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More "Peculiarity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Persian Cross Stitch.—The peculiarity of this stitch is that in the first instance the silk or worsted is carried across two threads of the canvas ground, and is brought up in the intermediate space. It is then crossed over the latter half of the original stitch, and a ...
— Handbook of Embroidery • L. Higgin
... yet he pays for my gasoline without complaint. His bias, prejudice, and vindictiveness doesn't apply to the members of his immediate family, but it does apply intensely and vigorously to others. It's this peculiarity that might wreck the works at ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney
... we would overtake a party of Russian peasants migrating from the famine-stricken districts of European Russia to the pioneer colonies along this Turkestan highway. The peculiarity of these villages is their extreme length, all the houses facing on the one wide street. Most of them are merely mud huts, others make pretensions to doors and windows, and a coat of whitewash. Near-by usually stands the old battered telega which served as a ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... peculiarity attending the ostrich, which is, that although the female lays from about twenty-five to thirty eggs, yet she only sits upon about fifteen, throwing the remainder outside the nest, where they remain until the young ones are hatched, and these eggs form the ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... suddenly grasped the hand of Bones, "I hope we are going to be friends. I like you. That's my peculiarity—I like people or I dislike them. Now that I've told you that we bought two ships from your uncle for one hundred and forty thousand pounds when we knew—yes, positively knew—they were worth at least twenty thousand pounds more—now I've told you ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... book a single new argument, but the mere repetition of what is told over and over in thousands of volumes, the whole fruit of which has been to procure for their authors a cursory mention in the dictionary of heresies. You everywhere lay down that as proved which remains to be proved; with this peculiarity, that, as Gibbon says, firing away your double battery against those who believe too much, and those who believe too little, you hold out your own peculiar sensations, as to the precise criterion of truth; so that we must all be just of your size in order to pass the gate of that New Jerusalem ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... arises from the circumstance that, among the moderns, the abstract and transient fact of slavery is fatally united to the physical and permanent fact of color. The tradition of slavery dishonors the race, and the peculiarity of the race perpetuates the tradition of slavery. No African has ever voluntarily emigrated to the shores of the New World; whence it must be inferred, that all the blacks who are now to be found in that hemisphere ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... hand holding the reins, the other hanging dejectedly by the side. Yet there is little doubt that these heartbroken citizens are earning double what their London confreres gain. The shadow of the national peculiarity is over them. ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... however, and great care and discrimination must be exercised in digital manipulation of the triceps region because many animals are normally sensitive to palpation of these parts. It is sometimes difficult to correctly interpret the true state of conditions because of this peculiarity. ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix
... it is an indication that your stomach is having a wresting match with the food. Some people can't digest onions, others thrive upon them. Some can't eat cucumbers, others can do so readily. The one must give them up; the other can continue to eat them. Each person has some peculiarity of diet and must observe it to be happy. Many a race has been lost through failure to obey this rule. A simple diet is best. Most boys eat too much of a mixed nature. They mix pickles, soda water, frankfurters, and chocolate ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... their results were received with deepest interest. They concluded that the light of the new star had two different sources, each giving a spectrum peculiar to itself. One of the spectra had dark lines and the other bright lines. It will be remembered that a similar peculiarity was exhibited by the new star in Auriga in 1893. But the star in Corona did not disappear. It diminished to magnitude nine and a half or ten, and stopped there; and it is still visible. In fact, subsequent examination proved that it had been catalogued at Bonn ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss
... One peculiarity of this artist's pictures was that he used actual goldleaf to make the high lights upon hair, leaves, and draperies. The effect of the use of this gold was very beautiful, if unusual, and it may have ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... it is called, works pretty smoothly, on lines similar to that English original whence it is copied. The most interesting peculiarity is the Cape method of forming the smaller House. In England the Upper House is composed of hereditary members; in the Canadian confederation, of members nominated for life—both of them methods which are quite indefensible in theory. Here, however, we ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... represent Mr. Bright as wearing an eye-glass, but I don't think he ever used one. Certainly I never saw Mr. Bright with an eye-glass, and never saw Mr. Chamberlain without one. Great and prominent men should have some characteristic peculiarity that should be their own special personal brand, and if they have it not, it must be made for them—as in the case of Lord Palmerston and the wisp of straw that "Mr. Punch" always put in his mouth. Mr. Chamberlain, ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... little Barro.[444] There was a small purse made up by the passengers, each one contributing what he pleased, for the person who should first discover land. We gave two shillings each. The minister would not give anything. It seems that meanness is a peculiarity of this class of people. This was done in order that the sailors might look out more zealously for land, and so we might not fall upon land unexpectedly. The purse was nailed to the mast, so that, being always in sight, it might be a constant incentive, and whoever might first see land might take ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... Japanese type of face. Of course all this has suggested a theory of the Ainos belonging to the Aryan race; and, although the idea comes to nothing when examined strictly, its existence is an acknowledgment of the special Aino race-type. Mention must also be made of an anatomical peculiarity of the Aino skeleton, consisting of a remarkable flattening of the arm-and leg-bones. On the whole it is evident that the Ainos are an ancient race in this part of Asia, and so far isolated that anthropology has not yet the means of settling ...
— Aino Folk-Tales • Basil Hall Chamberlain
... as clerk, sergeant, etc." In calling attention to the New England custom of preferring the sound of i short or e before the diphthong ow, as in kiow for cow, Webster gravely refers the disagreeable peculiarity "to the nature of their government and a distribution of their property." Let the reader reflect a moment before he reads Webster's philosophical explanation, and see if his own cogitations lead him in the right direction. "It is an undoubted fact that the drawling nasal manner of speaking in New ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... of Horace, but exerted in the way of derision, and not with the admirable raillery of that facetious author. They are regarded by many as obscure; but this imputation arises more from unacquaintance with the characters and manners to which the author alludes, than from any peculiarity either in his language or composition. His versification is harmonious; and we have only to remark, in addition to similar examples in other Latin writers, that, though Persius is acknowledged to have been both virtuous and modest, there are in the fourth satire a few passages which ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... ——- "a wig, that is modish and gay". 'He always wore a wig' — said the 'Jessamy Bride' in her reminiscences to Prior — 'a peculiarity which those who judge of his appearance only from the fine poetical head of Reynolds, would not suspect; and on one occasion some person contrived to seriously injure this important adjunct to dress. It was the only one he had in the country, and the misfortune seemed irreparable until the services ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... expression, while her large bright eyes shone glassy in the dim rays sent forth by a poor lamp; but she did not reply. She had a gnawing in her stomach, that made her feel faint, and a most earnest craving for nourishing and even stimulating food, the consequence of long abstinence as well as from the peculiarity of her disease. But she did not breathe a word of this to Ellen, who would, she knew, expend for her every cent of the money she was about to receive, if she was aware of the morbid appetite from which she ...
— Woman's Trials - or, Tales and Sketches from the Life around Us. • T. S. Arthur
... instance of this, with its double valve, so swollen on one side, so flat on the other. There is an unconscious recognition of this in the arrangement of all collections of Mollusks; for, though the collectors do not put up their specimens with any intention of illustrating this peculiarity, they instinctively give them the position best calculated to display their distinctive characteristics, and to accomplish this they necessarily place them in such a manner as to show the sides. In Articulates ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... had both been members for some years, and at houses where their different "sets" touched distantly. If they talked at all, they talked of old times, but each bored the other. Petro, however, could never bear to refuse any one a favour, even if granting it were an uncongenial task. This peculiarity was constitutional and too ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... Gibson. 'Black folk are not remarkable for their powers of reasoning, I believe, so that they have not much chance of altering his opinion by argument, even if they understood each other's language; and certainly if he shares my taste, their peculiarity of complexion will only make him ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... always handled money in that careful fashion—a habit which he had inherited from his father and his grandfather before him, and of which he was entirely unconscious. Filtering down through so many generations, the mannerism had ceased at last to be merely a physical peculiarity, and had become strangely spiritual in its suggestion. The craving for possession, the singleness of desire, the tenacity of grasp, the dread of relinquishment, the cold-blooded determination to keep intact the thing which it had cost so much to acquire—all that was bound ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... friends, you don't appear to know the difference between your property and mine, particularly when it comes to hosses. It is an unfortunate little peculiarity of yours that will bring your life to an untimely end some of these days. If you should ever reform and set up as respectable men, I might be willin' to know you, but there's about as much chance of that, accordin' to my reckonin', ...
— Ben's Nugget - A Boy's Search For Fortune • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... course of the day, the peculiar, resonant hammering of some species of woodpecker upon the hard, dry limbs. It was unlike any sound of the kind I had ever heard, and, repeated at intervals through the silent wood, was a very marked and characteristic feature. Its peculiarity was the ordered succession of the raps, which gave it the character of a premeditated performance. There were first three strokes following each other rapidly, then two much louder ones with longer intervals between them. I heard the drumming here, and the next day at sunset at Furlow Lake, the ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... not pass through S two projective point-rows, which are not, however, in involution unless the angle between the lines is a right angles. For a point P may correspond to a point P', which in turn will correspond to some other point than P. The peculiarity of point-rows in involution is that any point will correspond to the same point, in whichever point-row it is considered as belonging. In this case, if a point P corresponds to a point P', then the point ...
— An Elementary Course in Synthetic Projective Geometry • Lehmer, Derrick Norman
... thorax and prosoma, Pl. IV, fig. 8 a') is peculiar; but it is only a slight exaggeration of what we have seen in several genera, and shall meet again in some species of Scalpellum. The presence of hairs on the outer membrane of the prosoma is a peculiarity confined to this genus amongst the Lepadidae, though observed in the sessile genus, Chthamalus. The caudal appendages in the I. quadrivalvis attain a greater length than in any other species of the family, being four times the length of the pedicels of the sixth cirrus. A ...
— A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2) - The Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes • Charles Darwin
... strange to any reader who can recall the position of my Connie's room, that the nearest way to the breakwater should be through that room; but so it was. I mention the fact because I want my readers to understand a certain peculiarity of the room. By the side of the window which looked out upon the breakwater was a narrow door, apparently of a closet or cupboard, which communicated, however, with a narrow, curving, wood-built passage, leading into a little wooden hut, the walls of which were by no means ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... were veterans in the profession of hunting and trapping, having long been in the employment of the Hudson Bay Company, and having served a regular apprenticeship to prepare them for their difficult and arduous employment. Here again the peculiarity of Kit Carson's character was developed. Instead of assuming that he knew all that was to be known about the wilderness, and the business in which he was engaged, he lost no opportunity of acquiring all the information he could from these ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... Doone was a dandy, but he had this peculiarity, that he seemed to dress to please himself rather than the rest of the world. His glances never roved about taking account of the admiration of others. As he leaned there in the door of the hotel he was the type of the young, happy, genuine and carefree fellow, ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand
... a kind tending to save the life of the individual possessing it, or to enable it more surely to propagate its kind, will in the long run be preserved, and will transmit its favourable peculiarity to some of its offspring, which peculiarity will thus become intensified {6} till it reaches the maximum degree of utility. On the other hand, individuals presenting unfavourable peculiarities will be ruthlessly destroyed. The action of this law ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... not think this peculiarity arose from any wish to withdraw his foolishness from the rest of the camp, nor was it probable that the combined wisdom of Five Forks ever drove him into exile. My impression is, that he lived alone from choice,—a choice he made long before the camp indulged in any criticism of his mental ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... and never showed an inclination to desert his master. Once indeed, in his youth, he had absented himself for two days, on courting bent, but this folly was soon over with him. Valetka's most noticeable peculiarity was his impenetrable indifference to everything in the world.... If it were not a dog I was speaking of, I should have called him 'disillusioned.' He usually sat with his cropped tail curled up under him, ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... product, the organ-grinder. Other towns, in their ambitions, have attempted the "industry," but they have egregiously failed; and Chiavari remains as distinctive in its product as Spitalfields for its shawls, or Dresden for its china. Whether there may be some peculiarity in the biceps of the Chiavarian, or some ulnar development which imparts power to his performance, I know not. I am forced to own that I have failed to discover to what circumstance or from what quality this excellence is derivable; but there is the fact, warranted and confirmed ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... The reader will have observed a peculiarity in most of Mr. Coleridge's conclusions to his letters. He generally says, "God bless you, and, or eke, S. T. C." so as to involve a ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... distant. The conduct of the black troops, however, at an extensive fire some two years ago, which destroyed a large district in the business part of the town, was an illustration of what seems a curious peculiarity of the African character, namely, that while docile and amenable to discipline in the highest degree in common, the negroes are apt in critical moments to break out into uncontrollable license. On this occasion, the black men, soldiers and all, instead of assisting to put out ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... one is forgotten, whether valuable for the pomp and beauty of the impression, or for the notes with which the text is accompanied, or for any controversy or persecution that it produced, or for the peculiarity of any single passage. With the same care have the various editions of the book of Common Prayer been selected, from which all the alterations which have been made in ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... Bunjevci, who live for the most part in Ba[vc]ka and Baranja, came originally from the Buna district of Herzegovina. The total population of the town of Subotica is 90,000, and 73,000 of these are Bunjevci, whose peculiarity is that the old father stays in the town house, while his sons, with their wives and children, drive out on Monday morning over that rather featureless landscape to the farm, which may be at a considerable distance, and there ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... is, the "falling" which gives one of its titles to this malady. It is called "the falling sickness." There is a peculiarity in the falling of one who is affected in this way. In some cases consciousness partially remains, but the balancing power of the brain is lost. A patient in this case sees the ground rise till it strikes him violently on the forehead. We ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... application, or successful effort; and although the inebriate may, and sometimes does, astonish, by the wildness of his fancy and the poignancy of his wit, yet in nine cases out of ten he fails, and there is never any confidence to be reposed in him. There have been a few who, from peculiarity of constitution, or some other cause, have continued to perform intellectual labor for many years, while slaves to ardent spirits; but in no instance has the vigor of the intellect or its ability to labor been increased by indulgence; and where there is one who has been able to struggle on ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... The peculiarity of the present case arose from neglect in evacuating the fluid effused under the eschar the day succeeding its formation, the consequence of which was that the edges of the eschar became raised all round, without ...
— An Essay on the Application of the Lunar Caustic in the Cure of Certain Wounds and Ulcers • John Higginbottom
... though some of his philosophy and a good deal of his personality, in some of its manifestations, have outward colors that do not seem to harmonize, the true and intimate relations they bear each other are not affected. This peculiarity, frequently seen in his attitude towards social-economic problems, is perhaps more emphasized in some of his personal outbursts. "I love my friends very much, but I find that it is of no use to go to see them. I hate them commonly when I ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... though generous, was not free from the worldliness which had met him everywhere, amidst the society in which his youth had been spent. His uncle, the head of one of those families which yearly vanish from the commonalty into the peerage, but which once formed a distinguished peculiarity in the aristocracy of England—families of ancient birth, immense possessions, at once noble and untitled—held his estates by no other tenure than his own caprice. Though he professed to like Philip, yet he saw but little of him. When the news of the illicit connection his nephew ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... standing peculiarity of this curious world of ours that almost everything in it has been extolled enthusiastically and invariably extolled to ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... the reproductive process.[84] I have an even more interesting case to bring forward, which to me seems to point very conclusively to what I am trying to prove. The phalaropes, both the grey and red-necked species, have a peculiarity unique among British birds, although shared by several other groups in different parts of the world.[85] Among these birds the role of the sexes is reversed. The duties of incubation and rearing the young are conducted entirely by the male bird, and in correlation with this habit the female does ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... historical composition in Rome; for the entries in the book of Annals were of the nature of records and not of literature, and never made any attempt to develop the connection of events. It is a significant illustration of the peculiarity of Roman character, that notwithstanding the extension of the power of the Roman community far beyond the bounds of Italy, and notwithstanding the constant contact of the noble society of Rome with the Greeks who were so fruitful in literary activity, it was not till the middle of the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... accommodation of a transitory diurnal multitude. But a more important change awaits the venerable town. An immense accumulation of musty prejudices will be carried off by the free circulation of society. A peculiarity of character, of which the inhabitants themselves are hardly sensible, will be rubbed down and worn away by the attrition of foreign substances. Much of the result will be good; there will likewise be a few things not so good. Whether for better or worse, there will be a probable ...
— The Sister Years (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... pigs with cloves in their eyes - for all of which my affection and my liver duly acknowledged receipt in full. She taught me more provincial pronunciation and bad grammar than ever I could unlearn. She was very intelligent, and radiant with good humour. One peculiarity especially took my fancy - the yellow bandana in which she enveloped her head. I was always wondering whether she was born without hair - there was none to be seen. This puzzled me so that one day I consulted Auguste, ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... offers another peculiarity, which is common to him with all the Carnivora. Place your finger close to the lower end of your ear, and work your jaw; you will feel something hard moving backward and forward against your finger. This is where the lower jaw is set into a bone of the skull, called the ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... always appears to an European eye, it has perhaps no scene so strikingly splendid and picturesque as that which presents itself within this Bay. The rich and novel peculiarity of the landscape is contrasted with the handsome buildings of the town, rising amphitheatrically round the harbour; and these again derive a curious effect from the tall and slender palm-trees, ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... the gloom of the bushes two keen blazing orbs, and a long scarlet tongue quivering and dancing like a curl of fire. "A rattlesnake—a rattlesnake," I cry involuntarily—my companion gives a little shriek, and in a moment several of our company, of both sexes, are hastening toward us. It is a peculiarity or want of ability in the reptile to dart only its length, and my first recoil had placed me, I knew, beyond its reach. But there stood the leafy den, studded all over with a profusion of beautiful gems, and although the rattle ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... could not but perceive every motion and gesture of the distinguished Feathertop came in its proper place; nothing had been left rude or native in him; a well-digested conventionalism had incorporated itself thoroughly with his substance and transformed him into a work of art. Perhaps it was this peculiarity that invested him with a species of ghastliness and awe. It is the effect of anything completely and consummately artificial, in human shape, that the person impresses us as an unreality and as having hardly pith enough to cast a shadow upon the floor. ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... however confound peculiarity with diversity. Diversity is in and from God; peculiarity in and from man. The real man is the divine idea of him; the man God had in view when he began to send him forth out of thought into thinking; the man he is now working to perfect ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... the painter, who was allowing himself to fall back on the divan, fancied he saw the faces become animated. He had five Camilles before him, five Camilles whom his own fingers had powerfully created, and who, by terrifying peculiarity were of various ages and of both sexes. He rose, he lacerated the pictures and threw them outside. He said to himself that he would die of terror in his studio, were he to people it ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... you that this brief, crystallised commandment, the essence of all practical godliness and Christianity, makes the blessed peculiarity of Christian morality. People ask what it is that distinguishes the teaching of the New Testament in regard to duty, from the teaching of lofty moralists and sages of old. Not the specific precepts, though these are, in many ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... which, with fortuitous bits of building tacked on at odd times as necessity has arisen, the Peggottys live is as brightly tarred as ever, and still stoutly braves the gales in which many a fine ship has foundered just outside the front door. One peculiarity of the otherwise desirable residence is that, with the wind blowing either from the eastward, westward, or southward, Mrs. Peggotty will never allow the front door to be opened. As these quarters of the wind comprehend a considerable ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... Clewe, is pictured as a scientist who had made many startling discoveries and inventions at his works in Sardis about the year 1946. One of his inventions was an automatic shell. This was an enormous projectile, the peculiarity of which was that its motive power was contained within itself, very much as a rocket contains the explosives which send it upward. The extraordinary piece of mechanism was of [v]cylindrical form, eighteen feet in length and fourteen feet in diameter. The forward end ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... cow-house at the end, are Frisian; and, if you can overhear what they say amongst themselves, you find that, without being English it is somewhat like it. Woman is the word which sounds strangest to both the German and the Dane, and, it is generally the first instance given of the peculiarity of the Frisian language. "Why can't they speak properly, and say Kone?" says the Dane. "Weib is the right word," says the German. "Who ever says woman?" cry both. The language has not been reduced to writing; indeed, the little that ...
— The Ethnology of the British Islands • Robert Gordon Latham
... virtuous, and enthusiastic character of Torrismond, must be allowed, in some measure, to counterbalance that of his mistress, however unhappily he has placed his affections. But the real excellence of these scenes consists less in peculiarity of character, than in the vivacity and power of the language, which, seldom sinking into vulgarity, or rising into bombast, maintains the mixture of force and dignity, best adapted to the expression of tragic passion. Upon the whole, as the comic part ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... contrasting with the poverty of their own language, impressed, and to a great extent rightly impressed, the early Elizabethans, so that they naturally enough cast about for any means to improve the one, and hesitated at any peculiarity which was not found in the other. It was unpardonable in Milton to sneer at rhyme after the fifty years of magnificent production which had put English on a level with Greek and above Latin as a literary instrument. But for Harvey ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... other region, they eventually returned to their own home range. In tracing their movements I kept a sort of big-game Bertillon record; only instead of taking finger-prints, as is done with criminals, I measured footprints sketching them in my notebook, noting any slight peculiarity that would distinguish one track from another, and thus ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... unrelieved by shrubbery; at one end bare, unsightly rocks, with (almost invisible) holes in them of no consequence to the picture; eastward, "wild and desolate mountains;" (low, desolate hills, he should have said;) in the north, a mountain called Hermon, with snow on it; peculiarity of the picture, "calmness;" its prominent ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... same deficiency is indispensable in the other individuals—such as a great monarch, or a great general—who rule the fate of mankind; but with this difference, that in them it is partial and limited, and in her universal. In them, it bears relation to their trade or mission; in her, it is a peculiarity of her general nature. She is accused of inhumanity; of sporting with the feelings of those about her, and rending, when they interfere with her plans, the strings of the heart as ruthlessly as if they were fiddlestrings. But all that is ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... sign (g and h) for "a shell," Mr. Griffith says (p. 25): "It is regularly found at all periods in the word haw.t altar,[334] and perhaps only in this word: but it is a peculiarity of the Pyramid Texts that the sign shown in the text-figures c, h, and i is in them used very commonly, not as a word-sign, but also as a phonetic equivalent to the sign labelled k (in the text-figure) for h' (kha), or apparently for h alone ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... summer beauty. Mr Hope was exactly the right person to consult, as there was no nook, no hamlet, to which his tastes or his profession had not led him. Sophia put paper before him, on which he was to note distances, according to his and Mr Grey's computations. Now, it was one peculiarity of Mr Hope that he could never see a piece of paper before him without drawing upon it. Sophia's music-books, and any sheet of blotting-paper which might ever have come in his way, bore tokens of this: and now his fingers were as busy ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... as preeminently the mode, now current in Germany, of treating history. It is not history itself that is here presented. We might more properly designate it as a History of History—a criticism of historical narratives and an investigation of their truth and credibility. Its peculiarity, in point of fact as well as intention, consists in the acuteness with which the writer extorts from the records something which was not in the matters recorded. The French have given us much that is profound and judicious in this class of composition, but have not ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... laws on the subject. They seem rigorous enough, and in early times were doubtless executed with strictness. A marked feature, however, of the Roman character, a peculiarity which at once strikes the student of their history as compared with that of the Greeks, was their great respect for the home and the materfamilias. The stories of Lucretia, Cloelia, Virginia, Cornelia, ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker
... Groundnut is the seed of an annual, cultivated extensively in most tropical and sub-tropical countries. After the plant has blossomed, the stalk which produced the flower has the peculiarity of bending down and forcing itself under ground so that the seeds mature some depth beneath the surface. When ripened, the pods containing the seeds are dug up and dried. In tropical countries the fresh nuts are largely consumed, and are thought greatly to resemble almonds in ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... phrase. Dr. Hedge himself enumerates several qualities of romantic art which it would be difficult to bring under his essential and defining category of wonder or aspiration. Thus he announces that "the peculiarity of the classic style is reserve, self-suppression of the writer"; while "the romantic is self-reflecting." "Clear, unimpassioned, impartial presentation of the subject . . . is the prominent feature of the classic ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... have not spoken in so direct a manner upon the Subject of Marriage as that important Case deserves. It would not be improper to observe upon the Peculiarity in the Youth of Great Britain, of railing and laughing at that Institution; and when they fall into it, from a profligate Habit of Mind, being insensible of the [Satisfaction [1]] in that Way of Life, and treating their Wives with ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... the surface veins of the legs, the condition known as varicose veins, is not a peculiarity of pregnancy. Anyone who must be on his feet a great deal is liable to suffer from this ailment. It is true, nevertheless, that pregnancy increases the likelihood of the development of varicose veins. The walls of the vessel are generally able to withstand whatever ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... provinces, ages of the Church,—have entered into a grand conspiracy to bear false witness on a point of this magnitude and importance? But he obtains no intelligible answer to this question. How, then, is an unprejudiced student to draw any inference but one from the premisses? That single peculiarity (he tells himself) of bringing the second Gospel abruptly to a close at the 8th verse of the xvith chapter, is absolutely fatal to the two Codices in question. It is useless to din into his ears that those Codices are probably both of the ivth century,—unless men are prepared ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... the sound of numerous voices singing in front of the house. Among these, two made themselves prominent by their peculiarity: one was a very strong bass, the other a wheezy thin piping. Thomasin recognized them as belonging to Timothy Fairway and ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... experience and as related by others. Now we know that every human being, as well as every other living organism, carries its own distinguishing atmosphere. If a man's friend does not know it, his dog does, and can track him anywhere by it. This personal peculiarity varies with the age and conditions of the individual. It may be agreeable or otherwise, a source of attraction or repulsion, but its influence is not less real, though far less obvious and less dominant, than in the lower animals. It was an atmospheric impression of this nature which ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... the Andes, traversing its whole extent near the Pacific Ocean, has stamped a character upon South American nature which belongs to no other country. The peculiarity which distinguishes the regions which belong to this immense chain, are the successive plateaux, like so many huge natural terraces, which rise one above another, before arriving at the great central ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... their long lower mandible any unwary mollusc or fish of small size which came within their reach, and uttering every instant loud and discordant cries. Lejoillie told us that they were of the gull tribe, about twenty inches in length. The peculiarity of their beak consists in the lower mandible being considerably longer than the other into which it shuts. It is of an orange-red at the base, and deepens into black at the tip. To prevent the water rushing into its throat ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... the peculiarity of this first and most certain knowledge which renders it self-evident and independent of all proof, which makes us absolutely unable to doubt it? Its entire clearness and distinctness. Accordingly, I may conclude that everything which I perceive as clearly and distinctly as the cogito ergo ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... the foreign ruler, the principal part in which was played by John Mueller, who attempted to convince his fellow countrymen that by means of the French usurpation they had first received the boon of true liberty. This cheaply-bought apostate said, in his usual hyperbolical style, "It is a marked peculiarity of the northern nations, more especially of those of German descent, that, whenever God has, in His wisdom, resolved to bestow upon them a new kind or a higher degree of civilization, the impulse has ever been given from without. This impulse was given to us by Napoleon, ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... may appropriately call it—The Age of Machinery. It is not a peculiarity of the city, but, rather, seeks room to stretch itself out; and so you may perceive its smoky signals hovering over a thousand vallies, and the echo of its mighty pulses throbbing among the loneliest hills. Nevertheless, it is sufficiently developed ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... Tomas, Macundu, Cotuntum, Carabela Zuzunda, Na Soledad, and Raton Cojonudo, are each named after some personal peculiarity. ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... the combination of the pure Allegro with the thematic peculiarities of the vocal Adagio in all its gradations. The second theme of the overture to "Oberon," which does not in the least partake of the character of the Allegro, very clearly shows this contrasted peculiarity. Technically, the composer has managed to merge the character of this theme into the general character of the piece. That is to say: on the surface, the theme reads smoothly, according to the scheme of an Allegro; but, as soon as ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... clearly the subject may be defined, however exactly the psychological stage of the pupil may be regulated, the teacher cannot dispense with the power of his own individuality even in the most objective relations. This individuality must penetrate the whole with its own exposition, and that peculiarity which we call his manner, and which cannot be determined a priori, must appear. The teacher must place himself on the stand-point of the pupil, i.e. must adapt himself; he must see that the abstract is made ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... so natural, so sweet, so unaffected; they observed she was not what is called "fellow-struck;" while she seemed to enjoy and be perfectly at home in the society of young gentlemen, the young ladies saw no signs of her flirting with any of them. There is that peculiarity in the character of a certain class of young ladies, that while they may think it is their privilege to flirt and carry on with the young men they know, yet when a strange young lady is introduced into their circle of gentlemen friends, ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... not be uninteresting to point out the causes of the pleasure given by this extravagant and absurd diction. It depends upon a great variety of causes, but upon none, perhaps, more than its influence in impressing a notion of the peculiarity and exaltation of the Poet's character, and in flattering the Reader's self-love by bringing him nearer to a sympathy with that character; an effect which is accomplished by unsettling ordinary habits of thinking, and thus assisting ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... look upon his creed in this respect as a modified Mahometanism. I could relate many instances, affecting myself, where trustfulness has incurred payment in this coin, but, having no desire to stimulate the Indian's existing proneness to practical joking, I stay my hand at further mention of the peculiarity. ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... not a miser. He was not penurious or stingy. He subscribed liberally to charities, many of them unknown to the public, or even to his wife, but some trick of nature, some twist in his brain, made this peculiarity of his ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... to the black stocks, the cocked hats, the lean, carven, brown countenances—old soldiers—vieilles moustaches! The taller of the two had a black patch over one eye; the other's hard, dry countenance presented some bizarre, disquieting peculiarity, which on nearer approach proved to be the absence of the tip of the nose. Lifting their hands with one movement to salute the slightly lame civilian walking with a thick stick, they inquired for the house where the General ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... through Napi, an explanation of the four compartments observed in the temple of Umi, represented by the following figure; but if we accept this explanation of Kama, it is as difficult to understand why this peculiarity is observed in the monuments of Umi, and not in any other heiau; as, for example, Kupalaha, situated in the territory of Makapala; Mokini, at Puuepa; Aiaikamahina, toward the sea at Kukuipahu; Kuupapaulau, inland at Kukuipahu-mauka. The remains of these four remarkable temples are ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... this description. A person on one occasion, thinking to embarrass him, inquired how high in the scale he could go; "I can mount as high as it pleases me to go," was his reply. He used frequently to surprise the Parisians by the introduction of Basque and Bearnese airs, whose peculiarity and originality never failed to cause the most lively admiration and enthusiasm; but he did not announce them as mountain songs till he had secured the praise he sought for them, having passed them for Italian productions. A similar ruse was ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... the coast of Epirus, and lie in wait by a well but a short distance from the sea, and who, when the country girls came to the well for water, would leap out and seize them, and bear them away beneath the waves; and not able to conceive the peculiarity of the human lungs that lurked beneath their beautiful bosoms, many a one the wretch thus drowned in his passionate admiration. Beautiful Greek girls! with such limbs as have come down in marble! Life under the sea seems favorable to the perfection ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... figure is in striking contrast with the return from Ireland, where, on account of the peculiarity of the law, the justices committed 1276 as dangerous lunatics, out of 1393 sent to asylums in the ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... next, whose duty it was not to mind too closely the letter that killeth, but to mimic irreverently, to exaggerate, to make of themselves caricatures of the mannerisms of others, to nickname, to seize upon every peculiarity with their quick, observant, cruel young eyes and paint it ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... an iconoclast in these matters, as will presently be seen; but it would have little more than an antiquarian interest now, were it not for the fact that Ben Jonson made it the subject of his satire in one of his most humorous plays, "The Devil is an Ass." In it he turns the last-mentioned peculiarity to good account; for when Fitzdottrell, in the fifth act, feigns madness, and quotes Aristophanes, and speaks in Spanish and French, the judicious Sir Paul Eithersides comes to the conclusion that "it is the ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... information, and Edward, repeating his queries, received a rapid answer, in which, from the haste and peculiarity of the dialect, the word 'butler' was alone intelligible. Waverley then requested to see the butler; upon which the fellow, with a knowing look and nod of intelligence, made a signal to Edward to ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... look of exultation in the eyes of the lieutenant. He was greatly relieved, however, at finding that neither of the three meant or understood more than was simply expressed. As for his uncle, he had not the smallest intention of making any allusion to the peculiarity of his nephew's birth; and the other two, in common with the world, supposed the reputed heir to be legitimate. Gathering courage from the looks of those around him, Tom answered with a steadiness that prevented his ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... her meetings with him, since then, had been brief and infrequent. Now she perceived that imagination had played a silly trick upon her. The boy she had left, the man who stood awaiting her so calmly were, save in one distressing peculiarity, two widely different persons. For in the interval Richard Calmady had eaten very freely of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and that diet had left its mark not only on his character, but ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... which history records—accusing them of atheism and misanthropy, cowardice and stupidity. These remained the stock charges for centuries, and they assumed an added bitterness after the Roman conquest, when to the peculiarity of Jewish customs was added the stigma of being a subject people. The hatred of Greek and Jew, despite all the ostentatious friendliness of a Herod for Greek things, became deeper, and it showed itself as well without as within Palestine. At Alexandria, ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... that a variety of the happiness that is sought in book collecting might be found in making a collection of books of this sort. I have, therefore, put together the following narrative of our burnt literature as some kind of aid to any book-lover who shall choose to take my hint and make the peculiarity I have indicated the key-note to the formation of ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer
... often arranged vertically, so that both sides are equally exposed to the light. Thus the gum-tree has a pointed and sort of angular appearance, the leaves being thrust out in all directions and at every angle. The blue-gum and some others have the peculiarity of throwing off their bark in white-grey longitudinal strips or ribands, which, hanging down the branches, give them a singularly ragged look, more particularly in winter. From this description, it will be gathered that the gum-tree is not a very picturesque tree; nevertheless, ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... to the peculiarity of its situation, that one may attribute the sweetly solemn melodies produced by the bells of Venice. Flinging their prolonged notes down those immense hollows of architecture, sweeping round their narrow streets, and floating over ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... from the shores of beautiful Loch Beg, they grew reconciled when they saw the light in the earl's eyes, and heard him talk with an interest and enthusiasm quite new to him of what he meant to do when he came of age. Only in all his projects was one peculiarity rather uncommon in young heirs—the entire absence of any schemes for personal pleasure. Conforts he had, of course; his faithful friends and servants took care that his condition should have every alleviation that wealth could furnish; but of enjoyments, after the ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... factions, and obscure ambitions, and forgotten crimes of the poet's own day; and in that awful company to which he leads us, in the most unearthly of his scenes, we never lose sight of himself. And when this peculiarity sends us to history, it seems as if the poem which was to hold such a place in Christian literature hung upon and grew out of chance events, rather than the deliberate design of its author. History, indeed, here, as generally, is but a feeble ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... little gilt figure, about six inches high, with the body of a beast and the head of a man. His peculiarity was the possession of a supplementary eye, which, as his natural pair squinted horribly, no doubt was very useful. His position was on a little table surrounded by tall candles; whether they were borrowed from ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... gesticulation and divided by dialects, do not appear to make general use of a systematic sign language, but they adopt an expedient rendered possible by the peculiarity of their written characters, with which a large proportion of their adults are acquainted, and which are common in form to the whole empire. The inhabitants of different provinces when meeting, and being unable to converse ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... current of but two miles or less an hour. Unfortunately, it rained heavily nearly every night, and the troops quartered upon the barges got drenched to the skin, the water pouring, in so many shower-baths, through the cracked boarded coverings. It is a peculiarity of most tropical climates, that Jupiter Pluvius does most of his work between the hours of sunset and sunrise. The natives met with as a rule were disposed to be friendly. Those with whom the men talked would not quite credit the statement that the Khalifa had been defeated, his army ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... on record, that no one of the body ever had a cold in his head; and this peculiarity, we presume, exempts them from carrying pocket-handkerchiefs, a superfluity we never witnessed in their hands, though they indulge in snuff-boxes which assume the miniture form of French plum-cases, richly embossed, with something round the edges about ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... far as "provender" is concerned; but the handsome and picturesque proprietor seems afflicted with sundry eccentric habits, his leading eccentricity being a haughty contempt for fractional currency. Not having had the opportunity to test him, it is difficult to say whether this peculiarity works both ways, or only when the change is due his transient guests. However, we willingly give him the benefit of ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... distinguish clearly the peculiarity pointed out, the woman chief came forth through the open entrance, appearing more fair and white of skin than ever in the clear light of the dawn. Scarcely glancing toward either the prostrate tribesmen ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... had an opportunity to observe her more closely. Her figure was slightly formed, and undersized for her apparent age of seventeen years. Her face would have been plain, but for one peculiarity which made it charming, in his practised judgment. This rare excellence was her complexion, which showed a perfect pink and white, without roughness, spot, or blemish, under the strong light of a noonday sun, made more dazzling by its reflection from the snow. Marcus had never seen ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... which simply means smelling offensively. Is the exhalation of an offensive odor the necessary property of a people imbruted by poverty and filth? In America that unpleasant effluvium has generally been considered a peculiarity pertaining to the colored race. Philosophic observation may show that it is a disease, the result of uncleanliness, but, like other diseases, often transmitted from the guilty parent to the unoffending child. ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... marked peculiarity about this paper, a thing nobody seems to notice but myself, and that is that it changes as ...
— The Yellow Wallpaper • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... his somewhat sallow complexion looked smooth to effeminacy. His features were regular and refined, and his fine brown curly hair was a shade lighter in colour than his skin—which produced a noticeable effect. His pale china-blue eyes, too, showed the same peculiarity, which Beth, looking down on him through the fringe of long rank grass in front of her, remarked, but uncritically, for every inch of him was a joy ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... was made from a scarlet habit, which, according to the fashion of the times, had been his mother's usual morning dress. If all this is true, the future admiral of the British Fleet must have cut a conspicuous figure in the hunting-field. The other peculiarity was that, when the roads were dirty, the sisters took long walks in pattens. This defence against wet and dirt is now seldom seen. The few that remain are banished from good society, and employed only in menial work; but a hundred and fifty years ago they were celebrated in poetry, and considered ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... and vitality, without organization or head. The king did not rule the barons any more than the barons ruled the king—they were rival powers; the barons and the cities were rival powers; the kings and barons played off the cities against each other. The Church, by the peculiarity of its constitution and character, was related to them all. The clergy were the subjects of the king, the vassals of the baron, and yet the spiritual lords of both, as well as of their feudal peers. And when the Church effected the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... This peculiarity is not confined to the Blackfeet. Among the Osages, says Captain Bonneville, when a warrior falls in battle, his comrades, though they may have fought with consummate valor, and won a glorious victory, will leave their arms upon the ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... it would not be necessary to give extra pay to working goldsmiths on account of the trust. The degree of integrity required being supposed to be uncommon, those who can make it appear that they possess it are able to take advantage of the peculiarity, and obtain higher pay in proportion to ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... more of them were killed and three captured. Two escaped. The captured were three brothers named Younger, and those who escaped were supposed to be the notorious James Brothers of Missouri. The three Younger Brothers pleaded guilty to a charge of murder, and on account of a peculiarity in the law, that only allowed the death sentence to be imposed by a jury, they were all sentenced to imprisonment for life. One of them has since died, and the other ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... step he descended the staircase, trying frantically to remember which of the treads would creak under his weight. Faithfully to ascertain which of them possessed this important peculiarity had been one of the last things he did before quitting Mr. Bumble's service. Was it the fifth or sixth? He hesitated, then avoided the fifth gingerly, and hoped for the best.... Beneath the increased pressure the sixth stair fairly shrieked. Mr. Morgan skipped on to the seventh and broke ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... attractive to the freed slave; for he thinks, in his conceit, that he is on an equality with all men when once on the muster-rolls, and then he calls all his fellow-Africans "savages." Still the African's peculiarity sticks to him: he has gained no permanent good. The association of white men and the glitter of money merely dazzle him. He apes like a monkey the jolly Jack Tar, and spends his wages accordingly. If chance brings him back again to Zanzibar, he calls his old Arab master his father, and goes into ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... issued a slip-shod, untidy-looking woman in a shawl, while over her shoulder and under her arm appeared a little troop of children in various stages of growth and untidiness. Mrs. Colwyn had the peculiarity of never being ready for any engagement, much less for any emergency: she had been expecting Janetta all day, and with Janetta some of the Court party; but she was nevertheless in a state of semi-undress, which she tried to ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... they were incarcerated, which in many cases had been forgiven or paid, but for an accumulation of fees due to jailer and divers other officers of the prison, who drew their salaries from this source. Much astounded by such a state of things in a Christian land, but supposing it to be a peculiarity of his own county, he made a journey into some of the surrounding districts, to learn from them, if possible, some better method. It but augmented his indignation and distress to find their condition and methods worse even than at home, since in some he actually found the fees wrung ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... by the strongest implication, declares that the constitution knows them only as "persons," and will not recognise them in any other light. If they escape into free States, the constitution authorizes their being taken back. But how? Not as the property of an "owner," but as "persons;" and the peculiarity of the expression is a marked recognition of their personality—a refusal to recognise them as chattels—"persons held to service." Are oxen "held to service?" That can be affirmed only of persons. Again, slaves give political ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... chalk downs of Champagne upon its left. If one could imagine the lines being taken right through our New Forest or the American Adirondacks it would give some idea of the terrain, save that it is a very undulating country of abrupt hills and dales. It is this peculiarity which has made the war on this front different to any other, more picturesque and more secret. In front the fighting lines are half in the clay soil, half behind the shelter of fallen trunks. Between the two the main ...
— A Visit to Three Fronts • Arthur Conan Doyle
... have gained little on the score of elegance. I once met in England a distinguished man, who was one of the wealthiest commoners of his county, and he had hardly opened his mouth before I was struck with this peculiarity. On inquiry, I learned that he came from the West of England. It is by no means uncommon to meet with bad grammar, and an improper use of words as relates to their significations, among the highest classes in England, though I think not as often ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... had been a man without a name and without means, but cleverly steering towards Liberalism or Conservatism, according to which best suited his purpose, he managed to make a comparatively brilliant judicial career. Some peculiarity which made him attractive to women assisted him when he was no longer in his first youth. While travelling abroad he made Nekhludoff's acquaintance, and managed to make Nathalie, who was also no longer a girl, fall in love with him, rather against her mother's wishes ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... is the case in Negro songs: here the rhythms are uneven, jagged, and, at a first hearing, eccentric, for the accents fall most frequently on the short notes and on the naturally unstressed beats, producing what we call 'syncopation' of a very intricate and highly developed order. The peculiarity of this syncopation is best explained to the layman by drawing attention to the way in which the natural rhythms of the English language are distorted to fit the rhythm of Negro music: where the white man would sing, 'Go down Moses,' the Negro chants, 'Go down, Moses,' while ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... the fingers on which annuli were anciently worn were directed by the calling, or peculiarity ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... land a further step down, so as to submerge even the peak. The coral, still growing up, will cover the surface of the land, and you will have an atoll reef; that is to say, a more or less circular or oval ring of coral rock with a lagoon in the middle. Thus you see that every peculiarity and phenomenon of these different forms of coral reef was explained at once by the simplest of all possible suppositions, namely, by supposing that the land has gone down at a rate not greater than that at which ...
— Coral and Coral Reefs • Thomas H. Huxley
... "Pocahontas" in obedience to the unwritten law of southern families, which decrees that an ancestor's sin of distinction shall be visited on generations of descendants, in the perpetuation of a name no matter what its hideousness. It seems a peculiarity of distinguished persons to possess names singularly devoid of beauty; therefore, among the burdens entailed by pride upon posterity, this is a grievous one. Some families, with the forest taint in their blood, at an early date took refuge in the softer, prettier "Matoaca;" ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... regular features, I remember, for we met often afterward, that the lower part of his face was too thin, and that in repose his mouth was apt not to remain fully shut, a peculiarity, as I now think, ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... large slabs of sandstone of various sizes. The work is rather better than that of modern Tusayan, but much inferior to that seen in the skillfully laid masonry of the ruins farther north. In many of these walls an occasional sandstone slab of great length is introduced. This peculiarity is probably due to the character of the local material, which is more varied than usual. All of the stone here used is taken from ledges in the immediate vicinity. It is usually light in color and of loose texture, crumbling readily, and subject to rapid decay, particularly when used in walls that ...
— A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff
... want of progress; but the visitors dropped in all the same, and the patient made no advance towards convalescence. Now it would be the Colonel, who was kind and fatherly, and went away feeling uneasy at the peculiarity of his young officer's symptoms, for Bracy was fretful and nervous in the extreme; now an arm would jerk, then a leg, and his manner was so strange that when the Colonel went away he sent for Dr Morton, who bustled in, to ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... mark, but it is a birth-mark, and not a witch-mark. It is a simple curving line of red," and the girl blushed crimson at being compelled to such a reference to a personal peculiarity. But she faltered not in her speech, though her tones were more indignant than before. "It is not a peculiarity of mine, but of my mother's family. Some say that a distant ancestor was once frightened ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... by something which strongly prepossessed me in the prisoner's favor. What interested me most was a fact which often occurs in legal practice, but rarely, I think, in such an extreme and peculiar form as in the present case. I ought to formulate that peculiarity only at the end of my speech, but I will do so at the very beginning, for it is my weakness to go to work directly, not keeping my effects in reserve and economizing my material. That may be imprudent on my part, but at least it's sincere. What I have in my mind is this: there ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... mood. She loved and admired Dr. Melton more than anyone else in the world, but there were moments when the sum total of her conviction about him was an admission that his was not a reposeful personality. For the last fortnight, this peculiarity had been accentuated till Mrs. Sandworth's loyalty had cracked at every seam in order not to find him intolerable to live with. Moreover, her own kind heart and intense partiality for peace in all things had ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... of trial and sentence, and neither the original writer of the book nor any later hand thought it worth while to add three lines to tell the world what became of him. A strange way to write history, and a most imperfect narrative, surely! Yes, unless there be some peculiarity in the purpose of the book, which explains this cold-blooded, inartistic, and tantalising habit of letting men leap upon the stage as if they had dropped from the clouds, and vanish from it as abruptly as if they had fallen through ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... one is blue and t'other is hazel—his father had the same. It's a Moore peculiarity. That was what told me he was Dick Moore when I saw him first down in Cuby. If it hadn't a-bin for his eyes I mightn't a-known him, with his beard and fat. You know, I reckon, that it was me found him and brought him home. Miss Cornelia ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... now at work. A Navy scientific project recently found that strange radio signals are constantly being sent out from a "hot spot" in the Milky Way; other nebulae or "hot" stars may be similarly identified by some peculiarity in their radio emanations. If so, these could be used as check points ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe
... that nobody in London inquires about who another is; and that in company everyone is treated on an equality, unless when there is some remarkable personal peculiarity, so that one really knows nothing of those whom one meets. But my paper is full, and I must not take another sheet, as my mother has a letter to send in the same frank to Miss Mally Glencairn. Believe ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... who held our horses, and who disappeared the instant we were mounted; with the exception of two women who were running to the woods, we were the only ones on the lot, until Mr. Watson galloped up to urge us on. Again I had to notice this peculiarity about women—that the married ones are invariably the first to fly, in time of danger, and always leave the young ones to take care of themselves. Here were our three matrons, prophesying that the house would be burnt, the Yankees upon us, and all murdered in ten minutes, flying ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... had ceased, and although the sky remained lowering, there was no sign of a storm. Indeed, it was still too early in the season for frequent or abundant snow. The climate of Canada has this peculiarity which meteorologists have failed to explain—that whereas, in other parts of the continent, such as the north-west, and even so far down the Mississippi Valley as St. Louis, the winter temperature ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... being engaged listening to Sir Brian, who is laying down the law to her, and smiling, smiling with all her might. In fact, Mr. Newcome says to Mr. Pendennis in his droll, humorous way, "That woman grins like a Cheshire cat." Who was the naturalist who first discovered that peculiarity ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a regular line of booths is erected, encircling the whole circus-shaped space. It is a peculiarity of Roman festivals that all the material for adornment is kept together from year to year, ready for use at a moment's notice, and when one sees the enormous amount of lumber required for the Carnival, for the fireworks on the Pincio, or for the Befana, one cannot help ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... are small and hard and set close together under lowering brows. He's grizzled, with hair not actually white, but grey as the iron from which his heart was fashioned. Aside from these characteristics his principal peculiarity is a nervous twitching of the right eye which has earned him his sobriquet of Blinky. Legrand Gunn said he contracted the affliction through squinting at the silver dollar to make sure none of its milling had been worn ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... antimony of this thermo-electric battery, like the zinc and copper of the voltaic or chemico-electric battery, are respectively positive and negative to each other, the poles or wires attached to these metals are, on the contrary, negative and positive. This peculiarity arises from the current starting between the bismuth and ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro
... that they who are so wonderfully quick and adaptive should not have noticed that this is a purely middle class peculiarity? Mr. Purdy had just time to tell us he had paid $40,000 for a large Dutch picture hanging against the Gothic stone of one panel of the wall, and $50,000 for a Gainsborough on the next (yes, Mamma, a beautiful powdered lady in a white robe was smiling down with whimsical sorrow upon us). Then ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... it into his book, or otherwise might have lost it. He had drawn the design of the book into chapters, &c., and he knew whereabouts it would come in. Thus that book was made."—Vol. ii. p. 607. Aubrey, the little Boswell of his day, has recorded another literary peculiarity, which some authors do not assuredly sufficiently use. Hobbes said that he sometimes would set his thoughts upon researching and contemplating, always with this proviso: "that he very much and deeply considered ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... the minstrel, "I have others and worse behind." This answer was made in an equivocal tone of voice, corresponding to the peculiarity of his manner, and like that seeming emotion of a deep but ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... partiality will presently appear. He has certain observations, opinions, topics, which have some accidental prominence, and which he disposes all to exhibit. He crams this part, and starves that other part, consulting not the fitness of the thing, but his fitness and strength. But Shakspeare has no peculiarity, no importunate topic; but all is duly given; no veins, no curiosities: no cow-painter, no bird-fancier, no mannerist is he: he has no discoverable egotism: the great he tells greatly; the small, subordinately. He is wise without emphasis or assertion; he is strong, as nature is strong, who lifts ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... been produced by any external causes, but are due to the development of certain distinctive peculiarities in some individuals which have thereafter become propagated through an entire race. Now, I should say that a permanent peculiarity not produced by external causes is a characteristic of 'species' and not of mere 'variety,' and thus, if the theory of the 'Vestiges' is accepted, the Negro, the Red Indian, and the European are distinct ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... properties in a way not wholly predictable from just what we know of hydrogen and oxygen as such. Analogy prompts us to see in plants and animals products of physics and chemistry and organization, although the peculiarity of the product makes us recognize certain specificities of life not contained in the theory of mere physics and chemistry. All the facts of experience prompt us to see in mentation a biological function, and we are no longer surprised to find this product of integration so different from the ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various
... Indian, or, as the late Mr. Morgan called it the "Ganowanian" race. The stranger's attire was old and clouted; the barrel of his flint-lock musket was rusted, and the stock was actually overgrown with small funguses. It was a peculiarity of this man that everything he carried was more or less broken and outworn. The barrel of his piece was riven, his tomahawk was a mere shard of rusted steel, on many of his accoutrements the vapour of fire had passed. He approached me with a stately ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... condition, interest, and rights in which a portion of the States, constituting one great section of the Union, differed from the rest and from another section, the most important was the peculiarity of a larger relative colored population in the Southern ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin Pierce • Franklin Pierce
... and shining and short, a quick blue eye, a fair complexion with a brilliant flush, and a long mustache. But the bizarre effect produced by this smiling apparition in the jaws of death seemed to Hanway's limited experience curiously enhanced by his attire. Its special peculiarity was an old smoking-jacket, out at the elbows, ragged at the cuffs, and frayed at the silk collar; Hanway had never before seen a man wear a red coat, or such foot-gear as the slipshod embroidered velvet slippers in which he shuffled to a chair and sat down, tilted back, ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... one could easily point to the reasons in human nature, and its strange contexture, why it should be so. Now I am not disparaging emotion—God forbid—for I believe that to a very large extent the peculiarity of Christian teaching is just this, that it does bring emotion to bear upon the hard grind of daily duty. But for all that, I am bound to say that this is a danger which, in this day, by reason of certain tendencies in our popular Christianity, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... however, this peculiarity, that according to the prints the main aisle windows were uniform throughout, and with Geometrical tracery. The vaulting differed from the nave in this, that the diagonals, where they met the longitudinal rib, had bosses, and three single cross ribs alternated instead of one. The ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of St. Paul - An Account of the Old and New Buildings with a Short Historical Sketch • Arthur Dimock
... their language abounds with the nasal ng, both as a prefix and a termination. It has another peculiarity, in great measure its own, in the broad sound of the letter a, somewhat as in the words mass, pass, but even more prolonged. I have distinguished this in the vocabulary by the italic. The letters f, r, v, z, are ...
— Alphabetical Vocabularies of the Clallum and Lummi • George Gibbs
... for the press, and gave them to the world in 1623. On his redaction the commonly received version of the poems rested until 1863, when Signor Cesare Guasti of Florence, having gained access to the original manuscripts, published a critical edition, preserving every peculiarity of the autograph, and adding a prose paraphrase for the ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... [FN188] This peculiarity is not uncommon amongst the so-called Aryan and Semitic races, while to the African it is all but unknown. Women highly prize a conformation which (as the prostitute described it) is always "either in ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... A peculiarity of dress, very remarkable in this hot climate, is here prevalent: all the men, with the exception of the slaves, wear large cloth cloaks, one half of which they throw over their shoulder; I even saw a great many women enveloped ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... who killed the monster, he dwelt lightly on the fact that all people who approach the vicinity of the creature are palsied, both mentally and physically—bewitched, in fact—so that their bones become disjointed and their brains incapable; but to-day he elaborated upon this peculiarity until I harked back to the boy of Brockton Point and asked how it was that his body ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson
... of which the lobster, crab, and shrimp are familiar examples, have this peculiarity of structure—that their soft bodies are enclosed within a coat-of-mail formed of carbonate and phosphate of lime. In fact, they carry their skeleton outside their bodies, both for defence of the vital parts within, and for the attachment of the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 433 - Volume 17, New Series, April 17, 1852 • Various
... the writings of mankind, in some measure, as with their complexions or their dress; each nation hath a peculiarity in all these, to distinguish it from the rest of ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... that lay between and the dangers that lay beyond. This partly accounted for his utter insensibility to ordinary inconveniences and annoyances. His own words to Molyneux one day, when the latter remarked on this peculiarity, though somewhat allegorical, expressed his theory and practice fairly: "Hal, when we are traveling, we always remember where we change our large notes; but life is not long enough to recollect how the thalers and piastres go." His companion thought this rather a brilliant illustration, ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... again, the exalted verse (Buddhistic in tone) of ib. 321. 47: "The red garment, the vow of silence, the three-fold staff, the water-pot—these only lead astray; they do not make for salvation." There were doubtless good and bad priests, but the peculiarity of the epic priest, rapacious and lustful, is that he glories in ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... One great peculiarity I noticed in all around us, and that was a peculiar soft and liquid glow in their eyes, which seemed to light up the whole of their features, adding greatly to their beauty ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... her hostess the instinct of good-breeding was found sufficient to swallow everything; literally and figuratively. There was a good deal to swallow. The usual variety of cakes, sweetmeats, beef, cheese, biscuits, and pies, was set out with some peculiarity of arrangement which Fleda had never seen before, and which left that of Miss Quackenboss elegant by comparison. Down each side of the table ran an advanced guard of little sauces, in Indian file, but in companies of three, the file leader of each being a saucer of custard, its follower ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... no small share of the craving after mere notoriety and vulgar success, as distinct from the pardonable, if not honourable, ambition for solid and enduring fame, which would have harmonised better with his philosophy. Indeed, it appears to be by no means improbable that this peculiarity of Hume's moral constitution was the cause of his gradually forsaking philosophical studies, after the publication of the third part (On Morals) of the Treatise, in 1740, and turning to those political ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... another peculiarity of the captain's,—every man went by his last name, and he had begun with Archie to show the men he meant it. "No, that little posy is mine for to-day. Come along, you rosebud; I'm goin' to show you the biggest boat you ever saw, and a gun on ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... wrinkles before they attain manhood, and graves before the wild ambition thus kindled and inflamed can receive its first chaplet. All our literature teaches this unquiet and discontented spirit as to the present, and this rash and impatient determination to achieve immediate success. Now, this is a peculiarity of our country, the land of all others which should cherish a disposition to be gratefully contented with the unequaled blessings with which it is endowed. There is no necessity for this forcing system to expand ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... would scarcely be English; but it is an immensely ancient one, and is handed down to us from our northern ancestry, especially the Danes, who were in the habit of giving people surnames, or rather nicknames, from some quality of body or mind, but generally from some disadvantageous peculiarity of feature; for there is no denying that the English, Norse, or whatever we may please to call them, are an envious, depreciatory set of people, who not only give their poor comrades contemptuous names, but their great people also. They didn't call you the matchless Hurler, ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... same people; Mr. Fairfax, indeed, knew every one worth knowing in Paris; and he seemed to have grown suddenly fond of respectable society, going everywhere in the hope of meeting Mrs. Granger, and rarely staying long anywhere, if he did not meet her. There were those who observed this peculiarity in his movements, and shrugged their shoulders significantly. It was to be expected, of course, said this butterfly section of humanity: a beautiful young woman, married to a man old enough to be her father, would naturally have some one ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... was not very delicate, nor was it such as Savage's humanity would have suggested to him on a like occasion; but it had scarcely deserved mention, had it not, by affecting him in an uncommon degree, shown the peculiarity of his character. Upon hearing the design that was formed, he came to the lodging of a friend with the most violent agonies of rage; and, being asked what it could be that gave him such disturbance, he replied, with the utmost vehemence of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... merited their advancement by the exertion and improvement of those talents which God had given them; and I see not why they should avoid the mirror.'" The one, she writes, was Mr. Cator, the other, Wedderburne. Another great lawyer and very ugly man, Dunning, Lord Ashburton, was remarkable for the same peculiarity, and had his walls covered with looking-glasses. His personal vanity was excessive; and his boast that a celebrated courtesan had died with one of his letters in her hand, provoked one ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... regard to a dog who was hiding himself in a cold, dark corner, paved with stone. Every now and then he lifted his head and uttered a howl closely resembling that of a rabid dog. He fixed his gaze intently upon me, with a peculiarity of expression which many would have mistaken for rabid. They, however, who have had the opportunity of seeing many of these cases, will readily perceive the difference. The conjunctiva is not so red, the pupil ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... easily frightened, Major; it is just as well that she should be prepared. Well, my dear Miss Hannay, Indian society has this peculiarity, that the women never grow old. At least," he continued, in reply to the girl's look of surprise, "they are never conscious of growing old. At home a woman's family grows up about her, and are constant reminders that she is becoming a matron. Here the children are ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... soon, for the party had only just embarked when a few heavy drops of rain came pattering down upon the tightened canvas, soon increasing to quite a deluge, but, with the peculiarity of a tropic storm, just when it was beginning to try the canvas and threatening to soak the interior of the boat, it ceased almost instantaneously, and they sat listening to the rushing sound of the rain as it swept over the forest, rapidly growing ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... a very high character. It is not denied that this can be done. But what is denied is that this is growth, and that this process is Christianity. The fact that you can account for it proves that it is not growth. For growth is mysterious; the peculiarity of it is that you cannot account for it. Mysteriousness, as Mozley has well observed, is "the test of spiritual birth." And this was Christ's test. "The wind bloweth where it listeth. Thou hearest the sound thereof, but ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... questioned whether anything can be conscious of its own flavor. Whether the musk-deer, or the civet-cat, or even a still more eloquently silent animal that might be mentioned, is aware of any personal peculiarity, may well be doubted. No man knows his own voice; many men do not know their own profiles. Every one remembers Carlyle's famous "Characteristics" article; allow for exaggerations, and there is a great deal in his doctrine of the self-unconsciousness ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... cocked hats, the lean carven brown countenances—old soldiers—vieilles moustaches! The taller of the two had a black patch over one eye; the other's hard, dry countenance presented some bizarre disquieting peculiarity which, on nearer approach, proved to be the absence of the tip of the nose. Lifting their hands with one movement to salute the slightly lame civilian walking with a thick stick, they inquired for the house where the General ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... Diego failed to grasp the beauty and force of these ideas, and in the course of a year he seems to have learned just one thing of Herrera—to use brushes with very long handles and long bristles. This peculiarity he clung to through life, and the way he floated the color upon the canvas with those long, ungainly brushes, no one understood; he really didn't know himself, and the world has long since given up the riddle. But ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... other points in the course of the day, the peculiar, resonant hammering of some species of woodpecker upon the hard, dry limbs. It was unlike any sound of the kind I had ever heard, and, repeated at intervals through the silent wood, was a very marked and characteristic feature. Its peculiarity was the ordered succession of the raps, which gave it the character of a premeditated performance. There were first three strokes following each other rapidly, then two much louder ones with longer intervals between them. I heard the drumming here, and the ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... pleasure, and elegance which were becoming general in the great families; outside of a lively disposition and docility toward his mother, he had up to this point shown no special quality, and no particular vice. Only one peculiarity had been noticed in him: he had studied with great zest music, painting, sculpture, and poetry, and had made himself proficient in these arts, which were considered frivolous and useless for a Roman noble. On the contrary, he had neglected oratory, which was held a necessary ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero
... house, Chilcote walked forward quickly and aimlessly. With the sting of the outer air the recollection of last night's adventure came back upon him. Since the hour of his waking it had hung about with vague persistence, but now in the clear light of day it seemed to stand out with a fuller peculiarity. ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... known and prized 'Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces.' The writings of Richter have humanity for their text, and it has always been a matter of astonishment to us that they were not more widely known in this country. His style is peculiar, it is true, but it is the peculiarity of originality, never of affectation. His illustrations are drawn from every source, from science, art, history, biography, national manners, customs, civilized and savage; his imagery is varied, exquisite, and natural, and his religion embraces all creeds and sects. He is the preacher ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... not commit any mistake. At Vienna men always make courtesies, instead of bows, to the emperor; in France nobody bows at all to the king, nor kisses his hand; but in Spain and England, bows are made, and hands are kissed. Thus every court has some peculiarity or other, of which those who go to them ought previously to inform themselves, to avoid ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... of whose waters nothing in the shape of a defined system of drainage exists, until the rivers of the western coast are reached. As a scientific explorer then, whose object was to unravel the mystery of the interior, solve, if possible, the question of its strange peculiarity, and trace out its physical formation, Sturt may well be held the first and greatest. His success, perhaps, was greater than he himself imagined, he came back dispirited with failure but as before he had found the broad outlines of the plan of the drainage of the great plains, ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... of catalepsy, certainly not a healthy condition to be in. Its grand feature is a plastic immobility by which the subject maintains all the attitudes given to his body and limbs, but with this peculiarity, that the limbs and features act in unison. Join the hands of the patient as if in devout prayer, and his countenance assumes a devout expression; clench his fist, and anger ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens
... and the earth became dear to them. They valued what man is able to acquire on it, and what he is able to win by means of its forces. Their achievements as a warlike people, and the methods which they discovered of acquiring the earth's treasures, are connected with this peculiarity of their nature. There was no danger of their turning their backs upon the "illusion" of the physical senses in their yearning after the supersensible, but rather of their entirely severing the connection of their souls with the supersensible world, through their appreciation ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner
... situated at the foot of the Alps, 52 m. E. of Milan and 40 m. W. of Verona by rail. Pop. (1901) town, 42,495; commune, 72,731. The plan of the city is rectangular, and the streets intersect at right angles, a peculiarity handed down from Roman times, though the area enclosed by the medieval walls is larger than that of the Roman town, which occupied the eastern portion of the present one. The Piazza del Museo marks the site of the forum, and the museum on its north side is ensconced in a Corinthian ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... boasted as her peculiar heritage: on which side had the balance of those qualities inclined that morning? The figure of Raphael, stalking out ragged and penniless into the wide world, haunted him, with its quiet self-assured smile. And there haunted him, too, another peculiarity in the man, which he had never before remarked in any one but Arsenius—that ease and grace, that courtesy and self-restraint, which made Raphael's rebukes rankle all the more keenly, because he felt that the rebuker was in some mysterious way superior to him, and saw through ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... consideration such measures as" I "shall judge necessary and expedient." And I most respectfully submit, in a spirit of harmony, whether the present differences of opinion should be pressed further at this time, and whether the peculiarity of my situation does not entitle me to a postponement of this subject to a more auspicious period for deliberation. The two Houses of Congress have distinguished themselves at this extraordinary ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... not only the want of ordnance, clothing, and subsistence, but the geographical peculiarity of Florida—with its marshes, thickets, hammocks, everglades, and impenetrable swamps—that made this campaign almost fruitless, and which for years baffled all efforts of the Government to subdue this small but brave and ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... his hat, and was as far as the door of the apartment, when, as if moved by the peculiarity of Lovel's situation, he returned, and thus addressed him: "Mr. Lovel, there is something so singular in all this, that I cannot help again resuming the argument. You must be yourself aware at this moment of the inconvenience of your preserving an incognito, for which, I am convinced, there can ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... eye plunges into the forest beyond as through a deep triumphal arch. In this solitary spot the effect is unexpected and solemn. I was delighted with it. "Monsieur," I said to the miller, who, since my arrival, had been watching my every step from a distance with that fierce mistrust which is a peculiarity of this part of the country, "I have been requested to examine and to sketch these ruins. That work will require several days; could you not spare me a daily trip from the town to the abbey and back, by furnishing me with such accommodations as you can, ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... different bodies, such as amber, glass, and wax, when rubbed, attract straws, and that others do not attract them. By accident we discovered one that has a virtue more extraordinary still,—that of attracting at a distance, and without being rubbed, iron filings and other bits of iron. This peculiarity amused us for some time before we saw any use in it. At last we found out that it may be communicated to iron itself, when magnetized to a certain degree. One day we went to a fair, where a juggler, with a piece of bread, attracted a duck made of wax, and floating ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... if he wasn t away a good deal. I told them that he was away some. They asked me if I never noticed that his breath had a peculiar smell. I told them that it was occasionally a little loud. They went away thoughtfully. Now that I think of it I ought to have explained that the peculiarity of the chaplain's breath was caused from eating pickled onions of the sanitary stores, but it did not occur to me at the time. After a while the chaplain came back, asked me if anybody had died during the day, ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... things, and knowing also the peculiarity of the circumstances which surrounded me on that Sabbath evening, the reader will not be surprised, that when I saw the dense multitude surrounding the house of Mr. Porter, I at once came to the conclusion that I should not be permitted to live an hour longer. I was not frightened—was never ...
— The American Prejudice Against Color - An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily The Nation Got - Into An Uproar. • William G. Allen
... vindicated it from the contempt with which it is too generally regarded, I shall leave the student to his own pleasure in its pursuit; and even, so far as I may, discourage all admiration founded on quaintness or peculiarity of style; and repress any other modes of feeling which are likely to lead rather to fastidious collection of curiosities, than to the intelligent appreciation of work which, being executed in compliance with constant laws of right, cannot be singular, and must be distinguished only by excellence ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... in Rome; for the entries in the book of Annals were of the nature of records and not of literature, and never made any attempt to develop the connection of events. It is a significant illustration of the peculiarity of Roman character, that notwithstanding the extension of the power of the Roman community far beyond the bounds of Italy, and notwithstanding the constant contact of the noble society of Rome with the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... water-god and a mountain-god, deities whose river is the Milky Way, whose voices are heard in the thunder and whose glory is reflected in the lightning. Their chief object of actual worship appears to be the bear. Miss Isabella Bird (Mrs Bishop) writes: "The peculiarity which distinguishes their rude mythology is the worship of the bear, the Yezo bear being one of the finest of his species. But it is impossible to understand the feelings by which this cult is prompted, for although they worship the animal after ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... of God, and the record, often the only one, of the transient names, and local factions, and obscure ambitions, and forgotten crimes of the poet's own day; and in that awful company to which he leads us, in the most unearthly of his scenes, we never lose sight of himself. And when this peculiarity sends us to history, it seems as if the poem which was to hold such a place in Christian literature hung upon and grew out of chance events, rather than the deliberate design of its author. History, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... the water. As we sailed along some queer lookin' boats, lookin' some like corn houses standin' on end, bulged out towards us from the shore. They said they wuz cargo lighters to onload ships, and mebby they wuz. And one peculiarity I see that I despised. The natives all seemed to wear their shirts over their pantaloons, hangin' loose, and some on 'em didn't have on any pantaloons, jest the shirt, and some not even that, jest a sash or so tied round ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... are now concerned with the construction of the bee, we may note, in passing, a strange peculiarity of the Apis Florea. Certain walls of its cells for males are cylindrical instead of hexagonal. Apparently she has not yet succeeded in passing from one form to the other, and indefinitely ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... curiosity, or perhaps a deeper motive, led him to examine the neighboring shore lines. With eight of his men in a small boat, a ship's yawl, he skirted the coast from Penobscot Bay to Cape Cod, keeping his eye open. This keeping his eye open was a peculiarity of the little captain; possibly a family trait. It was Smith who really discovered the Isles of Shoals, exploring in person those masses of bleached rock—those "isles assez hautes," of which the French navigator Pierre de Guast, Sieur de Monts, had caught a bird's-eye glimpse through the ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... mass of bramble arched over the dry ditch; it was possible to see some distance down the bank, for nothing grew on the top itself, the bushes all rising from either side—a peculiarity of clay mounds. This narrow space was a favourite promenade of the rabbits; they usually came out there for a few minutes first, looking about before venturing forth into the meadows. Except a little moss, scarcely any vegetation ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... exposure, and the endurance of hardships incident to his savage life, his body acquires an insensibility akin to that of wild animals.[38] His nerves do not shrink or betray a tendency to spasm, even when a limb is amputated. Transmitted from one generation to another, this physical nature has become a peculiarity of the race. And when assisted by the fierce hatred above referred to, it is not at all strange that it should enable him to bear with fortitude, tortures which would conquer the firmness of the most resolute ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... the place of honor in early itineraries of pilgrims, because of its peculiarity in containing a martyr's tomb within the walls of the city. William of Malmesbury says: "Inside the city, on the Caelian hill, John and Paul, martyrs, lay in their own house, which was made into a church after their death." The Salzburg Itinerary describes the church ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... their contemporaries and successors. The pupils of the Amatis, Stradiuarius, and Guarnerius settled in Milan, Florence, and other cities, which also became centers of violin-making, but never to an extent which lessened the preeminence of the great Cremona makers. There was one significant peculiarity of all the leading artists of this violin-making epoch: each one as a pupil never contented himself with making copies of his master's work, but strove incessantly to strike out something in his work which should be an outcome of his own genius, knowledge, and ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... Aubry,) thou wilt have the kindness, gentle reader, to accompany us into one of the squalid dens of that great sewer of vice and crime. But first we pause to read and admire the sign which decorates the exterior of a "crib" opposite Keith's Alley, and which, with a peculiarity of orthography truly amusing, notifies you that it is a "Vittlin Sollor." (This sign remains there to this day.) Passing on, we cannot fail to be impressed with the "mixed" nature of the society of the place; ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... of Lake Erie was fought and won by Commodore Perry on the 10th of September, 1813. It presented the peculiarity that the Lawrence, the flagship of the victorious squadron, had struck to the enemy in the course of the engagement. There was a feeling prevalent among many at the time that Elliott, the second in rank, had not been cordial in his support of his commander, and had left him to bear for a ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... Italian, but in the purest English that I ever heard spoken by a foreigner; it had, indeed, nothing of foreign accent or pronunciation in it; and had I not known, by the countenance of the speaker, that he was no Englishman, (for there is a peculiarity in the countenance, as everybody knows, which, though it cannot be described, is sure to betray the Englishman), I should have concluded that I was in company with a countryman. We continued discoursing until ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... heart. It furnished us with four hundred and twenty-one pounds of beef, which was served to the crews as usual, in lieu of their salt provisions, and was very much relished by us, notwithstanding the peculiarity of its flavour.[*] The meat was remarkably fat, and, as it hung up in quarters, looked as fine as any beef in an English market. A small seal, killed by the Griper's people, was also eaten by them; and it was generally ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... could almost pledge myself not shorter than 65,000, but won't. The tale can be sent as soon as you have made arrangements; I hope to finish it in a month; six weeks, bar the worst accidents, for certain. I should say this is the butt end of what was once The Pearl Fisher. There is a peculiarity about this tale in its new form: it ends with a conversion! We have been tempted rather to call it The Schooner Farallone: a tract by R. L. S. and L. O. It would make a boss tract; the three main characters—and there are only four—are barats, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... rather strange. She had seen so much error among the popular religious denominations and had felt such bondage when meeting with them, that she worshiped with a few spiritual people in a little prayer-meeting. Because of this peculiarity, he had even feared that her mind was affected; but now, when he saw her fortitude under deep trial, he felt that surely there was an unseen power supporting her—a power that he secretly longed to possess, although the time for attaining it he ...
— The value of a praying mother • Isabel C. Byrum
... every line and trick of his sweet favour!] So in King John; he hath a trick of Coeur de Lion's face. Trick seen to be some peculiarity of look ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... are of a dirty white (I once saw two bison with apparently blue legs, the colour being caused by standing on ashes, and this gave them a very remarkable appearance), and so is the forehead. The bison has no hump. It has a marked peculiarity in the shape of the back from the dorsal ridge running with a slight upward slope to about the middle of the back and then dropping suddenly towards the rump. Mr. Sanderson has never shot a bull more than six ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... saw the Romany. His first impression was one of admiration, but suspicion was quickly added. He was a good judge of men, and there was something secluded about the man which repelled him. Yet he was interested. The dark face had a striking racial peculiarity. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... personal touch with their friend and ally. There is likewise the ordinary regular diplomatic correspondence with Austria, Prussia, Turkey, and the other European states. An interesting and invaluable peculiarity of French archives is, that bound up with despatches received are the outlines of those sent, and generally not merely a sketch, but the first draft with all annotations and corrections, these quite often in Napoleon's almost cryptic ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... not, however, to be expected that any style should be resuscitated in all its purity without the admixture of some peculiarity emanating from the art which adopted it, and which was more completely the mode of the era. The Renaissance is, therefore, a Gothic classicality, engrafting classic form and freedom on the decorative quaintnesses of the middle ages. Fig. 1 is as pertinent a specimen ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... diligently at book engraving, guided in his art by Michael Angelo. but inventing his own curious designs, at which we still wonder. The illustrations for Young's "Night Thoughts," for Blair's "Grave," and the "Inventions to the Book of Job," show the peculiarity of Blake's mind quite as clearly as his poems. While he worked at his trade he flung off—for he never seemed to compose—disjointed visions and incomprehensible rhapsodies, with an occasional little gem that still sets our ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... "You yourself. The peculiarity of the woman is her duality, her double power. She can, by an act of volition, become hypnotic, clairvoyant—whatever you choose to call it. Or, if her visitor is at all sensitive, she can reverse the situation and play the part of the hypnotiser. I never ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... extent that in the city of Rome alone, with a population under two hundred thousand, fifty-five millions of lottery tickets are said to be taken annually. Cobblers and carpenters, barbers and old clothes-men, seem to me to carry on their trades much in the same way all the world over. The peculiarity about Rome is, that all these trades seem stunted in their development. The cobbler never emerges as the shoemaker, and the carpenter fails to rise into the upholstery line of business. Bookselling too is a trade which does not thrive on Roman soil. Altogether there ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... she then lost, and whom she most deeply regretted, were Mrs. Siddons and Mrs. Inchbald. In speaking of their secession, Godwin says: "Mrs. Siddons, I am sure, regretted the necessity which she conceived to be imposed on her by the peculiarity of her situation, to conform to the rules I have described." Mrs. Inchbald wept when she heard the news. Godwin was one of her highly valued friends and admirers, and was a constant visitor at her house. She feared, now he had a wife, his visits would be less frequent. Her conduct on this ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... in so direct a manner upon the Subject of Marriage as that important Case deserves. It would not be improper to observe upon the Peculiarity in the Youth of Great Britain, of railing and laughing at that Institution; and when they fall into it, from a profligate Habit of Mind, being insensible of the [Satisfaction [1]] in that Way of Life, and treating their Wives ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... what we hear described of "Spiritualism." This was a knocking, like a soft hammering with a wooden mallet, as it seemed in the timbers between the bedroom ceilings and the roof. It had this special peculiarity, that it was always rythmical, and, I think, invariably, the emphasis upon the last stroke. It would sound rapidly "one, two, three, four—one, two, three, four;" or "one, two, three—one, two, three," and sometimes "one, two—one, two," &c., and this, with intervals and ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 2 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... originality of their ideas. The mind of the reader is fatigued by following out the multitude of thoughts which their works engender. At the close of every paragraph almost, you involuntarily close the book, to reflect on the subjects of meditation which it has presented. The same peculiarity may be remarked in the annals of Tacitus, the essays of Bacon, the poetry of Milton, the Inferno of Dante, the Discorsi of Machiavel. In the habit of expansion which has arisen in more recent times from the multiplication of books, the profits made by ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... about to say, I anticipate, that you never drew a cheque 'on bearer' in your life? Quite true. That ought to have excited attention, but it did not till, a very few weeks ago, our head-clerk, casting his eye down your account, remarked on the peculiarity, and, on examining the cheque, was inclined to believe that it was not in your usual handwriting. He intended communicating with me, but was prevented for some days by my absence; and, in the meantime, another ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... appends to this the name of an Indian who probably did fall a victim to his friendship to the Spaniards. This name, as a sort of guarantee for the rest of his story, the native scribe inserted in place of the genuine one. The peculiarity of the figure is that it has an arrow or dagger driven into its eye. Not only is this mentioned by Cogolludo's informant, but it is represented in the paintings in both the "Books of Chilan Balam" above noted, and also, by a fortunate coincidence, in one of the calendar-pages ...
— The Books of Chilan Balam, the Prophetic and Historic Records of the Mayas of Yucatan • Daniel G. Brinton
... thought crimsoned her cheeks; she had found the key to the enigma. Three nights before her father had talked of Washington and the East with a sort of exultation. At the time she had not paid much attention to this, though it had struck her as very different from his habit. Now the peculiarity of it confirmed her suspicion. In some way or other his action in resigning was connected with his inexplicable high spirits. A wave of indignation swept over her. Not that she felt the disgust which had sickened the Professor when he first heard of the traitorism. He had condemned Mr. ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... cavern, or rather hole, whence it is reported (most absurdly) that the night-breeze called the Pontias issues. In winter this wind is very cold, and blows from 5 P.M. to 9 A.M. In summer it is pleasant, and blows from 9 P.M. to 7 A.M. The peculiarity is, that the degree of force is constant, and never breaks out into gusts. To go to the cave, commence from the foot of the tower of the church and ascend by the Rue Pousterle, having on the left the old town-walls. Beyond ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... in the Caloric-Engine is atmospheric air; and the leading peculiarity of the machine, as originally designed by Ericsson, is, that by means of an apparatus styled the Regenerator the heat contained in the air which escapes from the working cylinder is taken up by the air which enters it at each stroke ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... by his parents, who chose as bride for their son the only daughter of their nearest neighbour. The young lady was only about sixteen years of age, and was not remarkable for beauty, talent, or any other peculiarity, but she had one very important qualification—she was the daughter of a man who had an estate contiguous to their own, and who might give as a dowry a certain bit of land which they had long desired to add to their own property. The negotiations, ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... been struck before this with Mrs. Steuben's pronunciation of the word by which her native latitudes were designated; transcribing it from her lips you would have written it (as the nearest approach) the Sooth. But at present he scarce heeded this peculiarity; he was wondering rather how a woman could be at once so copious and so uninforming. What did he care about the past or even about the Sooth? He was afraid of starting her again. He looked at her, discouraged and helpless, as bewildered almost ...
— Pandora • Henry James
... behold a vast sea, in which appear numerous towns and villages, with causeways leading from place to place, the whole interspersed with groves and fruit-trees, of which the tops are only visible, and bounded by woods and mountains. But it is the peculiarity of the Nile, unlike other rivers, which, in overflowing lands, wash away and exhaust their vivific moisture, that its waters serve to fatten and enrich the soil. Accordingly, ascend the same mountain in January or February, when the waters have subsided ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... him to our office for professional advice, and there I saw something of him, and a very striking personality he was, and a rather difficult client to do business with. One peculiarity I remember was that he believed himself to be plagued by autograph hunters, and was reluctant to trust our firm with his signature in any shape or form, and that we in consequence had some trouble in inducing ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... Scotland in particular was still a province, and yet in many ways the most vigorous and progressive part of a great empire. He represents patriotism stimulated by contact with cosmopolitan movements. Loving every local peculiarity, painting every class from the noble to the peasant, loving the old traditions, and yet sharing the great impulses of the day, Scott was able to interest the world at large. While the most faithful portrayer of the special national type, he has too much sense not ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... is that Hale and Blackstone make no distinction between public and private law. Austin (Jurisprudence (1869), 773-76) applauds them for this peculiarity, which he regards as a proof of originality, though it would rather seem to be an acceptance of the traditional view. Austin, however, retorts the charge ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... to think how often a certain person, whom I do not wish to name, would rant about it being a shame that a beast should refuse bread, for which many a human being would be thankful. Do we not now see the good of that? Through that—ahem!—that peculiarity, Trofast was enabled to reveal an abominable crime; to contribute to the just punishment of evildoers, and thus benefit ...
— Norse Tales and Sketches • Alexander Lange Kielland
... The other is historical; it was built by Brandeis on a mortgage, and is now occupied by the chief justice on conditions never understood, the rumour going uncontradicted that he sits rent free. I do not say it is true, I say it goes uncontradicted; and there is one peculiarity of our officials in a nutshell,—their remarkable indifference to their own character. From the one house to the other extends a scattering village for the Faipule or native parliament men. In the days of Tamasese this was a brave place, both his own house and those ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... self-confidence; moreover, he could not misunderstand the all but direct encouragement which on one or two recent occasions he had received from Mrs. Waltham. That lady had begun to talk to him, when they were alone together, in almost a motherly way, confiding to him this or that peculiarity in the characters of her children, deploring her inability to give Adela the pleasures suitable to her age, then again pointing out the advantage it was to a girl to have all her thoughts centred ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... here." Mrs. Charmond did not care to pursue this line of investigation. Whatever mysterious merit might attach to family antiquity, it was one which, though she herself could claim it, her adaptable, wandering weltburgerliche nature had grown tired of caring about—a peculiarity that made her a contrast to her neighbors. "It is of rather more importance to know what the man is himself than what his family is," she said, "if he is going to practise upon us as a surgeon. ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... were profligate and rapacious. Don Quixote teems with instances to this effect; and there are other allusions to the same circumstance in Gil Blas. It must be observed that if M. Le Sage stumbled by accident upon so great a peculiarity, he was fortunate; and if it was suggested to him by his own enquiries, they were more profound in this than in most other instances. The Barber, describing his visit to his uncle's, (1, 2, 7,) mentions the narrow staircase by which he ascended to his relation's ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... built of large slabs of sandstone of various sizes. The work is rather better than that of modern Tusayan, but much inferior to that seen in the skillfully laid masonry of the ruins farther north. In many of these walls an occasional sandstone slab of great length is introduced. This peculiarity is probably due to the character of the local material, which is more varied than usual. All of the stone here used is taken from ledges in the immediate vicinity. It is usually light in color and of loose texture, crumbling readily, and subject to rapid decay, ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... I do not think this peculiarity arose from any wish to withdraw his foolishness from the rest of the camp, nor was it probable that the combined wisdom of Five Forks ever drove him into exile. My impression is, that he lived alone from choice,—a choice he made long before the camp indulged in any criticism ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... be written in explanation of this peculiarity of expression—a chapter which would comprise many parts of two sciences, both but little understood—ethnology ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... which, to use his own phrase, he has not fought and bled. This mania of heroism is droll enough, when one considers that the sphere of his action was necessarily so limited; but yet we have every reason to be thankful for the peculiarity, as you'll say, when I inform you that this morning I despatched a hasty messenger to his villa, with a most polite note, setting forth that a Mr. Lorrequer—ay, Harry, all above board—there is nothing ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... hair and beard, with blue eyes!" was Mona's mental comment, as she observed this peculiarity about him. He also had very white teeth, which contrasted strikingly with the intense blackness ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... it has shown high adaptation, as, for instance, Sicilian Clover, Mexican Clover, Chilian Clover, Brazilian Clover, Styrian Clover and Burgundy Clover. In yet other instances, names have been applied to it indicative of some peculiarity of growth, as, for instance, Branching Clover, Perennial Clover, Stem Clover and ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw
... the chemist may be said to have it in his power to realize the first step in organization. {169a} Indeed, it is fully acknowledged by Dr. Daubeny, that in the combinations forming the proximate principles there is no chemical peculiarity. "It is now certain," he says, "that the same simple laws of composition pervade the whole creation; and that, if the organic chemist only takes the requisite precautions to avoid resolving into their ultimate elements ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... because he is a genius of crime and partly because he understands how to guide them so that they may rob and even kill with impunity. His peculiarity is his ability to keep within the bounds of the law. If he commits a robbery he always first establishes marvelous alibis and throws the blame toward someone else; if it is the case of a killing, it is always the other man who is the aggressor. He has been before a jury ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... belt of woods, where the storm had evidently passed but without doing much damage; for it was a peculiarity of that elephant of a cloud that it appeared to draw up its destroying trunk once or twice, and skip over a few miles in its course, only to swing it down ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... out the question of his reasoning which pursues a devious and zigzag course, varying according to the way the wind blows—and he is not alone in this peculiarity in Kansas, as I say—Jonathan steadily toiled against the wind, he stopped altogether, and taking out his lunch basket, he removed a pie and sat down on a log to eat it, while his horse, moving a little further along, propped himself against a ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... in Dedham a very old house of somewhat superior style, which had been built, if not in 1630, at least within a very few years after. It was inhabited by three sisters named Fairbanks, who were very peculiar indeed, and their peculiarity consisted in a strange devotion to the past, and above all to old English memories of colonial times before the Revolution. Even in England this resistance can hardly be understood at the present day, and yet ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... what may be called the Sugar-loaf group, which leads to the Lagoa of Rodrigo Freites, through which gorge a small rivulet of fine fresh water runs to the sea. Just at its mouth, there has long been a village inhabited by gipsies, who have found their way hither, and preserve much of their peculiarity of appearance and character in this their trans-atlantic home. They conform to the religion of the country in all outward things, and belong to the parish of which the curate of Nossa Senhora da Monte is pastor; but their conformity does not appear to have influenced their ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... not of her council. I was still absent. And it was agreed upon between my aunt Hervey and her, that she was to be quite solemn and shy in his next visit, if there were not a peculiarity in his ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... Its peculiarity is that in the form in which it comes to the dyer it is insoluble in water, and to enable it to be dissolved and therefore to be used as a dye, the indigo has to go under a special treatment. The colouring principle ...
— The Dyeing of Cotton Fabrics - A Practical Handbook for the Dyer and Student • Franklin Beech
... is a peculiarity about the lemming which makes the country-folk of Norway more afraid of him than of any other animal. In most years you may wander about the country for weeks and never see a lemming, but occasionally there comes what is called a "lemming-year," when more young lemmings are ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Norway • A.F. Mockler-Ferryman
... the lake, adding a new charm to its quiet beauty. The waters of this little lake are clearer and more transparent than those of any other we had seen; we could see the white shells on its sandy bottom, fifteen feet below the surface. This peculiarity induced us to believe that we were above the stratum of iron ore which seems to underlay most of this wild region, coloring, while it does not render impure, the waters of most of these lakes and rivers. I have frequently, in my wanderings ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... themselves to open disloyalty. In England, there were almost none who would have anything to say to the political assassinations which repeatedly stained the annals of the nations of the Continent and of Scotland: a peculiarity remarked ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... I knew to be very true. Had it not been for this peculiarity of Mr. Hinckman I might have been more willing to talk to ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... has the bump of curiosity developed to a most amazing degree is well known. It is this peculiarity which has proved fatal to the animals in numberless instances. The curiosity of the cervus species, while much less, sometimes manifests itself in an extraordinary fashion. Fred Greenwood managed his approach with ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... Hen-harriers fly low over heaths or fields of corn, and beat the ground regularly like a pointer or setting-dog. Owls move in a buoyant manner, as if lighter than the air; they seem to want ballast. There is a peculiarity belonging to ravens that must draw the attention even of the most incurious—they spend all their leisure time in striking and cuffing each other on the wing in a kind of playful skirmish; and when they move from one place to another, frequently turn ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... respect especially was our attitude peculiar, and in its peculiarity we took great pride. It was largely moral; but, though largely moral, it had behind it the consciousness of strength in ourselves, and its recognition by others. In great degree, and relatively, an unarmed people, we looked with amaze, which had in it something of ...
— "Imperialism" and "The Tracks of Our Forefathers" • Charles Francis Adams
... of protective form and color among spiders we encounter one difficulty at the outset. The meaning of a protective peculiarity can be determined only when the animal is seen in its natural home. The number of strangely modified forms depicted in descriptive works on spiders is enormous. Bodies are twisted, elongated, inflated, flattened, truncated, ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... he should commit the dignity of his cloth. Nor let any one laugh at this; for, considering the propensity of the multitude, and especially of the small multitude, to ridicule anything unusual in dress—above all, where such peculiarity may be construed by malice into a mark of disparagement—this reserve will appear to be nothing more than a wise instinct in the Blue-coat boy. That it is neither pride nor rusticity, at least that it has none of the ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... pay for it, and we often pay by having the real truth concealed from us in a mass of comedy. Newspapers seize upon a man or woman who has something amusing in his life, manner, or speech, and play upon that peculiarity until at last the true character of the ...
— Theodore Roosevelt • Edmund Lester Pearson
... formed, represents a very special kind of aggregate. Its chief peculiarity is that it is entirely dominated by unconscious elements, and is subject to ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... considerable time, been of opinion, that the leading facts of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 ought to be put together without unnecessary delay. Several reasons occurred to him why such a work should be done: the magnitude of the Famine itself; the peculiarity of its immediate cause; its influence on the destiny of the Irish Race. That there should be no unnecessary delay in performing the task was sufficiently proved, he thought, by the fact, that testimony of the most valuable kind, namely, contemporary testimony, was silently but rapidly passing ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... one peculiarity in the line taken by the opponents of the bill, that they did not deny that the meetings which had induced the ministers to propose it were an evil, dangerous to the general tranquillity; but it was strongly urged by Lord Erskine and others that the existing laws were quite ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... finely formed and handsome women. Sometimes they had children with them, but these were very few; the most I saw with any one family was three, and many seemed to possess none at all. Both the women and the children, like the men, were decently clothed in long, white garments, another peculiarity which showed that these natives ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... Unluckily, Henry VIII.'s 'idea' of a national church was vague. Ideas were not his strong point. Coleridge appears to be especially troubled to work the principles into conformity with his views of Catholic emancipation. The peculiarity of the theory is that the church, according to him, seems to be simply a national institution. It might exist, and in fact, did exist before Christianity, as is proved not only by the Jewish but by the Druidical church.[175] That it should be Christian in England is a 'blessed accident,' or 'providential ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... evening," she said, "and I shall return by the bridge and bring you some Goddens to have their share." She had already brought in a party of the Goddens on the night before to protect them from the fury of the crowd. The peculiarity of this promise lay in the fact that the bridge was broken, and could not be passed, even without that difficulty, without passing through the Tourelles and the boulevard which blocked it at the other end. At the closed gates another great official stood ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... firmly, then the vessels of the left side of the root of the neck manifest these advantages more frequently than those of the right, which spring from a common trunk. Whenever, therefore, the "peculiarity" of a separate aortic origin of the right carotid and subclavian arteries occurs, it is to be regarded more as a happy ...
— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise
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