"Inexplicably" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... school late. I tried rather desperately a street that seemed a cul de sac, and found a passage at the end. I hurried through that with renewed hope. 'I shall do it yet,' I said, and passed a row of frowsy little shops that were inexplicably familiar to me, and behold! there was my long white wall and the green door that led to ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... America he had found his wife's small property gravely impaired; and that, while lingering on to securewhat remained of it, he had contrived to sell a picture or two, and had even known a brief moment of success, during which he received orders and set up a studio. But inexplicably the tide had ebbed, his work remained on his hands, and a tedious illness, with its miserable sequel of debt, soon wiped out his small advantage. There followed a period of eclipse, still more vaguely pictured, during which she was ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... same with other words, in other vein, reiterating the same importunity. It was a tragic game, in which he divined he must lose. But the playing of it had inexplicably bitter-sweet pain. He knew now that Mel loved him. No greater proof needed he than the perception of her reaction to one word on his lips—wife. She quivered to that like a tautly strung lyre touched by a skilful ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... Inexplicably tangled with her feelings for Theo, too, was that anything binding her to him bound her to his father. They were more than father and son, these two, they ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... do; I assure you they do! And a pretty amount of adoring and waiting upon your husband will require. I wouldn't for the whole universe have my Duke such an awfully exacting, particular, provoking, disagreeably good, or inexplicably naughty ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... this, not from any broad, philosophic perception that fine feathers have their proper part in the great scheme of cosmic evolution; but because the check dress suited her, and the heavy, voluptuous parasol suited her, and the long black gloves were inexplicably effective. Women grow old; women cease to ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... felt a strong disgust for the impudence of the attempt; and all at once, incredibly, strangely, as though the thing, like a contest with a rival or a friend, had been of profound importance to his career, he felt inexplicably elated at the thought of defeating the secret purposes ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... life, and hopes, and ambitions. And there were even more thrilling moments, when the talk ceased, and they sat side by side, silent, yet absorbed, acutely conscious of each other's presence; delightfully, inexplicably confused. ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... at her, and somehow his brown eyes made her lower her own. They held a mastery, a confidence, that embarrassed her subtly and quite inexplicably. ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... and terrible and beautiful suggestiveness, stimulating to the imagination like a draught of heavy red wine. I think there must be, in a story of which the flavour has the true romantic magic, something darkly and inexplicably fatal. I think it is necessary that one should hear the rush of the flight of the Valkyries and the wailing upon the wind of the ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... had swung up the northern route past Newfoundland Banks as if going to England. On this portion of her voyage her average run was a little less than two hundred knots a day. On the fifth day out, the Minnie B inexplicably deserted the normal trade course, turned from "E. NE." and sailed directly "S. SW." At the same time her speed was accelerated to a trifle over three hundred knots a day. Her last reckoning left the pin sticking in the exact longitude and ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... of Lilly's little girlhood, sprung so thrivingly from the left bank of the Mississippi and builded on the dead mounds of a dead past, was even then inexplicably turning its back to its fine river frontage; stretching in the form of a great adolescent giant, prone, legs flung to the west and full of growing pains, arms outstretched and curving downward in a ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... disappointment that had often seemed as if they would make but a dust-heap of his bosom, there he must remain, by the clean, cold hearth, swept and garnished, of the woman he loved—loved strangely, mysteriously, inexplicably even to himself! ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... slope. As she glanced at it she half rose from her place, for there was the witch-face, twilight on the grim features, yet with the aid of memory so definitely discerned that they could hardly have been more distinct by noonday,—a face of inexplicably sinister omen. "Oh, why did I see it to-day!" she exclaimed, the presage of ill fortune strong upon her, with that grisly mask leering at her from across the valley. But the day was well-nigh gone; only a scant space remained in which ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... was becoming deranged, returned upon me with redoubled force. Meantime, this awful stranger, inexplicably linked to my distress, stood drying himself at the funnel; and ever, as the steam rose from his clothes, diffusing a mist around him, I saw through the ghostly medium all the people I have mentioned, and a ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... spoke to the elephant, bringing it to its feet, and gave a sharp order to the keepers of the door, which caused them to speed from the scene as fast as their feet would carry them towards the village where they had been commanded to stay until sunrise, leaving the girl, a prey probably to that inexplicably sensuous feeling which the desolation, and beauty, and pity of this place arouses in some, alone with the man who loved her as men love ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... rose in a fierce rebellion against all that was ugly and sordid in existence. Then her mother's tread was heard descending the short flight of steps, and the sensation vanished as quickly and as inexplicably as ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... Mozart, who reveals the hero's spirit in magical harmonies, elfin tones, and elate darting rhythms as of summer lightning made audible. Here you have freedom in love and in morality mocking exquisitely at slavery to them, and interesting you, attracting you, tempting you, inexplicably forcing you to range the hero with his enemy the statue on a transcendant plane, leaving the prudish daughter and her priggish lover on a crockery shelf below to ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... at the opening she gave him, and longing only for the moment when he might say good-bye and leave her adorable, maddening presence. "It jars, as you say—not because it isn't all delightful and inspiring in itself, but because"—suddenly he felt an inexplicably savage desire to hurt her, as a man in pain may seek to wound his tenderest nurse—"because not many miles away from here there's a poor mother weeping, like Rachel, for her child, and refusing to ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... laugh it off. Anything could be laughed off. So, the shadows mingling with the inconsequence of his thoughts, he drifted away to sleep, catching himself back, now and then, to luxuriate in the assurance that he was in the right place, finding comfortable assuagements, and that inexplicably, because so suddenly, everything was for the best in a mysterious but probably ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... instead, her warm, soft body was in his arms, her eyes were telling him an unbelievable story that her tongue as yet could find no words to utter. There flamed in him, like fire in dead tumbleweeds, a surge of glad triumph that inexplicably blended with ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... brutality, you find in those coarse features and over-eloquent lips, and yet the head is powerful, really intellectual too, though without any delicacy or fineness. Aretino himself presented this portrait to Cosimo I in October 1545, inexplicably explaining that the rendering of the dress ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... were reasonable to believe that lust for vengeance was the ruling passion in the Dupont nature, that the creature had hung about the chateau in hope of getting another chance at Duchemin, and had decided to give it up only on discovering —inexplicably, at this hour—that the latter had stolen away under cover of night. But Lanyard didn't believe that. Neither did he believe that Dupont had had any hand in the robbery of night before last, and was now in tardy flight. In truth, he didn't ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... with an attempt at jocularity in which there mingled somehow, inexplicably, a quality that was not pleasure. "Faith!—no double-dealing. ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... would account for his inexplicably close friendship with her, his devotion to her welfare, and—if she, like himself, were exiled—the secrecy which he ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... the pinpoint lights of the stars broke through. The wind was rising from the Flat; it caught his hair and whipped it roughly around his head. He looked up at the emerging stars, remembering the day when Horng had suddenly, inexplicably stood and walked to the base of a broken staircase. He had looked up those stairs, past where they had broken and fallen, past the shattered roof, to the sky. The Hirlaji had never reached the stars, but they might have. It had taken a ...
— Warlord of Kor • Terry Gene Carr
... recurrent than his own foreboding. It filled him with sadness and guilt. Adam perhaps had dragged himself to the sitting room fire in a drunken fit of superstition. Seeking what? Someone he had wronged? The sinister spark inflamed his fancy. His brain whirled. Inexplicably the tale of the fairy mill and the rascal who stole the widow's bag of meal linked itself with the mishap of the night before. Then too Adam had fallen ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... at Rose, who had spilled a glass of wine, trying to lift it, in a hand that shook strangely. Her eyes were downcast, her cheeks scarlet, her whole manner palpably and inexplicably embarrassed. ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... complete the picture, the idle, laughing, thoughtless, and yet inflammable group that surrounded the buffoon, to the unaccountable medley of human sympathies, of sudden and fierce passions, of fun and frolic, so inexplicably mingled with the grossest egotism that enters into the heart of man: in a word, to so much that is beautiful and divine, with so much that would seem to be derived directly from the demons, a compound which composes this mysterious ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... swarm of attendant derivative desires, which store up in its service whatever honey the surrounding world affords. But if the queen-impulse dies, the death-dealing influence, though retarded a little by habit, spreads slowly through all the subsidiary impulses, and a whole tract of life becomes inexplicably colourless. What was formerly full of zest, and so obviously worth doing that it raised no questions, has now grown dreary and purposeless: with a sense of disillusion we inquire the meaning of life, ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... Their aspirations of a kindred hope had mingled in the majestic psalm; a larger harmony, remote from roundelay, or sparkling cadenza, that drew him to this Calvin maid. A solemn earnestness fell upon his spirits; the starlight bathed his brow, and he found the mystery of the night and nature inexplicably beautiful. ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... our ramble reeled up like a tape-measure as we reached the lane, splashed with moonlight, that led us to the village. The gateway to every field held a pair of lovers whispering among the shadows: yet inexplicably they seemed an adjunct of their surroundings and the faintly bewildering night-scents. A dog sitting at the gate of a cottage uttered a short bark as we neared his domain; then, with a queer grumbling whimper, he came to us across the dust, and ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... Does not Mr. Bryant say, that Truth gets well if she is run over by a locomotive, while Error dies of lockjaw if she scratches her finger? [Would that this was so:—error, superstition, mysticism, authoritarianism, pseudo-science all have a tenacity that survives inexplicably. D.W.] I never heard that a mathematician was alarmed for the safety of a demonstrated proposition. I think, generally, that fear of open discussion implies feebleness of inward conviction, and great sensitiveness to ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... the Salicetti party no love was ever lost. It was a general feeling that the refugee Corsicans on the Mediterranean shore were too near their home. They were always charged with unscrupulous planning to fill their own pockets. Now, somehow or other, inexplicably perhaps, but nevertheless certainly, a costly expedition had been sent to Corsica under the impulse of these very men, and it had failed. The unlucky adventurers had scarcely set their feet on shore before ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... name." She walked towards the door. Suddenly she uttered a cry. Tommy stared. She had caught sight of the picture he had laid against the wall the night before. For a moment he caught a look of terror in her eyes. As inexplicably it changed to relief. Then abruptly she went out of the room. Tommy could make nothing of it. Did she fancy that he had meant to attack her with it? Surely not. He rehung the ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... I once met Sydney Smith at Dean Milman's house. There was something inexplicably amusing in every word which he uttered. Perhaps this was partly due to the expectation of being amused. He was talking about Lady Cork, who was then extremely old. This was the lady who, as he said, was once so much affected by one ...
— The Autobiography of Charles Darwin - From The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin • Charles Darwin
... her poor best, "out for the day" written in every ribbon and smile. Yes, he was alone, of course; and yet, in the bulk of empty house about him, he could surely hear a stir of delicate footing—he was surely conscious, inexplicably conscious, of some presence. Ay, surely; to every room and corner of the house his imagination followed it; and now it was a faceless thing, and yet had eyes to see with; and again it was a shadow of himself; ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... the chaotic state of affairs on this beautiful summer morning when Mr. Ford had awakened to find his splendid horse, Beauty, the ornament of his stables and the pride of his heart, strangely and inexplicably missing. ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope
... my shriek of announcement when all the world of sound about us so inexplicably ceased to be, and I shut off instantly on the word "Someone...," a word that as I had uttered it sounded like a ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... and attack his front. The Spanish general was posted, as has been said, on the Ebro between Calahorra and Tudela. Before the twentieth the two moves had been executed and all was in readiness. The Spaniards fled before Lannes's attack on the twenty-third, but Ney with his cavalry remained inexplicably stationary, and did not cut off their retreat. They were therefore able to reassemble at Siguenza, while Palafox withdrew to Saragossa. This was seemingly an easy triumph for Napoleon's matchless strategy; his plan worked without real resistance, for his self-sufficient and ignorant ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... beside the apparently aimless and wilful contortions of figure, and metamorphoses of shape, in which the latter indulged. They retained, however, all the time, to the surprise of the king, an identity, each of his own type, inexplicably perceptible through every change. Indeed this preservation of the primary idea of each form was more wonderful than the bewildering and ridiculous alterations to which the form ...
— Cross Purposes and The Shadows • George MacDonald
... was hanging over her? Nay—for she at once asked whether they had heard that she was condemned to die. And she went on to tell them how things had gone with her at her trial, and how her good Philip's friend and foster-father had suddenly and inexplicably become her ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... knead it, and make cakes upon the hearth;" and he gave orders to a young man to kill a calf, etc. And after a while the supper was served, with all the delicacies the rich and great could afford, and everything appeared that he had ordered—except Sarah's cakes. They were simply and inexplicably ...
— Fair to Look Upon • Mary Belle Freeley
... written on ethical subjects, have said certain things to which the critical moralist cannot readily assent. He who maintains that certain human intuitions— which it may even appear impossible to reconcile with each other—are inexplicably and infallibly authoritative, seems to leave us without so much as the hope of ever attaining to ultimate rationality. [Footnote: ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... he found all trace of his usual scruples had inexplicably disappeared. It was natural, and (he said to himself) it was right! What use was this continual sacrifice of the precious hours and days of their youth—for an Idea? Besides, she looked so lovely. A man must be a stone to refuse ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... as well as his own trivial fee. The author counts over money, miscounts it, then in counting forgets all about it, puts the money away and continues the reading of Yorick. The postman interrupts him; the author grows impatient and says, "You want four groschen?" and is inexplicably vexed at the honesty of the man who says it is only three pfennigs for himself and the four groschen for the post. Here is a direct following of the Lorenzo episode; caprice rules his behavior toward an inferior, who is modest in his request. ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... Fido strikes a modern reader as inexplicably severe. Yet it is certain that the dissolute seventeenth century recognized this drama as one of the most potent agents of corruption. Not infrequent references in the literature of that age to the ruin of families and ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... happens, the mind, the whole nature seems to be mysteriously grasped and held. New senses in you seem to be released. Something is alert which is never alert—or, at all events, never alert in the same way—in other moments of life. One seems to become inexplicably different. Chichester was aware of all this. At the first sitting nothing happened, and I feared Chichester would wish to give the matter up. But, no! When we rose from our chairs late in the night he acknowledged that he had never known two hours to pass so quickly before. ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens
... Usually certain premonitory cracks, certain sinkings down, groanings forward, grumblings, shruggings, and sullen, reluctant shiftings of the logs give opportunity for the men to assure their safety. This jam, after inexplicably hanging fire for a week, as inexplicably started like a sprinter almost into its full gait. The first few tiers toppled smash into the current, raising a waterspout like that made by a dynamite explosion; the mass behind plunged forward blindly, rising and falling as the ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... appetites, as he sat by the window of the restaurant car, guzzling new potatoes and such Burgundy as could be had in a train. But he was noticeably less garrulous than usual, and his companion also had very little to say until the train was held up inexplicably outside Willesden, when ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... culpable; the detective had been sure of it. Would Miss Dalrymple think more leniently of him than mere unprejudiced people, those who knew less of him than she? His very presence on the yacht, although somewhat inexplicably complicated in recent occurrences, was per se a primal damning circumstance. But she spared him the necessity of answering. She divined now from his blackened features what his position on the yacht must be. He was ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... think, what would have happened had it not been for the very opportune arrival of the Killington Waits, who, bursting out with a terrific and discordant version of 'The Mistletoe Bough,' which, by the way, is somewhat inexplicably regarded as appropriate to the festive season, effectually broke the superphysical spell, and when I looked again at the chair, ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... picture; and the very observation under which she held him so, showed her that he was suffering from evil influences. His eyes had lost something of their frank, manly sparkle; avoided hers; looked dull and unsteady. The lines of his whole face inexplicably were changed; an expression of feebleness and something like humiliation taking place of the alert, bold, self-sufficient readiness of look and tone which had been natural to him. Dolly read it all, with a heart torn in two, and ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner |
