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Peculiar   Listen
noun
Peculiar  n.  
1.
That which is peculiar; a sole or exclusive property; a prerogative; a characteristic. "Revenge is... the peculiar of Heaven."
2.
(Eng. Canon Law) A particular parish or church which is exempt from the jurisdiction of the ordinary.
Court of Peculiars (Eng. Law), a branch of the Court of Arches having cognizance of the affairs of peculiars.
Dean of peculiars. See under Dean, 1.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Peculiar" Quotes from Famous Books



... the satisfaction is different, this keeps our sentiments concerning them from being confounded, and makes us ascribe virtue to the one, and not to the other. Nor is every sentiment of pleasure or pain, which arises from characters and actions, of that peculiar kind, which makes us praise or condemn. The good qualities of an enemy are hurtful to us; but may still command our esteem and respect. It is only when a character is considered in general, without reference to our particular interest, ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume

... hand in a branch of a neighbouring tree, where it remained a whole summer, during which time a bird's nest was constructed within it, and a young brood successfully reared. And yet the old superstition still survives, and the prejudice against tampering with this peculiar skull has in ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer

... Of a peculiar manner of introducing a negative condition, one instance from Fletcher, and one from Henry VIII. in reference to the same substantive, though used in ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 64, January 18, 1851 • Various

... conferred on books on account of their matter. All matter that is the outcome of experience, in other words everything that is founded on fact, whether it be historical or physical, taken by itself and in its widest sense, is included in the term matter. It is the motif that gives its peculiar character to the book, so that a book can be important whoever the author may have been; while with form the peculiar character of a book rests with the author of it. The subjects may be of such a nature as to be accessible and well known to everybody; but the form in which they are expounded, ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer

... booksellers' shops (especially in Little Britain) in London, and by his great skill and experience he made choice of such books that were not obvious to every man's eye.' 'He lived in times,' Wood adds, 'which ministred peculiar opportunities of meeting with books that were not every day brought into public light: and few eminent libraries were bought where he had not the liberty to pick and choose.... He was also a great collector of MSS., whether ancient or modern that were not extant, and delighted much to ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher

... excitement, which was evidently growing upon the tenants of the projectile? Their sobriety could not be doubted. This strange irritation of the brain, must it be attributed to the peculiar circumstances under which they found themselves, to their proximity to the orb of night, from which only a few hours separated them, to some secret influence of the moon acting upon their nervous system? Their faces were as rosy as if they had ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne

... matter of fact, he had been looking into her eyes for several moments. Now there was something so compelling about her tone that he bent all his faculties to the task. This time he looked not with that blindness peculiar to those who love, but, for the moment, discerningly, seeingly. And they were not gray eyes at all. They were ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors

... is founded upon his drawings in natural history, in which he has exhibited a perfection never before attempted. In all our climates—in the clear atmosphere, by the dashing waters, amid the grand old forests with their peculiar and many-tinted foliage, by him first made known to art—he has represented our feathered tribes, building their nests and fostering their young, poised on the tip of the spray and hovering over the sedgy margin of the lake, flying in the clouds in quest of prey or from pursuit, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various

... "come out from the world," to "be separate." They are "a peculiar people." They hate sin, repent of it, flee from it, strive against it, and overcome it more and more. They "mortify the deeds of the body," "keep it under," "crucify the flesh with its affections and lusts," "present—(or consecrate)—their ...
— The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church • G. H. Gerberding

... alternatively and more forcibly, "Get a bloomin' igri on, Johnny!" was the favourite ejaculation of an N.C.O. when he wanted to cure that tired feeling peculiar to the Egyptian native. (All natives answer to the name of Johnny, by ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett

... hid himself for shame. Do I say the fox flattered the crow when he told him he had a sweet voice? Yet one of the most musical sounds in nature proceeds from the crow. All the crow tribe, from the blue jay up, are capable of certain low ventriloquial notes that have peculiar cadence and charm. I often hear the crow indulging in his in winter, and am reminded of the sound of the dulcimer. The bird stretches up and exerts himself like a cock in the act of crowing, and gives forth ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs

... disease peculiar to the tropics, occurs in hot weather, and attacks one suddenly with high fever and violent pains, and after a relapse returns in a milder form and leaves ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... either to receive or seek for any congenial joy or satisfaction from within itself? Though what can be more absurd and unreasonable than—when there are two things that go to make up the man, a body and a soul, and the soul besides hath the perogative of governing—that the body should have its peculiar, natural, and proper good, and the soul none at all, but must sit gazing at the body and simper at its passions, as if she were pleased and affected with them, though indeed she be all the while wholly untouched and unconcerned, as having ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... enabled the Basques to preserve this independence were, first, the isolation caused by their peculiar language; next, the mountainous and easily-defended nature of the country, its comparative poverty and the possession of a sea-board. Then there were the rights and the safeguards which the fueros themselves gave against ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... southern climate, of wild southern blood: for the Riquettis, or Arighettis, had to fly from Florence and the Guelfs, long centuries ago, and settled in Provence; where from generation to generation they have ever approved themselves a peculiar kindred: irascible, indomitable, sharp-cutting, true, like the steel they wore; of an intensity and activity that sometimes verged towards madness, yet did not reach it. One ancient Riquetti, in mad ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... readily imagined, the girl became a useful member of the family. The lost valuables restored and the warnings against mischances given by her quite balanced her incapacity for peculiar kinds of work. This incapacity, however, rather increased than diminished, and, together with her fickle health, which also grew more unsettled, caused us a great deal of care. The Creston physician—who was a keen man ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various

... impelled to look at the corner of the interior where were the cow stalls. There was no light there save the appearance of peculiar gray haze which marked the track of the dimming rays of the lantern. All else was sombre shadow. At last she saw something move there. It might have been as small as a rat, or it might have been a part of something as large as a man. At any rate, it proclaimed that something in that spot ...
— The Little Regiment - And Other Episodes of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane

... something peculiar while we were making preliminary tests on this device, sir," he explained. "Some people don't seem to be able to pick up clear thoughts with it, unless another person uses the mentacom to drive in to them. Most of us can pick up thoughts from anyone we look ...
— Final Weapon • Everett B. Cole

... powerful screams on a rather low but still resounding note, a loud thump, a crash of glass, a prodigious clattering, as of utensils made in some noisy material falling from a height and rolling vigorously in innumerable directions, two or three bangs of doors, and the peculiar patter of rather large and flat feet, unaccustomed to any rapid exercise, moving over boards, oilcloth and carpet. Then the swing door sang, and the Prophet, opening his eyes, perceived Madame Malkiel moving forward ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens

... degrees 4 minutes South; longitude 129 degrees 50 minutes East:— The Casuarina Decaisneana, the Shea-oak or Desert Oak peculiar to ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest

... creature rise and bring Peculiar honors to our King; Angels descend with songs again, And earth repeat the ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown

... history eight times over with his own hand; according to another, he learnt it all by heart, so as to be able to rewrite it from memory, when the manuscript was accidentally destroyed. Without minutely criticizing these details, we ascertain, at least, that Thucydides was the peculiar object of his study and imitation. How much the composition of Demosthenes was fashioned by the reading of Thucydides, reproducing the daring, majestic, and impressive phraseology, yet without the overstrained brevity and involutions of that ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell

... by such attachment, he catches the attributes of those particular regions.[643] The same becomes the case with him if he goes to Soma, or Vayu, or Earth, or Space. The fact is, he dwells in all these, with attachment, and displays the attributes peculiar to those regions. If, however, he goes to those regions after having freed himself from attachments, and feels a mistrust (respecting the felicity he enjoys) and wishes for That Which is Supreme and Immutable, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... the Green Wolf chose a new chief or master, who had always to be taken from the hamlet of Conihout. On being elected, the new head of the brotherhood assumed the title of the Green Wolf, and donned a peculiar costume consisting of a long green mantle and a very tall green hat of a conical shape and without a brim. Thus arrayed he stalked solemnly at the head of the brothers, chanting the hymn of St. John, the ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... I shouldn't have mentioned it," Lyttleton said blandly, looking Sally straight in the face. "But the circumstances were peculiar, to say the least, if not incriminating. I saw this cloaked figure from my window. I thought its actions suspicious. I dressed hurriedly and ran down in time to intercept Miss Manwaring at an appointment ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance

... the position of the queen mother had been one of peculiar difficulty and anxiety. That she was "well inclined to advance the true religion," and "well affected for a general reformation in the Church," as Admiral Coligny at this time firmly believed,[47] is simply incredible. But, on the other hand, ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... nations; and Napoleon retaliated. The plan adopted by the two powers was, as already narrated, to blockade each others' ports, either with paper proclamations or with men-of-war. By such means the commerce of the United States was greatly injured. Great Britain next set up her peculiar claim of citizenship, that whosoever is born in England remains through life the subject of England. English cruisers were authorized to search American vessels for persons suspected of being British subjects, and those who ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce

... that moment I observed my friend's behaviour attentively; and I could then perceive that his partiality for Miss Bennet was beyond what I had ever witnessed in him. Your sister I also watched. Her look and manners were open, cheerful, and engaging as ever, but without any symptom of peculiar regard, and I remained convinced from the evening's scrutiny, that though she received his attentions with pleasure, she did not invite them by any participation of sentiment. If you have not been mistaken here, ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... the mace carried by the marshall on state occasions—"an unmeaning symbol, unworthy the dignity of a republican government"—be sent to the mint, broken up, and the silver coined and placed in the treasury. The peculiar state of public feeling at that time, irritated by prophets of evil, affords a ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... to dinner at all. From behind the door of her room she told me, in a peculiar tone, that she could not eat. I could not eat, either, but I made the pretence of doing so. The next morning, at breakfast in the sitting-room, we were a silent pair. I don't know what George, the waiter, ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln

... desires; Upheld by me, yet once more he shall stand On even ground against his mortal foe, By me upheld, that he may know how frail 180 His fall'n condition is, and to me ow All his deliv'rance, and to none but me. Some I have chosen of peculiar grace Elect above the rest; so is my will: The rest shall hear me call, and oft be warnd Thir sinful state, and to appease betimes Th' incensed Deitie, while offerd grace Invites; for I will cleer thir senses dark, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... Naebody kens. I gaed up to Colquhoun Street one day to ask Walter, but he didna gie me muckle cuttin'. I say, he's gettin' on thonder.' She flashed a peculiar, sly glance at Gladys, and under it the latter's ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan

... gratefully as she finished, and a peculiar expression came over his face. "It feels one hundred per cent better already. But why do you do it? I should think you would feel like crowning me with that ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby

... of that indigence which he had tried to infer from it; no poverty of any kind, except of conversation, appeared; but there, the deficiency was considerable. John Dashwood had not much to say for himself that was worth hearing, and his wife had still less. But there was no peculiar disgrace in this; for it was very much the case with the chief of their visitors, who almost all laboured under one or other of these disqualifications for being agreeable—Want of sense, either natural or improved—want of elegance—want ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... flirt discreetly, and, in fact, am the most delightful companion for a wife that you can imagine. Remember, sir, that unless you engage my services your wife is at the mercy of all the strangers she may meet and being in that peculiar condition of mind where she is bound to be attracted by things that would otherwise seem commonplace, there is no telling what the end might be. But with me she is perfectly safe. I guarantee results. I insure your heart's happiness against the future. Terms reasonable. I can ...
— Best Short Stories • Various

... Peculiar to the Coventry Miracle Play is the introduction of a new type of character, unhuman, unreal, a mere embodied quality. In Scene 9, where Mary is handed over by her parents to the care of the High Priest at the Temple, she finds provided for her as companions the five maidens, ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne

... "A peculiar case was that of Old Jim who lived on another plantation was left to look out for the fires and do other chores around the house while 'marster' was at war. A bad rumor spread, and do you know those mean devils, overseers of nearby plantations came out and got her dug a deep hole, and despite ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... and especially to genuine merit, it is with peculiar pleasure I allude to a notice in a late paper of this city, in which Mr. S. Kirkham proposes to deliver a course of Lectures on English Grammar. To such as feel interested in acquiring a general and practical knowledge of this useful science an opportunity ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham

... peculiar about that island ahead?" asked Sir Reginald, when he had been peering through his binocular ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... cloth chequered of various colours, and originally worn only in the Highlands, every clan adopting its own peculiar tartan. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton

... stranger, takes the fellow by the throat, and makes a great bustle; the gentleman not doubting but the man was secured let go his own hold of him, and left him to them. The hubbub was great, and 'twas these fellows cried, "Larron, larron!" but with a dexterity peculiar to themselves had let the right fellow go, and pretended to be all upon one of their own gang. At last they bring the man to the gentleman to ask him what the fellow had done, who, when he saw the person they seized on, ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe

... certain that such an interpretation is peculiar to abolitionists. "Men," says Mr. Sumner, "are prone to find in uncertain, disconnected texts, a confirmation of their own personal prejudices or prepossessions. And I,"—he continues, "who am no divine, but only a simple layman—make bold to say, that whosoever ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... spotless as the deck of a man-of-war, and the smiling faces making a very flower-garden of the community-room. We left loaded with specimens of the nuns' work—Agnus Deis in frames of silver filigree dotted with white roses and hanging from white satin ribbon-bows; flake-like biscuits of peculiar flavor; and baskets, pincushions, etc. of delicate workmanship. I do not know whether this convent is still in the hands of the Dominicanesses, so many in Rome having become barracks since the new royal authority superseded that of the pope. But the picture of San Domenico ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various

... all education had war for their object, and the state and city became a compact military machine. This condition was the result of a remarkable code of laws by which Sparta was governed, the most peculiar and surprising code which any nation has ever possessed. It is this code, and Lycurgus, to whom Sparta owed it, with which ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... magazine offers so much reading matter that the casual reader, if disappointed in the introduction to one article or short story, has plenty of others to choose from. But if the opening sentences hold his attention, he reads on. "Well begun is half done" is a saying that applies with peculiar ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

... most disproportionate popularity, whom the public probably would arrange in the very inverse order, except that it would place Moore above Rogers. During this afternoon, Coleridge alone displayed any of his peculiar talent. He talked much and well. I have not for years seen him in such excellent health and spirits. His subjects metaphysical criticism—Wordsworth he chiefly talked to. Rogers occasionally let fall a remark. Moore seemed conscious of his ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... poor at all, come to think of it," answered Margaret. "It's a peculiar case. Mrs. Comstock had a great trouble and she let it change her whole life and make a different woman of her. She used to be lovely; now she is forever saving and scared to death for fear they will go to the poorhouse; but ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter

... were highly delighted, and Lieutenant Parry took a part himself, considering that an example of cheerfulness, by giving a direct countenance to everything that could contribute to it, was not the less essential part of his duty, under the peculiar circumstances ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith

... suddenly mindful both of a peculiar gleam in Bill Lainey's eye and a chance sentence uttered by the hasher in his hearing at breakfast. "That's right. It was Swing Tunstall what made so free and outrageous with Rack Slimson. You go and crawl Swing's hump, Bill. Lord knows he needs it. ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White

... anticipated being attacked upon this subject, and had fully prepared himself to defend the peculiar position it was his interest to maintain. To encourage a meeting between his brother and the old lady (to whom the present position of affairs was a grievous offence) did not, certainly, enter into his plan ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... peculiar expressions in these days. "Hardly, I think," he answered. "It is this: that you are ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham

... hand, with her peculiar sweetness of expression—almost as if she were sorry for him or were bidding ...
— Miss Lulu Bett • Zona Gale

... figure of a man appeared. Over his head he wore a peculiar helmet with hideous glass pieces over the eyes, and tubes that connected with a tank which he carried buckled to his back. As he slowly dragged himself out, I could wonder only ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve

... business organizations in America of a species which do not flourish at all in Europe. For example, the "mail-order house," whose secrets were very generously displayed to me in Chicago—a peculiar establishment which sells merely everything (except patent-medicines)—on condition that you order it by post. Go into that house with money in your palm, and ask for a fan or a flail or a fur-coat or a fountain-pen or a fiddle, and you will be requested to return home and write a ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett

... felt that she could know it when she liked enough, or whether she should not be so safe with Breckon in knowing it, she veered suddenly away, and said that she was so glad to have Boyne's family know the peculiar nature of her devotion, which did not necessarily mean running away with him, though it might come to that. She supposed she was a little morbid about it from what Mr. Breckon had been saying; he had a conscience that would break the peace of a whole community, though ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... peculiarities, the same as folks do, and the peculiar kink in this house wuz it hadn't a nail or a bit of iron in it anywhere from top to bottom—bolts and pegs made of ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley

... With none to hinder, Of Aetna's fiery scoriae In the next vomit-shower, made he A more peculiar cinder. And this great Doctor, can it be, He left no saner recipe For men at issue with despair? Admiring, even his poet owns, While noting his fine lyric tones, The last of him ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... gate which opened into a wood, in the park. She thought she would skip round this walk and look into the wood and see if there were any rabbits hopping about. She enjoyed the skipping very much and when she reached the little gate she opened it and went through because she heard a low, peculiar whistling sound and wanted to find out what ...
— The Secret Garden • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... Smyrna Ancients immediately made it evident that he had evolved a peculiar method of dealing with the case in hand. He drove Imogene straight at ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... tenderness, full of sex. Could she dance?—ay, indeed she could. A marvel where she had managed to learn it, but learn it they did at Sellanraa as well as elsewhere. Sivert could dance, and Leopoldine too; a kind of dancing peculiar to the spot, growth of the new-cleared soil; a dance with energy and swing: schottische, mazurka, waltz and polka in one. And could not Leopoldine deck herself out and fall in love and dream by daylight all awake? Ay, as well as any other! ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun

... China, in their present state, are subject, may perhaps have driven them, in certain situations, to the necessity of levelling the sides of mountains into a succession of terraces; a mode of cultivation frequently taken notice of by the missionaries as unexampled in Europe and peculiar to the Chinese; whereas it is common in many parts of Europe. The mountains of the Pays de Vaud, between Lausanne and Vevay, are cultivated in this manner to their summits with vines. "This would have been impracticable," says ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... and the plants were subjected in each generation to extremely uniform conditions. The result was, as in some previous cases, that the flowers on all the self-fertilised plants, both in the pots and open ground, were absolutely uniform in tint; this being a dull, rather peculiar flesh colour. This uniformity was very striking in the long row of plants growing in the open ground, and these first attracted my attention. I did not notice in which generation the original colour began to change and to become uniform, but I have every reason to believe that the change ...
— The Effects of Cross & Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom • Charles Darwin

... begin the labors of the day. Through the windows there came already a flush of dawn. The thing, composed of wood, and cords, and wheels, and pulleys, was more faithful in its service than he in his duty to Bartolommeo—he, a man with that peculiar piece of human mechanism within him that ...
— The Elixir of Life • Honore de Balzac

... unphilosophical methods of dealing with prophecy, we turn to the testimony of the inspired book itself. The book of Isaiah is distinguished by a phraseology peculiar to this prophet. He speaks of God as "The Holy One of Israel." This title, as applied to God, is used only seven times in the entire Old Testament; once in 2 Kings, three times in the Psalms, twice in the prophecies of Jeremiah, and once in Ezekiel, ...
— The Testimony of the Bible Concerning the Assumptions of Destructive Criticism • S. E. Wishard

... vagus nerve, between them, then the arterial vessels are accounted as being of normal character, and as holding a normal relative position. Every exception to this condition of A, Plate 9, or to that of A B, Plate 10, is said to be abnormal or peculiar, and merely because the disposition of the vessels, as seen in Plates 9 and 10, is taken to be general ...
— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise

... was Pinto who spoke. "Did you notice anything peculiar about the voice, colonel?" he asked eagerly. "I did, the first time I heard it, and I've been wondering how I'd heard it before, and just now it has struck me. It ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace

... between the acts and scenes (observes Francis Douce), and after the play was finished, to amuse the spectators with their tricks, may be traced to the Greek and Roman theatres; and their usages being preserved in the middle ages, wherever the Roman influence had spread, it would not, of course, be peculiar to England. The records of the French theatre demonstrate this fact; in the "Mystery of Saint Barbara," we find this stage direction:—Pausa. Vadunt, et stultus loquitur. (A pause. They quit the stage, and the fool speaks). And in this ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent

... constantly in its Italian form 'impresa'), 'saltimbanco' (mountebank), all once common enough, are now obsolete. Sylvester uses often 'farfalla' for butterfly, but, as far as I know, this use is peculiar to him. If these are at all the whole number of our Italian words, and I cannot call to mind any other, the Spanish in the language are nearly as numerous; nor indeed would it be wonderful if they were more so; our points of contact with Spain, friendly and hostile, ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench

... are a clever people, very clever indeed, and in some things they must be acknowledged to show more wisdom than the nations of the West; but they are decidedly peculiar in their way of treating the sick. Progress is not the rule with the Chinese, and, while medical art or skill is quite different now in England from what it was, the Chinese have made hardly any improvement. ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... the feeling of kinship with the dead, invested by religion with peculiar intensity and solemnity. It has been one of the great constructive forces ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy

... knightly monarch who knew to live nobly, and dared die as he lived; yet, thinking of what he might do with Mahommed fallen into his hands under circumstances so peculiar, there was never a Caesar not the slave of policy. In the audience to Manuel the sailor, we have seen how keenly sensitive he was to the contraction the empire had suffered. Since that day, to be sure, he had managed to keep the territory he came to; ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... again to the surface. She felt the fresh, cool radiation from outlying, upturned fields, the faint, sad odors from dim stretches of pricking grain and quickening leaf, and wondered if at Los Cuervos it might be possible to reproduce the peculiar verdure of her native district. She beguiled her fancy by an ambitious plan of retrieving their fortunes by farming; her comfortable tastes had lately rebelled against the homeless mechanical cultivation of these desolate but teeming Californian ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... return;—an opinion with which I could not concur, for the conclusive reason that, whatever the world may think on such a subject, the object of admiration, if she has any true sensibilities, must herself. suffer annoyance, as I did, from the special designation which attends such peculiar and marked attention as that to which I was subjected. My mother took much pains, verbally and in writing, as the within letters will show you, to relieve me from the feeling of disquiet under which I suffered, but without effect; and I was further painfully afflicted by the ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms

... brightly, giving to the dead whitened trees on the little island a peculiar ghostly appearance. The canoes soon grounded in the marsh grass, and, fastening them to paddles, stuck down in the mud, our hunters shouldered their fowling-pieces and trudged ahead through the mire. They had prepared ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... member of the "Four Hundred" who has confessedly gone astray, to be received back on an equality with her most virtuous sisters. In ancient Sparta theft was considered proper, but getting caught a crime. Modern society has improved upon that peculiar moral code. Adultery—if the debauchee have wealth—is but a venial fault, and to be found out a trifling misfortune, calling for condolence rather than condemnation. It is not so much the number of professed ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... in most proper Order, and void of all Confusion; what Influence, I say, would these Prayers have, were they delivered with a due Emphasis, and apposite Rising and Variation of Voice, the Sentence concluded with a gentle Cadence, and, in a word, with such an Accent and Turn of Speech as is peculiar to Prayer? ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... dearly obtained! The subsequent HISTORY OF THE BIBLIOMANIA is a striking proof of the truth of this remark: for the disease rather increased, and the work of death yet went on. In the following year (1776) died JOHN RATCLIFFE;[392] a bibliomaniac of a very peculiar character. If he had contented himself with his former occupation, and frequented the butter and cheese, instead of the book, market—if he could have fancied himself in a brown peruke, and Russian apron, instead of an embroidered waistcoat, velvet ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... engraved in the heart of man; that this desire, which was so natural, and which she had felt so deeply as wife and mother, this desire to have children to survive and continue us on earth, was still more augmented when we had a high destiny to transmit to them; that in Napoleon's peculiar position, as founder of a vast empire, it was impossible he should long resist a sentiment which is at the bottom of every heart, and which, if it is true that this sentiment increases in proportion to the inheritance we leave our children, no one could experience more fully than ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant

... distinguished in the history of Italian literature. Both of them were framed by nature with strongly marked characters, and fitted to perform a special work in the world. Both have left behind them records of their lives and literary labours, singularly illustrative of their peculiar differences. There is no instance in which we see more clearly the philosophical value of autobiographies, than in these vivid pictures which the great Italian tragedian and comic author have delineated. Some of the most interesting works of Lionardo da Vinci, Giorgione, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... had fallen—whose soul curdled back into itself—whose life had been separated from that of the herd—whom doubts and awe drew back, while circumstances impelled onward—whom a supernatural doom invested with a peculiar philosophy, not of human effect and cause—and who, with every gift that could ennoble and adorn, was suddenly palsied into that mortal imbecility, which is almost ever the result of mortal visitings into the haunted regions of the Ghostly and Unknown. The ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... summits of the strand cliffs. The avifauna along the coast here is besides rather poor. At least there are none of the rich fowl-fells, which, with their millions of inhabitants and the conflicts and quarrels which rage amongst them, commonly give so peculiar a character to the coast cliffs of the high north. I first met with true loom and kittiwake fells farther north on the ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold

... I'm not ill. I'm slightly interested in that peculiar name. I've heard it just once before, and I'm wondering if there is a chance of its being ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper

... assurance of faith that He was the Son of God, for He knew it out of the Scriptures by reading all the prophets, yet, to have it sealed to Him with joy unspeakable and glorious,—this was deferred to the time of His baptism. He was then anointed with the oil of assurance and gladness in a more peculiar and transcendent manner.' 'In His baptism,' says Bengel, 'our Lord was magnificently enlightened. He was previously the Son of God, and yet the power of the Divine testimony to His Sonship at His baptism long affected Him in a lively manner.' ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte

... seventh day of the feast, assailed those who passed by. The torches in the hands of Demeter are borrowed from the same source; and the shadow in which she is [121] constantly represented, and which is the peculiar sign of her grief, is partly ritual, and a relic of the caves of the old Chthonian worship, partly poetical— expressive, half of the dark earth to which she escapes from Olympus, half of her mourning. She appears consistently, in the hymn, as a teacher of rites, transforming daily life, ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... fully persuaded that the most thorough English Conservative may admire the Athenian republic; so far at least admire as to admit that it is impossible to conceive how, under any other form of government, the peculiar glories of Athens could have shone forth. And, indeed, an Athenian democracy differs so entirely from any political institution which the world sees at present, or will ever see again, that to carry ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various

... wash his feet and the usual ingredients of the Arghya. Having finished their morning rites and the observances necessary for receiving their guest, they sat down on two seats made of wooden planks.[1886] When those two Rishis took their seats, that place began to shine with peculiar beauty even as the sacrificial altar shines with beauty in consequence of the sacred fires when libations of clarified butter are poured upon them. Then Narayana, seeing Narada refreshed from fatigue and seated at his ease and well-pleased with ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... the man, with a rather peculiar intonation, "I thought maybe your par or mar was comin' down. Ain't Dr. Grimstone got the ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey

... this stipulation—which his royal patient had strictly associated with the gift—to Barbara in the emphatic manner peculiar to him, but she had listened, at first in surprise, then with increasing indignation. The donation which, as a token of remembrance and kind feeling, had just rendered her so happy, now appeared like mere alms. Nay, the gift would make her inferior to the poorest beggar, for who forbids the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... may be he. I know him, and, discoursing our affairs, Have heard him speak of you, but in a strain Peculiar ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair

... attending the introduction of succors from a more potent monarch, appeared so evident from all the transactions of history, that they could not escape a person of the king's extensive knowledge; but there were in the present case several peculiar circumstances, which ought forever to deter him from having recourse to so dangerous an expedient: that the French monarch, the ancient ally of Scotland, might willingly use the assistance of that kingdom ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume

... his variations are mainly functional. Men of science must not be surprised if the readiness with which we responded to Mr. Darwin's appeal to our confidence is succeeded by a proportionate resentment when the peculiar shabbiness of his action becomes more generally understood. For myself, I know not which most to wonder at—the meanness of the writer himself, or the greatness of the service that, in spite of ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler

... emphasis of tone and a peculiar twist of the point of his nose that went far to stamp the individual named with a character the ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne

... said to want spirit, who could show so much in his circumstances.(51) I think, without much heroism, I could sooner have led up the cavalry to the charge, than have gone to Whitehall to be worried as he was; nay, I should have thought with less danger of my life. But he is a peculiar man; and I repeat it, we have hot heard the last of him. You will find that by serving the King he understands in a very literal sense; and there is a young gentleman(52) who it is believed intends those words shall not have a more ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... are very numerous, all of them based on the same belief—that in certain cases the dead, in a material shape, leave their graves in order to destroy and prey upon the living. This belief is not peculiar to the Slavonians but it is one of the characteristic features of their spiritual creed. Among races which burn their dead, remarks Hertz in his exhaustive treatise on the Werwolf (p. 126), little is known of regular "corpse-spectres." Only vague ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston

... is, not so much where has Mrs. Rose gone, but why did she go? Look here, Rose. I'm perfectly certain that her one thought all through has been for your welfare; and though on the face of it it seems peculiar that she should take this means of proving her love for you, I'm quite convinced she is acting on your behalf in this ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes

... of this evil of encouraged and stimulated avarice comes good, and that this peculiar meanly greedy type that predominates in the individualist world to-day, the Rockefeller-Harriman type, "creates" great businesses, exploits the possibilities of nature, gives mankind railways, power, commodities. As a matter of fact, ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells

... and the gigantic hive is deserted and closed, leaving its fairy halls, its infinite wealth, its wondrous achievements, whether of Nature or of Art, to darkness and silence. Of course, a watch is kept, and, under pressing and peculiar circumstances, work has been permitted; but the treasures here collected must be guarded with scrupulous vigilance. If a fire should consume the Crystal Palace, the inevitable loss must exceed One Hundred Millions ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley

... bottle; then she got out a hat trimmed with bows of wide ribbon, and sewed the bottle into the centre bow. It presented rather a bulgy appearance, but by a little pulling of the other trimming it was hardly noticeable, and really nothing is too peculiar to be worn on the head. After that she went ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad

... sexual problem, had for the moment a number of cheap imitators. Other volumes flowed from his pen, and his name became well known in contemporary literature. But his reputation was essentially contemporary and characteristic of the vogue peculiar to ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... that time old enough to bear the journey to Stirling Castle, where the Scottish kings and queens were generally crowned. The coronation of a queen is an event which always excites a very deep and universal interest among all persons in the realm; and there is a peculiar interest felt when, as was the case in this instance, the queen to be crowned is an infant just old enough to bear the journey. There was a very great interest felt in Mary's coronation. The different courts and monarchs of Europe sent ...
— Mary Queen of Scots, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... lighted by seven equidistant lancet windows in each of the west and east walls, and by two dormer windows of peculiar design on the side of the roof next to the court. The south room is similarly lighted by ten lancets in each of the north and south walls, and on the side next to the court by two dormer windows like those in the west room. This room moreover has an open space at the east end, about 10 ft. long, ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark

... no answer, but walking still more slowly, he was seen to raise his hand to his mouth. Then followed the peculiar cry that a wild turkey makes when it is lost from its companions. The Shawanoe knew that the birds were in the surrounding woods, though ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis

... government; because the bishop has a title as a saint (so that some persons imitate him), and a man of upright life. That I do not take it upon myself either to praise or to censure. I have never seen a man more peculiar or so inconsiderate and obstinate in his opinions, who even does not hesitate to oppose the right of patronage, the jurisdiction, and the royal exchequer of your Majesty. All this he judges and discusses as injuriously as the most utter foreigner, and even enemy, would do. I say this with truth, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume VIII (of 55), 1591-1593 • Emma Helen Blair

... he is crunching the bones of some other less truculent quadruped. It is "solitary, cruel, and untamable, digs its food out of graves," cachinnating the while like a thousand or fifteen hundred of brick. There are other ravenous beasts in the world; but this one is peculiar in that he laughs over his work, which is also his pastime. Now, if you wish to hear a Boy laugh—a horse-laugh, a giant-laugh—just put some other animal, human or otherwise, through a course of torture. Twist a pig's ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 4, April 23, 1870 • Various

... his word, for despite his peculiar reluctance in the matter he lost no time in perfecting the plan, and the next morning after the party reached New York he informed the boys that the motor-car would be at the door at nine o'clock to ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett

... Nature. Perhaps he first expressed, in literature, the pleasures of open life among the mountains, of walking tours, of the 'ecole buissonniere,' away from courts, and schools, and cities, which it is the fashion now to love. His bourgeois birth and tastes, his peculiar religious and social views, his intense self-engrossment,—all favoured the development of Nature-worship. But Rousseau was not alone, nor yet creative, in this instance. He was but one of the earliest to seize and express a new ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... thinking also neither to offend me, that although much—and mayhap all—doth be modified and shapen diverse ways by the Circumstance and the Condition, yet doth there be an inward force that doth be peculiar each unto each; though, mayhap, to be mixt and made monstrous or diverse by foul or foolish breeding—as you to have knowledge of in the bodies of those dread Monsters that did be both Man and Beast. Yet, also, ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson

... the Virginian's brows. This community knew that a man had implied he was a thief and a murderer; it also knew that he knew it. But the case was one of peculiar circumstances, assuredly. Could he avoid meeting the man? Soon the stage would be starting south for the railroad. He had already to-day proposed to his sweetheart that they should take it. Could he for her sake leave unanswered a talking enemy upon the field? His own ears had ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister

... assuredly Achilleus the son of Thetis, and Sarpedon the son of Zeus, and Helena the daughter of Zeus, are no ordinary mortals, such as might have been seen and conversed with by the poet's grandfather. They belong to an inferior order of gods, according to the peculiar anthropomorphism of the Greeks, in which deity and humanity are so closely mingled that it is difficult to tell where the one begins and the other ends. Diomedes, single-handed, vanquishes not only the gentle Aphrodite, but ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske

... Dealer", where, in his position as sub-editor, he had written many of his earlier essays. Artemus inquired for Mr. Gray, the editor, who chanced to be absent. Looking round at the vacant desks and inkstained furniture, Artemus was silent for a minute or two, and then burst into one of those peculiar chuckling fits of laughter in which he would occasionally indulge; not a loud laugh, but a shaking of the whole body with an impulse of merriment which set every muscle in motion. "Here," said he, "here's where they called me a fool." The remembrance of their so calling him seemed ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne

... applicability of this poem to my nephew's peculiar trouble appeared, I could not see, but as I finished it, his sobs gave place ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton

... order, as compared with the other military supernumerary that is (who was just the usual everyday farewell, my gallant captain kind of an individual in the light dragoons, the 18th hussars to be accurate) and inflammable doubtless (the fallen leader, that is, not the other) in his own peculiar way which she of course, woman, quickly perceived as highly likely to carve his way to fame which he almost bid fair to do till the priests and ministers of the gospel as a whole, his erstwhile staunch adherents, ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... communication I have addressed to the Congress carried with it graver or more far-reaching implications as to the interest of the country, and I come now to speak upon a matter with regard to which I am charged in a peculiar degree, by the Constitution itself, with ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson

... caught it in his hand and brought it up. It was the broken half of a chain of gold, with a jewel in each link. He changed color as he saw it; he remembered it as one that Venetia Corona had worn on the morning that he had been admitted to her. It was of peculiar workmanship, and he recognized it at once. He stood with the toy in his hand, looking long at the shining links, with their flashes of precious stones. They seemed to have voices that spoke to him ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... from side to side of the long strip of grass, green from the autumnal rain. Little reck the assembled marksmen of Nature's stage-decorations. One group will be mentally weighing the turkeys, another discussing the distance—too long or too short for the peculiar powers of this or the other individual or his weapon. Around the rude target kneel two or three, scoring on it each man his "centre," above or below, to the right or left, of the true centre, to counteract the ascertained ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various

... his official report, after mentioning his haste to disabuse Young's mind on this point, Captain Stansbury says, "I was induced to pursue this conciliatory course, not only in justice to the government, but also because I knew, from the peculiar organization of this singular community, that, unless the 'President' was fully satisfied that no evil was intended to his people, it would be useless for me to attempt to carry out my instructions." The ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... journalist was so taken with this South Australian little handbook of civics that he urged on me the duty of bringing it up to date, and embracing women's suffrage, the relations of the States to the Commonwealth, as well as the industrial legislation which is in many ways peculiar to Australia, but although those in authority were sympathetic no steps have been taken for its reproduction. Identified as I had been for so many years with elementary education in South Australia, my mind was well prepared to applaud the movement in favour of the higher education of poorer ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence

... morning brought one of those furious summer storms peculiar to August, and the little force, loaded with armor, weapons, and knapsacks, found themselves much distressed by the humid heat. Reaching a sheltered spot about a mile from Namasket, Standish resolved to remain there until ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... complicated than the actual composition of the revue. There was the almost insuperable difficulty that Miss Verepoint firmly vetoed every name suggested. It seemed practically impossible to find any man or woman in all England or America whose peculiar gifts or lack of them would not interfere with Miss Verepoint's giving a satisfactory performance of the principal role. It was all very perplexing to Roland; but as Miss Verepoint was an expert in theatrical matters, he scarcely felt ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill

... be surprising, to those unaccustomed to such things, to observe with what courage and cheerfulness the mistress of an American family encounters the peculiar evils of her lot—evils undreamt of by persons in the same station in any other part of the world. Her energies seem to rise with the obstacles that call them out; she is full of expedients—full of ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... them is of a peculiar kind. From their infancy, they have been intended for each other. It was the favourite wish of his mother, as well as of hers. While in their cradles, we planned the union: and now, at the moment when the wishes of both sisters would be accomplished ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... peculiar to him, thrust his hands in the pockets of his trousers, strolled away from the desk on which the register lay open, and going over to the hall door stood there a while, staring out on the tide of life that rolled by, and listening to the subdued rattle of the traffic ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher

... you read in his peculiar physiognomy, in that odd mixture of defiance and fearlessness, those anxious glances, frankness and deceit, the varied expressions of which passed in ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng

... caught up the threads of certain other peculiar Boston interests, and by careful reading of the Transcript was enabled to vibrate in full harmony with the local hymn of gratitude. New York became a mere emporium, a town without a library, a city ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... disappeared, saying nothing to anybody, and not even asking for his wages. Suspicions were excited; but again they remained vague. The autopsy showed a state of things not precisely to be called peculiar to poisoning cases the intestines, which the fatal poison had not had time to burn as in the case of the d'Aubrays, were marked with reddish spots like flea-bites. In June Penautier obtained the post that had been held by ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... Atterbury absolved him, and he died forgiving. Oh, what a noble heart he had! How generous he was! I was but fifteen and a child when he married me. How good he was to stoop to me! He was always good to the poor and humble." She stopped, then presently, with a peculiar expression, as if her eyes were looking into heaven, and saw my lord there, she smiled, and gave a little laugh. "I laugh to see you, sir," she says; "when you come, it seems as if you never were away." One may put her words down, and remember them, but ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... have been the shadowy room or the mournful dirge of the nearby ocean that added an uncanny touch to her words and looks, but from the moment she arose until her utterance ceased, Albert was spell-bound. So peculiar, and yet so pathetic, was her prayer, it shall be quoted in full ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn

... "The peculiar characteristic of the present time," cries M. Dunoyer, in a tone of keen discontent, "is the agitation of all classes; their anxiety, their inability to ever stop at anything and be contented; the infernal labor performed upon the less fortunate that they may become more and more discontented in ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon

... Greek colony of Marseilles, in the time of Alexander the Great, through the Pillars of Hercules, along the coasts of France and Spain, up the English Channel, and so across the North Sea, past an island he calls Thule; his further progress, he asserted, was hindered by a barrier of a peculiar nature,—neither earth, air, nor sky, but a compound of all three, forming a thick viscid substance which it was impossible to penetrate. Now, whether this same Thule was one of the Shetland Islands, and the impassable substance merely a fog,—or Iceland, and the barricade ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)

... not incite them to anger as it might have done, but to horror and trembling, though they say Crassus outdid himself in this calamity, for he passed through the ranks and cried out to them, "This, O my countrymen, is my own peculiar loss, but the fortune and the glory of Rome is safe and untainted so long as you are safe. But if any one be concerned for my loss of the best of sons, let him show it in revenging him upon the enemy. Take away their joy, revenge ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... pasted the sheet of paper in such a way that its contents could not be seen, and as the cabinet came together handed it to each member successively, asking him to write his name across the back of it. In this peculiar fashion he pledged himself and his administration to accept loyally the verdict of the people if it should be against them, and to do their utmost to save the Union in the brief remainder of his term of office. He gave no hint to any member of his cabinet ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay

... of outrage and wrong was secured by treaty, the obligations of which are ever held sacred by all just nations, yet Mexico has violated this solemn engagement by failing and refusing to make the payment. The two installments due in April and July, 1844, under the peculiar circumstances connected with them, have been assumed by the United States and discharged to the claimants, but they are still due by Mexico. But this is not all of which we have just cause of complaint. To provide a remedy for the claimants whose cases were not ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... life." And she would have thanked him for both, exultingly, to feel: "I can repay you as no girl could do;" though she had none of the rage of love to give; as it was, she thought conscientiously that she could help him. She liked him: his peculiar suppleness of a growing mind, his shrouded sensibility, in conjunction with his reputation for an evidently quite reliable prompt courage, and the mask he wore, which was to her transparent, pleased ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... elbow of land lying between the equator and the 11th degree of north latitude, which, from its peculiar form, might well be designated the Eastern Horn of Africa. The land is high in the north, and has a general declination, as may be seen by the river system, to the south and eastward, but with less easting as ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke

... to the stove, contributed his mite towards the support of the left-hand spittoon, just as the major—for it was the major—bore down upon it. Major Pawkins then reserved his fire, and looking upward, said, with a peculiar air of quiet weariness, like a man who had been up all night—an air which Martin had already observed both in the colonel and Mr ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... Chinatowns, and diminutive Bohemias, all swung together by the action of this great centripetal force of loneliness. The buildings in these communities, inflexible enough in all conscience as regards design, contrive none the less to take on in some way a character and appearance peculiar to their inhabitants; this may be a matter only of red Turkey turbans flapping in the breeze, or perhaps of the haunting aroma of some national staple of food—but certainly it is there. Scattered through Manhattan, from the Battery to the Bronx, these five ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble

... may be prejudiced in favour of the choice which I made so long since, and which I have never found reason to repent. But I have not the slightest wish to prejudice any one in its favour. There is no profession which more requires a peculiar mind; contentment, with whatever consciousness of being overlooked; patience, with whatever hopelessness of success; labour, for its own sake; and learning, with few to share, few to admire, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... to these we find peculiar manifestations of family devotion exemplifying that touching affection which rises to unusual sacrifice because it is close to pity and feebleness. "My cousin and his family had to go back to Italy. He got to Ellis Island with his wife and five children, but they wouldn't ...
— The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets • Jane Addams

... every person has a special adaptation for his own peculiar part in life. A very few—geniuses, we call them—have this marked in an unusual degree, and very early ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... The initial shock and bewilderment oozed out of him, leaving him with a feeling of outrage, and a most peculiar sensation of being a spectator rather than an important part of the violent drama. It held an air of unreality, like a dream that the near-conscious sleeper recognizes as a dream and lives through it because he lacks the ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith

... make the dance a sport without any effort; and with eyes steadfastly riveted on each other, they had no sense of giddiness. They whirled round, as it were, in a magic circle, to the strange magical music. The understrings sounded strong and strange. The peculiar enchanted power which lies in the clear deeps of the water, in the mysterious recesses of the mountains, in the shades of dark caves, which the skalds have celebrated under the names of mermaids, mountain-kings, and wood-women, and which drag down the heart so forcibly ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer

... Moody's look and Moody's reply from his own peculiar point of view. He suddenly drew the steward away into a corner ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins

... delighted that you, with whose name I am familiar, should approve of my work. I entirely agree with what you say about each species varying according to its own peculiar laws; but at the same time it must, I think, be admitted that the variations of most species have in the lapse of ages been extremely diversified, for I do not see how it can be otherwise explained that so many forms have acquired analogous structures for the same general object, independently ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin

... fears which were common then amongst people to whom steam was a novelty, and who fancied that a boiler was in great danger of bursting from the pressure of the steam. Some folk said that Mr. Gurney, who was a doctor, took the idea of his peculiar boiler from the arteries and veins of the human body; at any rate, he had a double arrangement of pipes, taking the form of a horseshoe, and made of welded iron. There were forty pipes, so that if one burst it could only do a trifling amount of harm, and the damage was easily repaired. The principle ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... a peculiar pleasure in looking off from the high windows on the pretty Hartford landscape, and down from them into the tops of the trees clothing the hillside by which his house stood. We agreed that there was a novel charm in trees seen from such a vantage, far surpassing that of the farther ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... condescended to address him. "I am proud, sir," said Suett, with the formality of Black Rod himself, "to do the honours of my country to the representative of a nation which held my master Garrick in peculiar respect. He was a great actor, sir; a wonderful man! Your Lekain, or any other Cain, could not come up to him, for he was Able, Pardon the pun. Oh, la!—but he was vain, sir; vain as a peacock; it could not be of his person. Had he been, as Richard ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 268, August 11, 1827 • Various

... her peculiar emphasis, "it ruther took me back when I heard the niggers takin' about it this mornin'. If that old lady has ever darkened my door, I've done forgot it. She's mighty nice and neighborly," Mrs. Haley went on, in response to a smile which ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris

... stones used to be considered the peculiar product of a race of 'Brythonic' or British origin, and it is likely that the stones so carved were utilized in the ritual of rain-worship or rain-making by sympathetic magic. The grooves in the stone were probably filled with water to typify ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence

... "He's traveling, and one never knows where he is. We'll just have to wait. Besides, he is so peculiar that he'd just as likely as not only puzzle me the more. We'll just have to ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake • Laura Lee Hope

... shed round him in the common strife Or mild concerns of ordinary life A constant influence, a peculiar grace; But who if he be called upon to face Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined Great issues, good or bad for human kind, Is happy as a Lover; and attired With sudden brightness, like a man inspired; And, through the heat of conflict, keeps ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa

... monuments found in 1711, in digging among the foundation of the ancient church of Paris—Indefatigable exertions of Lenoir, the conservator of this museum—The halls of this museum fitted up according to the precise character peculiar to each century, and the monuments arranged in them in historical and chronological order—Tombs of Clovis, Childebert, and Chilperic—Statues of Charlemagne, Lewis IX, and of Charles, his brother, together ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... of their several forms, constitutions, parts, and operations, which, aptly joined together, do make one word that doth express their natures. By these letters God calls the stars by their names; and by this alphabet Adam assigned to every creature a name peculiar to its nature. Now, there are, besides these characters in our faces, certain mystical figures in our hands, which I dare not call mere dashes, strokes a la volee or at random, because delineated by a pencil that never works in vain; and hereof I take more particular notice, ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne

... for future enjoyment. These visits to Cellini's studio, strange to say, had a remarkably soothing and calming effect upon my suffering nerves. The lofty and elegant room, furnished with that "admired disorder" and mixed luxuriousness peculiar to artists, with its heavily drooping velvet curtains, its glimpses of white marble busts and broken columns, its flash and fragrance of flowers that bloomed in a tiny conservatory opening out from the studio and leading to the garden, where ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli

... argue from this peculiar manner of greeting, which I have observed several times, that these beings converse by contact, as dogs, cats, mice, and other creatures certainly do. I don't say that they have no other means of converse; but I am sure I am exact in saying that ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett

... reminiscent of the nineteenth century German romanticism amongst which MacDowell was educated, has an atmosphere of its own that at once distinguishes it as an example of the highly sensitive and suggestive tone poetry peculiar to its composer. The work is very skilfully written and is remarkable for its freshness and buoyancy of spirit. The scoring is exquisite and always illustrative of the poetical subjects of the suite. Each of the pieces has in its title a suggestion ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte

... stiff and weak, and to become flexed. On palpation, it is usually possible to displace the contents of the sheath from one compartment to the other, and this may yield fluctuation, and, what is more characteristic, a peculiar soft crepitant sensation from the movement of the melon-seed bodies. In the sheath of the peronei or other tendons about the ankle, the swelling is sausage-shaped, and is ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles



Words linked to "Peculiar" :   rummy, peculiarity, singular, odd, rum, peculiar velocity, special, characteristic



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