"Speciality" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... more delicate sentiments, will probably sympathize with me when I admit that Mr. Plum's sign did not inspire me with that enthusiasm which is at least comforting to the possessor. The reference to Mr. Plum's "speciality" was what cast a temporary gloom over me, but Mrs. Denslow was not one of those who suffer a detail so insignificant as this to stand in her way; so I was bounced into Uncle Si's shop and presented to Uncle Si ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... praise boldness, when the only safe attendant spirit of a beginner is caution;—advise velocity, when the first condition of success is deliberation;—and plead for generalization, when all the foundations of power must be laid in knowledge of speciality. ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... is a medical 'furriner,' therefore he is generally despised by the English medical profession. But I'm a Scotsman—I've no prejudices except my own!" And he laughed—"And I acknowledge Santori as one of the greatest men of the age. He is a scientist as well as a surgeon—and his great 'speciality' is the spine and nerves. Now I have never quite explained to you the nature of Miss Vancourt's injuries, and there is no need even now to particularise them. The main point of her case is that in the condition she is now, ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... type of the incorrigible Chouan, he was a fine-looking man of thirty, fresh-complexioned, with white teeth and a ready smile, and dressed in the prevailing fashion. He was a close companion of d'Ache, and it was even said that they had the same mistress at Rouen. The speciality of Raoul and his brother Armand was attacking coaches which carried government money. Their takings served to pay recruits to the royalist cause. For the past six months Raoul Gaillard had been in Paris looking ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... business of Education, which so many consider the schoolmaster's speciality, is a larger business than they think. The Family exists to do it, the Church exists to do it. It is the real business of the State. The great Universe itself, with all its vastness, its powers and its mysteries, was created for this. It is simply ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... the classes which lack leisure; she is an exasperating and most entirely selfish woman, and she cannot very well invent her refinements of whining cruelty unless she has a little time on hand; her speciality is to moan incessantly over the ingratitude of people for whom she has done some trivial service; and, as she always moans by choice in presence of the person whom she has afflicted by her generosity, the result is merely distracting. If the victim says, "I allow ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... criticism more life than in France. It engages the attention of the best minds. No writer, whatever be his speciality, thinks it derogatory to give long and elaborate notices in the daily press of new books or new editions of old books. Thus, Sainte-Beuve in the "Moniteur," De Sacy, Saint-Marc Girardin, Philarete Chasles, Prevost-Paradol in the "Journal des Debats," not to mention the numerous writers ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... arranged on the plan of the man and the woman in the toy called a "weather-house," both on the same wooden arm suspended on a pivot,—so that when one comes to the door, the other retires backwards, and vice versa. The more particular speciality of one is to lubricate your entrance and exit,—that of the other to polish you off phrenologically in the recesses of the establishment. Suppose yourself in a room full of casts and pictures, before a counterful of books with taking titles. ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... 'the black art'; but Webster was the author of a rare volume on witchcraft, so that his books were his literary tools—just as, a century later, John Rennie, the distinguished civil engineer, made a speciality of mathematical books, of which he had a collection nearly complete in all languages. Dr. Benjamin Moseley's library, which was sold by Stewart in March, 1814, was composed for the most part of books on astrology, magic, and facetiae. The ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... poet—though I know of none such—may have accepted and adopted his theory that "vengeance" must count in verse as a word of three syllables: I can hardly believe that the fancy would sound sweet in any second man's ear: but this speciality is not more characteristic than other and more important qualities of style—the peculiar abruptness, the peculiar inflation, the peculiar crudity—which denote this comedy as apparently if not evidently Marstonian. ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... memory, and different altogether as to quality,—a memory for details;—nevertheless, the feat is amazing. But with the return to Japan of these young scholars, there is commonly an end of effort in the direction of the speciality studied,—unless it happens to have been a purely practical subject. Does this signify incapacity for independent work [440] upon Occidental lines? incapacity for creative thought? lack of constructive ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... the whole process and machinery employed. Any English or American agriculturist who has read of Alderman Mechi's operations, would be inclined to ask, on looking, for the first time, at his buildings and the fields surrounding them, what is the great distinguishing speciality of his enterprise. His land is poor; his housings are simple; there is no outside show of uncommon taste or genius. Every acre is tile-drained, to be sure. But that is nothing new nor uncommon. Drainage is the order of the day. Any tenant farmer in England can have his land drained ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... of not explaining "Wuzu" (lesser ablution), "Ghusl" (greater ablution), and "Zakat" (legal alms which constitute a poor-rate), proving that the writer never read vol. iii. He confidently suggests replacing "Cafilah," "by the better known word Caravan," as if it were my speciality (as it is his) to hunt-out commonplaces: he grumbles about "interrogation-points a l'Espagnole upside down"(?) which still satisfies me as an excellent substitute to distinguish the common Q(uestion) ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... who made a speciality of ecclesiastical cases, and had acquired a fortune by serving the Jesuits. He had retired with a comfortable sum, and led an existence slightly mysterious; received everywhere, saluted very low, even a little feared, as he represented a great and ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... you it is impossible that you should suppose that yours were of no use to me! I would throw up the whole thing were it not for correspondence with you, which is the only bit of silver in the affair. I do feel it disgusting to have to make a point of a speciality in which I cannot see my way a bit further than I could before I began. To be sure, I have a very much clearer notion of the pros and cons on both sides (though these were rather forgotten facts than rediscoveries). I see the sides of the well further down ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... probability, analogy, and common sense. They must disbelieve all rational explanations of thoroughly proved experiences (only) which appear supernatural, derived from the average experience and study of the visible world. They must disbelieve the speciality of the Master and the Disciples, and that it is a monstrosity to test the wonders of show-folk by the same touchstone. Lastly, they must disbelieve that one of the best accredited chapters in the history of mankind is the chapter that records the astonishing deceits continually ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens
... is the daughter of the drunken organist who desecrated my father's tomb, though that concerns you not:—her own speciality, as you see, is that she is the flower ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... the ironmonger; Joe Keats always laughed at him as if he were a farce; Joe would not be ceremonious, and could not be corrected because he was a relative and of equal age with the alderman. But he was obliged to go to Joe Keats, as Joe made a speciality of cartridges. In Hanbridge, people who wanted cartridges went as a matter of course to Joe's. So Alderman Keats strolled with grand casualness into ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... consist of the plays of Ford, Dekker, Tourneur, Marston, and Middleton; names very dear to the lover of our old Drama, but I venture to think names somewhat inappropriate in a list of books for a reader who does not make the drama a speciality. Lamb's Selections would be sufficient ...
— How to Form a Library, 2nd ed • H. B. Wheatley
... exactly such as he would have derived from the diligent study of the fourth Gospel. But may he not have derived all this from Philo? No; because, if so, he would have referred Trypho, a Jew, to Philo, his brother Jew, which he never does. The speciality of St. John's teaching is not that he, like Plato or Philo, elaborates a Logos doctrine, but that once for all, with the authority of God, he identifies the Logos with the Divine Nature of our Lord. No other Evangelist or sacred writer does ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler
... from under the hem of the black skirt. Decoud's eyes also remained fixed there, while in an undertone he added that Miss Avellanos was quite aware of his new and unexpected vocation, which in Costaguana was generally the speciality of half-educated negroes and wholly penniless lawyers. Then, confronting with a sort of urbane effrontery Mrs. Gould's gaze, now turned sympathetically upon himself, he breathed out the words, ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... most complicated, the most concrete, the most directly interesting to man; they depend more or less on all the preceding phenomena, without exercising on them any influence. Between these two extremes, the degrees of speciality, of complication and personality, of phenomena, gradually increase, as well as their successive ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... before this admired the mixture of cheerful cynicism and dry humour that is the speciality of Mr. MAX RITTENBERG. He has shown it again in Every Man His Price (METHUEN), but hardly, I think, to quite the same effect as formerly. My feeling about the book was that it started with a first-class idea for a plot of comedy and ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 11, 1914 • Various
... Impressionists. She is one of the very few painters whom Degas has advised, with Forain and M. Ernest Rouart. (This latter, a painter himself, a son of the painter and wealthy collector Henri Rouart, has married Mme. Manet's daughter who is also an artist.) Miss Cassatt has made a speciality of studying children, and she is, perhaps, the artist of this period who has understood and expressed them with the greatest originality. She is a pastellist of note, and some of her pastels are as good as Manet's and Degas's, so far as broad execution and brilliancy and delicacy of ...
— The French Impressionists (1860-1900) • Camille Mauclair
... 'Aunt Lucy,' and when that aged dame became conscious of the great honor thus to be conferred upon her, she at once set to work in the culinary department with a dexterity and skill of art which is incredible to those who are ignorant of the great speciality of negresses. There was sudden havoc among the poultry, and fruit and vegetables found their way from the corn field in abundant variety to the large chimney place. Meanwhile the captain shouldered his ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... peculiar white markings; and they are besides characterised by horns so remarkably different in each species and so conspicuous, that it seems probable that the peculiarities in length, twist, and curvature have been differentiated for the purpose of recognition, rather than for any speciality of defence in species whose ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... partickler preference, eh?' said Uncle Solomon, rather as if he was treating a schoolboy. 'What's their speciality 'ere, now? Well, you can give me,' he added to the waiter, with the manner of a man conferring a particular favour, 'you can give me a chump chop, underdone, and a sausage. And bring this young gentleman the same. I don't ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... and tenderness in humanity, perceives also more difference between the branches of an oak and a willow than any one else would; and therefore, necessarily the most striking character of the drawings themselves is the speciality of whatever they represent—the thorough stiffness of what is stiff, and grace of what is graceful, and vastness of what is vast; but through and beyond all this, the condition of the mind of the painter himself is easily ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... snakes. His remark on the compression of the tail shows that his informants were aware of this speciality in ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... you about, reserve your final judgement, because it is pretty certain that you won't be long in this trade until you find out I have not exaggerated one single incident, and that there are gentlemen cruising in these waters who claim a law unto themselves, and who make a speciality of brigandage and murder. I understand from Curly that many of them are educated and well-bred, and that it is the love of adventure that causes that section of them to take to the life. They are adepts at playing ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... The elephants have, as a matter of fact, not got hoofs, and they have five toes on each foot. The five toes of the front foot have each a nail, whilst usually only four toes of the hind foot have nails. A speciality of the elephant is the great circular pad of thick skin overlying fat and fibrous tissue, which forms the sole of the foot and bears the animal's enormous weight. This buffer-like development of the foot existed in some great extinct mammals (the Dinoceras family, of North America), ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... painting. Dabble at it indeed. Gerald had shown her some of his sketches and they had hardly seemed to Althea to merit more than that description. Her own tastes had grown up securely framed by books and lectures. Her speciality was early Italian art. She liked pictures of Madonnas surrounded by exquisite accessories—all of which she accurately remembered. She didn't at all care for Japanese prints, and Gerald's sketches looked to her rather like Japanese prints. She really didn't imagine that he intended ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... understood as alluding to those general, uniform, absolute, consistent, and beautiful laws, which control and render harmonious, as a great whole, the entire action, affinities, and destinies of the universe; and when we say nature in the speciality, we would be understood to speak of the nature of a rock, of a tree, of air, fire, water, and land. Again, in alluding to a moral nature in the abstract, we mean sin, and its weaknesses, its attractions, its deformities-in a word, ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Psmith, when they were seated, and the head-waiter had ceased to hover, "is a great meeting. I was complaining with some acerbity to Comrade Jackson, before you introduced your very interesting performing-animal speciality, that things in New York were too quiet, too decorous. I have ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Highland and the German Netherland Little army of Maurice was becoming the model for Europe Luxury had blunted the fine instincts of patriotism Maritime heretics Portion of these revenues savoured much of black-mail The divine speciality of a few transitory mortals The history of the Netherlands is history of liberty The nation which deliberately carves itself in pieces They had come to disbelieve in the mystery of kingcraft Worn nor caused to be worn the collar of ...
— Quotations From John Lothrop Motley • David Widger
... three[145] Vedas were accepted. But the Epics and the Puranas know of the fourfold Veda and place the Atharva Veda on a level with the other three. It was the manual of two ancient priestly families, the Atharvans and Angirasas, whose speciality was charms and prophylactics rather than the performance of the regular sacrifices. The hymns and magic songs which it contains were probably collected subsequently to the composition of the Brahmanas, ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot |
