"Uncanny" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... than which no better example of Strindberg's uncanny power for analysis of the female mind exists, while essentially a chamber play, is from time to time presented at the theatre, and affords a splendid test of the dramatic ability of the actors, only one of whom ...
— Plays: The Father; Countess Julie; The Outlaw; The Stronger • August Strindberg
... brightly, but on the graveyard side were heavy shadows, except in the open space opposite the church. I was on the other side, and there was the office of the Democratic paper, and over the door the motto "Our country, right or wrong." This had long appeared to be an uncanny spot, owing to the wickedness of this sentiment, and I was thinking of the possibility of seeing Auld Nick guarding his property, when my attention was attracted to a tall, white figure in the bright moonlight, outside ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... texture, from spider webs to sole leather, shaking the dust from their folds, slipped uneasily about on their glittering rings, and showers of Japanese fans floated down like falling apple blossoms in the month of May. He seemed to see the Old Curiosity Shop, the uncanny room of Mr. Venus, a dozen foreign departments of the Centennial, ancient garrets and modern household art stores, all tumbled together in hopeless confusion, and over all an emerald, golden halo that grew more ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... down to smoke and rest beside a beautiful lake at the foot of a green knoll that rose from its shore. The knoll was covered with green grass and somehow as they looked at it they had a feeling that there was something about it that was mysterious or uncanny. ...
— Myths and Legends of the Sioux • Marie L. McLaughlin
... I spoke a word, but as we now cautiously advanced with Kennedy and peered over the steel plate we instinctively turned to Craig for an explanation. Carton seemed to regard him as if he were some uncanny mortal. For, there in the steel plate, was a hole. As I looked at the clean-cut edges, I saw that it was smaller but identical in nature with that which we had seen in the ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... a bird was to be seen, excepting an occasional vulture or carrion crow perched upon some lightning-blasted stump. Moreover, there was a strange silence pervading the place, a silence that seemed almost uncanny, as though insects as well as birds shunned the place. Altogether, the effect of the silence, the sombre tints of the foliage, the absence of brilliant-hued blooms, and a certain subtle something in the atmosphere, was distinctly depressing. There was one redeeming ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... uncanny intuition which made him so marvelous in the work, the coxswain of Eric's boat steered a course fifty feet away from that of ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... said Mr. Brewster, still with the same uncanny amiability. "He's a dabbler in a good many things—science, phrenology, antiques. I asked him to bid for me at a sale yesterday. There was a ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... it: his fierce pride and a certain awe which he had noted as it grew from day to day in the eyes of the rest of the crew. They were following the silent battle between the great Irishman and the captain with a profound, an almost uncanny interest. ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... subjects there are.) I impressed the fact upon George and Harris, and told them that they had better leave the whole matter entirely to me. They fell into the suggestion with a readiness that had something uncanny about it. George put on a pipe and spread himself over the easy-chair, and Harris cocked his legs on the table and lit ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... undreamed of by those who know her not, horizons summoning the soul to radiant adventures beyond the bounds of Space and Time. The world is so far right in regarding beauty with a sort of superstitious dread, as a presence almost uncanny among our mere mortal concerns, a daemonic thing,—which is what the world has meant when it has, not unnaturally, confused it with the spirits of evil; for surely it is a supernatural stranger in our midst, a fairy element, and, like the lorelei and the lamia, it does beckon its votaries ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... one sombre fowl of ampler wing that knows no line—is at home in the open or in the woods. His sonorous voice has a human sound that is uncanny; his form is visible afar in the desert and sinister as a gibbet; his plumage fits in with nothing but the night, which he does not love. This evil genius of the land is the Raven of the north. Its numbers increased as we reached the Barrens, ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... description often lurks, watching for some unwary wayfarer whom it may be able to slay and eat. Past such dangerous spots as these the belated villager will speed with timorous steps, remembering, perhaps, some such uncanny tale ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... been near him all the time he did not know. It was in the same wave-valley with himself and seemed to be looking at him. Even before there was any sign of human life upon it, it seemed to be standing off there just looking at him, and there was something uncanny about it. It looked like the little flat cupola of the town hall at home, only it was darker, and on top of it two long things stood up like flagpoles. And it bobbed and moved and ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... into weird old ruins and deserted castles like those which grandma had described to me in legends of the Rhine. At twilight I was often afraid to pass, lest giants and ghosts should show themselves between uncanny arches. Then all that was needed was a low cluck to Charlie, and off he would start on a run past ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... indicate that the nyangas really possessed powers denied to the great majority of their fellow-men. Moreover, it must be remembered by the sceptical that all who have ever been intimately associated with the African savage are fully agreed that he is gifted with certain strange, uncanny powers quite incomprehensible to the white man, as was indubitably demonstrated during the last Zulu war, when the natives exhibited an intimate knowledge of certain events—notably the disaster to the British troops at Isandhlwana—within an hour or two of their occurrence, and several ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... have omitted that last sentence," she said quietly, "it was so palpably an afterthought. Yes, she is wonderfully lovely—a strange beauty, I fancied. There seemed something odd and uncanny about it to me. She must be Mrs. Barrett's niece. I remember that when I was down here about a month ago Mrs. Barrett told me she expected a niece of hers to live with her—for a time at least. Her parents were both dead, the father having ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Now, there was nothing uncanny in Martha Eggers' deduction that a young man who wears white hose, miraculously darned, is a self-respecting young man, brought up by a worshiping mother who knows about ginger cookies and winter underwear, and whose Monday washing ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... half-sunken Doraine was scraping ominously on the bed of the channel. She shivered and swerved from frequent contact with submerged rocks, but held her course with uncanny steadiness, while every soul on board gazed with stark, despairing eyes at the land which mocked them as they passed. Far on ahead loomed the lofty hills, and beyond them ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... that," lied Marie. "I wasn't thinking of his luck last night. I was thinking of the remarkable manner in which a man of his age conducts that morgue. It isn't just memory either. He seems to have an uncanny intelligence about—" ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... a drink! It certainly does seem uncanny at night-time. But wait a bit. When the day breaks, you know, and one day and another passes, you'll forget even to think of it. Wait a bit; when the girl's married we'll even forget to think of it. But you go and have a drink; have a drink! ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... the upshot?" questioned Helwyse with sullen impatience. The emotion now apparent in the voice, uncanny though it was, counteracted the spell wrought by its purely intellectual depravity. Helwyse was perhaps beginning to understand that he had ventured his stock of virgin gold for a handful of ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... crouching on guard, staring at me, and I at him. He is some sort of crab, but he stands on two legs like a caricature of a man; he has two big weapons upraised for battle, and staring black eyes stuck out on long tubes. He is an uncanny thing to look at; but then suddenly the idea comes, How do I seem to him? I realize that he is alive; a tiny mite of hunger for life, of fear and resolution. I think, How lonely he must be! And I want ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... close behind him he heard rumblings, steamy vibrations, and, as it were, sudden escapes of gas; and comprehended that these were the hoarse responses of the 32 and 64 foot pipes, laid horizontally along the roof of the screen, to the summoning fingers of the organist. It was all uncanny, weird, supernatural, demoniacal if you will—it was part of the secret and unsuspected mechanism of a vast emotional pageant and spectacle. It unnerved Priam, especially when the organist, a handsome youngish man with lustrous eyes, ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... Pyramid.* He seems to be coming forward to meet the beholder, with an acacia staff in his hand. He has the head and shoulders of a bull, and a common cast of countenance, whose vulgarity is not wanting in energy. The large, widely open eye has, by a trick of the sculptor, an almost uncanny ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... of unknown oceans and maps of Prester John's country and the desert roads that led to Cambaluc, that city farther than the moon, and told him tales of awful and delectable things hidden beyond the dawn. He had returned to his tower by the springs of Canche, a young man with a name for uncanny knowledge, a searcher after concealed matters, negligent of religion and ill at ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... wouldn't let Pat and me stop to talk to him when we passed the cottage going a walk, he was such a queer, black-looking little creature. Old Nancy went away once for ever so long, and when she came back she brought this rum little chap with her, and the people about said he was as uncanny as she. Nobody's very kind to ...
— Miss Mouse and Her Boys • Mrs. Molesworth
... room as he turned to go out was uncanny. As it was a back room, there was no street below from which could arise sounds of passing vehicles, and the thickness of the fog muffled such sound as might have floated from the front. He stopped half-way to the door, not knowing ...
— The Dawn of a To-morrow • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Sir William Crookes never admitted entire error in this region,[76] and the conclusions of Geley (though he cites in part Eusapia Palladino, who is more or less discredited) point in the same direction. His studies of materialization are so vivid as to be uncanny and his photographs a series of documents which still await explanation.[77] There would seem to be a possible exercise of personal force not dependent upon muscular pull or pressure, bodily movements ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... It was enough for them that the beasts prowled at night in those desert cities, which were, according to the opinions, not only of the Easterns, but of the Romans, the special haunt of ghouls, witches, and all uncanny things. Their fiendish laughter—which, when heard even in a modern menagerie, excites and shakes most person's nerves—rang through hearts and brains which had no help or comfort, save in God alone. The beast tore ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... the dearest old place in the world. Such delightful old rooms, with the deepest window-seats, the highest mantelpieces, the widest fireplaces possible in domestic architecture; such mysterious closets and uncanny passages; such pitfalls in the way of unexpected flights of stairs; such antiquated glazed corner-cupboards for the display of old china!—everything ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... instinct whether there was somebody around or not. In the long corridor running from the east to the west, there was not hiding even a mouse. From other end of the corridor the moonlight flooded in and about there it was particularly light. The scene was somewhat uncanny. I have had the habit from my boyhood of frequently dreaming and of flying out of bed and of muttering things which nobody understood, affording everybody a hearty laugh. One night, when I was sixteen or seventeen, I dreamed that I picked up a diamond, and getting up, demanded ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... This seems strange, but Paul thinks it some caprice of Agnes. There is but one chair in the room, and this faces the door through which Paul expects Agnes to enter. The lights are dim and throw fitful shadows. Though feeling a superstitious sense, Paul's strong nerves brace against all "uncanny" sentiments. He attempts to turn on more light, but finds this is impossible. He shifts uneasily, finally picking up a paper lying on a small table within reach. Date and title startle him. How came this copy of London Press ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... nervous wreck. The Adjutant explained that misfortune had followed misfortune. They had barely settled down midstream, and he was in the act of extracting a hook from the Colonel's finger with his jack-knife, when the punt broke from its moorings and carried them half-a-mile downstream. It was uncanny how the craft had contrived to navigate four bends without giving an opportunity of landing. In the afternoon they had fished from the bank, and the Colonel had fallen asleep while the Adjutant mounted guard. The Adjutant protested ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various
... rapidity at last, and five minutes later began to lick at the edge of the hay-rick, and churn along with a strange hidden force and devil in it. The pace increased with the volume, and told of some prodigious outburst on the moor. The uncanny silence of the swelling water as it slipped downward was a curious feature of it in this phase. Chirgwin and his men huddled together at the side of the rick; then Bartlett held up his hand ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... In the first place, he fancied the nick-name that had been given him was known merely by the rougher element about town, and it sounded strangely coming from her. Again, that was the name they had given him in Ukalla, and it created an uncanny feeling in him that it, of all nick-names, ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... fond of music I have never been able to learn any instrument save the tambourine—my highest success otherwise has been to finger out "God save the Queen" and "We won't go home till morning" on the ocarina—and to this day a person able to play the piano or the fiddle seems possessed of an uncanny gift; but in that remote period of my fresh rescue from the gutter, an executant appeared something superhuman. I stared at him with stupid open mouth. He played what I afterwards learned was one of Brahms's Hungarian dances. His lank figure and long hair worked in unison with the music which filled ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... streets at 3 o'clock in the morning, when few persons are on the street, a well-trained bloodhound would take the trail of the criminal at daybreak and stick to it with a grim determination that appears to be uncanny, and he would follow the trail as swiftly as if the hunted man had left his ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... Kipling's likeness: in his youthful precocity—he was twenty-five when he wrote his Metamorphoses; in his daring as an innovator; in his manly stalwartness in dealing with the calamities of life; in his adventurous note of world-wideness and realistic method of handling the improbable and uncanny. ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... bolt, and turned with a start, for it seemed impossible that this could have been done without some human hand to accomplish the deed. But his sense of touch assured him that he and Cherry were the only persons at this end of the narrow passage, and with a light shiver at the uncanny occurrence, he made up his mind to follow this adventure to ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... the Exhibition in 1851, whither we went with his step- daughter, he spoke to the different foreigners in their own languages, until his daughter saw some of them whispering together and looking as if they thought he was 'uncanny,' and she became alarmed, ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... alderman or pulling the wires to be appointed Commissioner of the Docks. The white clothes situation, however, is serious. It seems that every spare moment I have I am either washing or thinking of washing or just after having washed, and to one who possesses as I do the uncanny faculty of being able to get dirtier in more places in the shortest space of time than any ten street children picked at random could ever equal, life presents one long ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... questioned Sundown. Tense with the stress of an emotion that all but sealed his lips, Sundown turned his white face to Corliss and whispered, "Wait!" The rancher felt that that one terse, whispered word implied more than he cared to imagine. There was something uncanny about the man. If the killing of Sinker could so change the timorous, kindly Sundown to this grim, unbending epitome of lean death and vengeance, what could he himself do to check the wild fury of his riders when they heard of their companion's ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... to the point where they rested upon the wart and peered disconcertingly at Matilda. The upper part of the steel frames crossed her eyeballs horizontally, giving her an uncanny appearance. ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... a curiosity. It bore the Englishman's signature, and hinted at cats—at a Sending of Cats. The mere words on paper were creepy and uncanny to behold. ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... arose to retire to their tent the dead silence of the wilderness was startled by the uncanny cry of a loon. Bob stood for a moment and listened. Then, turning to the ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... all. Its summit was flat, and in the midst of it stood a huge tree. Even had it not been for the fruit which hung from its branches, the aspect of that tree must have struck the beholder as uncanny, even as horrible. The bark on its great bole was leprous white; and from its gaunt and spreading rungs rose branches that subdivided themselves again and again, till at last they terminated in round green fingers, springing from grey, flat slabs ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard
... disregards or ignores its significance. Consider, for example, what an advertising campaign can do with a product's actual specifications. Compare {GIGO}; see also {SNAFU principle}. 2. James Parry , a Usenetter infamous for various surrealist net.pranks and an uncanny, machine-assisted knack for joining any thread in which his nom de ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... driver, no plowman, nothing but the farmer to crank the tractor and start it on its way," Dick exulted, as the uncanny mechanism turned up the brown soil and continued unguided, ever spiraling toward the field's center. "Plow, harrow, roll, seed, fertilize, cultivate, harvest—all from the front porch. And where the farmer can buy juice from a power company, all he, or his wife, will have to do ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... really incited a number of the ambitious, the quarrelsome, and the greedy to enlist in the schemes for Cuba's liberation. Nanigo meetings were held in and near her house; there were wild dances and uncanny ceremonies, sacrificing of animals in the moonlight, baptisms of blood, weird chants and responses, and crime increased in the town. All this being reported to the military the guard lines were extended and a squadron was posted ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... great lover of the country. Nature made her feel small; she found the woods uncanny, the lake made her shudder, there was danger hidden in the tall meadow-grass. She regarded the peasants as cunning and rather filthy beasts. They had so many children, and she had no doubt that both boys and girls were full of vice. Nevertheless they were always invited to the manor house ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... uncanny, terrible. Uncanny was it also to see in the thick dust, which in the course of twenty or more of centuries had gathered on the floor, the mark of footprints, those of the last persons who had visited this place. There had been two of them, a man and a woman, and they were ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... imagined that night had fallen. From east to west and from north to south a dense pall of cloud hung over the earth. Not a leaf moved, and except for the shrill chirp of a grasshopper, not a sound broke the uncanny stillness. ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... ruinous gate yonder with its wild-looking sentry, we reach the open space where crouching hill-men are reposing on the stunted grass, and ungainly camels, kneeling in a circle, are chewing the cud in patience, or venting that uncanny half-whine, half-bellow, which is their only attempt at conversation. Let us take a long look at the country beyond with its gardens teeming with fruit and musical with bird-voices; walk up to the crown of that slant and survey ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... they regard him as a half reptile, who has not yet climbed high enough in the bird scale to deserve recognition; so they let him severely alone. Even the goshawk hesitates before taking a swoop at him, not knowing quite whether the gaudy creature is dangerous or only uncanny. I saw a great hawk once drop like a bolt upon a kingfisher that hung on quivering wings, rattling softly, before his hole in the bank. But the robber lost his nerve at the instant when he should have dropped his claws to strike. He swerved aside and shot upward in a great ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... her mind were talking and her voice were already dead. The tide of life was retreating from her body. I could almost see it visibly ebb away. The failing waves made no sound upon the shore. Death is uncanny, like ...
— The Return Of The Soul - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens
... often indulge in the luxury of a blush, but she changed color now. This big, blunt man sometimes had an uncanny divination. Did he, she asked herself, know what stake she was gambling ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... the fine August morning that starts the tale. Katharine the Fair, men called her, with considerable show of reason. She was very tall, and slim as a rush. Her eyes were large and black, having an extreme lustre, like the gleam of undried ink,—a lustre at some times uncanny. Her abundant hair, too, was black, and to-day seemed doubly sombre by contrast with the gold netting which confined it. Her mouth was scarlet, all curves, and her complexion was famous for its brilliancy; only a precisian would have objected ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... child, what has happened?" Miss Pritchard cried as Elsie relieved her of her wraps and bag, and she dropped weakly into a chair. "I believe your dimples have actually doubled in size since morning. It's positively uncanny, you know, anything like that. Suppose ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... the year after Venetia was liberated from the Austrian yoke and added to United Italy. She was speaking of this one evening to Shield and he said, "It rained very heavily that day, didn't it?" Whereat the old lady, much astonished and evidently suspecting him of some uncanny gift of second sight, replied that indeed it did. But the truth was that he had been reading an account of this historic occasion in a local guide book, which related that, just as Garibaldi came ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... tube, and slowly rose to his feet, still gazing fixedly at nothing in particular in the same uncanny manner, and bringing his right-hand round towards his left hip, as if ready to ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... he could hardly make his way in at the doors. A great treat was expected, but there was among the officers of police some who thought that a portion of the audience would not bear quietly the hard things that would be said, and that there was an uncanny gathering of roughs about the street, who were not prepared to be on their best behaviour when they should be told that old England was ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... upon this story, says, "There is something uncanny about the Celts which makes them love a Trinity of ideas, and the old stories of the Welsh collected in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries include a story very similar about Kilhwch, cousin to Arthur, who threatens if he cannot have ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... could make lightning calculations about crops, hogs, and cattle in his head. However, one man knew better, but he was a "furriner," a geologist, a "rock-pecker" from the Bluegrass. To him Lum betrayed an uncanny eye in discovering coal signs and tracing them to their hidden beds, and wide and valuable knowledge of the same. Once the foreigner lost his barometer just when he was trying to locate a coal vein on the side of the mountain opposite. Two days ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox
... spinster. She knew they would read unfailingly the whole extent of the revelation that had dawned upon her. That the spinster herself knew the truth, and had long known it, she was sure; and she recalled with a shudder the look of those uncanny eyes upon the evening of their little frolic at the Elderkins. She dreaded the thought of ever meeting them again, and still more the thought of listening to the stiff, cold words of consolation which she knew she would count it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... litres, which would represent an annual consumption of about 16 bottles of brandy at 42 degrees, for every man, woman, and child in the department. I did not happen to see any drunken women or children in the department, but M. Jules Simon, in his work, L'Ouvriere, gives an uncanny account of feminine drunkenness at Lille, where there are special cabarets, it seems, for women. I believe no special estaminets have yet been set up there for women addicted to tobacco, and, indeed, I do not know that the civilisation of French Flanders has yet reached the point ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... bank. Lieutenant Bonham-Carter, having sent away his boats, was reduced to a Carley float, an apparatus like an exaggerated lifebuoy with a floor of grating. Upon contact with the water it ignited a calcium flare, and he was adrift in the uncanny illumination with a German machine-gun a few hundred yards away ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... It was uncanny. I closed the window and ran to my bed. I felt for my pulse, and not finding it in my wrist, tried to find it in my temple, then in my chin, and again in my wrist, and everything I touched was cold and clammy with sweat. My breathing came more and more rapidly, my body was shivering, ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... She leaves me almost without comparisons. She is like some character out of Phra the Phoenician: she's been buried for thirty years and just been excavated. That's the way she strikes me. And it's uncanny." ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... uncanny the way in which villages would completely disappear. For instance, at the time when these hamlets first came within our vision, on our reaching the crest of the hill, they appeared almost intact, but a few days rendered them unrecognisable—they had become merely so many heaps of ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose
... somewhere out of the air came a humming sound. It grew louder and louder, and the boys felt a strange suction of wind which made them hold tightly to the rail for fear of being pulled overboard by some uncanny force. There followed a loud snap and a crash, and the ...
— The Rover Boys on Land and Sea - The Crusoes of Seven Islands • Arthur M. Winfield
... as most extraordinary, and almost uncanny, to see the same old stars we knew in England, still above us, so many hundred ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... obediently came to a halt in the opening to the grotto and faced a black-draped dais on which the illustrious prophetess reposed. In the chastened yellow glow, cast by an enormous lantern hung directly over where she now paused, Sara was plainly visible to the uncanny figure on its perch. On the contrary, as Amarna sat well in the shadow, her face still hidden behind her veil, she greatly resembled a huge black blot. "You are not the only child in your father's house," ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... surely," said Richard, putting his arm around her. "What has put such uncanny notions ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... c. 15. The soothsayer's power of divination was tested by asking what his own fate would be. He said he would very soon be devoured by dogs. Domitian desiring to confute such uncanny powers of prediction ordered him to be killed and securely buried. The funeral pyre was knocked down by a storm, and dogs ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... pole with its roots turned towards the grave (this is called SELIKANG); and on the other side of the pole is put another vertical pole with a cross-piece tied at its upper end. Fire is left burning beside these structures. In this way the Kayans symbolically prevent any of the uncanny influences of the graveyard following the party back to the house; though they do not seem to be clear as to whether it is the ghosts of the dead, or the TOH of the neighbourhood, or those which may have contributed to his death, against whom these precautions are taken. This done, the whole party ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... to the exact fashion of his end, until at length weariness overcame him also and, shutting his eyes, Jeekie began to doze. Suddenly he grew aware of the presence of some other person in the room, but thinking that it was only the Asika prowling about in her uncanny fashion, or perhaps her spirit, for how her body entered the place he could not guess, he did not stir, but lay breathing heavily and watching out of the corner of ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... world-wise little sentinel that on none of these occasions had the young man appeared to have taken any advantage of his opportunity, and she was irritated by the amused condescension with which he treated her. He could never realise that this grotesque and tiny creature was not an uncanny child, and he had nicknamed her good-humouredly The Owlet, on account of her ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... the table,—and Mr. Home enjoined this as better than the silent sobriety I looked for—suddenly the table shuddered, and a cold wind swept over our hands laid upon it. "They are coming now," said Mr. Home, which everybody seemed glad of, though that cold wind felt to me not a little "uncanny," but I said nothing in disparagement, for fear of stopping a "manifestation." Soon loud knocks were heard, apparently from the middle of the table, and on sundry spirits being alleged to be present, Mr. ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... something of this sort before from quite another source. Acutely uncomfortable, she changed the subject. There was something uncanny in Philip's perfect ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... of the task remained, of getting Howard into it. In the consideration of this most difficult of problems Honora, who in her exaltation had beheld herself installed in every room, grew suddenly serious. She was startled out of her reflections by a remark of almost uncanny penetration on the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... that had hitherto guided his life. Its lack of compromise appalled him; he felt—like the captain of a ship, going to the side of his vessel, and, with his own hands throwing over the most precious of his bales. This jettisoning of his property with his own hand seemed uncanny to Soames. It would injure him in his profession: He would have to get rid of the house at Robin Hill, on which he had spent so much money, so much anticipation—and at a sacrifice. And she! She would no longer belong to him, not even ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... halted to investigate, whereupon Phil cautiously drew his bowstring, released it with a loud twang, and the arrow, flying straight and true, pierced the creature's heart, so that it fell dead in its tracks, and they had their first deer. And now again Stukely gave fresh evidence of his uncanny knowledge, for although he had never before killed a deer, and might be supposed to know nothing of the verderer's art, he at once set to work to skin and "break up" the animal with all the skill of an adept. So that night they feasted sumptuously upon venison ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... derives the name from 'Choldicombe, or rather Coldecombe, from its cold situation, next neighbour to Exmoor;' and he speaks of 'divers hillocks of earth and stones ... termed burrows and distinguished by sundry names,' in the parish, and hints at their uncanny nature by telling how 'fiery dragons have been seen flying and lighting on them.' Such tales he dismisses scornfully, but he tells of 'a strange accident' that happened 'within these seven years, verified by oath of the party, who otherwise might have had credit for his ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... of childbirth and the wonder of it obsessed Kirk as time crept on. And still more was he conscious of the horrible dread that was gathering within him. Ruth's unvarying cheerfulness was to him almost uncanny. None of the doubts and fears which blackened his life appeared to touch her. Once he confided these to his friend, the little doctor, and was thoroughly bullied by him for his foolishness. But in spite of ridicule the fear crept back, ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... changed so far as I can see. The same old tiger-skin there, the rugs, the books, the pictures—the leopard's skin here and the—yes, the lamp is just where it used to be. 'Pon my soul, I believe you are standing just as you were when I last saw you here. It's uncanny. One might think you had not moved in all ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... and again high mounds of earth, mossy and green, rose on either side, and the wood grew denser. He was uneasy, and half wished he had kept to the edge of the cliff, where the way was clear, for he seemed to have left the world behind him. There was something uncanny in the dead silence, and he quite startled when a rabbit jumped across his path into a hole. But the next moment, boy-like, he wished he had had the dogs with him that ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... things come in, like this: '500 words story involving Stanhope, Rochester Tribune.' 'No. 3.—' That was the number of our story on the query list.—'No. 3.—Full details, Chicago Ledger.' 'No. 3—1000 words, Philadelphia Journal.' And so on and on. It looked uncanny, I tell you—all those far-away people calling for information about our affairs just like old friends. Will you kindly let your mind play about that a minute, Laurence? Will you kindly think of a situation ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... a mile further on, she came to a huge button-ball tree that marked the trysting-place. Its great trunk and long branches, spotted with white patches, like scars on the twisted limbs of a giant, confronted her as a hideous and uncanny thing. This tree, the only kind in all the country that lacked beauty of line and colour, received a touch of ghastliness from the atmosphere that enveloped it which was not without its effect upon her imagination, and when she saw the mayor emerge from its shadow, she started as if ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... artificiality separating them, making each happier when alone. Thus day after day, monotonous, unchanging, went by. Not another person entered their door. From the little town a man at periods brought provisions and their mail, but the house was acquiring an uncanny reputation. They were not understood, and such are ever foreign. With the passage of time and the coming of the mound in the dooryard, the feeling had developed into positive fear, and travellers avoided the place as though warned by a ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... look of those creatures at all," said Zaidie, when the Astronef had come to a stop and was floating about ten miles above the surface. "They're altogether too uncanny. They look to me something like jelly-fish about the size of whales, only they have eyes and mouths. Did you ever see such awful-looking eyes, bigger than soup-plates and as bright as a cat's. I suppose that's because of the dim ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... second year in the suburban house is a crisis and turning-point in your life, for it will make of you either a city man or a suburban, and it will surely save you from being, for all the rest of your days, that hideous betwixt-and-between thing, that uncanny creation of modern days of rapid transit, who fluctuates helplessly between one town and another; between town and city, and between town and city again, seeking an impossible and unattainable perfection, and scattering remonstrant servant-maids and disputed ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... And his uncanny smile again beamed on me. "Andrea is now packing his valise. In an hour he will have left Paris secretly. He goes—but what does it signify where he goes? He is compelled by your indiscretion to withdraw ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... to it that there was something uncanny about it—the idea of a machine making boots was enough to haunt him. He kept ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... her and that blackguard Slotman," he thought. "There is something about that man—snake—toad—something uncanny. She's there; she has money and he's out for money. If I can sit here and tell myself that I have scared Slotman from offending and annoying her again, I am an idiot. When there's money to be gained, a man like Slotman will want a lot ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... being whirled down the avenue of Beauleys and up along the narrow country lane, wreathed with honeysuckle and wild roses, to Blackbird's Nest. He leaned back in the great car, his unseeing eyes travelling over the quiet landscape. There was something out of keeping, a little uncanny, even, in the flight of the motor-car with its solitary passenger along the country lane, past the hay carts, and the villagers resting after their long day's toil. The man who leaned back amongst the cushions, with his pale, ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... again pressed the button of his torch, shining it all about the low-beamed apartment and peering curiously into the weird shadows of the place. He calculated he was now in the position which Cohen had occupied during the last moments of his life, and a sense of the uncanny touched him coldly. ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... worse, Ned. That man's eye and voice had something uncanny in them. Mellot said he would go crazed some day; and be hanged if I don't think he ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... there are very heavy penalties for trumped-up cases, for unwarranted threat of legal proceedings, for perjured evidence; still the abuse of the sycophants exists, and a great many of the lawsuits originate with this uncanny tribe. ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... Quixotic redemption in specie was beyond him entirely. He gave it up. The counting of discs was more tangible to his philosophy. His rusty black tile, so wondrously become a cornucopia of wealth, had by that same magic upset the old fellow into a kind of hysterical gaiety, which was most elfish and uncanny. He motioned ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... shrieked Frank. "That's uncanny! Whoever heard of a man walking about at the bottom of ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... the clubfooted Grizzly ranged the Sierra Nevada from Lassen county to Mono, invulnerable, invincible and mysterious, and every old hunter in the mountains had an awesome story to tell of the ferocity and uncanny craft of the beast and of his own miraculous escape from the jaws of the bear after shooting enough lead at him to start a smelter. Old Brin was a never-failing recourse of the country editor when the foreman was insistent for copy, and those who undertook to preserve the fame of his exploits ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... don't see what good can come of it, and it's all very strange and uncanny. I don't know how to explain it; but, indeed, it isn't anything personal. It's because you are of a state of things so utterly opposed to human nature that I don't see how—I ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... the man as he looked down in her eyes that he was looking into great fear; she was so slight and frail and helpless and so old; such a fragile thing to bear burden and trouble. Her voice was cracked and just above a shrill whisper, almost uncanny. She kept repeating: ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... new and wild, and sets one's imagination working in harmony with Gogol's "Terrible Vengeance." Particularly fantastic are the alternating precipices and tunnels when you see now depths full of moonlight and now complete sinister darkness. It is rather uncanny and delightful. One feels it is something not Russian, something alien. I reached Sevastopol at night. The town is beautiful in itself and beautiful because it stands by a marvellous sea. The best in the sea is its colour, and that ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... his expression. He was not a bit like me, really; yet, as we stood leaning over my bed-place, whispering side by side, with our dark heads together and our backs to the door, anybody bold enough to open it stealthily would have been treated to the uncanny sight of a double captain busy talking in whispers with ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... through the throngs on the sidewalks or the traffic of the crossings, and along the open way she would keep step with him easily and surely, her cheeks glowing with the brisk movement; and she could tell him with uncanny exactness when they came abreast of the old elk paddock and the bowling greens, or the rock groynes and bathhouse at Second Beach. She knew always when they turned the wide curve farther out, where through a fringe of maple and black alder there opened a clear view of all ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... we had left our camps in the woods, where we had spent the night. I could hardly get used to the start they gave me, as sometimes they flew right up from under the feet of my dogs. They seemed like wee ghosts, they were so very white, and my dogs as well as myself were disturbed by their uncanny ways." ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... downright uncanny," Anthony was thinking, as he munched his toast, "the effect she produces upon a man; the way she pursues one, persists with one. I see her, I hear her voice, her laughter, as clearly as if she were still present. I can't get rid of her, ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... about the times when I really play. But, excepting when the mood is on me, I don't care to think of those times. I never feel really myself when it happens. I seem to be listening to somebody else playing, and trying to remember something I have hopelessly forgotten. It gives me a strained, uncanny ...
— The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay
... little later, when Mary Magna drove up to the Labor Temple in her big limousine. Mary, for the first time in the memory of anyone who knew her, was without her war-paint; dressed like a Quakeress—a most uncanny phenomenon! She had not a single jewel on; and before long I learned why—she had taken all she owned to a jeweler that morning, and sold them for something over six thousand dollars. She brought the money to the fund for the babies of the strikers; nor did she ask anyone else to ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... miserably starved black cat, that made a ten foot leap when she first espied me, was the only sign of life on the place, while the many rag-stuffed broken window panes plainly indicated that great changes had been made at the "big" house since my last departure. There was something uncanny in the silence about the place, and a strange gloom seemed to have settled over everything that foreboded to me only ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... Rhoda Gray settled herself on the doorstep, supporting the woman's head in her lap. Her face had set again in grim, hard, perplexed lines. There seemed something unnatural, something menacingly weird, something even uncanny about it all. Perhaps it was because it seemed as though she could so surely foresee the end. Gypsy Nan would not live through the night. Something told her that. The woman's masquerade, for whatever purpose it had been assumed, ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... doing everything. Miss Prescott had an uncanny instinct for finding it; and, applying this faculty to her training of the child-mind, she presented herself as a notable exponent of the system in which, as has been said, she was certificated and diplomaed. She taught children how to play ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... of Autumn, the height of the Carnival of Decay, the roses have got inflammation in their blushes, an uncanny hectic ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... rising straight up into the western heavens, while the wind whirled along and twisted into quaint shapes a ragged rift of white vapor, which went hurrying by, almost touching the tops of the moaning firs,—altogether an uncanny evening to be keeping tryst at the top of a wild knoll; and so thought our friend with the horses, and showed it, too, clearly enough, had anyone been there to put a construction on ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... volition the organ sent forth, to break the still hours, a blood-curdling basso-profundo groan that suggested ghosts to their superstitious minds. The housemaid came to regard the instrument as something uncanny, and, even as the cook had done before her, shook the dust of the house ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... threw an uncanny light over the distorted scenes in the areas where the homes of 75,000 people were swept away or toppled over. A view down almost any street revealed among the wreckage, tumbled-over houses, pianos, household utensils and dead horses brushed together in indescribable ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall
... hours wore on and Lena began to grow horribly lonesome. It was an uncanny night and this was an uncanny place to be in. She could hear the coyotes howling hungrily a little way from the cabin, and more terrible still were all the unknown noises of the storm. She remembered the tales they told of the big log overhead and she was afraid of those ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... Jefferson to herself in alarm. "I'm sure she's a Rosicrucian or something of that sort. It's interesting, but uncanny. I'm quite out of my depth. I don't know what she means. Do you really mean to say," she added aloud, "that this story might be true; that you have two bodies and can slip from one to ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... was proportionately proud of it. Meanwhile, Charlotte and I, crouched in the window-seat, watched, spell-stricken, the whirl and eddy and drive of the innumerable snow-flakes, wrapping our cheery little world in an uncanny uniform, ghastly in line ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... could do it another could, especially if they had learned how to get in tune with the Infinite. Len says all right, how much does she want to risk? And that scares her plumb stiff again, in spite of her uncanny powers. She says it wouldn't be right to risk one cent unless she could be sure the number ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... again, and Jacker moved uneasily. He was anxious to be out of the mine and away from the uncanny possibilities of that dark chasm, and yet it was absolutely necessary that he should show no sign of funk, leave no opening for the tongue of derision. Some day, perhaps, when the full strength of the company was available and candles ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... there came the recollection of his turning to look into the face of that magnificent looking young man who had been the cynosure of all eyes as he left the church with his mother. He was conscious also of a strange uncanny sense that this smiling handsome man, with mocking, dancing light in his ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... his gaze wander back to the town, in which he detected an appearance of liveliness and bustle not usual in New England villages, large or small. The main street was dotted with groups of men and women; and isolated figures, to which perhaps the distance lent a kind of uncanny aspect, were to be seen hurrying hither ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... cases. With the injection of a minute quantity of fluid into the spine all sensation disappears up to the level of the arms, and, provided he cannot see what is going on, any operation below that level can be carried out without the patient knowing anything about it at all. It is rather uncanny at first to see a patient lying smoking a cigarette and reading the paper whilst on the other side of a screen a big operation is in progress. But for many cases this method is unsuitable, and without chloroform we should indeed have been at a loss. The Belgians are an abstemious ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar
... having gladly undertaken the job, as soon as the night set in made his preparations, and went to the place indicated—an uncanny-looking, tumble-down, lonely old shrine, all overgrown with moss and rank vegetation. However, Jiuyemon, who was afraid of nothing, cared little for the appearance of the place, and having made himself as comfortable as he could in so dreary ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... adder, and such East Indian species as the king cobra, the spectacled cobra and Russell's viper, and although there is indelibly stamped upon his mind the bloated body, the glassy stare and the rhythmic hissing of the berg adder, the rearing, uncanny pose of an infuriated cobra—there is one image vivid above all, the rattlesnake. Thrown into a gracefully symmetrical coil, the body inflated, the neck arched in an oblique bow in support of the heart-shaped head, the slowly waving tongue ...
— Pathfinder - or, The Missing Tenderfoot • Alan Douglas
... say, by what?) I felt my way out of the room and to the head of the staircase. I remembered the candle and candlestick I had heard thrown down on the lower floor by Carmel Cumberland. I would secure them and come back and settle these uncanny doubts. It might be the veriest fool business, but my mind was disturbed and must be set at ease. Nothing else seemed so important, yet I was not without anxiety for the lovely and delicate woman wandering the snow-covered roads in the teeth of a ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... arrange it—we will go up to the top of the hill where we rested to-day, and lodge there; our beds of leaves shall be all in a circle, and Johnny's shall be in the middle; and then he won't feel lonesome or afraid, for all the uncanny noises of the wind and the trees; knowing that he has good friends and true all around him, and particularly one stout John Browne, who is worth all the rest together, being a fair match for any thing in this part of the ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... hair, a broad forehead, and bushy eyebrows which came close together over a long, thin, arched nose. He was near-sighted. His eyes, of a bluish-gray color, were usually inflamed, but very expressive when he spoke with animation. One friend credits him with an 'eagle's glance', another with an uncanny, demonic expression. He had a strong chin, a prominent under-lip, and sunken, freckled cheeks. Altogether his face and bearing told of immense energy.—One can imagine how the creator of Karl Moor must have felt in his new situation. The young lion ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... transparent needles, being invisible, are touched before they are seen. When they catch hold of a moving object, be it horse or cowboy, an impulse is imparted to the plant that makes it seem to jump. It is an uncanny movement and is something more than an ocular illusion, as the victim is ready ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk
... bit, wait a bit," he continued, as Mrs. Lake again tried to make him (willing to) hear that she wanted none of his wares; and, vanishing with the uncanny quickness common to him, he waddled swiftly back again to his cart, and returned, before Mrs. Lake could secure herself from intrusion, laden with a fresh supply of pictures, the weight of which it seemed marvellous that he ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... held forth my letter and two or three other papers pinned together. I saw that they were references written in varying feminine chirography. Her silence was almost uncanny. ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison |
