"Eccentric" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... eccentric notion (not that Rosalie it thought so). Mr. Simcox, cut off from letters, had determined that he must get letters. He would get letters. If the postman would not come of himself (so to speak) then he must be forced to ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... time members of the great world, they had been unfortunate in various undertakings. At length they had returned to their birthplace, the neighboring village, to lead a retired life in a tiny house they had rented. They were eccentric fellows, but quite harmless. ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... it. His cottage was quite a curiosity-shop of models of engines, self-acting planes, and perpetual-motion machines. The last-named contrivances, however, were only unsuccessful attempts to solve a problem which had effectually baffled hundreds of preceding inventors. His odd and eccentric contrivances often excited great wonder amongst the Killingworth villagers. He won the women's admiration by connecting their cradles with the smoke-jack, and making them self-acting. Then he astonished the pitmen by attaching an alarum to the clock of the watchman whose duty it was ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... a different stamp was one of the characters in Going into Society, who played the clarionet in a band at a Wild Beast Show, and played it all wrong. He was somewhat eccentric in dress, as he had on 'a white Roman shirt and a bishop's mitre covered with leopard skin.' We are told nothing about him, except that he refused to know his old friends. In his story of the Seven Poor ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... the Core is bein acted, and in which a full bally core is introjooced on board the Spanish Admiral's ship, giving the audiens the idee that he intends openin a moosic-hall in Plymouth the moment he conkers that town. But a very interesting drammer is Troo to the Core, notwithstandin the eccentric conduct of the Spanish Admiral; and very nice it is in Queen Elizabeth to make Martin Truegold ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... The monotony of his daily round was broken only by the occasional receipt of a parcel of musty volumes, which he had ordered to be bought for him at some sale. He was a man of varied learning, full of remote information, eccentric from his solitariness, but with a great sweetness of nature. His life was simple, ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... in a letter to his constituents, of which the pith is in the final sentences: '"But," I think I hear some one say, "after all, friend Howe, was not the supposititious case, which you anticipated might occur, somewhat quaint and eccentric and startling?" It was, because I wanted to startle, to rouse, to flash the light of truth over every hideous feature of the system. {86} The fire-bell startles at night; but if it rings not the town may be burned; and wise men seldom vote him an incendiary who ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... fanatic Marxist; her brother, Tokarev, whose soul is a field for spiritual battles; and Varenka, a village school-mistress. There are several eccentric characters around them, such as Serge, a young apostle of a somewhat Nietzschean egoism, Antsov and others. Tanya is none other than Natasha of "Astray," with this great difference, however, that Tanya has found truth already formulated ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... hereditary enemies of all good Cornishmen, so many of whom had gone to man the fleet that won at Trafalgar. The obscure feeling of distrust that always stirs in the lower classes of remote districts at anything alien did not, of course, extend to the educated people, but Mr. Eliot, being poor and very eccentric, refused such championship from his equals as might ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... girl and a virgin, gave herself to Pope Sergius III, a capricious, fantastic man, who had once had the witty idea of digging up Pope Formosus and subjecting him, putrefied as he was, to the judgment of a Synod. By this eccentric man Marozia had a son, and afterwards was married three times more. She exercised an omnipotent sway over the Holy See. John X, her mother's lover, she deposed and sent to die in prison. With his successor, Leo VI, whom she herself had appointed Pope, ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... the Father bade the poor plant do, than his tender dwelling upon grasses and lilies, sparrow and sheep. The withering of the tree made an allegory: while the love of flowers and streams was to those simple hearts perhaps an unaccountable, almost an eccentric thing. But had Christ drawn human breath in our bleaker Northern air, he would have perhaps, if those that surrounded him had had leisure and grace to listen, drawn as grave and comforting a soul-music from our homely cuckoo, with her punctual ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... was an old German, considered eccentric by Endbury. He had a social position on account of his son, a prosperous German-American manufacturer of buggies, and was invited because of his readiness to play on any occasion. The old man looked about him at the company with a ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... rattle. Song lacking. Birds of low trees and undergrowth, where they also nest; partial to neighborhood of streams, or wherever the tent caterpillar is abundant. Habits rather solitary, silent, and eccentric. Migratory. Yellow-billed ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... powers boded no good; that if the fishman once became slightly irritated he would sic the nonapus on Ray and himself. (Probably, in fact, Garf would try to conquer the world anyway; that was how it went in stories as corny as this situation.) Farmer further decided that Ray was too egocentrically eccentric to be trusted to get them out of this fix; he decided he'd ...
— Stairway to the Stars • Larry Shaw
... it also tends to harmonize it by the preventing of excess development of certain traits. The social person is on the whole well balanced, though he may be mediocre. On the other hand, the non-social person usually tends to unbalance in the sense that he becomes odd and eccentric. ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... might be so ill-advised as to tell the whole story in the end. Of course, I would try to prevent you, and as far as the trial is concerned, I think I could use means to prevent you. But if the result was unfavourable—and knowing what eccentric things juries do, we must recognise the possibility of an unfavourable verdict—you might consider it advisable to disclose everything in the hope of having the conviction ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... the features would be blotted out and the hair made to snap. When the body was affected the sufferer was hurled over hindrances that came in his way, and finally dashed on the ground, to bounce about like a ball." The eccentric Lorenzo Dow, whose freaks of eloquence and humor are remembered by many now living, speaks from his ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... see this eccentric representative of Anglo-Turkish political-and-mercantile-combination, and found very little exaggeration in the description, except that the distance was 187 paces instead of 200 which he had to perform, whenever the character of the article was beyond the sphere of his experience. As this happened ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... hand many of the views and habits of those with whom he found himself associated were very distasteful to him. In a new social movement, such as that of association as it took shape in 1849-50, there is certain to be great attraction for restless and eccentric persons, and in point of fact many such joined it. The beard movement was then in its infancy, and any man except a dragoon who wore hair on his face was regarded as a dangerous character, with whom it was compromising to be seen in any public place—a person in sympathy with sansculottes, and ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... eccentric family, especially in our peculiar aloofness from others. We clung desperately to one another long after the necessity was past. Neither eviction nor commerce could disband us. Only marriage or death could separate us. Though we were Catholics on the surface, we were pagans at bottom. I had fed ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... But if he should, what of it? I am known to be somewhat eccentric—particularly so in my love of hard work, fresh air and exercise—besides, he has not commanded my attendance. He will not, therefore, be surprised at my absence. I tell you, Roger,—I must go! Who would have expected the King to take it into his head to visit The Islands ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... variety of characters which fall in a traveller's way, I became acquainted during my sojourn in London, with an eccentric personage of the name of Buckthorne. He was a literary man, had lived much in the metropolis, and had acquired a great deal of curious, though unprofitable knowledge concerning it. He was a great observer of character, and could give ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... when he would start back to the Hotel his Shoes would be Full of Cold Perspiration. Finally, when he began to decline Invitations, against the advice of his Manager, it was said of him that he was Eccentric and appeared to have a Case of the ...
— More Fables • George Ade
... of his eccentric friend and the threatened disaster loomed almost personal. He felt himself to blame too, for the advice which had thrown Spence directly from the frying-pan of Aunt Caroline into the fire of a sterner fate. Add to all this a keen feeling of unwarranted ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... were out. And he was very sound in his views, not extreme in anything; not an evangelical, much less inclining towards the section of the Church which began to be known in the world under the name of Puseyists. Eustace Thynne had no exaggerated ideas; he was not eccentric in anything. The Thirty-Nine Articles sat as easily upon him as his very well made coat; he never forgot that he was a clergyman, or wore even a gray checked necktie, which the rector sometimes did, ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... had no ambition to parade in Bloomer costume, or to be otherwise eccentric, even where it happened to be more comfortable. Neither have I figured as the chairman or secretary of a woman's convention, nor had my name ringing through the newspapers as an impatient struggler after more rights ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... other. The free use of white paint all over the sloping tiers of pews has prevented the interior from being as dark as it would have otherwise been, but the result of all this painted deal has been to give the building the most eccentric ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... anything athletic, and eccentricities paid a very heavy price among all boys. Thus, though I was glad to lend my protection to my friend, we never went about together—as such boys as he always lived the life of hermits in the midst of the crowd. I well remember one other boy, made eccentric by his peculiar face and an unfortunate impediment of speech. No such boy should have been sent to an English public school as it was in my day. His stutter was no ordinary one, for it consisted, not in repeating ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... different variety-theaters. His sight was beginning to fail. She wanted smartness; wasn't—how should he put it? The husband looked for a word—wasn't "Tottie" enough. However, they managed somehow, as "eccentric duetists." Lily thought that very nice, those two talents combined, very original; but could they give her any news of Ave Maria ... a great artiste ... on ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... to be alone at home, and his reserved, eccentric nature had caused his relatives to shun his house, which doubtless seemed to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... her out, checking a strong disposition to giggle. Her viewpoint was that of the average person, and the average person cannot see the importance of the scarab in the scheme of things. The opinion she formed of Mr. Peters was of his being an eccentric old gentleman, making a great to-do about nothing at all. Losses had to have a concrete value before they could impress Joan. It was beyond her to grasp that Mr. Peters would sooner have lost a diamond necklace, if he had happened to possess ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... closet as he hung up his hat on his arrival, and he again opened the closet door. The coat and stick were still there; so Rochester had come to the office immediately after leaving him, and carelessly left the safe open! Kent smiled in spite of his vexation; the act was typical of his eccentric partner. ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... a wealthy and eccentric Philadelphia merchant, financier, philanthropist and the founder of Girard College, was born near Bordeaux, France, in 1750, the son of a sea captain. He lost the sight of his right eye when eight years old and had only ...
— The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia • Frank Cousins
... life. Her retinue, her reserved compartment in the train, her pile of unnecessary trunks, portmanteaux, and strong-boxes, all helped to increase her prestige; while her wheeled chair, her sharp tone and voice, her eccentric questions (put with an air of the most overbearing and unbridled imperiousness), her whole figure—upright, rugged, and commanding as it was—completed the general awe in which she was held. As she ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... alluding to an eccentric work of rationalizing tendencies written by an English scholar, and using M. Renan as his mouthpiece, expresses the opinion that 'an extravagance of this sort could never have come from Germany where there is a great force of critical opinion controlling a learned ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... attached to you, which you will find no difficulty in doing, that the following classes of letters are destroyed—first, those that are inequitable; next, those that are contradictory; then those expressed in an eccentric or unusual manner; and lastly, those that contain reflexions on anyone. I don't believe all I hear about these matters, and if, in the multiplicity of your engagements, you have let certain things escape ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... I looked upon her proceedings as simply the whims of an eccentric old lady, yet I felt some considerable ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... tea, in the vestibule of the reading-room, an eccentric citizen of Arkansas varied the entertainment. A short, thin man, of the cracker type, swarthy, long-bearded, and untidy, he was dressed in well-worn civilian costume, with the exception of an old blue coat showing dim remnants of military garniture. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... the eccentric Marquis de Valentin was the talk of Paris. He lived in monastic silence and seclusion, and Jonathan never permitted any of his friends to enter the mansion. But one morning his old tutor, Porriquet, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... marriage things went smoothly. His wife's impression was that Byron "had avowedly begun his revenge from the first." It is certain that before the child was born his conduct was so harsh, so violent, and so eccentric, that she believed, or tried to persuade herself, that ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... seen on Wallack's stage, at the house he established upon the wreck of John Brougham's Lyceum, often rise in memory, crowned with a peculiar light. Lester Wallack, in his peerless elegance; Laura Keene, in her spiritual beauty; the quaint, eccentric Walcot; the richly humorous Blake, so noble in his dignity, so firm and fine and easy in his method, so copious in his natural humour; Mary Gannon, sweet, playful, bewitching, irresistible; Mrs. Vernon, as full of character as the tulip is ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... of the reception given by his contemporaries to his "physio-philosophical ideas." "They spoke of his wild and eccentric fancies, and the expression 'Darwinising' (as employed, for example, by the poet Coleridge when writing on Stillingfleet) was accepted in England nearly as the antithesis of ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... she saw herself a Madame Latournelle; she accepted a painful existence, she bore all the trials of a struggle with fortune. After that she went back to the romances: she was loved for her beauty; a son of a peer of France, an eccentric, artistic young man, divined her heart, recognized the star which the genius of a De Stael had planted on her brow. Her father returned, possessing millions. With his permission, she put her various lovers to certain tests (always carefully guarding her own independence); ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... that soldiers would be likely to follow on the way to the lake. It was not the shortest way to the world outside the Park. It was considerably longer than a footpath would have been. But Lockley expected tanks, at least, against which eccentric unearthly weapons would be useless. So they headed down the main highway. Lockley was unarmed. They had no food. He hadn't eaten ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... sometimes, so that he might have painted even more, and not have come to ruin in the end! How I loved the gentle Van Ruysdaels, and how pathetic the everlasting white horse got to seem, after I had seen him repeated again and again in every sort of tender or eccentric landscape! Poor, tired white horse! I thought he must have been as weary of his journeyings ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... of the thing," was not without its compensations in the political experience he extracted from it. It brought before him the main interests of European diplomacy: won him access to the principal intrigues and intriguers of a Court in transitionship, by the death of Frederick, from eccentric greatness to orderly mediocrity; habituated him to ministerial correspondence and reports, which, if disgustingly mean, were, at all events, systematic and prescient, and secured him—I could wish to say honestly—those historic and statistical data which, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... Street, Wetona, Wisconsin. Anyone with a name like Terry Sheehan would, perforce, do well anything she might set out to do. There was nothing of genius in Terry, but there was something of fire, and much that was Irish. Which meant that the Watson Team, Eccentric Song and Dance Artists, never needed a rehearsal when they played the Bijou. Ruby Watson used merely to approach Terry before the Monday performance, sheet music in hand, and say, "Listen, dearie. We've got some new business I want to wise you to. Right here it goes 'TUM dee-dee DUM dee-dee ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... situation were too striking for one who used his mind and acted on principle, to run any risk of that situation becoming his own. An ambitious timeserver like Lomenie, or a contented adherent of use and wont like Morellet, might well regard such considerations as the products of a weak and eccentric scrupulosity. Turgot was of other calibre, holding it to be only a degree less unprincipled than the avowed selfishness of the adventurer, to contract so serious an engagement on the strength of common hearsay ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Turgot • John Morley
... you have yourself to thank for her having done so; did you never treat her with coldness, and repay her marks of affectionate interest with strange fits of eccentric humour?" ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... it from him, looked at the title, and laughed. He knew it well. It was the 'Life and Errors of John Dunton, Citizen of London,' the eccentric record of a seventeenth-century dealer in books, who, like Daddy, had been ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... village had one or two eccentric characters who were treated ordinarily with a benevolent toleration, but who were regarded meanwhile as impracticable and queer. These exceptional individuals lived an isolated existence, cut off by their very eccentricities, whether ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... Rome, and it was pronounced to be a forgery perpetrated by Roman diplomats.[505] History furnishes evidence of the reality of the testament, but none of the influences under which it was made.[506] It is quite possible that the last eccentric king was jealous enough to will that he should have no successor on the throne, and cynical enough to see that it made little difference whether the actual power of Rome was direct or indirect. It is equally possible ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... place Bob Power was not smuggling. In the next place the Chancellor of the Exchequer would never see Godfrey's letter. It would be opened, I supposed, by some kind of clerk or secretary. He would giggle over it and show it to a friend. He would also giggle. Then unless the spelling was unusually eccentric the letter would go into the waste-paper ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... mansion was gambled away at a card-party when the stakes were high and the players were the third Duke, grandfather of the eccentric peer, and Earl Harcourt. Thus it came into possession of ...
— The Portland Peerage Romance • Charles J. Archard
... a sigh, "how I wish I didn't wish they weren't coming! If they are fearfully eccentric, all the neighbourhood will be talking about it in a week, and thinking it funny we have such relations. One can't explain to every one that they really are ladies and gentlemen ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... to say that a chattering young lady, who stood close to Eustace, exclaimed, "Dear me, what a handsome young foreman!" making Eustace blush to the eyes, and say, "It is my cousin—he is so very eccentric—you'll ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the 1830's, loved to make the gray-coated citizens of Paris stare at his scarlet, but the personality which could create such lyric marvels as the Odes et Ballades may be forgiven for its eccentricities. William Blake was eccentric to the verge of insanity, yet he opened, like Whitman and Poe, new doors of ivory ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... and her boy sat staring at one another. She saw the tall, eccentric figure of Ramsey Burr before her, yet she saw also the soul of her son within that form. The eyes were Allen's, the voice was soft and loving, and ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... figures rather than remembered embraces and endearments of look and speech and touch. 'Dear Bella,' Uncle John would say. He knew. You have heard always how he was the lover of the Princess Naomi. He was a true lover. He loved but the once. After her death they said he was eccentric. He was. He was the one lover, once and always. Remember that taboo inner room of his at Kilohana that we entered only after his death and found it his shrine to her. 'Dear Bella,' it was all he ever said to me, ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... attention of the audience; and a goodly number of spectators, among them Robin Poussepain, and all the clerks at their head, gayly applauded this eccentric duet, which the scholar, with his shrill voice, and the mendicant had just improvised in the ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... so had Jules, but everything else was going on just as before; the bandsman still twanging out his czardas; the waiters serving drinks; the orientals trying to sell their carpets. I paid the bill, sought out the manager, and apologised. He shrugged his shoulders, smiled and said: "An eccentric, your friend, nicht wahr?" Could he tell me where M. Le Ferrier was? He could not. I left to look for Jules; could not find him, and returned to my hotel disgusted. I was sorry for my old guest, but vexed with him too; what business had he to carry his Quixotism ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... can settle it between you: you are a pair of eccentric geniuses, and know how you like to manage your own affairs better than a sober-minded man such ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... was the genius of Warburton, it delighted too much in its eccentric motions, and in its own solitary greatness, amid abstract and recondite topics, to have strongly attracted the public attention, had not a party been formed around him, at the head of which stood the active and subtle ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... The eccentric Count de Caylus, when on his death-bed, was visited by some near relation and a pious Bishop, who hoped that under such trying circumstance he would manifest some concern respecting those 'spiritual' blessings which, while in health, he had uniformly treated with contempt. ...
— Superstition Unveiled • Charles Southwell
... generally admired in France; learned men, well-informed officers, and celebrated artists appreciated the extent of his information. He made less impression at Court, and very little in the private circle of the King and Queen. His eccentric manners, his frankness, often degenerating into rudeness, and his evidently affected simplicity,—all these characteristics caused him to be looked upon as a prince rather singular than admirable. The Queen spoke to him about ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... certain village or district—if the full quantity could not be produced by the inhabitants, their habitations were reduced to ashes to detect the concealment. These seem to have been ordinary modes of proceeding under the military system; there were others more irregular and eccentric which the zeal of the soldiers frequently prompted them to ...
— The Causes of the Rebellion in Ireland Disclosed • Anonymous
... rode on to Mrs Keswick's house, and when he reached the second, or inner gate, he saw, on the other side of it, an elderly female, wearing a purple sun-bonnet and carrying a purple umbrella. There was something very eccentric about the garb of this elderly personage, and many an inexperienced city man would have taken her for a retired nurse, or some other domestic retainer of the family, but there was a steadfastness in her gaze, and a fire in her eye, which indicated ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... of a century ago. He enjoys, perhaps, the most notable bit of superstition to be found anywhere in this country, in or out of Connecticut. He owns the farm on which he lives, and it is valuable; not quite so valuable though as it once was, for Mr. Stokes's eccentric disposition has somewhat changed the usual tactics that farmers pursue when they own fertile acres. The average man clears his soil of stones; Mr. Stokes has been piling rocks all over his land. Little by little the weakness—or philosophy—has grown upon him; and not ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... passions are so powerful he lived a life of austerity, drank nothing but water, never entered a tavern, and never joined in a dance. He was always very awkward and shy with women, who, it must be owned, found little to please in his eccentric character, stern face, and somewhat sarcastic wit. As if to avenge himself for this by showing his contempt, or to console himself by displaying his wisdom, he took a pleasure, like Diogenes of old, in decrying the vain pleasures of others; and if at times he was to be seen passing ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... stage of thought. It was a feature of the recurring childishness of ideas and the renascence of wonder at common things which is apparent on many hands. To have denied the powers of numbers would have seemed as absurd and eccentric then as to deny the powers of electricity to-day. And in all ages people have been found to regard numbers mystically as a link between God and earth, and a means of solving all physical and metaphysical problems. The Hebrew intellect, ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... Gordon, who had effectually aided and abetted the riots in Scotland. Of all men in the world Lord George Gordon was the most unfit to preside over a Protestant Association. He was a member of parliament it is true, but he was chiefly remarkable there for his eccentric habits, slovenly dress, and by a progressive insanity, which on some occasions partook of the nature of oratorical inspiration. He was, however, known to be firm in his hatred towards the Papists, and adverse to any relief being afforded to them. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... earnest endeavor to split the table asunder when playing a winning card. People may think you are eccentric if you try to make kindling wood of the table every time you ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott
... lived mostly in Paris or at his magnificent villa outside Florence. It was common knowledge that he had, during the war, invested a level million sterling in the War Loan, while he was constantly giving great donations to various charities. Somewhat eccentric, he preferred living abroad to spending his time in England, because, it was said, of some personal quarrel with another Member of the House of Commons which had arisen over a debate soon after he had ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... that—if he would only see it—poor dear Claire did not belong to the most fascinating type of woman. She was too tall and thin, too stiff and cold; her mouth was too wide and her nose too narrow. She had no dimples anywhere. And then she was eccentric, eccentric in cold blood; she was an Anglaise, after all. Newman was very impatient; he was counting the minutes until his victims should reappear. He sat silent, leaning upon his cane, looking absently and insensibly ...
— The American • Henry James
... their revered rector's love, and the elder ladies had also shown a marked interest in her. The Dennings' fine house was now talked about and visited. Men of high financial power respected Mr. Dan Denning, and advised the social recognition of his family; and Mrs. Denning was not now found more eccentric than many other of the new rich, who had been tolerated in the ranks of the older plutocrats. Even Bryce had made the standing he desired. He was seen with the richest and idlest young men, and was invited to the best ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... half a mile from the blacksmith's cabin, but unknown to him—for the reception of specimens. For a long time its existence was kept a secret between Peggy and her loyal friends. Her parents, aware of her eccentric tastes only through the introduction of such smaller creatures as lizards, toads, and tarantulas into their house,—which usually escaped from their tin cans and boxes and sought refuge in the family slippers,—had ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... to a position not very far from that taken by my eccentric friend. General or regular correspondence is useless, baneful, and in most cases impossible; but special correspondence, born of the necessities of man as a social being, and circumscribed by them, may be from time to time possible. There can be no ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... the mountain to old Sainte-Agnes, in the gorge of Saint-Louis, along the Boulevard du Garavan, and out to the Giardino Hanbury. You say giardino instead of jardin because Mortola is just across the Italian frontier. The eccentric Englishman chose this spot, without regard to political sovereignty present or future, as the best place to demonstrate the catholicity of the Riviera climate to tropical flora. I simply mention these drives; for you do not ride at Menton any more than you walk. The man ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... squalid garb attir'd, Do now the world with much regard In mem'ry hold the dirty Bard, Who credit gain'd for genius rare By shabby coat and uncomb'd hair? Or do they, said a Shade of prose, With many a pimple's ghost on nose, Th' eccentric author still admire, Who wanting that same genius' fire, Diving in cellars underground, In pipe the spark ethereal found: Which, fann'd by many a ribbald joke, From brother tipplers puff'd in smoke, ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... except on market days, when she came to the village for her weekly provisions, none of my parishioners ever held any intercourse with her. She was evidently insane, and although she did harm to nobody, yet she often caused considerable alarm and wonderment by her eccentric behavior. It is, as you must know, often the case in intermittent mania that its victims are insane upon some particular subject, some point upon which their frenzy always betrays itself,—even when, with regard to other matters, they conduct themselves like ordinary ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... plays to be performed, Ghosts for example, or Hedda Gabler, no doubt most of the dialogue would be given right at the back of the stage, out of ear-shot of the audience. In ordinary dramas the Villain who may have to use strong language, or in farce the Eccentric Comedian who frequently has to utter more or less playfully a meaningless "big big D," would by Imperial command be compelled to "retire up" to deliver himself of the expletive, and then would have to "come ...
— Punch, Or the London Charivari, Volume 101, November 21, 1891 • Various
... burning eyes. The hat had seemed at first to droop and dawdle as in ostentatious langour on the sunny lawn; but the wind again freshening and rising, it went dancing down the garden with the devilry of a pas de quatre. The eccentric went bounding after it with kangaroo leaps and bursts of breathless speech, of which it was not always easy to pick up the thread: "Fair play, fair play... sport of kings... chase their crowns... quite humane... tramontana... cardinals chase red hats... old English hunting... ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... imagination, nervously excitable and fragile in constitution, rather easily fall into little eccentric ways which grow very rapidly and are hard to overcome. One of the commonest of these is talking to themselves. Sitting still, making efforts to apply their minds to lessons for more than a short time, ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... orders to clean out and remove the old chest from the landing. Hippy and Jessica, as the two mischievous prying servants, enacted their part to perfection. Hippy carrying a broom and dust pan, did one of the eccentric dances, for which he was famous, while Jessica, armed with a huge duster, tried ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... the beautiful wife of Maurice Grey, the misanthropic and eccentric Englishman who lived in a castle near Prague, ran off with Count Mimo Sykypri, her daughter, then aged thirteen, had run with her, and the pair had been wiped off the list of the family. And Maurice Grey, after cursing them both ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... been blasted in rock which had been unchanged since the beginning of time. Here there was a human structure. Typically, it was a dust-heap leaning against a cliff. There was an airlock and another jeep waited outside, and there were eccentric metal devices on the flat space, shielded from direct sunshine and with cables running to ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... prosperous broker, and leavening a vast lump of moneyed and fashionable life with her culture, generosity, and good-will. The intellectual interests were first with her, but she might be equal to sacrificing them; she had the best heart, but she might know how to harden it; if she was eccentric, her social orbit was defined; comets themselves traverse space on fixed lines. She was like every one else, a congeries of contradictions and inconsistencies, but obedient to the general expectation of what a girl of her position must and must not finally be. Provisionally, she was very ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... was an Englishman, an eccentric. We then advertised in the papers, we gave an account of our methods, we invented some attractive instances. But the great impetus was given ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... Yes, there is something in that. He certainly could not have carried about him 50,000 pounds in gold and as much in jewelry; it would have been the act of a madman, and Colonel Thorndyke, although eccentric and cranky, was not mad. But, on the other hand, he may have carried about a banker's passbook, or what is equivalent to it, for the amount that had been deposited with a native banker or agent, together with a receipt for the box containing the ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... father mad," she went on, with a simple directness that was the most wonderful thing he had ever heard come from human lips. "The world did not know that he was mad. It called him eccentric. But he was mad—in just one way. I was nine years old when it happened, and I can remember our home most vividly. It was a beautiful home. And my father! Need I tell you that I worshipped him—that to me he was king ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... feet from indulging in a fancy for a couch of snow on one of the coldest nights of the preceding winter, when, to use a charitable phrase, 'she was not quite herself.' I believe that, even after this melancholy warning, that eccentric person was frequently somebody else. 'However,' as Mrs. Bull said, 'she didn't disturb any one'—and although I could not exactly see the force of this reasoning, I treated it with respectful ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... strongest manifestation of this character is efficiency. Not one man in a thousand is capable of accomplishing so much. The strong points are very strong; the weak points are weak; so that he is an eccentric ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... terms of nothing else than actual human experience. So we are not only permitted but compelled to put out of court this conscience-less cave-man of pure speculation. It is true that we encounter certain eccentric human beings who deny that they possess this "moral sense"; but one has only to observe them for a little while under the pressure of actual life to find out ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... but cheerful; it is built entirely of wood, with an oil lamp fixed in the wall over the occasional table. The room is comfortably furnished, though in fussy and eccentric Victorian taste; stuffed birds, Highland cattle in oils, antimacassars, and wax fruit are unobtrusively in evidence. On the mantelpiece, an ornate chiming clock. The remains of breakfast on a tray on ...
— Night Must Fall • Williams, Emlyn
... believe that you cannot write alone, that you must take alcohol into partnership, as it were. Even little people are ruled by imagination; how much more so a great faculty in which imagination must follow many morbid and eccentric tracks? And habit, no doubt, is the greatest of all forces, while it is undisturbed. But that old habit of yours has been shattered these last months. You made no attempt to resist before. You could resist now. If I have been the inspiration of this poem, ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... Words—now with the words—was the piece. This was in 1807. He was now without a rival in Vienna. Gluck had been dead twenty years, and Mozart had died in 1791; Beethoven was regarded as a great eccentric genius who would not rightly apply his undoubted talents. The last time Haydn was seen in public at all was on November 27, 1808. He was far too weak to dream of conducting. He was carried to the hall, and great ladies disputed as to who ...
— Haydn • John F. Runciman
... taste: and possibly where we should differ from him, he is right and we are wrong. You could not say that Shakspeare was mentally a screw. The noblest of all genius is sober and reasonable: it is among geniuses of the second order that you find something so warped, so eccentric, so abnormal, as to come up to our idea of a screw. Sir Walter Scott was sound: save perhaps in the matter of his veneration for George IV., and of his desire to take rank as one of ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... with laughter and personal and critical gossip, but it helps little. But the uncivil, unavailable man, who is a problem and a threat to society, whom it cannot let pass in silence but must either worship or hate,—and to whom all parties feel related, both the leaders of opinion and the obscure and eccentric,—he helps; he puts America and Europe in the wrong, and destroys the skepticism which says, 'man is a doll, let us eat and drink, 'tis the best we can do,' by illuminating the untried and unknown. Acquiescence in the establishment and appeal to the public, indicate infirm faith, ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... time-worn documents, which have been lying for generations concealed in a wooden box. The only regret of the writer is, that it was impossible for him to gain access to all the old musty and defaced papers in the box. The old gentleman, in whose possession they were found, is very old and eccentric, and by no effort or persuasion could the writer induce him to part company with the documents, but for a short time. But although the task of procuring them was extremely difficult, and that of deciphering ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith
... Roger de Coverley sketches, Gally typifies the increasingly tolerant attitude of the Augustans toward eccentric behavior.[5] Like Sterne and Fielding he is delighted by people whose idiosyncracies are harmless and appealing. As for the harsh satiric animus of a character-writer like Butler, it is totally alien to Gally, who would chide good-naturedly, ...
— A Critical Essay on Characteristic-Writings - From his translation of The Moral Characters of Theophrastus (1725) • Henry Gally
... by the sects who have always adhered to it as offensively presuming, and, in a slight degree, "arisdogradic!" I am a little afraid that your out-and-outers in politics, religion, love of liberty, and other human excellences, are somewhat apt to make these circuits in their eccentric orbits, and to come out somewhere quite near the places ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... house insisting on having "Che faro" all over again. Orchestra, under Signor BEVIGNANI, admirable. Recreations of Demons and Furies, when let out of Gates of Erebus for a half-holiday, peculiar, not to say eccentric. Demons lie on rocks, with silver serpents round their necks as comforters, claw the air, and trot round in circles, after which they exhibit Dutch-metalled walking-sticks to one another with sombre pride. Furies ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, November 15, 1890 • Various
... Civil! Philip was the only one he liked. I've heard him talk in the queerest way; he once said to me: 'My dear fellow, never let your poor wife know what you're thinking of! But I didn't follow his advice; not I! An eccentric man! He would say to Phil: 'Whether you live like a gentleman or not, my boy, be sure you die like one! and he had himself embalmed in a frock coat suit, with a satin cravat and a diamond pin. Oh, quite an original, I can ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... that by-and-by his daughter's affections, of which the absurdity would be evident to some women who were not less clear-sighted than merciless, would inevitably become a subject of constant ridicule. He feared lest her eccentric notions should deviate into bad style. He trembled to think that the pitiless world might already be laughing at a young woman who remained so long on the stage without arriving at any conclusion of the ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac
... it is probably safe to say that no denomination of Christians, however anti-prelatical or eccentric, would for a moment dream of adopting it, if, indeed, there be a single local congregation anywhere that could be persuaded to employ it. The characteristic of the devotions is lengthiness. The opening sentence of the prayer with which the book begins contains by actual count eighty-three words. ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... his own dignity to show, under such circumstances, more than his usual courtesy—something, perhaps, amounting almost to cordiality. He had been supplanted, quoad doctor, in the house of this rich, eccentric, railway baronet, and he would show that he bore no malice ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... who heard his money chink, And saw the house he rented, And knew his wife, could never think What made him discontented. It never entered their pure minds That fads are of eccentric kinds, Nor would they own That fat alone Could make ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... what do you stare at?' said the eccentric. 'I broke nearly every pane three weeks ago; I couldn't hit them all. After you have broken a good many, the stones are apt to go through the holes you've already made. They only finished mending them the day before yesterday; I came out and asked the men when they were likely to ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... telling a story so ardently that he almost made himself believe it: Some day, Mother and he would be crawling along the road and discover a great estate. The owner, a whimsical man, a lonely and eccentric bachelor of the type that always brightens English novels, would invite them in, make Father his steward and Mother his lady housekeeper. There would be a mystery in the house—a walled-off room, a sound of voices at night ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... shapeless pile of stone covered over with masses of ivy. Viewed from the harbor, the town presents a striking picture, and the most remarkable feature is the great colosseum on the hill. This is known as McCaig's Tower and was built by an eccentric citizen some years ago merely to give employment to his fellow townsmen. One cannot get an adequate idea of the real magnitude of the structure without climbing the steep hill and viewing it from the inside. It is a circular tower, pierced by two rows of windows, and is not less than three hundred ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... evil eye upon all external attempts to restrain or direct its operations. From this spirit it happens, that in every political association which is formed upon the principle of uniting in a common interest a number of lesser sovereignties, there will be found a kind of eccentric tendency in the subordinate or inferior orbs, by the operation of which there will be a perpetual effort in each to fly off from the common centre. This tendency is not difficult to be accounted for. It has its origin in the ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... Georgia, had a truly wonderful memory. He seemed to remember every sample he had ever seen—goods, lines, trimmings, price, and all. He was an eccentric man. Sometimes he would receive a crowd of salesmen in rapid succession, inspect their merchandise and hear their prices without making any purchase. Later, sometimes on the same day, he would send out orders for the "numbers" ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... of slight mystification appeared on the broad brow of the waiter, but he was inured to eccentric gastronomic requests, and fulfilled this one with ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... trade, and the like ponderous subjects, concluded to overlook the mad behavior of the morning, and, joining him, gave him a long account of the Indian Missions of the Church. Unconscious of having done anything that might be regarded as eccentric, Sir Robert was all affability, soon grew interested, asked a number of questions as to the death-rate among the tribes, the prevalence of smallpox and cholera among them, the spread of civilization, confirmed nomadism, traces of Jewish rites, and so on, thanked him ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... person!—while the attraction of the strange-looking Russian seemed to increase. In spite of the grotesque hair and unusual beard, there was an air of great distinction about him. His complete unconsciousness and calm were so remarkable. You might take him for an eccentric person, but certainly a gentleman, and with an extraordinary magnetism, she felt. When once you had talked to him, he seemed to cast a spell over you. But, beyond this, she only knew that she was growing more unhappy every ...
— The Point of View • Elinor Glyn
... aristocracy. The mob which made Wilkes its idol was, in a blind and unconscious way, enforcing the lesson that Price and Priestley had in mind. For the moment, they were unsuccessful. Cartwright, with his Constitutional Societies, might capture the support of an eccentric peer like the Duke of Richmond; but the vast majority remained, if irritated, unconvinced. It needed the realization that the new doctrines were part of a vaster synthesis which swept within its purview the fortunes ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... listen with curious awe, as they heard his step, pacing to and fro, in that deserted and inauspicious chamber, while his voice, in broken sentences, was also imperfectly audible, as if maintaining a muttered dialogue. These eccentric practices gradually invested him, in the eyes of his domestics, with a certain preternatural mystery, which enhanced the fear with which they habitually regarded him, and was subsequently confirmed by his giving ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... one trapper who was a student of numismatics, another who devoted his spare time to astronomy, and several traders and trappers who were men of considerable culture, though they are generally men who are a little morbid or eccentric in their mental structure. All Edwards's natural abilities, which were sufficient to have earned him distinction had he been "in civilization," were concentrated on the pursuits of his wild life, and such a man always surpasses the coarser and duller Indian or half-breed ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... of the day he passed in a state of such humility that he could have wept when the waiters were civil to him. On the Monday morning he made his way to Park Row to read the files of the Chronicle—a morbid enterprise, akin to the eccentric behaviour of those priests of Baal who gashed themselves with knives or of authors who subscribe to ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... noticeable facts about Carcassonne. Here was born that eccentric revolutionary and poetic genius, Fabre d'Eglantine, of whom ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... the same spectacle, and pounds of stocks, larkspur and poppy seeds, were annually saved by the eccentric old man, to ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... exactly mad, maybe, but eccentric, he swum Charleston harbour with his clothes on because some one dared him, and was nearly drowned with the tide coming in or going out, I forget which; and another day he got on the engine at Charleston station ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... uncomfortably warm, and the little man was nervously anxious to see his farm. So were the nieces, for that matter, who were always interested in the things that interested their eccentric uncle. Besides Patricia Doyle, whom we have already introduced, these nieces were Miss Louise Merrick, who had just celebrated her eighteenth birthday, and Miss Elizabeth—or "Beth"—De Graf, now well past fifteen. Beth lived in a small town in Ohio, but was ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... with O'Riley?" said Fred, pointing to that eccentric individual, who was gazing intently at the bears, muttering between his teeth, ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... a pink or white shirt, red sash, and a glazed hat with tri-colored streamers, or small bonnet and wig, with cue behind. Considerably more than half of the carnival masques take up this dress, the remainder attiring themselves as hussars, pierrots, and all sorts of eccentric and anomalous costumes. The balls are kept up until six o'clock in ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... exactly side by side with the first-mentioned, but a little aback, though not so far as to prevent the possibility of conversation. At this time it may be mentioned here that every man that could afford it wore a wig, with the exception of some of those eccentric individuals that are to be found in every state and period of society, and who are remarkable for that peculiar love of singularity which generally constitutes their character—a small and harmless ambition, easily gratified, and involving no injury to their fellow-creatures. ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... know, to pass the hot weather term in the town of Meridian. The relative at whose house I had intended to stay was ill, so I sought other quarters. After some difficulty I succeeded in renting a vacant dwelling that had been occupied by an eccentric doctor of the name of Mannering, who had gone away years before, no one knew where, not even his agent. He had built the house himself and had lived in it with an old servant for about ten years. His practice, never very ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... place of the child in the moral order. Those who derive their theology by reading and interpreting isolated passages of the Scriptures sometimes arrive at unexpected, and, from the point of view of rational living, eccentric and positively harmful conclusions. Some devoted readers find in the writings of Paul something about "Whereas in Adam all die, in Christ all are made alive"; and in Christ's words the utterance to Nicodemus, "Except a man be born again he shall ...
— Church Cooperation in Community Life • Paul L. Vogt
... this place who could have written such a letter. What would a New York society man, whose compliments are as extravagant as meaningless, think of it? Truly he doesn't know the world, and isn't like it. I supposed him an awkward, eccentric young countryman, that, from his very verdancy, would be difficult to manage, and he writes to me like a knight of olden time, only such language seems Quixotic in our day. The foolish fellow, to idealize poor, despised, faulty Edith Allen into one of the grand heroines of his ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... much indebted to you for the introduction to your friend G—-. He is one of us; or rather, he moves in an eccentric sphere of his own, which crosses, I believe, almost all the orbits of all the classed and classifiable systems of London. I found him exactly what you described; and we were on the frankest footing of old friends in the course ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... rendered Rome under Innocent VIII. almost uninhabitable. Venice, praised for its piety by De Comines,[2] was the resort of all the debauchees of Europe who could afford the time and money to visit this modern Corinth. Tom Coryat, the eccentric English traveler, gives a curious account of the splendor and refinement displayed by the demi-monde of the lagoons, and Marston describes Venice as a school of luxury in which the monstrous Aretine played professor.[3] ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... not have treated my visitor so cavalierly if I had not felt sure that she was eccentric and unconventional—qualities extremely tiresome in a woman no longer young or attractive. If she were not eccentric she would not have persisted in coming to my door day after day in this silent way, without stating her errand, leaving a note, or presenting ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... illustrations of this neglected truth is Thomas Carlyle. How often has it been said that Carlyle's matter is marred by the harshness and the eccentricities of his style? But Carlyle's matter is harsh and eccentric to precisely the same degree as his style is harsh and eccentric. Carlyle was harsh and eccentric. His behaviour was frequently ridiculous, if it were not abominable. His judgments were often extremely bizarre. When you read one of Carlyle's fierce diatribes, ...
— Literary Taste: How to Form It • Arnold Bennett
... a brigade, is but a pawn in the game. But there is a charm also in the more free and adventurous life of partisan warfare, where, if the total sphere be humbler, yet the individual has more relative importance, and the sense of action is more personal and keen. This is the reason given by the eccentric Revolutionary biographer, Weems, for writing the Life of Washington first, and then that of Marion. And there were, certainly, hi the early adventures of the colored troops in the Department of the South, some of the same elements ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson |
