"Unconscious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... however secure might seem Billy's affection for himself, there was still in his own mind a horrid fear lest underneath that security were an unconscious, growing fondness for something he could not give, for some one that he was not—a fondness that would one day cause Billy to awake. As Bertram, in his morbid fancy pictured it, he realized only too well what that awakening would ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... with the object of introducing them consciously into our speech. To do so would inevitably lead to stiltedness and superficiality. Words and phrases should be studied as symbols of ideas, and as we become thoroughly familiar with them they will play an unconscious but effective part ...
— Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases • Grenville Kleiser
... not remember his reply, but he got up and went down to where Walters lay unconscious. As he reached the spot the hotel manager and a ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... been impossible; but he betrayed a lack of caution when, having broken his former record by eating thirty-six raw eggs at a sitting, he climbed upon a steam merry-go-round, shortly thereafter falling off the spotted wooden giraffe which he rode, and being removed to the city hospital in an unconscious condition. ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... be odd if I thwart myself,' he muttered, unconscious that I was behind him. 'But when I look for his father in his face, I find her every day more! How the devil is he so like? I can hardly ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... additional inducement to her to preserve the strictest silence regarding the events of the preceding night. She looked involuntarily towards Ralph as he ceased to speak, but he had turned his eyes another way, and seemed for the moment quite unconscious ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... which had been slain for sacrifice. In one of her wild moods she bit off the head of the black cock, which the priest was about to slay for the sacrifice. To her foster-father she said one day, "If thine enemy were to pull down thine house about thy ears, and thou shouldest be sleeping in unconscious security, I would not wake thee; even if I had the power I would never do it, for my ears still tingle with the blow that thou gavest me years ago. I have never forgotten it." But the Viking treated her words as a joke; he was, like every one else, bewitched with her beauty, and knew nothing ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... the end! A delicate constitution conquered by tuberculosis. With his wife he sought a milder climate abroad and died there. But no one can compute the good accomplished even by his unconscious influence, for everything was of the purest, ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... and reproof in his tone, and, entirely unconscious of wrongdoing, Elsie looked up in ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... ourselves, and then, for a very little gratuitous money, he took us into some upper places where, suddenly, we stood in the presence of Queen Elizabeth and of William and Mary, as they had looked and dressed in life, and very startlingly lifelike in the way they showed unconscious of us. Doubtless there were others, but those are the ones I recall, and with their identity I felt the power that glared from the fierce, vain, shrewd, masterful face of Elizabeth, and the obstinate good sense and ability that dwelt in William's. Possibly I read their natures into them, ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... knowledge of the principles of optics. Such knowledge of optics is lacking in the ordinary function of seeing; nevertheless it is permissible to conceive the psychical function of ordinary perception as unconscious inferences, inasmuch as this name will completely distinguish them from ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... aid he summoned all his confidence; he talked like a prince (if they talk head-up, valiantly, serene and possessing); he moved about the room studiously unconscious and manly; he sat with grace and showed his hand, and all the time he claimed the girl for his. "You are mine, you are mine!" he said to himself over and over again, and by the flush on her neck as she sat ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... revolt against the mood of his creator. Far from it! He, too, pities Soames, the tragedy of whose life is the very simple, uncontrollable tragedy of being unlovable, without quite a thick enough skin to be thoroughly unconscious of the fact. Not even Fleur loves Soames as he feels he ought to be loved. But in pitying Soames, readers incline, perhaps, to animus against Irene: After all, they think, he wasn't a bad fellow, it wasn't his fault; she ought to have ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... explanation, invaded the cleanest looking hut, lay down on the stamped clay floor, and slept. It was only clean-looking, that hut. It housed more myraids of fleas than the air outside supported "skeeters"; but we slept, unconscious of ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... against his leg and faced her unflinchingly, quite unconscious of the fact that she regarded him as a dissolute, drunken cowboy with whom Manley ought ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... down on top of Mr. Gubb's head in the exact spot he had selected. For two moments Mr. Gubb made motions with his hands resembling those of a swimmer, and then he collapsed in a heap. The kindly looking old German-American gentleman, seeing he was quite unconscious, tucked the golf cup under his own arm, and waddled slowly down the path to ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... at a steady walk, talking loudly, their horses' hoofs ringing on the stony road, and quite unconscious of anyone being close beside the path they were taking till they were within some forty yards, when a man who was in front suddenly caught sight of the group behind the rocks, checked his horse, uttered a warning cry, and the next moment ample proof ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... mechanical, indeed, had been my whole action in the matter, that I doubt if the sight of Mr. Barrows' writing alone, even though it had been used in transcribing her name, would have served to recall the incident to my mind. But the shade of the envelope—it was of a peculiar greenish tint—gave that unconscious spur to the memory which was needed to bring back the very look of the writing which had been on the letter I had so carelessly handled; and I found, as others have found before me, that there is no real forgetfulness ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... of Mrs. Hall they both turned, looking at her in a way neither quite conscious nor unconscious, and without seeming to recollect that words were necessary as a solution to the scene. In another moment Sally entered also, when Mr. Darton dropped his companion's hand, led the horse aside, and came to greet his betrothed ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... of his opinions: Dr. Johnson was a fool to Goldsmith in the fine tact, the airy, intuitive faculty with which he skimmed the surfaces of things, and unconsciously formed his Opinions. Common sense is the just result of the sum total of such unconscious impressions in the ordinary occurrences of life, as they are treasured up in the memory, and called out by the occasion. Genius and taste depend much upon the same principle exercised on loftier ground ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... hour after they began to discuss it, everybody felt that not only was the church suffering severely, but that they had been the unconscious witnesses ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... tackle concerned. Dolly listened, intent, fascinated, enchained; and I think the young man was a little fascinated too, though his attentions were given to so very young a lady. Dolly's brown eyes were so utterly pure and grave and unconscious; the brain at work behind them was so evidently clear and busy and competent; the pleasure she showed was so unschoolgirl-like, and he thought so unchildlike, and at the same time so very far from being young lady-like. ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... pretended owners of the Grand Duchess Theodorica's jewels, totally unconscious of anything impending which might impair their several titles to the gems, were now gathered together in a wilderness within a few ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... an example of masters and servants, and of kindness and fidelity;' and the brown labourers who were lounging about said: 'Verily, it is true, and God be praised for people of excellent conduct.' I never expected to feel like Naomi, and possibly many English people might only think Omar's unconscious repetition of Ruth's words rather absurd, but to me they sounded in perfect harmony with the life and ways of this country and these people, who are so full of tender and affectionate feelings, when they have not been crushed out ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... but I felt in it all there was much forbearance. No words could have done justice to the occasion. It was so much more ridiculous than ridicule, so much more absurd than absurdity. The women on whom that ridicule was heaped were utterly incapable of self-defense, or unconscious of its need. The mass of nobility seekers seemed content to get before the public by any means, and to wear its most stinging sarcasms as they would a ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... at the pile on Davis and saved him from being kicked unconscious or killed, and suddenly found himself on the deck with the pile on top of him. Payne came to his rescue. A few seconds of rough work and they were up on ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... and most perfect pleasure to the eye or the ear, had also the power to touch and inform the soul with the grace which was her moral excellence. Of this really characteristic Greek conception, this fusion, so instinctive as to be almost unconscious, of the aesthetic and ethical points of view, no better illustration could be given than the following passage from the Republic of Plato, where the philosopher is describing the effect of beautiful works of art, and especially ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... company. For the old gentleman little dreamed, as he went on his course up Broadway, that he had seen the first Bohemians of New York, and that these young men would be written about and talked about and versified about for generations to come. Unconscious of this honor he went on to Fourteenth Street to see the new square they were ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... of upper class-men. The Freshman had half turned toward the dressing-room when out of the press came Jack Smith, big, wholesome-looking, still smiling with some memory of his latest conversation. Why did Hannah stop? It was certainly bold,—doubtless it was half-unconscious,—but stop she did, and a committee-man, wheeling suddenly, caught Smith, dashed through the preliminaries, and the Sophomore had added Hannah Grant Daly to the ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... front did not justify the choice which the elegant Dorsenne had made of the place at which to dine when he did not dine in society. But his dilettantism liked nothing better than those sudden leaps from society, and M. Egiste Brancadori, who kept the Marzocco, was one of those unconscious buffoons of whom he was continually in search in real life, one of those whom he called his "Thebans", in reference to King Lear. "I'll talk a word with this same learned Theban," cried the mad king, one knows not why, when he meets ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... true. I had the honor of travelling in the same coach with her to the metropolis; but I was altogether unconscious of being her fellow-traveller until we arrived in Dublin. A few brief words of conversation I had with her in ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... read that an amiable Monsieur Sansterre showed him over his brewery and supplied him with statistics as to his output of beer. It was the same foul-mouthed Sansterre who struck up the drums to drown Louis' voice at the scaffold. The association shows how near the unconscious sage was to the edge of that precipice and how little his learning ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of literature in question inculcates as its cardinal principle that man is unconscious of his power, he can do what seems impossible, does not worship his fellows enough, is purer than his clerical leaders would have him imagine, and ought, like certain of his predecessors, to arouse to lofty ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... towards her with his dark earnest eyes fixed upon her in a way she could no longer mistake. "At the risk of slipping up again, Miss Dows," he said gently, dropping into her dialect with utterly unconscious flattery, "I am going to ask you to teach me everything YOU wish, to be all that YOU demand—which would be far better. You have said we were good friends; I want you to let me hope to be more. I want you to overlook my deficiencies and the differences of my race and let me meet you on the only level ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... not yet found nor heard of any persons, except those who undertake to instruct the public, so unconscious of the actual state of things, or so little prescient of the future, who do not shudder all over and feel a secret horror at the approach of this communication. I do not except from this observation those who are willing, more than I find ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... from the baleful influence of his miraculous acquisition. Unconscious of its effect upon others, he only saw in their actions evidence of certain things that the crafty Peleg had hinted on that eventful New Year's eve. His most trusty retainers stammered, blushed, and faltered before him. Self-accusations, ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... dwells, in glory moves! (Glory and joy reserv'd for you to share.) Far, far more blest in blessing those she loves, Than they, alas! unconscious of her care. ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers
... their infancy and big combinations unknown, there was no difficulty in exercising the power granted. In theory, the right of the Nation to exercise this power continued unquestioned. But changing conditions obscured the matter in the sight of the people as a whole; and the conscious and the unconscious advocates of an unlimited and uncontrollable capitalism gradually secured the whittling away of the National power to exercise this theoretical right of control until it practically vanished. After the Civil War, with the portentous growth of industrial ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... of her mind was the conviction (profound, because unconscious) that the affairs of the nation were not to be compared for interest with her own affairs, and an attitude of condescension, as if she honoured the Times by reading it and the nation by informing herself ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... wondered at, although it began only one month earlier than the appointed time. Doctor Percival mourned his going as if he had been his son; he spoke to me of it. Mary was buried. I remember your little face on her burial-day; it was bright, and unconscious of the sad scene"; and Miss Axtell now sought to look into it, but it was not to be seen. I think she must have forgotten, at times, that it was to Mary's sister that she was telling her story. She waited a little, until I asked her to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... sun had now set—which showed that I must have been unconscious for some time, as the last thing I recollected was its scorching my back, for of course as I was swimming in an easterly direction towards Madagascar, as it sank down the horizon it got behind me,—it was still light; and, looking about me, I perceived that I was ...
— The Penang Pirate - and, The Lost Pinnace • John Conroy Hutcheson
... we distinctly heard a woman's voice in O'Briar's tent. The Oracle suddenly became hard of hearing, and, though we heard the voice on several occasions, he remained exasperatingly deaf, yet aggressively unconscious of the fact. "I have got enough to do puzzling over me own whys and wherefores," he said. Mitchell began to take some interest in O'Briar, and treated him with greater respect. But our camp had the name of being the best-constructed, the cleanest, and the most respectable in the ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... was evidently accustomed to their manner, and was unconscious then of everything but his keen desire to know what the plans of the two armies were, and poured out question after question, without heeding the ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... of the G.T. here is another example of Marco's use, probably unconscious, of an Oriental word. It is Persian Abnus, Ebony, which has passed almost unaltered into the Spanish Abenuz. We find Ibenus also in a French inventory (Douet d'Arcq, p. 134), but the Bonus seems to indicate that the word as used by the Traveller was ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... on the landing, I looked up; I don't know why, unless I was the unconscious object of magnetic attraction. Anyhow, I had my reward. A bright young face peeped over the balusters of the upper staircase, and modestly withdrew itself again in a violent hurry. Everybody but Mr. Farnaby and myself had disappeared in ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... political traditions, of the closeness of the family bond, and in general of the grave earnestness (-gravitas-) and character of moral worth in Roman life. This mode of educating youth was in truth one of those institutions of homely and almost unconscious wisdom, which are as simple as they are profound. But amidst the admiration which it awakens we may not overlook the fact that it could only be carried out, and was only carried out, by the sacrifice of true individual culture ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... gentle hint on this subject, given to a blue-mould fancier, who by looking too long at a Stilton cheese, was at last completely overcome, by his eye exciting his appetite, till it became quite ungovernable; and unconscious of every thing but the mity object of his contemplation, he began to pick out, in no small portions, the primest parts his eye could select from the ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... captain and the foot-ball captain are almost inevitably taken for Skull and Bones. Yet five years before Jack Emmett, captain of the crew, had not been taken; only two years back Bert Connolly, captain of the foot-ball team, had not been taken. The girl, watching the big chap's unconscious face, knew well what was in his mind. "What chance have I against all these bully fellows," he was saying to himself in his soul, "even if I do happen to be crew captain? Connolly was a mutt—couldn't take him—but Jack Emmett—there wasn't any reason to be seen for that. And it's just ...
— The Courage of the Commonplace • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... breathing of the unconscious man grew softer and softer, the hands unclosed, the eyelids drooped, and finally his head fell over on one side and he slept. Kasia, watching him for a few moments, assured herself that all was well, then turned out the light, returned to the outer ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... making conceive a bark of baser kind by bud of nobler race (i.e., engrafting), would rather lead to the inference, that the mind derived its chief value from the influence of culture.—TRANS.] As Miranda's unconscious and unstudied sweetness is more pleasing than those charms which endeavour to captivate us by the brilliant embellishments of a refined cultivation, so in these two youths, to whom the chase has given vigour and hardihood, but who are ignorant of their high destination, and have been brought up ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... the Red Tower, trying to recall a strain she had forgotten, with her finger all the while making the most bewitching dimple on her plump cheek. It was most sweet and innocent to see. And withal so entirely unconscious that any one could possibly be ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... common to all mankind are walking and talking. Simple as they seem, they are yet acquired with vast labor, and very rarely understood in any clear way by those who practise them with perfect ease and unconscious skill. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... and see her," suggested Sir Frank. "Mrs. Jasher is still unconscious, and will be for hours, the ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... his real name. Never a turnip fell from a bumping, laden cart, and the driver more unconscious of it, than I that I had dropped that word. I re-entered the house, but had not reached my chair when McKenzie's hand fell roughly on me, and I ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... yielding sweetness and grace of action of which she was quite unconscious, she extended her hands ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... out of the window. Every one in the crowd could see him now. There were a few who began to shout. Every one save Sabatini himself seemed conscious of his danger. Sabatini, heedless or unconscious of it, stood with one foot upon the curbstone, his face upturned to the man with ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... writer was largely unconscious of weariness in that descent. All the way down, my thoughts were occupied with the glorious scene my eyes had gazed upon and should gaze upon never again. In all human probability I would never climb that mountain ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... happened that most things, even ordinary and common things, interested him. He was a great lover of books, and, to a moderate extent, a collector of rare editions; he also had a passion for archaeology, wherein he was sustained by a certain poetic insight of which he was himself unconscious. The ordinary archaeologist is generally a mere Dry-as- Dust, who plays with the bones of the past as Shakespeare's Juliet fancied she might play with her forefathers' joints, and who eschews all use of the imaginative instinct as though it were some ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... gentleman, who, occasionally on the stage after a performance, or in her drawing-room, engaged her in conversation, when leading questions were skillfully disguised; and, then, much to her astonishment, afterward produced a picture of her in print with materials she was quite unconscious of having furnished. She failed, she admits now, to see the conventional "note-book," so symbolical of the calling at home, and thus her fears and ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar
... though not so loud as a screech owl, and then she tottered, swayed, and lost her senses. If she'd fallen to the left no harm had overtook her; but to the right she fell and dropped unconscious, face forward into ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... serious, anxious features, and suspicious, lurking glances. Every one felt that a catastrophe was impending, but, as no one could know its result in advance, all wished to keep as clear of it as possible, and seem perfectly unconscious and unaffected by these things. As they could not foresee which party would triumph, they found it advisable to join neither while awaiting coming events, after which they would hail as lords and masters those who might succeed ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... that of his art, which exactly reproduced his character, anything like self-conscious picturesqueness. It is pleasant to have the object of our regard unconscious of himself. He had a way of ignoring, while observing automatically, all accessories, which reminded us that his soul was ever awake, and waiting to be made free of earthly things ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... old Prue's step was heard coming quickly down the street, and the two servants flew out to the door. But Jabez drove straight round to the yard with his load, and there, with the help of Kitty and Dan—who was with them—they lifted down a big still bundle, which was Anna, wet through, worn out, unconscious. They carried her in very tenderly and put her to bed at once, and everything they could do for her ease and comfort they did. But though her strength revived and the dreadful exhaustion passed away, it was soon ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... whether we shall carry on the war in our national capacity—one united people against a common enemy—or whether some champion, famous in former fights, shall be selected to defy the slayer of our brother Antaeus to single combat. In the latter case, though not unconscious that there may be taller men among you, I hereby offer myself for that enviable duty. And believe me, dear countrymen, whether I live or die, the honor of this great country, and the fame bequeathed us by our heroic progenitors, shall suffer no diminution in my hands. Never, while I can wield this ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Johnny was hesitating, his hand hovering uncertainly above the marked squares of the layout, in doubt exactly where to bet. Scar-face Charley shouldered his way through the loungers and reached the clear space immediately behind his unconscious victim. He stopped for an instant, squared his shoulders, and took one step forward. Johnny dropped his chips on the felt layout, contemplated his choice an instant—and suddenly whirled on his heel in ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... light and curtained window, and little pictures on the dim walls. All was quiet in the house: soft breathing of the sleepers, soft murmuring of the spring wind outside, a wintry moon very clear and full in the skies, a little town all hushed and quiet, everything lying defenceless, unconscious, in the safe ...
— A Little Pilgrim - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... rich people are, as I said, commonly altogether the most agreeable companions. The influence of a fine house, graceful furniture, good libraries, well-ordered tables, trim servants, and, above all, a position so secure that one becomes unconscious of it, gives a harmony and refinement to the character and manners which we feel, if we cannot explain their charm. Yet we can get at the reason of it ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... peon knows cunningly how to contrive. Indeed, in such habitations a large part of Mexico's fifteen million inhabitants dwell. I inspect the well-ventilated walls, for numerous open chinks are left. "The wind will come in," I say. "Yes, senor," Jose, my peon-constructor, replies with unconscious wit, "it will not only come in but it will go out"—and he proceeds ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... But all unconscious of the discoveries of Vico, the great mass of eighteenth century writers try their hands at every sort of solution. The Abbe Batteux published in 1746 Les Beaux-arts reduits a un seul principe, which is a perfect little bouquet of contradictions. The Abbe finds himself confronted ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... who freed Durand from the dead horse, which had received the shots fired at Oscar the moment he rose at the wall. The fight was quite knocked out of the conspirator, and he swore under his breath, cursing the unconscious Chauvenet and the missing Zmai and the ill fortune of ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... circumstance, he could but vaguely guess at the sentiment to which this simple ceremony of smoking the peace-pipe gave expression. Nevertheless, with that facility at entering, for the time being, into the feelings, thoughts, and ways of others peculiar to his race, and which is due to self-unconscious imitation rather than to self-determined adaptability, Mish-mugwa took the proffered symbol of peace and friendship, and with a solemnity that would have seemed ludicrous to any one but a black man or a red man, gave just as ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... San Antonio were asleep when the dripping figure of a half unconscious boy on a great horse galloped toward them in that momentous dawn. He was without hat or serape. He was bareheaded and his rifle was gone. He was shouting "Up! Up! Santa Anna and the Mexican army are at hand!" But his voice was so choked and hoarse that he could not be heard ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... or three long, silver notes of peace and rest, ending in some subdued trills and quavers, constitute each separate song. Often you will catch only one or two of the bars, the breeze having blown the minor part away. Such unambitious, quiet, unconscious melody! It is one of the most characteristic sounds in Nature. The grass, the stones, the stubble, the furrow, the quiet herds, and the warm twilight among the hills are all subtilely expressed in this song; this is what they are at ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... taking pussy as the emblem and representative of the whole household, Ellen wept them all over him, with a tenderness and a bitterness that were somehow intensified by the sight of the grey coat, and white paws, and kindly face, of her unconscious old brute friend. ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... Morris, Frank turned his eyes for a moment upon his brother's friend, and a pang shot through him, for the doctor sat cross-legged holding the pipe, in his studied pose, slowly exhaling a little smoke, but his face looked fixed and strange, his eyes were half closed, and he seemed to be unconscious of all that was ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... the danger of serious injustice was very considerable in the enforcement of a new law under the spur of great public indignation. The public officials charged with executing the law might do injustice in heated controversy through unconscious pride of opinion and obstinacy of conclusion. For this reason President Roosevelt felt justified in creating a board of experts, known as the Remsen Board, to whom in cases of much importance an appeal ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... his shaggy head, was taken as a sign that Bryda's companion was not the foe Flick had at first imagined, and he walked gravely by her side, as if unconscious ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... the mouth sets a reflex going that carries it beyond the epiglottis; another reflex carries it to the esophagus and then one reflex after the other transports the food the rest of the way. Except for the first effort of swallowing, the rest is entirely involuntary and even unconscious. Those readers who are interested would do well to read the work of Pavlow on the conditioned reflex, in which the great Russian physiologist builds up all action on a basis of a modification of the primitive reflex which he ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... which is abundantly refuted by the testimony of our senses. His return to the communion of a falling sect was a bold and disinterested step, that exposed him to the rigour of the laws; and a speedy flight to Geneva protected him from the resentment of his spiritual tyrants, unconscious as they were of the full value of the prize, which they had lost. Had Bayle adhered to the catholic church, had he embraced the ecclesiastical profession, the genius and favour of such a proselyte might have aspired to wealth and honours in his native country: but the hypocrite would ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... about was always novel to Heyst's simplified conception of himself. For a moment he was as much surprised as if he had believed himself to be a mere gliding shadow among men. Besides, he had in him a half-unconscious notion that he was above the level of ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... the redeemed have as a present possession, here and now, eternal life, and that it is eternal, makes manifest another fact, that the redeemed are not unconscious, virtually out of existence, from death till the resurrection. The new life is eternal; it continues without cessation or intermission. Their bodies fall asleep; but their souls are still in conscious existence; ...
— God's Plan with Men • T. T. (Thomas Theodore) Martin
... first. At times it seemed to him that there were two men fighting him. He must end it while he had the strength, and he bent to the task with desperate fury. Then, as he was rushing on his foe like a bull, with all his hatred boiling in his head, all went suddenly dark, and he was lying unconscious with his face on the trodden grass, and George Hamon stood over him, with his fists still clenched, all battered and bleeding, and breathing like a spent horse, but happier than he had ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... of this thought which touched Mr Meggs, as she sailed, notebook in hand, through the doorway of the study. Here, he told himself, was a confiding girl, all unconscious of impending doom, relying on him as a daughter relies on her father. He was glad that he had not forgotten Miss Pillenger when he was making ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... shade of a gigantic flooded-gum tree, we were highly amused to see a flight of fifty or more partridge pigeons tripping along the sandy bed of the river, and descending to the water's edge, and returning after quenching their thirst, quite unconscious of the dangerous proximity of hungry ornithophagi. The cockatoos, however, observed us, and seemed to dispute our occupation of their waters, by hovering above the tops of the highest trees, and making the air resound with their screams; whilst numerous ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... nothing to be gained, however, by racking his brain for something that wasn't there, and Buck soon gave up the attempt. He could only trust to luck and his own inventiveness, and hope that Lynch's delightfully unconscious easing of ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... he lay there unconscious he never knew; but as reason slowly reasserted itself in his semi-conscious state he was aware that he lay in a cool bed upon the whitest of linen in a bright and cheery room, and that upon one side close to him was an open window, the delicate hangings of which were fluttering in a soft summer ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... of its own volition directly in front of this black apparition, and Carl swayed in his saddle and would have fallen out of it had he not clung to it with the unconscious strength ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... mind was unconscious of not having spoken devoutly. True or not, his words were idle to his son: his talk of dangers over, and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and so well peopled should often mistake the first not painful, and in such a frame, often pleasurable approaches to 'deliquium' for divine raptures; and join the instincts of nature acting in the body of a mind unconscious of them, in the keenly sensitive body of a mind so loving and so innocent, and what remains to be solved which the stupidity of most and the roguery of a few would not ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... inscriptions charged with faith and love, Graceless as Death himself, yet sweet as Death, Are half erased by the impartial storms. As children lisping words which move to laughter Are themselves poems of unconscious melody, So the old gravestones with their crabbed muse Are beautiful for their halting words of faith, Their groping love that had no gift of song. But all the broken tragedy of life And all the yearning mystery of death Are celebrated in sweet epitaphs of vines ...
— The Song of the Stone Wall • Helen Keller
... on, with dogs and sledge at his heels, unconscious of the warning underfoot that had turned DeBar back. In midlake he turned to urge the dogs into a faster pace, and it was then that he heard under him a hollow, trembling sound, growing in volume even as he hesitated, until ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood
... had in view, it was amply attained. I went to bed on my second night at Low Heath with as little vanity in me as I could decently do with; and even that, as I lay awake for an hour or two, oozed away, and did not return till in a happy moment I fell asleep, and once more, and for a few unconscious hours, became a ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... gazing after her, unconscious of Dr. Frank, who was watching me with his humorous smile. And presently, no more than a quarter beyond the zero hour, the Planetara got away. With the dome-windows battened tightly, we lifted from the landing stage and soared ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... Corsini, the Sciarra, her easel was set up before many a famous picture by Guido, Domenichino, Raphael, and the devout painters of earlier schools than these. Other artists and visitors from foreign lands beheld the slender, girlish figure in front of some world-known work, absorbed, unconscious of everything around her, seeming to live only in what she sought to do. They smiled, no doubt, at the audacity which led her to dream of copying those mighty achievements. But, if they paused to look over her shoulder, and had sensibility enough to understand what was before ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... wreaked their vengeance, melted away, but a handful of brave disciples remained, standing round the bruised, unconscious form, ready to lay it tenderly in some hastily dug grave. No previous mention of disciples has been made. The narrative of Acts does not profess to be complete, and the argument from ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... on, blissfully unconscious of the sensation he was creating. He invaded a secondhand ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... them to desecrate places of worship. The Vicar of Lancaster, at his Easter vestry meeting in 1913, complained of bank-holiday visitors to the parish church who ate their lunch, smoked, and wore their hats while looking round the building. It is absurd to suppose that these people were unconscious of the impropriety ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... for whom he had been waiting all his life. That women were taken in by this half-caressing, half-worshipping manner was not altogether their fault; perhaps it was not altogether his. Very attractive people fall into the habit of attracting, and are frequently unconscious of, and therefore irresponsible for, ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... reach it. In the grass tiny wild flowers, purple, blue and white were in bloom, and Robert inhaled their faint odor as he crouched, watching for the enemy who sought his life. It was a forest scene, the beauty of which would have pleased him at any other time, nor was he wholly unconscious of it now. The river itself, as Tayoga had stated, was narrow. At some points it did not seem to be more than ten or fifteen yards across, but it flowed in a slow, heavy current, showing depths below. Nor could he see, looking up and down the ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... every face wore a look of recognition. With respect to whatever was evil, foul, and ugly, in this populous and corrupt city, she trod as if invisible, and not only so, but blind. She was altogether unconscious of anything wicked that went along the same pathway, but without jostling or impeding her, any more than gross substance hinders the wanderings of a spirit. Thus it is, that, bad as the world is said to have grown, innocence continues ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... read of a certain potion which has the power to pervert all the senses of everyone who drinks it. Nothing is apprehended truly. Sight and hearing and taste are all disordered, and the victim is all unconscious of the confusion. The deadly draught is the minister ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... this cold send-off; ashamed for his countrymen. "What do they know or care?" he asked himself, fastening his scorn on the backs of an unconscious group of country-people who had raced one another uphill from an excursion steamer and halted panting and laughing half-way up the slope. It irritated him the more when he thought of Casey's pale, derisive face. He and Casey ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... that somewhat concerned him. The participants were the governess of his hostess, Miss Lowe, and that one of the aunts Rennsdale who had offered to provide him with a partner. These two ladies were standing just in front of him, unconscious of his nearness. ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... desperation, she tried to take her life by hanging herself, but a neighbour came in and cut her down unconscious, but still living. She became a terror to all the neighbourhood, and her name was the bye-word for daring and desperate actions. But our Open-Air Meetings attracted her, she came to the Barracks, got saved, and was delivered from her love ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... the remains of the cabinet, with its gruesome load, into the vestibule. As for the doctor, he was bending over Jackson's still unconscious form. When he saw what the others were doing, he gave a ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... that night been conscious. But the note had reached me by no supernatural method, as I was at first half inclined to believe. It was, probably, the touch, the atmosphere, the ineffably fine influence which surrounded it, which had penetrated my unconscious perceptions, and brought her near. The paper, the glove, were full of Margaret,—full of something besides what we vaguely call mental associations,—full of emanations of the very love and suffering which she had breathed into ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... she said, "but Mother's had a complete collapse. It happened last evening; she's in the hospital. I was with her until just an hour and a half ago. She's still unconscious." ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper
... waited and watched, the while his skin grew intact once more. He ordered the boys to beach the cutter, scrub her bottom, and give her a general overhauling. They thought the order emanated from Bunster, and they obeyed. But Bunster at the time was lying unconscious and giving no orders. This was Mauki's chance, but still ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... the faintest hope that any one could pull it away without disturbing its keeper from his nap. Nothing could be done now. In those few bitter moments, during which she stood helplessly looking from the bag which contained the fatal warrant to the unconscious face of the man before her, Grizel made up ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... freedom of the slaves. The war finished, he left the army, entered the service of the Freedmen's Bureau under General Oliver O. Howard, and was assigned to the Jamestown peninsula in Virginia. There were huddled together thousands of the freedmen,—the unconscious cause of the war, the problem of the future,—simple, half-dazed, a mixture of good and bad, of physical strength, kindly temper, crude morals and childish ignorance. For a time the officials of the Bureau, as best they could, kept ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... injured in war or elsewhere are usually killed at their own request. In May, 1903, a man from Maligkong was thrown to the earth and rendered unconscious by a heavy timber he and several companions brought to Bontoc for the school building. His companions immediately told Captain Eckman to shoot him as he was "no good." I can not say whether it is customary for the Igorot to weed out those who faint temporarily ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... many lowly cottages and in some rich palaces. I, too, have shed light of another kind, and am fain to believe that I have performed a small part in the grand revolution which our Maker has been for ages carrying on, by multitudes of conscious and many unconscious agents, ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... but with much wonder depicted on his face while Erling lashed Kettle's hands together, and, lifting him in a half-unconscious state into his ship, bound him in as comfortable a position as he could, to one ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne |
