"Apparition" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... than a quarter of a mile from the cabin, and was passing a clump of heavy shrubbery, when a man rose suddenly out of the shadows beside the trail. Startled, Mustard reared, and then seeing that the apparition was merely a man, he came quietly down and halted, shaking his head sagely. Ferguson's right hand had dropped swiftly to his right holster, but was raised again instantly as the man's voice came ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... than ever came to St. Dunstan. A fairer fiend, no doubt; for St. Dunstan's imagination created his temptress for him, but Valencia was a reality: and fact and nature may be safely backed to produce something more charming than any monk's brain can do. One questions whether St. Dunstan's apparition was not something as coarse as his own mind, clever though that mind was. At least, he would never have had the heart to apply the hot tongs to such a nose as Valencia's, but at most have bowed her out pityingly, as Frank tried to bow out Valencia from the sacred place of ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... know by tradition that whoever finds a defect in Rashi, has a defect in his own brain." It was related that when Rashi was worried by some difficult question, he shut himself up in a room, where God appeared to throw light upon his doubts. The apparition came to him when he was plunged in profound sleep, and he did not return to his waking senses until some one brought him an article from the wall of his room. Thus a superstitious, sterile respect replaced ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... "sets" and petty distinctions, giving a humorous relation of the collapse of her well-meaning efforts, in conjunction with friends at the sous-prefecture, to do away with some of these caste prejudices, of the horror and indignation created in the oligarchy of La Chatre by the apparition of an inoffensive music-master and his wife at the sous-prefet's reception, horror so great that on the next occasion, the salon of the official was unfurnished with guests, except for the said music-master and the Dudevants themselves. She wrote a poetical ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... down his own words: "He was," says John, "as large as a one gallon keg and very like it; he had horns and wings, yet he crept so slowly through, the grass, that if I had not been afeard I might have touched him." This formidable apparition we afterwards discovered to have been a batt; and the batts here must be acknowledged to have a frightful appearance, for they are nearly black, and full as large as a partridge; they have indeed no horns, but ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... no bounding mountains, visible; the whole country transformed into some northern high-lying moorland. A sort of tiny half-ruined, towered and walled St. Gimignano, with many olives about it, seems a ghostly apparition in ...
— The Spirit of Rome • Vernon Lee
... While watching, as she wound up the long chain, for the appearance of the familiar mossy bucket, dripping diamonds, as it gleamed out of the dark well into the sudden sunlight, I heard the sound of horse's hoofs, and turned to see what kind of apparition would come. Presently it appeared, and made straight for the inn. The rider was Mr Coningham! I drew back to escape his notice, but his quick eye had caught sight of me, for he came into the room with ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... sight of the apparition, his face became livid, and a shade of terror flashed across his countenance. It was but an instant, though, that he stood thus, and calling to Moriarity to follow, he dashed through the door, drawing his ready revolver from his side coat-pocket at the same time, and catching a fleeting ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... and the gentlemen of his party, perceiving themselves brought to an unexpected stand, rode hastily forward, as if they would have pressed their snorting and affrighted horses right against the hoary apparition. He, however, blenched not a step, but glancing his severe eye round the group, which half encompassed him, at last bent it sternly on Sir Edmund Andros. One would have thought that the dark old man was chief ruler there, and that the Governor ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... called; and the skirts of his black coat fluttered out almost to the horse's tail. Such was the appearance of Ichabod and his steed, as they shambled out of the gate of Hans Van Ripper, and it was altogether such an apparition as is seldom to be met with in ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... two hundred and eighty-one. But the Confederates counted it a dear victory in the loss of the intrepid but silent Stonewall Jackson. There was a magic in his name that gave enthusiasm and confidence to the whole army. To the enemy his name was a terror and himself an apparition. He had frightened and beaten Banks out of the Shennandoah Valley, had routed Fremont, and so entangled and out-generaled Seigle that he was glad to put the Potomac between himself and this silent, mysterious, and indefatigable ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... misfortune's hour. "And yet more medicinal is it than that Moly, That Hermes once to wise Ulysses gave; He called it Haemony, and gave it me, And bade me keep it as of sovereign use 'Gainst all enchantment, mildew, blast, or damp, Or ghastly furies' apparition." Comus. ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... averse to cats in general, the unexpected apparition of this one in particular utterly confounded me. When I had a little recovered from the fascination of its glance, I started up; the cat fled, and emboldened by this, I rushed out of the house in pursuit; but it had disappeared. It was the only time I ever saw one in the valley, and how it ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... a mad yell, plunged wildly into the crowd. A dozen arms sought to hold him, but in vain. Julio saw the terrifying apparition hurtling down upon him. He turned and fled, but not before the great knife had caught him on its point as it swung down and ripped a deep gash the full length of his ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... hours the two men sat over the papers which Travers had brought. Now and again he lifted his head and glanced toward the doorway through which the strange apparition had disappeared, half expecting to see once more the white extended hand, half believing that he had been the victim of a delusion, a fantasy born of the mysterious veil with which the whole palace seemed shrouded. ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... man heaped the garbage of his mysteries, his doctrines, and his disputes, about the pristine purity of the structure given him by God, so, one by one, gaudy adornments and meretricious alterations arose to sully the once majestic basilica, until the threatening and reproving apparition of the pagan Julian, when both Church and churchmen received in their corrupt progress ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... flames. Then he hurried on through the streets, in his distress calling aloud the name of Creusa. Suddenly her figure started up before him, larger than when in life, for it was her spirit he saw. Appalled at the sight, Aeneas stood in silence gazing at the apparition ...
— Story of Aeneas • Michael Clarke
... hard and stiff forms of literal tradition. When Benvenuto Cellini was preparing to make an image of the Virgin, he declares gravely that Our Lady appeared to him that he might know what she was like; and so real was the apparition that for many months after, he says that his friends when the room was dark could see a faint aureole about his head. Yet Benvenuto worked as if his own brain was partly the author of what he produced, and, like other contemporary artists, used his mistresses for his models, and was ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... adoption, of this apparition from the arms of the most beautiful of the Oceanides (see above my opinion of what she should be), joined battle with the pirates, his vessel was sunk, and but two of all her crew escaped drowning—Arrius himself ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... school as a more than usually reserved and bashful ghost. This, to the master's cynical mind, clearly indicated that, like most ghosts, he had something of essentially selfish import to communicate. Catching the apparition's half-appealing eye, he proceeded to exorcise it with a portentous frown and shake of the head, that caused it to timidly wane and fall away from the porch, only however to reappear and wax larger a few minutes later at one ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... to his feet brought down the camp stool, cigar, easel and all, but not the foot, for the rest of the apparition was caught and hidden by the clustering young shoots ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... There's a postscript from Dr. Miller. He says, 'The girls were pretty excited when they wrote the above, and with excellent reason. Apparently this apparition appears fairly often. A number of townfolk have seen it. I don't know what you can do, unless your ingenuity can produce a super spook catcher, but you will enjoy tackling this problem. It is worthy ...
— The Blue Ghost Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... snow, an abrupt command to halt, and they found themselves surrounded by a dozen troopers. Prescott recognized the faded blue uniform and knew at once that he was in the midst of Yankee horsemen. The girl beside him gave one start at the sudden apparition and ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... agreeably surprised at an apparition he so little expected in his present calamity, replied, "Save my life, genie, a second time, either by shewing me to the place where the palace I caused to be built now stands, or immediately transporting it back where it first stood." "What you command me," ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... than his words, brought me to my senses. I opened one eye, then the other, and looked where he was pointing. The apparition, which had so frightened me, had stopped and was standing still in the road. At the sight of it again, I must confess, I began to shake, but I was with Vitalis and the dogs were beside me. I was not alone up there in the trees.... I looked up boldly and ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... with intolerant eyes at this impertinent apparition. The other looked back in a laughable parody of his senior's manner. As Ambrose had remarked after his inspection from the balcony, the two were very alike, save that the younger was smaller, finer cut, and the more nervously alive ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... entered a green alley which led to the foot of the terrace surrounding the house. As they walked along, Marston Brent's figure appeared at the end of the vista, advancing toward them, and it was this apparition which first made Clare speak: "If you will not think me fanciful—I am sure you will not think me presumptuous—promise me that before you give that man his answer you will share the lotos with me of which ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... sick-bed M, Villefort was continually haunted by an apparition—an apparition of a white face and white draperies, such as he had seen as he fell. Sometimes it was here, sometimes there, sometimes near him, and sometimes indistinct and far away. Sometimes he called out to it and tried to extend his arms; again he ...
— "Le Monsieur De La Petite Dame" • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the question to be decided instantly. They might be his own support. Doubtful and yet exceedingly apprehensive, he ordered his guns to be loaded with canister and trained upon this dubious force that had come into view like an apparition; but he still hesitated, restrained, doubtless, by the fearful thought of annihilating a ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... his slumber. Behind his couch the wall appears to open and discovers a brilliant apparition. Freedom, in a celestial garb, surrounded by a glory, reposes on a cloud. Her features are those of Clara and she inclines towards the sleeping hero. Her countenance betokens compassion, she seems to lament his fate. Quickly she recovers herself and with an encouraging gesture exhibits ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... boats were now afloat near each other. In the distance could be seen smoke in two directions, evidence that vessels were not far away. Then, almost like an apparition, from the east came two of the speedy little ships, which act like spit-fires and lie so low in the water that they are able to creep up unawares. They do not give forth any smoke to warn an enemy, or ...
— The Boy Volunteers with the Submarine Fleet • Kenneth Ward
... of the house. Irene stood not far off, talking to the Governor of the state, who chanced to be on a brief visit to W——, and quite near her, Judge Harris and her father were in earnest conversation. Astonished at the sudden apparition, her eyes followed him as he bowed to the member of the central group; and as she heard the deep, rich voice above the buzz of small talk she waited to see if he would notice her. Soon Governor G—— gave her his arm for a promenade, and ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... them, struggling with emotion that caused his manly frame to vibrate from head to foot, while his dilated eyes appeared spellbound by some familiar apparition which they hardly ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... allusions in Lycidas need no explaining to readers of poetry. The geography is that of the western coasts from furthest north to Cornwall. Deva is the Dee; "the great vision" means the apparition of the Archangel, St. Michael, at St. Michael's Mount; Namancos and Bayona face the mount from the continental coast; Bellerus stands for ...
— Flower of the Mind • Alice Meynell
... church as a tangle of error, was nevertheless much struck with the story. He had long been seeking for a perfect religion, and he wondered whether these people had not found it. Here in this city of Damascus, where Our Lord had appeared to St. Paul, a similar apparition had again been seen—this time by a company of earnest seekers after truth. He determined to investigate. So disguised as a Shazli, he attended their meetings and listened while Forner imparted the principal dogmas of the Catholic faith. His common sense soon ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... the body to the bush, and threw it into the lagoon. I do not recollect whether Butler told us if the real object of the murder transpired, but the murderer turned out to be a ticket-of-leave convict well known to the police. The peculiarity of the story lay in the fact that the apparition of Jones twice appearing to his friend, and on one occasion to a stranger also, was sworn to ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... help came in an unexpected form. The tent flap was pushed back and at the doctor's side stood an apparition that checked the Indians' advance and stilled their cries. It was the Indian boy, clad in a white night robe of Mandy's providing, his rifle in his hand, his face ghastly in the moonlight and his eyes burning like flames ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... difficulty, however, in Hamlet's case, is that he only appears before us as a person acting in an abnormal mental condition. The mysterious death of his father, the suspicion of his mother's complicity in crime, which takes the form of an apparition from beyond the grave, is too much of a strain for his tender and impressible nature. His mental condition has become well known to physicians as cerebral hyperaemia, and all his strange speeches and eccentric actions are to be ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... agreeable to the persons we found there. A half-clothed, red-haired Irish servant was upon her knees, kindling up the fire; and a long, thin woman, with a sharp face, and an eye like a black snake, was just emerging from a bed in the corner. We soon discovered this apparition to be ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... voice—at that apparition, the bride halted; so suddenly indeed, that she had not time to put down both feet, but remained with one high in the air, while the other sustained itself on the light fantastic toe. The company naturally imagined this to be an operatic flourish, which called for approbation. ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... standing under the hall burners with her elbow on the newel-post, looking more vividly charming than he had ever seen her before at Mrs. Cramcroud's sociable or elsewhere. When startled by the apparition of Mr. Daniel Lovegrove instead of the little Rumbullion whom she was expecting,—she had no time to exclaim or hide her mounting color, none at all to explain to her own mind the mistake that had occurred, before his arm was clasped around her waist, and his lips so closely pressed to hers, ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... a giant lamp of a strange shape, standing up to the height of four or five feet from the floor, on a pedestal; and behind it stood the Genie, a fearful and wonderful apparition who said things, in a deep bass voice, which made everybody shout with laughter. "It's Fred Kane, the great Funny ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... contemplating morals in the great scale, do not fritter down their intellects by a base attention to minute details. So that if a descendant of Langfanger did sometimes cross the venerable Scot in his visit to the Mug, the apparition did not revolt that benevolent moralist so much as, were it not for the above hint, thy ignorance might lead thee ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of all composure at the apparition of the sleeping lady. He spoke eagerly to the Abenaquais in their own tongue, which was unintelligible to the Hurons. When he had listened to a few words of their explanation, he ran hastily to the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... expedition, returned to Athens, and recovered the government. But in succeeding ages, beside several other circumstances that moved the Athenians to honor Theseus as a demigod, in the battle which was fought at Marathon against the Medes, many of the soldiers believed they saw an apparition of Theseus in arms, rushing on at the head of them against the barbarians. And after the Median war, Phaedo being archon of Athens, the Athenians, consulting the oracle at Delphi, were commanded to gather together the bones of Theseus, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... miserable linen-covered wagon, crouching far in the corner, sat Wilhelmine Enke, the rival of the princess; near her, her two children, whose existence condemned her, and stamped her life with dishonor. Like a dream the brilliant apparition rushed past Wilhelmine, and it haunted her through the long streets, to the humble home where she sought a temporary refuge. And when finally alone, in her own room, where no one could spy into her face, nor understand ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... to the haberfeldtreiben of the Bavarian peasants,—an institution got up for the purpose of frightening the women and children, and keeping them in order. While the ordinary dances are going on, there suddenly stalks forth "an ugly apparition in the shape of a man, wearing a feather mantle on his back, reaching from the arm-pits down to the mid-thighs, zebra-painted on his breast and legs with black stripes, bear-skin shako on his head, and his arms stretched out at full length along a staff passing behind ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... magpies, did not see that it was already occupied. When he was not more than ten feet away, I snatched off my sun hat and waved it before him, not wishing to make a noise. He stopped instantly, stared wildly for a moment, as if he had never seen such an apparition, then wheeled with a snort, flung out his heels in disrespect, and galloped off ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... this unexpected apparition the detective entered the room, closed the door carefully, and putting his back to it ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... one of a terribly tragic nature, relates to Samlesbury Hall, which stands about midway between Preston and Blackburn, and has long been famous for its apparition of "The Lady in White." The story generally told is that one of the daughters of Sir John Southworth, a former owner, formed an attachment with the heir of a neighbouring house, and nothing was wanting to complete their happiness except the ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... of mounted men. We could hardly believe our eyes, or comprehend at first that what we had seen was simply a mirage, but so like reality that anyone must have been deceived. Our relief, on becoming convinced that we had been scared by a phantom enemy, was considerable; but the apparition had the good effect of making us realize the folly of having allowed ourselves to be tempted so far away from our camp without escort of any kind in an enemy's country, and we determined not to risk ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... sigh, at once ran down into the street and vanished, to the great astonishment of the waiter, who explained that 'that lady had been for over an hour waiting for the return of the foreign gentleman.' Momentary as was the apparition, Sanin recognised Gemma. He recognised her eyes under the thick ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... a moment upon the meaning of this sudden apparition and gift, and then hurried home, his heart beating high with hope, and gave the apple to his wife to eat. In due season, to his intense joy, she bore him a son, Volsung, the great Northern hero, who became so famous that he gave his name to all ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... had been kneeling on the floor, after his first look of dull curiosity, began to stare fixedly at Perez, as if he were an apparition, and then rose to his feet. As he did so, Perez saw that he could not be Fennell, for the latter was tall, and this man was quite short. Yes, the reclining man must be George, and now he noted as an unmistakable confirmation, a scar on one of the ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... the midst of those new views of human wretchedness which his own sufferings have occasioned, and while those desires to remedy it, with which his penitence is accompanied, are still on his lip, by this wild apparition and embodiment of his thought, in that new accession of his mental disorder, which the presence of this object seems to occasion, that confounding of proximate conceptions, which leads him to regard this man as a source of new light on human affairs, is one of those exquisite physiological ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... little squeak, indicating that the snake had killed, and was about to eat, his prey. One of the snakes came out one day in front of my window, and hung down two or three feet from the roof. If I had not been previously assured that he was perfectly harmless, it would have been rather an alarming apparition in the dark, and, even as it was, I must confess that for a moment I did feel rather frightened as I watched him spying about, darting his forked tongue in and out, and looking quite ready for a spring at ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... shrill, solitary whistler executing the threadbare airs of the opera, or 'Life on the Ocean Wave.' The door opens without noise. I lift up my nodding head and see Dr. BARTOLO, his hat like a miller's, and his whiskers fringed with white. With tread soft as a mouse or an apparition, he illumes his candle, turns on his heel, and says in a whisper very appropriate to the time, the place, and the fact conveyed: 'It snows!' Such is the only intimation to break the magic and the mystery of the early morning, unless it be ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... rocky coast that shot behind them as great jagged mountains, tipped with snow, rose beneath. Suddenly, a shining apparition appeared from behind one of the neighboring hills, and drove down at them with an unearthly acceleration. Arcot moved just enough to dodge the blow, and turned to meet the ship. Instantly, now that he had a good view of it he was certain it was ...
— Invaders from the Infinite • John Wood Campbell
... from the state of base sensual signs, ministering only to a sensual servitude, into the state of great ideas—mysterious as spirituality is mysterious, and permanent as truth is permanent. Thus it is, and therefore it is, that Paradise has vanished; Luz is gone; Jacob's ladder is found only as an apparition in the clouds; the true cross survives no more among the Roman Catholics than the true ark is mouldering upon Ararat; no scholar can lay his hand upon Gethsemane; and for the grave of Moses the son ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... had been led well out of sight of the entrance of the pipe. The fowler then stepping forward in front of the screen, without making any noise which might frighten the birds still outside, waved his cap round and round. Frightened by this unexpected apparition, the birds rose from the water, and rushed at headlong speed towards the narrow end of the pipe. On they went, driven by the fowler, till they reached the very end; where, finding what they supposed to be an opening, they darted through, to discover, when too late, that ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... pencil-sketch of the Napoleon head in his note-book, and stated that the apparition could be seen opposite the castle of Beauchastel; but in later years his treacherous memory betrayed him, and, forgetting these identifying marks, he told of it as lying a few hours above Arles, and named it the "Lost Napoleon," because those who set out to find it did not ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... toward the fire, and offered it to her. This charming apparition of his cordial hostess at La Thuiliere evoked the one pleasant remembrance in his mind since his arrival in Vivey. It shot, like a ray of sunlight, across the heavy fog of despair which had enveloped the new master of the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... to Franklin and his apparition, there was a schoolboy joke to this effect: that whenever the statue of Franklin over the Library door heard the clock strike twelve at night, it descended, went to the old Jefferson Wigwam, and ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... Mr. Halsey was not, certainly! "If it be I, as I hope it may be, I've a little dog at home who will surely know me," I kept repeating. I resolved to test the little dog's sagacity, so I pretended to know this apparition, and thanked him for the pleasure he had afforded me by sending me "Kate Coventry." He looked conscious and pleased! The "little dog" had found out his identity! I was more puzzled than ever. How account for this wondrous change?... But metamorphosed "John" talked! He was expatiating ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... light flooded down, and Garry Connell glanced quickly at the doorway. Too many of these blacks and this would be no safe place for him. He was expecting another apparition like the first; he would have thought himself prepared against any further surprise, but his gray eyes opened wide at what ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... who without any expectation or apprehension of it saw this apparition coming down upon him, had no other way of saving himself from the stroke of the lance but to let himself fall off his ass; and no sooner had he touched the ground than he sprang up more nimbly than a deer and sped away across the plain faster than ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... resurrection. This is no ordinary child, either, that she holds, for He sees beyond this world into eternity and that His is no common destiny;—at least, one feels these things as we gaze at the lovely apparition on its background of clouds and innumerable angel heads. St. Sixtus on one side would know more of this mystery, while St. Barbara on the other is dazzled by the vision and turns aside her lovely face. Below are the two cherubs, ...
— Great Artists, Vol 1. - Raphael, Rubens, Murillo, and Durer • Jennie Ellis Keysor
... streamed through the western window across the front of the platform where she stood and transfigured her slight but noble figure. The hush that had fallen upon the Hall was as much the effect of that tranquil, ideal presence as of the message with which it was charged. And yet that apparition was as inconsistent with the clear, searching light which helped to set it off, as it was with the broad new blazonry of decoration, the yet unsullied record of the white walls, or even the frank, animated and pretty faces that looked ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... his devotions, the worthy muleteer was transported with fury. Seizing an arquebuse, he instantly closed his eyes and fired. When he had recovered from the effects of the terrible discharge, the apparition had disappeared. Father Jose, awakened by the report, reached the spot only in time to chide the muleteer for wasting powder and ball in a contest with one whom a single ave would have been sufficient to utterly discomfit. What further reliance he placed on Ignacio's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... her excitement, that away in the farther corner of the ruined courtyard she saw a slowly moving form like a thin column of mist. Was it the Lady of Glencardine—the apparition of the hapless Lady Jane Glencardine? But on closer inspection she decided that it was merely due to her own distorted imagination, and dismissed it ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... was again on the road to St. Affrique before the heat of the day had passed. Another toilsome trudge, during which I met an English threshing-machine being dragged along by bullocks, and the familiar words upon it made me feel for awhile quite at home. The apparition, however, gave me a shock, for the antique flail is still the instrument commonly used for threshing in the southern ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... moment of his entrance, every eye had been turned upon this strange apparition, while an almost instinctive sense of the cause of his presence pervaded every breast. Indeed it was impossible to behold him arrayed in the bivouac garb in which we have described him, contrasted as it was with the elegant ball dresses of his brother officers, and ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... An empty slow sea swells towards us— At first it was only like a weary Moth, which crawled over the last houses. Now it is a black bleeding hole. It has already buried the city and half the sky. Ah, had I flown— Now it is too late. My head falls into Desolate hands. On the horizon an apparition like a shriek Announces Terror and ...
— The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... for things were not quite so bad as the apparition of the wagons had led us to anticipate. The saloon, on the threshold of which we stood, contained of living creatures only one man, somewhat passed the middle of life, who seemed to be in the act of making his toilette; an old ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... the no less sinister-visaged sentinel who stealthily watched her movements, and between both of whom a sort of ominous correspondence seemed to be carried on by signals, she had latterly seen no one, but at rare intervals the hated and dreaded apparition of Le Prun at a distance, and Blassemare ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... ancestor of everything that bears feathers or scales. He represents the element of water, the waters of the earth, the mists of the air, the heavenly principle. He is seen breaking through the clouds like some monstrous apparition, unveiling for an instant the greatness of a mystery barely discerned. The tiger is the symbol of the earthly principle, a personification of quadrupeds as distinct from birds and reptiles. His ferocious form ...
— Chinese Painters - A Critical Study • Raphael Petrucci
... in which I slept I found this ring," said Edward, while he produced it; "and the apparition of my friend ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... composedly, and looked down at the glove which lay where I had thrown it, upon the polished floor. Mechanically I stooped and took up a bit of folded paper. It was written upon,—I unrolled it, and read. It was as if I had opened the record of doom! Had the apparition of Margaret herself risen suddenly before me, I could not have been more astounded. It was a note from her,—and such a note!—full of love, suffering, and humility,—poured out of a heart so deep and tender and true, that the shallowness ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... lid of my lowered eyelid like a cool shadow over hot sand. A sergent had just made many of the people move away, so there remained only a thin ring of the laughing pantaloons about me, when this divine skirt presented its apparition to me. A pair of North-American trousers accompanied it, turned up to show the ankle-bones of a rich pair of stockings; neat, enthusiastic and humorous, I judged them to be; for, as one may discover, my only amusement during my martyrdom—if this misery can be said to possess such ...
— The Beautiful Lady • Booth Tarkington
... found Elizabeth-Jane again in the churchyard, but while looking for the lady she was startled by the apparition of Farfrae, who passed outside the gate. He glanced up for a moment from a pocket-book in which he appeared to be making figures as he went; whether or not he saw her he ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... rain and wind, who goes forth in a tempest to seek his prey; for he was haggard with long fasting, and sore disfigured by his battle with the sea; his eyes glared with famine, and his hair and beard hung ragged and unkempt about his face. At this fearful apparition the maidens fled shrieking along the river bank, all but Nausicaae, who stood her ground, and gazed fearlessly, though in wonder, while Odysseus came slowly forward. When he was still some way off he stopped, fearing to offend her ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... and pulling at his feet, he concluded to sell it for twenty crowns to a Berlin amateur. Since he had been rid of this dismal neighbor, he had slept a great deal better, but not entirely well yet; for it had been impossible for him to forget the apparition of ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... that Bonaparte was the one impressive figure. With his lean face and sharp Greek profile, his long, lank, unpowdered locks, his simple uniform, and awkward seat in the saddle, he looked like a new human type, neither angel nor devil but an inscrutable apparition from another sphere. To officers and men the voluptuous city extended wide its arms, and the shabby soldiery were incongruous figures where their entertainers were elegant and fastidious beyond what the guests had dreamed. With stern impartiality the liberator repressed all excess ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... Books, a narrative of the Roman wars in Germany; begun by Pliny when serving in that country, the apparition of Drusus having besought him to rescue his name from oblivion (so Pliny the younger). Cf. Tac. Ann. i. 69, 'Tradit C. Plinius, Germanicorum ...
— The Student's Companion to Latin Authors • George Middleton
... a mighty arch appeared, rising above the Lyskamm high into the sky. Pale, colorless and noiseless, but perfectly sharp and defined, except where it was lost in the clouds, this unearthly apparition seemed like a vision from another world, and almost appalled we watched with amazement the gradual development of two vast crosses, one on either side. If the Taugwalders had not been the first to perceive it, I should have doubted my senses. They thought it had some connection with the accident, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... tell where his ambition or his resources would end, how his inventive genius would employ the rivalry of the invaders, what uses he would devise for the Emperor and the Turk. The era of petty tyranny was closed by the apparition of one superior national tyrant, who could be no worse than twenty, for though his crimes would be as theirs, they would not be useless to the nation, but were thoughtfully designed and executed for the sake of power, the accepted object of politics ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... ate till we could eat no longer; and then, happening to see two or three men passing along, we threw some over the fence to them. They, in return, threw us some pennies; and, delighted with the success of our frolic, we continued to throw and receive, until startled by a most unwelcome apparition. There, at the foot of the tree, stood Mammy—her face expressing the utmost astonishment and indignation, and her hands extended to seize us. She had watched our manoeuvres from one of the windows, and astonishment at our boldness and ingenuity kept her for sometime a silent spectator. ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... called with loud cries for their champion, and opened their ranks that he might pass to the front. He did so, and, advancing before his red companions in arms, stood revealed to the gaze of the Iroquois, who, beholding the warlike apparition in their path, stared in mute amazement. "I looked at them," says Champlain, "and they looked at me. When I saw them getting ready to shoot their arrows at us, I leveled my arquebus, which I had loaded ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... violinist retired to a Swiss monastery for rest and practice amid peaceful surroundings, rumor had it that he was imprisoned for some dark deed. To crown the delusion, his spectre was long supposed to stalk abroad, giving fantastic performances on the violin. It is his apparition Gilbert Parker conjures up ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... by a sudden crash in the bushes. It seemed to come from the opposite incline, directly in a line with her, and apparently on the very trail that she was pursuing. The crash was then repeated again and again lower down, as of a descending body. Expecting the apparition of some fallen tree, or detached boulder bursting through the thicket, in its way to the bottom of the gulch, she waited. The foliage was suddenly brushed aside, and a large grizzly bear half rolled, half waddled, into the trail on the opposite side of the hill. ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... Valence, who had been for three months completely blind from an attack of gutta-serena, arrived at La Salette on the first of July, in company with some sisters of the community. The extreme fatigue which she had undergone in order to reach the summit of the mountain, at the place of the apparition, caused some anxiety to be felt that she could not remain fasting until the conclusion of the mass, which had not yet commenced, and the Abbe Sibilla, one of the missionaries of La Salette, was requested to administer the sacrament to her before the service began. ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... to take me there with them. Their box was engaged. We arrived as the curtain was going up. As I took my seat I noticed a certain stir in the orchestra and pit. The majority of glances were directed at my box, in which my apparition had attracted curiosity. I carried my fan to my face, under the pretext of the excessive glow of the lights. Immediately several voices were to be heard: "Take away the fan, if you please." The young and ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Johnny anyway, looks as pale as a codfish and as solemn as a boiled owl. You do collect an odd set of friends; there's that man Foster, who seems to be deaf and dumb, and Murray, who gives me the blues whenever I see him, and then this apparition." ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... was in the middle of the room when they caught sight of her, and they both screamed and covered their faces with their hands. So great was her terror that she almost fainted; then in a few moments when they looked the apparition had vanished. As to the habit she was wearing, neither of them could say afterwards what it was like: only the white, still face remained fixed in their memory, but the figure was a dark one, like a dark shadow ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson
... have an original relation to the universe? Why should we grope among the dry bones of the past, or put the living generation into masquerade out of its faded wardrobe? Let us interrogate the great apparition that shines so peacefully around us. Let us inquire to ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... is Lord Darcey!—He loves me not, yet fain would persuade me that he does.—When I went yesterday morning to the Abbey, I met him in my way to Lady Powis's dressing-room.—Starting as if he had seen an apparition, and with a look which express'd great importance, he said, taking my hand, Oh! Miss Warley, I have had the most dreadful night!—but I hope you have ...
— Barford Abbey • Susannah Minific Gunning
... bathing, had to cross, in puris naturalibus, not undetected, though covered in his retreat by the clever Italian handmaiden, through a luncheon party assembled in the dining-room. The horror of the ladies at the poet's unexpected apparition and his innocent self-defence are well described by Trelawny. Life in the villa was of the simplest description. To get food was no easy matter; and the style of the furniture may be guessed by Trelawny's laconic remark that the sea was his ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... aft, like men walking in a dream; but between the rings of broad shoulders they soon lost sight of her. All they could see was the Norman's dark face, as he stepped upon a bench and silently watched the approaching apparition. ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... The unexpected apparition of a tiger just escaped from his cage would not have terrified her so. There was no escape from him. They ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... voice was ringing clear above the multitudinous music of the orchestra; but Mangan, not wishing to be in the way, did not linger in the wings—he made straight for his friend's room, which he knew. And in the dusk of the long corridor he was fortunate enough to behold a beautiful apparition, in the person of a young French officer in the gayest of uniforms, who, apparently to maintain the character he bore in the piece (it was that of a young prisoner of war liberated on parole, who played sad havoc with the hearts of the village maidens by reason of his ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... castle was troubled by a strange apparition—no other than the spectre of the serpent knight, who had been drowned some time previously. It was reported that every night the ghost entered the castle by the little water-gate, though it was kept barred and bolted, traversed the whole length of the corridor, and sunk ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... considered the appropriate undress of a devil, completed this by a paper tail, and the ugliest face he could make, and rushed into the drawing-room, where the old lady and his mother were drinking tea. He was snatched up and carried away before he had had time to judge the effect of his apparition; but he did not think, looking back upon the circumstances in later life, that Aunt Betsy had deserved quite so ill of her fellow-creatures as ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... whom nothing can hold back from their errands of mercy. They find out the red-handed, gloveless undergraduate of bucolic antecedents, as he squirms in his corner, and distill their soft words upon him like dew upon the green herb. They reach even the poor relation, whose dreary apparition saddens the perfumed atmosphere of the sumptuous drawing-room. I have known one of these angels ask, of her own accord, that a desolate middle-aged man, whom nobody seemed to know, should be presented to her by the hostess. He wore no shirt-collar,—he ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... to his feet, and would have warded off the apparition with his hands, only they were laced in steel behind him, then, with a deep groan of terror, pitched forward upon his ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... the house opened to give passage to a gracious apparition—Josephine. Wrapped in a kimona of bright silk and smiling at the fine morning, the young woman came slowly down the steps and then stopped short, blushing. Some one came to ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain
... he looked into the black night, a face passed the window, as of someone walking along the footboard to the engine; a stern-set face, as of one going to certain danger and needing all the pluck he possessed to carry him through: and at the apparition the traveller fairly shrieked aloud; but the face passed on and ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... startling than a ladder is to a builder. And, as his mother had taught him to speak English, and he had on that account been employed to communicate with such strangers as had now and then come to the island during Macdonald's absence, he was little embarrassed by the apparition of the lady. He was chiefly occupied with his pouchful of eggs, there being more than he had expected to find so late in the season. It was all very well, he said, for their provision to-day; but it was a sign that somebody knew this cove as well as themselves, ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... reported signs and prodigies not to be neglected; one of which is stated to have occurred as follows: Titus Latinus, a man of ordinary condition, but of a quiet and virtuous character, free from all superstitious fancies, and yet more from vanity and exaggeration, had an apparition in his sleep, as if Jupiter came and bade him tell the senate, that it was with a bad and unacceptable dancer that they had headed his procession. Having beheld the vision, he said, he did not much attend to it at the first appearance; but ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... about to depart, when another old woman, very plainly dressed, but fat, comfortable, and with a cheerful twinkle in her eyes, came in through the arch, and looked curiously at me. This repeated apparition of the gentle sex (though by no means under its loveliest guise) had still an agreeable effect in modifying my ideas of an institution which I had supposed to be of a stern and monastic character. She asked whether I wished to see the hospital, and ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... their shoulders, this man held against his breast as though it were a musket, a heavy whip, the lash of which was closely braided and seemed to be twice as long as that of an ordinary whip. The sudden apparition of this strange being seemed easily explained. At first sight some of the officers took him for a recruit or conscript (the words were used indiscriminately) who had outstripped the column. But the commandant himself was singularly surprised by the man's presence; ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... house, hitherto free from their ravages, denotes approaching mortality among its inhabitants. A mouse running over a person is considered to be an infallible sign of death, as is also the squeaking of one behind the bed of an invalid, or the appearance or apparition of a white mouse running across the room. To meet with a shrew-mouse, in going a journey, is reckoned ominous of evil. The country people have an idea that the harvest-mouse is unable to cross a path which has been trod by man. Whenever ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 41, Saturday, August 10, 1850 • Various
... I'll be a millionaire," he said defiantly. "I'll own race horses and yachts and boxes at the opera and I'll marry—" Here he hesitated and the figure of Lillian Russell somehow became confused with a new apparition. Something that was and was not Miss Virginia Dabtree, but most certainly wore silver stockings, which it would be his duty and privilege to protect. "Well, anyhow, she'll drive a four-in-hand and wear pearls for breakfast," he concluded, and, whistling, he went down to dream out the ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... led to the less frequent use of the word ghost, which was previously the general word for spirit. When spirit came to be generally used, ghost came to have the special meaning which it has for us now—that of the apparition of a ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill
... inhospitably yelped and snapped at the stranger's heels. Then a hoarse voice said, "Don't you know me, Oliver? I am your brother Randal! Call away your dog and let me in." Oliver stared aghast; he could not believe his slow senses, he could not recognize his brother in the gaunt grim apparition before him; but at length he came forward, gazed into Randal's face, and, grasping his hand in amazed silence, led him into the little parlour. Not a trace of the well-bred refinement which had once characterized Randal's air and person was visible. ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... friend or mistress, and suddenly discover that I have been deceived, I can only describe the effect produced on me by comparing it to the clasp of that marble hand. It is the actual impression of marble, it is as if a man of stone had embraced me. Alas! this horrible apparition has knocked more than once at my door; more than once we have ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... or two afterwards the door was thrown open and there stood on the threshold the most amazing apparition that ever sought admittance into a gentleman's library; an apparition, however, very familiar during these days to English eyes. From the shapeless Tam-o'-Shanter to the huge boots it was caked in ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... motor gave a groan and stopped. As its heart ceased to beat, I was astounded by the apparition of a ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... country, consisting of as many heavy infantry as the points menaced seemed to require, and generally stood very much upon the defensive. After the severe and unexpected blow that had befallen them in the island, the occupation of Pylos and Cythera, and the apparition on every side of a war whose rapidity defied precaution, they lived in constant fear of internal revolution, and now took the unusual step of raising four hundred horse and a force of archers, and became more timid than ever in military matters, finding ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... apparition quite disarranged the plans of the hunters. At sight of the mighty elephant, they scarce any longer gave a thought to the kobaoba. Not that they had formed any very great hopes of being able to kill the gigantic animal, yet some such thought was running through their minds. They ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... gaping. Everything, from moment to moment, fed his curiosity; such a question, for instance, as whether the quite ordinary peepers of the Newton Winch of their earlier youth could have looked, under any provocation, either dark or wide; such a question, above all, as how this incalculable apparition came by the whole startling power of play of its extravagantly sensitive labial connections—exposed, so to its advantage (he now jumped at one explanation) by the removal of what had probably been one of the vulgar-est of moustaches. With this, at the same time, ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... came up into the lagoon armed and manned to make more impressive the solemn fact of a concluded alliance. A staring crowd watched his imposing departure in profound silence and with an increased sense of wonder at the mystery of his apparition. The progress of the boats was smooth and slow while they crossed the wide lagoon. Lingard looked back once. A great stillness had laid its hand over the earth, the sky, and the men; upon the immobility of landscape and people. Hassim and Immada, standing out clearly by the ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... dimness like a colossal blacksmith's anvil. It might have been Vulcan's own forge, so strange and fabulous a thing it seemed! The boy's heart leaped with his pony's leap. His imagination spread its swift wings ere he could think; but in another instant he reminded himself. This was not an awful apparition, but a real thing, wondrous and unaccountable enough in its reality. It was Anvil Rock—a great, solitary rock—rising abruptly from the reckless loam of a level country, and lifting its single peak, rudely shaped ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... inexperience of both, and how little entitled or disposed she felt herself to complain of his behavior." "Shelley and his girl-wife visited Windermere," we think are the words of De Quincey in alluding to their sudden apparition in the Lake district just after their union. And two more discordant natures could hardly have ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... of life and particular modes of conversation. The pretended madness of Hamlet causes much mirth, the mournful distraction of Ophelia fills the heart with tenderness, and every personage produces the effect intended, from the apparition that, in the first act, chills the blood with horrour, to the fop, in the last, that exposes affectation ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... the fearful Felix seemed hours, when, whom should he see but the man whom of all the world he dreaded most. It was Holden, bounding along with strides which showed that the habits of his forest-life were not forgotten. At any other time the apparition of the Solitary would have imparted anything but pleasure, but now it was as welcome as a spar to a shipwrecked sailor. Holden advanced straight to the carriage, but before he could ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... into execution. I merely had the armoury, generally kept jealously closed, opened, and with a severe look I pointed to it with one hand, whilst with the other I motioned the savages to the canoes. The sudden apparition of twenty shining muskets, the powers of which they understood, made them tremble, and relieved us of ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... orient in yon Western Cloud that draws O're the blew Firmament a radiant white, And slow descends, with somthing heav'nly fraught. He err'd not, for by this the heav'nly Bands Down from a Skie of Jasper lighted now In Paradise, and on a Hill made alt, 210 A glorious Apparition, had not doubt And carnal fear that day dimm'd Adams eye. Not that more glorious, when the Angels met Jacob in Mahanaim, where he saw The field Pavilion'd with his Guardians bright; Nor that which on the flaming Mount appeerd In ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... look so remarkably calm and composed as she sat on the corn bin that I could not deny myself the pleasure of surprising her with the sudden apparition of the Cardinal's Necklace. Without a word, I took the case out of my pocket, opened it, and held it out toward her. For once the duchess sat stock-still, her eyes ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... scarce finished his speech when a sudden and graceful apparition glided into the saloon. It was his daughter, the ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... or southward, Mrs. Peggotty will never allow the front door to be opened. As these quarters of the wind comprehend a considerable stretch of possible weather, the consequence is that the visitor approaching the house in the usual manner is on eight days out of ten disturbed by the apparition of Peggotty at the little look-out window, violently, and to the stranger, mysteriously, beckoning him away to the northward, apparently in the direction ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... grasped his friend's thin and emaciated hand; and, the last farewell spoken to the fanatic departing for some tragical adventure, the Hungarian became more sombre and troubled than before, and Labanoff's appearance seemed like a doubtful apparition. He returned to his longing to see the end of the most anxious day of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... that those about her recollected what I have now related, and concluded that it was no delirium, but one of those revelations made by God to great and illustrious persons. Ancient history furnishes many examples of the like kind amongst the pagans, as the apparition of Brutus and many others, which I shall not mention, it not being my intention to illustrate these Memoirs with such narratives, but only to relate the truth, and that with as much expedition as I am able, that you may be the sooner in possession ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... comprehension. Two ravens at this moment make sudden interruption, flying out of a tree and wheeling above Siegfried's head. He starts up, in natural interest at the apparition of Wotan's messengers. "Can you understand, too, the croaking of these ravens?" sneers Hagen. Siegfried, looking after the black birds as they bend their flight Rhine-wards, turns his back to the questioner. "They bid me take ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... readily granted. Escorted by his friendly hosts, he advanced beyond the foot of Muskrat Lake, and, landing, saw the unaccustomed sight of pathways through the forest. They led to the clearings and cabins of a chief named Tessonat, who, amazed at the apparition of the white strangers, exclaimed that he must be in a dream. Next, the voyagers crossed to the neighboring island, then deeply wooded with pine, elm, and oak. Here were more desolate clearings, more rude cornfields and bark-built cabins. Here, too, was a cemetery, which excited the wonder ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... dim blue lake, the vast tremulous outlines of the mirage still confronted him in their unearthly beauty, and the "cloud-capped towers and gorgeous palaces" seemed, by their mysterious solemnity, to rebuke the doubt which would ascribe them to a dream. The bright apparition faded, glowed, and faded again into indistinctness, and from its ruins rose two colossal pillars sculptured from rose quartz, which gradually united their capitals and formed a titanic arch like the grand portal ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... the only one to whom the words were intelligible, and he was far too deeply impressed, or rather alarmed, to reply. She did not faint, and soon began to recover her self-command. Owen took advantage of the hindrance to step back to where the apparition had been seen. He was enraged with Springrove for what he ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... to the eleven disciples in the upper room, after night had fallen, he lays stress upon the fact that Jesus appeared in bodily form. When the disciples saw him they thought that they did see a mere specter, an apparition, a spirit, just as many persons have thought, even to the present day; but to forever dispel such a false impression, Jesus, by every possible appeal to the senses, made it evident that he possessed not an "immaterial," or "spiritual," or "celestial" body, but the identical body of flesh and blood ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... barrack, the brave sailor, who was on the lookout, sprang suddenly from his hiding place, and threw himself before the Emperor, holding out his petition in the attitude of a fencing-master defending himself. The Emperor's horse, startled by this sudden apparition, stopped short; and his Majesty, taken by surprise, gave the sailor a disapproving glance, and passed on without taking the petition which was offered him in ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... a crash. There was the sudden apparition of the demoniac face, still half hidden by the long trailing black locks of hair that curled like Medusa's around it. A cry of terror filled the room. Three of the men dashed from the door and fled precipitately. The man who had spoken sprang toward his rifle in the chimney ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... man which were glaring at him out of a small slit in the sacking which completely covered him. A pair of dirty earth-stained hands gently laid down a rifle on the fire-step—a rifle with a telescopic sight. Then from the apparition came a voice. ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... him now, his hand never out of his pocket relieving the shrill cries of Irish distress. There she stands, a poverty-stricken virago at his door, shaking her bony fist at him, Celtic porter in her eye, the most fearful apparition in history, his charwoman, shaming him before the neighbours and demanding payment for long past spring cleanings that he, good soul, has forgotten all about or is quite certain were settled at the time. Yes, ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement
... and to his mind the apparition seemed magical, and Frank prophetic; for as the figure came nearer, incredulous as he tried to be, there was no denying that the shape and the walk were exactly those of her, to find whom they had crossed the Atlantic. True, the figure was somewhat taller; ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... another class of apparition, of which I have met with two instances, one among pure Negroes (Okyon); the other among pure Bantu (Kangwe). I will give the Bantu version of the affair, because at Okyon the incident had happened a good time before ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... helping to shape modern journalism and modern every-day English style was large; but the achievement which has given him world-wide fame came late in life. In 1706 he had written a masterly short story, 'The Apparition of Mrs. Veal.' Its real purpose, characteristically enough, was the concealed one of promoting the sale of an unsuccessful religious book, but its literary importance lies first in the extraordinarily convincing mass of minute details which it casts about an incredible incident ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... whom a wire had been sent from the house of the snake charmer, had appeared like an apparition out of ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter
... monument to himself should also pass! What if the name of Wingfield, his name, should no longer float twelve stories high over his building! He foresaw the promise of companionship of a restless and ghastly apparition in the future. ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... day Mrs. Jones, the wife of a neighbouring clergyman, came into Olney to shop, and with her came her sister, Lady Austen, the widow of a Baronet, a woman of the world, who had lived much in France, gay, sparkling and vivacious, but at the same time full of feeling even to overflowing. The apparition acted like magic on the recluse. He desired Mrs. Unwin to ask the two ladies to stay to tea, then shrank from joining the party which he had himself invited, ended by joining it, and, his shyness giving way with a rush, engaged in ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... that the impassioned nobleman should not enjoy undisturbed the bibliographical trifle obtained so cheaply and which he carried under his arm, nor that feeling so thoroughly Roman; a sudden apparition surprised him at the corner of a street, at an angle of the sidewalk. His bright eyes lost their serenity when a carriage passed by him, a carriage, perfectly appointed, drawn by two black horses, and in which, notwithstanding the early hour, sat two ladies. The one ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... reasons for being dismayed at this apparition; too well I remembered the perfidious hints given by Mrs. Reed about my disposition, &c.; the promise pledged by Mr. Brocklehurst to apprise Miss Temple and the teachers of my vicious nature. All along I had been dreading the fulfilment of this promise,—I ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... whirring dark-gray spot appeared: an airman made his way above the Grand Canal, passed above the Chateau, and disappeared. They had sat down on a bench, the better to crane their heads to watch him out of sight. Sylvia was penetrated with the strangeness of that apparition in that spot and thrilled out: "Isn't it wonderful! Isn't ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... moderate estimate of flight, and whilst, probably, it is often much less, it is sometimes much more. Their height of flight has been variously estimated at from forty to two hundred feet. "A dropping from the clouds" is a common expression used by observers when describing the apparition ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... straight upon us through the stained-glass windows of the apse. As I did not let go of the cloak, the shadow turned round; and I saw a terrible death's head, which darted a look at me from a pair of scorching eyes. I felt as if I were face to face with Satan; and, in the presence of this unearthly apparition, my heart gave way, my courage failed me ... and I remember nothing more until I recovered consciousness at ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... only, I was sure, could have left the foot-print in the court, and be the owner of the shoe I had seen—could hardly pass through the Rue de Seine without drawing the eyes of all the lodgers on the street. Dried up hag faces would have met the apparition with a leer; the porters would have turned to stare, and she would have ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... band by this time had regained their usual solidity. The leader seemed immensely relieved. He had evidently expected the next apparition to be a bluecoat with a ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... passed almost before he realized it. The horsemen had appeared so suddenly, and were gone so swiftly, returning through the forest the way they had come, that he was not sure but that the whole apparition had been a mere trick of imagination. Rising swiftly, he gazed after the vanished riders, and the crunching of the pine cones under the horses' hoofs, dying slowly away as they retreated, warned him that the stealthy, nocturnal visit was ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... Prince smothered his emotion; and doubtless it was the first time that these unfortunate creatures had there witnessed compassion depicted upon a human countenance; I still seem to behold the affecting apparition. They fell at our feet, bathed in tears, and speechless, until, emboldened by our expressions of sympathy, they recounted to us their sufferings. Alas! all their crime consisted in having been attached to the same religion as ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... the astonished French captain, as this apparition appeared before him—he having jumped down on deck again as we ranged alongside; and he placed himself on guard in the most approved fashion. Captain Brisac had no more knowledge of sword-play than he had of flying, a circumstance which often ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... russet with the russet of the soil and darting to and fro with the quickness of a hare. He was always of an ingratiating humorousness and endeared himself by an apparent readiness to enter into any joke that was going, especially that of startling the pedestrian by his own sudden apparition from behind a tuft of grass or withered stalk. I will not be sure, but I think we began to see his kind as soon as we got out of Yalladolid, when we began running through a country wooded with heavy, low-crowned pines ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... very unequal in extent on the meridian as well as on the equator. And the area in the northern sky not embraced in them is divided into three large spaces called Yuen or enclosures, of which the field of circumpolar stars (or circle of perpetual apparition) forms one which is called ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... of the men derisively as Sam's horse decided to stand on his hind legs and wave at the strange apparition as it went by. Val brought him down upon four feet again, and he stood sweating, his ears ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... sounded in Robin's ears, as a rush of flame mercifully swallowed up this apparition: like as not, 'twas the sound of the fire itself. The end had come, both to the unhappy foresters and Robin's home. With a huge torrent of noise the roof of it crushed in, ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... noiselessly, and a tall shadowy form glided into the chamber. The form placed a water-bottle upon the table. The moon had reached the point at which it shone obliquely into the window, and down upon the bed where Madeleine was sleeping. The apparition drew the curtains more closely, and the while a beam of moonlight passed over its features. They were furrowed with innumerable small wrinkles, and a night-cap with starched strings was knotted ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... in libraries has ever seemed to us linked with those who have written or read the books. If souls are allowed to return to their earthly haunts, a library would surely be the place to meet them. For this reason we have cherished a firm belief in the apparition which the distinguished librarian of the Astor Library beheld, and never desire to hear any commonplace explanations concerning it; and on visiting the Astor collection, we were more desirous to see the spot where the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... of the Sun, you come most opportune, For here has been a dreadful apparition: As I lay sleeping on my couch, methought ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding |
