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More "Singularity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wars which are prolonged from a difficulty of living in peace rather than from any serious intention, on either side, of pursuing a clear and definite object. Bourbon and Lannoy commanded the imperial armies, Lautrec the French army. Only two events, one for its singularity and the other for its tragic importance, deserve to have the memory ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... pointed out in the Grande Rue, said to have formed part of her palace; and the singularity of the ornaments which can be traced amidst their architecture, makes it probable that the ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... be a whit more comfortable upon my night cap. Besides, my wife might object to them. It follows that if I would wear a cap and bells, I must have a cap made on purpose. But this would be rendering myself singular; and of all things, a wise man will avoid ostentatious appearance of singularity. Now I am certainly not singular in ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... to transcribe from the Dial itself the scene at one of the many Bostonian Conventions of that date—the Friends of Universal Progress, in 1840:—'The composition of the Assembly was rich and various. The singularity and latitude of the summons drew together, from all parts of New England, and also from the Middle States, men of every shade of opinion, from the straightest orthodoxy to the wildest heresy, and many persons whose church was a church of one member only. A great variety of dialect ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson • John Morley
... view, from its novelty, extent, and singularity, demands the first notice: the Cholamoo lake lay 1500 feet below me, at the bottom of a rapid and rocky descent; it was a blue sheet of water, three or four miles from north to south, and one and a half broad, hemmed in by rounded spurs from Kinchinjhow on one side, and from Donkia on the ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... here an opportunity of observing that it is just as unsightly as the interior of Constantinople. The streets are narrow, and the houses built of wood, plaster, and some even of stone; but all wear an aspect of poverty, and at the same time of singularity;—the gables projecting so much that they occupy half the width of the street, and render it completely dark, while they increase its narrowness. The inn, too, at which we put up, looked far from inviting when viewed from the outside, so that we had some dark misgivings respecting the ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... Thy fates open their hands; let thy blood and spirit embrace them. And, to inure thyself to what thou art like to be, cast thy humble slough and appear fresh. Be opposite with a kinsman, surly with servants: let thy tongue tang arguments of state; put thyself into the trick of singularity: She thus advises thee that sighs for thee. Remember who commended thy yellow stockings, and wished to see thee ever cross-gartered. I say, remember. Go to; thou art made, if thou desirest to be so; if not, let me see thee a steward still, the fellow of servants, and not worthy to touch ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... stranger is struck with the singularity of the names of many of the women of Lima. A child receives the name of the saint or of the festival whose celebration falls on the day of its birth. Those who happen to come into the world on the days on which the Romish Church celebrates ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... at Breitenfeld he had never known a reverse. A bigoted Catholic, he had never hesitated at any act of cruelty which might benefit the cause for which he fought, or strike terror into the Protestants; and the singularity of his costume and the ugliness of his appearance heightened the terror which his deeds inspired among them. When not in armour his costume was modelled upon that of the Duke of Alva, consisting of a slashed doublet of green ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... on small detached reefs in their lagoons, such as occur in common atolls, and on broken portions of the linear marginal reef, such as bounds every atoll of the ordinary form. I cannot refrain from once again remarking on the singularity of these complex structures — a great sandy and generally concave disk rises abruptly from the unfathomable ocean, with its central expanse studded, and its edge symmetrically bordered with oval basins of coral-rock just lipping the surface of the sea, sometimes clothed ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... know of nothing better than to repeat the words of a princess,[671] who is not less distinguished at court by the delicacy of her wit than by her high rank and personal charms. As they were conversing in her presence of the singularity of the adventure which here happened at St. Maur, 'Why are you so much astonished?' said she, with that gracious air which is so natural to her; 'Is it surprising that the son should have to do with spirits, since the mother sees the eternal Father three times every ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... singularity of incident. Here is a man sending money, never asked for, to an unknown person, about whom he knew nothing; then misdirecting his letter, and then remembering and sending another message to go and find where the first had gone to. But notice the marvelous result. ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... wrath which had accumulated in the heart of the earl was fanned to its height, he issued his orders to the factor in the following decree:—"Rackrent—Us"—(a grammatical singularity which his lordship always used, surpassing even the royal or editorial majesty, indicated by the first person plural)—"Us is determined to root out that rebellious fellow Douglas, and to banish him from our grounds. Rackrent, order Spulzie, the ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... American shore, pulled up to the landing place in front of the fort. The weather, as on the preceding day, was fine, and the river exhibited the same placidity of surface. Numerous bodies of Indians were collected on the banks, pointing to, and remarking on the singularity of the white flag which hung drooping at the stern of the boat. Presently the prisoners were seen advancing to the bank, accompanied by General Brock, Commodore Barclay, and the principal officers of the garrison. Major Montgomerie appeared pleased at the prospect of the liberty ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... the modern fashion of regarding any natural object as immodest. Sir William Jones justly remarks that in Hindustan "it never seems to have entered the heads of the legislators, or people, that anything natural could be offensively obscene; a singularity which pervades all their writings and conversation, but is no proof of depravity in their morals" ("Asiatic Researches," vol. i., p. 255). Gross injustice is sometimes done to ancient creeds by contemplating them from a modern point of view; ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... examining this person I was surprised to see her head tied up in a foulard, and along the temples a curious dark line; but I presently saw that her head was shaved. 'Have you been ill?' I asked, as I noticed this singularity. She cast a glance at a broken mirror in a shabby frame and colored; then the tears came into her eyes. 'Yes, monsieur,' she said, 'I had horrible headaches, and I was obliged to have my hair cut off; it came to my feet.' ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... these nuns in Spain is, that they occupy numerous edifices worthy of a better purpose, and generally in the best situations in populous cities. Only one convent of this class deserves particular mention, on account of the great historical recollections connected with its existence, for the singularity of its organization, and for the pious object of its institution. It is called the Convent de las Huelgas, and is situated at a short ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... singularly mean cottages of our peasants. We now continued our way through the different villages, each furnished with his staff, and thus exhibited no remote resemblance of a caravan. Some few people who met us seemed to stare at us, struck, perhaps, by the singularity of our dress, or the peculiarity of our manner of travelling. On our route we passed a wood where a troop of gipsies had taken up their abode around a fire under a tree. The country, as we continued to advance, became more and more beautiful. Naturally, perhaps, the ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... did not indeed strike the mind of Arundel with the degree of surprise wherewith our own are affected, for it was a time of adventure and romance; the poetry of life was not bound up principally in books, but was acted out in deeds; and the occurrence of daily wonders, while it destroyed their singularity, abated curiosity on their account. Hence men expressed no astonishment at the course of life of the Knight; hence, when Arundel became acquainted with him, he felt none, and it was only upon more intimate acquaintance—after Sir Christopher began to take an interest in him; after he had noted ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... Singularity in godliness, if it be in godliness, no man should be ashamed of. For that is no more than to be more godly, than to walk more humbly with God than others; and, for my part, I had rather be a pattern and example of piety. I had rather that my life should be instructing ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... leaving in the cradle of the new born babe one of their own brood, which was almost always imperfect in some one or other of the organs proper to humanity. Such a being they conceived Fenella to be; and the smallness of her size, her dark complexion, her long locks of silken hair, the singularity of her manners and tones, as well as the caprices of her temper, were to their thinking all attributes of the irritable, fickle, and dangerous race from which they supposed her to be sprung. And it seemed, that although no jest appeared to ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... man's life? These were the kind of mysteries which people never contemplate without a secret terror. In the various classes of the town, from the apprentice to the great lord who used the watches of the old horologist, there was no one who could not himself judge of the singularity of the fact. The citizens wished, but in vain, to get to see Master Zacharius. He fell very ill; and this enabled his daughter to withdraw him from those incessant visits which had degenerated into ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... excellent; and he is so clever a man, that all he does is good to a certain degree. His "Judith" is somewhat violent, perhaps. His "Rebecca" most pleasing; and not the less so for a little pretty affectation of attitude and needless singularity of costume. "Raphael and Michael Angelo" is as clever a picture as can be—clever is just the word—the groups and drawing excellent, the coloring pleasantly bright and gaudy; and the French students study it incessantly; there are a dozen who copy it for one ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... admirable study: "We meet with beauties of a high order, expressions entirely new, and a harmonic tissue as original as erudite. In his compositions boldness is always justified; richness, often exuberance, never interferes with clearness; singularity never degenerates into the uncouth and fantastic; the sculpturing is never disordered; the luxury of ornament never overloads the chaste eloquence of the principal lines. His best works abound in combinations which may ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... of man's twofold life, His kingship over earth, His sonship under God: and conquered in the might of His knowledge. How He was tempted, like every genius, to use His creative powers for selfish ends—to yield to the lust of display and singularity, and break through those laws which He came to reveal and to fulfil—to do one little act of evil, that He might secure thereby the harvest of good which was the object of His life: and how He had conquered in the faith that He was the Son of God. She told me how He had ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... received from young Delvile in the name of his mother, determined her upon making this visit; for though, in her present uncertainty, she wished only to see that family when sought by themselves, she was yet desirous to avoid all appearance of singularity, lest any suspicions should be raised of ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... part only of the enclosure, which consists of delicate and elaborately worked tracery, surmounted by an embattled crest.... The entire work is particularly valuable on account of its well-established date, combined with its great beauty and singularity." ...
— The Cathedral Church of Canterbury [2nd ed.]. • Hartley Withers
... Mr. Thompson's nature was not picturesque nor lovable. His history, as imparted at dinner, one day, by himself, was practical even in its singularity. After a hard and wilful youth and maturity,—in which he had buried a broken-spirited wife, and driven his son to sea,—he suddenly experienced religion. "I got it in New Orleans in '59," said Mr. Thompson, with the general suggestion of referring to an epidemic. "Enter ye ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... our favourite fancy; to take a pride in forming and maintaining our own opinion; to stand upon our rights; to fear the hard words and cold looks of men, to be afraid of being too religious, to dread singularity; to leave our hearts and minds, our thoughts, words, and actions, to take care of themselves:—this, on one side or the other, in this measure or that, is the sort of character which the multitude, even of what are called respectable ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... as he was. And then, the presence of Aramis, who had returned from Belle-Isle, and been nominated by Monsieur Fouquet inspector-general of all the arrangements; his perseverance in mixing himself up with all the surintendant's affairs; his visits to Baisemeaux; all this suspicious singularity of conduct had excessively troubled and tormented D'Artagnan during the last ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Amiens, or Reims, and their portals are almost ridiculously small. The front of York Cathedral is the most notable in the list for its size and elaborate decoration. Those of Lincoln and Peterborough are, however, more interesting in the picturesqueness and singularity of their composition. The first-named forms a vast arcaded screen, masking the bases of the two western towers, and pierced by three huge Norman arches, retained from the original faade. The west front of Peterborough is likewise a mask or screen, mainly composed of three colossal ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... wrestling with William's hat. It was a marble hat, with a rim almost big enough for a race-course; and Mix said that although he didn't profess to know much about heathen mythology as a general thing, still it struck him that Hercules in a broad-brimmed hat would attract attention by his singularity, and might ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... least extraordinary feature of his appearance. He constantly wore a full-trimmed scarlet waistcoat of most uncommon dimensions, a light grey coat, which altogether gave him an air of singularity and whim as remarkable ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... course of his al fresco toilette, one of his feet went through his inexpressibles in an honourable quarter, instead of proceeding by the proper route; the error interested his friends vastly—for they are as critical as the most fastidious could be of any singularity in attire, and they held the unfortunate juvenile in his embarrassing position for a long time, to his intense despair, until he was rescued from his ignoble position by some grown-up friend. Then, the young East is prone ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... distorted expressions. If the thing can be obscured, he is sure to obscure it. He seems to say to the reader, 'Can you guess? do you give it up?' But then, less obliging than the maker of charades, he leaves the puzzled victim without an explanation at last. He studies a singularity of phrase at once crabbed and finical, and overloads his pages with far-fetched epithets, that are at once harsh and unmeaning. He seems to have been told that he has wit and humor, and—strange delusion!—to believe it. He writes as if he imagined ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... powerful in the former reign, was, in spite of his remonstrances, obliged, by order of the court, to pronounce the sentence against him [d]. The primate submitted to the decree; and all the prelates, except Folliot, Bishop of London, who paid court to the king by this singularity, became sureties for him [e]. It is remarkable that seven Norman barons voted in this council; and we may conclude, with some probability, that a like practice had prevailed in many of the great councils summoned since the Conquest. ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... longer in proportion. The erect horn or spine is placed over, and a little behind the eyes, as in Willughby's figure, attended with two shorter ones directly behind the first: the long spine is quite straight, sharp at the point, and deeply sawed on the back part. Another singularity presents itself in this species, which is, a deep pouch-like appendage beneath the throat, in shape not unlike what is called Hippocrates's sleeve, or rather a ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip
... shaky, one may add, under their feet. I daresay that Nietzsche, had he been alive, would have got a lot of satisfaction out of the execration thus heaped upon him, not only because, being a vain fellow, he enjoyed execration as a tribute to his general singularity, and hence to his superiority, but also and more importantly because, being no mean psychologist, he would have recognized the disconcerting doubts underlying it. If Nietzsche's criticism of democracy were as ignorant and empty, say, as the average evangelical clergyman's criticism ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche
... different in their consultations, prescriptions, mistaking many times the parties' constitution, [4090]disease, and causes of it, they give quite contrary physic; [4091]"one saith this, another that," out of singularity or opposition, as he said of Adrian, multitudo medicorum principem interfecit, "a multitude of physicians hath killed the emperor;" plus a medico quam a morbo periculi, "more danger there is from the physician, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... that every man that could afford it wore a wig, with the exception of some of those eccentric individuals that are to be found in every state and period of society, and who are remarkable for that peculiar love of singularity which generally constitutes their character—a small and harmless ambition, easily gratified, and involving no injury to their fellow-creatures. The second horseman, therefore, wore a wig, but the other, although he eschewed that ornament, ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... in 1763, "The Origin and Progress of Letters." The great singularity of this volume is "a new species of biography never attempted before in English." This consists of the lives of "English Penmen," otherwise writing-masters! If some have foolishly enough imagined that the sedentary ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... over-englishing his travels, and wholly consecrated to singularity; the very Jacob's staff of compliment; a sir that hath lived to see the revolution of time in most of his apparel. Of presence good enough, but so palpably affected to his own praise, that for want of flatterers he commends himself, to the floutage of his own family. He deals ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... only singularity of Gottfried's structure, although it is the only one that would appeal to the untrained mind. Careful sounding of Gottfried's internal arrangements by a well-known surgeon seems to point to the fact that ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... sense of light, rather than organs of seeing. Their almost paradoxical number at least, and the singularity of their forms, render it probable that they impel the animal by some modification of its irritability, herein likewise containing a striking analogy to the known influence of light on plants, than as excitements of sensibility. ...
— Hints towards the formation of a more comprehensive theory of life. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... promiscuously. In the printed correspondence of Fenelon, a long letter by him on frequent communion, and one on reading the Bible, (they deserve to be translated and generally read,) express exactly our author's sentiments on those subjects. All singularity in devotion was offensive to him. He exhorted every one to a perfect discharge of the ordinary duties of his situation, to a conformity to the divine will, both in great and little occasions, to good temper and mildness in his intercourse with his neighbor, to an habitual recollection ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... is worthy of attention on account of the singularity of some of its provisions. Being sent for education to any Popish school or college abroad, upon conviction, incurs (if the party sent has any estate of inheritance) a kind of unalterable and perpetual outlawry. The tender and incapable ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Thus we have the wonderful birds of Paradise,[72] which agree in developing plumage unequalled in beauty, but a beauty which, as to details, is of different kinds, and produced in different ways in different species. To develop "beauty and singularity of plumage" is a character of the group, but not of any one definite kind, to be explained ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... Ghanam": this form of expressing singularity is common to Arabic and the Eastern languages, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... female for one of the ordinary nurses of the place. Her attire was well enough, though worn awkwardly, and as if its owner were not exactly at ease in it. She had the air of one in her best attire, who was unaccustomed to be dressed above the most common mode. What added to the singularity of her appearance, was the fact, that while she wore no cap, her hair had been cut into short, gray bristles, instead of being long, and turned up, as is usual with females. To give a sort of climax to this uncouth appearance, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... a garden of corals. The steep sides are thickly hung with lianas, ferns, and orchids, by help of which one climbs upwards to the cavern, sixty feet above the surface of the water. To add to the singularity of the situation, we also found at the entrance to the grotto, on a large block of rock projecting two feet above the ground, [A sea snake.] a sea-snake, which tranquilly gazed at us, but which had to be killed, because, like all genuine ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... was still more surprised at the singularity of the stranger's appearance. He was a short, square-built old fellow, with thick bushy hair, and a grizzled beard. His dress was of the antique Dutch fashion: a cloth jerkin strapped round the waist, several pair of ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... still the same admiration for him, and it is sometimes fine fun to see the caresses she gives him before all the world, and the constrained gravity with which he receives them. The history of Cavoye would fill a volume, but this I have selected suffices for its singularity, which assuredly is ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... was now no danger of an Indian onslaught; but on the other hand, since Secundra Dass was at the pains to spy upon them, it was highly probable he knew English, and if he knew English it was certain the whole of their design was in the Master's knowledge. There was one singularity in the position. If Secundra Dass knew and concealed his knowledge of English, Harris was a proficient in several of the tongues of India, and as his career in that part of the world had been a great deal ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and was involved in a labyrinth she should never get out of; she asked herself why she had ventured on so dangerous a step, and perceived she was engaged in it almost without having designed it; the singularity of such a confession, for which she saw no precedent, made her ...
— The Princess of Cleves • Madame de La Fayette
... this historian, the origin of his excellencies and his defects, is a love of singularity. He has no notion of going with a multitude to do either good or evil. An exploded opinion, or an unpopular person, has an irresistible charm for him. The same perverseness may be traced in his diction. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Colonel soon reassured them by a most cordial reception. He excused himself for acting the part of a man just returned from the other world. He talked a great deal—a little too much, perhaps; but they were so well pleased to listen to him, and his words borrowed such an importance from the singularity of recent events, that he gained an unqualified success. He was told that Dr. Martout had been one of the principal agents of his resuscitation, in conjunction with another person whom they promised soon to present to him. He thanked M. Martout warmly, ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... years after he had taken his bachelor's degree, Young was appointed to speak the Latin oration. This is at least particular for being dedicated in English "To the Ladies of the Codrington Family." To these ladies he says "that he was unavoidably flung into a singularity, by being obliged to write an epistle dedicatory void of commonplace, and such an one was never published before by any author whatever; that this practice absolved them from any obligation of reading what was presented ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... duration of the sensation or actual memory. (83:5) Whether ideas are or are not subject to corruption will be seen in philosophy. (6) If this seems too absurd to anyone, it will be sufficient for our purpose, if he reflect on the fact that a thing is more easily remembered in proportion to its singularity, as appears from the example of the comedy just cited. (83:7) Further, a thing is remembered more easily in proportion to its intelligibility; therefore we cannot help remember that which is extremely singular ...
— On the Improvement of the Understanding • Baruch Spinoza [Benedict de Spinoza]
... having forgotten which. At first, perhaps, you will be angry, viz., when you hear that this simple difference of four cubits, or six feet, measures a difference for your expectations, whether you count your expectations in kicks or halfpence, that absolutely strikes horror into arithmetic. The singularity of the case is, that the very solemnity of the legend and the wealth of the human race in time, depend upon the cubical contents of the monument, so that a loss of one granite chip is a loss of a frightful infinity; yet, again, for that very reason, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... not unlike. I recall him, two months later, a little less uncouth, a little better dressed, but in singularity and in angularity much the same. All the world now takes an interest in every detail that concerned him, or that relates to the weird tragedy of his ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... introduced in a long conversation between Mr. Jorrocks and his friend, relative to an indignity that had been offered him by the rejection by the editor of a sporting periodical of a long treatise on eels, which, independently of the singularity of diction, had become so attenuated in the handling, as to have every appearance of filling three whole numbers of the work; and Mr. Jorrocks had determined to avenge the insult by turning author on his own account. The Yorkshireman, ever ready for amusement, cordially supported Mr. Jorrocks ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... arrival, then, Hiero would seem to have been the only talking animal she had known. The singularity of this did not at first strike the young man. Gnulemah was the arch-wonder; yet she so fully justified herself as to seem very nature; and by dint of her magic reality, what else had been wonderful seemed natural. Balder was ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... of words and thought would, after all, be in itself little more than serious trifling, a mere exhibition of mental and verbal ingenuity. It would be a kind of intellectual and linguistical dexterity, which would give the author a singularity and supremacy above the world. It would make him the greatest of mental acrobats or jugglers, and he might almost deserve as eminent a reputation as a similar class of artists in bodily achievements; ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... his own People: this has still an interest, and for any feature of this we shall be eager enough; but this withal is the most of what we now want. And not very much even of this; Friedrich the unique King not having as a man any such depth and singularity, tragic, humorous, devotionally pious, or other, as to authorize much painting in that aspect. Extreme brevity beseems us in these circumstances: and indeed there are,—as has already happened in different parts ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... to the younger inhabitants of Marlott, though its real interest was not observed by the participators in the ceremony. Its singularity lay less in the retention of a custom of walking in procession and dancing on each anniversary than in the members being solely women. In men's clubs such celebrations were, though expiring, less uncommon; but either the natural shyness of the softer sex, or a sarcastic attitude ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... judged it best to attend school during the usual hours. A learner was already there as old in years, and nearly as stout in form, as myself, so that I escaped from the wonderment which usually attaches to singularity much more comfortably than I anticipated. There were also two others in the school, who had formerly gone a considerable way in the path of classic lore, and had turned aside, but who, now repenting of their apostasy, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... modern phrase high-bred, and could mean nothing else, because in the recital of the pedigree, he tells us, they were got by this same North-country Horse before mentioned, called Boreas, and out of a flying Mare called Podarge. But the singularity of this case is, that the third Horse, whom he calls Pedasus**, was absolutely a common Horse, and of no blood. Here I beg leave to make use of Mr. Pope's words, who, in his translation, speaking of those Horse, ...
— A Dissertation on Horses • William Osmer
... he noticed the sort of gravity and even pain with which she and his father received this revelation of his darkling mind. They tried to teach him what they thought of such things; but though their doctrine caught his fancy and flattered his love of singularity, he was not proof against the crude superstitions of his mates. He thought for a time that there was a Bad Man, but this belief gave way when he heard his father laughing about a certain clergyman who believed in a ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... you seize hold of that unless you tear it out of the Union, bleeding and quivering. Yet unquestionably, we do stand by our national flag as stoutly as any people in the world, and I myself have felt the heart throb at sight of it as sensibly as other men. I think the singularity of our form of government contributes to give us a kind of patriotism, by separating us from other nations more entirely. If other nations had similar institutions,—if England, especially, were a democracy,—we should as readily make ourselves at home in another country as ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... foot of the Prayers and Meditations, that is called her Dying Day. She was buried at Bromley, under the care of Dr. Hawkesworth. Johnson placed a Latin inscription on her tomb, in which he celebrated her beauty. With the singularity of his prayers for his deceased wife, from that time to the end of his days, the world is sufficiently acquainted. On Easter day, 22nd April, 1764, his memorandum says: "Thought on Tetty, poor dear Tetty! with my eyes full. Went ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... convenient to be done, our Christian liberty consists in this that we have leave to do them (p. 242). 31. For our refusing to comply with these, can hardly proceed from any thing, than a proud affectation of singularity, or at best from superstitious scrupluosity (p. 242). 33. Those ministers hinder the design of Christianity, that preach up free grace, and Christian privileges, OTHER WAYS than as motives to obedience, and that scarce ever insist ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... other; in the navy he went still further, for he insisted on performing the menial duties of the lowest cabin-boy, rising step by step, till he was qualified to rate as an able seaman. Nor was this done merely for the sake of singularity; he had resolved that every officer of the sea or land service should enter in the lowest rank of his profession, that he might obtain a practical knowledge of every task or manoeuvre which it ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... a great dislike of any kind of affectation or singularity practised by devout persons, whether in Religious houses or in the world. He went so far as to say that it rendered their piety not merely offensive, ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... Pleasure in contradicting the common Reports of Fame, and in spreading abroad the Weaknesses of an exalted Character. They publish their ill-natur'd Discoveries with a secret Pride, and applaud themselves for the Singularity of their Judgment which has searched deeper than others, detected what the rest of the World have overlooked, and found a Flaw in what the Generality of Mankind admires. Others there are who proclaim the Errors and Infirmities of a great Man ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... He, therefore, sent this tragedy to him, with a short copy of verses[63], in which he desired his correction. Mr. Hill, whose humanity and politeness are generally known, readily complied with his request; but, as he is remarkable for singularity of sentiment, and bold experiments in language, Mr. Savage did not think his play much improved by his innovation, and had, even at that time, the courage to reject several passages which he could not approve; and, what is still more laudable, Mr. Hill had the generosity not to resent ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... toss its head and shake its bottle-brush ere it condescended to move on. It was quite evident that, although Bertram spoke in a half-jesting tone of Giant Despair, he was in reality much delighted with the singularity of this extemporised and ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... print, some invention, or some victory we gained in a brief critical hour, are all that can survive the best of us. It is as if the whole of a man's significance had now shrunk into the phantom of an attitude, into a mere musical note or phrase suggestive of his singularity—happy are those whose singularity gives a note so clear as to be victorious over the inevitable pity of ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... in the house or the landlord, who is one of those few writers of the age that stand upon their own foundation, without patronage, and above dependence. If there was nothing characteristic in the entertainer, the company made ample amends for his want of singularity. ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... object was interesting to him. The pilot brought on board the ship the newspapers of the morning. In these, many of the advertisements had, to Mr. Fearon, the character of singularity. One of them, announcing a play, terminated thus: "gentlemen are informed that no smoking is allowed in the theatre." Several sailing boats passed, with respectable persons in them, many of whom wore enormously large straw hats, turned ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... of a more brilliant career, or of one more calculated from its singularity to give rise to contradictory impressions. This natural perplexity is much increased by the character of Madame Recamier's memoirs, published in 1859, ten years after her death. They are from the pen of Madame Lenormant, the niece of Monsieur Recamier, and the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the Monitor comes smoking into view; while the billows dash over what seems her deck, and storms bury even her turret in green water, as she burrows and snorts along, oftener under the surface than above. The singularity of the object has betrayed me into a more ambitious vein of description than I often indulge; and, after all, I might as well have contented myself with simply saying that she ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... consequence I gave up the Standing Committee on Commons, upon which I asked Fitzmaurice to replace me. The proceedings of Sir Stafford Northcote's Committee, as the Committee on Public Business was called, presented only one singularity—namely, the examination of the Speaker—a prolonged one— by Parnell. Both of them were in a way able men; but both were extraordinarily slow of intellect—that is, slow in appreciating a point ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... the Crusade. She followed his signal; while the other young men who had accompanied her, wondering at the apparent ease with which she gained admittance, drew back to a respectful distance from the tent, and there canvassed the singularity of their morning's adventure. ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... Our spark (safe entered) uttered not a word. 'Twas often customary with the king, When state affairs, or other weighty thing, Displeasure gave, to take of love his fill, Yet let his tongue the while continue still. A singularity we needs must own, With this the wife ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... under the fire of questions that assailed him in reference to the fair deserter. But he kept loyal faith with her, adhering even to the letter of her instructions, and only once was goaded into more active mendacity. The conversation had turned upon "Debs," and the consul had remarked on the singularity of the name. A guest from the north observed, however, that the name was undoubtedly a contraction. "Possibly it might have been 'Debborough,' or even the same name as ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... success that now flowed upon him, was, unquestionably, the peculiarity of his personal history and character. There had been, in his very first introduction of himself to the public, a sufficient portion of singularity to excite strong attention and interest. While all other youths of talent, in his high station, are heralded into life by the applauses and anticipations of a host of friends, young Byron stood forth alone, unannounced by either praise or promise,—the ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... Isaacs, and his tall, handsome, crane-necked daughter. The hussy was as straight as an arrow, yet, for the sake of coquetry, or singularity, she would sit in the Methodist chapel, with her dimpled chin resting upon an iron hoop, and her finely formed shoulders braced back with straps so tightly, as to thrust out in a remarkable manner her swanlike chest, and her almost too exuberant bust. This instrument for the distorted, with ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... "I scarcely know whether or not it would be 'good form' to insist on fighting with your bare fists," he said, "but I know that it would be most unusual. Still, I am not sure that its singularity would constitute an insuperable bar to its acceptance by the seconds. At any rate there will be no harm in offering the suggestion to de Albareda; he is a thorough good fellow all through, and you may safely leave ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... strange manners of that unfortunate class of society who do not know the opera, who do not go to supper-parties, and who sleep all night and are awake all day. He thought you must come to the Rue du Temps Perdu to see such things, and promised himself to amuse his friends with an account of this singularity. He was glad to see also that his neighbor watched like himself. This showed in her a mind superior to that of the vulgar inhabitants of the Rue du Temps Perdu. D'Harmental believed that people only watched because they did not wish to sleep, or because they wanted to be amused. He forgot all ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... accounts of their voyages from the rest of the world; these reasons would alone authorize the insertion of those papers, and would recommend them to the inquisitive, as a very great improvement in geography, and worthy of attention, from the singularity of many ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... eccentric, the enthusiast—all these run counter to sane social judgment; but the genius leads society to his own point of view, and interprets the social movement so accurately, sympathetically, and with such profound insight that his very singularity gives greater ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... pouch hung around the neck of the animal, for the purpose, probably, of containing the rider's tools, and any thing else he might have occasion to carry with him. Although I had never seen the old man before, yet from the singularity of his employment, and the style of his equipage, I had no difficulty in recognising a religious itinerant whom I had often heard talked of, and who was known in various parts of Scotland by ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... The singularity was, that all were of the same opinion: everybody cheered him, every house was adorned with his colours. His triumphal return was no party question. Magog Wrath and Bully Bluck walked together like lambs at the head of ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... his singularity of style or expression, Carlyle and his works owe their great notoriety or fame—and many compare Ralph Waldo to old Carlyle. They cannot trace exactly any great affinity between these two great geniuses ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... friend and leaving her sister to her own inventions. Laura had a vision, as the carriage drove away again, of what her situation would have been, or her peace of mind, if Selina and Lionel had been good, attached people like the Collingwoods, and at the same time of the singularity of a good woman's being ready to accept favours from a person as to whose behaviour she had the lights that must have come to the lady in question in regard to Selina. She accepted favours herself and she only wanted to be good: that was oppressively true; but if she had not been Selina's ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... of singularity, energetic speakers and writers sometimes use 'I' as representative of mankind at large. Thus: 'The current impressions received through the senses are not voluntary in origin. What I see in walking is seen because I have an organ of vision.' ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... views which are probably sectarian or individual. On the other hand their apparent singularity may be due to our small knowledge of old Javanese literature. Though other writings are not known to extol Vairocana as being Siva and Buddha in one, yet they have no scruple in identifying Buddhist and Brahmanic deities or connecting them ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... was a very big boy (he told himself) and he had not cried when he was flogged, but under the cover of the kindly dark, hot tears of indignation, hurt pride and pity for his own loneliness—his singularity—made all his ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... struck with the singularity of Caleb's appearance, and later by the expression of his eyes. A very tall, big-boned, lean, round-shouldered man, he was uncouth almost to the verge of grotesqueness, and walked painfully with the aid of a stick, dragging ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... conform to it? and consequently, that a set fashion for all rigidly preserves the contrasts of unequally developed Nature? If there were no fashion to which all felt that they must conform at peril of singularity, then, indeed, there would be some help for the unfortunate; for each individual might adopt a costume suited to his or her peculiarities of person. Yet, even then, there could only be a mitigation or humoring of blemishes, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... of time many of the tombs were mutilated, and it may be that little is left of them. I had the inscriptions of some of them, but gave them to a gentleman from Westmoreland county, Virginia. He wanted them on account of their singularity, and he being an antiquarian he said they would be quite an acquisition to his cabinet of curiosities. It is highly probable that Mount Pleasant was settled long before the Dismal Swamp was known or heard of, and I doubt if any one thought that there could be found ...
— The Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond, Early recollections - Vivid portrayal of Amusing Scenes • Robert Arnold
... likewise the Authority of Scripture to justifie him. The Part of Abdiel, who was the only Spirit that in this infinite Host of Angels preserved his Allegiance to his Maker, exhibits to us a noble Moral of religious Singularity. The Zeal of the Seraphim breaks forth in a becoming Warmth of Sentiments and Expressions, as the Character which is given us of him denotes that generous Scorn and Intrepidity which attends Heroic Virtue. The Author doubtless designed ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... at earth, that she was some days afterwards bought, with the cubs she had fostered, by Mr. Daniel. The bitch continued regularly to suckle, and reared them until able to shift for themselves. What adds to this singularity is, that the terrier's whelp was nearly five weeks old, and the cubs could just see, when this exchange of progeny ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... groan." Again, having reflected that war was caused by luxury in dress, etc., the use of dyed garments grew uneasy to him, and he got and wore a hat of the natural color of the fur. "In attending meetings this singularity was a trial to me, . . . and some Friends, who knew not from what motives I wore it, grew shy of me. . . . Those who spoke with me I generally informed, in a few words, that I believed my wearing it was not ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... refusal to bow to the habits or opinions of the majority, is visited by consequences which only the martyr spirit will endure. Despots have no monopoly of imperious intolerance. A democracy is more cruel and more impatient of singularity, and especially of religious ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... under the hands of hair-dressers, valets, &c. &c. &c. I hate those fellows about me:—but the singularity of this visit made me undergo their tortures with tolerable patience.—Now was the time when Vanity, under pretence of respect, love, and decorum, usher'd in ...
— Barford Abbey • Susannah Minific Gunning
... to reflect upon the singularity of the occurrence, I now hurried along through the dense crowd, searching on every side for ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... certain generally accepted views, there is no law compelling him to provoke animosity by announcing his dissent. He may be excused if he shrink from the lurid glory of martyrdom; he may be justified in not placing himself in a position of singularity. He may even be commended for not helping to perplex mankind with doubts which he feels to be founded on limited and possibly erroneous investigation. But if allegiance to truth lays no stern command upon him to speak out his immature dissent, it does lay a stern command not ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... her temples in two rivers of rippling gold; she seemed a diademed queen. Her forehead, bluish-white in its transparency, extended its calm breadth above the arches of her eyebrows, which by a strange singularity were almost black, and admirably relieved the effect of sea-green eyes of unsustainable vivacity and brilliancy. What eyes! With a single flash they could have decided a man's destiny. They had a life, ...
— Clarimonde • Theophile Gautier
... should have been a skull upon the other side of the parchment, immediately beneath my figure of the scarabaeus, and that this skull, not only in outline, but in size, should so closely resemble my drawing. I say the singularity of this coincidence absolutely stupefied me for a time. This is the usual effect of such coincidences. The mind struggles to establish a connection—a sequence of cause and effect—and, being unable to do so, suffers a species of temporary paralysis. But, when I recovered from this stupor, ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... was of exceeding kindness. As an overture to peace and goodwill, it was reenforced by very large eyes, the intense blackness of which was softened by a perceptible glow of pleasure. Uel was won on the instant. A recollection of the one supreme singularity of the new acquaintance—his immunity from death—recurred to him, and he could not have escaped its effect had he wished. He was conscious also that the eyes were impressing him. Without distinct thought, certainly without the ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... exclaimed, far too excited to give a thought to the singularity of a newly-made midshipman presuming to assume the leadership in the presence of his superiors. Our men caught my enthusiasm, responding with a ringing cheer; and after them we went, helter-skelter, so ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... been an intimate acquaintance of the late monarch, the Elector, King of Poland, the most dissolute and agreeable of European princes), I was speedily in the very best society of the Saxon capital: where I may say that my own person and manners, and the singularity of the adventures in which I had been a hero, made me especially welcome. There was not a party of the nobility to which the two gentlemen of Balibari were not invited. I had the honour of kissing hands and being graciously ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... yet remains the very best model, both in the vigorous and sublime, and the pleasing and tender. In his sphere he has exhausted all the means and appliances of language. On all he has impressed the stamp of his mighty spirit. His images and figures, in their unsought, nay, uncapricious singularity, have often a sweetness altogether peculiar. He becomes occasionally obscure from too great fondness for compressed brevity; but still, the labour of poring over Shakspeare's lines will invariably meet ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... very few in the school of any note have at one time or other escaped this combination of epigram and caricature. Bob has an eye to real life, and is formed for all the bustle of the varied scene. Facetious, witty, and quaint, with all the singularity of genius in his composition, these juvenile jeux d'esprits of his pencil may be regarded as the rays of promise, which streak with golden tints the blushing horizon of ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... heels of this onslaught others followed rapidly. Rochester, disposed to singularity of opinion, set up Elkanah Settle, a young author of some talent, as a rival to the Laureate. Anonymous bardings lampooned him. Mr. Bayes was a broad target for every shaft, so that the complaint so feelingly uttered in his latter days, that "no man living had ever ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... girl, "and I thought my name pretty because of its singularity! But since it displeases you, I would ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... intervening between the first and second editions of the Journal, reflection intensified Darwin's perception of the singularity of the Galapagos fauna. "Considering the small size of these islands," he says, "we feel the more astonished at the number of their aboriginal beings, and at their confined range. Seeing every height crowned with its crater, and the boundaries ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... make annihilating deprivation equivalent to universal bestowment, regard negation as affirmation, and, in the last synthesis of contradictions, see the abysmal Vacuum as a Plenum of fruition. As Oken says, "The ideal zero is absolute unity; not a singularity, as the number one, but an indivisibility, a numberlessness, a homogeneity, a translucency, a pure identity. It is neither great nor small, quiescent nor moved; but it is, and it is ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... Christianity, at a juncture when all parties appear[2] so unanimously determined upon the point, as we cannot but allow from their actions, their discourses, and their writings. However, I know not how, whether from the affectation of singularity, or the perverseness of human nature, but so it unhappily falls out, that I cannot be entirely of this opinion. Nay, though I were sure an order were issued for my immediate prosecution by the Attorney-General, I should still confess that in the present posture of our affairs ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... "Beware of stiff singularity in things barely indifferent: it is self in disguise; and it is so much the more dangerous when it comes recommended by a serious, self-denying, ...
— Fletcher of Madeley • Brigadier Margaret Allen
... am no nearer to the wish to know,' answered Greif, clasping his brown hands over his knee and gazing at her from under the brim of his straw hat. 'You are a strange girl, Hilda,' he added presently, and something in his face showed that her singularity pleased ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... to give the youth a third fall; but I knew that he was in deep water, and therefore, as I wanted to give him a respite lest he should be disheartened, I said to him consolingly: You must not be surprised, Cleinias, at the singularity of their mode of speech: this I say because you may not understand what the two strangers are doing with you; they are only initiating you after the manner of the Corybantes in the mysteries; and this answers ...
— Euthydemus • Plato
... all who differed from him were disparaged and denounced so contemptuously, as to repress instead of stimulating inquiry. The celebrity he attained in his practice was due not only to his great professional skill, but also in part to the singularity of his manners. He used great plainness of speech in his intercourse with his patients, treating them often brusquely and sometimes even rudely. In the circle of his family and friends he was courteous and affectionate; and in all his dealings ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... vengeance, and the countenance, with that expression, struck Emily as resembling Montoni. She shuddered, and turned from it. Passing the light hastily over several other pictures, she came to one concealed by a veil of black silk. The singularity of the circumstance struck her, and she stopped before it, wishing to remove the veil, and examine what could thus carefully be concealed, but somewhat wanting courage. 'Holy Virgin! what can this mean?' exclaimed Annette. 'This is surely the ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... the work before him. Wherever first-hand information could be had, he was constantly on the track. Miss Burney has told how she met him at the gate of the choir of St George's chapel at Windsor—'his comic-serious face having lost none of its wonted singularity, nor yet his mind and language.' She had letters from Johnson, and he must have some of the doctor's choice little notes: 'We have seen him long enough upon stilts, I want to shew him in a new light. He proposed a thousand curious expedients to get them, but I was invincible.' The ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... God,—and had but ordinary intellectual ability, he was still one of the most interesting characters among the Nestorians. There is no name among them that will be more fragrant; none that deserves a more honored place in the annals of his Church. The singularity of his position here, thirty years ago,—devout, spiritual, God-fearing, and active, when a deep night hung over his whole people,—like a mountain beacon, whose summit had caught the first beams of the sun, which was soon to flood all below with its glory; his prophetic anticipation ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... the vegetable kingdom without noticing a tree which, although of no use in manufacture or commerce, not peculiar to the island, and has been often described, merits yet, for its extreme singularity, that it should not be passed over in silence. This is the jawi-jawi and ulang-ulang of the Malays, the banyan tree of the continent, the Grossularia domestica of Rumphius, and the Ficus indica or Ficus racemosa of ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... them all, one after the other; but their names did not abide in my memory one moment. I was thinking too much of the singularity of the adventure, and could not attend to such minutiae. That the red-rosed harpy was Miss Grogram, that I remembered;—that, I may say, I shall never forget. But whether the motherly lady with the somewhat blowsy hair was Mrs. Jones, or Mrs. Green, or Mrs. Walker, ...
— The Relics of General Chasse • Anthony Trollope
... not for singularity in dress; Fools have the more and men of sense the less. To look original is not worth while, But be in mind a little out ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... more reserved. It represented real transactions, with the names, dress, gestures, and likeness, in masks, of whomsoever it thought fit to sacrifice to the public derision. In a state where it was held good policy to unmask whatever carried the air of ambition, singularity, or knavery, comedy assumed the privilege to harangue, reform, and advise the people upon their most important interests. No one was spared in a city of so much liberty, or rather licentiousness, as Athens was at that time. Generals, magistrates, government, the very gods were abandoned to the poet's ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... in a state of prolific produce till the eighth year in the interior, and the ninth in plantations on the coast. Yet, by a singularity which situation alone can explain, the crops of cacao commence in the ninth year in the valley of Goapa, and at the east of the mouth of the Tuy. In the vicinity of the line, and on the banks of Rio-Negro, the plantations are in full produce on the ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... found words to say: "Sir, I am a Christian, and would rather go back to my own friends." At the same tune, it was remarked by every one that she had not lost the feelings of womanly modesty; even after having lived so long among naked blacks, she seemed acutely to feel the singularity of her position, dressed only in a couple of shirts, in the midst of a crowd ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... that the misjudging captain had once suffered himself to be worshiped at one of the Society Islands, in all consistency, he must have fled from such a house with sacred horror. Why I have at all gone back to this little parenthesis in my childhood is, from the singularity that I should remember my father at all, only because I had received all my impressions about him into the very centre of my preconceptions about certain grand objects—about the Tropics, about summer evenings, and about some mysterious glory of the grave. It seems metaphysical to say so, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... and I expected much. It is one of those places which I know before I see them, and has always haunted me the most after the East. I like the gloomy gaiety of their gondolas, and the silence of their canals. I do not even dislike the evident decay of the city, though I regret the singularity of its vanished costume; however, there is much left still; the Carnival, too, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... that the king may hear them argue those points in which he is concerned; since how unjust soever any of his pretensions may be, yet still some one or other of them, either out of contradiction to others, or the pride of singularity, or to make their court, would find out some pretence or other to give the king a fair colour to carry the point: for if the judges but differ in opinion, the clearest thing in the world is made by that means disputable, and truth being once brought in ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... amounting almost to anxiety, to learn who was "Aurore." Why? Was it the singularity and beauty of the name,—for novel and beautiful it sounded in my Saxon ears? No. Was it the mere euphony of the word; its mythic associations; its less ideal application to the rosy hours of the ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... or other folk, or only to vain marvels and wonders. Also, whether they withdraw him from such other good virtuous business as, by the common rule of Christendom or any of the rules of his profession, he was wont to use or bound to be occupied in. Or whether he fall into any singularity of opinions against the scripture of God, or against the common faith of Christ's Catholic Church. Many other tokens are spoken of in the work of Master Gerson, by which to consider whether the person, neither having revelations of God nor illusions from the devil, do feign his revelations himself, ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... imagined to illustrate the singularity of her character, than this pleasant mistake. W.] Dr. Warburton has here found a beauty, which I think the author never intended. Ferdinand asks her not whether she was a created being, a question which, if he meant it, he has ill expressed, ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... one between her and Ian Stewart. She had never before faced the question, the possibility of a choice between the two. Now she weighed it with characteristic swiftness and decision. She reasoned that Ian had enjoyed a period of great happiness in his marriage with her, in spite of the singularity of its conditions; but that now, while Milly could never satisfy his fastidious nature, she herself had grown to be a hinderance, a dissonance in his life. Could she strike a blow which would sever him from her, he would suffer cruelly, no doubt; but it would send him back again to the ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... differs altogether in character from that of every other part of Italy. The Venetian is the most marked and recognisable of all the schools; its singularity is such that a novice in art can easily, in a miscellaneous collection, sort out the works belonging to it, and added to this unique character is the position it occupies in the domain of art. Venice alone ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... close to the Rue Vivienne and not far from the Boulevard Montmartre. Of course I asked him fifty questions, the replies to which left me quite as much in the dark as before. He knew, he said, and hundreds of other persons in Paris knew, the singularity of the personal appearance of the sorceress, and her apparent power of divination, but neither he nor they had any knowledge of her origin. He had been introduced at her house several months before, and had asked questions affecting ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... peasantry. In every part of Ireland you will find people who have never been ten miles away from the place of their birth, and upon whom a local character is unmistakably stamped. The contemporary novelists delight to mark these differences, these salient points of singularity; and their studies are chiefly of the peasantry. They settle down upon some little corner of the country and never stir out of it. Miss Lawless is not content to get you Irish character; she must show you a Clare man or an Arran islander, ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... inscription is given in Lipscomb's Bucks, vol. iv. p. 76., to which is subjoined the following note:—"The singularity of this name has occasioned much curiosity; but no information can be obtained besides that of True Blue having been a stranger, who settled here, and acquired some property, which after his decease was ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 216, December 17, 1853 • Various
... entrance into the world, but, like its own hero, it was born with an evil reputation, and to a community that had yet to learn to love it. The secular press, with one or two exceptions, received it coolly, and referred to its "singularity;" the religious press frantically excommunicated it, and anathematized it as the offspring of evil; the high promise of "The Overland Monthly" was said to have been ruined by its birth; Christians ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... of this prayer Aba, is obscure, but apparently has the force of "salute," like the Latin Ave. Bucor expresses diversity, distinction, and singularity. The article is Si (Jesus), as Ton in Greek. The richness of the language lies in its many synonyms and phrases; consequently this prayer, which, as it stands, is very elegant, could be formed with equal elegance in various other ways, without ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... idlers had collected round, while the officer was speaking; struck, like him, with the singularity of the sight of a French staff officer upon a horse with German trappings. Ralph did not wish to enter into explanations, there; so merely replied, in the same jesting strain, that it had been a fair exchange—the ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... it with horn and hounds. Rather he loved to coax it with egregious and brilliant flies from its habitat in the waters of strange streams. Yet Keogh was a business man; and his schemes, in spite of their singularity, were as solidly set as the plans of a building contractor. In Arthur's time Sir William Keogh would have been a Knight of the Round Table. In these modern days he rides abroad, seeking the Graft instead of ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... Paganel's risible faculties. He burst out laughing. Toline did not know what to make of him. He had done his best to answer every question put to him. But the singularity of the answers were not his blame; indeed, he never imagined anything singular about them. However, he took it all quietly, and waited for the professor to recover himself. These peals of laughter were quite ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... lessen their own. It may be a very great relief to them to know that others have passed through trials equal to theirs and have survived. There are obscure, nervous diseases, hypochondriac fancies, almost uncontrollable impulses, which terrify by their apparent singularity. If we could believe that they are common, the worst of ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... right to imagine anything of her,' she interrupted in a changed tone, gently reproachful, softening to tenderness. A Singularity of Sibyl's demeanour was that she seemed utterly forgetful of the dire position in which her husband stood. One would have thought that she had no concern beyond the refutation of an idle charge, which angered her indeed, but afforded scope ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... is, I was a poor club man. I did not smoke, and never used rum except as a hair tonic—and beer and tobacco were rather distasteful to me. I do not boast of this singularity, I merely state it. No doubt I was considered a dull and profitless companion even in "the Little Room," but in most of my sobrieties Taft and Browne upheld me, though they both possessed the redeeming virtue ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... days when he had deemed it necessary to affect singularity, Des Esseintes had designed marvelously strange furnishings, dividing his salon into a series of alcoves hung with varied tapestries to relate by a subtle analogy, by a vague harmony of joyous or sombre, delicate or barbaric colors to the character ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe. For they neither inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a peculiar form of speech, nor lead a life which is marked out by any singularity. The course of conduct which they follow has not been devised by any speculation or deliberation of inquisitive men; nor do they, like some, proclaim themselves the advocates of any merely human doctrines. But, inhabiting ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... questioned its supreme authority. Particular notice was taken at the same time that the title of Petition did not accompany this paper; it was called a Representation and Remonstrance, which was not the usual nor the proper manner of application to Parliament. This singularity alone was sufficient to put ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... few which Tintoret signed with his name. I am not surprised at his having done so in this case. Evidently the work has been a favourite with him, and he has taken as much pains as it was ever necessary for his colossal strength to take with anything. The subject is not one which admits of much singularity or energy in composition. It was always a favourite one with Veronese, because it gave dramatic interest to figures in gay costumes and of cheerful countenances; but one is surprised to find Tintoret, whose tone of mind was always grave, and who did not like to make a picture out of brocades ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... reign in hell than serve in heaven. To place this lust of self in opposition to denial of self or duty, and to show what exertions it would make, and what pains endure to accomplish its end, is Milton's particular object in the character of Satan. But around this character he has thrown a singularity of daring, a grandeur of sufferance, and a ruined splendour, which constitute the very height of ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... the Romantic Movement Shelley expended his emotion on three main objects—politics, nature, and love. In each of these subjects he struck a note peculiar to himself, but his singularity is perhaps greatest in the sphere of politics. It may be summed up in the observation that no English imaginative writer of the first rank has been equally inspired by those doctrines that helped to produce the French Revolution. That all ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow
... is immediately on his guard A religion preached by such missionaries must lead to paradise! Aversion to singularity Avoid putting our interests in competition with our duty Catholic must content himself with the decisions of others Disgusted with the idle trifling of a convent Dissembler, though, in fact, I was only courteous Ever appearing to feel ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau • David Widger
... marten caught by the Indians. The silence is almost perfect; its chief interruption is the crashing fall of some old patriarch of the forest, overcome by the embrace of loving parasites that twine themselves about the trunk or sit upon the branches. The most striking singularity in these tropical woods is the host of lianas or air-roots of epiphytous plants, which hang down from the lofty boughs, straight as plumb-lines, some singly, others in clusters; some reaching half way to the ground, others touching it ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... few traces of feminine homosexuality in English social history of the past. In Charles the Second's Court, the Memoires de Ghrammont tell us, Miss Hobart was credited with Lesbian tendencies. "Soon the rumor, true or false, of this singularity spread through the court. They were gross enough there never to have heard of that refinement of ancient Greece in the tastes of tenderness, and the idea came into their heads that the illustrious Hobart, who seemed so affectionate ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... seek chances of gratification and enjoyment. Every feeling, every faculty, every sense, was fastened to the cross. To her interior mortification there was no limit; to her exterior, only that imposed by obedience, and as long as her austerities involved no singularity, obedience imposed but little ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... now on the margin of a river whose waters glistened in the sunshine, and now amid the nettles of some stony moorland. All sorts of vague plans then rose within him, uncertain reveries of such vast scope, such singularity, that he had as yet spoken of them to nobody, not even his wife. Others would doubtless have mocked at him, for he had as yet but reached that dim, quivering hour when inventors feel the gust of their discovery sweep over them, before the idea that they are revolving ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... listen," said Dickie, in a low whisper; "you will soon hear the tack of a hammer that was never forged of earthly iron, for the stone it was made of was shot from the moon." And in effect Tressilian did immediately hear the light stroke of a hammer, as when a farrier is at work. The singularity of such a sound, in so very lonely a place, made him involuntarily start; but looking at the boy, and discovering, by the arch malicious expression of his countenance, that the urchin saw and enjoyed ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... owne weapons) hath so contriv'd it, that any truth doth now seeme distastefull for that very reason, for which errour is entertain'd—Novelty, for let but some upstart heresie be set abroach, and presently there are some out of a curious humour; others, as if they watched an occasion of singularity, will take it up for canonicall, and make it part of their creede and profession; whereas solitary truth cannot any where finde so ready entertainement; but the same Novelty which is esteemed the commendation of errour and ...
— The Discovery of a World in the Moone • John Wilkins
... of men had been concealed there, and although not knowing whence the body of archers could have come, they concluded that those who defeated the attempt of Sir Rudolph must have been hidden in the draper's house. The singularity of this incident gave rise to great excitement; but the indignation against Sir Rudolph was in no way lessened by the fact that his attempt had been defeated, not by the townsmen themselves, ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... the kind of mysteries which people never contemplate without a secret terror. In the various classes of the town, from the apprentice to the great lord who used the watches of the old horologist, there was no one who could not himself judge of the singularity of the fact. The citizens wished, but in vain, to get to see Master Zacharius. He fell very ill; and this enabled his daughter to withdraw him from those incessant visits which had degenerated into reproaches ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... its singularity has your wisdom made?" said his friend. "I thought you and the world knew each other's faces pretty ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... with his usual Judgment in this particular Place, wherein he has likewise the Authority of Scripture to justifie him. The Part of Abdiel, who was the only Spirit that in this infinite Host of Angels preserved his Allegiance to his Maker, exhibits to us a noble Moral of religious Singularity. The Zeal of the Seraphim breaks forth in a becoming Warmth of Sentiments and Expressions, as the Character which is given us of him denotes that generous Scorn and Intrepidity which attends Heroic Virtue. The Author doubtless designed it as a Pattern to those who live among Mankind in their ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... was admitted to perform his functions of theology, but he remained at Leyden, so Winwood complained, "honoured, recognized as a singularity and ornament to the Academy in place of the late Joseph Scaliger."—"The friendship of the King and the heresy of Vorstius are quite incompatible," said ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... over the water. When it transpired that he was writing a pamphlet, the world of letters was stirred with the liveliest expectation. The name of the author, the importance of the subject, and the singularity of his opinions, so Mackintosh informs us, all inflamed the public curiosity. Soon after Parliament met for the session (1790), the army estimates were brought up. Fox criticised the increase of our forces, and incidentally hinted something in praise of the French army, which had shown ...
— Burke • John Morley
... in contemporary literature is not quite easy to estimate. There is a danger of being too much attracted, or too much repelled, by those qualities of deliberate singularity which make his work, sincere expression as it is of his own personality, so artificial and recherche in itself. With his pronounced, exceptional characteristics, it would have been impossible for him to write fiction impersonally, or to range himself, for ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... people, unheralded but by the village estimate of a sweet and innocent life, to finish the work of a long line of prophets, and to lift humanity nearer to God. And we are often so eager to prove the singularity of his mission, and to take him out of the category of other workers for God, as to miss the great lesson which is to be learned of the way in which the Father always trains and educates a faithful and victorious Son. Of ...
— Beside the Still Waters - A Sermon • Charles Beard
... thus, as the church waxeth rich, her doctrines have unhappily become dim and obscure, as a light is less seen if placed in a lamp of chased gold than beheld through a screen of glass. God knows, if I see these things and mark them, it is from no wish of singularity or desire to make myself a teacher in Israel; but because the fire burns in my bosom, and will not permit me to be silent. I obey the rules of my order, and withdraw not myself from its austerities. Be they essential to our salvation, or be they mere formalities, ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... it. He seems to say to the reader, 'Can you guess? do you give it up?' But then, less obliging than the maker of charades, he leaves the puzzled victim without an explanation at last. He studies a singularity of phrase at once crabbed and finical, and overloads his pages with far-fetched epithets, that are at once harsh and unmeaning. He seems to have been told that he has wit and humor, and—strange delusion!—to believe it. ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... the view is Trasimeno, a silvery shield encased with serried hills, and set upon one corner of the scene, like a precious thing apart and meant for separate contemplation. There is something in the singularity and circumscribed completeness of the mountain-girded lake, diminished by distance, which would have attracted Lionardo da Vinci's pencil, had he ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... seen and known enough of mankind to be well aware, that I shall perhaps stand alone in my creed, and that it will be well, if I subject myself to no worse charge than that of singularity; I am not therefore deterred from avowing, that I regard, and ever have regarded the obligations of intellect among the most sacred of the claims of gratitude. A valuable thought, or a particular train of thoughts, gives me additional ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... story as it was told to me. The singularity of coincidences has challenged some speculation. Jenny insisted at the time upon sharing the full reward with Catlin, but local critics have pointed out that from subsequent events this proved nothing. For ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... up into that privileged and disfranchised person who is spoken of as "a crathur," and whose proceedings are more or less exempt from criticism. People often said of him that he had plenty of sense of his own, and the remark was to some extent explanatory, as a certain singularity in his way of viewing things even more than an occasional inconsequence and flightiness in his sayings and doings tended to establish the reputation for eccentricity which followed him closely as a shadow, and set an impalpable barrier between himself and his kind. As he advanced ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... such as the circumstances allowed—of an evening spent with Charles and Mary Lamb, in the winter of 1821-22. The record is of the most unambitious character; it pretends to nothing, as the reader will see, not so much as to a pun, which it really required some singularity of luck to have missed from Charles Lamb, who often continued to fire puns, as minute guns, all through the evening. But the more unpretending this record is, the more appropriate it becomes by that very fact to the memory of him who, amongst all authors, ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... leave no reasonable doubt with regard to the fact. [Footnote: The genuine travelling Journal of a native African Merchant may in some respects be considered as interesting, simply from the circumstance of its singularity. But it must be acknowledged that for the mere purpose of gratifying curiosity very few specimens of Isaaco would have been sufficient. The sole reason for publishing such a document at full length, is the circumstance of its containing the only direct evidence of Park's death. ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... some countries have degenerated into races which, in singularity, far exceed every thing that has been found strange in bodily variety among the human race. Swine with solid hoofs were known to the ancients, and large breeds of them are found in Hungary and Sweden. In like manner, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... good fortune did not attend squire Crabshaw in his retreat. The ludicrous singularity of his features, and the half-mown crop of hair that bristled from one side of his countenance, invited some wags to make merry at his expense; one of them clapped a furze-bush under the tail of Gilbert, who, feeling ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... Almighty God." Fanny Kemble was present at this memorable scene, and has given her impression of it. Her testimony, as a public speaker, is valuable. "The Queen was not handsome, but very pretty, and the singularity of her great position lent a sentimental and poetical charm to her youthful face and figure. The serene, serious sweetness of her candid brow and clear soft eyes gave dignity to the girlish countenance, while the want of height only added to the effect of extreme youth of the ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... decay which was sure to follow so serious an innovation. I answered with a little story which I remember having heard from my father. He remembered the last clergyman in New England who still continued to wear the wig. At first it became a singularity and at last a monstrosity; and the good doctor concluded to leave it off. But there was one poor woman among his parishioners who lamented this sadly, and waylaying the clergyman as he came out of church she said, "Oh, dear doctor, I have always listened to your sermon ...
— Model Speeches for Practise • Grenville Kleiser
... solidity of dress; "civilisation" is quietly eating away its rigidity; and the day is coming when Quakerism will don the same suit as the rest of the world. For the first ten minutes we were in the chapel silence was not to us so much of a singularity; but when the Town Hall clock struck seven, when the machinery in the dim steeple of Trinity Church, which adjoins, gave a slow confirmation of it, and when all the little clocks in the neighbouring houses—for you could hear them on account of the general silence—chirped ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... tail, marsupial pouch, and cunning ways, stands alone for its singularity among all the animals of the American continent. Many of the tribe are found in South America; but the Virginian opossum, the size of a full-grown cat, is larger than all its relatives. The head and ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... cannot give up Homer's claim to Nestor's speech. As to Nestor's tale about the armour of Ereuthalion, it is manifest that the first owner of the armour of Ereuthalion, namely Are'ithous, "the Maceman," so called because he had the singularity of fighting with an iron casse-tete, as Nestor explains (VII. 138-140), was a famous character in legendary history. He appears "as Prince Areithous, the Maceman," father (or grand-father?) of an Areithous ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... with cold salutations but without conversation. Ormond and the Dane, however, became exceedingly intimate. Indeed, the mulatto appeared to exhibit a degree of friendship for the Margaritan I had never seen him bestow on any one else. This singularity, together with his well-known insincerity, put me on my guard to watch his ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... been the proceeding, though intermingled not only with sundry examples of her majesty's grace towards such as she knew to be papists in conscience, and not in faction and singularity, but also with an ordinary mitigation towards offenders in the highest degree committed by law, if they would but protest, that in case the realm should be invaded with a foreign army, by the Pope's authority, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... mark on my skin. But just notice the singularity of it, these things seem really only to happen to me! Instead of making indentations, they made bumps. The doctor could never succeed in explaining that to ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... for a race-course; and Mix said that although he didn't profess to know much about heathen mythology as a general thing, still it struck him that Hercules in a broad-brimmed hat would attract attention by his singularity, and ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... which we may suppose he cut them, appear on the partition just opposite the entrance. The romance of the place was not a little augmented by the appearance of its inhabitant, (a blacksmith,) whose tall, thin figure, and whose pale, wild, and haggard countenance, well accorded with the singularity of his abode. He read for our amusement and instruction, I conceive, a few choice passages from a well-thumbed penny pamphlet, purporting to contain the veritable history of the adventurous Kynaston; from whence ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 338, Saturday, November 1, 1828. • Various
... Elizabeth Fry dared to be singular; very possibly only such self-renouncing singularity could have borne such remarkable fruits of philanthropy. It required some such independent, philosophical character as hers to strike out a new path for ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... invention. He was no grubber after the diffident dollar. Nor did he care to follow it with horn and hounds. Rather he loved to coax it with egregious and brilliant flies from its habitat in the waters of strange streams. Yet Keogh was a business man; and his schemes, in spite of their singularity, were as solidly set as the plans of a building contractor. In Arthur's time Sir William Keogh would have been a Knight of the Round Table. In these modern days he rides abroad, seeking the Graft instead of ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... her company had been too much occupied with the bustle of entrance to hear the first boding stroke of the bell—or, at least, to reflect on the singularity of such a welcome to the altar. They therefore continued to advance with undiminished gayety. The gorgeous dresses of the time—the crimson velvet coats, the gold-laced hats, the hoop-petticoats, the silk, satin, brocade and embroidery, the buckles, canes and swords, all displayed to the ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the shops. Carts, palanquins, mules, camels, coolies, soldiers and merchants throng the streets, while to add to the confusion myriads of children play about your legs, and the old men carrying their kites toward the walls add to the singularity of the scene. The kites, representing dragons, eagles, etc., are managed with a dexterity which comes only from a lifelong practice. They are sometimes furnished with various aeolian attachments which imitate the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... N. {opp. 78} speciality, specialite^; individuality, individuity^; particularity, peculiarity; idiocrasy &c (tendency) 176; personality, characteristic, mannerism, idiosyncrasy; specificness &c adj.^; singularity &c (unconformity) 83; reading, version, lection; state; trait; distinctive feature; technicality; differentia. particulars, details, items, counts; minutiae. I, self, I myself; myself, himself, herself, itself. V. specify, particularize, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... who seemed to be her husband. His dress was rustic enough; and yet you would have seen at once that it was not the outward circumstance, but an inward singularity, that had made him and must always keep him a stranger to the ordinary ways of men. There was an emotional exaltation in his face as he hastily led his companions with military directness to the ticket window. Two others of the men were evidently father ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... something a little like Christianity takes its place. If parsons are to be Lords, it is but right and reasonable that the Queen should be Pope. Indeed, I have no objection to this, but I have to the other. What a singularity it is that those who profess a belief in Christ do not obey Him, while those who profess it in Mahomet or Moses or Boodh are obedient to their precepts, if not in certain points of morality, in all things else. Carlyle ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... our modern phrase high-bred, and could mean nothing else, because in the recital of the pedigree, he tells us, they were got by this same North-country Horse before mentioned, called Boreas, and out of a flying Mare called Podarge. But the singularity of this case is, that the third Horse, whom he calls Pedasus**, was absolutely a common Horse, and of no blood. Here I beg leave to make use of Mr. Pope's words, who, in his translation, speaking ...
— A Dissertation on Horses • William Osmer
... number of lionesses, two hundred leopards, and three hundred bears. [86] The collection prepared by the younger Gordian for his triumph, and which his successor exhibited in the secular games, was less remarkable by the number than by the singularity of the animals. Twenty zebras displayed their elegant forms and variegated beauty to the eyes of the Roman people. [87] Ten elks, and as many camelopards, the loftiest and most harmless creatures that wander over the plains ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... was so much accustomed to command, that he did not feel the singularity of his own interference in the affairs of a family of what might be called strangers, though the circumstance struck Sir Reginald, as a little odd. Nevertheless, the last had sufficient penetration to understand the vice-admiral's character at a glance, and the ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... occasionally varies in some slight degree, and as natural selection acts exclusively by the preservation of variations which are advantageous under the excessively complex conditions to which each being is exposed, no limit exists to the number, singularity, and perfection of the contrivances and co-adaptations which may thus be produced. An animal or a plant may thus slowly become related in its structure and habits in the most intricate manner to many other animals and plants, ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... seats to get near him. Swift went up to the country gentleman, and in a very abrupt manner, without any previous salute, asked him, "Pray, Sir, do you know any good weather in the world?" After staring a little at the singularity of Swift's manner and the oddity of the question, the gentleman answered, "Yes, Sir, I thank God I remember a great deal of good weather in my time."—"That is more," replied Swift, "than I can say; I never remember any weather that was not too hot or too cold, too wet or too ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... person would hardly have noticed any change in his looks. The dining-room had been abandoned at last. The victorious and the vanquished had retired to their rooms. First of all, he went up to the artist's apartment, so that no singularity in his conduct should attract attention, for, as master of the house, a visit to one of his guests who had fallen dead, or nearly so, at his own table was a positive duty. The attentions lavished upon Marillac by his friend ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... this onslaught others followed rapidly. Rochester, disposed to singularity of opinion, set up Elkanah Settle, a young author of some talent, as a rival to the Laureate. Anonymous bardings lampooned him. Mr. Bayes was a broad target for every shaft, so that the complaint so feelingly uttered in his latter days, that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... Similit. xxii, seqq.] divides the uplifting of pride, saying that there is "pride of will, pride of speech, end pride of deed." Bernard [*De Grad. Humil. et Superb. x, seqq.] also reckons twelve degrees of pride, namely "curiosity, frivolity of mind, senseless mirth, boasting, singularity, arrogance, presumption, defense of one's sins, deceitful confession, rebelliousness, license, sinful habit." Now these apparently are not comprised under the species mentioned by Gregory. Therefore the latter would seem to ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... they came in sight of the old homestead. It presented a very odd appearance. Not one of the three would have recognised it. After the invasion of the locusts it showed a very altered look, but now there was something else that added to the singularity of its appearance. A row of strange objects seemed to be placed upon the roof ridge, and along the walls of the kraals. What were these strange objects, for they certainly did not belong to the buildings? This question ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... saw over the canisters of the tobacco window, and the singularity of the man's behaviour prompted ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... insisting on the Eternity of punishment, but diffident of curtailing the substantial comforts of Time; ardent and imaginative on the pro-millennial advent of Christ, but cold and cautious toward every other infringement of the status quo. Let him fish for souls not with the bait of inconvenient singularity, but with the drag-net of comfortable conformity. Let him be hard and literal in his interpretation only when he wants to hurl texts at the heads of unbelievers and adversaries, but when the letter of ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... every heart—that which describes the communing of the wanderer with nature [Footnote: Excursion, book i.]—is singled out for ridicule; while the whole poem is judged to display "a puerile ambition of singularity, grafted on an unlucky predilection for truisms". [Footnote: Edinburgh Review, xxiv. I, &c. It is but just to add that in the remainder of the essay the Reviewer takes back—so far as such things can ever be taken back—a considerable part of ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... eyes, heavily fringed by the black brows and lashes, shone out strangely; the contrast between the white flaxen hair, drawn back in simple massive waves like a Greek statue, and the broad level eyes as dark as night, was almost startling this evening in the singularity of its beauty. She sat like a queenly marble at the end of the table, not silent, by any means, but so evidently out of spirits that John Westonhaugh, who did not know that Isaacs was going in the morning, and would not have supposed that his sister could care so much, if ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... at sea, for a ship is waiting there in the calm, and on board that ship is Urraca, with a wise captain named Maruc and a stout crew. The singularity of the event induces them to land (Maruc knows the dangers of the region, but Urraca has no fears; the captain also knows how to enchant the beasts), and the horse's bloodmarks guide them up the valley. At last they come upon a miserable creature, in rags, dishevelled, half-starved, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... into my possession some time ago, among a quantity of waste paper in which books were wrapped, which, from the singularity of its contents, I felt desirous to trace to the book of which it forms a part, but my research has hitherto proved unsuccessful. It consists of two leaves of a large octavo sheet, probably published ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 185, May 14, 1853 • Various
... follow him wherever he went. They now, in fact, eagerly flocked after him, in crowds, with the idea that no harm could possibly come to them while they were in his presence. This occurrence, therefore, independent of it's extreme singularity, had an effect very favourable to the ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... now no danger of an Indian onslaught; but on the other hand, since Secundra Dass was at the pains to spy upon them, it was highly probable he knew English, and if he knew English it was certain the whole of their design was in the Master's knowledge. There was one singularity in the position. If Secundra Dass knew and concealed his knowledge of English, Harris was a proficient in several of the tongues of India, and as his career in that part of the world had been a great deal worse than profligate, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that the character of these assertions is not sufficient to deter many, from examining their claims to belief. I therefore lean but very slightly on the extravagance and extreme apparent singularity of their pretensions. I might have omitted them, but on the whole it seemed more just to the claims of my argument to suggest the vast complication of improbabilities involved in the statements enumerated. Every one must ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... is a small animal of North America, chiefly remarkable for singularity of diet. It subsists solely upon a single ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... the mysterious figures of Chinese astrology, and the whole without betraying themselves for a moment; and with such perfection as to impose on the most skilful men of letters, induced, of course, by the singularity of the discovery to dispute its authenticity. It could only have been done by one of the most erudite of Chinese scholars, joining with the missionaries to impose ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... much larger in size. Almost every portion of the banana tree is useful. First of all, the nutritious fruit. The plantains when green and hard, are boiled in water or with meat like our potatoes, or they are cut in slices and fried in fat, when they are soft and ripe. There is a singularity about the boiled plaintain, worthy of being mentioned. Pork especially, and other meats are so exceedingly fat in the tropics that they would be most disgusting or even impossible to eat with either bread or ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... was scarcely clear in its meaning to me; but as it did not concern me, I did not let it weigh upon my mind. But the singularity of the other man's appearance lingered with me for a while; and as we walked toward Bell's ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... long enjoy the instructions of his master, for Haydyn handed him over to the care and instructions of the learned Allrechtsberger. It appears, that the character of Beethoven was marked by great singularity from his earliest years. Both Haydyn and Allrechtsberger, but particularly the latter, have recorded that he was not willing to profit by good advice. Beethoven has himself been heard to confess, that among other peculiarities which he prided himself on displaying, ...
— Sketch of Handel and Beethoven • Thomas Hanly Ball
... reflecting on the singularity of this fact when the door opened, and the son of the ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... worse, and could not breathe. His medical attendants could not conceive what occasioned this accident and retarded his cure. He died almost in the arms of the Dauphin, who went every day to see him. The singularity of his disease determined the surgeons to open the body, and they found, in his chest, part of the leaden syringe with which decoctions had, as was usual, been injected into the part in a state of suppuration. The surgeon, who committed this act of negligence, took care not to boast ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... with which she and his father received this revelation of his darkling mind. They tried to teach him what they thought of such things; but though their doctrine caught his fancy and flattered his love of singularity, he was not proof against the crude superstitions of his mates. He thought for a time that there was a Bad Man, but this belief gave way when he heard his father laughing about a certain clergyman who believed ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... distributing o' souls, 'twas on the night Keren was brought into this world. And a say that with a cause, moreover; for th' same night, mark you, one Mistress Mouldy, over the way, was brought to bed o' a man-child. That's neither here nor there. Herein doth lie the singularity. That child did grow up to knit stockings i' th' door-way like any wench; Peter Mouldy's th' name, and a plays a part i' th' story I'm about to relate to thee. Ne'er in all thy travels hast thou e'er ...
— A Brother To Dragons and Other Old-time Tales • Amelie Rives
... of idlers had collected round, while the officer was speaking; struck, like him, with the singularity of the sight of a French staff officer upon a horse with German trappings. Ralph did not wish to enter into explanations, there; so merely replied, in the same jesting strain, that it had been a fair exchange—the small difference in the value of the horses being paid for, with a small ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... Family of Distinction was considered as incomplete in its establishment, if it did not possess a certain whimsical Character called a Fool; who was either to afford amusement to his witty Master by the real singularity of his Humour,—or to act as a foil to his foolish Lord by well-timed displays of affected Folly.—These appendages to Greatness have long been laid aside.—Indeed, the present Age, which is remarkable for its refinements, has, in the general methods ...
— The First of April - Or, The Triumphs of Folly: A Poem Dedicated to a Celebrated - Duchess. By the author of The Diaboliad. • William Combe
... houses in Park Lane and shooting boxes in Scotland. He liked to relate all that he knew about them, and sometimes even to mention certain facts which the individuals themselves would probably have preferred to be consigned to oblivion. But—and here comes the singularity to which I have referred—Rhodes would not allow anyone else to speak of these things, and he always took the part of his so-called friends when outsiders hinted at dark episodes which did not admit of investigation. He almost ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... rather than from any serious intention, on either side, of pursuing a clear and definite object. Bourbon and Lannoy commanded the imperial armies, Lautrec the French army. Only two events, one for its singularity and the other for its tragic importance, deserve to have the memory ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... a different sort of singularity. She is too still, and white, and cold, and stately. I told you it was a wretched piece of business to send a nature like hers, so different from everybody else's, off among utter strangers; to shut up that queer, free untamed thing in a boarding-school ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... on some occasions, by a spirit of enterprise which has distinguished his whole life. He has genius, and education better than the common, and a talent for useful and interesting observation. I believe him to be an honest man, and a man of truth. To all this, he adds just as much singularity of character, and of that particular kind too, as was necessary to make him undertake the journey he proposes. Should he get safe through it, I think he will give an interesting account of what ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... the otherwise languid climate. Under all these cherishing influences, the human being develops a wealth and luxuriance of physical beauty unknown in less favored regions. In the region about Sorrento one may be said to have found the land where beauty is the rule and not the exception. The singularity there is not to see handsome points of physical proportion, but rather to see those who are without them. Scarce a man, woman, or child you meet who has not some personal advantage to be commended, while even striking beauty is common. Also, under these kindly skies, a native courtesy ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... space of a hundred years. It binds Caius Plautius your colleague, created under the same auspices, with the same privileges. Did not the people create him with the fullest privileges with which any censor ever was created? Or is yours an excepted case, in which this peculiarity and singularity takes place? Shall the person, whom you create king of the sacrifices, laying hold of the style of sovereignty, say, that he was created with the fullest privileges with which any king was ever created at Rome? Who then, do you think, would ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... wonderful birds of Paradise,[72] which agree in developing plumage unequalled in beauty, but a beauty which, as to details, is of different kinds, and produced in different ways in different species. To develop "beauty and singularity of plumage" is a character of the group, but not of any one definite kind, to be explained merely ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... amongst ourselves, at the risque of neck and limbs, and to the still more important detriment of the farmer's gates and fences. The point of privilege, perhaps, is less capable of defence—admitting, however, for a moment, that pre-eminence of station and office entitles the holder to singularity of inclination and conduct, as it is certainly allowed to do in the case of some other sovereigns, the question then becomes a mere matter of taste, and it is ungenerous to deny the Otaheitan queen the benefit of the old maxim, de gustibus non ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... duke continued silent.—''Tis you only, my lord, who can release me from a situation so distressing; and to your goodness and justice I appeal, certain that necessity will excuse the singularity of my conduct, and that I shall not appeal ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... honour of St. Peter, prince of the Apostles, that title was offered to the Roman Pontiff during the venerable Council of Chalcedon. But no one of them ever consented to use this name of singularity; lest while something peculiar was given to one, all bishops should be deprived of the honour due to them. Do we, then, not seek the glory of this name, even when offered to us, and does another catch at it for himself, when it ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... meeting, at which no one member present was at all conversant with the subjects rewarded. I shall, however, say no more on this subject. They erred from feeling, an error so very rare with them, that it might be pardoned even for its singularity. ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage
... however, the young man endeavored to emulate the coolness which, notwithstanding his inferior condition, imparted to the air of the other something that was imposing, if it were not absolutely authoritative. Perhaps the singularity of the adventure aided in effecting an object, that was a little difficult of attainment in one accustomed to receive so much habitual deference from most of those who made the sea their home. Swallowing his resentment, the ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... of course, our dinner was not a very elaborate one, it wanting two or three hours to the regular time of dining, though my grandmother had ordered, in my hearing, one or two delicacies to be placed on the table, that had surprised Patt. Among the extraordinary things for such guests was wine. The singularity, however, was a little explained by the quality commanded, ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... to court, that the king may hear them argue those points in which he is concerned; since, how unjust soever any of his pretensions may be, yet still some one or other of them, either out of contradiction to others, or the pride of singularity, or to make their court, would find out some pretence or other to give the king a fair colour to carry the point. For if the judges but differ in opinion, the clearest thing in the world is made by that means disputable, and truth being once brought in question, the king ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... like marble, with a fearful monumental look, and, for an old man, singularly vivid strange eyes, the singularity of which rather grew upon me as I looked; for his eyebrows were still black, though his hair descended from his temples in long locks of the purest silver and fine as silk, ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... sagacity and patient research of Dr. C. Th. Von Siebold." In Ibla, the males and females are not organically united, but only permanently and immovably attached to each other. We have in this genus the additional singularity of occasionally two males parasitic on ...
— A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2) - The Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes • Charles Darwin
... way up the companion-ladder, he could not help thinking of the singularity of this last meeting between him and his rival, and comparing it with the one which had occurred on that lovely June evening, on the road to Stoke. As the two men stood there on the white dusty road, with the rays of the declining ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... can, in the nature of things, never be a displeasing object, you would not have pronounced this innocent Sabbath-breaker especially pretty. She was tall and pale, thin and a little awkward; her hair was fair and perfectly straight; her eyes were dark, and they had the singularity of seeming at once dull and restless—differing herein, as you see, fatally from the ideal "fine eyes," which we always imagine to be both brilliant and tranquil. The doors and windows of the large square house were all wide open, to admit the purifying sunshine, which lay in generous patches ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... have more than once had occasion to remark the singularity of popular festivities solemnized on the part of the people with no other intention but that of exact obedience to the edicts of government. This is so generally understood, that Richard, a deputy on mission at Lyons, writes ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... remember an incident in railway history which dates back to our first great Exhibition. I mention it here for its singularity, and for my having known the driver whose coolness was so marked. In ascending a very long gradient, the hindmost carriages of the train snapped their couplings when at the top; the engine rattled ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... canvass pouch hung around the neck of the animal, for the purpose, probably, of containing the rider's tools, and any thing else he might have occasion to carry with him. Although I had never seen the old man before, yet from the singularity of his employment, and the style of his equipage, I had no difficulty in recognising a religious itinerant whom I had often heard talked of, and who was known in various parts of Scotland by ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... them. Thy fates open their hands; let thy blood and spirit embrace them. And, to inure thyself to what thou art like to be, cast thy humble slough and appear fresh. Be opposite with a kinsman, surly with servants: let thy tongue tang arguments of state; put thyself into the trick of singularity: She thus advises thee that sighs for thee. Remember who commended thy yellow stockings, and wished to see thee ever cross-gartered. I say, remember. Go to; thou art made, if thou desirest to be so; if not, let me see thee a steward still, the fellow of servants, and not worthy to touch fortune's ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... conscientious feelings. While, therefore, in our differences from others, we are careful not to be actuated by mere frivolous pretences, we must be equally solicitous not to be deterred from showing a firm consistence of conduct, lest we should incur the charge of an affected singularity. ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... guilty inconsistency. Numerically, the contest may be an unequal one, for the time being; but the Author of liberty and the Source of justice, the adorable God, is more than multitudinous, and he will defend the right. My crime is, that I will not go with the multitude to do evil. My singularity is, that when I say that Freedom is of God, and Slavery is of the devil, I mean just what I say. My fanaticism is, that I insist on the American people abolishing Slavery, or ceasing to prate of the rights of man. My hardihood is, in measuring them by their own ...
— No Compromise with Slavery - An Address Delivered to the Broadway Tabernacle, New York • William Lloyd Garrison
... Knight is at once the most striking and most beautiful of all the Pieces. The singularity of its evolutions, by which it is enabled to overleap the other men and wind its way into the penetralia of the adverse ranks, and if attacked leap back again within the boundary of its own, has rendered it the favorite Piece of leading players ...
— The Blue Book of Chess - Teaching the Rudiments of the Game, and Giving an Analysis - of All the Recognized Openings • Howard Staunton and "Modern Authorities"
... mufti. In its mere aspect to the eye it was something like an invasion by a strange race. The English professional soldier of our youth had been conspicuous not only by his red coat but by his rarity. When rare things become common they do not become commonplace. The memory of their singularity is still strong enough to give them rather the appearance of a prodigy, as anyone can realise by imagining an army of hunchbacks or a city of one-eyed men. The English soldier had indeed been respected as a patriotic symbol, but rather as a priest or a prince can be a symbol, ...
— Lord Kitchener • G. K. Chesterton
... said that when Lufki-Humma was born, the mother arose at once from her couch of skins, herself bore the infant to the neighboring bayou and bathed it—not for singularity, nor for independence, nor for vainglory, but only as one of the heart-curdling conventionalities which made up the experience of that most pitiful of ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... diet. I determined to go into it. My brother, being yet unmarried, did not keep house, but boarded himself and his apprentices in another family. My refusing to eat flesh occasioned an inconveniency, and I was frequently chid for my singularity. I made myself acquainted with Tryon's manner of preparing some of his dishes, such as boiling potatoes or rice, making hasty pudding, and a few others, and then proposed to my brother, that if he would give me, weekly, half the money he ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... all the Broadhursts!' said his mother, wakening him, as she passed by, to receive them as they entered. Miss Broadhurst appeared, plainly dressed—plainly, even to singularity—without ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
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