"Unexpectedness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... prospect of excitement so novel. He had shown more flourishing gardens to other young ladies in his past years of service, but young ladies did not come to Stornham, and that one having, with such extraordinary unexpectedness arrived, should want to look over the desolation of these, was curious enough to rouse anyone to a sense of a break in accustomed monotony. The young lady herself mystified him by her difference from such others as he had seen. ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... comes by labour. Nothing seems easy, not even walking, that was not difficult at first. The orator whose eye flashes instantaneous fire, and whose lips pour out a flood of noble thoughts, startling by their unexpectedness, and elevating by their wisdom and truth, has learned his secret by patient repetition, and after many ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... battery or the gully that had concealed the advance of such and such a troop, my glance perpetually returned to that word "VICTORY," sculptured by itself upon the stone. It was indeed a victory; it was a victory which, for its huge unexpectedness, for the noise of it, for the length of time during which it was in doubt, for its final success, there is no parallel, and yet it is by no means among the famous battles of the world. And though the French count it one among the thousand of their battles, I doubt whether even in Paris most ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... show his hostility to North Carolina, which had at first refused to enter the new Union. [Footnote: Columbian Magazine, Aug. 27, 1788, vol. ii., 542.] This particular move was fairly comic in its abrupt unexpectedness. ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... headed westward from Butte, as he rattled peacefully along the road, conscious of golden haze over all the land, and the unexpectedness of prairie threshing-crews on the sloping fields of mountainsides, a man had stepped out from bushes beside the road, and pointed a ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... unexpectedness that was shocking, there was a tremor in the air and the echo of a rumbling sound beneath the girl's feet. The crack of a distant explosion followed. Then another, and another, until the sound became a continual grumble of angry explosions, ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson
... solidity, the unexpectedness, the monumental rectitude of the whole thing leave you nothing to say—at the time—and make you stand gazing. You simply feel that it is noble and perfect, that it has the quality of greatness. A road, branching from the highway, descends to the level of the river and passes under one of the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... motor had gone off with its trio to desert places Charmian suddenly realized the unexpectedness of her situation—alone above Algiers with a woman who was almost a stranger. This scarcely seemed like yachting. They had come up to the hotel because Mrs. Shiffney always stayed at an hotel, if there was a good one, when the yacht was in harbor, "to make a change." It was full of English ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... so American in its unexpectedness, deserves closer analysis. My brother had come from New York City. Father and mother were from central Dakota. My own home was still in Boston. David and his family had reached this little tenement by way of a long trail through Iowa, Dakota, Montana, ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... The unexpectedness of the blow was crushing. He followed his cousin out into the sunshine in a sort of dream. Bruce Carmyle was addressing the ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... instinctive panic, through the bewildered stage, the frozen stage and the stage of blanched apprehension, down to the instinctive prudence of extreme terror—the stillness of the mouse. But when she heard herself called the child of a cheat and a swindler, the very monstrous unexpectedness of this caused in her a revulsion towards letting herself go. She screamed out all at once "You mustn't ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... will tell you! Perhaps she will let you see! Who knows? She is a woman of resource and unexpectedness— Let her women ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... Rhinecliff, traversing beautiful woods bordering Ex-Governor Morton's grounds, but before entering the woods comes a delightful outlook toward Kingston and its mountain background that is all the more pleasing for its unexpectedness. Still further, and opposite a schoolhouse, a road strikes off toward the south, and here ...
— The New York and Albany Post Road • Charles Gilbert Hine
... dress of a Moorish slave, with a deep wound in his neck. You observe that in this respect I was counteracting the general supposition that he had perished in the waves, for I had reason to hope that the unexpectedness of this circumstance would heighten their belief in the apparition itself, while, on the other hand, nothing appeared to me more dangerous than to keep too strictly ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... cross-currents. For when you interfere with the private member, you suddenly come in collision with a vast number of personal vanities, and when you touch anything in the shape of personal vanity in politics you have got into a hornet's nest, the multitudinousness, the pettiness, the malignity, the unexpectedness of which you can never appreciate. I sometimes gaze upon the House of Commons in a certain semi-detached spirit, and I ask myself if there be any place in the whole world where you can see so much of the ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... would fain make an exception of the "Spanish Friar," but I confess that I rather wonder at than envy those who can be amused by it. His comedies lack everything that a comedy should have,—lightness, quickness of transition, unexpectedness of incident, easy cleverness of dialogue, and humorous contrast of character brought out by identity of situation. The comic parts of the "Maiden Queen" seem to me Dryden's best, but the merit even of these is Shakespeare's, and there is little choice where even the best is only tolerable. The ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... time joined in. Thus returning towards the camp, with their bare swords in their hands, they saluted him as Caesar; whereupon Martialis, the tribune in charge of the watch, who was, they say, noways privy to it, but was simply surprised at the unexpectedness of the thing, and afraid to refuse, permitted him entrance. And after this, no man made any resistance; for they that knew nothing of the design, being purposely encompassed by the conspirators, as they ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... "Death by misadventure." The coroner thought it a most proper finding. Mrs. Mallet had made the most of the innate Le Geyt horror of blood. The newspapers charitably surmised that the unhappy husband, crazed by the instantaneous unexpectedness of his loss, had wandered away like a madman to the scenes of his childhood, and had there been drowned by accident while trying to cross a stormy sea to Lundy, under some wild impression that he would find his dead ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... friendly conversation about her father, his health, their work together, Felicia felt as it were the chill of a gulf between herself and this man, then the brutal grasp of a faun. She beheld an unknown Jenkins, wild-looking, stammering with a besotted laugh and outraging hands. In the surprise, the unexpectedness of this bestial attack, any other than Felicia—a child of her own age, really innocent, would have been lost. As for her, poor little thing! what saved her was her knowledge. She had heard so many stories of this kind of thing at her father's table! and then ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... left Old Jerry cringing in his place beside the stove, they had all felt the justice if not a premonition of final retribution to come. It was the debonaire dare-deviltry of Old Jerry's defiance rather than its unexpectedness which had proved its greatest sensation. That day's one supreme moment—the only one which had not suffered from too acute anticipation—came while they waited for the Judge's denial, that denial which ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... makin' our last stand, too," Slim blurted with his customary unexpectedness. "Our back's agin the wall right now. If we can't hold 'em back from takin' what little range is left, this outfit's going under. We got to hold 'em, by golly, er there won't be ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... an unexpected visit to the Medina ranch. In the guise of stock-buyer his unexpectedness would be perfectly plausible, and he would be well pleased to arrive there late, so long as he did not arrive after dark. Just before sundown would do very well, he decided. He would catch Estan Medina off his guard, and he would have the evening before him, in case ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... they were by the unexpectedness of the attack, Colonel Edwards and Hal acted promptly. A revolver flashed in the hand of each and both fired into the woods toward the point from which the shot had come. Then they leaped for shelter ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes
... The unexpectedness of my uncle Toby's question, confounded Kysarcius more than the ablest advocate—He stopp'd a full minute, looking in my uncle Toby's face without replying—and in that single minute Triptolemus put by him, and ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... pivoted himself violently on his left foot and, going through a complete half-circle, finished, facing the wicket-keeper, with both feet outside the crease, but his bat well over the line. The chief attraction of this gymnastic feat was the unexpectedness of it all. No one knew where the ball would go if it was hit. Once when he timed his shot a little late he caught the ball just as it was passing him and drove it flying past the wicket-keeper's head to where long-stop would have been. The fielding side was always ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... tall could move so swiftly, and without so much as a sound, across the uncarpeted hallway. He reached the door, turned the knob of the patent lock and jerked it open. A man was standing on the mat and he jumped back at the unexpectedness of Tarling's appearance. The stranger was a cadaverous-looking man, in a brand-new suit of clothes, evidently ready-made, but he still wore on his face the curious yellow tinge which is the special mark ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... he was gathering his strength for a spring at his opponent, trusting that the suddenness and unexpectedness of his onset might shake the other's aim, Rodney Hade took the situation into his ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... he found that evening had sunk to dusk in a strange manner of unexpectedness. The young girl with the remarkably pleasant lips and white teeth was beside him. More than this—astonishingly more—his head was upon her lap, his face and neck were disagreeably wet, and her fingers were unbuttoning ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... unreasonable as he used to be; but he is somewhat stunned by the unexpectedness of ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... first appearance the novel suffered, perhaps deservedly, for what was involved in these intentions—for its quality of unexpectedness in particular—that unforgivable sin in the critic's sight—the immediate precursor of 'Ethelberta' having been a purely rural tale. Moreover, in its choice of medium, and line of perspective, it undertook a delicate task: to excite interest in a drama—if ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... power and equal unexpectedness found the most vulnerable spot beneath the simple black of Penrod Schofield's jacket. Straightway he turned his back upon the crash-covered floors where the dancers were, and moved gloomily toward the hall. But one of the maiden aunts Rennsdale ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... to leap and flicker and the air inside the cabin to strike the occupants like a blow. Instantly there was confusion, and each man sprang to his feet crying out affrightedly, for the noise had come with utter unexpectedness. ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... appeal to the more amiable side of our sense of mirth, for it excites in us a conceited feeling of superiority over those who are making us laugh,—but its unexpectedness and infinite variety render it irresistible to a certain class of minds. The duly labeled "joke" follows a certain law and rule; whereas no jester could invent the ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... complete unexpectedness and the inconceivable audacity of it—Lily could not restrain the ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... rose through Peele and Nash to Marlowe, hence to the wondrous summer of Shakespeare, to die later on in the mist and yellow and brown of the autumn of Crowes and Davenants. I have seen music-hall sketches, comic interludes that in their unexpectedness and naïve naturalness remind me of the comic passages in Marlowe's Faustus, I waited (I admit in vain) for some beautiful phantom to appear, and to hear an enthusiastic worshipper ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... number of epigrams which would be more properly placed in one or another of all the rest of the sections; and the /Musa Stratonis/ has several which happily in no way belong to it. There is no doubt a certain charm to the very confusion of the order, which gives great variety and unexpectedness; but for practical purposes a more ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... as there is much to tell," he replied, a little nonplussed by the unexpectedness of the implied question. "Of course she is very nice and very lovely, as ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... keen appreciation, as he always did when the unexpectedness of this Gringo was unfolding. The others stared agape at the man between them and the door. Mendez saw too that he was in earnest, and he began to argue, almost to entreat. The Mexican leader had lost the quality of mercy in civil wars that had touched him cruelly, ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... attain to it, whenever we find a meaning we are apt to mistake it for a beauty.[1] Nay, I am convinced that many admire this or that (even) British poet from the fact that here and there his meaning has gleamed upon them with all the charm that accompanies unexpectedness. ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... the sudden light and the utter unexpectedness of it all, could collect herself sufficiently to speak, he took both her hands in his with a movement infinitely tender and possessive, and drew ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... to see the words put into action. He wanted Bagshaw to be off. He wanted to resume his sudden intention of remedying his normal relations with Mabel and the afternoon promised better than the intention had thus far seen. That niggling over the unexpectedness of his return,—well, of course it was unexpected and upsetting of her household routine; but the unexpectedness was over and the letter incident over, and Mabel, thanks to her guest, delightfully mooded. Good, therefore, for the afternoon. When the ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... to me to have the manners most necessary to good society. In her early youth she has all the graces, all the gentleness, all the unexpectedness that the most artistic imagination could desire. She is smart; she never loses herself. She is prudent, going everywhere, looking ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... enough, of all the scenes he had witnessed that day, and of all the people he had met, it was the scene in which Diane Marbolt had taken part, and of her he mostly thought. Perhaps it was the unexpectedness of meeting a girl so charming that held him interested. Perhaps it was the eager desire she had displayed in warning him of his personal danger. Perhaps, even, it was the recollection of the soft, brown eyes, the charming little ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... wretched lingering remnant of the original article induced her to write to Aunt Lucretia that Uncle David was staying with us, and of course Aunt Lucretia came without invitation and without warning, dropping in on us with ruthless unexpectedness. ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... The unexpectedness of the thing made me take no notice of it, but politickly turn it off with a laugh; for otherwise I must have been at loggar-heads with my rival: Whereas sweetening him with a counterfeit mirth, I brought him ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... The unexpectedness of this sally startled every one. Though Sam'l did not set up for a wit, however, like Davit, it was notorious that he could say a cutting thing ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... front breaking trail turned ashore. The half-breed looked back, and then forward, and gave a grunt of satisfaction. The girl also looked forward. They were approaching a tree-crowned bluff, which was apparently their goal. Then suddenly, bewildering in its unexpectedness, came the flash and crack of a rifle from ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... grasp. For the moment memory and vision fused; she saw the straight, slender pitcher poised with arms raised above his brown head, saw his laughing glance go questing down the field, and the swift, graceful movement that launched the ball with unerring unexpectedness. And because she could not speak without inadvertently lashing ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... all, to collect the filberts from the shrubberies: but this hedgerow nutting beats that sport all to nothing. That was a make-believe thing, compared with this; there was no surprise, no suspense, no unexpectedness—it was as inferior to this wild nutting, as the turning out of a bag-fox is to unearthing the fellow, in the eyes ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... breath, a rail at the top encircled a stone peninsula and gave you a resting-place and an outlook—an outlook startlingly beautiful by reason of its unexpectedness. For the promontory had hidden the valley's loveliness, and here you found a sudden glorious peep at it. And then your eyes looking down, down below the rail, saw that cascades had met and the water was plunging in a wide glistening ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... It was the very unexpectedness of the event that had been so unusual. The contestants in the Twenties needed undisturbed rest, therefore nights in the dormitories were as quiet as death. During the first few days, of course, the rule wasn't observed too closely. The men themselves were too ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... many possible wrong turns which his plan might take, but he was appalled by the utter unexpectedness of the actual disaster. And yet he recognized that the evidence justified Miss Sherwood's judgment of him. It all made him seem an ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... "Mist-er.....er Brierly!" (Mr. Braham had in perfection this lawyer's trick of annoying a witness, by drawling out the "Mister," as if unable to recall the name, until the witness is sufficiently aggravated, and then suddenly, with a rising inflection, flinging his name at him with startling unexpectedness.) "Mist-er.....er Brierly! ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... unconventional, but recklessly defiant of form. But, as her editor has well said, "When a thought takes one's breath away, a lesson on grammar seems an impertinence." Emily Dickinson had more than a message, more than the charm of unexpectedness, more than the gift of phrase,—she had (and of how many Americans can this be said?) ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... The unexpectedness, to use no stronger term, of life in the R.F.C. in war-time is well exemplified by the adventure which befell Major Rees. The pilot of a "fighter", he saw what he took to be a party of air machines returning from a bombing expedition. Proceeding ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... cultivator of orchids, until, gradually receding from view, he became a presence, a myth, a name. But when the amazing Mr. Nevill Tyson dashed into his uncle's place, he drew all eyes on him by the very unexpectedness of his advent. And now it seemed that Tyson, the cosmopolitan adventurer, the magnificent social bandit who trampled, so to speak, on the orchids of respectability, and rode rough-shod over the sleek traditions of Thorneytoft, was after ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... again. Before it stopped running with a muffled rattle, a cry, a very loud cry, as of infinite desolation, soared slowly in the opaque air. It ceased. A complaining clamor, modulated in savage discords, filled our ears. The sheer unexpectedness of it made my hair stir under my cap. I don't know how it struck the others: to me it seemed as though the mist itself had screamed, so suddenly, and apparently from all sides at once, did this tumultuous and mournful uproar arise. It culminated in a hurried outbreak ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... communication with the Arabs. He had been just at the turning point and on the verge of a great success, but now all that had been done during three years was frustrated. The Arabs had seized the opportunity and suddenly assumed the offensive. The unexpectedness of their attack had nearly proved fatal to Alec's party, and since then they had all had to fight ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... locked behind her head, staring toward the window. Gone was the albatross from her young neck, melted the cloud from the azure round. Wisdom had come with such startling unexpectedness that she could not take in all that had happened to her just now. But all that mattered was as plain and bright as the sunshine waiting for her out there. She, and not papa whom she had so wronged in her thoughts, had made the bunching-room what it was; she, and nobody ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... as if the like had never happened before. Probably there is seldom an occasion of its coming into play which does not take men more or less by surprise, and rivet their attention by its seeming strangeness and real unexpectedness. ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... Both the violence and unexpectedness of the Austrian attacks are testified to by articles published at this time in Italian newspapers. A writer in the "Giornale d'Italia" of Rome says that "the Austrian offensive came as a surprise to the Italian command and the taking of Monte Maggio and other important positions ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... the midnight cry and the waking of the maidens. The hour, 'of night's black arch the keystone,' suggests the unexpectedness of His coming; the loudness of the cry, its all-awaking effect; the broken words of the true reading, 'Behold the bridegroom!' the closeness on the heels of the heralds with which the procession flashes through the darkness. The ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... reason in particular, save the unexpectedness of it, Elsie's statement was received with surprise. They all looked at her, and some of them wondered, perhaps, why her smiling eyes had lost their mirth. Yet there was nothing unreasonable in the mere fact that a certain Chilean named Ventana, who had business relations with Mr. Baring, ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... losses in ground, guns and prisoners; and then, as soon as he had discovered a line on which to stand and had thrown in his reserves, the attack would be broken off, only to begin again elsewhere, and with the same energy, unexpectedness, and success. British Staff work and British tactics were at their highest point of excellence, and the spirit of the men, fanned by that breeze which Victory and Hope bring with them, were, in ...
— Fields of Victory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... brink and watched the flood go swaying past. She felt stupefied and bewildered. Whence came the flood, and how? A more unexpected thing had never happened to her. And now she knew that the children were safe, the unexpectedness of it, the amazement of the whole thing, seemed almost ...
— The Island House - A Tale for the Young Folks • F. M. Holmes
... only wished to give you a little surprise. You have treated us to one by walking in with such delightful unexpectedness, and so should understand. I'll show you ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... called "sudden," for the unexpectedness of his assault on Cressida's heart — or, perhaps, for the abrupt abandonment of his ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... vaingloriously into the saddle without touching a toe to the stirrup. The buckskin ducked and danced sidewise at the end of the rope in Shorty's hand, and more than one gun flashed into sight at the unexpectedness of the move. ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... corner and came toward him. The first impulse was to fly; the next was to stand and deliver himself. The resolution came with shocking unexpectedness. He would give himself up! He would admit that he had killed his wife! The words of anguish were on his lips when the ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... white men, completely taken aback by the solemnity and unexpectedness of this apparently impromptu ceremony, knew not what to do, and therefore did nothing, which, as afterwards transpired, was the wisest course they could possibly have adopted. For, although they were quite unaware of it ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... month at Piquetberg Road seemed a chapter out of another volume. It had culminated in that languid afternoon spent around the tea-table under the wattle tree in the garden, culminated there and also ended there. With the unexpectedness that marks all things in a time of war, the next noon found him steaming across the Cape Flats, with Maitland in sight. Two days later, they were loaded on an empty hospital ship returning to Durban. ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... snapped an enquiry at Craven and he explained as best he could, and his explanation brought down on him a wealth of biting sarcasm. The husband of cet ange la! In the name of heaven! was there no limit to the blundering stupidity of men—had he no more sense than to present himself with such unexpectedness, after so long an absence? Small wonder la pauvre petite had fainted. What folly! And lashing him with her tongue she renewed her fruitless efforts. But Craven scarcely heeded her. His eyes were fixed on the little white face ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... Lady Dashfort affirmed that her wit depended merely on unexpectedness; a characteristic which may be applied to any impropriety of speech, manner, or conduct. In some of her ladyship's repartees, however, Lord Colambre now acknowledged there was more than unexpectedness; there was ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... unexpectedness in the speech and an incongruity in Mrs. Vivian's beginning to flatter him. He needed to remind himself that if she was a Bostonian, she ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... the end of my 'beat', and had stopped to relight my pipe, when drama broke loose with the swift unexpectedness which was characteristic of the place. The stillness of the night was split by a sound which I could have heard in a gale and recognized among a hundred conflicting noises. It was a scream, a shrill, ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... successes in this area were gained by the unexpectedness and dash of their attacks which took the Germans by surprise. The foggy weather which prevailed had hampered the Germans so that they were unable to observe the movements of ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... himself that a windfall is "whatever falls by the wind, or with similar suddenness or unexpectedness, whether ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 192, July 2, 1853 • Various
... then subside into harmlessness. Ever changing, never resting, the force which stirs it never weakening, raging for ever with tossing and strength like the ocean: its labours unfinished and possibly never to be finished, its very unexpectedness adds to its sublimity and terror, for until you reach the terminal wall of the crater, it looks by daylight but a smoking pit in the midst of a dreary stretch of ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... near losing the rampart itself, but some armor-bearers and baggage-carriers happened along and saved it. In their confidence, they had started out ahead and made a rush upon the barbarians; and the unexpectedness of their sally was of advantage to them, making them appear to be armed soldiers and not mere helpers. But the [lacuna] both was not present then and [lacuna] the night [lacuna] the camps [lacuna] and the Romans followed on. The enemy, perceiving the noise that they made in going out, suspected ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... Varvara Petrovna announced her idea of founding a magazine, people flocked to her in even larger numbers, but charges of being a capitalist and an exploiter of labour were showered upon her to her face. The rudeness of these accusations was only equalled by their unexpectedness. The aged General Ivan Ivanovitch Drozdov, an old friend and comrade of the late General Stavrogin's, known to us all here as an extremely stubborn and irritable, though very estimable, man (in his own way, of course), who ate ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... The unexpectedness of this attack, and the sudden revelation of the fact of Pomfrey's illness in his flushed face and hollow voice apparently frightened and confused the stranger. He stammered a surly excuse, backed ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... tragedy, its unexpectedness, held the crowd with suspended breath. What was to follow? Was this the beginning of a massacre? Each man looked at his neighbor. Another moment might bring ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... to think of and to talk about for a long time," remarked Jack to Percival when they were at last on the train going back to the Highlands, "and it is all the better that the trip was not what it was originally planned to be. The very unexpectedness of our adventures gave ...
— The Hilltop Boys on Lost Island • Cyril Burleigh
... a hissing rush over a giddy slope of shale that looked perpetually upon the brink of a general slide down en masse, with their immense shadows underrunning them, the eagles startled suddenly by their unexpectedness a great red beast into motion. There was a clatter of antlers, a click of hoofs, a little shower of stones, and away went a superb stag, a "royal," a "twelve-pointer," lordly and supercilious, picking his way without a slip on that awful incline. But until he moved, even he had been quite invisible, ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... The coolness and unexpectedness of this message completely took away the breath of the unhappy Spaniards, who doubtless stood looking in bewilderment from Escobar to Columbus, unable to believe that the caravel had not been sent for their relief. Columbus, however, ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... Mexican desperadoes would come, dynamite the dam, fire the buildings, stampede the horses, and like shadows vanish again. In the unexpectedness of the raid, in the confusion, in the dim light, no one would with certainty be able to say who the assailants were. A scheme ferocious in its conception and diabolical in its cunning! But there was one flaw—the element of chance. ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... first stared, thunderstruck at the novelty and unexpectedness of the offer; and then, tickled with the comical side of it, burst into a roar of laughter. It was one of the very best jokes he had ever heard. He, an outlaw, with a price on his head, his sins forgiven, enlisted in the Guides, with the ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... SAID THIS, the unexpectedness of this scene, first the biography of this patriotic ship, then the excitement with which this eccentric individual pronounced these last words—the name Avenger whose significance could not escape me—all this, taken together, had a profound impact on ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... Venice a part of the company of the mind. The others are there in their obvious glory, but he is the only one for whom the imagination, in our expressive modern phrase, sits up. "The Marriage in Cana," at the Salute, has all his characteristic and fascinating unexpectedness—the sacrifice of the figure of our Lord, who is reduced to the mere final point of a clever perspective, and the free, joyous presentation of all the other elements of the feast. Why, in spite of this queer one-sidedness, ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... We pry into the counsels of the great powers of nature, we keep our ears at the keyhole, and know everything that is going to happen. There is no longer any sacred inaccessibility, no longer any enchanting unexpectedness, and life turns to prose the moment there is nothing unattainable. It needs no more a voice out of the unknown proclaiming "Great Pan is dead!" We have found his tombstone, deciphered the arrow-headed ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... his vocabulary, or even in his imagination. But, still, the sudden appearance of Mrs. Archdale in the great Paris station had been an agreeable surprise, one of those incidents which, just because of their unexpectedness, make a man feel not only pleased with himself, but at one ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... after Unc' Billy. It wasn't fear that caused Jimmy to hurry. No, indeed, it wasn't fear. He had been startled by the unexpectedness of Bowser's appearance. It was this that had caused him to struggle to be first through that hole under the henhouse. But once through, he had felt a bit ashamed that he had been so undignified. He wasn't ...
— The Adventures of Jimmy Skunk • Thornton W. Burgess
... over the unexpectedness of the letter when Aunt Constance came in, and they showed it ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... since her disclosure. It was the face of a man who was no longer passion's slave, yet who found no advantage in his enfranchisement. He was simply regarding the harrowing contingencies of human experience, the unexpectedness of things. Nothing so pure, so sweet, so virginal as Tess had seemed possible all the long while that he had adored her, up to an hour ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... was so much pleased with the novelty and unexpectedness of this turn of thought, that he gave her the life of her son in addition to that of her brother. All the rest of the family circle of relatives and friends, together with Intaphernes himself, he ordered ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... "The punishment is by the law of retaliation. She had said, 'I will go to my lovers;' but God threatens, on the contrary, that He will obstruct the way so that she cannot go." The [Hebrew: hnni] points to the unexpectedness of the result. The wife imagined that she would be able to carry out her purpose with great safety and ease; it does not even occur to her to think of her husband, who had hitherto allowed her, ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... absorbing interest, Jane Gray's activities would have furnished an inexhaustible supply. As she grew stronger and could come and go at her pleasure, her unexpectedness upset my systematic household to the point of confusion. She supplied untold excitement to Pine Tree and Maple Leaf, the two serving maids earning an education by service, and drove old Ishi the gardener to tearful protest. "Miss Jaygray dangerful girl. She boldly confisteal a dimension ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... for Alfred Tennyson. The effect of the death of Hallam upon the poet was extraordinary. It seemed to have changed the whole current of his life; indeed he is said, under the strain of the awful suddeness and unexpectedness of the event, to have contemplated suicide. But saner thoughts intervened, and he again took up the burden of life, with the determination to do what he could in helping others. From this time of storm and ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson
... kept from falling apart. She thought the gait of the lazy old nag the most amusing exhibition possible, and as for the erratic jolts and groans of the wagon, it struck her that this was a new form of exercise, the pleasurable excitement and unexpectedness of which surpassed all former experiences. At Cameron City she made purchase of a saddle-horse, a very well-made bronco with dramatic possibilities ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... through the wood-lot, or I appear casually, like a gust of wind, around the corner of the barn, or I let Horace discover me leaning with folded arms upon his cattle fence. I have come to love doing this, for unexpectedness in visitors, as in religion and politics, is disturbing to Horace and, as sand-grits in oysters produce pearls, my unexpected appearances have more than once astonished new thoughts in Horace, or yielded pearly bits ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson
... he made his explanation and request. He had so much gold with him—he showed the contents of the belt and purse—and he had funds with an agent in Paris and again funds in Amsterdam. Here were letters of indication. With a total unexpectedness there had come to him in this town a call that he could not ignore. He could not explain the nature of it, but a man of honor would feel it imperative. But it would take nicely all his gold and so many pieces besides. He asked the loan of these, together with an additional ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... rose as he advanced, and as he appeared to be looking ahead, I had begun to fear he would go by without stopping, when he suddenly wheeled and at the same instant said "Hurrah," as distinctly as I have ever heard it spoken, and dropped to the feed. The clearness, energy, and unexpectedness of his "Hurrah" startled me. He alighted and began to eat, evidently without suspecting my presence, notwithstanding the fact that I lay only a few feet away. Some days before, a mountain lion had killed a mountain sheep; a part of this carcass I had ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... in historical study. You come upon the most extraordinary things: little things, but things whose unexpectedness is enormous. I had an example of this the other day, as I was looking up some last details to make certain of the affair ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... you hold on with?" said Mrs. Bundle. "Many's the light cart I've rode in, but never let go my hold, unless with one hand, to save a bag or a bandbox. And though it's jolting, I'm sure a light cart's nothing to pony-back for starts and unexpectedness." ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing |
