"Unexplainable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to his credit, brought no recriminating charges against his wife. He only said their differences were inexplicable and unexplainable. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... moreover, in his posthumous work against M. le Clerc, that the objections against faith have not the force of proofs. It is therefore ad hominem only, or rather ad homines, that is, in relation to the existing state of the human race, that he deems these objections irrefutable and the subject unexplainable. There is even a passage where he implies that he despairs not of the possibility that the answer or the explanation may be found, and even in our time. For here is what he says in his posthumous Reply to M. le Clerc (p. 35): 'M. Bayle dared to hope that his toil would put on their mettle ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... others sail on such smooth seas. Can it be that there is no soul excepting the one we make for ourselves by fighting? Are those really blest who have such challenges given to their spirits? Or is this all by way of excusing God, or Nature, for the unexplainable? ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... over her knee as she went on with that unexplainable freakishness to which girlhood is sometimes maddeningly subject, when all feeling as well as reason seems in abeyance, though her voice was tremulous. "And I do care for him. I like him better than any one I know. We are sympathetic on a great many points. No one—no ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... and unexplainable lulls that always occur in general drawing-room conversations, Diotti turned to Mrs. Llewellyn and whispered: "Who is the ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... his bed. Something beyond the chilliness was wrong with him, and he did not know what it was. There is no condition so vexatious as an unexplainable lack of ease; and Old Dalton twisted, gathered up his knees, straightened them again, tensed, relaxed, shifted the bedclothes, and busily but vainly cast about for the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... felt that in the midst of all the enmity which encompassed her and her father in their newly regained home and land, here at any rate was a friend on whom they could count to help, to counsel and to accomplish. And deep down in the very bottom of her soul there was a curious unexplainable longing that circumstances should compel her to ask one day for his help, and a sweet knowledge that that help would be ably ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... up and about, had been out for several short walks, and was very nearly his own self again. He was in good spirits, too, at times, but had fits of seeming depression which, under the circumstances, were unexplainable. The doctor thought they were due to his recent illness ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... to make the day a gay one, whatever the sun might say to it. A small roll of manuscript in his hand led him soon to confess that a new story was already begun; but this communication was made in the utmost confidence, as if to account for any otherwise unexplainable absences, physically or mentally, from our society, which might occur. But there were no gaps during that autumn afternoon of return to Gad's Hill. He told us how summer had brought him no vacation this year, and only two days of recreation. One of those, ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... of this new and unexplainable activity of Hope Georgia, slowly departed in search of Senator Langdon to make a last desperate attempt to prevent him from meeting this pestilential secretary that ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... turning from the window, sat down limply with the blood in her face and her heart beating horribly fast. Wyllard's last care, it seemed, had been to provide for her, and that fact brought her a curious sense of solace. In an unexplainable fashion it took the bitterest sting out of her grief, though how far he had succeeded in his intentions did not seem to matter in the least. It was sufficient to know that amidst all the haste of his preparation he had ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... her many seasons spent in the East. She was the wife of an Indian Civilian, a tall, grey-headed man, who had come on board to see her off at Bombay. Dick had been rather struck with the tragedy of the man's face, that once he had seen it; he connected it always for some unexplainable reason with Mrs. Hayter's small, soft hands and the slumberous fire in her blue eyes. Not that Dick was not friendly with Mrs. Hayter; he had had on the contrary rather a fierce-tempered flirtation with her. Once, under the spell of a night all purple sea ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... add but a word. We are all very near despair. The sheathing that floats us over its waves is compounded of hope, faith in the unexplainable worth and sure issue of effort, and the deep, sub-conscious content which comes from the exercise of our powers. In the words of a touching negro song: "sometimes I's up, sometimes I's down, sometimes I's almost to the groun'," but these thoughts have carried me, as I hope they ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... a dream; it was not madness; it was the truth: she lets her eyes rest upon me at times with the ardent glance of which I have told you. There is in her glance an unexplainable magnetic attraction. It draws me on, it seduces me, and I can not withdraw my gaze from her. On such occasions my eyes must burn, like hers, with a fatal flame, as did those of Amnon when he turned them upon Tamar; as did those of the prince of Shechem when ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... than ever, as I turned the matter over in my mind; but could think of no plausible explanation; and so, finally, gave it up, as one of the many things that were unexplainable. ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... her, his attitude seemed to her priggish and dictatorial, and as the sun disappearing behind a sudden cloud, so her childish merriment quickly gave place to a feeling of unexplainable disappointment. ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... let me go; but my father was so enthusiastic in his praise that he touched my vanity—which was great—and more than that; he displayed that sincere appreciation which always arouses an artist to his best effort, and, too, in an unexplainable manner, makes him feel like shedding tears. I showed my gratitude by playing for him a Chopin waltz with all the feeling that was in me. When I had finished, my mother's eyes were glistening with tears; ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... never before experienced assailed me with a force that first perplexed and then astounded me. I was afraid, and what rather heightened than diminished the unwonted sensation, was the fact that I was not afraid of anything tangible, either in the present or future, but of something unexplainable and peculiar, which, if it lay in the skies, certainly made them look dark indeed; and if it hid in the forest, caused its faintest murmur to seem like the utterance of a great dread, as ...
— The Old Stone House and Other Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... relic. The remote and—as far as record dwelt on him—obviously unnotable ancestor who had built it as a stronghold in an almost unreachable spot upon the highest moors had doubtlessly had picturesque reasons for the structure, but these were lost in the dim past and appeared on the surface, unexplainable to a modern mind. Lord Coombe himself had not explained an interest he chose to feel in it, or his own reasons for repairing it a few years after it came into his possession. He rebuilt certain breaches in the walls and made certain rooms sufficiently ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... what happened downstairs. For some unexplainable reason I know the story as well as though I had been a witness to my father's discomfiture. One in time gets to know many unexplainable things. On that evening young Joe Kane, son of a merchant of Bidwell, came to Pickleville to meet his father, who was expected on the ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson
... children who have adventurous, imaginative tendencies are so steeped in them that everything they think or do gets color, tone, and significance from them. What the object of adventure does is good, what it does not do is bad, what it possesses is beautiful, and what it asserts is correct. Numerous unexplainable assertions and actions of children are cleared up by reference to their particular ideals, if they may be ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... breath. I now understood what had appeared so unexplainable in the demeanour of Monsieur Robert Darzac towards my friend, and the facility with which the young reporter had been able to install himself on the scene of the crime. My curiosity could not fail to be excited by all I had heard. I asked Rouletabille to satisfy it still further. What had happened ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... the Loosyvana Rod. Near cut! Doggone it, he's been righter than I reck'n he thort o'. Stead o' your bones thar's yur body, wi' as much beef on't as ever. Now I've told our story, we want yourn, the which appears to be a darned deal more o' a unexplainable mistry than ourn. So open yur head, ole hoss, and let's ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... It is unexplainable, the average woman's passion for cupboards. In heaven, her first request, I am sure, is always, "Can I have a cupboard?" She would keep her husband and children in cupboards if she had her way: that would be her idea of the perfect home, everybody ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... head toward the last speaker—whom I decided, for some unexplainable reason, must be Hephzy—and to tell her that of course I wasn't dead, and then all faded away and ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... time I had grown conscious of the fact that I was wandering about in a strange house, and that, apparently, I was alone in it. The silence of the place began to try my nerves, and in a sudden, unexplainable panic I started for the open street. But as I turned, I saw a man sitting on a bench, which the curve of the balustrade had hidden from me. His eyes were shut, and ...
— In the Fog • Richard Harding Davis
... to do his best to explain the unexplainable, and since, himself a professional soldier, he could not take the sane view of his sane young questioner, hot argument ensued between them, to the infinite weariness of Lady O'Moy, who out of self-protection gave herself ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... history—the arrival of the visitor from Planet X—a visitor in the form of energy. But there are factions at work determined to snatch the energy, which Tom has named Exman, from the young scientist-inventor's grasp. First, a series of unexplainable, devastating earthquakes threaten to destroy a good portion of the earth, and Tom suspects the Brungarian rebels who obviously would like to capture Exman and use the space visitor to ...
— Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X • Victor Appleton
... I said reflectively, "I'm completely unable to understand the attitude of supposedly unbiased men of science. Now you take all that mass of data about psi effects, the odd and unexplainable happenings, the premonitions, the specific predictions, the accurate descriptions of far away simultaneously happening events. You take that whole mountainous ...
— Sense from Thought Divide • Mark Irvin Clifton
... in the opposite direction. He took the trouble to have prepared an elaborate set of observations showing this wonderful phenomenon, which would eventually be published. To him these pecularities were unexplainable, and be hoped that the observations would be studied by his hearers, and some explanation found in regard to the thermometric observations of the expedition. He remarked that the mean temperature for the year of the hourly observations ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various
... This unexplainable something which sustains the soul at its foundation, as it were, is the hardest of all to lose, and that which the soul endeavours the most strenuously to retain; for as it is too delicate, so it appears the more divine and ...
— Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon
... returning to Texas. I had twelve hundred dollars with me, as the proceeds of my wages, horses, and oxen, and, feeling rather affluent, I decided to stop over a day at the new trail town. I knew the market was virtually over, and what evil influence ever suggested my stopping at Abilene is unexplainable. But I did stop, and found things just as I expected,—everybody sold out and gone home. A few trail foremen were still hanging around the town under the pretense of attending to unsettled business, and these welcomed me ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... the whirr of the shaftings and drums somehow did not sound in his ears so agreeably as he had once fancied they would. There was something oppressive about the place—or something in the air that caused him an unexplainable uneasiness—and he stood in the doorway, looking unhappy and ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... serving maid the house boasted had gone to bed, and when, in time, he, too, retired to his room, the soaked mattress did its work in the most effectual manner. Whimpering like a hurt child over the unexplained and apparently unexplainable accident, the old man suffered his son to lead him off to his own room; and there, unable to rest on the harder mattress, and suffering agonies of pain, he lay for a long time before the door swung open, the glimmer of a bedroom candle tempered the darkness to a sort ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... new note that came into the Norwegian lyric with Bjoernson, I can discover no hint in his predecessors. Such a poem as, for instance, "Nils Finn," with its inimitably droll refrain—how utterly inconceivable it would be in the mouth of Wergeland or Welhaven! The new quality in it is as unexplainable as the poem itself is untranslatable. It has that inexpressible cadence and inflection of the Norse dialect which you feel (if you have the conditions for recognizing it) in the first word a Norseman addresses ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... more real than most men you knew—except grandfather, of course. There was something unexplainable in the man and his work that rang true—something that was so wholesome and sound. He wasn't like old Hawkins, the grocer—he'd as lief give you a rotten apple as not if he could smuggle it into the bag without you seeing him; and Kline the candy-man ...
— The Long Ago • Jacob William Wright
... beings and in the conception of a deity. In other words, it was an attempt at recognition, in the objects worshipped, of that missing female element which had always been worshipped, and without which a Creator becomes a misnomer—a meaningless, unexplained, and unexplainable monstrosity. ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble
... seeing balloons, airplanes, planets, but this was not the final answer. There were a few hoaxes, hallucinations, publicity-seekers, and fatigued pilots, but reports from these people constituted less than 1 per cent of the total. Left over was a residue of very good and very "unexplainable" UFO sightings ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... Medcroft encouraged an inordinate regard for the circumspect. She decided that it was best never to be alone with her husband; the future was now too precious to go unguarded for a single moment that might be unexplainable when the triumphal hour of revelation came to hand. She impressed this fact upon her sister, with the result that while Brock was never alone with his prudent wife, he was seldom far from the side of the adorable lieutenant. As if precociously providing for an ultimate alibi, the fickle Tootles ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... apparently to gainsay this unanswerable argument. After all, he too was a Hungarian, and proud of that fact, and like all Hungarians at heart, he had an unexplainable contempt for the Jews. But all the same, he was not going to give in to a woman in any kind of disagreement, least of all on a point on which he had set his heart. So now he shifted his ground ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... till now had been one continuous struggle, revolt, and protest she felt overcome by distress. There awakened in her an irresistible longing to share her sorrows with someone, a longing to confide to some sympathetic heart those bewildered thoughts and feelings, that unexplainable misery and fear. She yearned for sympathy, feeling that her distress would be smaller, her anguish less violent, her tears not so bitter, if she could open her heart before some sincere ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... drawing-room things went well enough, even though there was an unexplainable chill in the atmosphere. Cousin Isabel was as kind and gentle and vague as ever; Judith was there, very handsome and prosperous, not overenthusiastic in welcome, rather inclined to patronise a very young man, quite two months younger than a married lady of position and importance. ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... Still with unexplainable amiability the Superintendent whirled back into place in her pivot-chair and with her left hand which had all this time been rummaging busily in a lower desk drawer proffered Rae Malgregor a ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... seized again with an unexplainable mirth, "here's some young folks come out to see the place an' I want you to know 'em. Mr. Rivers, this is m' wife, Kitty, and—lessee, miss, I don't rightly ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... silent suffering. All the way back to Morteyn he pondered on the strange scene in the turret, the repudiation of Lorraine, the sudden tenderness for himself, and then the apathy, the suppressed anger, the indifference coupled with unexplainable emotion. ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... unexplainable charm in littleness." He glanced thoughtfully down at the dainty figure beside him, while Rose wondered if it would be possible for her to make a remark to which he could not give a personal application. It was ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... "prescription," which had puzzled him at the time, was explained now. There was the "prescription"—the codicil! Dr. West had had it in his hand when disturbed in that room by a stranger: he had flung it back in the bureau in his hurry; pushed it back: and by some unexplainable means, he must have pushed it too far out of sight. And there it had lain until ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... horror-struck, Mr. Griffin. The thing might have an explanation, but no one asked it. It looked too unexplainable of course. The story leaked out, and after that Monsignore Murray was avoided. Never once did I give in to the full belief that my dear old saint was wrong, so I gently suggested one day that I should like his fullest confidence about Miss Atheson. ...
— Charred Wood • Myles Muredach
... the tones, so anthems were used instead—mostly Millard's—and they were very beautiful. Not one mistake has ever been made by anyone, but Sergeant Moore has vexed me much. He is our soprano, and has a clear, high-tenor voice and often sings solos in public, but for some unexplainable reason he would not sing a note in church unless I sang with him, so I had to hum along for the man's ear alone. Why he has been so frightened' I do not know, unless it was the unusual condition of things, which have been quite ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... action in the suggested direction or in the antagonistic one. The results appear surprising only if we forget how endlessly complex this psychomotor apparatus really is. If we disregard this complexity we may easily have the feeling that one person has an unexplainable influence over another, as if the will of the one could control in a mysterious way the will of the other. But as soon as we see that every action is the result of the cooeperation of hundreds of thousands of psychomotor impulses which are in definite relation ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... that is positively incomprehensible and unexplainable to the average mind. All mystic literature, when read with the eyes of understanding, exalts and spiritualizes sex. The latter day degeneration of sex is the "trail of the serpent," which Woman is to crush with her heel. And Woman is crushing it to-day, although to the superficial observer, who sees ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... for the man's English was perfect, though heavy and foreign sounding in an unexplainable way. He repeated his question when the boy did ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart
... regrettable, as they could have escaped. Both Dr. Whiteside and Paymaster Mowat had seen the men under their charge leave the ship, the doctor having attended to placing the sick in the boat provided for the purpose, and they then remained in the ship for some unexplainable reason, as testified by witnesses who last saw them, and apparently these two excellent officers were taken down with the ship. Paymaster Johnston got on a raft alongside the ship, but in some way was caught by the ship as she went under, as C.M. Hippard, ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... address he might have regained his old ascendancy over her had I not interfered. You know well, Agnes, his peculiar gift of fascination. I believe he could by some unexplainable psychological process make any great wrong appear right to a woman. But I induced her to bequeath her wealth to Herbert, and secure it, for a time at least, beyond Richard's control—and he owes me a grudge ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... that were like glints of sunshine. Her very presence lifted him to a higher plane, and gave a greater capacity for enjoyment, and sometimes simply an arch smile or an unexpected tone set his nerves vibrating in a manner as delightful as it was unexplainable by any past experience that he could recall. She was a good walker and horsewoman, and as their acquaintance ripened he began to ask permission to join her in her rides and rambles. She assented without ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... life of a prince. The would-be murderer informed the judge that a terrible hate of the princeling had gripped him the moment he put eyes on him, and he had made the attempt upon his life before he had managed to control the unexplainable surge of hate. I understood the emotion that had gripped that unfortunate as I stood face to face with Leith. A feeling of revulsion gripped me, and I experienced a peculiar squalmy sensation as I took his hand. It was unexplainable. ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... life, focussed and arranged as an artist arranges them, and permeated with that strange sense of wonder which only Life can give. We feel the suggestion of an inevitable dim something beyond, to explain the unexplainable, the tragedy of character, ...
— Cobwebs of Thought • Arachne
... had frequently intimated that a place called the gaol was not far distant, and that the squire's office was within a stone's throw of "the corner." Colonel M'Carstrow, reports say, had some years ago got a deal of money by an unexplainable hocus pocus, but it was well nigh gone in gambling, and now he was keeping brothel society and rioting away his life faster than the race-horses he had formerly kept on the ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams |
