"Apparition" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... roaring trade. I saw no stronger drink than this consumed; nor did I witness a single case of drunkenness during the whole night. But this was before the Derby! At this juncture we were all surprised by the apparition of a hansom-lamp toiling up the hill. Two adventurous gentlemen from Liverpool, it appeared, had arrived at the Euston Station, and insisted upon being driven at once to an hotel on Epsom Downs. The Jehu, secure of a fabulous fare, drove them accordingly; ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... heard the knock. He rose hurriedly, and began to collect his papers. Meanwhile, the knocking had been answered from within by the shooting of bolts, noises that were followed by the apparition of a female head. ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... she suddenly became aware of a divine illumination and ministration. She requested those with her to withdraw, and reluctantly they did so, believing her delirious. Soon, to their bewilderment and fright, she walked into the adjoining room, "and they thought I had died, and that it was my apparition," she said. ...
— Pulpit and Press • Mary Baker Eddy
... somehow to leave them in darkness, and under cover of that gloom she drew nearer the priest, and by such approaches as one makes toward a fancied apparition, when his fear will not let him fly, but it seems better to suffer the worst from it at once than to live in terror of it ever after, she lifted her hands to his, and gently taking them away from his face, looked into ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... him surrounded with something in motion, which was darker than the bright ground; but the figures were shadowy, and she could scarcely distinguish them—sometimes they were like men, sometimes they were like horses, or like trees, or like mountains. She usually went to sleep in the midst of the apparition, and when, after a quiet night, she woke again in the morning, she felt refreshed and comforted; she could say to herself, Edward still lives, and she herself was still remaining in the closest relation ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... tentative note of an awakened owl. Familiarity with nature had freed him from that sense of pursuit in the woods at night which oppresses even a stout heart unaccustomed to loneliness, and the flight of the unexpected apparition was sufficient proof that he had no desire to molest them. The incident certainly offered no ground for continued uneasiness, he reflected. Why, then, did she make so much of it? Why indeed, except that her companion was not the one man in all the world with whom she would ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... name which we seek to recall,—we feel, but cannot touch it,—so the secret of Nature lies close to the mind, and sustains us as if by magnetic communication, while we have yet no faculty to explore our own being or this apparition of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... intertwined work and a decoration of quadrantal shape, adding six boys bearing certain festoons, who appear to be holding one another securely with their arms in their fear of the height. But the greatest genius and art that he showed was in the figure of the Virgin, who, alarmed by the unexpected apparition of the Angel, is making a most becoming reverence with a sweet and timid movement of her person, turning with most beautiful grace towards him who is saluting her, in a manner that there are seen in her countenance that humility and gratitude which are due to one who presents ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol 2, Berna to Michelozzo Michelozzi • Giorgio Vasari
... neighbourhood to whom I had paid the second note; this, by some means or other, before the coming down of the agent, had found its way to the same provincial bank, and also being pronounced a forgery, it had speedily been traced to the person to whom I had paid it. It was owing to the apparition of this second note that the agent had determined, without further inquiry, to cause me to be ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... said, "The apparition is vanished," and grasping his spear he rose to his feet saying, "Brothers, take heart; we have nothing to fear, as we have done no wrong." They then stood up and saw the open door of the sepulchre from which the stone had fallen. Then said Titus, "The stone is rolled away from the grave. ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead
... success with the diamond deal had affected his brain. Of course, it was only an hallucination. The next time he looked this fantastic creation of his disordered mind would be gone. Again he glanced up in the direction of the kopjie. The apparition was still there, a horrible, monstrous, distortion of himself, standing still, speechless, staring at him. That it was only a mirage there could be no doubt. He had heard of such mirages at sea and also in the Sahara where wandering Arabs have beheld long caravans ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... hush pervaded the Abbey. At this impressive moment, a startling apparition intruded upon the scene—an apparition observed by none in the absorbed multitude, until it suddenly appeared, moving up the great central aisle. It was a boy, bareheaded, ill shod, and clothed in coarse plebeian garments that were falling to rags. He raised his hand ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the apparition of Mr. Bennett appeared to his daughter, the explanation of his presence at that moment in the office of Marlowe, Thorpe, Prescott, Winslow, and Appleby was simple. He had woken early that morning, and, glancing at his watch on the dressing-table, he had ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... instantly at the word of command. For a single moment I braced myself to resist, but even as I did so my eyes fell upon a slight opening in the wall, and I caught a quick glimpse of Bungay's face, his finger to his lips. Even as I gazed in astonishment at this sudden apparition, a lighter touch rested ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... staring in bewilderment at her fire—and beyond the fire where, only a few feet distant, a hooded shape stood dimly outlined against the snow. Chloe's garments, dampened by the exertion of the earlier hours, had chilled her through while she slept, and as she stared wide-eyed at the apparition beyond the fire, the figure drew closer and the chill of the dampened garments seemed to clutch with icy fingers at her heart. She nerved herself for a supreme effort and arose stiffly to her knees, and then suddenly ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... and almost tumbling to the bottom, declaring that he had seen 'Old Davy,' aft the cross-trees; moreover, that the Evil One had a huge head and face, with pricked ears, and eyes as bright as fire. Two or three others were sent up in succession; to all of whom the apparition glared forth, and was identified by each to be 'Old Davy, sure enough.' The mate, in a rage, at length mounted himself; when resolutely, as in the former case, searching for the bugbear, he soon ascertained the innocent cause of so much terror to be a large horned ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 544, April 28, 1832 • Various
... wondered hotly if the girl had seen me, and I swore at myself for having justified her contempt for us. Then I swore at myself again for giving a moment's consideration to what she thought. I was recalled to the present by the apparition of my adversary riding his pony toward me, partly supported and partly restrained by two of his friends. He was trembling with anger ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... traditional chaperon in thwarting the pleasures of the young. The comeliness, too, of his hostess led him, by inference, to suppose that the chaperon in question would prove to be of a peculiarly vicious and aggressive type. No such apparition came, however, to disturb his satisfaction, and he gradually came to believe in the lawfulness of the situation. His face may have betrayed something of the questionings which were racking his mind, for the self-possessed Kathleen, after heaping ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... house. I looked out of that on four long changing seasons, said the ghost. I should have liked to explore farther, but, while I was looking, one came into the small garden, or what used to be the garden, in front of the house, and I desisted from my investigation and went on my way. The apparition that put me and my little ghost to flight had a dressing-gown on its person and a gun in its hand. I think it was the dressing-gown, and not the gun, ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... acted promptly. He did not wish to fire a shot and bring hundreds of warriors down upon himself and his friends, but he sprang out of the door with such violence that he struck the first Miami with his shoulder and knocked him senseless. The second warrior, startled by this terrifying apparition, was about to utter a cry of alarm, but Henry seized him by the throat with both hands, compressed it and threw him from him as far as he could. Then he sprang among the vines, where he was joined by his comrades, and, bending low, they ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... trifle he could carry without loss of dignity. The butler stood motionless, content with "existing beautifully," the more so as a second footman, with powdered hair, plush breeches, and unimpeachable calves, rushed forward to our assistance. He was such a magnificent and unexpected apparition that I gazed in ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... fact, a mole-cricket, a creature just like its namesake, if an insect can be said to resemble an animal, only that its jaws were like unto the jaws of a lobster. It was a fearsome apparition, and very much larger even than the queen. The good God alone knoweth why it had chosen that moment and ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... revolver which seemed to have seen service. There was some excitement in the little crowd over the reappearance of Eliab Hill, but he was not interfered with. In fact, the cars moved off so quickly after he was first seen that there was no time to recover from the surprise produced by the unexpected apparition. It was not until the smoke of the engine had disappeared in the distance that the wrath of the bystanders ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... and desirous of getting done, and 'Luria' will answer my purpose so far. Will not the best way be to reserve this unlucky play and in the event of a second edition—as Moxon seems to think such an apparition possible—might not this be quietly inserted?—in its place, too, for it was written two or three years ago. I have lost, of late, interest in dramatic writing, as you know, and, perhaps, occasion. And, dearest, I mean to take your advice and be quiet awhile and let ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... once back in his own quarters, moved about with a caution not untouched with apprehension. Mrs. Teetzel, he knew had a tread that was noiseless. She also had the habit of appearing, in curl-papers, at uncouth moments, as unheralded as an apparition from the other world. And Trotter's conscience was not clear. For months past he had kept secreted in his trunk one of those single-holed gas heaters known as a "hot plate." This he surreptitiously attached to the gas jet, and secretly thereon made coffee and cooked ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... watching the couples in the rooms above, and particularly interested in one face which appeared in, and disappeared from, a brilliantly lighted alcove twice while he was standing there. A certain grace of girlhood attended this apparition; the dress was rich and costly and exquisitely made; but that which held Alban's closer attention was the fact that the wearer of it unquestionably was a Pole, and not unlike little Lois Boriskoff herself. He would not say, indeed, that the resemblance was striking—it might have been merely ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... fall once more. Her feet were accustomed to the way. When she had turned down West Street and almost gained the canal, it was with a shock of surprise that she found herself confronted by a man in a long cape who held a rifle and barred her path. She stared at him as at an apparition. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... what think you? suddenly The rain and the wind ceased, and the sky Received at once the full fruition Of the moon's consummate apparition. The black cloud-barricade was riven, Ruined beneath her feet, and driven Deep in the West; while, bare and breathless, North and South and East lay ready For a glorious thing that, dauntless, deathless, Sprang ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... should catch you in the barn and clap the doors to on you, he or she might do you a mischief. Having done this, take the sieve or winnowing-basket, which in Lowland Scotch is called a wecht or waicht, and go through the action of winnowing corn. Repeat it thrice, and at the third time the apparition of your future husband or wife will pass through the barn, entering at the windy door and passing out at the other.[602] Or this. Go to a southward running stream, where the lands of three lairds meet, or to a ford where the dead and living have crossed. Dip the left ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... down his lantern on the altar and threw back his hood, disclosing the features of Philippe. His lantern had little effect on the blackness of the chapel and Molly had turned off their searchlight at sight of the apparition. Philippe peered into the darkness and spoke with a ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... surnamed "Germanicus," younger brother of Tiberius and son-in-law of Marc Antony; distinguished himself in four successive campaigns against the tribes of Germany, but stopped short at the Elbe, scared by the apparition of a woman of colossal stature who defied him to cross, so that he had to "content himself with erecting some triumphal pillars on his own safe side of the river and say that the tribes across were conquered"; falling ill of a mortal malady, his brother the emperor hastened across the Alps ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... imaginary. The chief difficulty, however, in Hamlet's case, is that he only appears before us as a person acting in an abnormal mental condition. The mysterious death of his father, the suspicion of his mother's complicity in crime, which takes the form of an apparition from beyond the grave, is too much of a strain for his tender and impressible nature. His mental condition has become well known to physicians as cerebral hyperaemia, and all his strange speeches and eccentric actions are to be traced to this source; and it is for this reason that ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... My mode of cooking the condensed food and liquid beef; so quickly prepared for the palate, and the remarkable boat of paper, all filled the islanders with wonder. They were at first a little shy, looking upon the apparition — which seemed in some wonderful way to have dropped upon their beach — with the light of ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... to set Christie part of the way back to Beechhurst in the opposite direction. The young men talked as they walked, Christie resuming the argument that the apparition of Bessie Fairfax had interrupted in the afternoon. The argument was that which Mrs. Musgrave had enunciated against the study of the law. Harry was not much moved by it. If he had a new motive for prudence, ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... from a ribbon and tumbled about before a pair of deep blue eyes. Round cheeks were pink and soft, sweet lips were red and shyly smiling, a white apron with ruffles almost covered a blue gingham dress. The boy held his breath at the beauty of the apparition. He had never dreamed of anything so sweet and pretty in all ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... this Satanic struggle aroused the neighbourhood, and the miser's body, when it was discovered, was buried beneath the wall of the church—neither inside nor outside the sacred edifice. Ever afterwards the house was haunted by the apparition of old Scraggs searching for his lost soul with groans and hideous cries, until at last the old mansion was pulled down and ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... what I've come for," said the apparition. "I've come to ask you to intercede." She wasn't an actress; an actress would have had ...
— The Marriages • Henry James
... the apparition of Sam's black visage had been seen does not appear; but in a short time True Blue came to the door of the cottage, looking as happy and lighthearted as a fellow could look, and, hailing his friends, asked ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... this unexpected apparition the detective entered the room, closed the door carefully, and putting his back to it bowed politely to ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... timidly. The broad, stooping shoulders, and grizzled head, of a man past the middle age, appeared: after a moment's hesitation, a pair of large, diffident feet, shod with canvas slippers, concluded to follow. When the apparition was complete, it closed the door softly, and stood there,—a very shy ghost indeed,—with apparently more than the usual spiritual indisposition to begin a conversation. The "Rose" resented this impatiently, though, I ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... like an apparition out of a trapdoor, appeared the friend of her heart, the master of the cabaret, a young little Pole, with moustaches twirled high. They drank some wine, talked a bit about the fair, about the exposition, complained a little about bad business. After that Horizon telephoned to ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... the senses, he crossed the narrow passageway and opened the door. He was thunderstruck. The ceiling, a lofty, massive brick arch, had fallen during the night, filling the room with rubbish and crushing his bed into atoms. De Wette the Apparition had saved the life of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... intervals of plains, in one of which lay the district city of Tongtze, enclosed by walls which run along the top of the hills surrounding it. The inhabitants crowded to the shore to witness the strange apparition ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... friend Ralph. The apparition had been so sudden that the Squire was unable to restrain himself. Mr. Neefit, as the reader will perhaps remember, had been at the Moonbeam before. He had written letters which had been answered, and then letters,—many letters,—to which no reply had been given. In respect ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... parents, and others who are older than you, are alone in the dark a thousand times in the course of a year. Did you ever hear them say any thing about meeting a single one of the heroes of the frightful stories you have heard? Do you think they ever came across a ghost, or an apparition, or a fairy, or an elf, or a witch, or a hobgoblin, or a giant, or a Blue-Beard, or a wolf? It makes you smile to think of it. Well, then, after all, don't you think it would be a great deal wiser and better to turn all these foolish fancies out of your ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... neighbouring clergyman, came into Olney to shop, and with her came her sister, Lady Austen, the widow of a Baronet, a woman of the world, who had lived much in France, gay, sparkling and vivacious, but at the same time full of feeling even to overflowing. The apparition acted like magic on the recluse. He desired Mrs. Unwin to ask the two ladies to stay to tea, then shrank from joining the party which he had himself invited, ended by joining it, and, his shyness giving way with a rush, engaged in animated conversation with Lady Austen, and walked ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... set him thinking. Unknown to the girl, the materials for a dramatic apparition were hidden amidst the bushes near the well. He cudgeled his brains to remember the stage effects of juvenile days; but these needed limelight, blue flares, ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... was the middle-aged curate, one of the "inferior clergy," who are usually not wanting in sons. But after the introduction, the conversation did not lead to any question about his family, and the startling apparition of youthfulness was forgotten by every one but Celia. She inwardly declined to believe that the light-brown curls and slim figure could have any relationship to Mr. Tucker, who was just as old and musty-looking as she would have expected ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... Ryan, for the last time, as the apparition, which he and his companions believed supernatural, disappeared. But then the courage of these superstitious Scotchmen, which had failed before a fancied danger, returned in face of a real one, which ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne
... this by a paper tail, and the ugliest face he could make, and rushed into the drawing-room, where the old lady and his mother were drinking tea. He was snatched up and carried away before he had had time to judge the effect of his apparition; but he did not think, looking back upon the circumstances in later life, that Aunt Betsy had deserved quite so ill of her ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... examine Dr. Adam's class when I, a boy twelve years old, and then in disgrace for some aggravated case of negligence, was called up from a low bench, and recited my lesson with some spirit and appearance of feeling the poetry—it was the apparition of Hector's ghost in the AEneid—of which called forth the noble Earl's applause. I was very proud of this at ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... to the sea. Already I can hear the roar of the waves...The banks are beginning to be clothed with verdure...The hills are drawing nearer....It is dark now. Here are the big trees beneath which I have dreamed so often. A radiant apparition shines through their ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... at the sound as if an apparition had called her, screamed, and fell into her son's outstretched arms. "Mother! dear mother!" cried Jack, folding her ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... nearly level, streamed through the western window across the front of the platform where she stood and transfigured her slight but noble figure. The hush that had fallen upon the Hall was as much the effect of that tranquil, ideal presence as of the message with which it was charged. And yet that apparition was as inconsistent with the clear, searching light which helped to set it off, as it was with the broad new blazonry of decoration, the yet unsullied record of the white walls, or even the frank, animated and pretty faces that ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... towards him. I remained on the spot where I was, choked with agonising sensations. When he had entered the room, the windows and shutters closed of themselves, and the candle was relighted—then I thought it was his apparition, and I fainted on ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... have left the foot-print in the court, and be the owner of the shoe I had seen—could hardly pass through the Rue de Seine without drawing the eyes of all the lodgers on the street. Dried up hag faces would have met the apparition with a leer; the porters would have turned to stare, and she would ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... the plantation, Andrews and Drysdale were constantly together, and the latter seemed to find the greatest pleasure in the former's society. He frequently recurred to the subject of ghosts and spooks, and always closed by discussing the character of the apparition he had seen on the roadside. There was no doubt that it had made a deep impression upon him, for he never tired of talking about it. Andrews laughed at him, ridiculed his vivid imagination, cross-questioned him, and reasoned with him upon the absurdity of his hallucination, but all to no effect; ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... nor was his wife better able to eat. The young sister alone did justice to the repast; but although the bridegroom could not eat, he could swallow Champagne in such copious draughts, that ere long the terror and remorse that the apparition of Jacques Rollet had awakened in his breast were drowned in intoxication. Amazed and indignant, poor Natalie sat silently observing this elect of her heart, till overcome with disappointment and grief, she quitted the room with her sister, and retired to another apartment, where she gave ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... pondered for a moment upon the meaning of this sudden apparition and gift, and then hurried home, his heart beating high with hope, and gave the apple to his wife to eat. In due season, to his intense joy, she bore him a son, Volsung, the great Northern hero, who became so famous that he gave his name to all ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... that during moments of reaction, after some of his debauches in the palace (v. p. 183), Gholam Kadir attempted to justify his conduct by representing himself as acting under supernatural inspiration. "As I was sleeping," he averred, "in a garden at Sikandra, an apparition stood over me and smote me on the face saying, Arise, go to Dehli, and possess thyself of the palace." It may be that at such times he experienced some feelings of remorse. At all events, his punishment was both immediate and terrible, and his crimes proved the ruin of his house. Ghausgarh was forthwith ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... apparent than real—the palette has been composed differently, but neither picture tells of any desire of a new outlook, or even to radically change his mode of expression. The eye which observed and remembered so sympathetically "A Spring Evening", over which a red moon rose like an apparition, observed also the masts and the prows, and the blue sea gay with the life of passing sail and flag, and the green embaying land ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... he said when it was all over. By that time he was ashamed to confess that at the moment of its apparition the March Past had been somewhat of a shock to him. He had his ideas, and he was not prepared for the uniform; still less was he prepared for a personal encounter with such quantities of young women ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... of all the other men staring at something directly behind his back. He whirls defensively with a snarling, murderous growl, crouching to spring, his lips drawn back o'ver his teeth, his small eyes gleaming ferociously. He sees Mildred, like a white apparition in the full light from the open furnace doors. He glares into her eyes, turned to stone. As for her, during his speech she has listened, paralyzed with horror, terror, her whole personality crushed, beaten in, collapsed, by the terrific impact of this unknown, abysmal brutality, naked ...
— The Hairy Ape • Eugene O'Neill
... great affright, but I got out of bed and searched the chamber and adjacent entry, and, finding nothing, concluded that the touch was a fancied one. My wife, however, has never varied in her belief that the incident was supernatural and connected with the apparition of old Dr. Harris, who used to show himself to me daily in the reading-room of the Boston Athenaeum. I am still incredulous both as to the doctor's identity and as to the reality of the mysterious touch. That same ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... of delight When first she gleam'd upon my sight; A lovely apparition, sent To be a moment's ornament; Her eyes as stars of twilight fair; Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair; But all things else about her drawn From May-time and the cheerful dawn; A dancing shape, an image gay, To haunt, ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... are unhappy, that dare I call happiness; whatsoever {118} conduceth unto this may with an easy Metaphor deserve that name; whatsoever else the World terms Happiness, is to me a story out of Pliny, a tale of Boccace or Malizspini, an apparition, or neat delusion, wherein there is no more of Happiness than the name. Bless me in this life with but peace of my Conscience, command of my affections, the love of Thyself and my dearest friends, and I shall be happy ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... and ambitious hope. They confederated for their mutual defence; and the robbers of the Alps, who had been allured by the garb of a pilgrim, were often chastised by the arm of a warrior. In one of these pious visits to the cavern of Mount Garganus in Apulia, which had been sanctified by the apparition of the archangel Michael, [18] they were accosted by a stranger in the Greek habit, but who soon revealed himself as a rebel, a fugitive, and a mortal foe of the Greek empire. His name was Melo; a noble citizen ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... Tony said quietly, and Lucy looked up at the charming, gracious apparition so dominant, with her beautifully friendly manner. Her eyes looked as if she could never find the bottom, as if tears were just going to well up and ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco
... down the corridor which opened into the wide entrance-hall. Groups of girls were standing about. They stared as the wild-looking apparition rushed past them: Prissie was blind to their puzzled and curious glances. She wanted to see Miss Heath. She had a queer kind of instinct, rather than any distinct impression, that in Miss Heath's presence she would be protected, that Miss Heath would know what to say, would know how to dispel ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... This apparition was too much for Gania. Vain and ambitious almost to morbidness, he had had much to put up with in the last two months, and was seeking feverishly for some means of enabling himself to lead a more presentable kind of existence. At home, he now adopted an attitude of absolute cynicism, ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... reject as incredible if we had never heard it before, consequently there exists a widespread tendency among liberal Christians to try to account for primitive Christian belief in the resurrection of our Lord in some other way. Thus we have the hallucination theory, the apparition theory, the swoon theory, and others of a similar character. I should suppose that most thinkers who take the point of view of the New Theology would hold one or other of these explanations or some modification of them, but I confess I have never been able to do so. It seems to me that ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... almost sitting down because of the enthusiasm he had put into his effort. Johnny side-stepped and ducked, and as he straightened up to ask for whys and wherefores, Red's eyes opened wide and he paused in his further intentions to stare at the apparition. ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... two months in Paris, where S. G. Goodrich met him. "A slender form, with a black coat, black small-clothes, black silk stockings, moving back and forth, with its hands behind it, and evidently in a state of meditation. It was a curious, quaint, Connecticut-looking apparition, strangely in contrast to the prevailing forms and aspects in this gay metropolis. I said to myself, 'If it were possible, I should say that was Noah Webster!' I went up to him and found ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... man of him would be to limit the manifold and confused impression which possessed him. There was in his impression much more and much less. The gibbet, a mighty trouble in the rudiment of comprehension, nascent in his mind, still seemed to him an apparition; but a trouble overcome is strength gained, and he felt himself stronger. Had he been of an age to probe self, he would have detected within him a thousand other germs of meditation; but the reflection of children is shapeless, and the utmost they feel is the bitter aftertaste of that ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... with the gassly white forehead and hair, finding himself in the presence of grown people who were white all over, turned in his tracks and followed Mrs. Williams's cat to the great outdoors. Duke preceded Verman. Mrs. Cullen vanished. Of the apparition, only wreckage and a rightfully ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... examination of the question, it will be perceived that sensation, taken as an object of cognition, becomes confused with the properties of physical nature, and is identified with them, both by its mode of apparition and by its content. By its mode of apparition, sensation holds itself out as independent of us, for it is at every instant an unexpected revelation, a source of fresh cognitions, and it offers a development which takes place without and in spite of our will; while its ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet
... circumstances calculated to awaken apprehension and to puzzle the understanding. Notwithstanding the accepted theory, that the very pretence of witchcraft, for example, was exploded a hundred and fifty years ago, and the idea of an apparition, in spite of Dr. Johnson's belief, and that of others as wise and stout as he, would be scouted as preposterous in cultivated circles, I believe that there are many places in New England where undoubting faith in both superstitions still prevails, and I know that within a third part of the period ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... been tolerably composed until the name of Villefort had been pronounced; but then she became pale, and, rising, as if touched by a spring, she stretched out her hands as though conjuring an apparition; she then took two or three steps towards her husband, as though to tear the secret from him, of which he was ignorant, or which he withheld from some odious calculation,—odious, as all his calculations were. "M. de ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... luxury or ornament in the apartment. I believe I made my observations on all these things aloud, concluding with, "Oh, Bessie! Bessie! you shall not stay here." I know that I was startled enough by the apparition of a man standing in the open closet door. He must have been within it at my entrance, and had heard ...
— On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell
... winked for the last ten minutes. The child looked so comical, that Marion, reading perhaps in her looks the reflex of her own position, could not help laughing. Roger started up in dismay, but, beholding the apparition, laughed also. ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... his reflected the stars in their depths, the gently-parted mouth was like a vivid red rosebud in the dusk. To Wade she seemed the very Spirit of Twilight, white and slim and ethereal, and so suddenly had the apparition sprung into his vision that he was startled and bewildered. For a long moment their looks ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... along in the blackness, with eyes and ears on the strain, and both little shoulders humped against the expected apparition of Tom—or worse, she would become aware of the footsteps ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... fancied, in her excitement, that away in the farther corner of the ruined courtyard she saw a slowly moving form like a thin column of mist. Was it the Lady of Glencardine—the apparition of the hapless Lady Jane Glencardine? But on closer inspection she decided that it was merely due to her own distorted imagination, and dismissed ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... men, though some again will have them to pretend good, and victory to that side they come towards in sea fights, St. Elmo's fires they commonly call them, and they do likely appear after a sea storm; Radzivilius, the Polonian duke, calls this apparition, Sancti Germani sidus; and saith moreover that he saw the same after in a storm, as he was sailing, 1582, from Alexandria to Rhodes. [1178]Our stories are full of such apparitions in all kinds. Some think they keep their ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... miraculous operation of Posthumous Rumor and Wonder; and Whether there was any "miracle of heroism," or other miracle at all, and not rather a poor nocturnal accident,—poor sentry in the edge of the wood, shrieking out, on apparition of the stealthy English, "Ho, Auvergne, help!" probably firing withal; and getting killed in consequence? NON NOSTRUM EST.] It is certain, Auvergne gave fire; awoke Castries bodily; and saved him from what was otherwise inevitable. Surprise now there was none farther; but a complex ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... it! If an apparition of the battle-line in eruption were to form over London, over Paris, over Berlin, a sinister mirage, near, unfading, and admonitory, with spectral figures moving in its reflected fires and its gloom, and the echoes of their ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... that a miser with a comic but sound-hearted clerk, after an altercation with some well-fed representatives of "the most distrissful" tenantry that ever yet were seen, makes the acquaintance of "an apparition," and dreams that he is the tenant of his own jewel-casket. In his sleep he is present at a ballet replete with silver and gold and precious stones, to say nothing of shapely limbs and pretty faces, and makes great friends with the "apparition," who shows ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, January 25th, 1890 • Various
... more than dreaming, and even quite different. There appeared at his right side a father of the Society, holding in his hand a rosary of our Lady: upon his head he bore a diadem of golden brightness and a halo of the same splendor encompassed his breast. The apparition, calling him by name in affectionate terms, said to him: 'Turn this way, my son, to the right side, which is that of the elect, and count these beads. Thou wert to die of this sickness; but, because thou art a Christian, our Lord has been pleased to give thee life and health; but it is only that ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... seem to be subject to the action of gravity; so that some rise and others fall. Baudelaire, speaking of the prelude to Lohengrin, remarks: 'I felt myself delivered from the bonds of weight.' And when Wagner sought to represent, in the highest regions of celestial space, the apparition of the angels bearing the Holy Grail to earth, he uses very high notes, and a kind of chorus played exclusively by the violins, divided into eight parts, in the highest notes of their register. The descent to earth of the celestial choir is rendered by lower and lower notes, the progressive ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... they had passed some distance beyond the spot where Drysdale had seen the apparition, and he began to recover his strength somewhat. It was evident that he was still very much distressed, but he endeavored to pass ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... tottering old steed with a will. In the streets of the little town Robert saw several acquaintances who stopped and stared at the apparition. Were the houses, the people real, or was it all a hallucination—his flight and his return, so unthought of yesterday, so easy and ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... took Mrs. Mowgelewsky for its own. She staggered back into a chair, fortunately of heavy architecture, and stared at the apparition before her. Izzie came daintily in, sniffed at Morris, sniffed at Miss Bailey, sniffed at Mrs. Mowgelewsky's ample skirts, identified her as the owner of the pocket-book, laid it at her feet, and extended ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... turns the key in the lock, with many efforts, but it is done. Fanfar enters, and in the pale morning light is confronted by this horrible apparition. He contemplates ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... apparition that confronted him, Luke Darrington bowed low, surveyed her intently, then pointed to ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... speed the shining apparition came on, and after a few seconds—that seemed endless—its soft, slow note of assent floated over the waters. Crossing the star's slender path on a long oblique, the wonder came, came on, came close, glittered by, and was gone; now lowland and flood lay again in mystic shadows, and the heavenly ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... shape of the great liner was getting bigger and bigger. Her decks were black, with people staring up at this strange apparition which was dropping upon them from the clouds. Another minute and the Astronef had dropped to within five hundred feet of the water, and about half a mile astern of the Deutschland. Redgrave turned the wheel back two or three inches ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... still abashed and confused. He did not quite understand how to take this strange experience—too simple for a heavenly apparition, too real for a common dream. "Well, then," said he, "if you are a shepherdess, why are you here? There ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... bellow, and the Irishman started back in terror as he surveyed at close quarters, for the first time, the colossal and horrible countenance of this elephant of the northern sea. O'Riley was no coward, but the suddenness of the apparition was too much for him, and we need not wonder that in his haste he darted the harpoon far over the animal's head into the sea beyond. Neither need we feel surprised that when Fred took aim at its forehead, ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... absence must have seemed to them a positive thing. Probably every one at the table was thinking of her at that moment. And the result of this combined thought was producing a hallucination of Brenda in my mind, strong enough to hypnotise me. In any case, her apparition stood at the end of every avenue of conversation I could devise. I could think of no opening that did not lead straight up to the subject of ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... seemingly bowed in his arms. A man of such huge proportions, that Martin, but two inches less than six feet, himself, felt like a pigmy in comparison. The man's outline was vague and enhanced by the gloom; Martin, a-tingle with the unexpected collision, had the first thought it was a preposterous apparition. ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... that at all the street corners there they are selling a little pamphlet for a sou entitled "Le seul moyen de ne pas mourir le 13 Juin a 1'apparition de la Comete." ["The only means how not to die on the 13th of June at the appearance of the comet."] The only means is to drown oneself on the 12th of June. Much of the good advice which is given to me by the ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... driver as the fly stopped and gazed hard at the apparition that descended. Then he caught his breath as the girl, approaching her uncle, kissed him affectionately. Mr. Wragg, looking up fiercely at Mr. Gale, was surprised at the expression on ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... so unexpected, and so quickly passed, that now it seemed never to have been at all! But Helwyse had yielded himself unreservedly to the influence of the moment. Following so aptly the fanciful creation of his thought, the apparition had acquired peculiar significance. The abrupt disappearance afflicted him like ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... met with an accident in the barn at the back of the house, and died. Though I did not then associate his death with the apparition of the cat, the latter shocked me much, for I was extremely fond of animals. I did not dare venture in the wing again for nearly ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... to the open hatch, slender and topped with tawny curls. It paused and shrank back at the sudden apparition of Parr and his men leaping forward. Tentacles swarmed out, trying to push or pull the figure aside so as to close the hatch again. That took more seconds—then Parr had crossed the intervening space. Without even looking at the newcoming exile who had so providentially forestalled the closing ...
— The Devil's Asteroid • Manly Wade Wellman
... Tom Donahue was greatly excited, and when Wharton left he begged him to remember his promise, and also elicited from him a description of the exact spot at which he had seen the apparition, as well as the hour at which it appeared. After his departure, which must have been about four in the morning, I turned into my bunk and watched Tom sitting by the fire splicing two sticks together, until I fell asleep. ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... alarm, for we were close upon an Indian camp set on the edge of a low hill on the opposite side of the creek. Our outfit presented rather a formidable appearance, especially as we were an unexpected apparition, and we could see them all running to hide, though I thought for a moment we might have a battle. Without a halt, Prof. led the way across the creek to the foot of the hill, and as we reached the place one poor old man left as a sacrifice came tottering down, so overcome by fear that ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... persuasions, with rich gifts and the promise of a tribute, availed. The army of Attila was weakened by sickness, and Aetius was approaching. The king of the Huns decided to retire to his forests. The apparition of the two apostles, Peter and Paul, threatening the barbarian with instant death if he did not comply with the prayer of their successor, is the subject of one of the paintings of Raphael. Some months ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... was reversed with them, for they had enjoyed their farce, and had laughed over it heartily—and now there was danger of its ending in a tragedy. When their preparations were nearly complete for a sudden and inexplicable disappearance, our astrologers were horrified by the apparition, in the day time, of stars they had never consulted—stars of this gross, lower world—stars which, in case of resistance, become shooting stars, and which revolve, in very eccentric orbits, around the central police station. What these portended, it needed no wisdom of Chaldean sage ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... ran through his nerves. He had been so deep in contemplation, his mind had been drawn away so far from the modern world, that this apparition of a woman, doubtless like himself a tourist, gave him one of the most unpleasant shocks he had ever endured. And in a moment he felt as if his sudden appearance had given an equally disagreeable shock to the woman. Looking in the darkness unnaturally tall, ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... friend's thin and emaciated hand; and, the last farewell spoken to the fanatic departing for some tragical adventure, the Hungarian became more sombre and troubled than before, and Labanoff's appearance seemed like a doubtful apparition. He returned to his longing to see the end of the most anxious day of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... a wrongful ghost at all," the apparition continued, "it would be much pleasanter to be the ghost of some man other than John Hinckman. There is in him an irascibility of temper, accompanied by a facility of invective, which is seldom met with. And what would happen if he were to see me, and find out, as I am ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... answered, almost like an echo, the sound of the shutting gate, and, sudden as an apparition, the form of an immense dog loomed in the doorway. At the instant when he was about to spring, a light hand was laid upon his shaggy neck, and ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... not asleep. The sudden apparition of his youngest sister considerably startled him, and he sat up in his ragged night-shirt and stared at her where ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... eighty-one. But the Confederates counted it a dear victory in the loss of the intrepid but silent Stonewall Jackson. There was a magic in his name that gave enthusiasm and confidence to the whole army. To the enemy his name was a terror and himself an apparition. He had frightened and beaten Banks out of the Shennandoah Valley, had routed Fremont, and so entangled and out-generaled Seigle that he was glad to put the Potomac between himself and this silent, mysterious, and indefatigable chieftain, who oftened prayed before battle and fought ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... however, of the Romas could hardly have been invented by themselves, as they were, and still are, utterly unacquainted with the Scripture; it probably originated amongst the priests and learned men of the east of Europe, who, startled by the sudden apparition of bands of people foreign in appearance and language, skilled in divination and the occult arts, endeavoured to find in Scripture a clue to such a phenomenon; the result of which was, that the Romas of Hindustan were suddenly transformed into Egyptian penitents, a title which they have ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... The apparition of a file of soldiers ringing down the but-ends of their loaded muskets on our door-step, caused the dinner-party to rise from table in confusion, and caused Mrs. Joe re-entering the kitchen empty-handed, to stop short and stare, in her wondering lament of "Gracious ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... way it came. Lights out!... The next night at the same hour the programme was repeated before a new sentry, also a grenadier: the former one had probably reported himself sick. On the second night the apparition cast down a handful of silver coin. The grenadier left them all lying on the ground—this is the only part of the story that strikes me as weak. On the third night, the military being represented as before, the tall figure reappeared with commendable punctuality. On this occasion the management ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... Arcadians had effected their object and were united with the Mantineans. The next incident was the sudden apparition at break of day, as Agesilaus was sacrificing in front of the camp, of a body of troops. These proved to be the light infantry from Orchomenus, who in company with the Phliasian cavalry had during the night made their way across past the town ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... the death bed of O-Mai the Cruel. His knees shook, but he gathered all his moral forces, and gripping his sword more tightly in his trembling fingers prepared to leap across the chamber upon the horrid apparition. He hesitated just a moment. He felt eyes upon him—ghoulish eyes that bored through the darkness into his withering heart—eyes that he could not see. He gathered himself for the rush—and then there broke from the thing upon ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... in the woods no longer. No matter if her arms and her back did ache she must hurry back to tell Madge of the apparition she had seen. ...
— Madge Morton's Secret • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... flowing white, smeared with blood and armed with an axe. The sheet was worn over Jones's head—a long, narrow slit serving him to see through, and two other slits freeing his arms. The captain was a brave man, but the apparition, gleaming in the almost complete darkness, had been on him before he could do more than throw up ...
— The After House • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... arrival, watched the moment of Constantine's return from an adjacent villa, and boldly encountered his angry sovereign as he passed on horseback through the principal street of Constantinople. So strange an apparition excited his surprise and indignation; and the guards were ordered to remove the importunate suitor; but his resentment was subdued by involuntary respect; and the haughty spirit of the emperor was awed by the courage and eloquence of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... makes Hamlet what he is has been too rudely handled: the machine, too delicate for the rough work of every-day life, breaks down, under the strain. The horror of the time—beginning with Horatio's story of the apparition, and growing more fearful with every moment of reflection, until Hamlet longs for the coming of the dread hour—reaches a point beyond which human nature has no power to endure. If he could share his burden with his friend Horatio,—but Marcellus thrusts ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... carriage, a hack, with girls in white muslin frocks in it, the driver lounging on the box and two miserable horses dozing in the harness. I suppose it would be quite impossible to make a reader understand how incongruous this apparition seemed to us. It was in use, no doubt, carrying refugees from Caney back into the city and its presence was easily accounted for. But Mr. Kipling's phantom rickshaw could hardly have ...
— The Surrender of Santiago - An Account of the Historic Surrender of Santiago to General - Shafter, July 17, 1898 • Frank Norris
... the sounds we heard, high jinks were going on with some children. At the sound of a tap on the door there was an instant hush, and then a girl of nineteen, who had a baby in her arms, asked us to come in. We looked up in amazement; the girl's face appeared like an apparition—so fair, so beautiful, so like some face we had seen elsewhere, that we were confused and puzzled. In a moment the mystery was solved; we had seen that face before in several of the choicest canvases that have hung in recent years ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... doom! In despair, and in a terror which beat down even pride, he glanced his eye over the rolling and rushing crowd; when, right above them, through the wide chasm which had been left in the velaria, he beheld a strange and awful apparition; he beheld, and his craft restored ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... strange look in her blue eyes, had a dreamlike feeling, almost as though he had met a dryad or an Undine between two of the prosaic, substantial doors of Ipswich House. And as in a dream the most extraordinary things seem familiar and expected, so the apparition of the Undine and her confidence in him seemed familiar, in fact just what he had been expecting during those hours of fog off the Goodwins, when the sirens, wild voices gathering up from all the seas of the world, had been screaming to each other across the hidden ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... in your opinion. If my servant had not been with me, and my dream had been a little less improbable, it would have been difficult to have persuaded me that I had not been visited by an apparition. ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... She. After a day spent amongst precedents and practice, after six hours at least of trying to discover what chance A had of standing on his rights, or B had of preventing him, it was difficult to feel otherwise about that calm apparition—like a golden slim tree walking. One of them, asked by her the way to Miltoun's staircase, preceded her with shy ceremony, and when she had vanished up those dusty stairs, lingered on, hoping that she might find her visitee out, and be obliged to return and ask him the way back. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... and do you some mischief. Then take that instrument used in winnowing the corn, which, in our country-dialect, we call a wecht; and go thro' all the attitudes of letting down corn against the wind. Repeat it three times; and the third time, an apparition will pass thro' the barn, in at the windy door, and out at the other, having both the figure in question and the appearance or retinue, marking the employment ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... three or four days after the occurrence, we were sitting together in the room in which I had seen the apparition—I occupying the same seat at the same window, and he lounging on a sofa near at hand. The association of the place and time impelled me to give him an account of the phenomenon. He heard me to the end—at first laughed heartily—and ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... keen, hot sun-arrows. There was a great oak-tree too, which partly shaded this favored haycock, and on one of its branches a squirrel came running out, and then sat up and looked at Hildegarde with bright, inquisitive eyes. A maiden, all brown and gold, on a golden haycock! What strange apparition was this? Had she come for acorns? Did she know about the four young ones in the snug little house in the hollow just above the first branch! Perhaps—dreadful thought!—she had heard of the marvellous beauty of the four ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... his knees crouches a dwarfish spectre, his father Alberic, still full of his old grievances against Wotan, and urging his son in his dreams to win back the ring for him. This Hagen swears to do; and as the apparition of his father vanishes, the sun rises and Siegfried suddenly comes from the river bank tucking into his belt the Tarnhelm, which has transported him from the mountain like the enchanted carpet of the Arabian tales. ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... land, a rocky coast that shot behind them as great jagged mountains, tipped with snow, rose beneath. Suddenly, a shining apparition appeared from behind one of the neighboring hills, and drove down at them with an unearthly acceleration. Arcot moved just enough to dodge the blow, and turned to meet the ship. Instantly, now that he had a good view of it he was certain it was a Thessian ship. Waiting no longer to determine ...
— Invaders from the Infinite • John Wood Campbell
... fountain, on the margin whereof they found the saint sitting with other holy men; and regarding his countenance and garb, they were struck with wonder, and enquired of his birth and his residence, taking him for an apparition. But the saint admonished them rather to believe in his God than to enquire of his descent or his dwelling-place. Then the damsels, desiring to know more assuredly of God, earnestly questioned about His power, and His riches, and His ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... evidence compels me to accept it," I replied. "There appears to be no motive for fraud; one could, of course, invent theories to account for the apparition, but I am forced to believe, nevertheless, that two highly trustworthy men did actually imagine that they saw the organist's ghost. Whether they actually did so or not ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... the rainbow nature appear. Nature, in short, is not God; neither is it man; but it is the inevitable concomitant or expression of the creative attitude of God towards man. It is the shadow of the elements of which humanity or human nature is composed: or, shall we say, it is the apparition in sense of the spiritual being of mankind,—not, be it observed, of the being of any individual or of any aggregation of individuals; but of humanity as a whole. For this reason, also, is nature orderly, complete, and permanent,—that ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... falling. Rand looked at the distant mountains, but the eye of his mind travelled farther yet and saw all the country beyond, all the land of the To Be, all the giant valley of the Mississippi, all the rolling, endless plains, all Mexico with snowy peaks and mines of gold. The apparition did not come dazzlingly. He was no visionary. He weighed and measured and reckoned carefully with his host. But there, beyond the mountains, lay no small part of the habitable world,—and the race of conquerors had not died with Alexander ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... comment upon this remarkable apparition, Mammy set before him the "snack" she had prepared of smoking ash-cake and fresh butter, on her best china plate—the one with the gilt band—and placed at his right hand a goblet and a stone pitcher of cool butter-milk. A luncheon, indeed, fit to be set ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... done well, brave knight," answered my excellent godfather, "for though, doubtless, spirits can and do appear, yet is there always great danger to body and soul in practising these conjurations; and no one can say with security whether such apparition be angel or devil; because St. Paul says (2 Cor. xi. 14), that 'Satan often changes himself into an angel of light;' and respecting the ghost of your mother, in my opinion, it was a devil sent to tempt your dear little daughter; for ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... Ghost Story usually has a definite plot, in which the ghost is an actor. The ghost may be a "really truly" apparition, manifesting itself by the conventional methods, and remaining unexplained to the end, as in Irving's "The Spectre Bridegroom," and Kipling's "The Phantom 'Rickshaw;" or it may prove to be the result of a superstitious mind dwelling upon perfectly ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett |
