"Disconcerting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... newspapers, and all the adjuncts of modern progress were unknown, was the period when men did good and enduring work. They could then concentrate their minds upon their art free from those hundred-and-one discomposing and disconcerting influences which are the concomitants of modern civilisation. The true artist thinks only of his art; for him it is not merely a predominant, but his sole interest. He brings to it all his mind, his ideas and ideals, ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... casualties, but the only one we had was one man who got a scratch in the arm with a piece of shrapnel. At 5.15 we decided to come back via a trench, as the shelling was still going on. All got back safely. But it is most disconcerting—one cannot go out on a little job like that in the afternoon without having the wind put up us vertical! I had tea and dinner. Then to bed. I felt very hot and could not get to sleep. Allen returned from a working party at 10.15 p.m. There ...
— At Ypres with Best-Dunkley • Thomas Hope Floyd
... in itself have been a sufficiently irritating interruption in the early life of Eugenette, and in the early establishment of Eugenics. But a far more dreadful and disconcerting fact must be noted. With whom, alas, did England go to war? England went to war with the Superman in his native home. She went to war with that very land of scientific culture from which the very ideal of a Superman had come. She went to ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... friendly intentions of their visitors, were still a little nervous, for, despite the fact that none of the natives carried even so much as a knife, the wild appearance they presented was somewhat disconcerting to men who had never before come in contact with what they termed "savages." Fully one half of Malie's followers were men of such stature that the undersized though wiry Chilenos looked like dwarfs ...
— John Frewen, South Sea Whaler - 1904 • Louis Becke
... "It was disconcerting assuredly, and it might have served if Linda hadn't written. That patched it up," I gaily professed. But my gaiety was thin, for I was still amazed at her violence of a moment before. "Do you really mean that ...
— Louisa Pallant • Henry James
... fairy-land of idealism where only the miraculous seems a matter of course and every hint of what is purely natural is disregarded, for the truly natural still seems artificial, dead, and remote. New and disconcerting facts, which intrude themselves inopportunely into the story, chill the currents of spontaneous imagination and are rejected as long as possible for being alien and perverse. Perceptions, on the contrary, which can be attached to the old presences ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... not forgotten, which was disconcerting. To cover up my own doubts I asked him with affected confidence and cheerfulness whether he was not afraid to risk this journey "down below," that is, to the ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... a wood I could plainly see the smoke of the gun itself rising above the trees. Two more shells from the big gun exploded within twenty yards of each other, and then, with disconcerting suddenness, a French battery came into action within a hundred yards of our strawstack cover. They had evidently been there for some time, awaiting eventualities, for we had no suspicion of their proximity, and they ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... penalty of immediate separation. In this affair real meanings are rarely conveyed except by silences. Words are not more than tasteless drapery to obscure their lines. The silence of lovers is the plainest of all speech, warning, disconcerting indeed, by its very bluntness, any but the truly mated. An hour's silence with these two people by themselves might have ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... the severe look, expressive at once of displeasure and astonishment, were most disconcerting, but Mr. Cornell managed ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... is nutrition of energy reduced to its simplest expression: the motive heat, instead of being extracted from the food, is utilized direct, as supplied by the sun, which is the seat of all life. Inert matter has disconcerting secrets, as witness radium; living matter has secrets of its own, which are more wonderful still. Nothing tells us that science will not one day turn the suspicion suggested by the Spider into an established truth and a fundamental ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... minute later, curled up on a heap of straw on the shady side of our big barn. He got up as we approached, and stared at us with a curious derisive intentness of glance, slightly disconcerting. ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... fellow, "so they have been exchanging confidences, and my manner is disconcerting—not what was expected. If I have become a jest between them it shall be a short-lived one. Miss Hargrove, with all her city experience, shall find that I'm not so young and verdant but that I can take a hand in this game also. As for Amy, I now know she never cared for me, and I don't ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... walked slowly to her mother's side, with disconcerting dignity, all out of proportion ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... La Mothe, very ill at ease, and flushing as youth will in the shame of its pride. It was almost as disconcerting as being found ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... she had not considered how her clothes had been soiled in the moor woman's brewhouse. Her garments were covered with mud; a snake had fastened in her hair, and dangled down her back; and out of each fold of her frock a great toad looked forth, croaking like an asthmatic poodle. That was very disconcerting. "But all the rest of them down here look horrible," she observed to herself, and derived ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... gifts as a raconteur, the supper passed off pleasantly enough. This great man could unfold the varied pages of his mind with disconcerting ease. He knew everything, and could talk and act with inimitable vivacity. His anecdotes were always instructive, drawn from his manifold sources of knowledge in art or science. Mlle. Frahender was stupified by so much eclecticism, the philosopher forgot his grief, Madame Darbois realized ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... is so easy for one to get a supply of ready-made knowledge that it is hard to keep from applying it indiscriminately. We make incursions into our neighbor's affairs and straighten them out with a ruthless righteousness which is very disconcerting to him, especially when he has never had the pleasure of our acquaintance till we came to set him right. There is a certain modesty of conscience which would perhaps be more becoming. It comes only with the realization of practical difficulties. I like the remark of Sir Fulke Greville ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... man of letters—showed for beautifully correct in his tall black hat and his superior frock coat. Somehow, all the same, these very garments—he wouldn't have minded them so much on a weekday—were disconcerting to Paul Overt, who forgot for the moment that the head of the profession was not a bit better dressed than himself. He had caught a glimpse of a regular face, a fresh colour, a brown moustache and a pair of eyes ...
— The Lesson of the Master • Henry James
... reasons of her own, the Queen had seen fit to look into Malone's mind. She'd found him worrying, and called him about it. It was, Malone thought, sweet of her in a way. But it was also just a bit disconcerting. ...
— The Impossibles • Gordon Randall Garrett
... of any sound betokening their activity was disconcerting. However, my wife thought it best to lay siege to Whiteley's rather than to enter ...
— The War of the Wenuses • C. L. Graves and E. V. Lucas
... particular order of beauty. To the average man color—as color—has nothing significant to say: to him grass is green, snow is white, the sky blue; and to have his attention drawn to the fact that sometimes grass is yellow, snow blue, and the sky green, is disconcerting rather than illuminating. It is only when his retina is assaulted by some splendid sunset or sky-encircling rainbow that he is able to disassociate the idea of color from that of form and substance. Even the artist is at ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... years had elapsed since the death of her husband's partner William Twemlow, and a quarter of a century since William's wild son, Arthur, had run away to America. Yet Uncle Meshach's letter seemed to invest these far-off things with a mysterious and disconcerting actuality. The misgivings about her husband which long practice and continual effort had taught her how to keep at bay, suddenly overleapt their artificial barriers and swarmed ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... more disconcerting for Charles, because of the speedy abatement of the enthusiasm that had hailed his first appearance. What had happened to him was what generally happens to a conqueror who has more good luck than talent; instead of making himself a party among the great Neapolitan ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the stove, and, after reckless expenditure of Mr. Cashell's coal, drove some warmth into the shop. I explored many of the glass- knobbed drawers that lined the walls, tasted some disconcerting drugs, and, by the aid of a few cardamoms, ground ginger, chloric-ether, and dilute alcohol, manufactured a new and wildish drink, of which I bore a glassful to young Mr. Cashell, busy in the back office. He laughed shortly ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... little of each other, and Albert, puzzled, began to enter upon his opportunity (a wide and lingering one it became) for learning adjustment to awkward and disconcerting conditions. ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... feet long by about four feet beam, and with two men in her she would probably run before wind and sea at a speed of about six and a half knots. Then, still allowing her to have had nine hours' start of us, we came to the disconcerting conclusion that at the precise moment when we were discussing the question she must be within ten miles of her destination, while we still had a run of some fifty miles before us. In that case, of course, it ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... difficulty in her calculations. She felt that the longer she delayed mention of the fact, the more likely was she to excite suspicion; on the other hand, she could not devise the suitable terms in which to reveal it. The steady gaze of the old man was disconcerting. Not that he searched her face with a cunning scrutiny, such as her own eyes expressed; she would have found that less troublesome, as being familiar. The anxiety, the troubled anticipation, which her words had aroused in him, were wholly free from shadow of ignoble motive; he was pained, and the ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... kind of thing was a little disconcerting to remember now. Truly, the things in themselves had been admirably conceived and faithfully executed, but they seemed to show that Frank was the kind of person who really carried through what other people only talked about—and especially if he announced ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... connected Great Britain with the Canadas. Although at the epoch of the declaration of war the country was destitute both of troops and money, yet from the devotion of a brave and loyal, yet unjustly calumniated people, resources sufficient for disconcerting the plans of conquest devised by a foe, at once numerous and elate with confidence, had been derived. The blood of the sons of Canada had flowed mingled with that of the brave soldiers sent for its defence, when re-inforcements were afterwards ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... the ring of the girl's laughter as she bade her escort goodbye at the door. He started to go down at once and begin the struggle. Something in the ring of her young voice stopped him. There was a joyous strength in it that was disconcerting. A girl who laughed like that had poise. She was an individual. He liked, too, the tones of her voice before he ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... indications of her real self; and though it might be impossible for one of her curiously secretive temperament to lift the veil altogether, and to open her heart without reserve, she would be likely in some way to enable the reader to realise her mental attitude. Therefore it is disconcerting and disquieting to discover that the one noticeable characteristic of the letter, is utter want of feeling. No anxiety is expressed about the growing illness of the sick man, not a word tells of fears so terrible that she hardly dares breathe them, about the ultimate result of his malady; on ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... was demanded; in a clear, disconcerting flash, the situation was laid bare. Here was woman desiring the love of man; woman determined to reap her spoil. It was one issue in the deathless, relentless struggle—the struggle wherein the little Jacqueline clung to her M. Cartel, tenacious as the frail fern to the ungainly rock—wherein ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... at first sight disconcerting to find Pepys no less impatient of The Merry Wives of Windsor. He expresses a mild interest in the humours of "the country gentleman and the French doctor." But he condemns the play as a whole. It is in ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... orchestra go with the piano in the Concerto? Had they taken care to have enough rehearsals? There are several passages that require minute care; the modulations are abrupt, and the variety of the movements is somewhat disconcerting for the conductor. And, in addition to this, the traitor triangle (proh pudor!) [Oh shame!], however excited he may be to strike strong with his cunning little rhythm, marked pianissimo, provokes ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... his attention, and in a very disconcerting way, were the glimpses of English life one sees reproduced so faithfully here and there in Canada. The whole of the past rushed back on him so overpoweringly that he was for the moment unnerved. The acute feeling of course soon became mitigated; but it was the beginning of a re-realisation ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... that it was all over before it had begun. At least, so Amy declared afterwards. The car, which fortunately had decreased its speed to negotiate an abrupt turn in the road, suddenly shot down a slope at the left, turned around once and stopped with a disconcerting abruptness, its radiator against a four-inch birch tree. Clint and Amy picked themselves from the bottom of the tonneau and stared, more surprised than frightened. Behind them, on the level road, a wheel—present ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... strong, healthy, normal man to see another cry is a disconcerting and uncomfortable experience. Masculine tears do not flow easily and poor George, on the verge of hysterics, was a pitiful and distressing spectacle. I was almost as completely disorganized as he. I felt ashamed for him and ashamed of myself for having seen him in such a condition. I wanted ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... hesitation. He was a rather nice young fellow, with the inborn idea that, theoretically, there couldn't be too many girls, but there was no denying the fact that Algonquin seemed to have more than her fair share. Only, Leslie was always so startlingly truthful, it was sometimes rather disconcerting to hear one's half-formed thoughts spoken out incisively as was ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... commanding H.M. surveying ship Albatross, had an unpleasant shock when he turned out of his bunk at daybreak one morning. The barometer stood at 29.41'. For two or three days the vessel had encountered dirty weather, but there had been signs of improvement when he turned in, and it was decidedly disconcerting to find that the glass had fallen. His vessel was a small one, and he was a little uneasy at the prospect of being caught by a cyclone while in the imperfectly-charted waters of the ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... portrait to be that of a housekeeper on account of the shawl—a strange article of dress, difficult to associate with a romantic singer. All the same, Evelyn was very probable in this picture; her past and her future were in this disconcerting compound of the commonplace and the rare; and the confusion which this picture created in the minds of Owen's friends was aggravated by the strange elliptical execution. Owen admitted the drawing to be not altogether grammatical; one eye was a little lower than the other, but the eyes were beautifully ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... to be pleasant. They had a habit of bobbing up and down perpendicularly, so as to see over the edge of a floe, in looking for seals. The huge black and yellow heads with sickening pig eyes only a few yards from us at times, and always around us, are among the most disconcerting recollections I have of that day. The immense fins were bad enough, but when they started a perpendicular dodge they were positively beastly. As the day wore on skua gulls, looking upon us as certain carrion, settled down comfortably near us to await developments. The swell, however, was ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... offers an amusing study of the play of social conventions. The "twins" illustrate the disconcerting effects of that perfect frankness which would make life intolerable. Gloria demonstrates the powerlessness of reason to overcome natural instincts. The idea that parental duties and functions can be fulfilled by the light of such knowledge as man and woman ...
— Arms and the Man • George Bernard Shaw
... mark of extreme discourtesy to complain to the host or hostess, or in any way to show disrespect or dislike towards the other guest. To purposely ignore him or her, obviously to show one's prejudice, is very rude. It is most disconcerting to the host for either of them to show discontent or to leave the house party because of the unwelcome presence of the other. It is best for them to be formally courteous to each other and not in any way to interfere with the enjoyment ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... that to one who has been close shut up, though it be only for ten or eleven days, seeing but stone walls and a very few stony faces, the sudden entrance into a great hall filled with life, is a rather disconcerting and startling circumstance. To this, it must be added, that life in a wig is to a large class of people much more terrifying and impressive than life with its own head of hair; and if, in addition to these considerations, there be taken into account ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... the woods, and there is ever a mischievous, bantering, half-ironical undertone in her lay, as if she were conscious of mimicking and disconcerting some envied songster. Ambitious of song, practicing and rehearsing in private, she yet seems the least sincere and genuine of the sylvan minstrels, as if she had taken up music only to be in the fashion, or ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... disconcerting. There was a distinct note of disapproval in her voice as she answered, "I do not know much about Italy." She seemed to think it not quite a seemly subject, yet she pursued it. "I should have thought it was better ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... himself with him, so much the more so as the vanquished Catholic and the discontented Socialists have several common hatreds. Even on this particular morning we have seen with what indulgence he bore the brusqueness of the old bookseller, at whom he gazed for ten minutes without disconcerting him in the least. At length the revolutionist seemed to have finished his epigram, for with a quiet smile he carefully folded the sheet of paper, put it in a wooden box which he locked. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Dane came back to the present and flushed. He dreaded admitting to a nightmare—especially to Ali whose poise he had always found disconcerting. ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... take place, and, if he remained where he was, nothing could save him from the treacherous assault. It was a matter, therefore, of self preservation that dictated the brief retreat with the hope of thus disconcerting the savage. ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... much engaged in feeling for my left stirrup to make any reply, and presently the horse spoke once more. 'I say,' he inquired, and I failed to discern the slightest trace of respect in his tone—'do you think you can ride?' You can judge for yourself how disconcerting the inquiry must have been from such lips: I felt rooted to the saddle—a sensation which, with me, was sufficiently rare. I looked round in helpless bewilderment, at the shimmering Serpentine, and the white houses ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... obedience. All looked forward with anxiety to the result; but no one with more apprehension than Cromwell. His life was at stake. The Levellers had threatened to make him pay with his head the forfeit of his intrigues with Charles; and the flight of that prince, by disconcerting their plans, had irritated their former animosity. On the appointed day ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... necessary to prevent the canoe's frail sides from being dashed on the rocks. Then it met a curling wave, into which it plunged like an impetuous charger, and was checked for a moment by its own violence. Presently an eddy threw the canoe a little out of its course, disconcerting Charley's intention of shaving a rock, which lay in their track, so that he slightly ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... other side of the hills, I remembered, dipped their chalk cliffs straight into the sea, and strange lost winds must often come a-wandering this way with the sharp changes of temperature about sunset. None the less, it was disconcerting to know that mist and storm lay hiding within possible reach, and I walked on smartly for a sight of Tom Bassett's cottage and the lights of the Manor House in the ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... Mary Cary's eyes, which in the beginning of his speech had been bent on a letter held in her hand lest the laughter in them be seen, were raised, and she was now looking at him with a steadiness which was disconcerting, and the ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... the enmity of the Magyar is disconcerting. By crossing the Danube, Serbia has become genuinely part of Europe; she has turned her back on the Balkans and the eternal strife on barren empty hills. The new Serbia can afford to forget and forgive Bulgaria, ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... the side of her mouth, a disconcerting characteristic of hers, and looked at him archly. "Those pals of yours have quite a bit on the ball on their own. They decided that there was a fairly good chance that Sven Zetterberg wasn't exactly going to fall into your arms, so they took preliminary measures. Kenny Ballalou ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... catcher and snapped to second, a game may be won or lost just on this play alone. If the opposing team finds that it can make second in safety by going down with the pitcher's arm, it will surely take full advantage of the knowledge. To have a man on second is disconcerting to the pitcher as well as a difficult man to handle. It therefore follows that a catcher who cannot throw accurately to the bases becomes a serious disadvantage to his team. In the old days a catcher had to be able to catch either with bare hand or with a light glove, but ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... greater simplicity in the melody came the greatest possible simplicity in the harmony. There is a kind of awkwardness to be found in the music of all the pundits which almost defies analysis. The progressions are correct enough, are good enough grammar, yet the result is more disconcerting, even distressing, to the ear than a schoolboy's first efforts. Of this style of harmony the Italians were masters, and too often in his Rienzi days Wagner, thinking of his "melody" (for at that time by "melody" he meant Bellini melody), ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... in mid-November by way of Orgon [Aix], Brignolles and le Muy, striking the Mediterranean at Frejus. En route he was inveigled into a controversy of unwonted bitterness with an innkeeper at le Muy. The scene is conjured up for us with an almost disconcerting actuality; no single detail of the author's discomfiture is omitted. The episode is post-Flaubertian in its impersonal detachment, or, as Coleridge first said, "aloofness." On crossing the Var, the sunny climate, the romantic ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... was off. In that land of polygamy and deportations it is frequent enough that one brother does not know the other by sight; but it must be disconcerting, all the same, to have a supposititious brother sprung on you. He gave a perceptible start, as he had not done when first addressed ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... disconcerting silence follows this speech. Madam hums a tune; Mrs. Herrick loses herself in her knitting; but Mr. Kelly, who is ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... facts. To discover that our exports to the southern continent do not equal $2 per capita of South America's population will surprise the investigator, doubtless; and that the volume of trade is overwhelmingly with England and Germany will likewise be disconcerting. South America has 40,000,000 people; but Mexico's 13,500,000 inhabitants buy nearly as much from Uncle Sam as the South Americans. We now sell Canadians products ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... all ages, called this the caprice of the waves. But there is no such thing as caprice. The disconcerting enigmas which in nature we call caprice, and in human life chance, are splinters of a law revealed to us ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... mist had broken loose and was floating about. Once a fox, somewhere in the utter silence of the forest depths, barked a hoarse, sharp, malicious sound; and once, hoarser still and very hollowly, a great horned owl hooted with disconcerting suddenness. (The scream of a rabbit followed these two, but whether fox or owl had been in at that killing the wolverine never knew.) Twice a wood-hare turning now to match the whiteness of its surroundings, finicked up ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... mother's, passed over the young man's face; but whereas only Amabel's hands and body trembled, it was the muscles of Augustine's lips, nostrils and brows that were affected, and to see the strength of his face so shaken was disconcerting, painful. ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... me that you wish to see me," she said the merest conventionality to break the disconcerting, ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... these summaries how little Kuprin "pads" his stories. Most of them are reduced to a commonplace anecdote, which the author is careful not to ornament in the least. He respects truth to such a degree that he offers it to his readers in its disconcerting bareness. He would think that he was failing in his duty as an observer if he disguised it by ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... not fear to give us equal suffrage in love. Our honesty will not be disconcerting. (I would even address a private query, at just this point, to the women, begging that the men will skip it, asking women where in the world we would find ourselves if we were unflinchingly honest with the men who love us?) No one will deny ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... was a dangerous turmoil of broken water, foaming off to a shallow. The fish was manifestly a good one, and must be kept from those rocks at all hazards. Once in the hurly-burly of the foam the chances would be all on its side. Not a little disconcerting was it to find that it was making to this place with persevering steadiness. The tackle was tried and good; nothing was likely to give but the mouth of the fish. At one time my heart sank, and I feared I was to be outdone again. Pulling hard, the salmon forced me along the pebbly ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... climbing after his enemy, and then rolling over by his own weight. Or hunters came, almost unarmed, and gaining the victory by swiftness and dexterity, throwing a piece of cloth over a lion's head, or disconcerting him by putting their fist down his throat. But it was not only skill, but death, that the Romans loved to see; and condemned criminals and deserters were reserved to feast the lions, and to entertain ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... cynical tone, and Lionel had turned cold at his words. He stood a long while in silence there, turning them over in his mind and considering the riddle which they presented him. He thought of asking his brother bluntly for the key to it, for the precise meaning of his disconcerting statement, but courage failed him. He feared lest Sir Oliver should confirm his own dread ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... young eyes were blinded by the lustrous dazzle. Oh, well! It was all in the day's work, all in the difference between nineteen and thirty-nine, he told himself as patiently as he was able. And his mother at thirty-nine, he realized with disconcerting clearness, was infinitely older than Professor Mansfield's wife at sixty. Indeed, he sometimes wondered if she ever had been really young, ever really young enough to forget her heritage of piety in healthy, worldly zeal. Whatever the depths of one's filial devotion, it sometimes jars ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... quality of Mr. Cannon's voice,—she was sure that, though in speaking to her mother he was softly persuasive, he had used to herself a tone even more intimate and ingratiating. He and she had a secret; they were conspirators together: which fact was both disconcerting and delicious. She recalled their propinquity in the lobby; the remembered syllables which he had uttered mingled with the faint scent of his broadcloth, the whiteness of his wristbands, the gleam of his studs, the droop of his moustaches, the downward ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... two most memorable things are the adorable bronze Amorino in its quaint little trousers—or perhaps not Amorino at all, since it is trampling on a snake, which such little sprites did not do—and the coloured terra-cotta bust called Niccolo da Uzzano, so like life as to be after a while disconcerting. The sensitiveness of the mouth can never have been excelled. The other originals include the gaunt John the Baptist with its curious little moustache, so far removed from the Amorino and so admirable a proof of the sculptor's vigilant thoughtfulness in all he did; the relief of the infant ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... the ship, a most disconcerting motion was imparted to the brows, the outer ends of which were "sawing" considerably on the Mole parapet. Officers and men were equipped with Lewis guns, bombs, ammunition, etc., and were under heavy machine-gun fire at close range; add to this a drop of thirty feet between the ship and the ...
— The Boy Allies with the Victorious Fleets - The Fall of the German Navy • Robert L. Drake
... and the terrible fact came out gradually that he was not 'nicely disposed.' His relatives failed to understand him, and they gave him up like a puzzle. He was self-contradictory. For instance, though a shocking liar, he was lavish of truth whenever truth happened to be disconcerting and inopportune. He it was who told the forewoman of his uncle's millinery department, in front of a customer, that she had a moustache. His uncle threshed him. 'She has a moustache, anyhow!' said this Galileo when his uncle had finished. Mr. Knight wished Tom to go into ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... a moment. Her great, dark eyes were fixed upon the threadbare carpet. What he told her was disconcerting, yet, knowing instinctively, as she did, how passionately Walter loved her, she could not bring herself to believe that he was ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... upon him that the face of Deerfoot was toward him, and he was in the act of drawing a third arrow to the head: He had whirled about almost at the same instant that the Pawnee leveled his gun. To say the least, it was very disconcerting, and, anxious to anticipate the Shawanoe, the other fired before he could be certain of his aim. The bullet went so wide that Deerfoot heard nothing of its passage among ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... tactics. She began to double herself together in a fashion disconcerting to most riders; whereupon Amy simply drew her own limbs up out of harm's way and waited for the burro's anatomy to settle itself in a ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... They clung each to the other and stared at this too inquisitive Molly Breckenridge with the disconcerting stare of childhood, till she turned away and gathering a handful of biscuits from the table bade them sit down and eat. She forbade them to drop a single crumb and they were ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... polished his armour until it was fit to blind his adversaries, tested the temper of every weapon, sharpened every blade, arranged them for immediate availment. In spite of the absorbing and disconcerting interests of the summer, he had followed in thought the mental processes of his enemies, kept a sharp eye out for their new methods of aggression. Themselves had had no more intimate knowledge of their astonishment, humiliation, and impotent ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... An absolute, disconcerting silence reigned. His embarrassment and nervousness increased. He knew that they were unwilling to hear or talk or think about such subjects as the cause of poverty at all. They preferred to make fun of and ridicule ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... her face, and it remained there, enhancing the vivid richness of her beauty. She was dizzy with a strange and disconcerting intoxication. She seemed to be in a world of unrealities and incredibilities. Her ears heard with indistinctness, and the edges of things and people had a prismatic colouring. She was in a state of ecstatic, unreasonable, inexplicable happiness. ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... villain, he got up from his camp stool leisurely, and with great composure told the man: "Certainly, I will be very glad to have some one along who knows the trail so well." To be told that he knew the trail must have been disconcerting to the man, but not one word did he say in reference ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... I say, is not external, but internal. It lies in the same disconcerting apprehension of the larger realities, the same impatience with the paltry and meretricious, the same disqualification for mechanical routine and empty technic which one finds in the higher varieties of men. Even in the pursuits which, by the custom of Christendom, ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... never been booed or hissed by an audience, since I have been on the stage. I understand that it is a terrible and a disconcerting experience, and one calculated to play havoc with the stoutest of nerves. It is an experience I am by no means anxious to have, I can tell you! But I doubt if it could seem worse to me than the interruption of a shell. The Germans, that day, showed ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... your rifle ready for instant use, and make for some point that will afford you cover when you get close up. In the case of a building, for instance, you would make for one of the corners. Such a maneuver would probably be disconcerting to anyone who might be lying in wait for you, and would be quite likely to cause them to show themselves sooner than they intended, and thus give you a chance to turn around and get away. If they fired on you while you were approaching at a run, they would ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... Piero had uttered opinions, however clumsily, upon "government" and "reform" from the pulpit of San Nicolo, in the dignified and interested presence of a ducal secretary, the bancali, and the disconcerting throng of gondoliers who were intolerant of speeches and impatient for their vote; and he had retired shamefacedly, like an awkward boy, while his jejune remarks were elaborately discussed by the judges. And because ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... p.m. (approximately) I came up to periscope depth to have a look round, but quickly dived again as I discovered a trawler, steering on the same course as myself, about a thousand metres astern of me. This was the more disconcerting, as in the short time at my disposal it seemed to me that she was remarkably similar to the craft I had seen in the afternoon, and yet this hardly seemed likely, as I did not think she ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... feel so foreign, so alien. To be of cool Christian traditions and an Occidental, an inquisitive sightseer among these fervent pilgrims intent upon their pious duties and rapt in exaltation and unthinking inflexible belief, was in itself disconcerting, almost to the point of shame; while the pilgrims were so remarkably of a different world, a different era, ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... opinion—the men and women who are in the minority because it is the minority; those whom the hysterical glorification made of Stella Ballantyne had offended; the austere, the pedantic, the just, the jealous, all were quick to seize upon this disconcerting fact: Stella Ballantyne had dragged her dying husband from the tent. It was either sheer callousness or blind fury—you might take your choice. In either case it dulled the glow of martyrdom which for a week or ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... and piercing. The muffled sounds in London are due partly to the wooden and asphalt pavements, which deaden the sounds. London must be soothing to the New Yorker, as the noise of New York is at first disconcerting to ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... boys this was a turn of events unexpected and most disconcerting. Not for a moment did they really want her to accept their dare. Why, whoever heard of a girl doing such a thing? The very thought scandalized them deeply. Indeed, they would stop her if they could, but it was utterly beyond ...
— The Hickory Limb • Parker Fillmore
... cried Maggie. "Oh hide, sir, hide." And with that disconcerting warning, she too ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo
... smothered over; it was consoling to remember that the people he lived among were addicted to treating anything of an unpleasant nature as lightly as possible. There was a good deal to be said for the sensible English custom of ignoring what it would be disconcerting to realize. ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... never doubted the genuineness of my excuse, it was easy matter to keep them convinced for almost two-thirds of my college course. My inability to recite was not due usually to any lack of preparation. However well prepared I might be, the moment I was called upon, a mingling of a thousand disconcerting sensations, and the distinct thought that at last the dread attack was at hand, would suddenly intervene and deprive me of all but the power to say, "Not prepared." Weeks would pass without any other record being placed opposite my name than a zero, or a blank indicating that ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... the visiting neighbor answered in response to his forcedly cordial greeting. If a man has walked a mile and a half with a picture of a woman handing him a glass of cool milk with a certain lift of black lashes from over deep, black blue eyes it is—disconcerting to have her do it in the presence ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... constituents. You cannot eject him from the office, perhaps, with that directness which distinguishes the Parliamentary operations. But you can stay away from the theatre, and so eject his play. [Laughter.] On the whole that is a more disconcerting process than the fiercest criticism. One can always argue with the critics, though on the actor's part I know that is gross presumption. [Laughter.] But you cannot argue with the playgoer who ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... of health the inclement weather would be harmful. Before I could answer her we were startled to hear quite close to us a faint cry. I got up and looked around, and so did Devaka, for she is brave, my wife. But we could not find anything to account for the disconcerting sound. ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... I sell by sample you do not have to wait for days and weeks to enjoy the really excellent bargains I am enabled to offer you. This now is a cleansing cream. No matter how clean you may think your face is, you will find after applying this you are vastly mistaken. Yes, disconcerting for the moment but comforting when you realize how much cleaner you are ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... saw was Mrs. Whitney. She and Marie, with the doctor and Allen Harrison, had arrived on the first train out of the Springs in four days, and Mrs. Whitney's greeting of Glover in the office was disconcerting. It scarcely needed Gertrude's face at dinner, as she tried to brave the storm that had set in, or her reluctant admission when she saw him as she passed up to her room that she and her father had been up nearly the whole of the night before, to ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... theater is required by law. Nothing would satisfy them but to install firemen of their own and pay their salaries. This, to a man in whom the instincts of the phoenix were so strongly developed as they were in Mr. Montague, was distinctly disconcerting. He saw himself making no profit on the deal—a thing which had never happened ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... designing, building, and flying aeroplanes, I have hopes that the practical knowledge I have gained may offset the disadvantage of a hand more used to managing the "joy-stick" than the dreadful haltings, the many side-slips, the irregular speed, and, in short, the altogether disconcerting ways of ...
— The Aeroplane Speaks - Fifth Edition • H. Barber
... you closed with the idea of having a drink with me seemed to show I was dead on the right course. Then a little later on I heard you and a friend abusing our sex from an outside point of view in a way which was very disconcerting. This, and some other things, have set me all abroad again, and as fate seems determined to make us chums for this voyage—why—well, frankly, I should be glad to know if you be boy or girl? If you are as I am, no more nor less then—for I like you—there's my hand ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... disconcerting his pleasantly questioning look with one of swift resolve. "Dr. Kemp, I wish to tell you that my father has confided ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... the disconcerting thing about a whole lot of this country-it is so much like home. Of course, there are many wide districts exotic enough in all conscience-the jungle beds of the rivers, the bamboo forests, the great tangled forests themselves, the banana groves down the aisles ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... Doc Tripp came without delay, left brief, disconcerting word that without the shadow of a doubt the hogs were stricken with cholera, and went on with his little bag to see what his skill could do for ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... early age. This makes the transition to literature so fatally easy. Facilis descensus Averni! To paint, one must at least know how to mix colours and handle a brush; to compose, one must be familiar with the meaning of strayed spiders' legs on curious parallel bars, and there are strange disconcerting rumours of "orchestration." But to produce literature you have simply to dip pen in ink or open your mouth and see what God will give you. Hence particularly the flood of novels, hence the low position of the novel; although, as Theodore ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... exclamation of fear, and only his agility saved him from serious injury, for the point of the sword cut a slit in his hunting coat. And the attack, so utterly unexpected, quite deprived him of speech or further motion as the heavy door slammed in his face. Such a welcome was, to say the least, disconcerting. ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... had one very disconcerting way about him—or, rather, about her, for she was of the gentler sex. When she came to a particularly scary spot, which was every minute or so, she would stop dead still. I concurred in that part of it heartily. But then she would face outward and crane her neck ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... came very near disconcerting the plot of Master Byles Gridley. He had come on an inquisitor's errand, his heart secure, as he thought, against all blandishments, his will steeled to break down all resistance. He had come armed with an instrument of torture worse than the thumb-screw, ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... bringing it round to the front a disconcerting thought struck me. I remembered that I had only a few ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... feet, a work of Piero Jacopo Tacca, made in 1617-1625, is something; though I confess those chained robbers at the feet of a petty tyrant who was as great a robber, he and his forebears, as any among them, are in this age of sentimental liberalism, from which who can escape, a little disconcerting. Ferdinand has his best monument in the city itself, which he founded to take the place of Porto Pisano, that in the course of centuries had silted up. In order to populate the new port, he proclaimed there a religious liberty he denied to his Duchy at large. ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... should know her story, as he obviously did, was not so disconcerting to her as it would have been to most young women. Taciturn as she was, it was not by reason of timidity, but rather that her own motives seemed too clear to her to be worth stating. She was, perhaps, rather ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett |
