"Unearthly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... many men of his time, suspecting what he suspected, would have opened that door, or at that hour of the night would have entered that room. But Claude, though he feared, though he shuddered, though unearthly terrors pressed upon him, possessed a charm that supported his courage: the memory of the scene in the room below, of the scalding drops falling on the white skin, of the girl looking at him with that face of pain. The devil was strong, but there was a stronger; and in the strength ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... there came an indescribable, unearthly sound that echoed and reechoed among the cliffs. I could not tell the direction from which it came; a sudden chill crept along my spine, my hair prickled and lifted. Then the echoes ceased, the silence that followed was equally terrifying. I bethought me of my unfinished ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... beautifully dressed that you could not take in details but must simply surrender yourself to a cloudy film of white or blue, with everything so perfectly in its place that it seemed to the rough and ready Jeremy quite unearthly. Of course she had to be very careful how she walked, when she sat down, in what way she moved her hands and feet, and how she blew her nose. It was wonderful to see her do these things, she did them so naturally and yet ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... consult the college tutor, who failed not to give him some good advice, and hoped the warning would not be thrown away. My informant, who thought the whole matter very serious, and was disposed to believe the unearthly visit to have been no idle one, added, that it had made the ghost-seer, for the time at all events, a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... the cables were cut; the brushwood crackled with a fierce noise as the fire leaped up and the "ocean steed" bounded away over the dark blue sea. Guttorm was still seated by the helm, his face pale as death, but with a placid smile on his mouth, and a strange, almost unearthly, ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... fence, and dashed off through a grass field. Keeping steadily on, he made for the grounds of the Park, passed the drained pond, and the frost-ruined garden, and pausing before the inclosure where slept the Harrison dead, he lifted his head and gave utterance to a howl so wild, so savagely unearthly, that it chilled the blood in the veins of those who heard. An instant he paused, and then dashing through the hedge, was ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... forgot the vision of the girl-queen in her sweeping widow's robes, across the great space between them, in the sunshine of the loggia—her hand extended as if to hasten or to bless him—a wonderful, unearthly light and strength in her face; and, for one moment as she met his gaze and understood the full depth of his devotion, the ghost of a smile—as if it had been granted him to bring her in this hour of martyrdom one little ray ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... sisters—a very chaos of rapture for the fingers of infancy! Only a few expensive toys from a fashionable purveyor—things that went by machinery, darting forward a little way with convulsive jerks and unearthly choking noises, and then tumbling ignominiously ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... ascent, where hills were tumbled about confusedly; and suddenly, across the broad ravine, above the sunny grass and the deep-green pines, rose in glowing and shaded red against the glittering blue heaven, a magnificent and unearthly range of mountains, as shapely as could be seen, rising into colossal points, cleft by deep blue ravines, broken up into shark's teeth, with gigantic knobs and pinnacles rising from their inaccessible sides, very fair to look upon—a glowing, heavenly, ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... For thousands of years the practice of medicine consisted in frightening these spirits away. Usually the priests would make the loudest and most discordant noises possible. They would blow horns, beat upon rude drums, clash cymbals, and in the meantime utter the most unearthly yells. If the noise-remedy failed, they would implore the aid of some ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... duck or twae, and some London porter." Auld Thomas found them, nevertheless, well disposed for "breakfast" on their arrival at Twizzlehope; and this being over, he delighted them with one of the most hideous and unearthly of all the specimens of "riding music," and, moreover, with considerable libations of whiskey-punch, manufactured in a certain wooden vessel, resembling a very small milk-pail, which he called "Wisdom," because it "made" only ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... time another leg than his own had been thrown across her; and he mutely upbraided himself for his folly, and hated Scipio for having accepted her services. Why, he asked himself again and again, had he been such an unearthly fool? Then through his mind flashed a string of blasphemous invective against James, and with its coming his regret at ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... once to her sleeping-place, A strange, wild look was upon her face, Her eye flashed over her cheek so white, Like a gravestone seen in the pale moonlight, And she spoke in a low, unearthly tone,— The sound from mine ear hath never gone!— "I had last night the loveliest dream: My own land shone in the summer beam, I saw the fields of the golden grain, I heard the reaper's harvest strain; There stood on the hills the green ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... rope in the loft. One end I placed on a hook and the other round my neck. I was close to the upper doors of the loft, with a drop to the courtyard, and thus I stayed, for I feared that some soldier, more sober than the rest, might explore the outhouses and find me. I was watching this unearthly spectacle, and never, my best beloved, did I conceive that man could become lower than the beasts, but before my eyes it was so, when I noticed that the great gates at the southern end of the courtyard were opening. As they opened I saw that beyond them were drawn up a line of men. An officer gave ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... time to rummage in the wood-shed for bones. We did not know how the attack began, but suppose Dinah spied him from above, and made a flying leap, lighting most unexpectedly to him upon his back, for we heard one unearthly yell, and out rushed Bruno with his unwelcome burden, her tail erect, her eyes two balls of fire, and every cruel claw, each one as sharp as a needle, buried deep in the poor dog's flesh. How he did yelp!—ki! ki! ki! ki! and how ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... Indian Maid nursing her luxurious sorrow, the congealing Beads-man and the palsied beldame Angela—these and a thousand quaintnesses of phrase moved him to a gush of glorious mirth. It was not that he did not appreciate the poet, but the unearthly strangeness of it all, the delicate contradiction of laws and behaviours known to freshmen, tickled his keen wits and emotions until they brimmed into puzzled laughter. "Away! Away!" ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... Hollyhock, 'it will be soon over, my bonnie Lightning Speed;' and the horse, disturbed a little at first by the unearthly glamour over everything, soon calmed down and made straight for the gorge up which rider and steed were to mount, in order to accomplish that awful leap from rock to rock, which they must take twice in order that Hollyhock might really feel that she ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... offence. "What! didn't you hear us? Where do you sleep?" "In front. Why?" "Why? Because before breaking up at three this morning we said, 'Let's give Hine three cheers to finish up with;' which we did, with an unearthly noise, and danced a solemn dance on the pavement, and sang you songs fortissimo, and altogether made a diabolical uproar." "Never heard a sound," said Hine. Meadows turned sorrowfully on his heel without a word, and for some days ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... or a gap in intercourse, of qualities and ways not previously seen (perhaps not previously wanted) in the well-known soul: new notes, but with the added charm of likeness to already loved ones, deeper, more resonant, or perhaps of unsuspected high unearthly purity, in the dear voice. Absence may do it, or change of occupation; or sudden vicissitude of fortune; or merely the reading of a certain book (how many friends may not Tolstoi's "Resurrection" have thus revealed to one another!), or the passing ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... of wailing and shrieking could be heard, as though all the demons of the infernal regions had assembled there to hold a night of carnival. Louder than the storm, the cries penetrated through the shrillest blasts, and people in their homes far away were wakened out of their sleep by the unearthly yells which froze their blood with terror. At last a thunderbolt rolled from the darkened heavens, louder than ever mortal man had heard. The lightnings flashed, and concentrating all their force ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... She moped: no grown person could have performed that uncheering business better; no furrowed face of adult exile, longing for Europe at Europe's antipodes, ever bore more legibly the signs of home sickness than did her infant visage. She seemed growing old and unearthly. I, Lucy Snowe, plead guiltless of that curse, an overheated and discursive imagination; but whenever, opening a room-door, I found her seated in a corner alone, her head in her pigmy hand, that room seemed to ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... as others do. Here was flesh compromising with age—accepting its majesty, defying its decay—a sublunar assumption of immortality. There was no longer any suggestion of femininity; the idea was dread power and unearthly grace. Of such nature might the sexless ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... terrible aspect. So rapid was its rate of travel that the steamer's skipper had barely time to make a few hasty preparations to meet it, and to shout to the men on deck to "hold on for their lives", when, with an unearthly howl and roar, the storm was upon them. The wall of water crashed into and over the San-chau with a power that made it appear as though she had struck something solid; and for a few moments Frobisher, clinging to the bridge rail beside the captain and Wong-lih, could see nothing of the ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... to see with, what softness the scepticism of Jarno, the commercial spirit of Werner, the reposing polished manhood of Lothario and the Uncle, the unearthly enthusiasm of the Harper, the gay animal vivacity of Philina, the mystic, ethereal, almost spiritual nature of Mignon, are blended together in this work; how justice is done to each, how each lives freely in his ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... terrible by unearthly sweetmeats—much talk, and long waiting. Endless delays on the one side, stubborn patience that refused to be tired out on the other; and, as dawn was breaking on a certain Easter Sunday, I found myself, with a promise of a Treaty in my pocket, making my way out of the mouth ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... hastened to follow his example. It was a horrible scene: those four wicked faces; those myriads of tiny faces, just as wicked; the certain unearthly air that pervaded the apartment; the red, unwholesome glare cast by the fire; the wild and reckless way in which the weird company drank ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... built on the east side of the Kamchatka peninsula. And the two double-decker vessels must be constructed to voyage over the sleepy swell of the North Pacific to that mythical realm of mist like a blanket, and strange, unearthly rumblings smoking up from the cold Arctic sea, with the red light of a flame through the gray haze, and weird voices, as if the fog wraith were luring seamen to destruction. These were mere details. Peter took no heed of impossibles. Neither did Bering; for he was in the prime of his honor, forty-four ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... knives of their cruel foes. The nights were full of fear and dread. Every voice was hushed except to give necessary orders; every eye swept the hills and valleys around; every ear was intensely strained to catch the faintest noise, in momentary expectation of the unearthly war-whoop and of seeing dusky forms with gleaming tomahawks uplifted. In the moonlight mirage of the prairies, every taller clump of grass, every blacker hillock grew into a blood thirsty Indian, ...
— Among the Sioux - A Story of the Twin Cities and the Two Dakotas • R. J. Creswell
... be humoured along. Again, when night fell, she was taken into harbour for shelter. The wind still blew fair in the morning; she made a better day of it, but was once more safely berthed for the night. Day after day she crept down the coast, lurching along in the light, with unearthly shrieks of pain and complaint, and lying silent in harbour ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... greatly; and there's nothing on earth which so much gives a sense of power—power that crushes—as the stamps of a great mine pounding away night and day. There they go, thundering on, till it seems to you that some unearthly power is hammering the world into shape. You get up and go to the window and look out into the night. There's the deep blue sky—blue like nothing you ever saw in any other sky, and the stars so bright and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... have imbued me with double my natural strength, and the result of that pull was simply indescribable. Burglar, transom-glass, chair and all, went in a heap on the floor of the corridor, producing the most appalling and unearthly racket conceivable. The whole house was in an uproar in a moment. People seemed to spring up from every square foot of floor in the corridor as if by magic. Cries of "Fire!" "Murder!" "Help!" and screams of frightened women, rose on every hand. The costumes which I beheld on that momentous occasion ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... and greatest princes in all the world. A few evenings ago while we were standing on the moat bridge talking, I saw the lady's father on the battlements of yonder terrible castle. His form seemed magnified against the sky till it was of unearthly size and terrible to look on—doubly terrible to those who know him. If she should disobey her father, he would kill her with his battle-axe, I verily believe, readily as he would crush a rebellious soldier. Yet she fears him ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... the figure of a little child. A snow-white robe draped his slender limbs. In one hand he bore a lighted taper, and in the other a most beautiful wreath of white roses. His dark blue eyes shone with an unearthly lustre, as it appeared to the amazed and bewildered Heinrich, and his golden ...
— The Big Nightcap Letters - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... life which was at once his and her own. And of yet another night, when, after long experience of sorrow, solitude, and revolt, her husband had come to her once again—but come even as the bird's song came from across the valley, etherealised, spiritualised, the same yet endowed with qualities of unearthly beauty—and how that strange and exquisite communion with the dead had fortified her to endure an anguish even greater than any she had yet known.—She had prayed that night that she might behold the face of her well-beloved, ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... dome of glass "bull's-eyes." In the middle of this chamber was a hot, raised octagon platform, also of marble, and in the recesses of the sides were marble vases, and tanks, with taps for hot and cold water, and channels in the floor to carry off the suds. Two savage, unearthly boys, their heads all shaved, with the exception of a tuft on the top, and in their scant costume of a towel only, looking more like wild Indians than Turks, now seized hold of me, and forcing me back upon the hot marble floor commenced a dreadful series of tortures, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... interior of the castle was reached. The location of the panel was in one of the recesses in the wall of the chapel, near the altar. It was in this chapel that Yetive exchanged her male attire for a loose gown, weeks before, and the servant who saw her come from the door at an unearthly hour in the morning believed she had gone there to seek surcease from ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... cradle-chimney, which he introduced in that picture. But Kinneil House has had its imaginary inhabitants as well as its real ones, the ghost of a Lady Lilburn, once an occupant of the place, still "haunting" some of the unoccupied chambers. Dugald Stewart told Wilkie one night, as he was going to bed, of the unearthly wailings which he himself had heard proceeding from the ancient apartments; but to him at least they had been explained by the door opening out upon the roof being blown in on gusty nights, when a jarring and creaking ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... were seated at the tea-table, at the close of a chilly day, a bright fire blazing on the hearth, and the servants, as usual, being in attendance. On a sudden, a tremendous crash was heard in a distant part of the ancient mansion, followed by a succession of wails of the most lugubrious and unearthly character, which reverberated through the echoing passage-ways of the house. Whatever the cause of the sounds might be, there was no doubt they were of the most horrifying description. The family, consisting of the 'Squire, a maiden sister, and one or two younger persons, ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... the wall, drape himself in an Indian blanket, and march up and down the room roaring out terrific battle-cries. Three minutes later, Minor and Bolton had followed his example, and marched solemnly behind him, brandishing their weapons and making unearthly noises. Mary, from her chair by the hearth, watched them curiously. At first it was merely the exuberant spirits of their release and the unaccustomed altitude that inspired them, but their countenances grew more and more sombre, ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... comet that came unannounced out of the north flaring in heaven, Nor the strange huge meteor-procession dazzling and clear shooting over our heads, (A moment, a moment long it sail'd its balls of unearthly light over our heads, Then departed, dropt in the night, and was gone;) Of such, and fitful as they, I sing—with gleams from them would gleam and patch these chants, Your chants, O year all mottled with evil and good—year of forebodings! Year of comets and meteors transient ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... and by he began to weary of himself. Seeing a deer he drew an arrow and stealing silently to the game was just about to shoot, when despite himself the wild, unearthly sound broke forth like a demon's warble. The deer bounded away, and the young man cursed! And when he reached Old Town, half dead with hanger, he was worth little to make laughter, though the honest Indians at first did not fail to do so, ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... silky swish, the sail is filled by a little breeze keen enough to have come straight down from the frozen moon, and the boat, after the clatter of the hauled-in sweeps, seems to stand at rest, surrounded by a mysterious whispering so faint and unearthly that it may be the rustling of the brilliant, overpowering moon rays breaking like a rain-shower upon ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... unearthly scene, and the setting completed the illusion. Fright deprived me of the power of thought, but in a sort of subconscious way I felt that Orpheus must have witnessed just such mad revels when he went down into Pluto's regions. Suddenly the shouts became war whoops, the demons brandished ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... of the wife's curtain lecture are too precious to the enraptured husband to be shared with other ears. And in the hush of the bed-time hour, when tired daddies are seeking repose in the oblivion of sleep, the unearthly bangs on the grand piano below in the parlor, and the unearthly screams and yells of the budding prima donna, as she sings to her ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... found it outside the door, with a stone on it to prevent the wind from blowing it away. What does it mean, citizen?" she went on, her voice shaking with terror, for of a truth the citizen Representative looked as if he had seen some weird and unearthly apparition. ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... morning-wrapper has provided a cake-basket full for the occasion. You are also waited on by the milkman, who, you are glad to see, is really flesh and blood, and not, as you have sometimes supposed, an unearthly bell-ringer who visited this sublunary sphere only at five A.M., and then for the sole purpose of disturbing your morning nap. You are also complimented by the wood-man and wood-sawyer, an English sailor with a wooden leg, who once nearly swamped you ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... pronunciamento (a fashionable term here for a revolution) was prognosticated, we found everything very quiet and orderly, and the ball very gay and crowded. As we came in, and were giving our tickets, a number of masks came springing by, shrieking out our names in their unearthly voices. Captain G——, brother of Lord ——-, came to our box; also a scion of La jeune France, M. de C——, who condescendingly kept his hat on during the whole evening. In a box directly above us were the French legation who arrived lately. Amongst ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... shape lit up by the flaring torches seemed more vague, unearthly, and awkward in its dying throes, yet the small shut eyes, the feeble nose, the ponderous shoulders, and half-human foot armed with powerful claws were unmistakable. The men turned by a common impulse and peered into the remote recesses ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... protracted midnight services, can prevent heartburnings and rivalries, nor can all of these together put down—what is most to be dreaded in a monastery—the growth of affection between man and woman. What could be done to tame human nature into submission, to bring it to rejoice only in unearthly meditations, and a contented round of self-denial and psalm-singing, Brother Friedsam had tried on his followers with the unsparing hand of a religious enthusiast. He had forbidden all animal food. Not only was meat of evil tendency, but milk, he said, made the spirit heavy and narrow; butter ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... quantity of large tanks, stood the Wenuses, blowing assiduously through pellucid pipettes and simultaneously chanting in tones of unearthly gravity a strain poignantly suggestive of baffled hopes, thwarted aspirations and impending departure. So absorbed were they in their strange preparations, that they were entirely unconscious of my presence. ...
— The War of the Wenuses • C. L. Graves and E. V. Lucas
... the meaning of Hukweem's crying, it seems to constitute a large part of his existence. Indeed, it is as a cry that he is chiefly known—the wild, unearthly cry of the wilderness night. His education for this begins very early. Once I was exploring the grassy shores of a wild lake when a mother loon appeared suddenly, out in the middle, with a great splashing and crying. I paddled out ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long
... his duties. He was startled to see a man kneeling on the floor, just above where the main power lines ran. He had torn a hole in the composition floor, and as Yudovich watched, he reached in and pulled out the great cable. Immediately the intruder glowed in the semidarkness with an unearthly blue shine and sparkles crackled off of his face, hands ...
— The Stutterer • R.R. Merliss
... his mercenaries against this important town. He had found one of its gates somewhat insecurely guarded, placed a mortar under it at night, and occupied a neighbouring pig-stye with a number of his men, who by chasing, maltreating, and slaughtering the swine, had raised an unearthly din, sufficient to drown the martial operations at the gate. In brief, the place was easily mastered, and taken possession of by Martin, in the name of the deposed elector, Gebhard Truchsess—the first stroke of good fortune which had for a long time befallen ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Heavens! Again I saw the phantom dog and fancied that I heard shrill screams of "Perro, perro, gringo perro!" A crackling noise, a coming shadow, and forward I fell on my face, ever on the alert, ever ready. An unearthly yell and a great body flew over, fierce claws grazing me. Two balls of fire shone in the bush, but my rifle cracked and a great lion fell in its tracks. I expected my companions to meet me soon, coming my way. Instead, I found them, after my all-night's walk, snugly ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... Arts. Here as perfect equality reigns as in the San Carlos or in the Cathedral. The first object of interest is the large collection of stone idols which have been dug up from time to time in and about the Grand Plaza. There are dog-faced idols, and apish gods, and unearthly things, besides the sacrificial stone, and a rude attempt to represent a goddess. Whether or no this was a sort of Aztec Lady of Remedies I did not learn. The Aztecs might easily have produced these works without exhibiting ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... up his mind on the matter, but told a story of a successful communication between Cooper the novelist and his sister, who had been dead fifty years. Browning and his wife had both been present at a spiritual session held by Mr. Hume, and had seen and felt the unearthly hands, one of which had placed a laurel wreath on Mrs. Browning's head. Browning, however, avowed his belief that these hands were affixed to the feet of Mr. Hume, who lay extended in his chair, with his legs stretched far under the table. The marvellousness ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... upon Anchises, but herself put on her rich raiment. And when the bright goddess had fully clothed herself, she stood by the couch, and her head reached to the well-hewn roof-tree; from her cheeks shone unearthly beauty such as belongs to rich-crowned Cytherea. Then she aroused him from sleep and ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... polyphonists. By Church music I mean music written for the Church, not necessarily religious music. The passage at "Ego cubui et dormivi" is sublime, Purcell's discords creating an atmosphere of strange beauty, almost unearthly, and that yields to the unspeakable tenderness of the naive phrase at the words, "Quia Jehovah sustentat me." The Te Deum was until recently known only by Dr. Boyce's perversion. Dr. Boyce is reputed to have been an estimable moral character, and it is to be hoped he ...
— Purcell • John F. Runciman
... throughout the night. Meanwhile the captured trains had been taken charge of by locomotive engineers, soldiers of the command, who were delighted evidently to get back at their old calling. They amused themselves by running the trains to and fro, creating much confusion, and keeping up such an unearthly screeching with the whistles that I was on the point of ordering the cars burned. They finally wearied of their fun, however, and ran the trains off to the east toward General ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... the shadows, all golden amid floating mists, was a mighty mountain crest, higher than all around. The sun-rays lighted up its wondrous peaks. The glory of it was unearthly, almost more ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... henhouse had to wake up, whether he wanted to or not. And Henrietta Hen did wish the Rooster would keep still at least till daylight came. She often remarked that it was perfectly ridiculous for any one from a fine family—as she was—to get up at such an unearthly hour. She said it was a wonder she kept her good looks, just on account of the ...
— The Tale of Henrietta Hen • Arthur Scott Bailey
... stillness rose the ghostly sound Of Robin's hunting horn that through the ground Rang thin and high, unearthly-shrill and clear, That thrilled the shivering woodland far and near, And shuddering to silence, left behind A whisper as of leaves in stealthy wind. A rustling 'mid the underbrush they heard Where, ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... shut out the mountain peaks. They showed above the banks where we camped; and in the starlight their black shapes rose stark against the sky. They, with the pines and the wind, were a bedroom too unearthly this night. And as soon as our supper dishes were washed we went inside to our lantern ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... coming from no one knew where, which, unearthly in its shrillness and the power it had on the imagination, reverberated through the house and died away in a wail so weird, so thrilling and so prolonged that it gripped not only my own nerveless and weakened heart, but ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... is not her type. No. As long as the world stands, a rose just open will remain the fairest similitude for a perfect woman. It's commonness cannot hinder that. She is not an unearthly Dendrobium, she is an ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... an unearthly hour and went off early. Weather seems to make no difference to him, but he will ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... stood untenanted for any length of time, is sure to be peopled with ghosts. People seem to think it a pity that a tenement should remain unoccupied, so, out of sheer compassion for the proprietor, they stock it with unearthly tenants from roof to cellar, or like—for, now I am in the humor for comparisons, I might as well go on—it was like a man who keeps his business to himself and troubles nobody; his neighbors, knowing nothing about his occupations and habits, take it for granted that they ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... nearer and nearer, it died away in a sigh: but as it did so the distant hills seemed to catch it and to send it back in the company of a thousand echoes, till the whole night was filled and trembling with an unearthly chorus. The sleeping soldiers gradually stirred and sat listening spellbound to the music. And in the eyes of the sentries, who were standing as motionless as bronze statues in front of the tents, I could see the tears glistening. And the whole of the sleeping army ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... broke from Jeannette as he spoke and then she began to dance on her point of rock, swinging herself from side to side, marking the time with a song. I held my breath; her dance seemed unearthly; it was as though she belonged to the Prince of the Powers of ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... Still thirsting for the crimson flood; They show no mercy on their kind, But kill or plunder all they find. Then dies the flash, as ocean's moan Sends back a low, sepulchral groan, Leaving all nature dark and still, As midnight sleeping on the hill, While all around unearthly seems, As frightened Hecate's spectral dreams; Till bubbling, gushing through each vein, The frenzied current turns again,— My hurrying pulses faster play, And conjure up the dread array,— Glaring spectres, side by side, In mould'ring shrouds around me glide; ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... cloak in such a way that escape was impossible without awakening himself. No sentry was kept at night. All hands were too deadly tired from the day's climb. Once, in the impenetrable gloom of the midnight forest, Mackenzie was awakened by a plaintive chant in a kind of unearthly music. A tribe was engaged in religious devotions to some woodland deity. Totem poles of cedar, carved with the heads of animals emblematic of family clans, told Mackenzie that he was nearing the coast tribes. Barefooted, with ankles swollen and clothes ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... Sometimes a great cloud of steam from the pit below passes across the mouth of the crucible, and then the torrent of molten steel takes on all the colours of the rainbow, and the great shed, with its alert, swiftly moving figures, is suffused with a radiance of unearthly beauty. ...
— Tales of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... heard a noise unearthly in its shrillness: it was Hugh calling his Aunt Woggles. He threw himself into my arms, keeping one eye, I could not help noticing, on the parcels. During the hug, which gave him plenty of time to make up his mind, he evidently decided which was for him; for he relaxed his hold and ...
— The Professional Aunt • Mary C.E. Wemyss
... important materials for the elucidation of the poet's history: and, among the lyrics which he has printed for the first time, are to be found one of the most perfect specimens of Beddoes' command of unearthly pathos—The Old Ghost—and one of the most singular examples of his vein of grotesque and ominous humour—The Oviparous Tailor. Yet it may be doubted whether even Mr. Gosse's edition is the final one. There are traces in Beddoes' letters of unpublished ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... material, as when last seen; still, it had been changed; for on the breast of the silken frock was painted an image of the sea-green lady, done with exquisite skill, and in a manner to preserve the whole of the wild and unearthly character of the expression. The wearer of this singular ornament leaned lightly against the little table, and as he bowed with entire self-possession to his guests, his face was lighted with a smile, that seemed to betray melancholy, no less ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... on still, in the fascination of that wonderful unearthly countenance, and in the inertness of faculties stunned by fatigue and excitement, but James summoned him by a touch, and he again ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... those who waited outside as Vengeance enthroned, expectation began to take on a creepy quality. The besiegers were preparing against themselves a host, not of men, but of frightful spectres, of famished maniacs, of unearthly ghouls, who would clutch and tear with claws any man that stood between them and a morsel of food. And the fury of desperation sharpened with each succeeding irony of ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... the ceaseless discharge of heavy guns; the baleful glare of portfires and fireballs flung down the hill by the enemy to enable them more clearly to ascertain our position, and the incessant flash of the cannon, cast a fierce, unearthly light upon the scene. Again, again, and again came the hissing storm of iron, each time with more deadly effect; the ground before and around us was ploughed and gashed by the rushing shot; our men were swept away before it ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... at him, the boy's face was of a ghostly whiteness. The rain had drenched him to the skin; his clothes clung to his lean body, that shook as if it would come apart; his eyes flew wildly, and his teeth chattered against each other. The fears and torture of his mind gave something unearthly to his look, that made Paul start back. "Abel—boy—fiend—speak! What ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... of that week things went smoothly with her, for the spell of a sacred charge was upon her, and its influence mellowed and subdued her native sweetness, till it seemed to those about her something unearthly, and the girls regarded her with something like awe, all but Mona Cameron, who, if she noticed any difference, would not acknowledge it, and laughed at the ...
— Hollowmell - or, A Schoolgirl's Mission • E.R. Burden
... noticeable yellow legs, was talking in animation, but I doubt it was about this rabbit. The saunterers were passing without a sign. But one little girl stood, her hands behind her, oblivious of all but that admonitory creature in an unearthly light, and was smiling at it. It was the only confirmation I had. I have no recollection now of what I saw in the day's paper. I have later and ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... found a seat in Misery's brake, squatting on the floor with his back to the horses, thankful enough to be out of reach of the drunken savages, who were now roaring out ribald songs and startling the countryside, as they drove along, with unearthly blasts ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... The men stood up first, in war costume, brandishing their spears and shields, and throwing themselves into the most extraordinary attitudes, as they cut with their knives at some imaginary enemy; at the same time uttering the most unearthly yells, in which the Dyak spectators joined, apparently highly delighted with the exhibition. The women then came forward, and went through a very unmeaning kind of dance, keeping time with their hands and feet; but still it was rather a relief after the noise and yelling from which we had just ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... melancholy smile. "Ah! Karl, I wish you had not spoken the word. So sweet at other times, it now rings in my ears like some unearthly echo. Home, indeed! Alas, dear brother! ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... the crowd, above the halberts and plumes, between the white ostrich fans, and dabbing about benedictions to the right and left. The shuffle of the people down onto their knees, and scuffle again onto their feet, the shrill reading of the Mass, and endless unfinished cadences, overtopped by unearthly slightly sickening quaverings of the choir; the ceaseless moving about of all this mass of black backs, veils, cloaks, outlines of cheek and ear presenting every now and then among the various kinds of rusty black; no devotion, no gravity, no quiet anywhere, among ...
— The Spirit of Rome • Vernon Lee
... rapidly over the visions, or rather revelations—for, whatever doubts one may hold as to such heavenly messengers appearing literally on this earth, no man can honestly doubt that Joan believed as firmly in these unearthly visitants coming from Heaven direct as she did in the existence of herself or of her parents. On the subject of these voices and visions no one has written with more sense than a distinguished prelate who was a contemporary of the heroine's—namely, Thomas Basin, Bishop of Lisieux, ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... she did not. But have I not a pair of eyes in my head? What do you suppose I got up for this morning at such an unearthly hour and went over to—Oh, such an awful place!—to see that idiot? Just to tell him I was sorry? Not a bit of it! I went to find out what was going on, and now I know; and what is to become of it all nobody can tell. Here is her father with every penny he has ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... strange, unearthly voice seems calling me, Methinks this night portends great things ...
— The White Christmas and other Merry Christmas Plays • Walter Ben Hare
... set and there was no colour in the west, but over all the homely, wind-swept landscape a solemn and unearthly light shone and slowly passed, shone and ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... reproduce that wealth Of brilliant hues—the dusk hair's glimmering gold, The auroral blush, the bare breasts shining white Where the babe's warm rose-face is pressed against That fount of generous life; but ah! what craft May paint the unearthly peace upon her brow, The holy love that from her dark moist orbs Beams with no lesser glory than the eyes Of the Maid-Mother toward ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... sorrow rose and fell, rose and fell, with unearthly cadence. Kenny thought of the horrible Dullahaun who roves about the country with his head under his arm and a death-warning basin of blood in his hand ready to dash in the face of the unlucky wight who answers ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... earth they went towards the distant mountains and the clouds. The sun was hidden. The wind continued to rise. Sand found its way in through the carriage windows. The mountains, as Domini saw them more clearly, looked more gloomy, more unearthly. There was something unnatural in their hard outlines, in the rigid mystery of their innumerable clefts. That all these people should be journeying towards them was pathetic, and grieved ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... in it Essence whereby alone its form may hit Our apprehension, channelled in the sense Which feedeth us, that we through vision dense See Gods as trees walking, or in the wind That singeth in the bents guess what's behind Its wailing music. And now the unearthly flock, Emptying every water, wood, bare rock And pasture, beset Ida, and their wings Beat o'er the forest which about her springs And makes a sea of verdure, whence she lifts Her soaring peaks to bathe them in the drifts Of cloud, and rare reveal ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... Sproul arrived at the town office next morning in a frame of mind distinctly unamiable. Though his house was far out of the village, the unearthly racket of the night had floated up to him—squawking horns, and clanging bells, and exploding powder. The hundred cannons at sunrise brought a vigorous word for each reverberation. At an early hour Hiram ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... puzzled me quite as much as his growls. I did not dare strike a light, but could hear him sniffing at the door of the van and whining with eagerness. This seemed very uncanny, and again I crept stealthily out of the bunk and pounded on the floor lustily, this time with the frying pan, which made an unearthly din. Peg neighed and snorted, and Bock began to bark. Even in my anxiety I almost laughed. "It sounds like an insane asylum," I thought, and reflected that probably the disturbance was only caused by some small animal. Perhaps a rabbit or a skunk which ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... sitting on the rocks there," Mr. Hastings observed. "I think that she wants to sail you over to Misery Island. We get some unearthly meal there at ten o'clock and come back by moonlight. It is a sort of torture which we always inflict upon our guests. My wife and I will follow in ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... architecture, and the wildness of its surrounding scenery, were calculated to impress the soul with that tone of melancholy and elevation, which,—if it be not considered as a predisposition to welcome the visitation of those unearthly substances that are impalpable to our sight in moments of less hallowed sentiment,—is indisputably the state of mind in which the imagination is most readily excited, and the understanding most favourably inclined to grant a credulous reception to its visions. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 273, September 15, 1827 • Various
... assembly. So vivid was description, so unearthly her look, so inspired her manner, that what she described seemed actually to have taken place then and there. They noticed, also, that the bridegroom hid his face in ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... Venerable Mother, Anne of Jesus, foundress of the Carmel in France.[9] Her face was beautiful with an unearthly beauty; no rays came from it, and yet, in spite of the thick veil which enveloped us, I could see it suffused by a soft light, which seemed to emanate from her heavenly countenance. She caressed me tenderly, and seeing myself the object of such affection, I made bold ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... beautiful deed,—fresh from the pure fount of maternal piety! The Hebrew mother consecrating her first-born child to the Temple-service,—dedicating him to the God who gave him! What visions of unearthly glory must have been before her, as she led her little boy before the altar of the "King of kings!" Happy mother! thou hast long since gone to thy great reward. And happy child! to be led by such a mother. Ye are now together in that temple "not made with hands, eternal in the heavens," ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... of the large oak branches in the close of a squally day, their groaning, and the vast glooms that their foliage shed all below, the twilight rapidly deepening into confirmed night, all tended to the inspiration of a wild unearthly melancholy. Suddenly the door was opened, while she hesitated to ring again, and by a black man! Persons of colour are rarely seen inland, in Wales, and Winifred had never visited a seaport of any consequence; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... makes straight for the picture-gallery. It strikes him as he passes along the corridor that leads to it that a most unearthly silence reigns elsewhere, and yet a sort of silence that with difficulty holds back the sound behind it. A strange feeling that every dark corner contains some hidden thing that could at a second's notice spring out upon him oppresses him, and, indeed, such a feeling is ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... became conscious of certain discordant sounds, reaching their ears above the roar of the rapids, which presently became distinguishable as the beating of drums, mingled with a sort of braying bellow, comparable to nothing that they had ever heard before. As the pair pressed on, the unearthly sounds gradually grew louder, not only because they were approaching the source of them but also because it was evident that the producers of the sounds were becoming more excited, for the tapping of the drums increased in rapidity while the braying as steadily grew in stridency ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... supererogation. While his mistress was out he rarely uttered a sound; but when he heard her footstep in the short passage outside, he gave vent to his feelings and hailed her return with boisterous shouts and unearthly whistling of old French military tunes. Even the noise he made did not disturb Angela; she hardly heard him, for her nerves were not overwrought, but ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... we parted to our respective cabins. And when, the next morning, at that unearthly hour demanded by Philadelphia trains and other exigencies, the Newton made her dock, I rejoiced that breakfast was not till seven o'clock, that I had two hours more of the berth, which was luxury ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... gaze, Sustain, rash youth, the withering blaze Of that unearthly eye, That blasts where'er it lights—the breath That, like the Simoom, scatters death On ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... awful but happily very rare possibilities to be mentioned before this part of our subject is completed, and though they differ very widely in many ways we may yet perhaps group them together, since they have in common the qualities of unearthly horror and of extreme rarity—the latter arising from the fact that they are really relics of earlier races. We of the fifth root race ought to have evolved beyond the possibility of meeting such a ghastly fate as is indicated by either of the two headings of this sub-section, and we have so nearly ...
— The Astral Plane - Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena • C. W. Leadbeater
... would I so much rather go to the East than to the West Indies? Am I wholly deceiving my own heart? and have I not a spark of true missionary zeal? Lord, give me to understand and imitate the spirit of those unearthly words of thy dear Son: 'It is enough for the disciple that he be as his Master, and the servant as his Lord.' 'He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me.' Gloria ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar
... there are six or seven; but two ways of looking at a London fog are quite enough. When it is thick and yellow in the streets and stings a man's throat and lungs as he breathes it, an awakening in the early morning is either an unearthly and grewsome, or a mysteriously enclosing, secluding, and comfortable thing. If one awakens in a healthy body, and with a clear brain rested by normal sleep and retaining memories of a normally agreeable yesterday, one may lie watching the housemaid building the fire; ...
— The Dawn of a To-morrow • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Representatives, the morning of Saturday last, (March 4th.) The day just dawn'd, but in half-darkness, everything dim, leaden, and soaking. In that dim light, the members nervous from long drawn duty, exhausted, some asleep, and many half asleep. The gas-light, mix'd with the dingy day-break, produced an unearthly effect. The poor little sleepy, stumbling pages, the smell of the hall, the members with heads leaning on their desks, the sounds of the voices speaking, with unusual intonations—the general moral atmosphere also of the close of this important session—the strong hope that the war ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... an unearthly style of preaching, if I may use the term, without the blood of human life in it: the people with their burdens in the pews—the burden of home, the burden of business, the burden of the problems of the day—whilst, in the pulpit, the minister is elaborating some nice ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... with spirits animated by evil intentions toward human beings, and against such spirits his sword was but as a willow wand. He remembered with renewed awe that this castle stood only a few leagues above the Lurlei rocks where a nymph of unearthly beauty lured men to their destruction, and the knight crossed himself as a protection against all such. Gathering courage from this devout act, and abandoning his useless weapon, he tiptoed to the door that led to the larger apartment, and there found his worst ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... At sundown they feasted, and then one stood up and addressed the spirits in the cave, saying, "You spirits within, may it please you to sing a song, that all the women and men out here may listen to your sweet voices." Thereupon a strange unearthly concert of voices burst on their ears from the cave, the nasal squeak of old men and women forming the dominant note. But the hearers outside listened with delight to the melody, praised the sweet voices of the singers, and then got up and danced to the music. The singing swelled louder ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... that Mahaud will not wake?" "Her eyes are closed as now my fist I make; She is in mystic and unearthly sleep; The potion still its power o'er her must keep." "But she will surely wake at break of day?" ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... well out of the door, and I was priding myself in my heart, about being landlord to such a goodly turn out, when Nanse took me by the arm, and said, "Come, and see such an unearthly sight." This startled me, and I hesitated; but, at long and last, I went in with her, a thought alarmed at what had happened, and—my gracious!! there on the easy-chair, was our bonny tortoise-shell cat; Tommy, with the red morocco collar about its neck, ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... position of the bright spot which meant the sun told that it lacked but an hour of sunset, and the clouds seemed to be thickening rather than dispersing, the Black Beaver gave a long and hideous howl. His wife and daughter shuddered when they heard it, as would any one, for a more unearthly and discordant cry was never uttered by man or beast; but they had double reason to shudder; it was the death cry of ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various
... passed on. One of them dropped this handkerchief, which I picked up. I hastened after her to restore it, but before I could overtake them they had rung the bell at your door and were already in the house. I did not like to ring at such an unearthly hour for fear of disturbing you. Yesterday I was so busy I couldn't come; however, here I am at last, and here's the handkerchief." So saying, Lecoq laid the handkerchief on the table, and turned as if to go, when the concierge ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... attention. This feat of the boy fascinated her. The water between them made him look remote, delicate and unearthly—neither boy nor fish. His head, she could see, was almost touching the bottom. She fancied that he was actually touching bottom with his hands. Yes, he was. Bending low over the water she saw his brown fingers, ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... flying mob of terrified women clutching their infants, and men trying to protect them; while in the foreground old men, youths, and children, are struck down in heaps, stopping their ears, and gazing up in panic at the unearthly apparition. ...
— Luca Signorelli • Maud Cruttwell
... sigh'd, and said, it was a Blessd Place. And we were bless'd. Oft with patient ear Long-listening to the viewless sky-lark's note (Viewless, or haply for a moment seen 20 Gleaming on sunny wings) in whisper'd tones I've said to my Belovd, 'Such, sweet Girl! The inobtrusive song of Happiness, Unearthly minstrelsy! then only heard When the Soul seeks to hear; when all is hush'd, 25 And ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... replied, staring round in search of the strange, unearthly voice that addressed them; for the absence of his teeth had not at all improved the conversational tones of the Surgeon of ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... shrub finds its representative. It imitates all instruments; it cheats the listener with the sound of singing choirs; it strives for a still purer note than can be strained from human throats, and emulates the host of heaven with its unearthly "voice of angels." Within its breast all the passions of humanity seem to reign in turn. It moans with the dull ache of grief, and cries with the sudden thrill of pain; it sighs, it shouts, it laughs, it exults, it wails, it pleads, it trembles, it ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... kitchen tins that garnished the walls and reflected the red light of the blazing fire. The wooden dresser was a miracle of whiteness, and ranged thereon was a set of old-fashioned blue china, on which was displayed the usual number of those unearthly figures which none but the Chinese can create. Tick, tick, went the old Dutch clock in the corner, and the smoke-jack kept up its whirring noise. Old Tom and Aunt Rachel were both napping; and so Caddy, having no other ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... figure, one hand pointing to the heavenly shore, realises, I will not say all, but some at least of the strange impressiveness of Bunyan's words. It is no easy nor pleasant thing to speak in one's lifetime with Good-Conscience; he is an austere, unearthly friend, whom maybe Torquemada knew; and the folds of his raiment are not merely claustral, but have something of the horror of the pall. Be not afraid, however; with the hand of that appearance Mr. Honest will ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... from their novelty, but will not bear a calm, critical analysis. On its first appearance, The Course of Time was immensely popular; but it has steadily lost favor, and its highest flights are "unearthly flutterings" when compared with the powerful soarings of Milton's imagination and the gentle harmonies of Cowper's religious muse. Pollok died early of consumption: his youth and his disease account for the faults ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee |
