"Unaccountably" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... snowily everywhere, its tiny flower crowns falling and floating in patches down-stream, its over-sweet breath hanging heavy in the morning mist. My nose was in the air all the way for magnolias and water-lilies, yet never a whiff from either shore, so particular, so unaccountably notional are some of the high-caste flowers with regard to ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... "Unaccountably failed note suspicious clause charter. Something rotten. We are playing square game. Think plot deliver coal German fleet South Atlantic. Discharge your German crew immediately, first notifying Brazilian authorities and American consul. Have help when you notify ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... the two periods of civilisation, the classical and the modern, and forming a period without growth or meaning—a period which began about the time of the decay of the Roman Empire, and ended suddenly, and more or less unaccountably, at the time of the Reformation. The society of this period was supposed to be lawless and chaotic; its ethics a mere conscious hypocrisy; its art gloomy and barbarous fanaticism only; its literature ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele
... accordingly borne in triumph to the place for which it was designed, in the presence of applauding thousands, but as it receded from their upturned eyes, all, all at once agaze upon it, the thunders of applause unaccountably died away—a general misgiving ran through every bosom—the mob themselves stood like statues, as silent and as petrified, for as it slowly went up, and up the soft expression of those chiselled ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... curiously. Mr. Fentolin seemed absorbed in his subject. He had spoken with relish, as one who loves the things he speaks about. Quite unaccountably, Hamel found ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... happy humor. The business here had dragged out to the annoying length of six weeks and his mind was busy with anxiety centering on the hills. But as his thoughts ran irritably along, the hand that had lifted an envelope out of the collection became rigid. It was a very plain envelope and quite unaccountably it was postmarked from the station near the mouth ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... it was they had to settle—the Greenland affair that had hung in the air so long. I knew it from hearsay, from Fox, vaguely enough. Mr. Gurnard was said to recommend it for financial reasons, the Duc to be eager, Churchill to hang back unaccountably. I never had much head for details of this sort, but people used to explain them to me—to explain the reasons for de Mersch's eagerness. They were rather shabby, rather incredible reasons, that sounded too reasonable to be true. He wanted the money for his railways—wanted ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... This, under our view, any amount of gradation in a series of forms goes a small way in explaining. The transit of a young flounder's eye across the head is a capital instance of a wonderful thing done under Nature, and done unaccountably. ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... fire," said the master, when the tray was taken away. "When you came on me in Hay lane last night I thought unaccountably of fairy tales, and had half a mind to demand whether you had bewitched my horse. I am not sure yet. ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... as I was passing a little altar where a priest was saying mass, I unaccountably put my cap upon my head. I was instantly required to take it off. I was reminded of the fact that but a few days before, when entering a Jewish synagogue, upon taking off my hat, I was instantly required to replace it. Such is the difference between the etiquette ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... meet with the attention which it deserved, nor to this day has its importance been fully recognised. Despite his warnings, his contemporaries regarded it simply as a defence of Falstaff's courage. One spoke of him as a paradoxical critic, and others doubted if he meant what he said. All were unaccountably indifferent to his main purpose. The book was unknown even to Hazlitt, who in the preface to his Characters of Shakespeare's Plays alludes only to Whately(31) and Richardson as his English predecessors. Yet it is the true forerunner ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... According to these expressions, it would seem that Lady Vargrave was not apprised of the approaching event; that, considering Miss Cameron's recent engagement to Mr. Maltravers suddenly (and, as Valerie thought, unaccountably) broken off on the arrival of Lord Vargrave; considering her extreme youth, her brilliant fortune; and, Madame de Ventadour delicately hinted, considering also Lord Vargrave's character for unscrupulous ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... ghost, the bandit, or the court physician; or, in his one person, the whole king's army. He may do the light business, or the heavy, or the comic, or the eccentric. He may be the captain who courts the young lady, whose uncle still unaccountably persists in dressing himself in a costume one hundred years older than his time. Or he may be the young lady's brother in the white gloves and inexpressibles, whose duty in the family appears to be to listen to the female members of it whenever they sing, and to shake hands with everybody ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... own society evidently and spending all their time and interest in repairing the dilapidated walls of an unused wing of the chateau. This had turned out an endless task, as it appears, continued for weeks and then suddenly and unaccountably stopped for days, only to be feverishly recommenced. But of course, people round about, accustomed to the varying energy of workmen in general were not puzzled at this. At least this was the explanation given and, in truth, it began to look as if ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow
... and singular thing in the world. I never ride in the evening; I have not done so for years. The whim seized me, quite unaccountably, in the middle of last night.—How very picturesque this is!'—He pointed, as he spoke, to the dismantled house, and raised his ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... under heaven can have affected you in this manner? I told you that I had knocked a worm on your coat, and you did not appear to heed it any more than if it had been a speck of dust. It was only when I mentioned the shape it had assumed, that you behaved so unaccountably! What does it mean? Are you afraid of worms, or only of shoulder-straps?' And I laughed at the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... you," she explained, "the realization will sweep over him that you are no longer a child. You have grown to womanhood in the past three years. And he will feel unaccountably shy in your presence." ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... noticeable that, from the day of his arrival, Tamasi Uliuli exacted the most rigid performance of morning and evening devotions by his family, and that the nightly scenes of riot and howling drunkenness, that had theretofore characterised the "hotel," had unaccountably toned down. In fact, burly old Alvord, the consular interpreter, who had been accustomed to expostulate with Tom for the number of prostrate figures, redolent of bad rum, lying outside on the path in the ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... new style of architecture—the Gothic. Most of the great cathedrals of Europe date from the eleventh century—the piety of the world having been wrought to a pitch of intense excitement by the expected end of all things, unaccountably fixed by popular belief to take place in the year one thousand. When the fatal year—and the following one, which some held to be the real date for the sounding of the last trumpet—passed without the arrival of the dreaded catastrophe, the sense of general relief found expression ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... not a soul in the streets that we saw, except a solitary town guard now and then, lurking about some dark corner under the piazzas. These same streets, which were wide and comfortable enough in the daytime, had become unaccountably narrow and intricate since six o'clock in the evening; and, although the object of the party was to convoy Captain Transom and myself to our boat at the Ordnance Wharf, it struck me that we were as frequently ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... dead while his hand is still on the rope. This prayer is never answered; so something like a dozen men dress hurriedly and reach the Arrowhead kitchen hurriedly, meaning to perform instantly there a gracious deed which Providence has thus far unaccountably ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... nature, and, supposing that it must be intended as an insult, he ordered the gates to be closed. You may imagine the fury of the Ambassador when, after all his pomp and pride, the King absolutely and unaccountably refused to receive him. He raved wildly both against King and people, and the cortege retired in great confusion, jeered at and pelted with stones and mud by the enraged crowd. It is needless to say that he left the country as fast as horses could carry him, but not before he had ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... down to the shore, and looked seaward. This was a fair wind for Hazel's return; and she began to expect him every hour. But no; he delayed unaccountably. And the worst of it was, it began to blow a gale; and this wind sent the sea rolling into the bay in a manner that ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... elopements, et hoc genus omne; and the scenes, very graphically written, of active service at Varna and Inkerman. I will not pretend that the two parts are specially coherent; but at least Mrs. Steel has given us some exceedingly interesting pictures of a period that our novelists have, on the whole, unaccountably neglected. ...
— Punch, Volume 153, July 11, 1917 - Or the London Charivari. • Various
... going to rack and ruin, morally speaking. He was a middling decent sort of man when I first knew him; and I judge there must have been something about him more than common, or he never could have got such a wife. But then women do marry, sometimes, unaccountably. I've known downright ugly and disagreeable fellows to work around, till by and by they would get a pretty girl fascinated by something in them which nobody else could see, and then marry her in ...
— The Man Who Stole A Meeting-House - 1878, From "Coupon Bonds" • J. T. Trowbridge
... Spencer said, waving aside a dish presented before him by the head waiter himself with a gesture of approval. "Not necessarily malefactors. But there are other powers to be taken into consideration, and most unaccountably your two friends are in deeper water than your story led me to expect. Now, not another question, please, until you have tried that sauce. Absolute silence, if you please, for at least three or ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Miss Grosvenor," I replied; "he's a born orator, but is unaccountably lazy and vain, and only wants to be pressed; insist upon his speaking, he's longing to do so." And then his merry protesting laugh, and the girl's equally happy, rang out on the crisp starlight air, as they went over and ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... in conversation, in reading, perhaps in toil and danger, and they have not thought much about it. But one day they wake up to the fact that these little or great things bind them, as forming the portion of their lives that have touched; and as they talk over the incidents they remember they feel unaccountably drawn to each other by the past. Margaret and Claudius knew this on the first evening they spent together on shore. The confusion of landing, the custom-house, the strange quarters in the great hotel—all composed a drop-curtain shutting off the ocean scene, ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... display of endearments, for between Katty and Striker Barnickel they had been enabled to breakfast at Boynton's quarters, and had lunched and dined elsewhere among the many hospitably disposed throughout the garrison. Davies wanted to see and talk with the captain, but to-night he shrank unaccountably from meeting either of the ladies. It is under such circumstances that many a man finds Fate unkind. Even as he stood there the hall door flew open and a bright beam from the astral lamp within shot athwart the road. A blithe voice called back in answer to some presumable ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... Unaccountably enough Bradby went no further than the dying embers of the fire. His first act was to build a big blaze, for he was already becoming afraid. He could not define even to himself just what this fear was; it was not so much horror at what he had done as a feeling that ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... cut to The Palace. I scarcely noticed anything on the road going along, staring with full face at the Huge Block of Mountain. But, on getting out of sight of the encampment, and, under the shadow of this "great rock in a weary land," I unaccountably felt the influence of those very superstitious fears and terrors which I was so anxious to combat in my fellow-travellers. I then soliloquized to myself, "What a poor creature is man, how weak, how miserable! ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... the single gentleman, 'you most unaccountably, in possession of everything that had so recently belonged to another man, and that other man, who up to the time of your entering upon his property had been looked upon as affluent, reduced to sudden beggary, and driven ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... hunger of healthy stomachs accustomed to regular and generous feeding; tired with the weariness of healthy muscles pushed past their accustomed limit of action; and hot with the unaccustomed heat of a blazing day shunted unaccountably into the midst of soft spring weather, the Happy Family rode out of the embrace of the last barren coulee and up on the wide level where the breeze swept gratefully up from the west, and where every day ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... seeking lay something more than chance. His second meeting was an acknowledgment of his youth and her beauty. She had held him in the village day by day, because she was lithe of body and fair of face and because her eyes were unaccountably wistful. Yes, he had sought her that night when the river sang with joyous, immemorial clamor, and the lamp beckoned like a hand. He had gone to her for diversion—that he now acknowledged—and he had grown each day more deeply concerned with ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... he is any worse this morning," she said to Miss Jemima when she had delivered her message. "Indeed he seems, quite unaccountably, to be very much better. But it ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... service upon which he was employed would prove honorable, she felt assured. But was it dangerous? Alas! in Germany there was none otherwise. Would it soon restore him to her society? And why had he been of late so unaccountably silent? Or again, had he been silent? Perhaps his letters had been intercepted,—nothing, in fact, was more common at that time. The rarity was, if by any accident a letter reached its destination. From one of the worst solicitudes incident to such a situation Paulina was, however, delivered ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... during that short drive, most unaccountably silent. Several times I made casual remarks. Once or twice I tried to learn from him what sort of a place this was to which we were bound. He answered me only in monosyllables. I was conscious all the time of a certain subtle but unmistakable change in his manner. ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... GASKELL,—I am unaccountably in receipt by post of two vols. containing the Life of C. Bronte. I have pleasure in attributing this compliment to you; I beg, therefore, to thank you for them. The book is a perfect success, in giving a true picture of a melancholy life, ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... him inquiringly, affecting perhaps a more unsuspecting innocence than he was feeling. Rendel went on, speaking quickly and feeling suddenly unaccountably nervous. ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... Wealth and Fashion. In the end, it is said, the island became, nine tenths of it, church. The women, too, it appears, were oddly deformed by a natural protuberance of the region just below the small of the back—although, most unaccountably, this deformity was looked upon altogether in the light of a beauty. One or two pictures of these singular women have in fact, been miraculously preserved. They look very odd, very—like something between a turkey-cock and ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... the subject was not treated in the work, how could this "cramming" help him? Here comes in the system, so unaccountably overlooked by the Times, i.e., the Combination Method. "He read, sir," rejoined Pott, laying his hand on Mr. Pickwick's knee and looking round with a smile of intellectual superiority, "he read for metaphysics ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... different, for two or three days subsequent to this event he confined himself to his room, and when he did return to his ordinary occupations, it was with a gloomy indifference, which showed that he did so more from habit than from any interest he felt in them. He appeared from that moment unaccountably and strikingly changed, and thenceforward walked through life as a thing from which he could derive neither profit nor pleasure. His temper, however, so far from growing wayward or morose, became, though gloomy, very—almost unnaturally—placid ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... who held his eyes till the last moment, little Nancy with two big tears dropping down her cheeks. Steve's throat ached unaccountably. ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... pottery. It is well known that the best pottery of the Incas was extremely fine in texture. Students of ceramics are well aware of the uncertainty of the results of baking clay. Bad luck seems to come most unaccountably, even when the greatest pains are taken. Might it not have been possible that the people who were most concerned with creating pottery decided to erect this temple to insure success and get as much good luck as possible? Near the ancient temple is a small modern church ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... up the walk between the trim beds of rain-soaked flowers, the old dog crawled rheumatically to its feet, the bleared eyes brightening, the feathered tail awag in joyous greeting to the loved master who had been so long and so unaccountably absent. ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... must also be remembered that the context of the term is in elucidation of the meaning of the term "restoration" in the President's Fourteen Points. The Fourteen Points provide for damage in invaded territory—Belgium, France, Roumania, Serbia, and Montenegro (Italy being unaccountably omitted)—but they do not cover losses at sea by submarine, bombardments from the sea (as at Scarborough), or damage done by air raids. It was to repair these omissions, which involved losses to the life and property of civilians not really distinguishable ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... been amply satisfied had he been present to note the disquietude which ensued for some days after the arrival of his letter. Jeffreys felt uncomfortable in his intercourse with Mr Rimbolt; he avoided Raby, and even with Percy he was often unaccountably reserved and pensive. ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... his work he seemed perversely and unaccountably unwilling; and by a request, which, perhaps, he wished to be denied, desired Mr. Hughes to add a fifth act[176]. Hughes supposed him serious; and, undertaking the supplement, brought, in a few days, some scenes for his examination; but he had, in the mean time, gone to ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... out. He came nearer and nearer, and I moved only my eyes to keep them on his. All this time he did not utter a sound, but studied me as closely, and to all appearances as carefully, as ever I had studied him. Obviously he was in doubt what manner of creature it was, so like the human race, yet so unaccountably quiet. He tried to be unconcerned, while still not releasing me from strict surveillance; he dressed his feathers a little, uttering a soft whisper to himself, as if he said, "Well, I never!" then looked me over again more carefully than before. This pantomime went on for half an hour or more; ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... strange as the alternative. For we would have to believe that Captain Dornton arrived here—where he knew his son and I were living—without a word of warning, came ashore for the purpose of going to a hotel and the bank also, and then unaccountably ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... and destroyed—it was supposed by his heirs, who might have been glad could they have razed his very name from their splendid line. He had enjoyed a vast wealth; a large portion of this was believed to have been embezzled by a favourite astrologer or soothsayer—at all events, it had unaccountably vanished at the time of his death. One portrait alone of him was supposed to have escaped the general destruction; I had seen it in the house of a collector some months before. It had made on me a wonderful impression, as it does on all who behold it—a face never to be forgotten; ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... first drawn from his musings by the sound of a dialogue that came from persons who were evidently approaching. There was one voice, in particular, that caused his blood to thrill, he knew not why, and which appeared unaccountably, even to himself, to set in motion every latent faculty of his system. Profiting, by the formation of the ground, he sprang, unseen, up a little bank, and, approaching an angle in a low wall, he found himself in the immediate ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... Jacobitism. After a long illness at Vienna where he is pestered by Catholic priests, he recovers his health at Spa, and falls in love with a young English girl. Her parents gladly give their consent, but Maria seems unaccountably averse to the match. And when our hero is assaulted by a jealous footman, he perceives that the lady has fixed her affections on a lower object. Natura on his return to England prospers and marries happily, but his joy is soon ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... and Lewis, feeling unaccountably tired, sat down on a divan. Nelton remained on guard beside the bags, repulsing the attacks of too anxious bell-boys. To him came a large, heavy-faced person, ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... with one hand by the waist. I looked down upon the servants, and one or two friends who were in the house, as if they had been pygmies, and I a giant. I told my wife she had been too thrifty, for I found she had starved herself and her daughter to nothing. In short, I behaved myself so unaccountably that they were all of the captain's opinion when he first saw me, and concluded I had lost my wits. This I mention as an instance of the great power ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... unaccountably grateful and humble. "I'm afraid you're too generous. I guess you're not a very good judge of ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... recollect what this elder brother had been like; but having suddenly called to mind that, during the course of his short visit to Shadonake, he had discovered the fact of the college friendship, of which, indeed, Mr. Gisburne had informed him, he now was unaccountably inflamed by a desire to cultivate the acquaintance of the valued companion of his deceased ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... in a serene heaven, and, looking in at the Club window, saw the Admiral and Lawyer Pellow—"male feriatos Troas"—busy with a mild game of ecarte. There were not enough to make up a loo to-night, for Sam and Mr. Moggridge were absent, and so—more unaccountably—was the Honourable Frederic. The moon was silent, and only she, peering through the blinds of "The Bower," could see Mr. and Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys hastily packing their boxes; or beneath the ladder, by the Admiral's quay-door, a figure stealthily ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... wind they would rather have a rock-bound coast on their lee than no coast at all. According to the notions of an English seaman, this kind of navigation would soon bring the vessel on which it might be practised to an evil end. The Greek, however, is unaccountably successful in escaping the consequences of being “jammed in,” as it is called, upon ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... while eating his bread and cheese, I was set to watch the milk that stood on the fire to boil. By some accident I forgot my office; he saw it rise in the pipkin, looked toward me, could not catch my eye, and, seized with one of his unaccountably hellish fits, sprang forward just as the milk began to boil over, and struck at me with a clasped knife that ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... lighted the lamp in the parlor, Saxon was taking off her hat. He went into the bedroom and lighted the lamp there, then turned back and stood in the doorway. Saxon, still unaccountably fumbling with her hatpins, stole a glance at him. He held out ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... of taste, to fulfil the main object of our task—to please and not offend. It would have been quite easy for us to spin out the series by translating the whole section of ballads which relate to the loves of "the Maid of the Mill," the "Gipsy's Song"—which somewhat unaccountably has found favour in the eyes of Mrs Austin—and a few more ditties of a similar nature, all of which we bequeath, with our best wishes, as a legacy to any intrepid redacteur who may wish to follow in our footsteps. For ourselves, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... this haven, of which only fifty or sixty other guests seemed aware, for the room was but comfortably filled. They found Barbara sitting in a high-backed Spanish chair, against which, in her bridal array and her extraordinary beauty, she made a picture that unaccountably deepened the new depression in Rodney's soul. On her train by the side of the chair, the Infant Samuel slumbered in peace, ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... inexplicable sounds with increasing alarm until the sonorous clock from somewhere outside boomed 'one,' when, quite unaccountably, he fell asleep, awaking on the stroke of two from a ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... prodigious outcry had spent itself and died away there was still the moaning and fretting and troubled whimpering that reminded her of the plaints of an invalid pleading for help between paroxysms of pain. She was strangely depressed by it, unaccountably distressed, and was glad when the first faint whitening of the window curtains told her of the dawn. She arose and dressed—after a moment's hesitation—in the costume she had prepared the night before. Seth surely would ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... very cheap. Fatal experience has, however, convinced us, that the wound inflicted by this weapon is not a trivial one; and that the skill of the Indians in throwing it, is far from despicable. Besides more than a dozen convicts who have unaccountably disappeared, we know that two, who were employed as rush cutters up the harbour, were (from what cause we are yet ignorant) most dreadfully mangled and butchered by the natives. A spear had passed entirely through the thickest part of the body of one of them, ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay • Watkin Tench
... of the two movements, and that which has been most unaccountably neglected, consisted in the remarkable attempts of Quesnay and his immediate followers to withdraw the organisation of society from the sphere of empiricism, and to substitute for the vulgar conception ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley
... forty minutes to thinking about going to bed; and it is conceivable that you are acquainted with a genuinely good whisky. At last you go to bed, exhausted by the day's work. Six hours, probably more, have gone since you left the office—gone like a dream, gone like magic, unaccountably gone! ...
— How to Live on 24 Hours a Day • Arnold Bennett
... very wisely accepted the assistance which had opportunely come to him. A tow-rope was attached to the small line, and by this means a thick tow-line was got aboard, and she was dragged off the bank; then orders were unaccountably given to cut the tow-rope. This very nearly resulted in a more serious disaster, as the engineers in the confusion kept the engines going astern, and the rope drifting with the current, became entangled ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... of the unaccountably whimsical harlequinade of foreign kitchens is from "La Chapelle" Nouveau ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... of the following interesting anecdote of Garrick is unaccountably omitted in his life, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... were worth listening to and answering, not to be dreamed through and ignored, like Willard's. His voice was not as she remembered it, and that was interesting, too, deeply significant, though she could not have said why. Everything seemed unaccountably interesting to-night. ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... peculiar and wonderful significance, but Francis did not for the moment appreciate the fact. Turning his head, he simply saw a complete stranger seated unaccountably at the next table, who had butted into a private conversation and whose tone of gentle sarcasm, therefore, ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... it will be as well for us to go home a little early to-night. I am feeling unaccountably weary though very, very happy. It will be best for me to go home and rest a little before the evening train arrives bringing my Philippe ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... was her habit at any time; but she told me nothing whatever, never mentioned your name again in my hearing. Mrs. Sutton did hint to me her fear that Mr. Aylett had heard something prejudicial to your character, which had greatly displeased him and shocked Mabel, but even she was unaccountably reticent. Intense as was my anxiety to learn the particulars of the story, and upon what evidence they were induced to believe it, I dared not press my inquiry into what it was plain they intended to guard as ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... liquors. Both assertions are strictly true. This memorable evening, over our light supper, I drank, perhaps, two glasses of claret more than was my wont at Captain Reud's table. I was excessively wearied both in mind and body. I became so unaccountably, and lethargically drowsy, that, in spite of every effort of mine to the contrary, I fell fast asleep in the midst of a most animated harangue of the good Manuel, upon the various perfections of his lovely daughter—a strange subject for a lover to sleep ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... this the last goose and duck had passed southward. Not a bird save the ever-present jay had been encountered in upward of three weeks. Even the rabbits, whose tracks had criss-crossed the early snow in every direction and packed it down along the willow brush, had unaccountably disappeared. The stock of fresh meat, save a pair of geese and three pairs of ptarmigans reserved for a ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... matter of right and power [Who loves not power?]: And my father himself could not bear that I should be made sole, as I may call it, and independent; for such the will, as to that estate and the powers it gave, (unaccountably, as they all said,) ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... the better horse, the man was thus designated from the crabbedness of his wife; but the probability is he brought the agnomen with him from school, where many such apparently misfitting names are unaccountably generated. ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... morning, I am to have a talk with John. Somehow I feel sure that something is going to be decided." My heart was beating quick and fast. I was unaccountably excited. This excitement seemed to communicate itself to ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... women who lost their jewels so unaccountably—wives of wealthy peers or City magnates—were most of them Charlie Bellingham's "pals," and on more than one occasion it was Charlie himself who gave information to the police and who interviewed thirsty ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... so on—perfectly beautiful! Do you recognize that one? It's the first toots of the reveille; it goes, dear me, SO early in the morning!—then I and every other soldier on the whole place are up and out in a minute, except uncle Thomas, who is most unaccountably lazy, I don't know why, but I have talked to him about it, and I reckon it will be better, now. He hasn't any faults much, and is charming and sweet, like Buffalo Bill, and Thunder-Bird, and Mammy Dorcas, ...
— A Horse's Tale • Mark Twain
... He heard the tramp of feet passing out of the dining-room into the hall. He heard Blossy emerge from her room at the end of the passage and go tripping down the stairs. The time to Angy, guiltily bathing her face, was short; the time to her anxious husband unaccountably long. The sound of wheels driving up to the front door came to Abe's ears. Still Angy made him ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund
... had not been hurt at all! She was in no pain; only her head felt unaccountably heavy. But for that, she was really very comfortable. Some one was holding her—it was almost like lying back in a chair—and against her cheek she could feel the ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... acute correspondent of the European Magazine, April, 1792, has completely exposed a mistake which has been unaccountably frequent in ascribing these lines to Blackmore, notwithstanding that Sir Richard Steele, in that very popular work, The Spectator, mentions them as written by the Authour of The British Princes, the Honourable Edward Howard. The correspondent ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... renowned Champion of Old Ireland, that gem of the ocean, are now to be recounted—not forgetting those of his faithful and attached squire, Terence O'Grady; though of the latter many less partial histories are somewhat unaccountably silent. ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... him." She smiled wanly. "But he is scarcely to be blamed. I grew unaccountably nervous and lost control. All savage animals are like that." And, seeing that I was about to protest vehemently, she smiled again. "Remember, I'm a lion-tamer's daughter, and brought up from childhood to regard ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... potent witchery. There was a rapture in her shawl flung over the back of a chair; her gloves, lying light as fallen leaves on the table, and keeping the shape of her hands, were full of winning character; and all the more unaccountably they touched his heart because they had a certain careless, sweet shabbiness about ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... her house upon terms of the most affectionate intimacy, he proposed to her eldest daughter, my cousin Sarah, and was accepted by her. Before long, however, he became deeply dejected, moody, restless, and evidently extremely and unaccountably wretched. Violent scenes of the most painful emotion, of which the cause was inexplicable and incomprehensible, took place repeatedly between himself and Mrs. Siddons, to whom he finally, in a paroxysm of self-abandoned misery, confessed that he had mistaken his ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... no sailing wind, so there was nothing to do but stay where we were all day. The boys fished and lay around; and I spent most of the time in my cabin, reading a novel, and, soon after nine, I fell asleep in a frame of mind unaccountably trustful. ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... had a second visit from young Martin Sprague. The telephone was in working order again, having unaccountably recovered, and I was using it when he came. He watched me quizzically from a position by the ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... open the broken door. He paused on the threshold. It impressed him as not unnatural that he should experience such misgivings. They sprang not alone from the fact that within twenty-four hours two men had died unaccountably within these faded walls. Nor did the evidence pointing to his own unconscious guilt wholly account for them. At the bottom of everything was the fact that from his earliest childhood he had looked upon the room as consecrated to death; had consequently feared it; had, he recalled, always ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... peace of Nicias (421 B.C.) he marched against the Argives in defence of Epidaurus, and after skilful manoeuvring surrounded the Argive army, and seemed to have victory within his grasp when he unaccountably concluded a four months' truce and withdrew his forces. The Spartans were indignant, and when the Argives and their allies, in flagrant disregard of the truce, took Arcadian Orchomenus and prepared to march on Tegea, their fury knew no bounds, and Agis escaped having ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... not vain, and least of all addicted to a display of any of her acquirements; very few even of her friends knew she ever held a pencil in her hand; yet did she now unaccountably throw open her portfolio, and offer its contents to the examination of her companion. It was done almost instantaneously, and with great freedom, though not without certain flushings of the face and heavings of the bosom, that would have eclipsed Grace Chatterton in her happiest ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... colored unaccountably when her father spoke. When she returned, she had a demure, secretive expression on her face which made Harry stare at her in bewilderment. All his life Harry Edgham had been helpless and bewildered before womenkind, and now his little ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... was Fra Mariano, and it was admitted that he was a far better speaker than Savonarola. Yet he failed utterly, unaccountably. He had better elocution, a richer voice, more "magnetism," more attractive qualities every way than Savonarola, and as much learning; but he did not have as ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... much of it," Merriman answered sharply, while a wave of unreasoning anger passed over him. The SUGGESTION annoyed him unaccountably. The vision of Madeleine Coburn's clear, honest eyes returned forcibly to his recollection. "I'm afraid you're out of it this time. If you had seen Miss Coburn you would have known she is not the sort of girl to lend herself ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... with a hesitating step. It was obvious that she felt no pleasure in the cool greenness. The room was the same room but it was as if the expression on a well-known face had unaccountably changed and become forbidding. The girl sighed as she flung ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... Unaccountably, her face saddened. Then, "Signorina? Signorina?" she appraised the title. "It is rather a pretty name. And the other is horrible. Yes, you may call me ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... of the departing servant Preserved Smith, who had preceded Ann and never heard of her, that something "sucked his breath" at night; the death-certificates of the fever victims of 1804, issued by Doctor Chad Hopkins, and showing the four deceased persons all unaccountably lacking in blood; and the obscure passages of poor Rhoby Harris's ravings, where she complained of the sharp teeth of ...
— The Shunned House • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... don't. Something's gone wrong with the compass. We were on the right course, and the compass was true until we grounded; then it swerved most unaccountably nearly four points to the westward, and ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... us a most unaccountably ridiculous story of a crying wife. A gentleman, he said, of his acquaintance had married lately his own kept mistress; and last Sunday he had dined with the bride and bridegroom, but, to his utter astonishment, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... must suppose; for of the sudden silence on the Alton road I thought not at all. What next engaged me was a feeling of surprise that, of my two hands pressed on my temples, the right was cold, but the left, though it met the wind, unaccountably warm— the wrist below it even deliciously, or so it felt until rubbing my palms together I found them sticky, ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... found out what caused the sudden flooding," the caretaker went on. "It seems that a partition, or wall, between the Labyrinth and the Mixer mine unaccountably gave way. The Mixer mine has been flooded for a long time and, as it lies above the level of the Labyrinth, the water naturally flowed into our mine as soon as ...
— Boy Scouts in the Coal Caverns • Major Archibald Lee Fletcher
... themselves, and to observe how they comported themselves therein. As for hurting their interests or even their feelings—no; she was certain that she did not want that; was she not always terribly sorry when that happened, as it sometimes, and quite unaccountably, did? She would weep then—but for their misfortune, be it understood, not for any fault of hers. People did not always understand her; her mother had understood her perfectly, and consequently had never interfered with her ways. Mina ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... Mrs. Jackson felt unaccountably nervous; it had never occurred to her that a mere soldier could be so hard to deal with, and it was she who hesitated now. Jamie's stern eyes made her feel singularly like a culprit; but she cleared her ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... recalled; he lost his equanimity; his regular habits faded from him. Leslie could no longer count on his prolonged absence, his short stated visits; he would be with her at any time within doors or without—to exchange a word or look, and go as he came, to return as unaccountably and inconsistently. It vexed Leslie; she tried not to see it; it made her curious, anxious; and what had she to do with Hector Garret's flushed cheek and shining eye? Some anniversary, some combination ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... once appreciated the situation. He turned sharply around, and remarked with a sneer, "Monsieur is unaccountably awkward." Then he scowled and showed his teeth, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... laying together all particulars, and examining the several moles and marks by which the mother used to describe the child when he was first missing, the boy proved to be the son of the merchant whose heart had so unaccountably melted at the sight of him. The lad was very well pleased to find a father who was so rich, and likely to leave him a good estate; the father on the other hand was not a little delighted to see a son return ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... said Mildred coldly. And with a slight nod she went, angry and ashamed that she had so unaccountably opened up her secret soul, bared its ugly wounds, before a man she knew so slightly, a man in a position but one remove from menial. However, she took his advice—not as to trying to view the matter from all sides, for she ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... to begin with," she said to Burns; "and get your horse. I'll see to Sunbeam." The bridle was already fast on the pretty black head as she spoke, but it was some time before Burns came up. He had mislaid his bridle, and when he found it he fumbled unaccountably. His fingers apparently shared the agitation of his mind; an agitation which was something new in his experience, and which made him feel singularly at odds with everything, even with impersonal straps and buckles! When at ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... became aware of the fact that the antelope had unaccountably lost all thought of me and were deeply interested in something else which from their actions I concluded to be recognized as an enemy. It was now apparent that if Big Pete did not hunt the prong-horns someone or ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... our sleighs were upset several times; but Mr Stone and I, in the "extra," suffered more in this way than those of the regular stage, as it was much narrower, and, consequently, more liable to tip over. Upon upsetting, it unaccountably happened that poor Mr Stone was always undermost. But he submitted to his fate most stoically; though from the nature of things my elbow invariably thrust him deep into the snow, on which, after being extricated, a splendid profile impression was left, to serve as a warning to other travellers, ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... the clumsy baggage-men had pounded laboriously up the back stairs with her trunks, emphasizing the prosperity of which her visible apparel spoke. He was not without an acute curiosity as to the state of her fortunes. Lois had always been a luxurious person, but she was, unaccountably, the only one of his sisters who had never asked him for money. He had made what they called "advances" to all of them and these had increased as their fortunes dwindled. There was something bafflingly ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... unaccountably sorry she should have to apologise, and he spoke at once with the idea of checking the reddening of his face. "I don't think that," he said with a sort of belated alacrity. "Really, it was kind of you, you know—very kind of you ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... a mass of unmeaning colours, rather like the Turkish Empire, or like the sweetmeat called Turkish Delight. I do not exactly know what Turkish Delight really is; but I suppose it is Macedonian Massacres. Everywhere that I went forlornly, with my pencil or my paint brush, I found that others had unaccountably been before me, spoiling the walls, the curtains, and the furniture with their childish ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... were at table, she sat between me and Bachiacca; but in the very middle of the banquet she rose, and excused herself upon the pretext of a natural need, saying she would speedily return. We, meanwhile, continued talking very agreeably and supping; but she remained an unaccountably long time absent. It chanced that, keeping my ears open, I thought I heard a sort of subdued tittering in the street below. I had a knife in hand, which I was using for my service at the table. The window was so close to where I sat, that, ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... abandon privilege and to retain the prerogative; for he aspired to sway the monarchy, and would not destroy the power he was to wield. The king, he said, is the State, and can do no wrong. Therefore he was at times the most violent and indiscreet of men, and at times unaccountably moderate and reserved; and both parts were carefully prepared. As he had a fixed purpose before him, but neither principle nor scruple, no emergency found him at a loss, or embarrassed by a cargo of consistent maxims. Incalculable, and unfit to trust in daily life, at ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... drove over to Minneapolis again and took in the wonderful flour mills, for anything that pertained to machinery fascinated Skinner. Then they went out to the Lake and had a trout dinner and all the rest of it. But after a time, this unaccountably useless routine got on ...
— Skinner's Dress Suit • Henry Irving Dodge
... Mr. Secretary. Your oil bill has been unaccountably blocked in the Senate. The intervention in Mexico talk has begun again. The Geological Survey is in a mix-up and it looks as if a scandal were about to burst on poor old Cheney's head. I'm afraid he's outlived his usefulness ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... they were handling the tiller, three muskets were rapidly discharged upon them from the cabin skylight. Two of the savages dropped dead. The old steersman, clutching wildly at the helm, fell over it, mortally wounded; and in a wild panic at seeing their leaders thus unaccountably slain, the rest of the natives leaped overboard and ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... water-lily-leaves, it held steadily over to the other side. There for a moment they saw the whole body of the animal, as he scrambled out of the water up against the steep side of the moat—when suddenly, and most unaccountably to lady Margaret, ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... girl had seen what he himself thought he perceived—that is to say, a growing intimacy between Lord Henry and her sister,—and that this would induce her to do as he desired. Leonetta, however, was at times unaccountably dense. She had escaped from him at Sandlewood, and, to his utter bewilderment, the sound of her voice now, in animated converse with Lord Henry, seemed to leave ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... formulate no very tenable objection to all this, and yet the presence of Thucydides in our kitchen unaccountably oppressed our imaginations. We beheld him all over the house, a monstrous eidolon, balanced upon every window-sill; and he certainly attracted unpleasant notice to our place, no less by his furtive and hangdog manner ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... gorgeously gowned women and prosperous-looking men, and then he wondered what had made him start anything of this sort again. To come had been a sudden decision. Long ago the dreariness of functions such as these had caused their giving-up, but a fancy to look once more upon one had possessed him unaccountably, and he had come. ...
— The Man in Lonely Land • Kate Langley Bosher
... is not a common one, or, rather,"—he caught himself up quickly, "the circumstances are not. My wife is well, but—she is not happy. She is very unhappy, deeply, unaccountably so, and I ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... through mismanagement thus mischievously alert, or through torpor thus unaccountably base, that actually, on the 30th of May, not having raised their standard before the 26th, the rebels had already been permitted to possess themselves of the county of Wexford in its whole southern division—Ross and Duncannon only excepted; of ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... some light on their researches. They now proceeded to another part of the town, and arrived at a lonely and desolate-looking house, which seemed to wear in its very appearance something strange, sad, and ominous. Some houses have an expression, as it were, in their outward aspect that sinks unaccountably into the heart,—a dim, oppressive eloquence which dispirits and affects. You say some story must be attached to those walls; some legendary interest, of a darker nature, ought to be associated with the mute stone and mortar; you feel a mingled awe and curiosity creep over ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... opposite side of the table, and in the course of half an hour they took their leave.' Landor, in commenting on this passage, says it is evident that Willis 'fidgeted the Lambs,' and seems rather unaccountably annoyed at his having alluded to Crabb Robinson simply as ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... As they made their way back to the office he glanced at her covertly, astonished at the emotional effect in her their tour had produced. Though not of an inflammable temperament, he himself was stirred, and it was she who, unaccountably, had stirred him: suggested, in these processes he saw every day, and in which he was indeed interested, something deeper, more significant and human than he had guessed, and which he was unable ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... at the doubt whether he could milk cows. He did it every day of his life, when fishing and fowling, with his uncle, in the carr. Oliver now guessed how it was that the milk of their good cow had sometimes unaccountably run short. Ailwin had observed that this never happened but when the Redfurns were in the neighbourhood; and she had always insisted upon it that they had bewitched the cow. Oliver knew that she would say so now. He said so much, and said it so seriously, about the necessity of milk for little ...
— The Settlers at Home • Harriet Martineau
... that I saw were less smart and less effective than those in sundry European capitals. In Boston particularly I cannot forget the excessive discomfort of a journey to Cambridge, made in the company of a host who had a most beautiful house, and who gave dinners of the last refinement, but who seemed unaccountably to look on the car journey as a sort of pleasant robustious outing. Nor can I forget—also in Boston—the spectacle of the citizens of Brookline—reputed to be the wealthiest suburb in the world—strap-hanging and buffeted ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... gasped for breath—I felt like a drowning man from whose grasp the saving rope had suddenly, unaccountably, been snatched. ...
— The Holladay Case - A Tale • Burton E. Stevenson
... he had mistaken for conviction, was no more; and he stood astonished, and aghast, that no proof remained of his wife's infidelity, now that she had suffered the punishment of guilt. Even when he was informed, that she was dying, he had felt suddenly and unaccountably reassured of her innocence, nor was the solemn assurance she made him in her last hour, capable of affording him a stronger ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... said Hal promptly. "And I've wondered why she dropped me so unaccountably. It's rather luck for me, you know," he added, smiling, "to find friends ready-made ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... a document bearing the date of November 1873, which, after appearing for a moment, unaccountably vanished from public view. It is a Memorial addressed, by Seventy of the Students and Ex-students of the Catholic University in Ireland, to the Episcopal Board of the University; and it constitutes the plainest and bravest remonstrance ever addressed by Irish laymen to their spiritual ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... of foliage here and there made livid green by arc-lights. Its walks teemed with humanity, its benches were crowded. Dimly from its heart came the cool plashing of the fountain, in lulls that fell unaccountably in the roaring rustle of restless feet. Over across, Broadway raised glittering walls of glass and stone; and thence came the poignant groan and rumble of surface cars crawling upon ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance |
