"Inexpressibly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... provoke,—thrusting and piercing with a certainty of aim that only past habits of confidence and affection could have put in their power, wounding their own hearts with every deadly thrust they make at one another, and all for such inexpressibly miserable trifles as usually form ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... a knout, while others, whom Lee had appointed, were drawing lots to see upon whom would devolve the unpleasant duty of flogging the captive. The matter-of-fact, relentless expedition of the affair shocked Burrell inexpressibly, and seeing Poleon and Gale near by, he edged towards them, thinking that they surely could not be in sympathy with ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... a low tone in one of the window recesses, but I heard what they said; and when Mrs. Linwood afterwards told me that Meg the Dauntless had gone off with the doctor in high glee, I was inexpressibly relieved, for I had conceived an unconquerable terror of her. There was other company in the house, as Edith had prophesied, but in a mansion so large and so admirably arranged, an invalid might be kept perfectly quiet without interfering ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... picturesque simplicity of the opening, in which the place and the persons are introduced, is inexpressibly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... possible in view of the different aspects which the world necessarily presents to youth and age. In such cases, no doubt, could the series of persons constituting the individual be brought together, a scene of inexpressibly tender and intimate communion ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... offer too many attractions in the way of amusements. Truth to tell, it is one of the dullest places imaginable, inexpressibly gloomy, where autumn seems to reign all through the year except for three months, when snow falls continuously. All this, however, does not of course affect the passing visitor, and for the resident there is nothing ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... niggers, an' hadn't fur to trabble on de road anyways, an' de Lawd would pervide, an' ef He didn't we could scratch grabble some ways. An' dat boy, dat young Marse David, he tole me everbody ought to gib dey las' cent fo' Unc' Sam an' de sojers. So"—Aunt Basha's high, inexpressibly sweet laughter of pure glee filled the room—"so I thes up'n ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... Poor John was inexpressibly shocked. He loved and revered his sister beyond any thing in the world; and it occurred to him, in a dim wise, that to be suddenly dispossessed and shut out in the cold, when one has hitherto been the first object of affection, is, to make the best ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... and I found her inexpressibly charming. She spoke French perfectly, and English quite well. She had been at school in England, she said—at Scarborough. Her home ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... had passed through the furnace of affliction; her face was sad, yet oh, so inexpressibly sweet. It haunted me. I have looked at every sister I met wherever I traveled, in the hope of meeting her, but ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... had horrified him inexpressibly during the case was the fact that his learned brother Counsel, Mr. Gentle Gammon, had so far forgotten his professional dignity as to declare that this Lion actually moved and spoke at times. He feared, ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... return in what had once appeared to be their natural channel—she clung to me with a fondness that seemed every hour to increase. Superior as she was, there was about her a kind of dependence upon others—upon their love and their sympathy—which was inexpressibly endearing. In those early times of sorrow I received her caresses, and listened to the words of love which she addressed to me, with something of the spirit with which I can imagine that the Holy Francoise de Chantal may have pressed to her bosom the burning ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... old lady suddenly sank down into a chair and covered her face with her hands. She began to cry softly, but in a way that hurt Suzanna inexpressibly. She stood for a moment hesitant. The sobs still continued and then Suzanna, deciding on her course, went to the little shaking figure and put her hands ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... happiest member of our party was Pablo. He was a handy boy, and when he had demonstrated his ability to manage a revolver by doing some very creditable shooting with mine (at mark that I had stuck up in the corral, in order that I might gain ease in the use of this unknown weapon), I delighted him inexpressibly by buying him a pistol for his very own. I think that Pablo, upon becoming the possessor of that revolver, at once grew two inches taller. The way that he strutted as he wore it, and his eager thrusting forward of his left hip, so that this gallant ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... nature were excited, like that of a soldier in battle, she could forget danger. If in her bed at home she were wasting with disease, she would soon submit to the Divine will with childlike trust. But her whole being shrunk inexpressibly from violent and unnatural death. Never before did life seem so sweet. Never before was there so much to live for. She could have been a martyr in any age and in any horrible form for conscience' sake, but she would have met her fate tremblingly, shrinkingly, and with intense longings ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... the reindeer, at a distance, taking the hue of the north. Once a beautiful creature, unblemished as the snow it trod, ran up a ridge and stood watching the hunters. It resembled a monster dog, only it was inexpressibly more wild looking. ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... of the Gitano, so the Southeastern European understands the musical and wild-forest yearnings of the Tsigane. Both to gypsy and Slavonian there is that which makes them dream so that even debauchery has for them at times an unearthly inspiration; and as smoking was inexpressibly sacred to the red Indians of old, so that when the Guatemalan Christ harried hell, the demons offered him cigars; in like manner tipsiness is often to the gypsy and Servian, or Czech, or Croat, something so serious and impressive that it is ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... scream. She sat huddled in her chair, gasping for breath, her eyes, rolling from side to side in incredulous terror, turned toward the street. She saw a great black group of people crossing it just in front of the vacant lot. There was something inexpressibly strange and gloomy about this moving group; there was an effect of sweeping, wavings and foldings of sable draperies and gleams of deadly white faces; then they passed. She twisted her head to see, and they disappeared in the ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... expected her death, but was inexpressibly grieved to lose from out her life that sweet presence which had been an inspiration for thirty years, whose staunch support had never failed, even when friends were fewest and fortune at its lowest ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... conversation was chiefly addressed to her. When Mattie dropped sadly out of the talk, or sat silent in her corner, he did not in his old kind fashion try to include her in the conversation: indeed, he rarely noticed her, except in his brief leave-taking. It hurt Mattie inexpressibly to be thus ignored by her old friend, for from the first his cordiality had had a sunshiny influence over her,—he had been so good to her, so thoughtful for her comfort, before Grace came; but now he seemed to forget sometimes that such a person as Mattie ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... been, and my spirits an equal forzando. Then comes the night, different, inexpressibly pensive, with its own tender and temper'd splendor. Venus lingers in the west with a voluptuous dazzle unshown hitherto this summer. Mars rises early, and the red sulky moon, two days past her full; Jupiter at night's meridian, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... mantillas; and there gallops the Andalusian cavalier, on his long-tailed thick-maned steed of Moorish ancestry. As the sun is descending, it is enchanting to glance back from this place in the direction of the city; the prospect is inexpressibly beautiful. Yonder in the distance, high and enormous, stands the Golden Tower, now used as a toll-house, but the principal bulwark of the city in the time of the Moors. It stands on the shore of the river, like ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... oh, poor woman! it ain't for us to judge you," returned Mrs. Green, in her tender, inexpressibly solemn ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... There is something inexpressibly striking, it may almost be said awful, in the fame of HOMER. Three thousand years have elapsed since the bard of Chios began to pour forth his strains; and their reputation, so far from declining, is on the increase. Successive nations are employed in celebrating his works; generation ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... Oh how inexpressibly mournful were their chants that night! I remember one especially. It began with a wailing recitative—a prolonged, mournful recitative in the minor key by female voices only, and at its close the men joined them in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... hayricks, and monster heaps of Federal stores set on fire in that memorable "change of base." For all the sunshine of the June morning, the rain-washed air, the singing birds in the jewelled green of the forest, there was something in the time and place inexpressibly sinister ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... waited for the end of the storm. There had been times when he thought with acquiescence of going to the bottom, as a probable conclusion; now he did not expect anything. At last, one night, he felt by inexpressibly minute degrees something that seemed surcease of his misery. It might have been the end of all things, for all he cared; but as the lull deepened, he slept without knowing what it was, and when ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... sounded inexpressibly sad in that vaulted place. Even De Sylva's studied control gave way before its music. He uttered some anguished appeal to the deity in his own tongue, and flung out his ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... barren, and soon their lanterns were lost in the fog. The third mate and his men brewed another generous supply of rum punch, heaped more wood on the fire and lit their pipes. By the time each had emptied his tin mug for the third time all felt inexpressibly sleepy. Mr. Darling, the commander of the guard, counted his men with a waving forefinger, and an expression of owlish gravity on his round face. Then, "Daniel Berry, you'll stand the first trick," said he. "Keep a sharp look-out and report anything unusual. Silas Nixon will relieve you ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... stars. It was that moment when night blends with day and there is no sign of light in the sky except that the stars burn more and more bright as the darkness thickens, and Vic Gregg watched the stars draw down more closely and believed that he was seeing this for the last time. Alder seemed inexpressibly dear to him as he stood there through a little space, and the vaguely discernible outlines of the shacks along the street were like the faces of friends. In that house behind him was Betty Neal, waiting, praying for him, and indeed, ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... a real pagan, because he could not escape the shadow of the Crucifixion. Theocritus was a real pagan because he knew neither the sorrow of the Crucifixion nor the joy of the Resurrection. Keats was a lover of Greece, was ardent, inexpressibly beautiful, sensuously charming; but Keats could no more be a real Greek than Shakespeare, in "Julius Caesar," could be a real Roman. Nor could Tennyson, nor Browning, nor William Morris, nor the Preraphaelites be really out of their time, for they could not ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... no more to do with realities than so many lunatics, and are unconfined because they are so numerous that all the asylums in the world could not contain them. But of Salisbury they have a very clear image: inexpressibly rich as it is in sights, in wonders, full of people—hundreds of people in the streets and market-place—they can take it all in and know its meaning. Every man and woman, of all classes, in all that concourse, is there for ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... vaguely asserted that he was at times brutally cruel to her. Susie's heart sank when she heard this; but on the few occasions upon which she caught sight of Margaret, she seemed in the highest spirits. One story inexpressibly shocked her. After lunching at some restaurant, Haddo gave a bad louis among the money with which he paid the bill, and there was a disgraceful altercation with the waiter. He refused to change the coin till a policeman was brought in. His ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... who was inexpressibly weary, felt that her father was exceeding the bounds of necessary hospitality. She felt, too, that the length of Dalton's first call was inexcusable. But she did not go to bed. As long as Becky was there, she should stay to chaperon her. With a sense of martyrdom upon ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey
... me inexpressibly. Enveloped in her cloak again, and with only her slight accent to betray her, it was dreadful to hear such words from a girl who, save for her singular type of beauty, might have been ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... September 1, 1651, I left home, and went on board a ship bound for London. The ship was no sooner out of the Humber than the wind began to blow and the sea to rise in a most frightful manner; and as I had never been at sea before, I was most inexpressibly sick in body and terrified in mind. The next day, however, the wind abated, and for several days the weather continued calm. My fears being forgotten, and the current of my desires returned, I entirely forgot the vows to return home that ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... her, had slept, but it seemed as if they had stolen his rest—he could not close his eyes there, so he rose and went out on the porch, where he spread his rug before the open door; but it was long ere he could sleep—there was an unwonted feeling at his heart, something like happiness, yet inexpressibly sad; and, buried in deep reverie, he lay with his eyes fixed on the dark blue starry vault above him till past midnight. Suddenly he thought he heard the report of some fire-arms at a great distance, and at the same moment two stars sank beneath the horizon. Numa thought ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... to give expression to his cordial feelings and his inspiration. It becomes an obsession with him to communicate to others what he sees in his Idol, his Divinity. Yet it is not Inspiration for his Subject alone that makes the Essayist. Some point that has no marked attraction in itself may be inexpressibly precious to the Author as Material, presenting itself to him with some rare stamps or unexpected feature, that affords a special vehicle for the expression of his temperament. Every man favours what he can describe or set forth ...
— Maxim Gorki • Hans Ostwald
... the want of trees considering the ease with which they may be cultivated, is a strong evidence of the extreme laziness of the Affghans, who appear to me remarkably low in the scale of civilization; and in personal habits, very generally inexpressibly filthy. ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... it was fated to be my own mother! My greatest misery was the thoughts of that hour, and I prayed earnestly to God for strength. I was heard, and strength was given to me. Melancholy as your letter made me, still I was inexpressibly happy to find that you both bear this sorrow as it ought to be borne, and that my mind may now be at ease about my beloved father and sister. As soon as I read your letter, my first impulse was to throw myself on my knees, and fervently to thank our gracious God for this ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... Sir William was inexpressibly surprised at this incident. Delia, he was sure, did not even know the name of his friend, and he could scarcely imagine that she had ever seen him. Miss Fletcher, though considerably astonished herself, gave sir William an account of so many particulars of what had passed between his ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin
... stronger in their action, perfect, and lasting. That the exterior flesh may be yet more beautiful; that the shape may be finer, and the motions graceful. These are the soberest words I can find, purposely chosen; for I am so rapt in the beauty of the human form, and so earnestly, so inexpressibly, prayerful to see that form perfect, that my full thought is not to be written. Unable to express it fully, I have considered it best to put it in the simplest manner of words. I believe in the ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies
... resume them, joyfully, in Switzerland; where during another year of absence, I can at once work out the themes I have now in my mind, without interruption: and while I keep my English audience within speaking distance, extend my knowledge of a noble country, inexpressibly attractive to ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... which have a situation favourable for producing it. The first time I was deceived by this extraordinary phenomenon, I had clambered up to the summit of the Broken very early in the morning, in order to wait for the inexpressibly beautiful view of the sun rising in the east. The heavens were already streaked with red; the sun was just appearing above the horizon in full majesty; and the most perfect serenity prevailed throughout the surrounding country; when ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... something inexpressibly exhilarating in the sensation of positive freedom from all worldly care, and a consequent expansion of the sinews, as it were, of mind and body, which made me feel as elastic as a ball of India rubber, ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... on him, she moved slowly away, and from behind Charlie's back she laughed with a genuine merriment that wounded inexpressibly. ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... Homer, perhaps; but how many noble natures have felt its elation, how many bruised spirits the solace of its bracing, if monotonous melody! To us there is something inexpressibly tender in this instinct of the widowed mother to find consolation in the idealization of her grief by mingling it with those sorrows which genius has turned into the perennial delight of mankind. This was a kind of sentiment that was healthy for her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... very little discussion of the situation in the cabin, that night. Mr. Fowler seemed inexpressibly tired and broken, and Douglas, with a sudden welling of pity to his throat, persuaded him to go to bed. Nor did he, later, interfere with the old preacher's choice of a sermon. There was a deep conviction growing within Douglas that the religious issue ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... apparently unsupported near its mouth, as though aeons long gone by an iceberg had perched it there. The dog would have bounded in upon Sim where he sat and sang at his work, but Ralph checked him with a look. Inexpressibly eerie sounded the half-buried voice of the singer in that Solitary place. The weird ditty ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... old servant, though bare and withering like the scathed oak, was inexpressibly welcome to one who so deeply suffered from the crimes of duplicity. Williams soon recovered his strength under the care of his dear old master; and though the mountain cottage bore no resemblance to the embattled towers of Castle Bellingham, still he was under the roof of a true Neville, and ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... After inexpressibly long waiting Phormio came, then Hermippus, to tell all they knew. Leonidas had perished gloriously. His name was with the immortals, but the mountain wall of Hellas had been unlocked. No Spartan army was in Boeotia. The bravest of Athens were in the ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... man who had been left in charge of the expedition—a man of extreme kindness, but an incessant talker. He spoke so loudly, repeating the same things over and over again, that in my weak state, and accustomed as we were to the deathly silence of the forest, it tired me inexpressibly. His conversation consisted entirely of accusing everybody he knew of being robbers and assassins, and in long descriptions, with numberless figures, to show how he had been robbed of small sums of money by various people he had met in ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... in this portfolio, there were none of those nauseous notes of compliment, none of those epistles adulatory, degrading to those who write, and equally degrading to those to whom they are written: letters which are, however cleverly turned, inexpressibly wearisome to all but the ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... disgrace or shame he would willingly have died a thousand times over. For since Herminia had confessed her love to him yesterday, he had begun to feel how much she was to him. His admiration and appreciation of her had risen inexpressibly. And was he now to be condemned for having dragged down to the dust that angel whose white wings he felt himself unworthy to touch with the hem ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... eyes, of the almond-shaped, heavy-lidded variety that I had thought existed only in Lely's pictures, and great coils of brown hair which was gold where the chequered sunlight fell upon it, and two lips that were inexpressibly red. I was filled with pity for my tired horse, and a resolve that for this once her thirst ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... charnel, so ghostly and deathly sounded its hollow tone; then, recoiling some steps, he placed both his hands upon his temples, and muttered, "Mad, mad! yes, yes, this is but a delirium, and I am tempted with a devil! Oh, my child!" he resumed, in a voice that became, on the sudden, inexpressibly tender and imploring, "I have been sorely tried; and I dreamt a feverish dream of passion and revenge. Be thine the lips, and thine the soothing hand, that shall wake me from it. Let us fly for ever from these hated lands; let us leave to these miserable infidels ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book IV. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... me inexpressibly," she said. "I did not know that men could be so strong and frank and courageous as you. I did not know that men could be so great; that any man could think more of what a woman thought of—of his life's story—than of"—she ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... prepared even in the dead of night, and the unusual, which lurks least in the cafe, home of the prosaic and inevitable, was preparing to spoil for him the waning romance of Broadway. The way it took was so inexpressibly terrible, so unbelievable, that afterward he never thought of it as experience; but it was a scene from a misty tragedy, played far behind the veil, and that it meant something definite ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... asleep, and sometimes between sleeping and waking. But all night I continued in a constant, clear, and lively sense of the heavenly sweetness of Christ's excellent love, of his nearness to me, and of my dearness to him; with an inexpressibly sweet calmness of soul in an entire rest in him. I seemed to myself to perceive a glow of divine love come down from the heart of Christ in heaven into my heart in a constant stream, like a stream or pencil of sweet light. At the same time ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... its work upon them. O brother, brother! All the fond memories of their youth, all the dear remembrances of their childhood, the love and the laughter, the tender romantic vows which they had pledged to each other as lads, were recalled by Harry with pangs inexpressibly keen. Wounded men looked up and were softened by his grief: rough women melted as they saw the woe written on the handsome young face: the hardy old tutor could scarcely look at him for tears, and grieved for him even more than for his dear ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... rush to his eyes. There was something inexpressibly touching in those simple words as Big ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... It was inexpressibly refreshing, after loitering through twenty such pages, to revert to the "History of the Crimean War:" the curt, nervous periods were a powerful mental tonic; and few of his many readers owe so practical a debt to Mr. Kinglake as ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... had succeeded in getting away unnoticed; when we had satisfactorily reached one of our secret nooks, and were sitting side by side, and, at last, the book was slowly opened, emitting a pungent odour, inexpressibly sweet to me then, of mildew and age;—with what a thrill, with what a wave of dumb expectancy, I gazed at the face, at the lips of Punin, those lips from which in a moment a stream of such delicious eloquence was to flow! At last the first sounds of the reading were heard. ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... an inevitable analogy, she sees fit to express the inner multiformity of her being. Nevertheless, this former conception of his, when compared to that wonderful complexity of ethereal lines, colors, tints and half-tints which go to make up the modern New York girl, seemed inexpressibly simple, almost what plain arithmetic must appear to a ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... to do, it had settled them very comfortably with husbands. But with Henrietta, the condition which was meant to be temporary, seemed spreading itself out to be permanent, and with the parties taken away, she was hard put to it to fill up her days. She longed inexpressibly for school, for its restrictions, its monotony and variety. And to think that when she had the luck to be there, she had counted the days to being a young lady. When she remembered how she had almost wept ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... with the railroad journey, entertaining as it was, then the excitement of meeting them all again, the bump on her forehead when she had come down so hard on Pansy's head, and the screams that seemed like a stab going from temple to temple tired her inexpressibly. Then, too, she was hungry. Oh, if she could have a glass of hot milk such as Jane used to bring her! She really could not help crying a little. Both babies stood up by her. Violet pounding on one shoulder, Pansy making a grab at her hair ...
— A Modern Cinderella • Amanda M. Douglas
... for persons writhing under a sense of intolerable injury, sweetness and light do ever reign. Even 'yours truly, Jacob Langton,' in his 'letter to his Daughter's Mercenary Fiance',' mitigates the sternness of his tone by the remark that his 'task is inexpressibly painful.' And he, Mr. Langton, is the one writer who lets the post go out on his wrath. When Horace Masterton, of Thorpe Road, Putney, receives from Miss Jessica Weir, of Fir Villa, Blackheath, a letter 'declaring her Change ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... only Will who guessed the extent of his companion's trouble. When Lydgate spoke with desperate resignation of going to settle in London, and said with a faint smile, "We shall have you again, old fellow." Will felt inexpressibly mournful, and said nothing. Rosamond had that morning entreated him to urge this step on Lydgate; and it seemed to him as if he were beholding in a magic panorama a future where he himself was sliding into that pleasureless ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... was now drawing near. I sent to Mr. Fairlie to say that I would wait on him to take leave if he liked, but that he must excuse my being rather in a hurry. He sent a message back, written in pencil on a slip of paper: "Kind love and best wishes, dear Gilmore. Hurry of any kind is inexpressibly injurious to me. Pray take care ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... of founding any doctrine upon the inexpressibly minute possibility that, in these two texts, the word might have been used with a different meaning from that which it bore in all the others, coupled with the assumption that the meaning was this or that, is self-evident: ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... best at a great distance, and is then inexpressibly charming, as it only fulfills its design in the sentiment of remoteness. It is plaintive, but not dismal in its sound, and at times it is scarcely possible to refrain from tears. My companion, who otherwise was not a very delicately ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... pause of ten minutes half-way through. There would be some novelty in the thing, as I have never done it in public, though I have in private, and (if I may say so) with a great effect on the hearers." He further remarked, "I was so inexpressibly gratified last night by the warmth and enthusiasm of my Birmingham friends, that I feel half ashamed this morning of so poor an offer: but as I decided on making it to you before I came down yesterday, I propose it nevertheless." ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... and mutter, and lay motionless as one thoroughly exhausted. He slept much, waking for but a few moments, and sinking again into a species of half-lethargy. There was something inexpressibly sweet and pleasant in his present calmness; his mind seemed to have been mysteriously soothed and satisfied; the turbulent waves, that dashed him hither and thither against the sharp rocks of doubt and fear, had subsided. His features, especially when he ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... the descriptions of this fruit by various writers, but all agree that it is inexpressibly good! Says one—writing of the sixteenth century—"It is of such an excellent taste that it surpasses in flavour all the other fruits of the world." Another writes: "This fruit is of a hot and humid nature. To those not used to it, ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... the upper branches a blackbird was trolling out his music in his usual careless leisurely manner; when I stopped under it the singing was suspended for half a minute or so, then resumed, but in a lower key, which made it seem softer, sweeter, inexpressibly beautiful. ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... there was no surcease from the sinister spell until suddenly they emerged into a long, wide, illumined thoroughfare of shut shops that stretched to infinity on either hand. And a vermilion motor-bus meandered by, and this motor-bus was so sad, so inexpressibly wistful, in the solemn wilderness of the empty artery, that the two women fled from the strange scene and penetrated once more into the gigantic and fearful maze from which they had for an instant stood free. Soon they were quite lost. ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... he had done; and that the lands which may lie to the south will never be explored. Thick fogs, snow storms, intense cold, and every thing besides, that can render navigation dangerous, must be encountered; all which difficulties are greatly heightened by the inexpressibly horrid aspect of the country. It is a country doomed by nature never once to feet the warmth of the sun's rays, but to lie buried in everlasting snow and ice. Whatever ports there may be on the coast, they are almost entirely covered with frozen snow of a vast thickness. If however, ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... chug-chug sound, as if somebody throttled them. The leaves of the wood swung in gentle winds. Through the dark-green branches of the pines that grew in the front yard could be seen the mountains, far to the southeast, and inexpressibly blue. ...
— The Little Regiment - And Other Episodes of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... Every thing now flourishes. Nature puts on her gayest colours, and displays all her charms. The walks among the more cultivated scenes of my own grounds, and amidst the wilder objects of this favoured region are inexpressibly agreeable. The society of my pensive and sentimental friend is particularly congenial with the scenery around me. Do not imagine that I am so devoid of taste as not to derive exquisite pleasure from these sources. Yet believe me, there ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... as he woke. At his bedside sat the Margrave. He had been there for hours watching his slumbering comrade. Watching?—no, not watching, but awake by his side, brooding over thoughts unutterably bitter—over feelings inexpressibly wretched. ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... chilly day. A busy good-smelling steam arises from all her dishes at once, and the light in the middle of the table is of a redness that enthralls the human soul. As for Harriet herself, she is the personification of comfort, airy, clean, warm, inexpressibly wholesome. And never in the world is she so engaging as when she ministers to a man's hunger. Truthfully, sometimes, when she comes to me out of the dimmer light of the kitchen to the radiance of the table with a plate of muffins, it is ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... touched—the notion that friendliness and good fellowship are essentially connected with strong drink. This is at the bottom of those terrible scenes when troops are leaving our great London railway stations. Scenes so inexpressibly sad ...
— The Discipline of War - Nine Addresses on the Lessons of the War in Connection with Lent • John Hasloch Potter
... causes a shade of paleness to sweep over his firm, bronzed countenance. What if this were but a scheme to get him into their power? What if he were not suffered to die fighting, to fall into their hands alive? Why, then, his fate was certain—certain and inexpressibly horrible. He would be butchered like a calf—butchered and eaten—by these repulsive wretches. Such would be his end. Now, however, to make the best ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... night, and of "the distinguished audience" Mr. and Mrs. Slumper were making two. They were inexpressibly bored, but that was beside the point. By occupying two stalls, Mrs. Slumper was sure they were doing the right thing. A box would have been better, of course, but there had been some difficulty, and Slumper, being ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... A summer inexpressibly harassing and depressed followed; but towards the end of 1916 affairs were reorganized, and at last a general was found. On the night of December 13 we crossed the Shat-el-Hai, and Maude's attack on Kut began. Ten ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson
... "Constant, since you have determined to quit us to make the campaign, you may rejoice, for you are now about to leave. The First Consul has sent for you. Go to the office of Maret, and ascertain if he will not soon send a courier. You will accompany him." I was inexpressibly delighted at this good news, and did not try to conceal my pleasure. "You are very well satisfied to leave us," said Madame Bonaparte with a kind smile. "It is not leaving Madame, but joining the First Consul, which delights me."—"I hope so," replied she. "Go, ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... repulsive. I hate to think of them. I was soon draped in the conventional black, with its heavy folds of crape. Lady Knollys came, and was very kind. She undertook the direction of all those details which were to me so inexpressibly dreadful. She wrote letters for me beside, and was really most kind and useful, and her society supported me indescribably. She was odd, but her eccentricity was leavened with strong common sense; and I have often thought since with admiration and gratitude of the tact with which she ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... She was inexpressibly weary. She had risen at five o'clock every morning of that week, had been on foot the whole of each day, and on this evening had in addition walked the three miles to Chaseborough, waited three hours ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... shivering fit from a dream of terror, and found myself in the dark. I hastily undressed myself, got into bed, and shrunk beneath the bed clothes, as if escaping from Satan, whom imagination once more placed at my elbow, in forms inexpressibly horrid. ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... in story or in song, a lady so loving and so light of heart, save Rosalind alone. Her face touches Frank's, as she says goodbye for ever "It was a moment never to be forgotten, inexpressibly bitter, yet mixed with a sensation of pleasure so deeply soothing and affecting as at once to unlock all the floodgates ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... alone. While the tired hands slowly worked, the weary brain ached and burned with heavy thoughts, vain longings, and feverish fancies, till things about her sometimes seemed as strange and spectral as the phantoms that had haunted her half-delirious sleep. Inexpressibly wretched were the dreary days, the restless nights, with only pain and labor for companions. The world looked very dark to her, life seemed an utter failure, God a delusion, and the long, lonely years before her too ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... Knowest and fearest thou The One, unoriginate, Named inexpressibly, Through all Heaven impermeate, ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... wild fantasia, still inexpressibly sweet, and from that changed again into a requiem or lament, whose mellifluous tide of harmony swept our thoughts back again ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss
... dress and the diamonds which Mary wore were not the chief points of attraction to the spectators. All who were present on the occasion agree in saying that she looked inexpressibly beautiful, and that there was an indescribable grace and charm in all her movements and manner, which filled all who saw her with an intoxication of delight. She was artless and unaffected in her manners, and her countenance, the expression of which was generally ...
— Mary Queen of Scots, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... to the corner of the hearth and sat heavily down. He bent forward, a brooding, melancholy figure, a thin old veteran, grey and scarred. The fire-light showed strongly square jaw, hawk nose, and beetle brows. When he spoke, it was in a voice inexpressibly sombre. "I have seen my niece but three times since September. If you ask me now what you asked me then, I shall answer differently. I do not know—I do not know if she ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... out into the bitter night, and Villiers returned to his fireside. There was something about Herbert which shocked him inexpressibly; not his poor rags nor the marks which poverty had set upon his face, but rather an indefinite terror which hung about him like a mist. He had acknowledged that he himself was not devoid of blame; the woman, he had avowed, had corrupted him body and soul, and Villiers felt that ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... farther, farther. Her face was inexpressibly sorrowful. And Glaucon knew that she spoke ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... not turn to the book to find the exact words of this sublime vindication, for ten years I have not read the Word that has become so inexpressibly a part of me; and shall I not refrain as Mdlle. de Maupin refrained, knowing well that the face of love may not be twice seen? Great was my conversion. None more than I had cherished mystery and ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... cathedral at Rheims, by the way, though by no means slight, inexpressibly sad and truly regrettable, was not nearly so great as was indicated by many early reports. The friends of architectural art and beauty hope to see the cathedral fully restored at no ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... their desultory wars, the loss of a few men was deemed a great disaster. To have six or seven hundred of their warriors, hitherto deemed invincible, in one hour shot or burned to ashes, was to them inexpressibly awful. In dismay, they set fire to the royal fortress and to all the adjacent wigwams, and fled into the fastnesses of the forest. Captain Mason placed his wounded on board the vessels, obtained a supply ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... the defects in the character of Lot, it must, nevertheless, be admitted that he was a man of eminent piety—a piety the more conspicuous, from the circumstances in which he was placed. His fellow citizens were inexpressibly depraved; so much so, that in all the annals of sacred and profane history, we find no parallel example. Sodom was, in fact, one mass of pollution. High and low, rich and poor, seem to have been infected with moral contamination; and every day their excessive immoralities dared the vengeance ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... that all the most anxious feelings of the past were gone through. Before they parted at night, Anne had the felicity of being assured that in the first place (so far from being altered for the worse), she had gained inexpressibly in personal loveliness; and that as to character, hers was now fixed on his mind as perfection itself, maintaining the just medium of fortitude and gentleness—that he had never ceased to love and prefer her, though it had been only at Uppercross that he had learnt to do ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... life she was to lead with her husband. The Greek's face, palely lighted by a thoughtful smile, vanished in sudden darkness. Laodice saw instead an image of a strong intent face, brightening under the sunrise, saw it relax, soften, grow inexpressibly kind, then pass, as a tender memory taking ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... the absolutely disgusting. It is enough to recall the female boxing or scratching matches which are so frequent in his pages. On one such occasion his language seems to imply that he had watched such battles in the spirit of a connoisseur in our own day watching less inexpressibly disgusting prize-fights. Certainly we could wish that, if such scenes were to be depicted, there might have been a clearer proof that the artist had a nose and eyes capable ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... feature which had attracted the Indians to the locality. Rank grass had once covered the whole surface of this forest meadow, but this the cattle had closely cropped, leaving a sward that would have rivalled any European lawn in its velvety beauty, and that, falling away before the eye, became inexpressibly soft as it sunk away ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... does not find out till after a year's conversation; when on a sudden some latent ill-humour breaks out upon him, which he never discovered or suspected at his first entering into an intimacy with him. There are several persons who in some certain periods of their lives are inexpressibly agreeable, and in others as odious and detestable. Martial has given us a very pretty picture of one of this ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... give to the whole sex. In the man who contradicts and strives with her, she discovers a truer interest, a nobler respect. The empty-headed, spindle-shanked youths who dance admirably, understand something of billiards, much less of horses, and still less of navigation, soon grow inexpressibly wearisome to us; but the men who adopt their social courtesy, never seeking to arouse, uplift, instruct ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... are very weak," returned Katherine, tenderly, for there was something inexpressibly touching in the hopelessness of the stranger's aspect. "But some good food and the prospect of employment will set you up, When you are a little stronger and know me better you will perhaps tell me how Mr. ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... shall believe that Christ is in all men, that God's spirit is abroad in the earth, and therefore the dispraise, misunderstanding, and calumny of men will be exquisitely painful to us, and ought to be so; and, on the other hand, the esteem of men, and renown among men for doing good deeds will be inexpressibly precious to us. They will be signs and warrants to us that God is pleased with us, that we are sharing in that 'honour and glory' which Paul promises again and again, with no such scruples as yours, to those who lead heroic lives. We shall not neglect the voice of God within us; but we shall ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... received him with graceful kindliness, listened to his offer, and assented with evident pleasure. There was not a happier woman that night in all Yerbury than Miss Barry. The care and desire of her life had been justly crowned. Her good-night kiss to Sylvie was inexpressibly sweet. ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... to advise him to win if possible this unselfish maiden, who with a divine alchemy transmuted her shadows into sunshine for others, and often suggested the thought, if she can do this in sorrow, how inexpressibly happy she might make you and your aged father and mother if you could first find out in some way how ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe |
