"Indescribably" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... movement; her cloak, lined with fur as white as swan's-down, was unclasped at the throat, and slipping back, revealed her shoulders, pale as polished ivory, the shoulder-blades disappearing into the lace of the corsage with an indescribably soft and fleeting curve as of wings. The neck rose slender and round, and the hair, twisted into a great knot on the crown of her head, was held ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... disgraceful appearance of their equipages, and a certain air of constraint and embarrassment which was general among all the persons of their suite. The elegant manners of the French and the magnificence of the imperial equipages furnished such a contrast to all this that it rendered them indescribably ridiculous. The Emperor, who had such exquisite tact in all matters, was not one of the last to perceive this, but, nevertheless, was not pleased that an opportunity should be found to ridicule crowned heads. One morning at his toilet he said to ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... was indescribably happy. There was a smile lingering in the wrinkles of her dear old face. We all gathered in the large, old-fashioned family room in the old-fashioned semicircle, with mother in her natural place in the ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman
... then gave a description of what he saw of the engagement and described it as indescribably grand. Then, turning to the President, he continued, "Now standing here on the deck of this battle-scarred vessel, the first genuine iron-clad—the victor in the first fight of iron-clads—let me make a confession, and perform an ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... rattled to the red blotter, and Peter rushed out on deck. Slamming the door, he stared at the spurting streams of white in the racing water. Indescribably feminine was the fumbling ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... excellent master," cried Reinhold, again filling the glasses and again compelling Frederick to empty his. Then the fiery juices of the wine permeated his veins and stirred up his stagnant blood until it coursed as it were triumphantly through his every limb. "Oh! I feel so indescribably happy," he whispered, the burning blushes mounting into his cheeks. "Oh! I have never felt so happy in all my life before." Rose, who undoubtedly gave another interpretation to his words, smiled upon him with incomparable ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... divides the visible colours between those of the stones and that of the sky, and the sky is of clear, full blue. The resulting purple obtained by the blending of the blue and the orange-red, broken by the play of innumerable gradations in the stones, is indescribably lovely. ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... family manifests itself. That child who all through one story hour sat weaving back and forth muttering to herself, and when pressed for an explanation, remarked that she "was counting 'til you're done"—is a happy and independent contrast to the usually emotional type that embraces and bids its indescribably dirty and garlic tainted little brothers—"Kiss teacher for ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... seen the same indescribably horrible, abysmally atrocious, things. Qualities and quantities and urges and drives that no words in any language could ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... down upon the valley as of old; the great bird was poised aloft in the clear blue air, and the mountain wind came over the heights and blew refreshingly around the children as they sat on the sunlit slope. It was all indescribably enjoyable to Clara and Heidi. Now and again a young goat came and lay down beside them; Snowflake came oftenest, putting her little head down near Heidi, and only moving because another goat came and drove her away. Clara had learned to know them all so well that she ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri
... millions under a ruthless bondage. My whole heart went with the holy cause, and my most fervent prayer to the Almighty Disposer of the hearts of men, were continually offered for its early triumph. "Who or what," thought I, "can withstand a cause so good, so holy, so indescribably glorious. The God of Israel is with us. The might of the Eternal is on our side. Now let but the truth be spoken, and a nation will start forth at the sound!" In this enthusiastic spirit, I dropped into the ranks of freedom's friends, and went forth to the battle. For a time I was ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... hundreds, are brought into the hospital bases daily, and many of them have been living for weeks, and even months, filthy in cellars of Hun-shattered villages which are almost continually under fire. They are generally sick, naturally, indescribably dirty and, in fact, mere wraiths of childhood. God, Don, it gets me when I imagine my own nephews and nieces ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... mountains at sunrise and sunset, and the magnificence of the windy, wintry noon. The rocky spires, pinnacles, and domes, glowing with gorgeous golden light, and the lower ranges, shaded with hazy blue, umber-red, and luminous purple, fell into picture and formed prospects indescribably pure and pellucid. But the average of the aneroid (29.19) gave an altitude of eight hundred feet; and even in this submaritime region, the minimum temperature was 42 deg. F., ranging to a maximum of 85 deg F. in the shade. These are extremes ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... third turning to the left I saw the church, certainly the handsomest in San Lorenzo. It stood in a large lot, littered with builders' materials. The workmen had left it at six. The building had an indescribably lifeless aspect. An hour before men had been busy within and without it, now not a soul was to be seen. I had time to walk round it, to note that the doors were locked, to note also, quite idly, that the window of the vestry was open. I could see ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... mulatto children of Mr. K——'s, whom I mentioned to you lately. Poor pretty children! they have refined and sensitive faces as well as straight regular features; and the expression of the girl's countenance, as well as the sound of her voice, and the sad humility of her deportment, are indescribably touching. Mr. B—— expressed the strongest interest in and pity for them, because of their colour: it seems unjust almost to the rest of their fellow unfortunates that this should be so, and yet it is almost impossible to resist the impression of ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... part, I cannot remember anything agreeable in this raw little suburb. American life half a century ago had a great deal of rawness about it, and its external aspect was ugly beyond present belief. We may be a less virtuous nation now than we were then, but we are indescribably more good to look at. And the West Newton of to-day, as compared with that of 1851, will serve for an ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... fluttering from it to the ground. It was a pathetic and yet wonderful sight, beauty, happiness, and peace about it somewhere, together with a soft and tender sweetness that tempered the wildness of its aspect. Indescribably these qualities proclaimed themselves. ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... gorgeous butterfly emerging from a dusky chrysalis, came the Eastern day, and we felt as if living in a world warmed by a hundred suns. The warm, intoxicating light took possession of our senses, and so sweet, so rarefied, so indescribably delicious was the air, that it seemed to give wings to our dull bodies. Every now and then we were overtaken by clouds of locusts, their little wings glistening like diamonds against the soft sky, or flocks of starlings darkened the air, or a serried line of wild geese passed majestically ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... hundred and fifty miles from Mauritius, yet its next-door neighbour westwards in the silver sea, there came, when Agnes was yet but seven years old, the tidings of a fearful persecution of the Christians. The letters received at that time told of indescribably dreadful sufferings for Christ's sake, and the sight of the Malagasy refugees who fled to Mauritius, fired her young soul with the desire to become a missionary. This desire, however, in her exceeding reserve, ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... heads against strings of weird votive-offerings, dried and shrivelled, that hung from the roof-beams. On either side were rude gods, some grotesquely carved, others no more than shapeless logs swathed in rotten and indescribably filthy matting. The air was mouldy and heavy with decay, while strings of fish-tails and of half-cleaned dog and crocodile skulls did not add to the wholesomeness ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... which were calm and peaceful and should have been happy, the girl would know, with the second-sight of love, that he was thinking about Eugenia. And this phantom, of which she never spoke to him and could not have borne him to know of, tormented her indescribably. It seemed like a spell that she knew not how to break. It was only a thought, yet how much it made her suffer! Giving way for the moment to the useless and futile bitterness of her jealousy, she had leant her head on the cushion of the little sofa where she sat, when, with a sudden ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... man's manner was indescribably threatening. "This is the machine we are out to smash," I had said to myself when I saw him savaging his servant in the hall and I repeated the phrase to myself now. But to the General I ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... unnatural over the place. The distant murmur of the brook, which he knew so well, was dead; not a whisper in the leaves about him; the air, earth, everything about and above was indescribably still; and he experienced that quaking of the heart that seems to portend the approach of something awful. He would have set out upon his return across the moor, had he not an undefined presentiment that he was waylaid by something he ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... the glacier is drained is raw-looking, deep and narrow, and indescribably jagged. The walls in many places overhang; in others they are beveled, loose, and shifting where the channel has been eroded by cinders, ashes, strata of firm lavas, and glacial drift, telling of many a change ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... something indescribably winning, it seemed to me, in Cousin Monica. Old as she was, she seemed to me so girlish, compared with those slow, unexceptionable young ladies whom I had met in my few visits at the county houses. By this time my shyness was ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... from him to the Lieutenant-Governor, and to the latter, knowing the man he had been, there was something indescribably heart-rending in the sudden, irresolute trembling of his half-raised hands, the slow shake of his head, and the pathos of his raised eyebrows ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... hair was smeared with grease, disarranged, and even singed where she had presumably leaned against a hot fitting. Her clothes were indescribably dirty and limp with perspiration. She was quite pale, and seemed to be fighting nausea—hardly surprising, with the exhaust fumes that must have been ...
— The Barbarians • John Sentry
... Humphrey detailed 36 men and I joined him with the scouts. We were absent three days and returned to camp without encountering or seeing any signs of Indians. After resting our horses one day we again struck out, this time going farther north in the direction of Murderers Creek. The country was indescribably rough, and our first night's camp was at the John Day at a point on the trail made by Gen. Howard when he was herding the Indians north. About 10 o'clock one of the men from a picket came in and told me that the Indians were signaling from two sides of the camp. I walked down to where ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... had latterly been allowed to erect for themselves grotesquely rough hovels or hutches, many of which they set on fire when suddenly permitted to escape, so that as I found it the whole place looked indescribably ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... Titus, I many a time should like to go to you and seek rest for my oppressed heart; but as this is not possible, I often hurry, without knowing why, into the street. But there also nothing allays or diverts my longing. I return home to... long again indescribably... I have not yet rehearsed my Concerto; in any case I shall leave all my treasures behind me by Michaelmas. In Vienna I shall be condemned to sigh and groan! This is the consequence of having no longer a free heart! You who know this indescribable ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... everything a mortal man can do to be a good son to you, mother; won't you do this to please me, and trust that I know what is best?" Whereupon she gave a trembling assent, as if she were agreeing to something indescribably painful, and indeed this sight of a former friend seemed to ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... really slept the better half of the night; yet so indescribably powerful was the apprehension of derangement, that my hypocritical tongue wagged aloud at the prayers, during these furtive naps. Nay, I not only slept but dreamed. I experienced also that singular state of being, in which, while the senses are accessible to the influence of surrounding objects, ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... barren island, bleak and inhospitable, and strangely metallic, met his gaze. The rays of the sun beating down upon it were thrown back with an uncomfortable intensity; the substance of the island was a lustrous, copperlike metal. No soil softened the harshness of the surface; indescribably rugged and pitted was the two hundred-foot expanse. It reminded Parkinson of a bronze relief-map of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... enslaver, with a blue nose and indescribably frosty face, referable to her being very thinly clad in a maze of fluttering odds and ends, to do honour to ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... military it is essential to grasp the moral consequences of Verdun to France, to the Allies, to Germany. Not since the Marne, not even then—because it was only after a long delay that France really knew what had happened in this struggle—has anything occurred that has so profoundly, so indescribably, heartened the French people as has the victory at Verdun. It is not too much to say that the victory has been the most immediately inspiring thing in French national life since the disaster at Sedan and that it has roused national confidence, hope, faith, as nothing else ...
— They Shall Not Pass • Frank H. Simonds
... pronounced Annabel almost with a snarl. So a mother tigress might have corrected her offspring. Never had she seemed less prepossessing to her youthful adorer than at that moment. Anger aged her indescribably. The young man looked at her and dropped his ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... fertile plains of southern "Sunny Alberta," westward lay the limpid blue of the vast and indescribably beautiful Kootenay Lakes, but between these two arose a barrier of miles and miles of granite and stone and rock, over and through which a railway must be constructed. Tunnels, bridges, grades must be bored, built and blasted out. It was the work of science, endurance and indomitable ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... the essentially aristocratic swing of his wattles and the symmetrical curves of his graceful lobes; and the proud pomposity of his tail feathers irresistibly called to mind the old nobility and the Court of LOUIS QUATORZE. Pimple, our tabby kitten, looked indescribably bourgeois beside him. ...
— Punch, Volume 156, January 22, 1919. • Various
... myself at the Guest House at half-past eleven. My mental state was troubled and indescribably complex. Perhaps my own uneasy, thoughts were responsible for the idea, but it seemed to me that the atmosphere of Cray's Folly had changed yet again. Never before had I experienced a sense of foreboding like that ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... There was something indescribably appealing and pathetic in her whole look and air. Outside the window stood a slender little bird which had fluttered there, spent and worn, and did not try to flit away any further. Too early had it flown from its southern abode; too early abandoned ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... that described by Hawthorne as occurring in the grounds of the Villa Borghese when Donatello, with a simple "tambourine," produced music of such "indescribably potency" that sallow, haggard, half-starved peasants, French soldiers, scarlet-costumed contadinas, Swiss guards, German artists, English lords, and herdsmen from the Campagna, all "joined hands in the dance" which the musician himself ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... of things, it is impossible to describe. Hazel was gloved in dainty buff gauntlets, the folds of her scarlet dress half smothered in the great white apron, ruffled and fluted and spotless,and looked indescribably busy. ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... not entirely covered with water. The edge is so broken that the water dashes over the precipice in a large number of stream and falling upon several different ledges, is again broken into a dashing spray, which, light and feathery, again leaps into the air. The general effect is indescribably beautiful. ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... wife. And instantly I answered rashly: Never will I bestow my daughter on a bird of ill-omen such as thou art. Thereupon that evil-minded suitor laughed like a hyaena: and instantly my daughter fell into a swoon. And as she lay in the moonlight, she looked so indescribably and unutterably beautiful, that even that loathsome bird was moved. And he said to his companion: Daughter, I was right, and thou wert wrong. Look, and see, and allow, that she is far more beautiful than even thou art. Thereupon that gridhri[16] laughed also, and she said: Time shall show. ...
— An Essence Of The Dusk, 5th Edition • F. W. Bain
... sweet innocence that characterized her features which gave to them their charm; but in the young man there was infinitely more than this, though effeminate as was his complexion, and the bright sunny curls which floated over his throat, he was eminently and indescribably beautiful, for it was the mind, the glorious mind, the kindling spirit which threw their radiance over his perfect features; the spirit and mind which that noble form enshrined stood apart, and though he knew it not himself, found not their equal in that dark period of warfare and of woe. The ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... Harold Lowden, "known to thousands through his sacred compositions," had written a new masterpiece, "entitled 'Yearning for You.' The poem, by Harry D. Kerr, is one of the daintiest you could imagine and the music is indescribably beautiful. Critics are agreed that it will sweep the country. May be made into a charming sacred song by substituting the hymn words, 'I Heard ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... course I am pretty. You should have said indescribably pretty!" And, laughing gaily, Lida sank into a chair, glancing again at Sanine. Raising her arms and thus emphasizing the curves of her shapely bosom, she proceeded to remove her hat, but, in so doing, let a long hat-pin fall on the gravel, and her veil ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... York, and arrived in Liverpool after a pleasant voyage of twelve days. We proceeded directly to London, and took lodgings at the Adelaide Hotel. The supper seemed to me less luxurious than those I had seen in American hotels; but my situation was indescribably more pleasant. For the first time in my life I was in a place where I was treated according to my deportment, without reference to my complexion. I felt as if a great millstone had been lifted from my breast. Ensconced in a pleasant room, with my dear little charge, ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... early days after the war, while men still had pre-war notions and were poor. Ten months would steal imperceptibly by, and the mysterious revolution would be effected. Then, the second class and the first class would be packed, indescribably packed, crowded, on all great trains: and the third class carriages, lo and behold, would be comparatively empty. Oh, marvellous days of bankruptcy, when nobody will ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... etheric vision are very much alike in color, they are nearly reddish-blue, purple or violet, according to the density of the ether, but when we view any object with the spiritual sight pertaining to the Desire World, it scintillates and coruscates in a thousand ever changing colors so indescribably beautiful that they can only be compared to living fire, and the writer therefore calls this grade of vision color sight, but when the spiritual vision of the World of Thought is the medium of perception, ...
— The Rosicrucian Mysteries • Max Heindel
... resolved to join her noble husband upon these golden shores. Without informing him of her intention, she undertook the long journey, and arrived last week. The joy of the husband may be easier imagined than described. The meeting is said to have been indescribably affecting. We trust her example may ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... surely fails to produce a satisfactory crop of such ideal citizens. On the one hand its impossible prohibitions cause a multitude of lamentable revolts, often ending in a silly sort of running amok. On the other hand they fill the Y. M. C. A.'s with scared poltroons full of indescribably disgusting Freudian suppressions. Neither group supplies many ideal citizens. Neither promotes the sort of public morality that ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... table, put its paws on her shoulders, and she leaned back very absently, and curved her throat sideways, that her cheek might touch him in recognition. Some inner thought claimed her, to the exclusion of the present; her eyes, looking dreamily before her, took on that expression that was indescribably gentle, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... the valley, and beyond, far below us, looms the town of Sorata. From this distance the red tile roofs, the soft blue, green, and yellow of its stuccoed walls, look indescribably fresh and grateful. A closer inspection will probably dissipate this impression; it will be squalid and dirty, the river-stone paving of its street will be deep in the accumulation of filth, dirty Indian children will swarm in them with mangy dogs and bedraggled ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... there for some days, so that the cranes when they arrive find their enemy already arrayed. And at first they preen themselves and do not give battle, but when they are fully rested after their great journey they attack the pigmies with indescribably fury so that many ...
— Plays of Gods and Men • Lord Dunsany
... of manner, he rose and came forward to the corner where Gertrude stood shrinking and quivering, half frightened by this strange man, yet impressed by some indescribably kingly quality in him that fascinated her imagination in spite of all she had ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... The indescribably wild and thrilling character of gypsy music is thoroughly appreciated by the Russians, who pay very high prices for Romany performances. From five to eight or ten pounds sterling is usually given to a dozen gypsies for singing an hour or ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... and remarkable and altogether extraordinary monkey, that tiny marmoset. There was a sort of romance connected with it, too; for it had been the mother of an indescribably small infant-monkey, which was killed at the time of its mother's capture. It drank coffee, too, like—like a Frenchman; and would by no means retire to rest at night until it had had its usual allowance. Then ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... Members of House and Senate, eager its I am to join you in the making of an American merchant marine commensurate with our commerce, the denouncement of our commercial treaties would involve us in a chaos of trade relationships and add indescribably to the confusion of the already disordered commercial world. Our power to do so is not disputed, but power and ships, without comity of relationship, will not give us the expanded trade which is inseparably linked with a great merchant marine. Moreover, the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Warren Harding • Warren Harding
... Hunt-Goring reeled—almost fell—back against the wall of the bungalow. The sweat was streaming down his forehead. His face was livid. His eyes, sinister and awful, were turned up like the eyes of a dead man. He was chewing at his cigarette with a ceaseless working of the jaws indescribably horrible to watch. ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... on the contrary, it is the handsomest I ever saw, and in itself has nothing disagreeable. It is formed of wax, and has a mournful expression which is quite attractive, at least when its owner sits still; but when she moves or speaks, the dead look of the mask has an indescribably unpleasant effect. Several persons have indirectly questioned the Marchese on this subject, but he evades or turns off their enquiries with all the tact of a consummate man of the world. Of course it would be indelicate, if not unfeeling, to ask her about ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... an indeterminate mist, once in the shape of a man, who came in by the door and vanished in the wall. Mrs. 'G.'[B] now appears on the scene, and slept in No. 1 (I think). She heard only the bangings, which she declares were indescribably loud. They were mostly at the door of the haunted room. Traps were laid to catch unwary jesters; the door, or the surrounding floor, I forget which, was covered with flour, and wires were stretched across the door; and if I had the proper mind of a ghost-story ...
— The Alleged Haunting of B—— House • Various
... man-traps in the foreground, with a high-pressure boiler (you see there is an excursion party on board, with a band of music), and an open bay,—all combine to lend to this wonderful triumph of art an airy and exhilarating tone, indescribably delicious. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 39., Saturday, December 24, 1870. • Various
... was standing tensely on the balls of his feet, and his hands were gripping the bar rail so fiercely his fingers seemed white and bloodless. It was apparent some stern emotion wrestled him; the profile I saw was set like chiseled marble. There was something indescribably menacing in his poise. The sight of him jolted my ears open to the noises ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... awakened by the wild ravings of delirious agony,—those sounds so fearful in themselves, so awful in the silence and darkness of night, so indescribably awful in the solitude of ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... object now was to reach Tibneen in the Belad Besharah, and therefore we kept on due west, ascending up to the great crusading castle and the village of Huneen, from which the look back upon Jebel esh Shaikh (Hermon) was indescribably grand. ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... alone by the table for another hour or so, smiling to himself richly. There was nothing vindictive in his nature; but, if revenge came in his way, it might as well be good, and the thought of Archie's pillow reflections that night was indescribably sweet to him. He felt a pleasant sense of power. He looked down on Archie as on a very little boy whose strings he pulled - as on a horse whom he had backed and bridled by sheer power of intelligence, and whom he might ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "Weel, cornel!" "Weel, laddie!" was the reply. "Fat dis the wow say, cornel?" "Come hame, come hame!" answered the colonel, with both accent and quantity heaped on the word hame. What the wow could be, she had no idea; only, as the years passed on, the strange word became in her mind indescribably associated with the strange shape in yellow cloth on his sleeves. Had she been a native of the town, she could not have failed to know its import, so familiar was every one with it, although it did not belong to ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... sometimes to drop from the ceiling, and sometimes to be thrown at them. In one of the passages all sorts of queer sounds, such as whinings, meanings, screeches, clangings of pails and rattlings of chains, were heard, whilst something, no one could ever see distinctly, but which they all felt to be indescribably nasty, rushed up the cellar steps and flew past, as if engaged in a desperate chase. Indeed, the disturbances were of so constant and harrowing a nature, that the wing had to be vacated and ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... his arm was an old lady to whom he seemed to pay deferential attention. His head was bent on one side; he was smiling frankly. A little behind them, on the stairway, there was a space. Perhaps I was mistaken; perhaps there was no space—I don't know. I was only conscious of a figure, an indescribably clear-cut woman's figure, gliding down the way. It had a coldness, a self-possession, a motion of its own. In that clear, transparent, shimmering light, every little fold of the dress, every little shadow of the white arms, the white shoulders, came up to me. The face turned up to meet mine. I ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... occasions in my life I have had precisely the same 'horrible sensation.' Once it lasted a full quarter of an hour. In all three instances the certainty that there in outward space there stood SOMETHING was indescribably STRONGER than the ordinary certainty of companionship when we are in the close presence of ordinary living people. The something seemed close to me, and intensely more real than any ordinary perception. Although I felt it to be like unto myself so to speak, or finite, small, and distressful, ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... certainly was most enjoyable, and it did me a world of good, body and mind. When my father came up, we enjoyed it still more. He coaxed holidays for the girls even out of Aunt Maria, and took us (Leo and all) to places of amusement. With him we went to the Zoological Gardens. The monkeys attracted me indescribably, and I seriously proposed to my father to adopt one or two of them as brothers for me. I felt convinced that if they were properly dressed and taught they would be quite companionable, and I said so, to my father's great amusement, ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... and lacked no excellence that a sturdy bachelor should possess. But the other, who was born to the name of Paul, lamented his arrival with a vociferous note of disappointment in the world that was indescribably endearing; had a head clothed in down like the intimate garments of an ostrich chick, and was small enough for David to put in his pocket. He brought a new horizon with him and imposed it on his parents; he was, in brief, a thing to make a ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... dear Honora, that the rhododendrons will not exhaust themselves; at this moment yours opposite the library window are in the most beautiful profuse blow you can conceive, and at the end of my garden indescribably beautiful, and scarlet thorn beside. The peony tree has happily survived its removal, ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... substance, which rendered the enamel capable of reflecting white light as blue, red, green, or yellow light—in other words, of giving the object a luster of a color wholly different from the tints of the pigment. He evidently could produce any desired color at will, and the effects gained are indescribably beautiful. The Castellani collection contains 130 superb specimens, which glow like jewels. In one, the scene of the nativity of Christ is provided with the figures in low relief, and the exquisite cerulean lustre is imparted to give ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various
... dream. He was startled by a voice whispering hoarsely in his ear, "You have murdered a man; the officers of justice are after you; you must fly for your life!" Every syllable was pronounced slowly and separately; and there was something in the hoarse, gasping sound of the whisper which was indescribably dreadful. He looked around him, and seeing nothing but the clear moonlight on the grass, became partially sensible that he was the victim of illusion, and a sudden fear of insanity thrilled him with a momentary horror. Rallying himself, he returned ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... travelled roads in the world, and certainly amongst the most famous. In every age and from all countries thousands of pilgrims landing at Jaffa have trodden this ancient road to the Holy City. The first part of it is indescribably beautiful, leading as it does through some of the orange groves which surround Jaffa. In the springtime, if you turn your horse a mile or two away from the town an incomparable view is spread before your eyes. On every hand stretch the orange groves, great splashes of white and green, ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... out, and had walked hurriedly along quiet by-streets to the ROSENTAL. But before she had advanced a hundred yards, her courage began to fail, and the further she went, the more her spirits sank. Her surroundings were indescribably depressing: the smirched, steadily retreating snow was leaving bare all the drab brownness it had concealed—all the dismal little gardens, and dirty corners. Houses, streets and people wore their most bedraggled air. Particularly the ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... in the likeness of some great glass bowl, all precious concave crystal, set delicately humming by the play of a moist finger round its edge. The concave crystal held, as it were, this mystical other world, and the indescribably fine murmur of its rim was the sigh there, the scarce audible pathetic wail to his strained ear, of all the old baffled forsworn possibilities. What he did therefore by this appeal of his hushed presence was to wake them into such measure of ghostly life ...
— The Jolly Corner • Henry James
... my rooms in the Via Felice and move to Monte Mario (an hour's distance from the city). Father Theimer is kind enough to allow me to occupy his apartments in the almost uninhabited house of the Oratorian. The view is indescribably grand. I mean now, at last, to try and lead a natural kind of life. I hope I may succeed in approaching more closely to my monastico-artistic ideal...Meanwhile you may laugh at me about it. In my next letter I will tell ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... to my mind something indescribably peaceful and even sad about that view, a mute sympathy with the Past that I could hardly account for, seeing that I was Colonial born and bred. For the first time since my arrival in England the real beauty of the place came home upon me. I felt ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... sustained eloquence and harmony of English numbers than in all that has been written since; there is a machine about a poetical young lady,[33] and another about either Charles or James, I know not which; and they are both indescribably fine. (Is Marvell's Horatian Ode good enough? I half think so.) But my great point is a fear that you are one of those who are unjust to our old Tennyson's Duke of Wellington. I have just been talking it over with Symonds; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... wave from the instruments reached him he felt himself borne away in a sort of nervous intoxication, which thrilled body and mind indescribably. His imagination ran riot, made drunk by melody, and carried him along through sweet dreams and charming reveries. With closed eyes, legs crossed, and folded arms, he listened to the strains, and gave himself up to the visions that passed before his ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... mission-house the view on a clear day is splendid. On the slope stand a few large trees, whose cleft leaves frame the indescribably blue sea, which breaks in snowy lines in the lava-boulders below. Far off, I can see Malekula, with its forest-covered mountains, and summer clouds hanging above it. It is a dreamlike summer day, so beautiful, bright and mild as to be hardly real. One feels a certain regret at being unable to absorb ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... wealth and blind devotion of Akim and finally mentioned so significantly the wishes of their mistress that Dunyasha went out of the room with a look of hesitation on her face and meeting Akim only gazed intently into his face and did not turn away. The indescribably lavish presents of the love-sick man dissipated her last doubts. Lizaveta Prohorovna, to whom Akim in his joy took a hundred peaches on a large silver dish, gave her consent to the marriage, and the marriage took place. ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... the two aunts were indescribably anxious. They knew their Dionysia, their darling child, better than she knew herself, having nursed and watched her for twenty years. They knew every expression of her face, every gesture, every intonation of voice, and could almost read ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... himself, sometimes before, sometimes after their mother and her companion; but her charm was less childish, and now, as she stood mute and motionless, her attitude and demeanor suggested a torpid snake. There was something indescribably mechanical in the way in which the pretty woman and her companion paced up and down. In absence of mind, probably, they were content to walk to and fro between the little bridge and a carriage that stood waiting nearby at a corner in the boulevard, ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... very majestic but somewhat sluggish stream, and its water is not very good. You cannot see the river till you are right upon it, owing to the great trees with which its steep banks are fringed, and in the early morning it is quite hidden from bank to bank by a dense mass of billows of white mist, indescribably ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... fixed upon the dazzling white wall which, with its thousands of tons of ice, had been built in a few minutes right across the opening by which they had entered the now fast calming fiord. For that piled-up mass was indescribably grand as it glistened in the sunshine, every crack and depression being of the most lovely blue, from the palest sapphire to the deepest amethyst. It was magnificent, it was grand; and all started at something which was terribly incongruous; for a great flock of the northern gulls suddenly ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... cloud, such as she had never in all her life beheld before, was rapidly rolling up. It was dead black, save where its curled and fringed edges showed a ghastly, livid white. There was something about it indescribably menacing as it gloomed up in the clear blue sky; now and again a bolt of lightning shot across it, followed by a savage growl. It hung so low that it almost seemed to be touching the tops of ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... exceeded that which he ever enjoyed in the society of any other man, however delightful in talk, or famous for wit. His presence brought sunshine into a room, his laugh, his prattle, his noble beauty and brightness of look cheered and charmed indescribably. At the least tale of sorrow, his hands were in his purse, and he was eager with sympathy and bounty. The way in which women loved and petted him, when, a year or two afterwards, he came upon the world, yet a mere ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... human abilities to 'exceed' it. As to Lord Carlisle, I think he well deserves the Note Lord B. has put in; I am 'very much' pleased with it, and the little word 'Amen' at the end, gives a point 'indescribably good'. The whole of the conclusion is excellent, and the Postscript I think must entertain everybody except 'Jeffrey'. I hope the poor Bear is well; I wish you could make him understand that he is 'immortalized', for, if ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... 18 How indescribably blessed is the Christian. It is true that he has to perform his pilgrimage through an enemy's country, beset with snares, pit-falls, and temptations; but in all his buffetings and storms of sorrow, his soul is safe; God is a wall of fire round about it, and the glory in the midst of it. He will ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... paper to try and distract her mind from the noises over the hedge. But every head-line seemed to dart at her sore consciousness as if it were a snake's head with a sting in it. Murder. Unrest. Strikes. Dissatisfactions. Change. The whole outlook was indescribably comfortless and depressing to her. She felt something akin to the vague, apprehensive misery—beyond reason or common sense—which people feel during the rumble of ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... Just before the Revolution the lot of the common laborer was not an enviable one. His house was rude and barren of comforts; his fare was coarse and without variety. His wage was two shillings a day, and prison—usually an indescribably filthy hole awaited him the moment he ran into debt. The artisan fared somewhat better. He had spent, as a rule, seven years learning his trade, and his skill and energy demanded and generally ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... although his own knowledge of the circumstances, and perhaps the haunting presence of the sad eyes of the mother, as she asked, "Oh! can you give me even a picture of her?" had tinged the whole composition with a pathos not intended by the artist, but indescribably touching to ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... convoy of some twenty thousand wretched prisoners is sent off to that dismal land, including the ignorant and the educated, the debased and the refined, men and women, young and old, the horror of exile being added to indescribably by this mingling of delicate and refined men and women with the rudest and most brutal of the convict class, all under the charge of mounted Cossacks, well armed, and bearing long whips as their ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... intimate ("lady-intimate" was Maisie's term) so that what together they were on Mrs. Wix's prescription to give up and break short off with was for one of them his particular favourite and for the other her father's wife. Strangely, indescribably her perception of reasons kept pace with her sense of trouble; but there was something in her that, without a supreme effort not to be shabby, couldn't take the reasons for granted. What it comes to perhaps for ourselves is that, disinherited ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... splendid hand. There IS the sublime, if you please—a new sublime—an original sublime—quite as sublime as the Greek sublime. See yonder, in the midst of his angels, the Judge of the world descending in glory; and near him, beautiful and gentle, and yet indescribably august and pure, the Virgin by his side. There is the "Moses," the grandest figure that ever was carved in stone. It has about it something frightfully majestic, if one may so speak. In examining this, and the astonishing picture of "The Judgment," or ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... still in blossom. They advanced on their way further and further. The haze clung to the surface like a soft sash does round the waist, and to Genji, who had scarcely ever been out of the capital, the scenery was indescribably novel. The ascetic lived in a deep cave in the rocks, near the lofty summit. Genji did not, however, declare who he was, and the style of his retinue was of a very private character. Yet his nobility ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... The dripping rustle of the rain among the leaves, and the clear, ceaseless tick of the clock on the mantel-piece, made the minute of silence which followed the settling of the persons present in their places indescribably oppressive. It was a relief to every one when Mr. ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... This is really one of the most covetable little volumes in the world. It is a copy printed UPON VELLUM; with most beautiful illuminations, in the purest Italian taste. Look—if ever you visit the Imperial Library—at the last illumination, at the bottom of o v, recto. It is indescribably elegant. But the binder should have been hung in chains. He has cut the book to the very quick—so as almost to have entirely sliced away ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... of his own defects and aberrations in the particular parts of his body, and the more conspicuous the defect is the greater is his determination to correct it. This is why snub-nosed persons find an aquiline nose or a parrot-like face so indescribably pleasing; and the same thing applies to every other part of the body. Men of immoderately long and attenuated build delight in a stunted and short figure. Considerations of temperament also influence a man's choice. ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... rained just before; the drops still hung on bush and tree; and as the dazzling radiance of the sun touched them, every drop also radiated light, prismatic, and scintillating an almost audibly tinkling joy. So indescribably wonderful and beautiful, yet so tender, seemed this scene—as of a mighty light informing the least atom of this tearful human existence—that the profoundest depths of Justin's nature ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... so young to be such an old lady." He smoothed the short curly hair with a gesture that was indescribably gentle. "I tell you what, young Lydia, if you were ten years older and I ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... from the Nore on the 8th of May, 1821, but it was not until the 14th of June that they came in sight of the first iceberg, or until the 2nd of July that they reached Resolution Island, the valleys of which were filled with snow, while a dense fog hung over the land, rendering the scene before them indescribably dreary and desolate. In a short time the ships were surrounded by no less than six hundred and fifty-four icebergs, one of which rose to two hundred and fifty-eight feet above the sea. Among them were large floes, which were turned round and round by the strong ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... be," answered Julia: "my father hasn't been to sea for a good many years. My father," she added, with a diffidence indescribably mingled with a sense of distinction,—"my father's in State's Prison. What kind of ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... me an impression indescribably strange. I felt myself standing upon a crisis. I felt called upon to choose between self and self-sacrifice. Had the choice left no chance of saving my own life, I fear I should have obeyed the "first law ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... trimmed with the usual amount of gold braid;" but something far more interesting than the visit of any man, however famous, began to absorb the attention of our imprisoned hero at this time. He had never ceased to rack his brain with schemes looking to his escape. A life of captivity was indescribably wearisome to him. He not only taxed his own ingenuity in the effort to discover some feasible plan, but eagerly entered into the schemes of others. The result, however, so far as he was individually concerned, was by no means in accordance with his hopes; but, as ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... indescribably loathsome, you know. Oh, if it had only been an ordinary mortal disease—! For I'm not so afraid of death—though I should like to live as ...
— Ghosts • Henrik Ibsen
... meaty growl, indescribably low-pitched—but no chance even to shout—only to huddle back together to the farthest corner. The beast had stalked faultlessly and pounced, landing upon the thin cross pieces of bamboo, but short of the bait. Down the twelve feet he came with a tearing hiss ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... the tunnel. They heard him gasp indescribably: there was the crash of a heavy body leaping through ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... something indescribably horrible in this deliberate, merciless destruction of the exquisite work of art. Nan, watching the keen blade sweep again and again across the painted figure of the portrait, felt as though the blows were being rained upon her actual body. ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... adjoined the Caesareum, the palace in which Sabina was residing. Balbilla was fond of lingering there, and as the morning of the twenty-ninth of December was particularly brilliant—the sky and its infinite mirror the sea, gleaming in indescribably deep blue, while the fragrance of a flowering shrub was wafted in at her window like an invitation to quit the house she had sought a certain bench which, though placed in a sunny spot, was slightly shaded by an acacia. This seat was screened ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... mere King of Flames, fiery-faced a la SKELT, Inhabiting regions most torrid, With a breath that is warranted copper to melt, And eyes indescribably horrid. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 11, 1891 • Various
... wealthy English gentleman—first the army, then a period of quiet country life, and finally parliament. There, however, he took a place apart, almost at once, by his interest in prison reform. The condition of the English prisons of the day was indescribably foul and loathsome, and as horror after horror was unearthed by his investigations, a great project began to take shape in his mind. This was nothing less than the founding in America of a colony where prisoners ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... me. It was as if another sun had risen into the sky; the heavens were indescribably brighter, and the earth fairer; and that day has gone on brightening to the present hour. I have known the other joys of life, I suppose, as much as most men; I have known art and beauty, music and gladness; I have known friendship and love and family ties; but ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... pair came back from church to Owen's sitting-room—not bear and monkey, not genie and fairy, as he had expected to see; but as they stood together, looking so indescribably and happily one, that Owen smiled and said, 'Ah! Honor, if you had only known twenty years ago that this was Mrs. Peter Prendergast, how much trouble it ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... looking around at it and then in an indescribably comical manner down at his clothes. His gesture, his expression implied that her mistake was ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... sitting in a high room, brilliantly lighted by a soft, tranquillizing radiance, listening to a chorus of most delicately attuned voices, indescribably sweet, penetrating and moving. Around me upon white ivory chairs arranged in an amphitheatre sat beings like myself, all looking outward upon a sloping lawn where were gathered beneath blossoming fruit trees an army, it seemed, of half shining creatures, ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... east a vast dome of pale undazzling gold was rising, silently and swiftly. Jays called in the thickets where the maples flamed amid the green oaks, with irregular splashes of red and orange. The grass was crisp with frost under the feet, the road smooth and gray-white in color, the air was indescribably sweet, resonant, and stimulating. ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... it seemed full of blazing opals. Always it held faces. And stories—more stories than I can ever tell! Once I was stirred and inspired by the beautiful effect of the pine trees in outline against the starry sky when the camp-fire blazed up. The color of the foliage seemed indescribably blue-green, something never seen by day. Every line shone bright, graceful, curved, rounded, and all thrown with sharp relief against the sky. How magical, exquisitely delicate and fanciful! The great trunks were soft serrated brown, and the gnarled branches stood ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... picture of ivy-grown, peaceful ruin. The banqueting-hall, all open to the sky and with thick curtains of ivy tapestrying the walls, and grass and weeds growing on the arches that overpass it, is indescribably beautiful. The hearthstones of the great old fireplaces, all about the castle, seem to be favorite spots for weeds to grow. There are eight large round towers, and out of four of them, I think, rise smaller towers, ascending to a much greater height, and once containing winding staircases, ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... interval of silence and inaction. From astern and a good way off sounded the notes of a bell. From the opposite direction came a low groan, indescribably ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... length discovered in what my brother dignified by the title of his laboratory, where, in a frenzy of gleeful activity, he was examining first one bottle and then another; finally he betook himself, with indescribably grotesque grinnings and chatterings, to uncorking and sniffing at them, and then pouring their contents deliberately out on the (luckily carpetless) floor,—a joke which might have had serious results for ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... some new wonder, or some exquisite picture being revealed as the deep folds disclosed themselves to us. Nor were we disappointed. The wooded hills with a wealth of boscage of beautiful trees, many of which were in bloom, and crowned with floral glory, exhaling an indescribably sweet fragrance, lifting their heads in varied contour—one pyramidal, another a truncated cone; one table-topped, another ridgy, like the steep roof of a church; one a glorious heave with an even outline, another jagged and savage-interested ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... itself to the contemplation of Nisida was indescribably beautiful. Richly wooded hills rose towering above each other with amphitheatrical effect; and behind the verdant panorama were the blue outlines of pinnacles of naked rocks. But not a trace of the presence of human beings was to be seen—not a hamlet, nor a cottage, ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... cruelty to have had his tenderness. He had a sort of worship for her whilst he wounded her. He speaks of her after she is gone; of her wit, of her kindness, of her grace, of her beauty, with a simple love and reverence that are indescribably touching; in contemplation of her goodness his hard heart melts into pathos; his cold rhyme kindles and glows into poetry, and he falls down on his knees, so to speak, before the angel whose life he had embittered, confesses his own wretchedness and unworthiness, and adores her with ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... of one ear to the other. The animal has the power of moving the scalp freely forward and back, and when enraged is said to contract it strongly over the brow, thus bringing down the hairy ridge and pointing the hair forward, so as to present an indescribably ferocious aspect. ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... change in the sleeper, during the few days of his absence; how much thinner the hollow cheek, how sunken the closed eyes; how indescribably sharpened the outlines of each feature. The face which had formerly suggested some marble statue, had now the finer tracery as of an exquisite cameo; and oblivion of all earthly ills had set there the seal of a perfect peace. She lay so motionless, with her hands on her breast, that Mr. ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... predecessors and was approaching my own best record, with my eight companions, sixty dogs, and seven fully loaded sledges in far better condition than I had even dared to hope, the strange and melancholy light in which we traveled on this day of parting from Marvin gave me an indescribably uneasy feeling. Man in his egotism, from the most primitive ages to our own, has always imagined a sympathetic relationship between nature and the events and feelings of human life. So—in the light of later events—admitting ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... her clenched teeth with an indescribably savage intonation; and Paul expected some frantic outburst on the part of Jenkins, rebelling against such a storm of insults. But no. That exhibition of hatred and contempt on the part of the woman he loved evidently ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... joint occupation of their little island of happiness. For a long time they sat there, for Maria could not be torn away. The music, the costumes and beauty of the women, the delicate perfumes, the frequent ringing of bells, the hurrying back and forth of bell-boys and hotel servants, were indescribably ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... entered the house and began to grope their way up the narrow, winding staircase. They could make only slow progress, not only because of the absence of light, but owing to the rotten condition of the stairs. Indescribably filthy and littered with all sorts of rubbish and broken glass, in some places the boards had broken through entirely, leaving gaping holes, which were so many dangerous pitfalls. Twice the lawyer came near ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... temptation to linger near their chilly statues and gloomy cypresses; even the view from their noble terraces, formed partly by the wall of the town, was cold and colorless under the November sky. Out-of-door life is so large a part of the pleasure of being in Italy, fine weather adds so indescribably there to the beauty of even the most glorious works of man, that to have seen them only under a dull sky is like having seen a human countenance without its smile. Perhaps at another season we should not have thought the streets so melancholy: ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... place during the latter part of our stay." The Chukchi are nominally Christians, but sacrifice animals to the spirits of the rivers and mountains, and also practise Shamanism. In personal habits the people are indescribably filthy. They are polygamous, but the women are treated kindly. The children are specially petted, and are so wrapped up to protect them from the cold that they have been described as resembling huge balls crossed by a bar, their arms having to remain outstretched ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... A B C; this rubi'y, though indescribably beautiful in the Original, is somewhat too involved for us to grasp the meaning at one reading. Perhaps, in thus weaving the alphabet into his numbers, it was the purpose of the poet to give promise of the ultimate attainment of the Alpha and ...
— The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Jr. (The Rubiyt of Omar Khayym Jr.) • Wallace Irwin
... disturbed the quietude of Camp Bannister at such an unearthly hour! However, his grim purpose was temporarily thwarted—before him spread a beautiful panorama, a vast canvas painted in rich hues and colors, that indescribably charming masterpiece of ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... and making such a dreadful and horrible noise that if the truth be known, I drew back in fear, for there is no beast so fierce and dangerous as a bull. I saw sitting upon a stump, with a great club in his hand, a rustic lout, as black as a mulberry, indescribably big and hideous; indeed, so passing ugly was the creature that no word of mouth could do him justice. On drawing near to this fellow, I saw that his head was bigger than that of a horse or of any other beast; that his hair was in tufts, leaving ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... stranger who stays long in Naples is known, summed up, labelled, and either ignored or pestered. The touts and the ruffiani were aware that it was no use to pester the Frenchman, and even the decrepit and indescribably seedy old men who hover before the huge plate-glass windows of the photograph shops, or linger near the entrance to the cinematograph, never peeped at him out of the corners of their bloodshot eyes or whispered a word of the white slaves ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... last words, she raised a small phial, which she held in her hand, with an indescribably swift movement to her lips: she drank the contents, and, sinking into a ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... the lonely cottage. Holmes tied the dog to the hedge, and we hastened onwards. My friend knocked at the little rustic door, and knocked again without response. And yet the cottage was not deserted, for a low sound came to our ears—a kind of drone of misery and despair, which was indescribably melancholy. Holmes paused irresolute, and then he glanced back at the road which we had just traversed. A brougham was coming down it, and there could be no mistaking those ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... faintly reflected from above, made the sky, before a deep and velvety black-blue, look like a gilt canopy based upon a rim of azure mist. The brilliancy waxed golden and more golden still; the blending of the colours became indescribably beautiful; and, lastly, the sun's upper limb rose in brightest saffron above the dimmed and spurious horizon of north-east cloud. The panorama below us emerged dimly and darkly from a torrent of haze, whose waving convex lines, moving with a majestic calm, wore the aspect of a deluge whelming the ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... risk rather than make my escape by that way.... Oh, well!" he went on more coolly, "I suppose that to any one who didn't know her the idea of her being privy to her husband's murder might not seem so indescribably fatuous. Forgive the expression." He looked attentively at the burning end of his cigarette, studiously unconscious of the red flag that flew in Trent's eyes for an instant at his words and the ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... paltriness that sees in this nothing save political calculation. Political calculation made the liberation of Greece a possibility for the Romans; it was converted into a reality by the Hellenic sympathies that were at that time indescribably powerful in Rome, and above all in Flamininus himself. If the Romans are liable to any reproach, it is that all of them, and in particular Flamininus who overcame the well-founded scruples of the senate, were hindered by the magic ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... himself dropped into the naval mob without one friend; nay, among enemies, since his country's enemies were his own, and against the kith and kin of these very beings around him, he himself had once lifted a fatal hand. The martial bustle of a great man-of-war, on her first day out of port, was indescribably jarring to his present mood. Those sounds of the human multitude disturbing the solemn natural solitudes of the sea, mysteriously afflicted him. He murmured against that untowardness which, after condemning him ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... the High Court of Barga, imprison them if they cannot pay. They know her, and they curse her. The ill-news of her arrival runs from lip to lip. Checco, the butcher, who sells his meat cut into dark, indescribably-shaped scraps, more fit for dogs than men, first sees the carriage turn into the piazza. He passes the word on to Oreste, the barber round the corner. Oreste, who, with his brother Pilade, both wearing snow-white aprons, are squaring themselves at their open ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... a white feather—can prevent him from carrying away, body and soul, the individual who called him up, accompanied by such terrors. In fact the night, independently of the terrible accessory of the fire, was indescribably awful. Thatch portions of the ribs and roofs of houses were whirled along through the air; and the sweeping blast, in addition to its own howlings, was burdened with the loud screamings of women and children, and the stronger shoutings of men, as they attempted ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... little two-years-old Gabriele, with her large, serious brown eyes; her refined, somewhat pale, but indescribably lovely countenance; her bewitching little gestures; you would be just as much taken with her as the rest are,—you would find it difficult, as we all do, not to spoil her. She is a quiet little child, but very ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer |
