"Peculiarly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... XV. is peculiarly favourable for a writer possessed of the philosophic mind, calm judgment, and contemplative turn of M. de Tocqueville. It was then that the many causes which concurred to produce the Revolution were brought to maturity. We say brought to maturity: for, great ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... peculiarly Eastern form of expression is noticeable in announcing these presents: "You will find enclosed a list of some of the poor productions of our country, which we beg you will refrain from ...
— Japan • David Murray
... to throw back his gift, were all noted by her accusing conscience as so many sins. The next day she sought again her confessor, and began an entrance on those darker and more chilly paths of penance, by which, according to the opinion of her times, the peculiarly elect of the Lord were supposed to be best trained. Hitherto her religion had been the cheerful and natural expression of her tender and devout nature according to the more beautiful and engaging devotional ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... would have produced humility by the direct survey. This is evident, objects always produce by comparison a sensation directly contrary to their original one. Suppose, therefore, an object to be presented, which is peculiarly fitted to produce love, but imperfectly to excite pride; this object, belonging to another, gives rise directly to a great degree of love, but to a small one of humility by comparison; and consequently that latter ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... principal service of every Lord's Day should be the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. Our Lord has also taught us by His example as well as by precept, that works of mercy, both spiritual and corporal, are lawful to be done on this day, and are peculiarly appropriate to it." ...
— The American Church Dictionary and Cyclopedia • William James Miller
... the faculty of being pleased with the sight of young people enjoying themselves (it is only in the best-natured of elderly folk that one meets with that TRAIT) she possessed to the full. On the other hand, her daughter was of a grave turn of mind. Rather, she was of that peculiarly careless, absent-minded, gratuitously distant bearing which commonly distinguishes unmarried beauties. Whenever she tried to be gay, her gaiety somehow seemed to be unnatural to her, so that she always ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... nations. Above all, the neutrals enjoy the advantage of being able to speak freely, a piece of good fortune which they fail to esteem at its true value. Switzerland, in the very centre of the battlefield, between the fighting camps, with inhabitants drawn from three of the belligerent stocks, is peculiarly favoured. I have had occasion to perceive and to profit by the wealth of information at the disposal of the Swiss. Hither, from all parts of Europe, comes an abundance of news, ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... after the duel between the two brothers in The Master of Ballantrae, or David Balfour's perilous adventure on the broken staircase in Kidnapped. Kipling is another expert in the art of eeriness, and has a wide range. His Indian backgrounds are peculiarly adapted for tales of terror. The loathsome horror of The Mark of the Beast, with its intangible suggestion of mystery, the quiet restraint of The Return of Imray, in which so much is left unsaid, are two admirable illustrations of ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... expressman was there, hard at work,—a plain man of fifty, with a simple, honest, good-natured face, and a breezy, practical heartiness in his general style. As the train moved off a stranger skipped into the car and set a package of peculiarly mature and capable Limburger cheese on one end of my coffin-box—I mean my box of guns. That is to say, I know now that it was Limburger cheese, but at that time I never had heard of the article in my life, and of course was wholly ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Height to be graceful on Occasions of State and Ceremony, and no less adapted for Agility and Dispatch: his Aspect is erect and compos'd; his Eye lively and thoughtful, yet rather vigilant than sparkling; his Action and Address the most easy imaginable, and his Behaviour in an Assembly peculiarly graceful in a certain Art of mixing insensibly with the rest, and becoming one of the Company, instead of receiving the Courtship of it. The Shape of his Person, and Composure of his Limbs, are remarkably exact and beautiful. There is in his Look something sublime, which does not seem to arise ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... originality. But he took care not to say anything about it, not only because his vanity was hurt by Christophe's attitude towards himself, but because it was impossible for him to be amiable: it was the peculiarly ungracious quality of his nature. He was sincerely desirous of helping Christophe: but he would not have stirred a finger to do so: he was waiting for Christophe to come and ask it of him. And now that Christophe had come,—instead of generously seizing the opportunity of wiping ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... book designed for the edification of research workers—a specimen of peculiarly disagreeable tartuffery—the histologist, Ramon y Cajal, who, as a thinker, has always been an absolute mediocrity, explains what the young scholar should be, in the same way that the Constitution of 1812 made it clear what the ideal Spanish ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... educational formula in favour of giving every one what is called a sound general education. And it is probably one of the contributory causes which account for the present chaos of curricula. All subjects are held to be so important, and each subject is thought by its professors to be so peculiarly adapted for educational stimulus, that a resolute selection of subjects, which is the only remedy, is not attempted; and accordingly the victim of educational theories is in the predicament of the man described by Dr. Johnson ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... friend. The aristocratic bristles rose on the skin that had seemed so smooth. At first he expressed mild wonder at Marius's resolution—the wonder that is more contemptuous than a gibe—and exhorted him in words, the professedly friendly tone of which must have been peculiarly irritating, not to let a distorted ambition get the better of him; every one should see that his desires were appropriate and limit them when they passed this stage; Marius had reason to be satisfied with his position; he should be on his guard ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... a periodical that shall measure up to this high standard, with its accompanying influence and power, is one of the aspirations of the Menorah movement; and the Menorah auspices and conditions are so peculiarly favorable to the achievement of this ambition as to lend every encouragement to the effort that will be put forth to make the Journal a genuinely significant publication for the whole ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... will be my letter after all. How I could have been so stupid I do not see. But I'm always so. As to any private confidences, there is no danger of any thing of that kind taking place between people who are so very peculiarly situated ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... the great Apelles, who united the advantages of his native Ionia—grace, sensual charms, and rich coloring—with the scientific accuracy of the Sicyonian school. The most prominent characteristic of his style was grace (charis), a quality which he himself avowed as peculiarly his, and which serves to unite all the other gifts and faculties which the painter requires; perhaps in none of his pictures was it exhibited in such perfection as in his famous Anadyomene, in which Aphrodite is represented rising out of the sea, and wringing ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... twenty cot beds, arranged in two opposite rows, with their heads to the walls. On each cot the bedding had been rolled back in a peculiarly exact fashion. ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock
... for ever!" replied the officer, highly delighted with this unusual mark of the king's confidence. "Thou livest in the warm affections of thy nobles, and in the pure regard of all thy numerous subjects. Thou art the peculiarly favored of the gods. All the nations of the earth fear thee, and pay their homage ...
— The Young Captives - A Story of Judah and Babylon • Erasmus W. Jones
... similar correct descriptions of men well known to me, I spied one whom I did not know, and who was dressed peculiarly. I inquired his occupation, and Mr. Sidney, without turning a glance towards me, and still gazing through the half-opened shutters, replied, "Yes! you never saw him before, yourself. He is a stranger in town, as is evident from the fact of his being dressed in his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... than the emancipation of the Jews, it is more comprehensive than the establishment of a Jewish, politically independent State. It participates in the larger ideals of humanity, the ideals of perfection for the human race, but it remains on Jewish soil, and retains its peculiarly Jewish significance. It promises universal peace, an age of justice and of righteousness, an age in which all men will recognise that God is One and His name One. But this glorious age will come ...
— Judaism • Israel Abrahams
... that the sun smiled on him in a peculiarly sweet manner; he dreamed, still further, that it beckoned him to follow it to the far north, whereupon Fred was suddenly transformed into a gigantic locomotive engine; the sun all at once became a green dragon with pink eyes and a blue tail; ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne
... was built on the right lines, and her young, eager face, in its frame of raven hair, was as vivid as a flower—its clear pallor serving but to emphasise the beauty of the straight, dark brows and of the scarlet mouth with its ridiculously short upper-lip. Her eyes were of that peculiarly light grey which, when accompanied, as hers were, by thick black lashes, gives an almost startling impression each time the lids are lifted, an odd suggestion of inner radiance that ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... bath recommends itself in a variety of cases, and is peculiarly beneficial to the inhabitants of populous cities who indulge in idleness and lead sedentary lives: it accelerates the motion of the blood, promotes the different secretions, and gives permanency to the solids. But all ...
— The Book of Sports: - Containing Out-door Sports, Amusements and Recreations, - Including Gymnastics, Gardening & Carpentering • William Martin
... Bush Bradshaw. His cheek was ruddy, his eyes had the lustre of health; in the wrinkled forehead you saw activity of brain, and on his lips the stubborn independence of a Lancashire employer of labour. Prosperity had set its mark upon him, that peculiarly English prosperity which is so intimately associated with spotless linen, with a good cut of clothes, with scant but valuable jewellery, with the absence of any perfume save that which suggests the morning tub. He was a manufacturer of silk. The provincial accent notwithstanding, his ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... (Vol. vii., p. 497.).—This phrase, "generally supposed to be peculiarly Shakspearian," which A. E. B. has indicated in his quotation from Philemon Holland, occurs also in Dr. T. Bright's Treatise of Melancholy, the date of which is 1586. In the third page of the dedicatory epistle ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 188, June 4, 1853 • Various
... years the squatters of the district were scattered, at wide intervals, throughout a great extent of country, and, being in the midst of native tribes who were not only numerous but of a peculiarly hostile disposition, they often found themselves in a very precarious situation. The blacks swarmed on the runs, killing the sheep, and stealing the property of the squatters, who had many annoyances to suffer and injuries to guard against. But ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... representatives of Army and Navy officers of earlier days. Their social code is, in some respects, entirely different and distinct from that of any other city, and was formed many decades ago by the ancestors of the "cave dwellers," who were so peculiarly versed in the varied requirements and adornments of social life that to-day no radical innovations are ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... body, and by the pale ghastly light that gleams from the aperture above. The inscription over this chapel or mausoleum, was dictated by St. Charles himself, and breathes that modesty and piety which so peculiarly marked his character. It ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 379, Saturday, July 4, 1829. • Various
... it was with a peculiarly reluctant feeling, for my eyelids were so heavy that they seemed to weigh a ton. My head was unspeakably groggy, and I had quite lost my memory. I couldn't, if suddenly interrogated, have replied with ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... say any more the visitor himself entered, a tall spare priest with a dark narrow countenance of the true Tuscan type,—a face in which the small furtive eyes twinkled with a peculiarly hard brilliancy as though they were luminous pebbles. He walked into the room with a kind of aggressive dignity common to many Italians, and made a slight sign of the cross in air as the two ladies ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... thread or a yard of tape in the place!'—when I observed a tall and handsome young man on the opposite side of the road cast a hasty glance at us, and then sneak round the corner hurriedly. He was a loose-limbed, languid-looking young man, with large, dreamy eyes, and a peculiarly beautiful and gentle expression; but what I noted about him most was an odd superficial air of superciliousness. He seemed always to be looking down with scorn on that foolish jumble, the universe. He darted away so rapidly, however, that I hardly discovered all this just ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... a position peculiarly his own, whether we regard the circumstances of his rise, or the feelings which have followed him in his fall. Born in the middle ranks of life, he raised himself by sheer force of intellect to the loftiest place among the proudest nobles on earth, without ever deserting or being ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... the kind she little knew what risk she was running; to which she at once replied that a girl in her situation, with a houseful of French soldiers, was indifferent to common dangers. I told her I was sorry to hear it, and felt obliged to add that I was peculiarly accursed. ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... paralyzed, and at such time he suffered intense pain. But when evening came, in the moonlight, or late twilight; in fact at any time when there was no glare of light, just a soft radiance, he could not only see but was possessed of peculiarly acute vision. How he kept his secret for so many years I don't know. I understand why he did, but, even now, I cannot understand what drove him to commit the dreadful deeds he did, so wealthy and ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... knowledge of language. He may be totally unable to speak (though as to this there are all degrees of variation), and yet may comprehend what is said to him, and be able to read, think, and even write correctly. Thus it appears that Broca's centre is peculiarly bound up with the capacity for articulate speech, but is far enough from being the seat of the faculty of language ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... the gray, slushy street. The wayfarers seemed unusually coarse and jostling that evening, Percival thought, the pavement peculiarly miry, the flaring gaslights very cruel to the unloveliness ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... the lights, nor the stars, nor the earth, nor the sea? I might say that Thou, O God, who created created us after Thine Image, I might say, that it had been Thy good pleasure to bestow this blessing peculiarly upon man; hadst Thou not in like manner blessed the fishes and the whales, that they should increase and multiply, and replenish the waters of the sea, and that the fowls should be multiplied upon the earth. I ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... more sordid but less criminal surroundings of real life by a strong pungent smell. She sniffed, and then her heart suddenly sank as she realized that the cereal was burning. She recognized a peculiarly disagreeable flavor about which she had often scolded the cook, thinking such carelessness on the part of one of her employees to be ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller
... sat at his desk making out sheets containing the record of the work done by each man in his department. When he looked up he could see the girl sitting at work at her desk. The notion got into his head that she was peculiarly lovely. He did not think of trying to draw close to her or of winning her love. He looked at her as one might look at a star or across a country of low hills in October when the leaves of the trees are all red and yellow gold. "She is a pure, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... not tell them that they had got the previous day's papers in St. Peter Port, and that their scathing comments on a peculiarly bad failure, and on the remarkable contrast between the profession and the practice of Jeremiah Pixley's life, had driven Charles Svendt almost crazy. The wound was raw in their hearts. There was no need to ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... again as they walked out into the dull, hot September afternoon sun. The board sidewalk was uneven and full of projecting nails and splinters, and she held her thin, blue-gray dress prettily aside from them; Will noted the gesture with admiration as intense as unreasonable. It seemed to him peculiarly admirable that she should draw her hat a little forward to shade her eyes, and should take just the length of step that she did; the absolutely right step for a lady was thenceforth settled; since then, he has insisted unreasonably upon a certain shade as the only right thing in ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... Bingley-on-the-Sea, in Sussex. All watering-places on the South Coast of England are blots on the landscape, but, though I am aware that by saying it I shall offend the civic pride of some of the others, none are so peculiarly foul as Bingley-on-the-Sea. The asphalt on the Bingley esplanade is several degrees more depressing than the asphalt on other esplanades. The Swiss waiters at the Hotel Magnificent, where Sam was stopping, ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... oasis in the desert of waters. It is sixteen miles long and about one half as wide, containing fourteen thousand inhabitants, more or less, who can hardly be designated as an enterprising community. On first landing, everything strikes the visitor as being peculiarly foreign,—almost unique. The town is situated on the northerly front of the island, extending along the shore for a couple of miles, and back to a crest of land which rises to nearly the height of a hundred feet. This elevation is crowned ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... Middle Ages which makes, for instance, the sweetheart of Ritter Tannhaeuser so infinitely more seductive than the paramour of Adonis; that charm which, when we meet it occasionally in literature, in parts of Spenser, for instance, or in a play like Peel's "Arraignment of Paris," is so peculiarly delightful. ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... the other family remained healthy; and when, at the suggestion of a medical friend, who knew all the facts, * * * we visited the place for the purpose of thoroughly investigating them. * * * These two houses had nothing about them peculiarly noticeable by the passing stranger. They were situated in the same township, and within a very short distance one from the other, and yet scarcely any one in the village with whom we spoke on the subject agreed with us in our opinion that it was location ...
— Minnesota; Its Character and Climate • Ledyard Bill
... never sufficiently recognize that love of power is quite as strong a motive, and quite as great a source of injustice, as love of money; yet this must be obvious to any unbiased student of politics. It is also obvious that the method of violent revolution leading to a minority dictatorship is one peculiarly calculated to create habits of despotism which would survive the crisis by which they were generated. Communist politicians are likely to become just like the politicians of other parties: a few will be honest, but the great majority will merely cultivate ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... Papist, ever since that slap on the face to his ancestor); and who has been in many quarrels with Friedrich Wilhelm and others. A high expensive sovereign gentleman, this old Karl Philip; not, I should suppose, the pleasantest of men to lodge with. One apprehends, he cannot be peculiarly well disposed to Friedrich Wilhelm, after that sad Heidelberg passage of fence, twelve or eleven years ago. Not to mention the inextricable Julich-and-Berg business, which is a standing controversy ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... this poem is peculiarly obscure and the meaning difficult of translation. The allusions are so local and special that their meaning does not carry to ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... without anything to pay for the wood. So I hope that we shall always burn together, Baas. And meanwhile, I have brought you a little something," and he produced what looked like a peculiarly obnoxious horseball. "You swallow this now and you will never feel anything; it is a very good medicine that my grandfather's grandfather got from the Spirit of his tribe. You will just go to sleep as nicely ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... airship, as this can be overcome by merely increasing the size. It thus appears that for such journeys as crossing the Atlantic, or crossing the Pacific from the west coast of America to Australia or Japan, the airship will be peculiarly suitable. It having been conceded that the scope of the airship is long distance travel, the only type which need be considered for this purpose is the rigid. The rigid airship is still in an embryonic state, but sufficient has already been accomplished in this country, and more particularly ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... Focara's wind.] Focara is a mountain, from which a wind blows that is peculiarly dangerous to ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... camp-fire outside and by the time it was eaten, night had begun to fall. The little party at once repaired to their room. They know that the night air of the great swamp was peculiarly unhealthy. Already they had exposed themselves far too much ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... I discovered the Garden of Eden, the place from which man had been wandering for 6,000 years? I was conducted by Rocanandiv (the high priest) down a steep path to the valley, where we came in view of several large peculiarly shaped houses, built of bamboo. Near these dwellings were perhaps a hundred men, women and children, remnants of a vanishing nation. Some had a mat around their loins, but many were naked. All the males had the barbote in the lip, and ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... that moment was engaged in what to him was his greatest pleasure in life—counting his gold. He was in the midst of this absorbing occupation when he heard three separate knocks at his outside door given in a peculiarly distinctive way. He knew Jeremy's signal and he hurried his gold into an iron bound coffer ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... at all at his ease, but being a business man, and being also blessed with a peculiarly inexpressive face, he was successfully dissembling ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... where the present guard is placed, and where indeed a strong guard is peculiarly necessary, the river Bibiriba falls into the aestuary, which was formerly the port of Olinda. A dam is built across with flood-gates which are occasionally opened; and on the dam there is a very pretty open arcade, where the neighbouring inhabitants ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... chanticleer that has been rescued from the river by some kind hand. Their faces being daubed over with green, yellow and red, mixed and mingled with a sublime disregard of proportion, gave their features a peculiarly unnatural appearance, such as we see when we survey our particular friends through differently and highly colored pieces of glass. They were fine specimens of the "noble red man" that are occasionally met ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... of the illimitable possibilities of the dance expands, there is certain to be a growing demand for the types of dancers whose gifts make them peculiarly adapted to the exercise of ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... had never eaten before, till the last fragment was reached—a peculiarly crisp, brown, tempting-looking piece adhering to one of the skewers. This he held back for a few moments in company with the last piece of mealie cake, wishing the while that he had cooked more, and brought a larger piece of ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn
... guesses, but they certainly indicate a large growth in the population of Toledo, and similar figures are given for Seville, Burgos and other manufacturing and trading centers. From such estimates, however, combined with the censuses of hearths, peculiarly unsatisfactory in Spain as they excluded the privileged classes and were, as their violent fluctuations show, carelessly made, we may arrive at the conclusion that in 1557 the population of ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... engage her in conversation, and to her she talked with ease and even with freedom. Virginia examined Miss Portman's countenance with a species of artless curiosity and interest, that was not restrained by factitious politeness. This examination was not peculiarly agreeable to Belinda, yet it was made with so much apparent simplicity, that ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... troops, he ascribed the victory to the Lord of Hosts. The lesson accompanying the prayers was taken from a Sura (or chapter of the Koran) which speaks of Pharaoh and his riders being overwhelmed in the Red Sea, and contains this passage, held to be peculiarly appropriate ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir
... differences. It will be remembered that Charlotte describes him as bearing a resemblance to Emily—a curious circumstance by the light of the fact that Lewes was always adjudged among his acquaintances as a peculiarly ugly man. Here is a portion of a letter upon which Mrs. Gaskell practised considerable excisions, and of which she ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... phenomena before them. Everything is mysterious which is not understood; and, unluckily, they understand little or nothing. If any phenomenon, or existence not before them, is to be described, the language must be symbolic. The result is, that the Indian languages are peculiarly the languages of symbols, metaphors, and figures. Without this feature, everything not in the departments of eating, drinking, and living, and the ordinary transactions of the chase and forest, would ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... the fact that she thought she should not mind its being a little dull. It seemed to her, when from the piazza of her eleemosynary cottage she looked out over the soundless fields, the stony pastures, the clear-faced ponds, the rugged little orchards, that she had never been in the midst of so peculiarly intense a stillness; it was almost a delicate sensual pleasure. It was all very good, very innocent and safe, and out of it something good must come. Augustine, indeed, who had an unbounded faith in her mistress's ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... the Slavic tongue: to argue vainly with La Menschikov, the soprano, who, to Ivan's unbounded disgust, used every vocal trick invented by the melodramatic Italians, from a revolting tremolo, and a barefaced falsetto to an incorrigible persistence in the appoggiatura, an affectation peculiarly unadapted to Ivan's rich, strong style. Many a concerted passage, moreover, did he, in silent despair, alter to suit the stubborn inabilities of the singers, who insisted that the composer knew nothing of the possibilities of the human voice:—a criticism, indeed, passed more ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... district, and be an exact transcript of reality, they would be literary photographs, and not poems. Poetry cannot, in the nature of things, be a mere register of phenomena appealing to the eye or the ear. No imaginative writer, however, in the whole range of English Literature, is so peculiarly identified with locality as Wordsworth is; and there is not one on the roll of poets, the appreciation of whose writings is more aided by an intimate knowledge of the district in which he lived. The wish to be able to identify his allusions to those ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... more or less the need of force and punishment. But it is worthy of remark that the means of keeping order in one state of society may become the chief excitement of discontent and disorder in another, and this is peculiarly true of aristocracy or high rank. In rude ages, this keeps the people down; but when the people by degrees have risen to some consciousness of their rights and essential equality with the rest of the race, the awe of rank naturally subsides, and passes into suspicion, jealousy, and sense ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... The child of Lake Forsaken put the question eagerly, and his reply was laconic, though he smiled down from the buggy seat with a peculiarly naive twist of his lips. "Bugs," ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... was fond of defending his friends, came vigorously to the defense of the playwright, to whom he was devoted and whose first nights he seldom missed. In the discussion which followed Charmian saw more clearly how peculiarly in tune her mother's ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... visits at gay places, and this quiet, beautiful island out in the Mississippi—large, apart, serene—seemed a great lap into which to sink. She liked the quarters: big old-fashioned houses in front of which the long stretch of green sloped down to the river. There was something peculiarly restful in the spaciousness and stability, a place which the disagreeable or distressing things of life could not invade. Most of the women were away, which was the real godsend, for the dreariness and desolation of pleasure would be eliminated. A quiet post was charming until it tried ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... beneficial to gouty persons; which notion they have very readily and generally received, not so much perhaps from a reasonable persuasion of its truth, as from a desire that it should be true, because they love wine. Let them consider, that a free use of vinous and spirituous liquors peculiarly hurts the stomach and organs of digestion, and that the gout is bred and fostered by those who indulge themselves in drinking much wine; while the poorer part of mankind, who can get very little stronger than water to drink, have better appetites than wine-drinkers, and better digestions, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... countenance, when he arrived in the City at his usual time, struck those dependants who were accustomed, for good reasons, to watch its expression, as peculiarly ghastly and worn. At twelve o'clock Mr. Higgs (of the firm of Higgs & Blatherwick, solicitors, Bedford Row) called by appointment, and was ushered into the governor's private room, and closeted there for more than an hour. At about one Mr. Chopper ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Mrs. Ward said, with a smile, "You will be wishing to hear the story of Boxa's ancestor, a dog, as I have said, deserving of renown. It chanced, in one of his official journeys, your grandfather visited a part of the coast peculiarly fatal to European vessels, especially to those outward bound to Quebec in the spring; the shore in the neighbourhood being very low, and the ledges of rock extending far out to sea. On one of the islands which he visited, ...
— Georgie's Present • Miss Brightwell
... English reader contains a little less than half the entire bulk of Whitman's poetry. My choice has proceeded upon two simple rules: first, to omit entirely every poem which could with any tolerable fairness be deemed offensive to the feelings of morals or propriety in this peculiarly nervous age; and, second, to include every remaining poem which appeared to me of conspicuous beauty or interest. I have also inserted the very remarkable prose preface which Whitman printed in the original edition of Leaves of Grass, an edition that has become a ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... parhelios, and the mock moon a paraselene. On that principle, we must call this mock Assembly a para-synodos. Rarely, indeed, can we applaud the Seceders in the fabrication of names. They distinguish as quoad sacra parishes those which were peculiarly quoad politica parishes; for in that view only they had been interesting to the Non-intrusionists. Again, they style themselves The Free Church, by way of taunting the other side with being a servile ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... Mrs. Hardy. "The fact that Mr. Elden wants to get the property back makes me more satisfied," she added, with the peculiarly irritating laugh of a woman who thinks she is extraordinarily shrewd, and is ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... Kant's irony is peculiarly Scottish. He does not himself know how far he is in earnest, and, to save his self-respect and character for canniness, he 'jocks wi' deeficulty.' He amuses himself with trying how far he can carry speculations on metaphysics (not yet reformed by himself) ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... her face, usually prettily flushed with pink, was now deadly white, and also that the child's eyes shifted in a peculiarly nervous manner. ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... object of innocent amusement and delightful recreation. A woman, who possesses this quality, has received a most dangerous present, perhaps not less so than beauty itself: especially if it be not sheathed in a temper peculiarly inoffensive, chastised by a most correct judgment, and restrained by more prudence than falls to the ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... acclamations of Casey's partisans, and Reardon approached me. His face was pale with concentrated passion, and in his eyes was an expression that for one moment made even my strong nerves quiver. His voice was scarcely above a whisper, but it was peculiarly distinct: ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... CEPHEUS.—A peculiarly shaped ring-plain, 27 miles in diameter. The E. border is nearly rectilineal, while on the W., the wall forms a bold curve. There is a very brilliant crater on the summit of this section, and a central mountain on ...
— The Moon - A Full Description and Map of its Principal Physical Features • Thomas Gwyn Elger
... Henry's penance was performed in the castle courts beneath the rock, his reception by the Pope, and all that subsequently happened, took place in the citadel itself. But of this we have no positive information. Indeed the silence of the chronicles as to the topography of Canossa is peculiarly unfortunate for lovers of the picturesque in historic detail, now that there is no possibility of tracing the outlines of the ancient building. Had the author of the 'Vita Mathildis' (Muratori, vol. v.) foreseen ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... motives of display and pride have been peculiarly active in Germany in the last few decades has been maintained by many writers. German writers are inclined to believe that the motive for the "attack upon Germany" was jealousy on the part of her enemies, that Germany was supreme in everything and other countries could tolerate ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge
... rings about their fine eyes, like the dark-faced dandies who bow to them. This Neapolitan look is very curious, and I have not seen it elsewhere in Italy; it is a look of peculiar pensiveness, and comes, no doubt, from the peculiarly heavy growth of lashes which fringes the lower eyelid. Then there is the weariness in it of all peoples whose summers are ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... master who is peculiarly the Venetian of the eighteenth century, a genre-painter whose charm it is not easy to surpass, yet one who did not at the outset find his true vocation. Longhi's first undertakings, specimens of which exist in certain palaces ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... occasions which stand out with a peculiarly horrible distinctness. One was the time we had an all-day picnic at Bears' Den. Porter Brawley suggested it, and I hope he will suffer for it in eternity. ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... this dispensation, which Judge Cradlebaugh mentioned as "peculiarly and shockingly prominent," was that of the Aikin party, in the spring of 1857. This party, consisting of six men, started east from San Francisco in May, 1857, and, falling in with a Mormon train, joined them for protection against the Indians. "When they got to a safer neighborhood, ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... not invariably placid. The geologist had an irritable temper, and in certain states of the atmosphere his rheumatic twinges made it advisable to shun argument with him. Godwin, moreover, was distinguished by an instability of mood peculiarly trying to an old man's testy humour. Of a sudden, to Mr Gunnery's surprise and annoyance, he would lose all interest in this or that science. Thus, one day the lad declared himself unable to name two stones ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... and pathos, though the last not seldom runs into mawkishness, and an exquisitely delicate and glancing style. He has contributed some immortal characters to English fiction, including Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim. His great faults as a writer are affectation and a peculiarly deliberate kind of indecency, which his profession renders all the more offensive; and he was by no means scrupulous in adopting, without acknowledgment, the good ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... the priest looked in her direction. She thought others looked at her attentively at the same time. But they had all stared at her, for that matter, and she had felt confused and embarrassed under their searching scrutiny. Yet the old people attracted her peculiarly. Never had she seen so many at one time. And never, she thought, had she seen such physical decrepitude and helplessness. And then she fell to wondering what they were all there for, and what they got out of the service. Did the Mass mean anything to ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... 1870, with the date of 1871 on the title-page. The volume met with instantaneous success. It was the subject of comment and conversation everywhere and passed rapidly through several editions. There was a general feeling that a new writer had suddenly appeared, with a wit and wisdom peculiarly his own, precisely like which nothing had previously existed in our literature. To the later editions of the work was added an account of a cat which had been presented to the author by the Stowes. For that reason it was given from the Christian name of the husband of the novelist ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... exceptions in Quaker women from the reputed imperfections of Quaker men, I cannot help adding in this place, that the females of this society are peculiarly distinguishable for that which has been at all times considered as one of the brightest ornaments of their sex. Modesty is particularly conspicuous in their looks and in their whole outward demeanour. It is conspicuous in their conversation. It is conspicuous also ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... abrupt, I know," he begins, in a peculiarly apologetical tone, "but I wanted you to know my intentions. Circumstances might be rather against us if we undertook the orthodox courtship," and he smiles. "I am aware that I have not the graces of youth ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... second reading of the Mutiny Bill till the 23rd of February. Fox now paused, and Lord Surrey stood forward, in order to strike a more decisive blow. He moved, "That, in the opinion of the committee it was peculiarly necessary that, in the present situation of his majesty's dominions, there should be an administration which has the confidence of this house and the public." This resolution was also carried without a division; ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... come in dry and cool, and at its full the Wet lifted, as our traveller had foretold. Only a bushman's personal observation, remember, this lifting of the Wet with the full of the Easter moon, not a scientific statement; but by an insight peculiarly their own, bushmen come at more facts than ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... you, Alice—I seem to disappoint everybody that I would like to please—but I assure you, laugh at my dreams as you may, to me my dream-life is far more attractive and beautiful than what you term Life. Forgive me if I hurt you, cousin. I'm peculiarly constituted, perhaps, but I don't like this twaddle, and I can't help it! Everything in England is so beautiful, and yet its society seems so—so hopelessly unsatisfactory to one ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... 1. I think myself peculiarly happy in being permitted to address the citizens of Edinburgh on the subject of architecture, for it is one which, they cannot but feel, interests them nearly. Of all the cities in the British Islands, Edinburgh is the one which presents ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... versed in it as any man in the country; and it culminated in a description of the fall of Sumter. This was an elaborate picture in words of a perfectly neutral tint. There was not a single one which was peculiarly picturesque or vivid; no electric phrase that sent the whole striking scene shuddering home to every hearer; no sudden light of burning epithet, no sad elegiac music. The passage was purely academic. Each word was choice; each detail was finished; it was ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... every man in the shops. This is peculiarly unfortunate at this moment, when a determined effort is being made by organized labor to force unionism on us. The men have the notion that you are not ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... protest against the bloody deeds before the Manyuema. If, as he and others added, the massacre was committed by Manilla's people, he would have consented; but it was done by Tagamoio's people, and others of this party, headed by Dugumbe. This slaughter was peculiarly atrocious, inasmuch as we have always heard that women coming to or from market have never been known to be molested: even when two districts are engaged in actual hostilities, "the women," say they, "pass among us to market unmolested," ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... a peculiarly impertinent question of the woman member of the party, realised by this time that the three reporters were more than a little tipsy, and ordered these guardians of the public morality out of ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... plans, did not well accord with the decisive genius of Pitt; but it was not prudent, by any innovation, to irritate the colonies during a war in which, from local circumstances, their exertions were peculiarly beneficial. The advantages that would result from an ability to draw forth the resources of the colonies, by the same authority which commanded the wealth of the mother country, might, in these circumstances, have suggested the idea of taxing the colonies by authority of the British Parliament. ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... The Athenaeum mistook Oscar Wilde for a continuator of the Pre-Raphaelite movement with the sub-conscious and peculiarly English suggestion that whatever is "aesthetic" or "artistic" is necessarily weak and worthless, ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... origin was either in the old custom of wearing chaplets of roses during the 'Symposiack meetings,' or else because the rose was the flower of Venus, 'which Cupid consecrated unto Harpocrates, the god of silence.' There is a basis of probability in both theories, and all know that the rose was peculiarly the property of the Goddess of Love. Indeed, according to the old fable, the flower was originally white until dyed by the blood which flowed from the foot of Venus, pierced by a thorn as she ran to the aid of her loved Adonis. Hence ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... to think little was known on the subject. He said this comet had never been seen before, and might never return again, as its path seemed parabolic, and not elliptical; but he said that what was peculiarly remarkable about it was the extreme agitation observed in the tail, and even in the nucleus, the motion appearing to be vibratory. With regard to meteoric stones, he said the one we saw at New Haven, though of ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... took in as I had perhaps never done before the beauty of his rich blank gaze. It was charged with experience as the sky is charged with light, and I felt on the instant as if we had been overspanned and conjoined by the great arch of a bridge or the great dome of a temple. Doubtless I was rendered peculiarly sensitive to it by something in the way I had been giving him up and sinking him. While I met it I stood there smitten, and I felt myself responding to it with a sort of guilty grimace. This brought back his attention in a smile which expressed for me a cheerful weary patience, a bruised noble ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... under-study. She was not so clever, so daring, or so altogether reckless, but she came in a very good second-best in most of the harum-scarum escapades. She could always be relied upon for support, could keep a secret, and had a peculiarly convenient knack of baffling awkward questions by putting on an attitude of utter stolidity. When her eyes were half-closed under their heavy lids, and her mouth wore what the girls called its "John Bull" expression, not even Miss Beasley herself could ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... upon Physical Degeneracy, page 16; "No kind of exercise or work whatever is so well calculated to improve the constitution and health of females as domestic labor. By its lightness, repetition, and variety, it is peculiarly adapted to call into wholesome exercise all the muscles and organs of the body, producing an exuberance of health, vigor of frame, power of endurance, and elasticity of spirits; and to all these advantages are to be added ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... defence of foreigners De Foe was amply rewarded by King William, who not only ordered him a pension, but as his opponents denominated it, appointed him pamphlet-writer general to the court; an office for which he was peculiarly well calculated, possessing, with a strong mind and a ready wit, that kind of yielding conscience which allowed him to support the measures of his benefactors though convinced they were injurious to his country. De Foe now retired to Newington with his family, and for a short time lived at ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... over an extraordinary career, it is interesting to attempt to fix the time when a name becomes a talisman, and passes current for power. This is peculiarly difficult in the case of Eldon Parr. Like many notable men before him, nobody but Mr. Parr himself suspected his future greatness, and he kept the secret. But if we are to search what is now ancient history for a turning-point, perhaps we should find it in the sudden acquisition by him ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... at once more docile than they are in other cases. I consider his system the simplest and best means of elevating bee-culture to a profitable pursuit, and of spreading it far and wide over the land—especially as it is peculiarly adapted to districts in which the bees do not readily and regularly swarm. His eminent success in re-establishing his stock after suffering so heavily from the devastating pestilence—in short the recuperative power of the system demonstrates conclusively, that ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... They are neat and dry, and the occupants are loud in praise of them, as warm in winter and cool in summer. They are in two stages. At Drakelow also there are several, also occupied, somewhat disfigured by hideous chimneys recently erected in yellow and red bricks. One chimney is peculiarly quaint as being twisted, like a writhing worm, to accommodate itself to the shape of the overhanging rock. Another series of these habitations is now abandoned, but was occupied till a comparatively recent period, and other houses have their stables ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... of view," said Mr. Queed, "is a moral—not an optic one. These acts which confer benefits on others," he continued, "so peculiarly commended by your religion, are conceived by it to work moral good to the doer. The eyes (which you use synecdochically to represent the character) of the person to whom they are ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... ridiculous. We are, in short, not a prayerful nation. But to you it will be clear that even the strongest power, or even allied group of powers, can have its position completely changed by an expression of the public opinion of the rest of the world. In your clear western atmosphere and in your peculiarly responsible position as the head centre of western democracy, you, when the European situation became threatening three months ago, must have been acutely aware of the fact to which Europe was so fatally blinded—namely, that the simple solution of the difficulty in which the ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... peculiarly fertile in this sort of phrases, which spring up suddenly, no one knows exactly in what spot, and pervade the whole population in a few hours, no one knows how. Many years ago the favourite phrase (for, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... deeply in love become peculiarly pleasant, winning and tender. It is said that a musician can never excel or an artist do his best until he has been deeply in love. A good orator, a great statesman or great men in general are greater and better for ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... there are a few who, in consequence of possessing by nature very strong constitutions, and laboring at some active and peculiarly healthy employment, are able for a few, and perhaps even for many years, to set all the rules of health ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott |
