"Disconcerting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... disconcerting silence reigned. His embarrassment and nervousness increased. He knew that they were unwilling to hear or talk or think about such subjects as the cause of poverty at all. They preferred to make fun of and ridicule ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... some casualties, but the only one we had was one man who got a scratch in the arm with a piece of shrapnel. At 5.15 we decided to come back via a trench, as the shelling was still going on. All got back safely. But it is most disconcerting—one cannot go out on a little job like that in the afternoon without having the wind put up us vertical! I had tea and dinner. Then to bed. I felt very hot and could not get to sleep. Allen returned from a working party at 10.15 p.m. There was a strafe on at ...
— At Ypres with Best-Dunkley • Thomas Hope Floyd
... detained him. Will you not walk in, Mr. Willet?" The earnestness with which he was looking into her face was disconcerting Fanny. So she stepped toward the door, and led the way into ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... good-bye. There was no room for equivocation in this crisis, and as he gazed up into the full and peaceful shade over his head, a flood of little memories, bound tendril-like by sounds, sights, and fragrances to his heart, swept him with disconcerting violence. ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... only—that conducted by Danny Randall and called the Bella Union—inspired any sort of confidence. The other two were frequented by a rough, insolent crew, given to sudden silences in presence of newcomers, good-humoured after a wild and disconcerting fashion, plunging heavily at the gaming tables and drinking as heavily at the bars. This is not to imply that any strong line of demarcation existed between the habitues of one or the other of these places. When an inhabitant ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... London is subdued. It is more regular, less jarring and piercing. The muffled sounds in London are due partly to the wooden and asphalt pavements, which deaden the sounds. London must be soothing to the New Yorker, as the noise of New York is at first disconcerting to ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... to occupy the berth he had paid for. Their examination of his effects was more thorough than usual. It may have entered their heads that he was standing guard over the repose of a fair accomplice. They asked so many embarrassing and disconcerting questions that he was devoutly relieved when they ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... Vague, limitless, subtle in mystery, the seduction of it was ineffable. Out of the corner of his eye he peeped at her. But wasn't she perched entrancingly on that dragoon saddle, wasn't she, though? The richly heavy coils of burnished copper had loosened, and they were very disconcerting in their suggestion of flowing wealth. If they would but fall about her shoulders! And the lace from the slanting hat brim, and the velvet patch near the dimple—the velvet patch called an assassin. And—what dress was that? Flowered calico? Yes, and light blue. His cheeks ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... lathering his patient's chin, said: "That is another queer fancy! Nobody but a woman would think of such a thing. It is not enough for them to worry you during life, but they cannot even leave you at peace when you are dead." But his wife, without disconcerting herself the least, replied: "The feeling is stronger than I, and I must go. It has been on me since the morning. If I was not to see her, I should think about it all my life, but when I have had a good look at her, I shall ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... glance now and then to delight myself without disconcerting that gentle lady, when I felt Annora's hand on my arm, squeezing so hard, poor maid, that her fingers left a purple mark there, and though she did not speak, I beheld, as it were, darts and arrows in the gleam of her eyes. And then it was ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... lake, and across the lake to Monte Maggiore with clouds drifting about its peak. And while she obligingly studied the mountain, he studied the effect of the pink gown and the rose-bud hat. She turned back suddenly and caught him; it was a disconcerting habit of Constance's. He politely looked away, and she—with frank interest—studied him. He was bareheaded and dressed in white flannels; they were very becoming, she noted critically, and yet—they needed just a touch of colour; a ...
— Jerry • Jean Webster
... inheritance of reticence and aloofness. She would laugh and chat gaily and appear charmingly young and happy, but without warning she would lapse back to the almost sullen, suspicious attitude that was so disconcerting. Sister Angela demanded justice for Mary and received, in return, a kind of loyalty that was the best ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... little disconcerting to me, to find, when I was being helped up behind the coach, that I was supposed to have eaten all the dinner without any assistance. I discovered this, from overhearing the lady in the bow-window say to the guard: "Take care of that child, George, or he'll burst!" and from ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... his misconduct was the practice of prolonging his visits to unseasonable hours, and disconcerting all the families into which he was admitted. This was an errour in a place of commerce, which all the charms of his conversation could not compensate; for what trader would purchase such airy satisfaction by the loss of solid gain, which must be the consequence of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... with a soft and disconcerting plop upon the top of his head, cannonaded thence against the window-sill, and shot out into the night again. He came back with a start to his reality: that he had promised the children an Extra Day, that for twenty-four hours, in spite ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... Flecky or Speckly a sound clap on the back with their hand or milking-pail, with the sharp command of "Stan' aboot there!" "Haud up!" "Mind whaur yer comin'!" Such expressions as these Jess and Meg could interject into the even tenor of their conversation, in a way that might have been disconcerting in dialogues conducted on other principles. But really the interruptions did not affect Ebie Farrish or any other of the byre-visiting young men, any more than the rattling of the chains, as Flecky and ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... not those of an old man at all. They had the vigor of a man in the prime of life, and their presence in that puckered face of age which confronted Chris was horribly disconcerting. Chris blinked and looked again. Yes, they were still there. Eyes so deeply brown they might well have been black, but clear, sparkling, and with a decided glint of humor and mischief. While the boy had been too frightened to move ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... standing when he finished speaking. His dark eyes said far more than his words, and the clenching hands at his sides conveyed a threat that Dan was quick to perceive. However he felt the other's words he gave no sign. And his attitude was once more disconcerting and puzzling to the furious Jim. He wanted one of those outbursts of Celtic passion he was used to; he wanted a chance to hand out unrestrained the fury that was working up to such a pitch inside him. But the opportunity was not given. Dan spoke coldly ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... when lighted up by a smile, which was only upon rare occasions. He was intolerant of what he called "stuff and nonsense," and had a way of disconcerting people by grunting whenever anything like sentimentality or gush was uttered in ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... almost disconcerting in the ardour and devotion of Mrs. Eddy's followers. Truly, in the success of Christian Science we see one more proof of the ease with which a new religion can be started if, in addition to faith, it concerns itself with ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot
... commissioners to control the accounts and the disbursements of the subsidies. But it seemed improbable that among this class of men any would be found capable of penetrating the manifold combinations of the king, and disconcerting his designs. ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... came one of those veering lists of the ballast aboard which are so disconcerting to the author. The story got out of hand. The old woman silent, indomitable, fed and deeply satisfied for all of her hard and grinding life by her love for the husband whom she had taken from her sister, ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... when a woman behind me whispered to her neighbor, "Oh look! There are two fireplaces in the room!" My attention was distracted, and the soliloquy was spoiled; but the fault lay with the stage-manager rather than with the woman who spoke the disconcerting words. If Mr. Sothern was to recite his soliloquy gazing dreamily into a fire in the centre of the room, the stage-manager should have known enough to remove the large fireplace on the right ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... emotion at all, it was in her haughty stillness, as though she voluntarily put all expression out of her face until the recital was ended. The effect on Miss Lucilla, as they sat side by side on a sofa, was slightly disconcerting, so that she came to ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... had been expecting this, and knowing that he was more than a match for the villain, he got up from his camp stool leisurely, and with great composure told the man: "Certainly, I will be very glad to have some one along who knows the trail so well." To be told that he knew the trail must have been disconcerting to the man, but not one word did he say in reference ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... by the prison-guards would have been disconcerting to a less modest man than I am. A soldier sat with me all the way on the train. I could not lose him! He stuck to me like a shadow. When I stood up, he stood up. When I changed my seat, he changed his. ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung
... was a physician; it was his business to understand; and yet here was death in a form as mysterious to him as to the veriest layman. It compelled him to pause and take stock of himself—always a disconcerting process to the ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... bonds which connected Great Britain with the Canadas. Although at the epoch of the declaration of war the country was destitute both of troops and money, yet from the devotion of a brave and loyal, yet unjustly calumniated people, resources sufficient for disconcerting the plans of conquest devised by a foe, at once numerous and elate with confidence, had been derived. The blood of the sons of Canada had flowed mingled with that of the brave soldiers sent for its defence, when re-inforcements ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... a most tiresome way whenever he caught sight of Anastasia. The Rector patronised her insufferably; and though old Mr Noot was kind, he treated her like a small child, and sometimes patted her cheek, which she felt to be disconcerting at eighteen. ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... Genevieve, certainly, most disconcerting. Miss Hart gave one look into Genevieve's eyes, then dropped her face into her hands and burst into tears. At Genevieve's aghast exclamation, however, she raised her head determinedly and ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
... in her breath and gave a little gasp of exasperation. This unfailing faith in her goodness of heart, and unhesitating belief in her desire to "help everybody" was most disconcerting, and sometimes most annoying. At the same time it was a most difficult thing to disclaim—under the circumstances, especially with Pollyanna's happy, confident eyes full on ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... been here this week. He fell upon us like a howling dervish who had fed fanaticisms on locusts and wild honey. And he has stirred up the spiritual dust of this community by showing an intimacy with God's plans in regard to us very disconcerting to credulously minded sinners. As for me, I have passed this primer-state of religious emotion. I am sure a kind God made me, and so I belong to Him, good or bad. In any case I cannot change the whole spiritual economy of Heaven with my poor prayers and confessions. I try to think of my shortcomings, ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... active duty. They had speculated on whether she would stand an operation, and what a disturbance and nice mess there would be if she fell flat on the small of her back on the floor, or went off in a fit of hysterics in the middle of it; and how their "boss" would endure such a disconcerting interruption to the proceedings. As it happened, the speculators were in their turn startled, abashed, or irritated, according to their respective temperaments and frames of ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... Pasquale look with some curiosity at my man's impassive face. But he said nothing more about the slipper. I poured out his whisky and soda. He drank a deep draught, curled up his swaggering moustache and suddenly broke into one of his disconcerting peals of laughter. ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... There was a directness about the other's manner that was disconcerting. He laughed mirthlessly, and shifted his position so that his bottle of ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... small, and his nose delicately shaped. He had big teeth, but they were white and even. His mouth was large, with heavy moist lips. He had the neck of a bullock. His dark, curling hair had retreated from the forehead and temples in such a way as to give his clean-shaven face a disconcerting nudity. The baldness of his crown was vaguely like a tonsure. He had the look of a very wicked, sensual priest. Margaret, stealing a glance at him as he ate, on a sudden violently shuddered; he affected her with an uncontrollable dislike. He lifted his ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... names of Hank and Buck, and furiously chewed the tobacco plant at all times. After betraying a momentary interest in my smart riding-suit, they paid me little attention, at which I was well pleased, for their manners were often repellent and their abrupt, direct fashion of speech quite disconcerting. ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... leading characteristic to the last. His opinions were strong, his judgment was emphatic, his language unmeasured. He had been, all through his public life, surrounded by a cohort of admiring and obedient coadjutors, and he was unused to, and intolerant of, disagreement or opposition. It was a disconcerting experience to speak on a platform where he was chairman, and, just as one was warming to an impressive passage, to feel a vigorous pull at one's coat-tail, and to hear a quick, imperative voice say, in no muffled tone, "My dear fellow, are you never going to stop? We shall ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... interval from being named incessantly by Lady Crewe. My deep mourning, my recent heavy loss, and the absence and distance of my dear husband made me peculiarly wish to be unobserved. Peculiarly, I say; for never yet had the moment arrived in which to be marked had not been embarrassing and disconcerting to me, even ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... disconcerting way, and gave her a piercing look. She averted her face instantly, but he ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... overcast; and the terrible fact came out gradually that he was not 'nicely disposed.' His relatives failed to understand him, and they gave him up like a puzzle. He was self-contradictory. For instance, though a shocking liar, he was lavish of truth whenever truth happened to be disconcerting and inopportune. He it was who told the forewoman of his uncle's millinery department, in front of a customer, that she had a moustache. His uncle threshed him. 'She has a moustache, anyhow!' said this Galileo when his uncle had finished. Mr. Knight wished Tom to go ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... fellow, with the inborn idea that, theoretically, there couldn't be too many girls, but there was no denying the fact that Algonquin seemed to have more than her fair share. Only, Leslie was always so startlingly truthful, it was sometimes rather disconcerting to hear one's half-formed thoughts spoken out incisively ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... blew a mournful blast, was confusing when it arrived in the midst of an idea; and a little curved thing (like the hunting-horn of old pictures) into which the chauffeur occasionally mewed, was as disconcerting to my nerves as to those of the pedestrians who hopped out ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... and converted into movement by the organism. This is nutrition of energy reduced to its simplest expression: the motive heat, instead of being extracted from the food, is utilized direct, as supplied by the sun, which is the seat of all life. Inert matter has disconcerting secrets, as witness radium; living matter has secrets of its own, which are more wonderful still. Nothing tells us that science will not one day turn the suspicion suggested by the Spider into an established truth and a fundamental theory ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... of her caring for him was a bit disconcerting, although perhaps also a little sweet to his youthful male vanity. Her caring was a complication, made him feel as if somehow he ought to make up to her for failing her in the big thing by granting her the ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... remained master of himself, a wondrous example to the young and the foolish. And then some entirely unimportant occurrence—say, an invitation to a golf foursome which his duties forbid him to accept—a trifle, a nothing, comes along and brings about the explosion, in a fashion excessively disconcerting to the onlooker, and he exclaims, acidly, savagely, ...
— The Plain Man and His Wife • Arnold Bennett
... Truly a perilous business. As he sat there and looked at it, his heart a little misgave him; in this strange, new world into which he had been so roughly hustled, amongst a horde of alarming and painful occurrences, he had discovered nothing so disconcerting as that sudden giving of the knees, that rising of the floor to meet you, the collapse, the pain, and above all the disgrace. Moreover, let him fail now, and it meant, in short,—banishment—banishment and then darkness. There were risks. It was the most perilous ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... look at Miss Beecher. That young person was looking at him and there was a disconcerting gaiety in her expression, but at sight of him she turned her head, faintly coloring. He judged she recalled his ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... which was disconcerting. To cover up my own doubts I asked him with affected confidence and cheerfulness whether he was not afraid to risk this journey "down below," that is, ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... slightest suspicion that they are weak. It is true that Daudet's stories do not attain the tremendous impressiveness that Balzac's occasionally do, as, for example, in La Grande Breteche, nor has his clear-cut art the almost disconcerting firmness, the surgeon-like quality of Maupassant's; but the author of the ironical Elixir of Father Gaucher and of the pathetic Last Class, to name no others, could certainly claim with Musset that his glass was his own, and had no reason ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... was small, graceful, and dainty; the Spanish Venus with no more flesh than was necessary to cover her supple, shapely frame with softly curving outlines. Her amber eyes that flashed slyly, were disconcerting with their gaze; her mouth had in its graceful corners the fleeting touch of an eternal smile; on her cheeks, elbows and feet the pink tone showed the transparency and the moist brilliancy of those shells that open their mysterious ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... A smile of patience and resignation, which soon was like a pained expression of weariness, crept across his handsome face. Yes, he was really handsome, though a little disconcerting, with his large eyes, which women must have adored, his drooping moustache, his tender, distant air. He seemed to be one of those gentle people who think too much and do evil. You would have said that he was above everything and capable of everything. Listening to her with a certain remoteness, ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse
... presence—and, though Mark still showed little willingness to converse, the girls were evidently beginning to find themselves again, occasional gigglings heralding their return to normality. But the concentration of the united attention of the family for Morgan's benefit was somewhat disconcerting. The girls vied with each other in pressing plum-cake upon him, and seemed to view his refusal as a personal rebuff. He did not understand just then that each considered a bit of her own niceness went into the cake when held towards him with her own hand, and that it was this niceness he was ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... regulations and his refusal to submit to them without a logical answer. One day, for instance, when a certain master spoke somewhat sourly and irritably to him, Robert Hart then and there took it upon himself to deliver him a lecture which, in its calm reasoning, was most disconcerting. ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... the depths of the vehicle from the gaze of the multitude, but Mr. Heatherbloom at the back faced them on the little step which served as concert stage. There were no limelights or stereopticon pictures to add to the illusion,—only the disconcerting faces and the light of day. He never before knew how bright the day could be but he continued to stand there, in spite of the ludicrous and trying position. He sang, a certain daredevil light in his eye now, a suspicion of a covert smile on his face. It might be rather tragic—his position—but ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... on the day of the storm, all hands and the cook were summoned to Anzac Cove for salvage work. On arrival it was found that the piers had been washed away. Big baulks of timber were being thrown about by the sea, in a most disconcerting manner, amongst all sorts of stores. The first duty assigned the party by the Beach Commandant was to restore some semblance of order amongst the members of a certain Labour Corps who had run wild. This was achieved in an expeditious though somewhat violent ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... emerge from the office face to face with Lady Saffren Waldon. She was the one surprised, not we. She probably thought she had spiked our guns in that part of the world forever, and the sight of us coming laughing from the very office where we should have been made glum must have been disconcerting. ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... certain to take place, and, if he remained where he was, nothing could save him from the treacherous assault. It was a matter, therefore, of self preservation that dictated the brief retreat with the hope of thus disconcerting the savage. ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... with us like an old family friend. Gilbertine etiquette appears defective on the point of leave-taking. It may be remembered we had trouble in the matter with Karaiti; and there was something childish and disconcerting in Tembinok's abrupt "I want go home now," accompanied by a kind of ducking rise, and followed by an unadorned retreat. It was the only blot upon his manners, which were otherwise plain, decent, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... occasion I was summoned suddenly to his presence. I found him, as usual, bent over his work, which he did not intermit, but merely motioned me to be seated. Presently he put away his papers from him, and turned round upon me. One of the disconcerting things about him was the fact that his thought had a peculiarly compelling tendency, and that while he read one's mind in a flash, his own thoughts remained very nearly impenetrable. On this occasion he commended me for my work and my relations with my fellow-students, adding that I had made ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... thou dost nonplus my understanding of myself absurdly. I agree I have more minds than one, and 'tis disconcerting to try in haste to ascertain which is the best. Indeed, I do not wish to make a false step and do that 'twould make ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... was unexpected, but the girls pooh-poohed Hannah's. Who was Hannah Johnson that she dared to speak so rudely to one so charming and beautiful as Kathleen O'Hara? There was a disconcerting ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... child of hers to be arranging the future, at nineteen, ready to be a mother to herself in case her natural mother failed her. But as she got quickly into the dress laid out for her, her hands shook a little. It is disconcerting to discover that one is no longer the parent of ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... dawn had commenced its pitiless inquiry, and it fell on the brass knob, which I had noticed a few hours before, from the other room, and on another brass knob a few feet away. My eyes smarted; I had disconcerting sensations at the back of my head; my hair was brittle, and as though charged with a dull electricity; I was conscious of actual pain, and an incubus, crushing but intangible, lay heavily, like a ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... of Harkness, Incorporated. Dark hair that curled slightly as it left his forehead; eyes that were taking on the intent, straightforward look that had been his father's and that went straight to the heart of a business proposal with disconcerting directness. But the lips were not set in the hard lines that had marked Harkness Senior; they could still curve into boyish pleasure to mark the ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... was very disconcerting to the I.N.C. They knew that on the hills outside Rieka were large numbers of Italian troops, which had come overland from Istria. But how to get them in? Rieka had not been ascribed to the Italians by the London Treaty.[16] ... On November 15 a detachment of Serbian ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... steadily, as hurricanes did, but in fits and gusts, more disconcerting than a steady blow of more power. The rain, also, came in showers. Now there would not be a drop filling, and again there would be a ...
— The Motor Girls on Waters Blue - Or The Strange Cruise of The Tartar • Margaret Penrose
... they weep and faint with wearisome frequency. Their health and spirits are as precarious as their easily extinguished candles. Yet these exquisitely sensitive, well-bred heroines alienate our sympathy by their impregnable self-esteem, a disconcerting trait which would certainly have exasperated heroes less perfect and more human than Mrs. Radcliffe's Theodores and Valancourts. Their sorrows never rise to tragic heights, because they are only passive sufferers, and the ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... at hand, and with a cry of fury the duke rode at Rupert. The latter gave the horse's nose a sharp blow as the duke's sweeping blow descended. The animal reared suddenly, disconcerting the aim, and before its feet touched the ground the heavy knob of Rupert's stick, driven with the whole strength of his arm, struck the duke ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... thanked for my kindness in chaperoning her daughter on her matrimonial adventure; an adventure which would have subjected her to much criticism had I not been along. Also Mr. Thorne. The unexpectedness of these thanks was disconcerting and, with an expression that was hardly appreciative of the pose she was assuming, I finally rescued myself from her arms and, drawing off, looked at her for explanation. Mrs. Swink is not a person I care ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... been a sufficiently irritating interruption in the early life of Eugenette, and in the early establishment of Eugenics. But a far more dreadful and disconcerting fact must be noted. With whom, alas, did England go to war? England went to war with the Superman in his native home. She went to war with that very land of scientific culture from which the very ideal of a Superman had come. She went ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... regards life prosaically and with a lassitude and disenchantment which are only consoled by the passion for truth. Certain water-colours of his heightened by pastel, and certain landscapes, are somewhat disconcerting through the preciousness of his method; others are surprisingly spontaneous. All his work has an undercurrent of thought. In short, this Realist is almost a mystic. He has observed a limited section of humanity, but what he has seen has not been seen so profoundly ...
— The French Impressionists (1860-1900) • Camille Mauclair
... he hear me? He nodded his head and sat grimly down by the table, at which of late he had so happily reclined. He covered his mouth and nose with his hand, but kept his piercing eyes upon me. Disconcerting! but even so, had he listened in silence I might have made ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... he was. Political loyalty is such a fickle thing. A number of aldermen with curious names—Horback, Fogarty, McGrane, Sumulsky—showed signs of being tampered with. He hurried at once to Messrs. Hand, Schryhart, and Arneel with this disconcerting information. They had been congratulating themselves that the recent victory, if it resulted in nothing else, would at least produce a blanket 'L' road franchise, and that this would be sufficient to bring Cowperwood ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... Dearest," he replied, mentally. "And I don't blame you. It was a little disconcerting, though, to discover the extent of your capabilities.... How ...
— Dearest • Henry Beam Piper
... of colonial expansion, though equally within the letter of the treaty, were not less disconcerting. The reconquest of San Domingo appeared necessary in order to obtain a base for the effective occupation of the new French possession, Louisiana. The despatch of an expedition for this purpose in December, 1801, had excited grave suspicion, and when two-thirds of the ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... that the course of these lectures will confirm us in this supposition. As regards the psychopathic origin of so many religious phenomena, that would not be in the least surprising or disconcerting, even were such phenomena certified from on high to be the most precious of human experiences. No one organism can possibly yield to its owner the whole body of truth. Few of us are not in some way infirm, or even diseased; and our very infirmities help us unexpectedly. ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... ingratiatingly passed him the bread. "You're a cowboy, aren't you?" was the disconcerting question ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... blur of oriental color in a film of smoke. As usual, when he was in a temper or excited, he was smoking furiously. But the threat of disinheritance was not forthcoming. If anything, the disinheritor was sulking. And the eyes of the disinheritee were intelligent and disconcerting. ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... near disconcerting the plot of Master Byles Gridley. He had come on an inquisitor's errand, his heart secure, as he thought, against all blandishments, his will steeled to break down all resistance. He had come armed with an ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... all the more disconcerting for Charles, because of the speedy abatement of the enthusiasm that had hailed his first appearance. What had happened to him was what generally happens to a conqueror who has more good luck than talent; instead of making himself a party among the great Neapolitan ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... her head. She looked down into the gardens below. It was an easy climb, she thought, with a boyish grin—far easier than many she had achieved successfully when the need of a solitary ramble became imperative. But the East was inconvenient for solitary ramble; native servants had a disconcerting habit of lying down to sleep wherever drowsiness overcame them, and it was not very long since she had slid down from her balcony and landed plumb on a slumbering bundle of humanity who had roused half the hotel with his howls. She leant far over the rail, trying to see ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... 24th General Sherman made an attack for the purpose of carrying the north end of Missionary Ridge. His success was not complete, although at the time it was reported throughout the army to be so. It had the effect of disconcerting Bragg, however, and caused him to strengthen his right by withdrawing troops from his left, which circumstance led Hooker to advance on the northerly face of Lookout Mountain. At first, with good glasses, we could plainly see Hooker's troops driving the Confederates up the face of the ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... two little feet, with bare toes peeping out of worn-out moccasins, and then round, bare, symmetrical ankles that had been scratched by brush. Next he saw Ellen Jorth's passionate face as she looked when she had made the violent action so disconcerting to him. In this happy moment the memory seemed farther off than a few hours. It had crystallized. It annoyed while it drew him. As a result he slowly laid this package aside and did not speak as he ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... apparently a little nonplussed. The absolute imperturbability of the man who had once been his friend was disconcerting. ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... through very difficult country where no wheeled traffic could pass, so we were to ride, with all our belongings carried by coolies. I bought two hill-ponies the size of Newfoundland dogs for myself and my "bearer," and we started. The little animals being used to carrying packs, have a disconcerting trick of keeping close to the very edge of the khudd, for experience has taught them that to bump their load against the rock wall on the inner side gives them an unpleasant jar. These little hill-ponies are wonderfully sure-footed, and can climb like cats over ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... feigned to be convinced—but that, as Granice now perceived, was simply to get him to expose himself, to entrap him into contradictions. And when the attempt failed, when Granice triumphantly met and refuted each disconcerting question, the lawyer dropped the mask suddenly, and said with a good-humoured laugh: "By Jove, Granice you'll write a successful play yet. The way you've worked this all out is ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... Chamber had been made the Government would have profited during the previous four years to the extent of L1,200,000 instead of L150,000. Upon another occasion light was thrown on dark places in a rather disconcerting fashion. Mr. Christiaan Joubert, Minister of Mines, took one of the witnesses in hand with the object of showing that the people of Johannesburg had only themselves to thank for the loss of confidence in this business. ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... would dare his blow; so that these vessels of rancour were in a manner afraid of each other. I judged that on the day the Pudneys should cease for some reason or other to be afraid they would treat us to some revelation more disconcerting than any of its predecessors. As I held Mrs. Saltram's letter in my hand it was distinctly communicated to me that the day had come—they had ceased to be afraid. "I don't want to know the ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... level and fixed, were disconcerting. To avoid them he turned to the mantel and took up a cigarette and ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... terrible object in a terrible rage. In his late years, be it remembered, Lord Kitchener was not good to look upon. He appeared a coarse, a top-heavy person; and in anger, his cross-eyes could be painfully disconcerting. ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie
... covered in lather was gazing down upon her—at first angrily, then archly. Quite desperate now she framed her request in what French she could command, scarcely able to wait for the reply. The result was disconcerting. The shaving gentleman became excessively gallant, entreated his fair visitor to remain where she was for a tiny instant until he could descend and admit her, implored her with expansive gestures not on any account to go away and blight his life. As ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... This was disconcerting in more ways than one, for I could not leave the ladder where it was, and it was nearly twice my height. I struck a match and lit up a sufficient perspective of lumber and cobwebs to reassure me. The loft was ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... know her story, as he obviously did, was not so disconcerting to her as it would have been to most young women. Taciturn as she was, it was not by reason of timidity, but rather that her own motives seemed too clear to her to be worth stating. She was, perhaps, rather given to assume her prerogative right to be different. Her first thought, ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... very disconcerting about the stranger's conversation and again Stephen looked at him ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... in her face, and it remained there, enhancing the vivid richness of her beauty. She was dizzy with a strange and disconcerting intoxication. She seemed to be in a world of unrealities and incredibilities. Her ears heard with indistinctness, and the edges of things and people had a prismatic colouring. She was in a state of ecstatic, unreasonable, inexplicable happiness. All her misery, doubts, despair, rancour, ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... earlier, and to attain a greater size than ever happened in its absence. In recent years this creature had rarely been seen in the neighbourhood of Yun, and, in consequence, the earth-tillers throughout that country had been brought into a most disconcerting state of poverty, and would, inevitably, be prepared to exchange whatever they still possessed for even a few of the insects, in order that they might liberate them to increase, and so entirely reverse the objectionable state of things. Speaking in this manner, King-y-Yang ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... the rest kept ceaseless watch to seaward, anxiously scanning the offing, day after day, to make out the colours of the first fleet up. No one knew what the French West India fleet would do; and there was a very disconcerting chance that it might run north and slip into the St Lawrence, ahead of Saunders, in the same way as the French reinforcements had just slipped in ahead of Durell. Presently, at the first streak of dawn on the 23rd of June, a strong squadron was ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... coast, for the other side of the hills, I remembered, dipped their chalk cliffs straight into the sea, and strange lost winds must often come a-wandering this way with the sharp changes of temperature about sunset. None the less, it was disconcerting to know that mist and storm lay hiding within possible reach, and I walked on smartly for a sight of Tom Bassett's cottage and the lights of the Manor House in the valley a ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... the children may stare all they like. I no longer need to repress youthful emotions. All the same it is a trifle disconcerting. I had chosen, as I thought, a very impressive portion of Scripture for Prayers, and the children were as quiet as mice. But they never let their eyes wander from me for a single moment, until I began to feel I ought at least to have a smut on ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... of my excuse, it was easy matter to keep them convinced for almost two-thirds of my college course. My inability to recite was not due usually to any lack of preparation. However well prepared I might be, the moment I was called upon, a mingling of a thousand disconcerting sensations, and the distinct thought that at last the dread attack was at hand, would suddenly intervene and deprive me of all but the power to say, "Not prepared." Weeks would pass without any other record being placed opposite ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... disconcerting to be taken promptly and literally at one's word. Moreover, Corrie looked very young and pathetically tired, with his wind-ruffled fair hair pushed back and in his bearing of dignified self-dependence. ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... Frenchmen had not yet seen the convoy, being distant from it some miles, the intervening country thickly studded with plantations. But in half an hour the two bodies would have met, and the provisions sorely needed would have fallen into the enemy's hands. It was a disconcerting pass, and George Fairburn set his wits ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... brown and gentle as a girl's but had that retrospective expression that suggests far-away thoughts or an utter lack of interest in one's surroundings. They never looked at but through one. The effect of Carg's eyes was distinctly disconcerting. ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... resolved on making one of those sudden movements so disconcerting to a self-confident enemy. It had been some time maturing, but could not be sooner put in execution on account of the wretched condition of Sullivan's (lately Lee's) troops, who had come off their long march, as Washington expresses ...
— The Campaign of Trenton 1776-77 • Samuel Adams Drake
... and salutary for us that the Celtic poets have taken to sounding its note so boldly. Whatever else they do, on the conventional ideals of this generation they speak out with an uncompromising and highly disconcerting directness. As I said just now, they are held, if at all, by a long and loose chain to the graven images to which we stand bound arm-to-arm and foot-to-foot. They fly far enough aloof to take a bird's-eye view. What they see they declare with a boldness which is the more impressive for being unconscious. ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... were most disconcerting, especially as they were accompanied by remarks about his origin, of which he was so ashamed that he had changed the spelling of his name in the effort to clear himself of it. However, some retort was imperative. He looked at ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... and the words might have been written of Powell. An impish humour broke out in him, and the mischievous schoolboy alternated with the warrior and the administrator. He met the Boer commandos with chaff and jokes which were as disconcerting as his wire entanglements and his rifle-pits. The amazing variety of his personal accomplishments was one of his most striking characteristics. From drawing caricatures with both hands simultaneously, or skirt dancing ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle |
