"Unusual" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... has been said, was simply sick and gloomy at the last news of the triumph of Buck. He slouched sadly down the steep Aubrey Road, up which he had the night before run in so unusual an excitement, and strolled out into the empty dawn-lit main road, looking vaguely for a cab. He saw nothing in the vacant space except a blue-and-gold glittering thing, running very fast, which looked at first like a very tall beetle, but ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... says Cousin Feenix, 'although it's an unusual sort of thing in a private gentleman's house, I must beg leave to call upon you to drink what is usually called a—in fact ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... laxity of the local government suited admirably with the moral and intellectual condition of the governed. The events of the following history will show the effects of this state of things, which is not as unusual in the provinces as might be supposed. Many towns in France, more particularly in the South, are like Issoudun. The condition to which the ascendency of the bourgeoisie has reduced that local capital is one which will spread over all France, and even to Paris, if the bourgeois ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... resistance offered will be a tip-off to the Guard," he said. "I'm going to use an unusual type of weapon. Besides, Stern's people have detectors. Remember those? There's got to be life force in detector range, or they'll assume we've either deserted the place or found refuge below ground. Then they would come in for sure. And they'd really search the ...
— The Best Made Plans • Everett B. Cole
... treatise, to which we have alluded, contains the usual, together with some unusual, arguments against the punishment of death, and contributes also a novel substitute for it. He begins, in true German manner, by explaining (inter alia) the difference between reason and understanding; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... was marked at the afternoon performance by happenings of a nature most decidedly unusual. At one o'clock the doors were opened: at one-ten the eyes of the proprietor were made glad and his heart was uplifted within him by the sight of a strange procession, drawing nearer and nearer across the scuffed turf of the common, and heading ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... the thirty-sixth year (after the battle) was reached, the delighter of the Kurus, Yudhishthira, beheld many unusual portents. Winds, dry and strong, and showering gravels, blew from every side. Birds began to wheel, making circles from right to left. The great rivers ran in opposite directions. The horizon on every side seemed ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... in attendance, who riveted upon him a set of heavy irons. Stumbling on as well as he could, beneath the unusual burden of these fetters, he was conducted to a strong stone cell, where, fastening the door with locks, and bolts, and chains, they left him, well secured; having first, unseen by him, thrust in Grip, who, with his head ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... ill!" she cried, as he staggered, and caught at a backstay to save himself from falling. He sat down on the house and tried to keep back a sob. Madge stooped, and looked anxiously into his face. She had known him for two years as a man of unusual sternness and self-control; obstinate, reserved, willful, and moody, yet one that gave always the impression of unflinching courage and resolution. It was inexplicable now to see him crying ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... collected several examples, to which it would be easy to add others. The names of the king are in this case constantly accompanied by unusual epithets, which are enclosed in one or other of his cartouches: Mons. Kevillout, deceived by these unfamiliar forms, has made out of one of these variants, on a painted cloth in the Louvre, a new Amenothes, whom ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... made in writing to the head of that Department to which the business may have been assigned by law. Those applications will in their order be considered and disposed of by heads of Departments, subject to the approval of the President. This order is made necessary by the unusual numbers of persons visiting the seat of Government. It is impracticable to grant personal interviews to all of them, and desirable that there should be no invidious distinction in this respect. Similar business of persons who can not conveniently leave their ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... care of the goat and fed her sufficiently. Two-Eyes, however, divined her sister's object, and drove the goat where the grass was finest, and then said, "Come, One-Eye, let us sit down, and I will sing to you." So One-Eye sat down, for she was quite tired with her unusual walk and ...
— Grimm's Fairy Stories • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... and grope our way back to the schoolrooms. We put off the continuation of the enterprise till the next day, and appointed the same place of meeting. Those who got there first were not to wait for those who might be detained by punishment or unusual surveillance. Each one was to do her best to scoop out the wall. It would be just so much done toward the next day's work. There was no chance of any one's noticing it, as no one ever went down into that blind hallway given over ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... the report of the Secretary of the Navy for a satisfactory view of the operations of the Department under his charge during the past year. It is gratifying to perceive that while the war with Mexico has rendered it necessary to employ an unusual number of our armed vessels on her coasts, the protection due to our commerce in other quarters of the world has not proved insufficient. No means will be spared to give efficiency to the naval service in ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... some of his works meeting with a popular success rarely extended to any author. For some time Georges Ohnet did not find the same favor with the critics, who often attacked him with a passionate violence and unusual severity. True, a high philosophical flow of thoughts cannot be detected in his writings, but nevertheless it is certain that the characters and the subjects of which he treats are brilliantly sketched and clearly developed. They are likewise of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... incident and adventure, the whole atmosphere is fresh and new; the ways of life, the people of those curious towns and villages and lonely mountains, are a revelation and a novelty. Put before us by the pen of a master like Jokai, the effect is to stir and interest in an unusual degree."—Daily Chronicle. ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... clever and faithful sketcher, and had an unusual power of expressing space and size in the ...
— The Manual of Heraldry; Fifth Edition • Anonymous
... the conspiracy in time, and the heads of the leaders were struck off and placed upon the walls of the Alhambra—an act of severity unusual with this mild and wavering monarch, which struck terror into the disaffected, and produced a kind of mute tranquillity throughout ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... unlike Sebastian's usual method, so far from his lax comprehension of a father's duty, that Barlasch paused and looked at him with suspicion. With the back of his hand he pushed up the unkempt hair which obscured his eyes. This unusual display of parental anxiety required ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... himself had a charm of unusual definition. One might go to his studio at five o'clock and find him lumbering with his great frame among a chaos of the rare and curious books that he loved, stacked pell-mell on to the shelves, littered on tables and ...
— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay
... which admitted very little light, so I never was quite certain of the merit of these Works of Art as they were entitled. But, on the other side, where the Useful Work placard was put up, there was a great variety of articles, of whose unusual excellence every one might judge. Such fine sewing, and stitching, and button-holing! Such bundles of soft delicate knitted stockings and socks; and, above all, in Lady Ludlow's eyes, such hanks of the finest spun ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... sometimes effected in a short time, but it may take a year or two, and with proper management it can usually be accomplished, unless there is some unusual complication. ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk
... died quickly from his face as he walked down the hall, and men noticed that he looked grave and preoccupied again. It was not that his thoughts were running on this unusual summons; as he passed through the dark vestibule he felt only a little curiosity, and at the door he paused and looked out ...
— Vandrad the Viking - The Feud and the Spell • J. Storer Clouston
... the clergy between those who seem to have no kin or friends or home of their own. The bishop summoned his guests as witnesses, and as Leigh took the seat which Miss Wycliffe made for him beside her, he was struck by the impression which this not unusual incident appeared to make upon her mind. She sat with her chin resting upon the palm of her hand, in absorbed, almost pained, contemplation, as if the actual scene were merely the starting-point of a long journey of ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... of laughter, and then stared; it was such an unusual thing to see a frown on David's placid face. "What's come over you, any way? Stand out of the way; I'll have this bed over there in a jiffy," rolling it into the center of the small ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... like a kid, "that'll fool him. The Sage of Redfield will undoubtedly follow a false spoor and the criminals will win a good start. But I'm afraid it's rather easy to follow a craft as unusual as Parnassus." ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... Dorothy," and about our old friends the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman, and about the Cowardly Lion, and Ozma, and all the rest of them; and here, likewise, is a good deal about some new folks that are queer and unusual. One little friend, who read this story before it was printed, said to me: "Billina is REAL OZZY, Mr. Baum, and so are Tiktok and ...
— Ozma of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... aspects. The grass filled him with delight as truly as the mountain-peak; indeed, he felt contempt for those who look afar for the beauty that is all about us, and his admiration was not reserved for the unusual. Nor did he fill his pages with description. It is in his autobiographical writings and in reference to its effect on himself that he most often mentions natural scenery. Recognizing instinctively that the principal subjects of language are thought and action, as the chief interests of painting ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... the first time in four years Temple Camp produced an Eagle Scout in Hervey Willetts of a Massachusetts troop who won the award under circumstances reflecting unusual credit on himself and bringing honor to his troop comrades. Mr. Temple's remarks to this young hero were flattening ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... its evils and its dangers. But here again it is quite probable that if the burden of war debt were clearly and palpably put on the shoulders best able to bear it, that is, on those who are lifted by the gifts of fortune—either in inherited money or unusual brainpower or faculties—by an equitably graded income tax, the effect might be just as good on the minds of those who suspect that the rich have battened throughout the war on exploitation ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers
... "There is something unusual going on, Pierre. I can see a light in the sky, as of many torches; and can hear a confused sound, as of the murmur of men. I will sally out ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... said Rangely, as they drove away, "he strikes me as a remarkably sound chap, Miss Flint. There is something unusual about him, something ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... meat and other articles, Washington early adopted the practice of putting up ice, a thing then unusual. In January, 1785, he prepared a dry well under the summer house and also one in his new cellar and in due time had both filled. June fifth he "Opened the well in my Cellar in which I had laid up a store of Ice, but there was not the smallest particle remaining.—I then opened the other Repository ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... but I could not bear to be close to him in London for two days without assuring myself with my own Eyes how he looked. I think I observed a slight hesitation of memory: but certainly not so much as I find in myself, nor, I suppose, unusual in one's Contemporaries. My visit to London followed a visit to Edinburgh: which I have intended these thirty years, only for the purpose of seeing my dear Sir Walter's House and Home: and which I am glad to have seen, as that of Shakespeare. I had expected to find a rather ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... any practical acquaintance with them. Jack was working quite vigorously, the block from which the boat was to be fashioned being held firmly between his knees. His knife having got wedged in the wood, he made an unusual effort to draw it out, in which he lost his balance, and disturbed the equilibrium of his stool, which, with its load, tumbled over backward. Now, it very unfortunately happened that Aunt Rachel sat close behind, and the treacherous stool ...
— Jack's Ward • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... in her eyes; but I had vowed to myself to meet her as if we had parted yesterday, and take care to avoid anything in the nature of reconciliation, anything to remind her that we had parted under unusual circumstances. When I saw her coming, I put ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... once lived—we betook ourselves to our books and papers, with a sense of unusual depression in the atmosphere. It was a gray, dull, cheerless afternoon, and more than one of us, looking out at the mud bank, which, at low water, then occupied the space now laid out as gardens, wondered how River Hall, desolate, tenantless, uninhabited, looked under that sullen sky, with the murky ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... been dead for some sixty years. Niccolo di Pietro has been confounded with Niccolo Semitocolo, but it is now realised that they were two distinct masters. The most important work of Michele Giambono which has come down to us is the signed ancona with five saints, now in the Venetian Academy. It is unusual to find a saint in the central panel instead of the Madonna. The saint is on a larger scale than his companions, and has hitherto passed as the Redeemer, but Professor Venturi has identified him as St. James the Great. He has the gold scallop-shell ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... sight of a cluster of low mountains. These were cone-shaped, rising from broad bases to sharp peaks at the tops. From a distance the mountains appeared indistinct and seemed rather small—more like hills than mountains—but as the travelers drew nearer they noted a most unusual circumstance: the hills were all whirling around, some in one direction and some the ...
— The Lost Princess of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... days gone by, when trains from Philadelphia stopped here instead of at the Penn. Station. Placing the host carefully in the middle, the three sat down at the curving marble slab. The waiters immediately sensed that something unusual was toward. Two dashed up with courteous attentions. It was surmised by the club that the trio had happened to sit at a spot where the jurisdictions of two waiters met. Both the wings of the trio waved the waiters toward the blushing novice, making it plain that upon him lay all responsibility. ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... and remote from the vulgar idiom which employs unusual words: by unusual, I mean foreign, metaphorical, extended—all, in short, that are not common words. Yet, should a poet compose his Diction entirely of such words, the result would be either an enigma or a barbarous jargon: an enigma if composed of metaphors, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... and finish plowing the ten-acre field adjoining the barn, which had been started two days before. It was scarcely nine-thirty when he turned and started back along the north side of the field. He glanced in the direction of the barn and beheld an unusual sight. A small automobile had been driven into the barnyard and close behind it came the most unusual looking piece of machinery he had ever seen. He stopped his team and stood leaning on the plow, wondering what it might be. The driver of the automobile, whom he recognized as John White, ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... the cross which then hung in every clergyman's room. There were two lines carved on the wood at the bottom of this—lines which it was then not unusual to put at the bottom ...
— Our Little Lady - Six Hundred Years Ago • Emily Sarah Holt
... feet to the ground. It was natural that she should be glad to be down-stairs again after all the past weeks of confinement and suffering; but Maggie and Bessie found her in a state of happiness and excitement unusual with the calm, reserved Lena, and which seemed hardly to be accounted for by the mere fact that she had once more been allowed to join ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews
... seemingly so premature. I had, as it were, been made a captain when I had scarcely enlisted as a soldier. I carried my troubles to the director of my conscience, this Blessed Father who consoled and cheered me by suggesting many excellent reasons for this unusual state of things. The necessities of the diocese, the testimony to my character of so many persons of dignity and piety, the judgment of Henry the Great, whose memory he held in high honour, and, last of all, and above all, the command of His Holiness. He concluded by ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... they cruised along the hilly southern shore. The men seemed unable to cast off the gloom that had settled upon them. Stede Bonnet sat in his cabin, never once coming on deck, and drinking hard, a thing unusual for him. Jeremy, who saw more of him than any of the foremast hands, realized from his gray, set face that the man was under a terrible strain of some sort. He told Job what he had seen and the tall ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... say," said Lansing, "that I have a patient in 5 and 6. It's an emergency case; I've wired for Courtney Thayer. I wish to ask the privilege and courtesy of the club for my patient. It's unusual; it's intrusive. Absolute and urgent necessity is ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... evident that, unless increased accommodation was provided, the number already in attendance must be decreased and others, anxious for the training, must be turned away. It was decided that even though the enterprise was young the need was urgent, demanding unusual exertion. It would therefore be wise to make every effort to purchase more commodious quarters. In June, 1906, the school moved to a fine business building at 209-213 East 23d Street, which could offer daily instruction ...
— The Making of a Trade School • Mary Schenck Woolman
... about the most distressing calamities. To prevent these, every method should be employed before leaving port to settle the cargo as much as possible; and for this there are many contrivances, among which may be mentioned the driving of wedges into the grain. Even after all this is done, and unusual pains taken to secure the shifting-boards, no seaman who knows what he is about will feel altogether secure in a gale of any violence with a cargo of grain on board, and, least of all, with a partial cargo. Yet there ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... After a time, when growth had advanced to a certain stage, the birds began {94} to sing. The elementary notes and rattles characteristic of the oriole made their appearance, but were combined in unusual ways, so that the characteristic song of the oriole did not appear, but a new song. When these birds had grown up in the laboratory, other new-hatched orioles were brought up with them, and adopted this new song; so that the laboratory became the center for a new school of oriole music. ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... sea, and was one of the greatest practical seamen, if not the greatest, that has ever lived; and it would be foolish to deny, except for the greatest reasons, that he made a voyage to the far North, which was neither unusual at the time nor a very great achievement for a seaman of ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... is inexplicable, on the theory of creation, why a part developed in a very unusual manner in any one species of a genus, and therefore, as we may naturally infer, of great importance to the species, should be eminently liable ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... Without any unusual occurrence I reached Hampton, with a surplus of exactly fifty cents with which to begin my education. To me it had been a long, eventful journey; but the first sight of the large, three-story, brick ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... Lieut.-Col. Jeffreys was wounded whilst going round a new piece of the line which had been taken over from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. Major G.A. Stevens (8th D.L.I.) took over command, and the following day Capt. R.B. Bradford (afterwards Brig.-Gen. Bradford, V.C.) joined as Adjutant. An unusual occurrence took place on the 22nd December, when two Russians, who had been prisoners in Germany and had been working behind the line, escaped and came into the trenches in the Battalion sector. On Christmas Day the Battalion was out of the line and in the huts at Dickebusch. Capt. ...
— The Story of the 6th Battalion, The Durham Light Infantry - France, April 1915-November 1918 • Unknown
... mushrooms in America has not been so general as in most European countries. It is in France and in England that the mushroom industry has been best developed. France is the home of the industry. Unusual interest has been shown in the United States in the growth of mushrooms within the past few years, and it is to be hoped and expected that within the next ten years the industry will develop to the fullest limit of the market demands. The demand will, of course, be stimulated ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall
... not appeal to all right-minded and generous Frenchmen that their influence should also be in the direction of preserving the freedom of this nation?—one of the few dark peoples who have shown an unusual receptivity for civilization and Christianity, who have already advanced themselves so much, and who will still, if left undisturbed, become one ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... kindness than he is willing to allow. To this letter of credit, and to the acquaintance formed by its means, the reader is indebted for the curious history I am about to relate. That the former was likely to lead to something original and unusual, I certainly suspected when H—— placed the document in my hands, with his last words of caution and advice. I could hardly dream of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... That was something unusual which had just caught his eye, for as he spoke he turned to look right along the top of the dam, where he seemed to see a strange disturbance on the surface of the water just at the end where the wall joined ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn
... at Oxford and in Bohemia. His memory was always bright, and his conversation always sparkled with fresh thoughts and poetical ideas. He composed with extraordinary facility in Latin prose and verse; but the extant fragments of these literary exercises do not strike us as being of unusual excellence, though genuinely admired in their day. He was certainly an ideal missioner: saintly, inspired, eloquent, untireable, patient, consumed with the desire for the success of his undertaking, and unfaltering in his faith that success would follow by the providential action of God, despite ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion
... he had been in his thoughts of Lavinia, in some sub-conscious way the sound of footsteps behind him keeping pace with his own reached his ear. It was no unusual thing for foot passengers to be set upon and Vane was on the alert. His suspicions were confirmed by the sight of a man cloaked and with his slouch hat pulled over his forehead gliding into a narrow passage ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... and representing the work of fifty-three species, was devoted to the peculiar and varied vegetable deformities produced by insects. These structures are always of great popular interest, and the insects causing the same present biologic problems of unusual attractiveness. ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... perhaps, too long over too trifling details; and yet, I wish I had done my subject more justice. Be it remembered, that I visited Baltimore at a season of unusual social depression. I do not speak of the stagnation in commerce, and the ruin of Southern interests and possessions, from which many have suffered heavy pecuniary loss: the effects of the war come home to the fair city yet more sharply. For months past the best part of her jeunesse doree ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... the hall to her cook's room, and found its stout occupant rather precariously perched on a chair, tacking up a picture. She had evidently improved her time, for many other pictures were already in place, and, what is unusual in either a public or private art-gallery, the pictures were all exactly alike. They were large, very highly coloured, unframed, and, in fact, were nothing more or less than advertisements of a popular soap. The subject was a broadly-grinning old coloured woman, washing clothes, ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells
... the sigh. She, too, had noticed Phil's looks and papa's gravity, and her heart felt heavy within her. The house, when they reached it, seemed lonely and empty. Papa went at once to his office, and they heard him lock the door. This was such an unusual proceeding in the middle of the morning that she and Johnnie opened wide eyes of dismay ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... and pumpkins, and his little field of corn, with as much apparent pleasure as an Illinois farmer would now point out his hundreds of acres of waving grain. The hunter seemed surprisingly well informed. As we have mentioned, nature had endowed him with unusual strength of mind, and with a memory which was almost miraculous. He never forgot anything he had heard. His electioneering tours had been to him very valuable schools of education. Carefully he listened to all the speeches and the conversation ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... noble air, fine shape and proportion of each slave were unparalleled; their grave walk at an equal distance from each other, the lustre of the jewels curiously set in their girdles of gold, in beautiful symmetry, and the egrets of precious stones in their turbans, which were of an unusual but elegant taste, put the spectators into such great admiration, that they could not avoid gazing at them, and following them with their eyes as far as possible; but the streets were so crowded with people, that none could move out of the spot they stood on. As they ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... the great steamer that lies at the Admiralty, the Oriental screw-steamer Himalaya—the transport ship of two regiments of the heroes of Balaklava, and Alma, and Inkerman, and Sebastopol. A vast specimen of naval architecture; an unusual sight in these waters; a marine vehicle to carry twenty-five hundred men! Think of this moving town; this portable village of royal belligerents covered with glory and medals, breasting the billows! Is there not something glorious in such ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... sex by themselves. The women sometimes danced naked, to show off the grace of their poses and the suppleness of their muscles; sometimes they were decked with ribbons only; and sometimes they wore transparent dresses made of linen of the finest texture. It was not unusual for them to carry tambourines and castanets with which to beat time to their dances. On the other hand, there were delicate and sober performances, unaccompanied by music. The paintings show some of the poses to have been exceedingly graceful, and there were character ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... only a fool's paradise"—and then it was that he caught sight of his adored, as she bent forward after her rebuke to Michael—and with a burst of feeling in his controlled voice, he cried: "But who would forego his fool's paradise!"—and then he took in the fact that some unusual current of emotion must have been passing between the two—and his heart gave a ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... an unusual distinction to be engaged in conversation by this distinguished gentleman, yet Eva would fain have sent him far away, and her replies must have sounded monosyllabic enough; but the sweet shyness that ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... call to action for American education. Some may say that it is unusual for a president to pay this kind of attention to education. Some may say it is simply because the president and his wonderful wife have been obsessed with this subject for more years than they can recall. That is not what is driving these proposals. We ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William J. Clinton • William J. Clinton
... opposite direction." In the old Teutonic faith (and probably Aryan) the dog can see a ghost, hence his unaccountable whine at times. The lower animals and even the elements recognize the approaching deity by some unusual commotion. But mark the contrast: the dogs ran in terror from the presence of the Goddess; Ulysses, observing her, "went out of the house and stood before her alongside the wall of the court." The rational man, beholding, must commune with the deity present, and not run off like ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... to hate it, and had been almost willing to flatter it out of all likeness to Madame Mayer, for the sake of not being eternally confronted by the cold stare of her blue eyes. He finished the Cardinal's portrait too; and the statesman not only paid for it with unusual liberality, but gave the artist what he called a little memento of the long hours they had spent together. He opened one of the lockers in his study, and from a small drawer selected an ancient ring, in which was set a piece of crystal with a delicate intaglio of a figure of Victory. He took ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... of usefulness of the mercantile agency is in the exposure of the absconding debtor and his whereabouts, and also the dishonest trader who in arranging a fraudulent failure may be striving to open many new accounts. The unusual demands for reports respecting such a one lead to careful investigation. Instead of a restrictive tendency a mercantile agency promotes the expansion of credit and yet permits of proper conservatism. It opens to the trader as a market for his ...
— Up To Date Business - Home Study Circle Library Series (Volume II.) • Various
... upon by warrant from justices of the peace, where the demand does not exceed the value of ten pounds, and this is their usual suffering in this case. But there have not been wanting instances where an unusual hardness, of heart has suggested a process, still allowable by the law, which has deprived them of all their property, and consigned them for life to ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... excited on account of the long and unusual absence of the Supply, which sailed for Norfolk Island on the 22nd day of March, and did not return to this harbour until the 30th of this month, which completed ten weeks within a day since she sailed. Contrary winds and heavy gales had prevented her arrival at the time she might have ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... Mohammedan town. There are a few Chinese only—Buddhists, Taoists and other ragtags; although when the follower of the Prophet has his pigtail attached to the inside of his hat, as it not unusual when he goes out fully dressed, there is little difference between him and ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... at some Indian ranches, the people screamed with terror, ran away and hid themselves. There was something so unusual about their fright, that the interpreter and I went out of our way to investigate the matter. I saw two children making their escape among the bushes as best they could, a boy leading a three-year-old girl all the time, never deserting her. We found the children and ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... than the letter B; and, lastly, it is dangerous to allow the mind to dwell on a thousand wild fancies, the fruits of solitude and heartache; these fancies, while they sink into a young girl's mind, make her cheeks sink in also, so that it is not unusual, on such occasions, to find the most delightful persons in the world become the most disagreeable, and the wittiest ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... direction as he ran his eyes over the front of the house. He had a soft-brimmed gray hat of a shape which was strange to Parisian eyes, but his sombre clothes and high boots were such as any citizen might have worn. Yet his general appearance was so unusual that a group of townsfolk had already assembled round him, staring with open mouth at his horse and himself. A battered gun with an extremely long barrel was fastened by the stock to his stirrup, while the muzzle stuck up into the air behind ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... port. Once away, and their destination in doubt, the chances in favor of any scheme were multiplied. In their greatest and final effort, Cornwallis, off Brest, was fortunate, in that the plans of the Emperor first, and afterwards unusual weather conditions, retained the French fleet there in harbor; a result to which the material efficiency of his own ships, and their nearness to their ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... an unusual and surprising visitor. A bevy of good-humoured youths were flirting with his daughters just then, while papa was smashing flies on the wall at intervals, smiling complacently whenever one of his daughters, startled by an extra loud ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... of presensation, it is worth while to say a little more. The early mesmerists made a great point of the power of some patients to diagnose the condition of another. Dr. Puysegur's patient Joly, mentioned above, possessed the faculty to an unusual degree. He was an educated man, of good position, and ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... abuse of language is an AFFECTED OBSCURITY; by either applying old words to new and unusual significations; or introducing new and ambiguous terms, without defining either; or else putting them so together, as may confound their ordinary meaning. Though the Peripatetick philosophy has been most eminent in this ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke
... private exploits), and sung a capital song. Hospitable, not backward to help a neighbor; by report, benevolent, as retributive, in secret; while, in a general manner, though sometimes grave—as is not unusual with men of his complexion, a sultry and tragical brown—yet with nobody, Indians excepted, otherwise than courteous in a manly fashion; a moccasined gentleman, admired and loved. In fact, no one more popular, as an incident to follow ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... individuals on a plane surface, the properties of the State so represented are analogous to the properties of the curve with which it corresponds. It is only possible for me to touch upon the elements of the science in these lectures, but I hope to arouse an interest in these somewhat unusual complications and curious problems, that you may hereafter make further discoveries in this unexplored region of knowledge, and that the world may reap the benefit of your labours and abstruse studies. I have already, in my previous lecture, touched upon ...
— The Romance of Mathematics • P. Hampson
... time when they might be inclined to part with the commodity at an under value." This is an objection which to stock-exchange standards may seem "not well taken," and far too fantastical for the speculative domain, and yet it is neither surprising nor unusual in the realms of genuine business, in which men are concerned with or creating ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... three o'clock in the morning. There is no light but that furnished by the fire which fills the room with shifting shadows. The door in the rear is opened and RICHARD appears, his face harried by the stress of unusual emotion. Through the opened doorway, a low, muffled moan of anguish sounds from the upper part of the house. JAYSON and RICHARD both shudder. The latter closes the door behind him quickly as if anxious to shut ...
— The First Man • Eugene O'Neill
... right." She explained to the young man, "Bill Atkins has been higher up than Brick, and he knows forms and ceremonies, but he despises to act up to what he knows. Sit right down, Bill, and make the move." There was something so unusual in the attitude of the blooming young girl toward the weather-beaten, forbidding-looking man, something so authoritative and at the same time so protecting, at once the air of a superior who commands and who shelters from the tyranny ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... Enfin!.. He was now to speak, to unbosom himself, to tell that which weighed so heavily upon him; and in his haste to unload his breast he cast a few half words as he went along to the loiterers on the Promenade. The day had been so hot, that in spite of the unusual hour (a quarter to eight on the clock of the town hall!) and the terrifying darkness, quite a crowd of reckless persons, bourgeois families getting the good of the air while that of their houses evaporated, ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... savvy, bum hunch, and skiddoo are "slang." It would be disenchanting indeed were extremes of this sort brought together. But offenses of a less glaring kind are as hard to shut out as February cold from a heated house. Unusual are the speeches or compositions, even the short ones, in which every word is in keeping, is in perfect tune with ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... of it, but as she was preemptorily ordered not to like him, she immediately made up her mind that she would. Inclination as well as perversity made the decision easy, and being already much excited, Meg opposed the old lady with unusual spirit. ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... stepped into the garden and stood blinking in the sudden darkness. There was no moon and the night was cloudy, a fact which accounted for his unusual politeness towards a cypress of somewhat stately bearing which stood at one corner of the small lawn. He replaced his hat hastily, and an apologetic remark concerning the lateness of his visit was never finished. A trifle confused, he walked down the garden, peering right and left as he went, ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... hospitality, so abundant alike to the deserving and to the unworthy, was lacking. At the end of the village "she begun to scraich, yer Anner, wid that shtrength you'd think she'd shplit her troat." At this provocation, all the inhabitants at once ran to ascertain the reason of so unusual a noise, upon which, when they were gathered 'round her, the woman pronounced the curse of the widow and orphan on the people and their town. They laughed at her and returned home, but that night, the ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.
... into King Street, it struck the elders of the party that there seemed to be an unusual stir of some kind. The streets were more crowded than usual, men stood in little knots to converse, and the talk was manifestly of a serious kind. Lady Louvaine bade Edith look out and call Aubrey, whom she desired to inquire of some responsible ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... again try to overcome his resolution. I sent the quartermaster of the watch to look for him, but he was nowhere to be found. 'Anselmo!' was called along the lower deck; no answer came. At last, turning my eyes aloft I observed something unusual in the rigging, and there between the main and foremast was slung a hammock, in which the rogue had stowed himself. After he had been repeatedly hailed, he looked out of his eyrie, and getting into the main rigging came down. I asked him why he had ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... was reported here that two hundred persons of Brune's suite had embarked at Marseilles and eighty-four at Genoa, and when it was besides known that nearly fifty individuals accompanied him in his outset, this unusual occurrence caused much conversation and many speculations in all our coteries and fashionable circles. About that time my friend dined with Talleyrand, and, by chance, also mentioned this grand embassy, observing, at the same time, that it was too ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... the house in its nature and consequences reported a letter to the Earl of Hillsborough1 his Majesty's secretary of state for the American department, and laid it on the table; wherein they observe to his lordship, that a requisition of such a nature, to a British house of commons had been very unusual and perhaps altogether unprecedented since the revolution: That some very aggravated representations must have been made to his Majesty of the resolution of the former house, to induce him to require this house to rescind it, upon ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... ups-and-downs, is not only a service officer's duty, but a rewarding privilege, if he is a real leader? In this respect, he has a singular relationship to any group that represents his unit. He becomes part of their force, and his presence is important not only to the team but to the gallery. It is not unusual to hear very senior officers excuse themselves from an important social function by saying, "I'm sorry, but my team is playing tonight." That is a reason ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... Jim") and one or two of them added a few words of congratulation upon my improved appearance, and then calmly went on with their work, such as mat-making, mending fishing nets, cooking, etc., but no one of them gave the slightest indication of even having heard that anything unusual had occurred. ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... my husband looks at all the numerous articles that are forwarded to me, and kindly keeps them out of my way—only on rare occasions reading to me a passage which he thinks will comfort me by its evidence of unusual insight or sympathy. Yesterday he read your article in The Melbourne Review, and said at the end—'This is an excellently written article, which would do credit to any English periodical' adding the very uncommon testimony, 'I shall ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... that he felt no exhaustion after his excursions, though the judge inquired particularly whether he felt that prostration after his unusual exertion, of which witches usually complained. Indeed the exhaustion consequent on a were-wolf raid was so great that the lycanthropist was often confined to his bed for days, and could hardly move hand ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... of the sailors from the destroyer—had now almost cleared away, and we went forward to the galley. The fire had not spread to that, and after the scenes of blood and violence astern and in the cabin the place looked refreshingly spick and span; there was, indeed, an unusual air of neatness and cleanliness about it. The various pots and pans shone gaily in the sun's glittering lights; every utensil was in its place; evidently the galley's controlling spirit had been a meticulously careful person who hated disorder as heartily as dirt. And on a shelf near the ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... as the passengers were all seated, and the two horses tugged up the steep hill from the wharf with the heavy load. On the level road above, the excited teamster put the whip upon his horses, and dashed up to the hotel at full gallop. Fifteen arrivals at once, at this time in the year, was very unusual, and everybody about the hotel was thrown into a fever of excitement. The landlord stood upon the piazza, with no hat on his head, bowed and scraped, and helped the ladies out of the wagon. The party were shown to ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... indefensible acts of treachery, it also reveals a touching desire for the kind of consolation which would be most valuable to one so accessible to the pettiest stings of his enemies. He had many warm friends, moreover, who, by good fortune or the exercise of unusual prudence, never excited his wrath, and whom he repaid by genuine affection. Some of these friendships have become famous, and will be best noticed in connexion with passages in his future career. It will be sufficient if I here notice a few names, in ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... the high Rockies where the fur-bearing animals, not only abundant, were also increasing. It was, too, the dead of winter, the very best time for trapping, and so, as far as their own goings and comings were concerned, they were favored further by the lucky and unusual absence of snow. They increased the number of their traps—dead falls, box traps, snares, and other kinds, and most of them ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... rare, than when they are frequent. It is, indeed, somewhat inconsistent to use a prospective exhortation on the occasion of the Communion. It is possible that the expression 'warning' may be taken to except cases where the Minister does not consider unusual mention to be imperatively necessary, and at any rate to apply only where notice ...
— Ritual Conformity - Interpretations of the Rubrics of the Prayer-Book • Unknown
... forecastle, casting uneasy glances now at the chaos of foaming water ahead, and then at the face of their captain, which was occasionally seen in the pale light of a stray moonbeam. In ordinary circumstances these men would have smiled at the storm, but they had unusual cause for anxiety at that time, for they knew that the captain was a drunkard, and, from the short experience they had already had of him, they feared that he was not capable of ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne
... theatricals will remember how much the costume helped him to get into the proper frame of mind for interpreting his role. This was all that Wagner aimed at in wearing his mediaeval costumes; and the wonderful realism and vividness of his dramatic conceptions certainly more than justify the unusual methods he pursued to ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... of a colored man, and Hesden had no apprehension or hesitancy in complying with the request. In fact, his position as a recognized friend of the colored race had made such appeals to his kindness and protection by no means unusual. He rose at once, and stepped out upon the porch. He was absent for a little while, and when he returned his voice was full of emotion as he said ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee |
