"Singular" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was less valuable, and where they were free to extend, the tombs quickly disappeared without leaving any vestiges above the surface, and it would now be necessary to turn up a great deal of rubbish before discovering their remains. The Chaldaea of to-day presents the singular aspect of a country almost without cemeteries, and one would be inclined to think that its ancient inhabitants had taken pains to hide them.** The sepulture of royal personages alone furnishes us with monuments of which we can determine the site. ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... event, while the assertion of the Apostle that "we must, through much tribulation, enter into the kingdom of God," may account for the fondness of the Norman sculptors in representing different stages of martyrdom on the tympana of their doors. A very singular tympanum is that on the door of the church of Fordington S. George, at Dorchester, whereon is represented some incident in the life of S. George. The principal figure is on horseback with a discus round his head. The other figures are in hauberks and chausses, and generally bear, in point of costume, ...
— Our Homeland Churches and How to Study Them • Sidney Heath
... knight," said she, with a singular smile, "you surely will not refuse a lady's first request. Taste this pomegranate, I entreat you. If you are neither hungry nor thirsty after so long a journey, I suppose at least that you have not ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... near the centre of the country of the Burstow foxhounds, which stretches from Leigh, the other side of Horley, to Edenbridge in Kent. Two good stories are told of White, the Burstow huntsman. One is of an extraordinary jump, singular not for its height or the width of ground covered, but for its daring and adroitness. It was on one of the best days the Burstow ever had, when they killed a fox at Crawley after an hour and ten minutes' run almost without a check; and went on to find another ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... the fact that the time had come for him to resolve himself into a singular Committee of Ways and Means to provide against the coming rigour. And therefore he moved ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... in the former case there was very little if any current of air in the cylinder. This leads us to the question, why should we not make the solution of carbolic acid and water, and heat it, letting the steam escape by a small hole, so as to produce a jet? It is a singular fact that for all practical purposes such a steam jet will contain the same proportion of acid to water as did the original solution. The solution can of course be made stronger or weaker till we ascertain the exact proportion which ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 417 • Various
... things by DEEDS ONLY; what shall we think of one, who seeks to find palliatives in words, for narrowness of heart in the very persons her deeds so silently, yet so forcibly, reflect upon? Why blush you not, my dear friend, to be thus singular?—When you meet with another person whose mind is like your own, then display your excellencies as you please: but till then, for pity's sake, let your heart and your spirit ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... extreme distress, and which is a masterpiece. There are two children in it, touched with a hand as loving and tender as ever a father caressed his little child with. There is some young love as pure and innocent and pretty as the truth. And it is very remarkable that, by reason of the singular construction of the story, more than one main incident usually belonging to the end of such a fiction is anticipated in the beginning, and thus there is an approach to completeness in the fragment, as to the satisfaction of the reader's mind concerning the most interesting persons, ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... behind him a name strongly written in the annals of Kentucky, and a reputation for calm courage softened by humanity, conducted by prudence, and embellished by a singular modesty of deportment. His person was rough, robust, and indicating strength rather than activity; his manner was cold, grave, and taciturn; his countenance homely but kind; his conversation unadorned, unobtrusive, and touching only upon the ...
— Scouting with Daniel Boone • Everett T. Tomlinson
... remarks called Loudon (who was a man of peace) from his reserve. "It's rather singular," said he, "but I seem to have practised about all these means ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... architecture, defying the laws of gravitation. It is called the sepulchre of the Metelli, the family of Caecilia Metella; but this is a mere guess, as there is no record or inscription to identify it. Next to this singular monument are the remains of a tomb which must be exceedingly interesting to every classical scholar. The inscription indicates that it is the tomb of Quintus Caecilius, whose nephew and adopted ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... I mean any phrase of the form "a so-and-so" or "the so-and-so." A phrase of the form "a so-and-so" I shall call an "ambiguous" description; a phrase of the form "the so-and-so" (in the singular) I shall call a "definite" description. Thus "a man" is an ambiguous description, and "the man with the iron mask" is a definite description. There are various problems connected with ambiguous descriptions, but I pass them by, since they do not directly concern the matter I wish to discuss. ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... singular fact that the two boys, usually full of talk, after the manner of youth, did not speak until they came to the parting of their ways. Then Harry, the more emotional of the two, and conscious that the veil of antagonism was still between ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... a dressing-gown. If Eleanor was astonished, so certainly was he. But he rose to his feet, albeit scarce able to stand, and received his visitors with a simplicity and grace of nature which was in singular contrast with all the dignities ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... should do a like injury unto the majesty of God, as if we should judge or construe of the store of some excellent jeweller by that only which is set out toward the street in his shop. The other, because they minister a singular help and preservative against unbelief and error. For our Saviour saith, "You err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God;" laying before us two books or volumes to study, if we will be secured from error: first the Scriptures, revealing the will of God, and then the creatures ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... this adventure, the emperor, having ordered that part of the army which quarters in and about his metropolis to be in readiness, took a fancy of diverting himself in a very singular manner. He desired I would stand like a colossus, with my legs as far asunder as I conveniently could. He then commanded his general (who was an old, experienced leader and a great patron of mine) to draw up the troops in close order and march under me; the foot by twenty-four ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... the whole body is elevated to a state by others unknown—inwardly and outwardly illuminated, purified, made solid, strong, yet buoyant. A singular charm, more than beauty, flickers out of, and over, the face—a curious transparency beams in the eyes, both in the iris and the white—the temper partakes also. Nothing that happens—no event, rencontre, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... his invitation, if he would procure an introduction to her. This observation may be taken as applying only to public balls. At a private party the host and hostess are sufficient guarantees for the respectability of their guests; and although a gentleman would show a singular want of knowledge of the laws of society in acting as we have supposed, the lady who should reply to him as if he were merely an impertinent stranger in a public assembly-room would be implying an affront to her entertainers. The mere fact of being assembled together under ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... at best but mildly desirable, became of singular value when he believed that another was trying to possess himself of it; jealousy had quickened love, duty and conscience insisted that he should save the girl from the snare that was being set for her. The great ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... that proceed from the Lord as a sun are what in an eminent sense are called the spiritual, and they are called the spiritual in the singular number, because they are one; when, therefore, the spiritual is mentioned in the following pages, it is meant both these together. From that spiritual it is that the whole of that world is called spiritual. Through that spiritual, all ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg
... What a singular destiny has been that of this remarkable man!—To be regarded in his own age as a classic, and in ours as a companion! To receive from his contemporaries that full homage which men of genius have in general received only from posterity; to be more intimately known to posterity than ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... retired, and here they made their final stand. Granada had risen to splendor on the ruin of other Moslem kingdoms, but in so doing had become the sole object of Christian hostility, and had to maintain its very existence by the sword. The Moorish capital accordingly presented a singular scene of Asiatic luxury and refinement, mingled with the glitter and the din of arms. Letters were still cultivated, philosophy and poetry had their schools and disciples, and the language spoken was said to be the most elegant Arabic. A passion for dress and ornament pervaded all ranks. That ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... never was an epicure. A considerable estate was about seventy years ago regained, as described in Chapter XLII., by the discovery of a sixpence under the seal of a deed, which had been coined later than the date of the deed. Whether it be advantageous or prudent to introduce such singular facts in a fictitious history is a separate consideration, which might lead to a discussion too long ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... of the main thoroughfare of Honolulu was raised to fever-heat by the singular spectacle of an austere and distinguished-looking Englishman and a pretty, if somewhat disheveled, young girl dangling their feet from the end of a dilapidated wagon that was being driven at a breakneck speed ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... ingenious theorists themselves, believed their story, and that no one took the slightest pains to verify or disprove it. Happily, Uncle Billy never knew it, and moved all unconsciously in this atmosphere of burlesque suspicion. And then a singular change took place in the attitude of the camp towards him and the disrupted partnership. Hitherto, for no reason whatever, all had agreed to put the blame upon Billy—possibly because he was present to receive it. As days passed that slight reticence and dejection ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... here about the phenomenon of dreaming: I state only the fact. In my dream there appeared to me my father, bearing in his left hand a plate of glass, and in his right a phial of bright blue liquid which he seemed to be pouring on the polished surface. The phial was of singular shape, having a long slender neck rising from a round globe. When I awoke, I found myself standing in the middle of the floor with hands stretched out appealingly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... nurse, he knows how to choose her, how she ought to be treated, how she should be fed. He watches over the movements of the new-born child, over its first playthings. All these counsels bear the stamp of good sense and of experience; or, rather, they result from a power of divination singular enough in a man who was not willing to take care of his own children. In this way, day by day, he follows up the physical and moral development of the little being, all whose ideas and feelings he analyzes, whom he guides with wisdom and with tact throughout the ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... have been considered unworthy of a man like Lucullus, see Introd. p. 30. Percepta: "gained," "won;" cf. percipere fruges, "to reap," Cat. Mai. 24. Caruit: "was cut off from;" carere comes from a root skar meaning to divide, see Corss. I. 403. For the three nouns with a singular verb see Madv. Gram. 213 A, who confines the usage to nouns denoting things and impersonal ideas. If the common reading dissensit in De Or. III. 68 is right, the restriction does not hold. Admodum: "to a degree." Fratre: this brother was adopted by a M. Terentius ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... betrayed no consciousness that he had heard something like this eight years before, and that much of it had come true, as he again sympathetically responded. Neither was his attention attracted by a singular similarity which the attitude of the group of ladies on the other side of the parlor bore to that of his own party. They were clustered around one of their own number—a striking-looking girl—who ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... a singular instance of the capriciousness of the human mind, that after all the admonitions we have had from experience on this head, there should still be found men who object to the new Constitution, for deviating from a principle which has been found ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... Borneo (the former are seen at Sulo). None of the larger breed of the feline species are found here, as the lion, tiger, leopard; nor the bear, the wolf, the fox, nor even a jackal, or dog, that I ever saw. The ourang-outang, or the man of the woods, is the most singular animal found in these regions. The rivers swarm with alligators, and the woods with every variety of the monkey tribe. The names of other animals on Borneo are the bodok or rhinoceros, pelando or rabbit, rusa or stag, kijang or doe, minjagon, babi utan or wild hog, tingileng, bintangan, &c. There ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... Greek and Latin churches, its use, as a plural noun applied to the whole collection of sacred books of the Old and New Testaments, can be traced as far back as the fifth century. In the English, as in all the modern languages of Europe, it has become a singular noun, and thus signifies THE BOOK—the one book containing in itself all the particular books of the ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... reverberating ovens, each six feet in diameter, and separated from each other by an interval of three feet. The circumference occupied by these 1,200 ovens presented a length of two miles. Being all constructed on the same plan, each with its high quadrangular chimney, they produced a most singular effect. ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... happened so suddenly that I really had very little time to make up my mind what course to adopt under somewhat singular circumstances. I was seated at my favorite table against the wall on the right-hand side in Stephano's restaurant, with a newspaper propped up before me, a glass of hock by my side, and a portion of the plat du jour, which happened ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Rome, and the fame of his exploits, the singular fascination of his person and manners, and the great favor with Sylla that he enjoyed, raised him to a high degree of distinction. He was not, however, elated with the pride and vanity which so young a man would be naturally ...
— History of Julius Caesar • Jacob Abbott
... and the generals and staff officers advanced silently and bowed profoundly to the two cavaliers, who were such a singular contrast to one another, and who were evidently the important persons of the cavalcade. They swung themselves lightly from their saddles, and returned the polite greetings of the generals; the one in fluent German, the other ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... you ave your ealth well, sir. Ain't it odd, Fanny, that we should meet Mr. Pendennis?" What do you mean by sniggering, mesdames? When young Croesus has been staying at a country-house, have you never, by any singular coincidence, been walking with your Fanny in the shrubberies? Have you and your Fanny never happened to be listening to the band of the Heavies at Brighton, when young De Boots and Captain Padmore came clinking down the Pier? Have you and your darling Frances never chanced to be visiting old ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... last letter to Lionardo. It is singular that Michelangelo's correspondence with his father, with Luigi del Riccio, with Tommaso dei Cavalieri, and with his nephew, all of whom he sincerely loved, should close upon a note of petulance and wrath. The fact is no doubt accidental. But ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... Romans, like the Greeks, thought that the will of the gods was communicated to men by means of oracles, and by strange sights, unusual events, or singular coincidences. There were no true oracles at Rome. The Romans, therefore, often had recourse to those in Magna Graecia, even sending for advice, in great emergencies, to the Delphian shrine. From Etruria was introduced the art of the haruspices, ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... sides were under canvas, for it was impossible to row in such a sea. As soon as they approached each other, both fleets broke up, and the vessels each singling an opponent out, the combat began. It was a singular one, and differed widely from ordinary sea fights of the time, in which the combatants always tried to grapple with their enemies and carry them by boarding. This was almost impossible now, for it seemed that the vessels would be dashed in pieces like eggshells were they to strike each other. Clouds ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... therefore are they laid up for some few, whom he makes his peculiar treasure and jewels, Mal. iii. 17, Exod. xix. 5, 6. If ye knew a monarch that was a possessor of all this habitable world, and was about to express his singular affection towards some persons, if his kingdom or the half or whole of it was not sufficient, to be a token of it, but he had found out some other thing, and laid it up for them, and distributed the kingdom, the ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... "Very singular, we are ten minutes behind that fellow everywhere. He is the cleverest of all the German spies, and we are not ...
— The Audacious War • Clarence W. Barron
... mysterious circumstance occurred, which produced a great deal of excitement, and has ever since marked a very important era in the history of Leicester and Elizabeth's attachment. It was the sudden and very singular death ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... time of Hippocrates down to the present day, physicians have classified diseases according to their causes, character or symptoms. It has been proved that diseases apparently different may often be cured by the same remedy. The reason for this singular fact is obvious. A single remedy may possess a variety of properties. Quinine, among other properties has a tonic which suggests its use in cases of debility; an antiperiodic, which renders it efficient in ague; and an anti-febrile ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... and requests me to say how very much obliged he feels to your kindness, and how glad he should be for its success. He is, indeed, at his wits' end for a livelihood; and, I should think, especially qualified for such an employment, from his singular facility in retaining all conversations at which he has been ever present. I think you may recommend him with confidence. I am sure I shall myself be obliged to you for your exertions, having a great regard ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... half-way to the zenith, and for the moment I thought that in a short time we should see the full-moon come slowly up out of the sea. But a few moments' reflection told me that we were long past the full-moon time, and that it would be the last quarter late on in the night. The sea, too, began to wear a singular aspect, and great frothy clouds were gathering rapidly in the south. And even as I looked there was a peculiar moaning sigh, as if a great wind were passing over us at a great height, though the sea was only just pleasantly rippled, and a gentle breeze ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... 'A singular Don Quixote whom we abominate and love, admire and pity',—such was Schiller's own formula for his first dramatic hero. From the standpoint of ordinary logic it must be admitted that Moor's motive for becoming ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... From the singular manner in which the small, prior, common hail-stones appear to have been imbedded in this larger one, whilst they were falling to the earth; there is reason to be convinced, that it was formed in the atmosphere, by a sudden extraordinary congelation almost instantaneously, ...
— Remarks Concerning Stones Said to Have Fallen from the Clouds, Both in These Days, and in Antient Times • Edward King
... the five Indians, the leader was seen to pass from view around the curve in the trail, followed by the next, until finally the fifth disappeared. All this time, not one of the warriors looked behind him. It was a singular line of action, and because of its singularity roused the suspicion ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... a tolerably happy temperament; but he was a very proud man, and he had the nice soul of a courageous, honourable, punctilious gentleman. He thought it singular that society should call upon him, as a gentleman, to shoot his best friend, if that friend affronted him with a rude word; and yet that, as an author, every fool and liar might, with perfect impunity, ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that, if your fifty-first Psalm, or your seventh of the Romans, or your "Confessions," or your "Private Devotions," or your "Grace Abounding," could ever venture to be all honestly and wholly written and published, your name would, far and away, eclipse them all. You do not know what a singular and what an original and what an unheard-of experience your experience is destined to be; if only you do not break down under it; as you must not and ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... singular question. How could they answer it? However, Dr. Malloy related as much as he knew of what Hobart had done; his wires and apparatus were now merely a tangled mass of fused metals. Nothing remained intact but the blue ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... topic of discussion or has been mentioned previously. Nor can the term 'work' denote the enumerated persons, since the latter are mentioned separately—in the clause, 'He who is the maker of those persons'—and as inferential marks (viz. the neuter gender and the singular number of the word karman, work) contradict that assumption. Nor, again, can the term 'work' denote either the activity whose object the persons are, or the result of that activity, since those two are already implied in the mention of the agent (in the clause, ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... frightfully enough, and there are but few I should have been afraid to eat of, if pressed by hunger, yet I think my stomach would scarce have served to venture upon these New Holland guano's, both the looks and the smell of them being so offensive." The animal is certainly of a singular form; but it is scarcely necessary to say that the merit of Dampier's description does not consist in ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... and antiquity, and because they had Imperial blood in their veins.(2) For Beatrice, sister of Enrico II., was given in marriage to Count Bonifazio of Canossa, then Signor of Mantua; the Countess Matilda was their daughter, a lady of rare and singular prudence and piety; who, after the death of her husband Gottifredo, held in Italy (besides Mantua) Lucca, Parma, Reggio, and part of Tuscany, which to-day is called the Patrimonio of San Pietro; and, ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... things, to her were nothing. She constantly asked, 'why not?' and was therefore dangerous. 'If you go on asking "why not?"' said her aunt to her once, 'mark me you'll come to some harm.' She saw realities, and yet—it was singular—she saw ghosts. Mr. Radcliffe did not obviously resemble his mother, nor did Kate, and yet across both of them there often shot clear, and at times even flashing gleams, indisputable evidence that in son and granddaughter she still lived. It was in his relationship to his daughter ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... four thousand eight hundred and sixty-seven. The question is sometimes asked to-day: How is it that the Moravian Church is so small? For that smallness more reasons than one may be given; but one reason was certainly the singular policy expounded ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... merited some eulogium; and it is singular that Dr Hawkesworth did not bestow it. This, however, has been done by Mr Forster, in his ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... pleasantly modulated, and he spoke English with the faintest slur—perceptible, perhaps, only to the keenest ear—of a French accent. To ears less keen it would merely seem that he articulated with a precision so singular as to verge ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... fellows, and with an exceptionally large head. These reminded him at once of the master workers who are said to rule over the leaf-cutter ants; like them they seemed to be directing and co-ordinating the general movements. They tilted their bodies back in a manner altogether singular as if they made some use of the fore feet. And he had a curious fancy that he was too far off to verify, that most of these ants of both kinds were wearing accoutrements, had things strapped about their bodies by bright white bands ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... incredulity, and shewed me a number of testimonials, which I might possibly have read, if the first which met my eye had not been from a lady who protested to all and singular that M. Tadini had cured her of amaurosis. At this I laughed in his face and told him to leave ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... again and again; but found the young man still sitting up. Tired of waiting, anxious to possess the money, and supposing that the lads were armed, he went once more forward and spoke to the men. Gascoigne had watched his motions; he thought it singular that, with three men in the vessel, the helm should be confided to the boy—and at last he saw them draw their knives. He pushed our hero, who woke immediately Gascoigne put his hand over Jack's mouth, that he might not speak, and then he whispered his suspicions. Jack seized his pistols—they ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... she said, speaking with a singular quiescence of tone after the violence of her last words, "it seems to me that I care more for his soul than for my own. For myself I can bear even that. But ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... a singular person. He listened unmoved to Brett's threats and insults. He gave that snarling smile of his, and toyed impatiently ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... was leaving England as a colonial Bishop, than many men and women came forward anxious to go out and found new homes under his auspices. He was a well-known advocate of emigration, and it was rightly deemed a singular advantage to have him as a leader as well as their spiritual chief. Canon Pascal threw himself into the movement with ardor, and the five months elapsing before he set sail were filled with incessant claims upon his time and thought, while all about him were drawn into the strong current ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... this, however, it may be remarked that the reasonings of Rivers, rather than his own, determined his conduct. That more adventurous ruffian had, from his superior boldness and greater capacities in general, acquired a singular and large influence over his companion: he governed him, too, as much by his desire of gain as by any distinct superiority which he himself possessed; he stimulated his avarice with the promised results of their future enterprises in the same region after the passing ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... doth of itself persuade The eyes of men without an orator; What needeth then apologies be made, To set forth that which is so singular? Or why is Collatine the publisher Of that rich jewel he should keep unknown From thievish ears, because it is ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... "You have had one singular surprise to-night already," Desmond resumed, "in the matter of the jewel which our respected leader was about to show us: if you recollect, our friend was only prevented from giving us the explanation which he certainly owed us over his little hoax ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... lunch was eaten in the cutting, and while they were sitting quiet a singular vibration of the ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis
... professor doubtfully, "those are singular instructions, scratching the nose and sucking the thumb. It strikes me they have been teaching you nursery signals rather ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... to recognise the true nature or presence of purely spiritual objects by the instrumentality of their natural organs of sense. Thus, a mere touch at times reveals to them the moral condition of the person on whom they lay their hands. A singular distaste for natural food is accompanied by a perception of a celestial sweetness in the holy Eucharist. Gross sinners appear to the sight in the form of hideous monsters, demoniacal in their aspect, or as wearing the look of the most repulsive of the brute creation. ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... lances of various sizes pointed with Milan steel. The cart was covered with blue and green trappings embroidered with bay trees and flowers, and on every tree was the figure of a parrot. The driver of this singular conveyance was a dwarf. Next came Quinones on a powerful horse with blue trappings, on which were worked his device and a chain, with the motto Il faut deliberer[5] He was dressed in a quilted jacket of olive velvet brocade embroidered in green, with a cloak of blue velvet, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... in particular, which became Mysie's favorite resort, was at once singular and beautiful in its conformation. About three feet above the water's edge lay a level plateau, its floor of loose, sandy, black conglomerate, abounding in sparkling bits of quartz and sulphate of iron; beneath this lay a bed of beautifully marbled and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... Singular as it may seem, neither Harry nor his mother had thought of them, and the false inference that might be drawn from their discovery. It was natural, therefore, that each should look startled ...
— The Tin Box - and What it Contained • Horatio Alger
... undescriptive of his person, which was obviously the result of a singular series of mesalliances. He wore a grizzled moustache and indefinite whiskers; he was small and shabby, and looked like an old postman. Penrod envied Duke because he was sure Duke would never be compelled to be a Child ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... singular has been the history of the decline of humour! Is there any profound psychological truth to be gathered from consideration of the fact that humour has gone out with cruelty? A hundred years ago, eighty years ago—nay, fifty years ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... like the weltering water, and that awful sensation of having one's feet unsupported, which benumbs the spent swimmer's heart, seemed to clutch at mine, though not yet to enter it. I was more absorbed in that singular sensation of nightmare, such as one may feel equally when lost by land or by water, as if one's own position were all right, but the place looked for had somehow been preternaturally abolished out of the universe. ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... feel that the national crisis that lies just ahead calls in a singular degree for new and creative ideas and brain paths, both for our ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee
... at the stockman with singular interest as we approached him. He was, apparently, about fifty years of age, thin and slightly inclined to stoop. His face was strongly marked and peculiar, and at one time he must have passed ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... A singular case of inward perception likewise occurred in the experience of his own mother. In her Diary, which is still preserved in the family, she describes a visit to some of her children in Philadelphia, and ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... of the Tiber washed the foundation walls of one side of the building, within which the clear, lulling bubble of the water was audible with singular distinctness. But besides this another and a shriller sound caught the ear. On the summit of the temple roof still remained several rows of little gilt bells, originally placed there, partly with the intention of ornamenting this portion of the outer structure, partly in order that the noise they ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... a Jesuit father who won distinction as a poet and also as an opponent of the witch-burning mania. His collection of lyric poems called Trutz-Nachtigall, or Match-Nightingale, is interesting for its singular blend of erotic imagery with sincere religious feeling. The poems indicate a genuine delight in certain aspects of nature. The selections follow Wolff's edition, ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas
... not somewhat singular that Young preserved, without any palliation, this preface, so bluntly decisive in favour of laughing at the world, in the same collection of his works which contains the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... seventeenth century, however, it would seem that one crane had to suffice for the needs of "the merchants of Bordeaux," and then the tavern was known simply as the Crane. Two references, dated respectively 1552 and 1554, speak of the sign in the singular. Twenty years later, however, the one ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... injuries done them, and condemned it as of an unchristian spirit; but they did freely forgive, yea, help and relieve those that had been cruel to them, when it was in their power to have been even with them: of which many and singular instances might be given: endeavouring, through faith and patience, to overcome all injustice and oppression, and preaching this doctrine as Christian, for others ...
— A Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the People Called Quakers • William Penn
... surprise, that we could not refrain from openly and at once assuring her, that the delight and satisfaction which it was calculated to afford, rendered it a duty on her part to lose no time in submitting it to the public; and, after lavishing a panegyric on the singular and excellent qualities of the author, which was all most delicious to his widow, we concluded with a delicate insinuation of the pleasure we should enjoy, in being made the humble instrument of introducing to the knowledge of mankind a volume so replete ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... somewhat singular, Theo thought, that he should be so silent after this, for he was silent. He even seemed absent-minded, for some reason or other. He did not talk to her as much as usual, and she was quite sure he paid very little ...
— Theo - A Sprightly Love Story • Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett
... no specimens of any peculiar advantages derived to the state from the circumstance of the plurality of those magistrates. That the dissensions between them were not more frequent or more fatal, is a matter of astonishment, until we advert to the singular position in which the republic was almost continually placed, and to the prudent policy pointed out by the circumstances of the state, and pursued by the Consuls, of making a division of the government between them. The patricians engaged in a perpetual struggle with the plebeians for ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... of the eighteenth century, when "the large castles of the Scottish nobles, and even the secluded hotels, like those of the French noblesse, which they possessed in Edinburgh, were sometimes the scenes of mysterious transactions, a divine of singular sanctity was called up at midnight to pray with a person at the point of death." He was put into a sedan chair, and after being transported to a remote part of the town, he was blindfolded—an act which was enforced by a cocked pistol. ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... did not produce the effect which usually arises from such incidents in common life; namely, a closer friendship and intimacy between the parties. On the contrary, Madame Bonaparte from that moment evinced some degree of ill-humour towards Junot, and complained with singular warmth of the want of respect which he had shown her, in making love to her 'femme de chambre' ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... his learning was considerable, his charities extensive, his manner of life irreproachably ascetic. He appears to have resembled those Arabian sages of the Gothic age to whom modern science is largely indebted,—a mystic enthusiast, but an earnest scholar. A wealthy and singular Englishman, long resident in another part of the East, afflicted by some languishing disease, took a journey to Aleppo to consult this sage, who, among his other acquirements, was held to have discovered ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that is singular," he observed. Then he looked at me as if he were about to say something interesting, but I hastily interposed. I was afraid he was going to speculate about the natural history of the phenomenon which had just struck him as being singular. He knew perfectly well that Evadne had no children, ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... a pardon for the condemned convict Grewgious if he wrote a play, I should be under the necessity of resuming the block, and begging the executioner to proceed to extremities,—meaning,' said Mr. Grewgious, passing his hand under his chin, 'the singular number, ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... monthly numbers) contained, as usual, sketches which give an inkling of the events in the tale. Mr. Collins was to have illustrated the book; but, finally, Mr. (now Sir) Luke Fildes undertook the task. Mr. Collins died in 1873. It appears that Forster never asked him the meaning of his designs—a singular oversight. ...
— The Puzzle of Dickens's Last Plot • Andrew Lang
... together, went on down to the Congo. Slipping out upon the great river in the dusk, they went on slowly for several miles, tied up till the early dawn, and spread the little sail to the morning breeze. The boat had a singular appearance, for strips of biltong were suspended from the awning, not having been quite cured, and the buffalo-hide was hanging over the side, in soak, to soften it for the final treatment that would take the hair off and ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... The dynasty of the Turk is in process of visible exhaustion, and nothing but what is termed among antichristian nations "the balance of power," prolongs its existence or hinders its extinction. "Drying up," evaporation, is a gradual process, and with singular precision describes the waning light of the once proud Crescent,—the expiring breath of what has been termed by a bold figure, "the sick man."[13]—Under this vial, however, and likewise as the termination of the second woe, a general, ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... "Another singular thing is that you'll never read a word against him," added Thompson. "In conversation, you'll always learn that Burke never did a thing worth doing or said a thing worth saying; and that his management ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... concoction, and though he was on his guard against allowing her to suspect the fact, he privately placed his sister's dumplings on a par with Addison's poems. Forgetting both his grievance of the morning and his later anxiety, due to Persis' singular conduct, he gave ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... mean that they have really come home to live here?" demanded Julius, with singular indifference to ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... as calm as I was agitated. Her demeanor was a singular one. She was not exactly frigid or repellent. She was rather shy and reserved. It was rather the constraint of timidity than of dislike. Dislike? No. Not a bit of it. Whatever her feelings might be, she had no reason for dislike. ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... a singular configuration beyond the Morro de Tigua, the terminatory point of the group of little mountains which rise like islands from the plain. We found at first a marshy soil extending over a square of eight leagues between ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... animal whirled about the corner, and, with his neck extended, went down the ravine with almost incredible swiftness—a speed which was steadily drawing him away from his pursuer, and which would have carried him beyond his reach in a brief time, but for a singular and ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... charges on the other side, and something, too, of the irrational hatred of war-time, but the little book is a record of almost nothing but kindness, and gives fresh hope to those who had begun to despair of human nature.[63] Here are two cases of singular beauty from Nauheim. A postman "happened to know of a poor English lady whose funds had come to an end, and who had in consequence offered to wash up the crockery at her pension in return for her board and lodging, and he told her one morning that he had forty pounds saved up which ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... the continent is even more singular than the plant life. Most of the animals resemble the opossum of North American fauna in one respect, the mother carries her young in a pouch or fold of the skin under her body. But the opossum itself ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... room. She drew up the blinds and opened the windows wide. The cool fresh air of the morning was as a draught of spring-water to her. She looked out upon a world as yet unillumined by colours and found therein an image of her days to come. The dark, tall trees looked black; the winding paths, a singular dead white; the very lawns were dull and grey, though the dew lay upon them like a network of frost. It was a noisy world, however, for all its aspect of quiet. For the blackbirds were calling from the branches and the grass, and down beneath the ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... necessity of learning God's power and purpose to heal both mind and body. This thought grew out of our early seeking Him in all our ways, and a hopeless as singular invalidism that drugs increased instead of diminished, and hygiene benefited only for a season. By degrees we have drifted into more spiritual latitudes of thought, and experimented as we advanced until demonstrating fully ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... It was a singular thing that, in spite of these assurances that my swoon had been an affair of moments only, I was seized by an overmastering desire to get away from the ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... materially assist in clearing through the entangled roots which the animal may encounter in its subterranean travels. Its teeth resemble those of the sloth more nearly than any other animal's; and it seems to represent, beneath the earth, that well-known and singular inhabitant of trees—for its motions, so far as can be conjectured from its conformation, must also be ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 572, October 20, 1832 • Various
... strikes a stranger from the Atlantic," says Flint (1814), "is the singular, whimsical, and amusing spectacle of the varieties of water-craft, of all shapes and structures." These, Flint, who knew the river well, separates into seven classes: (1) "Stately barges," the size of an Atlantic schooner, with "a raised and outlandish-looking deck;" one of these ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... has as yet received no answer from his letter to Lord Liverpool, which is rather singular. The idea is very general that Canning will not go ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... in the North American Review (August, 1879, p. 135) speaks of the singular confidence of Siddon of Virginia (afterwards secretary of war of the Southern Confederacy) in Mr. Seward, and the mysterious allusions to the skilful plans maturing for an adjustment of ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... SINGULAR EMPLOYMENT OF THE POLICE.—Under an order recently issued by the commissioners of the metropolitan police, a number of the officers of each division have been actively engaged in collecting information and making out ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... sternly, "you will never learn English properly if you do not attend to my instructions. You is plural, though I am singular, and if you address me thus you must say you are ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... as singular an end. Giles lost all patience and self-command, and being a creature devoid of fear, and in a rage to boot, he actually dropped upon the giant's neck, seized his hair with one hand, and punched his head with the other. The giant's first ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... she will always be true to herself,' he observed. 'It is singular how these unbalanced, pleasure-loving natures lean towards asceticism—how rapidly they pass from one extreme to another. Even her repentance is not free from selfishness. She would free herself from her maternal responsibilities, as she freed ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... of war, trained from childhood in martial tactics, and in the use of weapons, and of a singular courage and determination, you, Standish, are the strong right arm of the ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... whilst nowadays there are to be found no visitors hardy enough to endure a prolonged sojourn in the wretched hostelries of the town itself. The electric tram and the rail-road have in fact killed Pozzuoli as a winter resort, more's the pity, for it is not only a spot of singular interest in itself but its climate is certainly superior to that of Naples, for the great headland which shuts off the city from the Phlegrean Fields serves also to act as a buffer against the ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... of our national faith, honor, and dignity being in a great measure constitutionally deposited with the Executive, we observe with singular satisfaction the vigilance, firmness, and promptitude exhibited by you in this critical state of our public affairs, and from thence derive an evidence and pledge of the rectitude and integrity of your Administration. And we ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 4) of Volume 1: John Adams • Edited by James D. Richardson
... had promised improvement, sunk into a state of hopeless debility, and by the 16th of December, medicines utterly failed to produce any beneficial effect. It was at this period that a remedy of the most singular nature was presented to him by a French charlatan, who, accidentally touching at the Cape, offered his services; a drowning wretch it is said will catch at a straw, and from despair rather than hope the Agent submitted to his adviser, and consented to try the effects of his prescription. A potion, ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... less repugnant to all ideas of probability. There were besides two other numerical coincidences quite as extraordinary; an identity of direction, relative to the stars, of the equator and orbit of the moon; exactly the same precessional movements of these two planes. This group of singular phenomena, discovered by J.D. Cassini, constituted the mathematical code of what is called ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... in his breast, none of them agreeable. He scarcely knew whether he had acted wisely or not. Indeed, the impression grew upon him that he had been worsted in the encounter, that George, in making him his messenger to Ella, had acted with singular astuteness. This was true, but the young man's action was not the result of the Yankee shrewdness with which the veteran was disposed to credit him. A simple, straightforward course is usually the wisest one, and George instinctively knew that Ella would appreciate such openness on his part. ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... workings would serve as intermediaries quite as well as the absolute mind's intentions would.]] All feeling is for the sake of action, all feeling results in action,—to-day no argument is needed to prove these truths. But by a most singular disposition of nature which we may conceive to have been different, MY FEELINGS ACT UPON THE REALITIES WITHIN MY CRITIC'S WORLD. Unless, then, my critic can prove that my feeling does not 'point to' those realities which it acts upon, how can he continue to doubt that ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... superiority; the best poets in Venice celebrated this day with powers excelling anything which they had before exhibited, for the subject of their verses was Rosabella; the musicians and virtuosi surpassed all their former triumphs, for their object was to obtain the suffrage of Rosabella. The singular union of all kinds of pleasure intoxicated the imagination of every guest; and the genius of delight extended his influence over the whole assembly, over the old man and the youth, over the matron and ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis
... greatest phenomenon to which the mortal eye has been witness since the creation of the globe. A distinct chapter of Pliny is designed for eclipses of an extraordinary nature and unusual duration; but he contents himself with describing the singular defect of light which followed the murder of Caesar, when, during the greatest part of the year, the orb of the sun appeared pale and without splendour. This season of obscurity, which cannot surely be compared with the preternatural darkness of ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... main to the combinatory stratum; but having received a considerable amount of literary cultivation, they all alike exhibit forms which in every sense of the word are inflectional. If in Finnish, for instance, we find ksi, in the singular, hand, and kdet, in the plural, hands, we see that phonetic corruption has clearly reached the very core of the noun, and given rise to a plural more decidedly inflectional than the Greek cheir-es, or ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... that cause into which I at least had merely followed my father's conviction. In the old-fashioned spirit of that cause I might cite the career of this companion as an illustration of the efficacy of higher mathematics for women, for she possesses singular ability to convince even the densest legislators of their legal right to define their own electorate, even when they quote against her the dustiest of state constitutions or ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... for a few minutes at a time, and then return with an air of impatience, but it often happened that for hours together he would allow no one to share the duties of nurse with him, though the best of aid was always at hand. And he had a reason for this singular course of conduct. Eveline frequently raved in her delirium, and words would then fall from her lips which he would not have others to hear for the wealth of India. Why? Listen for a ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... singular thing occurred. Nan found herself on the stairs in obedience to the governess' command almost before she was aware, and she proceeded to make herself tidy, with no thought of ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... even speak to her. Indeed, she almost doubted whether it were a real child, after all, or only a light wreath of the new-fallen snow, blown hither and thither about the garden by the intensely cold west wind. There was certainly something very singular in the aspect of the little stranger. Among all the children of the neighborhood, the lady could remember no such face, with its pure white, and delicate rose-color, and the golden ringlets tossing ...
— The Snow-Image - A Childish Miracle • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... severely cut lines of his face had even more than usual of haggard sternness, and the handsome features of James beside him, in their fixed gravity, presented that singular likeness which often comes out between father and son in seasons of mental emotion. Diana in vain sought to draw a laugh from her cousin. In pouring his home-brewed beer she contrived to spatter him, but he wiped it off without a smile, and let pass in silence ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... singular fact concerning leaching, that water is able to carry no part of the organic constituents of vegetables more than about thirty-four inches below the surface in a fertile soil. They would probably be carried to an unlimited distance in pure sand, as it contains nothing ...
— The Elements of Agriculture - A Book for Young Farmers, with Questions Prepared for the Use of Schools • George E. Waring
... Clarke, which was first published about the year 1735, and had attained to a seventh edition in 1779. Although this version may be pronounced very nearly to fulfil the promise set forth in its title page, of being "as literal as possible," still, from the singular inelegance of its style, and the fact of its being couched in the conversational language of the early part of the last century, and being unaccompanied by any attempt at explanation, it may safely be pronounced to be ill adapted to the requirements of the present age. Indeed, it would ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... would go to church, they said, on no other day; nor eat mince-pies nor drink punch but in reference to this one day. The clergy had a hard time of it with these recusants. It will be well, therefore, to quote one singular example to show how this recusancy was encountered. It is from a collection of pamphlet-sermons preserved by George III., none of which, however, have anything curious or particularly meritorious about them save this one, which ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... Nouns of one syllable ending in y preceded by a consonant, change y into ies in the plural; and verbs ending in y, preceded by a consonant, change y into ies in the third person singular of the present tense, and into ied in the past tense and past participle, as, fly, flies; I apply, he applies; we reply, we replied, or have replied. If the y be preceded by a vowel, this rule ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... out, and then my friends demanded that we should make another "giro artistico," which terminated beneath Trajan's Column, where in the warm air we sat and talked for half an hour more, and separated about midnight, I having had eight hours of continuous practice in the use of the second person singular of ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... interesting tendency to parenthesis, a longing, lingering look cast back on the events of former times, in preference to the passing topics of the day, and a pardonable increase in the use of the first person singular, become from time to time progressively conspicuous. Nothing can be more instructive, abstractly speaking, then the maxims which fall from the Fogie's lips; but, somehow or other, they often appear as having less immediate bearing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... She was a singular-looking girl, this compound of Scotch and Spanish. Her face was cast in her father's hard mould, and her frame was large and sturdy, but she had the black luxuriant hair of Spain, and much grace of gesture ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... reason that the Professor was glad the two boys were content to remain with him. Speaking about the savages, to the Professor, Jim remarked: "There is always one thing which seems singular about these fellows. They are awfully quick at learning. Now, what I can't understand is, that, quick as they are, they do not seem to advance very much, but stay in ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Conquest of the Savages • Roger Thompson Finlay
... of God." Beza calls him the great apostle of the Scots. His faithfulness in reproving sin, in a manner that shewed he was not to be awed by the fear of man, made up the most remarkable part of his character, and the success wherewith the Lord blessed his labours, was very singular, and is enough to stop the mouth of every ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... novelty of its plan that makes the Saadian mausoleum singular among Moroccan monuments. The details of its ornament are of the most intricate refinement: it seems as though the last graces of the expiring Merinid art had been gathered up into this rare blossom. And the slant of sunlight on lustrous columns, the depths of fretted gold, ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... and the walls were hung with smart tapestries which commemorated the exploits of Theseus. "Then I am King," this Maudelain said aloud, "of France and England, and Lord of Ireland, and Duke of Aquitaine! I perceive that Heaven loves a jest." He wheeled upon Gloucester and spoke with singular irrelevance, "And what is to be done ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... peculiar propriety, have in some particular cases, and in some particular courts, been introduced and allowed by our laws, so far they oblige, and no farther; their authority being wholly founded upon that permission and adoption. In which we are not singular in our notions; for even in Holland, where the imperial law is much cultivated and it's decisions pretty generally followed, we are informed by Van Leeuwen[i], that, "it receives it's force from custom and the consent ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... "That is singular news," he said; "your passport is all right, I suppose?" "Certainly," And I produced my papers. "Good! Mine is too, for I had it made out just before leaving. But nevertheless, these murders do not augur us any good. ...
— The Dean's Watch - 1897 • Erckmann-Chatrian
... young man was called by all in the family and on board of the Bellevite, appeared to be even more astonished than his mother at the singular conduct of his father; but he saw how intense was his agitation, and he did not follow him in his impulsive flights ...
— Taken by the Enemy • Oliver Optic
... naturally that reverence for genius which is common to the enthusiastic and young; and there is, even to the dullest, a certain interest in the homes of those who have implanted within us a new thought. But here there was, she imagined, a rare and singular harmony between the place and the mental characteristics of the owner. She fancied she now better understood the shadowy and metaphysical repose of thought that had distinguished the earlier writings of Maltravers,—the writings composed ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... this young Jack Smith (to keep for him the nondescript name he had for unknown reasons chosen to assume) should be the first man to awaken in the misanthropic Adrian the charm of human intercourse, was singular indeed; one who followed from choice the odious trade of legally chartered corsair, who was ever ready to barter the chance of life and limb against what fortune might bring in his path, to sacrifice human life to secure his own end ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... manner; and whether they may have spread their conquests, or other nations imitated them, I could not learn; but a prodigious number, in islands we afterwards visited, were tatooed in their fashion. What was most singular, we saw some with the glans of the penis entirely tatooed; and our men, from being tatooed in the legs, arms, and breast, places of much less sensation, were often lame for a week, from the excruciating torture of the operation. Tatahu likewise informed ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... degrees of eccentricity, the squares to be alternately of red and black lines; the perfect mathematical coincidence of the extremity of the lines of different colours on the sides of the squares will be effected by machinery of singular fidelity. But even with the use of this machinery a person who has not the key to the proper disposition would make millions of experiments to no purpose. Other obstacles to imitation will also be presented in the structure of the note; but this is the one principally ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... little, that a fanatical and brutal crowd of the middle ages had laughed at seeing 'only a Jew' disgraced and dripping with blood, to point a scurvy jest. But, I confess that it struck me as singular, when I once found this story in a memoir, set down as having been narrated by an eminent Christian philosopher (now not long dead), as a capital thing. Granting its humor, is it worth while to inquire if he would have enjoyed it as much, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... volume are deeply interesting to the Naturalist. They not only elucidate the history of those industrious animals, whose nature is the peculiar subject of investigation, but they present some singular features in physiology which have hitherto ...
— New observations on the natural history of bees • Francis Huber
... upon their view in a new and superior aspect—they perceived that it was in familiar colloquial communications, such as men use in real life, that human affairs and the hearts of men could be justly imitated, and Andronicus taking advantage of this singular and felicitous incident, composed and represented ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... he answered, "let me see!—oh! yes—I was thinking of that very singular case of murder. You must have seen it in the newspapers. I have long had a doubt whether I were better fitted for a barrister or a detective. I can't keep my mind off a puzzling case.—You must have heard of this one—the ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... filled me with a most peculiar sensation. A melancholy feeling has come over me, and I seem to yearn after some long-forgotten object of affection. Singular, indeed! but, Not seldom in our happy hours of ease, When thought is still, the sight of some fair form, Or mournful fall of music breathing low, Will stir strange fancies, thrilling all the soul With a mysterious ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... the question, take up in one hand the paper on "cholera spasmodica" just issued, for our guidance, from the College of Physicians by the London Board of Health, and in the other, this case of Martin M'Neal (far from being a singular case this year, in most of the important symptoms),—let the symptoms be compared by those who are desirous that the truth should be ascertained, or by those who are not, and if distinctions can be made out, I must ever after follow the philosophy of ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest
... force that it leaves an impression hard to be obliterated. Macaulay writes: "That which chiefly distinguished the army of Cromwell from other armies was the austere morality and the fear of God which pervaded all ranks. It is acknowledged by the most zealous Royalists that in that singular camp no oath was heard, no drunkenness or gambling was seen, and that during the long dominion of the soldiery the property of the peaceable citizen and the honor of woman were held sacred. If outrages were committed, they were outrages of a very different kind from ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... could not have been far from eighteen years, he was also of good proportions, and walked with an ease and stride which suggested reserved strength and muscular development; but it was the boy's face that was most noticeable. Frank, open, of singular beauty in feature and outline, there was also upon it unmistakable evidences of intelligence, resoluteness and honesty of purpose. A close observer might also have detected traces of suffering or of sorrow—possibly of some ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various
... optimistic determinist is shown the sheer fatuity of pretending to rejoice in that everything is just as it is—a singular compliment to the "Master Workman"—he executes a volte-face and falls back upon the plea that his doctrine is at any rate a pre-eminently practical one. Instead of vainly deploring imaginary "sins," Determinism would simply have us recognise ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... that the Mississippian backwoodsman, Woodley, could give a better account of these singular excrescences than all the closet scientists in ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... of certain national foibles, and a no less conspicuous belief in the heroic proportions of their good qualities. For surely no people has ever been blessed in its seclusion with such an abundance of criticism of singular candour. The frank brutality with which the travelling Englishman has made his opinions known on any peculiar trait or unusual institution which he has been pleased to think that he has noticed in the United States has been vastly more ill-mannered than anything in the ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... Gordon remarked: "General Lee asks for a suspension of hostilities pending the negotiations which he is having with General Grant." I rejoined: "I have been constantly informed of the progress of the negotiations, and think it singular that while such discussions are going on, General Lee should have continued his march and attempted to break through my lines this morning. I will entertain no terms except that General Lee shall surrender to General Grant on his arrival ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... singular,' mused Longworth. 'Well, all I can say is, Melville has intimated that he should like to have a share in this mine, so, I take it, he and the manager do not agree as to the value of the mineral. You can set down Mr. Melville's name ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... that such a circumstance should not have produced on the minds of my shipmates the same effect it did on mine, as the weather was then uncomfortably cool to me within the hut. But in justice to them I ought to add, that a singular dream the night before our shipwreck, had produced on my mind a kind of sailor's superstition, which banished sleep from my eyes, even now while they were enjoying ...
— Narrative of the shipwreck of the brig Betsey, of Wiscasset, Maine, and murder of five of her crew, by pirates, • Daniel Collins
... while the "pity and terror" they were made to illustrate are unawakened; the programme of republican government is lucidly announced, its watchwords adopted, its philosophy expounded, while its spirit and realization continue in abeyance: and thus everywhere we find a singular disproportion between formula and fact, profession and practice, specific knowledge and its application. The citizen of the world finds no armory like that which the institutions, the taste, and the genius of the French nation afford him, whether he aspire to be a courtier ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... seat, he had found that, when he looked across the table, he looked directly at Miss Hutchinson; and before the meal ended he felt that he was in great good luck to be placed opposite an object of such singular interest. He knew nothing about "types," but if he had been of those who do, he would probably have said to himself that she was of a type apart. As it was, he merely felt that she was of a kind one kept looking at whether one ought to or not. She was a little thing of that ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... he said that he would carry out the pledge that he had made, that under no circumstances would he run for another term. Just before the close of the inaugural he turned to Chief Justice Taney, who held the Bible, and in a clear and distinct voice repeated the oath required. It was a singular fact that when the President took the oath this multitude of spectators before him spontaneously uncovered their heads, while the pealing cannon announced to the country that it had a new Chief Magistrate. ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... might have known Judith would manage to make me feel flat if I got wrought up about it. She hates a fuss made over anything, and she can always take you down if you make one." She remembered with a singular feeling of discomfiture the throbbing phrases of her letter, written under the high pressure of the quarrel with Aunt Victoria. She could almost see the expression of austere distaste in the ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... Canonici we find at the end of the decretals a collection of ancient maxims, of general application, culled chiefly from the Roman Law, and promulgated by Pope Boniface VIII. One of these maxims touches this case, and is the one first quoted in this article; and, singular to say, it has been twice quoted with approval by the very court which has put forth this disparagement of the Canon Law.—2 Pickering, 72; ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 5, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 5, May, 1886 • Various
... compromise, where the Truth is concerned. Papists, Puseyites, Presbyterians, and Pagans alike, found in Mr. Gowles an opponent whose convictions were firm as a rock, and whose method of proclaiming the Truth was as the sound of a trumpet. Examples of his singular courage and daring in the work of the ministry abound in the following narrative. Born and brought up in the Bungletonian communion, himself collaterally connected, by a sister's marriage, with Jedediah Bungleton, the revered founder of the Very Particular ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... say what unlooked-for remark this short and silent communication, between two such singular men, might have elicited from the white man, had not his active curiosity been again drawn to other objects. A general movement among the domestics, and a low sound of gentle voices, announced the approach of those whose presence alone was wanted to ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... One singular episode may conveniently be mentioned here, though the incident in which it originated rather belongs to the Jacksonian epoch. This is not the place to discuss the true nature of that curious institution called Freemasonry. Whatever its origin, whether ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton |
