"Irregularity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to have acquired accounts of genealogy, and perhaps indisposed to it by the irregularity ...
— A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies • John Hoyland
... be friend or joy (Freund oder Freude), and all vanities, whether they be clothes or ornaments, and from everything of which God is not the true beginning and ending, and from everything that does not belong to Him. He must cut off his words and his conduct, his manners and his demeanour, from all irregularity, inward or outward. Dream not that that can be a true prayer, when a man only babbles outwardly with his mouth, and reads many psalms, gabbling them rapidly and hastily, while his mind wanders this way and that, backwards and forwards. Much rather must the true prayer be, as St Peter ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge
... children consists in making up attractive games about the various lessons to be learned. Thus, whenever you have guests for dinner, the children can play "Boner" which consists in watching the visitor closely all during the meal in order to catch him in any irregularity in table etiquette. As soon as the guest has committed a mistake, the first Child to discover it points his finger at him and shouts, "Pulled a Boner, Pulled a Boner!" and the boy or girl who discovers the greatest number of "Boners" during the evening is rewarded with a prize, based on ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... are symptomatic of this cause, the chylopoietic disturbance will be found to have existed several days or even weeks; and the origin of the disorder, in like manner, may be commonly traced to some irregularity of diet, or other obvious causes, and frequently in infants to those which are connected with premature weaning; and sometimes even the cerebral disorder itself will have been only the last of a series of effects in the system, to which ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... words and syllables. As pronunciation varies with the modes and fashions of the times, it is sometimes fluctuating in particular words, and high authorities are often so much at variance, that the correct mode is hard to be determined; hence to acquire a correct pronunciation, this irregularity, whatever be the ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... days of wonders and portents had not passed away yet. That the eminently serious Fynes should do such an exceptional thing was simply staggering. With a more hasty enunciation than usual little Fyne was sure that I would not demand an apology for this irregularity if I knew what her real name was. A sort of warmth crept into ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... one who could maintain with ease his part in a higher circle. His address to Lady Penelope was adapted to the romantic tone of Mr. Chatterly's epistle, to which it was necessary to allude. He was afraid, he said, he must complain to Juno of the neglect of Iris, for her irregularity in delivery of a certain ethereal command, which he had not dared to answer otherwise than by mute obedience—unless, indeed, as the import of the letter seemed to infer, the invitation was designed for some more gifted individual than he to whom ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... "retrogressions" of the planets were well known to the ancients. It was not to be supposed for a moment that the crystal spheres were subject to any irregularity, neither was uniform circular motion to be readily abandoned; so it was surmised that the main sphere carried, not the planet itself, but the centre or axis of a subordinate sphere, and that the planet was carried by this. The minor sphere could be allowed ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... too far they might be punished for the guilt of which they were conscious. Since they, however, proceeding on the ground that they may do whatever they wish because they were not brought to book at the very start, are overbold and are trying to make the rest of you, who are guilty of no irregularity, likewise mutinous, it becomes necessary for me to devote some care to them and to give them my attention. [-29-] In general, no society of men can preserve its unity and continue to exist, if the criminal element be not disciplined: if the part afflicted does not receive proper medicine, it ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... swept from central gables to flying wings, over pents, crooks, curves, peaks, cowled porches, balconies, recesses, projections, away to a red village of stables and dependent cottages; harmonious in irregularity; and coloured homely with the greensward about it, the pines beside it, the clouds above it. Not many palaces would be reckoned as larger. The folds and swells and stream of the building along the roll of ground, had an appearance of an enormous ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... seasonal temperature changes. The increase in length of runs and quantity of sand removed under low temperature conditions is very marked. There is, however, a secondary maximum which appears, as the diagram shows, where a minimum for the year would be expected. This may have been an irregularity occurring this one year, which will not appear in the average of several years, and caused by some factor which has escaped observation. A careful analysis of the data at hand fails to show any explanation for it. It may exist in some of the little-understood biological ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXXII, June, 1911 • E. D. Hardy
... time of the trial of two Swedish women accused of witchcraft. The Grand Jury acting under instruction given in a charge delivered by him, found bills against them, and his skirts were only saved from the guilt of their blood by some technical irregularity in ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... for making a constitutional protest, and to escape forcible feeding had barricaded her cell. The Visiting Committee had driven her from this position by directing the warders to turn a hose pipe on her and knock her senseless with a douche of cold water; for which irregularity they were afterwards fined and mulcted in costs. Two years later, for another Suffragist offence (setting fire to a pillar box after giving warning of her intention) she went to prison for six months. Here the tortures of forcible feeding so overcame her reason—it was alleged—that she flung herself ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... plant-stalk with four leaves in a whorl. In another locality I might have brought him dwarf cornel, or the houstonia, or wood-sorrel, or the evening-primrose. Yet even numbers are certainly more suggestive of mechanics than of life, while odd numbers seem to go more with the freedom and irregularity of growing things. ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... contemplate that. But if he was languid and feverish, he might so easily put off writing from day to day. This was all the more plausible as a reason, since he had not been a profuse correspondent. He had only written when he had found he had leisure, with decent irregularity, so to speak. ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... with great appearance of reason, that the irregularity of his conduct proceeded wholly from his zeal for Bolingbroke, who might perhaps have destroyed the pamphlet, which Pope thought it his duty to preserve, even without its author's approbation. To this apology an answer was written in "A letter to the most ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... plea may raise a question as to the jurisdiction of the court, or he may ask that the case be thrown out of court on account of some irregularity of the writ upon which it is based. Since these pleas, if successful, simply delay the trial, because a new suit may afterwards be brought, they are called ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary
... of the eleven songs you have just read their irregularity of metre is plain. It is so plain that some of the irregularities rise up and smite your ears. This is why some popular songs seem so "impossible" without their music. And the reason why they seem so pleasing with their music ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... contagion had ever been entertained. It seems proper, therefore, to remind those who are in the habit of referring to these works for guidance, that there may possibly be some sources of danger they have slighted or omitted, quite as important as a trifling irregularity of diet, or a confined state of the bowels, and that whatever confidence a physician may have in his own mode of treatment, his services are of questionable value whenever he carries the bane as well as the antidote about ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... concubine, I feared it might not be truly delivered. I thought of writing a letter to tell you what I felt; but I was afraid I might not be able to make you understand. So I sent those trivial verses, that I might be sure of your coming. I have no cause to be ashamed of an irregularity which had no other object but the preservation of ...
— More Translations from the Chinese • Various
... the most celebrated Writers perhaps at this Time in Europe, but how justly, I leave to the Determination of those who have perused the Bishop's incomparable Answer; but admitting his Lordship had permitted an irregularity of Grammer to pass unobser'd [typo for "unobserv'd"?], he is not the first of his Sacred Character that has done it, and small Errors of this kind are easily looked over, where the Nominative Case is at a distance from the Verb, ...
— A Vindication of the Press • Daniel Defoe
... are the outcome of critical strictures on the plays which were then common and, in essence, have been frequently repeated. Critics objected to the irregularity and confusion of their structure, to their disregard of the unities of action, their mixture of tragic and comic, their obscurity and archaism of diction, their mixed and confused figures, their ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... and made a circuit of the campong. There was no sign of the missing one and no indication of any other irregularity than the demolished portion of the roof. With an expression of mild concern upon his face ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... with intense interest. Not until this moment had she really felt as though she had got to the heart of politics, so that she could, like a physician with his stethoscope, measure the organic disease. Now at last she knew why the pulse beat with such unhealthy irregularity, and why men felt an anxiety which they could not or would not explain. Her interest in the disease overcame her disgust at the foulness of the revelation. To say that the discovery gave her actual pleasure would ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... France, furnish you with the means of giving to foreign peoples just ideas upon the real state of the Republic and upon the prosperity which is assured to it." The men of science who had promoted the voyage were anxious that not even a similitude of irregularity should be permitted. Thus we find the Comte de Fleurieu, who drew up the itinerary, writing to the Minister urging him to include in the instructions a paragraph prohibiting the ships from taking on board, under any pretext, merchandise which could give ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... one-third miles). I was carried all the way by three chair-coolies in a heavy chair in steady rain that made the unpaved track as slippery as ice—and this over the dizzy heights of a mountain pathway of extraordinary irregularity. Never slipping, never making a mistake, the three coolies bore the chair with my thirteen stone, easily and without straining. From time to time they rested a minute or two to take a whiff of tobacco; they were always in good humour, and finished the day as strong and fresh ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... not always so happy as to select those which are of most Importance. I know not well what Advantage Posterity can receive from the only Circumstance by which Tickell has distinguished Addison from the Rest of Mankind, the Irregularity of his Pulse: nor can I think myself overpaid for the Time spent in reading the Life of Malherb, by being enabled to relate, after the learned Biographer, that Malherb had two predominant Opinions; one, that the Looseness of a single Woman might destroy all the ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson
... and drink it in enormous quantities. One may turn night into day without great danger, upon condition of leading a temperate and regular life; for Nature has wonderful power of adapting herself to all circumstances, upon condition that irregularity itself he regular in its irregularity. He fell into this habit from poverty. He was too poor to buy fuel and comfortable clothes, so he lay in bed to keep warm; he worked in bed,—reading, writing, correcting, buried under the comfortable bedclothes. He would ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... The irregularity in the occurrence of the eclipses was at length perceived to observe certain rules. It was noticed that when the earth was near to Jupiter the eclipse generally occurred before the predicted time; while when the earth happened to be at the side of its orbit away from Jupiter, the ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... born in London, and brought up to the iron trade. Held several good situations, losing one after another, from drink and irregularity. On one occasion, with 20 in his pocket, he started for Manchester, got drunk there, was locked up and fined five shillings, and fifteen shillings costs; this he paid, and as he was leaving the Court, a gentleman stopped him, saying that he knew his father, and inviting ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... make love to her; and she, it seemed, desired nothing better. Nothing definite had been said by the Marquis de Gemosac. They were not formally affianced. They were not forbidden to see each other. But the irregularity of these proceedings lent a certain spice of surreptitiousness to their intercourse which was not without its charm. They did not see so much of each other after Loo had spoken to the Marquis de Gemosac on this subject; for Barebone had to make visits to other parts ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... strenuous efforts the life of those laymen who do not approve his acts, both in public and in private. He threatens to proceed against them, either personally or through intermediaries, for the most remote and trifling irregularity that can be imagined; and he brings suits without hesitating, when he finds no witnesses, to secure others, even though they be false. To them he furnishes offices and other accommodations for that service, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XX, 1621-1624 • Various
... started for the place at which it had been arranged that we should cross the Morumbidgee, but, though no more than five miles in a direct line from Whaby's house, in consequence of the irregularity of the ground, the drays did not reach it before noon. The weight and quantity of our stores being taken into consideration, the task we had before us was not a light one. Such, however, was the industry of the men, that before it became dark the whole ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... recognise the handwriting as his uncle's. It was a cramped hand, not easy to read, and the signature was so peculiarly formed that I was hardly able to decipher it. The peculiarity consisted of the extreme irregularity in the formation of the letters, no two of which were of equal size; and capitals were interspersed promiscuously, more especially ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... degraded from his episcopal character, by the sentence of seventy or eighty bishops, who assembled for that purpose at Antioch, and who, without consulting the rights of the clergy or people, appointed a successor by their own authority. The manifest irregularity of this proceeding increased the numbers of the discontented faction; and as Paul, who was no stranger to the arts of courts, had insinuated himself into the favor of Zenobia, he maintained above four years the possession of the episcopal house and office. * The victory of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... it possesses three stories, and in each story the windows are of the same sort as that described, though varying in size and varying also in their lines athwart the house. Those of the ground floor are all uniform in size and position. But those above are irregular both in size and place, and this irregularity gives a bizarre and not unpicturesque appearance to the building. Along the top, on every side, runs a low parapet, which nearly hides the roof, and at the corners are more figures of fawns ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... who had no real place in her heart. She had thought it did not matter; she had thought she was dead; now all at once she knew that she was alive in every fibre, and that it mattered fearfully. The idea of Mr. Masters stung her, not as novel-writers say "almost to madness,"—for there was no such irregularity in Diana's round, sound, healthy nature,—but to pain that seemed unbearable. No confusion in her brain, and no dulness now; on the contrary, an intense consciousness of all that her position involved. She had ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... fulfilled. A phenomenally high tide deposited upon the rocks a slimy, fragile organism of the sea, in incomprehensible myriads which, drying, adhered smoothly in true alignment. With the sun at the proper angle there appeared, as far as the irregularity of the coast line permitted, a shining band, broken only where the face of the rock was uneven and detached—a zone of gold bestowed upon the island by the amorous sea. But on the beach the slime which transformed the grey ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... brandy-and-water and cigars, that he scarcely knew how he reached home. He only remembered that he was very dizzy, and that his charming widow—his guide and friend—had remonstrated with him upon the elevation of his style, and the irregularity of his progression. ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... to Graham now, no longer upborne by music, but coarse and noisy, and the beating of the marching feet, tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp, interwove with a thunderous irregularity of footsteps from the undisciplined rabble that poured along ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... portion of the twenty-four hours when the Mediterranean, in the summer months, is apt to be as smooth as a mirror and as calm as if it never knew a tempest. Throughout the morning there had been some irregularity in the currents of air; the southerly breeze, generally light and frequently fickle, having been even more light and baffling than common. Still, as has been seen, there was sufficient air to force a vessel through the water; and, had Raoul been as diligent as the ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... disappointed, and only relieved myself a little by writing a few verses. I wonder if you will mind very much when I tell you they were suggested by you. You must forgive the poet's license I take. Here is one verse. The metrical irregularity is intentional, because I want, as it were, to put you apart: to change the lilt and the mood altogether when ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... part; but still that greatest possible equality will be a considerable inequality. So far, therefore, from the polar regions being made colder or darker by the globe being turned askance, they are indebted to that very obliqueness of the earth's axis, and that apparent irregularity of its motions, for the chief portion of that light and heat which they receive. How Wesley came to speak so erroneously on this subject, I am at a loss to know, as he must, one would think, have understood the first elements of geography and astronomy. Yet his words are at variance with the ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... irregularity of the ground, these plantations were, for the most part, easy of access. We had, indeed, all given him our advice and assistance, in order to accomplish this end. He had conducted one path entirely round the valley, and various branches from it led from the ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... preparation before and thanksgiving after Communion, the irregularity of your attendances; the habit of Self-Examination, or of Confession, dropped—why? The ...
— The Discipline of War - Nine Addresses on the Lessons of the War in Connection with Lent • John Hasloch Potter
... by the aid of figures. Soil examined mechanically, is found to consist entirely of particles of all shapes and sizes, from stones and pebbles, down to the finest powder; and, on account of their extreme irregularity of shape, they cannot lie so close to one another as to prevent there being passages between them, owing to which circumstance soil in the mass is always more or less porous. If, however, we proceed to examine one of the smallest particles of which soil is ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... with which the changes had been made, it would not have been very easy for a stranger to detect any striking irregularity in our feast. It is true, there were two sets of dishes on the table, or rather dishes of two different sets; but the ducks, game, &c., were not only properly cooked, but were warm and good. To work everybody went, therefore, with an appetite, and for five minutes little was ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... primate of England, and even went so far as to give England to the Pope as a perpetual fief. In token of his vassalage he agreed to pay to the Papal See the annual sum of 1000 marks. This tribute money was actually paid, though with very great irregularity, until the seventeenth year of the reign of ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... contrary, though oblong in shape and having a portico at the eastern or principal front, had none at its western end, where, however, a portico projected north and south from either side, thus forming a kind of transept. This irregularity seems to have been chiefly owing to the necessity of preserving the different sanctuaries and religious objects belonging to the ancient temple. A view of it is given opposite. The roof of the southern portico, as shown in the view, ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... of new-fangled British gun-boat;" and past experience would doubtless have taught him that the British naval officer has an inveterate habit of getting right to the bottom of things whenever he encounters anything that has the least smack of irregularity about it. ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... at the end of the room," one of them would suddenly exclaim, and while the other brother was gazing eagerly in that direction he would deliberately remove several of his men from the board. But the other brother, who was not so balmy as he looked, would occasionally discover this slight irregularity and proceed to express his opinion of it by word of mouth, which for sheer force of expression was in the nature of a revelation to me. It was appalling to sit there and watch those two young men, who had evidently at one time come from a good home, sit in God's bright sunshine and cheat each other ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... from which they translated, or added of themselves; the rest is made up of what are probably original phrases but omitted from the Hebrew by the carelessness of copyists; yet none of these differences is of importance save where the Greek corrects an irregularity in the Hebrew metre, or yields sense when the ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... wonder, a true one—that shows he took the idea of a march from a heap of chairs stacked upside down in a beer-garden during a shower of rain). But Purcell is infinitely simpler, less fevered, than Weber. Sometimes his melodies have the long-drawn, frail delicacy, the splendidly ordered irregularity of a trailing creeper, and something of its endless variety of leaf clustering round a central stem. But there is an entire absence of tropical luxuriance. A grave simplicity prevails, and we find no jewellery; showing Purcell to have ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... prejudices—even over his principles—in some peculiar cases; and this very knowledge convinced me that the consequences of a degrading marriage contracted by his son (degrading in regard to rank), would be terrible: fatal to one, perhaps to both. Every other irregularity—every other offence even—he might sooner or later forgive. This irregularity, this offence, never—never, though his heart broke in the struggle. I was as sure of it, as I was of my ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... seventieth part of all her illuminations, which he added to the three hundred and sixty days, or twelve months. Here we have a hint of a correction of the calendar, the necessity of which awakened a feeling of irregularity in the processes of nature, admitting thereby the notion of change and a new creation. These five days were the birthdays of the gods. On the first Osiris is born, and a voice was heard saying, "The Lord of ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... pastorals, and narratives. The latter are written in hexameter, but by no means classic in form. It is a rough, irregular metre, in which the trochees preponderate over the dactyls: many of the lines, in fact, would not bear a critical scansion. We have not scrupled to imitate this irregularity, as not inconsistent with the plain, ungrammatical speech of the characters introduced, and the homely air of even the most imaginative passages. The opening poem is a charmingly wayward idyl, called "The Meadow," (Die Wiese,) the name of a mountain-stream, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... temperate warmth, instead of extremes and fluctuations. But in England, the apartments, with their open chimnies, may be compared to great aerial funnels, constantly pouring out their warm air through a large opening, and constantly requiring to be replenished; and where, from the irregularity of the supply or of the discharge, the temperature is ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 272, Saturday, September 8, 1827 • Various
... uncouth and savage. It is usually chaunted in a sort of wild recitative, except the burden, which swells into a long and varied howl, not unlike to a view hollo'. The words, and the very great irregularity of the stanza (if it deserves the name), sufficiently point out its intention and origin. An English woman, residing in Suport, near the foot of the Kershope, having been plundered in the night by a band of the Scottish moss-troopers, is ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... irregularity in the arrival of the water did not, in the end, affect the general level of the flood, which became the same all over the globe, but it caused immense currents, as Cosmo ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... in his Apology for Himself and his Writings (ed. 1714, p. 80), says of himself:—'He first became an author when an ensign of the Guards, a way of life exposed to much irregularity, and being thoroughly convinced of many things of which he often repented, and which he more often repeated, he writ, for his own private use, a little book called the Christian Hero, with a design principally to fix upon his own mind a strong impression of virtue and religion, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... greater irregularity than this, especially in our large cities. The tax on imports, though {424} apparently meeting the approval of a majority of the American people, makes, upon the whole, a rather expensive system of taxation, and it is questionable whether ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... performance of what last night's ignorance spake"—does he not prate, that "Great Spirits" must do more than die for their friend—does not the pride of wine incite him to display some evidence of friendship, which its own irregularity shall make great? This I know, that I meant his punishment not alone to be a cure for his daily and habitual pride, but the direct consequence and appropriate punishment of a particular ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... general bodily health; for example, enlarged tonsils, chronic pharyngitis and nasal catarrh, indigestion and malnutrition. By the use of springs, screws, vulcanized caoutchouc bands, elastic ligatures, &c., as the case may require, practically all forms of dental irregularity may be corrected, even such protrusions and retrusions of the front teeth as cause great disfigurement of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... the foot of the patient, who was not impressed by the irregularity of the surgeon's request, pointed mutely to the figure behind the ward tenders. The surgeon wheeled about and glanced almost savagely at the woman, his eyes travelling swiftly from her head to her feet. The ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... and, in a few yards, the beautiful lagoon, hidden before by an irregularity, lay spread out before them like a sheet of blue and silver, spreading for miles along the ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... not beautiful: Nature had done there many things that she ought not to have done, and left undone much that she should have executed. It would have been decidedly plain but for a precious quality which no perfection of chiselling can give when the temperament denies it, and which no facial irregularity can take away—a tender affectionateness which might almost be called yearning; such as is often seen in the women of Correggio when they are painted in profile. But the plain features of Miss De ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... the person of Brother Walker, the system was squelched. Though at the end of his term, owing largely to this irregularity, he was largely deficient in his claim, he balanced ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller
... SIR:—In your article in No. 51, on the forest fires and drought following a very wet season, and remarking that we should have such extremes, is it not due—our irregularity of climate—to our careless devastating of whole portions of the country of trees? Many claim so. We are in sore need of national ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 53, November 11, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... bland greeting, which, as always, made the lady shiver. It is difficult to say what a shock it was to her to be greeted cheerfully by Sanchia. To see one in so painful a situation occupied by anything less painful, interested in anything at all, was truly shocking. Mrs. Devereux's idea of irregularity was that it absorbed the devoted victim, kept her aghast. If it did not, surely, there was no reward left to the virtuous. But here we had a highly irregular young woman behaving with extreme regularity. Was the world turning upside down? Was ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... limiting the time allowed for the moves of the antagonist. For example, if this limit were three minutes, the moves of the Automaton might be made at any given intervals longer than three minutes. The fact then of irregularity, when regularity might have been so easily attained, goes to prove that regularity is unimportant to the action of the Automaton—in other words, that the Automaton is ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... manors there was total irregularity as to the number of acres in the occupation of any one man; in others there was a striking regularity. The typical holding, the group of scattered acres cultivated by one man or held by some two or three in common, was known as a "virgate," ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... in a court of common law, and upon that foundation every action may be considered as an action at common law, to be determined by a jury, if the parties, or either of them, choose it. Hence the same irregularity and confusion would be introduced by a compliance with this proposition, that I have already noticed as resulting from the regulation proposed by the Pennsylvania minority. In one State a cause would receive its determination ...
— The Federalist Papers
... sufficient quantities. To this diet may be attributed the prevalence of skin diseases, and ulcers on the legs and joints. The scurfy skin disease so common among savages has a close connexion with the poorness and irregularity of their living. The Malays, who are never without their daily rice, are generally free from it; the hill-Dyaks of Borneo, who grow rice and live well, are clean skinned while the less industrious and less cleanly tribes, ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... command of money; and there was no pollam, or castle, which in the happy days of the Carnatic was without some hoard of treasure, by which the governors were enabled to combat with the irregularity of the seasons, and to resist or to buy off the invasion of an enemy. In all the cities were multitudes of merchants and bankers, for all occasions of moneyed assistance; and on the other hand, the native princes were in condition to obtain credit ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Relation, cannot but be surpris'd at the Advances that may be made in Poetry by the Strength of an uncultivated Genius, and may see how far Nature can proceed without the Ornamental Helps and Assistances of Art. The Poet don't attribute his Sickness to a Debauch, to the Irregularity or Intemperance of his Life, but to an Exercise becoming an Hero; and tho' he dies quietly in his Bed, he may be said in some measure to die in the Bed of Honour. And to shew the great Affection the King had for him, he sends for his Physicians, ...
— Parodies of Ballad Criticism (1711-1787) • William Wagstaffe
... a tiny rudiment in the case of the python—and even in that case should have maintained his ideal very inefficiently, inasmuch as only two limbs, instead of four, are represented? how much more reasonable is the naturalistic interpretation; for here the very irregularity of their appearance in different species, which constitutes rudimentary structures one of the crowning difficulties to the theory of special design, furnishes the best possible evidence in favour of hereditary descent; seeing that this irregularity then becomes what ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... been caught napping, and have not mailed my weekly letter. But you will be expecting some irregularity about the time of your flight to Berlin. I called at Mrs. M.'s to-day, and ran on at such a rate that Mrs. Woolsey, who was there, gave me ten dollars for poor folks, and said she wished I'd stay all day. Afterwards I went down ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... may, upon most occasions, be as constant as he pleases. The coal-heavers in London exercise a trade which in hardship, dirtiness, and disagreeableness almost equals that of colliers; and from the unavoidable irregularity in the arrivals of coal-ships, the employment of the greater part of them is necessarily very inconstant. If colliers, therefore, commonly earn double and triple the wages of common labor, it ought not to seem unreasonable ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... only kindled the wrath of the king but also gained for him friends among the bishops. A council which Henry summoned at Worms (in 1076) was attended by more than two thirds of the German bishops. Here Gregory was declared deposed owing to the alleged irregularity of his election and the many terrible charges of immorality and ambition brought against him. The bishops renounced their obedience to him and publicly declared that he had ceased to be their pope. It appears very surprising, at first sight, that the king should ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... specimen of the slipshod housekeeper as ever piled away breakfast dishes unwashed, or swept dirt under a settee. If they had money she bought things they did not need, and if there was no money she borrowed provisions and forgot to return the loan. Irregularity of living, deprivation and hope deferred, made the woman ill and she became a chronic sufferer. But she was ever tended with loving, patient care by the overburdened and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... of the right wrist is superficial and devoid of vigour, as the spleen must be affected injuriously by the liver. The weak action of the heart, and its febrile state, should be the natural causes which conduce to the present irregularity in the catamenia, and insomnia at night; the poverty of blood in the liver, and the sluggish condition of that organ must necessarily produce pain in the ribs; while the overdue of the catamenia, the cardiac fever, and debility of the respiration of the lungs, should occasion frequent ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... existed before the French Revolution. The smaller States of Germany followed a similar plan. Hanover proposed and obtained a veto. The chapter presents a list; the Government strikes out any name, but must leave two, out of which the chapter may elect, but in case of irregularity or inconvenience the chapter may make a second list. The Netherlands have the same system of limited veto and second list, and the confidential brief in addition.[10] The chapters have the right of election, the Pope ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... the slight irregularity in the line of the steps which "the artistic sense of the Greeks preferred to mathematical accuracy," he ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... isn't one thing, it is another," growled the husband. "I'm getting tired of this irregularity. There'd soon be no breakfast to get, if I were always behind ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... the mountain villages he knew; they stood in a continuous row on either side of a central street of astonishing cleanness; here and there their particoloured facade was pierced by a door, and not a solitary window broke their even frontage. They were particoloured with extraordinary irregularity, smeared with a sort of plaster that was sometimes grey, sometimes drab, sometimes slate-coloured or dark brown; and it was the sight of this wild plastering first brought the word "blind" into the thoughts of the explorer. "The good man who did that," ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... by day and their dreams by night having no deeper significance than our own. Some writers say that the constant interposition of God in their behalf was because they needed his special care and attention. But the irregularity and ignorance of their lives show clearly that their guiding hand was of human origin. If the Jewish account is true, then the God of the Hebrews falls far short of the Christian ideal of a good, true manhood, and the Christian ideal as set forth in the New Testament falls short of our ideal of ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... leave of him, when opening the door of a little boudoir he showed me a room with an air which seemed to say, "Is there any way by which the least irregularity should occur without my ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... "let's settle this thing. The fact remains that the firm owes a note to Heinzman, which it cannot pay. You owe a note to the firm which you cannot pay. All this may be slightly irregular; but for private reasons you do not care to make public the irregularity. Am ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... complete discussions of Ardant du Picq take up, in a poignant way, the setting of every military drama. They envelop in a circle of invariable phenomena the apparent irregularity of combat, determining the critical point in the outcome of the battle. Whatever be the conditions, time or people, he gives a code of rules which will not perish. With the enthusiasm of Pascal, who should have been a soldier, Ardant du Picq has the preeminent ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... to interpolate in their, apparently unconscious that the Hebrew requires beloved to be in the singular number, MR. MARGOLIOUTH translates [Hebrew: SHN'] as if it were a participle, which Luther seems also to have heedlessly done. Yet unless [Hebrew: SHN'] be a noun, derived with a little irregularity from [Hebrew: YSHN], he slept, it has nothing to do with sleep. It cannot be the participle of [Hebrew: YSHN], for that verb has a participle in the usual form, not wanting the initial [Hebrew: ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 218, December 31, 1853 • Various
... down at her, his expression comically compounded of sympathy and humour. At that moment, despite the irregularity of his features, he looked wonderfully like his ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... there who keeps, so constant a guard upon his heart and whole conduct as to avoid all sensible self-deceptions? Who is there upon whose heart no inordinate attachments steal; into whose actions no sloth, remissness, or other irregularity ever insinuates itself?... The Blessed Virgin was preserved by an extraordinary grace from the least sin in the whole tenor of her life and actions; but, without such a singular privilege, even the saints are obliged to say that they sin daily.... ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... newspapers. Of extreme political opinions, he upheld his peculiar views in a series of satirical compositions both in prose and verse, which, by leading dissolute persons to seek his society, proved the commencement of a most unfortunate career. Habits of irregularity were contracted; he ceased to engage in the duties of his calling: and leaving his wife and family of young children without any means of support, he became a reckless wanderer. He afterwards emigrated to the United States, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... selected Hon. Henry H. Sibley. Both bodies worked diligently on a constitution, and each succeeded in making one so much like the other that, after sober reflection, it was decided that the state could be admitted under either, and if both were sent to congress that body would reject them for irregularity. So towards the end of the long session a compromise was arrived at, by the formation of a joint committee from each convention, who were to evolve a constitution out of the two for submission to the people; the result of which, after many sessions, and some fisticuffs, was the instrument under ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... irregularity of a footpath makes half its charm. So much of loitering and indolence and impulse have gone to its formation, that all which is stiff and military has been left out. I observed that the very dikes of the Southern rice plantations did not succeed in being rectilinear, though the general effect ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... plutonium and carried the block to the tube opening. He tried it, removed a slight irregularity with his torch, then ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... inconclusive), has got a heap of feeble variorum comments on the Jerusalem, no notes worth speaking of to the rest of the works, and, notwithstanding the claim in the title-page to the merit of a "better order," has left the correspondence in a deplorable state of irregularity, as well as totally without elucidation. The learned Professor is an agreeable writer, and, I believe, a very pleasant man, but he certainly ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... face, which, with its high color, brilliant blue eyes, and her yellow hair, often led those who glanced at her casually to think her good looking. Further inspection, however, revealed a fox-like expression, an irregularity in the position of the eyes, a hardness in the lines of the mouth and a flatness of the nose which belied the first impression. This was particularly true when, after being deprived of morphine in the Tombs, her ordinary high color gave way at her second trial to a waxy paleness of complexion. ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train
... Her loose wrapper, a little open at her round throat, clung to her, attracting attention to all the lines of her form. Her hair was indeed black, jet black, waving back from her forehead in a line of curving and beautiful irregularity. Her skin was clear and dark. There were deep circles under her eyes, making them look unnaturally large, pathetically weary. In repose her face was childish and sadly serious. When she smiled she looked older and ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... river, keeping straight forward in the beaten buffalo road. Advanced a little, parties flanked out from the main body, as the irregularity and unevenness of the ground would allow. The whole body moved on in reckless precipitation and disorder, over a surface covered with rocks, laid bare by the trampling of buffaloes, and the washing of the rain of ages. Their ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint |
