"Unaccountable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which extended over many millions of miles, stretched out behind in such a way that the earth must have gone right through it. The fact that the comet exercised no perceptible influence on the earth at all, and that there were not even any unaccountable magnetic storms or displays of electricity, may reassure us so that if ever we do again come in contact with one of these extremely fine, thin bodies, we need not ...
— The Children's Book of Stars • G.E. Mitton
... never been tired before, that her heart should sink in this unaccountable way? Why could she not be more glad that her sisters were coming home, and dear Miss Fennimore? What made every one seem so dull and stupid, and the comings and goings so oppressive, as if everything would be hateful till Christmas? Why had she belied all her previous ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... apprehensive glance at the door. Would Jack be angry? How would he look? What would he say? The first glance showed him graver than usual, but with no shadow of offence in look or bearing, and for some unaccountable reason her spirits sank as she met his unclouded smile. He sat down and held out his hand to Pixie, who promptly seated herself on the arm of his chair, and amused herself by trying the effects of various arrangements of ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... the huge white sunshade. Edna had prevailed upon Madame Ratignolle to leave the children behind, though she could not induce her to relinquish a diminutive roll of needlework, which Adele begged to be allowed to slip into the depths of her pocket. In some unaccountable way they had ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... corner saloon, where their vessels were filled with foaming beer. Brent wondered at the cruelty of parents who thus put their children in the way of temptation, and looked to see if the little ones were not bowed with shame; but they all strode stolidly on, with what he deemed an unaccountable indifference to their own degradation. He passed one place where the people were drinking in the front yard, and saw a mother holding a glass of beer to her little one's lips. He could now understand ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... placed a chair in front of her closet so that I might not see her taking off her chemise. My host and hostess then went to bed, and so did I, puzzling my head over the girl's behaviour which struck me as most extraordinary and unaccountable. However, I slept peacefully, and when I awoke the bird had left the nest. I felt inclined to have a little quiet argument with the girl, and to see what I could make of her; but I saw no chance of ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... nature[1130]. The notion of the second sight I consider as a remnant of superstitious ignorance and credulity, which a philosopher will set down as such, till the contrary is clearly proved, and then it will be classed among the other certain, though unaccountable parts of our nature, like dreams[1131], and-I do not know what. 'In regard to the language, it has the merit of being all his own. Many words of foreign extraction are used, where, I believe, common ones would do ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... did Miss Ashton answer. Truth to say, far from reciprocating the sudden fancy boasted of by Maude, she had taken an unaccountable dislike to her. Something of falsity in the tone, of sudden hardiesse in the handsome black eyes, acted upon Anne as ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... adjacent field. In a moment greyhounds, bull-dogs, terriers, and mongrels were in pursuit, followed by the assembled people. The hare, however, completely distanced both dogs and spectators, and was in comparative safety several fields away from the foremost greyhound, when she doubled back in an unaccountable manner, and ran into the midst of the crowd, who set upon her with sticks, and killed her in the most unsportsmanlike manner. A man next held poor puss over his head as if she were a fox, and a voice went up "That's the way to serve the landlords." This ebullition was followed by shouts ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... divine work continually offers to our consideration. Let us pass on to the Deluge. The holy books tell us, that in spite of the will of the Almighty, the whole human race, who had already been punished by infirmities, accidents, and death, continued to give themselves up to the most unaccountable depravity. God becomes irritated, and repents having created them. Doubtless he could not have foreseen this depravity; yet, rather than change the wicked disposition of their hearts, which he holds in his own hands, he performs the most surprising, the most impossible ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... thinking of the boat—Gramfer Heard is rich enough to bear the loss of her without feeling it—but it is my uncle that I'm troubling about. I am afraid that he will be greatly distressed at my sudden and unaccountable ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... him off with a lot of "hurrahs" didn't set well. Judd Billings was homesick for one thing; he'd been warned to have nothing to do with strangers, for another; and his natural backwardness in meeting people only added to his quite unaccountable attitude of reserve and resistance. Jack Frey was the one person Judd was prepared to meet. If later Jack should vouch for these fellows, all well and good. Until then he intended to keep ...
— Over the Line • Harold M. Sherman
... eye that sleep fled away. Then he rose to his feet, and looked around for the gambolling sheep, but found, they were gone he couldn't tell where: so he threw himself down in the deepest despair, bemoaning his strange unaccountable loss, and the horrible beating he'd get from the Boss, when at night he went home with his sad tale of woe. He was sure he would ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 34, November 19, 1870 • Various
... patience; but he could not help making, according to his usual custom, some reflections on human life. "I see," said he, "that the unhappiness of my fate hath an influence on thine. Hitherto everything has turned out to me in a most unaccountable manner. I have been condemned to pay a fine for having seen the marks of a spaniel's feet. I thought that I should once have been impaled on account of a griffin. I have been sent to execution for having made some verses in praise of the king. I have been upon the point ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... a press at Oxford until nearly the close of the sixteenth century, a gap of nearly seventy years, and a strange and unaccountable interval. At any rate, the next Oxford printed book, so far as is at present known, was John Case's Speculum Moralium quaestionum in universam ethicen Aristotelis, with the colophon, 'Oxoniae ex officina typographica Josephi Barnesii Celeberrimae ...
— A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898 • Henry R. Plomer
... violating his obligations to the state, but likewise inflicting upon his wife Calpurnia, and his family at Rome, an intolerable wrong. But Caesar was so fascinated by Cleopatra's charms, and by the mysterious and unaccountable influence which she exercised over him, that he paid no heed to any of these remonstrances. Even after the war was ended he remained some months in Egypt to enjoy his favorite's society. He would spend whole nights in her company, in feasting and revelry. He made a ...
— Cleopatra • Jacob Abbott
... whole anxious history since our parting.—Mariamne had suddenly grown discontented with Poland; which to Mordecai himself had become a weary residence, from the ravages of the French war. For some reason, unaccountable to me, said the old man, she set her heart upon Spain, and had now been domiciled in this secluded spot for a year. But she was visibly fading away. She read and wrote much, and was even more attached to her harp and her flowers than ever; yet declared ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... present in a nature not of brutish unmodifiableness, but of a human dignity that can risk itself safely, it may even result in a devotedness not unfit to be called divine in a higher sense than the ancient. Phlegmatic rationality stares and shakes its head at these unaccountable prepossessions, but they exist as undeniably as the winds and waves, determining here a wreck and there ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... adjacent orbits; and the average inclinations of the orbits of its parts must similarly have differed greatly from those of adjacent orbits. Once more, the orbits of its parts, confusedly interspersed, must have had varieties of eccentricity and inclination unaccountable in portions of the same nebulous ring; and, during concentration into planetoids, each must have had to maintain its course while struggling through the assemblage of other small nebulous masses, severally moving in ways unlike ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... Sir James to himself, on reading the letter. "This unaccountable silence is explained at last. Poor fellow, I have judged him hastily. Come! I'll go find ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... soberly retraced his way homeward, his thoughts, by some unaccountable association, began to revert to such topics as the loneliness of man by himself, the need of kindred spirits, the solaces of sympathy, and other ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... of early Massachusetts, faith and credence were in the very air. Two-thirds of New England was then dark, unbroken forests, through whose tangled paths the mysterious winter wind groaned and shrieked and howled with weird noises and unaccountable clamors. Along the iron-bound shore, the stormful Atlantic raved and thundered, and dashed its moaning waters, as if to deaden and deafen any voice that might tell of the settled life of the old civilized world, and shut us forever into the wilderness. A good story-teller, in those days, ...
— Oldtown Fireside Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... as, with the dice box, they decided her future fate. Like a flash the softened smile fled from her face, leaving only cold, vindictive defiance pictured there. And as Sergius, who had been led on from utterance to utterance by the increasing signs of compassion he read in her, saw the sudden and unaccountable change, he paused, in mingled wonderment and dismay; and, with the conviction that his hopes had failed him, he put off, in turn, his own softened mien, and glaring back defiance upon her, prepared for ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... means follows the profitable rule he here lays down. On the contrary, he sometimes betrays such a love of the marvellous as would seem unaccountable, had we not read bygone literature, and observed how strong the feeling was even as late as the days of the "Wonderful Magazine." Among his strange fancies we find in the ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... resumed their journey that afternoon. Sam knew exactly where he was going. Dick had fallen into a sullen yet rebellious mood, unaccountable even to himself. In his spirit was the ferment of a resentfulness absolutely without logical object. With such a man ferment demands action. Here, in the accustomed labours of this woods travel, was nothing to bite on save monotony. Dick Herron resented the monotony, ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... effectually gagged, Grant had not a word to say. Even when he had pulled her hands away and held them prisoners in his own, he said nothing. This was Evadna in a new and unaccountable mood, it seemed to him. She had certainly been very angry with him at noon. She had accused him, in that roundabout way which seems to be a woman's favorite method of reaching a real grievance, of being fickle and neglectful and inconsiderate and ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... "and perhaps," he added, with a grave smile, "I could explain it better than yourself." Here, turning to the others, he added, "You must often have felt, gentlemen, each and all of you, especially when sitting alone at night, a strange and unaccountable sensation of coldness and awe creep over you; your blood curdles, and the heart stands still; the limbs shiver; the hair bristles; you are afraid to look up, to turn your eyes to the darker corners of the room; you have a horrible fancy that something unearthly is at hand; presently ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... unaccountable emotion. "Were you at the head of an army, I might then dare to reveal the full weight of my anxieties; but Heaven has already been sufficiently gracious to me by your hands, in redeeming me from my cruelest enemy; and for the rest, I put ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... as soon as she could collect her thoughts after the surprise of this unexpected and mysterious phenomenon, she resolved to make the cavity an asylum for the night. She no longer heard anything of the wolves; the unaccountable light and noise seemed to have frightened them away, and with deliberation she rolled up pieces of timber to block up the mouth of her retreat, then entered and barred herself in as securely as she could, ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... all the Witchcraft which now Grievously Vexes us, I know not whether anything be more Unaccountable, than the Trick which the Witches have to render themselves, and their Tools Invisible. Witchcraft seems to be the Skill of Applying the Plastic Spirit of the World, unto some unlawful purposes, by means of a Confederacy with ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... sore that thou shouldst return such a remarkable liar. We cannot understand, and our heads be dizzy with the things thou hast spoken. It is not good, and there has been much talk in the council. Wherefore we send thee away, that our heads may remain clear and strong and be not troubled by the unaccountable things." ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... a way, his muscles acted, he could easily have thrown a stout young man with white eyelashes passing along the corridor through the nearest window; but there was a blurred sensation behind everything, a tiresome, unaccountable feeling as if he mightn't always be able to do things. He couldn't explain it exactly; but if it really turned up at all formidably later, he intended to shoot himself quickly before Peter got old enough ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... was seized with a most violent fever, and was often delirious; in these intervals he would call upon Lord Ruthven and upon Ianthe—by some unaccountable combination he seemed to beg of his former companion to spare the being he loved. At other times he would imprecate maledictions upon his head, and curse him as her destroyer. Lord Ruthven, chanced at this time to arrive ...
— The Vampyre; A Tale • John William Polidori
... I do have a right to demand is an explanation from you of conduct so strange as to be unaccountable." ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 3 • Various
... vast gratification. "There he goes with his eye out!" or "There she goes with her eye out!" as the sex of the party alluded to might be, was in the mouth of everybody who knew the town. The sober part of the community were as much puzzled by this unaccountable saying as the vulgar were delighted with it. The wise thought it very foolish, but the many thought it very funny, and the idle amused themselves by chalking it upon walls, or scribbling it upon monuments. But, "all that's bright must fade," even in slang. The people grew ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... unhappy man. They both spoke of his wrong-doing as if it were his infirmity; they could not do otherwise; and they both insensibly assumed his irresponsibility in a measure; they dwelt in the fiction or the persuasion of a mental obliquity which would account for otherwise unaccountable things. ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... his entire satisfaction, solved the mystery of the hitherto unaccountable actions of T. Morgan Carey and Bob McGraw, Mr. Hennage dismissed the matter from his mind, lit a fresh cigar and permitted the peanut butcher to inveigle him into a friendly little game of ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... which was upon him, there was something gentle, respectful, considerate, in his face, back of Its exterior hardness—a slumbering, triumphant something that made an instant appeal to her, lighting her eyes, coloring her face, making her heart beat with an unaccountable gladness. ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... the little girl felt an unaccountable drowsiness steal over her, and presently afterwards dropped asleep, when she had a very strange dream. It seemed to her that there was a contest going on between two spirits, a good one and a bad,—the bad one being represented by the great black cat, and the good spirit by the white dove. What ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... an unaccountable feeling seized us both; I know not what it was, but it appeared to us that we were doing something wrong, violating the grave of the dead man near us, or something ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... under the not very efficient gardening skill which had been bestowed upon them by the two recluses. Of animal food there was no lack, the small island being almost overrun by the many descendants of three pigs and half-a-dozen fowls, which the mutineers had, in an unaccountable paroxysm of generosity, ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... word Rudyard waved him away, a sudden and unaccountable fury in his mind. Why did the sight of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... straining at the sound she heard, the old poem returned to her as it had not for years. She faltered over the words at the first attempt, but with the second they rushed vividly to her mind and seemed set to the music of that "pat-pat-pat" sound on the water. An unaccountable excitement seized her—that new but thrilling sense of nearness and kinship to life and the lovely meaning of spring. She was no longer a little girl looking on at life; she was part of it; and something was going to happen after the long ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... however, he surprised Maggie by asking her to take a long walk alone with him. No words were said during this ramble to open Maggie Oliphant's eyes to the true state of Hammond's feelings for her, but when she returned from her walk she could not help noticing Annabel Lee's unaccountable depression. It was not until later, however, that Maggie attributed a certain pathetic, almost heart-broken, look in her friend's lovely eyes ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... this kind. Her rides to town had been the one excitement of her life; looked forward to with eagerness and discussed with tireless interest for many days afterwards. But now she hung back with an unaccountable apathy, and made excuses for postponing the ride from day to day, until the business became too pressing to be longer neglected. She set off one morning at daybreak, following the horseback trail, around the steep ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... for a man of Henry's character and habits entering into such a violent altercation with a person of Mrs. Tracy's age and inferior rank in life. His temper was generally good, and his manners peculiarly gentlemanlike; his conduct, therefore, (however provoking she might have been,) appeared to me unaccountable. I could not help wondering also, that he should have associated on evidently intimate terms with that lovely Alice, and yet had never mentioned her to any of us, even in casual conversation. There had not been a word, however, ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... as a threat, that 'their next meeting should be a different one,' and that then 'he would not ask for Mr. Lascelles' hand, but take it.' The diabolical character of determined and premeditated vindictiveness thus given to an otherwise unaccountable outrage upon his victim, goes far to take away the feeling of pity which we should otherwise have felt for the murderer, regarding him as under the maddening influences of disappointed love and temporary ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... write a Preface to a popular edition of this book, I seize the opportunity which is now afforded me of correcting an error which occurred in the original edition. By some unaccountable accident the printer omitted my sub-title; and it was not unnatural that some of my reviewers should inquire why, in a work dealing with English Caricaturists of the Nineteenth Century, no mention should ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... for some time. Days passed, and it was almost forgotten, only I became decidedly ill-tempered. A captious irritability possessed me, alternating with fits of unaccountable fatigue. At that time I was always either tired or cross, and sometimes both. I must have made Nurse Bundle very uncomfortable. I was so little happy, for my own share, that when after a day's headache I was put to bed as an invalid, it was a delicious relief to be acknowledged ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... be far worthier of His majesty to seize upon the free will of man and compel it to perform the salutary act which He wishes it to perform. Whoever has studied the lives of saints and eminent converts knows that the sudden and seemingly unaccountable changes of heart which many of them have experienced can hardly be regarded as miracles in the strict sense, though on the other hand it seems certain that grace worked in them with little or no regard to the "congruity" of circumstances. Again, it is one of ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle
... one thing in this business which appears to be wholly unaccountable, or accountable on a supposition I dare not entertain for a moment. I cannot help asking, Why all this pains, to clear the British nation of ambition, perfidy, and the insatiate thirst of war? At what period of time was it that our country has deserved that ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... be concealed. Why did I ever see you, since I could not see you till I had committed myself? At the moment my eyes beheld you on that day of my arrival, I said, "This is the woman for whom my manhood has waited." Ever since an unaccountable fascination has riveted my heart to ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... which, I believe, is called the Weald, and over which the dim road dipped, and wound, with, on either hand, a rolling country, dark with wood, and coppice—full of mystery. The wind had quite fallen, but from the hedges, came sudden rustlings and soft, unaccountable noises. Once, something small and dark scuttered across the road before me, and once a bird, hidden near by, set up a loud complaint, while, from the deeps of a neighboring wood, came the mournful ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... of tense uneasiness and fascinated curiosity. Momentarily he was almost glad that his horse had bolted, and that his pursuers were blocking any lane of retreat except that offered by the canyon. If things had been different, the queer behavior of the Mexicans, the unaccountable actions of his horse and the equally strange growth of his own uneasiness might have made him uncertain whether he would go up the canyon or not. Now it was the only thing to do, and Kirby was glad because, fear or no fear, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... board entering his own home, unsupported by the presence of his fellow-members and the scientific zeal of the Senior Surgeon, the business of the afternoon began to change its aspect. For some unaccountable reason—unless we take Fancy into the reckoning—this sudden abandoning of Ward C did not seem the simple matter of an hour previous; while in perspective even Margaret MacLean's outspokenness became ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... that while with the country gentry he exchanged no further communication than what was unavoidable in arranging his sporting transactions, with this person he would converse earnestly and frequently. Tradition asserts that, to enhance the curiosity which this unaccountable and exclusive preference excited, the stranger possessed some striking and unpleasant peculiarities of person and of garb—she does not say, however, what these were—but they, in conjunction with Sir Robert's secluded habits and extraordinary run of ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... greater during those terrible times, so the amazement of the people increased; and a thousand unaccountable things they would do in the violence of their fright, as others did the same in the agonies of their distemper: and this part was very affecting. Some went roaring, and crying, and wringing their hands, ...
— History of the Plague in London • Daniel Defoe
... the campaign is worth reciting. In managing the campaign I found that for some unaccountable reason the so-called Irish vote of the state was massed solidly behind ex-Senator Smith and in bitter opposition to Governor Wilson. We were constantly coming in contact with these currents of opposition, and how to overcome them and ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... they resolved to return to the place in the quadrangle where the keys had fallen—a very forlorn suggestion proceeding from Mr. Jenkins that the right keys might be lying there still, and that this rusty pair might, by some curious and unaccountable chance, have been ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... lovely place in Canada," said Roderick enthusiastically. He was not as shy in her presence as he usually was with young women. He could not help seeing, that for some unaccountable reason, she was embarrassed at meeting him, and her distress made him forget himself. He tried to put her at her ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... same farm that Pvte. Cottam, of D Company, acted as head butcher in the slaughter of an abandoned pig, causing a good deal of excitement before final despatch. Most of the men brought away with them "souveneers" of this first visit, none more unaccountable than the dud 77 mm. shell carried about in his pack for several days, by a sturdy sanitary man of A Company—in fact, until discovered by a rather alarmed ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... supernatural in the appearances beheld at River Hall. It is so easy to pooh-pooh another man's tale; it is pleasant to explain every phenomenon that the speaker has never witnessed; it is so hard to credit that anything absolutely unaccountable on natural grounds has been witnessed by your dearest friend, that, knowing my only chance of keeping my temper and preventing Munro gaining a victory over me was to maintain a discreet silence, I let him talk on and strive to account for the appearances I had ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... all the artificial enjoyments which policy has made to result from them? By no means. And yet need I suggest to your lordship, that those who find the means, and those who arrive at the end, are not at all the same persons? On considering the strange and unaccountable fancies and contrivances of artificial reason, I have somewhere called this earth the Bedlam of our system. Looking now upon the effects of some of those fancies, may we not with equal reason call it likewise the Newgate and the Bridewell of the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... him jerk them out. Perhaps he had felt a stone. A tiny, creeping, chilly shudder went up his back. Then he remembered, he felt, he saw his little attic room, in the old home back among the wheat-hills of the Northwest. Six thousand miles away! He would never see that room again. What unaccountable vagary of memory had ever recalled it to him? It ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... I am a 'large' or 'tall' man, though, in some unaccountable way, always passing for a great deal more than I would ever measure or weigh; and my own dear mother having lived and died in the belief that I was good six feet, and well-proportioned, like my father. My inches never exceeded five feet eight-and-a-half, and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... McRae," an extremely dainty and well-dressed stenographer, who captured and married a fastidious young man, her employer, by the force of her artificial attractions—and then lost his love after marriage by a sudden unaccountable ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... right sort of patient to deal with, anyway," he remarked, with a sigh of relief. But to me the melancholy insistence of the exquisite harmonies was fraught with ill-omen, and I could not restrain the shudder of an unaccountable fear as we resumed our walk. Later on, when I found an opportunity to ask her why she had chosen that particular music, I was only partially relieved ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... at the church entrance, and still the sacristy door remains firmly shut. Surely 'tis time for the groom and his best man to appear there; one minute of eight and no sign. Who in all that crowd could dream that Ray and Blake have vainly stormed the vestry door and found it locked? By some unaccountable error the sexton has barred their entrance as well as that of the intrusive uninvited whom he ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... is a symphony that is not suitable for representation, one also recognises its blemishes and, above all, its unevenness. The orchestration in the first act is often rather thin, and the plot lacks solidity. There are gaps and unaccountable holes, and melodious lines left suspended in space. From beginning to end, lyrical bursts of melody are broken by declamations, or, what is worse, by dissertations. Frenzied whirlwinds of passion stop suddenly to give place to recitatives ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... one another, in this wider field of Icelandic literature. Richard Cleasby (1797-1847), an English merchant's son with scholarly instincts, began the study of the sagas, but made slight progress because of what he called an "unaccountable and most scandalous blank," the want of a dictionary. This was in 1840, and for the next seven years he labored to fill up that blank. The record[16] of those years is a wonderful witness to the heroism and spirit of the ...
— The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature • Conrad Hjalmar Nordby
... it. Please stay," but he let her go, and watched her down the steps and into the car, with unaccountable misgiving. He had seen ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... intercourse of the sons of God with the daughters of men, and parting with the distinctive gloomy colouring which is unmistakably spread over the whole early history of man in JE, the Priestly Code has entirely lost the preparation for the flood, which now appears in the most abrupt and unaccountable way. As to the contents of the story, the priestly version here agrees to an unusual extent with the Jehovistic one; differing from it chiefly in the artificial, mathematical marking out of the framework. The flood lasts twelve months and ten days, i.e., exactly a ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... me the secret of my own feeling for Nature—the feeling of which I was becoming more and more conscious, which was a mystery to me, especially at certain moments, when it would come upon me with a sudden rush. So powerful it was, so unaccountable, I was actually afraid of it, yet I would go out of my way to seek it. At the hour of sunset I would go out half a mile or so from the house, and sitting on the dry grass with hands clasped round my knees, gaze at the ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... cannot, ever get firm footing here; but the result of long and careful observation as yet only enables us to strike a sort of average. Experiments pursued for years with table-turning, planchettes, mediums, clairvoyantes, come to this. You do get answers, strange messages, unaccountable communications; but nothing is ever told, in any seance, which does not lie perdu in the breast of someone of the company. There is often no willing deception; peradventure, no fooling at all: but as you cannot draw water from a dry ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... exclamations like a man in an anxious dream. Anon, his gaze impatiently turned upward, about, around, and there was a strange and wandering fire in those large deep eyes, which might have thrilled the beholder with a vague and unaccountable awe. ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... excitement. There was a continual coming and going, to and from Abbot's Manor,—some of the guests went away to be replaced by others, and some who had intended to spend only a week-end and then depart, stayed on, moved by unaccountable fascination, not only for their hostess, but for the general pleasantness of the house, and the old-world, tranquil and beautiful surroundings of the whole neighbourhood. Lord Charlemont and Mr. Bludlip Courtenay had brought their newest up-to-date ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... and listened. Something strange and unaccountable in that same word of command had struck ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... An unaccountable silence fell upon the assembled guests. Eve Challoner's face turned quite white. Her eyes were lowered to her plate. No one looked at her except the Count, and his glance ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... little man, whom the suggestion seemed to throw into a state of unaccountable terror, "such a thing cannot be thought of for a moment. Leave monsieur alone in the church? No, no; two hours, three hours, all will be the same to me. I have breakfasted, I am not at all cold, ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... of the house prayed, George Muller was inwardly saying: "I am much more learned than this illiterate man, but I could not pray as well as he." Strange to say, a new joy was already springing up in his soul for which he could have given as little explanation as for his unaccountable desire to go to that meeting. But so it was; and on the way home he could not forbear saying to Beta: "All we saw on our journey to Switzerland, and all our former pleasures, are as nothing ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... the first volume of our Universal History, our chief aim was to excite some generous Mecenas to favour the world with a new edition of a poem which we had long since beheld with no small concern, buried, as it were, by some unaccountable fatality, into an almost total oblivion; whilst others of that kind, none of them superior, many vastly inferior to it, rode, unjustly, as we thought, triumphant over his silent grave. And it is with great satisfaction that we have seen our endeavours so happily crowned in the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... which had before seemed unaccountable, how it happened that the enemy should have been missed by the British squadron, both in it's passage to Alexandria, and in it's return to Syracuse. The French, having steered a direct course for Candia, had necessarily made an angular passage towards Alexandria; while Admiral ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... Wilson was deeply interested, and went so far as to call on Miss Greening, and to her he frankly admitted there was an unaccountable power in the mind some way, and if it did the work for suffering humanity he was quite ready to welcome it, and anxious, for his ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... question. "He made several mistakes in life; most of them because he didn't pay respect enough to circumstances; thought that to adhere to fixed principles was the whole duty of a man: nothing to be allowed to the accidents of life, or to the various and unaccountable natures of men, their uncertainty, fallibility, and so on. One of the first resolutions he made—and he's never broken it, for when he grew wise enough to do so, the opportunity had gone by forever—was never ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... shall afterwards see, carried their piracies to such a daring and destructive extent, that the Romans were compelled to attack them. Their devotedness to piracy explains what to Mons. Huet appears unaccountable. He observes, that it is remarkable that neither the Dalmatians, who were powerful at sea by means of their port Salona, which was their capital, nor the Liburnians themselves, according to all appearance, had the ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... He had hastened upstairs at a run to ask her for an explanation, for he had quite lost his poor head over that unaccountable catastrophe. And the apparent ignorance and tranquillity in which he ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... sun blazed ever more fervently from the splendid sky, and the hills glowed with ever-increasing tumult of color. Through this land of color, of repose, of romance, the young traveler rode, drinking deep of the germless air, feeling that the girl behind him was a wondrous part of this wild and unaccountable country. ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... said, lifting a tousled head above his palings. "Yessum, she lives there—leastwise she did. She moved away only the day before yesterday. Sort of sudden, I think it must have been. I didn't know she was going till she was gone." He grinned in extenuation of the unaccountable failure of a small-town man to acquaint himself with all available facts regarding a neighbor's private affairs. "But then she never wasn't much of a hand, Mrs. Vinsolving wasn't, for mixing with folks. ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... he said, "your explanation of this rather unaccountable situation is entirely acceptable. I see the position clearly, just as it is, and I humbly apologise for afflicting you with an insinuation. Beatrice, I crave your forgiveness again. Your proffer of the toddy, Mr. Garrison, is timely and I should ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... staircases that appeared unaccountable and weren't counted. We saw furnished rooms through open doors, and at last we came to a large room, high up under a tower, and looking out over the Plaza, and in another direction over the roofs of La Libertad. It seemed to be unused, and was darkened with shutters, and littered with the miscellaneous ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... instants given to repentance are very sad, and I was truly a fit subject for pity. I longed to see Laura again, so as to hear what the doctor had said. I had very good cause for laughing at all sorts of oracles, yet through some unaccountable weakness I longed for that of the doctor; I wanted, before all, to find it ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... it is intended, sir, not for that sort of children, but for children of six feet high, of which, as my friend has justly observed, there are many millions in the kingdom; and these reflections, sir, have been rendered necessary by the unaccountable and diabolical scheme which many gentlemen now give in to, of laying a number of farms into one, and very often a whole parish into one farm; which in the end must reduce the common people to a stage of vassalage, worse than that under the barons of old, or of the ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... the agents to whom he had been compelled to confide his necessary preparations for the flight he had meditated several days, was too certain to admit of his deceiving himself with the hopes that some unaccountable mistake was the cause of his loss. He saw at once that the Senate was master of the person of his bride, and he too well knew its power and its utter disregard of human obligations when any paramount interest of the state was ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... sit down. An unaccountable terror or timidity seemed to have paralyzed her. She looked aside—everywhere but in his face: "I wanted you to tell me how to reach him, how to touch him: I know what manner ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... said, "the little poacher has taken some unaccountable fancy to my master." (This was the name by which Miss Galindo always spoke of Mr. Horner to me, ever since she had been, as she ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... cause of his being thus shunned. They concealed it from him, knowing that it would give him pain. He knew only the fact, and it made him very sad to find himself the object of this mysterious and unaccountable aversion. ...
— Mary Queen of Scots, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... had suddenly dawned upon the perplexed mind of Mrs. Lee, and Dick's fate was settled. She was prouder than ever of her boy; and, truth to tell, her opposition was only what Mrs. Kinzer had considered it, a piece of unaccountable "nonsense," to be brushed away by just such a hand as ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... box of specie was placed on board the Thomas Sparkes, in charge of the captain, for Mr Chetham. On the owner opening the box, he discovered to his great surprise that, by some unaccountable process on the voyage, the money—gold, had been turned into one of the baser metals—iron. It is stated that the steward left at Plymouth, and the first and second mates whilst the vessel was detained at the Cape, but ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... useful for persons who have rheumatic pains in the limbs or back, during the fever. If the evacuations from the bowels are dark, or yellow and consistent, or there is bilious vomiting, Podophyllin is the remedy. From some cause or other, to me wholly unaccountable, the writers generally have laid down Rhus and Bryonia as the remedies in typhoid fever. I must confess I have no confidence in them for this fever as it prevails, and has for several years past, in this country. They have ...
— An Epitome of Homeopathic Healing Art - Containing the New Discoveries and Improvements to the Present Time • B. L. Hill
... Bengal do not contain monsters more hideous and terrible than are to be found in the eastern portion of Texas, over which nature appears to have spread a malediction. The myriads of snakes of all kinds, the unaccountable diversity of venomous reptiles, and even the deadly tarantula spider or "vampire" of the prairies, are trifles compared with the awful inhabitants of the eastern bogs, swamps, and muddy rivers. The former are really dangerous only during two or three months of ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... party filed out of the crypt and disappeared. The remaining Vicar smote his brow, and addressed the now calm Rupert in a low voice, but with such unaccountable warmth that that harassed animal disappeared precipitately in the direction ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... safety of the ship—so would the captain have said probably, had he lived to be questioned as to the management of his vessel. But everything had not been done. The lead, strange to say, had not been hove. It was ready to heave, but the order was delayed. Unaccountable fatality! The only safe guide that remained to the good ship on that wild night was held in abeyance. It was deemed unnecessary to heave it yet, or it was troublesome, and they would wait till nearer the land. No one now can tell the reasons that influenced the captain, but the lead was not used. ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... reply to an earnestness like this. He did not understand it, and could not account for it. The only thing he ever was in such earnestness as that about was his success in business and his title that he and his wife were scheming for. But still, though silenced by this unaccountable outburst of our pilgrim, Worldly-Wiseman's enmity against the upward way, and especially against all the men and all the books that made pilgrims take to that way, was not silenced. 'How camest thou by thy burden at first?' By reading ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... fashion as to this point has often varied; but at that time, I believe the custom was for bridal parties to be in full dress. The lady, when the dress arrived, was, to all appearance, in good health; but, by one of those unaccountable misgivings which are on record in so many well-attested cases, (as that, for example, of Andrew Marveil's father,) she said, after gazing for a minute or two at the beautiful dress, firmly and ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... suffer greatly from imagination. They now believed that it was far past the customary time for him to appear, that they were nearing the verge of starvation; and so they were bewailing in a dejected way his unaccountable absence and their miserable ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... Eve and St. John's Eve are times of freedom and unrestraint. People are filled with a sort of madness which makes them unaccountable for their deeds. ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... became sick of a military life—at least the life of my own regiment, where the officers, such was their unaccountable meanness and prejudice against me, absolutely refused to see me at mess. Colonel Craw sent me a letter to this effect, which I treated as it deserved.—I never once alluded to it in any way, and have since never spoken a single ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray
... over the cow stable is—or was, for the monks have been driven away and all is altered now!—a bedchamber with three or four beds in it, which the toleration of the community has provided for the accommodation of the unaccountable female islanders. I have assisted in conveying parties of ladies up that steep grassy slope by the light of a full moon, when all the beds had to be somewhat more than fully occupied. But fortunately George Eliot had the whole chamber to herself—perhaps, however, not quite ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... noticed that the provisions disappeared in an unaccountable way; therefore Wills ordered him back to report himself to Burke. But Gray was afraid to tell, and got King to do so for him. When Burke heard of it, he was ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... Miss Martha's utter detestation, though why, we cannot tell, as the little dark woman had never injured her, nor had Miss Pinkerton ever exchanged above a dozen syllables with her in her life. But it was one of those unaccountable dislikes which often arise in people of certain temperaments, on first sight of a ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... bucket of ice-cold water from the river; the family go to sleep under the trees, and I pile logs on the fire sufficient to burn half the night, for I assure you the solitude is eerie enough. There are unaccountable noises, (wolves), rummagings under the floor, queer cries, and stealthy sounds of I know not what. One night a beast (fox or skunk) rushed in at the open end of the cabin, and fled through the window, almost brushing my face, and on another, the head and three or ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... in plenty, but he has a genteel taste, has Nim: the gal to please Nim must be thorough genteel. Now, what would you say, squire'—an unaccountable faint-heartedness seized Uncle Zack at this juncture, ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... toward Arline, then some unaccountable influence caused her to turn her head and glance again in the direction of the street. A roughly-dressed man had stopped on the sidewalk directly in front of the theatre to stare at one of the gayly colored lithographs. Grace stopped short, seized with a peculiar ...
— Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... unaccountable way had managed to stay behind me, came forward and bowed as if to an audience. "I've been taking her to where she goes, Mr. Thorne, and grannie knows all the places. There ain't one that's got a disease in it, and Mr. Crimm would tell ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... their sex. Let their energies be submitted to any unusual strain, let their nerves (they are always morbid) be overwrought, and they snap!" He illustrated the catastrophe with his hands. "Unaided by religion, the female nature is irresponsible, unaccountable." Mr. Vialls had been severe of late in his judgment of women. "Mrs. Quarrier, poor creature, was the victim of immoderate zeal for worldly ends. She was abetted by her husband and by Mrs. Wade; they excited her to the point of frenzy, and ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... superstition the explanation lies ready to hand, and is accepted without question. A people that sees spiritual agency in all the familiar phenomena of nature are certainly not less likely to trace its influence in the mysterious and unaccountable effects of narcotics and stimulants. And each repeated experiment provides additional proof. Man thus not only believes himself to be surrounded by a spiritual world; he is actually able to enter into communication with it by methods that are ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... from some unaccountable cause, it became a habit to treat Goldsmith with a form of moral and intellectual patronage. This has never entirely passed away. Carlyle, following Horace Walpole's idea, writing of Johnson, thus speaks of Goldsmith: "An inspired ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... more disposed to find each other and themselves agreeable, and Riatt was in process of clasping the pearls about Christine's neck (for she had had some unaccountable difficulty in doing it for herself) when the drawing-room door opened and Nancy ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller
... with a heavy sigh. "I know how you feel," she said to Edith drearily. "You glow and are glad from morning till night. You have a great yearning here," she clasped her hands to her breast. "You find a new delight in music, a new beauty in flowers; unaccountable joy in the warmth and brightness of the sun, and rapture not to be contained in the quiet moonlight. You despise yourself, and think your lover worthy of adoration. The consciousness of him never leaves you even in ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... the next morning calling him into the country for a week, prevented his executing his rash designs; but a feeling, unaccountable even to himself, made him shun the places where he was accustomed to meet Emma, and made him miserable, till three or four weeks afterward, merely by accident, he found himself seated opposite to her at a concert. Was it fancy, or did she look sad ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... surprises me—your own lukewarmness. Yes, making every allowance for your natural predilection for dog-fighting, and your present enamoured state of mind, your apathy at the commencement of such a movement is to me unaccountable." ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... not, however, bear to give Up going to church, for I knew that the thanksgiving was to be that morning for the preservation of the king from assassination : and to let pique at this unaccountable behaviour, after all the apologies just passed, prevent my hearing and joining in a prayer of such a nature, in which now I am peculiarly interested, would have been ill worth the while. I therefore - proposed to Miss Planta that we should go by ourselves, and desire ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... accepted lines of development. That which I have ventured to term specialisation and neglect is a great and important feature in anthropology. It obtains everywhere in more or less degree, and accounts for some of the apparently unaccountable facts in savage society, where we are frequently encountered by a comparatively high degree of culture associated with a cruel and debasing system of rites and practices which belong to the lowest savagery. Dr. Haddon has usefully suggested the term "differential ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... unhappy man to design those picturesque dresses in which his rival so audaciously played the lover to his, Somerset's, mistress, was an added point to the satire. He could hardly go so far as to assume that Paula was a consenting party to this startling interlude; but her otherwise unaccountable wish that his own love should be clandestinely shown lent immense force to a doubt of her sincerity. The ghastly thought that she had merely been keeping him on, like a pet spaniel, to amuse her leisure moments till she should have found appropriate opportunity for ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... she had been created? Perhaps her natural sphere was not, after all, so unlike that in which her friends moved, to which even he was accustomed, the stranger, whose coming she now anticipated with a strange, unaccountable thrill of expectation. Would he, with that wonderful power which she felt he possessed, to elevate or to crush the souls with whom he came in contact, would he recognize her true sphere, as her other friends had done, or would he be ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... years, when the negotiations with the heirs of Pope Julius were being carried on; yet there exists one letter of unaffected sorrow from this excellent man, under date October 14, 1545, which shows that for some unaccountable reason Michelangelo had suddenly chosen to mistrust him. Fattucci begins by declaring that he is wholly guiltless of things which his friend too credulously believed upon the strength of gossip. He expresses the deepest grief at ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... nature seems to feel her way, like a blind man, groping, hesitating, trying this road and then that. In some cases the line of evolution seems to end in a cul de sac beyond which no progress is possible. The forms thus cornered soon become extinct. The mystery, the unaccountable thing, is the appearance of new characters. The slow modification or transformation of an existing character may often be traced; natural selection, or the struggle for existence, takes it in hand and adapts and perpetuates it, or else ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... unaccountable, absurd, that Bob should have shrunk at the touch; nevertheless he ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... as pressed upon their consideration by the Honorable Gentleman. Thus far, however, he would say, and it was an opinion he had never changed or concealed, that, although no man can command his conviction, he had ever considered a deliberate disposition to make proselytes in infidelity as an unaccountable depravity. Whoever attempted to pluck the belief or the prejudice on this subject, style it which he would, from the bosom of one man, woman, or child, committed a brutal outrage, the motive for which he had never been able ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... the narrations of Mr. Cook. The truth is, that those sent to settle and explore the island knew not the form in which the plant grows, and were unfurnished with every particular which could lead to a knowledge of it. Unaccountable as this may sound, it is, nevertheless, incontestably true. Captain Ball brought away with him several specimens for inspection, and, on trial, by some flax-dressers among us, the threads produced from them, though coarse, are pronounced ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay • Watkin Tench
... of a gun, and presently the rebel rode up, with the coat, pants, and boots which had once belonged to the soldier, hanging on his arm. Such scenes as this were enacted every day; but, for some unaccountable reason, Frank was not molested, beyond having his boots stolen one night while he was asleep. He had made up his mind that he would escape at the first opportunity; but he was in no condition to travel, and, besides, ...
— Frank on a Gun-Boat • Harry Castlemon
... morning of the 27th of November the work was interrupted by an event which we had better explain with some detail, for it was one of those unaccountable things ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... because, in many ways, I have sinned and transgressed his command. If he delayed coming to thee, I think that in no way betokens thy death, but rather a long life; but it may be that some heavy accident may occur to thee, as there was an unaccountable dread overpowering thee; but I foretell that thou will be the oldest of us, and wilt rule ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... from time to time with a curious sense of uneasiness, and an unaccountable desire to detach him from his acquaintance ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... for some unaccountable reason, darkened. After a slight pause, and more by way of politeness than because he wished to continue the subject, he ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... habit of this people which we should find very strange and which I for my part think unaccountable is their habit of judging the excellence of a literary production, not by the sense or even the sound of it, but by the ink in which it is printed and the paper upon which it is impressed. And this applies not only to their letters but also to their foreign information, and ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... tendency to produce the mischiefs which give so much alarm to his honorable friend. His work was not bad in its principle, but imperfect in its execution; and the motion on your paper presses him only to complete a proper plan, which, by some unfortunate and unaccountable error, he ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... half closing her eyes and gasping for breath, pretended that she was stifling and could not breathe. She was married. Her husband, a staid and dignified architect, came once a week to the villa, slept soundly, and returned to town. Volodya's strange feeling had begun with his conceiving an unaccountable hatred for the architect, and feeling relieved every time he ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... opened my mouth to sing out to him to know why he wasn't playing; and then, all at once, there came into my mind the memory of my first conversation with him. I remembered that he had said sails were always blowing adrift at night. I remembered the, then, unaccountable emphasis he had laid on those two words; and remembering that, I felt suddenly afraid. For, all at once, the absurdity had struck me of a sail—even a badly stowed one—blowing adrift in such fine and calm weather as we were then ...
— The Ghost Pirates • William Hope Hodgson
... die, so none can make sure that he too shall not live long beyond the grave; for the life after death is like money before it—no one can be sure that it may not fall to him or her even at the eleventh hour. Money and immortality come in such odd unaccountable ways that no one is cut off from hope. We may not have made either of them for ourselves, but yet another may give them to us in virtue of his or her love, which shall illumine us for ever, and establish us in some heavenly mansion ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... the field marvelling. For some unaccountable reason, Dencroft's had flatly refused to act in the good old way as a doormat for their opponents. Instead, they had played with a dash and knowledge of the game which for the first quarter of an hour quite unnerved Blair's. ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse |
