"Disconcerting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... about him and does not barricade himself against you. But a man who puts up the shutters in front of his virtues and faults bothers me most terribly, and I always seem to be bumping my head against something invisible whenever I see him, which is a most disconcerting performance. ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... notwithstanding all the endeavours of the workmen in the yard, the sailors in the harbour, and the troops in the town, that before a stop was put to the conflagration it had consumed a variety of stores to an immense value. The damage, however, was so immediately repaired, that it had no sort of effect in disconcerting any plan, or even ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... immediately came rushing to his room. Doubtless he was relieved at seeing them; but his feelings may have been somewhat mixed when Lady Elizabeth "thrust in with them." He was on very friendly terms with her; but it was disconcerting to receive a lady from his bed when he was half awake and wholly frightened, especially when, as the correspondent describes it, the condition of that lady was like that of "a cow that had lost ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville
... itself have been a sufficiently irritating interruption in the early life of Eugenette, and in the early establishment of Eugenics. But a far more dreadful and disconcerting fact must be noted. With whom, alas, did England go to war? England went to war with the Superman in his native home. She went to war with that very land of scientific culture from which the very ideal of ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... as she fell. What had he said!—but, more than all, what should he do now? He could not leave her alone and helpless,—yet how could he justify another disconcerting intrusion? He touched her hands; they were cold and lifeless; her eyes were half closed; her face as pale and drooping as her lily. Well, he must brave the worst now, and carry her to the house, even at the risk ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... the more disconcerting for Charles, because of the speedy abatement of the enthusiasm that had hailed his first appearance. What had happened to him was what generally happens to a conqueror who has more good luck than talent; instead of making himself ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... steam. Two hours later, fifteen miles north-east of Sanders Island, the 'Endurance' was confronted by a belt of heavy pack-ice, half a mile broad and extending north and south. There was clear water beyond, but the heavy south- westerly swell made the pack impenetrable in our neighbourhood. This was disconcerting. The noon latitude had been 57 26 S., and I had not expected to find pack-ice nearly so far north, though the whalers had reported pack-ice right ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... of a step upon broken stones roused her suddenly; a man's firm tread close beside her. She looked round slowly as it stood still, and with the ache and the question lingering in her face, found herself looking into blue eyes of a disconcerting ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... Serb, the enmity of the Magyar is disconcerting. By crossing the Danube, Serbia has become genuinely part of Europe; she has turned her back on the Balkans and the eternal strife on barren empty hills. The new Serbia can afford to forget and forgive ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... had preserved that tone of elaborate irony which, it will be remembered, was so disconcerting to English audiences, and stood so much in the way of his popularity. But now his manner changed. Becoming more serious, and I fear I must add, more dull than I had ever heard him before, he gave us what I ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson
... would have been easy for Hamilton to run him through, had he instantly followed up the advantage. But the moonlight on Alice's face struck his eyes, and by that indirect ray of vision which is often strangely effective, he recognized her lying there. It was a disconcerting thing for him, but he rallied instantly and sprang aside, taking a new position just in time to face Father Beret again. A chill crept up his back. The horror which he could not shake off enraged him beyond measure. Gathering fresh energy, he ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... oath had been extorted from the barons by force, and that on his death-bed Henry had released them from it; but more than this, Stephen's advocates suddenly sprang on their opponents a new and most disconcerting argument, one which would have had great weight in any Church court, and which attacked both their claims at once. Matilda could not be the rightful heir, and so the oath itself could not be binding, because she was of illegitimate birth, being the daughter of a nun. One account of this debate represents ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... out as loud as I could, with a boy's pleasure in disconcerting the inquisitive passer-by. She turned suddenly round to go away, waving her hand at me; at that moment Sora Lodovica swung the shrine-lamp back into its place. A stream of light fell across the street. I felt myself grow quite cold; the face of the woman ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... capable child of hers to be arranging the future, at nineteen, ready to be a mother to herself in case her natural mother failed her. But as she got quickly into the dress laid out for her, her hands shook a little. It is disconcerting to discover that one is no longer the parent of children, ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... dark eyes might be magnificent if wide open: but through the narrow slits of their lids, half hidden by long curling lashes, the eyes peer at you with a cold, watchful, intent gaze that carries a certain uncanny and disconcerting fascination. ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... was, to Genevieve, certainly, most disconcerting. Miss Hart gave one look into Genevieve's eyes, then dropped her face into her hands and burst into tears. At Genevieve's aghast exclamation, however, she raised her head determinedly and began ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
... known by the irreverent as "Barking" Thompson, a nickname bestowed because of his peculiar habit of gradually puffing up, like a frog, under religious excitement, and then bursting forth in an inarticulate shout, disconcerting to the uninitiated. During Baxter's speech and the singing of the hymn his expansive red cheeks had been distended like balloons, and his breath came shorter and shorter. Mr. Perley had arisen and was holding ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... to her, and Kitty detected that disconcerting gleam of irony in his eyes. He went up to Madame Stahl, and addressed her with extreme courtesy and affability in that excellent French that so ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... Farange was still older—that Maisie perfectly knew; and it brought her in due course to the perception of how much more, since Mrs. Beale was younger than Sir Claude, papa must be older than Mrs. Beale. Such discoveries were disconcerting and even a trifle confounding: these persons, it appeared, were not of the age they ought to be. This was somehow particularly the case with mamma, and the fact made her reflect with some relief on her not having gone with Mrs. Wix into the ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... disconcerting was the adverse decision of the Supreme Court on the Myra Bradwell case, which at once shattered the confidence of most of her legal advisors. The court held that Illinois had violated no provision of the federal Constitution in refusing to allow Myra ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... "It was disconcerting assuredly, and it might have served if Linda hadn't written. That patched it up," I gaily professed. But my gaiety was thin, for I was still amazed at her violence of a moment before. "Do you really mean that ...
— Louisa Pallant • Henry James
... drawn out, without a single wrinkle, and devoid of any expression that showed emotion, the jaw-bone narrow and sharp, and the eyes as inexpressive and motionless as the rest of the face, but with a cold, penetrating glance that was extremely disconcerting. ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... visiting neighbor answered in response to his forcedly cordial greeting. If a man has walked a mile and a half with a picture of a woman handing him a glass of cool milk with a certain lift of black lashes from over deep, black blue eyes it is—disconcerting to have her do it in ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... This was disconcerting. Not only must I think of my fish all night, studying, without the object before me, what this unknown but most visible feature might be; but also, without reviewing my new discoveries, I must give an exact account ...
— Louis Agassiz as a Teacher • Lane Cooper
... at us that way," declared George, flushing under the steady, disconcerting gaze of the stranger. "We don't know you and you don't know us, and I guess you don't own the ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge
... Kernstown itself was a very small affair. Little more than ten thousand men had been in action: seven thousand Federals under Shields against half as many Confederates under Stonewall Jackson. The point is that Jackson's attack, though unsuccessful, was very disconcerting elsewhere. From Kernstown the area of disturbance spread like wildfire till the tactical victory of seven thousand Federals had spoilt the strategy of thirty times as many. Shields reported: "I set to work during the night ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... Streatfeild, and his wife, another of the Viceroy's aides-de-camp, myself, and a certain genial Calcutta business magnate, most popular of Anglo-Indians. As we had a connection to catch at a junction on the narrow-gauge railway, an interminable wait at a big station in the early morning was disconcerting, for the connection would probably be missed. The jovial, burly Englishman occupied the second sleeping-berth in my compartment. As the delay lengthened, he, having some official connection with the East Bengal State Railway, jumped out of bed and went on to the platform in Anglo-Indian fashion, ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... out his chin in his disconcerting way, and gave not the least smile; but his small ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... frankness simply Gallic in its freedom from those thought-conventions with which so many people like to deceive themselves she deals with human nature on what she considers are its merits. The result is sometimes very disconcerting to the pompous and all the rest of the host of self-deceived, but usually amusing to herself and often ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... protested Ricardo earnestly, for the idea was too disconcerting to entertain. "Is it likely that he would have trusted a Chink with enough knowledge to make it possible?" he argued warmly. "Why, it's the very thing that he would keep close about. There's something else ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... do you suppose, because we had a Scots mother that I find, deep down within me, that I am 'full of seriousness'? It is rather disconcerting to think oneself a butterfly and find out suddenly that one is a—what? A bread-and-butter fly, shall we ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... "what the gods love"; "what all the gods love"; "a part of righteousness, relating to the care of the gods"; "the saying and doing of what the gods approve in prayer and sacrifice". Each of these proves inadequate; Euthyphro complains of the disconcerting Socratic method as follows: ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... characteristics of Yorkshire. They were frank, outspoken, warm-hearted, and hospitable. They were not, indeed, so refined in speech as they might have been, and to the stranger their blunt utterances were at times rather disconcerting. They criticised one's work freely, and never hesitated to say when they did not like it. They had strong prejudices and prepossessions, to both of which they gave free expression. But if they never hesitated ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... disconcerting the plot of Master Byles Gridley. He had come on an inquisitor's errand, his heart secure, as he thought, against all blandishments, his will steeled to break down all resistance. He had come armed with an ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... equivocation in this crisis, and as he gazed up into the full and peaceful shade over his head, a flood of little memories, bound tendril-like by sounds, sights, and fragrances to his heart, swept him with disconcerting violence. ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... sheet lying beneath it was enough. That particular bill had grown painfully familiar during the last few months. It was from Lahore, and its total was no less than three hundred rupees. Her husband's waiting silence was more disconcerting than speech. ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... had a great wolf-hound whom Roosevelt himself described as "a most ill-favored hybrid, whose mother was a Newfoundland and whose father was a large wolf," and which looked, it seemed, more like a hyena than like either of its parents. The dog both barked and howled, but it had a disconcerting habit of doing neither when it was on business bent. The first intimation Roosevelt had of its existence one day, as he was knocking at the door of the Wadsworth cabin, was a rush that the animal made for ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... barrel, the startling fact broke upon him that the face of Deerfoot was toward him, and he was in the act of drawing a third arrow to the head: He had whirled about almost at the same instant that the Pawnee leveled his gun. To say the least, it was very disconcerting, and, anxious to anticipate the Shawanoe, the other fired before he could be certain of his aim. The bullet went so wide that Deerfoot heard nothing of its passage among ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... consuls- general, looking them steadily in the eyes. He knew their devices and what had been going on of late, he was aware that his fall would mean a blow to British prestige, and the calmness of his gaze expressed a fortitude which had a disconcerting effect upon the group. The British Consul-General stood near by. David advanced to him, and, as he did so, the few who surrounded the Consul-General fell back. David held out his hand. Somewhat abashed and ill at ease, the Consul-General ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... have said you are doing so well in your new business, father!" Vona's straightforward gaze was disconcerting. ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... all. She sat with her eyes gravely fixed in front of her, save when she raised them to flash them for an instant at Olva. He found this sudden gaze extraordinarily disconcerting; it was as though she were reasserting her claim to some common understanding that existed between them, to some secret that belonged to ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole
... Esseintes at all. They were too civilized and familiar. He let trickle through his fingers still more astonishing and bizarre stones, and finally selected a number of real and artificial ones which, used together, should produce a fascinating and disconcerting harmony. ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... Cannon's voice,—she was sure that, though in speaking to her mother he was softly persuasive, he had used to herself a tone even more intimate and ingratiating. He and she had a secret; they were conspirators together: which fact was both disconcerting and delicious. She recalled their propinquity in the lobby; the remembered syllables which he had uttered mingled with the faint scent of his broadcloth, the whiteness of his wristbands, the gleam ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... wood I could plainly see the smoke of the gun itself rising above the trees. Two more shells from the big gun exploded within twenty yards of each other, and then, with disconcerting suddenness, a French battery came into action within a hundred yards of our strawstack cover. They had evidently been there for some time, awaiting eventualities, for we had no suspicion of their proximity, and ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... existed continually in the mind-dimming effects of rice-spirit. From this cause his custom began to languish; his hand no longer swept in the graceful and unhesitating curves which had once been the admiration of all beholders, but displayed on the contrary a very disconcerting irregularity of movement, and on the day of his visit he had shorn away the venerable moustaches of the baker Heng-cho under a mistaken impression as to the reality of things and a wavering vision of their exact position. Now the baker had been inordinately proud of his long white ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... says disconcerting things, he is brutally frank; but I like to argue with him because I find him stimulating, and he does know a ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... a little disconcerting. We read "Jason," and read it with pleasure, but without much of the more essential pleasure which comes from magic and distinction of style. The peculiar qualities of Keats, and Tennyson, and Virgil are not among the gifts of Mr. Morris. As people say of Scott in his ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... Glenby the next morning after my paternal interview with Sara, intending to have a frank talk with Betty and lay the foundations of a good understanding on both sides. Betty was a sharp child, with a disconcerting knack of seeing straight through grindstones; she would certainly perceive and probably resent any underhanded management. I thought it best to tell her plainly that I was going to look ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... justification of this view of war from the biological point of view. Prussian militarists are experts in the exposition of similar theories. But from the Christian point of view the complacency with which the world-tragedy is put down as a "purifying, cleansing draught" is somewhat disconcerting. Dean Inge, writing in the Quest in the autumn of 1914, shows himself to be a disciple of ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... Havelock. "Chess, rather. The game where chance hasn't a show—the game of the intelligent future. That very irregular and disconcerting move of his.... And he got taken, you might say. She's an ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... which was disconcerting. To cover up my own doubts I asked him with affected confidence and cheerfulness whether he was not afraid to risk this journey "down below," that is, to ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... remonstrance was curiously disconcerting. The mastery of his look had led her to expect something different. She watched him dumbly as he filled his pipe ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... Algernon, as Elsmere would say, but it truly does just about describe it. You never do that way yourself, but you do open up and read aloud, so to speak, in company sometimes, in a way that is disconcerting. Now, what could one say to a statement about Abyssinian trousers, for instance, when one is just peacefully walking along, ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... Leaden pouches hung beneath heavy-lidded eyes set at a noticeable angle. The eyes themselves were as black as night and as lightless; the rays of the lamp struck no gleam from them; in spite of this they were compelling, masterful, and disconcerting. ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... was directed at himself as much as at the trustworthy young man getting down from the limousine. His eagerness had led him to mistake stupidity for cleverness. He had gone about the affair with all the clumsiness of a boy who was making his first appearance at the stage entrance. It was mightily disconcerting, too, to have found an honest man when he was in desperate need of a dishonest one. He had faced with fine courage all sorts of dangerous wild animals; but at this moment he hadn't the courage to face a policeman and endeavor to explain, in a foreign tongue, a situation at once so delicate ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... it was all right baffled Mamie. Anything less all right she had never come across in a lifetime of disconcerting experiences. ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... like any two non-revolutionary people! Repeating over the same arguments which had gone on in the local between Norwood, the lawyer, and Schneider, the brewer; only this time Jimmie was taking the side of Norwood! Jimmie found himself face to face with the disconcerting fact that his devoted friend Meissner was a German—and therefore in some subtle way different from him, unable to see things ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... bed with a suddenness that was almost disconcerting. Thus deserted, Mr. Truefitt finished his whiskey and water and, his head full of plans for the betterment of everybody connected with him, blew out ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... wood mist had broken loose and was floating about. Once a fox, somewhere in the utter silence of the forest depths, barked a hoarse, sharp, malicious sound; and once, hoarser still and very hollowly, a great horned owl hooted with disconcerting suddenness. (The scream of a rabbit followed these two, but whether fox or owl had been in at that killing the wolverine never knew.) Twice a wood-hare turning now to match the whiteness of its surroundings, finicked up one of the still, silent forest lanes ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... weather was bad, but she trudged on, the honesty, directness, and impartiality of elemental enmity disconcerting her but little. Her object being a winter's occupation and a winter's home, there was no time to lose. Her experience of short hirings had been such that she was determined to accept ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... mender of roads was not enchanted (though he said he was) to find that madame was to accompany monsieur and himself to Versailles. It was additionally disconcerting to have madame knitting all the way there, in a public conveyance; it was additionally disconcerting yet, to have madame in the crowd in the afternoon, still with her knitting in her hands as the crowd waited to see the carriage of ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... preparation for this one book, a sort of inevitable and scarcely necessary sequel to it. They range themselves along the line of a somewhat erratic development, from Baudelaire, through Goncourt, by way of Zola, to the surprising originality of so disconcerting an exception to any ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... forbidding, except when lighted up by a smile, which was only upon rare occasions. He was intolerant of what he called "stuff and nonsense," and had a way of disconcerting people by grunting whenever anything like sentimentality or gush was ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... complete success of our undertaking—not an injury of any sort to any one, nor an illness. All five of us were in perfect health. Surely we had reason to be grateful; and surely we were happy in having Him to whom our gratitude might be poured out. What a bald, incomplete, and disconcerting thing it must be to have no one to thank for crowning mercies ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... forces, where was the Administration and how was one to support it? One must first find it, and even then it was not easily caught. Grant's simplicity was more disconcerting than the complexity of a Talleyrand. Mr. Fish afterwards told Adams, with the rather grim humor he sometimes indulged in, that Grant took a dislike to Motley because he parted his hair in the middle. Adams repeated the story to Godkin, who made much play with it in ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... blue coat, high-waisted and cunningly rolled of collar, was a sartorial triumph; his black stockinette pantaloons, close-fitting from hip to ankle and there looped and buttoned, accentuated muscled calf and virile thigh in a manner somewhat disconcerting; his snowy waistcoat was of an original fashion and cut, and his cravat, folded and caressed into being by Peterby's fingers, was an elaborate masterpiece, a matchless creation never before seen upon the ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... Emerson. For myself, you do not catch me travelling without my Marcus Aurelius. Yes, books are valuable. But not reading of books will take the place of a daily, candid, honest examination of what one has recently done, and what one is about to do—of a steady looking at one's self in the face (disconcerting though ...
— How to Live on 24 Hours a Day • Arnold Bennett
... all a little hasty, a little timidly spoken. The dark eyes thoughtfully regarding the wonder of red hair under the close fitting hat were disconcerting, for all there was cordiality in ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... the north. Here the drift was about twenty feet wide, perfectly level and with an exfoliated surface layer. To the east the drift fell steeply, with a clean, smooth cliff-line marking off the beginning of the descent; this line seemed particularly disconcerting, for it betrayed the concave curvature of the down-sweep. A few yards to the north I saw below, at the foot of the cliff, the old logging-trail, and I noticed that the snow on it lay as it had fallen, smooth and sheer, ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... a person's thoughts word for word," Dr. O'Connor said. "Of course, he was utterly incapable of understanding the meaning behind them. That didn't matter; he simply repeated whatever you were thinking. Rather disconcerting." ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)
... was a stranger, yes—that she understood. But what had he said? And, above all, what had he looked like? The first question was easily enough answered, for the disconcerting reason that he had said so little—had merely asked for Mr. Boyne, and, scribbling something on a bit of paper, had requested that it should at once be carried ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... his new discovery, however, was more than disconcerting, and it is not surprising that he lost his balance. Its attack and rush were overwhelming. Thus, it was a kind of exalted speculative wonder lying behind his inner joy that caused his mistakes. He had imagined, for instance, that ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... discovered in good time. The movable contents of the room were not easily examined, as each object on the floor was buried under a mound of heavy, suffocating dust. Bats had made the place an undisturbed refuge, and the repulsive flutter of these creatures was disconcerting. ...
— The Air Ship Boys • H.L. Sayler
... as surprising to Madame as it was disconcerting. The consequences were such as her wily husband had foreseen. Encountering no externally resisting medium, its force was wasted by internal attrition, so that Madame was being reduced to a nervous wreck, all of which was ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... reassuring: but then asbestos curtains never look the part. To the lay eye they seem just the sort of thing that will blaze quickest. Moreover, it had not yet occurred to the man at the switchboard to turn up the house-lights, and the darkness was disconcerting. ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... back, slapping a hand to his face, believing that he had been hit. Then there followed a series of disconcerting snaps all around his head as the long lash began to work, but so skillfully was it wielded that the end of it did ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... London is subdued. It is more regular, less jarring and piercing. The muffled sounds in London are due partly to the wooden and asphalt pavements, which deaden the sounds. London must be soothing to the New Yorker, as the noise of New York is at first disconcerting to the Londoner.—Outlook. ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... what he had to say in the form of a "brief," which filled six closely printed pages. He was followed by Paul Littlefield representing the Men's Campaign Committee of the Pennsylvania Women's Anti-Suffrage Association. His experience was more disconcerting than that of Mr. Carter, who had freely stated the expenditures of his association and his own salary while Mr. Littlefield refused any information on these and other points. He brought a message from Mrs. Horace Brock, president of the association, saying: ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... hand or milking-pail, with the sharp command of "Stan' aboot there!" "Haud up!" "Mind whaur yer comin'!" Such expressions as these Jess and Meg could interject into the even tenor of their conversation, in a way that might have been disconcerting in dialogues conducted on other principles. But really the interruptions did not affect Ebie Farrish or any other of the byre-visiting young men, any more than the rattling of the chains, as Flecky and Speckly arranged their ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... carried us straight back to the house of Yolara. Larry was awaiting me. We stood again before the tenebrous wall where first we had faced the priestess and the Voice. And as we stood, again the portal appeared with all its disconcerting, magical abruptness. ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... of bronzy, immense cycads and what appeared to be tree chrysophilums with gorgeous blossoms. Then he received a much clearer impression of other trees with blossoms of bright orange yellow and very thick petals, each tipped with a glassy sharp point. The disconcerting thing about the tree was that, as they approached, the scaly limbs began to tremble and wave, and suddenly lashed out as though making a human effort to ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... the stranger regarded him with mild gravity, not a little disconcerting; the more so, as there was in it what seemed the aspect not alone of the superior, but, as it were, the rebuker; which sort of bearing, in a beneficiary towards his benefactor, looked strangely enough; none the less, that, somehow, it sat not altogether unbecomingly upon the beneficiary, ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... for the villain, he got up from his camp stool leisurely, and with great composure told the man: "Certainly, I will be very glad to have some one along who knows the trail so well." To be told that he knew the trail must have been disconcerting to the man, but not one word did he ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... with disconcerting suddenness that he had lost a great deal of time, and that every moment spent in the covered wagon was fraught with imminent danger. It was not in his mind that the hand of highwaymen might discover his hiding-place. Knowing them as he did, he was sure they would not come so ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... and came upon a most disheartening sight. Beyond several hundred yards of dangerous marsh flowed the river, looking very white in the deceptive light of early morning. The wavelets formed by the steady wind and the current were making a faint, but disconcerting, noise. Though it was only just possible to discern the opposite bank, there seemed to be a similar line of marshy ground between it and the water's edge. I determined to see if it was possible to get through the marsh with any degree of safety, but ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... Mr. Morrison's return meant the breaking up of the pleasant companionship of the winter, and she was not in the least glad to see him. Mrs. Morrison's exclamation as she entered was somewhat disconcerting. ...
— The Spectacle Man - A Story of the Missing Bridge • Mary F. Leonard
... a clear, disconcerting flash, the situation was laid bare. Here was woman desiring the love of man; woman determined to reap her spoil. It was one issue in the deathless, relentless struggle—the struggle wherein the little Jacqueline clung to her M. Cartel, tenacious as the frail fern to the ungainly rock—wherein ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... of the night, as Hunterleys and Lane passed out through the grudgingly opened door, was sufficiently disconcerting. A little murmur of dismay broke from the assembled crowd. Nothing was to be seen but a dense bank of white mist, through which shone the brilliant lights of the automobiles waiting at the door. ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... any foreign man of letters—showed for beautifully correct in his tall black hat and his superior frock coat. Somehow, all the same, these very garments—he wouldn't have minded them so much on a weekday—were disconcerting to Paul Overt, who forgot for the moment that the head of the profession was not a bit better dressed than himself. He had caught a glimpse of a regular face, a fresh colour, a brown moustache and a pair of eyes surely never visited by a fine frenzy, and he promised himself to ...
— The Lesson of the Master • Henry James
... Territorial Battalion, under Colonel Park, and was awaiting a summons to service, here, there, or anywhere, when, as I have described, the call came. I have often wondered why the War Office always springs upon one with such alarming suddenness; possibly it is the way of the Army; it is certainly disconcerting, although it is educational, for it teaches one to be always ready and ...
— With The Immortal Seventh Division • E. J. Kennedy and the Lord Bishop of Winchester
... The long disconcerting scrutiny I had been subjected to had naturally made me very uncomfortable, and caused me to drop a little behind the others as we walked towards the house. The old man, however, still kept at my side; but whether from motives of courtesy, or because he wished to badger me a little ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... of those disconcerting thought answers from Dalgard. But the scout was playing safe—nothing must upset the stranger. Confronted by what had to be done, he might be influenced into acting for them. So Dalgard strode softly ahead, apparently ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... his question, he learned from Lord Hubert that Miss Bart had just returned to the Sabrina in Dorset's company; an announcement so evidently disconcerting to him that Mrs. Bry, after a glance from her companion, which seemed to act like the pressure on a spring, brought forth the prompt proposal that he should come and meet his friends at dinner that evening—"At Becassin's—a little dinner ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... have been baffled almost from the first. At certain points, the Apaches would break up into parties of two or three that would take different routes, reuniting at some place many miles beyond where water was known to be. This was done repeatedly, with a view of disconcerting any avengers who might take their trail, and it is a tribute to the ability of the mountaineers that the cunning artifice failed, so far as they ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis
... any part of him. He was dressed all in decent black, with a white cravat round his neck. His face was as sharp as a hatchet, and the skin of it was as yellow and dry and withered as an autumn leaf. His eyes, of a steely light grey, had a very disconcerting trick, when they encountered your eyes, of looking as if they expected something more from you than you were aware of yourself. His walk was soft; his voice was melancholy; his long lanky fingers were hooked like claws. He might have been a parson, or an undertaker—or anything else you ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... lady ingratiatingly passed him the bread. "You're a cowboy, aren't you?" was the disconcerting question ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... plain that you don't know Miss Peyton," was the disconcerting reply. "There's nothing she ever forgets. My one comfort is I won't have to go to school to her next year even if she doesn't let me pass now, 'cause by that time the girls will all be well and I can go home again. There's always ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... after a long interval. Jevons played up to her well, almost too well; so well, in fact, did he play, that not long afterwards I was to ask myself: Was this perfection the result of collusion? Had they anticipated just such a sudden, disconcerting encounter? Had they thought it all out and arranged with each other beforehand how they should behave? I don't know. I ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... hearty and easy manner which he always assumes with those he has been told are distinguished Americans and with that quizzical expression in his sharp eyes which, though attractive, is described as most disconcerting, replied. ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... first is very disconcerting, particularly under a strong midday light. One has at first the feeling that a religious adherence to a certain impressionistic technique is of more importance to him than anything else. Entering his gallery from ...
— The Galleries of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... I give a damn . . .!" Which reply, to say the least, was somewhat disconcerting to the men who had surrounded him and were eyeing ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... diverse character followed Banneker's sudden fame. The first to manifest itself was disconcerting. On the Wednesday following the fight on the pier, Mrs. Brashear intercepted him in ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... strange silence during which every eye was fixed on me in somewhat disconcerting fashion, ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... prices, and grinned in a most tiresome way whenever he caught sight of Anastasia. The Rector patronised her insufferably; and though old Mr Noot was kind, he treated her like a small child, and sometimes patted her cheek, which she felt to be disconcerting at eighteen. ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... Perhaps the most disconcerting characteristic of that complex affair, the human organism, is the lack of continuity of its moods. The soul, so called, is as sensitive to physical conditions as a barometer: affected by lack of sleep, by ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... little courtship tales. You never saw a volume of its size, more packed with love, which is shown leaping walls, laughing at locksmiths and generally making the world go round in its proverbial fashion. The pace of the revolutions may be found a little disconcerting. You will perhaps be inclined to amend the title and call the collection "Love on Short Leave," to mark the regularity with which the respective heroes and heroines fall into each others' arms at the end of every dozen pages or so. As a matter of fact, the incident that is to ...
— Punch, Volume 156, 26 March 1919 • Various
... it not for the almost inevitable high roast and frequently the disconcerting chicory addition, coffee in France might be an unalloyed delight—at least this is how it appears to American eyes. One seldom, if ever, finds coffee improperly brewed in France—it ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... not aware what description of good you expect me to do with it, Will,' coolly answered the elder brother in a disconcerting tone. ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... obtrusive, yet there were moments when her presence in a room oppressed him. She had further that disconcerting quality of all great personalities, the power to pursue and seize, a power so oblivious, so pure from all intention or desire, that there was no flattery in it for the pursued. It persisted when she was gone. Neither time nor space removed her. ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair |
