"Inexpressibly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... money. She was convinced he spent half the night in gaming, and the consequences, however dreadful, were but natural. That Sir Robert Floyer also did the same was a matter of much less importance to her, but that the life of any man should through her means be endangered, disturbed her inexpressibly. ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... brother, brother! All the fond memories of their youth, all the dear remembrances of their childhood, the love and the laughter, the tender romantic vows which they had pledged to each other as lads, were recalled by Harry with pangs inexpressibly keen. Wounded men looked up and were softened by his grief: rough women melted as they saw the woe written on the handsome young face: the hardy old tutor could scarcely look at him for tears, and grieved for him even ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sheltered village surrounded by hills, clothed principally with noble oaks, whence it derived its name. Mrs. Browne's house lay a little way out of the village, amid green fields and lanes, which, after the hot, dusty city streets, were inexpressibly refreshing to Lucy, recalling old times ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... Hairpin trench at the Quarries, or that ugly angle at Hooge. I wondered why I had not been happier that morning before I got that infernal wire. Suddenly all the trivialities of English life seemed to me inexpressibly dear and terribly far away. I was very angry with Bullivant, till I remembered how fair he had been. My fate was my ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... of this loneliness, this exquisite unhappiness. But these great hearts had had the consolation of setting down their moods in beautiful words, words that lived and spoke. His own strange fever burned inexpressibly inside him. Was he the only one who felt the challenge offered by the maddening fertility and foison of the hot sun-dazzled earth? Life, he realized, was too amazing to be frittered out in this aimless sickness of heart. There were truths and wonders to be grasped, if he could only throw off ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... needed nor desired in the room just then. Even her mother, silently, had left the bedside and was hovering about the doorway. And now here was Harris. Lilian had matured a little, and paled not a little, in these few days of vigil and anxiety, but she was inexpressibly lovely as she stood and looked wistfully into his face. "You know he isn't quite so well to-day?" she said. "There's fever again. He craves ice so. What wouldn't I—we—give for some? What do you think he called me"—she gave a queer little nervous ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... inexpressibly curious to get at the workings of the child's mind, which was not easy, for Fleda was never very forward to talk of herself;—"what were you thinking? I want to know how you could get such a ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... stood on the Wyddfa, in a cold bracing atmosphere, though the day was almost stiflingly hot in the regions from which we had ascended. There we stood enjoying a scene inexpressibly grand, comprehending a considerable part of the mainland of Wales, the whole of Anglesey, a faint glimpse of part of Cumberland; the Irish Channel, and what might be either a misty creation or the shadowy outline of the hills of Ireland. Peaks and pinnacles and ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... sorry," he wrote, "you had so little confidence in me that you would not write me of your difficulties! I was inexpressibly shocked to learn that your mother suffered want. I supposed her family would look out for you both—she had two brothers living the last I knew. At the time of your father's death I was extremely hard up myself and thought they were ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... don't want to find him! Oh God! how good, how inexpressibly good you are," stammered the woman, seizing at some vague hope in ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner
... am convinced; miserable being! Ah! remove her hence, before my uncle joins us; so terrible an object would inexpressibly ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... will allege, as the reason of the writers' importunity, their desire to keep their families in such and such a "station of life." There is no real desire for the safety, the discipline, or the moral good of the children, only a panic horror of the inexpressibly pitiable calamity of their living a ledge or two lower on the molehill of the world—a calamity to be averted at any cost whatever, of struggle, anxiety, and shortening of life itself. I do not believe ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... gladly have been of the number, for inaction, and the rude barbarism he saw around him, were inexpressibly galling to him; and the more he saw of the savage spirits by whom he was surrounded the less he was able to hope for any permanent advantage as the result of this rising. The jealousies of the respective chiefs were hardly held in check ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Field! oh, poor woman! it ain't for us to judge you," returned Mrs. Green, in her tender, inexpressibly solemn voice. ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... storeroom, where he had placed it, had never been disturbed, though dust and cobwebs lay thickly upon it and Madame had always prided herself upon her immaculate housekeeping. It grieved her inexpressibly because Alden cared so little about it, and had for it, apparently, no sentiment at all. To her it was sacred, like some rare wine laid aside for communion, but, as she reflected, the boy's father had died before he was much ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... measured, friendly stroke of the clock's pendulum seemed to beat quite loudly. The instant that I found myself alone in this calm retreat all other thoughts and recollections left my head as completely as though they had never been there, and I subsided into an inexpressibly pleasing kind of torpor. The rusty alpaca cassocks with their frayed linings, the worn black leather bindings of the books with their metal clasps, the dull-green plants with their carefully watered leaves and soil, and, above all, the abrupt, regular beat of the pendulum, all spoke to me intimately ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... horse," said he with a knowing look; and so he pranced away by the side of the little carriage. The moon was brilliant, and, with the aid of the gas-lamps, illuminated the whole face of the country in a way inexpressibly lovely. ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... with his finger, and lay, listening with closed eyes to the clock. Soon the clock seemed to turn into a violoncello, with piano accompaniments, and Mr Harding began to fancy the old waiter was the Bishop of Barchester; he was inexpressibly shocked that the bishop should have brought him his coffee with his own hands; then Dr Grantly came in, with a basket full of lobsters, which he would not be induced to leave downstairs in the kitchen; and then the warden couldn't quite understand why so many people would smoke ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... think of a single writer of any distinction to-day, unless it is Mr. W.W. Jacobs, who is content merely to serve the purpose of those slippered hours. So far from the weary reader being a decently tired giant, we realise that he is only an inexpressibly lax, slovenly and under-trained giant, and we are all out with one accord resolved to exercise his higher ganglia in every possible way. And so I will say no more of the idea that the novel is merely ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... say of Motley precisely what he said of Prescott, in a letter from Rome to our associate, Mr. William Amory, immediately on hearing of Prescott's death: 'I feel inexpressibly disappointed —speaking now for an instant purely from a literary point of view —that the noble and crowning monument of his life, for which he had laid such massive foundations, and the structure of which had been ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Lady Willow, evidently inexpressibly shocked at the idea, 'you would surely never do so cruel a thing as that? If my friends knew I chaperoned young ladies and took money for it, I would never be allowed to ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... the hope failing, the failure of everything seemed to be expressed in a long-drawn "heigh-ho!" which ran wearily down all the notes of the gamut. Matilda felt she was not getting on. The place and the woman were inexpressibly forlorn ...
— Opportunities • Susan Warner
... green coat, with corduroy knee-smalls and gray cotton stockings, was performing the most popular steps of a hornpipe, with a slang and burlesque caricature of grace and lightness, which, combined with the very appropriate character of his costume, was inexpressibly absurd. Another man, evidently very drunk, who had probably been tumbled into bed by his companions, was sitting up between the sheets, warbling as much as he could recollect of a comic song, with the most intensely sentimental feeling and expression; while a third, seated on one of the ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... an enormous difference, almost impossible to explain to you, but something you'd understand at once if you saw him. It's such a difference, in fact, that when I found that he was Larrabee Harman the revelation was inexpressibly shocking and distressing to me. He came here under another name; I had no suspicion that he was any one I'd ever heard of, much less that I'd actually seen him twice, two years ago, and I've grown to— well, in truth, ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... This thought is inexpressibly beautiful; and quite, so far as I know, original. It is too short for a song, else I would forswear you altogether unless you gave it a place. I have often tried to eke a stanza to it, but in vain. After balancing myself for a musing five minutes, on the hind legs of my elbow-chair, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... It seems to him that she is indeed cold not to have guessed before this the intensity of his love for her. However much she may have given her affection to another, it still seems to him inexpressibly hard that she can have no pity for his suffering. He gazes at her intently. Do the mystic moonbeams deceive him, or are there tears in her great dark eyes? His heart beats quickly. Once again he remembers her emotion of the past evening. He hears again her passionate sobs. ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"
... eventually with a new supply of strength; the sham, without exception, leave their victim weaker, physically and mentally, unless they are recognized as sham, and voluntarily dismissed by the owner of the nerves that have been rasped by them. It is an inexpressibly sad sight to see a woman broken, down and an invalid, for no reason whatever but the unnecessary nervous excitement of weeks and months of sham emotion. Hardly too strong an appeal can be made to mothers and teachers for a careful ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... bolt of ice had pierced her heart. He had spoken in that word the secret fears of many a long night. How inexpressibly more terrible do our untold terrors become, when they are spoken in our ears by the lips ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... to kiss her the notes of the piano floated out to them again, this time in a soft melody, inexpressibly sweet, full of a subtle charm, ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... comes in the eastern quarter of heaven. The electric lights seemed dull and yet glaring; and every shadow was of a hard intensity. There was nothing of morning freshness; nothing of the softness of night. All was hard and cold and inexpressibly dreary. The face of the senseless man on the sofa seemed of a ghastly yellow; and the Nurse's face had taken a suggestion of green from the shade of the lamp near her. Only Miss Trelawny's face looked white; and it was of a pallor which made my heart ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... chief by those unfortunate creatures who were of his gang, possibly he put on this ferocity in his manner in order to support his authority, and preserve that respect and superiority of which these wretches are observed to be inexpressibly fond. ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... gasping hysterically:—"Leave me—leave me—you are nothing to me now!" and struggled to free herself. Yet, inexpressibly dreadful as the fact seemed to her, she knew that her struggle was not against the grasp of a stranger. Think of that bygone time! The thought took all the spirit out of ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... guardian as well as with the idea of freeing herself from me that she took refuge with this man. I am convinced that her guardian behaved badly to her. It's rather difficult for me to talk to you, Mrs. Talcott," said Gregory, "though I am grateful for your kindness, because I so inexpressibly detest a person whom ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... was light: had I not begun to pay Dick Cludde interest on his crown piece? I was inexpressibly glad that I had been able to defeat his outrageous scheme, and thinking of this, I wondered why he had driven southward instead of to his father's house beyond Shrewsbury. My conjecture was that, knowing what a hue and cry Mr. ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... morning sky, like masses of green jade against the pink petals of some marvellous rose. Lord Arthur felt curiously affected, he could not tell why. There was something in the dawn's delicate loveliness that seemed to him inexpressibly pathetic, and he thought of all the days that break in beauty, and that set in storm. These rustics, too, with their rough, good-humoured voices, and their nonchalant ways, what a strange London they saw! A London free from the ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... (chiefly autobiographies) the world possesses, and they have, perhaps, been more influential on the formation of character than any other kind of reading.... It is a help to read such a life as Margaret Fuller's. How inexpressibly touching that passage from her journal, 'I shall always reign through the intellect, but the life! the life! O my God! shall that never be sweet?' I am thankful, as if for myself, that ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... replied, clasping the hand she extended to him, and feeling inexpressibly comforted by this fair girl's tribute to ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... These words are calculated to fix upon the mind the necessity of a visitation from heaven, of personal examination of the Scriptures, and of solemn, earnest, persevering prayer, without which no clergyman can do a sinner good. But how inexpressibly terrible will be the misery of carnal clergymen, who, by precept or example, have led their hearers to a false hope of heaven. How will such souls gnash their teeth in bitter anguish, and trample their devoted ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... that he may incessantly enrapture himself by its ever new and unheard of transformations, induced by the refraction of the rays of light he casts upon it. We may now (Presto 2/2) fancy him, profoundly happy from within, casting an inexpressibly serene glance upon the outer world; and, again, it stands before him as in the Pastoral Symphony. Everything is luminous, reflecting his inner happiness: It is as though he were listening to the very tones emitted ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... part, only too glad to be left unnoticed, looked shyly out of the corners of her eyes at them. They seemed to her inexpressibly stylish; for their tailor-made suits, though almost as plain as her own dress and jacket of blue alpaca, had that perfect fit and finish which makes the simplest dress seem all that can be desired. There ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... with newly-fallen snow confronts you, closes in the view, bringing bleakness and bitterness curiously home to the feelings. These valleys, torrent-tracks between the steep rocks of livid basalt or bright red sandstone, bare as a bone or thinly clothed with ilex and juniper scrub, are inexpressibly lonely and sad, especially at this time of year. You feel imprisoned among the rocks in a sort of catacomb open to the sky, where the shadows gather in the early afternoon, and only the light on the snow-peaks and on the high-sailing clouds tells you that the sun is still in the heavens. ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... drifted into a wild fantasia, still inexpressibly sweet, and from that changed again into a requiem or lament, whose mellifluous tide of harmony swept our thoughts back ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... lonely little clearing in the backwoods. From the swampy meadow along the brook's edge, across the road from the cabin and the straw-littered barn-yard, came toward evening that music which is the distinctive note of the northern spring—the thrilling, mellow, inexpressibly wistful fluting of ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... proposition to which she assented. The tidings which she had brought him had come upon him very suddenly. He was inexpressibly pained. Of course Kate, his dearest Kate, was everything to him. Let him have that afternoon to think about it. On the morrow he would assuredly visit Ardkill. The mother, full of fears, resolving that should he attempt to play her girl false and escape from her she would follow him to the ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope
... suited her. On one side she read the English words: "Of your charity pray for the soul of Flora Duchess of Norfolk who put up this altar to the Mother of Sorrows that they who mourn may be comforted." And the very words were romantic to her, and she thought of Flora Duchess of Norfolk as a figure inexpressibly more romantic than the illustrious female figures of French history. The Virgin of the VII Dolours was enigmatically gazing at her, waiting no doubt to be placated. The Virgin was painted, gigantic, in oil on canvas, but on her breast stood out ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... Inexpressibly shocked, and not knowing what to make of this conduct, Henry bent his glance upon the negro. The old man shook his head mournfully, and even with the dripping spray that continued to fall from his ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... his instructions, and Mr Orgreave insisted, "Yes, yes!" And it seemed to Edwin as though the building of the chapel stood still while Mr Orgreave cogitated and explained; it seemed to Edwin that he was in the creating-chamber. The atmosphere of the shed was inexpressibly romantic to him. After the fat man had gone Mr Orgreave took a clothes-brush off a plank that had been roughly nailed on two brackets to the wall, and brushed Edwin's clothes, and Edwin brushed Mr Orgreave, ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... that State. During the past three-score years it has been my privilege to deliver between sixty and seventy sermons or addresses in Princeton, either to the students of the University or of the Theological Seminary, or to the residents of the town. The place has become inexpressibly dear to me as a magnificent stronghold of Christian culture and orthodox faith, on the walls of whose institutions the smile of God gleams like the light of the morning. O Princeton, Princeton! in the name of the thousands of thy loyal sons, let me gratefully say, "If we forget ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... man's countenance was so inexpressibly vacant and stupid that Tartarin abandoned him and rushed ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... he was brought under religious influence. He read his Bible and spent many hours in prayer, and finally yielded completely to God. He made his mother inexpressibly happy by sending her the glad news, and thenceforward throughout his stirring life he was one of the most humble, ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... you have determined to quit us to make the campaign, you may rejoice, for you are now about to leave. The First Consul has sent for you. Go to the office of Maret, and ascertain if he will not soon send a courier. You will accompany him." I was inexpressibly delighted at this good news, and did not try to conceal my pleasure. "You are very well satisfied to leave us," said Madame Bonaparte with a kind smile. "It is not leaving Madame, but joining the First Consul, which delights me."—"I hope so," replied she. "Go, Constant; ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... through the works day after day, noting the familiar sights and sounds, pausing here and there lovingly, as a man does in his garden to touch some cherished plant or to fill himself with the beauty of some rare flower. The place was inexpressibly dear to him. That those furnaces should ever grow cold, that those vats should ever be empty, that those two magic words should cease to blaze on the wooden boxes, should fade from the sight of man, that those gates should ever be shut, seemed to transcend imagination. ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... Burgess. Where is Norton Folgate—down in Surrey, isn't it? (Burgess, inexpressibly tickled, ...
— Candida • George Bernard Shaw
... thoughts, he pushed on, but again stumbled and fell—this time at full length. He lay quiet for a few seconds. It was so inexpressibly sweet to rest, and feel the worn-out senses floating away, as it were, into dreamland! But the strong will burst the tightening bands of death, and, rising once more, with the exclamation, "God help me!" he ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... endeavored to shut out the grotesque and phantom-like forms that seemed to dance before her. A deathlike stillness reigned through the house, the silence alone broken by the ticking of the great dial at the head of the staircase. There is something inexpressibly awful in the ticking of a clock, when heard at midnight by the lonely and anxious watcher beside the bed of death. It is the voice of time marking its slow but certain progress towards eternity, and warning us in solemn tones that ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... her, she discovers a truer interest, a nobler respect. The empty-headed, spindle-shanked youths who dance admirably, understand something of billiards, much less of horses, and still less of navigation, soon grow inexpressibly wearisome to us; but the men who adopt their social courtesy, never seeking to arouse, uplift, instruct us, ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... villainous-looking than her companions. She was a rough, raw-boned woman, with sandy hair and light brows, a sallow, freckled complexion, a nose with wide nostrils, and a large, thick-lipped mouth. She had, moreover, a look of mingled cunning and ferocity inexpressibly revolting. ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... I approach the place, find all still, and the mother bird upon her nest. As I draw near she seems to sit closer, her eyes growing large with an inexpressibly wild, beautiful look. She keeps her place till I am within two paces of her, when she flutters away as at first. In the brief interval the remaining egg has hatched, and the two little nestling lift their heads without being jostled or overreached ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... noise on that part of the shore which was a-breast of the ship: It was made by a great number of human voices, and very much resembled the war-whoop of the American savages; a hideous shout which they give at the moment of their attack, and in which all who have heard it agree there is something inexpressibly terrifying ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... pulled into a bustling station, in which the multitudinous noises were thrown back again from the arched iron roof. The relentless haste of all the people was inexpressibly cruel to the man who looked from the window wondering whither he would go, and if, among all the thousands that made up that vast and throbbing city, he would ever ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... the walk, also with the spade. In a little time you will feel the fascination of the sharp outline of the walk against the grass on each side. And I repeat, that to the average human being there is something inexpressibly pleasing in that sharp outline. By the time the ten yards of walk are cut, you will find that you have discovered a new pleasure and a new sensation; and from that day will date a love of tidy walks and grass;—and ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... to bear without solicitude the questioning of her correctness, had become burdensome. She felt the danger of losing nerve and becoming morbidly fearful of criticism on the one hand, and of growing narrow and mechanical about accuracy on the other. 'I longed inexpressibly,' she says, 'for the liberty of fiction, while occasionally doubting whether I had the power to use that freedom as I could have done ten years before.' The product of this new mental phase was Deerbrook, which was ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 6: Harriet Martineau • John Morley
... learned at Sunday school and church was to be inexpressibly weary of them. What I learned at home I can perhaps define but little better. I gained no important result from any direct instruction. I gained something of good-boy behavior and decent manners, diligently trained into me. But what was most valuable in my home education was unconscious ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... sallowness his eyes were bluish gray in color—always in deep shadow, however, from the upper lids which were unusually heavy (reminding me in this respect of Stuart's portrait of Washington) and the expression was remarkably pensive and tender, often inexpressibly sad, as if the reservoir of tears lay very near the surface—a fact proved not only by the response which accounts of suffering and sorrow invariably drew forth, but by circumstances which would ordinarily affect few men in his position."(12) As a result of the great ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... putting off your return to an indefinite time, I felt so hurt, that I know not what I wrote. I am now calmer, though it was not the kind of wound over which time has the quickest effect; on the contrary, the more I think, the sadder I grow. Society fatigues me inexpressibly—So much so, that finding fault with every one, I have only reason enough, to discover that the fault is in myself. My child alone interests me, and, but for her, I should not take any ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... so. And when that mouth of yours, with its two round lips, smiles, and shows the glistening white teeth, one is tempted to say that there issues from this ravishing mouth ineffable music, something inexpressibly delicate, a ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... quiet and domestic." "It is home-like, inexpressibly dear." "To Waltham, heartsick from his wanderings, the room in all ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... inexpressibly sweet and refreshing in the familiar and yet unfailing loveliness of this place. The fields are always peaceful, and the slow motions of the cattle grouped here and there under the shadows of solitary trees, or of the sheep browsing in long, irregular lines across the further meadows, give the landscape ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... note of this one. His nerves crisped at the noiseless slide of that form, as it stalked on from lamp to lamp, keeping pace with his own. He felt a sort of awe, as if he had beheld the wraith of himself; and even as he glanced suspiciously at the stranger, the stranger glanced at him. He was inexpressibly relieved when the figure turned down another street ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... she wept; for she knew that, when her task was done, her end must be approaching. Her aspirations pointed only to a place, which seemed to her more than usually full of natural piety, as one in which it would give her pleasure to die. And she uttered, between smiles and tears, as a wish that inexpressibly fascinated her heart, and yet was half fantastic, a broken prayer that God would return her to the solitudes from which he had drawn her, and suffer her to become a shepherdess once more. It was a natural prayer, because nature has laid a necessity upon every human ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... a-nights; but I was seldom from him in the daytime. I was deprived access to him; which so surprised and frightened me, that I cried out, "What, not see my father!" Upon which, I heard him reply, "My dear Polly, you shall presently;" and some time after I did. This scene was inexpressibly moving. The mutual love, sorrow, and grief, that then appeared, are truly described by Susannah Gunnel; tho', poor soul, she is much mistaken in many other respects. I was, as soon as Dr. Addington came, by his orders, confined to my own room; and ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... Paris; and Antony had much desired to behold him. Certainly it was worth while to have come so far only to see him, and hear him give his pontifical blessing, in a voice feeble but of infinite sweetness, and with an inexpressibly graceful movement of the hands. A veritable grand seigneur! His refined old age, the impress of genius and honours, even his disappointments, concur with natural graces to make him seem too distinguished (a fitter word fails me) for this world. Omnia ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... Inexpressibly shocked and alarmed, Gram could hardly trust the evidence of her senses. She stared helplessly, at first, then all in a tremble, snatched up the bottle, smelled of ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... eleven or twelve. The object of these sentiments was a boy about my own age, of a character eminently generous, brave, and gentle; and the elements of human feeling seemed to have been, from his birth, genially compounded within him. There was a delicacy and a simplicity in his manners, inexpressibly attractive. It has never been my fortune to meet with him since my school-boy days; but either I confound my present recollections with the delusions of past feelings, or he is now a source of honour and ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... came up with illusive regularity, and were all the most perfect of their kind; and we laughed and feasted in our vain security. We had out from the city to banquet with us the friends we loved, and we were inexpressibly proud before them of the Help, who first wrought miracles of cookery in our honor, and then appeared in a clean white apron, and the glossiest black hair, to wait upon the table. She was young, and certainly very pretty; she was as gay as a lark, and was courted by a ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... accompanied by Grinder and Captain Boyns senior, hurried to the train; was whirled in due course to Covelly, and shortly after found himself seated at a wedding-breakfast, along with our hero Harry Boyns, and our heroine Annie Webster, who was costumed as a bride, and looked inexpressibly bewitching. Besides these there were present excellent Mrs Boyns— happily no longer a widow!—and Grinder, whose susceptible nature rendered it difficult for him to refrain from shedding tears; and a bevy of bride's-maids, so beautiful and sweet that it seemed quite preposterous to suppose ...
— Saved by the Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... conditions resulting from his unequal marriage. The sincere and true love he felt for his wife kept alive in him the wish to raise her to his rank and privileges, and the constant obstacles that he encountered at all court ceremonies embittered and angered him inexpressibly. The Archduke was firmly resolved that when he came to the throne he would give to his wife, not the title of Empress, but a position which, though without the title, would bestow upon her the highest rank. His argument was that wherever he was she would be the mistress ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... old lady suddenly sank down into a chair and covered her face with her hands. She began to cry softly, but in a way that hurt Suzanna inexpressibly. She stood for a moment hesitant. The sobs still continued and then Suzanna, deciding on her course, went to the little shaking figure and put her hands ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... moan and mutter, and lay motionless as one thoroughly exhausted. He slept much, waking for but a few moments, and sinking again into a species of half-lethargy. There was something inexpressibly sweet and pleasant in his present calmness; his mind seemed to have been mysteriously soothed and satisfied; the turbulent waves, that dashed him hither and thither against the sharp rocks of doubt and fear, had subsided. His features, especially when ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... Don't look at me like that," exclaims he, inexpressibly shocked—this sudden and complete abandonment of herself to her fear has horrified him. "I never meant it. I but suggested a possibility. The child shall stay with you. Do you hear me, Isabel! The child is yours! When I ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... was inexpressibly shocked, she refused to see her husband, shut herself up in her own apartments, and demanded an escort to Vienna! The news was not long in reaching Rome, and it made Cardinal Ferdinando furious. In a moment all the blandishments of "the Venetian" were dissipated; the better terms lately ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... buried, were it not that my heart is set on winning out with those boys," said Mr. Minturn. "There is material for fine men in them, but there is also depravity that would shock you inexpressibly, instilled by ignorant, malicious servants. I wish Leslie Winton ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... interview with Casaubon, there is something inexpressibly touching in the humility of childlike trust with which she accepts him and his "great mind," and the innocent purity with which she allows herself to indulge the vision of a life passed by his side; a life which he, by his influence and guidance, is to make more full and ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown
... incessantly, and had the habit, moreover, of continually addressing his favourite, generally present on these occasions, with the appeal, 'Pas vrai, Dillen?' after each broken sentence,—would have been inexpressibly droll, had not the low-comedy actor of the scene been an autocrat who might, at a wink, have transformed laughter into tears. But there was a demoniacal comicality about the performance, which, if it did not convulse the spectator, made him shudder ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... over me, my hand trembled, and I could not see the parchment I was copying through my tears; but for all that, the sight of the flowers was always inexpressibly dear, and I prized them ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... speaking in a queer, strained voice, that he had found a great split in the trunk of the white hawthorn, and asked her if she would like to see it. She said, "Yes." It struck her that she had said it too loudly and in an inexpressibly foolish way. Indeed, she came to the conclusion as she followed him down the hillside that nobody since the world began had ever done anything so idiotic as saying "Yes" in that particular manner, and she became scarlet ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... The latter, inexpressibly shocked at the way things were going in the ball-room, was on her way upstairs, when she was confronted with the amazing spectacle of her sister and the bald-headed Mr. Chester revolving solemnly and rhythmically in each other's arms ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... answered Ralston, and his dark eyes seemed to lose all their fierceness and grow inexpressibly sad and solemn as he spoke. "It was no moon! It was a mere unreal shadow and mockery—the dead ghost of a moon that had been, perished long ago, and embodying all the griefs and all the sorrows ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... bright face that looked out at the world from the heavy gold frame, a sweet girlish face, which seemed to ask a question with its eager eyes. And there below, in the black draped coffin, was the answer—the same face, only a few years older, but tired, so inexpressibly tired, cold and silent; its light gone out—the power gone off. Jane had been given her answer. And upstairs Jane's baby ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... The nation was inexpressibly shocked as the news of the assassination spread over the wires, and the deep anxiety which pervaded the popular mind showed the warm and intense love felt for their President, who was the incarnation of their own institutions. ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... Haredale's being so constant, and that if she would only take on with some other young gentleman—just in the most innocent way possible, to keep her first lover up to the mark—she would find herself inexpressibly comforted. ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... could get upon my feet and recover my gun, which seemed to have been struck from my hands, I heard Morgan crying out as if in mortal agony, and mingling with his cries were such hoarse, savage sounds as one hears from fighting dogs. Inexpressibly terrified, I struggled to my feet and looked in the direction of Morgan's retreat; and may Heaven in mercy spare me from another sight like that! At a distance of less than thirty yards was my friend, down upon one knee, his head thrown ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... overspreads the opposite portion of the sky in equally threatening fashion, but I no longer fear it. I experience an inexpressibly joyous feeling of hope in life; which has quickly taken the place of my oppressive sensation of fear. My soul smiles, like ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... this earth, the more your astonishment at it will grow—for the more you understand about trees and animals, clouds and seas, the less you will find you understand about them. The more you read about them and watch them, the more infinitely and inexpressibly wonderful you find them, and the more you get humbled and awestruck at the boundless wisdom and love of Our Father in Heaven, and Christ the Word of God who planned and made this wondrous world, and the Holy Spirit of God who is working this wondrous world. I ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... phrase) meant nothing, but that is not the case, I am not one of those, who merely to gratify their own vanity, would endeavor to win affection, which they do not,—cannot return. No dearest, I love you truly, unalterably,—will you then accept my love, and give me the right and the inexpressibly pleasure to share all your joys and sorrows. Tell me dear Isabel, will you be ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... recovering his wonted equanimity, "I am inexpressibly flattered by the honour you propose to me, and I do not deny that Miss Elsie is worthy of a much better man than myself. But I have inconceivable prejudices against the connubial state. If it be permitted to a member of the Established Church to cavil ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... full-moonlight and the night inexpressibly sweet and serene. The air was cool and vivified by the gust and shower of the afternoon. Fresh spring was in every breath. Our fellows had forgotten that this morning they were hot and disgusted. Every one hugged ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... crawled like a large wet beetle. He watched the car till it dipped over the summit and there was nothing to see but the two shining rails, and the glistening roofs and the shrouded distance. It was like his idea, inexpressibly dreary, a forlorn, monotonous, gray shutting out what once had ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... my eyes. I was in an extraordinary position, myself. What seemed falsehood to them, struck me as the absolute truth. Carmel had been the one to go home; he, without doubt, had crossed the links, as he said. As this conviction penetrated deeply and yet more deeply into my mind, I shrank inexpressibly from the renewed mental struggle into which it plunged me. To have suffered, myself,—to have fallen under the ban of suspicion and the disgrace of arrest—had certainly been hard; but it was nothing to beholding another in the same plight through my own rash and ill-advised attempt to better ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... new sensitiveness to the spiritual, this change in Iola made her inexpressibly dear. It seemed as if he had met her in a new and better country where neither had seen the other before. And yet it filled him with an odd sense of loss. It was as if earth were losing its claim in her, as if her earthward affinities were refining into ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... great upon that ground. His realm is very extensive. No man has the power (had he only the will) of depicting the simplicity of every-day life and objects with more grace or comprehensiveness. There are some touches in his 'Village Blacksmith' inexpressibly beautiful, and worthy of BURNS' 'Cotter's ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... the Line, and turning the Description of his Manner of Talking into an Admiration of it, is inexpressibly Beautiful, and wonderfully suited, to the fond Character of the Person that speaks it. There is a Simplicity in the Words, that outshines the utmost Pride ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... held an easy popularity among them. Then he was too well ingratiated in her favor and as a frequent guest at her house to be displaced by this matter. He should still do the attentive in every available way. But he hoped she was not getting fanatical. It would be inexpressibly stupid to have a wife over pious, with extreme views about things. He should like her to be religious up to a certain point. He thought women ought to be that. It was a good thing to have somebody in a house who knew something about those things in case of ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... main facts of this reserved life of Charlotte Bronte. Are they dull and commonplace? Some of them are indeed inexpressibly sad. Tragedy is beneath all the bitter chronicle. The sadness of her days can be appreciated by all who read her books. Through all her stories there is an intense note, especially in treating the pathos of existence, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... but inexpressibly graceful poet was born at Sulmo in the Pelignian territory 43 B.C. of wealthy parents, whose want of liberality during his youthful career he deplores, but by which he profited after their death. Of equestrian rank, with good introductions and brilliant talents, he was expected to devote himself ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... of Jesus' was published. Jasmin was inexpressibly shocked by the appearance of the book, for it seemed to him to strike at the foundations of Christianity, and to be entirely opposed to the teachings of the Church. He immediately began to compose a poem, entitled The Poet of the People to M. ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... and dream? It was in vain that she told herself that she was afraid of Owen, and therefore thought of him. The tone of his voice that rang in her ears the oftenest was not that of his anger and sternness, but the tone of his first assurance of love—that tone which had been so inexpressibly sweet to her—that to which she had listened on this very spot where she now walked slowly, thinking of him. The look of his which was ever present to her eyes was not that on which she had almost feared to ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... simply "poor Schoolcraft," and of course subsides; Miss Martineau is "that Minerva mediocre;" Carlyle is "Thomas Carlyle with his bilious howls and bankrupt draughts on hope." Hawthorne, he learns, though we cannot tell from whence, "thought it inexpressibly ridiculous that any one should notice man's miseries, these being his staple product," and was "swallowed up in the wretchedness of life;" also, "the Concord novelist was a handsome, bulky character, with a soft ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... those who do not feel the injustice and degradation of the condition, there is something inexpressibly comical in man's "citizen woman." It reminds me of those monsters I used to see in the old world, head and shoulders woman, and the rest of the body sometimes fish and sometimes beast. I used to think, What a strange conceit! but now I ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... this which touched us both inexpressibly: she sat for some time watching Kate with a bewildered look, which at last faded away, a smile coming in its place. "I think you are like my mother," she said; "did any one ever say to you that you ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... it seriously," said he. "It would grieve me inexpressibly if you curtailed your visit by one hour. The fact is—there is no reason why there should be any concealment between relatives—that my poor dear wife is incredibly jealous. She hates that anyone—male or female—should for an instant come between us. Her ideal is a desert ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... no! father," cried I, touched inexpressibly. For all this was so unlike my father's habits that I felt remorse to have so communicated my young griefs to the calm dignity of ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... confusion beset his mind—a sense of having been guilty of monstrous presumption—a panic which threw darkness about him and made him grasp the chair convulsively. When he recovered himself and looked at Sidwell there was a faint smile on her lips, inexpressibly gentle. ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... display can only awaken a dull feeling of envy and discontent. By dint of much asking, after leaving the car, Gladys found the street where the Hepburns lived. It was not so squalid as the immediate neighbourhood of her own home, but it was inexpressibly dreary—one of these narrow long streets, with high 'lands' on either side, entered by common stairs, and divided into very small houses. Outwardly it looked even respectable, and was largely occupied ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... was gone, Cassim's wife looked at the bottom of the measure, and was inexpressibly surprised to find a piece of gold stuck to it. Envy immediately possessed her breast. "What!" said she, "has Ali Baba gold so plentiful as to measure it? Where has that poor wretch got all this wealth?" Cassim, her husband, was not at home, but at his counting-house, ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... Christmas all together inexpressibly. Branwell was with them; that was always a pleasure at this time; whatever might be his faults, or even his vices, his sisters yet held him up as their family hope, as they trusted that he would some day be their family pride. They blinded ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... perhaps." Her smile, which was exceedingly subtle, disconcerted him inexpressibly. She turned at once to the business of the day. The question was whether he would begin on a new section, or finish this one with her, writing at ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... murmurs, but all of melody; groves teeming with the most luxurious fruit of the tropics, and valleys carpeted with the brightest green, varied with nature's own embroidery of flowers—the development of this scene was inexpressibly beautiful, far surpassing the finest efforts of ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... gently nodding to her; "but the swoon had not dispelled the smile from your lips, nor the expression of rapturous joy from your features. You lay there as if overwhelmed with joy and fascinated by your ecstatic bliss. Knowing that you were inexpressibly happy, I felt ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... picturesque simplicity of the opening, in which the place and the persons are introduced, is inexpressibly graceful and masterly:— ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... invariably full). Its neither old nor young, but rather keen face hoards a pair of greyish-blue witty eyes, which face and eyes are directed upon us through the open door of a little room. Which little room is in the rear of the cuisine; a little room filled with the inexpressibly clean and soft odour of newly cut wood. Which wood we are pretending to split and pile for kindling. As a matter of fact we are enjoying Afrique's conversation, escaping from the bleak and profoundly ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... shall we find so mighty an organ, or so grand an anthem? How inexpressibly sublime the scene appeared to me, and how insignificant and unworthy of the Unknown seemed even our cathedrals, "made with human hands," when compared to this looking up through Nature unto Nature's God! I stood and ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... house dweller within earshot of them, and that the Lighthouse Board has to weigh the petitions and remonstrances before setting these buoys off inhabited coasts. They can at times be heard 15 miles, and emit an inexpressibly mournful ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various
... was in his grasp. He was just the same—no, something inexpressibly better, because of the distance and separation, which made him ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... three heads, and three bodies linked in one. Each of her long arms ended, not in a hand, but in a claw like that of a bird of rapine. Her hair resembled the locks of the classic Medusa, and her faces were inexpressibly loathsome. She seemed, with all her dreadful heads and limbs, to writhe in the flames and yet not to be consumed by them. She gathered them in to herself; her claws caught them and drew them down; her triple body appeared ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... house and the lands attached. It was a dark November afternoon, and by the time the farmer and his wearied guest had crossed the soaked lands and reached the great grey house, the damps and shadows of the night had begun to curtain it and to render its appearance, forsaken as it was, inexpressibly dreary and lonesome. ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... different task to perform. He has to look at things as they are, to take them as he finds them, to supply deficiencies and to prune excesses as far as in him lies. The task of furnishing a corrective for derangements of the paper medium with us is almost inexpressibly great. The power exerted by the States to charter banking corporations, and which, having been carried to a great excess, has filled the country with, in most of the States, an irredeemable paper medium, ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John Tyler • John Tyler
... his "worthy lady," with whom he dined once, and who wished him to stay for dinner when he made his farewell call. With the Countess Lichnowska and her daughter he took tea two days after the first concert. They were inexpressibly delighted to hear that he was going to give a second, asked him to visit them on his way through Vienna to Paris, and promised him a letter of introduction to a sister of the Count's. This Count Lichnowski was Count Moritz Lichnowski, the friend of Beethoven, to whom the great master dedicated the ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... strength of many men in him. Yet all the while he knew he was dying, his chief anxiety being to conceal his state from those about him at home, to whom the knowledge of his actual condition would have been inexpressibly distressing. "I am cheerful among strangers," he said, "and try to live day by ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... than any we know, people for whom life was impudent ease and success. Margaret Farnese was the lady of the house, but where she trailed her cloth of gold the chickens now scamper between your legs over rotten straw. It is all inexpressibly dreary. A stupid peasant scratching his head, a couple of critical Americans picking their steps, the walls tattered and befouled breast-high, dampness and decay striking in on your heart, and the scene ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... name, and I found her inexpressibly charming. She spoke French perfectly, and English quite well. She had been at school in England, she said—at Scarborough. Her home ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... ten days after William. He was inexpressibly surprised to find his mother not at the Manse. "Where is my mother," exclaimed he, as he looked round, "that she does not come to welcome her long absent son? is she ill?" asked he, turning to Helen. "No, my dear brother," answered Mr. Martin, ...
— The Eskdale Herd-boy • Mrs Blackford
... in answer to this. It was inexpressibly obnoxious to me to hear my poor Margaret spoken of as 'a young woman' by my business-like companion. But there was no possibility of keeping any veil over the sacred mysteries of my heart. I wanted Mr. Carter's help. For the present Margaret was lost to me; and my only hope of penetrating ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... later Sonia, too, came in with the candle, set down the candlestick and, completely disconcerted, stood before him inexpressibly agitated and apparently frightened by his unexpected visit. The colour rushed suddenly to her pale face and tears came into her eyes... She felt sick and ashamed and happy, too.... Raskolnikov turned away quickly and sat on a chair by the table. ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... to remark that Barboza, although almost as famous for his decimas as for his sanguinary duels, was not what one would call a musical person. His singing voice was inexpressibly harsh, like that, for example, of the carrion crow when that bird is most vocal in its love season and makes the woods resound with its prolonged grating metallic calls. The interesting point was that his songs were his own composition and were recitals of his strange adventures, ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... she rambles on in her aimless talking the children are bored, inexpressibly bored. It is axiomatic that the learning process does not flourish in a state of boredom. Under the ordeal of verbal inundation the children wriggle and squirm about in their seats and this affords her a new point of attack. She calls them ill-bred and unmannerly ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... angry with Sam, she reminded herself, but she was inexpressibly glad, somehow or other, to find that he was intending to stay two weeks longer, and was startled as she ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... hat. It was of the sort called in Italian as in English slang a stove-pipe (canna), and having been made in Italy, it was of course too large for its wearer. It had never been any thing but a horror and reproach to him, and he was now inexpressibly delighted to see it steal out of the diligence in company with one of the red-leather cushions, and glide darkly down the flood. It nodded and nodded to the cushion with a superhuman tenderness and elegance, and had a ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... one of those inexpressibly sweet, motionless evenings, in which one is inclined, if in ordinary health, to rejoice in one's existence; and in which the Christian is led irresistibly to join with the Psalmist in praising ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... natural phenomenon, however, was only of short duration; but sufficient to render the atmosphere most delightfully pure and refreshing. It was now a redoubled pleasure to view the many hills and dales, adorned in every shade of verdure, varying with romantic forest scenes; all mingling into one inexpressibly rich garniture in which Nature had royally clad herself in order to give us greeting on ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler
... not turn to the book to find the exact words of this sublime vindication, for ten years I have not read the Word that has become so inexpressibly a part of me; and shall I not refrain as Mdlle. de Maupin refrained, knowing well that the face of love may not be twice seen? Great was my conversion. None more than I had cherished mystery and dream: my life until now had been but a ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... it was unfastened, and she went in. Mrs. Rossitur was lying on the bed; but her first mood had changed, for at Fleda's soft word and touch she half rose up and putting both arms round her waist laid her face against her. There were no tears still, only a succession of low moans, so inexpressibly weak and plaintive that Fleda's nature could hardly bear them without giving way. A more fragile support was never clung to. Yet her trembling fingers, in their agony moved caressingly among her aunt's hair and over her brow as she begged her—when ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... she went on to relate some little facts in the history of her mother's last days; and she rose into a higher, serener atmosphere, inaccessible to his resentment or his regret, as she spoke of her loss. The simple tale of sickness and death inexpressibly belittled his passionate woes, and made them look theatrical to him. He hung his head as they turned at her motion and walked away from the picture of Don Ippolito, and down the stairs toward the street-door; the people before the other Venetian picture had apparently yielded to their ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... the bosom. His face was dusky, but florid—perhaps a little too florid, particularly about the nose, though the rosy hue gave the greater lustre to a twinkling black eye. He had a little the look of a boon companion, with that dash of the poor devil in it which gives an inexpressibly mellow tone to a man's humor. I had seldom seen a face of richer promise; but never was promise so ill kept. He said nothing; ate and drank with the keen appetite of a gazetteer, and scarcely stopped to laugh even at the good jokes from the upper end of the table. I inquired who he was. ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... he said; "but he may—I say he may be in London still. I am inclined to believe he is myself. When the first passion of excitement was over, he would find himself weaker than he fancied he was. It would not be so easy to cut himself off from the old life altogether. He would long so inexpressibly to see Dolly again that he could not tear himself away. I think we may be assured that even if he is not in London, at least ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... deeper sympathy for others; and from the sense of our own weakness, and our own self-upbraiding, arises a disposition to be indulgent—to forbear—and to forgive—so at least it ought to be. When once we have shed those inexpressibly bitter tears, which fall unregarded, and which we forget to wipe away, O how we shrink from inflicting pain! how we shudder at unkindness!—and think all harshness even in thought, only another name for cruelty! These are but common-place truths, I know, which have often been a thousand ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... looked down at the brown head which scarcely rose above his lips, Lorimer's smile ceased to be whimsical and became inexpressibly tender and winning. ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... His wife is inexpressibly dear to him, and every day he shows this, and takes pains, also, to tell her so. He admires her pretty gowns, and is glad to speak appreciatively of the becoming things she wears. He knows instinctively that it is the thoughtfulness and the little tenderness which ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... have a feeling of disappointment when the possibility presented itself that after all these blessings might be wrested from me; of horror when I reflected that in that case my last estate would be inexpressibly worse than ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor |
