"Singular" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "Indeed? of that singular man, who I think came tipsy once to Sir Francis's house?" Major Pendennis said, with impenetrable countenance. "Who ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... she consented to stay for the meal without much pressing. When the table was laid Mrs. Poole went upstairs to her brother's bedroom. On opening the door she was met with a very strong odour of chemical experimentalising. Despite the warmth of the season, there was a fire, with two or three singular pots boiling upon it. A table was covered with jars and phials, and test-tubes and retorts. Here Ackroyd was bending to explain something to a sharp-eyed little lad, Jacky Bunce. Luke had allowed his beard to grow of late, and it improved his appearance; he looked more self-reliant than formerly. ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... of them the word "you" (in the plural) was used, as if both were addressed at the same time. This was the first use of the pronoun of the second person in the plural for such a purpose; for throughout antiquity even kings and emperors were addressed in the singular. ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... respect, but it would prove only how universal the prejudice was in former days. Hundreds of times I heard the old assertion repeated, that "learning will spoil the nigger for work," and that "negro education will be the ruin of the south." Another most singular notion still holds a potent sway over the minds of the masses—it is, that the elevation of the blacks will be the degradation of the whites. They do not understand yet that the continual contact with an ignorant and degraded population must necessarily lower ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... stripes seems to a Northern man to be a crime putting the criminal altogether out of all courts—a crime which should have armed the hands of all men against him, as the hands of all men are armed at a dog that is mad, or a tiger that has escaped from its keeper. It is singular that such a people, a people that has founded itself on rebellion, should have such a horror of rebellion; but, as far as my observation may have enabled me to read their feelings rightly, I do believe that it has been as ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... A singular course of ideal scenes followed each other in quick succession in my mind—as I fancied myself the hero of a similar adventure. I regarded my imaginary benefactress with feelings of such intensity ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... of the church the fragrant incense was wafted and with it the fragrant names of her who was conceived without stain of original sin, spiritual vessel, pray for us, honourable vessel, pray for us, vessel of singular devotion, pray for us, mystical rose. And careworn hearts were there and toilers for their daily bread and many who had erred and wandered, their eyes wet with contrition but for all that bright with ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... improbable that the serious student has been choosing his books badly. He may do this in two ways—absolutely and relatively. Every reader of long standing has been through the singular experience of suddenly seeing a book with which his eyes have been familiar for years. He reads a book with a reputation and thinks: "Yes, this is a good book. This book gives me pleasure." And then after an interval, perhaps after half a lifetime, something ...
— Literary Taste: How to Form It • Arnold Bennett
... at Aix-la-Chapelle, which had put an end to the general war of Europe, had left undefined the boundaries between the British and French possessions in America; a singular remissness, considering that they had long been a subject in dispute, and a cause of frequent conflicts in the colonies. Immense regions were still claimed by both nations, and each was now eager to forestall the other ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... large whelk, is another, but far larger and coarser. It is Sagartia parasitica, one of our largest British species; and most singular in this, that it is almost always (in Torbay, at least,) found adhering to a whelk: but never to a live one; and for this reason. The live whelk (as you may see for yourself when the tide is out) burrows in the sand in chase of hapless ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... of the text. It was exactly so that Wiltshire dressed and looked, and you have the line of his nose to a nicety. His nose is an inspiration. Nor should I forget to thank you for Case, particularly in his last appearance. It is a singular fact - which seems to point still more directly to inspiration in your case - that your missionary actually resembles the flesh-and-blood person from whom Mr. Tarleton was drawn. The general effect of the islands is all that could be wished; ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... more or less the consequence of the bombardment, which warms it up and impairs its insulating power; but with frequencies obtainable with condensers I have no doubt that the glass may give way without previous heating. Although this appears most singular at first, it is in reality what we might expect to occur. The energy supplied to the wire leading into the bulb is given off partly by direct action through the carbon button, and partly by inductive action through the glass ...
— Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High - Frequency • Nikola Tesla
... must not the conflagration have been, fed by such pabulum—as Sir Robert himself would have said—as that on which it glutted its fiery and consuming appetite. We have said that the offices and dwelling-house ran parallel with each other, and such was the fact. What appeared singular, and not without the possibility of some dark supernatural causes, according to the impressions of the people, was, that the wind, on the night in question, started, as it were, along with the fire; but the truth is, it had been gamboling ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... unconsciously he received the suggestion of this work, which he now presents to the public. And indeed at the period during which, while still in his youth, he studied French law, the word ADULTERY made a singular impression upon him. Taking, as it did, a prominent place in the code, this word never occurred to his mind without conjuring up its mournful train of consequences. Tears, shame, hatred, terror, secret crime, bloody wars, families ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... criminals and lunatics, but served instead to indicate a new method for the study of penal jurisprudence, a matter to which I had never given serious thought. I began dimly to realise that the a priori studies on crime in the abstract, hitherto pursued by jurists, especially in Italy, with singular acumen, should be superseded by the direct analytical study of the criminal, compared with normal individuals and ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... was quiet and pleasantly modulated, and he spoke English with the faintest slur—perceptible, perhaps, only to the keenest ear—of a French accent. To ears less keen it would merely seem that he articulated with a precision so singular ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... be cooks, but most intelligent women can learn to cook. It saves immense labor, however, if as girls they learn the art. It is singular that so many who fancy they want to be chemists hate the idea of going into their own kitchens to work. It is possibly because they cannot choose their own hours for cooking. Cooking certainly develops the mind as much as chemical experiments, and at the ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... appears to be a hybrid between ale and bottled cider. Another excellent tipple for warm weather is concocted by mixing brown-stout or bitter ale with ginger-beer, the foam of which stirs up the heavier liquor from its depths, forming a compound of singular vivacity and sufficient body. But of all things ever brewed from malt, (unless it be the Trinity Ale of Cambridge, which I drank long afterwards, and which Barry Cornwall has celebrated in immortal verse,) commend me to the Archdeacon, as the Oxford scholars call it, in honor ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... that I, the rightful owner, should stand ringing for admission like a stranger, and more singular still it seemed at the time, that I should for long years have been a wanderer away from the home of my fathers. And I stood there as a culprit. I was about to enter my home, only to come out a prisoner, a man accused of an awful crime. I was not sure if they would hang ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... mountains of solid rock which, at a little distance, appear completely black, some of the buildings painted green, and others white, with their uniform roofs of red tiles, have a very singular effect. The houses reared, with much order, on piles near the water, are also neatly constructed of wood; and their bright colours are not permitted to become tarnished by exposure to the weather, but may contend with Holland in cleanliness and the freshness ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... Moors. Leo Von Rozmital, who visited Barcelona in 1476, says that the date-tree grew in great abundance in the environs of that city and ripened its fruit well. It is now scarcely cultivated further north than Valencia. It is singular that Ritter in his very full monograph on the palm does not ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... a singular coincidence, perhaps, that during one and the same summer we should be celebrating centenaries of Samuel Pepys and George Borrow. Pepys died in the early summer of 1703; Borrow was born in July, 1803. Unlike each other in almost every respect, they are dui palor, {213b} as ...
— George Borrow - Times Literary Supplement, 10th July 1903 • Thomas Seccombe
... enough to fall into the water; but the facts that they could display such deliberate cunning, that they were able to break ice of such thickness (at least 2-1/2 feet), and that they could act in unison, were a revelation to us. It is clear that they are endowed with singular intelligence, and in future we shall treat ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... doubt,—"if I am at all,"—becomes no less singular than sad when we recollect that six and thirty was actually the age when he ceased to "be," and at a moment, too, when (as even the least friendly to him allow) he was in that state of "progressing merits" which ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... not reply, for he had got something to meditate on. Close beside him, you must know, lay a singular little thing which he simply couldn't make out ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald
... the contrast between her actual life and that suggested by Mrs. Brewer's talk about her was singular enough. It supplied him with a problem of which the interest would not easily be exhausted. But he must pursue the study with due regard to honour and delicacy; he would act the spy no more. As Eve had said, they were pretty sure to meet before long; if his patience ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... the emperor died, and Focus the carpenter, on account of his singular wisdom, was elected in his stead by the unanimous choice of the whole nation. He governed as wisely as he had lived; and at his death, his picture, bearing on the head eight pennies, was reposited among the ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... broader basis and include among its sources or abettors all the higher passions of humanity. The Revolutionary individualism must be maintained and extended; in his methods Browning would acknowledge no master; he would please himself and compel his readers to accept his method even if strange or singular. As for the mediaeval revival, which tried to turn aside, and in part capture, the transcendental tendencies of his time, Browning rejected it, in the old temper of English Puritanism, on the side of religion; but ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... dressing-room with her mother and two of her maids. My anxiety gave me no time to note what she wore. I was only able to mark the colours, which were crimson and white; and I remember the glimmer with which the jewels and precious stones shone in her head-dress. But all this was as nothing to the singular beauty of her ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... of which he was conscious, and which he afterwards remembered, for we have not done with our Martin yet, was one of a singular character. A glorious light, but intensely painful, seemed before his eyes. It burnt, it dazzled, it confounded him; yet he admired and adored it, for it seemed to him the glory of God thus fashioning itself before him. And on that brilliant orb, glowing like a sun, was a black spot ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... like one, that she never will!" Mrs. Barbara hopelessly regarded the strangely-wide little yellow face, the singular eyes narrow as slits, and the still ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... of gardens is not onely diuers but almost infinite, the industry of mens braines hourely begetting and bringing forth such new garments and imbroadery for the earth, that it is impossible to say this shall be singular, neither can any man say that this or that is the best, sith as mens tastes so their fancies are carried away with the varietie of their affections, some being pleased with one forme, some with another: I will not therefore giue preheminence to any one beauty, but discribing the faces and glories ...
— The English Husbandman • Gervase Markham
... down from London without perturbing himself over the scene with his father which he knew lay before him. This was quite characteristic of him; he had a singular command over his imagination when he had made up his mind to anything, and never indulged in the gratuitous pain of anticipation. Today he had an additional bulwark against such self-inflicted worries, for he had spent his last two hours in town ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... bore whether he has seen Mr. Barry's new Houses of Parliament, and he will reply that he has not yet inspected them minutely, but, that you remind him that it was his singular fortune to be the last man to see the old Houses of Parliament before the fire broke out. It happened in this way. Poor John Spine, the celebrated novelist, had taken him over to South Lambeth to read ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... grip of this singular and powerful man, Ione was not yet terrified; the respect of his language, the softness of his voice, reassured her; and in her own purity she felt protection. But she was confused, astonished. It was some moments before she could recover the power ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... State House on the meeting of Congress, the formal speech from the throne, the procession of Congress in a body to re-echo the speech in an answer, &c. &c. But the translator here, by substituting form in the singular number, for forms in the plural, made it mean the frame or organization of our government, or its form of legislative, executive, and judiciary authorities, co-ordinate and independent: to which form it was to be inferred that I was an enemy. In this sense they always quoted it, and in this ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... imprisoned mother, ought not to be allowed the honor of their company;.... it was all wrong that she was not made an apprentice.... Hortense de Beauharnais was apprenticed to her mother's seamstress, while Eugene was put with a carpenter in the Faubourg St. Germain." The prevailing dogmatism has a singular effect with simple-minded people. (Archives Nationals, AF. II., 135. petition of Ursule Riesler, servant to citizen Estreich and arrested along with him, addressed to Garneri, agent of the Committee of Public Safety. She begs citizen Garnerin to interest himself in obtaining ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... publishers and proprietors of Punch, which building was still more recently removed for the present commodious structure occupied by this firm. In Dickens' time it was in part at least the old "George Tavern." It is singular perhaps that Dickens' connection with the famous "Round Table" of Punch was not more intimate than it was. It is not known that a single article of his was ever printed in its pages, though it is to be presumed he contributed several, and one at ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... the Great Educator, it is the Great Revealer. Its marches and bivouacs, its battles, its commonplaces and surprises, its trials and its triumphs, are a singular school of experience. The various impacts upon man's psychological anatomy produce strange results. They seem like the blows of some Invisible Sculptor, producing out of commonplace material a hero and it may be a demi-god. ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... and architecture, Sir James devoted a great deal of time to the study of geology. The science was then in its infancy. Being an acute observer, Hall's attention was first attracted to the subject by the singular geological features of the sea-coast near his mansion at Dunglass. The neighbourhood of Edinburgh also excited his interest. The upheaval of the rocks by volcanic heat —as seen in the Castle Hill, the Calton Hill, and Arthur's Seat— formed in a great measure the foundation of the picturesque ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... proper sense powerless. She can deal only with classes, only with general laws; and so long as these classes are constantly reduced to "species of one," and these laws are set at nought by incalculable and singular influences, she must be constantly baffled and find all her elaborate plant of formulas and generalisations useless. Of course, there are generalisations possible in literature, and to such I may return ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... he was, he had a singular care for appearances, a curious regard for detail, and busied himself in removing all signs of his presence from her chamber—all tell-tale traces of the storm of passion that swept away her life—and his! He felt himself already but ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... character, incapable of being the author of it. Standing as I do in this relation to you, you would renounce your superiority, if you refused to be advised by me. Remember that this is one of the most singular, that it may be the most distinguished, and ought to be one of the most deliberate acts of your life. Your writings have hitherto been the delight and instruction of your own country. You now undertake to correct and instruct another nation; and your appeal in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... call for, and of every place I had to send him to, and talked a great deal to me; so that, in short, I began now to have some use for my tongue again, which, indeed, I had very little occasion for before. Besides the pleasure of talking to him, I had a singular satisfaction in the fellow himself: his simple, unfeigned honesty appeared to me more and more every day, and I began really to love the creature; and on his side I believe he loved me more than it was possible for him ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... prophesied, looked the very paragon of a well-dressed man. Indeed, not only was the contrast with his usual self so bewildering as to banish all sense of proportion in estimating the splendour of his transformation but the singular nobility of his face, with its wise, youthful brow and deep, thoughtful eyes, also added such a curious piquancy to his fashionable attire, that the general effect was little short of startling. It is always so. Dress your scholar, your thinker, your poet, in clothes that Saville Row has carefully ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... Hurlstone during this interval were at first marked by a strange and unreasoning reserve. Whether she resented the singular coalition forced upon them by the Council and felt the awkwardness of their unintentional imposture when they met, she did not know, but she generally avoided his society. This was not difficult, as ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... indeed singular, but neither of the men seemed to have noticed the raft or heard the cries that came from it. Merriwell was a splendid swimmer, and in spite of his chilled condition and his hampering clothing, he moved through the water almost like ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... labourers {523} considered it unlucky to miss a "bout" in corn or seed sowing, will sometimes happened when "broadcast" was the only method. The ill-luck did not relate alone to a death in the family of the farmer or his dependents, but to losses of cattle or accidents. It is singular, however, that the superstition should have transferred itself to the drill; but it will be satisfactory to E. G. R. to learn that the process of tradition and superstition-manufacturing is not going ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 187, May 28, 1853 • Various
... dropped. Driscoll's advice was too heavy a recoil on his own wits, for had he not once saved the Gringo's life, feeling that one day he might be a beneficiary of the Gringo's singular aversion to shooting people? And now here was the Gringo in quite another of his unexpected humors. But what bothered Don Tiburcio most was the acumen that tempered the American's mercy. The facts indeed stood as Driscoll casually laid them before General ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... of Buckingham, in his bold and familiar manner, appears to have been equally a favourite with James I. and Charles I. He behaved with singular indiscretion both at the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... return he showed the singular and affectionate kindness of his nature. His mother, unfortunately, while he was away, had become infected with the spirit of gambling; and the king, who had noted the talent and kind disposition of the young page, thought to do him a service by preventing his mother squandering the ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... another signifying I and you; perhaps another signifying I and he, and one signifying we, more than two, including the speaker and those present; and another including the speaker and persons absent. He will also find personal pronouns in the second and third person, perhaps with singular, dual, ...
— On the Evolution of Language • John Wesley Powell
... singular in the present day—when human beings have adopted a particular sort of mysterious ordinance, by which alone they can become thoroughly known and acquainted with each other—and when no man, upon any pretence or consideration whatsoever, dare speak to ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... this resolve he went home to his lodgings. It was singular that in all his misery the idea hardly once occurred to him of setting himself right in the world by accepting his cousin's offer of ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... 205] who calls its author several times the 'Apostle Barnabas'.... We have already seen in the case of the Epistles ascribed to Clement of Rome, and, as we proceed, we shall become only too familiar with the fact, the singular facility with which, in the total absence of critical discrimination, spurious writings were ascribed by the Fathers to Apostles and their followers.... Credulous piety which attributed writings to every Apostle, and even to Jesus himself, soon found authors for each anonymous ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... until there issued from it the well-known design of the monkey in its coronet, as the House of Lords, having plucked the cockatoo-Bill of most of its feather-clauses—a drawing which, under the title of "The Parish Councils Cockatoo," hit off the situation with singular felicity, and reaped the reward of the public applause. In a similar manner there developed Mr. Sambourne's peculiarly happy "Cartoon Junior," representing Mr. Gladstone, newly retired, looking up from the perusal of the first speech ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... It is their singular perseverance in this favourite pursuit which renders a French ball to a stranger more than commonly ludicrous. In England, when the company begins to assemble, you are delighted with the troops of young and blooming girls, who throng into the dancing ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... good deal surprised at this apparently singular transaction on the part of the Mica Company, but before long, their reasons for helping the boys to put up their line and then buying ...
— What Might Have Been Expected • Frank R. Stockton
... 32 provinces (velayat, singular - velayat); Badakhshan, Badghis, Baghlan, Balkh, Bamian, Farah, Faryab, Ghazni, Ghowr, Helmand, Herat, Jowzjan, Kabol, Kandahar, Kapisa, Khowst, Konar, Kondoz, Laghman, Lowgar, Nangarhar, Nimruz, Nurestan, Oruzgan, Paktia, Paktika, ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... that he considered his efforts as crowned with success. All was again hilarity and mirth. The wine passed freely around. Shouts of laughter rang through the spacious hall. A strange person entered the apartment, at that end opposite to the spot where the king sat on his golden throne. His singular appearance arrested the attention of all present. The stranger had passed the meridian of life. His figure was tall, his countenance striking. Deep solemnity rested on his visage, which presented a very strange contrast to the countenances that surrounded ...
— The Young Captives - A Story of Judah and Babylon • Erasmus W. Jones
... conduct the affairs of the nation; so turn us out of office, and seat yourself in our place." Nevertheless, they might have hoped to preserve their tottering authority through his support. Be this as it may, there it something so singular in the good fortune which has attended BONAPARTE from the period of his quitting Alexandria, that, were it not known for truth, it might well be taken for fiction. Sailing from the road of Aboukir on the 24th of ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... that we had better remain where we were. I narrated our accident; and my clothes having been dried at the caboose, I dressed myself and went on deck. My companion, the waterman, did not escape so well; his foot was frostbitten, and he lost four of his toes before he recovered. It was singular that he, who was a man grown up, should suffer so much more than I did. I cannot account for it, except that my habit of always being in the water had hardened me more to the cold. We remained on board two days, during which we were treated ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... dogs, uncertain as to what was expected of them, kept their places in the snow. At last the old man struggled to his feet and silently started toward the cabin. Wild Bill followed in equal silence, and the dogs as mutely brought up the rear. The depressed, not to say woe-begone, appearance of the singular procession certainly had in it, in the fullest measure, all the elements of humor. In this suggestive manner the column filed into the cabin. The dogs stole softly to their accustomed places, Wild Bill dropped into ...
— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray
... confess that the knot of this judgment of duty principally lies in the will; there have been husbands who have suffered cuckoldom, not only without reproach or taking offence at their wives, but with singular obligation to them and great commendation of their virtue. Such a woman has been, who prized her honour above her life, and yet has prostituted it to the furious lust of a mortal enemy, to save her husband's life, and who, in so doing, did that for him she would not have ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... many tests applied for the discovery of witchcraft was the following. It is, I believe, a singular instance, and but little known to the public. It was resorted to as recently as 1759, and may be found in the Gentleman's Magazine ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 55, November 16, 1850 • Various
... sensibilities which Sterne afterwards learned to cultivate in a forcing-frame, with a view to the application of their produce to the purposes of an art of pathetic writing which simulates nature with such admirable fidelity at its best, and descends to such singular ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... easy fleyed, an' gaed straucht up to the wa's; an' what suld he find there but a man, or the appearance of a man, sittin' in the inside upon a grave. He was of a great stature, an' black as hell, and his e'en were singular to see. {144} Mr. Soulis had heard tell o' black men, mony's the time; but there was something unco about this black man that daunted him. Het as he was, he took a kind o' cauld grue in the marrow o' his ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the universe was created. There was one molecule, which by vibration became—Heaven knows how!—the Sun. Further vibration produced Mercury, and so on. I suspect the nebular hypothesis had got into the poor man's head by reading, in some singular mixture with what it found there. Some modifications of vibration gave heat, electricity, etc. I {14} listened until my informant ceased to vibrate—which is always the shortest way—and then said, "Our knowledge of elastic fluids is imperfect." "Sir!" said he, "I see you perceive ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... Each spoke only when called upon by Mr. Rhys; and each was answered in his turn with a word of counsel or direction or encouragement, as the case seemed to need. Sometimes the answer was in the words of the Bible; but always, whatever it were, it was given, Eleanor felt, with singular appositeness to the interests before him. With great skill too, and with infinite sympathy and tenderness if need called for it; with sympathy invariably. And Eleanor admired the apt readiness and kindness and wisdom with which the answers were framed; ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... Ash II, 8a (see p. 56 and 57. Fig. 2 and 3). "Locho dove si predica" (Place for preaching). A most singular plan for a building. The interior is a portion of a sphere, the centre of which is the summit of a column destined to serve as the preacher's pulpit. The inside is somewhat like a modern theatre, whilst the ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... been quick, and her eyes were fastened upon his with a look from the old days striving in her to bring back that big moment of their last parting—that singular moment when they blindly groped for each other but had perforce to be content with one poor, trembling handclasp! Had that trembling been a weakness or a strength? For all time since—and increasingly during the later years—secret ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... Hugh that somebody else was there and turned to make as well as she might the introduction. But Mr. Carleton did not need it, and made his own with that singular talent which in all circumstances, wherever he chose to exert it, had absolute power. Fleda saw Hugh's countenance change, with a kind of pleased surprise, and herself stood still under the charm for a minute; then she recollected she might be dispensed with. ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... your charge, without respect of person, or any affection, that might moue you to decline from the true ministration of iustice. And further, you shal obserue, and cause to be obserued, as much as in you lieth, all and singular rules, articles, prouisions hitherto made, or heereafter to be made for the preseruation or safeconduct of the fleete and voyage, and benefit of the company. You shall not permit nor suffer the stocke or goods of the company to be wasted, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt
... his personal appearance had undergone a singular process of transformation. The lower part of his face, from his nostrils to his chin, was hidden by a white handkerchief tied round it. He had removed the stopper from a strangely shaped bottle, and was absorbed in watching some interesting condition in ...
— The Guilty River • Wilkie Collins
... of the paper were as follows: [The joke of this bill consists chiefly in its being written in very bad Russian, with continual mistakes as to plural and singular, prepositions and ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... sheer want of room, much has to be taken for granted which might readily enough be proved; and hence, while the adept, who can supply the missing links in the evidence from his own knowledge, discovers fresh proof of the singular thoroughness with which all difficulties have been considered and all unjustifiable suppositions avoided, at every reperusal of Mr. Darwin's pregnant paragraphs, the novice in biology is apt to complain of the frequency of what he fancies is ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... her deserted villages were attributed to the undue patronage bestowed upon settlers on the public lands: at another, the tariff is the cause of her desolation. Slavery, the real root of the evil, is carefully kept out of sight, as a "delicate subject," which must not be alluded to. It is a singular fact in the present age of the world, that delicate and indelicate subjects ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... doctrine (fraught, I confess, like all transcendent truths, with gravest practical dangers) was matured in my mind by friendship with one of the most singular of musicians. This person (since deceased, and by profession a clerk) suffered from nervousness so excessive that, despite a fair knowledge of music, the fact of putting his hands upon the keys produced a maddening sort of stammer, let alone a notable tendency ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... Bonomelli, Bishop of Cremona, writes: "In the Middle Ages, they reasoned thus: If rebellion against the prince deserves death, a fortiori does rebellion against God. Singular logic! It is not very hard to put one's finger upon the utter absurdity of such reasoning. For every sinner is a rebel against God's law. It follows then that we ought to condemn all men to death, beginning with the kings and the legislators;" quoted by Morlais in the Revue du Clerge ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard
... have thought of all these while you were absent. I can see no difficulty in our procuring a subsistence here. The Creator has bountifully stocked this singular oasis. We may easily obtain all the necessaries of life—for its luxuries I care but little. We can ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... mouth-pieces of the royal will; and where even this shadow of justice proved an obstacle to bloodshed, parliament was brought into play to pass bill after bill of attainder. "He shall be judged by the bloody laws he has himself made," was the cry of the council at the moment of his fall, and by a singular retribution the crowning injustice which he sought to introduce even into the practice of attainder, the condemnation of a man without hearing his defence, was only practised ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... or by the Sea or public Streams, or fresh Water, Ponds, Rivers, Creeks and Places Over flowed whatsoever within the Ebbing and flowing of the Sea or high Water Mark as upon any of the Shores or Banks adjoining to them or either of them, together with all and singular their Incidents, emergencies, Dependencies, annexed and Connexed causes whatsoever, and such Causes, Complaints, Contracts and other the Premises abovesaid or any of them howsoever the same may happen to arise, be contracted, ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... up with a singular smile, clenching and unclenching his fingers as if he strove to relax muscles which had been tense ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... fixed. When next he visited Twybridge, the change in his appearance was generally remarked. Mrs. Peak naturally understood it as a significant result of his intercourse with Miss Moxey, of whom, as it seemed to her, he spoke with singular reticence. ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... two-humped (C. Bactrianus), but a running i.e. a riding camel. The feminine is Nakah for like mules females are preferred. "Bakr" (masc.) and "Bakrah" (fem.) are camel-colts. There are hosts of special names besides those which are general. Mr. Censor is singular when he states (p.40) "the male (of the camel) is much the safer animal to choose ;" and the custom of t e universal Ease disproves his assertion. Mr. McCoan ("Egypt as it is") tells his readers that the Egyptian camel has two humps, in fact, he describes ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... Davis, indignantly. "You have a singular way of standing by your son, Mr. Davis. A low fellow insults and abuses him, and you exert yourself to mate ...
— Brave and Bold • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... word "evolution," now generally applied to the cosmic process, has had a singular history, and is used in various senses.* Taken in its popular signification it means progressive development, that is, gradual change from a condition of relative uniformity to one of relative complexity; but its connotation has been widened to include ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... Ranald played so important a part filled the town and stirred society to its innermost circles—those circles, namely, in which the De Lacys lived and moved. The whole town began talking of the Glengarry men, and especially of their young leader who had, with such singular ability and pluck, rescued the Ottawas with Harry and Lieutenant De Lacy, ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... singular I have ever seen," whispers Honeyman. "In entering one of these assemblies, one is struck with the immensity of London: and with the sense of one's own insignificance. Without, I trust, departing from my clerical character, nay, from ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... blossoms on her bosom and also in her hair. The features 'peared familiar, but I could not, for the life of me, make out who she was, nor can I yet, though I see her ghastly face ever before me, and think I shall thus see it until the day I die. And what 'pears to me as singular is, that I saw every one that is here now there, and a great many more of our relatives and friends, and all were weeping as if she were some one very near and dear to them. Now, what does thee ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... mind—they are not made without pain: nor have I often felt the want of riches and consequence so much as in my incapacity to promote some means of permanent and substantial remedy for the evils I have been describing. I have frequently enquired the cause of this singular misery, but can only learn that it always has been so. I fear it is, that the poor are without energy, and the rich without generosity. The decay of manufactures since the last century must have reduced many families to indigence. These have been able to subsist on the refuse of luxury, but, ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... singular assertion of St. Jerome, that the gift of prophecy was a reward to the Sibyls for their chastity. If such was the condition, we have a right to consider that the Deities were very partial in the ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... a singular one, with very many noble features: he was devoted to his duty, generous to a fault, bold, determined, and indomitably energetic, and an ardent friend to all under his sway. He would undertake any sort of trouble to assist those whom he thought deserved assistance. He was a handsome man, ...
— The Autobiography of Charles Darwin - From The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin • Charles Darwin
... in this country opposed a barrier to our desires, which threatened to be insurmountable. No instance of a similar proposition from a foreign power, had occurred in their history. The admitting it in this case, is a singular proof of the King's friendly disposition towards the States of America, and of his personal esteem for the Marquis de ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... will make allowance for the zeal of a young Bachelor of Queen's, who, it must be remembered, had scarcely attained the age of twenty-three when this extraordinary work was produced. (6) The reader is forcibly reminded of the national dress of the Highlanders in the following singular passage: "furciferos magis vultus pilis, quam corporum pudenda, pudendisque proxima, vestibus tegentes." (7) See particularly capp. xxiii. and xxvi. The work which follows, called the "Epistle of Gildas", is ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown
... whole number returned—one hundred in all, with Haselrig at their head—were by this means excluded on grounds of disaffection or want of religion. To these arbitrary acts of violence the House replied only by a course of singular moderation and wisdom. From the first it disclaimed any purpose of opposing the Government. One of its earliest acts provided securities for Cromwell's person, which was threatened by constant plots of assassination. It supported him in his war policy, and voted supplies of ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... pervading "the Bothie of Toper-na-fuosich,"—(in English, "the hut of the bearded well," a somewhat singular title, to say the least,) is so strong and complete as to render necessary the few words of dedication, where, in inscribing the poem, (or, as the author terms it, "trifle,") to his "long-vacation pupils," he expresses a hope, that they "will not be displeased if, ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... Bretagne" is no more; whilst nowadays there are to be found no visitors hardy enough to endure a prolonged sojourn in the wretched hostelries of the town itself. The electric tram and the rail-road have in fact killed Pozzuoli as a winter resort, more's the pity, for it is not only a spot of singular interest in itself but its climate is certainly superior to that of Naples, for the great headland which shuts off the city from the Phlegrean Fields serves also to act as a buffer against the icy tramontana that sweeps along the Chiaja in winter and early spring. ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... still more advisable to persist in the same salutary practise and not to risk the unknown perils that may attend any rash inovations. The test of antiquity and success, (continues Gibbon), was applied with singular advantage to the Religion of NUMA, and Rome herself, the celestial genius that presided over the fates of the city, is introduced by the orator to plead her own cause before the tribunal of the emperors. 'Most excellent princes,' says the venerable matron, 'fathers of your country! pity and ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... 20th they sent several kinds of refreshments to Weybhays's company, and carried a good quantity of water from the isle. There was something very singular in finding this water; the people who were on shore there had subsisted near three weeks on rainwater, and what lodged in the clefts of the rocks, without thinking that the water of two wells which were on the island could be of any use, because they saw them constantly ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... except in the south, near Jerusalem. They are called people of the "blood" or "tribe" of the 'Abiri (B. 106), and of the "land" of the 'Abiri (B. 199), showing that the term is derived from the 'Abarim, or mountains east of Jordan. The Abiru chiefs are mentioned in the singular (B. 102, 104), and none of these facts can be reconciled with the view that they were "allies." They are distinctly said to have come from Seir (Edom) in one letter (B. 104), and to have left their pastures (B. 103), and are probably the "desert people" of the Gezer letter (51 ...
— Egyptian Literature
... constant dread of it, is to die over and over again." This was an obvious reflection, easy enough of suggestion for any one who was not within the danger line; but to live every day in accordance with it, when the danger was never absent, called for a singular tranquillity of temperament, and a kind of courage in which brave men are notoriously apt ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... Royal decree suppressing first two volumes (1752) Failure of the Jesuits to carry on the work Four more volumes published The seventh volume (1757) Arouses violent hostility The storm made fiercer by Helvetius's L'Esprit Proceedings against the Encyclopaedia Their significance They also mark singular reaction within the school of Illumination Retirement of D'Alembert Diderot continues the work alone for seven years His harassing mortifications The Encyclopaedia at Versailles Reproduction ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... Jingle delivered this singular summary of his prospects in life, with his accustomed volubility, and with various twitches of the countenance to counterfeit smiles. Mr. Pickwick easily perceived that his recklessness was assumed, and looking him full, but not unkindly, in the face, saw that his ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... their specific curative methods are to be got exclusively from the Homoeopathic chemist, unless gathered at first hand. These, not being officinal, fail to find a place on the shelves of the ordinary Pharmaceutical druggist. Nevertheless, when suitably employed, they are of singular efficacy in curing the maladies to which they stand akin by the law of similars. For convenience of distinction here, the symbol H. will follow such particular preparations, which number in all some ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie |
