"Unaccountable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... member of the board entering his own home, unsupported by the presence of his fellow-members and the scientific zeal of the Senior Surgeon, the business of the afternoon began to change its aspect. For some unaccountable reason—unless we take Fancy into the reckoning—this sudden abandoning of Ward C did not seem the simple matter of an hour previous; while in perspective even Margaret MacLean's outspokenness became ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... Carson and his men wondered what could delay the reserves. Time always passes slowly to those in waiting, and to some of the hunters the tardiness of their friends was unaccountable. Carson was on the point of sending messengers back to hurry them forward, when the whole party appeared and ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis
... the week, and a place of worship on Sunday. Moreover, these chaplains were accustomed to look to the Governor-General as their only superior, and, living so far apart, each followed his own independent line of action, as if entirely unaccountable. Some, such as Mr. Corrie at Cawnpore, were admirable and earnest men; but Henry Martyn's successor at Dinapore had let the place sink into a lamentable state, and there were several chaplains who greatly resented the being brought under authority. The brunt of the battle fell ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... who had secretly recognized each other's value. Yet at the same time she regretted not having been left in the dark; as much in the dark as Mr. Travers himself or d'Alcacer, though as to the latter it was impossible to say how much precise, unaccountable, intuitive knowledge was buried ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... has been forwarded to me here, where I am undergoing hydropathy for a fortnight, having been here a week, and having already received an amount of good which is quite incredible to myself and quite unaccountable. I can walk and eat like a hearty Christian, and even my nights are good. I cannot in the least understand how hydropathy can act as it certainly does on me. It dulls one's brain splendidly; I have not thought about a single species of any kind since leaving home. Your note has taken ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... Bob's last adventure, in particular, had wrought upon him most painfully, so that he was ten times more careful over his young and somewhat flighty charges than he had been before. The absence of David at such an important time seemed unaccountable. If it had been any one of the others, it would have been intelligible; but for David, who was the soul of order, regularity, and method, to fail an appointment, was something so extraordinary, that he could not but feel ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... towards Clarence, she was struck with the sudden and singular change of his countenance; the flush of youth and passion was fled, his complexion was deadly pale, and his eyes were fixed with a searching and unaccountable meaning upon the face of the young nobleman, who was alternately addressing, with a quiet and somewhat haughty fluency, the beautiful mother, and the more lovely though less commanding daughter. Directly Linden perceived that he was observed, ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Sage, with unaccountable bluntness; "truth to tell, these orations about nothing in particular, spouted by persons with an imperfect knowledge of, I should say, almost any subject, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 11, 1890 • Various
... persons who were in his service to watch and see where Lady Neville went, and how she passed her time during these unaccountable absences from home. For many days this watch was continued, but no discoveries were made. The spies reported that they could not keep upon the lady's track. In spite of their best exertions she would contrive to elude them, and for several hours every day they ...
— Margaret of Anjou - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... a chance," she said, of going to her duties for several years; and that is why she considered "Peggy Doherty's" talk about forgiveness so strange and unaccountable. ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... shaking my hand all the time; and, on looking back on the event, I think there must be something in mesmerism and every thing else—homoeopathy and the water cure included; for it was certainly quite unaccountable on ordinary principles—but so it was. The maid was very slow in answering the bell. There was another pull. The same mysterious effects—a sort of jump—a tremor as it were, not at all unpleasant, but very odd—so I went to the door myself; and there fixed on me, in the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... in memory from childhood to manhood and stumbling over a batch of ancient feelings, stand looking, with strained eyes, on the white-washed, quaint-fashioned Bergen, balancing the vicissitudes of life and conjecturing what the chances might be, I should not, by some agency as unaccountable as that which had brought me hither, be looking in three months' time on the Golden shore of the ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... infinite number of atoms of different kinds in the infinite void, which, because of their weight, precipitate themselves perpendicularly downward with an equable motion; but some of them, through an unaccountable internal force, have deviated from their perpendicular path, and, sticking together after their collision, have given rise to the world. Not much better than these vague puerilities are his notions about the size of the sun, the nature of eclipses, ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... and left of us—to north and south that is—was wild mountain country, lonely and savage enough to arouse that unaccountable desire to go and see that lurks in the breast of younger sons and all true-blue adventurers. We got out a map and were presently tracing on it with fingers that trembled from excitement routes marked with ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... at all?" he murmured coldly at last. "A strange bird is hatched sometimes in a nest in an unaccountable way and then the fate of such a bird is bound to be ill-defined, uncertain, questionable. And so that is how Henry Allegre saw her ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... the agent seriously. "The nabob's thet reckless an' unaccountable, he's likely to do worse ner that. That's what makes him an' his gals interestin'; nobody in quarries. How about ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... Against the background of dusky bindings her head shone with a soft haze of gold. Her face, that had an air of naive and provoking independence, made him angry with its unnecessary surplus of enchantment. An unaccountable gust of rage drove him rapidly along the frozen street. "Damn it," he cried, "what right has any girl to be as pretty as that? Why—why, I'd like to beat her!" he muttered, amazed at himself. "What the devil right has a girl got to look so ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... for some time. Days passed, and it was almost forgotten, only I became decidedly ill-tempered. A captious irritability possessed me, alternating with fits of unaccountable fatigue. At that time I was always either tired or cross, and sometimes both. I must have made Nurse Bundle very uncomfortable. I was so little happy, for my own share, that when after a day's headache I was put to bed as an invalid, it was a ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... acquired reputation principally through his poems, which from some unaccountable cause, are now comparatively neglected, and we may add unfortunately so for the enjoyment of the public. These poems were more admired than his plays, and what speaks higher in their favour, they are more expressively alluded to by contemporary writers. The "Venus and Adonis" is ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 552, June 16, 1832 • Various
... and your friend says with an eye-twinkle, "The Custom-House tariff was not as high on those things as it might have been." Men more easily break their solemn oaths than formerly. What strange verdicts juries do sometimes render! What peculiar charges judges do sometimes make! What unaccountable slowness sheriffs and their deputies sometimes exhibit in the execution of their writs! What erratic railroad enterprises suddenly pass at our State capitals! What wonderful changes Congress makes ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... produce another novel. But after a year or so I turned to poetry, and I must admit that my poetry was accepted. But it was not enough to prevent me from withering—from shrivelling. I lost ground, and I was still losing it. I was becoming sinister, warped, peculiar, capricious, unaccountable. I guessed it then; I ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... loving roofs of his native village, seen over the top of some black wave only for one last farewell. He drew his arms tightly over his bosom, and choked back the bitter tears, and tried to pray. The poor old soul had such a singular, unaccountable prejudice in favor of liberty, that it was a hard wrench for him; and the more he said, "Thy will be done," the worse ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... holders,—poor old soul! And Aunt Patty Hobbs gave me a bundle of rags! She said, 'Young housekeepers was allers a-wantin' rags, and, in course, there wa'n't nothin' but what was bran'-new out of the store.' Can I ever forget the Hill children, with their mysterious movements, their hidings, and their unaccountable absences? and then the work-basket on my toilet-table, on my wedding-morning! the little pin-cushions and emery-sacks, the fantastic thimble-cases, and the fish-shaped needle-books! all as nice as their handy little ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... to Mr. Almont upon his return, and see what effect it would produce upon him. Three days later he came. He entered our dwelling and accosted us with his usual bland and smiling manner. In a short time, my father turned and said,—'During your absence, Mr. Almont, my daughter has received a most unaccountable letter which I wish to read to you, hoping you may be able to explain it.' The paleness which overspread his countenance on hearing my father's words put to flight the hope I had cherished that he would be able to prove the letter a falsehood. Without any further remark, my father read the letter ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... contained a small box of specimens which had been missing when I had repacked my property at Manila. The specimens in this box were particularly choice ones, and their loss had been as annoying as it had been unaccountable. The pleasure which I felt in getting them back, though, was nothing compared to my amazement when I found along with the package another small one containing ...
— Anting-Anting Stories - And other Strange Tales of the Filipinos • Sargent Kayme
... good sense, a great memory, and a constitution capable of the closest application: in a word, there was no profession in which Cleanthes might not have made a very good figure; but this won't satisfy him; he takes up an unaccountable fondness for the character of a line gentleman; all his thoughts are bent upon this, instead of attending a dissection, frequenting the courts of justice, ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... The unaccountable and sad accident threw a gloom over the spirits both of officers and men, and but few went again to sleep during the remainder of the night. The next day they would probably be engaged with the enemy, and who could tell whose fate it might be to fall? To pass slowly up against the rapid ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... woes affected him as they had never done before. The sound of her sobbing, as he stood listening, gradually roused in him an unbearable restlessness. An unaccountable depression stole upon him—the reaction, perhaps, from a good deal of mental exertion and excitement in the day. A sort of sick distaste awoke in him for most of the incidents of existence—for Aunt Hannah, for Uncle Reuben's incomprehensible ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of it," I answered; "but what difference will it make when our air supply is exhausted whether the temperature is 153 degrees or 153,000? We'll be just as dead, and no one will know the difference, anyhow." But I must admit that for some unaccountable reason the stationary temperature did renew my waning hope. What I hoped for I could not have explained, nor did I try. The very fact, as Perry took pains to explain, of the blasting of several ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... immediately marched upon the capital, there can be no doubt that it would have been compelled to surrender; but, for some reason which has never been satisfactorily explained, he remained for a fortnight within one day's march of the field of Ivry. Various causes have been surmised for this unaccountable delay, but there is no authentic statement to be found in any letters written by Henry, or in any contemporaneous records. The time, however, thus lost, whatever might have been the cause, proved to him a terrible calamity. ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... For the present, he faded from the Rock Park horizon, and we returned to the robin; nor have I been able to understand how it happened that he made so distinct an impression upon my memory. But a child's memory is unaccountable, both in what it loses ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... Heaven knows where, during the term of my acquaintance with them. Jacob differed from all the other of my flock by possessing a premature, thoroughly unchildlike sense of humor. He regarded me as one of the most unaccountable human beings he had ever met, but he had such respect for what he believed to be my good bottom qualities that he constantly tried to conceal from me his feeling that I was probably a little insane. He ...
— The Girl and the Kingdom - Learning to Teach • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Miss Collins, and I am afraid she has too strong an influence over Lucy. Her personality grates on me; she is so boisterous, and she laughs so loud; and the views she holds are unaccountable to me in so young a girl. She seems to have had no home training whatever. Why Lucy likes her, and why she should have selected her as an intimate friend, has always puzzled me." She spoke with her usual frankness and with that directness ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... this from me?' asked Hubert, when Bolko related to him the unaccountable restoration of the ring. 'Oh, youth, youth! inconsiderate even to madness, and only content to listen to the voice of wisdom when they can of themselves find no ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... should appear at the altar. The fashion as to this point has often varied; but at that time, I believe the custom was for bridal parties to be in full dress. The lady, when the dress arrived, was, to all appearance, in good health; but, by one of those unaccountable misgivings which are on record in so many well-attested cases, (as that, for example, of Andrew Marveil's father,) she said, after gazing for a minute or two at the beautiful dress, firmly and pointedly, "So, then, that is my wedding dress; and it is expected that ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... war began they had been to America. This was shortly after the United States entered the war. They were ordered to the North Atlantic in order to help the American authorities snare a German commerce raider which, in some unaccountable manner, had run the British blockade in the North sea, and was wreaking havoc with allied shipping. Later they went to New York, and then returned to Europe with a combined British-American convoy for the first expeditionary ...
— The Boy Allies with the Victorious Fleets - The Fall of the German Navy • Robert L. Drake
... evident, which had before seemed unaccountable, how it happened that the enemy should have been missed by the British squadron, both in it's passage to Alexandria, and in it's return to Syracuse. The French, having steered a direct course for Candia, had necessarily made an angular passage towards Alexandria; ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... and a series of prints representing certain emotional moments in the life of a young blue-jacket. Cleo was in some distant region of the house with her mother, who had beamed on Morgan with a most unaccountable friendliness. ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... for it at all, sir. It's simply unaccountable. It can't be explained by what I know." The Chief Inspector made those admissions with the frankness of a man whose reputation is established as if on a rock. "At any rate not at this present moment. I ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... little ruffle at neck and sleeves, that it did more than adequate service toward maturing her. Indeed, there was no youth about Miss Amabel, except the youth of her eyes and smile. There were childlike wistfulness and hope, but experience chiefly, of life, of the unaccounted for, the unaccountable. She had, above all, an expression of well-wishing. Now she ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... say to the strange woman before her, or how to soften her bitterness of spirit. She had felt an unaccountable attraction to Cathelineau's mother. She had imagined that she could speak to her of her son with affection and warmth, though she could not do so to any other living soul She had flattered herself that she should have a melancholy pleasure in talking ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... literally, a continuation of the Orlando Innamorato; so much so, that the story is not thoroughly intelligible without it. This was probably the reason of a circumstance that would be otherwise unaccountable, and that was ridiculously charged against him as a proof of despairing envy by the despairing envy of Sperone; namely, his never having once mentioned the name of his predecessor. If Ariosto had despaired of equalling Boiardo, he must have been hopeless of reaching posterity, in which case ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... as a beginning: she knew his errand perfectly; and unaccountable as it was to her, the strange and unceremonious relationship between them, that had originated in the peculiar conditions of their first close meeting, ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... in which mob and burghers alike were angry, determined simultaneously to strike a blow for mastery, and to supplant the Jacobins. Evidence of their activity appeared both in military and political circles. Throughout the summer of 1795 there was an unaccountable languor in the army. It was believed that Pichegru had purposely palsied his own and Jourdan's abilities, and the needless armistice he made with Austria went far to confirm the idea. It was afterward proved ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... these trading savages came from, and a vaster region from which, by repeated trade, their stone lamps and that steel knife had come. Subienkow bullied, and cajoled, and bribed. Every far-journeyer or strange tribesman was brought before him. Perils unaccountable and unthinkable were mentioned, as well as wild beasts, hostile tribes, impenetrable forests, and mighty mountain ranges; but always from beyond came the rumour and the tale of white-skinned men, blue of eye and fair of hair, who fought like devils and who sought always for furs. They ...
— Lost Face • Jack London
... it was wholly unwarranted; and, everything considered, at war with the commonest principles of prudence and humanity. And, although, on Guy's part, this resolution showed more hardihood than he had ever been given credit for, it, at the same time, argued an unaccountable simplicity, in supposing that such a crew would, in any way, ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... at, and they were anxious to look the other way. The words of Tony's song were more or less meaningless, though he sang them remarkably well, but the tune, with its air of slyness and furtive joyousness, appealed in some unaccountable manner to people who were furtively unhappy, and who were trying to ...
— When William Came • Saki
... how it was that she had come to his rescue. So Irene too had to tell a long story, which she did in rather a roundabout manner, interrupted by many questions concerning things she had not explained. But her tale, as he did not believe more than half of it, left everything as unaccountable to him as before, and he was nearly as much perplexed as to what he must think of the princess. He could not believe that she was deliberately telling stories, and the only conclusion he could come to was that Lootie had been playing ...
— The Princess and the Goblin • George MacDonald
... had never been equal to its words, but its sense he knew, if it had any sense, a gipsy thing—wild and unaccountable. Well, there was in life something which upset all your care and plans—something which made men and women dance to its pipes. And he lay staring from deep-sunk eyes into the darkness where the unaccountable held sway. You thought you had hold of life, but it slipped away behind ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... was particularly struck by a little tree which grew there. It was a bringal tree, not above two feet in height. It had no leaves, but on it grew a hundred and one bringals. The Rajah stopped to count them, and then turning to the Wuzeer in great astonishment, said, "It is to me a most unaccountable thing, that this little tree should have no leaves, but a hundred and one bringals growing on it. You are a wise man—can you ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... then she's unaccountable set on young Socknersh. He lets her do what she likes with her sheep, and he's a stout figure of a man, too. Joanna Godden always was partial ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... surprised Maggie by asking her to take a long walk alone with him. No words were said during this ramble to open Maggie Oliphant's eyes to the true state of Hammond's feelings for her, but when she returned from her walk she could not help noticing Annabel Lee's unaccountable depression. It was not until later, however, that Maggie attributed a certain pathetic, almost heart-broken, look in her friend's lovely ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... in an old building where more than one newspaper had failed. The interior of the place was so comfortless in arrangement, so subject to unaccountable drafts of cold air in winter and breaths of hot oppression in summer, that it must have been built especially for a newspaper office. Henry found that the working force consisted mainly of a few young reporters and a large force of editorial writers. The weakness of nearly ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... not believed, yet we forget ourselves continually and make inferences from them as existing realities.' With the algebraists, however, who are pagans themselves, the 'pagan fables' are believed, and the inferences are made, not so much through lapse of memory as through an unaccountable addling of the brains. In short, I never yet encountered the mere mathematician who could be trusted out of equal roots, or one who did not clandestinely hold it as a point of his faith that x squaredpx was absolutely ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... rather, financial—and he strove to maintain it so, lest the stimulation of a deeper interest thwart his own plans. His conflict with Diego in regard to Carmen had seemed for the moment to evoke the Bishop's interference; and the sudden and unaccountable disappearance of that priest had threatened to expose both Jose and Carmen to the full scrutiny of Wenceslas. But, fortunately, the insistence of those matters which were rapidly culminating in a political outbreak left Wenceslas ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... certainly indeed, but possibly, that he had stumbled, almost as it were by accident, upon a great current of force and emotion running vehemently through the world, under the calm surface of things. How many apparently unaccountable events it might explain! one saw frail people doing fine things, sensitive people bearing burdens of ill-health or disappointment, placidly and even contentedly, men making gallant, unexpected choices, big expansive natures ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... merit was indeed very great; his works, compared with those of Giovanni and Niccola Pisano, exhibit a progress in design, grace, composition and mechanical execution, at first sight unaccountable—a chasm yawns between them, deep and broad, over which the younger artist seems to have leapt at a bound,—the stream that sank into the earth at Pisa emerges a river at Florence. The solution of the mystery lies in the peculiar plasticity of ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... An unaccountable nervousness took possession of the sensitive man, and he suffered as he sat there. After the curtain dropped he rose and left the theatre without looking up, and crossed the narrow street to a little coffee shop familiar to him for ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... to suppress the disturbance, they spirited the body away and burned it, and scattered the ashes. But this was a bad thing for them to do, for the ashes became seeds of the new contagion, and all through the great city, in the strangest and most unaccountable way, men would suddenly begin to speak the truth. And, of course this made business impossible—the merchants and traders had to move away; and how was it possible to preserve authority, when sooner or later all the lawyers ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... near five years with Mr. Robinson at every fashionable place of entertainment. You, my dear sir, in your quiet haunts of transatlantic simplicity, will find some difficulty in reconciling these things to your mind—these unaccountable instances of national absurdity. Yet, so it is. I am well assured that, were a being possessed of more than human endowments to visit this country, it would experience indifference, if not total neglect, while a ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... the flash of an aurora illuminated Solon's face for an instant. He put out his hand suddenly, as if to take Zonela's and press it to his heart; but an unaccountable timidity seemed to arrest the impulse, and he only stroked Furbelow's head,—upon which that individual opened one large brown eye to the extent of the eighth of an inch, and, seeing that it was only Solon, instantly closed it again, and resumed his dream of a city where there were no organs ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... such a caution might be baffled, he ought to have taken advice of those who were better informed. Mr Briggs, too! what a wretch! mean, low, vulgar, sordid!—the whole city of London, I believe, could not produce such another! how unaccountable to make you the ward of a man whose house you cannot ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... An unaccountable business depression affected pretty much the entire world. Money, that most sensitive of all things, began to show nervousness and a tendency to go into hiding. The bulk of the world was still asleep to the real meaning of events, but it had begun to stir in its dreams, as ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... y^e temperament of his body, he knew not. 'How now?' said Cromwell. 'What! trowbled with vapours? Come forward, man.' They had not gon above 20 yards before Lindsey on a sudden stood still and cry'd out, by all that's good he was seized with such unaccountable terrours & astonishment that it was impossible for him to stir one step further. Upon which Cromwell call'd him faint-hearted fool, & bid him stand there & observe or be witness: and then advancing to some distance from him, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 76, April 12, 1851 • Various
... lunatic," nodded Merry. "I am confident the man is deranged. Boys, I believe—nay, I have no doubt—that it was Alvarez Lazaro, the crazy Mexican who claims to be the avenger of Porfias del Norte. I did believe Lazaro had perished in that fire in New York; but now I am certain he escaped in some unaccountable manner, and never until he is captured and punished can I or any one of my friends know a real moment of safety. There is no telling what the next move of this maniacal avenger will be. We must all be on our guard, ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish
... without finishing his thoughts. By an effort of his will he had again become master of himself. The unaccountable impression which had been made upon him disappeared. Gradually his eyes returned to meet those of Yaquita, and he ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... far back into now almost forgotten years of my life and there flashed into unaccountable and extraordinary vividness in my mind the remembrance of a western mining camp and of a girl, Vicky O'Fallon. She was a little red-headed beauty, who dreamed and talked of nothing but the stage, who longed to study and to travel, to release her life ...
— Futurist Stories • Margery Verner Reed
... is very generous of you to suggest the Dower House, dear Mary," said Miss Crewys, softening, "since our poor brother, in his unaccountable will, left it entirely to you, and made no mention of his elder sisters; though we do ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... the varied circumstances and forces which have contributed to his making has left its mark upon him. That is why the features of one will display an indefinite spread of forehead, of another an irresponsible prominence of nose, of a third an unaccountable hardness about the jaws. Had man but the benefit of continuity and uniformity of purpose, Nature must have succeeded in elaborating a definite mould for him, enabling him to function simply and naturally, without such ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore
... their own Spectres required and compelled to give their consent, for the molestation of some, which they had no mind otherwise to fall upon; and cruel depredations are then made upon the Vicinage. In the Prosecution of these Witchcrafts, among a thousand other unaccountable things, the Spectres have an odd faculty of cloathing the most substantial and corporeal Instruments of Torture, with Invisibility, while the wounds thereby given have been the most palpable things in the World; so that the Sufferers assaulted ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... the grotto-like place he had discovered; but to his surprise, his young master put it off, and the quiet, silent fellow waited. He, though, had more tales to tell of the way in which things disappeared from cottages. Pigs, sheep, poultry went in the most unaccountable way, and the witches who met sometimes on the mountain slope had the credit ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... rest; and they delay me, as if it were a favour I asked of them; so that I have been idle here this good while, and it happened in a right time, when I was too much out of order to study. One is kept constantly out of humour by a thousand unaccountable things in public proceedings; and when I reason with some friends, we cannot conceive how affairs can last as they are. God only knows, but it is a very melancholy subject for those who have any near concern in it. I am again endeavouring, as I ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... morning of Feb. 8, 1855, in the snow, by the inhabitants of many towns and regions between towns. This great area must of course be disregarded by Prof. Owen and the other correlators. The tracks were in all kinds of unaccountable places: in gardens enclosed by high walls, and up on the tops of houses, as well as in the open fields. There was in Lymphstone scarcely one unmarked garden. We've had heroic disregards but I think that here disregard was titanic. And, because they occurred ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... myself in a narrow lane, bade the postilion give a signal with his horn, that other travelers might not meet us in the narrow passage. He blew with all his might; but his endeavors were in vain; he could not make the horn sound, which was unaccountable, and rather unfortunate, for soon after we found ourselves in the presence of another coach coming the other way: there was no proceeding; however, I got out of my carriage, and being pretty strong, placed it, wheels and all, upon my head: I then jumped over a hedge ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... it glibly. But before she had gone far with it, I, who was sitting beside her, felt an unaccountable repulsion creeping over me. For the first time since I had known her I wanted to draw away from the Story Girl. Looking around on the faces of the group, I saw that they all shared my feeling. Cecily had put her hands over her ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... elements. To the early tribes it must also have been the most mysterious; for, while earth and air and water were always in evidence, fire came and went in a manner which must have been quite unaccountable to them. Thus it naturally followed that the custom of deifying all things which the primitive mind was unable to grasp, led in direct line to the fire-worship ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... and unaccountable fatalities and adventures are not foot-travellers exposed, in this land of carriages and horses! But, I will begin my relation ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... true state of this unaccountable accident. You will see, by General Borck's Letter, that the King of Prussia, being now returned to his senses, is himself convinced of the extravagancy of this proceeding; and was very desirous of having it concealed;—which ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... noises, all doors and other parts of the house were constantly examined up to the very last. When I went to B—— at the beginning of August, my family had already been there a few days, and at once they told me they had found out the house was supposed to be haunted, and that they had heard most unaccountable noises. I had the greatest difficulty to persuade all my people to stay in the place, and after all, we left Scotland about the end of September, two months earlier than usual. I personally did not give ...
— The Alleged Haunting of B—— House • Various
... the diggings. He enlivened our wet leisure by repeating whole volumes of Burns and Scott. Bill also returned to his wonderful stories, though the captain and mate sneered at them more than ever; indeed, they were by far the most discontented of the company, and an unaccountable sort of distrust seemed growing between them and Bill. At length, fever and ague began to thin the ranks of the gold-seekers; we saw the working-parties around us diminish day by day, and graves dug ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... more general conclusion to draw from this experience. It is not by chance, nor the unaccountable caprice of a few ancient writers, that we possess so many small facts on the development of luxury and the transformation of customs in ancient Rome; that, for example, among the records of great wars, of diplomatic missions, of catastrophes ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero
... the consideration of my readers. Those who were with me in the days of slavery will appreciate these pages, for though they cannot recur with any happiness to the now "shadowy past, or renew the unrenewable," the unaccountable longing for the aged to look backward and review the events of their youth will find an answering ...
— From the Darkness Cometh the Light, or Struggles for Freedom • Lucy A. Delaney
... at the end of the upper hall, and so I never thought of needing more. Well, as I moved over toward the window, still feeling that strange, unaccountable knowledge of some one there, a man stepped out from behind your desk, walked right up to me and held out those letters in one hand, while with the other he threw the light from a small bull's-eye or ...
— The Crucifixion of Philip Strong • Charles M. Sheldon
... "What unaccountable witchcraft has taken possession of me?" he muttered, at length. And turning suddenly he sat himself down on an old decaying log by the river side, and gave himself up to ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... said Cleggett. He tried to say it casually, but he was conscious as he spoke that there was a trace of hurt surprise in his voice. The most generous and chivalrous soul alive, Cleggett would have gone to the stake for Lady Agatha; and yet so unaccountable is that vain thing, the human soul (especially at breakfast time), that he felt angry at her for misunderstanding the ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... acquiescence with whatever life brought; no more for her than the keeping of her brother's house. Calvin, noting the efficient manner in which she ordered their material affairs, wondered at the fact that she had not been married. Men were unaccountable, but none more than himself, with his unquenchable ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... gentlemanly lope. And Pete was not altogether displeased. His back felt as though it had been seared with a branding-iron, and the range to the west was heaving most indecorously, cavorting around the horizon as though strangely excited by Blue Smoke's sudden and seemingly unaccountable behavior. ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... Thus did she argue, naturally and logically, in the quite sensible fashion of a lawyer, or a scientist; yet, all the while, her senses told her that the atmosphere of the house had undergone some profoundly subtle and unaccountable change,—a change that brought with it a presence, at once sinister and hostile. She longed to strike a light and awake one of her daughters—Diana, by preference; since Diana was the least likely to mind being disturbed, and had the strongest nerves. She made a start, and, loosening the ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... that I was! The moment my guide told his name, I was struck with amazement at my unaccountable mistake. The small, insignificant figure took instant dignity; the homely dress, of rough dark broadcloth, was the natural and becoming dishabille of a country gentleman in his own demesnes. Even the ugly cur became a Scotch terrier ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... uneasy. He had to start at the beginning again and again, and the strained glances turned upon him forced him to invent new minor details, such as that the tobacco-dealer suddenly disappeared in an unaccountable manner, and that his face was concealed by a black mask, "Where did you have to carry the body?" asked Galtier, with clenched teeth. Bousquier, horrified, remained silent; then, intimidated by the many threatening glances, he replied in ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... formed so suddenly?"—Dolly was driven by some unaccountable instinct of shyness to lead off from the subject in hand, nearly as it concerned her. And besides, she was too flushed and abashed to deal ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... Walter, in his secret soul, thought this by no means to be regretted, since it was much better for them that it should be generously spent at once in this manner, than that it should be frittered away in the unaccountable and vain manner in which he had usually ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... aloud at the extreme energy of this sudden communication, contrasted with the deep silence that went before and followed. Lamb smilingly begged to know what I was laughing at, and with a look of as much surprise as if it were I that had done something unaccountable, and not himself. I told him (as was the truth) that there had suddenly occurred to me the possibility of my being in some future period or other called on to give an account of this very evening before some ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... his entire satisfaction, solved the mystery of the hitherto unaccountable actions of T. Morgan Carey and Bob McGraw, Mr. Hennage dismissed the matter from his mind, lit a fresh cigar and permitted the peanut butcher to inveigle him into a friendly little game of ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... King's presence, when he observed with what wonderful grace and agility Fenella kept time to notes, which could only be known to her by the motions of the musician's fingers. He had heard, indeed, among other prodigies, of a person in Fenella's unhappy situation acquiring, by some unaccountable and mysterious tact, the power of acting as an instrumental musician, nay, becoming so accurate a performer as to be capable of leading a musical band; and he also heard of deaf and dumb persons dancing with sufficient accuracy, by observing the motions of their partner. ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... noticed that the provisions disappeared in an unaccountable way; therefore Wills ordered him back to report himself to Burke. But Gray was afraid to tell, and got King to do so for him. When Burke heard of it, he was ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... more highly gifted far than they, Yet, like a servant maiden, it is she Who silently performs the humblest tasks. Beneath her guiding hands prosperity Attendeth still thy harvest and thy flocks; And around all she does there ceaseless flows A blessing, rare and unaccountable. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... with the mules to a hut prepared for them inside the corral—it having been previously and carefully explained to France that an American mule without its negro complement was as galvanic and unaccountable as a ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... proverbial for generosity; and Farmer Goodenough, no bad type of his class, had a wife in whose thoughts not the pence but the farthings dominated. She was one who at once recoiled and repelled—one of those whose skin shrinks from the skin of their kind, and who are specially apt to take unaccountable dislikes—a pitiable human animal of the leprous sort. She "never took to the foundling," she said. To have neither father nor mother, she counted disreputable. But I believe the main source of her dislike to Clare was a feeling of undefined reproof in the very atmosphere of the boy's presence, ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... and that on the very night when it took place her mind must naturally have been filled with other things, she saw that she must go on entirely different lines. As a consequence of this she had made her seemingly unaccountable visit to Paul's office, and had made what Standring regarded as an almost unprecedented request, to examine the wage-books. When she had gone, Standring went through those same books again. He was trying to discover ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... For some unaccountable reason the delivery of the address was delayed and not received at Mount Vernon until late in April. The original draft of WASHINGTON's reply to the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts in his own handwriting and signature as well as an autograph note ...
— Washington's Masonic Correspondence - As Found among the Washington Papers in the Library of Congress • Julius F. Sachse
... myself in the responsible position I now occupy, for this reason. The diggers, outraged at the unaccountable conduct of the Camp officials in such a wicked licence-hunt at the point of the bayonet, as the one of this morning, took it as an insult to their manhood, and a challenge to the determination come to at the ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... assumed are competent to account for most of the physiological characteristics of species, and I not only think that they are competent to account for them, but I think that they account for many things which otherwise remain wholly unaccountable and inexplicable, and I may say incomprehensible. For a full exposition of the grounds on which this conviction is based, I must refer you to Mr. Darwin's work; all that I can do now is to illustrate what ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... who were familiar with the past life of the brave little fellow, he was incredulous. The very fact that Tim Bunker was near at the time of the alleged theft seemed to be sufficient to clear him. The finding of the wallet in his pocket was the most unaccountable piece of testimony that had been adduced against him. It did not seem probable that it would have remained so long in his pocket unknown to him, if any one had been so wicked as to ...
— The Boat Club - or, The Bunkers of Rippleton • Oliver Optic
... most unaccountable thing in the world. Experience teaches them nothing; they can't seem to learn anything except out of a book. In some uses there's manifestly a fatality about it. For instance, take What's-her-name, that plays those sensational thunder and lightning parts. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... important results from that meeting. Unfortunately, I was prevented, by some pickets who arrested me, from reaching this spot on the appointed day. I was here two days afterward, however—asked for Swartz—he had not been here—and as that was the most unaccountable thing in the world to me, I set out ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... 'connected with this matter which surprises me—your own lukewarmness. Yes, making every allowance for your natural predilection for dog-fighting, and your present enamoured state of mind, your apathy at the commencement of such a movement is to me unaccountable.' ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... in life when, without any visible or immediate cause, the spirits sink and fail, as it were, under the mere pressure of existence: moments of unaccountable depression, when one is weary of one's very thoughts, haunted by images that will not depart—images many and various, but all painful; friends lost, or changed, or dead; hopes disappointed even in their accomplishment; fruitless regrets, powerless wishes, doubt and fear, and ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... curious," said Mrs. Leverett. "I have always been glad I was not alive at that time. Sometimes unaccountable ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... two opposite but simultaneous conversion movements is unaccountable under the accepted hypothesis of the causes of the enclosure movement, which turns upon assumptions as to the relative prices of grain and wool or cattle or wages. The authorities for this theory have necessarily neglected the evidence that pasture land was converted ...
— The Enclosures in England - An Economic Reconstruction • Harriett Bradley
... deep eyes were looking straight into the flushed excited face beside her. Mrs Ray Jefferson met their gaze, and was conscious of an odd little unaccountable thrill. ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... for him seems perfectly unaccountable. Johnson in his rough (I may here call it brutal) manner said to her, 'Why Ma'am, he is not only a stupid, ugly dog, but he is an old dog too.' Sir William says he really believes that she combated her inclination for him as long as possible; so long, that her senses ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... about the house was done, Marius entered softly the room where Varia lay, tended by Nerissa. The old woman slipped away, and Varia held out a slim hand to him in one of her sudden and unaccountable moods of ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... all frightened, and scarcely even annoyed. There were other sounds which I did not myself hear, but of which I was told—stealthy footsteps that paced a certain corridor at dead of night; a sharp, rattling noise like hail dashing against the window-panes, and one or two other trifling yet equally unaccountable occurrences. Once, too, a young lady visiting the house heard in the next room to that in which she was loud and lamentable sounds, as of a woman weeping bitterly and in sore distress. She listened in considerable perplexity for some time, fearing to intrude on the sorrows ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... openly break out have often no more to do with the real grounds of difference than the place of a battle with the cause of the war. Many a quarrel, after running for a long time under ground, gushes forth with a vehemence which seems unaccountable; and it is difficult to divine what lands it has passed through in its hidden course. Any particular outbreak cannot safely be taken as an index of the general conduct of the ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps
... regret to say that McClellan has, in some unaccountable fashion, discovered the division of the army as well as its objectives. We have had hard fighting to-day on South Mountain, D. H. Hill and Longstreet both suffering heavily. The troops fought with great determination and ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... came into the child's eyes, while Hester was looking at her own image in them, as mothers are fond of doing; and, suddenly,—for women in solitude, and with troubled hearts, are pestered with unaccountable delusions,—she fancied that she beheld, not her own miniature portrait, but another face, in the small black mirror of Pearl's eye. It was a face, fiend-like, full of smiling malice, yet bearing the semblance of features that she had ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Aynesworth said fiercely, "I trust that this is one of the unaccountable things. For the rest, you shall have no other chance. I shall take ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... apparently for storing articles not worth keeping, but too good to be thrown away—an American habit of thrift. Several decrepit chairs and rickety cabinets and old console tables were piled together in a tangled mass. Ronicky looked at them with an unaccountable shudder, as if he read in them the history of the ruin and fall and death of many an old inhabitant of this house. It seemed to his excited imagination that the man with the sneer had been the cause of all the destruction and would be the ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand
... attended by Felicia, had gone to the Palace on royal invitation. Clarice sat on the terrace, her eyes fixed on the river which she did not see, her hands lying listlessly in her lap. Though she had heard nothing, that unaccountable conviction of another presence, which comes to us all at times, seized upon her; and she looked up ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... to the crowning glories of the Nile and Trafalgar, with which the nineteenth century opened. It is thus, as the very bottom of the wave, that those singular and signal failures have their own distinctive significance in the undulations of the onward movement. On the one hand they are not unaccountable, as though they, any more than the Nile and Trafalgar, were without antecedent of cause; and on the other they serve, as a background at least, to bring out the figures of the two admirals now before us, and to define their true historical import, as agents and as exponents, in the changes ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... unaccountable affection for this wayward child. How blessed the virtuous parents whose attire Is soiled with dust, by raising from the ground The child that asks a refuge in their arms! And happy are they while with lisping prattle, In ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... a miracle has three elements. It is first a fact, unaccountable by science; secondly, it requires a conscious agent; and thirdly, it results from the exercise of a power which that ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... disheartening manner, making a room seem smaller than it really is; it makes ugly gloomy shadows in the corners, for at night it seems to turn to a dingy black, and increases the electric light bill. Red is also a severe strain on the eyes, and many a red living-room is the cause of seemingly unaccountable headaches. I do not mean to say that red should never be used, for it is often a very necessary color, but it must be used with the greatest discretion, and one must remember that a little of it goes a long way. A room, for instance, paneled with oak, with an oriental rug with ...
— Furnishing the Home of Good Taste • Lucy Abbot Throop
... on together, slowly and in step. His head was bent, face sullen and uncomfortably flushed. Again she felt the curiously unaccountable glow in her own cheeks responding in pink fire once more; and annoyed and confused she halted and looked up at him with that frank ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... unaccountable being! But it won't do. I must show my gratitude one way or other. Steinfort, we will take the ladies home, and then you shall try once again to see him. You can talk to these ...
— The Stranger - A Drama, in Five Acts • August von Kotzebue
... the air of one who communicates something of more than ordinary significance,—"Blue Mountain!" The name, Steve's manner, and I know not what of mysterious cause, gave to the place a strange importance. I felt a new and unaccountable attraction to the mountain. Some enchantment seemed to be casting its glamour over me from that distance even. There was thenceforward no goal for my wanderings but the Blue Mountain. It is a solitary peak, one of the southernmost ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... the devil," said he, "is the meaning of this farce which I am obliged to act? for my part, I cannot understand the foolish customs of this country; how comes it that they make me a prisoner upon my parole?" "How comes it?" said the Chevalier de Grammont, "it is because you yourself are far more unaccountable than all their customs; you cannot help disputing with a peevish fellow, whom you ought only to laugh at; some officious footman has no doubt been talking of your last night's dispute; you were seen to go out of town in the morning, and the Marquis soon ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... claim to peaceful possession of his province. Not less remarkable was the fate of witchcraft in Pennsylvania. The Swedes and Finns believed in witches, upon the authority of their native traditions; and a woman of their race having acted in a violent and unaccountable manner, they put her on her trial for witchcraft. Both Swedes and Quakers composed the jury; there were no hysterics; the matter was dispassionately canvassed; impressions and prejudices were not accepted as evidence; and in the end the verdict was that though she was guilty of ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... shores. People who believe in free trade are always telling us that the laboring man is paid much better in Germany than in the United States, and yet nearly every ship that comes from Germany is crammed with Germans, who, for some unaccountable reason, prefer to leave a place where they are doing well and come to one where ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... thought the credulity of ignorant rustics. And yet here I was, the victim to some such hallucination—unless it was possible that I had really seen the figure with my bodily eyes! My knees were shaking under me as I managed to reach my room, my whole being agitated by an unaccountable sense of fear. ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... to all," replied the Krooman, who for some unaccountable reason had taken a strange dislike to the professor. "Come," he said, intoning to Frank and Harry, "we go see ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... from the Bank of France and the commercial court. All through the enjoyments of those last weeks the unhappy boy had felt the point of the Commander's sword; at every supper-party he heard, like Don Juan, the heavy tread of the statue outside upon the stairs. He felt an unaccountable creeping of the flesh, a warning that the sirocco of debt is nigh at hand. He reckoned on chance. For five years he had never turned up a blank in the lottery, his purse had always been replenished. After Chesnel had come du Croisier (he told himself), after ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... place between the people and the military, and that they would all be put down or massacred. They were not prepared for an issue which would be the logical effect of the procession, and at the eleventh hour concluded to abandon it. The government, thinking that the crisis was passed, settled into an unaccountable repose. There were only twenty thousand regular troops in the city. There ought to have been eighty thousand; but Guizot was not the man for ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... had not only clearly defined but conscientious likes and dislikes. She had tried to overcome the opposing current so far as it concerned herself, because it was unpleasant; and, although not wholly unaccountable—for she was conscious of some weaknesses, as most mortals are—so far as Mrs. Tascher was affected by her shortcomings the prejudice seemed unfounded. She had never injured her—never, except in that large sense in which all good souls are injured by wrong-doing; which large sense Miss ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... the British also appeared with forty-seven more men. Colonel Boerstler thereupon surrendered his total of five hundred and forty soldiers. General Dearborn, still the nominal commander of the forces, sadly mentioned the disaster as "an unfortunate and unaccountable event." ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... changes, we might have expected to find that organic beings have varied under nature, in the same way as they have varied under domestication. And if there has been any variability under nature, it would be an unaccountable fact if natural selection had not come into play. It has often been asserted, but the assertion is incapable of proof, that the amount of variation under nature is a strictly limited quantity. Man, though acting on external characters ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... sudden and unaccountable light is seen in a carpenter's shop, it indicates that the carpenter will soon have to ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
... more Irish landlords have behaved themselves with unaccountable folly and stupidity. They have once more stood between Ireland and her freedom, and have refused even an extravagant price for the land because the offer was coupled with the concession of an Irish Parliament. So be it. ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... old man was not bad hearted in spite of his unaccountable hatred of Paula; and Pulcheria declared that it must be so, if only because Philip esteemed him so highly. If only he were here, everything would have been different and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... every member, this unaccountable nausea, this unconquerable feeling of horror and repugnance as the draft of the picture was contemplated? Did instinct arise and dumbly plead for mercy? What mercy had been shown that mercy could be expected? None whatever. There was ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow |
