"Unwitting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... looked, his bride like a moth skimmed forth, and kneeling Quick, with quivering sighs, Gathered the pieces under the moon's sly ray, Unwitting as an automaton what she did; Till he entreated, hasting to where she was kneeling, Let ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... oath to every lip. The Battery Major still crimsons with wrath at the thought of him, and the Observing Officer remembers bitterly the long, uncomfortable hours he spent, perched up in a tree a hundred yards or so from the German lines. And this is how Archibald Smith was the unwitting cause of so much anger to the battery, and the saver of many a ...
— Mud and Khaki - Sketches from Flanders and France • Vernon Bartlett
... a more consummate love-making, with all the base intent of betrayal, than this cavalier seduction of Michael by the elderly, six- quart ship's steward. When Michael, not entirely unwitting of the snub of the man's lack of interest, stirred restlessly with a threat to depart, he ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... on her every word—no light task. And my reward? A scant unceremonious "Hallo!" when we meet; a scanter "Night" or "Morning," according to the circumstances, when we part. A brave smile from me and she is gone, an unwitting ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 14, 1914 • Various
... grievously wounded the Doctor; he could not cease to recall the austerity with which he had debarred the poor woman all intercourse with Adele upon her sick-bed. And it seemed to him a grave thing, wherever sin might lie, thus to alienate the mother and daughter. His unwitting agency in the matter had made him of late specially mindful of all the wishes and even caprices of Adele,—much to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... rule they never spoke of Manisty. What Lucy's attitude implied was that she had in some unwitting and unwilling way brought trouble on Eleanor; that she was at Torre Amiata to repair it; and that in general she was ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... fall in with the received idea, and, with biassed minds, unconsciously to follow in the wake of public opinion, while professing to lead it. To the best of my belief half the dogmatism of those we daily meet is in consequence of the unwitting practices of this self-deception. Simply let us not talk about what we do not understand, save as learners, and we shall not by ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... the hall he commanded to prepare a feast. Then with chariot and horses he went to bid to the feast Agamemnon, shepherd of the people; but caitiff thoughts were in his heart. He brought him up to his house, all unwitting of his doom, and when he had feasted him slew him, as one slayeth an ox at the stall. And none of the company of Atreides that were of his following were left, nor any of the men of Aegisthus, but they were ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... drew the curtain over him, and thus, hidden as if of set purpose, fell asleep. As he slept Ghismonda, who, as it happened, had caused Guiscardo to come that day, left her damsels in the garden, softly entered the room, and having locked herself in, unwitting that there was another in the room, opened the door to Guiscardo, who was in waiting. Straightway they got them to bed, as was their wont; and, while they there solaced and disported them together, it so befell that Tancred ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... plane from all other moral offenses, not because it is intrinsically more heinous or less heinous, but simply because it is the only one that may be accurately measured. Forgetting unwitting error, which has nothing to do with morals, a statement is either true or not true. This is a simple distinction and relatively easy to establish. But when one comes to other derelictions the thing grows more complicated. The line between stealing and not stealing ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken
... that is your idea of unwitting, I should like to know how you would define deliberate intent! I'll forgive you this time, but let me catch you at any of your tricks again, and the fat will be in the fire! Sit down—sit down. It's ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... disgraced his house by fighting 'neath the very windows? And if the fellow can talk and tells of the marriage, why, I'm undone, and they will begin a search." All the while he led her further up the stair, she unwitting, until they stood fairly inside the threshold and his foot struck ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... most impertinent stroke in the world, that every blest thing coming up for her in any connection was somehow matter for her general recreation. There she was again with the innocent egotism, the gilded and overflowing anarchism, really, of her doubtless quite unwitting but none the less rabid modern note. Her grace of ease was perfect, but it was all grace of ease, not a single shred of it grace of uncertainty or of difficulty—which meant, when you came to see, that, for its happy working, not a ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... on the moccasins; and, in a trice, he was flitting away over the face of the green earth at ten times the speed of a wild goose chased by the winds. He ran and ran, nor ceased to run, even when come to the land he was in quest of. All unwitting where he was, or whither going, on—right through with might and main speed—on and on, until he had put the Land of Sunrise as far behind him as the Land of Sunset was before him; nor yet had found the object of his heart's desire. ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... Father hath sett a Stone rolling, unwitting of its Course. It hath prostrated me in the first Instance, and will, I misdoubt, hurt my Mother. Father is bold enow in her Absence, but when she comes back will leave me to face her Anger alone; or else, make such a Stir to shew that he is not governed ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... young lady with whom the king can pretend to be in love, the better to mask their own affair. They unfortunately select Louise de la Valliere, Raoul's fiancee. While the court is in residence at Fontainebleau, the king unwitting overhears Louise confessing her love for him while chatting with her friends beneath the royal oak, and the king promptly forgets his affection for Madame. That same night, Henrietta overhears, at the same oak, De Guiche confessing his love ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... fact, does not struggle at all. His struggles, in so far as that word can be applied to his misguided efforts to escape from the toils of fate, are all things of the past; in the actual course of the tragedy he simply writhes under one revelation after another of bygone error and unwitting crime. It would be a mere play upon words to recognize as a dramatic "struggle" the writhing of a worm on a hook. And does not this description apply very closely to the part played by another great protagonist—Othello ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... topmost bough of a withered tree eyed him as he passed along quite near, and croaked once, but did not leave his perch. Armstrong heard him not. Nor did he heed the blue-bird singing in the noonday sun to the arbutus blossoms crushed by his unwitting feet, or notice the petulant squirrel flinging down the shells of his nuts, as if in mockery at the passing stranger. He was met by Primus in the village street, who took off his cap, but to the salutation of the negro he paid no regard. The General stopped as he passed, and turned round, ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... haven, the wife that should have welcomed him, the child that should have been his comfort. He had banished himself from his home; his wife had forsworn him; his child was blossoming into intelligence unwitting of any father. Wife, and child, and home, were all doing well without him; what madness had tempted him thither? an hour ago, like a fanciful fool, he had thought she might be dead—dead with sad penitence for her cruel ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell
... threat that was at all unusual. Fathers and mothers such as these often remain serenely unaware while some dangerous malady or injurious habit is fastening itself upon a favorite child. Once the evil is discovered, there is no sacrifice too great to repair the damage which their unwitting neglect may have allowed to become irreparable. So it is, I think, with the people of the United States. Capable of every devotion in a recognized crisis, we have yet carelessly allowed the habit of improvidence and waste of resources to find lodgment. ...
— The Fight For Conservation • Gifford Pinchot
... Unwitting as before, she goes on to the house near the Duomo Santa Maria, where the Fourth Happiest One, the Monsignor of her final choice, "that holy and beloved priest," is to stay to-night. And now, for the first time, we are to see her, though only for the barest ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... with regard to Belle was becoming over-taxed, though it may be that Mr. ROY MELDRUM, her creator, believed in her; he has at least a solemnity and sincerity of style that carries him, apparently unwitting, through every peril of the grotesque. Of course Belle comes to town, smashes all booking records at the Basilica, and establishes herself as the idol of society. Later on, I regret to add, she becomes, so to speak, tinged with wine. Perhaps this unfortunate failing is the most credible ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various
... minute when Grim, Jeremy and I sat down with Ben Saoud the Avenger on a stricken field at Abu Kem, and Grim and Jeremy played their hands so cleverly that the Avenger was made, unwitting guardian of Jeremy's secret gold-mine, and Feisul's open and sworn supporter in the bargain, the heart of Grim's purpose continued to be a mystery even to me; and I have been as intimate with him as ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... can go on (and chiefly yon high things Observed o'erhead on the ethereal coasts), Again are hurried back unto the fears Of old religion and adopt again Harsh masters, deemed almighty,—wretched men, Unwitting what can be and what cannot, And by what law to each its scope prescribed, Its boundary stone that ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... straight at a great speed for the east. The glasses showed me a different type of machine—a big machine with short wings, which looked menacing as a hawk in a covey of grouse. It was under the cloud-bank, and above, satisfied, easing down after their fight, and unwitting of this enemy, ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... than happily together. But, if all tales were true, she had no reason to regard him as a very faithful husband or a blameless man. She may not have known (for nobody but Merlin apparently did know) the early and unwitting incest of the King and his half-sister Margause; but the extreme ease with which he adopted her own treacherous foster-sister, the "false Guinevere," and his proceedings with the Saxon enchantress Camilla, were very strong "sets off" to her own conduct. Also she had a most disagreeable[37] ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... for the dressing-rooms, but Miss Winthrop lingered. When Dennis was alone she went up to him and frankly gave her hand, saying: "Mr. Fleet, I wish to thank you for your course to-day. Between Miss Ludolph's unwitting sermon and your brave and unexpected vindication of our faith, I hope to become more deserving of the name of Christian. You are a gentleman, sir, in the truest and best sense of the word, and as such it will ever be a pleasure to welcome you at my ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... representatives of the old fire-worshippers came with a very singular effect on the ear. When a boy, I have often passed through the fire myself on Midsummer eve, and such is still the custom. The higher the flame, the more daring the act is considered: hence there is a sort of emulation amongst the unwitting perpetrators of this Pagan rite. In many places cattle are driven through the fire; and this ceremony is firmly believed to have a powerful effect in preserving them from various harms. I need not say, that amongst the peasantry the fires are now ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 37. Saturday, July 13, 1850 • Various
... perturbed constituency. The realization flashed through every mind that if the women of Tinkletown stuck solidly together, there wasn't the ghost of a chance for the sex that had been in the saddle since the world began. An unwitting, or perhaps a designing, Providence had populated Tinkletown with at least twenty ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... she; her large charity 20 (An all unwitting, childlike gift in her) Not freer is to give than meek to bear; And, though herself not unacquaint with care, Hath in her heart wide room for all that be,— Her heart that hath no secrets of its own, But open is as eglantine full blown. Cloudless forever ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... a hideous little mind, he was telling himself—fearful in its latter day casting aside of all such small matters as taste and feeling. People stripped the garments from things in these days. He laughed inwardly at himself and his unwitting "these days." Senile severity mouthed just such phrases. Were they not his own days and the outcome of a past which had considered itself so much more decorous? Had not boldly questionable attitudes been held in those ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... James Carter, King's Son; Glory! there's Mary Carter, King's Son. Hallelujah!" How far he would have pursued the list of family names we don't know, had not the whole meeting burst into laughter and tears at Abe's unwitting mistake in calling Mary Carter a King's Son; but it was of no consequence to him; a little slip of his happy tongue didn't mar his meaning; the people cheered him, and on he went ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... car slowed down and Pee-wee could feel that it was turning into another road. His unwitting captors were evidently either nervous or sleepy, for they ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... of all this domestic trouble and tragedy, the young wife's health has suffered—she scarcely enjoys one day of good health. Her mental condition is even worse. She submits to innuendo and insult under the impression that she is the unwitting cause of all the domestic wretchedness and often wishes she had never entered the marriage state. We must remember that these conditions wreck ideals and homes, and that they frequently render inefficient both ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... efforts the President had the unwitting support of the segregationists, who treated the nation to another sordid racial spectacular. In February 1965 Alabama police jailed Martin Luther King, Jr., and some 2,000 members of his voting rights drive, and a generally outraged nation watched King's later clash with ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... hied him up with the things required; and though, when he got up, he was winded, for he was corpulent with drinking nought but water, he did Fra Cipolla's bidding by going to the church door and ringing the bells amain. When all the people were gathered about the door, Fra Cipolla, all unwitting that aught of his was missing, began his sermon, and after much said in glorification of himself, caused the confiteor to be recited with great solemnity, and two torches to be lit by way of preliminary to the ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... swords, axes, darts and spears, Which all the Gods in sport had idly thrown At Balder, whom no weapon pierced or clave; But in his breast stood fixt the fatal bough Of mistletoe, which Lok the Accuser gave To Hoder, and unwitting Hoder threw; "Gainst that alone had Balder's life no charm. And all the Gods and all the heroes came And stood round Balder on the bloody floor Weeping and wailing; and Valhalla rang Up to its golden roof with sobs ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... dealing—the ordinary Englishman was a Balbus despairing of the State. No phrase was then more common on English lips, or in English ears, than the statement that the days of England's greatness were numbered, and were fast running out. Unwitting the wider sphere about to open before them, men dwelt fondly on the glories of the past. The old babbled of Marlborough's wars, of the entrance of Prince Eugene into London, of choirs draped in flags, and steeples ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... ventures to take from the stall a mule which has not the advantage of his acquaintance. On this account they are rarely stolen. Even in the daytime they are often dangerous for strangers to approach, and the most of the ill-usage which men receive from their heels arises where unwitting people venture to treat them as they would horses. Mules are much less liable to panic-fear than the most of our domesticated animals, yet, when kept in the herded way, they occasionally become ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... of whom I was the second. My next brother Maurice died when he was only seven, and the fourth, Cecil, being five years younger than I, left my brother Algernon and myself as the only real companions for each other. Moreover, an untoward accident, of which I was the unwitting cause, left my younger brother unable to share our play for many years. Having no sisters, and scarcely any boy friends, in the holidays, when all the boys in the school went home, it might be supposed that my elder brother and I were much thrown ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... out the strongly heathen character of this part of the epic. Beowulf's end came, so the old tradition ran, from his unwitting ...
— Beowulf • Anonymous
... her for the elephant, and bring back her good humour. For ill humour in a woman spoils all. And presently he said: Come now, enough! for Nandi has gone off in disgrace, sufficiently punished by banishment for a time, and very sad to have been the unwitting cause of thy distress. And let us roam about awhile, in search of something new, that may help to obliterate recollection, and change thy gloom ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... unwitting as it was, had fired the imaginations of the Earth people, who in their degradation and despair had come to believe the Mercutian overlords invulnerable. It had been the little spark that touched off a far-reaching train of events. In the few days that had elapsed ...
— Slaves of Mercury • Nat Schachner
... cabinet may be seen the portrait of La Belle Terronniere, who was so much beloved by Francois I., and who was the unwitting cause of his death. ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans
... ceaseless reiteration, she recalled the incidents of her passion in the desert. She thought of the night at Arba when Androvsky blew out the lamp. That night had been to her a night of consecration. Nothing in her soul had risen up to warn her. No instinct, no woman's instinct, had stayed her from unwitting sin. The sand-diviner had been wiser than she; Count Anteoni more far-seeing; the priest of Beni-Mora more guided by holiness, by the inner flame that flickers before the wind that blows out of the caverns of evil. God had blinded her in order that ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... imagined to belong to it alone. It mysteriously attracted light bodies to it after it had been rubbed. Thales, the Franklin of his remote time, was the man who is said to have discovered this peculiar and mysterious quality of the yellow gum, and if it be true, to him must be conceded the unwitting discovery of electricity. It was the first step in a science that usurps all the prerogatives of the ancient gods. He recorded his discovery, and was impressed with awe by it, and accounted for the phenomenon he had observed by ascribing to the dull fossil a living soul. ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele
... produced on a Saturday evening, so that he may pass a happy Sunday. The inaccuracies fascinate him. They offer such a splendid chance of showing the knowledge possessed by him—and his library. When very young he deals with the matter in a straightforward fashion, and trounces the author for every unwitting solecism and willing falsification that ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... present instance, it turned out with all the eloquence of "Old Charley"; for, although he laboured earnestly in behalf of the suspected, yet it so happened, somehow or other, that every syllable he uttered of which the direct but unwitting tendency was not to exalt the speaker in the good opinion of his audience, had the effect to deepen the suspicion already attached to the individual whose cause he pleaded, and to arouse against him ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... our spies, who will conduct you to the cavern in which he lies concealed. Of course I could have him seized at once if I chose, but I have a deeper game to play, and want to make Ravoninohitriniony an unwitting instrument. It seems that more of the people in the palace are Christians than I knew of. It has come to my ears that some of these intend going stealthily to the cave to meet Ravoninohitriniony, for they are fond of this son ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... glory on the sly, and without compunction. Indeed, the false role created in me a perverse mood. And I entered into a literary discussion with M—— that outraged his pedantic soul. It was my way of perjuring his judgment, in return for his unwitting approval of my reviews. Besides, the assumption of infallibility by dull, scholarly men who have neither imagination nor genius has always amused me. And this one danced now as frantically as if he had unintentionally grasped ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... lived, who would have dared to offer us such an insult?... Woe, woe to me! Unwitting I brought all this shame on myself. Instead of wielding the avenging sword, helpless I let it fall, and now I serve ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... battle-fields of Granson, Murten and Nancy. Here a Swiss soldier drew from the finger of Charles the Bold, that celebrated diamond which was long esteemed the largest in Europe, which even now sparkles in the crown of France as the second in size, but which the unwitting finder sold for a florin. The Swiss exchanged the silver they found for tin, and the gold for copper, and tore into pieces the costly tents of cloth of gold. The value of the spoil of silver, gold, and jewels which was taken has been estimated at three millions. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... and now he was watching the Duke of Kent in his agony. On Stockmar's advice, a will was hastily prepared. The Duke's earthly possessions were of a negative character; but it was important that the guardianship of the unwitting child, whose fortunes were now so strangely changing, should be assured to the Duchess. The Duke was just able to understand the document, and to append his signature. Having inquired whether his writing was perfectly clear, he became ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... Eve supper parsnips and cakes are eaten, and nuts and apples roasted. A "puzzling jug" holds the ale. In the rim are three holes that seem merely ornamental. They are connected with the bottom of the jug by pipes through the handle, and the unwitting toper is well drenched unless he is clever enough to see that he must stop up two of the holes, and drink ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... the eyes, have a glimmering &c n.; wonder whether; not know what to make of &c (unintelligibility) 519; not pretend to take upon, not take upon one self to say. Adj. ignorant; nescient; unknowing, unaware, unacquainted, unapprised, unapprized^, unwitting, unweeting^, unconscious; witless, weetless^; a stranger to; unconversant^. uninformed, uncultivated, unversed, uninstructed, untaught, uninitiated, untutored, unschooled, misguided, unenlightened; Philistine; behind the age. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... in the early part of his missionary life, tells us that in a village the family room was given up to him for the night, and in the morning he found a little son had been born in the stable. He supposed that he had been the unwitting cause of such an event occurring there; but longer acquaintance with the people shows that woman almost invariably resorts to that place in her hour of sorrow, and there she often dies. The number who meet death in this ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary
... failed to obtain a sight of her niece. I judged it discreet in all the conditions not to make a third; but this didn't matter, for it was through Adelaide Mulville that the side-wind of the comedy, though I was at first unwitting, began to reach me. I went to Wimbledon at times because Saltram was there, and I went at others because he wasn't. The Pudneys, who had taken him to Birmingham, had already got rid of him, and we had a horrible consciousness of his wandering roofless, in dishonour, about the smoky Midlands, ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... Damas that I fought even now. Yet all was treachery, and I misdoubt me that Sir Damas and his people are in league with Queen Morgan le Fay to compass your destruction. But, my lord Arthur, pardon me, I beseech you, the injuries that, all unwitting, I ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay
... their homes, the hospitals being sadly unready. Jack instantly suspected the situation, the conversation in the ambulance coming back to him now distinctly. What should he do? He was in honor bound to undeceive the kind-hearted and unwitting accomplice of the fraud practiced on herself as well as on him. She came in presently with an officer. Jack was not familiar with the rebel insignia, and could not discover his rank or service, but he expected to hear himself denounced as a ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... Torello told his purpose, and the band, With ready zeal and loosened bridle-chains, Rode for his hunting-palace, where they set A goodly banquet underneath the planes, And hung the house with guest-lights, and anon Welcomed the wondering strangers, thereto led Unwitting, by a world of winding paths; Messer Torello, at the inner gate, Waiting to take them in—a goodly host, Stamped current with God's image for a man Chief among men, truthful, and just, and free. Then he, "Well met again, fair sirs! Our knave Hath found you ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... all unwitting; she intended to rally him sweetly. But seventeen is deathly serious at such junctures, and William was in a sensitive condition. He made no reply in words. Instead, he drew himself up (from the ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... Unwitting perhaps of the fine time afforded by the feeble delays of Mr. Addington, and absorbed in the tissue of plot and counterplot now thickening fast in Paris—the arch-plotter in all of them being himself—the First Consul ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... the village where the "good minister" lived, far behind, and now we approach a populous town. By our side travels a thoughtful man, all unwitting of his company. It is the Sabbath, and he has been ten miles to hear the gospel preached. No church-going bell has as yet ever gladdened the place which he calls his home. Deep sighs escape from his breast, as he rides slowly along. He meditates on the wretched condition ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... eleven, had welcomed her, she had known that the newcomer was the weaker spirit. The bride had known it too. She had never attempted to control Esther, leaving the child entirely to her father—a bit of unwitting wisdom which did much to smooth daily life at the Elms. If the doctor saw his wife's weakness of character it is probable that it did not interfere with his love for her. Why need she be strong while he was strong enough for two? But he had forgotten one thing—the day when ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... he look so pityingly as you describe, and bless me as I was praying, unwitting of his presence?" repeated she, with a look that searched the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... relentless eyes descry The eagle's empire and the falcon's home— Far down, the galleons of sunset roam; His hazards on the sea of morning lie; Serene, he hears the broken tempest sigh Where cold sierras gleam like scattered foam. And least of all he holds the human swarm— Unwitting now that envious men prepare To make their dream and its fulfillment one When, poised above the caldrons of the storm, Their hearts, contemptuous of death, shall dare His roads between the thunder ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... tries to prevent his taking it; but as he grasps at it, Siegfried's hand is raised threateningly, and Hagen sinks back abashed. Bruennhilde now comes in, sorrowful but calm. She understands the whole story of Siegfried's unwitting treachery, and has pardoned him in his death. She thrusts the weeping Gutrune aside, claiming for herself the sole right of a wife's tears. The vassals build a funeral pyre, and place the body of Siegfried upon it. Bruennhilde takes the ring ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... his duty to make this fight against the grafters in the Denver management. North deserved no consideration, and while Mr. Colbrith was honest enough, his blind prejudice and narrow mentality made him North's unwitting accessory. Three months earlier Ford would not have hesitated; but in the interval a woman had come between to obscure all the points of view. A fight to the death against the Colbrith administration meant the antagonizing of the Adairs—of Alicia, at least. True, she had ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... And "That I wrought; "but—ah, thou strong-armed Prince!— A better-lessoned mind, knowing the play Of visible things within the world of sense, And how the qualities must qualify, Standeth aloof even from his acts. Th' untaught Live mixed with them, knowing not Nature's way, Of highest aims unwitting, slow and dull. Those make thou not to stumble, having the light; But all thy dues discharging, for My sake, With meditation centred inwardly, Seeking no profit, satisfied, serene, Heedless of issue—fight! They who shall keep My ordinance thus, the wise and willing hearts, Have ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold
... came back, bit by bit, and listening to his happiness did much to ease the soreness of my heart—while the light lasted. It was in the night watches that my struggles came—though often some unwitting speech of his would bring back the pain. He took delight in telling me, for example, how for hours at a time I had been ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... arch, The bridal now resumed their march. In rude but glad procession came Bonneted sire and coif-clad dame; And plaided youth, with jest and jeer Which snooded maiden would not hear: And children, that, unwitting why, Lent the gay shout their shrilly cry; And minstrels, that in measures vied Before the young and bonny bride, Whose downcast eye and cheek disclose The tear and blush of morning rose. With virgin step and bashful hand She held the kerchief's snowy band. ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... mechanically, and putting on his hat, accompanied Barker, all unwitting of the thunder-blow that his words had been.... Mrs. Wallace was at home. James went upstairs, forgetting everything but that the woman he loved was free—free! His heart beat so that he could scarcely breathe; he was afraid of betraying his agitation, and had ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... mother, for she died in giving me birth; and my father, who adored her living, and revered her memory, was some years older before he fully forgave me for being the unwitting cause of her premature departure from this world. And in this I could sympathise with him as soon as I came to years of understanding, for she was not only, as everybody who had known her asserted, of a most amiable and loveable ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... its somber mantle about the meadow, the wolves gathered to feast on the dead horses, till Hazel's nerves were strained to the snapping point. Continually she was reminded of that vivid episode, of which she had been the unwitting cause. Sometimes she would open the door, and from out the dark would arise the sound of wolfish quarrels over the feast, disembodied snappings and snarlings. Or when the low-swimming moon shed a misty glimmer on the ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... the Socialist sitting at a great Banquet of Men, Sitting with honored leaders of the blind, unwitting Multitude; I saw him there with the writers, editors, painters, men of letters, Legislators and judges, the Leaders of the People, Leaders flushed with the wines of price, eating costly and rare foods, Making loud talk, and boastful, ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... jewels tore at the covering of her bosom and suddenly came away clutching a dagger, thin, long, and keen; and snarling she sprang toward the girl, to whose influence, however unwitting, she rightly ascribed the downfall of her scheme of empire. Rowan and Labertouche leaped forward and fell short, so lightning swift she moved; only Amber stood between her and her vengeance. Choking with horror, he put the girl behind him with ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... thing of watery salt Held in cohesion by unresting cells Which work they know not why, which never halt, Myself unwitting where their master dwells. I do not bid them, yet they toil, they spin; A world which uses me as I use them, Nor do I know which end or which begin, Nor which to praise, which pamper, which condemn. So, like a marvel in ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various
... not our intention in these words to cast doubt on the immortality of the soul, or to depreciate the value of a belief in it. We desire to vindicate morality and religion from the unwitting attacks made on them by many self styled Christian writers in their exaggeration of the practical importance of such a faith. The qualitative contents of human nature have nothing to do with its quantitative contents: our duties rest not ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... herds. The shaking bogs and morasses were to become solidified, and the waters that permeated them to retreat into well defined chains of ponds and lagoons. This the first explorer could not foresee, he was disheartened by what he found, and unwitting of the change that was to follow he gave a hostile verdict. But although it did not fall to his lot to trace out the great system of the Murray watershed, he had, at any rate, the proud satisfaction ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... Jove's majesty, bride unwitting, Cease from your sobbing; rise, your luck is rare. Your name's the name which half the ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... off at full speed, all unwitting that four disconsolate maidens were marooned on the farther side of the river, waiting for some faerie boat to ferry them across. For a long time no knight-errant arrived for their relief, but at last, as chance would have it, an urchin came down on to the wharf, with a string and a ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil |
