, fat and rosy with double chins resting upon their broad cravats, amiable old ladies with oddly arranged hair and flowered gowns, coquettish still as they smiled in their oval, wooden frames, and then the old books in their old-fashioned bindings slumbering in a great bookcase with glass doors, ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... sleepy tyrant in his intervals of fury.'[142] Still, it will be said, there would have been persecution. I believe that there was no man living who had a more intense aversion than Fitzjames to all oppression of the weak, and, above all, to religious oppression. It is oddly characteristic that his main precedent is drawn from our interference with Indian creeds. We had enforced peace between rival sects; allowed conversion; set up schools teaching sciences inconsistent with Hindoo (and with Christian?) theology; protected missionaries ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... now and then he took a bottle of water from his pocket and made her swallow a mouthful. She staggered often as she walked, and the road was black before her. Still, it was not very long before the oddly shaped shack of the three Johns came in sight; and as he caught a glimpse of it, ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... voice said, still thinned by pain but oddly triumphant, "became a victim of his own pointless vindictiveness. It was a mistake which, I am certain, no member of the ...
— Oneness • James H. Schmitz
... favourite sister in May 1804, and of his wife in October 1805. The last blow drove him nearly to despair; and the extreme and open-mouthed "sensibility" of his private letters, on this and similar occasions, is very valuable as an index of character, oddly as it contrasts, in the vulgar estimate, with the supposed cynicism and savagery of the critic. In yet another year occurred the somewhat ludicrous duel, or beginning of a duel, with Moore, in which several police constables did perform the friendly office which Mr. Winkle vainly deprecated, ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... my darling girl!" she began; "my sweet, pretty girl, never did I think I should be so fortunate as to sleep in the same room with you. How oddly things come about, to be sure! Here am I with four foolish girls, each one madder than the other; for if they were not mad, they would not behave as they have behaved. Each one of them had an honourable attachment, ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... a critic in ground-glass spectacles (the same who grasps his statistics by the blade and strikes at his supposed antagonist with the handle) oddly confounds with the "bloated aristocracy," whereas they are very commonly pallid, undervitalized, shy, sensitive creatures, whose only birthright is an aptitude for learning,—even these poor New England Brahmins of ours, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... Golden City made savage preparation for war. Ships were loaded and ranged in order. Crews armed themselves, and helped in the loading and arming of other ships. Oddly enough, it was to Tommy that men came to ask if the directing apparatus for the Death Mist should be carried. The Death Mist could, of course, be used as a gas alone, drifting with the wind, or it could be directed from a distance. This had been done on Earth, with the directional impulses sent ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... station platform. The captain, seated on the baggage-truck, noticed one of these passengers in particular. He was a young fellow, smooth-faced and tall, and as, suitcase in hand, he swung from the last car and strode up the platform it seemed to Captain Obed as if there was something oddly familiar in that stride and the set of his square shoulders. His face, too, seemed familiar. The captain felt as if he should ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... oddly named novel is too complicated to describe at length. It opens with the conferment of the C.M.G. on Kuli Khan Abbas in 1903, an incident of which the anonymous author might have made a good deal more, and closes with a brief description of the Rev. Samuel Marinus Zwemer's home ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... the lovers started guiltily apart. They turned to find Esteban, Rosa's twin brother, staring at them oddly. "Isabel?" ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... some of the peculiarities attributed to him, and was filled with curious expectation as to the manner of man he was about to meet, for, oddly enough, he had never yet seen him except at a distance; but anxiety, not untinged with awe, ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... more alive to a merry troll and graceless story, in the kitchen of mine host "at the inn," than to the detail of his own shopboard, with the implements of his craft about him, making and mending the oddly assorted adjuncts of the village churls. Such was his liking for pastime and good company that the greater part of his earnings went through the tapster's melting pot; and grieved are we, as veritable ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... time, the hacienda and all that it contained were his. He captured not only the daughter but the old don himself, and to him the latter confided the source of the family's almost illimitable wealth, the source, but not its location; and this source was a hidden mine, called oddly ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... Unthinkingly, Ward released his hold on the knob and the door swung shut behind them. Instantly there was a flash of light, and they were oppressed by a feeling of nausea: and then, out of a momentary pit of blackness, they emerged to find that the room of crystal had oddly changed its proportions and opaqueness. "Quick!" cried Ward; "let us get out of this place." Both men found ...
— The Heads of Apex • Francis Flagg
... etc., could not disperse the fog. Many Congressmen were thunderstruck by the display of words which, as they were purely technical terms, the Congressmen in question could not understand. Others sought for guidance in the Staff of Wellington, and thus oddly but unmistakably proved themselves completely in the dark as to the difference between the personal staff of the commander of an army, and the Staff of that Army itself. And all this in a country of the most rapid movement and progress, and amongst ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... religion, they are in a state of deplorable ignorance. Their notions of a Divine Being seem most oddly perplexed, insomuch that it is difficult to make out any thing among them like a fixed opinion of His existence and attributes, nor do they seem to possess any curiosity ...
— Letters on the Nicobar islands, their natural productions, and the manners, customs, and superstitions of the natives • John Gottfried Haensel
... Cousin Jim quoting oddly in undertone, "'And Beauty drew him, by a single hair,'" and the words entered ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... together for upwards of thirty years, and never had one single quarrel, but oddly enough, when the rare inharmonious moments came, these groups of trees bridged the fleeting difference of opinion or any slight antagonism of will and purpose; when these unresponsive moments came, one or the other would begin to ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... no more till the carriage stopped; and then before handing her out of it, lifted her hand to his lips. That carried all the promise Fleda wanted from him. How oddly, how curiously, her hand kept the feeling of that ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... womanliness that had been lacking in his life. Of course she was nothing to him. She was to be that prig Muller's wife, and he was quite satisfied that she should be. If he married, Maria Muller would be his wife. Yet, oddly enough, he felt to-night, for the first time, the necessity that Maria should know how marriage was barred out from him, and felt, for the first time, too, a maddening anger that it was so barred. However, Doctor McCall was never meant by Nature for ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... 'This of a relation whom you will not hear an indifferent person speak ill of, my dear, sounds oddly enough, I confess.' ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... little man whom Rolf had pointed out stood in the midst of it all, examining and directing. He was dressed in coarse homespun of the dingy colors of trading vessels, gray and brown and rusty black, which contrasted oddly with the mantle of gorgeous purple velvet he was at that moment trying on. His little freckled face was wrinkled into a hundred shrewd puckers, and his eyes were two twinkling pin-points of sharpness. He seemed to thrust their glance into Alwin, as he advanced to meet his ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... all, they 'just spoilt everything;' and the more he scolded, the worse they became. The 'minx' shook her curls, and flirted through the window with a handsome but ill-tempered looking man on a fine horse, who praised her 'golden locks,' as he called them; and, oddly enough, when Melchior said the man was a lout, and that the locks in question were corkscrewy carrot shavings, she only seemed to like the man and his compliments the more. Meanwhile, the untidy brother pored over his book, or if he came ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... light night, and the window-shutters unclosed—but whom she had never seen before, stepped in on tiptoe, and with an appearance of great caution. He was a rather small man, with a very red face; he wore an oddly cut frock coat, the collar of which stood up, and trousers, rough and wide, like those of a sailor, turned up at the ankles, and either short boots or clumsy shoes, covered with mud. This man listened beside the nurse's bed, which stood ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 2 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... The stereotype figure of the Englishman, always the same, which turns up in Voltaire's WORKS, is worth noting in this respect. A rugged surly kind of fellow, much-enduring, not intrinsically bad; splenetic without complaint, standing oddly inexpugnable in that natural stoicism of his; taciturn, yet with strange flashes of speech in him now and then, something which goes beyond laughter and articulate logic, and is the taciturn elixir of these two, what they call 'humor' in their dialect: ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... however, they could see that it was not a turkey, or, indeed, any bird with which they were familiar, but a most curious-looking creature. It had an oddly-shaped beak, webbed feet, and a funny great tuft of feathers for ...
— Dick, Marjorie and Fidge - A Search for the Wonderful Dodo • G. E. Farrow
... room, where several men and women, boys and girls, were seated round the wall. They were singing hymns to the accompaniment of a harmonium. A table loaded with eatables was pushed into a corner. The entrance of Mr. Martin, followed by a dirty, unkempt, and oddly dressed stranger, caused an abrupt cessation of the singing. The girl at the harmonium sprang ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... black and the spaces are filled in with red and purple or are left in the orange hue of the ground. An idea of the superior style of execution can be gained from Fig. 212. It will be impossible to characterize the details of the drawing in words. The strange position and shape of the head, the oddly placed eyes and mouth, and the totally incomprehensible treatment of the body can be appreciated, however, by referring to the illustration. A careful study leads inevitably to the conclusion that this was no ordinary decoration, no playing with lines, but a serious working out of a conception ...
— Ancient art of the province of Chiriqui, Colombia • William Henry Holmes
... truth, an element of charm in all he could discern. Even the thin limbs appealed to him oddly. Possibly the big hat helped to conceal or accentuate—at any rate, the effect was somewhat elfish. As for those great and luminously soft black eyes, he could not for the life of him have said what ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... from the elevator car a somewhat portly little man who joined Mr. Wharton. He wore a rather queer looking, very big derby hat, oddly flat on top. His shoulders were hooped up somewhat like the figure of Joseph Choate. A rather funny, square, box-like body on little legs. An English look to his clothes. Under his arm an odd-looking club of a walking-stick. Mr. Brownell turned quickly to this rather amusing though not undistinguished ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... It was a hearty laugh, and echoed so oddly in the little schoolhouse, and seemed so inconsistent and discordant with the sighing of the pines without, that he shortly corrected himself with a sigh. The sigh was quite as sincere in its way, however, ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... for a few minutes, deep in thought. The daylight was going, and it was useless to waste time; yet I found myself shrinking oddly from the duty before me. Tardif could not help but see my chagrin ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... but none were of large proportions. The ceilings were low, and often crossed with heavy oak beams; while the floors, though of polished oak, were very uneven. Hyde had refurnished a few of the rooms; and the showy paperings and chintzes, the fine satin and gilding, looked oddly at variance with the black oak wainscots, the Elizabethan fireplaces, ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... utmost importance to the nation. His works have been studied by philosophers, politicians, and prelates. The writings of no Freethinker, except Voltaire, have maintained their ground with continually increasing reputation. Oddly enough, none of Hume's works were popular when they first appeared. In fact, his "Treatise on Human Nature" he had to reprint in the form of Essays, five years after its first publication. It then, for the first time, began to be bought; but not to any great extent. Five years later, he again ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... anxiety led him to interfere at any cost. An ill-favored, slight man was he, stooping of habit; and he came in rubbing his hands and looking anxiously, one eye on the father, the other on the son, as his oddly protuberant eyes almost enabled him ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... how the thing actually occurs among quite ordinary people, innocent of all unconventional views concerning it. The enormous majority of cases in real life are those of people in that position. Those who deliberately and conscientiously profess what are oddly called advanced views by those others who believe them to be retrograde, are often, and indeed mostly, the last people in the world to engage in unconventional adventures of any kind, not only because they have neither time nor ...
— Overruled • George Bernard Shaw
... a caricature, but there are oddly nice bits about her, if only she weren't so overpoweringly opulent. The ospreys in her hat seem to shriek money, and her furs smother one, and that house of hers remains so starkly new. If only creepers would climb up and hide its staring red-and-white face, and ivy efface some of the decorations, ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... more vulnerable. Shann drew his knees up close under his chin. The hood of his woodsman's jacket was pushed back in spite of the chill of the morning, and he wiped the back of his hand across his lips and chin in an oddly childish gesture. ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... for Heathcliff any more than he accounts for Rochester. He does not even account for Huntingdon in poor Anne's novel. He accounts only for himself. He is important chiefly in relation to the youngest of the Brontes. Oddly enough, this boy, who was once thought greater than his sister Emily, was curiously akin to the weak and ineffectual Anne. He shows the weird flickering of the flame that pulsed so feebly and intermittently in her. ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... been, usually, writers of no reputation. The literary squib that made most stir in the course of the century was not a poem, but the novel, The Green Carnation, which poked fun at the mannerisms of the 1890 poets. [Footnote: Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience made an even greater sensation.] Oddly, American poets betray more indignation than English ones over such lampoons. ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... rough ascent, only to slip, after a few paces, and to stagger. For as soon as she attempted to move, she felt herself not only weak, but oddly faint and giddy. She lurched forward, and to avoid falling instinctively clutched at her companion's outstretched hand. Exactly what passed between the young man and young girl in that hand-clasp—the ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... a good deal of misers, and I think I understand them as well as most persons do. But the Capitalist's economy in rags and his liberality to the young doctor are very oddly contrasted with each other. I should not be surprised at any time to hear that he had endowed a scholarship or professorship or built a college dormitory, in spite of his curious parsimony in ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... to the clump of trees standing so oddly isolated amid the waste of alkali, they noted with surprise that they were not to be the only persons to share the hospitality of the oasis. From amid the foliage a column of blue smoke was rising, betokening the presence of other wayfarers. Instantly speculation became ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... fast flying as the two oddly-assorted comrades talked, and soon the valet appeared at the door with the perruquier in his wake, informing his master that several gentlemen waited below, and that all was in readiness for the ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... was determined to give me no chance to speak, I presently seated myself close by, and fell to singing likewise. Oddly enough, the only thing I could recall, on the moment, was the Tinker's song, and that but very imperfectly; yet it served my purpose well enough. Thus we fell to it with a will, the different notes clashing, and filling the air with a most vile discord, and the words ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... be sure. Of course!" Mr. Smith seemed oddly thoughtful. He appeared to be settling something in his mind. ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... spectators, too, was the noisy brood of Boston school-boys, who came running, with laughter and shouts, to gaze at this crowd of oddly dressed foreigners. At first they danced and capered around them, full of merriment and mischief. But the despair of the Acadians soon had its effect upon these thoughtless lads, and melted ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the steps did Ben a service without knowing it, for a sudden puff blew a torn leaf to his feet, and seeing a picture he took it up. It evidently had fallen from some ill-used history, for the picture showed some queer ships at anchor, some oddly dressed men just landing, and a crowd of Indians dancing about on the shore. Ben spelt out all he could about these interesting personages, but could not discover what it meant, because ink evidently had deluged the page, to the ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... oddly mingled in the feelings with which Hugh listened to his cousin's grave commendation of his mother's sense and judgment; but he felt that there was nothing better to be done than to tell her all that was in his heart, and ...
— The Orphans of Glen Elder • Margaret Murray Robertson
... Laura looked at her oddly. "I hope we are going to appreciate all they have done ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... reasonings, and reports, on these subjects, are, of course, very various. The most general idea is, that the Andradas are overpowered by a republican party in the assembly; which, though small, has a decided plan, and works accordingly; and, oddly enough, their fall is said to have been brought about by an attempt, on their part, to get rid of old monarchy men. Monis Tavares, a clever man, whose name will be remembered in the sittings of the Lisbon ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... blood was racing; the air was cold on his face as he rushed out. But it brought to his nostrils odors strange and yet strangely familiar. He was oddly light-headed, irresponsible as a child as he shouted and danced and threw himself high in the air, to laugh childishly at the pure pleasure ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... for night was falling, and such a night as three witches might have brewed in a cauldron. He went on eagerly but with infinite sadness. Over the sky-line strange rockets went up from the war, peered oddly over the earth and went down again. Very far off a few soldiers lit a little fire of their own. The night grew colder; tap, tap, ...
— Unhappy Far-Off Things • Lord Dunsany
... as of something he had known once, perhaps ought now to recognize, but had forgotten: the reality of it seemed to be obscured by the strange autumnal light entering almost horizontally. Concluding himself oddly affected by the sight of a room he had regarded with some awe in his childhood, and had not set foot in it for a long time, he drew a little nearer to the bed, to look closer at the face of this paragon of servants, whose loss was causing his mother ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... only forty-eight hours after our departure. Although on the evening of the 19th the thermometer had registered only 10 deg. below zero Fahrenheit, it suddenly sank during the night to 65 deg. below zero, where it remained until the following evening. Oddly enough, a dense mist accompanied the fall of the mercury, rendering the cold infinitely harder to bear. Our drivers declared that this climatic occurrence was most unusual, and the fact remains that this was the lowest temperature recorded during the entire journey south of ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... THE FRENCH GALLERY.—Oddly enough the French Gallery contains but a small proportion of French pictures. Possibly Mr. WALLIS thinks it is not high-bred to appear too long in a French role—perhaps he fancies the public would get crusty or the critics might ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 5, 1890 • Various
... by a glance of inquiry, a sudden embarrassment disturbed Mr. Jennings, analogous to that which makes a young lady blush and look foolish. He dropped his eyes, and folded his hands together uneasily, and looked oddly, and you would have ...
— Green Tea; Mr. Justice Harbottle • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu |
