"Unspeakably" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of light crimson, where fresh, luxuriant roses stood in the old-fashioned green glasses, and the sleeping woman with demurely folded hands and kind, weary face, framed in the snowy whiteness of the pillow, and the young, keenly-alert and also kind, clever, pure, and unspeakably beautiful creature with such black, deep, overshadowed, yet shining eyes.... What was it? A dream? a fairy tale? And how came he to ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... provided for them. It was a second edition of the story of the wedding feast, and again highways and by-ways were searched in vain. Moreover, her boarders neglected to pay their bills regularly. Instead of being a source of profit, they were an additional burden. Her life now became unspeakably sad. Her whole day was spent in teaching. This in itself would not have been hard. She always interested herself in her pupils, and the consciousness of good done for others was her most highly prized pleasure. Had the physical fatigue entailed ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... days afterwards, I found a note which had been left for me by a liveried footman,—Madam Waldoborough's footman, O heaven! I was thrown into great trepidation by the stupendous event, and eagerly inquired if Madam herself was in her carriage, and was immensely relieved to learn she was not; for, unspeakably gratifying as such condescension, such an Olympian compliment, would have been under other circumstances, I should have felt it more than offset by the mortification of knowing that she knew, that her own eyes had beheld, the very humble quarter in which a lack of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... brings you here?" it says. "Do you come to reward God for making you the attractive person that you are, by mortally transgressing His laws every day of your life?" I hear that question, and I am unspeakably overwhelmed by it. I quit the chair on which I have hitherto been leaning carelessly, and I prostrate myself in an agony of remorse on the ...
— A Fair Penitent • Wilkie Collins
... He was unspeakably happy with her; she governed his household so cleverly and economically that they seemed to live in luxury. She lavished the most delicate attentions on her husband, coaxed and fondled him, and the charm of her presence was so great that six years after their ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... fearful isolation, seemed to hover over the restless waters upon the one hand, and those vast silent plains on the other; sea and sky, sky and sand, met the wearied eye wherever it wandered. The scene was unspeakably solemn in its immensity and loneliness; while irresistibly the thought would wander over those fateful leagues of prairie and forest that stretched unbrokenly between this far frontier and the few scattered and remote settlements ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... fidelity of the Christian memory. It assures us that to cherish the names, the words, the conduct, the holy lives, the blessed deaths, of our teachers of days long done is no mere indulgence of unfruitful sentiment. It is natural to the Gospel, which, just because it is the message of an unspeakably happy future, also sanctifies the past which is the living antecedent to it. Just because we look with the love of hope towards "our gathering together unto Him," we are to turn with the love of memory towards all the gifts of God given to us ...
— Messages from the Epistle to the Hebrews • Handley C.G. Moule
... great in the eyes of their sons because they are knit in our minds with all the littlenesses of life, the unspeakably dear trifles and odds of existence. The other day I found in my desk a little strip of tape on which my name was marked a dozen times in drawing ink, in my mother's familiar script. My mind ran back to the time when that little band of humble linen was a kind ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... the midcairn building halt the snow suddenly came down heavily, with a rise of temperature, and the ski became hopelessly clogged (bad fahrer, as the Norwegians say). At this time the surface was unspeakably heavy for pulling, but in a few minutes a south wind sprang up and a beneficial result was immediately felt. Pulling on foot, the advance had even greater difficulty in going straight until the last half mile, when the sky broke ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... Senator thought it was unspeakably absurd that woman with her sentiment and emotional nature and liability to be moved by passion and feeling should hold the office of Senator. Why, Mr. President, the Senator's own speech is a refutation of its own argument. Everybody knows that my honorable friend from Missouri ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... my dear husband, far away, with no one to love me! no one to care for me! I have bitter trouble, rendered all the harder to bear by the fact that I have to brood over it alone. I have not one friend in this wide world to whom I can fly for consolation. No! not one! My life is unspeakably lonely. You will forgive me for not being more gay; I cannot help it! I strive to be, but it is impossible. I often fear that my melancholy has a chilling effect on those around me, and that they think me ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... had chanced to clog twice did not disturb his theory; but the trouble with him was local; he was intensely and personally annoyed, nervous, irritated unspeakably. Because, except for Valerie, these two, Alma Hind-Willet and Helene d'Enver, were the only two socially and financially suitable women in whom he took the ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... repeat Mrs. de Vere Carter's meaningless couplets and be worsted at every turn by the smiling Cuthbert, who was forced to watch from behind the scenes the fond embraces of Cuthbert and Joan, galled his proud spirit unspeakably. Moreover Cuthbert monopolised her both before ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... hell. How can I love a God who shuts up the sinful in an inferno—in dungeons of many and varied tortures, and racks them forever? Can I, just to escape all this, pretend that I love Him, when in truth I fear and dread Him unspeakably? No, I'll ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... thick and sultry, and so unspeakably oppressive, that for above three hours the streets had been entirely deserted. In a few houses of the higher class, lights might be seen dimly shining through the casements of the small chambers, ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... the great annual fair at Fiesole. Shouting and shrieking, the people drove down the unspeakably dusty road with such haste, carelessness and high spirits that conveyances struck against each other at every moment. It was the life represented in Marstrand's old-time pictures. In crowded Fiesole, I saw the regular Tuscan country type, brown eyes, yellow ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... slowly along, with a pause at Arezzo, and a longer pause at Perugia, and another perhaps at Terni. Then we plan to take an apartment we have heard of, over the Tarpeian rock, and enjoy Rome as we have enjoyed Florence. More can scarcely be. This Florence is unspeakably beautiful . . .' ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... the foolish desire to produce a conviction OF Weir rather than IN Weir, which should be triumphant after a melodramatic fashion, and—must I confess it?—should PUNISH him for not believing in his son when I did; forgetting in my miserable selfishness that not to believe in his son was an unspeakably worse punishment in itself than any conviction or consequent shame brought about by the most overwhelming of stage-effects. I assure ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... so sinister!" she exclaimed. "And so unspeakably mean! This is where they live, the people who hate him, is ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... speech—which I, being possessed of the Hebrew Bible or Book, as well as of other books in my own and foreign languages, and having occasionally heard a wise man's word among the crowd of unwise, do almost unspeakably esteem, as a human gift—is terribly apt to get confounded with its counterfeit, sham-excellent speech! And furthermore, that if really excellent human speech is among the best of human things, then sham-excellent ditto deserves to be ranked ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... hopes, he started on the following morning with set purpose to compel the man whom he had once disliked, and now despised unspeakably, to render some account of despite done to such a family. For, after all, the dainty viscount was the grandson of a goldsmith, who by brokerage for the Crown had earned the balls of his coronet. In quest of this ...
— Frida, or, The Lover's Leap, A Legend Of The West Country - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... strong wind. All understood him: all felt him; and all were awed and bowed as by the power of God. His sermons were always practical. Whether he spake to the saint or the sinner, he went directly to the conscience. And all that he said you saw. Sin stared you full in the face and looked unspeakably sinful; it rose and stood before you a monster group of all imaginable horrors and abominations. The sinner shook, he shrank, he writhed at the sight, in mortal agony. God, as Dawson pictured Him, was terrible in majesty and infinite in glory. Jesus ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... upon her. These betrayals of Warwick's image in her thoughts seemed to Moor the happy omens he had waited eagerly to see, and each day his hope grew more assured. He had watched her unseen while she was busied with her mental pastime, and as he looked his heart had grown unspeakably tender, for never had her power over him been so fully felt, and never had he so longed to claim her in the name of his exceeding love. A pleasant peace reigned through the house, the girl sat waiting at his side, the moment ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... the fourth day Gertrude rose, and was carried down (how changed, yet how lovely ever!) to their common apartment. During those three days the priest had been with her often, and her spirit, full of religion from her childhood, had been unspeakably soothed by his comfort. She took food from the hand of Trevylyan; she smiled upon him as sweetly as of old. She conversed with him, though with a faint voice, and at broken intervals. But she felt no pain; life ebbed ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... say that you ought to spend time getting rich. You and I know there are some things more valuable than money; of course, we do. Ah, yes! By a heart made unspeakably sad by a grave on which the autumn leaves now fall, I know there are some things higher and grander and sublimer than money. Well does the man know, who has suffered, that there are some things sweeter and holier and more sacred than gold. Nevertheless, the ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... front doors and the arrangement of the small strip of garden in front of each. The houses stretched away on either side in a vista of smoke-discolored yellow brick. The road was perfectly straight and, in the dull yellow atmosphere of the winter morning, unspeakably depressing. ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... earthly sorrow, which fills our minds. Happily, we have been taught to believe, and we do generally believe, that the souls of the righteous enter immediately into glory; that their happiness is perfect, though not completed; they are as happy as disembodied spirits can be; unspeakably happier than they were here, but still not in full possession of those sources of pleasure which they will receive when their bodies are raised, and their whole natures are made complete. But "to die is gain;" it is "to depart and to be with Christ, which ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... wrote:[1] "I know I am not standing where I was two or three years ago. I think I first came to Jesus when I was only fourteen years of age, and I have been 'on the Lord's side' ever since. But of late, life has been a totally different thing to me, unspeakably brighter; Jesus so infinitely more precious: His service so infinitely sweeter and freer." But with this happiness she felt that there was a fuller consecration to God's service, to which she had not yet been able to yield herself. In a further ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... the visit to America was mooted. Mr. Dodgson suggested that it would be well for them to grow gradually accustomed to seafaring, and therefore proposed to take them by steamer to Hastings. This plan was carried out, and the weather was unspeakably bad—far worse than anything they experienced in their subsequent trip across the Atlantic. The two children, who were neither of them very good sailors, experienced sensations that were the reverse of ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... twilight, while the long misty reaches of the blue river, with white foaming rapids here and there, and the cattle wading in them, lengthened out beneath in the distance. Oh! the very look of it refreshed one unspeakably. ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... was slowly ascending a steep mountain trail. But her head ached, and she dropped her face into her hands. What mattered where she was going? She was shorn, and disgraced, and disillusioned, and unspeakably weary of body ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... up into a smile at this; brow and eyes and cheeks and lips all spoke her sense of amusement; and stooping forward a little at the same time, she laid a loving kiss upon her aunt's mouth, who was unspeakably delighted with this expression of confidence. But then ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... incidents never to be forgotten, and the memory of them is unspeakably charming. I made a few rough sketches; but it may be sufficient here to give only a specimen of the capitals of columns that are ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... mountains, their retreat to the Ebro could no longer be prevented. Already they had, notwithstanding the constant attacks of the enemy's cavalry which greatly delayed their march, approached within five miles of the mountains, when they, having been on the march since midnight and unspeakably exhausted, abandoned their original plan of traversing the whole plain on the same day, and pitched their camp. Here the infantry of Caesar overtook them and encamped opposite to them in the evening and during the night, as the nocturnal march which the Pompeians had at ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... ears of that roomful of rivermen. Stephen O'Mara, who had long ceased to wonder at the discovery in them, of new and impulsive finenesses which bordered close upon inherent nobility, knew fully as well how utterly and unspeakably gross could be the premeditated ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... were determined upon taking our first view from British ground. The Niagara river is very lovely here; the banks are bold, rugged, and richly coloured, both by rocks and woods; and the stream itself is bright, clear, and unspeakably green. ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... It was unspeakably painful to her to discuss her husband's failing; and yet she wanted to learn all that could ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... dead mother's sake. And no she had nobody to protect her. Ernest was dead and Harry, who was in the church decorating business, was nearly always down somewhere in the country. Besides, the invariable squabble for money on Saturday nights had begun to weary her unspeakably. She always gave her entire wages—seven shillings—and Harry always sent up what he could but the trouble was to get any money from her father. He said she used to squander the money, that she had no head, that he wasn't going to give her his ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... fine specimen of the human form divine—what is there finer in the world than the body of a well-shaped, muscular man? I always prefer the figure of the fighting gladiator to that of the Apollo Belvedere—and then, when shell fragments tear this body, it looks like some unspeakably unhallowed sacrilege. The horribly unlucky way these fragments seem to go in—an uncouth and butchering way instead of the gentlemanly puncture of the Mauser. One afternoon a young fellow galloped past me in the main street ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... dram-glasses, tin funnels and beer-bottles pushed right up to the wall to make room. His wide-open eyes stared up at the once white-washed beams of the ceiling, and one side of his face was drawn up into a grin, which made him look as if he were unspeakably ...
— One of Life's Slaves • Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie
... the box seat, in the hope that the Honourable Arthur would amuse me. She little knew him! He sapped me of all my ideas, and gave me none in exchange. Anything so unspeakably heavy I never encountered. It is very difficult for a woman who doesn't know a nigh horse from an off one, nor the wheelers from the headers (or is it the fronters?), to find subjects of conversation with a gentleman ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Truth itself, and there is nothing without Him; otherwise it would escape from truth and would walk in falsehood, following the devil, who is the father thereof. I was saying that we ought to recognize truth especially in two ways. The first is, we should recognise the truth about God. He loves us unspeakably, and loved us before we were; nay, by love He created us—this was and is the truth—in order that we might have life eternal and enjoy His highest eternal good. What shows us that this is truly ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... a great trial to him. But regrets were vain, there was no use regretting; he was gone—she would hear no more of the ten minutes past nine. He would go to the city no more; and in a few years he would be forgotten by every one but her. How unutterably sad, how unspeakably sad, how unthinkingly sad it all seemed, and, oh, how commonplace. In a few years she, too, would be forgotten; in a few years they would lie in the same ground forgotten; it would be the same as if they had not lived ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... silence. Something in the reporter's air of victory, in the kind of thrilling joy with which he pounced upon the carefully guarded little secret and dragged it out into the light, made him all at once loathsome in Varney's eyes, a creature unspeakably repellent. ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... stronghold. His position, trying at the best, was made more so by the behavior of Dinwiddie. That crusty Scotchman had conceived a dislike to him, and sometimes treated him in a manner that must have been unspeakably galling to the proud and passionate young man, who nevertheless, unconquerable in his sense of public duty, curbed himself to patience, ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... himself in a very strange, very unlovely neighborhood that afternoon. The street was full of papers and tin cans, the houses were unspeakably forlorn with sagging blinds and lack of paint. Untidy women and blear-eyed men leaned over the dilapidated fences, or lolled on mud-tracked doorsteps. David, his shrinking eyes turning from one side to the other, passed slowly through the street, his ...
— Just David • Eleanor H. Porter
... breathe to a living soul, save his own family, his nominal Jew master, and one other friend—a slave—where he had been, the prize he had found, or anything in relation to his travels. To his wife and children his return was unspeakably joyous. The situation of his family concerned him with tenfold ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... a few lines of thanks for your last letter, which has rejoiced me unspeakably. I showed it to every one who is in the least near to me, and told them, "Behold, I have such ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... amused me to hear the men grumbling about the hard ground, and to see them rubbing their hips when they got up. It was a hard training. Still we didn't seem to be going out, and once again, the novelty of a new place having worn off, we became unspeakably "fed up." ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... no one's attention. There was a keen northeasterly breeze, cold and penetrating, but favourable to a rapid crossing. Marguerite, who had gone through several hours of weary travelling by coach, before she had embarked at Dover in the late afternoon, was unspeakably tired. She had watched the golden sunset out at sea until her eyes were burning with pain, and as the dazzling crimson and orange and purple gave place to the soft grey tones of evening, she descried the round cupola ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... of memories that was once the world. Their only sorrow was the shortness of the time. They said indeed that the electric trams and the '70 buildings, and that criminal advertisement that glares upon the Forum, outraged their aesthetic feelings unspeakably; but that was only part of the fun. And indeed Rome is such a wonderful place that it made Miss Winchelsea forget some of her most carefully prepared enthusiasms at times, and Helen, taken unawares, would suddenly admit the beauty of unexpected things. Yet Fanny and Helen would ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... worth as much his belief in his Church. This possession of truth, moreover, thus lightly won, is given to him as infallible. It is a system. There is nothing to add to it. At his peril let him question or take from it. To start a convert in life with such a principle is unspeakably degrading. All through life instead of working toward truth he must work from it. An infallible standard is a temptation to a mechanical faith. Infallibility always paralyzes. It gives rest; but it is the rest of stagnation. ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... round, with a clapping of hands, and a Babel of hilarious applause; and Tom Toole was seen in the centre, sitting upon the floor, hugging his knees, with his drawn sword under his arm, his eyes turned up to the ceiling, and a contortion so unspeakably ludicrous upon his queer little face, as was very near causing little Puddock to explode in an unseemly ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... again at intervals; and at length, though long after midnight, reached Innsbruck between sleeping and waking; his mind filled with dim recollections of the unspeakably dismal night-journey;—the climbing of hills, and plunging into dark ravines;—the momentary rattling of the wheels over paved streets of towns, and the succeeding hollow rolling and tramping on the wetearth;—the blackness of the night;—the thunder and lightning and rain; the ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... heart and lastly with her knowledge of her fellow creatures. "It may pay better than 'Reuben Hallard,'" she said, "there's more love interest and it ends happily. Some of it is beautifully written, some of it quite unspeakably. But really, Peter, it's the most uneven thing I've ever read. Again and again one is caught, held, stirred—then, suddenly, you slip away altogether—you aren't there at all, nothing's there, I could put my ringer on the places. Especially the first chapters and the last chapters—the ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... felt that she was really his; he longed unspeakably to claim her once and for ever; but his old generous self-repression was too strong for the temptation, and he shrunk from taking advantage of her grief and her sisterly affection. But a brother has some privileges, ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... not think any useful purpose would be served by such a course. It was an unspeakably horrible voyage, but most of the troops travelling East experienced the same conditions; moreover, the praise or blame for those responsible for the early chaos will doubtless be meted out at the proper time and ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... to the laborer, the selling of men and women, the whipping of husbands and wives in each others presence, to compel them to unrequited toil, the deliberate attempt to extinguish mind, and, consequently, to destroy the soul—is among the highest offences against God and man—unspeakably mean and ungentlemanly. ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... an incongruity about this person, hard to assimilate. In a couple of not very original sentences, he had wrought upon his listener an effect of depraved intellectual power, strangely combined with artless simplicity,—an unspeakably distasteful conjunction! Imagination, freed from the check of the senses, easily becomes grotesque; and Helwyse, unable to see his companion, had no difficulty in picturing him as a grisly monster, having a satanic head set upon the ingenuous shoulders of a child. And what was ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... they grew out of her shoulders; she was arrayed in flowing white draperies over her own little cambrick frock; and then she was ready. Hamilton came in. He was to be the young man in the picture. Daisy liked his appearance well. But when Preston followed him, she felt unspeakably shocked. Preston was well got up, in one respect; he looked frightful. He wore a black mask, ugly but not grotesque; and his whole figure was more like the devil in the picture than Daisy had imagined it could ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner
... volunteer any further information, we did not like to ask her where, how many years ago, or under what circumstances. 'Teasing' of this sort does not appeal to the sophisticated at any time, but it seems unspeakably vulgar to touch on matters of sentiment with a woman of middle age. If she has memories, they are sure to be sad and sacred ones; if she has not, that perhaps is still sadder. We agreed, however, when the evening was over, ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... an exclamation of surprise and terror. The fresh complexion of former days was gone. A mortal pallor covered those features, which he had known so charming and so gentle, and sorrow had furrowed them with pitiless lines and traced dark and unspeakably sad ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... have indeed fallen far. Not being modest by instinct we invent artificial ideals, which are doubtless well-meaning but are inherently of course second-rate, so that even at our best we smell prudish. And as for our worst, when .we as we say let ourselves go, we dirty the life-force unspeakably, with chuckles and leers. But a race so indecent by nature as the simians are would naturally have a hard time behaving as though they were not: and the strain of pretending that their thoughts were all pretty and sweet, ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... distinctness—the old balloon-backed chairs, a four-post bed in a sort of recess, and a rack against the wall, from which hung some military clothes and accoutrements; and the sight of all these homely objects reassured him somewhat, and he could not help feeling unspeakably curious to see the face of the girl whose long hair was streaming over ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... interview was most painful to him, for he had resolved that it should be the last between himself and Reginald Eversleigh. In this matter he had acted with no undue haste; for it had been unspeakably distressing to him to decide upon a step which would separate him for ever ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... of it, even that 'reforme,' that sending home, which all agreed was what poor Roche needed, to restore his brain. He was brought in, therefore, amongst the chattering party, and stood, dark, shy, his head down, like the man in Millet's 'Angelus,' his hands folded on his cap, in front of his unspeakably buttoned blue baggy trousers, as though in attitude of prayer to the doctor, who, uniformed and grey-bearded, like an old somnolent goat, beamed on him through spectacles with a sort of shrewd benevolence. The catechism began. So he had something to ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... through the merciful interposition of a watchful Hand," said Fritz; and then both silently made their way up the incline to their little hut by the waterfall, unspeakably grateful that they were ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... among the lumbermen. The terrible sufferings these men had to endure from the cold and exposure, for which they were all too inadequately prepared, brought not only physical evils upon them, but reacted in orgies unspeakably degrading. ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... little church at Derrington, in the Geometrical Decorated style, but not on the Chapel Field. I cannot tell you what an immense source of satisfaction it would be to me if I could gather some further reliable information as to the history, style, and annihilation of these two vanished chapels. It is unspeakably sad to be forced to realize that in so many of our country parishes no records exist of things and events of surpassing interest in ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... detestation of Hodges. The first was due to his insolence, as she deemed it, in aspiring for her favor. With little training in conventional ideas of delicacy, the girl had, nevertheless, a native refinement not always characteristic of her more-cultured sister women. There was to her something unspeakably repugnant in the fact that this bestial person should dare to think of her intimately. It was as if she were polluted by his dreaming of her kisses, of her yielding to his caresses. That he had so aspired ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... pleasure. He was fast becoming a physician of note. He was frequently sent for in consultation to all parts of the county; and his contributions to medical journals were held in high esteem. The physician, the student, had gained unspeakably by the loss which had so nearly ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... Nothing could be then expected but scenes of rapine, plunder, bloodshed, and violence, till its inhabitants were sealed over to irremediable wretchedness, without the most distant ray of hope respecting the future. And were it severed from Britain in any other way, the reverse felt in India would be unspeakably great. At present all the learning, the intelligence, the probity, the philanthropy, the weight of character existing in Britain, are brought to bear on India. There is scarcely an individual sustaining a ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... perceptions. Many persons, having perfect ears, are emotionally deaf. Yet these are the very ones who dare to set limits to the vision of those who, lacking a sense or two, have will, soul, passion, imagination. Faith is a mockery if it teaches us not that we may construct a world unspeakably more complete and beautiful than the material world. And I, too, may construct my better world, for I am a child of God, an inheritor of a fragment of the Mind that ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... so radiant in the happiness of her own safe world again that she was bright gladness incarnate.... Instantly Robert had reverted to his alarming infatuation ... and Lady Claire had most shamelessly welcomed the American. It was all unspeakably annoying.... ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... without making any opposition, and went to bed as usual, but sleep was far from her. The fear of Ellen's distress when she would be awakened and suddenly told the truth kept her in an agony. In restless wakefulness she tossed and turned uneasily upon her bed, watching for the dawn, and dreading unspeakably to see it. The captain, in happy unconsciousness of his wife's distress and utter inability to sympathise with it, was soon in a sound sleep, and his heavy breathing was an aggravation of her trouble; it ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... below, thus allowing room for the men who dispensed the food and water to move about, and also for the slaves to use their hands in the process of feeding; and on the particular morning of which I am now writing it was unspeakably moving and pathetic to note, as I did, the feverish eagerness and longing with which the unhappy creatures waited and watched for the arrival of the moment when they might come on deck and breathe for a few brief minutes the pure and—to them—cool and refreshing outer atmosphere. My heart ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... Major Mary, and we sat silent, watching for the train. And the Something which found in Abel its unfailing channel came companioning us, and caught me up so that I longed unspeakably to be about the Business which Abel and Calliope followed, ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... god-announcing Miracle?" says Novalis.—That Mohammed's whole soul, set in flame with this grand Truth vouchsafed him, should feel as if it were important and the only important thing, was very natural. That Providence had unspeakably honored him by revealing it, saving him from death and darkness; that he therefore was bound to make known the same to all creatures: this is what was meant by "Mohammed is the Prophet of God"; this too is not without its ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... and the "Sonnets" in 1609. The dramas were acted between 1587 and 1612, and are grouped by critics in four periods of intellectual growth and development. They are of unequal excellence. Some are mere versions and adaptations. The plots and stories are generally borrowed. Some of the worst are unspeakably bad, but the best, with their subtle and imperious command of language, stately and splendid imagery, careless opulence of incident, learning, and illustration, wit, wisdom, humor, and philosophy, insight into the complex abysses of human passion, familiarity with the secret ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... Bellman was born in Stockholm on the 4th of February, 1740. His father, son of a professor at Upsala University, held a government office; of his mother he wrote that she was "fair as day, unspeakably good, dressed prettily, was kind to everybody, of a refined nature, and had an excellent voice." From her he undoubtedly inherited the warm, genial heart which beats in every one of his songs. His father's house was the rendezvous of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... party had now arrived nearly at the summit of the mountain; and unspeakably grand was the spectacle on which they gazed. From the crater arose a vapour, intensely dark, that overspread the whole background of the heavens; in the centre whereof rose a flame that assumed a form singularly beautiful. ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... doing that which will re-open the bleeding wound, but I cannot help it, as my own emotions must have the relief which this note of sympathy only partially affords. O, how unspeakably dear to us is the thought of his readiness for the great change, and that he is now walking those golden streets, and basking in the smiles of his Saviour. And how consoling the many sweet assurances of our heavenly Father that he doth not willingly afflict, ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... storm was at its height; the black thunder-cloud had broken into many, which assumed the wildest shapes and the strangest colours, some of them unspeakably glorious; the rain poured in a deluge, and more than one waterspout was seen at no great distance: an immense rabble is hurrying in one direction; a multitude of men of all ranks, peers and yokels, prize-fighters and Jews, and the last came ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... worked and played hard that day. When Lucile was wakened at one o'clock in the morning, she found herself unspeakably drowsy. A brisk walk to the beach and back, then a dash of cold spring water ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... men stalked into the little room. Men? They looked like ravenous beasts, and were unspeakably dirty, wore soiled tricolour scarves above their tattered breeches in token of their official status. Two of them fell on the remnants of the meagre supper and devoured everything that remained on the table—bread, cheese, ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... hives; what freshness in the shade of every tree; what contentment in the flocks and herds! The springs are yet full and cold; the shaded watercourses and pond margins begin to draw one." Go to the top of the hill on such a morning, say by nine o'clock, and see how unspeakably fresh and full the world looks. The morning shadows yet linger everywhere, even in the sunshine; a kind of blue coolness and freshness, the vapor of dew tinting ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... But the manner in which he drags in immortality, and sets the priests at me, and leaves me to their mercies, is base. He would, on no account, burn me, but he will get the wood ready, and tell the black beasts how to catch me...It would be unspeakably grand if Huxley were to lecture on the subject, but I can see this is a mere chance; Faraday ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... for him now, yet, if forced to be his wife, I can imagine the possibility of conceiving an inevitable, strange, torturing kind of love for him, because he is so talented; and there is often a certain heroic grandeur in his look, manner, and conversation. In that case, my lot would become unspeakably wretched. He would not want me to love him; and if I showed the feeling, he would make me sensible that it was a superfluity, unrequired by him, unbecoming in me. I ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... love But made more beautiful and more divine My spirit's ownership. And yet no warning, When I infatuate went down to be Procuress of myself to the world's desire, Did God blaze on my blindness, no rebuke. Therefore I am no more my virgin own, But hatefully, unspeakably, the world's. To these now I belong; they took me and used me. I have no pride to live for; and why else Should one stay living, if not joyfully proud? For I have yielded now; mercilessly What is ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie
... in the old days, she and David had patronized the unspeakably puerile musical comedies under the impression that they "rested" them. Now, she was able to ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... York, that misunderstood and ridiculed each the other; but even between such neighbouring states as Connecticut and Massachusetts, both of them thoroughly English and Puritan, and in all their social conditions almost exactly alike, it used often to be said that there was no love lost. These unspeakably stupid and contemptible local antipathies are inherited by civilized men from that far-off time when the clan system prevailed over the face of the earth, and the hand of every clan was raised against its neighbours. They are pale and evanescent ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... the outside of the latch for him. Tell him"—then, utterly unable to say more, she bowed her head and wept. Roberta clung to her and caressed her. That phase of her mother's character touched her unspeakably, young as she was. She never forgot it. It was a revelation of how blessed a possession is the heart that is incapable of ...
— That Old-Time Child, Roberta • Sophie Fox Sea
... I "borrowed" my realistic theory of universals from the idealist, Hegel, whether consciously or unconsciously. The charge is unspeakably silly. Realism and idealism contradict each other more absolutely ...
— A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University - Professor Royce's Libel • Francis Ellingwood Abbot
... are the first to have the necessary prerequisite to understanding what nineteen centuries have misunderstood—that instinct and passion for integrity which makes war upon the "holy lie" even more than upon all other lies.... Mankind was unspeakably far from our benevolent and cautious neutrality, from that discipline of the spirit which alone makes possible the solution of such strange and subtle things: what men always sought, with shameless egoism, was their own advantage therein; they created ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche
... excruciating torture he thus inflicted upon his patient victim. Not a word, not a complaint escaped her; nor did her grave and composed demeanor forsake her for an instant, though she regarded her tormentor with a look of suffering patience, unspeakably affecting. The soldiers, who had looked on in silence during this scene, now shouldered their arms; the muleteer mounting the baggage mule, and leading, by his right hand, that which carried the youthful prisoner, from which the soldiers never for ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... The most favourable case which a man can generally have for studying the character of a woman, is that of his own wife: for the opportunities are greater, and the cases of complete sympathy not so unspeakably rare. And in fact, this is the source from which any knowledge worth having on the subject has, I believe, generally come. But most men have not had the opportunity of studying in this way more than a single case: ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill
... in one instance fifteen years. These wooden walls of England were floating hells, and a seaman was far better off in jail. He was flogged if he sulked and again if he smiled flogged until the blood ran for a hundred offenses as trivial as these. His food was unspeakably bad and often years passed before he was allowed to set foot ashore. Decent men refused to volunteer and the ships were filled with the human scum and refuse caught in the nets of the press-gangs of Liverpool, London, ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... willingly have brought sorrow to a child. And she had won this unique spirit! He loved her with the love that only such a man was great enough to show; and she echoed it and knew that such a passion must be unchanging, everlasting, built not only to make their united lives unspeakably happy and gloriously content, but to run over also into the lives of others, less blessed, and leave the sad world happier for their happiness. There was not a cloud in the sky of her romance and she shared with him for the moment the joy of secrecy. But that would not be long. ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... sun was streaming in on the Elder's face as he read Draxy's letter. He let it fall on the scarlet and white counterpane, and lay thinking. The letter touched him unspeakably. Elder Kinney was no common man; he had a sensitive organization and a magnetic power, which, if he had had the advantages of education and position, would have made him a distinguished preacher. As a man, he was tender, chivalrous, and impulsive; ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... western world, one of the most strenuous centres of human industry and activity and the cradle of our great liberties. Such as it was yesterday—alas, that I cannot say, such as it is to-day!—this square, with the enormous but unspeakably harmonious mass of those market-buildings, at once powerful and graceful, wild, gloomy, proud, yet genial, was one of the most wonderful and perfect spectacles that could be seen in any town on this old earth of ours. While of a different order of architecture, built of other elements and ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck
... and, with its white rocks and wild shrubbery, hangs over the clear, colored river, in whose slow course there is here and there a deeper pool. Over the valley, from side to side, and ever so high in the air, stretch the three tiers of the tremendous bridge. They are unspeakably imposing, and nothing could well be more Roman. The hugeness, the solidity, the unexpectedness, the monumental rectitude of the whole thing leave you nothing to say—at the time—and make you stand gazing. You simply feel that it is noble and perfect, that it has the ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... want of breath. He held up one brown little hand. She inspected it. Dirty, of course, unspeakably, but otherwise—Oh, there was a bunch on one knuckle, a bunch that was swelling. "Is that where it ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... however, ascertained that this theological piece is not sung to the tune, "The cavalry canter of Bonny Dundee." When the experiment is made, the results are unspeakably strange. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... unattractive Indian had, in some way or other, made a prisoner of Otto Relstaub, whose rifle was missing. Standing on the outside with his loaded gun in hand, the young Kentuckian could have done as he pleased with the red man, who had no suspicions of danger; but the thought of shooting him was unspeakably shocking to Jack, who could not have been persuaded to the step unless forced to do so, in order to save the life of ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... she says, faintly, leaning for support on Mr. Morris, who stood by, unspeakably astonished at ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... the familiar airs and simple words pained us with the memory of our distant homes. Perhaps for the first time we understood the solemn significance of this dedication to war of what we hardly knew was so unspeakably dear. ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... illness, "Oh, if I can only live till strawberries come!" The old scholar imagined that, if he could weather it till then, the berries would carry him through. No doubt he had turned from the drugs and the nostrums, or from the hateful food, to the memory of the pungent, penetrating, and unspeakably fresh quality of the strawberry with the deepest longing. The very thought of these crimson lobes, embodying as it were the first glow and ardor of the young summer, and with their power to unsheathe the taste and spur the nagging appetite, made life seem ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... to-day briefly and incompletely, I will later explain to you, for probably you cannot read me at all. But simply realise, that I love you quite unspeakably. The room is getting dark. Passengers near me are going to sleep. It is sleeting and snowing outside. But I will squeeze myself right into a corner, bury my face in the cushions, and think only of you. Farewell, ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... terrible accident. Scoville's wife lay upon a ragged lounge, while Mrs. Hardy's cook kneeled by her side and in her native Swedish tongue tried to comfort the poor woman. So it was true that these two were sisters. The man was still conscious, and suffering unspeakably. The railroad surgeon had been sent for, but had not arrived. Three or four men and their wives had come in to do what they could. Mr. Burns, the foreman, was among them. One of the men spoke in ...
— Robert Hardy's Seven Days - A Dream and Its Consequences • Charles Monroe Sheldon
... is still in Warsaw. Why he is still there he does not know; but he feels unspeakably happy where he is, and his parents make no objections to ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... dingy-faced young negro, clothed in rags unspeakably vile, which scarcely concealed his nakedness, was standing in the midst of a group of white men, toward whom he threw now and then a shallow and shifty glance. The air was heavy with the odour of stale tobacco, and the floor dotted with discarded portions ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... card-players' hands without a notion of what it was all about, for he could not play at any game; or he walked about and took snuff to promote digestion. Anais was the bright side of his life; she made it unspeakably pleasant for him. Stretched out at full length in his armchair, he watched admiringly while she did her part as hostess, for she talked for him. It was a pleasure, too, to him to try to see the ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... no false picture of her personal appearance. Dyed yellow hair done all frizzy was but one fact of her many-sided impossibilities. In the serene surroundings of the long drawing-room, she looked more unspeakably "not much good" than Roland had ever imagined her. With such a leading lady, his drama could not fail of success. He should have been pleased; he was merely appalled. The thing might have a happy ending, but while it lasted it was going ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... dreaming. She was gone. I wondered how she could go without my knowing it, but I did not spend any thought upon that. I was too busy thinking of how vivid & real was the dream that we had lost her, & how unspeakably blessed it was to find that it was not true & that she was still ours ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Atlantic, the multitude of the isles, and the generations unborn in Australian climes, even to the realms of the rising sun (the greek: anatolai haedlioio,) must in every age draw perennial streams of intellectual life, we feel that the little accidents of birth and social condition are so unspeakably below the grandeur of the theme, are so irrelevant and disproportioned to the real interest at issue, so incommensurable with any of its relations, that a biographer of Shakspeare at once denounces himself as below his subject if he can entertain such a question as seriously affecting ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... this national shame and dastardliness of heart are not written as legibly on every rivet of your iron armour as the strength of the right hands that forged it? Friends, I know not whether this thing be the more ludicrous or the more melancholy. It is quite unspeakably both. Suppose, instead of being now sent for by you, I had been sent for by some private gentleman, living in a suburban house, with his garden separated only by a fruit-wall from his next door neighbour's; and he had called me to consult with him on the furnishing of his ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... This unspeakably base proceeding had the result, however, of discovering to them the glasses, with which they soon ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... fate. He looked round on his pictured ancestors Would they have suffered, have sacrificed as much for the honor of their house as he was about to sacrifice now? Yes, he knew they would, for love of race and pride of name had always been unspeakably dear to them. ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... substantial woman, but for the remainder of that day she felt that she was moving with winged feet. She sang, she laughed, she was unspeakably happy. She kept saying over and over: "And a little child shall lead them." Then she would catch Little Poll, almost crushing her in her strong arms. It never occurred to Kate that she had done an unprecedented thing. She had done as her heart dictated. She did not know that she put ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... unspeakably juiceless and went yawning to bed. Nor did the governor detain Bowers long. A servant entering presently discovered Shelby before the ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... clapping was no longer heard, and more agreeable sounds succeeded. They were not properly melodious, but unspeakably delightful and agreeable; they seemed to issue from the corner of an opposite street, approach the window, and die gently away. It seemed as if some aerial spirit intended them as a prelude to some piece of music that he was about to perform. These tones soon became weaker, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 332, September 20, 1828 • Various
... foolery to the kingdom of reason and righteousness, then would I hope for the elevation of woman, aye, and of man too, as perhaps I have never yet hoped. What should be the parts and particulars of such dress, I am incapable of saying. Whilst the "Bloomer dress" is unspeakably better than the common dress, it nevertheless affords not half that freedom of the person which woman is entitled and bound to enjoy. I add, on this point, that however much the dresses of the sexes should resemble each other, decency and virtue and other considerations require that they should ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage |
