"Irregularity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... satisfy the traders. The one ship was sent, but as soon as her cargo had been cleared she was reloaded from others which lay in the offing, and the Spanish colonists, only too glad to enrich themselves, actively connived at the irregularity. The Spanish cruisers endeavoured to enforce respect for the treaty. They claimed, not without justice, to search English vessels seen in American waters and to confiscate forbidden cargoes. English pride rebelled, and English sailors resisted. Violent affrays ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... republican government display vigor and regularity, and proceed with mature deliberation? Whence does it derive the wisdom and durability which mark its acts, while in the western states, on the contrary, society seems to be ruled by the powers of chance? There, public business is conducted with an irregularity, and a passionate and feverish excitement, which does not announce a ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... superficial and devoid of vigour, as the spleen must be affected injuriously by the liver. The weak action of the heart, and its febrile state, should be the natural causes which conduce to the present irregularity in the catamenia, and insomnia at night; the poverty of blood in the liver, and the sluggish condition of that organ must necessarily produce pain in the ribs; while the overdue of the catamenia, the cardiac fever, and debility of the respiration of the lungs, should occasion ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... I soiled my face and monastic attire, and seldom if ever spoke, or if I did, in a very solemn voice. So far from suspicion, I every day gained more and more the good will of the superior. My absence in the day-time was not noticed, as it was known that I gave lessons in music, and my irregularity during the night was a secret ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... hall- lamp shed shadows; and the door of the back room - his father's room - was open and emitted a warm light. At so late an hour, all this was strange; the lights should have been out, the doors locked, the good folk safe in bed. He marvelled at the irregularity, leaning on the hall-table; and marvelled to himself there; and thawed and grew once more hungry, in the warmer ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Fit house for such a city, and in due keeping with the general scenery, was that of Goethe's father. It had in fact been composed out of two contiguous houses; that accident had made it spacious and rambling in its plan; whilst a further irregularity had grown out of the original difference in point of level between the corresponding stories of the two houses, making it necessary to connect the rooms of the same suite by short flights of steps. Some of these features ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... his health declined; he grew weaker by degrees, and died on Christmas Day. Though his life had not been without irregularity, his principles were pure and orthodox, and his death ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... to the irregular tides in the straits of Euripus, between Euboea and Greece; during a large part of the month these tides occur as often as eleven to fourteen times during the twenty-four hours. Their irregularity occasioned among the Greeks a proverb, which ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... added a tiny rudiment in the case of the python—and even in that case should have maintained his ideal very inefficiently, inasmuch as only two limbs, instead of four, are represented? how much more reasonable is the naturalistic interpretation; for here the very irregularity of their appearance in different species, which constitutes rudimentary structures one of the crowning difficulties to the theory of special design, furnishes the best possible evidence in favour of hereditary descent; seeing that this irregularity then becomes what may be termed the anticipated ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... replied I, by way of excusing the irregularity of the captain's habits, "that is not astonishing. An old soldier of the Revolution is not likely to be very punctual ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... large, but carried on in more open sunshine and therefore still more enticing.—Once the "suspect is incarcerated, whatever he brings to prison along with him, whatever he leaves behind him at home, becomes plunder; for, with the incompleteness, haste and irregularity of papers,[33120] with the lack of surveillance and known connivance, the vultures, great and small, could freely use their beaks and talons.—At Toulouse, as in Paris and elsewhere, commissioners take from prisoners every object of value and, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... a grand Roman official is not above trying to blast Appelles' reputation by falsely charging him with misappropriating public moneys. Appelles, who is too proud to endure even the suspicion of irregularity, strips himself to naked poverty to square the unfair account, and his troubles begin: the blight which is to continue and spread strikes his life; for the frivolous, pretty creature whom he brought from Rome has no taste for poverty and agrees to elope with a more competent ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... anxiety. At once he hurried to a broker's and placed an order for the stocks he had used on which to borrow. He could now replace everything in the safe, straighten out the books, could make everything look right to the systematizer, could blame any apparent irregularity on his old system. Even ignorance was ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... permanently where it first lodged, which would soon fill up the channel and cause the river to overflow, the scouring of the water on the bottom forces a large portion along with the current, though it be not suspended. Pursuing its course for a while, some irregularity or obstruction falls in the way—a sunken log, perhaps. This obstacle checks the progress of the moving earth—it accumulates; the next wave brings down more—the accumulation becomes greater; until, in the course of a few years, there is a vast field of deposit, and a 'bar' is formed. These ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... mind of a sober observer. Great numbers of people were indeed to be seen and those who are not accustomed to the sight of bodies under arms are always prone to exaggerate them. But the propensity to swell the mass, has not an equal tendency to convert it into soldiery; and the irregularity, want of discipline, bad arms, and defective equipment in all respects, of this multitudinous assemblage, gave no favorable impression of its prowess. The materials of which the eastern battalions were composed, were apparently the same as those of which I had seen so unpromising a specimen ...
— The American Revolution and the Boer War, An Open Letter to Mr. Charles Francis Adams on His Pamphlet "The Confederacy and the Transvaal" • Sydney G. Fisher
... Prioress of Sempringham, commanding her to receive the child and "veil her immediately, that she may dwell there perpetually as a regular nun." (Rot. Claus., 1 Edward the Third.) Since it was not usual for a nun to receive the black veil before her sixteenth year, this was a complete irregularity. Nothing ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... day. There is room on the road for six such pipes to be laid, so it is considered that Birmingham will not run short of water for at least a hundred years. It need hardly be pointed out that these pipes do not descend at one uniform grade throughout their journey of seventy-three miles, but any irregularity in their rise and fall is of little consequence so long as the end of that irregularity which is nearest Birmingham is at a lower level than the point at which it begins. Thus, for instance, if the pipes are to take a sudden dip to pass under a stream, they should not rise ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... immorality and sedition—of putting embryo rioters to death, and granting them a judicial examination as soon as possible afterwards. Dissenting meeting-houses he would shut up instanter, and guard with soldiers to prevent irregularity or disobedience. "Things," he says, "are twisted since his father was a boy, and must be twisted back—by force—to their right place again. Ordinary measures are less than useless for extraordinary times, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... to interpolate in their, apparently unconscious that the Hebrew requires beloved to be in the singular number, MR. MARGOLIOUTH translates [Hebrew: SHN'] as if it were a participle, which Luther seems also to have heedlessly done. Yet unless [Hebrew: SHN'] be a noun, derived with a little irregularity from [Hebrew: YSHN], he slept, it has nothing to do with sleep. It cannot be the participle of [Hebrew: YSHN], for that verb has a participle in the usual form, not wanting the initial [Hebrew: Y], which occurs in several places in the Old Testament, and ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 218, December 31, 1853 • Various
... in England to literary or poetic drama, alike of the past and present, is chiefly notable for its irregularity. The circumstance may be accounted for in various ways. It is best explained by the fact that England is the only country in Europe in which theatrical enterprise is wholly and exclusively organised on a capitalist basis. No theatre in England is worked to-day ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... from the ground at which the trunk begins to branch and the extent of the branching should be noted. The direction taken by the branches, as well as the regularity and the irregularity of their position, should ...
— Trees of the Northern United States - Their Study, Description and Determination • Austin C. Apgar
... and good-naturedly reproaching the chauffeur with, "Would you kill a Frenchman on his way to his regiment?" and the conductor would reply, "I, too, am going in a few hours. This is my last trip." As night approached, cars and cabs were running with increasing irregularity, many of the employees having abandoned their posts to take leave of their families and make the train. All the life of Paris was concentrating itself in a half-dozen human rivers emptying in ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... peculiar interest about the streets of Cork but their number, their narrowness, and the irregularity of the houses. St. Patrick's-street, which is the principal thoroughfare, has many handsome shops, and winds its way in three curves through ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... royalty checks, there seems to be some sort of irregularity about yours. I am sorry, but according to regulations the check must be validated in the presence of your Galactic Resident before it can be cashed. Your signature across the back of it doesn't ...
— A World by the Tale • Gordon Randall Garrett
... transversely for a length of 1.5 mm., and the other 7 for a length of only 0.5 mm., were suspended vertically in damp air, in which position they would not be affected by geotropism; but they exhibited no great irregularity of growth, whilst observed during 4 to 6 days. We next thought that if care were not taken in cutting off the tips transversely, one side of the stump might be irritated more than the other, either at first or subsequently ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin
... refusal to a servant or concubine, I feared it might not be truly delivered. I thought of writing a letter to tell you what I felt; but I was afraid I might not be able to make you understand. So I sent those trivial verses, that I might be sure of your coming. I have no cause to be ashamed of an irregularity which had no other object but ...
— More Translations from the Chinese • Various
... this thing. The fact remains that the firm owes a note to Heinzman, which it cannot pay. You owe a note to the firm which you cannot pay. All this may be slightly irregular; but for private reasons you do not care to make public the irregularity. Am I ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... looked down at her, his expression comically compounded of sympathy and humour. At that moment, despite the irregularity of his features, he looked wonderfully like ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... over a portion of this ancient road in going from Riobamba to Cajabamba. It is well paved with cut blocks of dark porphyry. It is not graded, but partakes of the irregularity of the country. Designed, not for carriages, but for troops and llamas, there are steps when the ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... accord with their personal convenience than with accuracy. Hence, when it came to the question of the naturalisation of the Uitlanders, the books which should have recorded their registration were either withheld or missing. Settlers in the Transvaal between the years 1882 and 1890, owing to this irregularity, were debarred from proving their registration as the law required. Speaking of this period, Mr. Fitzpatrick, in "The Transvaal ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... about an equal height, which can be seen at a great distance. The principal rocks are the Cornengen, Schomeur, Cornoc-ar-Goulet-Bas-ven, Madiou and Ar-men. These are the least dangerous, because they can be seen. The number and irregularity of their points under the water are not fully known, for the sea beats over them with extreme violence, the force of the current is very strong, and they are the scene of many shipwrecks. Light-houses have been erected on the Island of Sein and at Bec-du-Raze, so that these rocks can be seen and ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... of irregularity has crept into my housekeeping during my long indisposition. Your kind letter only reached me yesterday. Thank you heartily for it; I accept the office of godfather. So your son is to be named Franz, and to walk the waters of life firmly and serenely, trusting securely ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... damnation of heretics; but they were surprised, and shocked, by the bloody image of their temporal death, and the honest feelings of nature resisted the artificial prejudices of theology. The humanity of Ambrose and Martin was confirmed by the scandalous irregularity of the proceedings against Priscillian and his adherents. The civil and ecclesiastical ministers had transgressed the limits of their respective provinces. The secular judge had presumed to receive an appeal, and to pronounce a definitive sentence, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... ends downwards when they did not burn bright enough, and letting the wax drop upon the carpet, could not but be displeasing to a lady. He was generally last at breakfast, but one morning happened to be first and waited some time alone; when afterwards twitted by Mrs. Thrale with irregularity, he replied, "Madam, I do not like ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... Doctor suffered from dysentery—it is his only weak point, he says; and, as I afterwards found, it is a frequent complaint with him. Whatever disturbed his mind, or any irregularity in eating, was sure to end in an attack of dysentery, which had lately become ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... them in separate beds, fluviatile and marine. When the exposed land consists of several unlike kinds of sedimentary strata, or igneous rocks, or both, denudation produces changes proportionably more heterogeneous. The formations being disintegrable in different degrees, there follows an increased irregularity of surface. The areas drained by different rivers being differently constituted, these rivers carry down to the sea different combinations of ingredients; and so sundry new strata of unlike compositions are formed. And here we may see very simply illustrated, ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... at the lawn-party to the time when he found himself at the door of the inn at Craig Fernie. There Sir Patrick interfered, and closed his lips. He asked leave to appeal to Geoffrey to confirm him. Sir Patrick amazed Mr. Moy by sanctioning this irregularity also. Arnold ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... The elastic character of the Constitution, however, although not providing direct remedies for such special cases, admits of adaptation to the most unforeseen exigencies; and so urgent was the pressure of affairs at this agitating juncture, that the irregularity was passed over by the tacit consent ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... Charteris came to discuss subjects so interesting to her as a farmer, that it was past nine o'clock before she looked round for her children. Healthy as Lucilla was, her frame was so slight and unsubstantial, and her spirits so excitable, that over-fatigue or irregularity always told upon her strength and temper; for which reason Honor had issued a decree that she should go to bed at nine, and spend two hours of every morning in quiet employment, as a counterbalance to the excitement of ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of reading the things necessary to be heeded are, first, that the letters should be properly put on their bodies, and, I think, especially that there should be small whites between them; it is curious, but to me certain, that the irregularity of some early type, notably the roman letter of the early printers of Rome, which is, of all roman type, the rudest, does not tend toward illegibility: what does so is the lateral compression of the letter, which necessarily involves the over thinning out of its shape. Of course ...
— The Art and Craft of Printing • William Morris
... dinner-party on the following evening. She had arranged her heavy large-waved hair low on her neck, and the pale green velvet of her gown lifted its dull mahogany hue and the deep Southern whiteness of her skin. She did not take a beautiful picture, for her features had the national irregularity, but she seldom entered a room that several men did not turn and stare at her. She carried herself with the air of one used to commanding the homage of men, her lovely colouring was always enhanced ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... "turned" over the edge of an axe with a billet of wood cut from the old cross-bars of Davies's shooting-box, which were young ash saplings. Then the pieces were put together, the laps solidly beaten down, and despite a little irregularity of shape, the job was not ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... the same with the probability of causes, as with that of chance. There are some causes, which are entirely uniform and constant in producing a particular effect; and no instance has ever yet been found of any failure or irregularity in their operation. Fire has always burned, and water suffocated every human creature: The production of motion by impulse and gravity is an universal law, which has hitherto admitted of no exception. ...
— An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding • David Hume et al
... had no reason to rejoice in these victories, since he did but consume his own country, until he at length ceased fighting and desired to come to an agreement with them. But his changeability and the irregularity of his conduct made them hate him still more. And when he asked them why they so hated him and what he should do to appease them ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... of tracks I left, Mart," and the two men bent over the depression. They saw with astonishment that the cut surface was perfectly smooth, with not even the slightest roughness or irregularity visible. Even the smallest loose grains of sand had been sheared in two along a mathematically exact hemispherical surface by the inconceivable force of the ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... was a day of triumph for Frank Duryea. Writing Charles about his success the next day he said, "Took out carriage again last night and gave it another test about 9 o'clock." The only difficulty he mentioned was a slight irregularity in the engine, caused by the tiny leather pad in the exhaust-valve mechanism falling out.[35] Speaking of this trip, ...
— The 1893 Duryea Automobile In the Museum of History and Technology • Don H. Berkebile
... trumpet extend the sense of the unbearable beyond all possible bounds. Thus, sir, the circulation of the blood and the fluids of the body will not give me pause; you shall hear them flow with the impetuosity of cataracts; you shall perceive them so distinctly as to startle you; the slightest irregularity of the pulse, the least obstacle, is striking, and produces the same effect as a rock against which the waves of a torrent ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... I have been caught napping, and have not mailed my weekly letter. But you will be expecting some irregularity about the time of your flight to Berlin. I called at Mrs. M.'s to-day, and ran on at such a rate that Mrs. Woolsey, who was there, gave me ten dollars for poor folks, and said she wished I'd stay all day. Afterwards I went down town to get Stepping Heavenward for Mr. C., and as he ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... to your sentence: to-morrow, place the glass before you, and draw in chalk your own picture, faithfully, without softening one defect; omit no harsh line, smooth away no displeasing irregularity; write under it, 'Portrait of a Governess, disconnected, poor, ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... the sanctity of inverted commas." They ought to imply textual quotation, Froude used them for his abridgments, openly proclaiming the fact that he had abridged, and therefore deceiving no one. Freeman's comment upon this irregularity is extremely characteristic. "Now we will not call this dishonest; we do not believe that Mr. Froude is intentionally dishonest in this or any other matter; but then it is because he does not know what literary honesty and dishonesty are." There is no ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... and original figure among the poets of the latter half of the century. In the irregularity of his life he might count as a modern Rutebeuf or Villon. He certainly possessed a rich poetic endowment, which only occasionally produced what it seemed capable of. He began under the influence of the Parnassiens, but his most characteristic ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... Dr. Whitaker's silence, I know, from correspondence with him (1808-1816), that, from an irregularity in the Prerogative Office, he was not aware of this will, and uninformed as to this second marriage, or the connexion of this purchaser's family with the parent house; and I think it as probable that he was as unaware ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 182, April 23, 1853 • Various
... This is partly the cause of the multiplicity and growth of the strange doctrines prevalent among them; and while this disposition frequently lands the schism in the most grotesque of absurdities, it gives a remarkable unity and regularity to even its apparent divergencies and variations. Irregularity and the play of chance have as little real place in this spiritual phenomenon as in one belonging to the region of physics; and a knowledge of the terminus a quo would have suggested its complications as well as the point ultimately reached. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... other hand, ample testimony was adduced to show that Frank Bouverie, notwithstanding his wife's irregularity of conduct, had always regarded the boy as his son and heir; and one witness told how the father had held the little fellow up to look at the picture of his ancestral home, and said, "All that will one day be yours." So the Bouveries' case broke down entirely, and the ex-private soldier, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... of a set of fifteen bells, by Mears, and cost L500, the largest being also the hour-bell of the clock. In the chime-work, by Dent, there are two hammers to several of the bells, so as to play rapid passages; and three and five hammers strike different bells simultaneously. All irregularity of force is avoided by driving the chime-barrel through wheels and pinions. There are no wheels between the weight that pulls and the hammer to be raised. The lifts on the chime-barrel are all epicycloidal curves; and there are 6,000 holes pierced upon the barrel for the lifts, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... he continued, now facing us. "The normal heart traces its throbs in regular rhythm. The diseased or overwrought heart throbs in degrees of irregularity that vary according to the trouble that affects it, both organic and emotional. The expert like Barron can tell what each wave means, just as he can tell what the lines in a spectrum mean. He can see the invisible, hear the inaudible, feel the intangible, with mathematical ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... and judgment, whether for good or evil, just as we are; their plans by day and their dreams by night having no deeper significance than our own. Some writers say that the constant interposition of God in their behalf was because they needed his special care and attention. But the irregularity and ignorance of their lives show clearly that their guiding hand was of human origin. If the Jewish account is true, then the God of the Hebrews falls far short of the Christian ideal of a good, true manhood, and the Christian ideal as set forth in the New Testament ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... flight up and down was exceedingly erratic, partly due to the irregularity of the air, and partly to lack of experience in handling this machine. The control of the front rudder was difficult on account of its being balanced too near the center. This gave it a tendency to turn itself when started; so that it turned too far on one side and then too ...
— The Early History of the Airplane • Orville Wright
... hated every thing straight, it was so formal and unpicturesque. "Uniformity and conformity," she observed, "had their day; but now, thank the stars of the present day, irregularity and deformity bear the bell, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... urged in contrary directions, by causes equally powerful, it suffers a kind of compression, that prevents the activity which is suitable to the preservation of the whole, which is necessary to procure what is advantageous to its existence. This mechanism will also explain the irregularity, the indecision, the inconstancy of man; and account for that conduct, which frequently appears an inexplicable mystery, which indeed it is, under the received systems. In consulting experience, it will be found that the soul is submitted to precisely the same physical laws as the ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... sickness without escape. Even the children who are born there are not excepted, as those who live there and have experienced it told us when we were there. And although their manner of life is the cause of much irregularity in their health, there is nevertheless something in the atmosphere which produces disease: but this will become gradually better, as the country is measurably populated, and thereby becomes more cleared, as experience shows is ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... and pencil, and she scribbled rapidly, a smile hovering over the sweet mouth whose slight irregularity charmed the eye ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... figures so constantly upon every concert programme in these days that we are probably most of us accustomed to its vagaries of rhythm, or what may be styled irregularity of metre. This is a direct heritage from the folk-song, which Glinka and his successors have ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... situation, reformed abuses in the administration, and reprimanded or even suspended the government officials; they were accompanied by a body of troops to support their decisions, whose presence invested their counsels with the strongest sanction.*** An unfavourable report, a slight irregularity, a mere suspicion, even, was sufficient to disqualify a satrap. Sometimes he was deposed, often secretly condemned to death without a trial, and the execution of the judgment was committed ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... but the legend runs that the gunners require a week's clear notice before firing a salute.[B] There is no locomotion save in boxes and on the backs of quadrupeds; and quadrupeds of the inferior order are usually, when overtaken by death, thrown in the streets to decompose. But if the irregularity of the town would galvanize the late Monsieur Haussmann in his grave, its situation would satisfy the most exacting Yankee engineer. It is huddled in a sheltered nest on the fringe of a land of milk and honey; it has the advantage of a spread of level beach, ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... the traveller, and suggests Eternity even when tolling the hours of Time. Soon the village is reached, and one is in a position to form an idea of eighteenth century Scotland. The main street is built with that irregularity so charmingly illustrative of the evolution of the builder's art. Old cots roofed with thatch take the mind back to the time when George I. was defending the faith and maltreating his wife. Side by side with such are trim two-storey ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... Rowena's boy—and mine. I hate that 'Owen Lovejoy' part of his name; but he is entitled to the name of Gowdy, and in view of the fact that he has it, I want him to have a good chance—as good as he can have in view of the irregularity of his birth. To tell you the plain truth, as my affairs are now situated, I'm giving him more than he could take as my son if he were legitimate—for as neighbor to neighbor, I'm practically bu'sted. All I'm doing is hanging on for land to rise. Now this isn't ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... are small sandy beaches at some clefts, where the ascent is gradual. The coral, though it has probably been exposed to the weather for many centuries, has undergone no farther change than becoming black on the surface, which, from its irregularity, is not much unlike large masses of a burnt substance. But, on breaking some pieces off, we found that, at the depth of two or three inches, it was just as fresh as the pieces that had been lately thrown upon ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... miles over which the canals extend, and also that it is quite likely, if we could use higher powers so as to get a better view of the lines, the edges would appear irregular. Nature is rarely symmetrical in her work, there is nearly always irregularity of growth; and in artificial cultivation it is neither possible nor desirable to fill up every acre of ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... "Convey my compliments to Mr. Lapelle and say to him that I overlook the irregularity and will be glad to meet him at ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... he scarcely knew how he reached home. He only remembered that he was very dizzy, and that his charming widow—his guide and friend—had remonstrated with him upon the elevation of his style, and the irregularity of ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... my emotion had calmed down, my mind could not help recurring to the expression used by the Bishop; and it suggested the following reflections: How has it come to pass in Ireland that "poet" and "saint" are terms which denote some weakness or irregularity in their possessors? At one time in our history we know that the bard was second only to the King in power and influence; and are we not vaguely proud of that title the world gives us,—Island of Saints? ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... large and statesmanlike conception of the great patriot could meet with full acceptance. Through the earlier part of Edward's reign we find a few instances of the presence of representatives from the towns, but their scanty numbers and the irregularity of their attendance show that they were summoned rather to afford financial information to the Great Council than as representatives in it of an Estate of the Realm. But every year pleaded stronger and stronger ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... voted late, all of them, so late that Weedon Moore, who kept track of their activities, wondered if they meant to vote at all. But they did vote, they also to the last man, and a rumour crept about that some irregularity was connected with the ballot. But whatever they did, it was by concerted action, after a definite design. Weedon Moore, an agitated figure, meeting Jeff, was so worried and excited by it that he had to cackle ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... Rebi. Made but little progress to-day, on account of the irregularity in the river already mentioned, which makes its course hereabouts almost the direct contrary to its natural direction, and brings, in consequence, the prevalent winds ahead. Passed some small, but fine islands, and saw, ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Dongola and Sennaar • George Bethune English
... of some middle (3) foot after a strong pause is a thing so natural that our poets have generally done it, from Chaucer down, without remark and it commonly passes unnoticed and cannot be said to amount to a formal change of rhythm, but rather is that irregularity which all natural growth and motion shews. If however the reversal is repeated in two feet running, especially so as to include the sensitive second foot, it must be due either to great want of ear or ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... use the schoolboy phrase of my son Armand) entered the college of Tours. One had a charming face, the other would have been thought ugly if health, frankness, and intelligence beaming on his features had not compensated for their irregularity and inelegance. ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... catch his breath oddly. Her own pulses began to beat with heavy irregularity, as a few steps farther brought the two opposite the open arcade. ...
— The Flying Mercury • Eleanor M. Ingram
... conceal the winding road that leads down the descent, by the side of which a spring as bright as crystal runs gurgling along. The dell itself is an irregular piece of broken ground, in some parts very deep, intersected by two or three high banks of equal irregularity, now abrupt and bare, and rocklike, now crowned with tufts of the feathery willow or magnificent old thorns. Everywhere the earth is covered by short, fine turf, mixed with mosses, soft, beautiful, and various, and embossed with the speckled leaves ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... of tenses is unusual. We do not have here a contrary to fact condition, as might at first appear. If that were the case, the imperfect indicative could not be employed in the if-clause. This is a simple condition in past time, the irregularity being in the use of valiranse, an archaic way of expressing a sort of imperative,—debieron valerse, or vlganse. Translate, since they wished... they should ...
— Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha • Benito Perez Galdos
... her well-built figure. Everything about Rose—every line, every tone of her coloring suggested warmth, generosity, bigness. She was as much above medium height for a woman as Martin for a man. About her temples the line of her bright golden-brown hair had an oddly pleasing irregularity. The rosy color in her cheeks brought out the rich creamy whiteness of her skin. Warm, gray-blue eyes were set far apart beneath a kind, broad forehead and her wide, generous mouth seemed made to smile. The impression of good temper and fun was accented by her nose, ever so slightly ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... which the light, down in the vaults, had given, me the assurance. The immense thickness and giddy height of the walls, the enormous strength of the massive towers, the great extent of the building, its gigantic proportions, frowning aspect, and barbarous irregularity, awaken ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... required courage even in a case of self-defence, or of just revenge. The direct reasons, however, for implicating him in this affair, seem at present insufficient. He was displeased, it seems, with the irregularity and unsightliness of the antique buildings, and also with the streets, as too narrow and winding, (angustiis flexurisque vicorum.) But in this he did but express what was no doubt the common judgment of all his contemporaries, who had seen the beautiful ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... From its irregularity, and from other circumstances, Boston is much more like an English town than New York. The names are English, and the inhabitants are by no means so uniformly sallow, as they are in many other parts of America. ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... Spain or France owned Louisiana. Doubtless, Jefferson laid himself open to censure from the Federalists for assuming unconstitutional powers in this purchase; but the greatness of the service more than balanced the irregularity, and the ridicule and abuse from his political enemies fell harmless. No one can question that his prompt action, whether technically legal or illegal, was both wise and necessary; it practically gave to the United States the undisputed possession ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... the house came to the kitchen, Nurse's witch-eye followed him animal-like; no movement of his, no expression, seemed to escape it. A curious observer might sometimes have remarked in her, during the few moments after the man's entrance, a muffled agitation, an irregularity of the breath, an obscure anxiety and suspense. This, however, would soon subside, and rarely recur during his stay. The phenomenon had been observable daily for nearly a score of years, yet nothing had meantime happened to explain or justify it. Had an original ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... justice and injustice, praise and blame, punishment and reward cannot attach to necessary actions, and nobody will be under obligation to do the impossible or to abstain from doing what is absolutely necessary. Without any intention of abusing this consideration in order to favour irregularity, one will nevertheless not escape embarrassment sometimes, when it comes to a question of judging the actions of others, or rather of answering objections, amongst which there are some even concerned with the actions of God, whereof I will speak presently. ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... the actual diversities in ritual which came under the attention of the Conference, some appeared to be such direct infractions of the Rubrics that no explanation of the Rubrics could make their irregularity more evident. Others seemed to arise from well-meant attempts to interpret the Rubrics. These last formed the chief subject of the labours of ...
— Ritual Conformity - Interpretations of the Rubrics of the Prayer-Book • Unknown
... was a perfect post-carrier of dangerous documents, and a marked man besides—altogether a suspicious companion for an innocent traveler. So I began to discuss several points with my captors in a much calmer tone—demonstrating that from the irregularity of their challenge we could not suppose it came from any regular picket—that there were many horse-thieves and marauders about, so that it behoved travelers to be cautious—that it would have been impossible to have explained our names, object, and destination in a breath, even if ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... the office, a thing that has never happened to me before. There has recently been much irregularity in the attendance of the clerks, and Mr. Perkupp, our principal, unfortunately choose this very morning to pounce down upon us early. Someone had given the tip to the others. The result was that I was the only one late of ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... not of those actions alone in and with which sin is, but of the very pravity, ataxy, atomy, irregularity, and sinfulness itself, which is ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... died in Charles's breast. Even the drunken irregularity of a Cornish cabman told against Sisily. But that point was not so immediately important as Thalassa's story that the murder had been committed during his absence from Flint House. Although his own experience supported ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... Everybody else knows it, if you don't. 'Irregular'! Ha! There's a choice of words!" The speaker laughed silently. "It is an 'irregularity' that carries with it free board and ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... favour to hand, and contents noted. You are a man of the world; I am a man of the world, and proud to deal with you as between man and man. The little irregularity shall be no consideration, all shall be squared, and the man wanted run in with punctuality and despatch. Expect him at Calais on the 26th ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang
... devotion, the saint spent eight years. Returning into Tuscany, in 1153, he retired into a desert. He was prevailed upon to undertake the government of a monastery in the isle of Lupocavio, in the territory of Pisa, but not being able to bear with the tepidity and irregularity of his monks, he withdrew, and settled on Mount Pruno, till, finding disciples there no less indocile to the severity of his discipline than the former, he was determined to pursue himself that rigorous plan of life which he had hitherto unsuccessfully proposed to others. ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... them to overflowing. The panic soon brought about a default in payment and a need of metallic money to re-establish equilibrium, but this remedy, if it does precede panics, sometimes precedes them by a year, as we have observed in 1883, and the same irregularity is apparent whether we observe the banks of the whole United States, or the Associated Banks of the City of ...
— A Brief History of Panics • Clement Juglar
... so constant a guard upon his heart and whole conduct as to avoid all sensible self-deceptions? Who is there upon whose heart no inordinate attachments steal; into whose actions no sloth, remissness, or other irregularity ever insinuates itself?... The Blessed Virgin was preserved by an extraordinary grace from the least sin in the whole tenor of her life and actions; but, without such a singular privilege, even the saints are obliged to say that they sin daily.... The Church of Christ ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... otherwise would have been active according to the law of its activity, is for the time hindered from action by another force becoming active. Moreover, through the conscious and unconscious connection of the idea of irregularity and lack of plan with the idea of miracles, not only the idea of a God who works miracles, but also that of a personal Creator and Ruler of the world, in general, has come into discredit. For that reason, Haeckel, for instance, when he attacks the Christian idea of creation, ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... much as possible and all went well for a few minutes. Then the wind slewed the sledge, the runners struck an irregularity in the surface and the whole capsized. This happened repeatedly, until there was nothing to do but loose the two remaining dogs and drag the sledge ourselves. The dogs were soon lost to sight, except Pavlova, who remained with us all the time. As the hours of light were short in August, darkness ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... of this verse seems to be this: if all things rest on Consciousness which is an attribute of Ignorance or Delusion, why then this uniformity instead of the irregularity that characterises all perceptions in dreams? The answer is that the uniformity is the result of past acts, of acts which are due to Consciousness. These produce uniformity of perceptions even as time, subject to its own ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... passed through a prism. The white sunbeam formed a circular image on the opposite wall, but the prismatic colors formed an image five times as long as it was broad. He was curious to know how this came to pass. Satisfied that the length of the image in the latter case did not arise from any irregularity in his glass, or from any differences in the incidence of light from different parts of the sun's disk, or from any curvature in the direction of the rays, he concluded, after thorough reflection, that light is not homogeneous, but that it consists of rays of diverse ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... state that no official announcement of awards would be made until the Exposition Company and the National Commission should be advised of what they were, to the end that, if there had been any irregularity in the awarding, any errors or omissions, or any fraud, the same might be corrected; but at no time have I ever said anything that would justify you or anyone else in the conclusion that either the Exposition ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... even more natural haphazard bordering line; for another operation had been carried on meantime. Trees, souvenir trees, had from time to time been planted on the lawn by visiting friends. Most of them are set close enough to the grove to become a part of it, standing in a careful irregularity which has already obliterated, without molesting, the tree ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... be supposed that I mean to assert any irregularity or impropriety in Dick's profession—I merely assert the necessity for Mr. Greg's examination, if he would be master of his subject, of the manner of Gain in every case, as well as the manner of Expenditure. Such accounts must always be ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... even now. There remains the plan of representative sub-Parliaments for local affairs, and these must henceforth be considered as one of the fundamental institutions of a free government. They exist in England but very incompletely, and with great irregularity and want of system; in some other countries much less popularly governed, their constitution is far more rational. In England there has always been more liberty but worse organization, while in other countries there is ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... time of the withdrawal of the glaciers, due to difference in climate. Specimens occur here and there considerably below this limit, in basins specially protected from inwashing detritus, or exceptional in size. These, however, are not sufficiently numerous to make any marked irregularity in the line. The highest I have yet found lies at an elevation of about 12,000 feet, in a glacier womb, at the foot of one of the highest of the summit peaks, a few miles to the north of Mount Hitter. The basins of perhaps twenty-five or thirty are ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... each man lighted a candle, wrapped the customary piece of wet clay round the middle of it, and entered the narrow tunnel. They advanced in single file, James Penrose leading. The height of the adit permitted of their walking almost upright, but the irregularity of the cuttings rendered it necessary that they should advance carefully, with special regard to their heads. In about a quarter of an hour they reached a comparatively open space—that is to say, there were several extensions of the cutting in various directions, ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... the alleged electoral frauds. By the advice of Everard and others of their leaders, a compromise was effected with the Castle party; members returned for boroughs incorporated after the writs were issued were declared excluded, the contestation of seats on other grounds of irregularity were withdrawn, and the House accordingly proceeded to the business for which they were called together. The chief acts of the sessions of 1614, '15, and '16, beside the grant of four entire subsidies to the Crown, were an act joyfully recognizing the King's title; ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... it is to be remembered that we are acting for all time. It is not this one case that is before us. We are settling a precedent which is to last for generations. Relax your constitutions and laws for this irregularity and you open a gap through which a coach and four may be driven. Every other mission, under the least pretext, will come and claim the same or a similar modification in their case, and you cannot consistently deny them. The result will be an ecclesiastical chaos throughout our entire missionary ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg
... and Other Poems. The Seraphim was a reverential description of two angels watching the Crucifixion. Though the critics saw much that was strikingly original, they condemned the frequent obscurity of meaning and irregularity of rhyme. The next year, The Romaunt of the Page and other ballads appeared, and in 1844, when she was thirty-five, a complete edition of her poems, opening with the Drama of Exile. This was the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden, the first scene ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... she were much better and happier with "Sister" always at her service, and Paula and Thekla were delighted to amuse her. Paula was in a state of delight with Sister Angela, only a little puzzled by the irregularity of her course, though it was carefully explained that she had never been under any vows. To hear of her doings among the Australian women was a romance, often as there had been disappointment. ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... weaknesses,—principally an almost hilarious political irregularity,—but two Republican hands were raised against him in the Senate when he was nominated for the Court of Saint James. When he rather unbecomingly filliped John Bull on the nose in his maiden speech as the premier ambassador, ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... frieze, every entablature, is incrusted with porphyry, verde antique, or some other curious marble, carved into as many grotesque wreaths and mouldings as we admire in the loggios of Raffaello. The various portals, the strange projections, the length of cloisters; in short, the noble irregularity of these imperial piles, delighted me beyond idea; and I was sorry to be forced to abandon them so soon, especially as the twilight, which bats and owls love not better than I do, enlarged every portico, lengthened every colonnade, and increased the ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... translated, or added of themselves; the rest is made up of what are probably original phrases but omitted from the Hebrew by the carelessness of copyists; yet none of these differences is of importance save where the Greek corrects an irregularity in the Hebrew metre, or yields sense when the ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... breath would have frozen their coverings, and they would have been obliged to take them off with the help of an axe—an awkward way of undressing. The interminable plain kept on with fatiguing monotony; icebergs of uniform aspect and hummocks whose irregularity ended by seeming always the same; blocks cast in the same mould, and icebergs between which tortuous valleys wound. The travellers spoke little, and marched on, compass in hand. It is painful to open one's mouth in such an atmosphere; sharp icicles form immediately ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... point of the circle pen must be used for a large number of lines, as, for instance, in shading, the smallest circles should be made first, and the largest circles last, because at every turn the centering hole becomes larger, and there is liability to make the circles more or less irregular. Such irregularity will not be so noticeable in the large curves ...
— Practical Mechanics for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... interest.—We have lately had a very melancholy instance of the terror created by this tribunal, as well as of the notions that prevail of its justice. A gentleman of Calais, who had an employ under the government, was accused of some irregularity in his accounts, and, in consequence, put under arrest. The affair became serious, and he was ordered to prison, as a preliminary to his trial. When the officers entered his apartment to take him, regarding the ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... affects the minds of students and men of letters (those hermits of brain-cells) the writer dismisses Wetter, briefly and almost contemptuously, as an able but unscrupulous politician, addicted to extravagances and irregularity in private life. He gives more space to William Adolphus than to Wetter! So difficult it is even for superior minds to remain altogether unaffected by the lustre of rank; the old truism could ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... as I can remember, was about all there was in the letter. Mr. Furlong professed to recognise the handwriting as his uncle's. It was a cramped hand, not easy to read, and the signature was so peculiarly formed that I was hardly able to decipher it. The peculiarity consisted of the extreme irregularity in the formation of the letters, no two of which were of equal size; and capitals were interspersed promiscuously, more especially throughout ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... is pain at this time, then something is certainly wrong, and treatment should be taken at once. If there is irregularity, this also requires most prompt attention, as it will surely develop into something serious sooner or later. If the flow is too free, or not free enough, or if there is any deviation from the standard of health, the mother ...
— Treatise on the Diseases of Women • Lydia E. Pinkham
... reference to the person addressed in this choice document, than to the writer thereof. Perhaps it was from the fiance of one of the engaged pupils; and, in that case, there was no great harm done or intended—only a small irregularity. Several of the girls, the majority, indeed, had brothers or cousins at the neighbouring college. But "la robe grise, le chapeau de paille," here surely was a clue—a very confusing one. The straw-hat ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... into the wall, lay flush with it, and offered not the slightest irregularity to the touch. So nicely was it fitted that not even Stern's finger-nail could penetrate ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... target, another and more serious one is the irregularity in the manner of breaking the circuit. It has been proved that times required for a flat headed and an ogival headed projectile to rupture the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various
... on one of the most celebrated Writers perhaps at this Time in Europe, but how justly, I leave to the Determination of those who have perused the Bishop's incomparable Answer; but admitting his Lordship had permitted an irregularity of Grammer to pass unobser'd [typo for "unobserv'd"?], he is not the first of his Sacred Character that has done it, and small Errors of this kind are easily looked over, where the Nominative Case is at a distance from the Verb, or a Performance is done in haste, the Case of the ...
— A Vindication of the Press • Daniel Defoe
... there is occasionally found a slight irregularity in the thickness of slugs, and thin fins are sometimes cast around the forward edges. For the purpose of reducing them to a uniform thickness, they are driven on their way to the galley between two vertical knives, as shown in Figs. 4 and 16. The inner knife is stationary, but the outer knife is ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... and parallel. One edge of each lath may, if desired, be bevelled a little. The method of using these "twist sticks" or "winding laths" is to put them on the board as indicated, and sight along their top edges. The winding laths, being much longer than the width of the board, show up the irregularity ...
— Woodwork Joints - How they are Set Out, How Made and Where Used. • William Fairham
... sort of informal court, and to have decided that the woman should choose either of the two men she wished to be her husband, the other being pledged to submit to the decision and leave the settlement. Evidently no one had the least idea that there was any legal irregularity ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... discussion. On Sept. 22nd Challis wrote to me to say that Mr Adams would leave with me his results on the explanation of the irregularities of Uranus by the action of an exterior planet. In October Adams called, in my absence. On Nov. 5th I wrote to him, enquiring whether his theory explained the irregularity of radius-vector (as well as that of longitude). I waited for an answer, but received none. (See the Papers printed in the Royal Astronomical Society's Memoirs and Monthly Notices).—In the Royal Society, the Royal Medal was awarded to me ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... following serenade many of the peculiarities which I have just noticed occur. I have also adhered to the irregularity of rhyme which may be usually observed about the middle of the poem ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... prophetic visions, the Roman hero was fast declining from the meridian of fame and power; and the people, who had gazed with astonishment on the ascending meteor, began to mark the irregularity of its course, and the vicissitudes of light and obscurity. More eloquent than judicious, more enterprising than resolute, the faculties of Rienzi were not balanced by cool and commanding reason: he magnified ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... of an hour a fete unique in the annals of Hillport had organised itself on the lawn in the dim, verdurous retreats behind Mrs. Prockter's house. The lawn was large enough to be just too small for a tennis-court. It was also of a pretty mid-Victorian irregularity as regards shape, and guarded from the grim horizons of the Five Towns by a ring of superb elms. A dozen couples, mainly youngish, promenaded upon its impeccable surface in obvious expectation; while on the borders, in rustic chairs, odd remnants of humanity, mainly oldish, ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... two factors may work in conjunction or in opposition, according to conditions. The bare constant error does not remain exactly the same at all times for any individual and is probably less regular in tactual time than in auditory or in optical time, according to the irregularity actually found and for reasons which will ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... constantly interrupted in their own arrangements, or else are interfering with the rights and interests of others. This is exemplified in the case of schools. In families where late rising is practised, either hurry, irregularity, and neglect, are engendered in the family, or else the interests of the school, and thus of the community, are sacrificed. In this, and many other concerns, it can be shown, that the wellbeing of the bulk of the people, is, to a greater or less extent, impaired by ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... in its day, and which was the face of her child's father, shook her nerves more than she liked them to be shaken. That troublesome heart of hers had begun to play her strange tricks of late with palpitation and irregularity. She could not afford that her nerve should fail her. That gone, nothing would remain to her but a wreck. But her cherry-water was a pleasant and safe calmant, and she knew exactly how much ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... air of one who could maintain with ease his part in a higher circle. His address to Lady Penelope was adapted to the romantic tone of Mr. Chatterly's epistle, to which it was necessary to allude. He was afraid, he said, he must complain to Juno of the neglect of Iris, for her irregularity in delivery of a certain ethereal command, which he had not dared to answer otherwise than by mute obedience—unless, indeed, as the import of the letter seemed to infer, the invitation was designed for some more gifted individual than he to ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... round a spindle, and elevate a seventy-four in the air. He was the Kepler of science; like the immortal German, he had made eighty thousand observations in the social world; but, like him, he could deduce the few laws of national advance or decline from the regular irregularity of their motion. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... reason for happiness in the fact that reports from Almo were uniformly good. To Flexinna he wrote at intervals and his letters reached their destination without much irregularity. In those days communication with Britain was by no means so easy as with Africa. Gaul was a country well Romanized and very populous, busy and prosperous. All across it were good roads, excellent bridges and frequent ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... character of the person whom he thus endeavored to overreach, and consequently failing in his attempt, he next began to think of the quibbles of the law, as the means of accomplishing his purpose. And having discovered some slight irregularity in Woodburn's deed, to begin upon, he then resorted to a trick quite fashionable among the corrupt speculators of those unsettled times—that of purchasing from some unprincipled person, ready, for a small sum, to enter into the fraud, a deed of prior date to that of the ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... affections. I have heard an official person declare, that the spectacle of her desolation and frantic anguish was the most frightful thing he had ever witnessed, and so harrowing to the feelings, that all who could by their rank venture upon such an irregularity, absented themselves during the critical period from the office which corresponded with the government; for, as I have said, the affair took place in a large provincial city, at a great distance ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... an opening. When it was taken out of the water it stood upright on its legs and crawled a little like a large beetle, but soon died. In the water it swam with the legs, and the last joint appeared to be feathered. It will be seen that there is a great irregularity in the position of the legs of this insect. The specimen appeared to me to be in some respects imperfect; but I figured it exactly as it was, without blindly guessing at its perfect state. It was not thicker than the thinnest wafer. The back was marked with curved lines, exactly in the manner ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... simply and directly dependent on their position in the cluster, as in Aurora Regina,[1] modifying every bell just in proportion as it declines from the perfected central one, some of the loveliest groups of form are produced which can be seen in any inferior organism: but when the irregularity becomes fixed, and the flower is always to the same extent distorted, whatever its position in the cluster, the plant is to be rightly thought of as reduced to a lower rank ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... tired and old as he sat down heavily at his dinner-table opposite his pretty daughter. The discomfort and irregularity of the household for the last two weeks had worn on the nerves of a very busy man who needed all of his strength for his work. It seemed an evil fate of his, he reflected as he took his napkin out of its ring, that whenever he was particularly hard-pressed in his profession, ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... where they do not want them, or leave them out where they do,—in our tropical summers they will endure the glare and heat of the sun, rather than that blinds should interfere with the moulded window-caps, or with the style generally,—they will break up the outline with useless and expensive irregularity,—they will have brackets that support nothing, and balconies and look-outs upon which no one ever steps after the carpenter leaves them,—all for the sake of pleasing the eye. And all this without any real and lasting success,—with a success, indeed, that seems often in an inverse ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... slipshod housekeeper as ever piled away breakfast dishes unwashed, or swept dirt under a settee. If they had money she bought things they did not need, and if there was no money she borrowed provisions and forgot to return the loan. Irregularity of living, deprivation and hope deferred, made the woman ill and she became a chronic sufferer. But she was ever tended with loving, patient care by the overburdened and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... broad! How large! How grand in design! A strip of coast, a range of mountains, a plain, a second range, a second strip of coast! That is all! Contrast the complexity of Europe, its lack of symmetry, its variety, irregularity, disorder and caprice! The geography of the two continents already foreshadows the differences in their civilizations. On the one hand simplicity and size; on the other a hole-and-corner variety; there immense rivers, endless forests, interminable plains, indefinite repetition of ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson
... War Department was humorous. This bureaucrat was continually refusing Roosevelt's applications because they were irregular. In each case Roosevelt would appeal to the Secretary of War, with whom he was on the best of terms, and would get from him an order countenancing the irregularity. After a number of experiences of this kind, the harassed slave of red tape threw himself back in his chair and exclaimed, "Oh, dear! I had this office running in such good shape—and then along came ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... in an exemplary manner, even in Princes and Rulers; and often casts down the guilty, to crown with honor the man who walks after his own heart, and whom he raises from obscurity. Good, merciful, and full of pity, he forgives the wicked upon their repentance: and public calamities and the irregularity of the seasons are but salutary warnings, which his fatherly goodness gives to men, to induce them ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... sea near the town where I resided; but the valley of the river was shallow and bald, for as far up as ever I had the heart to follow it. There were roads, certainly, but roads that had no beauty or interest; for, as there was no timber, and but little irregularity of surface, you saw your whole walk exposed to you from the beginning: there was nothing left to fancy, nothing to expect, nothing to see by the wayside, save here and there an unhomely-looking homestead, and here and there a solitary, spectacled ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson |
