"Uncommon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Jordan, who died in Pisa in 1311, says in one of his sermons, which was published in 1305, that "it is not twenty years since the art of making spectacles was found out, and is indeed one of the best and most necessary inventions in the world." In the fourteenth century spectacles were not uncommon and Italy excelled in their manufacture. From Italy the art was carried into Holland, then to Nuremberg, Germany. In a church in Florence is a fresco representing St. Jerome (1480). Among the several ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 822 - Volume XXXII, Number 822. Issue Date October 3, 1891 • Various
... We have gone on thus, a very little way, painfully and anxiously, but quite merrily, and regarding it as a great success—and have all fallen several times, and have all been stopt, somehow or other, as we were sliding away when Mr. Pickle of Portici, in the act of remarking on these uncommon circumstances as quite beyond his experience, stumbles, falls, disengages himself, with quick presence of mind, from those about him, plunges away head foremost, and rolls, over and over, down the whole surface ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... more than a year, and then returned home, where he may be said to have loitered, for two years, in a state very unworthy his uncommon abilities. He had already given several proofs of his poetical genius, both in his school-exercises and in other occasional compositions. Of these I have obtained a considerable collection, by the favour of Mr. Wentworth, son of one of his masters, and of Mr. Hector, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... the Comtesse d'Auvergne finished a short life by an illness very strange and uncommon. When she married the Comte d'Auvergne she was a Huguenot, and he much wanted to make her turn Catholic. A famous advocate of that time, who was named Chardon, had been a Huguenot, and his wife also; they had made a semblance, however, of abjuring, but made no open profession ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... produce of the "sacred soil" to our own use, which greatly embarrasses our foraging expeditions, and exasperates not a little those of us who are needy of the things we are at times ordered not to take. It is no uncommon thing to find one of our men stationed as safeguard over the property of a most bitter Rebel—property which, in our judgment, ought to be confiscated to the use of the Union, or utterly destroyed. We do not believe in handling Rebels with kid gloves, and especially ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... hook over the side of a canoe. The boat itself is so cranky, and the fish themselves are generally so full of life and fight, that there is a good deal of risk and excitement, after all, about this kind of sport. It is no uncommon thing for an upset to occur in the risk and glorious uncertainty of capturing a large, gamy fellow who makes a ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... Media, in order to reconcile the Medians more easily to his sway, by making a Median princess their queen. Among the western nations of Europe such a marriage would be abhorred, Astyages having been Cyrus's grandfather; but among the Orientals, in those days, alliances of this nature were not uncommon. It would seem that this queen was not living at the time that the events occurred which are to be related in this chapter. Her sons had grown up to maturity, and were now princes ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... on the Atlantic coast, and he desired some provision in the Constitution which would permit the minority to rule such a majority. If these views shrivelled his statesmanship, it may be said to his credit that they discovered a prophetic gift most uncommon in those days, giving him the power to see a great empire of people in the fertile valley of the Mississippi and its tributaries.[79] Fifteen years later Robert R. Livingston expressed the belief that not in a century ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... of the utility of the Union; the insufficiency of the confederation to preserve that Union;" and "the necessity of a government at least equally energetic with the one proposed, to the attainment of this object." These essays, under the general title of The Federalist, were written with uncommon ability, exerted a powerful influence, and present an admirable treatise on the philosophy of our ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... event past. And a prophecy new hatch'd is a wry expression. The term new hatch'd is properly applicable to a bird, and that birds of ill omen should be new-hatch'd to the woful time, that is, should appear in uncommon numbers, is very consistent with the rest of the prodigies here mentioned, and with the universal disorder into which nature is described as thrown, by the perpetration of this horrid murder. (see ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... lamented its lot, it suddenly caught sight, at a great distance, of a Buddhist bonze and of a Taoist priest coming towards that direction. Their appearance was uncommon, their easy manner remarkable. When they drew near this Ch'ing Keng peak, they sat on the ground to rest, and began to converse. But on noticing the block newly-polished and brilliantly clear, which had moreover contracted in dimensions, and become no larger than ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... prettiness. This reason seemed to him a sound one; but on analysing it he perceived that it explained nothing; that he loved the girl not because she was exceedingly pretty, but because she was pretty in a certain uncommon fashion of her own; that he loved her for that which was incomparable and rare in her; because, in a word, she was a wonderful thing of art and voluptuousness, a living gem of priceless value. Thereupon, ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... thus stopped the wheels of manufactures and arrested the ordinary movements of commerce? What is it that has produced this unusual and uncommon stagnation of business? What is it that has driven away from the markets of the North those hitherto so welcome to them? I do not propose to go into the history of these questions. I will not attempt to enlarge ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... later period of the "stone age" are shaped more like the iron ones our smiths use at the present day, and they have a hole bored in the middle for the handle. In Brittany, where Celtic remains are found in such abundance, it is not uncommon to see stone hammers of the latter kind hanging up in the cottages of the peasants, who use them to drive in nails with. They have an odd way of providing them with handles, by sticking them tight upon branches of young trees, and ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... glad.' I was sorry to think Mr Johnson did not attend to the sermon, Mr Carre's low voice not being strong enough to reach his hearing. A selection of Mr Carre's sermons has, since his death, been published by Sir William Forbes, and the world has acknowledged their uncommon merit. I am well assured Lord Mansfield has pronounced ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... abandoned and the task of restoring their productivity was usually left to nature. Much of the best tobacco soils of Virginia have been cropped and then allowed to go back to brush and tress and again cleared several times. Finding the remains of old tobacco rows out in dense woods is not an uncommon experience. This exhaustion of tobacco lands had a beneficial influence on the agricultural development of Virginia. By the time the fields were abandoned, most of the stumps had decayed and the soil could be prepared for seeding to ...
— Agriculture in Virginia, 1607-1699 • Lyman Carrier
... from all this, then, is that I was not holding Germany up as a paragon just now, but leading up to an obvious improvement—a gentleman-citizen. Whoever thinks he fulfils the conditions implicated in the role may know that not only is he an uncommon and a great man, but also the embodiment of a high, practicable ideal; in the attainment of which lies the solution of the whole educational question—how, of the two component parts, to maintain the moral position of the first and create one for ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell
... the little book in an utterly unconcerned state of mind, believing indeed at the time that if there were any salvation it was not for me, and with a distinct intention to put away the tract as soon as it should seem prosy. I may say that it was not uncommon in those days to call conversion "becoming serious"; and judging by the faces of some of its professors, it appeared to be a very serious matter indeed. Would it not be well if the people of GOD had always tell-tale faces, evincing the blessings and gladness of salvation ...
— A Retrospect • James Hudson Taylor
... summer, that being the only time of the year that the boarding house at the Fort did any business. At this time of the year all of the trappers and hunters were staying at the fort with nothing to do but eat, drink and spend their money that they had earned the winter before. It was no uncommon thing for some of these men to bring from three to four hundred dollars worth of furs to Bent's Fort in the spring, and when fall came and it was time to go back to the trapping ground, they wouldn't have a dollar left, and ...
— Chief of Scouts • W.F. Drannan
... growth of wheat, beans, and clover—requiring however a summer fallow (as is generally stipulated in the lease) every fourth year, etc.' This is not an unpleasing style on Agricultural subjects—nor an uncommon one. ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... was ordained Deacon in our little chapel, in the presence of fifty-five Melanesians and a few Norfolk Islanders. With him Charles Bice, a very excellent man from St. Augustine's, was ordained Deacon also. He has uncommon gifts of making himself thoroughly at home with the Melanesians. It comes natural to him, there is no effort, nothing to overcome apparently, and they of course like him greatly. He speaks the language of Mota, the ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... seized either species of weird leisure. (Also a few uncommon words, like seignior, ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever
... leaders roundly accused him of to other people's faces. She did not grudge him his gains, nor was it her business if, as they alleged, in introducing Mr. Constant to her vacant rooms, his idea was not merely to benefit his landlady. He had done her an uncommon good turn, queer as was the lodger thus introduced. His own apostleship to the sons of toil gave Mrs. Drabdump no twinges of perplexity. Tom Mortlake had been a compositor; and apostleship was obviously a profession better paid and of a higher social status. Tom ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... had had what she called "a row with the governor," that is to say, a slight misunderstanding with Major Warfield; a very uncommon occurrence, as the reader knows, in which that temperate old gentleman had so freely bestowed upon his niece the names of "beggar, foundling, brat, vagabond and vagrant," that Capitola, in just indignation, refused to join the birding party, ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... that it was because the thing was a commonplace spectacle and not an uncommon or impressive one. I do vividly remember seeing a dozen black men and women, chained together, lying in a group on the pavement, waiting shipment to a Southern slave- market. They had the saddest faces ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... children nor the world that knew them ever supposed that one of the girls was of alien blood and parentage: Such difference as existed between Laura and Emily is not uncommon in a family. The girls had grown up as sisters, and they were both too young at the time of the fearful accident on the Mississippi to know that it was that which had ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to welcome him in the usual pompous manner, and, while in London, giving magnificent balls in one of the stately houses, and perhaps numbering among his guests some of the blooming children he had once passed, now expanded into full-blown and gorgeous flowers of aristocracy. These are, of course, uncommon instances; but they teach that the most brilliant present may have had the darkest past; that there is always ground for hope, and that the caprices of fortune, if we take no higher view of ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... strata; or if, after the vertical strata had been broken and erected, the horizontal strata had been deposited upon the vertical strata, then forming the bottom of the sea. That strata, which are regular and horizontal in one place, should be found bended, broken, or disordered at another, is not uncommon; it is always found more or less in all our horizontal strata. Now, to what length this disordering operation might have been carried, among strata under others, without disturbing the order and continuity of those above, may perhaps be difficult to determine; but here, ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton
... to Lovelace.— The lady's coffin brought up stairs. He is extremely shocked and discomposed at it. Her intrepidity. Great minds, he observes, cannot avoid doing uncommon things. Reflections ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... were things that one may see again and again in many London streets: a vine or a fig tree on a wall, a lark singing in a cage, a curious shrub blossoming in a garden, an odd shape of a roof, or a balcony with an uncommon-looking trellis-work in iron. There's scarcely a street, perhaps, where you won't see one or other of such things as these; but that morning they rose to my eyes in a new light, as if I had on the magic spectacles in the fairy tale, and just like the man in the fairy ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... the banker only secures protection so long as he is acting strictly as a conduit pipe, or as agent for the customer. If he put himself in the position of owner of the cheque, he no longer fulfils the condition of receiving the money only for the customer. In the Gordon case, adoption of the not uncommon practice of crediting cheques as cash in the bank's books before the money was actually received was held equivalent to taking them as transferee or owner, and to debar the bank from the protection of sec. 82. The anxiety and inconvenience ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... that the ergot fungus frequently grows on this grain, and when ground up with it occasionally poisons the consumer where the quantity of the substance is large and the bread is eaten in considerable quantities. Instances of this kind are not uncommon among the peasantry of Europe, where a black bread made from rye is the staple article of diet. Of course, when making food-preparations of rye, we should be careful to have the flour thoroughly winnowed, and to cook the ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris
... minutes, and shaking hands with the hotel proprietor, he made his way quickly to the station. As he reached the platform he noticed that Abner Stiles was just driving away; the thought flashed through his mind that somebody from Mason's Corner was going to the city; but that was no uncommon event, and the thought passed ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... work. They come in and go out when they please, and, if anything dissatisfies them, they ask for their wages, and depart the same day, in the certainty that their labour will command a higher price in the United States. It is not an uncommon thing for a gentleman to be obliged to do the work of gardener, errand-boy, and groom. A servant left at an hour's notice, saying, "she had never been so insulted before," because her master requested her to put on shoes when she waited at table; and a gentleman was obliged ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... very old ditty, and a favourite with the peasantry in every part of England; but more particularly in the mining districts of the North. The tune is pleasing, but uncommon. R. W. Dixon, Esq., of Seaton-Carew, Durham, by whom the song was communicated to his brother for publication, says, 'I have written down the above, verbatim, as generally sung. It will be seen that the last lines of each verse are not of equal length. The singer, ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... in this point; and that he began to doubt, whether I was a real Hollander, or not; but rather suspected I must be a Christian. However, for the reasons I had offered, but chiefly to gratify the king of Luggnagg by an uncommon mark of his favour, he would comply with the singularity of my humour; but the affair must be managed with dexterity, and his officers should be commanded to let me pass, as it were by forgetfulness. For he assured me, ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... he stopped here for about a week, for he was uncommon fond of a spree, and he never reached home after that. His 'orse comed on to the station one day without him, and with the saddle twisted right round, and hanging under his belly. So ye see, sir, his people ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... think I noticed," I answered. "Some sort of a blouse, I suppose." And then I recollected. "Ah, yes, there was something uncommon," I added. "An unusually broad band of velvet, it looked like, ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... horse, saw the machine, and stopped dead. It was the first mowing-machine in the wilds, the first in the village—red and blue, a thing of splendour to man's eyes. And the father, head of them all, called out, oh, in a careless tone, as if it were nothing uncommon: "Harness ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... had now grown so used to his presence, as to cease to notice many little traits that had repelled her, at the beginning. Her critical instincts were lulled. Thus had come to pass that which is by no means an uncommon incident in human history: a toleration for and finally a strong attraction towards a nature that began by creating distrust, and ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... Bushy-tailed Bull of Tibet. (Asiat. Researches, No. XXIII, pp. 351-353, with a plate.) He says with regard to the colour: "There is a great variety of colours amongst them, but black or white are the most prevalent. It is not uncommon to see the long hair upon the ridge of the back, the tail, tuft upon the chest, and the legs below the knee white, when all the rest of the animal is jet black." A good drawing of "an enormous" Yak is to be found ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... usually more or less honey. Sometimes there is half a pint, or more. This honey is very palatable; and it is not an uncommon thing for children to brave the danger of being stung by the bees, for the sake of capturing a nest and getting possession of its treasures. For myself, I never was ambitious of getting renown by such means as ...
— Mike Marble - His Crotchets and Oddities. • Uncle Frank
... designing enemies? Yet to all these things men of letters are subject; and such must literary ladies expect, if they attain to any degree of eminence.—Judging, then, from the experience of our sex, I may pronounce envy to be one of the evils which women of uncommon genius have to dread. "Censure," says a celebrated writer, "is a tax which every man must pay to the public, who seeks to be eminent." Women must ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... height was nearly nine feet, was born at Kinsale, in the kingdom of Ireland. His real name was Patrick Cotter; he was of obscure parentage, and originally laboured as a brick-layer; but his uncommon size rendered him a mark for the avarice of a showman, who, for the payment of L50. per annum, obtained the liberty of exhibiting him for three years in England. Not contented with his bargain, the chapman attempted to underlet to another speculator, the liberty of showing him, and poor ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 20, No. 567, Saturday, September 22, 1832. • Various
... went to Mr. Barber's to dine. This gentleman has a small plantation of ginger and arrow-root, which succeeds uncommonly well; also some plants of the blood orange from Malta, and some young cinnamon trees; which, I should observe, are by no means uncommon in ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... plants to take the place of the old ones which have died), and the late Mr. Pringle—the chemist—was of opinion that the loss of crop from Borer was not less than 2 cwt. per acre per annum. Before the introduction of shade the total extermination of an estate was far from uncommon, the estate in the Bamboo district opened by Rev. H. A. Kaundinya in 1857 being the first to perish, and though, as we have seen, owing to the introduction of shade, the Borer has been largely brought into subjection, considerable ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... Navarre was the first who perceived this; he spoke and made himself known to the besieged; who were so astonished at hearing him name himself from the bottom of these subterraneous places that they demanded leave to capitulate. The proposals were all made by this uncommon way; the articles were drawn up or rather dictated by the King of Navarre, whose word was known by the besieged to be so inviolable that they did not require a writing. They had no cause to repent of this confidence; the ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... young fellows say," replied Cope. "A not uncommon ideal, possibly; but I'm glad that some man, now and then, is able to ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... than he was before. But Willy and Cuddy are extremely anxious to know what it was that caused Roget's imprisonment, and at last he agrees to tell them. Hitherto the poem has been written in ottava rima, a form which is sufficiently uncommon in our early seventeenth-century poetry to demand special notice in this case. In a prose postscript to this book Wither tells us that the title, The Shepherd's Hunting, which he seems to feel needs explanation, is due to the stationer, or, as we should ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... comparison of notes proved that I had been in the woods with two playfellows, named Binckly and Greiner, when the master thought I was home, ill, and my mother, that I was at school, deeply immersed in study. However, with these and other delinquencies not uncommon among boys, I learned at McNanly's school, and a little later, under a pedagogue named Thorn, a smattering of geography and history, and explored the mysteries of Pike's Arithmetic and Bullions' English Grammar, about as far ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... the coins were plainly bad; of these last there were not many; still there were enough for them to be not uncommon. These were entirely composed of alloy; they would bend easily, would melt away to nothing with a little heat, and were quite unsuited for a currency. Yet there were few of the wealthier classes who did not maintain that even these coins were genuine good money, ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... saucy, but noble with it all. I liked him: he was a man that showed you his worst, and let you find his best out by degrees. He hated to be beat: but that's no crime. He was a beautiful oar, and handled his mawleys uncommon; he sparred with all the prizefighters that came to Oxford, and took punishment better than you would think; and a wonderful quick hitter; Alec Reed owned that. Poor Taff Hardie! And when I think that God has overthrown his powerful mind, and left me mine, such ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... she was keenly interested. The troubles confided to these private pages were not due to compunction for anything she had done, nor were they caused by any particular event; they expressed simply a general discontent with herself and a kind of Weltschmerz not uncommon in a young and thoughtful mind. For the first time she seems glad of outside interests because they ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... of the tables two very chic young women are dining with a young Frenchman, his hair and dress in close imitation of the Duc d'Orleans. These poses in dress are not uncommon. ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... she remembered meeting Mr. Vinrace at a party, and, being so much struck by his face, which was so unlike the ordinary face one sees at a party, that she had asked who he was, and she was told that it was Mr. Vinrace, and she had always remembered the name,—an uncommon name,—and he had a lady with him, a very sweet-looking woman, but it was one of those dreadful London crushes, where you don't talk,—you only look at each other,—and although she had shaken hands with Mr. Vinrace, she didn't think they had said anything. She sighed very ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... he will do so," sighed Tisco, with a slight shrug of his shoulders. "In Mexico, when a defeated man seeks blood revenge it is no uncommon thing for him to turn bandit until he has accomplished his hope of a terrible revenge. Then, afterwards, if the bandit has annoyed the government enough, and has repeatedly escaped capture, the bandit makes his peace with the authorities ...
— The Young Engineers in Mexico • H. Irving Hancock
... eyes on him. Such incidents were not uncommon. Almost every day strangers on their way South had passed her cabin, looking for friends they would never see again—a woman for her husband; a mother for her son; a father for his children. Unknown graves and burned homes could be found all the way to the Potomac and beyond. This strong ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... This is perhaps not uncommon still in some countries. The Venetian Director Medebach, for whose company many of Goldoni's Comedies were composed, claimed an ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... extravagances which eat up the little provision which might have been made for themselves and their children when he is gone who earned their bread. There is no sadder sight, I think, than that which is not a very uncommon sight, the careworn, anxious husband, laboring beyond his strength, often sorrowfully calculating how he may make the ends to meet, denying himself in every way; and the extravagant idiot of a wife, bedizened with jewelry and arrayed in velvet ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... excellent form to-day; his voice was clear, strong and its carrying power excellent. He spoke with uncommon vigor and, of course, without notes or manuscript. There was something in his manner that seemed to carry conviction with it. The people knew they were listening to an honest man who was a thorough master of every subject upon ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... uncommon child for truth. I never knew you to deviate from it in one single instance, either in ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... curs'd that sable Deceit, For making me wish and admire; And rifle poor Ovid to learn to intreat, When Reason might check my desire: For sagely of late it has been disclos'd, There's nothing, nothing conceal'd uncommon; No Miracles under a Mask repos'd, When knowing ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... sound trumpets of rams' horns; for it was our custom to call the people together by them. Now the attendants of Eglon were ignorant of what misfortune had befallen him for a great while; but, towards the evening, fearing some uncommon accident had happened, they entered into his parlor, and when they found him dead, they were in great disorder, and knew not what to do; and before the guards could be got together, the multitude of the Israelites came upon them, so that some of them were ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... admiration, but was not displeased, and took me up the hill to see the temples, baths, and yadoyas of this very attractive place. I am much delighted with her grace and savoir faire. I asked the widow how long she had kept the inn, and she proudly answered, "Three hundred years," not an uncommon instance of the heredity ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... two women fell to weeping in each other's arms, a thing most uncommon for my Aunt Gainor. Then they talked it all over, as if John Wynne were not; when it would be, and what room I was to have, and my clothes, and the business, and so on—all the endless details wherewith the cunning affection of good women knows to provide comfort for us, who are ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... Borpeta, Kaunia, and Rangpur. On the other hand, they seem to have been unusually scarce at Dhubri and in the district to the north-west, and they became rare at Gauhati long before they ceased to be frequent at Borpeta. In the plain to the south of the Garo and Khasi hills, they were also uncommon, the combined records for Sylhet and Sonamganj for August 1-15 giving only 20 shocks, and, neither to the east nor to the west of these places, is there any sign ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison
... advantage of some one uncommon feature in a common situation. The feature here was the fancy of old Hook for being the first man up every morning, his fixed routine as an angler, and his annoyance at being disturbed. The murderer strangled him in his own house after dinner ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... that the Ammonius of the Treatise was this Ammonius, the question would be settled in favour of the late date. Our author would be that Longinus who inspired Zenobia to resist Aurelian, and who perished under his revenge. But Ammonius is not a very uncommon name, and we have no reason to suppose that the Neoplatonist Ammonius busied himself with the literary criticism of Homer and Plato. There was, among others, an Egyptian Ammonius, the tutor ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... muscle of my face, notwithstanding I frequently received from ten to twenty lashes from the recently made instrument of torture, which was composed of new birch twigs, each stroke from which drew the blood; and it was no uncommon thing, after I had left the room, to get some other boy to pick out the spills which were left sticking in my lacerated flesh, some of them more than half an inch long. Nay, at last it became so bad that one of the washerwomen made a serious complaint to Mrs. ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... complaints against its governors, provided they discharge the main duty of their station—squeezing out a good revenue. This hint will be of importance to prevent my readers from being seized with doubt and incredulity, whenever, in the course of this authentic history, they encounter the uncommon circumstance of a governor acting with independence, and in opposition to the opinions of ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... a critic with uncommon discrimination and good sense. Mr. Chesterton possesses one of the ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... this would tend to refine and elevate the prisoners. Hence, he left them with a generous supply, well fitted up. But it would need more or less renewing and refitting in the fall, which it did not receive, but was made to answer by patching. Hence, patched and ragged clothes would be of no uncommon occurrence, as all became thin from long wear, the under-clothing, especially, much needing ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... event itself and the influence it would exert upon the future; those of the lower class because of their supreme contempt for the erstwhile Military Governor and the biased manner of his administration, all, without exception, found themselves manifesting an uncommon interest in the progress and ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... by Falstar's the other day, and Peggy was washing uncommon hard. Drew, he steps close to the tubs and says he, 'I tell you, Mrs. Falstar, I don't know no better religion than getting the spots out instead of slighting them. It's like the little Scotch girl who said she knew when she got religion, for she had to sweep under ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... East. But he is no longer the K. of K., the old K. of Khartoum and Pretoria. He still has his moments of God-sent intuition. First, he had absolute knowledge that the Germans would come through Belgium: I repeat this. The assumption was not uncommon perhaps, but he knew the fact! Secondly, when everyone else spoke of a six weeks' war; when every other soldier I can think of except Douglas Haig believed he'd be back before the grouse shooting was ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... gentleman of spirit, and good-looking, and held his head up when he walked, and had what you may call Fire about him. He wrote poetry, and he rode, and he ran, and he cricketed, and he danced, and he acted, and he done it all equally beautiful. He was uncommon proud of Master Harry as was his only child; but he didn't spoil him neither. He was a gentleman that had a will of his own and a eye of his own, and that would be minded. Consequently, though he made quite a ...
— The Holly-Tree • Charles Dickens
... uncommon advantages are presented for the extension of Stock raising. All kinds of Cattle, Horses, Mules, Sheep, Hogs, &c., of the best breeds, yield handsome profits; large fortunes have already been made, and the field is open for others to enter with the fairest ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... others is a delightful pastime and profitable but it is not really thinking. Also, if one be blessed with a good memory, he may thus cheaply acquire a reputation for great wisdom; just as one, if he happens to be born with a nose of uncommon length or bigness, may attract the attention of the world. But no one should deceive himself. A man because he is able, better than the multitude, to repeat the thoughts of other men must not therefore think himself a better thinker than the crowd. No more should the one with the uncommon nose ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... irregularity, two or three days' delay after being advertised to start, was no uncommon circumstance with steamers; hence this plan was abandoned. What this heroic man endured from severe struggles and unyielding exertions, in traveling thousands of miles on water and on foot, hungry and fatigued, rowing his living freight for seven days and seven nights in a skiff, ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... a plot, I will write their dialogue." (Extract from Uncommon-place Book of Mr. O. WILDE.) Now when the author of A Woman of No Importance and of Lady Windermere's Fan has to find his own materials for a plot ("'Play-wrights' materials for plots made up.' Idea for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, May 6, 1893 • Various
... bright with anticipation, beside. Advena was there, too, and Stella; and the boys would have a perch, not too conspicuous, somewhere in the gallery. Dr Drummond was in the second row, and a couple of strange ladies with him: he was chuckling with uncommon humour at some remark of the younger one when Lorne noted him. Old Sandy MacQuhot was in a good place; had been since six o'clock, and Peter Macfarlane, too, for that matter, though Peter sat away back as beseemed a modest functionary whose business was with the book and the bell. Altogether, ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... than uncommon interest at the man who presently came to them in the visitors' room. He was already familiar with Mr. Aylmore's photograph, but he never remembered seeing him in real life; the Member for Brookminster was one of that rapidly diminishing body of legislators whose members are disposed to ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... Roger and Cicely, 'twas a neat throw. Tom bumped heavy—aye, uncommon flat were Tom, let me eat ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... contradictory testimony from competent authority is not uncommon in therapeutics, and the reasons for it are well recognized in the impossibility of an equality in the conditions and circumstances of the investigations, and hence the general decision commonly reached is upon the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 492, June 6, 1885 • Various
... physician, his mother a native of Chiavari. She was a superior woman, and devoted more than a mother's care to the excitable and delicate child, who seemed to her (mothers have sometimes the gift of prophecy) to be meant for an uncommon lot. One of the few personal reminiscences that Mazzini left recorded, relates to the time and manner in which the idea first came to him of the possibility of Italians doing something for their country. He was walking with his mother in the Strada Nuova at ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... will begin to flow into that great country, with its hundred million of people, in one continued stream, to supply their insatiable desire for it. They habitually invest their savings in gold ornaments, which they wear on their persons; and at this day, it is not uncommon to see the wife of a native under-secretary, whose salary and property altogether do not amount to much more than L.300 a year, wearing gold in this manner to the value of L.500. The treasure of this kind possessed by the rich natives is probably extraordinary; and so great is their ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... custom prevailed among these people, not uncommon elsewhere. The men, when their wives were suffering their accouchement, would abstain from all flesh and fish, refrain from smoking and all diversions, and stay within the Kish, or hut, from ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James
... about nine leagues. Two hours after we saw another, bearing S.W. by S., which appeared more extensive than the former. I hauled up for this island, and ran under an easy sail all night, having squally unsettled rainy weather, which is not very uncommon in this sea, when near high land. At six o'clock the next morning, the first island bore N.W., the second S.W. 1/2 W., and a third W. I gave orders to steer for the separation between the two last; and soon after, ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... nineteenth century; the differences being, as a rule, rather matters of spelling or phrase than of actual vocabulary. It is very well suited both to the poet's needs and to the subject; there being little or nothing of that stammer—as it may be called—which is not uncommon in mediaeval work, as if the writer were trying to find words that he cannot find for a thought which he cannot fully shape even to himself. In short, there is in the particular kind, stage, and degree that accomplishment ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... and his fellow students on the day of the embryo statesman's birth. Doctor Baldwin seems to have been fully equal to the multifarious calls upon his energies, and to have exercised his various callings with satisfaction alike to clients, patients, and pupils. It was no uncommon occurrence in those early days, when surgeons were scarce in our young capital, for him to be compelled to leave court in the middle of a trial, and to hurry away to splice a broken arm or bind up a fractured limb. Years afterwards, when he had retired from the active practice ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... Hotel, where the sister of Emperor Alexander resides on a visit to this country, the Grand Duchess of Oldenburg. I thought it probable that, as the procession would pass this place, there would be some uncommon occurrence taking place before it, so I took my situation directly opposite, determined, at any rate, to secure a good view of ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... by Indian seamen, and lay at anchor three days before landing. His ship bore nothing indicative of nationality except the sailors. She was trim-looking and freshly painted; otherwise there was nothing uncommon in her appearance. She was not for war—that was plain. She floated too lightly to be laden; wherefore those who came to look at her said she could not ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... to these Roman ships, let not our readers be misled by a familiar notion or a pompous name. They were but little more than rowboats, as may be easily imagined from the fact that Cicero instances for its uncommon magnitude a ship of only fifty-six tons! These ancient vessels were occasionally sheathed with leather or lead, and had the prow decorated with paint and gilding, while the stern was sometimes carved in the figure of a shield, elaborately adorned. Upon a staff there erected ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... Gaming is not uncommon amongst the Crees of all the different districts, but it is pursued to greater lengths by those bands who frequent the plains and who, from the ease with which they obtain food, have abundant leisure. The game most in use amongst them, termed puckesann, is played with the stones ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... naive and romantic, as if altogether untouched by experience. "I don't think there is a single grain of vulgarity in all her enchanting person. Neither is there in my son. I suppose you won't deny that he is uncommon." She paused. ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... men call drudgery, which never was such to Him because of the fine spirit breathed into it. Drudgery, commonplaceness is in the spirit, not the work. Nothing could be commonplace or humdrum when done by One with such an uncommon spirit. ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... of an Indian fakir, denotes uncommon activity and phenomenal changes in your life. Such dreams may sometimes ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... He has conversed with him, and quite agrees with me that he says very uncommon things for a squirrel of his age; he has such fine feelings,—so much above ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... It is not uncommon for saints in their youth by the strangeness of their behaviour to give rise to such suspicions. And Jeanne displayed those signs of sainthood. She was the talk of the village. Folk pointed at her mockingly, saying: "There goes she who is to restore ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... draws more largely than does astronomy on that intellectual liberality which is ready to adopt whatever is demonstrated or concede whatever is rendered highly probable, however new and uncommon the points of view may be in which objects the most familiar may thereby become placed. Almost all its conclusions stand in open and striking contradiction with those of superficial and vulgar observation, and with what appears to everyone the most ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... arter the bakin' on't, and her arm showed in her sleeve no bigger than a broomstick. I was a'most afeared on her sometimes, her forehead come to look so like yaller glass, and as if I could see right into it, if I only tried; and them times I thumped my head uncommon hard on the knobs of the andirons,—they was a blessin', Rose,—and I used to spekilate as to what folks did that wa' n't rich enough to hev 'em. My mother got so weak, arter a while, that she would sometimes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... was brought to this country in extreme youth by a widowed mother of marked determination and piety, with the intention of launching him successfully in life. He early displayed a fondness for books, and must have shown an uncommon maturity of mind and much executive ability, as he was only nineteen when he was appointed to the position just named. It is an interesting fact that he accepted the librarianship in 1798 with a salary of two hundred and fifty dollars a year in addition to the fines and ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... cried 'Miracle!' every time that one was manifested in the streets of Paris, and we may say, en passant, that the miracles were frequently performed in their favor. Whenever the monks made some solemn procession, promenading through the streets the relics of some saint, it was not uncommon to see a franc-mitou, paralyzed, crippled or epileptic, endeavoring to touch the sacred casket; in vain would the attempt be made to keep him at a distance; he redoubled his efforts, and scarcely had he succeeded in gluing his lips ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... vocabulary of the uneducated masses; we,—and by WE, I mean scientists, and men of the highest culture,—have long ago rejected them as unmeaning and therefore unnecessary. Phenomenon is a particularly vile expression, serving merely to designate anything wonderful and uncommon,—whereas to the scientific eye, there is nothing left in the world that ought to excite so vulgar and barbarous an emotion as wonder, . . nothing so apparently rare that cannot be reduced at once from ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... the people. It is a well known and lamentable fact that one-fifth of the population, say sixty millions, are insufficiently fed even in ordinary years of prosperity. They are the ever ready prey of the first drought, distress or famine that may happen. It is a not uncommon experience of the ryot (or farmer) to retire at night upon an empty stomach. The average income of the common labourer in India is between four and five rupees, or, say, $1.50 ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... the estaminets, (drinking places), while many retained their original names, such as "Pomme d'Or," "Repos aux Voyageurs" or "Herberg in der Kruisstraat," such names as "The Pig & Whistle" and "Cheshire Cheese" were not uncommon. ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... that's unfortunate," the lawyer said uneasily. "Of course they will make a point of that, but that proves nothing. Most boys of your age do object to a stepfather. Of course we shall put it to the jury that there is nothing uncommon about that. Oh! no, I do not think they have a strong case; and Mr. Grant, who is our leader, and who is considered the best man on the circuit, is convinced we shall get ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... because in this respect the English Language surpasses the Latin, by reason of its Monosyllables, of which I have said enough for any body at all versed in these Matters, to be able to make out what is here advanc'd. But before I quit this Article, I will observe that it is to the artful and uncommon varying the Pause, that the Harmony is owing in those two celebrated Lines ...
— Letters Concerning Poetical Translations - And Virgil's and Milton's Arts of Verse, &c. • William Benson
... this kind were no uncommon thing. The clash of tempers lasted for several minutes, then Maud flung out of the room. An hour later, at dinner-time, she was rather more caustic in her remarks than usual, but this was the only sign that remained ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... other. He was simple, natural, affectionate, and free from pertness or precocity. At the same time there was an innate power which impressed all those who approached him without their knowing exactly why, and there was abundant evidence of uncommon talents. Webster's boyish days are pleasant to look upon, but they gain a peculiar lustre from the noble character of his father, the deep solicitude of his mother, and the generous devotion and self-sacrifice of both parents. There was in this something ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... on his living at the Lodge until his affairs are settled. Your cousin bore the death of his father with uncommon fortitude. It must have been ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... said the little old man. "Nonsense; you think them strange because you know nothing about it. They are funny, but not uncommon." ...
— The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick - A Lecture • Frank Lockwood
... the parliament of that place, who ordered his discharge. This took place after five days' actual imprisonment. I arrived at Bordeaux a few days after his liberation. As the Procureur General of the King had interested himself to obtain it, with uncommon zeal, and that too on public principles, I thought it my duty to wait on him and return him my thanks. I did the same to the president of the parliament, for the body over which he presided; what would have been an insult in America, being an indispensable duty here. ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... board, I went with them all over the ship, which they viewed with uncommon surprise and attention. We happened to have for their entertainment a kind of pie or pudding made of plantains, and some sort of greens which we had got from one of the natives. On this and on yams they made ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... a procession of stately thoughts that were soon to issue thence; and so he saw nothing, heard nothing, knew nothing of what was around him; but the spiritual element took up the feeble frame and carried it along, unconscious of the burden, and converting it to spirit like itself. Men of uncommon intellect, who have grown morbid, possess this occasional power of mighty effort, into which they throw the life of many days and then are lifeless for ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... he shows her freedom from all personal affections; that, though tender and gentle in an uncommon degree, there was no room for a private love in her consecrated life. She inspired those who knew her with a simple energy of feeling like her own. "We have seen," they felt, "a woman worthy the name, capable of all sweet affections, capable ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... not uncommon, as may be supposed in a country of so uneven a surface as that of the western coast. A remarkable one descends from the north side of Mount Pugong. The island of Mansalar, lying off and affording ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... said Jeanne, not at all surprised, and as if wall-climbers were no more uncommon than goloshes. "He didn't give me any, but then I came a different way from you. I think every one comes a different way to this country, ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth
... drying their wet shirts before the fire. I have always found them perfectly peaceable, and I have never known them to accost lonely passers-by, or women or children. If a shooting or fishing party comes along, however, large enough to put any accusation of terrorism out of the question, it is not uncommon for the "hoboes" to make a polite suggestion that the poor man would be the better for his beer; and so well is the reputation of these queer camps established that the applicant generally receives such a collection of five-cent pieces as will enable him to get ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... I met an uncommon pretty girl of that name down in Suffolk last autumn, when I was ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... place. The Karasjok Lapps, and others in the neighborhood, were very unlike those I had seen before. They were tall; some of them six feet in height. The women were also tall, most of them having dark hair. The fair complexion and blue eyes were uncommon. Men and women wore strange-looking head-dresses. The men wore square caps of red or blue flannel, filled up with eider down. The women put on a wooden framework of very peculiar shape, appearing more or less like a casque or the ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... "common" an expression of contempt? And why are "uncommon," "extraordinary," "distinguished," expressions of approbation? Why is everything ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... uncommon in Arabic to call a country and its capital by the same name. Thus Misr meant and still means both Egypt and Cairo; El-Andalus, both Spain and Cordova. Similarly "Africa" meant to the Arabs the province of Carthage or Tunis and its capital, which was not at first Tunis but successively ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... trouble, not wholly to the disadvantage of the astute miller, who finds it not only brings grist to his mill, but takes away grist from another mill belonging to a couple of worthy ladies, and once quite prosperous. It is no uncommon thing, it appears, for the same person to be put through the ceremony of swearing fidelity more than once, and at more than one place, with the not unnatural result, however, of diminishing the pressure of the oath upon ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... gallic acid, the vegetable astringent product which occurs in oak-galls used until lately in the manufacture of ink. The bezoar-stone is probably a concretion formed in the intestine from some of the undigested portions of the goat's food. Such concretions are not uncommon, and occur even in man. "Bezoar-stones" are obtained in the East from deer, antelopes, and even monkeys, as well as goats, and must have a different chemical nature in each case. Minute scrapings from these stones are used in the East as medicine, and their chemical ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... to meet again. And the false report respecting this family in the little shop, reminds me that the poor are not always kind to the poor. I learnt, from a gentleman who is Secretary to the Relief Committee of one of the wards, that it is not uncommon for the committees to receive anonymous letters, saying that so and so is unworthy of relief, on some ground or other. These complaints were generally found to be either wholly false, or founded upon some mistake. I have three such letters now before me. The first, written on a ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... is not an uncommon thing)—some say that the priests of the popular Church in Ireland have been the cause of much discontent. I believe there is no class of men in Ireland who have a deeper interest in a prosperous and numerous ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright |
