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More "Peculiarity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... generally be said, that in the county of Lancaster, Catholics as well as Protestants displayed a firm attachment to the reigning family. Instances of defection were very rare; and, when they occurred, might be imputed to some peculiarity in the situation of the delinquents rather than to party or religious feelings. The romantic attempt of the young Chevalier, as displayed in this rebellion, had in it something imposing to ardent and enthusiastic minds; and those who ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... the first time he saw that her foot was caught in a wolf trap. This explained the peculiarity of gait he had noticed from above. She had been dragging the heavy Newhouse trap and the clog with her as she walked. One glance at her face was enough to show how ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... him. It might be thought that he was overburdened with self- esteem, and unduly opinionated; but, in fact, he was but overanxious to secure the good-will and agreement of all with whom he came in contact. There was some peculiarity in him—some element or bias in his composition that made him different from other men; but, on the other hand, there was an ardent solicitude to annul or reconcile this difference, and to prove himself to be, in fact, of absolutely ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... was consciously the one end and aim of their being. To bring the true religion to its perfection, and to give it a world-wide diffusion and sway, was felt by them to be their heaven-appointed mission. The peculiarity of their faith made them stand alone, and rendered them exclusive, and intolerant of the surrounding idolatries. The mountainous character of their land, separated by Lebanon from Phoenicia, and by the desert from the nations on the East and South, ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... times there is no trace of hatred or spite in his eyes, but a great deal of humour, and that peculiar fox-like slyness which is only to be noticed in very observant people. Since I am speaking about his eyes, I notice another peculiarity in them. When he takes a glass from Katya, or listens to her speaking, or looks after her as she goes out of the room for a moment, I notice in his eyes something ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... is the Holy Spirit uniting himself with the church in its imperfect and militant condition. Nevertheless, it is according to literal Scripture that the body of the faithful is indwelt by the divine Spirit. In this fact we have the distinguishing peculiarity of the present dispensation. "For he dwelleth with you and shall be in you!" said Jesus, speaking anticipatively of the coming of the Comforter; and so truly was this prediction fulfilled that ever after the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit is spoken ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon
... and on Reversion to ancestral characters, or atavism, are profoundly suggestive. What can be more wonderful, the author asks, than that some trifling peculiarity should be transmitted through a long course of development, and ultimately reappear in the offspring when mature or even when old? Nevertheless, the real subject of surprise is not that a character should be inherited, but that any should ever fail to be inherited. Gradually ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... gesticulation and divided by dialects, do not appear to make general use of a systematic sign language, but they adopt an expedient rendered possible by the peculiarity of their written characters, with which a large proportion of their adults are acquainted, and which are common in form to the whole empire. The inhabitants of different provinces when meeting, and being unable to converse orally, ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... though her expectations were still more warmly excited by this delay, she bore it with becoming patience. There was no doubt, however, that the arrival had made a great commotion in the house, and Lucy perceived without in the least understanding it, a peculiarity in the looks which various of the people around her cast upon her during the course of the day. Her own maid was one of these people, and Mrs. Freshwater, the housekeeper, who explained in a semi-apologetic tone ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... forenoon, and lingered awhile to see the sports. The greatest peculiarity of the crowd, to my eye, was that they seemed not to have any best clothes, and therefore had put on no holiday suits,—a grimy people, as at all times, heavy, obtuse, with thick beer in their blood. Coarse, ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... handsome women. Sometimes they had children with them, but these were very few; the most I saw with any one family was three, and many seemed to possess none at all. Both the women and the children, like the men, were decently clothed in long, white garments, another peculiarity which showed that these natives were no ordinary ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... when he's gone,' the mother said. She would have liked me to kiss a book to seal the oath. Anxiety about the safety of their 'homes,' that is, the assurance of an untroubled reception upon their customary camping-ground, is a peculiarity of the gipsies, distinguishing them, equally with their cleanliness and thriftiness, from mumpers ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... so-called because he constructed such pleasing images with his serpentine form. But he did inform them that the monstrous reptile he possessed—one which, by the way, was only nine feet long—was always furnished in the cold weather with sawdust into which he could burrow, on account of the peculiarity always practised by creatures of its kind of swallowing its own blankets; and he did deliver an eulogy on his big black bear, and encourage the young gentlemen to furnish it with buns; but he did not confess to the fact that it was his ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... One peculiarity, exceedingly annoying to an Englishman, which is observable even in good society in New York and elsewhere in America, is a prying curiosity as to the affairs of those with whom they converse. Their habits at table also often fill one ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... surface veins of the legs, the condition known as varicose veins, is not a peculiarity of pregnancy. Anyone who must be on his feet a great deal is liable to suffer from this ailment. It is true, nevertheless, that pregnancy increases the likelihood of the development of varicose veins. The walls of the vessel are generally ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... The chief peculiarity of those Puritans—once called Nonconformists, afterwards Presbyterians and Independents—was their reception of the creed of John Calvin, the clearest and most logical intellect that the Reformation produced, though not the broadest; who reigned ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... Another peculiarity distinguished him from all the rest of the student body: he roomed by himself. Although invariably courteous and polite to visitors, he was never known to extend an invitation for a second visit. He quite obviously wanted to be left alone, and the ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... and kind. The gray hair was arranged in rows of little quaint old-fashioned curls on either side of the head, under a plain lace cap. At one corner of the mouth there was a mark, apparently a mole, which added to the characteristic peculiarity of the face. I looked and looked, fixing the portrait thoroughly in my mind. This woman, who had almost insulted me and my relatives, was, beyond all doubt or dispute, so far as appearances went, a person possessing unusual ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... thoughtfully; "I was a singer." But she seemed to say this not as a thing to be proud of, but only because it happened to be true; and, indeed, it was a peculiarity of this woman that she appeared nearly always to think—if but for half a moment—before she spoke, and to say things, whether about herself or others, only because they were the truth. The reader who shall condescend ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... what may be called the Sugar-loaf group, which leads to the Lagoa of Rodrigo Freites, through which gorge a small rivulet of fine fresh water runs to the sea. Just at its mouth, there has long been a village inhabited by gipsies, who have found their way hither, and preserve much of their peculiarity of appearance and character in this their trans-atlantic home. They conform to the religion of the country in all outward things, and belong to the parish of which the curate of Nossa Senhora da Monte is pastor; but their conformity does not appear to have influenced their moral habits. ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... of a male dancer's outfit is his gloves. I have never seen a man dancing without them. These are usually of wolverine, or of reindeer with elaborate trimmings, but on ordinary occasions any kind will do. The women do not share this peculiarity. In place of gloves they wear handlets of grass decorated with feathers of duck or of ptarmigan. The men in the Totem Dances also wear handlets which are carved and painted to represent the particular totem they seek to honor. These too are fantastically decorated ...
— The Dance Festivals of the Alaskan Eskimo • Ernest William Hawkes
... difficult to explain," answered the engineer. "However, I should be disposed to conjecture that this peculiarity results from the situation of the island in the southern hemisphere, which, as you know, my boy, is colder ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)
... all things to all men, without losing a single portion of her own natural character; a peculiarity of which seems to be the desire, as well as the power, of sending all away who approach her satisfied with themselves and delighted with her. Yet there is no unworthy concession of opinions made, or tacit acquiescence yielded, to conciliate popularity. She assents to or ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... observe that the Arabic booss answers exactly to the vulgar word in English for kiss.[3] The name of a raven is one of many remarkable examples of a word being chosen to imitate in sound some peculiarity of the thing signified. In this case, kak irresistibly reminds one of the raven's croaking voice; which we describe by caw. Kass, scissors, is also an imitation of the sound produced by this instrument ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... habit to leave her demonstrations—even her sentences—unfinished, a peculiarity arising partly from her need of hastening to prevent some pot from boiling over and partly from her failing powers. She had been handsome once—but the heat of the stove, the steam of the washtub, and the vexation and prolonged effort of her daily life had warped and ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... the rest, seemed attracted by the very peculiarity of this poor stranger. He drew near, took Nell's hand from his mother, and looked directly at her, while something like a smile curved her lip. "Nell," he said, "Nell, away down there—in the ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne
... this is mere worldly vanity. You alone, my dear son," he went on with slight severity, "seem to be wanting in some criminality, or—shall I say?—some appropriate besetting sin to qualify you for this holy retreat. An absolutely gratuitous and blameless idiocy appears to be your only peculiarity, and for this you must do penance. From this day henceforth, I make you doorkeeper! Go on with your shoveling at present, and shut the door behind you; there's a ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... to this the name of an Indian who probably did fall a victim to his friendship to the Spaniards. This name, as a sort of guarantee for the rest of his story, the native scribe inserted in place of the genuine one. The peculiarity of the figure is that it has an arrow or dagger driven into its eye. Not only is this mentioned by Cogolludo's informant, but it is represented in the paintings in both the "Books of Chilan Balam" ...
— The Books of Chilan Balam, the Prophetic and Historic Records of the Mayas of Yucatan • Daniel G. Brinton
... extraordinary power to froth and effervesce. The water, as it was dashed about the decks in the morning from the buckets, sparkled like champagne; but perhaps that was owing more to the nature of the atmosphere than to any peculiarity in the water. ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... of a little peculiarity which distinguished the robbers of Huamantla. It seems that no less a personage than the parish priest was accustomed to lead his parishioners into action, like the Cornish parson in old times when a ship went ashore on the coast. What has become of his reverence ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... strange. She had seen so much error among the popular religious denominations and had felt such bondage when meeting with them, that she worshiped with a few spiritual people in a little prayer-meeting. Because of this peculiarity, he had even feared that her mind was affected; but now, when he saw her fortitude under deep trial, he felt that surely there was an unseen power supporting her—a power that he secretly longed to possess, although the time for attaining it he ...
— The value of a praying mother • Isabel C. Byrum
... them may be traced to a very remote period. The semi-circular east end, with a roof of high pitch, the windows separated by shallow buttresses, or by slender cylindrical pillars, and the grotesque corbel-table, are, all of them, characteristics of the early Norman style: a greater peculiarity of the present building, and one indeed that is found in but few others, lies in the small semi-circular chapels attached to the sides ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... white under side, and, the breeze being away from the raft, the fire-ball and its victim slowly floated off together. There were frequently a dozen of these great globules in sight at once, rising and descending, the observers noticing one peculiarity, viz., that their brightness increased as they rose, ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... was a very ancient musical instrument, and was called clarsach. It had thirty strings, with the peculiarity that the front arm was not perpendicular to the sounding board, but turned considerably towards the left, to afford a greater opening for the voice of the performer, and this construction showed that the accompaniment of the voice ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... most obvious peculiarity was that he knew everything and had been everywhere. If pirates were mentioned he flowered out at once into an adventure upon the sea; if bandits, on the land. If it was Wall Street he had a reminiscence and a scheme; if gambling, a hard-luck ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... amethyst, or purple quartz, is tinged with a little iron and manganese. Rose quartz, or false ruby, derives its colour from manganese. Avanturine is a beautiful variety of quartz, of a rich brown colour, which, from a peculiarity of texture, appears filled with bright spangles. Small crystals of quartz, tinged with iron, are found in Spain, and have been termed hyacinths of Compostella. Flint, chalcedony, carnelian, onyx, sardonyx, and bloodstone, or heliotrope, and the numerous varieties of agates, are principally ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 560, August 4, 1832 • Various
... Beccarelli, like all the other priests of his ilk, abused both sexes, and he said mass without confessing himself of his lecheries. As his cult grew he began to celebrate travestied offices in which he distributed to his congregation aphrodisiac pills presenting this peculiarity, that after having swallowed them the men believed themselves changed into women and the women ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... whether this self-satisfied, self-glorifying quality, which distinguishes mediaeval passion from the passion (always regarded as an interlude, harmless or hurtful, in civic concerns) of unromantic Antiquity—whether, I say, this peculiarity of mediaeval love is due to its having served for religious as well as for secular use, or whether the possibility of its being brought into connection with the highest mysteries and aspirations was ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... called the Order of Sempringham, was that of the reformed Cistercians. Its founder was Gilbert, son of Sir Josceline de Sempringham; he was Rector of Saint Andrew's Church in that village, and died in 1189. The chief peculiarity of this Order was that monks and nuns dwelt under the same roof, but their apartments were entered by separate doors from without, and had no communication from within. They attended the Priory Church together, but never mixed among each other except on the administration of ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... that line which separates western from eastern Europe, and in constant communication with the latter, Venice possessed a greater admixture of character and costume, than any other of the numerous ports of that region. A portion of this peculiarity is still to be observed, under the fallen fortunes of the place; but at the period of our tale, the city of the isles, though no longer mistress of the Mediterranean, nor even of the Adriatic, was still rich and powerful. Her influence was ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... 9. The greatest peculiarity of the method is, that it requires the pupil to speak or write a great deal, and the teacher very little. But both should constantly remember that grammar is the art of speaking and writing well; an art which can no more be acquired without practice, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... peculiarity. Fish contains a large quantity of phosphorus and hydrogen, that is to say of the two most combustible things in nature. Fish therefore is a most heating diet. This might legitimate the praise once bestowed on certain religious orders, the regime of whom was directly opposed to the commonly ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin
... apiece, but the Sabines had two, and in later times the Sabine system was generally followed. A Roman boy had, therefore, a given name and a family name, which were indispensable; but he might have two others, descriptive of some peculiarity or remarkable event in his life—as "Scvola," left-handed; "Cato," or "Sapiens," wise; "Coriolanus," of Corioli. "Appius Claudius Sabinus Regillensis" means Appius of the Claudian family of Regillum, in the country of the Sabines. "Lucius Cornelius ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... him with a dry, sardonic laugh, "precisely what all the advocates of the fair American said at that time. But I tell you, that her peculiarity is exactly the daring with which she ventures upon the most dangerous steps. She does not pretend to avoid difficulties; she crushes them. Her prudence consists in carrying imprudence to ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... historical; it was built by Brandeis on a mortgage, and is now occupied by the chief justice on conditions never understood, the rumour going uncontradicted that he sits rent free. I do not say it is true, I say it goes uncontradicted; and there is one peculiarity of our officials in a nutshell,—their remarkable indifference to their own character. From the one house to the other extends a scattering village for the Faipule or native parliament men. In the days of Tamasese this was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a number of naturalists that certain animals seem to carry the development of a peculiarity altogether too far. It is seen for instance that in the Irish Elk, which has for some time been extinct, the horns were so enormous as to be a source of danger rather than of assistance to their owner. It was said that the tendency to produce ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... certain places where otherwise I should have been any thing but welcome. It also satisfied a spirit of adventure which I possess, and led to the experience which I am now about to relate. Miss Sterling, my brother has one peculiarity. He can be intrusted to carry a message, and forget it ten minutes after it is delivered. This being generally known in town, I was not at all surprised when one evening, as I was traversing a very dark street, I was met and ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... have discovered his weakness. It is my fatal. peculiarity that I cannot be with people ten minutes without seeing some point about them where they are tenderest. Mr. Pollingray wants to be thought quite youthful. He can bear any amount of fatigue; he is always fresh and a delightful ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... yours, and consequently, I should conclude, a relative. There is, I believe, only one family in England of your name. Excuse me, Miss Horsingham, for so personal a remark, but I am convinced he must have been a near connection from a peculiarity which every one who knows anything about our old English families is aware belongs to yours: my poor friend Charlie had a beautiful 'hand.' You, madame, I perceive, own the same advantage; therefore I am convinced you must be a near connection of my old comrade. You may think me impertinent, ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... charmed us in the first act is echoed by mixed voices. The ballet which follows is a prettily exotic one, with an introductory cadence marked by the Oriental scale, out of which the second dance melody is constructed—a scale which has the peculiarity of an interval composed of three semitones, and which we know from the song of the priestesses ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... be most unjust so to speak of Russian serfdom as to convey the impression that it ever was quite so bad as American slavery is. It is the peculiarity of American slavery, that it has no redeeming features. Long before it had become so odious as we see it, and before its existence was found incompatible with the peaceful prevalence of a constitutional system of government, its character was emphatically summed up in a few words by a great man, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... Knowing his peculiarity, some youthful pages in the train of the nobleman were minded to have some amusement at his expense, and they therefore led him to a cellar in which stood a large vat filled with fragrant wine. And there for a ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... The peculiarity of the woman is her duality, her double power. She can, by an act of volition, become hypnotic, clairvoyant—whatever you choose to call it. Or, if her visitor is at all sensitive, she can reverse the situation and play the part of the ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... rest from the fatigues of that laborious day. We found these ponds in situations which seemed rather elevated above the adjacent plains, at least their immediate banks were higher; hence we usually came upon them where we least expected to see water, before we were acquainted with this peculiarity of the country. The pond where we now encamped was connected with several others that were dry, but it was quite impossible at that time to discover which way the current ran in times of flood. The latitude was 30 degrees 6 minutes ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... never quite recovered, met with rather a serious accident through a young horse in the harvest-field, and the report reached his wife that he was killed. To the shock she thus received was generally attributed the peculiarity of the child, prematurely born within a month after. He had long passed the age at which children usually begin to walk, before he would even attempt to stand, but he had grown capable of a speed on all-fours that was astonishing. When at last he did walk, it was for more ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... in Dedham a very old house of somewhat superior style, which had been built, if not in 1630, at least within a very few years after. It was inhabited by three sisters named Fairbanks, who were very peculiar indeed, and their peculiarity consisted in a strange devotion to the past, and above all to old English memories of colonial times before the Revolution. Even in England this resistance can hardly be understood at the present day, and yet it may still be found alive in ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... ardent devotees of the goddess Nicotina; and as it seemed probable that the smoking-room would be the most-used room in the building, they very wisely determined that it should also be one of the largest. Another peculiarity which we notice is that, with the exception of the space over the massive and elaborately carved black marble mantelpiece—which is occupied by an enormous mirror—the walls are almost entirely covered with pictures in oils, ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... of which suggests to the looker-on ideas of nightmare and apoplexy. As the head peers out from the membrane, contracted about the body and investing it as in a bag, and the strange creature chews a piece of apple presented by its keeper, the least curious observer must be struck with the peculiarity of the position, and cannot fail to admire the velvety softness and great elasticity of the membrane which forms its wings. It must have been from an exaggerated account of the fox-bats of the Eastern Islands that ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... style, it was worthy of the matter;—it had not even those politic contrivances of structure which make up for the commonness of the thoughts by the peculiarity of the manner nor that stately poetical phraseology by which sentiments mean in themselves, like the blacksmith's [138] apron converted into a banner, are so easily gilt and embroidered into consequence. Then as to the versification it was, to say no worse of it, execrable: it had neither ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... extent, and shows his literary, if not his moral, character; is, in general, that sort of expression which his thoughts most readily assume; and, sometimes, partakes not only of what is characteristic of the man, of his profession, sect, clan, or province, but even of national peculiarity, or some marked feature of the age. The words which an author employs, may be proper in themselves, and so constructed as to violate no rule of syntax, and yet his style ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... of Europe paid to the oak, and the connexion which they traced between the tree and their sky-god, were derived from the much greater frequency with which the oak appears to be struck by lightning than any other tree of our European forests. This peculiarity of the tree has seemingly been established by a series of observations instituted within recent years by scientific enquirers who have no mythological theory to maintain. However we may explain it, whether by the easier passage of electricity through oak-wood than through any other timber, ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... water. As we sailed along some queer lookin' boats, lookin' some like corn houses standin' on end, bulged out towards us from the shore. They said they wuz cargo lighters to onload ships, and mebby they wuz. And one peculiarity I see that I despised. The natives all seemed to wear their shirts over their pantaloons, hangin' loose, and some on 'em didn't have on any pantaloons, jest the shirt, and some not even that, jest a sash or so tied ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... stood speechless, motionless, meeting his glance without a twitching of an eyebrow, nor a tremor of the hand, I imagine that he began to consider me with an even closer intentness than before. And that the—to say the least of it— peculiarity of my appearance, caused him to suspect that he was face to face with an adventure of a peculiar kind. Whether he took me for a lunatic I cannot certainly say; but, from his manner, I think it possible he did. He began to move towards ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... thread, wool, etc.; and after each fertilisation the stigma was examined with a lens to see that there was sufficient pollen on it. Plants of all three forms were protected during two years by large nets on a framework; two plants were used during one or both years, in order to avoid any individual peculiarity in a particular plant. As soon as the flowers had withered, the nets were removed; and in the autumn the capsules were daily inspected and gathered, the ripe seeds being counted under the microscope. I have given ...
— The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species • Charles Darwin
... A peculiarity of Hazel's case which was quite obvious was her lack of apperception concerning her own interests. Her lies all along, after her identity was discovered, were so easy to trace, and they so quickly rebounded upon her, that there seemed every reason ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... establishments for the accommodation of a transitory diurnal multitude. But a more important change awaits the venerable town. An immense accumulation of musty prejudices will be carried off by the free circulation of society. A peculiarity of character of which the inhabitants themselves are hardly sensible will be rubbed down and worn away by the attrition of foreign substances. Much of the result will be good; there will likewise be a few things not so good. Whether for better or worse, ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... mention one other peculiarity of Mr Harding. As we have before stated, he has an income of eight hundred a year, and has no family but his one daughter; and yet he is never quite at ease in money matters. The vellum and gilding of "Harding's Church Music" cost more than any one knows, except ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... true, that Christ's followers are Christ's scholars, and that He is their Rabbi and Teacher. Only the peculiarity, the absolute uniqueness, of His attitude and action as a Teacher lies in two things: one, that His main subject was Himself, as He said, 'I am the Truth,' and consequently His characteristic demand from His scholars was not, as ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... thought crimsoned her cheeks; she had found the key to the enigma. Three nights before her father had talked of Washington and the East with a sort of exultation. At the time she had not paid much attention to this, though it had struck her as very different from his habit. Now the peculiarity of it confirmed her suspicion. In some way or other his action in resigning was connected with his inexplicable high spirits. A wave of indignation swept over her. Not that she felt the disgust which had sickened the Professor when he first heard of the ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... France (in 1576), had a quarrel with M. de Rosny, during which he told him that if he were to pull his nose, he could only draw out milk; a taunt to which the future minister replied by an assurance that he felt strong enough to draw blood out of that of his adversary with his sword. The peculiarity of this quarrel existed in the fact that, although De Rosny was a Protestant, and Frontenac a Catholic, M. de Turenne nevertheless espoused the cause of the latter; upon which M. de Lavardin, a Catholic, declared himself ready to second the arms ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... escapades; nor had any person a reason for security in the extraordinary obligations, whether of hospitality or of religious vows, which seemed to lay him under some peculiar restraints in that case above all others; for such circumstances of peculiarity, by which the murder would be stamped with unusual atrocity, were but the more likely to make its fascinations irresistible. Hence he dallied with the thoughts of murdering her whom he loved best, and indeed exclusively—his wife Caesonia; and ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... tolerably common in New South Wales, is but a rare visitor to the hotter climate of Northern Queensland. The plumage of the adult male is of a glossy satin-like purple, appearing almost black, whilst the females and the young are all of an olive-greenish colour. The peculiarity for which this bird is generally known, is its habit of constructing a sort of arbour of dry twigs, to act as a playground. These bowers are usually made in some secluded place in the bush—not infrequently under the shady boughs of a large tree—and vary considerably ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... with the picturesque blue country.[38] Here, owing to the causes mentioned in the notes at p. 71, we have some of the most elevated bits of landscape character, which the country, whatever it may be, can afford. Its first and most distinctive peculiarity is its grace; it is all undulation and variety of line, one curve passing into another with the most exquisite softness, rolling away into faint and far outlines of various depth and decision, yet none hard or harsh; and in all probability, rounded off in the near ground into massy forms of partially ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... reading Balzac's Peau de Chagrin. You have all read the story, I hope, for it is the first of his wonderful romances which fixed the eyes of the reading world upon him, and is a most fascinating if somewhat fantastic tale. A young man becomes the possessor of a certain magic skin, the peculiarity of which is that, while it gratifies every wish formed by its possessor, it shrinks in all its dimensions each time that a wish is gratified. The young man makes every effort to ascertain the cause of its shrinking; invokes the aid of the physicist, the chemist, the student ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... that which is proper appeareth as improper unto the man about to be overwhelmed by destruction, and evil and impropriety are what he liketh. The time that bringeth on destruction doth not come with upraised club and smash one's head. On the other hand the peculiarity of such a time is that it maketh a man behold evil in good and good in evil. The wretches have brought on themselves this terrible, wholesale, and horrible destruction by dragging the helpless princess of Panchala into the court. Who else ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... more comfortably upon the bough. And now he watched the three cars perform each two journeys to some spot or spots unknown, and, returning, deposit their passengers before the porch of Hillside. The limousine used by Ormuz Khan, upon its second appearance had partaken of the same peculiarity as the others: there were blinds drawn ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... Monk, is the author of a singular book entitled "The Dream of Poliphilus," in which he relates his amours with a lady of the name of Polia. It was considered improper to prefix his name to the work; but being desirous of marking it by some peculiarity, that he might claim it at any distant day, he contrived that the initial letters of every chapter should be formed of those of his name, and of the subject he treats. This strange invention was not discovered till many years afterwards: when the wits employed ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... spread on that rock with half the quick ness with which they leaped from bush to tree in other parts of the mountain, our painful task would have soon ended; for they would have consumed already the captives they inclosed. But the peculiarity of their situation afforded Elizabeth and her companion the respite of which they had availed themselves to make ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... there was no nook, no hamlet, to which his tastes or his profession had not led him. Sophia put paper before him, on which he was to note distances, according to his and Mr Grey's computations. Now, it was one peculiarity of Mr Hope that he could never see a piece of paper before him without drawing upon it. Sophia's music-books, and any sheet of blotting-paper which might ever have come in his way, bore tokens of this: and now his fingers were as busy as usual while he was ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... waiting-maid at the rancho, who was a "white negress," as they are called. Her hair and features showed her African origin; but her hair was like white wool, and her face and hands were as colourless as those of a dead body. This animated corpse was healthy enough, however; and this peculiarity of the skin is, it ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... such is the doctrine of his Church. If, from the services which he attended, or the Catechism which he has learned, or the discourses heard, he has been led to suppose that praying for the dead, in terms however general, was noways a peculiarity of Catholicism, but as much a permitted practice of Protestantism. It is a practical doctrine in the Catholic Church, it has an influence highly consoling to humanity, and eminently worthy of a religion ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... to force him to eat what he has a great dislike to: a child, for instance, sometimes dislikes the fat of meat, underdone meat, the skin off boiled milk and off rice-pudding. Why should he not have his likes and dislikes as well as "children of a larger growth?" Besides, there is an idiosyncrasy—a peculiarity of the constitution in some children—and Nature oftentimes especially points out what is good and what is bad for them individually, and we are not to fly in the face of Nature. "What is one man's meat is another man's poison." If a ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... Tartar,' points to a peculiarity in Tartar life, which, however correct historically, is not in keeping with the actual current state of the Mongol character. It implies something impetuous, stern, unyielding, relentless, and cruel; whereas the modern life of the children of the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 451 - Volume 18, New Series, August 21, 1852 • Various
... much so, indeed, that the suicide of the post-surgeon was attributed to an unsuccessful attachment he had conceived for her. I was greatly struck with her soft and gentle manners, and the musical intonation of her voice, which I soon learned was a distinguishing peculiarity of those women in whom are united the ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... had been told that there was scarcely any intemperance among them, but I did not find it so. There, as here, the use of alcohol in any form, whether as beer, wine or whisky, produces the same result, varied in its effect upon the individual only by the peculiarity of temperament and national character of the people. I'll take another glass of that sherry; it's the best I've ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... particularly to the hands. The right one showed nothing upon which to found a theory, save that it was, indeed, a capable hand with smooth skin and well-tended nails; but on examining the left Paul noted a marked peculiarity. Near the ends of the thumb and the first finger the skin was roughened, abrased; there were numerous tiny black spots beneath the skin, which, upon careful scrutiny, he ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... not merely going a journey, but going as rapidly as was prudent, and there was close attention to business. There was something morbidly persistent in the action of these trains. They pushed on resolutely, grimly, like blind worms following some directing force from within. This peculiarity of action became more noticeable day by day. We were not on the trail, after all, to hunt, or fish, or skylark. We had set our eyes on a distant place, and toward it our feet ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... He had the peculiarity that as he grew drunk he grew quarrelsome and once he had a violent dispute with Bain, his employer. Bain dismissed him, and he had to look out for another job. He was idle for two or three weeks and during these, sooner than sit ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... while, in point of fact, he almost always kept one of his literal eyes open and the other partially closed, but as he reversed the order of arrangement frequently, he might have been said to keep his lee-eye as much open as the weather one. This peculiarity gave to his countenance an expression of earnest thoughtfulness mingled with humour. Buzzby was fond of being thought old, and he looked much older than he really was. Men guessed his age at fifty-five, but they were ten years out in their reckoning; for John ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... but reappeared almost the next moment in her new finery, buttoning the neck of her gown as she entered the room, and chastely stopping at the window to characteristically pull up her stocking. The peculiarity of her situation increased her usual shyness; she played with the black and gold beads of a handsome necklace—Lance's last gift—as the merest child might; her unbuckled shoe gave the squaw a natural opportunity of showing her admiration and devotion by insisting upon buckling it, and ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... Nothing was overlooked: once passports and other proofs of identity had been scrutinized, each passenger was conducted to his stateroom and his person and luggage subjected to painstaking search. None escaped; on the other hand, not one was found guilty of flagitious peculiarity. In the upshot the inquisitors, baffled and betraying every symptom of disappointment, were fain to give over ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... man. His goodness, however, but serves to make him more sensitive to opposition. The divisions of the Church give him downright suffering. I have heard him go on about them hours at a time. Probably his proneness to lamentation should be endured with respectful patience; but there is a peculiarity in it—he is blind to everything save the loss of power and influence the schisms are fated to entail upon the Church. He fights valorously in season and out for the old orthodoxies, believing that with the lapse of religion as at present organized the respectability ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... unresistingly moved, became uncertain again, and then, not too much to show it—or, rather, positively to conceal it, and to conceal something more as well—turned short round to one of the windows and awkwardly, pointlessly waited. "The largest of the three pieces has the rare peculiarity that the garlands, looped round it, which, as you see, are the finest possible vieux Saxe, are not of the same origin or period, or even, wonderful as they are, of a taste quite so perfect. They have been put on at a later time, by a process ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... know little or nothing. Of some, such as "Thorgeir Craggeir," and "Thorkel foulmouth," the Saga itself explains the origin. In a state of society where so many men bore the same name, any circumstance or event in a man's life, as well as any peculiarity in form or feature, or in temper and turn of mind, gave rise to a surname or nickname, which clung to him through life as a distinguishing mark. The Post Office in the United States is said to give persons in the same district, with similar ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... had ceased post-mortem examination was made. The stomach was empty, but the liver promised so much oil that Tom extirpated it and all other internal organs, and not until mutilation was complete was any peculiarity about the jaws and teeth noticed. These subsequently, proved that we had captured, not a shark but a ray—Forskal's shovel-nosed ray (RHYNCHOBATUS DJIDDENSIS), which Tom, for all his knowledge of sea things, had never before seen. ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... exerted itself to the fullest extent of its power in attacks upon chastity. All other visions were absent in the hair-shirted, and self-scourgings brought out nothing but sexual idealities, sensual temptations. The reason for this peculiarity is not far to seek. What is dominant in the minds always finds egress when a favorable opportunity is presented, and the very thought of unchastity as something to be avoided, leads to its contemplation, or its creation in the form of temptation. The virtue of chastity was the one law, and ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... A singular peculiarity of the betel-nut is that of its staining the saliva of a deep red colour, so as to resemble blood. Ossaroo, who possessed a large share of intelligence, and who had travelled to the great city of Calcutta and other parts of India, narrated a good anecdote ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... pressure; and all the more because he had not failed to observe that the Kid's interest seemed to be more pronounced and more steadfast in those meetings in which Marion's singing was the feature. True, this peculiarity the Kid shared with many others of the young men in the district, to Shock's very considerable embarrassment, though to the girl's innocent and frank delight; and it is fair to say that the young men, whom Shock had put upon their honor in regard to one who was but a child, ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... believe it. This Tom has a peculiarity I've noticed in other very oofy men. Nick him for the paltriest sum, and he lets out a squawk you can hear at Land's End. He has the stuff in gobs, but he hates ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... any individual has varied so as to possess some peculiarity which enables it even in slight degree to better escape its enemies or to resist unfavorable conditions, those of its descendants who inherit most markedly this peculiar quality or variation will ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... privilege to put a price upon any matter that you may submit for publication; but unless the magazine editorially requests a set price I should advise you to leave that matter to the editor, and to submit your work "at the usual rates." It is a peculiarity of the literary business that usually the buyer rather than the seller makes the terms, and until your name has a value you are hardly in position to run counter to custom. Nor is it likely that you have had sufficient experience ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... was equally obnoxious. She was loving by nature, but any feeling of that kind toward a young man was a sacred matter, that no one should be allowed to suspect, or at least inspect. This may be an old-fashioned peculiarity, yet it was a part of her nature. It may seem strange, but "Charlie," as she always called her admirer, had early discovered this and had always been ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn
... wind cleared the smoke an instant (or the rain held it low to the earth), Big Belt saw a column of troops. Its single peculiarity struck him with queer emotion. He returned to the stair- door. A long-repressed volume came forth from his lungs, ...
— Red Fleece • Will Levington Comfort
... alone. I do not think this peculiarity arose from any wish to withdraw his foolishness from the rest of the camp, nor was it probable that the combined wisdom of Five Forks ever drove him into exile. My impression is, that he lived alone from choice,—a choice he made long before the camp indulged in any criticism ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... is generally conceived that the peculiarity, 'and they sewed fig tree leaves together, and made themselves breeches,' belongs exclusively to this Bible, but it is a mistake. The Saxon version of AElfric has, {166} 'and sewed fig-leaves, and worked them WEED-BREECH, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 70, March 1, 1851 • Various
... service, of no particular peculiarity, yet places it so well that he turns it into an attack. His forehand is hit with a full swing, flat racquet face, and a slight top spin. It is deadly accurate and of moderate speed. He can put the ball at will anywhere in the court off his forehand. ...
— The Art of Lawn Tennis • William T. Tilden, 2D
... accompanied with a social peculiarity that had in time become a habit of Laurel Run. As the young woman delivered the letters, in turn, to the men who were patiently drawn up in Indian file, she made that simple act a medium of privileged but limited conversation on special or general topics,—gay or serious as the case ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... house, takes upon Himself the function and office of host, interrupts the progress of the meal by the solemn prayer of blessing; and whilst the singularity of the action drew their attention, perhaps some little peculiarity in His way of doing it, or something else, opened the door for a whole stream of associations and half-dormant remembrances to rush in, and they remembered what they had heard of the last supper,—for these two were not at it,—and they remembered what they had seen,—miraculous ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... passion for a book of which only one copy was printed, or which has any peculiarity about it[441] by either, or both, of the foregoing methods of illustration—or which is remarkable for its size, beauty, and condition—or has any embellishment, rare, precious and invaluable—which the researches ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... hat turned up at the sides, with a short but knowing feather, velvet trimmings, and a steel buckle blinking brightly in the noonday sun. Had Macassar seen her in this he would have yielded himself her captive at once, quarter or no quarter. It was the most marked, and perhaps the most attractive peculiarity of the Lady Crinoline's face, that the end of her nose was a little turned up. This charm, in unison with the upturned edges of her cruel- hearted hat, was found by many ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... defined system of drainage exists, until the rivers of the western coast are reached. As a scientific explorer then, whose object was to unravel the mystery of the interior, solve, if possible, the question of its strange peculiarity, and trace out its physical formation, Sturt may well be held the first and greatest. His success, perhaps, was greater than he himself imagined, he came back dispirited with failure but as before he had ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... of Composition of Causes; and the peculiarity of it is, that instead of two or more causes intermixing their effects in a regular manner with those of one another, we have now one constant cause, producing an effect which is successively modified by a series of variable causes. Thus, as summer ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... in the least understanding her aunt. She had heard this before, but she knew it was a peculiarity of Miss Husted always to say the same thing under the same circumstances, whether the occasion called for it ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... warn you against a very strange and important peculiarity of our dream-body and our dream-nature. In many respects it is superior to our waking body - in sensitiveness of mood and feeling, in keenness of vision, in the sense of peace, comfort and happiness, and also in subtlety of thought. But in one respect it is weaker, namely - in the control ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... must plead guilty to the charge of being more healthy, more active, and perhaps more energetic, than young ladies are usually expected to be, still I never was considered unfeminine; and the only peculiarity resulting from this constant companionship with one of the superior sex, was to give me a high sense of that superiority, with a habit of deference to man's judgment and submission to man's authority, ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... to be built on the Marsupial type; and it is thought that these teeth and consequently the intestines may have been adapted to the peculiar life of this animal and therefore may not show any real relation. The structure in the Bizcacha that connects it with the Marsupials does not seem a peculiarity related to its manner of life, and I imagine that no one would doubt that this shows a real affinity, though not more with any one Marsupial species than with another. The difficulty of determining what relations are real and what analogical is far from surprising when no one pretends to define the ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... day, the peculiar, resonant hammering of some species of woodpecker upon the hard, dry limbs. It was unlike any sound of the kind I had ever before heard, and, repeated at intervals through the silent woods, was a very marked and characteristic feature. Its peculiarity was the ordered succession of the raps, which gave it the character of a premeditated performance. There were first three strokes following each other rapidly, then two much louder ones with longer intervals between them. I heard the drumming here, and the next day ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... ourselves in a small passage, drier than the former, and descending rather steeply for some distance, suddenly entered another spacious chamber hewn from the solid rock. Immediately we were inside some peculiarity of its walls attracted my gaze, and I noticed, in addition, that we ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... be removed from any sentiment. It is a wholly different thing to feel one's self the object of a conscientious visitation. In the latter case, one longs to throw a whiskbroom at the head of the entering guest, longs to have it hit him, brush end on. Moreover, it is a peculiarity of self-communion in the watches of the night, to have the least lovely theory strike one as the more unassailable. Therefore, without delay, Reed Opdyke adopted the belief in Olive's conscientious devotedness to his welfare. Indeed, between the pangs where ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... future belong, nothing is considered more out of place than any affectation of enthusiasm. I do not care to determine whether your way or theirs is the right one; all I want to say is, that as the one thing to be avoided is peculiarity, you would do better not to speak of these persons, whatever regard you may have for their spiritual welfare, as your friends. One cannot have so many friends—not to mention that a unity of taste and feeling is necessary to that much-abused ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... exertions to secure it. Many more persons, doubtless, have taken up a profession of the main doctrine in question, that, namely, of the one Catholic and Apostolic Church, than fully enter into it. This was to be expected, it being the peculiarity of all religious teaching, that words are imparted before ideas. A child learns his Creed or Catechism before he understands it; and in beginning any deep subject we are all but children to the end of our lives. The instinctive perception of a rightly instructed mind, prima facie ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... that has been discovered bears the date of 1691; from which our copy has been prepared for the press. This is the first book of this class that was composed upon the broad basis of Christianity, perfectly free from sectarian bias or peculiarity. It is an exhibition of scriptural truths, before which error falls without the trouble of pulling it down. It is in the world, like the ark of God in the temple of Dagon. It is alike admirably calculated to convey the most important truths to the inmates of a palace or of a workhouse,—to ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... as disclosed to us in these pages has been called joyless, by that sect of religious partisans whose peculiarity is to mistake boisterousness for unction. Was the life of Christ himself, then, so particularly joyful? Can the life of any man be joyful who sees and feels the tragic miseries and hardly less tragic follies of the earth? The old Preacher, when he considered all the oppressions that ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 3 (of 3) - Essay 2: The Death of Mr Mill - Essay 3: Mr Mill's Autobiography • John Morley
... a rule, women are a rarety in Johnstown now. This is not a natural peculiarity of Johnstown nor a mere coincidence, but a fact with a terrible reason behind it. There are so many more men than women among the living in Johnstown now because there are so many more women than men among the dead. Of the bodies recovered there are at least two ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... the teacher.—Strange as it may seem, the teacher may himself be a distraction in the classroom. Any striking mannerism, any peculiarity of manner or carriage, extreme types of dress, or any personal quality that attracts attention to itself is a distraction to the class. One teacher may have a very loud or ill-modulated voice; another may speak too low to be heard without too much effort; another may fail to articulate ...
— How to Teach Religion - Principles and Methods • George Herbert Betts
... out. He was above the common height for giants, and his whole face and body were seamed over with little red lines, crossing each other like tartan. These were marks of encounters, in which he had been cut to bits and come together again; for this was his peculiarity, which made him so dangerous. If you cut off his head, he went on just as before, only without it; and so about everything else. By dint of magic, he could put his head on again, just as if it had been his hat, if you gave him time enough. On the last occasion of their meeting, Ricardo ...
— Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia - being the adventures of Prince Prigio's son • Andrew Lang
... coat was trimmed with tarnished twist; he wore by his side a sword with a black hilt; and his stockings of silk, though newly washed, were grown yellow by long service. I was so much engaged with the peculiarity of his dress, that I attended only to the latter part of my friend's reply, in which he complimented Mr. Tibbs on the taste of his clothes and the bloom in his countenance. 'Pshaw, pshaw, Will,' cried the figure, 'no more of that, if you love me: you ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... genuine, but few and far between. But his prose works constitute, like those of Cudworth, Charnock, Jeremy Taylor, and John Scott, a vast old quarry, abounding both in blocks and in gems —blocks of granite solidity, and gems of starry lustre. The peculiarity of More is in that poetico-philosophic mist which, like the autumnal gossamer, hangs in light and beautiful festoons over his thoughts, and which suggests pleasing memories of Plato and the Alexandrian school. Like all the followers of the Grecian sage, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... coming out from the speech zone be impaired, so that the impulses can not go to the muscles of articulation and breathing, we have Subcortical Motor Aphasia. Its peculiarity is that the person knows perfectly what he wants to say, but yet can not speak the words. He is able to read silently, can understand the speech of others, and can remember music; but, with his inability to speak, he is generally ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... is about five feet ten inches, with broad shoulders, but limbs not very muscular. His nose is sharp and slightly aquiline, and his eyes are of a dark hazel color. The most striking peculiarity in his personal appearance is the head, which is singularly formed, and has been pronounced, by some observers, the envy of phrenologists. His countenance is mild and benevolent, having little if any of that dark and ferocious expression, not uncommon ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake
... again we have a beautiful abbey church with a square central tower, upborne on soaring and graceful arches from the point where the nave joined the choir. There is only one transept—on the south—so that the church is not fully cruciform, a peculiarity shared by several other Dominican buildings. The eastern window and the window of this transept are full of delicate grace and beauty, each containing five lights, and marked by the singularly charming manner in which the mullions are interlaced above. Enough remains of ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... have grown suddenly fond of respectable society, going everywhere in the hope of meeting Mrs. Granger, and rarely staying long anywhere, if he did not meet her. There were those who observed this peculiarity in his movements, and shrugged their shoulders significantly. It was to be expected, of course, said this butterfly section of humanity: a beautiful young woman, married to a man old enough to be her father, would naturally have some ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... four years' absence, to find how little Lilias shared his horror, taking quite naturally what to Alice Montagu would have seemed beyond the bounds of possibility, and would have set Esclairmonde's soul on fire, while Lilias seemed to think it her brother's amiable peculiarity to be shocked, or to long ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... more than by the regular and healthy regime, the strengthening of my soul and body was helped by the wonderful, yet natural, peculiarity of our prison, which eliminates entirely the accidental and the unexpected from its life. Having neither a family nor friends, I am perfectly safe from the shocks, so injurious to life, which are caused by treachery, by the illness or death of relatives—let my indulgent reader recall how ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... of mules and horses, which have here left their bones for a guide across the desert. The dead animals lie like mummies, dried and shrivelled; hair, eyes, muscles, all are there. Their appearance presents a remarkable peculiarity. One might suppose, that having been overtaken by death under similar circumstances, the last struggle over, their inanimate bodies would be marked by no characteristic and distinctive difference. But the case is otherwise. Both mule and horse have sunk from hunger, thirst, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various
... southeastern part of the United States, has a long, narrow grain, whereas Japanese rice, which originated in Japan and is raised extensively in that country and China and India, has a short, flat, oval grain. Efforts made to raise the Japanese variety in the United States show a peculiarity of this cereal, for when it is planted in the same locality as Carolina rice, it soon loses its identity and takes on the shape of the other. Although vast crops of rice are raised in the United States, a large quantity of it must ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 1 - Volume 1: Essentials of Cookery; Cereals; Bread; Hot Breads • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... admitted to the elective franchise, still worse results may be expected.[251] It is hardly necessary to add any thing to what has been said by Mr. Paulding on this subject who has treated it fully. It is already known, that if there be a class unfavorably distinguished by any peculiarity from the rest of society, this distinction forms a tie which binds them to act in concert, and they exercise more than their due share of political power and influence—and still more, as they are of inferior character and looser moral principle. ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... this static fluid. These, interacting freely through continuity, virtually become one in their operations. As a constituent of the atmosphere this fluid is nearly uniform in its proportions. Its varying conditions, as positive, negative, and neutral, form a marked peculiarity. Changes from one to another of these conditions, over larger or smaller areas, are affected with marvellous rapidity, and with varying and sometimes with ...
— New and Original Theories of the Great Physical Forces • Henry Raymond Rogers
... now fairly off for New York, with a brother and two friends; we have each pinned our card to the red table-cover in the saloon, to indicate our permanent positions at the festive board during the voyage. Unless there is some peculiarity in arrangement or circumstance, all voyages resemble each other so much, that I may well spare you the dullness of repetition. Stewards will occasionally upset a soup-plate, and it will sometimes fall inside ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... me a plate of goose." The company caught the idea, and each man sent his plate and half-a-crown. Covers, with everything that the appetites of the moment dictated, soon appeared. The novelty, the peculiarity of the manner, and the unexpected circumstances, altogether excited the plaudits of the noble guests, who declared themselves particularly gratified by the Dean's entertainment. "Well," said the Dean, "gentlemen, if you have dined, I will order dessert." ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... month after month, all the year round. Those who wish to know what Mrs. Glenarm was like, have only to go out and stop at any bookseller's or news-vendor's shop, and there they will see her in the first illustration, with a young woman in it, which they discover in the window. The one noticeable peculiarity in Mrs. Glenarm's purely commonplace and purely material beauty, which would have struck an observant and a cultivated man, was the curious girlishness of her look and manner. No stranger speaking to this woman—who had been a wife at twenty, and who was now ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... life, a blade of reed grass bent not beneath his feet, much less did one ever break, so lightly did he tread.) Teithi Hen the son of Gwynhan (his dominions were swallowed up by the sea, and he himself hardly escaped, and he came to Arthur; and his knife had this peculiarity, that from the time that he came there no haft would ever remain upon it, and owing to this a sickness came over him, and he pined away during the remainder of his life, and of this he died). And Carneddyr the son of Govynyon Hen, and Gwenwynwyn the son of ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest
... this success is attributable to any peculiarity in the elements of the soil, I am not able to determine, but this fact is worthy of note, that, except immediately on the banks of the Apalachicola River, which forms the Western boundary of the County, there is an entire absence of the rotten ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... this instance the counsellor was the living pattern of his own maxims. His account-books show in full detail that he never at any time in his life devoted less than a tenth of his annual incomings to charitable and religious objects. The peculiarity of all this half-mechanic ordering of a wise and virtuous individual life, was that it went with a genius and power that 'moulded a mighty State's decrees,' and sought the widest 'process of ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... like it. The life of the sailor is most particularly attractive to the freed slave; for he thinks, in his conceit, that he is on an equality with all men when once on the muster-rolls, and then he calls all his fellow-Africans "savages." Still the African's peculiarity sticks to him: he has gained no permanent good. The association of white men and the glitter of money merely dazzle him. He apes like a monkey the jolly Jack Tar, and spends his wages accordingly. If chance ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... be difficult," answered the disguised Prince, recollecting the peculiarity of the bard's countenance. [Footnote: D'Avenant actually wanted the nose, the foundation of many a jest of ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... than in this period which they name Reign of Terror! But it was not the Dumb Millions that suffered here; it was the Speaking Thousands, and Hundreds, and Units; who shrieked and published, and made the world ring with their wail, as they could and should: that is the grand peculiarity. The frightfullest Births of Time are never the loud-speaking ones, for these soon die; they are the silent ones, which can live from century to century! Anarchy, hateful as Death, is abhorrent to the whole nature of man; and must ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... in with the Normans. Previous to the Conquest, Englishmen had but one name; and when, for convenience, another was needed, they were called by their occupation or from some personal peculiarity, as Edward the Carpenter, Harold the Dauntless. Among the Normans the lack of a second, or family, name had come to be looked upon as a sign of low birth, and the daughter of a great lord (Fitz-Haman) refused ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... odd peculiarity in the Gaelic, that in many of the most common phrases, a proposition or question should thus be expressed without the least trace of a Verb. It can hardly be said that the Substantive Verb is understood, for then there would be no impropriety in expressing ...
— Elements of Gaelic Grammar • Alexander Stewart
... there could be no crime in my laughing. It may, however, very fairly be asked, why Mr. Hallet did not make known that the captain was calling to me? His duty to the captain, if not his friendship for me, should have prompted him to it; and the peculiarity of our situation required this act of kindness at his hands.[29] I shall only observe further upon this head, that the boatswain, the carpenter, and Mr. Hayward, who saw more of me than any other of the witnesses, did say ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... Boulliaud in 1667 fixed the length of its cycle of change at 334 days. It was not a solitary instance. A star in the Swan was perceived by Janson in 1600 to show fluctuations of light, and Montanari found in 1669 that Algol in Perseus shared the same peculiarity to a marked degree. Altogether the class embraced in 1782 half-a-dozen members. When it is added that a few star-couples had been noted in singularly, but it was supposed accidentally, close juxtaposition, and that the failure of repeated attempts ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... befitting the humble circumstances of its occupants, many of whom, indeed, could not safely have been intrusted with the liberty which is necessary to the full enjoyment of luxury, for they had the troublesome peculiarity of being alive. In their own apartments, however, they were under as little personal restraint as was compatible with their protection from the baneful habit of swallowing one another; and, as Brayton had thoughtfully ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... feeling of honor rests upon this peculiarity of human nature, it may have a very salutary effect upon the welfare of a great many people, as a substitute for morality; but upon their happiness, more especially upon that peace of mind and independence which ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life • Arthur Schopenhauer
... was called so in the house—lived on in the Rue des Moineaux, on a fourth floor, you may depend on it he had found some peculiarity in the arrangement of the premises which favored the practice ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... of the stem, which was soft and spongy, gave it an appearance of disease: but as all the specimens, from the youngest plant to the full-grown tree, possessed the same deformed appearance, it was evidently the peculiarity of its habit. The stem of the largest of these trees measured twenty-nine feet in girth whilst its height did not exceed twenty-five feet. "It was at this time in the earliest stages of foliation, the extremities of the naked branches ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... representative branch of the government. The eldest son and heir is generally returned to the House of Commons by the vote of the people, before he is called to take his seat in the House of Peers. Thus the same ties bind them to the people which bind our own representatives—a peculiarity which, I believe, never existed permanently with the nobles in any other country. By this means the nobility, when they enter the House of Lords, are better adapted to legislate wisely for the interests, not of a class, ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... which throng our pools, and are known as Infusoria—such a creature, for instance, as an Euglena, and place it in our vessel of water. It is a round mass provided with a long filament, and except in this peculiarity of shape, presents no appreciable physical or chemical difference whereby it might be distinguished from the ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... listeners followed with the book, and when the last word was uttered on the French page, over turned the two thousand leaves, sounding like a shower of rain. The applause was never very great; it is said that Rachel feels this as a Boston peculiarity, but she ought also to feel the compliment of so large an audience in a city where foreigners are so few and the population so small compared to that ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... individual Hohenzollern, we find the most obvious differences between them. No dynasty more strikingly illustrates that psychological and political peculiarity of royal houses, which may be called the law of opposites, and which has almost the regularity of a universal law according to which each ruler is the living contrast of his predecessor. The successor of the Great Elector, ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... office of the "Eden Settlement." His peculiarity consisted in the two distinct expressions of his profile, for "one side seemed to be listening to what the other side was doing."—C. Dickens, Martin ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... documents belonging to the question. It has further been necessary, in order to get at the predominating tendency and import of Cotton Mather's writings, to cite them, in extended quotations and numerous extracts. To avoid the error into which the Reviewer has fallen, the peculiarity of Mather's style must be borne in mind. Opposite drifts of expression appear in different writings and in different parts of the same writing; and, not infrequently, the clauses of the same passage have contrary bearings. He often palters, with himself as ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... have this for their peculiarity, that they show a power conceived of as divine used for a righteous purpose. It is significant that practically all the miracles described are those of healing or of relief. The kind of miracle that an irresponsible leader would have wrought is suggested by the ...
— Understanding the Scriptures • Francis McConnell
... loom, or the potter's oven, he had the most rudimentary conception. His eye was ever alert for things queer, rare, and "out of print." Of these he was a connoisseur beyond compare, a collector without a peer. He valued prints, not for their beauty or the art of the engraver, but for some peculiarity in the plate, or because of the difficulties overcome in their "comprehension." He knew all that was to be known of the delightful art of the binder, but his most cherished specimen would always be one where a master had made some slip in tooling. For oddities and rarities in all the range ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... little man: "I greatly regret that this unfortunate incident should have occurred while you are with us. From every point of view the event is lamentable. Brother Green, known familiarly among us because of his facial peculiarity as Nosey Green—the gentleman piled up over there on the other side of the road—was as noble-hearted a man as ever lived; so was Brother Michael, whom you met in all the pride of his manly strength only this morning at the ...
— Santa Fe's Partner - Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town • Thomas A. Janvier
... of the distinguished Feathertop came in its proper place. Nothing had been left rude or native in him; a well-digested conventionalism had incorporated itself thoroughly with his substance and transformed him into a work of art. Perhaps it was this peculiarity that invested him with a species of ghastliness and awe. It is the effect of anything completely and consummately artificial in human shape that the person impresses us as an unreality, and as having hardly ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... becoming brave,—it must be remembered, that the particular sort of courage applicable to duelling, when the danger is much more of a fugitive and momentary order than that which invests a battle lasting for hours, depends almost entirely upon a man's confidence in his own luck—a peculiarity of mind which exists altogether apart from native resources of courage, whether moral or physical: usually this mode of courage is but a transformed expression for a sanguine temperament. A man who is habitually depressed by a constitutional taint of despondency may carry into a ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... was given to the balls at a point out of sight, so the impulse which resulted in the variety or new form was given at a point beyond observation, and is equally mysterious or unaccountable, except on the supposition of an ordaining will. The parent had not the peculiarity of the variety, the progeny has. Between the two is the dim or obscure region of the formation of a new individual, in some unknown part of which, and in some wholly unknown way, the difference is intercalated. To introduce necessity here is gratuitous and unscientific; but ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... At home, the peculiarity of their attitude was still more noticeable. I remember a certain evening party they gave a year after their marriage. The husband moved about among the crowd of guests, proud but rather embarrassed at gathering together so many in his own house. The ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... a prime meridian, there is no physical feature of our earth which commends itself above others as the best starting point; nor does the form of the earth itself present any peculiarity which might be used as an initial point. If the refinements of geodesy should finally lead to the conclusion that the figure of the earth is an ellipsoid with three axes, yet the question of the direction of ...
— International Conference Held at Washington for the Purpose of Fixing a Prime Meridian and a Universal Day. October, 1884. • Various
... and especially the heart. It furnished us with four hundred and twenty-one pounds of beef, which was served to the crews as usual, in lieu of their salt provisions, and was very much relished by us, notwithstanding the peculiarity of its flavour.[*] The meat was remarkably fat, and, as it hung up in quarters, looked as fine as any beef in an English market. A small seal, killed by the Griper's people, was also eaten by them; and it was generally allowed ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... shabbiness would be made to rest anywhere rather than on the shoulders of Sir Timothy. If it should turn out that he had striven manfully to make things run smoothly;—that the Premier's incompetence, or the Chancellor's obstinacy, or this or that Secretary's peculiarity of temper had done it all;—might not Sir Timothy then be able to emerge from the confused flood, and swim along pleasantly with his head higher ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... of self-restraint is plainly an inborn character, for it may show itself in but one member of the family brought up in exactly the same circumstances as other members who do not show any such peculiarity. The victim is born with one important mental faculty defective, precisely as another ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... Thus it was apparent that the three jewels had been stripped from the necklace by forcible contact with the iron rail of the fire-escape at the point where Average Jones had found the "color" of precious metal. The stones were identified by Kirby, from a peculiarity in the setting, as the end three, nearest the clasp at the back; a point which Jones carefully noted. But there the trail ended. No ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... relatives and servants. In forty years they had produced "a new and peculiar dialect of their own, broadening the softer vowels and substituting th or f for the original t sound in the parent ponapeian." Martius mentions that native boatmen in Brazil, who had grown up together, had each some little peculiarity of pronunciation. Such a difference would produce a dialect in case of isolation. On the other hand, the ecclesiastics adopted the Tupi language and made it a general language for the province of Gram Para, so that it was used in the pulpit until 1757 and ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... merit of a piece of writing there are a thousand who are ready to explore with eager sympathy the history of the writer; and all that we know both of the life and the character of Beddoes possesses those very qualities of peculiarity, mystery, and adventure, which are so dear to the hearts of subscribers to circulating libraries. Yet only one account of his career has ever been given to the public; and that account, fragmentary and incorrect as it is, has ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... great stress on my innocence—and with some reason too. Whatever else I may be, I pride myself on not being a hypocrite. I was innocent—so far as the brandy was concerned. I had put it into the lemonade, in pure ignorance of Armadale's nervous peculiarity, to disguise the taste of—never mind what! Another of the things I pride myself on is that I never wander from my subject. What Midwinter said next is what I ought to be writing ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... courtyards planted with trees. The general living-room and the dining-room have one or more sides open to the air, and are arranged with a view to coolness. The style of cooking in Dutch India is different from that in British India, and has one special peculiarity the—rice table, which will be described hereafter; and of course there are minor differences, depending upon the conditions of the place and society. To persons who are prepared to enjoy life (and this is the spirit in which one should travel), the little eccentricities and deficiencies ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... turned at the path-end, and her misgivings all but vanished, so serious and resolved was his quiet face in the moonlight. She was half-minded to say to him, "Do you mean that you love me, Fenwick?" But, then, was it safe to presume on the peculiarity of her position, of which he, ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... features with any certainty. The buildings, whether palaces or temples, appear to have been constructed on terraces, and to have been several storeys in height; and in one instance, at Mugheyr, the walls sloped inwards in a similar manner to those of Egyptian buildings, a peculiarity which is not met with in other examples of West Asiatic architecture. The materials employed were bricks, both sun-dried and kiln-burnt, which seem to have been coated with a vitreous enamel for purposes of interior decoration. Fragments of carved limestone were discovered by Sir A. ...
— Architecture - Classic and Early Christian • Thomas Roger Smith
... with frequent instances of this peculiarity, and all so beautiful, that it is difficult to select for ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... in two widely separated compositions are identical requires more proof than that the term "golden hilt" is used in connection with both of them; and in the two compositions in question there is nothing else than this term, and the peculiarity of the one sword that it can be wielded only by a man of unusual strength, of the other that it can be wielded only by a brave man, on which to base an identity. The fact of the matter is that it is the requirement of the plot that has supplied ...
— The Relation of the Hrolfs Saga Kraka and the Bjarkarimur to Beowulf • Oscar Ludvig Olson
... his casting net, are minutely represented. As to the Hesiodic images themselves, the leading remark is, that they catch at beauty by ornament, and at sublimity by exaggeration; and upon the untenable supposition of the genuineness of this poem, there is this curious peculiarity, that, in the description of scenes of rustic peace, the superiority of Homer is decisive—while in those of war and tumult it may be thought, perhaps, that the Hesiodic poet has more than ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... between elementary species and retrograde varieties, it should be stated at once, that the first are considered to have originated from their parent-form in a progressive way. They have succeeded in attaining something quite new for themselves, while retrograde varieties have only thrown off some peculiarity, previously acquired by ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... away from him. Accordingly, like most books which spring out of personal circumstances, his treatises on this subject have a frankness and a mastery of detail which others on the same topic sometimes want. He is remarkably free from one peculiarity of modern writers on such matters. Several considerate gentlemen are extremely anxious for the "rights of woman"; they think that women will benefit by removing the bulwarks which the misguided experience of ages has erected for their protection. A migratory system of domestic ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... got out among the boys of the village, and it was a long time before I heard the last of it. Boys enjoy the misery of their companions, at least village boys in that day did, and in later life I have found that all adults are not free from the peculiarity. I kept the horse until he was four years old, when he went blind, and I sold him for twenty dollars. When I went to Maysville to school, in 1836, at the age of fourteen, I recognized my colt as one of the blind horses working on ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... that he had for changing his colour. Thus my uncle, an old Anglo-Indian who always drank a bottle of Madeira after dinner, declared that from 10 P.M. onwards Piffles invariably seemed to him to be a bright crimson with green spots. Another peculiarity of Piffles was that he always followed the guns out shooting, and used to retrieve birds from the most difficult places. He practically ruled the household, took the boys back to school after the holidays, attended family prayers, and was learning ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 26th, 1914 • Various
... better than it can be described, as is well known to those who have experienced it. But Mary Avenel had been taught by the peculiarity of her situation, to regard herself as the Child of Destiny; and the melancholy and reflecting turn of her disposition gave to her sorrows a depth and breadth peculiar to her character. The grave—and it was a bloody grave—had closed, as she believed, over the youth to whom she was secretly, ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... calmly enough, but Mark detected a peculiarity in his voice which he had noted before when his father was anxious, and this ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... never failed, the tendency was to resist the approach of any stranger as a 'gene'. A single new face was instantly remarked and commented on in a Vienna saloon to an extent unknown in any other large capital. This peculiarity, however, worked in favor of the old resident. Kindliness of feeling increased with familiarity and grew into something better than acquaintance, and the parting with most sincere and affectionately disposed friends in the end was deeply felt on both sides. Those years were passed ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... a Negro. The story has the peculiarity of being true. The man was born a slave in Virginia. His mother was a slave, and was thrice sold in the market-place. This man is ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... Church,—have entered into a grand conspiracy to bear false witness on a point of this magnitude and importance? But he obtains no intelligible answer to this question. How, then, is an unprejudiced student to draw any inference but one from the premisses? That single peculiarity (he tells himself) of bringing the second Gospel abruptly to a close at the 8th verse of the xvith chapter, is absolutely fatal to the two Codices in question. It is useless to din into his ears that those Codices ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... which only was broken by the half-smothered laughter of the others in the class. The teacher, wishing to get over the matter in some way, at length said, "I am surprised, Edward, that you should give so senseless an answer to so simple a question." Now, one very striking peculiarity in Ned's character was his unwillingness to acknowledge himself in the wrong, however ridiculous his answer might be; and he was disposed to argue his point upon this occasion. "Any way," said he, "the Pyramids are large, and so is Australia; and I thought it might sometimes ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... at the present day has this peculiarity, that female writers have, in considerable number, entered into competition with the other sex. One of the most remarkable of these, as a writer of both prose and poetry, is Carolina Coronado de Perry, the author of the ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... last is the very effective decorative design impressed upon a large fragment of pottery from Alabama, shown in Fig. 113. The peculiarity of this example is the use of plaited instead of twisted cords. The work is neatly done and very effective. It seems to me almost certain that single cords have been used. They have been so imprinted as to ...
— Prehistoric Textile Fabrics Of The United States, Derived From Impressions On Pottery • William Henry Holmes
... Birds, winged messengers, as they thought them, between earth and heaven, were celestial indicators of the gods' commands. But omens and auguries were but the outward symbols, and the Romans, like all serious peoples, went to their own hearts for their real guidance. They had a unique religious peculiarity, to which no race of men has produced anything like. They did not embody the elemental forces in personal forms; they did not fashion a theology out of the movements of the sun and stars or the changes of the seasons. ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... described a personal peculiarity, which he had noticed at the post-mortem examination, and which might lead to the identification ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... properly speaking, the peculiarity of all great novelists. Who experiences this insight, this influence more than Balzac, or Flaubert, in Madame Bovary? And so with Maupassant, who, pen in hand, is the character he describes, with his passions, his hatreds, his vices and his virtues. ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... of our company had been utterly checked by the coming of our sad guest. In the presence of such a wreck of human happiness, perhaps of human hope, what person of any sensibility could maintain a lightsome mood? Had it not been for one peculiarity,—a peculiarity, I am confident, all of us observed,—the depression of our spirits would have been as profound as it was universal. This peculiarity was the stranger's appetite. This, fortunately, had remained unimpaired,—an oasis in the ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... method, style, fashion, way; bearing, demeanor, mien, air, carriage, deportment; mannerism, affectation, peculiarity; sort, kind, style; pl. civility, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... that Lukomski had in the expression of his eyes, and the way he listened to what was said to him, a certain peculiarity noticed in deaf people. His hearing was still excellent, but he evidently feared that he ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... the eye-glass. "Mr. Punch" used at one time to represent Mr. Bright as wearing an eye-glass, but I don't think he ever used one. Certainly I never saw Mr. Bright with an eye-glass, and never saw Mr. Chamberlain without one. Great and prominent men should have some characteristic peculiarity that should be their own special personal brand, and if they have it not, it must be made for them—as in the case of Lord Palmerston and the wisp of straw that "Mr. Punch" always put in his mouth. Mr. Chamberlain, however, has kindly obliged, and given caricaturists and others something by which ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... mode, now current in Germany, of treating history. It is not history itself that is here presented. We might more properly designate it as a History of History—a criticism of historical narratives and an investigation of their truth and credibility. Its peculiarity, in point of fact as well as intention, consists in the acuteness with which the writer extorts from the records something which was not in the matters recorded. The French have given us much that is profound and judicious in this class of composition, but have not endeavored to make a merely ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... accustomed to making a sharp distinction between physical characters on the one hand and so-called mental and moral qualities on the other. Every one recognizes family resemblances in physical features. A particular shape of nose or a peculiarity of the hand appears in every member of the family, sometimes for several successive generations. Facts like these we accept as evidence of "heredity" without any question. We also recognize that the Joneses of Centerville always take the measles ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... information of the state of the Union and recommend to their consideration such measures as" I "shall judge necessary and expedient." And I most respectfully submit, in a spirit of harmony, whether the present differences of opinion should be pressed further at this time, and whether the peculiarity of my situation does not entitle me to a postponement of this subject to a more auspicious period for deliberation. The two Houses of Congress have distinguished themselves at this extraordinary session by the performance of an immense mass of labor at a season very unfavorable ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... ran for a term across that rather windy Olympus of Nob Hill, or perhaps just skirted its frontier; passed almost immediately after through a stage of little houses, rather impudently painted, and offering to the eye of the observer this diagnostic peculiarity, that the huge brass plates upon the small and highly coloured doors bore only the first names of ladies—Norah or Lily or Florence; traversed China Town, where it was doubtless undermined with opium cellars, and its blocks pierced, after the similitude of rabbit-warrens, with a hundred ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... and put you in mind of the prevailing mode by the law of contrast only. He was never seen with gloves, and rarely with an umbrella. The value of his entire wardrobe scarcely exceeded fifty dollars; yet he was always neat, and appeared unconscious of any peculiarity ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... precise shade and hue of her hair, and possessed great expression. In reciting, or in speaking with animation, they appeared to become darker; and, as it were, to flash fire. I should have hesitated to state the impression which this peculiarity made upon me at the time, had not my observation been confirmed by that of the first actress of this or any other age, with whom I lately happened to converse on our deceased ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... imagination has much to do toward perfecting these faces of nature's sculpture, and that a range of hills or coast line will lend itself to almost any fancy we choose, there are in different localities stones and cliffs bearing a remarkable resemblance to the human countenance, individual peculiarity sometimes being easily traced in these ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887 • Various
... difficulties which I anticipated. I assured the officers that the money was Government (U. S.) money, which I did not intend, and was not instructed to take home with me; but which I should use in London in redeeming bonds and coupons, and should leave in the bank on deposit unless by the peculiarity of their rules, I should be obliged to withdraw it. They objected to taking the money as a Government deposit, or as an official deposit in my name, having some vague idea that if they took it and opened ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... but the Sabines had two, and in later times the Sabine system was generally followed. A Roman boy had, therefore, a given name and a family name, which were indispensable; but he might have two others, descriptive of some peculiarity or remarkable event in his life—as "Scvola," left-handed; "Cato," or "Sapiens," wise; "Coriolanus," of Corioli. "Appius Claudius Sabinus Regillensis" means Appius of the Claudian family of Regillum, ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... and plate. The larger firms in both these trades combine wholesale and retail business, and their shops are quite amongst the sights of Australia. Nowhere out of an exhibition and Whiteley's is it possible to meet so heterogeneous a collection. A peculiarity of Melbourne is that the shop-windows there are much better set out than is customary in England. It is not so in Sydney. Indeed Melbourne has decidedly the best set of shops, not only in outward appearance, ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... delightful Swiss village, the town reposing in a beautiful valley, near the upper end of Windermere Lake; "no two houses being alike either in form or magnitude," and the entire place laid out in a rambling irregular manner, adding to its peculiarity and beauty. The pretty little chapel which ornaments the place was erected in 1812, on the site of an older structure. The neighbourhood is studded with attractive villas; but the most interesting of the residences is that of the lamented ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... conversation, just as all authors have their own peculiar style of writing. Mrs. Baxter, for example, delighted in iteration; she had a habit of taking a particular word and working it to death. Michael was the first person to notice this little peculiarity. After his first visit to Vineyard Cottage, as he was driving Audrey home in the dog-cart, he said ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... the great blessing and peculiarity of Christian morals that they are all brought down to that sweet obligation: 'Do as I did.' Here is the great blessing and strength for the Christian life in all its difficulties—you can never go where you cannot see in the desert the footprints, haply spotted with blood, that your ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... passage. Many of the reciters of this elder poetry were writers of verses,[4] yet there is no instance of any attempt to alter or supersede the originals. Nor could any attempt have succeeded. There are specimens which exist, independent of those collected by Macpherson, which present a peculiarity of form, and a Homeric consistency of imagery, distinct from every other ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... Manlii and the Cornelii, just as the Greeks might speak of the Herakleidae and the Pelopidae; but the other name he supposes to be an appellation given as a distinctive name, either with reference to a man's disposition or his actions, or some character and peculiarity of his person, such as Macrinus and Torquatus and Sulla, which may be compared with the Greek Mnemon or Grypus or Kallinikus. However, in such matters as these the diversity in usage ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... that attention and minute speculation, the whole original stock of which, in the minds of most of them, would not be too much to enable them to follow your views of Man and Nature. In short, there is not a sufficient basis of the common to justify the amount of peculiarity in the work. In a book of science, these considerations would of course be inapplicable; but then the whole shape and coloring of the book must be altered to make it such; and a man who wishes merely to get at the philosophical result, or summary of the whole, will regard the ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... extensively. It is not appreciative of music. It doesn't care for art. It is hopelessly unaesthetical as a whole. The picture dealers, music dealers and book sellers declare that their patrons come mostly from the people who are not in the swell set. A peculiarity of St. Louis society is that its members are as a rule procreative. There is no suppression of increase and multiplication such as prevail in the swell mob in other cities. A woman in St. Louis is not disgraced by having three or ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... like standing on a very long low narrow island, with the peculiarity that one side was sea, the other inland lake. The sun shone brilliantly, and the punt in which the squire, Farmer Tallington, Dave, Warren, Hickathrift, and the two lads had come was lying on the inner side of the sandy ridge covered ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... read the service. His manner had been extremely reverent and devout, but Malcolm found his delivery unpleasing. The peculiarity in his speech was very noticeable in the reading-desk, and there ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... possession of the people, they would have recognized its main principles, or at least a similarity of principles, in the addresses of these two new preachers. They would have done so, notwithstanding a peculiarity of phraseology which Whitefield and Wesley carried to excess; and notwithstanding certain specialities which the latter did not, even supposing them to be truths, keep duly subordinate in exhibiting the prominent essentials of Christianity. The preaching, therefore, of these men was a test ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... point trop d'esprit, mais il ne dira jamais mal de personne." Such are the prognostics formed by men of wit and sense, as these two certainly were, concerning the future character and conduct of those for whose welfare they were honestly and deeply concerned; and so late do those features of peculiarity come to their growth, which mark a ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... young girl, and the prisoner. If she had been alone, his recognition would have been of no avail. The fact is obvious to this court, that the respondent has no peculiar physiognomy or gait. It has been shown she has no peculiarity of voice; I cannot but feel that the fact alleged by the claimant is very doubtful, when the witnesses, without mark or peculiarity, testify that they can readily recognize the girl of fifteen in the woman of forty. The ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... process.[84] I have an even more interesting case to bring forward, which to me seems to point very conclusively to what I am trying to prove. The phalaropes, both the grey and red-necked species, have a peculiarity unique among British birds, although shared by several other groups in different parts of the world.[85] Among these birds the role of the sexes is reversed. The duties of incubation and rearing the young are conducted entirely by the male bird, and in correlation with this habit the female ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... speaking was exactly what a conventional demagogue's ought not to be. It was pure to austerity; it was stripped of all superfluous ornament. It never gushed or foamed. It never allowed itself to be mastered by passion. The first peculiarity that struck the listener was its superb self-restraint. The orator at his most powerful passages appeared as if he were rather keeping in his strength than ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... when the sound of voices in dispute attracted his ear. The gale was still at its height, and the noise occasioned by its whistling among the chimneys and whirling round street corners was so great that the words uttered by the speakers were not distinguishable. Still there was some peculiarity in the tone which irresistibly attracted the boy. Perhaps Tommy was unusually curious that night; perhaps he was smitten, like Haroun Alraschid, with a desire for adventure; but whatever was the truth in regard to this, it is certain that, instead of passing on, as most people would ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... styles, to the inverted egg-cups, which in a purer example might perhaps prove less pleasing, but which in the present case seem at least to be imbued with something of the Oriental or Mediterranean influence, not yet fallen before the actual decadence. Another peculiarity of this charmingly toned west front is that the rose window is of a peculiar lozenge shape, "neither square nor round," as one authority puts it. This, of itself, is decidedly not a graceful arrangement; but the proportions are ample and the glass is good, so its deficiencies ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... was 600,000, of which the Bundelkhand Districts contained about 100,000 and the Uriya country the remainder. The two branches of the tribe are thus separated by a wide expanse of territory. As regards this peculiarity of distribution General Cunningham says: "Indeed there seems good reason to believe that the Savaras were formerly the dominant branch of the great Kolarian family, and that their power lasted down to a comparatively ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... unfolded it. He always handled money in that careful fashion—a habit which he had inherited from his father and his grandfather before him, and of which he was entirely unconscious. Filtering down through so many generations, the mannerism had ceased at last to be merely a physical peculiarity, and had become strangely spiritual in its suggestion. The craving for possession, the singleness of desire, the tenacity of grasp, the dread of relinquishment, the cold-blooded determination to keep intact the thing which it had cost so much to acquire—all that was bound up in the spirit of Cyrus ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... displeased with his carriage-horses, which were no longer young, and, besides, of a chestnut color. This last peculiarity might, indeed, have been supposed immaterial to him now, but it had been an annoyance for years, his family having always had a preference for roans; nay, was there not an old ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... For over forty years he labored diligently at book engraving, guided in his art by Michael Angelo. but inventing his own curious designs, at which we still wonder. The illustrations for Young's "Night Thoughts," for Blair's "Grave," and the "Inventions to the Book of Job," show the peculiarity of Blake's mind quite as clearly as his poems. While he worked at his trade he flung off—for he never seemed to compose—disjointed visions and incomprehensible rhapsodies, with an occasional little gem that still sets our hearts ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... that Shargar would not drown himself without at least bidding him good-bye; but he knew too that his grandmother could be wrought upon. Her conscience was more tender than her feelings; and this peculiarity occasioned part of the mutual non-understanding rather than misunderstanding between her grandson and herself. The first relation she bore to most that came near her was one of severity and rebuke; but underneath her cold outside lay a warm heart, to which conscience acted the part of a somewhat ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... be vain, perhaps, to emulate the achievements of the Scottish antiquary; but surely something might be done better than the county Garlands, which, with a few honorable exceptions, are sad abortions, mere channels for rhyme-struck editors. There is one peculiarity of the midland songs and ballads which I do not remember to have seen noticed, viz. their singular affinity to those of Scotland, as exhibited in the collections of Scott and Motherwell. I have repeatedly noticed this, even so far south as Gloucestershire. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 207, October 15, 1853 • Various
... apparently no sympathetic chain, no paired sense organs, eyes, ears, or nasal sacs, in all of which points we have striking differences from all true vertebrata; and such a characteristic vertebrate peculiarity as the pineal gland we can only say is represented very doubtfully by ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells
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