"Solitary" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... been more or less my life-long companions. An almost solitary child, with periodical visits to the Elysium of a large family, it was natural to dream of other children and their ways and sports till they became almost realities. They took shape when my French master set me to write letters ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... benefit of country air, his health being injured by literary application and confinement, and to be near his chief employer, Mr. Newbery, who resided in the Canonbury House. In this neighborhood he used to take his solitary rambles, sometimes extending his walks to the gardens of the White Conduit House, so famous among the essayists of the last century. While strolling one day in these gardens, he met three females of the family ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... help him. "There I could have company, physicians, conference with my creditors and friends about my debts and the necessities of my estate, helps for my studies and the writings I have in hand. Here I live upon the sword-point of a sharp air, endangered if I go abroad, dulled if I stay within, solitary and comfortless, without company, banished from all opportunities to treat with any to do myself good, and to help out my wrecks." If the Lords would recommend his suit to the King, "You shall do a work of charity and nobility, you shall do me good, you shall do my creditors good, and it may be you ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... his companions talked of nothing around their solitary camp-fire but the means of escaping from the villanous company into which they were thrown. They saw no resource but to find the Mississippi, and thus make their way to Canada, a prodigious undertaking ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... she ordered. "'I will never utter a single syllable of all this to a solitary living soul.'" Her instructions complied with, she remarked that a great load was now taken from her mind, and asked Gertie for advice on the point whether to go home by ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... to envelop her surroundings, Madeline marked that the fir-trees had given place to pine forest. Suddenly a pin-point of light pierced the ebony blackness. Like a solitary star in dark sky it twinkled and blinked. She lost sight of it—found it again. It grew larger. Black tree-trunks crossed her line of vision. The light was a fire. She heard a cowboy song and the wild chorus of a ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... his villainous instincts for his own private amusement,—occasionally slaughtering one of his warriors who had given him displeasure, or butchering a couple of his wives whose society had grown irksome; and between times he leered with his solitary evil eye upon the traders, contriving ways for getting whiskey with which to bait his passions. The British traders of the Hudson Bay and Northwest companies had long before secured a strong foothold in this territory, and had sought by every means to monopolize ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... to be labouring in vain and spending their strength for nought. "For sixteen years," we are told, "notwithstanding the untiring zeal, the incessant journeys, the faithful exhortations of these devoted men, no spirit of interest or inquiry appeared, no solitary instance of conversion took place; the wars of the natives continued frequent and desolating, and their idolatries abominable and cruel. The heavens above seemed to be as brass, and the earth ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... other visitors was Madame de Puisieux. One day she came clad in gay apparel, bound for a merry-making at a neighbouring village. Diderot, conceiving jealous doubts of her fidelity, received assurance that she would be solitary and companionless at the feast, thinking mournfully of her persecuted philosopher lying in prison. She forgot that one of the parents of philosophy is curiosity, and that Diderot had trained himself in the school of the sceptics. That evening he scaled the walls of the park of Vincennes, ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... when we arrived at the Cascades, but the evening was exceptionally warm. On the square before Straubinger's a great many people were listening to some strolling harpists. I do not know why this solitary mountain pass should have reminded me so strongly of Italy. It recalled to my memory the evenings on the Pincio, when I thought how happy I could be had I Aniela at my side. I now felt her arm resting upon mine, and still more felt her soul close to my own. And thus, ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... libertine. The Portuguese, who two years before had made the discovery of Japan, had been acquainted with him at Cangoxirna, the place of his birth, and understood, from his own mouth, that, having been much troubled with the remembrance of the sins of his youth, he had retired himself amongst the solitary Bonzes; but that neither the solitude, nor the conversation of those heathen priests, had been able to restore him the tranquillity of his soul, and that thereupon he had returned into the world, more disquieted than ever with ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... case was not a solitary one. Too many find when they have toiled for years, That sweet Hope leaves them when their strength is gone; Which fills their future with alarming fears, And nothing for them but despair appears! O, why is this? Have they imprudent been? Or has great sickness sunk them ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... within the brake, The swan that swims upon the lake, 1170 One mate, and one alone, will take. And let the fool still prone to range,[ek] And sneer on all who cannot change, Partake his jest with boasting boys; I envy not his varied joys, But deem such feeble, heartless man, Less than yon solitary swan; Far, far beneath the shallow maid[el] He left believing and betrayed. Such shame at least was never mine— 1180 Leila! each thought was only thine! My good, my guilt, my weal, my woe, My hope on high—my all below. Each holds no other ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... there yet. The woman who kept it had furnished the place with great elegance, and she always had twelve or fourteen well-chosen nymphs, with all the conveniences that could be desired. Good cooking, good beds, cleanliness, solitary and beautiful groves. Her cook was an artist, and her wine-cellar excellent. Her name was Madame Paris; probably an assumed name, but it was good enough for the purpose. Protected by the police, she was far enough ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... the magnificent spectacle of "watery hills in full succession flowing" would appear sufficiently exaggerated. But it is impossible, I think, for the inexperienced mariner, however unreflecting he may try to be, to view the effects of the increasing storm, as he feels his solitary vessel reeling to and fro under his feet, without involuntarily raising his thoughts, with a secret confession of helplessness and veneration that he may never before have experienced, towards that Being whose ...
— The Loss of the Kent, East Indiaman, in the Bay of Biscay - Narrated in a Letter to a Friend • Duncan McGregor
... the pervading intelligence of New England, and a poetry of native growth which they had gathered when they very little thought of it from the mountain-peaks and chasms, and at the very threshold of their romantic and dangerous abode. He had traveled far and alone; his whole life, indeed, had been a solitary path, for, with the lofty caution of his nature, he had kept himself apart from those who might otherwise have been his companions. The family, too, though so kind and hospitable, had that consciousness of unity among themselves and separation from the ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... day they took a walk side by side in a solitary path in the park and discussed the chances of their situation. M. de Saint-Maixent brought before the marchioness the enormous injury which this event would bring them. He then said that even supposing the news to be true, there were many rocks ahead to be weathered before ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE COUNTESS DE SAINT-GERAN—1639 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... truths of religion may be communicated to the mind and the heart in two ways—by abstract treatment, and by illustration. It must be taken up in its absolute connection with God, and with our own souls. In solitary meditation, in self-examination, and in prayer, we shall learn the intrinsic claims which Faith and Duty have upon reason and conscience. But we cannot proceed far before we discover the necessity of some symbol, by which these abstract principles may be made ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... Villon, "do you really fancy that I steal for pleasure? I hate stealing, like any other piece of work or of danger. My teeth chatter when I see a gallows. But I must eat, I must drink, I must mix in society of some sort. What the devil! Man is not a solitary animal - CUI DEUS FAEMINAM TRADIT. Make me king's pantler - make me abbot of St. Denis; make me bailly of the Patatrac; and then I shall be changed indeed. But as long as you leave me the poor scholar Francis Villon, without a farthing, why, of ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... may be vaguely estimated how far they were dependent on gifts and court fees for the means of living with appropriate state. John Knyvet, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, has L40 and 100 marks per annum. The annual fee of Thomas de Ingleby, the solitary puisne judge of the King's Bench at that time, was at first 40 marks; but he obtained an additional L40 when the 'fees' were raised, and he received moreover L20 a year as a judge of assize. The Chief of the Common Pleas, Robert de Thrope, ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... memorial of Jeanne d'Arc, has made this day a central point in his tale, using with the skill of genius the service of the Church appropriate to the day, in heart-rending contrast with those doors of the prison which did not open, and the help of God which did not come to the young and solitary captive. Le beau jour fleuri passed over her in darkness and desertion: her agony and passion lay before her like those of the Divine Sufferer, to whom every day of the succeeding week is specially consecrated. There ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... under the seal of the same obligation. The multitudes of men who were arrayed in the fields of Baylen, and upon the mountains of the North; the peasants of Asturias, and the students of Salamanca; and many a solitary and untold-of hand, which, quitting for a moment the plough or the spade, has discharged a more pressing debt to the country by levelling with the dust at least one insolent and murderous Invader;—these have attested the efficacy of the passions which we have been contemplating—that ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... nothing loath for a chat; then he picked up the old Reeve staff, and explained the ancient method of computing tithes. But Hugh Ritson was in no humor for conversation, and after dinner he set out for a solitary walk. He took the road that turns from the beach through the villages of Chiswell and Fortune's Well. When he reached the top of the hill the sea lay around him; and beneath him, to the right and left of the summit, were the quarries where the ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... not the foot so well:—fanatic enough they are, God knows! and many of them fools enough to boot!—but I will find thee man after man who is fanatic or fool enough, which thou wilt, to love better than thou, thou poor atom of solitary selfishness!' ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... somewhere else. The newspapers were not even off the blinds. The proprietor of the house cowered over a bed-candle and a furtive teapot in the back drawing-room. Lady Kew's gens were not here. The tall canary ones with white polls, only showed their plumage and sang in spring. The solitary wretch who takes charge of London houses, and the two servants specially affected to Lady Kew's person, were the only people in attendance. In fact, her ladyship was not in town. And that is why, no doubt, Barnes Newcome said nothing about ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Solitary as the place was, Archie did not want neighbours. Every night, if he chose, he might go down to the manse and share a "brewst" of toddy with the minister—a hare-brained ancient gentleman, long and light and still active, though his knees were loosened with age, and his voice broke continually ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... agreeable. My lameness and {p.022} my solitary habits had made me a tolerable reader, and my hours of leisure were usually spent in reading aloud to my mother Pope's translation of Homer, which, excepting a few traditionary ballads, and the songs in Allan Ramsay's Evergreen, was the first poetry which I perused. My mother had good natural taste ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... great person has stood alone against the world it has always been the world that lost. The strongest man, as Ibsen argued in his Enemy of the People, is the man who stands most alone. "He will be the greatest," says Nietzsche in Beyond Good and Evil, "who can be the most solitary, the most concealed, the most divergent." Every great and vitally organized person is hostile to the rigid and narrow routine of social conventions, whether established by law or by opinion; they must ever be broken to suit his vital ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... my face and the wind whistling about my ears. God help those who wander into the great mire now, for even the firm uplands are becoming a morass. I found the black tor upon which I had seen the solitary watcher, and from its craggy summit I looked out myself across the melancholy downs. Rain squalls drifted across their russet face, and the heavy, slate-coloured clouds hung low over the landscape, trailing in gray wreaths ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... Schomburgk found forming forests among the mountains of Guiana, up to four thousand feet above the sea. Age after age the Moriche apples floated down the stream, settling themselves on every damp spot not yet occupied by the richer vegetation of the forests, and ennobled, with their solitary grandeur, what without them would have been a dreary ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... away quickly, the boys amusing themselves by exploring their little island, fishing from the bank, and loafing in the shade of the solitary palm, at whose base was supposed to ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... look, turned and made his solitary way to the stern of the ship, and there, all alone, looked away over ...
— The Boy Scouts in Front of Warsaw • Colonel George Durston
... for a moment, then turned abruptly away. Casey, become suddenly quiet, his blustering mood fallen from him, his face thoughtful and white, his eyes dilated, said nothing. He returned to the bar, took a solitary drink, and walked out the door, his right hand concealed beneath his long cloak. McGowan watched him intently, following to the door, and looking after the other's retreating form. Casey walked across the street, but stopped behind ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... was the mother that spoke rather than the wife, for she saw Hortense laughing with her Cousin Betty—the reckless laughter of heedless youth; and she knew that such hysterical laughter was quite as distressing a symptom as the tearful reverie of solitary walks in ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... became the sanctuary of sages, but in America these great living cathedrals of nature had no deeper significance to man. The brought wealth and power to him, and perhaps at times they ministered to his enjoyment of beauty, and inspired a solitary poet. They never acquired a sacred association in the hearts of men as the site of some great spiritual reconcilement where man's soul has its meeting-place with the soul of ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore
... the solitary at the Eyrie, would at once recognize this room as his abode; those of his friends who saw this room for the first time, without knowing it to be his home, would say: "Paul Clitheroe would fit in here." A kind of harmonious incongruity was the chief characteristic ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... necessity, and our catches had been alarmingly small. There was also a lamentable lack of game. Far below we had heard the chatter of the last red squirrel, and seen the last bear signs and the last tree barked by porcupines. There were caribou trails a-plenty, but seldom a fresh track. A solitary rabbit had crossed our trail since we entered the valley, and there were no more rabbit runs visible. We could only hope that as we neared the "height of land," we should find more game—find plenty of caribou, ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... shouldn't you?" she asked, so significantly that even Alma couldn't help understanding her. Tears started to the big eyes as the little girl dropped her bread back into the hollow depths of the pail, replaced the cover, and went away to find a solitary corner, with a sorer spot in her heart ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... comfort Lusignan for the loss of Palestine. By the command of the sultan, the churches and fortifications of the Latin cities were demolished: a motive of avarice or fear still opened the holy sepulchre to some devout and defenceless pilgrims; and a mournful and solitary silence prevailed along the coast which had so long resounded with the world's ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... now been in the Pacific Ocean about three months. On the 24th of February, the "Essex," solitary defender of the flag of the United States in the Pacific, had turned her prow northward from Cape Horn, and embarked on her adventurous career in the most mighty of oceans. Now in May, Porter, as he trod the deck ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... was not entirely obtuse to the morning, to the chirp of a robin, the cluck of the hens, the creak of a hay-wagon, and the sweet smell of cattle. When she arose she looked down a slope of fields so far away that they seemed smooth as a lawn. Solitary, majestic trees cast long shadows over a hilly pasture of crisp grass worn to inviting paths by the cropping cattle. Beyond the valley was a range of the Berkshires with every ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... recovered his wits, he proceeded along the street in an aimless fashion. After drifting for two or three squares, he flowed into a somewhat more pretentious thoroughfare, a way much frequented by him in his solitary ramblings. For here was a row of shops devoted to traffic in goods of the widest range of choice— handiworks of art, skill and fancy, products of nature ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... to coal at Fort-de-France, in the beautiful island of Martinique, and a few days later stopping at Santiago de Cuba, we finally, on May 2, caught sight of a dark, broadening line upon the horizon, behind which soon loomed up in solitary dignity the snow-capped peak of Orizaba; and passing the Cangrejos and the island of Sacrificios, we anchored off the fort of San Juan de Ulloa, where we awaited a clean bill of health from the quarantine officers ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... was conducted in the simplest fashion. Beyond the arrest of the Emperor and the wounding of the Baron de Ladario, the solitary Minister who resisted, nothing happened—nothing, that is to say, of a dramatic nature. Indeed, after the arrest, the chief work of the revolutionists appears to have lain in the obliteration of Imperial badges and the cutting out of similar tokens from their uniforms ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... lights danced, the walls shuk, the floor come up, the ceilin' come down, the sky split, the ground rockt—BANG! With that bang! he lifted hisself bodily into the ar', and he come down with his knees, his ten fingers, his ten toes, his elbows, and his nose, strikin' every single solitary key on that pianner at the same time. The thing busted and went off into seventeen hundred and fifty-seven thousand five hundred and forty-two hemi-demi-semi-quivers, and I ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... of protection" for girls was raised from 10 to 16 years. The penalty is a fine not exceeding $1,000, and imprisonment by separate and solitary confinement at labor, or simple imprisonment, not exceeding fifteen years. No ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... at a trot, but the traveller had not yet thought it worth while to look back and see who was coming after him. Presently he came up to the solitary ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... magazines, and to Punch; a sojourner in the almost inaccessible island of St. Kilda; an archaeological explorer in the islands of the Hebrides; and finally, for thirteen years a hermit, living a hermit's life, solitary and intellectual, at the water's edge, at Walls, Shetland. Many have been the stones that have rolled for Punch, but few that have rolled so far, or gathered so much moss the while. In his more civilised moments, so to speak, Mr. Sands ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... to dictate the desired information she felt a touch on her arm, and looking in the direction of Mr Fanshawe's outstretched hand, beheld a porter approaching the office, trundling before him a truck on which reposed in solitary splendour, a long brown dress-box, and oh, joy of joys! even at the present distance the white letters C.G. could be plainly distinguished on the nearer side! Claire's dignity went to the winds at that sight, and ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... devotion, and the thoughtful visitor feels that he ought to tread its courts with unsandalled feet, for no vulgar idolatry has entered here. This mountain-top still stands above the waves of corruption, and on this solitary altar there still rests a faint ray of its primeval faith. The tablet which represents the invisible deity is inscribed with the name Shangte, the Supreme Ruler, and as we contemplate the Majesty of the Empire before it, while the smoke ascends ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... in question was watching us with all his solitary eye, as though he knew that we were discussing him. Suddenly he broke out in agonized accents, his hands clasped, and a face so full of fear that every moment I expected to see him on his knees. But Raffles answered kindly, reassuringly, I could tell ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... side to the cloak-room; and thence slowly back to his unhomelike rooms at the hotel; a dark solitary figure, with bent head, and a heart full of tumultuous hopes and fears. The events of the evening had stirred him as he had not been stirred since those early days of torment, of undignified oscillation ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... rather that I understand Thy will to help me?—like the dog I found Once, pacing sad this solitary strand, Who would not take my food, poor hound, But whined and licked ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... possibility of doctors reaching them before the coming night, and the thought of all they might have to suffer through the fierce white heat of the intervening day was one that gave the sergeant deep concern. Then, too, who could say whether the solitary trooper would succeed in running the gauntlet and making his way through? He was a resolute old frontiersman, skilled in Indian warfare, and well aware that his best chance was in the dark, but speed as he might the broad light of day would be on him long ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... walk together," answered Philippa readily. "I had been watching the sunset, and the moor seemed so solitary." ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... is true to nature as may be seen any day at Bombay The crows are equally audacious, and are dangerous to men Iying wounded in solitary places. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... then," said Aimery. The duel had swept all cobwebs from his brain and doubts from his heart. "I am a knight of the Sire Christ and of the most noble King Louis, and I can own no other lord. Do your work, King. I am solitary among your myriads, but you cannot ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... unlettered Ignorance defies her scrutiny. Hence, of one period of the world's history, she ever speaks with horror—that "long night of apostasy," during which, like a lone Sibyl, she hid her precious relics in solitary cells, and fleeing from degraded Christendom, sought refuge with the eastern caliphs. "This awful decline of true religion in the world carried with it almost every vestige of civil liberty, of classical literature, and of scientific knowledge; and it will ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... two wood-pigeons, or as when Strephon and Phyllis (for that comes nearest to the mark) are retired into some pleasant solitary grove, to enjoy the delightful conversation of Love, that bashful boy, who cannot speak in public, and is never a good companion to more than two at a time; here, while every object is serene, should hoarse ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... antique hostelry, much to the east of Temple Bar, deep in the quarter that I had inevitably figured as the Johnsonian. Here, on the first evening of my stay, I descended to the little coffee-room and bespoke my dinner of the genius of "attendance" in the person of the solitary waiter. No sooner had I crossed the threshold of this retreat than I felt I had cut a golden-ripe crop of English "impressions." The coffee-room of the Red Lion, like so many other places and things I was destined to see in the motherland, seemed to have been waiting for ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James
... spreads a piece of carpet for me to sit on, and with commendable thoughtfulness shuts out the crowd, who, as usual, immediately begin to collect. The quickness with which a crowd collects in a Persian town has to be seen to be fully comprehended. For the space of half an hour, I sit in solitary state on the carpet, and endure the wondering gaze and the parrot-like chattering of a thin, long row of villagers, sitting astride the high mud wall that encloses three sides of the compound, and during the time find some ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... in a curve of the fiord, a tiny punt came out from behind some crags which formed part of the geo. The punt was propelled by no unskilful hand, although its solitary occupant used a geological hammer more often than an oar. We may judge what Gloy Winwick felt like when he recognised the new-comer to be the dreaded ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... the village, past palm trees and resting camels, toward the north. Breathlessly the men dragged him a long distance over the rising ground. No word of explanation was uttered. Timokles was swept along, till at length the silent, determined company came to a solitary, ruined building. ...
— Out of the Triangle • Mary E. Bamford
... on the solitary scene instantly became an object of all-devouring curiosity to the ducks. The outermost of them began to swim slowly toward the strange four-footed creature, planted motionless on the bank. By twos and threes, the main body of the waterfowl gradually followed ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... Book, informed me that the English Doctor had departed—it was four hours ago—to catch the night express for Paris. Here was the entry— "Dr. J. Foe, Chelsea, London." He had left no other address. "Had he a companion?" No, none. He had passed his time in solitary rambles: but on this, the last day, he had spent some time in writing furiously, up ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... three students entering the room in which the landlady's daughter lay dead—of Barbarossa in his cave—of the child who used to look up at Heine as he passed her in the street, awestricken by his pale and strange face—of the last of the band of companions who sat in the solitary room in which they had sat, and drank to their memory—of the king of Thule, and the deserter from Strasburg, and a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... The engine bells were jingling, the wheels stopped. At the roof's edge, well forward of Hugh, appeared the first clerk, giving commands. The shore trees glided spectrally into the firelight of the steamer's torch baskets. A solitary man stood on the bank. The morning star was fading into the daybreak. In the pilot-house Watson pulled his bell-ropes to back and to stop again, while veiled in its lingering dusk between him and the parson's wife "Harriet" stood at a closed window, a ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... eastern coast of the Island of Sicily, and not far from the sea, rises in solitary grandeur Mount Etna, the largest and highest of European volcanoes. Its height above the level of the sea is a little over 10,870 feet, considerably above the limit of perpetual snow. It accordingly presents the striking phenomenon of volcanic vapors ascending from a snow-clad summit. The ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... the better for me! My title may, in this solitary instance, prove of service to me. It may help to bring me clients. People will be enchanted to be defended ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... Wordsworth, 1889, p. 434), "unalarmed" by any consideration of wit or humour, writes down Voltaire's Optimist (Candide, ou L'Optimisme), which was accidentally discovered by the "Wanderer" in the "Solitary's" pent-house, "swoln with scorching damp," as "the dull product of a scoffer's pen." Byron reverts to these contumelies in a note to the Fifth Canto of Don Juan (see Life, Appendix, p. 809), and ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... silent; the story of the night is not for us to read. Do you think that He, who in the far, dim Life holds the worlds in His hand, knew or cared how alone the child was? What if she wrung her thin hands, grew sick with the slow, mad, solitary tears?—was not the world to save, as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... amidship, and the crew leaped to its pumps as directed, while the newcomer, catching up a line of hose, sprang to the rail and sent a powerful stream of water straight against the solitary rover. ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... voice from within the Parsonage. And Dorothy drew me toward a side door, overhung with ivy, where, sure enough, a dim light burned, 'Twas but a solitary candle stuck upon a dresser at the remoter end of a large and low-ceiled apartment; and in this flickering obscurity we found a tremulous parson in full canonicals, who had united our hands and gabbled half-way through ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... a vocalist. I could, at least, sing as well as some of the theatrical bygones that graced the place. The price of admission in one of these places is simply the price of a drink. I felt in my pocket and found that I had one solitary lonely dime, and swinging aside the green baize door, ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... solitary Inn not far beyond this terrible Bridge, elicited many expressions of astonishment from the people shut up in the house. "We stay but to rest," said Obenreizer, shaking the snow from his dress at the fire. "This gentleman has very pressing ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
... opposed the difficulties presented by such a structure as the form of the giraffe, which ought not to have been the solitary structure it is; also the minute beginnings and the last refinements of protective mimicry equally difficult or rather impossible to account for by "Natural Selection." Again the difficulty as to the heads of flat-fishes has been insisted on, as ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... Joan, and the influence this solitary life, these night silences, had borne in shading her character with the melancholy which was so plainly apparent in her longing to be away. She yearned for the sound of life, for the warmth of youth's ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... a little rain fell after, And from the cloud whither they flew A storm-sweet lark rose in the blue: And his bundle seemed of flowers In his solitary hours. ...
— Songs of Childhood • Walter de la Mare
... gave the Master in the Church of the Annunziata, and stretching out His hands to old folk and little children as He did, before His death, in Galilee. His voice might be heard any moment, as I have imagined it in my lonely hours by the winter fire or on the solitary hills—soft, low, and sweet, penetrating like music to the secret of the heart, "Come unto Me ... and I will give ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... of the month of October, a solitary traveller was pursuing his route across the vast plains which extend from the limits of the state of Vera Cruz through that of Oajaca. It is scarcely necessary to say that the traveller was on horseback—in a country where no one ever thinks of journeying ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... and he read the marriage ceremony with a solemnity that was communicated to all present. The ring was that which had been used at the marriage of Rose's parents, and which she wore habitually, though not on the left hand. In a word, Harry and Rose were as firmly and legally united, on that solitary and almost unknown islet, as could have been the case, had they stood up before the altar of mother Trinity itself, with a bishop to officiate, and a legion of attendants. After the compliments which succeeded the ceremony, the whole party sat down ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... by its hind legs over his shoulder. He felt that his prestige had gone up incalculably in the woodsman's eyes. The woodsman was silent, however, as silent as the wilderness, till they descended the other slope and came in sight of the little solitary camp. Then he said: "That was a mighty slick shot of yourn, d'ye know it? Ye're quicker'n chain ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... followed the trail to the solitary tree facing the sea like a waiting woman with long, wind-blown hair. In the fading light its human aspect brought a sense of comfort to the girl. It made Kobuk's grave seem less lonely. She wished Loll were with her, she would go then and see how the ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... quickly broke the man with whom he lived, and his breaking turned Edmund upon the wide world, equally destitute of money, friends and capacity, not knowing what to do, and having but two shillings in his pocket. He took a solitary walk to that end of the town which went out upon the London Road, and there by chance he met a woman who asked him to go with her to London. He not knowing what to do with himself accepted her offer, and without any more words to the bargain they set out together. The ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... that I should have thought he had done enough solitary travelling in this veld, seeing how his last expedition had ended. He replied that he had, indeed, but everyone here was so bitter against him that no choice was left. Then he added ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... on the honour which still attends the memory of the ancient great, and patriotism there more pathetically deplore the inevitable effects of individual corruption on public glory; but to the man who seeks a solace from misfortune, or is "a- weary of the sun"; how wretched, how solitary, how empty is Athens! ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... a long table was a solitary and lonely-looking figure, supporting one thin old cheek on his hand as he rested his elbow on the table and seemed to be gazing far away into space. She did not know that he was rather deaf, and had not heard her enter, and she stood and looked ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... "The solitary poetical composition of our family," said Fordham, "chiefly memorable, I fear, for the ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... study no longer sufficed to gratify his insatiable curiosity. Ends of candles carefully collected in the kitchen, the corridors and the refectory of the college, and placed on a hearth concealed by a screen, served during the night to illuminate the solitary studies by which Fourier prepared himself for those labours which were destined, a few years afterwards, to adorn his name ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... for praise and blame. He feared his aunt's scrutiny, for she had sharp perceptions, and he could have endured anything better than that she should spy upon his sacred pain. So he sat by her side, passionately solitary amid a crowd and longing to hide himself from the ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... wife of the preceding, a tall, lachrymose woman, was the one solitary devotee of the village of Les Artaud. Whenever she had been to communion, she hung about the parsonage, knowing that the priest's servant always kept a couple of loaves for her from the last baking. ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... Mr. Liston!—the tragic heroines sauntering languidly through their parts in bonnets and thick shawls,—the untidy ballet-girls" (there was a dance in "Foscari") "walking through their quadrille to the sound of a solitary fiddle,"—she was never weary of calling up for the amusement ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... School boys slowed down and turned around. They found themselves looking at a solitary skater who had slowed down. He was Fred Ripley, son of Lawyer Ripley, one of the wealthy men of the town. Fred was never over polite to those whom he considered as his "inferiors." Besides, young Ripley was now in his freshman year at the Gridley High School. As ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... be a sort of night-light, to assist its illumination, coarse lamps are useless. They would douse the book. The light for such a book must accord with it. It must be, like the book, a limited, personal, mellow, and companionable glow; the solitary taper beside the only worshipper in a sanctuary. That is why nothing can compare with the intimacy of candle-light for a bed-book. It is a living heart, bright and warm in central night, burning for us alone, holding the gaunt and towering shadows at bay. ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... many miracles of healing were wrought, and he advised her to go secretly and ask counsel of the Prior. So under pretence of seeking for another leech, the Lady Alice rode south, and on the third day she came to the place. The monastery stood very solitary in a valley with much wood about it; the walls rose fair and white, with a tall church in the midst, all lit with a heavenly light of evening. And the Lady Alice felt in her burdened heart that God would be gracious and ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... for introduction is my brother-in-law, Master Gerald Rubislaw. He is the solitary male member of the family of which my wife and the Twins form the female side. He is, I think, fourteen years of age, and he is at present a member of what he considers—very rightly, I think; and I should know, for I was there ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... her in as unprejudiced a manner as the one quoted. A letter from her father during this trip said: "Would it not be wise to preserve the many and amusing observations by the different papers, that years hence, in your more solitary moments, you and maybe your children can look over the views of both the friends and opponents of the cause?" This was the beginning of the scrap books carefully kept up ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... permitted to say "by," for before he could fairly get the word out, Betty was whisked away, and Mr. Bombus stood solitary and alone under a bare maple-tree, chuckling to himself in an amused fashion and, it must ...
— Dreamland • Julie M. Lippmann
... was left a whole year alone in the wilderness. The charm of its life was so great for him that after two years more he returned to North Carolina, sold his farm, and came to Kentucky with his family. Other families joined them, and the little settlement founded in the woods where he had ranged solitary with no friend but his rifle and with ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... quiet autumn afternoon when I stopped at the solitary station, and set forth alone on foot by the well-remembered road. The waning sun was shining faintly through thin white clouds—the air was warm and still—the peacefulness of the lonely country was overshadowed and saddened by the influence of the ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... us; there was going to be no relief, and we had been only dreaming horrid dreams—that was the verdict of our eyes and looks. There was but scant time, however, for thinking, even if one could have thought with any sense or logic. The skies were blushing rosier and rosier; a solitary crow, that had lived through all that storm, came from somewhere and began calling hoarsely to its lost mates. We were dead with sleep; we ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... host offered by the invisible hand of God to the adoration of the faithful who pray, lament and die by night; when these ever-new splendors dazzled my troubled soul; when I felt myself seized with that poignant admiration which makes solitary hearts find almost grief in joys that cannot be shared, it seemed to me that a dear voice came to calm my excitement, and exclaimed, with fervor, "Is not the night beautiful? What happiness in ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... affected, and, had she been of a softer moral and intellectual fibre, would have been still more so, by the strange and solitary anguish of her life. Walking to and fro, with those lonely footsteps, in the little world with which she was outwardly connected, it now and then appeared to Hester,—if altogether fancy, it was nevertheless too potent to be resisted,—she felt or fancied, then, that the scarlet letter had endowed ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... first hour there was a constant moving to and fro and the taking up of new positions by the passengers—a hum and buzz of conversation—laughing—exclamations—gay talk and enthusiasm. Then a quieter tone prevailed. Solitary individuals took places of observation; groups seated themselves in pleasant circles to chat, and couples drew away into cabins or retired places, or continued ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur |
