"Indescribable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... stood in the wings, shaking in every limb. German oaths of indescribable vigour poured from his lips. In a group some feet away stood six muscular, short-sleeved stage-hands. It was they who had flung themselves on the general at the fall of the iron curtain and prevented him dashing round to attack the ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... have been supplanted by these liners would make queer reading to the latter-day tourist, taking, let us say, any one of the steamers of any one of the leading transatlantic companies. The difference in the appointments of the William Penn of 1865 and the star boats of 1914 is indescribable. It seems a fairy tale to think of a palm garden where the ladies dress for dinner, a Hungarian band which plays for them whilst they dine, and a sky parlor where they go after dinner for their coffee and what not; a tea-room for the five-o'clockers; ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... thoughts. But invariably the depression that followed was in the same ratio down as the former was up, and after a time I lost that first pleasant, unnatural feeling, and drank only to satisfy an indescribable passion or craving. At first the wine glass may sparkle and foam, but let it never be forgotten that within that sparkle and foam is concealed the glittering eye of the uncoiled adder. It is the sparkle of a serpent's ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... taut right arm stood out like cords. His forearm throbbed with an indescribable, pulling pain. There was a feeling of dull soreness in his shoulder blade. His perspiring hand closed tighter around the wheel's rim and he could feel his pulse pounding. His fingers tingled as if they had been asleep. Then his hand ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... commotion at the victors' camp were indescribable. A few beats of a drum were heard, after which the criers hurried along the lines, announcing the last act to be performed at the camp of the ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... destruction is this; that the agricultural capital, or rather the ground itself—which, in a rapidly increasing degree, is daily swept away by the waters—is totally lost. Signs of unparalleled destitution are visible in all the mountain zone, and the solitudes of those districts are assuming an indescribable character of sterility and desolation. The gradual destruction of the woods has, in a thousand localities, annihilated at once the springs and the fuel. Between Grenoble and Briancon, in the valley of the Romanche, ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... Ah, then! moment so meet for the sweet question of questions, place so appropriate for the delicate, bashful, murmured popping thereof!—suddenly from the sward before, from the groups beyond, there floated to the ears of Richard Avenel an indescribable, mingled, ominous sound,—a sound as of a general titter, a horrid, malignant, but low cachinnation. And Mrs. M'Catchley, stretching forth her parasol, exclaimed, "Dear me, Mr. Avenel, what can they be all ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... quiet, Florence disengaged herself, as soon as she could, from the ministration of Mrs Pipchin and her attendants. Left alone, she thought of what had happened on the staircase, at first in doubt of its reality; then with tears; then with an indescribable and terrible alarm, like that she had felt ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... indescribable sensation of impending disaster upon me, I thrust my way through to a gray patch which marked a break in the elmen roof. At the foot of the copper beech I almost fell over Eltham. Then Smith plunged into view. Lastly, Edwards ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... mechanical readiness, and the skill with which, while incapable of comprehending a single principle, he executed all the details of his master's experiments. With his vast strength, his shaggy hair, his smoky aspect, and the indescribable earthiness that incrusted him, he seemed to represent man's physical nature; while Aylmer's slender figure, and pale, intellectual face, were no less apt a type of ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... barbed-wire entanglements and into crowded trenches the human masses dash and scramble. Here, with heavy toll, they advanced; there, and with costlier sacrifice, they were driven back. Fiery Magyars, mechanical Teutons and stolid muzhiks mixed together in an indescribable hellbroth of combative fury and destructive passion. Screaming shells and spattered shrapnel rent the rocks and tore men in pieces by the thousand. Round the Lupkow Pass the Russians steadily carved their way forward, and at the close of the day, March 29, 1915, they had taken ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... catbird, silence, broken only by the soft, indescribable utterances that are at the same time the delight and the despair of the bird-student. Some birds, upon entering this solitary retreat, announced themselves by a single note, or call, as effectually as if they had sent ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... unexpectedly, and led the way along the military road in her front. Though this sudden and startling movement of the Indian produced no sound from the other, in the surprise her veil also was allowed to open its folds, and betrayed an indescribable look of pity, admiration, and horror, as her dark eye followed the easy motions of the savage. The tresses of this lady were shining and black, like the plumage of the raven. Her complexion was not brown, but it rather appeared ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... anguished but stifled moan of the childless father, who had apparently expended his hard-got earnings for the interment of his child—I not only repassed the gates considerably affected, but overpowered with an indescribable dread of impending death. I was now possessed with a servile love of God, arising from fear; an anxiety to please and obey him, to an infinite degree. Alas! even at this early age, how worldly-minded, how pitiful, ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... of the long trench, hands emerge that protrude from gray sleeves with red facings, and booted legs. In places the embankment is destroyed and its woodwork splintered—all the flank of the trench collapsed and fallen into an indescribable mixture. In other places, round pits are yawning. And of all that moment I have best retained the vision of a whimsical trench covered with many-colored rags and tatters. For the making of their sandbags the Germans had ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... The noise was indescribable, because compound. There was the boisterous hilarity of people who felt their feet once more on solid ground, after a long and weary voyage; the shouting of sailors and bargemen in the boats, and of soldiers and natives on the beach; the talking and laughing of men and women who had struck up ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... about among trunks with such unwonted zeal, that I was sure something exceptional was going to happen. At the last minute just as She came in, calling: "Toby's collar and the cat's basket! Quick! put the cat in his basket!"—just as she was saying that, my chum disappeared. It was indescribable! He, terrible to see, swore by all the gods, and struck the floor with his cane, furious because they had allowed his Kiki to get away. She called "Kiki!" at first supplicatingly, then in threatening tones, and the maids brought empty plates, meant to deceive, and yellow paper from ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette
... favourite pastimes. Twenty times a-day he declared himself the happiest of mortals; and when Julie heard the declaration, she cast her eyes to heaven, and her little mouth assumed an expression of indescribable contempt." ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... I saw was, for the moment, quite indescribable. I was completely dazed and bewildered, and it was only when some involuntary movement of my head at last flashed the light from the professor's face to the table top that a measure of sanity returned, which proves at least that tables do not ...
— The Point of View • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... alive, but delirious. Of that ghastly battlefield, or the long agony of that wounded boy, I hesitate to speak. No pen can describe, either, and to even faintly portray them is but to add gloom to a narrative already replete with it. The twenty-four hours of his indescribable pain and torturing thirst were only broken by a few hours of merciful delirium, when he was once more a boy and living his simple, care-free life on the farm, or happy with Liddy. When found he knew it not. When examined ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn
... day at San Diego, I walked in the morning sunshine on Coronado Beach. The beauty of the sea and shore was almost indescribable: on one side rose Point Loma, grim and gloomy as a fortress wall; before me stretched away to the horizon the ocean with its miles of breakers curling into foam; between the surf and the city, wrapped in its dark blue mantle, lay the sleeping bay; eastward, the mingled yellow, red, and white ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... thing (she said to Mrs Boffin); she was foolishly susceptible of the power of beauty, but it wasn't altogether that; she never had been able to resist a natural grace of manner, but it wasn't altogether that; it was more than that, and there was no name for the indescribable extent and degree to which she was captivated by this ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... renaissance—it may be said that his wide reading, his loving study, among the authors of our richest literary periods went far towards forming his style, though it must be remembered—it cannot be forgotten with a volume of his essays or letters in hand—that there is always that marked but indescribable "individuality of manner" which pervades the ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... against the fellow or his existence is a menace to you. Revenge or fear; he wants your money, or he's taken your wife! But what revenge can there be upon a poor devil without the price of a bed on his indescribable person? He hasn't anything to bless himself with, and he makes it a bit too hot for somebody who has, eh? So you whittle it down. And then perhaps by sheer luck you run your blade into the root of ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... townspeople, great and small, going decorously up the street in their best clothes to church—most of them he recognised, and among them Elizabeth's old aunt going up by herself, with her psalm-book and her white folded handkerchief in her hand—an indescribable feeling came over him, and his eyes filled so that he could hardly see. Here passing before him were all the gentleness and the purity that he had once believed in, when his young faith had as yet received no shock, and when he was as joyous and credulous as the rest; and he could ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... began to flow from his eyes. Many of the ladies were weeping, and at length, as if by inspiration, Mrs. Thompson kneeled on the floor of the saloon, all kneeling with her, even the saloonist, and prayed, pleading with indescribable pathos and earnestness for the conversion and salvation of this and all saloon-keepers. When the amen was sobbed rather than spoken, Mrs. Washington Doggett's sweet voice began, "There is a fountain," etc., in which all joined; the effect was most solemn, and when the hymn was ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... with indescribable furtivity, "I cannot see that I am entitled to communicate my client's name. I will sound him for you with pleasure, if you care to instruct me, but I cannot see that I can give ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the stream of moonlight with a curiously careful tread. He was in his shirt and trousers only, and her first flush of joy died when she perceived that his eyes were fixed in an unnatural stare on vacancy. When he reached the middle of the room he stood still and murmured in tones of indescribable sadness— ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... the case with water, which as a liquid is to all appearance formless. When sufficiently cooled the molecules are brought within the play of the crystallizing force, and they then arrange themselves in forms of indescribable beauty. When snow is produced in calm air, the icy particles build themselves into beautiful stellar shapes, each star possessing six rays. There is no deviation from this type, though in other respects the appearances of the snow-stars are infinitely various. In the polar regions these exquisite ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... none of us sorry to exchange our saddles for our berths in the Camoens, having been on horseback the greater part of the day, on a road the roughness of which is indescribable. ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... board was indescribable; and as night closed in, and we stood out on the starboard tack, the certainty that daybreak would discover the enemy was almost as great a cause for jubilation as if we had already won ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... this, Lord Chetwynde, which will account for my last letter to you. Crushed by the loss of my only friend, I reflected upon the difference between you and him, and the thought brought a bitterness which is indescribable. Therefore I wrote as I did. My sorrow, instead of softening, imbittered me, and I poured forth all my bitterness in that letter. It stung you. You were maddened by it and outraged. You saw in it only the symptoms and the proofs of what you chose to call a 'bad mind and heart.' If you reflect ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... Indescribable emotion had now come over both men. As Guillaume heard his brother's broken words, the cry of a love that trembled at the thought of possible weakness, he did for a moment waver. With a dreadful heart-pang he stammered despairingly: ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... an indescribable mental headiness in the admiration we inspire, or in the effect of playing a part, which fends off criticism from reaching the idol. An atmosphere, produced perhaps by unceasing nervous tension, ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... again on the important face that indescribable shade of embarrassment. "Waal,"—the youngster balanced this word judicially,—"I forgot 'bout'n the tur-key whings till this minute. I reckon ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... prophetic fancy. There is a Hindoo saying, "Do not strike a woman, even with a flower;" but we have seen that these Hindoos often do physically abuse their wives most cruelly, besides subjecting them to indescribable mental anguish, and mental anguish is much more painful and more prolonged than bodily torture. Fine words do not make fine feelings. From this point of view Dalton was perhaps right when he asserted that the wild tribes of India ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... to us then. Suddenly, above the roar of the wind and the thumping of our car on the rocks, even above the tumult of our spirits, there came to us the strains of more than earthly music. Whether it was from voice or instrument we could not tell, and in its sweetness and power it was absolutely indescribable. At first we did not try to discover its source but were content to sit and quietly enjoy it, as it fell gently upon us, pervading our whole being and so filling us with courage and strength that we seemed to ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... and I instantly discovered that the instrument on which he played had organ pedals attached, otherwise some of the effects he produced could not have been even hinted at. His touch was weird, his technique indescribable, and one no longer listened to the piano, but to one of those instruments of Eastern origin in which glass and metal are extensively used. The quality of tone emanating from the piano was brittle, so to speak; in a word, ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... an indescribable feeling of solitude in all houses in the environs of Mexico, a vastness, a desolation, such as I never before experienced in the most lonely dwellings in other countries. It is not sad—the sky is too bright, and nature too smiling, and the air we inhale too pure for that. It ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... the church walls remained, and the sun slanted in through the ruined windows on to a scene of indescribable wreckage. ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... fully displayed in 'Don Juan' than in 'Childe Harold.' Byron was Don Juan, mocking, satirical, witty, pathetic, dissolute, defiant of all conventional opinion. The ease, the grace, the diablerie of the poem are indescribable; its wantonness is not to be excused. But it is a microcosm of life as the poet saw it, a record of the experience of thirty years, full of gems, full of flaws, in many ways the most wonderful performance of his time. The critics who were offended by its satire of English ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... the cylinder went round and round, and the shrill performance continued, the dog's howling grew wilder; it reached a point where it broke into a hoarse cough, then again it recommenced lower in the scale, carrying over a gamut of indescribable, audible misery. ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... slightly above the average height and solidly built, but he was not tall. His face had often been described as a "perfect blank." No one saw anything of what lay within by merely looking into his eyes, and yet there was a certain indescribable something that appealed to one from those eyes. An elderly German lady once remarked to his mother: "Ihr Sohn hat ...
— The Story of the Soil • Cyril G. Hopkins
... turned toward Joan, who stood next him on his right hand, with an indescribable look of tenderness and grief. She was of a beauty so unusual and so marvellous, that her grandfather was fascinated by the dazzling sight, and mistook her for an angel that God had sent to console him on his ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... beauty had caught the glory of Switzerland, and the soft, fairy charm of Dauphine. Its guardian mountain was a miniature Matterhorn of indescribable grace and airy stateliness; its lesser attendants formed a group of peaks, grey and green and rose. As if enough gifts had not yet been bestowed upon the little place at its christening, a playground of forest land, rolling up over grassy slopes, had been given, with ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... the shrill notes of fifes, the beating of drums, the rattle of stones shaken in empty gourds, and whistling on elephants' teeth, all of which combined created an infernal din. The swarm was swept by an indescribable fervor. Some threw themselves on their knees; others shouted ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... an indescribable look on his hand, but it was not that which turned Helen so deadly sick: with her question had come to her the ghastly suspicion that the blood she saw was not his, and she felt guilty of an unpardonable, wicked wrong against him. But she would never, never believe it! A sister suspect her ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... through the crowd, but a shot, aimed in the direction of his head brought the driver tumbling from his seat, terror-stricken but unhurt; and almost at the same time, the further progress of the van was effectually prevented by shooting one of the horses through the neck. A scene of indescribable panic and confusion ensued; the policemen scrambled hastily to the ground, and betook themselves to flight almost without a thought of resistance. Those in the cab behind got out, not to resist the attack, but to help in running away; and in a ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown
... of all things. And now suddenly came darkness; and in this darkness her hand found mine and nestled there. Thus we remained a great while hearkening to the awful booming of this rushing, mighty wind, a sound indescribable in itself, yet one to shake the very soul. In a while, the tumult subsiding a little we might distinguish other sounds, as the rolling of thunder, the rending crash of falling trees hard by, and the roar of mighty waters. And presently her voice ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... and I did not leave until the last player had entered the "bus" and it drove off. Crowds of Yale men and spectators gave the players cheer after cheer as they rolled away. The flags with which the "bus" was decorated waved in the breeze, and I watched them with indescribable fascination until they were out of sight. The noise made by the Yale students I learned afterwards was college cheering, and college cheers once heard by a ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... bent forward more than usual, and his voice had a note of terrible hurt. It was as if all the ties of seven years of vicissitude had been arbitrarily cast off by his old partner; that they had become master and man. His words conveyed an indescribable ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... The cover of the basket was loose, and at this moment one, two, three, and then two more, and again more kittens came suddenly tumbling on to the floor and racing about the room in every direction, and with such indescribable rapidity that it seemed as if the whole room was full of them. They jumped over the tutor's boots, bit at his trousers, climbed up Fraulein Rottenmeier's dress, rolled about her feet, sprang up on to Clara's couch, scratching, scrambling, and mewing: it was a sad scene of confusion. ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri
... made towards final dissolution of form—but all the time, with my fingers pushed hard into my ears, lest the faintest sound should invade the silent citadel of my soul. If inadvertently I removed one of my fingers, the agony of terror I instantly experienced is indescribable. I can compare it to nothing but the rushing in upon my brain of a whole churchyard of spectres. The very possibility of hearing a sound, in such a mood, and at such a time, was almost enough to paralyse me. So I could scare myself in broad daylight, ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... after her father's death, that she was advancing rapidly in strength of character, and in the influence and ascendency which she was acquiring over all around her. Her beauty, her accomplishments, and a certain indescribable charm which pervaded all her demeanor, combined to give her great personal power. But, while these things awakened in other minds feelings of interest in Cleopatra and attachment to her, they only increased the jealousy ...
— Cleopatra • Jacob Abbott
... wistfulness in the blue depths of her eyes, with the something tragic in the lines of her face that little Patience's death had written there irradicably, with poverty speaking from every fold of the blouse and skirt, yet with all the indescribable charm of girlish beauty at fifteen, Lydia was more ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... vices of Nero are indescribable, and that word must suffice. His extravagances, whether in lavish presents or in personal expenditure, soon rendered him bankrupt. He had no means of paying the soldiers or meeting his own appetites. Then began, or increased, his attacks on wealthy ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... again. What he said, wild and wanton though it was, was beginning to fill me with a sense of the most extreme discomfort. His sentences, in some strange, indescribable way, seemed, as they came from his lips, to warp my limbs; to enwrap themselves about me; to confine me, tighter and tighter, within, as it were, swaddling clothes; to make me more and more helpless. I was already conscious that ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... time, in all his long watches by that bed, that John Saltram had recognised him. The sick man had talked of him often in his delirium; but never before had he looked his former friend in the face with one ray of recognition in his own. An indescribable thrill of pain went through Gilbert's heart at the sound of that calm utterance of his name. How sweet it would have been to him, what a natural thing it would have seemed, to have fallen upon his old friend's ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... within. The heart determines the worth and beauty of life. It makes all the difference whether the physical determines its circumference or whether you have an intellect that is reaching out to the things unmeasurable and a soul that grows into glory indescribable. ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... scudding before the gale; and a pretty crew of scarecrows we looked when the morning at length dawned and disclosed us to each other's vision, drenched to the skin with flying spray, haggard and red-eyed with fatigue and the want of sleep, and each wearing that peculiar and indescribable expression of countenance that marks the man who has been face to face for hours with imminent death. But about four bells in the forenoon watch the gale suddenly broke, the sky cleared, and the wind moderated so rapidly that just before noon, by carefully watching ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... covered with scrub, "a din which completely astonished" him; on crawling onwards he beheld, to his amazement, about one hundred and fifty of the magnificent lyre-cocks, "ranged in order of battle, and fighting with indescribable fury." The bowers of the Bower- birds are the resort of both sexes during the breeding-season; and "here the males meet and contend with each other for the favours of the female, and here the latter assemble and coquet with the males." ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... steward went down into the refrigerator, which was somewhere below the quarter-deck, to get provisions for the day, every woman held a bottle of salts to her nose, and the officers fled to the forward part of the ship. The odor which ascended from that refrigerator was indescribable: it lingered and would not go. It followed us to the table, and when we tasted the food we tasted the odor. We bribed the steward for ice. Finally, I could not go below at all, but had a baked sweet potato brought on deck, and lived several days ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... extraordinary feature of this indescribable satire lies in Chapter XII, "THE WAGES Of SIN IS DEATH," contributed by the TK. This chapter is a masterpiece of concept, treatment and beauty, setting forth the meaning and purpose of the ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck
... Campbell approached her in a most respectful manner, and inquired if she had found a ring the previous day. It was scarcely necessary for her to return an answer, because there before him, on her ungloved hand, the ring appeared. As she handed it to him, an indescribable sensation ran through her whole frame. They entered into conversation; and how long they walked and chatted together, and what were the subjects of their conversation, we shall not pause to mention: sufficient to say that, ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... wholly indescribable surprise and delight that Macleod came upon the life and stir and gayety of London in the sweet June time, when the parks and gardens and squares would of themselves have been a sufficient wonder to him. The change from the sombre shores of lochs Na Keal, and Iua, and Scridain ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... live with him; both had died before they were fifty; and here he was the sole owner of a wonderful young head, with hair that reached to the waist, with lips like cool fruit from an orchard-tree, and the indescribable charm of youth and loveliness which the young themselves never really understood. That was what he used to say to himself; it was only age could appreciate youth and beauty; youth did ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... scrambling to go to supper that there was some danger of being squeezed to death. The vice-president handed in Mrs. Washington, and the president immediately followed. The applause with which they were received is indescribable. The same was shown on their return from supper. The music added greatly to the interest of the scene. The president staid until between twelve and one; the vice-president till near two. Both were serenaded with ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... and went on. It was not more than a hundred yards to where the grass grew on firm ground. Racey and his horse reached solid earth without incident. Then—a scramble, a scraping, and a clattering followed in a breath by the indescribable sound of a mass ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... upon the Douro, covered with the Quintas, or villas, of the wealthier inhabitants of the adjoining city. Most of the Quintas at the mouth of the river command delightful prospects of the Atlantic Ocean, and the splendid effects produced on these scenes at sunset, in this glowing climate, are almost indescribable. Some idea of its beauty may be formed by reference to Colonel Batty's view from this point.[3] The appearance of the Douro, with its numerous shipping, and the variety of interesting objects scattered on its cheerful banks, render this one of the most pleasing scenes in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 559, July 28, 1832 • Various
... countenance; also his shortness of stature; the dignity, grace, and repose of his incomparable manner, too. She was a plump, petite, and rosy girl; but there was that in her demeanor which became the daughter of an affluent home, and a certain assured, indescribable expression of face which seemed to say, Here is a maiden who to the object of her affection could be faithful against an execrating ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... short of a revelation of the never-ceasing bounty of Nature, who endows successive generations of children with this instinctive ear for the deep harmonies of her laws. People sometimes speak of the indescribable beauty of children's innocence, and insist that there is nothing which calls for more constant thanksgiving than that influence on mankind. But I will venture to say that no one quite knows what it is who has foregone the privilege of being ...
— Youth and Sex • Mary Scharlieb and F. Arthur Sibly
... them. In the midst of this torment the man kicked down the stool which had supported his feet, so that he hung upon the cords with his whole weight, which suddenly increased their tension, and gave indescribable aggravation to his pain. Next followed a new kind of torment. An instrument resembling a small ladder, consisting of two parallel pieces of wood, and five transverse pieces, with the anterior edges sharpened, was placed before him, so that when the tormentor struck it heavily, ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... Wix was as safe as Clara Matilda, who was in heaven and yet, embarrassingly, also in Kensal Green, where they had been together to see her little huddled grave. It was from something in Mrs. Wix's tone, which in spite of caricature remained indescribable and inimitable, that Maisie, before her term with her mother was over, drew this sense of a support, like a breast-high banister in a place of "drops," that would never give way. If she knew her instructress was poor ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... looked up, and stared for some time with a wild glance at the apparition which met her there. Then she arose hastily, pressed her hands to her breast, uttered a faint cry of horror, and sank lifeless to the floor. Susanna pushed her angel violently aside, and rushed to her mistress, who with indescribable feelings of anguish she raised in her arms and carried to bed. Harald, on the contrary, busied himself with the poor angel, who with his crown had lost his balance, and while the hot tallow ran down over brow and cheeks broke out into the most deplorable tones ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... question authority, thus fettering her will, together with a false interpretation of Scripture, have been the instruments to hold her, body and soul, in a slavery whose depths of degradation can never be fathomed, whose indescribable tortures can never be understood ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... man of large ideas, was Jones, to call that mass of rock a hill)—shining red-hot in the last light against a topaz or turquoise sky, and the gulch that ran up to it in a mystery of dark green gloom offering up an evening prayer of indescribable odors—those appeals to a life in former spheres which no other sense remembers; the ceaseless roar of the wind in the pines, so steady that it formed a background for other sounds almost as good as silence itself; the evening pipe, ...
— The Mascot of Sweet Briar Gulch • Henry Wallace Phillips
... hope: a genuine, material convalescence had commenced. It was not merely Caroline's smile which was brighter, or her spirits which were cheered, but a certain look had passed from her face and eye—a look dread and indescribable, but which will easily be recalled by those who have watched the couch of dangerous disease. Long before the emaciated outlines of her aspect began to fill, or its departed colour to return, a more subtle change took place; all grew softer and warmer. Instead of a marble mask and glassy ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... with any one, and for five weeks his door was closed to all comers. The whole flood of difficulties against which he had so long fought desperately was at once let loose upon him. In England the feeling was indescribable. All the religious fervour of the people was passionately thrown on the side of the martyr. The church of Canterbury closed for a year. The ornaments were taken from the altar, the walls were stripped, the sound of the bells ceased. Excitement was raised to its utmost ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... little orchestra in their same absurd "monkey clothes," the same motley crowd of half foreign, wholly happy men and women, the same indescribable odor of un-American cooking—she even rejoiced in that—and, best of all, on the long shelf that ran around the four sides of the room were the same little, fat, bright blue pitchers with great naming vermilion roses on either side. ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... and a little to one side. As usual, she was in black; but now it was some sort of dinner-gown that left her arms and neck bare. The line of the chin and the throat and the sweet round curve of the shoulder had in it something indescribable—something that was related to music, and that eluded speech. Her hair was nothing more than a warm colored mist without form or outline. The sloe-brown of her little eyes and the flush of her cheek were mere inferences—like the faintest ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... and the last were alike informed by the spirit of one woman; visible then, invisible now; yet sensibly present in every haunt she had made her own. The house was full of her; the wood was full of her. But the pangs of reminder he had so dreaded resolved themselves, rather, into a sense of indescribable, ethereal reunion. He asked nothing better than that his life and work should be fulfilled with her always: her and Tara—if she ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... pellet called Earth, and become immediately wholly concerned, aye, engrossed, with any individual worshipper's woes or desires,—a readiness to notice a fellow when he is going to bed. This will bring indescribable comfort to simian hearts; and a god that neglects this duty won't last very long, no matter how competent he may be in ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... account for the uneasy tone of a letter written by Michelangelo to Buonarroto. Prato had been taken by assault upon the 30th of August, and was now prostrate after those hideous days of torment, massacre, and outrage indescribable which followed. In these circumstances Michelangelo advises his family to "escape into a place of safety, abandoning their household gear and property; for life is far more worth than money." If they are in need of cash, they ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... emotion or passion which was suited to his ends. Not less indispensable, secondly, was a matchless perfection of the organs of expression, including the entire apparatus of voice, intonation, pause, gesture, attitude, and indescribable play of countenance. In no instance did he ever indulge in an expression that was not instantly recognized as nature itself; yet some of his penetrating and subduing tones were absolutely peculiar, and as inimitable as they were indescribable. ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... indescribable agony from dyspepsia, nervousness, asthma, cough, constipation, flatulency, spasms, sickness at the stomach and vomitings have been removed by Du Barry's excellent food.—MARIA JOLLY, Wortham Ling, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 208, October 22, 1853 • Various
... beneath it; so we both knelt down, and bodily lifted the light but hideous occupant of this awful pit, and placed it in a sitting posture in one corner. As we did so, first a foot and then a leg dropped off at the knee joint, and fell back into the hole, which sent an indescribable thrill of horror through me, and no doubt it acted upon Alec ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... always been able to live up to my ideal. But in my own real world I have never done anything wrong, never denied my faith, never been untrue to myself. Ive been threatened and blackmailed and insulted and starved. But Ive played the game. Ive fought the good fight. And now it's all over, theres an indescribable peace. [He feebly folds his hands and utters his creed] I believe in Michael Angelo, Velasquez, and Rembrandt; in the might of design, the mystery of color, the redemption of all things by Beauty everlasting, and the message ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • George Bernard Shaw
... Wordsworth in an observation he once hazarded, that a tree is a more poetical object than a prince in his coronation robes. His taste in landscape gardening was honoured with the approbation of Horace Walpole, and he spent 1,000 pounds upon a grotto, which incurred the ridicule of Johnson. Of that indescribable something, that 'greatness' which causes Dryden to uplift a lofty head from the deep pit of his corruption, neither Pope's character nor his style bears any trace. But still, both as a poet and a man we must give place, and even high place, to Pope. About ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... recondite meaning. They are simply indications of the thorough and utter immorality which prevailed throughout the race. And a still more disgusting proof of it is seen in the frequent appearance among diverse tribes of men dressed as women and yielding themselves to indescribable vices.[149-1] There was at first nothing of a religious nature in such exhibitions. Lascivious priests chose at times to invest them with some such meaning for their own sensual gratification, just as in ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... enters in his diary, "I resolved to go west to Lualaba and buy a canoe for its exploration. The Manyuema country is all surpassingly beautiful. Palms crown the highest heights of the mountains, and the forests about five miles broad are indescribable. Climbers of cable size in great numbers are hung among the gigantic trees, many unknown wild fruits abound, some the size of a child's head, and strange birds and monkeys ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... and dropped it again, all were turned to sapphire, while articles under the sea gleamed with a beautiful silver shade. The girls bared their arms and enjoyed dipping them to obtain this effect. The glorious blue of the cave was indescribable. ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... fact nevertheless remains that one of the huge buttresses of the Coumelie became detached from the main summit, and dashed down in enormous blocks to the valley below. There they lie, the road passing between, in the wildest and most indescribable confusion. Here a heap piled one above another, there a mighty shoulder split in twain by a conical fragment which rests in the breach that it made; some towering above the road, others blocking the river below, a few isolated and many half-buried; but all combining to ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough
... blacksmith's forge, only much larger, and over these smoke-hoods are suspended, connected with the cavernous chimneys. At each corner of these hearths are iron cranes hung with chains, and between two of these cranes the intendant pointed out an indescribable mass of something supposed to be a stag roasted whole—not at present a very toothsome-looking morsel. Dozens of pots and kettles hang from the chains, and scores of pans and ovens stand in rows underneath. Thickly scattered over the floor near these fireplaces are the bones of game and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... air with noises, Strange and indescribable voices, From Hags, in a diabolical clatter— Cats that spit curses, and apes that chatter Scraps of cabalistical matter— Owls that screech, and dogs that yell— Skeleton hounds that will never be fatter— All the domestic tribes ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... announced "Free hot soup to-night!" The swing doors, snapping to and fro like ravenous lips, made gratified smacks as the saloon gorged itself with plump men, eating with astounding and endless appetite, smiling in some indescribable manner as the men came from all directions like ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... hills, covered with scraggy trees, crosses the Zambesi, and confines it within a narrow, rough, and rocky dell of about a quarter of a mile in breadth; over this, which may be called the flood-bed of the river, large masses of rock are huddled in indescribable confusion. The drawing, for the use of which, and of others, our thanks are due to Lord Russell, conveys but a faint idea of the scene, inasmuch as the hills which confine the river do not appear in the sketch. The chief rock is syenite, some portions of which have a ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... feasting went on for some time; but Hermann's heart was sick within him; he had no spirit left for the revelry. An indescribable feeling of terror and anxiety possessed him. The clock struck twelve; the guests dispersed. They had hardly left the house when a terrific storm broke forth, appalling in its awful violence; the house shook, trees were uprooted, lightning blazed continually. The tempest was nothing, however, ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... the privilege of listening to Ole Bull's witchery with his violin, he gave an hour to Norwegian folk-songs, his wife at the piano. She played with finish, feeling, and restraint. She first went through the air, then he joined in with his violin with indescribable charm. Critics said he lacked technique. I am glad he did: his music went straight to the heart. At the last he told us he would give the tune always played after a wedding when the guests had ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... with the rain pouring in torrents. I had tried to buy a pair of shoes before going to sleep, but they brought me a pair for a boy of twelve and assured me that there were no others in the town, and those I had come with were in tatters which were hardly to be kept on my feet. The mud was indescribable,—the entire country flooded, and all the bridges across a river we must pass carried away, except one over a narrow gorge where the rocks approached so closely that a couple of logs reached from side to side, and over these the horses must be led. To say ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... his eyes were fixed with cold intensity upon a fringe of gray across the coulee below the little pasture. To the nostrils of the outraged Happy Family was borne that indescribable aroma which betrays the presence of sheep; that aroma which sheepmen love and which cattlemen hate, and which a favorable wind will carry ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... held up again by the ice, a little below Black Cape, a dark cone-shaped mountain standing alone, on the eastern side washed by the waters of the sea, on the west separated by deep valleys from the adjacent mountains. It was a scene of indescribable grandeur, for the coast was lined for miles with bergs, forced shoreward, broken and tilted at right angles. At Black Cape we had made half the distance between our former position at Lincoln Bay and the longed-for ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... was the reply. Turning the pages, Heidi found a song about the sun, and decided to read that aloud. More and more eagerly she read, while the grandmother, with folded arms, sat in her chair. An expression of indescribable happiness shone in her countenance, though tears were rolling down her cheeks. When Heidi had repeated the end of the song a number of times, the old woman exclaimed: "Oh, Heidi, everything seems bright to me again and ...
— Heidi - (Gift Edition) • Johanna Spyri
... the suit gradually disappeared. First, the wall against which it hung shone mistily through it. Then there was wall, slightly outlined by a greyish cast. And at last, only an indescribable fuzziness that had to be sensed rather ...
— Zero Data • Charles Saphro
... man may even, if he gets into the groove, be gradually pushed on till he reaches an eminence which probably surprises himself as much as any one else. A good speaker in Parliament may at sixty or seventy be made a Cabinet Minister. And we can all imagine what indescribable pride and elation must in such cases possess the wife and daughters of the man who has attained this decided step in advance. I can say sincerely that I never saw human beings walk with so airy tread, and evince so fussily their sense of a greatness more than ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... our entering dry-dock, August 1st, was eventful, as it was arranged we should make an excursion to view one of Nature's greatest wonders—Niagara Falls—a sight unlike any other on the surface of the globe. The indescribable grandeur of the whole overwhelms the soul—to contemplate that tremendous torrent which never stops! No rest in the ages of the past—no promise of a moment's stay in all the years to come—but on, on, ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler
... indescribable confusion followed, in which Gianbattista alone seemed to maintain some semblance of coolness. The rest all spoke and cried at once. Maria Luisa and Lucia knelt beside the body where they had laid it on the steps of the high altar, crying aloud, kissing the white hands and beating their breasts, ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... and the spring developed. His letters were regular though formal; and it is not to be wondered that the uncertainty of her position, linked with the fact that there was not much passion in her thoughts of Humphrey, bred an indescribable dreariness in the heart of Phyllis Grove. The spring was soon summer, and the summer brought the King; but still no Humphrey Gould. All this while the engagement by letter was ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... at every bridge was indescribable confusion. Every kind of vehicle that you could imagine—ox carts, buffalo wagons, Red Cross carts, troikas, foorgans like prairie schooners, hay-wagons, Russian phaetons and many others invented and fitted up for the occasion. The animals—donkeys, horses, ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... sitting, reading a fiscal report of one of his companies and meditating on his affairs. By now they had become somewhat more sympatica than formerly, and Berenice had an easy, genial way in his presence. She liked him, rather. With an indescribable smile which wrinkled her nose and eyes, and played about the corners of her mouth, she said: "Now I am going ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... of applause, enthusiasm, and wonder afterwards was indescribable. The gentlemen crowded round the singers—even the parliamentary gentlemen had lost their self-control, while the young lady who had wept forgot her timidity to make an eager approach to ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... An indescribable succession of dull blows, perplexing in their regularity, sent their sound with difficulty through the fluffy atmosphere. It was a neighbouring clock striking ten. The bell was in the open air, and being overlaid ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... comfortable posture; I would be fevered and weary of the staring sun; and just then he would begin courteously to withdraw his countenance, the shadows lengthened, the aromatic airs awoke, and an indescribable but happy change announced the coming of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the third time, passing over sundry remarks made by myself to the young lady. That done, I added the account of my expedition to Eaton, and the certainty at which I had arrived that my fellow-traveller was not the person she represented herself to be. After which, I inquired with indescribable anxiety if Mr. Huntingdon's order ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... of Parliamentary Debate, of Public Business which the Convention has to do. A question emerges, so small at first; is put off, submerged; but always re-emerges bigger than before. It is a curious, indeed an indescribable sort of growth which ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... goodness and nobility of mind impressed upon her features. She introduced to us three girls between eighteen and twenty years of age as her daughters, of whom only one—Bertha—resembled her and her sons. This one, a young copy of the mother, at once embarrassed me by the indescribable charm of her presence. She was so little like the others—Leonora and Clementina—that I could not refrain from remarking upon it to David. 'These two are not blood-relations to us, but pupil daughters of my mother; what that means I will tell you ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... the habitual deference and attention that marks your manner to your mother the indescribable tenderness and rendering back of care and watchfulness that betokens remembrance of early days. No other woman should ever induce you to forget this truest, most disinterested friend, nor should your manner ever indicate even momentary indifference ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... the pirate in a circle, stamping time slowly with their feet while the women and children stood in a larger circle, marking time with hands and voices. Presently the dance grew more furious, and ultimately attained to a pitch of wild violence which is quite indescribable. At the height of the paroxysm, a warrior would ever and anon dart out from the circle with whirling club, and bring it down as if on the prisoner's skull, but would turn it aside so deftly that it just grazed his ear and ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne
... his arm, appeared up the beach. I knew instantly that I must be in England. He was staring most intently at the sphere and me. He advanced staring. I dare say I looked a ferocious savage enough—dirty, unkempt, to an indescribable degree; but it did not occur to me at the time. He stopped at a distance of twenty yards. "Hul-lo, my ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... helplessness with which the figure rested in the chair, there was less outward token of suffering than he had often seen about her,—more appearance almost of youth and beauty. But it was not an earthly beauty; there was something about it which filled him with a kind of indescribable undefined awe, together with dread of a sorrow towards which he shrank from looking. She thought him fatigued with the exertion he had made, and allowed him to rest, while she contemplated with pleasure even the slight ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... president of the State university, or of the Normal School, or of Purdue University, school commissioners and county superintendents. But the legislature should give them the power to rescue our prisons, hospitals and asylums from the indescribable horror of filth, neglect and cruelty which hangs like a murky cloud over many of them. Men have tried it and failed. Stupidity or partisanship or brutality or avarice, has transformed many a noble foundation ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... at Galland's picture, his effort to "transplant into European gardens the magic flowers of Eastern fancy," still compare his tales with the sudden prospect of magnificent mountains seen after a long desert-march: they arouse strange longings and indescribable desires; their marvellous imaginativeness produces an insensible brightening of mind and an increase of fancy-power, making one dream that behind them lies the new and unseen, the strange and unexpected—in fact, all the glamour of ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... happen again later, one of them, Mr. Bowline Greene, carried him off to his own secluded home and watched him carefully. He said "the thought that the snows and rains fell upon her grave filled him with indescribable grief." Two years later he told a fellow-legislator that "although he seemed to others to enjoy life rapturously, yet when alone he was so overcome by mental depression, he never dared to carry a pocket-knife." Later still Greene, who had helped ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... watching the movements of the multitude, apparently counting them as then entered the house of God, looking for the last one to darken the door. The impatience and anxiety with which they waited, and the bliss they anticipated on the eventful day, is altogether indescribable. Those that have been so fortunate as to embark in such a noble enterprise know all its realities; and those who have not had this inestimable privilege will have to taste its sweets before they can tell to others its joys, its comforts, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... no little confidence commended me in dumb show to the landlady of the Inn, a Mrs. Nature, if I understood him aright. This person was still comely, though of uncertain age, wore cherry ribbons, smiled rather vacantly from vague, wonderful, indescribable eyes that seemed to change colour, like the chameleon, according ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... peatstack-like architecture, its countless population, its temples, prisons, flower-junks, mandarins, pig-tailed street-boys, &c. Most of the members of the expedition made an excursion thither, and were rewarded with innumerable indescribable impressions from Chinese city life. We were everywhere received by the natives in a friendly way,[385] and short as our visit was, it was yet sufficient to dissipate the erroneous impressions which ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... reflection, I again observed the melancholy expression upon her countenance; and once more the resemblance to her of whom I was thinking! My interest in the beautiful huntress was every moment augmenting. I felt an indescribable yearning to hear the story of her misfortunes: for in no other light could I regard the situation in which I ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... forward, as so many of the church members had done in the morning, and seriously, solemnly, tenderly, took the pledge to do as Jesus would do. A deep wave of spiritual baptism broke over the meeting near its close that was indescribable in its tender, ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... the lawn was a scene indescribable. The long line was broken. Men and women ran hither and thither, for the most part aimlessly, as though in some strange state of coma where the mind refused its functions. They talked and cried and shouted at each other ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... of wonder and a faint relief; then she gave back the other's scrutiny in a glance of indescribable reproach. "Ah, you might have waited!" ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... attempted, again and again, to obey the mysterious mandate—by some dreadful process the burthen was replaced with a more stupendous weight of injunction, and an apalling conviction of the impossibility of its fulfilment. My mental anguish was indescribable;—the mighty agonies of souls tortured on the supernatural racks of sleep are not to be penned—and if in sketching those that belong to blood-guiltiness I have been at all successful, I owe it mainly to the uninvoked ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... summoned from the depths below a landlord or landlady to be specific about times and terms, to show the rooms, and conceal the extras. The entry was oftenest dim and narrow, with a mat sunk into the floor at the threshold and worn to the quick by the cleansing of numberless feet; and an indescribable frowziness prevailed which imparted itself to the condition of widowhood dug up by the young foreigner from the basement. Sometimes there responded to his summons a clerical, an almost episcopal presence, which was clearly that of a former butler, unctuous ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... the landlady of the "Golden Sun," when she saw the procession coming towards her house, is quite indescribable. Whenever the question arose concerning any wedding, low or high, she ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... read the differing temperaments necessary to this relation in the differing voices. That which bore mastery was a low, thick murmur, coming from deep in the throat, and flowing out in a steady stream of indescribable coaxing and drolling. The owner of that voice had imagination and humor which could charm with absolute control her companion's lighter nature, as it betrayed itself in a gay tinkle of amusement and a succession ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... indescribable and impossible in cold type. The softening of the consonants, the slipping away of the terminals, the slurring of vowels, and all in that low, musical voice born out side of the roar and crash of city streets and crowded drawing-rooms with ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... with any of the fruit. It is a delightful change from the hot stuffy August Paris I left yesterday. My street is absolutely deserted, every house closed except mine, the sun shining down hard on the white pavement, and perfect stillness all day. The evenings from seven till ten are indescribable—a horror of musical concierges with accordions, a favorite French instrument. They all sit outside their doors with their families and friends, playing and singing all the popular songs, and at intervals all joining in a ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... to this proposal—than which nothing can be more rational—let our new life of mutual confidence date from this moment. Tell me then, my Fernand," she proceeded, assuming a winning manner, and throwing as much pathos as possible into her sweetly musical voice—that voice which gave new and indescribable, charms to the soft Italian language—"tell me then, my Fernand, wherefore thou quittest me at certain intervals—why thou invariably seekest on those occasions the opposite side of the island—and whether thou wilt in future suffer me to be ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... pallid river winds slowly to the sea. The gulf, stretching limitless, shines like a slab of salt strangely bespangled. In this atmosphere without mists, the sharp outlines of the coast, the dense movelessness of the aspect, has an indescribable effect. It is like a hitherto unknown and virginal revelation of the earth. Then the stars bloom out, with a flame, an hallucinating palpability. Charles's Wain, burning low on the gorges of the Edough, seems like a golden waggon rolling through the fields of Heaven. ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... looking up at me frankly and affectionately. "I wish I could tell you how much I appreciate your goodness to me, and all your disinterestedness. I wish I deserved it!" She clasped my hands warmly as she spoke, then dropped them; and instantly I became conscious of an indescribable sense of relief; and prepared to depart at once; but she stopped me again with a word ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... beauty that it now possesses can be advantageously exchanged for the wholeness of a finished narrative. In its present form it lays irresistible hold of the imagination. It interests even by what it leaves untold.—The story is like a dream of lovely forms, mixed with strange and indescribable terrors. The scene, the personages, are those of old romantic superstition; but we feel intimate with them, as if they were of our own day, and of our own neighbourhood. It is impossible not to suppose that we have known ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... mostly upon the Tornea River, sometimes taking to the woods on either side, to cut off bends. The morn was hours in dawning, with the same splendid transitions of colour. The forests were indescribable in their silence, whiteness, and wonderful variety of snowy adornment. The weeping birches leaned over the road, and formed white fringed arches; the firs wore mantles of ermine, and ruffs and tippets of the softest ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... design. More often I would sit at his feet, and he, between whiffs at his pipe, would discourse to me of the differences between his Old World and this new one, into which I providentially had been born. He talked of his past, of my future, and together with this was put forth an indescribable wealth of reminiscence, ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... Miller's real life began. In after years she used to say, "I was born first in my native town; second, in the Atlantic Ocean!" The effect of the strong sea air upon her was something indescribable; joy seemed to radiate from her whole being. She smiled whenever she saw the sea. She walked on the beach; she sat on the rocks; she learned to swim in one lesson, and swam so far out that her uncle dared not follow, ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... With timid reluctance, he confessed that he had been reading clandestinely Morse's large geography, of which there was a copy in a society-library kept at his father's house. The book, he added, had an indescribable attraction for him; and even at that almost infantile age he was familiar with its contents. It was this reading of Morse, perhaps, which determined his taste for those geographical studies in which he subsequently became so distinguished. With him, as with Humboldt and Guyot, geography ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... library, no matter what storm and tumult may be in his heart, he has come to the inmost chamber of Peace. The indescribable, musty odour which breathes from the printed page is fragrant incense to him who loves his books. In unseemly caskets his treasures may be hidden, yet, when the cover is reverently lifted, the jewels shine with no fading light. The old, immortal beauty is still there, for any one ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... screaming chant and drone of his instrument. When he danced, he was like a whirlwind that had caught up the contents of an old-clothes-shop. It is no wonder that he should have produced in our minds an indescribable mixture of awe and delight—awe, because no one could tell what he might do next, and delight because of his oddity, agility, and music. The first sensation was always a slight fear, which gradually wore off as we became anew accustomed to the strangeness of the apparition. Before the visit ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... Sojourner, carried away with her own feeling, sang it from beginning to end with a triumphant energy that held the whole circle around her intently listening. She sang with the strong barbaric accent of the native African, and with those indescribable upward turns and those deep gutturals which give such a wild, peculiar power to the negro singing,—but above all, with such an overwhelming energy of personal appropriation that the hymn seemed to be fused in the furnace of her ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... They never exchanged more words and looks than were absolutely necessary. Vance realized it more than ever as he looked up to the tall athletic figure. And he realized also that since he had last looked closely at Terence the latter had slipped out of boyhood and into manhood. There was that indescribable something about the set of the chin and the straight-looking eyes that ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... dead and most untouched deep water of the sea had been heaved to the top by the submarine volcano—the chill still water that kills all life and smells of desolation and emptiness. We did not need either the blinding fog or that indescribable smell of musk to make us unhappy—we were shivering with cold and ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... to be rebuilt with great magnificence. He arranged great celebrations, in which the people were entertained with an endless succession of games, spectacles, and public feasts. When his daughter Julia, Pompey's wife, died, he celebrated her funeral with indescribable splendor. He distributed corn in immense quantities among the people, and he sent a great many captives home, to be trained as gladiators to fight in the theatres for their amusement. In many cases, too, where he found ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... dredging-machine was destined to arouse. When Mr. Roscorla read that simple narrative, he first stared with astonishment as though she were making some foolish joke. Directly he saw she was serious, however, his rage and mortification were indescribable. Here was this young man, not content with hanging about the girl so that neighbors talked, but actually imposing on her credulity, and making a jest of that engaged ring which ought to have been sacred to her. Mr. Roscorla at once saw through the whole ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... would not be so impolite as to infer your age by asking that of your son,—the susdit George will come home late from play some afternoon, languid, pale, and disinclined for tea. He will indignantly repel the accusation of feeling ill, and there will lurk about his person an indescribable odor of stale cinnamon, which you will be at a loss to account for, but which his elder brother will recognize as the natural result of smoking "cinnamon cigars," wherewith certain wicked tobacconists of this city tempt curious ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... not altogether be repressed, he was about to pass on; but at that moment the cottage-door opened, and a woman, whose sour, unpleasant countenance Ellen recognized, came hastily forth. She seemed not to heed the travellers; but the angler, his voice thrilling and quivering with indescribable emotion, addressed her. ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Page Avenue, too new for wall paper, still exuding the indescribable cold, white smell of mortar in the drying, was none the less—-and with the flexible personality of houses—taking on the print of the family. A mission dining-room set, ordered wholesale through the ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... Prussian to do the like: "Jagers, Hussars, a ducat for every traitor you shoot down!" continues Wolfersdorf (and punctually paid it afterwards): unable to prevent an almost total dissolution of Grollmann. For some minutes, there is a scene indescribable: storm of vociferation, menace, musket-shot, pistol-shot; Grollmann disappearing on every side,—"behind the Redoubt, under the Bridge, into Elbe Boats, under the cloaks of the Croats;"—in spite of Wolfersdorf's ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... had been brought about. The cracks in the pavement of his cell, the chinks in the wall where stone was joined to stone, the bars in the window, the iron ring upon the floor,—such things as these, subsiding strangely into one another, and awakening an indescribable kind of interest and amusement, engrossed his whole mind; and although at the bottom of his every thought there was an uneasy sense of guilt, and dread of death, he felt no more than that vague consciousness ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... appealed to him, and a moisture formed in his eyes. A new side to the problem of the morning came to him. These sounds—he realized now how he loved them. Verily they were a part of his life. Mid them he had been bred; of them as of food he had grown. That whistle, thin and unmusical; that elusive, indescribable call of prairie male; all these homely sounds that meant so much ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... stood still. Into the rattle, the boom, the explosion of artillery there leaped suddenly a new tone. It rose clearly above the rest of the din, which had almost ceased to penetrate the consciousness. It approached with such a shrill sound, with such indescribable swiftness, with so fierce a threat, that the sound seemed to be visible, as though you could actually see a screaming semicircle rise in the air, bite its way to one's very forehead, and snap there with ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko |
