"Inexplicable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not long after that the murders began—strange, inexplicable deaths, all the victims found with their heads crushed as if ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... their desire to draw him for a day, at any rate, from the dolorous prostration in which he lived. As soon as all these fine folks had alighted from the train it was decided to go up to the plateau to see the famous fields, for everybody was curious about them, so extravagant and inexplicable did the idea of Mathieu's return to the soil, and transformation into a peasant, seem to them. He laughed gayly, and at least he succeeded in surprising them when he waved his hand towards the great expanse under the ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... impulses that are almost impossible to account for, Percy took one of the letters up before the others. It was directed in type. He half opened it, then put it in his pocket. He felt anxious to read it; for some quite inexplicable reason he felt there was something about it momentous, and of interest. It was not a circular, or a bill. It made him feel uncomfortable. After waiting a moment he opened it and read part of it. Then he replaced it in his pocket, and ran up to his room, taking ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson
... one to be seen as I reached Room 15. The connecting door was closed and locked, and no sound came from behind it. I turned to arrange the books, to keep from a bad habit of thinking over the inexplicable. But there was nothing exciting enough, in the statutes or reports of court decisions or text-books, to cover up the questions against which I had been beating in vain ever since I had entered this ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... is again!" said Hodge, in the voice of one who expects to behold the supernatural and inexplicable and has steeled himself against unpleasant sensations. "There he comes! Barney, ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... died in despair. Others say that the same young woman who called upon Mr. Paralette has occasionally been seen here; And it is also said that two of our most eminent physicians were engaged by a young woman, about whom there was to them something singular and inexplicable, for nearly a year and a half to attend her father, who was out of his mind, but that they failed to give him any relief. These things are now causing a good deal of talk here in private circles, and I have thought it best to make ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur
... processes of mind off their balance and in motion towards real termini; and the reality of the termini, believed in by the states of mind in question, can be guaranteed only by some wider knower [Footnote: The transcendental idealist thinks that, in some inexplicable way, the finite states of mind are identical with the transfinite all-knower which he finds himself obliged to postulate in order to supply a fundamentum far the relation of knowing, as he apprehends it. Pragmatists ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... though they are often hard to maintain, are harder still to abandon. Faith has its perplexities, but no sooner do you eliminate the spiritual world than you are confronted with a series of experiences, emotions, and intimations which are simply inexplicable. That was perhaps partly what Jesus had in mind when he met the Pharisees. "You find it hard to believe in me," he said. "Ah, yes, but is it not still harder altogether to refuse me? You are quite alive to the smaller difficulties of my position, ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody
... suspicion. The times were indeed so dangerous,—the great party questions of Jacobite and Hanoverian divided the country so effectually,—and the constant disputes and jealousies between the Highlanders and Lowlanders, besides a number of inexplicable causes of feud which separated the great leading families in Scotland from each other, occasioned such general suspicion, that a solitary and unprotected stranger was almost sure to meet with something disagreeable in ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... six times in the course of every year, during the hot season. You may read about it in the next morning's paper which records how some young man, often of good family and apparently in good health, was seen behaving in the most inexplicable fashion at the hour of about 2 a.m.; jumping, that is, in a state of Adamitic nudity, into some public fountain. It goes on to say that the culprit was pursued by the police, run to earth, and carried to such-and-such a hospital, ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... inexplicable Mitchell House policy remained in force in the years since McClintock's return; witness the present incumbent, frivolous Thompson, foreigner from Buffalo—him and his house parties! It was Mitchell House still, mauger the ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... to firing occasionally, they called us all sorts of bad names, made indecent gestures, and aggravated us, so that between 3 and 4 o'clock in the afternoon, by an inexplicable concert of action, and with a serious breach of discipline, a large number of the men and many of the officers broke en masse from the camp with loud yells and charged the offending savages. As soon as this mob ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... was, I was determined to see that door opened. I hardly knew what I feared, but so many terrible and inexplicable things had happened that suspense was worse ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... obliged to rest satisfied, or rather unsatisfied, with this answer. But the mystery was more and more inexplicable. Either some laughable mistake or some deep-laid villany was intended. Sir John dared not pursue the subject to this extremity. He felt assured of her purity and honour. Her manners, so confiding and unsuspicious, showed a heart unacquainted ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... the Society of Useful Knowledge thinks that he may have been only the translator: but the facts collected by Marchand show that he claimed the authorship; and there is no trace of its composition by any Englishman. Besides, its prior publication in England is just as inexplicable upon the assumption of his being the translator, as upon that of his being ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 62, January 4, 1851 • Various
... trapline. He came to where Le Beau had passed yesterday and sniffed suspiciously of the man-smell that was still strong in the snowshoe tracks. He had become accustomed to this smell, but he had not lost his suspicion of it. It was repugnant to him, even as it fascinated him. It filled him with an inexplicable fear, and yet he found himself powerless to run away from it. Three times in the last ten days he had seen the man-brute himself. Once he had been hiding within a dozen yards of Le ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... the Italian nation stands not extravagantly pictured in the life of Cellini, whose violence, self-indulgence, keen sense of pleasure, and pagan delight in physical beauty were interrupted at intervals by inexplicable interludes of repentance, Bible-reading, psalm-singing, and visions. To delineate Cellini will be the business of a distant chapter. The form of the greatest of Italian preachers must occupy ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... now, and in her face was a terror which was inexplicable. I do not know what she thought. I felt that she was possessed by some shapeless dread which robbed her of all self-control. As a rule she was so calm; her agitation now was amazing. Stroeve looked at her for ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... inexplicable. That two men, whose amiability and grave tact had earned for them the title of "The Peacemakers," in a community not greatly given to the passive virtues,—that these men, singularly devoted to each other, should suddenly and ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... rector of Upton, whom all men looked up to and esteemed, had a wife, who was whispered about among them all as a victim to a vile and degrading sin. A strong shock of revulsion ran through his veins, which had been thrilling with an unquiet happiness all the day. There was an inexplicable, mysterious misery in it. If he had come home to find her dead, he could have borne to look upon her lying in her coffin, knowing that life could never be bright again for him; but he would have held up his head among his fellow-men. It would have been no shame or degradation ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton
... marked by a bizarre development, an unexplained and downright inexplicable phenomenon that surely no one has forgotten. Without getting into those rumors that upset civilians in the seaports and deranged the public mind even far inland, it must be said that professional seamen were especially alarmed. Traders, shipowners, captains of vessels, ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... would he halt in his daily pilgrimage to enter beneath and stop in the side aisles for five or ten minutes, scrutinizing the names and epitaphs on the monuments. The attraction for him of this great church was inexplicable, unless it enabled him to concentrate his thoughts on the business of the day. If any affair of particular moment, or demanding peculiar acuteness, was weighing on his mind, he invariably went in, to wander with mouse-like attention from epitaph to epitaph. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... of Liberty was great, and it found expression in the peculiar style of oratory and diction, which Judge Morris had introduced into the Temple. The failure of the rebels to concur, as had been arranged, was for a time quite inexplicable and unsatisfactory to the most ultra secesh of the Temple. It was not easy to communicate with Price and Buckner, and much mystery and doubt hung over the failure. The leaders were in doubt as to the wisdom of rising at the Convention, some being in ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... and poppies, went with her basket up the street. Presently she encountered Evie, who, also all smiles, seemed to have some communication to make, but only got as far as "Have you seen"—when she gave a little squeal of laughter, quite inexplicable, and glided into some dark entry. A minute afterwards, the purple patch suddenly appeared from a shop and almost collided with her. It was not Diva at all, but ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... was inexplicable, and I concluded I had yet much to learn about that young man. He looked at Miss Lloyd critically, and though his glance could not be called quite unsympathetic, yet it showed no definite sympathy. He seemed to be coldly weighing ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... freshness of her youth the study of her husband's strange littleness had grown to be a second nature from the habit of her devotion to him. But she could not understand him; she could not explain to herself the sudden confession of old age, the quiet anticipation of death, the inexplicable generosity towards herself. She only knew that he must be at heart a man more kindly and of better impulse than he had generally been considered, and she resolved to do her utmost to repay him, and to soothe the misery ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... honestly revoke an agreement and wait until it had lapsed before one made use of one's newly-regained freedom! And these vicious upper classes were the awarders of social position and respect, according to a scale on which honesty ranked far below zero. Society was nothing but a tissue of lies! It was inexplicable that it hadn't been found out long ago! It was high time to examine this fine structure and inquire into the condition of ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... happiness, the very first of all. Now she was far from happy. Possibly—a thousand things, the most possible, that Robert had responded to Agatha's suggestion, and stopped and asked her that abrupt question, from an impulse as sudden and inexplicable as had possessed her when she married George Holt. Kate fervently wished she had gone to the cornfield as ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... went on towards summer, it seemed to Janetta as though some interest, some brightness perhaps, had died out of her life. Her friends—her two chief friends, to whom her vow of friendship and service had been sworn—were, in some inexplicable manner, alienated from her. Margaret came regularly for her singing-lesson, but never lingered to talk as she had done at first. She seemed pensive, languid, preoccupied. Wyvis Brand had left off calling for little Julian, except on ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... the Downs that afternoon from Brighton to Falmer, and had sat down in view of the station where he proposed to catch a train back to Brighton, and had seen the prisoner stop his motor-car close to the corner where the body had been found, and behave in a manner inexplicable except on the theory that he knew where the body lay. Subsequently to the finding of the body, which had occurred on Saturday evening, there had been discovered in a coppice adjoining a heavy bludgeon-like stick ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson
... of a man whom I never knew. If I had even been his friend, well and good: the artful indiscretion of the true friend is intelligible to everybody; but I only saw Pechorin once in my life—on the high-road—and, consequently, I cannot cherish towards him that inexplicable hatred, which, hiding its face under the mask of friendship, awaits but the death or misfortune of the beloved object to burst over its head in a storm of reproaches, admonitions, ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... discussion has, therefore, great significance for our view of the vital processes in the plant; it proves beyond doubt that these processes are in no way of a purely mechanical nature, but that there is something underlying all this, a hitherto inexplicable something, which we call "life." In all vital activities, physical and chemical processes certainly do occur; they do not, however, take place spontaneously but are made use of by the vital element of the plant to produce ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert
... meet the earth, envelop it with its flaming hair, imbue animals and plants with unknown poisons, and make all men die in a frenzy of laughter. She expected that this, or something else, would happen next month. It was not inexplicable that she wished to go. But that her desire to go should contain a vague joy, that she should feel the charm of what she was to find, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... terror and menace, and she had nearly satisfied herself that she had imagined them, when there came, from somewhere near the door, a sound she neither understood nor could interpret, but which filled her with inexplicable terror, and made her afraid to breathe, or even to stretch forth her hand towards her husband, whom she supposed to be sleeping at her side. At length another strange sound, which she was sure was not due to her imagination, ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... than ever. He was disposed, if not to listen to Babalatchi, then to let him talk. It was evident to him that the man had something to say, and he hoped that from the talk a ray of light would shoot through the thick blackness of inexplicable treachery, to show him clearly—if only for a second—the man upon whom he would have to execute the verdict of justice. Justice only! Nothing was further from his thoughts than such an useless thing as revenge. ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... After McClellan's inexplicable retreat from before the Rebel Capital —when, having gained a great victory at Malvern Hills, Richmond would undoubtedly have been ours, had he but followed it up, instead of ordering his victorious troops to retreat like "a whipped ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... mystery lies in her not wishing to try to get the jewels back. That, to me, is inexplicable. Because we women love jewels. And no woman carries about jewels worth fifty thousand pounds without caring ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... impulse was, and is, decidedly to return it. Twenty pounds is not of moment to me; and any sacrifice of independence is worth it twenty times' twenty times told. But haggling in my mind is a doubt whether that would be proper, and not boastful (in an inexplicable way); and whether as an author, I have a right to put myself on a basis which the professors of literature in other forms connected with the Institution cannot afford to occupy. Don't you see? But of course you do. The case stands thus. The ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... opinions as a whole, I must own that the Erewhonians are superstitious, on account of the views which they hold of their professed gods, and their entirely anomalous and inexplicable worship of Ydgrun, a worship at once the most powerful, yet most devoid of formalism, that I ever met with; but in practice things worked better than might have been expected, and the conflicting claims of Ydgrun and the gods were arranged by unwritten compromises (for the most part in Ydgrun's ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... "nation in arms," and whose membership is recruited from every stratum of society, there should be such wholesale maltreatment of the privates by their superior officers. And yet such is the fact, inexplicable as it seems at first sight. Against this curse the Kaiser has likewise launched his thunderbolts at some time or other. But they have had no effect. If anything there has been ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... Sahara report many marvels, but none so mysterious and inexplicable as its power of carrying rumour. The desert (say they) is one vast echoing gossip-shop, and a man cannot be killed in the dawn at Mabruk but his death will be whispered before night at Bel Abbas or Amara, and perhaps bruited before the next sun rises ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... all he had in his pockets to be able to say that he had been to New York. But by some inexplicable negligence he had hitherto omitted to go to New York, and being a truthful person (except in the gravest crises) he was obliged ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... strange impression Elsie sometimes produced to wish this young girl to be relieved from it, whatever it was. He turned toward Elsie and looked at her in such a way as to draw her eyes upon him. Then he looked steadily and calmly into them. It was a great effort, for some perfectly inexplicable reason. At one instant he thought he could not sit where he was; he must go and speak to Elsie. Then he wanted to take his eyes away from hers; there was something intolerable in the light that came from them. But he was determined to look her down, and he believed he could do it, for he had ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... trio. Each was known to him by sight; but what on earth the three could be doing together, and, above all, what they could expect from him, was a most inexplicable problem. The first was Sorley Wilson, the son of the owner of the Nonpareil Coalpit. He was a young blood of twenty, heir to a fortune, a keen sportsman, and down for the Easter Vacation from Magdalene College. He sat now upon the edge of the surgery ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... would not have thee mar the lovely casket which contains it. Here!' he called to the waiting-woman, who had witnessed the episode and into whose quick eyes, which had detected the slight wound upon the wrist of the prince, there crept a strange, inexplicable expression of leering triumph, 'here, guard this maiden for a space. Your life shall pay the penalty if aught befalls her in ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... full house. Hence it was, probably, that he was induced to stand single, and dare to appeal to his country solely upon the merits—real or supposed—of his principles. At all events, it seems certain that his resolution did not arise, as some have imagined, from dark and inexplicable intrigue, though it may wear that imposing aspect. But after all, as it has been well observed, it is next to impossible to understand the extraordinary alternations of alliance, neutrality, and opposition, between Pitt and the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... natural in a chronicler who was one of Vespasian's staff, but it is odd in the Jewish commander of Galilee. Again, he makes certain confusions about Hebrew names of places, which are easily explained in a Roman, but are inexplicable in the learned priest he represents himself to be. He says the town of Gamala was so called because of its supposed resemblance to a camel (in Greek, Kamelos), and the Jews corrupted the name.[1] A Roman writer no doubt would have regarded the ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... home sympathies had always been more particularly with Maria and her mother in the old days; yet the family had been affectionate and harmonious. The strange barrier which her prosperity had built up between her and them was quite inexplicable to Matilda. At the same time she was filled with sorrow for the contrast which she knew they felt between her circumstances and their own. She mused, how she could give them comfort or do them good in any way; ...
— Trading • Susan Warner
... inexplicable reason, he felt miserably tongue-tied, and was content to write a message to the Chief Commissioner of Police, London, asking that a skilled detective should be sent ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... of teachers like rainy days and growing pains belong to the inexplicable and inevitable. All teachers have ways, that is to be expected, it is the part of an Emmy Lou to adjust herself to meet, not to try to understand, ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin
... breadth and clearness of colouring so much excels that of almost every other painter, was the peculiar characteristic of the Venetian school which interested him the most, and seemed to him, at first, involved in inexplicable mystery. He was never satisfied with the explanations which the Italian amateurs attempted to give him of what they called the internal light of that master's productions. Repeated experiments, however, enabled him, ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... brought up before his mind what to him was an inexplicable peculiarity of David, Uncle Moses drew a breath ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... for a moment, half in jest, become iron laws to them, they know not why. They will be led by the nose by these vague reports of which I spoke above; and the mere fact that their informant mentioned one village and not another will compel their footsteps with inexplicable power. And yet a little while, yet a few days of this fictitious liberty, and they will begin to hear imperious voices calling on them to return; and some passion, some duty, some worthy or unworthy expectation, will set its hand upon ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... just as the letters of the pronouns mo, do, are in certain situations transposed, and become am, ad. In this situation, perhaps it would be advisible to join the a, in writing, to the dh thus, dol adh Eirin. This would rid us of one superfluous a appearing as a separate inexplicable word. The same remarks apply to the prep. de; e.g., armailt mh['o]r de dhaoinibh agus a dh' eachaibh, a great army of men and of horses, lan do [de] reubainn agus a dh' aingidheachd, full of ravining and wickedness, Luke xi. 39. Do, as has been ...
— Elements of Gaelic Grammar • Alexander Stewart
... mind, on hearing this, became simply inexplicable. Here was an interruption which ought to have annoyed me. It did nothing of the kind—it inspired me ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... conscientiously to explain to himself the sequence which culminated in faith, rather than the public apologist—proceeds by rejection and elimination. He finds the world to be so and so; he finds its character inexplicable by any non-religious theory; among religions he finds Christianity, and Catholic Christianity, to account most satisfactorily for the world and especially for the moral world within; and thus, by what Newman calls "powerful and concurrent" reasons, he finds himself inexorably ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... treatment of that poor woman is inexplicable to me. Why is he so hard with her? It is not in keeping with what I have seen ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... committed under this new regime of mind- power, when brought to light, will make stout hearts quail. Its mystery protects it now, for it is not yet known. Error is more abstract than Truth. Even the healing Principle, [25] whose power seems inexplicable, is not so obscure; for this is the power of God, and good should seem more ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... make good our rush for shelter—leaving the natives who were endeavouring to storm the poop evidently much astonished at our sudden and inexplicable retreat—when the two carronades barked out simultaneously; and the terrific hubbub of shouts and yells down in the waist ceased as though by magic, to be succeeded the next instant by surely the most dreadful ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... thinking with greater rapidity than he had ever thought before. He was surprised to find Ugo, suave and polite as ever, deliberately, coolly rushing affairs to a climax. His sudden decision to abandon the friendly spirit exhibited but half an hour before was as inexplicable as it was critical. What fresh inspiration had caused him ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... the puzzle began to fit slowly together in his mind. But the partial answer at which he arrived seemed too fantastic for belief. Could it be possible that when he had stopped at the roadside stand he had blundered, in some inexplicable way, into another dimension? ...
— Made in Tanganyika • Carl Richard Jacobi
... the corner of the Rue de Choiseul and the Rue de Hanovre, Pons suffered from the inexplicable emotions which torment clear consciences; for a panic terror such as the worst of scoundrels might feel at sight of a policeman, an agony caused solely by a doubt as to Mme. de Marville's probable reception of him. That grain of sand, grating continually on the fibres of his heart, so ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... was all inexplicable. Eventually Maitland shook his head, to signify that he gave it up. There was but one thing to do,—to put it out of mind. He would read a bit, compose himself, ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... What I wanted was to remain in my company and break an inexplicable feeling of constraint of which I was aware. Mills looked at me steadily ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... have been your brother. He looks more like that grand old portrait of your father than his own son does," declared Polly, and some inexplicable feeling sent the scarlet waves to the ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... Suddenly, with that inexplicable breach in the chain of association over which the electric thought seems to leap, as over a mighty void of spiritual space, Cosmo remembered that he had not yet sent the woman whose generous trust had saved him from long pangs of hunger, the price of her loaf. He turned quickly to ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... when she treated me with such unbounded confidence and kindness, or accuse myself of any offence towards her, even in thought, I could understand it; but as it is, her present coldness appears inexplicable and unreasonable, and gives me great pain. I would not forfeit her regard for worlds, and therefore beseech you to tell me what I have done amiss, that I may ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... of Oscar Schmidt, Gustav Jaeger, and others. Even Emil DuBois-Reymond, who, in his celebrated and eloquent lecture on "The Limits of the Knowledge of Nature," given before the assembly of scientists at Leipzig, 1872, asserts so energetically that the origin of sensation and consciousness is inexplicable (see next section), seems to {125} take the origin of self-consciousness for granted, and as needing no further explanation, if ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... happened at Wayne Hall. Since the evening when Elfreda had waited in vain for Laura Atkins, whose invitation to dinner she had accepted, this peculiar young woman had offered neither apology nor explanation for her inexplicable behavior. In fact, the next morning she had completely ignored Elfreda, who, feeling herself to be the aggrieved one, had made no attempt to discover what had prompted this glaring disregard of etiquette on the part of the ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... back," said the consul quietly, without turning round. The gillie slid a quick glance towards the door, but the consul was before him. "I don't think THAT was left by your master," he said in an ostentatiously calm voice, for he was conscious of an absurd and inexplicable tumult in his blood, "and perhaps you'd better ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... unanswerable, inexplicable. They all looked at one another almost helplessly. Pamela ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Farrell returned, the two sisters were alone together. Bridget would gladly have gone away out of sight and hearing of Nelly. But she did not dare to leave the situation—above all, the postman—unwatched. Meanwhile Nelly made repeated efforts to break down the new and inexplicable barrier which seemed to have arisen between herself and Bridget. Why would Bridget always sit alone in that chilly outside room, which even with a large fire seemed to Nelly uninhabitable? She tried to woo her sister, by all the small devices in ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of himself when he came upstairs again for his most ungrateful, inexplicable conduct towards you; and I lectured him well; and upon asking him to 'promise never to behave ill to you again,' he kissed my hands and wagged his tail most emphatically. It altogether amounted to an oath, I think. The truth is that Flush's nervous system rather than his temper was in fault, ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... what's the matter with me tonight. I feel like crying, without knowing why. I am filled with a strange inexplicable happiness, and yet I could just weep and weep. Oh, I know—it's the Springtime; all this fragrance that whips my nerves like a lash. I really believe I'm crazy.... Springtime! My best friend—though she has ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... not altogether inexplicable coincidence, it had been among the employes of this very firm that the smoldering flames of human discontent broke out, that were to grow into the "Strike of the Forty Thousand," a strike that proved to be but the first of a long series of revolts among the foreign ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... de Chambord is good, well-conducted, and well-placed, but it is as unsympathetically disposed an hostelry as one is likely to find. Just why this is so is inexplicable, unless it be that it ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... regarded the murder of Sir Lucien Pyne and the flight or abduction of Mrs. Monte Irvin as mere minor incidents in a case wherein Sin Sin Wa figured as the chief culprit. Nothing had acted so powerfully to bring about this conviction in the mind of the Chief Inspector as the inexplicable disappearance of the Chinaman under circumstances which had ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... common to himself and them, is free from any fault, and yet righteously condemns those whose ministry he uses. Hence was invented the distinction between doing and permitting; because to many persons this has appeared an inexplicable difficulty, that Satan and all the impious are subject to the power and government of God, so that he directs their malice to whatever end he pleases, and uses their crimes for the execution of his judgments. The modesty of those who are alarmed ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... what may be learned by a reverent scrutiny of the nature of things. The more carefully "the Cosmic process" is studied, the clearer it becomes that events are so ordered that, sooner or later, everything helps toward richer and better conditions. A tidal wave or a pestilence may seem to be inexplicable, but even pestilence teaches men habits of thrift and cleanliness, and tidal waves warn them of their points ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford
... shuddering at the arrows and the guns, her whole fear concentrated upon the sole life for which her own was prized. Upon this eminence, then, these lookers-on stood aloof. And the meek ears of Henry heard through the fog the inexplicable, sullen, ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that might be compared to the capillary tubes of madrepores, or to the roads made by insects in the barks of trees. After so many turnings and windings, your head swims, a vertigo seizes you, and you wonder if you are not a mollusk in an immense shell. I do not speak of the mysterious corners, of inexplicable coecums, low doors opening no one knows whither, dark stairways descending into profound depths; for I could never finish talking of this architecture, which you seem to walk through as if ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... Saxons tongue." And when that language "waxed olde and out of common usage," he says, the Bible "was again translated into the newer language." There has never been any means of testing these statements, which were probably due to some inexplicable error. Abundant evidence exists relating to many Saxon and later translations of various parts of the Bible before the time of Wycliffe. Among the most notable of the early translators were the Venerable Bede and Alfred the Great. Some portions of Scripture were likewise ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... not the heart only which is concerned here; without God man remains inexplicable to his own reason. The spiritual creature of the Almighty, free by the act of creation, and capable of falling into slavery by rebellion,—he understands his nature and his destiny; but it is in vain that the apostles of matter and the worshippers of humanity harangue him in turn to explain ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... stories and of other enterprises, is not half the battle; it is next to being quite unimportant, and, moreover, it is always easy. The unexplained corpse lies weltering in its gore in the first paragraph; the inexplicable cipher presents its enigma at the turning of the opening page. The writer who is secure in the knowledge that he has got a good thing coming, and has arranged the manner and details of its coming, cannot go far wrong with his exordium; he ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... with those odds and ends in which the youthful soul delights. There are planks and spars and timber, broken rudders, rusty anchors, coils of rope, bales of sail-cloth, heaps of blocks, piles of chain-cable, great iron tar-kettles like antique helmets, strange machines for steaming planks, inexplicable little chimneys, engines that seem like dwarf-locomotives, windlasses that apparently turn nothing, and incipient canals that lead nowhere. For in these yards there seems no particular difference between ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... way beneath him and he had dropped through into another, into a world of luminous clouds and of desolate hopeless wildernesses of desiring and of wild valleys of unreasonable ecstasies, a world whose infinite miseries were finer and in some inexplicable way sweeter than the purest gold of the daily life, whose joys—they were indeed but the merest remote glimpses of joy—were brighter than a dying martyr's vision of heaven. Her smiling face looked down upon him ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... improvement over anything we have struck since leaving Herat, and by noon we arrive at Karize. For some inexplicable reason the Sooltan of Karize receives our party with very ill grace. He looks sick, and is probably suffering from fever, which may account for the evident ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... truth of character, for beauty of form; the theatrical devices became for him ends in themselves; of these he was as ingenious a master as is the juggler in another art when he tosses his bewildering balls, or smiles at the triumph of his inexplicable surprises. ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... Apparently, it has no foundation whatever; it rises from cloud, it is lost in cloud, and it spans an inpenetrable abyss. A mist, which no wind disperses, involves both extremities of our intellectual career, and we are seen to pass like shadows across the fantastic, inexplicable interval. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... from the realm of the supernatural and placed among natural phenomena which could be explained by natural laws. Among the first mysteries to be thus comprehended by natural law were those of astronomy. The complicated and yet harmonious motions of the heavenly bodies had hitherto been inexplicable. To explain them many a sublime conception of almighty power had arisen, and the study of the heavenly bodies ever gave rise to the highest thoughts of Deity. But Newton's law of gravitation reduced the whole to the greatest simplicity. ...
— The Story of the Living Machine • H. W. Conn
... of terror—that well-vouched tale which the narrator, having first expressed his general disbelief of all such legendary lore, selects and produces, as having something in it which he has been always obliged to give up as inexplicable. Another symptom is, a momentary hesitation to look round you, when the interest of the narrative is at the highest; and the third, a desire to avoid looking into a mirror, when you are alone, in your chamber, for ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... so Denis, without a moment's hesitation, stepped within and partly closed the door behind him to conceal his place of refuge. Nothing was further from his thoughts than to close it altogether; but for some inexplicable reason - perhaps by a spring or a weight - the ponderous mass of oak whipped itself out of his fingers and clanked to, with a formidable rumble and a noise like the falling of an ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... smashed to pieces was inexplicable, for the sheer wall of rock that penned me in was, I judged, at least five hundred feet in height, and the horses' bones now picked clean by the aasvogels had been smashed by the terrible fall. A short examination of my little domain showed ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... power of ignoring their own decease. Judaism has been dead these eighteen hundred years; yet here are Jew synagogues in New York and Boston. Were the like true of individuals, it might explain to us some lives which seem inexplicable on any other hypothesis. I think, for example, of some editors, who are evidently post-dating their decease; and when these go on writing leading articles, and being sweet upon "our brethren of the South," one ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... Besides, with them everything was easy come, easy go. That was why life itself went on so carelessly and usually ended so cheaply. There were men among them, however, that made Duane feel that terrible inexplicable wrath rise in his breast. He could not bear to be near them. He could not trust himself. He felt that any instant a word, a deed, something might call too deeply to that instinct he could no longer control. Jackrabbit Benson was one of these men. Because of him and other outlaws of his ilk Duane ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... "The steep, grass-covered sides of a mountainous valley in Westmorland, called Grisedale, were marked in many places with innumerable, almost horizontal, little ledges...Their formation was in no way connected with the action of worms (and their absence is an inexplicable fact)...(ibid., page 282.), mentioned in my book and observed whilst I was correcting the proof-sheets, made me feel rather doubtful. Yet the Corniche case (782/5. Ibid., page 281.) shows that worms at least aid in making the ledges. Nevertheless, ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... ridiculous though it seemed, that in some subtle and inexplicable fashion he was in danger. At any rate, he was hopelessly bewildered. He did not understand why this very beautiful lady should look at him as though they were old friends, why her eyes should appeal to him so often for sympathy, why her fingers, which a moment ago ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... inexplicable chain which forms the circle of human events, each individual link is placed on a level with the others, and performs an equal task; but, as the world is partial, it is the situation that attracts the attention of mankind, ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
... just awaking in paradise. And ever and anon came on the still air the soft eternal pulsations of the distant sea, sound mournfulest, most mysterious, of all the harpings of Nature. It was the sea,—the deep, eternal sea,—the treacherous, soft, dreadful, inexplicable sea; and he was perhaps at this moment being borne away on it,—away, away,—to what sorrows, to what temptations, to what dangers, she knew not. She looked along the old, familiar, beaten path by which he came, by which he went, and thought, "What if he never should come back?" ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... immediately aroused the indignation of Lord Adolphus Fitzclarence and his brother-officers by steering, apparently without any reason, right across the bows of the Fairy. Prince Albert, who was on deck, was the first to discover the cause of the inexplicable conduct of the men in the Custom-house boat. "He called out that he saw a man in the water;" the Queen hurried out of her pavilion, and distinguished a man on what turned out to be the keel of a boat. "Oh ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... yards from the gate; although he had not appeared ill when I stroked his nose on the previous evening; but when I saw him lying there dead, and remembered the old native's words, it seemed to me as marvellous and inexplicable that a horse should act in that way, as if some wild creature—a rhea, a fawn, or dolichotes—had come to exhale his last breath at the gates of his enemy and ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... discouraging and a dreadful check to my plans, but by some sudden transition wholly inexplicable, I had already half given them up. My discontent and melancholy had been exhausted in the running away; and a few hours experience of disenchantment reconciled me ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... this man surpassed the fondest expectation that I had formed. I saw no reason why I should be treated with benevolence. I should have acted in the same manner if placed in the same circumstances; yet it appeared incongruous and inexplicable. I know whence my ideas of human nature were derived. They certainly were not the offspring of my own feelings. These would have taught me that interest and duty were blended in ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... let fall the precious relic with gestures of horror. To these ingenuous souls the mystery that wrapped their unknown visitor became inexplicable, and the priest from that day forth forbade himself to search for ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... man in tweeds, who was the entire reverse of one's idea of an Emperor, grew confidential, and it was plain that he was quite as much impressed by Grichka as the Empress had been, for throughout the audience the monk had used to the full his inexplicable ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... house. There is a singular tradition concerning it in our family." Here the Marquis hesitated, and a cloud seemed to gather about his bushy eyebrows. "There is a tradition—that a strange occurrence took place that night—a strange, mysterious, inexplicable occurrence." ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... dwelling! Dwelling indeed no more but for the hoodie-crow, and for the fawn of the hill that years after I saw treading over the grass-grown lintel of its door. To-night the place was full of empty airs and ghosts of sounds inexplicable, wailing among the cabars that jutted black and scarred mid-way from wall to wall The byre was in a huddle of damp thatch, and strewn (as God's my judge) by the bones of the cattle the enemy had refused to drive before them in the sauciness ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... persist so long a time as he has in his course of contumacy towards the Church. Have we not evidence enough in his writings alone to convict him of heresy? The carelessness of the bishop upon such a matter as this is quite inexplicable!' ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... extreme terror, habitually characterized his utterance. There were times, indeed, when I thought his unceasingly agitated mind was laboring with some oppressive secret, to divulge which he struggled for the necessary courage. At times, again, I was obliged to resolve all into the mere inexplicable vagaries of madness; for I beheld him gazing upon vacancy for long hours, in an attitude of the profoundest attention, as if listening to some imaginary sound. It was no wonder that his condition terrified—that ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... exhibited a courage and resolution which, directed aright, became useful to society and to themselves. The petty thief, often detected in his least offence, proved incapable of shame or gratitude. To an English reader, preference expressed by masters for persons under heavy sentences, would appear inexplicable; but it was founded, not on length of servitude alone, but a not uncommon superiority of disposition. Those transported for agrarian offences and political crimes, were often honest men. The rustic insurgents of 1832, were considered valuable servants. The Canadian prisoners conducted ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... was inexplicable to me. But I knew Inley, knew that he was bound to tell me what was on his mind. He could be reserved, but not with me. So I took a cigar, cut the end off it deliberately, struck a match, lighted it, and began to smoke in silence. He ...
— The Spinster - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... and we did walk up the road together, actually ascending the hill I had just descended; but all this did not induce me to overlook the fact that Lucy's manner was hurried and excited. The whole seemed so inexplicable, that I thought I would wait her own pleasure ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... some change in his position his turban had fallen off. This, in itself not very serious or remarkable accident, gave him on the present occasion much apprehension and concern. For in his turban he had placed, as has been mentioned, the invisible object, whatever it might be, which had in some inexplicable manner conferred upon him also, while he was in contact with ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... world by a kind of fall or mistake; and in order to atone for his folly, he is bound to remain in it himself until he works out his redemption. As an account of the origin of things, that is admirable! According to the doctrines of Buddhism, the world came into being as the result of some inexplicable disturbance in the heavenly calm of Nirvana, that blessed state obtained by expiation, which had endured so long a time—the change taking place by a kind of fatality. This explanation must be understood as having at bottom ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism • Arthur Schopenhauer
... her heart Elizabeth knew perfectly well that this was because Nutty, when in the presence of the bees, lost his head completely and behaved like an exaggerated version of Lady Wetherby's Dream of Psyche, whereas Bill maintained an easy calm; but at the moment she put the phenomenon down to that inexplicable cussedness which does so much to exasperate the human race, and it fed her annoyance ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... mountain river, as with booming sound it rises and falls in the distance, filling the ear of midnight with its wild and continuous melody. Look around, and observe the spirit of repose which sleeps on the face of nature; think upon the dream of human life, and of all the inexplicable wonders which are read from day to day in that miraculous page—the heart of man. Neither your eye nor imagination need pass beyond that humble roof before you, in which it is easy to perceive, by the lights passing at this unusual hour across the windows, that ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... It was inexplicable, intolerable that she should be so unhappy. What was it that tortured her so—hatred of Marcella Maxwell, or pain that she had lost her husband? But she had never imagined herself in love with him when she married him. He had never ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Audrey's portrait; but however great his discomfiture, he, being the successful lover, could afford a little pity for Ted as the victim of a hopeless passion. To Ted, on the other hand, the revelation of Hardy's feelings threw light on Audrey's conduct. It accounted for everything that was most inexplicable in it. It must have been the news of Hardy's return that made her break off her engagement so suddenly. His instinct told him that she had probably given her word to her cousin before he left England; ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... mounted in him, as he rode through the damp night on his motor-cycle, such an inexplicable and intense exhilaration, that this ugly hall which was at the end of his journey, with its stone corridors in which a stream of people wearing mackintoshes and carrying umbrellas made sad, noises with their feet, seemed an anti-climax. ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... on both sides, and if ever difference admitted of discussion, interpretation, if necessary, arbitration even, it is certainly this. Be sure, therefore, that Europe, attentive to all that is passing, and desirous of averting war, will find it inexplicable if the question be put in insulting terms, of a nature ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... in the house One whose office it is to bind up the broken-hearted. It was not that she did not grieve, or that no void cried out again and again to be filled. But she learned a paradox as the days went on: of an inexplicable peace beneath the sharpest pain, and of a buoyant joy that would not be held down by sorrow. Hubert looked on, making mental notes as to what had happened, ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... when I return." Her footstep was heard tripping along the passage, and in a moment after, the street door of the house opened and shut. Charlotte perceiving that her friend was determined, for some inexplicable reason, to be alone, quietly resumed her seat. Her musing air was soon changed to one of surprise, by the following remark ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper
... dignified but courteous greeting. With mouth a little open and knees which seemed to have collapsed, he stared at this unexpected apparition as he came into sight and stared at him as he entered the hotel. Hunterleys glanced behind with a slight frown. The incident, inexplicable though it was, would have passed at once from his memory, but that directly he entered the hotel he was conscious of the very similar behaviour and attitude towards him of the chief reception clerk. He paused on his way, a little bewildered, and called the man ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... seen by me for the first time, had a fearful familiarity. In some occult state of spiritual existence I seemed to have known them all. I have learned that the soul may enter into communion with other minds otherwise than through the senses,—nay, more, it may thus take an inexplicable cognizance of material things. Of this I have had such proof as it would be infatuation to doubt. I was compelled to test this startling suspicion ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... run in the direction in which, according to all sound reasoning, they ought to run. This part of the speech was not perfectly lucid, though, as I understood our unfortunate captain, the laws of nature, owing to some inexplicable influence, had departed, in some way or other, from their ordinary workings, expressly to wreck the John. If this were not the meaning of what he said, I did not understand this part of ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... And in the essential vesture of creation/Does bear all excellency; We in terrestrial] I do not think the present reading inexplicable. The author seems to use essential, for existent, real. She excels the praises of invention, says he, and in real qualities, with which creation has ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... last for Helen in Paradise Park, gave rise to a strange and inexplicable restraint. She had little to say. Bo was in the highest spirits, teasing the pets, joking with her uncle and Roy, and even poking fun at Dale. The hunter seemed somewhat somber. Roy was his usual dry, genial self. And Auchincloss, who sat near by, was an interested ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... above, or exceeding that which is NORMAL; extraordinary, inexplicable perhaps, but NOT supernatural." Now, the term "normal" means: "Conforming to a certain standard, rule, or type"; hence, anything that is "supernormal" is something that is ABOVE THE USUAL PATTERN, ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... As love is inexplicable, so is friendship. No man can explain why David held Jonathan in such high esteem. Between men it would appear that admiration is no part of friendship. And such as have the patience to follow the lives of the two Englishmen thus brought ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... means of gaining Religious Truth, it goes beyond its place. We are putting it to a larger office than it can undertake, if we countenance the usurpation; and we are turning a true guide and blessing into a source of inexplicable difficulty and interminable doubt. ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... of them was described as sound outside, but within, for many feet, a mass of rottenness and decay. If a boy should climb up birdsnesting into the fork of it, thought I, he might go down feet first and hands overhead, and never be heard of again. How inexplicable too, as well as melancholy, such a disappearance would be! Then, 'as when a great thought strikes along the brain and flushes all the cheek,' it struck me what an appropriate end it would be—with fear (lest he should turn up again) ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... that those children had been kept for days without food. Besides, the starving multitudes had heard, that the very existence of their distress had been denied in Parliament; and though they felt this strange and inexplicable, yet the idea that their misery had still to be revealed in all its depths, and that then some remedy would be found, soothed their aching hearts, and ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Chant-la, Chief of the Slavis at Hay River. Bishop Reeves was anxious to convert him to the Christian faith, but had great difficulty in giving Chant-la a proper conception of the Trinity. The old man would not say he believed or understood what was inexplicable to him. Setting out once on a long journey, the cleric adjured the Chief to struggle with the problem during his absence. The Bishop returning, Chant-la came out in his canoe to meet him, eagerly reporting that all now was clear. "It is like Great Slave ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... regret that lost folly. A part of me died, you understand, when it vanished, and it is not exhilarating to think of one's self as even partially dead. Once—I hardly know"—he sought the phrase,—"once this was a spacious and inexplicable world, with a mystery up every lane and an adventure around each street-corner; a world inhabited by most marvelous men and women,—some amiable, and some detestable, but every one of them very interesting. ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... before her was deceiving her. He had some sinister motive in thus endeavouring to plant seeds of suspicion within her mind. It was plain that he was endeavouring in some way to secure his own ends. Those ends, however, were a complete and inexplicable mystery. ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... arising out of the declaration that strained him very much, and in the evening when he was relieved, he ate his scanty supper and then went out upon the little balcony before the station, to smoke and rest his brains after this sudden and as yet inexplicable press of duty. It was a very beautiful, still evening. He fell talking to a fellow operator, and for the first time, he declares, 'I began to understand what it was all about. I began to see just what enormous issues had been ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... to reply, when Scott entered from the tower-room. He had heard her last remark, and his dark, piercing eyes were fixed upon her face in keen scrutiny. She was quick to note the fact and hesitated an instant, while a change, inexplicable to the attorney, passed over her face,—surprise, a shade almost of fear, and haughty defiance were visible in quick succession; then, turning again towards Mr. ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... breast. This is most important advice. Sometimes a child, for some inexplicable reason, prefers one breast to the other, and the mother, to save a little contention, concedes the point, and allows him to have his own way. And what is frequently ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... strong modern school of writers care only to talk of misery and gloom and frustration, I retain a taste for joy and sweetness and kindliness. Life has so many sharp crosses, so many inexplicable sorrows for us all, that I hold it good to snatch at every moment of gladness, and to keep my eyes on beautiful things whenever they can be seen. During the days when I was pondering the subject of tragic marriages, I read the letters of the great Lord ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... rolled myself up in the bed-clothes and tried to get warm. Nearly all night I lay there shivering with cold; and when I finally slept, I slept very soundly. I did not wake up until quite late the next morning. To my utter astonishment my camp was in the most inexplicable confusion. My trunks were broken open, and their contents were scattered everywhere. Everything about the cabin was torn up and thrown about the floor. My wife's jewelry, my cloak, my pistol and ammunition were missing. I supposed Indians had robbed my camp ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan
... Benedetto had exhausted him, and he stood for an instant panting and breathless. The shrieks had now grown fainter and the hall was full of smoke. During all this time neither Ali nor any of the servants under him had appeared, a circumstance that, to Monte-Cristo, seemed inexplicable. He, however, did not pause to give it thought, but dashed up the stairway and strove to reach his wife's apartment; blinding, stifling clouds of smoke, through which penetrated the glare of the conflagration, drove him back again and again, but he renewed his ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... engaged in the castings were simply humming with energy, and when they entered the nearest door they were amazed. Double the number of men that were at work the day before were now engaged and were working with an intensity that seemed inexplicable to Max. ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... lasted just long enough for her to make a hasty exception: she would begin her exclusive use of the truth as soon as she had told Polly a neat lie in explanation of her inexplicable journey to Baltimore. ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... Nelly's world was very good to her in those days. As for Robin Drummond, he thought of women with a chivalrous tenderness somewhat strange considering that the Dowager was his mother. To him they were something delicate, mysterious, inexplicable. If he had had a sister he would have adored her. Not having one, he lavished on Nelly the feeling he would have given a sister; and hitherto he had been content with the ardour of his feelings. What could a man wish for sweeter and prettier beside his hearth than little Nelly? He had fallen in ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... been added to that constant and apparently purposeless series of small mysteries which had succeeded each other so rapidly. Setting aside the whole grim story of Sir Charles's death, we had a line of inexplicable incidents all within the limits of two days, which included the receipt of the printed letter, the black-bearded spy in the hansom, the loss of the new brown boot, the loss of the old black boot, and now the return of the new brown boot. Holmes sat in silence in ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle
... misleading statement. Othello, as Coleridge pointed out, is not a constitutionally jealous man, such as Leontes in The Winter's Tale. His distrust of his wife is the natural suspicion of a man lost amid new and inexplicable surroundings. {183} Women are proverbially suspicious in business, not because nature made them so, but because, as they are in utter ignorance of standards by which to judge, they feel their helplessness in ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... slender swaying hips, in her voice, her hands, her words, and in the blackness of her abundant hair braided low upon the nape of her slender neck. And this illusion—stronger than the illusion of beauty because more subtle, more tantalisingly inexplicable, caught and held his attention with a vivid ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... ignorant of the solution, this must, I think, seem inexplicable. How was collusion managed between the animal and its master? One of the conditions insisted upon by the master himself was silence. He certainly never broke it. I bought the trick - must I confess it? ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... the idea of value there is no assignable cause, no possible explanation. The fact of which I speak is one of those called primitive,—that is, one of those which may serve to explain others, but which in themselves, like the bodies called simple, are inexplicable. Such is the dualism of spirit and matter. Spirit and matter are two terms each of which, taken separately, indicates a special aspect of spirit, but corresponds to no reality. So, given man's needs of a great variety of products together with ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon |
