"Unexplainable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... little Pilgrim, in her sudden grief to have forgotten Him, became conscious of a new rapture unexplainable in words. She felt His understanding to envelop her little spirit with a soft and clear penetration, and that nothing she did or said could ever be misconceived more. "Will you take me to Him?" she said, ...
— A Little Pilgrim • Mrs. Oliphant
... and still Tom had no opportunity to speak with Marjorie alone. The glances they exchanged were charged with meaning—but it was an unexplainable meaning. Several times as he pondered over it, Tom lost the thread of Mr. Beecham's remarks, and had to grope for the ...
— Tom of the Raiders • Austin Bishop
... time in her life which up till now had been one continuous struggle, revolt, and protest she felt overcome by distress. There awakened in her an irresistible longing to share her sorrows with someone, a longing to confide to some sympathetic heart those bewildered thoughts and feelings, that unexplainable misery and fear. She yearned for sympathy, feeling that her distress would be smaller, her anguish less violent, her tears not so bitter, if she could open her heart before some sincere ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... much surprise as terror that seized me at such a discovery. I found myself wiping from my brow the cold sweat that stood there in great drops. I felt certain that I had been face to face with something unexplainable by the ordinary laws of nature. I was as well as usual. I had read nothing of late that could have conjured up such a figure. As to preternatural manifestations of such a kind—I had but that very day, ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... by the spectacle, as grand as it was weird and unexplainable, they stood spell-bound, powerless each to take the first stride. Decius, the older man, the veteran, turned to his companion, yielding that unconscious homage to birth and rank and education, that comes in the presence ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... and even upon the opposite side of the street, peeping and peering from behind the broad shoulders of policemen—a crowd of miserables, shivering in rags and tattered comforters, who found, nevertheless, an unexplainable satisfaction in watching this prolonged defile ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... more deplorable still, the Committee of Public Safety had in some unexplainable way got wind of the affair, and the two worthies had the mortification of seeing citizen Chauvelin presently ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... scaled and taloned feet moved in a little shuffling war dance, and his spear spun and quivered in the sunlight, as Dalgard had seen the spears of the mer-warriors move in the mock combats of their unexplained, and to his kind unexplainable, rituals. "Then did our spears drink, and knives eat!" Sssuri's fingers brushed the hilt of the wicked blade swinging from his belt. "Then did the People make separations and sorrows for them! And it was accomplished that we went forth ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... one that is positively incomprehensible and unexplainable to the average mind. All mystic literature, when read with the eyes of understanding, exalts and spiritualizes sex. The latter day degeneration of sex is the "trail of the serpent," which Woman is to crush with her heel. And Woman is crushing it to-day, although to the ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... and Agatha, turning from the window, sat down limply with the blood in her face and her heart beating horribly fast. Wyllard's last care, it seemed, had been to provide for her, and that fact brought her a curious sense of solace. In an unexplainable fashion it took the bitterest sting out of her grief, though how far he had succeeded in his intentions did not seem to matter in the least. It was sufficient to know that amidst all the haste of his preparation he had ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... hurriedly on deck—to find his boat full of strange faces. A Customs cutter, in some unaccountable way getting wind of what was in the boat, had unexpectedly "clapt them aboard," collared the man-o'-war's-men for a set of rascally smugglers, and confiscated the unexplainable rum and wine, becoming so fuddled on the latter, which they lost no time in consigning to bond, that one of their number fell into the sea and was with difficulty fished out by Richardson's disgusted gangsmen. [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 1473—Capt. Brown, 30 ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... ever weathered those years without becoming bankrupt is unexplainable. No credit or foresight must be claimed, for the opinions of men and babes were on a parity; yet I am inclined to think it was my dread of debt, coupled with an innate love of land and cattle, that saved me from the almost universal fate of my fellow ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... It is unexplainable, the average woman's passion for cupboards. In heaven, her first request, I am sure, is always, "Can I have a cupboard?" She would keep her husband and children in cupboards if she had her way: that would be her idea of the perfect home, everybody wrapped up with a piece ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... the other man, suppressing his irritation. He was almost, but not quite, wishing he had not yielded to the unexplainable impulse which had brought him here to see a man who, as he should have known from past experience in college days, was as sure to be eccentric in his methods of practising his profession as he had been in the conduct of his ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond
... days following Mr. Churchill spent in inspecting the Belgian position. He repeatedly exposed himself upon the firing-line and on one occasion, near Waelhem, had a rather narrow escape from a burst of shrapnel. For some unexplainable reason the British censorship cast a veil of profound secrecy over Mr. Churchill's visit to Antwerp. The story of his arrival, just as I have related it above, I telegraphed that same night to the New York World, yet it never ...
— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell
... ready to make the day a gay one, whatever the sun might say to it. A small roll of manuscript in his hand led him soon to confess that a new story was already begun; but this communication was made in the utmost confidence, as if to account for any otherwise unexplainable absences, physically or mentally, from our society, which might occur. But there were no gaps during that autumn afternoon of return to Gad's Hill. He told us how summer had brought him no vacation this year, and only ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... and bats were unable to withstand the lure of the green light. They flew with mad beatings of wings straight for the open door of the death house, and many of the great creatures, attracted by the light and urged on by an unexplainable force which sent them to death like gnats and moths in a flame, crowded near ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... no other answer for what has happened in these last six weeks. I have racked my brain to find another solution, but there is none. I am being hypnotized by some unexplainable force, and once each week I come under the power of this evil which directs and commands my being. Last night I went to bed with the full knowledge of what would occur during the night. That is why I locked you in your room. This morning when I awakened I found the head exactly where ...
— The Homicidal Diary • Earl Peirce
... unexplainable force, becomes a simple thing when the principles of vibration are applied, and this has been fully explained by ...
— Practical Mechanics for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... of mentor nettled her, his attitude seemed to her priggish and dictatorial, and as the sun disappearing behind a sudden cloud, so her childish merriment quickly gave place to a feeling of unexplainable disappointment. ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... and rejoiced in as a spectacle. When I look back now on the shabby, poorly-lighted, low-ceiled room to which he led me "for fun," the absolutely black or brown girls with their white teeth and shiny eyes, the unexplainable, unintelligible love of rhythm and the dance displayed, the beating of a drum, the sinuous, winding motions of the body, I am grateful to him. He released my mind, broadened my view, lengthened my perspective. ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... East. She was the wife of an Indian Civilian, a tall, grey-headed man, who had come on board to see her off at Bombay. Dick had been rather struck with the tragedy of the man's face, that once he had seen it; he connected it always for some unexplainable reason with Mrs. Hayter's small, soft hands and the slumberous fire in her blue eyes. Not that Dick was not friendly with Mrs. Hayter; he had had on the contrary rather a fierce-tempered flirtation with her. Once, under the spell of ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... of fact, but of life, focussed and arranged as an artist arranges them, and permeated with that strange sense of wonder which only Life can give. We feel the suggestion of an inevitable dim something beyond, to explain the unexplainable, the tragedy of character, and the tragedy ...
— Cobwebs of Thought • Arachne
... I can discover no hint in his predecessors. Such a poem as, for instance, "Nils Finn," with its inimitably droll refrain—how utterly inconceivable it would be in the mouth of Wergeland or Welhaven! The new quality in it is as unexplainable as the poem itself is untranslatable. It has that inexpressible cadence and inflection of the Norse dialect which you feel (if you have the conditions for recognizing it) in the first word a Norseman addresses to you. It has that wonderful twang of the Hardanger fiddle, and the color and sentiment ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... it could be by the most careful stretching. Though the layman would not suspect it, this wash alone costs about $150 a machine. The seaplanes too—or hydroaeroplanes as purists call them—present a curious illustration of unexpected and, it would seem, unexplainable expense. Where the flyer over land has two bicycle wheels on which to land, the flyer over the sea has two flat-bottomed boats or pontoons. These cost from $1000 to $1200 and look as though they should cost ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... unexplainable. Most of the Moslems had finished their noisy ritual ablutions, and at dawn we had been dimly conscious of the strings of camels, mules and donkeys jingling out under the arch beneath us. Yet there was a great din from the courtyard of wild hoofs thumping on the ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... acknowledgment, his total ignorance concerning the manner in which certain forms of life, especially the higher ones, originated. The origin of higher species without the supposition of a descent is to him unexplainable, because the individuals of these species are, in their first development of life, so dependent on the mother. Furthermore, he points out the fact that in early periods of the earth the organic forming ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... boat house Harry was in the lead, the Captain close behind, with Quincy following leisurely. This was a young people's race—married men barred. For some unexplainable reason Captain Hornaby tried to cross Harry's bow. The project was ill-timed and unsuccessful. Harry had just made a spurt and his canoe went forward so fast that the Captain's boat, instead of clearing his, struck it full ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... who have adventurous, imaginative tendencies are so steeped in them that everything they think or do gets color, tone, and significance from them. What the object of adventure does is good, what it does not do is bad, what it possesses is beautiful, and what it asserts is correct. Numerous unexplainable assertions and actions of children are cleared up by reference to their particular ideals, if they may ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... He jerked it from its holster and pointed it at the red throat, emptied all the chambers. He saw the flash of yellow flame, felt the recoil, but the sound of the discharges was drowned in the Brobdignagian tumult. He drew back his arm to throw the useless toy from him. But again that unexplainable, senseless "hunch" restrained him. He reloaded the gun and returned it to ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... situation was unchanged. Secret service operatives and soldiers from the Proving Ground had covered, foot by foot, square miles of territory south of the Proving Ground, but without result. Not a single unexplainable thing had been found. Sensitive instruments sent down from the Bureau of Standards, instruments so sensitive that they would detect an electric light burning a mile away, had yielded no results. ...
— The Great Drought • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... history—the arrival of the visitor from Planet X—a visitor in the form of energy. But there are factions at work determined to snatch the energy, which Tom has named Exman, from the young scientist-inventor's grasp. First, a series of unexplainable, devastating earthquakes threaten to destroy a good portion of the earth, and Tom suspects the Brungarian rebels who obviously would like to capture Exman and use the space visitor to further ...
— Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X • Victor Appleton
... remains bound. This king causes the earthquakes when he struggles or stirs himself, and he is so strong that in shaking hands with him it is necessary to extend to him a bone, which he crushes in his grasp. For some unexplainable reason the Indians call him King Bernardo, perhaps by confusing him with Bernardo ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... shoulders, unable apparently to gainsay this unanswerable argument. After all, he too was a Hungarian, and proud of that fact, and like all Hungarians at heart, he had an unexplainable contempt for the Jews. But all the same, he was not going to give in to a woman in any kind of disagreement, least of all on a point on which he had set his heart. So now he shifted his ground ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... present; I can only wait, and learn. As a Spanish naval officer he may have obtained some knowledge of this coast—but why he should have deliberately denied the possession of such information is unexplainable at present. I shall watch him closely, and have told you these facts merely to put you on guard. I know you to be a gentleman, Carlyle, even though you are temporarily a servant, and I feel convinced I can trust in ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... not patented his furnace in Great Britain, Martien's use of his earlier knowledge of Renton's work and of his experience at Bridgend in an attempt to upset Renton's priority is a curious and at present unexplainable episode. Perhaps the early records of the Ebbw Vale Iron Works, if they exist, will show whether this episode was in some way linked to the firm's optimistic combination of the British ...
— The Beginnings of Cheap Steel • Philip W. Bishop
... beautiful, weak where we thought him strong, dull where we thought him brilliant. Take then the vintage of his heart and let him go. As for me, I'm glad some mystery is left in this world. A thousand signs on my roadways are still as unexplainable, as mysterious, and as beguiling as this. And I can close my narrative with no better motto for tired spirits than that of ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... for the man's English was perfect, though heavy and foreign sounding in an unexplainable way. He repeated his question when the boy did not ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart
... not force himself to shed his difficulties in the same light, airy way as Harry. He wanted to be alone, alone where he could take stock of the obstacles which had arisen in his path, of the unexplainable difficulties and tribulations which had come upon him, one trailing the other, ever since he had read the letter left for him by his father. And it was a ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... in human beings and in the conception of a deity. In other words, it was an attempt at recognition, in the objects worshipped, of that missing female element which had always been worshipped, and without which a Creator becomes a misnomer—a meaningless, unexplained, and unexplainable monstrosity. ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble
... a gleam of hope lighted up his eye; for, Frank, chancing to turn for some unexplainable reason, had taken in the situation and was now advancing on tiptoe to his ...
— The Boy Allies at Jutland • Robert L. Drake
... WEIRD STORY owes its interest to the innate love of the supernatural or unexplainable which is a part of our complex human nature—the same feeling which prompts a group of children to beg for "just one more" ghost story, while they are still shaken with the terror of the last one. It may have a definite plot in which supernatural beings are actors; ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett |
