"Curious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... better word than that?" she would flyte at him at the second cry; and if the bird would crow the three times, she would be lavish with the feeding and grow cheerful. And there was a time when Mistress Helen was with her at this task, and curious at ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... feast that King Mark made came in Eliot the harper, and because he was a curious harper, men heard him sing the lay that Dinadan had made, the which spake the most villainy of King Mark's treason that ever man heard. When the harper had sung his song to the end, King Mark was wonderly wroth, for he deemed that the ...
— Stories of King Arthur and His Knights - Retold from Malory's "Morte dArthur" • U. Waldo Cutler
... curious disposition she naturally had, and she did not think it advisable to start any lengthy discussion with her. Nor did she feel justified to protract her stay, so after sipping her tea, she intimated to Pao-ch'ai her intention to go, and they quitted ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... the kind of woman I wanted. I made an engagement with her, and I didn't have a dollar. I was engaged to marry for three years before I married. I knowed it wouldn't do for me to marry her the way she was raised and I didn't have nothing. It looked curious for me to want that woman. I wanted her, and I had sense. I had sense enough to know how I must carry myself to get her. Now it looks like a young man wants all the women and ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... McCurdie, bending across the carriage, and speaking with a curious intensity of voice, "d'ye know I'd give a hundred pounds to be able ...
— A Christmas Mystery - The Story of Three Wise Men • William J. Locke
... early life, which she no doubt thought would help Grace to a better comprehension of her difficulties; but the dear lady lost herself in the domestic entanglement of many families, on the subject of which she contributed much curious information, without, however, elucidating the matter in hand. She wandered so far that at length all hope of return became impossible, and she was obliged to pull up suddenly and ask what she had ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... tedious half-hour! I should like to know, merely as a curious matter of calculation, how many minutes there were in that half-hour—sixty-five at the very least; the hands of my watch stuck between the quarter and twenty minutes for full a quarter of an hour, and as for the old Dutch clock in the bar, that ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... looking down, the pride of an artist in his picture, of a sculptor who, secure from curious eyes, draws the sheet from the still moist clay of his modeling, and now from this angle, now from that, ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... receiving them in payment of taxes, the trouble ceased.(234) Jevons gives a striking illustration of the same law: "At the time of the treaty of 1858 between Great Britain, the United States, and Japan, which partially opened up the last country to European traders, a very curious system of currency existed in Japan. The most valuable Japanese coin was the kobang, consisting of a thin oval disk of gold about two inches long, and one and a quarter inch wide, weighing two hundred grains, and ornamented ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... oblong pool below. When I bought my ticket for the car that carried passengers up, they gave me also a pasteboard medal, certifying for me, "You have shot the chute," and I resolved to keep this and show it to doubting friends as a proof of my daring; but it is a curious evidence of my unfitness for such deceptions that I afterwards could not find the medal. So I will frankly own that for me it was quite enough to see others shoot the chute, and that I came tamely down myself in the car. There is a very charming view from the top, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... ribbons. Our village was then built on the river, about twenty miles above where we now are, and game was very plentiful. This river did not at that time have the name of Crazy Woman, but was called Big Beard, because a curious grass grows along its banks that has a big beard. What I am about to relate caused the name of the ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... sweet, fresh, honest little face, with the kindly affections beaming forth from it, and the sensitive nature quick to feel pleasure or pain, and alive to fun in the midst of its seriousness, made such a quaint mingling and such a curious variety and such a lovely creature, that all sorts of characters were drawn towards her. From the head of the school down, teachers and pupils, there was hardly one whose eye did not soften and whose lips did not smile at Dolly's approach. With Christina, ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... in the midst of all a fountaine stood, Of richest substance that on earth might bee, So pure and shiny that the silver flood Through every channel running one might see; Most goodly it with curious ymageree Was over-wrought, and shapes of naked boyes, Of which some seemed with lively iollitee To fly about, playing their wanton toyes, Whylest others did themselves ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... the women and children ran away shrieking and howling; those not quite so near me stared suspiciously, then retired slowly or began to giggle. Then a few men would appear, quite accidentally, of course, and some curious boys followed. My servants gave information as to my person and purpose, and huge laughter was the result: they always thought me perfectly mad. However, they admired me from all sides, and asked all sorts of questions of my boys: what was my name, where did I live, was I kind, was I rich, ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... A curious observation made by this physician was, that, at the moment of greatest action, a cool breeze, or gaseous current, seemed to flow from her person. This he felt on his hand, as distinctly as one feels the breath during ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... uncertain, which would inevitably, in a short time, stop friendly correspondence. More or less effort was made to keep up old friendships. The friends in the New World did not leave behind them their love for the Highlands, for home, for father and mother. The following curious letter has been preserved from Donald MacPherson, a young Highland lad, who had been sent to Virginia with Captain Toline, and was born near the house of Culloden where his father lived, and addressed to him. It was ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... the termination of the affair, he thoroughly overhauled the parts of the book which had been so severely handled, made large alterations, and, since fun had also been poked at his pretensions to noble ancestry, he prefixed a curious introduction to the edition that Werdet was about to publish. In the course of it he declared: "If some persons, deceived by caricatures, false portraits, penny-a-liners, and lies, credit me with a colossal fortune, palaces, ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... It was a curious list; but not one that could be printed in this book. And to mutilate it would be to misrepresent it. It is to be found in any great library. Suffice it to say that murder of a layman was much cheaper than many crimes my lay readers would ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... year 1830. It is rather curious to find him describing theatres as "springing up like mushrooms," when it is considered that, notwithstanding the enormous extension of London, and the vast increase of its population, but one or two theatres ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... soldier—suffered from a torn tongue, cut by a bullet, which traversed his cheek. Another had lost three fingers of his left hand. A bullet entered the temple of this infantryman and fell into his mouth, where by some curious reaction ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... Clarkson was near the church, enclosed by a railing and marked by a simple white marble slab; it was carefully tended and planted with flowers. In the church was an old book of records, and among other curious inscriptions, was one recording how a pious committee of old Noll's army had been there, knocking off saints' noses, and otherwise purging the church from the ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... Mademoiselle Scudery, the Sappho of the French, made along with her no less celebrated brother, a curious incident befell them at an inn at a great distance from Paris. Their conversation happened one evening to turn upon a romance which they were then jointly composing, to the hero of which they had given ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... proceeded to Ghent, of which only he makes mention to the Cardinal, without noticing any of the towns that lie between. It is curious to find our poet out of humour with Flanders on account of the high price of wine, which was not an indigenous article. In the latter part of his life, Petrarch was certainly one of the most abstemious of men; but, at this period, it would seem that he drank good liquor ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... lost an inch of trench, so they say. Like your own first husband, Mrs. Lockwood, he's most to be feared when every one else would have given up hoping. Like myself, though he doesn't know it, he's a round-the-corner person. Curious, Terry, that you should have attracted two round-the-corner admirers! It makes one almost believe that ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... carved marble were here and there. Old Leucon, in a far corner, bent over an intricate, glistening mechanism, and as Dan entered he drew a shining length of silver cloth from it, folded it, and placed it carefully aside. There was a curious, unearthly fact that Dan noted; despite windows open to the evening, no night insects circled the globes that glowed at intervals from niches ...
— Pygmalion's Spectacles • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... peace she had enjoyed throughout her lifetime. For this they had made her coffin of thick, heavy oaken boards. And this hand, loved and missed by so many—it lay there now on an anatomical table, encircled by clouds of tobacco smoke, stared at by curious glances, and made the object of coarse jokes. O God! ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... Winburn and Patty—that he couldn't separate them, even in his thoughts. Old Simon's tumble, which had recalled his daughter from Oxford at so critical a moment for him; Mary's visit to Englebourn at this very time; the curious yet natural series of little accidents which had kept him in ignorance of Patty's identity until the final catastrophe—then, again, the way in which Harry Winburn and his mother had come across him on the very day of his leaving Barton; the fellowship of a common mourning which ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... the last thirty years of the century at the festival instituted to commemorate the taking of Les Tourelles? The subject, the style, and the spirit are all in harmony with such an occasion. But it is curious that a poem composed to celebrate the deliverance of Orleans on May 8 should assign that deliverance to May 9. And yet this is what the author of the mystery does when he puts the following lines into the mouth ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... own opinion. Having entered the homes of many Secularists, we have been struck with their fondness for children The danger lies, if it lies anywhere, in their tendency to "spoil" them. It is a curious fact—and we commend it to the attention of Dr. Jayne and Mr. Waugh—that the most sceptical country in Europe is the one where children are the best treated, and where there is no need for a Society to save them from the clutches of cruelty. There is positively a child-cultus ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... the vestibule, with Julian and Edward consulting over some map or other at a table. Another of a "fosse" or coal-pit about a mile away. A coal-pit sounds repulsive, but not so in Northern France. They are away from all houses and surrounded by corn-fields. The coal refuse is the curious part of it. Up it comes from the main shaft and is piled up into a series of large pyramids, visible for miles around. Many of the famous "redoubts" are coal-refuse pyramids really. And such nice little ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... 'My faith, curious reason; you say because poor mamma is buried there you will not approach! Why, cheaile, what would good Monsieur Ruthyn say if he heard such thing? You are surely not so unkain', and I am with you. Allons. Let us come—even a little part ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... parties, America should be examined and portrayed piecemeal, every state separately, for every state is different, running down the scale from refinement to a state of barbarism almost unprecedented; but each presenting matter for investigation and research, and curious examples ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... a chair, not very far from the altar, on which burned enormous tapers. Priests and monks were arranging baskets filled with petals, like those of the chaplain, whom Dorsenne had just met. A group of three curious visitors commented in whispers upon the paintings, scarcely visible on the discolored stucco of the ceiling. Montfanon was entirely absorbed in the book which he held in his one hand. The large features of his face, ennobled and almost transfigured by the ardor of devotion, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... is also room for inquiry into another curious subject—do Eels return to fresh water after having gone to the sea for spawning? In reply to this, I can only say, that no trace of such a migration is ever seen here, and I think if it existed at all, I should have observed it, for the ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... had drawn a crowd of curious people about the booth devoted to that purpose, in which were piled dozens of packages of various shapes and sizes, all done up in white tissue paper ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... said. For one instant their eyes met, shyly questioning, a little curious. The laughter died out ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... troubled expression confirmed it; and she was strangely pleased. She had never had a companion in whom she could have so much confidence, and she had already recognized that she was, in one sense of the word, growing fond of him. Indeed, she had begun to be curious about the feeling and to wonder whether it ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... the people of Watseka and the surrounding country had watched with breathless interest the progress of this curious affair; but it was not until three months after the "possession" had ended that the public at large obtained any knowledge of it. The first intimation, outside of unnoticed reports in local newspapers, came through the medium of two articles contributed by Dr. Stevens to the August 3 ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... intended to amuse them before the ball with some tricks of legerdemain. Under this impression, they became very impatient to follow him, as they had made up their minds not to be drunk before supper. The ladies, too, were extremely curious to witness an exhibition which had been announced in so singular a preamble; and the squire, having previously insisted on every gentleman tossing off a half-pint bumper, adjourned the whole party to the library, ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock
... [210] A curious trait in Mary's character may be mentioned in connection with this transfer. She had a voracious appetite; and in Elizabeth's household expenses an extra charge was made necessary of 20l. a-year for the meat breakfasts and meat suppers "served into the ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... and led his sister carefully (for she was very feeble) to look at what he had done, she became quite incapable of expressing herself in ordinary language; positively refused to believe her eyes, and never again entered that room, but always spoke of what she had seen as a curious dream! ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... There is one curious mention of the name which no student seems to have worked out. A certain Hugh Saunders, alias Shakespere,[50] of Merton College, Oxford, became Principal of St. Albans Hall in 1501. He was Vicar of Meopham, in Kent, Rector of Mixbury, Canon of St. Paul's, ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes
... wounded, minus one leg and with the other almost severed, lies on a stretcher, calmly puffing at a cigarette given him by the bearers, and attempts to raise himself on his elbow that he may gaze at the curious scenes taking place around him. Others just stagger along, their pinched faces showing signs of suppressed pain, yet all have a quip or a jest on their lips as they smoke the inevitable cigarette. The sight is truly a wonderful one! The courage and calm ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose
... was likely a watchman somewheres about, too. I guessed I wouldn't wander around none and run no chances of getting took up by him. So I was getting ready to lay down on top of a level pile of boards and go to sleep when I hearn a curious kind of noise a way off, like it must be at the ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... Lord Jesu, that Dinadan can make wonderly well and ill, thereas it shall be. Sir, said Eliot, dare I sing this song afore King Mark? Yea, on my peril, said Sir Tristram, for I shall be thy warrant. Then at the meat came in Eliot the harper, and because he was a curious harper men heard him sing the same lay that Dinadan had made, the which spake the most villainy by King Mark of his ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... corner of the table, appeared to be enjoying a small joke among themselves. Occasionally, one or another of them would laugh nervously. But for the most part the only sounds to be heard were the clatter of the knives and forks, the energetic shuffling of the waiter, and a curious hissing noise as of escaping gas, caused by Uncle ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... Levitschnigg, Wihl, Stieglitz and von Hermannsthal will suffice.[222] The last mentioned poet gives a striking illustration of the inanity of most of this kind of work. He uses the gazal form for stories about such persons as the Gracchi and Bluecher,[223] and, what is still more curious, for tirades against the Oriental tendency.[224] A poet of different calibre is Daumer, whose Hafis (Hamb. 1846) for a long time was regarded as a translation, whereas the poems of the collection are in reality original ...
— The Influence of India and Persia on the Poetry of Germany • Arthur F. J. Remy
... wise, who with a thought besmirch Blood over all our soul, How should we see our task But through his blunt and lashless eyes? Alive, he is not vital overmuch; Dying, not mortal overmuch; Nor sad, nor proud, Nor curious at all. He cannot tell ...
— Poems • Wilfred Owen
... was over for the day, the girls of the Phi Sigma Tau knew that Eleanor had once more repudiated their overtures of friendship and were curious to see what ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... from among whose rugged snow peaks first sprang those plunging cascades, which, leaping and tossing over their rocky beds, join each other at its base to form the river itself? Through what wild forests, filled with curious vegetation, may it not flow, and how strange, perhaps, are the people who, together with wild beasts and unknown birds, ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly
... the young officer, with a curious hysterical ring in his voice. "Go down.—See when I ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... judgments of men are curious. No action in Goethe's life has excited more scandal than his final marriage with Christine. It is thought disgraceful enough for him to have taken her into his home, but for the great poet to actually complete such an enormity as to crown his ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... degree of truth in these observances is due to chance. But afterwards when a man begins to entangle his mind with observances of this kind, many things occur in connection with them through the trickery of the demons, "so that men, through being entangled in these observances, become yet more curious, and more and more embroiled in the manifold snares of a pernicious error," as Augustine says (De ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... Jerry; "but I don't know that I shall be the less happy for that. I have heard the commandments read a great many times and I never noticed that any of them said, 'Thou shalt be rich'; and there are a good many curious things said in the New Testament about rich men that I think would make me feel rather queer if I was one ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell
... Archie, when he had listened with an interest, which surprised himself as entirely as it surprised Minnie; for though of an unusually curious disposition, he invariably found his interest flag after drinking in the first few details of anything. "Why, if you aren't a party of complete 'bricks—' Seymour called you a saint, but I say a 'brick,' and if you aren't content with that, I don't know ...
— Hollowmell - or, A Schoolgirl's Mission • E.R. Burden
... old Flemish city' goes first to the Market-Place. On Saturday mornings the wide space beneath the mighty Belfry is full of stalls, with white canvas awnings, and heaped up with a curious assortment of goods. Clothing of every description, sabots and leathern shoes and boots, huge earthenware jars, pots and pans, kettles, cups and saucers, baskets, tawdry-coloured prints—chiefly of a religious ...
— Bruges and West Flanders • George W. T. Omond
... condemned, Miss Anthony had increased her forces to a mighty host marching forward to an assured victory. From a condition of social ostracism she had brought them to a position where they commanded respect and admiration for their courageous advocacy of a just cause. The small, curious, unsympathetic audiences of early days had been transformed into this great gathering, which represented the highest official life of the nation's capital and the intellectual aristocracy of all the States in the Union. It was a wonderful change to have been effected in the lifetime of ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... old-fashioned garden on that summer's morning was not at all put about by the fact that her pretty daughter was having a solemn conference in the drawing-room with the handsomest and most elegant young man of their acquaintance. She was not curious nor anxious, nor perturbed in any way. She pottered round her plants, pulling up a weed here, and removing a withered bud there, in the most comfortable fashion, and only once she made a remark to herself ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... with a penchant for her cousin Scythrop, or was merely curious to see what effect the tender passion would have on so outre a person, she had not been three days in the Abbey before she threw out all the lures of her beauty and accomplishments to make a prize of his heart. Scythrop proved an easy conquest. The image of ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... patristic writings, theoretics assume continually an increasingly disproportionate value. Even within the compass of our New Testament, there is to be found already a wonderful contrast between the words of our LORD and such a discourse as the Epistle to the Hebrews." (pp. 160-1.) [What a curious discovery, by the way, that an argumentative Epistle should differ in style from an historical Gospel!] "Our LORD'S Discourses," (continues this writer,) "have almost all of them a direct Moral bearing." (p. 161.) ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... 'This curious and valuable relic was nearly lost during the Civil War of 1745-6, being carried away from Douglas Castle by some of those in arms for Prince Charles. But great interest having been made by the Duke of Douglas among the chief ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... want to see what war really is. You want to do some good if you can. You want to be seriously occupied in it to prevent your thinking too much about it. Then, because you're English, you want to see what the Russians are really like. You're curious and sympathetic, inquisitive and, perhaps, a little sentimental about ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... Sleep! if so it pleases thee, close, In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes, Or wait the amen, ere thy poppy throws Around my bed its lulling charities; Then save me, or the passed day will shine Upon my pillow, breeding many woes; Save me from curious conscience, that still lords Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole; Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards, And seal the hushed casket of ...
— Sleep-Book - Some of the Poetry of Slumber • Various
... swiftly the dark shadows of night are gathering. We must hasten back to Lot's Canyon at once. In fifteen minutes it will be too dark to see our way plainly. Come on, everybody. I reckon the Little Woman is some curious to know what has been happening up here," and, smiling happily, he started back toward the opening, followed by all ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... nerve-tingling shiver of apprehension when the latch yielded with a click and he found himself under the hall lantern formally shaking hands with the statuesque young woman of the many imaginings. It gave him a curious thrill of mingled terror and joy to find her absolutely unchanged. Having, for his own part, lived through so many experiences since that final glimpse of her standing on the saloon-deck guards of the Belle Julie at St. Louis, the distance ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... a curious accuracy in the analytical tests which Mr. Jefferson applied to all the ordinary transactions of life. It was not enough for him to know exactly how many dollars and cents he had expended; he must know what should be ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... reaction against excess of ascetic doctrine bred in the eighteenth century, that Diderot should have failed to see that such sophisms as these are wholly destructive of that order and domestic piety, to whose beauty he was always so keenly alive. It is curious, too, that he should have failed to recognise that the erection of constancy into a virtue would have been impossible, if it had not answered first, to some inner want of human character at its best, and second, to some condition of ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... for his indefinite absence, and he used the same care in providing for some minor contingencies in the company's affairs as in leaving instructions to his children for their action until they should hear from him again. Afterwards this curious scrupulosity became a matter of comment among those privy to it; some held it another proof of the ingrained rascality of the man, a trick to suggest lenient construction of his general conduct in the management of the company's finances, others saw in it an interesting ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... curious sound, that made by the snow which lay so thickly beneath sandal, hoof and wheel. As it was pressed together it literally squeaked as if it possessed feeling and remonstrated at being crushed down from light feathery snow ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... rather relieved to have escaped from the jurisdiction of that respectable matron. He was fond of Jane Target, who was just one of those plump apple-cheeked young women whom children love instinctively, and who had a genius for singing ballads of a narrative character, every verse embellished with a curious old-fashioned quavering turn. ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... told her, indeed, and she saw from the Post, that at the inquest Barron had apparently accounted for the conversation. "She gave me a curious history of her life in the States. I was interested by her strange personality—and ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... come to the field pansy, the Viola arvensis, a very common weed in the grain-fields of central Europe. I have already mentioned its small corolla, surpassed by the lobes of the calyx and its capacity of self-fertilization. It has still other curious differentiating characters; the pollen grains, which are square in V. tricolor, are five-sided in V. arvensis. Some transgressive fluctuating variability may occur in both cases through the admixture of pollen-grains. ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... Raton Mountains and were then in the northern part of the Territory of New Mexico. What a curious country it was! The houses were built of adobe or sun-dried brick of earth, in a very primitive fashion. We seemed to be transported as by magic to the Holy Land as it was in the lifetime of our Saviour. The architecture of the buildings, the habits and raiment ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... would have prepared the large rooms in the Adam wing for their reception; and they would not be free to separate, until late at night, for there would be the servants' and employes' ball, after a tete-a-tete dinner in state, where their every action would be watched and commented upon by many curious eyes. Yes, it was a terrible ordeal to go through, under the circumstances; and no wonder he wanted the cold, frosty evening air ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... body low of stature, and marked by a slight deformity. His piercing eyes, luminous with intelligence and full of sympathy for everything noble and elevated, overpowered with their fascination the blemishes that a too curious scrutiny might discover upon his figure; while his mobile, handsome lips poured out the natural eloquence of clear thoughts and noble sentiments. The Count grew great while speaking: his listeners were carried away by the magic ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... paling long enough not only for Varney to get some distance off, but long enough likewise to know that the pistol which had been fired at the doctor had produced no real bad effects, except singing some curious tufts of hair upon the sides of his face, which the doctor was pleased to ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... was a glass of porter for the idol to drink, and some rice and fruit to satisfy his appetite. Numerous Chinese candles, like our wax tapers, were put up all round inside, and the show, when lit up, must have looked very curious. ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... But come, let's go in; my sister has arrived, and knows that I expect Captain Hopkins and Mr. Stewart, of the Cabot, and,' he added, with a significant smile, 'nothing more, though she has been very curious to find who the gentlemen is with whom I ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... Wilcoxes for the second time. Paul and his mother, ripple and great wave, had flowed into her life and ebbed out of it for ever. The ripple had left no traces behind: the wave had strewn at her feet fragments torn from the unknown. A curious seeker, she stood for a while at the verge of the sea that tells so little, but tells a little, and watched the outgoing of this last tremendous tide. Her friend had vanished in agony, but not, she believed, in degradation. Her withdrawal had hinted at other things besides ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... at her in genuine astonishment. "What a curious idea!" he said. "You don't really ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... early and curious example of a bargain we find the seller continually expressing reluctance to sell and asking the buyer to accept as a gift the commodity that he wants. It appears from the sequel that this is merely an example of Oriental politeness. At any rate, the end of the bargain ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... translation tavolato, a "partition wall," "wainscoting," also "floor." Tablado also means "scaffold" and "stage" or "staging." We have here a curious series of mistakes. The Greek text of Josephus has ekpomata, "cups." The old Latin translator, perhaps having a defective text, took ekpomata apparently to be equivalent to pomata, which has as its secondary meaning, "lids," and translated it by ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... A curious misunderstanding which is sometimes encountered comes from assuming that the sentence must be constructed entirely of the three words given. If it appears that the subject is stumbling over this difficulty, we explain: "The three words must ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... step was possible beyond Feuerbach and Bruno Bauer, that from the community to the particular, selfish individual, from the criticising, therefore thinking, ego, to the ego of sensuous enjoyment. This step was taken in that curious book The Individual and his Property, which Kaspar Schmidt, who died in 1856 at Berlin, published in 1845 (2d ed., 1882), under the pseudonym of Max Stirner. The Individual of whom the title speaks is the egoist. For me nothing is higher than myself; I ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... on the more solemn festivals was as often as he could say Mass, or even hear it, on account of his extreme weakness in the mornings. For the last three or four years of his life to say Mass at all became a struggle which was as curious as it was distressing to witness. Those who had often read of such things in the lives of the servants of God were nevertheless amazed at the sight of them in Father Hecker. The following is ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... and alone. As he led them into the drawing-room, the recollection of the scene which had taken place there seemed to occur to him, for he cast a curious look at Sir Mulberry, who bestowed upon it no other ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... or which of them he considers at all convincing, Mr. Le Gallienne observes that the arguments as to a future life are "probably stronger on the side of belief"—which is rather a curious expression. But, whichever theory be true, it "does not really much matter." Very likely. But how does this fit in with the teaching of Christ? If he and his apostles did not believe in the "hereafter," what did they ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... there, with his back turned toward the door, looking up at a portrait of the late Earl. So intently was he occupied that he did not hear her entering; but a slight noise, made by a chair as she passed it, startled him, and he turned and looked at her, disclosing to her curious yet apprehensive gaze the full features and figure of the new Lord Chetwynde. On that instant, as he turned and faced her, she took in his whole face and mien and stature. She saw a broad, intellectual brow, covered with dark clustering hair; a face bronzed by the suns ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... Rotrou was able to render the little face as distinctly visible to her as if it had been daylight, save that the blanching light was somewhat embellishing to the new-born complexion, and increased that curious resemblance so often borne for the first few hours of life to the future self. Eustacie's cry at once was, 'Himself, himself—his very face! Let me have her, ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... It was curious, he thought, that a woman could take on the new rights, the aristocratic attitude, so much more completely than a man. Miss Hitchcock was a full generation ahead of the others in her conception of inherited, personal ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... him with that consulship," I thought, beginning to be very curious indeed as to what I might be going to hear. My heart wasn't beating so thickly now. I ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... as we knocked at Gilchrist's door. A tall, flaxen-haired, slim young fellow opened it, and made us welcome when he understood our errand. There were some really curious pieces of mediaeval domestic architecture within. Holmes was so charmed with one of them that he insisted on drawing it in his notebook, broke his pencil, had to borrow one from our host and finally borrowed a knife to sharpen his own. The same curious accident happened ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... with amazement that she sat as straight and steady on her slippery seat as though she were on a hunting saddle, keeping herself from falling by an instinctive balancing of the body which was very curious to notice. When they were well on to the plain they halted to consider their route, and, turning, Jess pointed to the long lines of vultures descending to feast on their would-be murderers. If they went down the river it would lead them to ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... invited to make envelopes, and by whole-hearted efforts and untiring industry they at last provided very excellent samples. Fins, rudder planes, and cars were also entrusted to firms which had had no previous experience of this class of work, and it is rather curious to reflect that envelopes were produced by the makers of mackintoshes and that cars and planes were constructed by a shop-window furnisher. This was a sure sign that all classes of the community were pulling together for the ...
— British Airships, Past, Present, and Future • George Whale
... intentions to nature." In one sentence he says: "The Labellum is developed into a long nectary, in order to attract Lepidoptera; and we shall presently give reasons for suspecting the nectar is purposely so lodged that it can be sucked only slowly, in order to give time for the curious chemical quality of the viscid matter settling hard and dry" (p. 29). Of one particular structure he says: "This contrivance of the guiding ridges may be compared to the little instrument sometimes used for guiding a thread into the eye of a needle." The notion ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... Herminia. They passed beneath the triumphal arch of Augustus with its Etruscan mason-work, its Roman decorations, and round the antique walls, aglow with tufted gillyflowers, to the bare Piazza d'Armi. A cattle fair was going on there; and Alan pointed with pleasure to the curious fact that the oxen were all cream-colored,—the famous white steers of Clitumnus. Herminia knew her Virgil as well as Alan himself, and murmured half aloud the sonorous hexameter, "Romanos ad templa deum duxere triumphos." ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... has transferred some American bronze to his complexion. If anything, he appears to have sharpened his natural faculty for skilful evasion and polite repartee by his encounter with Transatlantic journalists. In fact everybody is pleased to see him back except perhaps certain curious members, who find him even more chary of information than his deputy, Lord Robert Cecil. The mystery of Lord Northcliffe's visit to the States has been cleared up. Certain journals, believed to enjoy his confidence, had described him as "Mr. Balfour's successor." Certain other journals, ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... nearly over. There were no enemy, and the trees gave us a grateful shade, which only "B" Company, pushed forward to hold an outpost line on the far bridge, had to forgo. A fine stone well was found in the oasis with a good supply of cool, though curious tasting water, and canteens were soon being let down into it at the end of puttees in a hopeless effort to cope with our thirst, after which the bolder spirits went so far as to nibble a ration biscuit. ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... Uncle Ted,' said her aunt. 'He knows all about curious things like that—all about wild birds and country things. But why do you say when they go to their lessons on rainy days? ...
— Miss Mouse and Her Boys • Mrs. Molesworth
... with curious fidelity the successive steps in the process of preparation till the dreadful day of ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... understood the mute appeal as well as though looks were words. Without heeding the curious crowd about her, or considering the danger of such audacity, she took up her nosegay and waved it toward him as though to refresh him with its fragrance, and then pressed a hasty kiss on the finest of the half-opened buds. His responsive gesture showed that she had ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... UNEMPLOYED.—"It is a curious fact," wrote the Recording Angel, a very superior sort of person to "the Printer's Devil," on the Daily Telegraph, "that in Greater London last week the births registered were just one more than twice the number of deaths. Thus grows ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 18, 1892 • Various
... with the same story. He said that Al Hafed's successor led his camel out into the garden to drink, and as that camel put its nose down into the clear water of the garden brook Al Hafed's successor noticed a curious flash of light from the sands of the shallow stream, and reaching in he pulled out a black stone having an eye of light that reflected all the colors of the rainbow, and he took that curious pebble into the house and left it on the ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... and reverencing him extremely as one who had shed glory on his native town. Even Elizabeth had conceived a great idea of Mr. Ascott. When she saw this little fat man, coarse and common looking in spite of his good clothes and diamond ring, and in manner a curious mixture of pomposity and awkwardness, she laughed to herself, thinking what a very uninteresting individual it was about whom Stowbury had told so many interesting stories. However, she went up to inform ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... A curious fashion not before noticed amongst the islanders of Oceania prevails amongst them. Most of them wear the nails very long, and those of the chief men in the canoes extended three inches beyond the ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... too, might have sent him a Christmas card or something. He had seen her only twice since the sale, and each time she had whizzed past him in Canby's machine on the way to Prouty. The sight had given him a curious feeling which he had tried to analyze but had been unable to find a satisfactory ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... the outbreak of violent disgust which Mr. —— indulges in on the subject of amalgamation; as that formed no part of our discussion, and seems to me a curious subject for abstract argument. I should think the intermarrying between blacks and whites a matter to be as little insisted upon if repugnant, as prevented if agreeable to the majority of the two races. At the same time, I cannot help being astonished at the furious ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... the girl he would be apt to learn how curious Frank and Andy had seemed about him; and Sallie might even admit that they had asked to see his wonderful collection ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... poetry, as throughout all of the New England poetry, too much thought, too much argument. Some of his verse gives the reader a very curious and subtle impression that the lines are a translation. This is because he is closely following a thesis. Indeed, the lines are a translation. They were thought first, and poetry afterwards. Read off his poetry, and you see through the scheme of it at once. Read his prose, ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... Pelias to bring back the golden fleece, and this command is based on Pelias' desire to destroy Jason, while the divine aid given to Jason results from the intention of Hera to punish Pelias for his neglect of the honour due to her. The learning of Apollonius is not deep but it is curious; his general sentiments are not according to the Alexandrian standard, for they are simple and obvious. In the mass of material from which he had to choose the difficulty was to know what to omit, and much skill is shewn in fusing into ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... turned. Another party came into power and the lily-white government was established. Out of such conditions as Miss Lonn has depicted the government of all the Southern States sprang. This book helps us to understand, in some slight degree, the curious political bias of these States. It is in part a heritage of unreasoning fear—not so much of Negro domination as of again being overwhelmed by a flood of corruption let loose by their own kind. How this fear has expressed itself ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... Curious to know what could have caused her niece so much surprise, Mademoiselle de Corandeuil stretched out her neck and gazed for an instant upon the page without seeing, at first, anything extraordinary, but finally her glance rested ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... forays for the sake of plunder, with or without the incentive of revenge; crushing peasant rebellions by hanging such few peasants as escaped the sword; and at all times robbing every unlucky merchant who chanced to come their way. It was a curious twist, that reversion to savagery, from the Roman epoch: when the Rhone Valley was inhabited by a civilized people who encouraged commerce and who had a genuine love for the arts. And, after all—unless they had some sort of pooling arrangement—the ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... he woke to a state of being hitherto unknown in his experience. Sometimes in the process of waking there is a little pause—sleep has gone, but coherent thought has not begun. It is a curious half-void, a glimpse of aphasia; and although the person experiencing it may not know for that instant his own name or age or sex, he may be acutely conscious of depression or elation. It is the moment, ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... to say something here about a curious old man who lived in Virginia when George Washington was a boy, and who was wise enough to see that young Washington was anything but a common boy. This man was an English nobleman named Lord Fairfax. As the nobles of England were not in the habit ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... building hedge school-houses being rather curious, I will describe it. The usual spot selected for their erection is a ditch in the road-side; in some situation where there will be as little damp as possible. From such a spot an excavation is made equal ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... From the above curious items it appears that the iron mines, in common with the forges, were mostly situated on the Wye side of the Forest. But then the bailiwicks of Little Dean and Ruerdean ...
— Iron Making in the Olden Times - as instanced in the Ancient Mines, Forges, and Furnaces of The Forest of Dean • H. G. Nicholls
... a curious sort of short nightgown worn over white and flappy trousers, below which were revealed a pair of big, flat naval feet. The first lieutenant, Sabhana—sleek and civil-spoken, but desperately afraid of work—was, we understand, son-in-law to the Admiral Satarah, having to wife the ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... the sleepers on the floor and stood by an open window. His mind was stirring with a curious desire to see the ghost that haunted this house, its spacious grounds and fields. He, too, had read Uncle Tom's Cabin, and wondered. The ghost must be here hiding in some dark corner of cabin or field—the ghost of deathless ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... fear he should see her before he left for Normandy? I was afraid she wouldn't go, as M. Bradamanti expects the lady who came last night; I couldn't see her, but this time I'll try to unmask her. But who can this lady of M. Bradamanti's be? A lady or a common woman? I'd like to know, for I am as curious as a magpie. It is not my fault—I'm made so. It is my character. Ah, hold! an idea, a famous one too—to find out her name! I'll try it. But who comes there? Ah! it is my prince of lodgers. Hail, Mr. Rudolph," said Mrs. Pipelet, putting ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... among the Indians have made it possible to preserve their songs without change from one generation to another. Many curious and interesting proofs of accuracy of transmittal have come to my knowledge during the past twenty years, while studying these ...
— Indian Story and Song - from North America • Alice C. Fletcher
... of Petronius is one of the most curious productions in the Latin language. Novel in its nature, and without any parallel in the works of antiquity, some have imagined it to be a spurious composition, fabricated about the time of the revival of learning in Europe. This conjecture, ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... equerries, and secretaries, and doctors, and odd and amusing men whom they found out for him, and who were well pleased to find themselves in his beautiful and magnificent Princedown, wandering in woods and parks and pleasaunces, devouring his choice entrees, and quaffing his curious wines. Sometimes he dined with them, sometimes a few dined with him, sometimes he was not seen for weeks; but whether he were visible or not, he was the subject of constant thought and conversation by all ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... and Brandon, whose "elegant taste and nice judgment in the most polite entertainments of the age," as well as her "piercing wit," are eulogised. Accident gave me a copy of Mr. Hamilton's book-plate, which consists of the crest and motto of the ducal race of Hamilton in a very curious framework,—the top being a row of music-books, whilst the sides and bottom are decorated with musical instruments, indicative, probably, of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 68, February 15, 1851 • Various
... soon as much alone—or nearly so—as lovers might wish to be; quite enough so for Caroline. Some curious eyes were still peeping, no doubt, to see how the great lawyer looked when he was walking with the girl of his heart; to see how the rich miser's granddaughter looked when she was walking with the man of her heart. And perhaps some voices were whispering ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... "I'm very curious to see," said Holderness. "Colonel de Peyster has sent them a message, telling them in effect that no attention will be paid to their warning, and that he will do with ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... window suddenly sat up a furious ringing. Billy's eye came round the corner of the window, scanned the empty platform, glimpsed the office desk inside and the weighty figure holding the receiver, then vanished enough to be out of sight, leaving only a wide curious ear to listen: ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... would be very useful as a foraging party. They sat laughing and sipping their wine, now and then handing a glass of the liquor, in an ungracious way, to the woman squatted on the ground; and who received it with a real or assumed humility which was, perhaps, the most curious part of the picture. Here three of our companions, Alcibiade, the Viennese silversmith, and one of the Lubeckers, were unable to proceed further on foot, and took places in the "fast coach;" while "Hannibal" and myself tramped the remaining twenty miles which lay between us and Brunn, ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... have already become accustomed to, but the shore-line is a wonderful combination of jade and emerald, that dances and scintillates as the breeze plays with the surface of the waters. A landing is made at Emerald Bay Camp, one of the most popular resorts of the Lake, and while at the landing the curious traveler should take a good look at the steep bank of the opposite shore. This is a lateral moraine of two glaciers, one of which formed Emerald Bay, as is explained in Chapter VIII, and the other formed Cascade Lake, which nestles on the other side ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... was the astonishing exception. And yet, with what one must suppose was a deliberate disregard of history, it looked upon its horribly pregnant silences as normal and natural and right; the frankness of the previous fifteen or twenty thousand years was considered abnormal and perverse. It was a curious phenomenon." ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... he knew, the rabbit thought no more about it, but went leaping gaily over the radiant crust (which was just strong enough to support him) toward some young birches, where he proposed to nibble a breakfast. As he went, suddenly a curious sound just under his feet made him jump wildly aside. Trembling, but consumed with curiosity, he stared down at the glassy surface. In a moment the sound was repeated. It was a sharp, impatient tapping against the under side of the crust. To the rabbit's ears the sound ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... leaned back and surveyed him with a curious detachment—almost as if he were an important piece of architecture which she had been recommended to admire and to which she was patiently trying in vain to adjust her baffled vision. The smaller she screwed ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... enlightened by experience, are impatient of this deadly slumber; we wish in vain that the age could have been awakened to a sense of its condition, and taught the infinite preciousness of the passing hour. And as, when a man has been cut off by sudden death, we are curious to know whether his previous words or behaviour indicated any sense of his coming fate, so we examine the records of a state of things just expiring, anxious to observe whether, in any point, there may be discerned an anticipation of the great future, or ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... him my card. He looked at it and said, "When I was last in Victoria I used to follow with much interest a curious walk across Australia, from the Gulf of Carpentaria to Melbourne done by a namesake. Any relation? The same man! I'm delighted to see you." Here then at the most inland of the customs stations in China, 1500 miles from the sea, I met my fellow countryman who was born near my home and whose ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... Kapit was taken up by the Resident in trying law cases, receiving taxes, &c. L. and I, therefore, secured a canoe, and, accompanied by five Malay sailors from the launch, one of whom was acquainted with the Poonan language, we proceeded up river to a large house occupied by this curious tribe, who inhabit the country between the Rejang and Koti rivers. It may give the reader some idea of the strength of the stream above Kapit when I say that it took our men over two hours to accomplish the distance (three miles) from the ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt
... sounds awfully interesting. You must be a desperate character, and that perhaps explains your peculiar mode of rapid transit. I'm so curious I promise." ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... however, this sketch has nothing to do. It is confined to describing events, and suggesting queries for the curious in ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... curious scene in our salon the day after the news had come of the great victory of Lens. Clement Darpent had been brought in by my brother, who wished him to hear some English songs which my sister and I had been ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... is a curious thing, and the older one grows the more strange and wonderful it seems. There was I watching Tom Mercer from the window, and the minute before I felt as if I would have given anything to have him there alone with our jackets ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... Palm Beach next winter, or to Havana, or to the Riviera, why don't you go out to Bali and see its lovely women, its curious customs, and its superb scenery for yourself? You can get there in about eight weeks, provided you make good connections at Singapore and Surabaya. With no railways, no street-cars, no hotels, no newspapers, no theatres, no movies, it is a very restful ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... just above the river bank. An Indian from one of the lodges discovered their approach, and gave a shout. Instantly men, women and children sprang into view and came running out to welcome them. It was a curious, medley crowd. The men were clad in long, decorated deerskin coats such as Sishetakushin and Mookoomahn wore, and the women in deerskin skirts reaching a little way below the knees, and all wearing the ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... declared the supper exquisite. "But, my friend Smith," he added, "are your wines curious? When you brought all that trash of plates and trumpery into Derbyshire, I hope you did not leave us at the mercy of the strong ale of the shire, as thick and muddy as the squires ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... another "Natural Selection," sometimes, as on p. 278, using both names within a few lines of each other. Butler was as a rule scrupulously careful about quotations, and I can offer no explanation of this curious ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... that this story is curiously related to that of the Perpetuum Mobile, one of the great chimeras of science, that came from its medieval origin to play an important part in more recent developments of energetics and the foundations of thermodynamics.[2] It is a curious mixture, all the more so because, tangled inextricably in it, we shall find the most important and earliest references to the use of the magnetic compass in the West. It seems that in revising the histories of ...
— On the Origin of Clockwork, Perpetual Motion Devices, and the Compass • Derek J. de Solla Price
... She was puzzled. Over and over again she asked herself why she had blushed when he looked down at her as she was tying her bonnet-strings, and why had she felt that queer little thrill of alarm? And why did he look at her like that? She answered this question by attributing its curious intensity to a brotherly interest—which was quite natural—and the awakening of a dutiful affection—but that did not in any sense account for the blood rushing to her face, so that she must have reminded him of a "turkey gobbler." She announced ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... curious fact that for a few instants the mountain and the great cold were real and this was but fancy. He looked more than once at the cheerful faces and the rosy glow of the fire, before he could convince himself that he was in truth here in Winchester, with all this ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... for her libraries. There were 'many curious books' in Ephesus, and rich stores of books at Antioch on the Orontes, and where the gray-capped students 'chattered like water-fowl' by the river at Tarsus. In Pergamus they made the fine parchment like ivory, beloved, ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton
... lower surface a similar one may be placed for the winter half; or it may be made the bearer of some useful lesson, in the form of a motto, e.g. "Disce dies numerare tuos." But this is only a hint to the curious. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 493, June 11, 1831 • Various
... was even paler than usual, and her eyes shone with a curious brilliance. That she was suffering from the most acute and feverish nervous excitement was patent from the way in which she kept putting her hands to her heart as though the violence of its throbbing ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... last dispatch from the once great editor. It was assumed generally that he had perished with so many others. It was only some time later I heard a curious story, for ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... immediately, by the mere fact of their being proximate, entered into rivalry; they all but leapt upon one another. The captain judicially decided the case against the English pipe, as a newer pipe of grosser manufacture, not so curious ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... happen." It is important, for our understanding of another feature in Zabara's work, to observe that his invective, directed against the practitioners rather than the science of medicine, is not more curious as coming from a medical man, than are the attacks on women perpetrated by some Jewish poets (Zabara among them), who themselves amply experienced, in their own and their community's life, the tender and beautiful relations that subsist between ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... for breath. "We thought this was a spot on the negative, but one of the men got curious and enlarged it about a hundred times." He held up one of the photos. It showed a small, fuzzy, but unmistakable spaceship. "No wonder we couldn't spot ...
— A Matter of Magnitude • Al Sevcik
... justly deemed a curious specimen of the laconic style. "Sir,—We have taken and destroyed all the Spanish ships and vessels which were upon the coast; the number as per margin. I am, &c. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... manifested by Bonaparte while holding these levees. His questions were always put with great tact, and on some subject with which the person interrogated was well acquainted, so as to induce him to bring forth any new or curious information of which ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... It is curious to observe what different ideals of happiness people cherish, and in what singular places they look for this well-spring of their life. Many look for it in the hoarding of riches, some in the pride of power, and others in the achievements of art and ...
— Optimism - An Essay • Helen Keller
... hearts turned their faces campward, which on reaching they found in consternation at the prolonged absence of Edward and Anne. They had gone out a few moments after the hunters, Edward to fish in the brook by which they had encamped, and Anne to gather curious plants and flowers, of which she was passionately fond. Mr. Duncan had been in search of them and came up as the ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... appear vulgarly curious," the girl went on,—Mr. Jeekes made a quick gesture of dissent,—"but I am anxious to know whether Mr. Parrish was being blackmailed ... or ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... It was a curious smile, which seemed somehow to lose itself in his face. Then the dinner gong sounded and he winked at me slowly. Again I was conscious of some slight uneasiness. It began to dawn upon me that there was a scheme somewhere ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... may be seen by the curious under the shelter of the early Norman church, dedicated to Saint Catherine, from which circumstance ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... with angry impatience, and so curious was he to read the contents of the packet that he hastily tore off the cover, the sooner to arrive at its purport. A closely written sheet of fine paper was within the cover, and the Elector unfolded it with eager hands. But after looking at this a long while, he shook his ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... How curious that he should live here!" I murmured; and at this moment the sun came out, and shone full, or at least almost ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... dispute between the two rival camps in the Anarchist party—the organisationists and the individualists. Bonafede and Gnecco belonged to the former, while most of the active staff of the Tocsin—myself among others—adhered to the latter section. A curious feature of the matter—and I fancy it is not exclusively characteristic of the Anarchist party—was the amount of invective and hatred, which both factions ought properly to have expended on the common enemy, but which instead they ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... young fellow slashing the tormentors right and left; until, after a stiff and unequal fight, in which the rescuer was greatly outmatched in strength, the cowardly ruffians were put to flight. That little ragamuffin was no less a personage than the King of England, and the curious circumstance by which he got into those rags and into that cruel torture is told by Mark Twain, in his most interesting story-book, "The Prince ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith |
