"Apparition" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... soft and silver-white outspread the broad river, without a ripple upon its surface, or visible motion of the ever-moving current. A little vessel, with one loose sail, was riding at anchor, keel to keel with another, that lay right under it, its own apparition,—and all was silent, and ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... same epic, when Nergal, the god of the dead, brings before Gilgamesh an apparition of his friend, Eabani, recalls the impressive scene, when the witch of Endor summons the spirit ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... rather obscure, is still thoroughly enjoyable. It would seem that a miser with a comic but sound-hearted clerk, after an altercation with some well-fed representatives of "the most distrissful" tenantry that ever yet were seen, makes the acquaintance of "an apparition," and dreams that he is the tenant of his own jewel-casket. In his sleep he is present at a ballet replete with silver and gold and precious stones, to say nothing of shapely limbs and pretty faces, and makes great friends with the "apparition," ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, January 25th, 1890 • Various
... An apparition in evening dress with a long frock coat and a purple tie emerged from that grim chorus of spectators. It was Ito, the lawyer. The free and easy American manner was checked by the responsibility of those flapping coat-tails. He looked and behaved just like a shop-walker. After ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... The apparition of Francisco after so long an interval, and in such an unexpected quarter of the globe, acted as we have before described upon Cain. When he was taken to the boat he was still confused in his ideas, and it was not until they were nearly on board that ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... of the apartment turn on its hinges, and saw his mother standing within it in the dim light like a phantom. Though very nervous and impressible, the king did not quiver, albeit, under the circumstances in which he then stood, this apparition had a certain air ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... willing still to gain some advantage from the rapidity of his movements, assembled as many of his horsemen as could be collected from the spoil, and pushed forward towards the Romans, who had stopped short on their march at so unlooked for an apparition. There was an uncertainty and wavering in our first ranks which made their hesitation known even to so poor a judge of military demeanour as myself. On the contrary, the Varangians joined in a unanimous cry of 'Bills' [Footnote: Villehardouin ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... unnecessary. Without it, the next instant, I saw that there was someone on the stair. I speak of sequences, but I required no lapse of seconds to stiffen myself for a third encounter with Quint. The apparition had reached the landing halfway up and was therefore on the spot nearest the window, where at sight of me, it stopped short and fixed me exactly as it had fixed me from the tower and from the garden. He knew me ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... both appalling and intolerable, at the first blush. It must be confessed that, to begin with, Kirkwood drew a long and disconsolate face over his fix. And in that black hour, primitive of its kind in his brief span, he became conscious of a sinister apparition taking shape at his elbow—a shade of darkness which, clouting him on the back with a skeleton hand, croaked ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... perhaps the apparition following him? or forward past IT to the open door? Which was it to be? In these moments there can be no reason to guide the course; but there is instinct; and instinct took that ill-fated ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... had come so far and paid so dear to see: the masts and rigging of a brig pencilled on heaven, with an ensign streaming at the main, and the ragged ribbons of a topsail thrashing from the yard. Again and again, with toilful searching, I recalled that apparition. There was no sign of any land; the wreck stood between sea and sky, a thing the most isolated I had ever viewed; but as we drew nearer, I perceived her to be defended by a line of breakers which drew off on either hand, and marked, indeed, the nearest segment of the reef. Heavy spray hung over ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... impious," admitted his master, "but at the same time there is nothing to indicate that the beneficial deities are not the ones responsible for this apparition." With these humane words the kindly-disposed Ten-teh wrapped his outer robe about the man-child and turned to lay him in the empty creel, when to his profound astonishment he saw that it was now filled with fish of the rarest ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... and the gentlemen of his party, perceiving themselves brought to an unexpected stand, rode hastily forward, as if they would have pressed their snorting and affrighted horses right against the hoary apparition. He, however, blenched not a step, but glancing his severe eye round the group, which half encompassed him, at last bent it sternly on Sir Edmund Andros. One would have thought that the dark old man was chief ruler there, and that the Governor ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... Vera herself unexpectedly appeared amongst the guests, wearing a warm mantilla over her light dress and a wrap round her throat. Raisky was so astonished that he looked at her as if she were an apparition. A few hours ago she had been almost too exhausted to speak, and now here she was in person. He wondered where women found their strength. Vera went round speaking to the guests, looked at Marfinka's presents, and ate, to quench her thirst, as she said, a slice ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... its back rode a small gentleman in Eastern costume, who appeared to find some difficulty in keeping his seat as his steed jogged along. Suddenly a spirit appeared, all in white, with long newspaper wings upon its back and golden locks about its face. Singularly enough, the beast beheld this apparition and backed instantly, but the rider evidently saw nothing and whipped up unmercifully, also unsuccessfully, for the spirit stood directly in the path, and the amiable beast would not budge a foot. A lively skirmish followed, which ended in the Eastern gentleman being ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... at last called up an apparition, who said that Macbeth should never be overcome by his enemies until Birnam wood should come to the castle of Dunsinane, the royal residence, ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... friendship.(29) Like distributions of wealth appear to be a regular habit with the Eskimos, and to take place at a certain season, after an exhibition of all that has been obtained during the year.(30) In my opinion these distributions reveal a very old institution, contemporaneous with the first apparition of personal wealth; they must have been a means for re-establishing equality among the members of the clan, after it had been disturbed by the enrichment of the few. The periodical redistribution of land and the periodical abandonment of all debts which took place ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... and capes touched with light, and a great land behind them yet dark and undefined; all so quiet too; and the soft, pink mist that rolled away in smoke-like clouds—rolled away over the billowy surface of the ocean toward the land, and, frightened, perhaps, by that red apparition on the eastern horizon, faded from sight, or rose for shelter to the ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... no longer doubted it. Disappointed as he undoubtedly was at first,—and even self-deceived,—he recognized in a flash the grim fact that the boy had stated. He recalled the apparition of the sad-faced woman in the wood—her distressed manner, that to his inexperienced mind now took upon itself the agitated trembling of disturbed mystic inspiration. A sense of sadness and remorse succeeded his first shock ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... was the middle-aged curate, one of the "inferior clergy," who are usually not wanting in sons. But after the introduction, the conversation did not lead to any question about his family, and the startling apparition of youthfulness was forgotten by every one but Celia. She inwardly declined to believe that the light-brown curls and slim figure could have any relationship to Mr. Tucker, who was just as old and musty-looking ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... jacket stained with travel and the chase, a canvas shirt laced with a red cord and tassels, and a plate-like hat of grey felt flapping about his ears, made Hardy look something like a cowboy or a bandit. So singular was the apparition that had plucked Ted back from the abyss, that the Furies and the infernal phantoms vanished into smoke before it. It brought with it a breath of Atlantic seas and of ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... the corridor which opened into the wide entrance-hall. Groups of girls were standing about. They stared as the wild-looking apparition rushed past them: Prissie was blind to their puzzled and curious glances. She wanted to see Miss Heath. She had a queer kind of instinct, rather than any distinct impression, that in Miss Heath's presence she would be protected, that ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... scarce finished his speech when a sudden and graceful apparition glided into the saloon. It was his ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... indigenous, born of the ash and the scoria of the volcano, and that apparently has no chlorophyl in its make-up. This is a striking plant, called the silver sword, from the shape and color of its long, narrow leaves. They are the color of frosted silver, and are curved like a sword. It is a strange apparition, white and delicate and rare, springing up in the crater of a slumbering volcano. A more striking contrast with the atmosphere of the surroundings would be hard to find—a suggestion of peace and purity above the graves of world-destroying forces, an angel of light nourished by the ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... sight of the apparition, his face became livid, and a shade of terror flashed across his countenance. It was but an instant, though, that he stood thus, and calling to Moriarity to follow, he dashed through the door, drawing his ready revolver from his side coat-pocket at the ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... next rush, however, help came in an unexpected form. The tent flap was pushed back and at the doctor's side stood an apparition that checked the Indians' advance and stilled their cries. It was the Indian boy, clad in a white night robe of Mandy's providing, his rifle in his hand, his face ghastly in the moonlight and his eyes burning like flames of light. One cry he uttered, weird, fierce, unearthly, but it seemed to ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... gilt crown on its head, a little bow in its hand, and one white slipper in the air, while the other seemed merely to touch the saddle, no one could tell for a minute, so strange and splendid did the apparition appear. No wonder Ben was not recognized in this brilliant disguise, which was more natural to him than Billy's blue flannel or Thorny's respectable garments. He had so begged to be allowed to show himself "just once," as he used to be in the days when "father" ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... Sophie was free to gaze round. She spied Otto Heilig drooping dejectedly along. She adroitly steered her party so that it crossed his path. He looked up to find himself staring at Hilda. She frowned at this disagreeable apparition into her happiness, and quickened her step. But Sophie, without letting go of Hilda's hand, paused and spoke to Otto. Thus Hilda was forced to stop and to say ungraciously: "Mr. Feuerstein, ...
— The Fortune Hunter • David Graham Phillips
... pondered for a moment upon the meaning of this sudden apparition and gift, and then hurried home, his heart beating high with hope, and gave the apple to his wife to eat. In due season, to his intense joy, she bore him a son, Volsung, the great Northern hero, who became so famous that he gave his name to all ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... The intrusion (as an apparition) of a person or thing into a completely enclosed portion of three-space; or contrariwise, the exit (as an evanishment) out of such ...
— Four-Dimensional Vistas • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... ear of young Hamlet that an apparition, exactly resembling the dead king his father, had been seen by the soldiers upon watch, on the platform before the palace at midnight, for two or three nights successively. The figure came constantly clad in the same suit of armor, from head to foot, which the dead king was known to have worn. ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... at all the street corners there they are selling a little pamphlet for a sou entitled "Le seul moyen de ne pas mourir le 13 Juin a 1'apparition de la Comete." ["The only means how not to die on the 13th of June at the appearance of the comet."] The only means is to drown oneself on the 12th of June. Much of the good advice which is given to me by the critics is very like this seul moyen. ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... chap, you know," said Vernon innocently. And once more Lady St. Craye bowed before the sublime apparition of ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... the house, the apparition disappeared, and it seemed to the Radiant Apollo that with it disappeared the stars, that the moon became black, and the whole world was covered with the ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,
... apparition was so unexpected, but Nayland Smith, without evidence of surprise, thrust a card into ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... procuring redress for wrongs committed upon their mortal frames, to find how seldom in any country an allusion hath been made to such evidence in a court of justice, although, according to their belief, such instances must have frequently occurred. One or two cases of such apparition-evidence our researches ...
— Trial of Duncan Terig, alias Clerk, and Alexander Bane Macdonald • Sir Walter Scott
... scream sounded in Robin's ears, as a rush of flame mercifully swallowed up this apparition: like as not, 'twas the sound of the fire itself. The end had come, both to the unhappy foresters and Robin's home. With a huge torrent of noise the roof of it crushed in, half ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... know why she should be expected to see a trashy, traditional apparition like the so-called Cullumpton ghost, that is only vouched for by housemaids and tipsy stable-boys, when my uncle, who was the owner of Exwood, committed suicide there under the most tragical circumstances, and most ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... moved forward, musing on the scene. In turning the angle of a shattered wall, his horse started; and the next moment he perceived an aged figure, with a beard white as snow, and wrapped in a dark plaid, emerging from the ground. At sight of the apparition, Murray, who accompanied his friend, and had hitherto kept silent, suddenly exclaimed, "I conjure you, honest Scot, ghost or man, give us a subject for conversation! and, as a beginning, pray tell me to whom this ruined ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... to his feet, the ball of yarn in his hand, his eyes still on the apparition. No child had ever stepped foot inside the cosy quarters since his occupation. Katy returned his gaze with that steadfast, searching look common to some children, summing up by intuition the dangers and the man. Then, with her face breaking ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... repose, and darkness hovers round us, and we fall into a contemplation of other things, straight an idea darts forth, flashes through the infinite space created by our brain, and then, like a will-o'-the-wisp, vanishes never to return—an ephemeral apparition like that of such children as yield boundless joy and grief to bereaved parents; a species of still-born flower in the fields of thought. At times also the idea, instead of forcibly gushing and dying without consistence, dawns and poises in the fathomless limbo ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... magnificent celebration of the feast of Joan of Arc some years ago, and as to miracles, I truly believe that the keeping safe of the white horse during the terrible storm and perhaps even the preservation of a maiden worthy to appear in the armor of the Maid, are miracles as veritable as the apparition at Lourdes. Pour moi, I am convinced that Joan is one of the most glorious saints in heaven, and that Pere Simeon himself is of the band of ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... be, my worthy friend?' was my question to myself as I surveyed this singular apparition. At the same time, casting my eyes down the list, I perceived that several pilots of the coast of Havre, Calais, and Boulogne had been summoned to Paris to give some information upon the soundings and depth ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... passed through we found more hills, with intervals of plains, in one of which lay the district city of Tongtze, enclosed by walls which run along the top of the hills surrounding it. The inhabitants crowded to the shore to witness the strange apparition of foreign vessels. ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... being Pleasant Valley, an inspiration to his mother from the label on a grape box, which had drifted into that region from the North. He had just stooped to pick up a clod of earth with which to accentuate his vociferations, when, on rising, he was astounded by the apparition of an elderly woman wearing a purple sun-bonnet, and carrying a furled umbrella of the same color. Behind the spectacles, which were fixed upon him, blazed a pair of fiery eyes, and the soul of Plez shrivelled and curled up within him. His downcast eyes were bent upon ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... true. The little group of loungers before the building had suddenly disappeared. There was the flash of a red shirt vanishing in an adjacent doorway; the fading apparition of a pair of high boots and blue overalls in another; the abrupt withdrawal of a curly blond head from a sashless window over the way. Even the saloon was deserted, although a back door in the dim recess seemed to creak mysteriously. The stage-coach, with the other passengers, ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte
... observed, that Gibbon ought not to have separated the vision of Constantine from the wonderful apparition in the sky, as the two wonders are closely connected in Eusebius. Manso, Leben Constantine, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... she fell to imagining all the ways in which the tragic end might have come. No thought that came to her was satisfactory. What had Bart done? Why had his form seemed to her so inextricably confused with the form of her father at the moment of the apparition? The recognition of a man or his garments, although the result of observation, does not usually carry with it any consciousness of the details that we have observed; and she did not know now what it was that had made her think ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... on the fire; the priest did not return, and the moaning of the wind put strange fancies into my head. My driver had spoken of a small white thing gliding along the road, and I regretted I had not asked him more about the apparition, if it were an apparition. A little later I wondered why the priest knitted. "His room is lined with books. He does not read, he knits,—a strange occupation. ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... found Elizabeth-Jane again in the churchyard, but while looking for the lady she was startled by the apparition of Farfrae, who passed outside the gate. He glanced up for a moment from a pocket-book in which he appeared to be making figures as he went; whether or not he saw her he took no ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... the castled heights, the singing of the birds and fluttering of the leaves, the impulse of a young heart even in the languor of imprisonment to start up and meet the sun, with all the springs of new life which at that verdant season come with every new day—the apparition of the beautiful one suddenly appearing in the old immemorial garden with all its flowers, herself the sweetest and the fairest of flowers, all are set before us, with a harmony and music not to be excelled. The young Prince chafing at ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... a narrow street near the hotel. As I turned away from the post-office to go back to the High Street, I was startled by the apparition of a girlish figure upon the other side of the street—a figure so like Margaret's that its presence in that street filled me with a vague sense of fear, as if the slender figure, with garments fluttering in the wind, had ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... Turks wear. His beard was grizzled, and on his head he wore one of the long many-coloured woollen caps usually worn in this country, with two tassels depending from it, which nearly reached his knees. I had full time to examine the appearance and costume of this strange apparition as he stood before me, bowing profoundly, and looking as if fright and wonder had deprived him of speech. As soon as I had recovered from my first amazement, I replied to every low bow, by as low a courtesy, and waited till it should please ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... for what he considered the appropriate undress of a devil, completed this by a paper tail, and the ugliest face he could make, and rushed into the drawing-room, where the old lady and his mother were drinking tea. He was snatched up and carried away before he had had time to judge the effect of his apparition; but he did not think, looking back upon the circumstances in later life, that Aunt Betsy had deserved quite so ill of her fellow-creatures as ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... the least puff of wind or drop of rain sends it back to its own element. We are a vapour appearing for a very little time—a creature of no solidity—a dream—a shadow and appearance of something; and this dream or apparition is but for a little time, and then it evanisheth, not so much into nothing, for it was little distant from nothing before, but it disappears rather. All human affairs are like the spokes of a wheel, in such a continual circumgiration, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... his state of mind when standing behind the door, waiting for Mr Seymour to come in and find him. He related with appropriate force the hair-raising episode of the weird white figure. And then he came to the conclusions he had since drawn (in calmer moments) from that apparition's movements. ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... up at the balconies during her first song, during the second glanced cautiously at the green apparition before him. He was vexed with her for having retained a debutante figure. He comfortably classed all singers—especially operatic singers—as "fat Dutchwomen" or "shifty Sadies," and Kitty would not fit into his clever generalization. She displayed, under his nose, ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... the true particulars of the affair, respecting which so many ridiculous stories had been circulated. One was to the effect that the mines had been discovered by the Mormons, in accordance with a prophecy made by the famous Joe Smith. Another tale was, that the Captain had seen the apparition of an Indian chief, to whom he had given a rifle (the possession of which he only lived three months to enjoy, having been trampled down by a buffalo in the neighbourhood of the Rocky Mountains, on his way with his tribe to make an attack ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks
... was to take its rise from the apparently trifling acts of this one morning. So prepared, we need not much wonder at what followed. Csar was yet lingering on the hither bank, when suddenly, at a point not far distant from himself, an apparition was descried in a sitting posture, and holding in its hand what seemed a flute. This phantom was of unusual size, and of beauty more than human, so far as its lineaments could be traced in the early dawn. What is singular, however, in the ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... to the sea. Already I can hear the roar of the waves...The banks are beginning to be clothed with verdure...The hills are drawing nearer....It is dark now. Here are the big trees beneath which I have dreamed so often. A radiant apparition shines through their ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... An apparition from the other hemisphere came upon her that instant. She saw a man standing by the friar's booth looking at her. What his eyes said she could not, through her shimmering and deadly faintness, perceive. How could he be here in Kaskaskia? The shock ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... where she stood and transfigured her slight but noble figure. The hush that had fallen upon the Hall was as much the effect of that tranquil, ideal presence as of the message with which it was charged. And yet that apparition was as inconsistent with the clear, searching light which helped to set it off, as it was with the broad new blazonry of decoration, the yet unsullied record of the white walls, or even the frank, animated and pretty faces that looked upon it. Perhaps it was some such instinct that caused ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... lady merely utters the word "Bertram," and the lover is carried to bed in a fainting fit when his passion is expended. When he recovers he indites the aforesaid letter. After he has dispatched it, the lady enters his apartment: oh, blessed and gracious apparition! We quote the denouement, omitting one ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... He was an old servant and accustomed to his master's eccentricities, but he was not prepared for the vision of that strange little figure, with a large head in a parti-coloured cricket-cap, an apparition that immediately walked straight by him into the hall, and pointed to the first ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... and Warrington, and Frederick Bayham, who had been invited to meet Mr. Clive in Fitzroy Square—when Mr. Binnie chuckled, when Rosey, as in duty bound, looked discomposed and said, "Law, mamma!"—not one sign of good-humour, not one ghost of a smile, made its apparition on Clive's dreary face. He painted imaginary portraits with a strawberry stalk; he looked into his water-glass as though he would plunge and drown there; and Bayham had to remind him that the claret jug was anxious to have another embrace ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... anvil. It might have been Vulcan's own forge, so strange and fabulous a thing it seemed! The boy's heart leaped with his pony's leap. His imagination spread its swift wings ere he could think; but in another instant he reminded himself. This was not an awful apparition, but a real thing, wondrous and unaccountable enough in its reality. It was Anvil Rock—a great, solitary rock—rising abruptly from the reckless loam of a level country, and lifting its single peak, rudely shaped like ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... did resist it, and was again on the road to St. Affrique before the heat of the day had passed. Another toilsome trudge, during which I met an English threshing-machine being dragged along by bullocks, and the familiar words upon it made me feel for awhile quite at home. The apparition, however, gave me a shock, for the antique flail is still the instrument commonly used for threshing in the southern provinces ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... time to obey, for a third apparition arose out of the Sawyer orchard, feet first, and perching itself astride the fence, commanded, "Histe over that there ball!" It was another girl, exactly like the first, except that her mad mop of hair was yellow ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... The apparition was indeed none other than Jim Halliday's dreaded uncle and aunt, and the object of their visit was easy to guess. They had, in fact, taken the long journey from Cornwall as fast as express trains could bring them, in order to remonstrate personally with their depraved nephew on the error ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... astonished French captain, as this apparition appeared before him—he having jumped down on deck again as we ranged alongside; and he placed himself on guard in the most approved fashion. Captain Brisac had no more knowledge of sword-play than he ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... a muffled scream when he saw the glowing apparition. Birnier heard the rustle of grass. As the boy stood up to run he leaped and ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... not with blood but with vinegar and bile; of her large cigar, that worthy ornament of her red lips; and of her envious look; could she have understood all of that, and, giving way to a generous impulse, have refrained from disturbing the gayety of the crowd by her sinister apparition? ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... having there disguised himself, he hied him, when he deemed 'twas time, to the house of the lady, where, donning the gewgaws he had brought with him, he transformed himself into an angel, and going up, entered the lady's chamber. No sooner saw she this dazzling apparition than she fell on her knees before the Angel, who gave her his blessing, raised her to her feet, and motioned her to go to bed. She, nothing loath, obeyed forthwith, and the Angel lay down beside his devotee. Now, Fra Alberto was a stout, handsome fellow, whose legs bore ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... (L'), an apparition said to haunt the Voreux pit. It was said to take the form of an old miner who twisted the necks ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... border-land of dreams. His distorted imagination flung him again and again into the agonizing maelstrom of the last thirty-six hours, and in his waking moments the gaunt spectre of failure haunted him. This was no new apparition, but never before had it appeared so horrible as now. He was too worn out to rave, his strength was spent, and his mind wandered hither and thither like a rudderless ship. So he lay staring into the dark with dull, tragic eyes, utterly ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... inevitable partition and flap spoils the full enjoyment of the plunge. If placed within the frigidarium, and approached by a door from the lavatorium, some sort of a screen should be provided over the bath, as, at times, the apparition appearing at the above door, in full view of the occupants of the cooling-room, is ...
— The Turkish Bath - Its Design and Construction • Robert Owen Allsop
... complete. No jet of light filters through the holes of the case. That seems all the better for me. It is as well that my No. 11 should not be surprised by too sudden an apparition. He is doubtless asleep. I will give two little knocks on the panel, I will awake him, and we will explain matters ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... swiftly upon the adoption of this resolution, and the India Council, under the presidency of the redoubtable Bishop of Burgos, was stupefied by the apparition of the theologians at one of its sittings. Fray Miguel de Salamanca, after asking for permission of the President, made the following brief but energetic discourse: "Most illustrious gentlemen and most reverend sir: It has been certified to us, the ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... abrupt command to halt, and they found themselves surrounded by a dozen troopers. Prescott recognized the faded blue uniform and knew at once that he was in the midst of Yankee horsemen. The girl beside him gave one start at the sudden apparition and ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... things as picking grapes in the spring, sipping sweet dew from the grass, and the presence of an apparition, the Flat Island Book account, when read by itself, with no attempt to make it harmonize with the statements of the "Saga of Eric the Red" or other facts of Scandinavian history, is a sufficiently straightforward narrative. The difficulty begins when it is placed in juxtaposition to these ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... belief, it did not occur to the good man that the seeming apparition might produce the same effect upon the white men as upon ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... I can only describe the effect produced on me by comparing it to the clasp of that marble hand. It is the actual impression of marble, it is as though a man of stone had kissed me. Alas! this horrible apparition has knocked more than once at my door; more than ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... the Colonies' and 'a huge melon' were enough to plunge me suddenly into a dream. As by an apparition, I beheld tropical trees, forests alive with marvelous birds. Oh! the simple magic of the words 'the Colonies'! In my childhood they stood for a multitude of distant sun-scorched countries, with their palm-trees, their enormous flowers, ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... unknown to Thyrsis, exquisite almost beyond enduring. It pierced him to the heart; he sat with his hands clenched, and every nerve of him a-quiver, and the hot tears raining down his cheeks. It was loveliness not of this earth, it was an apparition; that presence which had been haunting him ever since he ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... mad yell, plunged wildly into the crowd. A dozen arms sought to hold him, but in vain. Julio saw the terrifying apparition hurtling down upon him. He turned and fled, but not before the great knife had caught him on its point as it swung down and ripped a deep gash the full length ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... The apparition of Lawyer Clippurse at the Hall occasioned much speculation in that portion of the world to which Waverley-Honour formed the centre: but the more judicious politicians of this microcosm augured yet worse consequences to Richard Waverley from ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... looked all about, in all the rooms, feeling everywhere with silent hands, assuring himself that no lock had been tampered with. On his return to the veranda, as he raised his head, he saw at the top of the main staircase a figure wan as death, a spectral apparition amid the shadows of the passing night, who leaned toward him. It was Matrena Petrovna. She came down, silent as a phantoms and he no longer recognized her voice when she demanded of him, "Where? I require that you ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... herself half an hour late headed a procession of inquiring friends, three of whom bore glasses of milk and plates of rolls to supply the dire omission. A succession of crescendo taps at her door was at length rewarded by a drowsy-eyed apparition in bath-robe and ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... he inquired, not taking his eyes off the apparition. It was looking at him, too, almost anxiously, as if it were wondering whether he would be friend or foe; but, of course, ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... down at the glove which lay where I had thrown it, upon the polished floor. Mechanically I stooped and took up a bit of folded paper. It was written upon,—I unrolled it, and read. It was as if I had opened the record of doom! Had the apparition of Margaret herself risen suddenly before me, I could not have been more astounded. It was a note from her,—and such a note!—full of love, suffering, and humility,—poured out of a heart so deep and tender and true, that the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... wooded hills flanking the city on two sides. Beyond that semicircle of green hills rises a lofty range of serrated mountains, indigo silhouettes. And enormously high above the line of them towers an apparition indescribably lovely—one solitary snowy cone, so filmily exquisite, so spiritually white, that but for its immemorially familiar outline, one would surely deem it a shape of cloud. Invisible its base remains, being the same delicious tint as the sky: only above the eternal snow-line ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... because I was afraid. Besides, I was sitting in a semi-circle with the others and our hands were joined. Dr. Owen, however, was at the end of the line with one hand free, and I saw him reach out towards the apparition (it was about four feet high) and it seemed to me that his hand and arm passed right through the white shape. As he did this I heard a long sigh and a rustling sound and I was conscious of a chilling breath on my face. I asked ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... drawn sword, with the point turned downwards, and in the left a blazing torch made of the bog-pine. This wood, found in the morasses, is so full of turpentine, that, when split and dried, it is frequently used in the Highlands instead of candles. The unexpected and somewhat startling apparition was seen by the red glare of the torches, which displayed the wild features, unusual dress, and glittering arms of those who bore them, while the smoke, eddying up to the roof of the hall, over-canopied ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... they apparently used it as a Morse signal system of their own. But now they were all alert and facing me; the bucks had seen something and that something had suddenly disappeared. This must be investigated, so they circled round hesitatingly; the apparition might be a foe but still they must satisfy their curiosity and discover what it was of which they had had a moment's glimpse and thus they approached nearer and ever nearer to my place ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... cool of the dawn Miss Westonhaugh came tripping across the wet grass to where her uncle was giving his final directions about the furnishing of his howdah for the day; a lovely apparition of freshness in the gray morning, all dressed in dark blue, a light pith helmet-shaped hat pressing the rebellious white-gold hair almost out of sight. She walked so easily it seemed as if her dainty little feet had wings, as Hermes' of old, to ease the ground of their feather ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... him and his attendant. He flung himself on his steed at once, and Richard was obliged to follow without a moment's opportunity of making inquiry about the wonderful apparition he had seen in ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... not disappointed, and, after extricating himself from a dense wilderness of underbrush and foliage, he emerged into an open space, where a small Indian village was planted. The timid inhabitants, on the sudden apparition of the strangers, quitted their huts in dismay; and the famished Spaniards, rushing in, eagerly made themselves masters of their contents. These consisted of different articles of food, chiefly maize and cocoanuts. The supply, ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... turned to go, the picture of offended dignity, when her eyes fell on an apparition in the doorway, and she quailed. It was William, left safely by the fireside for the night, and now glowering, not at her as she swiftly divined, but at the hat with the drooping feathers, twenty years too young for her face. For the first time in her life she lost her nerve, but ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... subject, we shall find that the co-existence is purely accidental. If, as Sir Walter Scott observed, any event, such as the death of the person dreamt of, chance to take place, so as to correspond with the nature and time of the apparition, the circumstance is conceived to be supernatural, although the coincidence is one which must frequently occur, since our dreams usually refer to the accomplishment of that which haunts our minds when awake, and often presage the most probable ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... Hokypoky penny a lump. Then feel all like one family party, same in the theatre, all in the same swim. They do. I'm sure of that. Not so lonely. In our confraternity. Then come out a bit spreeish. Let off steam. Thing is if you really believe in it. Lourdes cure, waters of oblivion, and the Knock apparition, statues bleeding. Old fellow asleep near that confessionbox. Hence those snores. Blind faith. Safe in the arms of kingdom come. Lulls all pain. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... shop, spied the beastie sitting upon the shelf girning at them, and putting out his tongue, and wiggle-waggling his walking-stick ower his left elbow, as if he had been playing upon the fiddle. Mr. Weft at this apparition set up a loud lauch; his passion left him in a moment, when he saw the ridiculous mistake that the Heelandman had fa'en into, and I thocht he would hae bursted his sides wi' evendown merriment. At first Donald lookit desperate angry, and judging frae the way he was twisting about his mouth and rowing ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 275, September 29, 1827 • Various
... could summon courage enough to prosecute the enterprise, so much had he been dismayed by the apparition, whether living or dead, of the grisly buccaneer. In the meantime, what a conflict of mind did he suffer! He neglected all his concerns, was moody and restless all day, lost his appetite, wandered in his thoughts and words, and committed a thousand blunders. His rest ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... Since these last are costumed by dressmakers and milliners, in very doubtful imitation of the modish world, grace has almost disappeared from their dress. And has anything more surely the gift to please than the fresh apparition of a young working girl or a daughter of the fields, wearing the costume of her country, and beautiful from ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... excited as they were, began to calm down. As I had fully expected, overpowering sleepiness seized me, and, notwithstanding every effort, I found myself drifting away into the land of dreams. I began to wish that whatever apparition was to appear would do so at once and get it over. Gradually but surely I seemed to pass from all memory of my present world, and to live in a strange and terrible phantasmagoria. In that state I slept, in that state also ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade
... encroaching woods, and was voiced in the stuttering, tentative note of an awakened owl. Familiarity with nature had freed him from that sense of pursuit in the woods at night which oppresses even a stout heart unaccustomed to loneliness, and the flight of the unexpected apparition was sufficient proof that he had no desire to molest them. The incident certainly offered no ground for continued uneasiness, he reflected. Why, then, did she make so much of it? Why indeed, except that her companion was not the one man in all the world with whom she would choose ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... pious follower of Francke. Shortly afterwards, this man learnt that Francke had died at the very moment when he had seen the vision." As she said this, Madame Torvestad took from her pocket one of her everlasting small books. Sivert Jespersen begged her to read the account of the apparition, if that happened to be the ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... had not finished when the words were struck out of his mouth by an apparition which appeared at his bedroom door. It was that of a young man, whose eyes were wild, whose nostrils were quivering, and whose clothes hung about him in rags as if they had been torn in a recent struggle. He ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... around and came nearer screaming than she ever had been in her life, upon seeing the apparition that stood before her. Was it man, woman, beast or demon? She could not tell! It was a very tall, spare form, with a black cloth petticoat tied around the waist, a blue coat buttoned over the breast, and a black felt hat tied down with ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... edges of the lawn. He was on his knees on the gravel path, busily engaged with a pair of shears, when he heard the amazing sound of the front door opening and shutting. He looked round over his shoulder, to see the same apparition that had appeared to him from the wood, walking calmly down the steps and in the direction of the drive. Apparently she was too engrossed with her own thoughts to observe him where he was kneeling at a little distance to the eastward of ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... friend's thin and emaciated hand; and, the last farewell spoken to the fanatic departing for some tragical adventure, the Hungarian became more sombre and troubled than before, and Labanoff's appearance seemed like a doubtful apparition. He returned to his longing to see the end of the most anxious day of ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... little pupil, as his opening eyes fell on the apparition at the door, "there's Jocky Tamson wi' ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... as rapidly as possible, for I hoped, while hardly daring to believe, that this singular apparition might be human beings. The high grass formed an impenetrable barrier for my curious vision; but nearing the spot, voices were plainly audible on the other side of the narrow point, as though a party of men were in lively discussion. Rowing close to the land, and resting on my oars to gain time to ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... that Father H—— did not, upon the occasion of his visit to Falkland, say anything as to having seen the brown wooden crucifix (see pp. 132, 142, 154), but after this apparition had been seen by two other persons separately, Lord Bute wrote to Father H—— to inquire whether he could remember anything of the sort. His ...
— The Alleged Haunting of B—— House • Various
... speechless. He sat with his mouth wide open and his eyes staring at the little figure, as if it were a veritable apparition. All the others looked in the same direction. Nellie Dawson stood for a moment with her finger pointed reprovingly at the chairman, and then turning about ran back into the rear room and ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... and we were just about to leave, when a howl of derision from the mob made us look round. What I saw was the apparition of an extremely aged and debilitated black man standing on the table. What Moore saw to interest him I could not guess, but he grew pale and uttered an oath of surprise under his breath, though he rarely swore. ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... disagreeable act of gathering himself up as soon as the unpleasant novelty of his uncle's apparition had died away, and as each succeeding moment forced on him, with his returning consciousness, the awful reality of his condition, he began to feel that unenviable sensation of distraction, which is almost akin to despair. He tried to shape things so as they might form some ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... a superstitious thrill ran through the boy's frame. He had heard stories of ghostly visitants to these woods, some of which wore the garb of the monks of the neighbouring priory; but he had never seen any such apparition, and would not have thought of it now had it not been for the peculiar and unnatural quietude of this figure. As it was, he paused, gazing intently at it, wondering if indeed it were a being of flesh ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... her excitement, that away in the farther corner of the ruined courtyard she saw a slowly moving form like a thin column of mist. Was it the Lady of Glencardine—the apparition of the hapless Lady Jane Glencardine? But on closer inspection she decided that it was merely due to her own distorted imagination, and dismissed it from ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... cause the sketch to be recognized, however rudely it might be drawn. I hardly thought that there existed such a woman outside of a picture-frame, or the covers of a romance: not that I had ever met with her resemblance even there, but, being so distinct and singular an apparition; she seemed likelier to find her sisterhood in poetry and picture than in real life. Let us turn away from her, lest a touch too apt should compel her stately and cold and soft and womanly grace to gleam out upon my page with a ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... violently shook the door, and it opened. 'I told you it wasn't locked,' he added, and this small success of opening the door seemed to steady the man. It was a curious psychological effect, this terrorizing (for it amounted to that) of two courageous full-grown men by the mere apparition of a helpless creature in a cellar. Gradually they both recovered from it. The next moment they were out in the passage which led to the front door of the house. The front door stood open. They looked into the street, ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... lately been exercising her faculties as a spiritual writing-medium; and, the conversation turning on that subject, Mr. Powers related some things that he had witnessed through the agency of Mr. Home, who had held a session or two at his house. He described the apparition of two mysterious hands from beneath a table round which the party were seated. These hands purported to belong to the aunt of the Countess Cotterel, who was present, and were a pair of thin, delicate, aged, lady-like hands and arms, appearing at the edge of the table, and terminating at the elbow ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... we two stepped forward, Mr. Whitmore had instantly shot out his right hand to the door—against which Mr. Rogers, however, had planted his foot—with a gesture as if to slam it in our faces. But the sombre apparition of the Rector seemed to freeze him where he stood—or all of him but his left hand which, grasping the candlestick, slowly and as if involuntarily lifted it above the level of his eyes. Then, before the Rector had concluded, he ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of sweet sadness, full of vigour, of peace, and of mystic devotion. Standing there, under the little white cloud of the flowering apple tree, in the midst of the prostrate crowd, surrounded by sunshine and moving shadows he seemed an apparition such as visited the old masters. Noemi stood as if turned to stone, a great sob in her throat. Near her, several women were weeping for the joy of having seen him, and influenced by reciprocal hypnotism. One, who was ill and weary, had seated ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... powerfully after her and yet he stood still and hesitated. The bright moonlight seemed, like a fairy toward one enchanted, to make merry at the loud anxious beating of his heart. He restrained himself no longer; with a passionate movement he hastened with open arms to the beloved apparition, desiring to embrace her, throw himself upon her bosom, breathe out upon her his burning desire. She fled, he followed her. She fled before him, but softly and alluringly and he, intoxicated, rushed after her ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... and stretched out his arms, hardly knowing whether he were warding off an apparition or reaching out to the woman he was ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... on our way to the bottom together. This could not have lasted above a minute or so; but it seemed to me like a year. I heard every voice that had ever sounded in my ear since childhood; I saw every apparition that had ever glided before my fancy: the Sea-Serpent twisted his folds round my neck, and the keel of the Flying Dutchman grated along my back. When the vessel rose at last, and I rose with her, the waters gurgling in my throat and hissing in ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... But in succeeding ages, beside several other circumstances that moved the Athenians to honor Theseus as a demigod, in the battle which was fought at Marathon against the Medes, many of the soldiers believed they saw an apparition of Theseus in arms, rushing on at the head of them against the barbarians. And after the Median war, Phaedo being archon of Athens, the Athenians, consulting the oracle at Delphi, were commanded to gather together ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... and Billington's shamefaced obedience and the wonder of all who had listened to the outbreak were cut short by a startling apparition upon the threshold; the savages had really come at last, or at least one of them, for here stood, tall and erect, the splendid figure of a man, naked except for a waistband of buckskin fringe, his skin of a bright ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... introduced, Johnson repeated what he had told me of a friend of his, an honest man, and a man of sense, having asserted to him, that he had seen an apparition[541]. Goldsmith told us, he was assured by his brother, the Reverend Mr. Goldsmith, that he also had seen one. General Oglethorpe told us, that Prendergast, an officer in the Duke of Marlborough's army, had mentioned ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... his convulsed face. The man bowed to the floor, and slowly moved away backwards. With every gradual step Felix saw his natural shape return. The rays of the autumn sun ceased to light up that mysterious apparition, and only his attorney's humble clerk stood before Felix. With a rush overpowering his will, Felix dashed after the old man, already across the threshold, and overtook him on ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... elevating, moral, beautiful, and touching. Oh! My Soul! Yes, it is a real treasure, and the continuation of Jesus Christ. Their moral qualities excite my liveliest admiration. How strong and gentle they are! I believe that it is in this direction that we must look for the advent of Christ I regard this apparition of a new spirit as analogous to the birth of Christianity, except as to the difference of form. But this is of little importance, for it is certain that when the event which is to renovate the world shall recur, ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... with the English government, he said: "Do not send to me any of your agents, for I trust neither their words nor their treaties. But send to me the missionary of whose character I hear so much from every one; him will I receive and trust." That was the electrifying, vivifying effect of the apparition of such an one as Paul—"a man who had indeed done nothing worthy of bonds or of death"—a man in whose entire disinterestedness and in whose transparent honor the image and superscription of his Master was written so that no one could mistake it. "In every nation, ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... the apparition, which, like the others, had shown itself as a colored picture moving to and fro upon the darkened wall of the tablinum, vanished. The voice of the great Macedonian sounded hollow and unearthly, but what he said had interested the emperor deeply and raised ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... and the rose, saying something respecting majesty, love, honour, &c., which I could not comprehend; but the sweet and silvery magic of her tones intoxicated my senses and my whole soul: it seemed as if some heavenly apparition were hovering over me. The chorus now began to sing the praises of a good sovereign, and the happiness of his subjects. All this, dear Chamisso, took place in the sun: she was kneeling two steps from me, and I, without a shadow, could not dart through the air, nor fall on ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al.
... him; for he became part and parcel with the trees and the fields and every living thing. Nor would the woods and the path by the brook and the breezy wolds ever have been quite the same if his quaint figure had no longer appeared suddenly there. Many a time was I startled by the sudden apparition of Tom Peregrine when out shooting on the hill; he seemed to spring up from the ground like ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... convinced that some crime or injustice had been perpetrated, and thought it ought to be investigated; but Griffith made us laugh at his championship of this shadow of a shade, and even wrote some mock heroic verses about it,—nor would it have been easy to stir my father to seek for the motives of an apparition which no one in the family save Clarence ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to the other public assembly in which he had sat unnoticed that day: till gradually the aspect of things changed to him, the Speaker became the judge, the wigged secretaries the pleaders, and he almost expected to see that sudden apparition, that sight that had plucked him out of his careless life of boyhood and trust, the sight of his mother standing before the world on trial for her life. Oh, no, no, not on trial at all! he was aware of that: a harmless witness, doing only good. The judge could have nothing but polite regard for ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... cries of "Good evening" from the party, and all eyes were fixed upon Strout, who stood as if petrified and gazed at the three figures that came through the open door and stood behind Huldy and her mother. Hamlet following the fleeting apparition on the battlements of the castle at Elsinore, Macbeth viewing Banquo at his feast, or Richard the Third gazing on the ghostly panorama of the murdered kings and princes, could not have felt weaker at heart than did Professor Strout when he saw the new-comers and realized that they were ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... before he goes to bed," suggested Deering, forgetting his sorrows for the moment as he contemplated the dancing apparition. ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... relation was published in the name of one Elizabeth Freeman, afterwards called the mayor of Hatfield, setting forth, that, on the 24th of January, the apparition of a woman, all in white [the Duke of Monmouth's mother was here to be understood], with a white veil over her face, accosted her with these words; 'Sweetheart, the 15th of May is appointed for the blood-royal to be poisoned. ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... had so flatly refused to pass was a two-story affair of brick that set well back from the highway. There were rumors afloat that a murder had once been committed there, and that the apparition of the victim, an old man, walked about at night moaning in true ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... This apparition fortified Xavier so much, that he recovered suddenly; yet whether he had some doubts concerning it, or was of opinion that he ought to keep it secret, he said nothing of it at that time. But that which then happened to him made ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... most terrible part of all," said Lady Sophia. In her voice there was an accent almost of horror. "It sickened me to the soul," she continued—"the idea of a woman bidding a tender good night to an apparition." ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens
... entered, there arose, almost like an apparition from his seat in the window-recess, the tall, ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... to become horrible or grotesque. She secures plausibility by having for its leading characters practical business men—not a woman, hysterical or otherwise, really appears—and by placing them in a perfectly conventional setting. The apparition is not accompanied by blood stains, shroud, or uncanny noises. Sometimes the writer of the supernatural feels that he must explain his mystery by material agencies. The effect is to disappoint the reader who has yielded himself to the conditions imposed by the author, ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... Franciscan frock, with a general's baton in his hand. As soon as it was hailed by the terrified soldier, it called to him to "tell the garrison to be of good heart, for the enemy should not prevail against them." Having uttered these words, the apparition vanished without ceremony. It repeated its visit in the same manner on the following night, and, a few days after, its assurance was verified by the total discomfiture of the Algerines, in a bloody battle under the walls. See the evidence of these various apparitions, ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... a woman sprang out from under a walnut tree on the right-hand side of the gateway, and passed before the Councillor as noiselessly and swiftly as the shadow of a cloud. This apparition struck him dumb ...
— Farewell • Honore de Balzac
... evidence compels me to accept it," I replied. "There appears to be no motive for fraud; one could, of course, invent theories to account for the apparition, but I am forced to believe, nevertheless, that two highly trustworthy men did actually imagine that they saw the organist's ghost. Whether they actually did so or not ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... moment Claude Vignon entered the room. At his unexpected apparition Calyste and Felicite were both silent for a moment,—she from surprise, he from a vague uneasiness. The vast forehead, broad and high, of the new-comer, who was bald at the age of thirty-seven, now seemed darkened ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... it, or rather he had his hand on the hasp of twisted withes which secured it, when he was suddenly arrested by the apparition of a girl, who flashed around the curve of young birch beyond and stood before him with panting ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... of the beauty and terror of the thunderbolt—"God's autograph," as one of our poets (Joel Benton) said, "written upon the sky." Let me end with an allusion to another aspect of the storm that has no terror in it—the bow in the clouds: a sudden apparition, a cosmic phenomenon no less wonderful and startling than the lightning's flash. The storm with terror and threatened destruction on one side of it, and peace and promise on the other! The bow appears ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... the apparition of Mr. Bennett appeared to his daughter, the explanation of his presence at that moment in the office of Marlowe, Thorpe, Prescott, Winslow, and Appleby was simple. He had woken early that morning, and, glancing at his watch on the dressing-table, he had suddenly become ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... complement: "The animal he bestrode was a broken-down plow-horse, that had outlived almost everything but his usefulness;" "It was such an apparition as is seldom to be met ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... himself in full view of the object of his solicitude,—a girl, in the full bloom of youthful beauty, who, with bonnet thrown back and her loosened hair streaming in wild disorder over her shoulders, instantly rushed forward for his protection. Claud stopped short, in mute surprise at the unexpected apparition; for the first glance at her face told him that the original of his mysterious miniature was before him,—before him, here in the woods! Breathless and speechless in her wild affright, she pointed, with a glance over her shoulder, to a thick, high tangle of large, strongly ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... brought us down for a moment to our proper sphere; yet hardly,—for on looking up we beheld, standing in the wake of a coloured sun-beam, from which, on wing of gossamer, she seemed to have just descended, an unexpected apparition of surpassing grace and beauty. Titania's self, just stepped upon the moonlit earth, could scarcely have stood poised on an unbroken flower-stalk, in form more airy, in attitude more graceful, with countenance more radiant than those of Emily F—, as, ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... were startled by the apparition, no less so were the Hussars formed round. Equally frightened these, though not from the same cause. The hunchback—for it was he—had become a familiar sight to them; but not agitated as he appeared to be now. He was panting ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... as the marble of the fairy statue, ere yet the sculptor's love had given it life. A smile played upon her features, but it was no warmer than the reflection of a moonbeam on a lake; and yet it was wondrous beautiful. A fascination stole over the senses of young Wolfgang. He stared at the lovely apparition with fixed eyes and distended jaws. She looked at him with ineffable archness. She lifted one beautifully rounded alabaster arm, and made a sign as if to beckon him towards her. Did Wolfgang—the young and lusty Wolfgang—follow? ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and love only at the proper time, and meanwhile put up with the Psiche-fanciulla. Now, I happened to hear of a young Greek—real Greek girl at 110 Malamocco; a true Islander, do you see, with Alciphron's "hair like sea-moss"—Schramm knows!—white and quiet as an apparition, and fourteen years old at farthest—a daughter of Natalia, so she swears—that hag Natalia, who helps us to models at three lire an hour. We selected 115 this girl for the heroine of our jest. So first, Jules received a scented letter—somebody had seen ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... of years; the tail meantime pointing always away from the sun, and fading to nothingness as the weird voyager recedes into the spatial void whence it came. Not many times need the advent of such an apparition coincide with the outbreak of a pestilence or the death of a Caesar to stamp the race of comets as an ominous clan in the minds of ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... train—a rare, motionless blue gauze—gone to rest in the chill mid-air, he met a man who suddenly descended upon the track in front of him from higher up the mountain,—a great, lank mountaineer. And when Bonaventure asked the apparition the untiring question to which so many hundreds had answered No, the tall man looked down upon the questioner, a bright smile suddenly lighting up the unlovely ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... out bathing, had to cross, in puris naturalibus, not undetected, though covered in his retreat by the clever Italian handmaiden, through a luncheon party assembled in the dining-room. The horror of the ladies at the poet's unexpected apparition and his innocent self-defence are well described by Trelawny. Life in the villa was of the simplest description. To get food was no easy matter; and the style of the furniture may be guessed by Trelawny's laconic remark that the sea ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... could not be many hours more of daylight, upon rising to the summit of a great billow, I beheld something riding the seas not far ahead. For some reason I had not seen the bulk of this strange apparition before and at first I was sure it was the ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... before us,' she replied: 'such is the punishment of them. Let us hope and believe that the apparition, and the compunction which must follow it, will be accepted as the full penalty, and that both will pass ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... since declared, in an interview in which he ridicules himself very cleverly, that his brain, over-stimulated by the fatigues of the night and by the whole scene before him, imagined the most unlikely events, such as an invasion of the house by armed assailants, or the apparition of ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc |
