"Indefinable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Overton. I would have cried my eyes out with disappointment if Ida had come home with bad news," returned the pretty girl in a plaintive tone which impressed Grace with a curiously uncomfortable feeling that this attractive young woman would have done nothing of the sort. There was that indefinable something about her that contradicted, flatly, ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... Crow's nest: a perch near the top of the mast to shelter the man on the lookout.] shades his eyes with his hand, peering earnestly out on the weather bow at something which has attracted his attention. A tiny plume of vapor rises from the blue hollows about ten miles away, but so faint and indefinable that it may be only a breaking wavelet's crest caught by the cross wind. Again that little bushy jet breaks the monotony of the sea; but this time there is no mistaking it. Emerging diagonally from the water, not high ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... begin to perceive how that man threatening to marry you to a man you hate, has opened again the wounds of my own sacrifice—a sacrifice he made nearly twenty years ago—heaven forgive him! Richard West was a gambler and a libertine. There was an indefinable something which told me as much, very soon after I met him. He was tall and fine-looking, and he had political influence. My brother had a motive for courting him. He carried out that object by introducing him to me. I can scarcely say that I loved elsewhere, though I certainly ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... the moral law, any more than they are required to attend Divine worship. But Parliament, in the shaping of legislation, and the Judges in the administration of justice, have frequently had regard to that indefinable sense of right and wrong which becomes implanted in the human breast. Furthermore, the law, while not coercing any one into following a particular course of moral conduct, has, nevertheless, always been careful to restrain ...
— Report of the Special Committee on Moral Delinquency in Children and Adolescents - The Mazengarb Report (1954) • Oswald Chettle Mazengarb et al.
... industry, from the nicely-papered walls, adorned with pictures, to the large sideboard, with its display of old china and glassware. The table-linen was spotlessly clean, and the food served up was well cooked. But, notwithstanding this, something seemed wrong. An indefinable atmosphere pervaded the place which spoiled the effect of it all. It was not the corrupted English falling from the lips of these people which grated so harshly upon the senses. It was the spirit of pretence which overshadowed everything—the effort to ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... who merely perceive this. To them there is a vague and indefinable something which seems to realize that the operations of the mind are something phenomenal and apart from the real Self. Psychology, even so empirical a psychology as is possible of demonstration in western schools and colleges, evidences the fact that there ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... his family either excited or fully occupied, and yet he was soon aware that a certain indefinable change in himself was only the more conspicuous for his ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... Bonaparte from Elba. Wonder at his temerity was the impression made by the news, but wonder unmixed with apprehension. This inactivity of foresight was universal. A torpor indescribable, a species of stupor utterly indefinable, seemed to have enveloped the capital with a mist that was impervious. Everybody went about their affairs, made or received visits, met, and parted, without speaking, or, I suppose , thinking of this event ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... Naturforscher, delivered at Leipzig, three years ago, Du Bois-Reymond speaks thus: 'What conceivable connection subsists between definite movements of definite atoms in my brain, on the one hand, and on the other hand such primordial, indefinable, undeniable, facts as these: I feel pain or pleasure; I experience a sweet taste, or smell a rose, or hear an organ, or see something red ... It is absolutely and for ever inconceivable that a number of carbon, hydrogen, ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... fell to uneasy speculation regarding this woman, her fierce, wild beauty, her shameless tongue, her proud and passionate temper, her reckless furies; and bethinking me of all the manifest evil of her, I felt again that chill of the flesh, that indefinable disgust, insomuch that (the moon being bright and full) I must glance back, more than once, half-dreading to see her creeping ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... hung down her head, and began to weep. Montalais looked at her in an indefinable manner, and murmured, "Poor girl!" and then adding, "Poor king!" she kissed Louise on the forehead, and returned to her apartment, where ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... stayed long in any town or even in any village. Some sound or shape from the old unforgotten world beyond the barrier, some English voice that had the indefinable tone and accent of high breeding, some figure of Englishman or Englishwoman whose rough, careless clothing had the unmistakable cut of Bond Street, some face recognised under the grey felt or the white Panama, would spur them to the desire of leaving it behind them. Then the valises would ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... her head, but once, as she turned, he could see that her hair was red. Even in this fleeting glimpse, the unusual tint attracted his attention: there was a brilliancy as of fire in it. Somehow it seemed to make a claim upon his memory. He continued to stare down at the stranger with an indefinable sense that he ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... utility of nature. During his stay among the woods of Reggio, the sudden sight of an impressive landscape so affected him that he resumed a poem which he had long laid aside. But the deepest impression of all was made upon him by the ascent of Mont Ventoux, near Avignon. An indefinable longing for a distant panorama grew stronger and stronger in him, till at length the accidental sight of a passage in Livy, where King Philip, the enemy of Rome, ascends the Haemus, decided him. He thought that what was not blamed in a gray-headed monarch might ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... dropped in of a morning when least expected, occasionally finding her alone for a few moments; he walked from church with them, by her side, the only times he came near her, and she felt in every pulse of her being the indefinable something that she ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... 5, at eight o'clock, the Boulogne Theatre was packed with a cosmopolitan audience. The unique assembly was pervaded by an indefinable feeling of expectancy; as in the lull before the thunderstorm, there was the hush of excitement, the tense silence charged with the premonition of some vast force about to be let loose on the world. After a few preliminaries, ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... in overcoming a diffidence that had been almost painful. In one sense these people were to her simply a means to an end. She cared so little for them that she was not afraid, and had merely to acquire the ease which results from usage. Diffidence soon passed into a shy grace that was indefinable and yet became a recognized trait. The least approach to loudness and aggressiveness in manner was not only impossible to her, but she also possessed the refinement and tact of which only extremely sensitive ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... hideous half-mask, and the pout of his whistling lips beneath; nay, there was about the whole figure, from the rusty spurs at his heels to the crown of his battered hat, something almost devilish, with an indefinable mockery ...
— The Honourable Mr. Tawnish • Jeffery Farnol
... his portrait. It's not the features, but something indefinable. He's a second von Sohn. I can always tell from ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... and Helen saw with surprise that it was almost as it had always been. Her "Well, Helen!" was as calm as her kiss, and only when she raised her veil was her bitter need of sleep revealed. Then, too, Helen saw that her features and her fair, bright colouring had suffered an indefinable blurring, as though, in some spiritual process, their sharpness had been lost, and while she looked at her, Helen felt the full weight of responsibility for this woman settling once more on her own slim shoulders. Yet she noticed that the shadows which had hung so thickly in the ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... me. She could dissemble her real feelings better than any woman I ever knew, she always greeted me with a smile, she even made a parade of taking my advice on little family difficulties, but there was an indefinable something in her manner which convinced me that beneath all her smiles she bore me no good-will. The fact is that, without any design on my part, I had detected her in one or two bits of trickery, and, in what I suppose I must call her heart of hearts, she never forgave me. The ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, Jan. 2, 1892 • Various
... mouldy dignity, its life of the past, its fettering honor, which to accept must bind him hand and foot, as respects all effort, such as he had trained himself for,—such as his own country offered. It was not any value for these,—as it seemed to Redclyffe,—but a witchcraft, an indefinable spell, a something that he could not define, that enthralled him, and was now doing a work on him analogous to, though different from, that which was wrought on Omskirk and all the other inhabitants, high and low, of ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... but the sufficient revelation! For this first article of a reasonable creed is the key to all else—the clue which leads the mind safely through the labyrinth of doubt into the presence of the Eternal. Without attempting to define the indefinable, the soul rises from the belief in the reality of love and duty to the belief in "a holy will at the root of nature and destiny"—for "if man is capable of conceiving goodness, the general principle of things, which cannot be inferior to man, ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... from childhood, that the deluded man could not discern which of the two spoke the louder. Are not all young men ready to trust the promise of a pretty face and to infer beauty of soul from beauty of feature? An indefinable impulse leads them to believe that moral perfection must co-exist with physical perfection. If Angelique had not been at liberty to give vent to her sentiments, they would soon have dried up in her heart like a plant ...
— A Second Home • Honore de Balzac
... Windsor. In one, the king and queen are seen, with their two sons, Prince Charles and Prince James; while another portrays the same boys, with their mother, Henrietta Maria. The latter painting is an exceedingly beautiful work, repaying long study. The boys have that indefinable air of nobility which Van Dyck knew so well how to impart to his subjects, and which none can imitate or explain. Even Prince James, who is an infant in arms, holds his little head erect, like the prince that he is. The artist has shown us, however, ...
— Child-life in Art • Estelle M. Hurll
... indefinable change in Garratt Skinner's face. He leaned forward with his mouth sternly set and his eyes very still. One might almost have believed that for the first time during that luncheon he was really ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... and full of ennobling suggestions to lift his calling into a kind of epic dignity. As a book for the generality of readers, it far exceeds any previous work of the author in force, naturalness, and beauty, in vividness of description and richness of style, and in that indefinable element of genius which envelops the most prosaic details in an atmosphere ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... understand, I suppose, the intellectual emotion of the situation. It is more than curious to sit in these rooms, in the filthiest spot in London, and listen to Mozskowsky, Tchaikowsky, and Sibelius, played by a factory girl. It is ... something indefinable. I had visited similar places in Stepney before, but then I had not had a couple of vodkas, and I had not been taken in tow by an unknown gang. They play and play, while tea and cigarettes, and sometimes vodka or whisky go round; and as the room gets warmer, so does one's sense of smell ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... (1867- ) is considered by some critics to be the leading exponent in the country of "the manner of de Maupassant, enveloped by an indefinable atmosphere that seems to bring back Edgar Allan Poe." He has been director-general of public instruction in Rio de Janeiro, professor at the Normal School and the National School of Fine Arts, and also a deputy from Pernambuco. With the surprising versatility of so many South ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... up with the squadron and had insensibly drifted into a relationship which had no counterpart in any other branch of the service. He was "Tam," unique and indefinable. He had few intimates of his own rank, and little association with his juniors. The mechanics treated him as being in a class apart and respected him since the day when, to the prejudice of good order and military discipline, he had followed a homesick ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... Daisy played in all these childhood enjoyments of mine is hardly to be described in words, much less portrayed in incidents. I can recall next to nothing to relate. Her presence as my sister, my comrade, and my pupil seems only an indefinable part of the sunshine which gilds these old memories. We were happy ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... evening, between the humid after-glow of the sunset and the dawn of the moonlit night, Audrey felt a wholly new and delicate sensation. It was as if she were penetrated for the first time by the indefinable, tender influences of air and moonlight and running water. The mood was vague and momentary—a mere fugitive reflection of the rapture with which Ted, rowing lazily now with the current, drank ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... and in the immortal whiff, indefinable, of a fine ship just off the high seas, trod the beatified club. A ship, the last abiding place in a mannerless world of good old-fashioned caste, and respect paid upward with due etiquette and discipline through the grades of ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... of his absence she busied herself as usual, going down to rehearsal in the morning and playing in the evening. But at night, for some indefinable reason, she felt unhappy and discontented. The next morning she sat in her room and sewed, and the hours seemed long—very long. In the afternoon she went out and, almost irresponsibly, bought a little present and carried it down to the Rue Louise to Madame Martin. ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 6, June, 1891 • Various
... an admirable thing chance is!" D'Artagnan pronounced these words with an indefinable tone of feigned bonhomie, for he knew very well that the victim of pirates was an old corsair, and had engaged him in consequence of that knowledge. But D'Artagnan never said more than there was need to say, in order to leave people in doubt. He paid himself with the explanation, ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... 13; so much so that he approached his room by way of Number 11, in order that he might not be obliged to pass the door, or the place where the door ought to be. He looked quickly and suspiciously about the room when he entered it, but there was nothing, beyond that indefinable air of being smaller than usual, to warrant any misgivings. There was no question of the presence or absence of his portmanteau tonight. He had himself emptied it of its contents and lodged it under his bed. With a certain effort he dismissed the thought ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James
... repeated the words in a tone that was indefinable, yet a tone vehement in its incredulous questioning. "Three years?" she said again, ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... emerges, shyly or with a false assertiveness, trying to reach out to companionship and love, driven almost mad by the search for human connection. In the economy of Winesburg these grotesques matter less in their own right than as agents or symptoms of that "indefinable hunger" for meaning which ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... chinks, made by the scudding wrack; that the waters teemed with life, cold, slimy, preternatural things of life; that their eyes after assuming a variety of awful expressions, settled down into that dull frozen character, and their voices into that low, sepulchral, indefinable tone, which marked the Mysterious Tailor. This wretch was the Abaddon of my dreamy Pandaemonium. He was ever before me; he lent an added splendour to the day, and deepened the midnight gloom. On the heights of Bologne I saw him; far ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII., No. 324, July 26, 1828 • Various
... the River now, so close that Barnabas could hear it lapping against the piles, and catch the indefinable reek of it. But on they went, swift and silent, creeping ever in the gloom of the wall beside them, nearer and nearer until presently the River flowed before them, looming darker than the dark, and its sullen murmur was all about them; until Mr. Shrig, stopping all at once, raised the hat ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... Ginza in Tokyo on a summer evening; with its millions of twinkling little lights above the thousands of Oriental shops; with the sound of bells, the whistle of salesmen, the laughter of beautiful Japanese girls; the clacking of dainty feet in wooden shoes; and the indefinable essence of romance that hovers over a street of this Oriental type at night. I'll stake the romance, and beauty of the Ginza in Tokyo, against any street in the world. He who has looked upon the Ginza by night, has a Flash-Light of Flame; of tiny, myriad little flaming ...
— Flash-lights from the Seven Seas • William L. Stidger
... circumference I was unable to cross. Round and round I went, continually striving to get upwards and onwards:—still, always finding myself in the same identical spot, as if I had not advanced an inch. I grew tired, weary, exhausted. I felt sick at heart and in body. A nameless, indefinable horror seized ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... long in shape, swept over me with an indefinable expression, then in a harsh, contemptuous voice she let fall in French ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... more often introduced than either argument or exposition, it follows that the writer of fiction must always reckon with the factor of style. It is true that stories may be written without style; it is even true that many of the greatest stories have been devoid of this indefinable quality: but it is not therefore logical to argue that the factor of style may be neglected. How much it may be made to contribute to the attainment of the aim of fiction will be recognized instinctively ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... do not say any more," said I, shrinking with indefinable dread; "I do not want any professions. I meant not to call them forth. If I alluded to you as a brother, it was because I wished to speak to you with the frankness of a sister. It is better that you should not walk with me from school,—it is ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... to glower at the half-fainting woman as though she alone held the key of the mystery that resulted in Joan's disappearance. His impassioned eyes sought to peer into her very soul, and his nostrils quivered with the frenzied eagerness of one who awaited an answer to the implied question. In some indefinable way he had already begun to suspect the truth; for when the poor woman made no reply, though more than once her terror laden eyes met his in mute appeal, ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... irregular strata of a coarse dirty-white marble cropped out. On the extreme verge of the cliff stood the shattered ruin already referred to, barely distinguishable from where we stood, as a gaunt, shapeless, indefinable mass; while the beach below was encumbered with stones and blocks of masonry which had fallen from it from time to time. The uneven surface of the ground for some distance on each side of the ruin, and as far back as the road, was completely overshadowed by enormous ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... me give you some tea," said Mary. Her eyes filled with tears, for something indefinable, something like the resolute suppression of a pain in Mr. Farebrother's manner, made her feel suddenly miserable, as she had once felt when she saw her father's hands trembling in a moment ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... an indefinable subject, for he can then set down his theory of what it is; and next, at length, his conception of what it is not—and lo! his paper is covered. Therefore let us follow the prolix and unmapable trail into that ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... this, there was a mysterious and indefinable sentiment with which Dionysia had inspired him; for he had succumbed to her charms, like everybody else. It was not love, for he who says love says hope; and he knew perfectly well that altogether and forever Dionysia belonged to Jacques. It was ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... transparent cloth of gold hung from the walls of heaven, but the kindly light lent no beauty to her face. Rosemary's eyes were grey and lustreless, her hair ashen, and almost without colour. Her features were irregular and her skin dull and lifeless. She had not even the indefinable freshness that is the divine right of youth. Her mouth drooped wistfully at the corners, and even the half-discouraged dimple in her chin looked like a dent ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... directions, they came into Union Street, and without further mishap gained the Hill. From the brow they looked down into the Pit, whence arose that steady, indefinable hum which comes ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... down. The straggle-brained guest had been lighted to his bed, and the good parson himself was carrying to his own tranquil closet a head full of the great world's dust and noise. Greta was still sitting before the dying fire, her heart heavy with an indefinable sensation ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... London, Robert Whytt in Edinburgh, Albrecht von Haller in Leipzig. By mid century the condition known as the hyp was believed to be a real, not an imaginary ailment, common, peculiar in its manifestations, and indefinable, almost impossible to cure, producing very real symptoms of physical illness, and said to originate sometimes in depression and idleness. It was summed up by Robert James in ...
— Hypochondriasis - A Practical Treatise (1766) • John Hill
... less is threatened me, the king, my old master, must be relieved.' That when all is done will be found to contain some hints as to the manner in which 'charities' of this kind have need to be managed, under a government armed with powers so indefinable. ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... among his colleagues. But he was not very hopeful about the matter. It was not (he assured me) that he underrated the verses, or in any sense lamented their lack of polish. No; it was rather, he felt, an indefinable something in the very atmosphere of the society in which we live that makes it spiritually difficult to sing in banks. And I think he must be right; though the matter is very mysterious. I may observe here that I think there must be some ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... however, that Rodney first realized how seriously Clayton's friends were taking his affair with Natalie, and that not at first from anything he said. It was an indefinable aloofness of manner, a hostility of tone. Nolan never troubled himself to be agreeable unless it suited his inclination, and apparently Terry found nothing unusual in ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... which are life, startled Augustine; she could here contemplate the sequel of the scene of which the first part had struck her at the house of Lebas—a life of stir without movement, a mechanical and instinctive existence like that of the beaver; and then she felt an indefinable pride in her troubles, as she reflected that they had their source in eighteen months of such happiness as, in her eyes, was worth a thousand lives like this; its vacuity seemed to her horrible. However, she concealed this not very charitable feeling, and displayed for her parents ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac
... it a very choice blessing that, as the outer man decays, the heart seems enlarged in charity, and more and more drawn towards those I love. Oh, this love! it is as subtle as the fragrance of the flower, an indefinable essence pervading the soul. My eyesight and my hearing are both in a weakly condition; but I trust, as the material senses fail, the interior perception of the divine may be opened to a clearer knowledge of God, and that I may read the glorious book of nature with ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... step jolted my poor shoulder. At one time, I wanted to stop, to sit down. Then I looked at Tanit-Zerga. She was walking ahead with her eyes almost closed. Her expression was an indefinable one of mingled suffering and determination. I closed my ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... a masterpiece, this picture of boy life in a little lazy, drowsy town, with all the irresponsibility and general disreputability of boy character coupled with that indefinable, formless, elusive something we call boy conscience, which is more likely to be boy terror and a latent instinct of manliness. These things are so truly portrayed that every boy and man reader finds the tale fitting into his own remembered years, ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... faith, and true faith always presupposes penitence. Where one is, there the other is, and where both are, there is conversion. Penitence, therefore, is not something that goes before conversion, and faith something that follows after, and conversion an indefinable something sandwiched in between, as some seem to imagine; but penitence and faith are the constituent ...
— The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church • G. H. Gerberding
... in spite of Margaret's note of perfect acquiescence I feel myself reasoning against an indefinable antagonism, "it is so easy to fall into a slack way with life. There may seem to be something priggish in a meticulous discipline, but otherwise it is so easy to slip into indolent habits—and to be distracted from one's purpose. The country, the world, wants men to serve its constructive ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... made his summer excursion in the Tyrol, Fritz was a stout blond youth of two and twenty. His round, sleek face was not badly modelled, but it had neither the rough openness, characteristic of a peasant, nor yet that indefinable finish which only culture can give. In spite of his jaunty, fashionable attire, you would have put him down at once as belonging to what in the Old World is called "the middle class." His blue eyes ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... effectually concealed her face; so that, even if there had been a change in its expression, it could not have been seen. Yet, after all, the triumph was but instantaneous. It passed away, and soon there came another feeling, vague, indefinable—a premonition of the future—a presentiment of gloom; and though the intensity of the suspense had passed, there still remained a dark anxiety and ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... by an impulse quite indefinable but sufficient to condense about us by its contagion the Martian populace, quick, responsive, inquisitive, intelligent and excitable as children. We were approaching the Patenta by an ever widening avenue, our rustling ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... as interpreter we are made to see the beautiful episode as an event of the most tremendous import—one that must shake the earth to its centre. The reason of the onlooker may rebel against this portentous version, yet he is dominated all the same, is overwhelmed with something of the indefinable awe that has seized upon the bystanders who are ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips
... the chase rather than the followers." This phrase lacks elegance—and Dickens is not often inelegant, as those who do not read him may be surprised to learn—but the impression is admirable; so is that which follows: "An indefinable kind of pause coming and going on their whole expression, both of face and form." Here is pure, mere impression again: "Miss Murdstone, who was busy at her writing- desk, gave me her cold finger-nails." Lady Tippins's hand is ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell
... leathern bottles was insensibly creeping out through the worn-out seams. Delicate filaments drawn from marine plants hung amid flax from Egypt, Greece, Taprobane and Judaea; mandrepores bristled like large bushes at the foot of the walls; and an indefinable odour—the exhalation from perfumes, leather, spices, and ostrich feathers, the latter tied in great bunches at the very top of the vault—floated through the air. An arch was formed above the door before each passage ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... contemplative attitude. The tempest raged without; it soon burst forth in violent gusts of wind and rain, which shook all the windows of the dilapidated mansion. Notwithstanding his audacious wickedness, Polidori was superstitious; dark presentiments agitated him; he felt an indefinable uneasiness; the howlings of the storm, which alone disturbed the mournful silence of the night, inspired him with an alarm against which he struggled in vain. To drive away these gloomy thoughts, he again examined ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... manner she was the successful woman of business, but she was the woman of business with something added. Though she spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, her voice had a vibrating quality; though she wore only the plainest clothes, her grace, her good-breeding, her indefinable charm, ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... As both were anxious and expectant, it naturally turned upon the subject of their expedition, on the manner in which it had been brought about, and on the hopes and fears they entertained respecting it. Of the former they had many, of the latter few—none perhaps beyond that indefinable uneasiness which is inseparable from suddenly awakened hope, and ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... he is making war, and we are on terms of war, and more or less bound by them. At least, that is one's general notion. But who can tell? The ethical boundaries, and the borders of honour, are indefinable and intangible." ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... public. For there were women in the band. All this, and more, the invaders suggested—atheism, unfamiliarity with soap and water, and, more vaguely, an exotic poetry and art that to the virile of American descent is saturated with something indefinable yet abhorrent. Such things are felt. Few of the older citizens of Hampton were able to explain why something rose in their gorges, why they experienced a new and clammy quality of fear and repulsion when, on the day following Antonelli's advent, these strangers arrived ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... extent and variety of information on subjects relating to individual and social well-being. The desire of acquiring this knowledge would quicken the faculties of the children, augment their industry, and lighten the labors of the teacher to an indefinable extent. The teacher who should fail to impart a moderate degree of skill in these arts to most, and of excellence to many, at the same time that adequate progress was made in the study of the sciences we have named, should be deemed unfit for his profession, and ...
— The Philosophy of Teaching - The Teacher, The Pupil, The School • Nathaniel Sands
... had read. And then there was something about her that interested him, aside from her good looks. He had known many girls far more beautiful. It was not her manner, which was a bit constrained, at times. Her charm for him was indefinable. Somehow, she seemed different from other girls he had met. Bartley was himself responsible for this romantic hallucination. He saw her with eyes hungry for the sympathetic companionship of youth, especially feminine youth, for he could talk ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... man undergoes the most remarkable transformations. But the power and scope of his imagination and the need he has of response sets limits to this process. A highly intellectualised mature mind may refer for its data very consistently to ideas of a higher being so remote and indefinable as God, so comprehensive as humanity, so far-reaching as the purpose in things. I write "may," but I doubt if this exaltation of reference is ever permanently sustained. Comte, in his Positive Polity, exposes ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... are days of specialists, he may or may not be the regular family doctor. The husband and friends may be consulted, but the final choice should be made by the prospective mother herself. "The faith which casts out fear, the indefinable sense of security which she feels in her chosen physician, supports her through the hours of confinement." Twenty-four hour specimens of urine should be saved and taken to the physician twice each month and oftener during ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... of the house. Even in the street he is the peacock, coloured much more splendidly than the peahen. Even when clad in comparatively sober and partly European costume, as outside the cafes of Cairo and the great cities, he exhibits this indefinable character not merely of dignity but of pomp. It can be traced even in the tarbouch, the minimum of Turkish attire worn by all the commercial classes; the thing more commonly called in England a fez. The fez is not a sort of smoking cap. It is a tower of scarlet often tall enough to be the head-dress ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... entered the room he saw that something was the matter. The faces of his father and mother were very sorrowful, and an indefinable feeling of apprehension took hold of him. He was not long left in uncertainty as to ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... rowers. They sat under an awning which protected them as well as the passengers from the sun, but Virginia, glancing almost fearfully at their faces, saw that their skins were tanned to the colour of mahogany by exposure. Their features were, without one exception, marked with the indefinable yet not-to-be-mistaken stamp of criminality, and she breathed more freely when she had assured herself that the man they sought was ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... suspect that he was less interested in his own newspaper than he appeared to be, and that his profound abstraction, like my own, was assumed. An indefinable something in the turn of his head seemed to tell me that his attention was divided between whatever might be going forward in the room and what he was reading. I cannot describe what that something was; but ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... His last remark had been more of a reflection than an interrogation. What did Ingram really know of him, he asked himself again, despite the five years of the indefinable relation between them? Admitting that the man beneath the cynic was kindly and sympathetic, yet he could not but be aware that Ingram's treason to the aspirations of his youth had destroyed the finer edge of feeling. His vision did not respond ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... back of it. No boy in the house, so Mr. Dupre said, grudged the sixpence which had been stopped from his pocket money to pay for the bat. Then, passing to graver matters, Mr. Dupre spoke warmly of the tone of the house, that indefinable quality which in the eyes of a faithful schoolmaster is more precious than rubies. It was Mannix, prefect and member of the lower sixth, who more than any one else deserved credit for the fact that Edmonstone stood second to no ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... he says that ambition is criminal only when it leads us from the path of virtue.... What God requires, is a heart prepared for every sacrifice—a will ready to yield all for His sake; and I feel that I possess this disposition; I experience an indefinable quietude, and my soul is comforted. This week has seemed to me a foretaste of heaven; I have seen no one but the nuns and my confessor, the sole confidant of my thoughts and feelings, and the time has passed rapidly and without ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... to explain the object of your visit?" said the Baronet at last, after a perplexing pause, during which the arms of the Buccaneer were folded on his breast, and his restless and vigilant eyes wandered round the apartment, flashing with an indefinable expression, when they encountered the blue retreating orbs ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... her part that the tone of these two words conveyed a whole volume of information to Juanita's keen wits. It was no accent of joy, like that which had announced her father last night; neither was it fear or dread; yet the indefinable expression of the two words said that "mamma" had been a trouble in Daisy's life, and ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... carefully studied his clearcut features were favorably impressed; the women, by the direct, honest gaze of his blue eyes and the absence of ungentle lines in his face; the men, by the good nature, and that indefinable something by which a man marks ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... This tao, indefinable and in its essence unknowable, is "the fountain-head of all beings, and the norm of all actions. But it is not only the formative principle of the universe; it also seems to be primordial matter: chaotic in its composition, born prior to Heaven and earth, noiseless, ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... and the warmth. When little Pansie was the companion of his walk, her childish gayety and freedom did not avail to bring him into closer relationship with men, but seemed to follow him into that region of indefinable remoteness, that dismal Fairy-Land of aged fancy, into which old Grandsir Dolliver ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Ralph. But he could not tell who it was. Neither could he remember having seen the horse, which was a sorrel with a white left forefoot and a white nose. The men noticed him and reined up a little. Why he should have been startled by the presence of these men he could not tell, but an indefinable dread seized him. They galloped on, and he stood still shivering with a nervous fear. The cold seemed to have got into his bones. He remembered that the region lying on Flat Creek and Clifty Creek had the reputation of being infested with thieves, who practiced horse-stealing and ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... change had taken place in her—a different one from the indefinable yet significant change which is felt in almost every woman after marriage. There is usually in the young wife's face an expression of fulfilment, of deepened experience—a certain settled, satisfied look. And this was what was lacking in Lady Bridget's face. The restless soul within ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... on. The man is not a suisse, nor a concierge, nor actually a porter. The gate which admits the dead stands wide open; and though there are monuments and buildings to be cared for, he is not a care-taker. In short, he is an indefinable anomaly, an authority which participates in all, and yet is nothing,—an authority placed, like the dead on whom it is based, outside of all. Nevertheless, this exceptional man grows out of the city of Paris,—that chimerical creation like the ship which is its emblem, ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... it in every fibre of her being. And Mr. Dillwyn did not know, though the cause lay in him. He was taking care of Lois; he had been taking care of her before; but now, unconsciously, he was doing it as a man only does it for one woman in the world. Hardly more careful of her, yet with that indefinable something in the manner of it, which Lois felt even in the putting on of her cloak in the schoolhouse. It was something she had never touched before in her life, and did not now know what it meant; at least I should say her reason did not know; yet nature ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... shortcomings in technical perfection may be laid to their charge, the works of this period are full of the indefinable fascination of promise. They are marked, moreover, by a simplicity and sincerity of purpose, an absence of all ostentation, a conscientious and loving devotion on the part of those who made them. And in many of them we ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... bed. Francois Darbois moistened her temples quickly with Eau de Cologne. Madame Darbois supported Esperance's head, holding a little ether to her nose. As Maurice looked about the little room, as fresh, as white, as the two pots of marguerites on the mantel-shelf, an indefinable sentiment swelled up within him. Was it a kind of adoration for so much purity? Philippe Renaud had remained in the dining-room where he succeeded in keeping Adhemar, in spite of his ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... had given this account, at least, to every one but the Doctor, who never asked for explanations which he could entertain himself any day with inventing. Mrs. Penniman, moreover, though she had a good deal of a certain sort of artificial assurance, shrank, for indefinable reasons, from presenting herself to her brother as a fountain of instruction. She had not a high sense of humour, but she had enough to prevent her from making this mistake; and her brother, on his side, had enough to excuse her, in her situation, for laying ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... to her bed, neither quieted of her indefinable uneasiness nor inclined to resume her troubled sleep. After a little while she rose again, and dressed. Dread attended her, dread had brooded on her bosom while she slept uneasily, like a cat breathing its poisoned ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... human infirmities, now unconsciously stopped, with an interest in the man that she could not controul, and thus compelled Maria to pause also. The crowd had withdrawn from the man, giving him sufficient room to roll over, in evident pain, while they yet stood gazing at him, with that indefinable feeling of curiosity and nerveless sympathy, which characterises man when not called on to act, by emulation, vanity, or the practice of well-doing. No one offered to assist the sufferer, although many said it ought to be done; some spoke of sending for those who monopolized the official ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper
... a supporter, he offered the post to John Jay, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. The quality, deemed most desirable, which it was feared Jay might lack, was audacity. But he had discretion, tact, and urbanity in full share, besides that indefinable something which went with his ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... that!" Miss Haldin twined the fingers of both her hands together in demonstration, then separated them slowly, looking straight into my face. "That's what poor mother found to torment herself and me with, for all the years to come," added the strange girl. At that moment her indefinable charm was revealed to me in the conjunction of passion and stoicism. I imagined what her life was likely to be by the side of Mrs. Haldin's terrible immobility, inhabited by that fixed idea. But my concern ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... faith and credit in the utterances of latter-day journalism, coloring their opinions to suit the one, or to escape the criticism of the other. Under the pernicious doctrine of public policy and in fortifying that undefined and indefinable legal notion of police power, courts have wiped aside Constitutional limitations, and disregarded what the profession at least had learned to consider as almost fixed precedents of the law, but even with all ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... found, and the doctor, having scribbled a pencil note to Mr. Bayne, sent him off with it and went back into the house. There was already a change in his patient. An indefinable look had come over the hard, sunburnt face, and the voice was weaker. Why the doctor had sent for Mr. Bayne, whom for the moment he regarded not as a clergyman, but as a magistrate, he himself best knew. Clarkson had no idea of his having done so; nor ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... in solemn assent; but Molly, watching with the most acute attention, felt her face blaze at the indefinable shade of mockery she thought to catch upon ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... my house should be ever open to her. We then resumed our interesting reminiscences, and Genevieve was the first to speak of her brother. At the name of Nicolas I felt the blood mount to my very forehead, and an indefinable sensation passed over me at the mention of him who had possessed my virgin love. I strove, however, to conceal from my friend the powerful emotion which agitated me, and I replied, with apparent tranquillity, that I should be happy to assist her brother with the best ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... what I have already heard of it," returned Stevens, who had almost at first sight succumbed to that indefinable personal appeal which caused Sam Turner to be trusted of all men. "I shall be very glad to hear more about it. It struck me when you spoke of it yesterday as a very ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... for at any rate his young masters were safe, Michu felt a sharp agony in all his joints, so keen was the sense of vague, indefinable coming evil which took possession of him; but he went forward at once, and found Corentin on the stairs with a ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... house, in search of a possible opportunity to buy some fresh eggs. The long, pillared veranda, with its French windows opening to the floor; the wide double door giving entrance to a central hall; a score of slight and indefinable signs told us that the mansion had seen its days of comfort and elegance. But there were other signs—a pillar leaning out of plumb, a bit of railing sagging down, a board loose at the corner—which seemed to speak of the pluperfect tense. In a fragment of garden at one side, where ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... who both for the first time exchanged a glance with offensive personage, were conscious of a sensation like that of touching a toad, aggravated by a dark presentiment of evil. They both had the same indefinable and confused vision into the future, which has no name in any language, but which is capable of explanation as the action of the inward being of which the mysterious Swedenborgian had spoken to Doctor Minoret. The certainty ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... very powerful influence over his destiny, nevertheless. There was a strange fascination in the society of the Austrian widow—a nameless, indefinable charm, which few were able to resist. A bitter experience of vice and folly had robbed Reginald Eversleigh's heart and mind of all youth's freshness and confidence, and for him this woman ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... road she made sure at once that it was he. She even stirred to greet him, but after an indefinable pause he passed on also; then she thought ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... curtain was rolled up, a huge negro, dressed in a fancy dress of scarlet, and with a high cap of the same colour on his head, came on from the side. In his hand he carried a small dog-whip, and as he cracked it all the girls stood up. Hamilton sickened as he looked at him: an indefinable feeling of horror came over him as this man stalked about the stage. He pointed with his whip to the two African girls at the end of the semicircle, and they came forward, while the rest sat down. A ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... man, with the dark, saturnine face of an Indian. There was a strange, indefinable air of sadness about him which reminded Hunter of the sombre ...
— —And Devious the Line of Duty • Tom Godwin
... way across the bowling-green at the Court towards the rose-garden, bent upon the same quest as on the summer morning, which seemed such a long time ago, when Tom Burney had first declared his love for her. It was said in the village that Rose had lost her looks, and certainly the indefinable first blush of youth had faded; but if Rose's face had lost its delicacy of colouring, it had gained infinitely in expression. The blue eyes were soft and wistful, the pretty lips had lost their trick of pouting, the head was poised less saucily; trouble had taught Rose lessons ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford
... suggest the charm of such a volume, rich in the indefinable, uplifting atmosphere resulting from wide reading and wider sympathies, conjoined with deep ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... everything—capable de tout, as they say here—of the greatest excesses as well as the greatest heroism. Oh, to be able to say that one has lived—qu'on a vecu, as they say here—that idea exercises an indefinable attraction for me. You will, perhaps, reply, it is easy to say it; but the thing is to make people believe you! And, then, I don't want any second-hand, spurious sensations; I want the knowledge that leaves a trace—that leaves strange scars and stains ...
— A Bundle of Letters • Henry James
... affairs of state which seemed merely to exist to torment lovers. However he, too, was sufficiently impressed to consider seriously the advisability of submitting before it was too late; the motivating principle of the scheme was an idea which suggested that, in some indefinable way, such action might lead to the avoidance of the ban of godhood and thus to the reinstatement of Bakuma in the realm ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... to tea—on Wednesday afternoon, closing day. Arthur was there to tea—very ill at ease and feeling as if his hands were swollen. Alvina got on better with his wife, who watched closely to learn from her guest the secret of repose. The indefinable repose and inevitability of a lady—even of a lady who is nervous and agitated—this was the problem which occupied Lottie's shrewd and active, but lower-class mind. She even did not resent Alvina's laughing attempts to draw out the clumsy Arthur: because ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... have taken that much for granted. Herbert Spencer no doubt talked of the unknown and unknowable, but not in this sense as an element of inexactness running through all things. He thought, it seems to me, of the unknown as the indefinable Beyond of an immediate world that might be quite ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... by the indefinable hum a great crowd breeds, swept up the nave with a slippering of countless feet. The bishop in purple, his canons in scarlet, his cross-bearer, his chaplains and singing-men, the bearer of his mitre, his ring on a cushion; ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... success and fortune. Never had he dreamed that the mere joy of living would appeal to him as it did now; that the act of breathing, of seeing, of looking on wonders in which his hands had taken no part in the making, would fill him with the indefinable pleasure which had suddenly become his experience. He wondered, as he still stood gazing into the infinity of that other world beyond the Saskatchewan, if romance was really quite dead in him. Always he had laughed at romance. Work—the grim reality ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... her seem like a woman of fifty. At thirty-eight Jerome Rogron presented to the eyes of his customers the silliest face that ever looked over a counter. His retreating forehead, flattened by fatigue, was marked by three long wrinkles. His grizzled hair, cut close, expressed in some indefinable way the stupidity of a cold-blooded animal. The glance of his bluish eyes had neither flame nor thought in it. His round, flat face excited no sympathy, nor even a laugh on the lips of those who might be examining the varieties of the Parisian species; on the contrary, it saddened them. He ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... remains of a Japanese feast, resembling nothing so much as a doll's tea-party. In the midst of this circle of dandies are three overdressed women, one might say three weird visions, robed in garments of pale and indefinable colors, embroidered with golden monsters; their great coiffures are arranged with fantastic art, stuck full of pins and flowers. Two are seated with their backs turned to me: one is holding the guitar, the other singing ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... Wolfram with anti-dogmatic views, and with a certain Protestant preference of simple repentance and amendment to the performance of stated rites and penances. What is unmistakable is the way in which he lifts the story, now by phrase, now by verse effect, now by the indefinable magic of sheer poetic handling, out of ordinary ways into ways that are not ordinary. There may perhaps be allowed to be a certain want of "architectonic" in him. He has not made of Parzival and Condwiramurs, of Gawain and Orgeluse, anything like the complete drama ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... straggled along the dividing-line between the narrow restrictions of town and the fragrant wideness of the country, where the air was cool with the breath of the river, and the breezes brought suggestions of freshly-cut grass, just blown locust-blossoms, and the thousand sweet, indefinable scents of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... limited knowledge of the world, I had never yet been thrown in with a woman of her class. And yet I cannot say that it was altogether the charm of her person that moved me. It was more a certain hopeless sort of sorrow that seemed to envelop her, coupled with an indefinable distrust which I could not solve. Her reserve, however, was impenetrable, and her guarded silence on every subject bearing upon herself so pronounced that I dared not break through it. Yet, as she sat there in the carriage after dinner, during the earlier hours of the ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... that his mother was beautiful also; but in Cecile there was something indefinable—an aroma of some divine spring-time, something fresh and pure, to which Charlotte's mannerisms and graces ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... of that indestructible love of flowers and fragrance, and dews, and clear waters—and soft airs and sounds, and bright skies and woodland solitudes, and moon-light bowers, which are the material elements of poetry,—and with that fine sense of their indefinable relation to mental emotion, which is its essence and vivifying soul—and which, in the midst of his most busy and tragical scenes, falls like gleams of sunshine on rocks and ruins—contrasting with all that is rugged or repulsive, and reminding us of the existence ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit
... qualities, definable and indefinable, Gorman had the power of assuming the appearance either of a burglar of the lowest type, or a well-to-do contractor or tradesman. A slight change in dress and manner were sufficient to metamorphose him ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... added firmness in the repose of the lips. Immada moved a step forward. She looked at Lingard with terror in her black and dilated eyes. She exclaimed in a voice whose vibration startled the hearts of all the hearers with an indefinable sense of alarm, "He will perish, Hassim! ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... hard to discharge their duties. Lenin, however, dissatisfied with the measures of success already attained, is constantly stimulating his disciples to more strenuous exertions. He shares with other sectarian chiefs who have played a prominent part in the world's history that indefinable quality which stirs emotional susceptibility and renders those who approach him more easily accessible to ideas toward which they began by manifesting repugnance. Lenin is credibly reported to have made several converts ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... her, you were sensible of a strange, subtle, intoxicating perfume, very fragrant, perfectly indefinable, which clung, not only to her dress, but to every thing belonging to her. From what flowers it was distilled no artist in essences alive could have told. I incline to think that, like the "birk" ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... the Finnish harbour of Helsingfors were very pleasing; there was a certain indefinable charm about the scene as we passed in and out among the thickly-wooded islands, or dived between those strong but almost hidden fortifications of which the Russians are so proud. Once having passed these impregnable mysteries, we found ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... glance showed the horseman to be Irish, Weary drove in his spurs and galloped forward. Ten leaps perhaps he made, when a rifle shot came sharply ahead. He glanced down and saw horse and rider lying, a blotch of indefinable shape, in the trail. Weary drew his own gun and went on, his teeth set tight together. Now, when it was too late, ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... Hesperides; indeed, the millstone quarries are said to be the original Caves of Hercules, and the golden fruit the hero won flourished, we are assured, not far away. Small wonder then that the place has an indefinable quality of enchantment that even the twentieth ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... all-enfolding wonder. The vast, solitary snow-land, cold-white under the sparkling star-gems; lustrous in the radiance of the southern lights; furrowed beneath the icy sweep of the wind. We had come to probe its mystery, we had hoped to reduce it to terms of science, but there was always the "indefinable" which held aloof, yet riveted ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... moment, and of her own power, she had bullied, and mastered, and wheedled, and patronized them with most astonishing success. And instinctively, involuntarily, they had bowed, not to her beauty, her wisdom, her wit, but to that indefinable something in woman to which man yields yet ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... venerable-looking man, dressed like an ecclesiastic, standing silently before her. The form and features of the man, who was not then known to her, remained distinctly imprinted on her imagination, and she had an indefinable inspiration that he was to be in some way connected with the work for which God intended her. She related the dream to some of her friends, and three days afterwards M. de Maisonneuve arrived at Troyes. He called at the Convent, when as usual ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.
... rude, his face was refined, and had the indefinable air of one who would be more at home in the city than ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... be conveyed to the island, and that as it was not proposed to take the wagon or any of the animals with them, they must indicate what few articles they thought they might require during the next few days, and those articles would be conveyed across with them. There was a certain indefinable, sinister suggestiveness in the character of this communication that seemed to imply a doubt in the mind of the official who made it whether the individuals to whom it was made would require anything at all after ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... eye. Never fond of Mr. Judson, he looked on him now with positive loathing. It had not been easy for him to work himself up to the point where he could discuss with Joan the mysterious ways of Providence, for there was that about her which made it hard to achieve sentiment. That indefinable something in Joan Valentine which made for nocturnal raids on other people's museums also rendered her a somewhat difficult person to talk to about twin souls and destiny. The qualities that Ashe loved in her—her strength, ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... tickled with a turkey feather (which Miss Cordelia kept for the purpose) or that she had ever been atomized all over with Lily of the Valley (which Miss Patty never did again because Ma'm Maynard, the old French nurse, smelled it and told the maids). But always deep down in the child was an indefinable quality which puzzled ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... the ranks was as difficult to read as Colonel Carter's voice had been. It might have meant pleasure at the thought of rest, or anger, or contempt, or almost anything. It was undefined and indefinable. ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... we receive a certain indefinable and peculiar impression of happiness originating in instinctive conscience. When we eat too, we repair our losses and ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin
... night, when the moon rose in wonderful whiteness and purity, wrapping field and ravine in a riot of silver, the strange, irresistible, unanswerable longing of the great plains stole down upon them, and they knew that here indeed was life in its fulness—a participation in the Infinite, indefinable, but all-embracing, everlasting. ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... sounds that greeted the mourner as he wandered listlessly from room to room apparently looking for some object, some vague uncertainty, something indefinable. ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... unusual rigidity that was alarming. On his face there was an expression of effort, almost of painful effort, so far as the uncertain light permitted me to see, and his sleep seemed to be very profound. He looked, I thought, so stiff, so unnaturally stiff, and in some indefinable way, ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... others (who had just happened by, but hearing their voices could not resist rushing in to welcome Mrs. Truscott, etc., etc.) put an end to the possibility. It was a comfort to note that though perfectly courteous and pleasant in her manner, even to the extent of that indefinable yet perceptible half intimacy which exists between travelling companions, Miss Sanford seemed in no wise encouraging and by no means displeased at the interruption to the plan so audaciously proposed. At dinner Mr. Gleason sat opposite the young ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... pass on if Love willed it—and that he would never care to pass on alone. But that he could not go forward, ignoring Love, neither occurred to him nor would he have believed it if it had. Yet, at times, an indefinable unease possessed him as though some occult struggle was impending for ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... respects to Sir Thomas, and at rather an early hour they were ushered into the breakfast-room, where were most of the family. Sir Thomas soon appeared, and Maria saw with delight and agitation the introduction of the man she loved to her father. Her sensations were indefinable, and so were they a few minutes afterwards upon hearing Henry Crawford, who had a chair between herself and Tom, ask the latter in an undervoice whether there were any plans for resuming the play after the present happy interruption (with a courteous glance at Sir Thomas), because, ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... believed to have been his fate. Among these persons there were wild-eyed hangers-on telling of a flight upward on a fiery chariot, as well as a predicted disappearance and reappearance after three days. Such were the stories being gulped down by the thousands who still clung with an indefinable fascination to the memory of the charlatan. Meantime the soldier Wilkes had died of his injuries, and the coroner's inquiry was ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... began. He was a man uninteresting to look upon, save that his face wore a certain indefinable expression of a man who has been a stranger in many places; a man habituated to loneliness and to silence. But he was evidently a man also accustomed to speak, for he addressed his audience ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... was ready to talk about his way, but a part of it is the man himself. He could not make known to another what is the most essential requisite. He, too, brought genius to his work; besides that, a certain indefinable mastership which animals recognize, love for them, and a vast amount of perseverance and patient waiting. It is a thing that is not done ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... desire to be exact we mention, as this particular author seems to have done, that she had an "elusive expression," or a penetrating fragrance. Or we say that she moved, the centre of an indefinable nuance. ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome |
