"Singularly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Lutheran dignitaries solemnize the marriage of a German kaiser; have sat under the ministrations of sundry archbishops of Canterbury; have been present at high mass performed by the Archbishop of Athens under the shadow of Mars Hill and the Parthenon; and, though I am singularly susceptible to the influence of such pageants, especially if they are accompanied by noble music, no one of these has ever made so great an impression upon me as that simple Anglo-American service performed by a surpliced clergyman ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... singularly dispirited as she went down to breakfast. It had been raining, and the dreary outlook caused the gloomy lines, "The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year," to run through ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... the forecastle hatch I paused. Someone below was singing in a voice singularly rich in quality. The words and the quaintness of the minor air struck me immensely and have clung to my memory like ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... that, great as were those who had taken their departure, the greatest of them all had fallen just short of appreciating him, the survivor. A man penetrates every one's disguise but his own; we deceive no one but ourselves. The insane are often singularly quick to penetrate the delusions of others; the man who calls himself George Washington ridicules the claim of another that he ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... went away with her nose in the air and her cheeks far more scarlet than when Boreas kissed them, and all in response to a single remark volunteered by the faithful detective. He entered Lamson's store a moment later, singularly abashed and ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... in the vice admiralty court at Cape Town, condemned as a lawful prize, and purchased into the service; and, being a very fine vessel of her class, the admiral was pleased to say, that as I had been so singularly unfortunate, he would give me the command of her as a lieutenant, and send me to England with some despatches, which had been waiting ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... The book is therefore not to be judged by a mere literary standard, or read with expectations founded on a general knowlege of the writer's position and associations. On all with whom she came in contact Mrs. Fletcher produced the impression of a character singularly round and complete. Something of the same influence is felt in the perusal of her unaffected narrative, and with readers of a reflective turn may prove a sufficient compensation for the lack ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... who, in turn, if not found to be temperate and reliable, were dismissed. Upon well-ordered plantations punishments were rare, I may say unknown, except to the half-grown youths. Negroes, being somewhat lacking in moral sense or fixed principles, are singularly open to the influence of example; and thus it was that a few well-ordered elders would give a tone to the whole plantation, while the evil influences of one ill-disposed ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... that there be good living without waste; and that in her department, nothing shall be seen inconsistent with the rank, station, and character of her husband. If he have a skilful and industrious wife, he will, unless he be of a singularly foolish turn, gladly leave all these things to her absolute dominion, controlled only by the extent of the whole expenditure, of which he must be the ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin
... or monk, from Fathers or Decretals, but direct from God. I do not presume to say that he held no false doctrine, or that he made no mistakes: but considering the time at which he lived, and the corruption all around him, his teaching was singularly free from "wood, hay, stubble"— singularly clear, evangelical, and true to the one Foundation. Especially he set himself in opposition to the most popular doctrine of the day—that which was termed ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... a singularly imposing but hardly attractive presence, thought young Arguello, until Rezanov, after stepping on shore and bowing formally, suddenly smiled and held out his hand. Then the impressionable Spaniard "melted like a woman," as he told his sister, Concha, and would have embraced ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... THE PROBLEM.—The American people have been singularly backward about grappling with the problem of fitting ten million Negro citizens into the fabric of American democracy. One explanation of this backwardness is that until recently many have believed that the Negro would die out under freedom. This expectation has not ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... perception of Hawthorne's moral and intellectual character, a vivid impression of his personal traits, disposition, and habits, as manifested in the alternations of work and play, in the study, in the family, and in society, and a singularly distinct and life-like image of his person."—George ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... affair, was in this instance vivified by curious incidents. In the first place, Frau Kranich. amending the injustice her over-credulity had caused, gave her protegee a wedding-present of twenty thousand francs, accompanying the gift with some singularly tart remarks about her nephew: this sum was increased by the groom to sixty thousand. The second incident was when Joliet, amid the almost incredulous surprise of the whole table, raised the gift, by the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... to the usual African custom, was singularly abstemious, living almost entirely on milk, merely sucking the juice of boiled beef. He scarcely ever touched plantain wine or beer, and had never been known to be intoxicated. The people were generally excessively fond of this wine, the peasants ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... politeness, which even for congenial minds made familiarity difficult if it effectually repelled impertinence. But beneath this sensitive nature lay an energetic and even impetuous character, and an intellect singularly clear, subtle, and decisive. His reasons were apt to be complicated, but he came to very definite results, and was both rapid and resolute in action. He had 'a strong will,' says Taylor, 'and great tenacity of opinion. When he made a mistake, which was very seldom considering ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... head slightly toward the west, where lay the forest from which the boy had but now emerged. He did not smile, did not deprecate. He was singularly mature in his actions, though but eighteen years ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... improvement now occurred in our style of living, and we began to enjoy many little comforts which, it is true, we never had missed, but which were singularly welcome nevertheless; and altogether we found ourselves vastly gainers by the presence of the sweet ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... cleverness this novel is quite up to the standard of the excellent Town and Country Library in which it appears. Most of the characters are well drawn, and there are some singularly strong scenes in the ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland
... has been one of adventure and danger in the pursuit of a livelihood. Knowing nothing of the art of fiction and but little of any sort of literature; having been brought up in the severe school of nature, which is all truth, and having had as instructor in my calling a man who was singularly and famously truthful, truth has been my inheritance and in this book I bequeath it ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... officers in church this morning, and the psalms for the 11th day seemed so singularly appropriate to the feelings of the people, that I felt uncomfortable for them. They answered ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... loud, and his gesticulations, voluntary or involuntary, singularly uncouth. He had superstitious fancies about crossing thresholds or squares in the carpet with the right or left leg foremost, and when he did not appear at dinner might be found vainly endeavouring to pass a particular ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... precipices, varying from a hundred to two hundred feet in height. In many places the cliffs overhang the water, and all along the coast they have been perforated and torn up by the waves, so as to present singularly bold and picturesque outlines, with caverns, inlets, and sequestered "coves" of ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... he would not state what his real intention was; but he walked through the village with his head singularly erect and spoke freely to everybody; he worked diligently in the forest with the woodcutters, having his father's ax and with it almost the bodily strength of him who had swung it so sturdily in ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... to our rendezvous, near Broadway and Astor place, where I found Irving, who handed me over his "boodle" (as he termed it), remarking confidentially that I was to give him on my return his share into his own hands; and, singularly enough, each of the others did precisely the same thing. About 11 o'clock the other two came in, and after some parley White handed over his bonds, and Stanley informed me he would give me his on board before the steamer sailed ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... traveller think that he will not meet with bad weather at the Antipodes! I can only repeat what I have said with pen and voice a hundred times before. New Zealand possesses a very capricious and disagreeable climate: disagreeable from its constant high winds: but it is perhaps the most singularly and remarkably healthy place in the world. This must surely arise from the very gales which I found so trying to my temper, for damp is a word without meaning; as for mildew or miasma, the generation who are growing up there will not know the meaning of ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... has his way to make. My character and habits and favorite occupations all unfit me for business and money-getting, and yet we can only make money by some kind of industry; if I have some faculty for the discovery of gold-mines, I am singularly ill-adapted for getting the gold out of them. But you who, for your brother's sake, went into the smallest details, with a talent for thrift, and the patient watchfulness of the born man of business, you will reap the harvest that I shall sow. The present state ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... of Captain Valentine Bagley, on the coast of Arabia, and his sufferings in the desert, has been familiar from my childhood. It has been partially told in the singularly beautiful lines of my friend, Harriet Prescott Spofford, an the occasion of a public celebration at the Newburyport Library. To the charm and felicity of her verse, as far as it goes, nothing can be added; but in the following ballad I have endeavored to give a fuller detail of the touching ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... in youth, but her expression was so benevolent, her manners were so perfectly well-bred, partaking of English dignity and Irish frankness, that one never thought of her with reference either to beauty or plainness. She ever occupied, without claiming attention, charming continually by her singularly pleasant voice, while the earnestness and truth that beamed from her bright blue—very blue—eyes increased the value of every word she uttered. She knew how to listen as well as to talk, and gathered information in a manner highly complimentary to those from whom she sought it; her attention ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... that is thrown on this question by the study of the old Hawaiian musical instruments is singularly inconclusive. If it were possible, for instance, to bring together a complete set of kaekeeke bamboos which were positively known to have been used together at one performance, the argument from the fact of their forming a musical harmony, if such were found to be the case—or, ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... amusement and interest "as fresh images came clustering round his pen." As soon as the essay was finished, he would throw it on the table, saying to his wife, "There, Kate, just look it over—dot the i's and cross the t's;" and went out for his walk. It should be added that his writing was singularly difficult to read, that he was very infirm about spelling proper names, and that he was exceptionally careless in correcting ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... having lively green leaves, beautiful flowers, and fruit as brilliant as the richest strawberry, in the very depth of our winter. We have a fine variety of this plant with scarlet blossoms, and also one with double flowers, both of which are singularly ornamental to the shrubbery. ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury
... no difference that it is useful, it is prohibited. "By whom?" you will add. We will explain that point to you, a little farther on; but let us proceed. Man—you must also be informed—is a thinking being, free in this world, responsible in the next. Singularly enough—and you will be surprised to hear it—he is not created merely to enjoy himself, to indulge all his fancies, to follow the hazard of his appetites, to crush whatever he finds before him in his path, blade of grass or plighted oath, ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... Lavretsky went out into the garden, and was well pleased with it. It was all overgrown with steppe grass, with dandelions, and with gooseberry and raspberry bushes; but there was plenty of shade in it, a number of old lime-trees growing there, of singularly large stature, with eccentrically ordered branches. They had been planted too close together, and a hundred years seemed to have elapsed since they were pruned. At the end of the garden was a small, clear lake, surrounded ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... of an orphan girl who in infancy is left by her father to the care of an elderly aunt residing near Paris. The accounts of the various persons who have an after influence on the story are singularly vivid. There is a subtle attraction about the book which will make it a great ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... Bessie was singularly dull. She used to shriek with rage when Dick stared at her between half-closed eyes. Now she sulked, or watched him ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... with her. Many a fierce tussle of wills, many a grim listening to over-frivolous reminiscence, must have shown the aunt and her nieces the difference of their natures. Maria, too, the whilom head of the nursery, must have found submission hard; but hers was a singularly sweet and modest nature. Of Elizabeth ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... picture, painted upon a fragment of coarse blanket, which had been stretched upon the wall. It depicted the setting sun, with red and gold rays, and a blue mountain in the distance. Around the entire scene, in a semicircle, was the word "Illusion," singularly wrought into the shafts of light, and undecipherable without the closest scrutiny. The figure of an old man in the foreground was contemplating the scene. It was a crude piece of work, but impressive. There was a large mahogany cabinet, mounted with brass; but its ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... plantations of olive trees we passed in our drive on the cliffs. Nothing strikes one more singularly, in coming to this part of the world, than the contrast in appearance between the olive tree and the rich, luxuriant foliage of the orange, lemon, myrtle, and other beautiful vegetation so prolific here. ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... expedition of 1914. It is exceptionally complete, and has been mounted as a panel, in position as it lay in the rock, and with considerable parts of the original sandstone matrix still adherent. The long slender limbs, long neck, small head and toothless jaws are all singularly bird-like, and afford a striking contrast to the Tyrannosaurus. At the time of writing, its adaptation and relationships have not yet ...
— Dinosaurs - With Special Reference to the American Museum Collections • William Diller Matthew
... of the Irish brogue which everybody admitted was singularly "like the real thing," Mr. Binks had risen in public estimation, and his name was put down on ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... This is a singularly beautiful species resembling the latter except that the central tail feathers are bright red, with the extreme tips white. During August and September they breed in large colonies on small islands in the South Seas. On Mauritius ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... and tremulous movement, which strongly impressed the beholders that some discourse was then carrying on between "the dummy," as he was generally called, and his invisible relatives. His whole aspect was singularly painful and forbidding. No wonder, in these times of debasing superstition, that his person should be looked on with abhorrence, and even a touch from him be accounted an evil of no slight import. His mother alone had the power ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... practical and difficult questions growing out of this measure, Frederick Douglass, the most distinguished representative of the race which America had so long held in chains, was presented to the President. The account of the conference, given by Douglass, is singularly interesting. He says: "I was never more quickly or more completely put at ease in the presence of a great man than in that of Abraham Lincoln. He was seated, when I entered, in a low arm-chair, with his ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... distinction in his own department of pure science." That's our Harry, Mr. Le Breton; that's what the "Times" says about our dear, dead Harry! I wish he could have lived to read it himself, Edie—"a scholar of singularly profound attainments, whose abilities had recently secured him a place upon the historic roll of the Royal Society, and whom even the French Academy of Sciences had held worthy out of all the competitors of the civilised world, to be adjudged the highest mathematical honours of ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... well be imagined that the boys had not forgotten the cave. It was their constant talk by day and their dreams at night. It had a fascination which was constantly drawing them in that direction, but, singularly, they never entered it. But one day George suggested that they make a search on their own account. Harry quickly assented, and taking up the two lamps, together with their weapons, were soon at ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns • Roger Thompson Finlay
... Lu was singularly condescending to Mr. Dudley that evening; and Rose, sitting aside, looked so very much disturbed—whether pleasantly or otherwise didn't occur to me—that I couldn't help enjoying his discomfiture, and watching ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... Tesaoua, En-Noor pretends that he founded this city. His statement is singularly suggestive and picturesque in its simplicity. He says that he met, on the spot where Tesaoua now stands, a forlorn man, ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... and were ready to follow him. He also declared that the Roman centurion and the Phoenician woman already possessed great faith, the centurion more than he had yet found in Israel. But the most striking declaration of Jesus, and one singularly overlooked, concerning the character of the heathen, is to be found in his description of the day of judgment, in Matthew (chap. XXV.). It is very curious that men should speculate as to the fate of the heathen, when Jesus has here distinctly taught that all good men ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... other reading but the Scriptures was as vanity to her, and she would not condescend to the weakness of other books. Sylvia was now, as ever, slow at book-learning; but she was meek and desirous to be taught, and her willingness in this respect pleased Alice, and drew her singularly towards one who, from being a pupil, might ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... with the Infinite. It will inspire one with the feeling that the Rockies have a rare mountain wealth of their own. They are not to be compared with the Selkirks or the Alps or any other unlike range of mountains. The Rockies are not a type, but an individuality, singularly rich in mountain scenes which stir one's blood and ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... mostly spent at Weimar and Leipsic, he was at successive periods chapel-master and concert-director at several of the German courts, which aspired to shape public taste in matters of musical culture and enthusiasm. But he was by nature singularly retiring and unobtrusive, and he recoiled from several brilliant offers which would have brought him too much in contact with the gay world of fashion, apparently dreading any diversion from a severe and exclusive art-life; for within these limits all his hopes, energies, and ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... great comfort in talking to you—this writing is stiff, ineffectual work. Pen is very well, cheerful now,—has his little horse here. The place is singularly unspoiled, fresh and picturesque, and lovely to heart's content. I wish you were here!—and if you knew exactly what such a wish means, you would need no assuring in addition that I am Yours affectionately and gratefully ever ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... South, so perfectly preserved in a quiet household. Things Southern, as he had already reflected, lived long and died hard, and these things which he saw now in the clear light of day, were also of the South, and singularly suggestive of other things Southern which he had supposed outlawed ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... boys, with the story of whose lives this veracious chronicle concerns itself, were indeed singularly unlike in their ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... had come to pass that, at the time our story begins, Hetty was thirty-five years old, and singularly alone in the world. The death of her mother, which had occurred first, was a great shock to her, for it had been a sudden and a painful death. But the loss of her mother was to Hetty a trivial one, in comparison with the ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... abstraction, which lies at the foundation of every religion, elsewhere endeavoured to rise to wider and more enlarged conceptions and to penetrate ever more deeply into the essence of things, the forms of the Roman faith remained at, or sank to, a singularly low level of conception and of insight. While in the case of the Greek every influential motive speedily expanded into a group of forms and gathered around it a circle of legends and ideas, in ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... meantime, the anxious coterie in the chateau were waiting eagerly for the return of the searchers. Night had fallen swiftly. The Princess and Drusilla were walking restlessly back and forth, singularly quiet and constrained. The latter sighed now and then in a manner that went directly to the heart of her companion. Genevra recognised the futility of imposing her sympathies in the ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... great satisfaction to me to occupy the place I do in behalf of an infant institution; a remarkably fine child enough, of a vigorous constitution, but an infant still. I esteem myself singularly fortunate in knowing it before its prime, in the hope that I may have the pleasure of remembering in its prime, and when it has attained to its lusty maturity, that I was a friend of its youth. It ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... acceptably serious, but he wished, with a quite seemly curiosity, to view his own acting on the screen. It occurred to him that he had been acting a long time without a glimpse of himself. But Baird had been singularly firm in this matter, and the Montague girl had sided with him. It was best, they said, for a beginning actor not to see himself at first. It might affect his method before this had ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... grow unfamiliar. Perhaps a man is not startled at the first cat he sees, but jumps into the air with surprise at the seventy-ninth cat. Perhaps he has to pass through thousands of pine trees before he finds the one that is really a pine tree. However this may be, there is something singularly thrilling, even something urgent and intolerant, about the endless forest repetitions; there is the hint of something like madness in that musical monotony ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... between six and seven. We lived plentifully here, and had a true welcome. In such a season good firing was of no small importance. The peats were excellent, and burned cheerfully. Those at Dunvegan, which were damp, Dr. Johnson called 'a sullen fuel.' Here a Scottish phrase was singularly applied to him. One of the company having remarked that he had gone out on a stormy evening, and brought in a supply of peats from the stack, old Mr. M'Sweyn said, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... 15 Bunyan lived in singularly eventful times. Under the Commonwealth the strictest outward morality was enforced. But when a licentious monarch was placed upon the throne, a flood of the grossest debauchery was let loose; and those ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... singularly patient with this evidence of sentimentalism. "That's fine and noble of you. But you didn't realize what a grave step you ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... substantial productions. Gardening, as a recreation and relaxation from severer studies and more important avocations, has exquisite charms for me; and I am ready, with old Gerarde, to confess, that 'the principal delight is in the mind, singularly enriched with the knowledge of these visible things; setting forth to us the invisible wisdom and admirable workmanship of Almighty God.' With such predilections, you will easily give me credit, gentlemen, for participating with this assembly in the sincerest ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... but his soul, nor handsome but his eyes. Small in size, with broad shoulders, his haunches badly set on, his forehead singularly shaped, long nose, large mouth, the grace and animation of his countenance overcame every imperfection of figure, and rendered Gustavus one of the most attractive men in his dominions; intelligence, goodness, courage, beamed from his eyes, and pervaded his features. You felt the ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... Sir G. Lewis about the effects of modern astronomy, which he does not understand and singularly undervalues, will now be seen to be of no authority. He fancies that—to give an instance—for the determination of a ship's place, the invention of chronometers has been far more important than any improvement in astronomical theory (p. 254). ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... composition at times is operatic in character, while the text calls for a mode of treatment solemn and religious, as in Passion-music. If set to some other text, this work would be well nigh faultless; the recitatives are singularly good, and there is a rich orchestration. It is reminiscent of Haendel and prophetic of Wagner. The Hallelujah Chorus in particular is a magnificent piece of work. As is the case with the Messiah, its beauties as well as its defects are so apparent, so pronounced, that the latter serve ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... or three Yosemites in the Sierra not very far apart, all with the main features singularly alike, is very significant—as if this kind of valley was latent in the granite of that region—some peculiarity of rock structure that lends itself readily to these formations. The Sierra lies beyond the southern limit of the great continental ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... higher era, to the exaltation of the character and condition of his race, seems never to have dawned on his mind. The spirit of disinterestedness and self-sacrifice seems not to have waged a moment's war with self-will and ambition. His ruling passions, indeed, were singularly at variance with magnanimity. Moral greatness has too much simplicity, is too unostentatious, too self-subsistent and enters into others' interests with too much heartiness, to live an hour for what Napoleon always lived, to make itself the theme, and gaze, and wonder ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... deer wander among the bracken and heath, and the trees are haunted with happy squirrels. The park is thirteen miles in circumference, and near the house the little River Meden spreads out into a singularly picturesque lake, diversified with toy islands. The Thoresby of to-day possesses an atmosphere of tranquil splendour: in its neighbourhood one has some difficulty in evoking lively pictures of the celebrated ...
— The Dukeries • R. Murray Gilchrist
... have sadly degenerated since their intercourse with Europeans has enabled them to gratify the passion of all savages for intoxicating liquors: but at the period of which we are speaking, they were a singularly fine race of Indians, and their renown as warriors enabled them to extend protection to such of the neighboring tribes as entered into alliance with them. Disease had, indeed, recently reduced their numbers in many of the villages ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... if in warlike defiance of their bitter enemies, the Sioux, who were encamped near the shore, and who in turn shot back the fierce look of hostility upon their ancient foe. An eye witness describes this scene as one unique and singularly magnificent. The council was held under a spacious booth of green boughs, and lasted for several days. Keokuk was present on this occasion, as the head chief of the Sacs, and took an active part in the council; his course being ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake
... ringlets cluster down into her neck, and make her face look the whiter by their sable profusion. I could not form any judgment about her age; it may range anywhere within the limits of human life or elfin life. When I met her in London at Lord Houghton's breakfast-table, she did not impress me so singularly; for the morning light is more prosaic than the dim illumination of their great tapestried drawing-room; and besides, sitting next to her, she did not have occasion to raise her voice in speaking, and I was ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... found, meant Murre and Razor-Billed Auk. These are finely shaped birds, black above and white below, twice the size of a pigeon, and closely resembling each other, save in the bill. That of the murre is not noticeable; but the other's is singularly shaped, and marked with delicate, finely cut grooves, the central one being nicely touched with a line of white, while a similar thread of white runs from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... American continent. Like the others of the same family, it feeds upon vegetable matter, generally on marine plants, with their adherent molluscan life. It is rarely or never seen in the interior; and from its habits may be regarded as singularly indicative of open water. The flocks of this bird, easily distinguished by their wedge-shaped line of flight, now crossed the water obliquely, and disappeared over the ...
— The Ocean and its Wonders • R.M. Ballantyne
... little to increase the sensation naturally created by his appearance and manner. Who he is, no one pretends to assert with downright positiveness: it is whispered, however, that he is a scion of royalty; and who can gaze for a moment upon that most graceful figure, that most intelligent but singularly moulded countenance, and those large and expressive eyes, without feeling as equally convinced that he is of no common lineage, as that he is no common man. Though possessed of talents and eloquence which would speedily ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... quick glance; but my face (which is blond and said to be singularly youthful for a man of twenty-nine) was, I flatter myself, as innocent as that of a choir-boy who has just delivered himself of a high soprano note. Nevertheless, the end was coming. I felt it in the electric ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... piled it in a heap; and the negroes began to strip the husks from the ears, singing with great glee as they worked, keeping time to the music, and now and then throwing in a joke and an extravagant burst of laughter. The songs were generally of a comic character; but one of them was set to a singularly wild and plaintive air, which some of our musicians would do well to reduce to notation. ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... sculpture had lost its former employment, and that a great art cannot (thank Heaven!) be pietistically self-humiliating. Be this as it may, the sculpture of the Renaissance had found a new and singularly noble line of work, the one in which it was great, unique, unsurpassed, because untutored. It worked here without models, to suit modern requirements, with modern spirit; it was emphatically-modern sculpture; the only modern sculpture which can be talked ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... this position had them both scourged. So God in the day of judgment will replace the soul in the body, and hurl them both into hell together." There is a queer tradition among the Mohammedans implying, singularly enough, the same general thought. The Prophet's uncle, Hamzah, having been slain by Hind, daughter of Atabah, the cursed woman cut out his liver and gnawed it with fiendish joy; but, lest any of it should become incorporated with her system and go to hell, the ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... cognate works of Mr. Spencer. Darwin does not speculate on the origin of the universe, on the nature of matter or of force. He is simply a naturalist, a careful and laborious observer, skillful in his descriptions, and singularly candid in dealing with the difficulties in the way of his peculiar doctrine. He set before himself a single problem—namely, How are the fauna and flora of our earth to be accounted for? . . . To account for the existence of matter and life, Mr. Darwin admits ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... his custom, at the Libraire Saint-Just. It was there that he learned, with amazement, of the tragic and sudden event which set a so unexpected term to a friendship which was doubtless a little remote, but which was, on both sides, a singularly ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... subject is most unhopeful, and, on the other hand, he is likely to disappoint us where we take for granted that he will be fine. For example, the series of sections on the Terrestrial Paradise are singularly crabbed and dusty in their display of Rabbinical pedantry, and the little touch in praise of Guiana is almost the only one that redeems the general dryness. It is not mirth, or beauty, or luxury that fires the historian, but death. ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... Samuel B. Freeman Q.C., of Hamilton, a man of much natural eloquence, considerable knowledge of law and more of human nature; he was always ready and willing to take up the cause of one unjustly accused and was singularly successful in his defences. I have heard it said that it was Mr. M.C. Cameron, Q.C., who so addressed the gathering but he does not seem to have been concerned in the case in the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... Hurstmonceux is an honorable man. But he has been singularly unfortunate in his family. His brother and his sons, who seem to have taken more after their uncle than their father, have all turned out badly and given him much trouble," ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... accused, for lack of conclusive proofs, would in all probability have escaped from the hands of the executioner; but from that very scantiness in the evidence arose an extraordinary opportunity for eloquence, which could not fail to be singularly useful to the ambitious hopes of M. Desalleux. In justice to himself, he could not neglect to take advantage ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various
... us gravely that it was the very spot in which Catullus had written his Odes to Lesbia. I did not laugh in his face; for, after all, it would be as easy to prove that it is, as that it is not. The old town and castle of Sirmio are singularly picturesque, whether viewed from above or below, and the grove of olives which crowned the steep extremity of the promontory, interested us, being the first we had seen in Italy: on the whole I fully enjoyed the ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... couple of his pitches, which the umpire called strikes, I gave him credit for as much speed as Rusie. These balls were as straight as a string, singularly without curve, jump, or variation of any kind. I lined the next one so hard at the shortstop that it cracked like a pistol as it struck his hands and whirled him half off his feet. Still he hung to the ball and gave opportunity for the ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... through life having escaped singularly all the shadows that lie on it for most men; and he had, far more than most, what may be termed the faculty for happiness—a gift, in any temperament, whose wisdom and whose beauty the world too ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... sufficient age; but Senor Pujol suffered reverses which swept away his modest fortune, and left his family destitute. Rather than receive aid from his uncle, and waiving his claim in favor of his younger brother, this son, although with reluctance, decided to enter the priesthood, for he was a singularly religious young man. But Father Pujol, in his capacity as priest, combined, in a marked degree, the wisdom of the serpent with the harmlessness of the dove. He had a deeply rooted aversion to the custom of women sequestering themselves from the world behind the walls of a convent; and it had been ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... the old squaw was forced to cling to her saddle, groaning with pain, the kindly Wetherell walked beside her, easing her down the banks. In crossing the streams he helped her find the shallowest fording, and in other ways was singularly considerate. Kelley couldn't have done this, but he ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... waiting for the tide to fall, to go out to the mussel-bed. Meanwhile the prospect to be seen from this improvised seat was one made to be looked at. There is a certain innate compelling quality in all great beauty. When nature or woman presents a really grandiose appearance, they are singularly reposeful, if you notice; they have the calm which comes with a consciousness of splendor. It is only prettiness which is tormented with the itching for display; and therefore this prospect, which rolled itself out beneath our feet, curling in a half-moon of beach, broadening into meadows ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... which we hear characterized as singularly high-minded and honorable, and sensitively alive to every affront, whether real or imaginary, but which strangers denominate rough and ferocious, much to do in provoking these assaults, and then in applauding instead of ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... the Bride of Lammermoor, where [Edgar] Ravenswood is swallowed up by a quicksand, is singularly grand in romance, but would be inadmissible in a ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... bamboo is Cauayan; the Spanish name is Cana espina. The most common species grows to a height of about 60 feet, with a diameter varying up to eight inches, and is of wonderful strength, due to its round shape and the regularity of its joints. Each joint is strengthened by a web inside. It is singularly flexible, light, elastic, and of matchless floating power. The fibre is tough, but being perfectly straight, it is easy to split. It has a smooth glazed surface, a perfectly straight grain, and when split on any surface, it takes a high polish by simple friction. Three cuts with ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... they walked on in silence, holding each other's hands like two children, and the sound of their footsteps upon the crisp, crunching sand was singularly exaggerated by ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... northern New England. It is reported from scattered stations in northern Maine, from north of the White Mountains and from Sunapee Lake in New Hampshire, and in the Green Mountains south to central Vermont, New Brunswick and to Minnesota. Found also in Alaska and Greenland. This much-coveted fern has a singularly sweet and lasting fragrance, compared by some to strawberries, by others to new-mown hay and sweet brier leaves. We have seen herbarium specimens that were mildly and pleasantly odorous after several years. When growing the fern may be tested "by its fragrance, its stickiness and ...
— The Fern Lover's Companion - A Guide for the Northeastern States and Canada • George Henry Tilton
... pleasantry, and in conversation he sometimes hazarded a pun, as when he asked Talfourd whether he had any more "Ions" in the fire. But the critic, who says that "every jest of his was a gross incivility made palatable by a pun," is singularly infelicitous, for as a humorous writer he is almost unique in his freedom from verbal humour. His style is often adagial or exaggerated, and we are constantly meeting such ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... keenly felt by his parishioners, with most of whom his relations had been strictly professional rather than personal. A good man and true, without a trace of anything sordid or self-seeking in his nature, my father was yet singularly indifferent to everything connected with the daily lives and welfare ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... Northumbrian burr. Subject, among others, Protection. The Attorney all for 'cheap bread'— 'You wouldn't rob the poor man of his loaf,' and so forth. 'You must go with the stgheam, sir, you must go with the stgheam.' 'I never did, Mr Thompson, and I never will,' said the other in an oily manner, singularly inconsistent with the sentiment." At Durham they dined with a dignitary of the Church, and Yule was roasted by being placed with his back to an enormous fire. "Coals are cheap at Durham," he notes feelingly, adding, "The party we found as heavy as any Edinburgh one. Smith, indeed, evidently ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... at home when they arrived, having in fact seen them descending into his valley. He was a gray-bearded man, with a reddish face, and he looked singularly at Rhoda the first moment he beheld her. Mrs. Lodge told him her errand; and then with words of self-disparagement he ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... the opinion of the Spectator, "Mr. Saintsbury in his new book has given to the world a singularly delightful gift. The Peace of the Augustans is in no sense written down. Yet every page is so subtly seasoned with amusing comment, and the whole book is so charmingly garnished that none but a dullard ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... After that, he was turned down by practically every bank on the continent. It looked as if the bankers had entered into a gentlemen's agreement to make it unanimous. Then the commissioner bethought himself of the coffee merchants; and that thought naturally suggested Hermann Sielcken, who, singularly enough, happened to be conveniently resting at nearby Baden-Baden. In August, 1906, the commissioner waited upon Mr. Sielcken ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... rapid growth and durability, but did not grow in large quantities. As a railway tie, experiments have left no doubt as to its resistance to decay; it stands abrasion as well as the white oak (Quercus alba), and is superior to it in longevity. Catalpa is a tree singularly free from destructive diseases. Wood cut from the living tree is one of the most durable timbers known. In spite of its light porous structure it resists the weathering influences and the attacks ...
— Seasoning of Wood • Joseph B. Wagner
... but to work out the details of their flight on the morrow, and rack her brains to find a substitute for the hospitality they were rejecting. Susy did not disguise from herself how much she had counted on the Vanderlyn apartment for the summer: to be able to do so had singularly simplified the future. She knew Ellie's largeness of hand, and had been sure in advance that as long as they were her guests their only expense would be an occasional present to the servants. And what would the alternative be? She and Lansing, in their endless ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... pillared platform facing the holy of holies some of the high-caste worshippers await in prayer and meditation the moment when its ponderous bronze doors are from time to time thrown open. One old Brahman lady of singularly refined appearance presses her fingers alternately on her right and her left nostril, whilst she expels through the other, keeping her lips all the time tightly closed, the unhallowed air which may have contaminated her lungs ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... the same. The flowered cups of the sconces were identical with those I had seen before. To my eye, even as it grew more studious, there appeared no divergence, no difference, between these apartments and those I had so singularly visited—and yet under circumstances so strangely akin to these—in the ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... silence for some time up the incline. Talbot was going back to the west gulch, and Katrine said she would walk a little of the way in that direction too. The afternoon was bright and clear, and the air singularly still, so still that the intense cold was hardly realised. The rays of sunshine struck warmly across the snow banks piled on each side of the narrow path they were treading. The sky was pale blue, and the points of the straight larches on the summit of the ridges cut darkly into it like ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross
... oven. Immediately afterwards he sent his wife to her father, who shut her up in one of his castles, where she was strictly guarded by the people of the Duke of Hanover. An assembly of the Consistory was held in order to break off his marriage. It was decided, very singularly, that the marriage was annulled so far as the Duke was concerned, and that he could marry another woman; but that it remained binding on the Duchess, and that she could not marry. The children she had ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... clamorous mirth usual on such occasions of village sport, and the more eager were already stripping their jackets, and committing them, with their coloured handkerchiefs, to the care of wives, sisters, and mistresses. But their mirth was singularly interrupted. ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... and Pantagruel himself with French kings to whom they bear not the slightest resemblance; of obliging us English by supposing us to be the Macreons (who seem to have been very respectable people, but who inhabit an island singularly unlike England in or anywhere near the time of Rabelais), and so on. But to a much larger number of persons—and one dares say to all true Pantagruelists—these interpretations are either things that the Master himself would have delighted to satirise, and would have satirised unsurpassably, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... responsibility on your account—that you should take this occasion to air your fire-eating manners against your own attorney? There are serious hours in life, Mr. Anne," he said severely. "A capital charge, and that of a very brutal character and with singularly unpleasant details; the presence of the man Clausel, who (according to your account of it) is actuated by sentiments of real malignity, and prepared to swear black white; all the other witnesses scattered and perhaps drowned at sea; the natural prejudice against ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... her. "Is that you, Jim? Come upstairs; it's better than talking out there." He obeyed, and stood before her in the wretched room, looking curiously both at her and the baby. A wiry, wolfish-faced being was Jim Duds, as he was familiarly called, though his own name was the aristocratic and singularly inappropriate one of James Douglas. He was more like an animal than a human creature, with his straggling gray hair, bushy beard, and sharp teeth protruding like fangs from beneath his upper lip. His profession was that of an area thief, and he considered ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... strictly sculptural beauty; her long flax-coloured eyes were not large, her nose had no special character; only her sensitive and clear-cut nostrils gave the pretty face its suggestion of ancient lineage. Her mouth was a little large, and her full red lips opened on singularly white teeth as even as almonds; while a low Grecian forehead and a neck graceful in every curve gave Esperance a total effect of aristocratic distinction that was beyond dispute. Her low vibrant voice produced an impression that was almost ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... singularly free from agitation. "Because I am the only man who has served you unselfishly? Is that the reason, Madame? You have laughed at me. I love you. You have broken me. I love you. I can never look an honest man in the face again. I love ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... interposed and said, after remarking that all argument with one in love about the object of his affections was out of place, "Yet it's very strange that several of us have formed pretty much the same opinion about Olimpia. We think she is—you won't take it ill, brother?—that she is singularly statuesque and soulless. Her figure is regular, and so are her features, that can't be gainsaid; and if her eyes were not so utterly devoid of life, I may say, of the power of vision, she might pass for a beauty. She is strangely ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... Wonders" in that volume which used to be the delight of our childhood, when the rising generation was more easily amused and not quite so wide-awake as at present. The point of the narrative is, that a facetious old gentleman named Captain Compass beguiles a group of juveniles—who must have been singularly gullible even for those early days—by describing in mysterious and alien-sounding terms the commonest home objects, such as coals, cheese, butter, and so on. It would almost seem as though Hood must have been perpetrating a kindred joke ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... view of the criminal expert," said Mr. Sherlock Holmes, "London has become a singularly uninteresting city since the death of the late ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... performed that portion of the act I should have lain quiet for a second or two, to consider whereabouts I was, and which end of me was uppermost. But there was no nonsense of that sort about that singularly agile stranger,—if he was not made of india-rubber he ought to have been. So to speak, before he was down he was up,—it was all I could do to grab at him before he ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... caught who does not wear a collar he is described as a degenerate of the lowest type, singularly vicious and depraved, and is suspected of being the desperate criminal who stole the handcuffs out of Patrolman Hennessy's pocket in 1878 and ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... at this moment singularly interesting, and if it continues so, and the way seems to open, Mr Borrow will cross the frontier and go and enquire what can be done there. We believe him to be one who is endowed with no small portion of address ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... not only an indefatigable collector, but a most industrious and accurate bibliographer, doing more work in that field, probably, than any other American. He wrote a singularly careful, though rapid hand, as plain and condensed as print, and in days before modern devices for manifolding writing were known, he copied out his invoices in duplicate or triplicate in his own hand, with ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... for statues of a more imposing scale to be placed on the ill-fated facade of the Cathedral. All beautiful within, the churches of Florence are singularly poor in those rich facades which give such scope to the sculptor and architect, conferring, as at Pisa, distinction on a whole town. The churches of the Carmine, Santo Spirito and San Lorenzo are without facades at all, ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... little more than departed with their muster of engineers, foremen and sober workmen, some fifty in all, when the two cars driven by Dr. Hosmer and Janet arrived at headquarters. To the occupants of both machines the camp appeared singularly dark and silent, the office building and the commissary shack alone ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... more than we talk together,) "As to Fingal, I see a controversy arising, and purpose to keep out of its way. There is no doubt that I might mention some circumstances; but I do not choose to commit them to paper[869]." What his opinion is, I do not know. He says, "I am singularly obliged to Dr. Johnson for his accurate and useful criticisms. Had he given some strictures on the general plan of the work, it would have added much to his favours." He is charmed with your verses on Inchkenneth, says they ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... only laughed good-temperedly, he was accustomed to such tirades, and was indeed of a singularly sweet and easy temper. ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... for their clean-coloured, sun- bleached stucco. They are the offspring of the new industry which is death to the old idleness. Of interesting architecture, fruit of the old idleness or at least of the old leisure, Leghorn is singularly destitute. It has neither a church worth one's attention, nor a municipal palace, nor a museum, and it may claim the distinction, unique in Italy, of being the city of no pictures. In a shabby corner near the docks stands a statue of one of the elder Grand Dukes of Tuscany, appealing ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... is but a hole in the ground; and that which appears on top—the shaft-houses and stacks and trestles and dumps—is singularly barren of interest. The Tecolote was better than most, for there were open cuts with steam shovels scooping up the ore, and miners driving holes into the shattered formation and powder-men loading shots. Rimrock showed ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... the corrupt receiving of bribes and presents, was opened by Mr. Sheridan on the 2nd of April. It was clear that Hastings had been singularly indifferent as to riches for his own use yet the orator imputed to him the grossest corruption and most ravenous greed for money. He remarked:—"He is changeable in every thing but corruption; there, and only there he is systematic, methodical, immutable. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... his family, and essentially a self-made man, Mr Robert Chambers is peculiarly distinguished for his kindly disposition and unobtrusive manners—for his enlightened love of country, and diligence in professional labours, uniting, in a singularly happy manner, the man of refined literary taste with the man of business and the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... almost at once. Her understanding rapidly developed, and springing into girlhood while others are yet looked upon almost as children, she was a daughter any parents might justly be proud of. She was singularly beautiful, too, and no eye could rest upon her girlish form and speaking face, her brilliant eye and glowing cheek, other than with delight. That Mr. and Mrs. Grey watched her with looks of something hardly ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various |
