"Uncanny" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... idolatrous feet. The hysterical gnome immediately clapped it on—wrong side before. 'Never mind,' he said. 'Now I can go to school, or from school, just as I like, and nobody will ever know what I'm doing.' The dumpy party then went on their way exploring, leaving the squealing Archie and uncanny auntie calling after them, and weeping unmixed tears of terror, lest by some accident they should never come back. The noble gnome went along in front of them, when suddenly he began walking right up, in the water. When the ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... arrived and focused the great incandescent beams on the mound which now covered five houses and whose threat had driven the inhabitants from as many more. The powdery blue lights gave the grass an uncanny yellowish look, as though it had been ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... a wildcat—shrill and uncanny in that pent-up space. Slowly it came nearer, although from what direction our hero could not at ...
— Dave Porter in the Gold Fields - The Search for the Landslide Mine • Edward Stratemeyer
... than being a bear, and sifted Bud's hair full of dried mud, and threw the rest on the floor, and frequently cried "Tell a worl'!" which he had learned from Bud and could say with the uncanny pertinency ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... hated Rockefeller as much as they feared him, yet at the very moment when the Titusville operators were hanging him in effigy and posting the hoardings with cabalistic signs against his corporation, this mysterious, almost uncanny power was encircling them: Men who one night were addressing public meetings denouncing the Standard influence would suddenly sell out their holdings the next day. In 1875 John D. Archbold, a brilliant young refiner who had grown up in the oil regions ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... strong and the gourd capacious, so he also began to sing after a fashion, and soon I had the delight of feeling the iron grip of his goblin legs unclasp, and with one vigorous effort I threw him to the ground, from which he never moved again. I was so rejoiced to have at last got rid of this uncanny old man that I ran leaping and bounding down to the sea-shore, where, by the greatest good luck, I met with some mariners who had anchored off the island to enjoy the delicious fruits, and to renew their ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous
... unknown east of the Great Plains. So was the blacktail, or mule deer, which our adventurers began to find here and there as they gradually worked their way northwestward. So were the coyotes, whose uncanny wailing after nightfall varied the sinister baying of the gray wolves; so were many of the smaller animals, notably the prairie dogs, whose populous villages awakened the lively ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... go up to the top of the hill where we rested to-day, and lodge there; our beds of leaves shall be all in a circle, and Johnny's shall be in the middle; and then he won't feel lonesome or afraid, for all the uncanny noises of the wind and the trees; knowing that he has good friends and true all around him, and particularly one stout John Browne, who is worth all the rest together, being a fair match for any thing in this part of the South-Seas!" and by way of raising Johnny's spirits, and inspiring him ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... seemed to flash in upon us all of a sudden, and to disappear almost as quickly! I'm afraid there's something a little bit uncanny about him," said Frances, who was very imaginative. "But if he helps to put all the money troubles right, he will certainly be like a ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth
... deaf ears. Miss Brewster deigned no reply, so Sary sat down heavily upon a strong kitchen chair and took thought for herself. How did Miss Brewster guess her half-formed idea? Had she discovered in some uncanny manner, that Sary had slyly removed Bill's post-card photograph from her Bible and cremated it that she might feel freer to accept a second proposal of ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... There was something uncanny, at first, in the playing of the Palatines, all of whom were deaf-mutes, except the captain, who was neither deaf nor dumb, but understood and talked the ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... any but Gutrune. Come, let's be gay, and leave this poor girl to rest, so that she may recover herself. Like enough it is the strangeness of this place, after her wild, free life in her mountains, that gives her these uncanny thoughts." ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... Industry, acted on a carefully devised and rigidly followed plan. They were far from putting their uncanny skill in motion every Wednesday. So long as they had no big game in sight, the game remained clean and honest. In this way the band might lose two or three thousand rubles, but such a loss had no great importance, and was soon made up when some ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... Redcliffe, in Bristol, where he was fascinated by the mediaeval air of the place, and especially by one old chest, known as Canynge's coffer, containing musty documents which had been preserved for three hundred years. With strange, uncanny intentness the child pored over these relics of the past, copying them instead of his writing book, until he could imitate not only the spelling and language but even the handwriting of the original. Soon after the "Ossian" forgeries appeared, Chatterton began ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... in all their uncanny effect, are not rightly to be understood until you can compare them with the woods by day. The stillness of the medium, the floor of glittering sand, these trees that go streaming up like monstrous sea-weeds and waver in the moving winds like the weeds in submarine currents, all these set the mind ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... came off, and who was sent with the despatch," demanded the general of the new-comer, upon whom the Hualpai looked in recognition, but with neither light nor welcome in his piercing eyes. Question and answer in halting, uncanny speech progressed fitfully a moment. Then came ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... said Walter, nervously, "this thing is getting positively uncanny. I declare I am beginning to feel a sympathy ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... answer. To Orme, in his hiding, there was something uncanny in her failure to respond. But he could picture her—Truth, calm in the presence ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... Sensai remarks (Lancet, February 15, 1890) had a white face, a long, slender throat and neck, a narrow chest, small thighs, and small feet and hands. Baelz, also, has emphasized the ethereal character of the Japanese ideal of feminine beauty, delicate, pale and slender, almost uncanny; and Stratz, in his interesting book, Die Koerperformen in Kunst und Leben der Japaner (second edition, 1904), has dealt fully with the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... could see it was not closed down, and on picking it up and turning it over I perceived that it was addressed to myself. It contained a half-sheet of notepaper, which I unfolded with a queer sense of dealing with the uncanny, but without any excitement as people meet and do extraordinary ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... living man that enormous animal, uncanny looking creature, walked up to me and shook hands. The Conjure man had not spoken to him, that was certain. If any one had told him to do this it must have been Europa. The demands of politeness satisfied, the strange couple went to the farther side of the verandah ...
— Anting-Anting Stories - And other Strange Tales of the Filipinos • Sargent Kayme
... the fall of their giant chief Rezu whom they believed to be invulnerable, his followers, who were watching the fray, set up a great wailing, a most mournful and uncanny noise to hear. Then, as I think did the hosts of the Philistines when David brought down Goliath by his admirable shot with a stone, they set out for their homes wherever these may have been, at an absolutely record pace ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... that the Misticot walks," said Edie; "it's an awesome nicht and an uncanny to be meeting the like of him here. Besides he might not be best pleased to come upon us when we were trying ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... head. "I don't think you can. It—it wasn't pleasant. It was as uncanny as the rest of the little chap—a long, rattling, eerie sound, as if a tree should groan or a butterfly curse; but wait—there's more." In his earnestness Strang sat up, adding, "Then Gargoyle got up and stretched out his hands, not to the sky, but ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... women quivered against the heavy grief of the men. The half-asleep listeners were moved by its weirdness to vague and sinister fancies. The dolor veered away from what the Anglo-Saxon knows as grief and was shot through with the uncanny and the terrible. White children crawled out of their small beds and groped their way to their parents. The women shivered and asked of the darkness, "What makes the ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... in the greener's possession of uncanny powers, nevertheless he knew that, whatever happened that night, the greener knew more than he chose to tell, and as his apprehension deepened ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... professional judgment than in that of Castleton, omitted the remedies prescribed, it was soon apparent that the deception might prove in vain. I have already intimated that the older physician's perceptions and intuitions were so quick as sometimes to appear almost uncanny; and after asking a question or two, he began to pour upon a square of white paper, from a small vial which he took from one of his vest pockets, a very heavy white powder; and we soon perceived that the powder was to be poured from the paper to the invalid's ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... on beating her eggs and sugar together. Then she stirred in the brandy and poured in the milk and took the bowl from Black Donald and laid on the foam. Finally, she filled a goblet with the rich compound and handed it to her uncanny guest. ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... The uncanny, misbehaved, and outrageous harridans advanced then to meet the son of Morna, and when he saw these three Goll whipped the sword from his thigh, swung his buckler round, and got to ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... first saw her, was one of the prettiest, cheeriest, and most graceful girls I have ever met—a dusky blonde, brown-eyed, brown-haired, with a creamy, waxen whiteness of skin that was yet warm and peach-downy. And I wish to insist from the outset upon the plain fact that there was nothing uncanny about her. In spite of her singular faculty of insight, which sometimes seemed to illogical people almost weird or eerie, she was in the main a bright, well-educated, sensible, winsome, lawn-tennis-playing ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... I've caught a look in his eyes, when he's been down on his hands and knees, staring into some infernal vent-hole—a look that is—well, uncanny, as if he were peering into the bowels of the earth for something quite outside the conceptions of science. You might think that volcano had worked some spell over him, turned his mind. He prattles to it or storms at it as if it were a living creature. Queer, yes; ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... used to the start they gave me, as sometimes they flew right up from under the feet of my dogs. They seemed like wee ghosts, they were so very white, and my dogs as well as myself were disturbed by their uncanny ways." ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... her from under the stove, languidly stretching himself, and yawning until all the red cavern of his mouth and throat was revealed. At the moment he had an uncanny resemblance to Elder Joseph Blewett of White Sands—Roaring Joe, the irreverent boys called him—when he grew excited and shouted. Mrs. Bell saw it—and then ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... or in the power of an evil-eye, I should also have feared. Those who have ever witnessed a sea-island witch-dance can bear me out, and I think a man may dread a hag and be no coward either. But distance and time allay the memories of such uncanny works. I had forgotten whether I was afraid or not. So I said, "There are no ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... go on an excursion to a small island, Kambang, where there are a number of monkeys to whom Malays who desire children sacrifice food. On our arrival the animals came to meet us in a way that was almost uncanny, running like big rats in the tall grass on the muddy beach. Many remnants of sacrificial offerings ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... years the brains of the telephone men were focussed upon this problem—how to reduce the expenditure on copper. One uncanny device, which would seem to be a mere inventor's fantasy if it had not already saved the telephone companies four million dollars or more, is known as the "phantom circuit." It enables three messages to run at the same time, where only two ran before. ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... suddenly got a start that frightened me more than anything else that has happened me in France: In the gleam of a distant flare, the white faces of two women peered around the corner of the building, looking at me through the open door. There was something so damnably uncanny in their appearance, and so startling, that a cold sweat broke out over me, and I snapped my rifle to the present. Had they not been women they would not have lived; a loiterer around headquarters takes his life in ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... over as with pock-marks, till Melbury declared that gardens in such a place were no good at all. The two trees that had creaked all the winter left off creaking, the whir of the night-jar, however, forming a very satisfactory continuation of uncanny music from that quarter. Except at mid-day the sun was not seen complete by the Hintock people, but rather in the form of numerous little stars ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... seemed as senseless to him as the words of an incantation, and he had flung it down more bewildered than ever. He thought there must be some strange difference between their minds when she could delight in what seemed so uncanny to him, and he gazed at her, reading by the lamp-light, as over a great gulf. Even her hands holding the book made him uneasy; for since she had grown careful of them, they were like no hands he had ever seen on ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... nature. All those elderly anxious folk were his family. Many of the children, his contemporaries, trained in the circus, had flown heartlessly from the nest, and the elders had fatalistically lamented. Madame Rocambeau, bowed, wizened, of uncanny age, yet forceful and valiant to the last—carrying on for the old husband now lying paralysed in Paris who had inherited the circus from his father misty years ago, would say to the young man, when one of these defections occurred: "And you Andre, ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... for some reason or other, he was afraid of Doctor Jameson. I have referred already to this circumstance. Whilst refusing to admit such a possibility, yet I must own that the influence, and even the authority exercised by the Doctor on his chief, had something uncanny about it. My own opinion has always been that Rhodes' attitude arose principally from his conviction that Jameson was the only one who understood his constitution, the sole being capable of looking after his health. Curious as it may seem, I am sure the Colossus ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... round the front legs of the stool, one hand resting on one knee, and one elbow (the hand supporting the chin) resting on the other. He was staring intently into the fire, on which an old black saucepan was boiling and sending forth a pungent odour of herbs. There seemed something uncanny about the doctor as the red light of the fire fell on his hawk-like face and gleaming eyes. He might have been Mephistopheles watching some ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... was the only thing to be done—she, usually so full of mental and moral hesitation. Let it be done quickly—now, while the spur of excitement pricked her on. The Thing seemed to have a knowledge of her experiences which was not reciprocal. How it would laugh if it recollected in its uncanny way, that she had wanted to kill herself and it with her, that she had had it at her mercy and then had been too weak and cowardly to strike! Should she buy some poison when she reached Paddington? She knew nothing about poisons and their effects, except that ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... of the air came a humming sound. It grew louder and louder, and the boys felt a strange suction of wind which made them hold tightly to the rail for fear of being pulled overboard by some uncanny force. There followed a loud snap and a crash, and the ...
— The Rover Boys on Land and Sea - The Crusoes of Seven Islands • Arthur M. Winfield
... Dale shrank still closer against the wall. Was it intuition, premonition—or reality? There seemed an uncanny feeling of PRESENCE around him, as though perhaps he were watched, as though others beside himself were in the lane. Yes; ahead of him a shadow moved—he could just barely distinguish it now that his eyes had grown accustomed ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... which I can only describe as an attempt at the ordinary barnyard rooster's "cock-a-doodle-do" combined with the scream of a cat when its tail is trodden upon by a heavy-booted foot. Here in these silent, darkened aisles of the forest it sounded weird and uncanny in the extreme, and aroused an intense desire to knock the creature over; but I forebore to fire, although we once had a view of a fine bird, attended by a hen and chicks, scurrying across the leaf-strewn ground not fifty ...
— "Martin Of Nitendi"; and The River Of Dreams - 1901 • Louis Becke
... an uncanny sense of prophecy, that in this marching line was depicted a new phase of man growing out of war. The individual preferment which many of them enjoyed four years ago had thinned to nothingness in the welding of this great warrior-force of comrades, ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... the skin curiously. Unborn reindeer skin! He rubbed the glossy substance between his fingers. It felt uncanny to his touch, this relic of a long-past tragedy, this message from the world's end. And the message seemed to be no more than a faded jumble of figures. He read them carefully, searching in vain for ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... fierce pride and a certain awe which he had noted as it grew from day to day in the eyes of the rest of the crew. They were following the silent battle between the great Irishman and the captain with a profound, an almost uncanny interest. ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... so puzzling that I sat down to reflect upon the young man's peculiarities. He had always seemed somewhat uncanny, and had I proved more sympathetic he doubtless would have gone farther and told me of certain problems which he professed to have solved concerning the life beyond this. One thing that he had said came back vividly: "If I could only ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... matter, while radium has revolutionised them, and is leading science beyond the borderland of ether into the astral world. The boundaries between animate and inanimate matter are broken down. Magnets are found to be possessed of almost uncanny powers, transferring certain forms of disease in a way not yet satisfactorily explained. Telepathy, clairvoyance, movement without contact, though not yet admitted to the scientific table, are approaching the Cinderella-stage. The fact is that science has pressed its researches so far, has ...
— Thought-Forms • Annie Besant
... pretty head on one side, considering, as she looked down into the little girl's upturned face. "Is this a conundrum, Tillie? How your father be in Lancaster now and yet be home until half-past three? It's uncanny. Unless," she added, a ray of light coming to her,—"unless 'till' means BY. Your father will be home BY half-past three ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... amazing part of the story comes, not from Basra, but from Blanley College, in California," the commentator was saying, "where, it is revealed, the murder of Khalid was foretold, with uncanny accuracy, a month ago, by a history ...
— The Edge of the Knife • Henry Beam Piper
... is mysterious, and that you must be a witch, or something uncanny. I know all mamma's friends, and I am positive not one of them ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... him. There were no marks in the snow except those of the bear. Was it possible that he was mistaken? He scrutinized the mysterious handprint again. As he gazed an uncanny chill crept through him, and when he raised his head he knew that he was trembling in spite of his efforts to control himself. Turning about he swiftly followed the trail to the top of the ridge, recrossed the sledge track, and descended again into the wildness of the gorge on the other ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... Place. The superintendent had already found out that Mr. Bonteen had been attacked as he was returning from his club late at night,—or rather, early in the morning, and expressed no doubt that he had been murdered close to the spot on which his body was found. There is a dark, uncanny-looking passage running from the end of Bolton Row, in May Fair, between the gardens of two great noblemen, coming out among the mews in Berkeley Street, at the corner of Berkeley Square, just opposite to the bottom of Hay Hill. ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... grace of benevolence to the poor, which caused him to live a long and happy life with his family, a pattern unto the whole world. The gift was symbolized by the restoration to him of his own bunch of keys, which he found with many others in the possession of his uncanny conductor. This personage had held the keys by virtue of his being lord over the hearts of those who never at any time do good: in other words, he was the demon of covetousness. Here we have an instance, more or less conscious, of the tendency, so marked in Jewish ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... soft dusk, that he felt himself unwilling to move. Even the curious notes of the night-jar seeking its prey in the dim light had a strange fascination for him, and he spoke of it more than once to Dinah. "It is like the humming of a spinning-wheel," he remarked; "it is very weird and uncanny." ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... last uncanny touch in a series of uncanny experiences. With an odd sense of nightmare upon him, Mr. Gryce leaned forward on the study table in his effort to obtain a better view of this bird, when, without warning, ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... a sense of there being something uncanny regarding twins in West Africa, and in those tribes where they are not killed they are regarded as requiring great care to prevent them from dying on their own account. I remember once among the Tschwi {324} trying to amuse a sickly child with an ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... to a living soul, and from one year's end to the other he keeps away from church. People get out of his way when he appears once in a twelve-month down here among us. We all fear him and he is really just like a heathen or an old Indian, with those thick grey eyebrows and that huge uncanny beard. When he wanders along the road with his twisted stick we are all afraid to ...
— Heidi - (Gift Edition) • Johanna Spyri
... late for that. The young man, at first almost as much startled as his companion at the uncanny apparition, naturally experienced a revulsion of indignation at such an extraordinary interruption to his tete-a-tete, and stepped up to Mr. Morgan as if about to inflict summary chastisement. But perceiving that ...
— A Summer Evening's Dream - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... attended by an acolyte, who, by his master's orders, tapped three times sharply on the stone slab. We stood in the little courtyard in the sun and watched that wicket with cold apprehension. I think, on the whole, it was the most uncanny thing I saw in all Tibet. What on earth was going to appear when that stone slab, which even then was beginning weakly to quiver, was pushed aside, the wildest conjecture could not suggest. After half-a-minute's pause the stone moved, or tried to move, but it came to rest ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... uncanny in the total silence. Even the noise of the machinery was stilled, and the two sisters dressed together in Rebecca's ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... verandah was made under the surveillance of two, perhaps three pairs of unwavering eyes, and because of it they looked neither to right nor left but as those who walk tight-ropes over dangerous places. There was something positively uncanny in the feeling that their every movement was being watched by secret observers. Once inside the car, Miss Guile sank back with a ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... way in at the doors. A great treat was expected, but there was among the officers of police some who thought that a portion of the audience would not bear quietly the hard things that would be said, and that there was an uncanny gathering of roughs about the street, who were not prepared to be on their best behaviour when they should be told that old England ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... the deep shadow, gazing thoughtfully up at those high towers which, though ruined, still guarded the end of the glen, a strange thing occurred—something which startled her, causing her to halt breathless, petrified, rooted to the spot. She stared straight before her. Something uncanny was happening there, something that was, indeed, beyond human credence, and ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... ship. In shape they were not unlike crescents, with the horns blunted, and pushed inward, towards each other. They glowed with a reddish radiance which seemed to have its center in the thickest portion of the crescents—and, despite their appearance, they gave me, somehow, an uncanny impression that they were in some strange way, alive! While they remained in a more or less compact group, their relative positions changed from time to time, not aimlessly as would insensate ...
— Vampires of Space • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... forbidding hills which loomed up in the distance hiding lonely recesses into which the foot of man had never trodden, even the boldest of the desert people being deterred from a visit thereto by the weird tales of unholy creatures and unhallowed things, which made these places the scene of their uncanny meetings and ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... and keen to learn, but a knowledge which was quick to offer valuable suggestions. I remember Pennell condemning anything but scientific learning in dealing with the problems round us; 'no guesswork' was his argument. But he emphatically made an exception of Scott, who had an uncanny knack of hitting upon a solution. Over and over again in his diary we can read of the interest he took in pure and applied science, and it is doubtful whether this side of an expedition in high northern ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... a room of moderate size, avoiding its furniture with almost uncanny ease, then again brought him to a halt. Brass rings clashed softly on a pole, a gap opened in heavy draperies curtaining a window, a shaft of street light threw the girl's profile into soft relief. She drew him to ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... all this was the sick dog's natural objection to being left alone; but to Jack it meant a great deal more. That dog had always been rather unfriendly, and was evidently a very uncanny kind of beast, which could understand everything that was said to him, and would fully carry out the old German's instructions. Duke followed him about to see that he did his work properly, and as Jack walked on, he often felt the ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn
... for Clery, waiting, waiting, sick and weary Of the strange and silly rumours we have often heard before. And we now begin to fancy there's a touch of necromancy, Something almost too uncanny, in the unregenerate Boer— ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... tomes of forgotten lore; the student,—a modern Hieronymus; the raven's tap on the casement; the wintry night and dying fire; the silken wind-swept hangings; the dreams and vague mistrust of the echoing darkness; the black, uncanny bird upon the pallid bust; the accessories of violet velvet and the gloating lamp. All this stage effect of situation, light, color, sound, is purely romantic, and even melodramatic, but of a poetic quality that melodrama rarely exhibits, ...
— The Raven • Edgar Allan Poe
... refuge, particularly from the trees falling before the strokes of lightning. It was at least two miles to any such point of safety, and Ned and Obed saw a coming opportunity. Both lightning and thunder ceased so abruptly that it was uncanny. The sudden stillness was heavy and oppressive, and after the continued flare of the lightning, the darkness was so nearly impenetrable that they could not see ten ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... morning the going was easy. The river was swift and led through a long series of broken buttes, between which one caught wild views of a tortured country; twisted strata, strange distorted cedar and cactus, uncanny shapes of rock pinnacles, in colors somber and strange. They stopped at noon in the shadow of a weathered overhanging rock, with the profile of a witch. The atmosphere of dissension had by this ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... on one of these depressing evenings, while she was boiling an egg in the kitchen, that the ringing of the door-bell reverberated with an uncanny sound through the empty apartment. Spurred by an instinctive fear of a telegram, she ran to open the door, and found Dr. French standing in the dimly lighted hail, with the negro Robert grinning cheerfully ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... grey dawn was creeping into his windows and he rose immediately, anxious to escape the eerie atmosphere of the house, and begin the final stage of his journey. What an uncanny lot these Russian ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... an uncanny exhibition for a girl of fourteen, you know, Roger," said Aunt Olivia musingly. "What is ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... making his headquarters in Wordsworth's old cottage at Grasmere for nearly twenty years. Here the resemblance ceases, and a marked contrast begins. As a man, Lamb is the most human and lovable of all our essayists; while De Quincey is the most uncanny and incomprehensible. Lamb's modest works breathe the two essential qualities of sympathy and humor; the greater number of De Quincey's essays, while possessing more or less of both these qualities, are characterized chiefly by their brilliant style. Life, as seen ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... "There is something uncanny about all this," he said. "I am just beginning to see that you have a most dangerous power of fascination. I could understand it with old Giles, but I must admit that I thought ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... blackness of the place were uncanny. We all sat looking into the fire. Somebody said, "Injuns would not have such a ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... particularly pleasant. Southeasterly storms and snow flurries occurred daily, during which we could see absolutely nothing. The floor on which we were walking was hollow beneath us; it sounded as if we were going over empty barrels. We crossed this disagreeable and uncanny region as quickly as was compatible with the great care we had to exercise, for during the whole time we were thinking of the unwelcome possibility ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... his accomplice) had managed, with that prospective decease of his, to disturb even Archie's mental balance. Archie was the owner of the concertina; but after a couple of stinging lectures from Jimmy he refused to play any more. He said:—"Yon's an uncanny joker. I dinna ken what's wrang wi' him, but there's something verra wrang, verra wrang. It's nae manner of use asking me. I won't play." Our singers became mute because Jimmy was a dying man. For ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... hand on the wood. It proved hard to convince him that objects had once looked as distinct, and leaves as green, and the sky as blue, and red paint as red, to his natural sight, as they now did through those magical glasses. The distinctness and brightness seemed artificial and uncanny. But in the end he was convinced, and then he wanted to keep the spectacles, and pulled out his money to pay for them there and then, and was very much put out when their owner insisted on having them back. However, shortly afterwards a pair was got for him; and ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... disagreeableness is intimately connected with the author's own nature. As with Julien Sorel (v. inf.) so with Octave de Malivert, one feels that, though Beyle would never have behaved exactly like his book-child, that book-child has a great deal too much of the uncanny and semi-diabolical doubles of some occult stories in it—is, in fact, an incarnation of the bad Beyle, the seamy side of Beyle, the creature that Beyle might have been but for the grace of that God in whom ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... adder, and such East Indian species as the king cobra, the spectacled cobra and Russell's viper, and although there is indelibly stamped upon his mind the bloated body, the glassy stare and the rhythmic hissing of the berg adder, the rearing, uncanny pose of an infuriated cobra—there is one image vivid above all, the rattlesnake. Thrown into a gracefully symmetrical coil, the body inflated, the neck arched in an oblique bow in support of the heart-shaped ...
— Pathfinder - or, The Missing Tenderfoot • Alan Douglas
... evident why the mountain trout is prohibited, but the dog, squirrel, and cat are tabued, as already explained, from the fact that these animals frequently assume positions resembling the cramped attitude common to persons afflicted by rheumatism. The cat is considered especially uncanny, as coming from the whites. Seven, as well as four, is a sacred number with the tribe, being also the number of their gentes. It will be noted that time is counted by nights ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... Palme-Silk treaty, Mr. Silk remained on New Texas, married the daughter of a local rancher there (see file on First Ambassador, Colonel Andrew Jackson Hickock) and is still active in politics on that planet, often in opposition to Solar League policies, which he seems to anticipate with an almost uncanny prescience. ...
— Lone Star Planet • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... I feel sure enough that Mr. Dodge is there. But why don't we hear something from him? The whole business is so uncanny that it gives one ...
— The High School Left End - Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron • H. Irving Hancock
... the room as he turned to go out was uncanny. As it was a back room, there was no street below from which could arise sounds of passing vehicles, and the thickness of the fog muffled such sound as might have floated from the front. He stopped half-way to the door, not knowing why, and listened. ...
— The Dawn of a To-morrow • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... such power to irritate her, and a desire to weep the bitterest and most scalding tears for the completeness of his defection. She could not help wondering, sometimes, if he had, by any most uncanny chance, heard of that Episode at the January Cotillion; and knew that Mr. Bennet had Kissed her and that she had believed that he wanted to marry her and he had Not. The Thought made her writhe in agony under the new ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... unlike the "whirr" of machinery, save that it rose and fell in distinct cadences, and occasionally—as if by preconcerted arrangement on the part of every individual insect in the district—stopped altogether for a few moments. Then, indeed, the silence became weird, oppressive, uncanny; making one involuntarily shuffle nearer to one's neighbour and glance half-fearfully over one's shoulder. Then, after a slight interval, a faint, far-off signal chirp! chirp! would be heard, and in an instant the ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... conclusion which I came to at the time, and I have reason to know now that I was right, and that my sister had even more cause than I had myself for believing that there was something uncanny about ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... fifth heaven, the angel hosts reside, and sing the praise of God, though only during the night, for by day it is the task of Israel on earth to give glory to God on high. The sixth heaven is an uncanny spot; there originate most of the trials and visitations ordained for the earth and its inhabitants. Snow lies heaped up there and hail; there are lofts full of noxious dew, magazines stocked with storms, and cellars holding reserves of smoke. Doors of ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... vigilance she escaped on the very last day, and made her way into Fyodor Pavlovitch's garden. How, in her condition, she managed to climb over the high, strong fence remained a mystery. Some maintained that she must have been lifted over by somebody; others hinted at something more uncanny. The most likely explanation is that it happened naturally—that Lizaveta, accustomed to clambering over hurdles to sleep in gardens, had somehow managed to climb this fence, in spite of her condition, and had ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... strikes me most, on looking back at my little volume of verse, is its uncanny competence, not merely from the point of view of prosody, but of phraseology and what I may almost term scholarship. The poems did not show much inspiration, but they are what 18th-century critics would have ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... winning personality—as rare and as independent of birth and circumstances as genius—had soon made that phenomenon plain. And now what was to be done? The girl was quick, observant, imitative, docile, and in the presence of strangers, her gravity of manner gave the impression of uncanny self-possession. It really seemed as though anything might be possible. At Helen's suggestion, then, the three stayed where they were for a week, for June's wardrobe was sadly in need of attention. So the week was spent in shopping, driving, ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... the tresses of a cascade; it climbed and heaped itself on wayside trellises and ran nimbly, in a shower of fragile color, up the trunks, along the branches, of the trees. Jack always afterward associated the soft, falling purple, the soft, languorous fragrance, the almost uncanny beauty of the wistaria, with ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... Poor old Applehead had never before attempted to browbeat a woman, and her unsubmissive silence seemed to his bachelor mind uncanny. ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... named, for they look like creatures of a distorted imagination more than real, living animals. They travel only at night, and so superstitious are the natives of their evil influence that if one of these uncanny little creatures appears near their rice fields, the plantation is immediately abandoned. However, these small creatures are no larger than squirrels, and are perfectly harmless. They are very rare even in their native lands—the ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... her spectacles to the point where they rested upon the wart and peered disconcertingly at Matilda. The upper part of the steel frames crossed her eyeballs horizontally, giving her an uncanny appearance. ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... An uncanny clankety-clankety-clank accompanied his words, and the rods dropped suddenly. In their descent they somehow managed to gather two steel ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... you be seated?" she said, with a politeness and a softness of tone that sounded almost uncanny coming ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... wear long, white robes, covering their entire person, with holes cut for the eyes, nose and mouth. They formed a grim looking procession, and as they turned those expressionless faces toward one, they sent a cold shiver down the spine. Regardless of this uncanny feeling, Boyton and his friend followed the procession into the church and by so doing, gained the good will of the villagers, who assured them that they were in no way to blame for the accident. The entire receipts of the entertainment, with a liberal ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton |
