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Extraordinary   Listen
adjective
Extraordinary  adj.  
1.
Beyond or out of the common order or method; not usual, customary, regular, or ordinary; as, extraordinary evils; extraordinary remedies. "Which dispose To something extraordinary my thoughts."
2.
Exceeding the common degree, measure. or condition; hence, remarkable; uncommon; rare; wonderful; as, extraordinary talents or grandeur.
3.
Employed or sent upon an unusual or special service; as, an ambassador extraordinary.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Extraordinary" Quotes from Famous Books



... Government-industry cooperation, a strong work ethic, mastery of high technology, and a comparatively small defense allocation (roughly 1% of GDP) have helped Japan advance with extraordinary rapidity to the rank of second most powerful economy in the world. One notable characteristic of the economy is the working together of manufacturers, suppliers, and distributors in closely knit groups called keiretsu. ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... continued their depredations, and became at length so annoying that extraordinary measures were taken for their suppression. Pompey, then the most powerful man in Rome, was given absolute control over the Mediterranean. This was not done without opposition, for it was feared that he aspired to kingly rule. "You aspire to be Romulus; beware of ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... to Fowler in this city, he disguised himself as an omnibus driver. The phrenologist was so struck with the supposed fact that an omnibus driver should have such an extraordinary head, that he preserved an account of it, and did not know until some time after that it was Weld's. He says that when he first had his head examined at Utica, he was told he was deficient in the organ of ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney

... eyes in speaking, she raised hers. It was extraordinary to see what dread she had of him, and with what dread he observed it—and yet how narrowly ...
— The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin • Charles Dickens

... brought a further trial upon the Saints. The Third California Infantry and a part of the Second Cavalry were now ordered to Utah. The commander of this force was one Connor, an officer of whom extraordinary reports were brought south. It was said that he had issued an order directing commanders of posts, camps, and detachments to arrest and imprison "until they took the oath of allegiance, all persons who from this date shall be guilty of uttering treasonable sentiments against the government ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson

... became involved with the nobleman's wife. The husband caused him to be seized and cruelly scourged, and then to be bound upon the back of a wild, ungovernable horse. When all was ready the horse was turned loose upon the Ukrain, and, terrified with the extraordinary burden which he felt upon his back, and uncontrolled by bit or rein, he rushed madly on through the wildest recesses of the forest, until at length he fell down exhausted with terror and fatigue. Some Cossack peasants found and rescued ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott

... of the man who crouched in his curious attitude, with his eyes still piercing the heavens, were mobile and extraordinary things. No disturbing sounds had reached him from outside. His isolation seemed complete and impregnable. Yet, without turning his head, he was perfectly conscious of the slow opening of the door. His whole frame stiffened. He was conscious for one bitter second of a lapse ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... officers; that death deprived him of the opportunity he had long contemplated of preparing his literary work for the press; and that he wrote with so rapidly flowing a pen that his manuscript was never defaced by alteration or erasure. Shakespeare's extraordinary rapidity of composition was an especially frequent topic of contemporary debate. Ben Jonson, the most intimate personal friend of Shakespeare outside the circle of working actors, wrote how "the players" would "often mention" to him the ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee

... of our client's appeared to have an extraordinary effect upon Sherlock Holmes. He rose from his chair and paced about ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... prejudice, which often operates as a palsy upon the first idea of a great and generous undertaking. The prejudice I mean is a hasty persuasion, frequently found in the most amiable minds, that some peculiar strength of nerve, some rare mechanism of frame, and extraordinary assemblage of mental powers, are absolutely requisite for the execution of any noble design. How greatly does it redound to the true glory of Howard to have given in his successful labours the fullest refutation of a prejudice, ...
— The Eulogies of Howard • William Hayley

... inconceivable, until it has been made a subject of special inquiry, how perpetually Nature employs this principle in the distribution of her light and shade; how by the most extraordinary adaptations, apparently accidental, but always in exactly the right place, she contrives to bring darkness into light, and light into darkness; and that so sharply and decisively, that at the very instant when one object ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin

... 12 degrees east of south from Mount Ferdinand, a conspicuous point overlooking the glen. We did not require to use this well, but there was plenty of water in it. Arriving at the first hills of the Everard, I found they were all very peculiar, bare, red, granite mounds, being the most extraordinary ranges one could possibly imagine, if indeed any one could imagine such a scene. They have thousands of acres of bare rock, piled up into mountainous shapes and lay in isolated masses, forming something like a broken circle, all round a central and higher mass. They ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles

... had developed into a long, lank, loutish youth, with a face of extraordinary pallor, a sullen mouth, hot black eyes, and dark hair like a mane, so seldom was it trimmed. He looked considerably older than he was and the slightness of his body was deceptive, disguising a power of ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance

... envoy extraordinary, gave them a written and sealed pledge to restrain my people from all acts ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai

... writes Dr Thirlwall, "if we consider the expedient in the light of a stratagem, on which the confederates relied for overcoming the resistance which they might otherwise have expected from their adversaries. But it seems quite as possible that the pageant was only designed to add extraordinary solemnity to the entrance of Pisistratus, and to suggest the reflection that it was by the special favour of Heaven he had been so unexpectedly restored."—(Vol. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various

... courage, I know, my friend," he said. "That is one reason why I choose you for my companion to-night. I have two tickets for a German socialist gathering here. The tickets were obtained with extraordinary difficulty. I know that your German is pure and I can trust to my own. From this minute, not a word in any ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... that men have been upside down in the air; but they were turned over by sudden gusts of wind, and in most cases were killed. Pegoud is all the time rehearsing accidents and showing how easy it is for a pilot to recover equilibrium providing he remains perfectly calm and clear-headed. Any one of his extraordinary positions might be brought about by adverse elements. It is quite conceivable that a sudden gust of wind might turn the machine completely over. Hitherto any pilot in such circumstances would give himself up for lost. Pegoud has taught us what to do in ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton

... failure to answer her urgent appeal, his contemptuous disregard of the strongest letter she had ever written, annoyed her exceedingly. It argued a callous indifference to her own wishes and a spirit of extraordinary unkindness. She had been a generous aunt to him all his life; he had very much for which to thank her; and yet before this pressing petition he could remain dumb. That his mind was disordered she doubted not; but nothing excused ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts

... us are drawn from our books of moral theology. St. Alfonso Liguori, for instance, lays down that an equivocation is allowable in an extraordinary case. I avow at once that in this department of morality, I like the English rule of conduct better. Yet, great English authors, Jeremy Taylor, Milton, Paley, Johnson, distinctly say that under extraordinary circumstances it is allowable to tell a lie. Would anyone give ever so little ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various

... so thankful, Mr. von Rosen," said she, "that my niece has the honour of being counted among the friends of such a remarkable woman. May I inquire if Mrs. Edes has ever seen your really extraordinary collection, Mr. von Rosen." ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... that will not stale, as mere ideas may. "Is there a single soul in this audience," said the Brahmo leader, the late Keshub Chunder Sen,[96] to the educated Indians of Calcutta, mostly Hindus, "who would scruple to ascribe extraordinary greatness and supernatural moral heroism to Jesus ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison

... had an extraordinary adventure yesterday. I am not at liberty to do more than say that it put me in possession of these plans." He spread on the table well-drawn sketches of ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell

... curiosity developed to a most amazing degree is well known. It is this peculiarity which has proved fatal to the animals in numberless instances. The curiosity of the cervus species, while much less, sometimes manifests itself in an extraordinary fashion. Fred Greenwood managed his approach with so much skill that he was not noticed; but his comrade, further away, was seen by the vigilant animal, when Jack, becoming impatient over the delay, began the attempt to follow him. The sight of the young hunter ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis

... in its more expensive forms has been before the public for nearly two years. It has been very widely read, and it has received extraordinary attention from many sections of the press. The author has received from all parts of the world most striking testimonies as to the way in which this record of James Gilmour's heroic self-sacrifice for the Lord Jesus and on behalf of his ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour

... correction. It was a poor attempt to salve over a wound wantonly and most ungenerously inflicted. Still I was damped, because I knew the work was very respectable; and therefore could not, I concluded, give a criticism grossly deficient in equity, the more especially, as I knew of no sort of inducement to extraordinary severity. Your letter, however, has revived me, and I do again venture to hope that I may still produce something which will survive me. With regard to your advice and offers of assistance, I will not attempt, because I am unable, to thank ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White

... she said: "When Cromwell came to lodge at our house I was then but a young girl, and having heard so much talk about the man, I looked at him with wonder. Being ordered to take a pan of coals and 'aire' his bed, I could not forbear peeping over my shoulders to see this extraordinary man, who was seated at the far side of the room untying his garters. Having aired the bed I went out, and shutting the door after me, I peeped through the keyhole, when I saw him rise from his seat, advance to the bed, and fall on his knees, ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... Conrad," cried Gellert, laughing. "In the sense in which you understand it, I am more now than if I had accepted this other position, for I am now called an extraordinary professor." ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach

... as he was at making the most of everything, both his own and other people's (although so free in scattering, when the humour lay upon him) he had actually turned to his own advantage that extraordinary weather which had so impoverished every one around him. For he taught his Winnie (who knew his meaning as well as any child could, and obeyed not only his word of mouth, but every glance he gave her) to go forth in the snowy evenings when horses are seeking everywhere (be ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... thirteen, his uncle—for the poor fellow was an orphan— asked him one day what he would like to be. This was an extraordinary condescension on the part of Mr Allfrey, senior, who was a grim, hard-featured man, with little or no soul to speak of, and with an enormously large ill-favoured body. The boy, although taken by surprise—for his uncle seldom addressed him on any subject,—answered ...
— Digging for Gold - Adventures in California • R.M. Ballantyne

... extraordinary criticism the young man looked graver than he had yet been able to do since the beginning of their acquaintance. He said, presently, "I wish you would explain what you ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... Mr. Wasson says is true; yet literary style is more than he makes it—the mere dressing up of a material which may be inferior; it is itself in the material and has an extraordinary value. No great writer is to be disposed of as Mr. Wasson disposes of Addison and Swift; he says, nothing is to be learned from Swift; why, a sense for the blatant nonsense and claptrap which constitutes three-fourths of our public writing and speaking, and ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns

... never awkward," says Major Mitchell, who was well qualified to speak from experience; "on the contrary, in manners, and general intelligence, they appear superior to any class of white rustics that I have seen. Their powers of mimicry seem extraordinary, and their shrewdness shines even through the medium of imperfect language, and renders them, in general, very agreeable companions." We may, therefore, if our inquiry be accompanied by humility and justice, be able to form a fair and impartial opinion ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden

... His plays were bringing in so much that he could spend money like water; he had won every sort of popularity; the gross applause of the many, and the finer incense of the few who constitute the jury of Fame; his personal popularity too was extraordinary; thousands admired him, many liked him; he seemed to have everything that heart could desire and perfect health to boot. Even his home life was without a cloud. Two stories which he told at this time paint him. One was about his two boys, Vyvyan ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris

... as having been just imported from Paris, convinces us that there exists everywhere, even in the great French capital itself, the greatest possible diversity of taste; and, if we may judge from the extraordinary specimens which are introduced to our notice, we should infer that the Parisian taste is ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge

... Gordon. He dropped his pipe and fell back against the end of the house with his jaw fallen, his eyes staring, and his long face as white as paper. We must have looked at one another silently for a quarter of a minute, before he made answer in this extraordinary fashion: 'Had he a ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson

... mighty a revolution. Is indeed Leviathan so tamed? In that case the quarantine of the opium-eater might be finished within Coleridge's time and with Coleridge's romantic ease. But mark the contradictions of this extraordinary man. He speaks of opium excess, his own excess, we mean—the excess of twenty-five years—as a thing to be laid aside easily and forever within seven days; and yet, on the other hand, he describes it pathetically, sometimes with a frantic pathos, as the scourge, the ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day

... endeavoring to piece together the few facts she had been able to extract from the rubbish of conjecture. Courtlandt and Nora had met somewhere before the beginning of her own intimacy with the singer. They certainly must have formed an extraordinary friendship, for Nora's subsequent vindictiveness could not possibly have arisen out of the ruins of an indifferent acquaintance. Nora could not be moved from the belief that Courtlandt had abducted her; but Celeste was now positive that he had had nothing to do with it. He did ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath

... 17th of July, 1812, a very calm day, the frigate met a fleet of British vessels, and the enemy thought they had an easy prize, but by a combination of towing and kedging by means of the Constitution's boats and anchors, an extraordinary escape was made which, as Captain Hull stated at the time, was conceived by Lieutenant Morris. Its successful execution commanded the admiration of his countrymen and won the applause even of the ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker

... efforts of the entire being are bent on trying to perfect itself, and extraordinary Graces may be freely and almost continually given to us in order to make improvement more rapid for us. The feeling for God which before ecstasy was a deep (and often very painful) longing for God now increases to a burning, never-ceasing desire for Him: only three ...
— The Prodigal Returns • Lilian Staveley

... large amount of money was obtained for the 'free-State men,' at times of the greatest need. He was the more engaged to this cause by making in 1857 the acquaintance of Captain John Brown, who was not only an extraordinary man, but one who had a rare magnetism for men of character, and attached some of the best and noblest to him, on very short acquaintance, by lasting ties. Mr. Stearns made himself at once necessary ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns

... have done all I could in that way already; but I never met with people so bent on a thing as most of the passengers. The Effinghams are very decided, though so purse-proud and grand; Sir George Templemore declares it is quite extraordinary, and even the French lady is furious. To be as sincere as the crisis demands, public opinion is setting so strong against you, ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... from its injustice and its absurdity; and the party, with whom it was made, must have known it to be so. It could not then but be expected by many that the government would reject it. Moreover, extraordinary outrages against reason and virtue demand that extraordinary sacrifices of atonement should be made upon their altars; and some were encouraged to think that a government might upon this impulse rise above itself, ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... dispensed from one year of his theology, taking but two years of the three which formed the full course. The difference of studies separated the two companions almost wholly from each other, members of the two departments not being allowed even to speak together except on extraordinary occasions. ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott

... with this extraordinary view of mankind, and the Baroness smiled at her faithful husband. She rarely understood what he was doing, and hardly ever guessed what he meant to do, but she was absolutely certain of his conjugal fidelity, and he gave her everything ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... include in their retinue countesses of ardent complexion with whom they are supposed to live in sin. Sentimental controversies on the subject are endless; but they are useless, because nobody tells the truth. Rousseau did it by an extraordinary effort, aided by a superhuman faculty for human natural history, but the result was curiously disconcerting because, though the facts were so conventionally shocking that people felt that they ought to matter a great deal, they actually mattered very little. And even at that everybody pretends ...
— Overruled • George Bernard Shaw

... the same time I prepared to sustain the struggle which I knew must there and then be waged and decided if I was ever to face the world again with the strength and calmness which my nature demanded, and the extraordinary circumstances ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green

... lips, Flint, since the year of the big coal strike, when you prayed God the gun-men might 'get' the strikers before they could organize. Come, come, man, brace up! Your book will turn up all right; and even if it doesn't there's no cause for alarm. It would take a man of extraordinary acumen to read your hieroglyphics! Cheer up, Flint. There's ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England

... extraordinary instances of routine folly which I ever read or heard of, and which, among so practical and unroutiney a people as the Americans, appears all but incredible, is the following:—Congress having resisted the Harbour Improvement Bill, but acknowledged its duties as to certain lights and beacons, "Ordered, ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... speaker's careless tone added to General Betancourt's astonishment. "Bless me!" he exclaimed. "What an extraordinary young man! Is it possible that you do not comprehend the terrible conditions?" A sudden thought struck him and he inquired, quickly: "Tell me, you are not by any chance that hero they call El Demonio? I have heard that he is indeed a demon. No? Very well! You say you wish to ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach

... years of age, he made a voyage to Europe under rather extraordinary circumstances. He went alone; that is to say, he had no one to take care of him. In fact, in addition to being obliged to take care of himself, he had also his little sister Jane to take care of; for she went with him.[A] The way it ...
— Rollo on the Atlantic • Jacob Abbott

... puts on the shining hat and goes out. Ridgeon begins looking at the pictures. Presently he comes back to the table for a magnifying glass, and scrutinizes a drawing very closely. He sighs; shakes his head, as if constrained to admit the extraordinary fascination and merit of the work; then marks the Secretary's list. Proceeding with his survey, he disappears behind the screen. Jennifer comes back with her book. A look round satisfies her that she is alone. She seats herself at the table and admires ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • George Bernard Shaw

... a glimpse of a laboratory. Sarakoff stood in the centre of the room, his hands deep in his pockets, his pipe sending up clouds of smoke, his tall muscular frame tilted back. His eyes were fixed on an extraordinary object that crawled slowly over the polished floor. It was a gigantic tortoise—a specimen of Testudo elephantopus—a huge cumbersome brute. Its ancient, scaly head was thrust out and its eyes gleamed with a kind of sharp intelligence. The surface ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne

... prices, and the unwillingness of the owning classes to pay for the war by means of a capital levy, placed the governments in a position where the ordinary expenses, plus the costs of the war, the interest on the war bonds, the costs of reparations and other extraordinary expenses amounted to far more than the total government revenue. As lately as 1920, all of the European belligerents, with the exception of Great Britain, all of the European neutrals, except Sweden, and all of the other principal countries of the world except Peru and the United ...
— The Next Step - A Plan for Economic World Federation • Scott Nearing

... marvel," remarked the youth Silas to his companion, "that, after so many years of unremitting application, favored by the combination of extraordinary advantages, I should yet have accomplished nothing. Scholarly toil, indeed, is not without its meet reward. But in much wisdom is much grief, when it serves not to advance the well-being ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various

... new. That was supposed to be good business. It is the same idea that women submit to in their clothing and hats. That is not service—it seeks only to provide something new, not something better. It is extraordinary how firmly rooted is the notion that business—continuous selling—depends not on satisfying the customer once and for all, but on first getting his money for one article and then persuading him he ought to buy a ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford

... already annoyed Phyllis, who was one of those persons who even from childhood cherish an extraordinary degree of quiet pride in their good birth. She was willing that Hetty should be treated with kindness, but had often told herself that she would never be persuaded to look upon her as her own cousin. Nell only thought of how pretty their new playfellow was, and how nice it would ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland

... of 1840 and 1841, nineteen and a half millions of pounds. Now, considering that the cotton manufacture has been established in Switzerland above a century, these figures certainly demonstrate any thing but an extraordinary rate of progress. The cotton manufacture of Russia does not number half the years of existence, and yet the average consumption of raw cotton, in 1840 and 1841, was nearly thirteen millions of pounds, and of cotton yarn, rendered into cotton,[J] ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various

... intended to favour mastication. A horse kept on perfectly dry food gives out a far greater quantity than when the food is moistened. Experiments on the dog and rabbit supplied similar results; and, extraordinary as it may appear, the gland will secrete saliva in the course of an hour weighing eight or ten times as much as its own tissue. A striking example this of the rapidity with which saliva can be separated from the blood under certain circumstances, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various

... words the blessed Francis, full of joy, raised his eyes to heaven, and after remaining a long time absorbed in contemplation he knelt, praising and blessing God with extraordinary fervor. Then turning toward Masseo, "Thou wishest to know why it is I whom men follow? Thou wishest to know? It is because the eyes of the Most High have willed it thus; he continually watches the good and the wicked, and as his most holy eyes have not found among sinners any smaller ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier

... Manx, Gaelic, and Irish; and it is now incumbent on the etymologist to cite the exact forms in one or more of these on which he relies, so as to adduce some semblance of proof. The result has been an extraordinary shrinkage in the number of alleged Celtic words. The number, in fact, is extremely small, except in special cases. Thus we may expect to find a few Welsh words in the dialects of Cheshire, Shropshire, or Herefordshire, on the Welsh border; and a certain proportion of Gaelic words in ...
— English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day • Walter W. Skeat

... "It is for Hippy," she smiled. "You might know that it would behave in an extraordinary manner. I've been so busy this morning. I was up before seven, helped Mother with the breakfast, went on a shopping expedition, and now I'm here. It isn't ...
— Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower

... the origin of several old English ballads, one of which celebrates the Saracen lady by the extraordinary title of Susy Pye, perhaps a vulgarism of her ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... of blood to the mucous membrane of the colon furthers this extraordinary secretion by the glands. As has been pointed out, inflammation, septic poisoning, intestinal foulness, or retained feces, act as irritants on the mucous membranes, thereby drawing the blood to the colon where ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison

... was of a crime, not of an accident. No man could be such a fool as you have made out this X of yours to be. Only an extraordinary purpose or some imperious necessity could drive a man to shoot an arrow across an open court where people were passing hither and yon, even if he didn't see ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green

... astounded, and so utterly unable to echo the wish, that she said nothing. She did not know it, but Mr. Van Brunt had made, for him, most extraordinary efforts at sociability. Having quite exhausted himself, he now mounted into the cart and sat silent, only now and then uttering energetic "Gees!" and "Haws!" which greatly excited Ellen's wonderment. She discovered ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell

... board his yacht had soothed his vanity and had revived his sense of his own importance. He contemplated it in a distant perspective, restored to its proper surroundings and unaffected by an adventure too extraordinary to trouble a superior mind or even to remain in one's memory for any length of time. He was not responsible. Like many men ambitious of directing the affairs of a nation, Mr. Travers disliked the sense ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad

... book of extraordinary merit in matter and style, and does you great credit as a thinker and writer.—Hon. CALVIN E. PRATT, of the New ...
— Harper's Young People, January 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... matters marks an era in the history of chemical science; it exercised an extraordinary influence on the development of organic chemistry. Theoretical and applied chemistry were knit together in closer union than ever, and dye followed dye in quick succession; after mauve came magenta, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various

... current, the general idea of a small and tricksy being is found frequently, from the Hermes of the Homeric Hymn to the Namaqua Heitsi Eibib, the other Poucet, or Tom Thumb, and the Zulu Uhlakanyana. Extraordinary precocity, even from the day of birth, distinguishes these beings (as Indra and Hermes) in myth. In Marchen, it is rather their smallness and astuteness than their youth that commands admiration, though they are often very precocious. The general sense of ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... to my office and asked me to accompany him as far as Murray Street. He said there was a most extraordinary dispute between a white woman and a black lubra about the ownership of a girl, and he had some doubts whether it was a case within the jurisdiction of a police-court, but thought we might issue a summons for illegal detention of property. He wanted me to advise him, and give my ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale

... orderlies, with one of General Grant's private horses, waiting for me, on which I rode into Chattanooga, November 14th. Of course, I was heartily welcomed by Generals Grant, Thomas, and all, who realized the extraordinary efforts we had made to come to their relief. The next morning we walked out to Fort Wood, a prominent salient of the defenses of the place, and from its parapet we had a magnificent view of the panorama. Lookout Mountain, with its rebel flags and batteries, stood out boldly, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... ourselves mistresses of our destiny; but the entrance of two or three people fastens on all our chains, by recalling our rank and our retinue. Nay; shut yourself up and abandon yourself to all the daring and extraordinary resolutions that the passions may raise up in you, to the marvellous sacrifices they may suggest to you. A lackey coming and asking your orders will at once break the charm and bring you back to your real life. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... op. 28, first movement; from the double-bar (near the middle of the movement) measures 21 to 94 (fermata symbol); in this extraordinary specimen of phrase-development, the original four-measure phrase yields seventy-four successive measures, with very few cadences to divide it even into sections. Same sonata, last movement, ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius

... persevering resolution, which not only enabled him to vanquish the greatest difficulties, but gave such appearance of success to every thing be promised or undertook, as secured the confidence of all who were under his command. As these extraordinary qualities would have distinguished him in any station of life, so they were remarkably useful in the present enterprise, by which he gained immortal reputation, although he lost his life ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... impossible to lead Mildred into further explanation, and she spoke of the loss of the paper. It had passed into the hands of M. Darres; he had changed the staff; he had refused her articles, that was the extraordinary part; explained the unwisdom Darres had showed in his editorship. The paper was now a wreck. He had changed its policy, and the circulation had sunk from sixty to twenty-five thousand. Harold cared nothing whether La Voix du Peuple ...
— Celibates • George Moore

... Duke," she said, "this is very extraordinary news that you bring. Lord Ronald left here for London. Do you mean to say that he ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... creation of the new armies, for which the Expeditionary Force was the pattern—and, indeed, with the general management of the war—I had very little to do. But I saw a good deal of Lord Kitchener, enough to impress me from the day when he became War Minister with his extraordinary individuality and his remarkable courage and energy, and to make me feel what an invaluable asset his personality was for putting heart ...
— Before the War • Viscount Richard Burton Haldane

... Viceroy, filled with shame and surprise at the sight of his daughter's extraordinary boldness, "for though I love her, I'd rather see her dead than married to the son of such as he. Drive home your weapon!" he cried in bitter scorn. "Why stay your hand? Only blood can wash out the shame she hath put upon ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... Daniels's action in 1915 of appointing the Naval Advisory Board of Inventions. That was looking ahead with a vengeance. The idea was to make available the latent inventive genius of the country to improve the navy. The plan adopted by Secretary Daniels for selecting this extraordinary board included a request to the eleven great engineering and scientific societies of the country to select by popular election two members to represent their society on the board. Results were immediately gratifying. Nominations were forthcoming at once, and in September ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry

... the grass of the beech grove where the struggle had taken place, but not being gifted with the extraordinary eyes and skill of an American Indian, he failed to find the track of Vane's assailants going and coming, and he was about to give up when the rector pointed to a couple of places amongst the dead leaves which looked as if two hands had torn up some ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn

... asked for a pen and paper, and wrote a prescription. He assured Mr. Lusignan that the case had no extraordinary feature, whatever; he was not to alarm himself. Dr. Snell then drove away, leaving the parent rather puzzled, but, ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... property of a common Christianity," and not less truly that "there is, and ever will be, more of Christian charity in the world because Dr. Muhlenberg has lived in it as he did." He was perhaps not a man of extraordinary intellect, but his singularly healthy mind, with its union of resoluteness and candor, sound sense and lively fancy, gave the needed counterpoise to his moral qualities, keeping his enterprises within ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various

... eloquently and persuasively, Sir Everard repeated Miss Sybilla Silver's extraordinary story, and ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming

... provinces, too, and free cities, and some kingdoms in alliance with Rome, were all in a disturbed state. He, therefore, disbanded many of Vitellius's soldiers, and punished others; and so far was he from granting any extraordinary favours to the sharers of his success, that it was late before he paid the gratuities due to them by law. That he might let slip no opportunity of reforming the discipline of the army, upon a young man's coming much perfumed to return him thanks (452) for having ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... gave vent to his discontent in an extraordinary attack upon Lord Dalhousie, who had become governor of Canada in 1819. Dalhousie was an English nobleman of the best type. His tastes were liberal. He was instrumental in founding the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec; ...
— The 'Patriotes' of '37 - A Chronicle of the Lower Canada Rebellion • Alfred D. Decelles

... (177); line 2.—"And wondrous length and strength of arm." The people of the neighbourhood of Loch Ketterine, in order to prove the extraordinary length of their Hero's arm, tell you that "he could garter his Tartan Stockings below the knee when standing upright." According to their account he was a tremendous Swordsman; after having sought all occasions of proving his prowess, he was never conquered but once, and this ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth

... Ibsen's attains the extraordinary compactness and swiftness of 'Ghosts,' several of them approach closely to this standard, the 'Master-Builder,' for example, 'Little Eyolf' and more especially 'Rosmersholm,'—in which the author did not display on the stage itself more than a half ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews

... apparent, as civilization became more complex and more exacting. By the end of the fourth century B. C. the tradition of architectural technique was firmly established, and architects were able to turn their attention to problems of large planning, and these they seem to have handled with extraordinary skill. So far, what had been done in this direction had been due to religious inspiration, as in the processional ways leading to the Egyptian temples or the avenue of figures at Branchidae. What the Hellenistic architects did was to ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various

... thought connected with the preceding, by that extraordinary and inexplicable chain, which seems to run through the whole mind of man, linking together things apparently as far asunder as the poles, which have, however, in reality, a kindred origin. That thought was, wherefore should my life be solitary? Why should I stand apart and alone from my ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat

... attenuated small beer, in wooden piggins, smacking of the pitched leathern jack it was poured from. Our Monday's milk porritch, blue and tasteless, and the pease soup of Saturday, coarse and choking, were enriched for him with a slice of "extraordinary bread and butter," from the hot-loaf of the Temple. The Wednesday's mess of millet, somewhat less repugnant—(we had three banyan to four meat days in the week)—was endeared to his palate with a lump of double-refined, and a smack ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... rough stones and fragments of rock that I have described. At its foot there was a low wall loosely constructed of these same unhewn blocks, and the shapes that evolved themselves out of this wall, beside which grew two or three stunted trees, were more grotesque and extraordinary than I could describe. They varied like the colours in a kaleidoscope with the wavering and increasing light. At one time it seemed to me that one of the trees was a gipsy woman enveloped in a cloak, extending her arm towards me threateningly; at another, two weird dogs ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth

... was intelligent enough to foresee that she would be blamed by her contemporaries and by posterity, was she not justified in lamenting her unhappy lot? She, who under any other conditions would have been an excellent wife and mother, was compelled by extraordinary circumstances to appear as a heartless wife and an indifferent mother. This thought distressed Marie Louise, who at heart was not thoroughly contented with herself. She wrote, under date of August 9, 1814: "I am in a very unhappy and critical position; I must be very prudent in my ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand

... heard, and the proprietor rushed breathlessly to the outer door. Greif, Rex and their companions entered swiftly and silently, followed by the liveried servant of the Korps who carried an extraordinary collection of bags and bundles, which he dropped upon the floor with a grunt of satisfaction as soon as he was inside. Then he took up his burden again, at the command of the burly second, and carried his traps into the ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford

... connexion of its parts; of the characters, of the manners of those characters, and of the thoughts proceeding from those manners. Rapin's words are remarkable: 'Tis not the admirable intrigue, the surprising events, and extraordinary incidents, that make the beauty of a tragedy; 'tis the discourses, when they are natural and passionate: so ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson

... the Troubadours, or Nietzsche. He never could understand why his wife couldn't "enter," as he expressed it, into these subjects. He smiled at you in the dimmest, saddest way when he referred to it. "It's extraordinary," he would say, "the little interest ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair

... stubbornly. "First place, look at the mass of that thing, and remember that the heavier the beam the harder it is to hold it together. Second, there's no evidence that they wander around much in space. If their beams are designed principally for travel upon Jupiter, why should they have any extraordinary range? I say they can't hold that beam forever. We've got a good long lead, and in spite of their higher acceleration, I think we'll be able to keep out of range of their heavy stuff. If so, we'll trace a circle—only one a good deal bigger than the ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith

... extremely spare man, of extraordinary height, and the bend of his shoulders gave to his small head a comical thrust forward. His black hair was without curl, and it would tolerate no other arrangement than being combed back straight. It was allowed to grow downward until it scraped the back of Newgag's collar, ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens

... illustrious guests had by no means caused him to relax his hold, and, while the prelates and ambassadors were packing themselves into the stalls—like genuine Flemish herrings—he settled himself at his ease, and boldly crossed his legs on the architrave. The insolence of this proceeding was extraordinary, yet no one noticed it at first, the attention of all being directed elsewhere. He, on his side, perceived nothing that was going on in the hall; he wagged his head with the unconcern of a Neapolitan, repeating from time to time, amid ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... piece of confidence (and she did not seem at all ashamed of her parentage) she asked me to sup with her, supper being her favourite meal. I promised to come, and I left her to reflect on the extraordinary character of the woman, and on the good fortune which ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... everything, and listening to the speeches of those who were gathered together on the market-place. Various were the rumours concerning the operations of the serdar against the enemy. It was evident that some movement was likely soon to take place, and an attack of an extraordinary nature to be made; for the people at the arsenal, and powder works, had been more than usually employed in making ready certain instruments of destruction,[75] before unknown in Persia, and set on foot by Russian deserters themselves. I ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier

... on a flat beach of deep black sand. It was strewn from one end to the other by the most extraordinary wreckage. There were levers, cogwheels, cranks, fans, twisted bar, and angle iron, in all stages of rust and disintegration. Some of these machines were half buried in the sand; others were tidily laid up on stones as though just landed. ...
— Gold • Stewart White

... if it had become suddenly red hot. A moment of profound silence ensued, as though something extraordinary had happened. ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad

... distinguished this session, was a motion made in both houses for an address to the king, beseeching his majesty, that in time of public tranquillity, he would be graciously pleased to avoid entering into subsidiary treaties with foreign princes, which are so burdensome to this nation. This extraordinary proposal was made and strenuously urged by the duke of B——, and a vehement debate ensued, in which the earls of G——, S——, and H——, opposed it with an execution of superior abilities; and the question being put, was carried in the negative without a division. The same fate attended ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... this kind in America, which was so well trained, that it would at command go off in the morning, and return at night with its pouch full, and stretched to the utmost; part of its treasure it disgorged for its master, the rest was given to the bird for its trouble. It is hardly credible what these extraordinary pouches will hold; it is said, that among other things, a man's leg with the boots on was once ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park

... laughing the whole of the way. On arriving at Camden Town, where the tickets were then collected, I took from my purse the amount of the excess fare, so as to be in readiness for the collector. As soon as he appeared at the window, Smith set up an unearthly scream; put on a most extraordinary expression of face; and feigned madness. This behaviour so frightened the poor collector, that, keeping his eye fixed upon Smith, he mechanically held out his hand; took my ticket without looking at it; and hurried from the carriage, ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards

... reader will find it extraordinary that Santa Anna, once freed from his captivity, should not have re-entered Texas with an overwhelming force. The reason is very simple: Bustamente was a rival of Santa Anna for the presidency; the general's absence allowed ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat

... began the Major, speaking rather quickly, "of your meeting with Francis Heathcote, and the most unfortunate mistake he has made as to your identity. I cannot tell you how deeply grieved I am that this has happened. He has also told me of the very extraordinary change which that meeting has brought about in Francis' mental condition. Up to this point I can only be truly grateful to you for your kindness and sympathy with one whose life has been so pitiably wrecked, but beyond this—well, it is a very different matter. ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay

... her perfectly distinctly, though with shadows fleeting across it, her son's face peering in at the door. She thought she said something; but she was not sure afterwards. At any rate, the face did not move; and it seemed to her that it bore an expression of such extraordinary malignity that she would hardly have known it for her son's. In a sudden panic she raised herself in bed, staring; and as the shadows came and went, as she stared, the face was gone again. Mrs. Baxter drew a quick breath ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson

... said, I did the mood he was in. He gave me two very broad ideas in that talk and the talks I have mingled with it; he gave them to me very clearly and they have remained fundamental in my mind; one a sense of the extraordinary confusion and waste and planlessness of the human life that went on all about us; and the other of a great ideal of order and economy which he called variously Science and Civilisation, and which, though I do not remember that he ever used that word, I suppose many people nowadays ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells

... of 1834 was exceedingly windy and dusty. Our party, riding on the outside of the coach, was half smothered with the dust, and arrived in a very deteriorated condition, but recompensed for it by the extraordinary sights we had witnessed. There was no train in those days, and the whole road between London and Epsom was choked with vehicles of all kinds, from four-in-hands to donkey-carts and wheelbarrows. My friends and I mingled freely in the crowds, and saw all the "humours" of the occasion. The ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... Jackson? If, as one writer has said, Clay was one of the favorites of the West, Jackson was the West itself. "While Clay was able to voice, with statesmanlike ability, the demand for economic legislation to promote her interests, and while he exercised an extraordinary fascination by his personal magnetism and his eloquence, he never became the hero of the great masses of the West; he appealed rather to the more intelligent—to the men of business and of property."[5] Jackson, however, was ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg

... pieces, wrecked, and brayed as in a mortar under the iron mace of war. [Curious incidental details of the state it was reduced to, in the Rhine and Danube Countries, turn up in the Earl of Arundel and Surrey's TRAVELS ("Arundel of the Marbles") as Ambassador Extraordinary to the Emperor Ferdinando II. in 1636 (a small Volume, or Pamphlet, London, 1637).] Brandenburg saw its towns sieged and sacked, its country populations driven to despair, by the one party and the other. Three times,—first in the Wallenstein Mecklenburg period, while fire ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle

... might have suffered. There were no "Howards" or "Y.M.C.A.'s" in those days; no "Peabody Reliefs." Even had the neighbors chosen to take cognizance of those bereavements, they were not so unusual as to fix upon him any extraordinary interests an object of sight; and he was beginning most distressfully to realize that "great solitude" which the philosopher attributes to towns, when matters ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable

... erroneous abstract of Warner's tale, and should then have proceeded to claim it as the source of the play in question, is perhaps no great matter for astonishment, nor need it particularly surprise us to find certain modern critics swallowing the whole fiction on Collier's authority. What is extraordinary is that a scholar of Dyce's ability and learning should have been misled. For it is quite evident that the Thracian Wonder is based, though hardly closely, on no less famous a work than Greene's Menaphon.[311] This should of course have been apparent to critics even without the hint supplied ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg

... shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the Confederacy, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary occasions, convene the Congress at such times as he shall think proper; he shall receive ambassadors and other public ministers; he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed; and shall commission all ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis

... day that the newspapers were full of an extraordinary achievement of one of the American magicians of business; and the papers said that the remarkable thing about it was that the plan flashed upon him in a single evening, as he was leaving for a long vacation. He acted ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge

... "what do you mean, and whatever has happened to upset you so and cause you to change your mind in this extraordinary way?" ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks

... friendship has been broken off, should not entirely forget their former intercourse; and that just as we hold that we ought to serve friends before strangers, so former friends have some claims upon us on the ground of past friendship, unless extraordinary depravity were the ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black

... At ten the fly drove up, and Mr. Carey got into his boots. Mrs. Carey took several minutes to put on her bonnet, during which the Vicar, in a voluminous cloak, stood in the hall with just such an expression on his face as would have become an early Christian about to be led into the arena. It was extraordinary that after thirty years of marriage his wife could not be ready in time on Sunday morning. At last she came, in black satin; the Vicar did not like colours in a clergyman's wife at any time, but on Sundays he was determined that she ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham

... an hour or whatever, they had still somehow not lost sight of each other, but had found their eyes meeting, in deep communion, all across the great peopled room; meeting and wanting to meet, wanting—it was the most extraordinary thing in the world for the suppression of stages, for confessed precipitate intensity—to use together every instant of the hour that might be left them. Yet to use it for what?—unless, like beautiful ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James

... patriarch into a component part of honest Paddy, is equally remarkable; for it generally happens that the animal now standing in a corner of the tent, will in about half an hour be undergoing the process of assimilation in his (Paddy's) gastric region. The elastic quality of the meat is indeed extraordinary, and such as, with the knowledge of that fact, does sometimes render Paddy's treat of spoileen to his sweetheart an act of very questionable gallantry. Be this as it may, there is scarcely anything in life richer than to witness a tent of spoileen eaters ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... bluff at the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers, it has witnessed the changes that have gone on around it for three-quarters of a century, and seen the most extraordinary transformations that have occurred in any similar period in the history of our country. When its corner stone was laid it formed the extreme frontier of the Northwest, with nothing but wild animals and wilder men within hundreds of miles in any direction. The frontier has receded to the westward ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau



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