"Singularity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... circulation of the Scriptures I will now relate an anecdote not altogether divested of singularity. I have already spoken of the water-mill by the bridge of Azeca. I had formed acquaintance with the tenant of this mill, who was known in the neighbourhood by the name of Don Antero. One day, taking me into a retired place, he asked me, to my great astonishment, ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... what fashion,/More than his singularity he goes/ Upon this present action] We will learn what he is to do, besides going himself; what are his powers, and ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... man and woman were employed in striking the tents and in making hurried preparations for departure; the boy Jasper was putting the harness upon the ponies and attaching them to the carts; and, to increase the singularity of the scene, two or three wild-looking women and girls, in red cloaks and immense black beaver bonnets, came from I know not what direction, and, after exchanging a few words with the others, commenced ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... differently focussed. The broad humors of the camp, its swift and picturesque play of light and shade, its farce and caricature no less than its atmosphere of comradeship, of sentiment, and of daring, are all transferred to the humor of the newly settled country. The very word "humor" once meant singularity of character, "some extravagant habit, passion, or affection," says Dryden, "particular to some one person." Every newly opened country encourages, for a while, this oddness and incongruity of individual character. It fosters it, and at the same moment it laughs at it. It ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... in Cavalieri, Cecchino, Febo, or Perini, except their singularity of youth and grace, good parts and beauty. The vulgar are offended when an illustrious man pays homage to these qualities, forgetful of Shakespeare's self-abasement before Mr. W.H. and of Languet's prostration ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... Arabian Nights, which merits notice for its singularity, and as exhibiting a particular example of the credulity of the people of the East, is that of a man who married a sorceress, without being in any way conscious of her character in that respect. She was sufficiently agreeable in her person, and he found for the most part no reason ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... Colambre! all the Broadhursts!' said his mother, wakening him, as she passed by, to receive them as they entered. Miss Broadhurst appeared, plainly dressed—plainly, even to singularity—without any diamonds or ornament. ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... the poor girl, "and I thought my name pretty because of its singularity! But since it displeases you, I would ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... mufti. In its mere aspect to the eye it was something like an invasion by a strange race. The English professional soldier of our youth had been conspicuous not only by his red coat but by his rarity. When rare things become common they do not become commonplace. The memory of their singularity is still strong enough to give them rather the appearance of a prodigy, as anyone can realise by imagining an army of hunchbacks or a city of one-eyed men. The English soldier had indeed been respected as a patriotic symbol, but rather ...
— Lord Kitchener • G. K. Chesterton
... childlike superior. That Lincoln would gradually yield to his spell and insensibly become his figurehead; that he, Seward, could save the country and would go down to history a statesman above compare, he took for granted. Nor can he fairly be called conceited, either; that is part of his singularity. ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... was selected from the Opera House; but the singularity most attractive consisted of an organ combined with a harpsichord, played by clock-work, which exhibited the movements of an orrery and air-pump, besides solving astronomical and geographical problems on two globes, ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 25. Saturday, April 20, 1850 • Various
... half careless and half abashed, and expressed, in more appropriate terms than his appearance warranted, his pleasurable surprise at seeing me at last. There was, however, a singularity in his conversation, which gave it an air both of shrewdness and vulgarity. This was, as may before have been noted, a profuse intermixture of proverbs, some stale, some new, some sensible enough, and all savouring of ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Thompson's nature was not picturesque nor lovable. His history, as imparted at dinner, one day, by himself, was practical even in its singularity. After a hard and wilful youth and maturity,—in which he had buried a broken-spirited wife, and driven his son to sea,—he suddenly experienced religion. "I got it in New Orleans in '59," said Mr. Thompson, with the general suggestion of referring to an epidemic. "Enter ye the narrer ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... this reliance, in a meek and lowly spirit, impelled not by inclination, but by an overpowering sense of duty, these gentle women, fully realizing the singularity of their position, prepared to enter upon entirely new scenes of labor, encompassed by difficulties peculiarly trying to ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... hearing that the grand-daughter of Milton was living, in an obscure situation in Shoreditch, he readily embraced the opportunity, in his postscript, of recommending her to the public favour; upon which, some gentlemen affected with the singularity of the circumstance, and ashamed that our country should suffer the grand-daughter of one from whom it derives its most lasting and brightest honour, to languish neglected, procured Milton's Comus to be performed for her benefit at Drury Lane, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... embodied in sacred books, and wrought into the organic social life of states; and acceptance of it has been commanded as a duty, and expected as a decent and respectable thing. To deny it has required courage, implied independent opinions, and conferred singularity. To cast off the yoke of tradition, undermine the basis of power supporting a galling religious tyranny, and be marked as a rebellious freethinker in a generation of slavish conformists, this motive could scarcely fail to exhibit results. Some of the radical revolutionists ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... skies to pervade and beautify her dreams. Though nothing spurs on a young girl's infant passion so effectually as an obstacle, there was a time when Mademoiselle de Fontaine was on the point of giving up her strange and secret search, almost despairing of the success of an enterprise whose singularity may give some idea of the boldness of her temper. In point of fact, she might have wandered long about the village of Chatenay without meeting her Unknown. The fair Clara—since that was the name Emilie had overheard—was not English, and the stranger who escorted ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac
... Eastthorpe had so much as heard. A book would have turned much that was vague in her into definite shape; it would have enabled her to recognise herself; it would have given an orthodox expression to cloud singularity, and she would have seen that she was a part of humanity in her most extravagant and personal emotions. As it was, her position was critical because she stood by herself, affiliated to nothing, an individual belonging ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... not necessary to enter at all into the plot, which was composed to evince alternately the power of Venus and of Fortune in influencing the lives of a pair of faithful lovers: the man, with some singularity, being called Hermione, and the woman Fidelia. They are successively placed by the two goddesses in situations of distress and difficulty, from which they are ultimately released; and in the end Venus and Fortune are reconciled, and join in promoting ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... deed with heartiness. If the words of Bullinger to Hotman, quoted in support of the first sentence ("sunt tamen qui hoc factum et excusare et defendere tentant") really referred to Protestants at all, it can only have been to an insignificant number who took the position from a love of singularity, and who were below contempt. The execration of the deed was ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... view a city," he says in a typical passage, "it bristles with striking idiosyncrasies and bizarre contrasts. Its history, population, climate, location, architecture, soil, water, customs, costumes, horses, cattle, all attract the stranger's attention, either by force of intrinsic singularity or of odd juxtapositions. It was a puling infant for a century and a quarter, yet has grown to a pretty vigorous youth in a quarter of a century; its inhabitants are so varied that the 'go slow' directions ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... appear on the partition just opposite the entrance. The romance of the place was not a little augmented by the appearance of its inhabitant, (a blacksmith,) whose tall, thin figure, and whose pale, wild, and haggard countenance, well accorded with the singularity of his abode. He read for our amusement and instruction, I conceive, a few choice passages from a well-thumbed penny pamphlet, purporting to contain the veritable history of the adventurous Kynaston; from whence it appeared that Master Humphrey was a gentleman, like "that prince of thieves," ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 338, Saturday, November 1, 1828. • Various
... signed with his name. I am not surprised at his having done so in this case. Evidently the work has been a favorite with him, and he has taken as much pains as it was ever necessary for his colossal strength to take with anything. The subject is not one which admits of much singularity or energy in composition. It was always a favorite one with Veronese, because it gave dramatic interest to figures in gay costumes and of cheerful countenances; but one is surprised to find Tintoret, whose tone ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... influences, the human being develops a wealth and luxuriance of physical beauty unknown in less favored regions. In the region about Sorrento one may be said to have found the land where beauty is the rule and not the exception. The singularity there is not to see handsome points of physical proportion, but rather to see those who are without them. Scarce a man, woman, or child you meet who has not some personal advantage to be commended, while even striking beauty is common. Also, under these kindly skies, a native courtesy ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... thicket of climbing trees; from farther down, an outwork raised its turret; and across the valley I had a view of that long terrace of Princes Street which serves as a promenade to the fashionable inhabitants of Edinburgh. A singularity in a military prison, that it should command a ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... quit the vegetable kingdom without noticing a tree which, although of no use in manufacture or commerce, not peculiar to the island, and has been often described, merits yet, for its extreme singularity, that it should not be passed over in silence. This is the jawi-jawi and ulang-ulang of the Malays, the banyan tree of the continent, the Grossularia domestica of Rumphius, and the Ficus indica or Ficus racemosa ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... intention, and once more took my leave, more angry than pleased, much in the same abrupt manner that I had formerly done. The similarity indeed forced itself upon me as I was quitting the door, and I knew not whether to accuse myself of pettishness, obstinacy, and want of candour; or him of singularity, and an inflexible sternness of opposition. At all events, my purpose of publishing my pamphlet as soon as it should be written was fixed; and to that labour ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... did make her god; and 'twas less naught To leave gods in profession and in thought, Than in her love and life; for therein lies Most of her duties and their dignities; And, rail the brain-bald world at what it will, That's the grand atheism that reigns in it still. Yet singularity she would use no more, For she was singular too much before; But she would please the world with fair pretext; Love would not leave her conscience perplext: Great men that will have less do for them, still Must bear them out, ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman
... the rest of the world with diamonds; and it was long supposed that they were not to be found in any other part of the globe. The Portuguese settlers in Brazil, seeking for gold, found a number of small stones resembling pebbles, which, from their singularity, they kept as curiosities, using them as counters at their card-tables. An officer, who had been removed from the Portuguese settlements in India to serve in Brazil, suspected that these stones were diamonds, and sent a few ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various
... how significant it is, or how far it is an evidence of singularity, that an individual should thus consent in his pettiest walk with the general movement of the race; but I know that something akin to the migratory instinct in birds and quadrupeds—which, in some instances, is known to have affected the ...
— Walking • Henry David Thoreau
... elder brother Sir Charles Abney Hastings inherited the baronetcy. The late Sir Charles Hastings was colonel of the 12th foot, and knight grand cross of the Guelphic order; he possessed a large fortune, and he was well known for his singularity at Carlton House, and in the fashionable circles of London, about the beginning of the present century. The present baronet, Sir Charles Abney Hastings, entered the army when young, but retired after having served ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... well be looked upon as one of those unexpected situations with which the writers of feigned adventures love to surprise their readers, and which, when they really happen in common life, deserve to be recorded for their singularity. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... canvass pouch hung around the neck of the animal, for the purpose, probably, of containing the rider's tools, and any thing else he might have occasion to carry with him. Although I had never seen the old man before, yet from the singularity of his employment, and the style of his equipage, I had no difficulty in recognising a religious itinerant whom I had often heard talked of, and who was known in various parts of Scotland by the title of ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... for the time being; but the Author of liberty and the Source of justice, the adorable God, is more than multitudinous, and he will defend the right. My crime is, that I will not go with the multitude to do evil. My singularity is, that when I say that Freedom is of God, and Slavery is of the devil, I mean just what I say. My fanaticism is, that I insist on the American people abolishing Slavery, or ceasing to prate of the rights of man. My hardihood is, in measuring them by their own standard, and convicting them ...
— No Compromise with Slavery - An Address Delivered to the Broadway Tabernacle, New York • William Lloyd Garrison
... "Beware of stiff singularity in things barely indifferent: it is self in disguise; and it is so much the more dangerous when it comes recommended by a ...
— Fletcher of Madeley • Brigadier Margaret Allen
... certain fishes (Pleuronecta) display the singularity of having both eyes on the same side of their head, one eye being placed a little higher than the other. This arrangement has its utility; for the Pleuronecta, swimming on their side quite near the bottom of the sea, have little occasion for ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... them. It follows that if I would wear a cap and bells, I must have a cap made on purpose. But this would be rendering myself singular; and of all things, a wise man will avoid ostentatious appearance of singularity. Now I am certainly not singular in playing ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... he married again. Mrs. Honora Edgeworth, when dying, had been certain that he would do so, and had herself indicated her own sister Elizabeth as the person whose character was most likely to secure a happy home to him and his children. So, with his usual singularity, though he liked her less than any of her other sisters, and though he believed her utterly unsuited to himself, he followed the advice which had been given, and in spite of law and public opinion, Elizabeth Sneyd became the third Mrs. ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... yourself credit, though, that the strength of your logic scares me: the truth is, I never mean to meet you on that ground at all. You have shown me one thing which was to be demonstrated: that strong pride of reasoning, with a little affectation of singularity, may mislead the best of hearts. I likewise, since you and I were first acquainted, in the pride of despising old woman's stories, ventured in "the daring path Spinosa trod;" but experience of the weakness, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... pictures on such subjects are spirited, natural, and excellent; and he is so clever a man, that all he does is good to a certain degree. His "Judith" is somewhat violent, perhaps. His "Rebecca" most pleasing; and not the less so for a little pretty affectation of attitude and needless singularity of costume. "Raphael and Michael Angelo" is as clever a picture as can be—clever is just the word—the groups and drawing excellent, the coloring pleasantly bright and gaudy; and the French students study it incessantly; ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of feminine homosexuality in English social history of the past. In Charles the Second's Court, the Memoires de Ghrammont tell us, Miss Hobart was credited with Lesbian tendencies. "Soon the rumor, true or false, of this singularity spread through the court. They were gross enough there never to have heard of that refinement of ancient Greece in the tastes of tenderness, and the idea came into their heads that the illustrious Hobart, who seemed so affectionate ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... observed to take a lenient view of the case. None the less, she had passed several nights in the local gaol. Staggering about the lanes of Nepenthe in the silent hours before dawn, she was liable to be driven, at the bidding of some dark primeval impulse, to divest herself of her raiment—a singularity which perturbed even the hardiest of social night-birds who had the misfortune to encounter her. Taxed with this freakish behaviour, she would refer to the example of St. Francis of Assisi who did the same, and brazenly ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... country do not regulate and retard the advancement of men by positive enactment, competition attains the same end. In a well-established democratic community great and rapid elevation is therefore rare; it forms an exception to the common rule; and it is the singularity of such occurrences that makes men forget how rarely they happen. Men living in democracies ultimately discover these things; they find out at last that the laws of their country open a boundless field of action before them, but that no one can hope ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... much for Paganel's risible faculties. He burst out laughing. Toline did not know what to make of him. He had done his best to answer every question put to him. But the singularity of the answers were not his blame; indeed, he never imagined anything singular about them. However, he took it all quietly, and waited for the professor to recover himself. These peals of laughter were quite ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... characteristic of this historian, the origin of his excellencies and his defects, is a love of singularity. He has no notion of going with a multitude to do either good or evil. An exploded opinion, or an unpopular person, has an irresistible charm for him. The same perverseness may be traced in his diction. His style would never have been elegant; but it ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Voltaire, on account of the insult to patriotism in his famous poem of La Pucelle; and that afterwards, even while acknowledging all his admirable qualities and the services he rendered to the cause of humanity, he could acquire only a very faint taste for his writing. This is a striking singularity, if Beranger does not exaggerate it a little; it is almost an ingratitude,—for Voltaire is one of his nearest ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... watch not ten minutes before it happened) that it was exactly five o'clock in the afternoon when I received a most singular and every way remarkable visit—a visit which has left an indelible impression on my memory, as well it might; for, independent of its singularity and unexpectedness, one of its results was the series of strange adventures which are ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... shown that the character of these assertions is not sufficient to deter many, from examining their claims to belief. I therefore lean but very slightly on the extravagance and extreme apparent singularity of their pretensions. I might have omitted them, but on the whole it seemed more just to the claims of my argument to suggest the vast complication of improbabilities involved in the statements enumerated. Every one must of course judge for himself as to the weight ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... though he was sunny and gentle; and there were many others who more or less resembled him. The reason that the somber type is the better known is partly because of its greater picturesqueness and singularity, and partly because the early life of New England was on the whole militant and aggressive, and therefore brought the rigid and positive ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... affirmation was for Javert so decisive a thing that he did not even observe the singularity of that candle which had but just been extinguished, and which was still ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... presence of Aramis, who had returned from Belle-Isle, and been nominated by Monsieur Fouquet inspector-general of all the arrangements; his perseverance in mixing himself up with all the surintendant's affairs; his visits to Baisemeaux; all this suspicious singularity of conduct had excessively troubled and tormented D'Artagnan ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... had a vision, as the carriage drove away again, of what her situation would have been, or her peace of mind, if Selina and Lionel had been good, attached people like the Collingwoods, and at the same time of the singularity of a good woman's being ready to accept favours from a person as to whose behaviour she had the lights that must have come to the lady in question in regard to Selina. She accepted favours herself and she only wanted to be good: ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... of singularity that this thread of savagery should run through these emotions of mine and become now the whole strand of these emotions. I believed, and I think I was right in believing, that the love of all true lovers was a sort of defiance then, ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... over-Englishing his travels, and wholly consecrated to singularity; the very Jacob's staff of compliment; a sir that hath lived to see the revolution of time in most of his apparel. Of presence good enough, but so palpably affected to his own praise, that for want ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... at so very early an age, I cannot, of course, say with certainty whence I derived it; but I am inclined to attribute it chiefly to the singularity of my father's ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... forcibly reminded me of the electrical experiments which used to entertain us in college, when the subject stood on the insulated stool, and each particular hair of his head bristled and rose, and set up, as it were, on its own account. This high-flying condition of the tresses, and the singularity of the ornaments which appeared to be thrown at hap-hazard into them, suggested so oddly the idea of a bewitched person, that I could scarcely converse with any presence of mind, or realize that these really were the nice, well-informed, sensible little girls of my own neighborhood,—the good daughters, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... Sparsit with modest confusion; but indeed, she said, it seemed so natural to say Miss Gradgrind: whereas, to persuade herself that the young lady whom she had had the happiness of knowing from a child could be really and truly Mrs. Bounderby, she found almost impossible. It was a further singularity of this remarkable case, that the more she thought about it, the more impossible it appeared; 'the ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... obliging piece of gallantry to the King of England's Ambassador, endeared by the singularity, by the opposition of the Spanish Court, and by the supererogation of his followers extending it in part beyond the example of others, when the same was in custom, I wrote my thanks yesterday unto his Excellency, who answered, that if he had not had the orders of the King his master to pay me the ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... philanthropist and a reformer, and both in the highest departments of human interest. The union of these ardent elements, and of a highly devotional temperament, not untouched with melancholy, with the patience of the scholar, and the sobriety of the critic, formed the singularity and almost the anomaly of his personal character. These contrasts were tempered by the discipline of experience; and his life, both as a man and a Christian, seemed to become more rich, genial, ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... the station where they were placed, was like a glowing furnace, so fiercely were the sunbeams reflected from the arms of the host by which it was filled. A body of Cossacks kept the ground with their pikes, and, by their wild appearance, added to the singularity of the scene. On one {p.059} hand was the extended line of the Tuileries, seen through the gardens and the rows of orange-trees; on the other, the long column of troops advancing to the music. Behind was a long colonnade, forming the front to the palace, where the Chamber of Representatives ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... end of most plays I have added short strictures, containing a general censure of faults, or praise of excellence; in which I know not how much I have concurred with the current opinion; but I have not, by any affectation of singularity, deviated from it. Nothing is minutely and particularly examined, and therefore it is to be supposed that in the plays which are condemned there is much to be praised, and in these which are praised much ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... noticed the sort of gravity and even pain with which she and his father received this revelation of his darkling mind. They tried to teach him what they thought of such things; but though their doctrine caught his fancy and flattered his love of singularity, he was not proof against the crude superstitions of his mates. He thought for a time that there was a Bad Man, but this belief gave way when he heard his father laughing about a certain clergyman who believed ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... also, as soon as the duties of the ship would allow him. It was remarked that when he came Donna Julia took the opportunity of leaving her father's room, except when he went in to visit the old man. At last Ronald taxed him with the singularity of ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... this consideration, and especially how remote is it from all that is generally thought on this subject! Moreover, the astonishment which its novelty and its singularity may excite in you requires that at first you should suspend your judgment in regard to it. But the observation which establishes it is now on record (consignee), and the facts which support it exist and are incessantly renewed; however, as they open a vast field to your studies and to your own ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... severely at the hands of the Puritans, who destroyed many of the early tombs and effigies. Especially noticeable is the lack of brasses; all these have disappeared, with the exception only of one in the Jesus Chapel. Another singularity is that the burial-place of most of the bishops who are known to have been interred in the cathedral is quite uncertain. The best of them seem to have been content with a plain slab and inscribed brass; only Nykke, of infamous memory, left so gorgeous ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Norwich - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • C. H. B. Quennell
... view, from its novelty, extent, and singularity, demands the first notice: the Cholamoo lake lay 1500 feet below me, at the bottom of a rapid and rocky descent; it was a blue sheet of water, three or four miles from north to south, and one and a half ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... council of the Crusade. She followed his signal; while the other young men who had accompanied her, wondering at the apparent ease with which she gained admittance, drew back to a respectful distance from the tent, and there canvassed the singularity of ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... of a State of Nature, affecting by its singularity, and Old-Roman contempt of the superfluous, we shall quit this part ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... reasonable doubt with regard to the fact. [Footnote: The genuine travelling Journal of a native African Merchant may in some respects be considered as interesting, simply from the circumstance of its singularity. But it must be acknowledged that for the mere purpose of gratifying curiosity very few specimens of Isaaco would have been sufficient. The sole reason for publishing such a document at full length, is the circumstance of its containing the only direct evidence ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... the size and a good deal like a common dunghill hen; most of them are of a dirty black or dark-brown colour, and eat very well in a pye or fricassee. Among the small birds I must not omit to particularize the wattle-bird, poy-bird, and fan-tail, on account of their singularity, especially as I find they are not mentioned in the narrative of my ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... introduced to them all, one after the other; but their names did not abide in my memory one moment. I was thinking too much of the singularity of the adventure, and could not attend to such minutiae. That the red-rosed harpy was Miss Grogram, that I remembered;—that, I may say, I shall never forget. But whether the motherly lady with the somewhat blowsy hair was Mrs. Jones, or Mrs. Green, or Mrs. Walker, I cannot ...
— The Relics of General Chasse • Anthony Trollope
... comes smoking into view; while the billows dash over what seems her deck, and storms bury even her turret in green water, as she burrows and snorts along, oftener under the surface than above. The singularity of the object has betrayed me into a more ambitious vein of description than I often indulge; and, after all, I might as well have contented myself with simply saying that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... rank the most vicious in the annals of vice, of parents whose depravity had contaminated even their blood, was ushered with infinite difficulty into the breathing scene he was so much to trouble, and offered, at the outset of his disorderly career, misfortune and singularity in a twisted fool, a tied ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... man who affects any singularity of dress or manners, loses his true influence in society. People begin to think that there must be within, a mind not truly balanced and therefore do not suffer his opinions, no matter how sound, to have their ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... few days longer she staid at the "George," and astonished the guests with the richness of her toilets and the singularity of her speech, which was something wonderful to her hearers, who looked upon her as a specimen of Americans generally. But this she would not permit; and once, when she overheard the remark, "that's a fair sample of them, I suppose," turned fiercely on the knot of ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... was undertaking, I judged it best to attend school during the usual hours. A learner was already there as old in years, and nearly as stout in form, as myself, so that I escaped from the wonderment which usually attaches to singularity much more comfortably than I anticipated. There were also two others in the school, who had formerly gone a considerable way in the path of classic lore, and had turned aside, but who, now repenting of their apostasy, returned to their former faith. These were likewise ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... Christmas Spectacles in the time of Edward III., as known by the name of Ludi; and in Warton's History of English Poetry, it is said of these representations that "by the ridiculous and exaggerated oddity of the Vizors, and by the singularity and splendour of the dresses, every thing was out of nature and propriety." In Strutt's 16th Plate, specimens will be found of the whimsical habit and attire in which the mummers were wont ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 20, March 16, 1850 • Various
... quotation: (1) the translators' mistakenly have "singularity" for the first "singularly" and (2) Hobbes does not actually write "Love is the..."—he writes "Love of one..." under the ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... Irregularity and singularity were among the fashions of the day. She would have been glad if her daughter Hester, in carrying out these fashions, had brought forward no rougher, or commoner-looking, or more eccentric satellites and proteges—secretaries of those ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... bite of this reptile, its activity when excited, the singularity of its form, and the gracefulness of its action, combine to render it one of the most remarkable animals of the class to which it belongs. When in its ordinary state of repose the neck is of the same diameter as the head; but when surprised ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... with its prehensile tail, marsupial pouch, and cunning ways, stands alone for its singularity among all the animals of the American continent. Many of the tribe are found in South America; but the Virginian opossum, the size of a full-grown cat, is larger than all its relatives. The head and body measure about twenty-two inches; and the tail, fifteen. ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... over-tilled beginning of his poetry was illumined by her face. But as to who she was, by name I mean, remained long a matter of doubt. Binet would have it that her true name was Cassandre, and that its singularity inspired Ronsard. Brantome called it "a false name to cover a true." Ronsard himself has written, "false or true, time conquering all things cannot efface it from the marble." There need have been no doubt. D'Aubigne's testimony ...
— Avril - Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance • H. Belloc
... devil, its lawful owner, and till something a little like Christianity takes its place. If parsons are to be Lords, it is but right and reasonable that the Queen should be Pope. Indeed, I have no objection to this, but I have to the other. What a singularity it is that those who profess a belief in Christ do not obey Him, while those who profess it in Mahomet or Moses or Boodh are obedient to their precepts, if not in certain points of morality, in all things else. Carlyle is a vigorous thinker, ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... away, when I had been peering up in her face to make her kiss me. Then she had a way of muttering to herself, which, though it was good words and religious words that she was mumbling, somehow I did not like. My weak spirits, and the fears I was subject to, always made me afraid of any personal singularity or oddness in any one. I am ashamed, ladies, to lay open so many particulars of our family; but, indeed it is necessary to the understanding of what I am going to tell you, of a very great weakness, if not wickedness, which I was guilty of towards my aunt. But I must return to my studies, ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... worthy of attention on account of the singularity of some of its provisions. Being sent for education to any Popish school or college abroad, upon conviction, incurs (if the party sent has any estate of inheritance) a kind of unalterable and perpetual ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... and especially over one intermediate name are we desirous of lingering a little. The story of the scene-painter of the last century, who was well known to his contemporaries as 'the ingenious Mr. DE LOUTHERBOURG,' presents incidents of singularity and interest that will probably be found to warrant our turning to it for purposes ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... and adorned with a garden of corals. The steep sides are thickly hung with lianas, ferns, and orchids, by help of which one climbs upwards to the cavern, sixty feet above the surface of the water. To add to the singularity of the situation, we also found at the entrance to the grotto, on a large block of rock projecting two feet above the ground, [A sea snake.] a sea-snake, which tranquilly gazed at us, but which had to be killed, because, like all genuine sea-snakes, it was poisonous. ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... America several species; of these the album here figured, (whose name is derived from the whiteness of its petals, and with which the nectary must not be confounded) is by far the most magnificent; indeed there are few flowers which to such singularity of structure add such elegance and beauty: it grows spontaneously in various parts of North-America, and chiefly in the woods; was introduced to the royal garden at Kew, by Mr. WILLIAM YOUNG about the year 1770, but was ...
— The Botanical Magazine, Vol. 6 - Or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis
... could arrive at its present state of grandeur and perfection without the direction of art? I am persuaded that those of the contrary opinion were so more for the sake of exercising their wit on the singularity of the subject than from any ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... was now no danger of an Indian onslaught; but on the other hand, since Secundra Dass was at the pains to spy upon them, it was highly probable he knew English, and if he knew English it was certain the whole of their design was in the Master's knowledge. There was one singularity in the position. If Secundra Dass knew and concealed his knowledge of English, Harris was a proficient in several of the tongues of India, and as his career in that part of the world had been a great deal worse than profligate, he had not thought proper ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... stranger is struck with the singularity of the names of many of the women of Lima. A child receives the name of the saint or of the festival whose celebration falls on the day of its birth. Those who happen to come into the world on the days on which the Romish Church celebrates the several ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... them; meanwhile, the mob gathering about, one of them raised William, who continued his cries. The count now let go the reins, and for a few minutes tried to pacify his little charge; but finding that his alarm and shrieks were not to be quelled, and that his own figure, from its singularity of dress, (his high cap and plume adding to its height) drew on him the whole attention of the people, he took the trembling child in his arms, and walking through the Mews, was followed by some of the bystanders to the very ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... The old walls, the old apartments, of those two associated houses still existed, with some obvious additions, beneath the delicate, fantastic surfaces of the chateau [4] of the sixteenth century. Its singularity of outline was the very symbol of the religion of the family in the race of Latour, still full of loyalty to the old home, as its numerous outgrowths took hold here and there around. A race with some prominent characteristics ineradicable in the grain, they went to raise ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... interesting to him. The pilot brought on board the ship the newspapers of the morning. In these, many of the advertisements had, to Mr. Fearon, the character of singularity. One of them, announcing a play, terminated thus: "gentlemen are informed that no smoking is allowed in the theatre." Several sailing boats passed, with respectable persons in them, many of whom wore enormously ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... second old man had finished, the third began his story, after repeating the request of the two former, that the genie would pardon the merchant the other third of his crime, provided what he should relate surpassed in singularity of incidents the narratives he had already heard. The genie made him the same promise as he had given ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... below. The same was also, in all probability, the case with the capital, now destroyed, on the opposite side of the door-way; and as it is plain that there never was a second pillar, either on the one side or the other, the only satisfactory mode of accounting for this singularity, is upon the supposition, that it was the original intention of the architect to have placed such, but that circumstances occurred which induced him to leave his design unfinished.—Ornamented shafts of columns, however unfrequently found in Normandy, are far from being of very uncommon ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... marginal ring-formed reefs stand far apart, the same depth is carried across the entire atoll, from the deep-water line on one side to that on the other. I cannot refrain from once again remarking on the singularity of these atolls,—a great sandy and generally concave disc rises abruptly from the unfathomable ocean, with its central expanse studded and its border symmetrically fringed with oval basins of coral-rock, just lipping the surface of the sea, sometimes clothed with vegetation, and each containing ...
— Coral Reefs • Charles Darwin
... excessive, on more accounts than one. I was surprised at the intense, fervid, and picturesque blaze of eloquence that breathed forth from the preacher, seeming to light up the whole place, and fill it with an unearthly and cloudy fire. I was more astonished by the singularity and wildness of the sentiments uttered. I looked again and again at the rapt and ecstatic preacher. His frame seemed to expand, and to be buoyed up, by his glowing enthusiasm, above the very height of humanity. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... not long enjoy the instructions of his master, for Haydyn handed him over to the care and instructions of the learned Allrechtsberger. It appears, that the character of Beethoven was marked by great singularity from his earliest years. Both Haydyn and Allrechtsberger, but particularly the latter, have recorded that he was not willing to profit by good advice. Beethoven has himself been heard to confess, that among other ...
— Sketch of Handel and Beethoven • Thomas Hanly Ball
... high; and I can scarce tell you how I shuddered on finding, long ere his corpse was thrown up, his two eyes detached from their sockets, staring from a wreath of sea-weed." There is in this last circumstance, horrible enough surely for the wildest German tale ever written, a unique singularity, which removes it beyond the reach ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... deeds performed by the crews of boats and small vessels engaged in this service, one must be instanced for its singularity, and the bravery displayed by the commanding officer and his followers. A hired cutter, the Sheerness, carrying 8 4-pounders and 30 men and boys, under the command of Lieutenant Henry Rowed, while watching Brest Harbour, observed two chasse-marees close ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... of words and thought would, after all, be in itself little more than serious trifling, a mere exhibition of mental and verbal ingenuity. It would be a kind of intellectual and linguistical dexterity, which would give the author a singularity and supremacy above the world. It would make him the greatest of mental acrobats or jugglers, and he might almost deserve as eminent a reputation as a similar class of artists in bodily achievements; possibly he might claim to be ranked with the man who cooked ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... matter that thou shouldst never know aught of it." Nicostratus, having heard both, and deeming that what they both averred must be true, to wit, that they would never have ventured upon such an act in his presence, passed from chiding to talk of the singularity of the thing, and how marvellous it was that the vision should reshape itself for every one that clomb the tree. The lady, however, made a show of being distressed that Nicostratus should so have thought of her, and:—"Verily," quoth she, "no woman, neither I nor another, shall again suffer ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... limp bonnet, tied under the chin, makes up the head- dress. Their curious garb, though soiled, is almost always sound; and one can see that the wash-tub will reveal many a comely face amongst them. The dusky damsels are "to the manner born," and as they walk about the streets, thoughtless of singularity, the Wigan people let them go unheeded by. Before I had been two hours in the town, I was put into communication with one of the active members of the Relief Committee, who offered to devote a few hours ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... river. He was desperate when he left me to go and see you.' On examining this person I was surprised to see her head tied up in a foulard, and along the temples a curious dark line; but I presently saw that her head was shaved. 'Have you been ill?' I asked, as I noticed this singularity. She cast a glance at a broken mirror in a shabby frame and colored; then the tears came into her eyes. 'Yes, monsieur,' she said, 'I had horrible headaches, and I was obliged to have my hair cut ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... do not know the opera, who do not go to supper-parties, and who sleep all night and are awake all day. He thought you must come to the Rue du Temps Perdu to see such things, and promised himself to amuse his friends with an account of this singularity. He was glad to see also that his neighbor watched like himself. This showed in her a mind superior to that of the vulgar inhabitants of the Rue du Temps Perdu. D'Harmental believed that people only watched because they did not wish to sleep, or because they wanted to be amused. ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... somewhere near the end? She was in a hurry or she would return and do it herself. As she and Mr. Jeffrey had parted in anger, I hailed with joy this evidence of her desire for a reconciliation, and it was in obedience to her request, the singularity of which did not strike me as forcibly then as now, that I went to the shelves in her room and took ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... some coldness in the manner of Aristius Fuscus, as they met again, and even Aurelius seemed surprised and not well pleased; for they had in truth been conversing earnestly about the perturbation of their friend at the remarks of the artizan, and the singularity of his conduct in wearing arms at all; and he heard Victor say ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... approach he was still more surprised at the singularity of the stranger's appearance. He was a short, square-built old fellow, with thick, bushy hair and a grizzled beard. His dress was of the antique Dutch fashion—a cloth jerkin strapped around the ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... the "Hinterschlag Gymnasium," where his "evil days" began. Every oversensitive child finds the life of a public school one long misery. Ordinary boys—those of the Scotch borderland being of the most savage type—are more brutal than ordinary men; they hate singularity as the world at first hates originality, and have none of the restraints which the later semi-civilisation of life imposes. "They obey the impulse of rude Nature which bids the deer herd fall upon any stricken hart, the duck flock put to death any broken-winged brother or sister, ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... will be able to appreciate that, while they would be unconscious of any strict and expensive conformity to the fashions of the month. Of course, I do not speak now of any glaring discrepancy between your dress and the general costume of the time. There could be no display of a simple taste while any singularity in your dress attracted notice; neither could there be much additional expense in a moderate attention to the prevailing forms and colours of the time,—for bonnets and gowns do not, alas, last for ever. What I mean to deprecate is the laying aside any one of these, which ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... way through the deep snow. With his fiery red head and his large red face, he was the only one of his colouring in a large family so dark that they were known as the "Black McWhas," and his temper seemed to have been chronically soured by the singularity of his type. But he was a good woodsman and a good teamster, and his horses followed confidently at his heels like dogs. The second team was led by a tall, gaunt-jawed, one-eyed lumberman named Jim Johnson, but invariably known as "Walley." From ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... very last thing to be endured among them; indeed, Miss Wisk informed us, with great indignation, before we sat down to breakfast, that the idea of woman's mission lying chiefly in the narrow sphere of home was an outrageous slander on the part of her tyrant, man. One other singularity was that nobody with a mission—except Mr. Quale, whose mission, as I think I have formerly said, was to be in ecstasies with everybody's mission— cared at all for anybody's mission. Mrs. Pardiggle ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... may, forgetting their fatigue in the singularity of the event, they remained below Granite House, not knowing what to think, not knowing what to do, questioning each other without any hope of a satisfactory reply, every one starting some supposition each more unlikely than the last. Neb bewailed ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... tear ingeniously repaired with cloth, pieced and patched, and comprising all the prismatic colours of the rainbow; his toes, disdaining the trammels of duress, peeped through his brogues, as if anxious for freedom; and to complete the singularity of this strange figure, his vacant face was incrusted with filth, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... of clothes in rather an extraordinary manner. Meeting, on the day after, a brother barrister in the Hall of the Four Courts, the latter began to condole with him on his misfortune, mingling some expressions of surprise at the singularity of the thing. "It is extraordinary indeed, my dear friend," replied Bethel, "for without vanity, it is the first suit I ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... of this onslaught others followed rapidly. Rochester, disposed to singularity of opinion, set up Elkanah Settle, a young author of some talent, as a rival to the Laureate. Anonymous bardings lampooned him. Mr. Bayes was a broad target for every shaft, so that the complaint so feelingly uttered in his latter days, that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... and the countenance, with that expression, struck Emily as resembling Montoni. She shuddered, and turned from it. Passing the light hastily over several other pictures, she came to one concealed by a veil of black silk. The singularity of the circumstance struck her, and she stopped before it, wishing to remove the veil, and examine what could thus carefully be concealed, but somewhat wanting courage. 'Holy Virgin! what can this mean?' exclaimed Annette. 'This is surely the ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... Now the greatest singularity in this king's disease is, that it was instantly inflicted on him from heaven (which he himself acknowledged according to Josephus[148]) otherwise as to verminose putrefaction in human bodies, we have several instances of it. For this ...
— Medica Sacra - or a Commentary on on the Most Remarkable Diseases Mentioned - in the Holy Scriptures • Richard Mead
... dispersed. But the name of Daemon they did not (as the Graecians) attribute to Spirits both Good, and Evill; but to the Evill onely: And to the Good Daemons they gave the name of the Spirit of God; and esteemed those into whose bodies they entred to be Prophets. In summe, all singularity if Good, they attributed to the Spirit of God; and if Evill, to some Daemon, but a kakodaimen, an Evill Daemon, that is, a Devill. And therefore, they called Daemoniaques, that is, possessed by the Devill, such ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... they hide as much as they can of their Gipsy life and nature from the Gorgios would of itself indicate the depths of singularity concealed beneath their apparent life—and this reminds me of incidents in a Sunday which I once passed beneath a Gipsy roof. I was, en voyage, at a little cathedral town, when learning that some Gipsies lived in a village eight miles distant, I hired a carriage and rode over to see ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... that, in the course of his al fresco toilette, one of his feet went through his inexpressibles in an honourable quarter, instead of proceeding by the proper route; the error interested his friends vastly—for they are as critical as the most fastidious could be of any singularity in attire, and they held the unfortunate juvenile in his embarrassing position for a long time, to his intense despair, until he was rescued from his ignoble position by some grown-up friend. Then, the young East is prone to the pleasures of tobacco. It was, ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... strait upon me; and thus I continued in the use of some things, contrary to my judgment, about nine months. Then I thought of getting a hat the natural color of the fur, but the apprehension of being looked upon as one affecting singularity felt uneasy to me. On this account I was under close exercise of mind in the time of our general spring meeting in 1762, greatly desiring to be rightly directed; when, being deeply bowed in spirit before the Lord, I was made willing to submit to what I apprehended was required of me; and when ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... am no nearer to the wish to know,' answered Greif, clasping his brown hands over his knee and gazing at her from under the brim of his straw hat. 'You are a strange girl, Hilda,' he added presently, and something in his face showed that her singularity pleased him ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... constitution of matter has received recognition from the hands of such scientists as Lord Kelvin and Dr. Larmor. The latter, in his Aether and Matter, writes on the subject as follows (page 7): "Matter must be constituted of isolated portions, each of which is of necessity a permanent nucleus or singularity in and belonging to the Aether, of some such type as is represented for example by a minute vortex ring in a perfect fluid, or a centre of permanent strain in a rotational elastic medium." And again on the same page he adds: "It is incumbent on us to ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper
... phrase in the reign of Charles. Bolton, for instance, in his Hypercritica (c. 1618) warns the historians against the style of the Arcadia. "Solidity and Fluency," he says, "better becomes the historian, then Singularity of Oratorical or Poetical Notions."[252] Henry Reynolds, in his Mythomystes (c. 1633), although he goes wool-gathering with mystical interpretations of poetry, yet evinces the same reaction against the ornate style in terming the flowers ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark
... and, bearing in mind, that "there is nothing like leather," exhibited themselves in ponderous over-alls, a la Hongroise, topped and strapped, and loaded down the side with buttons and chains. One man, in his rage for singularity, took the tonsure, shaving the hair off the crown of his head; and another, having covered his frock-coat with gold tags and lace, was furiously assaulted by a party of Portuguese sharpshooters, who, seeing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... in his soul there was a strange commotion. It would be a difficult thing to explain this motive, which belonged to his peculiarity of mind; it entered among the mysteries of the soul. The multitude call it in individuals singularity, the psychologist finds a deeper meaning in it, which the understanding is unable to fathom. We have examples of men, whose strength of mind and body were well known, feeling faint at the scent of a rose; others have been thrown into a convulsive state by touching gray paper. ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... arrival, then, Hiero would seem to have been the only talking animal she had known. The singularity of this did not at first strike the young man. Gnulemah was the arch-wonder; yet she so fully justified herself as to seem very nature; and by dint of her magic reality, what else had been wonderful seemed natural. Balder was ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... front by several singular round hills on the summit of one of which, called the Roche Duclay, was a rock so exactly resembling an old castle in size and shape, that a nearer inspection alone satisfied us as to its real nature. There is also a great singularity of outline in the hills which became soon visible in the distance on the other side of the Rhone, one or two of which appeared as if they had shells upon their backs. Beaucaire, with its old castle overhanging the ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... "The singularity is only apparent," answered one of the officers. "We have profited by the experience of our predecessors, an experience often only acquired at the cost of their lives. Professor Nordenskiold has been preparing himself for this supreme effort ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... outraged when a man of sixty dresses like a youth or sixteen. It is bad manners for a gentleman to use perfumes to a noticeable extent. Avoid affecting singularity in dress. Expensive clothes are ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... religion with a sense of generous independence, and that of the Protestants with the subjugation of his mind and temper to the direction of Mr. Warden, began and ended the faith of Roland Graeme, who, independently of the pride of singularity, sought not to understand, and had no one to expound to him, the peculiarities of the tenets which he professed. His regret, therefore, at missing the rosary which had been conveyed to him through the hands of Father Ambrose, was rather the shame of ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... and deliberate observation are good, since most men will not observe at home. Such is the singularity of our nature that we ignore the interesting at home to study the commonplace abroad. We never notice a narrow and crooked street in Boston or lower New York, whereas a narrow and crooked street in London fills us with an ecstasy ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy |
