"Unusual" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sister Pris couldn't bear to disturb the little plan, much as she disapproved of it. They were poor, and every penny had to be counted. There were plenty of neighbors to gossip and criticise, and plenty of friends to make disagreeable remarks on any unusual extravagance. Pris saw things with the prudent eyes of thirty, but Kitty with the romantic eyes of seventeen; and the elder sister, in the kindness of her heart, had no wish to sadden life to those bright young eyes, or deny the child a harmless pleasure. She sewed ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... the Colonel later that evening to his wife, spreading his hands out as he spoke. "Yes, my dear, I have made a discovery, and an alarming one. You know, I'm rarely at fault where the children are concerned—and I've noted all the symptoms with unusual care. James, my dear, is an ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood
... an unusual one. She lived within driving distance of one of Ohio's largest colleges—only an hour by train to the state capital. Fortune had truly smiled and selected her for happiness, but from the first it was self or her family and no further ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... day, and at another time would have been fascinated by the unusual-looking objects the blacks pointed out; but now he wanted to find the convict, and everything else was as nothing; for he felt certain that if the party came over from Port Jackson, the result would be that ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... Calvin Gray was thoroughly enjoying himself. Here was an enterprise with all the possibilities of a first-class adventure, and of the sort, moreover, that he was peculiarly qualified to cope with. It possessed enough hazard to lend it the requisite zest, it was sufficiently unusual to awaken his keenest interest; he experienced an agreeable exaltation of spirit, but no misgivings whatever as to the outcome, for he held the commanding cards. Little remained, it seemed to him, except to play them ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... Diaries beginning with the second quarter of our century, there is frequent mention of a lady then becoming famous for her beauty and her wit: 'an unusual combination,' in the deliberate syllables of one of the writers, who is, however, not disposed to personal irony when speaking of her. It is otherwise in his case and a general fling at the sex we may deem pardonable, for doing ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the parting of the ways, which he faced with a courage unusual in one of his years. There was little to be done. He packed his few belongings in a bag that had been his mother's. The lad possessed one suit besides the one he wore, and this he stowed away as best he could, determining to press it out when he ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... the countess or her son to conceal their agitation from the palatine, who now opened the door. On his expressing alarm at a sight so unusual, his daughter, finding herself incapable of speaking, put into his hand the letter which Thaddeus had just read. Sobieski cast his eye over the first lines; he comprehended their tendency, and seeing the countess had withdrawn, he looked towards his grandson. Thaddeus was walking ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... father, who was as great a wanderer as I am, was staying here in the desert with his friend the Sheik Ahmed Ben Hassan. A chance acquaintance some years before over the purchase of some horses had ripened into a very intimate friendship that was unusual between a Frenchman and an Arab. The Sheik was a wonderful man, very enlightened, with strong European tendencies. As a matter of pure fact he was not too much in sympathy with the French form of administration as ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... Huguenots of France and the Leaguers, as both equal enemies of the monarchy. This comparison was easily transferred to the sectaries of England, and the association proposed by Shaftesbury. The work was published with unusual solemnity of title-page and frontispiece; the former declaring that the translation was made by his Majesty's command; the latter representing Charles on his throne, surrounded by emblems expressive of hereditary and ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... and not an encumbrance to her, the Earl had been assured that his wife's slanders had been forgotten. He was secure of his sovereign's favour, and permitted to see the term of his weary jailorship, and thus there was an unusual liveliness and cheerfulness about the whole sojourn at Buxton, where, indeed, there was always more or less of a ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the country, the haps and mishaps of taking film plays, and giving an account of two unusual discoveries. ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... changed colour. He sat quite still, staring at the negro a moment, conscious that his pulses were drumming in a manner wholly unusual to them. Then quietly ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... 1866 and '67 were marked by unusual activity among the friends of this movement in both England and America. John Stuart Mill, a member of Parliament, proposed an amendment to the "Household Suffrage Bill," by striking out the word "man," sustained by many able speeches, which finally carried the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... of my store on Clay street a beautiful Sunday morning, one of those mornings peculiar to San Francisco, with its balmy breezes and Italian skies, there seemed an unusual stillness, such a quiet as precedes the cyclone in tropical climes, only broken occasionally by silvery peals of the church bells. When suddenly I heard the plank street resound with the tramp of a multitude. No voice or other sound was heard but the tramp of soldiery, ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... everything down to the ground; however, I drew the sofa to the fire, made up a good blaze (the last I saw for some time), and prepared to pass a lazy day with a book; but I felt so restless and miserable I did not know what was the matter with me. I wandered from window to window, and still the same unusual sight met my eyes; a long procession of ewes and lambs, all travelling steadily down from the hills towards the large flat in front of the house; the bleating was incessant, and added to the intense melancholy of the whole affair. When Mr. ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... Frank was employed on errands daily, there was nothing of an unusual character. About eleven o'clock one evening (for Frank had to take his turn at night work) he was sent to a house on West Thirty-eighth street. On arriving, he was ushered into the presence of a lady of middle age, whose anxious face betrayed the ...
— The Telegraph Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... under such circumstances is an unusual if not an unprecedented occurrence. The government which appoints a citizen to represent the country at a foreign court assumes a very serious obligation to him. The next administration may turn him ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Spanish armada James at once placed his power and his person at the disposal of the Queen. He assured her that he would behave not as a foreign prince, but as if he were her son and a citizen of her realm. With unusual decision he put himself at the head of the Protestant nobles, and pursued the Catholic lords who gave ear to those Spanish overtures which ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... step of quite unusual sprightliness Mr Yule entered the house. He could talk of but one subject, and Mrs Milvain had to listen to a laboured account of the blunder just committed by The Study. It was Alfred's Yule's characteristic that he could do nothing lighthandedly. He seemed always to converse with effort; ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... economic activity, has steadily increased over the years and has brought a level of prosperity unusual among inhabitants of the Pacific islands. The agricultural sector has become self-sufficient in the production ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... to herself for some hours of the Saturday forenoon. He had suggested following Nelly and her father up the mountain track, but she had detained him with a demonstrativeness unusual in her, which struck him like a jarring note. What had come over his mother? She had always been a woman of a cold and even harsh manner, at least to him. To be sure, he had noticed with amazement that she had been different to Nelly. She ought to ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... them, all subjects of the highest interest, with that of Mungo Park, for instance, arid we have a fair measure of the French traveller's value. The native words inserted into the text are for the most part given with unusual correctness, and the carping criticism which would correct them sadly requires correction itself. "Thus the word which he writes mouloundu in his text, and mulundu in his vocabulary, is not singular, as he supposes, but the plural of loondu, a mountain" (p. 200 of the" Review"). Firstly, Douville ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... she said, reading his face with her eyes after the manner of women, and wondering what the harassed look meant that was so unusual in John's cheerful face. She jumped at the idea that he was tired, that his bag was heavy, that he had been beaten about by the wind till he had lost his temper, always a possible thing to happen to a man. Elinor flung herself upon the bag ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... everywhere displaced by one of confidence and hope. Desertion from Judaism, to be sure, may sporadically make its appearance here and there as a convenient escape from material disadvantages; indifference towards it may likewise in some quarters still survive as a relic of the past,—but these are rather unusual and isolated phenomena, emphasizing all the more the universal fidelity and attachment to all ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... iron-bound, with the name of the firm on the outside,—Knowles & Co. You may have heard of the firm: they were large woollen manufacturers: supplied the home market in Indiana for several years. This ledger, you see by the writing, has been kept by a woman. That is not unusual in Western trading towns, especially in factories where the operatives are chiefly women. In such establishments, they can fill every post successfully, but that of overseer: they are too hard with the hands ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... the pasture-field. That tune always ushered Weaver Jimmy upon the stage, and there he was, coming over the field, easily recognisable by his huge feet. Before he reached them, the MacDonalds could see that his face was shining with unusual joy. ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... that 'some areas which are flooded part of the year are of a deep rich red colour, due to a small plant two or three inches high.' I saw such vegetation nowhere else and apparently it was an equally unusual sight to ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... her trouble in the person of this old friend of her stepfather Paul Nightingale, Colonel (at that time Major) Lund. This officer had remained on in harness to the unusual age of fifty-eight, but it was a civil appointment he held; he had retired from active service in the ordinary course of things. It was probably not only because of his old friendship for her stepfather, but because the poor girl told him her unvarnished ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... an unusual sort of young woman I know but if Robbie John takes my advice, he better choose quick between playin' the fiddle ...
— The Turn of the Road - A Play in Two Scenes and an Epilogue • Rutherford Mayne
... sur la Cote de l'Isle de Quaelpeart, avec la Description de Coree. Paris, 1670, 12mo.—This work, translated from the Dutch, besides the interest which personal adventures in a foreign country, and under unusual circumstances, always inspires, gives much information regarding the manners of the inhabitants, and the ceremonies, &c. of the court of Corea,—a part of ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... four o'clock, as a glance at her watch now showed. Cally swung a little on her circular seat, and encountered the full stare of a girl of the lower orders, seated next her. Her own glance, which had been casual, suddenly became intent: the girl's face, an unusual one in its way, touched a chord somewhere. In a second Cally remembered the little factory hand who had brought her the note from Dr. Vivian, that fateful Sunday ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... the Gymnasium, he was for a moment roused from his reverie by a picture which struck him as being unusual and which riveted his gaze, as did every thing exceptional that came under his eyes. On a very small dark-colored donkey sat a tall, well-dressed slave, who held in his right hand a nosegay of extraordinary size and beauty. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of facts behind the curve revealed an unusual growth in sugar hauling, due to the increase in supply and removal of consumer war restrictions. And that grocery concern bought additional trucks for sugar within two months. With the insight made possible by such a curve ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... body; some in unison, and these are they who make the best progress as to the real advancement. Anderson moved, on the whole, in the last way. He was a very healthy man, mind and body, and with rather unusual advantages in point of looks. This last he realized in one way but not in another. He knew it on general principles; he recognized the fact as he recognized the fact of his hands and feet; but what he actually saw in the looking-glass was not so ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... this fuss?" Stephen Richford demanded. He had come up at the same moment. Troubled and dazed as Beatrice was, she could not help noticing that Richford had been drinking. The thing was so unusual that it stood out all the more glaringly. "There's no occasion for an inquest. Dr. Oswin has told me more than once lately that Sir Charles was giving his heart a great deal too much to do. This thing has got to be prevented, I ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... more difficult to supply illustrations of great men who have succeeded on account of their academic distinction, than to give examples of those who failed to distinguish themselves at school, but who nevertheless became famous afterwards as men of unusual talent. ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... for the boat which was due to come for me at midnight, for I was very tired after my unusual exertions throughout the day, and would gladly have slept. But that would not do; for to have slept would have exposed me to the double risk of being surprised, and of missing my boat; I was therefore by no means sorry when, about midnight, ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... o'er the land. They came; they stopp'd—an angry eye they cast On the pale slumberer, and in silence pass'd. Again the thunder roll'd; the lightning flew; His country's form appear'd before his view: All stain'd with gore appear'd her azure vest, And her dim eyes unusual grief confess'd. The gloomy phantom on Ernestus frown'd, And with her sceptre touch'd the yawning ground: A boundless space, with mourning myriads spread, Appear'd below, and thus the vision said: "Behold th' abode of traitors! ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... and so considerable is the difference between individuals of the same species, that the wisest expert is likely to be the most conservative. An unbotanical observer, who comes at the family just because he loves trees in general, and is poking his eyes and his camera into unusual places, doesn't make close determinations; he tells what he thinks he sees, and leaves exact work to ...
— Getting Acquainted with the Trees • J. Horace McFarland
... distant sound of cannon, nor to the groups of townspeople who stood about on corners or stoops, evidently discussing something of interest; and it was only when she turned into the market-place, and found it empty alike of buyers and sellers that she was made to realise that something unusual was occurring. ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... or two, now, about the repainting by which this pictura extincta has been revived to meet existing taste. The sky is entirely daubed over with fresh blue; yet it leaves with unusual care the original outline of the descending angel, and of the white clouds about his body. This idea of the angel laying his hands on the two heads—(as a bishop at Confirmation does, in a hurry; and I've seen one sweep four together, ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin
... again dashed in the elder sister, whose unusual vehemence of mood seemed to require her to do all the talking herself. "Herman Brudenell—he is a generous fellow with all his faults!—released both you and myself from our promise, and told us at any time when we ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... occurred in 1947-48, though unusual, are to be expected occasionally in the latitude of Ithaca, and in fact throughout the northern states. Apparently the fall freeze was widespread as it was almost impossible to obtain any black walnuts that were of any value. Some of the specimens ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report - at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948 • Various
... passage had been taken for Miss Kit and a maid on a brig that happened to be lying off the Five Fingers; and that, as he found the ship was to sail for Dublin with the flood to-night, he had sent over Martin to see her safely on board. I confess it seemed a little unusual; and Miss Kit was very reluctant to start on such short notice, saying it had been arranged she was to travel overland by way of Derry. But tell me, ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... the burgesses acquitted him; and now he too threw down the gauntlet, became a candidate for the tribuneship of the people, and was nominated to that office for the year 631 in an elective assembly attended by unusual numbers. War was thus declared. The democratic party, always poor in leaders of ability, had from sheer necessity remained virtually at rest for nine years; now the truce was at an end, and this time it was headed by a man who, with more honesty than Carbo ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... daughter of William Ellery, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Francis Dana had been sent abroad on a special mission to England in 1774 before the breaking out of the Revolutionary War, to sound English public opinion, for which he had unusual advantages. He returned in the late spring of 1776 advising independence, and soon after this the Declaration of Independence was signed. Francis Dana was also appointed on a special mission to Paris and Holland ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... drink, or bribe a carrier to rob one of his customers. The circulation of the Courier and Inquirer was considered something marvellous when it printed thirty-five hundred copies a day, and its business was thought immense when its daily advertising averaged fifty-five dollars. It is not very unusual for a newspaper now to receive for advertising, in one day, six hundred times that sum. Bennett, in the course of time, had a chance been given to him, would have made the Courier and Inquirer powerful enough to cast off all party ties; and this ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... represented them in the most frightful colours; they seemed of a gigantic stature, that he thought he could perceive their faces to be very flat and broad, which was the characteristic or mark of the unfriendly Indians. This struck him with unusual dread, and he now gave himself over for lost, when he saw they had espied him, and were making towards him: they coming nearer, he perceived them to be clothed in deer skins, their hair to be exceeding long, hanging down a great way over their shoulders; and, ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... a call from Henry O. Flipper second lieutenant Tenth United States Cavalry, who is on his way under orders to join his regiment at Fort Concho. So far there is nothing very unusual in this item, but interest will be given to it when we add that Lieutenant Flipper is the first colored graduate of West Point. He went to the institution from Georgia, and graduated last June, fifty-fifth in a class of seventy-six. There is a preponderance of white blood ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... in the cultivation of his land, he is one of those who, while acknowledging no such thing as comradeship, and who, true to his sentiments, keeps them at arm's-length, has, albeit, acquired confidences rather unusual. ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... terrified at them at first, and began to discover an unusual fear, and even our black prince seemed in a great deal of confusion; but I smiled at him, and showing him some of our guns, I asked him if he thought that which killed the spotted cat (for so they called ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... Mrs. Tyson's account Banneker's mother and father were Negroes, but his maternal grandmother was a white woman of English birth, who had been legally married to a native African. The antecedent circumstances of this marriage were so unusual as to justify special mention. Mollie Welsh was an English woman of the servant class, employed on a cattle farm in England where a part of her daily duty was the milking of the cows. She was one day charged with having stolen a pail of milk that had, in fact, been kicked over by ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... queer! This slide seldom cracks into fissures, but when it does it means trouble. If that crevice goes down very deep it shows unusual warmth underneath. And that may move this upper section of ice-field any time, thus creating an awful land-slide, ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... round the monster, surveying its vast proportions, and then set to work to remove its hide and cut off the most delicate portions of the meat. This occupied us some time. I suggested that the skin might be left behind, but, as the bear was of unusual size, Armitage declared his intention of preserving it if he could. At length we succeeded in strapping it on the back of the horse, and set off to ...
— Adventures in the Far West • W.H.G. Kingston
... the two cords descend Moumouth conceived some hope. As soon as they were within his reach he grappled them, and the fishermen, feeling the unusual weight, cried out with one voice, "A bite! a bite!" and hastened to ...
— The Story of a Cat • mile Gigault de La Bdollire
... announced Andy, when they came in sight of the ranch house. "Don't let on to anybody about that doctored cake. If Hop Lung or anybody else mentions it, just act as if nothing unusual had happened. Say the lunch was as good as any we ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... always thought as an example, that the restraints upon the sex were insuperable only to those who think them so, or who noisily strive to break them. She had taken a course of her own, and no man stood in her way. Many of her acts had been unusual, but excited no uproar. Few helped, but none checked her; and the many men who knew her mind and her life, showed to her confidence as to a brother, gentleness as to a sister. And not only refined, but very coarse men approved and aided one in whom they saw resolution and clearness ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... act opens the father, mother, and fianc are found discussing the situation, and finally deciding to let their friends come to the congratulatory festival on first reading of the banns, and pretend that nothing unusual had happened. Afterwards they could rearrange ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... learning. Lust after eloquent and flowery expression. Repetition of pet poetic picturesquenesses. Confused and wandering statement. Metaphor gone insane. Meaningless words, used because they are pretty, or showy, or unusual. Sorrowful attempts at the epigrammatic. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the veranda—watched for the famous novelist. Even on the streets of the little city, he found himself hoping to catch a glimpse of the uncouth figure and the homely, world-worn face of the man whose unusual personality had so attracted him. The day was nearly gone when Conrad Lagrange again appeared. As on the evening before, the young man was smoking his after-dinner cigar on the veranda, when the Irish Setter and a whiff of pipe smoke announced the ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... three days after our arrival at the Post, we saw the Eskimos running toward the wharf and shouting as though something of unusual importance were taking place and, upon joining the crowd, found them greeting three strange Eskimos who had just arrived in a boat. The real cause of the excitement we soon learned was the arrival of the Pelican. The strange Eskimos were the pilots that brought her from Fort Chimo. All was confusion ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... of cowboys had ridden Into the town for a celebration and, as it was unusual for a train to stop for any length of time at the crossing, they rode up ...
— Comrades of the Saddle - The Young Rough Riders of the Plains • Frank V. Webster
... his wish, and the only imprudence that he had committed, in a moment of aberration, seemed not to have been observed; no one had noticed his presence in the cafe opposite Caffie's house, and no one was astonished at his pertinacity in remaining there at an hour so unusual. ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... retreat, General Wise, who had long desired an interview with General Lee, discovered him at a distance, and immediately hastened toward him. While he was yet a great way off, General Lee, who happened at the time to be alone, turned and began to stare in a way that was most unusual with him. As Wise drew nearer the stare became intense and mixed with wonderment. A few steps more, and still General Lee gazed and gazed wonderingly, as if he had never seen Wise in his life. Amazed and puzzled at General Lee's unmistakable ignorance of his identity, Wise advanced quite ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... Majesty's Government, however, the friendly manner of these consultations has made way for a more threatening tone; and the minds of the people of this Republic, and of the whole population of South Africa, have been brought into a state of apprehension; and a state of unusual tension has been created by the action of Her Majesty's Government, in no longer abiding by the laws concerning the voting right, and the decision concerning the representation of this Republic; and lastly, as is expressed in your letter of the 25th of September, ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... continued incredulous. Surely there was enough to convince her, that, whatever difficulties nature might present, grace had determined to overcome them, and that every reasonable and every possible evidence of the intended miracle had been given. But is it so unusual for mankind to resist the most convincing arguments, and to disbelieve even the most obvious truth, that the case of Sarah ought to be regarded as so extraordinary? Have we not daily proof of a similar obstinacy and perverseness? If it be observed that Sarah possessed great advantages, ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... tyrant; therefore he determined to absent himself a while from his dukedom, and depute another to the full exercise of his power, that the law against these dishonourable lovers might be put in effect, without giving offence by an unusual severity in ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... artist whose works are illustrative of a style of simple Landscape Art which unites in itself the love and conscientiousness of early Art and the precision and science of the modern. Her picture of Albano is wonderful,—not from the rendering of unusual or brilliant effects, but from a sense of genuineness. We feel that it grew. The flower and leaf forms which enrich the near ground are such as spring up on days like the one she has chosen. Another month, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... was hard to have Dan withdraw into his shell just as she was beginning to long for his presence; but he had withdrawn, and like most naturally shy and reticent people, withdrawn farther than ever, as if in reaction from his unusual demonstration. ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... and in which I was backed by Mr. George Smith, was the habit of placing an editorial note to most of the articles, in which I said something as to what the writer was at and conveyed a suggestion (a very proper thing for an editor to do) that the article was of unusual merit and deserved looking into, and so on. For example, in the case of the "Pages from a Private Diary" I ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... the returns indicate more comfort than in Colorado, but leave full room for betterment. The chapter on "Domestic Service" shows many strong reasons why girls prefer factory or general work to this; and as the views of heads of employment agencies are also given, unusual opportunity is afforded for forming ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell
... enough to foster William's very pardonable weakness as to his gifts as a musician and a poet, and being a man of the most charming manners, possessed of an unusual supply of tact, and extremely accomplished in many respects, he has acquired an extraordinary degree of influence over his sovereign. Indeed it may be doubted whether there is any member of the imperial entourage who stands as high in the good graces of the ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... she-arch—that is to say, it has no keystone, but is formed simply by propping two segments of a circle one against the other. It certainly is not a Gothic arch; it is a Lombard arch, modified in an unusual manner, owing to its having ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... expression told her that his thoughts were on something outside the flat. She was not curious, being used to seeing him look so detached. However, supper done with, and Barber out of the kitchen, putting his father to bed, she gleaned that something unusual had happened. For as they were washing and setting away the dishes, he leaned close to ask her ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... pie, and laid them, inside uppermost, upon the table: the one before himself, and the other before his guest. Upon these platters he placed two goodly portions of the contents of the pie, thus imparting the unusual interest to the entertainment that each partaker scooped out the inside of his plate, and consumed it with his other fare, besides having the sport of pursuing the clots of congealed gravy over the plain of the table, and successfully taking them into his mouth at last from ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... Tom. In fact, it's rather unusual for me to go to sleep like that, but I suppose it's because of my illness. But I couldn't have been asleep long—not more than ...
— Tom Swift and his Sky Racer - or, The Quickest Flight on Record • Victor Appleton
... hotel they became aware of a great and unusual crowd in front of it. The crowd reminded David very forcibly of that one which had been raging there a few days before, and excited some trepidation in his breast. Involuntarily he ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... written on this subject the most adequate statement is that of Cooley. He has worked out with unusual penetration and peculiar insight an interpretation of human nature as ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... and some Japan ware are said to have received upwards of twenty. As regards China, this seems quite exceptional, for there is in the Louvre a piece with the legend 'lou-tinsg,' i.e. six coatings, implying that even so many are unusual enough to be worthy ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... happened to drop into his room while he was finishing his dressing. Bucky agreed with himself that this excess of shyness was foolishness, and that to indulge the boy was merely to lay up future trouble for him. A dozen times he was on the point of speaking his mind on the subject, but some unusual quality of innocence in ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... Bloom actuated by motives of inherent delicacy inasmuch as he always believed in minding his own business moved off but nevertheless remained on the qui vive with just a shade of anxiety though not funkyish in the least. Though unusual in the Dublin area he knew that it was not by any means unknown for desperadoes who had next to nothing to live on to be abroad waylaying and generally terrorising peaceable pedestrians by placing a pistol at their head in some secluded spot outside the city proper, famished loiterers ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... trifles, thought highly of this bit, principally because of its origin. He called it 'The Anatomy of Putois.' And he used to say that he preferred, in certain respects, the anatomy of Putois to the anatomy of Quaresmeprenant. 'If the description by Xenomanes,' he said, 'is more learned and richer in unusual and choice expressions, the description of Putois greatly surpasses it in clarity and simplicity of style.' He held this opinion because Doctor Ledouble, of Tours, had not yet explained chapters thirty, thirty-one, and thirty-two of ...
— Putois - 1907 • Anatole France
... and unobtrusively assuming an altogether higher tone than theirs, and bestowing his confidence and friendship on hardly any—all tended to make him a marked character, and to confer on his intimacy an unusual value. Walter, to whom as yet he had hardly spoken, thought him self-centred and reserved, and yet saw something beautiful and fascinating even in his exclusiveness; he felt that he could have liked him much, but, as he was several forms lower than Power, never expected to become one of his few ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... Notwithstanding this unusual tolerance on the part of Christopher de Beaumont, his Protestantism often placed M. Necker in an awkward position. "The title of liberator of your Protestant brethren would be a flattering one for you," said one of the pamphlets of the day, "and ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... star that we can call our own?" asked May, with unusual animation. "How nice! I wonder if it can be the one I saw from our front window last evening, that looked ...
— Harper's Young People, January 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... endure to hear these truths and goods mentioned, he even burns with hatred against all who acknowledge and worship the Divine. I once talked with a certain spirit who in the world had been a man in authority, and had loved self to an unusual degree; and when he simply heard some one mention the Divine, and especially when he heard him mention the Lord, he was so excited by hatred arising from anger as to burn with the desire to kill; and when the reins of his love were loosened ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg
... of vegetable physiology, what may be called crystalline botany, then. The winter of 1837 was unusually favorable for this. In December of that year, the Genius of vegetation seemed to hover by night over its summer haunts with unusual persistency. Such a hoarfrost, as is very uncommon here or anywhere, and whose full effects can never be witnessed after sunrise, occurred several times. As I went forth early on a still and frosty morning, the trees looked like airy creatures of darkness caught napping; on this side ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... past been obliged, by want of space, to omit all the kind expressions towards ourselves, in which friendly correspondents are apt to indulge; but there is something so unusual in the way in which the following letter begins, that we have done violence to our modesty, in order to admit the comments of our kind-hearted correspondent. We have no doubt that all his questions will be answered ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.19 • Various
... through the bar, he had borne that, and his carriage up the stairs; but when he was transferred to his father, whose air, as he took the boy, was melancholy and lugubrious in the extreme, the poor little fellow could endure no longer a mode of treatment so unusual, and, with a grimace which for a moment or two threatened the coming storm, burst out with an infantine howl. "That's how he has been taught," ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... Descartes, with an unusual fondness for the letter of Scripture, quotes oftener than once in support of this monstrous doctrine. the dictum, "the blood is the life"; and he remarks, with some sarcasm possibly, that it is a comfortable theory for the eaters of animal ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... female, in the very heyday of youth, strength, and beauty, or of the most dignified maturity and old age. My hosts always bowed their heads as they passed one of these shrines, and it shocked me to see statues that had no apparent object, beyond the chronicling of some unusual individual excellence or beauty, receive so serious a homage. However, I showed no sign of wonder or disapproval; for I remembered that to be all things to all men was one of the injunctions of the Gentile Apostle, which for the present I should do well to heed. ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... general views upon these subjects. I need now only call attention to the necessity of carrying into every department of the Government a system of rigid accountability, thorough retrenchment, and wise economy. With no exceptional nor unusual expenditures, the oppressive burdens of taxation can be lessened by such a modification of our revenue laws as will be consistent with the public faith and the legitimate and necessary ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Schuttenhof, where the young Philistines danced with the little burgher girls and pretty dressmakers. They were all, however, of unsullied reputation, and how merrily I swung them around till the music ceased! These innocent amusements could scarcely have injured my robust frame, yet when some unusual misfortune happens it is a trait of human nature to seek its first germ in the past. I, too, scanned the period immediately preceding my illness, but reached the conclusion that it was due to acute colds, the first of which ran into ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... scepticism, and yet conscious of an unusual interest and expectation, George Brand drove up to Curzon Street on the following evening. As he jumped out of his hansom, he inadvertently ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... palisade, mingling with bewildered men who ran out of the other cabins. The waves of fire washed on, providing light, too much light. Ashe and McNeil could pass as part of the crowd, but Ross's unusual clothing ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... Damon presented no novelties. They had been on too many voyages over the sea, under the sea and even in the air above the sea to find anything unusual in merely taking a trip ...
— Tom Swift and his Big Tunnel - or, The Hidden City of the Andes • Victor Appleton
... excellence of the sleighing, this winter resembles '78-'79, but there is more snow and the temperature is very much more severe. I suppose there is well-nigh eighteen inches now on the ground, something quite unusual in this latitude. Let us hope it will stay sometime longer yet, ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... haggler over trifles. Certainly such a diagnosis does not explain a man who has built up one of the world's greatest organizations and accumulated the largest fortune which has ever been placed at the disposal of one man. Indeed, Rockefeller displayed unusual business ability even before he entered the oil business. A young man who, at the age of nineteen, could start a commission house and do a business of nearly five hundred thousand the first year must have had commercial capacity to an ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... this is a remarkable state of affairs and unusual action had to be taken," McNamara replied, but the ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... when she went with your step-ma and you?" demanded Gladys, who seemed to have suddenly developed unusual acumen. Her face was streaming with tears but ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... encourage a favorable prognosis, and a not unusual termination is an anchylosis with either the navicular bone ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... vehicle bumped and thumped and jumbled along at a rapid rate over the uneven road, in a way to try the nerves and bones and tempers of those inside; but none of the tumblifications they endured had the effect of disturbing the equanimity of their tempers, or of dislocating their joints, each bump of unusual violence only making them laugh more heartily than ever. Once clear of Moscow, the road was tolerably smooth in most places, and the body of the carriage moved easily along between the two long poles to which it was slung. Such is the principle of the tarantasse. The body of the ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... through every crevice. The carpet of his little room occasionally rose from the floor, swelled up by the insidious entrance of the searching blast; the solitary candle, which from neglect had not only elongated its wick to an unusual extent, but had formed a sort of mushroom top, was every moment in danger of extinction, while the chintz curtains of the window waved solemnly to and fro. But the deep reverie of Edward Forster was suddenly disturbed by the report ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Note the grip our composer has on the theme, it bobs up in the middle voices; it comes thundering at the close in octave and chordal unisons, it rumbles in the bass and is persistently asserted by the soprano voice. Its scale is unusual, the atmosphere not altogether cheerful. Chopin could be depressingly pessimistic at times. Op. 50, No. 3, shows how closely the composer studied his Bach. It is by all odds the most elaborately worked out of the series, difficult to play, difficult ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... Ramsay and the Princess themselves had a private survey of their new possessions yesterday before the guests appeared, and report has it warmly congratulated one another on the interest and beauty of most of the things, and the unusual percentage of unimaginative ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156., March 5, 1919 • Various
... Scottish character went moribund. The prose Muse of the North was silent, or spoke in ineffectual accents. After a long interregnum came George Macdonald, unconsciously paving the way for the mob of northern gentlemen who now write with ease. He brought to his task an unusual fervour, a more than common scholarship, a more than common richness, purity, and flexibility in style, a truly poetic endowment of imagination, and a truly human endowment of sympathy, intuition, and insight. It would be absurd to say that he failed, but ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... said to her husband, "how shall we ever be ready?" And her pretty face was lighted up with unusual brightness at the happy thought of so much haste with such an object. "And baby's things too," she said, as she thought of all the various little articles of dress that would be needed. A journey from San Jose to Southampton cannot in truth be made as easily as one from London ...
— Returning Home • Anthony Trollope
... hands, once closed over the eight thousand livres, were never again relaxed. He received them as a deposit, and hid them along with his previous plunder, vowing never to return them. Several days had elapsed, when one afternoon Derues returned home with an air of such unusual cheerfulness that the young man questioned him. "Have you heard some good news for me?" he asked, "or have you ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... this story—an unusual story, rather badly written, with a very weak ending. It strikes her as having possibilities. She puts on the needed touches,—the finish, the phrasing and an ending that is almost a stroke of genius. ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... the evidence of his own senses, he called out the servants and the peasants, and having received their testimony that it was a huge star such as they had never seen before, he was satisfied of the correctness of his own vision. Regarding it as a new and unusual phenomenon, he hastened to his observatory, adjusted his sextant, and measured its distances from the nearest stars in Cassiopeia. He noted also its form, its magnitude, its light, and its colour, and he waited ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... the two stood silently there, the lordly maple seemed to reach out its great branches over their young united heads and beam its happy benediction. The ubiquitous squirrels appeared to know that something unusual was taking place. They cocked their shrewd little heads in a listening attitude, stared impudently, and then sent the news abroad to their feathered and furry comrades of the forest. Of all this, however, the lovers were ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... annually the enormous flood of unlettered immigrants that is unceasingly poured upon us by the Old World. The wonder is not that we have graft, but that we have not more graft. We have great wealth and extreme poverty, but they are due to unusual economic causes, namely: great national resources on the one hand, and ceaseless immigration on the other. Our cities are overcrowded and our standards of work are superficial, but would this ...
— The Spirit of Lafayette • James Mott Hallowell
... was a poor enough prize—a few books for an "essay in the picturesque;" but it had a peculiar interest for the folk of Barbie. Twenty years ago it was won four years in succession by men from the valley; and the unusual run of luck fixed it in their minds. Thereafter when an unsuccessful candidate returned to his home, he was sure to be asked very pointedly, "Who won the Raeburn the year?" to rub into him their perception that he at least had been a failure. ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... Superstitious among us were heartily frightened at the Colour of the Water, which for several miles looked as Red as any Blood. Some fellows among the crew that were of a Preaching Turn, gave out that this unusual appearance was an Omen, or Warning to us of Judgments coming for what had been done to the Spanish Prisoners (in the which Duresse I declare I had no hand; 'twas all done by Captain Blokes' orders, and ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... go, when by an unusual impulse he turned, took the old woman in his hands, almost lifted her off the ground, for she weighed light, and gave her a hasty kiss on the cheek; then he set her down and strode out of the house ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... composing the Staff of the T. Brigade. They came towards me, supposing, probably, that I was bringing some information or an order. One of them was known to me, an infantry captain who had been in garrison at R. with me. We shook hands, and I explained the object of this unusual visit. He replied: ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... mode of action has been found by ourselves and others to be well adapted to the cases of most common occurrence; so that if it be unsuitable to the case in hand, the reason of its being so will be likely to arise from some unusual circumstance. ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... la Clue and the French were this year making unusual efforts to establish a naval superiority over us, which they never had done, and never will do. As is mentioned in this letter, one powerful fleet was placed under De la Clue, another under Conflans, and a strong squadron under Commodore Thurot. De la Clue, however, for ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... citizens certain Arabian horses, which they refused; whereupon this lord gave out that he proposed to take a view of the sea, so that the poor citizens doubted some evil was meant against them by this unusual circumstance, dreading that he would plunder the city. Accordingly they embarked as fast as they could with all their goods and moveables, merchandise, jewels, and money, and put off from the shore. But to their great misfortune, a great storm arose next night, by which all their ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... ungodly men! All this did Leo, and his immediate successors. And when he superadded to the functions of a great religious magistrate the virtues of the humblest Christian,—parting with his magnificent patrimony to feed the poor, and proclaiming (with an eloquence unusual in his time) the cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith, and setting himself as an example of the virtues which he preached,—we concede his claim to be numbered among the great benefactors of mankind. How much worse Roman Catholicism would have been but for his august example ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... the king advanced towards the country and strong-holds of Macmore, his most formidable antagonist. On the opening of that campaign he conferred upon young Henry the order of knighthood;[44] and wishing to signalize this mark of the royal favour with unusual celebrity, he conferred on that day the same distinction (expressly in honour of Henry) upon ten others his companions in arms. The (p. 039) particulars of this transaction, and the details of the entire campaign ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... Wotton, the short-lived half-brother of the more famous Sir Henry, there is a spirited song, betraying unusual command over a ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... choice of words, one may search for the bizarre and unusual rather than for the truly picturesque. Stevenson at times seems to have lapsed. When he says that Modestine would feel a switch "more tenderly than my cane;" that he "must instantly maltreat this uncomplaining ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... Protestant and Papist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Anabaptist living together in harmony and political equality. This was not to be. The soul of the immortal prince could not inspire the hearts of his contemporaries. That Barneveld was disposed to a breadth of religious sympathy unusual in those days, seems certain. It was inevitable, too, that the mild doctrines of Arminius should be more in harmony with such a character than were the fierce dogmas of Calvin. But the struggle, either to force Arminianism upon the Church ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Run, and the Southern army marched to meet him, Lee was riding along his line of battle in the woods, when he came upon a party of soldiers holding a prayer-meeting on the eve of battle. Such a spectacle was not unusual in the army then and afterward—the rough fighters were often men of profound piety—and on this occasion the sight before him seems to have excited deep emotion in Lee. He stopped, dismounted—the ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... entirely of Peggy's workmanship, and Peggy has had a hand in most of the other dishes, too, as the mother proudly tells. How that merry party can eat! Peggy is waitress, and it is long before the passing is over, and she can sit down in her own place. She is just as fond of the unusual Christmas good things as are the rest, but somehow, before she is well started at her turkey, it is time for changing plates for dessert, and before she has tasted her nuts and raisins the babies have succumbed to sleepiness, and it is Peggy who must carry them upstairs ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... faithfully fulfilling, or perfidiously breaking, of treaties. They are things not to be tampered with: and should Britain, which seems very probable, propose to seduce America into such an act of baseness, it would merit from her some mark of unusual detestation. It is one of those extraordinary instances in which we ought not to be contented with the bare negative of Congress, because it is an affront on the multitude as well as on the government. It goes on the supposition that the public are ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... several members of a species to have various kinds of superiorities over one another. While one saves its life by higher speed, another does the like by clearer vision, another by keener scent, another by quicker hearing, another by greater strength, another by unusual power of enduring cold or hunger, another by special sagacity, another by special timidity, another by special courage; and others by other bodily and mental attributes. Now it is unquestionably true that, other things equal, each of these attributes, giving ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... was always encouraged by the appreciation of his brother barristers. On one occasion, when making an unusual exertion on behalf of a client, he turned to Mr. Garrow, who was his colleague, and not perceiving any sign of approbation on his countenance, he whispered to him, "Who do you think can get on with that d—d wet blanket face of yours ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... assuring adequate financing for small enterprises which cannot secure funds from other sources. Most of the funds should and will be provided by private lenders; but the Reconstruction Finance Corporation will share any unusual risks through guarantees of private loans, with direct loans only when private capital is unwilling to participate on a ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... the Satires. One of them was issued on the same day with Johnson's "London." In that year, too, he published his "Universal Prayer,"—a singular specimen of latitudinarian thought, expressed in a loose simplicity of language, quite unusual with its author. The next year he had intended to signalise by a third Dialogue, which he commenced in a vigorous style, but which he did not finish, owing to the dread of a prosecution before the Lords; ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... become the dress of the Copper Captain; together with the Rev. Mr. Bide-the-Bent; the presence of a minister being, in strict Presbyterian families, an indispensable requisite upon all occasions of unusual solemnity. ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... I had had slight apprehensions at the expression of such very unusual hospitality, these were soon dispelled, and I was proud to be assured by my host that I was the first Englishman (or for that, European or American) who had been allowed to enter the living part of a Shoka house and partake of food in a Shoka dwelling. The opportunity was too good to be lost, and ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... to explain that Mhtoon Pah had required him to come back late by an unfrequented alley, from where his master himself had admitted him into the basement of the shop. There was nothing altogether unusual about this, it appeared, as Mhtoon Pah was very strange in his ways at times. He cooked his own food for fear of poison, and was constantly suspecting some indefinite enemy of designs upon his life. What was unusual was the fact that ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... that your majesty would recover," said Kaunitz, with unusual warmth; "I knew it, for Austria cannot spare you, and as long as there is work for you here below, your strong mind ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach |
