"Occasional" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a little difficult at this time of day to understand Swift's indignation. Gay was already in the enjoyment of a sinecure of L150 a year; he was offered another of L200 a year—for the post of Gentleman-Usher involved no duties save occasional attendance at Court, and to this the poet had shown himself by no means averse. A total gift of L350 a year for nothing really seems rather alluring to a man of letters, and it is difficult to understand why Gay refused the offer, unless it was, as the editors ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... some degrees above freezing, and became sometimes quite pleasant as they gradually grew accustomed to the outer arctic atmosphere, those who had no particular occupation to divert their minds made frequent complaints of the cold. There were occasional snow-storms, but these did not last long, and as a rule the skies ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... "field" tails off and the muffs diminish - Over the hedges and brooks she bounds - Straight as a crow, from find to finish. At cricket, her kin will lose or win - She and her maids, on grass and clover, Eleven maids out - eleven maids in - (And perhaps an occasional "maiden over"). Go search the world and search the sea, Then come you home and sing with me There's no such gold and no such pearl As a bright ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... his recent danger; and we concluded more than dolefully, that henceforth we must make up our minds that the Prince would live and reign for a long time. In a word, we let ourselves loose in this rare conversation, although not without an occasional scruple of conscience which disturbed it. Madame de Saint- Simon all devoutly tried what she could to put a drag upon our tongues, but the drag broke, so to speak, and we continued our free discourse, humanly speaking very reasonable on our parts, but which we felt, nevertheless, was not according ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... deposits by such a theory he meets by saying that it is only necessary to suppose that, even after the partial isolation of the lagoons by the elevations of the coast, they might still have maintained tidal or occasional communication with the sea by means of lateral openings in the chain of hills separating them from the ocean. In such cases there would be a gradual accumulation of salts, very much greater in amount than ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman
... the country was lovely—rolling grass land "with a hint of hills behind"—miles of daisies with clusters of blood-red poppies scattered through them—and occasional hollows carpeted with a brilliant blue flower. In the river courses there were numbers of brilliantly hued birds—the gayest colors I saw in Mesopotamia with the exception of the vivid arsenic-green birds around Ana on the Euphrates. In one place I thought that the ground ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... us. While it is not sensible to shut our eyes to these painful reminders of the obstacles to our progress, while it is even best to invite a searching scrutiny of them to the end that they may be torn off by heroic methods, if need be, after all an occasional study of our strong parts is a ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... everywhere, insure a certain ventilation, without which the dwellings would often be more unhealthy than many in the lanes of our large cities. To this, there is no doubt, we must attribute the comparative absence of fever, the occasional presence of which, I think, is greatly due to that violation of the plainest law of nature, the box-bed. This evil is often intensified in Shetland by having the beds arranged in tiers one above the other, ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... man of Sir Walter Raleigh, "do you accomplish so much and in so short a time?" "When I have anything do, I go and do it," was the reply. The man who always acts promptly, even if he makes occasional mistakes, will succeed when a procrastinator will fail—even if he have the ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... position, which is occupied by a pretty little fishing-village of some sixty houses, and contains a population of less than a thousand. These people gain their living mostly from the neighboring sea, and from such labor as is consequent upon the occasional arrival of a steamship bound northward. We may here take refreshment at the Golden Age Inn, which is the most southerly house of ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... was thus striving to reenter the army, Lee was having a struggle of a very different sort. Summoned from his distant post in Texas, where only an occasional rumble of the coming tempest reached his ears, he suddenly found himself in the center of the storm which threatened to wreck the Republic. In the far South seven states had already seceded; in Washington, Congressmen, Senators, and members of the Cabinet were abandoning ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... corn and cotton that lie along its banks, and an occasional sawmill whose whirring wheels break at long intervals the silence of its wooded shores, the peaceful river through the greater part of its way is undisturbed by signs of man's presence. Only twice in its course do its banks resound to the hum of town and village life, once when shortly emerging ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson
... formerly done. This fretted the mind of his wife, and often led her, in the warmth of the moment of disappointment, to utter unkind expressions. These hurt Ellis; and, sometimes, made him angry. The cloud upon Cara's brow, consequent upon these occasional misunderstandings, was generally so unpleasant to Ellis, whose heart was ever wooing the sunshine, let the rays come through almost any medium, that he would spend his evenings abroad. Temptation, ...
— The Two Wives - or, Lost and Won • T. S. Arthur
... taxes, daily ill-treatment, and occasional cruelty the Thebans had borne for two centuries and a half under their Greek masters, as no less the lot of humanity than poverty, disease, and death. But under the government of Cleopatra Cocce the measure of ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... the matter went on from year to year, and the people waited patiently; for they had become aware, from costly experience, that one of the prices they have to pay for popular government is the occasional rule of the ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... door." He worked in a glass-factory, earning a bare subsistence. "He is a little old man at twelve," says the narrator, "the paleness of his sunken cheeks was relieved by the hectic flush; his hollow dry eye was moistened by an occasional tear; and his thin white lip quivered as he told me his simple story; how he was braving hunger and death—for he cannot live long—to help his mother pay the rent and buy her bread. 'Half-past ten at night is early for him to return,' said the mother; 'sometimes it is half-past ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... despair of Samson awaking manacled and shaven, an occasional shriek would go up from some lone thinker, who perceived that the kingdoms of the world had lapsed into a single hand; and in the privy cabinet the governors drank to the dregs the cup of trembling. But their speech was ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... also rejected any minute classification of sexual inverts, only recognizing psycho-sexual hermaphroditism and homosexuality. At the same time he cast doubt on the existence of acquired homosexuality, in a strict sense, except in occasional cases, and he pointed out that even when a normal heterosexual impulse appears at puberty, and a homosexual impulse later, it may still be the former that was acquired and the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... succeed, there is little doubt that it will create an important change. West from Tuseon and Tubac, towards the Gulf of California, the country presents more the appearance of a barren waste or desert than any district I have seen. It nevertheless has occasional oases, with fine grazing lands about them, and the mountains, which are more broken and detached, have distinct marks of volcanic origin. The ranges though short, have generally the same parallel direction as those further east. It is the country of the Papago Indians, a peaceful and friendly ...
— Memoir of the Proposed Territory of Arizona • Sylvester Mowry
... which is not so. But I incline to believe that this is more especially the case in those free nations in which the democratic element preponderates. Democracy appears to me to be much better adapted for the peaceful conduct of society, or for an occasional effort of remarkable vigor, than for the hardy and prolonged endurance of the storms which beset the political existence of nations. The reason is very evident; it is enthusiasm which prompts men to expose themselves to dangers and privations, but they will not support them ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... plateaux on one side and the rock-strewn seashore on the other, there was little to hold the eye save an occasional glimpse of the Italian town in the far distance. There was a wild uncouthness about the scenery which awed the girl. Sometimes the car would be running so near the sea level that the spray of the waves hit the windows; sometimes it would climb over an out-jutting headland and she would look ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... the level of the uplands. To add to the weirdness of his surroundings, the thin crescent of a new moon threw a faint light over all and outlined the winding turns of this mist-filled gorge. Away to the northward a belt of dark clouds emitted frequent flashes of heat lightning, and occasional sharp reports along the line bespoke possible death lurking in every thicket. Keeping always in shadow, and oft pausing to listen, Manson slowly traversed his beat, waiting only at either end to exchange a whispered "All's well!" with the ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn
... might have been something once; he is still very clever; he will soon be a man for occasional addresses. I believe in ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... all honesty. "Oh I won't pretend I don't miss him. Sometimes I see him every day. Our friendship's like that. Make what you will of it!" she whimsically smiled; a little flicker of the kind, occasional in her, that had more than once moved him to wonder what he might best make of HER. "But he's perfectly right," she hastened to add, "and I wouldn't have him fail in any way at present for the world. I'd sooner not see him for three months. I begged him to be beautiful to them, and he fully ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... Theocritus found in Sicily, for they were of the same race of people as the Sicilians. Why should the slopes of Lactarius be less musical than those of Aetna? Indeed the reasonable reader will find that, except for an occasional transference of actual persons into Arcadian setting—by an allegorical turn invented before Vergil—there is no serious confusion in the scenery or inconsistent treatment in the plots of Vergil's Eclogues. But ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank
... significant that the criminal class adapted itself readily to the parole system with its sliding scale. It was natural that this should be so, for it fits in perfectly well with their scheme of life. This is to them a sort of business career, interrupted now and then only by occasional limited periods of seclusion. Any device that shall shorten those periods is welcome to them. As a matter of fact, we see in the State prisons that the men most likely to shorten their time by good behavior, and to get released ...
— Widger's Quotations of Charles D. Warner • David Widger
... detected the men who regarded her with pleasure. By which means having discovered Rinieri's passion, she inly laughed, and said:—'Twill turn out that 'twas not for nothing that I came here to-day, for, if I mistake not, I have caught a gander by the bill. So she gave him an occasional sidelong glance, and sought as best she might to make him believe that she was not indifferent to him, deeming that the more men she might captivate by her charms, the higher those charms would ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... control room, Bors watched out of a direct-vision port, giving occasional glances to the screens. There were flecks of light from innumerable stars. Then the shining cloud-bank of the gas-giant planet went black. Screens showed all of the fleet—each blip with a nimbus about it which identified it as a friend, not a foe. There ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... a short-haired bully and amateur prize-fighter named Allen, who was accustomed to lording it over the upper floor, and had more than once shown a disposition to make trouble with Tracy. Now there was an occasional cat-call, and hootings, and whistlings, and finally the diversion of an exchange of connected remarks ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... are not bestowed. In perhaps a dozen schools—practically all in the East—they are still received in greater or lesser degree; and come in three forms: 1. as membership fees in some half dozen schools; 2. as certain annual donations, varying in amount, in about the same number; and 3. as an occasional legacy or similar gift ...
— The Deaf - Their Position in Society and the Provision for Their - Education in the United States • Harry Best
... tramping together across the head of the valley as they talked about their experiences, with Chris keeping a keen lookout ahead for the first glimpse of his father, and giving an occasional look up towards the edge of the cliff, which he noted was wonderfully broken up into hollows and prominences, rifts and gorges that had been invisible from a distance, and all overhung by a level band of apparently impassable rock. But during the last few minutes ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... chiefly of pine, birch, and mountain ash, with a few oaks and beech, did not appear so large as I expected, nor was our monotonous course enlivened by the sight of an occasional bear or eagle, being, we suppose, gone from home. Along some parts of the line we observed the corduroy road (trees laid close together), and gates formed of long poles counterpoised by a thicker part at ...
— A Journey in Russia in 1858 • Robert Heywood
... to me a long, long while. The three soldiers went by carrying the dead body, and Miles came to the foot of the stairs, saw us, and passed along without speaking. Outside was the dull, continuous roar of musketry, mingled with an occasional yell. Then she held out both hands, and looked me frankly ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... when the red-striped canvas awning was drawn down in front of the pork shop, the fish-girl would remark that the big fat thing felt afraid, and was concealing herself. She was also much exasperated by the occasional lowering of the window-blind, on which was pictured a hunting-breakfast in a forest glade, with ladies and gentlemen in evening dress partaking of a red pasty, as big as themselves, on ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... who are fit for nothing but to be cashiers, just as the bent of a certain order of mind inevitably makes for rascality. But, oh marvel of our civilization! Society rewards virtue with an income of a hundred louis in old age, a dwelling on a second floor, bread sufficient, occasional new bandana handkerchiefs, an elderly wife ...
— Melmoth Reconciled • Honore de Balzac
... of the pastoral, black-eyed Evangelines hove in sight, and passed like a day-dream. And here we are in an English settlement, where we enjoy a substantial breakfast, and then again ride through the primeval woods, with an occasional glimpse of the broad Gulf and its mountain scenery, until we come upon a pretty ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... address part of his efforts to the task of meeting the existing errors; hence arises a division of his work into the doctrinal or affirmative part, and the polemic [Footnote: Polemic.—There is an occasional tendency in the use and practice of the English language capriciously to limit the use of certain words. Thus, for instance, the word condign is used only in connection with the word punishment; the word implicit is ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... has rested in the past, and stand that argument upon the broader ground of Nature as a whole, it scarcely becomes less incompatible with any inference to the morality of that Cause, seeing that the facts to which I have alluded are not merely occasional and, as it were, outweighed by contrary facts of a more general kind, but manifestly constitute the leading feature of the scheme of organic nature as a whole: or, if this were held to be questionable, it could only follow that we are not entitled to infer ...
— Thoughts on Religion • George John Romanes
... was barely running water, with an occasional long pool. A hedge of willows was interwoven, Indian fashion, from which a tarpaulin was stretched to the wagon bows, forming a sheltered canopy. Amid a fire of questions, the wounded man was ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... so many points of attack and defence to cover, that it was impossible to conduct so grand a project by military means alone. That which he could not effect, therefore, by the sword, he endeavored to perform by diplomatic intrigue; and thus, between the occasional victories of his armies and the still more powerful influence of his subtle policy, he reduced his foes and raised himself to an eminence to which none of his most ambitious predecessors had aspired. The powers against whom ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... to relieve it; that he was yet a novice in the arts of solicitation; that he could not possibly think her more worthy of his affection, after a month's service, than at the present moment; and that he entreated her to cast away an occasional thought upon him when her leisure admitted. The Marchioness was not offended, she saw very well that she must require an implicit conformity to the established rule of decorum, when she had to deal with such a character; and the Chevalier de Grammont, after this sort of reconciliation, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... directly onward to the scene of conflict. I had for the moment forgotten them; and was only reminded of their proximity on hearing the death-wail, as it came pealing up the valley. It soon swelled into a prolonged and plaintive chorus— interrupted only by an occasional shriek—that denoted the discovery of some relative among the slain—father, brother, husband—or perhaps still nearer and dearer, some worshipped lover—who had fallen under the spears ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... finely-ignorant woman wish to know how Bob's eye at a glance announced a dog-fight to his brain? He did not, he could not see the dogs fighting; it was a flash of an inference, a rapid induction. The crowd round a couple of dogs fighting, is a crowd masculine mainly, with an occasional active, compassionate woman fluttering wildly round the outside, and using her tongue and her hands freely upon the men, as so many "brutes"; it is a crowd annular, compact, and mobile; a crowd centripetal, having its eyes ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... goblet. I almost felt afraid of his gaze, it had become so intense and ardent. I tried not to look in his direction, though there was an originality and fascination about him that made it next to impossible not to steal an occasional ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... when she was alone with him, were the joy of her life. Then and then only did she see him as he really was, with that wistful tenderness in his deep-set eyes, that occasional flash of passion from beneath the lazily-drooping lids. For a few minutes—seconds, mayhap—the spirit of the reckless adventurer was laid to rest, relegated into the furthermost background of this senses by the ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... pictures and all other ornaments. That Boy steals into his room sometimes, and stares at them with great admiration, and has himself undertaken to form a rival cabinet, chiefly consisting of flies, so far, arranged in ranks superintended by an occasional spider. ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... and you,' he said. Mr Longestaffe bowed his head graciously, as much as to say that there was of course a very wide difference. 'In our affairs,' continued Brehgert, 'we expect gains, and of course look for occasional losses. When a gentleman in your position sells a property he expects to ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... passed off very pleasantly, with occasional lapses. "We break down under the burden of so many languages," said Ferris. "It is an embarras de richesses. Let us fix upon a common maccheronic. May I trouble you for a poco piu di sugar dans ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... the most popular day of the seven; pre-eminently so since the war began. The peace that marked an occasional week-day was the certain accompaniment of the Sunday. The conditions of life were normal on Sunday; its advent made us happy. Following upon the unpleasant experiences of the previous day it was peculiarly welcome, albeit, mayhap, the herald ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... SCIENTIFIC STRUGGLE FOR ANATOMY. Occasional encouragement of medical science in the Middle Ages New impulse given by the revival of learning and the age of discovery Paracelsus and Mundinus Vesalius, the founder of the modern science of anatomy.—His ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... then, Clay. You know that. I wish you would understand," she added impatiently. "I only want to go back to things as they were. I want you to come in now and then. We used to talk about all sorts of things, and I miss that. Plenty of people come, but that's different. It's only your occasional companionship I want. I don't want you to come ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... and calls, had all ceased at once. It seemed to him as if everybody in the room had been killed except himself. He could not hear a sound in the darkness besides the beating of his own heart, and an occasional feeble moan rising from the floor. In all his soldierly life he had never known a moment that was ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... that the freedom and variety of Herodotus is not always best reproduced by such severe consistency of rendering as is perhaps desirable in the case of the Epic writers before and the philosophical writers after his time: nor again must his simplicity of thought and occasional quaintness be reproduced in the form of archaisms of language; and that not only because the affectation of an archaic style would necessarily be offensive to the reader, but also because in language Herodotus is not archaic. ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... entertains, and at a particular restaurant, an occasional tip to the head waiter would be of service. This is a word to ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... the other sense, why the people should not like peace. The truth is, that Coriolanus does not use the two sentences consequentially, but reproaches them with unsteadiness, then with their other occasional vices. ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... begun in earnest, for we had thirteen miles to ride in the falling snow, and our hands and feet were frozen. As we filed through the silent streets, an occasional knot of night-birds gave us a thin cheer, and once a policeman rushed at me, and wrung my hand, with a fervent "Safe home again!" Whitechapel was reached soon enough, but the Commercial Road, and the line of ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... found signs of life, while the other three he pronounced doubtful. Then, under his directions, we each took a body, which we proceeded vigorously to chafe and slap with our bare hands, varying the treatment with occasional attempts to administer a little stimulant, with the object of restoring the suspended circulation of the blood; and eventually—not to dwell at unnecessary length upon this episode—we succeeded in restoring two of them, but the remaining three defied our utmost efforts, although we ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... dirt, darkness, ugliness, strain, tedious daily journeyings, and general expensiveness. What does London give me in exchange?' And he may decide that, as London offers him nothing special in exchange except the glamour of London and an occasional seat at a good concert or a bad play, he may get a better return for his expenditure of brains, nerves, and money in the provinces. He may perceive, with a certain French novelist, that 'most people of truly distinguished mind prefer the provinces.' And he may then actually, in obedience ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... mystery—to find it human, as are many mysteries. But thank heaven that she found a dignity, a seriousness,—and these more than satisfied her. Likewise, she discovered something she had not looked for, an occasional way of saying things that made her laugh. She danced with him, and passed him back to Miss Puss Russell, who was better pleased this time; she passed him on to her sister, who also danced with him, and sent him upstairs for ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... neglected on the shelves of great libraries. Time is too precious now-a-days, whatever may have been the case of our forefathers, for it to be dissipated by diving into the muddy waters of voluminous authors in hopes of finding an occasional pearl of wisdom. And unless some intelligent and painstaking compiler set himself to the task of separating the gold from the rubbish in which it is imbedded in those graves of learning, and present the results of his labour in an attractive form, such works are virtually lost to the ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... is characteristic of the man and exemplifies strikingly the delicacy of his taste and feeling that his demeanour in her house showed in no way the intimate relation in which he stood to the mistress of it: he seemed to be a guest like any other occasional visitor. Lenz wishes to make us believe that George Sand's treatment of Chopin was unworthy of the great artist, but his statements are emphatically contradicted by Gutmann, who says that her behaviour ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... never sends an audience away half satisfied; for he has constantly grown with the growth of his splendid opportunity. How attentive the great assembly, and how quickly responsive to the points he makes! That occasional ripple of laughter,—it is not from any want of seriousness in the speaker, in the subject, or in the congregation, nor is it a Rowland Hill eccentricity. It is simply that it has pleased Heaven to endow this genial soul with a quick perception of the likeness there ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... journey, nor a very slow one, for there was nothing to block the way except occasional men with flags, who guarded culverts and little bridges. The Germans would know better than to waste time or effort on blowing up that track, but there might be Northern gentlemen at large, out to do damage for the sport of it, and the sepoys all along the line ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... in 48 is the doctrine of either Universal Necessity as expounded by Leibnitz, or that of Occasional Causes of the Cartesian school. In fact, all the theories about the government of the universe are ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... we passed occasional baobabs, with trunks fifteen or twenty feet thick and offshoots covering a quarter of an acre. Then the trees thinned out to the sparse and shriveled all-but-dead things that struggle for existence on the border-lines between man's land and desolation. At last we drew down the ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... Seven in one of his tantrums half so well as Number Five can do it. She can pick out what threads of sense may be wound off from the tangle of his ideas when they are crowded and confused, as they are apt to be at times. She can soften the occasional expression of half-concealed ridicule with which the poor old fellow's sallies are liable to be welcomed—or unwelcomed. She knows that the edge of a broken teacup may be sharper, very possibly, than ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... up, and drawing on his netsek and moccasins, for these were the only garments he had removed upon lying down, he went out and looked about him. The stars were shining brilliantly, and an occasional gust of wind was the only reminder of the storm. Mounds of snow marked the place where the dogs were sleeping, covered by the drift. The morning was ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... occasional references to each other. I have heard people 'going on' on the hotel piazzas. She's embroidering, or knitting, or tatting, or something of that kind; and he says she seems quite devoted to needlework, and she says, yes, she has a perfect passion for ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... came to stand in her own doorway, she wore the pleased but somewhat apprehensive look of a guest. In these days New England life held the necessity of much dignity and discretion of behavior; there was the truest hospitality and good cheer in all occasional festivities, but it was sometimes a self-conscious hospitality, followed by an inexorable return to asceticism both of diet and of behavior. Miss Harriet Pyne belonged to the very dullest days of New England, those ...
— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett
... profit by the prizes bestowed upon it by hazard, as in its cage it profits by the wealth of diet due to my generosity. The hunting of such big game as I offer, which is full of danger, must form part of the creature's usual life, though it may be only an occasional pastime, perhaps to the great regret ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... planters the idea of a negro's testimony being as good as a white man's is very unpleasant, and occasional attempts are made to bully and browbeat a colored witness upon the stand. The attempt is never made twice. Once I pitted a lawyer against a negro witness, held the parties on the cross-examination, and ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... In addition to these occasional intruders, there was another person, an Authority, but the most wonderful Authority of all, who came into their lives a little later with a gradual and overwhelming effect, but who cannot be mentioned more definitely just now because he has not yet arrived. ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... the Brethren with England were only of a very occasional nature, it is not easy to weave them into the narrative. But the following particulars will be of special interest; they show the opinion held of the Brethren by officials of ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... began at 5 o'clock, but that there were occasional lapses into unpunctuality, may be inferred from the following advertisement in the Daily ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... The slanting sun added fresh beauty every hour. There were dark pines against a lemon sky, grey peaks reddening and etherealizing, gorges of deep and infinite blue, floods of golden glory pouring through canyons of enormous depth, an atmosphere of absolute purity, an occasional foreground of cottonwood and aspen flaunting in red and gold to intensify the blue gloom of the pines, the trickle and murmur of streams fringed with icicles, the strange sough of gusts moving among the pine tops—sights and sounds not of the lower earth, but of the solitary, beast-haunted, frozen ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... his daily number of tots of poisonous "dop" brandy measured out in the thick glass tumbler, the massive exterior of which was quite out of proportion to the comparatively limited interior space. These tots (and an occasional bottle) were Jim's reward for not exercising too severe a supervision over the canteen, and for always happening to be round the corner when a row took place. Moreover, the till, besides being as yet nearly empty, was well out of reach; the counter was high ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... had been typical of the Autumn season, somewhat gray, with only an occasional showing of the sun. Now, however, it became rapidly darker, and presently a few flakes of snow sifted down through ...
— The Rover Boys at Colby Hall - or The Struggles of the Young Cadets • Arthur M. Winfield
... Protestant districts afford no pleasurable excitement. Work, work, work, without any intervals of moonlighting and landlord shooting. These Saxon settlers have no imagination. Like mill horses, they move in one everlasting round, unvaried even by a modicum of brigandage. An occasional murder, a small suspicion of arson, might relieve the wearisome monotony of their prosaic existence, but they lack the poetic instinct. They have not the sporting tastes of their Keltic countrymen. They are not ashamed of this, but even glory in ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... narrow V-shaped valleys, and the ground in many places covered with fallen and decaying trees—the wrecks of fire and tempest. Every where throughout this wild region lay the antlers and heads of moose and elk; but, with the exception of an occasional large jackass-rabbit, nothing living moved through the silent hills. The ground was free from badger-holes; the day, though dark, was fine; and, with a good horse under me, that two hours gallop over, the Red Deer Hills was glorious work. It wanted yet an hour of ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... of the mass and began its encirclement, drawing a little nearer to its center with every circuit. Now he was in a white fog which afforded him only an occasional glimpse of the earth. The fog grew thicker and darker and he returned again to the outer edge because there would be no danger in the center. Gently he declined his elevator and sank to a lower level. Then suddenly, beneath him, a short shape ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... without doors are apprehensive that some other unhappy event may result from so violent a contention, in which it seems the families on both sides are now engaged, I must desire you to enable me, on the authority of your own information, to do you occasional justice. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... is best to discontinue the trot and finish the lesson at the walk, in order to settle her nerves and not frighten her out of her wits. Her next trotting lesson should be commenced at the walk, and an occasional effort be made to trot a short distance, so that she may gradually obtain the necessary confidence, and an encouraging word should always be given ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... LOCK, a dainty production of Pope's, pronounced by Stopford Brooke to be "the most brilliant occasional ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... Nothing can be less scientific than to snatch up any traveller's tale which makes for our theory, and to ignore evidence, perhaps earlier, or later, or better observed, which makes against it. Yet this, unfortunately, in certain instances (which will be adduced) has been the occasional error of Mr. Huxley and Mr. Spencer.[4] Mr. Spencer opens his 'Ecclesiastical Institutions' by the remark that 'the implication [from the reported absence of the ideas of belief in persons born ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... due to himself or his tribe: he looked on with the most imperturbable sangfroid, moved about with the ease and self-possession of one to whom all he mingled with had been a matter of common usage; heard jests, questions, or friendly explanations with the most unmoved gravity, replying by an occasional "Ou, ou!" or a slow bend of his head: his patience was indeed worthy the most tried of the race he represented, for never did he lose it or forget himself for a moment. He was a very fine young man, and the features of his face appeared to have been ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... then, as the political campaigns drew on, we had speeches from eminent statesmen; and I give in the chapters on "My Religion" reminiscences of speeches on religious subjects made by Archbishop Hughes and Father Gavazzi. An occasional visit from Washington Irving or Senator (afterward President) Buchanan, as well as other men of light and leading, aroused my tendencies toward hero-worship; but perhaps the event most vividly stamped into ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... established, national armies changed to the Swiss form, and an international force adequate to deal with any nation that may suddenly become lawless agreed upon by treaty and held always in readiness. The occasional use of force will continue to be necessary even in the civilized world; but it must be made not an aggressive but a protective force and used as such—just as protective force has to be used sometimes in families, schools, ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... shelves of law-books, and usually a shady private apartment for consultations. Sometimes the name upon the 'directory' of the building and name over the 'office' itself will be spelled differently, though conveying the same sound; as though the proprietor thereof might have occasional use for a confusion of personalities. Along the stairs and hallways leading to these dens, at almost any hour of the day, from 10 A.M. to 3 P.M., may be met women in flashy finery and men with hats drawn down over their eyes—all manifestly gravitating, with more or less ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... reformer son out West that still thinks father is makin' good. He sits there and listens to every word too. Not that he comes in with the sympathetic sigh, or shows signs of being troubled by mist in the eye corners. He just throws in an occasional grunt now and then and drums his fat finger-tips on ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... survived. The earliest—Richeut—is of the year 1159. From the middle of the twelfth century, together with the heroic or sentimental poetry of feudalism, we find this bourgeois poetry of realistic observation; and even in the chansons de geste, in occasional comic episodes, something may be seen which is in close kinship with the fabliaux. Many brief humorous stories, having much in common under their various disguises, exist as part of the tradition of many ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... conveys the idea of the interminable—the celebrated "Devil's Dream." The fury of personal movement that was kindled by the fury of the notes could be approximately imagined by these outsiders under the moon, from the occasional kicks of toes and heels against the door, whenever the whirl round had been of ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... near presence of the girl to whom he could call, but could not utter one tender word. She was there where he could see her watching, waiting at the bridge. "The sound of the water helps me bear the suspense," she said to Swenson, and the occasional sight of her lover, the knowledge that he was still unbroken, kept ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... boat is in any waters near at hand we ought to get some sign of her whereabouts by keeping a sharp enough watch," Tom advised his comrades. "They can't sail or handle the boat without the occasional use of a light in the motor room. The gleam of a lantern across the water may be enough to give us ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock
... was customary, in gentlemen's houses in Ireland, to fit up one large bedchamber with a number of beds for the reception of occasional visitors. These ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... long letter. When you write again, I have no doubt that you will have seen some things in a new light. Tell me more about your studies. I was interested in your way of describing things. I only wondered that, with your occasional sense of the ludicrous, you should not have been aware of the impression which you yourself must have made on others. Burns's "giftie," "to see oursel's," etc., we all, more or less, need. I told Hattie the ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... have written yourself, or come and seen us," Sybil declared, a little irrelevantly. "Why couldn't I be an occasional helper?" ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and threatened on his way to punishment, but it did no good; he was snatched roughly along by the officers, and got an occasional cuff, besides, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... transactions with them, considered their "word as good as their bond." From which, as soon as the old and well-tried associations of his native State were dissolved, he suffered many pecuniary losses. He was passionate, but not revengeful; gay and animated, but subject to occasional reactions, when he became much depressed. He was a high-toned, honorable gentleman, very neat and exact in his personal appearance, but ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... An occasional sound of traffic penetrated into the room,—strangely mournful, a reminder of the immense and ineffable melancholy of a city which could not wholly lose itself in sleep. The window lightened. He could descry ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... — her companion ventured timidly. But Elizabeth gave no answer; and neither of them stirred for many minutes, an occasional uneasy flutter of Rose's being the exception. The question at last was asked over again, ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... specialties in his life worth noting, except that he once caught a swallow flying (teste sua manu). Below the middle stature; cast of face slightly Jewish, with no Judaic tinge in his complexional religion; stammers abominably, and is therefore more apt to discharge his occasional conversation in a quaint aphorism or a poor quibble than in set and edifying speeches; has consequently been libelled as a person always aiming at wit, which, as he told a dull fellow that charged him ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... gives notice of a wreck to the coxswain of the boat. The crews of the boats are volunteers, and if they do not happen to report themselves at the time of a disaster, their places are filled with any good oarsmen who offer. In short, the whole system is based upon the occasional zeal and heroism of men, instead of tried and paid skill, fitness for the work and a simple ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... sun, low now, showed just above the end of the farm roof and the lines of light were orange between the shadows of the barn. All the batteries seemed now very far away; the only sound in the world was the occasional sigh of the shrapnel. The farmyard was bathed in the peace of ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... supposed to give its name of Atrani to the cheerful little town we have left behind. Let us thank Heaven that we are at last out of reach of the beggars, and that the only human beings to be encountered upon the road are a few peasants with loads of fruit or vegetables, and an occasional charcoal-burner bearing his grimy burden to the town below. The carbonaio with his blackened face and queer outlandish garments is a familiar figure throughout all parts of Southern Italy. He belongs ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... Continental woman interested him. It was perhaps this quality in Stella that most appealed to him. He was aware that his Aunt Lucretia hoped for a romantic conclusion to the friendship. He himself had given the matter an occasional thought. Yet somehow Stella's definiteness left no room for the imaginative element to become active. It was difficult for him to visualize her as an established factor in his life, either as the restful center of a home or the adaptable companion of his nomadic wanderings. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Democracy chase it, That gang of impenitent Dons Who drowned the occasional Placet By bawling their truculent Nons: No idle and opulent College Will feed that obstructionist clique, Those scoffers at Practical Knowledge Who vote for ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley |
