"Indescribable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... attractive than the captivating one from the harbour. The population long ago over-ran the limits of the old city so that to-day most of the people are outside the walls. Within those ancient battlements, the streets are narrow and crooked, while the filth is indescribable. The visitor who wishes to see something of the work and to enjoy the hospitality of the noble company of Presbyterian missionaries on Temple Hill must either pass through that reeking mess or go around it. There is, after all, not much choice in the routes, for the Chinese population outside ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... "One, two, three," slowly, and at the "three!" the report of the two rifles came as one. They saw the great bear drop down from the tree, they heard an indescribable roar of pain and rage, and then they saw his huge bulk rushing down upon them. Dick fired three times and Albert twice, but the bear still came, and then Dick slammed the window shut and fastened ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... London is? Of course he would have to pay that—it was the regular thing, he being a gentleman. Then should he take her home? He began to rough in a moving sketch of the return. The stepmother, repentant of her indescribable cruelties, would be present,—even these rich people have their troubles,—probably an uncle or two. The footman would announce, Mr.—(bother that name!) and Miss Milton. Then two women weeping together, and a knightly figure in the background dressed in a handsome Norfolk jacket, ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... convictions are in, favor of cooperative Association rather than of communities of property, I look with an indescribable interest on every attempt to redeem society from its corruptions, and establish the intercourse of men on a basis of love instead of competition. The evils arising from trade and money, it appears to me, grow out of the defects of our social ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... prospect before me, I cannot deny; it was the first time I had commanded a vessel, and on the result of this action rested all my hopes of promotion. God bless me! I was but a boy, not more than one-and-twenty years of age. A strange and indescribable feeling came over me at this moment—an irresistible desire to open my heart to the excellent man I saw before ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... home in the five caravels which are now waiting to return to Spain. To such a pass have things come in the paradise of Espanola! But the rabble finds life pleasant enough in Xaragua, where they are busy with indescribable pleasures; and for the moment there is no great response to this invitation to be gone. Columbus therefore despatches his ships, with such rabble of colonists, gaol-birds, and mariners as have already had their fill both of pain and pleasure, and writes his usual letter to the Sovereigns—half ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... breath, as if released from torture. Then she laughed the indescribable half-sobbing laugh of a child tormented and suddenly ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair
... was Jones, to call that mass of rock a hill)—shining red-hot in the last light against a topaz or turquoise sky, and the gulch that ran up to it in a mystery of dark green gloom offering up an evening prayer of indescribable odors—those appeals to a life in former spheres which no other sense remembers; the ceaseless roar of the wind in the pines, so steady that it formed a background for other sounds almost as good as silence itself; the evening ...
— The Mascot of Sweet Briar Gulch • Henry Wallace Phillips
... the least, mightily puzzled them. I ascended the highest point of the island in the afternoon, and from thence looked over several miles of densely wooded country, but offering no appearance of land to the eastward of South-South-East. We gazed with indescribable delight upon the wide expanse of open water which lay before us in that direction, and already anticipated the discovery of some vast inlet, terminating in the mouth of a magnificent river, upon the exploration of which our imagination was already busily engaged; nor for the moment did the ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... by and the objects seem no nearer than when they were first observed. The reason for this seems to be that every atom of vapour is eliminated from the air, leaving such an absolute clearness of atmosphere, such an indescribable transparency of space through which distant objects are seen, that they are magnified and look nearer than they really are. Consequently, the usual method of calculating distance and areas by the eye ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... down at him with a curious and indescribable expression. "You're not shy, at any rate," he said, drily. "Well, good-night, young man. What?"—the boy had held up his face ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... forced to go through. Cynthia was not this kind of a heroine. She was neither tall nor short, and the dark blue gown which she wore set off (so Bob thought) the curves of her figure to perfection. Her face had become a little more grave—yes, and more noble; and the eyes and mouth had an indescribable, womanly sweetness. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... or waterproof ground-sheets, are lifted over the parados, and carried back a convenient twenty yards or more. The desolation of that garden, choked with weeds and a wild growth of self-sown crops, is indescribable. It was wreckage-strewn, gaping with shell holes, billowing with innumerable graves, a waste land speechlessly pathetic. The poplar trees and willow hedges have been blasted and splintered by shell fire. Tommy calls these "Kaiser Bill's flowers." Coming from England, he feels more deeply ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall
... proclaimed himself to be. Jesus and John were in the second or third—he was not quite sure which—Moses was in the sixth, while Abraham alone had the supreme distinction of residing in the Seventh Heaven. There, at the apex of indescribable glory, Mohammed had entered the awful presence of his Maker, Who, after some chit-chat, charged him to see that all Moslems should hereafter prostrate themselves in prayer toward the Temple of Solomon five times a day. The truth of this narrative rests upon two ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... by chance against the wall, caught, or seemed to catch, certain vague, indescribable, distant, articulate ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... of the laguna, the rotunda and the long crescent of the colonnade are seen reflected as in a mirror, and when flooded with the white radiance of the searchlights, their majestic beauty is indescribable. ...
— The Architecture and Landscape Gardening of the Exposition • Louis Christian Mullgardt
... killed the infant, but thereby steeled the mother's heart for revenge. One night the three prisoners slew their sleeping guards and, seizing a canoe, floated down to their home. Dover was attacked June 27, 1689, twenty-three persons killed, and twenty-nine sold to the French in Canada. Indescribable horrors occurred at Oyster River, at Salmon Falls, at ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... the church walls remained, and the sun slanted in through the ruined windows on to a scene of indescribable wreckage. ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... Lucy?" I was, as it were, gathered up and kissed. The voice, somehow, carried a comfortable feeling in the kindness of its power and depth; and though it was a mouth bristly with yellow bristles, such as had never touched me before, the honest friendly eyes gave me an indescribable feeling of belonging to somebody, and of having ceased to be alone in ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... upon the waters of Lake Michigan, crossing Lake Winnebago, visiting the ancient villages of the Kickapoos, 'with joy indescribable,' as Marquette declared, they for the first time beheld the Mississippi. In June, 1673, upon the east bank of the great river, they landed upon the soil of what is now the State of Illinois. At the little village they first visited they received hospitable treatment. Its inmates are known ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... loveliness of a bright day passes into her face; a soft sweet perfume is an inexhaustible pleasure to her; I have seen her take delight the whole day long in the scent breathed forth by some mignonette; and, after one of those rainy mornings that bring out all the soul of the flowers and give indescribable freshness and brightness to the day, she seems to overflow with gladness like the green world around her. If it is close and hot, and there is thunder in the air, La Fosseuse feels a vague trouble that nothing can soothe. She ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... strangely and undeniably beautiful. Her long, thin-lipped mouth was too close shut, but it was of an exquisite satin texture, scarlet in colour, and when she said "Hello, Tommy," it melted into the most enchanting and indescribable curves, showing just a glimpse ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... well as the words, made Rose look up quickly into Mac's face to see a new expression there. It was indescribable, but she felt as she had often done when watching the mists part suddenly, giving glimpses of some mountaintop, shining serene and ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... the other volumes. It was she who conceived the idea; through her came the money for its publication; for several years her own home has been given up to the mass of material, the typewriters, the coming and going of countless packages, the indescribable annoyances and burdens connected with a matter of this kind. In addition she has borne from her private means a considerable portion of the expenses, and has endured the physical weariness and mental anxiety at a time when she ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... hearty vengeance, bursting out without any puttering prelude in gloriously glad concert, hundreds or thousands of exulting voices with sweet gurgling baumpalees mingled with chippy vibrant and exploding globules of musical notes, making a most enthusiastic, indescribable joy-song, a combination unlike anything to be heard elsewhere in the bird kingdom; something like bagpipes, flutes, violins, pianos, and human-like voices all bursting and bubbling at once. Then suddenly some one of the joyful congregation ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... other, in the drawer of an inlaid cabinet or work-table there must have been also one precious packet, carefully tied up with ribbon and silver paper, in which some favourite grandchild, allowed for a treat to open it, would find, to her indescribable delight, a little ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... white, perceptibly flashing. Now, towards the south, east, and west, it appears to radiate a soft, grey-tinted light, with a quivering motion. Should the day be calm, the hum produced by the vibration of so many millions of wings is quite indescribable, and more resembles the noise popularly termed "a ringing in one's ears," than any other sound. The aspect of the heavens during the period that the greatest flight is passing by is singularly striking. It produces a feeling of uneasiness, amazement, and awe, ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... like: "Jagers, Hussars, a ducat for every traitor you shoot down!" continues Wolfersdorf (and punctually paid it afterwards): unable to prevent an almost total dissolution of Grollmann. For some minutes, there is a scene indescribable: storm of vociferation, menace, musket-shot, pistol-shot; Grollmann disappearing on every side,—"behind the Redoubt, under the Bridge, into Elbe Boats, under the cloaks of the Croats;"—in spite of Wolfersdorf's Olympian ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... size, or rather above it, his limbs well-proportioned, yet not so strong as to infer the reproach of clumsiness. His features were uncommonly handsome, and all about him would have been interesting and prepossessing but for that indescribable expression which habitual dissipation gives to the countenance, joined with a certain audacity in look and manner, of that kind which is often assumed as a mask for confusion ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... crack young regiment, the Sixth Pennsylvania Cavalry (forming what was known as the "Reserve Brigade"), were massing on the southern bank of the river. The sharp report of infantry rifles, the rising smoke, and the thousand indescribable sounds, with the tramp of fresh cavalry pressing forward to take their part in the fray, showed that the battle was now waging in good earnest. The wounded arrived more rapidly at the ford, stretcher-bearers plying their trade ...
— History of the Second Massachusetts Regiment of Infantry: Beverly Ford. • Daniel Oakey
... it which pierced through him with a deadly horror—which made him become so pale, and turn his flashing eyes with an indescribable expression of dread toward the hut? Why did he partially arise from his reclining position as the hunter does, who sees the prey approach that he wishes to destroy? What was it that made him press his ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... My mother is in a state of indescribable agitation. Her brother's Will has been found in Italy. And his daughter may arrive in England at ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... like a blacksmith's forge, only much larger, and over these smoke-hoods are suspended, connected with the cavernous chimneys. At each corner of these hearths are iron cranes hung with chains, and between two of these cranes the intendant pointed out an indescribable mass of something supposed to be a stag roasted whole—not at present a very toothsome-looking morsel. Dozens of pots and kettles hang from the chains, and scores of pans and ovens stand in rows underneath. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... it. There is an indescribable excitement to do something great, to make a mark, that goes with it. It's soon gone, but while it lasts I can sing and dance, do anything until every part of my body begins crying for it again. I was full of the stuff when this happened yesterday; had taken too much, ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... 309. 'Nescio quid.' This very indefinite phrase is repeatedly used by Ovid; and in such cases, it expresses either actual doubt or uncertainty, as in the present instance; or it is used to denote something remarkable or indescribable, or to show that a thing is insignificant, mean, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... in which these premises were left was indescribable. Rotting carcases of beasts lay all about the place, while other filth almost surpassed them in stench. The buildings were infested with flies by day and mosquitoes by night, while other forms of vermin carried on the good work throughout ...
— With the British Army in The Holy Land • Henry Osmond Lock
... then I heard an indescribable fluttering rush that told as plainly as sight could have done that a woman had answered her heart's call. Looking up involuntarily, I saw a sight that for a long moment held my eyes as if I had been fascinated. It was Bob bowed forward with his face hidden in his hands and beside him, on her knees, ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... secure in the knowledge that his confession would be inviolate as if locked in the heart of mountains. He knew her for a steadfast friend, and he t'elt that she was beautiful, not only in face and form, but in all those little indescribable mannerisms which stamp the individual. And this girl was here alone with him, so close that by stretching out his arms he might enfold her. She allowed him to come and go at will; her intimacy with him was almost like that of an unspoiled boy—yet different, so different that he thrilled ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... worriedly out over the old city's slate-gray head to that inciting prance of green across the farthest horizon she felt her whole being kindle to an indescribable passion of revolt against all Hushed Places. Seething with fatigue, smoldering with ennui, she experienced suddenly a wild, almost incontrollable impulse to sing, to shout, to scream from the housetops, to mock somebody, to defy everybody, to break laws, dishes, heads,—anything ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... in his native province. He was a marvellous preacher, and easily attracted many followers, though some of the forms taken by the new religion were indescribable. The believers of both sexes were in the habit of assembling in an open field, in the midst of which a bonfire was lighted. They would form a chain and dance round the fire, praying for their sins to be forgiven, as they had repented of them. Gradually the fire ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot
... moonstruck, planet-struck; spellbound; lost in amazement, lost in wonder, lost in astonishment; struck all of a heap, unable to believe one's senses, like a duck ion thunder. wonderful, wondrous; surprising &c. v.; unexpected &c. 508; unheard of; mysterious &c. (inexplicable) 519; miraculous. indescribable, inexpressible, inaffable[obs3]; unutterable, unspeakable. monstrous, prodigious, stupendous, marvelous; inconceivable, incredible; inimaginable[obs3], unimaginable; strange &c. (uncommon) 83; passing strange. striking ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... the whole about from six to eight feet high, and in some places closely intertangled and hard to penetrate. On the opener spots beneath the trees the ground is covered to a depth of two or three feet with mosses of indescribable freshness and beauty, a few dwarf conifers often planted on their rich furred bosses, together with pyrola, coptis, and Solomon's-seal. The tallest of the trees are about a hundred and fifty feet high, with a diameter of about four or five feet, their branches ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... knowing why, and suddenly wished her companion would go away, now that the information was imparted. An indescribable consciousness of personal interest rather than literary made her anxious to read the inscription alone; and she accordingly waited till she could do so, with a sense that a great store of emotion would be ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... same colourless brows and lashes and insignificant features; but she possessed one redeeming point which Nick lacked. What with him was an impish grin of sheer exuberance, with her was a smile of rare enchantment, very fleeting, with a fascination quite indescribable but none the less capable of imparting to her pale young face a charm that only the greatest artists have ever been able to depict. People were apt to say of Olga Ratcliffe that she had a face that lighted up well. Her ready intelligence was ardent enough to illuminate her. ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... [said the Chesholm Courier] as the witness repeated these words, was something indescribable. A low, angry murmur ran from lip to lip; ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... pierhead the red ensign of England was displayed. Behind, about, and over, the same tall grove of palms, which had masked the settlement in the beginning, prolonged its roof of tumultuous green fans, and turned and ruffled overhead, and sang its silver song all day in the wind. The place had the indescribable but unmistakable appearance of being in commission; yet there breathed from it a sense of desertion that was almost poignant, no human figure was to be observed going to and fro about the houses, and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... disposed to read, he took much pleasure in perusing the poems of Robert Buchanan and Miss Ingelow. The latter's "Ballads" particularly delighted him. One, written "in the old English manner", he quickly learned by heart, repeating it with a relish and fervor indescribable. ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... and went on. It was not more than a hundred yards to where the grass grew on firm ground. Racey and his horse reached solid earth without incident. Then—a scramble, a scraping, and a clattering followed in a breath by the indescribable sound of a mass of rocks ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... was immediately opened by his wife, who motioned to us to enter. Never shall I forget the sight that greeted my eyes. Upon the bed lay a childish form, with a small, refined face, the pallor of which was intensified by contrast with the large dark eyes, that now had a half startled, expectant, indescribable expression. The sufferer had evidently reached the crisis of a malarial fever; reason had returned unclouded; but from that strange, bright look, I felt that there was ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... by a ladder of sixteen steps, and arrived upon a broad ledge of rock, where we halted for a few minutes to light the torches, and accustom our vision to the gloom; when, both of these ends being attained, we advanced a few paces into the cave, and a sight of the most indescribable sublimity burst upon us. The appearance was that of a huge Gothic cathedral, having its roof supported upon pillars of spar, moulded into the most regular shapes, and fluted and carved after the most exact models of architecture. The roof itself was indeed too lofty to be discerned, nor could ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... with his head against the stone floor. The fall and the force of the blow had been so skilfully calculated by the unfortunate young man that his skull was split in two. The grief of the Warden was indescribable. Having called me to the office, the Warden, without shaking hands with me, reproached me in angry and harsh terms for having deceived him, and he regained his calm, only after my hearty apologies and promises that such accidents would not happen again. I promised to prepare a project for ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... my ball out into a vast underground city of great, brilliantly illuminated corridors, some of them hundreds of feet high and wide. The architectural scheme was one of lace-like structures of curving lines and of indescribable beauty. ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan
... face as he had seen it at the race-course. And now it came to him as a shock after his visions of her early girlhood. He thought there was a certain vulgarity in it which, he had not observed before—a slight coarsening of its expression, an indescribable degeneracy even under the glow of its developed beauty. With her full red lips and curving throat and dancing eyes, she was smiling into the face of the man who was sitting by her side. Her smile was a significant smile, and the bright and eager look with which the man answered it was as full of ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... hoped madly for the storm to keep off, and now as her fleet steps brought her nearer the rendezvous at the end of the avenue, her heart misgave her, and an indescribable feeling of awe, that had something of a dread presentiment in it, filled her very soul. She pressed the cherished gift for her lover close against her heaving breast, and when she reached the shady nook where they were accustomed to meet, her breath was coming in wild ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... will, however, be made safest, and the excellent body of self-appointed thongmen, who walk up and down our ranks flapping their leathern straps to terrorize us from experiments in imagery, will best be satisfied, by the statement that she was indescribable: a term that exacts no labour of mind from him or from them, for it flows off the pen as readily as ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... its nameless horrors of suspense and agony of fear indescribable, continued for more than three hours, and all the time we were being driven forward at fierce speed. Then suddenly, as if growing weary of its frantic exertions, the wind began to lessen its fury and ...
— The Smoky God • Willis George Emerson
... door instantly,' he again exclaimed; and, what added to our indescribable horror, in a fit of rage he dashed his hand through the window, which consisted of diamond-shaped panes, and appeared as if determined to force ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... perspective of mountain-tops, tinged with ethereal blue, or white with snow; vallies of ice, and forests of gloomy fir. The serenity and clearness of the air in these high regions were particularly delightful to the travellers; it seemed to inspire them with a finer spirit, and diffused an indescribable complacency over their minds. They had no words to express the sublime emotions they felt. A solemn expression characterized the feelings of St. Aubert; tears often came to his eyes, and he frequently walked away from his companions. Valancourt now and then spoke, to point to Emily's ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... expressly for her. All the rich antiques disdained by fashionable ladies, the marvelous pieces of carved ebony, the glass lusters, the gothic clocks; chefs-d'oeuvre of carving and enamel, the screens with embroidered Chinese figures, and the immense vases, threw Jeanne into indescribable raptures. Here on a chimney-piece two gilded tritons were bearing branches of coral, upon which were hung jeweled fruits. In another place, on a gilded console table, was an enormous elephant, with sapphires hanging from his ears, supporting a tower filled with little bottles of scent. Books in ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... and saintly inspiration, an ennobling and yet subduing influence, a solemn stillness and hushing of the senses that would contend for mastery, an odour blown from "the everlasting hills," filling life with an indescribable fragrance; such is religion as professed and taught by Jesus, and such is the ideal of the Church of Emerson, builded on the purified ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... dark. The father says that a tale of terror is the better for being told in the dark, and hopes she is not afraid. The mother scoffs at the mention of fear, and yet, she says, she feels a thrill as if something were casting a cold shadow on her. She wonders if this feeling is like the indescribable fear, "which he calls the shadow," which sometimes attacks her younger child. "Never mind the child or his shadow," says the father, and bids her go on. And from what follows the mother has evidently told the story before to her son. This dialogue may ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... home details as to the "make," horse-power and finish of the machine that caused his wife and two sisters-in-law indescribable anguish. Still the French chauffeur was a consoling feature; a vulnerable target for their arrows. No woman who valued her reputation would go gallivanting over the country with a foreign chauffeur, when ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... of a window, from which might be seen in the court below a gay group of lords and courtiers, with the plain, dark dress of Hastings, contrasting their gaudy surcoats, glittering with cloth-of-gold. Alwyn's tongue clove to his mouth; all he had to say was forgotten in a certain bashful and indescribable emotion. ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was indescribable. I had seized my gun, and both barrels were emptied in a 'squirrel's jump.' Two of the 'coons came to the ground, badly wounded. Pompo tackled another, that had run down the lliana, and was attempting to get off; while Abe with his axe clove the skull of a fourth, that had tried to escape ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... seaport. It was also the capital of an Eastern kingdom, lying up a river as might be London lies up this old Thames of ours. No more need be said of the place; for this sort of thing might have happened anywhere where there are ships, skippers, tugboats, and orphan nieces of indescribable splendour. And the absurdity of the episode concerns only me, my enemy ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... me what an old ass I was? Fixed ideas, eh? No go?—Look you here. What did I come so many hundred miles for? To say what I always said: half-shares." The light-blue eyes, keen with sea-cunning and the lonely sight of many far horizons, suffered an indescribable change. "My boy, the half's yours. There's two rich men here to-night. I've come to ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... with imagination, memory is cold and lifeless. The forms it brings before us must be inspired with beauty—that is, with affection or passion. All minds, even the dullest, remember the days of their youth; but all cannot bring back the indescribable brightness of that blessed season. They who would know what they once were, must not merely recollect, but they must imagine, the hills and valleys—if any such there were—in which their childhood played, the torrents, the waterfalls, the lakes, the heather, the rocks, the heaven's imperial ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... indescribable tumult and confusion ensued. The murderer was immediately cut to pieces by the other guards. They found, however, before he was dead, that it was Pausanias, a man of high standing and influence, a general officer of the guards. He had had horses provided, and other assistance ready, to enable ...
— Alexander the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... is girl-child," she answered with some indescribable trick of expression that led me to know ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson
... especially from the Middle West. More than 90 per cent of the seamen are native-born, and on any ship may be heard the Southern drawl, the picturesque vernacular of the lower East or West side of New York City, the twang of New England, the rising intonation of the Western Pennsylvanian, and that indescribable vocal cadence that comes only from ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... From thence he made his way down to the main deck, where were gathered all the crew in one spot, crowding together to resist the attack of the English; and upon the rear of these he flung himself with indescribable fury, whirling the terrible handspike with such destructive effect that the astounded Spaniards, thus taken unexpectedly in the rear, went down like ninepins, while their yells of anguish and dismay quickly threw the entire crew ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... and 'The wrath of God revealed from heaven.' Told him he was going where he would see Christ! asked him if He would be his Saviour? He seemed to answer; his father said, 'He is saying, Yes.' But it was the throe of death. One or two indescribable gasps, and he died! I sat silent, and let God preach. 7th—Spoke of the 'Widow of Nain,' and 'Behold I stand at ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar
... was fixed in death the house became a scene of indescribable lamentation and wailing. "Oh, my father, why did you not let me die, and you live here still?" "Oh, my brother, why have you run away and left your only brother to be trampled upon?" "Oh, my child, had I known you were going to die! Of what use is ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... broke upon me like a mere vision of spring and youth and beauty. I could have fallen down and worshipped her. She was like one of those fictions of poets and painters, when they would express the beau ideal that haunts their minds with shapes of indescribable perfection. ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... indescribable something in my relation with my readers that is sweet beyond words to tell. I look upon you, the readers, as brothers and sisters; yes, more than that, you are ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... of Governor Hayes was received with indescribable enthusiasm, with long-continued cheering, and every other demonstration of joy ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... dim outlines of the object as he stealthily approached And he stepped as noiselessly as possible, notwithstanding he meditated an encounter with nothing more than an inanimate object. But his imagination was always on the alert, and as he often feared dangers that arose undefinable and indescribable in his mind, it was not without some trepidation that he had separated himself from the horses and groped his way toward the object that had so much terrified his pony. He paused within a few feet of the object, and waited for the next flash of lightning to scrutinize the ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... of feminine New York? Why, of course, I think her the prettiest, cleverest, best-dressed portion of feminine humanity, and with an added charm—a New Yorkiness which is absolutely indescribable. No, I haven't met any of her yet, my knowledge of New York being at present limited to this wonderful landing pier, your greatly gifted Customs officials, and the brilliantly intelligent subordinates of your world-renowned ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 25, 1914 • Various
... artificial metropolitan society many men so emasculated that they are quite vain of being blase—fools that with conscious superiority smile disdainfully at those still possessing simple, wholesome tastes for things which they in their indescribable accent characterize as ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... induced by the form, we have a right to include in the aesthetic experience. It will, however, in every work of art of even the least complexity, be expressible only as a mood, very indefinite, often indescribable. To make this "meaning," then, the essential aim of a picture ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... Antecedently she would have supposed that the same performance must be gone through by all players in the same manner; she was taught by his differing action that all ordinary players, who learn the game by sight, unconsciously touch the men in a stereotyped way. This impression of indescribable oddness in Stephen's touch culminated in speech when she saw him, at the taking of one of her bishops, push it aside with the taking man instead of lifting it as a preliminary ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... in the terrible situation of being virtually alone with the spectre, and that Mr. Idle's immoveability was explained by his having been charmed asleep at One o'clock. In the terror of this sudden discovery which produced an indescribable dread, he struggled so hard to get free from the four fiery threads, that he snapped them, after he had pulled them out to a great width. Being then out of bonds, he caught up Mr. Idle from the sofa and rushed ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... formed the words olivar, robledar, and pinal, from olivo, roble, and pino. The Hispano-Americans have added tunal, pejual, guayaval, etc., places where a great many Cactuses, Gualtheria odoratas, and Psidiums, grow together.) The steepness of the mountain became less considerable, and we felt an indescribable pleasure in examining the plants of this region. Nowhere, perhaps, can be found collected together, in so small a space, productions so beautiful, and so remarkable in regard to the geography of plants. At the ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... so accustomed to regard you from a distance, that I wonder at my own presumption when I touch, however lightly, on that theme. But to one who—I may say, who felt no common interest in my mother once—it may be something to hear, now that all is past, with what indescribable feelings of affection I have, in my obscurity, regarded him; with what pain and reluctance I have kept aloof from his encouragement, when a word of it would have made me rich; yet how I have felt it fit that I should hold ...
— The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin • Charles Dickens
... were sitting in a hammock at one of the watering places in this State were severely injured by tipping over backwards and striking on the cheek of a head waiter. There is something about a hammock that is indescribable, and there is no rule that can be made that will insure safety while sitting in one of the queer things. There are people who believe that a hammock understands what is going on, and occasionally indulges ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... like to be able to say exactly what they looked for, what they hoped for, in connection with the men; but that is not possible. In addition to connecting men-folk with guns and traps, and fear of an instinctive and indescribable kind, most of the pack also connected men with food, with sheep, and other domesticated animals which dingoes can eat. Finn, more than any of them, connected men-folk with food. But, as against that, Finn also connected them with torture and suffering, with ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... they had seen the kingdom of God. The writers' reference is clearly to the vision that follows. It is said to be a vision of the coming kingdom. Jesus, with the divine glory within, no longer concealed, but shining out with an indescribable splendor, up above the earth, with two godly men, one of whom had died, and the other had been caught up from the earth without death, talking earnestly about men and affairs on the earth, and in direct communication ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... or government-house; on one side the graceful spire of a church, on the other the massive walls of a convent. Above all, is a sky of the deepest cobalt blue, richly contrasting with the dark green of the tall pines, and the uncertain and indescribable tints on the horizon of these ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... Oriental Dante. The fact that I have sacrificed my human appearance in the Great Cause cannot overcome the shrinking aversion that normal men would feel, if they could see me. I say only this, that my mutilation is indescribable. As the officer and gentleman I know you to be, you won't ask me ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... and passed under the familiar Arc de Triomphe on my way to the Rue de la Pompe, Passy, and heard all around the familiar tongue that I still knew so well, and rebreathed the long-lost and half-forgotten, but now keenly remembered, fragrance of the genius loci; that vague, light, indescribable, almost imperceptible scent of a place, that is so heavenly laden with the past for those who have lived there long ago—the most subtly intoxicating ether ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... more than ever as he looked up to the tall athletic figure. And he realized also that since he had last looked closely at Terence the latter had slipped out of boyhood and into manhood. There was that indescribable something about the set of the chin and the straight-looking eyes that spelled ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... favorable impression that her appearance had produced. The one member of the audience who looked at her and listened to her coldly, was her elder sister. Before the actress of the evening had been five minutes on the stage, Norah detected, to her own indescribable astonishment, that Magdalen had audaciously individualized the feeble amiability of "Julia's" character, by seizing no less a person than herself as the model to act it by. She saw all her own little formal peculiarities of manner and movement unblushingly reproduced—and even the very ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... upon it far larger duties." The Republican party gave "honest, wise, safe, liberal, progressive American counsel" and the Democrats "unwise, unsafe, illiberal, obstructive, un-American counsel." He remembered the Republican nominating convention of 1880 as a scene of "indescribable sublimity," comparable in "grandeur and impressiveness to the mighty torrent ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... long ripples of the lake coming up to my feet. Here, standing in the shadow, I could appreciate better its magnificent changes of color, which are the chief beauties of the lake-waters; but these are indescribable. ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... and there the flash of a sabre; here a momentary view of a black piece of heavy artillery, and there a head, an arm and a leg of one of the combatants; here a puff of smoke, and there a volley of belching flame—but all indistinct, terrible and indescribable. Solid shot, conical shell and spherical case went humming, hurtling and howling through the air, blotting out rebels and slaying loyalists. The leaden messengers of the sharp-shooters went shrieking to their living targets, killing, crippling and intimidating; buck, ball and Minie bullets missed ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... lady, whom Sandy insisted had come to Edinburgh to marry me, was an intentional female, with much hair, much rouge, and a pallor heightened by rice-powder, which gave her a very floury and unclean appearance. Her eyes were an indescribable color, resembling the pulp of a grape, and near-set, a thing which I have never been able to abide in man, woman, or child. Her nose was long and peaked, and her mouth dropped at the corners. But it was ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... way behind. Marice half-way between them, and Druro was apparently trying to disentangle her flickering, fluttering chiffons from a fresh engagement with the bushes when the terrible thing happened. The lithe, speckled body of a leopard came sailing, with a grace and swiftness indescribable, through the air and, leaping upon the fluttering figure, bore her to the ground. A scream of terror and anguish rent the night, and Gay and Tryon, galvanized by horror, powerless though they were to contend with the savage brute, rushed forward to the rescue. But Druro ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... sorts of disasters in the air threatening, and you get cold and clammy; and when that happens to me I recognize how sinful I am and it all goes clear to my heart and wrings it and I have such terrors and terrors!—oh, they are indescribable, those terrors that assail me, and I slip out of bed and get on my knees and pray and pray and promise that I will be good, if I can only have another chance. And then, you know, in the morning the sun shines out so lovely, ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... like a reasonable being, and that my person may be saved from violence. Upon your word rests the industrial future of this country for the next ten years. If your forges burn out and your factories are emptied, it will mean an era of prosperity for my country, indescribable. We are great trade rivals. We need just the opening. What we get we may not be able to hold altogether, when trade is once more good here, but that is of no consequence. We shall have it for a year or two, and that year or two will mean a good many ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... pale-faced, slender, sad-eyed girl who seemed to get no benefit from the bracing breezes, and then, bursting suddenly from winter to summer, as is often the way with our ill-ordered, turbulent, defiant, and generally indescribable climate, came the first day of moisture-laden heat, depressing, debilitating,—a day when the tide of his affairs swept Elmendorf from his moorings at Cranston's and sent the freeholder thereof in search of a stenographer,—the day when poor Jenny begged to be excused from having ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... our great men says that one of the most unfortunate phases of modern civilization is the drift away from the farm, the drift of country youth to the city which has an indescribable fascination for him. His vivid imagination clothes it with Arabian Nights possibilities and joys. The country seems tame and commonplace after his first dream of the city. To him it is synonymous with opportunity, with power, with pleasure. He can ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... All was still again. The male ran, as if moved by the frenzy of a dervish, forward towards the Cradle; then, as he saw the door half open, retreated. Aminadab could make nothing of the figure, beyond the conviction that it was the same he had seen by fitful glimpses before. It was altogether indescribable, unlike anything he had ever seen or read of. On his return, Ady met him and caught him in her arms, as if to lead him back to the wood. Yet he was fitful, anxious, and flighty, as if he knew not where to go, or what to do. Again the rapid whisperings, so sharp and intense ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... My sister Adah.—All the stars of heaven, The deep blue noon of night, lit by an orb Which looks a spirit, or a spirit's world— The hues of twilight—the Sun's gorgeous coming— His setting indescribable, which fills My eyes with pleasant tears as I behold 260 Him sink, and feel my heart float softly with him Along that western paradise of clouds— The forest shade, the green bough, the bird's voice— The vesper bird's, which seems to sing of ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... little snow falls at intervals. The valleys are filled with a curious opaque blue, from which the peaks rise, phantom-like and pallid, into the grey air, scarcely distinguishable from their background. The pine-forests on the mountain-sides are of darkest indigo. There is an indescribable stillness and a sense of incubation. The wind has fallen. Later on, the snow-flakes flutter silently and sparely through the lifeless air. The most distant landscape is quite blotted out. After sunset the clouds have ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... John himself, whose life was martyrdom enough; Stephen sheds the blood of his pure and noble nature, and from that day to this the blood of the saints has poured in streams, until the last harrowing records, which have come to light, only of recent years, of the indescribable tortures and ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... hours of that morning were such as I never experienced before, and hope never to again. Early in the morning, we went, as usual, to the field. We were spreading manure; and all at once, while thus engaged, I was overwhelmed with an indescribable feeling, in the fulness of which I turned to Sandy, who was near by, and said, "We are betrayed!" "Well," said he, "that thought has this moment struck me." We said no more. I was never more certain ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass
... indescribable feeling of solitude in all houses in the environs of Mexico, a vastness, a desolation, such as I never before experienced in the most lonely dwellings in other countries. It is not sad—the sky is too bright, and nature too smiling, and the air we inhale too pure for that. ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... called in at the window, in an accent and tone which was an indescribable mixture betwixt horror and raillery, "Is the ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... emanation of that one love. It is the eternally creative and governing law of the universe." "To be penetrated by such emotion is to become deified. As a drop of water in a cup of wine is completely dissolved and takes the taste and colour of the wine, so also, in an indescribable manner, is the human will absorbed in the divine will, and transformed into the will of God. For how could God become all in all if anything human were left in man?" "They are completely immersed (the martyrs) in the infinite ocean of eternal ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... with me as you say," replied Lambourne; "and suppose I grant it to be so for argument's sake, I were still good enough society for mine ancient friend Anthony Fire-the-Fagot, though he be, for the present, by some indescribable title, the master ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... present east wing. It had been very imperfectly finished, was destitute of nearly every requisite of civilised life, and in front of it was a bank of rubbish and loose stones, with a swamp below, while the interior was in an indescribable state of dust and disrepair. Still, we felt that the Governors had done the best they could in the circumstances, and we took possession as early as possible. As it was, however, we received many of the citizens, who were so kind as to call on us, in the midst of all the confusion of plastering, ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan
... resembles somewhat in its peculiar pitch. The final word of each phrase, sustained at incredible length, and with marvellous power of breath, ascends a fourth of a tone, purposely making a discord. That is barbarous, perhaps, but the charm of it is indescribable, and when one is accustomed to hear it, one cannot conceive of any other song at that time and in those localities that would not disturb ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... platform. Percy was slightly above the average height and solidly built, but he was not tall. His face had often been described as a "perfect blank." No one saw anything of what lay within by merely looking into his eyes, and yet there was a certain indescribable something that appealed to one from those eyes. An elderly German lady once remarked to his mother: "Ihr Sohn hat so ...
— The Story of the Soil • Cyril G. Hopkins
... An indescribable succession of dull blows, perplexing in their regularity, sent their sound with difficulty through the fluffy atmosphere. It was a neighbouring clock striking ten. The bell was in the open air, and being overlaid ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... not even a camel could swallow with impunity. He began to gag and gasp, and his eyes to stand out, and his forelegs to spread, and in about a quarter of a minute he fell over as stiff as a carpenter's work-bench, and died a death of indescribable agony. I went and pulled the manuscript out of his mouth, and found that the sensitive creature had choked to death on one of the mildest and gentlest statements of fact that I ever laid before a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... disaffection, caused by a shortage of food, renders him unpopular. He makes a friend of Bethlem Gabor, whose wife and children have been savagely murdered by a band of marauders. St. Leon, we are told, "found an inexhaustible and indescribable pleasure in examining the sublime desolation of a mighty soul." But Gabor soon conceives a bitter hatred against him, and entraps him in a subterranean vault, where he languishes for many months, refusing to yield up his secret. At length the castle is ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... nephew fall. He turned his eye on Evandale, while a transitory glance of indescribable emotion disturbed, for a second's space, the serenity of his features, and briefly said, "You ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... final preparations for the examination, I wrestled, as was my wont, with my attempts to come to a clear understanding over Duty and Life, and was startled by the indescribable irony in the word by which I was accustomed to interpret my ethically religious endeavours,—Himmelspraet. [Footnote: Word implying one who attempts to spring up to Heaven, and of course falls miserably to earth again. The word, ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... one," said old man Jocelyn, with an indescribable sneer—"some real mean man has been and shot out them swales ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... in the interior was indescribable. The blend of many colours in costume mixed with the time-mellowed harmonies of shade and substance in the mighty structure, while the air was permeated with the solemn sounds of the recently sung Litany and the slowly pealing ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... sat on the stile and hated the whole scheme of life—which was at once excessive and inadequate as a solution. He hated Foxbourne, he hated Foxbourne High Street, he hated his shop and his wife and his neighbours—every blessed neighbour—and with indescribable bitterness he ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... her heart, a prey to indescribable emotion. Her eyes stared before her like a madwoman's. Raoul was terror-stricken. But suddenly Christine's eyes moistened and two great tears trickled, like two pearls, down ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... from the combatants, and with a certain sly, secretive manner, as though he were desirous of avoiding observation, slink along the deck to the companion, down which he suddenly vanished. There was an indescribable something about the air and movements of this fellow that powerfully aroused my curiosity and excited an irresistible impulse within me to follow him; and accordingly, swinging myself to the deck abaft the main-mast, which was ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... being large, but it was very select and remarkably hearty. Plump little Gambart was there, beaming with good-will. His plump little partner was also there, radiant with matronly smiles, his plump little daughters too, bewitching with youthful beauty, set off by indescribable flounces, combined with flutterings of white lace. Their aspect was also rendered more captivating and charmingly confused by ribbons, rings, and ringlets, for the reader must remember that we write of those good old ...
— Wrecked but not Ruined • R.M. Ballantyne
... these inventions—at this transfer to water and steam, of processes so slow and so exhausting to the human as well as to the animal frame—and in this feeling we are confident every planter deeply sympathises. Moreover, the relief they have afforded in other respects has been perfectly indescribable. Previous to these improvements all the finer portions of the winter were appropriated exclusively to the milling and the threshing of the crop with the flail, yet it is manifest they added not one particle ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... those whom we are wont to regard as our comrades and leaders are not always proof against the canker in this guise. I remember paying a visit to Fenner's, that fair field corrupted by competition, to raise my protest against inter-collegiate sports. To my indescribable grief and amazement I beheld one whom I had always followed and reverenced—a man of mighty voice oft lifted in debate—preparing to compete (mark the word) in a Three-Mile Race. "Stay, comrade," I cried. He heeded me not; moreover, it certainly appeared to me that he attempted—thank ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 19, 1920 • Various
... us." "Impossible!" say some. "You'll see," say the initiated; and, as soon as you get out, you do see, and hear too, what seems like a general breaking loose from the Tower of Babel, amid a perfect hail storm of trunks, boxes, valises, carpet bags, and every describable and indescribable form of what a ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the Deaf and Dumb Asylum. In a large room in the Asylum there was a good piano, so it enabled us to use the place at one time as a church and at another as a ballroom. There was a strange charm about dear old Arras which is quite indescribable. In spite of the ruined buildings and the damaged grass-grown streets, there was the haunting beauty of a quiet medievalism about the city. The narrow streets, the pleasant gardens hidden behind the houses, spoke of an age that had passed. ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... door a while, turned the key and looked in on her husband. Blue-grey light from between the venetian blinds just dusked the room. She stood in a bluish dressing-gown, her hand on her bosom, looking down on the lean impassive face. For the briefest instant her heart had leapt with an indescribable surmise; to fall dull as lead once more. Breathing equably and quietly, the strange figure lay stretched upon the bed. 'How can he sleep? How can he sleep?' she whispered with a black and hopeless indignation. What a night ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... slipped out from the blankets (which covered Boylan as well) and took his place beside the lens-maker. Spenski was facing the east. The street of the little hill town lost itself in a sharp declivity just ahead; the nearer huts were low. The whole east was naked to the horizon and an indescribable glory of starlight. ...
— Red Fleece • Will Levington Comfort
... own mouth; and frequently, when wind and weather kept us below, we spent some time of an afternoon in the same exercise, till we had quite completed it. But then there were some things in it so indescribable by words, that if I had not had some knowledge in drawing, our history had been very incomplete. Thus it must have been, especially in the description of the Glumms and Gawrys therein mentioned. In order to gain (that so I might communicate) a clear idea of these, I made several drawings ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... slow down. He paid not the slightest attention. I leaned from the window and looked up at him. It was not my chauffeur; it was a man who had the unmistakable but indescribable marks ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... doubtless on the invisible action of his power, which seemed to extend over the whole world, the features of this man became animated, his large gray eye sparkled, his nostrils swelled, and his manly countenance assumed an indescribable expression of pride, energy, and daring. With haughty brow and scornful lip, he drew still nearer to the globe, and leaned his strong ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... feasting went on for some time; but Hermann's heart was sick within him; he had no spirit left for the revelry. An indescribable feeling of terror and anxiety possessed him. The clock struck twelve; the guests dispersed. They had hardly left the house when a terrific storm broke forth, appalling in its awful violence; the house ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... galled his wrists, had been removed after he came into court,—sat watching Phillips with that same singularly sinister expression which we have, on one or two previous occasions, tried to describe him as exhibiting. It was a certain indescribable, whitish, lurid light, flashing and quivering over his countenance, that made the beholder involuntarily recoil. And, as the last words were uttered, his hand was seen covertly stealing up under the lapel ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... a something in recollections of the past that have been pleasant that is indescribable. It is easier felt than described, and I have no doubt is felt by many old-timers in this city to-day. Ask them to describe these feelings and they would be nonplussed. "Mark Twain" was written to by the pioneers ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett
... not leave until the last player had entered the "bus" and it drove off. Crowds of Yale men and spectators gave the players cheer after cheer as they rolled away. The flags with which the "bus" was decorated waved in the breeze, and I watched them with indescribable fascination until they were out of sight. The noise made by the Yale students I learned afterwards was college cheering, and college cheers once heard by a boy ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... firm; thunder could as easily have diverted a statue; and behind him, not less steadfast and watchful, Count Corti kept guard. Thirty feet away— twenty-five—twenty—then the great beast stopped, collected himself, and with an indescribable roar launched clear of the ground. Up, at the same instant, and forward on divergent lines, went the leaden balls; the netting they dragged after them had the appearance of yellow spray blown suddenly ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... lighted candles to the fingers, so that they might be consumed simultaneously with the wax; letting water trickle drop by drop from a great height on the stomach; and also the custom, which was, according to writers on criminal matters, an indescribable torture, of watering the feet with salt water and allowing goats to lick them. However, every country had special customs as to the manner ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... of the artist to open his flowers without dread of frost, and perhaps God will allow my efforts to fulfil themselves in the future. My very various attempts at work all have an indescribable immaturity about them still, a halting execution, which consorts badly with the real loftiness of the intention. It seems to me that my art will not quite expand until my life is further advanced. Let us pray that God will allow me ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... recognise Waunangee, who was even then looking at her with the same softened and eloquent expression, which had given her so much anxiety on a former occasion. The impression produced upon her was exactly what it had been then—indescribable—inexplicable to herself. ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... in the letter, we must remember that he was then just sixty-six years plus ten days old. He was now living with his daughters, in the utmost simplicity. On his arrival, Mr. F. found De Quincey awaiting him at the door of his cottage,—a short man, with small head, and eyes that were absolutely indescribable as human features, with a certain boyish awkwardness of manner, but with the most urban-like courtesy and affability. From noon till dark, the time is spent in conversation, continued, various, and eloquent. What ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... of me I cannot decide! But if the man had murder in his heart, while he sat there at my side, eating his good food and drinking his fine liquor, and sharing both with me and pressing me to help myself to his generous provision—if it was so, I say, then he was of an indescribable cruelty which it makes me cringe to think of, and I would prefer to believe that the impulse to bring about my death came from a sudden temptation springing from a sudden chance. And yet—God knows it is a ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... and his face darkened. The look he shot his wife was indescribable. She watched him, twisting and knotting ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... without a dangerous departure from it, he instantly throws his whole soul into the faithful rendering of them. Thus the usual brown tones of his foreground become warmed into sudden vigor, and are varied and enhanced with indescribable delight, when he finds himself by the shore of a moorland stream, where they truly express the stain of its golden rocks, and the darkness of its clear, Cairngorm-like pools, and the usual serenity of his aerial ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... and from none of which can he derive advantage), are earnestly solicited to afford the means of completing the fittings and opening the house in a manner suited to its proposed respectability. If this aid be yielded without loss of time, it will be of indescribable benefit, inasmuch as it will put an end to many grievous anxieties and expenses, inseparable from the lengthened delay which has hitherto been inevitable, and will enable the family to immediately commence the ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... routine of life at Mentone); I told him that where one found a kitchen so exquisite, one astonished oneself that the wine was not up to the same form. "Et voila precisement mon cote faible, monsieur," he replied, with an indescribable amplitude of gesture. "Que voulez-vous? Moi, je suis cuisinier!" It was as though Shakespeare, called to account for some such peccadillo as the Bohemian seaport, should answer magnificently that he was a poet. So ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... nearer. Now having advanced so far, she must not allow a momentary weakness to imperil all. And therefore unwaveringly she daily met her former lover with the open smile of friendly greeting, inviting confidence, mingled with the same indescribable glance, forbidding ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various |
