"Indescribable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... secreted drops, distilled spots like black coffee; the steps were worn hollow, and thin at the ends like spoons; they led up to a door smeared yellow, with a cast-iron knob as black as ink. A copper ring swung in the wind at the end of a bell-rope, knocking the chipped plaster of the wall. An indescribable smell of stale apples and stagnant water came up the middle of the staircase from the little outer hall below, which was paved with rows of bricks set on edge, eaten into patterns like madrepores, while the ceiling looked like a map, furrowed with seas that were traced in yellow by the soaking through ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... records the following curious case. "One of my schoolfellows, who found an indescribable pleasure in being flogged, purposely and wilfully neglected his duty in order to draw upon himself the correction, which never failed to produce an emission of semen. As may easily be imagined he soon began the practice of masturbation, in which he ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... controlled and expectant, with a certain every-day expression in anticipation of what, in its blind terror and life and death importance to him, was a familiar occurrence to them, and on the one woman's face, controlled too, but with an indescribable wistfulness under the control. Then he made his childish appeal, shrill with misery, "Oh, gentlemen, will you not stop till I ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... exact hue of which I was never able to determine, since it was chameleonic in its properties. When it was placed in my hands by our "grateful patient" it was blood -red; when I looked upon it on the following morning it was of a livid, indescribable hue, yet lustrous as an opal. To-day it is colorless and dull, as though some animating quality that it had once possessed ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... a pianist from Warsaw, according to report a pupil of Wurfel's [which report was of course baseless], came before us a master of the first rank. The exquisite delicacy of his touch, his indescribable mechanical dexterity, his finished shading and portamento, which reflect the deepest feeling; the lucidity of his interpretation, and his compositions, which bear the stamp of great genius— variazioni di bravura, rondo, free fantasia—reveal a virtuoso most liberally endowed ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... that it was so widely scattered. The ridge runs like a broken backbone for a distance of some eight miles.... In rough weather the whole of the rocks are covered, and the waves, beating heavily on the mass, convert the scene into one of indescribable tumult.... ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... will of God concerning anything is a great satisfaction. It is like food to our souls if we can say with Jesus, "My meat is to do God's will." It is an indescribable pleasure if we can say with the Son of God, "I delight to do thy will." It is the key to the highest form of knowledge, for we have found it true that "he that doeth the will of God shall know of the doctrine." It is the promise ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman
... looked away, and tried to think himself explaining his scheme to the Archdeacon. 'The place is in frightful disorder, filled with indescribable vice and misery, but there is a shadow of hope that a few may be worked on if something like a mission can be organized. Circumstances seemed to mark me out as the person to be at the cost of setting it on foot, my father's connection with the parish giving it a claim on me. ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... acquaintance to greet him with a friendly welcome; and the next day, as he was jostled by the crowd, and pushed aside by the hurried pedestrian, he realized what it was to be a stranger in a strange land, and an indescribable sensation came upon him, known only to those who have been placed in ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... wheeled in sight as we drove along; all forlorn, all patched with mud, all perched on barren knolls, or gigantic bars of granite, high up, like ragged redoubts of poverty, armed at every window with a formidable artillery of old hats, rolls of rags, quilts, carpets, and indescribable bundles, or barricaded with boards to keep out ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... submission. Sometimes, before things reached this point, they might consent to receive a tribute and to retire. At other times, convinced that by perseverance they would reap a rich reward, they may have remained till the besieged city fell, when there must have ensued an indescribable scene of havoc, rapine, and bloodshed. According to the broad expression of Herodotus, the Scythians were masters of the whole of Western Asia from the Caucasus to the borders of Egypt for the space of twenty-eight years. This statement is doubtless an ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... Caroline! Through God's grace and assistance, I have this evening met with the most complete success. The brilliancy and affecting nature of the triumph is indescribable. God alone be thanked for it! When I entered the orchestra, the whole of the house, which was filled to overflowing, rose up, and I was saluted with huzzas, waving of hats and handkerchiefs, which I thought would never ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 477, Saturday, February 19, 1831 • Various
... Dragoons, the Fifth Regulars, and that crack young regiment, the Sixth Pennsylvania Cavalry (forming what was known as the "Reserve Brigade"), were massing on the southern bank of the river. The sharp report of infantry rifles, the rising smoke, and the thousand indescribable sounds, with the tramp of fresh cavalry pressing forward to take their part in the fray, showed that the battle was now waging in good earnest. The wounded arrived more rapidly at the ford, stretcher-bearers plying their trade ...
— History of the Second Massachusetts Regiment of Infantry: Beverly Ford. • Daniel Oakey
... give out that the divining spirit has declared: 'that the deceased, Feng Yuean, and Hsueeh P'an had been enemies in a former life, that having now met in the narrow road, their destinies were consummated; that Hsueeh P'an has, by this time, contracted some indescribable disease and perished from the effects of the persecution of the spirit of Feng.' That as the calamity had originated entirely from the action of the kidnapper, exclusive of dealing with the kidnapper according to law, the rest need not be interfered with, and so on. Your servant will be ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... hardly tell you. My mother is in a state of indescribable agitation. Her brother's Will has been found in Italy. And his daughter may arrive in England at ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... of the dialogue, if dialogue it could be called, with wonted irrelevancy: "That thar Becky Stiles, she's got the freckledest face—ez freckled ez any turkey-aig" (with an indescribable drawl on the ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... before us, we allotted two hours every morning for the purpose of writing down his life from his own mouth; and frequently, when wind and weather kept us below, we spent some time of an afternoon in the same exercise, till we had quite completed it. But then there were some things in it so indescribable by words, that if I had not had some knowledge in drawing, our history had been very incomplete. Thus it must have been, especially in the description of the Glumms and Gawrys therein mentioned. In order to gain (that so I might communicate) a clear idea of ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... the finer and more impressive beauty of maturity. As the light of the setting sun fell full upon her face it seemed almost transparent, and even the unobserving must have perceived that some deep experience of the sadness of life had added to her character an indescribable charm. ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... jockey-caps, Russian or Kuzzilbash caps, Middle-age caps (such as are called, in heraldry, caps of maintenance), Spanish nets, and striped worsted nightcaps. Fancy all the jackets you have ever seen, and you have before you, as well as pen can describe, the costumes of these indescribable Frenchmen. ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in hand, day and night. Human life was valued no higher than the life of an ox or a hog, and the heart of the settlement was cold, and palsied to the most remote touch of feeling, and hardened to the recital of brutalities and crimes of the most indescribable enormity. Men talked of their evil doings, their deep, revolting guilt, with the most impudent freedom, and laughed and chuckled over them as though they were the best jokes in ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... cleanliness. Benham was roused to defence against this paradox. "But all exaltation neglects," said Prothero. "No religion has ever boasted that its saints were spick and span." This controversy raged between them in the streets of Irkutsk. It was still burning while they picked their way through the indescribable filth of Pekin. ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... lay and drew in the indescribable something which passed between them. She heard and yet she did not hear. But by some strange sympathy she felt herself strengthened ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... few minutes of inky blackness, of indescribable terror, of flying missiles armed with death, Cyclona lay unconscious. When she opened her eyes a calm light of the evenness of twilight had spread over the track of the cyclone, and her head lay pillowed on Hugh Walsingham's shoulder. Close beside her was a ragged bough and her broncho lay ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... coat. At last, a thick bar of vapor being past, what a scene was disclosed! A storm was sweeping through the sky, nearly a mile beneath; and I looked down upon an ocean of rainbows, rolling in indescribable grandeur, to the music of the thunder-peal, as it moaned afar and near, on the coming and ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... he gazed intensely on the angelic creature now before him. This was no artful fiction, no solemn mockery of woe: a few words had worked that dreadful revolution in her mind. Perhaps there is at times an indescribable cruelty in love that prompts a man, in a certain degree, to enjoy the misery which is wrought by an excess of affection towards him, and triumph now mingled with compassion in the abandoned lover's heart. He was, however, soon called ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... Vestals, was so dark that it was almost black. Arranged in the six braids traditional for Vestals and wound round her head like a coronet it became her notably. Her complexion was creamy, with a splendid brilliant color that came and went in her cheeks. Her expression of face was an indescribable blend of kindliness and haughtiness towards others, of austerity and cheerfulness inwardly, of intellectuality and comprehension towards life at large. She had acquired the statuesqueness of the conventional ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... not dead! The brief telegram overwhelmingly shocked her. Her life had been calm, regular, monotonous. And now it was thrown into an indescribable turmoil by five words of a telegram, suddenly, with no warning whatever. Sophia had the right to say to herself: "I have had my share of trouble, and more than my share!" The end of her life promised to be as awful as the beginning. The ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... unwelcome attention. So he lined his swinging-bed with such dried grasses as he could find, and nestling in it tried to sleep. For hours this was impossible. The forest about him was filled with strange rattlings, dashings, and other indescribable sounds. He was also cold and hungry. But at length he lost consciousness of his unhappy position, and ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... frying-pan into his mouth, and was more than suspected of having swallowed a fictitious turkey, glued on a wooden platter! The immense relief of finding this a false alarm! The joy, and gratitude, and ecstasy! They are all indescribable alike. It is enough that by degrees, the children and their emotions got out of the parlour, and, by one stair at a time, up to the top of the house, where they went to bed, ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... she fixed her eyes full upon her, struck Agatha with an indescribable feeling. She looked eagerly at Miss Valery, trying to read in that worn face some likeness to the one which had impressed her childish memory ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... smaller week after week, while the general surface of the corresponding hemisphere of the planet deepens in color, and displays a constantly increasing wealth of details as summer advances across it, is an experience of the most memorable kind, whose effect upon the mind of the observer is indescribable. ...
— Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries • Garrett P. Serviss
... an indescribable intonation. "I fancy I shall take them all with me. Do as I bid thee, David, and trouble not thyself ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... tenets of this, the last attempt to explain the mystery of the universe which gained currency in Rome, were as follows—it will be seen how completely it had passed from philosophy to theosophy:—The supreme being is one, eternal, absolute, indescribable, and incomprehensible; but may be envisaged by the soul for a moment like a flash of lightning. [17] The great gods are of two kinds, visible, as the sun and stars, and invisible, as Jupiter and the rest; both these are inaccessible to human communion. Then come the daemons in their ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... hundred persons. The show was a very brilliant one; but such scrambling to go to supper that there was some danger of being squeezed to death. The vice-president handed in Mrs. Washington, and the president immediately followed. The applause with which they were received is indescribable. The same was shown on their return from supper. The music added greatly to the interest of the scene. The president staid until between twelve and one; the vice-president till near two. Both were serenaded with repeated huzzas long after they had been in bed. The latter slept so soundly that ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... and mounted like a sudden flame, and saw myself for a moment like a thin streak of white mist rising in the air; while the comfort and relief I experienced by regaining my light spirit-condition, were indescribable. It was because I had, for want of skill, dematerialised myself without sufficient deliberation, that I had thus rapidly mounted in the air. After an interval I dreamt that, wishing to see what A. would do in case I appeared to him after my ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... precious to the miner, pearls to the diver, ivory to the Coast-merchant, and the shell-fish to the maker of Tyrian purple. The body of each saint is an unfinished history of redemption; a destiny of indescribable interest and importance belongs to it. Any subaltern angel may have charge of winds and seas, of day and night, of summer and winter; but only the archangel is counted meet to have charge, and to ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... were also in the Sixth—the two last below him in form order—had already received their prefects' caps). Not being a prefect, it would have been officious in him to have stopped the game. So he was passing on with what Mr Hurry Bungsho Jabberjee, B.A., would have termed a beaming simper of indescribable suavity, when a member of one of the opposing teams, in effecting a G. O. Smithian dribble, cannoned into him. To preserve his balance—this will probably seem a very thin line of defence, but 'I state but the facts'—he grabbed at the disciple of Smith amidst ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... The effect was indescribable. The animal gave a frightful roar, dropped to the floor, and, rolling over and over, tore frantically with its paws at its ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... one," said old man Jocelyn, with an indescribable sneer—"some real mean man has been and shot out them swales along ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... turned him violently about to face the commonplace importunities of existence. Sir William had probably not formulated to himself what he had vaguely expected, but it certainly was not the puzzled, half-questioning look, the indescribable air of being taken aback, altered at once by a quick impulse into something that tried not to look forbidding, and more strange and tell-tale than all the quick movement by which Rendel drew a large sheet ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... inspiration to the men; but at the moment when the laurels seemed to be resting securely upon our banners, the rebel line moved forward with irresistible fury. Tom, at one instant, as he cast his eye along the line, found himself flanked on either side by his comrades; at the next there was a wild, indescribable tramp and roar, and he found himself alone. The regiment was scattered in every direction, and he did not see a single man whom he knew. There was a moving mass of Federal soldiers all around him. The Zouaves had been forced back, and the cry of victory had given ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... in the room. Perhaps the very emotion under which Diana was labouring added to the charm of her wonderful voice—gave it an indescribable appeal which held the critical audience, familiar with all the best that the ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... the landlady of the "Golden Sun," when she saw the procession coming towards her house, is quite indescribable. Whenever the question arose concerning any wedding, low or high, she always said, ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... might have been a Goth, and worn the horned bull-pate helmet of Alaric's warriors; or stood at the prow of one of the swift craft of the Vikings. His eyes, which have been variously described, were, it seemed to me, of an indescribable depth of the bluish moss-agate, with a capacity of pupil dilation that in certain lights had the effect of a ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... closely to him—looking anxiously into her face, which she covered with her hands. She knew he was in earnest, and the knowledge that he loved her thrilled her for an instant with indescribable happiness. A moment, however, and thoughts of her engagement with another flashed upon her. "She must not sit there thus with Arthur Carrollton—she would be true to Henry," and with mingled feelings of ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... Optimate Metellus had thus begun formal civil war at his own hand against the generalissimo of the democracy. It shows the indescribable disorganization in the Roman state, that these incidents led to nothing farther than a bitter correspondence between the two generals, who a couple of years afterwards were sitting once more peacefully and even "amicably" side by ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... rescue, and only the rushing water could be heard. To view the solid phalanxes of icy floes, as they fill the mountain fastnesses and imperceptibly march through the ravines and force their way to the sea, fills one with awe indescribable. The knowledge that the ice is moving from beneath one's feet thrills one with a curious sensation ...
— Oregon, Washington and Alaska; Sights and Scenes for the Tourist • E. L. Lomax
... the ideal picturesque accessories. It stands at the corner of two meeting roadways. It is set in an ideal pastoral frame—a frame of sleeping fields, of waving tree-tops, of an enchanting, indescribable snarl of bushes, vines, and wild flowers. In the adjoining fields, beneath the tree-boughs, ran the long, low line of the ancient manoir—now turned ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... withersoever he would." "Thor and Balder in one," "very Goth," "a Norse Demigod," "hair of the true Sicambrian yellow"; Carlyle describes him as "fond of all stimulating things; from tragic poetry down to whiskey-punch. He snuffed and smoked cigars and drank liqueurs, and talked in the most indescribable style.... He is a broad sincere man of six feet, with long dishevelled flax-coloured hair, and two blue eyes keen as an eagle's ... a being all split into precipitous chasms and the wildest volcanic tumults ... a noble, loyal, and ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... not answer at first, but, with that indescribable feeling that awakens sympathy and intelligence among the youthful and unpracticed of her sex, she hung her head, and the blood suffused her cheek ere she found her tongue. It would have exceeded her stock of intelligence to explain this embarrassment, but, though ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... it in," pleaded the young man. "As a matter of fact, if you want to know, I think your mouth is absolutely perfect. I think," he proceeded, a little feverishly, "that you are the most indescribable ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... eagerly at the nearing town, Caipor seemed scarcely able to restrain his eagerness to dash forward, while Ligurius shaded his eyes with his hand and viewed the spectacle like a general counting the power of his approaching foe. Even at this distance they saw, or began to imagine they saw, some indescribable change,—not a flurry of motion or excitement,—they were too far away to note that, had such been present. It was as though above, around every tower and battlement hung an atmosphere of hostility and defiance; yet this was the friend ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... turned and faced the directors. There was something about his demeanor and an indescribable look on his face, which caused the murmurs of applause to die away and silence once more ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... her hands together and exclaimed, "'Where is she? Where is she?' was what he said. Again and again he repeated these words in a tone of indescribable anguish, and I was almost thankful when his mind wandered again, and I could leave his dreadful question unanswered. Alice, my child, I am so weak, and you are so strong in your faith, in your hope, in your boundless charity, that I must give way before you, and for once ask ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... self; striving hard to retain her self-control. She would not even raise her eyes to his lest she should lose it, lest she should betray herself. And all the while the chords of her innermost being thrilled and quivered with an indescribable tenderness, taking words within her mind: "My Laurence, my love, my ideal, what would I not do to brighten life for you—you for whom life is all too hard! I would draw down that life-weary head till it rested on my breast; I would ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... was of being in the presence of a great power—something indefinable and indescribable, but invincibly sure. He was of medium height, and his massive head seemed to bend by its own weight, giving him a somewhat stooped appearance. His hair, brown, with sunny glints touching it to gold, was brushed back from his wide, high forehead, falling in curls around his pale face and ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... of the matchless agility of the crotalus when he cares to be quick. The cage was just twelve inches high in the clear; but before the falling mouse was halfway to the bottom, there was an indescribable gray blur, and I knew that the larger snake had hit him. I have improved numerous chances to study the stroke of rattlesnake, which is the swiftest motion made by any living creature; but that particular case, better than ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... village, are represented by the bass drum. A few notes on the piccolo call attention to a solitary antelope picking up mescal beans in the foreground. The sun, having an altitude of 36 degrees 27 minutes, blazes down upon the scene in indescribable majesty. "Gradually the sounds roll forth in a song" of rejoicing to the ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... and individual about the paths in a garden—they either "belong," or they do not. Imagine cement walks in grandmother's garden! Its walks are as much to a garden as its flowers or its birds or its beetles, and express that dear, indescribable intimacy that makes the Phlox a friend and the Johnny-Jump-Up ...
— The Long Ago • Jacob William Wright
... play with a prologue and denouement ... he sees eternity in men and women ... he does not see men or women as dreams or dots. Faith is the antiseptic of the soul ... it pervades the common people and preserves them ... they never give up believing and expecting and trusting. There is that indescribable freshness and unconsciousness about an illiterate person that humbles and mocks the power of the noblest expressive genius. The poet sees for a certainty how one not a great artist may be just as ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... herself richly for our departure; no sky could have been more blue, no grass more green and no trees more full of glistening leaves and singing birds. There was an indescribable freshness and glory on the sunny hills and shining sky. The breeze sifted through the trees and over the rim of the circling slopes, causing the maple leaves to show silver and wafting fragrance from a thousand fountains of sweetness. At brief intervals ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... on; but at that moment the cottage-door opened, and a woman, whose sour, unpleasant countenance Ellen recognized, came hastily forth. She seemed not to heed the travellers; but the angler, his voice thrilling and quivering with indescribable emotion, addressed her. ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... one, and there was not a rebel on the tower who dared utter a derisive word, however much he might have felt inclined to do so. But when the Stars and Bars were bent on to the halliards and run up to the masthead, the yells of its supporters were almost deafening and their antics quite indescribable. There was an abundance of enthusiasm about that time. There wasn't quite so much one short year later, when some of those same boys learned, to their great disgust and rage, that the Confederate Congress had passed a sweeping conscription ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... Cobden in the repeal of the Corn Laws. Bright was an orator of the highest order. He had all the qualifications that make a master of eloquence. His presence was commanding; his voice was singularly strong and clear, and had peculiar tones and shades in it which gave indescribable meaning to passages of anger, of pity, or of contempt. His manner was quiet, composed, serene. He indulged in little or no gesticulation, he had a rich gift of genuine Saxon humor. These two men, one belonging to the middle ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... as Jean Goujon and Cousin, who zealously worked upon the ornamentation of these bell turrets, balconies and towers, as if to prove the sincerity and beauty of French art. This luxuriant flowing forth, in stone carving, of foliage, flower, boss and emblem, has resulted in an ensemble of indescribable charm, the dazzling light stone of Bourre, of which the chateau is built, lending itself harmoniously to ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... Thoresby intoned an indescribable astonishment of displeasure in her utterance of her daughter's name,—"remember yourself. You are neither to be impertinent to me, nor to speak rudely of persons whom I choose for your acquaintance. When ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... human progress. When that time comes we may not have reached the millennium but we shall be nearer to it. We shall then together establish justice, temperance, purity of life, as never has been done before. Earth's aspirations then shall grow to events. The indescribable—that shall ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... form by his remarkable polyphonic skill. Note at the outset of the second part the vigorous effect of the theme in the bass and the frequency of biting dissonances. The charming grace and simplicity of the Trio are indescribable; here again we find an eloquent use of the wood-wind group. The Finale, in complete Sonata-form, begins with a perfectly balanced periodic theme, presented in Two-part form, i.e., two sentences of eight measures, each repeated. ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... of those who remained patient in their submission were continued, and should become a settled habit, they would give just cause of war against the Porte to all Christian states. This was in 1821.[6] It was followed, early in the next year, by that indescribable enormity, that appalling monument of barbarian cruelty, the destruction of Scio; a scene I shall not attempt to describe; a scene from which human nature shrinks shuddering away; a scene having hardly a parallel in the history of fallen man. This scene, too, was quickly followed ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... teeth, gripped the arm and raised himself—first to his knees, then to his feet, where he stood swaying. An indescribable roar ascended steadily on all sides; but he could see little of the crowd as yet. He was standing in a cleared space, held by guards. A couple of dozen persons stood here; three or four on horseback; and ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... in his mind two as brought together to each other without commingling, making the theory of them as a matter of fact, but not by a lying imagination and vain combinations of the mind; but in nowise separating them, since now the division into two has been destroyed on account of the indescribable and incomprehensible union; saying with the holy Athanasius, for there is now flesh and again the flesh of God the Word, now flesh animated and intelligent, and again the flesh of the animated and ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... indescribable state are the streets reduced by heavy rains that I actually remember a mule being drowned in the shafts by the side of one of the main thoroughfares in the very heart ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... the yellow rose above her ear to the black silk camisa; he noted even the thick yellow satin saya, or skirt, heavily flounced with black lace and bugles, and that it was a different dress from that worn on the preceding night, a half-gala costume, carried with the indescribable air of a woman looking her best and pleased to do so: all this he had noted, drawing nearer and nearer, until near enough to forget it all and drown himself in the depths of her beautiful eyes. For they were no longer childlike and wondering: they ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... the inflamed face of Inspector Aylesbury was really indescribable, and recognizing his mental limitations, I was almost tempted to feel sorry for him. However, he did not lack ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... He presented his plea, was received with open arms, and returned his thanks by draining the country of its treasures. It was only when the people felt the physical sting of his wars, and saw the indescribable moral dearth pervading their country, that they resolved to go back to the old paths and the good way, and to abandon all deference to French examples. On the occasion of the great jubilee of 1863, which commemorated deliverance from ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... 29th, was followed the next day by the landing of the prince, whose impatience to throw himself into the open arms of his country made him spurn every notion of risk and every reproach for rashness. He was received with indescribable enthusiasm. The generous flame rushed through the whole country. No bounds were set to the affectionate confidence of the nation, and no prince ever gave a nobler example of gratitude. As the people everywhere proclaimed William I. sovereign prince, it was proposed that he ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... 'he wasn't a gentleman at all; he was one of those mean whites down South.' As she said this, the scornful emphasis on mean whites was something quite indescribable. Truly, the condition of poor whites at the South must be pitiable indeed, to be regarded with such utter contempt by the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... fool. I do not remember that I ever met a very handsome man or woman, who was not as vain and shallow as a peacock. I recently met a magnificent woman of middle age at a railroad station. She was surrounded by all those indescribable somethings and nothings which mark the rich and well-bred traveller, and her face was queenly—not sweet and pretty like a doll's face—but handsome and stylish, and strikingly impressive, so that no man could look at her once without turning to look again; yet I had not been ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... folding the note, and concealing it in his hand, rose, and walked towards Ramona's window, Ramona terrifiedly watching him; the sound of Felipe's steps roused the Senora, who sat up instantly, and gazed about her with that indescribable expression peculiar to people who hope they have not been asleep, but know they have. "Have I been ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... darknesses too dusky for registration! She looked so steadily on these gulfs and murks that at last she could see anything she wished to see; and always, when times were critical, when this and that, abominations indescribable, were separate by no more than a pin's point, she must retire from her watch (alas for a too-sensitive nature!) to chase the enemies of a dog upon which, more than ever, she fixed ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... why do you turn red? Why look so confused? Why try to take the book away from me? Oh, my God, it is true! it is true!" He dropped the volume, sank back upon a chair, and regarded her with indescribable grief. ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... highest credit on the diffidence of Bunyan's genius-a genius as rich in its inventions, and as aspiring in its imaginative flights, as ever poet could possess or lay claim to-that, after such an exordium, he should have made no effort minutely to describe what was in its own splendour of glory indescribable. How beautifully, without exciting any disappointment in a reader of taste, feeling, and judgment, does he, by a few artless words, render most impressive and sublime, what more elaborate description could only have made confused and unsatisfactory. Nothing can be more admirable than this ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... stern Dominican, "you are now inscribed as a Venetian subject. A Venetian subject! From a country of profligacies and indescribable laxity of ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... preparation for death—every road and footpath crammed with it, every field trampled by it, every woodland shattered by it, every stream running thick with its pollution. The sour smell of marching men, the stale taint of unclean fires, the stench of beasts—the acrid, indescribable odor that hangs on the sweating flanks of armies seemed to infect sky ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... reality into poetry; but in spite of all these efforts it was only able, to use the words of Augustine, to see from afar the land which it desired. It broke this world into fragments; but nothing remained to it, save a ray from a world beyond, which was only an indescribable "something." ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... the work. When the men went there to 'do it up' they found the interior of the house in a state of indescribable filth: the ceilings discoloured with smoke and hung with cobwebs, the wallpapers smeared and black with grease, the handrails and the newel posts of the staircase were clammy with filth, and the edges of the doors near the ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... indescribable and unforgettable gallantry under most difficult conditions, and our German enemies have sustained considerable losses while ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Franco-German War of 1870 terrible hardships were endured by prisoners on both sides. The winter transport to Germany in open trucks led to scenes of indescribable misery for the French prisoners, who arrived sometimes "frozen to the boards in their own filth." German prisoners at Pau had for six days only bread and water till English and German ladies took pity on them. ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... were absolutely necessary. Vance realized it more than ever as he looked up to the tall athletic figure. And he realized also that since he had last looked closely at Terence the latter had slipped out of boyhood and into manhood. There was that indescribable something about the set of the chin and the straight-looking eyes ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... her own feeling, sang it from beginning to end with a triumphant energy that held the whole circle around her intently listening. She sang with the strong barbaric accent of the native African, and with those indescribable upward turns and those deep gutturals which give such a wild, peculiar power to the negro singing,—but above all, with such an overwhelming energy of personal appropriation that the hymn seemed to be fused in the furnace of her feelings and come out recrystallized as a production ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... doubly so because entirely unexpected," said M. Morrel. "But I must see young Massetti—it was, no doubt, some mysterious influence, some indescribable magnetic power, operating between us, that made me wish to see this man, this maniac, as soon as he was mentioned!—I must see him ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... recognized him by his voice. I certainly should not have done so by his appearance. He had taken the precaution of 'making up' for this important meeting. A white wig of indescribable respectability peeped out beneath his black hat. His eyes twinkled from under two penthouses of white eyebrows. A white moustache covered his mouth. He was ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... Tennyson, the genial face of John Kenyon, Mrs. Browning's good friend and relative, little paintings of the boy Browning, all attracted the eye in turn, and gave rise to a thousand musings. A quaint mirror, easy-chairs and sofas, and a hundred nothings that always add an indescribable charm, were all massed in this room. But the glory of all, and that which sanctified all, was seated in a low arm-chair near the door. A small table, strewn with writing-materials, books, and newspapers, was always by her side.... After her death, her husband had a careful water-colour ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... trembling to a world in which they anticipate only an ephemeral existence and cruel deception. Their sadness is reflected on those who approach them. There is as it were a fatal circle around them, in which all feel themselves seized with indescribable fear, and with the evidences of sympathy entertained for them is mingled ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... furious lightning. Playing upon the face of the unruffled river, with a brilliancy at once awful and enchanting, this singular flitting and wavering of the heavenly electricity, as it flashed haphazardly around all things, threw about one an illumination quite indescribable. ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... sheet, and his face darkened. The look he shot his wife was indescribable. She watched him, twisting and ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... to a member came forward, as so many of the church members had done in the morning, and seriously, solemnly, tenderly, took the pledge to do as Jesus would do. A deep wave of spiritual baptism broke over the meeting near its close that was indescribable in its tender, ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... that seduced a heart which was once so constant? St. Julian was never mercenary, and I have a fortune that might have filled out his most unbounded wishes. What is that strange fascination, what that indescribable enchantment, that sunk a character so glorious, that libertines venerated, and the friends of virtue adored, to a depth so low and irretrievable? I have thought much of it, I have turned it every way in my mind, but I can never understand it. The more I reflect the further ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... Academy of Dijon: Whether the advance of sciences and arts has contributed to the corruption or purification of morals. All at once I felt my mind dazzled by a thousand lights, crowds of ideas presented themselves at once with a force and a confusion which threw me into indescribable bewilderment; I felt my head seized with a giddiness like intoxication, a violent palpitation came over me, my bosom began to heave. Unable to breathe any longer as I walked, I flung myself down under one of the trees in the avenue, and there spent half an hour in such agitation that, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... these occasions the priests have a standing appeal to hope, telling their dupes that man was not created for this world, that heaven is his home, and that his sufferings here will be counterbalanced by indescribable bliss hereafter. Thus, like quacks, whose nostrums have ruined the health of their patients, they have still left to themselves the advantage of selling hopes to those whom they know themselves unable to cure. Our priests resemble some of our physicians, ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... Altolna or Hamburg, when they learned that a definitive treaty of peace had been signed between France and Russia, and that two days after the Treaty of Tilsit the Prussian monarchy was placed at the mercy of Napoleon, every courier that arrived threw them into indescribable agitation. It depended on the Emperor's will whether they were to be or not to be. The Duke of Mecklenburg- Schwerin had not succeeded in getting himself re-established in his states, by an exceptional decision, like the Duke of Weimar; but at ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... ground, hoers carefully pulverize every clod, and the seed is sown, a mere handful being sufficient for a great extent of soil. The laborers afterward cover the surface of the patch with bushes, and it is left without further protection. In a short time the tobacco-plant springs up in indescribable profusion, and in a few weeks it is in a condition to be transferred ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... bye's were said, and the great stage coach rolled on. The impressions of the young frontiersmen on approaching the first town were strange and indescribable. The number of houses and streets quite confused them. There seemed to be little or no order in the construction of streets, and everybody seemed in a bustle and confusion. They stopped over night at ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... company with troops of girls formed one of my chief amusements. We sometimes enjoyed the recreation in the waters of a miniature lake, to which the central stream of the valley expanded. This lovely sheet of water was almost circular in figure, and about three hundred yards across. Its beauty was indescribable. All around its banks waved luxuriant masses of tropical foliage, soaring high above which were seen, here and there, the symmetrical shaft of the cocoanut tree, surmounted by its tufts of graceful branches, drooping in the air like so many ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... come over Mr. Brewster. He was one of those men who have the appearance of having been hewn out of the solid rock, but now in some indescribable way he seemed to have melted. For a moment he gazed at Archie, then, moving quickly forward, he grasped his hand in ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... loquacious and, so to speak, irrelevant talker. She delivered herself in a soft, unmeaning monotone, which, like "the brook," flowed "on for ever"—at least until some desperate listener interrupted her discourteously. In the present instance it was her own indescribable feelings which interrupted her. ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... by his great mechanical readiness, and the skill with which, while incapable of comprehending a single principle, he executed all the practical details of his master's experiments. With his vast strength, his shaggy hair, his smoky aspect, and the indescribable earthiness that encrusted him, he seemed to represent man's physical nature; while Aylmer's slender figure, and pale, intellectual face, were no less apt a ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... variation that only a yegg could understand. I noted the once handsome white marble mantel, now stained by age, standing above the unused grate. Double folding-doors led to what, I imagine, was once a library. Dirt and grime indescribable were everywhere. There was the smell of old clothes and old cooking, the race odours of every nationality known to the metropolis. I recalled a night I once spent in a Bowery lodging-house for "local colour." Only this was infinitely worse. No law regulated this house. There ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... square wooden affair, long wanting paint, and trimmed with little scrollwork around the diminutive front porch. The color was indescribable, blending well into the surroundings either day or night. It had a cheerful, decent look, but very tiny. There was a small yard about it with a picket fence, and a leafless lilac bush. A cheerful barberry bush flanked the gate ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... comes somewhat under the ban of some unfavourable remarks which Reginald Heber makes in his diary on this class of Scott's figures, though the good bishop seems to me to have been rather too severe. But the pictures of Woodstock Palace and Park have that indescribable and vivid charm which Scott, without using any of the 'realist' minuteness or 'impressionist' contortions of later days, has the faculty of communicating to such things. For myself, I can say—and I ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury |
