"Supernatural" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... means, unless it means that you and I are forgiven for a purpose; that the purpose, if I may so say, is something in advance of the means towards the purpose, the purpose being that we should be filled with all the strength and righteousness and supernatural life granted to us by the Spirit ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... muscle and the exercise of his intellect. Strength and skill—plus application. Nothing else gets either an individual or a race forward. Don't you see the force of that? Here is man with his fundamental, undeniable needs. Here is the earth with the fullness thereof. There's nothing mysterious or supernatural about it. Brain and brawn applied to the problems of living. That's all. And you can't dodge it. The first, pressing requirements of any man can only be filled in two ways. First by working and planning and getting for himself. Second by being able to compel the strength and skill of ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... all the rest of those present disbelieved in the existence of the condemned Dutchman. The state of the atmosphere, the strange, wild, awful look of the ocean, prepared our minds for the appearance of anything supernatural. The captain told me that I looked ill and tired from having been on deck so many hours, and insisted on my turning in, which I ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... very miraculous to be seen; nothing—except the trifles previously noticed—to confirm the idea of a supernatural peril environing the pretty Polly. The stranger it is true was evidently a thorough and practised man of the world, systematic and self-possessed, and therefore the sort of a person to whom a parent ought not to confide ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the missionary asked with a smile. "The old atavistic fear of the dark and the mysterious dangers that threatened our savage ancestors? Or is it an instinctive knowledge that there are supernatural powers, able to punish ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... characteristic, that they did not prevent the building from seeming to be deserted. It was a supernatural chant in ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... universe; but his happiness, consciousness, peace of mind, have gained all that his pride has lost. And, this point once attained, then will the miraculous adventures of a St. Theresa or Jean-de-la-Croix, the ecstasy of the mystics, the supernatural incidents of legendary loves, the star of an Alexander or a Napoleon—then will all these seem the merest childish illusions compared with the healthy wisdom of a loyal, earnest man, who has no craving ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... cestus of Venus endowed the wearer with magical attraction, so the immanence of the Infinite and the Eternal in "all that formal is and fugitive," binds it with beauty and produces a supernatural charm ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... at the saneness of this revived art and yet, here and there, he is surprised to discover, amid descriptions of nature that are full of humanity, disquieting flights towards the supernatural, distressing conjurations, veiled at first, of the most commonplace, the most vertiginous shuddering fits of fear, as old as the world and as eternal as the unknown. But, instead of being alarmed, he thinks that the author must be gifted with infallible intuition to follow out thus ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... had a far-off sense of her need of him and of her agony, he wrote. Marriage had not destroyed his supernatural sympathy. Absolutely as if nothing had happened, he wrote. It was on the day after New Year's day, and if Jane had behaved as if nothing had happened she would have written to him. But because she needed him, she could not bring ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... dogmas may have existed in some form elsewhere, they become new revelations to us, by her supernatural selection of them 306 ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... perorations: O ye vipers, The engine in him changes all the world, Reverses all the wheels of thought behind. For Nietzsche comes, and makes him superman. He dumps the truth of Jesus over—there It lies with his youth's textual skepticism, And laughter at the supernatural. ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... moment Paul hesitated. The thought of following this strange man at such an hour into the realm of the unknown, to investigate the supernatural, was uncanny, and he half wished he had not made the request. He knew the man to be no trifler. That which he promised, he would surely perform. Then, procuring a candle, ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... give a superstitious explanation to the whole matter; think I had received a supernatural warning and been satisfied with what they would call a spiritual manifestation. But I have not a bit of such folly in my composition. Living hands set up the type and printed the words which gave me so deathly a shock; and hands, with a real purpose ...
— A Difficult Problem - 1900 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... Pequot when frightened from his purpose, and in less time than it has taken to record them, as with drooping head he pursued his lonely way. Even what he considered the interposition of a supernatural power, had not shaken the determination of his spirit. The desire for revenge had been too long cherished to be given up at a single warning, however awful, or however strongly appealing to ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... life was characterised by a thousand trials and who was long the victim of a mental malady, wrote a poem on the crusade of Godfrey de Bouillon. The poem is full of the supernatural; the chief characters are Renaud, Tancred, the enchantress Armida, Clorinda. The inspiration of Tasso is specially mystic and lyrical; his facility for description is delicious. The repute of Jerusalem Delivered in the seventeenth century was immense, and all the literatures of Europe have innumerable ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet
... sense is termed Mystical, that is, above sense, supernatural; and this it is, when spiritually one expounds a writing which even in the Literal sense by the things signified bears express reference to the Divine things of Eternal Glory; as one can see in that Song of the Prophet which says that by the exodus of the people of Israel from Egypt Judaea ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... admire and believe as improbable a story of dolphins. You are mightily out, said I, for this is no novel story which we believe, but it is recorded in the annals of Ino and Athamas above a thousand years ago. These passages are supernatural, quoth Solon and much above our reason; what befell Hesiod is of a lower kind, and more proper for our discourse, and if you have not heard of it before, it ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... off where I had mentioned the Pirate, which I hope you are reading to my aunt. The characters of the two sisters are beautiful. The idea of Brenda not believing in supernatural agency, and yet being afraid, and Minna not being afraid though she believes in Norma's power, is new and natural and ingenious. This was Joanna Baillie's idea. The picture of the sisters sleeping and the lacing scene is excellent, and there are not only passages of beautiful picturesque description, ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... are Christians or not—and then, having answered it, thinking thus, 'That text asserts that all Christians have this witness, therefore certainly I have it in some shape or other,' they say to themselves, 'I do not feel anything that corresponds with my idea of what such a grand, supernatural voice as the witness of God's Spirit in my spirit must needs be; and therefore I doubt whether I am a Christian at all.' I should be thankful if the attempt I make now to set before you what seems to me to be the true teaching of the passage, should be, with God's ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... in his infancy lying in a coracle, on a salmon-weir, in the domain of Elphin, a prince of North Wales, who became his patron. During his life he arrogated to himself a supernatural descent and understanding, and for at least a thousand years after his death he was regarded by the descendants of the ancient Britons in the character of a prophet or something more. The poems which he produced procured for him ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... historian, notwithstanding, be convinced that Jesus Christ did extraordinary things, in the strict sense miraculous things, then, from the unique impression he has obtained of this person, he infers the possession by him of supernatural power. This conclusion itself belongs to the province of religious faith: though there has seldom been a strong faith which would not have drawn it. Moreover, the healing miracles of Jesus are the only ones that come ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... the truth. She had completely subdued my will by her fascinations, and though I hated and, in private, ridiculed all supernatural dealings, I was prepared to try the ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... lightly-clad men, appearing suddenly on board a craft moored out on the river, that the three boatmen sat immovable, in the attitudes in which they had been sitting at the entry of these strange visitors, without uttering a word. Superstitious by nature, they doubted whether there was not something supernatural in the appearance of the ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... ancestors. All the Africans we have met with are as firmly persuaded of their future existence as of their present life. And we have found none in whom the belief in the Supreme Being was not rooted. He is so invariably referred to as the Author of everything supernatural, that, unless one is ignorant of their language, he cannot fail to notice this prominent feature of their faith. When they pass into the unseen world, they do not seem to be possessed with the fear of punishment. The utensils placed upon the grave are all broken as if to indicate ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... visions for inspiration, but we must work in comparative shadow; otherwise, the very highest revelations would become monotonous, and we should long for still higher. And yet, are there not some whose desire is for constant revelation? Who would see supernatural sights, and hear supernatural sounds, and know all the realities towards which they are drifting, as well as those in which they must work? They would make this world a mount of perpetual vision; overlooking the fact that it has its own purposes, to be ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin
... its course, so the same Power thinks fit to let His own actings with men, whether of mercy or judgement, to go on in the ordinary course of natural causes; and He is pleased to act by those natural causes as the ordinary means, excepting and reserving to Himself nevertheless a power to act in a supernatural way when He sees occasion. Now 'tis evident that in the case of an infection there is no apparent extraordinary occasion for supernatural operation, but the ordinary course of things appears sufficiently armed, and made capable of all the effects that Heaven usually directs by ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe
... contract. Has it been the bond of kinship, or blood, or speech? No, for under this banner the British master has become the servant of the Hindoo, and the American has gone to lay down his life upon the veldts of Africa. Has it been the bond of that almost supernatural force, glorious patriotism? No, not even this, for while we "know no man after the flesh," we recognize our brother in all the families of the earth, and our General infused into the breasts of his followers the sacred conviction that the Salvationist's ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... In the strange state in which she found herself that day, the supernatural itself had seemed credible. And ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Areopagite, was an Athenian by birth, and educated in all the useful and ornamental literature of Greece. He then travelled to Egypt to study astronomy, and made very particular observations on the great and supernatural eclipse, which happened at the time of ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... good of humanity, and form an order apart. They have God for their object, are altogether inspired by God (hence called infusae), and are taught by revelation. Given in connection with the natural faculties of intellect and will, they are exhibited in the attainment of the supernatural order of things. With intellect goes Faith, as it were the intellect applied to things not intelligible; with Will go Hope and Charity or Love: Hope being the Will exercised upon things not naturally desired, and Love the union of Will with what ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... is a contemptible cur and yet it is not his fault. He has heard sermons about all sorts of supernatural subjects for thirty years, and he has never once been warned against meanness, so of course he supposes that supernatural subjects are everything and meanness is nothing. But I will not detain you any longer now, for you ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... record in his crabbed, canine Latin, is that Villon showed such intimate acquaintance with certain physical peculiarities or whimsical adventures private to each damsel that she believed the speaker's knowledge to be little less than supernatural. Literature of the skittish sort must deplore the monastic reticence, but history can do no more than accept it and leave imagination to fill in the ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... full of picturesque rivers, tall mountains, and dreamy-looking lakes, attracting more tourists than any other place in America save Niagara, yet I will pass over its stern and rugged scenery to write of a man whose titles to our admiration are wholly of the supernatural order. ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... to cope with a material and not a supernatural being; still it was purely a venture, and at no previous time had there seemed so little hope of success. Nevertheless not a moment was lost in hauling out the net and placing it in position across the ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... The old hag was one of those whose hearts adversity turns to very stone, and obstinately kept her door shut, impelled more probably by general hatred to the human race, than by the superstitious fears which seized her; although she perversely argued that she was startled at the supernatural melody and sweetness of tone, with which the benighted wanderer made her supplication. She admitted, that when she heard the poor petitioner turn from the door, her heart was softened, and she did intend to open with the purpose of offering her at least a shelter; but that ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... their territory; of rocks of lodestone, powerful enough to extract every particle of iron from a passing ship; of stagnant seas and fiery skies; of wandering saints and flying islands; all combined to invest the unknown with the terrors of the supernatural, and to deter the explorer of the great ocean. The half-decked vessels that crept along the Mediterranean shores were but ill-fitted to bear the brunt of the furious waves of the Atlantic. The now indispensable ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... is it wrong to feel what I feel, at the remembrance? If it be, reprove me sternly; teach me my duty, and I will thank thee. Surely there is something supernatural hovers over her! At least she resembles no other mortal! Then her kindness to me, her looks, her smiles, her actions, are all intentional benignancy. She is now but three chambers distant from me; enjoying ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... all good faith as though war were a duel in which the traitor was henceforth ruled out and unable to continue his outrages. Besides, the heroic resistance of Belgium was nourishing the most absurd illusions in his heart. The Belgians were certainly supernatural men destined to the most stupendous achievements. . . . And to think that heretofore he had never taken this plucky little nation into account! . . . For several days, he considered Liege a holy city before whose walls the Teutonic power would be ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... that he possessed the gift of prophecy. But he was not the only man of that day who dwelt so close to the confines of the spiritual world as to be alternately visited by angels and devils. Indeed, what tales of the supernatural Mather relates, what a juxtaposition of saints and demons! Of course, there was a foundation to build upon,—had not Mather himself in his family for more than a year a possessed girl, whose familiar haunted ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... to bring the four green warriors to his way of thinking, but in vain. Roban and Tarnan remained contemptuous. They would have thrown themselves upon him, but for the knowledge that no fifty unarmed men of the green race could have overcome his strength—to them supernatural. The two Urvanians were equally obdurate. This soft earth-being had given them everything; they had given him nothing and would give him nothing. Finally Seaton rose to his full height and stared at them in turn, wrath and determination blazing in ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... that it is needless to give an account of it. "But what is the meaning," he exclaims, "of this bold and poetic mixture of clowns and fairies, of mythology, and superstition, of high and low, of the earthly and the supernatural? And the scene is neither Athens nor Greece, but Shakespeare's own England; it is his own time and his own spirit." We are transported to an English grove in early summer with birds, flowers, soft breezes, and cooling shadows. What wonder ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud
... patience to let me tell him about it myself," says he. "He'll not, though, so I must make you understand in order that you may give him the facts. I want him to know. Of course, I can't pretend to explain the thing. It was psychic, that's all; supernatural, if you please. Must have been. For there I was, a confirmed duffer, playing that course exactly as Alexander McQuade would have played it had he been in my shoes. And he was, for the time being. At least, I claim that I was being controlled, or whatever you want to ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... supernatural terrors that they conjured up, the Jomsvikings continued to fight, though their decks were slippery with blood and melting hail. Only one coward appeared among them, their chief Earl Sigvalde, who suddenly turned his ship and fled. When Vagn Aakesson, the most daring of the Jomsvikings, ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... his earlier self, or what the influence of such an experience as he relates may have done to strengthen the moral fibre, are points on which I can express no opinion, any more than I can pledge myself to the credibility of the supernatural element of his story. ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... and though at times unruly, were completely to be depended upon. Yet, while owning Sir Eustace to be a brave, gallant, and kind-hearted Knight, there were times when even they felt a shudder of dread and almost of hatred pass over them, when tales were told of the supernatural powers he was supposed to possess; when Leonard Ashton's adventure with the cats was narrated, or the story of his sudden arrival at Lynwood Keep on the night before the lady's funeral. His own immediate attendants might repel the charge with honest indignation, but many a stout warrior ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... answered. "In return for supernatural service rendered you during your lifetime, your soul reverts to me ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... Church, as an agency of the Holy Spirit, is to do its work are the Word of God and the Sacraments. They are sufficient for the purpose for which they are intended, because the Holy Spirit works through them and endows them with supernatural power. [Rom. ...
— An Explanation of Luther's Small Catechism • Joseph Stump
... and many of the "practical" men whom he sought to convince was that he could see with his mind's eye solid land beyond the Sea of Darkness while they could not. To them the ocean, like the sky, had nothing beyond, unless it might be the supernatural world.[478] For while the argument from the earth's rotundity was intelligible enough, there were few to whom, as to Toscanelli, it was a living truth. Even of those who admitted, in theory, that Cathay lay to the west of Europe, most deemed the distance untraversable. Inductive proof of the existence ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... travellers imagine upon hearing shouts proceeding from the gibbet, but that the identical murderer of Mr. Knight had by some miracle come to life, and now called out, "Stop! stop!" with the intention of robbing and murdering them also? And they, feeling that supernatural odds were against them, ran forwards or backwards, not daring to look behind, as fast as their feet could carry alarmed and bewildered heads, leaving the fate of their carts to the sagacity of the horses. Finding ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... at us out of German-land through a pleasant, clear translation, and they remind us how easily the supernatural and loves to dwell in airborn castles. The beautiful instinct of reverence common to child-life is readily taken advantage of by writers for the young; but where in England we find in stories some angel-mother who discovers the treachery of her governess ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... the old gentleman was himself somewhat tinctured with superstition, as men are very apt to be who live a recluse and studious life in a sequestered part of the country, and pore over black-letter tracts, so often filled with the marvellous and supernatural. He gave us several anecdotes of the fancies of the neighbouring peasantry, concerning the effigy of the crusader which lay on the tomb by the church altar. As it was the only monument of the kind in that part of the country, it had always been regarded with feelings of superstition ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... now. It may suggest some considerations worth pondering, and among other things, may help to show the exaggeration of the functions of the office by the opposite extremes of priests and rationalists. The one school makes it the depository of exclusive supernatural powers; the other regards it as a master-stroke of organisation, to which the early rapid growth of Christianity was largely due. The facts seem to show that ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... away their clubs and knives, and farming utensils took the place of bows and arrows and spears. This strange change in African savages came to be talked over among the people. It was so wonderful that the other tribes could account for it only as an instance of supernatural magic. There was nothing they knew of that would lead men like the Bechuanas to bring war to an end, and ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... saw the Church wishing to back out of the supernatural and anxious to explain it away where possible, we would keep our disbelief in the supernatural in the background, as far as we could, and would explain away our rejection of the miracles, as far as was decent; furthermore we would ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... proceeded with the exhibition, and it is unnecessary to add that if the Empress Dowager had invited Yuan to the meeting with the princes when they discussed the advisability of joining the Boxers on account of a belief in their supernatural powers, she might have been spared the ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... did smile In Fletcher, grew on this enchanted isle. But Shakspeare's magic could not copied be; Within that circle none durst walk but he. 20 I must confess 'twas bold, nor would you now That liberty to vulgar wits allow, Which works by magic supernatural things: But Shakspeare's power is sacred as a king's. Those legends from old priesthood were received, And he then writ, as people then believed. But if for Shakspeare we your grace implore, We for our theatre shall want it more: Who, by our dearth of ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... shouted to him to desist; the sound of the bell jarred on his nerves. It sounded like a summons, and a summons on that deserted craft was quite out of place. Who knew what mightn't answer it in the way of the supernatural? ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... spoken of soul as well as body. The old Roman instinct for ancestor-communion is too strong in him for that. But he acquiesces in their doctrine in so far as shadowy existence in another world inspires in him no pleasing hope. He displays no trace of the faith in the supernatural which accompanies the Christian hope of happy immortality. He contains none of the expressions of yearning for communion with the divine, of self-abasement in the presence of the eternal, which belong to Christian poetry. The flights of his ...
— Horace and His Influence • Grant Showerman
... of personal magnetism is of much vaunted importance. It is like that horrid word, charm; no one knows what it means and seems to have a supernatural quality. The trial lawyer does not need either charm or magnetism. They are both nonsense. Like actors or fighters if they are sufficiently trained in their parts or know how to use their weapons, the lawyers' personal magnetism ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... science. In a paper singularly interesting—and in his biography important—on the "Nature and Authority of Miracle," read to the Metaphysical Society (February 11, 1873), he tried to clear up his position and to state a qualified belief in the supernatural. ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... Overpowered by supernatural awe at appearances, of which her faith permitted her not to question the reality, the Lady Eveline folded her arms on her bosom, and prostrated her forehead on the pavement, as the posture most fitting to ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... adequate to any idea of spiritual thought, consequently no words expressive of it; for ideas of thought are constituent of the words of language. This experiment they repeated again and again; whereby they were convinced that spiritual ideas are supernatural, inexpressible, ineffable, and incomprehensible to the natural man; and on account of this their super-eminence, they said, that spiritual ideas, or thoughts, as compared with natural, were ideas of ideas, and thoughts of thoughts; and that therefore they were expressive of qualities of qualities, ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... acquired various extraordinary powers, such as subtlety of body, and the like, may animate several bodies at the same time, how much more capable of such feats must the gods be, who naturally possess all supernatural powers. The gods thus being able to assume several shapes, a god may divide himself into many forms and enter into relation with many sacrifices at the same time, remaining all the while unseen by others, in consequence of his power to render ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... the most thrilling poem in the English language. Each reperusal fascinates me more and more. It requires a dozen readings to initiate you fully into its weird, supernatural realms." ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... "Supernatural," he repeated. "That is new to me. As I remember the affair, it was highly sensational, perplexing—a blend of romance and Japanese knives—but I do not remember any abnormal element save ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... in the Renascence of Wonder, which was the renascence of religion....Men saw once more the marvel of the universe and the romance of man's destiny. They became aware of the spiritual world, of the supernatural, of the lifelong struggle of the soul, of the ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... shall say but little. It is more appropriate for the members of that great and noble profession which is more intimately concerned with the spiritual advance of mankind. It is enough to say that, while the Church as an institution continues to exist, the belief in the supernatural and even in the spiritual has been supplanted in the souls of millions of men by ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck
... Washington recognized that the voice was not supernatural, he recovered his courage and at once disarmed the Major, who, watch in hand, was demanding if he supposed he had nothing else to do than to wait for him all night, by falling into his vein and acquiescing in all that he said in abuse of the yet absent duellists, ...
— "George Washington's" Last Duel - 1891 • Thomas Nelson Page
... hitherto passed his days; and he recognises capabilities for pain and pleasure of which he had not yet suspected the existence. Falling in love is the one illogical adventure, the one thing of which we are tempted to think as supernatural, in our trite and reasonable world. The effect is out of all proportion with the cause. Two persons, neither of them it may be, very amiable or very beautiful, meet, speak a little, and look a little into each other's eyes. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Captain Billings, ordering the hands at the same time to "stand by" the braces and topsail halliards; and, almost ere the crew could get to their respective posts, the clouds had disappeared, with what seemed a supernatural celerity from the heavens, letting the clear blue sky be seen again and the bright twinkling stars peep down to see what all the fuss was about, all being calm and ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... its present degrading characteristics, is a state of actual hostility between master and slave, in which "a revolution of the wheel of fortune, in exchange of situation, is among possible events; and this may become probably by supernatural interference! The Almighty has no attribute which can take part with us ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... not but admire the sibyl-like grandeur of his head and outstretched arms as he uttered these strange words. His voice was hoarse with some surging emotion; and if so poor a creature could have been the recipient of a supernatural inspiration, he might have sat at that moment for the portrait of one of the deformed soothsayers in a ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... these strange notions must not be dealt with too severely, in a country like England, where (within the last 200 years, and in no uncivilised state of society) persons have been burnt for witchcraft; and in which, even in the present day, every vile imposture and godless pretence of supernatural power is sure of finding eager listeners and astonished admirers. The Boyl-yas, or native sorcerers, are objects of mysterious dread, and are thought to have the power of becoming invisible to all eyes but those of their brethren in the same evil ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... earliest years. Over that parish, he says, might have been written Dante's inscription over the entrance to the Inferno: "All hope abandon, ye who enter here." After speaking of its physical misery and its supernatural and perfectly astonishing deadness, he says that he embarked on a voyage round the world, and had the opportunity of seeing savage life in all conceivable conditions of savage degradation; ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell
... of life grasped by means of this new world of experience, and that is, the spiritual side that lies between conduct and ideals; children have always accepted the supernatural quite readily and it is not to be wondered at, for all the world is new and therefore supernatural to them. Magic is done daily in children's eyes, and there is no line between what is understandable and what is not, until adults try to interpret ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... a sound and healthy mind, and he would allow no taint of morbidness to enter it. He knew that there was nothing supernatural in the world, but he did believe that this woman with the gray hair, the burning eyes and the sharp chin, looking as if it had been cut from a piece of steel, was the possessor of uncanny wisdom. Beyond a doubt she knew where the marksman was hidden, and, unless he watched her ceaselessly, ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... thought her brother's power of finding things out, little short of supernatural. "Don't you want to see her?" she asked meekly. "There is a thin place in the hedge behind the calycanthus bush, and she is walking to and fro studying something." Would Maurice declare he had already seen ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... subject, we shall find that the co-existence is purely accidental. If, as Sir Walter Scott observed, any event, such as the death of the person dreamt of, chance to take place, so as to correspond with the nature and time of the apparition, the circumstance is conceived to be supernatural, although the coincidence is one which must frequently occur, since our dreams usually refer to the accomplishment of that which haunts our minds when awake, and often presage the most probable events. Such a ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... my friend, it seemed as though the world had come to an end, that the eternal laws had changed. I experienced the overwhelming dread that one has in presence of things supernatural, in presence of irreparable disaster. My boyish head whirled round and soared. I began to cry with all my might, without knowing why, a prey to terror, to grief, to a dreadful bewilderment. My father heard me, turned round, and, on seeing me, made as though he would rush at me. I believed that ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... try to bring my poor Jane into touch with psychic interests; it would comfort her to have the wonderful chance of getting into communication with Oliver. At present she scouts the whole thing, like all other forms of supernatural belief. Jane has always been a materialist. It is very strange to me that my children have developed, intellectually and spiritually, along such different lines from myself. I have never been orthodox; I am not even now an orthodox theosophist; I am not of the stuff ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... remorselessness of Siva or the cold indifference of Brahma. It was the dawn of a doctrine of faith, and in this character it was probably of later date than the rise of Buddhism. Indeed, the Brahmans learned this lesson of the value of Divine sympathy from the Buddha. The supernatural element ascribed to Krishna, as well as to Rama, was a growth, and had its origin in the jealousy of the Brahmans toward the warrior caste. His exaltation as the Supreme was an after-thought of the inventive Brahmans. As stated in a former lecture, ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... for vedette duty. I relieve Butler. Not long till dawn, I think. Far to my left I hear sounds, as if an army is stirring. My time will be short on post. Where was I? Yes; the supernatural power of ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... supernatural power, listened to our talk, or had she really been visited by some dream, that she looked so changed? There was a feverish light in her eye, and something like the shadow of a smile on her lips. Mrs. Poindexter ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... other people in the world, believed in supernatural beings of many sorts, spirits of woods and rocks, Underwater People and an Underworld. They had stories of ghosts and flying heads and giants. Most of the tribes believed in animals that, when they were alone, laid off their animal skins and thought ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... shrieks and wailings, borne upon the night-breeze; whilst the few who have ventured within its walls, tell of shapes seen, and sounds heard, which would cause the stoutest heart to quail. For myself, I am no great believer in the supernatural, and have no doubt that imagination, united to the loneliness of the spot, and the strange freaks the wind plays through a large uninhabited house, have originated reports which we are sure would lose nothing in the recital; so if you are inclined to make ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... the position of importance which she had suddenly assumed in the housekeeper's eyes, Mrs. Wragge entered at full length into the narrative of her supernatural adventure. The breathless eagerness with which Mrs. Lecount listened to her description of the specter's costume, the specter's hurry on the stairs, and the specter's disappearance in the bedroom; the extraordinary ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... "the history of Glencardine Castle and the historic family is so full of stirring episodes that I really don't wonder that the ruins are believed to be the abode of something supernatural. My father possesses some of the family papers, while Sir Henry, when he bought Glencardine, also acquired a quantity. Only a year ago he told me that he had had an application from a well-known historical writer ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... fulfilment, but is constantly and anew realizing itself. The proceeding of God towards the different Churches and States is regulated by their conduct towards Him. The history of the world is a judgment of the world. But even to know this truth is, in itself, a supernatural gift; and they only are able to use it with safety, to whom God has given an insight into the mysteries of His government of the world. This becomes very evident, if we observe how often the predictions ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... very mysterious point in connection with the affair—something so strange that it bordered on the supernatural. No human being in Bramble County except the two boys had seen the double-seated sleigh. It had disappeared as if ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... last note of the song died away, quivering with a supernatural tenderness and passion, he brushed a tear from his eyes, lifted his hands high above his head and made a motion which said to her: ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... affections; sometimes this interest elevates me above my strength, makes me discover in nature, in my own heart, bold truths, expressions full of life, that solitary reflection would not have given birth to. I then believe myself acted upon by a supernatural enthusiasm, and feel that what is speaking within me is greater than myself. Often I quit the rhythm of poetry to express my thoughts in prose; sometimes I quote the finest verses of the different languages I am acquainted with. These divine verses, ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... supernatural power himself, Tenskwatawa realized the degrading effect of petty superstition and the terror and injury the medicine men were able to bring upon the simple-minded Indians who believed in their charms and spells. He denounced the practice of sorcery ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
... from a Mouse; and this being overheard by the Tiger, he was very uneasy, and said to himself: "As long as this Hermit is alive, the disgraceful story of my former state will be brought to my ears"; saying which he went to kill his protector; but as the holy man penetrated his design with his supernatural eye, he reduced him to his former state of a Mouse. I repeat, therefore: "One of low degree, having obtained a worthy station, may seek ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... manner so distinct that he can well afford to acknowledge his debt to Sir JAMES BARRIE. As in Mary Rose, so here (though there are no supernatural forces at work) we have the sharp contrast between commonplace life, as lived by the rest, and the life of Fairyland, as coming within the vision of one only. And we were reminded too of the Midsummer-madness that overtook the company in Dear Brutus. I won't say that it wasn't natural ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 27, 1920 • Various
... clearly he realizes what a deep spiritual blessing it is, to be found only in separation from the world, and direct fellowship with God, to be possessed fully only through a real Divine indwelling, may be in danger of looking too exclusively to the Divine side of the blessing, in its heavenly and supernatural aspect. He may forget how repentance and obedience, as the path leading up to holiness, must cover every, even the minutest detail of daily life. He may not understand how faithfulness to the leadings of the Spirit, in such measure as we have Him already, faithfulness ...
— Holy in Christ - Thoughts on the Calling of God's Children to be Holy as He is Holy • Andrew Murray
... to explain, and I hope to the satisfaction of the candid and patient reader, the principal symptoms or circumstances of fever without the introduction of the supernatural power of spasm. To the arguments in favour of the doctrine of spasm it may be sufficient to reply, that in the evolution of medical as well as ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... the outer world, and living on a rock singled out by supernatural visitants, the people remain more superstitious than even the superstitious Germans and Bretons who are their neighbours. Few of them can read or write. The new thoughts, opinions, and creeds of the present century do not reach them. They are contented with the old faith, bound up for them ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... really is anything wonderful or supernatural about these cures or whether they can be explained on simple, ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... one, two, three, four, five, and resolved to rise immediately. My bed was partially screened by a long curtain looped up at one side. As I raised my head from the pillow, Rosa looked inside the curtain, and smiled at me. The idea of anything supernatural did not occur to me. I was simply surprised, and exclaimed, 'Why, Rosa! How came you here, when you are so ill?' In the old familiar tones, to which I was so much accustomed, a voice replied, 'I am well, now.' With no other ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... Smith were men of phenomenal capacity, who actually invented a religion and created a community by the apparent establishment of supernatural and occult powers. The phrenologists, the venders of patent medicine, the Christian Scientists, the single-taxers, and all who proclaim panaceas and nostrums make the same majestic and pontifical appeal to human nature. It is this mystical ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... comforting belief that departed spirits can minister to earthly creatures for good—can be felt moving in us, in a train of thought, and seen as visible manifestations, in a dream—with what pretense of reason can we deny that the same freedom of supernatural influence which is conceded to the departed spirit, working for good, is also permitted to the departed spirit, working for evil? If the grave cannot wholly part mother and child, when the mother's life ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... really anticipated something from the interview. The disappointment was keen. A moment of expectation; the thrill which comes to us all under the shadow of the supernatural, and then—this! a young and imaginative girl's dream, convincing to herself but supplying nothing which had not already been supplied both by the facts and his own imagination! A man had stood ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... absolute ideal itself in living reality. It seems to me that this consideration alone should satisfy the reflecting mind that Christ's character, though truly natural and human, must be at the same time truly supernatural and divine. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... passions speedily transfers their belief to the side of the desires, or sets their actions above their belief. Hamlet alone presents the confused spectacle of a mind formed by the enlightenment of society in conflict with a position contrary to its laws; and he needs a supernatural apparition to determine him to act, and a fortuitous event to accomplish his project. If incessantly placed in an analogous position, the personages of a tragedy conceived at the present day according to the romantic system would offer us the same ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various |
