"Supernaturally" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the face of Keats taken after death, and a few portraits of friends, added their interest to the atmosphere of a salon that seemed made for poets' uses. There were vast expanses of mirrors in the old carved Florentine frames, a colossal green velvet sofa, suggesting a catafalque, and a supernaturally deep easy-chair, in the same green velvet, which was Mrs. Browning's favorite seat when she donned her singing robes. Near this low arm-chair was always her little table, strewn with writing materials, books, and newspapers. Other tables ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... his house, on the night of the storm. I detected in every word he spoke an artful lure to trap me into trusting him as my second father, more than as my friend. I heard in the tempest sounds which mysteriously interrupted, or mingled with, my answers, voices supernaturally warning me of my enemy, each time that I spoke to him. I saw once more the hideous smile of triumph on his face, as I took leave of him on the doorstep: and saw it, this time, not as an illusion produced by a flash of lightning, but as a frightful reality which ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... discovering the universal laws of the human mind; the exceptional character which belongs to the latter member of the comparison increasing rather than diminishing the value of the study. All alike are adjusted, the one class naturally and accidentally, the other designedly and supernaturally, to the religious elements of human nature. All have a subjective existence as aspirations of the heart, an objective as institutions, and a history which is connected with the revolutions of literature and ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... out! She entered on the world of spirits, where all secrets show revealed; and there she read, almost before she died—whilst yet the black curtain of eternity was gradually rising to receive her—the innocence of good Maria, and the deep-stained villany of John. Her last words—uttered supernaturally from her quiescence, with the fervour of a visionary whose ken is more than mortal—were "Look, look, Thomas!—beware of John. O poor, poor innocent outcast!—O rich, rich heart ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... persuaded to sanction any ceremony whatever. Lady St. Jerome and Miss Arundel, however, did their best to compensate for this omission with reverences which a posture-master might have envied, and certainly would not have surpassed. They seemed to sink into the earth, and then slowly and supernaturally to emerge. The bishop had been at college with the cardinal and intimate with him, though they now met for the first time since his secession—a not uninteresting rencounter. The bishop was high-church, and would not himself have made a bad cardinal, being polished ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... the best men among us to-day would have been able to escape his errors, or the misfortunes to which they gave rise. And yet there is one thing certain: that of all these misfortunes none had super-human origin; not one was supernaturally, or too mysteriously, inevitable. They came not from another world; they were launched by no monstrous god, capricious and incomprehensible. They were born of an idea of justice that men failed to grasp; an idea of justice ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... loosed his hold upon Joab, who remained unharmed, while Abner fell dead instantly. God had decided against him. (86) The reason was that Joab was in a measure justified in seeking to avenge the death of his brother Asahel. Asahel, the supernaturally swift runner, (87) so swift that he ran through a field without snapping the ears of wheat (88) had been the attacking party. He had sough to take Abner's life, and Abner contended, that in killing Asahel he had but acted in self-defense. Before inflicting the fatal wound, Joab ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... and then made his way along the stretch of sand which extended to the spot where the party had landed when he first reached this coast. He stopped and looked about him, and then, in fancy, he saw Edna standing upon the beach, her face pale, her eyes large and supernaturally dark, and behind her Mrs. Cliff and the boy and the two negroes. Not until this moment had he felt that he was alone. But now there came a great desire to speak and be spoken to, and yet that very morning he had spoken and listened as much as had ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... glance in his uncle's face, for he suspected, from the manner in which these words were uttered, that the old man was amusing himself a little at his expense. The admiral, however, looked so supernaturally serious that Charles ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... mysterious agency by means of which news travels on board ship as though supernaturally conveyed, the deck was crowded in a very few moments by practically every passenger and most of the officers. Every form of telescope and field-glass was directed towards the now clearly visible seaplane. Speculations were ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was accompanied by a still more singular transfiguration of countenance—a dark, fiery glory burned in his eyes, and, in the stern, frowning wonder and defiance of his expression and attitude, there was something grand yet terrible,— menacing yet supernaturally sublime. He stood so for an instant's space, majestically sombre, like some haughty, discrowned emperor confronting his conqueror,—a rumbling, long-continued roll of thunder outside seemed to recall him to himself, and he pressed his hand tightly down over his eyelids, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... displeased the workpeople, who were to be intimidated by the red-coats. Although not a magistrate, he spared no pains to track out the Luddites concerned in the assassination I have mentioned; and was so successful in his acute unflinching energy, that it was believed he had been supernaturally aided; and the country people, stealing into the fields surrounding Heald's Hall on dusky winter evenings, years after this time, declared that through the windows they saw Parson Roberson dancing, in a strange red light, with ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... men who love it and labor for its world-wide circulation, are the good and the useful. You cannot have a better companion than the Bible, if you will use it judiciously. There is no danger that you should rate it too high. If you should regard it as supernaturally inspired, it will do you no harm. Such ideas may make you read it more carefully, and pay more respect to its teachings, and that will be a blessing. Men are in no danger of prizing good books too highly. As a rule, they ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... wilderness of pines. The deep gloom of the forest, in the spectral light which revealed on all sides of me a compact and unending growth of trunks, and an impervious canopy of somber foliage; the shrieking of night-birds; the supernaturally human scream of the Mountain lion; the prolonged howl of the wolf, made me insensible to all other forms ...
— Thirty-Seven Days of Peril - from Scribner's Monthly Vol III Nov. 1871 • Truman Everts
... seen faces that seemed old-fashioned? Many of the people in Deephaven church looked as if they must be—if not supernaturally old—exact copies of their remote ancestors. I wonder if it is not possible that the features and expression may be almost perfectly reproduced. These faces were not modern American faces, but belonged ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... in ascribing to the Hebrews an erroneous scientific conception if there is any evidence that they held it. We cannot too clearly realize that the writers of the Scriptures were not supernaturally inspired to give correct technical scientific descriptions; and supposing they had been so inspired, we must bear in mind that we should often consider those descriptions wrong just in proportion to their correctness, for ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... winning graces in her supposed station of life. This led on to many interchanges of endearment and enjoyment on all sides, in the midst of which the Inexhaustible being observed staring, in a most imbecile manner, on Mrs Boffin's breast, was pronounced to be supernaturally intelligent as to the whole transaction, and was made to declare to the ladies and gemplemorums, with a wave of the speckled fist (with difficulty detached from an exceedingly short waist), 'I have already informed my venerable Ma that I ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... traditions of earlier ages, or of some higher and more educated caste which has been destroyed, may give rise to the notion of degeneracy from a primaeval state of superior intelligence, or of science supernaturally communicated. But had the original stock of mankind been really endowed with such superior intellectual powers and with inspired knowledge and had possessed the same improvable nature as their posterity, the point of advancement which they would have reached ere this would have ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... unproductive debate. On the whole, it seemed likely that the critic would win the day, and the essay on "The Rhythmical Structures of Walt Whitman" take shape before "The Banished God." Yet if the light in the cave was less supernaturally blue, the chant of its tides less laden with unimaginable music, it was still a thronged and echoing place when Undine Spragg appeared ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... the mother's life has been wicked? No! If the departed spirit can bring with it a blessing, the departed spirit can bring with it a curse. I dared not confess to Eunice that the influence of her murderess-mother might, as I thought possible, have been supernaturally present when she heard temptation whispering in her ear; but I dared not deny it to myself. All that I could say to satisfy and sustain her, I did say. And when I declared—with my whole heart declared—that the noble passion which ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... to it, the idea of Revelation is one which hardly any one trained in the school—that is to say, any school—of modern Philosophy is likely to accept. The idea that pieces of information have been supernaturally and without any employment of their own intellectual faculties communicated at various times to particular persons, their truth being guaranteed by miracles—in the sense of interruptions of the ordinary course of nature by an extraordinary fiat ...
— Philosophy and Religion - Six Lectures Delivered at Cambridge • Hastings Rashdall
... his close-cropped silver head with one hand, and with the other wrung a few drops of liquid from his huge moustache, looking up at Paul meanwhile with a crafty benevolence in his eye, like a supernaturally wise old parrot. ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... whose founder had at different times identified himself as Saint Germain, Jesus, George Washington, and Godfre Ray King, were convicted of using the mails to defraud by obtaining money on the strength of having supernaturally healed hundreds of persons, they found the Court in a softened frame of mind. Although the trial judge, carefully discriminating between the question of the truth of defendants' pretensions and that of their good faith in advancing them, had charged ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... the Logos does not seem to be mentioned again; Jesus appears as the supernatural Lord (though this word is not characteristic of the Gospel) who reveals the Father to men. He offers them salvation by regeneration in baptism, and by eating his flesh and blood in the Eucharist. They become supernaturally the children of God. This is the teaching of the Hellenised Church, not of the historic Jesus. But running through the Gospel there is also another line of thought which regards salvation as due to knowledge rather than sacraments. ...
— Landmarks in the History of Early Christianity • Kirsopp Lake
... started on hearing these words pronounced with such a haughty and dignified accent; it appeared to him as if there was something supernaturally gloomy and terrible in the expression which gleamed from the brilliant eyes of Haidee at this moment; she appeared like a Pythoness evoking a spectre, as she recalled to his mind the remembrance of the fearful death of this man, to the news ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... given by faith works in the line of its possessor's natural faculties; but these are supernaturally reinforced and strengthened while, at the same time, they are curbed and controlled, by the divine gift, and the natural gifts thus dealt with become what Paul calls charisms. The whole nature of a Christian ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... three associations at the same time, with perhaps two or three other collateral matters which may be still living in my memory, but which I no not as yet identify, a mental perception of startling vividness would be the result, and I should have falsely imagined that it had supernaturally, as it were, started into life from an entire oblivion extending over many years. Probably many persons would have registered such a case as evidence that things once perceived can never wholly vanish from the ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... aurochs, once the companion of mammoths, still survives, but owes his present and precarious existence to man's care. Now, nothing that we know of forbids the hypothesis that some new species have been independently and supernaturally created within the period which other species have survived. Some may even believe that man was created in the days of the mammoth, became extinct, and was recreated at a later date. But why not say the same of the aurochs, contemporary both of the old man and of the new? Still it is more natural, ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... comrades into a mystic frame of mind, and to make them keep silence ('so help you mercy!') as to what they have seen. These are the mysterious means which those have to use that would make themselves the medium of a message supernaturally revealed. [5] ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... his tempera picture of Venus, with the pale blue scaly sea, the laurel grove, the flower-embroidered garments, the wisps of tawny hair, is comparatively mediaeval; Pinturricchio's sketch of fauns and satyrs contrasts strangely with his frescos in the library of Silena; Mantegna himself, supernaturally antique in his engravings, becomes almost trivial and modern in his oil paintings. Do what they might, draw from the antique, calculate its proportions, the artists of the Renaissance found themselves baffled as soon as they attempted to apply the result of ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... hurls statistics and whole strata of geological facts at your head, whilst you can only buffet him with deductions and instincts and the snowflakes of faith, that are, alas! so apt to melt in the hot embers of our troubles. How little chance, then, should I have against one whose brain was supernaturally sharpened, and who had two thousand years of experience, besides all manner of knowledge of the secrets of Nature at her command! Feeling that she would be more likely to convert me than I should to convert her, I thought it best to leave the matter ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... his shoulder. It was a bleached and a long-chinned face—the countenance of Lorne's portrait—only more faded, sinister, and apathetic. And having, as it were, secured its awful command over me by a protracted gaze, he rose, supernaturally lean and tall, and drew near ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... they stopped at an inn. But Dick slept in the cart. At three in the morning they took the road again, and creaked along supernaturally loud under a purple firmament studded with huge stars, all bright as moons, that lit the way quite clear, and showed black things innumerable flitting to and fro; these made Phoebe shudder, but were no doubt harmless; still ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... at the moment, and jumbling together an extravagant whole too good to be true. But there were only a few miles of it left after Delft: and we hadn't reveled in impossibly delicious farm-yards and supernaturally bowery gardens half long enough, when we ran into the outskirts of The Hague—"S. Gravenhage," as I love to call ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... Esperance was not present, and Albert began to look uneasy. But they had not long to wait, and when she did appear she was dressed all in white, an embroidered scarf fastened about her waist, and several orchids arranged like a coronet in her hair. At that moment she seemed almost supernaturally beautiful. ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... imagination.(59) If this is true, every supernatural thought must be preceded by a corresponding phantasm to excite and sustain it. As for the sensitive appetite, it may either assume the form of concupiscence and hinder the work of salvation, or aid it by favorable emotions excited supernaturally. St. Augustine says that the delectatio victrix has for its object "to impart sweetness to that which gave no pleasure."(60) St. Paul, who thrice besought the Lord to relieve him of the sting of his flesh, was told: "My grace is sufficient ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle
... transforms ethics. Religion thus exercises a function of the Life of Reason. And a further function which is common to both is that of emancipating man from his personal limitations. In different ways religions promise to transfer the soul to better conditions. A supernaturally favoured kingdom is to be established for posterity upon earth, or for all the faithful in heaven, or the soul is to be freed by repeated purgations from all taint and sorrow, or it is to be lost in the absolute, or it is to become an influence and an object of adoration in the places ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... beauty, she has, according to public clamour, infinite riches and right royal treasure, the acquisition of which is vehemently attributed to sorcery, or at least to robberies committed by the aid of magical attractions and her supernaturally amorous person. ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... consoling others and keeping them under an illusion, although she knew personally that her case was hopeless. Hubert and Felicien, in continual adoration before their idol, had neither seen nor felt anything unusual. Then Angelique, exerting herself almost supernaturally, rose up, and was more charming than ever, as she slowly moved back and forth with the light step of former days. She continued to speak of her wish, saying if it were granted she would be so happy, and that after the wedding she would certainly be cured. Moreover, the ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... there ever any mention made saving only in that Law which God himself hath from Heaven revealed? There is not in the world a syllable muttered with certain truth concerning any of these three, more than hath been supernaturally received from the ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... back, and again, my eyes fell on that place in the wall gleaming white in the moonlight. Again I felt the chill, the horror! Again my eyes remained glued to this one spot; and again I beheld the passing of that dog, running with jaws extended and, head held low—fearsome, uncanny, supernaturally horrible; a thing to flee from, if one could only flee instead of standing stock-still on the sward, gazing with eyes that seemed starting from their sockets till it had plunged through that gap in the wall and ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... almost ridiculously in earnest. In the mind of the cavalier, woman was a being of mystic power. As in the old forests of Germany, she had been listened to like a spirit of the woods, melodious, solemn and oracular. So when chivalry became an institution, the same idea of something supernaturally beautiful in her character threw a shadow over her life, and she was not only loved but revered. And never were men more constant to their fair ladies than in the proudest ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... aetherialized as she faded away. A hectic flush, like a spot of fire, came and went for a time, and at last settled permanently upon her cheek. Her eyes, those glorious orbs, filled with unquenchable love, grew supernaturally large and brilliant with the flames that fed upon her vital forces. Amelie sickened and sank rapidly. The vulture of quick consumption had fastened upon ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... spirit to appear in earthly clothing—of silk or merino, as the case may be—it's no great stretch to suppose, next, that this same spirit is capable of holding a mortal pencil, and of writing mortal words in a mortal sketching-book. And if the ghost vanishes (which your ghost did), it seems supernaturally appropriate that the writing should follow the example and vanish too. And the reason of the vanishment may be (if you want a reason), either that the ghost does not like letting a stranger like me into its secrets, or that vanishing is a settled habit of ghosts and of everything associated with ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... towards two o'clock, there came a violent storm of thunder and lightning. Louisa started up in bed at the first clap, waking Helena. The room palpitated with white light for two seconds; the mirror on the dressing-table glared supernaturally. Louisa clutched her friend. All was dark again, ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... and lovely person, for the first time at Smock Alley Theatre in the bewitching, melting, and all tearful character of Isabella. From the repeated panegyrics of the impartial London newspapers, we were taught to expect the sight of a heavenly angel, but how were we supernaturally surprised into almost awful joy at beholding a mortal goddess! The house was crowded with hundreds more than it could hold, with thousands of admiring spectators who went away without a sight. This extraordinary phenomenon of tragic excellence! this star of ...
— English as She is Wrote - Showing Curious Ways in which the English Language may be - made to Convey Ideas or obscure them. • Anonymous
... the greatest enemy he has in the world, and hits him hard in the countenance. The astonished Jackall closes with the Donkey, and they roll over and over in the mud, pummelling one another. A Police Inspector, supernaturally endowed with patience, who has long been looking on from the Guildhall-steps, says, to a myrmidon, 'Lock 'em ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... ground grow billowy; the day seemed supernaturally bright. She took Albert's arm and they walked slowly, ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... it proved to be the warning signal of an old snake-charmer, Beryl welcomed the diversion. She looked at the man with a good deal of interest, notwithstanding her repulsion. He was wrapped in a long, very dirty, white chuddah, from which his face peered weirdly forth, wrinkled and old, almost supernaturally old, she thought to herself. It was very strangely adorned with red paint, which imparted to the eyes a ghastly pale appearance in the midst of the swarthy skin. A wiry grey beard covered the lower part of the face, and into this he was crooning a tuneless and wholly ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... chalice of his sufferings, and received new strength, remained some minutes longer in the grotto, absorbed in calm meditation, and returning thanks to his Heavenly Father. He was still in deep affliction of spirit, but supernaturally comforted to such a degree as to be able to go to his disciples without tottering as he walked, or bending beneath the weight of his sufferings. His countenance was still pale and altered, but ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... Of the supernaturally endowed kings of Loango it is said that the more powerful a king is, the more taboos is he bound to observe; they regulate all his actions, his walking and his standing, his eating and drinking, his sleeping and waking. To these restraints the heir to the ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... the story goes), was a celebrated goddess. Her name was Aphrodite;[B] though among the Romans she afterward received the name of Venus. Aphrodite was not born of a mother, like ordinary mortals, but sprang mysteriously and supernaturally from a foam which gathered on a certain occasion upon the surface of the sea. At the commencement of her existence she crept out upon the shores of an island that was near,—the island of Cythera,—which lies south of ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... from one of his letters, states the psychologist's point of view more simply and vividly than either he or his disciples have defined their position in their more formal works. "In the case of conversion I am quite willing to believe that a new truth may be supernaturally revealed to a subject when he really asks, but I am sure that in many cases of conversion it is less a new truth than a new power gained over life by a truth always known. It is a case of the conflict of two self-systems in a personality up to that time heterogeneously ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... will maintain the primacy of spiritual truth by allowing no interpretation of scientific facts that will cast either denial or doubt on those fundamental doctrines which he now knows are true, because they have been supernaturally verified to him through the ...
— The Church, the Schools and Evolution • J. E. (Judson Eber) Conant
... to claim the greatest purity and loftiness in the monotheistic faith of the Hebrew patriarchs, as handed down to his children by Abraham, over that of all other founders of ancient religious systems, not only since that faith was, as we believe, supernaturally communicated, but since the fruit of that stock, especially in its Christian development, is superior to all others. This sublime monotheism was ever maintained by the Hebrew race, in all their wanderings, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... of the depths that assail me I see, far below, the seashore dawning. The ghostly strand that I glimpse while I cling to my own body is bare, endless, rain-drowned, and supernaturally mournful. Through the long, heavy and concentric mists that the clouds make, my eyes go searching. On the shore I see a being who wanders alone, veiled to the feet. It is a woman. Ah, I am one ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse |
