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More "Uncommon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hook over the side of a canoe. The boat itself is so cranky, and the fish themselves are generally so full of life and fight, that there is a good deal of risk and excitement, after all, about this kind of sport. It is no uncommon thing for an upset to occur in the risk and glorious uncertainty of capturing a large, gamy fellow who makes a ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... Media, in order to reconcile the Medians more easily to his sway, by making a Median princess their queen. Among the western nations of Europe such a marriage would be abhorred, Astyages having been Cyrus's grandfather; but among the Orientals, in those days, alliances of this nature were not uncommon. It would seem that this queen was not living at the time that the events occurred which are to be related in this chapter. Her sons had grown up to maturity, and were now princes ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... on the Atlantic coast, and he desired some provision in the Constitution which would permit the minority to rule such a majority. If these views shrivelled his statesmanship, it may be said to his credit that they discovered a prophetic gift most uncommon in those days, giving him the power to see a great empire of people in the fertile valley of the Mississippi and its tributaries.[79] Fifteen years later Robert R. Livingston expressed the belief that not in a century ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... of the utility of the Union; the insufficiency of the confederation to preserve that Union;" and "the necessity of a government at least equally energetic with the one proposed, to the attainment of this object." These essays, under the general title of The Federalist, were written with uncommon ability, exerted a powerful influence, and present an admirable treatise on the philosophy of our ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... event past. And a prophecy new hatch'd is a wry expression. The term new hatch'd is properly applicable to a bird, and that birds of ill omen should be new-hatch'd to the woful time, that is, should appear in uncommon numbers, is very consistent with the rest of the prodigies here mentioned, and with the universal disorder into which nature is described as thrown, by the perpetration of this horrid murder. (see ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... lamented its lot, it suddenly caught sight, at a great distance, of a Buddhist bonze and of a Taoist priest coming towards that direction. Their appearance was uncommon, their easy manner remarkable. When they drew near this Ch'ing Keng peak, they sat on the ground to rest, and began to converse. But on noticing the block newly-polished and brilliantly clear, which had moreover contracted in dimensions, and become no larger than ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... 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, ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... thus stopped the wheels of manufactures and arrested the ordinary movements of commerce? What is it that has produced this unusual and uncommon stagnation of business? What is it that has driven away from the markets of the North those hitherto so welcome to them? I do not propose to go into the history of these questions. I will not attempt to enlarge ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... later period of the "stone age" are shaped more like the iron ones our smiths use at the present day, and they have a hole bored in the middle for the handle. In Brittany, where Celtic remains are found in such abundance, it is not uncommon to see stone hammers of the latter kind hanging up in the cottages of the peasants, who use them to drive in nails with. They have an odd way of providing them with handles, by sticking them tight upon branches of young trees, and ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... glad.' I was sorry to think Mr Johnson did not attend to the sermon, Mr Carre's low voice not being strong enough to reach his hearing. A selection of Mr Carre's sermons has, since his death, been published by Sir William Forbes, and the world has acknowledged their uncommon merit. I am well assured Lord Mansfield has pronounced ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... abandoned and the task of restoring their productivity was usually left to nature. Much of the best tobacco soils of Virginia have been cropped and then allowed to go back to brush and tress and again cleared several times. Finding the remains of old tobacco rows out in dense woods is not an uncommon experience. This exhaustion of tobacco lands had a beneficial influence on the agricultural development of Virginia. By the time the fields were abandoned, most of the stumps had decayed and the soil could be prepared for seeding to ...
— Agriculture in Virginia, 1607-1699 • Lyman Carrier
... from all this, then, is that I was not holding Germany up as a paragon just now, but leading up to an obvious improvement—a gentleman-citizen. Whoever thinks he fulfils the conditions implicated in the role may know that not only is he an uncommon and a great man, but also the embodiment of a high, practicable ideal; in the attainment of which lies the solution of the whole educational question—how, of the two component parts, to maintain the moral position of the first and create one for ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell
... the little book in an utterly unconcerned state of mind, believing indeed at the time that if there were any salvation it was not for me, and with a distinct intention to put away the tract as soon as it should seem prosy. I may say that it was not uncommon in those days to call conversion "becoming serious"; and judging by the faces of some of its professors, it appeared to be a very serious matter indeed. Would it not be well if the people of GOD had always tell-tale faces, evincing the blessings and gladness of salvation ...
— A Retrospect • James Hudson Taylor
... summer, that being the only time of the year that the boarding house at the Fort did any business. At this time of the year all of the trappers and hunters were staying at the fort with nothing to do but eat, drink and spend their money that they had earned the winter before. It was no uncommon thing for some of these men to bring from three to four hundred dollars worth of furs to Bent's Fort in the spring, and when fall came and it was time to go back to the trapping ground, they wouldn't have a dollar left, and ...
— Chief of Scouts • W.F. Drannan
... growth of wheat, beans, and clover—requiring however a summer fallow (as is generally stipulated in the lease) every fourth year, etc.' This is not an unpleasing style on Agricultural subjects—nor an uncommon one. ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... was ordained Deacon in our little chapel, in the presence of fifty-five Melanesians and a few Norfolk Islanders. With him Charles Bice, a very excellent man from St. Augustine's, was ordained Deacon also. He has uncommon gifts of making himself thoroughly at home with the Melanesians. It comes natural to him, there is no effort, nothing to overcome apparently, and they of course like him greatly. He speaks the language of Mota, the ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... seized either species of weird leisure. (Also a few uncommon words, like seignior, ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever
... leaders roundly accused him of to other people's faces. She did not grudge him his gains, nor was it her business if, as they alleged, in introducing Mr. Constant to her vacant rooms, his idea was not merely to benefit his landlady. He had done her an uncommon good turn, queer as was the lodger thus introduced. His own apostleship to the sons of toil gave Mrs. Drabdump no twinges of perplexity. Tom Mortlake had been a compositor; and apostleship was obviously a profession better paid and of a higher social status. Tom ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... had had what she called "a row with the governor," that is to say, a slight misunderstanding with Major Warfield; a very uncommon occurrence, as the reader knows, in which that temperate old gentleman had so freely bestowed upon his niece the names of "beggar, foundling, brat, vagabond and vagrant," that Capitola, in just indignation, refused to join the birding party, ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... that it was because the thing was a commonplace spectacle and not an uncommon or impressive one. I do vividly remember seeing a dozen black men and women, chained together, lying in a group on the pavement, waiting shipment to a Southern slave- market. They had the saddest faces ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... children nor the world that knew them ever supposed that one of the girls was of alien blood and parentage: Such difference as existed between Laura and Emily is not uncommon in a family. The girls had grown up as sisters, and they were both too young at the time of the fearful accident on the Mississippi to know that it was that which had ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to welcome him in the usual pompous manner, and, while in London, giving magnificent balls in one of the stately houses, and perhaps numbering among his guests some of the blooming children he had once passed, now expanded into full-blown and gorgeous flowers of aristocracy. These are, of course, uncommon instances; but they teach that the most brilliant present may have had the darkest past; that there is always ground for hope, and that the caprices of fortune, if we take no higher view of ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... strata; or if, after the vertical strata had been broken and erected, the horizontal strata had been deposited upon the vertical strata, then forming the bottom of the sea. That strata, which are regular and horizontal in one place, should be found bended, broken, or disordered at another, is not uncommon; it is always found more or less in all our horizontal strata. Now, to what length this disordering operation might have been carried, among strata under others, without disturbing the order and continuity of those above, may perhaps be difficult to determine; but here, ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton
... to Lovelace.— The lady's coffin brought up stairs. He is extremely shocked and discomposed at it. Her intrepidity. Great minds, he observes, cannot avoid doing uncommon things. Reflections ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... were things that one may see again and again in many London streets: a vine or a fig tree on a wall, a lark singing in a cage, a curious shrub blossoming in a garden, an odd shape of a roof, or a balcony with an uncommon-looking trellis-work in iron. There's scarcely a street, perhaps, where you won't see one or other of such things as these; but that morning they rose to my eyes in a new light, as if I had on the magic spectacles in the fairy tale, and just like the man in the fairy ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... the banker only secures protection so long as he is acting strictly as a conduit pipe, or as agent for the customer. If he put himself in the position of owner of the cheque, he no longer fulfils the condition of receiving the money only for the customer. In the Gordon case, adoption of the not uncommon practice of crediting cheques as cash in the bank's books before the money was actually received was held equivalent to taking them as transferee or owner, and to debar the bank from the protection of sec. 82. The anxiety and inconvenience ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... that the ergot fungus frequently grows on this grain, and when ground up with it occasionally poisons the consumer where the quantity of the substance is large and the bread is eaten in considerable quantities. Instances of this kind are not uncommon among the peasantry of Europe, where a black bread made from rye is the staple article of diet. Of course, when making food-preparations of rye, we should be careful to have the flour thoroughly winnowed, and to cook the ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris
... minutes, and shaking hands with the hotel proprietor, he made his way quickly to the station. As he reached the platform he noticed that Abner Stiles was just driving away; the thought flashed through his mind that somebody from Mason's Corner was going to the city; but that was no uncommon event, and the thought passed ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... work. They come in and go out when they please, and, if anything dissatisfies them, they ask for their wages, and depart the same day, in the certainty that their labour will command a higher price in the United States. It is not an uncommon thing for a gentleman to be obliged to do the work of gardener, errand-boy, and groom. A servant left at an hour's notice, saying, "she had never been so insulted before," because her master requested her to put on shoes when she waited at table; and a gentleman was obliged ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... very old ditty, and a favourite with the peasantry in every part of England; but more particularly in the mining districts of the North. The tune is pleasing, but uncommon. R. W. Dixon, Esq., of Seaton-Carew, Durham, by whom the song was communicated to his brother for publication, says, 'I have written down the above, verbatim, as generally sung. It will be seen that the last lines of each verse are not of equal length. The singer, ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... in this point; and that he began to doubt, whether I was a real Hollander, or not; but rather suspected I must be a Christian. However, for the reasons I had offered, but chiefly to gratify the king of Luggnagg by an uncommon mark of his favour, he would comply with the singularity of my humour; but the affair must be managed with dexterity, and his officers should be commanded to let me pass, as it were by forgetfulness. For he assured me, ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... he stopped here for about a week, for he was uncommon fond of a spree, and he never reached home after that. His 'orse comed on to the station one day without him, and with the saddle twisted right round, and hanging under his belly. So ye see, sir, his people ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... think I noticed," I answered. "Some sort of a blouse, I suppose." And then I recollected. "Ah, yes, there was something uncommon," I added. "An unusually broad band of velvet, it looked like, ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... horse, saw the machine, and stopped dead. It was the first mowing-machine in the wilds, the first in the village—red and blue, a thing of splendour to man's eyes. And the father, head of them all, called out, oh, in a careless tone, as if it were nothing uncommon: "Harness ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... had now grown so used to his presence, as to cease to notice many little traits that had repelled her, at the beginning. Her critical instincts were lulled. Thus had come to pass that which is by no means an uncommon incident in human history: a toleration for and finally a strong attraction towards a nature that began by creating distrust, and ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... Bushy-tailed Bull of Tibet. (Asiat. Researches, No. XXIII, pp. 351-353, with a plate.) He says with regard to the colour: "There is a great variety of colours amongst them, but black or white are the most prevalent. It is not uncommon to see the long hair upon the ridge of the back, the tail, tuft upon the chest, and the legs below the knee white, when all the rest of the animal is jet black." A good drawing of "an enormous" Yak is to be found ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... usually more or less honey. Sometimes there is half a pint, or more. This honey is very palatable; and it is not an uncommon thing for children to brave the danger of being stung by the bees, for the sake of capturing a nest and getting possession of its treasures. For myself, I never was ambitious of getting renown by such means as ...
— Mike Marble - His Crotchets and Oddities. • Uncle Frank
... designing enemies? Yet to all these things men of letters are subject; and such must literary ladies expect, if they attain to any degree of eminence.—Judging, then, from the experience of our sex, I may pronounce envy to be one of the evils which women of uncommon genius have to dread. "Censure," says a celebrated writer, "is a tax which every man must pay to the public, who seeks to be eminent." Women must ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... height was nearly nine feet, was born at Kinsale, in the kingdom of Ireland. His real name was Patrick Cotter; he was of obscure parentage, and originally laboured as a brick-layer; but his uncommon size rendered him a mark for the avarice of a showman, who, for the payment of L50. per annum, obtained the liberty of exhibiting him for three years in England. Not contented with his bargain, the chapman attempted to underlet to another speculator, the liberty of showing him, and poor ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 20, No. 567, Saturday, September 22, 1832. • Various
... went to Mr. Barber's to dine. This gentleman has a small plantation of ginger and arrow-root, which succeeds uncommonly well; also some plants of the blood orange from Malta, and some young cinnamon trees; which, I should observe, are by no means uncommon in ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... plants to take the place of the old ones which have died), and the late Mr. Pringle—the chemist—was of opinion that the loss of crop from Borer was not less than 2 cwt. per acre per annum. Before the introduction of shade the total extermination of an estate was far from uncommon, the estate in the Bamboo district opened by Rev. H. A. Kaundinya in 1857 being the first to perish, and though, as we have seen, owing to the introduction of shade, the Borer has been largely brought into subjection, considerable ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... Navarre was the first who perceived this; he spoke and made himself known to the besieged; who were so astonished at hearing him name himself from the bottom of these subterraneous places that they demanded leave to capitulate. The proposals were all made by this uncommon way; the articles were drawn up or rather dictated by the King of Navarre, whose word was known by the besieged to be so inviolable that they did not require a writing. They had no cause to repent of this confidence; the ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... young fellows say," replied Cope. "A not uncommon ideal, possibly; but I'm glad that some man, now and then, is able to ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... than he was before. But Willy and Cuddy are extremely anxious to know what it was that caused Roget's imprisonment, and at last he agrees to tell them. Hitherto the poem has been written in ottava rima, a form which is sufficiently uncommon in our early seventeenth-century poetry to demand special notice in this case. In a prose postscript to this book Wither tells us that the title, The Shepherd's Hunting, which he seems to feel needs explanation, is due to the stationer, or, as we should ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... comparison of notes proved that I had been in the woods with two playfellows, named Binckly and Greiner, when the master thought I was home, ill, and my mother, that I was at school, deeply immersed in study. However, with these and other delinquencies not uncommon among boys, I learned at McNanly's school, and a little later, under a pedagogue named Thorn, a smattering of geography and history, and explored the mysteries of Pike's Arithmetic and Bullions' English Grammar, about as far ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... the coins were plainly bad; of these last there were not many; still there were enough for them to be not uncommon. These were entirely composed of alloy; they would bend easily, would melt away to nothing with a little heat, and were quite unsuited for a currency. Yet there were few of the wealthier classes who did not maintain that even these coins were genuine good money, ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... saucy, but noble with it all. I liked him: he was a man that showed you his worst, and let you find his best out by degrees. He hated to be beat: but that's no crime. He was a beautiful oar, and handled his mawleys uncommon; he sparred with all the prizefighters that came to Oxford, and took punishment better than you would think; and a wonderful quick hitter; Alec Reed owned that. Poor Taff Hardie! And when I think that God has overthrown his powerful mind, and left me mine, such ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... she was keenly interested. The troubles confided to these private pages were not due to compunction for anything she had done, nor were they caused by any particular event; they expressed simply a general discontent with herself and a kind of Weltschmerz not uncommon in a young and thoughtful mind. For the first time she seems glad of outside interests because they ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... of the tables two very chic young women are dining with a young Frenchman, his hair and dress in close imitation of the Duc d'Orleans. These poses in dress are not uncommon. ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... she remembered meeting Mr. Vinrace at a party, and, being so much struck by his face, which was so unlike the ordinary face one sees at a party, that she had asked who he was, and she was told that it was Mr. Vinrace, and she had always remembered the name,—an uncommon name,—and he had a lady with him, a very sweet-looking woman, but it was one of those dreadful London crushes, where you don't talk,—you only look at each other,—and although she had shaken hands with Mr. Vinrace, she didn't think they had said anything. She sighed very ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... he will do so," sighed Tisco, with a slight shrug of his shoulders. "In Mexico, when a defeated man seeks blood revenge it is no uncommon thing for him to turn bandit until he has accomplished his hope of a terrible revenge. Then, afterwards, if the bandit has annoyed the government enough, and has repeatedly escaped capture, the bandit makes his peace with the authorities ...
— The Young Engineers in Mexico • H. Irving Hancock
... eyes on him. Such incidents were not uncommon. Almost every day strangers on their way South had passed her cabin, looking for friends they would never see again—a woman for her husband; a mother for her son; a father for his children. Unknown graves and burned homes could be found all the way to the Potomac and beyond. This strong ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... This is perhaps not uncommon still in some countries. The Venetian Director Medebach, for whose company many of Goldoni's Comedies were composed, claimed an ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... extravagances which eat up the little provision which might have been made for themselves and their children when he is gone who earned their bread. There is no sadder sight, I think, than that which is not a very uncommon sight, the careworn, anxious husband, laboring beyond his strength, often sorrowfully calculating how he may make the ends to meet, denying himself in every way; and the extravagant idiot of a wife, bedizened with jewelry and arrayed in velvet ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... excellent form to-day; his voice was clear, strong and its carrying power excellent. He spoke with uncommon vigor and, of course, without notes or manuscript. There was something in his manner that seemed to carry conviction with it. The people knew they were listening to an honest man who was a thorough master of every subject upon ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... uncommon child for truth. I never knew you to deviate from it in one single instance, either in ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... curs'd that sable Deceit, For making me wish and admire; And rifle poor Ovid to learn to intreat, When Reason might check my desire: For sagely of late it has been disclos'd, There's nothing, nothing conceal'd uncommon; No Miracles under a Mask repos'd, When knowing ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... sound trumpets of rams' horns; for it was our custom to call the people together by them. Now the attendants of Eglon were ignorant of what misfortune had befallen him for a great while; but, towards the evening, fearing some uncommon accident had happened, they entered into his parlor, and when they found him dead, they were in great disorder, and knew not what to do; and before the guards could be got together, the multitude of the Israelites came upon them, so that some of them were ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... admiration, but was not displeased, and took me up the hill to see the temples, baths, and yadoyas of this very attractive place. I am much delighted with her grace and savoir faire. I asked the widow how long she had kept the inn, and she proudly answered, "Three hundred years," not an uncommon instance of the heredity ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... two women fell to weeping in each other's arms, a thing most uncommon for my Aunt Gainor. Then they talked it all over, as if John Wynne were not; when it would be, and what room I was to have, and my clothes, and the business, and so on—all the endless details wherewith the cunning affection of good women knows to provide comfort for us, who are ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... 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
... advantage of some one uncommon feature in a common situation. The feature here was the fancy of old Hook for being the first man up every morning, his fixed routine as an angler, and his annoyance at being disturbed. The murderer strangled him in his own house after dinner ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... that the Ammonius of the Treatise was this Ammonius, the question would be settled in favour of the late date. Our author would be that Longinus who inspired Zenobia to resist Aurelian, and who perished under his revenge. But Ammonius is not a very uncommon name, and we have no reason to suppose that the Neoplatonist Ammonius busied himself with the literary criticism of Homer and Plato. There was, among others, an Egyptian Ammonius, the tutor ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... muscle of my face, notwithstanding I frequently received from ten to twenty lashes from the recently made instrument of torture, which was composed of new birch twigs, each stroke from which drew the blood; and it was no uncommon thing, after I had left the room, to get some other boy to pick out the spills which were left sticking in my lacerated flesh, some of them more than half an inch long. Nay, at last it became so bad that one of the washerwomen made a serious complaint to Mrs. ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... complaints against its governors, provided they discharge the main duty of their station—squeezing out a good revenue. This hint will be of importance to prevent my readers from being seized with doubt and incredulity, whenever, in the course of this authentic history, they encounter the uncommon circumstance of a governor acting with independence, and in opposition to the opinions of ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... a critic with uncommon discrimination and good sense. Mr. Chesterton possesses one of the ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... this would tend to refine and elevate the prisoners. Hence, he left them with a generous supply, well fitted up. But it would need more or less renewing and refitting in the fall, which it did not receive, but was made to answer by patching. Hence, patched and ragged clothes would be of no uncommon occurrence, as all became thin from long wear, the under-clothing, especially, much needing ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... event itself and the influence it would exert upon the future; those of the lower class because of their supreme contempt for the erstwhile Military Governor and the biased manner of his administration, all, without exception, found themselves manifesting an uncommon interest in the progress and ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... by Falstar's the other day, and Peggy was washing uncommon hard. Drew, he steps close to the tubs and says he, 'I tell you, Mrs. Falstar, I don't know no better religion than getting the spots out instead of slighting them. It's like the little Scotch girl who said she knew when she got religion, for she had to sweep under ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... East. But he is no longer the K. of K., the old K. of Khartoum and Pretoria. He still has his moments of God-sent intuition. First, he had absolute knowledge that the Germans would come through Belgium: I repeat this. The assumption was not uncommon perhaps, but he knew the fact! Secondly, when everyone else spoke of a six weeks' war; when every other soldier I can think of except Douglas Haig believed he'd be back before the grouse shooting was ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... gentleman of spirit, and good-looking, and held his head up when he walked, and had what you may call Fire about him. He wrote poetry, and he rode, and he ran, and he cricketed, and he danced, and he acted, and he done it all equally beautiful. He was uncommon proud of Master Harry as was his only child; but he didn't spoil him neither. He was a gentleman that had a will of his own and a eye of his own, and that would be minded. Consequently, though he made quite a ...
— The Holly-Tree • Charles Dickens
... others is a delightful pastime and profitable but it is not really thinking. Also, if one be blessed with a good memory, he may thus cheaply acquire a reputation for great wisdom; just as one, if he happens to be born with a nose of uncommon length or bigness, may attract the attention of the world. But no one should deceive himself. A man because he is able, better than the multitude, to repeat the thoughts of other men must not therefore think himself a better thinker than the crowd. No more should the one with the uncommon nose ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... irregularity, two or three days' delay after being advertised to start, was no uncommon circumstance with steamers; hence this plan was abandoned. What this heroic man endured from severe struggles and unyielding exertions, in traveling thousands of miles on water and on foot, hungry and fatigued, rowing his living freight for seven days and seven nights in a skiff, ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... a plot, I will write their dialogue." (Extract from Uncommon-place Book of Mr. O. WILDE.) Now when the author of A Woman of No Importance and of Lady Windermere's Fan has to find his own materials for a plot ("'Play-wrights' materials for plots made up.' Idea for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, May 6, 1893 • Various
... bright with anticipation, beside. Advena was there, too, and Stella; and the boys would have a perch, not too conspicuous, somewhere in the gallery. Dr Drummond was in the second row, and a couple of strange ladies with him: he was chuckling with uncommon humour at some remark of the younger one when Lorne noted him. Old Sandy MacQuhot was in a good place; had been since six o'clock, and Peter Macfarlane, too, for that matter, though Peter sat away back as beseemed a modest functionary whose business was with the book and the bell. Altogether, ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... than uncommon interest at the man who presently came to them in the visitors' room. He was already familiar with Mr. Aylmore's photograph, but he never remembered seeing him in real life; the Member for Brookminster was one of that rapidly diminishing body of legislators whose members are disposed to ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... Roger and Cicely, 'twas a neat throw. Tom bumped heavy—aye, uncommon flat were Tom, let me eat ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... contradictory testimony from competent authority is not uncommon in therapeutics, and the reasons for it are well recognized in the impossibility of an equality in the conditions and circumstances of the investigations, and hence the general decision commonly reached is upon the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 492, June 6, 1885 • Various
... physician, his mother a native of Chiavari. She was a superior woman, and devoted more than a mother's care to the excitable and delicate child, who seemed to her (mothers have sometimes the gift of prophecy) to be meant for an uncommon lot. One of the few personal reminiscences that Mazzini left recorded, relates to the time and manner in which the idea first came to him of the possibility of Italians doing something for their country. He was walking with his mother in the Strada Nuova at ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... will begin to flow into that great country, with its hundred million of people, in one continued stream, to supply their insatiable desire for it. They habitually invest their savings in gold ornaments, which they wear on their persons; and at this day, it is not uncommon to see the wife of a native under-secretary, whose salary and property altogether do not amount to much more than L.300 a year, wearing gold in this manner to the value of L.500. The treasure of this kind possessed by the rich natives is probably extraordinary; and so great is their ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... custom prevailed among these people, not uncommon elsewhere. The men, when their wives were suffering their accouchement, would abstain from all flesh and fish, refrain from smoking and all diversions, and stay within the Kish, or hut, from ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James
... about nine leagues. Two hours after we saw another, bearing S.W. by S., which appeared more extensive than the former. I hauled up for this island, and ran under an easy sail all night, having squally unsettled rainy weather, which is not very uncommon in this sea, when near high land. At six o'clock the next morning, the first island bore N.W., the second S.W. 1/2 W., and a third W. I gave orders to steer for the separation between the two last; and soon after, ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... nineteenth century; the differences being, as a rule, rather matters of spelling or phrase than of actual vocabulary. It is very well suited both to the poet's needs and to the subject; there being little or nothing of that stammer—as it may be called—which is not uncommon in mediaeval work, as if the writer were trying to find words that he cannot find for a thought which he cannot fully shape even to himself. In short, there is in the particular kind, stage, and degree that accomplishment ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... and his fellow students on the day of the embryo statesman's birth. Doctor Baldwin seems to have been fully equal to the multifarious calls upon his energies, and to have exercised his various callings with satisfaction alike to clients, patients, and pupils. It was no uncommon occurrence in those early days, when surgeons were scarce in our young capital, for him to be compelled to leave court in the middle of a trial, and to hurry away to splice a broken arm or bind up a fractured limb. Years afterwards, when he had retired from the active practice ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... Hotel, where the sister of Emperor Alexander resides on a visit to this country, the Grand Duchess of Oldenburg. I thought it probable that, as the procession would pass this place, there would be some uncommon occurrence taking place before it, so I took my situation directly opposite, determined, at any rate, to secure a good view of ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... by Indian seamen, and lay at anchor three days before landing. His ship bore nothing indicative of nationality except the sailors. She was trim-looking and freshly painted; otherwise there was nothing uncommon in her appearance. She was not for war—that was plain. She floated too lightly to be laden; wherefore those who came to look at her said she could not ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... to these Roman ships, let not our readers be misled by a familiar notion or a pompous name. They were but little more than rowboats, as may be easily imagined from the fact that Cicero instances for its uncommon magnitude a ship of only fifty-six tons! These ancient vessels were occasionally sheathed with leather or lead, and had the prow decorated with paint and gilding, while the stern was sometimes carved in the figure of a shield, elaborately adorned. Upon a staff there erected ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... Gaming is not uncommon amongst the Crees of all the different districts, but it is pursued to greater lengths by those bands who frequent the plains and who, from the ease with which they obtain food, have abundant leisure. The game most in use amongst them, termed puckesann, is played with the stones ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... naive and romantic, as if altogether untouched by experience. "I don't think there is a single grain of vulgarity in all her enchanting person. Neither is there in my son. I suppose you won't deny that he is uncommon." She paused. ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... men call drudgery, which never was such to Him because of the fine spirit breathed into it. Drudgery, commonplaceness is in the spirit, not the work. Nothing could be commonplace or humdrum when done by One with such an uncommon spirit. ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... of an Indian fakir, denotes uncommon activity and phenomenal changes in your life. Such dreams may sometimes ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... He has conversed with him, and quite agrees with me that he says very uncommon things for a squirrel of his age; he has such fine feelings,—so much above ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... It is not uncommon for saints in their youth by the strangeness of their behaviour to give rise to such suspicions. And Jeanne displayed those signs of sainthood. She was the talk of the village. Folk pointed at her mockingly, saying: "There goes she who is to restore ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... draws more largely than does astronomy on that intellectual liberality which is ready to adopt whatever is demonstrated or concede whatever is rendered highly probable, however new and uncommon the points of view may be in which objects the most familiar may thereby become placed. Almost all its conclusions stand in open and striking contradiction with those of superficial and vulgar observation, and with what appears to everyone the most ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... arter the bakin' on't, and her arm showed in her sleeve no bigger than a broomstick. I was a'most afeared on her sometimes, her forehead come to look so like yaller glass, and as if I could see right into it, if I only tried; and them times I thumped my head uncommon hard on the knobs of the andirons,—they was a blessin', Rose,—and I used to spekilate as to what folks did that wa' n't rich enough to hev 'em. My mother got so weak, arter a while, that she would sometimes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... was brought to this country in extreme youth by a widowed mother of marked determination and piety, with the intention of launching him successfully in life. He early displayed a fondness for books, and must have shown an uncommon maturity of mind and much executive ability, as he was only nineteen when he was appointed to the position just named. It is an interesting fact that he accepted the librarianship in 1798 with a salary of two hundred and fifty dollars a year in addition to the fines and ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... cried 'Miracle!' every time that one was manifested in the streets of Paris, and we may say, en passant, that the miracles were frequently performed in their favor. Whenever the monks made some solemn procession, promenading through the streets the relics of some saint, it was not uncommon to see a franc-mitou, paralyzed, crippled or epileptic, endeavoring to touch the sacred casket; in vain would the attempt be made to keep him at a distance; he redoubled his efforts, and scarcely had he succeeded in gluing his lips ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... vocabulary of the uneducated masses; we,—and by WE, I mean scientists, and men of the highest culture,—have long ago rejected them as unmeaning and therefore unnecessary. Phenomenon is a particularly vile expression, serving merely to designate anything wonderful and uncommon,—whereas to the scientific eye, there is nothing left in the world that ought to excite so vulgar and barbarous an emotion as wonder, . . nothing so apparently rare that cannot be reduced at once from ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... the people. It is a well known and lamentable fact that one-fifth of the population, say sixty millions, are insufficiently fed even in ordinary years of prosperity. They are the ever ready prey of the first drought, distress or famine that may happen. It is a not uncommon experience of the ryot (or farmer) to retire at night upon an empty stomach. The average income of the common labourer in India is between four and five rupees, or, say, $1.50 ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... the estaminets, (drinking places), while many retained their original names, such as "Pomme d'Or," "Repos aux Voyageurs" or "Herberg in der Kruisstraat," such names as "The Pig & Whistle" and "Cheshire Cheese" were not uncommon. ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... that's unfortunate," the lawyer said uneasily. "Of course they will make a point of that, but that proves nothing. Most boys of your age do object to a stepfather. Of course we shall put it to the jury that there is nothing uncommon about that. Oh! no, I do not think they have a strong case; and Mr. Grant, who is our leader, and who is considered the best man on the circuit, is convinced we shall get ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... because in this respect the English Language surpasses the Latin, by reason of its Monosyllables, of which I have said enough for any body at all versed in these Matters, to be able to make out what is here advanc'd. But before I quit this Article, I will observe that it is to the artful and uncommon varying the Pause, that the Harmony is owing in those two celebrated Lines ...
— Letters Concerning Poetical Translations - And Virgil's and Milton's Arts of Verse, &c. • William Benson
... this kind were no uncommon thing. The clash of tempers lasted for several minutes, then Maud flung out of the room. An hour later, at dinner-time, she was rather more caustic in her remarks than usual, but this was the only sign that remained ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... other. He was simple, natural, affectionate, and free from pertness or precocity. At the same time there was an innate power which impressed all those who approached him without their knowing exactly why, and there was abundant evidence of uncommon talents. Webster's boyish days are pleasant to look upon, but they gain a peculiar lustre from the noble character of his father, the deep solicitude of his mother, and the generous devotion and self-sacrifice of both parents. There was in this something ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... on his living at the Lodge until his affairs are settled. Your cousin bore the death of his father with uncommon fortitude. It must have been ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... said the little old man. "Nonsense; you think them strange because you know nothing about it. They are funny, but not uncommon." ...
— The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick - A Lecture • Frank Lockwood
... the parliament of that place, who ordered his discharge. This took place after five days' actual imprisonment. I arrived at Bordeaux a few days after his liberation. As the Procureur General of the King had interested himself to obtain it, with uncommon zeal, and that too on public principles, I thought it my duty to wait on him and return him my thanks. I did the same to the president of the parliament, for the body over which he presided; what would have been an insult in America, being an indispensable duty here. ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... board, I went with them all over the ship, which they viewed with uncommon surprise and attention. We happened to have for their entertainment a kind of pie or pudding made of plantains, and some sort of greens which we had got from one of the natives. On this and on yams they made ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... a procession of stately thoughts that were soon to issue thence; and so he saw nothing, heard nothing, knew nothing of what was around him; but the spiritual element took up the feeble frame and carried it along, unconscious of the burden, and converting it to spirit like itself. Men of uncommon intellect, who have grown morbid, possess this occasional power of mighty effort, into which they throw the life of many days and then are lifeless for ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... he shows her freedom from all personal affections; that, though tender and gentle in an uncommon degree, there was no room for a private love in her consecrated life. She inspired those who knew her with a simple energy of feeling like her own. "We have seen," they felt, "a woman worthy the name, capable of all sweet affections, capable ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... not uncommon, as may be supposed in a country of so uneven a surface as that of the western coast. A remarkable one descends from the north side of Mount Pugong. The island of Mansalar, lying off and affording ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... said Jeanne, not at all surprised, and as if wall-climbers were no more uncommon than goloshes. "He didn't give me any, but then I came a different way from you. I think every one comes a different way to this country, ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth
... drying their wet shirts before the fire. I have always found them perfectly peaceable, and I have never known them to accost lonely passers-by, or women or children. If a shooting or fishing party comes along, however, large enough to put any accusation of terrorism out of the question, it is not uncommon for the "hoboes" to make a polite suggestion that the poor man would be the better for his beer; and so well is the reputation of these queer camps established that the applicant generally receives such a collection of five-cent pieces as will enable him to get ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... I met an uncommon pretty girl of that name down in Suffolk last autumn, when I was ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... place. The Karasjok Lapps, and others in the neighborhood, were very unlike those I had seen before. They were tall; some of them six feet in height. The women were also tall, most of them having dark hair. The fair complexion and blue eyes were uncommon. Men and women wore strange-looking head-dresses. The men wore square caps of red or blue flannel, filled up with eider down. The women put on a wooden framework of very peculiar shape, appearing more or less like a casque or the ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... "common" an expression of contempt? And why are "uncommon," "extraordinary," "distinguished," expressions of approbation? Why is everything ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... trouble, not wholly to the disadvantage of the astute miller, who finds it not only brings grist to his mill, but takes away grist from another mill belonging to a couple of worthy ladies, and once quite prosperous. It is no uncommon thing, it appears, for the same person to be put through the ceremony of swearing fidelity more than once, and at more than one place, with the not unnatural result, however, of diminishing the pressure of the oath upon ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... gallic acid, the vegetable astringent product which occurs in oak-galls used until lately in the manufacture of ink. The bezoar-stone is probably a concretion formed in the intestine from some of the undigested portions of the goat's food. Such concretions are not uncommon, and occur even in man. "Bezoar-stones" are obtained in the East from deer, antelopes, and even monkeys, as well as goats, and must have a different chemical nature in each case. Minute scrapings from these stones are used in the East as medicine, and their chemical ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... to meet again. And the false report respecting this family in the little shop, reminds me that the poor are not always kind to the poor. I learnt, from a gentleman who is Secretary to the Relief Committee of one of the wards, that it is not uncommon for the committees to receive anonymous letters, saying that so and so is unworthy of relief, on some ground or other. These complaints were generally found to be either wholly false, or founded upon some mistake. I have three such letters now before me. The first, written on a ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... is not an uncommon thing)—some say that the priests of the popular Church in Ireland have been the cause of much discontent. I believe there is no class of men in Ireland who have a deeper interest in a prosperous and numerous ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... window. It was all we could possibly do to quiet them and restore order. Since then, there has been a fire so near as to scorch the rear fence and no panic, no screaming, hardly a student left his room. Formerly, on the receipt of bad news, as the intelligence of the death of a friend, it was not uncommon for one to have a fit of hysterics or something resembling it; now, such news is received with deep feeling indeed, and with tears, but no hysterics ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 10, October, 1889 • Various
... Late in the evening the two Roman divisions, each victorious on its own part and each anxious as to the fate of the other, met between the two fields of battle. It was a battle attesting alike the uncommon military talent of Jugurtha and the indestructible solidity of the Roman infantry, which alone had converted their strategical defeat into a victory. Jugurtha sent home a great part of his troops after the battle, and restricted himself to a guerilla warfare, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... like me," Nancy said, quivering a little. "This is a rather uncommon experience to me, you know, being looked at so impersonally. Now please don't ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... It was an uncommon good and plucky bit of work, and I shall see that it is reported to ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... his table directed against himself, which he carefully preserved as his best eulogium and claim to immortality. He advocated the severe repression of the seditious; yet, with a stretch of hypocrisy and mendacity uncommon even with a Guise, he expressed himself as for his own part very sorry that such "grievous executions" had been inflicted upon those who went "without arms and from fear of being damned to hear preaching, ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... who pour son bonheur particulier, &c. &c. Listen to Monsieur Dambergeac's friend's remonstrances concerning pauvre Juliette who grew sick at the smell of a pipe; to his naive admiration at the fact that the sous-prefet goes to church: and we may set down, as axioms, that religion is so uncommon among the Parisians, as to awaken the surprise of all candid observers; that gallantry is so common as to create no remark, and to be considered as a matter of course. With us, at least, the converse of the proposition prevails: ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was pitch dark, and, as I said before, the rain poured down in torrents, for winter had set in with uncommon severity. The streets were without light, and the gutters were like small rivers; but by the latter we were enabled to find our way. You are aware that Melbourne is partly built on a hill, so by following ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... registered himself as Harry Rivers, the latter being his middle name. For doing this he had no particular reason, except that it suited his fancy, and Rivers, he thought, was a better name than Graham. Here he met with Helena Nichols, whose uncommon beauty first attracted his attention, and whose fresh, unstudied manners afterward won his love to such an extent, that in an unguarded moment, and without a thought of the result, he married her, neglecting to tell her his ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... league of Latin states is already decidedly marked at the beginning of the republic, and enables us to perceive that an energetic development of external power must have taken place in Rome during the time of the kings. Certainly great deeds, uncommon achievements have in this case passed into oblivion; but the splendour of them lingers over the regal period of Rome, especially over the royal house of the Tarquins, like a distant evening twilight in ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... we still found, from their cautious and timorous behaviour, that they were under some unaccountable apprehensions; and an uncommon degree of satisfaction was visible in their countenances, on the German's finding a person amongst us with whom he could converse. This was Mr Webber, who spoke that language perfectly well; and at last, though with some difficulty, convinced them that we were Englishmen and friends. Mr ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... morning on the history of Sir William Wallace. I wish I may be able to find my way between what the child can comprehend and what shall not yet be absolutely uninteresting to the grown readers. Uncommon facts I should think the best receipt. Learn that Mr. Owen Rees and John Gibson have amicably settled their differences about the last edition of Napoleon, the Trustees allowing the publishers nine months' credit. My nerves have for these two or three last days been susceptible of an acute excitement ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... "if you see the finger of Providence so distinctly in every act of your life, you will end by thinking yourself an Apostle and Envoy Extraordinary. I see nothing so very uncommon in ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... knight, "but for your kindness may God requite you. Commend me to that courteous one your comely wife, who with her crafts has beguiled me. But it is no uncommon thing for a man to come to sorrow through women's wiles; for so was Adam beguiled with one, and Solomon with many. Samson was destroyed by Delilah, and David suffered much through Bathsheba. 'It were indeed great bliss for a man to love them well and believe them ...
— Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight - An Alliterative Romance-Poem (c. 1360 A.D.) • Anonymous
... down just when he was playing such tricks as them conjuring dodges, do seem uncommon awful," said he, after a time. "What was he after at the minute?—making a pudding, wasn't he, ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... it is not that I care for this dwelling; it is only because it is pretty and uncommon, and the sketch will be an ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... edge where the ferry was, and more than once with the comer of my eye I seemed to see a man in a cloak and sword stealing after us. But as the sight of a man so attired going secretly in the direction of the Hirschgasse was no uncommon one, I did not ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... changed, and the physician's quick eyes took note of it, and, as he gathered up some letters and newspapers which had been strewn about just after dinner, he said kindly that he hoped she had no need of a doctor. It was plain that the occasion seemed an uncommon one to her. She wore her best clothes, which would not have been necessary for one of her usual business trips to the village, and it seemed to be difficult for her to begin her story. Dr. Leslie, taking a purely professional view of the case, began ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... beauty; but although she received overtures from many men of the first rank, she preferred her guardian, the present Lord Elmwood (then Mr. Dorriforth) to them all—and it is said, their marriage was followed by an uncommon share of felicity, till his Lordship going abroad, and remaining there some time, the consequences (to a most captivating young woman left without a protector) were such as to cause a separation on ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... high road. Here I wrote, on my first introduction, a letter about prize-money, for one of the brothers, who had served on board an English man-of-war; and, more privately, two love-letters for two of the sisters. They were both interesting-looking girls, and one of uncommon loveliness. In the midst of their confusion and blushes, whilst dictating, or rather giving me general instructions, it did not require any great penetration to discover that what they wished was that their letters should ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... commit, or to sanction the commission of some injustice, it is not uncommon for them to express pity for the object either of that or some parallel proceeding, and to feel themselves, at the time, quite virtuous and moral, and immensely superior to those who express no pity at all. This is a kind of ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... Certainly the forcing of no other fruit yields such generous rewards. Grapes grown under glass are handsomer in appearance and better in quality than those grown out-of-doors. The clusters often attain enormous size, a weight of twenty to thirty pounds being not uncommon. The impression prevails that to grow grapes under glass, one must have expensive houses; this is not necessary, and "hot-house grapes" is a misnomer, the fruit really being grown in cold or relatively cool houses which ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick
... knew of no one but himself who was inclined to the work. This is no uncommon motive. A man sees something to be done, knows of no one who will do it but himself, and so is driven to ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... message scribbled upon the white page; then, exhibiting an agility uncommon in a man of his bulk, he threw open the shutters again, having first replaced his lamp in his pocket, climbed out into the little front garden, ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... and he saw her face more fully. Again he was taken aback. Chilcote had spoken of her as successful and intelligent, but never as beautiful. Yet her beauty was a rare and uncommon fact. Her hair was black —not a glossy black, but the dusky black that is softer than any brown; her eyes were large and of a peculiarly pure blue; and her eyelashes were black, beautifully curved ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... continued 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 ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... told them how wantonly, how cruelly my feelings had been wounded, it would have relieved the fulness, the oppression of my heart. But that was impossible. Mrs. Linwood's commanding social position, her uncommon and varied powers of conversation, the excellence and dignity of her character, made her the cynosure of the literary circle. Edith, too, from her exquisite loveliness, the sweetness of her disposition, and her personal misfortune, which endeared ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... woman is quick, and from their entering the room, not a word had escaped Mrs. Sullivan. At first she could scarce refrain from calling out, but her uncommon strength of mind enabled her to master her fear—she scarce knew what to think: her husband's life, herself and family, were at stake, and her courage rose in proportion as her sense of ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... that it was an uncommon linen bond paper, and I have taken a large number of microphotographs of the fibres in it. They are all similar. I have here also about a hundred microphotographs of the fibres in other kinds of paper, many of them bonds. These I have accumulated from ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... machinery from the profits long before the last instalment was paid, and some even paid a dividend or two in addition. Such mills started operations with many things in their favor. The ownership was widely distributed, since it was not at all uncommon for a hundred thousand dollar mill to have a hundred or more stockholders, some of whom held only one or two shares. Further, since the amount of money paid in the immediate neighborhood for wages, fuel, and raw material was large, every one was ...
— The New South - A Chronicle Of Social And Industrial Evolution • Holland Thompson
... as agent for the customer. If he put himself in the position of owner of the cheque, he no longer fulfils the condition of receiving the money only for the customer. In the Gordon case, adoption of the not uncommon practice of crediting cheques as cash in the bank's books before the money was actually received was held equivalent to taking them as transferee or owner, and to debar the bank from the protection of sec. 82. The anxiety and inconvenience caused to bankers by this unexpected decision was ultimately ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... was no difficulty. He waited for a few days till his client called upon him, and then, after his departure, called in his two clerks, who witnessed the signature as a matter of course,—an irregular proceeding, doubtless, but not altogether uncommon. That matter concluded he went to the bank. It was above all things important that none of the directors should be cognizant of his client having been put on the register, as being friends of that gentleman they might have mentioned the matter to him when they ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... the 29th Division and 156th Brigade the day before yesterday, as well as Gouraud's attack of yesterday, we had reckoned that the Turkish High Command would get to realize by about 11 a.m. on the 28th that an uncommon stiff fight had been set afoot to the sou'-west of Krithia. L. von S. would then, it might be surmised, draw upon his reserves at Maidos and upon his forces opposite Anzac: they would get their orders about mid-day: they would ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... which have been sometimes executed with almost incredible diligence, were rendered more easy by the peculiar nature of the climate. It is well known that the cold of Tartary is much more severe than in the midst of the temperate zone might reasonably be expected; this uncommon rigor is attributed to the height of the plains, which rise, especially towards the East, more than half a mile above the level of the sea; and to the quantity of saltpetre with which the soil is deeply impregnated. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... him talk without interruption. There was something uncommon in the life of this young man, but it would not do to show undue haste in wishing to know it. It was easily to be seen that Chester was helped in this opportunity to talk to a friend that could understand and be trusted. They sat late that ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... 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
... the Prussian Civil Service; there he had risen to the highest rank and had been Cabinet Secretary to both Frederick William II. and Frederick III. He was a man of high character and of considerable ability; as was not uncommon among the officials of those days, he was strongly affected by the liberal and even revolutionary doctrines ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... Stevens stood at the gate, looking pensively after his employer; then he reseated himself upon his camp-stool, and, lighting his pipe, resumed his meditations. "I can't make nought of it," he muttered, scratching his head, "It do seem uncommon queer, to be sure. The boss he says, 'She's very low,' says he, and then next minute he says, 'She may be comin' down and tryin' to escape. 'I've seen diers o' all shapes and sizes, but I've never seed one as went a galivantin' about like ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... period it had been used by the creditor as his own property; and it was only a few years since that, upon the death of the debtor, his children succeeded, with great difficulty, in paying the original debt and redeeming the property. It is no uncommon thing for a native to borrow two dollars and a half from another in order to purchase his exemption from the forty days of annual service, and then, failing to repay the loan punctually, to serve his creditor for a whole ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... became instructors of women; women of men." Nothing of the kind was ever witnessed elsewhere; nothing of the kind was to be seen ever after. Robert of Arbrissel established something similar in the order, of Fontevrault in France; but there it was a strange and very uncommon exception; in Ireland for two centuries it was the rule. This alone would show how completely the Christian spirit had taken possession of the whole race from the first. It is this which gives to Irish hagiology a peculiar character, making it appear strange even to the best men of other nations. ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... discovered one room that had some portion of a roof over it, and, better still, a quantity of straw spread about the floor. We were gathering this up to make rough beds of it, when we perceived a trap door in the floor, and it occurred to me that if it led down to a dry cellar, such as were not uncommon in farmhouses in England, this would prove a more secure refuge than the room on ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... a moment in doubt. The enterprise was certainly feasible. Wild adventures of this kind were not uncommon among the dissolute young Romans, and Sempronius saw at once that were he detected Julia's influence would prevent her mother taking the matter up hotly. Julia ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... to those duties with uncommon diligence; he says himself, in his letter to the Principal of Glasgow College in 1787 on his appointment to the Rectorship, that he was so regular an attendant at the Custom House that he could "take the play for a week at any time" without giving offence or provoking comment. ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... presentation to Christ's Hospital was obtained for him by that eminent judge Mr. Justice Buller, a former pupil of his father's; and he was entered at the school on the 18th July 1782. His early bent towards poetry, though it displayed itself in youthful verse of unusual merit, is a less uncommon and arresting characteristic than his precocious speculative activity. Many a raw boy "lisps in numbers, for the numbers come;" but few discourse Alexandrian metaphysics at the same age, for the very ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... brown roses with blue buds growing in regulated bunches on trellis-work of a most bilious green. One can almost hear the arguments for and against, and at last, the definite conclusion that the one with the brown roses and blue buds was the more uncommon—therefore the better of the two. And one day fate leads your steps towards the bedroom wherein that wallpaper hangs. As you throw yourself into the one easy chair you take out your cigarette case to enjoy that "just one more" which is the more enjoyable because it symbolises ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... made this morning, we were shown a piece of embroidery, which, from its splendour and good taste, is worthy of observation, though by no means uncommon here. We went to call on the wife of a judge, who showed us all through their beautiful house, which looks out on the Alameda. In one of the rooms, their daughter was engaged on a piece of embroidery for the altar of the chapel. The ground was the very ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... was uncommon. No steamer had ever come into the bay, indeed—for they were still in the bay—at least within the memory of man, and eager to see what manner of ship it might be Skipper Ed and Jimmy were on their feet in an instant, eagerly searching the ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... unwary and emphatic declaration of Aram's accomplice that it could not be that of Clarke, betraying a guilty knowledge of the true bones, he was wrought to a confession of their deposit. The learned homicide was seized and arraigned, and a trial of uncommon interest was wound up by a defence as memorable as the tragedy itself for eloquence and ingenuity—too ingenious for innocence, and eloquent enough to do credit even to that long premeditation which the interval between the deed and its discovery had afforded. That this ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... in the nature of men and angels to pursue with death such birds as are uncommon, such animals as are rare; and Society had no use for one like Tod, so uncut to its pattern as to be practically unconscious of its existence. Not that he had deliberately turned his back on anything; he had merely begun as a very young man to keep bees. The better to do ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... under-plot, in which Gloster's persecution of one of his sons and the ingratitude of another, form a counterpart to the mistakes and misfortunes of Lear—his double amour with the two sisters, and the share which he has in bringing about the fatal catastrophe, are all managed with an uncommon degree ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... yellow with a fair skin. When a white skin is seen in conjunction with black hair, as among the women of Syria and Barbary, the apparent exception arises from protection from the sun's rays, and opposite colors are often found among people of one prevailing feature. Thus red-haired Jews are not uncommon, though the nation in general have dark complexion ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... speak lightly of that picture," interrupted Matilda sighing; "I know the adoration with which I look at that picture is uncommon—but I am not in love with a coloured panel. The character of that virtuous Prince, the veneration with which my mother has inspired me for his memory, the orisons which, I know not why, she has enjoined me to pour forth at his tomb, all have concurred to persuade me that ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole
... always been Bertram's delight to study in such a manner that men should think he did not study. There was an affectation in this, perhaps not uncommon to men of genius, but which was deleterious to his character—as all affectations are. It was, however, the fact, that during the last year before his examination, he did study hard. There was a set round him ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... you shall," he answered. For a usually grave young man he laughed with an uncommon joyousness. "You shall give me one day a French lunch with a bottle of wine thrown in at one-and-sixpence. Mind, I must have ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... one merry head might have been far from safe, if these things had been known, they were kept very quiet, and war was declared by France and England against the Dutch. But, a very uncommon man, afterwards most important to English history and to the religion and liberty of this land, arose among them, and for many long years defeated the whole projects of France. This was WILLIAM OF NASSAU, PRINCE OF ORANGE, son of the last Prince of Orange ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... elder son at Cambridge was extravagant; and as, at the critical moment when decision became necessary, a nomination in the Weights and Measures was placed at his disposal, old Mr. Norman committed the not uncommon injustice of preferring the interests of his elder but faulty son to those of the younger with whom no fault had been found, and deprived his child of the chance of combining the glories and happiness of a double first, a fellow, ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... 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 ...
— Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business • Daniel Defoe
... struggled with me to consider my years, my easy circumstances, and the needless hazards of a long voyage; and above all, my young children. But it was all to no purpose, I had an irresistible desire for the voyage; and I told her I thought there was something so uncommon in the impressions I had upon my mind, that it would be a kind of resisting Providence if I should attempt to stay at home; after which she ceased her expostulations, and joined with me, not only in making provision for my voyage, but also in settling ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... thinking of the extraordinary reproduction of the original girl in this new form he had seen, and of himself as of a foolish dreamer in being so suddenly fascinated by the renewed image in a personality not one-third of his age. As a physical fact, no doubt, the preservation of the likeness was no uncommon thing here, but it ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... Aberdeen in Scotland, and was brought to this country in extreme youth by a widowed mother of marked determination and piety, with the intention of launching him successfully in life. He early displayed a fondness for books, and must have shown an uncommon maturity of mind and much executive ability, as he was only nineteen when he was appointed to the position just named. It is an interesting fact that he accepted the librarianship in 1798 with a salary of two hundred and fifty dollars a year in addition to the fines and two and a half ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... this image of female perfection was suffered to move unnoticed by hundreds; and it was owing to the obstruction offered to the passage of the ladies, by a small crowd that had gathered on the side-walk, that a gentleman of uncommon personal endowments enjoyed an opportunity of examining it with more than ordinary attention. The eldest of the females drew her companion away from this impediment to their passage, by moving towards the opposite side of the street, and observing, ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper
... he went to Neuilly to take leave of my parents, previous to his departure for St Omer. The horses ran away: he had the unfortunate idea to jump out from his barouche—a thing I cannot understand, as he had on all occasions an uncommon presence of mind—fell upon his head, and expired a few hours afterwards, in presence of my too unfortunate parents, without having recovered his consciousness. It is the greatest misfortune that ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... Powel had plung'd himself by the same vice, he was so struck with the terror of his example, that he fix'd a resolution (which from that time to the end of his days he strictly observed) of utterly reforming it." And Colley adds; "An uncommon act of philosophy in ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... days after, when I had almost forgotten the incident, save that I always politely returned Ny Deen's salute when I passed him, I was returning to my quarters one evening, when—not at all an uncommon thing—I heard loud voices in front, and saw that three of our men were going unsteadily along, evidently after too long a stay at one of the wretched places where they were supplied with the poisonous arrack which was answerable for the miserable death of so many British soldiers. ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... door was ajar—not such an uncommon thing as to occasion any surprise to Clarissa. She pushed it open and went in, across a dingy lobby some four feet square, on which abutted the kitchen, and into the salon. This was dark and empty; but one of the folding-doors ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... lily of Quito," was beatified. The latter was first cousin and contemporary of Saint Rose of Lima. This circumstance vividly awakens the idea, that already saints, although there were few as yet who could claim the honors of canonization, were not uncommon in America. Whatever may have been the measure and excellence of her children's sanctity, the church was rapidly extending. So great was her growth that, in the year 1850, Pius IX. considered it opportune to erect four metropolitan sees in the United States—New York, Cincinnati, ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... a young man of uncommon promise. Gifted with the highest order of intellectual powers, he trained and schooled them by intense and almost incessant study throughout his short life. He was fond of investigating abstruse and metaphysical ...
— Retrospection and Introspection • Mary Baker Eddy
... administration, a strength of will, and a capacity for governing, not very commonly possessed by princes born in the purple. To these merits we may add a certain grandeur of soul, and power of appreciating the beautiful and the magnificent, which, though not uncommon in the East, did not characterize many of the Sassanian sovereigns. The architectural remains of Chosroes, which will be noticed in a future chapter, the descriptions which have come down to us of his palaces at Dastagherd and Canzaca, the accounts which we have of his treasures, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... house. I don't think anybody else here, yourself included, would know enough about arms to rob this collection as selectively as it has been robbed. Did you see what just happened, here? I asked him for one of the most uncommon arms here, and he went straight and got it. He knows this collection as well as your husband did, and I assume he knows values almost as well.... And, of course, there was a musket, too; Mr. Fleming didn't collect long-arms, or he'd ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... many ways. Although he had never seen the work of any great artist, he painted the most extraordinary fore-shortened pictures; and fore-shortening was a technicality in art then uncommon. He also was the first to paint church cupolas. Fore-shortening produces some peculiar as well as great results, and being a feature of art with which people were not then familiar, Correggio's work did not go uncriticised. Indeed ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... before, for Southey writes on 12th June to his friend Grosvenor Bedford: "Allen is with us daily and his friend from Cambridge, Coleridge, whose poems you will oblige me by subscribing to, either at Hookam's or Edward's. He is of most uncommon merit, of the strongest genius, the clearest judgment, the best heart. My friend he already is, and must hereafter be yours," ("Life and Correspondence of Southey", i, 210). The poems mentioned were a projected volume of "Imitations ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... iron. Gustavus instructed his men to fashion their arrows in a more effective shape, and increased the length of the spear by four or five feet, with a view to repel the attacks of cavalry. He caused monetary tokens to be struck—an expedient which seems to have been not uncommon in Sweden, since, from a remote period, even leather money is mentioned. The coins now struck at Hedemora were of copper, with a small admixture of silver, similar to those introduced by the King, and called "Christian's klippings;" on one side was the impress of an armed man; on the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... so uncommon an event in the lives of the inhabitants of the schoolroom, that those who stayed at home were as excited about it as those who went, and a full and particular account was expected of all they had seen and all they had done. Caroline and Lionel both seemed to think Marian a perfect miracle ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... food, and not uncommon in our markets, this beautiful bird may be seen in different seasons ranging from Hudson's Bay to Mexico, and from New England to the Rocky Mountains. They arrive in the Northern and Middle States late in the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... no uncommon thing for the different sound-boards to be placed in positions far apart, so that to the uninitiated there may appear to be several independent organs scattered about. Yet all are absolutely under the control of a man who is sitting away from them ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... the young girls 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 ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... curious series of mistakes. The Greek text of Josephus has ekpomata, "cups." The old Latin translator, perhaps having a defective text, took ekpomata apparently to be equivalent to pomata, which has as its secondary meaning, "lids," and translated it by the uncommon word coopercula, "lids" (cf. Georges, Lateinischdeutsches Handwoerterbuch, sub voce cooperculum). The meaning of this word Columbus guessed at, not having the text before him to see the connection, and from its derivation from cooperio, ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... was evident that something uncommon had happened, they all now crowded round the corporal, who, by ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... upon their laurels in these higher fields, and turn their great energy and ingenuity to the study of essentials. To do common things perfectly is far better worth our endeavor than to do uncommon things respectably. We Americans in many things as yet have been a little inclined to begin making our shirt at the ruffle; but nevertheless, when we set about it, we can make the shirt as nicely as anybody,—it needs only that we turn our attention to it, ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... will," said a hairy-chested boatswain. "Well, it's a uncommon curious ewent: this 'ere young covey goes a-shootin', and bags a Frenchman, and the soger officer brings a hangel and a ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... lived in the house, or perhaps a collector. It might have been almost any one but the liveried footman who now stood at the door, hat in hand, with a look of inquiry upon his face. Von Barwig stared at the man in astonishment. Liveries in Houston Street were most uncommon. ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... valley is alkali land, so much the better, for the buying price is lower. The speculator in his advertisement makes it appear as fruit land with a great future. It seems also to have been by no means uncommon for the agent's commission to be higher than the price paid by the owner ...
— A Stake in the Land • Peter Alexander Speek
... that hitherto he had never got beyond a yard of clay, and after drawing a puff or two he took the cigar from his mouth, and looking at it said, "I say, sir! seems to me the fire is uncommon near the chimbly." Mr. Winchester laughed; he then asked George to show him the blacksmith shop. "I must learn how to shoe a horse," ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... honesty, for by those words she had spoken, by her face which faithfully reflected all her inner feelings, and by the sincere tones of her voice he began to perceive that she was an honest and uncommon girl; and in addition ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... to you and to Mr. Wise, for the uncommon care which you have taken of my interest[808]: if you can accomplish your kind design, I shall certainly take me a little habitation ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... favourable, was full of difficulty, and only a statesman of uncommon dexterity could have guided Austria with success through the ensuing years. Composed of a congeries of nationalities which included Czechs, Magyars, Ruthenes, Rumanians, Germans, Italians, Flemings and other races, and with territories separated by ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... intercommunication exists among the servant classes, and more particularly among the Irish. There seems to be some mysterious method at work, whereby the troubles and bickerings of each mistress with her 'help' are made known through the whole realm of servantdom. It is no uncommon thing for a mistress to have minutely detailed to her by her hired girl the particulars of some difficulty with a previous servant, with whom she has no reason to believe the narrator has had any intercourse. So frequently does this happen that many housekeepers ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Uncommon thoughts kept beating on my brain like tiny hammers, soft yet persistent, seeking admission; their unbidden tide began to wash along the far fringes of my mind, the currents of unwonted sensations to ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... yet thoroughly characteristic of George Sand, the nature-lover, the seer into the mysteries of human character, and the imaginative artist. The agreeable preponderates in the story, but it has its tragic features and its serious import. A picturesque and uncommon setting adds materially to its charm. Every thread tells in this delicate piece of fancy-work, and the weaver's art is indescribable. But one may note the ingenuity with which four or five interesting yet perfectly natural types are brought into a group and contrasted; improbable ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... reality: we are willing to give a scope to fancy, and recreate ourselves with the possible. The man who expects it the least will nevertheless forget his ordinary pursuits, his everyday existence and individuality, and experience delight from uncommon incidents:—if he be of a serious turn of mind he will acknowledge on the stage that moral government of the world which he fails to discover in real life. But he is, at the same time, perfectly aware ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... of which I speak it is not an uncommon sight to see little children being torn to pieces by dogs, the scavengers of the Empire, perhaps by the very dogs that had been their playmates from birth. I have been riding many times and found that my horse had ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... shall not behold this!" said I, shudderingly, to Usher, as I led him, with a gentle violence, from the window to a seat. "These appearances, which bewilder you, are merely electrical phenomena not uncommon—or it may be that they have their ghastly origin in the rank miasma of the tarn. Let us close this casement—the air is chilling and dangerous to your frame. Here is one of your favorite romances. I will read and you shall ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... side. They are about one-tenth of an inch long, of a blackish color, with numerous fine gray hairs on the body. They feed on the young and tender leaves, eating on an average two apiece each day. Therefore the young of one pair of moths would consume from ten to twelve thousand leaves; and it is not uncommon to see from six to eight nests or tents on a single tree, from which no less than seventy-five thousand leaves would be destroyed—a drain no ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891 • Various
... in the Bible about people like you—you're called by your right name there, and it ain't a pretty one. Some are spoken uncommon hard of, and some were forgiven because they loved much. Seemingly you haven't loved much, so I don't see how you expect to be forgiven. And there's lots in the Prayer Book too ... the Bible and the Prayer Book both say you've ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... gave me very great satisfaction, and he pleased the gentlemen also and shone in the servants' hall. In fact I seldom liked a young man better, and what followed within six months of his arrival came as a fearful shock upon me, because by that time I'd grown to feel uncommon ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... act of generosity, which has something in it so very uncommon, that the most unconcerned and indifferent persons must be moved with it. How much more must all such be affected by it, who had any due regard for the personal merits of the deceased, or are capable of any taste and distinction for the remains and elegant labours ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... "Very uncommon-looking people," Richard declared. "The man is elderly, and looks as though he took great care of himself—awfully well turned out and all that. The ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... viii., p. 339.).—I have in the course of my life met with or heard of more than once or twice, people of the same names, and those very uncommon ones, who were in no way related to each other; nevertheless, I venture to tell your correspondent J. F. M. that about twenty years ago there was living the skipper of a coasting vessel, trading between Bridport and London, named Caleb Clark. He or ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 217, December 24, 1853 • Various
... we thought it such an uncommon, foreign face, and he looked quite inspired when he was ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... mortification to the Sisters; for instance, the Mother of the Incarnation tells us that they daily found some disgusting mixture in their food, a bunch of hair, a handful of cinders, or even an old shoe being no uncommon addition to the ordinary ingredients, yet so completely did grace triumph over nature in these Christian heroines, that unsavoury as was the seasoning of their soup, and countless as were the discomforts of their ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... the mode of procedure upon these occasions—how the search-party would bring with them skilled carpenters and masons and try every possible expedient, from systematic measurements and soundings to bodily tearing down the panelling and pulling up the floors. It was not an uncommon thing for a rigid search to last a fortnight and for the "pursuivants" to go away empty handed, while perhaps the object of the search was hidden the whole time within a wall's thickness of his pursuers, ...
— Secret Chambers and Hiding Places • Allan Fea
... travel of day after day, will seldom subside from the gallop. It was the increasing demand for these animals that had originally brought into existence and exercise a company, which, by a transition far from uncommon, passed readily from the plundering of horses to the cutting of throats and purses; scarcely discriminating in their reckless rapacity between the several degrees of crime in which such ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... he, with a flash of his white teeth, "it seems they make these rooms uncommon small and narrow, for the likes of you and me—your pardon." And so, with a tap, tap, of his high, red-heeled shoes, he crossed to the door, descended the steps, turned up the ...
— The Honourable Mr. Tawnish • Jeffery Farnol
... between our hero's active slight figure and handsome person, set off with a blue coat, something like the present yacht-club uniform, and that of his second in command, who waddled to the side to receive him. He was a very short man, with an uncommon protuberance of stomach, with shoulders and arms too short for his body, and hands much too large, more like the paws of a Polar bear than anything else. He wore trousers, shoes, and buckles. On his head was a foraging cap, which, when he took it off, showed ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... entitled to the honor of the discovery of the main principle of aeronautics—atmospheric buoyancy—is Roger Bacon, an English monk of the thirteenth century. This eminent man, whose uncommon genius was, in that superstitious and ignorant age, ascribed to his intercourse with the devil, was aware that the air is a material of some consistency, capable, like the ocean, of bearing vessels on its surface; and, in one of his works, he particularly describes the construction ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... a good eye and fondness for drawing," Hogarth continues, "shows of all sorts gave me uncommon pleasure when young, and mimicry, common to all children, was remarkable in me. An early access to a neighbouring painter drew my attention from play, and I was at every possible opportunity engaged in making drawings.... ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... his nose was to the left. He was extremely light and slender in figure and his movements were like quicksilver. His hair was black and straight and long, especially over the ears, and he had long, slender, delicate hands, which one noticed at once for their uncommon flexibility and deftness. ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... recollect ever to have heard or seen the charge of exaggeration made against a feeble performance, though, in its feebleness, it may have been most untrue. It seems to me essentially natural, and quite inevitable, that common observers should accuse an uncommon one of this fault, and I have no doubt that you were long ago of this opinion; very ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... press, it is refreshing to turn to the vigorous and, above all, healthy moral tone of this lady's works. To the present generation they are as if they had never been, and to the question, "Did you ever read Marriage?" it is not uncommon in these times to get such an answer as, "No, never. Who wrote it?" "Miss Ferrier." "I never heard of her or her novels." It is with the view, therefore, of enlightening such benighted ones that I pen ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... treason here," answered Cousin Giles. "To his valet he certainly was not great, as Carlyle would say, though he was a very uncommon man. But we should not judge of people by what they appear, or even by what they are doing, so much as by the results produced by their doings. Now Peter contrived, certainly by no very romantic or refined means, ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... Julia gathered the eggs, and there was nothing uncommon in Cynthy Ann's making cake, so that nothing could be more innocent than this request. Julia sat opposite the front-door, her mother sat farther along. Julia could see the face of Cynthy Ann. Her mother could only hear the voice, which was dry and commonplace ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... its lot, it suddenly caught sight, at a great distance, of a Buddhist bonze and of a Taoist priest coming towards that direction. Their appearance was uncommon, their easy manner remarkable. When they drew near this Ch'ing Keng peak, they sat on the ground to rest, and began to converse. But on noticing the block newly-polished and brilliantly clear, which had moreover contracted in dimensions, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... and variegated pavements, and strenuously praise the pomp and elegance which he is taught to consider as a part of his personal merit. At the Roman table, the birds, the squirrels, the fish which appear of uncommon size, are contemplated with curious attention, and notaries are summoned to attest, by authentic record, their real weight. Another method of introduction into the houses of the great is skill in games, which is a sure road to wealth and reputation. A master of this sublime art, if placed, ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... quitted the king's apartment at the very moment the superintendent entered it. Saint-Aignan was charged with a mission that required dispatch, and he was going to do his utmost to turn his time to the best advantage. He whom we have introduced as the king's friend was indeed an uncommon personage; he was one of those valuable courtiers whose vigilance and acuteness of perception threw all other favorites into the shade, and counterbalanced, by his close attention, the servility of Dangeau, who was not the favorite, but the toady of ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... angular pieces of stone, or with sand and pebbles. Instead of such materials, suppose a quantity of melted stone to be driven or injected into an open rent, and there consolidated, we have then a tabular mass resembling a wall, and called a trap dike. It is not uncommon to find such dikes passing through strata of soft materials, such as tuff, scoriae, or shale, which, being more perishable than the trap, are often washed away by the sea, rivers, or rain, in which case the dike stands prominently out in the face of precipices, ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... house constantly filled with lodgers. The house was perhaps the oldest in all the Ghetto. Strange noises were heard in it every night occasioned by the falling of plaster or partition walls. It was no uncommon thing for a lodger to be suddenly roused from his sleep by a crash and find himself bruised and bleeding. Still old Isaac sturdily refused to make repairs. He asserted that the rickety edifice would last ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... a good deal of movement upon the platform at Willesden Junction, and that though it was certain that no one had either joined or left the train there, it was still quite possible that some of the passengers might have changed unseen from one compartment to another. It was by no means uncommon for a gentleman to finish his cigar in a smoking carriage and then to change to a clearer atmosphere. Supposing that the man with the black beard had done so at Willesden (and the half-smoked cigar upon the floor seemed to favour the supposition), he would naturally go into the nearest section, ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... king likes all poetic and uncommon things, and there was that in the child's face which pleased and touched him. He motioned to his gentlemen to leave the ...
— The Nuernberg Stove • Louisa de la Rame (AKA Ouida)
... men working together on a wire like this should always be harmonious, because the business is so heavy there is no time for any war of words. However, operators are like all other men, and scraps are not uncommon. Generally they take place at long range, and no one is hurt thereby. Some men have an unhappy faculty of incurring the hatred of every person over a wire, while personally they may be princes of good fellows. The man ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... kennel, or armoury; but a favourite bitch of mine I cannot help mentioning to you; she was a greyhound, and I never had or saw a better. She grew old in my service, and was not remarkable for her size, but rather for her uncommon swiftness. I always coursed with her. Had you seen her you must have admired her, and would not have wondered at my predilection, and at my coursing her so much. She ran so fast, so much, and so long in my service, that she actually ran off her legs; so that, in the latter part ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... shut out of his cave, would be compelled to take to the woods. The dogs could then follow him up by the fresh scent; and unless he should succeed in finding some other cavern in which to ensconce himself, they might count upon coming up with him. It was not uncommon for the Pyrenean bear, when pursued by dogs and men, to take to a tree; and this would be all that their hearts could desire: since in a tree the bear would be easily reached by the bullets of their guns. Besides, they might have a chance, when he returned to his ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... "society" don't demand it; and that to have it is like travelling with baggage which is mere rubbish. My elastic but excellent friend JENKINS says the only sense that can be put on society market to practical advantage is the uncommon scamp. Common sense, so-called, is a drug. Old Mr. MATTEROFACT—who heeds him or his? He's always pushed into the corner, or crowded to the back seat. Sensible people, the world being judges, are a mistake. They were born and educated that way. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various
... Spaniards are as revengeful as ever. At Santa Otella, I heard a young peasant threaten to stab a woman (an old one, to be sure, which mitigates the offence), and was told, on expressing some small surprise, that this ethic was by no means uncommon."—[MS.] ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... fell to weeping in each other's arms, a thing most uncommon for my Aunt Gainor. Then they talked it all over, as if John Wynne were not; when it would be, and what room I was to have, and my clothes, and the business, and so on—all the endless details wherewith the cunning affection of good women knows ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... how she shrank from hearing her parents abuse him. Lady Ludlow supposed that he was aware that they were living in London. His father must have known the fact, and it was curious if he had never named it to his son. Besides, the name was very uncommon; and it was unlikely that it should never come across him, in the advertisements of charity sermons which the new and rather eloquent curate of Saint Mark's East was asked to preach. All this time Lady Ludlow never lost sight of them, for Miss Galindo's sake. And when the father and mother died, ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... and third heroine in A kind of state more awkward than uncommon, For gentlemen must sometimes risk their skin For that sad tempter, a forbidden woman: Sultans too much abhor this sort of sin, And don't agree at all with the wise Roman, Heroic, stoic Cato, the sententious, Who lent his lady to ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... laevis, a harmless French and Austrian snake, which has been found about me, in North Hants and South Berks, now about fifteen or twenty times. I have had three specimens from my own parish. I believe it not to be uncommon; and most probably to be found, by those who will look, both in the New Forest and Woolmer. The third is the Natterjack, or running toad (Bufo Rubeta), a most beautifully spotted animal, with a yellow stripe down his back, which is common with me at Eversley, and common also in many moorlands ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... bells!—the very bells under the sound of which I received part of my early education, and, as a schoolboy, passed the happiest days of my life!—Well might their tones vibrate to my inmost soul, and kindle uncommon sympathies!" I now recollected that the winding of the river must have brought me nearer to that simple and primitive village than the profusion of wood had permitted me to perceive, and my memory had been unconsciously acted upon by the tones which served ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 269, August 18, 1827 • Various
... thing about Roscarna, to anyone with a ha'porth of imagination, was Gabrielle Hewish. Luckily that admirable gossip Hoylake had another interest in life besides fishing stories, and one that served my purpose,—genealogy. It is an interest not uncommon with old soldiers—that is why they often write such incredibly dull memoirs—and after allowing him a number of sporting digressions in the direction of a Lochanillaun pike and the altogether admirable blackgame shooting at ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... be clear and intelligible if, first, it be exprest in proper and significant words, which have nothing mean and low, nothing far-fetched, and nothing uncommon. Second, if it distinguishes exactly things, persons, times, places, causes; all of which should be accompanied with a suitable delivery, that the judge may retain the more easily ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... there, for I needed to understand the matter and look into it, so I told Martyn and Horace not to wait for me, and heard Charley's story more coolly. I had thought that Mr. Horne was Metelill's friend. "So he was at first," Charley said, "but he is an uncommon goose, and Isa is no end of a hand at doing the pathetic poverty-stricken orphan! That's the way she gets so many presents!" Then she explained, in her select slang, that young Horne's love affairs were the great amusement of his fellow-pupils, and that she, ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... years; he was naturally thrown back upon himself. He is seen lying upon the floor habitually, and when not playing with cats—the only boyish fondness told of him—reading Shakspere, Milton, Thomson, the books of the household, not uncommon in New England homes, where good books were as plenty then as all books are now; and on Sundays, at his grandmother Hathorne's, across the yard, he would crouch hour after hour over Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," that refuge of boyhood on the oldtime Sabbaths. ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... hailed from the cross-trees, "I can't see nothing, sir; but the sky away over there looks uncommon bright, and it seems to flicker now and then, as if there was a big ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... brass coin preserved in the National Collection in Paris informs us that Julia was alive at least three years after that date. So far from having been doomed by her husband to perish through want, Tiberius held her in such uncommon esteem that he ordered a coin to be struck in her honour in the fourth year of his reign for the money bears the inscription, in Greek capitals, [Greek: IOULIA], with the initials, [Greek: LD], signifying in the fourth year of Tiberius after the ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... torchlight, spearing the fish who are attracted by the light. In Nepaul the bark of the Hill Sirres is often used to poison a stream or piece of water. Pounded up and thrown in, it seems to have some uncommon effect on the fish. After water has been treated in this way, the fish, seemingly quite stupefied, rise to the surface, on which they float in great numbers, and allow themselves to be caught. The strangest part of it is that they are perfectly innocuous ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... grandmother, at Hilborough, however, did all in her power to promote the happiness and comfort of her son's children; and her kindness and affection supplied, as much as it can be supplied, the want of a mother. She was a fine old lady, and possessed uncommon wisdom, with extreme goodness of heart. Her faculties were so lasting, that she could see to read the smallest print, and execute the finest needlework, till the close of her prolonged life, which extended to ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... mankind: To one wise prince a million parasites; The most uncommon thing is common-sense; A truly wise man is a freak of nature. The herd are parasites of parasites That blindly follow priest or demagogue, Himself blind leader of the blind. The wise Weigh words, but by the yard fools measure them. The wise beginneth at the end; the fool Ends at the beginning, ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... two first have arisen that good government, commerce, and industry; and on those have arisen again a great naval power, and an uncommon degree of wealth. ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... others, for the Egyptians often drank deeply at these feasts, and many of the slaves always took with them light couches upon which to carry their masters home. Even among the ladies, who generally took their meals apart from the men upon these occasions, drunkenness was by no means uncommon. ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... on the floor and of the "biscuit" variety, being three square paillasse arrangements looking like giant reproductions of the now too well known army "tooth breakers." We had brown army blankets, and it was no uncommon thing to find black earth beetles and earwigs crawling among them! After months of active service these details appear small, but in the summer of 1914 they were real terrors. Before leaving the tents in the morning each "biscuit" had to be neatly piled on the other and ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... week. Why, I'd sooner let the Poor Law 'ave 'em, though me and the old man 'ad to go into the 'Ouse for it. And that's what I said to Mrs. Green when Mrs. Turner was left with six. And Mrs. Turner she went and done it. An uncommon sensible woman, was Mrs. Turner, not like some as don't care what comes to their children, so long as ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... not shine, the candidate offered himself in person. Even after the advent of Andrew Jackson in national politics, allegiance to party was so far subordinated to personal ambition, that it was no uncommon occurrence for several candidates from each party to enter the lists.[45] From the point of view of party, this practice was strategically faulty, since there was always the possibility that the opposing party might unite ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... there Bessie Townsend was sittin' on the ground, with Jimmy's head in her arms, which I thought uncommon good of her, seein' the mortification he'd caused her. But when I saw the look in her eyes, an' in his as he opened them an' gazed up at her, I reckoned there might be more ter that love-story than most folks knew. What he said ter her then I don't know, but ter me ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
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