"Oddity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... may be he likes you for being so. He is odd, you know; but his oddity never troubles me." And she resumed her sewing ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... eat nothin' much between meals. See you've been buyin' some of the old cap'n's pictures. He's a oddity, but there's gold on that island of his, ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... of voice that gives the impression of being meant like a bird's wooing for an audience near and beloved. Deronda began by looking at her, but felt himself presently covering his eyes with his hand, wanting to seclude the melody in darkness; then he refrained from what might seem oddity, and was ready to meet the look of mute appeal which she turned toward him at ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... reclines, and deny it who can, Though he 'merrily' liv'd, he is now a 'grave' man; Rare compound of oddity, frolic, and fun! Who relish'd a joke, and rejoic'd in a pun; 150 Whose temper was generous, open, sincere; A stranger to flatt'ry, a stranger to fear; Who scatter'd around wit and humour at will; Whose daily 'bons mots' half a column might fill; A Scotchman, from pride and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... boys together? Ah well! I ought not to have supposed that all worlds were like this old world. Indeed, I often say this is the queerest world I ever knew. Perhaps theirs is not so queer, and it is I who am the oddity. ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... easier to overcome than a prude; even experience does not undeceive them. How often are they exposed to a severity all the keener that it was unexpected? Their custom then, is to accuse women of caprice and oddity; all of you use the same language, and say: Why such equivocal conduct? When a woman has decided to remain intractable, why surprise the credulity of a lover? Why not possess an exterior conformable to her sentiments? In a word, why permit a man to love her, ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... the colour of this Irish society of which Bernard Shaw, with all his individual oddity, is yet an essential type? One generalisation, I think, may at least be made. Ireland has in it a quality which caused it (in the most ascetic age of Christianity) to be called the "Land of Saints"; and which still might give ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... act which could have moved a stranger to anything but a smile at the oddity of it, but it touched Paul almost to tears when the gray old man lugged out of his coat-tail pocket a whole newspaper, and having pinched from it a most economical fragment, singed his fingers at the bars in the act of lighting it. He had laughed ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... In like fashion, the average person grins or guffaws at sight of a stranger in an outlandish costume, although, as a matter of fact, the dress may be in every respect superior to his own. Simply, its oddity somehow tickles the risibilities. Such surprise is occasioned by contrasting circumstances. When a pompous gentleman, marching magnificently, suddenly steps on a banana peel, pirouettes, somersaults, and sits with extreme violence, we laugh before asking ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... days," said Mrs. Nougat- Jones, "for not having bought up his entire portfolio of sketches. At the same time, when there is so much real talent going about, one does not feel like planking down ten shillings for what looks like a bit of whimsical oddity. Now that picture that he showed us last week, 'Sand- grouse roosting on the Albert Memorial,' was very impressive, and of course I could see there was good workmanship in it and breadth of treatment; but it didn't in the least convey the ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... spoke to the waiter absent-mindedly in that tongue—did not make her less different, for she was like no English person that Althea had ever seen. She engaged at once the whole of her attention, but at first Althea could not have said whether this attention were admiring; her main impression was of oddity, of something curiously ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... same time a marvellous and absolutely genuine autobiography." His ultimate burst of appreciation is a beautifully characteristic example of what has before been called Saintsburyese—not because of any obscurity in it, but because of its oddity of phrase and metaphor: ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... was perfectly shaped, was yet marred by a cruel, sullen, and sensual expression. Something in both face and figure, something exquisitely intangible, like the echo of an echo, suggested the features and bearing of my guide; and I stood a while unpleasantly attracted and wondering at the oddity of the resemblance. The common, carnal stock of that race, which had been originally designed for such high dames as the one now looking on me from the canvas, had fallen to baser uses, wearing country clothes, sitting on the shaft ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... themselves with no other preconception than that which we have attempted to give him, would doubtless be startled at the strangeness of the style which prevails more or less throughout them. They are not careless, headstrong, passionate, confused; but they bear a constant look of oddity which seems at first mere wilful wantonness, and which we only afterwards find to be the discriminating stamp of original and strong feeling. This— this feeling, rooted in profound susceptibility and matured into a central vivifying power—is, we should say, ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... its welcome. But the young man's eyes stare and it would seem almost that he is dead. Then he talks. His voice has a lifeless sound, his words are like a child reciting sleepily. There is a gruesome oddity about him. But an old man explains. "They come back like that," he says. "There is one who came back who shrieks all night. And another who cannot ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... Temple, and he proceeds to instance a nobleman who was the greatest wit of the court of Charles I., and the greatest dullard in that of Charles II.* But Heavens! how awful are the revolutions of coxcombry! what a change from Beau Fielding the Beauty, to Beau Fielding the Oddity! ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... usually follow the wishes of the bride in the matter of dress. Should she desire any particular style of dress, entailing considerable expense, on account of novelty or oddity, she usually presents them the outfit, which it is permissible for them ...
— The Book of Good Manners • W. C. Green
... is such an oddity. Her wandering life, I presume, accounts for it; but she is altogether unlike any girl I ever know. I am certain," with a little malicious glance, "she will ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... it is odd for a philosophic bachelor to maintain in his establishment a young and detached female of prepossessing appearance. For the oddity I care not two pins. Io son' io. But the question that exercises me occasionally is: In what category are my relations with Carlotta to be classified? I do not regard her as a daughter; still less as a sister: not even as a deceased wife's sister. For ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... possession of a single fact to enable him to determine. Of one Miller, a manager, he has heard H. speak, but not with any interest. James Whiteley was the theme on which he most liked to dwell. Whiteley was perhaps the greatest oddity on the face of the earth; but of a heart sound, and benevolent beyond the generality of mankind. Violently passionate, and in his passions vulgar, rude, boisterous, and so abhorrent of hypocrisy, that he laboured ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... n, which may be mistaken for a u, or the change or omission of a punctuation mark, which may involve claims to thousands of dollars. Even the separation of one word into two may reverse the meaning of the sentence, yet not betray itself by any oddity of phrase, as when the atheist who had asserted that "God is nowhere" found himself in print standing sponsor for the statement that "God is now here." The same trick of the types was played on an American political writer in his own paper ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... without previously assuming that physical objects are composed of points, is an agreeable problem in mathematical logic. The solution of this problem and the perception of its importance are due to my friend Dr. Whitehead. The oddity of regarding a point as a class of physical entities wears off with familiarity, and ought in any case not to be felt by those who maintain, as practically every one does, that points are mathematical fictions. The word "fiction" is used glibly in such connexions ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... scolding this matron with a lurking smile in every tone, hugging that baby, boxing the ears of the other little tyrant, passing this one's rent, and threatening that other with awful vengeances, but it was a very lovely oddity. Their property was not large, and she knew every living thing on the place down to the dogs and pigs. And Miss Jemima, as the people always called her, transferring the MISS CROWTHER of primogeniture to the younger, who kept, like King ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... the promised oddity of this work occurs in the first page—in fact, several pages before it—in the assertion that 'this work is respectfully dedicated to the first young lady who can truthfully assert that she has read from title page to colophon WITHOUT ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the completely strange environment. He was the more conscious of a general strangeness because he was so completely an urban product. Yet he and Holden were vastly less aware of the real strangeness about them than men of previous generations would have been. They did not notice the oddity of croaking sounds, like frogs, coming from the tree-tops. When they had threaded their way among leaning charred poles and came to green stuff underfoot and merely toasted foliage all around, Cochrane heard a sweet, high-pitched trilling ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... Nichol and his manner was intolerable; and in addition, he was almost as much care as a child. Everything struck him as new and strange, and he was disposed to ask numberless questions. His vernacular, his alternations of amusement and irritation, and the oddity of his ignorance concerning things which should be simple or familiar to a grown man, attracted the attention of his fellow- passengers. It was with difficulty that Martine, by his stern, sad face and a cold, repelling manner, kept curiosity from ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... effectual effort to overcome his irritation. He ought to have known better than to turn to an oddity like ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... that the parish paid his fees, although, indeed, they were hardly worth paying—made very little difference to his position amongst his school-fellows. Nor did the fact of his being ragged and dirty affect his social reception to his discomfort. But the accumulated facts of the oddity of his personal appearance, his supposed imbecility, and the bad character borne by his mother, placed him in a very unenviable relation to the tyrannical and vulgar-minded amongst them. Concerning his person, he was long, and, as his name implied, lean, with pale-red hair, reddish eyes, no visible ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... is to you, sir," said Lorna, who could never quite check her sense of oddity; "but I fear that you have smoked ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... Oddity as he was, he did not stop to see as he wrote if the assemblage of letters made intelligible words. No; during the first stage his mind refused all verification of that sort. What he desired was to give himself the ecstasy of reading it all ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... like a whirlwind that had caught up the contents of an old-clothes-shop. It is no wonder that he should have produced in our minds an indescribable mixture of awe and delight—awe, because no one could tell what he might do next, and delight because of his oddity, agility, and music. The first sensation was always a slight fear, which gradually wore off as we became anew accustomed to the strangeness of the apparition. Before the visit was over, wee Davie would be playing with ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... obscure part in this statement, namely, the reference to the former affidavit and the matter of the bedstaff. The former affidavit is not in the bundle of papers. It is to be feared that it was taken out to be read because of its special oddity, and not put back. Of what nature the story was may be guessed later, but as yet no clue has been put into ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... whenever any droll idea passed through his mind. It was with a twitch of this kind, and a certain indescribable twinkle of his somewhat melancholy eye, as he seemed intuitively to form a hasty conception of the oddity of his appearance to a stranger unused to the bush, that he welcomed me to his clearing. He instantly threw down his handspike, and leaving his "niggers" to finish their work at their leisure, insisted on our going to his house ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... time in this situation, and to the mortifications experienced there we doubtless owe the picturings given in his writings of the hardships of an usher's life. "He is generally," says he, "the laughingstock of the school. Every trick is played upon him; the oddity of his manner, his dress, or his language, is a fund of eternal ridicule; the master himself now and then cannot avoid joining in the laugh; and the poor wretch, eternally resenting this ill-usage, lives in ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... side-glances while all eyes should be turned together to the same. Thought is growing agreement, and that in which the race cannot meet me is some whim or notion, a personal crotchet, not a cosmic and eternal truth. Genius is freedom from all oddity, is Catholicity,—and departure from it so much departure in me from Nature and myself. We say a man is original, if he lives at first, and not at second hand,—if he requires a new tombstone,—if he takes law, not from the many or the few, but from the sky,—if he is no subordinate, but ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... possible that he was normal for the first year or so. The records we did manage to get on that period, however, were very much confused, and there was never any way of telling anything at all, for certain. It's easy to see what caused the confusion, of course: telepathy in an imbecile is rather an oddity—and any normal adult would probably be rather hesitant about admitting that he was capable of it. That's why we have not found another subject; we must merely sit back and ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)
... especially peculiar to Mr. Lincoln, let me ask one question. Were Mr. Lincoln's expression and language odd and original, standing out peculiar from those of all other men? What does this imply? Oddity and originality of vision as well as expression; and what is expression in words and human language, but a telling of what we see, defining the idea arising from and created by vision and view in us? Words and language are but ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... restless hunt for novelty, always novelty, he grows too original, too unconventional, this sin is unusual enough to approach the estate of a virtue. But his oddity is not mere sensation-mongering. It is his individuality. He could make the same reply to such criticism that Schumann made; he thinks in strange rhythms and hunts curious effects, because his tastes are irrevocably ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... days following, so many selfdestructions succeeded this one that the grass became known in the papers as the Green Horror. Perhaps a peculiar sidelight on human oddity was revealed in most of these suicides choosing to immolate themselves, not in the main body of the grass, but in one of the many smaller nuclei ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... other two were in utter darkness; and, moreover, at the instant when the eye was passing from hand to hand, neither of the poor old ladies was able to see a wink. I have heard of a great many strange things, in my day, and have witnessed not a few; but none, it seems to me, that can compare with the oddity of these Three Gray Women, all peeping ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... an oddity— I deem it a most portable commodity, A sort of magic wand, Which, if 'tis used with ingenuity, Although a utensil of much tenuity, In place of something solid, ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... beard began very high up in his face, just under the cheek-bones. His complexion was neither sallow nor livid, but on the contrary rather clear and youthful; yet this gave a pink-and-white wax look which somehow (I don't know why) rather increased the horror. The only oddity one could fix was that his nose, which was otherwise of a good shape, was just slightly turned sideways at the tip; as if, when it was soft, it had been tapped on one side with a toy hammer. The thing was hardly a deformity; yet I cannot tell you what a living nightmare it was ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... by such a man as he was, in such a little house as he had. People always wanted her. Her frankness in running after him showed him her sense of her position, her popularity, her attraction. How could she think she was undignified? No doubt she thought him an oddity who must be treated unconventionally. He felt savage, but ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... hearts you would find in all a stone. In their normal state they have the prettiest exterior, stake their friendship at every turn, are captivating alike. The same badinage dominates their ever-changing jargon; they seek for oddity in their toilette, glory in repeating the stupidities of such and such actor who is in fashion, and commence operations, it matters not with whom, with contempt and impertinence, in order to have, ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... the characters; than the temper, the morality, and the conduct of the poem. The Arthurian poets, Malory himself, would have jumped out their skin with amazement, even with indignation, had they read it. And a great deal of this oddity, this unfitness of the matter to the manner, arose from the romantic story being expressed in poetry written in accordance with classic traditions. Of course, there were other sources for these inharmonies in the poem, but that was one, and not the ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... childhood in California; and she told him a great deal more about South Bradfield. She described its characters and customs, and, from no vantage-ground or stand-point but her native feeling of their oddity, and what seemed her sympathy with him, made him see them as one might whose life had not been passed among them. Then they began to compare their own traits, and amused themselves to find how many they had in common. Staniford related a singular experience of his on ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... oddity of inventing as a remedy for the inconveniences resulting from this situation a supernumerary conceptual object called an absolute, into which you pack the self-same contradictions unreduced, I will say something in the next lecture. The absolute is said to perform its feats ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... been remarkable a few years back, but now that ladies are reverting to the fashions of their grandmothers, it passed unnoticed. With a plain black dress, a black cloak trimmed profusely with beads, mittened hands and an ebony cane, she looked quite funereal. To complete the oddity of her dress a black satin bag dangled by ribbons from her left arm. In this she carried her handkerchief and—something else. As usual, she was perfumed with the Hikui scent. Caranby noticed this, and when she did not reply to his remark, ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... to Jack Penny, saying that he was an oddity, but not a bad fellow. I began to like him better myself, though he did nothing to try and win my liking, being very quiet and distant with us both, and watching us suspiciously, as if he thought we were always making plots to get rid of ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... Miss Rosetta, all her old maidishness and oddity falling away from her like a garment, and all her innate and denied motherhood shining out in her face like a transforming illumination. "Oh, the sweet, dear, ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... much probably as you have gained by killing Harran and Annixter. But that's all passed now. You're safe from me." The strangeness of this talk, the oddity of the situation burst upon him and he laughed aloud. "It don't seem as though you could be brought to book, S. Behrman, by anybody, or by any means, does it? They can't get at you through the courts,—the law can't get you, Dyke's pistol missed ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... been one of the very few persons who had always been able to appreciate the Prince Consort's jokes; and, when those were cracked no more, she could still roar with laughter, in the privacy of her household, over some small piece of fun—some oddity of an ambassador, or some ignorant Minister's faux pas. When the jest grew subtle she was less pleased; but, if it approached the confines of the indecorous, the danger was serious. To take a liberty called down at once Her Majesty's ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... corner of New Mexico was worked over by the roundup, and again the mustang bunch was seen. The dark colt was now a black yearling, with thin, clean legs and glossy flanks; and more than one of the boys saw with his own eyes this oddity—the mustang was a born pacer. Jo was along, and the idea now struck him that that colt was worth having. To an Easterner this thought may not seem startling or original, but in the West, where an unbroken horse is worth $5, and where an ordinary ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... that Mr. Rudolph Rayne was the sort of "oddity" I later found him to be, I should have refused to accept the situation even had he offered ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... battalions, carnage, executed according to rule, war regulated, watch in hand, nothing voluntarily left to chance, the ancient classic courage, absolute regularity; on the other, intuition, divination, military oddity, superhuman instinct, a flaming glance, an indescribable something which gazes like an eagle, and which strikes like the lightning, a prodigious art in disdainful impetuosity, all the mysteries of a profound soul, associated with destiny; the stream, the plain, the forest, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... But somehow this oddity did not change his feelings. Jill could be in danger from creatures Vale said were not human. Lockley didn't wholly accept that non-human angle, but something was happening there and Jill was in the middle of it. So he went to see about it for the sake of his self-respect. ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... the enemy's territory, and you were in peril all the time. Now you come off in a schooner, which appears to be loaded with cotton, and how or where you picked her up is a mystery to me;" and the commander indulged in a laugh at the oddity of the young officer's reappearance. "Your messenger reported that the Trafalgar would sail at three o'clock in the morning, and I judge that she left at ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... disguised as bears, others like unicorns, bringing presents. Those who could not procure masks rubbed their faces with soot, or painted them. In the Christmas mummings the chief aim was to surprise by the oddity of the masks, and singularity and splendour of the dresses. Everything was out of nature and propriety. They were often attended with an exhibition of gorgeous machinery.[69] It was an old custom also to have mummeries on Twelfth night. They were the common holiday amusements of young people ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... from actuality, though it would be wanting in any hint of tragedy. It is this intimacy which at once attracts and repels readers, attracts all those who are, in however small a degree, kindred spirits, and repels, perhaps, others. The quaintness, oddity, flippancy, are wrought together with deep thought, poetry, and feeling to a wonderful degree. The very diversity of theme and manner—this varying change from grave to gay, from lively to severe—is indeed but a reflection of life itself, ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... hand, had not been impressed by the clothes; or, at any rate, he had been more impressed by something which robbed them of their oddity. His observing eyes were fixed with growing interest on the purposeful face still thrust forward, and for a moment they were startled by something uncanny, something back of a normal human enthusiasm. It was only for a moment, ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... further oddity, that above the nape of his neck was a whitish tuft which, though he took great pains to conceal it, continually obtruded through the darker hair like the cottontail on the ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... about," as they say in Orham, and did some housework, after a fashion, but she never again set foot across the granite doorstep of the Winslow cottage. Probably the poor woman's mind was slightly affected; it is charitable to hope that it was. It seems the only reasonable excuse for the oddity of her behavior during the last twenty years of her life, for her growing querulousness and selfishness and for the exacting slavery in which she kept ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... this singular entry will appreciate its oddity if no one else does. After making it, one of the lawyers, on recovering from his astonishment, ventured to enquire: 'Well, Lincoln, how can we get this case ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... the Hecatompathia, though called sonnets, are in a curious form of eighteen lines practically composed of three six-line stanzas rhymed A B, A B, C C, and not connected by any continuance of rhyme from stanza to stanza. The special and peculiar oddity of the book is, that each sonnet has a prose preface as thus: "In this passion the author doth very busily imitate and augment a certain ode of Ronsard, which he writeth unto his mistress. He beginneth ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... prevailed in ancient Corsica, according to Strabo among the Iberians of Northern Spain (where we have seen it has lingered to recent times), according to Apollonius Rhodius among the Tibareni of Pontus. Modified traces of a like practice, not carried to the same extent of oddity, are also found in a variety of countries besides those that have been named, as in Borneo, in Kamtchatka, and in Greenland. In nearly all cases some particular diet, or abstinence from certain kinds of food and drink, and from exertion, is prescribed to the father; in some, more positive ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... was a Frenchwoman—we have some of her books in my study. She never got on with England and English people—and at last, after her husband's death, she never went outside the house and park. My father owed much of his shyness and oddity to her bringing up. When she felt herself dying she went over to her family to die at Nantes. She is buried there; and my father was sent to the Jesuit school at Nantes for a long time. Then my mother—But I mustn't bore ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... insolently lounging figure did nothing to sooth his irritation. This escape was not the way he wanted to deal with a threat. There was an oddity in the man's waiting. The range was poor, and he probably was not firing, although he would look as if he were not in any case, but if he were not going to take this chance for his murder attempt, why did he openly ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... Oddity of the Classical Romance. Its importance. The Troy story. The Alexandreid. Callisthenes. Latin versions. Their story. Its developments. Alberic of Besancon. The decasyllabic poem. The great Roman d'Alixandre. Form, &c. Continuations. King Alexander. Characteristics. ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... love with all the poets one after another; but being of an impressionable nature the last acquaintance disgusted me with the rest. I had made of myself a great warehouse of odds and ends, so that having no more thirst after drinking of the novel and the unknown, I became an oddity myself. ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... plain clothes, and in the white hats worn by the last generation of radicals. Originality of nature is sure to show itself in more ways than one. The mention of George Fox's suit of leather, or Pestalozzi's school name, "Harry Oddity," will at once suggest the remembrance that men who have in great things diverged from the beaten track, have frequently done so in small things likewise. Minor illustrations of this truth may be gathered in almost every circle. We ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... himself at the controls. He slipped headphones over his ears. He listened. Very, very carefully, he monitored all the wave lengths and wave forms he could discover in use on Weald. There was no mention of the oddity of behavior of shiploads of surplus grain aloft. There was no mention of the ships at all. There was plenty of mention of Dara, and blueskins, and of the vicious political fight now going on to see which political party could promise the most complete protection ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster
... pane had been cleared of its dinginess; not a cobweb had been swept from its ceiling; nothing had been removed, except the pair of living skeletons who once acted as his attendants. They had been removed by the Remover of all things; and were succeeded by a pair, so similar in meagreness and oddity of appearance, that I could not have known the change, except for its mention by their master, congratulating himself on being so "fortunate" in finding substitutes. I found Mordecai immersed in day-books and ledgers, and calculating the exchanges with as much anxiety as if he were not ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... was meant to be repulsive, and so far forth the young artist must be admitted to have wrought successfully. She is somewhat minutely described as a 'tall and plump widow of twenty-five; a proud coquette, her beauty spoiled by its oddity; dazzling and not pleasing, and with a wicked, cynical expression.' That such a woman should befool Fiesco and rejoice in her triumph is quite thinkable, but her qualities are those which usually go with a certain amount of discretion. That she should suddenly lose her head and throw herself ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... four merry children' is distinguished by its charming realization of the quaintness and oddity and merriness of children, by its romantic, almost sentimental, pathos, and by its crisp, fluent ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... of dahlias is a curious sign of the times. It rivals in oddity that of the Racing Calendar. Next to the peerage, Shakspeare and Homer seem to be the chief sources whence they have derived their appellations. Thus we have Hectors and Dioedes of all colours, a very black Othello, and a very fair ...
— The Lost Dahlia • Mary Russell Mitford
... is a man evidently pertaining to the class of human eccentrics who excite the interest of their fellow-men "to see what they will do next," but without any idea of the final value of that which may come by what seems to them to be mere unbalanced oddity. Such people are invariably misunderstood until they succeed. When he invented the automatic repeating telegraph he was discharged, and walked from Decatur to Nashville, 150 miles, with only a dollar or two as his entire possessions. With a pass thence ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele
... she said, "is oddity. For instance, I do not mix up affections with politics; let us talk politics,—business, if you will,—the rest can come later. However, it is not really oddity nor a whim that forbids me to mingle ill-assorted colors and put together things that have no affinity, and compels me to avoid discords; ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... textbooks could tell him about sex and copulation he still had the quaint notion that the reason why Judge Carter and his wife were childless was because they had not yet gotten around to Doing It. He made no attempt to correlate this oddity with its opposite in Jake Caslow's ladies of the night who seemed to go on their ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... Savenaye in her improvised bedroom, wet as she was, could hardly betake herself to disrobing, so amused was she in surveying the fresh and romantic oddity of her surroundings, with their mixture of barbarous ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... himself upon every Occasion, without any Deference to others, there is this Circumstance against him; that he is the most stung by a Defeat, upon any Topic, of all Men living; And although he disregards Accusations of Roughness and Oddity, and rather esteems them to be meritorious; yet he will never admit, that he has been fairly overthrown ...
— An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) • Corbyn Morris
... soon developed a philosophy of his own; and his reputation as a 'character' sprang from the first diffident, wayward expressions of this philosophy. Perceiving that the town not unadmiringly deemed him odd, he cultivated oddity. Perceiving also that it was sometimes astonished at the extent of his information about hidden affairs, he cultivated mystery, the knowledge of other people's business, and the trick of unexpected appearances. At forty his fame was assured; at ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... singing it over and over again in childish sort, with so little appreciation of the meaning of the words that the oddity of the ditty was the first thing to attract my attention ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... dare say, a very faithful one. But so minute is his narration, that he takes care to inform posterity that he was very irregular in his method of walking, and that he preferred sweet wine to hard. In short, he was a man of considerable parts, with a great simplicity and oddity of character." ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... eye. Homer has the idea that the gods curb the pride of prosperity and are jealous of it. His heroes are taught as a life policy to avert envy. Self-disparagement is an approved pose.[1822] Plutarch[1823] explains the efficiency of objects set up to avert witchcraft on the theory that by their oddity they draw the evil eye from persons and objects. Fescennine verses of the Romans, which were used at weddings and triumphs, were intended to ward off ill luck. Soldiers followed the chariot of the triumphing general and shouted to him derisive and sarcastic verses to avert ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... cap of Brussels lace, so much too large for her that it gave her face a ridiculously diminutive expression. When I had first seen her, she was attired, most becomingly, in deep mourning. There was an air of oddity, in short, about the dress of the whole party, which, at first, caused me to recur to my original idea of the "soothing system," and to fancy that Monsieur Maillard had been willing to deceive me until after dinner, that I might experience no uncomfortable feelings during the repast, at finding myself ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... An oddity of the Mississippi Delta is the habit the little streams have of running away from the big ones. The river makes its own bed and its own banks, and continuing season after season, through ages of alternate overflow and subsidence, to elevate those ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... (the Peer who writes letters, For which the waste-paper folks much are his debtors) Hath one little oddity well worth reciting, Which puzzleth observers even more than his writing. Whenever Lord Kenyon doth chance to behold A cold Apple-pie—mind, the pie must be cold— His Lordship looks solemn (few people know why), And he makes a low bow to the said apple-pie. This ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... word interpretation is only part of the oddity of this chapter. Several other aspects are worth pondering. The whole chapter has a well-worn feeling, as though the author had told and re-told it many times. It reads like a deposition, taken down by ...
— The Four-Faced Visitors of Ezekiel • Arthur W. Orton
... the most elaborate care could possibly have made it so bad as it is. It is distinguished by harsh phrases, strange collocations, occasional solecisms, frequent obscurity, and, above all, by a peculiar oddity, which can no more be described than it can be overlooked. Nor is this all. Mr Mitford piques himself on spelling better than any of his neighbours; and this not only in ancient names, which he mangles in defiance both of custom and of reason, but in the most ordinary words of the English language. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... said, "but it isn't true. Anyhow: I want every one of those cars checked for any oddity, no matter how small. If there's an inch-long scratch on one fender, I want to know about it. If you've got to take the cars apart, ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett
... a mind of vigorous appetite, but since I have grown mentally to man's estate and developed a more and more comprehensive view of our national process and our national needs, I am more and more struck by the oddity of the educational methods pursued, their aimless disconnectedness from the constructive forces in the community. I suppose if we are to view the public school as anything more than an institution that has just chanced to happen, we must treat it as having ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... head through the opening, and suffered it to fall to her feet. Something seemed forgotten, and after some little search, she found a small cotton bag, into which she dropped a polonce, then secured it beneath the blanket. Queerly enough she looked, thus accoutered; but apparently the oddity of her appearance never once crossed her mind, for, stepping across the floor, she held the pieces of paper over the lamp till ignited, then quickly thrust them one by one between the small crack or chink in the center of the door. It was of wood, old and dry, and caught like tinder. She ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... that now, with this stern business gravity injected into it. The bankers discussed the monument with me. We met several times. They proposed an indestructible memorial, to cost twenty-five thousand dollars. The insane oddity of a monument set up in a village to preserve a name that would outlast the hills and the rocks without any such help, would advertise Elmira to the ends of the earth —and draw custom. It would be the only monument on ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... considered one, and his eagerness to become familiar with the flora of his vicinity so far overcame offended formality, that he also got down on his knees and directed his imperfect vision to the pungent specimen. The two men, each an oddity, presented a ludicrous picture as they knelt on the grass, their heads almost in contact, and their long noses only a few inches above the ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... Honora from Mrs. Seward’s own daughters by the light of anything in Mrs. Seward’s treatment or conduct. Honora was very beautiful and accomplished, and had attracted many admirers, as well as lovers. Anna Seward relates a whimsical story of an “oddity,” an “awkward pedantic youth, once resident for a little time at Lichfield, who, when asked how he liked Honora, replied, ‘I could not have conceived that she had half the face she has,’ adding that Honora was finely rallied about this imputed plenitude of face. ...
— Anna Seward - and Classic Lichfield • Stapleton Martin
... sedulous life, month after month, year after year, known among the studios as a quaint oddity, drawn out indulgently by the men, somewhat petted, monkey-fashion, by the women, forgotten by both when out of their presence, but developing imperceptibly day by day along the self-centring line. A kindly adviser suggested a gymnasium to keep ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... did manage to get on that period, however, were very much confused, and there was never any way of telling anything at all, for certain. It's easy to see what caused the confusion, of course: telepathy in an imbecile is rather an oddity— and any normal adult would probably be rather hesitant about admitting that he was capable of it. That's why we have not found another subject; we must merely sit back and wait for ...
— Brain Twister • Gordon Randall Garrett
... the man in the chimney-corner instinctively sought the shade, and he gazed into the fire as he resumed his pipe. The man at the table took up the hedge-carpenter's remark, and added smartly, "True; but the oddity of my trade is that, instead of setting a mark upon me, it sets a mark upon ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... severe criticism and declared that his daughter should accept any invitation from Mrs. Cooke that she chose, and paid but little attention to the coolness resulting therefrom. He was fast getting a reputation for oddity. And the Celebrity tried to conciliate both parties, and succeeded, though none but he could have done it. At first he was eyed with suspicion and disgust as he drove off to Mohair in his Hempstead cart, and was called many hard names. But he had a way about him which ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... living in this fellow's house (by fellow, I mean Mr Pecksniff, of course), there is a certain person of the name of Pinch. Don't forget; a poor, strange, simple oddity, Mary; but thoroughly honest and sincere; full of zeal; and with a cordial regard for me. Which I mean to return one of these days, by setting him up in life in some ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... telling the story of the triumph of his shrewdness over the dealer's ignorance, would have made a subject for a Dutch painter; but it was all thrown away upon the audience. Mother and daughter exchanged cold, contemptuous glances.—"What an oddity!" ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... eccentric actions for a few days past, and his well-known oddity of character make him an object of suspicion," declared the president in judicial tones. "As for Tom, we have, I regret to say, even ...
— Tom Swift and his Airship • Victor Appleton
... destiny, they only glance from time to time to glean a hint for their own mimetic reproduction. Two children playing at soldiers are far more interesting to each other than one of the scarlet beings whom both are busy imitating. This is perhaps the greatest oddity of all. "Art for art" is their motto; and the doings of grown folk are only interesting as the raw material for play. Not Theophile Gautier, not Flaubert, can look more callously upon life, or rate the reproduction more highly over the reality; and they will parody an execution, a deathbed, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... risen to his feet, and Mrs. Light began to exclaim on the oddity of their meeting and to explain that the day was so lovely that she had been charmed with the idea of spending it in the country. And who would ever have thought of finding Mr. Mallet and Mr. Hudson sleeping under ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... in the midst of good company, precisely because she wished to appear thoroughly at home. If I prattled away with some of my trilling nonsense, she would stare at me, and in her anxiety not to be thought stupid, she would laugh out of season. Her oddity, her awkwardness, and her self-conceit gave me the desire to know her better, and I began ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... royal family at Yaoorie by way of leave-taking, is only equalled by the following oddity:—"The captain of the palm oil brig, Elizabeth, now in the Calabar river, actually white-washed his crew from head to foot, while they were sick with fever and unable to protect themselves; his cook suffered so much in the operation, that the lime ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 542, Saturday, April 14, 1832 • Various
... Notwithstanding the oddity of his dress, no one who had any knowledge of humanity could have failed to see in Cosmo Warlock, the elder, a high bred gentleman. His face was small, and the skin of it was puckered into wrinkles innumerable; his mouth was sweet, but he had lost his teeth, and the lips had fallen in; his ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... this last declaration with the sympathy it deserved, might have commended the noble aspirations of his kinswoman. But what struck him, rather, was the oddity of so sudden a sharpness of pitch in an intercourse which, an hour or two before, had begun in perfect amity, and he burst once more into an irrepressible laugh. This made his companion feel, with intensity, how little she was joking. "I don't know why I should care what you think," ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... "It's the oddity that takes you;"—she had lost what went before—"that will soon wear off. But I'm glad enough you're not as wise as I, to prefer the other. What makes you so sure, though, that he has secured your—?" In some movement she ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... Jenny Hitchcock's pony, which, with old John and Sharp, mounted three of the company; they took turns in walking. Nobody minded that. The fine weather, the beautiful mountain-top, the general pleasure, Mr. Humphreys' uncommon spirits and talkableness, the oddity of their way of travelling, and of a tea-party up on the "Cat's Back," and, furthermore, the fact that Nancy stayed at home and behaved very well the whole time, all together filled Ellen's cup of happiness, for the time, as full as it could hold. She never forgot that afternoon. ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... of Manderson's having arisen long before his usual hour to go out and meet his death, there were two minor points of oddity about this affair which, I suppose, must have occurred to thousands of those who have read the accounts in the newspapers; points apparent from the very beginning. The first of these was that, whereas the body was found at a spot not thirty yards ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... breakfast-room—delicately-fragrant tea, an unpurchasable luxury, one of the many angel-gifts that had fallen like dew upon us—and passed forth between the tall stone gate-posts, as uncertain as the wandering Arabs where our tent might next be pitched. Providence took me by the hand, and—an oddity of dispensation which, I trust, there is no irreverence in smiling at—has led me, as the newspapers announce while I am writing, from the old Manse into a Custom House! As a story-teller, I have often contrived ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... crucial test. We both wrote for a minute or two. Somehow, in Hilda's presence, I forgot at once the strangeness of the scene, the weird oddity of the moment. That sombre plain disappeared for me. I was only aware that I was with Hilda once more—and therefore in Paradise. Pison and Gihon watered the desolate land. Whatever she did seemed to me supremely ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... service in the diabetes, diarrhoea, and night sweats, when the secretions are too much increased, must not they do harm in the same proportion, where the humours are obstructed, as in the asthma, scurvy, gout and dropsy? — Now we talk of the dropsy, here is a strange fantastical oddity, one of your brethren, who harangues every day in the Pump-room, as if he was hired to give lectures on all subjects whatsoever — I know not what to make of him — Sometimes he makes shrewd remarks; at other times he talks like ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... her consent to the match, by telling her father that he has got it; disappoints her by not returning at the time he has promised to wed her, and when he returns, creates no small consternation by the oddity of his dress and equipage. This however is nothing to the astonishment excited by his madbrained behaviour at the marriage. Here is the account ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... odd-looking and odd-mannered little man, rather intellectual in appearance, who listened attentively to what others said, but who, so far as I noticed, never said a word himself. Up to the time of which I am speaking, I did not even know his name, as there was nothing but his oddity to ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... Intelligence Office" and "A Virtuoso's Collection," also remnants of old-fashioned ingenuity. In such fantasy Hawthorne found a better channel for that play of his mind which had earlier sought expression in the grotesque; oddity of thought he had in plenty, and the sense of oddity was often as far as his humorous faculty reached, for it was perceptive rather ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... nor there. The oddity of our adventure was in discovering such an establishment in such a place. Since that time we have often had similar surprises, especially in New England, where curious industries have established themselves in the most out-of-the-way nooks. In a hamlet of three or four houses and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... several books which had aroused attention through the oddity of their themes, and their gratifying success had made it possible for him to establish himself in a comfortably furnished bachelor apartment on the corner of the rue de Vaugirard and ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... room and put him to bed. Then she undressed, put on a nightgown she found in the washstand drawer, and scrambled sleepily in between very nice lavender-scented sheets. She was so tired, after her adventures and exertions, that not even the oddity of her situation could keep her awake; she was sound asleep in ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... dispute, The Love, being naked, should promote a suit: But doth not oddity to him attach Whose fire's so oft ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... late before my kind hosts had finished their narrations, and I was not sorry, after all the exercise I had taken, to return to my cell, where everything invited to repose. I was charmed with the neatness and oddity of my little apartment; its cabin-like bed, oratory, and ebony crucifix; in short, everything it contained; not forgetting the aromatic odour of the pine, with which it was roofed, floored, and wainscoted. The night was luckily dark. Had the moon appeared, I could not have prevailed upon ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... rather a melancholy mood to the end. The long straight vista from the Foscari to the Rialto, the great middle stretch of the Canal, contains, as the phrase is, a hundred objects of interest, but it contains most the bright oddity of its general Deluge air. In all these centuries it has never got over its resemblance to a flooded city; for some reason or other it is the only part of Venice in which the houses look as if the waters ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... monuments are those of Caterina Cornaro (or Corner) the deposed queen of Cyprus, in the south transept; of three Cardinals of the Corner family; and of the Doges Lorenzo and Girolamo Priuli, each with his patron saint above him. The oddity of its architecture, together with its situation at a point where a little silence is peculiarly grateful, makes this church a favourite of mine, but there are many buildings in Venice which ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... would it have done had I been dressed in feathers and a bell hoop—such is its circumference. Mr. Smelt led the way, walking also upright ; and my father followed. After we were gone, the bishop and Dr. Douglas were tempted, for its oddity, to make ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... rich man and an oddity; one of those who love to surprise folk. Moreover, he had no children, and detected his nephews and nieces being unnaturally civil to him. "Waiting to cut me up," was his generous reading of them. So with this he made a will, and there defied, as far as in ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... was irregular, and had not passed through the proper treasury forms. It was ascertained, however, that the money so lent had been repaid. In discussions of the affair, before those concerned were fully cleared of the odium of bribery, taunting remarks had been made on the oddity and sordid specialties of the items of payment. Thus the allowance to the Lord Banff was, in sterling money, eleven pounds two shillings. It would have had a richer sound, and perhaps resolved itself into round numbers, in Scots money; but as it is, there ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... words which they contain do not stamp them out as medieval. Both of these qualities are rococo and superficial rather than essential and distinctive in their style. After making due allowances for either element of oddity, a true connoisseur will gratefully appreciate the spontaneous note of enjoyment, the disengagement from ties and duties imposed by temporal respectability, the frank animalism, which connects these vivid hymns to Bacchus and Venus ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... titter all over the room. The name was very odd, and an oddity is always to be laughed at by the average person, boy or man. Did you ever think of that, my dear pedagogue; you who would fain amuse children, and yet will spit them upon the spear of public ridicule by asking them to tell their names out loud ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... vellum, all printed before 1496. The chapter-house at Padua has a "Catullus" of 1472 on vellum; let Mr. Robinson Ellis think wistfully of that treasure. The notable Count M'Carthy of Toulouse had a wonderful library of books in membranis, including a book much coveted for its rarity, oddity, and the beauty of its illustrations, the "Hypnerotomachia" of Poliphilus (Venice, 1499). Vellum was the favourite "vanity" of Junot, Napoleon's general. For reasons connected with its manufacture, and best not inquired ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... fact, more wonderful, for every day increases the marvel of its not being washed away by the sea. Its cities have grown, and some of its peculiarities have been washed away by contact with other nations; but it is Holland still, and always will be—full of oddity, courage and industry—the pluckiest little country on earth. I shall not tell you in this letter of its customs, its cities, its palaces, churches, picture galleries and museums—for these are described in the story—except to say that they ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... accompanied by this respectable official, we should scarcely have dared to venture in such a place, and at such a period. Mohammed and the donkey-man attended at the side of Miss E. and myself, and though some of the people could not help laughing at the oddity of our appearance, we met with no sort of insult or hinderance, but made our way through without the slightest difficulty, much more easily, in fact, than two Arabs in their native costume, even if attended by a policeman, would have traversed a ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... said Lord Colambre. Miss White, Lady Killpatrick's companion, said 'he was a great oddity;' Lady Dashfort, 'that he was singular;' and the clergyman of the parish, who was at breakfast, declared 'that he was a man of ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... her part of the task." Sophia is a lovely creature, just what she should be. We are not quite sure of Mr Burchell: possibly he may look too young; he was a character, and must have borne about him some little acquired oddity, sturdy, and not undignified. In the illustration he is too prettily genteel; but we do not wish to see any but Sophia—delightful, loving, lovable Sophia. In the background, Moses lies on the ground with his book, and the vicar has rather too suspicious a look; but we can forgive ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... along, enjoying the balmy freshness of the air, the picturesque scenery of the neighbouring mountains, the beauty or fragrance of some vegetable productions, and the oddity of others, until, having passed through a thick wood, we came to an extensive plain, which was covered with rose-bushes. The queen of flowers here appeared under every variety of colour, size, and species—red, white, black, and yellow—budding, full-blown, ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... Jenkins," said Lucy vivaciously; "he owns three or four acres near the public-house and will not allow them to be built over, although he has been offered a lot of money. I noticed myself, Archie, the oddity of finding a cornfield surrounded by cottages. It's like Alice ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume |
