"Unnatural" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... their being sooner or later debarked in the vernal months. And, secondly, that the new buds of debarked oak-trees continue to obtain moisture from the alburnum after the season of the ascent of sap in other vegetables ceases; which in this unnatural state of the debarked tree may act as capillary tubes, like the alburnum of the small debarked cylinder of a pear-tree abovementioned; or may continue to act as placental vessels, as happens to the animal embryon in cases of superfetation; when the fetus continues a month ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... which it may generally be said that you cannot be too obscure, unnatural, involved, vulgar, slipshod, and metaphorical. See to it that your metaphors are mixed, though, perhaps, this attention is hardly needed. The free use of parentheses, in which a reader gets lost, and of unintelligible allusions, ...
— How to Fail in Literature • Andrew Lang
... to the fact that Lord Houghton, the only son of a gifted, eccentric, and indulgent father, was brought up at home. The glorification of the Public School has been ridiculously overdone. But it argues no blind faith in that strange system of unnatural restraints and scarcely more reasonable indulgences to share Gibbon's opinion that the training of a Public School is the best adapted to the common run of Englishmen. "It made us what we were, sir," said Major Bagstock to Mr. Dombey; ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... have to sit here in this stiff, unnatural way, Lucy, when one is inclined to do something outrageous from sheer happiness. These long, open cars, where people can see from end to end what every one is doing, are hateful inventions. It is perfectly absurd, when one finds one's self the happiest fellow living, that ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... noticed showed itself among the trees on her left hand. Her curiosity was excited; she strayed aside to examine it more closely. The crumbling walls, as she approached them, looked like the remains of an ordinary dwelling-house. Age is essential to the picturesque effect of decay: a modern ruin is an unnatural and depressing object—and here ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... man, the fount of life; hence Jehudah Halevi's well-known saying, "Israel is to the world as the heart to the body." An intimate connection was also established, by Jews and Greeks alike, between the physical condition of the heart and man's moral character. It was a not unnatural thought that former ages were more pious than later times. "The heart of Rabbi Akiba was like the door of the porch [which was twenty cubits high], the heart of Rabbi Eleazar ben Shammua was like the door of the Temple [this was only ten cubits high], while our hearts are only as large as the ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... can refuse you no more. I was willing not to lose a single chance of reconciliation with this unnatural step-mother. Respect for the memory of my sainted father bid me do all in my power to gain her consent to my union with you: nay, shall I own it? prudence dictated the measure; for to whom should she leave the share of money accorded to her by my father's will ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... inheritors of the mentality of our reptile ancestors we have improved the inheritance by a thousand grades; but in the matter of the morals which they left us we have gone backward as many grades. That evolution is strange, and to me unaccountable and unnatural. Necessarily we started equipped with their perfect and blemishless morals; now we are wholly destitute; we have no real, morals, but only artificial ones—morals created and preserved by the forced suppression of natural and hellish instincts. Yet we are dull enough ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and not only must the chief's son be slain, but his flesh must be served up at a feast at which the father must preside. The Black Snake affected the utmost horror and aversion at so bloody and unnatural a deed being committed to save his life and the happiness of his tribe, but the peace was to be ratified for ever if the sacrifice were made,—if not, war to the knife was to be ever between the Mohawks ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... instance I have suffered much during the after-days from that trouble of mind which is akin to the feverish dream of an exhausted system. Horrid sights does the brain then bear to us; terrible situations; weird phantoms known to the opium-eater; wild struggles with unnatural enemies; wrestlings even for existence itself. All these I knew during the days that followed my rash visit to the drinking den. How long I lay, or where, I know not to this hour; but my dreams were very terrible, and there was a fever at my head which ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... large and busy town, compared by Fortune, as regards population, to Shang-hai. Shao-hing is across the broad river, and somewhat further down than Hang-chau: it is out of the traveller's general direction; and it seems unnatural that he should commence his journey by passing this wide river, and yet not ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... Canal lying there defenseless, of Kashtanov speeding towards it on his wrecker's errand, kindled within him a strength that was unnatural, superhuman. Like a wildcat he tore loose from the choking grip on his throat; Istafiev tried to subdue that sudden, unlooked-for surge of power, but could not. Five piston-like, jabbing blows crunched into him from Chris's hurtling fist, and ...
— Raiders Invisible • Desmond Winter Hall
... certain stamp of spuriousness and sham. It is to natural history what chivalry was to human history; ... a sort of make-believe, play, or sport of nature of an airy unsubstantial character. The male side of nature shot up and blossomed out in an unnatural, fantastic way, cutting loose from the real business of life, and attracting a share of attention wholly disproportionate to its ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... apparently to have seen a mystery, a riddle, in anything so unnatural as—all things considered and when it came to the point—my attitude. So he gouged out his conviction, and ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... self-deceptions of well-meaning people than their notion of patriotism, as requiring them to limit their efforts to the good of their own country;—the notion that charity is a geographical virtue, and that what it is holy and righteous to do for people on one bank of a river, it is quite improper and unnatural to do for people on the other. It will be a wonderful thing, some day or other, for the Christian world to remember, that it went on thinking for two thousand years that neighbours were neighbours at Jerusalem, but not at Jericho; a wonderful thing for us English ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... brows, very like a face one would expect to see in a nun's hood. Yet so little in the character of the cloister did this countenance keep, that it was plastered thick with chalk and rouge, and sprinkled with ridiculous black patches, and bore, as it rose from the low courtesy before me, an unnatural smile half-way between ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... to bones and joints is a sprain of the ligaments uniting the bones, or the tendons uniting the muscles and bones. A sprain is the result of a sudden forcing of a joint in an unnatural direction, or, if in a natural direction, beyond the power of the ligament or tendon to restrain it properly, so that part of the fibers of either are ruptured. When such an accident occurs pain ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... can feel With all around me;—I can hail the flowers That sprig earth's mantle,—and yon quiet bird, That rides the stream, is to me as a brother. The vulgar know not all the hidden pockets, Where Nature stows away her loveliness. But this unnatural posture of the legs Cramps my extended calves, and I must go Where I can coil them ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... could be "interfered with." While we, generally, have refrained from insisting upon our personal preference of interpretation in this work, we cannot refrain from so doing in this instance. We consider that such an interpretation of the Law of Karma is forced and unnatural, and results from the seeming natural tendency of the human mind to build up devils for itself—and hells of one kind or another. Robbed of their Devil, many people would attribute to their God certain devilish ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson
... extremely addicted to the study and practice of the black art and all magical incantations, supposing that by such mysterious operations they could influence the elements and all the products of nature. When any one was suspected to have died an unnatural death, the surviving relatives consulted spirits, with the view of discovering the cause of it. Sometimes the relatives alleged that a spell had been cast on the spirits consulted, which prevented their giving answers to interrogatories. In ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... strong and our enemies, yet they are a noble nation. I have in my lodge twenty of their scalps; they have many of ours. They fight by the broad light of the day, with the lance, bow, and arrows; they scorn treachery. Are they not, although rebels and unnatural children, still the children the Shoshones? Who ever heard of the Arrapahoes entering the war-path in night? No one! They are no Crows, no Umbiquas, no Flat-heads! They can give death, they know how to receive it,—straight and upright, knee to knee, breast to breast, and their eye drinking ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... his plate buttons, his Cordovan boots, and his round hat, to show himself upon his crop-tailed tit in the Mall. I had remained behind, for, indeed, I had already made up my mind that I had no calling for this fashionable life. These men, with their small waists, their gestures, and their unnatural ways, had become wearisome to me, and even my uncle, with his cold and patronizing manner, filled me with very mixed feelings. My thoughts were back in Sussex, and I was dreaming of the kindly, simple ways of the country, when there came a rat-tat at the knocker, the ring of a hearty voice, ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... it," Violet reiterated, with white lips, while she looked up into her lover's face with such an expression of affection and trust that he longed to take her to his heart and bear her away at once from such unnatural guardianship. ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... the weather in the way my soldier father ruled his sons, and yet he was neither hard-hearted nor unsympathetic. The fact is easily explained. His own boyhood had been task-filled and he saw nothing unnatural in the regular employment of his children. Having had little play-time himself, he considered that we were having a very comfortable boyhood. Furthermore the country was new and labor scarce. Every hand and foot ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... is not inconceivable that a landlord should take a very different view of the situation. Whether his estate is encumbered or not, he expects to get something out of it for himself. It was therefore not unnatural that advantage should have been taken of the famine and the Encumbered Estates Act to get the land into such condition that it would return some ascertainable sum. The best way of effecting this was ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... Every one who can think at all sees how slight are our safeguards against that barbaric force in man which the privileged races have so slowly and painfully brought into check. Democracy is full of menace to all the finer hopes of civilization, and the revival, in not unnatural companionship with it, of monarchic power based on militarism, makes the prospect dubious enough. There has but to arise some Lord of Slaughter, and the nations will be tearing at each other's throats. Let England be ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... Lilias hear the sound of Aletheia's voice, and then the words she uttered seemed so unnatural, so incomprehensible, to that light heart in its passionless ignorance, that they did but tend to increase the germ of dislike, and even fear, that was, as we have said, already planted there against this singular person. It was after they had returned ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... screamed a thousand death-screams, was now awfully dumb, albeit Farina could feel it lifting hood and hair. In the unnatural stillness his ear received tones of a hymn chanted below; now sinking, now swelling; as though the voices faltered between prayer and inspiration. Farina caught on a projection of crag, and fixed his eyes on what was ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... shout, but the muscles of his throat were stiff, and his lungs refused to act. The horse neighed again. This time there was no mistake; it was Roger that he heard! Voice came to him, and he cried aloud,—a hoarse, strange, unnatural cry. ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... him he shall sooner be saved by them. He can be no man's friend, for all men he hath most interest in he undoes. And a double dealer he is certainly, for by his good will he ever takes the forfeit. He puts his money to the unnatural act of generation, and his scrivener is the supervisor bawd to it. Good deeds he loves none, but sealed and delivered; nor doth he wish anything to thrive in the country but beehives, for they make him wax rich. He hates all but law-Latin, yet thinks he ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... we have a very extraordinary and unnatural custom, existing to this day on both sides of the Atlantic, reaching back to a vast antiquity, and finding its explanation only in the superstition of the American races. A practice so absurd could scarcely have originated separately in the two continents; its existence ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... As she grew up she was courted by all the gay and extravagant of both sexes, for she was of neither sex, and yet combining the attractions of each. At length, however, being mostly beset by men of the sword, she formed an unnatural union with one of them, and gave birth to twins—one called DUELLING, and the other a grim and hideous monster named SUICIDE. These became their mother's darlings, nursed by her with constant care and tenderness, and ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... one of these burial parties, and toward the close of the day he saw a familiar figure, also in command of a burial party, although it was in a gray uniform. His heart began to thump, and he uttered a cry of joy. The unexpected, but not the unnatural, had happened. ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... "You dear daddy, don't worry. I know Lorna's fine qualities, and I wish we could entertain more for her than we do right in our little flat. That's one of the causes of New York's unnatural life. In the small towns and suburbs girls have porches and big parlors, while they live in a surrounding of trees and flowers. They have home music, jolly gatherings about their own pianos; we can't afford even to rent a piano just now. So, there, daddy, be patient ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... manhood. Theirs was already the spirit of American institutions; the spirit of Christian freedom of a temperate, regulated freedom, of a rational civil obedience. For such a people the sword, the law of violence, did and could do nothing but sever the bonds which bound her colonial wards to their unnatural guardian. They redeemed their pledge, sword in hand; but the sword left them as it found them, unchanged in character, freemen in thought and in deed, instinct with the immortal spirit of American ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... enough for any reasonable man," said the Harvester angrily. "Forgive me, Ruth, I have been cruel. I forgot how frail and weak you are. It is having Harmon here that makes me unnatural. It almost drives me to frenzy to know that he may ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... it shrunk since the day when I skulked from it that I hear of a traveller's asking lately at one of its doors how far he was from a village; yet Harvie throve once and was celebrated even in distant Thrums for its fish. Most of our weavers would have thought it as unnatural not to buy harvies in the square on the Muckle Friday, as to let Saturday night pass without laying in a sufficient stock of halfpennies to go round the ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... impiety And oathes great, of usage and of pride! Alas! mankinde, how may it betide, That to thy Creator, which that thee wrought, And with his precious hearte-blood thee bought, Thou art so false and so unkind,* alas! *unnatural Now, good men, God forgive you your trespass, And ware* you from the sin of avarice. *keep Mine holy pardon may you all warice,* *heal So that ye offer *nobles or sterlings,* *gold or silver coins* Or elles silver brooches, spoons, ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... feigns to fall into a fit, which is supposed to be occasioned by a struggle with the evil spirit who then enters into him. During this fit, he keeps his eye-lids lifted up, distorts his features, foams at the mouth, seems to dislocate his joints, and after many violent and unnatural motions remains stiff and motionless, like a person in a fit of epilepsy. After some time he comes to himself, as if having gained the victory over the evil spirit. He next causes a faint shrill mournful voice to be heard within his tabernacle, as of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... flanks. Mr. Scogan ought to pass on his intelligence to little Scogans, and Denis to little Denises. The bull turned his head to see what was happening, regarded the drumming stick for several seconds, then turned back again satisfied, it seemed, that nothing was happening. Sterility was odious, unnatural, a sin against life. Life, life, and still more life. The ribs of the ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... come the words, "Fierce avenging sprite," "till blood for blood atones," "buried from my sight," "and trodden down with stones." Then follow loud, hollow, unnatural guffaws, succeeded by, "And years have rotted off his flesh." There are muttered curses, a blood-curdling, demoniacal yell, then in solemn, guttural tones, "The world shall ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... over towards them. His advance was measured, almost abnormally slow. His manner would have been melodramatic but for its intense earnestness. He stood at their table for a few seconds before speaking, his eyes fixed upon Jocelyn Thew's in a curious, almost unnatural stare. ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... successor; and in the dark forests of Saint-Jean-d'Angely, Philip bargained and sold the great Tiara to a Gascon Archbishop who, if Villani speaks truly, "threw himself at the royal feet, saying, 'It is for thee to command and for me to obey; such will ever be my disposition!'" As was not unnatural, the will of the French king was that the Pope should remain within the zone of royal influence. So Clement lived at Bordeaux and at Poitiers, and finally retired to the County of Venaissin which the Holy See possessed by right, ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... certainly a disinterested one, of a complete equality of property and conditions, utterly objecting to the very foundation of our moral system, and especially a strenuous antagonist of marriage, which he taught himself to esteem not only as an unnatural tie, but as eminently unjust towards that softer sex, who had been so long the victims of man; discarding as a mockery the received revelation of the divine will; and, if no longer an atheist, substituting merely for ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... endowed with an unquenchable energy of attraction, causing it to steadily increase in power and definiteness of purpose, until the process of growth is completed and the matured form stands out as an accomplished fact. Now if this be the universal method of Nature, there is nothing unnatural in supposing that it must begin its operation at a stage further back than the formation of the material nucleus. As soon as that is called into being it begins to operate by the law of attraction on the material plane; ...
— The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... cross on the fagade, made them shine like sword-blades in the quiver of the heat between. For the valley was just a lake of hot air, hot and murky—"fever weather," said the people in the streets—with a glaring summer sun let in between two long spells of fog. 'Twas unnatural at that season, via; but the blessed Saints sent the weather and one could only be careful what one ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... Cicero (648-711) who was from the outset quite as much author as forensic orator; he published his pleadings regularly, even when they were not at all or but remotely connected with politics. This was a token, not of progress, but of an unnatural and degenerate state of things. Even in Athens the appearance of non-political pleadings among the forms of literature was a sign of debility; and it was doubly so in Rome, which did not, like Athens, by a sort of necessity produce this malformation ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... went forth to the slaughter of the Iroquois at the Detour, and expelled them from the Island of Mackinaw and Point St. Ignatius. From hence he went armed to wage an unnatural war against his relatives the Ojibwas, and was slain by the noble chief Kau-be-man, and it was to this place that the sad news came back of his fate. Thus much for the Indian history ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... forthwith handed over by the parents to George to be reared and adopted by him. In due time little Tycho appeared, and was immediately claimed by George in pursuance of the compact. But it was not unnatural that the parental instinct, which had been dormant when the agreement was made, should here interpose. Tycho's father and mother receded from the bargain, and refused to part with their son. George thought he was badly treated. However, he took ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... Perhaps I told him so a little abruptly. At any rate, he was disappointed. Now he has got an idea in his brain. He believes that I have discovered something which I will not tell him. He follows me about. He pesters me to death. He is a slave to that one idea—a hideous, almost unnatural craving to get his hands on the source of his brother's money. I think that he will very soon be mad. To tell you the truth, I came in here to-night because I thought I should be safe from him. I don't believe he has five shillings to ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... inhabitants burned more fiercely and brightly; every man became a hero, every woman an orator, and words of flashing genius were spoken and deeds of wild bravery done, such as would have been impossible except among twenty thousand human beings living in the same city, and all roused at once to the same unnatural pitch of emotion. ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... verses of the Shepherd Psalm, is peculiarly descriptive of our Lord, the Good Shepherd of human souls. He, in a manner altogether divine, precedes His elect, and prepares them the way of salvation. He does not deliver them from enemies and dangers, which would be unnatural in the present state, but He makes use of evils, as said before, to increase the perfection of His chosen souls. Gradually, step by step, from a natural He leads them to a higher state—from diffidence ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan
... has practiced this: but since it is a case of arms and battle, what is there about him that any one should dread? His physical condition? He has passed his prime and become effeminate. His strength of mind? He plays the woman and has surrendered himself to unnatural lust. His piety toward our gods? He is at war both with them and his country. His faithfulness to his allies? But is any one unaware how he deceived and imprisoned the Armenian? His liberal treatment of his friends? ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... subject. The announcement of the unexpected alliance with France struck all with astonishment and indignation. Francis, vehemently moved, rose, and smiting the table with his hand, exclaimed, "Such an alliance is unnatural and impracticable—it never shall take place." The empress, by nods and winks, encouraged her minister, and he went on detailing the great advantages to result from the French alliance. Maria Theresa listened with great attention to his arguments, and was ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... and began to sail down the dismal Val Tremolo towards Airolo, the great wind that had made majestic music all day and night ceased to blow. We ran into a zone of motionless, ice-cold air, and what seemed an unnatural silence, only the hum of the motor breaking the frozen stillness of these ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... inimitable landscape has possessed the strongest influence over my mind, and retained its place as a memorable thing, when much that was influential on my own fortunes has fled from my recollection. It is therefore unnatural that, whilst deliberating on what might be brought forward for the amusement of the public, I should pitch upon some narrative connected with the splendid scenery which made so much impression on ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... began to talk. The unnatural self-repression he had practiced gave way before the flood of his sociability. It was Joan's amazing beauty as she stumbled wretchedly into the circle of his firelight, her neck drawn up to its full length, her head crowned high with soft, black masses, ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... Stackpole, settling himself again in his chair with his hands in his pockets—"it is not unnatural, I suppose,—but then that is the first view of the subject—it is the business of reason to correct many impressions and prejudices that are, as ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... millions and a half of being equal to what this great commercial nation, England, carried on at the beginning of this century with the whole world! If I had taken the largest year of those on your table, it would rather have exceeded. But, it will be said, is not this American trade an unnatural protuberance, that has drawn the juices from the rest of the body? The reverse. It is the very food that has nourished every other part into its present magnitude. Our general trade has been greatly augmented; and ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... With a not unnatural anticipation that, as a result of this painstaking description, this person will find two well-equipped camps of contending locusts in ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... case, again, I have fancied that I discover in the various notices of his life a noble nature warped and blinded by its unnatural exclusions from those family ties through which we first discern or describe God and our relations to Him, and forced to concentrate his whole faculties in the service, not so much of a God of Truth as of a Catholic system. In his character will be found, I hope, some implicit apology ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... by the continental blockade. But when Bonaparte began to show scant courtesy to his Russian ally, and to act as if he were his master, then Alexander's disenchantment was complete. He freed himself from the unnatural alliance, and ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... indeed, he is viewed with the utmost suspicion by all women save the most stupid. In him the vanity native to his sex is seen to mount to a degree that is positively intolerable. It not only irritates by its very nature; it also throws about him a sort of unnatural armour, and so makes him resistant to the ordinary approaches. For this reason, the matrimonial enterprises of the more reflective and analytical sort of women are almost always directed to men whose lack of pulchritude makes them easier to bring down, and, what is more important still, easier to ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... unnatural-like in the proceeding," observed the old gentleman, after Rolf had given him a true, unvarnished account of the affair. "He's a handsome gallant, and she's a very fine lassie, there's no denying that; but at the same time, God's blessing does not alight on marriages contracted ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... majority somewhat unintelligent, a little inclined to be idle, and occasionally, on Saturday night, drunk; we must even be prepared to hear of reprobates who like skittles on Sunday morning better than prayers; and of unnatural parents who send their children out to beg instead ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... considering, that the guileless simplicity of his nature, which had raised those foes, had also secured him a faithful friend. That bright creation of his fancy disappeared, a chaos of duplicity, dark contrivance, and injustice remained: Walter proved false, his sister unnatural, his King a tyrant. So different were these objects from what he once believed them, that he doubted whether life afforded any realities. Did his Isabel really choose him for his own merit, or was latent ambition the spur to her affection? Did the village-pastor seek out and console a stranger from ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... such a type of society are inconsistent with any but a low grade of civilisation—they are eunuchs, slavery, unnatural vice, and, more than all, a general debasement of the female sex. In Chinese society, woman occupies a shaded hemisphere—not inaptly represented by the dark portion in their national symbol the Yinyang-tse or Diagram of the Dual principles. So completely has she hitherto been ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... door. He could see far down the street, out into the country. There he waited, and minutes were eternities. He saw no person near him; he heard no sound. He was insulated in his unnatural strain. ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... that all men are equally free; that all power is vested in the people, who have an inalienable right to alter, reform, or abolish their form of government at pleasure, and that the idea of an hereditary first magistrate is unnatural and absurd! Our General presented me with this document fresh from Williamsburg, as we were sailing northward by the Virginia capes, and, amidst not a little amusement and laughter, pointed out to me the faith to which, from the Fourth inst. inclusive, I was bound. There was ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... cried, in deep emotion, her cheeks becoming crimson, her blue eyes flashing with an unnatural light, "if that codicil could be found it would save my life. Jan, in his rough, stupid way, tells me I am fretting myself into my grave. Perhaps I am. I want to go ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... the dining-room unperceived; but who can describe the agony of my aunt Kate, when she clapped her eyes upon five such close-clipped scarecrows. She vowed vengence of all sorts and descriptions against the impudent, unnatural, shameful monster! Terms which Mikey Brian, in the back-ground, appropriated to himself, and with the utmost difficulty restrained his rising wrath ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... unconsciously he wrung the hand that had gripped her, as if it pained him. She watched him, and wondered why on earth all this frenzy. She was left rather cold, she did not at all feel the strong feelings he seemed to expect of her. There was nothing so very unnatural, after all, in being bumped up suddenly against the wall. Certainly her shoulder hurt where he had gripped it. But there were plenty of worse hurts in the world. She watched him with ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... she laughed. "It must be very unnatural for you to wait for anything. And you must be starving. So am I—do you think there are enough cakes left for the ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... celibacy adopted in Convents is altogether unnatural, and subverts all the appointments of Jehovah in reference to the duties and usefulness of man; while the impenetrable secrecy, which is the cement of the gloomy superstructure, not only extirpates every incentive to active virtue, but unavoidably opens the flood-gates of wickedness, ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... there was an audible sob from some one in the back of the hall, and many a boy away from home, careless and forgetful of his own mother, remembered her now with sudden tenderness. The words of the prayer were stiff and unnatural, but when did the Spirit of God depend upon felicity of expression? It can abound wherever there is the honest heart, and when Pearl, with tears flowing down her cheeks, but with voice steady and clear, thanked the God of all grace for sending her the answer ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... somewhat unnatural silence followed, like one of those awkward pauses in the conversation when we entertain stiff callers for ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... years, since that I wore a beard, I've served my melancholy master here, And never until now saw such a night! A wedding in this silent house, forsooth,— A festival! The very walls in mute Amazement stared through the unnatural light! And poor Rosalia, bless her tender heart, Looked like her mother's sainted ghost! Ah me, Her mother died long years ago, and took One half the blessed sunshine from our house— The other half was married off ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... the reactions, in the endeavor to control the formal relations of the successive beats. If such a method of discriminating types be applied to the present material, then the most easily cooerdinated—the most natural—form is the dactyl; the anapaest stands next; the amphibrach is the most unnatural and difficult to cooerdinate. ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... sole of the foot, and retaining them in that position until they literally grow into and become a part of it; and by forcing the heel forward, until it is entirely obliterated, make it the more wonderful how a custom, so unnatural and inhuman, should have continued for so many ages, at least such is the opinion, that its origin is entirely unknown, or explained by such fabulous absurdities as are too ridiculous to assign for ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... of the way in which Webster schooled himself to become a speaker will repay every one who wishes to use our spoken language effectively. In Webster's youth, a stilted, unnatural style was popular for set speeches. He was himself influenced by the prevailing fashion, and we find him ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... Miss Dalton; but for my sake you must try to feel at home," an affection for Mrs. Beauchamp entered into the heart of the young girl, which has continued ever since steadily to increase. That she should conceive such an affection was not unnatural, for there was something in the appearance and manners of Mrs. Beauchamp, combined with her position in life, calculated to strike the imagination and touch the feelings of a warm-hearted and romantic girl such as Fanny Dalton, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... disaster of over-production. In the present commercial era we are still suspended over that dreadful brink. Nothing can stop the accelerated flux of mechanical production; and we are saved from falling into the abyss only by the unnatural increase of ordinary consumption. The consumption of the ordinary markets, even when stimulated by the most violent tonics of advertisement, is strictly limited, and the limits have long been overtaken. The accelerated consumption could only be maintained by the discovery ...
— The World in Chains - Some Aspects of War and Trade • John Mavrogordato
... law, they belonged to him, until they were willingly given to others. His presence would also convince the Ojibways, Chippewas and others that white men, too, were on their side. Yet nothing could make Timmendiquas like Wyatt. It seemed unnatural to him for a man to fight against his own race, and he knew the young renegade to be treacherous ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... vivid smile taking the place of words. Mrs. Linford, rendered oddly, almost obstinately reserved by this excessive cordiality, was conscious of something unnatural in that smile—a too great intensity, like the greenness of ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... possible that you are willing to barter your only daughter for such baubles," she indignantly replied. "It is unnatural." ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... be done to get free from Hugh? Every hour in the day fresh plans came to her—some so absurd as to provoke feverish, unnatural laughter, but none that were feasible. With all her daring wit, her quick thought, her vivid fancy—with all her resource of mind and intellect, she could do nothing. Day and night the one question was still there—what could she do to get free ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... into the face of his companion, with blood-stained countenance, and eyes that were sodden with pain and passion. He looked like some prisoner of state doomed to the martyr's stake, as he sat there in the dim light and talked in a solemn monotone that was weird and unnatural. ...
— Five Thousand Dollars Reward • Frank Pinkerton
... 60. "The unnatural rage for transcribing pianoforte pieces for string instruments (instruments that are in every respect so different from each other) ought to end. I stoutly maintain that only Mozart could have transcribed his own works, and Haydn; and without putting myself on a level with these great ...
— Beethoven: the Man and the Artist - As Revealed in his own Words • Ludwig van Beethoven
... its very mystery always thrilled the visitor, and seemed to indicate plainly the respectability of the hostess. An American family without a genteel skeleton in its closet could scarcely add to that gossip which keeps society from forgetting its members. Nor was it altogether unnatural that presently Mrs. Roger Catron lent herself to this sentimental deception, and began to think that she really was a more exquisitely aggrieved woman than she had imagined. At times, when this vague load of iniquity put upon her dead husband assumed, through ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... we are looking at Jupiter high in mid-heavens on a winter's night, it might be contended that, as the earth lies between Jupiter and the sun, it must be impossible for the rays of the sun to fall upon the planet. This is, perhaps, not an unnatural view for an inhabitant of this earth to adopt until he has become acquainted with the relative sizes of the various bodies concerned, and with the distances by which those bodies are separated. But the question would appear in a widely different ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... The citizens still speak of those police.... The War broke out, and Dr. Vio donned a uniform, serving chiefly on the railway line between Rieka and Zagreb. Gradually he seems to have acquired the feeling that it was unnatural for him to be a Magyar of the Magyars, even though he was compelled, like so many others, to wear this uniform. But one day in 1916 when his friend and fellow-officer, Fran [vS]ojat, teacher at the High School at ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... may add that the problem discussed by Brantome, three hundred years ago, is much the same as that which has so largely occupied the attention of modern medical men, namely the great spread of nervous disease and melancholia among women, owing to the unnatural celibacy enforced upon them by the deficiency ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. III. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... passionate; and as I could not play at anything, and was slothful, I was despised and hated by the boys: and because I could read and spell, and had, I may truly say, a memory and understanding forced into almost unnatural ripeness, I was flattered and wondered at by all the old women. And so I became very vain, and despised most of the boys that were at all near my own age, and before I was eight years old I was ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... ruin and you suddenly check yourself, stop, turn back, and retrace your steps, that is reaction, and no doubt your former guide will have every reason to reproach you with inconsistency. And it seems to me not at all unnatural that to one who regards three years' desolating civil war as a period of healthy and inspiring progress, a good deal of what his Majesty's Government have lately done in South Africa must appear very dreary ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... prescription for the treatment of overgrown babies; but the deuce of it was that though in her eyes Jaffery was pleasantly overgrown, she could not for the life of her regard him as a baby. So it came to pass that an unnatural pair continued to meet and mystify and misunderstand each other to the great content of the high gods and of one unimportant human ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... my dear madame," said the lawyer, in the unnatural fashion commonly described by the words "mincing tones"; tones sharp, thin, and grating as verjuice, in spite ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... non-condensation to be natural in the case of cyanogen and chlorine, the condensation of two vols. of HCl two vols. of H3N to two vols. of NH4Cl ought to appear to him unnatural. He, however, contends for it, and tries, on this solitary occasion, to strengthen his opinion by authority, though the proof, if it could be given, that ammonium chloride at the temperature of volatilization is decomposed into its two constituents, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various
... moment here in this Introduction. I am especially moved to do this because I have reason to think that very serious and very extraordinary delusions on this point exist outside of France, and especially in England. This is not unnatural when we remember that nine foreigners in ten take their impressions of France as a nation, not only from the current journalism and literature of Paris alone, but from a very limited range of the current literature and journalism even of Paris. Most Americans certainly, and I ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... toward the hills across the bay softened the brown of her skin and, as I observed by watching her closely, served partially to conceal the nervousness which was wholly unnatural in a girl of such poise. When she smiled there was a false note in it; it was forced and it was sufficiently evident to me that she was going through a mental hell of conflicting emotions that would have killed a woman ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... Camer's mother. On the sand, lying in a limp, unnatural position, was Camer. No longer the bright, little baby-camel that Cara had known, but a quiet, inanimate thing, which neither answered nor moved in response ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... The unnatural hair growth may be slight, as, for instance, upon a naevus (naevus pilosus); or it may be excessive, as in the so-called hairy people (homines pilosi); or it may also appear on the face, arms and other parts in females, resulting ...
— Essentials of Diseases of the Skin • Henry Weightman Stelwagon
... this or any ill designed, Oh, what unnatural and perverted race Could the sweet flesh with flushing stricture bind, And leave to suffer in this cold embrace That the warm arms so hunger to replace?" Into the damsel's cheeks such color flew As by the alchemy of ancient days If whitest ivory should take the hue Of coral where it blooms ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... in the attack on the expedition, the evidence is just as strong on the other side. He had a deep and by no means unnatural prejudice against English exploring parties. The last mission of the kind had entered into negotiations, as we have already mentioned, with the enemies against whom this Chinese general was prosecuting bitter ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... have had in mind Mrs. Bobcat and her brood of kits, and half anticipated being called on to offer fight in order to defend the camp. Anything seemed possible with that brooding and mysterious darkness hanging over the place. Its sable depths might be peopled with a great variety of goblins, and unnatural wood folks, gathered to expel these ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... reader consider this, namely, what shame these good-for-nothing men have who say that marriages [which the Holy Scriptures praise most highly and command] produce infamy and disgrace to the government, as though, indeed, this public infamy of flagitious and unnatural lusts which glow among these very holy fathers, who feign that they are Curii and live like bacchanals, were a great ornament to the Church! And most things which these men do with the greatest license cannot even be named without a breach of modesty. And these their lusts they ask you ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon
... they denied all knowledge of those letters or of that conversation. They at the same time detailed the advantages to be derived by America from the propositions they had made, "advantages," they added, "decidedly superior to any which could be expected from an unnatural alliance with France, only entered into by that nation for the purpose of prolonging the war, after the full knowledge on their part of the liberal terms intended to be offered by Great Britain." With this declaration was transmitted a copy of the former remonstrance[11] against ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall
... to look forward to. The life beyond is something to which they have given little thought. They have starved their nobler nature that is nourished on higher things, until it is dwarfed and shriveled, and the baleful results of such an unnatural mode of life are pictured in ...
— Under Fire - A Tale of New England Village Life • Frank A. Munsey
... demanding separate explanations. In regard to such the "ecclesiastical damn" and the "scientific damn" have been freely used. If men have been hypnotized by ghost stories, they certainly have been deluded by stories of unnatural science. To deny activities of life natural and super-natural is rather silly considering no man has solved the life principle. The atoms forming the material of the brain may be proved ultimately to be identical with those that compose a jelly-fish or a jar ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... contemptible kingdom; and in the blessed ignorance of childhood—that finds pride and honour in things which a wider and sadder knowledge often proves far from glad or glorious—it appeared to him not unnatural that a king should differ, even to the point of some slightly impeding disabilities, from the rank and file of his obedient and devoted subjects. For Dickie, happily for him, was as yet given over to that wholly pleasant vanity, the aristocratic idea. The rough justice of democracy, and the harsh ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... of the father's despair broke out in his answer. "I can bear other troubles, Randal, as well as most men. This affliction revolts me. There's something so horribly unnatural in the child being threatened by death, while the parents (who should die first) are alive and well—" He checked himself. "I had better say no more, I shall ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... It was not unnatural that the committee in charge, not, it must be remembered, of choosing a pastor, but of recommending one, or more, for the choice of both church and society, should look beyond the sea. More than one church had done so and with ...
— Sixty years with Plymouth Church • Stephen M. Griswold
... a moderate share of common sense, will suppose that an author really believes the accusation he so humbly utters against himself. Could he indeed persuade himself that his book was so very indifferent a performance, he might assuredly more justly accuse himself of acting the part of an unnatural parent in thus gratuitously exposing his intellectual offspring to the neglect and ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... man, flying and screaming round his head, and exposing themselves to almost certain death in defence of their nests: whoever has seen these things, or any one of them, must question the motive that can induce a mother to banish a child from her own breast to that of one who has already been so unnatural as to banish hers. And, in seeking for a motive sufficiently powerful to lead to such an act, women must excuse men, if they be not satisfied with the ordinary pretences; they must excuse me, at any rate, if I do not stop even at love of ease and want of maternal affection, and if I express my ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... of drink shook hands energetically. Long since they had sunk their manhood in the intoxicating cup, and henceforth lived only to gratify their unnatural craving for what would sooner or later bring them to a ...
— Adrift in New York - Tom and Florence Braving the World • Horatio Alger
... into your land? If you cannot do all these, then are you deceiving yourselves, and by your delay bringing ruin upon your posterity. Your future connection with Britain, whom you can neither love nor honor, will be forced and unnatural, and being formed only on the plan of present convenience, will in a little time fall into a relapse more wretched than the first. But if you say you can still pass the violations over, then I ask, hath your house been burnt? Hath your property ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... only because the vice he had inoculated her with had cast off the beauty that had inflamed him. Nor did he know the meaning of that stealthy visit, which lasted only for a few minutes—so unexpected, for he had not seen her during many months, so singular, so unnatural, so unlike the world, returning gratitude for injury, benediction for infamy, until, after she had suddenly slipped away, he found by the side of the wall a small bottle of wine. That form and face, once more beautiful in his estimation ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... for we had not noticed before how unnatural his laugh was; there was no further thought of eating; and he, when he saw the general anxiety, mastered himself with an effort and said rapidly amidst the ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... the window and turned to her. As he advanced the lamp's glare fell full on him and she saw his face glistening with perspiration and darkened with unnatural hollows. In that one moment, played upon by the revealing side light, it was like the face of a skeleton and she ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... in his own mind, "This comes when like marries not like—when a man forms an unnatural union with a sea-maiden." Excusing himself, as we all love to do, he would add: "I did not, in fact, know that she was a maid of the sea. It is my misfortune that my steps are haunted and disturbed by the wild humours of her kindred, but it is not ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... with a far deeper interest, the physical effect which the music of some itinerant piano-organ would produce upon street children; they seemed affected by some curious intoxication; their gestures, their smiles, their self-conscious glances, their dancing movements, so unnatural in a sense, and yet so instinctive, made the process appear almost magical in its effects. Though it did not affect him so personally, it seemed to have a similarly intoxicating effect on Hugh's own ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... propose to speak? Where have you lived it? For the life which you have really lived has been what I have described. And how much does he take upon himself! He brought another man to trial here for unnatural offences! But I leave this point for the moment. (To the clerk.) ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... what end then, wonders Graham, this grand tirade, this fine display of what to him could not but appear very like hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness? To what end indeed? And yet, perhaps, not wholly unnatural. After five-and-twenty years of convent life, Therese Linders still clung to the memory of the closing scenes of her worldly career, as the most eventful in the dead level of a grey monotonous life, still held to the remembrance of her mother's death, and of her fierce quarrel with ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... he declared, 'we are all—Scott, Wordsworth, Moore, Campbell, and I—upon a wrong revolutionary poetical system, not worth a damn in itself;' but among these are some leaders of the great nineteenth-century renaissance in English verse; and Byron was foremost in the revolt against unnatural insipidity which has brought us through romance to realism, by his clear apprehension of natural form and colour, and even by the havoc which he made among conventional respectabilities. He dwelt too incessantly upon his ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... found them all so trivial, that if I should name them, a true critic would imagine that I played booty. Some are pleased to say the writing is dull; but aedatum habet de se loquatur. Others, that the double poison is unnatural; let the common received opinion, and Ausonius's famous epigram, answer that. Lastly, a more ignorant sort of creatures than either of the former maintain, that the character of Dorax is not only unnatural, but inconsistent with itself; let them read the play, and think again. ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... genius from whom there might be great things yet to come. The names of those who thus made possible the greatest poem in the English language deserve lasting record; and a word of gratitude may be added to Clarendon and to Charles II for refraining from saying the easy and not unnatural word which would have been instantly fatal ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... answered Charles, "that there's a great difference between reviving and retaining; it may be natural to retain, even while the use fails, unnatural to revive when it has failed; but this is a question of ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... expect would be heightened, you realize—and it is strange to you that you do so realize—first of all its pathos, and again its pathos, and always, the scene through, its pathos. Had Molly gone with old Martin it would have revolted you, for it would have been unnatural, but since she did not, and since she was not the sort to be easily insulted, you only wonder at the power of passion and realize its pathos, and ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... expression as of madness darkens her features. She seizes Tota; her voice is harsh and unnatural.) The cub he ...
— Modern Icelandic Plays - Eyvind of the Hills; The Hraun Farm • Jhann Sigurjnsson
... throws out on the green table at the necessary moment. And he was right from his standpoint. But why had we to drink off the bitter cup? Losing our self-respect, having no faith in our power, growing corrupted by an unnatural existence, cutting down by means of the celebrated "norm" the number of our educated and cultured men—a devilish joke!—our entire nation was diligently performing the "Fools' Dance," which, under the name of a drama from Russian life, has recently ...
— The Shield • Various
... farther objection, we three pulled for the next half-hour, giving the men a good rest, when they took their turn, and we could see that while the haze seemed nearer the schooner was quite as far-off as ever. There was a curious coppery look, too, about the sun that made everything now look weird and unnatural, even to the doctor's face, which in addition looked serious to a degree I had never ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... which was clearly perceptible against the white boat beyond, was unfamiliar to me. He seemed to have a small and oddly swathed head, and what I could make out of the gaunt neck and square shoulders in some way suggested an unnatural thinness; in short, the smudgy silhouette in the port-hole was weirdly like that of ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... and our own modern attitude toward the sex-relation, there intervenes that terrible time in the history of Human Evolution, known as the Dark Ages, in which was evolved the unnatural view of the function of sex, exemplified rather erotically, in many instances, by asceticism and celibacy. Although it sounds paradoxical, yet there is a celibacy that is ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... be so—my pencil could not but miss that middle line between angels and devils, and produce a monster, which fortunately had no existence in the world, and to which I wish immortality merely that it may serve as a specimen of the issue engendered by the unnatural union of subordination and genius. I allude to 'The Robbers.' The whole moral world had accused the author of high treason. He has no other excuse to offer than the climate under which this piece was born. If any of ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... accorded, without demur or hesitation, a foremost place amongst the few accepted actresses. Her future and his position were absolutely secured, and her reputation, as Matravers was happy to think, was made, not as the portrayer of a sickly and unnatural type of diseased womanhood, but as the woman of his own creation, a very sweet and ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... an unnatural parent because he growled once or twice, "Darling Janie be hanged!" It was rather his wife's attitude of mind that ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... advances of her right-hand neighbour with the barest of monosyllables. Lady Delahaye, who sat on my left, left me for the most part discreetly alone. Yet we two spoke very little. I could see that Isobel was disposed to be hysterical, and that her outward calm was only attained by means of an unnatural effort. Yet I fancied that my being near soothed her, and every time I spoke to her or she to me, a certain relief came into her face. All the while I was conscious of one strange thing. The Archduchess, although she had the Cardinal on one side and the Prince of Cleves on the ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... day Madam Conway had heard the servants hint that Hagar's grief had driven her insane; and now when she observed the unnatural brightness in her eyes, and saw what she had done, she too thought it possible that her mind was partially unsettled; so she said gently, but firmly: "This is no time for foolishness, Hagar. They are waiting for us in the sickroom; so make haste ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... of State, therefore, avows to Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford that he looks patiently, but confidently, for the cure of evils which have resulted from proceedings so unnecessary, so unwise, so unusual, and so unnatural, not to irregular negotiations, having in view new and untried relations with agencies unknown to and acting in derogation of the Constitution and laws, but to regular and considerate action of the people of those States, in cooeperation with their ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... conversion, there never was a more absurd fancy than that Pascal’s mind suffered any eclipse in the great change that came to him. He may have been credulous, he may have been superstitious. The miracle of the Holy Thorn may be an evidence of the one, and the unnatural asceticism of his later years a proof of the other. But to speak of the author of the ‘Provincial Letters,’ of the problems on the Cycloid, and finally of the ‘Pensées,’ as if his intellect had suffered from his conversion, is to use ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... to the accident which had happened on their voyage, and felt to say something on the providence of God, and His watch-care over His children. The preacher's voice was pleasant, the ministerial tone not being so pronounced as to make his speech unnatural. Chester listened attentively, as also did Lucy who, Chester observed, was sitting ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... She turned back on the threshold of the kitchen door through which her work had been taking her to and fro during Garth's outbreak. Her voice was monotonous and smothered; it had its share in her unnatural self-repression. ...
— Snow-Blind • Katharine Newlin Burt |
