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More "Curious" Quotes from Famous Books



... of Cats and Dogs 17 cents Friends in Feathers and Fur 30 cents Neighbors with Wings and Fins 40 cents Some Curious Flyers, Creepers, and Swimmers 40 cents Neighbors with Claws and Hoofs 54 cents Glimpses of the ...
— Arbor Day Leaves • N.H. Egleston

... of strength, under which all shades of the police are confounded, for the public has never chosen to specify in language the varieties of those who compose this dispensary of social remedies so essential to all governments—the spy has this curious and magnificent quality: he never becomes angry; he possesses the Christian humility of a priest; his eyes are stolid with an indifference which he holds as a barrier against the world of fools who do not understand ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac

... this is rather a curious view, that out of respect for me he should consider I was making what I deemed rather a grave charge in fun. I confess it strikes me rather strangely. But I let it pass. As the Judge did not for a moment believe that there was a man in America whose heart was so "corrupt" as to make such ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... as we had dropped anchor, the whole of the military left the fortress without a garrison, to mingle with the assemblage of curious gazers on the shore, where the apparition of our ship seemed to excite as much astonishment as in the South Sea Islands. I now sent Lieutenant Pfeifer ashore, to notify our arrival in due form to the commandant, and to request his assistance in furnishing our vessel with fresh ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue

... whether he pay'd or took by taile, Algate he wayted so in his ashate, That he was aye before in good estate. Now is not that of God a full faire grace, That such a leude man's wit shall pace The wisdome of an heape of learned men? Of masters had he more than thrice ten, That were of law expert and curious, Of which there was a dozen in that house, Worthy to been stewards of rent and land Of any lord that is in England; To maken him live by his proper good In honour debtless, but if he were wood; Or live as scarcely as him list desire, And able to helpen all a shire, ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... as she left the room upon her heavy errand, shook her head, and drew a shivering breath. She knew her father would look upon the matter more from the world's point of view than Sophie did; and it was a curious example of the strength of the material element in Cornelia, that she more feared to meet her father's eye, whom she felt would understand that aspect of her disgrace, than Sophie's, who probably had a more acute and certainly a more exclusive ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne

... adventure of the elephants, he seemed to be much surprised at it, and would never have given any credit to it had he not known my sincerity. He reckoned this story, and the other narratives I had given him, to be so curious that he ordered one of his secretaries to write them in characters of gold, and lay them up in his treasury. I retired very well satisfied with the honours I received and the presents which he gave me; and after that I gave myself up wholly to ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon

... curious that to find the persecuting spirit in Greece we have to turn to the philosophers. Plato, the most brilliant disciple of Socrates, constructed in his later years an ideal State. In ...
— A History of Freedom of Thought • John Bagnell Bury

... is curious to notice how the increase in speed changes the pressure against the blade. Thus, a wind blowing 20 miles an hour shows 2 pounds pressure; whereas a wind twice that velocity, or 40 miles an hour, shows a pressure of 8 pounds, which is four times ...
— Practical Mechanics for Boys • J. S. Zerbe

... "It is curious," said Hyacinth, "how little the town seems changed after all those horrors. I miss nobody ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... all the real good and the absurdly conventional which they had, and there was a great jubilation at the genial sight. And it was as if a lot of porters followed him, overloaded with quaint and curious knowledge gathered from books of travel, of medicine, of history, metaphysics, and biography, which they dumped without much concert, but just as it happened, in the very middle of a fine emotion, and all ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... monarch to account for the death of Arthur, and, as a result, John lost his French possessions. Hence the weak and wicked son of Henry Plantagenet, since called Lackland, ceased to be a tax-payer in France, and proved to a curious world that a court fool in ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye

... trade. The industries are practically confined to carpet-weaving, the carpets being renowned all over Persia for their softness, smooth texture, and colours, which are said never to fade, but the designs upon them are not always very graceful nor the colours always artistically matched. The most curious and durable are the camel-hair ones, but the design, usually with a very large medallion in the centre, does not seem to appeal to European eyes. Even the smallest rugs fetch very large sums. Although called Birjand carpets they are mostly manufactured in some of the villages north of ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... Monsieur Dupont. "He admitted to you on the night of the crime that he had known her in America years ago. And here we have a curious study in conflicting emotions. When he first met her, he had already killed two beautiful women. She was certainly more beautiful than either—yet he was able to associate with her on intimate terms for a considerable time, and even to tear himself away from ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming

... sculptor with whom I am acquainted, the other day, I saw a remarkable cast of a left arm. On my asking where the model came from, he said it was taken direct from the arm of a deformed person, who had employed one of the Italian moulders to make the cast. It was a curious case, it should seem, of one beautiful limb upon a frame otherwise singularly imperfect—I have repeatedly noticed this little gentleman's use of his left arm. Can he have furnished the model I ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)

... she was going to sleep a curious question asked itself of Lydia. Didn't she want him to go back to his wife and be happy with her, if that could be? Lydia had no secrets from herself, no emotional veilings. She told herself at once that she didn't want it ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown

... was over, a curious thing occurred in the hall in which it had taken place. The room was heated by a stove, and as a stove dries the air of a room too much, it was customary to keep a pan of water on the stove to moisten it a little. ...
— Away in the Wilderness • R.M. Ballantyne

... "Those who are curious as to what they should read in the region of pure literature will do well to peruse my friend Frederic Harrison's volume called The Choice of Books. You will find there as much wise thought, eloquently and brilliantly put, as in any volume of ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter

... Chick, 'I have. I took an early breakfast'—the good lady seemed curious on the subject of Princess's Place, and looked all round it as she spoke—'with my ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... Her little girl, elegantly arrayed in a breech-clout and turquoise necklace, clings to her mother's wrap with one hand while the other disappears in her gaping mouth. The child is half afraid, half curious; and has an anxious, troubled look. Shyuote, however, evinces no sign of embarrassment or humility. Planted solidly on his feet, with legs well apart and both arms arched, he gapes and stares at everybody and everything, occasionally fixing his glance upon the resplendent ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... not wish to see the Earl of Westport, but some sudden and curious courage forced me into my clothes and out to the corridor. The Earl's valet was waiting there. "I pray you, sir, follow me," he said. I followed him to an expensive part of the inn, where he knocked upon a door. It was ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane

... buried in the bottom of the glen, beneath the shade of everlasting rocks; and two small hollows, resembling sunken graves, are to this day pointed out to the curious traveler, as the burial place of the lovers." It is a sweet, wild haunt, the sunbeams fall there with softened radiance, and a brook near by gives out a complaining murmur, as if mourning for the dead. [Footnote: Mr. Stone adds in a note— "This interesting ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard

... of dress and undress, above the perfect sky of brilliant stars with not a cloud, all tempered with a bitter cold that made each man and woman long to be one of the crew who toiled away with the oars and kept themselves warm thereby—a curious, deadening; bitter cold unlike anything they had ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various

... here for many years—a man of scientific tastes and interests, who has employed his leisure in studying the botany, zoology, and indians of the district. He is well-informed, and one of the few persons acquainted with the Juaves. I counted on his help in approaching that curious and little-known tribe. The doctor's house is full of pets; eight different kinds of parrots, a red and yellow macaw, a brilliant-billed, dark-plumaged toucan, an angora goat, a raccoon, dogs and cats, ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr

... "That is curious; she is the ship I belong to," he remarked. "You're in luck, for she's a smart craft, and, as things go, we are tolerably comfortable on board; but you must be prepared to take the rough with the smooth, ...
— The Two Whalers - Adventures in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston

... passed over his face, softening its hardness for an instant. But the grimness came back. He made a quick movement back to Lady Bridget's room; and when, after a minute or two, he came out again, he was carrying a curious object which he had taken out of the deep drawer beneath her hanging wardrobe. It was a dry piece of gum-tree bark, shrivelled and curled up at the sides, so that the two edges almost met. At first he put it on the ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed

... idea in which direction he had gone. She paused uncertainly; the street was dirty, the few children in sight were playing a game unknown to her and not playing very pleasantly, at that; the women who looked at her seemed more curious than kindly. The atmosphere was not sordid enough to be alarming or even interesting; it was merely slovenly and distasteful, and Caroline had almost decided to go back when a young girl stopped by her and eyed ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon

... as the door closed, "it is curious that they should have sent me a tenth man. Why, I lie awake now to invent pretences of work for those I have already. I will give up all show of teaching presently, and give out that I keep a hospital—a retreat for ailing brothers. Still, ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various

... here for the sake of chronological sequence. It gave me a curious bit of news. No man could have performed such a feat without a cold brain, soundly beating heart, and nerves of steel. It was not an act of red-hot heroism. It was done in cold blood, a deliberate gamble with death on a thousand to one ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... current of their own in the great tide of protest against the unjust situation of labor. Like them, he builds his system upon natural rights; though, unlike them, his natural rights are defended by expediency and in a style that is always clear and logical. The book itself has rather a curious history. At its appearance, it seems to have excited no notice of any kind. Mackintosh knew of its authorship; for he warned its author against the amiable delusion that its excellence would persuade the British government to force a system of peasant proprietorship upon the East India Company. ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski

... light enough for my eyes, and I could make out a number of curious-shaped little packages still in the box—some round and long, some round and short, and some flat like wheels or six-cornered, and some coiled around and around like little snails, and nothing among them like anything I had ever seen before. I couldn't imagine how those ...
— Hollow Tree Nights and Days • Albert Bigelow Paine

... to Perrault in the Clarendon Press series will, as far as our subject is directly concerned, supply whatever a reader, within reason further curious, can want: and his well-known rainbow series of Fairy Books will ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... A tender and curious thought came to her mind. It was to read over in this last watch, as though they were a litany, the old letters that her mother loved. It seemed to her that she was about to perform a delicate ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... a few minutes Jonas and Oliver found that it began to come out at the other end, in the shape of rolls. One roll after another dropped out, in a very singular manner. Oliver thought that it was a very curious machine indeed, to take in wool in that way at one end, and drop it out in beautiful long rolls at ...
— Jonas on a Farm in Winter • Jacob Abbott

... ceremony was put off for a little thing like that. Cloaks in profusion were instantly offered to the young bride, but she was so upset that she could hardly keep from tears. One of the guests, more curious than the rest, stayed behind to examine the dress, determined, if she could, to find out the cause of ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang

... 'Miss Cut-up,' was a flivver all right, though we just saved our faces. But I've got a show now that will put me in electric light for two years hand-running and—" Mr. Vandeford was in a panic as he realized that he was going so far in that curious thinking out loud to Miss Adair that he had been about to launch forth on "The Rosie Posie Girl" to her. It would have been like telling a friend the plans of his own funeral with enthusiasm, as it would be obvious to her that Hawtry would have to fail in and drop "The Purple Slipper" before ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess

... A curious shade of disappointment came into her face when she saw who it was. It was clear to Detricand that she expected some one else; it was also clear that his coming gave no especial pleasure to her, though she looked at him with interest. She had thought of him more than once since that ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... costume which she had worn on her arrival in Paris, and dress like a daughter of the people. Everything that would be likely to attract attention must be scrupulously avoided, for the beauty of Dolores had already awakened too much interest on the part of curious customers. ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet

... the Irish literature were cultivated. Ireland is known by tradition to have been once the seat of piety and learning, and surely it would be very acceptable to all those who are curious on the origin of nations or the affinities of languages to be further informed of the evolution of a people so ancient and once so illustrious. I hope that you will continue to cultivate this kind ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter

... all in primary instruction and but little in the secondary. Parents could send their children wherever they wished and the primary schools were purely private institutions, about which even the ministers scarcely troubled themselves, and which often sprang up in the most curious manner. Thus Susanna had arrived in Wesselburen one stormy autumn evening, in wooden shoes, without a penny, and an entire stranger. She had been given a night's lodging, for sweet charity's sake, by the compassionate ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various

... interesting matter contained in this book, caused it to be much read, and numerous persons were curious to see the original manuscript. To their infinite surprise, however, they could obtain no account whatever of such a document; and what was still more provoking, the librarians seemed to look upon them as insane when they ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... easily traceable, like man's fetisism or demonology, to his fears: a Bedouin, for instance, becomes dreadful by the reputation of sorcery: bears and hyenas are equally terrible; and the two objects of horror are easily connected. Curious to say, individuals having this power were pointed out to me, and people pretended to discover it in their countenances: at Zayla I was shown a Bedouin, by name Farih Badaun, who notably became a hyena at times, for the purpose ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton

... was constituted differently from those of most of the human race. Still there were one or two old men who had heard similar doctrines from the missionaries, and these felt a desire to occupy an idle moment by pursuing a subject that they found so curious. ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious, And for love, sweet love—but praise! praise! praise! For the sure-enwinding arms of ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various

... is full of anxiety lest I become "pious." He kept looking at me all the time earnestly and thoughtfully, with sympathetic concern, as one looks at a dear friend whom one would like to save and yet almost gives up for lost. I have seldom seen him so tender. Very clever people have a curious manner of viewing the world. In the evening (I hope you did not write so late) I drank your health in the foaming grape-juice of Sillery, in company with half a dozen Silesian counts, Schaffgotsch and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke

... school-yard was announced by the universal drawing of all the swords. Those who bore the title of commissioned officers were exclusively on the foundation, and carried spontoons; the rest were considered as Serjeants and corporals, and a most curious assemblage of figures they exhibited. The two principal salt-bearers consisted of an oppidan and a colleger: the former was generally some nobleman, whose figure and personal connexions might advance the interests of the collections. ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... his self-control he could not hold himself in now. His white face took on a curious leaden hue, his voice was ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White

... It is a curious test of national character to compare the prevalent impressions of one country in regard to another whereof the natural and historical description is quite diverse: and in the case of France and England, there are so many and so constantly renewed incongruities, that we must discriminate ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... and the contumely are difficult to reconcile. Ancestors of the Boers had more than once acted in a similar manner towards the Dutch East India Company when dissatisfied with their administration, and unwilling to pay their taxes. But Pro-Boers have a curious habit of magnifying things. One would imagine, to hear them speak, that every Boer in the Cape had packed wife, children, and goods into ox-wagons and had trekked north. As a matter of fact, the ...
— Boer Politics • Yves Guyot

... there is neer a pirate there, but it's an uncommon curious place, and like this 'un as one pea to another. The ould lady seems but ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton

... answered, "and that is why I am rather curious to hear her. There was literally nothing but a voice in her case—no dramatic sense, nothing in the way of intelligence to fall back on. On that account it interested me to watch her. She and her ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... for curious spelling, is not very unlike our English of to-day, although it is fair to tell you that all the lines are not so easy to ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall

... a rather curious fact, which sharply differentiates Russian literature from the literature of England, France, Spain, Italy, and even from that of Germany. Russia is old; her literature is new. Russian history goes back to the ninth century; ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps

... went to the window, where the outer world still had the curious appearance of unreality. It was as though a sheet of glass were between him and the life of the rest of the world. He could see through it clearly, but the barrier was there, and must always be there. Upon the edge of this glass, the light of life ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed

... the cook, who crammed him with ghost stories at night, and with good things from the dinner—to Briggs, whom he plagued and laughed at—and to his father especially, whose attachment towards the lad was curious too to witness. Here, as he grew to be about eight years old, his attachments may be said to have ended. The beautiful mother-vision had faded away after a while. During near two years she had scarcely spoken to the child. She disliked him. He had the measles and the hooping-cough. He bored her. ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... bearing abundant fruit in the gardens of both hemispheres. The cone resembles that of P. excelsa, but is prevalently much shorter and with a relatively shorter peduncle. Its leaves are also much shorter and are always erect. A curious difference is found in the connectives of the pollen-sacs, small in peuce (fig. 113), large in excelsa (fig. 110). The convexity of its apophyses distinguishes the cone from those of P. monticola ...
— The Genus Pinus • George Russell Shaw

... tribes on the Atlantic shore not far from Cape Hatteras keeping flocks of deer (ciervos) and from their milk making cheese (Hist. de las Indias, cap. 43). I attach no importance to this statement, and only mention it to connect it with some other curious notices of the tribe now extinct who occupied that locality. Both De Ayllon and Lawson mention their very light complexions, and the latter saw many with blonde hair, blue eyes, and a fair skin; they cultivated when first visited the potato (or ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton

... construe this as an attack on the Industrial Workers of the World. It is not my intention to express in this place any opinion as to the merits or demerits of that organization. It is only mentioned here because mention of it was necessary to illustrate the most curious case I know of the abnormally prolonged retention of the ...
— Socialism: Positive and Negative • Robert Rives La Monte

... of us have met'—she pulled out the words slowly—'it's sometimes worse.' They both waited in a curious chill embarrassment. 'Not the police, but the stewards at political meetings, and the men who volunteer to "keep the women in order," they'—she raised her fierce eyes and the colour rose in her cheeks—'as they're ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins

... however, to that honest contraband for a curious sight, which I should have otherwise missed—the crossing of the Gunpowder River. There, the train rushes, on a single track, over three-quarters of a mile of tremulous trestle-work, without an apology for a side-rail, so that you look straight down into the dark water, over which ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... which requires Diatessaron, and the work which he identifies with Tatian's Harmony is made up of passages from our Four Gospels alone. Therefore he can hardly have written Diapente himself; and the curious reading is probably due to the blundering or the officiousness of some ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot

... It is curious, to say the least, that all the prisoners appear to have been leading members of the liberal party at Giulianello. Salvatori was elected Mayor of the town during the Republic, and the next four prisoners held the ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey

... the boom at once, ready to weigh out tallow, there being no customs officer to say, "Why do you do so?" and before the sun went down the islanders had learned the art of making buns and doughnuts. I did not charge a high price for what I sold, but the ancient and curious coins I got in payment, some of them from the wreck of a galleon sunk in the bay no one knows when, I sold afterward to antiquarians for more than face-value. In this way I made a reasonable profit. I brought away money of all denominations from the island, and ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum

... about the most curious man I ever met," said the retired burglar, "I met in a house in eastern Connecticut, and I shouldn't know him, either, if I should meet him again unless I should hear him speak. It was so dark where I met him that I never saw ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger

... said Wilson, running his hand over the turf, "but I'm curious to know what kind of ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams

... It is curious to note what most interests visitors in certain departments. Straight University sends large numbers of imaginary letters written by pupils from various parts of the world. The visiting public read these letters with as much avidity as if the innocent epistles ...
— The American Missionary—Volume 39, No. 02, February, 1885 • Various

... reward for good work in the book subjects. You see arithmetic is dead and dry. You must give pupils an incentive to master it. We make the privileges of the construction table the incentive." "What do they make at this table?" I asked. "Whatever their fancy dictates," he replied. I was a little curious, however, to know how it all come out. I saw one child start to work on a basket, work at it a few minutes, then take up something else, continue a little time, go back to the basket, and finally throw both down for a third object of self-realization. I called ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley

... [28] A very curious coincidence with the ancient German opinion concerning the prophetic nature of the war-cry or song, appears in the following passage of the Life of Sir Ewen Cameron, in "Pennant's Tour," 1769, Append, p. 363. At the battle of Killicrankie, just before the fight ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus

... Iris all the Mahommedan said. There was no need to alarm her causelessly. Even whilst they examined the curious little missile another flew up from the valley and lodged on the roof of ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy

... English government should have been so alarmed at the efforts of the conjurers, we shall have to go back to the half-century that preceded the reign of the great queen and review briefly the rise of those curious traders in mystery. The earlier half of the fifteenth century, when the witch fires were already lighted in South Germany, saw the coming of conjurers in England. Their numbers soon evidenced a growing interest in the supernatural upon the part of the English and foreshadowed ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein

... of an invisible drum every night for a year. This story, which was believed at the time, furnished the plot for Addison's play of "The Drummer," or the "Haunted House." In the "Mercurius Publicus," April 16-23, 1663, there is a curious examination on this subject, by which it appears that one William Drury, of Uscut, Wilts, was the ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... so much by his exactions, that the people rose and made him prisoner, and then proceeded in arms towards Mid-Lothian, where they were defeated at Pentland Hills, in 1666. Besides his treatise on the Military Art, Sir James Turner wrote several other works; the most curious of which is his Memoirs of his own Life and Times, which has just been printed, under the charge of the ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... shrouded in mystery, and many writers are agreed that it originally came from the East, but it will be seen later on that equally strong claims can be presented from other countries in the Western Hemisphere. Many of us have been amused at the curious ideas which people, say of a hundred years ago, ...
— The Story of the Cotton Plant • Frederick Wilkinson

... century was the most curious of all ages: it has never been properly depicted, except on its darker side, indirectly, in the Annals. It is usually regarded as an age of barbarism; it was not that; it must ever be memorable for splendour of genius and the promotion of letters. A proof of the esteem ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross

... what a curious disposition she naturally had, and she did not think it advisable to start any lengthy discussion with her. Nor did she feel justified to protract her stay, so after sipping her tea, she intimated to Pao-ch'ai her intention to go, and they ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... age, Laurence, after the events already related, was an orphan living in a house opposite to the empty space where so recently had stood one of the most curious specimens in France of sixteenth-century architecture, the hotel Cinq-Cygne. Monsieur d'Hauteserre, her relation, now her guardian, took the young heiress to live in the country at her chateau of Cinq-Cygne. That brave provincial ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac

... Mr. Cheeseman. "Would you like to free your mind, or don't you feel to? I'm not curious, not a mite; but yet there's times when a person can tell better what he thinks if he outs with it to somebody else. Like molasses! Take it in the cask, and it's cold, and slow, and not much to look at; but take and bile it, and ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards

... allowed the privilege of a worshipper, and we will not quarrel with him for an exaggerated estimate of what his master had accomplished. We are indebted to his enthusiasm for what is at least a curious discovery, and we will not qualify the gratitude which he has earned by industry and good will. At the same time, the notes themselves confirm the opinion which we have always entertained, that Leibnitz did not understand Spinoza. ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... by the reproductions of the show buildings of the different countries, an Egyptian temple, a house from Pompeii, the Lions' den from the Alhambra. Here, as everywhere, I sought out the Zoological Gardens, where I lingered longest near the hippopotami, who were as curious to watch when swimming as when they were on dry land. Their clumsiness was almost captivating. They reminded me of some of ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes

... "A curious piece of devilry, wasn't it? That child—whom had she ever harmed? Who could hate her like this? I remember I thought that, in a dull, confused sort of way, when I found myself alone in that carriage ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... country, who have not hesitated to characterize her great and singularly harsh experiment, whose worst effects we are but beginning to see, as at once justifiable in itself and happy in its results. It is curious to observe how deeds done as if in darkness and a corner, are beginning, after the lapse of nearly thirty years, to be proclaimed on the house-tops. The experiment of the late Duchess was not intended to be made in the eye of Europe. Its details ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller

... these parades or heard of them organized similar Dens in the towns of Northern Alabama. Nothing but horseplay, however, took place at the meetings. In 1867 and 1868, the order appeared in parade in the towns of the adjoining states and, as we are told, "cut up curious ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming

... that the owner shall be obliged to accept compensation for his slave. That is left optional with him. He may take it or not as he likes. The effect of accepting compensation would be just the same as if he sold his slave to the North. The gentleman from Virginia raises a curious objection; that the owner does not receive a full compensation because he pays a portion of it himself. Well, I suppose the owner would pay the one hundred and thirty-millionth part of the price! Does not the same objection lay ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden

... said the mate with a wink, discovering that Tom was not a person out of whom he could take much change. "And pray may I ask if that young gentleman's name is really Billy Blueblazes? It's a curious sounding one, ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston

... sentimentalist, with hardly an atom of practical sagacity or knowledge of affairs. The cool dogmatism with which he condemns the great statesmen of his country, is particularly offensive as coming from a man utterly ignorant of the difficulties which a statesman has to encounter. It is curious also to see how extremes meet; this theory of absoluteism "fraternizes" with that of socialism. A person reading, in the second volume, the account of Villiers' dealings with his tenantry, and his new regulations ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various

... Salvin tells this curious anecdote: "Some years ago the Zoological Society possessed a specimen which lived in one of the large cages of the parrot house by itself. I have a very distinct recollection of the bird, for I used every time I saw it to ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph, Volume 1, Number 2, February, 1897 • anonymous

... form of a monstrosity such as conjoined twins or a parasitic foetus, but more commonly it is met with as an irregularly shaped tumour, usually growing from the sacrum. On dissection, such a tumour is found to contain a curious mixture of tissues—bones, skin, and portions of viscera, such as the intestine or liver. The question of the removal of the tumour requires to be considered in relation to the conditions present in ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... repeated every hour until sundown, and whenever the man went into the Museum a dozen or more persons would buy tickets and follow him, hoping to gratify their curiosity in regard to the purpose of his movements. This was continued for several days—the curious people who followed the man into the Museum considerably more than paying his wages—till finally the policeman, to whom Barnum had imparted his object, complained that the obstruction of the sidewalk by crowds, had become so serious that he must call in his "brick man." This trivial incident excited ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... the months which had succeeded her departure from Rome. Spicca's words had acted indirectly upon his mind. Much that the old man had said was calculated to rouse Orsino's curiosity, but Orsino was not naturally curious and though he felt that it would be very interesting to know Maria Consuelo's story, the chief result of the Count's half confidential utterances was to recall the lady herself very ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford

... jealously counts his gold, I sit and dream of my wealth untold, From the curious world apart; Too sacred my joy for another eye, I treasure it tenderly, silently, And hide it away in ...
— Poems • Marietta Holley

... her. Kjersti treated her to coffee and cakes and milk and other good things, just as if she had been an invited guest, and chatted with her in such a way that Lisbeth forgot all about being shy. And oh, how many curious things Kjersti showed her! ...
— Lisbeth Longfrock • Hans Aanrud

... even when Englishmen put themselves entirely in the wrong, there is perhaps a tendency amongst Anglo-Indians—chiefly amongst the non-official community—to treat such cases with undue leniency, and it is one of the curious ironies of fate that Lord Curzon, whom the Nationalist Press has singled out for constant abuse and denunciation as the prototype of official tyranny, was the one Viceroy who more than any other jeopardized his popularity ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol

... luminosity of the water, which did not seem to come from reflection of the light of stars or the moon, because the sky was very cloudy at the time. Moreover, the river had a curious greenish tint quite peculiar to itself, and closely resembling the light produced by an electric spark. In the more dangerous spots we had to proceed for long distances on all-fours, and even then we felt hardly safe, for we could hear the rattling of the stones ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... 64. The curious natives flock about these strange beings, who come in winged ships, and have bodies covered with something besides skin handsome natives, evidently no cannibals, and very obliging. No lions, or hippogriffs, or unicorns. But gold—yes, little pieces of ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot

... each revolving in a spiral direction upwards. I called Ella on deck to see the singular phenomenon, for it was a more perfect example of mirage than I had ever before witnessed or could have believed possible. As we continued to gaze upon the curious spectacle, a faint foamy appearance revealed itself between us and the island, but still in the sky; and about half an hour afterwards this distinctly took the form of flying spray from breakers beating upon a reef. The mirage lasted rather more than an hour, and ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood

... received categories of literary composition, as is evident from the fact that authorised and unauthorised opinion on the subject has touched every extreme, and still continues oscillating to-day. Many commentators still treat it as a curious chapter of old-world history narrated with scrupulous fidelity by the hero or an eye-witness, others as a philosophical dialogue; several scholars regard it as a genuine drama, while not a few enthusiastically aver that it is the ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon

... though the political horizon remained threatening enough, and the temper of the nation appeared sullen. "The people of England seem inclined to hurrah no more," wrote Greville of one of the Queen's earliest public appearances, when "not a hat was raised nor a voice heard" among the coldly curious crowd of spectators. But the splendid show of her coronation a half-year later awakened great enthusiasm—enthusiasm most natural and inevitable. It was youth and grace and goodness, all the freshness and the infinite promise of spring, that wore the crimson and the ermine and the gold, that ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling

... champion of the far west. Born in interior North Carolina, he had followed the frontier to Tennessee, and then, after killing his man in a duel and exchanging pistol-shots in a free fight with Jackson, he removed to the new frontier at St. Louis. Pedantic and ponderous, deeply read in curious historical lore, in many ways he was not characteristic of the far west, but in the coarse vigor with which he bore down opposition by abuse, and in the far horizon line of the policies he advocated, he thoroughly represented ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner

... sat down beside me and gave me "good day," evidently curious as to my nationality. I invited them to join me in coffee and cognac, and during the ensuing conversation we all became very friendly, and I was given to understand that one of them was the volunteer driver of an auto-mitrailleuse who ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various

... yellow about the eyes; the face of a clever but broken gentleman. Full of contrasts and a story as it was, it would have been a striking face at any time; and to the two peering men in the Cypriani's boat, it was now very striking indeed. For they saw immediately that the curious eyes were half open and were fixed full ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... of these ruthless practical jokers. The birds come in and out of the house like members of the family. The graceful gray squirrel is scarcely less familiar than the red one. He makes a lively pet, and we have all seen him turning the wheel attached to his cage. The curious little flying-squirrel, however, is a stranger even to those to whom he may be a near neighbor, for the reason that his habits are chiefly nocturnal. He ventures out occasionally on a cloudy day, but is shy ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe

... fashioned according to her own ideas, which were not French and only made her stand out the more conspicuously as a foreigner. From this sort of fairy creation arose the distinctively Marie Antoinette art and style; she caused artists to exhaust their fertile brains in devising the most curious and magnificent, the newest and most fanciful creations, quite regardless of cost—and this while her people were starving and crying for bread! The angry murmurings of the populace did not reach the ears of the gay queen, who, had ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme

... give many new designs. In Fig. 3 the end of the ruler is held by a rubber band against the edge of a thin triangular piece of wood which is attached to the face of the fourth wheel. By substituting other plain figures for the triangle, or outlining them with small finishing nails, many curious modifications such as are shown by the two smallest designs in the illustrations may be obtained. It is necessary, if symmetrical designs are to be made, that the fourth wheel and the guide ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... me that my mother was better—they found me in the state which I have described, and in a fever besides. The favourable crisis must have occurred just about the time that I performed the magic touch; it certainly was a curious coincidence, yet I was not weak enough, even though a child, to suppose that I had baffled the evil chance ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... dialogue, developed with much good sense, but little poetical elevation. It is to be lamented that Jonson gave only his own text of Sejanus without communicating Shakspeare's alterations. We should have been curious to know the means by which he might have attempted to give animation to the monotony of the piece without changing its plan, and how far his genius could adapt itself ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... or artist wish for more? The extraordinary devotion to a volume of natural history, which after generations of use has become more like a mop-head than a book, may be seen in the reproduction of a "monkey-book" here illustrated; this curious result being caused by sheer affectionate thumbing of its leaves, until the dog-ears and rumpled pages turned the cube to a globular mass, since flattened by being packed away. So children love picture-books, not as bibliophiles would ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White

... tapering betel-nut palm and elegant palmyras; while the showy-looking papaw, and here and there a rhambutan tree, or a dark-leaved guava, contrasted with the golden fruit of the shaddock, and the delicious mangustan and the curious-tasted durian were to be found ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston

... at it?' suggested Stella, who was curious to see this much-talked-of furniture, and the two went into Eva's room, where they found Vava admiring herself in the three cheval ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin

... towns with universities in them. I saw the infantry working party with their stumpy clay pipes, in my dream, a long way on from where that shell had lit, which stopped the road for a day. And behind them curious changes came over the road at X. You saw the infantry going up to the trenches, and going back along it into reserve. They marched at first, but in a few days they were going up in motors, grey busses with shuttered windows. And then the guns came along it, ...
— Tales of War • Lord Dunsany

... many brothers and sisters, and your schoolroom is reached by a spiral stair, and is somewhere up in the clouds. I have heard all about you many times from Nan." Then Molly laughed, and felt at home. She felt more than at home, for her heart gave a strange flutter, and then a curious sense of peace pervaded it. It was something like being near her mother, and yet it was something different. The magnetic influence of a good and great spirit was already making ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade

... instructions as to what to do next. These were brought next morning by Mr. Pickwick, in person, when he walked into the coffee-loom. Satisfaction being arrived at, the three stayed on at the "Bush" for a day or two, experiencing some curious adventures in ...
— The Inns and Taverns of "Pickwick" - With Some Observations on their Other Associations • B.W. Matz

... this over curious brain That gave that plot a birth, accurst this womb That after did conceive ...
— A King, and No King • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... uphold. For this statement he appeals to a diary of Francis Chieregato, an eminent ecclesiastic who died on December 6, 1539. As the diary has not been found, Lord Acton rejects the assertion, believing that Sarpi's word cannot be taken unsupported. But a curious confirmation of Sarpi's assertion, [Sidenote: Sarpi's assertion] and one that renders it acceptable, is found in Luther's table talk. Speaking on February 22, 1538, he says that he has heard from Rome that it was there believed to be impossible to refute ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... girl a sharp, curious glance, and immediately preceded her into the room. "Well?" she inquired, turning and facing her, the moment the door was closed, as if already ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... After that last great stroke Death seemed to be resting on his laurels. When thus unpeopled it looked a very vast place like to a huge arched causeway, bordered on either side by blackness, but itself gleaming with a curious phosphorescence such as once or twice I have seen in the waters of a summer ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard

... did not touch it. Ordinarily he would have grasped it as readily as if it had been a piece of marble, but the sight of Maddy, lying there so sick, and the fearing he had helped to bring her where she was, awoke to life a curious state of feeling with regard to her, making him almost as nervous as on the day when she appeared before him as candidate ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes

... you will find you will have to consider it," she returned brusquely, with a curious glance at me "But we do not need to spoil our afternoon ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison

... to the ship, I gazed at it with interest. No other sky that I could recall ever shows this tone of colour. Pink, scarlet, rose, and all the shades of blood or flame-colour are familiar in every sunset, but this curious tint seemed to ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross

... cage, and the big yellow brute was walking up and down with long stealthy strides, his great eyes roving over the curious faces in front of him. Some one poked a stick at him—an attention which met an instant roar and spring on the tiger's part, and a quick, and stinging rebuke from an attendant, before which the poker of the stick fled precipitately. The crowd, which ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce

... independence fell on the fatal plain of Kossovo, June 15, 1389. Of the palace of Lasar in Krushevatz, only the gateway and the ruined walls are now remaining; but the chapel, having been converted by the Turks into an arsenal, is still in perfect preservation. "It is a curious monument of the period, in a Byzantine sort of style, but not for a moment to be compared in beauty to the church of Studenitza. Above one of the doors is carved the double eagle, the insignium (!!) of empire; but instead of having body to body, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various

... boy's brains, confused his ideas, and cramped his mind; but, as far as his physical health was concerned, the new kind of life acted on him beneficially. At first he fell ill with a fever, but he soon recovered and became a fine fellow. His father grew proud of him, and styled him in his curious language, "the child of nature, my creation." When Fedia reached the age of sixteen, Ivan Petrovich considered it a duty to inspire him in good time with contempt for the female sex—and so the young Spartan, with the first down beginning to appear upon his lips, timid in feeling, but with a body ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... half-crawling look of dim and monstrous caterpillars; or the dome is a starry spider hung horribly in the void. There is one of the modern works of engineering that gives one something of this nameless fear of the exaggerations of an underworld; and that is the curious curved architecture of the under ground railway, commonly called the Twopenny Tube. Those squat archways, without any upright line or pillar, look as if they had been tunneled by huge worms who have never learned to lift their heads. It is the very underground palace of the Serpent, the spirit ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton

... many more details; but I must remark that the curious structure of the northern Maldiva atolls receives (taking into consideration the free entrance of the sea through their broken margins) a simple explanation in the upward and outward growth of the corals, originally based both on small detached reefs in their lagoons, such as occur in common ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... which had been studio pets, dead beside it; simply crushed, as were those which were killed by the bear at the Hippodrome. He mentioned the matter during one of the sittings for the portrait, and the lady, being curious to see the animal, came to his studio—and then the trouble commenced. She developed a most unaccountable attachment for Mephisto, and he was as gentle as a lamb with her. They would sit facing each other by the hour, ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe

... I have some curious books in my library, a few of which I should like to say something about to The Teacups, when they have no more immediately pressing subjects before them. A library of a few thousand volumes ought always to have some books in it which the owner almost never opens, yet with whose backs he is so well ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... very curious and I shall get to know something at last! For I confess, to my great confusion, that I ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc

... white and polished marble (limestone), the which is very evenly cut in spacious squares or tables. Of such materials as is the pavement, such is the roof and such are the side walls that flank it; the coagmentation or knitting of the joints is so close, that they are scarce discernible to a curious eye; and that which adds grace to the whole structure, though it makes the passage the more slippery and difficult, is the acclivity or rising of the ascent. The height of this gallery is 26 feet" (Professor Smyth's careful measurements ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various

... advice of Thomson, his chief engineer, who asked significantly whether he had found the information given him by the political department in any single instance correct. Food prospects, however, did not improve at Candahar, and leaving a strong garrison there as well, curious to say, as the siege train which with arduous labour had been brought up the passes, Keane began the march to Cabul on June 27th. He had supplies only sufficient to carry his army thither on half rations. Macnaghten had lavished money so freely that the treasury chest was all but empty. How ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes

... mean," said the lady, "and I don't know why you are so curious about them. They all read the same books at the same time, and they sacrifice wild asses at the altar of the Hyperborean Apollo, IBSEN, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 14, 1893 • Various

... their shafts at a rushen roundel hung on a pole which the old thrall had dight. Men were peaceful and happy, for the time was fair and calm, and, as aforesaid, they dreaded not the Roman Host any more than if they were Gods dwelling in God-home. The shooters were deft men, and they of the Burg were curious to note their deftness, and many were breathed with the games wherein they had striven, and thought it good to rest, and look on the new sport: so they sat and stood on the grass about the shooters on three sides, and the mead-horn went briskly from man to man; ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris

... said when the servants had all gone, "won't you tell me what you have decided on? I am rather curious ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney

... them bring into play their common sense and their powers of resourcefulness, it is comparatively easy to hold the attention of a whole squad, section, platoon or company, for those who are not actually taking part in the solution of a particular problem are curious to see how those who are taking part will answer different questions and do different things—how they will ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss

... toward asserting them in the Congo they have been moved neither by the protests of traders, chambers of commerce, missionaries, the public press, nor by the cry of the black man to "let my people go." By only those in high places can it be explained. We will leave it as a curious fact, and return to ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis

... to work a bit, father. I know how long it took me to hammer out a bar before, and I shall be curious to find out in what time I ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty

... weather-stained garb. The attentive attitude of all these people and the expression on all their faces showed that they had given themselves up entirely to the pleasure of listening, and that the narrator's sway was absolute. It was a curious scene. The immense influence that poetry exerts over every mind was plainly to be seen. For is not the peasant who demands that the tale of wonder should be simple, and that the impossible should be well-nigh credible, a lover of poetry of the ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac

... old ailanthus tree, was the house he watched, a small brick, with shallow wooden steps and—curious architecture of Middle West sixties—a wooden cellar door beside ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... the proposal for the marriage according to the following curious formula. Taking some fried grain he goes to the house of the father of the bride and addresses him as follows in the presence of the neighbours and the relatives of both parties: "I hear that the tree has budded and a blossom has come out; I intend ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... Garstin had not allowed either her or Arabian to look at what he had done. He had, Miss Van Tuyn thought, seemed unusually nervous and diffident about his work. She did not know how he had gone on, and was curious. But she was going to dine with him that night. Perhaps he would tell her then, or perhaps he had only asked her to dinner that she ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens

... for he had seen her many times during the day, and he was already, according to the fashion of his country, beginning to hide his love under an outward appearance of stolid indifference; but this did not offend Morva, for it saved her from the ordeal of curious eyes and broad comments, and Gethin felt that the tender flower of love was well shielded from rude contact with the outside world, by the secrecy behind which a Welshman hides his love, for, in a hundred ways unnoticed and unseen by those around him, there were opportunities ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine

... see it," quoth King Polydectes. "It must be a very curious spectacle, if all that travellers tell ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various

... her, she would either give the reply through the girls, or speak out of the open window, and the deputation would depart satisfied, and act on her advice. Her correspondence also increased in volume, and she received many a curious communication. The natives would sometimes be puzzled how to address her, and to make absolutely sure they would send their letters to ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone

... story from his repertoire, for he had more than remarked that its effect was slightly sinister upon himself. He noticed, too, that, during the first twenty-four hours on the steamer, Derek Pruyn avoided him, while he on his part had felt a curious impulse to slink out of sight, which could only be explained by the supposition that, as often happens on long voyages, they had seen too ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King

... young man stepped bravely into the lake, and felt himself sinking, sinking, till he reached firm ground at last. In front of him lay four heaps of silver, and in the midst of them a curious white shining stone, marked over with strange characters, such as he had never seen before. He picked it up in order to examine it more closely, and as he held it the ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang

... islands.... Our poet is much obliged for the response given to his appeal in our last issue. He was stuck, it will be remembered, for a rhyme to 'hunger,' and the rhyme was to be a name of some kind—bird, beast, or fish. Curious to say, all our correspondents have hit upon ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting

... happened, Scipio found himself in the full glare of the light from the doorway, and James was smiling down upon his yellow head with a curious blending of ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum

... ways the life of the Kentuckians was most like that of the Virginia gentry, though it had peculiar features of its own. Judged by Puritan standards, it seemed free enough; and it is rather curious to find Virginia fathers anxious to send their sons out to Kentucky so that they could get away from what they termed "the constant round of dissipation, the scenes of idleness, which boys are perpetually ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt

... adequacy of the literalist method. That method is inadequate, not because it is too REALISTIC, but because it runs continual risk of being too VERBALISTIC. It has recently been applied to the translation of Dante by Mr. Rossetti, and it has sometimes led him to write curious verses. For instance, he makes ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske

... sat in silent, stolid indifference to his fate until the curious settlers began to crowd on the boat ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon

... Condit's room with a message from Mr. Wellington, and, of course, I felt a little curious to know how Tony looked. While I waited for an answer to the note I carried, I glanced over to where he sat. Would you believe it, he had turned deliberately around in his seat, so that ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes

... yellow, stale lights of a third-rate street of shops. She heard Olive remarking on her sunburned face and arms; she became aware of the renewed inflammation in her blistered arms; she heard her own curious voice answering. Everything was in a maze. To the beat of the car, while the yellow blur of the shops passed over her eyes, she repeated: 'Two hundred and forty ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence

... known. It is not uncommon in the drier forests of the Amazons valley, but is not found, I believe, in the Ygapo, or flooded lands. The Brazilians call the species the Tamandua bandeira, or the Banner Anteater, the term banner being applied in allusion to the curious colouration of the animal, each side of the body having a broad oblique stripe, half grey and half black, which gives it some resemblance to a heraldic banner. It has an excessively long slender muzzle, and a wormlike extensile tongue. Its jaws are destitute of teeth. The ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates

... "I am curious to know what has brought Prince Kaunitz and the papal nuncio together," said she. "It is unusual to see the prime minister of Austria in the company of churchmen. It must, therefore, be something significant which has ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... behold, there cannot any man work after the manner of so curious a workmanship. And behold, it was prepared to show unto our fathers the course which they ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous

... is no one I can talk to but yourself. Even mother wouldn't understand, completely; and she couldn't be honest about Myrtle. The best of mothers, after all, are women; and, Howat, there is always a curious formality between women, a ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer

... me a curious piece of ancient Egyptian symbolism. It represents the sun sending down to the earth innumerable rays, with the peculiarity that each ray terminates in a hand. This method of representing the sun is so unusual that it suggests the presence in the designer's ...
— The Hidden Power - And Other Papers upon Mental Science • Thomas Troward

... in silence and deep thought, resumed his pace. When they reached the snow-canoe, and while in the act of lifting his captive into her couch, the young chief observed for the first time a massive ring of curious workmanship on her finger (the glove she had hitherto worn being partially torn from her hand in the recent struggle,) and seemed to regard it with much interest. Mary saw that his eyes were riveted on the jewel, and notwithstanding it possessed a hallowed value in having been worn ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones

... portions of the nerve matter containing the virus from a rabid animal which has been exposed to the atmosphere for thirteen days, ten days, seven days, and four days, until the virulent matter which will produce rabies in any unprotected animal can be inoculated with impunity. A curious result of the experiments of Pasteur is that an animal which has first been inoculated with a virus of full strength can be protected by subsequent inoculations of attenuated virus repeated in doses of ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... behind the shoulders, those that are exhibited in cages at home as "sacred buffalo," but which here are only patient beasts of burden, and gray monkeys, wildcats, snakes and crocodiles in cages addressed to "Hagenbeck, Hamburg." The freight was no less curious; assegais in bundles, horns stretching for three feet from point to point, or rising straight, like poignards; skins, ground-nuts, rubber, and heavy blocks of bees-wax wrapped in coarse brown sacking, and which in time will burn before the altars of Roman Catholic ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis

... vines and olive-trees, or otherwise requiring agricultural labour; but it might have been supposed that a population of 230,000 souls would at least have met the demand for labour on the portion of the surface thus occupied. So far, however, from this being the case, it is a curious fact that from 2000 to 3000 labourers come into the island every year from Lucca, Modena, and Parma, to engage in agricultural employment. They generally arrive about the middle of April, and take their departure in November. They are an intelligent, laborious, and frugal class; ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester

... the door as Dexie entered the room, fearing also that Mr. Sherwood was worse, but hearing his cheerful voice he thought he would surprise him by showing himself, and he stepped to the bedside, his hands clasped behind him, and a curious smile played over his face ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth

... I to do with men, that they should hear my confessions- as if they could heal all my infirmities- a race, curious to know the lives of others, slothful to amend their own? Why seek they to hear from me what I am; who will not hear from Thee what themselves are? And how know they, when from myself they hear of myself, whether I say true; seeing no man knows what is in man, but the spirit ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine

... elephants by curious shots with the rifles in this manner; but I once killed a bull elephant by one shot in the upper jaw, which will at once exemplify the advantage of a powerful rifle in taking the angle for ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... close the door. I am vain, therefore I have a certain shyness about exposing my beauty to the curious gaze. Pardon me if I seat myself first; I find it more comfortable to sit than to stand, to recline than to sit." Stiffly the speaker let himself into an upholstered divan and fitted the cushions to his aches and his pains, his bruises and his abrasions. He sighed miserably. His features were discolored, ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach

... be understood that sparks occurred at much higher intervals than these; the table only expresses that distance beneath which all discharge was as spark. Some curious relations of the different gases to discharge are already discernible, but it would be useless to consider them until ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday

... study: an irresistible blending of contradictions, of sympathy and reserve, of sadness—and of wit—of a character and temperament not half-divulged. Whenever their eyes met, he felt a mild commotion, a curious, unfamiliar excitement,—something that made him less at ease. For it invariably brought the keenest anxiety as to her good opinion. He also experienced a consciousness of guilt; why, he knew not, unless from the expression of her eyes. They seemed to be reading his thoughts, ...
— The Pines of Lory • John Ames Mitchell

... I was curious by what name he would announce the lady; but he used none. He simply swung back the door and ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott

... the reason why he was summoned, he threw himself flat on the turf; where, to the eyes of Duncan, he appeared to lie quiet and motionless. Surprised at the immovable attitude of the young warrior, and curious to observe the manner in which he employed his faculties to obtain the desired information, Heyward advanced a few steps, and bent over the dark object on which he had kept his eye riveted. Then it was he discovered that the form of Uncas vanished, ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper

... more and the door slammed to; the bolt was shot, and Nancy, with wide, curious eyes, stood gazing at her new surroundings by the aid of a half-burnt candle. The room was small and unspeakably dirty. A wooden cot with its straw mattress stood in the corner farthest from the window; a broken-down wash stand with a tin basin was in another corner, ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... a lie you know, because there is no strange animal here, and I never was bitten.' Being informed that this sort of lie was a harmless one, and was called a dream, he asked whether dead people ever dreamed[114] while they were lying in the ground. He is one of the most curious ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... In the hallway a curious blindness came over me. I heard Jacqueline call my name, and I felt her hands in mine, but scarcely saw her; then she slipped away from me, and I found myself seated in the little tea-room, listening to the dull, double beat ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

... an instigating force it has brought joy and sorrow into the lives of men and women, and made and marred careers. And curiosity now laid hold of Cynthia Ware. Why in the world she should ever have been curious about Jethro Bass is a mystery to many, for the two of them were as far apart as the poles. Cynthia, of all people, took to watching the tanner's son, and listening to the brief colloquies he had with other men at Jonah Winch's store, when she went there to buy things ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... families of Nicaragua and San Salvador. The space covered by these inscriptions is about one hundred feet long, by twelve or fifteen in height. A quarter of a mile to the southward are other smaller rocks with figures, too much defaced, however, to be traced satisfactorily. Vases of curious workmanship, human bones in considerable quantities, and other relics and remains, it is said, may be discovered by digging in the earth anywhere within the natural amphitheatre to which I have referred. This is another ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various

... engineer, had a curious accident, which might have forfeited his life. While one day playing with his children and astonishing them by passing a half sovereign through his mouth out at his ear, he unfortunately swallowed the coin, which dropped into his windpipe. Brunel regarded the mischief caused by ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer

... boys and girls were talking about the wreck that morning, and because they had had such a curious part in it—having at their home one of the passengers who had been hurt—Bert and Nan were the center of a little throng that wanted to hear, over and over again, about it. So the older Bobbsey twins told all they knew concerning ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Great West • Laura Lee Hope

... and palm. On the right, and parallel with the main road, is Company Street, and above is the mountain studded with great white stone houses, softened by the lofty roofs of the royal palm. All along King Street the massive houses stand close together, each with its arcade and its curious outside staircase of stone which leads to an upper balcony where one may catch the breeze and watch the leisures of tropic life. Almost every house has a court opening into a yard surrounded by the overhanging balconies of three sides of the building; and here the guinea fowl ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... also did the whipping at the jails, and frequently made from five to six dollars a day at this alone; for it is not considered fashionable for a gentleman to whip his own negro. We noticed the universal carrying of this whip, when we first visited Macon, some four years ago, and were curious to know its purport, which was elucidated by a friend; but we have since seen the practical demonstrations painfully carried out. Those who visited Boston for the recovery of Crafts and Ellen—whose mode of escape is a romance in itself—were specimens of these "marshals." How they passed ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams

... feel disposed to smile at such an expression, as "the consciousness of our existence," we will take the liberty of citing a few curious instances, for the authenticity of which we assume the entire responsibility—instances which may perhaps astonish a few even of the better informed. There are in many districts (not altogether provincial) of Italy and France great numbers, who ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... he guesses you're a woman, it's all he does. And, damme, I suppose it's enough. So your curious sex bade you go and pry. Well, and what did you see ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey

... only the apathy so characteristic of the American races. On the present occasion, this must have been in part, at least, assumed. For it is impossible that the Indian prince should not have contemplated with curious interest a spectacle so strange, and, in some respects, appalling, as that of these mysterious strangers, for which no previous description could ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... satiric detachment in her tone which contrasted sharply with Marcella's amused but sympathetic interest. Detachment was perhaps the characteristic note of Mrs. Boyce's manner,—a curious separateness, as it were, from all the things and ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... society of philosophers, men of a liberal education and curious disposition, might silently meditate, and temperately discuss in the gardens of Athens or the library of Alexandria, the abstruse questions of metaphysical science. The lofty speculations, which neither convinced the understanding, nor agitated ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... official instructions, the interests of science were not neglected, and many important facts were made out; among the most curious, it may be mentioned, that it appears to be proved that the North Pole is not the coldest point of the Arctic hemisphere, but that the place where the expedition wintered is one of the coldest spots on ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry

... the officers of this regiment, and lodged by them for safe-keeping in the jail at Wheeling. The long-suspended brain-fever had set in. She was taken through the streets, her clothes ragged and muddy, her head bare, followed by a curious crowd of idlers, with just enough reason left to know what the house was in which they lodged her. Cruel as they were in act, it proved a kindness to the girl. The jailer and his family nursed her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various

... dung, as the case seems, in their judgment, to require. Towards the Coast, where a supply of European lancets can be procured, they sometimes perform phlebotomy; and in cases of local inflammation, a curious sort of cupping is practised. This operation is performed by making incisions in the part, and applying to it a bullock's horn, with a small hole in the end. The operator then takes a piece of bees-wax in his mouth, and putting his lips to the hole, extracts the air from the horn; ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park

... subdued tone of this Sonnet, nor the striking grandeur of the concluding thought. It is curious to remark what seems to be a trait of character in the two first lines. From Milton's care to inform the reader that 'his eyes wore still clear, to outward view, of spot or blemish,' it would be thought ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... familiar with the rings of Saturn, and regarded them merely as curious exceptions to the supposed law of planetary formation; but Laplace saw that, instead of being exceptions, they are the sole remaining visible evidences of certain stages in the invariable process of star manufacture, and from their ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... the bunk-house, he found three tall strong men awaiting him. Their faces, tanned by many suns, exhibited a curious uniformity of tint—the colour ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell

... and Appendicitis. The beginning of the large bowel, where the small bowel empties into it, is the largest part of it, and forms a curious pouch called the cecum, or "blind" pouch. From one side of this projects a little wormlike tube, twisted and coiled upon itself, from three to six inches long and of about the size of a slate pencil. This is the ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson

... he, and that if this outrageous provision of the law were strictly enforced and judgments rendered widespread ruin would result. His lawyer agreed to this in all sympathy, but read aloud the provisions of the statute, and Nelson derived no comfort from the reading. The lawyer was curious to know, by the way, who had taken the trouble to acquire all of these claims—a task of heroic size—but about all the encouragement he could offer was the probability of a long and expensive series of legal battles, ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach

... those of kindly charity—the affection which one has for the objects of sympathetic care. So far as the world in which she now lived was concerned—the white world and white people of Horsford—she had known nothing of them, nor they of her, but as each had regarded the other as a curious study. Their life had been shut out from her, and her life had been a matter that did not interest them. She had wondered that they did not think and feel as she did with regard to the colored people; and they, that any one having a white skin and the form of ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee

... graceful mind in a body low of stature, and marked by a slight deformity. His piercing eyes, luminous with intelligence and full of sympathy for everything noble and elevated, overpowered with their fascination the blemishes that a too curious scrutiny might discover upon his figure; while his mobile, handsome lips poured out the natural eloquence of clear thoughts and noble sentiments. The Count grew great while speaking: his listeners were ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... "How very curious—how strangely things come round!" said Fanny; then with a start of dismay, "but what shall I do? Pray, tell me what you would like. If I might only keep her a little while till I can find some one else, though no one will ever be so nice, but indeed I would not ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... equilibrium that is maintained by the earth in spite of the difference of mass in its two hemispheres" (northern and southern). "May not the enormous weight of the Andes be one of the data with which this curious problem of physical ...
— Modern Spanish Lyrics • Various

... peace—prayer, obedience, frequent communions, and inner mortification. The best kind of prayer is the prayer of silence;[304] and there are three silences, that of words, that of desires, and that of thought. In the last and highest the mind is a blank, and God alone speaks to the soul.[305] With the curious passion for subdivision which we find in nearly all Romish mystics, he distinguishes three kinds of "infusa contemplazione"—(1) satiety, when the soul is filled with God and conceives a hatred for all worldly things; ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge

... in this chronicle that this curious object of the seashore with whom Aunt Dahlia has linked her lot is a bloke who habitually looks like a pterodactyl that has suffered, and the reason he does so is that all those years he spent in making millions in the Far East ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse

... mortal man. While women were tortured, drowned and burned by the thousands, scarce one wizard to a hundred was ever condemned. The marked distinction in the treatment of the sexes, all through the Jewish dispensation, is curious and depressing, especially as we see the trail of the serpent all through history, wherever their form of religion has made its impress. In the old common law of our Saxon fathers, the Jewish code is essentially reproduced. This same distinction of sex appears ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... I suppose," the harsh voice said matter-of-factly. "They're probably just curious to see what he looks like first. ...
— Monkey On His Back • Charles V. De Vet

... observe them, to analyze their mettle, their actions. This insurrection may turn very complicated; if so, it must generate more than one revolutionary manifestation. What will be its march—what stages? Curious; perhaps it may turn out more interesting than anything since that great renovation of humanity by the great ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski

... of Liz's flight Joan was silent, but it did not remain a secret many hours. A collier's wife had seen her standing, crying, and holding a little bundle on her arm at the corner of a lane, and having been curious enough to watch, had also seen Landsell join ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... walls two hundred thousand people could be gathered. On every side the Boy saw new and strange things: soldiers in their armor, and shops full of costly wares; richly dressed Sadducees with their servants following; Jews from far-away countries, and curious visitors from all parts of the world; ragged children of the city, and painted women of the street, and beggars and outcasts of the lower quarters, and rich ladies with their retinues, and priests in their ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke

... important provisions being limited to take effect at dates yet in the future. The general provisions of the law have been in force less than sixty days. Its permanent effects upon trade and prices still largely stand in conjecture. It is curious to note that the advance in the prices of articles wholly unaffected by the tariff act was by many hastily ascribed to that act. Notice was not taken of the fact that the general tendency of the markets was upward, from influences wholly apart from the recent tariff legislation. The enlargement ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... "There's a curious-looking gull I should like to shoot," exclaimed Fred, pointing to a bird that hovered over his head, and throwing forward the muzzle of ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... the changes of one's own self is a fascinating pursuit for idle hours. The field is so wide, the surprises so varied, the subject so full of unprofitable but curious hints as to the work of unseen forces, that one does not weary easily of it. I am not speaking here of megalomaniacs who rest uneasy under the crown of their unbounded conceit—who really never rest in this world, and when out of it go on fretting and fuming on the straitened ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad

... There were some curious spiritual experiences connected with his last evening's adventure which were working very strongly in his mind. It was borne in upon him irresistibly that he had been dead since he had seen Helen,—as dead as the son of the Widow of Nain before the bier was touched ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... of old, and from which no child of Adam is wholly free—the desire to hear and to tell some new thing. No sooner has the person withdrawn from this mortal stage, than the pen of biography is prepared to record, and a host of curious expectants are marshalled to receive, some fragments at least of private history. I wish I could dissent from your remark, that even godliness itself is too often sought to be made a gain of in such cases. Writers ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth

... abrupt, and obscure, is PURCHAS HIS PILGRIMS. Even admitting the plan of that work to be in itself excellent; although it may be a General History, so far as it extends, it certainly is in no respect a Complete Collection of Voyages and Travels. In a very large proportion of that curious work, it is the author who speaks to the reader, and not the traveller. In the present work, wherever that could possibly be accomplished, it has uniformly been the anxious desire of the Editor that the voyagers and travellers should tell their own story: In that department ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr

... interview, they had stopped near a spear which was lying on the grass, and which Bannelong took up; it was longer than common, and appeared to be a very curious one, being barbed and pointed with hard wood; this exciting Governor Phillip's curiosity, he asked Bannelong for it; but instead of complying with this request, he took it where the stranger was standing, threw it down, and taking ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter

... Mr. Hastings. The question was, how to get Mr. Hastings, the interpreter, out of his interpretation, and to put him upon the seat of judgment. It was effected, however, and the manner in which it was effected was something curious. Mr. Lushington, who by this time was got completely over, himself tells you that in conferences with Major Calliaud, and by arguments and reasons by him delivered, he was persuaded to unsay his swearing, and to declare that he believed that the affidavit ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... day I should come into possession of great wealth; that it was still hidden in the ground, but that the secret of its hiding-place should one day be revealed to me. Caramba! It really seems as though the Inca's prophecy is about to come true. Now, Jose," he went on, aloud; "this is a very curious tale indeed. I hope you are not playing any ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood

... requires no definition for its meaning of "by oneself'' or "solitary''; but its etymological history, as simply a combination of the words "all'' and "one'' is rather curious (compare the Ger. allein.) "Lone'' is merely a clipped form of the word, and so "lonely.'' The New English Dictionary traces the English word back to ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... within the flame, and turned into vapor, and burnt, and so on till the wax is all used up, and the candle is gone. So the flame, uncle, you see is the last of the candle, and the candle seems to go through the flame into nothing—although it doesn't, but goes into several things, and isn't it curious, as Professor Faraday said, that the candle should look so splendid and ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... soul," Mr. McGraw had murmured at the time, "what a curious rule! I had a notion that that was the surveyor-general's business, not mine. I had a notion that he was paid for compiling that information for the people, and not forcing them to compile ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne

... ratified, or rather proclaimed, a foregone conclusion. The reconciliation which was prescribed by their constitution had undoubtedly been arranged by previous conferences, after their custom in such matters, before the meeting of the Council. [Footnote: For a curious instance of the manner in which questions to be apparently decided by a Council were previously settled between the parties, see the Life of Zeisberger, p. 190: "Gietterowane was the speaker on one side, Zeisberger ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale

... placed on the ground of economic ideas, would find the more difficulty in being consistent with himself because of the clearness of his mind and the accuracy of his reasoning. I am going to make this curious ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon

... over the prairies, with a motley band of 5,000 negroes, 2,000 horses, and 1,500 beeves for a cumbrous accompaniment. With the possible exception of the herd that set out to follow Sherman's march through Georgia, this was perhaps the most curious column ever put in motion since that which defiled after Noah ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin

... Sindbad the Seaman returned from his travel to Baghdad, the House of Peace, he arrived at home with great store of diamonds and money and goods. (Continued he) I foregathered with my friends and relations and gave alms and largesse and bestowed curious gifts and made presents to all my friends and companions. Then I betook myself to eating well and drinking well and wearing fine clothes and making merry with my fellows, and forgot all my sufferings in the pleasures of return to the solace and delight of life, with light heart ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... were full of tears. How good he was—how tenderly he loved her, and what a happy, grateful girl she had reason to be. They entered the house, admitted by a very old woman, who bobbed a curtsey and looked at them with curious eyes. Two or three old retainers took care of the place and showed ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming

... here by curious men 't may be expected That I this knot with judgement grave decide, And then proceed to what else was objected. But, ah! What mortall wit may dare t' areed Heavens counsels in eternall horrour hid? And Cynthius pulls me by my tender ear Such signes I must observe ...
— Democritus Platonissans • Henry More

... accompanied by three hundred knights and four bishops, pass along the city streets, September 5th, on her way to S. Maria del Popolo to offer prayers of thanksgiving. Following a curious custom of the day, which shows Folly and Wisdom side by side, just as we find them in Calderon's and Shakespeare's dramas, Lucretia presented the costly robe which she wore when she offered up her prayer, to one of her court fools, and the clown ran merrily through the ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius

... grow weary of the endless charm of English parish churches. The more one sees of them the more one realises what fresh, delightful surprises they hold. Nothing else in England betrays so well the curious individuality, the fascinating tendency to incipient eccentricity, which marks the English genius. Certainly there are few English churches one can place beside some of the more noble and exquisitely beautiful French churches, ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis

... of health, and to Lord Fournivall, another kind of god, very useful to propitiate, for he was Lord Treasurer. He writes a good many detached pieces in which, thanks to his mania for talking about himself, he makes us acquainted with the nooks and corners of the old city, thus supplying rare and curious information, treasured by the historian. He composes, in order to make himself noticed by the king, a lengthy poem on the Government of Princes, "De Regimine Principum," which is nothing but a compilation taken from three or four previous ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... the maid; and then Mrs. Dyer's head appeared in the opening and she gave Josie a curious if ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)

... to seek his fortune in the West, and on his way to Indianapolis happened to stop at Rochester. The place proved too attractive to give up, and, through his influence, Weed also made it his residence. "How curious it seems," he once wrote his distinguished journalistic friend, "that circumstances which we regard at the time as scarcely worthy of notice often change the entire current of our lives." A few years later, through Weed's influence, Gardiner became a judge of the Supreme ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... being in his nature not very curious, whether because family matters were of so little consequence to him, or because he had a vague idea that his general behavior deprived him of all right to ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau

... good deal of curious information about the oyster. They are obtained by means of a dredge, which consists of a flat bag, the under part made of strong iron rings looped together by stout wire. The upper side is merely a strong netting, ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston

... negotiations were to be settled. Some minutes elapsed before he came, Napoleon remaining seated in his carriage meantime, still smoking, and accepting with nonchalance the staring of a group of German soldiers near by, who were gazing on their fallen foe with curious ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan

... it is commonly expressed, 'troubled in mind.' Some of the ancient philosophers held, that all deviations from right reason were madness; and whoever wishes to see the opinions both of ancients and moderns upon this subject, collected and illustrated with a variety of curious facts, may read ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell

... found in the well-known reluctance of savage tribes to have any engravings taken of themselves, and we can well imagine that if any one was known to make drawings of human beings he would be regarded with suspicious distrust, and it would hardly be a safe accomplishment to possess. One very curious group represents a man, long and lean, standing between two horses' heads, and by the side of a long serpent or fish, having the appearance of an eel. On the reverse side of this piece of horn were represented the heads of two aurochs or bisons. Mr. Dawkins thinks this also represents a hunting ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen

... he was afterwards an Honorary Fellow. Author of "Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary and Greek Lexicon," 1849, said to be a useful book on classical antiquities. Mr. Darwin made his acquaintance in a curious way—namely, by Mr. Rich writing to inform him that he intended to leave him his fortune, in token of his admiration for his work. Mr. Rich was the survivor, but left his property to Mr. Darwin's children, with the exception of his house at Worthing, bequeathed to Mr. Huxley. ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin

... court groups which Velasquez was constantly taking, I may quote Sir W. Stirling Maxwell's amusing paragraph about a curious variety of human beings in the Court Gallery. 'The Alcazar of Madrid abounded with dwarfs in the days of Philip IV., who was very fond of having them about him, and collected curious specimens ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler

... from Espaa to Great China, consisting of twelve falcons; twelve horses, with their trappings and saddle-cloths embroidered with the royal arms; and six mules, [45] with their wrought coverings, which carried twelve boxes, filled with various curious articles. For securing this amicable relation, there are spent annually ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various

... that I was talking to myself all the time, instead of out aloud, so that, of course, they did not know that I was telling them a tale at all, and were probably puzzled to understand the meaning of my animated expression and eloquent gestures. It was a most curious mistake for any one to make. I never knew such a thing happen ...
— Told After Supper • Jerome K. Jerome

... involuntarily. She had not meant to put it. But it was curious that he should have left them in the lurch at this ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... is as perfect in my memory as if it had occurred this very day, I have thought thousands of times since, and will now put on paper as one of the curious things which perhaps did lead me in after times to love birds, and to finally study them with pleasure infinite. My mother had several beautiful parrots, and some monkeys; one of the latter was a full-grown male of a very large species. ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. II., No. 5, November 1897 - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various

... of curious experiments were made on this subject by M. Tillet, in France, and by Dr. Fordyce and Sir Charles Blagden, in England. Sir Joseph Banks, Dr. Solander, and Sir Charles Blagden entered a room in which the air had a temperature of 198 degrees Fahr., and remained ten minutes; but as the thermometer ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini

... eager housekeepers. The social hours in Dinwiddie at that period were the early morning ones in the old market, and Virginia knew that she should hear Docia's story repeated again for the benefit of the curious or sympathetic listeners that would soon gather about her mother. Mrs. Pendleton's marketing, unlike the hurried and irresponsible sort of to-day, was an affair of time and ceremony. Among the greetings and the condolences from other marketers there would ensue lengthy conversations with the ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow

... said he, "tell me, I pray you, whether this wonderful tree was found in your garden by chance, or was a present made to you, or have you procured it from some foreign country? It must certainly have come from a great distance, otherwise, curious as I am after natural rarities, I should have heard of it. What name ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... had its curious features, too. No mistake, the shock of hearing Sorenson senior talking to the sheriff and the crowd, working up sentiment, had stirred her indignation and wonder and uneasiness and alarm. She was no fool, as she had said. She had a clear, ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd

... helpful on top of a motor-bus during a wait of half an hour or so, any second of which might be one's last. There was an American nurse there, a tall, radiant girl, whom they called, and rightly, "Morning Glory," who had been introduced to me the day before because we both belonged to that curious foreign race of Americans. What her name was I haven't the least idea, and if we were to meet to-morrow, doubtless we should have to be carefully presented over again, but I remember calling out to her, "Good-by, American ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl

... summoned his men by a repetition of the toast, and the fifty hillocks of snow were suddenly changed, as if by magic, into as many armed and furious 'rebels.' Before the Skinners could recover from the momentary surprise into which this curious incident had thrown them, a volley of powder and shot had been fired into their midst. Dashing like a frightened hare through the open door, McPherson beheld his assailants. His fears magnified their numbers, and, conceiving there was no hope in fight, he summoned his men to follow ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson

... absolutely trustworthy and efficient engineers in charge of the work, and before leaving home he provided for accidents that might occur. So much work was done in the winter that great barriers had to be built to keep it clear of floating ice. One curious detail connected with the bridge is that the Milwaukee, one of the double-turreted gunboats which Eads had built from his own plans, and which had been with Farragut at Mobile, was bought now from a wrecking company, and her iron hull used in making the ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How

... your own words, Mr. Fenton. How can you?" Sweetwater's hand was on the breast of the accused man as he spoke, and his manner was almost solemn. "You must not take it for granted," he went on, his green eyes twinkling with a curious light, "that all wisdom comes from Boston. We in Sutherlandtown have some sparks of it, if they have not yet been recognised. You are satisfied"—here he addressed himself to Knapp—"that the blow which killed Agatha ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green

... giving one of those strong, piercing looks he sometimes afforded, right into the hostess's eyes. "It might be a coincidence: chis! chito! A shilling of a certain year is no rare thing. But, Madame Cannon, it becomes slightly curious when six such shillings, all numbered with that significant year, came out ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... direction of his mother's house, in company with Joe, he scanned with a curious eye the houses, the shops, and the people that he passed. Nothing appeared changed; the same signs indicated an unchanging hospitality on the part of the same landlords, the same lumpers were standing at the same corners—it seemed as if he had been gone only a day. With ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage

... still captives in Tarrano's hands, as we had been on Earth in Venia. Yet here in the Great City of Venus a curious situation arose. Tarrano himself explained it to us that afternoon. An embarrassing situation for ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings

... complete, that every word told. His eyes fell down to the crowd as he stopped speaking, since for some little while they had been looking far away into the blue distance of summer; and the kind eyes of the man had a curious sight before him in that crowd, for amongst them were many who by this time were not dry-eyed, and some wept outright in spite of their black beards, while all had that look as if they were ashamed of themselves, and ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris

... over our teacups. Among the company at the table is a young English girl. She seemed to be amused by the story. "Fancy!" she said,—"how very very odd!" "It was a striking and curious coincidence," said the professor who was with us at the table. "As remarkable as two teaspoons in one saucer," was the comment of a college youth who happened to be one of the company. But the member of our circle whom the reader ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... surprising, after that, than to find our traveller, in the period from 1855 to 1857, visiting the whole region west of the Thibet, in company with the brothers Schlagintweit, and bringing back some curious ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne

... Nick's voice, cracked and careless, that next broke the spell. He seemed to speak on the edge of a laugh. "It's just six years ago since the woman I wanted went to India. Curious, ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell

... of the present issue to add, in the form of Appendices, some supplementary particulars which have come to my knowledge since the book was first published. The most material of these is the curious confirmation and extension of Fielding's love affair with Sarah Andrew. Besides these additions, a few necessary rectifications have been made ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson

... clear that the treasury could not afford the expense of six sleeping bags; but as such a device would be useful only under very unusual circumstances we decided that two sleeping bags would be all the society would need. We had been rather curious to explore the country back of the hills on the Pennsylvania side of the river, and with some light provisions and these sleeping bags strapped to the back a couple of boys could make quite an extended tour, unmindful of weather conditions. On ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond

... left for several hours together, without any one of my committee or myself being present; and I never heard that it was even hinted to offer to remove them, except once, on which occasion the following curious circumstance took place. One day, one of the constables, observing that myself and all my immediate friends were absent from the hustings, proposed in a low voice to some of his companions, to remove Hunt's ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt

... Major was rather curious to know what it was which appeared to flurry Lord Windermear, and what had passed between us. I told him that his lordship was displeased on money matters, but that all was right, only that I must be more careful for the future. "Indeed, Major, I think I shall take lodgings. I shall be more comfortable, ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat

... at the pump that he found himself, some time during the night, working endlessly, it seemed. Not once had he lost sight of the real purpose of his presence on the yacht. If Agatha Redmond were aboard the unlucky vessel—and he had moments of curious perplexity about it—he was there to watch for her safety. He pictured her sitting somewhere in the endangered vessel. She could not but be terrified at her predicament. Whether shipwreck or abduction threatened her, she must ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger

... in Colorado, a genuine oasis in the desert, with its huge irrigating canals of mountain water running through the mighty wheat fields, glistening each autumn at the base of the range, affords a good deal that is curious, not only to the mind of the gentleman from the States, but even to the man who lives at Cheyenne, W.T., only a few ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... "Macedonian" as "a New Year's gift, with the compliments of old Neptune." However, the news of the victory had spread throughout the land before the ships came up to New York; for Decatur had sent out a courier from New London to bear the tidings to Washington. A curious coincidence made the delivery of the despatch as impressive as a ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot









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