"Uncommon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that he loved her, he believed that he loved her merely because of her extreme prettiness. This reason seemed to him a sound one; but on analysing it he perceived that it explained nothing; that he loved the girl not because she was exceedingly pretty, but because she was pretty in a certain uncommon fashion of her own; that he loved her for that which was incomparable and rare in her; because, in a word, she was a wonderful thing of art and voluptuousness, a living gem of priceless value. Thereupon, realizing how weak he was, he wept, mourning over ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... shadow of distress settled over The Laird's stern features. "You're uncommon mean to me this bitter day, Andrew," he complained wearily. "I take it as most unkind of you to thwart my ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... and entertaining. I was sorry to see him make one of a set that appeared so inveterate against a man I believe so injuriously treated; and my concern was founded upon the good thoughts I had conceived of him, not merely from his social talents, which are yet very uncommon, but from a reason clearer to my remembrance. He loved Dr. Johnson,-and Dr. Johnson returned his affection. Their political principles and connexions were opposite, but Mr. Windham respected his venerable friend too highly to discuss ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... running all about it. The streets are wide, the houses well-built, the pavements kerbed and in good condition. Trees are bigger and more numerous than usual, and the place has a generally bowery appearance such as is uncommon in Ireland, which is not famous for its timber. Trees are in many parts the grand desideratum, the one thing needful to perfect the beauty of the scenery, but Ireland as compared with England, France, Holland, Belgium, or Germany may almost be called a treeless country. Strange ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... sight that met them—though not uncommon in the age and place. Some wretched slave-boy, a slight, delicate fellow, had been bound to the bars of a furca, and was being driven by two brutal executioners to the place of doom outside the gates. At the street-crossing he had sunk down, and all the blows ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... now in an uproar, the ladies screaming, the men shouting directions and advice to those in the boat. We began to be somewhat anxious as to the result; for although these water hunts are by no means uncommon occurrences, they are often dangerous and sometimes fatal to the hunter. The deer had been severely stunned and hurt, but not killed, by the blow it had received, and it now strove fiercely against its powerful opponent, throwing him from side to side by violent ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... which statement was afterward confirmed by Prof. E.P. Wright. Originally described by Sir A. Smith from a single specimen which was killed in the neighborhood of Cape Town, this species proved to be of not uncommon occurrence in the Seychelles Archipelago, where it is known by the name of "Chagrin." Quite recently Mr. Haly reported the capture of a specimen on the coast of Ceylon. Like other large sharks (Carcharodon rondeletii, Selache maxima, etc.), Rhinodon has a wide geographical ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 460, October 25, 1884 • Various
... but the time and circumstances in which it was produced rendered me always unable to look upon it with satisfaction. Still, it took with the public, and gave me celebrity, as an original work was something remarkable and uncommon in America. I was noticed, caressed, and for a time elevated by the popularity I had gained. Wherever I went, I was overwhelmed with attentions. I was full of youth and animation, far different from the being I now am, and I was quite flushed with this early ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... composition of his "Aminta," the success of which was due less to the interest of the story than to the sweetness of the poetry, and the soft voluptuousness which breathes in every line. It is written in flowing verse of various measures, without rhyme, and enriched with lyric choruses of uncommon beauty. ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... uncommon dictum that bodies politic have youth, maturity, old age, and death, like bodies natural; that after a certain duration of prosperity, they tend spontaneously to decay. This also is a false analogy, because the decay ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... of it in others, in them found its most unconscious expression that reaction against the barrel-organ style which had been reigning by a kind of sleepy divine right for half a century. The lowest point was indicated when there was such an utter confounding of the common and the uncommon sense that Dr. Johnson wrote verse and Burke prose. The most profound gospel of criticism was, that nothing was good poetry that could not be translated into good prose, as if one should say that the test of sufficient moonlight was that tallow-candles could be made ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... London and the provinces suffer from want of proper ventilation; and many of them are appallingly, incredibly dirty. In the provinces dressing-rooms are sometimes dripping with damp; and it is not an uncommon experience to share the room with mice ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley
... tell you, that on the evening of the 29th of May I was seized by the gout, and am not quite well. The pain has not been violent, but the weakness and tenderness were very troublesome, and what is said to be very uncommon, it has not alleviated my other disorders. Make use of youth and health while you have them; make my compliments to Mrs. Boswell. I ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... may believe me or not, just as you please—You are altogether unusual, Miss Lynum, gloriously uncommon; in vain I seek words that would describe you. Do you know what you remind me of? I have carried this impression around all day. You remind me of the first bird note, the earliest warm spring tones—you know what I mean—that surge through ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... Ataguju should doubtless read Ata-chuchu, which means lord, or ruler of the twins, from ati root of atini, I am able, I control, and chuchu, twins. The change of the root ati to ata, though uncommon in Quichua, occurs also in ata-hualpa, cock, from ati and hualpa, fowl. Apo-Catequil, or as given by Arriaga, another old writer on Peruvian idolatry, Apocatequilla, I take to be properly apu-ccatec-quilla, which literally means chief of ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... little of his appearance, save that he had a high forehead, and hair that waved well back from it in rather an unusual fashion. He was in his shirt-sleeves, but the gingham was scrupulously clean, and he had the uncommon refinement of a collar and necktie. Out of sight herself, Lyddy drew near enough to hear; and this she did every night without recognizing that the musician was blind. The music had a curious effect upon her. It was a hitherto unknown influence ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Kirkham—she that had been the blooming girl of a generation before—and she was still keeping boarders; but her mother had passed from this life. She settled the date for us, and did it with certainty, by help of a couple of uncommon circumstances, events of that ancient time. She said we had sailed from Bermuda on the 24th of May, 1877, which was the day on which her only nephew was born—and he is now thirty years of age. The other unusual circumstance—she called ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... Maxence in 1788, had long desired that blessing, which the town attributed to the gallantries of the two friends,—probably in the hope of setting them against each other. Gilet, an old drunkard with a triple throat, treated his wife's misconduct with a collusion that is not uncommon among the lower classes. To make sure of protectors for her son, Madame Gilet was careful not to enlighten his reputed fathers as to his parentage. In Paris, she would have turned out a millionaire; at Issoudun she lived sometimes ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... always calm," said he, "it would pyson the univarse; no soul could breathe the air, it would be so uncommon bad. Stagnant water is always unpleasant, but salt water when it gets tainted beats all natur'; motion keeps it sweet and wholesome, and that our minister used to say is one of the 'wonders of the great deep.' This province ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... for the West, I met in the train an earnest citizen of a not uncommon type. He was immensely and ingenuously patriotic. Though he had never left his native land, and had therefore an insufficient standard of comparison, he was convinced that America was superior in arms and arts to every other part of the habitable ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... Julius, seeming scarcely interested; "though the name of Courtney, I believe, is not very uncommon." Then, turning to Lefevre, he said, "I hope you don't think I wish to make light of your grand idea. I only mean that you must widen your view, if you would ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban
... she is a contrairy young lady mischievous, and all that, and hasn't she wrought a sight of harm in this yer house! But, for all that, mother'll be mighty took up with her, for she's all for romance, mother is, and Miss Flower's very uncommon. Well, it ain't nought to do with me, and I'll take care to tell no tales to Miss Polly, ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... and so on. Then the guns came out when he pointed at a card that was marked—for it had been marked with pinpricks as Saurez saw later on examining the deck, which Dent had perceived in spite of the whisky in him. And Sorenson and Vorse had both shot him where he stood. Yes, shootings were not uncommon. Every one but he, Saurez, had likely forgotten all about the ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... refused these invitations, but could not avoid now and then coming into a mixed society, where I soon perceived that my fame had preceded me. On those occasions, should any dispute arise, it was not uncommon for my authority to be confidently appealed to, and my verdict to be implicitly accepted. This very naturally brought me more than once into a position of considerable difficulty. For, on the one hand, no disclaimer on my part would avail to convince those who appealed to ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... was so very much crowded, that but for the uncommon assiduity of Sir Clement Willoughby, we should not have been able to procure a box (which is the name given to the arched recesses that are appropriated for tea-parties) till half the company had retired. As we were taking possession of our places, some ladies of Mrs. Mirvan's acquaintance stopped ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... was the youngest daughter of a sister of Sir Edmund Arundel, who had, like the rest of her family, died early. She had been a good deal abroad with her father and a married sister. Her uncommon beauty and engaging manners gained her, when she was little more than eighteen, the affection of Lord Marchmont, a more distant connection of the Arundel family; and happily for Selina, she appreciated him sufficiently to return his love so thoroughly, as to lay aside all the little coquetries ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... puppyhood to acknowledge Lad's benevolent rulership. She bossed and teased and pestered him, unmercifully. And Lad not only let her do all this, but he actually reveled in it. She was his mate. More,—she was his idol. This idolizing of one mate, by the way, is far less uncommon among dogs than ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... the trawls; a sudden fog had come up, so that he could not find the vessel, and his companions, after a day's search, had been unable to discover him. A storm had followed, and they had given him up for lost. The loss of a man in this way on the Banks was not a very uncommon occurrence. ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... demonstration of a turned brain. Rousseau had as good cause for going about in a caftan as Chatham had for coming to the House of Parliament wrapped in flannel. Vanity and a desire to attract notice may, we admit, have had something to do with Rousseau's adoption of an uncommon way of dressing. Shrewd wits like the Duke of Luxembourg and his wife did not suppose that it was so. We, living a hundred years after, cannot possibly know whether it was so or not, and our estimate of Rousseau's strange character would be very little worth forming, ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... was Biggs, was a slight, dapper, active little man, who, as captain of the foretop, had shown an uncommon degree of courage in a hurricane, so much so, as to recommend him to the admiral for promotion. It was given to him; and after the ship to which he had been appointed was paid off, he had been ordered ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... infidelity of a wife is punished by the husband with the loss of her hair, nose, or perhaps life. Such severity proceeds, perhaps, less from rigidity of virtue than from its having been practiced without his permission; for a temporary interchange of wives is not uncommon, and the offer of their persons is considered as a necessary part of the hospitality ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... the road the lovely Fanny attracted the eyes of all: they endeavoured to outvie one another in encomiums on her beauty; which the reader will pardon my not relating, as they had not anything new or uncommon in them: so must he likewise my not setting down the many curious jests which were made on Adams; some of them declaring that parson-hunting was the best sport in the world; others commending his standing at bay, which they said he had done as well ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... "It is not uncommon for hands, in hurrying times, beside working all day, to labor half the night. This is usually the case on sugar plantations, during the sugar-boiling season; and on cotton, during its gathering. Beside the regular task of picking cotton, averaging of the short staple, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... something like four barrels to each person. This is one quart, or four of our common table-glasses, per day. But some drink none, others little; a man is scarcely reckoned with real beer-drinkers until he drinks six masses,—twenty-four of our common tumblers; ten masses are not uncommon; twenty to thirty masses—eighty to one hundred and twenty of our dinner-glasses—are drunk by some, and on a wager even much more. The sick man whose physician prescribed for him a quart of herb-tea as the only thing that would save him, and who replied that ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... white; for it is evident, that all these parts were originally obedient to irritative motions during their growth, and probably continue to be so; that those irritative motions are not liable in a healthy state to be succeeded by sensation; which however is no uncommon thing in their diseased state, or in their infant state, as in plica polonica, and in very young pen-feathers, which ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... wonderfully. There is scarcely a house in the two blocks through which it runs that does not show some improvement since the association pulled down half a dozen of its worst frame tenements and put neat brick dwellings in their places. It is no uncommon thing now to see pavement sweeping and washing in front of some of the smallest and poorest of the houses in Brady street where two years ago the dirt would stick to your feet in passing. A clean muslin ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... cloud or untoward incident to mar its happiness; and as they wandered here and there, inspecting for the last time the historical spot which had given them hospitable shelter, none dreamed of any mishap to come. Even the twins were tired enough to behave with uncommon docility, beyond continually removing from one another the ribbon which should have ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... we have only what is called taste, instinct, and tact. The reasons for showing ourselves sensible to the recital of good actions are numberless: we reveal a quality that is worthy of infinite esteem; we promise to others our esteem, if ever they deserve it by any uncommon or worthy piece of conduct.... Independently of all these views of interest, we have a notion of order, and a taste for order, which we cannot resist, and which drags us along in spite of ourselves. Every fine action implies ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... was out of its holster like a flash, much to the surprise of the liveryman, who had been somewhat of a bad man himself in his day, and gun plays were not uncommon at Rodeo. ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... is, that they are the descendants of unfortunate individuals afflicted with goitres, which is, even to this day, not an uncommon disorder in the gorges and valleys of the Pyrenees. Some have even derived the word goitre from Got, or Goth; but their name, Crestia, is not unlike Cretin, and the same symptoms of idiotism were not unusual among the Cagots; although sometimes, if old tradition is to be credited, their ...
— An Accursed Race • Elizabeth Gaskell
... racket," as they say at the church sociables, They have found that horses that know their business are in demand, and so horses are trained for this purpose. They are trained on purpose for out-door sparking. It is not an uncommon thing to see a young fellow drive up to the house where his girl lives with a team that is just tearing things. They prance, and champ the bit, and the young man seems to pull on them as though his liver was coming out. The horses will ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... Vice was not so repugnant to her as an evil as it was as a blemish. Her daughter had received from her those instincts of chastity which are oftener than we imagine hidden under the appearance of pride. But these amiable women had one unfortunate caprice, not uncommon at this day among Parisians of their position. Although rather clever, they bowed down, with the adoration of bourgeoises, before that aristocracy, more or less pure, that paraded up and down the Champs Elysees, in ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... "It would please you,'' a missionary writes, "to see these poor people feeling after God, and their eagerness to learn more and more.'' It is not uncommon for converts to travel ten, fifteen and even twenty miles to attend service. The Sunday I was in Ichou-fu, I met a fine-looking young man, named Yao Chao Feng, who had walked sixteen miles to receive Christian ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... Excellency and Quickness of your Wit, is the Subject that fits the World most agreeably. For my own part, I never presume to contemplate your Lordship, but my Soul bows with a perfect Veneration to your Mighty Mind; and while I have ador'd the delicate Effects of your uncommon Wit, I have wish'd for nothing more than an Opportunity of expressing my infinite Sense of it; and this Ambition, my Lord, was one Motive of my present Presumption in Dedicating this ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... sign of purity." So he painted Troy's hair blue. And he painted a red stripe down the nose and small queer rings all over his face, and with a pair of lamp scissors he roached Troy's name like a mule—and, well, he did make something uncommon out of Troy. ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... has enriched the country with large and frequent rivers, and spread out a number of fair and magnificent lakes beyond the proportion of other places, has on the other hand incumbered the island with an uncommon multitude of bogs and morasses; so that in general it is less praised for corn than pasturage, in which no soil is more rich and luxuriant. Whilst it possesses these internal means of wealth, it opens on all sides a great number of ports, spacious and secure, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... smallest trifle without his consent; but so thorough was his confidence in the correctness of her judgment that he seldom, if ever, opposed her decisions. The Princesse de Lamballe used to say, "Though Marie Antoinette is not a woman of great or uncommon talents, yet her long practical knowledge gave her an insight into matters of moment which she turned to advantage with so much coolness and address amid difficulties, that I am convinced she only wanted free scope to have shone in the history of Princes as a ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe
... gloom, and the silence. The sight of their limited rations brought to him all the future—the vigilant enemy on guard, the last little piece of food gone, then slow starvation, or a rush on the savage bullets and sure death. As usual, his uncommon imagination was depicting everything in ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... bottom, and on the other the azure-blue deep water." The shores of the lagoon-like channel within the barrier-reef at Vanikoro have a similar structure. Captain Beechey has described a modification of this structure (and he believes it is not uncommon) in two atolls in the Low Archipelago, in which the shores of the lagoon descend by a few, broad, slightly inclined ledges or steps: thus at Matilda atoll (Beechey's "Voyage," 4to edition, volume i, page 160. At Whitsunday Island the bottom of the lagoon ...
— Coral Reefs • Charles Darwin
... attracted, while I write, by the apparition of a beautiful girl in the opposite balcony, with hair of a golden brown hanging in masses down to her feet. This is an uncommon colour here; but the hair of the women is generally very long and fine. It rarely or never curls. We were amused the other day in passing by a school of little boys and girls, kept in a room on the first- floor of Senor ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... Colour-Sergeant, as such to be obeyed, 'E schools 'is men at cricket, 'e tells 'em on parade; They sees 'em quick an' 'andy, uncommon set an' smart, An' so 'e talks to orficers which 'ave the Core ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... nevertheless, himself a young man of uncommon parts, and, as far as I could judge from my short intercourse with the reserved Joseph and with the haughty Napoleon, he is abler and better informed than either, and much more open and sincere. His manners are also more elegant, and his language more polished, which is ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... safari is marching through bush country, the rhino becomes an element of considerable anxiety; An armed party must precede the caravan and clear the route of rhinos, otherwise the porters are likely to be scattered by threatened charges. It is no uncommon sight to see a crowd of heavily laden porters drop their loads and shin up the nearest tree in record time. Consequently, strong protective measures are always demanded when a long train of unarmed natives is moving ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... 'Uncommon late,' answered her brother. 'Buds on them gooseberry bushes only just showin' green. Now everything will be coming all together in a heap in two weeks more. That's the way o' this blessed climate! And then when ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... eat that Mateo told me there had been another wedding at the palace. Mateo was an indefatigable news-gatherer, and an incorrigible gossip. As the society papers would have expressed it, this wedding had been "a very quiet affair." The Sultan had happened to see a Visayan girl of uncommon beauty, on one of the smaller islands, one day, had bought her of her father for two water buffalos, and had installed her at the palace as wife ...
— Anting-Anting Stories - And other Strange Tales of the Filipinos • Sargent Kayme
... anchor; but the crew was again performing fantasia, and the earthquake or sea-quake rolled unheededly away. Apparently the direction was from north to south: I noted the hour, 9.10 p.m., and the duration, twenty seconds. According to the Arabs the Zilzilah is not uncommon in Midian, especially about the vernal equinox: on this occasion it ended the spell of damp and muggy weather which began on March 19th, and which may have ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... his mature works. Here his work was done, his battles fought, his mind formed; and you may observe in his writings a certain romantic and ideal way of speaking of the country, which shows that to him it was a place of retreat and luxury, rather than of sober, practical living. This is not uncommon with literary men whose lot has been cast in a great city, if they possess, as Jerrold did, that poetic temperament which is alive ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... cloth, perfectly cut, but almost military in its severity. Her mouth was small and proud, her eyes gray and solemn, her color high from walking in the chilly air, and her hair of that nondescript brown usually described as fair. Uncommon, yet not sensational; but with a delicate charm that radiated from her like perfume from ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... foregoing conversation was related to the Professor, who remarked: "If there is one thing savages and all low orders of people are noted for, it is the tenacity in retaining their property. Of course, that is not an uncommon trait with all people, but it is particularly well developed in the savage. One phase of this came to my attention some years ago, when a merchant told me that the poor people of India bought more locks than ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... does report speak of it?-Just that it was not uncommon. The report did not say that it was very common, but ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... might have expressed himself less gracefully. The tile may be compared with the well-known tile from Silchester, on which Maunde Thompson detected a writing lesson (Eph. Epigr. ix. 1293). A knowledge of reading and writing does not seem to have been at all uncommon in Roman Britain or in the Roman world generally, even among the working classes; I may refer to my Romanization of Roman Britain (ed. 3, ...
— Roman Britain in 1914 • F. Haverfield
... again, and each one expressed his happiness in his own way; little Helen wondered he should have thought of Puss, but said it was just like Jemmy. "I would not believe such a story if I had it from any other but James himself," said his father. "Nothing, so uncommon as to save a person that falls overboard in such a way; and at night I never knew of it, and I have been many years at sea. Nothing but James's presence of mind and courage saved his life; he did the only thing that would have been of any avail; had he attempted to swim after ...
— Two Festivals • Eliza Lee Follen
... the carriage through the sand and dust when the horses collapsed, of hunting up the team in the mornings, and of lightening the load by walking. For this exceedingly comfortable journey they had the pleasure of paying at least five pounds. It was no uncommon sight at some tank or rock on the road, to see the mail-coach standing alone in its glory, deserted by driver and passengers alike. Of these some would be horse-hunting, and the rest tramping ahead in hope of being caught up by the coach. There would often be on board many ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... appointment?' inquired his friend, a town young man, with a Tussaud complexion and well-pencilled brows half way up his forehead, so that his upper eyelids appeared to possess the uncommon ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... the attack of insects. This tribe seems to have as great an aversion to perfumes, as the human species have delight in them. They scarcely ever attack any odoriferous parts of plants, and it is not uncommon to see every leaf of a tree destroyed by a blight, whilst the blossoms remain untouched. Cedar, sandal, and all aromatic woods, are on this account of ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet
... revived our hearts and filled us with joy, and with praise and thanksgiving to him for all the good which he has done unto this people."—Procuring their food almost always at the hazard of their lives, instances of wonderful preservations were not uncommon among the Esquimaux, and their observations on their deliverances had generally a pious simplicity, which rendered them extremely pleasant. This year, Ephraim, a communicant, went with five others to catch seals at the edge of the ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous
... Lucrine lake:—this satirist has pickled his rods in Latin brine. Fancy, not merely a diver, but a sardonic diver: and the expression of his confounded countenance on discovering not only a pearl, but an eclipsed pearl, which was in a diseased oyster! I say it is only by an uncommon and happy combination of taste, genius, and industry, that a man can arrive at uttering such sentiments in such fine language,—that such a man ought to be well paid, as I have no doubt he is, and that he is worthily employed to write literary articles, in large ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... example, a moving page on child life in a north-west poverty area, where, among other conditions, it is not uncommon to find girls of ten doing a hard day's work outside their school work; they are the slaves of ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... uncommon plan to use cold water from the first, under the impression of its strengthening the child. This appears to be a cruel and barbarous practice, and is likely to have a contrary tendency. Moreover, it frequently produces either inflammation of the eyes, or stuffing of the nose, or inflammation ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... of another, or when there is any company present in your own, never converse with the servants. This most vulgar, but not uncommon, habit, is judiciously censured in that best of ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... his limbs in a mould of uncommon strength, fitted to wear his linked hauberk with as much ease as if the meshes had been formed of cobwebs, had endowed him with a constitution as strong as his limbs, and which bade defiance to almost all changes of climate, as well as to fatigue and privations of ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... of shagbark have 2 stigmatic lobes, however, 3 stigmatic lobes resulting in triangular nuts are not uncommon. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 44th Annual Meeting • Various
... It is with uncommon satisfaction I see the magistracy begin to put the laws against vagabonds in force with the utmost vigour, a great many of those vermin, the japanners, having lately been taken up and sent to the several work-houses in and about this city; and indeed high time, for ...
— Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business • Daniel Defoe
... Borpeta, Kaunia, and Rangpur. On the other hand, they seem to have been unusually scarce at Dhubri and in the district to the north-west, and they became rare at Gauhati long before they ceased to be frequent at Borpeta. In the plain to the south of the Garo and Khasi hills, they were also uncommon, the combined records for Sylhet and Sonamganj for August 1-15 giving only 20 shocks, and, neither to the east nor to the west of these places, is there any sign ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison
... traditional Roman peasantry of the "Grecian" and the "Old Adelphi." Unfortunately, they are the last of the Romans. In other parts of the city the peasants' dresses are few and far between; the costume has become so uncommon, as to be now a fashionable dress for the Roman ladies at Carnival time and other holiday festivals. On Sundays and "Festas" in the mountain districts you can still find real peasants with real peasants' dresses; ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... the white umbrella was notorious for having been seen on previous occasions threading the Piedmontese lines into and out of Peschiera. These very troopers swore to it; but they could not swear to Wilfrid, and white umbrellas were not absolutely uncommon. Vittoria declared that Wilfrid was an old English friend; Pericles vowed that Wilfrid was one of their party. The prisoner was clearly an Englishman. As it chanced, the officer before whom Wilfrid was taken had heard Vittoria sing on the great night ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... ability of the end connection of a stringer carrying flange stress or bending moments, it is not uncommon to see brackets carrying considerable overhanging loads with no better connection. Even wide sidewalks of bridges sometimes have tension connections on rivet heads. While this is not to be commended, it is a demonstration of the ability to take bending ...
— Some Mooted Questions in Reinforced Concrete Design • Edward Godfrey
... power of analysis, of description, and of imagination, that one feels sure that he has to deal here with the ebullition of an uncommon mind." ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... who, though of few inches, carries himself in a manner worthy of an eagle. Even the play of a pair of them on the tops of the tallest dead trees in the woods, though merry enough with loud joyful cries, has a certain dignity and circumspection about it uncommon in ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... sauntering by the roadside, meditating on the past. The nearer he approached the spot, the more anxious he became. At that moment a tall female figure flitted across his path, with a bunch of roses in her hand; her countenance showed uncommon vivacity, with a resolute spirit; her ivory teeth already appeared as she smiled beautifully, promenading—while her ringlets of hair dangled unconsciously around her snowy neck. Nothing was wanting to complete her beauty. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... last, and is respected wherever he goes, for his vigor and vivacity both of mind and body; for his constant good humor, and for his rapid progress in French, as well as in general knowledge, which, for his age, is uncommon." ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... groups over a period of thirty to sixty days instead of assigning them to any particular base in one large increment. These quotas were not applied to the basic training flights, which were completely integrated. It was not uncommon to find black enlistees in charge of racially mixed training flights.[16-29] Of all Air Force organizations, the Training Command received the greatest number of black airmen as a result of the screening and reassignment. ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... with wonderful care and delicacy. By one of the bizarre arrangements—not uncommon in Flanders—a building of another kind, half Italian, with a round arched arcade, has been added on at the corner, and the effect is odd and yet pleasing. Behind rises a grim crag of a cathedral—solemn and mysterious—adding ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald
... soon passed among the crowd of skaters, till BARNES began to think it personal, and was determined to catch one of them and make of him an example. The ice was 'glib,' as they termed it, and as they all had skates except 'Tushy,' they were rather rude in their behavior towards him,—a not very uncommon circumstance,—and though they were careful to keep out of harm's way, they kept near enough to him to annoy him. Finding all efforts to catch one of them fruitless, with the advantage they had,—for 'the wicked stand on slippery places,'—he announced his determination to catch one of them ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... sensible person would.' The Theosophists haven't a monopoly of common sense. To me they appear slightly deficient in that article, but I dare say they make up for it in uncommon sense." ...
— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth
... forwards. When they alighted, they were more numerous than the leaves in the field, and the surface became reddish instead of being green: the swarm having once alighted, the individuals flew from side to side in all directions. Locusts are not an uncommon pest in this country: already during the season, several smaller swarms had come up from the south, where, as apparently in all other parts of the world, they are bred in the deserts. The poor cottagers in vain attempted by lighting fires, by shouts, and by waving branches to avert the attack. ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... vases, sending delicious odors through the apartment, which was furnished in a style of almost royal splendor. Upon the white hearth a few billets of wood blazed cheerfully, for, after a hot day, as was not uncommon in New France, a cool salt-water breeze came up the great river, bringing reminders of cold sea-washed rocks and snowy crevices still lingering upon the mountainous shores of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... conferred the greatest lustre on his name grew insensibly beneath his pen, the services he rendered to Indian jurisprudence would deserve the highest praise and gratitude if he had no other title to fame. Among his earlier studies he had applied himself to the Roman law with a zeal uncommon among Englishmen of his standing, and he has left behind him a treatise on the Roman Law of Contracts. When he directed the same powers of investigation to the sources of Indian law he found everything in confusion. The ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... Bishop of Bayonne, LEGRAND, vol. iii. It is not uncommon to find splendid imaginations of this kind haunting statesmen of the 16th century; and the recapture of Constantinople always formed a feature in the picture. A Plan for the Reformation of Ireland, drawn up in 1515, contains the following curious passage: "The prophecy is, that the King of England ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... were of yourself common," Hardman Pool assured him. "When a man is born common, and is by nature uncommon, he rises up and overthrows the chiefs and makes himself chief over the chiefs. Why do you not run my ranch, with its many thousands of cattle, and shift the pastures by the rain-fall, and pick the bulls, and arrange the bargaining and the selling of the meat to the sailing ships and ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... public, they have, I believe, no children for John Gull to keep. On the 2d of August, a riot took place in the Calton, one of the suburbs of Glasgow, on account of the soup-kitchens, which was not suppressed till some blood was spilt. On the 8th of the same month, a mortar of uncommon size, left by Marshal Soult on his retreat from Cadiz, was fixed in St. James's Park, opposite the Horse Guards. This piece of ordnance is commonly known by the name of the Prince Regent's bomb. On the 27th, Algiers was bombarded, and the batteries destroyed by the English ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... bold good looks and her fine upstanding carriage, cut clean as a diamond in that intensifying atmosphere, and hardly less dazzling to the eye. Yet her cotton gown was simplicity's self; it was the right setting for such natural brilliance, a brilliance of eyes and teeth and colouring, a more uncommon brilliance of expression. Indeed it was a wonderful expression, brave rather than sweet, yet capable of sweetness too, and for the moment at least nobly free from the defensive bitterness which was to mark it later. So she stood upon the steps, the talk of the hotel, trailing, with characteristic ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... the Roman people were therefore invincible, because when successful they forgot not the maxims of wisdom and prudence; and indeed it would have been matter of astonishment did they act otherwise. That those persons to whom success was a new and uncommon thing, proceeded to a pitch of madness in their ungoverned transports in consequence of their not being accustomed to it. That to the Roman people the joy arising from victory was a matter of common occurrence, and ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... but head combing seems to be a principal part of the day's business among the women in Spain; and it is generally done rather publicly.—The most lively, chearful, neat young woman, I saw in Spain, lived in the same house I did at Barcelona; she had a good complexion, and, what is very uncommon, rather light hair; and though perfectly clean and neat in her apparel, yet I observed a woman, not belonging to the house, attended every morning to comb this girl's head, and I believe it was necessary to be combed. I could not very well ask the question; but I suspect that there are people ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... of the Blue Band might have tried in vain to make any impression upon him. But the hatred with which he inspired Fred found some relief in the composition of fragments of melancholy verse, which the young midshipman hid under his mattresses. It is not an uncommon thing for naval men to combine a love of the sea with a love of poetry. Fred's verses were not good, but they were full of dejection. The poor fellow compared Raoul Wermant to Faust, and himself to Siebel. He ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... lee-braces, Mr Haultaut;—we always trimmed sails properly on board the old Orion, sir,' or some such complimentary remark to our much-enduring first. The boatswain has a dog—a favourite with the men—which goes by the no uncommon name of Shakings. The commander detests Shakings, who he unjustly declares worries his sheep. One evening poor Shakings fell overboard. The men were in despair, knowing that the commander would not dream of heaving-to to pick him up. ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... pulpit, he could not help casting a glance of guilty fear toward Miss Vane's pew and drawing a long breath of guilty relief not to see Lemuel in it. We are so made, that in the reaction the minister was able to throw himself into the matter of his discourse with uncommon fervour. It was really very good matter, and he felt the literary joy in it which flatters the author even of a happily worded supplication to the Deity. He let his eyes, freed from their bondage to Lemuel's attentive face, roam at large in liberal ease over his whole congregation; ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... possible there may be uncommon good sense in what you've said. If there is, and there should be a reward, Short, remember that we are partners ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... threatened to dance, and spin, and whirl through the house, the homestead sped across the enclosure to slam doors and windows in their faces, thus saving our belongings from their whirling, dusty ravages; and when nimbler feet were absent it was no uncommon sight to see Cheon, perspiring and dishevelled, speeding towards the house like a huge humming-top, with speeding Willy-Willys speeding after him, each bent on reaching the goal before the other. Oftentimes Cheon outraced the Willy-Willys, and a very chuckling, triumphant ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... that aside from his elevated station as a monarch, Donjalolo was famed for many uncommon traits; but more especially for certain peculiar deprivations, ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... we do with the bloomin' article when we've got it? Them palanquins are as big as 'ouses, an' uncommon 'ard to sell, as McCleary said when ye stole the sentry-box from ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling |
