"Oddness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to her knees. A black shawl whose points passed under her arms and were knotted behind, protected her shoulders, while a pair of great thick shoes completed her attire. In spite of what to our mind was a certain quaint oddness in her dress, it could not hide Paula's beauty. Her forehead was broad and intelligent, her large brown eyes were full of a certain sweetness, and a lovely smile ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte
... extravagance to become grotesque. He probably inherited a bias in this direction; we know that his father delighted in drawing grotesque heads, and even "declared that he could not draw a pretty face."[104] But his grotesqueness is never the mere comic oddness which sometimes assumes the name. It is a kind of monstrosity produced not by whimsical mutilations, but by a riot of exuberant power. And he has also a grave and tragic use of the grotesque, in which he stands alone. He is, in fact, by far the greatest English master ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... The oddness of the circumstances, and the positiveness of Frank, displeased your brother. Sir Arthur happened to return; and he went to him, scarcely taking time for first compliments, but asking whether it were true that I was not well. Sir Arthur ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... Jukie, and sat alone in my room, smoking and thinking, at last with leisure to open my mind to all the impressions and implications of the day (I haven't time for this in the laboratory), I began to fumble for and find a new clue to Arthur's recent oddness. For twenty-four hours I had believed that he had perhaps killed Oliver Hobart. Now, suddenly I didn't. But I was clear that there was something about Oliver Hobart's death which concerned him, touched him nearly, and after a moment it occurred to me what ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... a glass of Burton ale, and a slice of hung[191] beef. When we had done eating ourselves, the Knight called a waiter to him, and bid him carry the remainder to the waterman that had but one leg. I perceived the fellow stared upon him at the oddness of the message, and was going to be saucy; upon which I ratified the Knight's commands ...
— The De Coverley Papers - From 'The Spectator' • Joseph Addison and Others
... book, with whose contents she was considerably better acquainted than was the divinity student, and sat down to read, marveling at the oddness of the situation; while he lay apparently absorbed in the cracks on the ceiling. By degrees—for having carried her point she could not help being more gracious—she began to allow a little embroidery of conversation ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... looked upon it as a great hardship to be obliged to have him in her London house. She objected to all Germans, and thought this particular one a dreadful old man, and never wearied of making humorous comments on his clothes and the oddness of his manners at meals. She was vexed that he should be with them in Hill Street, and refused to give dinners while he was there. She also asked him several times if he would not enjoy a stay at Estcourt, and said that the country was now at its best, and the primroses ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... but rather indistinctly, my mother's white paneled housekeeper's room and the touch of oddness about it that she was not there, and the various familiar faces made strange by black, and I seem to recall the exaggerated self-consciousness that arose out of their focussed attention. No doubt the sense of the new silk hat came and went and came ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... somehow or other, though it may have nothing to do with the matter, you are inconsolable; do you remember the mobled queen you let off the other day? It was quite off the point, and you did not know what it meant yourself; however, its oddness tickled the ears of the ignorant many; as for the cultivated, they were equally amused at you and at ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... that this slovenly narrative is the very perfection of bad story-telling. But the story itself is striking, and, by the very oddness of the incidents, not likely to have been invented. The effect, from the position of the two parties—on the one side, a simple child from Devonshire, dreaming in the Strand that he was swimming over from Sestos to Abydos, and, on the other, the experienced man, dreaming only ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... romance cannot always be expected,' said Annette, a little mournfully. 'He is everything estimable, in spite of his oddness. But then, this affair—so recent! Violet' (impatiently), 'what DO you ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... The oddness of this adventure, and the vexation he was in to find Charlotta seemed incensed against him for a crime of which he knew himself so perfectly innocent, destroyed at once all the considerations his timidity had inspired, and aiming only to be cleared in her opinion;—if there be faith in man, cried ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... work was finished, and then came a struggle. I was hauled, resisting weakly enough, to the gangway. Even then I noticed the oddness of the brown faces of the men who were with Montgomery in the launch; but the launch was now fully laden, and was shoved off hastily. A broadening gap of green water appeared under me, and I pushed back with all my strength to avoid falling headlong. The hands in the launch shouted derisively, ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... leaning mightily on his young friend made his way to the great hall. And as we have recounted, though all were struck by oddness and meanness of the stranger's clothes, yet only Sir Kay made point to taunt him. Yet did he make no answer to these taunts but waited with a great meekness for his turn before the King. And that he should wait with such meekness was strange for he seemed ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... that which the intoxication caused by a pretty face had made him forget—that he was in a house of dubious character, from which he would be wise in escaping without further delay. But then, again, it was the very oddness of the contrast between the character of the house and the behavior of the girl which made the ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden |
