"Unaccountably" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... so unaccountably that they were all of the captain's opinion when he first saw me, and concluded I had lost ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... netting became thoroughly saturated with moisture. By the time the inflation had been completed, it became evident that the net-work was too small; but in the anxiety to carry into effect the project, the consequences of this were most unaccountably overlooked. We say unaccountably, because it is extremely difficult to conceive how experimental philosophers and practiced observers, like MM. Arago and Regnault, to say nothing of numerous subordinate scientific agents who were present, did not anticipate ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... the nonce the attributes of that unaccountably somnolent Fate, and brought him to a terrible end, I am sure abundant justification will be found in the recital of his mythical misdeeds, which, I repeat, were not a circumstance to his real transgressions. ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... was turning away from the front of Number One, buttoning his overcoat with an air of self-abstraction, he was suddenly and unaccountably attacked in the chest with such violence as almost to throw him off his feet. At the next moment his ears were assailed by a profusion of apologetic explanations from a young man, who made out to tell him, that, coming out of his house with the intention of calling next door, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... politeness and his patience, Unaccountably had vanished, And he left that happy party. Neither did he leave them slowly, With the calm deliberation, The intense deliberation Of a photographic artist: But he left them in a hurry, Left them in a mighty hurry, Stating that ...
— Phantasmagoria and Other Poems • Lewis Carroll
... burst of bravado he had taken too little account of his attire. He recalled it now, for the frosty gray eyes of Juliana ran about him and came to rest upon his own eyes. For the taut moment that he braved her glance it unaccountably seemed to him that the forbidding mouth of the woman twitched nervously into the beginning of a smile. It was a fleeting effect, but it did seem as if she had almost laughed, then caught herself. And there was a tremolo defect in the organ tone with which she now again demanded in blistering ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... turn cook, and grill a calf's head at his own furnace, for the dinner of his conquerors! Now this affair which had no small influence in determining the fortune of the day, with many parallel traits, our gazetteers have unaccountably neglected to publish. My memory, perhaps, might remedy their deficiencies to any curious ear, but alas! an insurmountable modesty renders the task so painful, that I cast myself upon your ladyship's compassion, and beseech you ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... dissemble the disappointment and sternness of her heart, and the old lady glanced up at her as she came in with a kind of quavering fearfulness, like that of a little child who is afraid it may be going to be whipped, or of a conscientious dog who has lapsed unaccountably ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... sudden plunge, quite unaccountably. Without a word he rode up to where the gray-eyed enchantress ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... the campaign, with the relaxation of vigor from the approach of the hot rainy season, now began to tell on his health; and to this contributed the harassment of mind due to the arrival of a large Spanish fleet, while reinforcements promised him unaccountably failed to appear. Nevertheless, his personal efficiency was not impaired, and towards the end of July he resolved to execute a project which he had long entertained, of carrying the mass of his fleet from the islands to the Continental waters ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... frying-pan on an inverted plate on the clothless table. He sat down and ate and drank, but somehow not with his usual relish, for there was upon him a heavy sense of isolation from his kind. In spite of his effort to regard his condition in a philosophical light, he found himself unaccountably depressed. After all his youthful dreams of the domestic happiness which was to round out his life, it had ended in this. He could, he knew, go to live on the big plantation his wife had inherited, but it would be at the cost of the ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... was positively brutal that afternoon. The latest play, book, moving picture, the inefficiency of the New York police, his afflicting correspondents, were hacked to the bone. When he had finished, his jangling nerves were unaccountably soothed. Other nerves would shriek next morning. Let 'em. He'd been honest enough, and if he chose to use a battle-axe instead of Toledo steel ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... well used to acting—though he was not a man of any extraordinary capacity, yet, from his habit of the boards, and his being perfect in his part, he now seemed quite a superior person. It was found unaccountably easier to act with this son of labour than with any other of the gentlemen-performers, though ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... She remembered with what prestige—considering his youth and inexperience—he had entered Parliament, the impression made by the short and brilliant campaign of his election. Now, since the real struggle of the session had begun, his energies seemed to have been unaccountably in abeyance, and eclipse. People she noticed had ceased to talk of him. But supposing, after all, there had been a crisis of mind and conviction underlying it?—supposing that now, at the last moment, in a situation that cried ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the shore, and looked seaward. This was a fair wind for Hazel's return; and she began to expect him every hour. But no; he delayed unaccountably. And the worst of it was, it began to blow a gale; and this wind sent the sea rolling into the bay in a manner that ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... rage at his defeat in the House of Lords on the Local Courts Bill that he swore at first he would never come there again. What he said—that 'if they had considered it a party question the result would have been very different,' which Brougham unaccountably took for a threat against the Government—was levelled at his own Tory friends for not supporting him. On the third reading they mean to have another fight about it. I understand the lawyers that the Bill is very objectionable, and calculated to degrade the profession. I sat by Talleyrand ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... porch, safe from the storm, knew him. As the Dead Man came up the walk between the trim beds of rain-soaked flowers, the old dog crawled rheumatically to its feet, the bleared eyes brightening, the feathered tail awag in joyous greeting to the loved master who had been so long and so unaccountably absent. ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... of affairs, which his cousin's generous sacrifice had engendered, he began to consider how he could benefit thereby. Claudet's departure had left the field free, but Julien felt no more confidence in himself than before. The fact that Reine had so unaccountably refused to marry the grand chasserot did not seem to him sufficient encouragement. Her motive was a secret, and therefore, of doubtful interpretation. Besides, even if she were entirely heart-whole, was that a reason why she should give Julien ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... caldron, but before the altar, then standing up and blessing like a priest; in place of this it is told (vii. 1-3) how the altar was consecrated by fire from heaven, which indeed had already descended upon it (1Chronicles xxi.26), but as it appears had unaccountably gone out. In vii. 4 the author again returns to his original at 1Kings viii. 62 seq., but tricks it out, wherever it appears to him too bare, with trumpeting priests and singing Levites (vii. 6), and finally dismisses the people, not on the eighth day of the feast of ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... surpassed that of birds, or even of the winds themselves. If any mortal suddenly and unaccountably disappeared, the Harpies were believed to have carried him off. Thus they were supposed to have borne away the daughters of King Pandareos to act ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... McAllen. He was between operations at present. His time wasn't occupied. Furthermore he'd been aware lately that ordinary operations had begun to feel flat. The kick of putting over a deal, even on some other hard, bright character of his own class, unaccountably was fading. Barney Chard was somewhat frightened because the operator game was the only one he'd ever found interesting; the other role of well-heeled playboy wasn't much more than a manner of killing time. At thirty-seven ...
— Gone Fishing • James H. Schmitz
... been not a bad chap, a good-looking, rather negligible man, given to all-day Sunday poker, carefully valeted, not very keen mentally, but amiable. They had bought a house on East Fifty-sixth Street, and were looking for a new play with Lucas as co-star, when he unaccountably went to pieces nervously, stopped sleeping, and developed a slight twitching of his handsome, rather ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... turn away with the same careless indifference as he had in the past. Though she had always attracted him, he had never seriously contemplated the final step; he had had far too good a time as a bachelor. And then when she had so unaccountably cooled towards him, he had shrugged his ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... Miss Grosvenor," I replied; "he's a born orator, but is unaccountably lazy and vain, and only wants to be pressed; insist upon his speaking, he's longing to do so." And then his merry protesting laugh, and the girl's equally happy, rang out on the crisp starlight air, as they went over and over the ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... By desire of Emma I have attempted new words to the old nonsense of Tartar Drum; but with the nonsense the sound and spirit of the tune are unaccountably gone, and we have agreed to discard the new version altogether. As you may be more fastidious in singing mere silliness, and a string of well-sounding images without sense or coherence—Drums of ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... were different from the people that she saw when she went about with Horace or her girls. Almost all seemed charming, having a new, strange life, in which she—Margery Pendyce—had unaccountably a little part; as though really she might come to know them, as though they might tell her something of themselves, of what they felt and thought, and even might stand listening, taking a kindly interest in what she said. This, too, was strange, and a friendly ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... despising the miserable luxuries of fork and spoon, attacks the amazing conglomeration with enthusiasm. His Christmas pudding may resemble any geological formation that you like to name, and it may be unaccountably allied with a perplexing maze of cabbage and potatoes—nothing matters. Christmas must be kept up, and the vast lurches of the vessel from sea to sea do not at all disturb the fine equanimity of the fellows who are bent on solemnly testifying, ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... 1879—indeed we don't know that he should have been let live even up to that date, and as for his family, their translation to the upper regions by means of a simple charge of dynamite, which nobody of any sense or importance would even think of condemning, has been most unaccountably deferred to the present year. This man is Mr. S.M. Hussey, the miasma of whose breath, according to a well-informed murder organ in Dublin, poisons one-half of the kingdom of Kerry. Let any man read the speeches delivered ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... occasions was one compounded of heroic endurance and heroic forgiveness. Lurid indications of the better marriages she might have made, shone athwart the awful gloom of her composure, and fitfully revealed the cherub as a little monster unaccountably favored by Heaven, who had possest himself of a blessing, for which many of his superiors had sued and contended in vain. So firmly had this his position toward his treasure become established, that when the anniversary arrived, it always found him ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... send back to villages of Chitunkue to buy food. It was not reported to me that the country in front was depopulated for three days, so I send a day back. I don't know where we are, and the people are deceitful in their statements; unaccountably so, though we deal fairly and kindly. Rain, rain, rain as if it never tired on this watershed. The showers show little in the gauge, but keep everything and ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... the Intendant's palace with Doltaire I had a singular feeling of elation. My spirits rose unaccountably, and I felt as though it were a fete night, and the day's duty over, the hour of play was come. I must needs have felt ashamed of it then, and now, were I not sure it was some unbidden operation of the senses. Maybe a merciful Spirit sees how, left ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... heart.' The Bube Yenta received the book with thanks, and a moment of embarrassment ensued, only slightly mitigated by the offer of the snuffbox. Yossel took a pinch, but his eyes seemed roving in amaze, less over the stranger than over the bespread table, as though he might unaccountably have overlooked some sacred festival. That two are company and three none seemed at this point a proverb to be heeded, and without waiting to renew the hero's acquaintance, the artist escaped from the idyllic cottage. Let the lover profit by the pastry for which ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... KNOLLYS.—You have favoured me with a note, adding your request to that of Lord Ilbury, that I should permit my ward and my daughter to avail themselves of Lady Mary's invitation. Being perfectly cognisant of the ill-feeling you have always and unaccountably cherished toward me, and also of the terms in which you have had the delicacy and the conscience to speak of me before and to my child and my ward, I can only express my amazement at the modesty of your request, ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... of the unaccountably whimsical harlequinade of foreign kitchens is from "La Chapelle" Nouveau Cuisinier, ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... Damphiya. {95b} To me both seem evidently to have the closest affinity with each other, in size, manners, and form, and the females of the two species are not easily distinguishable; yet the former, (Meleagris satyra, L.) by the best ornithologists, has been most unaccountably classed with the turkey, and the latter (Phasianus Impeyanus) with the pheasant, to which the resemblance ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... don't think so. He's unaccountably bright in many ways and just as unaccountably slow in others. I don't think genius comes ...
— The Short Life • Francis Donovan
... would clear matters up there, and had requested no operation. She smoothed beds and carried cups of water and broke another thermometer. And she put the eggs from home in the ward pantry and made egg-nogs of them for Stanislas Krzykolski, who was unaccountably upset as ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... changed Sue was speaking now, not playfully or facetiously, or even patiently: her face was grave, her eyes were angry. "Mrs. Balcome, kindly take your place in the Close, to the left of the big door. Mr. Balcome, you will follow the choir." She waved them out, and they went, both unaccountably meek. Those who knew Sue Milo seldom saw this phase of her personality. Sue, the yielding, the loving, the childlike, could, on occasions, shed all her softer qualities and become, of a sudden, justly vengeful, full ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... past in sumptuous motors, as rarely seen on foot as Roman cardinals, were the destroyers of thrones, the carvers of continents, the arbiters of empires, the fashioners of the new heaven and the new earth—or were they only the flies on the wheel of circumstance, to whom the world was unaccountably becoming a riddle? ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... pleasantly, but after supper the little girl grew unaccountably nervous. She started at every ring of the telephone, and gave queer, absent-minded answers to Leonora's questions. Finally Miss Lucy, comprehending the situation, proposed a game; but Polly, usually the quickest of the children, allowed the others to eclipse her, while her ears were strained for ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... voted against the Change of Venue bill when that measure passed the Senate. But Senator Kennedy was unaccountably absent the next morning when the Change of Venue bill was taken up on a motion for reconsideration. Because of Kennedy's absence, the motion to reconsider the measure was lost, and its defeat prevented. Senator ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn
... greet Dosia, and to ask her, with a tentative semblance of her old effusion, to come and make her a visit—an effusion which immediately died down into complete non-interest, on Dosia's polite refusal; and the incident was not especially heart-racking at the time, though afterward it set her unaccountably trembling. Mrs. Leverich had in the carriage with her a small, thin, long-nosed man with a pale-reddish mustache and hair, who, gossip said, passed most of his time at the Leverichs'—he was seen out driving alone with Myra nearly every day. He was "an old friend from home." It had been ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... company appeared to be armed mainly with swords and lances, but also in evidence were some tubular affairs that could very well be some sort of projectile-discharging device. The Captain suddenly felt unaccountably warm. It was a heavy responsibility—he hoped these Martians wouldn't be the type of madmen who believed in the "shoot first, inquire ...
— It's a Small Solar System • Allan Howard
... his books frequently gave umbrage to other collectors. Humphrey Wanley, Lord Oxford's librarian, when giving in his Diary an account of a book-sale which took place in 1721, mentions that: 'Some books went for unaccountably high prices, which were bought by Mr. Vaillant, the bookseller, who had an unlimited commission from the Earl of Sunderland. The booksellers upon this sale intend to raise the prices of philological books of the first ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... who lost their jewels so unaccountably—wives of wealthy peers or City magnates—were most of them Charlie Bellingham's "pals," and on more than one occasion it was Charlie himself who gave information to the police and who interviewed thirsty detectives and ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... and the probability of great events and exciting scenes creates a feeling of delight, and sets life in motion, so as to give a pleasure which any one not in the same state would be unable to explain. In fact, a more jovial night we had not passed in the forecastle for months. All seemed in unaccountably high spirits. An undefined anticipation of radical changes, of new scenes and great doings, seemed to have possessed every one, and the common drudgery of the vessel appeared contemptible. Here was a new vein opened,— a grand ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... these shafts; leaning back gracefully in his chair he launched forth into that detailed description of his last night's attire which the Dawn had so unaccountably failed to supply. ...
— When William Came • Saki
... leaped, unaccountably, and the crimson flush again stained her cheeks; but she sat rigid in the saddle, and looked straight ahead, pretending she had not discovered the presence of horse and rider ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... desirous to preserve and secrete certain documents of vital importance to himself and to the piece, does, most unaccountably, mislay them in the most conspicuous part of the stage, and straightway they are found by the very last member of the dram. pers. in whose hands he ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 9, 1841 • Various
... own individual mode of change over him. That quick suggestive mind would gather the moss and lichens of decay. Palsy of its powers would probably be the form it would assume. He looked back through the vanished years to the time which he had spent with the old Doctor, and he felt unaccountably as if the mysterious old man were yet ruling him, as he did in his boyhood; as if his inscrutable, inevitable eye were upon him in all his movements; nay, as if he had guided every step that he ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... is familiar with tropical nature only through the medium of books and botanical gardens will picture to himself in such a spot many other natural beauties. He will think that I have unaccountably forgotten to mention the brilliant flowers, which, in gorgeous masses of crimson, gold or azure, must spangle these verdant precipices, hang over the cascade, and adorn the margin of the mountain stream. But what is the reality? In vain did I gaze over these vast walls of verdure, ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... her hips, her head to one side at an astounded angle. Yet little more than a second did she let herself simulate this welcoming incredulity—this stupefaction of cordiality. There must be quick speech—especially as to Nancy's face—which seemed strangely unfamiliar, set, suppressed, breathless, unaccountably young—and there had to be the splendid announcement ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... his hosts—who had apparently fallen as suddenly and unaccountably under the magic of his manner—to detain him longer, he stepped lightly away, his voice presently rising again in melody as he descended the hill. Nor was it at all remarkable that the others, apparently drawn by the same inevitable magnetism, were impelled to follow him, naturally joining ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... would never do!" she thought, with a little tremor of fear running through her which was unaccountably delicious;—"I'm ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... continued Armstrong, slowly, while a sad expression clouded his face for a few moments, "if I had waited, and many a time has my conscience smitten me for my haste. But what could I do? Emmy most unaccountably fell in love wi' me—thank God! for I do think that the greatest earthly blessing that can be given to mortal man is the love of a gentle, true-hearted girl. The wealth of the Indies cannot purchase that, and nothing else in life can supply ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... Adams, the accomplished author of the Sacred Allegories, die? This is unaccountably omitted in the "Memoir" prefixed to the collected edition of his Allegories (London, Rivingtons, 1849). Can any characteristic anecdote be related of him, suitable for giving point to a sketch of his ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851 • Various
... Unaccountably enough Bradby went no further than the dying embers of the fire. His first act was to build a big blaze, for he was already becoming afraid. He could not define even to himself just what this fear was; it was not so much horror at ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... FitzGerald by no means gave up his friendship for Posh. From time to time he saw him, and from time to time he wrote to him, and always he retained the affection for the longshoreman which had sprung up in him so suddenly and (I fear) so unaccountably. ...
— Edward FitzGerald and "Posh" - "Herring Merchants" • James Blyth
... so there was nothing to do but stay where we were all day. The boys fished and lay around; and I spent most of the time in my cabin, reading a novel, and, soon after nine, I fell asleep in a frame of mind unaccountably trustful. ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... game in the woods lately, poultry had been missing from the farms, hares were growing unaccountably scarcer, and complaints had reached him of lambs being carried off bodily from the hills. Was it possible that this wild boy was really hunting the countryside in company with some clever poacher dogs? He had spoken of hunting "four-footed" by night, but then, again, he had hinted strangely ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... cost in forming his library, Wanley confirms this. Writing in December, 1721, the diarist observes that the books in Mr. Freebairn's library 'in general went low, or rather at vile rates, through a combination of the booksellers against the sale. Yet some books went for unaccountably high prices, which were bought by Mr. Vaillant, the bookseller, who had an unlimited commission from the Earl of Sunderland.' Among the items was an edition of Virgil, printed by Zarothus circa 1475: 'It was noted that when Mr. Vaillant ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... infinitely oblige a distressed Lover, if you will insert in your very next Paper, the following Letter to my Mistress. You must know, I am not a Person apt to despair, but she has got an odd Humour of stopping short unaccountably, and, as she her self told a Confident of hers, she has cold Fits. These Fits shall last her a Month or six Weeks together; and as she falls into them without Provocation, so it is to be hoped she will return from them without the ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... jewels, and everything he had in the world to this virtuous creature, whom at the same time he recommends to the care of his supposed faithful friend. Nevertheless the real man of honour, whom he suspects so unaccountably, goes on board the ship with him, and the mistress, on whom he would not bestow so much as one glance, disguises herself in the habit of a page, and is with him the whole voyage, without his once knowing that she is of a sex different from ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... unaccountably low. He had forgotten his country for an entire day, and rushed up to the house ten minutes before the appointed hour, his spirits as high as a boy's on his way to the cricket field. But his apple had ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... most amiable, gentlest-mannered, sweetest-tempered, and most charming woman in all London—Lady Holland!" A conversation then ensued, in which certainly little quarter was shown to the ill qualities of the former mistress of Holland House. Among several curious instances of her unaccountably unamiable conduct to some of even Lord Holland's dearest friends, who, for his sake, opened their houses to her, allowed her to come thither, bespeaking her own rooms—her own company, who she would meet and who she would bring, and in every way consulting her pleasure and convenience, as ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... the same manner on the opposite side of the table, and in the course of half an hour they took their leave.' Landor, in commenting on this passage, says it is evident that Willis 'fidgeted the Lambs,' and seems rather unaccountably annoyed at his having alluded to Crabb Robinson ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... that was a secret to others. Carley dropped her eyes. But she could not shake off the feeling that wherever she moved this man's gaze followed her. The unpleasantness of this incident would have been nothing to Carley had she at once forgotten it. Most unaccountably, however, she could not make herself unaware of this ruffian's attention. It did no good for her to argue that she was merely the cynosure of all eyes. This Ruff's tone and look possessed something heretofore unknown to Carley. Once she was tempted to ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... It is unaccountably odd that the universal spiritual faculty should act thus capriciously, and equally odd that Mr. Newman does not perceive, that, if it were not for the "Bible," his religion would no more have assumed ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... acute correspondent of the European Magazine, April, 1792, has completely exposed a mistake which has been unaccountably frequent in ascribing these lines to Blackmore, notwithstanding that Sir Richard Steele, in that very popular work, The Spectator, mentions them as written by the Authour of The British Princes, the Honourable Edward Howard. The correspondent above mentioned, shews this mistake to be so inveterate, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... wonderment at this extraordinary coincidence, marvellous as it was; so Mr. Ben Allen, after a tear or two, went on to say that, notwithstanding all his esteem and respect and veneration for his friend, Arabella had unaccountably and undutifully evinced the most ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... flower-hunting; with the aid of his binoculars he could determine that she carried a bunch of the delicate pink-and-white blossoms that we call May-bloom. She was directing her steps straight for the house, but either she was unaccountably deaf to the continuous clanging of the alarm-bell or, still more strangely, unaware of its significance; she walked as though in a reverie, slowly and with her head bent forward. Thunder of God! it was a trap, and the foolish girl would not see. Unquestionably, the Doomsmen had forced the ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... been—I stopped. An idea had come, suddenly. The White Orb and the Green Sun! Were they one and the same? My imagination wandered backward, and I remembered the luminous globe to which I had been so unaccountably attracted. It was curious that I should have forgotten it, even momentarily. Where were the others? I reverted again to the globe I had entered. I thought, for a time, and matters became clearer. I conceived that, by entering that impalpable globule, I had passed, at once, into some further, ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... loss of him more than her playmate, although both had been interested by him. But now things returned pretty much to their old fashion; although, as is inevitably the case, whenever persons or things have been taken suddenly or unaccountably out of our sphere, without telling us whither and why they have disappeared, the children could not, for a long while, bring themselves to feel that he had really gone. Perhaps, in imitation of the custom in that old English house, of which ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... doors and windows of the adjacent saloons were filled with faces. Heads unaccountably appeared above the river-banks and from behind bowlders. An empty wagon at the cross-road was suddenly crowded with people, who seemed to have sprung from the earth. There was much running and confusion on the ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... heirs, who might have been glad could they have razed his very name from their splendid line. He had enjoyed a vast wealth; a large portion of this was believed to have been embezzled by a favourite astrologer or soothsayer—at all events, it had unaccountably vanished at the time of his death. One portrait alone of him was supposed to have escaped the general destruction; I had seen it in the house of a collector some months before. It had made on me a wonderful impression, ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... his hand is still on the rope. This prayer is never answered; so something like a dozen men dress hurriedly and reach the Arrowhead kitchen hurriedly, meaning to perform instantly there a gracious deed which Providence has thus far unaccountably left undone. ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... you do not frighten me. You know how unaccountably fear deserts me in fearful moments. But I know there's nothing for either of us to fear now. This is all in your tortured imagination, and there, though you had not seen me, it would have stayed; you never would have come to the ...
— Bylow Hill • George Washington Cable
... Sarah became unaccountably shy. She walked more and more slowly and, reaching Rosemary, who was ahead, she found she had ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... after to the Wit, to hear a thousand most entertaining and agreeable turns, and it was amazing to see, in less than a quarter of an hour's time, the eldest with not a soul with her and the whole company crowding about the youngest. The eldest, tho' she was unaccountably dull, could not but notice it, and would have given all her beauty to have half the wit of her sister. The Queen, prudent as she was, could not help reproaching her several times, which had like to have made this poor ...
— The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault • Charles Perrault
... was strained forward, and not a muscle of it moved, so that Willoughby, as he looked at her, was conscious of a certain excitement, which grew on him for no reason but her remarkable apprehension. He began unaccountably himself to fear lest he and ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... in the philosophy of the most distinguished alienists. He talked indefinitely of internal secretions. It was possible, he said—and underlined the word—possible, just barely possible, that in a year or two—to put it bluntly, at the time of puberty—the boy's disposition might suddenly and unaccountably change. He implored her not to count on it, and assured her that, for the present, medical science could do no more. If, by any chance, his prophecy should be fulfilled, he begged Mrs. Payne to let him know. The case, if she would pardon the use of this objectionable word, ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... weather has been (of course) 'unprecedentedly' bad and changeable. But when it IS fine it is quite celestial; so clear, so dry, so light. Then comes a cloud over Table Mountain, like the sugar on a wedding-cake, which tumbles down in splendid waterfalls, and vanishes unaccountably halfway; and then you run indoors and shut doors and windows, or it portends a 'south-easter', i.e. a hurricane, and Capetown disappears in impenetrable clouds of dust. But this wind coming off the hills and fields of ice, is the Cape doctor, and keeps away cholera, fever of ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... again she had been perplexed and mystified by certain incomprehensible things which she had observed—for instance, the fact that, as she knew, part of Max's correspondence was conducted in cipher; that at times he seemed quite unaccountably worried and depressed; and, above all, that he was for ever at the beck and call of ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... and turning the extract from the Will in his fingers, as if he expected to squeeze the truth out of it in that manner. He altered quite remarkably, at the same time. From being brisk and bright, he now became, most unaccountably, a slow, solemn, and ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... severity of chronic judgment, dominated from an architectural throne a throng of the saved in straight garments and sandalled feet; and, in the foreground, a lamb with a halo and an uplifted cross was intent on the baptism of individuals issuing unaccountably white from ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... even everyday Mrs. Grundy laughed it to scorn. Projected with the most alluring and satisfying expectations, the feast has dwindled to the memory of a sad mistake in the mind of every man that assisted at it. Planned as a sort of coronation ceremony, its completed performance unaccountably wore the complexion of belated obsequies irreverently disturbed by ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... or more. Then, though the fog-horn continued spasmodically, the whistle fell unaccountably silent. The children scarcely noted this; they were occupied with staring ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... quite conceivable that he may not even have heard of the Invisible Man. One can then imagine the Invisible Man making off—quietly in order to avoid discovering his presence in the neighbourhood, and Wicksteed, excited and curious, pursuing this unaccountably locomotive ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... the old red-tiled roof, warm and mossy, looked homely and comfortable. A certain air of old-fashioned, easy comfort pervaded the whole place; large bay windows, with little roofs of their own, came boldly forth, and commanded a good view of other windows—ivied windows that retired unaccountably. There were no right lines. Casements at one end of the house showed in three tiers, at the other there were but two. The only thing that was perfectly at ease about itself, and quite clear that it ought to be seen, was the roof. You could not possibly make a "stuck-up" house, or a smart villa, or ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... got under way. Nothing note-worthy or interesting however occurred until we made the island of Ceylon, where we lay a couple of days; during which time the crew got and kept most unaccountably drunk. The officers tried every method to solve the mystery, but without effect. The truth was, the men became suddenly fond of cocoa-nuts, selecting them from the bum-boats in preference to any other fruit. The secret was, that the shell was bored before the nut was quite ripe, the juice poured ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... tell Brierly that to succeed he should paint rocks and sands and old boats at San Remo. "Pauline," the woman who had seemed to hold a babe, was a friend of Mrs. Cameron's who had died in childbirth. And then swiftly, unaccountably, all these gentle or genial influences were scattered as if by something hellish, something diabolic. The face of the sweet little woman became fiendish in line. Her lips snarled, her hands clawed like those of a cat, and out of her mouth came a hoarse imprecation. "I'll tear your ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... reached a critical point in his undertaking. Lydia watched in silence the deft manipulations of his strong, brown fingers, wondering at the eager, almost sparkling, alertness with which he went from one step to another of the process that seemed unaccountably complicated to her. After he had finally lifted the heavy piece of wood into place, handling its great weight with assurance, and had submitted the joint to the closest inspection, he gave a low whistle of satisfaction with himself, ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... would be elated at this fulfilment of her desires; but instead Isabelle's eyes unaccountably filled with tears. When he understood, he was still more mystified at her dejection. Very tenderly holding her in his arms, he whispered his delight into her ears. His face was radiant; it was far greater news than his promotion ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... again the jungle was perceptibly darker. Stealthy rustlings in the shadows grew louder with the setting sun. Branches snapped unaccountably in the trees overhead and every now and then leaves or a twig fell softly to the ground, close to where he lay. Reaching into his jacket, Alan fingered his pocket blaster. He pulled it out and held it in his right hand. "This pop gun wouldn't even singe ...
— Survival Tactics • Al Sevcik
... feeling that, quite unaccountably, Derry was failing her. A shamed feeling that she had offered ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... on the mantle chimed twelve with its silver tongue, she found herself suddenly and unaccountably wide awake. She sat up and looked about her. It was not the clock's chime that had awakened her she thought. It must have been, something more, she was so very wide awake indeed, and her senses were so clear. One minute later she found out what it was. There was some ...
— Theo - A Sprightly Love Story • Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett
... did not want to go away from the beauty and the spring evening into the stuffy train; or perhaps he, like me, was unaccountably sorry for the beauty, for himself, and for me, and for all the passengers, who were listlessly and reluctantly sauntering back to their compartments. As we passed the station window, at which a pale, red-haired telegraphist with upstanding curls and a faded, broad-cheeked ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Mr. Hardy said: "There is one very important point connected with our place which has hitherto been unaccountably neglected. Do any of you know what ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... to the eager pulling of his arm. "I suppose Trevor wouldn't mind for once," she said. She had grown unaccountably ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... immovable figure arrested his attention and fired his suspicions. Unaccountably almost it brought to his mind the thought of Ayoub-el-Sarnin and the bidding there had been ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... so much the newest of the new, that new that really is so old and stale. The new must have won, and in me first, for I rose suddenly, brusquely, as if somehow I felt I had unawares been acting unaccountably foolishly. I looked at my companion; the mood was still upon her, and I believe she might easily have slumbered on into the night, but as she saw me rise, the new in her gained reinforcement, and she too rose in a sort of mild surprise. Now I think I might have left her there to awaken late in the ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... events. The Romans had talked a little of her sudden change of plans, for it had been known that she had begun to furnish a large apartment for the winter of the previous year, and had then very unaccountably changed her mind and left the place in the hands of an agent to be sub-let. People said she had lost her fortune. Then she had been forgotten in the general disaster that followed, and no one had taken the trouble to remember her ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... going to rack and ruin, morally speaking. He was a middling decent sort of man when I first knew him; and I judge there must have been something about him more than common, or he never could have got such a wife. But then women do marry, sometimes, unaccountably. I've known downright ugly and disagreeable fellows to work around, till by and by they would get a pretty girl fascinated by something in them which nobody else could see, and then marry her in spite of everything;—just ...
— The Man Who Stole A Meeting-House - 1878, From "Coupon Bonds" • J. T. Trowbridge
... ahead. Now remember your trails, boys—we don't want no more accidents to happen. We'll all meet here in one hour. If anything happens, fire three shots. Git along there!" And Billee Dobb, together with the rest set out to find Yellin' Kid who was so mysteriously and unaccountably lost. ...
— The Boy Ranchers on Roaring River - or Diamond X and the Chinese Smugglers • Willard F. Baker
... doubts of Knighthead, as to the character of the young stranger who had so unaccountably got possession of the office of Nicholas Nichols, if any remained, were now removed. He walked forward among the silent and thoughtful crew, with the air of a man whose opinion was settled. Wilder, however, paid no attention to the movements ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... without subjecting the offender to being stung to death by venomous tongues; and one of these statutes is, that all shall see and be seen, shall talk and be talked about, and shall visit and be visited. When a woman unaccountably turns recluse, she is at the mercy of public imagination, stimulated by disappointed curiosity; and very soon the verdict goes forth that she is ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... placed on a guide-post near Moscow: This is the road that leads to Constantinople.] and haunted for ever by wars or rumours of wars, decussated (for anything I know to the contrary) absolutely under Joanna's bedroom window; one rolling away to the right, past M. D'Arc's old barn, and the other unaccountably preferring to sweep round that odious man's ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... Preserved Smith, who had preceded Ann and never heard of her, that something "sucked his breath" at night; the death-certificates of the fever victims of 1804, issued by Doctor Chad Hopkins, and showing the four deceased persons all unaccountably lacking in blood; and the obscure passages of poor Rhoby Harris's ravings, where she complained of the sharp teeth of a ...
— The Shunned House • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... if she were trying to realize something. The room was growing greyer as she read on through the turgid catalogue of the heathen gods, so packed with stories and pictures, so unaccountably glorious. At last the light failed, and Mrs. Wheeler closed ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... she said. She assumed a proprietorial air toward Jack Glover, which unaccountably annoyed Lydia. "He invents the quarrels and carries them out himself. ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... proportion as I approached the abode of my beloved girl. Absence had endeared the image of my Bess—I loved to call her so—to my soul. I could not think of her without a melting softness at my heart, and tears in which pain and pleasure were unaccountably mingled. As I approached Curling's house, I strained my sight, in hopes of distinguishing her ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... the actor here celebrated to our own, it should have been the fashion to compliment every performer in his turn, that has had the luck to please the town in any of the great characters of Shakespeare, with the notion of possessing a mind congenial with the poet's: how people should come thus unaccountably to confound the power of originating poetical images and conceptions with the faculty of being able to read or recite the same when put into words;[7] or what connexion that absolute mastery over the heart and soul of man, which a great dramatic poet possesses, has with those ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... life. A little steering, just a touch of the rudder now and then, and with a willing listener there is no limit to the domain of equivocal speech. Sometimes Miss M'Glashan made a freezing sojourn in the parlour; and then the task seemed unaccountably more difficult; but to Esther, who was all eyes and ears, her face alight with interest, his stream of language flowed without break or stumble, and his mind was ever fertile in ingenious evasions ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sensible how necessary it is to take advantage of auspicious moments; the wisest councils of princes perfectly well skilled in the arts of government; the most august assemblies of grave senators; in a word, the most powerful and most learned nations in all ages; to see, I say, all these so unaccountably weak, as to make to depend on these trifling practices and absurd observances, the decision of the greatest affairs, such as the declaring of war, the giving battle, or pursuing a victory, deliberations that were of the utmost importance, ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... gentlest creatures in the place, and hence it had been surmised by some that, the grey mare being the better horse, the man was thus designated from the crabbedness of his wife; but the probability is he brought the agnomen with him from school, where many such apparently misfitting names are unaccountably generated. ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... shewn the incompatibility between the Muses and the Excise, which never agreed well together, or met in one seat, till they were unaccountably reconciled on Rydal Mount. He must know (no man better) the distraction created by the opposite calls of business and of fancy, the torment of extents, the plague of receipts laid in order or mislaid, ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... day she was so greatly preoccupied with her household duties that she could not ride with him. Dick felt unaccountably lost. Perhaps this check to their daily intercourse was no less accelerating to his feelings than the vague motive that induced Cecily to withhold herself. He moped in the corridor; he rode out alone, ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... said Legrand, who seemed to be getting unaccountably warm upon the subject; "I am sure you must see the antennae. I made them as distinct as they are in the original insect, and I ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... seasonably occurred to me that one essential duty remained to be performed. One operation, without which fire-arms are useless, had been unaccountably omitted. My piece was uncocked. I did not reflect that in moving the spring a sound would necessarily be produced sufficient to alarm him. But I knew that the chances of escaping his notice, should I be perfectly mute and ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... glued to the site of salvation. Reaching its red gate, the man unaccountably turned and departed, neither finishing his sentence nor saying good-by. The assaulted air was comforted ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... of unmeaning colours, rather like the Turkish Empire, or like the sweetmeat called Turkish Delight. I do not exactly know what Turkish Delight really is; but I suppose it is Macedonian Massacres. Everywhere that I went forlornly, with my pencil or my paint brush, I found that others had unaccountably been before me, spoiling the walls, the curtains, and the furniture with their childish and ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... was present at the consternation it excited. It disappeared in some unaccountably mysterious way; but there's no doubt that Mr. Verner died, believing the estate would go in its direct line—to Lionel. In fact, I know he did. Therefore you ought to act as though the codicil were in existence, and resign the estate to ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... much comfort as she could give him, and he ought to be told that she was not now wishing to be in another presence and society than his. If she could tell him without his thinking too much—she watched till the letter was written and he was folding it up. And then Diana's tongue hesitated unaccountably. ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... lies a document bearing the date of November 1873, which, after appearing for a moment, unaccountably vanished from public view. It is a Memorial addressed, by Seventy of the Students and Ex-students of the Catholic University in Ireland, to the Episcopal Board of the University; and it constitutes the plainest ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... night," there was not a soul in the streets that we saw, except a solitary town guard now and then, lurking about some dark corner under the piazzas. These same streets, which were wide and comfortable enough in the daytime, had become unaccountably narrow and intricate since six o'clock in the evening; and, although the object of the party was to convoy Captain Transom and myself to our boat at the Ordnance Wharf, it struck me that we were as frequently on ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... company felt unaccountably gloomy just at this moment. There could be no guessing what would occur next to hamper or destroy the fruits ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... at their Allies' success as one would have naturally expected. The reason was soon forthcoming. Following his usual plan of getting as much information as possible out of the French, he heard the old man, who seemed unaccountably shy and diffident, ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... in reference to Gorman's anxiety about putting out lights, that he had been burned out of several sets of premises in the course of a few years. He was quite a martyr, as it were, to fire. Unaccountably worried, pursued, and damaged by it—no, not damaged, by the way; because Gorman was a prudent man, and always insured to the full amount. His enemies sometimes said above it; but neither they nor we have any means of proving ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... Varna and Inkerman. I will not pretend that the two parts are specially coherent; but at least Mrs. Steel has given us some exceedingly interesting pictures of a period that our novelists have, on the whole, unaccountably neglected. ...
— Punch, Volume 153, July 11, 1917 - Or the London Charivari. • Various |
