"Inexpressible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... language, utterly unlike all other tongues,—a language which hitherto had never been learned, except by the Indians themselves, from their mothers' lips,—a language never written, and the strange words of which seemed inexpressible by letters;—if the task were, first, to learn this new variety of speech, and then to translate the Bible into it, and to do it so carefully, that not one idea throughout the holy book should be changed,—what ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... sofa smiling; the firelight dancing on her small white face—white and unscarred. The disease had been kind to the blind child; she was, I think, more sweet-looking than ever. Older, perhaps; the round prettiness of childhood gone—but her whole appearance wore that inexpressible expression, in which, for want of a suitable word, we all embody our vague notions of the unknown world, and ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... At length, upon making a push forward with all the energy I could command, I struck my forehead violently against the sharp corner of an iron-bound crate. The accident only stunned me for a few moments; but I found, to my inexpressible grief, that the quick and violent roll of the vessel had thrown the crate entirely across my path, so as effectually to block up the passage. With my utmost exertions I could not move it a single inch from its position, it ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... hands with him and offered him a cigarette, while Ali Baba's men outside the cave sent up a great shout of victory. Then to Ali Higg's inexpressible delight Mahommed started to sing the Akbar song, and they all ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... letters to Reb Sender, in a conglomeration of the Talmudic jargon, bad Hebrew, and good Yiddish, referring to the Talmud studies I pursued in America and pouring out my forlorn heart to him. His affectionate answers brought me inexpressible happiness ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... that the patience of saints could not tolerate the crimes of the royalist leaders, and at that very moment new attacks increased indignation and anger to an inexpressible degree." ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... explained to the Duke that his conscience called upon him to resign. The Duke listened and bowed his head, and with one or two very gently-uttered words expressed his regret. Then Sir Orlando, in another long speech, laid bare his bosom to the Chief whom he was leaving, declaring the inexpressible sorrow with which he had found himself called upon to take a step which he feared might be prejudicial to the political status of a man whom he honoured so much as he did the Duke of Omnium. Then the Duke bowed again, but said nothing. The man had been guilty of the impropriety ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... relations which we bear, not to abstractions of memory, to phantoms of by-gone joy, but to spiritual intelligences, whose current of being flows on uninterrupted, with whose current of being our own mingles. I know not how it is with others, but to me there is inexpressible consolation in ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin
... Graces; and some amusing incidents occur during the process. Generally speaking, though the amount of attire is not excessive, considerable effort in the way of pinning and hitching is required to get things in their proper places. A young gentleman was reduced to inexpressible grief, and held up to the scorn of his fellow-bathers, by the fact that, in the course of his al fresco toilette, one of his feet went through his inexpressibles in an honourable quarter, instead of proceeding by the proper route; the error interested his friends vastly—for ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... of it, possessed her; she seemed to feel the touch of a beloved hand, which drew her, trembling and panting, closer and closer to some high experience of which she had never dreamed before, to the expression of inexpressible things, to a giving of the utmost, to a wild strife of emulation which of them two should give the most. The dark was all about them like a bed—and closer he drew her, and closer yet. For one wild moment that endured—O heaven, they ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... freed from the domination of the tyrants, and relieved from oppression, as acknowledging the only true God and protector of the pious, and these especially who had placed their hope in Christ, as filled with inexpressible joy; the ministers everywhere delivering commemorative addresses, and the whole multitude offering praises ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... "It is the most beautiful object the eyes of man can behold to see a man of worth and his son live in an entire, unreserved correspondence. The mutual kindness and affection between them give an inexpressible satisfaction to all who know them. It is a sublime pleasure which increases by the participation. It is as sacred as friendship, as pleasurable as love, and as joyful as religion. This state of mind does not only dissipate sorrow which would be extreme without it, but enlarges pleasures ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... face, impatient to be gone. But at the barking he pricked up his ears, put his head on one side, and wondered, I saw, where that companionable sound came from. What he made of the scene I do not know; the sight of the fruitful earth, the homes of men, the fields and waters, filled me with an inexpressible emotion, a wide-flung hope, a sense of the immensity and intricacy of life. But to my dog it meant nothing at all, though he saw just what I did. To him it was nothing but a great excavation in the earth, patched ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Nature, which is never without her compensations, had put into this child of ten years old a strange charm, and inexpressible loveableness which springs from lovingness, though every loving nature is not fortunate enough to possess it. But the earl's did; and as he looked up into the minister's face, with that touchingly grateful expression he had, the good man felt his heart melt ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... south.... The road runs up a frowning pass between Parnassus on the right hand and the spurs of the Helicon range on the left. Away to the south a wild and desolate valley opens, running up among the waste places of Helicon, a scene of inexpressible grandeur and desolation" ...
— Oedipus King of Thebes - Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes • Sophocles
... safe return was quite as wordless as her sorrow at our parting (in April) had been. To have me close beside her, to lay her hand upon my arm, filled her with inexpressible content. She could not imagine the hundredth part of the hardships I had endured, and I made no special effort to enlighten her—I merely said, "You needn't worry, mother, one such experience is enough. I shall never ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... ride home in the hansom from the Promenade concert her faculty for love had miraculously developed. He divined great deeps in her, and deeps beyond those deeps. The tenderness which he felt for her was inexpressible. He said not a word, keeping to himself the terrific resolves to which she, and the wind, and the spectacular majesty of London inspired him. He and she would live regally in one of those very houses, and people should kowtow to her because she was the dazzling wife of the renowned young ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... to reach something to pull himself up by; but everything slipped away and evaded him. It was like trying to catch at bright short waves. Then suddenly his fingers clasped themselves about something firm and warm. A hand: a hand that gave back his pressure! The relief was inexpressible. He lay still and let the hand hold him, while mentally he went through the motions of getting up and beginning to dress. So indistinct were the boundaries between thought and action that he really felt himself moving about the room, in a queer disembodied ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... had known his father, at one time, to possess several. His search availed him nothing—the chests were empty—there was not an atom of money left. As if this were not misery enough, he perceived, with inexpressible grief, that the rafters of the house, the wainscoting of the rooms, were beginning to totter and crack so fearful, that it would be impossible to reside much longer beneath them. And oh, sorrow upon sorrow! those ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... acknowledges the loyalty of the chorus, but hints at much that is amiss which it must be his first charge to set right. Hereupon enters Clytemnestra, and in a speech of rhetorical exaggeration tells of her anxious waiting for her lord and her inexpressible joy at his return. In conclusion she directs that purple cloth be spread upon his path that he may enter the house as befits a conqueror. After a show of resistance, Agamemnon yields the point, and the contrast at which the dramatist aims is achieved. With the pomp of an eastern monarch, always ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... and quiet; I had no affliction upon me, either for others or myself; it was an extreme languor and weakness, without any manner of pain. I saw my own house, but knew it not. When they had put me to bed I found an inexpressible sweetness in that repose; for I had been desperately tugged and lugged by those poor people who had taken the pains to carry me upon their arms a very great and a very rough way, and had in so doing all quite tired out themselves, twice or thrice one after another. They ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... majestic in a form free from all sorrow, as the giver of life and livelihood and all good things, the common father of men, their saviour and their guardian, so far as it is possible for a mortal man to conceive and to copy his divine and inexpressible nature. And consider whether you will not find the image according with all the epithets of the god; Zeus alone is called the father of gods and their only king, and also god of the city and of friendship and society, ...
— Religion and Art in Ancient Greece • Ernest Arthur Gardner
... fitted out with Wardour Street armor, or eternal scenes from Gil Blas, Don Quixote, and the Vicar of Wakefield, or mountain sceneries with young idiots of Londoners wearing Highland bonnets and brandishing rifles in the foregrounds. Do but think of these things in the breadth of their inexpressible imbecility, and then go and stand before that broken bas-relief in the southern gate of Lincoln Cathedral, and see if there is no fibre of the heart in ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... questions which we have reviewed, is, in the writings of the adversaries, full of errors and hypocrisy, and obscures the benefit of Christ, the power of the keys, and the righteousness of faith [to inexpressible injury of conscience]. ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon
... dissuade him from what they, no doubt, thought a rash step. He hastened into the boat, notwithstanding all they could do or say. As soon as they saw their beloved chief wholly in my power, they set up a great outcry. The grief they shewed was inexpressible; every face was bedewed with tears; they prayed, entreated, nay, attempted to pull him out of the boat. I even joined my entreaties to theirs; for I could not bear to see them in such distress. All that ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... is seven days since we left Yuen-nan Fu and each night we have come to temples such as this. There is an inexpressible charm about them, lying asleep, as it were, among the trees of their courtyards, with stately, pillared porches, and picturesque gables upturned to the sky. They seem so very, very old and filled with ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... for the climate. You spent a good deal here,—nearly all you earned,—but then a poor man was a man, and the people were honest. It was wonderful to him that they all knew how to read and write, and he viewed with inexpressible scorn those Irish who came to this country, and were so little sensible of the benefits it conferred upon them. Boston he believed the best city in America, and "Tell me," said he, "is there such a thing anywhere else in the world as that Public Library?" ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... as he looked on, panting with the exertion his enfeebled frame had been put to. How? Why? What was the meaning of it all? But his questions remained unspoken. Nor was he left in doubt long. Rosebud laughing, her wonderful eyes dancing with an inexpressible delight, released herself and turned to Seth. Immediately her face fell as she looked on the shadow of a man ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... parapet, could not help taking a last mournful look on their dead comrades in the ditch, whose soldierly qualities had endeared them to their best affections; and many, without for a moment selfishly looking at their own dark future, were oppressed with inexpressible sadness when reflecting on the immensity of the sacrifice and the deplorableness of the result. It was a ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... owe to him inexpressible benefits for his famous Complutense Polyglot Bible, one of the most correct and splendid editions of the sacred writings hitherto published. One of the few copies now extant of that monument of piety and wisdom is to be found in the British Museum. Such men, however, were, it must be admitted, ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... had great faith in his intercession, she requested the new superior to allow her to pray at the tomb of the deceased. She was refused the favor then, but was directed to call on the following Sunday, which she did not fail to do, accompanied by me. It gave us inexpressible joy to pray by the tomb of the dead saint, and to see the splendid chapel of St. Sulpice. But Mlle. Mance had more reason to rejoice than I, for, while kneeling in prayer, she suddenly recovered the use of her crippled arm, and was restored to perfect ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.
... doubt if I could have got her away; but it was so near that we were there before she had recovered the hurry of being urged from the rock. I did not remain there with her two minutes. Certainly within five, I had the inexpressible satisfaction of seeing her - from the point we had sat on, and to which I had returned - half supported and half carried up some rude steps notched in the cliff, by the figure of an active man. With that figure beside her, I knew she was ...
— Hunted Down • Charles Dickens
... to a Royal Highness at any rate, and a much more topping man than most of them. Well then;—His Serene Highness the heir of the Duke of Omnium has done me the inexpressible honour of asking me—to ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... natures, was frank and confiding. She was warm-hearted, impulsive, and quick to show gratitude. After the society of the Mowbrays, she found that of Little Dudleigh an inexpressible relief. What struck her most about him was his unvarying calmness. He must have some personal regard for her, she was sure, for on what other grounds would he come to see her so incessantly, and spend so much time with her? Yet he never showed much of this in his manner. ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... the knife had penetrated to the bone, and I was surrounded with such heavy distresses that I could no longer live in expectations, I then wrote an account of my difficulties. The answer I have received to it is such that it has given me inexpressible grief and affliction. I never had the least idea or expectation from you and the Council that you would have given your orders in so afflicting a manner, in which you never before wrote, and I could never have imagined. I have ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... I never used to think any great things, reckoning them only fit to canter round the parks with, until I saw you brought out, when I at once perceived that your condition—that is, my feelings—were so inexpressible that...!'" "Ah!" interposed Lawless, "that's where I got bogged, sank in over the fetlocks, and had to give it up as a ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... unconscionable, swinging, monstrous, overgrown; towering, stupendous, prodigious, astonishing, incredible; marvelous &c. 870. unlimited &c. (infinite) 105; unapproachable, unutterable, indescribable, ineffable, unspeakable, inexpressible, beyond expression, fabulous. undiminished, unabated, unreduced[obs3], unrestricted. absolute, positive, stark, decided, unequivocal, essential, perfect, finished. remarkable, of mark, marked, pointed, veriest; noteworthy; renowned. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... I then wrote down some of my contemplations on it, appeared to me to be of a sweet, pleasant, charming, serene, calm nature; which brought an inexpressible purity, brightness, peacefulness, and ravishment to the soul. In other words, that it made the soul like a field or garden of God, with all manner of pleasant flowers; enjoying a sweet calm and the gently vivifying ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... his eyes met hers. Instantly she turned away, and then in a moment after, gave him an earnest, inquiring glance, full of troubled thought. At that look the demon which tormented him vanished, and a flood of inexpressible love filled his soul. He could not go to her, hemmed in as he was by the audience; but he did not cease looking at her through the evening. In vain; she gave no second look or sign of consciousness ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... was at first inclined toward hysteria, but this phase yielded soon under the sympathetic ministrations of the man. His rather low voice was soothing to her tired soul, and his whole air was at once masterful and gently tender. Moreover, there was an inexpressible balm to her spirit in the very fact that some one was thus ministering to her. It was the first time for many dreadful years that any one had taken thought for her welfare. The effect of it was like a draught ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... with my two weapons, striking the steel tomahawk against the stone one over a heap of fluffy material made by unravelling and teasing out a piece of blanket. Success attended my patient efforts this time, and to my inexpressible relief and joy I soon had a cheerful fire blazing alongside my improvised shelter—and, what is more, I took good care never to let it go out during the whole lime I remained a prisoner on the island. The fire was always my first ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... glorious; the valleys being black whilst the snowy peaks of the Andes yet retained a ruby tint. When it was dark, we made a fire beneath a little arbour of bamboos, fried our charqui (or dried slips of beef), took our mate, and were quite comfortable. There is an inexpressible charm in thus living in the open air. The evening was calm and still; — the shrill noise of the mountain bizcacha, and the faint cry of a goatsucker, were occasionally to be heard. Besides these, few birds, or even insects, frequent these dry, ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... facts which the symbols may signify (or that could be read into the symbols) are not the most important, but rather the totality of all these meanings. The totality (which can be acquired only by a sort of integration) is something inexpressible; and if it also succeeded in expressing this inexpressible, the words of the expression would be incomprehensible to any finite spirit, as the individual ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... at Rieka an Englishman for whom I have an almost inexpressible admiration. This was Mr. A. Beaumont who, a couple of days after the Italians occupied the town in the above-mentioned curious fashion, sent from Triest a long message to the Daily Telegraph. How can anyone not marvel at a gentleman who travels to a foreign ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... general exploit these emotional values that cling to words. Indeed, in epithets suggesting illimitable vistas, inexpressible sorrows, and dim-remembered joys, lies half the charm ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... most valued neighbors—a lovely girl was yesterday struck dead by lightning. A friend who stood with her at the moment was a greater sufferer, in being prostrated by the same flash, and paralyzed from the waist downward—her life spared at the cost of tortures inexpressible.'" ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... have examples to set and lives to live And they have a mighty influence to exert in their day both upon the present and coming generations, both upon this and the future world. The subject of this essay is one of inexpressible interest to them. Woman is too much in chains. She wants more freedom. And she will never have it till she takes it herself. She should covet and seek a higher life. She should claim her full equality with her brother, man, and strive to show herself worthy. In woman and her life are wrapped up ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... day; taking short cuts through the densities of the laurel; torn by jagged rocks and tangles of thorny growths and broken branches of great trees; plunging now and again into deep drifts above concealed icy chasms, and rescuing with inexpressible difficulty the floundering, struggling horse; reaching again the open sheeted roadway, bruised, bleeding, exhausted, yet furiously plunging forward, rousing the sparsely settled country-side with imperative insistence for help in this matter of ...
— The Christmas Miracle - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... from the earliest period of my consciousness, I had felt myself impelled. In this country, stamped as it is by Nature with features so peculiar, as probably to have no counterpart on the face of the globe, I hoped to see things which should fill me with new and inexpressible astonishment. How deeply grateful do I feel to Thee, O Thou that hast vouchsafed to me to behold the fulfilment ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... him and to the expectation of her return. He did not feel drawn to her by an impulse of his whole being, but he felt her always near him, as if she never had left him; she left to him something of herself when she departed—something subtle and inexpressible. What was it? Was it love? He probed deep in his heart in order to see, to understand. He thought her charming, but she was not at all the type of ideal woman that his blind hope had created. Whoever calls upon love has foreseen the moral traits and physical charms of her who ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... southward have not been seduced by their example,) and who are not worthy to be called soldiers, should disgrace themselves and their country as the Pennsylvania mutineers have done by insulting the sovereign authority of the United States, and that of their own, I feel an inexpressible satisfaction, that even this behaviour can not stain the name of the American soldiery. It can not be imputed to, or reflect dishonour on, the army at large; but, on the contrary, it will, by the striking ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... talk they had with the Shining Ones was about the glory of the place; who told them that the beauty and glory of it was inexpressible. There, said they, is the Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, the innumerable company of angels, and the spirits of just men made perfect. [Heb. 12:22-24] You are going now, said they, to the paradise of God, wherein ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan
... Larolles were again excited: she viewed the finery displayed with delight inexpressible, enquired who were the intended possessors, heard their names with envy, and sighed with all the bitterness of mortification that she was unable to order home almost everything ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... naked except for his loin-cloth, appeared and commenced salaaming profoundly, continuing his exaggerated salaams for some little while. Eventually he produced a long coil of rope. To Colonel Barnard's inexpressible surprise, the rope began paying away, as sailors would say, out of the juggler's hand of its own accord, and went straight up into the air. Colonel Barnard kodaked it. It went up and up, till their eyes could no longer follow it. Colonel Barnard kodaked it again. ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... silence; but while Gabriella waited for somebody to answer, she felt that it was a silence which had become vocal with inexpressible things. The traditions of Uncle Meriweather, the conventions of Mrs. Carr, the prejudices of Jimmy, and the weak impulses of Jane, all these filled the dusk through which the blank faces of her family stared back at her. Then, while she stood white and ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... Markledew, he expressed his gratitude in two words and a bow, and sped out of the room. Once outside, he hastened to send the all-powerful notes. They were short and sharp, like Markledew's manner, but to Triffitt of an inexpressible sweetness, and he walked on air as he went off to other regions to ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... coolness and precision that he rode out of the patio as if on parade. Erect, observant, and self-possessed, he felt himself "on duty," and, putting spurs to his horse, cantered along the high-road, finding an inexpressible relief in motion. He was doing something in the interest of helplessness and of HER. He had no doubt of his right to interfere. He did not bother himself with the rights of others. Like all self-contained men, he had no plan of action, except what ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... homeward his heart seemed overflowing with generous and happy feelings. As we passed over a rising ground which commanded something of a prospect, the sounds of rustic merriment now and then reached our ears; the Squire paused for a few moments, and looked around with an air of inexpressible benignity. The beauty of the day was of itself sufficient to inspire philanthropy. Notwithstanding the frostiness of the morning, the sun in his cloudless journey had acquired sufficient power to melt ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... of the Laureate's presence! The priest who brought her retired into the background, and she remained where he left her, quite mute and motionless. Oh, how every nerve in Theos's body throbbed with inexpressible agony as he beheld her thus! The wildest remorse possessed him, . . it was as though he looked on the dim picture of a ruin which he himself had recklessly wrought, . . and he could have groaned aloud in the horrible vagueness of his incomprehensible despair! Sah-luma caught the girl's ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... coronation ceremony which raised the young man from Virginia to the position of responsibility for which he had had no wish and from which he now had no escape. It was his acknowledgment by both clans, and to him again turned Jim Rowlett, with an inexpressible anxiety of questioning in ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... have just had. You have been of such inestimable assistance to me already, my dear sir," he continued, turning towards Mat, with all his natural cordiality of disposition now fully developed, under the fostering influence of the Squaw's Mixture. "You have laid me under such an inexpressible obligation in saving ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... would have concluded my father angry, and blamed him too. My uncle Toby blamed nothing but the taylor who cut the pocket-hole;—so sitting still till my father had got his handkerchief out of it, and looking all the time up in his face with inexpressible good-will—my father, at length, went on ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... Conrad has the power of fear ever at the command of his romantic imagination. In The Nigger of the Narcissus, in Typhoon, and, above all, in The Shadow-Line, he shows his supreme mastery over inexpressible mystery and nameless terror. The voyage of the schooner, doomed by the evil influence of her dead captain, is comparable only in awe and horror to that of The Ancient Mariner. Conrad touches unfathomable depths of human feelings, and in his hands the tale of terror becomes ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... extent, or, rather, it has nothing that can pretend to a more sounding title than that of "wood." Its champaigns are minutely checkered into fields; we can never see far at a time; and there is a sense of something inexpressible, except by the truly English word "snug," in every quiet nook and sheltered lane. The English cottage, therefore, is equally small, equally sheltered, equally invisible at ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... Immediately the lines beginning 'Such age, how beautiful' came into mind. No one could ever forget his first sight of Lady Tennyson, her graciousness, and the radiant though fragile beauty of old age. Both her eye and her voice had an inexpressible charm. She inquired with much interest for the widow of one of my colleagues at the University, who used formerly to live in the island, close to Farringford, and whose family were friends as well as near neighbors. Soon afterwards Tennyson entered, and almost ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... Frenchman. In his confusion Beaupre tried in vain to rise; the poor pedagogue was dead drunk! My father caught him by the coat-collar and flung him out of the room. That day he was dismissed, to the inexpressible ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin
... through the day, if one listens, like a solemn undertone to all the shallow noises of the town; but at midnight, when all else is still, those successive shocks fall upon the ear with a sensation of inexpressible solemnity. All the air, from the pine forests to the sea, is filled with a light tremor, and the intermitting beats of sound are strong enough to jar a delicate ear. Their constant repetition at last produces ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... can be made to this objection is that a steam-engine (when one thinks of it) really expresses itself as well as the rest of us. All language is irrelevant, feeble, and absurd. We live in an organically inexpressible world. The language of everything in it is absurd. Judged merely by its outer signs, the universe over our heads—with its cunning little stars in it—is the height of absurdity, as a self-expression. The sky laughs at ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee
... one of the units in the mosaic he was building—was to be avoided like the plague. His professional and personal contempt for a colleague capable of a love-affair with a woman in a company he was directing, would be inexpressible—unfathomable. Of course when a man's job was finished—and this sort of job nearly always did finish on the opening night—why, after that, his affairs were his ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... Emily; a girl fair to excess, and whose limbs were, if possible, too well made, since their plump fulness was rather to the prejudice of that delicate slimness required by the nicer judges of beauty; her eyes were blue, and streamed inexpressible sweetness, and nothing could be prettier than her mouth and lips, which closed over a range of the evenest and whitest ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... arrival here last night I received, with inexpressible pleasure your most friendly and affectionate letter. If I was not strongly advised to keep out of London till I have acquired a little further strength, I would have come up immediately, for the purpose of ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... if any other motive can be found so powerful as this to move the Christian heart to obedience. There is an inexpressible efficacy in the cross to bring all the various opposing elements into subjection, and produce order in the place of discord and opposition. With the cross the early disciples went forth, not as the crusaders went, with the sacred symbol on banners, and badges, and weapons, but ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy
... year after year, and the same sounds—the dismal barrel organs, and brazen instruments, and pipes, wailing, droning, booming. How melancholy the inexpressible noise when the fair is left behind, and the wet vapours are settling and thickening around it! But the melancholy is not in the fair—the ploughboy likes it; it is in ourselves, in the thought that thus, though the years go by, so much of ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... of murder, may, in the reader also, as well as in the writer on Indian news, periodically be called on to submit to the insurmountable aggravation of delay. In such a case, what is good for one may be good for another. The same inexpressible terrors, so long as Nena Sahibs and other miscreant sons of hell are roaming through the infinite darkness, may prompt the same fretfulness of spirit; the same deadly irritation and restlessness, ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... the way of the handle;—but a Saxon monk would scratch his idea of the Fall of the angels or the Temptation of Christ over a whole page of his manuscript in variously explanatory scenes, evidently full of inexpressible vision, and eager to explain and illustrate all that he felt ...
— The Pleasures of England - Lectures given in Oxford • John Ruskin
... say, know. I hope it has somewhat delayed disease. She is now a patient invalid, and I am her nurse. God has hitherto supported me in some sort through all these bitter calamities, and my father, I am thankful to say, has been wonderfully sustained; but there have been hours, days, weeks of inexpressible anguish to undergo, and the cloud of impending distress still lowers dark and sullen above us. I cannot write much. I can only pray Providence to preserve you and yours from such affliction as He has seen good to ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... the vis inertiae, and several anxious minutes passed before she was so far from the cover of the Arabs as to prevent their clamour from seeming to be in the very ears of those on board. When this did occur, it brought inexpressible relief, though it perhaps increased the danger, by increasing the chances of the bullets hitting objects ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... and could not forbear murmuring at their effects, as the scurvy began to cut off three, four, or five of their best hands daily. At this time nothing was to be seen but sick people, struggling with inexpressible pains, or dead carcasses just relieved from their intolerable distress. From these there arose so abominable a stench, that even those who were yet sound often fainted away, unable to endure it. Cries and groans were incessantly heard in all parts of the ships, and the sight ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... was a strong man. He had looked on Hiram's tortures with a laugh. To his own death he would have gone with no eyelash trembling. But now the rest saw him blench; then with a cry, at once of wonder and inexpressible joy, his arms closed round the tattered outlaw's neck. Treason or no treason—what matter! He forgot all save that before ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... he deserved the reproach that the wounded cry conveyed, and, in a sorrow that was inexpressible, leapt down and took ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... of life. Her bust was of the slightest fullness which the sculptor would choose for the embodying of his ideal of the best blending of modesty with complete beauty; and her throat and arms—oh, with what an inexpressible pathos of loveliness, so to speak, was moulded, under an infantine dewiness of surface, their delicate undulations. No one could be in her presence without acknowledging the perfection of her form as a woman, and rendering the passionate ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... ditch and swallowed up in the tumult. Nicholas, of the engineers, and Shaw, of the 43rd, with some fifty soldiers, actually climbed into the Santa Maria bastion, and from thence tried to force their way into the breach. Every man was shot down except Shaw, who stood alone on the bastion. "With inexpressible coolness he looked at his watch, said it was too late to carry the breaches," and then leaped down! The British could not penetrate the breach; but they would not retreat. They could only die where they stood. The buglers of the reserve were sent ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... down to the year 'fifty-seven— and snapped suddenly. His thoughts always broke off suddenly at the year 'fifty-seven—the Mutiny year. In that year he had won his Victoria Cross and, along with it, a curious tone in his voice, an inexpressible gentleness with all women and children, certain ineradicable lines in his face (hidden though they were by his drooping moustache and absurd old-fashioned whiskers); also a certain very grave simplicity ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... sense. It is the speech of the proud and melancholy races and of all who aspire. It is the chosen tongue to express growth faith self-esteem freedom justice equality friendliness amplitude prudence decision and courage. It is the medium that shall well nigh express the inexpressible. ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... strangers with inexpressible kindness. Ever amiable and obliging, she is endowed with that charming simplicity which inspires, at first sight, the confidence of intimate affection. She speaks freely of the brilliant days of her prosperity. And history then flows so naturally from ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... an inexpressible joy to me, that any one would believe that I was thus delivered, as I esteemed it, from such a miserable and almost hopeless condition as I was in, and immediately offered all I had to the captain of the ship, as a return for my deliverance; ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... years, my lord?—Inexpressible would be the satisfaction of your humble servant. And, though I say it, well stocked indeed are our cellars. I have, in every respect, here managed matters in so frugal and provident a way, that his Right Honourable Excellency the Count, will be astonished. [BARON yawns.] Extremely ...
— The Stranger - A Drama, in Five Acts • August von Kotzebue
... wake up to vigour and light; when he became filled with joy and hope, and all his anxieties seemed to be swept away for ever; these moments were but presentiments, as it were, of the one final second (it was never more than a second) in which the fit came upon him. That second, of course, was inexpressible. When his attack was over, and the prince reflected on his symptoms, he used to say to himself: "These moments, short as they are, when I feel such extreme consciousness of myself, and consequently more of life than at other times, are due only to the disease—to ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... was soon spread over the whole Kingdom. The Kofirans seem'd quite stupified at it; they fell into an inexpressible Grief and Consternation at the Thoughts of losing such a Sovereign, and at such a Juncture. The Queen, who by this Time had seen her Folly, and heartily repented of the superstitious Credulity, by which she had lost the Embraces of a real Husband ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon
... profitable and pleasant, if we talk only of Christ, of love and of other essential things. The apostle mentions the giving of thanks. It should be our daily and constant employment to praise and thank God, privately and publicly, for the great and inexpressible treasures he has given us in Christ. But it appears that what is needful is relegated to the rear, while objects of indifference are ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... but when they had gained two-thirds of the ascent, a concentrated fire of musketry and grape dashed nearly the whole dead to the earth. Nicholas was mortally wounded, and the intrepid Shaw stood alone! With inexpressible coolness he looked at his watch, and saying it was too late to carry the reaches, rejoined the masses at the other attack. After this no further effort was made at any point, and the troops remained passive but unflinching beneath the enemy's shot, which streamed without intermission; for, ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... assumed the toga virilis, and beheld with inexpressible satisfaction the first growth of those mustachios which have since given him such a ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... promised visit to Mrs. Eversley, the rectory was steeped in the deep household peace of mid-afternoon. Both Allan and Bernal had gone out soon after luncheon, while Aunt Bell had withdrawn into the silence, there to meditate the first letters of the alphabet of the inexpressible, to hover about the pleasant line that divides the ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... the blue sky above him, the blue waters below,—friends whom he loved around him, mirth in every eye, gaiety on every tongue,—how could Le Gardeur but smile as the music of the boatmen brought back a hundred sweet associations? Nay, he laughed, and to the inexpressible delight of Amelie and Pierre, who watched every change in his demeanor, united in the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... her apron, and then Emma saw an open book upon her knee. "My dear Miss Lindsay," said Susan, "it is no intrusion. I am glad to find a congenial spirit anywhere. My joy at this meeting is inexpressible; for now I know that there is one in this cold-hearted place, one beside my sister Margaret, ...
— Be Courteous • Mrs. M. H. Maxwell
... the Turks had stored there, entirely destroyed the roof and reduced the whole building almost to ruins. The eight columns of the eastern front, however, and several of the lateral colonnades, are still standing; and the whole, dilapidated as it is, retains an air of inexpressible grandeur ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... the sweet tones of her voice and her skillful performance upon an instrument. The historians even record a description of the fascinating effect produced by the graceful movements of her beautiful hand. Whatever she did or said seemed to carry with it an inexpressible charm. ...
— Mary Queen of Scots, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... she, holding out her hand to Uncle Geoffrey, with a look of relief and congratulation, and yet of inexpressible mournfulness which went ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of the prisoners from the scanty allowance of food. A scorbutic epidemic was already fast emptying the dungeons. Not aware of the cause of his visit, I imagined that he came to see Oroboni, and my anxiety was inexpressible; I was bowed down with sorrow, and I too wished to die. The thought of suicide again tormented me. I struggled, indeed; but I felt like the weary traveller, who though compelled to press forward, feels an almost irresistible desire to throw ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... him in taking this fatal step. Enough that he entered on his rash career by instantly eating the dinner which he carried with him, and having propitiated that terrible god whose seat is every small boy's stomach, with a feeling of inexpressible guiltiness creeping over him, he turned his back upon the schoolhouse and ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... turned round, resolved to question the other in turn; when, to my inexpressible shame and confusion, he had lowered the collar of his cloak, and I saw the ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... not to express it, therefore," I interrupted hastily. "Let it suffice that the inexpressible exists, and makes you happy. His Eminence will doubtless share your joy! Have ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... of the Mind, and although Priestley paid it a most gracious tribute he did not hesitate to suggest alterations and additions of various kinds. His dearest friend Lindsey fell seriously ill this year. This gave him inexpressible anxiety and grief. As soon as Lindsey was, in a measure, restored the fraternal correspondence ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith
... helplessly sick. In order that these might not be crowded, Lieutenant Chalaron, with one or two others, rode on the top of a box-car for twelve hours, from Knoxville to Chattanooga, exposed to the inclement weather which he was ill prepared to meet, having shared the inexpressible hardships of the Kentucky campaign, including destitution of suitable clothing. I take pleasure in recording this noble act, because Lieutenant Chalaron was from New Orleans (also my own beloved home). The impulse of self-sacrifice, ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... said the girl, and she now preceded Hilary out of the room. It was with inexpressible relief that he looked up and saw ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... his presence even in those days of final shrinking and dismay. And now, the doubts, the dread, the inexpressible humiliation are all in the past and there remains only this,—to feast his eyes where his heart has so long feasted, and to thank God for the blessedness of a speedy going, which has taken the sword from the hand of Justice and saved Oliver the anguished sight ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... heart simply to revel in the ecstasy of its wonderful fortune, or to yearn with inexpressible warmth for Martha's dearest presence, though these emotions haunted him constantly; he had also endeavored to survey the position in which he stood, and to choose the course which would fulfil both his duty towards her and towards his mother. His coming independence would have made the prospect ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... until I draw my last breath. I know it is hopeless—I know she can never be more to me than she already is; but I cannot help loving her. Let us go; I may see her once again. Ah, Charlie, you cannot even dream what inexpressible pleasure the merest glimpse of her affords me! ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb |
