"Eccentric" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... artificial and love-of-show love, love based on self-esteem and vanity, love as a display of taste, decent, conjugal love, eccentric love—the Baron had paid for them all, had known them all excepting real spontaneous love. This passion had now pounced down on him like an eagle on its prey, as it did on Gentz, the confidential friend of His Highness the Prince of Metternich. ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... an end in the autumn when he was sent to study with the Reverend Caleb Bradley, a somewhat eccentric graduate of Harvard, who resided at Stroudwater, Maine, and with whom he remained during the winter. [Footnote: S. T. Pickard's "Hawthorne's First Diary."]He refers to this period of tuition in the short story of "The Vision of the Fountain," and whether ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... his daughter. They had been living here several years—from before the time, indeed, that the portier had occupied his present position. In all these years the old man was known to have been out of his room only twice. He was certainly an eccentric person, and was said to be a miser and extremely wealthy. The portier further averred that his property—except such small portion of it as was invested and on the income of which he lived—was realized in the form of diamonds and other precious ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... will, if I learn anything positive, Thad," he merely said; "and in the meantime we'll keep tabs on Brother Lu's eccentric actions, hoping to catch him off his guard," and later on Thad realized that these last ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson
... are, Tanya, a fanatic Marxist; her brother, Tokarev, whose soul is a field for spiritual battles; and Varenka, a village school-mistress. There are several eccentric characters around them, such as Serge, a young apostle of a somewhat Nietzschean egoism, Antsov and others. Tanya is none other than Natasha of "Astray," with this great difference, however, that Tanya has found truth already ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... at once upon the more eccentric stages of the search. They went by way of the Great Northern to Portland, descending from snow to roses and drenching rains. At Pendleton, which is at the junction of three great roads, Paul sent tracers out through express agents and train officials along the remotest slender feeders of these ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... Burnett, the daughter of the judge, is remembered in all the memorials of Burns the poet, as the most beautiful, and otherwise the most interesting, of his female aristocratic friends in Edinburgh. Lord Monboddo himself trod an eccentric path in literature and philosophy; and our tutor, who spent his whole life in reading, withdrawing himself in that way from the anxieties incident to a narrow income and a large family, found, no doubt, a vast fund of interesting suggestions in Lord M.'s "Dissertations on the ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... joke or an adventure. Moreover, I was constantly forming friendships, almost passionate in their ardour, with one or the other of my comrades, and in choosing my associates I was mainly influenced by the extent to which my new acquaintance appealed to my eccentric imagination. At one time it would be poetising and versifying that decided my choice of a friend; at another, theatrical enterprises, while now and then it would be a longing for ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... sort," he remarked. "I suppose it is one of the penalties of genius to be compelled to do eccentric things. I must have my ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... had left him to himself, for she was used to his violent and eccentric behavior whenever anything had crossed him; but now she peremptorily desired to be informed what had happened to him and he at once acceded. He had been unwilling to frighten them sooner than was needful, but they must learn it sooner or later: Cynegius had arrived ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the Honourable Arthur that, however mistaken my speech and manner, I was trying to be agreeable. This conception acted on the honest and amiable soul like magic. I gradually became comprehensible, and finally he gave himself up to the theory that, though eccentric, I was harmless and amusing, so we got on famously,—so famously that Willie Beresford grew ridiculously gloomy, and I decided that it ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... thirty-five years of age would be accepted; and in vain might she plead her willingness and ability to undergo hardships and the uncomfortable duties pertaining to the nurse's position. She therefore applied to the kind-hearted but eccentric Mrs. Almira Fales, whose hearty and positive ways had given her the entree of the Government hospitals from the first, but she too discouraged her from the effort, assuring her, in her blunt way, ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... to most of our fellow-students, and they could not quite make him out. By some he was: regarded as very eccentric, which is another way of saying that he preserved a very marked individuality, and always had the courage of his convictions. They did not seem to understand how so much playfulness and piety, fervour and frolicsomeness could dwell in the same person. Long before we parted, however, in January, ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... wrought? Whom interrupting, then inquir'd A fifth, in squalid garb attir'd, Do now the world with much regard In mem'ry hold the dirty Bard, Who credit gain'd for genius rare By shabby coat and uncomb'd hair? Or do they, said a Shade of prose, With many a pimple's ghost on nose, Th' eccentric author still admire, Who wanting that same genius' fire, Diving in cellars underground, In pipe the spark ethereal found: Which, fann'd by many a ribbald joke, From brother tipplers puff'd in smoke, Such blaze diffused with crackling loud, ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... Long, thin meshes of white hair escaping through the border of the high fox-skin cap. The complexion was bronze and the face beardless. This last feature is said to be characteristic of low vitality, but it is also frequently distinctive of eccentricity, and Batoche was clearly eccentric, as the expression of his eyes showed. They were cold grey eyes, but filled with wild intermittent illuminations. The reflection of the fire-light ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... she said. "The only efforts I have ever made have been to lead a normal, human life and not a snobbish, affected one. Eccentric! The conditions under which we live are eccentric. My only desire is to ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... embraces the home adventures of an orphan, who, having formed the acquaintance of an eccentric old gardener, accepts his offer of a home and finds that there is plenty of romance in a garden, and much excitement even in a journey now and then to town. In a half-savage lad he finds a friend who shows his ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... choice. At first, he formed his words by instinct;[1] he was a poet by inspiration: to-day, he makes grammar a science, and poetry an art. His conception of God and a future life is spontaneous and instinctive, and his expressions of this conception have been, by turns, monstrous, eccentric, beautiful, comforting, and terrible. All these different creeds, at which the frivolous irreligion of the eighteenth century mocked, are modes of expression of the religious sentiment. Some day, man will explain to himself the character of the God whom he believes in, and the ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... exquisite. "A glorious fine study," said Transit,—and, pulling out his card-case and pencil, retired to one corner of the room, to make a mem., as he called it, of the scene. (See Plate.) "Who the deuce is that eccentric-looking creature with the Marquis of Hertford?" said I. "Hush," replied the exquisite, "for heaven's sake, don't expose yourself! Not to know the superlative roue of the age, the all-accomplished Petersham, would set you down for a barbarian at once." ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... each having three wheels, one small one in front and two much larger behind, with box-like seat and steering handle; otherwise resembling nothing so much as the velocipedes I have seen ridden for amusement by eccentric English youths. It was clear, however, that these vehicles were not moved by any effort on the part of their drivers, and their speed was far greater than that of the swiftest mail-coach:—say, from fifteen to thirty miles an hour. All risk of collision was ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... recently wet, and plastered straight down so that it hung like a ridge over his forehead—just as it had been the previous night. Colwyn wondered why the man wore his hair like that. Did he always affect that eccentric style of hairdressing, or had he adopted it to alter his personal appearance—to disguise himself, or ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... Unitarian sermons, recanted, and preached philosophy and Church-of-Englandism. To the dazzled eyes of all ordinary mortals, content to chew the cud of parish sermons, and swallow, Sunday after Sunday, the articles of common belief, he seemed an eccentric comet. But a better astronomy recognized him as a fixed star, for he was unmistakable by that fitting Few whose verdict is both history ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... and various causes. One author states: "Mental abnormality is always due to either imperfect or eccentric physical development, or to the effects of inborn or acquired physical disease, or to injurious impressions, either ante-natal or post natal, upon the delicate and intricate physical structure known as the human brain." Some physical imperfections, more ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... John, my eccentric assistant, could abide no possible rival, insulted every man engaged to help him, occasionally indulging in a free fight after too frequent visits to the cider barrels of my next neighbor, so he ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn
... disposed to exercise some discernment or moderation in terrorism, Camille Desmoulins, Danton and their adherents; and lastly, many others who are more or less doubtful, compromised or compromising, wearied or eccentric, from Maillard to Chaumette, from Antonelle to Chabot, from Westermann to Clootz. Each of the proscribed has a gang of followers, and suddenly the whole gang are obliged to do a volte-face; those who were able to show ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Foreign Quarterly Review, we are enabled to submit to our readers the following very interesting Memoirs of this eccentric genius. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 490, Saturday, May 21, 1831 • Various
... my relic with his stubby thumb before he could recover himself sufficiently to ask what it was and how I obtained it—a question put in such a brusque manner that I should have been offended had I not known the man to be an eccentric. I told him the story very much as I had told it to Harton. He listened with the deepest interest, and then asked me if I had any idea what the stone was. I said I had not, beyond that it was meteoric. He asked me if I had ever tried its effect upon a ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... asteroids are hard to explain. Perhaps it is easier to understand when we remember that the planets thus formed must necessarily have been rotating in eccentric orbits when they were first born, and these planets came too near the sun while gaseous, or nearly so, and Mars lost much of its matter, while the other, which now exists only as ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... They have one kiddie, a child of seven or eight, and they were so pleased with the place that they stayed on, and were the only white people in the village, with the exception of a young Australian who had lost his money and went out there to try to grow vegetables, and a rather eccentric French artist who set up his studio in a sort of disused fort built on a high rocky plateau about a mile above the little settlement. He has gone back to France now, taking with him some really marvellous studies of the desert, ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... herself, was the time to begin the campaign. She seized the tide of fortune at its flood, and spoke in English, making the most of the pretty, drawling Southern accent of the State after which she had been named, because American girls were privileged to be eccentric. ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... to" play "and remain to" distract the attention of fellow-students. Another reason why Newman did not appeal to these non-studious ones was attributable to the fact that he was, in many ways, very eccentric both in manner and dress. Now, everyone who knows the average English boy at all, knows that if there is one thing he cannot stand it is eccentricity. To be eccentric is to be taboo. As regards the ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... tenements. Most of the habitable quarters under the ground are like so many pigeon-houses indiscriminately heaped together. If there were only sunshine enough to drink up the slime that glosses every plank, and fresh air enough to sweeten the mildewed kennels, this highly eccentric style of architecture might charm for a time, by reason of its novelty; there is, moreover, a suspicion of the picturesque lurking about the place—but, heaven save ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... He was the victim of almost constant ill health. In many of his personal habits he was peculiar and eccentric. With the wisdom of a sage, he combined the simplicity of a child. Many amusing anecdotes are related of his oddities in the lecture-room, which will serve to enliven the biography that will doubtless be prepared at an early date. We have received no particulars concerning his death, ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... a man of medium fame, but of real genius, whose delightful home was always open to him. Mrs. Fortescue probably knew all about Paul's eccentric menage, but she had been an opera-singer in her day, had known a good many open secrets of the kind, and was a woman of the world. It was not her business to pry into that kind of secret, and she liked the young fellow for many ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... show. No doubt, Ecelino used such things, and many worse, of which even the ingenuity of Signor P—— cannot conceive. But he is an eccentric man, loving the horrors of history, and what he can do to realize them he has done in ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... CYRANO DE, an eccentric man with comic power, a Gascon by birth; wrote a tragedy and a comedy; his best work a fiction entitled "Histoire Comique des Etats et Empires de la Lune et du Soleil"; fought no end of duels in vindication, it is said, of his ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... to me that....' And his intuitions always seemed to amount to prevision, he never seemed to have acted amiss, however eccentric his act, however baseless his premonition. I have a feeling that in Agathemer's case he acted ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... immediately followed her husband's example in a less violent and eccentric manner. The superintendent of police received her with that affable display of grave good-will which is a characteristic of the force. He listened with patient attention to the rather incoherent tale which she told with ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... her fate in an Englishman, who was the father of her only child, a daughter. She thought she had met in him a hero, a demi-god, a being of deep passion and original and creative mind; but he was only a voluptuary, full of violence instead of feeling, and eccentric, because he had great means with which he could gratify extravagant whims. Stella found she had made the great and irretrievable mistake. She had exchanged devotion for a passionate and evanescent fancy, prompted at first ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... anecdotes or seeing droll vaudevilles in the French theatre, and afterward merrily repeated them, everybody praised and encouraged him. When he considered it necessary to curtail his needs, wore an old coat and gave up wine-drinking, everybody considered it eccentric and vain originality; but when he spent large sums in organizing a chase, or building an unusual, luxurious cabinet, everybody praised his taste and sent him valuable gifts. When he was chaste, and wished to preserve his chastity till marriage, ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... So taken aback was he, that he had not acknowledged it. He, therefore, to make amends, had had himself photographed in an attitude of perpetual salutation. Other letters rained in on my sister from the eccentric individual, and he sent her almost weekly fresh presentments of his unprepossessing exterior, but always in a bowing attitude. We made, naturally, inquiries about this person, and found that he was an elderly widower, a hatter by trade, who had retired ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... his words to Bourrienne: "He is quite an antique character." Desaix with 5,300 troops was now despatched on the night of June 13th towards Genoa to stop the escape of the Austrians in that direction. This eccentric move has been severely criticised: but the facts, as then known by Bonaparte, seemed to show that Melas was about to march on Genoa. The French vanguard under Gardane had in the afternoon easily driven the enemy's front from the village of Marengo; and Gardane had ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... the whole more beneficial than hurtful to the cause of science; for it is through them that a number of eccentric, though perhaps plausible speculations, perish in their infancy, and are never again heard of. Sometimes, indeed, valuable ideas are thus lost; but it is better that a truth, when once caught sight of, should have to struggle ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... might have painted even more, and not have come to ruin in the end! How I loved the gentle Van Ruysdaels, and how pathetic the everlasting white horse got to seem, after I had seen him repeated again and again in every sort of tender or eccentric landscape! Poor, tired white horse! I thought he must have been as weary of his journeyings ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... Ruth's is possible only to the morbid, the eccentric, or the unhealthy. Neither of them was morbid, neither eccentric, both abundantly well. Ruth saw the failure of it days before Bonbright had even a hint. After Dulac burst in upon her she perceived the game must be brought to an end; that their life of make-believe was weighted with danger for ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... said Banner, who had turned to look at the ship's spec-scanner. "Looks like we're in a belt of meteorites. We'll be able to match velocities, but we could still be creamed if the path gets too eccentric. Show him the way, Harcraft. I don't want to take any longer than necessary, ...
— Unspecialist • Murray F. Yaco
... the rusty hinges of his vertebrae may refuse cunningly to articulate, but all the same the "backbone" of the old man has been time-seasoned, tried, and tested, and no deerskin vest was ever buttoned round a tougher! Look at the eccentric kinks and curvings of it—its abrupt depression at the base, and its rounded bulging at the shoulders; but don't laugh with the smart young man who airily observes how full-chested the old man would be if his head were only turned around, and don't kill the young ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... most striking illustrations of this neglected truth is Thomas Carlyle. How often has it been said that Carlyle's matter is marred by the harshness and the eccentricities of his style? But Carlyle's matter is harsh and eccentric to precisely the same degree as his style is harsh and eccentric. Carlyle was harsh and eccentric. His behaviour was frequently ridiculous, if it were not abominable. His judgments were often extremely bizarre. When you read one of Carlyle's fierce diatribes, you say to yourself: "This is splendid. ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT
... President in the early summer of 1800, he came down to look over his new field; Anthony Merry, Minister from England to the United States; Washington Irving, Count Volney, Humbolt, the geographer; Robert Fulton, the inventor of the steamboat; Lorenzo Dow, the eccentric preacher; several young naval officers from the Tripolitan War; and John Randolph of Roanoke. I wonder if it was from this old tavern that that brilliant but erratic statesman went out across the Chain Bridge to fight his duel with Henry Clay? It is recorded by a marker, ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... father mad," she went on, with a simple directness that was the most wonderful thing he had ever heard come from human lips. "The world did not know that he was mad. It called him eccentric. But he was mad—in just one way. I was nine years old when it happened, and I can remember our home most vividly. It was a beautiful home. And my father! Need I tell you that I worshipped him—that to me he was king of all men? And as deeply as I loved him, so, in another way, he worshipped ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... be sad? They are not going; they are to stay there, practically owners of all they possess; for, although the property is really your father's, he will only exercise sufficient control to prevent that poor, wild, eccentric uncle of yours from throwing good money after bad. To all intents and purposes the O'Shanaghgans still hold possession; only now, my dear Linda, they will have a beautiful house, magnificently furnished. The grounds are carefully attended to, ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... Lord Douglas, lately Duke of Hamilton, handsome as an Apollo, and who married a Princess of Baden; and if Lord Waterford was infrequent in his attendance, at least he was eligible, and should not be omitted as a various sort of eccentric celebrity. Then Phillimore was there, now our Dean of the Arches; Scott and Liddell, both heads of houses, and even then conspiring together for their great Dictionary. Curzon too (lately Lord De la Zouch) was at the table, meditating Armenian and Levantine ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... purloining Father Pandoza's shoes, when the soldiers in their fury about the ammunition destroyed the Mission. At the time of its destruction a rumor of this nature was circulated through camp, started by some wag, no doubt in jest; for Ord, who was somewhat eccentric in his habits, and had started on the expedition rather indifferently shod in carpet-slippers, here came out in a brand-new pair of shoes. Of course there was no real foundation for such a report, but Rains was not above small ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... had left everyone was in gay humour, and Niel Andreevich condescended to share the general laughter, in which however, neither Raisky nor Vera joined. Paulina Karpovna might be eccentric, but that did not excuse either the loonish amusement of the people assembled or the old man's attacks. Raisky remained gloomily silent, and ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... it will be seen that a month had already passed since Loveday had been the excitement of society, and that this conversation between the eccentric Mr. Constantine and the charming Miss Le Pettit was almost the last flickering of interest in her fate. The life of one moon had been enough to see the waxing and waning of what Mr. Constantine had surprisingly ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse
... hospitably, and would have me come and make my home with him while I am in London. That is nice for me, and in many ways. He is a character, this old uncle of mine; something of an antiquary, a good deal of a hermit, a little eccentric, but stuffed with local knowledge, and indeed with knowledge of many sorts. I think he has taken a fancy to me somehow, Queen Esther; at any rate, he is very kind. He seems to like to go about with me and show ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... from having a smoke as well as a "chew,"—the mayor-domo soon after appearing with a pipe, a somewhat eccentric affair he had fished out from the back regions of ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... had at last allowed myself To be converted, and had weary grown Of playing the eccentric at the court Of Philip. The eccentric! What is that? He who would be of service to mankind Must first endeavor to resemble them. What end is gained by the vain-glorious garb Of the sectarian? Then suppose—for who From vanity is so ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... universality of a definite and predicable order and succession of events, the workers in biology have not only accepted all these, but have added more startling theses of their own. For, as the astronomers discover in the earth no centre of the universe, but an eccentric [48] speck, so the naturalists find man to be no centre of the living world, but one amidst endless modifications of life; and as the astronomers observe the mark of practically endless time set upon the arrangements of the solar system so the student of life finds the records ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... the reputation of madness for less eccentric actions than taking lessons in singing as a cure for indigestion, after the ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... of behaviour that he required to be carefully watched, and his actions more curbed than he liked. He had at first much resented this mode of proceeding with him, but of late years he had become apparently so perfectly harmless, that he was allowed to do exactly as he pleased. Such was the eccentric being who now ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... and yet she could not bear to thwart Ethel, whom she admired with her whole heart; and that dry experience, and prejudiced preciseness, did not seem capable of entering into her sister's thirst for learning and action. When Miss Winter said Ethel would grow up odd, eccentric, and blue, Margaret was ready to answer that she would be superior to every one; and when the governess urged her to insist on Cocksmoor being given up, she felt impatient of that utter want of sympathy for the ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... indiscretions of the offender. What, then, could better suit him than to compose a novel in which he might give full play to his simious humour, startle more hideously than ever his straighter-laced neighbours, defiantly defend his own character, and caricature whatever eccentric figure in the society around him might offer the most tempting butt ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... laboratory far into the night and in the morning he would appear at breakfast pale and silent. The boys had indulged in much speculation as to what the new invention could be, but had arrived at no satisfactory conclusion when, two days after their experience with the eccentric professor, Mr. Chadwick summoned them to his private workshop. The boys, who had been at work on the Wondership, the flying automobile with which they had met such surprising adventures in Brazil, obeyed the summons with alacrity. It was delivered ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... audacity. She revealed them only to a small circle of intimates; most of the people who frequented her house had no startling theories to maintain, and regarded their hostess as a good-natured, rather eccentric woman, who loved society and understood how to amuse ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... the bakehouse as he came from church, and noticed her precarious footing; and, with the grave dignity with which he did everything, he relieved her of her burden, and steered along the street by her side, carrying her baked mutton and potatoes safely home. This was thought very eccentric; and it was rather expected that he would pay a round of calls, on the Monday morning, to explain and apologise to the Cranford sense of propriety: but he did no such thing: and then it was decided that he was ashamed, and was ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... German. She gave me the impression of beholding in me a noteworthy but unsympathetic personality, but still her tone of voice was without that touch of ironical superiority that I thought I detected in Prince Albert's. She continued to be amiable and courteous like one unwilling to treat an eccentric fellow in ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... confound monomania with eccentricity. The distinction is as important as it is real. Eccentricity is a conscious aberration from the common course of life; it consists in peculiarities in reasoning, words, and actions, which are wilfully indulged, in defiance of popular sentiment. The eccentric man knows that he is eccentric; he is willing to be so, and to take the consequences; ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens
... attractive or pretty woman; she had the real grace and distinction, and purity of profile that placed her in the actual category of beauty,—Nancy had inherited a healthy and equitable outlook on life, while her father, irresistible and impracticable being that he was, had endowed her with a certain eccentric and adventurous spirit ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... to." It was Haydn that persuaded Beethoven's patron to send the youth to Vienna; there he became Haydn's pupil and received material support from Prince Lichnovsky, one of his warmest admirers. From his first entrance into the musical circles of Vienna, Beethoven was justly regarded as a highly eccentric man. His generosity of soul and transcendent genius made all those that learned to know him condone his freaks. It was after the opening of the Nineteenth Century that Beethoven reached his freest creative ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... notice your loops and flourishes; they are beside the mark, and the first law stationer could put you to the blush. Rousseau, indeed, made some account of penmanship, even made it a source of livelihood, when he copied out the "Heloise" for dilettante ladies; and therein showed that strange eccentric prudence which guided him among so many thousand follies and insanities. It would be well for all of the genus irritabile thus to add something of skilled labour to intangible brain-work. To find the right word is so doubtful a success and lies ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the Roger de Coverley sketches, Gally typifies the increasingly tolerant attitude of the Augustans toward eccentric behavior.[5] Like Sterne and Fielding he is delighted by people whose idiosyncracies are harmless and appealing. As for the harsh satiric animus of a character-writer like Butler, it is totally alien to Gally, who ...
— A Critical Essay on Characteristic-Writings - From his translation of The Moral Characters of Theophrastus (1725) • Henry Gally
... trusted the eccentric "Guide" to which this short sketch is intended to serve as Introduction—and, so far as may be, elucidation—is not a fair specimen of Portuguese or Brazilian educational literature; if such be the case the schoolmaster is indeed "abroad," and one may justly ...
— English as she is spoke - or, A jest in sober earnest • Jose da Fonseca
... first rank of agreeable moralists in verse. There is not only a dry humour, an exquisite tone of irony, in these productions of his pen; but there is a touching, unpretending pathos, mixed up with the most whimsical and eccentric strokes of pleasantry and satire. His Description of the Morning in London, and of a City Shower, which were first published in the Tatler, are among the most delightful of the contents of that very delightful work. Swift shone as one of the most sensible ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... Hakim, the frantic son of Aziz and his Christian wife, was a personal despotism of the most eccentric kind, marked by apparently unreasonable regulations, such as keeping the shops open by night instead of by day, and confining all women to the house for seven years, as well as by intermittent persecution ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... finances, when he had been caught in a "corner" on wheat and nearly crushed, had not dismayed her in the least. It was she who had counseled him to appeal to John Merrick, since the name and fame of the eccentric millionaire were familiar to her ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... hurry to be glad! It's nothing for him but trouble. Did not you hear of that rich eccentric Mr. Crichton, who died some time ago, and—fired by the example of Lord Bridgewater, I suppose—left a sum of money in the hands of trustees, of whom my brother is one, to send out a man with a thousand fine qualifications, to make a scientific voyage, with a view to bringing back ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... whether the visits of Lee were as interesting to Mrs. Washington as to the general. He was whimsical, eccentric, and at times almost rude; negligent also, and slovenly in person and attire; for though he had occasionally associated with kings and princes, he had also campaigned with Mohawks and Cossacks, and seems to have relished their "good breeding." What was still more annoying ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... been admitted to the interior circle at Versailles, found themselves objects of general curiosity and admiration at Whitehall. Lauzun was in every respect the man for the present emergency. He had courage and a sense of honour, had been accustomed to eccentric adventures, and, with the keen observation and ironical pleasantry of a finished man of the world, had a strong propensity to knight errantry. All his national feelings and all his personal interests impelled him to undertake the adventure from which the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... These, of course, are distributed among many nations, and exhibit a very great difference in point of size and general appearance. Some are without horns, while others have these appendages very large, and of eccentric shape; some are covered with long crisp wool; others have the wool lank and straight; while still others have no wool at all, but instead a coat of hair resembling that of a spaniel or Newfoundland dog! But, besides these distinct kinds, as already stated, ...
— Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found - A Book of Zoology for Boys • Mayne Reid
... of a remarkable and eccentric white man who devoted himself to a life of singular labor and self-denial. In any consideration of the South one could not avoid giving at least passing notice to Lorenzo Dow as the foremost itinerant preacher of his time, as the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... previously,' he went on, with a jerk of his head, 'the Count and Countess had lived in a very eccentric way; they admitted no visitors; Madame lived on the ground-floor, and Monsieur on the first floor. When the Countess was left alone, she was never seen excepting at church. Subsequently, at home, at the chateau, she refused to see the friends, ...
— La Grande Breteche • Honore de Balzac
... kind. Yet rush not all, but let some scout go forth, View the strange land, and tell us of its worth; And should he there barbarian usage meet, The patriot scrap shall warn us to retreat. And thou, the first of thy eccentric race, A forward imp, go, search the dangerous place, Where Fame's eternal blossoms tempt each bard, Though dragon-wits there keep eternal guard; Hope not unhurt the golden spoil to seize, The Muses yield, as the Hesperides; Who bribes the guardian, all his labour's done, For ...
— Inebriety and the Candidate • George Crabbe
... by Dr. Raymond to witness the strange experiment of the god Pan, was a person in whose character caution and curiosity were oddly mingled; in his sober moments he thought of the unusual and eccentric with undisguised aversion, and yet, deep in his heart, there was a wide-eyed inquisitiveness with respect to all the more recondite and esoteric elements in the nature of men. The latter tendency had prevailed when he accepted Raymond's invitation, for though ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... effected. But Eugene never was friendly with your father from that time. I think he was jealous of old Grandfather's affection; thought the old man loved your father best. And then, as I have said, he was very eccentric and stubborn. Well, your father went away to college and graduated, and then—we were married. Grandfather Page was very angry with him for marrying me. He wanted him to marry somebody else. He told him he would disinherit him if he married me. I did not know ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... just what they would like to say; there is always a subtle, lurking something still unexpressed, which something is the real essence of the matter, and which your penetration is expected to divine. In their writings they are eccentric, vague, labyrinthine, pretentious, transcendental,[35] and frequently ungrammatical. These men, if write they must, should confine themselves to the descriptive; for when they enter the essayist's domain, which they are very prone to do, they write what ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... wealthy and eccentric miser; a bachelor and a man who both by his appearance and his nature repels the friendship of his fellow men; inclined to practice petty cruelty on children and animals; suspicious of and seeming to hate everybody ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... man's work fails to account for his leadership and influence, we examine his personality; and here everything is interesting. Because of a few oft-quoted passages from Boswell's biography, Johnson appears to us as an eccentric bear, who amuses us by his growlings and clumsy antics. But there is another Johnson, a brave, patient, kindly, religious soul, who, as Goldsmith said, had "nothing of the bear but his skin"; a man who battled like ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... a different stamp was one of the characters in Going into Society, who played the clarionet in a band at a Wild Beast Show, and played it all wrong. He was somewhat eccentric in dress, as he had on 'a white Roman shirt and a bishop's mitre covered with leopard skin.' We are told nothing about him, except that he refused to know his old friends. In his story of the Seven Poor Travellers Dickens found the ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... Sancho Panza (Part ii. chapt. 2) says, "The Moors are fond of egg-plants" he means more than appears. The vegetable is held to be exceedingly heating and thereby to breed melancholia and madness; hence one says to a man that has done something eccentric, "Thou hast ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... eccentric as well as a bold man. He undoubtedly possessed an ingenious mechanical mind, which displayed itself very much in practical joking. It is said of him that he made a machine, the spring of which was attached to an old slipper, which lay (apparently by chance) on the floor of his bedroom. If a visitor ...
— The Story of the Rock • R.M. Ballantyne
... is not," said Rodd, "only a brave, eccentric nobleman who may have a good many more reasons for what he does ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... part of his task Mr. Clegg met with some success. Mrs. Dyson, whose memory was certainly eccentric—she could not, she said, remember the year in which she had been married—was obliged to admit that she had been in the habit of going to Peace's house, that she had been alone with him to public-houses ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... preferring to live by his talent, in no way operated against him, so far as Mrs. Wrandall was concerned. That was HIS lookout, not hers; if he elected to that sort of thing, all well and good. He could afford to be eccentric; there remained, in the perspective he scorned, the bulk of a huge fortune to offset whatever idiosyncrasies he might choose to cultivate. Some day, in spite of himself, she contended serenely, he would be very, very rich. What could be more desirable than fame, family and fortune all heaped together ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... Secretaries-at-War. I rather think Mr. Lewis married a daughter of Sir Thomas Sewell, Kt., Master of the Rolls from 1764 to 1784; and had a son, Matthew Gregory Lewis, known as Monk Lewis, who was M.P. for Hindon at the close of the last century: a very clever but eccentric young man. I also believe Lieut.-Gen. John Whitelocke, and Gen. Sir Thos. Brownrigg, G.C.B., who died in 1838, were connected by marriage with the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 208, October 22, 1853 • Various
... the part of Grayson. Most eccentric man," he continued. "Danby tells me—now really what a coincidence! Sir James, by all that is singular! Ah, my dear Sir James, I was thinking about you. Ah, Edgar, my ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... begged Lady Douglass; "how is that eccentric old gentleman we met at the Zoological Gardens?—Crew, or Brew, or some ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... nearly full stroke, is of the ordinary form, and reversed by a shifting link actuated by two eccentrics, in the usual manner; and the expansion valves are of the well known Meyer type, consisting of two plates on the back of the main valve, driven by a third eccentric, and connected by a right and left handed screw, the turning of which alters the distance between the plates and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 415, December 15, 1883 • Various
... and the first lieutenant, who had entered him, struck with his remarkable expression of countenance, and being a German scholar, had named him Mephistopheles Faust, from whence his Christian name had been razeed to Mesty. Mesty in other points was an eccentric character; at one moment, when he remembered his lineage, he was proud to excess, at others he was grave and almost sullen—but when nothing either in daily occurrences or in his mind ran contrary, he exhibited the ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... ferocity, and sooner than put up with any more stabs from the rugged earth, casts itself on air. For a hundred and twenty feet the water is bright, in the novelty and the power of itself, striking out freaks of eccentric flashes, and even little sun-bows, in fine weather. But the triumph is brief; and a heavy retribution, created by its violence, awaits below. From the tossing turmoil of the fall two white volumes roll away, with a clash of waves between them, and sweeping round ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... really enjoyed her tea and bread and jam. It was dark now, and they drew the shades at the two street windows and turned on the electric light. Julia knew by some instinct that she need not be afraid of the gray-haired, eccentric, kindly woman opposite; in that very hour she assumed a maternal attitude that was to be the key to her relationship with Miss Toland for many years. The two, neither realizing it, instantly liked each other. Never in her rather reserved ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... attract the notice of some one who sat in the further corner of the vehicle. "Where are you for, lady, please?" he asked repeatedly, and at last, "Will somebody ask the lady up the end where I'm to set her down?" to all of which the eccentric person addressed returned ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... bears it as strongly on his recollection. My servant Harris, who had shared my wanderings, and had continued in my service for eighteen years, led the advance with his companion Hopkinson; nearly abreast of them the eccentric Frazer stalked along, wholly lost in thought. The two former had laid aside their military habits, and had substituted the broad-brimmed hat, and the bushman's dress in their place, but it was impossible ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... the further comment is now added, with the purpose of showing, in a little detail, how immensely the resources and inspirations of future practitioners were enriched and strengthened, varied and multiplied, by Gargantua and Pantagruel. The book as a whole is to be classed, no doubt, as "Eccentric" fiction. But if you compare with Rabelais that one of his followers[108] who possessed most genius and who worked at his following with most deliberation, you will find an immense falling off in richness and variety ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... less eccentric but even more remarkable. He is one of those powerfully built fellows whom Nature, one would think, constructed to gain all their ends by force and directness. But no such thing; he goes about as softly as a cat; is always popping ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... Byron is a stern, paddle-wheel boat, with vertical or eccentric acting paddles, and is like the Viele of 1858. She has a recess the entire length of her bottom of several square feet area, intended to facilitate a flow of water from the bow, but the flow does not occur; the mechanical currents of the wheel will be from the ...
— History of Steam on the Erie Canal • Anonymous
... tell this story with great glee whenever Dr. Dunlop and his eccentric habits formed ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... all the eccentric and irregular motions of devils and wicked men being in his hand, and ordered by him, cannot hinder, but further his end; so that even enemies, while opposing and seeking to destroy the cause and interest of Christ, ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... to his present company, but the eccentric mannerism of one is much easier to imitate than the charm of another, and the subjects of the habitual mimic are all too apt to become ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... Royal Society and at the medical profession, but I have given a wide berth to the drama and its wits; so there is no epigram out against me, as yet. He was very able and very eccentric. Dr. Thomson (Hist. Roy. Soc.) says he has no humor, but Dr. Thomson was a man who never would have ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... rapidly for a time, but when they saw that the brother to which curiosity had attracted them was apparently of an eccentric build they suddenly paused and scattered. Roldan raised the bridle and dashed in pursuit; but the others were unincumbered, fleet of foot and terrified. They fled like ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... counsels of the king, Frederick William IV, and at important moments exercised an influence on his political decisions. Yet that somewhat eccentric prince could not resist his inclination to make cheap jokes at Strauss's expense. After creating him court-chaplain, he said to Alexander von Humboldt: "A trick in natural history which you cannot copy! I have turned an ostrich (Strauss) into a bullfinch (Dompfaffer)"—in ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... sure he has, no man deserves it better; but it's a gentlemanlike gout that merely jogs his memory in the morning of the good wine he has drank over night. By-the-bye, what became of a friend of his, a devilish eccentric fellow who held a command in the ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... somewhat eccentric advance, retreat, and quick dash maneuver for three successive days, dodging the formidable car of the magnate, and hoping that Honey might not be at her customary place at the front window to watch him off to his train. At first, he was amused. It was a joke on ...
— Skinner's Dress Suit • Henry Irving Dodge
... her head. "No. I thought Mike the Angel was about sixty years old, a crotchety old genius behind a desk, as eccentric as a comet's orbit, and wealthier than Croesus. You're just not what I ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Senator from Vermont. Congress was now in session, and he had arrived in town. He was a man of great practical sagacity, and kept a true heart beating under an exterior which appeared sometimes austere and eccentric. He had the year before been a second time elected to the Senate; and when he was on his way to Washington, Salmon had gone over from Hanover to Woodstock to meet him. They occupied the same room at the tavern, and the uncle had given ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... Pretender; Warwick, King-maker; Borgia, A., Pope; Ditto, C., toxicologist; Wallenstein, mercenary; Bacon, Roger, man of science; Ditto, F., dishonest official; Tell, W., patriot; Jones, Paul, pirate; Lucullus, glutton; Simon Stylites, eccentric; Casanova, loose liver; Casabianca, cabin-boy; Chicot, jester; Sayers, T., prize-fighter; Cook, Captain, tourist; Nebuchadnezzar, food-faddist; Juan, D., lover; ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... nations during their happiest periods, have no history. In the case of my aunt, it was not only that her course of life was unvaried, but that her own disposition was remarkably calm and even. There was in her nothing eccentric or angular; no ruggedness of temper; no singularity of manner; none of the morbid sensibility or exaggeration of feeling, which not unfrequently accompanies great talents, to be worked up into a picture. Hers was a mind well balanced on a basis of good ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... Caterpillars, too, in great plenty—miniature porcupines with fretful quills on end, and some naked even as they came into the world. This one, called the earth-measurer, has drunk himself green with chlorophyll so as to escape detection. Vain precaution! since eccentric motion betrays him to keen avian eyes, when, like the traveller's snake, he erects himself on the tip of his tail and sways about in empty space, vaguely feeling for something, he knows not what. And the mechanical tortrix that rolls up ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... elephants and a hundred winged horses, he cannot complain if the conditions partake of the slight eccentricity of the gift. He must not look a winged horse in the mouth. And it seemed to me that existence was itself so very eccentric a legacy that I could not complain of not understanding the limitations of the vision when I did not understand the vision they limited. The frame was no stranger than the picture. The veto might well ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... a figure which drew a stare of surprise from Markeld, accustomed as he was to eccentric habiliment. It was arrayed in a long, mouse-gray frock coat and shiny black trousers; a hand gloved in lavender kid carried a top hat, while the other caressed, from time to time, the carefully-waxed mustachios and imperial adorning a countenance which was a singular mixture of craft and vanity. ...
— Affairs of State • Burton E. Stevenson
... Rousseau found his eccentric powers first awakened by the advertisement of the singular annual subject which the Academy of Dijon proposed for that year, in which he wrote his celebrated declamation against the arts and sciences. A circumstance which decided ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... slow-wittedly failed to grasp the precise operation of the enactment I had described; but these exceptions are clearly the outcome of their superficial training, and do not affect the fact my feeble and frequently even eccentric arguments are at length certainly moving the more intelligent into an admission of what constitutes true justice and refinement. It is not to be denied that here and there exists a prejudice against our customs even in the ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... Inquisitor (a part that recalls the Lord High Chancellor of the ex-Savoyard, GEORGE GROSSMITH, now entertaining "on his own hook"), doesn't seem to be a born Savoyard, non nascitur and non fit at present. Good he is, of course, but there's no spontaneity about him. However, for an eccentric comedian merely to do exactly what he is told, and nothing more, yet to do that, little or much, well, is a performance that would meet with Hamlet's approbation, and Mr. GILBERT'S. Mr. FRANK WYATT, as "the new boy" at the Savoy School, doesn't, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various
... in St. Petersburg who is so attached to me as this eccentric person," he thought. "I wish she had not interrupted me though. However, I suppose it's ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... inaugurated on a given date in June, at the full height and splendour of the London season, and he had astounded the theatrical world by adhering through thick and thin to that date, and had thereby intensified his reputation as an eccentric; for the oldest inhabitant of that world could not recall a case in which the opening of a new theatre had not been promised for at least three widely ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... of the best' in man and nature. How great had been his hopes and how great his disappointment! For he found that his new friend was anything but consistent in his use of mind as a cause, and that he soon introduced winds, waters, and other eccentric notions. (Compare Arist. Metaph.) It was as if a person had said that Socrates is sitting here because he is made up of bones and muscles, instead of telling the true reason—that he is here because the Athenians have ...
— Phaedo - The Last Hours Of Socrates • Plato
... Jew, excellent physician, communist, very eccentric, avaricious, friend of Lelewel the insurrectionist. Time of Louis Philippe at Paris, he attended Vanda de Mergi, given up by several doctors, and also diagnosed her complicated disease. [The ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... German, considered eccentric by Endbury. He had a social position on account of his son, a prosperous German-American manufacturer of buggies, and was invited because of his readiness to play on any occasion. The old man looked about him at the company with a fatherly smile, and, sitting down to his instrument, ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... laughter, country mirth— Or frantic gestures of an acrobat, Heels over head—or floating lace skirts worth I know not what, a large eccentric hat And diamonds, the gift of some dull boy— Then when you see her do not wrong Yvette, Because Yvette is not a clever toy, A tawdry doll in fairy limelight set ... And should her song sound cynical and base At first, herself ungainly, or her smile Monotonous—wait, listen, ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... irresponsible burglar whose exploits had been narrated in all the newspapers during the past few months! the mysterious individual with whom Ganimard, our shrewdest detective, had been engaged in an implacable conflict amidst interesting and picturesque surroundings. Arsene Lupin, the eccentric gentleman who operates only in the chateaux and salons, and who, one night, entered the residence of Baron Schormann, but emerged empty-handed, leaving, however, his card on which he had scribbled these words: "Arsene ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... too, by having their mouth parts encased in a horny bill seem to be debarred from wearing noses. And yet there is one primeval fowl, most ancient of all the feathered families, which has come near it. I mean the apteryx, that eccentric, wingless recluse which hides itself in the scrub jungles of New Zealand. Its nostrils, unlike those of every other bird, are at the tip of its beak, which is swollen and sensitive; and Dr. Buller says that as it wanders about in the night it makes a continual sniffing ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... the boys' amusement; and there was something that appealed to me in the thought of cutting loose and going on without a dollar, to see what I could do." He smiled at his father and sister. "You know I had always rather eccentric ideas." ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... town which shelters the Secret House," he said, as he rose, "but the eccentricities of lovesick Americans, who build houses equally eccentric, are not matters for police investigation. You can share my car on a fog-breaking expedition as far as Chelsea," he added, as he slipped into his overcoat and pulled on his gloves; "we may have the luck to ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... that we think we have heard that name before somewhere. Such is human nature. We cannot alter this. It is God that made us so for some good and wise purpose. Let us not repine. But though I may seem strange, may seem eccentric, I mean to refrain from punning upon the name of this club, though I could make a very good one if I had time ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... in the same manner. When he is upon Building he mentions Doric Pillars, Pilasters, Cornice, Freeze, Architrave. When he talks of Heavenly Bodies, you meet with Eccliptic and Eccentric, the trepidation, Stars dropping from the Zenith, Rays culminating from the Equator. To which might be added many Instances of the like kind in ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... Toast-master bawled for silence. The health of all classes of society who could rely upon good doctors was proposed and heartily drunk—princes, prelates, legislators, warriors, judges—but the catalogue was cut short before any eccentric person could propose the health of the one-roomed poor, of whom the city was excessively prolific. And then the Mayor addressed himself to the great business of the town hall. George listened with throat dry; by ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... prospects are threatened, my poor boy. Cousin Hamilton, who is very eccentric, has taken a fancy to this boy, and she is going to confer favors upon him at your ...
— The Store Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... leg over his eccentric, red-painted mount. He clipped his safety-belt, plugged in his suit air-supply to the space wagon's tanks, and spoke into his ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster
... exclusiveness is wholly unknown. It is a society which includes every actor, whether he be Benedict or Hamlet, or the Ghost, or the Bandit, or the court-physician, or, in the one person, the whole King's army. He may do the "light business," or the "heavy," or the comic, or the eccentric. He may be the captain who courts the young lady, whose uncle still unaccountably persists in dressing himself in a costume one hundred years older than his time. Or he may be the young lady's brother in the white gloves ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... anxious not to outrage probability in his story, sought information as to "the power of destroying personal identity." Mathews assumed several disguises, and fully satisfied his visitor upon the point in question. "Soon after," writes Mrs. Mathews, "a gentleman, an eccentric neighbour of ours, broke in upon us as Mr. Godwin was expressing his wonder at the variety of expression, character, and voice of which Mr. Mathews was capable. We were embarrassed, and Mr. Godwin evidently vexed ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... know how eccentric he is," she explained, naturally misunderstanding my astonishment. She took a letter from her bosom and handed it to ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... additional particulars respecting the celebrated author of "Lacon," may not be unacceptable to your readers, as a sequel to the interesting account of that eccentric individual inserted at p. 431, in your ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 265, July 21, 1827 • Various
... people at the time, and when the electric carriage began to cut its eccentric capers there was a rush for places of safety, while the air was filled with excited ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... precious life-blood of a master-spirit." But the very familiarity which their mighty fame has bred in us makes us indifferent; we grow weary of what every one is supposed to have read; and we take down something which looks a little eccentric, some worthless book, on the mere ground that we never heard ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... Emperor professes a violent and grotesque Christianity with a ferocious pro-Teutonic Father and a negligible Son, and the public mind is warped into conformity with the finally impossible cant of this eccentric creed. His Imperial Majesty's disposition to regard criticism as hostility stifles the public thought of Germany. He interferes in university affairs and in literary and artistic matters with a quite remarkable ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... degree," replied Fenton, "if you knew as much as I do; but, at all events, just imagine that I am both capricious and eccentric; so don't be surprised at anything I say ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... Club Mr. Algernon Spofford was a figure of distinction. Amidst the varied, curious, eccentric, brilliant, and even slightly unbalanced minds which made the organization unique, his was the only wholly stolid and stupid one. Club tradition declared that he had been admitted solely for the beneficent purpose of ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... these articles. He also bought a new boat for a fisherman who had lost his own in a gale, and he often gave Greek Testaments to the poor children. In short, he appeared to us, from all we collected, to have been a very eccentric and benevolent character. One circumstance we learnt, which our old friend at the cottage thought proper not to disclose. He had a most beautiful daughter, with whom the lord was often seen walking on the sea-shore, and he had bought her ...
— The Vampyre; A Tale • John William Polidori
... made in business some fifty thousand pounds, and, returning, settled down in England. He had been in youth for a long time the most intimate friend of George Borrow, who was, he said, a very wild and eccentric youth. One night, when skylarking about London, Borrow was pursued by the police, as he wished to be, even as Panurge so planned as to be chased by the night-watch. He was very tall and strong in those days, a trained shoulder-hitter, ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... lady; and if the thing had been any business of theirs, it would have made no difference to him; he would none the less have let them pine in their ignorance. Did not his mother, a lady less dignified than eccentric, out of pure curiosity beg enlightenment concerning her origin, and receive for answer from the high-minded baronet, "Madam, the woman is my wife!"—after which the prudent dowager asked no more questions, but treated ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald |
