"Mysterious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... water, was kept from poisoning his savior with the reptiles. At first only a single frog appeared, but he began to croak, summoning so many companions that the whole land of Egypt swarmed with them. Wherever an Egyptian took up his stand, frogs appeared, and in some mysterious way they were able to pierce the hardest of metals, and even the marble palaces of the Egyptian nobles afforded no protection against them. If a frog came close to them, the walls split asunder immediately. "Make way," ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... immediately, added new horrors to the gloom. Apparitions, claps of thunder, earthquakes, heightened the terror and amazement; whilst the person to be admitted, overwhelmed with dread, and sweating through fear, heard, trembling, the mysterious volumes read to him, if in such a condition he was capable of hearing at all. These nocturnal rites gave birth to many disorders, which the severe law of silence, imposed on the persons initiated, prevented from coming to light, as St. Gregory Nazianzen observes.(65) What cannot superstition ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... after spending several hours in fruitless search, he was just giving up the hunt and beginning despondently to wonder what he had better do next, when suddenly a small post was seen on the horizon. A rush was made for it, and in a few minutes Colbeck knew that he had only to steer into the mysterious depths of McMurdo Sound to find the Discovery, and practically to accomplish the work he ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... accompanied by a young singer, in her coach, on a visit to a friend's. He had heard of this mysterious affair, and being of a lively disposition, expressed some doubts on the subject. I most ardently wish, continued he, to hear the voice of your invisible companion; do call him, there are two of us, we shall not be frightened. Without reflecting, she had the courage to summon the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 332, September 20, 1828 • Various
... produced the delay. Rivenoak was evidently apprised of all, and by a gesture of his arm he appeared to direct the circle to remain unbroken, and for each person to await the issue in the situation he or she then occupied. It required but a minute or two to bring an explanation of this singular and mysterious pause, which was soon terminated by the appearance of Judith on the exterior of the line of bodies, and her ready admission within ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... grovelling souls fair mercy bids adieu! And thou, sweet damsel! who in girlhood's bloom Descended then to fill an ocean tomb— What were thy thoughts, when roaring for their prey The foaming billows choked the watery way! 'Tis said that souls have giv'n in parting hour A vast and fearful and mysterious power. A chart pictorial of the past is made, In which minute events are all portray'd— One painful glance the scroll entire surveys And then in death the blasted eye-balls glaze— Perchance at that dark moment when the maid ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... older time there come echoes of a later instruction, adapted and blended into native legend so that the point of division cannot be indicated. Such is that of the mysterious voyager of the Whulge—the Siwash name for the sound that takes the name of Puget from one of Vancouver's officers. Across this body of water the stranger came in a copper canoe that borrowed the glories of the morning. When he had landed and sent for all the ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... turn our attention to Germany, we shall here find, almost at the same period, a local institution which, although very different from the sanguinary court of the Old Man of the Mountain, was of an equally terrible and mysterious character. We must not, however, look at it from the same point of view, for, having been founded with the object of furthering and defending the establishment of a regular social state, which had been approved and sanctioned by the sovereigns, and recognised by the Church, ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... great English poets of the romantic or revolutionary period; than Coleridge in the secret sunlight of the Antarctic, where the waters were like witches' oils; than Keats looking out of those extreme mysterious casements upon that ultimate sea. The heroes and criminals of the great French crisis would have been quite as incapable of such imaginative independence as Keats and Coleridge would have been incapable of winning the battle of Wattignies. In Paris the tree of liberty was a garden tree, clipped ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... the comment passed on Strindberg's death by the European press was that, in some mysterious manner, he, more than any other writer, appeared to be the incarnation of the past century, with its nervous striving after truth, its fear of being duped, and its fretting dread that evolution and progress might prove antagonistic terms. ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... on questioning the squire upon sundry particulars of Clifford's birth, parentage, and property, he found him exactly as ignorant as before. The courtier, however, seeing further expostulation was in vain, contented himself with patting the squire's shoulder, and saying, with a mysterious urbanity, "Ah, ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... glide the right foot forward one pace, without lifting the sandal from the ground, and extend both hands to the right, with a strange floating motion and a smiling, mysterious obeisance. Then the right foot is drawn back, with a repetition of the waving of hands and the mysterious bow. Then all advance the left foot and repeat the previous movements, half-turning to the left. Then all take two gliding paces forward, with a single ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... bit low in his mind, the Candy Man's mood became positively jovial. When the sad grey man known to the children as the Miser, and invested with mysterious and awful powers, stopped to buy some hoarhound drops, he wished him ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
... came on the Polish expression nastroj (tone of mind). Yes, they agreed, universally, that the baron's dwelling produced a tone of mind; an impression not of what was in it, but of something of which it was the mysterious expression or symbol. It produced an impression which had its cause beyond this world. To believe in something beyond this world does not mean to profess a religion—as that of Buddha, Zoroaster, or Chrystos. No, of ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... armed with the hammer and tacks and a pile of mysterious cards, a little proud but trembling a little, too. There was something uncanny about this; he would see it through but it was a strange, dark business. He shuffled along the road, peering fearfully into the woods now and again when suddenly a terrible apparition appeared before him. He ...
— Pee-wee Harris • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... mysterious-looking housekeeper, as she looked sadly and wistfully at the new-comers, and asked in a tremulous voice which was Guy's wife, formed for Zillah a striking incident in the arrival. To her Zillah at once took a strong liking, and Mrs. Hart seemed to form one equally strong for her. From the ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... Orede to bear out his account of an attempt to get that lonely world evacuated before Weald discovered it had blueskins on it. Maril had vanished, to visit or return to her family, or perhaps to consult with the mysterious Korvan who'd arranged for her to leave Dara to be a spy, and had advised her simply to make a new life somewhere else, abandoning a ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster
... a mysterious explosive, of unimaginable puissance, with whose aid they set their car in motion for Mars from a point in Bergen County, N. J., ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss
... risen in rebellion, and to conspire with the king's enemies. He will be placed in close charge and, when the present pressing affairs have been put out of hand, I doubt not we shall find means of learning a good deal more about this mysterious person, who claims to be English, but who yet speaks our ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... the few words scribbled in a wild caricature of his scholarly and dainty hand! I was no longer to be alarmed by this sort of thing; it was all so like the Raffles I loved least; and to add to my indignation, when at length I looked up from the mysterious missive, the equally mysterious messenger had disappeared in a manner worthy of the whole affair. He was, however, the first creature I espied under the tattered trees ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... missionary of the new sect, that called itself by the sounding title of The Catholic Apostolic Church. In Lower Ripple he preached to any who would listen to him the doctrine of the new Pentecost. At first curiosity brought him hearers; his story of the Voice, dramatic and mysterious, was listened to in doubting silence; then disapproved of—so hotly disapproved of that he was sessioned and ...
— The Voice • Margaret Deland
... really not equal to the mental strain of having more than one topic every three months. They have been very fortunate lately, however. They have had my own divorce-case, and Alan Campbell's suicide. Now they have got the mysterious disappearance of an artist. Scotland Yard still insists that the man in the grey ulster who left for Paris by the midnight train on the ninth of November was poor Basil, and the French police declare that Basil never ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... in the seclusion of her chamber it would be indelicate to disclose. Moreover, I am not minutely aware of all the intricacies of the employment of those mysterious means by which she accomplished the charming effect that she did in some intuitive way presently accomplish; and at any rate I decline the task of description. I confess, however, that the little packet contained a modest modicum of the necessary materials, ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... condition of a slave obliged him to use mysterious answers, Margiana did not understand his meaning; she perceived, however, that he had a great deal of wit. Since you are clerk to the captain, said she, no doubt you can write well; ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... scientist in building living organisms from basic elements, he ceased to cringe when he remembered that perhaps it was true that Ana was created in the mysterious life-machine. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... a legend, which at least contains a true suggestion, that when Savonarola was on his way to Florence from Genoa, as a young man, his strength failed him as he was crossing the Apennines, but that a mysterious stranger appeared to him, restored his courage, led him to a hospice, compelled him to take food, and afterwards accompanied him to his destination; but on reaching the San Gallo gate he vanished, with the words, Remember to do that for ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... Scarcely less mysterious—though living among us still—are the red men whom we found here. They had no written languages or history; their knowledge of their own past was confined to vague and fanciful traditions. They were few in numbers, barbarous in condition, untamable in nature; they built no cities and ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... showed concerning a certain mysterious box, especially after I had spoken of jewels ...
— The Dock Rats of New York • "Old Sleuth"
... friend had a feeling for; a light, romantic and mysterious, on the feminine element, in which he enjoyed for a little watching it. ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... harm; for if any of our physics tasted stronger than usual, Mrs. Medlicott would bid us let it down with cochineal and water, to make all safe, as she said. So our bottles of medicine had very little real physic in them at last; but we were careful in putting labels on them, which looked very mysterious to those who could not read, and helped the medicine to do its work. I have sent off many a bottle of salt and water coloured red; and whenever we had nothing else to do in the still-room, Mrs. Medlicott would set us to making bread-pills, by way of practice; and, ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... be called upon hereafter to deal with forces yet undiscovered. The developments of science have brought to your aid things as mysterious as life, which no mind can penetrate. You are now called upon to use electricity as a motive power and as light. You must develop these secrets of nature, and you will have no more fear of the exhaustion of gold, ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... is also hallowed by another tenderly sacred association. Here our beloved daughter, Louise Ledyard Cuyler, closed her beautiful life on the last day of September, 1881. On her return from Narragansett Pier, she was stricken with a mysterious typhoid fever, which often lays its fatal touch on the most youthful and vigorous frame. She had apparently passed the point of danger, and one Sabbath when I read to her that one hundred and twenty-first Psalm, which records the watchful love of Him who "never sleeps," our hearts were gladdened ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... be wondering what strange circumstance this was, fraught with such a terrible contingency. There was nothing mysterious in or about it. It was simply that the Catamaran, carrying its large spread sail, was drifting to leeward, and rapidly increasing the distance between itself ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... life In hues of heaven; and which grown open day, Revealing perilous falls, his steps confined Within the pathways to the noblest end. Now following this dimmed glory, tired, his soul Haunts ever the mysterious gates of Death; And waits in patient reverence till his doom Unfolding ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... his way into me, he has taken up his abode within me. He sits inside of me like the mysterious magician at moving-picture shows who turns the crank inside of the black booth above the heads of the spectators. He casts his picture through my eyes upon every wall, every curtain, every flat surface ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... that Ceres nursed him on her own milk, and purified him by fire. Some have supposed that the fable refers to the epoch when agriculture was introduced into Greece: but it is much more probable that it relates simply to the introduction there of the mysterious worship of Ceres, which was probably imported from Egypt. It is possible that, at the same period, the Greeks may have learned some improved method of tilling the ground, acquired ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... written to him, as she did; she would have written to Combe Magna; and if he is in town, how odd that he should neither come nor write! Oh! my dear mother, you must be wrong in permitting an engagement between a daughter so young, a man so little known, to be carried on in so doubtful, so mysterious a manner! I long to inquire; and how will ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... valley extend?" he asked abruptly, stepping over as though to obtain a view of the southern extremity of the mysterious hollow. ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... belief in witchcraft was general. Striking coincidences, personal eccentricities, unusual events and mysterious diseases seemed to find an easy explanation in an unholy compact with the devil. A witticism attributed to Judge Sewall, one of the judges in these trials, may help us to understand the common panic: 'We know who's who but not which is witch.' That was the difficulty. ...
— The Witchcraft Delusion In Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) • John M. Taylor
... moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform; He plants his footsteps in the sea ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... rather say their manner—was inexplicably mysterious, and it induced me to ferret out its cause. That they were screening some one, was evident, and I could only come to the conclusion that it was you. But, Master Hamish, there were circumstances on your own part which tended to strengthen the belief," added Mr. Huntley, ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... greater strength because he sees no outward sign of them. And this effect, as I have intimated, was heightened to its utmost intensity in me, because Bertha was the only being who remained for me in the mysterious seclusion of soul that renders such youthful delusion possible. Doubtless there was another sort of fascination at work—that subtle physical attraction which delights in cheating our psychological predictions, and in compelling the men who paint ...
— The Lifted Veil • George Eliot
... difference observable on the reverse side. For the formless depression of the Squier and Davis cut not only occupies a somewhat different position in relation to the top and sides of the tablet, but, as will be seen by reference to the figure, it assumes a distinct form, having in some mysterious way been metamorphosed into a figure which oddly enough suggests the manatee. It does not appear that the attention of archaeologists has ever been directed to the fact that such a resemblance exists; nor indeed ...
— Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley • Henry W. Henshaw
... well-bred and cheerful guest. An amiable proprietor had permitted her also to add a wrought-iron balcony as an adjunct to this room, and sometimes she sat there on the warmer days reading under the seclusion of an awning, or gazing at the mysterious facades of the houses opposite, or at infrequent cabs or ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... she said this, she saw again the downhearted expression on his face, heard his mournful, "I couldn't find it. It's not there." With that she relented, and ere she slept resolved to take up the matter of the mysterious disappearance with him the first thing ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... accomplished by pilots. With the passing of each year new records in altitude and long distance are made. In these stories Amos Green and his chum, Danny Cooper, accomplish all the thrilling deeds of the air that have been done before only by hardened veterans. Moreover, backed by the mysterious "Mr. Carstairs" they succeed in doing stunts new to the history of aviation. You'll find them ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... began to stream down his face as the strange fantastic being step by step approached him. At length the apparition paused, the prisoner and he stood face to face for a moment, their eyes riveted; then the mysterious stranger spoke in ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... same moral lesson: "Say ye to the righteous that it shall be well with him, for he shall eat the fruit of his doings." "Woe to the wicked; it shall be ill with him, for the reward of his hands shall be given him." Whenever a vision relates to what God will do in the distant future, it is dark and mysterious; but whenever any directions are given necessary for our immediate duty, then the "vision is written and made plain on tables, that he may run that readeth it." The possessors of a clearly engrossed title-deed have surely no reason to complain that the president has chosen that his seal ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... even acted rightly by YOU, in laying before you what it was not easy for you, my dear lord, to see or know at a distance. I trust all to your indulgence, and your acquaintance with my character, which surely is not artful or mysterious, and which, to you, has ever been, as it ever shall be, most cordial and well-intentioned. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... terrible for her, was developing for her husband certain possibilities of charm. His irrepressible boyishness refused to accept it in all its moral gloom. There were, he perceived, advantages in these strained relations. They had removed Anne into the mysterious realm her maidenhood had inhabited, before marriage had had time to touch her magic. She had become once more the unapproachable and unattained. Their first courtship, pursued under intolerable restrictions of time and place, had been a rather uninspired affair, and ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... to her the Campagna and the Catacombs. On the former she had taken walks, and in the very bowels of the latter she had seemingly burrowed for days, following some mysterious purpose of her own. Her favorite time for a promenade on the Campagna, and one she paused to recommend to me, was at dusk, the place then being quiet and peaceful, owing to the fact that tourists, foolishly fearing the fever, kept ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... easily see that after such rough treatment the hair needed restoring waters; and indeed from earliest times hair-restorers and hair-dyes did these "vain ancients" use. "Women with juice of herbs gray locks disguised." In these days of manifold mysterious nostrums that gild the head of declining age and make glad the waste places on bald young masculine pates, let us read the simple receipts of the good ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... manner all over the Union (the Union of States) without a loss of consideration. In case of her occupying the upper berth I presume it would be different; but I must make inquiries on this point. Whether it be the fact that a mysterious being of another sex has retired to rest behind the same curtains, or whether it be the swing of the train, which rushes through the air with very much the same movement as the tail of a kite, the situation is, at any rate, so anomalous ...
— The Point of View • Henry James
... curiosity to know more of his history, it served, also, to cause them to respect his boy-manhood, and so not to ply him with too many or close questions. Thus Benjamin escaped the necessity of exposing the objectionable part of his career, and left his good friends wondering over the mysterious ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... them we walked over to where the group of Indians were collected round the tonga-drinker, who was now awaking from his sleep, and sitting up, though apparently very much exhausted. His companions were listening attentively to the mysterious revelations which fell from his mouth, the result of his spiritual communications with his ancestors. He spoke of a day of regeneration for the Indians; of liberty and happiness not far distant, when the yoke of the ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... remained at the window, looking on all sides, and trying to read in the physiognomy of every passer-by whether that individual was an actor in the mysterious drama which was preparing, and in which she instinctively understood that Raoul was to play the chief part. She remained, then, with a beating heart, her neck stretched out, and her eyes wandering hither and thither, when all at once her unquiet ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... noise, and the great cobra swayed its inflated neck to and fro as though to some mysterious rhythm, the native with naked hand and arm seeming to ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... a curious ring! Silver, set with a ruby heart. Why, this is the ring—the mysterious ring that belonged to the priest, and was found in his ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... silks and the veil that shall cover Beauty, till yesterday, careless and wild, Red are her lips for the kiss of a lover, Ripe are her breasts for the lips of a child. Centre and Shrine of Mysterious Power, Chalice of Pleasure and Rose of Delight, Shyly aware of the swift-coming hour, Waiting the shade and the silence of night, Choti ...
— Last Poems • Laurence Hope
... now in the colony over a score of settled counties. The westernmost of these, the frontier counties, were so huge that they ran at least to the mountains, and, for all one knew to the contrary, presumably beyond. But "beyond" was a mysterious word of unknown content, for no Virginian of that day had gone beyond. All the way from Canada into South Carolina and the Florida of that time stretched the mighty system of the Appalachians, fifteen hundred miles in length and three hundred ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston
... stranger) had, with many expressions of gratitude, declined. After consulting with our friend Mr. Dalton, it was decided that I should signify to Messrs. Coutts my readiness to comply with the required conditions, begging them to convey my best thanks to my mysterious benefactor, and to inform him that it was my intention (subject to his approval) to enter my name at Trinity without loss of time. In answer to this I received the following ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... relations and St. Germain, whose wild talk amused me, I should prefer her to invite no company. St. Germain often dined with the best society in the capital, but he never ate anything, saying that he was kept alive by mysterious food known only to himself. One soon got used to his eccentricities, but not to his wonderful flow of words which made him the soul of whatever company ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... happened down in the engine-room; and the chief engineer said that they would have to travel at half speed to Penang. In other words, they would not make the port to-day, Sunday, but to-morrow. Another day with this mysterious tantalizing woman, thought Warrington. He went in search of her, but before he found her, he was summoned to the captain's cabin. Warrington presented himself, mildly curious. The captain nodded ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... abetted the Rebel cause from the start. Its embargo on arms had been little more than a pretense of neutrality, which had fooled the Federals not at all, and it was an open secret that financial assistance to the uprising was rendered from some mysterious Northern source. The very presence of American troops along the border was construed by Mexicans as a threat against President Potosi, and an encouragement to revolt, while the talk of intervention, invasion, and war had intensified the ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... collector of Indian traditions, who claims to be the first European that ever visited the Red Pipe-stone Quarry, which is situated amongst the upper waters of Missouri. Catlin gives the following legend as the Indian version of the birth of the mysterious red pipe:— ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... almost any color, except mauve and mysterious, pale colors. To wear yellow, she must contrast it ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... man, and the spinster received his attentions very favorably. She knew very little about him except that he was in some mysterious business about which he did not speak definitely, except that it required him to travel constantly. Matters progressed until they became engaged. At this point, rather reversing the usual order of things, Miss Marden ...
— The Erie Train Boy • Horatio Alger
... on old Elihu Wall—this unearned abuse. But Elihu and I were fast friends, nevertheless: he sped many a wearisome hour for me when my uncle was upon his grim, mysterious business in the city; and I had long ago told him that he must not grieve, whatever I said—however caustic and unkind the words—because my uncle's whims must be humored, which was the end to be served by us both. With this assurance of good feeling, old ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... break of day. Caesar got down at the house of one Flores, auditor of the rota, where he procured a fresh horse and suitable clothes; then he flew at once to his mother, who gave a cry of joy when she saw him; for so silent and mysterious was the cardinal for all the world beside, and even for her, that he had not said a word of his early return to Rome. The cry of joy uttered by Rosa Vanozza when she beheld her son was far mare a cry of vengeance than of love. ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... fear it is true. Enclosed I leave you a cheque which will pay for anything I may have cost you; further than that I can only thank you for your, I fear, unwilling hospitality, and pray that some day we may meet, when this mysterious cloud, which I have deplored so much, may have ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... pine board, one of which he offered at once to 'Squire Hubbard. This relieved the attorney, who took the wood, and was soon deeply plunged in, to me, the unknown delights of whittling. I cannot explain the mysterious pleasure that so many find in whittling, though the prevalence of the custom is so well known. But I cannot explain the pleasure so many find in chewing tobacco, or in smoking. The precaution of the landlord was far from being unnecessary, and appeared to be taken in good part by all to whom he ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... of the theatres during several years. They had too much merit to be rejected, perhaps too little to be acted. Year passed over year, and the last still repeated the treacherous promise of its brother. The mysterious arts of procrastination are by no one so well systematised as by the theatrical manager, nor its secret sorrows so deeply felt as by the dramatist. One of her comedies, The Debt of Honour, had been warmly approved at both theatres—where probably a copy of it may still be found. ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... commonly give a man a certain fierce and martial air, which sets him off to advantage; but it was quite the contrary with him, and this remarkable plaister so well suited his mysterious looks, that it seemed an addition to his ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... to hear Delia tell of their pranks, and of all the other queer, quaint things in their way of living. Everybody has a way of living; and if you can get into it, every one is as good as a story. It always seemed to us as if Delia brought with her the atmosphere of mysterious old houses, and old, old books stowed away in their by-places, and stories of the far past that had been lived there, and curious ancient garments done with long ago, and packed into trunks and bureaus in the dark, unused rooms, ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... to-day again a dozen times the fortune I meanly squandered. I shall never touch it; it is yours and your children's. And now, Alice, is all love dead for me? And is it Yes or No? And shall I be always to my little ones Kris, and to-night a mysterious memory, or shall ...
— Mr. Kris Kringle - A Christmas Tale • S. Weir Mitchell
... a distant and murky corner, indicated that its inhabitant did not trust merely to this natural source of the great blessing of existence. In the centre of the cave was a circular and brazen table, sculptured with strange characters and mysterious figures: near it was a couch, on which lay several volumes.[9] Suspended from the walls were a shield, some bows and arrows, and ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... diamond-studded sugar loaves. So high were the clouds that every portion of the mighty summits was clearly outlined. The great ramparts of the prairie are a magnificent sight on a clear day. Flat and smooth as any billiard-table stretched this silent, mysterious muskeg, already green and fair to the eye, an alluring pasture to the unwary. An experienced eye might have judged it too green—too alluring. Could a more perfect trap be devised by evil human ingenuity than this? Think for one instant of a bottomless pit of liquid ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... solemnity fell upon me. God had assuredly directed my path, for He had brought the two of us together over the widest spaces of earth. I had no fear of the issue. I should master Muckle John as I had mastered him before. My awe was all for God's mysterious dealing, not for that poor fool posturing behind his obscene sacrifice. His voice rose and fell in eldritch screams and hollow moans. He was mouthing the words ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... heard her mutter, 'They find plenty of fault with her about that,' but I took no notice. I had satisfied my curiosity, and I knew now why Max fancied an Indian letter would raise Gladys's spirits; but all the same he might have spoken out. Max had no business to be so mysterious with me. ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... was something unseen, but which could be felt—a mysterious wind—a wind that might be encountered any time, and which might send the Falcon to the ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Glider - or, Seeking the Platinum Treasure • Victor Appleton
... lie couch'd within thy breast, Freely propound, expound; and for the rest Of thy mysterious lines, let them remain For those whose nimble fancies ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... duties, and destiny, backed up by tremendous authority, and speculative philosophy had advanced very far by the time PLATO began to concern himself with its problems. Nature, on the other hand, was a mysterious world of magical happenings, and there was nothing deserving of the name of natural science until alchemy was becoming decadent. It is not surprising, therefore, that the alchemists—these men who wished to probe Nature's hidden mysteries—should ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove
... Each was a new leaf turned over in my book of life, the reading of which was my only happiness. What else, or more, could be expected of an existence hedged in by the terrors of eternity, the hauntings of an inevitable condemnation, unless I could obtain some mysterious renovation, only attainable through an act of divine grace which no human merit could entitle me to, and which I tried in vain to win the benediction of? And how dreary seemed the heaven I was set to ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... nothing else to do for the present, they watched the actions of the Mexicans—actions that were not so strange and mysterious as they had been before Bud hit ...
— The Boy Ranchers at Spur Creek - or Fighting the Sheep Herders • Willard F. Baker
... infallibility, will not prevent his persecutions from giving Freemasonry an importance which it would perhaps have never obtained if it had been left alone. Mystery is the essence of man's nature, and whatever presents itself to mankind under a mysterious appearance will always excite curiosity and be sought, even when men are satisfied that the veil covers nothing but ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... very mysterious, and hardly any one understood it. Some thought he alluded to the accession of Lord Grey to the Government; that must have rested upon foolish rumour. He alluded, I conclude, to the King's support, now well known. What symptoms of ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)
... the pope, gradually obtained the chairs in the universities, and took the lead in the murder of their fellow creatures through the inquisition. What a temptation to brawling mendicants, too lazy to earn a living, authorized to beg, and the supple tools of political leaders; and all this by a mysterious society, under the guise and pretence of the Christian religion! Laic tools for ...
— Mysticism and its Results - Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy • John Delafield
... own home and to be able to look after and mother her dearly-loved brother was a pleasant change from her position as a cipher in the household of a crotchetty, unsympathetic, maiden aunt. And fortunately for her the charm of the silent forest around them, the romance of the mysterious jungle with its dangers and its wonders, appealed strongly to her, and she preferred them to all the pleasures that London could offer. And yet the delights of town were not unknown to her. Her father's first cousin, ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... that the Corporal was in league with the witch; and the preacher, who had not forgotten about the bass viol, though he said only a few mysterious words, seemed rather to agree. Then Mrs. Fry revealed the fact that she had suspected the Corporal from the first; for to begin with he ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue
... his flute, propped up the book against a vase, and played the tune, whilst she hummed it fragmentarily. But as he played, he felt that he did not cast the spell over her. There was no connection. She was in some mysterious way withstanding him. She was withstanding him, and his male super-power, and his thunderbolt desire. She was, in some indescribable way, throwing cold water over his phoenix newly risen from the ashes of its ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... expressions, which are employed by the French workmen. The wig-makers, tailors, barbers, all consider their several trades as in some measure allied to science, and themselves as the only beings who understand it.—This they generally contrive to communicate to you with an air of mysterious importance. "Monsieur," said a French barber to a friend of mine, an English sea captain who came in to be shaved; "you are an Englishman—sorry am I to inform you, but I do it with profound respect, that the science of shaving is altogether misunderstood in England. In their ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... first observed in their migratory dress: that is, that they were only a few weeks old, instead of being upwards of two years. It is certainly singular, however, that no enquirer of the old school should have ever bethought himself of the mysterious fate of the two-year-old parr, (supposing them not to be young salmon,) none of which, of course, are visible after the smolts have taken their departure to the sea. If the two fish, it may be asked, are not identical, how does it happen that the one so constantly disappears ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... yet the ripening sun Had three short lustres o'er his childhood run, The prince had learnt, beneath his father's hand, The well-framed code that sway'd the sacred land; With rites mysterious served the Power divine, Prepared the altar and adorn'd the shrine, Responsive hail'd, with still returning praise, Each circling season that the God displays, Sooth'd with funereal hymns the parting dead, At nuptial feasts the joyful chorus led; While evening incense ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... tribes on its borders. [Footnote: Beaurain, Journal historique.] A few months later, two Canadians told Bienville a similar story. In 1708 Nicolas de la Salle proposed an expedition of a hundred men to explore the same mysterious river; and in 1717 one Hubert laid before the Council of Marine a scheme for following the Missouri to its source, since, he says, "not only may we find the mines worked by the Spaniards, but also discover the great river that is said to rise in the mountains where the Missouri ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... shipwrecked. Thrown on an island without weapons, tools, food, or any of the requirements of life. What they had accomplished previous to the opening of this chapter. Making tools. Capturing yaks and training them. The three previous expeditions, and what they discovered. The mysterious occurrences. The fourth voyage of discovery. Losing sight of the strange animals. The forest. Discovering orang-outans. Capturing a young orang. Christening the "Baby." Its strange and restless ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... you tell me how much of you was eighteen last birthday and how much is as old as the Sphinx and twice as mysterious, perhaps I'll attend to you. Lend me that banjo. The spirit moveth me to yowl ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... looking forward to the idea of leaving home. Vague ideas of how his mother and sisters would learn too late how little they had appreciated him; visions of magnanimously forgiving them all some day when he should have, in some mysterious way, become a landed proprietor, riding about his fields, and of inviting them all down into the country to visit him, floated before his brain. He ate his breakfast with a very good appetite; and when Mr. Byrne entered the room, he was ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth
... brows in the darkness with genuine distress. Women worry more than men over past intangibilities. He smiled comfortably to himself, for in his grasp he held, unresisting, the dearest little hand in the world. Outside, the ever-charming, ever-mysterious night of the Hills was stealing here and there in sighs and silences. From the darkness came the high sweet tenor of Bert Leslie's voice in the words ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... is passing fair— Golden dreams await us there; We shall dream those dreams, my dear, Till the Mother Moon goes down— See unfold Delights untold! And in those mysterious places We shall see beloved faces And beloved voices hear In ...
— Love-Songs of Childhood • Eugene Field
... the people of that vicinity rarely knew more than Hungarian, no meaning would appear. In case anybody understood English, it was hardly probable the Arabic text would be familiar too. Only by rare chance could this mysterious book be deciphered. What it contained was the description of a secret passage or tunnel that led from the Madocsany Castle to the turreted walls of Mitosin. Midway was the river Waag, which was here quite wide, but the tunnel passed under ...
— Peter the Priest • Mr Jkai
... are not spiritually minded, do not wait for mysterious light and vision. Go and give up your dearest sin. Go and do what is right. Go and put yourself thoroughly into the power of the holiness ...
— Heart's-ease • Phillips Brooks
... not their grace, now serious, Now malicious, now mysterious, That appeals to his utilitarian mind; But, when viewed as extirpators Of disease-disseminators, Then he looks with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, April 12, 1916 • Various
... and gave way to the impulse to use bad language. Whereupon sonorous imprecations on the obstinate fuel shook the air. The bystanders could not believe their ears. They thought the sounds proceeded from some mysterious voice in the oven. But the deaf-mute protested that he heard his friends talking, and assured them that the words they heard were his own; S. Theodosia had opened his ears and loosed his tongue. The ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... Some new overtures with reference to modifying the continental blockade had been entrusted to Labouchere, but they were hampered and complicated by Fouche's intrigues. The minister of police had recently authorized Ouvrard to leave Vincennes, and employed him in those mysterious negotiations which was soon afterwards to cost him the confidence and favor of his master. At this time, however, it was against the King of Holland that the anger of the latter was ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... in awe at the grandeur of the mountains, thrusting their snowcapped summits into the clouds, and it is indeed a glorious sight; but the ocean, with its ceaseless motion, its wonderful rising and falling of the tides, and its constant and mysterious moaning, is not to be outdone in sublimity, and offers a keen delight to the lover of nature. Its sands and waters are ever changing. Its rugged coast, with rocks scattered in wild profusion, is one of the most interesting spots ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson
... marvellous intricacy. Yet all this is but, as it were, the outward show and garment of nature, behind which lies the inner structure—the framework, the vessels, the cells, the circulating fluids, and the digestive and reproductive processes,—and behind these again those mysterious chemical, electrical, and vital forces which constitute what we term Life. These forces appear to be fundamentally the same for all organisms, as is the material of which all are constructed; and we thus find behind the outer diversities an inner relationship which binds together ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... my heart," said he, and clasped me to his bosom, "what a new PAMELA have I in my arms! A mysterious charmer! Let us instantly go to my closet, or yours, and come upon our mutual trial; for you have fired my soul ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... turn against the person to whom Lienhard belonged, as he did to the city, or to his own family, and who was united to him by the will of Heaven, but against the mysterious young creature at his side, who changed with every ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Jesper, not doubting, however, that as soon as he saw the coast clear he would use his legs to the best advantage, and never show face at the palace again. It was therefore with great surprise and annoyance that he now learned of the mysterious return of the hares and the likelihood of Jesper carrying out his task ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... in this calm, Indian-summer twilight to remind you of any other land, save its stillness and the balm of dying flowers giving up their lives to the frost. But the links of association are rapid and mysterious, and the scenes that awaken a reminiscence are sometimes entirely ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... bad, and filled my mind with them at the same time. My nursery window afforded a view of the great fountains at the head of the upper basin, and on moonlight nights the Welshwoman would hold me up to the glass and bid me look at the mist and spray rising into mysterious shapes, moving mystically in the white light ...
— The Upper Berth • Francis Marion Crawford
... 2. But that mysterious Providence, the wisdom of whose ways is above human comprehension, had visited her with wasting sickness, and her little means had become exhausted. It was now, too, midwinter, and the snow lay heavy and deep through ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... faculty, the privileged apprehension' by which 'the imaginative regeneration of the world' should be brought about, or even, at times, a brooding over 'what the soul passes, and must pass, through, aux abois with nothingness, or with those offended mysterious powers that ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... invariable law. It is in birth and rebirth that nature renews herself and all the life of the animal and vegetable world, and her primal aim is to encourage it. Human law recognizes this underlying law of nature by forbidding man to tamper in a preventive way with her hallowed and mysterious processes for perpetuating the human race. Religious law, based on the divine dispensation of the Scriptures, indorses the law of nature ...
— Sex - Avoided subjects Discussed in Plain English • Henry Stanton
... great treasures of gold and jewels after returning from his cruising set the brains of all the good people along the coast in a ferment. There were rumors on rumors of great sums found here and there; sometimes in one part of the country, sometimes in another; of trees and rocks bearing mysterious marks; doubtless indicating the spots where treasure lay hidden; of coins found with Moorish characters, the plunder of Kidd's eastern prize, but which the common people took ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... sympathetic magic, a belief that is universal among primitive peoples. The fear formerly entertained by the American Indians of having their photographs taken was due to a belief in sympathetic magic. The one who possessed the likeness was supposed to have some mysterious power ...
— The Later Cave-Men • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... Bohemian glass cup standing on the table, where she had kept it for three years. He looked at her, passing her light fingers quickly through the gold ripples of her hair, while her face, hardened and bronzed by the shadow, took on a mysterious expression. She did ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... credible man, related to him that the jar howled dolefully the night before the death of his first wife, and that it emitted similar tones in the event of impending misfortunes. St. John is inclined to explain the mysterious phenomenon by a probably peculiar form of the mouth of the vessel, in passing over which the air-draught is thrown into resonant verberations, like the Aeolian harp. The vessel is generally enveloped in gold brocade, and is uncovered only when it is to be consulted; and hence, of course, ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... under the Sea. Round the World in Eighty Days. Five Weeks in a Balloon. The English at the North Pole. The Clipper of the Clouds. From the Earth to the Moon. The Mysterious Island. A Journey to the ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... could never have found a more zealous and participating partner of his fears than Kaiber; he gave me a blank look of horror and assured me that these were actual sorcerers, "northern sorcerers;" and as he repeated these last words there was a mysterious, deep meaning in his tone, as if he expected to see me ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... Goldsmith thought of in his dreary lodgings in Fleet-Street courts? No. It was the Lissoy where the vagrant lad had first seen the "primrose peep beneath the thorn"; where he had listened to the mysterious call of the bittern by the unfrequented river; it was a Lissoy still ringing with the glad laughter of young people in the twilight hours; it was a Lissoy for ever beautiful, and tender, and far away. The grown-up Goldsmith had not to go to any Kentish village for a model; the familiar scenes ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... I conceive you mean with respect to my neighbour, Sir Peter Teazle, and his Family—Lappet.—And has my conduct in this matter really appeared to you so mysterious? [Exit MAID.] ...
— The School For Scandal • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... young one with the chips of its shell on its head would sound to a Mother Cary's chicken, who knew the great ocean with all its typhoons and tornadoes? Yet every now and then one is liable to be surprised with strange clairvoyant flashes, that can hardly be explained, except by the mysterious inspiration which every now and then seizes a young girl and exalts her intelligence, just as hysteria in other instances exalts the sensibility,—a little something of that which made Joan of Arc, and the Burney girl who prophesied "Evelina," ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... work of art. Uncanny-looking animals, and uncannier figures that might have passed for anything from an articulated skeleton to a Missing Link, cavorted in a long line across that tribal picture-gallery. Between each group of figures the face of the rock was scored with mysterious signs and rudely limned weapons of war and chase. Right over the stone marker, a long-shafted war-lance was carved—the blade pointing down. MacRae's seat, stone-marker, and aboriginal spearhead; the three lined up like the sights of a modern rifle. The conclusion, in ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... dying ears. A tragic beauty—"beauty born of murmuring sound—had passed into her face;" and that great plunge of many waters, which had been to her in life the symbol of anguish and guilt, had become in some mysterious way the comforter of her pain, the friend of her ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... know how strongly the force of imagination acts? On this subject she had now become a perfect hypochondriac. She could not shake it off, it haunted her night and day; and even the influence of society could scarcely banish the dread image of that mysterious and fearful ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... the article wanted was always at the bottom. Incidentally he strove to impart to Thompson certain rudimentary principles in the cooking of simple food. He illustrated the method of mixing a batch of baking-powder bread, and how to parboil salt pork before cooking, explained to him the otherwise mysterious expansion of rice and beans and dried apples in boiling water, all of which Breyette was shrewd enough to realize that Thompson knew nothing about. He had a ready ear for instructions but a poor understanding of these matters. ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair |
