"Idiosyncrasy" Quotes from Famous Books
... Aldebaran has been called "rose-red," and it would be an interesting occupation for an amateur to determine, with the aid of some proper color scale, the precise hue of this star, and of the many other stars which exhibit chromatic idiosyncrasy. Aldebaran is further interesting as being a standard first-magnitude star. With the four-inch glass we see without difficulty the tenth-magnitude companion following Aldebaran at a distance of 114", p. 35 deg.. There ... — Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss
... snow as pupae, bursting their cerements in the sunshine, to live their brief life and perpetuate their race; others eke out a half dormant existence as minute larvae, others pass the winter in the egg state. In fact, each species has its idiosyncrasy. [Footnote: Here, perhaps, I may explode that myth and "enormous gooseberry" of the mild winter or early spring, headed in the newspaper every year as "Extraordinary Mildness of the Season": "We are credibly ... — Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... puzzle over this idiosyncrasy of her father. She retained vague memories of her early childhood, when he had surely been utterly different and would come into the nursery to romp with her. It had not been altogether her mother's death; that had happened when she was only six years old, and there were bright memories ... — The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... treatment of the humane and pathetic, for near the end of the poor woman's narrative the author seems to recollect a fundamental sentence of Sterne's creed, the inevitable admixture of the whimsical, and here he introduces into the sentimental relation a Shandean idiosyncrasy: from page 43 the narrative leaps back to the beginning of the volume, and Schummel advises the reader to turn back and re-read, referring incidentally to his confused fashion of narration. The awkwardness with which this is done proves Schummel's inability to follow Yorick, though ... — Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... payment for his books, presenting the amount due him either to the publisher, or, more generally, to some friend who had been most active in aiding their publication. Few will applaud this idiosyncrasy, the general and sensible opinion being that the laborer is worthy of his hire: but Landor took peculiar pride in writing for fame alone, without thought of the more tangible product of genius; and, unlike most authors, he could well afford to indulge in this heroic taste. ... — The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
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