"Disconcerting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... than anxious to meet the bunch myself," he admitted; and led the way back to Estra. The Venusian looked at him with no change of expression, although there was something very disconcerting in the precocious wisdom of his eyes. Their very kindliness and serenity gave him an appearance of superiority, such as ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... and the terrible fact came out gradually that he was not 'nicely disposed.' His relatives failed to understand him, and they gave him up like a puzzle. He was self-contradictory. For instance, though a shocking liar, he was lavish of truth whenever truth happened to be disconcerting and inopportune. He it was who told the forewoman of his uncle's millinery department, in front of a customer, that she had a moustache. His uncle threshed him. 'She has a moustache, anyhow!' said this ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... about the speedy end of this wicked world was not fulfilled as the early Christians expected; but this fact is less disconcerting to the Christian than one would suppose. The spontaneous or instinctive Christian—and there is such a type of mind, quite apart from any affiliation to historic Christianity—takes a personal and dramatic view of the world; its values and even its reality are the values and reality which ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... Mrs. Butt. Then he heard nothing whatever for years, and when he looked at the clock it was fourteen minutes past four. In the act of looking at the clock, his eye had to traverse the region of the sofa. On the sofa were one parasol and two gloves. Astonishing, singular, disconcerting, how those articles—which, after all, bore no kind of resemblance to any style of furniture or hangings—seemed, nevertheless, to refurnish the room, to give the room an air of being thickly inhabited which it never ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... and the foolish. And then some entirely unimportant occurrence—say, an invitation to a golf foursome which his duties forbid him to accept—a trifle, a nothing, comes along and brings about the explosion, in a fashion excessively disconcerting to the onlooker, and he exclaims, acidly, savagely, with a ...
— The Plain Man and His Wife • Arnold Bennett
... something almost disconcerting in the ardour and devotion of Mrs. Eddy's followers. Truly, in the success of Christian Science we see one more proof of the ease with which a new religion can be started if, in addition to faith, it concerns itself ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot
... a un duc de farce, je ne m'en fiche pas mal, moi," it said in an accent curiously compounded of the foreign and the coulisse. A muttered male remonstrance ensued, and then, with disconcerting clearness: ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... is not monotonous; but he remembers that there is no limit to the time during which one human being may impel him along an open road, and he also remembers some very pretty friskings, delightful to himself, but disconcerting to his rider, and he may ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... thought himself able to be the breadwinner for both mother and sister, was in reality nothing but an unskilled laborer, whose services for the present commanded but slight remuneration. The discovery was not only disconcerting but galling. It was bad enough to have Marie enter the mill. But his mother——! To think of his mother, at her age, ...
— The Story of Silk • Sara Ware Bassett
... to Genevieve, certainly, most disconcerting. Miss Hart gave one look into Genevieve's eyes, then dropped her face into her hands and burst into tears. At Genevieve's aghast exclamation, however, she raised her head determinedly and began to wipe ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
... at first sight disconcerting to find Pepys no less impatient of The Merry Wives of Windsor. He expresses a mild interest in the humours of "the country gentleman and the French doctor." But he condemns the play as a whole. It is in his favour that his bitterest reproaches are aimed ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... harmful. Before I could answer her we were startled to hear quite close to us a faint cry. I got up and looked around, and so did Devaka, for she is brave, my wife. But we could not find anything to account for the disconcerting sound. ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... de Retz nodded sagely, with a quiet satisfaction in his own prevision, which to one less bold and reckless than the young clerk of Dulce Cor would have proved disconcerting. Then he propounded ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... not say, Mr. Brent," he replied. "Discoveries of this sort, substantiated, are—well, disconcerting. Besides, they tend to a revision of opinion; they're ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... island of Orleans, while the rest kept ceaseless watch to seaward, anxiously scanning the offing, day after day, to make out the colours of the first fleet up. No one knew what the French West India fleet would do; and there was a very disconcerting chance that it might run north and slip into the St Lawrence, ahead of Saunders, in the same way as the French reinforcements had just slipped in ahead of Durell. Presently, at the first streak of dawn on the 23rd of June, ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... him at dinner," I thought; or rather I meant to think it, but the words slipped out. I found myself thinking aloud in a rather disconcerting way while sitting with this ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... themselves upon the victory-flushed Huns to whom this unconventional kind of fierce onset came as a complete and disconcerting surprise. They fought like demons, with utterly reckless bravery. They paid the price, alas! in heavy losses, but for what they paid they took ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... affection is natural. [Footnote: Discourses, Book I, chapter xxiii—a clever answer to Epicurus.] Said Marcus Aurelius, it is characteristic of the rational soul for a man to love his neighbor. The cautious bachelor imbued with Epicurean principles would find strange and disconcerting the Stoic position touching citizenship: "My nature is rational and social; and my city and country, so far as I am Antoninus, is Rome, but so far as I am a man, it is the world. The things then which are useful to these cities are alone useful to me." ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... in a most tiresome way whenever he caught sight of Anastasia. The Rector patronised her insufferably; and though old Mr Noot was kind, he treated her like a small child, and sometimes patted her cheek, which she felt to be disconcerting at eighteen. ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... Kate's lips twitched. It was so like this capable child of hers to be arranging the future, at nineteen, ready to be a mother to herself in case her natural mother failed her. But as she got quickly into the dress laid out for her, her hands shook a little. It is disconcerting to discover that one is no longer the parent of children, ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... moral flagellation does not always answer, and when one of the victims yawns and the other asks a matter-of-fact questions it is disconcerting even to an accomplished operator. However, Barber gallantly ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... a little disconcerting to Mary Corbet; it was not at all what she had expected. She did not know what to say; and took up the leather book again and began to turn over the pages. Mistress Margaret went on serenely with her embroidery, which she had neglected during the last sentence or two; ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... dress, and to which Elizabeth referred as her dark blue. Seen thus, in the room which was her own expression, there was a certain nobility about her very simplicity, a steadiness about her eyes that was almost disconcerting. ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... been on the group eight months; and although, with brief intervals spent in visits to the wreck, a sharp look-out for the appearance of a sail in the offing had been maintained, nothing had been sighted; and the disconcerting possibility now began to impress itself upon me that if I continued to trust only to such an occurrence for our deliverance we might spend years waiting for that event. Most fortunately, we had both thus far been blessed with perfect health; but it seemed too much ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... ladies shook their heads over Ellen's gaudy clothes, while her other relations fell under the charm of her high colour and high spirits. She was a fearless and familiar little thing, who asked disconcerting questions, made precocious comments, and possessed outlandish arts, such as dancing a Spanish shawl dance and singing Neapolitan love-songs to a guitar. Under the direction of her aunt (whose real name was Mrs. Thorley Chivers, but who, having received a Papal title, had resumed ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... lady ingratiatingly passed him the bread. "You're a cowboy, aren't you?" was the disconcerting question that accompanied ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... ten minutes later, they arrived at the outskirts of the forest, there was no sign of them, and no response to Inaguy's repeated calls in several different Indian dialects. It was not only a puzzling but also a disconcerting circumstance; for the failure of the strangers to reply seemed to indicate a hostile disposition; and for the party to plunge into the depths of the forest with a band of hostile Indians dogging their footsteps, or perhaps preparing to ambush them, seemed to Earle the opposite of good ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... hand to his face, believing that he had been hit. Then there followed a series of disconcerting snaps all around his head as the long lash began to work, but so skillfully was it wielded that the end of ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... of you, Algernon, as Elsmere would say, but it truly does just about describe it. You never do that way yourself, but you do open up and read aloud, so to speak, in company sometimes, in a way that is disconcerting. Now, what could one say to a statement about Abyssinian trousers, for instance, when one is just peacefully walking along, ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... The prospector had given him very little definite information, and it was disconcerting to recognize that he must now rely ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... a raconteur, the supper passed off pleasantly enough. This great man could unfold the varied pages of his mind with disconcerting ease. He knew everything, and could talk and act with inimitable vivacity. His anecdotes were always instructive, drawn from his manifold sources of knowledge in art or science. Mlle. Frahender was stupified by so much eclecticism, the philosopher forgot his grief, Madame Darbois realized for ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... but still able to make out the disconcerting silhouette of a man seated just beyond the glare: a quiet presence that moved not but eyed him steadfastly; an apparition the more arresting because of ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... the effect of seeming to be hollow, an attenuated piece of piping insufficiently inflated; one feels that if he were to strike against a solid object he might rebound feebly from it, which would be less disconcerting if he did not obviously know this and carefully avoid the furniture; he is so light that the subject must not be mentioned in his presence, but it is possible that, were the ladies to combine, they could blow him out of a chair. He enters portentously, ...
— Dear Brutus • J. M. Barrie
... in a most disconcerting manner. He stiffened and stared at Martin, mouth agape, for an appreciable instant. He seemed breathless. The semi-paralysis of drunkenness seemed ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... more fully towards them, and for a moment Geoffrey stood still in blank astonishment. The average man would find it disconcerting to be brought, without warning, suddenly face to face in a strange country with a woman who had discarded him, ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... water from encroaching on the low-lying farms, and came upon a most disheartening sight. Beyond several hundred yards of dangerous marsh flowed the river, looking very white in the deceptive light of early morning. The wavelets formed by the steady wind and the current were making a faint, but disconcerting, noise. Though it was only just possible to discern the opposite bank, there seemed to be a similar line of marshy ground between it and the water's edge. I determined to see if it was possible to get through the marsh with any degree ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... the girls were evidently beginning to find themselves again, occasional gigglings heralding their return to normality. But the concentration of the united attention of the family for Morgan's benefit was somewhat disconcerting. The girls vied with each other in pressing plum-cake upon him, and seemed to view his refusal as a personal rebuff. He did not understand just then that each considered a bit of her own niceness went into the cake when held towards him with her own hand, and that it was this niceness ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... himself, having confidence in whatever mode of procedure his own thought approved, he had begun using methods that the politicians found disconcerting. The second conference with the Senators was an instance. Returning in the same mood in which they had left him, with no suspicion of a surprise in store, the Senators to their amazement were confronted by the Cabinet—or most of it, Seward being absent.(11) ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... with a curious buzzing in his ears and a certain dimness of sight which was quite disconcerting; and when a cab was summoned he was glad enough to let a respectfully sympathetic porter lend him ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... portrait to be that of a housekeeper on account of the shawl—a strange article of dress, difficult to associate with a romantic singer. All the same, Evelyn was very probable in this picture; her past and her future were in this disconcerting compound of the commonplace and the rare; and the confusion which this picture created in the minds of Owen's friends was aggravated by the strange elliptical execution. Owen admitted the drawing to be not altogether grammatical; one eye was a little lower than ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... very good way to pass the time, above all when that same time presses and other disconcerting things should be spoken of instead; and this device Robin now learned. He spoke of a hundred things that were of no importance: of the dress that she wore—russet, as it should be, for country girls, with the loose sleeves folded back above her elbows ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... them tipsy, now gathered about Mary to inspect her personally, each on his own account. Their looks and conduct were very disconcerting, but they did nothing insulting until one fellow gave her a slap on the back, accompanying it by an indecent remark. Brandon tried to pay no attention to them, but this was too much, so he lifted his arm and knocked the fellow off the poop into the ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... pair saw little of each other, and Albert, puzzled, began to enter upon his opportunity (a wide and lingering one it became) for learning adjustment to awkward and disconcerting conditions. ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... and was awaiting a summons to service, here, there, or anywhere, when, as I have described, the call came. I have often wondered why the War Office always springs upon one with such alarming suddenness; possibly it is the way of the Army; it is certainly disconcerting, although it is educational, for it teaches one to be always ready and ...
— With The Immortal Seventh Division • E. J. Kennedy and the Lord Bishop of Winchester
... eyes during the next number and listened without the disconcerting spectacle in his sight. He put all the intensity of which he was capable into his attention. His knowledge of music was not extensive, but on the other hand it was enough to enable him to analyze this jazz. Neither music nor ragtime, it seemed utterly barbarian in character. ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... spray whipped him in the face as he got to the top, and he swore shortly, wiping his eyes with his hands. At the same moment, Conroy, still stooping to the bell-lanyard, felt the Villingen lower her nose and slide down in one of her disconcerting curtseys; he caught at the rail to steady himself. The dark water, marbled with white foam, rode in over the deck, slid across the anchors and about the capstan, and came aft toward the ladder and the mate. The ship ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... sort of unconscious preparation for this one book, a sort of inevitable and scarcely necessary sequel to it. They range themselves along the line of a somewhat erratic development, from Baudelaire, through Goncourt, by way of Zola, to the surprising originality of so disconcerting an exception to any and ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... a woman could be very, very happy fulfilling every one of those conditions if she were woman enough," answered Caroline Darrah Brown, looking straight into his eyes with her beautiful, disconcerting, dangerous young seriousness. ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... the young fellow, "so they have been exchanging confidences, and my manner is disconcerting—not what was expected. If I have become a jest between them it shall be a short-lived one. Miss Hargrove, with all her city experience, shall find that I'm not so young and verdant but that I can take a hand in this game also. As for Amy, I now know she never cared for me, and I don't believe ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... last obliged to submit what he had to say in the form of a "brief," which filled six closely printed pages. He was followed by Paul Littlefield representing the Men's Campaign Committee of the Pennsylvania Women's Anti-Suffrage Association. His experience was more disconcerting than that of Mr. Carter, who had freely stated the expenditures of his association and his own salary while Mr. Littlefield refused any information on these and other points. He brought a message ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... Malcolm Sage suddenly looked up, flashing that keen, steely look through his gold-rimmed spectacles that many men had found so disconcerting. "Ordinary visit?" ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... thought, Judge, what a particularly mean nigger I'd have been, myself," he said, and studied the judge with disconcerting directness. "If you'd been born a colored man, and some folks talked and behaved to you like some folks talk and behave to colored men, don't you reckon you'd be in jail ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... he arrived in London, or any other sensible woman, say, like Frau von Hagen of Cettinje, he drags poor Euphemia, a timid maiden lady of forty-five, from her tea-parties and Bible-classes and Dorcas-meetings at Tunbridge Wells, and plants her down as guide, philosopher and friend to this disconcerting product of Chicago and Albania. Of course the poor lady was at her wits' ends, not knowing whether to treat her as a new-born baby or a buffalo. With equal inevitability, Liosha, unaccustomed to this type of Western woman, summed her up in a drastic ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... below. It was an easy climb, she thought, with a boyish grin—far easier than many she had achieved successfully when the need of a solitary ramble became imperative. But the East was inconvenient for solitary ramble; native servants had a disconcerting habit of lying down to sleep wherever drowsiness overcame them, and it was not very long since she had slid down from her balcony and landed plumb on a slumbering bundle of humanity who had roused half the hotel with his howls. She leant far over the rail, trying to see into the verandah ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... disconcerting suddenly to realize that he had not taken his foe by surprise; his swift approach was slightly checked as he saw that the figure was facing him, watching him—waiting for him! It was still as any statue up to the very instant ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... her hands fell from the arm of the chair to her lap, though her big soft eyes never changed their gaze, which proved somewhat disconcerting to the older woman who had the grace to color slightly. Peggy then rallied her forces ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... was lapping a second supply, the Kansas shifted again with a disconcerting suddenness. The water in the cabin swirled across the floor as the ship was restored to an even keel. The movement dislodged the packet of letters. It fell, and Elsie rescued it a second time. Christobal watched ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... the more disconcerting for Charles, because of the speedy abatement of the enthusiasm that had hailed his first appearance. What had happened to him was what generally happens to a conqueror who has more good luck than talent; instead of ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... up, and, as he might well think, wasted, an enormous quantity of time; and they were, moreover, parodies, rather than imitations, of his writings, for I invented new species, with sapphire spots and crimson tentacles and amber bands, which were close enough to his real species to be disconcerting. He came from conscientiously shepherding the flocks of ocean, and I do not wonder that my ring-straked, speckled and spotted varieties put him out of countenance. If I had not been so innocent and solemn, he might have fancied I ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... every detail of stage business, seriously and conscientiously, taking pains to give a perfect rendering. Her poses, some of which were disconcerting, requiring as they did a skirt to explain them, were almost all pretty, while all were interesting, inasmuch as they brought into relief the firm muscles under the soft envelope of a young body, ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... silence for several moments. Her bosom was rising and falling quickly, and a brilliant spot of colour was burning in her cheeks. Her head was thrown a little back, she was regarding him with an intentness which he found almost disconcerting. He had an uncomfortable sense that he was in the presence of a human being who, if it had lain in her power, would have killed him where he stood. Further, he was realizing that the woman whom at first glance he had pronounced ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... usual, when he was in a temper or excited, he was smoking furiously. But the threat of disinheritance was not forthcoming. If anything, the disinheritor was sulking. And the eyes of the disinheritee were intelligent and disconcerting. ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... entertaining, if disconcerting, to watch a rumor on its travels. A classic example of this during the recent war is exhibited by the following clippings which were collected, ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... her very gravely, and Hetty Torrance appeared to find something disconcerting in his gaze, for she turned her ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... send a wickedly twisting spiral sixty yards, and the ends had an uncanny way of catching forward passes. Through the newspapers, through word of mouth and by letters the news arrived,—and it became increasingly disconcerting. Unless Ridgley wished to be disgraced before the eyes of the world something must be done—and done ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... my proper form by no less than half a leg; the essence of the debardeur being, it appeared, that he emerged at the knees, in white silk stockings and with neat calves, from the beribboned breeches which I artlessly suffered to flap at my ankles. The discovery, after the fact, was disconcerting—yet had been best made withal, too late; for it would have seemed, I conceive, a less monstrous act to attempt to lengthen my legs than to shorten Johnny's culotte. The trouble had been that we hadn't really known what a debardeur ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... to set the apparatus going. For I had prepared a little surprise for Piragoff and I was now rather doubtful how he would take it. Besides, I was not enjoying the proceedings as much as I had expected to. Piragoff's lack of nerve was disconcerting. ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... travelled slowly backwards over the ragged petticoat and the pink cotton jacket—which, instead of being neatly buttoned over at the neck, fell loosely open, disclosing the girl's throat, firm and round as a pillar—and so on till they reached her face; then suddenly drooped before the disconcerting gaze of another pair of eyes, very ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... better view, he saw that the two were entirely men of mud, and very roughly put together. Dried grass hair stood erect upon each head, and their faces were large and lumpy and had a disconcerting way of changing shape. Indeed, when the King leaned over to examine the Scarecrow, his features were so soft they seemed to run into his cheek, which hung down alarmingly, while his nose turned sideways and ...
— The Royal Book of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... perpendicularly, so as to see over the edge of a floe, in looking for seals. The huge black and yellow heads with sickening pig eyes only a few yards from us at times, and always around us, are among the most disconcerting recollections I have of that day. The immense fins were bad enough, but when they started a perpendicular dodge they were positively beastly. As the day wore on skua gulls, looking upon us as certain carrion, settled ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... his new discovery, however, was more than disconcerting, and it is not surprising that he lost his balance. Its attack and rush were overwhelming. Thus, it was a kind of exalted speculative wonder lying behind his inner joy that caused his mistakes. He had imagined, for instance, that the first ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... well with the authorities in Hispaniola. Diego Columbus had given him a commission as Vice-Governor of Darien, so that as Darien was clearly within Diego Columbus's jurisdiction, Balboa was strictly under authority. The news in Zamudio's letter was very disconcerting. Like every Spaniard, Vasco Nunez knew that he could expect little mercy and scant justice from a trial conducted under such auspices as Pedrarias's. He determined, therefore, to secure himself in his position by some splendid achievement, which ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... half open beneath the net, so saw him cautiously approach with a rose-stem between his fingers. Being extremely sensitive to tickling, so soon as touched under the ear I took a flying leap from the chair somewhat disconcerting my tormentor. ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... and the words might have been written of Powell. An impish humour broke out in him, and the mischievous schoolboy alternated with the warrior and the administrator. He met the Boer commandos with chaff and jokes which were as disconcerting as his wire entanglements and his rifle-pits. The amazing variety of his personal accomplishments was one of his most striking characteristics. From drawing caricatures with both hands simultaneously, or skirt dancing to leading a forlorn hope, nothing came amiss to ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... he was. Political loyalty is such a fickle thing. A number of aldermen with curious names—Horback, Fogarty, McGrane, Sumulsky—showed signs of being tampered with. He hurried at once to Messrs. Hand, Schryhart, and Arneel with this disconcerting information. They had been congratulating themselves that the recent victory, if it resulted in nothing else, would at least produce a blanket 'L' road franchise, and that this would be sufficient to bring Cowperwood to ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... he added, "remember Tom was always harum scarum, and you must make allowances for this daughter of his. Her very name is—ah—disconcerting. I haven't seen him for years, and as for her...." A shrug epitomised his apprehension. He smiled with an effort at wit. "Just the same, they're as much your family as mine. If he is my brother, he is your uncle. And if she's my ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... (he spluttered),—As a very busy man I must protest against your attempt to distract my attention by writing to me on a matter that is of no importance. That your discovery is of a somewhat disconcerting nature I will not deny, but that it is of any particular value or interest to me is hardly to be expected, seeing that it relates to a by-gone century, and any defects acquired by the Pethertons from such a union will, I imagine, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, July 25, 1917 • Various
... train and go back to Tillbury, much as I have counted on this trip. No, honey," she added, laughing at her own extravagance, "there's no need of your getting excited, for I have no idea that we shall meet Linda at Palm Beach. Only she has the most disconcerting way of popping up in places ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... of Mrs. E. and her husband and their children are beautiful to remember—their courtesy, their serenity, their gentle and absolving wonder that anybody should see anything in the least frightful or distressing, or even disconcerting and unusual, in the situation; the little girl who sat beside me, showing me her picture-book of animals, accepting gravely and earnestly all that you had to tell her about the ways of squirrels, of kangaroos and opossums, while we waited ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... telephone room, and Curtis ascended to his suite of apartments. He knocked at Hermione's door, and her "Yes, who is there?" came with disconcerting speed. Evidently, she was far from being ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... by M. Max's action was disconcerting. Willis felt himself stranded, literally a stranger in a strange land, sent to carry out an investigation among a people whose language he could not even speak! He saw at once that his task was impossible. He must have local help or he could ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... "delightful sketches in Indian ink and crayon ... reproduced in marvellous facsimile by Boussod, Valadon & Co.... unworthy the glories of facsimile reproduction, and imposing margin" ... while "the chief honours of the portfolio, however, belong to the publishers"—but are, disconcerting as I acknowledge it to be, themselves the lithographs from nature, drawn on ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... decent black, with a white cravat round his neck. His face was as sharp as a hatchet, and the skin of it was as yellow and dry and withered as an autumn leaf. His eyes, of a steely light grey, had a very disconcerting trick, when they encountered your eyes, of looking as if they expected something more from you than you were aware of yourself. His walk was soft; his voice was melancholy; his long lanky fingers were hooked like claws. He might have been a parson, or an undertaker—or ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... night, as Hunterleys and Lane passed out through the grudgingly opened door, was sufficiently disconcerting. A little murmur of dismay broke from the assembled crowd. Nothing was to be seen but a dense bank of white mist, through which shone the brilliant lights of the automobiles waiting at the door. Monsieur le Directeur hastened about, doing his ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... According to Charlie, so many queer, inexplicable things happened in the world. Occult—subliminal—astral—thoughtwaves. These expressions and many more occurred to her as she recollected Charlie's disconcerting conversations. There ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... that there is no secrecy—that is to say, no secrecy beyond the usual business precautions involved," protested the Senator. The frank query in Stewart's eyes had been a bit disconcerting. "But to have matters of business bandied ahead of time by the mouth of gossip, on half-information, is as damaging as all this ridiculous talk that's now rioting through the city ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... scolded poor Ollie for being such a stick as not to be able to dance like her sister and having to be dependent on her. There was something hideously immoral and disconcerting about this success. But then there always is. Prue was whisked from the ranks of the resentful poor to those ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... seen the pair, arms joined, who paced upon the side-lawn near at hand and had now stopped to look towards them. It was the old Contessa, who owned the house and still occupied a part of it, and the Contessina, her daughter. He knew the former as a disconcerting and never disconcerted specter of an aged lady, with lips that trembled and eyes that never faltered, and the latter as a serious, silent, tall girl with the black hair and oval Madonna face of her country and he knew her, too, as a vague and aching disturbance ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... that strangest of phenomena, a formal ceremony of civilized life performed in the abashing and disconcerting presence of naked emotion. Arnold and Judith sat on opposite sides of the pergola, Judith shining and radiant as the dawn, her usually firmly set lips soft and tremulous; Arnold rather pale, impatient, oblivious to what was going on around him, ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... into a charming smile, and she had beautiful teeth. The nose was short and emphatic, the jawbone salient. It was, altogether, a disharmonic type, for the head was long and the face short, broad across the high cheekbones; and her large light eyes set in her small dark face produced a disconcerting effect on sensitive people, but more often fascinated them. Clavering had been told that in her California days she had possessed a superb bust, but long years of unremitting work in France and England had taken toll of her flesh and it ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... a quaint, silent old fellow, with thick glasses and a very disconcerting stare. He now used this stare hard and said nothing. So I hastened ...
— Continuous Vaudeville • Will M. Cressy
... grabbed a tool and climbing into the rigging below hacked away at the bomb-throwing tube until the whole equipment was cut adrift and fell clear of the vessel. Almost instantly there was a terrific explosion in mid-air. The blast of air caused the vessel to roll and pitch in a disconcerting manner, but as the airman permitted the craft to continue its upward course unchecked, she soon steadied herself and was brought ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... answered only with glances of superb scorn. This time I hesitated. The mental picture I saw of myself—a vague young woman, seated in an automobile stranded by the roadside, trying to lure away the dog of a strange man—was disconcerting. While I debated whether to break my promise or behave like a wild school girl, the animal paused in his listless trot. He stopped, as if he'd been struck by an unseen bullet, quivered all over, and shot past us like a torpedo. A minute later ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... out as loud as I could, with a boy's pleasure in disconcerting the inquisitive passer-by. She turned suddenly round to go away, waving her hand at me; at that moment Sora Lodovica swung the shrine-lamp back into its place. A stream of light fell across the street. I felt myself grow quite cold; the face of the woman outside was that ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... strange to watch the folks assembling, and the gradual kindling of the flambeaux. In the windows on either side of the street were set candles; and a line of coaches was drawn up against the gutter on the further side. But still more strange and disconcerting were the preparations already made to receive the procession. An open space was kept by fellows with torches to the east of the City Gate; and here, looking towards the City, with her back to the Gate, close beside the Pillory, stood Queen Bess in ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... this interval from being named incessantly by Lady Crewe. My deep mourning, my recent heavy loss, and the absence and distance of my dear husband made me peculiarly wish to be unobserved. Peculiarly, I say; for never yet had the moment arrived in which to be marked had not been embarrassing and disconcerting to me, even when ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... political tact or statesmanship of the men who thus undertook to set human progress on a new and ethical basis, the story of these bickerings, hasty improvisations, and amazing compromises is distressing. The incertitude and suspense that resulted were disconcerting. Nobody ever knew what was coming. A subcommission might deliver a reasoned judgment on the question submitted to it, and this might be unanimously confirmed by the commission, but the Four or Three or Two or even One could not merely quash the report, ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... looked at the lovely girl, her face radiant with enthusiasm, the disconcerting thought came suddenly that perhaps her statement might not be accurate. No such thought had ever suggested itself to him before, and it now filled him with guilty confusion. He met the clear, honest gaze of her eyes for a moment, then ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... the nature of the original timber indicates, and it is well within the knowledge of practical men that land which once produced the walnut and ash and shellbark hickory can be brought back to productivity with reasonable ease after very hard usage. It has a good inheritance. It is a disconcerting fact in our American agriculture that, fertile as our country is as a whole, very great areas were so deficient in lime before they came under man's control that the chestnut, pine, and the oaks of mean growth were fully at home. The gradation ...
— Right Use of Lime in Soil Improvement • Alva Agee
... this observation was greeted might have been disconcerting to anybody but Anthony Robeson, but he maintained his ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... and the sinewy strength of his young shoulders he began to be afraid of the man who had come to him out of the storm. There was something strangely disconcerting, even sinister, in the ceaseless movements of his pale hands and the sudden lightning dart of his eyes, as they shifted from the defaced wall to his own ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... time to catch a glint in her eyes. It was unexpected and disconcerting. He had been imagining that she was merely over-indulged; but the glint warned him that Barbara would make a bad enemy, cruel perhaps and unscrupulous certainly. The next moment she was again like a child, grown haggard with fatigue; and he gave her a ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... with no delusions. He polished his armour until it was fit to blind his adversaries, tested the temper of every weapon, sharpened every blade, arranged them for immediate availment. In spite of the absorbing and disconcerting interests of the summer, he had followed in thought the mental processes of his enemies, kept a sharp eye out for their new methods of aggression. Themselves had had no more intimate knowledge of their astonishment, humiliation, ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... Involuntarily Anstice's arm stiffened, and the other man dropped it as he went on speaking. "I was called in last night, and hearing you were ill—by the way, are you better now?" He broke off abruptly and peered into Anstice's face with disconcerting keenness. ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... collector and hundreds of prominent citizens all testify to having seen it. Last night several hundred people, armed with clubs and guns, assaulted the specter, which appeared to be a woman in white. Clubs, bullets and shot tore the air in which the mystic figure floated without disconcerting it in the least. A portion of the town turned out en masse to-day and began exhuming all the ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... familiar enough, although disconcerting, but I rubbed my eyes when I found that they were made up of two items that had never come my way; the first being one-and-a-half dozen essences, L3 15s., and the second, a dozen poudre assortie, L1 14s. It could not be for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 21, 1919. • Various
... That moment had arrived in the case of the Tsar. It had arrived in the case of Kerensky. It has not arrived in the case of the Soviet Government for certain obvious reasons. For one thing, a collapse of the Soviet Government at the present time would be disconcerting, if not disastrous, to its more respectable enemies. It would, of course, open the way to a practically unopposed military advance, but at the same time it would present its enemies with enormous territory, which would overwhelm the organizing powers which ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome
... and disconcerting his pleasantly questioning look with one of swift resolve. "Dr. Kemp, I wish to tell you that my father has confided to me ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... judge by these summaries how little Kuprin "pads" his stories. Most of them are reduced to a commonplace anecdote, which the author is careful not to ornament in the least. He respects truth to such a degree that he offers it to his readers in its disconcerting bareness. He would think that he was failing in his duty as an observer if he disguised it by ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... exchanged ideas afterward in frequent and friendly correspondence. Watt described himself as being, upon one occasion, "drunk from morning to night with Burgundy and undeserved praise." The latter was always a disconcerting draught for our subject; anything but reference to his achievements for ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... great wolf-hound whom Roosevelt himself described as "a most ill-favored hybrid, whose mother was a Newfoundland and whose father was a large wolf," and which looked, it seemed, more like a hyena than like either of its parents. The dog both barked and howled, but it had a disconcerting habit of doing neither when it was on business bent. The first intimation Roosevelt had of its existence one day, as he was knocking at the door of the Wadsworth cabin, was a rush that the animal made for ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... England, that the oath had been extorted from the barons by force, and that on his death-bed Henry had released them from it; but more than this, Stephen's advocates suddenly sprang on their opponents a new and most disconcerting argument, one which would have had great weight in any Church court, and which attacked both their claims at once. Matilda could not be the rightful heir, and so the oath itself could not be binding, because she was of illegitimate birth, ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... the weather was bad, but she trudged on, the honesty, directness, and impartiality of elemental enmity disconcerting her but little. Her object being a winter's occupation and a winter's home, there was no time to lose. Her experience of short hirings had been such that she was determined to accept ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... surprised, not we. She probably thought she had spiked our guns in that part of the world forever, and the sight of us coming laughing from the very office where we should have been made glum must have been disconcerting. ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... the blue noses and fiery tails was disconcerting, and had a chilling effect on Nella's talkative mood. The gondolier had crossed the bridge, to tell his story to Pasquale, whose view of the case seemed to differ from Nella's. He listened with approving interest, but without comment, until the ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... aides-de-camp, myself, and a certain genial Calcutta business magnate, most popular of Anglo-Indians. As we had a connection to catch at a junction on the narrow-gauge railway, an interminable wait at a big station in the early morning was disconcerting, for the connection would probably be missed. The jovial, burly Englishman occupied the second sleeping-berth in my compartment. As the delay lengthened, he, having some official connection with the East Bengal State Railway, jumped ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... and irritable state of mind which was strange and disconcerting even to himself. Instead of giving her the big hug that was his habit when they found themselves safely alone, he ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... separation from his particular divinity was disconcerting. How to see her again? He must go up to Oxford in the morning, he wrote her that night, but if she could possibly let him call during the week he would manage to run ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... round to the front a disconcerting thought struck me. I remembered that I had only a few shillings ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... closer the bonds which connected Great Britain with the Canadas. Although at the epoch of the declaration of war the country was destitute both of troops and money, yet from the devotion of a brave and loyal, yet unjustly calumniated people, resources sufficient for disconcerting the plans of conquest devised by a foe, at once numerous and elate with confidence, had been derived. The blood of the sons of Canada had flowed mingled with that of the brave soldiers sent for its defence, when re-inforcements were afterwards received. The multiplied proofs of the ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... returned to the convent, but not in order. At the door Teresa felt her arm taken possession of by a strong hand with which she had had more than one disconcerting encounter. ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... almost on our level. Talbott dived at once. I was behind him and picked a German who was spiraling either upward or downward, for a few seconds I was not sure which. It was upward. He was climbing to offer combat. This was disconcerting. It always is to a green pilot. If your foe is running, you may be sure he is at least as badly rattled as you are. If he is a single-seater and climbing, you may be equally certain that he is not ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... look like sunshine," said Oliver Saffren hesitatingly, stating a disconcerting but incontrovertible truth; "it only seems to look like it because—isn't it because it's so much brighter than the rest of the picture? I doubt if paint CAN look like sunshine." He turned from the sketch, caught Keredec's gathering frown, and his face flushed ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... of women, her pride in the purity of her feelings, that active virtue which is the basis of her self-respect, make her indignant at the sentimental speeches intended for her amusement. She does not receive them with open anger, but with a disconcerting irony or an unexpected iciness. If a fair Apollo displays his charms, and makes use of his wit in the praise of her wit, her beauty, and her grace; at the risk of offending him she is quite capable of saying politely, "Sir, I am afraid I know ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... question. Themar flushed uncomfortably. Carl had a way of reading between the lines that was exceedingly disconcerting. His information, he said at length after an interval of marked hesitancy, had been too meager. He had listened at the door once when the Baron had spoken of Miss Westfall to his secretary. A housemaid had frightened him away ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... extent that he called for help at the top of his voice. His servants immediately came rushing to his room. Doubtless he was relieved at seeing them; but his feelings may have been somewhat mixed when Lady Elizabeth "thrust in with them." He was on very friendly terms with her; but it was disconcerting to receive a lady from his bed when he was half awake and wholly frightened, especially when, as the correspondent describes it, the condition of that lady was like that of "a cow that had lost ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville
... his abrupt, disconcerting way, and gave her a piercing look. She averted her face instantly, but he had caught ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... not forgotten, which was disconcerting. To cover up my own doubts I asked him with affected confidence and cheerfulness whether he was not afraid to risk this journey "down below," that is, to the ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... sailor boy's suit you're wearing? You've got to dress like a decent white girl that's had some bringing-up, and you've got to—you've got—" Amzi coughed as though afraid of the intended conclusion of his sentence. Phil's eyes were bent upon him with disconcerting gravity. He hoped that Phil would interrupt with one of her usual impertinences; but with the suspicion of laughter in her eyes she waited, so that he perforce blurted it out. "You've got to go into ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... find it disconcerting that Shakespeare identified himself with Brutus, who failed, rather than with Caesar, who succeeded. But even before he himself came to grief in his love and trust, Shakespeare had always treated the failures with peculiar ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... questions which occupy the public mind, such as voluntaryism, Free Trade, etc., etc. Responsible Government is the one subject on which this coincidence is alleged to exist."[7] The French problem he found peculiarly difficult. Metcalfe's policy had had results disconcerting to the British authorities. Banishing, as he thought, sectarianism or racial views, he had yet practically shut out French statesmen from office so successfully, that, when Elgin, acting through Colonel ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... knowing that he was more than a match for the villain, he got up from his camp stool leisurely, and with great composure told the man: "Certainly, I will be very glad to have some one along who knows the trail so well." To be told that he knew the trail must have been disconcerting to the man, but not one word did he say in reference ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... grounded on these sand-bars, making it necessary for us to get out into the water, pushing and pulling on the boats until deeper water was reached. Sometimes the deep water came when least expected, the sand-bars having a disconcerting way of dropping off abruptly on the downstream side. Jimmy stepped off the edge of one of these hidden ledges while working with a boat and was for some time in no condition to appreciate our ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... sides was magnificent. Yet Kernstown itself was a very small affair. Little more than ten thousand men had been in action: seven thousand Federals under Shields against half as many Confederates under Stonewall Jackson. The point is that Jackson's attack, though unsuccessful, was very disconcerting elsewhere. From Kernstown the area of disturbance spread like wildfire till the tactical victory of seven thousand Federals had spoilt the strategy of thirty times as many. Shields reported: "I set to work during ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... without a logical answer. One day, for instance, when a certain master spoke somewhat sourly and irritably to him, Robert Hart then and there took it upon himself to deliver him a lecture which, in its calm reasoning, was most disconcerting. ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... for a moment. So far as I was concerned, speech was altogether beyond me. Lady Angela, too, seemed to find something disconcerting in Ray's searching gaze. ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... placed before Flockart by his shabby friend was a somewhat disconcerting one. On the one hand, Lady Heyburn had urged him to leave the Riviera, without giving him any reason, and on the other, he had the ever-present danger of Gabrielle, in a sudden fit of sentimental self-sacrifice, "giving him away." If she did, ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... of his misconduct was the practice of prolonging his visits to unseasonable hours, and disconcerting all the families into which he was admitted. This was an errour in a place of commerce, which all the charms of his conversation could not compensate; for what trader would purchase such airy satisfaction by the loss of solid gain, which must be the consequence of midnight merriment, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... that I snuffed—it was at Claypots steading—but there was no wind that I should turn. This is very remarkable, John, and . . . disconcerting. ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... with the sharp command of "Stan' aboot there!" "Haud up!" "Mind whaur yer comin'!" Such expressions as these Jess and Meg could interject into the even tenor of their conversation, in a way that might have been disconcerting in dialogues conducted on other principles. But really the interruptions did not affect Ebie Farrish or any other of the byre-visiting young men, any more than the rattling of the chains, as Flecky and Speckly arranged their own business at the end devoted to imports. These sharp ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... faced by spineless nincompoops, the rebels reeled before the sudden, well-timed tactics of real officers with eyes and ears and brains. The mask was off on both sides, and the sudden, stripped efficiency of one was no less disconcerting than the ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... dictated. This latter person also does no actual writing. He speaks what he wants to have put into writing. Dictating is not an easily acquired accomplishment in business—as many a man will testify. Modern office practice has intensified the difficulty. It may be rather disconcerting to deliver well-constructed, meaningful sentences to an unresponsive stenographer, but at any rate the receiver is alive. But to talk into the metallic receiver of a mechanical dictaphone has an almost ridiculous air. Men have to train themselves deliberately ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton |
