"Singular" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which (if it became me to offer any pledge for what I assert to be such) I could pledge life, fortune, and honour. It was the morning before last, when meeting with the King at Chiffinch's unexpectedly—in fact I had looked in to fool an hour away, and to learn how your scheme advanced—I saw a singular scene. Your niece terrified little Chiffinch—(the hen Chiffinch, I mean)—bid the King defiance to his teeth, and walked out of the presence triumphantly, under the guardianship of a young fellow of little mark or likelihood, excepting a tolerable personal presence, and the advantage ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... something had put them frae their ordinar. He wasnae easy fleyed, an' gaed straucht up to the wa's; an' what suld he find there but a man, or the appearance of a man, sittin' in the inside upon a grave. He was of a great stature, an' black as hell, and his e'en were singular to see. {144} Mr. Soulis had heard tell o' black men, mony's the time; but there was something unco about this black man that daunted him. Het as he was, he took a kind o' cauld grue in the marrow o' his banes; but up he spak ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... make a reference word agree in number with the noun to which it refers. Such faulty reference occurs most frequently after collective nouns, such as mob, crowd, council, jury, assembly; after distributive pronouns, such as everyone, anybody, nobody; and after two or more singular and plural nouns, where the reporter forgets momentarily to which he is referring. In the following sentences note that each of the italicized pronouns violates one or more of these principles, thereby polluting ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... fire, which merged into the reflection of the sky above the burning mill. Later, came things which were strange and eventful in his life, but that under-glow was for ever afterwards in his eyes. It was in singular contrast to the snapping fire which had been theirs all the days of his life till now—the snapping fire of action, will and design. It still was there when they said to him suddenly that the wind had changed, and that the flame and sparks ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... bucks was an old man, yet he seemed to have a certain dignity about him. Frank's curiosity was now greater than ever. He made up his mind that there was something singular about this party of Crees who seemed to be wandering in the wilderness without guns, or any means for obtaining food, and, if possible, he meant to discover what the secret ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... stooping forward with his body half doubled up, was being assisted over the ice by Mr. Weller, in a very singular and un-swanlike manner, when Mr. Pickwick most innocently ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... at me, either," he said to himself, as he caught the singular glow of what seemed like two balls of fire, just under the ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... it—you red coat!" The officer raised his sword as if to cut him down for the impertinence, then replied, "You are too brave a soldier to be killed, you black devil!" A few years since, a musket evidently a relic of the Revolution, was found near the same spot in the singular position of that thrust down by Babcock, no doubt being the same, which was deposited among the relics in the archives at Washington. Babcock died but a few years ago, aged we believe ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany
... those who knew how long and how bitterly it was his nature to hate. "Robespierre of the party!" muttered St. Just. "Barere is the only man whom Robespierre has forgiven." We have an account of this singular repast from one of the guests. Robespierre condemned the senseless brutality with which Hebert had conducted the proceedings against the Austrian woman, and, in talking on that subject, became so much excited that he broke his plate ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... in various religious engagements. After her departure he again visited Minden, with the neighboring villages of Eidinghausen and Hille. His visit to the last-named place (1 mo. 13, 1825) was marked by a singular circumstance. ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... Aristotle illustrated by Homer—that was to be the standard of all poetic expression. But literature had wandered far from Homer, and we have to think of what rules the Essay on Criticism laid down. The poet was to be cautious, "to avoid extremes": he must be conventional, never "singular"; there was constant reference to "Wit," "Nature," and "The Muse," and these were convertible terms. A single instance is luminous. We have the positive authority of Warburton for saying that Pope regarded as the finest effort of his skill and art as a poet the insertion of the machinery ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... circumstances; and perhaps those which might at present be deemed the most unfortunate, may ultimately prove of the greatest advantage, by urging me to exertion.—Your lordship is not aware of what I allude to; a late event in my singular history," continued I, taking up the newspapers which lay on his library table—"my singular history has not yet, I fancy, got into the public newspapers. Perhaps you will hear ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... Beatrice said reflectively. "It sounds like a nom de plume; it suggests the kind of name a lady novelist would assume. Too singular to be real. And are you quite sure that the lady wrote that ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... it is a part. Aristotle makes wonder the forerunner of science. So our admiration of beauty is a tribute paid in advance to the fresh insight it promises. Whether it be called miracle or inspiration, the artist must see his theme as something excellent and singular. This is perhaps that "strangeness" which Lord Bacon requires in all "excellent beauty," the new significance coming direct, and not through reflection, and therefore ineffable and incomparable. That Giotto and his successors went ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... when they stepped aboard the train that morning, they fully intended to return to the house. Their disappearance, therefore, is involuntary on their part; I am confident of that. Now, what can be the explanation of this most singular occurrence? Can it be that—by the way, Senor Calderon, have you had any visitors to the house during the absence of Don ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... that a singular quiet settled down on Brockhurst—a quiet of waiting, of pause, rather than of accomplishment. But Julius March, for reasons aforesaid, and Mademoiselle de Mirancourt, in virtue of her unclouded faith in the teachings of her Church,—which assures its members of the beneficent ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... seemed the b'y for the brandy," she saw nothing amiss in him. In the midst of this excitement in walked the officer commanding the preventive service of the district. He was soon closeted in the sanctum, and after a due discussion of the singular proceedings of the stranger, on the part of each member of the Lanport smoking club, the worthy lieutenant declared "it was not only d——d odd, but very suspicious;" and that he would beard the foe who had so unceremoniously taken possession ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 579 - Volume 20, No. 579, December 8, 1832 • Various
... last generation, a life (to some eyes) of wasted leisure and deep futility, but common enough, and getting from its permitted commonness a justification from life, who is wasteful but roughly just. Miss Mayor tells this story with singular skill, more by contrast than by drama, bringing her chief character into relief against her world, as it passes in swift procession. Her tale is in a form becoming common among our best writers; it is compressed into a space about a third as long as the ordinary ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... tobacco it has been the favorite theme of many writers, who have endeavored to shed new light on the origin and early history of this singular plant. Upwards of three hundred volumes have been written, embracing works in nearly all of the languages of Europe, concerning the herb and the various methods of using it. Most writers have confined themselves to the commercial ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... facility with which the aid of our graphic department enables us to transport our readers, (for we have already sent them to Sydney,) is somewhat singular, not to say ludicrous; and would baffle the wand of Trismegistus, or the cap of Fortunatus himself. Thus, during the last six weeks we have journeyed from the Palace at Stockholm (No. 277) to that ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 10, No. 283, 17 Nov 1827 • Various
... have seen him," remarked Charlie, recalling the drunkard he had watched the afternoon of his severe sickness, and remembering, too, Aunt Stanshy's singular conduct. ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand
... two or three habitants from the lower town, witnessed the arrival of this lady, who came down from Montreal. They saw her take boat for the bark Dauphine, one of the last ships to go down the river that fall. Yes, it was easily to be established. Dark, with singular, brown eyes, petite, yet not over small, of good figure—assuredly so much could be said; for obviously the king, kindly as he might feel toward the colony of New France, could not send out, among the young women supplied to the colonists as wives, very many such demoiselles as this; ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... irresistible prostration succeeds the count's furious passion. The various circumstances which I am describing to you are to be noticed in nearly all great crimes. The assassin is always seized, after the murder, with a horrible and singular hatred against his victim, and he often mutilates the body. Then comes the period of a prostration so great, of torpor so irresistible, that murderers have been known literally to go to sleep in the blood, that they have been surprised ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... gun out at the window. Fearfully harassed in that quarter, Mr. Carrack wheeled rapidly about, encountering as he turned, the two servants in livery, still making the circuit of the homestead—who in alarm of their lives from this singular figure in the red cloak, fled into the fields and lurked in an old out-house till daylight. As these scampered away before him, Mr. Tiffany, to relieve himself of the apparition of the gun, would have turned the ...
— Chanticleer - A Thanksgiving Story of the Peabody Family • Cornelius Mathews
... the plural, and are Dot at all singular in your prolonged absence with the charming Miss Alden. You certainly cannot look upon her as an invalid any longer, however else you may regard her," she ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... the terrace, Lord Glistonbury, who always heard himself speak with singular complacency, continued to give his ideas on education; sometimes appealing to Mr. Russell, sometimes happy to catch the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... had a singular inclination to govern the province by his individual will, his first move on his return, was to put a stop to this gratuitous legislation. Accordingly, one evening, when an inspired cobbler was holding forth to an assemblage of the ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... home—but only subsequently. What took place before his departure had the singular solidity and completeness of systematic violence; also, it bore the moral beauty of all actions that lead to peace and friendship, for, when it was over, and the final vocalizations of Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, were growing faint with increasing distance, ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... had been describing our Opera, not your own; we have just set out with one in what they call, the French manner, but about as like it, as my Lady Pomfret's hash of plural persons and singular verbs or infinitive moods was to Italian. They sing to jigs, and dance to church music -. Phaeton is run away with by horses that go a foot's-pace, like the Electress's(1338) coach, with such long traces, that the postilion was in one street and the coachman in another;—then ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... notice two curious isolated patches, detached from the main body of the chalk. That to the west forms the twin height of the Sinodun Hills, rising abruptly out of the green sand; that to the east is the knoll of Windsor, rising abruptly out of the thick and damp clay. It is a singular and unique patch, almost exactly round, and as a result of some process at which geology can hardly guess the circle is bisected by the river. If ever the chalk of the north bank rose high it has, in some manner, been worn down. That on the south bank remains in a steep cliff with which everyone ...
— The Historic Thames • Hilaire Belloc
... brain whence the motor innervation emanates, and to the reflex centres in the cerebellum, but passes close by the vagus or pneumogastric nerve, which rules the heart and the vasomotor functions. We have then multiplied reasons for the singular effect of sound on motor reactions, and on the other organic functions which have so much to do with ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... By a singular piece of good fortune the one great wreck which towers above all the rest is the spot with which the Emperor himself is historically associated. Through the nine terrible months during which the conspiracy of Sejanus was in progress, he never left, Seutonius tells us, the Villa Jovis; ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... Remarkable, indeed, is the way in which it groups together such a vast and varied series of biological[4] facts, and even paradoxes, which it appears more or less clearly to explain, as the following instances will show. By this theory of "Natural Selection," light is thrown on the more singular facts relating to the geographical distribution of animals and plants; for example, on the resemblance between the past and present inhabitants of different parts of the earth's surface. Thus in Australia remains ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... It is singular however to observe that Wolsey won for England all the prestige of a great military Power, after a period during which that ancient reputation of hers had been all but completely lost, without any single achievement memorable in the annals of war, and without producing ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... ever since he was born, and indeed had missed being present at his birth only because the Khedive Ismail had summoned him unexpectedly to Cairo. But the Levantine merchant who was Arthur's father had been his most intimate friend, and it was with singular pleasure that Dr Porhoet saw the young man, on his advice, enter his own profession and achieve a distinction ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... This singular document is still preserved in the State Paper office. Even after the establishment of royal dockyards, the sovereign—as late as the reign of Elizabeth—entered into formal contracts with shipwrights for the repair and maintenance of ships, as well ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... stigmata of ordination are as immutable as those of the soldier are. And it is the same in other callings which are strongly in opposition, strong contrasts with civilization. These violent, eccentric, singular signs—sui generis—are what make the harlot, the robber, the murderer, the ticket-of-leave man, so easily recognizable by their foes, the spy and the police, to whom they are as game to the sportsman: ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... independently of the very large and indeed altogether disproportionate representation of the nobility or titled classes, we observe a very great preponderance of rich land-owners, representing in their own persons the agricultural and vine-growing interests. Very singular, also, is the small proportion of lawyers, only 155 being classed as advocates, and the magistrates and attorneys swelling the number only to 200. In an ordinary American Congress at least one-half, and usually two-thirds, of the members are or have ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... language, Arabic, was spoken by the Jews of Kairwan and those of Bagdad. Thus equipped, they performed in a remarkable way the task allotted them by their talents and their circumstances, to which they had been devoting themselves with singular zeal for two centuries. The Jews are missioned mediators between the Orient and the Occident, and their activity as such, illustrated by their additions to general culture and science, is of peculiar interest. In the period under ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... in a somewhat singular manner, though it all seemed perfectly logical and consecutive to Baxter. He was climbing up the outer wall of Westminster Abbey in his pyjamas and a tall hat, when the fat man, suddenly thrusting his head out of a window which Baxter had ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Supreme Power. This Supreme Power was almost as vague (to him) as George Eliot's Permanent Influence is to us. For Carlyle did not believe "that the Soul could enter into any relations with God, and in the sight of God it was nothing." There is nothing singular in this. The religious, but independent-minded Joubert thought "it was not hard to know God, provided one did not force oneself to define Him," and deprecated "bringing into the domain of reason, that which ...
— Cobwebs of Thought • Arachne
... remain where we were. I narrated our accident; and my clothes having been dried at the caboose, I dressed myself and went on deck. My companion, the waterman, did not escape so well; his foot was frostbitten, and he lost four of his toes before he recovered. It was singular that he, who was a man grown up, should suffer so much more than I did. I cannot account for it, except that my habit of always being in the water had hardened me more to the cold. We remained on board two days, during which we were ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... understand that being resolved never to give him a sou, he left him master of his body, and authorised him to be guilty of all imaginable follies. A permission accorded in such terms, caused Laurent singular anxiety. ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... changes. He did not cease urging his friends at Oxford to make use of this golden opportunity for reforming the university from within, and warning them that delay would be dearly purchased.[320] 'Gladstone's connection with Oxford,' said Sir George Lewis, 'is now exercising a singular influence upon the politics of the university. Most of his high church supporters stick to him, and (insomuch as it is difficult to struggle against the current) he is liberalising them, instead of their torifying him. He is giving them a push forwards instead ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... but they do not, they cannot reflect upon their own enjoyment of them, and therefore they are not capable of such pleasure; for the more distinct knowledge of things in relation to ourselves, the more delight ensueth upon it. Many creatures have singular qualities and virtues, but they are nothing the happier; for they know them not, and have no use of them, but are wholly destinated to the use of man, who therefore is only said to enjoy them, because he only is capable ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... passed over to Iona to join the community there, in which his virtues and talents placed him high in the estimation of the monks. He was characterised by a special devotion to the Mother of God, which won for him a singular purity of soul. He was made tutor to the three sons of Eugenius IV, King of Scotland, and brought them up carefully and wisely. Later on he became a Bishop. St. Conan was greatly honoured in Scotland. His name survives at Kilconan, in Fortingal, Perthshire, and at St. Conan's Well, near ...
— A Calendar of Scottish Saints • Michael Barrett
... 28 provinces (oblasti, singular - oblast); Blagoevgrad, Burgas, Dobrich, Gabrovo, Khaskovo, Kurdzhali, Kyustendil, Lovech, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pernik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Razgrad, Ruse, Shumen, Silistra, Sliven, Smolyan, Sofiya, Sofiya-Grad, Stara Zagora, Turgovishte, Varna, ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... was a sailor of the school of Nelson and of Dundonald—a man, that is, with a spark of that warlike genius which begins where mechanical rules end. He was a man of singular physical beauty, with a certain magnetism and fire about him which made men willing to die for him, and women who had never spoken to him fall headlong in love with him. His whole career is curiously picturesque. He became a middy at the tender age of eleven years; went through fierce ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... farmers pay L50 and L60 a year for beer drunk by their labourers—a serious addition to their wages. The railway companies and others who employ mechanics, do not allow them any beer. The allowance of a good cottage and a quarter of an acre of garden for 1s. per week is not singular. Many who were at the Autumn Manoeuvres of the present year may remember having a handsome row of houses, rather than cottages, pointed out to them as inhabited by labourers at 1s. per week. In the immediate ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... account (as the authors of such books very often are) for not having given more or done more or done it better than was really in my power. Gipsies in England are passing away as rapidly as Indians in North America. They keep among themselves the most singular fragments of their Oriental origin; they abound in quaint characteristics, and yet almost nothing is done to preserve what another generation will deeply regret the loss of. There are complete dictionaries of the Dacotah and ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... 1919. Mr. Clemenceau, premier of France, was elected chairman. The difficulties in the way of an agreement among themselves as to the terms to be imposed on Germany were so great that it was almost exactly four months before the terms of peace were laid before the delegates from Germany. A singular coincidence is to be noticed. It was almost four years to a day from the sinking of the Lusitania. That act of piracy was one of the acts that roused America and led to our intervention. The sinking of the ship was made the occasion for a school ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... for cattlemen everywhere, which made it the more singular that Lionel Young should manage to find so much time for sitting and riding with Johnnie, or taking her to walk up the steepest and loneliest canyons. They were together in one way or another half the day at least; and during the other half Johnnie's face wore always a pre-occupied look, ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... an orator. Simple, unadorned, straightforward, he speaks just as he feels; and this lent a singular fascination to a speech which from other lips might have sounded thin and ineffectual, for the speech was nothing less than a revelation into the depths of a nature singularly rich in courage and experience. One cannot help thinking of all that lay behind those plain and unadorned words in which ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... were covered with card teeth, and the wool, as it was drawn in between them, was carded fine, and spread evenly over all the surface; and in a few minutes Jonas and Oliver found that it began to come out at the other end, in the shape of rolls. One roll after another dropped out, in a very singular manner. Oliver thought that it was a very curious machine indeed, to take in wool in that way at one end, and drop it out in beautiful long rolls at ...
— Jonas on a Farm in Winter • Jacob Abbott
... fussy, and advisory, in his own peculiar free-and-easy fashion; and Mrs. Follingsbee was instructive and patronizing to the very last degree. Lillie had bewailed in her sympathizing bosom John's unaccountable and most singular moral Quixotism in regard to the wine question, and been comforted by her appreciative discourse. Mrs. Follingsbee had a sort of indefinite faith in French phrases for mending all the broken places in life. ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... "Indeed? of that singular man, who I think came tipsy once to Sir Francis's house?" Major Pendennis said, with impenetrable countenance. "Who ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... pretending to be grieved with the disappointment, drew off his men another way. It is said that when Menander reported this afterwards to Antigonus, and the Macedonians commended Eumenes, imputing it to his singular good-nature, that having it in his power to make slaves of their children, and outrage their wives, he forbore and spared them all, Antigonus replied, "Alas, good friends, he had no regard to us, but to himself, being loath to wear so many shackles ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... strength. Its legs and feet, most delicately formed, were, like those upper members, bare. It wore a tunic of the purest white; and round its waist was bound a lustrous belt, the sheen of which was beautiful. It held a branch of fresh green holly in its hand: and, in singular contradiction of that wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed with summer flowers. But the strangest thing about it was, that from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear jet of light, by which all this was visible; ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... A singular feature of this execution was the arrest of General Hancock this morning, who appeared in court, to answer a writ of habeas corpus, with a full staff. It is well to notice that this execution by military order has ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... paper were as follows: [The joke of this bill consists chiefly in its being written in very bad Russian, with continual mistakes as to plural and singular, ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... and with a singular abstention in his semi-delirium from the use of the title of respect—sir; "anyone would have done the same. Now tell me about the poor fellow ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... that the Romans were a religious people, whereas the Italians were not. It is a singular fact that Rome, when left long to herself, has always shown a tendency to become systematically devout, whereas most of the other Italian states have exhibited an equally strong inclination to a scepticism not unfrequently mixed with the grossest superstition. It must ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... the question was that the country was torn by the factions of Whig and Tory, which were then in the full bloom of party spirit and narrow rancorous animosity. The close of the life of William IV. had presented the singular and disastrous contradiction of a King in something like open opposition to his Ministers. William had begun by being a liberal in politics, but alarmed by the progress of reform, he had hung back resisted, and ended by being dragged along an unwilling tolerator of a Whig regime. The Duke ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... Miss Betham,—I have been pleased with your friends, tho' (which is not singular) they sometimes fly higher than my imagination can follow. I think the author ought to mix more, I will not say with Fools, but with People of Common Comprehension. His own intellect would be as bright, and what emanated from it more clear. This is perhaps a very ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... implies, are men freed from slavery; and as it is to these singular negroes acting as hired servants that I have been chiefly indebted for opening this large section of Africa, a few general remarks on their character cannot be ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... gardener. We have no other, therefore he is the head. Out of the garden he is known as PETER WALLOPS. It was SARK who insisted upon calling him ARPACHSHAD. SARK had noticed that about the time of the Flood there was singular deliberation in entering upon the marriage state. Matrimony did not seem to be thought of till a man had turned the corner of a century. SHEM, himself, for example, was fully a hundred before his third son, ARPACHSHAD, was born. But ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, November 15, 1890 • Various
... Mrs. Leffingwell were driving with their host ran away, and in the flight managed to precipitate the vehicle, and themselves, down the side of one of the numerous deep valleys of the streams seeking the Mediterranean. Thus, by a singular caprice of destiny Honors was deprived of both her parents at a period which—some chose to believe—was the height of their combined glories. Randolph Leffingwell lived long enough to be taken back to Nice, and to consign his infant daughter and sundry ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... exclusive use; as "to put on the back" and "to indorse;" or by an actual distinction of meanings, as "naturalist," and "physician;" or by difference of relation, as "I" and "Me" (each of which the rustics of our different provinces still use in all the cases singular of the first personal pronoun). Even the mere difference, or corruption, in the pronunciation of the same word, if it have become general, will produce a new word with a distinct signification; thus "property" and "propriety;" the latter ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... trial of his own strength, so that one day, all of a sudden, he polished his boots himself, bought white gloves, and set forth on his way, substituting himself for Frederick, and almost imagining that he was the other by a singular intellectual evolution, in which there was, at the same time, vengeance and sympathy, imitation ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... of the Ghetto is a singular mixture. It is half-ironic gaiety and half-melancholy. But it has not the depressing sadness of the Russian Quarter. Its temper is more akin to that of the Irish colony that has settled around Southwark and Bermondsey. There is sadness, but no misery. ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... Pope) asserts that Pope formed Kent's taste, and that Kent was the artist to whom the English are chiefly indebted for diffusing "a taste in laying out grounds." The design of the Prince of Wales's garden was copied from Pope's at Twickenham. Warton applauds "his singular effort of art and taste, in impressing so much variety and scenery on a spot of five acres." Pope was the first who ridiculed the "formal, French, Dutch, false and unnatural taste in gardening," both in prose and verse. (See, for ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... the Minnetarees a singular night-dance is, it is said, sometimes held. During this amusement an opportunity is given to the squaws to select their favorites. A squaw, as she dances, will advance to a person with whom she is captivated, either for his personal attractions or for his renown ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... institutions of more or less value. The Hydriote was quarrelsome, turbulent, quick to use the knife, but outspoken, honest in dealing, and an excellent sailor. The picture of Chian life, as drawn even by those who have judged the Greeks most severely, is one of singular beauty and interest; the picture of a self-governing society in which the family trained the citizen in its own bosom, and in which, while commerce enriched all, the industry of the poor within their homes and in their gardens was refined by the practice of ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... Fairfield when he entered the room, and for weeks the awful expression upon his face haunted her like the vision of a midnight ghost. Levi was startled, and Mrs. Fairfield, accustomed as she was to the ways of her husband, was deeply moved by his singular conduct. When he was ailing, he was subject to fainting fits; but he had never appeared so badly as on ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... again. Fortunately he did not look at his friend's face before he went. For that face had a singular expression upon it. Jed sat heavily down in the chair by the bench. A vivid recollection of a recent remark made in that very shop had suddenly come to him. Charlie Phillips had made it in answer to a question of ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... he could hardly have heard an echo of it from this isolated room. The window was open, but looked upon roofs and back yards; no sound of carriage wheels rose to break the quiet. Despite the stillness, the doctor had to strain his ear to catch the irregular breathing of the sick woman. He had a singular feeling, although the most unimaginative of men, that this third floor, containing only himself and the woman, had been sliced from the rest of the house and hung suspended in space, independent of natural laws. It was after the book ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... appeared in 1748. He does not refer to Anthony Collins' essay on Liberty, published thirty-three years before, in which the same question is treated to the same effect, with singular force and lucidity. It may be said, perhaps, that it is not wonderful that the two freethinkers should follow the same line of reasoning; but no such theory will account for the fact that in 1754, the famous Calvinistic divine, Jonathan Edwards, President of the College of New Jersey, ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... were so confused and intermingled in his recollection that they melted the one in the other, and became in some measure the image of one and the same person. Any parallel became impossible between them, thanks to this singular confusion of the two points of comparison. Mrs. Scott and Miss Percival remained thus inseparable in the thoughts of Jean until the day when it was granted to him to see them again. The impression of that meeting was not effaced; it was always ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... inscription, which immediately became famous: "Salvation to the Saviour!" Everybody admired the lofty inspiration which had dictated this inscription, as also the taste which seemed to be the privilege of the followers of Wagner. Many also, however (it was singular enough), made this slight alteration in it: "Salvation from the ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... "What a singular system! Well, if nobody elected or appointed them, yet surely they must have been accountable to somebody for the manner in which they exercised powers on which the welfare and ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... bard of our own day has described the onslaught of the Matabili in poetry of singular force ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois
... are a perfect picture of Mr. Webster's outer man, and we have but to add to the description a voice of singular beauty and power with the tone and compass of an organ. The look of his face and the sound of his voice were in themselves as eloquent as anything Mr. ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... Davenant," said Helen, who saw, or thought she saw, a singular emotion in Beauclerc's countenance, and fancied he was upon the point of yielding; but Lady Davenant, without looking at him, replied,—"No, my dear, I will not ask him—I will ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... kept the Earl watch on the peasant host. The peasants had encompassed all the footways, though they were mostly of a mind that the Earl had made off to his ships. These were now commanded by his son Erling, a young man of singular promise. ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... the first scholar that ever spoke to me like that," he said at last. A singular expression had come into his face; he was having a new experience. For another full minute he stared down at the girl, but he apparently had no longer any ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... minute account of this celebrated military institution of the Greeks, has recapitulated nearly all the advantages and defects imputed to the Swiss herisson, by modern European writers. (See lib. 17, sec. 25 et seq.) It is singular, that these exploded arms and tactics should be revived, after the lapse of nearly seventeen centuries, to be foiled again in the same manner ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... acrimony of these remarks called Loudon (who was a man of peace) from his reserve. "It's rather singular," said he, "but I seem to have practised about all ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and the Bonn discussions there emerged with singular clearness a highly significant relation. The mean magnitudes of the two groups into which Prof. Boss divided his 279 stars were respectively 6.6 and 8.6, the corresponding mean proper motions 21".9 and 20".9. In other words, a ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 829, November 21, 1891 • Various
... the world have, with singular unanimity, recognized this change, and have changed their laws to meet the new conditions. The change which they have made was indicated to them by their maritime laws, which in this respect have been alike in all civilized nations and from a very early ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... that Kundry in her singular role has been playing fair; that, though life for her (which paradoxically is death) depends upon failure, she has put forth her whole strength in the temptation. But it is not at this juncture the penitent who is in the ascendant, it is the evil side of Kundry, and at ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... word is used for the soul of man and for a glass of gin is singular. 3. "What have I done?" is asked by the knave and the thief. 4. Who was the discoverer of America is not yet ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... was at that time filled by Alexander the Sixth; a man who, although degraded by unrestrained indulgence of the most sordid appetites, was endowed by nature with singular acuteness, as well as energy of character. He lent a willing ear to the application of the Spanish government, and made no hesitation in granting what cost him nothing, while it recognized the assumption of powers, which had already ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... cultivated branches of philosophy in our time is what is called inductive logic, the study of the conditions under which our sciences have evolved. Writers on this subject have begun to show a singular unanimity as to what the laws of nature and elements of fact mean, when formulated by mathematicians, physicists and chemists. When the first mathematical, logical and natural uniformities, the ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... from which position he winked occasionally at the parson over the minister's shoulder. "Ah, Robarts, delighted to see you. How odd, by the by, that your brother should be my private secretary!" Mark said that it was a singular coincidence. ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... knew about these singular matters, or would when they had read their letters. Yes, of course, the Missouri movers had left a lot of letters, some for their folks back East next year maybe, but some for people in the train. Banion, Woodhull—had they left any word? Why, yes, both of them. ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... will invent a certain set of customs which are the same thing to them as law, and which indeed are the same as law. They have tried in Johns Hopkins University experiments among children, to leave them entirely alone, without any instruction, and it is quite singular how soon customs will grow up, and it is also quite singular, and a thing that always surprises the socialist and communist, that about the earliest concept at which they will arrive is that of private property! They will soon get a notion that one child owns a stick, or ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... nostrils, like the buck that scents a taint in the air, and a gaze as riveted as that of the trained pointer while he waits his master's aim. Then, falling back on his feet, a low exclamation, in the soft tones that form so singular a contrast to its harsher cries in the Indian warrior's voice, was barely audible; otherwise, he was undisturbed. His countenance was calm, and his quick, dark, eagle eye moved over the leafy panorama, as if to take in at a glance ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... on the ballustrade of the roof, are reported to amount to more than four thousand. Many among them are said to be of great merit. Over the dome rises a tower or spire, or rather obelisk, for its singular shape renders it difficult to ascertain its appellation, which, whatever may be its intrinsic merit, adds little either to the beauty or to the magnificence of the structure which it surmounts. This obelisk ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 379, Saturday, July 4, 1829. • Various
... agitated for the first time in his life—took leave of his superior officer, with a singular mixture of solemnity and politeness, ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... covered a stratum of white marl about a foot thick, and this had been pierced in many places by the heat that had fused the marl and converted it into a clinker or sharply-edged white slag, mixed with an ochreous yellow and bright red. I had never met with anything like this singular example of igneous action upon marls. In the neighbourhood there were considerable masses of the same clinker-like material exhibiting a honeycombed appearance, that would have been well adapted for millstones. The natives informed me that all the millstones of the northern ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... we had several adventures in the trapping and killing of wild animals. One of them was of such a singular and dangerous kind, that you may feel ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... seventeen cubits, and even more. It has the eyes of a pig, teeth large and tusk-like, of a size proportioned to its frame; unlike any other animal, it is without a tongue; it can not move its under-jaw, and in this respect, too, it is singular, being the only animal in the world which moves the upper-jaw but not the under. It has strong claws and a scaly skin, impenetrable upon the back. In the water it is blind, but on land it is very keen of sight. As it lives chiefly in the river, it has ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... first time in my life I wanted a home and a wife. The night we met I felt more attracted to you than to the other charming Californians I had met because you seemed more a part of the country. It is singular that a man should love the country first, and the woman as a logical result, but I did. I think that you know I love you; but not how much, nor what it means to me. I am not good enough for you. My soul is old. I see life exactly ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... from a distance, to be sure, and come over to exchange greetings with Cherry, but the disastrous result of the fellow's garrulity was still so fresh in Boyd's mind that he could not invite him to join them, and Fraser, with singular modesty, had quickly withdrawn, to wander lonesomely for a while, till sheer ennui drove him to bed. His dejection awakened little sympathy in Boyd, who felt happier for the removal ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... qualities far more entrancing than were likely to have come from the use of popular idioms. Yet, the two Oriental melodies having been mentioned, it is well to look at their structure to discover the source of their singular charm. There is no mystery as to the cause in the minds of students of folk-song. The tunes are evolved from a scale so prevalent among peoples of Eastern origin that it has come to be called the Oriental scale. Its distinguishing ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel |
