"Rarity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... years, Indian manufactures were imported, with the exception of embroidery, which was contraband by the ancient statutes. This accounts for our faint and ignorant imitations of Indian work, and the extreme rarity of the true specimens to be met with in England, unless of a ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... dashing figure, and Marian's gleeful echo to his laughter claimed him as her own. Even Ike Brandon relaxed and grinned. If the little lady of his heart adopted the stranger, Ike would put aside his prejudice. True, the man was that vanishing rarity, a reputed gunman, uncannily skilled with six-shooter and frowned on by a Western sentiment, new grown, for law and order, which had determined to have peace if it had to wage war ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... can't stoop To sing us out, quoth he, a mere romance; He'd fain do better than the best, enhance The subjects' rarity, work problems out Therewith: now, you're a bard, a bard past doubt, And no philosopher; why introduce Crotchets like these? fine, surely, but no use In poetry,—which still must be, to strike, Eased upon common sense; there's nothing like ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... "No." But the general opinion was on the negative side. Hence I concluded that although there are few duels in Holland, this does not arise, as I thought, from a universal and absolute contempt for the "ferocious prejudice," but rather from the rarity of the cases in which two citizens allow themselves to be carried by passion to the point of having recourse to arms; which is a result of nature rather than of education. In public controversies and private discussions, however violent, personal insults are very ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... the bread, always a rarity and consequent delicacy to Scotch country boys, so early in the century as the date of my story, was too much for Alec's imagination. He jumped up, and put his head out of one of those open panes to reconnoitre. He saw a woman ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... the population. Certainly, the citizens of Asuncion had good and sufficient causes of complaint against the Jesuits. On several occasions the efforts of the Jesuits and their Indians alone had saved the capital from the wild Indians, and benefits are hard to bear, if only from their rarity. ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... madame; not as gauge. Your reach in rarity outsoars my scope. Yet, do you know, a troop of my hussars, That last October day, nigh ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... necessary for children to choke to death with diphtheria. Yellow fever, and small pox in civilized countries are, or could be, wiped from the face of the earth. Malaria is controlled; tuberculosis will shortly be a rarity; typhoid fever and cholera have been eradicated wherever there is sanitation; erysipelas can be controlled; hydrophobia prevented; childbirth fever has lost its tremendous mortality; tetanus can be checked; syphilis and gonorrhea can be controlled; diabetes and pernicious anemia can be ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... English Folk Dance Society is to teach rather than to perform in public. Hence the rarity of their displays, and the better reason why we should seize, when they come, our chances of assisting at these delightful exhibitions of an art whose revival has done so much to restore to the countryside the unpretentious joys that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, July 1, 1914 • Various
... beef were pouring in. In the confusion of tongues that reached him he could, on occasions, catch the tones of Spaniard, Frenchman, Swede, and Italian, together with all the varieties of English speech from Highland Scotch to Cockney; but none of the intonations of his native land. The comparative rarity of anything American in his city of refuge, while it added to his sense of exile, heightened his feeling of security. It was still another of the happy circumstances ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... brag of prosperity? A straiten'd life we see is no rarity; Indeed, we 've been in want, And our living 's been but scant, Yet we never were reduced to need charity; Indeed, we ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... says, "is mainly confined to the natural expressions of a mind rejoicing in the beauties of nature, and throwing itself, with a delight rendered keener by the rarity of its opportunities, into the enjoyment of a life removed, for the moment, from ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne
... over to the majority, and his friend, the Parisian violin-maker Vuillaume, bought the "Messie" from Tarisio's heirs, along with about two hundred and fifty other fiddles, many of which were of the greatest rarity and value. Vuillaume kept the "Messie" in a glass case and never allowed any one to touch it, and many anxious days he passed during the Commune, fearing for his musical treasures. However, they luckily escaped the dangers of the time, and when, in 1875, Vuillaume ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... is one thing in Cooper I like, too, and that is That on manners he lectures his countrymen gratis; Not precisely so either, because, for a rarity, He is paid for his tickets in unpopularity. Now he may overcharge his American pictures, But you'll grant there's a good deal of truth in his strictures; And I honor the man who is willing to sink Half his present repute for the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... planet receives, we can possibly, and for the sake of a clearer understanding of the effects of the varying distance, which is the object of our present inquiry, find a loophole to admit the chance that yet there may be living beings there. We might, for instance, suppose that, owing to the rarity of its atmosphere, the excessive heat was quickly radiated away, or that there was something in the constitution of the atmosphere that greatly modified the effective temperature of the sun's rays. But, having satisfied our imagination on this point, and placed our ...
— Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries • Garrett P. Serviss
... Tonlos. "It is the second hardest metal we know—it is not as hard as chromium, but far less brittle. It is malleable, ductile, very very strong, very tough, especially when alloyed with iron, but those alloys are used only in very particular work because of iron's rarity." ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... to estimate his experience of Lucetta—all that it was, and all that it was not. There are men whose hearts insist upon a dogged fidelity to some image or cause thrown by chance into their keeping, long after their judgment has pronounced it no rarity—even the reverse, indeed, and without them the band of the worthy is incomplete. But Farfrae was not of those. It was inevitable that the insight, briskness, and rapidity of his nature should take him out of the dead blank which his loss threw about him. He ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... on rarity of ghostly evidence. His pamphlet for the Bannatyne Club. His other examples. Case of Mirabel. The spectre, the treasure, the deposit repudiated. Trials of Auguier and Mirabel. The case of Clenche's murder. The murder of Sergeant Davies. Acquittal of the prisoners. An ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... was the innermost nook of the shrine—as brown as a pirate's cave. In the brownness were glints of gold; patches of purple were in the gloom; objects all that caught, through the muslin, with their high rarity, the light of the low windows. Nothing was clear about them but that they were precious, and they brushed his ignorance with their contempt as a flower, in a liberty taken with him, might have been ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... the reverse of this: we value a gift in proportion to its rarity, its distinctive character, separating its possessor from the rest of his fellow-men; whereas, in truth, those gifts which leave us in lonely majesty apart from our species, useless to them, benefiting ourselves alone, ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... concerned by—how many?—by three or four thousand individuals. ('Less,' said Thorns.) To be more precise, by the mental hinterlands of three or four thousand individuals. We who know some of the band entertain no illusions as to their innate rarity. We know that they are just the few out of many, the few who got in our world of chance and confusion, the timely stimulus, the apt suggestion at the fortunate moment, the needed training, the leisure. ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... men and women, to follow him. There was a grand collation for the Princesses, his daughters, who took their friends there, and indeed all the women went to it if they pleased. One day the Duchesse de Gesvres took it into her head to go to Trianon and partake of this meal; her age, her rarity at Court, her accoutrements, and her face, provoked the Princesses to make fun of her in whispers with their fair visitors. She perceived this, and without being embarrassed, took them up so sharply, that they were silenced, and looked down. But this was not all: after the collation she began ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... excite envy in the heart of many a European beauty. The features had nothing in common with the coarse negro type which prevailed in the forest and over the grass-lands, but rather inclined towards a Semitic type. Thick lips were the exception, not the rule, and a broad flat nose was also a rarity. The only sign of barbarity was in the hair which, when the head was not clean shaven, was allowed to grow straight out in every direction, giving a very wild appearance to its owner. The hair of some, however, ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... search of flowers, bearing in mind the Boy's constant plea, to "Get only one of a kind," and leave the rest for seed; for other travelers may come this way, and 'tis a sin indeed to exterminate a botanical rarity. But we find no rarities to-day—only solomon's seal, trillium, wild ginger, cranebill, jack-in-the-pulpit, wild columbine. Poison ivy is on every hand, in these tangled woods, with ferns of many varieties—chiefly ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... going to receive would scarce be sufficient to purchase every thing her sisters wanted. "What will you have, Beauty?" said her father. "Since you are so kind as to think of me, (answered she,) be so kind as to bring me a rose, for as none grow hereabouts, they are a kind of rarity." Not that Beauty cared for a rose, but she asked for something, lest she should seem by her example to condemn her sisters' conduct, who would have said she did it only to look particular. The good man went on his journey; but when he ...
— Beauty and the Beast • Marie Le Prince de Beaumont
... orator, seeing that his presence was no longer in demand, clucked to his team and jogged off reluctantly. A telegram is rather a rarity in Bluff Point and they might have taken pity on a fellow and given him at least a hint of its contents. But there, he didn't want to know anyway—wouldn't if he could! Still, these out-landers were mighty mean, ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point - Or a Wreck and a Rescue • Laura Lee Hope
... of facts which have been here briefly given, it follows that America was known to Europeans and had been colonized before the time of Columbus. But in consequence of various circumstances, and foremost among these must be placed the rarity of communication between the people in the north of Europe and those in the south, the discoveries made by the Northmen were only vaguely known in Spain and Portugal. Judging by appearances, we of the present day know much ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... evening is spent without any vain gossip in the happy companionship of his books. That young man loses no day; but unhappily he represents a type which is but too rare. The steady man, economic of time, is a rarity; but the wild youth who is always going to do something to-morrow is one of a class that numbers only too many on its rolls. To-morrow! The young fellow passes to-day on the river, or spends it in lounging or in active dissipation. He feels that he is ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... molecules. In gas the particles are distant from each other, like gnats flying in the air; in liquids, distant as men passing in a busy street; in solids, as men in a congregation, so sparse that each can easily move about. The congregation can easily disperse to the rarity of those walking in the street, and the men in the street condense to the density of the congregation. So, matter can change in going from solids to liquids and gases, or vice versa. The behavior of atoms in the process ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... thousand on the people at the conclusion of the Dacian war. If the younger Gordian collected together bears, elks, zebras, ostriches, boars, and wild horses, he was an imitator only of the spectacles of Carus, in which the rarity of the animals was as much considered ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... instances where the love of creatures, and even the holier and more sublime love of the Creator, have, in moments of enthusiasm, induced tender females to forget the weakness of their sex and successfully fulfil the spheres of manhood. These scenes, so censurable, are extraordinary more from the rarity of their occurrence than from the motives that inspire them, and thus our tale draws much of its thrilling interest from the unique ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... traveller has, no doubt, met with, I must find a little corner of my canvass for a small number of women who might, probably, be sought in vain out of Paris. However great a recommendation their rarity may be in the eyes of some, still it is not the only quality that points them out to the notice of ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... colour of the lower parts, which are a blackish-grey. The upper parts are sometimes as black as a mole, sometimes grizzled with brown" ('Mammiferes,' p. 284). The brown specimen with the dark belly is evidently a rarity. ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... mean. Any decent Greek scholar when he opens one of his ancient poets feels at once the presence of something lofty and rare—something like the atmosphere of Paradise Lost. But the language of Paradise Lost is elaborately twisted and embellished into loftiness and rarity; the language of the Greek poem is simple and ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... in Chicago: Sept., 1908. DEAR MRS. HOOKWAY,—Although I am full of the spirit of work this morning, a rarity with me lately—I must steal a moment or two for a word in person: for I have been reading the eloquent account in the Record-Herald and am pleasurably stirred, to my deepest deeps. The reading brings vividly back to me ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... was not to make me forget the little I had learned. On one single occasion about sixty males had arrived. Considering the rarity of the Oak Eggar, and remembering the years of fruitless search on the part of my helpers and myself, this number was no less than stupefying. The undiscoverable had suddenly become multitudinous at the call ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... dress, as a general thing, is a pair of loose pantaloons, to which the more elegant add a fancy colored bandanna knotted about the head, with its wing-like ends flying in the wind; but shirts are a rarity in working hours and their absence shows a breadth of shoulder and depth of chest remarkable, when contrasted with the length and lank power in the nether limbs. They are a perfectly careless and jovial race, with wants ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... offered for the best address on the rebuilding of Drury Lane, Sheridan proposed an additional reward for one without a phoenix. Equally acceptable for its rarity would be a squib on Mrs. Piozzi without a reference to ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... it: and it is not mere intellect, it is a sympathetic intellect; or else it is an intellect in perfect accord with an intensely sympathetic disposition;—the rarity of it makes it too precious to be parted with when once we have met it. I prize it the more the older ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... climbing, you begin to notice how cool it feels;—you could almost doubt the testimony of your latitude. Directly east is Senegambia: we are well south of Timbuctoo and the Sahara,—on a line with southern India. The ocean has cooled the winds; at this altitude the rarity of the air is northern; but in the valleys below the vegetation is African. The best alimentary plants, the best forage, the flowers of the gardens, are of Guinea;—the graceful date-palms are from the Atlas region: those tamarinds, whose thick shade stifles all other vegetal life beneath ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... in immediate derivation from it a novel poetry also grows superb and large, to fill a certain mental situation made ready in advance. Yes! the acknowledged, and, so to call it, legitimate, poetry of literature was but a thing he might sip at, like some sophisticated rarity in the way of wine, for example, pleasing the acquired taste. It was another sort of poetry, unexpressed, perhaps inexpressible, certainly not hitherto made known in books, that must drink up and absorb him, like the joyful ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... never abandon his master (a thing which is rarely wont to happen), and was content to work with him for meagre gains and praise, rather than labour by himself for greater profit and credit. For this gratitude, in view of its rarity among the men of to-day, all the more praise is due to Ercole, who, knowing himself to be indebted to Lorenzo, put aside all thought of his own interest in favour of his master's wishes, and was like a brother or a son to him up to ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 3 (of 10), Filarete and Simone to Mantegna • Giorgio Vasari
... had that glitter in them which is caused by a constant and continuous hunger. Six months ago they had only been gay and kind, now they saw the world as it is, as it always must be so long as the human heart is capable of happiness and the human reason recognizes the rarity of its attainment. ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... tending to sustain life; perhaps sometimes indirectly tending to destroy it. All dainty (as distinguished from nourishing) food, and means of producing it; all scents not needed for health; substances valued only for their appearance and rarity (as gold and jewels); flowers of difficult culture; animals used for delight (as horses for racing), and such like, form property of this class; to which the term 'luxury,' or ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... does not find itself ill-matched with accurate drawing of nature. He is above the average Elizabethan, and his very bad taste in The Affectionate Shepherd (a following of Virgil's Second Eclogue) may be excused as a humanist crotchet of the time. His rarity, his eccentricity, and the curious mixing up of his work with Shakespere's have done him something more than yeoman's service with recent critics. But he ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... sound, immediately after which appeared a number of horsemen on fine horses caparisoned and equipped with many beautiful trappings, liveries, and wealth of bands, necklaces, plumes, jewels, and ornaments of gold, precious gems, enamel, and things of great rarity. The ministers of justice followed, and the mace-bearers of the city, besides the magistrates and alcaldes-in-ordinary, who were then Doctor Juan Fernandez de Ledo—a personage worthy of attaining ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various
... of collectors and other mad men, that is to say, he carefully and with a sort of anguish selected the best roots from the less excellent, praised some, disparaged others, made a subtle scale ranging from a thrilling worth and rarity to a degraded insignificance, and then bought them all. The man was just pushing off his barrow when he stopped and came close to ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... Apart from the rarity and beauty of some of the denizens of the reefs, there are others that are singular and interesting, and some whose intimate acquaintance is quite undesirable, save from a scientific and safe standpoint. A miniature marine porcupine decorates its slender spines of white ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... obelisks at Rome I will not strive to give any account, or even any idea. They are too numerous, too wonderful, too learned for me to talk about; but I must not forbear to mention the broken thing which lies down somewhere in a heap of rubbish, and is said to be the greatest rarity in Rome, column, or obelisk and the greatest antiquity surely, if 1630 years before the birth of Christ be its date; as that was but two centuries after the invention of letters by Memnon, and ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... Bainbridge, "that waves and wavelets of poetic feeling are common enough among men—quite as common as mental pictures of beautiful material images; but the rarity is in the word-conception, which I hold must as a rule be spontaneous if it is to convey unblemished the original feeling. The musical genius is able to convey his psychic impression in harmonious sounds; the true poet, in words. To the rest of us the process ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... I?" she added, as a continuation of the same cry, and sobbing pitifully: and the rarity with her of such abandonment only made the ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... that plain was but narrow, so they were quickly got over it. Now at the further side of that plain was a little hill called Lucre, and in that hill a silver mine, which some of them that had formerly gone that way, because of the rarity of it, had turned aside to see; but going too near the brink of the pit, the ground being deceitful under them, broke, and they were slain; some also had been maimed there, and could not, to their dying day, be their ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan
... in the public archives and libraries of Europe, in the family archives of several Spanish noblemen, and in private collections like that at Middle Hill. The printed books, of which there were perhaps a thousand, included many of great value and not a few of extreme rarity. A large mass of private correspondence was also consumed. We are not yet informed whether the same fate has befallen a small but very choice collection of autographs, embracing letters written ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... kaleidoscopic divergencies of adult standards was given Sylvia during the visits of her Aunt Victoria. These visits were angelic in their extreme rarity, and for Sylvia were always a mixture of the beatific and the distressing. Only to look at Aunt Victoria was a bright revelation of elegance and grace. And yet the talk around table and hearth on the two or three occasions when the beautiful young widow honored their roof with a sojourn was ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... offer you the trifles printed at my press, I am glad to have one to send you of a little more consequence than some in which I have had myself too great a share. The singularity of the work I now trouble you with is greater merit than its rarity; though there are but two hundred copies, of which only half are mine.(670) If it amuses an hour or two of your idle time, I am overpaid. My greatest ambition is to pay that respect which every Englishman owes to your character and services; and therefore you must not wonder if an inconsiderable ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... of stalked forms in the ancient formations as compared with their present rarity, seem to present us with a fair case of modification from a more embryonic towards a less embryonic condition. But then, on careful consideration of the facts, the objection arises that the stalk, calyx, and arms of the paleozoic Crinoid are exceedingly different from the ...
— Geological Contemporaneity and Persistent Types of Life • Thomas H. Huxley
... de' Medici in San Lorenzo is interesting, and has been ascribed to Donatello. There is no documentary authority for this attribution, and on stylistic grounds it is untenable.[105] It is a detached tomb, so common elsewhere, but of singular rarity in Italy. The isolated tomb like this one, like that of Ilaria del Carretto, or that of Pope Sixtus IV. in St. Peter's, has great advantages over the tall upright monument applique to a church wall. The latter is, however, the ordinary type of the Renaissance. ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... side of the beautiful Cephalis, first placing the skull in a corner, out of the reach of Mr Cranium, who sate eyeing it with lively curiosity, and after several efforts to restrain his impatience, exclaimed, "You seem to have found a rarity." ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock
... Rarity and density, roughness and smoothness, seem to be terms indicating quality: yet these, it would appear, really belong to a class different from that of quality. For it is rather a certain relative position of the parts composing the thing thus qualified which, it appears, is indicated by each ...
— The Categories • Aristotle
... causeway. A considerable system of railways takes advantage of the same natural narrow issues; but even to those familiar with the country, the complexity of these narrow dry gates or defiles, and their comparative rarity (contrasted with the vast extent of waterlogged soil or of open pool), render an advance against any opposition perilous, and even an unopposed advance slow, and dependent upon very careful Staff work. Columns in ...
— A General Sketch of the European War - The First Phase • Hilaire Belloc
... of a Dial.] There is one Flower deserves to be mentioned for the rarity and use of it, they call it a Sindric-mal, there are of them some of a Murry colour, and some white. Its Nature is, to open about four a clock in the Evening, and so continueth open all Night until the morning, when it closeth up ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... time, protesting that it was the bane of four much better things—health, money, time, and thinking. For the last two, perhaps, he cared little. Before his death he is said to have been a Christian, which was a decided rarity in the fashionable set of his day. Walpole answered, when asked if he was a Freemason, that he never had been anything, and probably most of the men of the time would, if they had had the honesty, have said the same. They were not atheists professedly, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... (see Greville to Walsingham, August 23, 1586, in the State Papers, quoted by O. Sommer in Introd. to facsimile edition, 1891). The remainder of the romance was made up by the Countess of Pembroke from Sidney's loose papers, and published by Ponsonby in 1593. The rarity of the present edition suggests that the publication of the complete work was intrusted to Ponsonby on condition of his recalling the earlier issue. The 1590 edition cannot be regarded as surreptitious, but there was an attempt at a surreptitious edition in 1586, of which Ponsonby gave ...
— Catalogue of the Books Presented by Edward Capell to the Library of Trinity College in Cambridge • W. W. Greg
... Once upon a time, when a red lamp had been a novelty, and the power to write "M. D." after his ordinary signature a delicious dignity, a patient had been to him a prodigy, something precious for its rarity, even if it called him away from his dinner or ruthlessly rang him up in the middle of the night. But that was a long time ago, in the days of his impecunious youth; and now, in his prosperous middle-age, he would often have willingly bartered a good many patients ...
— A Bachelor's Dream • Mrs. Hungerford
... subject. The better class houses of the city are equal to any in the world, but there are scores here within the pale of respectability which are a trial to the fortitude and philosophy of any man. A really desirable house is a rarity here, as elsewhere, and very hard to find. He who is so lucky as to be domesticated in one of these is ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... carriage that, thus released, eventually drew up before the superior public edifice known as the City Hall. From it a woman, closely veiled, alighted, and quickly entered the building. A few passers-by turned to look at her, partly from the rarity of the female figure at that period, and partly from the greater rarity of its being ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... Vienna.—This collection is perhaps inferior only to that of the Vatican, and the National Library at Paris, for the rarity and value of its contents. It was founded by the Emperor Frederick III., who spared no expense to enrich it with printed books as well as manuscripts in every language. By the munificence of succeeding emperors, numerous important and valuable accessions were made to the collection; amongst ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... in Ceylon; their rarity accordingly enhances their beauty. The largest English oak would be a mere pigmy among the giants of these wilds, whose stature is so wonderful that the eye never becomes tired of admiration. Often have I halted on my ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... as a turban in New York. When the daughter of our late minister resident appeared in the cathedral with one, the innovation was the subject of severe remark. The Spanish hair is the glory of the sex. It is thick and black (red, being a rarity, is considered a beauty), and is braided in two long tresses. A silk dress, satin shoes, and fancy jewelry complete the visible attire of ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... was anxious to emphasise the novelty and rarity of his literary adventures. But his attitude to Jamieson is very strange. As early as 1806 Robert Jamieson (1780-1844) had published a volume of Popular Ballads, in which he had translated several of the ...
— Grimhild's Vengeance - Three Ballads • Anonymous
... enjoyment of little pleasures prepared for them? Perhaps the emphasis of his admiration did not fall precisely on this rarest quality in her; perhaps he approved his own choice of her chiefly because she did not strike him as a remarkable rarity. A man likes his wife to be pretty; well, Lucy was pretty, but not to a maddening extent. A man likes his wife to be accomplished, gentle, affectionate, and not stupid; and Lucy had all these qualifications. Stephen was not surprised to find himself in love with her, and was conscious ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... last that was seen was shot at Margate so long ago as 1842,—and there seems to be no official record of any visit before that, since Mr. Thomas Embledon shot one on Newcastle town moor in 1816. But this rarity of visit to us is strange; other birds have no such clear objection to being shot, and really seem to come to England expressly for the purpose. And yet this blue-bird—(one can't say "blue robin"—I think we shall have to call him "bluet," ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... ruinous. The senses are gratified without daintiness. The food is common, but excellent of its kind. The service is simple, yet exquisite. All that is mere show, all that depends on vulgar opinion, all fine and elaborate dishes whose value comes of their rarity, and whose names you must know before finding any goodness in them, are banished without recall. Even in such delicacies as they permit themselves, our friends abstain every day from certain things ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... following Catalogues:—Thomas Thorpe's (13. Henrietta Street, Covent Garden) General Catalogue of the most extensive Collection of Curious Books on Sale in this or any other country, in most Languages and classes of Literature, and including many hundred Articles of the utmost rarity; William Brown's (46. High Holborn) Catalogue of Second-hand English and Foreign Books; Cole's (15. Great Turnstile, Holborn) List No. XXX. of Miscellaneous Second-hand Books; Reeves' and Turner's (98. Chancery Lane) Catalogue No. 14. of Cheap Books, many ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 57, November 30, 1850 • Various
... man and that still more excellent woman that there they are, as busy and as happy as the day is long—which imposes some limit upon happiness, perhaps, inasmuch as to the busy every day is short. But Mrs. Hockin, though as full of fowls as ever, gets no White Sultans nor any other rarity now from Sir Montague Hockin. That gentleman still is alive—so far, at least, as we have heard of; but no people owning any self-respect ever deal with him, to their knowledge. He gambled away all his father's estates, and the Major bought the last of them for his youngest ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... had been inadequately arrived at by others. It was confidently asserted in Si-chow that he possessed every manner of printed leaf which had been composed in whatsoever language, and all the most precious charms, including many snake-skins of more than ordinary rarity, and the fang of a black wolf which had been stung ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... those who transgress the laws does not render indispensable, and none more than death, confirms all the inhuman and unsocial impulses of men. It is almost a proverbial remark, that those nations in which the penal code has been particularly mild, have been distinguished from all others by the rarity of crime. But the example is to be admitted to be equivocal. A more decisive argument is afforded by a consideration of the universal connexion of ferocity of manners, and a contempt of social ties, with the contempt of human life. Governments which derive ...
— A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... Common Executioner: who, in pursuance of the charm, was required to officiate "frizzled, powdered, in a gold-laced coat, pumps, and white silk stockings." At the gallows and the wheel—the axe was a rarity—Monsieur Paris, as it was the episcopal mode among his brother Professors of the provinces, Monsieur Orleans, and the rest, to call him, presided in this dainty dress. And who among the company at Monseigneur's reception in ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... contributions to the party funds are 'public services.' Everything now is to be had for a price, a Chancellery at so much, a Knighthood at so much more; an Order of the this, that, or the other, in exact proportion to its prestige or its rarity. Last year they had a debate on it in the House, a debate where, between them, the corruptors and the corrupted were in a majority! And they solemnly took a vote on it, and declared that there was no corruption, though everybody knew it to be a fact. The Opposition lay ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... more bewitching book. It is useless to deny the rarity and worth of the skill that can report so perfectly and with such exquisite humor all the fugacious and manifold emotions of the modern maiden and ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... specimens, however, let it be remembered, are of the greatest consequence in the study of embryology, and should always be preserved intact in a fluid medium of some kind. Sometimes the operator comes across a foetus of some rarity, which, if not large, can be preserved in a small "preparation" jar, filled with best rectified spirits of wine, as being not too expensive ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... Mordacks, on the whole," said the rector, who studied this man gently, "that sometimes you are rapid in your conclusions. Possibly of the two extremes it is the more desirable; especially in these parts, because of its great rarity. Still the mere fact of some caves existing, in or out of my parish, whichever it may be, scarcely seems to prove that all the people of Flamborough live in them. And even if we did, it was the manner of the ancient seers, both in the ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... its intrinsic interest, is exceptionally important from a book-collector's point of view. It is of the utmost rarity. There is no copy in the British Museum and none in the Cambridge University Library. In fact, there are only two copies known of the whole work—one in the Bodleian (wanting one plate), and that from which the present ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... eat but little, yet she was regularly served with her meals; indeed, I believe, if she had liked any one rarity, that the squire, however angry, would have spared neither pains nor cost to have procured it for her; since, however strange it may appear to some of my readers, he really doated on his daughter, and ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... preferable to their shelter; so each passed the night as best they could. The cattle were started away in the morning, leaving Scrutton and Binney to finish jerking the meat, there being some sunshine, which was beginning to be a rarity, for the wet season had now fairly set in. Twelve miles of wretched country were traversed, white sandy undulating ground, clothed with shrubs and underwood, in the place of grass, and the camp pitched on a low stringy-bark ridge, without water, for in this flat sandy country ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... otherwise. It is true, we hear now and then of some virtuoso playing the Variations, Op. 2, or the Fantasia on Polish airs, Op. 13, nay, we may hear even of the performance of the Trio, Op. 8; but such occurrences are of the rarest rarity, and, considering how rich musical literature is in unexceptionable concert-pieces and chamber compositions, one feels on the whole pleased that these enterprising soloists and trio-players find neither much encouragement nor many ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... designates the appearance of nucleated red blood corpuscles within the first 24 hours after the loss of blood as normal and regular. This view does not correspond with the facts. A single case on one occasion may exhibit a rarity of this kind. ...
— Histology of the Blood - Normal and Pathological • Paul Ehrlich
... And yet, had these coincidences then been observed, they would certainly—now that strong suspicions had been directed to the man from the extraordinary character of his nocturnal precautions—not have passed without investigation. But the remoteness of Bristol, and the rarity of newspapers in those days, caused these indications to pass unnoticed. Bristol knew of no such Knutsford highwayman—Knutsford knew of no such Bristol murder. It is singular enough that these earlier grounds of suspicion against X were not viewed as such by anybody, until they ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... on the latest bit of heroism reported from the front. Now and again an outburst of raucous humor echoed above the babble of cockney tongues. The maudlin clamor of "a pore lone lidy 'oos 'subing 'ad desarted 'er" failed to arouse anyone's curiosity. Ladies in their cups are not a rarity in Walthamstow. In side streets, lads in khaki, many of them fresh from fields of slaughter "somewhere in Flanders," sported boisterously with their factory-girl sweethearts or spooned in the shadows. Everywhere ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... without referring to him. Let these, however, be concluding words that he thought he could by saying everything, and, saying everything twenty times over, for ever render impossible the rehearsal of another great poet. But a work of art is valuable, and pleasurable in proportion to its rarity; one beautiful book of verses is better than twenty books of beautiful verses. This is an absolute and incontestable truth; a child can burlesque this truth—one verse is better than the whole poem, a word is better than the line, a letter is ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... gold, which was coined on state occasions, seems to have been used only as a commemorative medal, to be distributed amongst the great officers of state, and this circumstance explains their extreme rarity. The general character of the coinage, whether of gold, silver, or of the baser metals, of the Burgundian, Austrasian, and Frank kings, differs little from what it had been at the time of the last of the Roman emperors, though the ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... to purchase tallow—examines, covertly, the proposed article from the opposite side of the house, and approves her—is introduced to her, and, on closer inspection, approves her still more—receives an invitation to visit—visits frequently, and each time is more satisfied of the rarity, serviceableness, and quality ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... taken advantage of it; but Duchambon and some of his officers, remembering the mutiny of the past winter, feared to make sorties, lest the soldiers might desert or take part with the enemy. The danger of this appears to have been small. Warren speaks with wonder in his letters of the rarity of desertions, of which there appear to have been but three during the siege,—one being that of a half-idiot, from whom no information could be got. A bolder commander would not have stood idle while his own cannon were planted by the enemy to batter down his walls; and whatever ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... goose species, only with short bowly legs. It was, however, a tractable and homely beast; and after some confabulation, as my lady herself told Mrs Balwhidder, it was received into fellowship by her other ducks and poultry. It is not, however, so much on account of the rarity of the creature, that I have introduced it here, as for the purpose of relating a wonderful operation that was performed on it ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... indeed almost pantomimic; and they walked up and down by the long pink frames with true diplomatic strides. The display was really extraordinarily beautiful: and the particular forms and colors of the different flowers, the advantages of one over the other, and their rarity, gave at last occasion to a sort of conversation which appeared to get quite friendly; at which we others rejoiced the more because we saw the most precious old Rhine wine in cut decanters, fine fruits, and other good things ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... stock from my shelves. She had sold out all the books that had been provided, and in a mad moment of enthusiasm for the cause parted with a volume I had secured after much difficulty in London to complete a set of some rarity for about seven dollars less than ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... Magus, "the finer the diamond, the longer we keep it unsold. The rarity of such investments is one reason for the high value set upon precious stones. As the merchant cannot lose the interest of his money, this additional sum, joined to the rise and fall to which such merchandise is subject, explains the difference ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... taking a gift so valuable, for his apprenticeship as an armourer had taught him the extreme rarity and costliness of so fine a piece of work. Geoffrey, however, would not hear of his refusal, and insisted on his then and there taking off his doublet and putting it on. It fitted closely to the body, descending just below the hips, and coming well up on the neck, while the ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... gold-dust. Sorry she learned the trade. The resulting losses and suffering. Secret of the brilliant successes of former gold-washeresses. Salting the ground by miners in order to deceive their fair visitors. Erroneous ideas of the richness of auriferous dirt resulting therefrom. Rarity of lucky strikes. Claim yielding ten dollars a day considered valuable. Consternation and near-disaster in the author's cabin. Trunk of forest giant rolls down hill. Force broken by rock near cabin. ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... so that you might not meet each other. And, as you know I am very curious, and delight in everything that's singular, I promise my niece in marriage to him that shall bring me the most extraordinary rarity; and for the purchase of the rarity you shall go in search after, and the expense of traveling, I will give you every one a ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... Gnostic elements in early Christian literature Goddesses in forefront of primitive pantheons Gonorrhoea, nature and results of And see Venereal Diseases. Goutte de Lait Greeks, origin of their drama prudery among rarity of ideal sexual love among their attitude towards nakedness their conception of the orgy their erotic writings Group-marriage Gynaecocracy, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... shell-money about their waists in manifold rows. The women wear a bunch of leaves in front and behind. The weapons are the same as elsewhere, except that here we find the feathered arrows which are such a rarity in the Pacific. It is surprising to find these here, in these secluded valleys among the pygmy race, and only here, near Talamacco, nowhere else where the same race is found. It is an open question whether these feathered arrows are an original invention in these valleys, an importation ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... our period closes with Cowper and Burns. The unequaled popularity of Cowper's (1731-1800) poems is owing, in part, to the rarity of good religious poetry, and also to their genuine force and originality. He unhesitatingly made poetry use, always when it was convenient, the familiar forms of common conversation, and he showed yet greater boldness by seeking to interest his readers in the scenes of everyday ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... great, because their beauty, which consists in their luster and their sonorous ring,(722) gives them great value in use; and because, at the same time, their rarity in nature makes the supply of them relatively small,(723) and not susceptible of increase at pleasure.(724) As they contain so large a value in so small a volume, they are adapted to transportation from one place to another, with but little difficulty—a ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... a time, after the Kaboutermanneken's visits had become events of such rarity, there lived a worthy wood-chopper, who had a daughter named Catherine; a pretty little maiden of sixteen, and yet the wisest woman in the kingdom of Kaboutermannekensburg. Shrewd as she was, she had yet the best, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... occupied with seeing how right it is. Good Lord, my dear, in a world given over to the first person perpendicular, can't you see the amazing beauty and rarity of your child's soul? Every day and all day long she gives herself,—to you, to me, to the kiddies, to her friends. She is the eternal mother." Mildred Lorimer was not the eternal mother. She was not in fact ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... his auguries were not intended to excite compassionate acquiescence, but cheerful contradiction, such as both her good sense and her oppressed spirits refused. If he could talk about nothing better than Lucy when alone with her, she could the less regret the rarity of ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of the small number of votes, the rarity of candidates and the frequent refusal of the elected ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... very often with parsimony of writing: but you may discover by the extent of my paper, that I design to recompence rarity by length. A short letter to a distant friend is, in my opinion, an insult like that of a slight bow or cursory salutation;—a proof of unwillingness to do much, even where there is a necessity of doing something. Yet it must ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... according as the whim and inspiration of the editor dictated. The establishment of the paper was undoubtedly a bold attempt at a time when the province was but sparsely settled, and the circulation necessarily limited by the rarity of post-offices even in the more thickly-populated districts, and by the exorbitant rates of postage which amounted to eight hundred dollars a-year on a thousand copies. More than that, any independent expression of opinion was sure to evoke the ire of the orthodox in politics ...
— The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People • John George Bourinot
... are known as dry, in contradistinction to the water presents exchanged between relatives and friends. The latter are wholly, or at any rate in part, articles of food prized among the Chinese for their delicacy or rarity, perhaps both; and so to all appearance are the baskets of choice oranges, &c., sent for instance by a District Magistrate with compliments of the season to His Excellency the Provincial Judge. But the Magistrate and the Judge know better, for beneath that smiling fruit lie concealed certain ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... for making good soldiers, well for making good sailors, well for making sometimes good lawyers; not so well for making good Christians.' Oh! ashes of Hawkins and Raleigh, shudder for the results of 'baccy on degraded human nature.' There must be a rarity of good Christians, then amongst the parsons; they are all fond of it. Dean Aldrich was, perhaps, tho greatest smoker of his day. His excessive attachment to this habit was the cause of many wagers. Here's one:—At breakfast, ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... unsatisfactory aspect of leave from France, apart from its rarity, is the travelling. This, in a region congested by the more important traffic of war, is slow and burdensome to the impatient holiday-maker. Occasionally the Flying Corps officer is able to substitute an excursion by air for the land and water journey, if on ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... discovered in the Tarim basin[922] date from this period. The absence in them of Buddhist personal names and the rarity of direct references to Buddhism indicate that though known in Tibet it was not yet predominant. Buddhist priests (ban-de) are occasionally mentioned but the title Lama has not been found. The usages of ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... tree, creamy white on slate, from base to topmost twig. She pitied the unlovely belar, when the wind sighed through its coarse, scanty, grey-green tresses; and she loved to contemplate the silvery plumage of the two drooping myalls which, because of their rarity here, had been allowed to remain in the horse-paddock. For the last two or three springs of her vivacious existence, she had watched the deepening crimson of the quondong, amidst its thick contexture ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... heaving gently beneath a starlit but moonless sky. A bucket of water, when taken up, was filled with the same half-luminous whiteness, which stuck to its sides when the water was drained off. The captain of the Indiaman was well enough aware of the rarity of the sight to call all the passengers on deck to see what they would never see again; and on asking our captain, he assured us that he had not only never seen, but never heard of the appearance in the West Indies. One curious ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... residence in the main court of the reptile-house itself, as also with the knowledge of its rarity, the Smooth-clawed Frog sets no small value on himself. He lives in water perpetually, and is always bobbing mysteriously about in it with his four-fingered hands spread out before him. This seems to me to be nothing but a vulgar manifestation ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... half-price company of a one shilling gallery, while her heart is bursting with sorrow; add to all these inevitable ills, the constant labour of practice and rehearsal, the caprice of the public, the tyranny of managers, the rarity of excellence, the misery of defeat, and the uncertainty of health and capability, and then might one ask, Who would be an actor, who could be any ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various
... our animals. They did not appear to suffer from the rarity of the air, yet the barometer was at twenty inches eight lines.. We were much surprised that we did not suffer from the cold; on the contrary, the sun warmed us much. We had thrown aside the gloves ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion
... was determined that her wedding should be a romantic one; she said that it was by no means an every-day affair, and therefore it should be carried out in a style proportionate to its rarity. After consulting Mrs. Pendergast, and searching through a pile of 'New York Dashers,' she was much inclined to a midnight wedding, especially as Mrs. Pendergast offered to loan her patent lamp for the occasion; but when they suddenly ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... above the staff with the utmost ease, where most sopranos gasp and shriek. So easily, indeed, does she sing them, that few persons are aware of the dizzy vocal heights which she scales. Mr. King possesses that great rarity, a real tenor voice, pure and sweet, and of great compass. But the charm of the concert consisted not so much in individual excellence as in the combination of the voices in some wonderfully fine four-part ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... to our machine. These necessary adjuncts must be supplied by a man, who is no part of the machine, but something carried by it. The bird is a complete machine in itself. Our aerial ship must be machine plus man. Now, a man is, I believe, heavier than any bird that flies. The limit which the rarity of the air places upon its power of supporting wings, taken in connection with the combined weight of a man and a machine, make a drawback which we should not too hastily assume our ability to overcome. The example of the bird does not prove that man can fly. The hundred ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... I call God to witness how much, as a father, I regard you, with what singular devotion I have always followed you in thought, and how I feared to trouble you with my writings. In sooth, I make it my first care, that since there is nothing else to commend my letters, that their rarity may commend them. Next, as out of that most vehement desire after you which I feel, I always fancy you with me, and speak to you, and beheld you as if you were present, and so, as always happens in love, soothe my grief by a certain vain imagination of your presence, ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... of the riding horses, as in Grecian war the use of chariots preceded the more scientific employment of cavalry, and were the most attractive and splendid part of the exhibition. Sometimes there were no less than forty chariots on the ground. The rarity of horses, and the expense of their training, confined, without any law to that effect, the chariot-race to the highborn and the wealthy. It was consistent with the vain Alcibiades to decline the gymnastic contests in which his physical endowments might have ensured him ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... rarity Of Christian charity Under the sun! Oh! it was pitiful! Near a whole city full, ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... imitation of living nature. The string-course, which runs immediately above their heads, is placed in a very uncommon situation. It is composed of the nail-head ornament, in itself a sufficient proof of its antiquity; and also, as is observed by Mr. Cotman, of such rarity in Normandy, that he does not recollect to have met with another ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... manuscripts and other materials relating alike to England and to America are well known to exist in various public and private repositories on both sides of the Atlantic. Some unique are of the highest rarity, are of great historic value, while others are difficult of access, if not wholly inaccessible, to the general student. It s one of the purposes therefore of the Hercules Club to ferret out these materials, collate, edit and reproduce them with extreme accuracy, but not in ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens
... as large as elephants, with black and white hair, which is short all over the body, except on the shoulders, where it is three spans long, exceedingly fine, pure white, and in many respects more beautiful than silk. I brought some of this hair to Venice as a rarity. Many of these oxen are tamed and broke in for labour, for which they are better adapted, by their strength, than any other creatures, as they bear very heavy burdens, and when yoked in the plough will do twice the work of others. The best musk in the world is found in this province, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... of Youth" is probably the most interesting early-printed moral play that has descended to our times, and it may therefore be considered somewhat singular that it has hitherto escaped the notice of the publication societies. Its great rarity may, however, account for this circumstance, only two or three copies of any edition being known to exist. Waley's edition appeared probably about the year 1554, and has a woodcut on the title-page of two figures, representing Charity and Youth, two of the characters in the interlude. Another ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... chatting with them familiarly, putting himself in their place, entering into their ideas, and making himself their rival. If life was laborious under his ferula, it was also merry. The best proof of this is the fact that of all his colleagues at the lyce he was the only one who had no nickname, a rarity in scholastic annals. ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... him. Then he looked round, and lifted his hand to request silence; and, ascending the chair, rose in full view of all. Every one felt that the Squire was about to make a speech, and the earnestness of the attention was proportioned to the rarity of the event; for (though he was not unpractised in the oratory of the hustings), only thrice before had the Squire made what could fairly be called 'a speech' to the villagers of Hazeldean—once on a kindred ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... In the case of the theatre, it cannot be pretended that the inferior situations have any separate attractions, unless the pit suits the purpose of the dramatic reporter. But the reporter or critic is a rarity. For most people, the sole benefit is in the price. Whereas, on the contrary, the outside of the mail had its own incommunicable advantages. These we could not forego. The higher price we should willingly ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... dated March 1, 1828, we noticed "Gilbert White's Natural History of Selborne, is one of the most delightful household books in our language, and we are surprised at the rarity of such works." The publication of the Journal of a Naturalist, early in March, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, No. - 361, Supplementary Issue (1829) • Various
... is not certain that this period of immense gifts of money is really a period of increased liberality in the church from the time, thirty or forty years before, when a millionaire was a rarity to be pointed out on the streets, and the possession of a hundred thousand dollars gave one a place among "The Rich Men of New York." In 1850 the total wealth of the United States was reported in the census as seven ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... are two sorts of rarity in books; the one absolute, the other conditional or contingent. There are rare editions of very common books. There are books of almost common occurrence in public libraries, which are rarely seen in the market. A book or an edition of which ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys
... bench from judicial bribery has been gradual in most of the European countries. In France it received an impulse in the 16th century from the high-minded chancellor, Michel de L'Hopital. In England judicial corruption has been a crime of remarkable rarity. Indeed, with the exception of a statute of 1384 (repealed by the Statute Law Revision Act 1881) there has been no legislation relating to judicial bribery. The earliest recorded case was that of Sir William Thorpe, who in 1351 was fined ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... our officer friend had us searched again. Here for the first time my two corporal's stripes were noticed and a mild excitement ensued. "Korporal! Korporal!" they exclaimed and crowded up the better to inspect me and verify the report, and jabbering "Ja! Ja!" Apparently a captured corporal was a rarity. Strangely enough, they paid little or no attention to the sergeant of our party, although he had the three stripes of his ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... his pluck in you,— Let a man tread on your coat and he'll see!— Eyes like the lakes of Killarney for clarity, Nose that turns up without any vulgarity, Smile like a cherub, and hair that is carroty,— Wow, you're a rarity, Barney McGee! Mellow as Tarragon, Prouder than Aragon— Hardly a paragon, You will agree— Here's all that's fine to you! Books and old wine to you! Girls be divine to ...
— More Songs From Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... not shirked the metre although it is strangely out of favour in English literature while we read it and enjoy it in German. There is little valid reason for our aversion; the rhythm has been made familiar to our ears by long courses of Greek and Latin and the rarity of spondaic feet is assuredly to be supplied by art ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... Sikyatki with designs which could be identified with any modern picture of a katcina was found, as might be expected, in the former ruin. This small fragment is instructive, in that it indicates the existence of the katcina cult in Tusayan before 1700; but the rarity of the figures of these supernatural beings is very suggestive. The fragment in question is of ancient ware, resembling the so-called orange type of pottery, and is apparently a part of the neck of a vase. The figure represents Wupamo, the Great-cloud katcina, ...
— Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 • Jesse Walter Fewkes
... was the extreme punishment of flogging resorted to by the present master. It had been more common with his predecessor. Of course its rarity made it all the more impressive when ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... keep no account of time, for he never once saw the light of day, and though there were intervals for food and rest, they seemed to be at various times; and from the rarity with which he heard the faint rattle of some passing vehicle, he often thought that the greater part of the work must ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... which she now expected gratis, she would simply have whisked her duster, and said that the lodgings for such people must be looked for down the alley. However, Mrs. Busk, our new landlady, although she had a temper of her own (as any one keeping a post-office must have) was forced by the rarity of lodgers here to yield many points, which Mrs. Strouss, on her own boards, would not even have allowed to be debated. All this was entirely against my wish; for when I have money, I spend it, finding really no other good in it; but ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... translations and exercises of his neither encourage nor forbid any particular expectations of literature from him; they are neither better nor worse than those of hundreds, probably thousands, of boys every year. His first published performance, now of extreme rarity, and not, of course, produced with any literary object, was his Latin call-thesis on the rather curious subject (which has been, not improbably, supposed to be connected with his German studies and the terror-literature of the last decade of the century) of the disposal of the dead bodies of ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... reserves his laurels for posterity (Who does not often claim the bright reversion) Has generally no great crop to spare it, he Being only injured by his own assertion; And although here and there some glorious rarity Arise like Titan from the sea's immersion, The major part of such appellants go To—God knows where—for no one ...
— English Satires • Various |
