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More "Singularity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... as a visible record of all the accumulated sense of human existence among its occupants. The old walls, the old apartments, of those two associated houses still existed, with some obvious additions, beneath the delicate, fantastic surfaces of the chateau [4] of the sixteenth century. Its singularity of outline was the very symbol of the religion of the family in the race of Latour, still full of loyalty to the old home, as its numerous outgrowths took hold here and there around. A race with some prominent characteristics ineradicable in the grain, ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... success directed round the room at his anticipating companions, he dashed spurs into the sides of his steed. The animal thus urged, apparently terrified with the uproar that assailed his ears, and hardly knowing, in the singularity of the situation, what was required of him, exhibited symptoms of terror and uneasiness. His rider, however, was not to be deterred from his purpose, and bringing him up to the edge of the table, again ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... extraordinary in Cavalieri, Cecchino, Febo, or Perini, except their singularity of youth and grace, good parts and beauty. The vulgar are offended when an illustrious man pays homage to these qualities, forgetful of Shakespeare's self-abasement before Mr. W.H. and of Languet's prostration at the feet of Sidney. In the case of Michelangelo, ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... apostles and the early Christians adopted any peculiarity of dress. From the description given of the wardrobe of our Saviour, it is probable that he wore the common dress of a religious teacher. There is such a thing as a pride of singularity; and this is often manifested in the preparation and adjustment of the wardrobe. Satan is ever on the alert, to observe the bent of the mind, and carry it to extremes. Be not ignorant of his devices. Watch and pray, that you enter ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... heard of occurs among the Kowraregas, and is worth mentioning for its singularity. The first man created was a great giant named Adi, who, while fishing off Hammond Island, was caught by the rising tide and drowned, Hammond Rock springing up immediately after to mark the spot. His wives, who were watching him at the time, ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... with the singularity of finding drones reared in worker cells, but with the equally singular fact that a young Queen, who at first lays only the eggs of workers, should be laying drone eggs at all; and at once conjectured that this was a case of a drone-laying, ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... confusion of yells, that the servant who had disturbed them ran breathless with the information to the doctor, who, followed by his household, including myself, proceeded to the spot. As soon as the state of the case had been ascertained, many were struck by the singularity of the circumstance, as an omen portending no good to the doctor's house. One said, 'This comes of marrying the khanum; she will give him a houseful of harem zadehs.' Another said, 'The puppies are yet blind: God grant that we and the doctor ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... into it. My brother, being yet unmarried, did not keep house, but boarded himself and his apprentices in another family. My refusing to eat flesh occasioned an inconveniency, and I was frequently chid for my singularity. I made myself acquainted with Tryon's manner of preparing some of his dishes, such as boiling potatoes or rice, making hasty pudding, and a few others, and then proposed to my brother, that if he would give me, weekly, half the money he paid for my board, I would board myself. He instantly ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... was seen to pass from view around the curve in the trail, followed by the next, until finally the fifth disappeared. All this time, not one of the warriors looked behind him. It was a singular line of action, and because of its singularity roused the suspicion of ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... importance, perhaps, but surely something of singularity," interrupted Denzil Murray, "especially in the resemblance between the Princess and the dancing-girl of that ancient period,—their features are positively line ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... my friends, who caution me to avoid all appearance of singularity, I venture upon introducing a practice, the expediency of which I will submit to the judgment of the reader. It is one which has been adopted by musicians for more than a century—to the great convenience of all who are fond of ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... from the rest of the world; these reasons would alone authorize the insertion of those papers, and would recommend them to the inquisitive, as a very great improvement in geography, and worthy of attention, from the singularity ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... the sense of light, rather than organs of seeing. Their almost paradoxical number at least, and the singularity of their forms, render it probable that they impel the animal by some modification of its irritability, herein likewise containing a striking analogy to the known influence of light on plants, than as excitements of sensibility. The sense that is nearest akin to irritability, and which alone ...
— Hints towards the formation of a more comprehensive theory of life. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... step traverse the hall, and finally witnessed the door open, and my uncle enter the room. He was a striking looking man; from peculiarities both of person and of dress, the whole effect of his appearance amounted to extreme singularity. He was tall, and when young his figure must have been strikingly elegant; as it was, however, its effect was marred by a very decided stoop; his dress was of a sober colour, and in fashion anterior to any thing which I could remember. It was, however, handsome, and by no means carelessly ...
— Two Ghostly Mysteries - A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... attributed by the unreflecting, to some diabolic spell cast upon them by the animal. They have the same strange susceptibility to the influence of certain sounds as the vipers, in which lies the secret of snake charming. Most of the Indian magicians were familiar with this singularity. They employed it with telling effect to put beyond question their intercourse with the unseen powers, and to vindicate the potency of their own guardian spirits who thus enabled them to handle with impunity the most venomous of reptiles.[109-1] The well-known ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... deed with heartiness. If the words of Bullinger to Hotman, quoted in support of the first sentence ("sunt tamen qui hoc factum et excusare et defendere tentant") really referred to Protestants at all, it can only have been to an insignificant number who took the position from a love of singularity, and who were below contempt. The execration of the deed was pre-eminently unanimous ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... them are of a dirty black or dark-brown colour, and eat very well in a pye or fricassee. Among the small birds I must not omit to particularize the wattle-bird, poy-bird, and fan-tail, on account of their singularity, especially as I find they are not mentioned in the narrative of my ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... laid, two years after he had taken his bachelor's degree, Young was appointed to speak the Latin oration. This is at least particular for being dedicated in English "To the Ladies of the Codrington Family." To these ladies he says "that he was unavoidably flung into a singularity, by being obliged to write an epistle dedicatory void of commonplace, and such an one was never published before by any author whatever; that this practice absolved them from any obligation of reading what was presented to them; and that the bookseller approved of it, because ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... chapel not far from it, in which he was accustomed to offer his Sabbath devotions. This place was the first to which he made a public and frequent resort; and though he did not always attempt to advance towards the uppermost seat in the synagogue, he attracted attention from the mere singularity of his appearance. ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... of idlers had collected round, while the officer was speaking; struck, like him, with the singularity of the sight of a French staff officer upon a horse with German trappings. Ralph did not wish to enter into explanations, there; so merely replied, in the same jesting strain, that it had been a fair exchange—the small difference in the value of the ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... intentions and by my dependence on the protection of Almighty God." Fanny Kemble was present at this memorable scene, and has given her impression of it. Her testimony, as a public speaker, is valuable. "The Queen was not handsome, but very pretty, and the singularity of her great position lent a sentimental and poetical charm to her youthful face and figure. The serene, serious sweetness of her candid brow and clear soft eyes gave dignity to the girlish countenance, while the want of height only added to the effect of extreme youth ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... followed his signal; while the other young men who had accompanied her, wondering at the apparent ease with which she gained admittance, drew back to a respectful distance from the tent, and there canvassed the singularity of their ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... The singularity of his behavior at length forcibly arrested my attention. After licking my face and hands for some minutes, he would suddenly cease doing so, and utter a low whine. Upon reaching out my hand toward him, I then invariably found him lying on his back, with his paws ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... After much discourse about the matter, the Jesuit very sincerely told him, that unless he would quit the communion of the Church of England, he could not be received into the Catholic Church. The duke then said he thought it might be done by a dispensation from the pope, alleging the singularity of his case, and the advantage it might bring to the catholic religion in general, and in particular to those of it in England, if he might have such dispensation for outwardly appearing a protestant, at least till he could own ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... have again attracted our attention to a subject which about thirty years ago was the cause of great excitement and innumerable speculations. The very extraordinary advent, life, and death of Caspar Hauser, the novelty and singularity of all his thoughts and actions, and his charming innocence and amiability, interested at the time all Europe in his behalf. Thrown upon the world in a state of utter helplessness, he was adopted by one of the cities ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... your Franco-Italian language is just the thing to enlist in your favour the sympathy of those who listen to you, because it is singular, new, and because you are in a country where everybody worships those two divinities—novelty and singularity. Nevertheless, you must begin to-morrow and apply yourself in good earnest, in order to acquire a thorough knowledge of our language, for the same persons who warmly applaud you now, will, in two or ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... of the observation of strangers as to take wonder very gratuitously for admiration. This error they are very apt to fall into when, arrived in a foreign country, the populace stare at them as they pass. Yet the make of a cap or the singularity of a gown is often the cause of the flattering attention which afterwards supports a fantastic ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... scrutinized and censured with great freedom. Such a book, and in such a country, naturally attracted general notice, and the offender was taken into custody. After being tried in a very summary way, his production was determined to be a libel, and the writer was condemned to eat his own words. The singularity of such a sentence induced me to see it put into execution. A scaffold was erected in one of the most public streets of the city; the imperial provost, the magistrates, the physicians and surgeons of the Czar attended; the book was separated from its binding, the margin cut off, and every leaf ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 5: Some Strange and Curious Punishments • Henry M. Brooks
... was what was finally fascinating in the case. The little old lady, with her white hair and her plain mourning clothes, in her wheeled chair or her donkey-carriage—one saw her so; and then—close behind—with their immediate suggestion of singularity, of mystery, and of power—the Indian servants. That was the familiar vision, and it was admirable; but, at chosen moments, it was right that the widow of Windsor should step forth apparent Queen. The last and the most ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... not, not altogether as to the quantity—the degree of emotion. Doubtless, it is undeniable that we moderns have far more sensibility to the phenomena and visual glories of this world which we inhabit. And it is possible that, reflecting on the singularity of this characteristic badge worn by modern civilization, he may go so far as to suspect that Christianity has had something to do with it. But, on seeking to complete the chain which connects them, he finds himself quite unable to recover ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... more took my leave, more angry than pleased, much in the same abrupt manner that I had formerly done. The similarity indeed forced itself upon me as I was quitting the door, and I knew not whether to accuse myself of pettishness, obstinacy, and want of candour; or him of singularity, and an inflexible sternness of opposition. At all events, my purpose of publishing my pamphlet as soon as it should be written was fixed; and to that labour I ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... without fear of retort. She was not ill-natured, yet careless to whom she gave offence, provided she produced amusement; and in this she seldom failed; for, in her conversation, there was much of the raciness of Irish wit, and the oddity of Irish humour. The singularity that struck me most about her ladyship was her indifference to flattery. She certainly preferred frolic. Miss Bland was her humble companion; Miss Tracey her butt. Her ladyship appeared to consider Miss ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... is struck with the singularity of the names of many of the women of Lima. A child receives the name of the saint or of the festival whose celebration falls on the day of its birth. Those who happen to come into the world on the days on which the Romish Church celebrates the ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... good—and it is—why not "thitherto"? In the case of "eccentric" as a military term, I felt forced to frame "ex-centric;" the former—I ask Dr. Johnson's pardon—has, in America at least, become so exclusively associated with the secondary though cognate idea of singularity that it would not convey its restricted military significance ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... which consists of delicate and elaborately worked tracery, surmounted by an embattled crest.... The entire work is particularly valuable on account of its well-established date, combined with its great beauty and singularity." ...
— The Cathedral Church of Canterbury [2nd ed.]. • Hartley Withers
... address simply as "The President of the United States." The Senate now had practically no choice but to drop the matter, but in so doing adopted a resolution that because of its desire that "a due respect for the majesty of the people of the United States may not be hazarded by singularity," the Senate was still of the opinion "that it would be proper to annex a respectable title to the office." Thus it came about that the President of the United States is distinguished by having no title. A governor may be addressed as "Your Excellency," a judge as "Your Honor," but the ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... should be had to avoid any allusion to the chest itself. Habit had rendered this so easy, and so much a matter of course, that it was only quite recently the girl had began even to muse on the singularity of the circumstance. But there had never been sufficient intimacy between Hutter and his eldest daughter to invite confidence. At times he was kind, but in general, with her more especially, he was stern and morose. Least of all had ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... of a hundred years. It binds Caius Plautius your colleague, created under the same auspices, with the same privileges. Did not the people create him with the fullest privileges with which any censor ever was created? Or is yours an excepted case, in which this peculiarity and singularity takes place? Shall the person, whom you create king of the sacrifices, laying hold of the style of sovereignty, say, that he was created with the fullest privileges with which any king was ever created at Rome? Who then, do you think, would be content with a dictatorship of six months? who, ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... certain: the old clergyman, a man of few friends and no intimates, enjoyed in Devon, thanks to his time-hallowed reputation for singularity, a certain immunity. In and about Dean Prior, for instance, it was conceded in 1674 that it was unusual for a divine of the Church of England to make a black pig—and a pig of peculiarly diabolical ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... then under the hands of hair-dressers, valets, &c. &c. &c. I hate those fellows about me:—but the singularity of this visit made me undergo their tortures with tolerable patience.—Now was the time when Vanity, under pretence of respect, love, and decorum, ...
— Barford Abbey • Susannah Minific Gunning
... scene of mumming, and some mummers were disguised as bears, others like unicorns, bringing presents. Those who could not procure masks rubbed their faces with soot, or painted them. In the Christmas mummings the chief aim was to surprise by the oddity of the masks, and singularity and splendour of the dresses. Everything was out of nature and propriety. They were often attended with an exhibition of gorgeous machinery.[69] It was an old custom also to have mummeries on Twelfth night. They were the common holiday amusements of young people of both sexes; but by 6 Edward ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... admire their extraordinary beauty, graceful behaviour, pleasant humour, and ready wit; on the other hand, nothing was more surprising to him than the calenders being all three blind of the right eye. He would gladly have been informed of this singularity; but the conditions so lately imposed upon himself and his companions would not allow him to speak. This, with the richness of the furniture, the exact order of every thing, and neatness of the house, made him think it was ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... mournful cadence, and for the time stilled all other sounds. They were only drawn away from it by descrying Mopsey, the black servant, at a turn of the road, hurrying with great animation towards the homestead, but with a singularity in her progress which could not fail to be observed. She rushed along at great speed, for several paces, and suddenly came to a halt, during which her head disappeared, and then renewed her pace, repeating the peculiar manoeuvre once ...
— Chanticleer - A Thanksgiving Story of the Peabody Family • Cornelius Mathews
... persons who died there many years ago. By the ruthless hand of time many of the tombs were mutilated, and it may be that little is left of them. I had the inscriptions of some of them, but gave them to a gentleman from Westmoreland county, Virginia. He wanted them on account of their singularity, and he being an antiquarian he said they would be quite an acquisition to his cabinet of curiosities. It is highly probable that Mount Pleasant was settled long before the Dismal Swamp was known ...
— The Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond, Early recollections - Vivid portrayal of Amusing Scenes • Robert Arnold
... with the gracefulness of his person, the character which Adams gave of him, and the friendship he seemed to entertain for him, began to work on the gentleman's affections, and raised in him a curiosity to know the singularity which Adams had mentioned in his history. This curiosity Adams was no sooner informed of than, with Joseph's consent, he agreed to gratify it; and accordingly related all he knew, with as much tenderness as was ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... and see you.' On examining this person I was surprised to see her head tied up in a foulard, and along the temples a curious dark line; but I presently saw that her head was shaved. 'Have you been ill?' I asked, as I noticed this singularity. She cast a glance at a broken mirror in a shabby frame and colored; then the tears came into her eyes. 'Yes, monsieur,' she said, 'I had horrible headaches, and I was obliged to have my hair cut off; it came to my feet.' 'Am I speaking to ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... Lazarus, of the widow's son at Nain, as well as many of the cures which Christ wrought, come not within the compass of misrepresentation. I mean that it is impossible to assign any position of circumstances however peculiar, any accidental effects however extraordinary, any natural singularity, which could supply an origin or foundation to ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... hangs, crouched upon the back of the animal, with no better chance of saving itself than a sack of corn—combine to make a picture more than sufficiently ludicrous to spectators, however uncomfortable to the exhibiter. But add to this some singularity of dress or appearance on the part of the unhappy cavalier—a robe of office, a splendid uniform, or any other peculiarity of costume—and let the scene of action be a race course, a review, a procession, or any other place of concourse and public display, and if the poor ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... spectral rays. Thirty-two Wolf-Rayet stars were investigated, spectroscopically and spectrographically, by Professor Campbell with the great Lick refractor in 1892-94;[1405] and several disclosed the singularity, already noticed by him in Gamma Argus, of giving out mixed series, the members of which change from vivid to obscure with increase of refrangibility. It is difficult to imagine by what chromospheric machinery this curious ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... and vulgarity." Early English poetry, continues the essayist, "has had its day, and the antiquary must not despise us if we cannot peruse it with patience. He who delights in all such reading as is never read, may derive some pleasure from the singularity of his taste, but he ought still to respect the judgment of mankind, which has consigned to oblivion the works which he admires. While he pores unmolested on Chaucer, Gower, Lydgate, and Occleve, let him not censure our obstinacy in adhering to ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... the person who came to the door in Latin, who could not understand that language; a man shortly presented himself who could, and Rabelais addressed him in Greek. Another map was sent for, and he was addressed in Hebrew, and so on. The singularity of the circumstance arrested the attention of the chancellor, and Rabelais was at once invited to his presence. He succeeded in restoring the lost honors to the college, and such was the enthusiasm of the students that ever after, when taking degrees, ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... self-greatest part, That she did make her god; and 'twas less naught To leave gods in profession and in thought, Than in her love and life; for therein lies Most of her duties and their dignities; And, rail the brain-bald world at what it will, That's the grand atheism that reigns in it still. Yet singularity she would use no more, For she was singular too much before; But she would please the world with fair pretext; Love would not leave her conscience perplext: Great men that will have less do for them, still Must bear them ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman
... that she spared nothing to set it off; curls, topknots, precious stones, all are in profusion... She was born with much esprit; the desire of appearing to have more made her prefer the study of the abstract sciences to agreeable branches of knowledge; she thought by this singularity to attain a greater reputation and a decided superiority over all other women. Madame worked with so much care to seem what she was not, that no one knew exactly what she was; even her defects were not natural." "She talks like an angel"—"she ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... his Camera Regis (Lond. 1666, p. 114.), quotes the statute of 11 Hen. VII. c. 21, as the authority for the "singularity" attaching to the city, that "butchers shall kill no beasts in London." I believe, however, Bohun's reference will be found to be the correct one. The statute in question has, I think, never been repealed; but in the absence of abbatoirs, or other proper provision for the slaughtering ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 42, Saturday, August 17, 1850 • Various
... create, at each moment, fresh ideal wholes, formal unities which mind emanates from and represents. The result will accordingly always be unprecedented in the total impression it produces, in exact proportion to the singularity of the situation in hand. Mechanical processes are not like mathematical relations, because they happen. What they express the form of is a flux, not a truth or an ideal necessity. The situation may therefore always be new, though produced from the preceding situation by rules which are invariable, ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... Edmunds. I have still present before me his bushy black hair, his black face, and his big black eyes, full and thoughtful, but fixed and staring. His dress consisted of a loose blue jockey coat, jockey boots and breeches; in his hand a huge jockey whip, and on his head (it struck me at the time for its singularity) a broad- brimmed, high-peaked Andalusian hat, or at least one very much resembling those generally worn in that province. In stature he was shorter than his more youthful companion, yet he must have measured six feet at least, and was stronger built, if possible. What brawn!—what ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... the report of a fatal case of rattlesnake-bite: A private, aged thirty-seven, remarkable for the singularity of his conduct, was known in his Company as a snake-charmer, as he had many times, without injury, handled poisonous snakes. On the morning of July 13, 1869, he was detailed as guard with the herd at Fort Cummings, New Mexico, when, in the presence ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... shaky, one may add, under their feet. I daresay that Nietzsche, had he been alive, would have got a lot of satisfaction out of the execration thus heaped upon him, not only because, being a vain fellow, he enjoyed execration as a tribute to his general singularity, and hence to his superiority, but also and more importantly because, being no mean psychologist, he would have recognized the disconcerting doubts underlying it. If Nietzsche's criticism of democracy were as ignorant ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche
... convenient to be done, our Christian liberty consists in this that we have leave to do them (p. 242). 31. For our refusing to comply with these, can hardly proceed from any thing, than a proud affectation of singularity, or at best from superstitious scrupluosity (p. 242). 33. Those ministers hinder the design of Christianity, that preach up free grace, and Christian privileges, OTHER WAYS than as motives to obedience, and that scarce ever insist upon any ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... reckless some Of error; others well aware they err, To whom more guilt and shame are justly due. Each the known track of sage philosophy Deserts, and has a byway of his own: So much the restless eagerness to shine And love of singularity prevail. Yet this, offensive as it is, provokes Heav'n's anger less, than when the book of God Is forc'd to yield to man's authority, Or from its straightness warp'd: no reck'ning made What blood the sowing of it in the world Has cost; what favour for himself he wins, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... concern of the nominally first personages. But even putting 'Wandering Willie's Tale' aside, and taking for granted the merits of that incomparable piece (of which, it may yet be gently hinted, it was not so very long ago still a singularity and mark of daring to perceive the absolute supremacy), the good things in this fascinating book defy exaggeration. The unique autobiographic interest—so fresh and keen and personal, and yet so free from the odious intrusion of actual personality—of the earlier epistolary presentment of Saunders ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... creatures kept for special purposes. This was not the effect of mere novelty, for animals like the amba and birds like the esve, trained to the performance of services congenial to their natural habits, however dissimilar to Terrestrial species, had not the same air of singularity, or rather of monstrosity. But in the creatures bred to furnish wool, feathers, or the like, some single feature was always exaggerated into disproportionate dimensions. Thus the elnerve is loaded with long plumes, sometimes twice ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... prayer. God is served, not merely with the words of the mouth or the bending of the knee; it is the pure and upright heart which he requires, and with which alone he will be satisfied; with this upright frame of mind we may live in the world, without either singularity or affectation, and cheerfully conform to its customs and amusements, yet preserve the most strict subjection ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... singularity that this thread of savagery should run through these emotions of mine and become now the whole strand of these emotions. I believed, and I think I was right in believing, that the love of all true lovers was a sort ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... and throw him into convulsions. During the crisis, they possess an extraordinary and supernatural power, by which, on touching a patient presented to them, they can feel what part of his body is diseased, even by merely passing their hand over the clothes." Another singularity was, that these sleepers who could thus discover diseases — see into the interior of other men's stomachs, and point out remedies, remembered absolutely nothing after the magnetiser thought proper to disenchant ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... She might have held back a little longer; but another circumstance, not yet hinted at, had somewhat hastened her decision. Her humble preparations, therefore, were duly made, and the enterprise was now to be commenced. Nor was she entitled to complain of any remarkable singularity in her fate; for, in the town of her nativity, we might point to several little shops of a similar description, some of them in houses as ancient as that of the Seven Gables; and one or two, it may be, where a decayed gentlewoman stands behind the counter, as grim an image of family ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... must be of a particularly rare and pungent quality, a fact of which he had certainly had inklings before, but no certain assurance. The scare and perplexity of his first discovery was now qualified by pride in this evidence of singularity and by vague intimations of advantage. He became aware that the church clock was striking one, and as it did not occur to him that his daily duties at Gomshott's might be miraculously dispensed with, he resumed undressing, in order to get to bed without ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... them be quiet until the Church has gone to the devil, its lawful owner, and till something a little like Christianity takes its place. If parsons are to be Lords, it is but right and reasonable that the Queen should be Pope. Indeed, I have no objection to this, but I have to the other. What a singularity it is that those who profess a belief in Christ do not obey Him, while those who profess it in Mahomet or Moses or Boodh are obedient to their precepts, if not in certain points of morality, in all things else. Carlyle is a vigorous thinker, but a vile writer, ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... its singularity has your wisdom made?" said his friend. "I thought you and the world knew each other's faces pretty ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... degree, and as natural selection acts exclusively by the preservation of variations which are advantageous under the excessively complex conditions to which each being is exposed, no limit exists to the number, singularity, and perfection of the contrivances and co-adaptations which may thus be produced. An animal or a plant may thus slowly become related in its structure and habits in the most intricate manner to many other animals ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... its prime differs altogether in character from that of every other part of Italy. The Venetian is the most marked and recognisable of all the schools; its singularity is such that a novice in art can easily, in a miscellaneous collection, sort out the works belonging to it, and added to this unique character is the position it occupies in the domain of art. Venice alone of Italian States can boast an epoch of art comparable in originality and splendour to ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... in 1763, "The Origin and Progress of Letters." The great singularity of this volume is "a new species of biography never attempted before in English." This consists of the lives of "English Penmen," otherwise writing-masters! If some have foolishly enough imagined that the sedentary lives of authors are void of interest from deficient incident ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... a man in quest of a religion, if he does not discover something new, he might as well stay at home: nothing near the present standard can take. Two requisites are necessary to found a religion, capacity, and singularity: no fool ever succeeded. If his talents are not above mediocrity, he will not be able to draw the crowd; and if his doctrines are not singular, the crowd will not ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... see me now!" thought Wilfrid, half-smitten with a distant notion of a singularity in his position there, the mark for a frosty breeze, while his eyes kept undeviating watch ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a variegated mantle. But these edifices tell us nothing in particular; there is neither a style peculiar to Pompeii discernible in them, nor do we find artists of the place bearing any noted name, or possessing any singularity of taste and method. On the other hand, there is an easy eclecticism that adopts all forms with equal facility and betrays the decadence or the sterility of the time. I recall the fact that the city was in process of reconstruction when it was destroyed. Its unskilful repairs disclose ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... lives from the raging sea, the gathering was graced by the presence of the bridegroom's bed-ridden mother. Old Mrs Massey had been carried in, bed and all, to the scene of festivity; and it is due to the invalid to state that, despite rheumatics and the singularity of her position, she seemed to enjoy herself exceedingly. Besides this, the friends and comrades of the coxswain—backed by the enthusiastic groomsman, Joe Slag—would not permit Massey to don wedding garments, but insisted on his dancing himself dry, in ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... aqua a bibentibus absumpta sit, dimidia hora post injectum lignum aqua caeruleum colorem contrabit, qui sensim intenditur pro temporis diuturnitate, tametsi lignum candidum fit. This Wood, Pyrophilus, may afford us an Experiment, which besides the singularity of it, may give no small assistance to an attentive Considerer towards the detection of the Nature of Colours. The Experiment as we made it is this. Take Lignum Nephriticum, and with a Knife cut it into thin Slices, put about a handfull of these Slices ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle
... attitudes. His pictures on such subjects are spirited, natural, and excellent; and he is so clever a man, that all he does is good to a certain degree. His "Judith" is somewhat violent, perhaps. His "Rebecca" most pleasing; and not the less so for a little pretty affectation of attitude and needless singularity of costume. "Raphael and Michael Angelo" is as clever a picture as can be—clever is just the word—the groups and drawing excellent, the coloring pleasantly bright and gaudy; and the French students study it incessantly; there are a dozen who copy it for one ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of the saint on Mount Alverno deserves special consideration, not merely on account of its singularity, but also because it affords a striking illustration of the difficulties one encounters in trying to get at the truth in monastic narratives. Francis had retired to Mount Alverno, a wild and rugged solitude, to meditate upon the Lord's ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... saw over the canisters of the tobacco window, and the singularity of the man's behaviour prompted him to ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... of the Scriptures I will now relate an anecdote not altogether divested of singularity. I have already spoken of the water-mill by the bridge of Azeca. I had formed acquaintance with the tenant of this mill, who was known in the neighbourhood by the name of Don Antero. One day, taking me into a retired ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... often turning about to take a deliberate stare at my humble self; insomuch that I felt as if my genuine sympathy for the illustrious penitent, and my many reflections about him, must have imbued me with some of his own singularity of mien. If their great-grandfathers were such redoubtable starers in the Doctor's day, his penance was no light one. This curiosity indicates a paucity of visitors to the little town, except for market purposes, and I question if Uttoxeter ever saw an American before. The only other thing ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... licence of conjecture, which is become almost inseparable from the character of an editor, we should say: That Milton having written it upon the borders of Wales, might have had easy recourse to the manuscript whose contents are now first given to the public: And that the singularity of preserving the name of the place where it was first performed in the title of his poem, was intended for an ingenuous and well-bred acknowledgement of the source from whence he ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... its prehensile tail, marsupial pouch, and cunning ways, stands alone for its singularity among all the animals of the American continent. Many of the tribe are found in South America; but the Virginian opossum, the size of a full-grown cat, is larger than all its relatives. The head and body measure about twenty-two inches; and ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... metaphor) its rings were concentric and hardly distinct. She never, I believe, was forced to drop an old acquaintance because she had found a new one. The just estimate of our Western manners which you, my dear Prince, formed at Balliol, will enable you to grasp the singularity of such a triumph. Its rapidity, I must admit, perplexes me still. But in those old days we studied Arnold Toynbee overmuch and neglected the civilising influences of the card-table. By the time the Seely-Hardwickes took their house near Hyde Park Corner, philanthropy ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... impressed by the singularity of Rufe's mention of the missing grant and its place ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... moved or spoke before him, but he would carry their voice, look, mein, and motion instantly into another company. I have heard him make long harangues, and form various arguments, even in the manner of thinking, of an eminent pleader at the bar, with every the least article and singularity of his utterance so perfectly imitated, that he was the very alter ipse, scarce to be distinguished from his original. Yet more; I have seen upon the margin of the written part of Falstaff, which he acted, his own notes and observations ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... exclusively. Winthrop corrects this judgment; he was a Puritan, though he was sunny and gentle; and there were many others who more or less resembled him. The reason that the somber type is the better known is partly because of its greater picturesqueness and singularity, and partly because the early life of New England was on the whole militant and aggressive, and therefore brought the rigid and ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... them. Thy fates open their hands; let thy blood and spirit embrace them. And, to inure thyself to what thou art like to be, cast thy humble slough and appear fresh. Be opposite with a kinsman, surly with servants: let thy tongue tang arguments of state; put thyself into the trick of singularity: She thus advises thee that sighs for thee. Remember who commended thy yellow stockings, and wished to see thee ever cross-gartered. I say, remember. Go to; thou art made, if thou desirest to be so; if not, let me see thee a steward still, the fellow of servants, and not ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... frightful fancies, other most unhappy influences flowed from the prevalence of the style of literature which the Mathers brought into vogue. Suspicions and accusations of witchcraft were everywhere prevalent; any unusual calamity or misadventure; every instance of real or affected singularity of deportment or behavior—and, in that condition of perverted and distempered public opinion, there would be many such—was attributed to the Devil. Every sufferer who had yielded his mind to what was taught in pulpits or publications, ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... church has not the interest of singularity which belongs to another at Aubeterre—that of St. John. It is, or was, truly a church, and yet it is not an edifice. Like one at St. Emilion, it is monolithic in the sense that those who made it worked upon the solid rock with ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... grand is this consideration, and especially how remote is it from all that is generally thought on this subject! Moreover, the astonishment which its novelty and its singularity may excite in you requires that at first you should suspend your judgment in regard to it. But the observation which establishes it is now on record (consignee), and the facts which support it exist and are ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... Borrow, of whom he has heard through the gipsies, executes the wasteful and very meaningless ceremony of throwing two bottles of old rose champagne, at a guinea apiece, through the window. Even this is too dramatic a finale for Borrow's unconquerable singularity, and he adds a short dialogue between himself and a recruiting sergeant. And after this again there comes an appendix containing an apologia for Lavengro, a great deal more polemic against Romanism, some historical views ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... before me almost sheer, but mantled with a thicket of climbing trees; from farther down, an outwork raised its turret; and across the valley I had a view of that long terrace of Princes Street which serves as a promenade to the fashionable inhabitants of Edinburgh. A singularity in a military prison, that it should command a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... roughly, the form of a vast quadrangle, 2,000 miles on the side, and extends from the hottest tropical, to the middle of the temperate, zone. Setting aside the foreign colonists introduced within the last century, it is inhabited by people no less remarkable for the uniformity, than for the singularity, of their physical characters and social state. For the most part of fair stature, erect and well built, except for an unusual slenderness of the lower limbs, the AUSTRALIANS have dark, usually chocolate-coloured ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... discern the intention was not publick: and, being a private exercise directed to myself, what is de- livered therein was rather a memorial unto me, than an example or rule unto any other: and therefore, if there be any singularity therein correspondent unto the pri- vate conceptions of any man, it doth not advantage them; or if dissentaneous thereunto, it no way over- throws them. It was penned in such a place, and with such disadvantage, that (I protest), ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... here the thorny question again made its appearance: Could we not get along with one genius only, and explain the present existence of that unattainable excellence? And now eyes were keenly on the lookout for whatever that excellence and singularity might consist of. Impossible for it to be in the construction of the complete works, said one party, for this is far from faultless; but doubtless to be found in single songs: in the single pieces above all; not in the whole. A second party, ...
— Homer and Classical Philology • Friedrich Nietzsche
... mouth, the same curving fingers, the same soft, delicate, and purely white skin. Though slightly resembling a girl disguised as a man, his physical strength was Herculean. His muscles had the suppleness and vigor of steel springs, and the singularity of his black eyes and fair complexion was by no means without charm. His beard had not yet sprouted; this delay, it is said, is a promise of longevity. The chevalier was dressed in a short coat of black velvet like that of his mother's gown, trimmed with ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... prolonged from a difficulty of living in peace rather than from any serious intention, on either side, of pursuing a clear and definite object. Bourbon and Lannoy commanded the imperial armies, Lautrec the French army. Only two events, one for its singularity and the other for its tragic importance, deserve to have the memory of them ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... him for a bed; on land, a mat, or the earth itself. He eat so little, that one of his companions assures us, that, without a miracle, he could not have lived. Another tells us, that he seldom or never drank wine, unless at the tables of the Portuguese; for there he avoided singularity, and took what was given him. But, afterwards, he revenged himself on one of those repasts, by ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... nurses of the place. Her attire was well enough, though worn awkwardly, and as if its owner were not exactly at ease in it. She had the air of one in her best attire, who was unaccustomed to be dressed above the most common mode. What added to the singularity of her appearance, was the fact, that while she wore no cap, her hair had been cut into short, gray bristles, instead of being long, and turned up, as is usual with females. To give a sort of climax to this uncouth appearance, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... Standing Committee on Commons, upon which I asked Fitzmaurice to replace me. The proceedings of Sir Stafford Northcote's Committee, as the Committee on Public Business was called, presented only one singularity—namely, the examination of the Speaker—a prolonged one— by Parnell. Both of them were in a way able men; but both were extraordinarily slow of intellect—that is, slow in appreciating a point or catching a new idea—and ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... called a sacrifice to Hephaestion's ghost. In his sepulchre and monument and the adorning of them, he intended to bestow ten thousand talents; and designing that the excellence of the workmanship and the singularity of the design might outdo the expense, his wishes turned, above all other artists, to Stasicrates, because he always promised something very bold, unusual, and magnificent in his projects. Once when they had met before, he had told him, that of all the mountains he knew, that of ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... them all, one after the other; but their names did not abide in my memory one moment. I was thinking too much of the singularity of the adventure, and could not attend to such minutiae. That the red-rosed harpy was Miss Grogram, that I remembered;—that, I may say, I shall never forget. But whether the motherly lady with the somewhat blowsy hair was Mrs. Jones, or Mrs. Green, or Mrs. Walker, I cannot now say. The ...
— The Relics of General Chasse • Anthony Trollope
... in its meaning to me; but as it did not concern me, I did not let it weigh upon my mind. But the singularity of the other man's appearance lingered with me for a while; and as we walked toward Bell's house ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... trouble it of purpose. They would not have it run without rubs, as if that style were more strong and manly that struck the ear with a kind of unevenness. These men err not by chance, but knowingly and willingly; they are like men that affect a fashion by themselves; have some singularity in a ruff, cloak, or hatband; or their beards specially cut to provoke beholders, and set a mark upon themselves. They would be reprehended while they are looked on. And this vice, one that is authority with the rest, loving, delivers over to them to be imitated; so that ofttimes the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... project, they pulled out each a substantial complement of stout oaten bread, which served, along with the whiskey, for breakfast. The two persons pitched on for decoying Mat were Dolan and Traynor, who accordingly set out, full of glee at the singularity and drollness of their undertaking. It is unnecessary to detail the ingenuity with which they went about it, because, in consequence of Kavanagh's love of drink, very little ingenuity was necessary. One circumstance, ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... without being very nice, I own I should rather choose a wife of mine to have the usual number of limbs, and a limited quantity of back; and though one eye may be very agreeable, yet, as the prejudice has always run in favor of two, I would not wish to affect a singularity in that article. ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... neutral ground, at which we met with cold salutations but without conversation. Ormond and the Dane, however, became exceedingly intimate. Indeed, the mulatto appeared to exhibit a degree of friendship for the Margaritan I had never seen him bestow on any one else. This singularity, together with his well-known insincerity, put me on my guard to watch his ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... continues Blumenbach, 'in some countries have degenerated into races which, in singularity, far exceed every thing that has been found strange in bodily variety among the human race. Swine with solid hoofs were known to the ancients, and large breeds of them are found in Hungary and Sweden. In like manner, the European swine first carried by the Spaniards in 1509 to the island of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... we can lessen their own. It may be a very great relief to them to know that others have passed through trials equal to theirs and have survived. There are obscure, nervous diseases, hypochondriac fancies, almost uncontrollable impulses, which terrify by their apparent singularity. If we could believe that they are common, the worst of ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... "Beware of stiff singularity in things barely indifferent: it is self in disguise; and it is so much the more dangerous when it comes recommended by a serious, self-denying, ...
— Fletcher of Madeley • Brigadier Margaret Allen
... over-arched by the sky, the floor of which was covered by the sea, and adorned with a garden of corals. The steep sides are thickly hung with lianas, ferns, and orchids, by help of which one climbs upwards to the cavern, sixty feet above the surface of the water. To add to the singularity of the situation, we also found at the entrance to the grotto, on a large block of rock projecting two feet above the ground, [A sea snake.] a sea-snake, which tranquilly gazed at us, but which had to be killed, because, like all genuine sea-snakes, it was poisonous. ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... in the ancestral wisdom of his people, unheralded but by the village estimate of a sweet and innocent life, to finish the work of a long line of prophets, and to lift humanity nearer to God. And we are often so eager to prove the singularity of his mission, and to take him out of the category of other workers for God, as to miss the great lesson which is to be learned of the way in which the Father always trains and educates a faithful and victorious Son. Of his ...
— Beside the Still Waters - A Sermon • Charles Beard
... at the Paddington terminus, an unlooked-for difficulty presented itself. My costume attracted universal attention. It was, in fact, outre even in comparison with the most outlandish; for every article had been carefully selected for its singularity. My "caubeen" especially excited the risibility of the merry boys who thronged the streets. I was soon followed by an uproarious crowd of most incorrigible young rascals, who made lunges at my unfortunate head-gear. They peered ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... skull upon the other side of the parchment, immediately beneath my figure of the scarabaeus, and that this skull, not only in outline, but in size, should so closely resemble my drawing. I say the singularity of this coincidence absolutely stupefied me for a time. This is the usual effect of such coincidences. The mind struggles to establish a connection—a sequence of cause and effect—and being unable to do so, suffers a species of temporary paralysis. But ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... so," said Mr. Anstruther patiently. "But when I commented on the singularity of the circumstance which had directed the steps of my granddaughter towards Wrexley, I was not referring so much to the relative geographical positions of Windy Gap and Wrexley, with which indeed ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... bigotry and fanaticism of his grandmother, the Evangelical Duchess, with her "swarm of parsons," as Sir Wilfrid remembered her. The oddity, which had been violent or brutal in earlier generations, showed itself in him, one might have said, in a radical transposition of values, a singularity of criterion, which the ordinary robust Englishman might very well dismiss with impatience as folly ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in excuses for coming also, as soon as the duties of the ship would allow him. It was remarked that when he came Donna Julia took the opportunity of leaving her father's room, except when he went in to visit the old man. At last Ronald taxed him with the singularity of his proceedings. ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... the eccentricities of his thoughts and deeds. Whatever these might happen to be, she worshipped her husband notwithstanding. For her he was the standard of excellence; all other men were departures from it. And the singularity is, her religious faith was never for an instant shaken - she remained as strict a Roman Catholic as when he married her from a convent. Her enthusiasm and cosmopolitanism, her NAIVETE and the sweetness of her disposition ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... who had listened to this narrative with a mixture of compassion, admiration and censure, was too much struck with its singularity to be readily able to answer it. Her curiosity to hear him had sprung wholly from her desire to assist him, and she had expected from his story to gather some hint upon which her services might be offered. But none had occurred; he ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... I have more than once had occasion to remark the singularity of popular festivities solemnized on the part of the people with no other intention but that of exact obedience to the edicts of government. This is so generally understood, that Richard, a deputy on mission at Lyons, writes to the Convention, as a circumstance ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... of this part of the north shore of the gulf, must not be omitted, on account of their singularity, the small salt-water lakes, which are found divided from the sea only by a narrow ledge of rock, having a depth over it of four feet at high-water. They are consequently replenished by the sea every tide, and form salt-water ...
— Handbook to the new Gold-fields • R. M. Ballantyne
... Strive not for singularity in dress; Fools have the more and men of sense the less. To look original is not worth while, But be in mind a little out ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... shall find this apparent singularity and mystery to disappear. We are surprised only because we see a familiar fact under a new aspect, and do not at once recognize it. What we see before us in this great event is only an underlying fact of every individual's personal experience, expanded into the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... seqq.] divides the uplifting of pride, saying that there is "pride of will, pride of speech, end pride of deed." Bernard [*De Grad. Humil. et Superb. x, seqq.] also reckons twelve degrees of pride, namely "curiosity, frivolity of mind, senseless mirth, boasting, singularity, arrogance, presumption, defense of one's sins, deceitful confession, rebelliousness, license, sinful habit." Now these apparently are not comprised under the species mentioned by Gregory. Therefore the latter would seem to be ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... not wanting in courage when it was to be called forth) an object well worthy of gaze and admiration. Her features thrown into broad light and shade by the candle which at times was half extinguished by the wind—her symmetry of form and the gracefulness and singularity of her attire—were matter of astonishment to Philip. Her head was without covering, and her long hair fell in plaits behind her shoulders; her stature was rather under the middle size, but her form perfect; her ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... figured in that inestimable work the Hortus Elthamensis of Dillenius. As most of these plants grow readily from slips, or cuttings, and require only the shelter of a common greenhouse, and as they recommend themselves to our notice, either from the extreme singularity of their foliage, the beauty of their flowers, or the peculiarity of their expansion, so they are a favourite class of ...
— The Botanical Magazine, Vol. I - Or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis
... not surprised at his having done so in this case. Evidently the work has been a favourite with him, and he has taken as much pains as it was ever necessary for his colossal strength to take with anything. The subject is not one which admits of much singularity or energy in composition. It was always a favourite one with Veronese, because it gave dramatic interest to figures in gay costumes and of cheerful countenances; but one is surprised to find Tintoret, whose tone of mind was always grave, and who did not like ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... over-Englishing his travels, and wholly consecrated to singularity; the very Jacob's staff of compliment; a sir that hath lived to see the revolution of time in most of his apparel. Of presence good enough, but so palpably affected to his own praise, that for want of flatterers he commends himself, to the floutage of his own family. He deals upon returns, and strange ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... late Lieutenant-general Sir Charles Hastings, Bart., and his elder brother Sir Charles Abney Hastings inherited the baronetcy. The late Sir Charles Hastings was colonel of the 12th foot, and knight grand cross of the Guelphic order; he possessed a large fortune, and he was well known for his singularity at Carlton House, and in the fashionable circles of London, about the beginning of the present century. The present baronet, Sir Charles Abney Hastings, entered the army when young, but retired after having served some time in the Mediterranean. Frank was born on the 14th ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... before saw these three pursuits had to private interest, or render any one of them less conducive to it, than any other? Thus one man's affection is to honour as his end; in order to obtain which he thinks no pains too great. Suppose another, with such a singularity of mind, as to have the same affection to public good as his end, which he endeavours with the same labour to obtain. In case of success, surely the man of benevolence hath as great enjoyment as the man of ambition; they both equally having the ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler
... truth of certain generally accepted views, there is no law compelling him to provoke animosity by announcing his dissent. He may be excused if he shrink from the lurid glory of martyrdom; he may be justified in not placing himself in a position of singularity. He may even be commended for not helping to perplex mankind with doubts which he feels to be founded on limited and possibly erroneous investigation. But if allegiance to truth lays no stern command upon him to speak out his immature dissent, it does lay a stern command not to ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... of language. It is true that in the earlier stages of her culture the whole of Europe had Latin for her learned tongue. That was in her intellectual budding time, when all her petals of self-expression were closed in one point. But the perfection of her mental unfolding was not represented by the singularity of her literary vehicle. When the great European countries found their individual languages, then only the true federation of cultures became possible in the West, and the very differences of the channels ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore
... girl, "and I thought my name pretty because of its singularity! But since it displeases you, I would that I were ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... the appreciable honor of having been the indirect means of opening those large visions to the eyes of men who certainly were a most uncomfortable set of citizens while under pupilage. Mr. Bancroft had previously written thus:—"Had the territory of Rhode Island corresponded to the importance and singularity of the principles of its early existence, the world would have been filled with wonder at the phenomena of its history."[B] It was only because the State was no larger that it was a safe field for the first trial of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... kingdom without noticing a tree which, although of no use in manufacture or commerce, not peculiar to the island, and has been often described, merits yet, for its extreme singularity, that it should not be passed over in silence. This is the jawi-jawi and ulang-ulang of the Malays, the banyan tree of the continent, the Grossularia domestica of Rumphius, and the Ficus indica or Ficus racemosa of Linnaeus. It possesses ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... he was still more surprised at the singularity of the stranger's appearance. He was a short, square-built old fellow, with thick, bushy hair and a grizzled beard. His dress was of the antique Dutch fashion—a cloth jerkin strapped around the waist—several pairs of breeches, the outer ones of ample volume, decorated ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... indeed, a novice amid scenes of fashion, and the genuine pleasure her countenance expressed, appeared a relief when compared to many around her. The name of Hamilton had never been entirely forgotten in London. Their singularity in living so long in unbroken retirement had been by many ridiculed, by others condemned, as an attempt to appear better than their neighbours; and many were the speculations as to whether the saintly ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... the quaintness and singularity of its form," said I; "it appears to be less adapted for real ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... been certain that he would do so, and had herself indicated her own sister Elizabeth as the person whose character was most likely to secure a happy home to him and his children. So, with his usual singularity, though he liked her less than any of her other sisters, and though he believed her utterly unsuited to himself, he followed the advice which had been given, and in spite of law and public opinion, Elizabeth Sneyd ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... be married, was shown to him. The concealment of the birth of the boy till the father had made up his mind to come home was urged. The absurdity of his behaviour since he had been at home was described. The singularity of his conduct in allowing none of his family to become acquainted with his wife was pointed out. This was done by the Dean rather than by Lord George, and Lord George, as he heard it all, almost regarded the Dean as his enemy. At last he burst out in his own defence. "Of course you will understand, ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... young men err on the side of originality and singularity," she said; "I have always considered realism the sin of the age. I am quite curious to see ...
— The Coquette's Victim • Charlotte M. Braeme
... very easy matter to mistake Newman Noggs, after having once seen him, and as Kate, attracted by the singularity of his manner (in which on this occasion, however, there was something respectful and even delicate, notwithstanding the abruptness of his speech), looked at him more closely, she recollected having caught a passing glimpse of that strange ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... without obscurity. "Clear, but with distinction," is the brief definition of Aristotle. Davidson has learned his lesson well from Shelley and Wordsworth and Arnold. He cultivates all the virtues, and not without success. He has not been tempted to leave the true path and court singularity, whether in the shape of Browning's verbal puzzles or of Swinburne's luscious and alliterative turgidness. His diction is of the simplest. Says one ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... Odo guessed to be the Procuratessa Bra. The Marquess, hastening forward, kissed the lady's hand, and turned to summon the actors, who hung back at the farther end of the terrace. The light from the windows and from the lacquey's tapers fell full on the motley band, and Odo, roused to the singularity of his position, was about to seek shelter behind the Pantaloon when he heard a cry of recognition, and Mirandolina, darting out of the Procuratessa's circle, fell at that lady's ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... from its novelty, extent, and singularity, demands the first notice: the Cholamoo lake lay 1500 feet below me, at the bottom of a rapid and rocky descent; it was a blue sheet of water, three or four miles from north to south, and one and a half broad, ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... of this onslaught others followed rapidly. Rochester, disposed to singularity of opinion, set up Elkanah Settle, a young author of some talent, as a rival to the Laureate. Anonymous bardings lampooned him. Mr. Bayes was a broad target for every shaft, so that the complaint so feelingly uttered in his latter days, that "no man ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... only one, America several species; of these the album here figured, (whose name is derived from the whiteness of its petals, and with which the nectary must not be confounded) is by far the most magnificent; indeed there are few flowers which to such singularity of structure add such elegance and beauty: it grows spontaneously in various parts of North-America, and chiefly in the woods; was introduced to the royal garden at Kew, by Mr. WILLIAM YOUNG about ...
— The Botanical Magazine, Vol. 6 - Or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis
... himself in the river. He was desperate when he left me to go and see you.' On examining this person I was surprised to see her head tied up in a foulard, and along the temples a curious dark line; but I presently saw that her head was shaved. 'Have you been ill?' I asked, as I noticed this singularity. She cast a glance at a broken mirror in a shabby frame and colored; then the tears came into her eyes. 'Yes, monsieur,' she said, 'I had horrible headaches, and I was obliged to have my hair cut off; it came to my feet.' 'Am I speaking to Madame Mongenod?' ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... knowing something with seemliness does not come to a woman so much from what she knows as from what others do not know; and it is, without doubt, singularity that makes it difficult to be as others are not, without being exposed to blame. Seriously, is not the ordinary idea of the education of women a peculiar one? They are not to be coquettes nor gallants, and yet they are carefully taught all that is peculiar to ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... at present to consider me as a whimsical girl, with a certain flow of spirits, and much vanity, desiring to distinguish herself by singularity? ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... home, he was astonished to find the child better, its whole condition had changed, the medicine had taken hold, and the doctor now said everything was so hopeful the child would surely recover, and it did. But mark the unparalleled singularity of the scene. The father asked the messenger the time when the prayer was offered. He replied, "At a quarter to eleven." The father in astonishment said, "At that very moment the disease changed, and the doctor ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... quote here two or three of the good critical words which Keats scattered through his letters. Emphasizing the use of simple means in his art, he says, 'I think that poetry should surprise by a fine excess, and not by singularity; it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... a laughable singularity, that, of all the double-faced men employed by the Emperor, there was no one, in whom he had more confidence, than he had in M. de Mont**. He had formerly ill-treated, persecuted, and banished him: he knew, that he detested him, and was the most ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... because the heroine of that scandal, having begun to live the ordinary life of womankind, there were no fantastic stories to tell, the county having had time to become accustomed to the change in her and comment on it no more. And still there was a singularity in the silence. Yet for my lord Duke himself it was impossible to broach the subject, he being aware that he was not calm enough in mind to open it with a composure which would not ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... words and thought would, after all, be in itself little more than serious trifling, a mere exhibition of mental and verbal ingenuity. It would be a kind of intellectual and linguistical dexterity, which would give the author a singularity and supremacy above the world. It would make him the greatest of mental acrobats or jugglers, and he might almost deserve as eminent a reputation as a similar class of artists in bodily achievements; possibly he might claim to be ranked with the man who cooked his dinner and ate it on a ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... admitted to the military school in France, would eat nothing but bread and soup, and drink nothing but water. He was reproved for his singularity; but still he would not change. He was finally threatened with being sent home, if he persisted. "You will not, I hope, be displeased with me," said he to the Principal of the institution; "but I could not bring myself to enjoy what I think a luxury, while I reflect that my dear father ...
— Anecdotes for Boys • Harvey Newcomb
... prevalence of the style of literature which the Mathers brought into vogue. Suspicions and accusations of witchcraft were everywhere prevalent; any unusual calamity or misadventure; every instance of real or affected singularity of deportment or behavior—and, in that condition of perverted and distempered public opinion, there would be many such—was attributed to the Devil. Every sufferer who had yielded his mind to what was taught in pulpits or publications, lost sight of the Divine Hand, and could see nothing ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... a congregation settling themselves down into reverential attention, were ceasing, she felt emboldened to look around her. Gradually all noises diminished, until the suppressed cough denoted that it was necessary to avoid singularity, and the most pro found stillness pervaded the apartment. The snapping of the fires, as they threw a powerful heat into the room, was alone heard, and each face and every eye ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... fanaticism of his grandmother, the Evangelical Duchess, with her "swarm of parsons," as Sir Wilfrid remembered her. The oddity, which had been violent or brutal in earlier generations, showed itself in him, one might have said, in a radical transposition of values, a singularity of criterion, which the ordinary robust Englishman might very well dismiss with impatience as ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of straw, instead of bridle and saddle. A canvass pouch hung around the neck of the animal, for the purpose, probably, of containing the rider's tools, and any thing else he might have occasion to carry with him. Although I had never seen the old man before, yet from the singularity of his employment, and the style of his equipage, I had no difficulty in recognising a religious itinerant whom I had often heard talked of, and who was known in various parts of Scotland by the ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... in the same place I observed a singularity, which I submit to the understanding of my readers. In a valley, which appeared at first sight, to be very much circumscribed by the number of surrounding mountains, across threatening vaults, formed by the falling of different rocks, ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... prerogative, that they must be often sent for to Court, that the king may hear them argue those points in which he is concerned; since how unjust soever any of his pretensions may be, yet still some one or other of them, either out of contradiction to others, or the pride of singularity, or to make their court, would find out some pretence or other to give the king a fair colour to carry the point: for if the judges but differ in opinion, the clearest thing in the world is made by that means disputable, and truth ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... revolved around it. And further, that because the moon is composed of two sorts of matter, that are differently affected towards the earth in its revolution round that planet, the same parts of its surface always maintain some relative position to us, which thus necessarily causes the singularity of her turning on her axis precisely in the time in which she revolves round ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... course of my voyages, seen so numerous a body of people assembled in one place. For, besides those who had come off to us in canoes, all the shore of the bay was covered with spectators, and many hundreds were swimming around the ships like shoals of fish. We could not but be struck with the singularity of this scene, and perhaps there were few on board who lamented our having failed in our endeavors to find a northern passage homeward last summer. To this disappointment we owed our having it in our power to revisit the Sandwich Islands, and to enrich our voyage with a discovery which, ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... the Precedence of their several Founders, the Merits of their different Sects, and if it is possible, about Trifles of less Importance; yet all agreeing in a different Way, to dupe and amuse the poor People by the fantastick Singularity of their Habits, the unintelligible Jargon of their Schools, and their Pretentions to a severe and mortified Life. This motly Herd of Jugglers Lucian in a great Measure help'd to chase out of the World, by exposing ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... the greatest Scholars of their Age; and after having mentioned the entire Friendship between them, concludes, That they had but one Mind, one Purse, one Chamber, and one Hat. The Men of Business were also infected with a Sort of Singularity little better than this. I have heard my Father say, that a broad-brimm'd Hat, short Hair, and unfolded Hankerchief, were in his time absolutely necessary to denote a notable Man; and that he had known two or three, who aspired to ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... little consequence, and treated with supercilious contempt by the administration. But in the reign of King Charles the first they had amazingly increased, and many men of opulence and distinction had joined them, from motives of discontent or ambition, or from a passion for singularity and popular applause. When the religious disputes became warm in the nation, the zeal of this party broke out, and burned with such amazing ardour that it levelled all distinctions. To increase the confusion, Archbishop Laud insisted on conformity, and persecuted all who refused obedience ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... way to please John Bull is to give him a good beating, and, such is the singularity of his character that, the more you beat him, the greater is his respect for you, and the ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... of Finland also extend to the greatest town in this country of ice and snow, St. Petersburgh, founded by Peter the Great in 1703, and seated on an island in the middle of the river Neva, near the bottom of the gulf, and which, from the singularity in its buildings, streets, people, and customs, is well worth a visit. The inconveniences caused by travelling in such an extreme climate doubtless prevent this part of Europe from being better known to ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... were Fetich-worshippers; so were the inhabitants of Benin. But the latter had the singularity of refusing to sell a criminal, adjudged to slavery, to the foreign slave-traders, unless it was a woman. They procured, however, a great many slaves from the interior for the Portuguese and French. The Benin people dealt ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... their portals are almost ridiculously small. The front of York Cathedral is the most notable in the list for its size and elaborate decoration. Those of Lincoln and Peterborough are, however, more interesting in the picturesqueness and singularity of their composition. The first-named forms a vast arcaded screen, masking the bases of the two western towers, and pierced by three huge Norman arches, retained from the original faade. The west front of Peterborough is likewise a mask or screen, mainly composed of three colossal recessed ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... no reason for respecting, or none that we choose to name."[11] Against the imputation of paradox, which such expressions expose him to, he has written his own defence, applying his usual analytical acuteness to distinguish between originality and singularity.[12] The contradiction of a common prejudice, which always passes for paradox, is often such only in appearance. It is true that an ingenious person may take advantage of the elusive nature of language to play tricks with the ordinary understanding, ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... knight, over-englishing his travels, and wholly consecrated to singularity; the very Jacob's staff of compliment; a sir that hath lived to see the revolution of time in most of his apparel. Of presence good enough, but so palpably affected to his own praise, that for want of flatterers he commends himself, to the floutage of his own family. He deals upon returns, and strange ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... struck with the singularity of the names of many of the women of Lima. A child receives the name of the saint or of the festival whose celebration falls on the day of its birth. Those who happen to come into the world on the days on which the Romish Church celebrates the several ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... the singularity and unexpected nature of this good treatment would have stirred up the fun of Ebony and the latent humour of Hockins, but they could not shake off the depression, caused by the memory of what they had seen in the ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... Colambre! all the Broadhursts!' said his mother, wakening him, as she passed by, to receive them as they entered. Miss Broadhurst appeared, plainly dressed—plainly, even to singularity—without any ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... kind of mysteries which people never contemplate without a secret terror. In the various classes of the town, from the apprentice to the great lord who used the watches of the old horologist, there was no one who could not himself judge of the singularity of the fact. The citizens wished, but in vain, to get to see Master Zacharius. He fell very ill; and this enabled his daughter to withdraw him from those incessant visits which had degenerated into ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... fathers to whose bounty they had a right—the right of sonship. Yes, he was a very big boy (he told himself) and he had not cried when he was flogged, but under the cover of the kindly dark, hot tears of indignation, hurt pride and pity for his own loneliness—his singularity—made all his ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... not long enjoy the instructions of his master, for Haydyn handed him over to the care and instructions of the learned Allrechtsberger. It appears, that the character of Beethoven was marked by great singularity from his earliest years. Both Haydyn and Allrechtsberger, but particularly the latter, have recorded that he was not willing to profit by good advice. Beethoven has himself been heard to confess, that among other peculiarities which he prided himself on displaying, when ...
— Sketch of Handel and Beethoven • Thomas Hanly Ball
... more by its singularity than beauty, the flowers on the summit of the stalk differing widely in colour from the others, and being mostly barren: PARKINSON says, "the whole stalke with the flowers upon it, doth somewhat resemble a long Purse tassell, and thereupon ...
— The Botanical Magazine, Vol. 4 - Or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis
... faith, made him at once a philanthropist and a reformer, and both in the highest departments of human interest. The union of these ardent elements, and of a highly devotional temperament, not untouched with melancholy, with the patience of the scholar, and the sobriety of the critic, formed the singularity and almost the anomaly of his personal character. These contrasts were tempered by the discipline of experience; and his life, both as a man and a Christian, seemed to become more rich, genial, and harmonious as it approached its ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... into that privileged and disfranchised person who is spoken of as "a crathur," and whose proceedings are more or less exempt from criticism. People often said of him that he had plenty of sense of his own, and the remark was to some extent explanatory, as a certain singularity in his way of viewing things even more than an occasional inconsequence and flightiness in his sayings and doings tended to establish the reputation for eccentricity which followed him closely as a shadow, and set an impalpable barrier between himself and his kind. As he advanced in life ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... Officially the languages of the performances were Italian and French, but the operas given were, for the greater part, French and German, and the representations were dual in language in all cases, except the Italian works. I mention this fact, not because of its singularity, for it is a familiar phenomenon all over the operatic world, except perhaps Italy, but in order to point out hereafter a betterment, which came in with a more serious artistic striving later. The chorus always sang in the "soft bastard Latin," whether the principals sang in Italian or French; ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... jargon, composed of the pickings of nearly every idiom that ever did live, or is at present in existence, and sentiments which would be often of a highly mischievous tendency, if they were not rendered ridiculous by the manner in which they are expressed. The singularity of these productions excited a good deal of sensation, and, if we believe her own words, she was placed by them "in a definite rank among authors, and in no undistinguished circle of society." In some of the principal journals, however, ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... such extreme simplicity. Dinah also wore a black velvet cap, like that in the portrait of Raphael, and below it her hair fell in thick curls. This attire showed off a rather pretty figure, fine eyes, and handsome eyelids somewhat faded by the weariful life that has been described. In Le Berry the singularity of this artistic costume was a cloak for the romantic affectations of ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... animal, with no better chance of saving itself than a sack of corn—combine to make a picture more than sufficiently ludicrous to spectators, however uncomfortable to the exhibiter. But add to this some singularity of dress or appearance on the part of the unhappy cavalier—a robe of office, a splendid uniform, or any other peculiarity of costume—and let the scene of action be a race course, a review, a procession, or any other place of concourse and public display, and if the poor wight would escape ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... is at once the most striking and most beautiful of all the Pieces. The singularity of its evolutions, by which it is enabled to overleap the other men and wind its way into the penetralia of the adverse ranks, and if attacked leap back again within the boundary of its own, has rendered it the favorite Piece of leading players in ...
— The Blue Book of Chess - Teaching the Rudiments of the Game, and Giving an Analysis - of All the Recognized Openings • Howard Staunton and "Modern Authorities"
... of modern practitioners to controvert. The effect was ludicrous; the extraordinary appearance of the worthy sergeant, not in his bargown, but in what these adventurous mortals called a mere bedgown; the quaintness of his manner, the singularity of the occurrence, and the novelty of the ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... we have to do is both clearly to define and understand the meaning of that word "unity." I distinguish the unity of comprehensiveness from the unity of mere singularity. The word one, as oneness, is an ambiguous word. There is a oneness belonging to the army as well as to every soldier in the army. The army is one, and that is the oneness of unity; the soldier is ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... therefore mind it while you learn it that you may learn to do it well, and not be ridiculous, though in a ridiculous act. Dress is of the same nature; you must dress; therefore attend to it; not in order to rival or to excel a fop in it, but in order to avoid singularity, and consequently ridicule. Take great care always to be dressed like the reasonable people of your own age, in the place where you are; whose dress is never spoken of one way or another, as either too negligent or too ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... that it is so. It is in the very nature of free governments—and more especially, perhaps, of governments newly free. The principle which for centuries has given ascendancy to Great Britain is that she was the single, free State in Europe. The spread of the representative system destroys that singularity, and must (however little we may like it) proportionally enfeeble our preponderating influence—unless we measure our steps cautiously and accommodate our conduct to the times. Let it not be supposed that I would disparage the progress of freedom, that I wish checks to be applied to it, or that ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... you seize hold of that unless you tear it out of the Union, bleeding and quivering. Yet unquestionably, we do stand by our national flag as stoutly as any people in the world, and I myself have felt the heart throb at sight of it as sensibly as other men. I think the singularity of our form of government contributes to give us a kind of patriotism, by separating us from other nations more entirely. If other nations had similar institutions,—if England, especially, were a democracy,—we should as readily ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Altenburg was not disposed to argue the singularity of any such agreement, the while that she considered ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... Prince awoke he paid no attention to his dream till he heard the report of the scarcity of water, when, reflecting on the singularity of his dream, he thought there might be some hidden meaning in it. He therefore had recourse to the packet again, and discovered that his dream-visitors had been dragons, who had taken the waters of Peking away with them in their ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... houses in Park Lane and shooting boxes in Scotland. He liked to relate all that he knew about them, and sometimes even to mention certain facts which the individuals themselves would probably have preferred to be consigned to oblivion. But—and here comes the singularity to which I have referred—Rhodes would not allow anyone else to speak of these things, and he always took the part of his so-called friends when outsiders hinted at dark episodes which did not admit of investigation. He almost gave a certificate of good conduct to people whom ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... slight degree, and as natural selection acts exclusively by the preservation of variations which are advantageous under the excessively complex conditions to which each being is exposed, no limit exists to the number, singularity, and perfection of the contrivances and co-adaptations which may thus be produced. An animal or a plant may thus slowly become related in its structure and habits in the most intricate manner to many other animals and plants, and to the physical conditions of its home. Variations ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... conversation, nor in hearing the voices of my fellow-creatures. When people addressed me, I not unfrequently, especially if they were strangers, turned away my head from them, and if they persisted in their notice burst into tears, which singularity of behaviour by no means tended to dispose people in my favour. I was as much disliked as my brother was deservedly beloved and admired. My parents, it is true, were always kind to me; and my brother, who was good ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... Ghanam": this form of expressing singularity is common to Arabic and the Eastern ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... pictures on such subjects are spirited, natural, and excellent; and he is so clever a man, that all he does is good to a certain degree. His "Judith" is somewhat violent, perhaps. His "Rebecca" most pleasing; and not the less so for a little pretty affectation of attitude and needless singularity of costume. "Raphael and Michael Angelo" is as clever a picture as can be—clever is just the word—the groups and drawing excellent, the coloring pleasantly bright and gaudy; and the French students study it incessantly; there are a dozen who copy it ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... however, if a gem or ornament chanced to be noticed for its beauty or singularity, the observation usually led the way to an entertaining account of the manner in which it had been acquired, or the person from whom it had descended to its present possessor. On such and similar occasions my old friend spoke ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... calm-looking man with a bushy red and white beard. His gaze took in, in a flash, her widow's weeds, her tall, slim person, her delicate, pale brown face, her features composed and yet a trifle wild, her whole effect of elegance and singularity. ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... very long avenue, which faces the station where they were placed, was like a glowing furnace, so fiercely were the sunbeams reflected from the arms of the host by which it was filled. A body of Cossacks kept the ground with their pikes, and, by their wild appearance, added to the singularity of the scene. On one {p.059} hand was the extended line of the Tuileries, seen through the gardens and the rows of orange-trees; on the other, the long column of troops advancing to the music. Behind was a long colonnade, forming ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... in its prime differs altogether in character from that of every other part of Italy. The Venetian is the most marked and recognisable of all the schools; its singularity is such that a novice in art can easily, in a miscellaneous collection, sort out the works belonging to it, and added to this unique character is the position it occupies in the domain of art. Venice ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... sister to her own inventions. Laura had a vision, as the carriage drove away again, of what her situation would have been, or her peace of mind, if Selina and Lionel had been good, attached people like the Collingwoods, and at the same time of the singularity of a good woman's being ready to accept favours from a person as to whose behaviour she had the lights that must have come to the lady in question in regard to Selina. She accepted favours herself and she only wanted to ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... made a mark on my skin. But just notice the singularity of it, these things seem really only to happen to me! Instead of making indentations, they made bumps. The doctor could never succeed in explaining ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... climbing, he never used his arms both together, but first one and then the other, and so on alternately. There is a singularity in his hair, different from that of all other animals, and, I believe, hitherto unnoticed by naturalists. His hair is thick and coarse at the extremity, and gradually tapers to the root, where it becomes fine as a spider's web. His fur has so much ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... mother, determined her upon making this visit; for though, in her present uncertainty, she wished only to see that family when sought by themselves, she was yet desirous to avoid all appearance of singularity, lest any suspicions should be ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... forsake her; for Anna, though somewhat peculiar in her religious opinions, was perfectly sincere, and even at this awful moment felt unshaken, confidence in the protecting care of Providence. Though a foreigner, she possessed great command of the English language, and her style, notwithstanding its singularity and quaintness, was well calculated to overawe the rude and lawless band into whose hands she had fallen. With a calm and steady gaze she met the eye of the ruffian, who brandished his weapon before her, and said, ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... Bohemia: at every town stood groups of people; it was as though all the inhabitants had assembled themselves. Their brown faces, their ragged clothes, the light of their torches, their, to me, unintelligible language, gave to the whole a stamp of singularity. We flew through tunnel and over viaduct; the windows rattled, the signal whistle sounded, the steam horses snorted— I laid back my head at last in the carriage, and fell asleep under the ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen
... with his praises. The fame which ensued was merited; for the public, till then satisfied with the tame polish and cold invective of BLAIR, became delighted by the union of such harmony of language, skilfulness of argument, and singularity of research, as were blended in these lectures. Yet it may be questioned, not only whether a display of similar talent would now receive the like applause, but whether many subsequent courses of Bampton lectures have not rendered a more essential service ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 495, June 25, 1831 • Various
... more for its singularity than from an expectation that any practical suggestions will be furnished by its perusal, but few remarks will be necessary, either upon its pathology or treatment. Although it will be perceived by the scientific reader, that the disease observed, differed materially from any of the forms of purpura, ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... of the Romantic Movement Shelley expended his emotion on three main objects—politics, nature, and love. In each of these subjects he struck a note peculiar to himself, but his singularity is perhaps greatest in the sphere of politics. It may be summed up in the observation that no English imaginative writer of the first rank has been equally inspired by those doctrines that helped to produce the French ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow
... somewhere near the end? She was in a hurry or she would return and do it herself. As she and Mr. Jeffrey had parted in anger, I hailed with joy this evidence of her desire for a reconciliation, and it was in obedience to her request, the singularity of which did not strike me as forcibly then as now, that I went to the shelves in her room and took ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... the thing to enlist in your favour the sympathy of those who listen to you, because it is singular, new, and because you are in a country where everybody worships those two divinities—novelty and singularity. Nevertheless, you must begin to-morrow and apply yourself in good earnest, in order to acquire a thorough knowledge of our language, for the same persons who warmly applaud you now, will, in two or three ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... my beloved friends was a strait upon me; and thus I continued in the use of some things, contrary to my judgment, about nine months. Then I thought of getting a hat the natural color of the fur, but the apprehension of being looked upon as one affecting singularity felt uneasy to me. On this account I was under close exercise of mind in the time of our general spring meeting in 1762, greatly desiring to be rightly directed; when, being deeply bowed in spirit before the Lord, I was made willing to submit to what I apprehended ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... conversation. Ormond and the Dane, however, became exceedingly intimate. Indeed, the mulatto appeared to exhibit a degree of friendship for the Margaritan I had never seen him bestow on any one else. This singularity, together with his well-known insincerity, put me on my guard to watch his proceedings with ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... deliberate observation are good, since most men will not observe at home. Such is the singularity of our nature that we ignore the interesting at home to study the commonplace abroad. We never notice a narrow and crooked street in Boston or lower New York, whereas a narrow and crooked street in London fills us with an ecstasy of delight. We never visit ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... one, for the time being; but the Author of liberty and the Source of justice, the adorable God, is more than multitudinous, and he will defend the right. My crime is, that I will not go with the multitude to do evil. My singularity is, that when I say that Freedom is of God, and Slavery is of the devil, I mean just what I say. My fanaticism is, that I insist on the American people abolishing Slavery, or ceasing to prate of the rights of man. My hardihood is, in measuring them ...
— No Compromise with Slavery - An Address Delivered to the Broadway Tabernacle, New York • William Lloyd Garrison
... committing himself to slumber, of making secure against a fall; and for this purpose he attached himself with his sash to one of the branches. In another minute he was in the land of dreams, unconscious of the singularity of the couch ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... the circulation of the Scriptures I will now relate an anecdote not altogether divested of singularity. I have already spoken of the water-mill by the bridge of Azeca. I had formed acquaintance with the tenant of this mill, who was known in the neighbourhood by the name of Don Antero. One day, taking me into a retired place, he asked me, to my great astonishment, whether ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... elaborate one, it wanting two or three hours to the regular time of dining, though my grandmother had ordered, in my hearing, one or two delicacies to be placed on the table, that had surprised Patt. Among the extraordinary things for such guests was wine. The singularity, however, was a little explained by the quality commanded, ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... Garvey's soundness of mind had a strong witness in the man's countenance. His face was too long, a dull saffron in hue, and immobile as a statue's. Pale-blue, unwinking round eyes without lashes added to the singularity of his gruesome visage. Goree was at a loss to ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... arrival, then, Hiero would seem to have been the only talking animal she had known. The singularity of this did not at first strike the young man. Gnulemah was the arch-wonder; yet she so fully justified herself as to seem very nature; and by dint of her magic reality, what else had been wonderful seemed natural. ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... honour of St. Peter, prince of the Apostles, that title was offered to the Roman Pontiff during the venerable Council of Chalcedon. But no one of them ever consented to use this name of singularity; lest while something peculiar was given to one, all bishops should be deprived of the honour due to them. Do we, then, not seek the glory of this name, even when offered to us, and does another catch at it for himself, when ...
— 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
... springing forth from the wood, which, contrary to the nature of her sex, was found to bear horns of twelve years' growth, and was much fatter than a stag, in the haunches as well as in every other part. On account of the singularity of this circumstance, the head and horns of this strange animal were destined as a present to king Henry the Second. This event is the more remarkable, as the man who shot the hind suddenly lost the use of his right eye, and being at the same ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... her company had been too much occupied with the bustle of entrance to hear the first boding stroke of the bell—or, at least, to reflect on the singularity of such a welcome to the altar. They therefore continued to advance with undiminished gayety. The gorgeous dresses of the time—the crimson velvet coats, the gold-laced hats, the hoop-petticoats, the silk, satin, brocade and embroidery, the buckles, canes ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... I was a poor club man. I did not smoke, and never used rum except as a hair tonic—and beer and tobacco were rather distasteful to me. I do not boast of this singularity, I merely state it. No doubt I was considered a dull and profitless companion even in "the Little Room," but in most of my sobrieties Taft and Browne upheld me, though they both possessed the redeeming virtue of being amusing, which I, most certainly, ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... Gradgrind: whereas, to persuade herself that the young lady whom she had had the happiness of knowing from a child could be really and truly Mrs. Bounderby, she found almost impossible. It was a further singularity of this remarkable case, that the more she thought about it, the more impossible it appeared; 'the differences,' ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... very well named, for I believe it would be difficult to find any other epithet which might with propriety distinguish it, as it is without ornament, elegance, or any sort of singularity, and merely to ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... that town in the habits of the people and the quiet appearance of the streets on Sunday, as compared with other towns in the territory, that it has been nick-named the "Puritan town" of Wyoming, and, I may add, rejoices in its singularity. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... The quarter-deck of a British line-of-battle ship has often enough been a stage for the exhibition of bloody tragedies; but to witness a comedy and a farce upon that stage, and in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, was delightful from its very singularity. When the performance came to an end, the stage was knocked down, the seats removed, and everything cleared for dancing. The music was excellent, being composed of the band of the Royal Oak; and the ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... like marble, with a fearful monumental look, and, for an old man, singularly vivid strange eyes, the singularity of which rather grew upon me as I looked; for his eyebrows were still black, though his hair descended from his temples in long locks of the purest silver and fine as silk, ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... them!" I exclaimed, far too excited to give a thought to the singularity of a newly-made midshipman presuming to assume the leadership in the presence of his superiors. Our men caught my enthusiasm, responding with a ringing cheer; and after them we went, helter-skelter, so rapidly that English and French ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... not the interest of singularity which belongs to another at Aubeterre—that of St. John. It is, or was, truly a church, and yet it is not an edifice. Like one at St. Emilion, it is monolithic in the sense that those who made it worked upon ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... out of church together, and he noticed the sort of gravity and even pain with which she and his father received this revelation of his darkling mind. They tried to teach him what they thought of such things; but though their doctrine caught his fancy and flattered his love of singularity, he was not proof against the crude superstitions of his mates. He thought for a time that there was a Bad Man, but this belief gave way when he heard his father laughing about a certain clergyman who ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... circumstances as to leave no reasonable doubt with regard to the fact. [Footnote: The genuine travelling Journal of a native African Merchant may in some respects be considered as interesting, simply from the circumstance of its singularity. But it must be acknowledged that for the mere purpose of gratifying curiosity very few specimens of Isaaco would have been sufficient. The sole reason for publishing such a document at full length, is the circumstance of its containing the only direct ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... Nothing produces more singularity of manners and inconstancy of life, than the conflict of opposite vices in the same mind. He that uniformly pursues any purpose, whether good or bad, has a settled principle of action; and as he may always find associates who are travelling ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... idlers had collected round, while the officer was speaking; struck, like him, with the singularity of the sight of a French staff officer upon a horse with German trappings. Ralph did not wish to enter into explanations, there; so merely replied, in the same jesting strain, that it had been a fair exchange—the small difference in the ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... goddess. Her hair, of a soft blonde hue, was parted in the midst and flowed back over her temples in two rivers of rippling gold; she seemed a diademed queen. Her forehead, bluish-white in its transparency, extended its calm breadth above the arches of her eyebrows, which by a strange singularity were almost black, and admirably relieved the effect of sea-green eyes of unsustainable vivacity and brilliancy. What eyes! With a single flash they could have decided a man's destiny. They had a life, a limpidity, an ardour, a humid light which I have never seen in ...
— Clarimonde • Theophile Gautier
... showed the same kind of mastery; and, by the side of its life-like middle-class people universally familiar, there was one figure before seen by none but at once knowable by all, delightful for the surprise it gave by its singularity and the pleasure it gave by its truth; and, though short of the highest in this form of art, taking rank with the class in which live everlastingly the dozen unique inventions that have immortalized the English novel. ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... preserving the life and freshness of my complexion. Louisa and Emily did not carry indeed their reserve so high as I did; but still they were far from cheap or abandoned, though two of their adventures seemed to contradict this general character, which, for their singularity, I shall give you in course, beginning ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... sole direction? And here the thorny question again made its appearance: Could we not get along with one genius only, and explain the present existence of that unattainable excellence? And now eyes were keenly on the lookout for whatever that excellence and singularity might consist of. Impossible for it to be in the construction of the complete works, said one party, for this is far from faultless; but doubtless to be found in single songs: in the single pieces above all; not in the ...
— Homer and Classical Philology • Friedrich Nietzsche
... adorned with a garden of corals. The steep sides are thickly hung with lianas, ferns, and orchids, by help of which one climbs upwards to the cavern, sixty feet above the surface of the water. To add to the singularity of the situation, we also found at the entrance to the grotto, on a large block of rock projecting two feet above the ground, [A sea snake.] a sea-snake, which tranquilly gazed at us, but which had to be killed, because, like all genuine ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... some point in the meal, the guest assumes the position of the master of the house, takes upon Himself the function and office of host, interrupts the progress of the meal by the solemn prayer of blessing; and whilst the singularity of the action drew their attention, perhaps some little peculiarity in His way of doing it, or something else, opened the door for a whole stream of associations and half-dormant remembrances to rush in, and they remembered what ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... like that, too. If you know the tree by its fruit, the manner in which this house is kept may reconcile you to the singularity ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... silent.—''Tis you only, my lord, who can release me from a situation so distressing; and to your goodness and justice I appeal, certain that necessity will excuse the singularity of my conduct, and that I ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... appreciable honor of having been the indirect means of opening those large visions to the eyes of men who certainly were a most uncomfortable set of citizens while under pupilage. Mr. Bancroft had previously written thus:—"Had the territory of Rhode Island corresponded to the importance and singularity of the principles of its early existence, the world would have been filled with wonder at the phenomena of its history."[B] It was only because the State was no larger that it was a safe field for the first trial of such principles. And ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... For singularity and grotesqueness of form, as well as for the exceptional conditions under which they grow to the best advantage, no class of plants is more remarkable than the Cactaceae. Of these, about a thousand species have been described by botanists; nearly all are indigenous to ...
— Your Plants - Plain and Practical Directions for the Treatment of Tender - and Hardy Plants in the House and in the Garden • James Sheehan
... Now as to the singularity of the circumstance, supposing it were otherwise, to what does it amount but this: that when Italian power extended over the countries of Europe, Italian names were given them; that as this power declined, these names as ...
— Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 276 - Volume 10, No. 276, October 6, 1827 • Various
... twenty-five leagues from hence, my captain will have set out, and I shall lose the opportunity of writing to you. This is the cause of my scrawl being more unintelligible than usual; however, if I were to send you anything but a hurried scrawl, I ought, in that case, to beg your pardon, from the singularity of the case. Recollect, my dearest love, that I have only once heard of you, from Count Pulaski. I am much provoked, and am very miserable. Imagine how dreadful it is to be far from all I love, in this state of suspense and almost despair; it is impossible ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... relinquitur, donec aqua a bibentibus absumpta sit, dimidia hora post injectum lignum aqua caeruleum colorem contrabit, qui sensim intenditur pro temporis diuturnitate, tametsi lignum candidum fit. This Wood, Pyrophilus, may afford us an Experiment, which besides the singularity of it, may give no small assistance to an attentive Considerer towards the detection of the Nature of Colours. The Experiment as we made it is this. Take Lignum Nephriticum, and with a Knife cut it into thin Slices, put about a handfull of these Slices into two three or four ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle
... inconveniencies of confusion, who seem to take pleasure in departing from custom, and to think alteration desirable for its own sake; and the reformation of our orthography, which these writers have attempted, should not pass without its due honours, but that I suppose they hold singularity its own reward, or may dread ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... avoid aiming after needless singularity, we desire to go on simply according to Scripture, without compromising the truth; at the same time thankfully receiving any instruction which experienced believers, after prayer, upon scriptural ground, may have to give us concerning ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller
... tragic, incident of the voyage, to which reference will presently be made. It did not concern the actual exploratory part of his work, and so he passed it by. The one note signifying an appreciation of the singularity of the position is conveyed in the terse words: "Sunday 31st, a.m. Daylight, got out and steered along to the southward, in anxious expectation, being now nearly come upon an hitherto unknown ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... Peter was close behind. Apparently he had been struck by the singularity of his mistress' behaviour, and had followed to see that it did not meet with the reward which it deserved. I spoke ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... face, and his big black eyes fixed and staring. His dress consisted of a loose blue jockey coat, jockey boots and breeches; in his hand was a huge jockey whip, and on his head (it struck me at the time for its singularity) a broad-brimmed high- peaked Andalusian hat, or at least one very much resembling those generally worn in that province. In stature he was shorter than his more youthful companion, yet he must ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... shelter myself from the charge of affectation or singularity in this view of an often debated but ill-understood point, by quoting a passage from Sir Joshua Reynolds's Discourses, which is full, and, I think, conclusive ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... forth) an object well worthy of gaze and admiration. Her features thrown into broad light and shade by the candle which at times was half extinguished by the wind—her symmetry of form and the gracefulness and singularity of her attire—were matter of astonishment to Philip. Her head was without covering, and her long hair fell in plaits behind her shoulders; her stature was rather under the middle size, but her form perfect; her dress was simple but becoming, ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... branches, sometimes observed the fish playing in the streams, and anon cast his eyes upon the pastures and mountains filled with animals, of which some were biting the herbage, and some sleeping among the bushes. The singularity of his humour made him much observed. One of the sages, in whose conversation he had formerly delighted, followed him secretly, in hope of discovering the cause of his disquiet. Rasselas, who knew not that any one was near him, having ...
— Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia • Samuel Johnson
... is not in a state of prolific produce till the eighth year in the interior, and the ninth in plantations on the coast. Yet, by a singularity which situation alone can explain, the crops of cacao commence in the ninth year in the valley of Goapa, and at the east of the mouth of the Tuy. In the vicinity of the line, and on the banks of Rio-Negro, the plantations are in full produce on the fourth, ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... touching his hat as he approached the vehicle, replied: "Your servant, sir!" Blowers motioned his hand to the woman, whose tears were now, to Broadman's surprise, seen coursing down her pale cheeks. To use a vulgar phrase, Broadman was entirely "taken aback" by the singularity of Blowers' manner; for the woman, whose dress and deportment the honest man conceived to be nothing less than that of a lady of one of the "first families," obeying the motion, began to descend from the carriage. "Now, Broadman," ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... Ireland you will find people who have never been ten miles away from the place of their birth, and upon whom a local character is unmistakably stamped. The contemporary novelists delight to mark these differences, these salient points of singularity; and their studies are chiefly of the peasantry. They settle down upon some little corner of the country and never stir out of it. Miss Lawless is not content to get you Irish character; she must show you a Clare man or an Arran islander, and she is ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... gratefully of the kindness that he has met with in America. Among other things, it appears that he has seen something of your slaves, whom he represents as leading a very easy life, and as being fat, cheerful, and happy. Nevertheless, I (for one) would rather be a free man,—such is the singularity of my opinions. If my prosings should ever in the course of the next twenty years require to be reprinted, pray take note ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... the head of this paper the popular name of a class of beings, which, though simple in their organisation, are full of interest to the zoologist, and attractive to the common observer from the singularity or beauty of their forms, and, in many cases, the brilliancy of their colouring. The ocean, throughout its wide extent, swarms with myriads of gelatinous creatures—some microscopic, some of large dimensions—which deck ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... all, one after the other; but their names did not abide in my memory one moment. I was thinking too much of the singularity of the adventure, and could not attend to such minutiae. That the red-rosed harpy was Miss Grogram, that I remembered;—that, I may say, I shall never forget. But whether the motherly lady with the somewhat blowsy hair was Mrs. Jones, or Mrs. Green, or Mrs. Walker, I cannot ...
— The Relics of General Chasse • Anthony Trollope
... Almighty God." Fanny Kemble was present at this memorable scene, and has given her impression of it. Her testimony, as a public speaker, is valuable. "The Queen was not handsome, but very pretty, and the singularity of her great position lent a sentimental and poetical charm to her youthful face and figure. The serene, serious sweetness of her candid brow and clear soft eyes gave dignity to the girlish countenance, while the want of height only added to the effect of extreme youth of the round but slender person, ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... branches, which it easily hollows out. Several lizards have also been found in these islands, such as the striped Ablepharus of O Tahaiti, and a small Gecko; a large coal-black lizard was several times seen, but always escaped among the dry pandanus leaves. The fishes are remarkable for the singularity of their form, and the beauty of their colours; those brought to us by the inhabitants belonged to the Holocentrus, Scarus, Mullus, Chaetodon, Heniochus, Amphacanthus, Theutis, ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... many magistrates, before whom they were carried in the early times of their institution, occasioned their punishment to be more severe, and that they were often abused and beaten by others, and put in danger of their lives. This persecution, however, for this singularity in their language, has long ceased; and the substitution of Thou for You is now only considered as an innocent distinction between Quakers ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... in the Qualities of Narration, mentioned in our Definition, that it ought to be done in a manner probable, agreeable, and admirable; 'tis rendered probable by its Simplicity and Singularity, and admirable by the Grandeur of the Subject, the Figures and Machines, or [Greek: theoi apo mechanes], much more lawful here than in the Drama's; and lastly agreeable, as has been said, by a ...
— Epistle to a Friend Concerning Poetry (1700) and the Essay on Heroic Poetry (second edition, 1697) • Samuel Wesley
... greatness thrust upon 'em. Thy Fates open their hands; let thy blood and spirit embrace them; and, to inure thyself to what thou art like to be, cast thy humble slough and appear fresh. Be opposite with a kinsman, surly with servants; let thy tongue tang arguments of state; put thyself into the trick of singularity: she thus advises thee that sighs for thee. Remember who commended thy yellow stockings, and wish'd to see thee ever cross-garter'd. I say, remember. Go to, thou art made, if thou desir'st to be so; if not, let me see thee a steward ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... seen and known enough of mankind to be well aware, that I shall perhaps stand alone in my creed, and that it will be well, if I subject myself to no worse charge than that of singularity; I am not therefore deterred from avowing, that I regard, and ever have regarded the obligations of intellect among the most sacred of the claims of gratitude. A valuable thought, or a particular train of thoughts, ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... very little about it. An explanation is the more necessary, because such good Catholics and distinguished writers as Count Montalembert and Father Lacordaire use the word in a favorable sense, and claim to be Liberals themselves. "The only singularity," says the former of the two in describing his friend, "was his Liberalism. By a phenomenon, at that time unheard of, this convert, this seminarist, this confessor of nuns, was just as stubborn a liberal, as in the days when he was a student and a ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... He built a very pretty Shinto temple and presented it to the community. There was only one obstacle in the way of his becoming a really popular person: he was not a kitsune-mochi, and he had even said that he hated foxes. This singularity threatened to beget discords in the mura, especially as he married his children to strangers, and thus began in the midst of the kitsune-mochi to establish a sort ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... event to the younger inhabitants of Marlott, though its real interest was not observed by the participators in the ceremony. Its singularity lay less in the retention of a custom of walking in procession and dancing on each anniversary than in the members being solely women. In men's clubs such celebrations were, though expiring, less uncommon; but either the natural shyness of the ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... for Paganel's risible faculties. He burst out laughing. Toline did not know what to make of him. He had done his best to answer every question put to him. But the singularity of the answers were not his blame; indeed, he never imagined anything singular about them. However, he took it all quietly, and waited for the professor to recover himself. These peals of laughter were quite ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... withdraw him from such other good virtuous business as, by the common rule of Christendom or any of the rules of his profession, he was wont to use or bound to be occupied in. Or whether he fall into any singularity of opinions against the scripture of God, or against the common faith of Christ's Catholic Church. Many other tokens are spoken of in the work of Master Gerson, by which to consider whether the person, neither having revelations of God nor illusions from the devil, do feign his ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... the massacre of a hundred lions, an equal number of lionesses, two hundred leopards, and three hundred bears. [86] The collection prepared by the younger Gordian for his triumph, and which his successor exhibited in the secular games, was less remarkable by the number than by the singularity of the animals. Twenty zebras displayed their elegant forms and variegated beauty to the eyes of the Roman people. [87] Ten elks, and as many camelopards, the loftiest and most harmless creatures that wander over the plains ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... had lived so long in the vicinity and had often been in the village, never made his appearance without attracting attention. The little boys and girls, and even their elders, seldom passed him without turning to look again. The singularity of his dress, and fine tall person, as straight as his rifle, and a beard, that waved like a prophet's, on his breast, would have commanded observation anywhere. Joined to this was an air of dignity and gravity that, in spite of the coarseness of his apparel, insured respect. However much the rude ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... heedless," muttered Hall under his breath. At the time I did not notice the singularity of his remark, my attention being absorbed in ...
— The Moon Metal • Garrett P. Serviss
... a right to imagine anything of her,' she interrupted in a changed tone, gently reproachful, softening to tenderness. A Singularity of Sibyl's demeanour was that she seemed utterly forgetful of the dire position in which her husband stood. One would have thought that she had no concern beyond the refutation of an idle charge, which angered her indeed, but afforded scope ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... from Belle-Isle, and been nominated by Monsieur Fouquet inspector-general of all the arrangements; his perseverance in mixing himself up with all the surintendant's affairs; his visits to Baisemeaux; all this suspicious singularity of conduct had excessively troubled and tormented D'Artagnan ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... a little like Christianity takes its place. If parsons are to be Lords, it is but right and reasonable that the Queen should be Pope. Indeed, I have no objection to this, but I have to the other. What a singularity it is that those who profess a belief in Christ do not obey Him, while those who profess it in Mahomet or Moses or Boodh are obedient to their precepts, if not in certain points of morality, in all things else. Carlyle is a vigorous thinker, but a vile writer, worse than Bulwer. I breakfasted ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... boasts full of cold raillery. His river! By it he was not only rich—he was interesting. This secret of his which made him different to the other traders of those seas gave intimate satisfaction to that desire for singularity which he shared with the rest of mankind, without being aware of its presence within his breast. It was the greater part of his happiness, but he only knew it after its loss, so unforeseen, so ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... necessary to enter at all into the plot, which was composed to evince alternately the power of Venus and of Fortune in influencing the lives of a pair of faithful lovers: the man, with some singularity, being called Hermione, and the woman Fidelia. They are successively placed by the two goddesses in situations of distress and difficulty, from which they are ultimately released; and in the end Venus and Fortune are reconciled, and join in promoting the happiness of the couple they had exposed ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... have been, I think, much exaggerated by common gossip. He wanted his clothes made big and easy, and he wore them a long time and somewhat negligently, but that was because he had other things to mind and not in the least because he affected singularity. I was with him a good deal as a boy and as a young man and I am sure he spoke truly when in response to some friendly advice concerning these matters, he said "I buy good cloth, go to a good tailor and pay a good price, and that is all ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... me," said his lordship, with emphasis and satisfaction—"she really did. And I wouldn't encourage it. I had no notion then of marrying. Her singularity, too, made me cautious. I couldn't believe in her. She talked like an actress in a play. I felt that she was not the woman for me. Essentially she thought as I did, and seemed to comprehend my embarrassment. The worst of it is now—I may ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... a blank brewhouse-wall (as though its Founder's first precaution had been to protect learning from siege), and its precincts opening rearwards upon green playing-fields and river-meads—is like few schools in England, and none in any other country; and is proud of its singularity. It, too, has its stream of life, and on the whole a very gracious one, with its young, careless voices and high spirits. It lies, as I say, south of the Close; beyond the northward fringe of which you penetrate, under archway or ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... this dissipated age, which, has almost confounded every external distinction between the Christian and the Infidel, and has made it so rare to find any one who dares incur the charge of Christian singularity, or who can say with the Apostle that "he is not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ." It is proved (how can this proof be omitted by one to whose lot it has so often fallen to witness and lament, sometimes he fears to afford ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... the grand-daughter of Milton was living, in an obscure situation in Shoreditch, he readily embraced the opportunity, in his postscript, of recommending her to the public favour; upon which, some gentlemen affected with the singularity of the circumstance, and ashamed that our country should suffer the grand-daughter of one from whom it derives its most lasting and brightest honour, to languish neglected, procured Milton's Comus to be performed for her benefit at Drury Lane, on the 5th of April, 1750: upon ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... rambling, inconvenient, and singularly mean cottages of our peasants. We now continued our way through the different villages, each furnished with his staff, and thus exhibited no remote resemblance of a caravan. Some few people who met us seemed to stare at us, struck, perhaps, by the singularity of our dress, or the peculiarity of our manner of travelling. On our route we passed a wood where a troop of gipsies had taken up their abode around a fire under a tree. The country, as we continued to advance, became more and more beautiful. Naturally, perhaps, the earth is ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... fast enough when they were baked, though it seemed he was too lazy and good for nothing to do the least thing in helping to bake them. What wide-spread and lasting effects result sometimes from the most trifling and inadequate causes! The singularity of such an adventure befalling a monarch in disguise, and the terse antithesis of the reproaches with which the woman rebuked him, invest this incident with an interest which carries it every where spontaneously among mankind. Millions, within the last thousand years, ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... acquaintances even there, and I believe that except myself, Jack Ashton, Henry Darton, and Will Church, he had no intimates. And we knew him only at the club. There, when he was alone with us, he sometimes partly opened up his mind, and we were charmed by his variety of knowledge and the singularity of his conversation. I shall not disguise the fact that we thought him extremely eccentric, although the idea of anything in the nature of insanity never entered our heads. We knew that he was engaged in recondite researches ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... extending little beyond the Word of God,—and had but ordinary intellectual ability, he was still one of the most interesting characters among the Nestorians. There is no name among them that will be more fragrant; none that deserves a more honored place in the annals of his Church. The singularity of his position here, thirty years ago,—devout, spiritual, God-fearing, and active, when a deep night hung over his whole people,—like a mountain beacon, whose summit had caught the first beams of the sun, which was soon to flood all below with its glory; his prophetic anticipation of the coming ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... thought, Than in her love and life; for therein lies Most of her duties and their dignities; And, rail the brain-bald world at what it will, That's the grand atheism that reigns in it still. Yet singularity she would use no more, For she was singular too much before; But she would please the world with fair pretext; Love would not leave her conscience perplext: Great men that will have less do for them, still Must bear them out, though th' acts be ne'er so ill; Meanness must pander be to Excellence; ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman
... for a ship is waiting there in the calm, and on board that ship is Urraca, with a wise captain named Maruc and a stout crew. The singularity of the event induces them to land (Maruc knows the dangers of the region, but Urraca has no fears; the captain also knows how to enchant the beasts), and the horse's bloodmarks guide them up the valley. At last they come upon a miserable creature, in rags, dishevelled, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
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