"Weird" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the old sea-captain, Stared at him wild and weird, Then smiled till his shining teeth Gleamed white from underneath His ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... of his philosophy, something beckoning him on out of his snug compound into the desert of divinity. If so, it was soon gone in the aching of his senses at the scent of her hair, and the longing to escape from this weird silence. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... little overdone the licence of equivalence, but this had probably been one of the formal points on which, as we know, the advice of Lewis, no poet but a remarkably good metrist, had been of use to him. And he acquitted himself now in a manner which, if it never quite attains the weird charm of Christabel itself at its best, is more varied, better sustained, and, above all, better suited to the story-telling which was, of course, Scott's supremest gift. It is very curious to compare Coleridge's remarks on Scott's verse with those ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... in the kingdom of Bavaria. It is an important left bank tributary of the Danube, rising in the Franconian plateau (Frankische Terrasse), and after a tortuous course of 116 m., at times flowing through meadows and again in weird romantic gorges, joins the Danube at Kelheim. From its mouth it is navigable up to Dietfurt (18 m.), whence the Ludwigscanal (100 m. long) proceeds to Bamberg on the Regnitz, thus establishing communication between the Danube and the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... if she does, and thus acknowledges the cat as hers, she may be deluged with bills for poultry, as he has been hearing weird tales on the train, such as are often current among commuters who are not zoologists, of a great black lynx that has been invading chicken coops and killing for pleasure, as his victims are usually left on the ground. Thus has country freedom corrupted the manners of a polite cat, ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... not given to throwing around the word "epic" lightly, but here is one! Swashbuckling action, a great many vivid characters, and a weird mystery—all spun for you by one of the master story-tellers of ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... let loose a weird, high-pitched howl, which I didn't recognize at the time as the old Rebel yell, but know now that it was. Uncle Noah had gone into action. That walkin' stick of his was a second-growth hickory club as thick as your wrist at the big end. He swung it quick and accurate, and if that ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... intermission of the orchestra, the curtain rises upon the three Weird Sisters. Mr. HIND is a Weird Sister, and he improves the opportunity to howl with a weirdness that draws an involuntary laugh ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 4, April 23, 1870 • Various
... startled by the sound of that laugh as if it came from some one else, I paused, my hand on the door, and asked myself: "Do I dream? Am I awake? And if awake what am I to say to the common place mortal I am about to rouse? Speak to him of a phantom! Speak to him of some weird spell over this strong frame! Speak to him of a mystic trance in which has been stolen what he confided to me, without my knowledge! What will he say? What should I have said a few days ago to any man who told such a tale to me?" I did not wait to resolve these ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... is of no avail that I try and try to write-when the sight-seeing is done for the day I am too tired.... Last evening the Coliseum was illuminated—a weird, wonderful sight. Today, Easter Sunday, I have seen crowds of people reverently kissing St. Peter's big toe. Tomorrow we go to Naples for a week and then return ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... us the ruined buildings of the great city. Three shells fell across the path we had traversed, after we had passed the points. Fritz was just a little too late on each occasion! We went on in the dusk, amidst the flashes of booming guns and exploding shells and flares lighting up the weird ruins and ghostly country, as far as a dump (Potidje) where the remainder of the Battalion appeared to be congregated. It occurred to me what a number would have been knocked out if a shell had burst just ...
— At Ypres with Best-Dunkley • Thomas Hope Floyd
... narrative is supplied by the story of Cleonice: a story which, briefly told by Plutarch, suggests one of the most tragic situations it is possible to conceive. The pathos and terror of this dark weird episode in a life which history herself invests with all the character of romance, long haunted the imagination of Byron; and elicited from Goethe one of the most whimsical illustrations of the astonishing absurdity into which criticism sometimes tumbles, ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... loomed above the feasters in the torchlight dim and weird, From his eyes hot tears were streaming, sparkling in his tawny beard; Shining in his sea-blue mantle stood he, 'mid that wondering throng, And each maiden thought him fairest, and each ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... moon. She was up, but had not appeared over the hills yet, and the ground where they were was in such deep shadow that the bearers could not go a dozen yards without stumbling either over a dead body or the inequalities of the surface. It was a weird thing to wait there in the gloom in the midst of those who had been so full of life and vigour in the morning, and were now as motionless, senseless, as the boulders ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... thought we simply steered Great motor-cars to champagne dinners And bought tiaras and were cheered By hopes of breeding Epsom winners; Eh, lad, you little knew the weird Dreed by ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 28th, 1920 • Various
... the same "horrid suggestion" presents itself spontaneously to her, on the reception of his letter; or rather, that the letter itself acts upon her mind as the prophecy of the Weird Sisters on the mind of her husband, kindling the latent passion for empire into a quenchless flame. We are prepared to see the train of evil, first lighted by hellish agency, extend itself to her through the ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... when a sharp, shrill whistle rang from one side of the mountain to the other. Immediately human voices were heard on all sides, repeating in every pitch of tone, from bass to soprano, the word "Rione." For several minutes the mountain echoed with the weird sound of the brigand war-cry; the troops were ordered to stand in readiness, and timid hearts like Henry's quailed at the ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... 465 Magnet-like of lovers' eyes; I, a most enamoured maiden Whose weak brain is overladen With the pleasure of her love, Maniac-like around thee move Gazing, an insatiate bride, 470 On thy form from every side Like a Maenad, round the cup Which Agave lifted up In the weird Cadmaean forest. 475 Brother, wheresoe'er thou soarest I must hurry, whirl and follow Through the heavens wide and hollow, Sheltered by the warm embrace Of thy soul from hungry space, 480 Drinking from thy sense and sight Beauty, majesty, and might, As a lover or a chameleon Grows like ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... babe. The boy leaped from her arms into the air, and, whilst the distracted mother uttered a wail of anguish, Giovanni deftly caught his little son in his arms. The child chortled merrily, as if enjoying his weird experience, and, inasmuch as he never so much as uttered the slightest cry of fear, the intrepid Condottiere felt perfectly reassured as to the auspicious presage ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... the Indian is full of weird strange fancies and imaginations. Groping in darkness, in almost total ignorance of the discoveries of science, with nothing to guide or correct him, it is no wonder that in his blind struggles to solve the great problems which are more ...
— Official report of the exploration of the Queen Charlotte Islands - for the government of British Columbia • Newton H. Chittenden
... though somewhat dark and damp, had its pleasant and cheerful associations; but the wood beyond was weird and dismal, with its dense shade, its fallen trees rotting in dark gullies, its depth of decaying leaves, into which your feet sank down and down, until in alarm you doubted whether there were really any footing beneath, or if it would ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the broken lamp on the floor. It threw into ghastly relief the sprawled form of Dago Jim. Outside, from along the passageway, came a confused jangle of commotion—whispering voices, shuffling feet, the swish of Chinese garments. And the room itself began to spring into weird, flickering shadows, that mounted and crept up the walls ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... was delivered at the bottom of the shaft. The experience was a novel one to them. The dark walls of the passage, the echoes which came from the counter gangways, the monotonous dripping of water, as it seeped through seams and crevices in the rock, all gave a weird and uncanny expression to ...
— Boy Scouts in the Coal Caverns • Major Archibald Lee Fletcher
... "ultramicroscope" have greatly increased our knowledge of the invisible world of life. To the bacteria of a past generation have been added a multitude of microscopic animal microbes, such as that which causes Sleeping Sickness. The life-histories and the weird ways of many important parasites have been unravelled; and here again knowledge means mastery. To a degree which has almost surpassed expectations there has been a revelation of the intricacy of the stones and mortar of the house of life, and the microscopic ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... of which something has been already said, furnishes the ceremonies with a background of awe. It fills the woods, that surround the secret spot where the rites are held, with the rise and fall of its weird music, suggestive of a mighty rushing wind, of spirits in the air. Not until the boys graduate as men do they learn how the sound is produced. Even when they do learn this, the mystery of the voice speaking through the chip ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... the birds saw many a sorry sight. If you like a beautiful fairy-tale in verse, all about children and the elves or sprites that children love, read his "Little People of The Snow." There also is the pretty legend of "The White-footed Deer"; or if you bigger boys and girls wish something more weird and exciting, read his tragic story of "The Strange Lady." Then, on some lovely autumn day, when "the melancholy days are come," and the procession of flowers has nearly passed by, read his verses "To the Fringed Gentian." There are other poems in the collection quite as easy to understand ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... hush that seemed to enfold everything, there broke weird, discordant singing—women's voices sounding high and piercing, the men's deeper and more melodious. The hymn they sang was long, and the air very plaintive, bringing tears to my eyes, and causing the strange, oppressed feeling of the preceding day to return. When the singing ceased I noticed the ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... representation suggests a great thought, perhaps I should say, principle of man's moral being, which Shakespeare has more than once worked upon with surpassing effect. For it is remarkable that, in Macbeth, the thinking of the Weird Sisters (and he cannot choose but think of them) fires the hero's moral and imaginative forces into convulsive action, and thus causes him to shrink back from the very deed to which the prophetic greetings stimulate ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... It has the ring and weird mystery of De Quincey. There are phrases that Thackeray would not have used, such as jar on the ear and betray an immature taste. "Necropolis" is a strange affectation when "City of the Dead" was at hand; and ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... red-curtained public-houses. The roar of personal experiences sounded through the cloud of tobacco-smoke and steam, and the drinking was steady and determined. Out on the river the shadows fell on the racing tide; the weird lights flickered in the brown depths of the water; and the swirling eddies gurgled darkly and flung the boats hither and thither. In the stern of each boat was a crouching figure; for the little cabin-boy had to wait in the cold until the pleasures of rum ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... of my soul she is standing, So sweet in the gleam of her garment: Her footfall awakens a fury, A fierceness of love that I knew not, Those feet of a wench in her wimple, Their weird is my sorrow and troubling, —Or naught may my knowledge avail me— Both now and for aye ...
— The Life and Death of Cormac the Skald • Unknown
... whole Bill, and that only a melancholy humbug would oppose it. Instead he vigorously supported his former foe with an argument that I am sure Mr. DILLON would never have thought of. "Was it not a weird proposal," he asked, "that a child who had unwittingly walked; through a turnstile should forthwith become a convict ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CL, April 26, 1916 • Various
... gazed absently at the men exchanging the bags of mail. All at once a sound of singing was heard in the distance. It was a woman's voice, old and quavering, and the song was a weird, almost unearthly, chant or dirge in a minor key. Slowly the singer approached the station, and reaching it, mounted the steps of the platform and seated herself on a bench, keeping on, without pause, her monotonous singing. The woman was a Mexican, very ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... delighted in hearing them. She allowed herself to be elbowed and jostled by the throng, reaching every moment by judicious pushing a place where she could not only hear but see, and where escape was impossible. The jubilant chorus ceased and one of those weird minor wails, such as their music abounds in, ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... bright sunshine and cheat each other throughout the course of an afternoon and lie out of it in the most obvious manner. The game was finally discontinued, owing to a shortage of checkermen which they had secreted in their pockets, a fact which each one stoutly denied with many weird and rather indelicate vows. I left them engaged in the pleasant game of recrimination, which had to do with stolen golf balls, the holding out of change and kindred sordid subjects. In my weakened ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... interim. A rare scene, the Casino. A big, barnlike auditorium, dotted with boys as girls, boys as pirates, boys as babies; the scenery in course of being violently set up; the spotlight man rehearsing by throwing weird shafts into angry eyes; over all the constant tuning of the orchestra or the cheerful tumpty-tump of a Triangle tune. The boy who writes the lyrics stands in the corner, biting a pencil, with twenty minutes to think of an encore; ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... was produced from Weird Tales, March, 1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright ...
— Old Mr. Wiley • Fanny Greye La Spina
... It sprang from his powerful hands in resolute and impetuous flight, whirred threateningly overhead, and returned to foot, fluttering and purring, as if endowed with affection for its unlovable master. None so mastered the missile; but for all his weird influence over it, he was subject to the restraints of another weapon which seldom left his hands. Is there not a spiritual law which imposes checks on the bombastic tricks of crude and cultured alike, or was it by force of ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... the previous night, all her other sensations had been absorbed in a vague feeling of mingled dread and curiosity, produced by the sight of the weird figure in the yellow mask, which she had left standing alone with Fabio in the palace corridor. The morning light, however, suggested new thoughts. She now opened the note which the young nobleman had pressed into her hand, and read over and over ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... with the consciousness of her success all her unnatural strength passed away. She could hardly secrete it in her bosom ere she fell into a semi-conscious lethargy, through which she heard with terror her husband's low, weird laughter and ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... And let his weird and sleety beard Stream loose upon the blast, And, rustling, chime to the tinkling rime From ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... Son of God in a hovel, of what real parentage we know not; reared in penury, squalor, with no gleam of light, nor fair surroundings; a young manhood vexed by weird dreams and visions, bordering at times on madness; singularly awkward, ungainly, even among the uncouth about him; grotesque in his aspects and ways, it was reserved for this strange being, late in life, without name or fame or ordinary preparation, to be snatched from obscurity, raised ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... dejected, silent group that stood in this weird half-light, awaiting the development of Roland's mind regarding them; he, the youngest of their company, quiet, unemotional, whose dominion no one now ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... childhood, full of weird, fantastic impressions and contradictory influences, stimulating alike to the imagination and that embryo philosophy of life which begins almost with infancy. John Clemens seldom devoted any time to the company of his ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... the effort of desperation. It probably did not take more than five minutes, maybe considerably less, before we had reached the top, but to me it seemed like hours of nearly fruitless endeavour. I did not realize at first that we were high. I shall never forget the weird kind of astonishment when the fact came home to me that what snapped and crackled in the snow under the horses' hoofs, were the tops of trees. Nor shall the feeling of estrangement, as it were—as if ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... deeps it is for ever dark, and freezing cold, There is no day or night, summer or winter. No plants can live there. Yet in that strange, still world there are numbers of living things, though we know very little about them. There are weird Crabs, blind Lobsters, and fish terrors such as are never ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith
... than I could describe. They varied like the colours in a kaleidoscope with the wavering and increasing light. At one time it seemed to me that one of the trees was a gipsy woman enveloped in a cloak, extending her arm towards me threateningly; at another, two weird dogs seemed to be fighting together; but however fantastic and fearsome had been these strange effects of light and fancy mingled together, I should not have minded—I knew what they were; it was a relief to have anything to look at which could keep my eyes from constantly turning ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth
... a form grotesque and weird, Cuchulain found a Power Divine; Or how in shapes of beasts appeared The Magic ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... made to form a tripod and the kettle is suspended from the vertex of the angles or the crossing point of the poles. Music, in which string instruments figure most conspicuously, should be selected, as this lends itself best to the weird effect which should be sought. Three or four pieces will generally be sufficient and they may consist of a violin, guitar, banjo and snare drum or the drum may be omitted if not convenient. The committee ...
— Breakfasts and Teas - Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions • Paul Pierce
... and night, all through the summer, but swelled itself into a torrent in the winter, and roared as it swept over the smooth bowlders to its bridegroom, the sea; sometimes it was the only sound in the valley, save always the murmur of the ocean, and the shrill weird cry of the curlew as it flew from the sea marge ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... difficult to tell to which tree the fruits, flowers, and leaves really belong. The trunks run straight up to a great height without a branch, and then form a thick leafy canopy far overhead; a canopy so dense that even the blaze of the cloudless blue sky is subdued, one might almost say into a weird gloom, the effect of which is enhanced by the solemn silence. At first such a forest gives the impression of being more open than an English wood, but a few steps are sufficient to correct this error. There is a thick undergrowth matted together by wiry ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... expected where they were so abundant, the carnivorous animals allied to the bears and wolves, panthers, linxes, and tigers, were also to be found. "At night," says Mr. Dawkins, "the Pliocene forests of Central France echoed with the weird ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... openings, eight feet wide, crowded with the sick, and long rows of them were stretched through the centre of the hall. A gallery ran around above the cases, and this was filled with cots. The clatter of the feet of passing surgeons and nurses over the marble floor added to the weird impression. ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... noise of long drawn out howling notes, mingled with roars, the crescendo effect ending in a peal of weird yells that were like the cries of a laughing hyena, mingled with the sardonic ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... through the park, and on and on by ways the attorney did not know, until at last they arrived at a little dell. The night was pitchy dark, and nothing could Ezekiel see but the ghostly figure gliding along ahead of him, all lit by a weird phosphorescent light. In the dell was a small granite cairn, and here the ghost stopped and looked around ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... is it, Doc? Gee, I'm glad to see you! This is a darned weird place to-night. Every time the wind blows ...
— Soldier Silhouettes on our Front • William L. Stidger
... that these pence I had procured with so much toil were always expended in the public-house by both the man and his wife who were supposed at that time to provide me with the weird accommodation they were pleased to call home. My particular portion of this edifice was a dirty mat by way of a bed, which I shared with a rough-haired terrier dog called Sam. We two, Sam and I, were roofed in with many panes of broken glass in a species of outhouse ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... atmosphere grew dim—and the evening star no longer shone companionless. The glare of flames attested the progress of destruction, while, during mingled light and obscurity, the piles around me took gigantic proportions and weird shapes. For a moment I could yield to the creative power of the imagination, and for a moment was soothed by the sublime fictions it presented to me. The beatings of my human heart drew me back to blank reality. Where, in this wilderness of death, art thou, ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... weird sisters, hand in hand, Posters of the sea and land, Thus do go about, about: Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine, And thrice again, to make up nine:— Peace!—the charm's ...
— Macbeth • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... accomplished in the brotherhood which is in the world.' He did not mean to say, 'Take comfort, for other people are as badly off as you are,' but he meant to call to the remembrance of the solitary sufferer the thousands of his brethren who were 'dreeing the same weird' in ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... certain high-frequency electrical discharges, be made to combine with explosive violence with the nitrogen of the atmosphere, leaving only a harmless residue. We wired the surrounding region for the electrical discharge and, with a vast explosion of weird purple flame, cleared the whole area of the century-old curse. Our laboratory was destroyed by the explosion. It was rebuilt nearer the mine shafts from which the gas still slowly issued. Again we set up our electrical machinery ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... infernal mixture and inhaled the pungent sickening vapors, we were impressed with the idea that this was a most perfect realization of Shakespeare's image in Macbeth. It needed but the presence of Hecate and her weird band to realize that horrible creation of poetic fancy, and I fancied the "black and midnight hags" concocting a charm around this horrible cauldron. We ventured near enough to this spring to dip the end of a pine pole into it, which, upon removal, was covered an ...
— The Discovery of Yellowstone Park • Nathaniel Pitt Langford
... their ages, were Emily, Charlotte and Anne. They, with their brother, lived in a kind of dream world. Charlotte was the natural story-teller, and she wove endless romances in which figured the great men of history who were her heroes. She also told over and over many weird Yorkshire legends. These children devoured every bit of printed matter that came to the parsonage, and they were as thoroughly informed on all political questions as the ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... and Westmoreland, and saw rising all around them in the half-darkness the mighty bulks of the great fells which rise amongst that wild and lonely stretch of land. At that hour of the night and amidst that weird silence, broken only by the murmur of some adjacent waterfall the scene was impressive and suggestive; it seemed to Spargo as if London were a million miles away, and the rush and bustle of human life a thing of another ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... forget the sudden weird hush which followed that unexpected sound. The woman released her grasp of her victim as if she had been shot, and the crowd, with a shout on their lips, stopped ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... department, and arranging the facts or legends she has obtained with a certain degree of historical criticism, that gives a value to her work as an illustration of national beliefs, without reference to its character as a hortus siccus of weird and marvelous stories. In point of style, her volume is unexceptionable; its spirit is modest and reverent; it can not be justly accused of superstition, though it betrays a womanly instinct for the supernatural: and without being imbued with ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... to the figure, and opened a half-concealed door which led into his study. The strange but opportune visitant seemed to motion to me with a gesture of his hand, which I felt I must obey, and I followed in this weird procession. From the study we mounted by a private staircase to a large, well-furnished bed-chamber. Here we paused. Mr. Maryon looked tremblingly at the stranger, and said, in a low, ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... spoke—they were too busy listening to the weird meanings of the fog horns and wondering how they could have escaped a collision so long. For a while Paul had kept the engine running in the hope that he might be able to keep to his course and eventually get to Lighthouse Island. But he had decided that this only made a collision ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... A weird imprisoned panic seized upon the men with cries inarticulate and gestures stillborn. They writhed upon the spot. But little shelter as the incipient trench afforded, no one dared leave the ditch that saved us from protruding ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... to follow in the rut, and become the rival of Osborne for the hand of Marguerite Andrews—the heroine. Balderstone was to write a book, which for a time should so fascinate Miss Andrews that she would be blind to the desirability of Osborne as a husband-elect; a book full of the weird and thrilling, dealing with theosophy and spiritualism, and all other "Tommyrotisms," as Harley called them, all of which, of course, was to be the making and the undoing of Balderstone; for equally of course, in the ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs
... singular, and gave one the idea of a lovely bit of world and sky turned upside down; it produced, moreover, a sort of fascination, as if one must dive down into its luring depths. No human sight or sound disturbed the weird beauty of this lonely spot. I longed at last to break the oppressive silence, and I fired off my revolver. This brought down a perfect volley of echoes, and at the same time, from the highest crags, out flew some half-dozen vultures; they wheeled round for a few moments, then disappeared ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... poured out upon me a flood of burning words—words which, in the silence of the wood, frightened me because they carried with them an impression of something preternatural, something indefinably weird and compelling. He was no longer the humble suppliant of that morning in the park, spoke no more of his diffident hopes, his half-mystical aspirations, his incurable sense of sorrow. This time he did not beg and entreat. It was the voice of passion, full of audacity and virile power, ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... I, that creeping red, and this whiteness I pride myself on is I, and my black hair, and my blue eyes are I. It is a weird thing to be a person. What makes me myself, among ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... views than his father, and he married, when nearly forty, Elizabeth Pilfold, reputed a great beauty. The first child of this marriage, born on August 4, 1792, was the poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley, born to all the ease and comfort of an English country home, but with the weird imaginings which in childhood could people the grounds and surroundings with ancient snakes and fairies of all forms, and which later on were to lead him far out of the beaten track. Shelley's little sisters were the confidants of his childhood, and their sympathy must have ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... Sea. And he will have observed striking features peculiar to this latitude of the Atlantic coast. I recall an atmospheric effect in springtime resembling a light pearl-colored mist, which had none of the qualities of a fog, but rather lent a weird transparency to the air. It gave the impression of sunlight faded or washed of its golden particles, or of a picture drawn on pearl. There was a statuesque stillness about the water, a near and yet a far look about the entire scene, which imparted a sense of unreality, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... wind blew over a glassy sea. The sound of the rippling water on the reef of rocks and on the sandy beach had a weird, melancholy effect. Then came the dull noise of muffled oars commingling with the cawing of the gull and hollow surging of the waters into the Fairy Rocks. There was neither moon nor stars visible, but in the bay the experienced ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... a brisk pace, and with an air of gaiety and hope that accorded well with the morning, these three drew together, like the brothers of the sister Fates, or like the Graces most effectually disguised, or like the three weird prophets on the ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... it was then near the end of October—the weird song of a solitary brave was heard. In an instant the camp was thrown into indescribable confusion. The meaning of this was clear as day to everybody—all of our war-party were killed, save the one whose mournful song announced the fate of his companions. The ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... enlivening company of an alarum clock, Jake retired to his couch, which consisted of a flax-stuffed mattress resting on a wooden bedstead, and there he quickly buried himself in a weird tangle of dirty blankets, and ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... Scandinavian North assumed many forms, and was connected by many degrees. There was the old and withered hag, on whom, in our later mediaeval ages the character was mainly bestowed; there was the terrific witch-wife, or wolf-witch, who seems wholly apart from human birth and attributes, like the weird sisters of Macbeth—creatures who entered the house at night and seized warriors to devour them, who might be seen gliding over the sea, with the carcase of the wolf dripping blood from their giant jaws; ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... know about the chicken business, after one week spent in pursuit of that knowledge through every weird magazine and state agricultural bulletin in the public library, even you could learn, Matthew Berry, with your lack of sympathy with the great American wealth producer, the humble female chicken known in farmer patois as a hen. Did you know that it only costs about two dollars ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... and a thin stream of water came from the rim of his soft black hat, streaming down his face. He noted the flashes of lightning overhead. Through it all the cry of the white goat sounded, with that weird, vibrating "mag-gag" that was the traditional note of her race. It had a powerful appeal for the Herd. It stirred a feeling of passion within him as he hurried through ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... believed in himself and his mixedness, as he believed in the mixedness of his weird concept that God looked as much like him as like any man, being no mere tribal god, but a world god that must look equally like all races of all the world, even if it led to piebaldness. And the concept worked. Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Hawaiian, Porto Rican, Russian, ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... luminous wall of fog that closed around her. Then the inarticulate, irregular outcries took upon themselves a measured rhythm, the movement of the mass formed itself upon the monotonous chant, the intervals grew shorter, the mule broke into a trot, and then the whole vast multitude fell into a weird, rhythmical, jogging ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... chanced to wake, as the windings of the river brought the singer past their homes that night, sat up in their beds and wondered. The music made them think of old tales of weird enchantment, in which strains, incomprehensibly sweet and thrilling like these, coming from nobody could tell where, had played a part. And one poor creature, who had long been dying in lingering pain, thought heaven had opened for her, and, ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... wild and weird bad-lands of Hell Creek, Montana, I once went out deer hunting in company with the original old hermit wolf-hunter of that region, named Max Sieber. With deep feeling Max told me of a remarkable ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... utterly out of heart, the British flag, which had flaunted out so bravely from the flagstaff, as if bidding defiance to the whole hill-country and all its swarthy tribes, hung down and clung and wrapped itself about the flagstaff, the halyard singing a dolefully weird strain in a minor key, while the wind whistled by it on its way ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... Monongahela at Pittsburg. Scarcely ever a man had so much relish for the supernatural, and so little faith in it. One must confess, however, that the most sceptical might have been overcome at Glamis Castle, for its appearance, by all accounts, is weird and strange, and ghostly enough to start ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... rattled along the Russki railway or stood interminably at strange-looking stations. The bare box cars were corded deep with sitting and curled up soldiers fitfully sleeping and starting to consciousness at the jerking and swaying of the train. Once at a weird log station by the flaring torchlights they had stood for a few minutes beside a northbound train loaded with Bolshevik prisoners and deserters gathered in that day after the successful Allied engagement. ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... fence, a convenient promenade, led him to it, he came back to the leaning poplar. With a pleasant memory drawing him on, he climbed the tree once more. The round moon was getting low now, and the shadows she cast out across the corn were long and weird. But the downpour of her light was still mysterious in its clarity, and in its sheen the porcupine, rolled up like a bird's nest, ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... the silent terrors of my house. The weird fancies that clung around the gloomy halls and dark doorways still whispered their threatening tales of danger and death. The air was still peopled with the ghosts of forgotten crimes, and the tragedy of the alley that had changed my life ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... miller and his men, and, accompanied by them, Mr. Wharton started for the Indian trail. They took with them lanterns, torches, and horns, and a trumpet, to be sounded as a signal that the lost one was found. The wretched mother traversed the piazza slowly, gazing after them, as their torches cast a weird, fantastic light on the leafless trees they passed. She listened to the horns resounding in the distance, till the tremolo motion they imparted to the air became faint as the buzz of insects. At last, Charles, who walked silently by her side, was persuaded to go to bed, where, some ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... good for a child to be happy in, so they filled the imagination of this child with these horrors of hell. I said, and I say again, no day can be so sacred but that the laugh of a child will make the holiest day more sacred still. Strike with hand of fire, oh, weird musician, thy harp, strung with Apollo's golden hair; fill the vast cathedral aisles with symphonies sweet and dim, deft toucher of the organ keys; blow bugler, blow, until thy silver notes do touch the skies, with moonlit waves, and charm the lovers wandering on the vine-clad hills; but know, ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... over the meaning of these apertures there came a repetition of the weird cry, but this time the lad was so startled that he almost lost his ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... the hotel. A third spectator wearily disengaged himself from one of the Ionic columns of the portico and walked to the box, remained for a moment in serious and expectorative contemplation of the boot, and then returned to his column. There was something so weird in this baptism that I grew ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... and worse roads, there was a weird and a horrid fascination about coaching in the eighteenth century, arising from the vision of armed and well-mounted highwaymen, or of a malefactor, after execution, hanging in chains on the gibbet by the highway near ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... after a while to the edge of a common, stretching before us, drear and brown, as far as my eye could reach. A wild, weird-looking flat, with no sign of cultivation; and the road running across it lying in deep ruts, where moss and grass were springing. As far as I could guess, it was drawing near to five o'clock; and, ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... the nave to prevent the excessive echo from marring the effect of the music, but many curious echoes are to be heard. The mocking sounds that follow upon the sounds of the voice of a preacher, especially when the attendance is small, are very weird. They may be heard best from the last few rows of ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Gloucester [2nd ed.] • H. J. L. J. Masse
... now, as much from the fiery intoxicant as from the scientist's weird revelation. "I get you," he said, rather inelegantly for a professor. "You mean that if every living thing in the world should pass out, every man, every plant, every animal, even down to microscopic infusoria, the Mind would collect all its electrons, and through some more jealous law of, er, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... long road over the hill and through the woods was before me. The thought of the moonlit, silent woods, with their weird shadows, was too much for me; I looked about for a place ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... their beauty would be softened and half obscured by mist, at another they would appear to be lifted up into the sky by the effect of the mirage. At times a heavy sea fog hung over the island and obscured every distant object, and to the nearer ones gave a weird ...
— Peak's Island - A Romance of Buccaneer Days • Ford Paul
... had longed to see the inside of this mysterious dwelling, and yet now that the moment had come, how gladly would they have found themselves safely at home in the Vicarage! Pennie and Ambrose had vied with each other in providing strange and weird articles of furniture and ornaments for it; but the reality was almost startlingly different. When, after several knocks, the boys were told to "come in," they entered a room which was just like that in any other cottage, except that it was barer. There was, ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton
... glory of the sunset reflected itself in the river, she saw a boat coming skimming down the current. It was just the touch of life that was necessary to lift the weird solemnity from those silent forest reaches. From where she stood, leaning against the trunk of a tree on the hilltop, Mary could see without being seen; for she still wore the travelling dress which so nearly matched the ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... shortly after noon of December 31, 1960, when the series of weird and startling events began which took me into the tiny world of an atom of gold, beyond the vanishing point, beyond the range of even the highest-powered electric-microscope. My name is George Randolph. I was, that momentous afternoon, assistant chemist for the Ajax ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... ceremonially, mask, and go out, after which the patient enters and takes his position on the central figure of the dry-painting, facing the east. The effort this night is to frighten the patient and thus banish the evil spirits from his body. The two maskers come running in, uttering weird, unearthly howls, in which every spectator in the hogan joins, feigning great fear. The masked figures make four entries, each like the other. In many cases the patient either actually faints from fright or feigns to do ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... April 21, 1849, assured the independence of Santo Domingo by his victory over the Haitian forces—and finally joins the coast road. The road of the seacoast, which, though longer, is preferable by reason of being more level, leaves Bani through a weird country, where giant cactus is the only vegetation produced by the rocky soil. After crossing a stretch of grass-grown tableland it descends to the waters of Ocoa Bay and continues literally through the surf. Several hours of travel ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... agreed. "There has never been any such weird mechanism as you described connected with that drawer, Mr. Lester. At least, not since I have had it. There is a legend, you know, that the cabinet was ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... lad. At night all the sounds of a tropical forest seem mysterious and weird, but in the broad daylight the bush will be comparatively still. The nocturnal animals will slink away to their lairs, and there will seem nothing strange to you in the songs and calls of the birds. I should recommend ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... (William John Cavendish-Scott-Bentinck) as fifth Duke, born in 1800. He it was who designed and had constructed the mysterious underground apartments and tunnels for which the Abbey and its environs are famous. There were miles of weird passages beneath the surface of the earth, one tunnel alone being nearly a mile and a half in length, stretching towards Worksop, while others ...
— The Portland Peerage Romance • Charles J. Archard
... Brussels represents Judas wandering about the night after the betrayal. By chance he comes upon the workmen who have been preparing the cross for Jesus. A fire burning close by throws its weird light on the faces of the men who are now sleeping. The face of Judas is somewhat in the shade; but one sees on it remorse and agony, as the traitor's eyes fall upon the cross and the tools which have been ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... yet had Arthur fought a fight Like this last dim, weird battle of the west. A death-white mist slept over land and sea: Whereof the chill, to him who breathed it, drew Down to his blood, till all his heat was cold With formless fear: and even on Arthur fell Confusion, since he ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... at the weird countenance, distorted and made unhuman by long torment of body and mind, and found in it something to trust; yes, even signs of that sympathy which she so sorely needed. So she told her all the tale from the first word of ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... that these dogs belonged to Arawn, or the silver-tongued King of Annwn, of the lower or southern regions. In this way these dogs are identified with the creatures treated of in this chapter. But their work was less weird than soul-hunting. ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... has the rugged severity of an old chronicle with all that the imagination of the poet can engraft upon traditional belief. The castle of Macbeth, round which 'the air smells wooingly', and where 'the temple-haunting martlet builds', has a real subsistence in the mind; the Weird Sisters meet us in person on 'the blasted heath'; the 'air-drawn dagger' moves slowly before our eyes; the 'gracious Duncan', the 'blood-boltered Banquo' stand before us; all that passed through the mind of Macbeth passes, without the loss of a tittle, through ours. All that ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... aged deacon "sing counter". Reverence for the place and song, and respect for the singer alike failed to control the irrepressible start of amazement and smile of amusement with which we greeted the weird and apparently demented shriek which rose high over the voices of the choir, but which did not at all disconcert their accustomed ears. Words, however chosen, would fail in attempting to describe the grotesque and ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... "In a weird sort of way, a hobby is a man's substitute for sport, I believe," said Estelle's father. "Many have no feeling for sport; it's left out of them and they seem to be able to live comfortably without it. Instead they develop ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... hundred feet from the pyramids, on a somewhat lower plain, stands that colossal mystery, the Sphinx. The Arabs call it "The Father of Terror," and it certainly has a most weird, unworldly look. Its body, and most of the head, is hewn out of the solid rock where it stands, the upper portion forming the head and bust of a human being, to which is added the paws and body of an animal. The great size of the figure will be realized when we recall the fact ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... the low, sweet music of Cummins and the little Melisse that he played now, but a wild, wailing song that he had found in the autumn winds. It burst above the crackling fire and the tumult of man and dog in a weird and savage beauty that hushed all sound; and life about him became like life struck suddenly dead. With his head bowed Jan saw nothing—saw nothing of the wonder in the faces of the half- cringing little black ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... possessing a technical quality few other canvases in the entire exhibition have. There is life, such as very few painters ever attain, and seen only in the work of a master. This work is not entirely a Nell Brinkley in oil, either. I confess I have a strange fondness for this weird canvas. ...
— The Galleries of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... a meaning had, Sister Helen! It gave strange force to a weird ballad. But refrains have become a ridiculous 'fad', Little brother. And Mother Carey, mother, Has a bearing on nothing in earth ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... fond of making him do. He may even marry the golden-haired Ermengarde and sire children to heir his lands and perpetuate his name. But the knight is himself a wreck, with all his best energies burnt out in those weird orgies beneath the water; and his bridal vow is a hollow one, for when he utters it he hears the shriek of the Lurline blending with the wedding music, and his nightly couch is to be henceforth a torture of unrest—his ride by day a mere ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... find this giant of all the seven assigned to carry us "Over There!" Nine hundred feet long, one hundred feet wide, thirty-six feet draft and nine stories deep! Like some fabled monster of the sea, which well her weird camouflaged sides suggested, she opened her cavernous jaws and received as but a morsel thirteen ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... in her school-girl slang, when she was seventeen or so, 'Well, I'd like to think I went on, mother; I think it's simply rotten pipping out. I like being alive, and I'd like to have tons more of it—but there it is, I can't believe anything so weird and it's no use trying. And if I don't pip out after all, it'll be such a jolly old surprise and lark that I shall be glad I couldn't believe in it here.' Johnny, I remember, said to her (those two were always ragging each other), 'Ah, you may be wishing you only ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... subordinate character with which the writer has surrounded the central figures. No writer living is so consummate a master of landscape, and besides the forest we here have an elaborate sea-piece, full of the weird, ineffable, menacing suggestion of the sea in some of her unnumbered moods; and there is a scene of late twilight on a high solitary down over the bay of Mont Saint-Michel, to which a reader blessed with sensibility to the subtler impressions of landscape will turn again and again, ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... to the accompaniment of Marjorie's guitar, were equally effective. The girls roared the choruses to popular national ditties, and special favourites were repeated again and again. Several step-dances were executed, and had a weird effect in the unsteady light of the waning fire. Mrs. Arnold, who was a splendid elocutionist, gave a recitation on an incident in the American War, and was enthusiastically encored. The moon had risen high in the sky, and was peeping through ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... magic round me here; But fading, blotted, dim, a picture faint, With spell more silent, only pleads a tear. Plead not! Thou hast my heart, O picture dim! I see the fields, I see the autumn hand Of God upon the maples! Answer Him With weird, translucent glories, ye that stand Like spirits in scarlet and in amethyst! I see the sun break over you; the mist On hills that lift from iron bases grand Their heads superb!—the dream, ...
— Thoughts, Moods and Ideals: Crimes of Leisure • W.D. Lighthall
... instinct moved him to caution. At regular intervals he stopped to listen and to sniff the air for an odor of smoke. More and more he became like a beast of prey. He left the last bush behind him. Ahead of him the starlit space was now unbroken by a single shadow. Weird whispers came with a low wind that was gathering ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... the most remarkable characteristics of his poetic style, are its wondrous elasticity and ease of movement. There is never for an instant any real or apparent effort, any straining for effect, any of that "double, double, toil and trouble," by which many even of the weird cauldrons in which Genius forms her creations are disturbed and bedimmed. That power of doing everything with perfect and conscious ease, which Dugald Stewart has ascribed to Barrow and to Horsley in prose, distinguished ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... it was no great journey to see, for they had opened a light railway, and from the front of the house we could see beyond the lake and the park, through the opening where the Purple Hill rises, that weird thing which rushes round the base of the hill half a dozen times a day before it climbs with no effort to the gorge between the hills and makes its way into the world. It does not even go by steam, so the thing was ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... was Mrs. Stewart's husband. She had no idea a Don could be so young and good-looking. Judging of Dons solely by the slight and slighting references of her undergraduate relatives, she had imagined them to be weird-looking men, within various measurable ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... the weird plaintive scream of a sea-bird came floating down out of the grey shadows of the dawn, and Walford, starting violently, stood for a moment in an attitude of rapt attention. The cry was repeated; he glared wildly round him for an instant, and then, screaming hoarsely ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... spots of color upon the scene, while a fine orchestra discoursed melodiously from some green-embowered nook, the place seemed like an enchanted realm where one might almost expect to discern, flitting among the playful shadows, those weird forms that people the elf land of ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... to the flagship, Grayson was decorated and given a flotilla. His weird magnetism extended to every officer and man aboard the seven craft. They struck like phantoms, cutting out cruisers and battlewagons in wild unorthodox actions that couldn't have succeeded but did—every time. Grayson was badly wounded twice, but his ...
— The Adventurer • Cyril M. Kornbluth |
