"Unspeakably" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... no, even though it cost me my life, though I perish in unutterable misery, I cannot work any longer—no, I cannot work any longer at this coarse trade. An irresistible power is drawing me back to my own glorious art. Your daughter Rose I love unspeakably, more than anybody else on earth can ever love her. It is only for her sake that I ever entered upon this hateful work. I have now lost her, I know, and shall soon die of grief for love of her; but I can't help it, I must go back to my own glorious art, to my excellent ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... dangling garments, and, climbing through into the cupboard, pushed open the doors. A faint glimmer of light from the street made dimly visible the mattress on the floor and two indistinct dark shapes stretched on it. I stepped quickly across the room, breathing as little as possible of the unspeakably foul air, and struck a wax match. It burned dimly and smokily, but showed me the two murderers, lying in easy postures, their faces livid and ghastly in hue but peaceful enough in expression. When I lowered the match, ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... people, who, with infinite tenderness, cherished the sick and weakly child which I then was. This home was Alette's; and her excellent parents, after they had recalled me to life, adopted me as their son. My new relationships became unspeakably dear to me; I was happy; my illness and the long succeeding weakness had almost wholly obliterated the memory of the past. I had forgotten the names of both people and places, yet never did I forget my childhood's earliest, motherly cherisher. Like a lovely and holy image has she followed ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... too deeply awed for tears, and up to this moment for action either—"my lord, you had better go out of the room for the present, and take all these men with you, and leave Miss Levison to the care of myself and the women. This is all unspeakably horrible! But our first care should be for her. We must loosen her dress, and take other measures for ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... Locke understood children when he did not laugh over the recital of that last calamity, although it sounded unspeakably funny to him as Georgina told it. In such congenial company the time flew so fast that Georgina was amazed when Mr. Milford drove up to take his distinguished guest away. Mr. Locke took with him what he had hoped to get, a number of sketches to ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... negligible. The excitements were endless and of every nature. At one moment the British Public was stirred to its depths in depths not often touched (in 1913) by reading of Scott's glorious death in the Antarctic; at another it was unspeakably moved by the disqualification of the Derby winner for bumping and boring. In one week it was being thrilled with sympathy by the superb heroism and the appalling death-roll, four hundred twenty-nine, in the Welsh colliery disaster at Senghenydd; in another thrilled with horror and indignation ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... surprised in her sleep, compelled to dress, and been carried off alive and perhaps unhurt by the savages. Poor child! Poor darling little Nell! Oh, if I were right in my reading of the signs, what an unspeakably awful fate was hers! And yet—and yet—perhaps it might not be so very terrible after all. She was but a child—and a sweetly pretty child, too; and I had heard of cases where white girl children had been kidnapped by the blacks and carried off by them to their fastnesses ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... were Dr. Eben's only pleasure. He was fast becoming a physician of note. He was frequently sent for in consultation to all parts of the county; and his contributions to medical journals were held in high esteem. The physician, the student, had gained unspeakably by the loss which had so nearly crushed ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... facts that Jim Coast didn't tell? What had happened at the mine that was too terrible even to speak about? What was the bond between these two men, which held the successful one in terror, and the other in silence? Something unspeakably vile. A ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... very pleasant, still Hazel did hold up her head, and hope, and wait, with a woman's ready faith, and a courage that died out in the twilight and revived in the dawn, and kept her in a fever of suspense and expectation. It wearied her so unspeakably, in the long hours of practical daylight and unmanageable night, that sometimes she could hardly bear it. The world seemed to turn round till she could not catch her thoughts; and nerves overstrung and on the watch, made her start and grow ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... peculiarly difficult to describe it in our enlightened age, for the simple reason that it is peculiarly difficult to find it. It is a certain instinctive attitude which feels the things in which all men agree to be unspeakably important, and all the things in which they differ (such as mere brains) to be almost unspeakably unimportant. The nearest approach to it in our ordinary life would be the promptitude with which we should consider mere ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... Mrs. Luna—had been on the platform instead of the actual declaimer. Nevertheless, its importance was high, and consisted precisely, in part, of the fact that the voice was not the voice of Olive or of Adeline. Its importance was that Verena was unspeakably attractive, and this was all the greater for him in the light of the fact, which quietly dawned upon him as he stood there, that he was falling in love with her. It had tapped at his heart for recognition, and before ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... not only corrupt, but unspeakably stupid. Like the people, the King relied on sorcerers or fortune-tellers to find a lucky day or a lucky time of the moon to do whatever he wished, and in case of sickness consulted the mutang, or conjurer, instead of a doctor. Thus when ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... lying heavy at her heart, she hurried away, feeling doubly guilty in the discovery of this affliction. The thought of it haunted her continually; the memory of the lonely girl gave her no peace; and a consciousness of deceit burdened her unspeakably, especially in Paul's presence. This lasted for a week, then Lillian resolved to confess, hoping that when he found she knew the truth he would let her share his cross and help to lighten it. Waiting her opportunity, she seized a moment when her mother ...
— The Mysterious Key And What It Opened • Louisa May Alcott
... confidence was not misplaced. It counts that the Jameses and Henrys and Johns and Marys and Sadies come, brimming over with joy, to tell the Job Lady of a "raise" or of a bit of approbation from an employer. All the funny, grateful, pathetic letters that pour in count unspeakably! ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... escape from truth and would walk in falsehood, following the devil, who is the father thereof. I was saying that we ought to recognize truth especially in two ways. The first is, we should recognise the truth about God. He loves us unspeakably, and loved us before we were; nay, by love He created us—this was and is the truth—in order that we might have life eternal and enjoy His highest eternal good. What shows us that this is truly so? The Blood, shed for us with such fire of ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... children. She liked me. She went out of her lazy way to teach me wisdom—oh, yes, it was wisdom," in answer to Spence's horrified exclamation, "hard, sordid wisdom, the only wisdom which would have helped me through the back alleys of those days. I am unspeakably grateful to Lily. She spared me much, and once she saved me—I can't tell you about ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... the crystal bluffs of the vast glacier, the intensely white, far-spreading fields of ice, and the ineffably chaste and spiritual heights of the Fairweather Range, which were now hidden, now partly revealed, the whole making a picture of icy wildness unspeakably pure and sublime. ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... the thirteenth century as lord of Vicenza, Verona, Padua, and Brescia, and was defeated and hurt to death in an attempt to possess himself of Milan. He was in every respect a remarkable man for that time,—fearless, abstemious, continent, avaricious, hardy, and unspeakably ambitious and cruel. He survived and suppressed innumerable conspiracies, escaping even the thrust of the assassin whom the fame of his enormous wickedness had caused the Old Man of the Mountain to send against him. As lord of Padua he was more incredibly ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... wild with anger and indignation when the first rumours of King Philip's plot came to their ears. Now they were inclined to treat the daring project with quiet contempt, but Windybank knew that scant mercy would be shown a forest man who should be so unspeakably treacherous as to favour the scheme, even by so little as holding converse with one of ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... so I stepped out, and before me stood the train for Aix, into which my fellow-passengers were entering, some of them still holding their passports in their hands. Taking my seat in one of the carriages, in a few moments the train started and I was on my way to Aix. The relief was unspeakably great. An instant before it seemed as if nothing short of a miracle could save me from a French guard-house, and now, by the simplest combination of circumstances, in which a restaurant and baggage-room bore an important part, I had passed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... grew unspeakably worse in the afternoon. The quiet sun blazed down through the clear windless air and made a furnace of our hole in the sand. And all about us were the explosions of rifles and yells of the Indians. Only once in a while did father permit a single ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... was preached upon the Duke of Gloucester's Death was printed quickly after, and is now, because the Subject was so suitable, join'd to the others. The Loss of that most promising and hopeful Prince was, at that time, I saw, unspeakably great; and many Accidents since have convinced us, that it could not have been over-valued. That precious Life, had it pleased God to have prolonged it the usual Space, had saved us many Fears and Jealousies, and dark Distrusts, and prevented many Alarms, ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... step, in the way of question and remark, he led Leonard to tell him all that had happened; and when once fairly embarked in the reminiscence, there was in it a kind of peace and pleasure. The fresh, loving, wondering sympathy of the little boy was unspeakably comforting; and besides, the bringing the facts in their simple form to the grasp of the childish mind, restored their proportion, which their terrible consequences had a good deal disturbed. They seemed to pass from the present to the historical, and to assume ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that this fog is often the result of misapprehension and mistake, giving rise to all kinds of indignations, resentments, and regrets. Scarce anything about us is just as it seems, but at the core there is truth enough to dispel all falsehood and reveal life as unspeakably divine. O brother, sister, across this weary fog, dim-lighted by the faint torches of our truth-seeking, I call to the divine in thee, which is mine, not to rebuke thee, not to rouse thee, not to say "Why ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... world than the body of a well-shaped, muscular man? I always prefer the figure of the fighting gladiator to that of the Apollo Belvedere—and then, when shell fragments tear this body, it looks like some unspeakably unhallowed sacrilege. The horribly unlucky way these fragments seem to go in—an uncouth and butchering way instead of the gentlemanly puncture of the Mauser. One afternoon a young fellow galloped past me ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... Lotty. We have not long to bear them now, and all will be made clear by and by. All the sorrows of all the world will be seen in their true light, and tears will be wiped from all eyes for ever. I often think, though I try to drive away the thought, how unspeakably soothing and happy it would have been to look back upon blows as must fall to the lot of all who live long, instead of to a life of many strange and unexpected and terrible shocks of many kinds. But oftener, far oftener, I feel the brightness ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... no resentment toward her for going. How could he? Now that she was away, she seemed unspeakably ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... terrors of the law was an unspeakably sad one—sad, indeed, to his affectionate and imaginative nature. "I know," he writes, "that we got on very badly with the butcher and baker, that very often we had not too much for dinner, and that at last my father was arrested." He never forgot—how ...
— The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick - A Lecture • Frank Lockwood
... ruins, and the clear waters of the Pelice, which meander at its feet, red with the blood of the children of the valleys. It has heard the wrathful execrations of armed men ascending where the prayers and praises of the Vaudois were wont to come, borne on the evening breeze,—scenes unspeakably affecting, but which, nevertheless, from the principle which they embodied, and the Christian heroism which they evoked, add dignity to humanity itself. When we would rebut those universal libels which infidels have written upon ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... favour with the winning side in the civil war and united to a man who would have known how to flatter her cold nature into a fiction of feeling, instead of wasting on her the almost exaggerated respect with which a noble passion envelops its object, but which, to most women, becomes in the end unspeakably wearisome. ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... card-players' hands without a notion of what it was all about, for he could not play at any game; or he walked about and took snuff to promote digestion. Anais was the bright side of his life; she made it unspeakably pleasant for him. Stretched out at full length in his armchair, he watched admiringly while she did her part as hostess, for she talked for him. It was a pleasure, too, to him to try to see the point in her remarks; and as it was often a good while before ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... you pain me—you pain me unspeakably," sighed Marie Antoinette, pressing her hand to her heart, as if she wanted to keep back the tears which would mount ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... to the hour for their walk with impatience, she found Marius there, she felt herself unspeakably happy, and thought in all sincerity that she was expressing her whole thought when ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... doesn't want the money. It has been the cause of unspeakably awful crimes. She hates the very thought ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... yielding in the eyes of the Prussian, only arrogance; and when he paused, he was answered in one phrase of the gutters of Berlin, couched in the imagery of its lowest boozing-kens, so unspeakably vile in essence and application that Lanyard heard it with an incredulity ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... He was unspeakably happy with her; she governed his household so cleverly and economically that they seemed to live in luxury. She lavished the most delicate attentions on her husband, coaxed and fondled him, and the charm of her presence was so great ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... of meaning in the words, as applied to Jesus, "He suffered, being tempted!" Though incapable of sin, there was, in the refined sensibilities of His holy nature, that which made temptation unspeakably fearful. What must it have been to confront the Arch-traitor?—to stand face to face with the foe of His throne, and His universe? But the "prince of this world" came, and found "nothing in Him." Billow after billow of Satanic violence spent their fury, ...
— The Mind of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... he spoke. Something in his face and in his voice too made her feel that her judgement of him had been unspeakably, unpardonably coarse. ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... thought that war was unspeakably terrible. He thought that peace at the price which our country has been forced to pay for it was infinitely worse. And he was one of those who have gradually taught this country to see the matter in the ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... of thing was unspeakably painful. He was willing enough to meet McVay in a grim interchange over his strange combination of facility and crime, of doom and triviality. But when it became any question of playing upon Cecilia's unconsciousness of the situation, he writhed. Yet, a little discernment would have ...
— The Burglar and the Blizzard • Alice Duer Miller
... most important circumstance, the state of the capital of Constantine had been totally changed, and unspeakably to its advantage. The world was now Christian, and, with the Pagan code, had got rid of its load of disgraceful superstition. Nor is there the least doubt, that the better faith produced its natural and desirable fruits in society, in gradually ameliorating ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... find the work I have undertaken is an all-important one. I have many things to learn, and many things to unlearn. I have had some severe trials, and some mortifying scenes. At other times I have been unspeakably blessed, and I have been greatly encouraged at some favourable prospects. Several times my views have been greatly enlarged, and my mind enlightened, while, with a warm and full heart, I have been trying to address a large and much affected ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... suddenly dissolved, and in its place there appeared one of the quaintest, yet most beautiful buildings that Watson had ever seen. It was a three-cornered structure, low-set, and of unspeakably dazzling magnificence; a building carved and chiselled from solid carbon. Chick ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... and the trench grew unspeakably loathsome and hideous to me. What a mockery, this business of killing men! No matter that beyond the canal there lurked the menace of a foe that had himself shown unspeakable barbarity and resource ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... centers of paganism. It was adorned with costly and magnificent temples. It was rich and voluptuous. Both private and public life were utterly corrupt. Even the religious practises of the Ephesians were unspeakably vile. This city was a moral bog, a sink of pollution, filled with all corruption, and reeking with vileness. It was a second Sodom. Vice stalked abroad everywhere and was honored ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... that at sight of a thing so unspeakably fair, a coldness like that which comes from the jewel-blue lips of a Muir crevasse should have fallen upon Dodson, or that it was only by summoning all the manhood that was left in him, that he was able to restore light to the room, and to rush to his ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie
... never been known to reveal any secret of state, being unspeakably circumspect, and having been trained to keep every confidence inviolable by his preceptor Dubois, so I felt quite certain that even the princess would fail in her efforts to get a sight of the memoranda in his possession relative to the birth and rank of the masked prisoner; but what ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... written and posted his letter. And he was overcome by a sense of dread. He feared himself, that man who could act on a passionate impulse, brushing aside all the restraints that his reason would oppose. And he feared now almost unspeakably the result of what he had done. He had given himself to the life which till now he had always avoided. He had broken with the ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... PAUL: I am happy as I never thought of being happy. I love an unspeakably beautiful sweet brown maiden, and I really think she loves me too. Do not ask me to describe her. No words or brush could do it. You will see her and worship her. Oh, Paul, I could shout and jump or cry like a child. It is too foolish, and yet so unspeakably splendid, ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... evil was again showing itself, in which effective cooling arrested the growth and saved the sufferer. When a growth of this kind has gone a certain length, there is severe pain. The cooling removes this, and secures the patient unspeakably precious rest without narcotics. But this is not all: it puts an effectual stop to the swelling. If the case has not gone very far, the swelling falls, and may disappear; but even when it has gone too far for this, the disease is stayed, and all symptoms of ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... gate of entrance is so unspeakably beautiful, what will the City itself be?" murmured Mr. Grame. "The ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... in more things than politics,—humanity, for instance. Forget that you are a Southerner, divorce yourself from traditions, and try to imagine several hundred thousand people—women and children, principally— starving, hopeless, homeless, unspeakably wretched. Cannot you ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... quite beautiful things he can see in all the world, except the sky; but these, when the sun is on their sails, filling or falling, endlessly disordered by sway of tide and stress of anchorage, beautiful unspeakably; which ships also are inhabited by glorious creatures—red-faced sailors, with pipes, appearing over the gunwales, true knights, over their castle parapets—the most angelic beings in the whole compass of London world. ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... Ribaumont had failed as a bait, the young espoused wife had herself been employed to draw him into the snare, and secure his presence at the slaughter-house, away from his safe asylum at the Ambassador's or even in the King's garde-robe. It was an unspeakably frightful view to take of the case, yet scarcely worse than the reality of many of the dealings of those with whom the poor young girl had been associated: certainly not worse than the crimes, the suspicion ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... word, all rose exclaiming,—"For God's sake, Dalton!" He pressed forward and laid his hand upon the Duke. A cry burst from Reve de Noir which rent our very souls; and a flash followed, unspeakably bright, which revealed the demoniacal features of the Duke, who sat motionless, regarding Dalton's uplifted arm. A darkness followed, profound and palpable. I listened in terror. There was no sound. Were we transformed? Silence, darkness, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... also the kitchen, the laundry, the sewing-room, the reception-room and the library. It has a good big cookstove, which burns either wood or coal, a built-in cupboard with an array of unspeakably ugly crockery dishes, a row of shelves for holding canned goods, books and magazines, cooking utensils, gun-cartridges, tobacco-jars, carpenter's tools and a coal-oil lamp. There is also a plain pine ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... one hand the conduct of the Tories with respect to the Corporation Bill has been violent and rash, that of the Government with respect to the Tithe Bill has been unspeakably wicked. I cannot recollect an instance of so complete a sacrifice of the interests of others, of their own principles, and of national tranquillity to mere party objects, and the more I reflect upon the course they have taken ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... business kept him from such a hurried journey, he could ask her to marry him in a sixpenny wire, reply paid. If he neither came nor wired, but sent a box of mignonette to the steamer with his card and "Bon voyage" written on it, she would bury something unspeakably dear and precious that had only just been born—bury it, and plant mignonette over it. And she could always sing! Thank Heaven ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the mysterious precipice, is made to hear, from a voice which it can no longer mistake, "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them,"—how unspeakably miserable must be the condition of the man who thus discovers, for the first time, that the sand which he had all his lifetime been mistaking for the "Rock of Ages" is now giving way under his feet, and that his soul must speedily sink into that state ...
— The Loss of the Kent, East Indiaman, in the Bay of Biscay - Narrated in a Letter to a Friend • Duncan McGregor
... expediency can bring, so valuable as that which it takes away, if it deprives you of the name of a good man and robs you of your integrity and honor? In all ages, he who violates his plighted word has been held unspeakably base. The word of a Mason, like the word of a knight in the times of chivalry, once given must be sacred; and the judgment of his brothers, upon him who violates his pledge, should be stern as the judgments of the Roman Censors ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... countenance fell. In fact, it is idle to say that, being unaccustomed to the grand scale on which law costs present themselves on occasion, he was unspeakably shocked and he grew very pale and silent ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... am doing that which will re-open the bleeding wound, but I cannot help it, as my own emotions must have the relief which this note of sympathy only partially affords. O, how unspeakably dear to us is the thought of his readiness for the great change, and that he is now walking those golden streets, and basking in the smiles of his Saviour. And how consoling the many sweet assurances of our heavenly Father that he doth not willingly ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... two, and sometimes less than two. Union of all kinds, which may be strength, may be weakness. It was not till Gideon weeded out his army, once and twice, that he was promised victory. The fruits of friendship may be corrupting, and unspeakably evil to the life. The reward of the labor of two may be less than that of one. The boy pulling a barrow is lucky if he get another boy to shove behind, but if the boy behind not only ceases to shove, but sits on the barrow, the ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... wall at The Grange," she said simply. "But I don't know how you guessed it.... Oh, Una, don't talk to me any more about these things, I implore you. You can't think how they grieve me. They distress me unspeakably." ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... echoed the Spaniard. Then, with horrified gestures, as directed against some spectre, he unconsciously fell into the ready arms of his attendant, who, with a silent appeal toward Captain Delano, seemed beseeching him not again to broach a theme so unspeakably distressing to his master. ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... calamity was not to be foreseen. I am unspeakably sorry, but I have been hard hit, and the plain truth is that I am quite powerless for the present. Of course I shall do what I can to delay—er—discovery, but unfortunately I must leave for South Africa on Friday, ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... is, of course, unspeakably momentous. Among other things it seems to open to us a new view of morality, and one which, if it is verified by further investigation, can hardly fail to produce a great change in philosophy. Supposing ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... my cloak: it would certainly have been possible to have got something less expensive; still it is a fine thought for absent parents that their son possesses simply THE GREATEST vestment in Mentone. It is great in size, and unspeakably great in design; qua raiment, it has ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... they could not provide a quiet room for a philosopher. In a chamber high above the Piazza just mentioned, from which one obtained a general view of Rome and could hear the fountains plashing far below, the loneliest of all songs was composed—'The Night-Song'. About this time I was obsessed by an unspeakably sad melody, the refrain of which I recognised in the words, 'dead ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... we must reflect, we must puzzle our brains, for the gods have been napping this morning, and we must be doubly wide-awake. Irene—our little Irene—and who would have thought it yesterday! It is a good-for-nothing, unspeakably base knave's trick—and now, what can we do to snatch the prey from the gluttonous monster, the savage wild beast, before he can devour our child, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... unwilling to make up the quarrel of the night before the murder. In this mood of contrition he mercilessly accused himself of things I am sure he had never done. I knew that the jailer was listening to every word outside, and I became unspeakably nervous for fear he would say something which could be twisted into an incriminating confession. He did not seem to comprehend in the least the danger of his own position; he was entirely taken up with the horror of his father's death. As I was leaving, however, ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... become the moral and spiritual Saviour of others. As von Hugel has finely said: "A Person came and lived and loved, and did and taught, and died and rose again, and lives on by His power and His Spirit forever within us and amongst us, so unspeakably rich and yet so simple, so sublime and yet so homely, so divinely above us precisely in being so divinely near that His character and teaching require, for an ever fuller yet never complete understanding, the varying study, and different experiments and applications, embodiments and unrollings ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... shackled by no restrictions. He had plenty of room to spread himself in, and he had spread himself. So liberal had been the editor's views in the respect that, in addition to the letter-press, the pages contained an unspeakably offensive picture of a burly young man in an obviously advanced condition of alcoholism raising his fist to strike a monocled youth in evening dress who had so little chin that Jimmy was surprised that he had ever been ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... You can always tell when a man is in love, Tabby, especially if he is not the lovering kind and has never been troubled in that way before. The best kind of love has to be so intuitive that it often is grandly, heroically awkward. Depend upon it, Tabby, a man who is dainty and pretty and unspeakably smooth when he makes love to you, has ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... personal and responsible character of nations continuing only in this life and obtaining God's full judgment of mercy or wrath during the time of their present continuance, the historic page, recording the majestic movements of empires in their rise and fall, becomes unspeakably sublime as the record of the Almighty's manifested character, smiling and blessing in their righteous prosperity, and frowning and overthrowing in their ...
— National Character - A Thanksgiving Discourse Delivered November 15th, 1855, - in the Franklin Street Presbyterian Church • N. C. Burt
... admirably written.... Brisk in incident, truthful and lifelike in character.... Beyond and above all it has that stimulating hygienic quality, that cheerful, unconscious healthfulness, which makes a story like 'Robinson Crusoe', or 'The Vicar of Wakefield', so unspeakably refreshing after a course of ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... aside to throw on more fuel; and in the morning, as often as not, he would find a furry ape sharing his blanket. All day long, one or other of the tribe would sit by his side, staring out at the snows, crooning and looking unspeakably wise and sorrowful. ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... said Archer to his inner self. To the aide-de-camp he merely bowed—bowed most courteously. He liked boys, and the Lord had seen fit to take back to himself the one lad poor Archer had liked most, and loved unspeakably. ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... momentum in the path of evil. He lives years of sin in a day or an hour. It is always a solemn crisis when the first step is to be taken in a career of guilt, against which nature and education, or any other strong influences protest. The results are unspeakably perilous when a man has to fight his way into crime. The victory creates an epoch in his life. He is from that hour, without a miracle of grace, a lost man. The earth is strewed with wrecks of character which were occasioned by ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... had loitered past, he overtook a boy who was stooping to light a cigarette. He wore no overcoat, and looked unspeakably fragile against the snow, "Are you on the road, guv'nor?" asked the ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... and overwhelming that the mind, unable to grasp it, cannot adjust itself at once to a scale so stupendous, and the impression fails. But, gradually, as you remain longer, the unvarying, ponderous, unspeakably solemn voice of the great flood finds its way to the soul, and holds it with a fascination which is all pervasive and cannot be ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler
... to the window and sat down there staring at the black bare branches and the clear sky. It seemed to him unspeakably desolate and even, in its indifference to his own mood, cruel. So was Amelia, he thought. In spite of her platitudes about enjoying a great deal, she had him dead and buried. He became absurdly conscious that he was afraid, but of one ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... exactly this fellow on board, this other Sanchez. I leaned over the edge of my bunk, and looked down on Haley, half resolved to ask if he had ever noticed this lieutenant, but the man was already sound asleep. The suspicion which had crept into my mind was so absurd, so unspeakably silly and impossible, that I laughed at myself, and dismissed the crazy thought. What, that fellow Black Sanchez! Bah, no! He had been at sea, of course; there was no denying that fact, for he knew ships, and spoke the lingo of blue water; ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... our hearts giving strength to endure, Eternal itself, makes eternity sure; Earth growing perfect, unspeakably dear, Only makes heaven seem ...
— Harry • Fanny Wheeler Hart
... to draw the blinds and shut out the light of life because some one else chooses to sit in the dark is unspeakably morbid." ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... I am pretty certain, must belong to Mrs. Trollope; I read it, probably, in a tale of hers connected with the backwoods of America, where the absence of such a farewell must unspeakably aggravate the gloom at any rate belonging to a household separation of that eternal character occurring amongst the shadows ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... Lord Blandamer. The moment that she first saw him on the doorstep that windy autumn afternoon, when yellow leaves were flying, she recognised him for a prince. The moment that he spoke to her she knew that he recognised her for a lady, and for this she felt unspeakably glad and grateful. Since then the wonder had grown. It grew all the faster from the hero's restraint. He had seen Anastasia but little, he spoke but little to her, he never gave her even a glance of interest, still less such glances as Westray launched at her so lavishly. And yet the wonder ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... now arrived nearly at the summit of the mountain; and unspeakably grand was the spectacle on which they gazed. From the crater arose a vapour, intensely dark, that overspread the whole background of the heavens; in the centre whereof rose a flame that assumed a form singularly beautiful. ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... these events were mercifully hidden. It is only God who can bear the awful light of omniscience and of omnipresence. The things we cannot see! The things we never know! Let us be unspeakably grateful for this blessed ignorance! For many a heart would break that lives on if it only knew—if it only saw—how unnecessary was its love to those it loves ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... cottages, my trouble of the morning pressed upon me afresh. So many people, so many homes, and the light of the Bible not on them, nor in them? And, child as I was, and little as I knew, I knew the name of Christ too unspeakably precious, for me to think without a sore heart, and all these people were without what was the jewel of my life. And they my mother's servants! my father's ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... obscuring, perverting, and preventing the religious life of mankind. After this warning such readers from among the various Christian churches and sects as are accessible to storms of theological fear or passion to whom the Trinity is an ineffable mystery and the name of God almost unspeakably awful, read on at their own risk. This is a religious book written by a believer, but so far as their beliefs and religion go it may seem to them more sceptical and more antagonistic than blank atheism. ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... that my father did not seem to perceive the change, and also unspeakably curious to learn what it could be that she was speaking, almost in his ear, with so ...
— Carmilla • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... woman had made her pile by dancing a shameless dance in the dissolute dens of Dawson City, and was on her way to Paris or New York for a "good time." The reports of the hotel keepers made her out to be unspeakably vile. The negress was ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... I am unspeakably comforted when I look over the above in remembering that the question is not whether it be Pindaric or Horatian, but whether the copy be as good as the original. And I say it is: and will ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... his wife Militissa, beheld their son Lyubim, they were unspeakably glad; and the beautiful Princess said: "Lyubim Tsarevich it was, and not Aksof, who gained my hand, and it was he, too, who obtained the waters of life and death." Then Lyubim related all his adventures; and the Tsar and Tsarina, ...
— The Russian Garland - being Russian Falk Tales • Various
... distance, one mountain range rising above another, almost in endless succession, the various stages showing infinite gradation of colour—subtle, distracting, absolutely unpaintable! No wonder the air is unspeakably fresh and exhilarating, seeing that it blows north, south, east and west from lofty Alps. We have in view the sombre walls of the three Causses, the wide outline of the Larzac, in a vast semicircle ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... critically attentive, though Llewellyn Stanhope felt them hostile and longing for verbal brick-bats; and the Reverend Mr. Arnold shrank into the furthest corner of Surgeon-Major Livingstone's box, and knew all the misery of outrage. Pilate and the slave-maidens, Pilate's fat wife and an unspeakably comic centurion, offered as yet hardly more than a prelude, but the monstrosity of the whole performance was already projected upon Arnold's suffering imagination. This, then, was what Patullo had done with it. But what other, he asked himself in quiet anger, could Patullo have been expected ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... "I dread her unspeakably," said Mrs. Merriman. "Do walk with me for a little down this path, my dear. You, of course, are only an ordinarily naughty girl. You have been very disobedient, but I can overlook that, and perhaps understand it; but she—some people say she is not quite right in the head. ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... Returning the unspeakably thankful pressure of the grateful young man's hand, the Gospeler goes thoughtfully down stairs, where he is just in time to answer the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 14, July 2, 1870 • Various
... the gruffness. "Do not torment yourself so. It's a horrible situation, unspeakably horrible. But it's none of our making. We can face it. I can, if I am sure you will always—be my friend—even though we ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... of the meal Kathleen West appeared, silent and morose. She nodded slightly to several girls, favored Grace and Patience with an unspeakably insolent glance, then turned her undivided ...
— Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... from my memory. I woke & did not know I had been dreaming. She was gone. I wondered how she could go without my knowing it, but I did not spend any thought upon that. I was too busy thinking of how vivid & real was the dream that we had lost her, & how unspeakably blessed it was to find that it was not true & that she was ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... ever came to the house, and of course Claudia went nowhere. She was unspeakably miserable, and would have wished for death, had she not been a ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... All understood him: all felt him; and all were awed and bowed as by the power of God. His sermons were always practical. Whether he spake to the saint or the sinner, he went directly to the conscience. And all that he said you saw. Sin stared you full in the face and looked unspeakably sinful; it rose and stood before you a monster group of all imaginable horrors and abominations. The sinner shook, he shrank, he writhed at the sight, in mortal agony. God, as Dawson pictured Him, was terrible in majesty and infinite in ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... if he could weather it till then, the berries would carry him through. No doubt he had turned from the drugs and the nostrums, or from the hateful food, to the memory of the pungent, penetrating, and unspeakably fresh quality of the strawberry with the deepest longing. The very thought of these crimson lobes, embodying as it were the first glow and ardor of the young summer, and with their power to unsheathe the ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... shrill for miles over the surrounding country—think of it! It would put nations on the alert. Who would not be early to rise, and rise earlier and earlier on each successive morning of his life, till he became unspeakably ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... an unspeakably deserted feeling. Maryon had gone completely out of her life; Peter, the man she loved, could never come into it; and the only man who strove for entrance was, as Penelope had said, the last man in the world ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... lesser poet's work—that the players who mangled Shakespeare were the pilferers who plundered Middleton—must be obvious to all but those (if any such yet exist anywhere) who are capable of believing the unspeakably impudent assertion of those mendacious malefactors that they have left us a pure and perfect edition of Shakespeare. These passages are all thoroughly in keeping with the general tone of the lesser work: it would be tautology to add that they are no less utterly out ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... was! And she cared for him. She was small and selfish and unspeakably vain, but she cared ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... "So unspeakably happy. Yes. And glad to feel myself strong and self-restrained. I have often thought that no one could ever dream what happiness and beauty can live in one little grey village. Do you know what I think? I believe that ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski
... half aloud. "I can see that it's fine—but, dear God, is there no way out of it? It's so horribly, so unspeakably sad." ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... finally united. Puerile as the libretto is, it inspired Weber with some of the finest music he ever wrote. The spectacular portions of the opera are animated by the true spirit of chivalry, while all that is connected with the incomprehensible Emma and her secret is unspeakably eerie. The characters of the drama are such veritable puppets, that no expenditure of talent could make them interesting; but the resemblance between the general scheme of the plot of 'Euryanthe' and that of 'Lohengrin' should not be passed over, nor the remarkable way in which Weber had ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... poetry—of speculation and friendship. All the vexed questions of the schools were attempted by our united strength, after our higher guide had set the example. The thorny wilds of logic were pleasant as an enchanted ground; its driest technicalities treasured up as unspeakably rare and precious. We stumbled on, making discoveries at every step, and had all things common. Each lesson in mental philosophy opened up some mystery of our immortal nature, and seemed to bring us nearer the ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns
... old while I write, and dead when I shall be read. I am of a very amorous nature and the thought of friend or sweetheart was always an oasis in the desert of my thoughts. Even amidst the most important cares and duties such thoughts were ever of unspeakably greater interest and importance to me. They were never dull or tedious, never bored me, and were my consolation in times of gloom and discouragement. The pain they brought was also dear to me, and never possessed the loathsome hatefulness ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... tremulous outreachings of her hands toward him, as she just touches him with her finger and draws back, then leans forward and lies in his arms, uttering a little cry of happiness. Here was a heart that must long have hungered for affection—a heart unspeakably thankful and joyous at ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... they were married. One month—two months. He was unspeakably happy. Every evening they spent together and he sang a song to her about the Rose in the Wood, her favourite song. And he talked about religion and the drama, and she sat and listened eagerly. But she never expressed an opinion; she listened ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... This scene is unspeakably irrational. To believe, and yet to scoff at, a present miracle is little less than impossible. Sejanus should have been made to suspect priestcraft and a secret ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... shadows, perishing in the accomplishment of minor and subordinate ends. We may suspect that the notion of all this immeasurable profusion of priceless treasures, its position as one of the laws of the condition of man on the globe, would be unspeakably hard of endurance to one holding Condorcet's ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley
... His position, trying at the best, was made more so by the behavior of Dinwiddie. That crusty Scotchman had conceived a dislike to him, and sometimes treated him in a manner that must have been unspeakably galling to the proud and passionate young man, who nevertheless, unconquerable in his sense of public duty, curbed himself to patience, ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman |
