"Undercurrent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... an undercurrent of water, due to the presence of the high range of mountains, becomes more apparent as the traveller advances into the interior; though the soil is still sandy and barren, and little vegetation can as yet be seen, trees and shrubs become more plentiful, and of a larger size. A few miles ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... two floes, acted strongly upon by the gale, and opposed by the smaller floe, was slowly but irresistibly swinging round, and in its sweep it had come into contact with a very large berg, which, influenced apparently by some undercurrent, was with equally irresistible force actually making its way to windward in the teeth of the gale. The result was a scene of wild chaos and confusion and destruction compared with which that upon which they had just looked was as ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... happily, revealing but little of herself, and holding a slight reserve in her manner which seemed to him quite delightful and maidenly. Then, all too suddenly, he was gone again, but in his heart he carried a memory of her that made a continual undercurrent in ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... Church, I am perfectly orthodox, I believe in its laws and in the works it prescribes. But when I heard the chanting and the prayers of those old men, dead to the world and forgotten by the world, I discerned an undercurrent of sublime egoism in the life of the cloister. This withdrawal from the world could only benefit the individual soul, and after all what was it but a protracted suicide? I do not condemn it. The Church has opened these tombs in which life is buried; no ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... six all the family, together with Mr. Leslie, assembled in the sitting-room; there was an undercurrent of sadness in their minds, but Hugh would allow no ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... of them was evidence of the Madam's complete sovereignty over her realm. It would have been a brave man or woman who dared to gossip of Mrs. Kildare's affairs with her children. They remained unconscious of the undercurrent of excitement and speculation in the atmosphere about them. In time, mention of the pardon and reference to the old-time scandal it revived, was made in the newspapers; but these papers failed to reach the reading-table at Storm, and the girls ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... feel once more a delicious sense of mystery and plotting in the air. Real estate advanced in leaps and bounds and "Lemonade Dan" overhauled the bar fixtures in the Bucket o' Blood, and stuffed a gunny-sack into a broken window pane with a view to opening up. In every shack there was an undercurrent of excitement and after the dull days of monotony few could calm themselves to a really good night's sleep. They talked in thousands and the clerk's stock of Cincos, that had been dead money on his hands for over three years, "moved" ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... accompanied, it may be, by some ovarian congestion, for she felt that on the left side there was a network of sexual nerves, and retroversion of the uterus was detected some years later. Her life was strenuous with many duties, but no occupation could be pursued without this undercurrent of sexual hyperaesthesia involving perpetual self-control. This continued more or less acutely for many years, when menstruation suddenly stopped altogether, much before the usual period of the climacteric. At the same time ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... know, and my remark was the impulsive fling of envy. He had found out, several weeks before, what a strong undercurrent was running toward him. He was faced by a dilemma—if he did not go to the convention, it would be said that he had stayed away deliberately, and he would be nominated; if he went, to try to prevent his nomination, the enthusiasm of his admirers ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... lasher, just behind the lock, is a very good place to drown yourself in. The undercurrent is terribly strong, and if you once get down into it you are all right. An obelisk marks the spot where two men have already been drowned, while bathing there; and the steps of the obelisk are generally used as a diving-board ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... man of fashion, in the lodging he had taken in Old Palace Yard. Knowing him from abroad, it was not impossible that the government—fearful of sedition since the disturbance caused by the South Sea distress, and aware of an undercurrent of Jacobitism—might for a time, at least, keep an eye upon him. It behooved him, therefore, to appear neither more nor less than a lounger, a gentleman of pleasure who had come to London in quest of diversion. To ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... in a dark room. One afternoon he eluded their vigilance and hurried to the office of "Campbell & Co." on the Strand. After gazing for several minutes at the empty building, he heaved a deep sigh, ran across the road, and sprang into the River Hughli. The undercurrent sucked his body in, and it was never recovered. Perhaps Mother Ganges was loath to keep a carcase so tainted in her bosom, and so whirled it southwards ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... Euripides; and Dionysus Omophagus—the eater of raw flesh, must be added to the golden image of Dionysus Meilichius—the honey-sweet, if the old tradition in its completeness is to be, in spite of that sophism, our closing impression; if we are to catch, in its fulness, that deep undercurrent of horror which runs below, all through [79] this masque of spring, and realise the spectacle of that wild chase, in which Dionysus is ultimately both the hunter and ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... ferocity and coldness there was an undercurrent of something in Tars Tarkas which he seemed ever battling to subdue. Could it be a vestige of some human instinct come back from an ancient forbear to haunt him with the horror of ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... demonstrations of character you and she make. My traditional estimate, which comes from thoughtfulness, or the putting off of responsibility, or God knows what, I find will not answer. I have been on my guard against that which everyday life might present—a lie, a theft, or a meanness; but of the undercurrent, which really bears you on, I ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... of realising its forward movement as the ultimate determining factor in all true healthful mental action, it will become second nature to us to have all our plans, down to the apparently most trivial, so floating upon the undercurrent of this Universal Intelligence that a great harmony will come into our lives, every discordant manifestation will disappear, and we shall find ourselves more and more controlling all things into the forms that ...
— The Hidden Power - And Other Papers upon Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... with a great many members of Congress, and there was an undercurrent of suspicion in some quarters that she was one of that detested class known as "lobbyists;" but what belle could escape slander in such a city? Fairminded people declined to condemn her on mere suspicion, and so the injurious talk made no very damaging headway. She was very ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 4. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... without seeing and our idle hands trail in the wet grass. We hear, without listening, the hoarse, fat, cooing-voluptuous voices of the doves: in the cool air of the morning, among the leaves, the flowers and the branches, it is an undercurrent of joy rising and falling, suspended for a moment and then beginning again, ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... had rushed past into the house. Miss Rosetta composedly stepped into the cab and drove to the station. She fairly bridled with triumph; and underneath the triumph ran a queer undercurrent of satisfaction over the fact that Charlotte had spoken to her at last. Miss Rosetta would not look at this satisfaction, or give it a ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... time, I felt ill at heart; and was filled with an undercurrent of dismal forebodings. But I strove to dispel them; and turning to my companion, exclaimed, "And pray, do you live here, Harry, in this Palace ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... took the chair and looked about the table at his board. Eleven directors in all, including the President, were in attendance; and although no one except Mr. Wintermuth knew why they had been called together, there was an undercurrent of concern among those present. This was soon crystallized, for Mr. Wintermuth's opening words wakened the active interest and lively ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... over a bed containing hundreds that have just bloomed for the first time, and marking the finest with tags upon which are inscribed a few characters that mean much to the owner, and almost nothing to anyone else, will give one an undercurrent of joy for the rest of the day. Another special pleasure that comes to the grower of choice seedlings is that of naming one for a friend, and this pleasure has been mine a number of times. The most notable example of this is the May, and I fully expect that some of those which have ...
— The Gladiolus - A Practical Treatise on the Culture of the Gladiolus (2nd Edition) • Matthew Crawford
... eczema, and Mrs. Constantine had overruled her at a committee meeting. With a flood of disconnected talk she had overwhelmed Maggie until the girl felt as though her head had been thrust into a bag of flour. Through it all there had been an undercurrent of complaint as though ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... have, and which forms an insuperable barrier to finding God, is the ever-recurring—we may almost say the continual—secret undercurrent of criticism and hardness towards God over what we imagine to be His Will. We need to seek God with that which is most like Him, with a will which most nearly resembles His own. To be in a state of hardness or criticism, not only for ...
— The Romance of the Soul • Lilian Staveley
... sense of freedom amongst them all, of the undercurrent of darkness among them all. Yet here, at home, Ursula resented it. It became distasteful to her. And she knew that if they understood the real relationship between her and Skrebensky, her parents, her father in particular, would go mad with rage. So subtly, she seemed to be like any other girl ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... humor never obscures the deep seriousness that is the undercurrent of all his writing. A high idealism characterizes all his work. One of his greatest services to his country was the effort to create a saner and sounder political life. As he himself realized, he often moralized ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... old regime must be and remain enemies of the revolution, so that their employment is a definite source of danger. Glebov is a trade union representative, and his speech was a clear indication of the non-political undercurrent towards the left which may shake the Bolshevik position and will most certainly come into violent conflict with any definitely bourgeois government that may be brought in ...
— Russia in 1919 • Arthur Ransome
... such diversions the hours wore heavily away. Their noisy joviality had an undercurrent of sadness; jokes failed to amuse; laughter seemed forced; words, mirthful in leaving the lips, sounded ominous on reaching the ear. At four o'clock the captain rose to survey his ship, and presently returned saying the tide had risen. Thereon the king and his friends prepared ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... deal of innocent imagination among every class, or they never could pet with such extraordinary pleasure as they do, the Boots' story of the elopement of the two little children. They seem to see the children; and the women set up a shrill undercurrent of half-pity and half-pleasure that is quite affecting. To-night's reading is my 26th; but as all the Philadelphia tickets for four more are sold, as well as four at Brooklyn, you must assume that I am at—say—my 35th reading. ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... not look at him, he was conscious, through some subtle undercurrent of feeling, that her spirit was drenched with the young summer, with the pulsing of life of the June forest and the scent of wild grape and honeysuckle which filled the air. Her face was lifted to the fluted ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... This undercurrent of rivalry with the father came out in a religious disguise as well. His first attack when he was for many months interned he described as a religious mania. By means of identifying himself with Christ he dramatized both his subjugation and defiance. ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... group presented a varied scene. The girl, young, tender, was plainly animated with a strong undercurrent of excitement which thrilled her entire frame, flushing her cheeks and sparkling in her eyes. Her tender years, her inexperience with the world, her guileless mind and frank open manner had not yet prepared ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... "Everything that I laughed at became sad." "And terrible," adds Merejkovsky. But earlier his humour was lighter, less tinged with the tragic; in those days Pushkin never failed to be amused by what Gogol had brought to read to him. Even Revizor (1835), with its tragic undercurrent, was a trifle compared to Dead Souls, so that one is not astonished to hear that not only did the Tsar, Nicholas I, give permission to have it acted, in spite of its being a criticism of official rottenness, but laughed uproariously, ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... divinity, in fact he actually betrayed a view of Christ inconsistent with the conception of the Saviour's person as a perfect unity. We can indeed only trace this view in his writings in the form of an undercurrent, and what led to it will be discussed further on. Both he and Melito, as a rule adhered to the simple "filius dei filius hominis factus" and did not perceive any problem here, because to them the disunion prevailing in the world and in humanity was the difficult question ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... that the Baron thought that no Ministry could stand the force of such an undercurrent influence, that all the good that was to be derived from pacifying the Queen's mind at the change had been gained, and that the danger which we were liable to, and which threatened him in particular, could only be averted by ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... room door closed upon the mother's broad back, and the hum of excitement at the departure subsided into the normal undercurrent of whispering between the pupils. Pencils scratched laboriously over rough manila pads as their owners copied the questions from the board. The boy two seats ahead of John took a wad of chewing gum from his mouth ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... Lincoln to reestablish the Union, and induce the seceding States to resume their places and be represented in Congress, were received with disfavor by the radical leaders, who, without open assault, set in motion an undercurrent against nearly every Executive proposition as the weak and impotent offspring of a well meaning and well intentioned, but not very competent and intelligent mind. It was the difference between President Lincoln and the radical leaders in Congress on the question of reconciliation, ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... nature. No reproaches that he could have heaped upon me would have cut half so deeply into my heart as did this kind, forgiving letter. My heart was full. Yet I felt a deep undercurrent of joy at knowing that my father loved me still. I looked at Jack. He seemed to be asleep, but he was not. A single tear coursed over his pale cheek as he ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... merry-making, love! In the midst of it all, an undercurrent of events was flowing. Unseen events—but I had partly seen some of them, and now, at last, I began ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... know," she said, more calmly, as if relieved, but still with an undercurrent of passion, "whether I could ever live again in the life of another. But if I did it would be in the life of a man. I am not made to live in a woman's life, really to live, giving out the force that is in me. I know I'm ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... perhaps more guarded, but it was so plainly his last word to her; Llewellyn Stanhope was proclaiming the departure of his people in ten days' time upon every blank wall. So he gave himself a little latitude, he let in an undercurrent of gentle reminiscence, of serious assurance as to the difference she had made. And when he had finally bade her begone to the light and fulness of her own life and fastened up his letter, he deliberately ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... of newspapers had more than enough 'copy' to keep them busy. The narrow escape of the King from assassination, followed by his excommunication from the Church, worked a curious effect on the minds of the populace, who were somewhat bewildered and uncertain as to the possible undercurrent of political meaning flowing beneath the conjunction of these two events; and their feelings were intensified by the announcement that the youth who had attempted the monarch's life,— being proved as suffering from hereditary ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... before the public. Miriam was thinking that David would be bitterly disappointed when he knew that Anne was going back to the stage during vacation. While, though she would not have confessed it for worlds, the throbbing undercurrent of heart break that ran through the music was filling Grace with unmistakable homesickness. She wanted her mother and she wanted her badly. What would she not give to feel her mother's dear arms around her. When the curtain shut ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... prettily! He had been really kind to her. She ought not to let that fact be defaced. But everything connected with that time seemed now to lower her in retrospect, to fill her with a sort of horror. All his loud rebuttal of anxiety now could not cover an undercurrent of uneasiness that made the anxiety of the two women tenfold ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... in the empire at large our misfortunes were met by a sombre but unalterable determination to carry the war to a successful conclusion and to spare no sacrifices which could lead to that end. Amid the humiliation of our reverses there was a certain undercurrent of satisfaction that the deeds of our foemen should at least have made the contention that the strong was wantonly attacking the weak an absurd one. Under the stimulus of defeat the opposition to the war sensibly decreased. It had become too absurd ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... doubt of them. I love them already for their splendid qualities, and I am prepared to love them for themselves. I feel, too, that they will love me (and incidentally they are sure to love you). I have a sort of undercurrent of thought that there is something in their minds concerning me—something not painful, but disturbing; something that has a base in the past; something that has hope in it and possible pride, and not a little respect. As yet they can have had no opportunity ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... returns required in various articles for household and personal use, are perfect models for a man of business. And this may be remarked throughout his whole career, that no pressure of events nor multiplicity of cares prevented a clear, steadfast, undercurrent of attention to domestic affairs, and the interest and well-being of all ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... Dec. 31—An undercurrent of irritation is evident over the American note on interference with American commerce; a new decoration, the Military Cross, has been instituted ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... womanhood is strong and deep. The manifestations of the present, many of which seem to give cause for fear, are, after all, only the superficial evidence of a deep undercurrent of awakening. The ultimate driving force behind is shaping a social understanding in the woman's spirit. So surely from out of the wreckage and passion a new ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... wants to do, and that is the work that he loves: The platform he likes for the two hours that he is on it, but all the rest of the time it grinds him, and he says he is ashamed of what he is doing. Still, in spite of this sad undercurrent, we are having a delightful trip. People are so nice, and with people Mr. Clemens seems cheerful. Then the ocean trips are a great rest ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... no water so treacherous and deceitful as you'll find in some of those billabongs. A man starts to ride across a place where he thinks the water is just over the grass, and blunders into a deep channel—that wasn't there before—with a steady undercurrent with the whole weight of the Darling River funnelled into it; and if he can't swim and his horse isn't used to it—or sometimes if he can swim—it's a case with him, and the Darling River cod hold an inquest on him, if they have ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... we didn't disturb you," a small voice was chirping; and innocent and conventional as the remark surely was, Jimmy was certain of an undercurrent of mischief in it. He glanced up to protest, but two baby-blue eyes fixed upon him in apparent wonderment, made him certain that anything he could say would seem rude or ridiculous; so, as usual when in a plight, he looked to Alfred ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo
... many years, and calls each one by his or her given name, and in return is treated by them as one of the family. He is sympathetic and friendly without impertinence, and in spite of your aching head and disjointed bones, you feel an undercurrent of regret that civilization will soon do away with these ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... attract universal attention. His ideas are pleasing and bold, and at least in form wonderfully original; he is persuasive without argument and mystical without conventionality; he moves in the atmosphere of science and free thought, yet seems to transcend them and to be secretly religious. An undercurrent of zeal and even of prophecy seems to animate his subtle analyses and his surprising fancies. He is eloquent, and to a public rather sick of the half-education it has received and eager for some inspiriting novelty he seems more ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... with Van Berg the previous day, there had been a deep undercurrent of thought in Ida's mind, and she had at last concluded that she could scarcely keep her secret with any certainty while under his eyes, and especially those of Miss Burton. She was too direct and positive ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... when he said the place was stiff with birds. A deep fringe of birds was constantly moving in and about and around the billabong; and the perpetual clatter of the plovers and waders formed an undercurrent to the ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... illness? Did I begrudge her the interest which she had, of right, with me in our father's estate? She was as closely connected to him by ties of blood as I was. These things I reflected upon as I felt course through me a deep undercurrent of regret. ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... at the intruder Meg Merrilies checked him. In a moment Hatteraick had altered his tone, and was speaking to Mannering civilly, yet still with an undercurrent of sullen suspicion which he tried to disguise under ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... able to say. His patience was inexhaustible. He had naturally a most cheerful and sunny temper, was highly social and sympathetic, loved pleasant conversation, wit, anecdote, and laughter. Beneath this, however, ran an undercurrent of sadness; he was occasionally subject to hours of deep silence and introspection that approached a condition of trance. In manner he was simple, direct, void of the least affectation, and entirely free from awkwardness, oddity, ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... but there was an undercurrent in Mark's mind on which he had not entered, namely, that his presence at home might make all the difference in that reformation in his uncle's habits which Alice had inaugurated, and left in the hands of others. With him at hand, there was much more chance of Gregorio's ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... proceeded to write the following reply, but still with an undercurrent of something like remorse stealing through a mind that felt with incredible delicacy the slightest deviation from what was right, yet possessed not the necessary firmness ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... she has already given. His bearing during the trial, the compunction he showed in uttering her husband's sentence were sufficient proof to her that for all his natural revulsion against the crime which had robbed him of his dearest friend, he was the victim of an undercurrent of sympathy for the accused which could mean but one thing—a doubt of ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... impulses; in the common disaster we should be individually involved. And, indeed, the altruistic impulses have become so deeply rooted in our natures that, turn away from them as we might, they would yet persist in the form of an undercurrent of dissatisfaction and remorse. The only possible solution of the deadlock lies in the killing-off of the ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... mercenaries of England, that the people of Ireland had not lost the spirit of their ancestors." Well may a timid Protestant of Gort say, "These men are deceiving England. They only want to get power, and then they will come out in their true colours. All is quiet here now, but the strength of the undercurrent is something tremendous. The English Home Rulers may pooh-pooh our fears, but they know nothing about it. And, besides, they are quite safe. That makes all the difference. The change will not drive them from all they hold dear. I do not agree with ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... still reached out to him across the years. He always welcomed such letters—they came as from a lost land of romance, recalled always with tenderness. He sent light, chaffing replies, but they were never without an undercurrent ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... using this little book will understand that it is not exhaustive, but rather suggestive. The teacher should be in possession of much more history than is given here. He should fill in much of the undercurrent of heroism, faith, and devotion exhibited by the characters of the history, very little of which can be given in the text. The importance of this larger knowledge on the part of the teacher will be understood by an examination of the review and questions at the ...
— A Young Folks' History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints • Nephi Anderson
... his cousin like a book. Perhaps it was something in the words; or on the other hand there may have been an undercurrent of doubt in the way Frank spoke, that ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... existence of a great undercurrent of mental and emotional life, transcending the individual's conscious experience, in which the most complex processes are carried on without the individual's conscious participation. The clearest symbol by which this fact may be figured to the imagination is the one already presented: the comparison ...
— Four-Dimensional Vistas • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... college friend of his own age, a cousin twice removed, whom from boyhood he had loved with all the strength and passion which made the undercurrent of his grave, reserved character. He had helped this young man in every way—befriended him in college, been to him what ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... sink a well in a stream the bed of which is quicksand, a flour-barrel, perforated with small holes, should be used as a curb, to prevent the sand from caving in. The barrel must be forced down as the sand is removed; and when, as is often the case, there is an undercurrent through the sand, the well will be continually filled ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy
... As before remarked, an undercurrent of feeling pervaded the minds of officials that there was not at all so much real distress in Ireland as the people pretended, and that there was a great deal more food in the country than there was said to be. This was sometimes openly asserted, but more frequently hinted at and insinuated in ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... instances of the Shumiro-Accadian and Chaldean myths; the last three or four chapters have been filled with them. But the instances of religious feeling, though scattered in the same field, have to be carefully gleaned out and exhibited, for they belong to that undercurrent of the soul which pursues its way unobtrusively and is often apparently lost beneath the brilliant play of poetical fancies. But it is there nevertheless, and every now and then forces its way to the surface shining forth with a startling purity and beauty. When the Accadian poet invokes ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... the writings of Lamb, and not merely in his 'Elia,' the character of the writer co-operates in an undercurrent to make the effect of the thing written. To understand in the fullest sense either the gayety or the tenderness of a particular passage, you must have some insight into the peculiar bias of the writer's mind, whether native and original, or impressed gradually by the ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... or at noon, or in the early evening at his bed-time, John's wife, Mabel, came with her red-eyed, sad-hearted worship. Winny Heron hung about him and Jane for ever. Jane discovered in Sophy and in Frances an undercurrent of positive affection that set from her child ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... ritual in these pages, the Roman Catholic ritual well supplied with mythical monsters, singing flowers, and blooming women. Strange scarlet and mulberry threads form the woof of these tapestries, threads pulled with great labour from all the art of the past. There is, in much of his work, an undercurrent of subtle sensuous erotic poison; in one of her stories Edna Kenton tells us that chartreuse jaune and bananas form such a poison. There is a suggestion of chartreuse jaune and bananas in much of the work of ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... word in conclusion. Always, while writing—whatever might be the subject of my story—I have been influenced by an undercurrent of effort and desire to direct the minds and affections of my readers ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... volumes, however, of "Twice Told Tales,"—the second published two years later,—the tragical element only appears as an undercurrent of pathos in such stories as "The Gentle Boy," "Wakefield," "The Maypole of Merry-mount," and "The Haunted Mind," but reaches a climax in "The Ambitious Guest" and "Lady Eleanor's Mantle." There are others, like "Lights from a Steeple," ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... of men and women and crystallized her experiences into sparkling little sentences and epigrams which made Frances feel as if she were listening to one of the witty people in clever books. But under all her sparkling wit there was a strongly felt undercurrent of true womanly sympathy and kind-heartedness which won affection as speedily as her brilliance won admiration. Frances listened and laughed and enjoyed. Once she found time to think that she would have missed a great deal if she had not come to Bay Shore Farm that ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... a superficial archness which did not half cover an undercurrent of reproach, 'do you know, I think you might have told me voluntarily about that past—of kisses and betrothing—without giving me so much uneasiness and trouble. Was that the tomb you alluded to as ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... and no question of making shift to let the house in Belgrave Square for the season, while the amiable nobleman's banking-account showed a far from despicable balance. And consciousness of this last fact formed an agreeable undercurrent to his every thought. Therefore was he even more than usually garrulous according to his own kindly and ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... determinate directions, which enormously modify the climatic conditions of every zone. The ocean of air is a vast maelstrom, boiling up always under the influence of the sun's heat at the equator, and flowing as an upper current towards either pole, while an undercurrent from the poles, which becomes the trade-winds, flows towards the ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... miserably poor—sometimes they were upon the verge of despair—yet through all there was an undercurrent of happiness that nothing could destroy—they had each other and even at the worst they still dreamed the dream of the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass, even though the heartsease blossom drooped ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... night, around the stove, Isaac Bolum, and Henry Holmes and I had had it tooth and nail over the power of the powwow. In the store there was not always an outspoken belief in the efficacy of the charm, but there was an undercurrent of sentiment in favor of the supernatural. Against this I had fought. Perhaps it was merely for the joy of the argument that so often I had turned a fire of ridicule on the dearest traditions of ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... see in our own times how despotic governments can mystify their subjects, and distort contemporary history into what shape they please. But in Spanish America the system was worked to a greater extent than in any other country I have heard of; and the undercurrent of popular talk, which spreads in France and Russia things and opinions not to be found in the newspapers, had in Mexico but little influence. Scarcely any Mexican travelled, scarcely any foreigner visited the country, and the Spaniards who came to hold offices and make fortunes were all in the ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... clutching the book. The corridor stretched ahead into B Wing with its laboratories flooded with the glow of mid-morning sunshine, bright and unreal. His mind was dazed, his thinking processes stopped in a kind of stunned unbelief. He could not even quit now. An undercurrent of fear ran close to the surface of his confused mind. It was the end of science, the end of all his work. All of the stifling, strangling restrictions of security on his work, on his private life, ...
— Security • Ernest M. Kenyon
... in her temperament an undercurrent of ambition so strong as to cause her to receive their advances toward tender acquaintance with a freezing coldness, while at the same time it rendered her positively unhappy. She felt superior to her condition, and she longed to rise above it. Her mind had attained to a premature development ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... Mr. Minford had dwelt upon his machine in an undercurrent of thought; and an idea just then occurred to him, which he was desirous to test immediately. He therefore rose, and said that they would not detain Miss Pillbody any longer, and that his daughter would call and receive the first lesson ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... became stronger than ever before. Protests of princes, actions of legislative assemblies, [5] protests sometimes of bishops, [6] the failing allegiance of men of affairs, the increasing condemnation and ridicule from laymen and scholars—all signs of a strong undercurrent of public opinion—seemed to have no effect on those responsible for ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... hours, and it was much darker than the night before had been. The ocean, washing its million pebbles up on the little beach, moaned and complained incessantly. In the long intervals between their talk, Agatha's head would fall, her eyes would close, and she would almost sleep; but an undercurrent of anxiety concerning her companion kept her always at the edge of consciousness. James himself appeared to have no desire to sleep. He was trying to piece together, in his mind, his conscious and unconscious ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... driving home in their sober intimacy that had yet an undercurrent of that rushing river of life, Marietta turned ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... St. Michael's visit was ostensibly to the bride: and that is because for some magnetic reason or other I felt diplomacy like an undercurrent passing among our chairs. Young John's expression deepened, whenever he watched Juno, to a devilishness which his polite manners veiled no better than a mosquito netting; and I believe that his aunt, on account of the battle between their respective nephews, had for family reasons ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... the waves, and then the water rushed into my open mouth, and I felt my cap torn from my head. Down, down I sank, struggling, yet with my eyes open, while the water became dark around me and I was drawn along by the whirling undercurrent. ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... presents no appearance of discord between the different members which compose it. Even the addition of many new ones has produced no jarring. They move in their respective orbits in perfect harmony with the central head and with each other. But there is still an undercurrent at work by which, if not seasonably checked, the worst apprehensions of our antifederal patriots will be realized, and not only will the State authorities be overshadowed by the great increase of power in the ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... air about his attempt to be facetious that did not conceal, but rather accentuated, the undercurrent of feelings ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... hears, as if in a speaking-tube from a long distance, the words that Schaudinn and Hoffmann, on April 19, 1905, discovered the germ that causes syphilis, not realizing that the fact contained in those few brief words can alter the undercurrent of human history, and may, within the lives of our children and our children's children, remake the destiny of man on the earth. A great spirit lives in the work of men like Metchnikoff and Roux and Maisonneuve, who made possible the prophylaxis ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes
... Thus an extensive circulation is carried on. The air that moves from the equator in the upper atmosphere, gradually sinking to the surface of the earth, finally ceases to move toward the poles, and returns as an undercurrent to the equator, where it again rises ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... value or rank of the two bents of mind there has ever been, and probably forever will be, great difference of opinion. Even in this intensely "practical" age there is an undercurrent of feeling that the narrowly "practical" individual is not the final ideal, and the innermost conviction of many is the same as that of the poet who declares that "a dreamer lives forever, but a thinker ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... than once. She had asked herself if this intimacy were wise? She could not help liking the fair, sweet woman who had taken her place, and yet she felt a great undercurrent of jealous indignation and righteous anger—it might blaze out some day, and she knew that if it ever did so it would be out of her control. It was something like playing with fire, yet how many people play with fire all their lives ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... by the study of any religion, ancient or modern, is that it is based upon Fear, born of it, fed by it—and that it cultivates the source from which its nourishment is derived. "The fear of divine anger", says Prof. Jastrow, "runs as an undercurrent through the entire religious literature of Babylonia and Assyria." In the words of Tabi-utul-Enlil, ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... Robin, bidding the world rejoice. The Vireos catch the theme of the song, And the Baltimore Oriole bears it along, While from Sparrow, and Thrush, and Wood Pewee, And, deep in the pine-trees, the Chickadee, There's an undercurrent of harmony. ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... neutral. They believed strongly that each of the small nations of the Balkan region as well as all of the small nations that had been absorbed but had not been digested by Austria, should cut itself from the leading strings held by the large European powers. There was a distinct undercurrent, for a federation resembling that of the United States of America between these peoples. This was expressed most clearly by M. Jonesco, leader of the Liberal party of Roumania and generally recognized as the ablest statesman of middle Europe. ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... generosity and kindliness, I was aware of an undercurrent of illiberalism and violence which ...
— My Impresssions of America • Margot Asquith
... a child does not know that he is imagining; between the ages of four and six the imaginative period is at its height, and there begins to appear a sort of undercurrent of consciousness that it is all make-believe, and this heightens the pleasure of trying to make it seem real. Gradually the child learns to distinguish between imaginary experiences and real ones, but until you are quite certain that he does distinguish, do not ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... from the cruel distinctions based on sex. Though our State laws have been essentially changed, and positions in the schools, professions, and world of work secured to woman, unthought of thirty years ago, yet the undercurrent of popular thought, as seen in our social habits, theological dogmas, and political theories, still reflects the same customs, creeds, and codes that degrade women in the effete civilizations of the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... poor soul was inefficient, and he knew it: beneath all her flow of speech ran an undercurrent of wrath against the new learning and all its works. Poverty—sheer terror of a dwindling cupboard and the workhouse to follow—drove her to plead with that which she hated worse than the plague. He heard, and all the while his mind was miles ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... in the viewports when a sort of upswept tempo began to run through the ship, an undercurrent of increased activity. Cargo was checked, inventoried and strapped in. Ringg was given four extra men to help him, made an extra tour of the ship, and came back buzzing like a frantic cricket. Bart's computers told him they were forging toward the sidereal ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... of wit and humor, there was an undercurrent of agony. So great were his kindness, gentleness, tenderness of heart, that he could not live in this cruel world, especially in the period when the times were so much out of joint, without being a man of sorrows. The present writer never saw Lincoln's face but twice, ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... his suicide, unless, indeed, he was mad or drunk at the time. And then I began to wonder whether anything about his life had come out on the inquest—anything concerning habits, associates, and connections. Had there been any other undercurrent, besides betting, in his life brought out in evidence, which might help me to a solution of ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... relief. "You must not imagine, my child, that because you have never opened your mind to me, I have not known what you were thinking, or have left you to think alone about it. Mother and daughter are too near not to hear each other without words. There is between you and me a constant undercurrent of communion, and occasionally a passing of almost definite thought, I believe. We may not be aware of it at the time, but none the less it has ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... packing up the butter, and her head filled with these pictures of the morrow, Arthur Donnithorne, riding by Mr. Irwine's side towards the valley of the Willow Brook, had also certain indistinct anticipations, running as an undercurrent in his mind while he was listening to Mr. Irwine's account of Dinah—indistinct, yet strong enough to make him feel rather conscious when Mr. Irwine suddenly said, "What fascinated you so in Mrs. Poyser's dairy, Arthur? Have you become an amateur of ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... pleaded, and his voice grew more intense, as if behind it there was an undercurrent of broken sobs, "Elsa, what is the matter? You are not going to turn your back on me, are you? Look at me, Elsa! look at me! You wouldn't do it, would you . . . you wouldn't do it? . . . The Lord forgive me, but I love you, Elsa . . . I love you ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... her nephew's announcement with suitable effusion, and with an undercurrent of genuine feeling. After kissing Deena, she made a confidence that had a spice of ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... undercurrent all through this Convention. Somebody has been afraid that we are going to do something or pop some lid off that will bust the thing and I have been, as I said last night, sometimes scared almost to death. ...
— The Story of The American Legion • George Seay Wheat
... full. With a supreme effort of will, she subdued her inclination to unrestrained despair; with complete disregard of the acute pain in her head, she became gay, light-hearted, irresponsible, joyous. There was an undercurrent of suffering in her simulated mirth, but Perigal did not notice it; he was taken by surprise at the sudden change in her mood. He responded to her supposititious merriment; he laughed and joked as irrepressibly ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... reminders that your next business is, having enjoyed the success of the day, no longer to look at that success, but to look forward to the next difficulty that is to be conquered. And now, having had so much to say to the successful candidates, you must forgive me if I add that a sort of undercurrent of sympathy has been going on in my mind all the time for those who have not been successful, for those valiant knights who have been overthrown in your tourney, and have not made their appearance in public. I trust that, in accordance with old custom, they, wounded and bleeding, have been carried ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... shade must be worn for three full weeks or a month. Thus to imprisonment was added the gall and wormwood of total dependence upon others; the unthinkable prospect of parting with Paul, with the Border itself—with everything that had hitherto made life worth living; and, worse than all, the undercurrent of striving to ignore that veiled danger, which he refused to name, even in his thoughts, and which lay like a ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... strangers would have exhibited less restraint; for the ghost of an old comradeship made the fourth at the feast and prated to them in exiguous voice of paths that had diverged. Drake noticed, besides, an undercurrent of antagonism between Conway and Mallinson. He inquired what each had been ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... Princess, bound for Canton with a cargo of woolen goods and ginseng. There was much that puzzled me aboard-ship—the discontent of the second mate, the perversity of the man Kipping (others besides myself had seen that wink), and a certain undercurrent of pessimism. But although I was separated a long, long way from my old friends in the cabin, I felt that in Bill Hayden I had found a friend of a sort; then, as I began my first real watch on deck at sea, I fell to thinking of my sister and ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... made, this time in A minor, only to be thwarted by a still more capricious octave descent. This time, however, after a dramatic pause, we are rewarded with a clear-cut, periodic melody beginning in measure 66, against which the rhythm of the first theme keeps up a gentle undercurrent. Some interesting modulations develop into a series of descending octaves which, accompanied by sf chords, lead to the closing portion. This brilliant passage accentuates the dominant key of the second theme. After a short tranquillo phrase and some free ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... 45 E. Stenhouse made a sounding on November 17, in lat. 66 40 S., long. 154 45 E., and found bottom at 194 fathoms. The bottom sample was mud and a few small stones. The sounding-line showed a fairly strong undercurrent to the north-west. "We panned out some of the mud," says Stenhouse, "and in the remaining grit found several specks of gold." Two days later the trend of the current was south- easterly. There was a pronounced thaw ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... best part of the song," explained Lancelot; "a sort of undercurrent of emotion that brings out the full pathos of the words. Note the elegant and novel harmonies." He played another bar or two, singing the ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... buckskin. Waring was talking with Lorry. Mrs. Adams had gone in. Hardy indicated that he wanted to speak to Lorry, and he included Waring in his gesture. Lorry rose and glanced quickly at Alice Weston. She was leaning forward in her chair, suddenly aware of a subtle undercurrent of seriousness. The undersheriff was patting the nose ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... would do it?" she inquired, an undercurrent of wonder in her question, some recollection of it in ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... sufficient to cover harm also," and that he hoped the President's "honesty and his political errors may not furnish a second occasion to exclaim, 'curse on his virtues, they've undone his country.'" Henry Lee warned Washington of the undercurrent of criticism, and when Jefferson heard indirectly of this he wrote his former chief that "I learn that [Lee] has thought it worth his while to try to sow tares between you and me, by representing me as still engaged in the bustle of politics & in turbulence ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... scientific writing will agree that his or her best work is performed when self and surrounding objects have disappeared from thought and consciousness scarcely exists more than it does in a dream. Sometimes the individual is conscious of the flow of an undercurrent of mental action, although this does not rise to the level of distinct recognition. Oliver Wendell Holmes speaks of a business-man of Boston who, whilst considering a very important question, was conscious of an action going on in his brain so unusual and painful as to excite ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... nothing to say?" Westerling's frown deepened. There was an undercurrent of urgency in his tone. This mild culprit, waiting for the wheels of justice to roll over him without a protest, gave him no light as to a policy that should apply to other cases. He resented, too, any suggestion of readiness for martyrdom No man of power who is anything of a politician ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... dispassionately prescribing for Ireland in 1784, while there was yet time, the radical remedy, Reform, patiently turning, when that was refused, to palliatives like mutual free trade in 1785 and the Catholic franchise in 1793; and meanwhile, with an undercurrent of cool scepticism, preparing the ground for the only alternative to Reform, short of a revolutionary separation of the two countries, legislative Union, and remorselessly pushing that Union through by the only ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... the voice was, gently as the words were spoken, Tunis sensed an undercurrent of firmness and determination in the girl's character that he had not ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... suffering. But the suffering in Paradise will be accompanied with an exquisite delight and joy. Do we not know, even here on earth, how near to each other very often are joy and sorrow? He whose spirit is swelling with a great gladness has often a sense of an undercurrent of great pain along with it. How often tears and laughter go together! So, in that home of the disembodied soul, the very process of purification will be marked by an intensity of joy and an intensity of pain. They will be simultaneous. ...
— The Life of the Waiting Soul - in the Intermediate State • R. E. Sanderson
... Mershone, who, failing to obtain recognition from Miss Merrick, devoted himself to his cousin Diana, or at least lounged nonchalantly in the neighborhood of the Hindoo Booth. Mershone was very quiet. There was a speculative look upon his features that denoted an undercurrent of thought. ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... word among the constituents of New England Senators after 1840, and even Northwestern States threatened disruption of the Union as late as 1859 if the national policy should continue to run counter to their interests. There was, however, a strong undercurrent of devotion to the idea of nationality in both North and South[12] in 1860, and when South Carolina proceeded with her long-contemplated scheme of secession early in November of that year, Jefferson Davis, who had formerly talked freely of that ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... after the most detailed account of how a day has been spent, always leaves something over, that may serve as a hiding place for certain unconfessed actions), he could feel the insinuation of a possible undercurrent of falsehood which debased for him all that had remained most precious, his happiest evenings, the Rue La Perouse itself, which Odette must constantly have been leaving at other hours than those of which she told him; extending the power of ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... branch of the Judson family. Or what if he is hunting for an heir on the Haygarth side?" asked the Captain, with a very close watch upon Mr. Sheldon's face. Let the stockbroker be never so skilful a navigator of the high seas of life, there was no undercurrent, no cross trade-wind, no unexplained veering of the magnetic needle to the west, in the mysteries whereof the Captain was not also versed. When Columbus wanted to keep his sailors quiet on that wondrous voyage over an unknown ocean ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... grouped in clusters around the great guns. The creole soldiers came of a race whose habit it has ever been to take all phases of life joyously; but that morning their gayety was tempered by a dark undercurrent of fierce anxiety. They had more at stake than any other men on the field. They were fighting for their homes; they were fighting for their wives and their daughters. They well knew that the men they were to face were very brave in battle and very cruel in victory [Footnote: To prove ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... this runs the swift undercurrent of an absorbing passion. A passion of friendship it may be, but it forces itself through the arid shells of conventionalism; it is at once the agony and the consolation of a despairing soul. Heartless, Mme. du Deffand is called, and her life seems to prove the truth of the verdict; but these ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... all these interesting preliminaries over, the waltz itself opens with a melody full of sentiment and almost personal in its persistent suggestion of wooing. At the same time it has a graceful swing that carries it along like an undercurrent, with rising and falling inflections, and, like the Nevin waltz, with much dainty ornamentation, as if the couple were conversing in low tones while dancing. Then there is a brilliant episode when individuals seem lost sight of in the general vividness of the scene with its gaily colored costumes ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb
... this bubbling on the surface, of course, ran the deep and swift undercurrent of anti-slavery feeling—a tide of passion which historians now attempt to account for on economic grounds, but which showed no trace of economic origin while it lasted. Its true quality was moral, devout, ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... wherever they may be thrown; his vast strength, his redundant health, had a power of themselves—a moral as well as physical power. He naturally possessed high animal spirits, beneath the surface of which, however, at times, there was visible a certain undercurrent of malignity and scorn. He had evidently received a superior education, and could command at will the manner of a man not unfamiliar with a politer class of society. From the first hour that Philip had seen him on the top of ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... becomes a dizzy madness of blurred, whirling, raging waters. Then there is the leap, the plunge, the shattering anger of inland seas hurling their strength over the sheer precipice in resistless force. Then the foaming whirlpool below, and the shadowy gorge, and the undercurrent eddying away in the swift-flowing waters of the river coming out on Lake Ontario. On one side are the Canadian forts, on the other the American, slab-walled all of them, with scarcely a stone foundation except in bastions used as powder magazines. Fort ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... ironical questioning with its undercurrent of keen contempt. Each word stung like the flick of a lash on bare flesh. But she forced herself to answer—and ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... between two pieces that held together from some unknown cause. Presently they were carried down toward a large berg that seemed to be aground, for the loose ice was passing it swiftly. This was not the case, however. An undercurrent, far down in the depths of the sea, was acting on this berg, and preventing it from travelling with the ice that floated with the stream at the surface. In its passing, the mass of ice that held them struck one of the projecting tongues beneath the surface, and was split in two. The brig was at once ...
— Fast in the Ice - Adventures in the Polar Regions • R.M. Ballantyne
... the last ten years of his life, when the seeds of hereditary consumption developed themselves. As a young man he was lively and joyous, always ready for frolic, and with a great fund of humor, especially in caricature. Students of human character know how consistent these traits are with a deep undercurrent of melancholy, which colors the whole life when the immediate impulse ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... Atlantic is, if anything, lighter than that of the surface. Moreover, while a rapid superficial current is setting in (always, save in exceptionally violent easterly winds) through the Straits of Gibraltar, from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, a deep undercurrent (together with variable side currents) is setting out through the Straits, from the Mediterranean ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... another, otherwise they had not much to complain about, being kindly treated, according to savage ideas of kindness. But although, during those three days, the inhabitants of the village seemed to go about their business pretty much as usual, there appeared to be an undercurrent of subdued excitement, coupled with a condition of eager expectancy, which was plain to both Earle and Dick, and which somehow produced in both a considerable amount of apprehension as to ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... capacities; in manners and conversation she was absolutely simple. Young men formed the company, to whom she addressed counsel and command with the utmost freedom and a conscious authority. Through all her speech a certain undercurrent of scorn, a half-veiled touch of disdain, was perceptible. At their parting she invited the English visitors to come again, kissed Mrs Browning on the lips, and received Browning's kiss upon her hand. The second call upon her was less agreeable. She sat warming her feet in a circle of eight ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... current in precipitating the floating masses of ice into the path of the Forward. All of them did not obey the same impulsion, and it was not uncommon to encounter some of the highest masses drifting in an opposite direction, seized at their base by an undercurrent. ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... to be outwardly reflected in the burgher-life of Florence and the Lombard cities, while at Rome it had even then created the civil organization of the curia. The novella was its literary triumph. In art it expressed itself simply, directly and with vigour. Opposed to this was the other great undercurrent in Italian life, mystical, religious and speculative, which had run through the nation from the earliest times, and received fresh volume from mediaeval Christianity, encouraging ecstatic mysticism to drive to frenzy the population of its mountain cities. Umbrian painting ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... hardly make a stroke towards the beach, which I aimed for at first, the undercurrent pulling me back and sweeping me out seaward; while, the rough water, smacking against my face, bothered me and palsied my ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... an undercurrent of jubilance, as if whatever he knew now was better than he had expected. "Second phase is en route. Joe will ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... this small place—but indeed, the number of monographs dealing with every one of these little Italian towns is a ceaseless source of surprise. Look below the surface and you will find, in all of them, an undercurrent of keen spirituality—a nucleus of half a dozen widely read and thoughtful men, who foster the best traditions of the mind. You will not find them in the town council or at the cafe. No newspapers commend their labours, no millionaires or learned societies come ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... of pleasure prevails in a man, and the slight undercurrent of pain makes him tingle, and causes a gentle irritation; or again, the excessive infusion of pleasure creates an excitement in him,—he even leaps for joy, he assumes all sorts of attitudes, he changes all manner of colours, he gasps for breath, and is quite amazed, ...
— Philebus • Plato
... somewhere else, and that he saw another face as he mixed his colors, and not that of the siren before him. Or it may have been that, as he looked into the eyes of the Countess, he saw too deeply into the whirlpool of passion and pain which made up the undercurrent in this beautiful woman's ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... was lovely, lovely! No girl could have been quite unmoved to feel that all those soft lights were glowing in her honour, those masses of flowers blooming, all that warmth and perfume of elegance and luxury wafted as incense to her nostrils. And the undercurrent of suppressed excitement, the sensation ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... waded in and dived down into the deep undercurrent of causes, that strange deep that underlays all ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... that she seemed to take a pleasure in destroying them, she returned a casual: "What does it matter?" and taking up as many violets as she could hold, looked defiantly at him over their purple leaves. Through all she said and did ran a strong undercurrent of excitement. ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... he was shocked and distressed by the sudden and horrible disaster; and yet as an undercurrent to these first natural thoughts, there ran presently a distinct notion that he would have felt the grievousness of it more keenly had Madeleine perished in that cruel manner and her sister survived to ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... them and too little money. Too little and too damned late to do any good. I'll tell you we did our best, but it could never be good enough. And for this we get called butchers." There was a catch in Telt's voice now, an undercurrent of emotion he couldn't suppress. "At home they think we like to kill. Think we're insane. They can't understand we're doing the only thing that ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison |
