"Mysteriousness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Frau Knapf had maintained a Mrs. Harris-like mysteriousness. I had heard rumors of her, and I had partaken of certain crispy dishes of German extraction, reported to have come from her deft hands, but I had not even caught a glimpse of her skirts whisking ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... Bishop engendered in other members of the club. Why such dislike? Was it due to his fat, red face, his spectacles, his conspiratorial manner, tone and gait, the evenness of his temper, his cautiousness, his mysteriousness? Nobody knew. In the end Mr. Prohack also had succeeded in disliking him. But Mr. Prohack produced a reason, and that reason was Mr. Bishop's first name. On it being pointed out to Mr. Prohack by argufiers that Mr. Bishop was not responsible for his first ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... model of virtue, and I have exulted that I had the honour to be of the same species with so fair a fame, and so true a heart. I would willingly lighten to a man so excellent the load of calamity. Why is it, that heaven in the mysteriousness of its providence, so often visits with superior affliction, the noblest of her sons? I should be truly sorry, that my friend should act in a manner unworthy of the tenor of his conduct, and the exaltation of his ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... shake again: this idea of transportation, from its very mysteriousness, was more terrifying to him than death. He kept on saying plaintively, "Missy, you'll never let 'em send me to Botany Bay; ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... excellence of crumpets became apparent. And all this swift, wonderful change was brought about by the simple entry of the woman. But beneath the genuine relief and satisfaction of the men there stirred vaguely the thought of the mysteriousness of women, of the entire female sex. Mrs. Haim, charwoman, was just as mysterious as any other woman. As for George, despite the exhilaration which he could feel rising in him effortless and unsought, he was preoccupied by more than women's mysteriousness; the conception of destiny lingered ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... that Silanus was the contriver of it, and that he was coming early that morning to carry his design into effect. Messalina, who was present with her husband at the time, listened to this story with well-feigned anxiety and agitation, and then declared, with a countenance of great mysteriousness and solemnity, that she had had precisely the same dream for two or three nights in succession, but that, not being willing to do Silanus an injury, or to raise any unjust suspicions against him, she had thus ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... that mysteriousness or secrecy is the only point about the old fellow's character that I don't like," said Leather, with a frown of virtuous disapproval. "'All fair and above-board,' that's my motto. Speak out your mind ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... from Pesth, a wet day probably gave rise to an intermittent fever, with very slight symptoms, and apparently subsiding, when a sudden rush of blood to the head put an instantaneous end to his life on the 15th of September 1833. The mysteriousness of such a dreadful termination to a disorder generally of so little importance, and in this instance of the slightest kind, has been diminished by an examination which showed a weakness of the cerebral vessels, and a ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... his look that this wasn't just a joke. The Stormy Petrel meant something in particular, something he didn't intend to explain to Jack or me; and all my old feeling about his mysteriousness came back. "I should feel guilty," I said, "if by asking you to plot with us, I'd induced you to mix yourself up in a ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... a man of forty is a much more serious thing than the inexperience of a youth of twenty, for it is not helped out by the rashness of hot blood. The girl was mysterious, as young girls are by the mere effect of their guarded ingenuity; and to him the mysteriousness of that young girl appeared exceptional and fascinating. But there was nothing mysterious about the arrangements of the match which Madame Leonie had promoted. There was nothing peculiar, either. It was a very appropriate match, commending itself extremely to ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... specific character, which marks it off from Memory, and which is derived from the powers of selection and recombination, will be expounded further on. Here I only touch upon its chief characteristic, in order to disengage the term from that mysteriousness which writers have usually assigned to it, thereby rendering philosophic criticism impossible. Thus disengaged it may be used with more certainty in an attempt to estimate the imaginative power ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... any longer; and, after exhausting their ingenuity, in the vain effort to induce one of the two gentlemen to question them in relation to the meeting of the previous night, the desire to be doing fairly overcame their affected mysteriousness, and a formal request was made to Mr. Effingham to give them an audience in the library. As the latter, who suspected the nature of the interview, requested his kinsman to make one in it, the four were soon alone, in the ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... wisdom were they not the same. So she thought, even as for one searching moment she studied the other's face. And in the situation she found an uplifting awfulness, such as comes when the veil is thrust aside and one gazes on the mysteriousness of Deity. She remembered: "Her feet take hold of hell; her house is the way to the grave, going down to the chamber of death," and in the same instant strong upon her was the vision of the familiar gesture with which the woman's hand had gone out in mute appeal, and she looked aside, out over ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... her confidence in the goodness of God, however disguised by the afflictive nature of his dispensations. In a proper state of mind it will not be requisite, in order to produce resignation, that we should comprehend the whole design of every sorrow. We should bow to the mysteriousness of the event; and the patience of our endurance will not depend on the full developement and explanation of the mystery. Whether events accord with our wishes or oppose them, "It is THE LORD" will strike us into silence ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... with the name of "Q. Karkeek"; and above the blinds the blue posters of the Five Towns Chronicle. No outward sign of Mr. Cannon! And yet Mr. Cannon.... She had an extremely disconcerting sensation of the mysteriousness of Mr. Cannon, and of the mysteriousness of all existence. Mr. Cannon existed somewhere at that moment, engaged in some activity. In a house afar off, unknown to her, her mother existed—if she was not dead! Florrie, with a bundle of personal goods on her lap, and doubtless the letter in her ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... generated. He was now nine-and-thirty: he had executed an abnormal amount of work, and he had a just reputation as a portrait-painter. His technical skill was considered unique. The something lacking was that mysteriousness which belongs to all great art, and ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... *Michael*, will be different from the sensations produced in you by reading an ordinary, or even a very extraordinary, short story in prose. They may not be so sharp, so clear and piquant, but they will probably be, in their mysteriousness and their vagueness, more impressive. I do not say that they will be diverting. I do not go so far as to say that they will strike you as pleasing sensations. (Be it remembered that I am addressing myself to an imaginary tyro in poetry.) I would qualify them as being "disturbing." ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT
... and improbability made me, in my turn, somewhat incredulous. The adventure had made a deep impression on my fancy, and it was not till after a week's abode at my brother's, that I resolved to resume the possession of my own dwelling. There was another circumstance that enhanced the mysteriousness of this event. After my recovery it was obvious to inquire by what means the attention of the family had been drawn to my situation. I had fallen before I had reached the threshold, or was able to give any signal. My brother related, that while this ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... music-mistress, falling into the trap and even saving Eileen from the lie direct. "Good, my child," and she smiled tenderly upon her. For the birthday of the Lady Superior which was imminent was heralded by infinite mysteriousness. The Reverend Mother was taken by surprise, regularly and punctually. The girls all subscribed, their parents were invited to send plants and flowers. The air vibrated with sublime secrecy, amid ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... corrected Miss Abingdon quickly, 'the charm of womanhood consists in its mysteriousness. Now, the girl of to-day is simply a good fellow. She doesn't require to be understood, and she doesn't drive men crazy; she shoves her own bicycle up hills and fights for the larger half of the keyboard of the ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... Lygia, was astonished also by the caution and mysteriousness with which her co-religionists assembled to hear their highest priest; hence he said,—"Like all religions, this has its adherents in the midst of us; but the Christians are a Jewish sect. Why do they assemble here, when in the Trans-Tiber there are temples to which ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... fast up the wide sweep of the drive, trying to think of nothing—to rest his head, to rest his emotions too. But arriving at the foot of the terrace before the house he faltered, affected physically by some invisible interference. The mysteriousness of his quickened heart-beats startled him. He stopped short and looked at the brick wall of the terrace, faced with shallow arches, meagrely clothed by a few unthriving creepers, with an ill-kept narrow flower-bed ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... argument before he and the rest of the mob had been ejected by the magistrates; but, finally, that independently of all this, he had heard both the officers, as they conducted him, and all the tumultuous gatherings of people in the street, arguing for the mysteriousness of the bloody transaction upon that very circumstance of so much gold, silver, and jewels, ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... sorrowfully, shaking his head. The mysteriousness of the change in Miss Nelly perturbed him the more. He looked away from the General when he gave the ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... of sombre blue. It was—how shall I say it?—a night effect when you seem to see vague shapes and don't know what reality you may come upon at any time. Then she lowered her eyelids again, shutting all mysteriousness out of the situation except for the sobering memory of that glance, nightlike in the sunshine, expressively still in the brutal unrest of ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... and profound remark of Hegel's that the riddle which the Sphinx, the Egyptian symbol of the mysteriousness of Nature, propounds to Oedipus is only another way of expressing the command of the Delphic oracle, "Know thyself." And when the answer is given the Sphinx casts herself down from her rock. When man knows himself, the mysteriousness ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... awful mysteriousness in the original Druid sacrifice. Descanting upon the human sacrifices of various countries, Mr. Bryant informs us, that among the nations of Canaan, the victims were chosen in a peculiar manner; their own children, and whatsoever was nearest and dearest to them, ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... Cooper's Pathfinder and of abreks flashed through Olenin's mind, but noticing the mysterious manner with which the old man moved on, he hesitated to question him and remained in doubt whether this mysteriousness was caused by fear of ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... been so much caressed and flattered by court beauties as a child that he was precocious in flirtation. His sister was the confidante and messenger of all sorts of boyish amours. There is a fine mysteriousness in the letters he wrote his mother while he was making a musical conquest of Milan like a veteran musician, and betraying his fourteen-year-old boyishness only in such phrases as this: "I kiss your hand a thousand ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... the only one entirely at his ease; he was languid and nonchalant; the long lashes of his half-shut eyelids gave his face a pensive look. At last King Kinkley walked over to him and said: "There's an almighty mysteriousness about this event which isn't joyful, Pretty Pierre. We want to see the muss cleared up, of course; we want Shon McGann to act like a high-toned citizen, and there's a general prejudice in favour of things bein' on the flat of your palm, as it were. Now this thing hangs fire, and there's a lack ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... nothin', 'cause I'd get my walkin' papers ef yer did. But ef you're so mighty wise, jis' tell me what yer makes ob all dis mysteriousness?" ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... death of Mr. Charless teaches us the mysteriousness of God's providence." "In the calamity, dear hearers, which has removed from our midst one of the best men of this, or any previous age of the world, and overwhelmed so many in deep sorrow, we are pointed to the cruel ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... element. "And now, why," he asked impatiently, "should this bull-dog sort of fellow have set his whole aim to annoy, vex, and hurt me?" Incapable himself of so mean a spirit of jealousy at superior excellence, he could not make it out; but such, was the fact, and the very mysteriousness of it made it ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... man. Of all the personages in the Dreiser books, the Cowperwood of "The Titan" is perhaps the most radiantly real. He is accounted for in every detail, and yet, in the end, he is not accounted for at all; there hangs about him, to the last, that baffling mysteriousness which hangs about those we know most intimately. There is in him a complete and indubitable masculinity, as the eternal feminine is in Jennie. His struggle with the inexorable forces that urge him on as with whips, and lure him with ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... was called "the Law." What that law was, by whom enacted, and under what sanctions enforced, no one could tell; though all seemed to stand in awe of it as something of superhuman efficiency. Its mysteriousness was only equalled by the abject submission which ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... and spoke with the slight excitement and mysteriousness of one who had discovered something. I followed him out from the noise of the lounge into ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... to deceive herself into thinking that it was the mere mysteriousness of this that cut her. She presently went down to see Mrs. Carew, and was fretted because that lady would for some time discuss nothing but the successful treatment of insects ...
— The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne • Kathleen Norris
... exists. And somehow, it's pretty mysterious when you think of it. You wonder whether you mayn't have seen him all wrong. Whether all the time he isn't just, a simple old thing. When you get that feeling—of his mysteriousness, Ralph—somehow you're done." ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair
... now, I was not so much the essential point of the rendezvous as a detail of it. Sasha was not so much absorbed in the interview itself as in its romantic mysteriousness, my kisses, the silence of the gloomy trees, my vows. . . . There was not a minute in which she forgot herself, was overcome, or let the mysterious expression drop from her face, and really if there had been any Ivan Sidoritch or Sidor Ivanitch ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... belonged to the eighteenth century in being devoid of the capacity for feeling awe, and the taste for objects inspiring it. Nature was a tender friend with softest bosom, and no sphinx with cruel enigma. He felt neither terror, nor any sense of the littleness of man, nor of the mysteriousness of life, nor of the unseen forces which make us their sport, as he peered over the precipice and heard the water roaring at the bottom of it; he only remained for hours enjoying the physical sensation of dizziness with which it turned his brain, with a break ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... years before, there had been no reason for his continuing in the same routine. His children had urged him to travel: Mary Chivers had felt sure it would do him good to go abroad and "see the galleries." The very mysteriousness of such a cure made her the more confident of its efficacy. But Archer had found himself held fast by habit, by memories, by a sudden startled shrinking ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton |
