"Rare" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... really knows what Katy did! But his friends are a curious lot and they work their brains over-time to think of some scheme to make Kiddie tell. If you want to know what they do accidentally discover about Kiddie himself and how excited every body becomes as the rare news spreads from mouth to mouth, you will find that and many other remarkable things about him in this interesting story of his life in the Maple tree that grows in Farmer Green's yard. You will like Kiddie. He is very modest and retiring— ...
— The Tale of Tommy Fox • Arthur Scott Bailey
... the species which resemble or "mimic" these dominant groups, are comparatively less abundant in individuals, and are often very rare. ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... how great your sorrow must be, as well as that of all the once happy relations of a young lady of endowments and virtues so rare. Yet deep as this sorrow is, I think it scarcely can exceed the anguish I feel; convinced as I am that my mistaken, my unhappy brother is the cause of this much ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... experience this night—one which is full of joy to those who have drunk often of the cup. There be times when I say that I am happiest dressed as tonight, a good horse beneath me, a bright moon above, and a booty worth having well in view. It is so full of rare surprises and delight; and, if a man but have his wits about him, it is ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... glance that Gianluca's manner with Bianca was not at all what it was with herself. He looked ill and worn; but his face had brightened, his tone was light and cheerful, and he was evidently saying amusing things, for Bianca laughed audibly, which was rare with her, even when she and Veronica were alone together. He was at his ease; instead of seeming awkward he had an especial grace, beyond that of ordinary men; instead of being visibly disturbed by the sound of his own voice, he appeared ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... superabundant clothing of a distinguished and titled, but nameless lady. Twenty-five dresses, folded or tossed about by frequent examinations, lie exposed upon a closed piano, and upon a lounge; shawls rich and rare are displayed upon the backs of chairs, but the more exacting obtain a better view and closer inspection by the lady attendant throwing them occasionally upon her shoulders, just to oblige, so that their appearance on promenade might be seen and admired. Furs, laces, ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... except after extraordinary falls of snow, transit from place to place was made by means of sledges over the snow or on ox-carts over the frozen ground. Traveling could also be done across or up and down rivers on the ice, and as bridges were rare in those days the crossing of rivers on the ice was much to be preferred to fording them in other seasons of the year. Fuel too was more easily obtained in the winter than in the spring, and as roads were generally little more than passage-ways or cow-paths through the meadows ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... morning after this gay evening, the two young men were labouring together in a plot of ground behind Stevenlaw's Land, which the Doctor had converted into a garden, where he raised, with a view to pharmacy as well as botany, some rare plants, which obtained the place from the vulgar the sounding name of the Physic Garden. [Footnote: The Botanic Garden is so termed by the vulgar of Edinburgh.] Mr. Gray's pupils readily complied with his wishes, that they would take some care ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... am bound to say, that, in general, the teachableness of youth is, after all, much greater than we might at first sight fancy. Along with much self-confidence in many things, it is rare, I think, to find in a young man a deliberate pride that rejects advice and instruction, on the strength of having no need for them. And therefore, the faults of boyhood and youth are more owing, to my mind, to the want of change in the other points of the ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... the greatest value, has much enriched the store of information concerning our Dramatic Literature amassed by Malone, Stevens, Reed, and Chalmers. Referring to numberless published and unpublished papers, to sources both familiar and rare, Mr. Collier has been enabled, moreover, to increase in an important degree our knowledge of the Elizabethan Theatre, its manners and customs, ways and means. I feel that I owe to his archaeological studies many apt quotations and illustrative passages I could ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... The records of the Lifeboat Institution show that about one-third of the medals and rewards granted for meritorious services are awarded to men of the coastguard. Old Coleman was one of those who had taken his full share of the dangerous work of saving life. He was also gifted with that rare quality—the power of telling a story well, so that he and Bluenose became fast friends and constant companions during their residence on ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... that he had missed her. There was a little picture of her on the wall, showing her arrayed in the little jacket he had first bought her—her face a little more wistful than he had seen it lately. He was really touched by it, and looked into the eyes of it with a rather rare ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... "there's a rare treat in store for you. The first I ever ate was on my Lake St. John trip. The Indian I had with me used to chop off pieces of frozen caribou with an axe, and fry it with lard, and we'd just drink down the grease. ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... sun-swept desert, and its picturesque marchands de coco, with their shining mugs, snow-white aprons and tinkling bells, found only a limited demand for their liquorice water and lemon juice, while even the Theatres de Guignol failed to arrest the rare passers. ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... a bag of pearls, and fled to Turkey, where they became wealthy merchants. His rich stud of horses were taken, and the very cows driven off the farms. His stand of arms consisted of more than three thousand rare pieces. Trenck had affirmed he had sent linen to the amount of fifty thousand florins, in chests from Dunnhausen and Cersdorf, in the county of Glatz, to his estates. The pillage was general; and when orders came to send all the property of Trenck and deliver it to his universal heir, nothing ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... The incident is not new. In "Des blaue Licht," a Mecklenburg tale given by Grimm, the King's daughter who is borne through the air to the soldier's room is told by her father to fill her pocket with peas and make a hole therein; but the sole result was that the pigeons had a rare feast. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... keen appreciation and rare touches of Irish wit and drollery that made it most interesting as well as very funny. It was a first attempt at descriptive narration. With an inborn gift for striking the vital point, a naturalist's dawning enthusiasm for the wonders of the Limberlost, and the ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... intellectual life of the age, and this piece of legislation is indeed a true mirror of the Christian world in Europe at the time; and the outline only rises more sharply, boldly, and clearly to view, because there is presented to us at the same time so rare a phenomenon in the march of civilization as the building up of a state organization, for which there is no foundation in the land where ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... was transported to the days of his youth at Malta when his own imagination was filled with visions of precious metals, of rare fabrics and mighty architecture. ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... Yo'-all means dem orchard plants that lib on air—dem big orchard plants." Eradicate meant orchids, of which many rare and beautiful kinds ...
— Tom Swift in Captivity • Victor Appleton
... surprise, his surprise became wrath. The messengers he sent down did not return and the great moving shed of the Romans was brought nearer and nearer to the southern side of the temple, screening the miners from the rare missiles which the few men remaining with him cast clown ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... gave some re-assurance to Edward, and he had courage enough to sit down; but his embarrassment still exceeded that of the ladies in a proportion, which the case rendered reasonable, though his sex might make it rare; for his heart had not the indifference of Lucy's, nor could his conscience have quite the ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... You are wrong. I can feel that I am capable of creating great parts. Let them only give me a part, and they'll see. And I have in me not only comedy, but drama, tragedy—yes, tragedy. I can deliver verse properly. And that is a talent which is becoming rare in these days. So don't imagine, Felicie, that I am insulting you when I offer you marriage. Far from it! We will marry later on, as soon as it is possible and suitable. Of course, there is no need for hurry. Meanwhile, we will ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... God, or who, from the high tone of their irreligious feeling, have ascended to an unusual degree of spiritual elevation of character, and whether called to labour abroad or at home, are desirous of an entire and incessant self-devotement to Jesus Christ. These instances are indeed rare, and can scarcely be estimated by ordinary rules, but they were not unprecedented in the primitive age of Christianity. Dorcas might possibly be a woman of this extraordinary character. Her works were at least worthy of one who was thus bearing the ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... actor been a man of rare wit, and of good education and wide reading, the choice of name might have been judicious. A "concealed poet" of high social standing, with a strange fancy for rewriting the plays of contemporary playwrights, might obtain the manuscript copies from their owners, ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... which I am forgetting. But the only books that I have seen which make a patient and sympathetic attempt to understand the people of Sussex are Mr. Parish's Dictionary, Mr. Egerton's Sussex Folk and Sussex Ways, and "John Halsham's" Idlehurst. How many rare qualities of head and heart must go ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... curious book-knowledge of this singular man of letters, those stores of which he was the fond treasurer, as he says with such tenderness for his pursuits, were always ready to be cast into the forms of a dissertation or an introduction; and when Morgan published his Collection of Rare Tracts, the friendly hand of Oldys furnished "A Dissertation upon Pamphlets, in a Letter to a Nobleman;" probably the Earl of Oxford, a great literary curiosity; and in the Harleian Collection he has given a Catalogue raisonne of six hundred. When Mrs. Cooper attempted "The ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... standpoint. He declared if the company refused to print it he would resign the management and publish the book himself. This was an alarming suggestion to the stockholders. Bliss had returned dividends—a boon altogether too rare in the company's former history. The objectors retired and were heard of no more. The manuscript was placed in the hands of Fay and Cox, illustrators, with an order for about two hundred ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... bill to that effect passed coincidently with the repeal of the Stamp Act down to the alterations made in the Massachusetts charter in 1774; the latter proceeding being in close harmony, both in time and motive, with the extension of the province of Quebec to the Ohio—one of the very rare evidences of sagacity and foresight discernible in the course of the ministry; for, while it did not avail to dam the westward flood, it certainly contributed, with other concessions made at the same time to the Canadians, to save the St. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... "Rare generosity!" repeated her brother-in-law laughing. "Well, perhaps a jilted bride and her father do not always want to speak a good word for a recreant lover, but that is not the case this time, and who knows ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... commencement of the great work of preparing our planet for the home of man, by the spirit of God moving over the chaos. There is nothing in this statement that should perplex any man, unless he is that fool who "says in his heart there is no God." If the chaos here described was matter in a rare, gaseous condition, floating in space, molecular motion produced by the spirit of God brooding over it, and a chemical change producing electricity may have given the light called the ...
— The Christian Foundation, February, 1880
... pressure of all the air above it. As airmen rise into the highest portions of the atmosphere the height of the column of air above them decreases, and it follows that, having a shorter column of air to support, those portions are less dense than those lower down. So rare does the atmosphere become, when great altitudes are reached, that at a height of seven miles breathing is well-nigh impossible, and at far lower altitudes than this airmen have to be ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... Lumbini, filling the spaces between the trees, rare and special flowers, in great abundance, bloomed out of season. All cruel and malevolent kinds of beings, together conceived a loving heart; all diseases and afflictions among men without a cure applied, of themselves ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... tapestries of this period, those of the Cathedral at Halberstadt must be mentioned, partly by way of conscientious chronicling, partly that the interested traveller may, as he travels, know where to find the rare specimens of the hobby he is pursuing. This is a high-warp tapestry which authorities variously place as the product of the Eleventh or the Twelfth Centuries. Entirely regardless of its age, it has for us the charm of the ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... this fancy, and took it as a rare good joke on that "Reserve Artillery." We said "their guns were not of any use anyhow except for birds' nests; the birds knew they would be perfectly safe to build their nest, and live in those guns. They would not be disturbed!" We "chaffed" the officers and men of that ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... a ruffled surface. A very rare use of this word. The river referred to is probably ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... of those girls who possessed the rare and delectable capacity to "throw on" her bonnet and shawl. One glance in the mirror sufficed to convince her that these articles, although thrown on, had fallen into their appropriate places neatly. It could scarcely have been otherwise. Her bonnet and shawl took kindly to her, like all other things ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... her van and of her little treasures. From the great recess under the bed she raked out as a rare curiosity an old Dolly Varden or damasked skirt, not at all worn, quite pretty, and evidently of considerable value to a collector. This had belonged to Mrs. Brown's grandmother, an old gypsy queen. And it may ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... snowdrop; and her look, Isoult thought, was like the look of an angel. Her smile was embodied sweetness; her voice soft and low, clear as a silver bell. There are few such voices out of England, but the combination of fair hair with dark eyes is the Venetian style of beauty. Rare in any land, yet there are occasional instances in each. For such, in Italy, was Dante's Beatrice; such, in Germany, was Louise of Stolberg, the wife of the last Stuart; and such, with ourselves, was ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... It was rare for Mrs Yabsley to touch on her private sorrows, and there was an embarrassing silence. But suddenly, from the corner of Pitt Street, appeared a strange figure of a man, roaring out a song in the voice of one selling ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... we were cannot be imagined, neither of us having ever been at any school;—but the simple truth is, that in the most chivalrous sense I was in love with her. And the proof that I was so showed itself in three separate modes: I kissed her glove on any rare occasion when I found it lying on a table; secondly, I looked out for some excuse to be jealous of her; and, thirdly, I did my very best to get up a quarrel. What I wanted the quarrel for was the luxury of a reconciliation; a hill cannot be had, you know, without going to the expense of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... boy, with no love for or leaning to girls' company; no care for dress; not a trace of personal vanity. . . . He was, or at least seemed, wholly unconscious of his rare beauty and of the fascination of his manner; not a trace of pretence, the simplest and most natural ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... cabinets, and articles made of wood, and other things; and the products of the islands themselves, of which mention has been made [In the margin: "In number 15"]. But the bulk of the commerce is reduced to the silk and cotton textiles; for there is but little else that is rare or elegant, or that has much export. From the skeined silk, and the silk thread, and trama are manufactured in Nueva Espaa velvets, veils, headdresses, passementeries, and many taffetas, which were taken to Per when there ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... is the rout of an army by a countryman and his two sons; but the two stories are separate. The ninth novel of the second day of the Decameron of Boccaccio tells a story much resembling the part of the play which concerns Posthumus. The play called The Rare Triumphs of Love and Fortune (1589) contains certain characters not unlike Imogen, Posthumus, Belarius, and Cloten. Fidelia, Imogen's name in disguise, is the heroine's name. But ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... as the Ancon Sheep did under domestication, how could you ascertain the fact? If the first of a newly-begotten species were found, the fact of its discovery would tell nothing about its origin. Naturalists would register it as a very rare species, having been only once met with, but they would have no means of knowing whether it were the first or ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... the destruction of trade for its primary object implies in the party using it an inferiority at sea. Had he superiority, his object would be to convert that superiority to a working command by battle or blockade. Except, therefore, in the rare cases where the opposed forces are equal, we must assume that the belligerent who makes commerce destruction his primary object will have to deal with a superior fleet. Now, it is true that the difficulty of defending trade lies mainly in the extent of sea it covers. But, on the other hand, ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... Benjamin Franklin was made a Freemason in St. John's Lodge, of Philadelphia, early in the year 1731. In 1734 he printed and published the first Masonic book ever issued in America, being the work known as "Anderson's Constitution of 1723." Copies are now exceedingly rare, and readily sell for fifty dollars each. One is now in the library of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, in an excellent ...
— Tea Leaves • Various
... might be instructed to torpedo all trading vessels of the Allies which approach the British coasts. The first duty of a ship of war which proposes to sink an enemy vessel is admittedly, before so doing, to provide for the safety of all its occupants, which (except in certain rare eventualities) can only be secured by their being taken on board of the warship. A submarine has obviously no space to spare for such an addition to ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland
... new literature were supplemented by the rudiments of a new art. Any visitor at Athens who looks at the three tiny churches [1] built in this period of first revival, and compares them with the rare pre-Norman churches of England, will find the same promise of vitality in the Greek architecture as in his own. The material—worked blocks of marble pillaged from ancient monuments, alternating with ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... a rare sight on that side of the bay. The venturesome seamen of the Massachusetts colony chose other courses. Fundy Bay was aside from the great sea paths. Port Royal sent out no ships except D'Aulnay's, and on La Tour's side of Acadia ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... is our benefactress in the authorship of these books, the world knows not. Sophie May must doubtless be a fancy name, by reason of the spelling, and we have only to be greatful that the author did not inflict on us the customary alliteration in her pseudonyme. The rare gift of delineating childhood is hers, and may the line of 'Little Prudy' go out to the end of the earth.... To those oversaturated with transatlantic traditions we recommend a course ...
— The Angel Children - or, Stories from Cloud-Land • Charlotte M. Higgins
... assented the skipper. "The old man thinks a rare lot of it. I think I shall have a little bit in that quarter, so keep your eye ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... frankness and sincerity, which lays bare the soul as it is, without any false shame or any fear of misunderstanding. A friendship of this kind can be one of the purest, brightest, and strongest things in the world. Yet how rare it is! What far oftener happens is that two people, in a sensitive and emotional mood, are brought together. They begin by comparing experiences, they search their memories for beautiful and suggestive things, and each ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... ever more naturally endowed to succeed on the turf than was Banker Philip Crane. Cold, passionless, more given to deep concentrated thought than expression, holding silence as a golden gift—even as a gift of rare rubies—nothing drew from him an unguarded word, no sudden turmoil quivered his nerve. It was characteristic of the man that he had waited nearly twenty years to resume racing, which really came as near to being ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... in France an homage very rare at that epoch: it was translated. A Frenchman possessing a knowledge of the English language was then an extraordinary phenomenon. As late as the year 1665, no less a paper than the "Journal des Scavans" ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... to him that he was entering Rosario once more; that he again beheld those straight streets, flanked with little white houses, and intersected by other very long and straight streets. But there were very few people, and under the light of the rare street lanterns, he encountered strange faces of a hue unknown to him, between black and greenish; and raising his head from time to time, he beheld churches of bizarre architecture which were outlined black and vast against the sky. The city was dark and ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... the king always called her by that name—pleased the sovereign by her simplicity and her pretty ways more even than by her rare beauty—the most perfect, the most regular, I recollect to have ever seen. He placed her in one of the apartments of his Parc-dux-cerfs—the voluptuous monarch's harem, in which no one could get admittance except ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Experience may not teach you to think them rare and precious: I have found them but too much so! But tell me, Antonia; Why is it impossible for me to have ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... an ordinary child, all this petting would have had an injurious effect upon her mind. But, fortunately, she had the rare simplicity, young as she was, which lifted her above the dangers which might have spoiled her otherwise. Instead of being made vain and conceited, she only felt grateful for the constant kindness shown her by her father and mother, and brother Jack, as she was wont to ...
— Jack's Ward • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... with inconceivable rapidity, the character of a gigantic mantle of rare flame, extending from horizon to horizon. Yet a day, and men breathed with freedom. It was clear that we were already within the influence of the comet; yet we lived. We even felt an unusual elasticity of frame and vivacity of mind. The exceeding ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... "I know they are rare, my child. But still they exist. You will have to learn eventually, a little at a time. Now then, it is a rule of such limited dimensional realms that the movement of matter and events from place to place is highly difficult. ...
— Sweet Their Blood and Sticky • Albert Teichner
... presumption! what insolence! No one knows what mischief he may not have done by his silly talk! It is deplorable! But see, here comes Professor Effaress, the very man I most wished to see. Professor, let me present this gentleman. He is the owner of a rare and remarkable bird, on which we want your opinion." The Professor was a very great personage, and his coat was covered all over with decorations and bits of colored ribbon, like those on a kite's tail. Perhaps, like a kite's tail, they weighted and steadied him, and kept him ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... door of the little cottage, and in it was the stranger Jack had rescued from the bog. The wagon was loaded with a store of good things which would add to the comfort of the aged pair and their grandson, including medicines for grandpa and rare teas for grandma, and a fine suit of clothes for Jack, who was just then away ...
— Mother Goose in Prose • L. Frank Baum
... then another field full of long bents and ragwort, an old deserted pasture, and Frank began to grumble, but just then a pair of bars gave access to a wide fifty acre lot, which had been wheat, the stubble standing still knee deep, and yielding a rare covert. ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... with gardens all about and beautiful woods on either side, where one could roam for hours, becoming acquainted with the little folk of the wood—this my little Jeanette did, not feeling the need of human companionship as had I. When, upon rare occasions, she had questioned her guardian as to the identity of her parents, he had answered with a most strange reticence that she must not bother her head about such matters, but to wait till she was twenty-one, when she would know all. Naturally, the child ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... Bacon, constructed a railroad or an engine like Stephenson, wooed the electric spark from heaven to earth with Franklin, or walked with Newton the pathways of the spheres. But if his genius were of a different order, it was of as rare and high an order. It dealt with man in the concrete, with his vast concerns of business stretching over a continent and projected into the ages, with his seething passions; with his marvelous exertions of mind, body, and spirit to be free. He knew the materials he dealt ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... atrocious tortures he was in the habit of inflicting on his victims for any or no provocation, and many of them are as incomprehensible as they are sickening. That in which he was supreme was his craft as a seaman in an age when real seamen were rare; on land he was frequently defeated, at sea there seems to be no record of such an occurrence. To sum up, he appears to us in the light of history as a body, a brain, and an intellect, without any trace ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... any farther. Rest was indispensable, and she set about preparing a bed, with the readiness and coolness of one to whom the wilderness presented no unnecessary terrors. She knew that wild beasts roamed through all the adjacent forest, but animals that preyed on the human species were rare, and of dangerous serpents there were literally none. These facts had been taught her by her father, and whatever her feeble mind received at all, it received so confidingly as to leave her no uneasiness from any doubts, or scepticism. To her the sublimity of the solitude in which she was placed, ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... group themselves about the decks in their snowy white linen, and read, smoke, sew, play cards, talk, nap, and so on. In other ships the passengers are always ciphering about when they are going to arrive; out in these seas it is rare, very rare, to hear that subject broached. In other ships there is always an eager rush to the bulletin board at noon to find out what the "run" has been; in these seas the bulletin seems to attract no interest; I have seen no one visit it; in thirteen days I have visited it only once. Then I happened ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... ancient sculpture were copies of fourth-century originals, Hellenistic or later productions. Hence Smollett's ecstasies over the Laocoon, the Niobe, and the Dying Gladiator. Greek art of the best period was hardly known in authentic examples; antiques so fine as the Torso of Hercules were rare. But while his failures show the danger of dogmatism in art criticism, Smollett is careful to disclaim all pretensions to the nice discernment of the real connoisseur. In cases where good sense and sincere utterance are all ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... incurred with a light heart: for we have shown that sovereigns only possess this right of imposing their will, so long as they have the full power to enforce it: if such power be lost their right to command is lost also, or lapses to those who have assumed it and can keep it. (51) Thus it is very rare for sovereigns to impose thoroughly irrational commands, for they are bound to consult their own interests, and retain their power by consulting the public good and acting according to the dictates of reason, as Seneca says, ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part IV] • Benedict de Spinoza
... yield,[2] With leaves as ample as the broadest shield, Under the shadow of whose friendly boughs They sit, carousing where their liquor grows. 20 Figs there unplanted through the fields do grow, Such as fierce Cato did the Romans show, With the rare fruit inviting them to spoil Carthage, the mistress of so rich a soil. The naked rocks are not unfruitful there, But, at some constant seasons, every year, Their barren tops with luscious food abound, And with the eggs of various fowls are crown'd. ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... the halls of heaven. And I am moved to speak about it here, because I think a plain statement of its sublime probabilities will be acceptable to many: especially if they have been harassed by the doubts of learned men respecting the authorship of that rare history. It signifies nothing who recorded the circumstances and conversations, so long as they were true, and really happened: given power, opportunity, and honesty, a life of Dr. Johnson would be ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... to talk the thing over with someone and the day after his father's letter came, he resolved to take Bauer into his confidence. He had never talked with him on any serious questions except when Bauer had confided in him about his home troubles, and the occasions were rare and only occurred at times when Bauer was so tortured with lonesomeness that he could not endure it any longer and fled to Walter as he did that night in the shop, when he first appealed to ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... is disgraced in the eyes of all Europe. A barbarous rage has laid waste the fairest monuments of art—whatever could embellish society, or contribute to soften existence, has disappeared under the reign of these modern Goths—even the necessaries of life are becoming rare and inadequate to the consumption—the rich are plundered and persecuted, yet the poor are in want—the national credit is in the last stage of debasement, yet an immense debt is created, and daily accumulating; and apprehension, distrust, and misery, are almost ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... intellect was uncalled for" Alas! far from it; it was an observation that rose inevitably on knowing something of the task before Pius IX., and the hopes he had excited. The problem he had to solve was one of such difficulty, that only one of those minds, the rare product of ages for the redemption of mankind, could be equal to its solution. The question that inevitably rose on seeing him was, "Is he such a one?" The answer was immediately negative. But at the same time, he had ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... covered with buildin's of different sizes and ruined castles (the ruins all new, you know; ruined a-purpose), the buildin's made of the gray stun the island is composed of. And there are gorgeous flower beds and lawns green as emerald, and windin' walks lined with statuary, and rare vases runnin' over with blossoms and foliage, and a long, cool harbor, fenced in with posies where white swans sail, archin' up their proud necks as if lookin' down on common ducks and geese. There wuz ancient stun architecture, and modern wood rustic work, and ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley
... effected. According to his own observations, Barbican calculated that they should strike her in the northern hemisphere, where her plains, or seas as they are called, are immense, and her mountains are comparatively rare. This, of course, would be so much the more favorable, if, as was to be apprehended, the lunar atmosphere was confined exclusively ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... one of those optic lures which render the soul—one knows not how or why—perplexed and dreamy. The fragrant freshness of the autumn breeze, the stronger odors of the forest, rose like a waft of incense to the admirers of this beautiful region, who noticed with delight its rare wild-flowers, its vigorous vegetation, and its verdure, worthy of England, the very word being common to the two languages. A few cattle gave life to the scene, already so dramatic. The birds sang, ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... molestations? The answer, which they all concurred in, was in these words, viz. 'That the Devil may sometimes have a permission to represent an innocent person as tormenting such as are under diabolical molestations; but that such things are rare and extraordinary, especially when such matters come before civil judicatures'; and that some of the most eminent Ministers of the land, who were not at that meeting, are of the same judgment, I am assured. And I am also sure that, in cases of ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... own exertions. While sinking, as I believed, for the last time, I saw a large object approaching me in the water, which, in the confusion of the moment, I took for a shark, though sharks never ascended the Hudson so high, and were even rare at New York. There it was, however, swimming towards us, and even descending lower as if to pass beneath, in readiness for the fatal snap. Beneath it did pass, and I felt it pressing upward, raising Drewett and myself to the surface. As I got a glimpse ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... remember how, when, or even precisely where, I first became acquainted with the lady Ligeia. Long years have since elapsed, and my memory is feeble through much suffering. Or, perhaps, I cannot now bring these points to mind, because, in truth, the character of my beloved, her rare learning, her singular yet placid cast of beauty, and the thrilling and enthralling eloquence of her low musical language, made their way into my heart by paces so steadily and stealthily progressive that they have been unnoticed and unknown. Yet I believe that I met her first ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... of all Queequeg's peculiarities here; how he eschewed coffee and hot rolls, and applied his undivided attention to beefsteaks, done rare. Enough, that when breakfast was over he withdrew like the rest into the public room, lighted his tomahawk-pipe, and was sitting there quietly digesting and smoking with his inseparable hat on, when I sallied out for ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... Jerusalem, the foundation of the Hebrew-Christian sects of Batanea, the compilation of the Gospels, and the rise of the great schools of Asia Minor originated by John. Everything pales by the side of that marvellous first century. By a peculiarity rare in history, we see much better what passed in the Christian world from the year 50 to the year 75, than from the year 100 ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... wigwam, but the furniture thereof was of this rare kind. The Weasels had, it seems, certain sworn friends,—for birds of a feather flock together,—and these were not far to seek, as they were the Thorns, Burrs, and Briers of all kinds, Hornets and other winged and stinged insects, besides the Ants. And they were, moreover, intimate with all the ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... of State Rights,—that is, that a part is greater than the whole,—but was an honest man, who, when his word was given, could be trusted. One glance at his open, resolute face showed that he feared nothing; that he had, too, that rare courage which delights in danger, and courts heroic enterprise from pure love of peril. Early in the war, he had encountered Colonel De Land, a former commandant of the post, on the battlefield, and taken him prisoner. A friendship then sprang up between the two, which, when ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... that Her Majesty had sent 50 pounds to assist you in getting the children educated, and just before I left I was pleased to hear him give vent to his feelings with the rough but patriotic speech that "She was a rare good woman, and a ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... certificate, and his listeners nodded an extreme approval to this sentiment. A grizzled old fellow who kept a stock farm back in the country chanced to be there, and managed to get a word in on the subject during one of my client's rare pauses. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... every energy to music and literature. Despite continued ill-health, which now and again necessitated visits of months' duration to Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia, Lanier did a vast amount of work. He was engaged as first flute for the Peabody Symphony Concerts, a position that he filled with rare distinction for six years. As to his literary work, this began with the publication of his novel, 'Tiger-lilies', in 1867, and in the same year, of occasional poems in 'The Round Table' of New York. 'Corn', published in 'Lippincott's Magazine' (Philadelphia) for February, 1875, is ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... could make them when brought into competition with London smoke,—right on to the park. Outside and inside the window, flowers and green things were so arranged that the room itself almost looked as though it were a bower in a garden. And everything in that bower was rich and rare; and there was nothing there which annoyed by its rarity or was distasteful by its richness. The seats, though they were costly as money could buy, were meant for sitting, and were comfortable as seats. There were books for reading, and the means of reading them. Two or three gems of English art ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... out at the flying scud and back at the storm-bewitched girl with laughter rippling from her throat and the wild joy of a rare moment in ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... obtruded upon me, affected me with very mortifying reflections on my inability to apply it to any useful purpose. From the confines of Buxar to Benares I was followed and fatigued by the clamors of the discontented inhabitants. It was what I expected in a degree, because it is rare that the exercise of authority should prove satisfactory to all who are the objects of it. The distresses which were produced by the long-continued drought unavoidably tended to heighten the general discontent; yet I have reason to fear that the cause existed principally in a defective, if not ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... moments came with less frequency. After a time, they passed away altogether. She saw no end to it; she saw no sin in it. What sin could there be? Janet's arguments had penetrated more deeply into her mind than she had ever imagined. When, on rare occasions, she was alone in the hotel where they happened to be staying—and it was then that doubt, while there was any, oppressed her—she hugged Janet's sayings to her mind, forced them to support her. "You're only a conventionalist, like ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... the fossil Major—at the end of the evening. She had enjoyed herself immensely, though the simple material for rapture was only foursquare Halma played by the four acuter intelligences of the six, and draughts for the goozler and the fossil. But then Sally had a rare faculty for enjoying herself, and she was perfectly contented with only one admirer to torment, though he was only old Prosy, as she called him, but not to his face. She was jolly glad mother had put on her maroon-coloured watered silk with ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... must have something positively good about them. They should be not merely amusing or entertaining and harmless, but instructive and stimulating to the better nature. Fortunately such books are not so rare as they have been. Some of the best minds are now being turned to the work of providing them. Within a few months such honored names in the world of letters as those of Hamerton and Higginson have been added to the list which contains those of "Peter Parley," Jacob Abbott, "Walter Aimwell," ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... her cheeks aflame, but angry spite dies hard, and she smiled scornfully, as she added, "I was amusing the company with a specimen of love-making that is rare outside of novels. It ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... old cowboy. "An' I'd go ag'in to-morrow night, ef I could." Entertainments in that locality were rare, and the show was a ...
— Dave Porter at Star Ranch - Or, The Cowboy's Secret • Edward Stratemeyer
... so," Lord Roos said; "for I esteem thee for thy rare qualities. I know not thy peer for cunning and knavery. Thy mischievous schemes are so well-conceived that they prove thee to have an absolute genius for villany. Scruples thou hast none; and considerations and feelings which might move men less obdurate than thyself, have no influence over thee. ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... rejoicings. Everyone felt particularly tender toward their girl on that day, remembering how "poor Charlie" had loved her, and they tried to show it in the gifts and good wishes they sent her. She found her sanctum all aglow with autumn leaves, and on her table so many rare and pretty things, she quite forgot she was an heiress and only felt how rich she ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... the currency that an idiotic saying can get. The man that first says it thinks he has made a discovery. The man he says it to, thinks the same. It departs on its travels, is received everywhere with admiring acceptance, and not only as a piece of rare and acute observation, but as being exhaustively true and profoundly wise; and so it presently takes its place in the world's list of recognized and established wisdoms, and after that no one thinks of examining it to ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... highways and by-ways—bonny wee flowers looking bravely up at the dazzling sun, and giving with child-like generosity their beauty to the loneliest spots and most desolate places. Close up to a fence that surrounded a garden where bloomed hundreds of rare and lovely blossoms they crowded, praising with sweet artlessness the grace and fragrance of their more precious sisters, and wondering every morning when the gardener came out at early dawn and collected many young plants together, and gathered roses, and pansies, and gladioles, ...
— Harper's Young People, July 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Lorraine was sweet and fair; The Lady Lorraine was young; She had wonderful eyes and glorious hair, And a voice of a cadence rich and rare; Oh, she was a lady beyond compare— By all were her praises sung, Till valley and plain Took up the refrain, And rang with the praise of ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells
... quietly, "one soul expressed completely in a single person, I mean, is exceedingly rare. Not often is a physical instrument found perfect enough to provide it with adequate expression. In the lower ranges of humanity—certainly in animal and insect life—one soul is shared by many. Behind ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... brought up in Jerusalem at the feet of Gamaliel, thoroughly instructed in the law and the prophets, and able therefore to speak with authority concerning the Old Testament to both Jews and Gentiles. His indomitable energy and fiery zeal, united with rare practical wisdom, had made him the foremost man in persecuting the Christians. When the proper time had come Jesus met him on the road to Damascus with converting power, and all his superior education and endowments were thenceforth consecrated to the ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... flushed delicately with the soft pink of the lichen flowers that bloom in the rare days of early summer. Her eyes played with a light as elusive, as quick as the golden ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... moment of rare, but ungovernable passion, had leaped from her lips in such a fast and furious torrent of denunciation, that before the first few moments of the horror she had caused ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... with this 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 ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... under the guidance of Whitey. The pale-faced man had thrown himself body and soul into the movement. It was a rare thing to see Whitey excited. Other men were readily impressed. After a time, when anger had reached a certain point where men melt into hot action, these fixed figures of men would sweep into fluid action. And then the fates of Arizona ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... are always certain rare but intensely interesting anticipations. Michael Angelo could not very well believe in Julius II or Leo X, or in much that they believed in; but he could paint the Superman three hundred years before Nietzsche ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... "Romance" for the piano is marked by some excellent incidents and much passion, but it lacks unity. It is the last work in "An Album of Pianoforte Pieces," which is otherwise full of rare delights. It is made up of opera 25, 26, and 39. Opus 25 contains four characteristic pieces,—a "Dance" full of dance-rapture, a most original "Impromptu," and a "Rondo Giocoso," which is just the kind of brilliantly witty scherzo whose infrequency in American music is so lamentable and so surprising. ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... while I am saying a few passing words upon the subject the greatest bibliographical event that ever happened in the book-market of the New World is taking place under our eyes. Here is Mr. Bernard Quaritch just come from his well-known habitat, No. 15 Piccadilly, with such a collection of rare, beautiful, and somewhat expensive volumes as the Western Continent never saw before on the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... mechanically winding his watch. "What a reverie I have been in! three-quarters of an hour since they left me! Ah, Tilton, this wandering will never do, one cannot have everything, and the other one is true, and makes sure of me. What a ripe, rare loveliness; tut, tut, keep your eyes from ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny |
