"Unaccountable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Death ravaged the earth, presenting the same symptoms as the cholera, and the same inexplicable phenomena as to its progress and the results in its route. In 1660 a similar epidemic decimated the world. It is well known that when the cholera first broke out in Paris, it had taken a wide and unaccountable leap; and, also memorable, a north-east wind prevailed ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... a new army, with which he occupied the strong position of Mariguenu, so fatal to the Spaniards, and which for some unaccountable reason they had neglected to fortify. Immediately on learning this circumstance, the governor marched against the toqui at the head of three hundred Spanish soldiers and a large auxiliary force. Like several of his predecessors, Paillataru had the glory of rendering this mountain ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... militia service for the task of extinguishing all the fires caused by the wilfulness or carelessness of their fellow-citizens. This has been no easy task in cities built of wood, which in that dry climate, when ignited, burns like pine-knots. Even now, fires occur in a very unaccountable manner. At New York my slumbers were, frequently disturbed by the quick-tolling bell, announcing the number of the district where a fire had broken out. These fire companies have regular organizations, and their members enjoy several immunities, one of which I think is, that they ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... promise of a glorious night later on; evening, full of dewy scents, of lengthening shadows, of soft, unaccountable noises, of mystery and magic; and, over all, a rising moon, big and yellow. Thus, as he went, Barnabas kept his eyes bent thitherward, and his step was light and his heart sang within him for gladness, it was in the very air, and in the whole fair ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... approached the colonel with his request and had received the colonel's curt reply. Time and again during the recent campaign the veteran soldier now in command had shown marked liking for this energetic young officer. Then came the march to the settlements, and sudden, unaccountable change. Twice or thrice within the past ten days he had shown singular coldness and disfavor; to-night strong and sudden dislike, and Lanier, amazed and stung, could ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... beliefs, and as saying very little for the particular intellect that can be so reduced. But I am not sure these people are right. I am inclined to think that as you ascend the scale of thought to the great minds, these unaccountable impulses, mysterious resolutions, sudden, but certain knowings, falling whence or how it is impossible to say, but falling somehow into the brain, instead of growing rarer, become more and more frequent; indeed, I think that if the really ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... been intended for the reception of bales of stuffs that had never arrived. The mortar had, here and there, been wrenched from between the bricks by savage weather and age, and the doors, too, had shrunk before their united malignity. How such a house had drifted to such a locality is unaccountable, unless—as is often the case—some navigator of real estate had thought he descried a port, where was only a shoal that left his venture high and dry among newer and ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... minute, all over the world. Dante's best critic, Foscolo, has said much of the heroical nature of the age in which the poet lived; but he adds, that its mixture of knowledge and absurdity is almost inexplicable. The truth is, that like everything else which appears harsh and unaccountable in nature, it was an excess of the materials for good, working in an over-active and inexperienced manner; but knowing this, we are bound, for the sake of the good, not to retard its improvement by ignoring existing impieties, or blind ourselves to the ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... to say that McClellan has, in some unaccountable fashion, discovered the division of the army as well as its objectives. We have had hard fighting to-day on South Mountain, D. H. Hill and Longstreet both suffering heavily. The troops fought with great ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... accomplished in the delineation of character of the fashionable women he had painted, the truth was that Markham both feared and misunderstood them. Their changing moods, their unaccountable likes and dislikes, their petty ambitions and vanities he accepted as part of the heritage of a race of beings apart form his own, and he hid his timidity under a brusque manner which gave him credit for a keener penetration than he actually possessed. And, strangely enough, Fate, with ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... has proved that the forged assignment was not in the deed when it came from his house by Talbott, the recorder. In this, although Talbott has sworn that the assignment was in the bundle of deeds when it came from his house, Adams has the unaccountable assurance to say that he has proved the contrary by Talbott. Let him or his friends attempt to show wherein he proved ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... and inconsequent. He addressed himself at one moment to the representatives of the people, who were quite overcome by astonishment; at another to the military in the courtyard, who could not hear him. Then, by an unaccountable transition, he spoke of "the thunderbolts of war!" and added, that he was "attended by the God of war and the ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... now mingled with her anger. "This is strange insolence! unaccountable behaviour!—begone from my room! will you compel me to ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... an instant, then, moved by some unaccountable impulse, drew out the chest containing the fancy-dress costumes they had used in so many plays and tableaux. One by one she shook them out and hung them over Rob's headless hobby-horse, when she had finished ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... not precisely what were his motives—perhaps he did not know them himself. It might be that his pride was roused; it might be that he could not endure the notion that Lord Vargrave should guess his secret by an absence almost otherwise unaccountable,—he could not patiently bear to give Vargrave that triumph; it might be that, in the sternness of his self-esteem, he imagined he had already conquered all save affectionate interest in Evelyn's fate, and trusted too vainly to his own strength; and it might be, also, that he could not resist the ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book IV • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... unaccountable being, Deerslayer," returned the girl, not a little puzzled with the childish simplicity of character that the hunter so often betrayed—a simplicity so striking that it frequently appeared to place him nearly on a level with the fatuity of poor Hetty, ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... admiration the vast group of facts that make man,—that make liberty,—that make America. There is no poetry in the details; it is all in the broad, sweeping, comprehensive assimilation of the mighty forces behind them,—the inevitable, unaccountable, irresistible forward movement of man in the making of ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... author's was before him. It is reasonable to suppose that his gains were proportionably considerable. Every one read him with pleasure and good-will; and the Tories, in respect to his other good qualities, had almost forgiven his unaccountable imprudence in declaring ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... this Court, as well as by the opinion of my correspondent, to whom, feeling the necessity of my situation, I have communicated my intention of returning to America, and disclosed to him the reasons of a conduct, which he might otherwise think unaccountable. I have consulted him as a private friend only. An ill state of health, the distance of America, the dangers of a winter passage, &c. &c. must be the ostensible reasons why I quit this Court without being relieved by another Minister, or waiting for ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... face of Farley, one face of Knight, one (but what a one it is!) of Liston; but Munden has none that you can properly pin down, and call his. When you think he has exhausted his battery of looks, in unaccountable warfare with your gravity, suddenly he sprouts out an entirely new set of features, like Hydra. He is not one, but legion. Not so much a comedian, as a company. If his name could be multiplied like his countenance, it might fill a play-bill. He, and he alone, literally makes faces: applied to ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... or two, or perhaps even three. But when it went on for seven or eight years, with its parties, balls, concerts, and suppers; with its costumes and coiffures to display the charms of the body; with its adorers old and young, all alike seemingly possessed of some unaccountable right to have everything, to laugh at everything; and with its summer months spent in the same way, everything yielding but a superficial pleasure, even music and reading merely touching upon life's problems, ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... varies much in different years, not only in the amount of ice it brings, but also in its direction. Unexpected effects depend upon this variation. It will be remembered that in 1863 several ships were wrecked on Cape Race, owing to some "unaccountable" disturbance of the currents. The Gulf Stream, it was found at length, ran thirty miles farther north than usual. Was this unaccountable? When Captain Handy, our whaling Mentor, was penetrating Hudson's Strait in June, 1863, he found vast headlands of floe ice resting against ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... in my feeling nervous when I happen to lie awake and get listening for sounds. Just keep your ears open any time after midnight, when you are lying in bed in a lone attic of a dark night. What horrid, strange, suggestive, unaccountable noises you will hear! The stillness of night is a vulgar error. All the dead things seem to be alive. Crack! That is the old chest of drawers; you never hear it crack in the daytime. Creak! There's a door ajar; you know you shut them all. Where can that latch be that rattles so? ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... influences. Without being able to understand just how it was, Mr. Drew and his associates failed to secure the encouragement for their independent movement which they expected. The stealthy move upon the Speaker's chair was found in some unaccountable way to be blocked. Then some cautious soul suggested that if they should fail the machine would hold up the appropriation bills of those identified with the movement. That settled it. The attempt to elect as Speaker some member free of machine influence ended right there. ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn
... not my father, or any way of my blood:—he has all the accomplishments of his whole sex centered in him.—I could wish to be for ever near him.—All that I am is owing to his goodness.—How wretched must I have been but for his bounty!—What unaccountable prejudice is this then that strikes me with such horror at his love!—what maid of birth and fortune equal to his own but would be proud of his addresses; and shall I, a poor foundling, the creature of his charity, ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... put in among other things, "you're a man of great culture, you've grown up in the highest circles, and here too your behaviour has hitherto been a model, which has been a great consolation to your mother, who is so precious to all of us.... And now again everything has appeared in such an unaccountable light, so detrimental to all! I speak as a friend of your family, as an old man who loves you sincerely and a relation, at whose words you cannot take offence.... Tell me, what drives you to such reckless proceedings ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Raleigh's Essays and smaller writing with his hopeful correspondence with the Queen and Prince Henry. Lady Raleigh's privileges, after six years, ceased in 1611; probably about the time that Cecil was for some unaccountable reason prospecting actively for new evidence against both Sir Walter and Percy. The years 1610 and 1611 were anxious times for them both; but they were bright days for Hariot, with his invention of the telescope and his discoveries. Whether in the Tower, administering new scientific ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens
... more imaginative part of the version I must refer back to one of those unaccountable visions which come upon us like frightful monsters thrown up by storms from the great black deeps of slumber. A lifeless body, in love and relationship the nearest and dearest, was imposed upon ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... strings; the virginal and the spinet, in reality the same; the harpsichord, with its crow quills to half rub, half strike the strings, still far away from the hammer action of the present-day piano. It seems almost unaccountable that the manufacturers who so greatly improved the mechanism of the harpsichord at this stage failed to discover the hammer action. But at last, after the quest of centuries, the quill, thorn, and ivory were discarded and a small hammer struck the ...
— How the Piano Came to Be • Ellye Howell Glover
... her intently. Gertrude turned pale, and came out hastily from among the bushes. Then she had a strange sensation as if something had happened high above her head. There was a threatening growl, a commanding exclamation, and an unaccountable pause, at the expiration of which she found herself supine on the sward, with her parasol between her eyes and the sun. A sudden scoop of Max's wet warm tongue in her right ear startled her into activity. She sat up, and saw Trefusis on his knees at her side holding the parasol with an unconcerned ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... fell from my hammock sideways. Next, the accommodating Joshua got the sole charge of my chest, and, though nothing was missed, in a short time everything was ruined. The cockroaches ate the most unaccountable holes in my best uniforms, my shoes burst in putting them on, my boots cracked all across the upper leathers, and the feet of my stockings came off when I attempted ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... compassionate their distresses, we as it were substitute them for ourselves, their interest for our own; and have the same kind of pleasure in their prosperity, and sorrow in their distress, as we have from reflection upon our own. Now there is nothing strange or unaccountable in our being thus carried out, and affected towards the interests of others. For, if there be any appetite, or any inward principle besides self-love; why may there not be an affection to the good of our fellow- creatures, and delight from that affection's being gratified, and uneasiness from ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler
... was named Sarah Lewis, and while there, something of a very extraordinary nature—to me, at least—took place. One day, while at my little desk, there came into my head with a strange and unaccountable intensity this thought: "I am I—I am Myself—I myself I," and so on. By forcing this thought on myself very rapidly, I produced a something like suspension of thought or syncope; not a vertigo, but that mental condition which is allied to it. I have several times read of men who recorded nearly ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... world to this inner one, and the passage was from death unto life, from agony and despair to sunlight and splendor and joy. Above all, in all around me that which most impressed me now was the rich and superabundant life, and a warmth of air which made me think of India. It was an amazing and an unaccountable thing, and I could only attribute it to the flattening of the poles, which brought the surface nearer to the supposed central fires of the earth, and therefore created a heat as great as that of the equatorial regions. Here I found a tropical climate—a land warmed ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... North (to Paul of the South): "Paul, you unaccountable scoundrel, I find you hire your servants for life, not by the month or year as I do. You are going straight to ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... in any case is black enough, although, as we have before pointed out, Judas did not at the time know what the other side of the bargain was. Admitting, however, everything that can fairly be urged against him, all that can be affirmed with certainty is that we are in the presence of strange and unaccountable inconsistency, and that an apostle who had abandoned his home, who had followed Jesus for three years amidst contempt and persecution, and who at last slew himself in self- reproach, could be capable of committing the meanest ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... into the faces of those very men with whom they have contracted, & tell them Without Blushing that they are resolved to Violate the contract! Is it avarice? Is it obstinacy, perverseness, pride, or from what root of bitterness does such an unaccountable defection from the laws of honor, honesty, and even humanity spring? Is it the Authority Of An Unnatural Parent—the advice of some false friend, or their own want of common understanding, and the first principles of virtue, by which these unhappy young ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... I responded. "You are not an ordinary man, and it was absurd of me to treat you as one. Absolute candor is, as you say, essential, and so I'll confess that your case does puzzle me. There is no organic disease, but there is a quite unaccountable organic weakness—a weakness which fifty broken thighs would not explain. I must observe, and endeavor to discover the cause. In the meantime I have only one piece of advice. You know that in certain cases we have ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... thoughts. She was, he knew, an enthusiast for the finer sentiments of life, and of these Mr. Stocks had long ago claimed a monopoly. He felt bitterly jealous-the jealousy of the innocent man to whom woman is an unaccountable creature, whose habits and likings must be curiously studied. He was dimly conscious of lacking the stage attributes of a lover. He could not pose as a mirror of all virtues, a fanatic for the True and the Good. Somehow or other he had acquired an air of self-seeking egotism, unscrupulousness, ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... resolved to adopt the last course, as it appeared to him to be the most feasible one, and the best, though he did not hesitate to comment upon the unaccountable apathy of his agent at Zanzibar, which had caused him so much trouble and vexation, and weary ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... that is an unaccountable thing. I went into the Continental Company, and nothing would do for the people but to go in with me. I warned them—every man of them—but they would go in; so I acted as their agent in procuring stock for them. There was not ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... slow down as soon as the new sound had been heard. The car was rolling along slowly. For some unaccountable reason the driver put on a little more speed. Then came Jane McCarthy's voice, ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... asked by H., and at p. 479. an answer to it was undertaken by ESTE. But, probably from over-anxiety to be very brief, ESTE was betrayed into a most strange and unaccountable misstatement, which ought to be set right before the conclusion of the volume; since, if correctness be generally desirable in all communications to "N. & Q.," it is absolutely indispensable in professed answers to required ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 218, December 31, 1853 • Various
... clipper principle, can be turned out by a Baltimore builder for from L.10 to L.12 a ton, complete in all her fittings. This is much cheaper than in England, which appears unaccountable, considering the rate of wages; but so much more work is done by the workmen for their wages, that labour is as cheap, if not cheaper, there than here. 'Cotton-duck' sails are almost exclusively used by American vessels under 300 tons, which for such vessels, as well as for ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 454 - Volume 18, New Series, September 11, 1852 • Various
... risks always," the other answered carelessly, "and besides it is your fault that I am here. Your inaction is unaccountable. There has been no message from you for three days. I am afraid that ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... the Black Pest got here? How had she found her way into this high tower crowning the dangerous precipices? Everything that Sperver had told me of this mysterious being seemed to be coming true! And now the unaccountable behaviour of Lieverle, growling so fiercely against the wall, seemed clear as the daylight. I huddled myself close up into the alcove, hardly daring to breathe, and staring upon this motionless profile just as a mouse out of its hole fixes its paralysed stare upon the cat that is watching ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... may be referred to the magistrate, who should not, however, in any case, be able to forbid divorce (op. cit., Bk. ii, Ch. XXI). Speaking from a standpoint which we have not even yet attained, he protests against the absurdity of "authorizing a judicial court to toss about and divulge the unaccountable and secret reason of disaffection between ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... interest was the Irish Peace Preservation Bill of 1873, a Bill which, as he said, would have raised great outcry if applied to an English district; yet, 'because it applied only to Ireland, and the Irish were unpopular and were supposed to be an unaccountable people different from all others,' it had passed with small opposition. He could not understand 'how those who shuddered at arbitrary arrests in Poland, and who ridiculed the gagging of the Press in France, could permit the passing of a law for Ireland which gave absolute powers of arrest ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... soon to rise above it into the life for which she had been created? Perhaps her natural sphere was not, after all, so unlike that in which her friends moved, to which even he was accustomed, the stranger, whose coming she now anticipated with a strange, unaccountable thrill of expectation. Would he, with that wonderful power which she felt he possessed, to elevate or to crush the souls with whom he came in contact, would he recognize her true sphere, as her other friends had done, or would he be blinded by ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... Death, and the decay which should be its only legitimate preparation, are not contrary to a right conception of either. But instead of sitting down meekly under what godly folks call "mysterious dispensations" of the Divinity, I think, if I took their view of such unaccountable inflictions, I should call them devilish rather than Divine, and certainly go mad, or very bad. Bearing the righteous result of our own actions, while we suffer, we can adore the mercy that warns us from evil by its unavoidable ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... master his fear, and he only growled softly. This growl he could not suppress; nor did the man-animal resent it by giving him a blow on the head. And furthermore, such was the strangeness of it, White Fang experienced an unaccountable sensation of pleasure as the hand rubbed back and forth. When he was rolled on his side he ceased to growl, when the fingers pressed and prodded at the base of his ears the pleasurable sensation increased; and when, with a final rub and ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... resigned," said Madame de Villegry, with a deep sigh; "and heaven knows how many other cares she has besides the loss of money! I don't mean only the death of her husband—and you know how much they were attached to each other—I am speaking of that unaccountable resolution ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... orbits; and the average inclinations of the orbits of its parts must similarly have differed greatly from those of adjacent orbits. Once more, the orbits of its parts, confusedly interspersed, must have had varieties of eccentricity and inclination unaccountable in portions of the same nebulous ring; and, during concentration into planetoids, each must have had to maintain its course while struggling through the assemblage of other small nebulous masses, severally moving in ways ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... silent yet despairing glances ever turned towards Caroline, were, he felt assured, quite enough to rivet his influence more closely around her. The following morning, as Annie had expected, the Viscount sought her to give vent to his fears about Caroline; his indignation against the unaccountable alteration in Mr. Hamilton's manner. What could have caused it? He had ever acted honourably and nobly, openly marked his preference, and he had talked himself into a passion, before his companion offered to give him any advice or ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... grew scandalized at his unaccountable levity. Addison sat laughing silently in a chair behind, and Gram at last ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... hedgehog with baleful yellow eyes," said Ada; "I was lying half asleep in bed when suddenly I felt a sensation as of something sinister and unaccountable passing through the room. I sat up and looked round, and there, under the window, I saw an evil, creeping thing, a sort of monstrous hedgehog, of a dirty white colour, with black, loathsome claws that clicked and scraped along the floor, and narrow, ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... had spoken privately to the unaccountable Manuel in the matter of Harvey's rescue. He seemed to have no desire for money. Pressed hard, he said that he would take five dollars, because he wanted to buy something for a girl. Otherwise—"How ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... concluding peremptory psalm struck up. Show over by one."—In this sportive strain does this misguided wit think proper to play with a subject so serious, which yet he would hardly have done if he had not known that there existed a predisposition in the habits of his unaccountable countrymen to consider the subject as a jest. But what shall we say to Shakspeare, who, (not to mention the solution which the Gravedigger in Hamlet gives of his fellow-workman's problem,) in that scene in Measure for Measure, ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... attempt to account for the extreme predilection which I, an old woman in comparison, immediately imbibed for you before we had been an hour in company. Some feelings are unaccountable and inexplicable, but I felt a sympathy, a mesmeric attraction, if I may use the term, which was uncontrollable at our first meeting, and which increased every day during our residence together. It was ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... on my mind; it was confirmed by the opinion of my friend the Honourable Andrew Erskine, himself both a good poet[423] and a good critick, who thought Hamilton as true a poet as ever wrote, and that his not having fame was unaccountable. Johnson, upon repeated occasions, while I was at Ashbourne, talked slightingly of Hamilton. He said there was no power of thinking in his verses, nothing that strikes one, nothing better than what you generally find in magazines; and that the highest praise they deserved was, that they ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... the Barberini picture-gallery to take a farewell look at the Beatrice Cenci, which I have twice visited before since our return from Florence. I attempted a description of it at my first visit, more than a year ago, but the picture is quite indescribable and unaccountable in its effect, for if you attempt to analyze it you can never succeed in getting at the secret of its fascination. Its peculiar expression eludes a straightforward glance, and can only be caught by side glimpses, or when the eye falls ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... its good or evil, but only desirous that it show itself. As for Alice, she seemed to skim lightly through all these matters, whether as a spirit of good or ill he could not satisfactorily judge. He could not think her wicked; yet her actions seemed unaccountable on the plea that she was otherwise. It was another characteristic thread in the wild web of madness that had spun itself about all the prominent characters of our story. And when Middleton thought of these things, he felt as if it might be his duty (supposing he had the power) to shovel ...
— The Ancestral Footstep (fragment) - Outlines of an English Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... There truly she was, and the British Queen bore down upon them. You may think that with thankful hearts they left the Loch Earn. One thing is remarkable—the officer in charge on board the British Queen had a most unaccountable feeling that there was something for him to do, and three times during the night he changed the course of the vessel, bearing northward. He told the watch to keep a sharp lookout for a ship, and immediately on sighting the Loch ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... we are admirable does not easily give way before a single negative; rather when any of Vanity's large family, male or female, find their performance received coldly, they are apt to believe that a little more of it will win over the unaccountable dissident. In Gwendolen's habits of mind it had been taken for granted that she knew what was admirable and that she herself was admired. This basis of her thinking had received a disagreeable concussion, and reeled a little, but was not ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... Muskeetos, and the Worm-biting, which eats Ships Bottoms out; whereas at Bath-Town, there is no such thing known; and as for Muskeetos, they hinder us of as little Rest, as they do you in England. Add to this, the unaccountable Quantities of Fish this great Water, or Sound, supplies us withal, whenever we take the Pains to fish for them; Advantages I have no where met withal in America, except here. As for the Climate, we enjoy a very wholsome ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... utter detestation, though why, we cannot tell, as the little dark woman had never injured her, nor had Miss Pinkerton ever exchanged above a dozen syllables with her in her life. But it was one of those unaccountable dislikes which often arise in people of certain temperaments, on first sight of a ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... like mountains, one higher than the other, almost to the top of his head; his body was all over covered with impenetrable scales like an alligator, and he wore on his head an old Continental cocked-hat, from which projected a queue of such unaccountable length that it was said nobody ever saw the end of it. But his most atrocious feature was a great proboscis, growing just over a little pug nose, he used for smelling, about the size of that of an elephant, which it exactly resembled in ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... prevent the buffaloes when passing up the avenue from breaking out. Meantime, the hunters, mounted on fleet horses, range the country to a distance of eighteen or twenty miles in search of a herd. The buffalo has an unaccountable propensity which makes him endeavour to cross in front of the hunter's horse. They will frequently, indeed, follow a horseman for miles in order to do so. He thus possesses an unfailing means, by a dexterous management of his horse, of conducting the animals into the ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... and distant, he was conscious of a strange and unaccountable disappointment and sadness. It was as if a beautiful picture were becoming blurred before his eyes. It was more than that,—more than he understood. He had a sense ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... His strange and unaccountable disappearance at the time naturally created comment, but no trace could be found of his whereabouts, or as to whether he had met with foul treatment. And yet the most curious part of the story remains to be told. On leaving his house in Jermyn ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... army comrades. They saw service together during the great war, and afterward upon the plains in Indian campaigning. Unfortunately a slight misunderstanding arose between them. This, while not serious in itself, was made bitter by the interference of others, and the unaccountable jealousies of garrison life. One night they openly quarrelled when heated by wine, and exchanged blows. The following evening, your father chancing to be officer of the guard and on duty, my father, whose wife had then been dead a year, was thoughtless enough to accompany Mrs. Nolan home ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... has undergone great physical changes, we might have expected to find that organic beings have varied under nature, in the same way as they have varied under domestication. And if there has been any variability under nature, it would be an unaccountable fact if natural selection had not come into play. It has often been asserted, but the assertion is incapable of proof, that the amount of variation under nature is a strictly limited quantity. Man, though acting on external characters alone and often capriciously, can produce within ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... out to him to know why he wasn't playing; and then, all at once, there came into my mind the memory of my first conversation with him. I remembered that he had said sails were always blowing adrift at night. I remembered the, then, unaccountable emphasis he had laid on those two words; and remembering that, I felt suddenly afraid. For, all at once, the absurdity had struck me of a sail—even a badly stowed one—blowing adrift in such fine and calm weather as we were then having. I wondered ...
— The Ghost Pirates • William Hope Hodgson
... have a number of unaccountable things," remarked Doris, partly closing her velvet eyes. "She ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... viewing the city, they again repaired to the beach, and saw the sultan sitting with his children, as before. While they were admiring the beauty of the strufture, the younger prince, impelled by an unaccountable impulse, came up to them, gazed eagerly at them, and when they retired followed them to their lodging, which they did not perceive till he had entered with them and sat down. The old sultan was astonished at the child's behaviour, took him in his arms, kissed ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... loud a noise as to terrify the poor captive very much. He runs this way and that, around the interior of the box, wondering what has happened, and why he can not get out as he came in. He has no more appetite for the corn, but is in great distress at his sudden and unaccountable captivity. ...
— Stuyvesant - A Franconia Story • Jacob Abbott
... plenty, but he has a genteel taste, has Nim: the gal to please Nim must be thorough genteel. Now, what would you say, squire'—an unaccountable faint-heartedness seized Uncle Zack at this juncture, and he coughed ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... extraordinary and unaccountable, than the inconsistency of mankind in every thing; even in the practice of that divine virtue benevolence; and most of our mistakes arise more from indolence and from inattention, than from any thing else. The busy part of mankind ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford
... Sedley. Like all who were familiar with the past life of the brave little fellow, he was incredulous. The very fact that Tim Bunker was near at the time of the alleged theft seemed to be sufficient to clear him. The finding of the wallet in his pocket was the most unaccountable piece of testimony that had been adduced against him. It did not seem probable that it would have remained so long in his pocket unknown to him, if any one had been so wicked as to ...
— The Boat Club - or, The Bunkers of Rippleton • Oliver Optic
... quite herself when her foundations were preparing to shake. Earth-quakes had never concerned him, but as the boat drifted past the reef into the harbour of Christianstadt at midnight, he was assailed by a fit of terror so sudden and unaccountable that he could recall but one sensation in his life that approached it: shortly after he arrived on the Island he had stolen down to the lagoon one night, fascinated by the creeping mist, the scowling ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... regret his having neglected opportunities of improvement when it may be too late."—Ib., p. 81. "His being an expert dancer does not entitle him to our regard."—Ib., p. 82.[443] "Caesar went back to Rome to take possession of the public treasure, which his opponent, by a most unaccountable oversight, had neglected taking with him."—Goldsmith's Rome, p. 116. "And Caesar took out of the treasury, to the amount of three thousand pound weight of gold, besides an immense quantity of silver."—Ibid. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... wistfully as he rode away, with an unaccountable pain in her heart. She felt more acutely than ever that there were depths in her lover's nature that she was powerless ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... his eye fell suddenly on the burly form of Cecco del Vecchio, who was leaning his bare and brawny arms over his anvil, and gazing, with a smile, upon the group. There was something in that smile which turned the current of Adrian's thoughts, and which he could not contemplate without an unaccountable misgiving. ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Vigilantes were gone with jangle of spur and bit-chain, and he was the last to go, standing by Captain in the dim starlight. Tharon stood beside him, and for some unaccountable reason the grim purpose of their acquaintance seemed to drift away, to leave them together, alone under the stars, a man and a maid. Kenset stood for a long moment and looked at the faint outline of her face. She was still in her riding clothes, her ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... filled with unaccountable tears. The symbols of the Catholic religion always affected her in this way; while Nettie Gilbert stared rather disapprovingly at the superstitious ceremony. In spite of its quaint mediaevalism, it seemed to Milly quite human,—the gathering together of suffering, sinning human ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... we were up, and found Bertie's Nellie behind the black boys' humpy shyly peeping round a corner. With childlike impetuosity she had scampered along the four miles from the Warlochs, only to be overcome with unaccountable shyness. ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... time, that riches have wings; and, though this be not applicable in a literal strictness to the wealth of our patriarchal brethren of the South, yet it is clear that their possessions have legs, and an unaccountable propensity for using them in a northerly direction. I marvel that the grand jury of Washington did not find a true bill against the North Star for aiding and abetting Drayton and Sayres. It would have been quite of a piece ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... at the church entrance, and still the sacristy door remains firmly shut. Surely 'tis time for the groom and his best man to appear there; one minute of eight and no sign. Who in all that crowd could dream that Ray and Blake have vainly stormed the vestry door and found it locked? By some unaccountable error the sexton has barred their entrance as well as that of the intrusive uninvited whom he ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... an entirely unaccountable impulse, she drew the reins slightly on Billy, slowing him, almost imperceptibly, so that both horses had traveled more than a quarter of a mile before the distance between them ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... love of secrets at all costs—even mock secrets—peculiar to the young virgin of all climes. Occasionally in glancing away they would half close in a thoughtful smile, which, to the uninitiated, unaware of the irrepressible spirits of their owner, was as unaccountable ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... audience chamber to be cleared! How many curious glances would be cast over their shoulders, by the slowly withdrawing crowd, at the strange group—the viceroy, usually so calm, thus inexplicably excited, and the huddled, rude shepherds, bewildered and afraid of what was coming next, in this unaccountable country! How eavesdroppers would linger as near as they durst, and how looks would be exchanged as the sounds of passionate weeping rewarded their open ears! The deepest feelings are not to be flaunted before the world. The man who ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... grin two or three seconds at a time, and then stared like a dog that waits for his master to send him off again running, the corners of her mouth twitching for me to laugh or speak, exactly as a dog might wag his tail. I studied her in the light of a harmless sort of unaccountable creature; witness at any rate for the fact that I had escaped ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... equal to its words, but its sense he knew, if it had any sense, a gipsy thing—wild and unaccountable. Well, there was in life something which upset all your care and plans—something which made men and women dance to its pipes. And he lay staring from deep-sunk eyes into the darkness where the unaccountable held sway. You thought you had hold of life, but it slipped away ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... at dawn I dreamed I was back in New York and that a couple of cats were wailing under my bedroom window. Their noise increased so that I awoke, and then I heard unaccountable caterwauls. They were very loud and near, at least one of the creatures was. At length I got up to see. Here on the lake a few yards from the tent was a loon swimming about, minutely inspecting the tent and uttering at intervals deep cat-like ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... execution, the body of the martyr was borne to North Elba, N.Y., and, on the 8th of November, 1859, it was laid away to rest. Mr. Sanborn gives only the briefest account of these last services, and omits, for some unaccountable reason, to furnish even an extract from that pathetic and pointed address, which came from Wendell Phillips, while standing by the open grave. If Mr. Phillips ever spoke more beautifully than he did, on that memorable day, we have ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 • Various
... was the strangest of men. Indeed, since his alienation from his wife, the most unaccountable. Rude and violent as he could be to her—he was the tenderest, the most anxious of fathers. He turned pale as death when he saw me in tears, and entreated me to tell him what I suffered. I gained confidence ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... seems an unaccountable thing how one soothsayer can refrain from laughing when he sees another. It is yet a greater wonder that you can refrain from laughing among yourselves. It is no body, but something like body! I could understand this if it were applied to statues made of wax or clay; but in regard to the ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... not have you keep it," she murmured. She heard his sharply indrawn breath, felt him leaning over her, and was filled with an unaccountable fear. ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... hundred pounds on red: it won. She doubled: red won. She doubled: there was a dead silence. The creole lady put the maximum on red, three hundred pounds: red won. Ina Klosking looked a little pale; but, driven by some unaccountable impulse, she doubled. So did the creole. Red won. The automata chucked sixteen hundred pounds to the Klosking, and six hundred pounds to the other lady. Ina bet forty pounds on black. Red won again. She put two hundred pounds ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... should draw back now. Nor does father. As a matter of fact, I don't see how we can—it has gone too far—and just to satisfy one of dear old Auntie's whims! She has a good many, as you know, Mike. There is just this one thing, however, that sometimes one of her unaccountable whims or dislikes turns out to have been ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... place in Canada," said Roderick enthusiastically. He was not as shy in her presence as he usually was with young women. He could not help seeing, that for some unaccountable reason, she was embarrassed at meeting him, and her distress made him forget himself. He tried to put her at her ease in a ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... plates, &c. so that the visitors to Carlton House could hardly fail to notice him as the second greatest Character of that great neighbourhood. But what could induce so great a man to sport his figure in the Gazette, is as unaccountable as the means by which he obtained such happy celebrity. Had it occurred immediately after the war, it might have been concluded without much stretch of imagination, that the Chevalier, who prides himself on his intimacy with all the great men of the day, had, through the friendship of the Duke ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... is never a remedy. After each compromise in American history it has been a matter of surprise to the participants that others were needed. On the bank bill, a member wrote to a correspondent: "You may think it unaccountable, but so it is that the differences in climate seem to govern the opinions on this bill, and Potomac seems to be near the ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... decree of the 19th of August 1792, which suppressed the universities and other scientific institutions, there existed in France Faculties and Colleges of Physicians, as well as Colleges and Commonalities of Surgeons. From one of those unaccountable contradictions of which the revolution affords so many instances, these were also suppressed at a time when they were becoming most necessary for supplying the French armies with medical men. But as soon as the fury of the revolutionary storm began to abate, the re-establishment of Schools of Medicine ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... the second place, it would be hopeless presumption in me, muddy-booted vagabond that I am; and in the third place, a burnt child dreads fire. And so it cannot be love. When papa and I are once more together, this unaccountable longing ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... he roused himself, he found that his horse had wandered away and got lost. After this he had only a vague recollection of what happened. Prompted by some strange, unaccountable impulse, he set out on a hopeless search for water, and went walking on and on until all recollection faded away, and he remembered no more. How long he had been lost when I found him he could not say, because he knew absolutely ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... and unaccountable provision of the common law has since been superseded by a statute regulating descents on a more intelligible and just provision. England has made greater advances in common sense and in the right, in all ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... as Sir Charles intended, an unaccountable reluctance on Paul's part to return through Switzerland changed their plans. Instead, by a fortunate chance, the large schooner yacht of a rather eccentric old friend came in to Venice, and the father eagerly accepted the invitation to go on board ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... was not with fear, for he was a man incapable of fear in the common acceptation of the word, but independently of certain vague apprehensions for others, his mind had been in a great degree unhinged by an unaccountable presentiment of evil, which instinctively had come over it that day. It was this, that, inducing a certain irresoluteness of thought and action, had led him into a manifestation of peevish contradiction in his address to Ephraim Giles. There are ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... that brought me, in a few weeks, to the confines of distraction. The changes that were rung upon dots, which in such a position meant such a thing, and in such another position something else, entirely different; the wonderful vagaries that were played by circles; the unaccountable consequences that resulted from marks like flies' legs, the tremendous effect of a curve in the wrong place; not only troubled my waking hours, but reappeared before me ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... It is all unaccountable, unbelievable,—the ghost of the dream of a dream,—yet here it is, surrounded by the green hills, flooded with the frank light of noon, neighboured by a dirty, noisy little village of Arabs and Circassians on the east bank of the stream, and with real goats and lean, black cattle grazing ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... which had before seemed unaccountable, how it happened that the enemy should have been missed by the British squadron, both in it's passage to Alexandria, and in it's return to Syracuse. The French, having steered a direct course for Candia, had necessarily made an angular passage ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... soft and earnest; her assurances were spoken so confidently, her interest was so genuine, that a queer and unaccountable satisfaction possessed the ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... like the flash of an aurora illuminated Solon's face for an instant. He put out his hand suddenly, as if to take Zonla's and press it to his heart; but an unaccountable timidity seemed to arrest the impulse, and he only stroked Furbelow's head,—upon which that individual opened one large brown eye to the extent of the eighth of an inch, and, seeing that it was only Solon, instantly closed it again, and resumed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... empire. But Napoleon, who rose as high as any of them, began life as an obscure provincial, almost as a man without a country. It is the marvellousness which paralyzes our judgment. We seem to see at once a genius beyond all estimate, a unique character and a fortune utterly unaccountable." ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... It is all a trick, however; he returns to his master, and the brotherhood share the spoil amongst them: all which villainy would be prevented, in my opinion, were the Calo language not spoken; for what but the word of Calo could have induced the donkey to behave in such an unaccountable manner?" ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... meeting," and a rapid descent of the mysterious mesa was begun. A good meal was not long in being prepared, thanks to Coyote Pete's skill as a camp cook. Seated over their dinner, the main topic of conversation was naturally the unaccountable occurrence of the morning. But although a score of explanations were advanced, nobody could hit on one that seemed to fit ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... in her mind what could be his reason for this unaccountable behaviour; as she sat on his knee looking at him in astonishment and pouting a little. A ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... it, bending forward with straining eyes. Another curtain of the same pattern as that which had enveloped Rosalind—a curtain of rich Oriental hues with an unaccountable patch of white in the centre. What was it? It must be part of the fabric itself. Lord Darcy told himself that he had no doubt on the subject, yet the way across the room seemed unaccountably long, and his heart beat fast with apprehension. ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... undergo any change in any respect, was an event we had never contemplated, and should have considered impossible. His strong opinion against the clause which empowered the metropolitan districts to return Members to Parliament, too, was perfectly unaccountable. ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... only escaped owing to the fact that, not intending to go on the excursion he had stayed in bed till eight o'clock and so had not gone. He narrated afterwards that waking up that morning at half-past five, he had thought of the excursion and for some unaccountable reason had felt glad that ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... you're partly right," said Fulkerson, with a sigh, so unaccountable in its connection that ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... navigation would be employed for the relief and assistance of the distressed. So that if America was found peopled in some measure nigh 5,500 years after the creation, it cannot be deemed a thing more wonderful and unaccountable, than the population of many eastern islands, especially those lying at a considerable distance from the continents. The great Author of nature, who first framed the world, still superintends and governs it; and as all things visible and invisible are instruments in his hand, he can make ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... capra, a goat. [Footnote: The etymology of caprice has not been discovered yet; the derivation from capra is unsatisfactory, as it does not account for the latter part of the word.] If ever you have watched a goat, you will have observed how sudden, how unexpected, how unaccountable, are the leaps and springs, now forward, now sideward, now upward, in which it indulges. A 'caprice' then is a movement of the mind as unaccountable, as little to be calculated on beforehand, as the springs and bounds of a goat. ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... lay deep upon the ground, and more threatened to fall before dawn, but Philip had engaged to provide horses equal to any emergency of weather, and the darkness of the night lent favor to the enterprise. Virginie's behavior all that day had somehow seemed unaccountable to her mistress. The maid's face was pallid and wore a strange expression of anxiety and apprehension. She winced and trembled when Julia's glance rested upon her, and her hands quivered violently while ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... we see. It is covered with an enormous depth of atmosphere. Since the markings in the belts move about one hundred miles a day, the Jovian tempests are probably not violent. It is, however, a singular and unaccountable fact, as remarked by Arago, that its trade-winds move in an opposite direction from ours. Jupiter receives only one twenty-seventh as much light and heat from the sun as the earth receives. Its lighter density, being about that of water, indicates that it still has internal heat of its own. ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... along the front of the casemates. To possess ourselves of these muskets, and to heave them into the moat was the work of but a few minutes; and when this was done I went up on to the platform, and with my own hands effectually spiked every one of the guns. It was a most unaccountable thing to me that the whole garrison should have slept so soundly through the terrific crash and roar of the thunder, and the blaze of the lightning; but they did, perhaps because they were accustomed to that kind of disturbance; and as the thunder was practically continuous, ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... and entirely assented, and for a moment I rejoiced and was satisfied like a huntsman just holding fast his prey. But then a most unaccountable suspicion came across me, and I felt that the conclusion was untrue. I was pained, and said, Alas! Lysis and Menexenus, I am afraid that we have been grasping at ...
— Lysis • Plato
... unaccountable! extraordinary to a miracle! His disguise was very complete, I will confess to deceive one so well skilled in the human countenance. I saw nothing, sir, of his shaggy whiskers heard nothing of his brutal voice, nor perceived ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... With that unaccountable attraction of the mind to trifles, which is often incidental to a state of doubt and confusion, the Carrier as he walked slowly to and fro, found himself mentally repeating even these absurd words, many times. So many times that he got ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... his rival so audaciously played the lover to his, Somerset's, mistress, was an added point to the satire. He could hardly go so far as to assume that Paula was a consenting party to this startling interlude; but her otherwise unaccountable wish that his own love should be clandestinely shown lent immense force to a doubt of her sincerity. The ghastly thought that she had merely been keeping him on, like a pet spaniel, to amuse her leisure moments till she should have found ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... the soul and body are united, and how they are distinguished, is wholly unaccountable to us. We see but one part, and yet we know we consist of two; and this is a mystery we cannot comprehend, any more than that of ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... knowing that he was held in Egypt by a guilty attachment to the queen,—thus not only violating his obligations to the state, but likewise inflicting upon his wife Calpurnia, and his family at Rome, an intolerable wrong. But Caesar was so fascinated by Cleopatra's charms, and by the mysterious and unaccountable influence which she exercised over him, that he paid no heed to any of these remonstrances. Even after the war was ended he remained some months in Egypt to enjoy his favorite's society. He would spend whole nights in her company, in feasting and revelry. ...
— Cleopatra • Jacob Abbott
... invariably directed to the object. The distracted victim, instead of flying its enemy, seems to be arrested by some invincible power; it screams; now approaches, and then recedes; and after skipping about with unaccountable agitation, finally rushes into the jaws of the snake, and is swallowed, as soon as it is covered with a slime or glue to make it slide easily down ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... had gone into the summer-house and was turning over everything there as if she expected to find her mistress's body in the cupboard or under the sofa; Lewis, the butler, was hunting through the garden with a lantern, looking under all the bushes. No incident so utterly unaccountable had occurred before in ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... himself into a low easy-chair, and took up a newspaper. But he did not read a line upon the page before him. He was in that unsettled frame of mind which is common to the least nervous persons when they are kept waiting, kept in suspense by some unaccountable event. The absence of Joseph Wilmot became every moment more unaccountable: and his old master made no attempt to conceal his uneasiness. The newspaper dropped out of his hand: and he sat with his face turned ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... reports from the front, whether from Winchester, from Fredericksburg, or from the Peninsula, betrayed the fear and uneasiness he inspired. The overthrow of Pope's advanced guard at Cedar Run, followed by the unaccountable disappearance of the victorious army, was of a piece with the manoeuvres in the Valley. What did this disappearance portend? Whither had the man of mystery betaken himself? Where would the next blow fall? "I don't like Jackson's movements," wrote McClellan to Halleck; ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... Idalia had for some time ceased to storm her lost idol with her passion, and had entrusted her little son entirely to his care. Mother and son saw each other now only at table. This unaccountable change had occurred at the same time of the Bishop's feast. The entire noble family of Mitosin had gone to Bittse and remained. Father Peter had from that time no further occasion to seek the subterranean passage; night and day nothing took him from his pupil, who ...
— Peter the Priest • Mr Jkai
... only thing the most scrupulous critic could possibly detect as faulty in his whole air and bearing, was a certain ultra refinement and fastidiousness, which in a man of acknowledged family and connections was somewhat unaccountable, and certainly unnecessary. The fastidiousness I speak of, extended to everything round and about him; he never eat of the wrong dish, nor spoke to the wrong man in his life, and that very consciousness gave ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... her modest hotel, dejected, listless, and somewhat shamefaced; he found Miss Marston calm and commonplace as usual. But it was the calm of a desperate resolve, won after painful hours, that he little recognized. Her instinct to attach herself to this strange, unaccountable creature, to make him effective to himself, had triumphed over her prejudices. She humbled herself joyfully, ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... the honorable gentleman's proposition comes in a truly questionable shape, and is still more extraordinary and unaccountable for another consideration; that although we went article by article through the Constitution, and although we did not expect a general review of the subject, (as a most comprehensive view had been taken of it before it was regularly debated,) yet we are carried back to the clause giving that ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... children, and made me stare; but I answered angrily that I only wanted a nap, and to be let alone, and I made for the door in spite of his objurgations. Then he ran in front of me, and barring the door with arms outstretched, besought me to await my friend. This unaccountable behavior had rendered me furious, and now I was determined to force my way out, despite the mad resistance and loud gibberish of the waiter, and I began to use my fists. It was in the midst of this tremendous row that ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... the present instance, it was wholly unwarranted; and, everything considered, at war with the commonest principles of prudence and humanity. And, although, on Guy's part, this resolution showed more hardihood than he had ever been given credit for, it, at the same time, argued an unaccountable simplicity, in supposing that such a crew would, in any ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... have spent many words in attempting to define the various qualities of the mind, and to account for a strong or a weak memory; but after all is said, we find that the surprising difference between different memories is unaccounted for; as unaccountable, indeed, as what differences the man of genius from the mere plodder. The principle of association of ideas is doubtless the leading element in a memory which is not merely verbal. We associate in our minds, almost instinctively, ideas ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... best," rejoined Mr. Balch. "If he has any heart, he certainly will make some provision for them. The disappearance of that will is to me most unaccountable! I am confident it was at his house. It seemed so singular that none of his papers should be missing, except that—there were a great many others, deeds, mortgages, &c. scattered over the ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... circulation by many trivial eccentricities of manner, and by the unaccountable oddness of some ...
— Madame Delphine • George W. Cable
... then she's unaccountable set on young Socknersh. He lets her do what she likes with her sheep, and he's a stout figure of a man, too. Joanna Godden always was partial ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... anxious history since our parting.—Mariamne had suddenly grown discontented with Poland; which to Mordecai himself had become a weary residence, from the ravages of the French war. For some reason, unaccountable to me, said the old man, she set her heart upon Spain, and had now been domiciled in this secluded spot for a year. But she was visibly fading away. She read and wrote much, and was even more attached to her harp and her flowers than ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... spoke of his wrong-doing as if it were his infirmity; they could not do otherwise; and they both insensibly assumed his irresponsibility in a measure; they dwelt in the fiction or the persuasion of a mental obliquity which would account for otherwise unaccountable things. ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... him. Yet I confess that when we came in closer contact with each other, even I was not proof against the singular courtesy of his manner and his unaccountable personal charm. ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... Louisa! Nothing surely was ever so unaccountable! The very same whom I prevented from fighting, in the Champs Elysees! Ay, he! This identical Clifton, for Clifton it was, has again appeared; has been here, is here, is never hence. His aspect was petrifying! ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... not spoken of the child before—some unaccountable shyness had restrained her, even in their fondest moments. And yet the thought had never been absent from either. It had throbbed there in their hearts. It was going to be so exquisite ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn |
