"Singular" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... because he was the brother of Viscount Archerfield, a poor Scottish peer! I think, if Archer had longer survived the wounds in the affair of Cuddyboram, he would have told something that might have thrown light upon the inconsistencies of this singular man's character. He repeated to me more than once, "I have that to say which will alter your hard opinion of our late Colonel." But death pressed him too hard; and if he owed me any atonement, which some ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Mr. Hastings objected, on the ground that the Begums themselves had not called for such interference in their favor, and that it was inconsistent with the "Majesty of Justice" to condescend to volunteer her services. The pompous and Jesuitical style in which this singular doctrine [Footnote: "If nothing (says Mr. Mill) remained to stain the reputation of Mr. Hastings but the principles avowed in this singular pleading, his character, among the friends of justice, would be sufficiently determined."] is expressed, in a letter addressed by the Governor-general ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... conglomerate of quartz pebbles (a stratum of which extends through the whole district), exceedingly hard in most of its veins, but very perishable in others; and hence perhaps the form and origin of this singular object. ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls
... sacrament according to the Church of England in some parish church on the Lord's Day; and deliver a certificate of having so received communion, signed by the respective ministers and church-wardens, and proved by two credible witnesses on oath. After prolonged debates upon this singular bill, it was passed through both houses of parliament, and received a reluctant consent from the king. [This act continued in force until the reign of ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... remembers that "he was a pleasant child, quite handsome, with golden curls." She also tells me that Hawthorne's mother was a beautiful woman, with remarkable eyes, full of sensibility and expression, and that she was a person of singular purity of mind. Hawthorne's father, whom my friend knew well, she describes as a warm-hearted and kindly man, very fond of children. He was somewhat inclined to melancholy, and of a reticent disposition. He was a great reader, ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... and his fortune," he said with a smiling emphasis on the singular, and then he waved his arm melodramatically. "And to think we are all paupers!" ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... alone and very sad. She was musing upon her singular and monotonous existence. Suddenly she was disturbed in her reverie by three soft little strokes upon her window. Raising her head, she perceived a parrot with beautiful green plumage and throat and breast of ...
— Old French Fairy Tales • Comtesse de Segur
... theory which a few years ago was so much discussed, and against which, notwithstanding the singular fascination it evidently possesses for some minds, the moral sense of a much larger number indignantly revolts, rightly apprehending that its establishment would be subversive of all morality. For, if the actions of men are governed by 'eternal and immutable ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... in that pitchy darkness he crept slowly along, with a singular nightmare-like sensation growing upon him; he ceased to have any command of the power of thought, and went on and on, inch by inch, ever ready to sink beneath his burden, but always at the last moment making a desperate effort, and regaining enough ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... never condescends formally to reply to Needham, for which he gives this singular reason: 'As for this libeller, we are still resolved to take no notice, till we find him able to spell his own name, which to this hour BRITANNICUS never did.' In the next number of Needham, who had always written it Brittanicus, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 76, April 12, 1851 • Various
... returned home in his usual spirits. But at the table he was struck by a singular change in the manner of Mrs. Bradley and John Wade. They spoke to him only on what it was absolutely necessary, and ...
— The Cash Boy • Horatio Alger Jr.
... p. 6. l. 8. The Swayembara. The self-election. The princesses in India enjoyed this singular privilege. The festival was proclaimed, and from the assembled suitors the lady selected her future husband. The Swayembara is not among the eight kinds of marriages mentioned in the third book of Menu, as customary among the higher castes, in which the parents in general arrange ...
— Nala and Damayanti and Other Poems • Henry Hart Milman
... greater than I thought for; I bought $25 worth of clothing, and sent $25 to Higbie, in the cement diggings. I owe about $45 or $50, and have got about $45 in my pocket. But how in the h—l I am going to live on something over $100 until October or November, is singular. The fact is, I must have something to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Singular uneasiness pervaded my thoughts. More than once I caught myself standing still as if expecting to hear something. I tried in vain to shake off the feeling, and at last I pretended to trace it to feverishness resulting ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris
... sharp, metallic "click"; a sudden alarm, like the attack of another bird, called out a war-cry loud and shrill, and very odd; and in the contest over the important question of precedence at the bath he sometimes uttered a droll squeal or whining sound. Besides these, he made singular noises in bathing and dressing his feathers, which are not uncommon among birds, but are difficult to describe. They always remind me of the rubbing of machinery in ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... desperate fanaticism. De Serre had an immense following. He assumed to impart the Holy Spirit and the gift of tongues by breathing upon the believers. The refugees carried his doctrines to England, and handed down their singular ideas to modern times; and a sect may still be found which believes in the gift of tongues and practises the power of prophesying, as ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... insistent monotony of its Moorish origin. I struck into the olives to find the singer and met a swineherd, guarding a dozen brown pigs, a youth thin of face, with dark eyes, clothed in undressed sheep-skins; and the brown wool gave him a singular appearance of community with the earth about him. He stood among the trees like a wild creature, more beast than man, and the lank, busy pigs burrowed around him, running to and fro, with little squeals. He ceased his song when I approached and looked up timidly. I spoke to him but he made no ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... the Office of the BEATITUDES in such a way as to make it coincide structurally, as far as it goes, with the introductory portion of the Holy Communion.[81] Were the Office to be thus set forth, it would be possible on week-days, and with singular appropriateness on Saints' Days, to substitute the BEATITUDES for the Commandments, without encumbering the Communion Office with an alternate. Should this suggestion find acceptance, the two Collects in the present Office of BEATITUDES, which are far too good to be lost, one ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... singular appearance, their sides being blistered, and in many places completely stripped of their paint, while in some cases the spars were scorched, and the sails burnt away. There was lively satisfaction at his appearance, as he stepped on to the deck of the Good Venture, ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... was not easy to find any one who had read them. They were Letters from an Ocean Tramp (1908) and Aliens (1914); the latter has been rewritten since then and issued in a revised edition. It is a very singular experiment in the art of narrative, and a rich commentary on human folly by a man who has made it his hobby to think things out for himself. And the new version is headlighted by a preface which may well take its place among the most interesting literary confessions of this ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... no sister," replied Miss Wealthy. "His mother was a very respectable woman. I remember her, though she died when I was quite a little girl. He had an aunt, too,—a singular woman, who used to be very kind to me. What is it, my dear?" For Hildegarde had given a little ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... of the great building was a singular mixture of barbaric and civilized splendor, the American forests and the factories of France alike being drawn upon for its furnishings. The finest of silken tapestries and the rarest of furs often hung close together. ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... cherry-wood table near the window, with her box of paints out finishing up a sketch on the leaf of an old copy-book. The same thing had often happened before, but this time there was a nervous rapidity of the hand, and that singular glow upon the face, which made the old woman pause to look ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... this singular speech, Charles Tracy's countenance had gradually changed from the surprised to the amused; and when I had concluded he laughed—yes, he actually laughed! What a ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... in dusk than in bald daylight—easier also before the bloom of reunion had been rubbed off by the prosaic trivialities of life. In her present position, too, it would be possible to avoid his gaze; and she found a singular difficulty in tampering with facts when Theo's eyes ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... ancient copies of an illustrated paper, boxes of chocolate, a ball of string to make "cat's cradles" (such an amusing game), her own packs of Patience cards, some photograph frames, post-cards of Arles, and—most singular—a kettle-holder. At the head of each bed she would sit down and rummage in the bag, speaking in her slow but quite good French, to explain the use of the acidulated drops, or to give a lesson in cat's cradles. And the poilus would listen with their polite, ironic patience, ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... crank, at least so many people said; a few thought he was a wonderful person: these were mostly children, old women, and people not in the directory, and persons not in the directory do not count for much. He was in fact a singular fellow. It was all natural enough to him; he was just like what he believed his father had been, his father of whom his mother used to tell him, and whom he remembered so vaguely except when he had suddenly loomed up in his ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... upon him as a giant of masterful expression in our midst. The redman is poet and artist of the very first order among the geniuses of time. We have nothing more native at our disposal than the beautiful creations of this people. It is singular enough that the as yet remote black man contributes the only native representation of rhythm and melody we possess. As an intelligent race, we are not even sure we want to welcome him as completely as we might, if his color were just a shade warmer, a shade nearer ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... majestic and regal regret, pausing and musing in our little parlor, like a late Stuart in exile, remembering England. Prue raised her eyes from her work, and looked at him with a subdued admiration; for I have observed that, like the rest of her sex, she has a singular sympathy with the representative of a reduced family. Perhaps it is their finer perception which leads these tender-hearted women to recognize the divine right of social superiority so much more readily than we; and yet, much ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... alternately the odd and even lines—in short, whatever the passage required; the memory, which seemed to cling to the words much more than to the sense, had it at such perfect command, that it could produce it under any form. Our informant went on to state that this singular being was proceeding to learn the Orlando Furioso in the same manner. But even this instance is less wonderful than one as to which we may appeal to any of our readers that happened some twenty years ago to visit the town of Stirling, in Scotland. No such person can have forgotten the poor, ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... I ever got home, I should have to go and tell her how it had happened. I remembered that huge monster of a shark, which had been swimming round the vessels, and I bethought me that he had come for them if not for us. I was not singular, for when the Espoir was missed by others, as was soon the case when they began to lose fear for themselves, I heard Bambrick observe to his companion at the helm, "I thought so; I know'd that brute hadn't come for nothing; they always knows better nor ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... 21. A very singular panic struck our part of the Valley this afternoon. A report of negroes breaking out and committing fearful outrages flew as on the wings of the wind. Women were frightened and men dismayed. It was, however, soon discovered ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... but looked upon roofs and back yards; no sound of carriage wheels rose to break the quiet. Despite the stillness, the doctor had to strain his ear to catch the irregular breathing of the sick woman. He had a singular feeling, although the most unimaginative of men, that this third floor, containing only himself and the woman, had been sliced from the rest of the house and hung suspended in space, independent of natural laws. ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... the Original, the Temple of Diana in the Suburbs. It stood in a Grove not far from Rome. The next Line, Partaque per gladios, &c. alludes to a very singular Custom, by which the Priests of this Temple succeeded to each other, viz. by Conquest in single Combat, for which every Slave or Fugitive was admitted to contend, and the Victor was rewarded with the Priesthood. This Practice was renewed every Year, and was, ...
— The Lovers Assistant, or, New Art of Love • Henry Fielding
... quantity of confidence reposed in him. He had stood still, at many a moment of the previous month, with the thought, freshly determined or renewed, of the general expectation—to define it roughly—of which he was the subject. What was singular was that it seemed not so much an expectation of anything in particular as a large, bland, blank assumption of merits almost beyond notation, of essential quality and value. It was as if he had been some old embossed coin, of a purity of gold no longer used, stamped with glorious arms, mediaeval, ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... said Dick, hurriedly, and with a singular abstention in his semi-delirium from the use of the title of respect—sir; "anyone would have done the same. Now tell me about ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... unheard of, am yet of some import to my fellows. For, through my newspaper here, do not families take pains to send me, an entire stranger, news of a death among them? Are not here two who would have me know of their marriage? And, strangest of all, is not this singular person anxious to have me informed that he has received a fresh supply of Dimitry Bruisgins? But to none of us does the Present continue miraculous (even if for a moment discerned as such). We glance ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... are partial to this tribe, will no doubt wish to have this species in their collection; the blossoms are pretty, and the foliage is singular, but it remains but a short ...
— The Botanical Magazine, Vol. 3 - Or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis
... sensation of relief that you were spared a glimpse at lives numbers one and three. It was such a very crude performance that I should not have dragged it into this record had it not been for the fact that Miss Blair was part of the singular display of celestial bodies that I have tried to indicate in this article. She is a weighty actress corporeally, if not artistically, and poor Mercy Merrick fared rather badly. This Wilkie Collins heroine has been ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... Irving. He sat on the edge of his chair, and crumpled his handkerchief nervously in his hands. And all the time—with his singular clearness of intuition—he was aware of the doubt and distrust passing through Dr. ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier
... It was a singular sight, as they looked out in the morning from their hilltops. Great masses of smoke extended over the whole country; for although most of the dwellings were, by this time, leveled to the ground—for, built of the lightest construction, ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... point of the poetry of the past, on all other questions she is the most docile of pupils. Her interest, her listening power, her curiosity, is inexhaustible. If she has a passion, indeed, it is for Early English. But she has a proper awe for Romanesque, and a singular interest in Third Pointed. She is ruthless in insisting on her victim's spelling out every word of a brass in Latin that she cannot understand, and which he cannot translate. She collects little fragments of Roman brick, and wraps them up in tissue-paper ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... the ICONOCLAST. His pyrotechnic vocabulary, his strange admixture of erudition and slang, his almost womanly sympathy and the more than Apache ferocity with which he pursued his enemies, the tender and poetic metaphor that gemmed his iron prose, and the singular blending of optimism and pessimism that characterized most of his work suggested an anomaly that appealed to the imagination, and I was anxious to see what ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... and true comrades of camp and trail are in the saddle, bent on seeing with their own eyes some of the wonderful sights to be found in that section of the Far Southwest, where the singular cave homes of the ancient Cliff Dwellers dot the walls of the Great Canyon of the Colorado. In the strangest possible way they are drawn into a series of happenings among the Zuni Indians, while trying to assist a newly made friend: all of which ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... a singular fact that in the language of the Orang Bennu, or aborigines of the Malay Peninsula, that word "peacocks," which in the modern Malay is marrak, is in the aboriginal chim marak, which is the exact termination of the Hebrew tuchim. Their word for bird ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... censorships [550]; and being admitted into the patrician order, they continued the use of the same cognomen, with no other praenomina [551] than those of Cneius and Lucius. These, however, they assumed with singular irregularity; three persons in succession sometimes adhering to one of them, and then they were changed alternately. For the first, second, and third of the Aenobarbi had the praenomen of Lucius, and again the three ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... as occasion offered, under such various states of vascular excitement, as to afford nothing conclusive. As it was, their temperature varied from 97° to 102°, coinciding pretty nearly with our own under similar circumstances. The pulse offered nothing singular. ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... SINGULAR EMPLOYMENT OF THE POLICE.—Under an order recently issued by the commissioners of the metropolitan police, a number of the officers of each division have been actively engaged in collecting information and making out a return of all new houses completed ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... exclaims, rising sharply to her feet, like a spring figure in a box, "now that you've had enough of your experience! Thank you! Do you suppose it's money that I want? Singular method, yours, of pouring balm upon a wounded heart. No, ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... No conclusive evidence on this point is possible; the French ambassador, Clement VII. and others believed that Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn had been cohabiting since 1529. On the other hand, if such was the case, it is singular that no child should have been born before 1533; for after that date Anne seems to have had a miscarriage nearly every year. Ortiz, indeed, reports from Rome that she had a miscarriage in 1531 (L. and P., v., 594), but the evidence ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... time more than fifty years old, but the uncommon symmetry and exact proportion in her form, with her singular vivacity, enabled her to represent the character of "Celia" with all the juvenile appearance ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... gratifying them. I felt that I had a right to be wealthy, and that misfortune alone had made my mother poor, had made her an alien from her kindred and the scenes of her nativity. I felt a strange pride in this conviction. Indeed there was a singular union of pride and diffidence in my character, that kept me aloof from my young companions, and closed up the avenues to ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... reflected their own thoughts and feelings. In reflecting the English crowd about him he unconsciously reflected all crowds, which are alike in all ages; hence his continued popularity. And in being guided by public sentiment he was not singular, but followed the plain path that every good dramatist has always followed ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... only in such an unfashionable house as this he would be likely to pass unrecognized. How with his markedly handsome features and distinguished bearing he managed so to carry himself as to look like a man of inferior breeding, I can no more explain than I can the singular change which took place in him when once he found himself in the midst of the crowd which lounged about ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... whole not so mortifying. I have seen a good many of these failures, and I know of one case so signal that I must speak of it, even to the discredit of the public. It is the case of a novelist whose work seems to me of the best that we have done in that sort, whose books represent our life with singular force and singular insight, and whose equipment for his art, through study, travel, and the world, is of the rarest. He has a strong, robust, manly style; his stories are well knit, and his characters are of the flesh and blood complexion which we know in our daily experience; and yet he has ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... have been described by most writers as similar to the Kentish custom of gavelkind; and, indeed, so little attention was paid to the subject, that were it not for the researches of Sir J. Davis, the knowledge of this singular usage ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... by the arbitrary king to help fit out five ships of discovery for Sebastian Cabot, whose father had discovered Newfoundland. They called it "a sore adventure to jeopard ships with men and goods unto the said island, upon the singular trust of one man, called, as they understood, Sebastian." But Wolsey and the King would have no nay, and the Company had to comply. The same year, Sir John Brugge, Mayor and Draper, being invited to the Serjeants' Feast at Ely House, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... one of the most singular things in history that the people of Scotland should have been so hostile to the Americans, and so forward in expressing their approbation of the attitude of George III. and his ministers. The Americans ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... "A singular mischance has happened to some of our friends," said Hamilton. "At the instant when He ushered them into existence, God gave them a work to do, and He also gave them a competence of time; so much that if they ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... is singular; at the highest end of a broad and long valley, it stands on an isolated hill. Surrounded, however, on all sides by cliffs, it commands a very distant and extensive view of the land, but takes in only just a corner of the sea. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... and her son. The young man's study was visible down the vista of a series of low-ceiled apartments, and Shelby saw that it was crammed with books. None of the many pictures could cope in dash and color with his own collection and, what seemed to him singular in a Protestant home, they were chiefly of the Madonna; all in all, a tame assortment beside his copy of the secular masterpiece in the great metropolitan hotel. Over one of the crowded bookcases was the cast of a winged woman. It was armless and headless, and Shelby wondered ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... her everything, with singular simplicity and frankness. To Lucy it was indeed a critical and searching moment! No wife, whatever stuff she may be made of, can listen to such a story for the first time, from the husband she loves and respects, without passing thereafter into a new state of consciousness ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... A singular contradiction is apparent here. Congress declares these local State governments to be illegal governments, and then provides that these illegal governments shall be carried on by Federal officers, who are to perform the very duties imposed on its own officers by ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... probably be under some cloud of pecuniary embarrassments, such as suggested prudentially an absence from Ireland. Meantime, what was it that made him an object of peculiar interest to Lady Carbery? It was the singular revolution which, in one whom all his friends looked upon as sold to constitutional torpor, suddenly, and beyond all hope, had kindled a new and nobler life. Occupied originally by no shadow of any earthly interest, killed ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... Ahmed's. They are different in so many ways from ordinary Arabs. They have been a race apart for generations. They have beliefs and customs peculiarly their own. You may, for instance, have noticed the singular absence among them of the strict religious practices that hold among other Mohammedans. Ahmed Ben Hassan's tribe worship first and foremost their Sheik, then the famous horses for which they are renowned, ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... them grand and beautiful without giving them any forced connection or relative meaning. We recognize the traces of our own transfigured experience, but we are relieved from the necessity of accepting it as having an inner meaning. De Quincey's singular hold on our affection seems, therefore, to be his rare quality of presenting the unusual but typical dream or reverie as a beautiful object of interest, without endeavoring to give it the character of an allegory or ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... well conceived, and better executed than such schemes usually are. The great difficulty was to keep so important a secret. It was a singular coincidence that, as in the case of the tumult of Amboise, over seven years before, the first intimations of their danger reached the Guises from the Netherlands.[435] But the courtiers, whose minds were taken up with the pleasures of the chase, and who dreamed ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... brood, laid waste the campagna, and besieged the city. St. Leo, in his double embassy to Attila and Genseric, was an unconscious prophet of the time to come, a visible picture of three hundred years as singular in their conflict and their issue as those other three hundred which had their close in the Nicene Council. During all those ages the Pope is never secure in his own city. He sees the trophy of Caesarean empire slowly perish away. The capital of the world ceases to be even the capital of ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... afterwards, if not before, have done—St. Catherine and St. Euphemia), but there was no reason why she should not do so. Polemo recollected having heard of her at the Capitol, and in the triclinium of one of the Decurions, as a lady of singular genius and attainments; and he lately had made an attempt to form a female class of hearers, and it would be a feather in his cap to make a convert of her. So, not many days after, one evening, accompanied by Aristo, ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... fig, whose bright orange flowers, when the sun's rays fall on them, have a magic splendor of color. A group of palm trees at the extremest elevation, standing out on a high crag, add not a little to the picturesque appearance of this singular urban hill. On one side of this rock the rapid torrent Paillon, traversed by several handsome bridges, some of them adorned with statues, separates the "old" from the "new" town. On the other is the port, filled with steamers and innumerable fishing-craft. Beyond ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... grasping in one hand some snakes with this motto, Fides homini, serpentibus fraus; and in the back ground he is placed standing in a labyrinth, above which is inscribed, Fata viam invenient. This young nobleman died before his father. His brother Francis has his accompaniments not less singular. A lady, seemingly in distress, is represented sitting in the back ground, surrounded with snakes, a dragon, crocodile, and cock. At a distance are the sea and a ship under full sail. He, by the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various
... said the Old Residenter. "They would bring a million witnesses to prove that I had been out of my Head for 20 years, and I wouldn't be there to contradict them. I learn that by a singular Coincidence, all the Old People who leave their Money to Hospitals and the like are Mentally Irresponsible. In order to prove that I am in my right Senses, I will ...
— People You Know • George Ade
... and architecture, Sir James devoted a great deal of time to the study of geology. The science was then in its infancy. Being an acute observer, Hall's attention was first attracted to the subject by the singular geological features of the sea-coast near his mansion at Dunglass. The neighbourhood of Edinburgh also excited his interest. The upheaval of the rocks by volcanic heat —as seen in the Castle Hill, the Calton Hill, and Arthur's Seat— formed in a great ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... now, in turn, been vanquished and destroyed, and Cromwell seemed to be left the sole heir of the powers of all three. Yet were certain limitations still imposed on him by the very army to which he owed his immense authority. That singular body of men was, for the most part, composed of zealous republicans. In the act of enslaving their country, they had deceived themselves into the belief that they were emancipating her. The book which they most venerated furnished them with a precedent ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... a severe and singular fight took place. At four in the afternoon the Hastings, transport, on which Kilby Smith was, having disabled her wheel, had run into the right bank for repairs. At the same moment the Alice Vivian, a heavy transport, with four ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... for assistance, and was not a little surprised to find Dick sitting alone by the side of the fire, and so absorbed in the perusal of a little book that he had not noticed his entrance—a very singular and unaccountable piece of absence of mind in one so well trained in the watchful ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... of his visits to St. Penfer, about two years previous to this Easter Eve, Roland Tresham had met Denas Penelles. At that time he had been much interested in her. The little fisher-girl with her piquant face, her strange haunting voice, and her singular self-possession was a charming study. He made several sketches of her, he set her wild, sweet fisher-songs to music, he lent her books to read, he talked to her and Elizabeth of the wonderful London life which Elizabeth could partly remember, but which ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... came he invited me into his private office. I asked him what the salvage committee had done about the bids. He asked, "Did they not call you up?" I said "No; nobody called us up." He said, "Why, that is singular; it was understood that they would call you up before doing anything." I told him that I had telephoned the office of Mr. Taylor the night before, and was informed that the salvage committee had adjourned at 7 o'clock. I asked him if the contract ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... any reason to entertain a fear of others, and may look the world boldly in the face. It is only men that commit themselves to actions which will not bear the light who resort to subterfuges and concealments, and are harrowed by apprehensions. My dilemma was a singular one. There was nothing I had done which I had the slightest reason to hide or feel alarm about; yet I was taking as cautious measures to avoid publicity as if I were flying from justice, and was haunted all the time by a thrill of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... fortune; and I advised him to invest all he had in an annuity. He did so, and thus doubled his income. The celebrated breviary remained in the family, and was in the count's possession. It had been handed down from father to son; for the singular clause of the only will that had been found, had caused it to be regarded as a genuine relic, preserved in the family with superstitious veneration. It was an illuminated book, with beautiful Gothic characters, and so weighty ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... had undertaken and must therefore of necessity carry out; yet now he was fully conscious for the first time that it was Earle, and not he, who had broached the subject of return, and he was conscious, moreover, of the fact that he had viewed the prospect of departure from Ulua with a singular ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... does not take at all, and consequently sells very little: it is certainly informing, and full of good matter; but it is as certain too, that the style is execrable: where the devil he picked it up, I cannot conceive, for it is a bad style, of a new and singular kind; it is full of Latinisms, Gallicisms, Germanisms, and all isms but Anglicisms; in some places pompous, in others vulgar and low. Surely, before the end of the world, people, and you in particular, will discover that the MANNER, in everything, is at least as ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... developed; Browning had published only 'Pauline,' 'Paracelsus,' and 'Strafford;' the other poets who have given distinction to the Victorian age had not begun to write. And between the veterans of the one generation and the young recruits of the next there was a singular want of writers of distinction. There was thus every opportunity for a new poet when Miss Barrett entered the lists with her first volume ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... Singular to say, his first remark was pretty near a bull's-eye, showing that he must have been thinking about the ex-hobo as he wound the waxed red silk around ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson
... of Charles V., to whom they had heretofore been subject." Never, since the establishment of the Order, had the affairs of the Hospitallers appeared more desperate than at this period. For the loss of Rhodes, so famed in its history, so prized for its singular fertility, and rich and varied fruits; an island which, as De Lamartine so beautifully expressed it, appeared to rise "like a bouquet of verdure out of the bosom of the sea," with its groves of orange trees, its sycamores and palms; what had L'Isle Adam received ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 223, February 4, 1854 • Various
... South Africa that we were most of all opposed and most of all distrusted, and by a singular inversion it is in South Africa that the most brilliant and memorable results have been achieved. Indeed, I think that the gift of the Transvaal and Orange River Constitutions and the great settlement resulting therefrom will be by itself as a single ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... you of my true love," continued Flatterwell, "I have brought a bottle of the most delicious wine that grows in the wilderness. You shall taste it; but you must put a glass through the wicket to receive it; for it is a singular property in this wine, that we of the wilderness cannot succeed in conveying it to you of the castle, without you hold out a vessel ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More
... amusing when he likes, Doctor. Once or twice when he has been with us he has seemed to forget himself, as it were, and was full of fun and life. You must allow that it is a little singular that a man like this should altogether avoid society, and night and day ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... and some cultivated gardens, while a number of Moors were lying carelessly about outside the walls. The news of their arrival was soon circulated among all classes, and from every direction came men, women, and children, running to see the Christians, whom they looked upon as some singular wild beasts. At length Beirouc told one of his attendants to conduct the three prisoners to their habitation. The whole town was composed of houses built with sun-dried bricks of a yellowish tint. They were conducted ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... tolerable. In consequence, the flowers, fruits, grass, hay, straw, oats, butterflies, beads, birds, tinsel, streamers, jinglers, lace, bugles, crape, which seem to be appointed to form a covering for the female head, very often appear in combinations so singular, and the results, taken in connection with all the rest of the costume, are such, that we really think the people who usually assemble in a Quaker meeting-house are, with their entire absence of ornament, more becomingly attired than the majority of our public ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... safeguards for peace, together with the ever-tightening bonds of corporate unity within the British realms, Mr. Asquith went on to say that: "In all these multiform manifestations of national and Imperial life, the history of the world will assign a part of singular dignity to the great ruler Great Britain has lost. In external affairs King Edward's powerful influence was directed not only to the avoidance of war, but to the causes of and pretexts of war, and he well earned the title by which he will always ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... unceasing mirth over Mr. Pickwick's misadventures. In answer one day to a question, prompted by psychological curiosity, if he ever dreamed of any of his characters, his reply was, "Never; and I am convinced that no writer (judging from my own experience, which cannot be altogether singular, but must be a type of the experience of others) has ever dreamed of the creatures of his own imagination. It would," he went on to say, "be like a man's dreaming of meeting himself, which is clearly an impossibility. Things exterior to ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... students of English naval history may find in the life of Philip d'Avranche, as set forth in this book, certain resemblances to the singular and long forgotten career of the young Jerseyman, Philip d'Auvergne of the "Arethusa," who in good time became Vice-Admiral of the White and His Serene Highness ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... nine (or ten) marshalled in long procession in chapters viii. and ix. is told with singular brevity. There is nothing individual in our Lord's treatment of the sufferer, as there was in the previous healing of the two blind men, and no details are given of either the appeal to His pity or the method of His cure. The dumb demoniac could lift no cry, nor exercise ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... authoritative thoughts, and especially of such associations as arise from his respect for Pagan art, or which are in any way traceable to classical readings. I recollect that Mr. Alison traces his first perceptions of beauty in external nature to this most corrupt source, thus betraying so total and singular a want of natural sensibility as may well excuse the deficiencies of his following arguments. For there was never yet the child of any promise (so far as the theoretic faculties are concerned) but awaked to the ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... So it is with tea, and with coffee too. Put in a large quantity, pour on the water, turn off the liquor; turn it off at once—don't let it stand; it becomes poisonous. I am a great patron of tea; the poet truly says, 'It cheers, but not inebriates.' It has sometimes a singular effect upon my nerves; it makes me whistle—so people tell me; I am not conscious of it. Sometimes, too, it has a dyspeptic effect. I find it does not do to take it too hot; we English drink our liquors too hot. It is not a French ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... the couch thinking of the future, and his thoughts were not pleasant. The drawbacks of a double life are manifold. The Government, with singular care, had ordered him out of the station for a fortnight on special duty in the place of a man who was watching by the bedside of a sick wife. The verbal notification of the transfer had been edged by a cheerful remark that Holden ought to think himself lucky in being ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... their original meaning, they must have been full of awe and glory. Being of another parish, I looked on coldly, but not irreverently, and was glad to see the funeral service so well performed, and very glad when it was over. What struck me as singular, the person who performed the part usually performed by a verger, keeping order among the audience, wore a gold-embroidered scarf, a cocked hat, and, I believe, a sword, and had the ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... explorers directed them, with little knowledge or care as to the rightful ownership of the land, and too often cleared their corner of the wilderness for the benefit of others. Even Boone, to whose courage, forest lore, and singular intuitions of savage character the State of Kentucky owed more than to any other man, was deprived in his old age of his hard- earned homestead through his ignorance of legal forms, and removed to Missouri to repeat in that new territory ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... continued, "he seemed anxious to remove me from Paris. He made me a somewhat singular offer. He wanted me to go to some distant country on a mission—not political and yet ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... with this subject the attention of Congress is respectfully called to a singular and embarrassing conflict of laws. The executive department of this Government has hitherto uniformly held, as it now holds, that naturalization in conformity with the Constitution and laws of the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... It was a singular-looking place, built principally on a narrow island in the centre of the stream, and its floodgates and dam on either side of the island; while heavy wheels, all green with slimy growth, and looking grim and dangerous as they turned beneath ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... masters of the world," and in which the combatants, having spent at last their whole stock of dialectic ammunition, resorted to carnal weapons, passing suddenly, by a very illogical metabasis, from "universals" to particulars. Both parties appealed to Aristotle. By a singular fortune, a pagan philosopher, introduced into Western Europe by Mohammedans, became the supreme authority of the Christian world. Aristotle was the Scripture of the Middle Age. Luther found this authority in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... possible to explain this distribution of the conscience, singular as it is at first sight, by those reasons of practical utility which are so powerful ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet
... thanks at this enthusiastic reception. The acclamations continuing, an agent of the police invited him to withdraw, lest his presence might occasion disorder. The illustrious songwriter at once obeyed; by a singular coincidence the door through which he went out opened upon the place where Marshal Ney was shot. If he were now in the vein of writing, what a stirring lyric all ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... comprises the period between the 11th and the 28th December, 1688, both days inclusive, and appears to be a perfect Record of every act of that memorable Assembly. The indorsement on the cover merits notice: it states with singular minuteness the precise hour of James's abdication, namely at one in the morning of the 11th of ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.11.17 • Various
... age Clotilde von Rudiger was dissatisfied with her conquests, though they were already numerous in her seventeenth year, for she began precociously, having at her dawn a lively fancy, a womanly person, and singular attractions of colour, eyes, and style. She belonged by birth to the small aristocracy of her native land. Nature had disposed her to coquettry, which is a pastime counting among the arts of fence, and often innocent, often serviceable, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... part. Aristotle makes wonder the forerunner of science. So our admiration of beauty is a tribute paid in advance to the fresh insight it promises. Whether it be called miracle or inspiration, the artist must see his theme as something excellent and singular. This is perhaps that "strangeness" which Lord Bacon requires in all "excellent beauty," the new significance coming direct, and not through reflection, and therefore ineffable and incomparable. That Giotto and his successors went on for two hundred years ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... make it, chief?" asked the major, impatiently. Not his the temperament that can wait in silence. He made a singular figure as he lounged there at the pilot-house window, huge elbows on the sill. One hand was wrapped in bandages, well saturated with croton-oil. Chars and burns on his uniform showed where blazing petrol from the final ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... to be a bear. Though it growled loudly and fiercely, and there were instants when its glistening eyeballs might be seen, it gave no other indications of hostility. The Huron, at least, seemed assured that the intentions of this singular intruder were peaceable, for after giving it an attentive examination, he ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... that song has filled me with a most peculiar sensation. A melancholy feeling has come over me, and I seem to yearn after some long-forgotten object of affection. Singular, indeed! but, Not seldom in our happy hours of ease, When thought is still, the sight of some fair form, Or mournful fall of music breathing low, Will stir strange fancies, thrilling all the soul With a mysterious sadness, and a ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... in upon one salver, and were opened and read with pleasurable interest, but without surprise, or misgiving; and without the slightest foretaste of their grave amid singular consequences. ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... which I often suppress as useless and foolish. The instant I enter on my own land, the bright idea of property, of exclusive right, of independence exalt my mind. Precious soil, I say to myself, by what singular custom of law is it that thou wast made to constitute the riches of the freeholder? What should we American farmers be without the distinct possession of that soil? It feeds, it clothes us, from it we draw even a great exuberancy, our best meat, our richest drink, the very honey of ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... porcupine-quills, the work of the savages, which especially drew forth the king's admiration. He also presented two specimens of the scarlet tanager, Pyranga rubra, a bird of great brilliancy of plumage and peculiar to this continent, and likewise the head of a gar-pike, a fish of singular characteristics, then known only in the waters of ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... As Napoleon pathetically said at St. Helena, when reviewing the conduct of his brothers, "If I made one a king, he imagined that he was King by the grace of God. He was no longer my lieutenant: he was one enemy more for me to watch." A singular fate for this king-maker, that he should be forgotten and the holy oil alone remembered! Yet Louis probably used that mediaeval notion as a shield against his brother's dictation. The tough Bonaparte nature brooked not the idea of mere lieutenancy. He ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... the Supreme National Council (SNC), a body set up under United Nations' auspices, in preparation for an internationally supervised election in 1993 and including representatives from each of the country's four political factions Capital: Phnom Penh Administrative divisions: 19 provinces (khet, singular and plural) and 2 autonomous cities* Banteay Meanchey, Batdambang, Kampong Cham, Kampong Chhnang, Kampong Saom City*, Kampong Spoe, Kampong Thum, Kampot, Kandal, Kaoh Kong, Kracheh, Mondol Kiri, Phnom Phen City*, Pouthisat, Preah Vihear, Prey Veng, Rotanokiri, Siemreab-Otdar ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... Joloans, who have become very insolent—plundering many ships on the sea, some of them valuable; robbing and burning towns, capturing the people, and destroying the images, which the fathers have kept well until their flight and refuge in the mountains. It has been considered a singular providence that no one of our fathers has been captured (although there are fears about one, but nothing certain is known about it). The enemy suddenly landing, one father was surprised in bed, but made his escape almost in his ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various
... twenty-day characters around the inner space in the order we find them. Here I confess we shall encounter greater difficulty in arriving at a satisfactory explanation; still, I think we shall be able to show one object in view in this singular arrangement, although we fall short of ...
— Notes on Certain Maya and Mexican Manuscripts • Cyrus Thomas
... would like to describe him; but how can I, when I have heard such various accounts of the child? I suppose, if you had questioned the family about him, you would have heard a different story from every one. His father would have shaken his head, and said, Willy was a "singular child; there was no regulation to him." Seth would have told you he was "impudent." Stephen would have called him "a cry-baby," and Caleb, "the laziest little chap he ever came across;" though "grandf'ther Cheever" thought him "very ...
— Little Grandfather • Sophie May
... this country as well as others, even within the memory of persons living at the present day, and is, indeed, said to be not yet altogether obsolete in Finland. The author, in dwelling upon the social customs of the early Dutch settlers of New York, describes "a singular custom prevalent among them, commonly known by the name of bundling,—a superstitious rite observed by the young people of both sexes, with which they usually terminated their festivities, and which was kept up with religious strictness by the more ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... to Hold the said twoe hundred acres of land with all and singular the apptennces, and with his due share of all mines & minneralls therein conteyned, and wth all rights and privileges of hunting, hawking and fowling and others within the prcincts and upon the borders ...
— Mother Earth - Land Grants in Virginia 1607-1699 • W. Stitt Robinson, Jr.
... passed in a moment; and then was seen one of those singular things that will at times happen; but with regard to quail only, so far as I have ever seen or heard tell. For as Forester was putting down the card upon the powder in the barrel which he had just fired, a second bird rose, almost from the identical spot whence the ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... interest and jealousy which were engendered by Miss Vernon's singular situation, my observations of her looks and actions became acutely sharpened, and that to a degree which, notwithstanding my efforts to conceal it, could not escape her penetration. The sense that she was observed, or, more properly speaking, that she was watched by my looks, seemed to give ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... and the rest of the group, should have been taken in, sent out, guarded, and franked by the head of a government office. The trouble that Damilaville willingly took in order to serve his friends is another example of what we have already remarked as the singular amiability and affectionate solicitude of those times. "Think of Damilaville's attention," says Diderot on one occasion: "to-day is Sunday, and he was obliged to leave his office. He was sure that I should come this evening, for I never fail when I hope ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... while below, on the right hand, were the procurators of both parties invested with plenipotentiary powers. The /Actuarius/ begins to read aloud the weighty judgments reserved for this day: the lawyers demand copies, appeal, or do whatever else seems necessary. All at once a singular sort of music announces, if we may so speak, the advent of former centuries. It proceeds from three pipers, one of whom plays an old /shawm/, another a /sackbut/, and the third a /pommer/, or oboe. ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... likewise wore a sword of no ordinary length by his side, with which he swaggered in his cabin, among the wretches his passengers, whom he had stowed in cupboards on each side. He was a person of a very singular character. He had taken it into his head that he was a gentleman, from those very reasons that proved he was not one; and to show himself a fine gentleman, by a behavior which seemed to insinuate he had never seen one. He was, moreover, a man of gallantry; ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding
... or tribunal demanded his presence, he was grave, intent, awful, yet generally inclined to lenity. When the duties of his office were over, the man of power was instantly laid aside. Nothing of sternness, arrogance, or rapaciousness appeared; and, what was a singular felicity, his affability did not impair his authority, nor his severity render him less beloved. To mention integrity and freedom from corruption in such a man, would be an affront to his virtues. He did not even court reputation, an object to which men of worth frequently ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various
... a singular manner, James Lemen was the special favorite and idol of Thomas Jefferson, who was a warm friend of his father's family. Almost before Mr. Lemen had reached manhood, Jefferson would consult him on all matters, even on great state affairs, and afterwards stated that Mr. Lemen's ...
— The Jefferson-Lemen Compact • Willard C. MacNaul |
