"Lusus naturae" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had been merry as other children are, "when her little lovers came." She had advanced to her present nearly mature age without perhaps feeling the want of them. But, nevertheless, even in her bosom was living the usual feminine passion for admiration. She was no "lusus naturae," but a woman with a heart, and blood in her veins; and not as yet a very old woman either. And therefore, though she had no idea that Sir Lionel was her lover, she had learned to be fond ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... Barnum, 'that you could prepare a great Patriotic National Lusus Naturae, recently found perching on Independence Hall, Philadelphia—or hold—that's better—Mount Vernon? Could you color an eagle, with red stars on his breast, and blue and white stripes running down ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... of a human face to be formed on the side of a mountain, or in the fracture of a small stone, by a lusus naturae. The face is an object of curiosity for years or centuries, and by and by a boy is born, whose features gradually assume the aspect of that portrait. At some critical juncture, the resemblance is found to be perfect. A prophecy may ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... arrest the attention of those who have learned the great fact that Nature often throws the strongest light upon her laws by the apparent exceptions and anomalies which from time to time are observed. We have done with the lusus naturae of earlier generations. We pay little attention to the stories of 'miracles,' except so far as we receive them ready-made at the hands of the churches which still hold to them. Not the less do we meet with strange and surprising facts, which a century or ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... face—that face so facile in the display of feeling or emotion. The voice also had a lilt of health and vitality which rang on the ears of age pleasantly. As he listened he thought of his eldest son, partly imbecile, all but a lusus naturae, separated from his wife immediately after marriage, through whom there could never be succession—he thought of him, and for the millionth time in his life winced in impotent disdain. He thought too of his beloved second son, lying in a ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker |
