"Rare" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... National Trails System Act was passed in 1968. Then, in 1980, as a result of my 1979 Environmental Message, the Federal land management agencies have established almost 300 new National Recreational Trails. With the completion of the RARE II process, which eliminated the uncertainty surrounding the status of millions of acres of land, we called for over 15 million acres of new wilderness in the nation's National Forest, in 1980 the Congress established about 4.5 million acres of wilderness in the lower 48 states. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... it is believed, have, with very rare and insignificant exceptions, accomplished their purpose. For a period of more than half a century there has been no perceptible addition to the number of our domestic slaves. During this period their advancement in civilization has far surpassed that of any other ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... found in relaxing the throat, when once the necessity becomes strikingly apparent. That is, provided progressive study is dropped for a time, and attention paid solely to relaxing exercises. But such cases are comparatively rare. A much more constant source of trouble is found in the prevailing tendency of vocal students to stiffen their throats, just enough to interfere with the (supposed) application of ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... cries Margaret. And, indeed, it is a rare basketful of Nature's sweetest gifts that lies before them. Delicate reds, and waxen whites, and the tender greens of the waving fern. "How ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... with her, is evidently included in the papal displeasure. Catherine writes to give him courage and comfort; in her touching advice as to the best way of preparing one's self to meet contentions and injustice, we may recognize the secret source of her own rare self-control. ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... face; O'er the dark world his mind superior shone, And seem'd the semblance of his parent Sun. But tho fame's airy visions lift his eyes, And future empires from his labors rise; Yet softer fires his daring views control, And mixt emotions fill his changing soul. Shall genius rare, that might the world improve, Bend to the milder voice of careless love, That bounds his glories, and forbids to part From bowers that woo'd his fluctuating heart? Or shall the toils imperial heroes claim ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... the occult meaning of the folklore of Poictesme this book at least is in no wise concerned: its unambitious aim has been merely to familiarize English readers with the Jurgen epos for the tale's sake. And this tale of old years is one which, by rare fortune, can be given to English readers almost unabridged, in view of the singular delicacy and pure-mindedness of the Jurgen mythos: in all, not more than a half-dozen deletions have seemed expedient ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... beat when, among the vines, I beheld the gleaming of a white dress! I knew it must be Rosetta's; it being rare for any female of the place to dress in white. I advanced secretly and without noise, until putting aside the vines, I stood suddenly before her. She uttered a piercing shriek, but I seized her in my arms, put my hand upon her mouth and conjured her to be silent. I poured out ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... degree of intimacy out of pure charity or vanity. But the great specialist said nothing very definite after all: he let fall, casually, the fact that good men for office work—men of experience who were skilful and tactful—were rare. He had just lost a valuable ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... abode were a most interesting couple. Still young comparatively, virtually childless, and bearing the name (also a Huguenot appellation) of "Favraud" the husband was bright, intelligent, frivolous—the wife, an invalid of rare loveliness and sweetness of character, who seldom emerged from her solitude. Both ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... significant deposits of gold and rare earth metals; locally exploitable coal, oil, and natural gas; other deposits of nepheline, ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... received before leaving Harley Street, her father had told her that they had heard from Frederick; he was still at Rio, and very well in health, and sent his best love to her; which was dry bones, but not the living intelligence she longed for. Frederick was always spoken of, in the rare times when his name was mentioned, as 'Poor Frederick.' His room was kept exactly as he had left it; and was regularly dusted, and put into order by Dixon, Mrs. Hale's maid, who touched no other part of the household work, but always ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... of this singular and rare tract indulges in the allegorical style, till he fairly hunts ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... have to do," don't imagine that I mean that it is always easy, or that it can be done without thought and study. You will have to use all your powers of perception if you wish to do good work in this direction. Especially on clear days, or in those climates where the air is so rare that objects at great distances seem near, you will find that atmospheric perspective is simply another name for close values. And close values, you remember, are the most subtle of relations of ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst
... of prowess rare Declared their passion well and fairly; The twelfth was Hogen, Norway's heir, And he pursued her late ...
— Axel Thordson and Fair Valborg - a ballad • Thomas J. Wise
... is committed in sheer ignorance. But it has been bred for so many generations that individual judgment and common sense must every day be becoming more rare. Therefore the evil spreads, and people blame the introduction of railways and other mechanical improvements for the diminishing supply of artistic and creative genius, whilst they are in reality themselves busily employed in ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... smell of damaged oranges, I think I should feel languidly benevolent if I had time. I have not time, because I am under a curious compulsion to occupy myself with the Irish melodies. 'Rich and rare were the gems she wore,' is the particular melody to which I find myself devoted. I sing it to myself in the most charming manner and with the greatest expression. Now and then, I raise my head (I am sitting on the hardest of wet seats, in the most uncomfortable of wet attitudes, but I don't mind ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... finds that he is, by the elementary facts of the case, debarred from using all those moral influences which, in more homogeneous countries, bind society together. These are a common religion, a common language, common traditions, and—save in very rare instances—intermarriage and really intimate social relations. What therefore remains? Practically nothing but the bond of material interest, tempered by as much sympathy as it is possible in the difficult circumstances of the case to bring into play. But on this poor material—for ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... spy, however nerve-racking, contributes considerably to one's sense of self-importance. It's a rare thrill for a civilian to be waited on by a reception committee in ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... susceptible to such impressions; and besides the sort of spasm of imaginative interest sometimes given to me by certain rare and eccentric personalities, I know nothing more subduing than the charm, quieter and less analytic, of any sort of complete and out-of-the-common-run sort of house. To sit in a room like the one I was sitting in, with the figures of the tapestry glimmering ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... great temptation to ask if I might come for a night. I felt—my father felt—what a privilege it would be for me, a really tremendous piece of luck, to meet Sir Charles before I started. Such a rare and memorable send off for ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... remember and for the mother who was nothing but a name; these traits of character belong to the meek Japanese girl of Onna Daigaku (Woman's Great Learning), that famous classic of Japanese girlhood which teaches the submission of women and the superiority of men. It was a type which was becoming rare in her own country. Little Asako had nothing in common with the argumentative heroines of Bernard Shaw or with the desperate viragos of Ibsen, to whom Sadako felt herself spiritually akin. Asako must be a fool. She exasperated her Japanese cousin, who at the same time was envious ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... luxury of his living. Deep in his complex nature lay a rich vein of sensualism, at the sport of which he placed all the prizes of his life. The eye, the ear, the touch, the palate, all were his masters. The bouquet of old vintages, the scent of rare exotics, the curves and tints of the daintiest potteries of Europe, it was to these that the quick-running stream of gold was transformed. And then there came his sudden mad passion for Lady Sannox, when a single interview with two challenging glances and a whispered word set him ablaze. She ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... where this average is widely departed from in apparently perfect health, are rare. But they do occur. We have known instances where the solicitude of parents has been excited by the long delay of this constitutional change, and others in which it has taken place at an almost tender age, without causing any perceptible injury to ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... shrines nearly always contain a crucifix, whereas in Italy that was rare—the Virgin and Child being the most common. I remarked on this, which I suppose gave rise to a subsequent observation of the M.-A.'s: "I think the Tyrolese are a good people: they are not given over to Mariolatry like those poor priest-ridden Italians." I ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... Atheism—the doctrine that there is no God, whatever may be meant by God—is to say the least of it a rare phase of opinion. The word Agnosticism, on the other hand, seems to imply a fairly accurate appreciation of a form of creed already common and daily spreading. The Agnostic is one who asserts—what no one denies—that there are limits to human intelligence. ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... of her position not to be sensitive about its recognition by others, and preferred to instil into her daughter's mind sound wholesome principles to useless and giddy accomplishments. And yet the daughter was accomplished, an excellent musician upon the piano and harp, and a vocalist of rare sweetness and perfection of execution, as well as mistress of other usual studies ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... possess; and over all the most azure of blues, flecked with floating masses of soft indescribable white, looking to Elsie like the foamy soapsuds at the top of the tub when mother had been having a rare wash, but to Duncan like lumps of something he had once tasted and never forgotten, called ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... flattery of those teacups, which had descended to her from her own mother, and which she had always regarded as superior to any of the Anderson family china, of which there was quite a store. So she merely smiled and remarked gently that the china was very old, and she believed quite rare, and it was, indeed, unusually thin, yet not a piece of the ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... had entered with the dinner. Merton opened the door of his room and paced up and down, for a few moments, thoughtfully. When she reappeared she took the seat opposite Philip and suddenly smiled at him, an exceedingly rare but most becoming performance. Her mouth seemed at once to soften, and even her eyes ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... for his collections of old china and other rare treasures, having lived in the woods near the town dump, where he picked up many a bright trinket, chief among which was an old gold-plated watch-chain, which he kept hidden in a doll's red tea-cup when he was ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... interchange of confidence except between two. The presence of a third party—even though a mutual friend—breaks the magnetic circuit and weakens the current of sympathy. Our interviews are necessarily rare, and I want to make the most of them; therefore I would come to you alone or ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... love are strikingly rare in Plautus and Terence.[320] One might think the authors of the Latin versions had omitted the sentimental passages, were it not that in the remnants of the Newer Comedy of the Attic writers themselves there are, apart from general references ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... It is rare for even the college student to assert his independence of both teacher and book. One of the greatest surprises that the writer received in a two years' college course was produced in a rhetoric class. The students were ordinarily assigned about twenty pages of advance ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... the party had gathered. Percival, Arledge and his lively wife, Yelverton, who enjoyed the rare distinction of having lost money to Percival, and Burman. East they drove through the street where less fortunate mortals panted in the dead afternoon shade, and out on to the dock, whence the Viluca's naphtha launch presently put them aboard that sumptuous craft. ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... returned Boswell, "and it's rather amusing to watch them at it, too. Xanthippe with her Greek clothes finds it rather difficult; but for rare sport you ought to see Queen Elizabeth trying to keep her eye on the ball over her ruff! It really is one of the ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs
... cried the small man in one of his rare moments of animation, "why, because he's guilty of the other crimes! I don't know what you people are made of. You seem to think that all sins are kept together in a bag. You talk as if a miser on Monday were always a spendthrift on Tuesday. You tell me this man you have here spent weeks ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... rare thing, and shows a lovely imagination, when the poet can write a commentary, as it were, of his own, on such sufficing passages of nature, and be thanked for the addition. There is an instance of this kind in Warner, an old Elizabethan poet, than which I know nothing ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... published in all the newspapers an advertisement worded as follows: 'Excellent cook seeks situation. Write before 5 P.M. to Herminie, Boulevard Haussmann, etc.' You continue to follow me, don't you, M. de Lourtier? Christian names beginning with an H and consisting of eight letters are extremely rare and are all rather out of date: Herminie, Hilairie, Hermione. Well, these Christian names, for reasons which I do not understand, are essential to the madwoman. She cannot do without them. To find women bearing one of these Christian ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... which the seringueiro asked of L10 sterling for each 50 kilos of farinha; feijao at 6s. a pound; sugar at 5s. a pound—the prices which the seringueiros themselves had to pay for those commodities from the rare trading boats which once a year reached that ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... health? for you are only ill because you are sad. For my part I have lost my fortune, my existence: I know not in fact what will become of me; nevertheless I enjoy life as if I possessed all the prosperity that earth can afford." "You are endowed with a courage as rare as it is honourable," replied Lord Nelville; "but the reverses which you have experienced are less injurious in their consequences than the grief which preys upon the heart." "The grief which preys ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... of laughter. Jack tried to compose his countenance as he told the mandarin that it was with much regret he must refuse his request, as the ship would not certainly get so far as Teit-sin, and that it was not usual for men-of-war to carry about dead bodies, except in rare instances; that when people died on board, they were buried at sea, and, especially for sanitary reasons, he could not receive that of a person who had died of a ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... for Virginia, says a recent writer,[34] that she had at this time, on her western borders, an individual of rare military genius, in the person of Colonel George Rogers Clarke, "the Hannibal of the West," who not only saved her back settlements from Indian fury, but planted her standard far beyond the Ohio. The Governor of the Canadian settlements in ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... Rochester said, "it will give me very much pleasure to hear something of your adventures. At present, I fear that I must deny myself that pleasure. My wife has done me the honor to make me one of her somewhat rare visits, and my house is consequently ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... season: clear, bright, and buoyantly refreshing, blow the autumn winds; and as Caper, day after day, wandered among the old trees, now helping an old woman to fill a sack with the brown nuts, now clubbing the chestnuts from the trees for a young girl, he, too, voted chestnut gathering a rare good time. Far off, and now near, the girls were singing their quaint wild songs. Thus heard, the rondinella sounds well: it is of the woods and deserts; strange, barbaric, oriental, bacchantic, what you please, save ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Southern cottage. It was picturesque from every side, and seemed to have no prosaic back. Marechal Niel roses, and honeysuckles, and some tropical vines, climbed over latticework almost to the roof. There were, also, many trees near the house, some of which were rare. ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine
... with little head, May eke it out with heart And in their lays it often plays A rare first-fiddle part. They make a kiss to rhyme with bliss, But if I so began, I have my fears about my ears— ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... The rare literary skill shown in the account of Kane's expedition has charmed millions of readers with its graphic account of the labors, hardships, and privations of Kane and his men. It should not, however, be considered that this expedition ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... was not altogether new in his experience, but it wasn't every day one met a girl who had it; whatever her social status, here was rare fire—or the promise of it. Nor had he undervalued her; he had suspected as much from the very first; connoisseur that he was, his flair had ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... monotone of misery. The factory itself is the villain of the story, and resembles some grotesque wild beast, that daily devours the blood, bone, and marrow of the throng of victims that enter its black jaws. The men, women, and children are represented as utterly brutalised by toil; in their rare moments of leisure, they fight and beat each other unmercifully, and even the little children get dead drunk. Socialist and revolutionary propaganda are secretly circulated among these stupefied folk, and much of the narrative is taken ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... by strong feeling, failed to perceive, that the silence which, with him as with hundreds of good and earnest men, would indeed have indicated a fatal lack of patriotic emotion, was in the case of Hawthorne only the inevitable shrinking of a rare and sensitive spirit from contact with the awful ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... Saint Lucia; but the atmosphere is too heavily charged with vapor to- day. How magnificent must be the view on certain extraordinary days, when it reaches from Antigua to the Grenadines—over a range of three hundred miles! But the atmospheric conditions which allow of such a spectacle are rare indeed. As a general rule, even in the most unclouded West Indian weather, the loftiest peaks fade into the light at a distance of ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... what said the writing of the Divine Menkau-ra?—it was emeralds, was it not? And emeralds are now so rare and hard to come by. Ever did I love emeralds, and I can never find them ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... the Temple and her becoming head girl at Temple College. These years, we may be assured, can hardly have been other than eventful; but incidents, or bits of life, are like living forms—it is only here and here, as by rare chance, that one of them gets arrested and fossilised; the greater number disappear like the greater number of antediluvian molluscs, and no one can say why one of these flies, as it were, of life should get preserved in amber more than another. Talk, indeed, about ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler
... worthless objects he frequently brings together into odd little museums. He loves them precisely because they are insignificant. His whole life has been a silent protest against the arrogance of success, of high merit, of rare value. His heart is always on the side of the Untermensch, a name given by the Germans, a learned people, to ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... to her temple at Ephesus, and there before her altar to declare the story of his life and misfortunes; and by her silver bow she swore, that if he performed her injunction, he should meet with some rare felicity. When he awoke, being miraculously refreshed, he told his dream, and that his resolution was to obey the ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... surrounding hills for miles—whence the sea could be descried, a misty mystery, not so far away; and around which sudden fogs wreathed themselves, shutting in those unfortunate enough to be on its heights in a rare tangle of perplexity when it thus chose to wrap itself up in this sullen mood. For there were ugly holes, pitfalls, and crevices in its ragged sides, making its descent a serious thing, except for adepts in climbing and scrambling down, even in the fair light of day. Moreover, there was on one side ...
— The Heiress of Wyvern Court • Emilie Searchfield
... shepherds when the timbrel rings, Or crooked dolphin when the sailor sings. She stayed not for her robes, but straight arose, And, drunk with gladness, to the door she goes; Where seeing a naked man, she screeched for fear (Such sights as this to tender maids are rare), And ran into the dark herself to hide (Rich jewels in the dark are soonest spied). 240 Unto her was he led, or rather drawn, By those white limbs which sparkled through the lawn. The nearer that he came, the more she fled, And, ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... but he had lived in his own world of unreasonable resentments for many years. At last, passing his moist palm over the rare lanky wisps of coarse hair on the top of his yellow head, he began ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... his room for the night, she would hear him pacing the floor, back and forth, back and forth. She asked no more questions, however; minding her own business was a specialty of Keziah's, and it was a rare ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... take a wide and general view of the whole and of the profoundly conceived distinctions in the developments in art and the different styles of art. Wolf acknowledges, however, that Winckelmann was lacking in the more common talent of philological criticism, or else he could not use it properly: "A rare mixture of a cool head and a minute and restless solicitude for hundreds of things which, insignificant in themselves, were combined in his case with a fire that swallowed up those little things, and with a gift of divination which is a vexation and ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... becomes ruler of Norway. This foul treachery done on the brave and honest Harald Greyfell is by some dated about A.D. 969, by Munch, 965, by others, computing out of Snorro only, A.D. 975. For there is always an uncertainty in these Icelandic dates (say rather, rare and rude attempts at dating, without even an "A.D." or other fixed "year one" to go upon in Iceland), though seldom, I think, so large ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle
... dying condition on the steps of the church of St. John the Round, from which he afterwards took his Christian name. An honest woman of the common people, with that personal devotion which is less rare among the poor than among the rich, took charge of the foundling. The father, who was an officer of artillery and brother of Destouches, the author of some poor comedies, by and by advanced the small sums ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... me.—And now my boy's growing up, it's more particularly proper to bring these sort of people about him; for, you know, clever men who have a reputation can sound a flourish of trumpets advantageously before 'a Grecian youth of talents rare' makes his appearance on the stage of the great world—Ha! hey!—Is not this what one may call prudence?—Ha!— Good to have a father who knows something of life, and of books too, hey? Then, for my daughters, too—daughter, I mean; for Lady Sarah's ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... 'I learned it by studying myself;' Byron says of John Locke that 'all his knowledge of the human understanding was derived from studying his own mind.' Since multiform nature is all about us, originality ought not to be so rare."[8] ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... should all be put under conservation. I am also inclined to think that the walrus could be coaxed back to what once were some of his most favourite haunts. Just now he has no chance whatever; and he is so extremely rare that the one I nearly rowed the dinghy into last August, down at Whale Head East, was only the second seen inside the Straits during ...
— Draft of a Plan for Beginning Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador • William Wood
... their Papuan language I kept a sharp look out for the curious backward sloping foreheads and projecting brow ridges and Jewish-looking noses which are so often found among the Western Papuans; but, although I saw a few examples of these, they were rare, and I did not observe any noticeable tendency in these directions in the faces of the ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... Dak., as in I. E. languages, occupy a subordinate position, having about the same scope as in Latin and Greek. Words apparently related to these are rare in N. A. languages, but frequent in S. A., African, Malay Polynesian and Turanian languages. The Semitic aba, etc., is perhaps related. The base ana, nana (Dak. ina), though not very much used in I E languages appears to be more widely distributed ...
— The Dakotan Languages, and Their Relations to Other Languages • Andrew Woods Williamson
... to make available inexpensive reprints (usually facsimile reproductions) of rare seventeenth and eighteenth century works. The editorial policy of the Society continues unchanged. As in the past, the editors welcome suggestions concerning publications. All income of the Society is devoted to defraying cost of ...
— A Pindarick Ode on Painting - Addressed to Joshua Reynolds, Esq. • Thomas Morrison
... the reception-rooms Balthazar found them restored and furnished as elegantly as in former days. The guests presently descended to the dining-room on the ground-floor by the grand staircase, on every step of which were rare plants and flowering shrubs. A silver service of exquisite workmanship, the gift of Gabriel to his father, attracted all eyes to a luxury which was surprising to the inhabitants of a town where such luxury is traditional. ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... return to their original dress and manners, and forget that they had ever seen or known the "pale faces." The fame and influence of the Prophet spread with almost miraculous rapidity, and young men and warriors came from afar in crowds to receive inspiration from him. Tecumseh with rare ability turned this influence to advance his own plans. And of course this constant stream of visitors to his brother, enabled the chief to spread his racial idea far and wide. One of the things that Tecumseh maintained was that the Indians held the land in common, that no one tribe owned ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... you some account of myself; I can in a very few words: I am quite alone; in the morning I view a new pond I am making for gold fish, and stick in a few shrubs or trees, wherever I can find a space, which is very rare: in the evening I scribble a little; all this is mixed with reading; that is, I can't say I read much, but I pick up a good deal of reading. The only thing I have done that can compose a paragraph, and which ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... rare moments of genuine enthusiasm. His visitor forgot for a moment the businesslike office with its row of telephones, its shelves of blue books and masses of papers. He seemed to be breathing a ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and most finished brayer in the world; the tone you have got is deep, your voice is well kept up as to time and pitch, and your finishing notes come thick and fast; in fact, I own myself beaten, and yield the palm to you, and give in to you in this rare accomplishment.' 'Well then,' said the owner, 'I'll set a higher value on myself for the future, and consider that I know something, as I have an excellence of some sort; for though I always thought I brayed well, I never supposed I came up to the ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... sacred calling. His writings, whether in prose or verse, are worthy of admiration, but his manhood was the underlying quality which gave them their true value. It was in virtue of this that his rare genius acted on so many minds as a trumpet call to awaken them to the meaning and the privileges of this earthly existence with all its infinite promise. No matter of what he wrote or spoke, his words, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... the crowd into individuals, it soon appears that the passions and imaginations of men will not easily suffer them to be idle: we see things coveted merely because they are rare, and pursued because they are fugitive; we see men conspire to fix an arbitrary value on that which is worthless in itself, and then contend for the possession. One is a collector of fossils, of which he knows no other ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... rare distinction. She writes Scots because what she has to say could not be written otherwise and retain its peculiar quality. It is good Scots, quite free from misspelt English or that perverted slang which too often nowadays is vulgarising the ...
— Songs of Angus and More Songs of Angus • Violet Jacob
... celebrates brown beauties in his poem of the Senses Festival. John Bond, who published Commentaries on Horace and Persius, Antony a Wood calls a polite and rare critic whose labours have advanced the Commonwealth of ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... what comes after, the exact sense cannot be absolutely ascertained; for instance, whether proprie is meant to signify in an appropriated manner, as Dr. Johnson here understands it, or, as it is often used by Cicero, with propriety, or elegantly. In short, it is a rare instance of a defect in perspicuity in an admirable writer, who with almost every species of excellence, is peculiarly remarkable for that quality. The length of this note perhaps requires an apology. Many ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... Given as a form only, as Haber has no Imperative Mood in modern Spanish, except in Heme, hete, hele, aqui, etc. (here I am, here thou art, here he is, etc.), and in some other rare cases. ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... and as such cannot be imitated. When the flowers of the Jasminum odoratissimum are distilled, repeatedly using the water of distillation over fresh flowers, the essential oil of jasmine may be procured. It is, however, exceedingly rare, on account of the enormous cost of production. There was a fine sample of six ounces exhibited in the Tunisian department of the Crystal Palace, the price of which was 9l. the fluid ounce! The plant is the Yasmyn of the Arabs, from ...
— The Art of Perfumery - And Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants • G. W. Septimus Piesse
... time; a dangerous task, for the Comte, whose escape from his chateau, after he had been declared a 'suspect' by the Committee of Public Safety, was a masterpiece of the Scarlet Pimpernel's ingenuity, is now under sentence of death. It will be rare sport to get HIM out of France, and you will have a narrow escape, if you get through at all. St. Just has actually gone to meet him—of course, no one suspects St. Just as yet; but after that . . ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... slopes to low, wide valleys, and up long, long slopes to the next higher prairie level. Away across the plain skirting sleughs where ducks of various kinds, and in hundreds, quacked and plunged and fought joyously and all unheeding. Away with the morning air, rare and wondrously exhilarating, rushing at them and past them and filling their hearts with the keen zest of living. Away beyond sight and sound of the great world, past little shacks, the brave vanguard of civilization, whose solitary loneliness ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... had often thought that if he lived with a woman, he should prefer one that was spiritually foreign to him, who should look on him like a rare plant, not with one that would want to identify herself with his tastes ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... figure, graceful and interesting, and died of decline at nineteen; while I, though not able to compare shapes with a wasp or an hour-glass, yet passed muster very fairly among mere human forms of God's moulding; and I have enjoyed to this hour a rare exemption from headaches, and other ladylike maladies, that appear the almost exclusive privilege of women in ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... sitting-room through the cocoanut matting and the thick carpet that covered it, which it defaced in great patches. Close to the fire the wires of the piano rusted, and had to be rubbed and rubbed every day, or half the notes went dumb. The paper, a rare luxury in those parts, began to drop from the walls. Great turf-fires were constantly kept up, but the damp stole a march on them when they smouldered in the night, and made ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... that Shualu is brought into association with various Babylonian terms and ideographs for the grave.[1124] This cannot be accidental. That the term has hitherto been found only in lexicographical tablets need not surprise us. Aralu, too, is of rare occurrence in the religious texts. The priests appear to avoid the names for the nether world, which were of ill omen, and preferred to describe the place by some epithet, as 'land without return,' or 'dark dwelling,' or 'great city,' ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... motorcars, your splendid furnishings and equipments, will for the most part be public property, yielding revenue to some national or municipal treasury. You will have to give up much of that. There is no way out of it, your way to Socialism is through "the needle's eye." From your rare class and from your class alone does Socialism require a real material sacrifice. You must indeed give up much coarse pride. There is no help for it, you must face that if you face Socialism at all. You must come down to a simpler and, in many material aspects, less distinguished ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... presently fell with a little sound among the leaves. Then with a shock of terror he saw that it was blood; and he feared to take the sword back; but looking downwards he perceived that where the blood had fallen, there were red flowers growing among the leaves of a rare beauty, which seemed to be born of the blood. So he gathered a handful, and wreathed the sword with them; and then came a gladness into his mind, with which he awoke, and found it evening; he came back to himself with a kind of terror, and a fear darted into his breast; the windows were open, and ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... this effect two different fountains wrought, Whose wonderous waters different moods inspire. Both spring in Arden, with rare virtue fraught: This fills the heart with amorous desire: Who taste that other fountain are untaught Their love, and change for ice their former fire. Rinaldo drank the first, and vainly sighs; Angelica the last, ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... on the subject, submitting the Tracts entirely to your Lordship's disposal. What I thought about your Charge will appear from the words I then used to him. I said, 'A Bishop's lightest word ex cathedra is heavy. His judgment on a book cannot be light. It is a rare occurrence.' And I offered to withdraw any of the Tracts over which I had control, if I were informed which were those to which your Lordship had objections. I afterwards wrote to your Lordship to this effect, that 'I trusted I might ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... least six months in the waters of South Carolina, thus employed. We never went to sea, but occasionally dropped down as far as Rebellion Roads. We were not allowed to go ashore, except on rare occasions, and towards the last, matters got to be so serious, that we almost looked upon ourselves as in an enemy's country. Commodore Elliott joined the station in the Natchez sloop-of-war, and the Experiment, man-of-war schooner, also arrived ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... holidays at home, and remain at the College continuously until their studies are terminated." As a matter of fact, Balzac passed his six years there without once returning to Tours, being entirely cut off from his family, save for such rare visits as ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... retreating feet was occasionally broken by the reports of a poorly directed volley by a few of the bolder characters, who had the rare nerve to halt and fire at ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... and heinous in pure-hearted Dino's eyes—and pleaded passionately for their forgiveness. And then the words turned into a prayer for the welfare of his friend Brian and the woman that Brian loved. Dino was one of those rare souls who love their ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... sutes the Noblest French they strip, And leaue their Bodies naked on the ground, And each one fills his Knapsack or his Scrip; With some rare thing that on the Field is found: About his bus'nesse he doth nimbly skip, That had vpon him many a cruell wound: And where they found a French not out-right slaine, They him a prisoner ...
— The Battaile of Agincourt • Michael Drayton
... again, Virgil tells of the daughters of Praetus, who fancied themselves to be cows, and running wildly about the pastures, "implerunt falsis mugitibus agros."—Ecl. vi. 48. This horrible disease appears happily to have been a rare one, and recoveries from it have taken place, for it is not destructive of the sufferer's life. It has even been thoroughly cured after ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... shadows, silent and remote, and disappear. Perhaps they are the ghosts of thoughts that once inhabited the mind of an ancestor. At other times the things I have learned and the things I have been taught, drop away, as the lizard sheds its skin, and I see my soul as God sees it. There are also rare and beautiful moments when I see and hear in Dreamland. What if in my waking hours a sound should ring through the silent halls of hearing? What if a ray of light should flash through the darkened chambers of my soul? What would happen, ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... the dust of Dante, a few churches, a few frescoes, a few pictures, a few palaces; nothing beside. For all these we must go to Pompeii and to Rome, or to Florence, Siena, Assisi, and Venice; in Ravenna we shall find something more rare, but not these. She remains a city of the Dark Age, of the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries, and she is full of the churches, the tombs, and the art of that time, early Christian and Byzantine things that we shall not find elsewhere, ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... the labor reform movement." Nellie Hutchinson of the Cincinnati Commercial, one of the few women journalists, described sympathetically for her readers the neat comfortable Revolution office and Susan with her "rare" but "genial smile," Susan, "the determined—the invincible ... destined to be Vice-President or Secretary of State...," adding, "The world is better ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... democracy, and would always have been by any democracy. In a word, the Whigs were liberal and even generous aristocrats, but they were aristocrats; that is why their concessions were as vain as their conquests. We talk, with a humiliation too rare with us, about our dubious part in the secession of America. Whether it increase or decrease the humiliation I do not know; but I strongly suspect that we had very little to do with it. I believe we counted for uncommonly little in the case. ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... another question that puzzles me: what is the connection between the second robbery and the first, the one on the race-course? The whole thing is incomprehensible and I have a sort of feeling—which is very rare with me—that it is no use hunting. For my part, I give ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... up on the nice blue grass that was knee-high all over the country. So after breakfast we detailed men to take charge of the different animals, and herd them out in the tall grass. It was a beautiful sight to see those rare animals, gathered from all over the world, eating grass together, in perfect peace, in this new country. The animals that we thought would stand without hitching, like the elephants, were cared for by their attendants, but the animals that might wander ...
— Peck's Bad Boy at the Circus • George W. Peck |
