A book of mathematical oddities.

"' 'A clergyman, whom he characterised as one who loved to say little oddities, was affecting one day, at a Bishop's table, a sort of slyness and freedom not in character, and repeated, as if part of The Old Mans Wish, a song by Dr. Walter Pope, a verse bordering on licentiousness.

Like other folk we had heard grim tales about, such placesabout trap doors, whips, manacles, and all sorts of cruel oddities; but in the confessionals visited we beheld nothing of any of them.

Even proper names take on curious oddities of spelling, and a husband and wife or two brothers will spell their name differently when using the Latin letters.

But when it comes to the delightful oddity of his own inside, his sense of humour rather abruptly deserts him.

" It is highly characteristic of Mr. Gladstone that, when this letter was shown to him by its recipient as a specimen of epistolary oddity, he read it, not with a smile, but with a portentous frown, and, handing it back, sternly asked, "What does the fellow mean by quoting an engagement entered into by my predecessor as binding on me?" It is not only clergy "defrauded" of expected dignities that write odd letters.

Appreciating Nell's loneliness, Kit visited the shop as often as possible, and the exquisite oddity and awkwardness of his manner so amused her that at sight of him she would give way to genuine merriment.

To bring out the beauty of a character by means of its external oddities is the triumph of a kindly humourist; and Boswell would have acted as absurdly in suppressing Johnson's weaknesses, as Sterne would have done had he made Uncle Toby a perfectly sound and rational person.

We could not bear to part with his most fantastic oddities, they are so interpenetrated with his genius as well as his art.

In spite of these old-fashioned oddities, the maps are remarkably accurate.

Eyes were turned towards me with that mild curiosity with which one remarks any innocent oddity or vanity of the streets.

Schiller recognized at once its power and geniality, but was disposed to regard it as a literary oddity, whose grotesque build and want of finish rather depreciated the rich cargo,at least, did not bring it handsomely into port.

In all feats of mental and verbal oddity, he does, indeed, rank the highest,but that is the very lowest of his attainments.

" "The truth is," explains Mr. BUMSTEAD, "that Judge SWEENEY put into my head to do a few pauper graves with JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, some moonlight night, for the mere oddity and dampness of the thing.

Perhaps, if she had possessed an artist's eye, the picturesque oddity of the scene might have made her step stagger less, and the path seem shorter; but to her the mills were only "summat deilish to look at by night.

If type could entrap one-half the pretty oddities of Aurora's speech,the arch, the pathetic, the grave, the earnest, the matter-of-fact, the ecstatic tones of her voice,nay, could it but reproduce the movement of her hands, the eloquence of her eyes, or the shapings of her mouth,ah!

Throughout life he, however, was highly susceptible of the delights of music, though his own execution was confined to a single song, with which he attempted to enliven the social board, but, it is stated, with such unmusical oddity as to content his hearers with a single specimen of his vocal talent.

So Joe in a shaking voice unfolded his philosophy, and as he did so Marty became dazed and aghast, gazing at his boss as if Joe had turned into some unthinkable zoological oddity.

And this unutterable old oddity of a gown!

Under cover of his scheme, which brought all the scenes out into peculiar relief and gave them a special intensity, he retailed a lot of amusing oddities, described comical persons and things, heaped up picturesque and piquant details, coined typical and witty proper names, and invented complicated and ingenious situations.

So Joe in a shaking voice unfolded his philosophy, and as he did so Marty became dazed and aghast, gazing at his boss as if Joe had turned into some unthinkable zoological oddity.

There are not in Pope's works such poignant discoveries of wit, or such a general knowledge of the humours and characters of men, as in the Prologues and Epilogues of Dryden, which are the best records of the whims and capricious oddities of the times in which they are written.