"Singular" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to have a talk with you. May I ask you, in the first place, how you have so early attained the rank of captain? My aide-de-camp tells me that you said you had attracted the notice of the King of France. It must have been by some singular action, and as I have an hour to spare, before I ride out, I shall be glad if you can tell me some particulars about yourself; unless, indeed, they ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... and she seemed indeed to have inherited something of the Indian's hauteur along with the Ethiop's supple cunning and abundant amiability. She gave many instances in which her pride had met and overcome the insolence of employers, and the kindly old creature was by no means singular in her pride ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... Tables by 5 minuts, the End by 23; and the Middle, almost by 11. In the mean time the Author notes, that the Rudolphin Tables come nearest to the Truth; and withal assures the Reader of the goodnesse of the Instruments employed in his Observations, and of the singular care, he, together with his skilful Assistants, took ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... not partial to Friday, as it is often an unlucky day for me—a superstition that has come down to me from grandmamma; but, although I try to think it absurd, our experience of yesterday proved a singular confirmation. ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... distinguished member of "the journalistic gang," took very little interest in the doings of "the Bunnies" and few of them knew him, but I often visited him in his home on the North Side, and greatly enjoyed his solemn-faced humor. He was a singular character, as improvident as Lorado but in a far ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... is fused on to the metal. A betel-leaf and perfume-service in the silver-gilt of Mysore is accompanied by elaborately-chased goblets and rose-water sprinklers in ruddy gold and parcel-gilt, the work of Kashmir and Lucknow. The ruddy color is the taste of Kashmir and of Burmah, while a singular olive-brown tint is peculiar to Scinde. Other cases have the repousse-work of Madras, Cutch, Lucknow, Dacca and Burmah. From Hyderabad in the Deccan is a parcel-gilt vase, an example of pierced-work, the opus interassile ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... any given marriage should be a failure?" Margaret asked with a touch of her old irony. "It is more singular to me that any marriage, made as they must be made to-day, should be anything but ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... In a very singular pamphlet published in Trenton, 1779, called "Eumenes: A collection of papers on the Errors and Omissions of the Constitution of New Jersey," the writer is very severe upon the fact that women were allowed to exercise the same right as the sterner sex; observing that "Nothing can be a ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... singular to the doctor and me that we had attracted so little attention among the people whom we had encountered since leaving the ship. To give the reason for this, which we afterwards discovered, is to reveal one of the pleasantest peculiarities of the Martian ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... Am I singular? I think not. There are others whose mannerisms plague me too. For instance, TRUBERRY, whom I meet occasionally, has a wild and venomous habit of relating to me his infinitesimal jokelets. That I could pardon. But when, having related one, he bursts, as he always does, into a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 10, 1892 • Various
... Martin, fixed upon it. He was so lost in thought that he did not hear me at first when I asked him whether he would care to follow on. But he assented willingly enough as soon as he understood. And as he rose I could not help admiring, as I had often done before, the singular beauty of his countenance. His books, I think, do him injustice; they are cold and academic. But there was nothing of that in the man himself; never was spirit so alert; and that alertness was reflected in his person and bearing, his erect ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson
... boys. For music one of them drummed on a deer-skin which he stretched over an iron pot, and another rattled a gourd containing some shot and ornamented with a horse's tail. The others danced with wild whoops and yells around a large fire they had built. Altogether the spectacle was a singular and exciting one on which the boys looked with ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... will of Thine: yea, Thou teachest him, now made capable, to discern the Trinity of the Unity, and the Unity of the Trinity. Wherefore to that said in the plural. Let us make man, is yet subjoined in the singular, And God made man: and to that said in the plural. After our likeness, is subjoined in the singular, After the image of God. Thus is man renewed in the knowledge of God, after the image of Him that created him: ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... yet but one. Though plural they were singular. The subjects of impersonal verbs, they represented the pronoun in such expressions as: it rains; it thunders. "It" was Elohim. Already among nomad Semites monotheism had begun. Yet with this distinction. Each tribe had separate sets of Its that guided, guarded, ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... place upon the sides of the mountains; because the land there was not intermixed, and was of little comparative value; and, therefore, small opposition would be made to its being appropriated by those to whose habitations it was contiguous. Hence the singular appearance which the sides of many of these mountains exhibit, intersected, as they are, almost to the summit, with stone walls. When first erected, these stone fences must have little disfigured the face of the ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... It's a singular thing that just then, as I saw the young lady blush deeply, and Mrs Colonel look annoyed, I muttered to myself, "Something will come of this," because, if there's anything I hate, it's for a man to set himself up for a prophet. But it looked to me as if the captain had been taking Lieutenant Leigh's ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... freely in Ambassadorial and foreign circles. It would be well for you to dine, at least once a week, with the British Ambassador. And now one final word"—here Gestern spoke with singular impressiveness—"as to the ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... the many persons of color whom I visited at Philadelphia, was a woman of singular intelligence and good breeding. A friend was with me. She received us with the courtesy and easy manners of a gentlewoman. She appeared to be between thirty and forty years of age—of pure African descent, with a handsome expressive countenance and a graceful person. Her mother, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... when a cry from Barker arrested them. He had just perceived a horseman motionless in the arroyo who, although unnoticed by them, had evidently been seen by the Mexicans. He had apparently leaped into it from the bank, and had halted as if to witness this singular incident. As the clatter of the vaqueros' hoofs died away he lightly leaped the bank again and disappeared. But in that single glimpse of him they recognized Jack Hamlin. When they reached the spot where he had halted, they ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... that the Mississippian backwoodsman, Woodley, could give a better account of these singular excrescences than all the closet scientists in ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... say what unlooked-for remark this short and silent communication, between two such singular men, might have elicited from the white man, had not his active curiosity been again drawn to other objects. A general movement among the domestics, and a low sound of gentle voices, announced the approach of those ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... years ago by order and command of the most Christian king of France. [Footnote: The names Verrazzana and Verrazzano in this legend are WRITTEN on the photograph by hand, with a double z, though M. Thomassey uses only the single z, which is adopted on our copy. It would be a singular circumstance, leading to some speculation, if they should really be spelt with the two z's on the original. Hieronimo, if he were the brother of Giovanni, would hardly have written his own name, as it is inscribed on the map, with one z, and ...
— The Voyage of Verrazzano • Henry C. Murphy
... the wind shaking the houses with violent gusts; the sea thundering along the beach. But in the morning, when Brighton awoke, it found that the worst of the storm had passed over, leaving only a disturbed and dangerous look about the elements, and also a singular clearness in the air, so that the low hard colours of water and land and sky were strangely intense and vivid. Near the shore the sea had been beaten into a muddy brown; then that melted into a cold green farther out; and that again deepened and deepened until it was lost ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... is usually formed by adding the syllable "wog" to the singular; if the word ends in a vowel, only the letter "g" is added; and sometimes the syllables "yog," ...
— History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan • Andrew J. Blackbird
... wide as "Snarley Bob," head shepherd to Sam Perryman of the Upper Farm. I say, the first; for it was he who had the pre-eminence, both as to intelligence and the tragic antagonisms of his life. The man had many singularities, singular at least in shepherds. Perhaps the chief of these was the violence of the affinities and repulsions that broke forth from him towards every personality with whom he came into any, even the slightest, contact. Snarley invariably loved ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... wobbled past apricot hedges and detached houses and huts, and got into an open country without a tree, but here and there a stunted camel-thorn. The soil was arid, and grew little food for man or beast; yet, by a singular freak of nature, it put forth abundantly things that here at home we find it harder to raise than homely grass and oats; the ground was thickly clad with flowers of delightful hues; pyramids of snow or rose-color ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... their very fans. Those vast fortunes, however, seem to change hands very rapidly. And Antony's new manner? I am unable even to divine it—to conceive the trick and effect of it—at all. Only, something of lightness and coquetry I discern there, at variance, methinks, with his own singular gravity and even sadness of mien and mind, more answerable to the stately apparelling of the age of Henry the Fourth, or of Lewis the Thirteenth, in these old, sombre ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... those dramatic moments for which my friend existed. It would be an overstatement to say that he was shocked or even excited by the amazing announcement. Without having a tinge of cruelty in his singular composition, he was undoubtedly callous from long over-stimulation. Yet, if his emotions were dulled, his intellectual perceptions were exceedingly active. There was no trace then of the horror which I had myself felt at this curt declaration; ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to the cabin the railroad president almost forgot his nephew from interest in his surroundings. Across the front of the building was a sign reading: "Headquarters of the Dover & Springfield Short Line Railroad." To the south there was a singular sight presented. Some twenty men and boys were working on a roadbed, which had been cut for over two miles. A telegraph wire ran from the building over the tops of trees, and Ralph was fairly astonished ...
— Ralph on the Engine - The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail • Allen Chapman
... I really do not understand the exceptional attitude people take up against the Jews. There is something very ugly about many Jewish faces, but there are Gentile faces just as coarse and gross. The Jew asserts himself in relation to his nationality with a singular tactlessness, but it is hardly for the English to blame that. Many Jews are intensely vulgar in dress and bearing, materialistic in thought, and cunning and base in method, but no more so than many Gentiles. The Jew ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... case in itself: that must everywhere be left to judgment and talent. It is therefore natural that in a business such as War, which in its plan—built upon general circumstances—is so often thwarted by unexpected and singular accidents, more must generally be left to talent; and less use can be made of a THEORETICAL GUIDE ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... the usefulest of all for us at present, was "his wonderful talent of exact memory." He could remember to a singular extent; and, we will hope, on this occasion, was unusually conscientious to do it. For it so happened, in July, 1779 (23d July), Friedrich, just home from his troublesome Bavarian War, [Had arrived at Berlin May 27th (Rodenbeck, iii. 201).] and again looking into everything ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Appendix - Frederick The Great—A Day with Friedrich.—(23d July, 1779.) • Thomas Carlyle
... really?" said I, who recollected that Miss Gam's love of those days showed itself in a very singular manner; but the fact is, when women are most in ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... man." I am not qualified to write the life of General Fremont, and can at present only make this slight reference to the details of his romantic career. That it has been full of romance, and that the man himself is endued with a singular energy, and a high, romantic idea of what may be done by power and will, there is no doubt. Five times he has crossed the Continent of North America from Missouri to Oregon and California, enduring great hardships in the service of advancing civilization and knowledge. ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... of a singular character, put an end to their friendship and to the life of Godebert. A man who was skilled in the arts of dissimulation, and who was secretly in the pay of Bertarit, persuaded Godebert that his seeming friend, ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... the Queen to send for that most incompetent and baneful statesman! We who are conversant with our own methods of politics, see nothing odd in this, because we are used to it; but surely in the eyes of strangers our practice must be very singular. There is nothing like it in any other country,—nothing as yet. Nowhere else is there the same good-humoured, affectionate, prize-fighting ferocity in politics. The leaders of our two great parties are to each other exactly as are the two champions of the ring who knock each other about ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... seculum) Sir Thomas More, the elder Wiat, Henry Earl of Surrey, Chaloner, Smith, Eliot, B. Gardiner, were for their times admirable; and the more, because they began eloquence with us. Sir Nicolas Bacon was singular, and almost alone, in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's time. Sir Philip Sidney and Mr. Hooker (in different matter) grew great masters of wit and language, and in whom all vigour of invention and strength of judgment met. The Earl of Essex, ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... stand, in Deptford Church; for Admiral John set it up there but one year after this time; and on it record how he was, "A worshipper of the true religion, an especial benefactor of poor sailors, a most just arbiter in most difficult causes, and of a singular faith, piety, and prudence." That, and the fact that he got creditably through some sharp work at Porto Rico, is all I know of William Hawkins: but if you or I, reader, can have as much or half as much ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... espouse the cause of human liberty, as the source of all moral greatness. Christianity, which has declared that all men are equal in the sight of God, will not refuse to acknowledge that all citizens are equal in the eye of the law. But, by a singular concourse of events, religion is entangled in those institutions which democracy assails, and it is not unfrequently brought to reject the equality it loves, and to curse that cause of liberty as a foe, which it might ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... whole story in detail. As he proceeded, a singular expression came into Flavia's face, and when he had finished she broke out into ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... at least had merely followed my father's conviction. In the old-fashioned spirit of that cause I might cite the career of this companion as an illustration of the efficacy of higher mathematics for women, for she possesses singular ability to convince even the densest legislators of their legal right to define their own electorate, even when they quote against her the dustiest of state ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... clothed, and, as St. Maur had truthfully prophesied, looked the very paragon of a well-dressed man. Indeed, not only was the contrast with his usual self so bewildering as to banish all sense of proportion in estimating the splendour of his transformation but the singular nobility of his face, with its wise, youthful brow and deep, thoughtful eyes, also added such a curious piquancy to his fashionable attire, that the general effect was little short of startling. It is always ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... the careless diffusion of an artificial system of education, based none too firmly on mere intellectualism, and bereft of all moral or religious sanction; the application of Western theories of administration and of jurisprudence to a social formation stratified on lines of singular rigidity; the play of modern economic forces upon primitive conditions of industry and trade; the constant and unconscious but inevitable friction between subject races and their alien rulers; the reverberation of ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... This passage is a singular proof of that fatality by which the advocates of error furnish weapons for their own destruction: while it is merely assertion in respect to a justification of your aversion to Republicanism, a strong argument may be drawn from it in its favour. Mr. Burke, in a philosophic lamentation ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... agreed, that Germanicus possessed all the noblest endowments of body and mind in a higher degree than had ever before fallen to the lot of any man; a handsome person, extraordinary courage, great proficiency in eloquence and other branches of learning, both Greek and Roman; besides a singular humanity, and a behaviour so engaging, as to captivate the affections of all about him. The slenderness of his legs did not correspond with the symmetry and beauty of his person in other respects; but this defect was at length corrected by his habit of riding after meals. ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... me to be very singular indeed, that any man can hold that the territory of this country belongs to a portion of the people, and that the people of one portion of the Union can go there and enjoy their property, when the people of another portion cannot ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... bear this terrible aspect; and, when grown white through age, become awful and conspicuous by such marks, both to the enemy and their own countrymen. By them in all engagements the first assault is made: of them the front of the battle is always composed, as men who in their looks are singular and tremendous. For even during peace they abate nothing in the grimness and horror of their countenance. They have no house to inhabit, no land to cultivate, nor any domestic charge or care. With whomsoever they come to sojourn, by him they ...
— Tacitus on Germany • Tacitus
... I, the rightful owner, should stand ringing for admission like a stranger, and more singular still it seemed at the time, that I should for long years have been a wanderer away from the home of my fathers. And I stood there as a culprit. I was about to enter my home, only to come out a prisoner, a man accused of an awful crime. ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... there are specimens of seven different kinds of copper on it; and on this one, fragments of four kinds of lead. In the argentiferous galena is a very considerable proportion of silver. Here is a piece of a mineral called molybdena of singular beauty, I found it at Gaberous Bay, in Cape Breton. The iron ores you see are of great variety. The coal-fields of this colony are immense in extent, and incalculable in value. All this case is filled with their several varieties. These precious stones ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... in the Doctor's house. Jean-Marie did his horse and carriage duty in the morning; sometimes helped in the housework; sometimes walked abroad with the Doctor, to drink wisdom from the fountainhead; and was introduced at night to the sciences and the dead tongues. He retained his singular placidity of mind and manner; he was rarely in fault; but he made only a very partial progress in his studies, and remained much of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... considering the consequences had long since gained him the name of "Touch-and-Go Steve"; Owen Hastings, a cousin to Max, and who, being a great reader, knew more or less about the theory of things; and last, but not least, a boy who went by the singular name ...
— With Trapper Jim in the North Woods • Lawrence J. Leslie
... And whenas the guest had taken his rest he said to his host, "O Mubarak, my tarrying with thee hath been long; whereto said the other, "Thou wottest, O my lord, that the matter whereinto thou comest to enquire is singular-rare, but that it also involveth risk of death, and I know not if thy valour can make the attainment thereto possible to thee." Rejoined Zayn al-Asnam, "Know, O Mubarak, that opulence is gained only by blood; nor cometh aught ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... in the solid rock, which leads up from the southern terrace to the upper one, at a point intervening between the south-western edifice, or palace of Artaxerxes, and the palace of Xerxes, or central southern edifice. These steps are singular in facing the terrace to which they lead, instead of being placed sideways to it. They are of rude construction, being without a parapet, and wholly devoid of sculpture or other ornamentation. They furnish the only communication between the ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... as ever, small hands beating enthusiastically to indicate joy. Thank God that's over with, he thought. Now for those drinks—and he didn't mean drink, singular. Talk of being useful, he'd certainly been useful now. He'd made those kids happy. What more can ...
— The Hunters • William Morrison
... in the back by his neighbor's oar, which produced a great deal of swearing and wrangling among them. They made but slow progress through the water, and the Zephyrs could scarcely refrain from laughing at the singular spectacle. ...
— The Boat Club - or, The Bunkers of Rippleton • Oliver Optic
... individual, specific, proper, personal, original, private, respective, definite, determinate, especial, certain, esoteric, endemic, partial, party, peculiar, appropriate, several, characteristic, diagnostic, exclusive; singular &c. (exceptional) 83; idiomatic; idiotypical; typical. this, that; yon, yonder. Adv. specially, especially, particularly &c. adj.; in particular, in propria persona[Lat]; ad hominem[Lat]; for my part. each, apiece, one by one, one at a time; severally, respectively, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... who discover that they live near each other and that they ought to have known each other before. But there was a sort of unexpected frankness and simplicity in the girl's amusing manner which would have struck anyone else as being singular, to say the least of it. To me, however, it all seemed natural enough. I had dreamed of her face too long not to be utterly happy when I met her at last and could talk to her as much as I pleased. To me, the man of ill luck in everything, ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... before Cleer and Eustace could manage to get married. Trevennack, however, with unvarying tenderness, did his best in every way to calm her fears. Though no word on the subject passed between them directly, he let her feel with singular tact that he meant to keep himself under proper control. Whenever a dangerous topic cropped up in conversation, he would look across at her affectionately, with a reassuring smile. "For Cleer's sake," ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen
... care to linger in Poona. The atmosphere always had to me a certain tang of the assassinations, the intrigues, the treacheries which marked the reign of that singular line of usurping ministers whose capital was here. In the days when the Peishwas were in the height of their glory Poona was a city of a hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, and great traffic was here carried on ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... be, our litterary Prejudices have, in this Age, been rapidly giving way to Candour, Reason, Common-Sense, and the Evidence of Fact. We have long known that a Scotch Plough-Boy and a Milk-Woman[7] could still be Poets of high and almost singular Excellence. And if Improbability were any thing against Fact, it would be far more improbable, that two Brothers should be such Poets as ROBERT and NATHANIEL BLOOMFIELD are, than that a Taylor should be a Poet. It remains then for Prejudice to ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield
... named. And it is not only in civilized life and in Christendom that woman has shown herself wise in governing; even among the wildest savage tribes they have appeared, occasionally, as leaders and rulers. This is a singular fact. It may be proved from the history of this continent, and not only from the early records of Mexico and Cuba and Hayti, but also from the reports of the earliest navigators on our own coast, who here and there make mention incidentally of this or ...
— Female Suffrage • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... consciousness that he had heard something like this eight years before, and that much of it had come true, as he again sympathetically responded. Neither was his attention attracted by a singular similarity which the attitude of the group of ladies on the other side of the parlor bore to that of his own party. They were clustered around one of their own number—a striking-looking girl—who was apparently receiving their mingled flatteries and caresses with a youthful yet critical ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... Ireland, and is said to have passed over to Iona to join the community there, in which his virtues and talents placed him high in the estimation of the monks. He was characterised by a special devotion to the Mother of God, which won for him a singular purity of soul. He was made tutor to the three sons of Eugenius IV, King of Scotland, and brought them up carefully and wisely. Later on he became a Bishop. St. Conan was greatly honoured in Scotland. His name survives at Kilconan, in Fortingal, Perthshire, and at St. Conan's Well, near Dalmally, ...
— A Calendar of Scottish Saints • Michael Barrett
... that it had alighted on the head of each in the form of tongues of fire. The idea that the Spirit had alighted on them in the form of jets of flame, resembling tongues of fire, gave rise to a series of singular ideas, which took a foremost place in the thought ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... translation of a piece of poetry. It is simply part of a public oration by Francois Fanchon, one of the most illustrious chancellors of the faculty of medicine of Montpellier in the seventeenth century." "From time immemorial," he says, "'the faculty' of Montpellier had made itself remarkable by a singular mixture of the sacred and the profane. The theses which were sustained there began by an invocation to God, the Blessed Virgin, and St. Luke, and ended by these words: 'This thesis will be sustained in the sacred Temple ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... foster-mother in her old age, to educate the children of his first teacher, and to help various deserving students during their college career. His cheerful conversation, his smart and lively sallies, a singular mixture of malice of speech with goodness of heart, and of delicacy of wit with simplicity of manners, rendered him a pleasing and interesting companion; and if his manner was sometimes plain almost to the extent of rudeness, it probably set all the better ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... A singular habit which I have noticed in several individuals of this species (M. sulphurea) has amused me exceedingly. They were in the habit of looking at their own images in the windows and attacking them, uttering their peculiar cry, and pecking and fluttering against the glass as ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... to raise money by his own royal prerogatives and powers, the king called a new Parliament, taking some singular precautions to keep out of it such persons as he thought would oppose his plans. The Earl of Bristol, whom Buckingham had been so jealous of, considering him as his rival, was an influential member ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... it in his biography. In the perplexing tangle of the diplomacy of the darker days of our civil war, many strange stories must have passed unrecorded, but surely none of those remembered and written were more singular than the occurrences which disturbed the quiet of my uneventful official life in the ...
— A Diplomatic Adventure • S. Weir Mitchell
... finished sketch. With a childish directness, yet a singular effect of direct observation, Zani had drawn a vehicle. It did not have wheels. It rested on what looked like two short, ...
— Long Ago, Far Away • William Fitzgerald Jenkins AKA Murray Leinster
... science and theology, the venerable American diplomat and educator, Dr. Andrew D. White, is thought of as a foe to religion. No one who reads his biography can have that impression half an hour. Near the close of it is a paragraph of singular insight and authority which fits just this connection: "It will, in my opinion, be a sad day for this or for any people when there shall have come in them an atrophy of the religious nature; when they shall have suppressed the need of communication, no matter how vague, with ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee
... he might call upon the Vicomtesse, his rapture at so soon obtaining the ardently longed-for good fortune was mingled with singular embarrassment. How was he to contrive a suitable sequel to ...
— The Deserted Woman • Honore de Balzac
... the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences, that the maps unduly extended the Continents of Europe, Africa, and America, and narrowed the Pacific Ocean between Asia and Europe. These errors had caused singular mistakes. During M. de Chaumont's voyage, when he went as Louis XIV.'s ambassador to Siam, the pilots, trusting to their charts, were mistaken in their calculations, and both in going and in returning went a good deal further than they imagined. In proceeding ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... lawyer's mind felt easier when he had dispatched this letter. He could not conceive any reason why his friend's life should be aimed at; he knew Darsie had done nothing by which his liberty could be legally affected; and although, even of late years, there had been singular histories of men, and women also, who had been trepanned, and concealed in solitudes and distant islands in order to serve some temporary purpose, such violences had been chiefly practised by the rich on the poor, and by the ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... "In singular contrast to Mr. Motley's brilliant career as an historian stands the fact recorded in our diplomatic annals that he was twice forced from the service as one who had forfeited the confidence of the American government. This society, while ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... the safe and took out a package of banknotes. "Don't believe I've been robbed. Rather singular, too," he went on, counting the money. "Two hundred, you said. Better take two-fifty—you need some clothes. Pardon me for being so keen an observer. It really escaped my notice until this moment. But ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... more lofty undertakings, which excite and engross their minds. Hence it is that, in the midst of physical gratifications, the members of an aristocracy often display a haughty contempt of these very enjoyments, and exhibit singular powers of endurance under the privation of them. All the revolutions which have ever shaken or destroyed aristocracies, have shown how easily men accustomed to superfluous luxuries can do without the necessaries of life; whereas ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... barristers at the Irish Bar who formed a singular contrast in their stature—Ninian Mahaffy was as much above the middle size as Mr. Collis was below it. When Lord Redsdale was Lord Chancellor of Ireland these two gentlemen chanced to be retained ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... the acts of the holy martyrs.{HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} But, according to an ancient custom and singular caution, they are not to be read in the holy Roman Church, because the names of those who wrote them ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... other than a police sergeant or detective should interpose between the grim tragedy of 27th Street and the even more poignant horror which was fated to descend on some house in 59th Street. Apparently, fate had decreed that he should be the messenger charged with this sad errand, and, with a singular disregard of ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... Progressives in the House of Assembly, it was discussed in all its details, and it was proved that the South African League, in trying throughout the country to obtain signatures to a monster petition on the matter, had resorted to some more than singular means to obtain these signatures. Mr. Sauer, who was the leader of the Bond party in the Chamber, revealed how the League had employed agents to induce women and sometimes young children to sign the petition, and that ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... considerable store by the exact chronology of the Bible, stopping continually to enumerate the number of years that had passed from the Creation to some other point of reckoning. His habit in this respect is marred by a singular inaccuracy in dealing with dates and figures, varying as he often does from chapter to chapter, sometimes from paragraph to paragraph, according to the source he happens to be following. He gives the year of the flood as 2656, ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... representing the illustrious house of the Labdacidae, about the time when his wife, Jocasta, promised to present him with a child, had learned from various prophetic voices that this unborn child was destined to be his murderer. It is singular that in all such cases, which are many, spread through classical literature, the parties menaced by fate believe the menace; else why do they seek to evade it? and yet believe it not; else why do they fancy themselves able to evade it? This fatal child, who was the oedipus of tragedy, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... one particularly I would present to your majesty; it is a very precious book, and worthy of being laid up carefully in your treasury." "What is it," demanded the king, "that makes it so valuable?" "Sir," replied the physician, "it possesses many singular and curious properties; of which the chief is, that if your majesty will give yourself the trouble to open it at the sixth leaf, and read the third line of the left page, my head, after being cut off, will answer all the questions you ask it." The king being curious, deferred his ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.
... mistake this fungus. Its surface looks as if covered with varnish, rather wrinkled, a bright dark-red color, and its shape is varied and singular. We have seen it sometimes shaped like a fan, and like a lady's high comb, or in some fantastic form. Stevenson says it is a light yellow color and then becomes blood red chestnut. It is first corky, then woody. Stem lateral, equal, varnished, ...
— Among the Mushrooms - A Guide For Beginners • Ellen M. Dallas and Caroline A. Burgin
... Cardinal of York to show that in his day the word "newes" was considered plural. MR. HICKSON quotes me to show that in the present day it is used in the singular; therefore, he thinks that the Cardinal of York was wrong: but he must pardon me if I still consider the Cardinal an unexceptional authority as to the usage ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 39. Saturday, July 27, 1850 • Various
... unmistakable accord between him and her, the fellowship of a pair who, in different ways and in different stations, had yet fought and suffered and endured for what they judged their duty. Forty- two years old! Singular coincidence, in itself almost a bond between them, that he, too, was of an identical age. Forty-two! Why, it was called the prime of life. He inhaled a deep breath of air; it was the prime of life; until then no one had really begun ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... near-sightedness still wrinkling his forehead. Though he was not beautiful, he showed already the promise of character in his face, and his personality, which was remarkably developed for a child of his age, possessed a singular charm. He was the kind of child people describe as "unlike other children." His temperament was made up of surprises, and this quality of unexpectedness inspired in his mother a devotion that was almost tragic in its intensity. Never had she loved ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... singular phenomenon ever seen among all the meteors fatal to the Christian religion, worked his whole life secretly in order to attack the opinions he believed false. To compose his manuscript against God, against all religion, against ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... resembling fans, rings, spindles, keyholes; others like animals—a fish, a crab, an owl, and so on; but these suggestions are imaginative, and have nothing to do with the real problem. In The System of the Stars Miss Clerke says: 'In regarding these singular structures we seem to see surges and spray-flakes of a nebulous ocean, bewitched into sudden immobility; or a rack of tempest-driven clouds hanging in the sky, momentarily awaiting the transforming violence of a fresh onset. Sometimes ...
— The Children's Book of Stars • G.E. Mitton
... even an unlimited diet of this luscious fruit would hardly reconcile the average person to a perpetual steam bath, and to an intensely enervating atmosphere. Nature must have been in a sportive mood when she evolved the durian. This singular Malay fruit smells like all the concentrated drains of a town seasoned with onions. One single durian can poison out a ship with its hideous odour, yet those able to overcome its revolting smell declare the flavour of the ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... minutes both were roped and ready to mount. It was hard work, and several times they had to use the rope to prevent their being torn from their hold. But at last they reached the top, and fastened themselves securely there. The scene was a singular one. Overhead was a cloudless sky, somewhat paler in tint than it had been before the squall burst. Below was a white mass of foam, which, from the height on which they stood, seemed almost pressed level by the force of the wind. On deck they had been drenched with ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... the Singular Character of the Application made by General Roger Potter for an Office, and how he is sent Minister to the King of the Kaloramas, that being the Easiest Method of Getting ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... cavalierly on his way in his sausage-meat-complexioned-jacket, there is something marked as well in his character as his habits, he is never moved to stay, except by a brother butcher, or a fight of dogs or boys, for such scenes fit his singular fancy. Then, in the discussion of his bull-dog's beauties, he becomes extraordinarily eloquent. Hatiz, the Persian, could not more warmly, or with choicer figure, describe his mistress' charms, than he does Lion's, or Fowler's, or whatever the brute's ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 267, August 4, 1827 • Various
... superstitious have filled the breasts of the two men who had ceased hunting for gold, for a few minutes, to view the singular apparition; for such a thing had scarcely been dreamed of at that day, by the most imaginative philosophers; much less had it ever entered the head of these two ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis
... Gresset first appeared anonymously. This circumstance gave rise to a singular scene, which the author used to relate with a smile. I will here myself repeat the principal traits of it, if it be only to deter writers, whoever they may be, from launching their works into the world without ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... marked by many inconsistencies, as consistency is measured by the party standard, with a disposition not given to close intimacies or warm friendships, Mr. Raymond had continuously upheld the public course of Mr. Seward, and had maintained a singular steadiness of personal attachment to the illustrious statesman from New York. On the other hand, he was the rival of Horace Greeley in the field of journalism and had become personally estranged ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... indeed a singular accident that the empress unintentionally should have sent back her discharged favorite to the only woman whom he had ever loved. He was sent as ambassador extraordinary to Berlin, to press more ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... reason of the foul weather the pirate could not board Smith, and his master, mate, and pilot, Chambers, Minter, and Digby, importuned him to surrender, and that he should send a boat to the pirate, as Fry had no boat. This singular proposal Smith accepted on condition Fry would not take anything that would cripple his voyage, or send more men aboard (Smith furnishing the boat) than he allowed. Baker confessed that the quartermaster and Chambers received gold of the pirates, for what purpose it does not appear. They came ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... embarrassment and ruin. A Southerner to his friend, never says no. He promptly and cheerfully complies with his request, and, truly, the giver, if not more "blessed," appears to be more happy than the receiver. Whatever they do, they seem to do it cheerfully. They act as if they esteemed it a singular favor, to have it in their power to relieve a friend. A Southern man will part with his last dime to aid a friend, though, he may be forced, in less than twenty four hours, to borrow money himself. I long lived among them, embarrassed ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... Spanish capacity for resistance was destroyed by Admiral Dewey's victory of the 1st of May, was formally sealed. To General Merrill, his officers and men, for their uncomplaining and devoted service and for their gallantry in action, the nation is sincerely grateful. Their long voyage was made with singular success, and the soldierly conduct of the men, most of whom were without previous experience in the military service, deserves ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... there would be no fresh-air fiends. A single window may make or mar a whole household. Used occasionally by burglars, small boys and lovers, the singular power of the window to control our destiny has not hitherto been recognized. Without windows there would be no ghost stories, for how could the rain beat on the pane, or the wind come in short gusts through ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... arrival of Mr. Armstrong with his companions, they found the room only partly occupied, nor had the exercises commenced. According to a custom which would have struck a stranger as singular, but which, doubtless, was founded in a knowledge of the nature of young men and young women, the males were seated on one side of the passage, and the females on the other. The separation, as might be expected, only partly answered ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... secret and singular one. Franklin managed throughout his residence in France to maintain a constant communication with the opposition party in England. He now thought it wise to enable them to obtain full information from an intelligent ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... the prison; that they were planning to kill the warden. I made light of the idea as something of his own conjuring up, that the prisoners would not undertake such a matter. Finally he said, "Mark my words, Chaplain, there will be blood shed over there within a month." This man was a singular genius, and I thought he might wish to start such a story to nettle the warden. Besides, they were as vigilant as possible at the prison, and the inmates would find them alert, should they attempt to rise. From all considerations, I thought it not ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... most singular, and necessity the most unavoidable," he answered, "should alone have ever tempted me to form it. No longer ago than yesterday morning, I believed myself incapable of even wishing it; but extraordinary situations ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... immediately inspired by God, and by His singular care and providence kept pure in all ages.... in all controversies of religion the Church is finally to appeal ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... uttered in a far from sober state. One proof especially, if not transcendent, Yet tells most heavily against defendant: It has been clearly proved that after dinner To his and Lind's joint chamber he withdrew, And there displayed such singular ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen
... name of Wood was now famous in every home of the revolting States. It was said that he could neither read nor write, but his genius flamed up at the coming of war as certainly as tow blazes at the touch of fire. Therefore, Helen looked after this singular man with the ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... singular succession worked out by the fiction of kinship is to be found in the story of Burnt Njal, an Icelandic saga, which gives us a living picture of a society hardly more advanced than the Salian Franks, as we see them in the Lex Salica. A lawsuit was to be transferred ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... suddenly subdued the careless insolence of the marauder; his little gray eyes experienced a singular restlessness. ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... on, I began to think we had passed the place; and, as is often the case in similar circumstances, opinions were divided. A fox, which appeared within gunshot, interrupted our discussion. I fired, and the animal fell. It was a magnificent specimen, and exactly like its European confrere. By a singular chance, at the very moment it was expiring, a crow just above our heads uttered a ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... a fox to a crane, "That face, ma'am of yours is remarkably plain; That beak that you wear is so frightful a feature, It makes you appear a most singular creature." The crane, much offended at what she had heard, March'd off at full speed, without saying a word: "Oh dear!" said the fox, "Mrs. Crane, I protest You misunderstand me, 'twas only a jest." "Come, don't be affronted—stay ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park
... could marry him, and be done with it! I can't seem to face staying on here with no one but her in the house, nagging at us all the day. I'll have to make another move!" she proclaimed dismally. In Mary's converse the singular pronoun, when masculine, always applied to her friend; when feminine, to her mistress. Cornelia had grasped this fact, and had therefore no difficulty in understanding her meaning. She sat down in a chair by the window, and stared at the maid ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... throwing some light on what is not so good in the publicata. There can be no doubt that Beyle occupies a very important position in the history of the novel, and not of the French novel only, as the first, or almost the first, analyst of the ugly for fictitious purposes, and as showing singular power in his analysis. Unfortunately his synthetic gifts were not equally great. He had strange difficulty in making his stories march; he only now and then got them to run; and though the real life of his characters ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... man turned without a word and walked back to the taxicab, the occupants of which had watched this singular duel of looks in silence. In the act of getting into the machine he face about again and said, with a lift of the lip that showed two long, protruding canine teeth of an almost ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... is very singular that they, in their account of the brush, should italicize the word wooden, as much as to say ...
— Reminiscences of Two Years in the United States Navy • John M. Batten
... would try to get it out of the country. He had always hated the government and had got himself into trouble by attacking the monarchy. Besides, it was known in high quarters that Senator Baron Volterra held singular views about the authenticity of works of art. It would be inconvenient to have a scandal in the Senate about the Velasquez and the other pictures; on the other hand, if anything more of the same sort should happen, it would be very convenient indeed to catch a pair of culprits in the shape of ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... this time is a singular one: an agent of the National Assembly, protecting the king from the Jacobins, and saying to Robespierre and Marat, "If you kill the king to-day, I will place the ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele
... distractedly, entreated the divine support, and rose once more with a heart, the fibres of which were pulled asunder, as it were, between husband and son, each of whose lips she kissed, having wiped the blood from those of her husband, with a singular blending together of tenderness, distraction and despair. She went from the one to the other, wringing her hands in dry agony, feeling for life in their hearts and pulses, and kissing their lips with an expression of hopelessness ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... Societies. The fact is singular, that the operation of these is the first great exemplification made in the last times, as it is among the highest applications, of the principle of co-operation on the part of many for good. It shows that God in his providence, in a wondrous manner, leads men to do ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham
... in luck's way, "as usual," said the poor fellow, thinking of his own misfortunes, and that she would greatly increase her income by the sale. Indeed, it seemed to her that she would regain pretty nearly all she had lost by the loan to Rubb and Mackenzie. "How very singular," thought she to herself. Under these circumstances, it might, after all, be possible that she should marry Mr Maguire, if she ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... stand being proper and respectable, which is what you'll have to be as long as you're Mrs. Robert Lucy? It's a stiffish job, my child, for you to tackle. Just think of the practical difficulties. I've accounted for the sudden, very singular collapse of your income, but there are all sorts of things that you won't be able to account for. The disappearance, for instance, of the entire circle ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair
... The singular inappropriateness of this answer occasioned a general roar of laughter, and she looked in perplexity. Every one whom she asked why they laughed replied by saying, 'Ask Marianne Weston;' and at length, after much puzzling and guessing, and being more laughed ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... excellent representation I see before me in the photograph. Now when a man has six friends, to introduce a seventh is usually hopeless. Yet when you were presented, you took to them and they to you upon the nail. You must have been a fine fellow; but what a singular fortune I must have had in my six friends that you should take to all. I don't know if it is good Latin, most probably not: but this is enscrolled before my eye for Walter: TANDEM E NUBIBUS IN APRICUM PROPERAT. Rest, I suppose, I know, was all that remained; but O to look back, ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson |
