"Curious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... islands.... Our poet is much obliged for the response given to his appeal in our last issue. He was stuck, it will be remembered, for a rhyme to 'hunger,' and the rhyme was to be a name of some kind—bird, beast, or fish. Curious to say, all our correspondents have hit upon ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... happened, Scipio found himself in the full glare of the light from the doorway, and James was smiling down upon his yellow head with a curious blending of ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... ways the life of the Kentuckians was most like that of the Virginia gentry, though it had peculiar features of its own. Judged by Puritan standards, it seemed free enough; and it is rather curious to find Virginia fathers anxious to send their sons out to Kentucky so that they could get away from what they termed "the constant round of dissipation, the scenes of idleness, which boys are perpetually ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... adequacy of the literalist method. That method is inadequate, not because it is too REALISTIC, but because it runs continual risk of being too VERBALISTIC. It has recently been applied to the translation of Dante by Mr. Rossetti, and it has sometimes led him to write curious verses. For instance, he makes ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... sat in silent, stolid indifference to his fate until the curious settlers began to crowd on the boat ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... A curious dejection settled upon Robin. He had nothing but gloomy thoughts upon him as he trudged towards the Squire's domain. Nor did his spirits rise at his reception by old Gamewell. The Squire appeared almost uneasy with him; and was short in ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... Condit's room with a message from Mr. Wellington, and, of course, I felt a little curious to know how Tony looked. While I waited for an answer to the note I carried, I glanced over to where he sat. Would you believe it, he had turned deliberately around in his seat, so that ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... yellow, stale lights of a third-rate street of shops. She heard Olive remarking on her sunburned face and arms; she became aware of the renewed inflammation in her blistered arms; she heard her own curious voice answering. Everything was in a maze. To the beat of the car, while the yellow blur of the shops passed over her eyes, she repeated: 'Two hundred and forty ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... known. It is not uncommon in the drier forests of the Amazons valley, but is not found, I believe, in the Ygapo, or flooded lands. The Brazilians call the species the Tamandua bandeira, or the Banner Anteater, the term banner being applied in allusion to the curious colouration of the animal, each side of the body having a broad oblique stripe, half grey and half black, which gives it some resemblance to a heraldic banner. It has an excessively long slender muzzle, and a wormlike extensile tongue. Its jaws are destitute of teeth. The ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... "I am curious to know what has brought Prince Kaunitz and the papal nuncio together," said she. "It is unusual to see the prime minister of Austria in the company of churchmen. It must, therefore, be something significant which has ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... behold, there cannot any man work after the manner of so curious a workmanship. And behold, it was prepared to show unto our fathers the course which they ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... is no one I can talk to but yourself. Even mother wouldn't understand, completely; and she couldn't be honest about Myrtle. The best of mothers, after all, are women; and, Howat, there is always a curious formality between women, a ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... me a curious piece of ancient Egyptian symbolism. It represents the sun sending down to the earth innumerable rays, with the peculiarity that each ray terminates in a hand. This method of representing the sun is so unusual that it suggests the presence in the designer's ...
— The Hidden Power - And Other Papers upon Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... in silence and deep thought, resumed his pace. When they reached the snow-canoe, and while in the act of lifting his captive into her couch, the young chief observed for the first time a massive ring of curious workmanship on her finger (the glove she had hitherto worn being partially torn from her hand in the recent struggle,) and seemed to regard it with much interest. Mary saw that his eyes were riveted on the jewel, and notwithstanding it possessed a hallowed value in having been worn ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... portions of the nerve matter containing the virus from a rabid animal which has been exposed to the atmosphere for thirteen days, ten days, seven days, and four days, until the virulent matter which will produce rabies in any unprotected animal can be inoculated with impunity. A curious result of the experiments of Pasteur is that an animal which has first been inoculated with a virus of full strength can be protected by subsequent inoculations of attenuated virus repeated in doses of ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... behind the shoulders, those that are exhibited in cages at home as "sacred buffalo," but which here are only patient beasts of burden, and gray monkeys, wildcats, snakes and crocodiles in cages addressed to "Hagenbeck, Hamburg." The freight was no less curious; assegais in bundles, horns stretching for three feet from point to point, or rising straight, like poignards; skins, ground-nuts, rubber, and heavy blocks of bees-wax wrapped in coarse brown sacking, and which in time will burn before the altars of Roman Catholic ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... vines and olive-trees, or otherwise requiring agricultural labour; but it might have been supposed that a population of 230,000 souls would at least have met the demand for labour on the portion of the surface thus occupied. So far, however, from this being the case, it is a curious fact that from 2000 to 3000 labourers come into the island every year from Lucca, Modena, and Parma, to engage in agricultural employment. They generally arrive about the middle of April, and take their departure in November. They are an intelligent, laborious, and frugal class; ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... the door as Dexie entered the room, fearing also that Mr. Sherwood was worse, but hearing his cheerful voice he thought he would surprise him by showing himself, and he stepped to the bedside, his hands clasped behind him, and a curious smile played over his face ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... I to do with men, that they should hear my confessions- as if they could heal all my infirmities- a race, curious to know the lives of others, slothful to amend their own? Why seek they to hear from me what I am; who will not hear from Thee what themselves are? And how know they, when from myself they hear of myself, whether I say true; seeing no man knows what is in man, but the spirit ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... elephants by curious shots with the rifles in this manner; but I once killed a bull elephant by one shot in the upper jaw, which will at once exemplify the advantage of a powerful rifle in taking the angle for ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... close the door. I am vain, therefore I have a certain shyness about exposing my beauty to the curious gaze. Pardon me if I seat myself first; I find it more comfortable to sit than to stand, to recline than to sit." Stiffly the speaker let himself into an upholstered divan and fitted the cushions to his aches and his pains, his bruises and his abrasions. He sighed miserably. His features were discolored, ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... be understood that sparks occurred at much higher intervals than these; the table only expresses that distance beneath which all discharge was as spark. Some curious relations of the different gases to discharge are already discernible, but it would be useless to consider them until ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... study: an irresistible blending of contradictions, of sympathy and reserve, of sadness—and of wit—of a character and temperament not half-divulged. Whenever their eyes met, he felt a mild commotion, a curious, unfamiliar excitement,—something that made him less at ease. For it invariably brought the keenest anxiety as to her good opinion. He also experienced a consciousness of guilt; why, he knew not, unless from the expression of her eyes. They seemed to be reading his thoughts, ...
— The Pines of Lory • John Ames Mitchell
... I was curious by what name he would announce the lady; but he used none. He simply swung back the door and ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott
... the reason why he was summoned, he threw himself flat on the turf; where, to the eyes of Duncan, he appeared to lie quiet and motionless. Surprised at the immovable attitude of the young warrior, and curious to observe the manner in which he employed his faculties to obtain the desired information, Heyward advanced a few steps, and bent over the dark object on which he had kept his eye riveted. Then it was he discovered that the form of Uncas vanished, ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... curious, he thought, that a woman could take on the new rights, the aristocratic attitude, so much more completely than a man. Miss Hitchcock was a full generation ahead of the others in her conception of inherited, personal rights. As the dinner dragged on, there occurred no further opportunity for ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... more and the door slammed to; the bolt was shot, and Nancy, with wide, curious eyes, stood gazing at her new surroundings by the aid of a half-burnt candle. The room was small and unspeakably dirty. A wooden cot with its straw mattress stood in the corner farthest from the window; a broken-down wash stand with a tin basin was in another corner, ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... a lie you know, because there is no strange animal here, and I never was bitten.' Being informed that this sort of lie was a harmless one, and was called a dream, he asked whether dead people ever dreamed[114] while they were lying in the ground. He is one of the most curious ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... In the hallway a curious blindness came over me. I heard Jacqueline call my name, and I felt her hands in mine, but scarcely saw her; then she slipped away from me, and I found myself seated in the little tea-room, listening to the dull, double beat ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... an instigating force it has brought joy and sorrow into the lives of men and women, and made and marred careers. And curiosity now laid hold of Cynthia Ware. Why in the world she should ever have been curious about Jethro Bass is a mystery to many, for the two of them were as far apart as the poles. Cynthia, of all people, took to watching the tanner's son, and listening to the brief colloquies he had with other men at Jonah Winch's store, when she went there to buy things ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... families of Nicaragua and San Salvador. The space covered by these inscriptions is about one hundred feet long, by twelve or fifteen in height. A quarter of a mile to the southward are other smaller rocks with figures, too much defaced, however, to be traced satisfactorily. Vases of curious workmanship, human bones in considerable quantities, and other relics and remains, it is said, may be discovered by digging in the earth anywhere within the natural amphitheatre to which I have referred. This is another ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... engineer, had a curious accident, which might have forfeited his life. While one day playing with his children and astonishing them by passing a half sovereign through his mouth out at his ear, he unfortunately swallowed the coin, which dropped into his windpipe. Brunel regarded the mischief caused by ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... boys and girls were talking about the wreck that morning, and because they had had such a curious part in it—having at their home one of the passengers who had been hurt—Bert and Nan were the center of a little throng that wanted to hear, over and over again, about it. So the older Bobbsey twins told all they knew concerning ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Great West • Laura Lee Hope
... and palm. On the right, and parallel with the main road, is Company Street, and above is the mountain studded with great white stone houses, softened by the lofty roofs of the royal palm. All along King Street the massive houses stand close together, each with its arcade and its curious outside staircase of stone which leads to an upper balcony where one may catch the breeze and watch the leisures of tropic life. Almost every house has a court opening into a yard surrounded by the overhanging balconies of three sides of the building; and here the guinea fowl ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... also did the whipping at the jails, and frequently made from five to six dollars a day at this alone; for it is not considered fashionable for a gentleman to whip his own negro. We noticed the universal carrying of this whip, when we first visited Macon, some four years ago, and were curious to know its purport, which was elucidated by a friend; but we have since seen the practical demonstrations painfully carried out. Those who visited Boston for the recovery of Crafts and Ellen—whose mode of escape is a romance in itself—were specimens of these "marshals." How they passed ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... feel disposed to smile at such an expression, as "the consciousness of our existence," we will take the liberty of citing a few curious instances, for the authenticity of which we assume the entire responsibility—instances which may perhaps astonish a few even of the better informed. There are in many districts (not altogether provincial) of Italy and France great numbers, who ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... he guesses you're a woman, it's all he does. And, damme, I suppose it's enough. So your curious sex bade you go and pry. Well, and what did you see ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... only the apathy so characteristic of the American races. On the present occasion, this must have been in part, at least, assumed. For it is impossible that the Indian prince should not have contemplated with curious interest a spectacle so strange, and, in some respects, appalling, as that of these mysterious strangers, for which no previous description could ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... satiric detachment in her tone which contrasted sharply with Marcella's amused but sympathetic interest. Detachment was perhaps the characteristic note of Mrs. Boyce's manner,—a curious separateness, as it were, from all the things and ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... curious alterations in public sentiment that have come in the last century or two, none is more striking than the change of attitude in regard to what is called "plagiarism." Plagiarism may be defined as the appropriation ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... society of philosophers, men of a liberal education and curious disposition, might silently meditate, and temperately discuss in the gardens of Athens or the library of Alexandria, the abstruse questions of metaphysical science. The lofty speculations, which neither convinced the understanding, nor agitated ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... official instructions, the interests of science were not neglected, and many important facts were made out; among the most curious, it may be mentioned, that it appears to be proved that the North Pole is not the coldest point of the Arctic hemisphere, but that the place where the expedition wintered is one of the coldest spots on ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... the officers of this regiment, and lodged by them for safe-keeping in the jail at Wheeling. The long-suspended brain-fever had set in. She was taken through the streets, her clothes ragged and muddy, her head bare, followed by a curious crowd of idlers, with just enough reason left to know what the house was in which they lodged her. Cruel as they were in act, it proved a kindness to the girl. The jailer and his family nursed her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... dung, as the case seems, in their judgment, to require. Towards the Coast, where a supply of European lancets can be procured, they sometimes perform phlebotomy; and in cases of local inflammation, a curious sort of cupping is practised. This operation is performed by making incisions in the part, and applying to it a bullock's horn, with a small hole in the end. The operator then takes a piece of bees-wax in his mouth, and putting his lips to the hole, extracts the air from the horn; ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... subdued tone of this Sonnet, nor the striking grandeur of the concluding thought. It is curious to remark what seems to be a trait of character in the two first lines. From Milton's care to inform the reader that 'his eyes wore still clear, to outward view, of spot or blemish,' it would be thought ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... familiar with the rings of Saturn, and regarded them merely as curious exceptions to the supposed law of planetary formation; but Laplace saw that, instead of being exceptions, they are the sole remaining visible evidences of certain stages in the invariable process of star manufacture, and from their ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... the bunk-house, he found three tall strong men awaiting him. Their faces, tanned by many suns, exhibited a curious uniformity of tint—the colour ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... and Appendicitis. The beginning of the large bowel, where the small bowel empties into it, is the largest part of it, and forms a curious pouch called the cecum, or "blind" pouch. From one side of this projects a little wormlike tube, twisted and coiled upon itself, from three to six inches long and of about the size of a slate pencil. This is the ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... he, and that if this outrageous provision of the law were strictly enforced and judgments rendered widespread ruin would result. His lawyer agreed to this in all sympathy, but read aloud the provisions of the statute, and Nelson derived no comfort from the reading. The lawyer was curious to know, by the way, who had taken the trouble to acquire all of these claims—a task of heroic size—but about all the encouragement he could offer was the probability of a long and expensive series of legal battles, ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... those of kindly charity—the affection which one has for the objects of sympathetic care. So far as the world in which she now lived was concerned—the white world and white people of Horsford—she had known nothing of them, nor they of her, but as each had regarded the other as a curious study. Their life had been shut out from her, and her life had been a matter that did not interest them. She had wondered that they did not think and feel as she did with regard to the colored people; and they, that any one having a white skin and the form of ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... graceful mind in a body low of stature, and marked by a slight deformity. His piercing eyes, luminous with intelligence and full of sympathy for everything noble and elevated, overpowered with their fascination the blemishes that a too curious scrutiny might discover upon his figure; while his mobile, handsome lips poured out the natural eloquence of clear thoughts and noble sentiments. The Count grew great while speaking: his listeners were ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... "How very curious—how strangely things come round!" said Fanny; then with a start of dismay, "but what shall I do? Pray, tell me what you would like. If I might only keep her a little while till I can find some one else, though no one will ever be so nice, but indeed I would not ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... equilibrium that is maintained by the earth in spite of the difference of mass in its two hemispheres" (northern and southern). "May not the enormous weight of the Andes be one of the data with which this curious problem of physical ...
— Modern Spanish Lyrics • Various
... peace—prayer, obedience, frequent communions, and inner mortification. The best kind of prayer is the prayer of silence;[304] and there are three silences, that of words, that of desires, and that of thought. In the last and highest the mind is a blank, and God alone speaks to the soul.[305] With the curious passion for subdivision which we find in nearly all Romish mystics, he distinguishes three kinds of "infusa contemplazione"—(1) satiety, when the soul is filled with God and conceives a hatred for all worldly things; ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... in this chronicle that this curious object of the seashore with whom Aunt Dahlia has linked her lot is a bloke who habitually looks like a pterodactyl that has suffered, and the reason he does so is that all those years he spent in making millions in the Far East ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... mortal man. While women were tortured, drowned and burned by the thousands, scarce one wizard to a hundred was ever condemned. The marked distinction in the treatment of the sexes, all through the Jewish dispensation, is curious and depressing, especially as we see the trail of the serpent all through history, wherever their form of religion has made its impress. In the old common law of our Saxon fathers, the Jewish code is essentially reproduced. This same distinction of sex appears ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... I suppose," the harsh voice said matter-of-factly. "They're probably just curious to see what he looks like first. ...
— Monkey On His Back • Charles V. De Vet
... observe them, to analyze their mettle, their actions. This insurrection may turn very complicated; if so, it must generate more than one revolutionary manifestation. What will be its march—what stages? Curious; perhaps it may turn out more interesting than anything since that great renovation of humanity by the great ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... of Liz's flight Joan was silent, but it did not remain a secret many hours. A collier's wife had seen her standing, crying, and holding a little bundle on her arm at the corner of a lane, and having been curious enough to watch, had also seen Landsell join ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... walls two hundred thousand people could be gathered. On every side the Boy saw new and strange things: soldiers in their armor, and shops full of costly wares; richly dressed Sadducees with their servants following; Jews from far-away countries, and curious visitors from all parts of the world; ragged children of the city, and painted women of the street, and beggars and outcasts of the lower quarters, and rich ladies with their retinues, and priests in their ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... important provisions being limited to take effect at dates yet in the future. The general provisions of the law have been in force less than sixty days. Its permanent effects upon trade and prices still largely stand in conjecture. It is curious to note that the advance in the prices of articles wholly unaffected by the tariff act was by many hastily ascribed to that act. Notice was not taken of the fact that the general tendency of the markets was upward, from influences wholly apart from the recent tariff legislation. The enlargement ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... "There's a curious-looking gull I should like to shoot," exclaimed Fred, pointing to a bird that hovered over his head, and throwing forward the muzzle of ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... the changes of one's own self is a fascinating pursuit for idle hours. The field is so wide, the surprises so varied, the subject so full of unprofitable but curious hints as to the work of unseen forces, that one does not weary easily of it. I am not speaking here of megalomaniacs who rest uneasy under the crown of their unbounded conceit—who really never rest in this world, and when out of it go on fretting and fuming on the straitened ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... There were some curious spiritual experiences connected with his last evening's adventure which were working very strongly in his mind. It was borne in upon him irresistibly that he had been dead since he had seen Helen,—as dead as the son of the Widow of Nain before the bier was touched ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... of old, and from which no child of Adam is wholly free—the desire to hear and to tell some new thing. No sooner has the person withdrawn from this mortal stage, than the pen of biography is prepared to record, and a host of curious expectants are marshalled to receive, some fragments at least of private history. I wish I could dissent from your remark, that even godliness itself is too often sought to be made a gain of in such cases. Writers ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... is curious. For though their superiors made many attempts to prove their hostility to the rebels, it is evident that their actual teaching was suspected by those in high places. It is the exact reversal of the case of Wycliff. His ...
— Mediaeval Socialism • Bede Jarrett
... abrupt, and obscure, is PURCHAS HIS PILGRIMS. Even admitting the plan of that work to be in itself excellent; although it may be a General History, so far as it extends, it certainly is in no respect a Complete Collection of Voyages and Travels. In a very large proportion of that curious work, it is the author who speaks to the reader, and not the traveller. In the present work, wherever that could possibly be accomplished, it has uniformly been the anxious desire of the Editor that the voyagers and travellers should tell their own story: In that department ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... interview, they had stopped near a spear which was lying on the grass, and which Bannelong took up; it was longer than common, and appeared to be a very curious one, being barbed and pointed with hard wood; this exciting Governor Phillip's curiosity, he asked Bannelong for it; but instead of complying with this request, he took it where the stranger was standing, threw it down, and taking ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... Mr. Hastings. The question was, how to get Mr. Hastings, the interpreter, out of his interpretation, and to put him upon the seat of judgment. It was effected, however, and the manner in which it was effected was something curious. Mr. Lushington, who by this time was got completely over, himself tells you that in conferences with Major Calliaud, and by arguments and reasons by him delivered, he was persuaded to unsay his swearing, and to declare that he believed that the affidavit ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... day I should come into possession of great wealth; that it was still hidden in the ground, but that the secret of its hiding-place should one day be revealed to me. Caramba! It really seems as though the Inca's prophecy is about to come true. Now, Jose," he went on, aloud; "this is a very curious tale indeed. I hope you are not playing any ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... requires no definition for its meaning of "by oneself'' or "solitary''; but its etymological history, as simply a combination of the words "all'' and "one'' is rather curious (compare the Ger. allein.) "Lone'' is merely a clipped form of the word, and so "lonely.'' The New English Dictionary traces the English word back to ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... within the flame, and turned into vapor, and burnt, and so on till the wax is all used up, and the candle is gone. So the flame, uncle, you see is the last of the candle, and the candle seems to go through the flame into nothing—although it doesn't, but goes into several things, and isn't it curious, as Professor Faraday said, that the candle should look so splendid and ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... soul," Mr. McGraw had murmured at the time, "what a curious rule! I had a notion that that was the surveyor-general's business, not mine. I had a notion that he was paid for compiling that information for the people, and not forcing them to compile ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... ratified, or rather proclaimed, a foregone conclusion. The reconciliation which was prescribed by their constitution had undoubtedly been arranged by previous conferences, after their custom in such matters, before the meeting of the Council. [Footnote: For a curious instance of the manner in which questions to be apparently decided by a Council were previously settled between the parties, see the Life of Zeisberger, p. 190: "Gietterowane was the speaker on one side, Zeisberger ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale
... placed on the ground of economic ideas, would find the more difficulty in being consistent with himself because of the clearness of his mind and the accuracy of his reasoning. I am going to make this curious ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... over the prairies, with a motley band of 5,000 negroes, 2,000 horses, and 1,500 beeves for a cumbrous accompaniment. With the possible exception of the herd that set out to follow Sherman's march through Georgia, this was perhaps the most curious column ever put in motion since that which defiled after Noah ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... Sindbad the Seaman returned from his travel to Baghdad, the House of Peace, he arrived at home with great store of diamonds and money and goods. (Continued he) I foregathered with my friends and relations and gave alms and largesse and bestowed curious gifts and made presents to all my friends and companions. Then I betook myself to eating well and drinking well and wearing fine clothes and making merry with my fellows, and forgot all my sufferings in the pleasures of return to the solace and delight of life, with light heart ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... were full of tears. How good he was—how tenderly he loved her, and what a happy, grateful girl she had reason to be. They entered the house, admitted by a very old woman, who bobbed a curtsey and looked at them with curious eyes. Two or three old retainers took care of the place and showed ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... here by curious men 't may be expected That I this knot with judgement grave decide, And then proceed to what else was objected. But, ah! What mortall wit may dare t' areed Heavens counsels in eternall horrour hid? And Cynthius pulls me by my tender ear Such signes I must observe ...
— Democritus Platonissans • Henry More
... accompanied by three hundred knights and four bishops, pass along the city streets, September 5th, on her way to S. Maria del Popolo to offer prayers of thanksgiving. Following a curious custom of the day, which shows Folly and Wisdom side by side, just as we find them in Calderon's and Shakespeare's dramas, Lucretia presented the costly robe which she wore when she offered up her prayer, to one of her court fools, and the clown ran merrily through the ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... grow weary of the endless charm of English parish churches. The more one sees of them the more one realises what fresh, delightful surprises they hold. Nothing else in England betrays so well the curious individuality, the fascinating tendency to incipient eccentricity, which marks the English genius. Certainly there are few English churches one can place beside some of the more noble and exquisitely beautiful French churches, ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... It is curious to see, in discussions on speculative matters, how abstract minds, who move from ideas to facts, always do battle for concrete reality; while concrete minds, on the other hand, who move from facts to ideas, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... of health, and to Lord Fournivall, another kind of god, very useful to propitiate, for he was Lord Treasurer. He writes a good many detached pieces in which, thanks to his mania for talking about himself, he makes us acquainted with the nooks and corners of the old city, thus supplying rare and curious information, treasured by the historian. He composes, in order to make himself noticed by the king, a lengthy poem on the Government of Princes, "De Regimine Principum," which is nothing but a compilation taken from three or four previous ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... the maid; and then Mrs. Dyer's head appeared in the opening and she gave Josie a curious if ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... to seek his fortune in the West, and on his way to Indianapolis happened to stop at Rochester. The place proved too attractive to give up, and, through his influence, Weed also made it his residence. "How curious it seems," he once wrote his distinguished journalistic friend, "that circumstances which we regard at the time as scarcely worthy of notice often change the entire current of our lives." A few years later, through Weed's influence, Gardiner became a judge of the Supreme ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... being in his nature not very curious, whether because family matters were of so little consequence to him, or because he had a vague idea that his general behavior deprived him of all right to ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... good deal of curious information about the oyster. They are obtained by means of a dredge, which consists of a flat bag, the under part made of strong iron rings looped together by stout wire. The upper side is merely a strong netting, ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... negotiations were to be settled. Some minutes elapsed before he came, Napoleon remaining seated in his carriage meantime, still smoking, and accepting with nonchalance the staring of a group of German soldiers near by, who were gazing on their fallen foe with curious ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... it is commonly expressed, 'troubled in mind.' Some of the ancient philosophers held, that all deviations from right reason were madness; and whoever wishes to see the opinions both of ancients and moderns upon this subject, collected and illustrated with a variety of curious facts, may read ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... found in the well-known reluctance of savage tribes to have any engravings taken of themselves, and we can well imagine that if any one was known to make drawings of human beings he would be regarded with suspicious distrust, and it would hardly be a safe accomplishment to possess. One very curious group represents a man, long and lean, standing between two horses' heads, and by the side of a long serpent or fish, having the appearance of an eel. On the reverse side of this piece of horn were represented the heads of two aurochs or bisons. Mr. Dawkins thinks this also represents a hunting ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... he was afterwards an Honorary Fellow. Author of "Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary and Greek Lexicon," 1849, said to be a useful book on classical antiquities. Mr. Darwin made his acquaintance in a curious way—namely, by Mr. Rich writing to inform him that he intended to leave him his fortune, in token of his admiration for his work. Mr. Rich was the survivor, but left his property to Mr. Darwin's children, with the exception of his house at Worthing, bequeathed to Mr. Huxley. ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... court groups which Velasquez was constantly taking, I may quote Sir W. Stirling Maxwell's amusing paragraph about a curious variety of human beings in the Court Gallery. 'The Alcazar of Madrid abounded with dwarfs in the days of Philip IV., who was very fond of having them about him, and collected curious specimens ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... from Espaa to Great China, consisting of twelve falcons; twelve horses, with their trappings and saddle-cloths embroidered with the royal arms; and six mules, [45] with their wrought coverings, which carried twelve boxes, filled with various curious articles. For securing this amicable relation, there are spent annually ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... that I was talking to myself all the time, instead of out aloud, so that, of course, they did not know that I was telling them a tale at all, and were probably puzzled to understand the meaning of my animated expression and eloquent gestures. It was a most curious mistake for any one to make. I never knew such a thing happen ...
— Told After Supper • Jerome K. Jerome
... involuntarily. She had not meant to put it. But it was curious that he should have left them in the lurch at this ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... is as perfect in my memory as if it had occurred this very day, I have thought thousands of times since, and will now put on paper as one of the curious things which perhaps did lead me in after times to love birds, and to finally study them with pleasure infinite. My mother had several beautiful parrots, and some monkeys; one of the latter was a full-grown male of a very large species. ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. II., No. 5, November 1897 - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... of curious experiments were made on this subject by M. Tillet, in France, and by Dr. Fordyce and Sir Charles Blagden, in England. Sir Joseph Banks, Dr. Solander, and Sir Charles Blagden entered a room in which the air had a temperature of 198 degrees Fahr., and remained ten minutes; but as the thermometer ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... eager housekeepers. The social hours in Dinwiddie at that period were the early morning ones in the old market, and Virginia knew that she should hear Docia's story repeated again for the benefit of the curious or sympathetic listeners that would soon gather about her mother. Mrs. Pendleton's marketing, unlike the hurried and irresponsible sort of to-day, was an affair of time and ceremony. Among the greetings and the condolences from other marketers there would ensue lengthy conversations with the ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... said he, "tell me, I pray you, whether this wonderful tree was found in your garden by chance, or was a present made to you, or have you procured it from some foreign country? It must certainly have come from a great distance, otherwise, curious as I am after natural rarities, I should have heard of it. What name ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... had its curious features, too. No mistake, the shock of hearing Sorenson senior talking to the sheriff and the crowd, working up sentiment, had stirred her indignation and wonder and uneasiness and alarm. She was no fool, as she had said. She had a clear, ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... helpful on top of a motor-bus during a wait of half an hour or so, any second of which might be one's last. There was an American nurse there, a tall, radiant girl, whom they called, and rightly, "Morning Glory," who had been introduced to me the day before because we both belonged to that curious foreign race of Americans. What her name was I haven't the least idea, and if we were to meet to-morrow, doubtless we should have to be carefully presented over again, but I remember calling out to her, "Good-by, American ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... summoned his men by a repetition of the toast, and the fifty hillocks of snow were suddenly changed, as if by magic, into as many armed and furious 'rebels.' Before the Skinners could recover from the momentary surprise into which this curious incident had thrown them, a volley of powder and shot had been fired into their midst. Dashing like a frightened hare through the open door, McPherson beheld his assailants. His fears magnified their numbers, and, conceiving there was no hope in fight, he summoned his men to follow ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... absolutely trustworthy and efficient engineers in charge of the work, and before leaving home he provided for accidents that might occur. So much work was done in the winter that great barriers had to be built to keep it clear of floating ice. One curious detail connected with the bridge is that the Milwaukee, one of the double-turreted gunboats which Eads had built from his own plans, and which had been with Farragut at Mobile, was bought now from a wrecking company, and her iron hull used in making the ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How
... your own words, Mr. Fenton. How can you?" Sweetwater's hand was on the breast of the accused man as he spoke, and his manner was almost solemn. "You must not take it for granted," he went on, his green eyes twinkling with a curious light, "that all wisdom comes from Boston. We in Sutherlandtown have some sparks of it, if they have not yet been recognised. You are satisfied"—here he addressed himself to Knapp—"that the blow which killed Agatha ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... giving one of those strong, piercing looks he sometimes afforded, right into the hostess's eyes. "It might be a coincidence: chis! chito! A shilling of a certain year is no rare thing. But, Madame Cannon, it becomes slightly curious when six such shillings, all numbered with that significant year, came out ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... direction of his mother's house, in company with Joe, he scanned with a curious eye the houses, the shops, and the people that he passed. Nothing appeared changed; the same signs indicated an unchanging hospitality on the part of the same landlords, the same lumpers were standing at the same corners—it seemed as if he had been gone only a day. With ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... still captives in Tarrano's hands, as we had been on Earth in Venia. Yet here in the Great City of Venus a curious situation arose. Tarrano himself explained it to us that afternoon. An embarrassing situation for ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... complete, that every word told. His eyes fell down to the crowd as he stopped speaking, since for some little while they had been looking far away into the blue distance of summer; and the kind eyes of the man had a curious sight before him in that crowd, for amongst them were many who by this time were not dry-eyed, and some wept outright in spite of their black beards, while all had that look as if they were ashamed of themselves, and ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris
... over our teacups. Among the company at the table is a young English girl. She seemed to be amused by the story. "Fancy!" she said,—"how very very odd!" "It was a striking and curious coincidence," said the professor who was with us at the table. "As remarkable as two teaspoons in one saucer," was the comment of a college youth who happened to be one of the company. But the member of our circle whom the reader ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... surprising, after that, than to find our traveller, in the period from 1855 to 1857, visiting the whole region west of the Thibet, in company with the brothers Schlagintweit, and bringing back some curious ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... Nick's voice, cracked and careless, that next broke the spell. He seemed to speak on the edge of a laugh. "It's just six years ago since the woman I wanted went to India. Curious, ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... of the present issue to add, in the form of Appendices, some supplementary particulars which have come to my knowledge since the book was first published. The most material of these is the curious confirmation and extension of Fielding's love affair with Sarah Andrew. Besides these additions, a few necessary rectifications have been made ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... clear that the treasury could not afford the expense of six sleeping bags; but as such a device would be useful only under very unusual circumstances we decided that two sleeping bags would be all the society would need. We had been rather curious to explore the country back of the hills on the Pennsylvania side of the river, and with some light provisions and these sleeping bags strapped to the back a couple of boys could make quite an extended tour, unmindful of weather conditions. On ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... left for several hours together, without any one of my committee or myself being present; and I never heard that it was even hinted to offer to remove them, except once, on which occasion the following curious circumstance took place. One day, one of the constables, observing that myself and all my immediate friends were absent from the hustings, proposed in a low voice to some of his companions, to remove Hunt's ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... Major was rather curious to know what it was which appeared to flurry Lord Windermear, and what had passed between us. I told him that his lordship was displeased on money matters, but that all was right, only that I must be more careful for the future. "Indeed, Major, I think I shall take lodgings. I shall be more comfortable, ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... at the pump that he found himself, some time during the night, working endlessly, it seemed. Not once had he lost sight of the real purpose of his presence on the yacht. If Agatha Redmond were aboard the unlucky vessel—and he had moments of curious perplexity about it—he was there to watch for her safety. He pictured her sitting somewhere in the endangered vessel. She could not but be terrified at her predicament. Whether shipwreck or abduction threatened her, she must ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... in Colorado, a genuine oasis in the desert, with its huge irrigating canals of mountain water running through the mighty wheat fields, glistening each autumn at the base of the range, affords a good deal that is curious, not only to the mind of the gentleman from the States, but even to the man who lives at Cheyenne, W.T., only a few ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... "Macedonian" as "a New Year's gift, with the compliments of old Neptune." However, the news of the victory had spread throughout the land before the ships came up to New York; for Decatur had sent out a courier from New London to bear the tidings to Washington. A curious coincidence made the delivery of the despatch as impressive as a ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot |
