"Indescribably" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... deferential attention. His head was bent on one side; he was smiling frankly. A little behind them, on the stairway, there was a space. Perhaps I was mistaken; perhaps there was no space—I don't know. I was only conscious of a figure, an indescribably clear-cut woman's figure, gliding down the way. It had a coldness, a self-possession, a motion of its own. In that clear, transparent, shimmering light, every little fold of the dress, every little shadow of the white arms, the white shoulders, came up to me. The face turned up to meet mine. I ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... hung, and now waved fitfully to and fro in the gusts of wind that made easy ingress through many a chink and cranny), were a looking-glass, sundry appliances of the toilet, a box of coarse rouge, a few ornaments of more show than value, and a watch, the regular and calm click of which produced that indescribably painful feeling which, we fear, many of our readers who have heard the sound in a sick-chamber can easily recall. A large tester-bed stood opposite to this table, and the looking-glass partially reflected ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... one morning to the American Chapel in the Rue de Bern, and they were united in our presence and that of Monsieur, who was indescribably affected. ...
— Esmeralda • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... "my father hasn't been to sea for a good many years. My father," she added, with a diffidence indescribably mingled with a sense of distinction,—"my father 's in State's Prison. What kind of looking man ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... voice, the exaltation of her look, and the extreme realism of the words she used were indescribably awing and agitating to her companion, to whom such evidences in connection with religious feeling were utterly unprecedented. She saw that the source of this deep emotion was utter despair of earthly happiness, as, in truth, it was. From the moment that Christine had noted the change in her ...
— A Beautiful Alien • Julia Magruder
... three of us were busied about the daughter, the mother knelt on the pavement, and, with streaming eyes, prayed for her child, for us, and for herself. There was something indescribably touching in this display of strong natural ties, between those who were plunged so deep in misery. A piece of five francs was put into the hands of the old woman, but, though she blessed the donor, her look was not averted an instant from the ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Quite indescribably strange is the effect on my mind of looking back at my three Thespian avatars—Falstaff at Cincinnati, Acres and Sir Anthony in Grand Ducal Florence, and Sir Anthony again in a liberated Tuscany! I seem to myself like some old mail-coach guard, ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... excellence is the apotheosis of the insignificant. Whether it be the school of poetry which sees more in one cowslip or clover-top than in forests and waterfalls, or the school of fiction which finds something indescribably significant in the pattern of a hearth-rug, or the tint of a man's tweed coat, the tendency is the same. Maeterlinck stricken still and wondering by a deal door half open, or the light shining out of a window at night; ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... this raw little suburb. American life half a century ago had a great deal of rawness about it, and its external aspect was ugly beyond present belief. We may be a less virtuous nation now than we were then, but we are indescribably more good to look at. And the West Newton of to-day, as compared with that of 1851, will serve for an ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... restless in body, I got up and went out into the great snow waste. The sunset afterglow was just fading into the moonshine. The effect upon the pure white sheet before me was indescribably beautiful. The warm tint of the last of day, as it waned, dissolved imperceptibly into the cold lustre of the night as if some alchemist were subtly changing the substance while he kept the form. For a new spirit was slowly possessing itself ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... down," I told him, as he ran up to me with his head lowered and that indescribably desperate look in his big frightened eyes. "If you're not a fool I can get you hidden," I told him. It reassured me to see that his knees were shaking much more than mine, as he stood there in the center of the shack! I stooped over the trap-door and lifted it up. "Get down ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... the upper half of the bleak cone yet in sunshine cast upward, athwart the blue sky, upon the moisture precipitated by the falling temperature, a great dark, broadening shaft of shadow, keen-edged and sombre, and spreading far away into measureless space—a sight indescribably strange ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... few facts of the glaring fraud and corruption prevailing in every line of mercantile and financial business. Great and audacious as Gould's thefts were later, they could not be put on the same indescribably low plane as those committed during the Civil War by men most of whom succeeded in becoming noted for their fine respectability and "solid fortunes." So many momentous events were taking place during the Civil War, that amid all the preparations, the battles and excitement, ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... dreamily into his hands, and as his fingers opened it, there floated forth upon the air of the hills of Nazareth the sacred odor of incense mingled with a perfume indescribably delicate and precious. ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... an impression indescribably strange. I felt myself standing upon a crisis. I felt called upon to choose between self and self-sacrifice. Had the choice left no chance of saving my own life, I fear I should have obeyed the "first law of nature;" but, as already stated, of my own life I felt secure; the question was, whether ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... of Apollo—what magnificent forms the fellows had, and what indescribably hideous faces! They were tall, muscular, broad-shouldered, small waisted and ankled, round-muscled, black-polished—in a word, elegantly powerful. Many of them might have stood as models for Hercules. Like superfine cloth, ...
— Six Months at the Cape • R.M. Ballantyne
... distract her mind from the noises over the hedge. But every head-line seemed to dart at her sore consciousness as if it were a snake's head with a sting in it. Murder. Unrest. Strikes. Dissatisfactions. Change. The whole outlook was indescribably comfortless and depressing to her. She felt something akin to the vague, apprehensive misery—beyond reason or common sense—which people feel during the rumble ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... watching what he called her unaccountable manners, and greatly flattered when he could succeed in attracting her notice. Indeed, the first time she looked full at him with a smile on the verge of a laugh, it completely overcame him, by the indescribably forcible manner in which it suddenly recalled the face which had always shone on him like a sunbeam. Above all, it was worth anything to see the looks she awoke in her mother, for which he must have loved her, even had she ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... they entered the house and began to grope their way up the narrow, winding staircase. They could make only slow progress, not only because of the absence of light, but owing to the rotten condition of the stairs. Indescribably filthy and littered with all sorts of rubbish and broken glass, in some places the boards had broken through entirely, leaving gaping holes, which were so many dangerous pitfalls. Twice the lawyer came near ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... Little Crippled Girl burst out laughing. The laugh was wild, ecstatic, extravagantly boisterous, yet awkward withal, and indescribably bumpy, like the first flight of a ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... quarter was not impressive. It was on a hillside above the Russian Jewish colony, and consisted of a network of cobble-paved alleys, indescribably dirty and incredibly steep. In one or two of these alleys Tish was obliged to turn the car and go up backward, her machine climbing much better on the reverse gear. Crowds of children followed us; dogs got under the wheels and apparently died, judging by the yelps—only to follow ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... take a sniff and sneeze. Grandfather would be indescribably delighted, go off into a merry ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... aspect it afforded him. Had he descended another twenty minutes, or looked through powerful glasses, he would have seen the plain below as a juxtaposition of emerald green, raw Sienna, and pale yellow, whereas, at the distance where he chose to remain, its colours fused into indescribably lovely lilacs and russets. Had he moved freely about he would have become aware that a fanlike arrangement of sharply convergent lines, tempting his eye to run rapidly into their various angles, must be thought of as a chessboard ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee
... know in the least for what reason, Mrs. Sedley looked at her husband and laughed. Mr. Sedley's eyes twinkled in a manner indescribably roguish, and he looked at Amelia; and Amelia, hanging down her head, blushed as only young ladies of seventeen know how to blush, and as Miss Rebecca Sharp never blushed in her life—at least not since she was eight years old, and when she was caught stealing ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... perhaps you know,—taking in all his words and completely in his hand. And then Carleton went on to bring before him the considerations that he thought should affect him in such a case, in a way that this gentleman said was indescribably effective and winning; till that hardened creature was broken down,—sobbing like ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... definite shape, as leaves, grass, twigs, and wisps of straw fell fluttering from it to the ground. It was a pathetic and yet wonderful sight, beauty, happiness, and peace about it somewhere, together with a soft and tender sweetness that tempered the wildness of its aspect. Indescribably these qualities proclaimed ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... with every waft. Within, an Argand lamp, and porcelain shade with a minute painting of Puck and his fairy host, sent a softened radiance on the old, rich-hued carpet, and antique furniture. It was but little changed, yet wore an indescribably ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... hands between his, and looking down at her with an indescribably eager expression in his eyes, "Eric, surely NOW you see that this persecuting religion, this religion which has been persecuting innumerable people for hundreds of years, is false, worthless, rotten to the core. Child! Child! Surely you can't believe in a God whose followers try to promote His glory ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... both were indescribably odious, reminding Sofia of the creature Sturm; he had a laugh like that for her, on the rare occasion when chance propinquity encouraged the Boche to begin one of his uncouth essays ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... degradation. This human wastage is worse upon the race than war; and all the more pathetic because it consists of girls scarcely past the threshold of their maidenhood. When we consider further the indescribably horrible cruelty of the "white-slave trade," which the insatiable lust of men has brought into being, we may begin to realize to what the absence of restraint ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... she afterwards prefixed to her English translation of the life of the duchess from its French original. "Her character was always presenting itself in new and harmonious lights; her manners were indescribably refined and winning; her conversation never flagged, was never trifling, never pedantic, never harsh; it always kept you at an elevation which at once soothed and invigorated the mind. There was not in her nature the slightest tinge of the cynical skepticism or sarcastic contempt which chill ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... and luxury about this really beautiful chateau which gave the idea of great prosperity, but not the slightest approach to vulgar pretension. There was nothing meretricious or glaring; everything was substantial and in perfect taste, and an indescribably majestic, dignified air, if we may be allowed the expression, pervaded the whole establishment, which spoke of ancient wealth and nobility under ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... slip through the hole in the lip, a kind of rivet is formed by twine bound round the inner extremity, and this, protruding into the space left by the extraction of the four front teeth of the lower jaw, entices the tongue to act upon the extremity, which gives it a wriggling motion indescribably ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... to-day as we drove through the country. The air had the indescribably sweet smell of ripening grain, clover-blooms, and new hay; for the high stands of wild hay around the ponds and lakes are all being cut this year, and even the timothy along the roads, and there ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... said, with a rush of feeling. It was the first time she had ever called me by name. She bent her face down. Over it there passed a look of sweetness and sadness indescribably blended. "Ah, Adam! you have asked me many times to marry you! Make me believe once that you love me! Make me feel that I could trust myself to you ...
— A Kentucky Cardinal • James Lane Allen
... cypresses; even the view from their noble terraces, formed partly by the wall of the town, was cold and colorless under the November sky. Out-of-door life is so large a part of the pleasure of being in Italy, fine weather adds so indescribably there to the beauty of even the most glorious works of man, that to have seen them only under a dull sky is like having seen a human countenance without its smile. Perhaps at another season we should not have thought the streets so melancholy: perhaps ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... the war, while men still had pre-war notions and were poor. Ten months would steal imperceptibly by, and the mysterious revolution would be effected. Then, the second class and the first class would be packed, indescribably packed, crowded, on all great trains: and the third class carriages, lo and behold, would be comparatively empty. Oh, marvellous days of bankruptcy, when nobody will condescend to ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... York, and arrived in Liverpool after a pleasant voyage of twelve days. We proceeded directly to London, and took lodgings at the Adelaide Hotel. The supper seemed to me less luxurious than those I had seen in American hotels; but my situation was indescribably more pleasant. For the first time in my life I was in a place where I was treated according to my deportment, without reference to my complexion. I felt as if a great millstone had been lifted from my breast. Ensconced ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... tenderness. He had a sort of worship for her whilst he wounded her. He speaks of her after she is gone; of her wit, of her kindness, of her grace, of her beauty, with a simple love and reverence that are indescribably touching; in contemplation of her goodness his hard heart melts into pathos; his cold rhyme kindles and glows into poetry, and he falls down on his knees, so to speak, before the angel whose life he had embittered, confesses his own ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... Beneath his open shirt you saw the quick rise and fall of his hairy chest. His lips, drawn back wolfishly, displayed yellow, fang-like teeth. Under the raw crude greed of the man you seemed to glimpse something indescribably vulpine ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... is indescribably blue, matching the azure of the sky. Ships of all kinds under sails or oars are moving lightly over the havens and the open Saronic bay. It is matchless spectacle—albeit very peaceful. We now descend to the Peireus proper and examine the merchant shipping and wharves, leaving ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... carven in vast and heavy folds over a pulpit to simulate a curtain, or wrought in figures on the steps of the high-altar to represent a carpet, it has no richness of effect, but a poverty, a coldness, a harshness indescribably table-clothy. I think all this has tended to chill the soul of the sacristan, who is the feeblest and thinnest sacristan conceivable, with a frost of white hair on his temples quite incapable of thawing. In this dreary ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... rattled to the red blotter, and Peter rushed out on deck. Slamming the door, he stared at the spurting streams of white in the racing water. Indescribably feminine was the fumbling touch ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... leisured class seemed copiously copied by those whom desks and shops had made prisoners all day. The air of the whole town, swarming with the nation that is supposed to make so grave an affair of its amusements, was indescribably gay and lighthearted; the whole city seemed set on enjoying itself. The buses that boomed along were packed inside and out, and each was placarded with advertisement of some popular piece at theatre or music-hall. Inside the Green Park the grass was populous ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... Suwanee River (at which I looked as long as it remained in sight—and thought of Christine Nilsson) there came a sudden change in the aspect of the country, coincident with a change in the nature of the soil, from white sand to red clay; a change indescribably exhilarating to a New Englander who had been living, if only for two months, in a country without hills. How good it was to see the land rising, though never so gently, as it stretched away toward the horizon! My spirits rose with it. By and by we passed extensive hillside plantations, on ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... dissatisfaction were, first, that they were so outrageously filthy, and secondly, that they lived so miserably when their means evidently allowed them to do better. The family room, with its two cumbrous bedsteads built against the wall, and indescribably dirty beds, was given up to us, the family betaking themselves to the stable. As they issued thence in the morning, in single garments, we were involuntary observers of their degree of bodily neatness; and the impression was one we would willingly forget. ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... dugout indescribably slack; hardly energy to struggle against the heat and the myriads of flies. I came out of it radiant. The Turks are beat. Five lines of their best trenches carried (or, at least, four regular lines plus a bit extra); the Boomerang Redoubt rushed, and in two successive attacks ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... never referred to it. It is a closed incident. The Sheik warned us that Ahmed had told him that any reference to it would mean the breaking off of all relations with us. But Ahmed himself had changed indescribably. All the lovable qualities that had made him so popular in Paris were gone, and he had become the cruel, merciless man he has been ever since. The only love left in him was given to his adopted father, whom he worshipped. Later ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... a moment in which hoarse cries from many voices, a heavy thud and rumble on wood, and a crash of timbers and a gurgle and a splash were indescribably mingled; the gun under which Abel Keeling had lain had snapped her rotten breechings and plunged down the deck, carrying Bligh's unconscious form with it. The deck came up vertical, and for one instant longer Abel Keeling clung ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... serve as a station for the crowd. In the present rainy season, when the river was navigable up to Cruces, the chief part of the population migrated thither, so that Gorgona was almost deserted, and looked indescribably damp, dirty, and dull. With some difficulty I found a bakery and a butcher's shop. The meat was not very tempting, for the Gorgona butchers did not trouble themselves about joints, but cut the flesh ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... The spectrum of colors displayed were unbelievably, indescribably beautiful. The brilliant cloud masses that boiled and leaped around were like things alive trying to ...
— Jack of No Trades • Charles Cottrell
... were awakened by the wild ravings of delirious agony,—those sounds so fearful in themselves, so awful in the silence and darkness of night, so indescribably awful in the solitude of ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... and I caught sight of his indignant face, pink with emotion. Then the scene changed again with the rapidity of a dissolving view. I saw Mr. Hawk give another plunge, and the next moment the boat was upside down in the water, and I was shooting head foremost to the bottom, oppressed with the indescribably clammy sensation which comes when one's clothes ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... always detested the man—there was an underbred swagger and familiarity in his manner that made him indescribably offensive; just now he seemed doubly detestable, and yet Paul by a strong effort succeeded ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... gave him one of those shy, timid glances he had noticed before, and began coiling something around her fingers, with a suggestion of coy embarrassment, indescribably inconsistent ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... spoke in their turn, were, the King of England, the King of Naples, the Emperor of Austria, the Pope, and the Grand Signor. The dialogue was indescribably ridiculous. The piece opened with a council, in which the King of England entreated all his brother sovereigns to declare war against France and the French Emperor, and proceeded to assign some ludicrous reasons as applicable to each. "My contribution to the grand alliance," ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... Sydney; not very clerical, you will say, but indescribably amusing to the hearers, whatever the readers may think of them. Nothing can present a more striking contrast to his rapid, loud, laughing utterance, and his rector-like amplitude and rubicundity, than ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... noble. So, finally, the worst that befell him was ridicule,—which, even when he was aware of it, hurt him little. Often, indeed, he would receive their jests and artful civilities with implicit good faith; acknowledging apparent attentions with a gentle, kindly courtesy, indescribably mystifying to those excellent young men who expended so much needless pains on the easy work ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... yourself, granny! Ha, ha, ha! ho, ho, ho! haw, haw, haw!" shouted a mirthful voice, while an indescribably comic face, half cat and half baby, appeared for a single glimpse above the burdock leaf behind which the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... all that have ever yet been discovered in the forests of the world. Here indeed is the tree-lover's paradise; the woods, dry and wholesome, letting in the light in shimmering masses of half sunshine, half shade; the night air as well as the day air indescribably spicy and exhilarating; plushy fir-boughs for campers' beds and cascades to sing us to sleep. On the highest ridges, over which these old Yosemite ways passed, the silver fir (Abies magnifica) forms the bulk of ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... The shock was so indescribably severe that Miss Mapp's smile was frozen, so to speak, as by some sudden congealment on to her face, and did not thaw off it till she had reached the sharp turn at the end of the street, where she leaned ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... and again compelling Frederick to empty his. Then the fiery juices of the wine permeated his veins and stirred up his stagnant blood until it coursed as it were triumphantly through his every limb. "Oh! I feel so indescribably happy," he whispered, the burning blushes mounting into his cheeks. "Oh! I have never felt so happy in all my life before." Rose, who undoubtedly gave another interpretation to his words, smiled upon him ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... bed. The small cabin is illuminated by the feeble light of a flickering lamp suspended from the ceiling; Professor Grime is lying on the opposite shelf on the broad of his back, with his mouth wide open. The scene is indescribably solemn. The rippling of the tide, the noise of the sailors' feet overhead, the gruff voices on the river, the dogs on the shore, the snoring of the passengers, and a constant creaking of every plank in the vessel, are the only sounds that meet the ear. ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... followed this up with a roar and such an indescribably ferocious demonstration that the girl fled in terror to the culinary regions, where she found the cat breakfasting on a pat of butter. The girl yelled, and flung first a saucepan, and after that the lid of a teapot, at the thief. She failed, of course, in this ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... realisation of the fact that this before me, this presence, was no living human being, no dweller in our familiar world, not a woman, but a ghost! Oh, it was an awful moment! I pray that I may never again endure another like it. There is something so indescribably frightful in the feeling that we are on the verge of being tried beyond what we can bear, that ordinary conditions are slipping away from under us, that in another moment reason or life itself must snap with the strain; and all these ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth
... nuptials celebrated for the Pope's daughter Lucretia—who, by the way, was a divorcee—were "by no means peculiarly decorous." The Latin chronicler who has related them reports in this connection that the moral state of the clergy at Rome was indescribably low. The example of the Popes had set the pace for the rest. From the highest to the lowest each priest had his concubine as a substitute for married life ("concubinas in figura matrimonii"), and that, quite openly. The good ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... office of the Greenstream Bugle, diagonally across the street. Within, the week's edition was going to press; a burly young individual was turning the cylinders by hand, while the editor and owner dexterously removed the printed sheets from the press. The office was indescribably grimy, the rude ceiling was hung with dusty cobwebs, the windows obscured by a grey film. A small footpress stood to the left of the entrance, on the right were ranged typesetter's cases with high, precarious stools, ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... city, by and by, and drove all through it. Intensely Indian, it was, and crumbly, and mouldering, and immemorially old, to all appearance. And the houses—oh, indescribably quaint and curious they were, with their fronts an elaborate lace-work of intricate and beautiful wood-carving, and now and then further adorned with rude pictures of elephants and princes and gods done in shouting colors; and all the ground floors along these cramped and narrow ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... for their lazy grace of manner,—they glided to and fro with an indolent floating ease that was indescribably bewitching,—the more so as many of them were endowed with exquisite beauty of form and feature,—beauty greatly enhanced by the artistic simplicity ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... readiness for war and having chosen a place for battle wait there for some days, so that the cranes when they arrive find their enemy already arrayed. And at first they preen themselves and do not give battle, but when they are fully rested after their great journey they attack the pigmies with indescribably fury so that many are ...
— Plays of Gods and Men • Lord Dunsany
... in character that described by Hawthorne as occurring in the grounds of the Villa Borghese when Donatello, with a simple "tambourine," produced music of such "indescribably potency" that sallow, haggard, half-starved peasants, French soldiers, scarlet-costumed contadinas, Swiss guards, German artists, English lords, and herdsmen from the Campagna, all "joined hands in the dance" which the musician himself led ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... had gained in character. She had an innocent nobility of expression that came from a light within, as of one ready to answer unwaveringly wherever she might be called. Yet something in her soft eyes at times trembled into being, indescribably gentle, intolerably sweet—the soul of that Dosia who ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... impoliteness of men, who, as I supposed, constantly treated me with neglect; but, as I grew older and reflected on everything, putting aside coquetry and observing things without taking any part in them myself, I perceived this much—that if men are not always polite, women are always indescribably rude. ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... an investigation of his pockets, the clerk standing by the while paralyzed with horror, his face the color of dough, his scalp creeping, and his hands and fingers twitching as though with the palsy. For there was something indescribably dreadful in the spectacle of those living hands searching into the dead's pockets, and he would freely have given a week's pay if he had never embarked upon the expedition for the ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... hovers over all Concord to-day, taking, in the minds of those of you who were his neighbors and intimates a somewhat fuller shape, remaining more abstract in the younger generation, but bringing home to all of us the notion of a spirit indescribably precious. The form that so lately moved upon these streets and country roads, or awaited in these fields and woods the beloved Muse's visits, is now dust; but the soul's note, the spiritual voice, rises strong and clear above the uproar of the times, and seems securely ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... Honora, that the rhododendrons will not exhaust themselves; at this moment yours opposite the library window are in the most beautiful profuse blow you can conceive, and at the end of my garden indescribably beautiful, and scarlet thorn beside. The peony tree has happily survived its removal, and ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... these various orders may differ in the colour of their cloaks or the shape of their tonsure, there is one point in which they all agree,—that is, dirt. They are indescribably filthy. Clean water and soap would seem to be banished the convents, as indulgences of the flesh which cannot be cherished without deadly peril to the soul, and which are to be shunned like heresy itself. ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... new summer ribbon for three years, and now, in addition, she had purchased some rosebuds, and arranged them in little clusters in a frilling of lace inside the brim. Her pretty face looked out of this little millinery halo with an indescribably mild and innocent radiance. One caught one's self looking past her fixed shining eyes for the brightness ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... at that was a flash of genius. It was indescribably eloquent. She forbade and invited in the same breath. It was wonderful, and it made me Buckingham. And Buckingham it brought to her feet. Little wonder. It would have brought a cardinal. In the passionate ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... How lovely, how indescribably lovely, the world was that September afternoon, as we strolled along the shaded sidewalk where the maples were already laying a mosaic of gold and garnet, and looked off toward the river and the hills ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... acquiesce, though the temper of my revolt was by no means steady. There were times when—to reverse an ancient saying—the muddy Jordan of London life seemed more to me than all the sparkling waters of Damascus. Humanity seemed indescribably majestic; and there were moments when I sincerely felt that I would not exchange the trampled causeways of the London streets for the greenest meadows that bordered Rotha or Derwentwater. There were days ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... the west wall till he came to the wall on the north, which was higher than the others. Here, against the north wall, was a sheltered cover like an immense sty, indescribably filthy and evil-smelling; about thirty rings were fastened to the wall, and from each ring depended a big rusty chain ending ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... Peking, which by the way, would be a credit to London or New York, we took an hour's rickshaw ride in the moonlight to the Forbidden City. The solemn pom-pom-pom of the funeral dirge for the Mother of the heir to the Chinese Throne, was indescribably impressive. About eighty men bore the casket from the dwelling to its canopied hearse. One of the mourner's told us that the fourteen-year-old heir to the throne, had not cared much, when all his ...
— The Log of the Empire State • Geneve L.A. Shaffer
... of June that they came in sight of the first iceberg, or until the 2nd of July that they reached Resolution Island, the valleys of which were filled with snow, while a dense fog hung over the land, rendering the scene before them indescribably dreary and desolate. In a short time the ships were surrounded by no less than six hundred and fifty-four icebergs, one of which rose to two hundred and fifty-eight feet above the sea. Among them were large floes, which were turned round ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... its first dramatic appearance, was one of the most astonishing things that we saw in the whole course of our adventures. It was not a cerulean vault like that which covers the earth in halcyon weather, but an indescribably soft, pinkish-gray concavity that seemed nearer than the sky and yet farther than the clouds. Here and there, far beneath it, but still at a vast elevation, floated delicate gauzy curtains, tinted like ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... An indescribably enlivening influence seemed to exude from every pore of that homely earthen vessel, diffusing mirth and good-humour in all directions. The old man jumped and danced about on the rough floor of the "shanty"; and the children sat giggling and nudging each ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... who had never said a gentle word to an inferior, replied in an indescribably sweet and affectionate voice, "I am only a captain; you ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... it an incredible lie to say that the king was cured of an illness by having a few pages of Quintus Curtius read to him. The classics had not refined his taste, for he was amused by setting the wandering scholars, who swarmed to his court, to abuse one another in the indescribably filthy Latin scolding matches which were then the fashion. Alphonso founded nothing, and after his conquest of Naples in 1442 ruled by his mercenary soldiers, and no less mercenary men of letters. His Spanish possessions were ruled for him by his brotherjohn. He left his conquest of Naples ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... creature to his bosom with one hand, snugly enveloping him in the capacious folds of his pilot jacket, while with the other he seized Lina's hands, and leaning back against the boat, stood looking at her with a half-pitying, half-affectionate glance, that was indescribably comic ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... throng; till near the foot of it, turning up a side street out of the noise, we found ourselves in face of a gateway which could only belong to a prison. The gate itself stood open, but the passage led to an iron-barred door, and in the passage—which was cool but indescribably noisome—a couple of children were playing marbles, with half a dozen turnkeys looking on and (I believe) ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... speaking flash of eyes remained to haunt and torment Gale. It was indescribably sweet, and provocative of thoughts that he believed were wild without warrant. Something within him danced for very joy, and the next instant he was conscious of wistful doubt, a gravity that he could not understand. It dawned upon him ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... promised for the spirit of man, are opening today for us in clear light, their fabulous distance lessens, and we hail these kingly ideals with as intense a trust and with more joy, perhaps, than they did who were born in those purple hours, because we are emerging from centuries indescribably meagre and squalid in their thought, and every new revelation has for us the sweetness of sunlight to one after the tears and sorrow of a prison-house. The well at Ballykeele is, perhaps, a humble starting-point for the contemplation of such mighty mysteries; ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... he stood, out of the hush of the woods there stole the last wondrous miracle of the departing day. The spirit of the twilight took voice, a marvelous voice, indescribably sweet. Away in the depths of the forest there arose a strain of music, the hermit thrush, in his woodland sanctuary, raising his hymn to the night. Calm and serene, carrying an exquisite peace, it floated ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... through, and saw him plainly. For one so young, he displayed remarkable coolness and courage when in the immediate presence of death. The manner of his execution was wretchedly bungled, in some way, and the whole thing was to me indescribably repulsive. In the crisis of the affair there was a sudden clang of military arms and accouterments in the line not far from me, and looking in that direction I saw that a soldier in the front rank had fainted and fallen headlong to the ground. I didn't ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... voice pitched to tragedy. "If—if—I can't get another place that's decent for a girl to take," said she, "and if I don't get what's owing me before long, I shall either have to take one of them places or get a dose." She said the last word with an indescribably hideous significance. Her blue eyes ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... for flowers in the capital was over, yet, on the mountain, the cherry-trees were still in blossom. They advanced on their way further and further. The haze clung to the surface like a soft sash does round the waist, and to Genji, who had scarcely ever been out of the capital, the scenery was indescribably novel. The ascetic lived in a deep cave in the rocks, near the lofty summit. Genji did not, however, declare who he was, and the style of his retinue was of a very private character. Yet his nobility ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... There is something indescribably fascinating about the sight of a strong workman in the full swing of his work, something—yes, beautiful! A hard pull of a job, with a strong man doing it joyfully, what could be finer to see? And he gave such a jaunty sense of youth ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson
... and sometimes to be thrown at them. In one of the passages all sorts of queer sounds, such as whinings, meanings, screeches, clangings of pails and rattlings of chains, were heard, whilst something, no one could ever see distinctly, but which they all felt to be indescribably nasty, rushed up the cellar steps and flew past, as if engaged in a desperate chase. Indeed, the disturbances were of so constant and harrowing a nature, that the wing had to be vacated and was ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... the sleeper, during the few days of his absence; how much thinner the hollow cheek, how sunken the closed eyes; how indescribably sharpened the outlines of each feature. The face which had formerly suggested some marble statue, had now the finer tracery as of an exquisite cameo; and oblivion of all earthly ills had set there the seal of a perfect peace. ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... interpretation, and before long she had put a question to him. They were nearing a large house that stood far back from the road on the left hand side. It was a big block of a place, greyish-white in colour, and with more than half of its windows bricked up, indescribably gloomy. A long, straight piece of water lay before it, stretching almost from the walls to the road, from which it was separated by a low fence. Tall, thick trees grew in a close row on either side, narrowing the prospect; a path ran up beside them on the one hand, the only way to the house, ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... nice eyes and hair, only, of course, she'll get funny too. We ought to start a society for broadening the minds of the young—much more useful than missionaries, Hester! Oh, I'd forgotten there's a dreadful little thing called Pepper. He's just like his name. He's indescribably insignificant, and rather queer in his temper, poor dear. It's like sitting down to dinner with an ill-conditioned fox-terrier, only one can't comb him out, and sprinkle him with powder, as one would one's dog. It's a pity, sometimes, one can't treat people ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... is nothing; if only I could give an idea of the air of immense importance that Contenson contrived to impart to them! There was something indescribably knowing in the collar of his coat, and the fresh blacking on a pair of boots with gaping soles, to which no language can do justice. However, to give some notion of this medley of effect, it may ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... and the coach-house and stables, with the lawn, fountain, and flower beds between, the buildings being shaded not only by the broad veranda, but also by rows of orange, lemon, lime, and peach trees, the fragrance from which imparted an indescribably refreshing character to the air. Turning to the left as they emerged from the hall, Carlos conducted his friend along the left wing until they reached the last door but one, which the young Cuban threw open, ushering ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... of this period that I became engaged to Audrey. Now that I can understand her better and see myself, impartially, as I was in those days, I can realize how indescribably offensive I must have been. My love was real, but that did not prevent its patronizing complacency being an insult. I was King Cophetua. If I did not actually say in so many words, 'This beggar-maid shall be my queen', I said ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... interest me indescribably. Do you suppose he was in our rank of life? I mean, of course, did he ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... If we looked sideways at a "stagger," we were likely to receive a welt with a pick handle and a strafe of several marks. Sometimes we only received a mark or two for a week's work. Most of this we spent for soap. It was impossible to work in the mine and not become indescribably dirty, and soap became an ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... sleep, and my fire would burn low, a hand on my shoulder would arouse me, and her voice would tell me to get up and throw on more wood. Now and again I fancied I heard the voice of my mother, who died when I was a boy, also encouraging and reassuring me. Indescribably comforting were those voices, whatever their origin may have been. They soothed me, and brought balm for my loneliness. In the wilderness, and amid the falling snow, those that loved me were ministering ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... to a great iron bridge, sternly silhouetted in the sunset. On either side rose cliffs of darkness, and beneath, like sheets of cold moonlight, flowed the Genesee, a Dantesque effect of jet and silver, Stygian in its intensity and indescribably mournful. The banks of Acheron can not be more wildly funebre, and it was companionable to hear Colin's voice ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne
... the least frequented, for we rarely met a single carriage, and the villages, few and distant, seemed to have no intercourse with each other. Dimanche, indeed, might occasion this stiffness, for we saw, at almost all the villages, neat and clean peasants going to or coming from mass, and seeming indescribably elated and happy by the public permission of divine worship on its originally ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... up the tunnel. They heard him gasp indescribably: there was the crash of a heavy ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... so indescribably loathsome, you know. Oh, if it had only been an ordinary mortal disease—! For I'm not so afraid of death—though I should like to live as ...
— Ghosts • Henrik Ibsen |
