"Unspeakable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the trusts I have exercised through life with powers of appointment, I can say with truth, and with unspeakable comfort, that I never did appoint a relation to office, and that merely because I never saw the case in which some one did not offer, or occur, better qualified; and I have the most unlimited confidence, that in the appointment of Professors to our nursling institution, every individual of ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... has passed, of terror and anguish unspeakable. Yet it has closed in thanksgiving. I have been respited.—I was forced from my chamber. I was forced to the altar. I was forced to endure the sight of Montrecour at my side. A revolutionary priest stood ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... more, for the tears, Thorpe stumbled out of the room. Araminta's own eyes were wet and her heart was strangely tender to all the world. Miss Evelina, the kitten, Mr. Thorpe, Doctor Ralph—even Aunt Hitty—were all included in a wave of unspeakable tenderness. ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... this answer, the stranger seemed surprised; he looked darkly at the youth, who remained silent. They seemed to communicate by an unspeakable effusion of the spirit, hearing each other's yearnings in the teeming silence, and going forth side by side, like two doves sweeping the air on equal wing, till the boat, touching the strand of the island, roused them from ...
— The Exiles • Honore de Balzac
... my foe to the edge of the crater,— But no one to return, we knew,— The lava's heat had never been greater Than the ire between us two. He flung back his head and he mocked at me, He spat unspeakable words at me, Our eyes met, and our knives met, I saw red, and ...
— Last Poems • Laurence Hope
... not to be won for Christ by a campaign of ignorance and noise, however largely it may be enforced by altruistic fervour. And it should not be forgotten that the army officers have not scrupled to enter territory already occupied by Christian missions, to cause unspeakable annoyance to workers on the field, and to fill up more than half the ranks of their "soldiers" with people who already claimed allegiance to Christ ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... that. He is unspeakable." As he looked into her eyes a deep anxiety or disturbance appeared beneath the superficial gaiety of his smile. "The fellow had evidently had a quarrel, perhaps a permanent break, with Vetch. He was ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... forget it. Yet she was not without a good many very small and unessential resources for sleepless moments. Often she wrote vague comments on matters with which she was not familiar, in an exercise-book, always eventually mislaid. She would awake from dear and unspeakable dreams full of hope, and tell herself stories about herself, trying on various lives and deaths like clothes. The result was never likely ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... as dear and as dirty as when Lady Morgan first called it so, long years ago. The boat was met by a crowd of ragged gossoons, most of them barefooted, some of them stockingless, and in men's shoes, and several of them with flowers in their unspeakable hats and caps. There were no cabs or jaunting cars because we had not been expected so early, and the jarveys were in attendance on the Holyhead steamer. It was while I was searching for a piece of lost luggage that I saw ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... her heart A joy unspeakable. She took the fish And wore it on a ribbon round her neck. Unto the Queen then Bidasari spoke, "Oh, give my body to my parents dear When I am dead." Again the young maid swooned. The Queen believed her dead, and ...
— Malayan Literature • Various Authors
... for two human souls than to feel that they are joined for life—to strengthen each other in all labour, to rest upon each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent unspeakable memories at the ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... He too, unworthy, soiled and shamed with sin, had been suffered to go with her a little way. For one luminous perfect moment he stood face to face with her in the mystic marriage-chamber of the soul; he heard—if it were only for a moment—the unspeakable epithalamium; ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... Breathlessly she ran up-stairs and found her room. The sight of her maid moving about, of the lights on the dressing-table, of the roses, and her dress laid out upon the bed, brought her sudden and unspeakable relief. The color came back to her cheeks, she began to chatter to her maid about everything and nothing—laughing at any trifle, and yet feeling every now and then inclined to cry. Her maid dressed her in pale pink and told ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... wonderful things to be seen, and every day brought novel experiences. But exposure and illness, dread of Indian attacks, mishaps of every sort, and the awful sense of isolation and of uncertainty of the future, caused many a man's stout heart to quail, and brought anguish unspeakable to brave women. Of such joys and sorrows, however, is a frontier existence compounded; and of the growing thousands who turned their faces toward the setting sun, comparatively few yielded to discouragement ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg
... Trusia in his arms, leaped lightly from the car and would have carried her into the castle had not the elderly soldier barred his way. With face crimson every glistening hair seemed to flash the lightning of his unspeakable rage at ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... extent your own real happiness. We are sometimes suffered to be in a state of perplexity that our faith may be tried and grow stronger. See if you cannot spend a short time after dark in looking out of your window into space, and meditating upon heaven, with all its joys unspeakable and full of glory..."All things work together for good" to God's children. Try to look up and be cheerful, and not desponding. Trust our kind Heavenly Father, and by the eye of faith see that all things are right and for your best interests. The clouds come, pass ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... her, and hung his head. In a moment the force of his passion was checked, and from the supreme verge of unspeakable and rapturous delight, he was cast suddenly into the depths of his own remorse. He stood silent before her, trembling ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... Fanny. He had a pleasing anticipation of what would be. His niece, meanwhile, did not thank him for what he had just done. She had hoped to have William all to herself the last morning. It would have been an unspeakable indulgence. But though her wishes were overthrown, there was no spirit of murmuring within her. On the contrary, she was so totally unused to have her pleasure consulted, or to have anything take place at all in the way she ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... father!" she cried, in a tone of unspeakable pathos, "can I never, never see you again? Can I never tell you of the love of Jesus, and the better and happier life beyond? Oh, how my heart yearns after you! God forgive me if this is wrong, ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... face to his. Half-shed tears glistened in her eyes, but there was also a radiant look there which trilled his heart with unspeakable joy. He knew that he ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... what the nation owed, in Kentucky, at least, to the passionate allegiance that was broadcast through the State to Henry Clay? It was not in the boy's blood to be driven an inch, and no one tried to drive him. In his own home he was a spectre of gnawing anguish to his mother and Margaret, of unspeakable bitterness and disappointment to his father, and an impenetrable sphinx to Dan. For in Dan there was no shaking doubt. He was the spirit, incarnate, of the young, unquestioning, unthinking, ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... pain, at different periods of my life, but anything like that misery, thank God, I never endured before or since. I earnestly hope it may not resemble any type of death to which we are liable. I was, indeed, a spirit in prison; and unspeakable was my dumb ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... feeling for measure is a produce of civilisation, and men of the people ignore it. Those street daubers who draw on the flags of the London foot-paths always represent heartrending scenes, or scenes of a sweetness unspeakable: here are fires, storms, and disasters; now a soldier, in the middle of a battle, forgets his own danger, and washes the wound of his horse; then cascades under an azure sky, amidst a spring landscape, with a blue bird flying about. Many such drawings ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... grumbling father, shook hands with her weeping mother, and bent to kiss the children. Wilhelmine, in unspeakable anguish, sprang after her, holding her fast, with both hands clinching the crackling wings. She implored her sister to take her with her, while the tears ran in streams down her cheeks. "You know that I love you," ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... the parapet, finally, and instead of a crushed and unspeakable body, there was Mr. Harbison, sitting about eight feet below me, with his feet swinging into space and a long red scratch from the corner of his eye across his cheek. There was a sort of mansard there, with windows, and just enough coping to ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Satisfaction Sir Thomas Abney enjoys in the unspeakable Blessings of this Year, that brought our present King to the Throne: and he permits the World to forget that happy Turn that was given to the Affairs of the Kingdom by his wise Management in the Highest Office of the City, whereby the Settlement of the Crown was so much strengthen'd in the Illustrious ...
— Divine Songs • Isaac Watts
... terror, trade among the towns, already languishing, died out completely. The rich dared not travel, and the poor feared to be arrested by the Civil Guard, which, being under obligation to pursue the tulisanes, often seized the first person encountered and subjected him to unspeakable tortures. In its impotence, the government put on a show of energy toward the persons whom it suspected, in order that by force of cruelty the people should not realize its weakness—the fear that ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... and a half before in the castle at Dun, secured its foothold! By its union with the claims of the aristocracy it had broken up the existing government not merely of the Church but also of the State. It was of unspeakable importance for the subsequent fortunes of England that this vigorous living element had been taken under the protection of the Queen of that country and supported ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... joy unspeakable to feel the little fingers in mine, for this was the first time that my flesh touched hers, and with the touch a thrill of gladness, the like of which I had never felt before, ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... we must not be petty; you control your earnings, and have controlled mine, in an unspeakable way; still, don't you think that, as comrades, you should have ...
— Plays: Comrades; Facing Death; Pariah; Easter • August Strindberg
... almost instantly by the honey of Rudin's language, and her virgin soul expands at his declaration of love. Despite the opposition of her mother, despite the iron bonds of convention, she is ready to forsake all and follow him. To her unspeakable amazement and dismay, she finds that the great orator ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... gives me great joy, dear Mother, to come to you and sing His unspeakable mercies. It is for you alone that I write the story of the little flower gathered by Jesus. This thought will help me to speak freely, without troubling either about style or about the many digressions ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... Unspeakable sadness and terror seized Ramses at this spectacle. Before his eyes flies began to circle; for the twinkle of an eye he lost consciousness; it seemed to him that he would have yielded his throne not to be at that place, and not to see what was going to happen. He hurried ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... good, but great good man, by a long and close confinement in Newgate through the cruel malice and malicious cruelty of Richard Brown, was taken away by hasty death, to the unutterable grief of very many, and unspeakable loss to the ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... The money's bad enough." And the trouble came out in a quick rush of words—explanatory, contrite, despairing—all in one breath. For the Boy had Irish blood in his veins; and the initial difficulty over, he found it an unspeakable relief to disburden his soul to the man who had "brothered" him ever since ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... him round dragged him towards the well-greaved Achaians; and he was strangled by the embroidered strap beneath his soft throat, drawn tight below his chin to hold his helm. Now would Menelaos have dragged him away and won glory unspeakable, but that Zeus' daughter Aphrodite was swift to mark, and tore asunder for him the strap of slaughtered ox's hide; so the helmet came away empty in his stalwart hand. Thereat Menelaos cast it with a swing toward the well-greaved Achaians, and his trusty ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... I have undergone such unspeakable torments, in bringing forth this sermon, quoth Yorick, upon this occasion—that I declare, Didius, I would suffer martyrdom—and if it was possible my horse with me, a thousand times over, before I would sit down and make such another: I was delivered of it at the wrong end of me—it came ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... she stood before him. 'No, Mr Trent; let me finish before you say anything. It is such an unspeakable relief to me to have broken the ice at last, and I want to end the story while I am still feeling the triumph of beginning it.' She sank down into the sofa from which she had first risen. 'I am telling you a thing that nobody else knows. Everybody knew, I suppose, that something had ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... unspeakable yearning to regain her love had taken possession of him, and every other emotion was, for the ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... would betray the momentous trust. That morning, amid great rugged prayers which broke from him like massive rock-fragments hot and burning from a volcano of mingled faith and agony, laying one hand on the open Bible and lifting the other to heaven, he cast his soul on Omnipotence, in pledge unspeakable to obey only his conscience and his God. Whether for life or death, his heart ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss
... refuge recognised Schell, and for a moment the fugitives gave themselves up for lost. But the peasants took pity on the two wretched objects, fed them and gave them shelter, till they could make up their minds what was best to be done. To their unspeakable dismay, they found that they were, after all, only seven miles from Glatz, and that in the neighbouring town of Wunschelburg a hundred soldiers were quartered, with orders to capture all deserters from the fortress. This time, however, fortune favoured the luckless ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... thousand.' It is at least difficult to imagine more unmitigated expressions of contempt and aversion. Mackintosh, says Mill, uses 'macaroni phrases,' 'tawdry talk,' 'gabble'; he gets 'beyond drivelling' into something more like 'raving'; he 'deluges' us with 'unspeakable nonsense.' 'Good God!' sums up the comment which can be made upon one sentence.[562] Sir James, he declares, 'has got into an intellectual state so thoroughly depraved that I doubt whether a parallel to it is possible to be found.'[563] There is scarcely a ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... waxed warm. 'Dr. Fortescue-Langley!' she exclaimed. 'The wicked wretch! But he didn't get my diamonds! I've carried them here in my hands, all the way from Wiesbaden: I wasn't going to leave them for a single day to the tender mercies of that unspeakable Gretchen. The fool would lose them. Well, we'll catch him this time, Lois: and we'll give him ten years ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... Once his eyes turned to Mrs. Wilmott in a message of unspeakable bitterness. "You're a judge," he said in a strained, tense voice, "and I'm a prisoner; you have all the power and I have none, but there's something back of that, something we both have, I mean a common manhood, and you ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... dear Hippolito, the unspeakable obligations I have received from my amiable friend, the marquis of Pescara. Though these obligations can never be fully discharged, yet I am happy to have met with an opportunity of demonstrating the gratitude that will ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... he drove home, the man's words recurred to him and dwelt long in his memory. Their bitterness seemed to cloak something upon which no eye had ever looked—a regret unspeakable, a passionate ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... thank Heaven for many things—first, the Atlantic Ocean; second, that you refrained from war in Mexico; third, that we kept our treaty—the canal tolls victory, I mean. Now, when all this half of the world will suffer the unspeakable brutalization of war, we shall preserve our moral strength, our ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... opened up to me. I lived more in one day than in a year of my slave life. I felt as one might feel upon escape from a den of hungry lions. My chains were broken, and the victory brought me unspeakable joy." ...
— Frederick Douglass - A Biography • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... good people of Ballynavogue and Ballynascraw, I stand here really in unspeakable concern and astonishment, to notice at this fair-time in my barony, these symptoms of a riot, gentlemen, ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... them, motionless as a statue, impalpable as air, but real as life itself. The vision, if it was a vision, lasted fully a minute. Never, to the day of her death, was Unorna to forget that face, with its deathlike purity of outline, with its unspeakable nobility of feature. ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... in this plight, and compared with anguish unspeakable his joyful anticipations of this night with the strange and cruel reality. "My wedding night! my wedding night!" he cried aloud, and burst ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... didn't stay with him!" Lulu said recklessly. This was no less than wrung from her, but its utterance occasioned in her an unspeakable relief. ...
— Miss Lulu Bett • Zona Gale
... of irony] Let us seize this unspeakable moment. Let us march to the great meeting at once. Excuse me just an instant. [He rushes into the shelter. Jenny takes her tambourine from the ...
— Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... with unspeakable astonishment by all but Elinor, who sat with her head leaning over her work, in a state of such agitation as made her hardly ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... which promises unspeakable advantages to the human race, and immortal fame to its author! Behold the dawn of an universal revolution! A new race of men shall arise, shall overspread the earth, to embellish it by their virtues, and render it fertile by their industry. Neither ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... serve the God of their fathers, to trust in Him who never fails those that seek Him, and to love that God entirely who hath manifested so much love to them, and that in their greatest extremities; and hereby to endeavour that a grateful acknowledgment of the goodness and unspeakable love of God might be transmitted to his children's children; that as God never forgets to be gracious, so his servants may never forget to be thankful, but to express the thankfulness of their hearts by the actions of ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... end to end The street and the merry market, and the windows of his friend, And the pavement where his footsteps yester'en returning trod, Now white and changed and dreadful 'neath the threatening voice of God; So Hogni seeth Gudrun, and the face he used to know, Unspeakable, unchanging, with white unknitted brow With half-closed lips untrembling, with deedless hands and cold Laid still on knees that stir not, and ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... old lady positively shuddered at coming near the Mission House, and dreaded being taught anything. One day she was induced to draw near the door, and fixing a hand on either post, and gazing inwards, she exclaimed, "Awai, Missi! Kai, Missi!"—the Native cry for unspeakable wonder. Mrs. Paton began to play on the harmonium, and sang a simple hymn in the old woman's language. Manifestly charmed, she drew nearer and nearer, and drank in the music, as it were, at every pore of her being. At last she ran off, and we thought it was with ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... was heard faintly in the distance. It was the Pedlar, who had wrapped himself in his gaunt arms and was crooning softly, with unspeakable joy: "Hark to him sing! Hark to him sing! A ringer ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... head, looking up at Muller with a glance of unspeakable gratitude. With trembling lips he kissed the hand which a moment before had pressed kindly on his shoulder, clinging fast to it as if he could not bear to let it go. Muller was almost embarrassed. "Oh, ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner
... Read the uncreate, Unspeakable, diffused Throughout the heavenly sphere, Shamefully abused, Transpierced with nail ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... I not infinitely more than a hundredfold, in so entire a possession as Thou my Lord hast taken of me, in that unshaken firmness which Thou givest me in my sufferings, in a perfect tranquillity in the midst of a furious tempest that assails me on every side, in an unspeakable joy, enlargedness, and liberty which I enjoy in a most strait and ...
— Memoranda Sacra • J. Rendel Harris
... borne up in the soft, warm chariots of the smoke toward the beautiful sun, to bask in his warmth and light, and then to fly away to the Happy Western Land. What wonder if the Indian shrinks with unspeakable horror from the thought of burying his friend's soul!—of pressing and ramming down with pitiless clods that inner something which once took such delight in the sweet light of the sun! What wonder if it takes years to persuade him to do otherwise and follow our custom! What wonder if even then ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... her hands were clasped over her head, the skirts of her dressing-gown and the embroidery of her night-gown flowed upon the floor behind her, and her stockingless feet, from which the slippers had fallen, protruded upon the carpet. It was from her lips that came the murmur of unspeakable despair. ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... An unspeakable loathing swept over her; his very touch seemed contamination; and while she turned toward the gate, she knew that every fibre of her flesh, every quiver of her nerves, revolted against the thing she was doing. But something stronger ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... enthroned, in presence of an assembled universe, crowned Lord of All, glorified in His saints, satisfied in the fruits of His soul's travail, destroying His enemies with the brightness of His coming—the lightning-glance of wrath,—causing the hearts of His exulting people to "rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." Prepare, my soul, to meet Him! Let it be a joyous thought to thee,—thy "blessed hope,"—the meeting of thine Elder Brother. Stand oftentimes on the watchtower to catch the first streak of that coming brightness, the first murmur of these chariot wheels. The world ...
— The Faithful Promiser • John Ross Macduff
... magnetising her, ravishing her. He is come, and He is gone. In an ecstasy the soul goes out prepared to meet Him, seeking Him by praise and prayer, pouring up her love towards Him; and He, condescending to her, fills her with unspeakable delights, and at rare times He will catch her from an ecstasy into a greater rapture. At least, so it is with me: the ecstasy is prepared for, but in the quicker rapture (or catching up) it is He that seeks the soul. These two conditions, though given very intermittently, ...
— The Golden Fountain - or, The Soul's Love for God. Being some Thoughts and - Confessions of One of His Lovers • Lilian Staveley
... the mother, and the brother with the sister. No magistrate could ever discover, or be informed, which way any of these wretches died, or that ever they were baptized. Many murders have been discovered among them; and they are not only a most unspeakable oppression to poor tenants (who, if they give not bread, or some sort of provision, to, perhaps, forty such villains in one day, are sure to be insulted by them), but they rob many poor people, who live in houses distant ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... Nor she endur'd to live. Ha! fades thy cheek? Dost thou then, Maiden, tremble at the tale? Look here! behold the youthful paramour! The self-devoted hero!" Fearfully The Maid look'd down, and saw the well known face Of THEODORE! in thoughts unspeakable, Convulsed with horror, o'er her face she clasp'd Her cold damp hands: "Shrink not," the Phantom cried, "Gaze on! for ever gaze!" more firm he grasp'd Her quivering arm: "this lifeless mouldering clay, As well thou know'st, was warm with all the glow Of Youth and Love; this is the arm ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... of this precept were correct, then the child might be set free from the authority of the father, and the criminal from the sentence of the judge. All justice would be extinguished, all order overthrown, and boundless confusion introduced into the affairs of men. Yet, with unspeakable self-complacency, they come with such miserable interpretations of the plainest truths to instruct those whom they conceive to be blinded by custom and the institution of slavery to the clearest light of heaven. ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... It gave her unspeakable satisfaction, when the Commissioners, laying out a road down the valley, ran it at the back of her house instead of past the front. "It is well," she said. "Let their travel be where it belongs, behind ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... if he shared the contempt that some people expressed for bullets. He and Mr. Gleeson both said, "Anyone who talks of contempt for bullets is talking nonsense. Bullets mean death at every corner of the street, and death overhead and flying limbs and unspeakable sights." All these men went back. All of them behaved quietly and like gentlemen, but one man asked a friend of his over and over again if he was a Belgian refugee, and another said that a town steeple falling looked so strange that they could only stand about and light cigarettes. ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... of the nations, the Mecca of the pleasure-seekers, the city beautiful! Paris—the siren, frankly immoral, always seductive, ever caressing! City of a thousand political convulsions, city of a million crimes—her streets have run with human blood, horrors unspeakable have stained her history, civil strife has scarred her monuments, the German conqueror insolently has bivouaced within her walls. Yet, like a virgin undefiled, she shows no sign of storm and stress, she offers her dimpled cheek to the rising ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... were on the road twenty hours, reaching Fan Cheng at midnight. Here we found the engineers' party waiting for us with boats hired, but we were obliged to remain twenty-four hours in the most loathsome inn we ever had the misfortune to be in in China. It was an unspeakable relief to get into the houseboats, even though we only had bare boards to lie on, and the ...
— How I Know God Answers Prayer - The Personal Testimony of One Life-Time • Rosalind Goforth
... thing, we are too much impressed and oppressed by the ideas of magnitude and multitude. Since we have realized the unspeakable insignificance of the earth in relation to the unimaginable vastness of star-sown space, we have come to feel such a disproportion between the mechanism of life and its upshot, as known in our own experience, that we have a vague sense of maleficence, or at any ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... of tears. Boyd felt the justice of her words. He could not forget the unselfish devotion and loyalty she had shown throughout his long struggle. For the hundredth time there came to him the memory of her services in the matter of Hilliard's loan, and the thought caused him unspeakable distress. ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... the fare was only tolerable; but the over-flowings of affection made it delicious. Never had I better understood the unspeakable charm of family love. What calm enjoyment in that happiness which is always shared with others; in that community of interests which unites such various feelings; in that association of existences which forms one single ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... always sorry after these dark times; and when he sat and held her hand, as he did sometimes, silent for the most part, but gazing at her with eyes of absolute, unspeakable love, Marie was pleased, almost content: as nearly content as one could be with the half ...
— Marie • Laura E. Richards
... unarmed merchant vessel which he had sunk, destroyed their boats, took from them their life-belts, carried them miles away from any floating wreckage, and then projected them into the sea to drown, this unspeakable monarch approved the awful deed and decorated the ruffian ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... age as twenty-seven. He wears a slouch hat, around which a green puggaree coils lovingly. In his right hand his rifle rests as if it felt at home there. His coat is worn and shabby, khaki in colour; riding pants of roughest yellow cords, patched in places unspeakable, leggings around his sinewy calves, and feet planted in neat boots make up the whole man. He is clean shaven except for a moustache, dark brown in colour, which sprouts from his ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... tract of ocean, where Low winds with bland breath flattered the mild air, And low waves did together clasp and close, And skyward yearning from the sea there rose And seaward yearning from the sky there fell A Spirit of Deep Content Unspeakable: So midway meeting betwixt sky and sea, These twain are married for eternity, And rule the spirits of that Deep, and share The lordship of the legions ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... always the bad lead of Johann George, Elector of Saxony; a man of no strength, devoutness or adequate human worth; who proved, on these negative grounds, and without flagrancy of positive badness, an unspeakable curse to Germany. Not till the Kaiser fulminated forth his Restitution-Edict, and showed he was in earnest about it (1629-1631), "Restore to our Holy Church what you have taken from her since the Peace of Passau!"—could this Johann George prevail upon himself to join Sweden, or even ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... all. I purport to be a woman, but I have never been suffered to see a genuine man. And now here is one—or what I think to be one—and I'm given to understand that he is a pirate and a murderer and an unspeakable ruffian generally—but he takes my fancy, and he has beckoned to me to come to him, and so you will kindly get me my hat and jacket and gloves.' That's what she would have ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... hand, and he learnt by degrees the full measure of her self-sacrificing devotion, that did McKay so much good. It braced and strengthened him, giving him a new and stronger desire to live and enjoy the unspeakable blessing of this ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... was undeniable. But even if it were not so, are there no other advantages to be secured? No human mind is vast enough to comprehend in one glance, nor is any human life long enough to follow out consecutively, all the immeasurable blessings and the unspeakable good which have resolved to mankind from the ever-memorable victories of little Greece over the rolling masses of servile Asia, which were nigh sweeping over Europe like the high tides of a swollen sea, carrying its choking sand ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... seen, in seeing he knew hot and terrible anger. Out of the filthy mess in which the snake-devils wallowed, something had rolled, perhaps thrown about in play by the unspeakable offspring. A skull, dried scraps of fur and flesh still clinging to it, stared hollow-eyed up at them. At least one merman had fallen prey to the nightmares ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... rubbed and smoothed one part against the other; and lastly putting it into his pocket turned his back on me with an "over-run with these articles!" and so without another syllable retired into his counting house. And, I can truly say, to my unspeakable amusement. ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... man a pure woman should take to her arms? Here repentance avails nothing. We have witnessed the agony unspeakable which overwhelmed a father when he saw his children suffering under horrible and disgusting diseases, the ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... the soul pierce through? In our wild Seer, shaggy, unkempt, like a Baptist living on locusts and wild honey, there is an untutored energy, a silent, as it were unconscious, strength, which, except in the higher walks of Literature, must be rare. Many a deep glance, and often with unspeakable precision, has he cast into mysterious Nature, and the still more mysterious Life of Man. Wonderful it is with what cutting words, now and then, he severs asunder the confusion; shears down, were it furlongs deep, into the true centre of the ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... rapidly over the one unspeakable misery of my life; let me try to remember now, as I tried to remember then, that she lived to see our only child—our son, who was so good to her, who is still so good to me—grow up to manhood; that her head lay on my bosom when she died; and that the last frail movement of her hand in ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... the money into a drawer of the table with a miscellaneous assortment of less valuable things. While Elsie was wondering if she could speak about the condition of the kitchen, which Elsie Moss would have pronounced unspeakable, Kate drew near to her with real appeal ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... rich curls, making her pink checks pinker and her grey eyes a darker and purpler grey, and rendering her lips fresh and dewy in vivid contrast. And she wore a patch on her smooth left cheek-bone. And it was a most deadly thing to do, causing me a sentimental anguish unspeakable. ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... relative to the organization of the lower animals, one which places them all very far below the order of Bimana, since there is such an order. In bestowing intelligence and freedom of action on man, the Almighty has given him the unspeakable privilege of working in His footsteps—if I may presume to use the expression—of following up His work of creation as it came from His hand. Now especially that man begins to see a little more clearly into the laws of life, he has entered ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... The silence—the terror—the unspeakable sense of doom which gripped them all was not broken by a heart-beat. All listened for a stir, a movement where they could see nothing. But the stillness remained unbroken. The silence was absolute. The ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... what she had done the rowdy would be arrested. But no policeman was in sight, and her fine scheme could not be carried out. Suddenly in the midst of her agony of mind and body her heart gave a wild bound of unspeakable relief. ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... state, everything seemed unreal to Jerrie, except the fact that she had found her mother—and such a mother!—and many times each day she thanked her God who had brought her this unspeakable joy, and asked that she might do right when the time came to act. She knew the bag was safe, for she had climbed to the top shelf and found it just where she had put it. But where were the diamonds? Had Harold taken them with him? Had he told any one? Did his grandmother know anything ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... was their business. But when they heard Bova Korolevich playing, and saw the beauty of his features, they forgot what they had come for, and returning to King Sensibri, said only that they had seen a youth of unspeakable beauty on board the ship, who played on the lute so wonderfully that they were never tired of listening to him; adding, that they had quite forgotten to enquire what wares the ship contained. When the King heard this he went himself to the ship, and when he had seen Bova, he offered to purchase ...
— The Russian Garland - being Russian Falk Tales • Various
... as if some one had pricked him into consciousness, and a slow grin began to spread over his face. It was a reminiscent, horrible sort of leer, not a smile—the expression of a man who gloats over a revolting and unspeakable thing. ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... There is quite enough sorrow and shame and suffering and baseness in real life, and there is no need for meeting it unnecessarily in fiction. As Police Commissioner it was my duty to deal with all kinds of squalid misery and hideous and unspeakable infamy, and I should have been worse than a coward if I had shrunk from doing what was necessary; but there would have been no use whatever in my reading novels detailing all this misery and squalor and crime, or at least in reading them as a steady thing. Now ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt
... groaneth for us, in such wise as no tongue can tell. "What we may pray for, that would be behovable for us, we cannot ourselves tell," saith St. Paul, "but the Spirit himself desireth for us with unspeakable groanings." ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... suffused in her, and to fill her veins with a flood as soft as warm milk; a fragrant odour set her nostrils quivering, while before her swooning eyes floated the shadows of angels. Filled with wonder and joy unspeakable, she fell softly into the depths of ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... For as in regard to visible treasures, while the surface of the ground shows only thorns and briers, and rough earth, yet, let a person dig deep into it, abundant wealth discovers itself; so it has proved in respect to Lazarus. Outwardly, wounds; but underneath these, unspeakable wealth; a body pining away, but a spirit noble and wakeful. We have also seen an illustration of that remark of the apostle's—in proportion as the outward man perishes, the inward ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... and disgust were unspeakable. My aunt Dorothy blamed her for overdue severity. 'The prince, I suppose, goes of his own free will ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... "She could not share her love even with a dumb brute." When Chester falls in love, she is relentless toward the beautiful young girl and forces Chester to give her up. But a terrible sorrow brings the old woman and the young girl into sympathy, and unspeakable joy is born of ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... they were tutor and governess; but they were something else besides; something which, the instant their chains were lifted off, made them feel free and young and strong, and comforted them with comfort unspeakable. ...
— The Laurel Bush • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... faint!" called Madaline, with the magic way she always exercised of averting evil through sheer innocent challenge. "Here, Grace, hold her head while I fetch water," and while Grace attempted to support the head Madaline had been fondling, Mary raised it with a look of unspeakable joy. ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis
... turned to the cities of Asia, in order that while he had leisure from military operations he might pay some attention to justice and the law, which the province had now felt the want of for a long time, and the people had endured unspeakable and incredible calamities, being plundered and reduced to slavery by the Publicani and the money-lenders, so that individuals were compelled to sell their handsome sons and virgin daughters, and the cities to sell their sacred offerings, pictures and statues. ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... and even weeks, however, Huntingdon seemed a paradise. The heart of its new inhabitant was full of the unspeakable happiness that comes with calm after storm, with health after the most terrible of maladies, with repose after the burning fever of the brain. When first he went to church he was in a spiritual ecstasy; it was with difficulty that he restrained his emotions, though his voice ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... longer, the heart braver. I cross the bridge fearless and careless. Stone walls conceal neither friend nor foe. The forests contain only trees. I look down upon small boys; they are now my natural prey. I throw stones at them and make them cry, which gives me unspeakable delight. I am proud, restless, agitated by nameless longings. The walls of my world oppress me. Destiny has determined that I shall not be disenchanted before that world is entirely exhausted so that after many years I may recover its earliest charm. Nothing interests me more than a moment. I have ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... move, suffered greatly, and was rapidly sinking. Andrew, whenever the party stopped, acted the part of a true Christian, and was by his side, endeavouring to console and cheer him with the blessed promises of the gospel. What other comfort could he have afforded? The old man felt its unspeakable value, and after his voice had lost the power of utterance, holding Andrew's hand, he signed to him to stoop down and speak them in his ear, and so he died,—with a peaceful expression in his countenance, which told ...
— Archibald Hughson - An Arctic Story • W.H.G. Kingston
... if he tried. While, to be sure, no power was vested in him, and his willing hands were most miserably tied, nevertheless he would so far exceed his authority as to promise instant freedom to the prisoner. There were, of course, certain details to be observed, the necessity of which filled him with unspeakable regret; but if he might be excused—He hastened forth to set in motion the proper machinery, and while he was absent Kirk told his story. It left the woman white-lipped and incoherent, and roused even the icy Cortlandt ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... wife, who had accompanied him, and his faithful son, who had hastened from the distant East to the chamber of sickness; with him too betimes the Bishop of Albany, whose tender words and loving ministrations were an unspeakable comfort to him; with him also his beloved Rector, Dr. Edgar A. Enos, of his dear St. Paul's Church, to break for him the bread of life and press the cup of salvation to his lips, and pray for him as he walked through the valley of the shadow of death, and to commend his departing ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... mind by shutting out all thought for the things of time, that so—with single-minded gaze—we may be able to bear that simple light that shines divinely, and neither sets nor changes. And not merely to bear it, but even to abide in it; and this not simply without strain, but with a certain unspeakable joy. In this joy the life of the Blessed is truly and really perfected (On the Sermon on ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas
... to shoot fair, even as Socrates taught a man once to know God. For when he asked him what was God? 'Nay,' saith he, 'I can tell you better what God is not, as God is not ill, God is unspeakable, unsearchable, and so forth. Even likewise can I say of fair shooting, it hath not this discommodity with it nor that discommodity, and at last a man may so shift all the discommodities from shooting that there shall be left nothing ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... climb to civilisation. They must co-operate, they must learn that it is saner and more advantageous to help one another than to hinder one another in the great war against nature. And the tyranny of the feudal money lords, the unspeakable misery of this war is driving men closer together into fraternity, co-operation. It is the lower classes, therefore, that the new world must be founded on. The rich must be extinguished; with them wars will die. First between rich and poor, between ...
— One Man's Initiation—1917 • John Dos Passos
... for its concealment on his glittering person. He then took out his cigarette case, and after selecting a cigarette, he gently tapped it on the gold cover, glaring all the time quite through and beyond the unspeakable American. With more absurd contortions the cigarette case was disposed of, and matches produced. Then, stretching out his beautiful patent-leather boots, he ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... Wallingford upon the Thames. Here, for two days, divided only by the river, the two armies lay encamped opposite to one another—on the eve, as it seemed to all men, of another desperate fight, when the EARL OF ARUNDEL took heart and said 'that it was not reasonable to prolong the unspeakable miseries of two kingdoms to minister to the ambition ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... could flood you with war anecdotes. I have no desire to do anything of the kind. Nevertheless I am writing a book on the war. I compress into it all that my heart has felt, all that one man has suffered during these months of unspeakable horror, and likewise all the joy he experienced when he came to perceive, by rare flashes of light, that humanity still lives, that kindliness still exists, on both sides of the Rhine, the world over. You, M. B., sing 'The war ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... father's house, and went to find his fortune. One night he dreamed that there was a castle in the midst of the sea, and that in this castle dwelt a princess of unspeakable beauty. The princess had been put there so that no one might discover her existence. The monkey, who had been baptized two days after his birth and was named Juan, immediately repaired to the palace of the king. There he posted a letter which ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... forgot her sex, I forgot everything except that she was responsible for this unspeakable corruption. I said terrible things to her. And she listened, white—calm—speechless. When I had finished she signed to the man to leave us. He hesitated, but with a more peremptory gesture she ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... had occurred; the wrong microbe had obtained possession of the mug. In such cases Gram acted promptly and said little. She was always reticent concerning mug-bread. It had unspeakable contingencies. ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... salvation; which so rejoiced my heart, that the natural consequence was a readiness on all occasions to contribute my mite to promote the cause of the Redeemer, through whom I had experienced such unspeakable happiness. ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... misgivings. Had we been betrayed? Would we be reported and our tents searched next day? Hardly; a soldier could not be so treacherous. We entered the cellar and began to fumble around without results, a match was struck, and to our unspeakable dismay not a vestige of hog remained. Stuck against the side of the wall was a piece of paper, on which was written: "No mercy for the hog rogue." Such swearing, such stamping and beating the air with our fists, ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... relief, what an unspeakable solace Maulevrier's presence would be in that dreary house, smitten to a sudden and awful stillness, as if ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... have had the best of it in the God praising that had been going on for two slow paced hours. Yet, having been so long used to the sort of thing, he did not mind it half so much as his friend Malcolm, who found the Sunday observances an unspeakable weariness to both ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... manners, and inspire her youth; For, though deprav'd and sunk, she brought thee forth, And glories in thy name. She points thee out To all her sons, and bids them eye thy star— Thy star, which, followed steadfastly, shall lead To wisdom, virtue, glory here, and joy Unspeakable in worlds ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... dangers that Nature has set before it, with disease as Nature's agent, crouching and ready to destroy the child's life, not in open combat, but invisibly concealed by the limitation of our senses. This is one of Nature's unspeakable crimes; one ...
— Tyranny of God • Joseph Lewis
... not have been impos'd Than I to speak my griefs unspeakable! Yet, that the world may witness that my end Was wrought by nature, not by vile offence, I'll utter what my sorrow gives me leave. In Syracuse was I born; and wed Unto a woman, happy but for me, And by me too, had not our hap been bad. With her I liv'd in joy; our wealth increas'd By prosperous ...
— The Comedy of Errors • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... confectionery, dry goods, and manufactures of all kinds, that their bravery and splendor at Christmas tide is all to seduce you into generosity, and importune you to give something to others. It says to you, "The dear God gave you an unspeakable gift; give you a lesser gift to ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... hostile to the duchess; in Nantes, therefore, she believed her enemies would never search for her. She took refuge there in the house of two elderly maiden ladies, the Demoiselles Duguigney, where she remained five months. They must have been months of anguish to her, and of unspeakable impatience. It is very possible that the Government did not care to find her. She was the queen's niece, and if captured what could be done with her? To set her free to hatch new plots would have been bitterly condemned ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... uneasy night, having been subject to short intervals of delirium, during which Pipes had found it very difficult to keep him fast belayed. He owned indeed to Godfrey, that his imagination had been haunted by the ideas of Emilia and her officer, which tormented him to an unspeakable degree of anguish and distraction; and that he would rather suffer death than a repetition of such excruciating reflections. He was, however, comforted by his friend, who assured him, that his sister's inclinations would in time prevail over all the endeavours of resentment and pride, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... have seemed extravagant: altogether a chinny face though not at all ill-looking. He was feeling more strongly than ever that Timothy's was hopelessly 'rum-ti-too' and the souls of his aunts dismally mid-Victorian. The subject on which alone he wanted to talk—his own undivorced position—was unspeakable. And yet it occupied his mind to the exclusion of all else. It was only since the Spring that this had been so and a new feeling grown up which was egging him on towards what he knew might well be folly in a Forsyte of forty-five. More and more of ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... commonplace remarks look brilliant, from the ease and liveliness with which they were spoken, and the tact with which they were made pleasant to the listener: while I wondered at myself, for enjoying from her lips the flippant, sparkling tattle, which had hitherto made young women to me objects of unspeakable dread, to be escaped by crossing the street, hiding behind doors, and rushing blindly ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... Act of Settlement, which was placed full in the eye of the virgin that sat upon the throne. Both the sides of the hall were covered with such Acts of Parliament as had been made for the establishment of public funds. The lady seemed to set an unspeakable value upon these several pieces of furniture, insomuch that she often refreshed her eye with them, and often smiled with a secret pleasure as she looked upon them; but, at the same time, showed a very particular uneasiness if she saw anything approaching that might ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... indeed, and the boys hastened round to the house of M. Desplaine's friend. To their unspeakable regret, however, he was absent on a fishing ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... earth to heaven. A chord was loosened, and tones of sorrow burst forth. The icy kiss of death had overcome the perishable body; it was but the prelude before life's real drama could begin, the discord which was quickly lost in harmony. Do you think this a sad story? Poor Babette! for her it was unspeakable anguish. ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... them. Men learn their feelings from women, women learn their mental consciousness from men. And so it will ever be. Meanwhile, women live forever by feeling, and men live forever from an inherent sense of purpose. Feeling is an end in itself. This is unspeakable truth to a woman, and never true for one minute to a man. When man, in the Epicurean spirit, embraces feeling, he makes himself a martyr to it—like Maupassant or Oscar Wilde. Woman will never understand the depth of the spirit of purpose in man, his deeper spirit. And man ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... the amendment of vices or the preservation of charity, beware of fleeing under the impulse of terror from the way of salvation, which cannot but have a hard beginning. When man has walked for some time in obedience and faith, his heart will expand, and he will run with the unspeakable sweetness of love in the way of God's commandments. May He grant that, never straying from the instruction of the Master, and persevering in His doctrine in the monastery until death, we may share ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... ago, and too often losing myself in a contrast of the man I was then and what I am now. Beautiful beyond all words of description that nook of oldest England; but that I feared the moist and misty winter climate, I should have chosen some spot below the Mendips for my home and resting-place. Unspeakable the charm to my ear of those old names; exquisite the quiet of those little towns, lost amid tilth and pasture, untouched as yet by the fury of modern life, their ancient sanctuaries guarded, as it were, by noble trees and hedges overrun with flowers. In all England ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing |
