"Unprecedented" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... excellence as an artist. A popular superficial criticism was fond of limiting her dramatic power to inferior roles. She was denied passion and great artistic skill; she was accused of tricks. But, even had these things been true, what a career it was! It was unprecedented, and can never be repeated. Yet it was, at bottom, the success of a saint rather than that of a singer. Had she been a worse or better artist the homage would have been the same. If the public—and it is a happy fact—can love the woman even more ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... dazzling and altogether so unprecedented that Colonel Bill Jarvis, the young owner of the stable, who had come swinging around the corner, whistling a lively tune, his hat thrown back on his head, and who had almost run plump into the carriage, stopped abruptly and stood staring. He was roused to a realizing sense of his position ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... slain. This fleet requires to be particularly noticed from two considerations. In the first place, it sailed with a side wind, and when the weather was rather rough,—circumstances so unusual, if not unprecedented, that they were deemed worthy of an express and peculiar panegyric: and, secondly, this fleet was not equipped and ready for sea till after four years' preparation, whereas, in the first Punic war, "within sixty days after the first ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... this History commences,—the beginning of the sixteenth century,—when compared with the ages which had preceded it, since the fall of the Roman empire, was one of unprecedented brilliancy and activity. It was a period very fruitful in great men and great events, and, though stormy and turbulent, was favorable to experiments and reforms. The nations of Europe seem to have been suddenly aroused from a state of torpor and rest, and to have put forth ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... mother had wanted to be there," Charles said, as his father was opening the door with his latch-key. The light was turned low in the hall, and Mrs. Reed had gone to bed, an unprecedented ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... will. They follow the public taste with the greatest keenness. If the people want Shakespeare—as I am happy to say they do, at least at one theatre in London, and at all the great theatres out of London, to an extent unprecedented in the history of the stage—then they get Shakespeare. If they want our modern dramatists—Albery, Boucicault, Byron, Burnand, Gilbert, or Wills—these they have. If they want Robertson, Robertson is there for ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... sang out Corcoran, and with a commonplace ding-dong of the bell, and an every-day hiss of steam, which seemed, somehow, out of keeping with the fearful and unprecedented exigency now upon us, we moved out through the yards, jolting over the frogs, out upon the main line; and soon began to feel a cheering acceleration in the recurrent sounds and shocks of our flight, as Schwartz began rolling back the miles ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... only a predominant power, a tyranny popular or otherwise, until you have separated the constitution from the workings of the revolution. Behold all these principles of justice, morality, and liberty which you have laid down, hailed with joy, and oaths renewed, but violated immediately with unprecedented audacity and rage. It is at a moment when the holiest or the freest of constitutions has been proclaimed that the most infamous attempts against liberty, against property,—nay, what do I say?—against humanity ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... hostility in front, whatever might be the "fierce varieties" of their misery in this respect, no rest ever came to their unhappy rear; post equitem sedet atra cura: it was a torment like the undying worm of conscience. 20 And, upon the whole, it presented a spectacle altogether unprecedented in the history of mankind. Private and personal malignity is not unfrequently immortal; but rare indeed is it to find the same pertinacity of malice in a nation. And what imbittered the interest was that the 25 malice ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... merchants every week at the various markets, and the despatch in forwarding bales and packages to the outposts cannot fail to strike the merchant and manufacturer as points of the first importance. Nothing, for example, would be so likely to raise the ports of Hull, Liverpool, and Bristol to an unprecedented pitch of prosperity as the establishment of railways to those ports, thereby rendering the communication from the east to the west seas, and all intermediate places, rapid, cheap, and effectual. Anyone at all conversant with commerce must feel the ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... the size of a pea. Beneath Paragot's grotesqueness ran an unprecedented severity. I was conscious of the accusing glare of every eye. In my blind bolt to the door I had the good fortune to run headlong into a tray of drinks which Cherubino ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... the Peninsula was visited by a storm said to be nearly unprecedented for the time of the year. The storm was accompanied by torrential rain, which lasted for twenty-four hours. This was followed by hard frost and a heavy blizzard. In the areas of the Eighth Corps and the Anzac Corps the effects were not felt ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... manner possible; Jonathan thought Mr. Simon was beside himself; Sarah Stack, foolish thing! said he was in love, and was observed to look in the glass several times herself; other people did not know what to think—it was quite a mystery. To recount only a few of his unprecedented exploits on that day of ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... and staunch supporter Colonel Sibthorp has lately, in the most heroic manner, submitted to an unprecedented and wonderfully successful operation. Our gallant friend was suffering from a severe elongation of the auricular organs; amputation was proposed, and submitted to with most heroic patience. We are happy to state ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... seen; and I now estimated that the river, from the place where it was first made by Mr. Evans, had run a course, including all its windings, of upwards of one thousand two hundred miles; a length altogether unprecedented, when the single nature of the river is considered, and that its original source constitutes its only supply ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley
... entitled an English Grammar."—Ib. And, for all the ends of good learning, it would have been as well or better, if he never had. His passion for novelty has led him not only to abandon or misapply, in an unprecedented degree, the usual terms of the art, but to disregard in many instances its most unquestionable principles, universal as well as particular. His parts of speech are the following ten: "Names, Substitutes, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... of Justice was, in a sense, compelled by the unusual, the almost unprecedented conditions surrounding life in a city born suddenly in a wilderness. There were few locks and bars and bolts, or, even, doors, in Sacramento City at that time; and large sums in gold and great values in goods ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... never been looked at in just that way—with just that fixed, intense smile—by any woman; and it perplexed and weighed upon him, now, that the woman who was smiling so and who had instantly given him a vivid sense of her possessing other unprecedented attributes, was his own niece, the child of his own father's daughter. The idea that his niece should be a German Baroness, married "morganatically" to a Prince, had already given him much to think about. Was it right, was it just, was it acceptable? He always slept badly, and the ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... excursion enables us also to explain the reason why in the present phrase of Russian social life the Jewish problem has again arisen in an unprecedented form. It was simply a new political weapon, in a sense, the result of the new form of political life. As long as the nation was voiceless, as long as all matters were decided by the bureaucracy in the quiet ...
— The Shield • Various
... vastness of the undertaking, and that the resolution of the King and his subjects, to carry out the great task to which they had applied themselves, should be proved to the world by an abundant supply. This they could not reckon at less than two millions and a half. It was an unprecedented charge, and must necessarily strain the relations between the Crown and the Parliament, and stimulate that very discontent which Clarendon knew to be slumbering ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... life. The eleventh century is a time of aspiration and vision, of the enunciation of new principles and of the first shock of the contest between the old that was doomed and the new that was destined to unprecedented victories." (The Substance ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... agent has become a figure of international consequence and concern. The artificial cause behind the present unprecedented exodus from Europe, according to Whelpley, is the abnormal activity of the transportation companies in their effort to secure new and profitable cargo for their ships. In 1900 over $118,000,000 was invested in trans-atlantic ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... and SMIFF (who hails from Greenlands), started yesterday (November 25), for a second attempt—the first having been a failure—to swim from Tithes Pier to Purchase Point Buoy. It was an unfavourable time of the year for such an unprecedented feat of natation, but the Hatfield Champion was confident of success. He is a perfect whale at long-distance immersions, and has been heard to talk of 'twenty years of resolute' swimming against stream as a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 8, 1891 • Various
... fads of Browett being the memorial window, it was also said by enviers that if he would begin to erect a window to every small competitor his Trust had squeezed to death there would be an unprecedented flurry in stained glass. But Browett knew, as an evolutionist, that the eagle has a divine right to the lamb if it can come safely off with it; as a Christian, that one carries out the will of God as indubitably in preserving the established order of prince and subject, of noble and plebeian, ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... be?" exclaimed Mrs. Clinton. Punctuality at meals being so rigidly observed it was unprecedented that Cicely should not have begun to dress at a quarter to eight. At ten minutes to eight Mrs. Clinton was convinced that some accident had befallen her. At five minutes to, she tapped at the door of the Squire's ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... no rating at all attempt to squeeze it. So when the government proxies applied for a subsidy they encountered a polite refusal. The president at once retaliated by clapping an export duty of one real per bunch on bananas—a thing unprecedented in fruit-growing countries. The Vesuvius Company had invested large sums in wharves and plantations along the Anchurian coast, their agents had erected fine homes in the towns where they had their headquarters, and heretofore had worked with ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... become in 1894 that the edition of 10,000 copies of Little Eyolf was found quite inadequate to meet the first order, and it was enlarged to 15,000, all of which were gone in a fortnight. This circulation in so small a reading public as that of Denmark and Norway was unprecedented, and it must be remembered that the simultaneous translations into most of the languages of Europe are ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... business. On the part of the Scottish nation, the regent Murray, fearing to trust the cause in other hands, appeared in person, attended by several men of talent and consequence. The situation of Mary herself was not more critical or more unprecedented, and scarcely more humiliating, than that in which Murray was placed by her appeal to Elizabeth. Acting on behalf of the infant king his nephew, he saw himself called upon to submit to the tribunal of a foreign sovereign such proofs of the atrocious guilt of the queen his sister; ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... was mentioned no more; Lucy considered peace as proclaimed, and herself relieved from the necessity of such an unprecedented deed as preferring an accusation against Maurice, and Albinia, unaware of the previous persecution, did not trace that Maurice considered himself as challenged to prove, that experience of his brother-in-law's fist did not suffice to make him ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... immediate and secret thought; but before he could dwell upon the conclusion, the unprecedented had happened and Mary was sobbing in a break-down of tears. He would have liked to take her in his arms, after Tom's fashion, but he did not know how. He tried, and found Mary as unschooled as himself. It resulted only ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... But perhaps the most startling case of all was that concerning the proclamation of the farm Witfontein. This farm had been proclaimed a public digging open for pegging on a certain hour of a certain day. An unprecedented rush of peggers took place. The Government, fearing a riot and ignoring their obvious duty in the matter of police protection and the maintenance of order, issued an illegal notice withdrawing the proclamation, and decided to give out the claims by means of lottery. Numbers of prospectors ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... all conditions of public opinion. 'Illiterate men, ignorant of the writings of each other, bring the same reports from various quarters of the globe,' wrote Millar of Glasgow. When sailors, merchants, missionaries, describe, as matters unprecedented and unheard of, such institutions as polyandry, totemism, and so forth, the evidence is so strong, because the witnesses are so astonished. They do not know that anyone but themselves has ever noticed the curious facts before their eyes. And when Mr. Muller ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... The unprecedented state of things produced by the war brought in its train serious anxiety as to moral conditions, not only in regard to the relation between the sexes but in other ways. The gathering of every kind of man together in camps creates great problems. Young boys, who had never been away from home ...
— Women and War Work • Helen Fraser
... volunteering, when, in July last, the levy of an additional force was mooted. It seemed to me that the President could well say to the world, 'Our people have shown abundant proof of their enthusiasm in support of the government by volunteering already to the number of more than half a million, a thing unprecedented in the world's history: we now, as a matter of military expediency, call for a draft to fill up the broken battalions.'" [Footnote: From private letter ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... inward significance of the change. To chime in with the thoughtless optimism of the hour will do no good; but a real understanding of the forces which have created the existing situation will reveal an unprecedented opportunity for those who would give to the Irish mind that full and free development which has been so long and, as I have tried to show, so ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... lost, he alone, in contradiction to everyone else, declared till his death that Borodino was a victory, despite the assurance of generals that the battle was lost and despite the fact that for an army to have to retire after winning a battle was unprecedented. He alone during the whole retreat insisted that battles, which were useless then, should not be fought, and that a new war should not be begun nor ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... passage from the writings of the celebrated Dr Channing of America, was quoted by Sir Robert Peel in the speech under consideration. "Great Britain, loaded with an unprecedented debt, and with a grinding taxation, contracted a new debt of a hundred millions of dollars, to give freedom, not to Englishmen, but to the degraded African. I know not that history records an act so disinterested, so sublime. In the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... of mankind. My Lords, it is not only new and singular, but, I believe, to many persons, who do not look into the true interior nature of affairs, it may appear that it would be to me as mortifying as it is unprecedented. But, my Lords, I have in this situation, and upon the consideration of all the circumstances, something more to feed my mind with than mere consolation; because, my Lords, I look upon the whole of these circumstances, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... I had the curious (& unprecedented) luck to start right in each case. I turned out 37,000 words in 25 working days; & the reason I think I started right every time is, that not only have I approved and accepted the several articles, but the court of last resort (Livy) has ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Bailey yesterday," and his look expressed the rest. I then stated that, as there was no Court of Criminal Appeal, I wished to make representations to the Home Office as to the character our trial and the almost unprecedented nature of our sentence; in particular, I wished the Home Secretary to say whether he would sanction our being classed with common thieves for a press offence. I was told that I could have an official form for this purpose; ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... the attack with great spirit, and were received with equal spirit by the Indian wing of the enemy, and with a steady concert of action unprecedented in Indian warfare. But hardly had the Kentuckians sent forth their first volley when Proctor, too tender of his precious body even to strike a single blow for his precious booty, to say nothing of his precious honor, turned his back square on the foe and, followed by a small escort ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... trim, prim. Needful, necessary, requisite, essential, indispensable. Negligence, neglect, inattention, inattentiveness, inadvertence, remissness, oversight. New, novel, fresh, recent, modern, late, innovative, unprecedented. Nice, fastidious, dainty, finical, squeamish. Noisy, clamorous, boisterous, hilarious, turbulent, riotous, obstreperous, uproarious, vociferous, blatant, brawling. Noticeable, prominent, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... until I had something to say.... I am most happy to tell you that your last poem is—what Mr. Southey's is called—a Carmen Triumphale. Never in my recollection has any work ... excited such a ferment ... I sold on the day of publication—a thing perfectly unprecedented—10,000 copies.... Mr. Moore says it is masterly—a wonderful performance. Mr. Hammond, Mr. Heber, D'Israeli, every one who comes ... declare their unlimited approbation. Mr. Ward was here with Mr. Gifford yesterday, and mingled his admiration with the rest ... and Gifford did, what ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... will be made famous in literature by the great dinner in honor of the advent of PUNCHINELLO. Mr. PUNCH is talked of to preside. An unprecedented rush for tickets has begun. More ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 5, April 30, 1870 • Various
... to say that the unprecedented measure you propose transcends, in studied and ingenious cruelty, all acts ever before brought to my attention in the ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... who had not kept in close touch with the growth of national consciousness within the British Empire were apprehensive lest this plan should prove a deep-laid scheme for multiplying British influence in the Conference and the League. Some misunderstanding was natural in view not only of the unprecedented character of the Empire's development and polity, but of the incomplete and ambiguous nature of the compromise affected at Paris between the nationalist and the imperialist tendencies within the Empire. Yet the reluctance ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... could endure. In high dudgeon he returned to his ship, and, in the midst of a gale which suddenly arose and drove the fleet to the north of the cape, he indited a long and solemn protest, not only against the contemplated operation, but against the unprecedented despotism with which Drake was conducting the whole expedition. Borough, though no doubt jealous of Drake, certainly believed he was doing nothing beyond his right and duty. He felt he had been attached to the expedition as the most complete sailor in the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... reservoir of force. It mediates between the sun's energy and the animal life of the world. Thus coal seams are the accumulations of the sun's energy for thousands of centuries, requiring the patient growth and slow decay of hundreds of immense forests. One secret of the unprecedented late growth of cities is discovered in the steam engine, or the coal which ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... so too. If he could only make an unprecedented score, restore the fortunes of the day, and show the world what a mistake it was to think Crawley his superior in anything whatever, it would be a glorious triumph. He was not of a patriotic disposition, and did not care for the success of his school ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... timber, glass, and some other articles, were increased, [799] Thus far there was little difference of opinion. But soon the smooth course of business was disturbed by a proposition which was much more popular than just or humane. Taxes of unprecedented severity had been imposed; and yet it might well be doubted whether these taxes would be sufficient. Why, it was asked, should not the cost of the Irish war be borne by the Irish insurgents? How those insurgents had acted in their mock Parliament all the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... distressed as they were, and of flying to the south of France. She taught him to blush for such abject counsels. She liberated Orleans, that great city, so decisive by its fate for the issue of the war, and then beleaguered by the English with an elaborate application of engineering skill unprecedented in Europe. Entering the city after sunset, on the 29th of April, she sang mass on Sunday, May 8, for the entire disappearance of the besieging force. On the 29th of June, she fought and gained over the English ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... bankers who thought that the banks were being given over to politicians had not yet died down. But when the act once went into operation criticism almost disappeared; and in the course of a few months the unprecedented financial strain attendant on the outbreak of the European war made it plain to almost anybody that without this timely reform of the banking system 1914 would have seen a disaster far worse than that ...
— Woodrow Wilson's Administration and Achievements • Frank B. Lord and James William Bryan
... state of Boldwood's mind. It was astonishing, now that a presumption of insanity was raised, how many collateral circumstances were remembered to which a condition of mental disease seemed to afford the only explanation—among others, the unprecedented neglect of his corn stacks ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... conceived that protection was essential to the development of infant industries; in the second, the belief was accepted that to an agricultural country a home market is the only guarantee of a regular market. Because, however, of the unprecedented growth of the country and its final achievement of economic independence, other reasons were sought to support the protective policy. It was contended, therefore, that the high wages paid in the United States would discourage producers from introducing ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... mind as one of those charming surprises that lurk in the enchanted atmosphere of the lagoons. The striking beauty of Nanni's countenance is the possession of many an honest gondolier, nor would the glow of feeling which animated the face, have been anything unprecedented in a man of his class. Old Pietro himself, slumbering at that moment on the floor of his gondola, often exhibited a startling power of facial expression, which fairly transfigured his weather-worn features. No, in ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... fierce flame? What wonder that when the bonds of silence were loosed from their miserable mouths, such a wild clamor went up to Heaven as made the king tremble upon his throne and his ministers shake with fear? Who could tell at what moment this unlooked-for, unprecedented clemency might be withdrawn and silence once more be sealed upon them? What wonder, then, that they made the most of their opportunity? What wonder that, suddenly finding themselves strong, who had been weak, they did make the ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... Pitt's action was unprecedented. In July 1796, during the interval between the seventeenth and eighteenth Parliaments of Great Britain, Austria sent urgent requests for pecuniary help so as to stay the triumphs of the French in Italy and Swabia. Pitt yielded and secretly remitted the sum of L1,200,000 as a ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... Stephenson; and, unlike many other authors of great revolutions, he lived long enough to see the full result of his splendid labours in the girdling of England by his iron roads. A grand and simple man, he worked honestly and steadfastly throughout his days, and he found his reward in the unprecedented benefits which his locomotive was even then conferring upon his fellow- men. It is indeed wonderful to think how very different is the England in which we live to-day, from that in which we might possibly have been living were it not for the barefooted ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... nonsense we could think of; and it was quite successful. The poor fellow watched every motion, roaring with laughter at us, and delight at the ideas we put into his head. He turned it all into words and scenes and actions; and the piece came off "with a success unprecedented in the annals of the stage;"—at least so said the reporter ...
— Adela Cathcart - Volume II • George MacDonald
... than anything Lind ever dreamed about. You know the Granges, the associations of the 'Patrons of Husbandry,' that were founded by the Scotchman Saunders? It is an immense social organization; the success of it has been quite unprecedented; they have an immense power in their hands. And it isn't only agriculture they deal with; they touch on politics here and there; they control elections; and the men they choose are invariably men of integrity. Well, now, don't you see this splendid instrument ready-made? ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... a true prophet, and things progressed rapidly, as he had predicted. Every one knows the history of the famous return from Elba, a return which was unprecedented in the past, and will probably remain without a ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... youth. The business prospered to such an extent that, by becoming altogether too wonderful, it ceased to be a matter of wonder altogether to the merchants of the Green Isle. They regarded it as semi-miraculous—the most unprecedented case of "luck" that had ever been heard of in the ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... each case the property of the school girl at whose house they met, and putting up cheap scrim curtains at the two little windows, then these students of scrubology, on a stove, shining with a perhaps unprecedented coat of blacking, prepared before their somewhat dazed parents a neat and wholesome meal of such simple material as they had, set it out on a white covered table just as nicely as they are taught to do at school, and invited their parents to eat with them. This improvement has not ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 1, January, 1896 • Various
... attendance gratis. In a few years, the patients became so numerous, that in 1790 it was considered necessary to add two wings to the building. It is supported by voluntary subscription, and once in three years a music meeting is held, from which it derives unprecedented advantage. At the meeting which took place in 1817, the gross receipts, during the three days' performance, amounted to the sum of L8476. 6s. 9d., of which the treasurers of the hospital received the sum of L4290. 10s. 10d.; there not being an instance upon record of any institution receiving ...
— A Description of Modern Birmingham • Charles Pye
... longer the sole or the chief depositories of knowledge The invention of printing had furnished the assailants of the Church with a mighty weapon which had been wanting to their predecessors. The study of the ancient writers, the rapid development of the powers of the modern languages, the unprecedented activity which was displayed in every department of literature, the political state of Europe, the vices of the Roman court, the exactions of the Roman chancery, the jealousy with which the wealth and privileges of the clergy were naturally regarded by laymen, the jealousy ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... This unprecedented proposal was referred to the girls, who were charmed with its audacity. But none of them spoke up for the outcast till Hetty said she could not think what they were all afraid of; a dozen to one, and that one without his weapon! Then the other ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... of reservoirs and tunnels for irrigating rice-fields received unprecedented attention in the reign of this Emperor, and mention is for the first time made of taxes—tributes of "bow-notches and of finger-tips," in other words, the produce of the chase and the products of the loom. ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... improvised carpenters that the Coronation has created set themselves to the work of demolition, and soon every road that converges upon Central London will be choked again with great loads of timber—but this time going outward—as our capital emerges from this unprecedented inundation of loyalty. The most elaborately conceived, the most stately of all recorded British Coronations ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... figure, alone there, assailed, barked and snarled at from every side, a private in the German Army bidding defiance to a hundred men, also in uniform, but superior officers. Mere Kanonenfutter (cannon fodder) defying the majestic authority of its helmeted and epauletted overlords! An unprecedented episode, as well as an unforgettable ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... is making to establish this act, passed by the vote of less than half of the Representatives of the people, as the unalterable law of the country; to treat as treason and disaffection to government, all attempts to rouse the public to efforts for its repeal; and, by unprecedented coalitions, that might almost be called conspiracies, of public men, to destroy the character and means of influence of all who lend their aid in these efforts. Even a public discussion of the subject, is cause ...
— Report of the Proceedings at the Examination of Charles G. Davis, Esq., on the Charge of Aiding and Abetting in the Rescue of a Fugitive Slave • Various
... honorable treaty. During the fiercest hostilities, the two monarchs entertained a deceitful negotiation; and such was the superiority of Chosroes, that whilst he treated the Roman ministers with insolence and contempt, he obtained the most unprecedented honors for his own ambassadors at the Imperial court. The successor of Cyrus assumed the majesty of the Eastern sun, and graciously permitted his younger brother Justinian to reign over the West, with the pale and reflected splendor of the moon. This gigantic style was supported by the pomp and eloquence ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... severity of the gale, the ship was hove to with head to wind, wallowing in mountainous seas. Such a storm, witnessed from a large vessel, would be an inspiring sight, but was doubly so in a small craft, especially where the natural buoyancy had been largely impaired by overloading. With an unprecedented quantity of deck cargo, amongst which were six thousand gallons of benzine, kerosene and spirit, in tins which were none too strong, we might well have been excused a lively anxiety during those days. It seemed as if no power on earth could save the loss of at least part of ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... possession nearly of all the reviews and periodical publications; established a general intercourse, by means of hawkers and pedlars, with the distant provinces; and instituted an office to supply all schools with teachers; and thus did they acquire unprecedented dominion over every species of literature, over the minds of all ranks of people, and the education of the youth, without giving any alarm to the world. The lovers of wit and polite literature were caught by Voltaire; the men of science were ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... losing freshman team did something unprecedented in the history of Wellington. They entertained their conquerors at dinner at Rutherford Inn. More, Jane was amazed to find herself the guest of honor and had to respond to the highly complimentary toast, "Right Guard Jane," given by Florence ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... on the sea-girt isle, and after that time he was overwhelmed with visitors from all parts of the earth, anxious to see one who had come to be looked upon as the greatest man of his time. The success of the book was unprecedented, the sales were enormous, and the enthusiasm of readers and ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... its decisions were promptly published, and the attitude of the various Powers to the principal problems with which they had to deal was easily discerned. President Wilson had made a personal survey of the ground by a visit to Europe, unprecedented in the history of the Presidential office, in December, before the Conference opened at Versailles on 18 January 1919. It was largely owing to his presence and prestige that in the forefront of the programme and performance of the Conference stood a plan for an international ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... the gods did theirs for the Hebrew, when the sun stood still that he might slay. Look at her! Just awhile since a slave. One fine day she took it into her head to run for sanctuary to the Temple, and got there—was received—commenced her studies. From this, in a most unprecedented way, bounded into the priesthood, and already, I am told, she stands out with fearful power and wonderful knowledge, inasmuch as the priestesses longest in the service stand back in awe and say: "She is the fittest to serve in chief the goddess, and command her servants." ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... of his, Mr. PETERS'S staunchest supporters might be refused an office, if he had the misfortune to be dishonest and dull. The notion of making "capacity and integrity" a qualification for office-holding was unprecedented, and was preposterous. If things went on in this way, even members of Congress would be compelled to do something for their pay. Now he preferred to administer the public service on the good old principle ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 8, May 21, 1870 • Various
... Massachusetts were to be broken down: but the woollen trade and the shoe-trade have received a new impetus,—are highly prosperous; and the cotton-spinners, with more than a year's supply of cotton, have by the rise of prices enjoyed a profit unprecedented. Having used their cotton with moderation, they have at the close of each six months seen their stocks of raw material and goods, by the rise of prices, undiminished in value, and blessed like ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... partly in compliance with the established rules which our office prescribes, and partly in the hope that the authorities we have been enabled to bring together might give additional light and interest to the story. From the unprecedented popularity of the work, we cannot flatter ourselves that our summary has made any one of our readers acquainted with events with which he was not previously familiar. The causes of that popularity we may be permitted ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... most unprecedented winter; the cold has been dreadful, and the snow, even now, in some places, lies in drifts from three to five feet deep. There is no spring here; the winter is with us to-day, and to-morrow the heat will be oppressive; and in a week everything will be like summer, ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... would be rash to expect that a transition, unprecedented for its width and difficulty, from theology to positivism, from the service of God to the service of Man, could be accomplished without jeopardy. Signs are not wanting that the prevalent anarchy in thought is leading to anarchy in morals. ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... foundation upon which every machine-industry alike is built. The metal manufactures, so small in the eighteenth century, attained an unprecedented growth and a paramount importance in ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... morning Mr. Jackson failed to appear at business. This was an almost unprecedented event, and caused quite a flutter of excitement in the office; but it was not until the afternoon that Desmond learned the reason. He was summoned into the Chief's office to find Mr. Jackson, grey-faced and worn, a ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... what is for the interest of the state. For you need not take any evidence but your own about those who are worthy to legislate, as many of you as have passed the examination for the state. For his conduct is an unprecedented warning and contrary ...
— The Orations of Lysias • Lysias
... to be suspended directly above Manhattan, and the inhabitants of New York were thrown into a feverish excitement by the strange and unprecedented phenomenon. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... Hengan, which would not have been the case unless they had been enforced by military success. Should they ever break out again, the government would possess the means, from their command of money and modern arms, of repressing their lawlessness with unprecedented thoroughness, and of absolutely subjecting their hitherto ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... was strongly against the United States. The circulation of depreciated paper money had brought to many an apparent prosperity which was not real, leading to the free contraction of debts by individuals, corporations, towns, cities, and States. An unprecedented mileage of railways had just been constructed. During the half decade ending with 1873, $1,700,000,000 had thus been spent in the country. The supposed wealth of many consisted in the bonds of these roads and of other newly created concerns, ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... all well. It would be nearer the mark, indeed, to say that she had not even lain awake at all well, but had tossed and tumbled in a manner unprecedented. There was no wonder that it was unprecedented, since that which caused it had not occurred before to her. She had left the dance quite early, dragging Gladys away, because she had got something to think about ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... well adapted to flax-culture as Ulster, and Napoleon III. showed what could be done for such wastes as La Sologne and the desert of the Landes by the intelligent study of a country and the judicious development of such values as are inherent in it. The loss of population in Ireland is not unprecedented. The State of New Hampshire, in America, one of the original thirteen colonies which established the American Union, has twice shown an actual loss in population during the past century. The population of the State declined during ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... be considered the result of observations actually made on their state. The first of these appeals is introduced in the following manner: "Various are the religious and moral Institutions in this country; humanity and benevolence have risen to an unprecedented height. Not only for our country, are the exertions of the good and great employed, but at this time the greatest efforts are making on behalf of the distressed Germans. The hand of charity is open not only to the alleviation of present misery, but such an Institution as ...
— A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies • John Hoyland
... Incidents and Reminiscences of His Childhood; His Chequered Life As a Student and Teacher; and His Remarkable Career As a Soldier and Author; Embracing Also the Story of His Unprecedented Journey from Ocean to Ocean on Horseback; and an Account of His Discovery of the True Source of the Mississippi River, and Canoe Voyage Thence to the Gulf ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... the European Union (EU) from a regional economic agreement among six neighboring states in 1951 to today's supranational organization of 27 countries across the European continent stands as an unprecedented phenomenon in the annals of history. Dynastic unions for territorial consolidation were long the norm in Europe. On a few occasions even country-level unions were arranged - the Polish-Lithuanian ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... in Canada at the end of the summer of 1835 to find himself confronted with a discouraging state of affairs. A short session of the Assembly in the earlier part of the year had been marked by unprecedented violence. Papineau had attacked Lord Aylmer in language breathing passion; and had caused Lord Aylmer's reply to the address of the Assembly containing the Ninety-Two Resolutions to be expunged from the journals ...
— The 'Patriotes' of '37 - A Chronicle of the Lower Canada Rebellion • Alfred D. Decelles
... indirect, add fifteen dollars to the cost of each ton of bar-iron. Nor can there be a great fall while there is a prospect that the coal from Nova Scotia is to be excluded or raised in price by the repeal of the Reciprocity Treaty. Freights have risen to the unprecedented rate of four or five dollars per ton between Philadelphia and Massachusetts and Maine; and if we wish for former freights of two dollars per ton and lower prices, we must build steam colliers like those which run between Newcastle and London, and bring back ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... William wisely determined to seize the fortunate moment. Two proclamations were immediately published. One of them announced, in the ordinary form, that His Majesty had determined to dissolve the old Parliament and had ordered writs to be issued for a new Parliament. The other proclamation was unprecedented. It signified the royal pleasure to be that every regiment quartered in a place where an election was to be held should march out of that place the day before the nomination, and should not return till the people had ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... situation became quite strained as the day wore on. Women gathered in little knots to discuss the unprecedented "nerve" of the men. By nightfall they were pretty thoroughly worked up over a matter that had mildly amused them at the outset of the day. A comparatively small proportion had cared one way or the other in the beginning. Most of them did not ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... thought passed to the people, and there came to him a jealousy of an unprecedented sort. He reflected that the people also, the entire populace, had had before their eyes the woman whom he loved exposed almost naked. He writhed his arms with agony as he thought that the woman whose form, caught by him alone in the darkness would have been supreme happiness, ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... of the state developed unprecedented bitterness. The big financial interests back of the political machines poured out money like water to elect a ticket that would be friendly to capital. An eight-hour-day bill to apply to miners and underground workers had been passed by the last legislature and a supreme court must ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... interesting, if not, indeed, an unprecedented, fact that the two international conferences have brought together here the accredited representatives ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... world is the most stupendous of all miracles, utterly beyond the power of any finite causes, and entirely beyond the reach of our experience, yet some of these men admit that this miracle occurred. Supernatural events then are not impossible, nor unprecedented. ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... a success absolutely unprecedented—so marked, in fact, that some persons were inclined to doubt it. The news flew rapidly from city to city, and across the ocean to foreign lands, and soon wherever a newspaper was printed men were talking of Hoe's wonderful invention. Orders came pouring in upon the inventor ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... Union, who had come there to be operated upon for varicocele; and they all told me that the operation was painless to them, as it also was to me, and they said they were fast improving and were glad they had come there for treatment. I never experienced such great and unprecedented kindness as I did during the ten days I was at the "Invalids' Hotel." I had an excellent room—well furnished, plenty to eat, and was treated with the kindness of a mother by the nurses and ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... acknowledge, committed some "irregularities"; but nobody can assert, that, in dealing with them, we deviated, by a hair's-breadth, from the powers intrusted to the Government by the Fathers of the Republic. While the country is convulsed by a rebellion unprecedented in the whole history of the world, we are compelled by our principles to look upon it as lawyers, and not as statesmen. We apply to it the same principles which our venerated forefathers applied to Shay's Rebellion in Massachusetts and the Whiskey Insurrection ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... had laughed and thrown himself into his chair. He had forced the laugh, seeking to batter down with it a thrill that was akin to fright at an abrupt realization that in those two dreadful hours he had done three unprecedented things. He had spoken aloud there by himself, an action he had always ascribed exclusively to children and maniacs; he had harbored absurd temptations; and finally he had ejaculated "My God!" which he had thought appropriate to a man only in the distresses of fiction or ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... involved in much more sudden and total ruin than the personages of real history usually meet with; yet, if it is thought fit he should be restored, it is done as quickly and completely as if Merlin's rod had been employed. He enters Russia with a prodigious army, which is totally ruined by an unprecedented hard winter; (everything relating to this man is prodigious and unprecedented;) yet in a few months we find him intrusted with another great army in Germany, which is also totally ruined at Leipsic; ...
— Historic Doubts Relative To Napoleon Buonaparte • Richard Whately
... crowd. He alone knew as yet that the Patriarch had prohibited the removal of his father's remains to Alexandria; but every one could see that the larger portion of the priesthood of Memphis were absent from this unprecedented following. The Bishop alone marched in front of the six horses drawing the catafalque on which the costly sarcophagus was conveyed to the burying-place, in accordance with ancient custom:—Bishop Plotinus, with John, a learned and courageous priest, and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... morning, when he brought the engraving of Hero and Leander, Anselme Popinot, whom Constance credited with much intelligence and practical ability, had assured her of the inevitable success of Cephalic Oil, for which he was working night and day with a fury that was almost unprecedented. The lover promised that no matter what was the round sum of Birotteau's extravagance, it should be covered in six months by Cesar's share in the profits of the oil. After fearing and trembling for nineteen years it was so sweet to give herself up to one day of unalloyed happiness, ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... accomplished no later than three-thirty in the afternoon, he invited Chief Bashti on board. And Chief Bashti came, very nimble and active despite his great age, and very good-natured—so good-natured, in fact, that he insisted on bringing three of his elderly wives on board with him. This was unprecedented. Never had he permitted any of his wives to appear before a white man, and Van Horn felt so honoured that he presented each of them with a gay clay pipe and a dozen ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... war "masses" will be employed to an extent unprecedented in any previous one. Weapons will be used whose deadliness will exceed all previous experience. More effective and varied means of communication will be available than were known in earlier wars. These three momentous factors will mark ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... 1547, he was elected Provost of St. Mary's College. In 1551, "Magister Joannes Douglas Prepositus Novi Collegii Mariani," was elected Rector of the University; and being annually elected to this office for the unprecedented period of twenty-three successive years, (1572-3, being called "Vigesimus tertius Rectoratus Johannis Douglas,) and being a constant resident in St. Andrews, it is obvious he could not have been the obscure person who was protected by ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... irritations in which they commenced were greatly aggravated by accounts, that captures of American vessels by British cruisers were made to an extent altogether unprecedented; and early in March, an authentic paper was received which proved that ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... from you, so as to answer any possible questions of yours. As far as I can at present form an opinion of the character of the "Lohengrin" performance at Weimar from the accounts that have reached me, there is one thing that stands forth in the surest and most indubitable manner, viz., your unprecedented efforts and sacrifices in favour of my work, your touching love for me, and your marvelous faculty of making the impossible possible. I can see after the event quite clearly what a gigantic task you have undertaken and performed. How can I ever reward you? I should scarcely have anything ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... Holland, in return for all these benefits, deceitfully deprived Germany of the free navigation of the Rhine to the sea guaranteed to her by the federal act and assumed the right of fixing the price of all goods, whether imported to or exported from Germany. The whole of Germany was, in this unprecedented manner, rendered doubly tributary to ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... strange unprecedented excitements had been hers since ... since when? Thought stopped to ask the question. Could she name the beginning of it all? Yes, plainly enough. It all began, for her, at the end of that long rainy day in ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... representations of the contractors' agents with regard to the condition of the cattle at Fort Laramie were received without question, and Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel Hoffmann, of the Sixth Infantry, was dispatched to that post to superintend the advance of the trains. Additional contracts, of an unprecedented character, were entered into for furnishing and transporting all the supplies which would be needed during the year 1858, both for the troops already in the Territory and for the reinforcements which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... Countries.—The remarkable spread of forms of republican government in the different nations of the world within the present century has been unprecedented. {426} Every independent nation in South America to-day has a republican form of government. The Republic of Mexico has made some progress in the government of the people, and the dependencies of Great Britain ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... take the necessary preliminary steps to bring it about in the usual manner. We are, presuming that Mr. de la Molle is not in a position to pay off the mortgages, quite aware of the risks of a forced sale, and shall not be astonished if, in the present unprecedented condition of the land market, such a sale should result in a loss, although the sum recoverable does not amount to half the valuation of the estates, which was undertaken at our instance about twenty years ago on the occasion of the first advance. The only alternative, however, would ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... this heavy fire switched on to the trenches from the border of the sea to Nieuport. The bombardment crashed on to all lines, firing, reserve, and rear. It got heavier and heavier and soon reached an unprecedented violence and extended to the flanking Divisions as well. The British guns replied, but could not force the hostile fire to slacken, and in the evening the enemy came on in attack. They carried the trenches of the units on the left and patrols were put out and the flank strengthened. ...
— The Seventeenth Highland Light Infantry (Glasgow Chamber of Commerce Battalion) - Record of War Service, 1914-1918 • Various
... village I told him of the Dartons. I had had no news of them for the past four years, and inquiries among the neighbors left me only the more at sea. Lisbeth they seldom saw, they said; she never went to church or meetings; and, especially since her mother, in an unprecedented flare of rebellion, had gone to live with a married sister in town, she had grown silent and taciturn. As for old Con Darton, he was going to seed, in spite of the remnants of an earlier erudition that still clung to him. That is, though he went about ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... motion, we find ourselves indisposed for older usages. We find our age an age of daring and of doing. We are ready to discard the word impossible; from our vocabulary; we deny that anything is the less probable because of being unprecedented. For doing new things we look about for new means,—being full charged with the belief that for all worthy or desirable ends there must be adequate and available means. In this regard, it is an age ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... case, which from its very nature was complicated by political considerations, should have arisen in the midst of a campaign of such unprecedented excitement as that of 1840. It was taken for granted, on all sides, that the judges would follow their political predilections—and what had Democrats to expect from a bench of Whigs? The counsel for the appellant strained every nerve to secure another ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... successful. The managers of the other theatre had a more correct anticipation of the issue of this production, and hailed it with joy and gladness. The event justified their opinion—for never was there a more extraordinary degree of success than attended this rejected performance. It had the unprecedented run of fifty three nights, I believe successively, the first season in London—It spread into every town in the three kingdoms, where there was a theatre, and was every where received with unbounded applause. The songs were printed on ladies' fans—and Miss Fenton, who performed the part ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... within history can travel have presented to any European creature the same face of awe and terror as to these courageous Japanese. The descent of Ulysses into hell is a parallel more near the case than the boldest expedition in the Polar circles. For their act was unprecedented; it was criminal; and it was to take them beyond the pale of humanity into a land of devils. It is not to be wondered at if they were thrilled by the thought of their unusual situation; and perhaps the soldier gave utterance ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... among the lower classes, though it did not take the form of organized political agitation. It was a period, as will be seen, of violent economic and social changes, which, although they enriched England as a whole and made it possible for her to support the unprecedented expenses of the long war, were very hard upon the working classes, who were ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney |
