"Curiously" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the River was also a meadow, curiously beautified with lilies, and it was green ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... desert. Onward, past the breathless sands of the Libyan Desert, past the hundred-gated Thebes, past the stone guardians of Abou-Simbel, waiting in majestic patience for their spell of silence to be broken,—onward. It struck me curiously to come to the cataract, and be obliged to leave my boat at the foot of the first fall, and hire another above the second,—a forcible reminder that I was travelling backwards, from the circumference ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... engaged in some game (he does not say what game) of cards. The professor lost the first game, which resulted in doubling the money that both Mr. and Mrs. Potts had laid on the table. The second game was lost by Mrs. Potts, which doubled the money then held by her husband and the professor. Curiously enough, the third game was lost by Mr. Potts, and had the effect of doubling the money then held by his wife and the professor. It was then found that each person had exactly the same money, but the professor had lost five shillings in the ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... prove itself to patriots something as lovable as their native land. In many other matters indeed, besides this popular art, we may find examples of the same illogical prejudice. Nothing betrays more curiously the bias of historians against the Christian faith than the fact that they blame in Christians the very human indulgences that they have praised in heathens. The same arts and allegories, the same phraseologies and philosophies, which appear first ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... There was no station near. The track, which was marked by cinders and stains on the snow, ran along a desolate mountainside. Dark pines that looked as if they had been dusted with icing-sugar rolled in curiously rigid ranks up the slope, getting smaller until they dwindled to a fine saw-edge that bit into a vast sweep of white. This ended in a row of jagged peaks whose summits gleamed with dazzling brightness against the blue sky. Below the track, the ground fell away to a tremendous gorge, ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... took heed, thought while she drank, and did not go beyond what she could carry. Little time such an appropriation required. Noiselessly she set the bottle down, darted into a closet containing a solitary calf, and there stood looking from the open window in right innocent fashion, curiously contemplating the raft attached to it, upon which she had seen the highland woman arrive with ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... marriage tie is so long as it lasts, the law which cuts it is curiously facile, or rather there is no law: a man may turn his wife out of doors, as it may suit his fancy. An example of this practice was shown in the story of "The Forty-seven Ronins." A husband has but to report the matter to his lord, ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... as a unit, and unanimity was as imperative as in an English jury, so that one tribe could block the proceedings. The confederacy had no head-sachem, or civil chief-magistrate; but a military commander was indispensable, and, curiously enough, without being taught by the experience of a Tarquin, the Iroquois made this a dual office, like the Roman consulship. There were two permanent chieftainships, one in the Wolf, the other in the Turtle clan, and both in the Seneca tribe, because the western ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... most of the day. With a sigh he replaced his book in the hole, which he cunningly masked with a lump of hard clay, and, feeling stiff and cold, ran, childlike, homeward. In the silence of the night he took out his cornelian heart and fondled it. The day had been curiously like, yet utterly unlike, the day on which she had taken it from her neck. In a dim fashion he knew that the two days were of infinite significance in his life and were complementary. He had been waiting, as it were, for nine months for this ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... officer who had fallen in the American war, and the reason of her lack of interest was partly owing to her relations with this husband, of which more anon. It was little beyond the sheer desire for something to do—the chronic desire of her curiously lonely life—that had brought her here now. She was in a mood to welcome anything that would in some measure disperse an almost killing ennui. She would have welcomed even a misfortune. She had heard that from the summit of the pillar four ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... dark, that he was very tired, and that he wanted to sleep, and so he slept. Then again that it was very light, very warm, and that something seemed to be the matter with his berth, for he was thinking more clearly now. He knew he was lying on his back in his berth, and curiously enough he knew that it was not his berth, and while he was wondering why this was, something tickled ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... these, on the north side, separated by a small interval, and raised on a stone base, rose a gypsum throne with a high back, and originally covered with decorative designs. Its lower part was adorned with a curiously carved arch, with crocketed mouldings, showing an extraordinary anticipation of some most characteristic features of Gothic architecture. Opposite the throne was a finely wrought tank of gypsum slabs—a feature borrowed ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie
... then. He might have guessed as much. And why should she ever know, after all? His native honesty prompted him to make a clean breast of it, and ask her forgiveness. But something stronger,—a new imperative desire to stand well with her at any price,—held him silent. Presently, she glanced up at him curiously; but his straight-featured profile and steady hands upon the reins revealed nothing beyond ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... of the harbor of Tay Tay we visited a small volcanic island of curiously weathered and water-worn limestone. Except for a narrow beach the sides of this island are almost perpendicular, and the cliffs are honeycombed with dozens of water-worn caves. Many of these caves are of great beauty, resembling the interiors of stone churches; some extend ...
— Wanderings in the Orient • Albert M. Reese
... and rang upon the floor. Cold steel drawn in the rooms of the Give and Take Association! Such a thing had never happened before. Every one stood motionless for a minute. Andy Geoghan kicked the stiletto with the toe of his shoe curiously, like an antiquarian who has come upon some ancient weapon unknown to ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... delicate audience I have seen in any provincial place is Canterbury. The audience with the greatest sense of humour certainly is Dover. The people in the stalls set the example of laughing, in the most curiously unreserved way; and they really laughed when Squeers read the boys' letters, with such cordial enjoyment, that the contagion extended to me, for one couldn't hear ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... of the third kind I mentioned—the Fantail. It is, you see, a small bird, with exceedingly small legs and a very small beak. It is most curiously distinguished by the size and extent of its tail, which, instead of containing twelve feathers, may have many more,—say thirty, or even more—I believe there are some with as many as forty-two. This bird has a curious habit of spreading out ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... that had come to him. He extended the fire into a large circle. Inside this circle he crouched, his sleeping outfit under him as a protection against the melting snow. When he had thus disappeared within his shelter of flame, the whole pack came curiously to the rim of the fire to see what had become of him. Hitherto they had been denied access to the fire, and they now settled down in a close-drawn circle, like so many dogs, blinking and yawning and stretching their lean bodies ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... insecurity concerning one's possessions in the Neversink, which the things just narrated begat in the minds of honest men, was curiously exemplified in the case of my poor friend Lemsford, a gentlemanly young member of the After-Guard. I had very early made the acquaintance of Lemsford. It is curious, how unerringly a man pitches upon a spirit, any way akin to his own, even in ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... appear to be the only perfect drama or opera which the world has ever seen. To show the real value of these criticisms, we may mention the fact, that in an elaborate article of a journal now before us, in which many of the pieces of this opera are enumerated and highly commended, the writer has curiously enough passed by in silence two airs, of which Dr Burney observes that they contain not a single passage which the best composers of his time, if it presented itself to their imagination, would reject; and on one of which he also remarks, that it is "one of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... to walk by a way that he knew well, and which had for him now a romantically pathetic interest. It was, of course, the way past the Desmond cottage, which, when he came in sight of it round the shoulder of upland where it stood, was curiously strange, curiously familiar. It needed painting badly, and the grounds had a sadly neglected air. The naked legs of little girls no longer twinkled over the lawn, which was grown neglectedly up ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... decayed matter mixed up with it. In the centre of this, and underneath it, ran a broad, deep, and rapid stream. As the guides proceeded across, the men stole after them with cautious footsteps. As they arrived near the centre we began to see this unstable grassy bridge, so curiously provided by nature for us, move up and down in heavy languid undulations, like the swell of the sea after a storm. Where the two asses of the Expedition moved, the grassy waves rose a foot high; but suddenly one unfortunate ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... curiously, "If you wanted to use throwing knives, why didn't you challenge him to a ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... mentioning as an instance of how utterly untrustworthy James is in dealing with American affairs, that he says (p. 476) the Constitution had now "what the Americans would call a bad crew," whereas, in her previous battles, all her men had been "picked." Curiously enough, this is the exact reverse of the truth. In no case was an American ship manned with a "picked" crew, but the nearest approach to such was the crew the Constitution carried in this and the next cruise, when "she probably possessed as fine a crew as ever ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... the elevator the two visitors watched the white-suited boy curiously and when they alighted in the large, sun-flooded room at the top of the factory they were still speculating as to his age and how much he earned, and marveling that so young a representative should have been selected to explain to them the ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... though not a simple cry of the heart, is entirely true as a rendering of emotion which has taken imagination into its service. In like manner By the Fireside, A Serenade at the Villa, and Two in the Campagna, include certain studies of nature and its moods, sometimes with a curiously minute observation of details; and these serve as the overture to some intense moment of joy or pain, or form the orchestration which sustains or reinforces ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... mail-bags as "floating about." When one remembers the vast size of the breakers on which this floating would take place, it sounded hopeless for our letters. They turned up, however, a few days later—in a pulpy state, it is true, but quite readable, though the envelopes were curiously blended and engrafted upon the letters inside—so much so that they required to be taken together, for it was impossible to separate them. I had recourse to the expedient of spreading my letters on a dry towel and draining ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... wore a mask of black, And the doctor one of white, And the minister, with his oldest son, Was curiously bedight. ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... Northanger, though it comprised some parts of the old Abbey, turned out to be a building thoroughly modernized and improved. Notwithstanding, Catherine could not restrain her imagination from running riot just a little. A large cedar chest, curiously inlaid and provided with silver handles, first attracted her attention. But this was soon found to contain merely a white cotton counterpane. A high old-fashioned ebony cabinet, which she noticed in her bedroom just before ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... his voice seemed to startle her, but she said nothing more, only stood looking at him. The children, who had followed her, crowded round them, touching their clothes curiously. ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... speech, and rang the little bell for the waiter. As he did so, the dwarf suddenly wheeled his head round on his slender neck, and tipped his one eye curiously up at the ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... act of Congress which set apart for the use of the Philippine Islands, the revenue from a processing tax on coconut oil of Philippine production, as being in pursuance of a moral obligation to protect and promote the welfare of the people of the Islands.[300] Curiously enough, this power was first invoked to assist the United States to collect a debt due to it. In United States v. Fisher[301] the Supreme Court sustained a statute which gave the Federal Government priority in the distribution of the estates of its insolvent debtors. The debtor in that case was ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... stood a superbly-carved gilt table, oblong, and with curiously-twisted legs which bent inward and met a small central shelf half-way between the top and the floor, then spread out again into four strange claw-like vases, which bore each two golden lilies standing upright. On this stood ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... as far as I know, has not been diagnosed, invades all circles, and is, curiously enough, rampant among ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... attired, strolled into the Ajax dining room he was conscious of attracting no little attention. For one thing, few of the other guests were in evening dress, and also that article in the Post, which he had read with a curiously detached amusement, had been of a nature to excite general notice. The interview had jarred upon him in only one respect—viz., in describing him as a "typical soldier of fortune." No doubt the reporter had intended that phrase in the kindest spirit; nevertheless, ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... death, the good bishop's bones reposed beneath some gorgeous tomb, bedizened with the incongruous half-Pagan statues of the Renaissance: but this, at least, is certain, that Rondelet's disciples imagined for him a monument more enduring than of marble or of brass, more graceful and more curiously wrought than all the sculptures of Torrigiano or Cellini, Baccio Bandinelli or Michael Angelo himself. For they named a lovely little lilac snapdragon, Linaria Domini Pellicerii,—"Lord Pellicier's toad-flax;" and that ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... of which four only are churches or chaityas. The 23 other excavations compose the monasteries or viharas. Begun 100 B.C., they have remained since the tenth century of our era as we now see them. The subterranean monasteries are majestic in appearance. Sustained by superb columns with curiously sculptured capitals, they are ornamented with admirable frescoes which make us live over again the ancient Hindoo life. The paintings are unfortunately in a sad state, yet for the tourist they are an inexhaustible source of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various
... lights enchanted her, and the loveliness of the women in their fairest gowns and their jewels added one more element to that indescribable thing, compacted of so many elements,—all artificial, all curiously and brightly related,—which the civilized world calls opera, and in which man rejoices with an inconsistent and ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... the hurt, as men do, round a bad accident in the bush. They got the old man out, and two of them helped him back along the road, with great solicitude, while some walked round the van, and swore beneath their breaths, or stared at it with open mouths, or examined it curiously, with their eyes only, and in breathless silence. They muttered, and agreed, in the pale moonlight now showing, that the sounds of the horses' hoofs had only been "spirit-rappin' sounds;" and, after some more muttering, two of the stoutest, with subdued oaths, laid hold of the pole and drew the ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... of the General, not so much to show their enthusiasm as to ensure our safety (Bourrienne) These brigands became so bad in France that at one time soldiers were placed in the imperials of all the diligences, receiving from the wits the curiously anticipative name of ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... time for you to take some refreshment. I hear my old servant coming up with your breakfast." In a moment the elderly female entered with a tray, on which was some bread and butter, a teapot and cup. The cup was of common blue earthenware, but the pot was of china, curiously fashioned, and seemingly of great antiquity. The old man poured me out a cupful of tea, and then, with the assistance of the woman, raised me higher, and propped me up with pillows. I ate and drank; when the pot was emptied of its liquid (it did not contain much), I raised it up with my ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... at the time when men of fashion wore large wigs, was even at public places an act of gallantry. The combs, for this purpose, were of a very large size, of ivory or tortoise-shell, curiously chased and ornamented, and were carried in the pocket as constantly as the snuff-box. At Court, on the Mall, and in the boxes, gentlemen conversed and combed their perukes "(Sir John Hawkins' "Hist, of Music," vol. iv. p. 447, note). Cf. Dryden's ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... was speaking, he had stood with his back towards her, his arms folded across his breast to keep down his choler; biting his lips and staring at the blank wall; but the moment she had ceased, he abruptly turned round, and, curiously enough, asked the magistrate whether ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... Virginie, and Pierrette—raised their hands and waved them frantically in the air, but, curiously enough, the Abbe did not seem to see them. Instead his glance fell upon Pierre, who was gazing thoughtfully at the vaulted ceiling and hoping with all his heart that the Abbe would not call upon him. "Pierre!" he said, and any one ...
— The French Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... hammered stakes into the ground on which to hang a kettle. Before a large cabin a fur-trader was exhibiting his wares to three Indians. A second redskin was carrying a pack of pelts from a canoe drawn up on the river bank. A small group of persons stood near; some were indifferent, and others gazed curiously at the savages. Two children peeped from behind their mother's skirts as if ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... back to the hotel and found the horse he had ordered at the door. He got up at once. People looked at him curiously, it was peculiar to see a man riding at night for pleasure, and, of course, it could be for no other purpose. "When will you be back, ...
— An Unpardonable Liar • Gilbert Parker
... defenses fell instantly before the golden battering-ram of Madame Berthe Louison's direct onslaught. "I was busied in the bazaars, buying jewels," he expostulated, when Jules Victor led him into Madame Louison's boudoir. Even then Major Hawke was curiously noting the dismantled condition of the reception-room, where Johnstone had at last thrown ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... his hands upon his knees, bending forward curiously. He was palpably anxious that Cairn should have confirmation of the Efreet ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... Lamarck, when he speaks of the incipient giraffe or long-necked bird as making efforts to reach up or outwards, the efforts may have been as much physiological, reflex, or instinctive as mental. A recent writer, Dr. R. T. Jackson, curiously and yet naturally enough uses the same phraseology as Lamarck when he says that the long siphon of the common clam (Mya) "was brought about by the effort to reach the surface, induced by the habit of ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... say rather Her who kindled that star. He is a man of prayer, the sort of prayer that invites miracles.' I was very silent. I knelt before the statue a little. Then I said 'Good-bye.' When I had said it I looked at two of the stars (that were not silver) curiously. Were they not Belgian officers' stars, and were they not likely to have a tragical history? 'Ask the silver star-man, please,' I said, 'to pray for God's miracle of peace. It does seem to me as if his prayers might do a lot of good. I'd give Our Lady ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... before she had become aware of his presence. She appeared to be more decently clad, a circumstance that greatly added to her charm, in his opinion. Curiously he studied her. Women represented more to Pan than to most men he had had opportunity to meet or observe. He never forgot that they belonged to the same sex as his mother. So it was natural he had compassion for this unsexed dance-hall, gambling-lure girl. She was pretty ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... and agreeably conscious of the music, he directed his gaze to the star-sprinkled vault of the night. There were people coming and going whom he knew, but he said nothing to any one—he preferred to be alone; he found his own company quite absorbing. He felt very happy, very much amused, very curiously preoccupied. The feeling was a singular one. It partook of the nature of intellectual excitement. He had a sense of having received carte blanche for the expenditure of his wits. Bernard liked to feel his intelligence at play; this is, perhaps, the highest luxury of a clever man. It ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... was gone Alan went also, noticing that the clerks, whom some rumour of these events seemed to have reached, eyed him curiously through the glass screens behind which they sat at their desks, as he thought not without regret and a kind of admiration. Even the magnificent be-medalled porter at the door emerged from the carved teak box where he dwelt and touching ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... left City Point, Early marched north from Bunker Hill, meaning to cover McCausland's retreat and to destroy Hunter, and so, curiously enough, it happened that Early's whole army actually crossed the Potomac into Maryland at Martinsburg and Shepherdstown a few hours before Crook passed over the ford at Harper's Ferry into Virginia; and, still more curiously, while, ten days before, the groundless ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... way?" she asked quickly. "You don't appear to be wildly hilarious in your pleasures." And Susan's bright eyes rested on him curiously. "But we were speaking about the count and Constance. Don't you think it would be a good match?" she continued with enthusiasm. "Alas, my titled admirer got no further than the beginning. But men are deceivers ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... Mrs. Hale was curiously amused and interested by the idea of the Thornton dinner party. She kept wondering about the details, with something of the simplicity of a little child, who wants to have all its anticipated pleasures described beforehand. But the monotonous life led by invalids often makes them like ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... the Greek classics, full of like fictions to those in Virgil? For Homer also curiously wove similar stories, and is most pleasant, yet was disagreeable to my boyish taste. In truth, the difficulty of a foreign tongue dashed as with gall all the sweetness of the Greek fable. For not one word of it did I understand, and to make me learn I ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... Richards lit another pipe, threw himself on a rocking-chair, and smoked long and thoughtfully. Then he got up and took a rapid turn or two up and down the floor. Presently he paused, and gazed curiously ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... fish, and vegetables that the country produced. The meals were served in a large hall, in which Montezuma was accustomed to eat, and the dishes quite filled the room, which was covered with mats, and kept very clean. He sat on a small cushion curiously wrought of leather.[46] He is also dressed four times every day in four different suits entirely new, which he never wears a second time. None of the caciques who enter his palace have their feet covered, and when those for whom he sends enter his presence, ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... don't mean to say," observed Trotty, looking curiously at a covered basket which she carried ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... the clearstorey, where there is moreover no window. Each bay shows in the triforium two pointed arches with a pierced quatrefoil between them, and in the clearstorey a stilted round arch, pierced and glazed, between two smaller arches of lancet form, which on the north wall are very curiously barred across at the impost level, the abaci of two shafts being ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ripon - A Short History of the Church and a Description of Its Fabric • Cecil Walter Charles Hallett
... good working order, with a balance in the bank. The inference is obvious. Would the Belfast folks have made such a fiasco of a dock? Would Englishmen have exposed themselves to the ridicule of a story which is curiously remindful of Robinson Crusoe and his big canoe? Would the Galway folks ever have built the railway they wanted so badly; or sans England and Mr. Balfour, would not the Connemara men have proceeded to starve until the end of time? A keen old railway man who ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... not aware of the laws of euphony and association by which imitation must be regulated. He was probably also the first who made a distinction between simple and compound words, a truth second only in importance to that which has just been mentioned. His great insight in one direction curiously contrasts with his blindness in another; for he appears to be wholly unaware (compare his derivation of agathos from agastos and thoos) of the difference between the root and termination. But we must recollect that he was necessarily more ignorant ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... She tranquilly ate what was left for her and was extremely polite to Counsin Monty, answering his continuous questions about the coming trip with great amiability, even enthusiasm. Miss Judy looked at her curiously. ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey
... distressed. From the admiral's ship a green rush was seen to float past, and one of those green fish which never go far from the rocks. The people in the Pinta saw a cane and a staff in the water, and took up another staff very curiously carved, and a small board, and great plenty of weeds were seen which seemed to have been recently torn from the rocks. Those of the Nina, besides similar signs of land, saw a branch of a thorn full of red berries, which seemed to have been ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... precision to the pure lines of her hip and thighs, accentuated her harsh visage, her dark neck, her marble chest, the lines of her knees and feet, the toes of which were set one over the other. Therese looked at her curiously, divining her exquisite form under the miseries of her flesh, poorly fed and badly ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... the man. On he went to the second station, Jack's (J. in the plan), and poured out a feed, and the fools of horses went in with him to the next place (A in the plan). And behold as the train swung round, the last of them came curiously too near Jack; and Jack left his feed and rushed upon this fool with a kind of outcry, and the fool fled, and Jack returned to his feed; and he and Donald ate theirs with glory, while the others were still circling round for ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... lightly on the litter to put the flock in motion, suddenly they took the drifts in those long light leaps that are nearest to flight, down and away on the slopes of Waban. Think of that to happen to a Pocket Hunter! But though he had fallen on many a wished-for hap, he was curiously inapt at getting the truth about beasts in general. He believed in the venom of toads, and charms for snake bites, and—for this I could never forgive him—had all the miner's prejudices against my friend the coyote. Thief, sneak, and son of a thief were the friendliest words he had for ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin
... are very brilliant, the picture becomes highly interesting; if her images are systematically and rightly combined, and truthfully rendered, it will become even impressive and instructive; if wittily and curiously combined, it ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... valley so far had been that of a wilderness uninhabited and unvisited. A mule deer looked curiously at Dick, then walked away a few paces and stood there. When Dick glanced back his deership was still curious and gazing. A bear crashed through a thicket, stared at the boy with red eyes, then rolled languidly away. ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... of painting, or of cutting out paper, or of carving in ivory, though in all these she excelled: her cuttings-out in paper were exquisite as the finest lace; her embroidered housewives, and her painted boxes, and her fan-mounts, and her curiously wrought ivory toys, had obtained for her the highest reputation in the convent, amongst the best judges in the world. Those only who have philosophically studied and thoroughly understand the nature of fame and vanity can justly appreciate ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... imprisonment of his friend's son by doubling his favors, for on the same day Gyges received from the king a magnificent chariot drawn by two noble brown steeds, and was begged to take back with him to Persia a curiously-wrought set of draughts, as a remembrance of Sais. The separate pieces were made of ebony and ivory, some being curiously inlaid with sentences, in hieroglyphics ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... a way of thinking aloud, and, as his thoughts always ran on the subject of his studies, the expression of them sometimes dovetailed curiously ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... wanted, ordered her coachman to drive home with all speed; who stopped not till he had arrived in a certain street not far from Lincoln's-inn-fields, where the matronly lady lived in a sumptuous dwelling, replete with damsels who wrought curiously in muslins, cambrics, and fine linen, and in every good work that industrious damsels love to be employed about, except the loom and ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... and examined it curiously. It was evidently the work of an age far remote from our own, scored over with half-obliterated characters in some Eastern tongue, perhaps no longer extant. I found that it was hollow within. A more accurate ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... which our call was paid was set down in the midst of the Pine Barren with half-obliterated roads and paths round it, suggesting that it might be visited and was inhabited. It was large and not unhandsome, though curiously dilapidated considering that people were actually living in it; certain remnants of carving on the cornices and paint on the panels bore witness to some former stage of existence less neglected and deteriorated than the present. ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... Francine alone saw the change produced upon the company by the departure of the young chief. The gentlemen gathered hastily round Madame du Gua, and during a conversation carried on in an undertone between them, they all turned several times to look curiously ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... It was curiously haggard and woe-begone; so sorrowfully changed that for an instant she almost doubted his identity. The sudden transformation added fresh questionings, and she began to ask herself thoughtfully what had brought it about. Had he recognized her and divined her intention? But if that were ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... chariots, shields, and bucklers; and the heavens could not contain the shouts and cries of so many nations putting themselves in battle array. At the same time the pomp and costly splendour of the troops were not without effect nor their use in causing alarm; but the glittering of the arms, which were curiously ornamented with gold and silver, and the colour of the Median and Scythian dresses mingled with the brightness of the brass and steel, produced a firelike and formidable appearance as the masses moved like waves and ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... Counter-Currents" was written and delivered as an Oration, a florid rhetorical composition, expressly intended to secure the attention of an audience not easy to hold as listeners. It succeeded in doing this, and also in being as curiously misunderstood and misrepresented as if it had been a political harangue. This gave it more local notoriety than it might otherwise have attained, so that, as I learn, one ingenious person made use of its title as an advertisement to a production ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... glanced curiously at the two on the bench. Soon there were few to look, then none ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... cellar and a very good cook," the Major said; "as long as he is silent he is not offensive, and he very seldom speaks. If he chooses to frequent gambling-tables, and lose his money to blacklegs, what matters to me? Don't look too curiously into any man's affairs, Pen, my boy; every fellow has some cupboard in his house, begad, which he would not like you and me to peep into. Why should we try, when the rest of the house is open to us? And a devilish good house, too, as you and I ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... her master curiously, but by no sign does he reveal that anything unusual has occurred, save that he laughs more frequently, and seems as light-hearted and high spirited ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... was plain and homely. I thought that the faces of the patients all looked remarkably intelligent, though they were evidently men of the lower classes. Suffering had educated them morally and intellectually. They gazed curiously at Mr. Wilding and me, but nobody said a word. In the bed next to the mate lay a little boy with a broken thigh. The surgeon observed that children generally did well with accidents; and this boy certainly looked very bright and cheerful. There was nothing particularly interesting ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... entred, there was giuen vnto vs ale and wine to drinke, and sodden fleshe (when we would) to eate. [Sidenote: A throne of Iuorie.] There was also a loftie stage built of boords, where the Emperour's throne was placed, being verie curiously wrought out of iuorie, wherein also there was golde and precious stones, and (as we remember) there were certain degrees or staires to ascend vnto it. And it was round vpon the top. There were benches placed ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... woods I am never lonely; but I was not this morning alone. Near by a vireo kept up his tireless song; a gray squirrel peeped curiously at me from behind a trunk, his head showing on one side and his tail on the other; an oven-bird stole up behind to see what manner of creature this was, and far off I could hear ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... We looked curiously about us. The shop was low and dim, with piles of stuff in rolls on the shelves, and other stuffs lying loose on the counter before us, as if the man had just been measuring them—gorgeous brocades and satins. Above us, a bell on ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... authorities struggling for supremacy, sometimes, it must be confessed, ending in the triumph of the ideal forms, and the phantom voices, and the visionary sights, which may be smiled at in our studies, and curiously analyzed in our scientific alembics, but cannot be ignored in practice without the occurrence of dire catastrophes, and the unpleasant realization of the truth that idealism, phantasy, and vision may be transformed ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... we have already fully described, and another general officer whose appearance was singularly striking. His dress was of the antique fashion of Charles the First's time, and composed of shamoy leather, curiously slashed, and covered with antique lace and garniture. His boots and spurs might be referred to the same distant period. He wore a breastplate, over which descended a grey beard of venerable length, ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... most injurious character respecting her; so that Douglas Dale, if he had not been blinded and engrossed by his love, must have seen that he was regarded by the men whom he was in the habit of meeting even more coldly and curiously than when he had first boldly announced his engagement to Madame Durski. He made it known that Douglas Dale had made a will, by which the whole of his disposable property was bequeathed to Paulina, and circulated a rumour that the Austrian widow was utterly averse to ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... and she wore a plain dark blue cloth dress and a funny little blue silk cap, and one splendid string of pearls. At the front she does very fine work, and we offered our services to her. I have begun to write a little, but after my crowded life the days feel curiously empty. Lady ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... opposite to my grim host, who was smoking and appeared not to have moved since I left him. I made myself a cigarette, then drew out the tinder-box, with its flint and steel attached to it by means of two small silver chains. His eyes brightened a little as they curiously watched my movements, and he pointed without speaking to the glowing coals of fire at my feet. I shook my head, and striking the steel, sent out a brilliant spray of sparks, then blew on the tinder ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... curiously expectant; it had got noised abroad that Walker had defied Andrew Marshall to take a collection at the office, and had threatened him with arrest. There were wild rumors of other penalties, and when pay-day came everybody was surprised to see Andrew draw his pay and walk ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... this "Ainsworth's Version," aside from any thought of its historic associations; its square pages of diversified type are well printed, and have a quaint unfamiliar look which is intensely attractive, and to which the odd, irregular notes of music, the curiously ornamented head and tail pieces, and the occasional Hebrew or Greek letters add ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... river prolongs itself in gyratory currents. Bodies and trees which have come over the falls, are stated to circulate here for days without finding the outlet. From various points of the cliffs above, this is curiously hidden. The rush of the river into the whirlpool is obvious enough; and though you imagine the outlet must be visible, if one existed, you cannot find it. Turning, however, round the bend of the precipice to the north-east, ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... at me a few moments curiously, but on my adding that I had only halted there for a few hours, he said: "I thought I knew every man between Lagrange and Indian Spring, but somehow I sorter disremember your ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... She opened it curiously, and while reading it her cheeks paled and flushed as in the days of her youth. Then it dropped into her lap, and for a moment she remained motionless, with closed ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... and for a while Richard watched him curiously, as with half-bared dagger and lips drawn back in rage, he glowered upon De Lacy, forgetful of all things save his hate. And so imminent seemed the danger, that Aymer put hand to his own poniard and fell into the posture to receive attack. And doubtless there, before the Throne itself, would ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... a sort of cave, excavated in the hill, it is said, with an idea of finding treasure. It seems there was once a Mexican calendar cut in the rock at this spot; and some white people who were interested in such matters, used to come to see it, and poke curiously about in search of other antiquities. Naturally enough, the Indians thought that they expected to find treasure; and with a view of getting the first chance themselves, they cut down the calendar, and made this large ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... what might be believed or may have been written regarding them, turned tail like cowards and abandoned their young to their fate. They perched on trees a hundred yards or so distant, and watched to see what would go forward. Rob worked his way on up the tree and peered curiously over the edge of the wretched brush-heap which served as the nest. Here he saw two large, ungainly young birds, not yet able to fly, but able to spit, scratch, and flap their wings. Getting a good foothold on a supporting branch, ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough
... a little too much color in Myrtle's cheeks and a glistening lustre in her eyes that told of unnatural excitement. It gave a strange brilliancy to her beauty, and might have deceived an unpractised observer. The old man looked at her long and curiously, his imperfect sight excusing the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... people of the West have been brought very low, so low that even their very virtues have become perverted into faults. They are affectionate to their kith and kin; but this amiable quality leads to their huddling together in a curiously gregarious way, and in some cases has been made the means of extorting money from them. It is this tendency to live together and thus divide and subdivide whatever little property they may have, which will require to be most strenuously ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... The proprietor looked curiously toward the young man, whose back only was visible. Then he remarked that the eruption of Vesuvius was waning and the trouble ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... expression soon becomes tender, but is interspersed with jocular little passages. MacDowell illustrates in his characteristic manner a lonely tramp at night, with the grotesque streaks of the moonlight breaking quaintly into the pedestrian's contemplative mood. The music is curiously lonely and suggestive of a quiet moonlight night in the country. Particularly lovable are the soft, characteristic chord progressions, followed by lonely silence, on the second page, just before the opening melody returns. ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte
... to be bitter waters; and the waters of affliction." He again admitted, that the Slave Trade was not an amiable trade; but he would not gratify his humanity at the expense of the interests of his country; and he thought we should not too curiously inquire into the unpleasant circumstances which ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... Shrewsbury, one of his most intimate friends was Dr. Darwin, son of the author of the 'Botanic Garden.' At Liverpool, he made the acquaintance of Dr. Currie, and was favoured with a sight of his manuscript of the ' Life of Burns,' then in course of publication. Curiously enough, Dr. Currie had found among Burns's papers a copy of some verses, addressed to the poet, which Telford recognised as his own, written many years before while working as a mason at Langholm. Their purport was to urge Burns to devote himself to the composition of poems of a ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... he complete the main outlines of the map of the continent, but he filled in many details in parts that had been traversed by his predecessors. This is a convenient point whereat to interrupt the narrative of his life with a brief sketch of what those predecessors had done, and of the curiously haphazard mode in which a partial knowledge of this fifth division of the ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... his retainers rode in, followed by the humbler servants and many women and children on foot. But the Lord of Mortimer had not yet put in an appearance, though some of his retainers and men-at-arms might be seen mingling with the crowd; and Sir Oliver and his wife and sons looked curiously about them as they reined back their horses against the wall, wondering whether they should dismount altogether, and what the order of the day's proceedings was ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... same as our own Indians in bodices and skirts, though not quite so tidily. Some of the bead-work worn by the men was very handsome; it consisted mostly of garters below the knee, waistbands and tobacco-pouches worn round the neck and covering the front of the body. They also had their curiously-carved pipes, some of them with stems a yard long, tomahawks, ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... continents are its barriers. To the term "militarism" we attach an opprobrious meaning; militarism is the more infamous in exact proportion to its efficiency. We have been at little pains to define it, and as to certain of its aspects are curiously complacent. ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... itself, they will begin to think that we are keeping something precious from them. So to set this right they fell upon a plan. It was this. "For whereas they eat and drink in earthen and glass vessels, which indeed be curiously and properly made, and yet be of very small value; of gold and silver they make other vessels that serve for most vile uses, not only in their common halls, but in every man's private house. Furthermore of the same metals they make great chains and fetters and gyves, wherein they tie their ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... is ever deemed the necessary accompaniment of high-placed officials in Persia. He can be seen walking through the town with only a servant or two, or riding about inspecting every nook of his city hardly attended at all. This, curiously enough, has not shocked the natives as people feared, but, on the contrary, has inspired them with intense respect for the new Governor, whose tact, gentleness, consideration and justice were fully appreciated by the whole town; ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... Curiously enough, on the very day of the disaster of Woerth a rumour of a great French victory spread through Paris. My father had occasion to send me to his bankers in the Rue Vivienne, and on making my way to ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... Throughout the whole history of the trading class, this pathetic and absurdly false plea of poverty has incessantly been used by this class, and used successfully, to get further concessions and privileges from a Government which reflected, and represented, its interests. Curiously, enough, however, if a mendicant used the same plea in begging a mite of alms on the streets, the law has invariably regarded him as a vagrant to be ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... amuse him while he waited, and stared about him curiously, enjoying the view, yet glad to do so unobserved in the dusky recess by ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... officially informed, the highest rank ever bestowed on a foreigner; but then Hearn was naturalised. In 1921 an appreciation of "Koizumi Yakumo" was included by the Department of Education in a middle-school textbook. Curiously enough, the fact that Hearn married a Japanese is overlooked. Owing to the fact that Hearn bought land in Tokyo which has appreciated in value his family is in ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... all the little mouths still parched and gaping and the clean and quite white area unblemished, Mrs. Samstag found her way back to bed. She was in a drench of sweat when she got there and the conflagration of neuralgia curiously enough, was now roaring in her ears so that it seemed to her she ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... of eight ladies, and a strange dawnce new invented. Their attire is this: each hath a skirt of cloth of silver, a mantell of coruscian taffete, cast under the arme, and their haire loose about their shoulders, curiously knotted and interlaced. Mrs. Fitton leade. These eight ladys maskers choose eight ladies more to dawnce the measures. Mrs. Fitton went to the queen and woed her dawnce. Her majesty (the love of Essex rankling in her ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... sun, to sleep before evening. With this sense of the splendour of our experience and of its awful brevity, gathering all we are into one desperate effort to see and touch, we shall hardly have time to make theories about the things we see and touch. What we have to do is to be for ever curiously testing new opinions and courting new impressions, never acquiescing in a facile orthodoxy of Comte, or of Hegel, or of our own. Philosophical theories or ideas, as points of view, instruments of criticism, may help us to gather up what might otherwise pass unregarded by us. "Philosophy ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... a gentle curve, to the height of two or three feet, turning gradually smaller, and, as well as the upper part of the sides, was carved all over. The rest of the sides, which were perpendicular, were curiously incrustated with flat white shells, disposed nearly in concentric semicircles, with the curve upward. One of the canoes carried seven, and the other eight men, and they were managed with small paddles, whose blades were nearly round. Each of them had a pretty long outrigger; ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... ii. 119; Penhallow. Rale's account of the affair, found among his papers at Norridgewock, is curiously exaggerated. He says that he himself was with the Indians, and "to pleasure the English" showed himself to them several times,—a point which the English writers do not mention, though it is one which they would be most likely to seize upon. He says that fifty ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman |
