"Inexplicable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in marriage only the propagation of humanity, and rebukes second marriages and all passions but those with a social purpose. Sylvie's perplexities were great. These internal struggles gave extraordinary force to her passion, investing it with that inexplicable attraction which, from the days of Eve, the thing forbidden possesses for women. Mademoiselle Rogron's perturbation did ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... dramas, make a remarkably rich body of poetry to be produced in the short space of five years. And the character of the work, its variety and beauty and strength and originality, were such that its meager and grudging acceptance seems now inexplicable. ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... what must be in store for them if the Abbot had uncoupled his bloodhounds, so she strained every nerve in her young body, listened to every murmur or swish of the trees, every one of the innumerable, inexplicable noises a great wood gives forth. She suffered, indeed, intensely; yet Prosper never knew it. He played upon her, quite unconsciously, by wondering over the difficulties of the road, the slowness of their going, the probable speed of the Abbot's dogs and foresters, and so on. Her meekness and ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... inexplicable thing occurred. Unthinkingly she had turned over and extended her arm, searching in the darkness behind her. There came a tinkle, a vague violet perfume, and the starlight fell on her clustering hair and throat as she lifted and ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... bestowed on him with an air of condescension. She was like young children, who seem to say to their mother, "Make haste to kiss me, that I may go to play." In short, Emilie vouchsafed to be fond of her parents. But often, by those sudden whims, which seem inexplicable in young girls, she kept aloof and scarcely ever appeared; she complained of having to share her father's and mother's heart with too many people; she was jealous of every one, even of her brothers and sisters. Then, after creating ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac
... for him to understand, but he saw that it existed; for twenty years he had been unable to escape the unwelcome itterations of that singular, that alien, that rival renown; and now it stood in his path, alone and inexplicable, like a defiant ghost. 'It is remarkably interesting,' he observed coldly, when somebody asked him what he thought of the Apologia: 'it is like listening to the voice of one from the dead.' And such voices, ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... the change in her and did not attribute it entirely to the thickness of the air. Rossland's inexplicable rudeness had disturbed her more deeply than she had ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... as the boy put his head down on his arms, rolling it from side to side as though to shake them off, the same old images pursued him—the lodging-house room, and the curtainless iron bed in which he slept with his father: reminiscences of some long, inexplicable anguish through which that father had passed; then of his death, and his own lonely crying. He seemed still to feel the strange sheets in that bed upstairs, where a compassionate fellow-lodger had put him the night after his father ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Ruth it was inexplicable. She had yawned, and loitered, and looked off at the beautiful panel, and lost herself in thoughts of home, until she fully expected the reprimand which at any other time she would have been sure to receive, and now, to her surprise, she was singled ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... M. Arago between metals and magnets when neither are moving (120.), as well as most of the results obtained by Sir John Herschel, Messrs. Babbage, Harris, and others, in repeating his experiments; accounting at the same time perfectly for what at first appeared inexplicable; namely, the non-action of the same metals and magnets when at rest. These results, which also afford the readiest means of obtaining electricity from magnetism, I shall now proceed ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... events, soul is a fact, in certain writers—the way they have of absorbing language, of attracting it into the peculiar spirit they are of, with a subtlety which makes the actual result seem like some inexplicable inspiration. By mind, the literary artist reaches us, through static and objective indications of design in his work, legible to all. By soul, he reaches us, somewhat capriciously perhaps, one and not another, through vagrant sympathy ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... putrefaction or fermentation that the entozoa are born, for both of these processes are rather fatal to their existence, but from the aggregation and fit apposition of matter which is already organized, or has been thrown from organized surfaces. Their origin in this manner is not more wonderful or more inexplicable than that of many of the inferior animals from sections of themselves. * * Particles of matter fitted by digestion, and their transmission through a living body, for immediate assimilation with it, or flakes of lymph detached from surfaces already organized, seem neither to exceed nor fall below ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... dwelling! Dwelling indeed no more but for the hoodie-crow, and for the fawn of the hill that years after I saw treading over the grass-grown lintel of its door. To-night the place was full of empty airs and ghosts of sounds inexplicable, wailing among the cabars that jutted black and scarred mid-way from wall to wall The byre was in a huddle of damp thatch, and strewn (as God's my judge) by the bones of the cattle the enemy had refused ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... mention of His Name; yet our soundest knowledge is to know that we know Him not as indeed He is, neither can know Him. And our safest eloquence concerning Him is our silence, when we confess without confession that His glory is inexplicable; His greatness above our capacity and reach. He is above, and we upon earth: therefore it behoveth our words to ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... discoverers and pretenders. Thither Mesmer betook himself and there he soon created a lively sensation by the exhibition of mesmeric trances, some of which were accompanied by clairvoyance—that is, the power of seeing objects concealed from the eyes. He was also supposed to work some inexplicable cures. ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens
... that it still lay on the floor of the salon. Annette might observe it at any moment, and might choose to wreak her supposed offence upon it; and, thinking thus, he hastened back to the apartment, prepared for any storm that might assail him. But Annette, who, in the inexplicable changes of mood which affected her at such times as these, was marching gaily up and down the room singing 'Tout le long de la route 'to a swinging rhythm, chose to disregard him. He saw the precious ornament lying where it had fallen, possessed himself of it, and passed out at the further ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... not to speak to Madame Monson on the subject at all," answered Mademoiselle Hennequin, with an expression of countenance that I found quite inexplicable; since it was not happy, nor was it altogether the reverse. "This must be our last meeting, and it were better that no one knew any thing ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... unless I kept close to him. As a matter of fact, neither Fred nor I knew London well, but I resented being treated like an infant, and if Dennison only looked after us out of kindness, I did not see why he should do it at the top of his voice. I had an inexplicable feeling that it was the duty of every one to know something about London, and although I should not have recognized Piccadilly Circus when I saw it, I was quite prepared to put that down to the fog; for if Dennison had not taken so much ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... Knox dates the "Reformation" "June 14." His dates, at this point, though recorded within three weeks, are to me inexplicable. ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... truly loved Adam de Gourdon; but the soft tones and refined accents were like a note of home to him; and though he had never seen the Princess before—she having been sent to the Court of St. Louis during the troubles—yet the whole of the interview gave him an inexplicable sense of being again among kindred and friends. He told himself that it was base, resolved that he would show himself determined to cast in his lot with his exiled brethren, and made up his mind to maintain a dignified ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... celebrated altar near Lysimachia in Thrace, Ptolemy treacherously assassinated him by stabbing him in the back (280). After this base and cowardly act, Ptolemy Ceraunus, who gave himself out as the avenger of Lysimachus, was, by one of those movements wholly inexplicable to our modern notions, saluted king by the army; but the Asiatic dominions of Seleucus fell to his son Antiochus, surnamed Soter. The crime of Ptolemy, however, was speedily overtaken by a just punishment. In the very same year his kingdom of Macedonia ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... failed to note the drift of psychological straws that indicated the sudden sharp turn of the wind, and the presage of storm in the air. He was thinking only of the illusive, desirable, maddening quality of the girl that walked beside him, filled with inexplicable forebodings for a friend, whom he knew to be invulnerable to misfortune. Certain phrases of Dick's were ringing in his ears to the exclusion of all more ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... of the two women in the British empire who are admitted by men to understand the mysterious and, to the average feminine mind, inexplicable fiscal problem; she knows all about tariff reform; she is her husband's first secretary, confidante and adviser; she is said to be the most discreet lady in speech, where her husband's political interests are concerned, and when he speaks in public Mrs. Chamberlain ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... his own transgression and his own way; for Walter's stubborn refusal appeared to Adams just then as one of the inexplicable but righteous besettings he must encounter in following that way. "Oh, Lordy, Lord!" he groaned, and then, as resentment moved him—"That dang boy! Dang idiot" Yet he knew himself for a greater idiot because ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... And behold, here comes one of the inhabitants, who has been abroad upon some public or private business, or perhaps to enjoy a fantastic walk, and cannot any longer find his own door. What surprise, what hurry, what confusion of mind are expressed in all his movements! How inexplicable to him must be the agency that has effected this mischief! The incident will probably be long remembered in the annals of the ant-colony, and be talked of in the winter days, when they are making merry over ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... come and gone meantime who was as express a contrast to Hartley Coleridge as could be imagined,—a man of energy, activity, stern self-discipline, and singular strength of will. Such a cast of character was an inexplicable puzzle to poor Hartley. He showed this by giving his impression of another person of the same general mode of life,—that A.B. was "a monomaniac about everything." It was to rest a hard-worked ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... among the canoes might be seen numbers of cocoanuts floating closely together in circular groups, and bobbing up and down with every wave. By some inexplicable means these cocoanuts were all steadily approaching towards the ship. As I leaned curiously over the side, endeavouring to solve their mysterious movements, one mass far in advance of the rest attracted ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... none the less recalled it to my mind, from time to time, with a singular interest. It was the one supernatural, or, at least, inexplicable experience of my life, and I continued to feel a profound curiosity with regard to the two principal characters. My slight endeavor to assist them by such counsel as had suggested itself to me was actuated by the purest human sympathy, and upon further reflection I could discover no ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... indicated by him. Having forced the laboratory and found it forsaken, they ascended, in the gathering dusk of a winter afternoon, to the upper regions of the house. Before they reached the top of the stair that led to the wizard's chamber, they began to hear inexplicable sounds, which grew plainer, though not much louder, as they drew nearer to the door. They were mostly like the grunting of some small animal of the hog kind, with an occasional one like the yelling roar ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... face towards the little bell when it did NOT ring, opened the door of the hut (which was kept shut to exclude the unhealthy damp), and looked out towards the red light near the mouth of the tunnel. On both of those occasions, he came back to the fire with the inexplicable air upon him which I had remarked, without being able to define, when we were so ...
— The Signal-Man #33 • Charles Dickens
... inexplicable to me, and if I had carried them out I would probably have been cut off by the enemy. My burghers were also getting restless, and asked me why, while all the other commandos were retiring, we did not move. Cronje's surrender had had ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... in the course of life that we are driven by some inexplicable fatality to suffer those very afflictions we dread the most. We are told of persons who trembled for a lifetime at the horrid anticipation of being one day mad; it was the shadow of the judgement that was creeping on them, which cast them finally amongst the victims of the lunatic ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... and explorations are recorded in this diary. Dr. Hayden, on his return, graphically described the various wonders which he saw, but had very little to say concerning the mud volcano. This fact was the more inexplicable to me for the reason that the Washburn party thought it one of the most remarkable curiosities to be found in that region, and I was greatly surprised to find that Dr. Hayden made so little ...
— The Discovery of Yellowstone Park • Nathaniel Pitt Langford
... enquiry, and found it a good field for the employment of his particular talents. No duel was ever more pitiless; never did a detective show more ingenuity and duplicity. From "love of the art," from sheer delight in it, Licquet worked himself up against his prisoners with a passion that would be inexplicable, did not his letters reveal the intense joy the struggle gave him. He felt no hatred towards his victims, but only a ferocious satisfaction in seeing them fall into the traps he prepared and in unveiling the mysteries ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... young girls are painted on coarse canvas, sketched in broad strokes, with the hair in one colour only. Some little study appears like wool, some other has the air of agate, or is marbled and veined according to his inexplicable whim. We have here an incessant confusion of methods, a complete emancipation of the virtuoso who listens only to his fancy. Now and then the harmonies are false and the drawing incorrect, but these weaknesses do at least no harm to the ...
— The French Impressionists (1860-1900) • Camille Mauclair
... passing pageant, a momentary excitement and no more—was a sort of defiant embassage which might have pleased the fancy of a young adventurer, but scarcely of a king so wary and experienced; and his own stay in the midst of the startled country is still more inexplicable. When the monks of Holyrood sent a mission to him to beg his protection, lying undefended as they did in the plain, his answer to them was curiously apologetic. "Far be it from me," he said, "to be so inhuman as to harm any holy house, especially Holyrood in which my father found a safe ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... coming to the hidden camps and sooner or later sinking to their lower level. Besides, with them everything was easy come, easy go. That was why life itself went on so carelessly and usually ended so cheaply. There were men among them, however, that made Duane feel that terrible inexplicable wrath rise in his breast. He could not bear to be near them. He could not trust himself. He felt that any instant a word, a deed, something might call too deeply to that instinct he could no longer control. Jackrabbit ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... has made me discard a set of garments, was sent for, to try whether these habiliments would produce him a similar reception from his old friend Daisy: but Daisy {p.069} allowed Tom to back him with all manner of gentleness. The thing was inexplicable—but he had certainly taken some part of my conduct in high dudgeon and disgust; and after trying him again, at the interval of a week, I was obliged to part with Daisy—and wars and rumors of wars being over, I resolved thenceforth to have done with such dainty blood. I now ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... the only job for which there's no competition in fighting units. You have to persuade men to be grooms, or cooks, or batmen. If you're seeking volunteers for a chance at annihilation, you have to cast lots to avoid the offence of rejecting. All of this is inexplicable to civilians. I've heard them call the men at the Front "spiritual geniuses"—which sounds ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... arouses no ungrateful emotions. I would rather have a four-pound loaf and a shoulder of mutton for supper now than a smaller quantity of extra choice viands; and I manage to satisfy the cravings of my inner man before leaving the table. But what about a place to sleep. For some inexplicable reason these people refuse to grant me even the shelter of their roof for the night. They are not keeping hotel, they say, which is quite true; they have a right to refuse, even if it is twenty miles to the next place; and they do refuse. "There's the empty Chinese bunk-house ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... and was inexplicable to me. But I knew Inley, knew that he was bound to tell me what was on his mind. He could be reserved, but not with me. So I took a cigar, cut the end off it deliberately, struck a match, lighted it, and began to smoke in silence. He followed my ...
— The Spinster - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... wide with unspoken love, unuttered longing. He delighted in the delicious curve of her cheek, and of her arm resting on the saddle. Her poise had an inexplicable suggestion of royal courage, as though she were battling for more than her lips could utter. In her absence he had adored her. Now he forgot all that he had meant to tell her in the sensuous delight of her mere presence. But even that was not enough. He dropped ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... and knaves is no argument against any honest tendency of thought. Men whom one cannot but esteem are deeply engaged in psychical investigations, and have convinced themselves that they are brought into touch with phenomena inexplicable by the commonly accepted laws of life. Be it so. They may be on the point of making discoveries in the world beyond sense. For my own part, everything of this kind not only does not interest me; I turn from it with the strongest distaste. If every wonder- story examined by the Psychical Society ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... inexplicable to me, the appearance of the chart was incredible to the surviving mutineers. They leaped upon it like cats upon a mouse. It went from hand to hand, one tearing it from another; and by the oaths and the cries and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and small-clothes, meeting the stockings at the knee with a sprightly buckle. His person showed no traces of the snuff with which it used to be so plentifully dusted; in fact, he no longer took snuff in the presence of the ladies. The first week he had noted an inexplicable uneasiness in them when he drew forth that blue cotton handkerchief after the solace of a pinch shortly afterwards, being alone with Florida, he saw her give a nervous start at its appearance. He blushed violently, and put it back into the pocket from ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... three days since is certainly rather singular and remarkable, but by no means inexplicable. My sister knew that I was then travelling by railroad,—that I would, without some unusual delay, reach the depot at a certain hour, and, being in a delirious condition, her mind reverted to the probability of some occurrence that might detain me. Having always evinced a peculiar aversion to ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... severe treading, I have never been in any way injured by the practice, and my pleasure in it seems not to diminish by constant repetition. The comparative difficulty of obtaining the pleasure from just the woman I want has a never-ending, if inexplicable, charm ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... novels must always be a kind of caviare; for they have no analogue in letters, but are the output of a mind and temper of singular originality. To the honest Tory, sworn to admire and unable to comprehend, they must seem inexplicable as abnormal. To the professional Radical they are so many proofs of innate inferiority: for they are full of pretentiousness and affectation; they teem with examples of all manner of vices, from false English to an immoral delight in dukes; they prove their maker a trickster and a charlatan in ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... when they left the dinner-table after dessert, she mysteriously vanished; but later, swept with an inexplicable wave of longing and uncertain dread, she crept down to the dining-room to try and discover what had happened. It was growing in her consciousness with illuminating clearness that her own happiness depended upon what ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... were all in perfect agreement, it was only in the months of November and December that "the visitation" occurred. During these months, the darkest of the year, scarcely a night passed without the recurrence of these inexplicable cries. Nothing, it was said, had ever been seen,—at least, nothing that could be identified. Some people, bolder or more imaginative than the others, had seen the darkness moving, Mrs. Jarvis said, with unconscious poetry. ...
— The Open Door, and the Portrait. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... and good: the artful indiscretion of the true friend is intelligible to everybody; but I only saw Pechorin once in my life—on the high-road—and, consequently, I cannot cherish towards him that inexplicable hatred, which, hiding its face under the mask of friendship, awaits but the death or misfortune of the beloved object to burst over its head in a storm of reproaches, admonitions, ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... all the time—cared still! It was written in the lines of suffering on his face, in the quiet endurance of the close-shut mouth. Despite the bitter, pitiful misunderstandings of their married life, despite his inexplicable friendship for Adrienne, despite all that had gone before, Diana was sure, in the light of this larger understanding which had come to her, that through it all he had loved her. With an absolute certainty of conviction, she knew that it was her hand which had graved ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... delightful those conversations were, both to herself and Pitt; how living the truth had been made; how had names and facts taken on them the shape and colouring of nature and reality. It rushed back upon Esther, and her lips opened; and then, an inexplicable feeling of something like caution came down upon her, and she ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... said Callahan; and when the train-master was gone, he ordered Shovel to oil around while he did two or three things which, to an initiated onlooker, might have seemed fairly inexplicable. First he disconnected the air-hose between the car and the engine, tying the ends up with a stout cord so that the connection would not seem to be broken. Next he crawled under the Naught-seven and deliberately bled the air-tank, setting the cock ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... in the afternoon Margaret was down among the rose-bushes, where Lawrence had joined her, after Rose had executed that inexplicable feminine manoeuvre of denying herself to oppose ...
— "George Washington's" Last Duel - 1891 • Thomas Nelson Page
... up. His blush was explosive. Bewildered, he shrugged the light pack higher on his shoulders and gestured his readiness to the warrior who had stood watching the inexplicable ways of these ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... the whole, has suffered more from these unwarrantable liberties than Ferdinand the Catholic. His reputation for shrewd policy suggests a ready key to whatever is mysterious and otherwise inexplicable in his government; while it puts writers like Gaillard and Varillas constantly on the scent after the most secret and subtile sources of action, as if there were always something more to be detected than readily ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... soon after my arrival at the cottage there had occurred to myself an incident so entirely inexplicable, and which had in it so much of the portentous character, that I might well have been excused for regarding it as an omen. It appalled, and at the same time so confounded and bewildered me, that many days elapsed before ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... deeply moved at the remembrances, of what my aunt had told me of that adorable goodness of the Princess Amelia who called the poor abandoned ones whom she protected—her sisters. In fine—odd and inexplicable contrast—I have, you know, the most humble opinion of myself—and I was, nevertheless, proud enough to suppose that the sight of my portrait had struck the princess; I had good sense enough to understand ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... profound, if subtler, difference, in the handling of the protagonist: with Jurgen all of the physical and mental man is rendered as a matter of course; whereas in dealing with Manuel there is, always, I believe, a certain perceptible and strange, if not inexplicable, aloofness. Manuel did thus and thus, Manuel said so and so, these legends recount: yes, but never anywhere have I detected any firm assertion as to Manuel's thoughts and emotions, nor any peep into the workings of this hero's mind. He is "done" from ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... aunt," said Ruth, trying to bring a smile to her blanched face; "it was I who WOULD go." She reached back her hand unperceived by Mrs. Denham and gave it to Lynde. He raised it gratefully to his lips, but as he relinquished it and turned away he experienced a sudden, inexplicable pang—as if he had ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... were true, it contains nothing whatever in the nature of explanation: it recognises the inexplicable, and relegates it to the atoms, where it seems to hope that further quest may cease. Instead of tackling the difficulty where it actually occurs; instead of associating life, will, and consciousness with the organisms in which they ...
— Life and Matter - A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's 'Riddle of the Universe' • Oliver Lodge
... low tone with the priest. From him he learned more of the evil name of this man whom they followed. His house at Shalford was a den of profligacy and vice. No woman could cross that threshold and depart unstained. In some strange fashion, inexplicable and yet common, the man, with all his evil soul and his twisted body, had yet some strange fascination for women, some mastery over them which compelled them to his will. Again and again he had brought ruin to a household, again and again his adroit ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... first inexplicable, which assume with regard to man an idea which we no longer hold. Man, indeed, was regarded as essentially good and reasonable.—Rational, that is to say, capable of assenting to a plain obvious principle, of following an ulterior chain of argument, of understanding ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... something inexplicable about the intensity of national tastes and the violence of national differences. If, as in the good old days, I could boldly believe a Frenchman to be an inferior creature, while he, as simply, wrote me down a savage, ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... precious child," said Mrs. Anderson, suddenly, in a voice of the tenderest authority. She held out her arms and Charlotte fled to them. Mrs. Anderson looked over the girl's head at her son with the oddest and most inexplicable reproach. "You go up and see if the heat is turned on in that little room out of mine," she commanded, "and then you go into the kitchen and see if you can't find the milk, and set some on the stove to warm. You can pour a little hot water in it to ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the town we had still an adventure; for we came at a turn in the road on a scene as surprising as it was at first inexplicable. A little north of the town, in a coppice of box facing the south and west, we happed suddenly on a rude encampment, consisting of a dozen huts and booths, set back from the road and formed, some of branches of evergreen trees laid clumsily together, and some of sacking stretched over ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... perverseness seems very inexplicable. I have seen much of it, but do not know what to make of it. There is doubtless something morbid in it. It is often carried to such extremes, and managed so artfully, that multitudes are deceived by it. I know of some very beautiful natures that pass in the world for ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... he would not slacken his mad pace, either at the turns of the road or on the long slopes of the mountain roads. How it happened at such times that he crushed no one, how he himself was never dashed to death in one of these mad rides, was inexplicable. ...
— The Seven who were Hanged • Leonid Andreyev
... such a strange deep crime as this murder? In view of the discoveries I had already made—discoveries which pointed to a most baffling mystery—I should not have allowed myself to be swerved from my course by Penreath's silence in the face of accusation, inexplicable though it appeared at the time. You know what happened subsequently. Penreath, persisting in his silence, was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death—because of that silence, which compelled the defence to rely on a defence ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... cannot investigate as we would all the meanings of a sentence by the uses of the language; and there are many phrases of which the meaning is most obscure or altogether inexplicable, though the component words ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part II] • Benedict de Spinoza
... Pollyanna had to admit that in one respect, at least, it had been disappointing: she had been here nearly two weeks and she did not yet know the people who lived across the street, or even next door. More inexplicable still, Mrs. Carew herself did not know many of them, and not any of them well. She seemed, indeed, utterly indifferent to her neighbors, which was most amazing from Pollyanna's point of view; but nothing she could say ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... seen usurps that of the sun, bringing into view, like breezes made visible, the films or brain-tissues of the Immanent Will, that pervade all things, ramifying through the whole army, NAPOLEON included, and moving them to Its inexplicable artistries.] ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... and volition remains inexplicable. We recognize only a subjectively qualified phenomenon in the world; the impelling forces and the real nature of things are withdrawn from our understanding. A systematic explanation of the universe is quite impossible ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... with valves, which allow a free passage to the chyle from the intestines, but prevent its return. The most inexplicable thing in this operation, is the power which these vessels possess of selecting from the intestinal mass, those substances which are proper for nutrition, and ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... hang himself if he found a person who should understand his poem, called the "Prophecy of Cassandra." He succeeded so well, that this piece has been the stumbling-block of all the grammarians, scholiasts, and commentators; and remains inexplicable to the present day. Such works Charpentier admirably compares to those subterraneous places, where the air is so thick and suffocating, that it extinguishes all torches. A most sophistical dilemma, on the subject of obscurity, was made by Thomas Anglus, or White, an English Catholic priest, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... name and family. Mere trifles these, to be sure,—but interesting in an antiquarian point of view,—and valuable, perhaps, should the inquiry hereafter lead some more than usually acute bookworm into the real mystery and meaning, the main drift of that inexplicable ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... explain the inexplicable?" he replied. "As I have told you before, I am a very old man. I do not know how old I am. I recall no childhood; but recollect only having been always as you see me now and as you saw me first when you were five years old. You, yourself, have aged, though not as much as most men in a corresponding ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... side by side, amusing themselves with what they might have considered a very harmless flirtation, when, transported with jealous fury, he slew the man before the very eyes of the girl. For this crime Reginald was tried, but for some inexplicable reason, acquitted; and he lived to marry the girl for whose sake he had imbrued his hands in a ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... of three steps leading to a door hung with faded red drapery, had about it an air of mystery and seclusion quite delightful. Four windows, also draped, faced the side-street, affording an unobstructed view of Marm Hatch's back yard, where a number of inexplicable garments on a clothes-line were always to be seen ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... parts of the Valley Bend District, Randolph County, Va., this winter. The crust of the snow has been covered two or three times with worms resembling the ordinary cut worms. Where they come from, unless they fall with the snow is inexplicable." In the Scientific American, March 7, 1891, the Editor says that similar worms had been seen upon the snow near Utica, N.Y., and in Oneida and Herkimer Counties; that some of the worms had been sent to the Department of Agriculture at Washington. Again two species, ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... BENTHAM, with inexplicable bitterness of tone. "Merely our fire-and-burglar-proof receptacle for the money constantly pouring in from first-class American Comic journalism."—Here Mr. BENTHAM slapped his forehead passionately, checked something like a sob ...
— Punchinello Vol. 2, No. 28, October 8, 1870 • Various
... tallied with the person of Eustace, but bore no resemblance to Monthault. Another was brought to swear that he had seen Dr. Beaumont's nephew in Oxford since its surrender to the Parliament. His long silence to his family was an inexplicable mystery; but to visit Oxford without throwing himself at his uncle's feet, and imploring pardon, was such a tacit acknowledgement of conscious unworthiness, as even the candour of Dr. Beaumont could not controvert. In an agony ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... puzzled as I was how to account for this burst of enthusiasm, for, taking no part in politics, and all his family being attached to the legitimate cause, this demonstration of regard appears more inexplicable. It seems, however, to establish one fact, and that is, that though the monarch has fallen into disrepute with the people, the aristocracy have not, and this alone proves how totally different are the feelings of those who have effected the present revolution with those of the persons who were ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... rawhide thongs looked as though they had seen much service. The scarf at his throat, however, was as vivid as his companion's and something in the flash of the grey eyes that looked into hers from beneath the broad brim of the Stetson caused an inexplicable feeling of discomfort. Their gaze held a suspicion of veiled mockery, and the clean cut lips twisted at their comers into the semblance of a cynical, ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... was some inexplicable influence at work in his heart that drew him back, in spite of his own will. He retraced his steps to the group round Madonna—looked at her once more—and, from that moment, never lost sight of her till she ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... but hurtful and unnatural—thus light and easy disquisitions do pleasantly and profitably excite us, but we must forbear all contentions and (to use Democritus's word) wrangling disputes, which perplex the proposers with intricate and inexplicable doubts, and trouble all the others that are present. Our discourse should be like our wine, common to all, and of which every one may equally partake; and they that propose hard problems seem no better fitted for society than Aesop's ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... dramatist works, material made up of the facts of the world about us, we are accustomed to regard as objective realities. An incident is an incident, the inevitable issue of precedent circumstances, and that's all there is to it Character is the result of heredity, environment, training, plus the inexplicable Ego. To regard these facts of life which are so actual and immediate as a kind of animate algebraic formulae seems absurd, but absurd only as one is unable to penetrate to the inner meaning of things. "Madame Bovary," to take an example quite at random, is called a triumph of realism. Now realism, ...
— The Enjoyment of Art • Carleton Noyes
... aside some inexplicable irregularities) exhibits a great variety of terminations for the formation of which no rule can yet be given: these are an, ana, ani; in, ina, ima: em, ema; eima, ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... comparison with any thing except pictures, to aid them in comprehending the idea of signs of words. It seems to them supernatural that we see in a book things taking place, or having occurred at a distance. No amount of explanation conveys the idea unless they learn to read. Machinery is equally inexplicable, and money nearly as much so until they see it in actual use. They are familiar with barter alone; and in the centre of the country, where gold is totally unknown, if a button and sovereign were left to their choice, they ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... Man as this sit down to argue with another of absurd Principles, when he himself might be so easily abash'd and put to Silence, by an Appeal to other Principles, of his own, equally absurd and inexplicable. The best way then, instead of embracing a fresh, absurd, Principle of Faith, is, to renounce the old. I would not willingly Offend Any, by a special Application to particular Societies and Doctrines: let but every Man make an honest Application to himself, ...
— Free and Impartial Thoughts, on the Sovereignty of God, The Doctrines of Election, Reprobation, and Original Sin: Humbly Addressed To all who Believe and Profess those DOCTRINES. • Richard Finch
... much surprise, with some slight sense of annoyance; she had bent far in tendering her influence at the French court to a private soldier, and his rejection of it seemed as ungracious as it was inexplicable. ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... conduct was regarded by the historians and philosophers of the empire. This was a very strong act on the part of the disciples of the great apostle, who had enjoined obedience to the powers that be. Time after time they resisted the authority of the magistrate; and this is a phenomenon inexplicable on the theory of private judgment or of the voluntary principle. The justification of such disobedience lies simply in the necessity of obeying the higher authority of some divine law; but if Christianity were in its essence only private and personal, as so many now think, there was no necessity ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... deceiving her. He had some sinister motive in thus endeavouring to plant seeds of suspicion within her mind. It was plain that he was endeavouring in some way to secure his own ends. Those ends, however, were a complete and inexplicable mystery. ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... the officer had completed his interrogations the male passengers were divided into two groups. Meanwhile the women and children had gathered round, following the proceedings, which appeared inexplicable to them, with a strange silence and ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... to you that a kind of Poem in dialogue[128] (in blank verse) or Drama, from which 'The Incantation' is an extract, begun last summer in Switzerland, is finished; it is in three acts; but of a very wild, metaphysical, and inexplicable kind. Almost all the persons—but two or three—are Spirits of the earth and air, or the waters; the scene is in the Alps; the hero a kind of magician, who is tormented by a species of remorse, the cause of which is left ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... Her tears were over, her great grief was lightened, but now a curious and inexplicable desire took possession of her. She would not fail Isaac Dent. If she had broken every other promise she would at least keep this one. She would marry him tomorrow, and perhaps her mother's God would help her to be a good wife to him. But she would—she must—go ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade
... details of the wedding journey. She had seen Sir Shawn, lying on the invalid couch which had the very latest improvements to make his invalid's lot as easy as possible. He had drawn down her face to his and kissed it, saying something inexplicable to Stella. ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... sorts, was acquiring a painful experience. Du Meresq's conduct seemed inexplicable and provoking as she pondered indignantly on her walk at the Humber, and mentally ejaculated with Miss Squeers, ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... readers who care for a really good detective story 'The Circular Staircase' can be recommended without reservation." The Philadelphia Record declares that "The Circular Staircase" deserves the laurels for thrills, for weirdness and things unexplained and inexplicable. ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... frequently. The request it contained might be called audacious or stupid, if it had been made by a different person; but from Carwin, who could not be unaware of the effect which it must naturally produce, and of the manner in which it would unavoidably be treated, it was perfectly inexplicable. He must have counted on the success of some plot, in order to extort my assent. None of those motives by which I am usually governed would ever have persuaded me to meet any one of his sex, at the time and place which he had prescribed. Much less would I consent to a meeting with ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... the supposed mendicant, with an inexplicable smile. "Keep it,—keep all your wealth,—until I demand it all, or none! My message had no such end in view. You are beautiful, they tell me; and I desired ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... picture-like, we found in these mountains. In the foreground is the deep gorge of a branch of the Swannanoa, and opposite is the great wall of the Blue Ridge (the Blue Ridge is the most capricious and inexplicable system) making off to the Blacks. The depth of the gorge, the sweep of the sky line, and the reposeful aspect of the scene to the sunny south made this view both grand and charming. Nature does not always put the needed dash of ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... any; and his fallacies are all the more dangerous by reason of the air of plausibility with which they are invested. From first to last, he represents us as the dupes of our own perfidious nature. By some inexplicable process of association, he refers certain known effects to certain unknown causes; and would thus explain to us how these effects (our sensations) come to assume, as it were, the character of external ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... you think all these inexplicable terms are connected with Sir Wycherly's religious feelings. You may certainly be right, for it exceeds my knowledge to connect them with any thing else. I wish, notwithstanding, he had not disowned this noble ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... to Storm both remained silent, Jacqueline nursing with some difficulty her displeasure against her friend. So this was Philip's famous temper, in which she had never quite believed! In truth, that sudden outburst of inexplicable rage on the part of the grave, quiet, young clergyman had appealed strongly to the love of brute force that ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... vividly back into the scene the winter funerals in that yard of our buddies, brave men who, loving life, had been laid away there, having died soldier-like for a cause they had only dimly understood. And the crosses now rise up, mute, eloquent testimony to the cost of this strange, inexplicable ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... not have gone over her battle with the doctors just then: she would rather he had talked of her "magnetic instincts," her hair, her eyes—anything else than her fighting qualities. But she told him. There was an inexplicable delight to her in telling him anything—even the time of day. Was he not a pioneer, a captain among men, a seer in the realms of thought, keeping step with her in all her high imaginings? Ordinary people, it is ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... there are many in the country who would not believe that the dead carcass of the cow was that of the real one at all, but an old log or block of wood, made to resemble it. All such frauds, however, and deceptions were inexplicable to every one, but such as happened to possess a four-leaved shamrock, and this enabled its possessor to see the block or log in its real shape, although to others it appeared ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... Priscilla Gower, with an inexplicable softness in her tone. "I don't blame you; I should have done the same ...
— Theo - A Sprightly Love Story • Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett
... given of the Grand Arcanum, of that secret whose revelation would overturn Earth and Heaven. Let no one expect us to give them its explanation! He who passes behind the veil that hides this mystery, understands that it is in its very nature inexplicable, and that it is death to those who win it by surprise, as well as to him ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... fables." This was an undercutting blow at those who insisted on the belief in witchcraft as an essential of Christian faith; and Wagstaffe, moreover, made good his case. His second argument was one which no less needed to be emphasized. Coincidence, he believed, accounts for a great deal of the inexplicable in ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... before any reply to Marston's letters was received. A short epistle at last arrived from Lord H——, the late Sir Wynston's uncle, deeply regretting the "sad and inexplicable occurrence," and adding, that the will, which, on receipt of the "distressing intelligence," was immediately opened and read, contained no direction whatever respecting the sepulture of the deceased, which had therefore ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... reserved from the day before, or was she a prey to one of those inexplicable transactions, which had led Dorsenne in his meditations of the night to such strange suspicions? Those suspicions returned to him with the feeling that, of all the persons present, Alba was the only one who seemed to be aware of the drama ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... have used Lembcke's, is inexplicable except on the hypothesis that he was eager to prove his own originality. The remainder of Lorenzo's first speech is scarcely better. It is neither good translation ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud
... common to himself and them, is free from every fault, and yet righteously condemns those whose ministry he uses. Hence was invented the distinction between doing and permitting; because to many persons this has appeared an inexplicable difficulty, that Satan and all the impious are subject to the power and government of God, so that he directs their malice to whatever end he pleases, and uses their crimes for the execution of his judgments. The modesty of those who are alarmed at ...
— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson
... VI. that all, on this cry being raised, were obliged to follow the fray, or chace, under pain of death. With these explanations, the general purport of the ballad may be easily discovered, though particular passages have become inexplicable, probably through corruptions introduced by reciters. The present copy is corrected from four copies, which differed widely ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... of furnishings, and the effect of these was lost in the dim light from the narrow windows. The peculiar, not unpleasant odor of burning incense and the dim light awakened a latent reverence and awe in Hopalong, and he sneaked off his sombrero, an inexplicable feeling of guilt stealing over him. There were three doors in the walls, deeply shrouded in the dusk of the room, and it was very hard to watch ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... a purely circumstantial nature, points to an innocent man as the culprit. I feel very keenly annoyed with Coverly, for not only is he involving both of you in a most unsavory case but he is also hindering the work of justice. In fact by his inexplicable silence he is, although no doubt unconsciously, affording the murderer time to ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... narrowness of experience. If they knew Christ better, they would find in the Twenty-third Psalm alone enough proof to upset their theory. "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want," is an utterance inexplicable by merely human authorship. To suppose that even a king of Israel who had been a shepherd-boy could have written this psalm without divine inspiration, in a day when all lands but little Palestine were wrapt in a pall of heathen darkness, ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... them and withdrew from civilisation for the space of three years, a term which he employed in achieving mastery of Indian dialects and gaining knowledge of their character. On his return to Quebec in 1673, he found favour in the eyes of Frontenac, and an inexplicable sympathy united the proud veteran of a hundred fights and the debonair coureur de bois, beneath whose dreamy countenance the Governor read reckless valour and ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... Although the banks of the Roper were steep and muddy, the large creek we had passed was scarcely two miles distant, and offered an easy approach to the water on a rocky bed. It remained, therefore, inexplicable to us how the ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... due allowance has been made for whatever influence the attraction of Jupiter and Saturn, and we may add of the earth and all the other Planets, could possibly produce, the movements of Uranus were still inexplicable. It was perfectly obvious that there must be some other influence at work besides that which could be attributed to the ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... little mother, by one of those inexplicable mysteries of nature she died when our baby was born. For a while the light of the world went out. I quit New York, gave up my profession and came here just to lie in the sun on this mountainside and try ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... without striking events, and the greatest discontent was caused by the long inactivity. Kambula and Gingihlovo had shown how British troops, when steady, could defeat great masses of the enemy; and it was inexplicable to all why a British force of some 15,000 men could remain for weeks inactive within but four days' march of the stronghold of the enemy. So great had the discontent become, both in England and Natal, at the extraordinary inaction of the British troops, that the greatest satisfaction was diffused ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... way of all the earth. As to what he was thinking about on that memorable May morning, I am as much in the dark as ever. But there is no law against a bird's behaving mysteriously, I suppose. Most of us, I am sure, often do things which are inexplicable to ourselves, and once in a very great while, perhaps, it would puzzle even our next-door neighbors to render a ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... all he had in his pockets to be able to say that he had been to New York. But by some inexplicable negligence he had hitherto omitted to go to New York, and being a truthful person (except in the gravest crises) he was obliged ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... replaced by a harsh, continuous noise, which seemed momentarily to increase in volume. What could it be? She stared around with puzzled eyes, but there was no hint of alarm in her bewilderment. A child of the city, she was inured to sudden and inexplicable noises; it was only when the punt swung heavily round a bend that she realised the seriousness of her position. The mill was working! One of the infrequent experimental trials of which she had heard was even now in process, the great moss-covered wheel was revolving creakily ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... puzzle began to fit slowly together in his mind. But the partial answer at which he arrived seemed too fantastic for belief. Could it be possible that when he had stopped at the roadside stand he had blundered, in some inexplicable way, into ...
— Made in Tanganyika • Carl Richard Jacobi
... and it had been flattened until it looked like a wrinkled pie. Mother did not see what she had done so I speechlessly thrust the hat toward her; but she still did not understand and took it as an inexplicable jest of mine merely saying, "Yes, dear," and with patient dignity, turned and went out of the door ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt
... as the voluntary arrangement of a public to whom plain soda was a ludicrous hardship, and native vegetables an abomination at any price. Then Llewellyn and Rosa Norton—she had a small inalienable income, and they were really married though they preferred for some inexplicable reason to be thought guilty of less conventional behaviour—would depart in another direction, full of gratification for the present and of confidence for the future. Llewellyn usually made a parting statement ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... struck dumb; but by some inexplicable laws of sympathy, a dim and very unpleasant consciousness of the truth began to steal ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... clipped Pillbot. "Because you possess this strange perception of Its realm the Being has been especially attracted to you, imitates whatever you do, but in a four dimensional manner. A Being of inexplicable powers and prerogatives, with weird power over matter, but with a mentality that is either ...
— The 4-D Doodler • Graph Waldeyer
... represented in Greek mythology as a sea-god; but he is figured as standing in a war-chariot drawn by horses. The association of the horse (a land animal) with a sea-god is inexplicable, except with the light given by Plato. Poseidon was a sea-god because he ruled over a great land in the sea, and was the national god of a maritime people; he is associated with horses, because in Atlantis the horse was first domesticated; and, as Plato shows, the Atlanteans had ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... its place as one of the great biographies in our language. The inexplicable fact that hitherto no full biography of the first man to circumnavigate Australia has appeared is also a fortunate fact. Flinders has waited a century for his biographer, and it was worth this silence of a hundred years to find Ernest Scott.... ...
— Five Months at Anzac • Joseph Lievesley Beeston
... cluster of stars which oldtime navigators used to regard with awe. When shafts of white light began to taper, pennon-like, in the eastern sky, the girl went back to her cabin. Contrary to Hozier's expectation, Coke did not attempt to draw from him any account of their conversation prior to the inexplicable mishap to the wheel. He examined a couple of charts, made a slight alteration in the course, and at four o'clock took ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... statement M. Garofalo manifests a surprise which, as I can not suppose it simulated, I declare truly inexplicable in a sociologist and a criminologist; for this reminds me too strongly of the ignorant surprise shown by a review of classical jurisprudence in regard to a new scientific fact recorded by the Archives de psychiatrie of M. Lombroso, the case being the disappearance of every criminal ...
— Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin, Spencer, Marx) • Enrico Ferri
... both of individuals and of entire species. These conditions will also determine the population of a species; and by a careful consideration of all the circumstances we may be enabled to comprehend, and in some degree to explain, what at first sight appears so inexplicable—the excessive abundance of some species, while others closely allied ...
— Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society - Vol. 3 - Zoology • Various
... a small Austrian garrison stopped Napoleon for twenty-four hours; yet Polybius and Livy concur in stating, that after he descended the mountains, the Carthaginians experienced no molestation on their way to the Insubrians, their allies, on the banks of the Po. This is inexplicable if they were struggling for three days through the narrow and rocky defiles of the valley of Aosta, but perfectly intelligible if they were traversing in half a day the broad and open valley of Susa, offering no facilities to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... special-plead particulars from his works, wherein I may consider that he asserts this. I will rather say boldly that the idea runs through every line he ever wrote; that unless seen in the light of that faith, the grounds of his philosophy ought to be as inexplicable to us, as they would, without it, have been impossible to himself. As has been well said of him: "Faith in God as the absolute ground of all human as well as of all natural laws; the belief that He had actually made Himself ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... that the splendid poetry contained in the Sonnets must be sundered or broken, or the apparent reality of its message doubted or denied, or that its message is mysterious or inexplicable—we should carefully inquire whether there is not some view or theory which will avoid the difficulties which have ...
— Testimony of the Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays and Poems • Jesse Johnson
... waited respectfully in case Miss Symes should wish to say anything further. But Miss Symes had nothing more to say; she only guessed that the change between the Betty in whom Mrs. Haddo had been so interested, and the Betty she had found, must be caused in some inexplicable way by Fanny Crawford. What was the matter with Fanny? It seemed to Miss Symes that, since the day when she had taken the girl into her full confidence with regard to the coming of the Vivians, she was changed, and not for the better. There was a coldness, an impatience, ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... hour or minute, seen the figure of a friend flit across the room, and have afterwards discovered that at that very hour and minute the friend breathed his last in a distant town, or, may be, in a foreign country. Now these cases are inexplicable by any formula of science, yet that they ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various
... it inexplicable that he had not been allowed to suspect this deep attachment before, he was too much of a man to mention it. He took his blow and did not argue ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... lady she had ever served was wont to pay visits; and that Mrs. Granger of Arden Court should traverse a neighbourhood of narrow streets and tall houses, on foot and alone, to call upon her acquaintance at eleven o'clock in the morning, seemed to her altogether inexplicable. ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... may be, and very likely is, extremely wide of the mark. Such ideas may be merest wild speculation, and have no truth in them at all. And yet I think that if they were true, they would explain a thing to me otherwise inexplicable: China. ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... blow had gone home. Adrian was not only a fool, he was also the vainest of fools. That any young woman on whom he chose to smile should actually reject his advances was bad and unexpected, but that the other man should be Foy—oh! this was infamous and inexplicable. He was handsomer than Foy, no one would dream of denying it. He was cleverer and better read, had he not mastered the contents of every known romance—high-souled works which Foy bluntly declared were rubbish and ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... a cheerless spirit, to reckon up the damage his master had sustained from the robberies that were carried on in such an inexplicable manner, and urged the absolute necessity that, before he left the country, effective measures should at length be taken to get some trace of the thief. The old man wanted to break off the discussion; but Edward reminded him of his promise. Above all was Balthasar averse to a proposal ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... make anyone happy in it. Nor ought they to be too much blamed, since they are often unaware of what they ought to be prepared to give in marriage and firmly convinced that their preposterous ignorance is in some inexplicable way a virtue. Why it should be admirable, or even commonly honest, to undertake duties of whose nature you are ignorant, neither men nor women seem ever to have decided, and the illusion is beginning to pass. But it is still not understood that ...
— Sex And Common-Sense • A. Maude Royden
... to dissociate Hugh from the grosser forms of Eucharistic teaching, and open the way for an explanation of his behaviour at Fechamp, which is otherwise almost inexplicable. We may take it that he held a belief in a living Presence, which teeth could not bruise nor change decay. The language he uses is not consistent with later English teaching which shrinks from talking about a repeated sacrifice. It is also inconsistent with later Roman ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... his stupidity. The inexplicable load he felt on his spirits seemed to have redoubled in weight. When he reached the street, he felt it impossible to go home, but went toward the main guard and said to the officer on duty, "My friend, I invite you to my wedding to-morrow; be so good as to let me share your watch to-night—let ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... go on with the list of the things my companion can do. I have not yet told the half, nor the most wonderful; and I believe I have already overtaxed credulity. I will mention only one more,—but that is to me far more inexplicable than all the rest. I am sure that it belongs, with mesmerism and clairvoyance, to the domain of the higher psychological mysteries. He has in rare hours the power of producing the portraits of persons whom you have loved, but whom ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... enemies! I must enter into your existence, not as a judge, but as a comrade who is interested in all that concerns you. Will you not confide in me? Once I know what there is to know we might then unite our efforts to some purpose, and find out what really has happened, since the mystery remains inexplicable." ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... turn had uttered a profound truth. Between Toni and the rest of the commonplace lower-middle-class household was a great gulf fixed, a gulf which was the more inexplicable because it was clearly visible to the parties on ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... ground impatiently with his foot, saying, "Such a change is positively inexplicable." And he looked at Saint-Aignan, who had also remarked La Valliere's heavy languor of manner, as well ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas |
