"Uncommonly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to be mentioned as having influenced the history of my future life. I was somewhat above the middle stature. Without being particularly athletic in appearance, or large in my dimensions, I was uncommonly vigorous and active. My joints were supple, and I was formed to excel in youthful sports. The habits of my mind, however, were to a certain degree at war with the dictates of boyish vanity. I had considerable aversion to the boisterous gaiety of the village gallants, ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... caught and sold in the market to the steward of a great lord. The grandee, thinking it an uncommonly fine fish, made a present of it to the King, who ordered it to be dressed immediately. When the cook cut open the salmon he found poor Tom inside, and ran with him directly to the King; but the King being busy, desired that he might ...
— The History Of Tom Thumb and Other Stories. • Anonymous
... take him home in my ship, without the passage costing him sixpence.' You don't feel offended with me for having called you a poor devil, eh, Joyce?—for you really were, you know—you really were an uncommonly poor creature just then," ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... morning. They are at their idolatrous 'messe,' and I am here, that is in the Refectoire. I should like uncommonly to be in the dining-room at home, or in the kitchen, or in the back kitchen. I should like even to be cutting up the hash, with the clerk and some register people at the other table, and you standing by, watching ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... though he was communing with a little child. The further they ran north, the bigger the seas became. One of them came prancing along, tossed up the stern so that part of the jibboom was put under and her attitude became uncommonly like running head first under the sea. Another quickly followed, and the poor captain's faith was momentarily shaken. He called out "My God, this is awful!" and certainly this was the only phrase that could describe the ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... fell from her suddenly, and she moved away. She played no more that night, and was markedly subdued in her manner, turning an anxious eye upon Done every now and again, and Jim, to carry off the situation, was much too free with the liquor and uncommonly ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... to rest, my dear Karsten. We agreed that it should be so; you had to be saved, and you were my friend. I can tell you, I was uncommonly proud of that friendship. Here was I, drudging away like a miserable stick-in-the-mud, when you came back from your grand tour abroad, a great swell who had been to London and to Paris; and you chose me for ...
— Pillars of Society • Henrik Ibsen
... than her husband. They call her to breakfast with a salvo of artillery; and usually when it thunders she looks up expectantly and says, "Come in." But she has become subdued and gentle with age and never destroys the furniture now, except when uncommonly vexed. God knows, my dear, it would be a happy thing if you and old Lady Harmony would imitate this spirit. But indeed the older you grow the less secure becomes the furniture. When I throw chairs through the ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... fact, uncommonly accomplished in respect to the personal grace and dexterity for which cup-bearers in those days were most highly valued, and which constitute, in fact, so essential a part of the qualifications of a master of ceremonies at a royal court in every age. Cyrus, however, instead of yielding to this argument, ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... of the year in which the lady may not, if she pleases, claim her privilege; but the latter end of May is generally fixed upon for the purpose. The attentive husband may judge, by certain prognostics, when the storm is at hand. If the lady grows uncommonly fretful, finds fault with the servants, is discontented with the children, and complains much of the nastiness of everything about her, these are symptoms which ought not to be neglected, yet they sometimes go off ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... knowing that the man wore the wrong cap or the wrong sash, or had his sword buckled on the wrong way; but these are technicalities which they might surely be excused for not knowing. I certainly should not know if a soldier's sash were on inside out or his cap on behind before. But I should know uncommonly well that genuine professional soldiers do not talk like Adelphi villains and utter theatrical epigrams ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... marriage, especially of that sort, might be a fatal business for the old gentleman. I wouldn't have such a blow fall upon him for a great deal. Besides, a man must be married some time in his life, and I could hardly do better than marry Beatrice. She's an uncommonly fine woman, and I'm really very fond of her; and as I shall let her have her own way, her temper won't signify much. I wish the wedding was over and done with, for this fuss doesn't suit me at all. I haven't been half so well lately. That scene about Tina this morning quite upset me. Poor little ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... and I, with our fellows, must try to find out just what the wrong is, and just how we can set it right. Anything less than that seems to me uncommonly like treason to the republic, treason of the worst kind. Alas! Alas! such treason is very common, friend Jonathan—there are many who are heedless of the wrongs that sap the life of the republic and careless of whether or ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo
... chair beside her. "It was not only that it gave us our Bill, it gave the House of Commons a new speaker. Manner, voice, matter—all of it excellent! I hope there'll be no nonsense about his giving up his seat. Don't you let him! He will find his feet and his right place before long, and you'll be uncommonly proud of him before ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a remarkably sweet voice, comes to wait upon us at supper-time. Her teeth are blackened and her eyebrows shaved after the fashion of married women twenty years ago; nevertheless her face is still a pleasant one, and in her youth she must have been uncommonly pretty. Though acting as a servant, it appears that she is related to the family owning the inn, and that she is treated with the consideration due to kindred. She tells us that the shoryobune is to be launched for her husband and brother—both fishermen of the village, who ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... dressed themselves in black clothes, and every necessary befitting mourners at a funeral, (which articles they brought with them in small parcels.) And the night was particularly favourable for carrying their scheme into execution: for it was uncommonly dark, and very still. 'Twas such a night that ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... have known no women, but I have read of them in books. I have not been to any school, but was taught by my father, who, I think, was a very wise man. I learned from him, and from the books, of which he left a great number. I have always believed women to be uncommonly like men—very good, or very bad, or very commonplace because they were afraid to be either. But, I have not read that they are less ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... wondering eyes; and the thin face, drawn by suffering, the pallid complexion, which light could never have tinged, and the fragile, slender figure, gave her an appearance at once singular and attractive. Jack Ryan declared that she seemed to him to be an uncommonly interesting ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne
... were particularly good. In the evening came butter, cheese, cold fish, smoked lamb, and eggs of eider-ducks, which are coarser than hen's eggs. In time I became so accustomed to this kind of food, that I no longer missed either soup or beef, and felt uncommonly well. ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... when the British army landed at the head of Elk, until the 26th of September, when it entered Philadelphia, the campaign had been active, and the duties of the American general uncommonly arduous. ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... we passed through Stamford and Grantham, and dined at Newark, where I had only time to observe, that the market-place was uncommonly spacious and neat. In London, we should call it a square, though the sides were neither straight nor parallel. We came, at night, to Doncaster, and went to church in the morning, where Chambers found the monument of Robert of Doncaster, who says on his stone something like this:—What ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... foreign representative of Miss Decima at the Criterion, is uncommonly childlike and bland; moreover, she sings charmingly; while of Mr. DAVID JAMES as the pastor Jackson it may be said, "Sure such a pere was never seen!" The Irishman, Mr. CHAUNCEY OLCOTT, has a mighty purty voice, and gains a hearty encore for a ditty of which the music is not ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 15, 1891 • Various
... not doubt. The old Feldzeugmeister has a big line Schloss at Meuselwitz; his by unexpected inheritance; with uncommonly fine gardens; with a good old Wife, moreover, blithe though childless;—and he is capable of "lighting more than one candle" when a King comes to visit him. Doubtless the man hurls his thrift into abeyance; and blazes out with conspicuous splendor, on this occasion. A beautiful Castle indeed, this ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... his salary, sent the rest of the money to Constantinople, where (as the Rais himself said) it was "poured away as water." Perhaps this was speaking too freely, but the Moslemites at times speak uncommonly free and bold for despotic governments. The Bey of Tunis has often been menaced with hell-fire by the Arabs, when they pleaded before him in the hall of judgment, swearing, that if he did not deal to them justice, God ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... stars; in the clouds and blue sky; in the grass, flowers, and trees; in the water and all nature; which used greatly to fix my mind. And scarce anything, among all the works of nature, was so sweet to me as thunder and lightning; formerly nothing had been so terrible to me. Before, I used to be uncommonly terrified with thunder, and to be struck with terror when I saw a thunderstorm rising; but now, on the contrary, it ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... remarked, that when the dinner was over, some of the guests were uncommonly mellow; and it is credibly asserted, that Dick Holmes, who had spent his life among parchment and cobwebs, had during the meal buried his mouth in the bosom of his own waistcoat, and had there been heard confidentially singing to himself ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... observance of the letter of the law. The Pharisees were the ultra-orthodox center of an orthodox people. They were the straight-laced brethren who walked so erect that they leaned backward. They were the people who thanked God that they were not like unto other men. They were the "uncommonly good" members of church and society. The very name stands even unto this day as ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... of thanks to Generals Twiggs, Worth, Quitman, Pillow, Shields, Pearce, Cadwalader, and Smith, for their services in the Mexican war, and awarding them gold medals. Mr. Adams was in his seat, and voted on the two questions preliminary to ordering its engrossment, with an uncommonly emphatic tone of voice. About half past one o'clock, P. M., as the Speaker had risen to put another question to the House, the proceedings were suddenly interrupted by cries of "Stop!—stop!—Mr. Adams!" There was a quick movement towards the chair of Mr. Adams, by two or ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... we were pleased to see her trim lord and master bearing in his mouth what was no doubt intended for a delicate offering to cheer her weary hours, for a gauzy yellow wing stuck out on each side of his beak, suggesting something uncommonly nice within. He stood a moment till we should pass, looking the picture of unconsciousness, and defying us to assert that he had a house and home anywhere about that tree. But when we did not pass, after hesitatingly ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... uncommonly ugly," the girl admitted, and then like the trained nurse that she was, she added, "and did you notice his complexion? The man must be ill: he ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... one moment. He had meant to leave her there and go back for his ring; but the waltz they were playing was a very enticing one. Ada was looking uncommonly pretty just then; he could get the ring equally well a ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... descendant of Cortes and the Montezumas was a little bit in awe of the matronly descendant of the ancient Spanish grandees. She might be a powerful personage in more ways than one. At all events, Ned was led out to the central hall and across it, to where an uncommonly wide door stood open, letting out ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard
... (Arkenthos of the ancients), which is widely distributed about the world, grows not uncommonly in England as a stiff evergreen conifer on heathy ground, and bears bluish purple berries. These have a sweet, juicy, and, presently, bitter, brown pulp, containing three seeds, and they do not ripen until the second ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... to the common dose of nitrate of silver is hardly worth speaking of; it would amount, in fact, to about fifteen grains in a quire of Whatman's paper,—no great hardship, because many use much higher doses of silver for iodizing; forty grains to the ounce is not uncommonly used, but I believe twenty-five ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 181, April 16, 1853 • Various
... uncommonly civil, he would think it beneath him to be anything else. I know the cut of him; if he had any spite he would take it out on a gentleman. He thinks we are made of different clay from him." And the embryo republican threw back his ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II. No. 5, February, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... and stared: "Uncommonly attentive and polite of you to inquire," he said at last, with a dubious smile, which showed a row of very white teeth, "whoever you are. If it will relieve your mind at all to know, young man, I'm happy to say I am ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... Berlin, returning homeward to-day by the Arctic; and Mr. Sickles, Secretary of Legation to London, a fine-looking, intelligent, gentlemanly young man. . . . . With him came Judge Douglas, the chosen man of Young America. He is very short, extremely short, but has an uncommonly good head, and uncommon dignity without seeming to aim at it, being free and simple in manners. I judge him to be a very able man, with the Western sociability and free-fellowship. Generally I see no reason to be ashamed of my countrymen who come out here in public ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Legation Street, all is also topsy-turvy, the Chinese reports say. The Empress Dowager, shrewdly listening to this person and that, must feel in her own bones that it is a bad business, and that it will not end well, for she understands dynastic disasters uncommonly well. She has sent again and again for P'i Hsiao-li, "Cobbler's-wax" Li, as he is called, the reputed false eunuch who is master of her inner counsels, if Chinese small talk is to be believed. The eunuch Li has been told earnestly to find out the truth and nothing ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... replied Flambeau frowning, while the other went on eating fish with an air of entire resignation. "If all you can suggest is that notion of a message conveyed by contraries, I call it uncommonly clever, but...well, what would you ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... St. Nicholas was so uncommonly good a Catholic, that, even when an infant at the breast, he would not suck his mother's breast but once on the Wednesdays and Fridays. He, too, controlled the winds and waves, and sent the evil spirit away howling through ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... of his first appearance (but that was long ago, Sofia couldn't remember how long) the slender young man with the soulful eyes and the insignificant moustache had commended himself to her somewhat derisive attention by seeming uncommonly ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... couldn't leave it. In view of this important creature's indisposition I sent the tickets back to the Dean and changed my clothes. Great-grandfathers have to be philosophers. I say, Hoape, they tell me you play uncommonly good auction bridge." ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... solemn, and a strangely terrible change had come into that revered, homely, kindly face. Its smile was not gone—not altogether; but still showed faintly around the big, tender Irish mouth. But, ah, the dear, red hair was wet with mortal sweat, and lay in thin, trailing wisps upon a brow uncommonly white. ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... really afraid. I'm just talking things over. You see, she's so uncommonly pretty, and—men are men, ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... characteristics to the ancient Egyptians lessens in no wise its ridiculousness, but rather increases it. Let the protest, however, be held back for a while. Even if the Egyptians were not always frivolous, they were always uncommonly gay, and any slight exaggeration will be pardoned in view of the fact that old prejudices have to be violently overturned, and the stigma of melancholy and ponderous sobriety torn from the national name. ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... Thompson, "but if I didn't know you better, I should say, to hear you talk in that uncommonly queer way, that you were as big a wessel as any of 'em. Don't flatter yourself you are dreaming, when you never were wider ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... that the overcoat in which he had faced the relatively temperate air of Boston seemed no thicker than a sheet of paper on the bleak heights of Northridge. George Faxon said to himself that the place was uncommonly well-named. It clung to an exposed ledge over the valley from which the train had lifted him, and the wind combed it with teeth of steel that he seemed actually to hear scraping against the wooden sides of the station. Other building there was none: the village lay far ...
— The Triumph Of Night - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... been at school," said Hope. "First I went through the High School; then I stayed out of school a year, and studied Greek and German with my uncle, and music with my aunt, who plays uncommonly well. Then I persuaded them to let me go to the Normal School for two years, and learn ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... suddenly became aware that the sounds of talking came from near the wheel, and Fuzl Khan was among the talkers. What made the man so uncommonly talkative? Seemingly he was taking up the thread where it had been dropped earlier in the ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... young woman is "fast," and uncommonly ugly, wouldn't she make a great mistake were she to combine the two ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 5, 1891 • Various
... family, and it seemed altogether natural to her that her daughter's husband should take its honors. She was by no means a stupid woman; for a woman born and married to wealth, with all the advantages that go with it, she was uncommonly intelligent; but she could not help looking upon aesthetic honors of any sort as in questionable taste. She would have preferred position in a son-in-law to any distinction appreciable to the general, ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... the distant spheres of South Africa and Mesopotamia, while the German offensive was carrying all before it in Galicia. The first great disillusionment of the war was at hand, and its promised beginning in May looked uncommonly like a repetition of the previous August. Popular discontent focused itself on the lack of munitions, and especially of high-explosives, which "The Times" military correspondent declared on 14 May to have been a fatal bar to our success. "Some truth there was, but brewed ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... overwork and exhaustion of a short-handed medical corps, the disease and death in the corps itself, etc. I conclude that in such times of stress the orderly has a very bad time, but that with a column having few casualties and little enteric, like this, he is uncommonly well off. His class has done some splendid work, which Tommy sometimes forgets, but it must be remembered that it had to be suddenly and hurriedly recruited with untrained men from many outside sources, some of them not too suitable. My impression ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... given. His first performance was a novel, called Incognita, or Love and Duty reconciled: it is praised by the biographers, who quote some part of the preface, that is indeed, for such a time of life, uncommonly judicious. I would rather praise ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... some crimes for which no adequate punishment has ever been contrived," he returned, beginning to see his way, and at the same time beginning to think himself uncommonly clever. ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... weeks with her family in the country, and while this hypocritical Daughter of HERODIAS is with her Quaker belongings at prayers in the Meeting House, the spirit moveth her to come out, and to come out uncommonly strong, as, within a yard or so of the building, she laughs and talks loudly with Gooseberry, and then in a light-hearted way she treats the Dook to some amateur imitations of ELLEN TERRY, finishing up with a reminiscence of KATE VAUGHAN; all of which al fresco entertainment is ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 31, 1891 • Various
... this theme with a friend who, I fancied, would understand me, and who immediately assured me that he had just spent a day that this mingled diversity of sensation made to the days one spends elsewhere what an uncommonly good novel may be to the daily paper. "There was an air of idleness about it, if you will," he said, "and it was certainly pleasant enough to have been wrong. Perhaps, being after all unused to long stretches of dissipation, this ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... more properly called a chain of pools than a running stream at the present time. In the reaches, or pools of the Campbell River, the very curious animal called the water mole (ornithorhynchus paradoxus), is seen in great numbers. The soil on both banks is uncommonly rich, and the grass is consequently luxuriant. Two miles to the southward of the line of road which crosses the Campbell River, there is a very fine rich tract of low lands which ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley
... was a short stout fellow for his age, slept in the same bed with his elder brother John, who was reckoned an uncommonly fine and tall lad for his years. No sooner had they got fairly to sleep than they were roused by the small shrill voice in their room shouting out, "Little tyke, indeed! little tyke thysel'. Ho, ho, ho! I'll have my ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... The moment you open the door of this room (and please, you are not to look consciously at the escritoire as if you knew the diary was in it) you are aware, though Amy may not be visible, that there is an uncommonly clever girl in the house. The door does not always open easily, because attached thereto is a curtain which frequently catches in it, and this curtain is hand-sewn (extinct animals); indeed a gifted woman's touch is everywhere; if you ...
— Alice Sit-By-The-Fire • J. M. Barrie
... his defeat and shame, he need not have been in the play at all; and one might almost have felt sorry for him, he was so continually baffled. But this was not enough for the audience, or for that part of it which filled the gallery to the roof. Perhaps he was such an uncommonly black-hearted villain, so very, very cold-blooded in his wickedness that the justice unsparingly dealt out to him by the dramatist could not suffice. At any rate, the gallery took such a vivid interest in his punishment that it had ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... in the midst of it; both lake and island being the haunt of swans, whose aspect and movement in the water are most beautiful and stately,—most infirm, disjointed, and decrepit, when, unadvisedly, they see fit to emerge, and try to walk upon dry land. In the latter case, they look like a breed of uncommonly ill-contrived geese; and I record the matter here for the sake of the moral,—that we should never pass judgment on the merits of any person or thing, unless we behold them in the sphere and circumstances to which they are specially adapted. In still another ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... "It's uncommonly pleasant having you here," said I, as we leaned over a low wall in the garden. "I wonder we do not become perfect barbarians, cut off as we are from ladies' society. I'm sure I wish you would settle down here ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... warmth, his mood changed. After all, it was really of very little moment whether or not he was present when Lynch first learned that things had failed to go his way. At best he might have had a momentary vindictive thrill at glimpsing the fellow's thwarted rage; perhaps not even that, for Tex was uncommonly good at hiding his emotions. It was much more important for him to decide definitely and soon about his own future plans, and this solitary ride over an easy, familiar trail gave him as good a chance as he was ever likely ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... "He must be uncommonly fond of the woman?" he inquired after a pause, while his desires, thus goaded by Lisbeth, rose to ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... more in the same strain gave the house team the comfortable feeling that they had done uncommonly well to get beaten by only twenty-four points. Kennedy fostered the delusion, and in the meantime arranged with Mr Dencroft to collect fifteen innocents and lead them forth to be slaughtered by the house on the following Friday. ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... male and female use when flying; the male too drums with his wings when he flies in the same way, though not so loud as the pheasant; they appear to be mating. Some deer, elk, and goats were in the low grounds, and buffaloe on the sand beaches, but they were uncommonly shy; we also saw a black bear, and two white ones. At fifteen miles we passed on the north side a small creek twenty yards wide, which we called Goatpen creek, from a park or enclosure for the purpose ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... Keeler was over eighty years old. He had a tall, powerful frame—at least, it spoke of great power in the past—and I thought his eye must have been uncommonly dark and keen once. ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... principle that a cat may look at a king. But nowadays a cat may not look at a king; unless it is a very tame cat. Even where the press is free for criticism it is only used for adulation. The substantial difference comes to something uncommonly like this: Eighteenth century tyranny meant that you could say "The K of Brrd is a profligate." Twentieth century liberty really means that you are allowed to say "The King of Brentford ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... Yes, say many thoughtless persons, who know not what they are talking of, you will suffer a little low spirits and dejection for a few days. I answer, no; there is nothing like low spirits; on the contrary, the mere animal spirits are uncommonly raised: the pulse is improved: the health is better. It is not there that the suffering lies. It has no resemblance to the sufferings caused by renouncing wine. It is a state of unutterable irritation of stomach (which surely is not much like dejection), accompanied by intense perspirations, ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... though she might almost be your mother, an uncommonly dangerous one for youths of your age. What a melting voice, what versatility, what fervour! And yet such regal grace in every movement! But I wish to stifle, not to fan, the spark which perhaps ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... uncommonly cool, and in the thick of it could unbend with kindly condescension when a sergeant who was passing had his forage-cap knocked off by the wind ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... letters upon them, stood open on the table. Mother, at one end of the table, spread each child six pieces of bread and butter, which were then placed together, two and two, white bread on brown bread, a mixture which, was uncommonly nice. The box would take exactly so many. Then it was put in the school- bag with the books. And with bag on back you went to school, always the same way. But those were days when the journey was much impeded. ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... washed and dressed, they looked uncommonly well, consitherin'. Larry, indeed, didn't bear death so well as Sally; but you couldn't meet a purtier corpse than she was in a day's travelling. I say, when they were washed and dressed, their friends and neighbors knelt down around them, and offered up a Pather and Ave a-piece, ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... been uncommonly humorous lately. She observed, "What a foolish remark it was of Dr. JOHNSON'S to say that 'who makes a pen would pick a pocket.'" "Unless", she added, struck with a brilliant idea, "he was thinking of 'steel pens.' But I don't think there were ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, May 17, 1890. • Various
... at her, and answered, 'It's hard to tell those steamers till you see their names, sir; but if she's not the Violet, belonging to General Coldsteel (of course these are false names), she's uncommonly like her. But, law bless us! how they're driving her! Why, there'll be a bust up if they don't look out. They'll blow the ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... command of her tribe on to my shoulders. If she were so mighty, why did she not command it herself and bring her celestial, or infernal, powers to bear upon the enemy? Again, I could not say, but one fact emerged, namely that she was as interesting as she was beautiful, and uncommonly clever ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... stay and see them put on. Ah, well, never mind. I shall have to get Mrs. Flaxman alone, and see what can be done. Now tell me"—he turned again with alacrity to Manvers—"what's that new German book you quote about Butler? Some uncommonly fine things in it! That bit ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... contrary, child, you are putting it uncommonly well; at any rate, you are making me understand what you mean, and that's the A and Z of it, whether in talk or in writing. 'Is there—can there be—such a thing as a natural born lady?' that's your question, hey?" The Collector peeled his ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... of Silan is accessibly and commodiously situated. Hence it is easily and frequently visited by sojourners, the more so because the inhabitants themselves are uncommonly humane and devoted to Christian piety. It happened that some Indians turned aside from their journey to visit one of the inhabitants; and as they were taking out of a little chest some clothes that they were carrying with them, packed up, it happened that they took out along with them a tiny ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various
... bespeaks for this little Work; he thinks any further Preface or Apology for it, unnecessary: And the rather for two Reasons, 1st. Because he can Appeal from his own Passions, (which have been uncommonly moved in perusing these engaging Scenes) to the Passions of Every one who shall read them with the least Attention: And, in the next place, because an Editor may reasonably be supposed to judge with an Impartiality which ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... me uncommonly queer That a painted British stateman's price Exceeds the established value thrice Of ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... and when a person touches him on the arm to guide him he becomes bewildered and asks his helper to give verbal directions, up, down, right or left. It may be he has been on his own so long that he cannot, at this late date, readjust himself to the touch of a helping hand. His mind is uncommonly clear and he speaks with no Negro colloquialisms and almost ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... all this, he was uncommonly handy with tools. Though an old man, and not strong enough to do a full day's work at mowing or hay-making, because of stiff joints, yet he could potter about the house and barns, with a hatchet, and saw, and a nail-box, and mend up a ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... at the meal, which tasted uncommonly good. It consisted of a stew, with plenty of meat and potatoes, and other vegetables in it. There was also bread and butter. Pie and coffee followed. Then the recruit companies were marched out ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock
... rank of lieutenant-colonel, and resigned in 1777 to study law, being admitted to the New York bar five years later. Hamilton was sent to New York, entered King's, now Columbia, College, got caught in the rising tide of Revolution, proved himself uncommonly ready with tongue and pen, enlisted, saw the battles of Long Island, Trenton, and Princeton, was appointed aide-de-camp to Washington and acted as his secretary, filling the post admirably, but resigned in a fit of pique over a fancied ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... uncommonly bad behavior in sulking and hiding yourself for the last three days," added Wynnette, who was now standing beside her ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... coz, I'm awfully glad to see you again, and looking so uncommonly well too." He puts up his eye-glass to make sure of this fact, then drops it "Uncommonly well," he repeats; "give you my word I never saw you looking half a quarter so handsome before in my life. Ah! why can't we all be Moorish princesses, and wear ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... tracery of the ceiling did not escape his scrutiny. Yet he saw nothing likely to help him but an overturned chair and a couple of crushed cushions on a settee. It was very annoying, all the more annoying because M. Hanaud was so uncommonly busy. Hanaud looked carefully at the long settee and the crumpled cushions, and he took out his measure and measured the distance between the cushion at one end and the cushion at the other. He ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... turn for the worse," he thought; "and the doctor will be an uncommonly clever man, and particularly well read in criminal jurisprudence, if he sees anything suspicious ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... who combines all these three functions; in French he is called an "entrepreneur," in German an "Unternehmer." It is much to be regretted that in English we have no clear corresponding word. The word "capitalist" is not uncommonly employed to do duty in this connection, but this is a source of much confusion. For the word is also used, and more appropriately, to include all investors, whether or not they are active ...
— Supply and Demand • Hubert D. Henderson
... men; instead of being in a quiet and commodious country-house, with neighbours and servants and every thing necessary about her. Yet, so great is the power of the mind in such cases, she, though the circumstances proved uncommonly perilous, and were attended with the loss of the child, bore her sufferings with the greatest composure, because, at any minute she could send a message to, and hear from, me. If she had gone to Botley, leaving me in that ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... takes after her; for she strikes me as uncommonly stupid. After losing all her fortune, she brings her sons up so well that here is one in prison and likely to be brought up on a criminal indictment before the Court of Peers for a conspiracy worthy of Berton. As for the other, he is worse off; he's a painter. If your proteges are to stay ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... Possibly the good people who so contrive that such signatures as "Shakespeare," "Homer," or "St. Paul," appear to be written here and there to parts of their inferior work, manage to justify the proceeding in their conscience; but it is uncommonly like hallmarking pewter on the strength of an infinitesimal tinge of silver therein. The point becomes at once clear if we imagine some obscure painter quoting the style of Raphael and fragments of his designs, and acknowledging his ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... his senses were unusually stupefied; and in this, condition he had occasion to come down into the square in which was his lodging. It happened to be the fourteenth night of the moon, when she shone uncommonly bright, and shed such a lustre upon the ground, that the bang-eater from the dizziness of his head mistook the bright undulations of her reflection on the pavement for water, and fancied he was upon the brink of the river. He returned to ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... be called handsome in home waters, but she is uncommonly fast; and I find her much more convenient, in many ways, than a ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... the Papal court was its principal seat. With its downfall, the Roman Empire had bequeathed all its vices to Christian Europe. These vices were particularly nursed in Italy, whence, materially aided by the intercourse of the priesthood with Rome, they crowded into Germany. The uncommonly large number of priests, to a great extent vigorous men, whose sexual wants were intensified by a lazy and luxurious life, and who, through compulsory celibacy, were left to illegitimate or unnatural means of gratification, carried immorality into all circles of society. ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... is keen about his footer and they think he will row well! The man who has rooms on the same staircase seems a very good sort. I forget who he is—it's quite a well-known family—but he has been uncommonly kind to Davie. He wants him to go home with him next week, but of course Davie is keen to get back to Priorsford. Besides, you can't visit the stately homes of England on thirty shillings, and that's about Davie's limit, dear lamb! Jock and Mhor are looking forward ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... first district of this township. One of them, Dr. Sarah Lamb Cushing, was chosen tax-collector by 23 votes out of 26. On the entrance of the ladies, smoking and all disorder ceased, and the meeting was uncommonly well-conducted. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... not well established, and overhaul them early in the morning. "You can't get up too early, if you have a garden," says Mr. Warner; and he adds: "Things appear to go on in the night in the garden uncommonly. It would be less trouble to stay up than it is to ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... on to the Buck's Head, and Lord Vane took a foot canter down to the Raven, to reconnoiter it outside. He was uncommonly fond of planting himself where Sir Francis Levison's eyes were sure to fall upon him—which eyes were immediately dropped, while the young gentleman's would be fixed in an audacious stare. Being Lord Vane—or ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... next walk to the cottage, the way was beguiled by endeavouring to call to mind all that had been told them on their last visit; and, to do him justice, he acquitted himself uncommonly well. It is true, that now and then his brothers refreshed his memory on some points which had escaped him; but, on the whole, his account ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge
... Williams, ranging the world before breakfast in quest of adventure or a point of view, all in white, not so very tall perhaps, but uncommonly upright—Sandra Williams got Jacob's head exactly on a level with the head of the Hermes of Praxiteles. The comparison was all in his favour. But before she could say a single word he had gone out of ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... "COMMISSIONER OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TO EUROPE, ASIA, AND AFRICA" thundering after his name in one awful blast! I had carefully prepared myself to take rather a back seat in that ship because of the uncommonly select material that would alone be permitted to pass through the camel's eye of that committee on credentials; I had schooled myself to expect an imposing array of military and naval heroes and to have to set that back seat ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... it opened out were plain enough, for our splashings or voices echoed and went whispering far away. But otherwise the journey was very tame, and as the feeling of awe died away, the journey seemed uncommonly free from danger, for I felt it was absurd to imagine the waters to be peopled with ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... Installation of the Duke of Newcastle, which his friend, who was a laughing spectator of the ceremony, considers "the only entertainment that had any tolerable elegance," and thinks it, "with some little abatements, uncommonly well on such an occasion:" it was, however, very inferior to that which he himself composed when the Duke of Grafton ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... looked uncommonly like it when I saw you all," was Grayleigh's response. "Sibyl has long ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... he confesses his fault, it would be hard to punish him for it." On this assurance he went to the palace, where he was graciously received; the king, after expressing his entire satisfaction with the instrument, only adding, with a good-natured smile, "You have been uncommonly punctual this time, Mr. Ramsden, having brought the instrument on the very day of the month you promised it; you have only made a small mistake in the date of the year." It was, in fact, exactly a year after ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... is safe for a great success with the lovers of the bright and dainty in literature. It is prettily bound, and uncommonly cleverly illustrated.—N. Y. Graphic. ...
— A Brother To Dragons and Other Old-time Tales • Amelie Rives
... very much. Before we built our new house, Mrs. Tudor did not know us, notwithstanding the fact that our pews had adjoined for two or three years. But after that event, Mrs. Tudor found out that we had an existence, and became uncommonly gracious with my wife. ...
— Home Scenes, and Home Influence - A Series of Tales and Sketches • T. S. Arthur
... over, the outward gaiety, the blue sky, the glowing sun that streamed into the bedchamber, a nice little breakfast that he ate in bed, his window wide open upon the sea, the whole flavoured with an uncommonly good bottle of Crescia wine—it very speedily restored him ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... through better than I expected. I afterwards learned that he took a by-road through a garden to the outer Ranstaedt gate. Prince Poniatowsky attempted, higher up, to ford the Elster. The banks on each side are of considerable height, soft and swampy; the current itself narrow, but in this part uncommonly deep and muddy. How so expert a rider should have lost the management of his horse, I cannot imagine. According to report, the animal plunged headlong into the water with him, so that he could not possibly recover ...
— Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig • Frederic Shoberl (1775-1853)
... a request, Mrs. Manners," persisted St. George pleasantly, "but I've been uncommonly glad to do what I could. I am here simply on a ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... so uncommonly beautiful that she got her full—and more than her full share of this latter pleasure; and it was not long before she had those for whom she looked out amid the crowds upon the ring, and felt her heart beat with secret delight as she ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... Pope Clement IV. was dead and there was an interregnum. After two years Gregory X. was elected and received the Khan's message, but could furnish only a couple of Dominican friars, and these men were seized with the dread not uncommonly felt for "Tartareans," and at the last moment refused to go. Nicolo and his brother then set out in the autumn of 1271 to return to China, taking with them Nicolo's son Marco, a lad of seventeen years. From Acre they went by way of Bagdad ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... circumstances it is utterly unaccountable to me why you a young Widow with no great jointure—should not close with the passion of a man of such character and expectations as Mr. Surface—and more so why you should be so uncommonly earnest to destroy the mutual Attachment subsisting between ...
— The School For Scandal • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... towards this decoy that Fenella bent her way with unabated speed; and they were approaching a group of two or three gentlemen, who sauntered by its banks, when, on looking closely at him who appeared to be the chief of the party, Julian felt his heart beat uncommonly thick, as if conscious of approaching some ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... thoughtful study of the theories of others, it followed now—as not uncommonly happens—that Andre-Louis came to develop theories of his own. He lay one June morning on his little truckle bed in the alcove behind the academy, considering a passage that he had read last night in Danet on double and triple feints. It had seemed to him when reading ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... the Duchess and her gentleman usher were uncommonly good friends; rather more so than was usual at that time. She set it down to their mutual Lutheranism; but she might have found for it another and a more personal reason, which they had not yet thought proper to declare openly. The Duchess and Bertie were privately engaged, but they ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... political and historical forces that include that habitat in their sphere of influence and have determined its familiar institutions. Such forces are numerous and their spheres include one another like concentric rings. France, for instance, is an uncommonly distinct and self-conscious nation, with a long historic identity and a compact territory. Yet what is the France a Frenchman is to think of and love? Paris itself has various quarters and moral climates, one of which may well be loved while another ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... these fascinating little volumes will tell us. Kitty, read something to your suffering cousins about Donnacona,—he sounds uncommonly like an Irishman," answered the colonel, establishing himself in an easy-chair; and Kitty picked up a small sketch of the history of Quebec, and, opening it, fell into the trance which came upon her at the touch of a book, and read on for some pages ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... 35-40 feet and not uncommonly 50-60 feet high; trunk 8-15 inches in diameter, tapering, surmounted by a very open, irregular head of small, spreading branches; spray sparse, consisting of short, stout, leafy rounded shoots set at a wide angle; distinguished by the slenderness of its habit, the ...
— Handbook of the Trees of New England • Lorin Low Dame
... dubious and to cough, She would say, "Oh, my friends, it's because I hope to bring this poor benighted soul back to virtue and propriety, And besides, the poor benighted soul, with all his faults, was uncommonly well off. ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... of the school is fust-rate," replied Mr. Peckham. "The sitooation is uncommonly favorable to saloobrity." (These last words were from the Annual Report of the past year.) "Providence has spared our female youth in a remarkable measure. I've come with reference to another consideration. Dr. Kittredge, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... your right," said Massachusetts, bluntly, "but I do question your sense. I may be mistaken, but I don't believe those leaves are very good to handle. They look to me uncommonly like dogwood. I'm not sure; but if I were you, I would show them to Miss Flower ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards
... event, exists in the great wardrobe; and is in the highest preservation; it is written on vellum, and is bound with the coronation rolls of Henry the Seventh and Eighth. These are written on paper, and are in worse condition; but that of king Richard is uncommonly fair, accurate, and ample. It is the account of Peter Courteys keeper of the great wardrobe, and dates from the day of king Edward the Fourth his death, to the feast of the purification in the February of the following ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole
... me that an Ape differs from a Man because the latter has a soul and the ape has not, I can only say it may be so; but I should uncommonly like to know how either that the ape has not one or ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley |
