"Preternaturally" Quotes from Famous Books
... moment," said Vince, looking preternaturally serious; "let's be certain who it was. Let me see: there was Paul Jones, and Blackbeard, and the Buccaneers. What do you say to its ... — Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... expectation of incredulity seals our conviction of the truth of his story. In The Manuscript Found in a Bottle, too, we may trace the first suggestion of that idea which finds its most complete and memorable expression in Ligeia (1837). The antique ship, with its preternaturally aged crew "doomed to hover continually upon the brink of eternity, without taking a final plunge into the abyss," is an early foreshadowing of the fulfilment of Joseph Glanvill's declaration so strikingly illustrated ... — The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... an engine of destruction such as Lancelot had never dreamed of. It was admittedly too high-powered for England; you were across the county in about a minute. And then he had departed in a kind of thunderstorm of his own making. Lancelot, preternaturally moved, said to his mother, "I say, Mamma, what a man—eh?" She, lightly, "Yes, isn't he wonderful?" and Lancelot, with a snort: "A man? Ten rather small men—easily." And James, poor James, saw nothing kissable ... — Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... as was probably the case with the stalwart and quarrelsome people who sprouted up out of the soil, after Cadmus had sown the dragon's teeth. And yet, though the individual Englishman is sometimes preternaturally disagreeable, an observer standing aloof has a sense of natural kindness towards them in the lump. They adhere closer to the original simplicity in which mankind was created than we ourselves do; they love, quarrel, laugh, cry, and turn their actual ... — Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... time for one—a' excellent time," said Joseph Poorgrass, straightening his back; for he, like some of the others, had a way of resting a while from his labour on such hot days for reasons preternaturally small; of which Cain Ball's advent on a week-day in his Sunday-clothes was one of the first magnitude. "Twas a bad leg allowed me to read the Pilgrim's Progress, and Mark Clark learnt ... — Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... who had been a friend of Sir Charles Abingdon, shook his head slowly. He was a tall, preternaturally thin Scotsman, clean-shaven, with shaggy dark brows and a most gloomy expression in his deep-set eyes. While the presence of his sepulchral figure seemed appropriate enough in that stricken house, Harley could not help thinking that it must ... — Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... little horses, and the marvellous brown driver, who seemed to be always going to perdition, but made the horses do apparently impossible things with absolute certainty; and the pretty tiny boy who came to help his uncle, and was so clever, and so preternaturally quiet, and so very small: then the road through the mountain passes, seven or eight feet wide, with a precipice above and below, up which the little horses scrambled; while big lizards, with green heads and chocolate bodies, looked pertly ... — Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... breathless thoughts, for he was conscious of wondering afterwards why the clerk was leading him through a door in the counter into an inner room of many desks, and again through a glass door into a smaller office, where a preternaturally busy-looking man sat writing at a desk. Without looking up, but pausing only to apply a blotting-pad to the paper before ... — A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... in order to do justice to a microbe; it is not necessary to cease to be a man in order to do justice to men. That same suppression of sympathies, that same waving away of intuitions or guess-work which make a man preternaturally clever in dealing with the stomach of a spider, will make him preternaturally stupid in dealing with the heart of man. He is making himself inhuman in order to understand humanity. An ignorance of the ... — Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... her hands towards a table on which her resurrected treasures were spread out to view, and Peggy dropped her chin with a preternaturally solemn expression, to avoid bursting into laughter. It was such a melancholy-looking bundle, and Mrs Asplin looked so proud of it, and it was so deliciously like the old vicarage way, to endeavour to make everything out of something ... — More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... repeated he, fiercely. It was impossible to resist; and Abel and Gabriel moved slowly toward the door. The former was furious at finding himself doomed in company with Gabriel. But he betrayed nothing. He was preternaturally calm. Hope, dismayed and pale, stood looking on, but saying nothing. Gabriel went quietly out of the room. Abel turned to the door, and bowed ... — Trumps • George William Curtis
... come to the ass, the boy enfolded in his arms the creature's fuzzy head and gently stroked its preternaturally long ears. And the ass, for its part, responded to the caress by rubbing its head against the boy's breast and by most energetically twitching its scrag of a tail. Thus for a little time these friends ... — The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... with wrath and shame. Were there any more disgraceful scenes in her past that Susan could rake up? As for Ken, he could have howled over Susan's speeches, but he would not so insult the duenna of his lady, so he sat with a preternaturally solemn face which seemed to poor Rilla ... — Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the dark area archway! His sight blurred for the moment, so increasing the blackness of impending horror; then, under the influence of this last applied stimulus, his sight grew preternaturally keen. He discerned one moving form—two—three; to his over-strained nerves there seemed a whole posse behind them. Oh, the Eyes, the Eyes that were so constantly on him! Could he never rid himself of them! He bent his ... — Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... became preternaturally alert, so that when, rounding a corner, he perceived entering the main road from a side-street in front of him a small knot of pedestrians, he did not waver, but was seized with a keen spasm of ... — The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... reposing under palm-trees or standing on green slopes which glow in the sunshine. The distances and perspective are admirable. In the middle ground is a crystal fountain of glass, near which sheep, preternaturally white, and made of real wool and cotton-wool, are feeding, tended by figures of shepherds carved in wood. Still nearer come women bearing great baskets of real oranges and other fruits on their heads. ... — Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... beheld an extraordinary sight! It was Rutli, swaying from side to side, but steadily carrying with outstretched arms two of the squatter party, his hands tightly grasping their collars. Yet I believe his touch was as gentle as with the violets. His face was preternaturally grave; theirs, to my intense astonishment, while they hung passive from his arms, wore that fatuous, imbecile smile seen on the faces of those who lend themselves to tricks of acrobats and strong men in the arena. He slowly traversed ... — Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... she took a motherly interest in their affairs; and a melancholy old Frenchman blessed her with the enthusiasm of his nation, because she put a posy in the button-hole of his rusty coat, and never failed to smile and bow as he passed by. Yet Debby was no Edgeworth heroine, preternaturally prudent, wise, and untemptable; she had a fine crop of piques, vanities, and dislikes growing up under this new style of cultivation. She loved admiration, enjoyed her purple and fine linen, hid new-born envy, disappointed hope, and wounded pride behind a smiling face, and often ... — Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... the populace clamored for Palus, booed and cat- called if Palus did not appear in the arena; cheered him to the echo when he did appear; yelled with delight and appreciation at each exhibition of his prophetic intuition as to what his adversary was about to do, of his preternaturally perfect judgment as to what to do himself, of the instantaneous execution of whatever movement he purposed, of its complete success; and applauded him while he went off as no other gladiator ever was applauded. It was the popular demand for him which made possible ... — Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... respect, and, however angry passions might rise, however turbulent the scene, he would never address it looking upon it with the naked eye. As his eye-glass was constantly tumbling out, and as search for it was preternaturally deliberate, it played an appreciable part in ... — The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... on her lips in sudden fright. They were standing on the level plateau in front of the cave, well removed from the trees, and they could see distinctly on all sides, for the sun was sinking in a cloudless sky and the air was preternaturally clear, being free now from the tremulous ... — The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... was feeling very shaky indeed; but the result was that I simply fell full length in the bath-tub just as you found me. I was unable to move anything except my fingers and toes. I did not appear to be hurt in the least, and my senses, instead of being dulled by the shock, seemed to be preternaturally sharp, and I realized in a moment that if this inability to move remained with me for five minutes I was a dead man—dead, not from the shock, but by drowning. I gazed up through that clear green water, and I could see the ripples on the surface slowly subsiding after my ... — In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... the Roman intellect it is but justice that we should turn away to contemplate those situations in which that same intellect showed itself preternaturally strong. To face a sudden danger by a corresponding weight of sudden counsel or sudden evasion—that was a privilege essentially lodged in the Roman mind. But in every nation some minds much more than others are representative of the national ... — Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... sat there, drenched by the salt sea-spray, and knew it not. I was called the little bookworm, the prodigy, the dream-girl, a name you have inherited, my darling Gabriella; and my father seemed proud of the reputation I had established. But while my imagination was preternaturally developed, my heart was slumbering, and my soul unconscious of life's ... — Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... was not lacking in their aspect, so strangely similar in all, whether they were men or women, or whether they stood in groups in the street or came out singly on the doorstep to glance about and listen, though there seemed to be nothing to listen to, for the air was preternaturally still. ... — The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... stillness. Was I growing deaf? I snapped my fingers to reassure myself, and the sound startled me like the crack of a pistol. Evidently my sense of hearing had become abnormally acute. My mind, too, was preternaturally clear, and the solitude became so irksome that I rose from my seat, and looked out of the scuttles to relieve the tension of ... — A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... have laughed if her friend had not been in such real distress. As for Aurora, she did not know whether she would have laughed or cried if she had not felt that her girl's dignity was at stake. As it was, she grew preternaturally calm. ... — Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... Seven preternaturally long faces at this point started up like the Seven-sleepers. The Consistorial Councillor, a man still young but celebrated throughout all Germany for his oral and printed sermons, considered himself the one most insulted by such taunts. From the Alsatian Flitte there escaped an oath accompanied ... — The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... may recur to the question with which we set out;—whether persons in somnambulism are partially awake, or in a state of unusually and preternaturally profound sleep? The phenomena we have above referred to—particularly those connected with the insensibility of the body and the organs of the senses—lead us to believe, that in somnambulism there is an increased intensity ... — Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... under tremendous excitement, and all its faculties, especially the imagination, were preternaturally active, vivid, and rapid-working. Such was my mental excitement and bodily irritation that for ten days and nights I slept hardly at all, nor enjoyed one moment's release from pain. That I was thoroughly in earnest in what I had undertaken ... — The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... place those who had it in a false and unsatisfactory state with regard to the world in which they lived. To see this we have only to picture to ourselves the condition of a man living in a savage, or only partially civilized state of society, with his mind preternaturally expanded to that of a Newton, and put into possession of the knowledge which he had on some of those subjects which the Bible touches on. How entirely out of harmony would he be with his fellow-men, and everything around him! and, how unable would he be even to pursue ... — Thoughts on a Revelation • Samuel John Jerram
... shock. She was so small and sallow and insignificant, and her short curly hair was parted on one side like a boy, and cropped quite closely behind. The baby was small and brown too, a tiny edition of herself, and they both had dark eyes that looked preternaturally solemn; Babs, indeed, wore an injured expression, and a puckered look of anguish spoke of the pangs of hunger ... — Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... by a demon. His ravings, his narratives, were eagerly credited; and they were usually full of infernal visions, diabolical interviews, encounters with apparitions, and every thing that would naturally arise in a deranged and preternaturally sensitive mind from the chief conceptions then current concerning ... — The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... only a serene expanse of placid politeness. I knew just where the radiance, awakened by the luscious, swelling, crimson globes, faded into doubt, settled into certainty, glared into perplexity, fired into rage. I saw the grimace, suppressed as soon as begun, but not less patent to my preternaturally keen eyes. No one deceived me by being suddenly seized with admiration of a view. I knew it was only to relieve his nerves by ... — Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... Australia to Ireland just to serve as a travelling relief-fund—he is made to fall in love with one of the Adair girls. And that's almost the whole story. One may always trust Mrs. HINKSON to get her atmosphere right; but she is not so happy in her attempt to contrast the preternaturally unselfish Darling who, like an earlier Mr. Darling, would have been content to live in a kennel) with the inordinately self-indulgent father of ... — Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 25, 1919 • Various
... indifferent remark to Herr Brinks, who sat next to me, I saw Courvoisier step forward. Was he, could he be going to speak to me? I should have deserved it, I knew, but I felt as if I should die under the ordeal. I sat preternaturally still, and watched, as if mesmerized, the approach of the musician. He spoke again to the young man whom I had seen before, and they both laughed. Perhaps he had confided the whole story to him, and was telling him to observe what he ... — The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... harvest, Mr. Esvido, with a cautious respect for the American's preternaturally, acute perception concerning tobacco, refrained from smoking, and found solace in listening with Delpha to Mrs. Esvido's evening readings from the Biblia Sagrada. It seemed marvelous to Mr. Esvido that his wife could read. The ... — Out of the Triangle • Mary E. Bamford
... issue of the combat being that the Valiant Soldier was slain by a preternaturally inadequate thrust from Eustacia, Jim, in his ardour for genuine histrionic art, coming down like a log upon the stone floor with force enough to dislocate his shoulder. Then, after more words from the Turkish ... — The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... Waiting is the only safe thing. Alessandro said, to wait here. He will come." The word "Alessandro" was plain. Yes, Alessandro had said, wait; Carmena was right. She would obey, but it was a fearful ordeal. It was strange how Ramona, who felt herself preternaturally brave, afraid of nothing, so long as Alessandro was by her side, became timorous and wretched the instant he was lost to her sight. When she first heard his steps coming, she quivered with terror lest they might not be his. The next ... — Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... spoke to me, as we went up the steps; but to what I assented I do not know. I listened to the low tones in front of me. I have always possessed a preternaturally quick ear; but I confess I might have used it to better purpose ... — The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... been dozing. I am very weak, and oh! so miserable, so miserable and tired—tired. The rustle of the paper, tries my brain. My hearing seems preternaturally sharp. I will sit awhile ... — The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... she could have told him this, but a glance would have been wasted on him: so she kept her triumph to herself. She looked at the bullet-headed young juror, at the benignant old juror, at the fat-faced and dropsical juror, at the preternaturally-solemn negro juror, at the lantern-jawed foreman with the black moustache; she was on a perfectly good understanding with them, and knew what to say to each one of them. She felt that she could have afforded to be a little less brief. ... — Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... only that I could not go to sleep, but that I could not even close my eyes. I was wide awake, and in a high fever. Every nerve in my body trembled—every one of my senses seemed to be preternaturally sharpened. I tossed and rolled, and tried every kind of position, and perseveringly sought out the cold corners of the bed, and all to no purpose. Now I thrust my arms over the clothes; now I poked them under ... — After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... invited everywhere, and there was a grand piano, that played, I was sure, nothing more exciting than lullabies. Servants— Japanese maids in native costume—drifted around and about, noiselessly, like butterflies. Everything was preternaturally cool. Here was no blazing down of a tropic sun upon an unshrinking sea. It was too good to be true. But it was not real. It was a dream- dwelling. I knew, for I turned suddenly and caught the grand piano cavorting in a spacious corner of the room. ... — The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... the first day, and the second was very like it, so that it is not necessary to describe it in detail in order to produce an impression of profound dulness in the reader's mind. Lushington's hair continued to be as preternaturally smooth as before, his beard was as glossy and his complexion as blooming and child-like, and yet the look of pain that Margaret had seen in his face was there most of the ... — Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... outside and passionately demanded his reason for fetching "sic a muckle rail like that instead o' a switch? Do ye ca' that a switch? I have a gude mind to thrash you insteed o' John." David, with demure, downcast eyes, looked preternaturally righteous, but as usual prudently answered never ... — The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... protect them from the cold, the dusky throats were exposed, and sometimes even the first hooks and eyes of the bodice were unnecessarily undone. The majority wore cheap earrings and black wigs with preternaturally polished hair; where there was no ... — Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... sound as of music first attracted his attention; and as he looked in at the window he saw the Duchess sitting at the feet of a real gipsy-queen: her head upturned—her whole being expanding—as the gipsy's hands waved over her, and the gipsy's eyes, preternaturally dilated, poured their floods of life into her own. Then the music broke up into words, and he knew what hope and promise that fainting spirit was drinking in: for he heard what the gipsy said. She was telling the young Duchess that she was one of themselves—that she bore ... — A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... leaning forward, in his sad exiled elegance, hiseyes gently bent on hers; and at his side she saw the solid form of Mr. Jackson Benn, with shoulders preternaturally squared by the cut of his tight black coat, and a tall shiny collar sustaining his baby cheeks and hard blue chin. Then the vision faded ... — Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... the room seemed to go round; yet all her senses were preternaturally acute, so that she could distinctly smell the mud of the river at low tide. She said, with ... — Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... for us to judge of these things. Perhaps if he had been maintained at the national expense to do that for which he was preternaturally fitted, he might have worn himself out prematurely; whereas by giving him routine work the scientific world got the benefit of his matured wisdom and experience. It was no small matter to the young Royal Society to be able to have him as their ... — Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... the fever." I wondered if some fiend were lurking by my side, who kept saying the words over and over in my ear. With that indescribable mixture of dulled and preternaturally sharpened sense which often marks the first moments of such distress, I walked slowly to my room, and in a short time had made all the necessary preparation for leaving home. I felt like a thief as I stole slowly ... — Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... almost as pale as Eva's own, but pale brown, the tint of rich ivory. His eyes were preternaturally bright. And they never glanced my way, but flew straight to Eva, and rested on her very humbly and sadly, as her two hands gripped the arms of the chair, and she leant ... — Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... creaky old wooden bed. She was glad to feel that, unknown to him, she was his guardian angel. She began to think about the future, and almost to forget Andy and the possible and very great peril of the present, when, shortly before the hour of one, all her senses were preternaturally excited by the sound of a footfall. It was a very soft footfall—the noise made by a bare foot. Nora heard it just where the shadow was deepest. She stood up now; she knew that, from her present position, the one who was making this dead sort of heavy sound could not possibly ... — Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... years it has been reported that he had at first a defect of speech, and to this the extraordinary momentum of his utterance was due. In the early time I never heard of this. He did not stammer, nor was there other impediment; only this preternaturally rapid outpouring on occasion, from a man usually quiet. When I heard him preach in later years the peculiarity remained. It was the Phillips Brooks of the Institute of 1770, matured, however, into ... — The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... sensibility is so disturbed that the patient is often deceived as to the space occupied by his limbs, and he supposes them to be preternaturally distended or contracted. In the case of typhus, it is not uncommon for the sick person, with deranged nervous system, to believe himself to be double in the bed, or to be severed in half, or to have lost his limbs. He may regard his members as composed of foreign and often ... — The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... moustache and glancing at his watch now and then. He seemed to be waiting for some one, but not until twenty minutes later did I suspect who it was. Then the door opened again to admit a short, heavy-set man, with florid face, stubbly black moustache, and little, close-set eyes, preternaturally bright. He glanced about the room, nodded to Goldberger, and then looked ... — The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... with his bird-like rapidity and the look of a preternaturally sage schoolboy (he had made a large fortune, quite legitimately, out of the companies of which he was a director), placed within that cold palm the tips of his still colder ... — Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... behind her. Her eyes were closed, her face a white mask of anguish; she looked as though about to swoon. Bough hailed the symptoms as favourable. Fainting was the prelude to caving in, with the women he knew. But when he stirred, her eyes were wide and preternaturally bright, and held him. ... — The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... ears had a sense of hearing that was preternaturally acute. The most distant step in the corridors was audible. Was it a reprieve? One such sound multiplied itself into the footsteps of two men walking, coming ever nearer—nearer—nearer till they stopped outside her cell door. With a clank it was opened. She sprang up. Fortunately ... — Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... he was up early, preternaturally awake. When he descended the waiters were waiting for him, and the zealous porter stood ready to offer him a Sunday paper, just as though in the night they had refreshed themselves magically, without going to bed. No sign nor relic of the Cinderella remained. He ... — Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... listened at the door. It was scarcely possible that any distant echo could reach his ears, if the household had been already roused, for the passage was long and tortuous, interrupted by other doors and by a winding staircase. But in his present state he fancied that his senses must be preternaturally sharpened and he listened eagerly. All was still. He ... — Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... preternaturally interested in magazines,—that is to say she was (at a very early age) vitally concerned with the advertising columns, and forced me to spend a great deal of time turning the pages while she discovered and admired the ... — A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... clothes were so well-worn, and her grooming was so meticulous, her accent so clean and crisp, her manner so devoid of patronage, yet subtly remote, her controlled heart so kind that she perennially fascinated the buxom, rather sloppy, preternaturally acute, and wholly unaristocratic young ladies of ... — Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... those weird forms which the terror of a nightmare is wont to bring in its train, seem to point to the past action of waking fancy. To imagine one's self flying when looking at a bird is probably a common action with all persons, at least in their earlier years, and images of preternaturally horrible beings are apt to be supplied to most of us some time during life ... — Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... put on a preternaturally solemn expression and begged the pleasure of the first dance with Mary. Mr. Stevens had already handed the old violinist the music for the dance and placed his own score in position upon the piano. The slow, fascinating strains of the one step rang out ... — Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... interest. Now and then he cocked up his speculative eyes, and gazed fixedly into the preternaturally solemn face of Byers, who reiterated, "A good ... — Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... the letter of a woman who has had more affaires than any man in London. She is preternaturally clever, my dear—Windlehurst would tell you so. The brilliant and unscrupulous, the beautiful and the bad, have a great advantage in this world. Eglington was curious, that is all. It is in the breed of the Eglingtons ... — The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... twinkle flashed over the old gentleman's rosy face; then he became solemn, preternaturally solemn. Harley caught the expression and listened intently. Mrs. Bowdoin, pouring out cream as if it were coals of fire on his head, was ... — Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... backward, from twelve times down to twice. (Hopeless, the only result being to render my mathematical powers acutely, preternaturally awake, so that I begin to estimate the magnitude ... — Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... to our evening meal, and were telling Peter all about our two great finds of the afternoon, when our guest, whose long and solitary life as a hunter had made his hearing preternaturally sharp, straightened himself in his chair, and holding up ... — The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... that he had opened the trap, had been swift and as nearly noiseless as the difficulties of the task had permitted. Nevertheless, they had not been so silent as to escape the attention of the preternaturally acute Sin Sin Wa. Kerry found the place occupied only by the aged Sam Tuk. A bright fire burned in the stove, and a ship's lantern stood upon the counter. Dense chemical fumes rendered the air difficult to breathe; but the shelves, once laden with the largest ... — Dope • Sax Rohmer
... that you would turn him out of doors, on sight, and so I tried to put in a good word for him. After this when I want you to board people, I'll ask you. I am sorry for your suffering. I suppose I have mostly lost my smell for bores; but yours is preternaturally keen. I shall begin to be afraid I bore you. (How does that ... — Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... of pale despair. Mr. Walraven looked harassed half to death. The other gentlemen, were preternaturally grave. ... — The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... poor wretch who, since uncountable time, had set eyes on none but the most miserable dregs of struggling humanity, who had seen little else but rags, and faces either cruel or wretched. This man was clad in a huge caped coat, which made his powerful figure seem preternaturally large. His hair was fair and slightly curly above his low, square brow; the eyes beneath their heavy lids looked down on her with ... — The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... Arizona, when I was ranching there, and for the next three years I saw him constantly. He had a place ten miles down the river from me. He was about four years older than I was—a tall, slim, sandy-haired, freckled fellow, preternaturally quiet; a trusty, if there ever was one. Unlike most preternaturally quiet people, however, it wasn't dulness that made him that way; he wasn't dull a bit. Stir him up on anything and you found that he had thought about it a lot. But he never told ... — The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... assert that a rightly constituted mind will rise superior to all outward circumstances; but two weeks in a Korak tent would do more to disabuse their minds of such an erroneous impression than any amount of logical argument. I do not myself profess to be preternaturally cheerful, and the dismal aspect of things when I crawled out of my fur sleeping-bag, on the morning after our arrival at the first encampment, made me feel anything but amiable. The first beams of daylight were just struggling ... — Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... mist. He would not have been surprised if she had vanished in it as suddenly as she had appeared. He stared and listened; listened for some sound, but the silence round him was absolute—as though he had in a moment grown completely deaf as well as dim-eyed. Then his hearing returned, preternaturally sharp. He heard the patter of a rain-shower on the window panes behind the lowered blinds, and below, far below, in the artificial abyss of the square, the deadened roll of wheels and the splashy trotting of a horse. He heard a groan also—very distinct—in ... — Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... owners—where we could get just the right man and team to do our fall plowing; where we could hire a yoke of oxen if needed; where, in the proper season, we could buy a cow. He introduced me to a man whose specialty was cutting brush, because he had heavy, stooped shoulders and preternaturally long, powerful arms—a sort of anthropoid specimen who wielded a keen one-handed ax that cut a sizable sapling clean through at one stroke. He produced a carpenter properly qualified for repairs on an old house, because he had always ... — Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... began to reel; she seemed not to see anything very distinctly: even the loved form took on a strange and ghostlike shape. He now looked preternaturally tall, and there was a ... — The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... accountable?" asked the stranger with such a preternaturally cold, gemmy glance out of his pellucid blue eye, that he seemed more a metaphysical merman than a feeling man; "is a ... — The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... casual observer the Auld Licht always looked as if he were returning from burying a near relative. Yet when I met him hobbling down the street, preternaturally grave and occupied, experience taught me that he was preparing for a christening. How the minister would have borne himself in the event of a member of his congregation's wanting the baptism to take place at home it is not easy to say; but I shudder to think of the ... — Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... Von Ritz became preternaturally active, masking every movement under his accustomed seeming of imperturbable calm. At last he brought his report to the King. "It signifies one thing which I had not suspected. Among the men whom I thought I could most implicitly trust, there is ... — The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... thought of the life which fate had in store for her. There must be endless misery, while there might have been joy, so ecstatic in its nature as to make it seem to her to be perennial. Then she had almost fallen, and had declared him to be preternaturally cruel. But these moments had been short, and had endured only while she had allowed herself to dream of the ecstatic joy, which she confessed to herself to be an unfit condition of life for her. And then she had told herself that Mr Whittlestaff ... — An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... with a start, and with wavering eyes looked at the saloon clock. I had slept for one hour only, but it appeared to me that I was quite refreshed. My mind was strangely clear, every sense preternaturally alert. I began to wonder what had aroused me. Suddenly the ship shuddered through the very heart of her, and I knew that it was this shuddering, which must have occurred ... — The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... garbled form. The reader surrenders himself to the spell, feeling almost inclined to enquire "And why may it not be true?''[FN245] His brain is dazed and dazzled by the splendours which flash before it, by the sudden procession of Jinns and Jinniyahs, demons and fairies, some hideous, others preternaturally beautiful; by good wizards and evil sorcerers, whose powers are unlimited for weal and for woe; by mermen and mermaids, flying horses, talking animals, and reasoning elephants; by magic rings and their ... — The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... suddenly, his lassitude left him, his senses became preternaturally acute, and a sense of well-being and complete satisfaction pervaded his whole being. The mist into which he was gazing became faintly luminous, and strange shapes began to flit across it; shapes the like of which he had never seen in his life before. Then something ... — Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... in, that bay, always till now so preternaturally deserted and silent, was alive and bustling with ships and small craft. A launch came along from the Chatham and I jumped in whilst we were still going pretty fast and shot off to see de Robeck. He seemed to think things naval were going pretty well and that Rear-Admiral Christian had ... — Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... looks into its depths of suggestion as one looks into a clear but very deep lake; one can see far down, but not to the bottom of it, which remains mysterious. He invites his own soul, but there is no loafing. Indeed his mind seems preternaturally active, as in a combination of ... — The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... for instance, is Chevalier Ziegler's picture of "St. Luke painting the Virgin." St. Luke has a monk's dress on, embroidered, however, smartly round the sleeves. The Virgin sits in an immense yellow-ochre halo, with her son in her arms. She looks preternaturally solemn; as does St. Luke, who is eying his paint-brush with an intense ominous mystical look. They call this Catholic art. There is nothing, my dear friend, more easy in life. First take your colors, and rub them down clean,—bright ... — The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... wine, and then aided Mrs. Wheaton in making the room and bed a little more like what they should be by means of the articles they had brought. Clara wonderingly saw that her little closet was stocked with supplies for days to come. Her mother's preternaturally brilliant eyes followed every movement, also, with a dumb but eager questioning. Tired Belle in the meantime had drawn a chair to the table, and with her head resting on her arms had dropped ... — Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... of several Persons in the Neighbourhood, the Indictment being drawn up, according to the Form in such Cases usual. And pleading, Not Guilty, there were brought in several persons, who had long undergone many kinds of Miseries, which were preternaturally inflicted, and generally ascribed unto an horrible Witchcraft. There was little occasion to prove the Witchcraft, it being evident and notorious to all beholders. Now to fix the Witchcraft on the Prisoner at ... — The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... called it a cunning piece of knavery, and all the harder to punish since it was directed against the public; and it had been so craftily contrived that it had escaped unobserved by all except a few preternaturally acute students, although everybody was very wise now and remembered to have thought of several facts which occurred to them as suspicious. But these latter could not succeed in making out any sort of a consistent tale. For was it, for instance, ... — Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... kindly with Lightmark's Academy picture. When it was passed in review before these veterans, after a long procession of inanely smiling portraits, laboured, wooden landscapes, and preternaturally developed heroes, the expression of satiated boredom and damnation of draughts, which variously pervaded the little row of arbitrators, was for a moment dissipated. There was a movement of chairs, followed by an exchange of complimentary ... — A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... lived among his own radiant and shadowy creations. We need not, therefore, be surprised to find that, in the first place, his daughters ran wild, and neither liked nor understood their father; and that, in the second place, for the rendering of his thought he invented a system of preternaturally majestic diction, perfectly fitted for the utterance of his own conceptions, but, when divorced from those conceptions, so monstrously artificial in effect, that his imitators and followers, hoisting themselves ... — Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... to me to be boys or girls; they are preternaturally acute and observant. You seldom see them playing together. They seem to be born with the gift of telling a lie with most portentous gravity. They wear an air of the most winning candour and guileless innocence, when they are all the while plotting some petty scheme against you. They ... — Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... square, when, happening to look into it, she saw something that for the moment caused her heart to stop beating and paralysed her with fear. It was a great gaunt cinnamon bear, which, seated on its haunches, was watching her with a look of comical surprise upon its preternaturally shrewd, ... — The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... lay back and smoked a cigar. His face was expressionless, and he seemed very far away, untouched by the music. I almost doubted that he heard it. He made no remarks between whiles, betrayed no sign of approbation or displeasure. He seemed preternaturally serene, preternaturally remote. And while I watched him I wondered what his duties were. I had not seen him perform any. Mr. Pike had attended to the loading of the ship. Not until she was ready for sea had Captain West come on board. I had not seen him give an order. It looked ... — The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... from brain-fever, was a startling object to contemplate on a first view of him. His shaven head, tied up in an old yellow silk handkerchief; his tawny, haggard cheeks; his bright brown eyes, preternaturally large and wild; his rough black beard; his long, supple, sinewy fingers, wasted by suffering till they looked like claws—all tended to discompose the rector at the outset of the interview. When the first feeling of surprise had worn off, the impression that followed it was not an agreeable ... — Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... family. It was true this proviso occurred to him more often after than before he had surprised them by some trifling deviation; still, when it did occur, it occurred forcibly. On this present occasion he suddenly became preternaturally solemn, coughed with a little dry, respectable sound, and ... — The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... time. Superintendent Sutherland entered first, then the constable, and Carrington last. The superintendent went straight up to the lawyer, his large face preternaturally solemn. Touching him on the shoulder ... — Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... year, and the exposed situation of the house, the night was almost preternaturally quiet. Throughout the vast open country all round us, not even a breath of air could be heard. The night-birds were away, or were silent at the time. But one sound was audible, when we stood still and listened—the cool quiet bubble of a little stream, lost to view in the valley-ground ... — The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... he called himself upon the stage, was quite unlike his sister. He was short and plump, with a preternaturally solemn face, contradicted by small twinkling eyes. He motioned Joan to a chair and told her to keep quiet and ... — All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... Dr. Crothers could have known a Penguin Person when he wrote that. The Penguin Person is not a wit, there is no barb to his shafts of fun, no uneasiness from his preternatural cleverness, for he is not preternaturally clever. You never feel unable to cope with him, you never feel your mind keyed to an unusual alertness to follow him; you feel, indeed, a sense of comforting superiority, for, after all, you do take the world so much more seriously than he! And yet ... — Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... to know. Keep to yourself whatever you like." Grandcourt paused between each sentence, and in each his speech seemed to become more preternaturally distinct in its inward tones. "What I care to know I shall know without your telling me. Only you will please to behave as becomes my wife. And not ... — Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... that direction. If he were not brought into the world under the same conditions of development as we are, but with habits ready made,—if, indeed, that be not a contradiction, —then we have a miracle in that direction; if he had his faculties preternaturally quickened and expanded, so as to acquire instantaneously, or possess by instinct, what we acquire by a long and slow process, and not for many years,—then we have a miracle in that direction. If you do ... — The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... suffocation. They mount into the clear sky and sustain there traverses of stone which you scarcely dare to contemplate. One hesitates to advance; a feeling comes over you that you are become infinitesimally small and as easy to crush as an insect. The silence grows preternaturally solemn. The stars through all the gaps in the fearful ceilings seem to send their scintillations to you in an abyss. It is ... — Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... leg over the horse he loves. He is facile princeps the light rider of the regiment, and to this claim there are none to say him nay. A tip-top soldier too is Ray. Keen on the scout, tireless on the trail, daring to a fault in action, and either preternaturally cool or enthusiastically excited when under fire. He is a man the rank and file swear by and love. "You never hear Loot'nant Ray saying 'Go in there, fellers.' 'Tis always, 'Come on, boys.' That's why I like him," is the way Sergeant Moriarty puts ... — Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... lay down in my bed and reviewed the day, it seemed like a month of wonders. Uncle Silas was always before me; the voice so silvery for an old man—so preternaturally soft; the manners so sweet, so gentle; the aspect, smiling, suffering, spectral. It was no longer a shadow; I had now seen him in the flesh. But, after all, was he more than a shadow to me? When I closed my eyes I saw him before me still, in necromantic black, ashy ... — Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... a theory which came amazingly true in his own daughter. It was, that in high altitudes, with mountain ranges and vast frozen rivers shutting out the rest of the world, the emotions become preternaturally acute; that human beings grew more tragic or more comic, according to their bent, and were closer to primeval men and women than they knew. So it was at Fort Blizzard, standing grimly watchful over the world of snow and ... — Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell
... articles of prime necessity. There was a stove, a table, three chairs, a row of shelves containing a few articles of crockery and tinware, and a bed in the far corner of the room, on which rested a man. He had a ragged gray beard and hair, and a face long and thin, with preternaturally black eyes. ... — The Young Bank Messenger • Horatio Alger
... preternaturally grave, and presented arms. The young surgeon, Dr. Monteith, who had met Ruth the night before, tramped in from a ... — Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson
... vigor of health and constitution, but always seemed to me as if their redundant masses had exhausted hers, and were almost too great a weight for her slim throat and drooping figure. Her complexion was transparently delicate, and she had dark blue eyes that looked almost preternaturally large. It seems strange to remember this ethereal vision of girlish fragile beauty as belonging to my dear cousin, who, having fortunately escaped the doom by which she then seemed threatened, lived to become a most happy and excellent wife and mother, ... — Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... wrath revenging itself for many pin-pricks of Master Raoul's clever tongue. Endymion Westcote, like many pompous men, usually hurt somebody when he indulged in a joke, and for this cause, perhaps, had a nervous dislike of wit in others. Dull in taking a jest, but almost preternaturally clever in suspecting one, he had disliked Raoul's sallies in proportion as they puzzled him. The remembrance of them rankled, and this had been his ... — The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... progress, nothing is set off the fire on to the ground but that a hungry pig stands and eyes it wistfully, but sundry burnings of their sensitive snouts during the days of their youthful inexperience have made them preternaturally cautious, so that they are not very meddlesome. The sleeping room is really a part of the pig-sty, nothing but an open railing separating pigs and people. A cobble-stone path now leads through a hilly country, divided ... — Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... matter, no body understood the reason for the questions about the flowers, and though most of the jury merely looked preternaturally wise on the subject, Mr. Orville scribbled it all down in his little book. I was now glad to see the man keep up his indefatigable note-taking. If the reporters or stenographers missed any points, I could surely get them ... — The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... and yellow, the leaves firm, full-fleshed, as if the ebbing sap of summer still ran high in every fibre; their tint seemed no hectic dying taint, but some inherent chromatic richness. Fine avenues the eye might open amongst the rough brown boles that stood in dense ranks, preternaturally dark and distinct, washed by the recent rains, and thrown into prominence by the masses of yellow and red leaves carpeting the ground, and the red and yellow boughs hanging low above. They dispensed to the light, ... — The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... wilderness was silent and vaguely sinister, but after a few hours it suddenly occurred to him that the air was preternaturally still. A few minutes later, when he struck a match to light his pipe, this impression was vividly confirmed. As is the habit with all woodsmen he watched the match-smoke to detect the direction of the wind. The blue strands, with hardly a waver or tremor, streamed straight up. He was somewhat ... — The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... they would revive immediately: and it was found, that various kinds of natural actions, done by many of the accused in or to their own bodies, as leaning, bending, turning awry, or squeezing their hands, or the like, were presently attended with the like things preternaturally done upon the bodies of the afflicted, though they were so far asunder, that the afflicted could not at all observe the accused."—Magnalia, Book II., ... — Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... I have never known. I had the privilege twenty-one years ago, of knowing a younger brother of the deceased, named John, who in less than three years attained to an honoured position in the Finance Department of the Indian Government. He was preternaturally grave and philanthrophic, and died at the age of a youth in England (I think he was not 23 years old) of small-pox contracted at Lahore, in the Punjab, where he was stationed at the time. He had for some time, although but a lad in years, spent his leisure hours in attending the hospital, and ... — Memoir of William Watts McNair • J. E. Howard
... was very much awake. In fact, his sense of wakefulness seemed almost superhuman. His faculties were preternaturally alert, and he had a feeling of what might properly be called mental extension—it was not exaltation—- which seemed to widen his mental vision enormously. Problems which had puzzled him to desperation suddenly became as obvious as the first axioms of geometry. In short, he felt as though ... — The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... by a spring, she stared at him and then, as slowly, sank back, still holding him with her eyes that seemed preternaturally large. ... — The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... 'Good-night, gentlemen,' said the preternaturally hoarse voice of the turnkey through the square hole in the door. 'I will bring you ... — Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... three jumps of it up the boulder, bearing a stick in his hand. Presently his face, preternaturally solemn and gnomish behind the goggles, protruded over the rim. The girl was sitting with her hands folded in her lap, contemplating the scenery as if she'd never had another interest in her life. Apparently she ... — The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... astonishment awaited him. Nestling before him in a green amphitheater lay a little wooden farm-yard and outbuildings, which irresistibly suggested that it had been recently unpacked and set up from a box of Nuremberg toys. The symmetrical trees, the galleried houses with preternaturally glazed windows, even the spotty, disproportionately sized cows in the white-fenced barnyards were all unreal, ... — Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... feet and bundles in the endeavour to be preternaturally quiet, the crew poured into the warm kitchen. Bearded Oliver, oldest of the clan; stout Edson, big Ralph, tall and slender Guy—and the two daughters of the house, Carolyn, growing plump and rosy at thirty; Nan, slim and girlish at twenty-four—they ... — On Christmas Day in the Morning • Grace S. Richmond
... summer waters, this peculiar ship I saw? It had a ruined dignity, a cumbrous grandeur, although its masts were shattered, and its sails rent. It hung preternaturally still upon the sea, as if tormented and exhausted by long driving and drifting. I saw no sailors, but a great Spanish ensign floated over, and waved, a funereal plume. I knew it then. The armada was long ... — Prue and I • George William Curtis
... patient is characteristic (Fig. 200). The enormous dome of the skull surmounts a puny and preternaturally old face; the eyes are pushed downwards and forwards by the pressure on the orbital plates, and the eyebrows are displaced upwards. The head rolls helplessly from side to side; the child moans and cries a great deal; and vomiting is often a prominent symptom. In most cases the intelligence ... — Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... the feeling of a recruit who for the first time is taking part in a brilliant and complicated manoeuvre. Tom and Susan Peters flit across the view, and Gene Hollister and Perry Blackwood and the Ewanses,—all of whom had come up in a special car; Ralph Hambleton was "best man," looking preternaturally tall in his frock-coat: and his manner, throughout the whole proceeding, was one of good-natured tolerance toward a folly ... — The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... reason, and never loses sight of a reality, amply sustained. Here, then, is a local resource to the British tourist besides the imported one of the bull-dog. And it is remarkable that, except where the dogs are preternaturally audacious, a mere hint of the chermadion suffices. Late in our own experience too late for glory, we made the discovery that all dogs have a mysterious reverence for a trundling stone. It calls ... — Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... trimmed beard on his dark, weather-beaten cheeks, well-cut features, a quick, observant eye, and a sailor's upward glance and bearing. The stranger saw a thin, youthful, anxious, yet refined and handsome face beneath straggling damp curls, and dark eyes preternaturally bright with suffering. Perhaps his experienced ear, too, detected some harmony with all this in ... — Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... with all the assurance and cheerfulness he could command. But she instinctively detected a slight shade of anxiety or uncertainty in his tone. The physician must be a consummate actor who can deceive a patient whose perceptions are preternaturally acute as were Feodora's. He saw that he had not deceived her, ... — Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... carefully hidden secret of his heart? Or had the country gossip been free with his name, in some way, during his absence? Whatever it was, the dearer interests at stake prevented him from dismissing it from his mind. He was preternaturally ... — The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... had agreed to omit prayer. Neither Felix, Peter nor I felt equal to praying in public. But we took up a collection. The proceeds were to go to missions. Dan passed the plate—Felicity's rosebud plate— looking as preternaturally solemn as Elder Frewen himself. Every one put a ... — The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... have been the eldest son, exercising the highest offices during his father's life. That the succession fell on the thirteenth son, Mer.en.ptah, was doubtless due to the elder sons having died during the preternaturally long reign of Ramessu. ... — Egyptian Tales, Second Series - Translated from the Papyri • W. M. Flinders Petrie
... the women lifted her face, haggard with care and grief, and threw a glance, preternaturally sharpened, over the wild waste ... — Woman As She Should Be - or, Agnes Wiltshire • Mary E. Herbert
... things, seemed further than at the beginning from that holiness which is not of the earth, and which delights only in the contemplation of heavenly things. She could see it now with what painful clearness! for her eyes in such matters were preternaturally sharp, like those of a sailor who has followed the sea all his life with regard to atmospheric changes; no sooner would the lesson begin than all brightness would fade from that too expressive countenance, and the girl would listen with manifest effort, ... — Fan • Henry Harford
... in my way; to reach Fairhaven I was compelled to spend some three hours of an April afternoon in Lichfield, where upon Regis Avenue was to be met, in the afternoon, everyone worth meeting in Lichfield; and Stella drove there on fine afternoons, under the protection of a trim and preternaturally grave tiger; and the afternoon ... — The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al |