"Indefinable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... under his brother's shoulder, and taken his weight almost entirely off the crutch. His active young strength bore the great burden unfalteringly and with immense tenderness, and there ran through Dot, watching from above, a queer little indefinable thrill that made her heart beat suddenly faster. He certainly was a nice boy, ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... privacy of the fo'c'sle neither spoke. She was breathless, partly with indignation, partly with indefinable fear and partly with the breakneck speed at which he had rushed her along the deck. He sat down on the anchor; she stood before him, her back to the rail, which she gripped with her hands. Her ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... of Longfellow's the notable points are not power of invention, or vigorous creation, or profound thought, but a mellowness of observation, instinctively selecting the picturesque and characteristic details, a copious and rich scholarship, and that indefinable grace of the imagination which announces genius. The work, like the "Sketch-Book," was originally issued in parts, and it was hardly possible for any observer thirty years ago not to see that its peculiar character revealed a new strain in our literature. Longfellow's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... of diseases of tympanum perforated Electricity, phenomena of useful in gout Excitability, or vital principle how affected by heat, food, air, &c. accumulated by sleep three states of its accumulation, and exhaustion illustrated an unknown indefinable somewhat connected with oxygen hypothesis respecting this connexion scale of how to be regulated in gout Exercise on horseback, best Eye, description of vertical section of its ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... permanent balance of antagonistic forces, confronting each other like the three duellists in Sheridan's Critic. The practical result of that theory is to substitute for the 'greatest happiness' principle the vague criterion of the preservation of an equilibrium between indefinable forces; and to make the ultimate end of government the maintenance as long as possible of a balance resting on no ulterior principle, but undoubtedly pleasant for the comfortable classes. Nothing is left but the rough guesswork, ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... I die for it, as no less is threatened me, the king, my old master, must be relieved.' That when all is done will be found to contain some hints as to the manner in which 'charities' of this kind have need to be managed, under a government armed with powers so indefinable. ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... promised to take Marvel's treasure under his convoy. And, for the two years following, whenever the district school was in operation, Julius might be seen conducting the two little girls down the hill that leads to the bridge. At the bridge they loitered. Its charm was felt, but indefinable. It was a spell upon their senses; they would look up and down the sparkling stream till it winded far away from sight, and at their own pretty faces, that smiled again to them, and at Julius skittering the stones along the water, (a magical rustic art!) ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... profound, uneasy slumber that so often follows on a night of pain, when he was awakened by the third or fourth angry repetition of the concerted signal. There was a thin, bright moonshine; it was bitter cold, windy, and frosty; the town had not yet awakened, but an indefinable stir already preluded the noise and business of the day. The ghouls had come later than usual, and they seemed more than usually eager to be gone. Fettes, sick with sleep, lighted them upstairs. He heard their grumbling Irish voices through a dream; and as they stripped the sack from ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... quick-sighted, he saw clearly and without illusion, but he acted on impulse, and unwisely. An indefinable flaw of character, often seen in young men, but impossible to explain, led him to will one thing and do another. In spite of an active mind, which showed itself in unexpected ways, the senses had but to assert themselves, and the ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... the successful woman of business, but she was the woman of business with something added. Though she spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, her voice had a vibrating quality; though she wore only the plainest clothes, her grace, her good-breeding, her indefinable charm, softened the severity. ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... ease, cold and unable to talk, but when he was with women, he felt easy and knew what to talk about, and how to behave, and even when he was silent with them he felt quite comfortable. In his appearance as in his character, indeed in his whole nature, there was something attractive, indefinable, which drew women to him and charmed them; he knew it, and he, too, was drawn by ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... moonlight on the baby waves? was it the murmur of that gliding boat? or was it something indefinable that so awakened the sentiments of the party of ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose
... and she gave vent to a little gentle laugh. "I see!" Her meaning was entirely unknown to Lucy; but she felt an indefinable offence. She made a slight effort to withdraw her hand; but this the Contessa would not permit. She pressed the imprisoned fingers more closely in her own. "You do not like this questioning. Pardon! I had forgotten English ways. ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... his embrace, for a moment her head fell back on his broad shoulder, and she smiled up at him. From her soft, yielding form arose that subtle, familiar perfume, the intoxicating, vague, indefinable aroma of the well groomed woman that never fails to set a man's blood on fire. Bending low until his mouth touched hers, he kissed her until her face glowed under the ardor of his amative caress. But to-day she was not in ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... had started for the door. "Come on out, honey, an' I'll make yo' acquainted with Mr. Bethune. He wus a friend of yo' pa, an' Lord too." As she followed the woman to the door, the girl was conscious of an indefinable feeling of distrust for the man. Somehow, his words had not ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... in her whole aspect and beamed upon Giovanni's consciousness like the light of truth itself; but while she spoke there was a fragrance in the atmosphere around her, rich and delightful, though evanescent, yet which the young man, from an indefinable reluctance, scarcely dared to draw into his lungs. It might be the odor of the flowers. Could it be Beatrice's breath which thus embalmed her words with a strange richness, as if by steeping them in her heart? A faintness passed like ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... descriptions, had dimly fancied clamour and confusion bursting upon eyes and ears on the instant of entering the gambling-rooms. But the silence of the place was as haunting and mystery-suggesting as the indefinable odour, and more thrilling to the ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... happened in France at the Revolution. It is said that in some French schools now you find children with a vague idea that things more or less began with the taking of the Bastille: that there was a misty indefinable period between the 12th of October (or on whatever day it was Eve's apple ripened) and the glorious 14th of July:—an age of prehistory, wandered through by unimportant legendary figures such as Jeanne Darc, Henri Quatre, Louis Quatorze, which we may leave to the superstitious—and come quickly to ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... all other things are compounded there could be no definition, because each of them when taken by itself is uncompounded; nor can one rightly attribute to them the words 'being' or 'this,' because they are alien and inappropriate words, and for this reason the letters or elements were indefinable and unknown? ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... go on for a dozen pages and still have an incomplete list. It is not what one reads but how one reads. The books wait on the shelves and through reading and through reading only can one cultivate that most necessary though indefinable quality—Good Taste. ...
— Rhymes and Meters - A Practical Manual for Versifiers • Horatio Winslow
... sufficient revelation! For this first article of a reasonable creed is the key to all else—the clue which leads the mind safely through the labyrinth of doubt into the presence of the Eternal. Without attempting to define the indefinable, the soul rises from the belief in the reality of love and duty to the belief in "a holy will at the root of nature and destiny"—for "if man is capable of conceiving goodness, the general principle of things, which cannot be inferior ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... dark shape of the horses and the long cloaks of their riders. They could perceive Conyngham quickly throw back his cape in order to have a free hand. Then there came the sound of scuffling feet and an indefinable sense of strife in the ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... orchards, and slopes of emerald pasture, pitched as steep as house-roofs, where the red long-horns are feeding, with their tails a yard above their heads.' About twenty-two miles to the west, the sea-line is broken by an island, about which there is an indefinable air of romance. Lundy is three and a half miles long, its greatest width is a few yards short of a mile, and it is surrounded by high and dangerous cliffs and rocks—too well known even in the present day by the ships ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... as Hadria looked down, a peculiar dreaminess of expression, and something indefinable, which suggested a profoundly emotional nature. At present, the expression was softened. That this softness was not altogether trustworthy, however, the Professor felt sure, for he had seen, at moments, when something had deeply ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... out; above the impenetrable, velvety dark of the western range the stars gleamed like drops of water. He felt unsettled, ill at ease; dissatisfaction irked his thoughts and emotions. His unrest was without tangible features; it permeated him from an undivined cause, oppressed him with indefinable longing. He got, he dimly realized, but a limited amount of satisfaction from the money now at his command. He was totally without financial instinct—money for itself, the abstraction, was beyond his comprehension. He had bought a ponderous gold watch, which he ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... certain air of being the objects of the chase rather than the followers." This phrase lacks elegance—and Dickens is not often inelegant, as those who do not read him may be surprised to learn—but the impression is admirable; so is that which follows: "An indefinable kind of pause coming and going on their whole expression, both of face and form." Here is pure, mere impression again: "Miss Murdstone, who was busy at her writing- desk, gave me her cold finger-nails." Lady Tippins's hand is "rich in knuckles." And ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell
... father returned to him touched his fine lips with a gravity too deep for his years. No man had ever said that his father had dealt unfairly with men, yet for years now his son had accumulated impressions, vague and indefinable at first, but clearer as he grew older, and the impressions had already left the faintest tracery of a line between his eyebrows. He had known his father as a hard man; he knew that the world had found him hard and shrewd. And now, as he grew older and understood what the tribute of honest ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... Grantly had ever referred to the night of young Rabbich's dinner at the Moonstone, but since that night she had been distinctly conscious of a slightly more respectful quality in his manner towards her. The tendency was indefinable, illusive, but it was there, and simple-minded Mary only reflected gratefully that Grantly was ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... Finally Assad is banished to the desert, where he is overwhelmed by a sandstorm. 'Die Koenigin von Saba' is a strong and effective opera. The local colour is managed very skilfully, and the orchestration is novel and brilliant. Yet there is very little of that indefinable quality, which we call sincerity, about the score. It was happily described at its production as a clever imitation of good music. The influence of Wagner is strongest in the love music, which owes much to 'Tristan und Isolde,' 'Merlin' (1886), ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... a name ought to be. As the characteristic quality depends upon a hundred indefinable, subconscious associations, it is clearly impossible to suggest any principle of choice. The only general rule that can be laid down is that the key of the nomenclature, so to speak, may rightly vary with the key of the play—that farcical names are, within limits, admissible in farce, eccentric ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... that had passed through his hands—some goodly ones among them—none had seemed so rare and pure as this; it was a pearl of great price, for which a man might be prepared to part with all he possessed, if only to obtain it. There was an indefinable majesty, a moral glory, a tender grace, an ineffable attractiveness in this Man, which was immediately appreciated by the greatest of woman-born, because of his own intrinsic nobility and greatness of soul. It needed ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... during the last few months had Jacques de Wissant ever felt jealous of his wife. There had been times when he had been angered by the way in which her young beauty, her indefinable, mysterious charm, had attracted the very few men with whom she was brought into contact. But Claire, so her husband had always acknowledged to himself, was no flirt; she was ever ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... same work another critic records: 'The attendant angels in this work (signed by the artist) are of special interest, instinct with an indefinable purity and depth of reverential tenderness elsewhere hardly rivalled. But the picture, like that in S. Giovanni Crisostomo, with which it is nearly contemporary, is almost more interesting from the astonishing truth and beauty of its landscape portions. These form here a feature ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... gloom of the convent, the notes of the organ, the clouds of incense, the waxen tapers burning at the feet of the Virgin, the litanies of the nuns,—all this had filled her mind with the poetry of the cloister, and with that mystic and indefinable love which at the first contact with the world was ready to change into a violent passion when it should meet with an object upon which to ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... comment upon, probably because he wished to give his opinions unrestricted by the textual limitations of the bigger ones. His main emphasis is on the truth that he realized to be perfect. He only incidentally suggested that the great Buddhist truth of indefinable and unspeakable vijnana or vacuity would hold good of the highest atman of the Upani@sads, and thus laid the foundation of a revival of the Upani@sad studies on Buddhist lines. How far the Upani@sads ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... had turned its black crepe countenance towards the sky, and was waving its arms in time to a religious chant. "Look at him now," cried a little boy. They turned, and were transfixed by the solemnity and mystery of the indefinable gestures. The wail of the melody was mournful and slow. They drew back. It seemed to spellbind them with the power of a funeral. They were so absorbed that they did not hear the doctor's buggy drive up to the stable. Trescott got out, tied his horse, and ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... good-looking young lawyer her point of view had shifted. She hardly knew herself how she regarded him. He irritated, and yet in some indefinable way, pleased her. His sincerity—? She did not doubt his sincerity. She admitted to herself that she wished he would call a little more frequently than he did. He might have persuaded her that Jaggs was a necessary evil, ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... watch this young lady—rather than to play games. Being a sensitive child, after this experience she was careful not to reveal her feelings to anyone. She felt instinctively that in this she was different from others. Her sense of beauty developed early, but there was always an indefinable feeling of melancholy associated with it. The twilight, a dark night when the stars shone brightly; these had a very depressing effect upon her, but possessed a strong attraction nevertheless, and pictures ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... when least expected, occasionally finding her alone for a few moments; he walked from church with them, by her side, the only times he came near her, and she felt in every pulse of her being the indefinable something that she was ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... moment when she too should be a bewitching and captivating wife like Vera, in short, a woman of the world, worshipped by grave, bearded men. And both the men were under the spell of Vera's incurable charm, capricious, surprising, exasperating, indefinable, indispensable to ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... SYDNEY MORNING HERALD: "The indefinable charm is here, and the spell, and the music.... A distinct advance for Australian verse in ideality, in grace and polish, in the study of the rarer forms of verse, and in the true faculty ...
— Five Months at Anzac • Joseph Lievesley Beeston
... the appalling name. "It is true; and I hope this interview is the commencement of a durable and firm friendship. I know not the secret cause, but, from the moment of our meeting, a strong and indefinable interest has drawn me towards you. Perhaps I felt the void which my situation has drawn about me;—be that as it may, I receive you with a longing heart ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... had not spoken, met the weird, fixed look, but with a consciousness of physical loss—an indefinable sensation, probably mental, of being drawn out of himself. No words came to ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... least happy of young men. He was born with an uncomfortable and awkward and unwieldy character, as some men are born lame, or scrofulous, or dyspeptic. The child of a father over sixty, and of a very young mother; there was in him some indefinable imperfection of nature, some jar of character, or some great want, some original sin of mental constitution, which made him different from other men, disabled him from getting pleasure or profit out of the circumstances which gave pleasure or profit to them; and turned ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... reflected in other minds as in mirrors, the same thing happens. He is compelled to distinguish between this mental and moral self which has been made objective to him, and can be contemplated by him as impartially as if it were another's, from the inner ego which still remains subjective, unseen, and indefinable. In this inner ego the mind-readers recognize the essential identity and being, the noumenal self, the core of the soul, and the true hiding of its eternal life, to which the mind as well as the body is but the garment ...
— To Whom This May Come - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... unfortunate creature could do to accelerate her own ruin, she grew slowly back to health, and to something more than her original personal attractiveness. For a kind of experience was marked upon her, and the indefinable yet universally recognised expression which betokens this was present in her looks. When watchfulness prevailed over the strange craft which was brought into conflict with it, Annette knew how to be charming, even to the man who suffered so much at her hands; but when the contrabandists succeeded ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... probably have a monster. It takes a cook of long experience, with the best materials, to make a dish "taste good;" and the "taste good" is the indefinable essence, the resulting balance or harmony which makes man or woman agreeable or beautiful or effective in ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... not the features, but something indefinable. He's a second von Sohn. I can always tell ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... was reflected from the consecrated encampment, and the angels of God hovered over the spot. Judge Robinson rose to his feet, and stepped into the altar, the sunlight at that moment falling upon his face. Every voice was hushed, as, with the orator's indefinable magnetism, he drew every eye upon him. The pause was thrilling. ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... prodigious boy that ever was. He went into knickerbockers. He learnt hymns. He went to school—and came back alive at the end of the first day and said he had enjoyed it! Certainly, other boys went to school. Yes, but there was something special, something indefinable, something incredible, about Henry's going to school that separated his case from all the other cases, and made it precious in its wonder. And he began to study arithmetic, geometry, geography, history, chemistry, drawing, Latin, French, mensuration, composition, physics, Scripture, ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... had seldom produced more positive effects than the keeping of petty secrets hardly worth revealing; and, lastly, of what she called a little strangeness sometimes in the good man. This latter quality is indefinable, and perhaps non-existent. ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... A subtile, indefinable prevision had suggested to her that Colonel Philibert would not have failed to meet Le Gardeur at Beaumanoir, and that he would undoubtedly accompany her brother on his return and call to pay his respects ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... manner the characteristic of our time, the Middle Ages have been the object of peculiar fondness with both criticism and erudition. We rummage all the dark corners of the libraries, we bring old parchments to light, and in the zeal and ardor we put into our search there is an indefinable touch of piety. ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... not unpleasant sting to the palms of my hands. The handle broke short off at the point where the helve meets the steel. The blade was driven deep in the oak wood. I suppose I should have regretted my foolishness, but I did not. The handle was old and somewhat worn, and the accident gave me an indefinable satisfaction: the culmination of use, that final destruction which is the complement of ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... rich with historical and archaeological remains, is a land of definite and yet indefinable charm. To the north of Mysore is the largest native state in India, Hyderabad, a picturesque plateau cut by the mighty Godavari River. Broad fertile plains, the lovely Nilgiris or "Blue Mountains," other regions with barren hills of limestone or granite. Hyderabad history is ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... patted her hair up the back with a little smoothing movement of satisfaction. "I don't know how to put it—it is very indefinable; but a man like that has a quality—a polish, I suppose it is, really—that ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... regularity, but figuring to my fond fancy as a chaos of accidents and contrasts where petits hotels of archaic type were elbowed by woodyards and cabarets, and pavilions ever so characteristic, yet ever so indefinable, snuggled between frank industries and vulgarities—all brightened these indeed by the sociable note of Paris, be it only that of chaffering or of other bavardise. The great consistencies of arch-refinement, ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... and gesture emanated a certain indefinable force that attracted men to him, and created in them an enthusiasm for his cause. Old and young who came under his influence were ready to do ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... the Bay in the moonlight, glimmered the ribbed sail of a fishing junk, and the air was heavy with an indefinable odor which to this hour puzzles me; but it must be attributed either to sink or ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... accompanied by the mental picture suitable for it. Act the part out seriously and earnestly, just as if the reflected image were really another person. This will give you confidence in yourself, and that indefinable "knack" of handling your psychic weapons that comes only from practice. You will do well to perfect yourself in these rehearsals, just as you would in case you were trying to master anything else. By frequent earnest ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... imposing occasion. Pen and pencil can describe but faintly the majestic order, the admirable regularity, the blaze of diamonds, the beauty of a brilliant illumination, the gorgeous dresses, and above all the noble ease, the indefinable grace, and perfect elegance which have always ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... persons there were wild-eyed hangers-on telling of a flight upward on a fiery chariot, as well as a predicted disappearance and reappearance after three days. Such were the stories being gulped down by the thousands who still clung with an indefinable fascination to the memory of the charlatan. Meantime the soldier Wilkes had died of his injuries, and the coroner's inquiry was to be ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... that version of Euripides exquisite—does it not seem exquisite still, though this is not the quality you expect chiefly from Longfellow, though you rather look to him for honest human matter than for an indefinable ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... her nose and the daily paper opened before her. Gay was to meet them in Richmond, and as Molly remembered this now, she realized that her feeling about their meeting had changed during the last few hours. She liked Gay—she responded to his physical charm, to the indefinable air of adventure which hangs sometimes about men who have lived hard without wasting their surplus vitality—but in spite of the strong attraction he possessed for her, she knew that in her heart she had never thoroughly ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... arrived at Ancona on the following day, and found no Mansana there to greet her at the railway station, she was seized by a sudden indefinable apprehension. Hurrying to the telegraph-office she sent him an anxiously worded despatch, which testified to her alarm. She went home, and waited for the answer, her fears gaining ground as the minutes went by. At length a messenger arrived with the money ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... "Club" one night a clean-cut, slender, but athletic-looking man, who would have been taken for a youth had it not been for the tinge of gray about his temples. He was clean-shaven and had regular features, and all of his movements bore the indefinable but unmistakable stamp of culture. He spoke to no one, but sat languidly puffing cigarettes and sipping a glass of beer. He was the center of a great deal of attention; all of the old-timers were wondering ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... not seen them, and will suffer a brief account. The pictures are four. The first represents a boat of golden prow and sides wrought into the images of the hours, bearing an infant in a bed of roses, and issuing from a dim cave in a dark, indefinable mountain, and hasting down a flower-crowned stream. The second shows the babe grown to manhood, and, assuming himself the guidance, leaves the guardian spirit upon the bank, and upon a wider stream, piercing a wider prospect, sails away, allured by a dim cloud-castle ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... American ship. Mr. Jackson looked in vain for the heavy, foreign faces, the greasy canvas jackets and blanket trousers he was accustomed to see. Not that these men seemed to be landsmen—each carried in his face and bearing the indefinable something by which sailors of all races may distinguish each other at a glance from fishermen, tugmen, and deck-hands. They were all young men, and their intelligent faces—blemished more or less with marks of overnight dissipation—were as sunburnt ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... presence thus excited her astonishment and her delight, was tall, thin, and attired rather in the German than in the Italian fashion: but, as he drew nearer, Nisida experienced indefinable emotions of alarm, and vague fears rushed to her soul—for the expression of that being's countenance was such as to inspire no pleasurable emotions. It was not that he was ugly;—no—his features were well formed, and his eyes were of ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... incident might appear natural enough—a woman appearing on the threshold of a door, which she had just thrown open—there was a pause of deep and solemn silence. Every bosom seemed oppressed, and as if struggling for breath. All experienced, at sight of this woman, surprise mingled with fear, and indefinable anxiety—for this woman was the living original of the portrait, which had been placed in the room a hundred and fifty years ago. The same head-dress, the same flowing robe, the same countenance, so full of poignant and resigned grief! She advanced slowly, and without ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... first time they had seriously talked of marriage, though they had been "going together" ever since Caroline knew that a 'boy' was as essential to her grown-up panoply as hairpins, and she felt something indefinable at the back of her mind which was not pleasure; and yet it was not fear—— She turned from her own emotions with a sort of relief. "Goodness! There's the church clock striking a quarter to eleven. ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... from what I have already heard of it," returned Stevens, who had almost at first sight succumbed to that indefinable personal appeal which caused Sam Turner to be trusted of all men. "I shall be very glad to hear more about it. It struck me when you spoke of it yesterday as a ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... seized upon his senses? Were the memories of his youth about to take shape and form, and mingle their shadowy images with the tangible realities of life! He knew her—tall, beautiful, pale as she was—and the recognition filled him with terror indefinable. ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... dim thought. A sound came that shook him as with an ague fit. Even then he mastered his emotion, and sat still as a stone. Or was it delight unmastered, and awe indefinable, that paralyzed him? He dared not move lest he should break the spell. Were it fact, or were it but yet further phantom play on his senses, it should unfold itself; not with a sigh would he jar the unfolding, but, ear only, listen to the end. In the utter stillness of the room, of the sleeping ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... to the island, and that as it was not proposed to take the wagon or any of the animals with them, they must indicate what few articles they thought they might require during the next few days, and those articles would be conveyed across with them. There was a certain indefinable, sinister suggestiveness in the character of this communication that seemed to imply a doubt in the mind of the official who made it whether the individuals to whom it was made would require anything at all after "the next few days"; but ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... once found something hurt by the war and who fought to protect what was hers by right of discovery. That was not love. ... Perhaps there may have been a touch of the maternal passion about her feeling for this man. ... Nothing else—nothing more than that, and the eternal indefinable charity for all boys which is inherent in all womanhood—the consciousness of the enchantment that a boy has for all women. ... Nothing more. ... Except that—perhaps she had wondered whether he liked her—as much as she liked him.... Or if, possibly, in his regard ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... Nibelungs and Volsungs, of Sigurd and of Siegfried,—whether we follow the older versions or the mote recent renderings,—there is, as it were, an ever-present but indefinable shadow of coming fate, "a low, inarticulate voice of Doom," foretelling the inevitable. This is but in consonance with the general ideas of our Northern ancestors regarding the fatality which shapes and controls every man's life. These ideas are embodied ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... indefinable stiffening change instantly coming over him. "By the way, I mustn't forget what I came ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... watch over the grounds and about the chateau was strictly maintained. The former led the grand march with the Princess. She was more ravishingly beautiful than ever. Her gown, exquisitely cool and simple, suggested that indefinable, unmistakable touch of class that always marks the distinction between the woman who subdues the gown and the ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... the conflict in Acadia after its conquest by the British. A dramatic picture that lives and shines with the indefinable charm ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... of Congress. But, as observant Northerners were quite aware, these pretensions had a foundation of fact. An Englishman, then or now, in chance meetings with Americans of either section, would at once be aware of something indefinable in their bearing to which he was a stranger; but in the case of the Southerner the strangeness would often have a positive charm, such as may be found also among people of the Old World under southern latitudes ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... vague," Lyle replied, "I hardly know how to describe them, but I have always felt them, more or less. When I read of life amid scenes of refinement and beauty, there is always an indefinable sense of familiarity about it all; and since you and Mr. Houston have been here, and I have lived such a different life,—especially since we have sung together so much,—the impression is much more vivid than before; even the music seems familiar, as if I had heard it all, or something ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... true. Moreover, although harboring no suspicion of Susan's dissimulation, she instinctively held aloof from her and remained coldly unresponsive. Perhaps in the depths of Susan's past lurked something indefinable which threw its shadow between them, an inscrutable impediment; and her inability to penetrate the young actress' reserve, however she might wound her, awakened Susan's resentment. But she was too world-wise to display her irritation. She even smiled sweetly ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... did not answer. His last remark had been more of a reflection than an interrogation. What did Ingram really know of him, he asked himself again, despite the five years of the indefinable relation between them? Admitting that the man beneath the cynic was kindly and sympathetic, yet he could not but be aware that Ingram's treason to the aspirations of his youth had destroyed the finer edge of feeling. His vision did not respond to subtler vibrations; his judgment ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... who had never until then put his foot in the house, in spite of intercessions in his favor made by the banker to Madame Desvarennes. He was a tall, pale, thin man, whose skin seemed stretched on his bones, with a strongly developed under-jaw, like that of a ravenous animal, and eyes of indefinable color, always changing, and veiled behind golden-rimmed spectacles. His hands were soft and smooth, with moist palms and closely cut nails—vicious hands, made to take cunningly what they coveted. He had scanty hair, of a pale yellow, parted just above the ear, so as to enable ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... suspicion; it was an absolute certainty which in his excitement he had overlooked. From where had the American gentleman dropped? Not the sky, assuredly, and there was no place else possible, unless the door of the summer-house. Yes, he had been in the summer-house, and not sleeping either. An indefinable something about his manner informed Gustavo that he was privy to the entire conversation. Gustavo, a picture of guilty remorse, searched his memory for the words he had used. Why, oh why, had he not piled up adjectives? It was the opportunity of a lifetime, ...
— Jerry • Jean Webster
... abnormal, irrational, disturbing to human senses. With the mining work over, an irritability grew upon Grantline's men. And perhaps since the human mind is so wonderful, elusive a thing, there lay upon these men an indefinable sense of impending disaster. Johnny Grantline felt it. He thought about it now as he sat in the room corner watching Wilks being forced into the plaget-game, and he found it strong within him. Unreasonable, ominous depression! Barring the accident which had disabled his little ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... her name," he answered, wondering at the indefinable change that had come to the ...
— Just David • Eleanor H. Porter
... your blessed lot was filling me with joy and—must I confess it?—with bitter envy too, that I felt the first movement of my child within, and this mystery of physical life reacted upon the inner recesses of my soul. This indefinable sensation, which partakes of the nature at once of a warning, a delight, a pain, a promise, and a fulfilment; this joy, which is mine alone, unshared by mortal, this wonder of wonders, has whispered to me ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... walks on Sunday, and part speechless with the anger of indefinable offences. Poor Marion! The things I tried to put before her, my fermenting ideas about theology, about Socialism, about aesthetics—the very words appalled her, gave her the faint chill of approaching impropriety, ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... Churches and their professional apologists are reduced in their endeavours to reconcile antiquarian statements in Scriptures and theologies with the authenticated facts of mental and physical science, are not such as to encourage us to attempt a definition of the Indefinable, or the comprehension of the Infinite within the exiguous limits of human thought and speech. We are too young by some centuries to so much as think about the ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... the moon. At one time, and particularly on my first emergence from my prison, there was certainly a cold wind blowing down the shaft, and later there was a kind of sirocco upward that corresponded with my fever. For at the end of about three weeks I fell ill of an indefinable sort of fever, and in spite of sleep and the quinine tabloids that very fortunately I had brought in my pocket, I remained ill and fretting miserably, almost to the time when I was taken into the presence of the Grand Lunar, who is Master ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... of triumph, relief, gratitude in the indefinable tone of these words. It engrossed the whole attention of Ossipon to the detriment of mere literal sense. He wondered what was up with her, why she had worked herself into this state of wild excitement. He even began to wonder whether ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... anxious and expectant, it naturally turned upon the subject of their expedition, on the manner in which it had been brought about, and on the hopes and fears they entertained respecting it. Of the former they had many, of the latter few—none perhaps beyond that indefinable uneasiness which is inseparable from suddenly ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... the retiring habit and the love of quiet for which not alone the hermit, but the three famous singers of the thrush family are remarkable. We should indeed be shocked were it otherwise, for there is an indefinable quality in the tones of this trio, the hermit, wood, and tawny, that stirs the soul to its depths, and one can hardly conceive of them as mingling their notes with other singers, or becoming in any way familiar. In this peculiar power no ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... by a number of large windows and was beautifully decorated with mural paintings and mosaics, but upon all there seemed to rest that indefinable touch of the finger of antiquity which convinced me that the architects and builders of these wondrous creations had nothing in common with the crude half-brutes which ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... want of knowledge. The idea is true. Thought is the great power of the Universe. But to make it practically available we must know something of the principles by which it works—that it is not a mere vaporous indefinable influence floating around and subject to no known laws, but that on the contrary, it follows laws as uncompromising as those of mathematics, while at the same time allowing ...
— The Law and the Word • Thomas Troward
... of all the democracies are bound up in this struggle and its issue, and there is no real place in the world for the true service and genius and work of women, any more than for that of the mass of men, save in democracy. We mean so much in these days by democracy. It seems to be indefinable in its larger meanings. It is not a system of government, but, on the other hand, no country can be called democratic that has not established political freedom, and no country is truly democratic in which such freedom is only in name, and its women are not included or a group ...
— Women and War Work • Helen Fraser
... must have been familiar in various aspects with the functions of the Infinite or Indefinable in the organisation of thought. To the student of Euclid, for example, the impossibility of adequately defining any of the fundamental elements of the science of geometry—the point, the line, the surface—is a familiar fact. In so far as a science of geometry is possible at all, the exactness, ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... of the soil. Everything is askew, bent, dusty and worn-out. The daylight comes from above, through narrow barred windows. There is a lack of air, so that one almost stifles. But though the sun does not enter, a certain indefinable reflection from the whitened walls reminds us that outside there is a ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... at the speaker with a new and suddenly awakened interest, and beholding in him that lithe assurance of poise, that indefinable air that bespeaks the trained pugilist and which cannot be mistaken, elbows were nudged, and ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... transferable? May it be negotiated, as a promissory note or bill of exchange? If it be assigned to a man from a free State, may he coerce the slave by virtue of it? What shall this thing be denominated? Is it personal or real property? Or is it an indefinable fragment of sovereignty, which every person carries with him from his late domicil? One thing is certain, that its origin has been very recent, and it is unknown to the laws ...
— Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Opinions of the Judges Thereof, in the Case of Dred Scott versus John F.A. Sandford • Benjamin C. Howard
... at the towering big Lofty establishment, which occupied half the block, and at the dingy little ladies' tailoring shop, down around the other corner, with speculative curiosity. About both, as widely different as they were, there was the same indefinable appearance of prosperity, as if the solid worth ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... land, surely, some personal and indefinable spirit of place, which was known and loved by prophet and psalmist, and most of all by Him who spread His table on the green grass, and taught His disciples while they walked the narrow paths waist-deep in rustling wheat, and spoke His messages ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... is full of discouragement. The charm which the people over there share with the birds and flowers has been replaced here by the anxiety of men who are eager for gain. The eyes and expression are different, though the faces are the same, and even the children here seem to have an indefinable modern quality that is absent from the ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... drew in gasping stridulation like liquid fire in his throat; on, the calm stars of the unemotional universe above his head; on, the wind of the wide prairie lands striking his face with their indefinable sweet scents which even clutching death did not deny his turbulent senses; on, pain in every nerve; on, joints straining and starting in their sockets; on, dragged, whipped, lashed from ditch to ties' end, flung from rocking car ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... hazy happiness—dim, beautiful and indefinable as the twinkling gold upon the sea under the throne of the sun. Joan dwelt on the memory of the day which was now over for her, and on the thought of morning hours which to-morrow would bring. But she looked no further; ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... melancholy, scorched by impatience, then chilled by an indefinable foreboding, just as her father had been. Putting on a figured veil to blur her blush of shame, she slipped away to visit the soothsayers that fashionable women patronized. In a shadowy room hung with Oriental curtains, ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... and, opening the cabin door, stepped inside. He was tall, rather slender, with clean-cut features and bright gray eyes. His bearing was that of a gentleman, and Frank began to have an indefinable idea that he had met him before somewhere, just where he could not decide. The fellow evidently was an American, though his followers seemed to be Chinese ...
— Boy Scouts in the Philippines - Or, The Key to the Treaty Box • G. Harvey Ralphson
... seemed to be. She realized its malice and its hatred, and an intense anger and hatred took possession of her. She had always laughed at such things even when thrilled by wonder and manufactured terrors. But now there was a sense of conflict, of evil, of the indefinable things in which so ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... women who are voluntarily serving without compensation in the Associations of England and France, is beyond all praise. Their very presence in the camps is the greatest single moral factor for the creation of that indefinable atmosphere which pervades every hut. Even rude and coarse men never think of swearing or speaking an indecent word within these walls. Nor do they forget to be grateful for the tireless service of these women, who stand for hours ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... woods of Reggio, the sudden sight of an impressive landscape so affected him that he resumed a poem which he had long laid aside. But the deepest impression of all was made upon him by the ascent of Mont Ventoux, near Avignon. An indefinable longing for a distant panorama grew stronger and stronger in him, till at length the accidental sight of a passage in Livy, where King Philip, the enemy of Rome, ascends the Haemus, decided him. He thought that what was not blamed ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... depths there came a cry that cleared his whirling brain, a very embodiment of startled amaze, of indefinable horror, of ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... the characteristics of their individuality. Even more important than the actual dancing steps they do is the manner in which they execute them—the individuality which gives expression to all that they do. It is the almost indefinable factor called personality which lifts one out of the ranks of the chorus and makes the solo dancer. In this book I am trying to help you develop your personality, in the way that I have discovered and developed the personalities of so many of ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... whether he felt most pleasure or pain, for while his posteriors were of a burning heat, the warmth flew to the opposite part, which was so deliciously clasped in the doctor's caressing hand. He ground his teeth with pleasure and pain, he ceased to cry out, but sobbed and moaned with the excess of indefinable feelings. The doctor never ceased lecturing him, dwelling continually on the beauties of his lovely young cousin and the scene in the arbour. He thought but of her, of her lovely pink little slit so sweetly shaded with soft downy short curls; how she had so charmingly caressed his cock, ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... crown to lay at his lady's feet, even if there should be blood-stains on the bays. He would conquer at any cost, quibuscumque viis. To prove his courage, he told her of his present way of life; Louise had known nothing of its hardships, for there is an indefinable pudency inseparable from strong feeling in youth, a delicacy which shrinks from a display of great qualities; and a young man loves to have the real quality of his nature discerned through the incognito. He described that ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... that in the future nine-tenths of the time will be leisure, and to that end he will work with all his heart. "I was not more than eighteen when an inner and esoteric meaning began to come to me from all the visible universe, and indefinable aspirations filled me." ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... depths of the valley the nail-works were glowing, piling up their tale of kegs, but I looked beyond them to the mountain which rose from the river and travelled away like a great shadow, cutting the star-lighted sky. Where mountain and sky mingled, indefinable in the night, my eyes rested, but my mind plunged on. My arms lay folded on the window-sill, and into them my head sank. I crossed mountain after mountain, and they were but shadows to my youthful strength. What a man David Malcolm became that night! He won everything that the world holds ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... awe and wonder began to give way to something that tantalized her with a fleeting familiarity—a near understanding. Long-lost memories of primeval things that eluded her when she strove to vision them mocked her with an indefinable yearning to pierce the ages of oblivion that separated her from other nights, other scenes, other chants like these. . . . She longed for her violin. If she could but feel the loved instrument beneath her chin, her fingers drawing from its vibrant lower strings the mystery-music to supplement ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... heard someone whisper near me: "His lordship is going to give judgment in the case of Starling v. Nightingale," and all at once there was a great peace. I lost sight of Bumpkin, I lost sight of the gentleman, I lost sight of the crowd; an indefinable sensation of delight overpowered my senses. Where was I? I had but a moment before been in a Court of Justice, with crowds of gaping idlers; with prosaic-looking gentlemen in horsehair wigs; with gentlemen in a pew with papers before them ready to take down the proceedings. Now it seemed ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... wondering spectators. It was a strange and beautiful scene, such as few of them had ever seen. Fairy palaces of fire seemed to hover miraculously in the evening air, and over everything hung the curious, indefinable charm of the ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... catches seemed already engaged, and the next best ones, while politely attentive to Mrs. Ellsworth's guests, did not betray any marked predilection for their society. Though handsome and well-dressed, they failed somehow in that indefinable charm that often wins for a plainer girl a really ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... brother's boy, and had devised this plan partly for the sake of the pleasure it would give, and partly because it was impossible to form any judgment of his character while with the mother. He was a fine, well-grown, manly boy, and when seen among his companions, had an indefinable air of good blood about him. He had hitherto been at a good day-school which prepared boys for the merchant service, and his tastes were so much in the direction of the sea, that it was much to be regretted that at fourteen and a half it was useless to think of preparation for a ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... up from her desk. Her face was flushed, her eyes bright, but there was about her an indefinable air of weariness. ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber
... He was a man uninteresting to look upon, save that his face wore a certain indefinable expression of a man who has been a stranger in many places; a man habituated to loneliness and to silence. But he was evidently a man also accustomed to speak, for he addressed ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... the wood, the laughter and talking before it growing louder. Each grey marksman twitched his cartridge box in place, glanced at his musket, glanced toward his immediate officer. Across the intervals ran an indefinable spark, a bracing, a tension. Some of the men moistened their lips, one or two uttered a little sigh, the hearts of all beat faster. The step had quickened. The trees grew more thinly, came down to a mere ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... swift glance about, drew out a chair and sat down, his action being imitated by Sexton. The bar-tender came forward around the end of the bar, while the man nearest shifted his position slightly so as to look them over, conversation instantly ceasing. Something indefinable in the fellow's attitude, and steady stare, gave West a feeling of hostility, which was not dispelled by the ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... an appearance of unusual rigidity that was alarming. On his face there was an expression of effort, almost of painful effort, so far as the uncertain light permitted me to see, and his sleep seemed to be very profound. He looked, I thought, so stiff, so unnaturally stiff, and in some indefinable way, too, ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... analysis, vivid description, and a combination of wit and fancy which is rarely rivalled; but no emotion, no imagination such as poets use inflames the coldness of these qualities into the glow of poetry. The indefinable difference which makes imaginative work into poetry is not there. There is abundance of invention; but that, though a part of imagination, belongs as much to the art of prose as to the ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... she seemed to see the foliage of both banks thicken and hang over them, draping them round as with a huge curtain. When the moon shone, its rays glided between the trunks of the trees, and phantoms seemed to flit along the river-side in white robes. Miette felt no nervousness, however, only an indefinable emotion as she followed the play of the shadows. As she went onward with slower motion, the calm water, which the moon converted into a bright mirror, rippled at her approach like a silver-broidered cloth; eddies widened and lost ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... at the beautiful face in a conflict of emotions, among which the tears that name awakened, struggled for a moment with surprise, interest, admiration, and an indefinable sort of fear. Then she cried out, 'Oh, Papa, may you be happy! may you be very, very happy all your life!' and then fell weeping ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... personal experience; in the third there is, of course, a certain amount of precedent writing on the subject for guidance, and a large gathering of information by word of mouth. But in all these, and to a less extent in others up to the close of the fifteenth century, there is the indefinable gift of treatment—of "telling a story." In Villehardouin this gift may be almost wholly, and in principle very mainly, limited to the two great subjects which made the mediaeval end as far as profane matters were concerned—fighting and counselling; but this is by no means the ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... silver shield on the back of it. No boy in the house, so Mr. Dupre said, grudged the sixpence which had been stopped from his pocket money to pay for the bat. Then, passing to graver matters, Mr. Dupre spoke warmly of the tone of the house, that indefinable quality which in the eyes of a faithful schoolmaster is more precious than rubies. It was Mannix, prefect and member of the lower sixth, who more than any one else deserved credit for the fact that Edmonstone stood second to no house in the school ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... I know now that she must have been a remarkably pretty woman, but I did not notice that at the time. But a faint, indefinable fragrance seemed to envelop her. I loved to stroke her soft white hand, and to turn the emerald ring on her third finger, and to lean against her soft shoulder. Aunt Emmy's cheek was very soft too, and so was her ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... satisfaction we return to the country, the district, of our birth and home. The feeling is one of the strongest and deepest things in us, even if our reason deprecates and disallows the claim. As Englishmen, perhaps even more as Scotchmen and Irish, we love with an indefinable and ineradicable passion our sea-coast, our hills and valleys, the fields and cottages, even the sometimes sordid, nearly always ill-assorted, congeries of houses which we have thrown together as towns. We fight among ourselves, we have more religious, ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... if it were all herself, or if there really were a peculiar, indefinable constraint in everybody with everybody else. Certainly she felt it, and she thought she saw evidences that the others felt it, too. As for the cause of it all—unhesitatingly she attributed it to that last day at camp with its unfortunate ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... of her cause, he was a little surprised to notice an indefinable but evident change in the rustic beauty's manner. Perhaps she disliked to hear a stranger accuse her father—however truly—of horribly bad taste, but this did not occur to Ferdinand, who had intended to show her that a gentleman ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... in the same category. The small old country churches of Essex County are not distinguished for fine carving or other ornamentation, and still less by the costliness of their material, for they are mostly built of white pine, but they have an indefinable air of pleasantness about them, as if they graced the ground they stand on, and their steeples seem to float in the air above us. If we enter them on a Sunday forenoon—for on week-days they are like a sheepfold without its occupants—we meet with much the same kind of pleasantness in ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... words, she saw that he had in his eyes and in his smile something different and indefinable. It must have been that she loved him still more than she herself believed as for a second she forgot both her pain and her resolution, and ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... not expected to see—Mr. Westlake. Only this morning intelligence of what was going on had reached his ears. At once he had scouted the accusations as incredible; he deemed it a duty to present himself on Mutimer's side. Outside this small cluster was an indefinable mob, a portion of it bitterly hostile, a part indifferent; among the latter a large element of mere drifting blackguardism, the raff of a city, anticipating with pleasure an uproar which would give them unwonted opportunities of violence and pillage. These gentle ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... view of green and smiling country is undeniably beautiful, but to those who can appreciate Byron's enthusiasm for the trackless mountain there is something more indefinable and inspiring in the mysterious loneliness of the west. The long, level lines of the moorland horizon, when the sun is beginning to climb downwards, are cut out in the softest blue and mauve tints against the shimmering ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... they went back to the dingy studio, where the man lighted a pipe and sat opposite his small daughter, puffing uneasily. They were both reserved; there was an indefinable barrier between them which each was beginning to recognize. Presently Alora asked to go to bed and he sent her to her room with a nod ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... chance to have white skins! You will generally find that the people who think thus also hold the almost miraculous opinion that those who wear superfine clothing, and possess much money, have a sort of indefinable, but unquestionable, right to look down upon and lord it over those who own little ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... yet, far from being fatigued by the restless rotation of thought, she rose and opened her window, just as the thin watery clouds of twilight made the long silent shadows visible. The air swept across her face with a voluptuous freshness that thrilled to her heart, awakening indefinable emotions; and the sound of a waving branch, or the twittering of a startled bird, alone broke the stillness of reposing nature. Absorbed by the sublime sensibility which renders the consciousness of existence felicity, Maria was happy, till an autumnal scent, ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft |
