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Unlooked-for   Listen
adjective
Unlooked-for  adj.  Not looked for; unexpected; as, an unlooked-for event.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Unlooked-for" Quotes from Famous Books



... that all women are not made to feel the full force of this bitter oppression, because of the kindness of their husbands, or the prudent forethought of their fathers in providing for unlooked-for emergencies which might occasion poverty or distress; but the laws, and the makers of them, deserve little credit for any comfort or degree of independence enjoyed by women. More sorrowful than it is, infinitely more sorrowful, would woman's condition be, if true Christianity had not ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster

... I sighed, "to do all she thinks right. She must have been wearied beyond mortal endurance, and worried by my rash and unlooked-for words, and yet she keeps up till all need is past. Every little act shows that I might as well try to win an angel of heaven as sue against her conscience, she is so absolutely true. You're right, old woman; I was 'struck,' and I wish it had ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe

... reverse, showing an unusual knowledge of ecclesiastical affairs. "Do you know how the Pope is elected?" he asked of an old engine-driver who happened to be a fellow-traveller, who seemed rather embarrassed by such an unlooked-for question from such a source. "It is the most extraordinary thing on earth," the Brahmin went on to say, and he proceeded to describe pretty accurately the process ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin

... would receive some message or remonstrance from Young as to his conduct, and he was not mistaken, though it came in an unlooked-for manner. Upon rising next morning he found, to his surprise, a small square of paper pinned on to the coverlet of his bed just over his chest. On it was printed, ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle

... that of the two women in the half-deserted apartment building through the long night and longer day. Helen would have preferred to go out of doors, feeling that there she could see and follow, at a distance at least, the progress of the conflagration; but Mrs. Maitland in a strange and unlooked-for obstinacy absolutely declined to leave the apartment or to permit her ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble

... you, in the name of my departed husband, for this unlooked-for and generous offer. Though back in the city, which was formerly my home, I find myself comparatively a stranger. Yesterday I made inquiry for Mr. Edward Hunter, an old and fast friend of Mr. Lloyd's, and to my pain and regret learned that ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur

... startled by this unlooked-for reply. She had expected that she would complain of Louis' ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... about a hundred yards with her prize, when she pulled up to look back. Her discomfited antagonist was still standing in the middle of the road, apparently stupefied with amazement at the unlooked-for turn which affairs had taken. Shouting to him to remember her advice about the wood, she put both the horses to their speed, and on looking back once more was gratified to find that the postman, impressed with the truth of her mysterious threat, had turned and was making ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... caught in a blind canyon when they thought they were coming into the clear. That was an unlooked-for and unprepared-for turn that Shanklin had given to their plans. Right when they had him unsuspectingly loaded up so he could no more throw twenty-seven than he could fly, except by the tremendously long chance that the good ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... sudden and unlooked-for departure of British politicians from their past military procedure towards this island provokes acutely the fundamental issue of Self-determination. That issue will decide whether our whole economic, social, and political life must ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill

... of this astonishing and utterly unlooked-for personage, the actor and the Englishman stood for a moment gaping at each other in surprised silence. Then, as the full force of what they had done occurred to them, and they realised that, at great risk of life, limb, and freedom, they had rescued from the clutches of the law an utterly worthless ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells

... secret understandings of any kind. The day of conquest and aggrandizement is gone by; so is also the day of secret covenants entered into in the interest of particular governments and likely at some unlooked-for moment to upset the peace of the world. It is this happy fact, now clear to the view of every public man whose thoughts do not still linger in an age that is dead and gone, which makes it possible for every nation ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson

... so completely knocked off my balance, by this unlooked-for communication, that, for the moment I lost all power of speech, my tongue clave to the roof of my mouth, and I could only stare at ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood

... in silence, trying to still the wild agitation that his unlooked-for coming had raised in her. He was wearing a heavy motor-coat, but he divested himself of this, and without further parley bent himself to the task of which he ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell

... if nothing should be wanting to complete this strange and unlooked-for joy, king Polixenes himself ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... the group of women across the room—who, huddled together, were gazing at us with pale faces and fixed eyes—and I dare say the purport of my glance was that I had borne all I could, and that the results were beyond my control—when suddenly there came an unlooked-for interruption. ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic

... went back to his mother's, Bob had turned a great calamity into an occasion for something near rejoicing. Judge Sands and his family were very dear to the people of the section, but his misfortune had threatened such wide-spread ruin that the unlooked-for recovery of a million and a half was a ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson

... of draperies, and a moment later he was acknowledging the totally unlooked-for entrance of the mistress of the house. He had thought to see Calendar, presuming him to be the man closeted with Mrs. Hallam; but, whoever that had been, he did not accompany the woman. Indeed, as she advanced from the doorway, ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... her eyes and looked at him, perplexed, hesitating, a little mortified, like one who has encountered an unlooked-for rebuff. "Forgive me," she ventured rather shyly, "but do you think it would be possible for you to—to keep an incog here—where you must have so many friends? If you want to do that—to try it—of course I'll not tell a soul. But I'd like it very much if you could ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... is true, in the marriage bond greater even than we once anticipated. But it comes from an unlooked-for source. It is not that very thing we imagined; in that we are often disappointed. It consists in the shining forth of new and before undiscovered traits. But when were extravagant anticipations ever yet realized, ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey

... only inhabitant they could discover; but even this was an unlooked-for piece of good fortune. He told them that they were within the distance of a league from the Dnieper, but that it was not fordable there, and could not yet be frozen over. "It must be so," the marshal remarked; but when he was reminded ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote

... proceedings, a piece of unexampled pleasantry: were not long in producing the desired effect. The girl gradually recovered her senses; and, staggering to a chair by the bedside, hid her face upon the pillow: leaving Mr. Sikes to confront the new comers, in some astonishment at their unlooked-for appearance. ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens

... of course exceedingly annoyed by this unlooked-for interruption, and still more by such utterly preposterous claims on him for animals; however, it was easy to explain that he had no such things in his possession, and after that of course no more could be said. He ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey

... of Themistocles and the fortunate prudence of Aristides; and every motive of Grecian, as well as Athenian, policy justified the subjugation of the revolters—an evident truth in the science of state policy, but one somewhat hastily lost sight of by those historians who, in the subsequent and unlooked-for results, forgot the necessity of the earlier enterprise. Greece had voluntarily intrusted to Athens the maritime command of the confederate states. To her, Greece must consequently look for no diminution of the national resources ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... had left it many events had taken place. He himself had gone away a comparatively poor man, and returned in the possession of the estates inherited from his father, unimpaired save by the mortgage given upon them by Mr. Brander. He had succeeded beyond his hopes; and having obtained unlooked-for proofs of the fraud that had been practised, had been able to obtain restitution—which was to him the most important point—and all had been done without the slightest publicity. In Paris, the danger he had ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty

... things connected with our stay there, but chiefly trivialities. Most amusing, because so embarrassing to the unprepared, was an unlooked-for and startling attention received from the British soldiery, whom I now met for the first time: for the war at home had hitherto prevented the men of my date from having much foreign cruising. I was in uniform in the streets, confining myself severely to my own business, ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan

... beneath their visors. Then each spurred his horse, and charged with fury upon the other; and the heavy lances of both were broken in shivers upon the opposing shields. Then, quick as thought, they turned and drew their swords, and hand to hand they fought. But soon Siegfried, by an unlooked-for stroke, sent his enemy's sword flying from him, broken in a dozen pieces, and by a sudden movement he threw him from his horse. The heavy shield of the fallen knight was no hinderance to the quick strokes ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin

... formidable; and the Athenian plan of paralysing by the boldness of their attack a neighbour often not their inferior in strength could now be used against them with as good effect by the Syracusans. He was convinced also that the unlooked-for spectacle of Syracusans daring to face the Athenian navy would cause a terror to the enemy, the advantages of which would far outweigh any loss that Athenian science might inflict upon their inexperience. He accordingly urged them to throw aside their fears and to try their fortune at sea; and ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides

... had recovered new vigour from an unlooked-for quarter. As the revival of the Roman law had given an artificial prestige to the Empire in the twelfth century, so the revival of classical literature threw a new halo around it in the fourteenth. To Dante, penetrated with the greater Latin authors, ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green

... said, of writing to console her under this deep and wholly unlooked-for trial, but hitherto he had abstained from doing so, lest, while his own anguish and hers were fresh, he should only renew the pain of the wound by his unskilful treatment. He waited, therefore till time had laid its healing ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar

... and his wife Mary. In the course of it, they went to spend a few days with some old friends in the neighbourhood. On the morning of Friday, December 3, they suddenly reappeared—their friends having driven them back—at an unlooked-for moment. All got out, and to Mrs. James Austen's surprise a tender scene of embraces and tears and distressing farewells took place in the hall. No sooner had the carriage disappeared than Cassandra and Jane, without offering any explanation, ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh

... Lawrence bowed grave assent. She had many a time expressed her disapprobation of Mr. Elmendorf's propensity to interfere in domestic matters wherein he had no concern, but here was a case where unlooked-for support was accorded her side of an unfinished argument. Mrs. Lawrence considered all comment of Mr. Elmendorf on her affairs as utterly unwarrantable, but poor Flo really laid ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King

... brings plainly before him the changes which must be wrought on himself and those around him by these years? I do not speak of the greatest change of all, which may come to any of us so very soon: I do not think of what may be done by unlooked-for accident: I think merely of what must be done by the passing on of time. I think of possible changes in taste and feeling, of possible loss of liking for that mode of life. I think of lungs that will play less freely, and of limbs that will ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd

... who gave the matter an unlooked-for publicity by denouncing the Hessians as "hired assassins." He prophesied that the Americans would not consider these hirelings as amenable to the rules of civilized warfare, but would "welcome them with bloody hands to hospitable ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard

... me; and ever has fortune remained mute and tongueless. Foolish was it of me to have expected otherwise, to have expected, for instance, that some day there might occur something marvellous, something unlooked-for." ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky

... in common—the power to command. In the give-and-take of daily discussion, in the art of controlling and consolidating reluctant and refractory followers, in the skill to overcome all forms of opposition, and to meet with competency and courage the varying phases of unlooked-for assault or unsuspected defection, it would be difficult to rank with these a fourth name in all our Congressional history. But of these Mr. Clay was the greatest. It would, perhaps, be impossible to find in the parliamental annals of the world a parallel to Mr. Clay, in 1841, when ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis

... of Putnam Hall show what they can do in various teen rivalries on the athletic field and elsewhere. There is one victory which leads to a most unlooked-for discovery. ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman

... been fixed keenly and unwaveringly on Mr. Jocelyn's urbane countenance, as if he would detect the cause of such unlooked-for words, but at the mention of Mildred's name his brow and even neck was suffused. "She must have spoken of me kindly," he thought, "or her father would not be so friendly." But when a swift glance around revealed that Mrs. Jocelyn was looking at her husband in perplexity, that Mildred was not even ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe

... again, and not noticing his daughter's presence in the room, in consequence of her being behind a screen near the fire, he suddenly announced the event to his wife, as being of so remarkable a character that he could in no way account for it. As may be anticipated, Emma, overhearing this unlooked-for denouement of her dream, at once fell to the ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang

... That unlooked-for event caused great confusion in this city of Manila and the port of Cabite. Licentiate Andres de Alcaraz and the gentlemen of the royal Audiencia were governing. They put aside their togas and girded on their swords. They divided the most dangerous and important ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various

... attacking the white-hot platinum, causes rings of color to appear round the specimen. I have now been using the apparatus for nearly a month, and in its earliest days it led me right in the diagnosis of a microscopical mineral, iolite, not before found in our Irish granite, I think. The unlooked-for characters of the mineral, coupled with the extreme minuteness of the crystals, led me previously astray, until my meldometer fixed its fusibility for me as ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various

... had the spirits of the whole become by their unlooked-for escape, that Saunders was indulged to the top of his humour, and while he served the meal, passing between his fire on the sands and the roof of the launch, he enjoyed a heartier gossip than any he had had since they left the dock; not even excepting ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... world being now satisfactorily arranged, it would seem that all things ought to have gone on smoothly, but such was not the case. Trouble arose in an unlooked-for quarter. The Giants, those hideous monsters (some with legs formed of serpents) who had sprung from the earth and the blood of Uranus, declared war against the triumphant deities of Olympus, and a struggle ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens

... an unlooked-for danger was near—a danger, too, which had followed her all the way from Warren's Grove. Lydia Purcell had always been very particular whom she engaged to work on Mrs. Bell's farm, generally confining herself to men from the same shire. But shortly before the ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade

... revisiting a place which had so seasonably afforded us a friendly shelter and such unlooked-for convenience for our purposes, can only be estimated by those who have experienced them; and it is only to strangers to such feelings that it will appear ridiculous to say, that even the nail to which our ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King

... For a full day at least, and then was whelmed In other marvels rushing thick upon it. The mother and the daughter, who still bore The name of Percival, came back from Paris At once, on getting the unlooked-for news. When Linda, after three weeks had elapsed, Re-entered, with a swelling heart, the house To her so full of sacred memories, She was accosted by an officer Who told her he had put his seal on all The ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent

... my head, resting against a pillar, had slipped down, depositing itself upon the expansive bosom of a portly French dame in the next box, who seemed, by her vehement exclamations, to be quite shaken from the balance of her propriety by the unlooked-for burthen I had imposed upon her; whilst a petit monsieur poured forth a string of sacres and sapristies upon my devoted head with a volubility of utterance ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... were swamped for a time at this unlooked-for catastrophe; for the dangers of their position were not slight. It was clear that Tom would not be able to travel for many days, for his whole frame trembled, when the fits came on, with a violence that seemed to threaten dislocation to all his joints. ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne

... unlooked-for sequel to her innocent desire to propitiate her best friends. Don Jose did not call again upon his usual day, but in his place came Dona Clara, his younger sister. When Mrs. Tucker had politely asked after ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... not known the worst, as the loving, brave-spirited wife and mother had believed. In some sense, it is true, they had not known the best, for the years had brought many satisfactions, many unlooked-for, though unimportant, mitigations of the poverty so hard to bear cheerfully—people had been 'very kind.' But the poverty itself had increased. There were literally unavoidable expenses for 'the boys,' if they were not to be stranded in their careers; there was an unexpected rising of the rent ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth

... dancing within him. It was impossible to keep the lilt of it entirely out of his eyes. They were radiant with this unlooked-for happiness. ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham

... easy to cut gold here with a case-knife as before, and the ambassadors of the Great Powers find it day by day more difficult to maintain their old commanding standpoint towards a government which knows that a great future is before the country, if inconsiderate ambition or unlooked-for misfortune do not unexpectedly hinder its development. Another reproach, that the Japanese can imitate what another has done, but is unable himself to invent anything new, appears on the other hand to be justified in the meantime. But it is unreasonable to ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold

... these large and agile creatures, living in the middle depths of the sea, must, to a large extent, for ever remain unknown to us, since under water they are too nimble for nets, and it is only by such rare, unlooked-for accidents that specimens can be obtained. In the case of Haploteuthis ferox, for instance, we are still altogether ignorant of its habitat, as ignorant as we are of the breeding-ground of the herring or the sea-ways of the salmon. And zoologists are ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... what happened, Buck," Fred replied, a warm feeling once more taking possession of his heart; for somehow he seemed to know that the coming of this unlooked-for ally would turn the scales in his favor; and, after all, he would not have to spend a horrible night in that ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman

... Chester as at a corner table he poured him a glass of cordial, brought the war, the trenches, the poilu and the boche closer than any other they knew. Beloiseau and Mme. Alexandre, he softly explained, had come in quite unlooked-for to discuss the great strife and might depart at any moment. Then ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable

... killed and wounded taxed to the utmost the skill and untiring exertions of the surgeons, who soon found their preparations and supplies exceeded by the unlooked-for demand upon them. All night long on that 27th of May the stretcher-bearers were engaged in removing the wounded to the field-hospitals in the rear. These were soon filled to overflowing, and many rested under the shelter of the trees. Hither, too, came large numbers of men not ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin

... parlour, and confronted the Colonel, who was just advancing towards it. The strong light of the apartment left no doubt of his identity, and he himself was as much confounded with the appearance of those to whom he so unexpectedly presented himself as they were by the sight of so utterly unlooked-for an object. It must be remembered that each individual present had their own peculiar reasons for looking with terror upon what seemed at first sight a spectral apparition. Mannering saw before him the man whom he supposed he ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... that it is so," answered the knight, with a stern glance bent upon the sunny landscape beyond the open window. "It is strange, but it is true; and I sometimes think that some fearful and unlooked-for judgment must some day ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green

... the score of Meudon. At Easter, this year, I went away to La Ferme, far from the Court and the world, to solace myself as I could; but this thorn in my side was cruelly sharp! At the moment the most unlooked-for it pleased God to deliver ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... necessity of straining every nerve, and Hetty's strength was impaired by a nervous desire to escape, the chase would have quickly terminated in the capture of the fugitive, had not the girl made several short and unlooked-for deviations in her course. These turnings gave her time, and they had also the effect of gradually bringing both canoe and Ark within the deeper gloom, cast by the shadows from the hills. They also gradually increased the distance between the ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... brave of heart, but in the face of such sudden and unlooked-for danger her courage failed her. The pretty rose-bloom died away from her face, and her beautiful blue eyes expanded wide with terror. She caught her breath with a sob, and, seizing the oar with two soft, childish hands, made a desperate attempt to turn the boat. The current resisted ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey

... the price at which they would execute this part of the work, but to his surprise and dismay he found that not one of the firms he applied to would undertake so large a forging. In this dilemma he wrote to Mr. Nasmyth on the 24th November,1838, informing him of this unlooked-for difficulty. "I find," said he, "there is not a forge-hammer in England or Scotland powerful enough to forge the paddle-shaft of the engines for the 'Great Britain!' What am I to do? Do you think I might ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles

... adversity usually does leave its prey, somewhat chilled and somewhat hardened to affection; passive and quiet of hope, resigned to the worst as to the common order of events, and expecting little from the best, as an unlooked-for incident in the regularity of human afflictions. He was insensible of his daughter's danger, for he was not one whom the fear of love endows with prophetic vision; and he lived tranquilly in the present, without asking what new misfortune awaited him in the future. Yet he loved his child, ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... home, and I to my office. Find myself pretty well but fearful of cold, and so to my office, where late upon business; Mr. Bland sitting with me, talking of my Lord Windsor's being come home from Jamaica, unlooked-for; which makes us think that these young Lords are not fit to do any service abroad, though it is said that he could not have his health there, but hath razed a fort of the King of Spain upon Cuba, which is ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... house-takers or house-mates, for we are ready to accept the lowest place or the highest. The week you gave us would be altogether bright and glad if it had not been for the depression and anxiety on your part. May God turn it all to gain and satisfaction in some unlooked-for way. To be a road-maker is weary work, even across the Apennines of life. We have not science enough for it if we have strength, which we haven't either. Do you remember how Sindbad shut his eyes and let himself be carried over the hills by an eagle? That was better than to set about ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon

... Neither do I feel tempted to do anything improper with any of the boys, although I frequently sit talking with one who has very little on. But I find the constant sight of well-shaped bare limbs has a curious effect on the mind and comes before one's imagination as a picture at unlooked-for times. But the most curious thing of all is this: There are several lads here of whom I am very fond. Now when they are near me I think of them with only the purest and most tender feelings, but sometimes at night when I am half asleep, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... good sense, if he surprise us by doing something which rises sheer above the plane of his average life, if we happen to find him in company that is made up of men who are his superiors in attainments, character, and social importance, we mark the unlooked-for circumstance by repeating this text. We say: "How does this come to pass? What is the explanation?" "Is Saul also among the prophets?" If we think out our impression, it means that the unexpected has ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd

... India Company, that it was impossible to have escaped, if they had so inclined; and soon afterwards several hundred soldiers came on board, taking possession of both ships, and placing their crews under safe custody. Taught by so many and such unlooked-for misfortunes, Roggewein now thoroughly repented having proposed to return home by way of the East Indies, but was now wise behind hand. He had neglected prosecuting the discovery on which he had been sent, for which ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr

... family in the whole kingdom happier than the king and queen and prince, until one day when the youth met a little old man as he was hunting in a lonely part of the woods. 'How are you my unlooked-for Prince?' he said. 'You kept them waiting a ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various

... in a box and rode away with it until he came to a deep piece of water; then he threw the box into it and thought, "I have freed my daughter from her unlooked-for suitor." ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... the classics, and to acquire a knowledge of the history of my own and other countries. I was rapidly growing in mind as well as in body, when my school career was cut short by no less an event than my summary and ignominious expulsion. How this unlooked-for ending to my studies came about I must now ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... this, fires still kept breaking out around; while mines and fougasses not unfrequently exploded from unknown causes. We saw two officers emerge from a heap of ruins, covered and almost blinded with smoke and dust, from some such unlooked-for explosion. With considerable difficulty we succeeded in getting into the quarter of the town held by the French, where I was nearly getting into ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole

... was the consternation of the Southern leaders when Californian delegates appeared immediately upon the assembling of the Thirty-first Congress, and asked for admission beneath this unlooked-for "free" charter of statehood. The shock was aggravated by the fact that New Mexico, actually instigated thereto by the slaveholding President Taylor himself, was likely to follow close in the Californian foot-tracks. The admission of Texas had for a moment ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse

... of his undertakings. There was a want of concentrative power about him; he was ever frittering away his undeniable abilities upon a number of hastily adopted projects, crudely conceived, and remorselessly abandoned when the temperature of his enthusiasm lowered, or any unlooked-for difficulties appeared in his path. How the erratic and desultory nature of his mind was fostered and aggravated by Hayley's mischievous efforts has already been shown. That the glowing eulogium pronounced by ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook

... mother the reputable widow of a reputable man, of a class in life quite equal to his own, living on a property that was small, certainly, and involved, but property that had been long in her family. The truth was, Marble felt so much at this unlooked-for appeal to his gentler feelings, that one of his stern nature did not know how to answer it on the emergency; and the obstinacy of his temperament rather induced him to resist, than to yield to such unwonted sentiments, ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... moderate sense, popular—a benefit which wore the more cheering aspect and the promises of permanence, inasmuch as he owed it exclusively to his personal qualities of kindness 20 and affability, as well as to the beneficence of his government. On the other hand, to balance this unlooked-for prosperity at the outset of his reign, he met with a rival in popular favor—almost a competitor—in the person of Zebek-Dorchi, a prince with considerable pretensions to 25 the throne, and, perhaps it might be said, with equal pretensions. Zebek-Dorchi ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey

... Philip!" cried Miss Eunice, stooping to grasp her favorite's collar, and by his unlooked-for onrush against her own feet losing her balance and falling to ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond

... to him, as he expected. There was an unlooked-for constraint in her voice as she ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg

... entirely passive; cases such as those which the Jews called Bath-col, or daughter of a voice, (the echo [1] augury,) viz., where a man, perplexed in judgment and sighing for some determining counsel, suddenly heard from a stranger in some unlooked-for quarter words not meant for himself, but clamorously applying to the difficulty besetting him. In these instances, the mystical word, that carried a secret meaning and message to one sole ear in the world, was unsought for: that ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... branches, had contemplated such folly as this, he would have done his best to nip that folly while it was in bud. "He jests at scars who never felt a wound"; and until Leopold had learned by his own unlooked-for experience what love can mean, what men will do for love while the sweet madness is on them, he would have been utterly unable to understand the state ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson

... which such an unlooked-for exhibition -caused to the party, was momentary; for Dr. Burney, shocked lest the poor signor should observe, and be hurt by this mimicry, glided gently round to Mrs. Thrale, and, with something between pleasantry and severity, whispered to her, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay

... denote extreme poverty, and that extending its influence over all ranks of society; and certainly, compared with England, France is wretchedly poor. But many of its resources remain hidden, and it is certain, that on the demands of its despotic ruler, France produced unlooked-for supplies. His wars have now greatly exhausted this hidden treasure, and there is, fortunately for the peace of the world, very little money left in the country. The marks of the wealth of the country, both ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison

... spiritual existence. There is an infinite field yet unexplored—a very terra incognita to even those who pride themselves upon being learned in the mysteries of the soul. And to him who ventures upon this seemingly lowly path, so far from proving unattractive, it becomes a very Eden of thought. Unlooked-for beauties spring to light on every side; the very essence of music and poesy float around him as he advances; while above, around, and through all, sounds the magnificent diapason of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... ships before whose keels, full long embayed In polar ice, propitious winds have made Unlooked-for outlet to ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan

... that way now when I go South. Well, I went South one winter just at Christmas, and I took that train by accident. I was going to New Orleans to spend Christmas, and had expected to have gotten off to be there several days beforehand, but an unlooked-for matter had turned up and prevented my getting away, and I had given up the idea of going, when I changed my mind: the fact is, I was in a row with a friend of mine there. I decided, on the spur of the moment, to go, ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page

... the unlooked-for action, slashed down at him. Had Joe gone straight toward him, the knife would have been buried in him. But here again his quickness and the tactics of ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick

... The public notice was posted in the town this morning. Forces of Boers are massed on the West Natal and East Baraland borders, waiting until the British fire a shot. Their secret orders are to wait that signal, but some unlooked-for event may cause them to anticipate these.... And we shall be wise to prepare for eventualities. For myself, having been despatched by the British Government on special service to report to the Home Authorities upon our defences ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... still green with last season's growth. They were carefully taken up and set out, and have been kept in a northeast window through the winter. Now they are rested and for several weeks have been waking up. Let me tell you what spring reveals in that limited space, as some unlooked-for plants were hidden under the moss and Ferns. Above all the rest rise delicate fronds of the Maiden Hair and more of the reddish crooks are unfolding. The common Polypodium shows both the fruited fronds of last year and the lighter green of recent growth. ...
— The Mayflower, January, 1905 • Various

... of the chance," said the Count of Paris, "which gives you an unlooked-for opportunity ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... my expectations—and intentions," Thorpe resumed. "I don't want you to suffer by this unlooked-for change in the shape of things. You hold two thousand shares—only by accident they're the wrong kind of shares. Very well: I'll make them the right kind of shares. I'll have a transfer sent to you tomorrow, so that you can return those ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic

... halted. The unlooked-for question now arose how to make the kill safe and effective. It would be impossible to shoot from the opposite bank without endangering the line of men and horses. Finally a small number of rifles were advanced on the extreme left flank to within two hundred yards of the quarry, ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams

... sour at holidays, I was in a state of great contentment in regard to holidays. In fact, I was really merry. I whistled. I sang. I do believe I cut a caper. The poor wretches I had left had been so merry over their unlooked-for Christmas banquet that ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various

... neighborhood. "The Spaniards," says Rabutin, "might have accomplished our total extermination, and taken from us all hope of setting ourselves up again. . . . But the Supreme Ruler, the God of victories, pulled them up quite short." An unlooked-for personage, Queen Catherine de' Medici, then for the first time entered actively upon the scene. We borrow the very words of the Venetian ambassadors who lived within her sphere. The first, Lorenzo Contarini, wrote in 1552, "The queen is younger than the king, but only ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... comparatively small outlay as in Persia. It is not enterprises on a gigantic scale, nor millions of pounds sterling that are needed; moderate sums handled with judgment, knowledge and patient perseverance, would produce unlooked-for results. Large imported sums of capital in hard cash are not wanted and would involve considerable risk. First of all, stands the danger of the depreciation of capital by the fall in silver and the gradual rise in exchange due to the excess of imports over exports. ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... miracles, are contrary to one another, but, they are not; for the astonishment of the multitudes did not arise from credulity in the least, but was the expression of that state of mind which must exist (no matter how carefully it is concealed), when some unlooked-for occurrence, totally inexplicable on any natural principles, presents itself. I cite it to show how utterly unfamiliar that age was with even the pretence of the exhibition of miraculous powers. If there be any substratum of truth whatsoever in the accounts of the ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler

... France. I was obliged, however, to use the strictest economy—to live on pilgrim fare, and do penance in rain and cold. My means several times entirely failed; but I was always relieved from serious difficulty through unlooked-for friends, or some unexpected turn of fortune. At Rome, owing to the expenses and embarrassments of traveling in Italy, I was obliged to give up my original design of proceeding on foot to Naples and across the peninsula to Otranto, sailing thence to Corfu and making a pedestrian journey ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor

... held to nominate the President. The Radical wing (they were proud to call themselves anarchists) had developed unlooked-for strength, chiefly from the cities and great towns, and had put forward as their candidate the blatant demagogue, Lemuel Bagshaw, whose name has left so deep a stain ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.

... those histories which can most powerfully dispose their mind to obedience and devotion. However, the masses are not sufficiently skilled to draw conclusions from what they read, they take more delight in the actual stories, and in the strange and unlooked-for issues of events than in the doctrines implied; therefore, besides reading these narratives, they are always in need of pastors or church ministers to explain them ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza

... of surprise he had felt his wrath growing hotter and hotter every moment, the other man's cool assurance helped further to irritate his nerves, and to make him lose that self-control which would have been of priceless value in this unlooked-for situation. ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy

... ship, in which Caesar was present in person, and he was obliged to swim for his life.[3] Still, he held on, keeping up his men's spirits, and knowing that relief must arrive in time. He was never greater than in unlooked-for difficulties. He never rested. He was always inventing some new contrivance. He could have retired from the place with no serious loss. He could have taken to his ships and forced his way to sea in spite of the winds and the Alexandrians. But he felt that to fly from ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude

... raiment, and with feathers on their heads, just before going to lie down on what is called the bed of honour. Melancholy indeed to think, that all these fine, fierce, ferocious, fire-eaters are doomed, but for some unlooked-for revolution in the affairs of Europe and the world, to die in their beds! Yet there is some comfort in thinking of the composition of a Company of brave defenders of their country. It is, we shall suppose, Seventy strong. ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... and presently stared upward. "Monsieur Bulmaire, to encounter you is indeed an unlooked-for pleasure. May I inquire wherein I have been so ill-fated ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell

... upon her with eyes wide open at first in displeased astonishment. But in a moment another look came, startled, wondering, as when one finds a sudden unlooked-for clue. Was that it? Wych Hazel said to herself. Had it been left to Mrs. Coles to tell her? "A good marching uniform?"Wych Hazel thought she knew better now than ever before "what to do ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner

... This unlooked-for proposition almost took away the Marchesa's breath. "Ah, Mrs. Fothergill," she said, "it was Mrs. Sinclair's plan, not mine. She kindly wishes to turn me into a cook for I know not how long, just at the hottest season of the year, a fate I should ...
— The Cook's Decameron: A Study in Taste: - Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes • Mrs. W. G. Waters

... and Margot were grave with anxious thought, and that of the priest seemed to reflect something of the same expression; for during the course of the simple meal which all had shared together, Gaston had told of the unlooked-for encounter with the proud Sieur de Navailles in the forest, and of the defiance he had met with from the twin eaglets. As the good miller and his wife heard how Gaston had openly declared his name and race to the implacable foe of his house, they wrung their hands together ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green

... spirit to any to tell it, What grief in Heorot Grendel hath caused me, 20 What horror unlooked-for, by hatred unceasing. Waned is my war-band, wasted my hall-troop; Weird hath offcast them to the clutches of Grendel. God can easily hinder the scather From deeds so direful. Oft ...
— Beowulf - An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem • The Heyne-Socin

... article, of every fabric, a series of failures which have gradually led the way to excellence; and we shall notice, in the art of making even the most insignificant of them, processes calculated to excite our admiration by their simplicity, or to rivet our attention by their unlooked-for results. ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage

... half smiling, yet wondering at her unlooked-for serious shrewdness as he glanced toward ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... Westmore in the carriage which was carrying them to the mills. He had meant to take the trolley back to Westmore, but at a murmured word from Mr. Tredegar Bessy had offered him a seat at her side, leaving others to follow. This culmination of his hopes—the unlooked-for chance of a half-hour alone with her—left Amherst oppressed with the swiftness of the minutes. He had so much to say—so much to prepare her for—yet how begin, while he was in utter ignorance of her character and her point of view, and while her lovely nearness left him so ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... princely visitors were entertained with all due pomp and splendour; but neither on account of these costly entertainments nor on behalf of the royal children did the Sovereign ask the nation for so much as a shilling, the Civil List sufficing for every unlooked-for outlay, now that Prince Albert, by dint of persevering effort, had succeeded in putting the arrangements of the royal household on a satisfactory footing, sweeping away a vast number of time-honoured, thriftless expenses, and rendering a wise ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling

... happy fortune; a lucky shot; a telling blow, like Sanchez's with his slung-shot; or, the fanciful drumming, such as was Kit's, on the noses of his antagonists; or, some other equally singular and unlooked-for expedient. The weight of one of these monsters often runs as high as fifteen hundred pounds; and, their fore paws, which they can manage with the greatest dexterity, frequently measure fourteen inches. The courage, sagacity and skill invariably evinced by this species of ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters

... with the abuse of kava, six foot three in stature—cast him on one side; and the captain, instantly expecting to be either shot or brained, discharged his pistol in the dark. When they carried Timau out at the door into the moonlight, he was already dead, and, upon this unlooked-for termination of their sally, the whites appeared to have lost all conduct, and retreated to the boats, fired upon by the natives as they went. Captain Hart, who almost rivals Bishop Dordillon in popularity, shared with him the policy of extreme indulgence to the natives, ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson

... vanished; it reappeared. It vanished again, and again appeared, flinging a strong flare upon the shell-worked walls as it approached. Again the fierce "Halloo!" resounded through the hollow cavities of the subterranean temple, and he remained motionless, waiting for an explanation of this unlooked-for turn to the events of ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... successive additions, made in many different years, that it can be raised up to any thing like the amount requisite for successful operations. Thus disaster generally occurs in the commencement of every war; or if, by the genius of any extraordinary commander, as by that of Marlborough, unlooked-for success is achieved in the outset, the nation is unable to follow it up; the war languishes for want of the requisite support; the enemy gets time to recover from his consternation; his danger stimulates him to greater exertions; and many long years of warfare, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various

... inflexible justice of the Governor, and that it would become my painful duty to sustain him at the cannon's mouth."[15] This argument was decisive. The border chiefs felt willing enough to lead their awkward squads against the slight barricades of Lawrence, but quailed at the unlooked-for prospect of encountering the carbines and sabers of half a regiment of regular dragoons and the grape-shot of a well-drilled light battery. They accepted the inevitable; and swallowing their rage but still nursing their revenge, ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay

... across the Channel and listening to the melancholy call of the owls as they swept back and forth across the lawn to their secret abodes in the cliffs. When at last he slept, however, he slept soundly. An unlooked-for gleam of sunshine and the dull roar of the incoming tide breaking upon the beach below woke him the next morning long after his usual hour. He bathed, shaved in front of the open window, and breakfasted with an absolute renewal of his ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... geological expedition out from the far lowlands to the east, out from the city of Kar-Rah. And he was very happy now—flushed with a vast and unlooked-for success. ...
— The Eternal Wall • Raymond Zinke Gallun

... packet had arrived, bearing despatches for the Admiral, and, as Watty languidly turned the pages of a late Steel's List, ambition once more awoke on finding his name amongst the promotions. Braced in mind, and roused from his apathy by this unlooked-for good fortune, he turned to other papers brought out by the packet, and waded steadily through the news sheets. There was little at first that interested him. But presently, as he picked up a little Portsmouth journal, a paragraph that caught his eye fetched from him a shout that roused ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang

... Ah-Ping, not fully convinced that the fact was as he stated it in spite of the image clearly impressed upon his imagination; 'to what unpropitious occurrence is so unlooked-for an exhibition due? Are those who traffic in gold-leaf demanding a high and prohibitive price for that commodity, or has some evil and vindicative spirit taken up its abode within the completed portion of the Temple, and by its offensive but nevertheless diverting remarks ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah

... I could restrain my temper under such revolting circumstances. I felt that at an unlooked-for moment I might be compromised in some serious outbreak of the natives, caused by the brutal acts of the traders. Already it was declared unsafe to venture out shooting without ten or ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker

... silence; then, giving them as a signal to enter the moment when they should hear him cry, "To me, Douglas!" he went round by the secret passage, so that seeing him come in by his usual door the queen's suspicions might not be roused by his unlooked-for visit. ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... house, containing some twenty-five rooms, and full of unexpected niches, nooks, and crannies. It was kept furnished throughout, but was locked up in the winter months. An unlooked-for cold wave, speeding from the northwest, had made the coming of the prospective bridal party a somewhat ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts

... My unlooked-for champion was Mr. John Van Blarcom. I stared at him, at a loss to know why, on the heels of our row on deck and my rejection of his friendly warning, he should perjure himself for me in so obliging ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti

... and gave me his hand with unlooked-for cordiality. He was a dapper little man, with a head as round and nearly as bald as an orange, and not unlike an orange in complexion, either; he had twinkling gray eyes and a pronounced Roman nose, the numerous freckles upon which were deepened by his funereal dress-coat ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... to him ever since their last parting. And now he could not tell, or rather, blindly could not see, whether she suffered in the saying it. A passionate protest rose in him, not so much against her words as against her self-control. The man in him rose up against the woman's unlooked-for, unwelcome strength. ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... unlooked-for speech, all the scholars burst into a laugh and directed their eyes toward the crestfallen Bill, who seemed so painfully embarrassed that Fanny regretted what she had said, and as soon as school was out for the morning she went to him and told him ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes

... simply, "I don't love you any more," Larry would have got up from the blow and been able to handle the matter, but she proceeded after a fashion that utterly confused him and, instead of clearing the situation, managed to create a most unlooked-for result. ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock

... this unlooked-for rebuff. He had come to the Acordada to indulge in the luxury of a little vapouring over his fallen foes, whom he knew to be there, having been informed of all that had befallen them from Mier up to Mexico. He expected to find them cowed, and eager to ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid

... ridiculous fact was that the Scouts failed altogether to mention that their intention had been to steal into Sunrise Camp unperceived, and the girls were equally negligent in not expressing more profound amazement at their wholly unlooked-for visit. ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill • Margaret Vandercook

... as they come forward beside the house.] I understand you not. You speak as though an unlooked-for happiness had befallen you. What is ...
— The Feast at Solhoug • Henrik Ibsen

... Armstrong's guardian angel had not quite forgotten him; Heaven had not intended that he should die by thirst and starvation in that isolated cabin, and served him in a strange, unlooked-for way. ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey

... intimate discourse, in magnetic touch with every one present, with his special point of impressibility; the sort of speech which, consolidated into literary form as a book, would be a dialogue according to the true Attic genius, full of those diversions, passing irritations, unlooked-for appeals, in which a solicitous missionary finds his largest range of opportunity, and takes even dull wits unaware. In Bruno, that abstract theory of the perpetual motion of the world was a visible ...
— Giordano Bruno • Walter Horatio Pater

... corner, and cried a long time. Her heart was heavy within her. She had not deserved to be so humiliated. It was not in a joyous manner that love had made itself known to her. It was for the second time since yesterday morning that she was crying now. This new and unlooked-for feeling had only just sprung into life within her heart, and already how deafly had she had to pay for it, how roughly had other hands dealt with her treasured secret! She felt ashamed, and hurt, and unhappy; but ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... Sometimes the heat of argument would prove too much for him, and then, I grieve to say, he would even threaten to pitch his antagonists overboard, and shape his course for London. However, despite this unlooked-for danger, Junipero and his companions finally reached Malaga, whence they proceeded first to Cadiz, and then, after some delay, to Vera Cruz. The voyage across from Cadiz alone occupied ninety-nine days, ...
— The Famous Missions of California • William Henry Hudson

... all the strange adventures, and unlooked-for vicissitudes, of my naval life, I must be indulged with a few prefatory remarks. The royal navy, as a service, is not vilified, nor the gallant members who compose it insulted, by pointing out the idiosyncrasies, the absurdities, and even the vices and crimes of some of its members. Human ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... bridled him. Before any answer could be returned, she had begun. And having now satisfactorily executed her undertaking, she felt irrepressible delight and glee at being able to do what Ser Francesco had failed in. He was scarcely more successful with his allotment of the labour; found unlooked-for intricacies and complications in the machinery, wondered that human wit could not simplify it, and declared that the animal had never exhibited such restiveness before. In fact, he never had experienced the same grooming. At this conjuncture, a green cap made its appearance, bound ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... all other property, and generally to negotiate about other measures and arrangements." The Commissioners arrived in Washington on the 26th of December, and, by special appointment, were to meet the President at one o'clock on the following day. Before that hour arrived an unlooked-for event occurred. ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 • Various

... Throughout New England especially, the most bitter aspersions were cast on them and General Schuyler, who, from some unknown cause, had never been viewed with favour in that part of the continent, was involved in the common charge of treachery, to which this accumulation of unlooked-for calamity was generally attributed by the mass of ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall

... fortunately, broken in upon the dreary solitude of the preacher, pointed to a rude table, upon which stood fragments of a substantial meal: these Fleetword immediately attacked, while the Skipper re-ascended the stairs, down which he had conducted his unlooked-for guest, and disappeared. When the worthy man had satisfied his hunger, he glanced from flagon to flagon, piled one over another upon ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... against the arrogance of the conqueror. Years afterwards, when all these things seem to have passed away, and the very recollection of them is dim in the mind of the young man, he will suddenly be struck by an unlooked-for blow dealt from a strange or even a friendly quarter. He will stagger, as though hit from behind with a stone, and exclaim, "Why did this man hit me suddenly from the dark?" Then searching back in the chamber of his mind he will remember some long past act of arrogance—conceived ...
— Success (Second Edition) • Max Aitken Beaverbrook

... battered down the door, broke in pieces the printing outfit, and then set fire to the building. Many women, with their little ones, took to the woods, so thoroughly frightened were they at this strange and unlooked-for spectacle. Black men were awed into helplessness by the superiorly armed mob. I was at the ironing table, when one of my little ones ran in and told me that the school house was on fire. I hurried out to join the crowd of anxious mothers, who were hurrying in that direction ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton

... them, but ere he had taken two steps a most unlooked-for interruption chained him to the spot. An old man, with a long beard and a glittering eye, was among them before they were aware of him; he fixed his eye upon Meadows, and spoke a single word—but that ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... very convenient, for the reason that old folk's talk is mostly about winter storms and seldom about summer, when the sun shines, and the lambs frisk and throw their tails high in the air. But, you see, they were tups all three, which was not unlooked-for after such a ram, and consequently no letter can be expected from me before autumn, when the sea gets some life in it and a grown man's voice, so to speak, for now it lies—God bless me—like a basin of milk, to the inward vexation of folk ...
— Norse Tales and Sketches • Alexander Lange Kielland

... granted was an unlooked-for blessing. He showed us the way to a large unfurnished house, one room of which contained a bed with one naked mattress, which was to be our apartment. Mrs. Bull sat down in a calm, dignified state of ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson

... heart-yearnings, in the middle of that horrible ocean. I will not renew my thanks, though I never can thank you enough for that affectionate inspiration of following me on that watery waste, with tokens of your remembrance, and cheering that most dismal of all conditions with such an unlooked-for ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... explain the object and something of the modus operandi of the communion, numerous spirit friends of the family, and also of those who joined in their investigations, gladdened the hearts of their astonished relatives by direct and unlooked-for tests of their presence. They came spelling out their names, ages and various tokens of identity correctly, and proclaiming the joyful tidings that they all "still lived," "still loved," and with the ...
— Hydesville - The Story of the Rochester Knockings, Which Proclaimed the Advent of Modern Spiritualism • Thomas Olman Todd

... yearned within her, and she longed to cry with him. She only saved herself from some imprudence by flight, and had her cry alone. After a flow of tears, such a woman is invincible; she treated Alfred at tea-time with remarkable coldness and reserve. This piece of acting led to unlooked-for consequences: it emboldened Cooper, who was raging against Alfred for telling the justices, but had forborne from violence for fear of getting the house into a fresh scrape. He now went to the doctor, and asked for a powerful drastic. Bailey ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... duties—could forget The gravity of life to the extent, At times, of kindling much astonishment About him: With a quick, observant eye, And mind and memory, he could supply The tamest incident with liveliest mirth; And at the most unlooked-for times on earth Was wont to break into some travesty On those around him—feats of mimicry Of this one's trick of gesture—that one's walk— Or this one's laugh—or that one's funny talk,— The way "the watermelon-man" would try His humor on town-folks that ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley

... shower to lay the dreadful dust. And even in the valleys and around the bay, we must confess that some advantages arise from the no-rain-for-six-months policy. Picnickers can set forth any day, with no fear of the fun of the occasion being wet-blanketed by an unlooked-for shower; and farmers can dispose of their crops according to convenience, often leaving their wheat piled up in the field, with no fear of ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald

... tell of that weary journey, and indeed could not, if I wished; for the pain went to my head and filled me with such a drowsy anguish that I knew nothing except when some unlooked-for movement gave me a sharper twinge, and made me cry out. At first Elzevir walked briskly, but as the day wore on went slower, and was fain more than once to put me down and rest, till at last he could only carry me a hundred yards at a time. It was after ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner

... that an unlooked-for element came into all this planning—none other than the boys themselves. They had ideas of their own, and they belonged to that part of the world which is hard to govern. They would have Miss Flossy Shipley to be their ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden

... very heavy weight let somewhat gradually, but irresistibly, down upon young and tender shoulders, then gently lifted again, little by little, by a sympathizing and unlooked-for helper, and lastly tossed by him unexpectedly into the air, only to fall back with redoubled weight, and crush the frame that was but bowed before, you can form some idea of what had just happened to me. My mother's death, our embarrassments, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various

... old gentleman. "Do you remember our conversation on that evening when I first had the unlooked-for pleasure of receiving you as a guest into my house? At that time I spoke to you of a strange family story, of which there was no denouement, such as a novel-writer would desire, and which had remained in that unfinished posture for more than two hundred years! Well; ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... This unlooked-for intelligence was almost overwhelming; the old man's frame seemed hardly able to bear the disclosure. He wept like a child; but the overflow of his joy relieved the oppressed heart, full even ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... suppose a matt, who had decidedly determined for villainy, who should say to himself—"It is folly to be virtuous in a society that is depraved, in a community that is debauched." Let us suppose also, that he has sufficient address, the unlooked-for good fortune to escape censure or punishment, during a long series of years; I say, that in despite of all these circumstances, apparently so advantageous for himself, such a man has neither been ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach

... journey? Obviously because on this occasion his personal presence was necessary. When, in conjunction with this, we recall the fact that during the intrigues with Cibras the lectures were discontinued, and again resumed immediately on her unlooked-for departure, we arrive at the conclusion that the means by which Lord Pharanx's death was expected to occur was the personal presence of Randolph in conjunction with the political speeches, the candidature, ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel

... a harbor, and that we encounter success where we only anticipated disappointment. The rigorous enactments of the continental system, that the other day had ruined the two brothers, became all at once the source of unlooked-for wealth; for, on account of the scarcity of colonial produce, a scarcity dating from the prohibitory laws promulgated in 1807, the merchandise of the young men had ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien

... squadron proceeded to Gibraltar. As soon as the ship was secured, the Admiral sent me on shore to the governor, to relate to him the events of the two preceding days. I found him sitting in his balcony, which commanded a view of the Bay and Algeziras, evidently deeply affected by the unlooked-for termination of an attack upon the French squadron, and anxiously reflecting on the ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross

... from home, an unlooked-for event—almost the exact repetition of an incident in the training of Vulp, the young fox—had happened in the education of her cubs. Her mate, hunting in an upland fallow, had been surprised by a poacher, and, long before daybreak, had discreetly ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees

... Coleby," said the knight, "I have heard how cruelly you have been used by your creditor, and beg you will accept this trifling present, if it can be of any service to you in your distress." So saying, he put five guineas into his hand. The poor man was so confounded at such an unlooked-for acquisition, that he stood motionless and silent, unable to thank the donor; and Mr. Felton conveyed him to the door, observing that his heart was too full for utterance. But in a little time his wife bursting into the room with her five children, looked around, and going up to Sir Launcelot ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett

... man, he seemed to have made a step in the hierarchy of power, so surrounded with unlooked-for adorations and sudden caresses was the fortunate courtier, whose obscure happiness the Cardinal did not even perceive. The King's brother and the Duc de Bouillon stood in the crowd, whence the minister ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny

... a ship requires immediate assistance from unlooked-for damage or danger. (See SIGNAL ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... performance. The audience roared and roared again with laughter, and, speaking for myself, I can say that I felt "jolly queer." We had only, as it were, pitched the stage together, making it by placing one form above another. Fortunately the people present took the unlooked-for incident in good part, and with a little assistance we managed to improvise another stage, and upon this we went through a little more ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End

... of the carriage for the better half of the way. The man was only too willing to seize the chance thus divinely given him. His irritation at Lewis's projects had been tempered by Alice's kindness at lunch and Wratislaw's unlooked-for complaisance. Things looked rosy for him; far off, as on the horizon of his hopes, he saw a seat in Parliament and a ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan



Words linked to "Unlooked-for" :   out of the blue, unanticipated, unexpected, unforeseen



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