By unusual, I mean strange (or
rare) words, metaphorical, lengthened,--anything, in short, that differs from the normal idiom.
Hence probably it is, that we feel so little surprise at one, of two species closely allied in habits, being
rare and the other abundant in the same district; or, again, that one should be abundant in one district, and another, filling the same place in the economy of nature, should be abundant in a neighbouring district, differing very little in its conditions.
Consequently in the home of a Polygon of four or five hundred sides it is
rare to find a son; more than one is never seen.
On the other hand, it must be stated that on
rare occasions, on very
rare occasions, I did meet
rare souls, or fools like me, with whom I could spend magnificent hours among the stars, or in the paradise of fools.
It does seem to me, that herein we see the
rare virtue of a strong individual vitality, and the
rare virtue of thick walls, and the
rare virtue of interior spaciousness.
It is very
rare. The man said the Etruscans used to keep tears or something in these things, and that it was very hard to get hold of a broken one, now.
We all know how they live upon whales, and have
rare old vintages of prime old train oil.
Give him some
rare animal they have not got in the menageries."
That is, madam, as much as to say, `A
rare bird upon the earth, and very like a black swan.' The verse is in Juvenal.
She has gathered with her lily fingers A lily fair and
rare to see.
Their psychology is bovine, their outlook crude and
rare; They abandon vital matters to be tickled with a straw; But the straw that they were tickled with--the chaff that they were fed with-- They convert into a weaver's beam to break their foeman's head with.
In reading your life, no one can say that we have unfairly picked out some
rare specimens of cruelty.