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Rarely   /rˈɛrli/   Listen
Rarely

adverb
1.
Not often.  Synonym: seldom.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Rarely" Quotes from Famous Books



... what those think to whom one has been taught to look up. To say that the deeper standards of judgments of value are framed by the situations into which a person habitually enters is not so much to mention a fourth point, as it is to point out a fusion of those already mentioned. We rarely recognize the extent in which our conscious estimates of what is worth while and what is not, are due to standards of which we are not conscious at all. But in general it may be said that the things which we take for granted without ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey

... table-waiting really pleased him. He thought Meg would approve of him. He was an intelligent lad and proud of his English master, who seemed to think that telling a lie for the sake of being polite or kind was really a sin. In fact, the Effendi was very rarely cross, except when Mohammed forgot and told a lie. Sometimes it was very hard to tell the truth when a lie would, he knew, make his master happy. While he set the table he felt his master's eyes were on him, even though he was reading a love story which was so beautiful that he had seen, or ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer

... negro is very rarely knowingly indecent or addicted to lubricity," says Sir H.H. Johnston. "In this land of nudity, which I have known for seven years, I do not remember once having seen an indecent gesture on the part of either man or woman, and only very rarely (and that ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... for a moment he was listening to downright folly. Yet how otherwise explain the fact of his excellent client being incomprehensible to him? For a middle-aged gentleman, and one who has been in the habit of advising and managing, will rarely have a notion of accusing his understanding; and Mr. Thompson had not the slightest notion of accusing his. But the baronet's condescension in coming thus to him, and speaking on the subject nearest his heart, might well affect him, and he quickly settled the case in favour of both parties, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... tom or long tom, an instrument extensively used in the Californian mines in 1851 and 1852, but now rarely seen, is a wooden trough about twelve feet long, eighteen inches wide at the upper end, and widening at the lower to thirty inches, with sides eight inches high. It is used like a board-sluice, but has no riffle-bars, and at the lower ...
— Hittel on Gold Mines and Mining • John S. Hittell

... of passion is unique in English poetry. It is a rapture in which the mind is supreme, a reasonable rapture, and yet carried to a pitch of actual violence. The words themselves rarely count for much, as they do in Crashaw, for instance, where words turn giddy at the height of their ascension. The words mean things, and it is the things that matter. They can be brutal: 'For God's sake, hold your tongue, and let ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons

... ruinous man my Lord? Full of decay and fayling? Oh Monument And wonder of good deeds, euilly bestow'd! What an alteration of Honor has desp'rate want made? What vilder thing vpon the earth, then Friends, Who can bring Noblest mindes, to basest ends. How rarely does it meete with this times guise, When man was wisht to loue his Enemies: Grant I may euer loue, and rather woo Those that would mischeefe me, then those that doo. Has caught me in his eye, I will present my honest ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... hint that it would be well to have healed the breach between himself and Crawford. This it was supposed came from Forsyth, and it is further believed this was prompted by Van Buren. It may or may not have been so: Mr. Jackson's acuteness rarely required hints from any one to stimulate or prompt to action its suggestions. All Washington City was astounded, one Sunday morning, at seeing the carriage of Jackson pull up at the residence of Mr. Crawford; for their quarrel was known to every one, and it was heralded ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... her the deepest sense of her bereavement and her isolation. Life in Sir Thomas' home was very different from life at the manor house, both in doors and out. The old gentleman passed most of his time in his library, and Anna rarely saw him until evening, when he would sometimes instruct her in playing chess. When she went outside of the house, all seemed strange and dull and dreary, plain grass lawns all around, not a flower bed to be seen, no long garden walk, no fountain, no hills ...
— Peak's Island - A Romance of Buccaneer Days • Ford Paul

... taken place since the year of the Great Fight" Bob Croaker was a noted fighter. Martin Rattler was, up to this date, an untried hero. Although fond of rough play and boisterous mischief, he had an unconquerable aversion to earnest fighting, and very rarely indeed returned home with a black eye,—much to the satisfaction of Aunt Dorothy Grumbit, who objected to all fighting from principle, and frequently asserted, in gentle tones, that there should be no soldiers or sailors (fighting sailors, ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... not much wine. The men who dwell in the West part of themselves, abide in their external senses, and by their good intentions, their virtues, and their outer practices, by the grace of God produce abundant harvests of virtues of divers kinds, but they but rarely taste the wine of ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge

... dialect songs of the wilderness; Duncan Forbes amused us with what he called a Highland fling, and Pemecan, to the accompaniment of outlandish chanting, danced an Indian war-dance. Captain Rudstone and Christopher Burley, who were rarely anything but quiet and reserved, showed us sides of their characters that we had not suspected before; they clapped their hands and joined in the laughter and merriment. And in Flora's unfeigned happiness and light spirits I took my ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon

... involved, we may perhaps accept the view that the well considered opinion of the majority is as near as may be to infallibility. But it is very rarely the case that the question of the legitimacy of a property interest can be reduced to a purely moral issue. Usually there are also at stake, technical and broad economic issues in which majority judgment is notoriously ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various

... warmer than the remaining six months which make up the rainy season. The heaviest rainfall is in the months of December, January, and February. The chief characteristic of the climate of Java is, therefore, not so much its heat as its equability: it is rarely wet all day long even in the wet season, and at least one shower may be expected each day in ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold

... was compelled to moderate his desires, and he rarely touched these fearful elixirs, in the same way that he could no longer with impunity visit his red corridor and grow ecstatic at the sight of the gloomy Odilon Redon prints and the Jan Luyken horrors. And yet, ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... Englishman. He seldom knows well more than one language; occasionally one finds fellows who can speak two tongues fluently; rarely one who is conversant with three or four. His conversation generally deals with drinks, the latest or coming races, the relative values of horses and jockeys and subsequent offers to bet—in which he is most proficient. The local polo, if there is any, or tennis tournaments ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... extraordinary a fact, I shall lay before my reader a great number of instances. [Footnote: It is necessary to observe that pustulous sores frequently appear spontaneously on the nipples of cows, and instances have occurred, though very rarely, of the hands of the servants employed in milking being affected with sores in consequence, and even of their feeling an indisposition from absorption. These pustules arc of a much milder nature than those which arise from ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various

... a more faithful nurse than Lillian. She had a cot placed in my room where she slept at night, and she rarely ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison

... a mix of Turkic and Mongol nomadic tribes who migrated into the region in the 13th century, were rarely united as a single nation. The area was conquered by Russia in the 18th century and Kazakhstan became a Soviet Republic in 1936. During the 1950s and 1960s agricultural "Virgin Lands" program, Soviet citizens were encouraged to help cultivate Kazakhstan's ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... at the same time so tolerant, that the reader follows him attentively from the beginning to the end. The Huguenots were worthy of such a historian, for though persecuted for their opinions, they never ceased to love their country, or to wish to live at peace with their enemies and serve her. Rarely has a body of men produced nobler characters. This book fills ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... to the astrological physician, for the most principal conjecture of the malignity of the disease, whether it be curable, or shall end with death, depends upon the knowledge of the nativity; and very rarely any disease invades a person, but some unfortunate direction of the luminaries or ascendant to the body, or beams of malignant planets preceded the same, or did then operate, or at least some evil revolution, profection or transit, ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian

... had made upon his young hearer, and what comment the latter would make, Ishmael calmly arose, took the brief from the table and put it into the hands of Mr. Walsh, saying, with a dignity—aye, even a majesty of mien rarely found in so ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... at Molly, who was standing in the porch; she flew to her eldest sister's side, clasped her arms round her neck, and shed a few of those silent, rare tears which only came to her now and then, for Nell was no ordinary child, and rarely showed ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade

... that he finds in them are hypotheses more ingenious than solid. The past is too great, and has come down to us in too fragmentary a manner, for such coincidences to be probable. Popular celebrities are rarely those of history, and when the rumours of distant centuries come to us by two channels, one popular, the other historical, it is a rare thing for these two forms of tradition to be fully in accord with one another. M. de la Villemarque is also too ready ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various

... do not work, except in holes upon the reef, beyond low-water mark; but the coral sand and other broken remnants thrown up by the sea, adhere to the rock, and form a solid mass with it, as high as the common tides reach. That elevation surpassed, the future remnants, being rarely covered, lose their adhesive property; and remaining in a loose state, form what is usually called a key, upon the top of the reef. The new bank is not long in being visited by sea birds; salt plants take root upon it, and a soil begins to be formed; a cocoa nut, or the drupe of a pandanus ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders

... In the Buddhist Bible it is stated that there is in Paradise a divine tree, called Udon, which rarely blossoms. When, however, it does blossom, Buddha is said to appear in the world, therefore we make use of this expression when referring ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various

... Capadose. None the less it occupied him now immensely, the question of how such a woman would arrange herself in such a predicament. He watched her with an interest deeply quickened when he mingled with the company; he had had his own troubles in life, but he had rarely been so anxious about anything as he was now to see what the loyalty of a wife and the infection of an example would have made of an absolutely truthful mind. Oh, he held it as immutably established that whatever other women ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James

... Mrs. Barbauld. I have copied for you her last letter to me and some beautiful lines written in her eightieth year. There is a melancholy elegance and force of thought in both. Elegance and strength—qualities rarely uniting without injury to each other, combine most perfectly in her style, and this rare combination, added to their classical purity, form, perhaps, the distinguishing characteristics of her writings. England has lost a great writer, and we a ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... (serves as appeals court for people's and provincial courts but rarely overturns verdicts of lower courts; judges are nominated by the General Council of Courts and approved by ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... the smile of the man who is looking at a passing show and knows that it is not real. As he went into his forties, and the flux of his life hardened, he became a man of reserves—a kind, quiet, strong man, charitable to a fault for the weaknesses of others, but a man who rarely reflected his impulses, a listener in conversation, a dreamer amid the tumult of business, whose success lay in his industry and caution, and who drew men to him not by what he promised, but by the faith we chattering ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White

... him she had lowered her lashes. Now she raised them, sending a direct message beside which her first glance had been dumb indifference. He was seeing into the depths of her eyes in the consciousness of a privilege rarely bestowed. They gave wing to a thousand inquiries. He had the thrill of an explorer who is about to enter on a voyage of discovery. Then the veil was drawn before his ship had even put out from port. It was a veil woven with fine threads ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... should stand by themselves, it is interesting to note how many favourite personages in the modern drama and in modern fiction Plautus at least prefigures. Long though the list is, it does not contain a large proportion of thoroughly respectable names: Plautus rarely introduces us to people, male or female, whom we should care to have long in the same house with us. A real lady seldom appears in these comedies, and—to approach a paradox—when she does she usually comes perilously close to being no lady; the same is usually true of the real gentleman. The ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius

... it to the superior quality of the wine, sir. I have often observed that in married households the champagne is rarely of a first-rate brand. ...
— The Importance of Being Earnest - A Trivial Comedy for Serious People • Oscar Wilde

... render the last verse most erroneously. K.P. Singha skips over every difficulty. In the Anusasana, this characteristic of his is more marked than in the Santi. The Burdwan translators very rarely skip over a verse, but they are very generally in the wrong. Nilakantha explains that Devesah is Brahma. The meaning, therefore, is that Tandi said unto me those secret names which Brahma had applied unto the high-souled one ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... instruments of all kinds, or long-necked Moorish guns patterned with silver, ivory and coral. Here and there as they passed, were garden glimpses, between embroidered curtains, looking through windows always barred with greenish wrought iron, so old as to be rarely beautiful; and some small windows had no curtains, but were thickly frilled outside with the violent crimson of bougainvillaea, or fringed with tassels of wistaria, loop on loop of amethysts. High above these windows, which framed flowery pictures, were other windows, little ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... brilliant, but so was Maud, and for some time I lost the thread of the conversation through studying her face as she talked. It was a face that rarely displayed colour, but to-night it was flushed and vivacious. Her wit was playing keenly, and she was enjoying the tilt as much as Wolf Larsen, and he was enjoying it hugely. For some reason, though I know not why in the argument, so utterly had I lost it in the contemplation ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London

... exemplary character in every way, but the odd thing was that few people liked her. This was the more tragic as it was the desire of her heart to be popular. Her appearance was attractive, and strangers usually began acquaintance with enthusiasm, but the attraction rarely survived the first hour's talk. She was like a very well-coloured and delightful-looking apple that is without flavour. She was never natural—always aping someone. Her enthusiasms did not ring true, her interest was obviously feigned, and she had that most destroying of ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)

... and unconventional. Of course, I do not forget that niceties of deportment, without sound qualities of mind and heart to back them, are of trifling value; but the two kinds of attraction are by no means incompatible with each other. Mrs. Courtney smiles often. Ethel Leigh used to smile rarely, although, when the smile did come, it was irresistibly winning; there was in it exquisite significance and tenderness. It is a beautiful smile still, but that charm of rarity (if it be a charm) is lacking. ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne

... visited Hatfield in March 1643: "I went," he says, "to see my Lord Salisbury's palace at Hatfield, where the most considerable rarity, besides the house," (inferior to few then in England for its architecture,) " was the garden and vineyard, rarely well-watered and planted. They also showed us the picture of Secretary Cecil in mosaic work, very well done ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... which is the most conservative body outside the Catholic Church, there is the ritualistic, or high church, and the low church. Nay, if you question closely the individual members composing any one fraction of these denominations, you will not rarely find them giving a contradictory view ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons

... handsome lepidopters, it is best to obtain caterpillars, feed them with the leaves of the plant on which they are found, and pierce the butterfly as soon as he has undergone his change, for the specimens caught in their flight are rarely fresh. ...
— Movement of the International Literary Exchanges, between France and North America from January 1845 to May, 1846 • Various

... approximate vacuum, so nearly perfect that the molecules of the residual gas in their kinetic motions rarely collide, and beat back and forth between the walls of the containing vessel, or between any solid object contained in the vessel and the walls of the vessel. The gas in such a vacuum is in the radiant or ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone

... come there for confinement, who leave as soon as they are physically strong enough to take their burden—their little baby—in their arms and face the world again. In Adelaide these women were in 1868 divided into two classes, one for girls who had made their first slip—girls weak, but very rarely wicked—so as to separate them, from women who came for a second or third time, who were cared for with their infants in the general asylum. Mr. James Smith obtained in 1881 legislation to empower the Destitute Board to make every ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence

... that this was true. Even in conversation with himself (before the arrival in England of Robert's Will), his mother rarely mentioned her brother—and still more rarely his family. There was another reason for Mrs. Gallilee's silence, known only to herself. Robert was in the secret of her debts, and Robert had laid her ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins

... bought for herself. She sedulously sent up remainders till they were expressly countermanded. Less economical by nature, and hungrier by habit, Mary Ann had much trouble in restraining herself from surreptitious pickings. Her conscience was rarely worsted; still there was a taint of dishonesty in her soul, else had the stairs been less of an ethical battleground for her. Lancelot's advent only made her hungrier; somehow the thought of nibbling at his provisions was too sacrilegious ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill

... the owner of the blue eyes in that deep musical bass voice which one meets with but rarely, and which resembles strongly, at times, the low ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne

... disagreeable to its inhabitants. In submitting to it, undoubtedly they show their patriotism and their power of passive endurance. Heroism is, however, something more than either patriotism or endurance—it is an exceptional quality which is rarely found in this world. If the Parisians possessed it, I should admire them; because they do not, no one has a ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere

... not near him—she is not the child Of Solitude. Health shrank not from him, for Her home is in the rarely-trodden wild." ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley

... the deeper, the rarer meaning of the word, rarer both in being less frequent and in being very precious. Fellowship friends may be many; emergency friends very, very few. And if circumstances so turn out that this man who has so rarely proven himself your friend, is himself in some emergency, and you are now in position to help him, as once he helped you, you count it not only an obligation of the highest sort, but the rarest of privileges. And with great joy you come to his help without stopping to count the cost in the ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon

... it looked as though she would drown in that position; but Tish rarely loses her presence of mind. She said she knew at once what was wrong. So, though somewhat handicapped by the position, she replaced the cork belt under her arms and emerged ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... her thorough liking and respect for Mr. Wentworth, and even more for the reason that he had obtained her promise to come, was rarely absent from her class, and the hour spent at the chapel undoubtedly had a good and restraining influence; but over and against this one or two hours in seven days were pitted the moral atmosphere of the shop, the bold admiration and advances ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe

... sparkled fire at me. They were "sweetest eyes" no more, but rarely worth looking into all ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... Norway where the goldcrest is rarely seen the same story, omitting the part about the sun and the burnt crest, is told of the common wren, who is said to have broken off his tail in his great fall. And to this is applied the moral: "Proud and ambitious people sometimes ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various

... sabres around his devoted head, which, as well as his arms, bear the scars of several wounds inflicted at the time of the murder of the ill-fated captain and crew. He sat smoking his Havana on the deck, and to judge from the martyr-like serenity of his countenance, his emotions are such as rarely stir the heart of man. When Mr. Porter, the prize master, assured him of his safety, he threw his arms around his neck, while gushing tears coursing down his furrowed cheek, bespoke the overflowing transport of his soul. Every now and then he clasped his hands, and with uplifted eyes, gave thanks ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge

... complex and well distributed throughout the body. They are composed of about sixteen or seventeen elements, but a pure element is very rarely found in the body, unless it be a foreign substance, such as mercury or lead. About 70 per cent of the body is oxygen, which is also the most abundant element of the earth. Then in order of their weight come carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus, sulphur, sodium, ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker

... enough pleasure. They had a magnificent place in Newport; it was not large enough; they were always adding to it—awning, a ballroom, some architectural whim or another. Margaret had a fancy for a cottage at Bar Harbor, but they rarely went there. They had an interest in Tuxedo; they belonged to an exclusive club on Jekyl Island. They passed one winter yachting among the islands in the eastern Mediterranean; a part of another sailing from one tropical paradise ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... luxury, but it is really remarkable how widely diffused matches are inland, and how very dependent on them these natives are. When I have been away in districts where they have not penetrated, it is exceedingly rarely that the making of fire has to be resorted to. I think I may say that in most African villages it has not had to be done for years and years, because when a woman's fire has gone out, owing to her having been out at work all day, she just ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... feelings of the old navigators who touched at some far western isle, that Dick Winthorpe landed from his boat, and secured it by knotting together some long rushes and tying the punt rope to them. For here he was in a place where the foot of man could have rarely if ever trod, and, revelling in his freedom and the beauty of the scene ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn

... feverish, and ran a temperature which peaked at 30.9 deg. centigrade, and drank more water than usual. Then his temperature went back to normal and he forgot all about it. There have always been such trivial epidemics. They are rarely recorded, because few people think to go to a doctor. That was the ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster

... thumped into wearing his present coat of decent cloth, by the most competent book-tailor I could find. As for his intrinsic claims to your kindness, he has only two that I shall venture to advocate. In the first place he is able to tell you something about a part of your own country which is still too rarely visited and too little known. He will speak to you of one of the remotest and most interesting corners of our old English soil. He will tell you of the grand and varied scenery; the mighty Druid relics; the quaint legends; the deep, ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins

... States. That is, you may take an equal number of inhabitants from any section of the Union, and you will find more drunkards, more profane swearers and Sabbath breakers, &c., than in Liberia. Indeed I know of no country where things are conducted more quietly and orderly than in this colony; you rarely hear an oath, and as to riots or breaches of the peace, I recollect of but one instance, and that of a trifling nature, that has come under my notice since I assumed the government of the colony. The ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison

... the largest of all and the lions of the lot. They run up to 1,000 pounds and over, and sometimes fourteen feet long. They are rare on the Atlantic and decreasing along the St. Lawrence, owing to the Newfoundland hunters. The Walrus, formerly abundant all round, is now rarely seen except in the far north, ...
— Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador • William Wood

... sage, what more natural than that James should quake when the stars revealed a danger which every spaewife confirmed? No doubt he would know well the story of the mysterious spaewife who, had her advice been taken, might have saved James I. from his murderers. It is rarely that there is not a certain cruelty involved in selfish cowardice. In a sudden panic the mildest-seeming creature will trample down furiously any weaker being who stands in the way of his own safety, and James was ready for any atrocity when he was convinced that his brothers ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... charmed, and have retained from its perusal the sweetest picture of life lived in this land, ever afforded us, out of the pale of personal observation. That such things are, private observation has made us sure; but the writers of books rarely seem to have seen them; rarely to have walked alone in an untrodden path long enough to hold commune with the spirit ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... of the trade of Chili by way of Cape Horn, is so obvious, that his catholic majesty is obliged by treaty to shut out all the European nations from it, as well as the English, although his own subjects make nothing of it, as it very rarely happens that a Spanish ship ventures to go round Cape Horn. Owing to this, all European goods sell enormously dear in Chili and Peru; insomuch, that I have been told at Lima, that they are often at 400 per cent. profit, and it ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr

... at all painfully sensitive to a proper action of the bit; bold in the extreme, yet superlatively docile; free, in every respect, from what is technically denominated "vice;" excellent in temper, but still "though gentle, yet not dull;" rarely, if ever, requiring the stimulus of the whip, yet submitting ...
— The Young Lady's Equestrian Manual • Anonymous

... Indian Prince to those Whose Trade it is to cheat, deceive, and flatter? Who rarely speak the Meaning of their Hearts? Whose Tongues are full of Promises and Vows? Whose very Language is a downright Lie? Who swear and call on Gods when they mean nothing? Who call it complaisant, polite good Breeding, ...
— Ponteach - The Savages of America • Robert Rogers

... side are three small islands, one of which is the Little Nodawa, and a large island called the Great Nodawa* extending more than five miles, and containing seven or eight thousand acres of high good land, rarely overflowed, and one of the largest islands of the Missouri. It is separated from the northern shore by a small channel of from forty-five to eighty yards wide, up which we passed, and found near the ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

... Sometimes, but rarely, Rose obtained permission for a strolling minstrel to entertain an hour with his ditty of love and chivalry; sometimes a pilgrim from a distant shrine, repaid by long tales of the wonders which he had seen in other ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... the more interesting was, in the eyes of a growing number of observers, that, as they said, "Arthur Winslow was not always an affable man, and was much more rarely a ...
— Bylow Hill • George Washington Cable

... all persons interested in Mexico's business affairs will do well to realize is the honesty and prudent habits which characterize mercantile transactions in this country. "Booms" and "bluffs" are exotic plants which can with difficulty be acclimatized here, and speculative combinations rarely enter into the calculations of ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root

... make a drastic change in his estimate of the situation the instant he saw that the stowaway was a girl. Now he had to make another when her threat was not to kill him but to disable the ship. Women are rarely assassins, and when they are they don't use energy weapons. Daggers and poisons ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster

... to the right and lastly again to the left, terminating with the figure of a Mid[-e]/ with the m[-i]/gis upon his breast. This is interesting on account of the boustrophic system of delineating the figures, and also because such instances are rarely found ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman

... scenery is more calculated to please, from the appearance of industry and fertility it displays. I am delighted, in travelling along the road, with the neatness, cleanliness, and comfort of the cottages and farms. The log- house and shanty rarely occur, having been supplanted by pretty frame houses, built in a superior style, and often painted white-lead colour or a pale pea-green. Around these habitations were orchards, bending down with a rich harvest of apples, plums, ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill

... much, however, to hope that passions which had been so fiercely bubbling during fifty years would subside at once, and that the most intense religious hatreds that ever existed would exhale with the proclamation of truce. The march of humanity is rarely rapid enough to keep pace with the leaders in its most sublime movements, and it often happens that its chieftains are dwarfed in the estimation of the contemporaneous vulgar, by the very distance at which they precede their unconscious followers. But ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... For England's the one land, I know, Where men with Splendid Hearts may go; And Cambridgeshire, of all England, The shire for Men who Understand; And of 'that' district I prefer The lovely hamlet Grantchester. For Cambridge people rarely smile, Being urban, squat, and packed with guile; And Royston men in the far South Are black and fierce and strange of mouth; At Over they fling oaths at one, And worse than oaths at Trumpington, And Ditton ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various

... severe. To this man the life must be a slow peine forte et dure, breaking his body with toil, crushing his soul with a hopeless degradation. The thought of escape must be ever present with him. But escape in the conventional manner, through pathless forests and over broad streams, was a thing rarely attained to. Ninety-nine out of a hundred failed; and the last state of the man who failed was ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston

... His skin was splotched and dirty, a kind of scale seemed to be growing over it, and his long, thin nose stuck out of his shaggy, ill-kept whiskers like a sharp snout, attenuated by rooting in money. When he smiled, which was rarely, the false quality of his smile seemed expressed by his false teeth that were forever falling out of place when he loosed his facial muscles. He walked rather stealthily back to the desk where the proprietor of the shop was working; but he spoke loud enough for Nate ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... old Laurence might have turned the corner. He had, as we know, graduated as a liar ready and expert. He had daily practised his art upon the Abbot. He had even, though more rarely, succeeded with his father. But now in the day of his necessity the power and ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... years before. They were in destitute circumstances and had no near relations. They both supported themselves by honest toil, and their lonely and friendless situation had drawn them together with a warmth of affection, that even between a brother and sister has been rarely felt. They were all in all to each other, and when, in the spring of 1864, her brother had been drafted into the army, she learned the name of the regiment to which he had been assigned, and unknown to him assumed male attire and joined the ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... to be disturbed by powerful vitiating causes would rarely end in a good choice. The best candidate would almost never be chosen; often, I fear, one would be chosen altogether unfit for a post so important. And the excitement of so keen an election would altogether disturb the quiet of the Bank. The good and efficient ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot

... the rocky scarp again. Among the sturdy, stunted fir trees, bearding the rugged face, frowned a deep fissure, dark as a wolf den, and, just in front of it, wide-eyed, open-mouthed, crouched Lola—Natzie's shadow. Rarely in reservation days, until after Blakely came as agent, were they ever seen apart, and now, in these days of exile and alarm, they were not divided. Under a spreading cedar, close to the opening, a tiny fire glowed in a crevice of the rocks, sending forth no betraying smoke. About it ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King

... of the month the long-tailed tree-pies (Dendrocitta rufa), which are nothing else than coloured crows, begin nest-building. They are to be numbered among the commonest birds in India, nevertheless their large open nests are rarely seen. The explanation of this phenomenon appears to be the fact that the nest is well concealed high up in a tree. Moreover, the pie, possessing a powerful beak which commands respect, is not obliged constantly to defend its home after the manner of small ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar

... Europeans resident in the country. Even the high Turks, lapped in luxury and sybaritic in their habits of personal ease, prefer their own hotel system to ours, carrying all their comforts along with them, and a retinue of servants to take charge of them. You will very rarely see a Turkish gentleman, even if educated in Europe, stopping at Messeir's or any of the great Eastern ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various

... a feature of daily life that we rarely pause to define it. It seems as natural to man as walking, and only less so than breathing. Yet it needs but a moment's reflection to convince us that this naturalness of speech is but an illusory feeling. The process of acquiring speech is, in sober ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir

... the trouble to canvass for votes, each one feeling nearly sure of being elected to fill one, if not more, of the numerous posts in the many Guilds. The Fifth, having secured certain privileges denied to Juniors, were content if a few of their number were chosen to supply minor vacancies, and rarely interfered with ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil

... Bonhomme, the horse that for a quarter of a century had taken him on his visits through the streets and the environs of Plassans. But the poor old beast was growing blind, and through gratitude for his past services and affection for himself they now rarely disturbed him. On this afternoon he was very drowsy, his gaze wandered, his legs were stiff with rheumatism. So that the doctor and the young girl, when they went to the stable to see him, gave him a hearty kiss on either side of his nose, telling him to rest on a bundle ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola

... They rarely or never spoke. Beyond a grave inclination of the head, or a look whose profound misery he only understood, she gave him no recognition. The world held her name above reproach, and considered that she had ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... aspired to it; confirming her sentences with this cruel parable, 'Glut a hawk with his quarry and he will hunt no more; show it him and then draw it back and you will ever keep him tractable and obedient.' She taught him also that he should be frequently in his chamber, rarely in public; that he should give nothing to any one upon any testimony but what he had seen and known; and many other evil things of the same kind. We, indeed," adds this good hater of Matilda, "confidently ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green

... and not through the Gael. Faid, "a company of hunters," has already once been referred to. This cannot possibly come from the O.N. vaeiethr, for while the spirant eth sometimes becomes d, O.N. v regularly becomes w in Sco. (rarely v). We should expect the form waith, and this is the form we have in Wallace I, 326, in the sense "the spoil of the chase." There is a Gael. fiadhoig, meaning "a huntsman." The first element fiad seems to be the O.N. veiethr with regular change ...
— Scandinavian influence on Southern Lowland Scotch • George Tobias Flom

... Hohastillpilp," says the journal, "was formed of human scalps and adorned with the thumbs and fingers of several men slain by him in battle." And yet the journal immediately adds: "The Chopunnish are among the most amiable men we have seen. Their character is placid and gentle, rarely moved to passion, yet not often enlivened by gayety." In short, the Indians were amiable savages; and it is a savage trait to love to ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks

... comes eventually to be able to control this tremendous organ, this brain, which is the predominant feature of his race. In the child its functions are always unstable and liable to be upset. Evidence of mental unrest or fatigue, which is only rarely met with in grown persons and which then betokens serious disturbance of the mind, is of comparatively common occurrence in little children. Habit spasm, bed-wetting, sleep-walking, night terrors, and convulsions are symptoms ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron

... be shy with me at last, and gave me a broad smile of welcome every time I came. But she rarely spoke to me. She spent all her spare time weeding the garden, which she loved as well as Abel did. She was addicted to bright colours and always wore wrappers of very gorgeous print. She worshipped Abel and his word was a law ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... hair was black and glossy, and his eyes were also black; and under his finely-shaped nose grew a thick black beard, completely hiding the lower part of his face; so that, except the glistening of his white teeth when he spoke, nothing was visible. But he rarely spoke. ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri

... for what the better stakes is his life, possibly his reason. Rarely indeed will a man beg shegri unless he ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley

... characteristic of his work is solidity, but it is a solidity which rarely becomes heaviness. Even in his most lightsome efforts, such as the ribbon-backed chair, construction is always the first consideration. It is here perhaps that he differs most materially from his great successor Sheraton, whose ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... quietly, her innocent face turned a little toward me and in the faint, illusive smile at her mouth, and in the relaxation of her beautiful hands, I read the confirmation of Miss Peters's prophecy. I, too, believed just then that Virginia would not die, and that, as so rarely happens in this disease, her recovery ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child

... remained in her service until his death. "He has all the independence and elevated feelings peculiar to the Highland race, and is singularly straightforward, simple-minded, kind-hearted and disinterested; always ready to oblige; and of a discretion rarely ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne

... rare moment with the Veronese, in which he seemed lifted above himself; the revelation of the face had seized him, translating him into the poetic atmosphere which he rarely attained; the harmonies of the vision were so perfect that they sufficed for the over-sumptuousness of color and detail which were usually features ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... damage to our crops. But none of them are parasitic in or upon our bodies; none of them persistently intrude into our dwellings, hover around us in our walks, and harass us with noise and constant attempts to bite, or at least to crawl upon us. Even the ants, except in a few tropical districts, rarely act upon the offensive. The Hemiptera contain one semi-parasitic species which has attained a "world-wide circulation," and one degraded, purely parasitic group. But the Diptera, among which the fleas are now generally ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various

... stripped him of his dress perforce[FN203] and donned it, leaving to the man his own rich gear by way of gift. Then he followed the highway leading to the neighbouring city and entering it went to the Perfumers' Bazar where he bought of one some rarely potent Bhang, the son of a minute,[FN204] paying two dinars for two drachms thereof and he returned in disguise by the same road till he reached the pavilion. Here the slave-girl opened to him the private pastern wherethrough he went in to the Lady Badr al-Budur.—And Shahrazad ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... of the Revolution, with the exception of Washington, was elevated to the presidency, nor did any of them attain an exalted place in the councils of the Nation. Statecraft and military genius rarely go hand in hand, and it was not until 1828 that a man whose reputation had been made chiefly on the battlefield was sent to the White House. Andrew Jackson was the only soldier, with one exception, who came out of the War of 1812 with ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson

... effect. The wounded wild fowl, as they fell, described graceful curves against the pale green sky where now the first faint stars gleamed. Yourii felt unusually energetic and gay. It was as if he had never taken part in anything so interesting or exhilarating. The birds rose more rarely now, and the deepening dusk made it more ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef

... first, as a matter of instinct, and then thinks—to the best of his ability. The Apache knows the swell mobsman can outwit him. The swell mobsman knows the Apache will assassinate him at the first hint of a suspicion of his good faith. So they rarely if ever make use of ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance

... that children are rarely afraid of thunder unless the peals are really terrible and actually hurt the ear, otherwise this fear only comes to them when they know that thunder sometimes hurts or kills. When reason begins to cause fear, let use reassure them. By slow and careful stages man ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... hand she rested her elbow on her knee. Thus she remained, the firelight tinting her perfect profile, on which little might be read of the storm that was raging in her soul. Another woman in her place would have sought relief in tears, but tears came rarely to the beautiful eyes of the ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini

... if he had given his countrymen the best laws, he answered, "The best they are capable of receiving." This is one of the profoundest utterances on record; and yet like all great truths, so simple as to be rarely comprehended. It contains the whole philosophy of History. It utters a truth which, had it been recognized, would have saved men an immensity of vain, idle disputes, and have led them into the clearer paths of knowledge in the Past. It means ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... calamity having glanced across the intended victims.—Either the Council of X could not yet have obtained its subsequent fearful and extraordinary ubiquity, or the conspirators must have exhibited a prudence and self-control rarely, if ever, paralleled by an equally large body of men, engaged in a similar attempt. To their minor agents, their ultimate design had not been revealed; and even in the end, the discovery arose not from treachery, nor from incaution, but from "a compunctious visiting" of one framed of stuff less ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 482, March 26, 1831 • Various

... brightens at its own beauty in a still forest-well. The sun and moon alone make a glitter on the surface. The sea is like a sea of death, ready to ingulf and never to reveal: a visible shadow of oblivion. Yet the women sport in its waters like gorgeous sea-birds. The men more rarely enter them. But, on the contrary, the sky reflects everything beneath it, as if it were built of water like ours. Of course, from its concavity there is some distortion of the reflected objects; yet wondrous combinations of form are often ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald

... his brother wistfully, and with a defence he rarely manifested towards any one who disputed his own claims to superior intelligence. Charles was a few years older than Monnier; he was of large build; he had shaggy lowering eyebrows, a long obstinate upper lip, the face of a man who was accustomed to lay down the law. ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... for, no delicate glass or valuable china; the very simplicity of apparatus made the house an easy one to keep. Clover was kept busy, for simplify as you will, providing for the daily needs of two persons does take time; but she liked her cares and rarely felt tired. The elastic and vigorous air seemed to build up her forces from moment to moment, and each day's fatigues were more than repaired by each night's rest, which is the balance of true ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge

... 'tis a foolish word only, taken up by great Men, but rarely practis'd.—But if you wou'd be ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn

... by divers sorts of gems. Handmaids on her right and handmaids on her left bore her train, as she paced with dainty graceful gait in all the pride of seemlihead. He sprang to his feet seeing such beauty and loveliness, and cried aloud, "Beware and beware of that zone rarely fair!" and broke out into ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... below a thorn, Fine flowers in the valley, And there has she her sweet babe born, And the green leaves they grow rarely.' ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley

... glossy blackbirds kept up a maddening chatter, and higher above, up in the hot sky, the omnipresent buzzards floated lazily, awaiting sight of possible carrion prey. Animals began to appear almost underfoot, coons and rabbits, disturbed for the first time in their fastness. Water holes appeared rarely, and the water in them was unfit for drinking. Despite the shade it ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen

... principle in medical jurisprudence that the more atrocious the crime the stronger is the presumption of insanity in the perpetrator. It is a fact wholly creditable to human nature that horrible crimes are rarely, if ever, committed by persons in a normal state of existence. The popular mind is not prepared to receive evidence of insanity in such cases because of the revengeful feeling which naturally animates the ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor

... backgrounds had been sketched a long while ago, still he did several bits over again—the two arms of the Seine, and a sky all by itself, into which rose only towers and spires gilded by the sun. And under the hospitable bridge, in that nook as secluded as some far-off cleft in a rock, he was rarely disturbed by anybody. Anglers passed by with contemptuous unconcern. His only companion was virtually the overseer's cat, who cleaned herself in the sunlight, ever placid beneath the tumult ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola

... Mr. Woodhouse declined cards entirely for the sake of comfortable talk with his dear Isabella, and the little party made two natural divisions; on one side he and his daughter; on the other the two Mr. Knightleys; their subjects totally distinct, or very rarely mixing—and Emma only occasionally joining in one ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... eye. This beautiful church was built after the designs of Chalgrin, about the year 1700; and is considered to be a purer resemblance of the antique than any other in Paris. This church, well worth your examination, is situated in a quarter rarely visited by our countrymen—in the Rue du Faubourg du Roule, not far ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... masters loved them; and in any cases of trouble or illness, a man's slaves were his best friends. I mentioned some undoubted instances of cruelty to slaves; he acknowledged that such instances might very rarely happen, but said that in general the masters were much more to be pitied than the negroes. A lady, who had been in South Carolina when an insurrection was apprehended, related several anecdotes concerning ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child

... forward, and a quick, eager movement, as if they had eaten nothing for days, and were fearful that their present bit of good fortune would not last, is strongly characteristic, so that they can be recognized a long way off. As I have said, they were the only true beach birds; but I rarely failed to see one or two great blue herons playing that role. The first one filled me with surprise. I had never thought of finding him in such a place; but there he stood, and before I was done with Florida beaches ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey

... some of the good people occasionally to rise from their dinners, and endeavor to diffuse a little of their own quietness among them. Or in summer their horses would be all loose in the graveyard before the meeting, rearing, kicking, and screaming in a most furious manner; which, however, only rarely seemed to disturb the meditations of their masters ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various

... the smooth, worn stones serving to pave it. The buildings were all of that sombre gray stone so picturesque in paintings, and so pleasant for the eye to rest on, yet withal suggesting no brilliant ideas of cleanliness or even neatness. The houses were rarely over two stories in hight, the majority only one story, and but very few of them boasted glazed window-frames, board-shutters letting in light or keeping out rain. Two twists through the narrow streets, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... had been a "shut-in" for eleven months, and was in bed, but was cheerful and bright with an intelligent memory, rarely found in one his age. Uncle Wes tells me that he was born May 21, 1864 in Garrard County, near Cartersville, and was first a slave of Mrs. Eliza Kennedy, who later married John Yeakey, of that ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Kentucky Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... down-town. In the meantime, Simmy had developed into a most unsatisfactory informant. He suddenly revealed an astonishing streak of uncommunicativeness, totally unnatural in him and tantalising in the extreme. He rarely mentioned Anne's name and never discussed her movements. Thorpe was obliged to content himself with an occasional word from Lutie,—who was also painfully reticent,—and now and then a scrap of news in the society columns of the newspapers. ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon

... then a third, and yet another; but there was no need to call further help from the Monastery, for the Plague was stayed. Never had cloistered monks spent such a strange season; rarely ...
— The Gathering of Brother Hilarius • Michael Fairless

... the familiar faces on Main Street. He had even expected to miss the neighbours with whom he and his mother had so rarely mingled. All the hundred little, intimate, trivial, everyday things that had gone to make up his life back home in Marvin, Texas—these he ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber

... thing that had to be done, but sometimes, when we had a moment for reflection, we were a little aghast. Carrying a mail route in homestead country was a far cry from life in St. Louis. It began to seem as though we rarely acted according to plan out here; rather, we were acted upon by unforeseen factors, so that our activities were constantly shifting, taking on new form, leading in new directions. The only consistent thing about them ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl

... leave to bring in a Bill, which amounts in substance to a motion that the Bill be read for the first time. When, however, a measure of great importance is introduced there is sometimes a lengthened and very often a discursive debate or conversation on the motion; but it is rarely so long and so earnest a discussion as that which took place when Lord John Russell brought in the Reform Bill. One result of the length of the debate which preceded the first reading was that when the motion for the second reading came on the leading ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy



Words linked to "Rarely" :   often, rare



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