"Undercurrent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... excellent, according to their mother, but they are terribly brusque and bearish. They are either seen and not heard, or not seen and heard a great deal too much. Even Jane and Meg, who ought to know better, keep up a perpetual undercurrent of chatter and giggle, whatever is going on, with any one who will share it ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... relative value or rank of the two bents of mind there has ever been, and probably forever will be, great difference of opinion. Even in this intensely "practical" age there is an undercurrent of feeling that the narrowly "practical" individual is not the final ideal, and the innermost conviction of many is the same as that of the poet who declares that "a dreamer lives forever, but a thinker dies ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... full of energy, full of the joy of being alive, but there was usually an undercurrent of sadness to all this. While on the road I would feel homesick for New York, and at the same time I would feel that I had no home anywhere, that my mother was dead and I was all ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... injunctions of honor are to be the rule, subject to these exceptions, which transcend the common proprieties when the subject is the rising young gentleman of the period and his goal social success. If an undercurrent of shady morality is traceable in this Chesterfieldian philosophy it must, of course, be explained away by the less perfect moral standard of his period as compared with that of our day. Whether this holds strictly true of men may be open to discussion, but his lordship's ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... trait of character, he shewed in an address to medical students at a distribution of prizes. After congratulating the victors he confessed to "an undercurrent of sympathy for those who have not been successful, for those valiant knights who have been overthrown in their tourney, and have not made their appearance in public." After recounting an early failure ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... followed nervously in the track of Enoch's talk with cousin Josiah, though her mind kept its undercurrent of foolish musing. Like all of us, snatched up by the wheels of great emergencies, she caught at trifles while they whirled her round. Here were "soldier-buttons." All the other girls had collected them, though she, having no lover in the war, had traded ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... an undercurrent of feeling; that the woman was estimating him shrewdly with her fine direct eyes. He returned her regard with admiring interest; they were gray-green eyes, deep-set but large, a little shallow, a little changeable, calling to mind the sea ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... where on every twisted, vicious lip was the whisper, "Death to the Gray Seal," there had come even another menace. He could not define it, it was intuition perhaps—but intuition had never failed him yet. It was an undercurrent of which he had gradually become conscious, the sense of some unseen, guiding power, that moved and swayed and controlled, and was present, dominant, in every den and dive in crimeland. There had been many gang leaders and heads of little coteries of crime, cunning, ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... rumors of Jacques Benoix' impending release, her daughters were quite unaware of them was evidence of the Madam's complete sovereignty over her realm. It would have been a brave man or woman who dared to gossip of Mrs. Kildare's affairs with her children. They remained unconscious of the undercurrent of excitement and speculation in the atmosphere about them. In time, mention of the pardon and reference to the old-time scandal it revived, was made in the newspapers; but these papers failed to reach the reading-table at Storm, and the girls did not miss them. Kate had ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... intelligence; the implication in most of their remarks that the Freethinker is on a lower moral level than they are, though it would never be suspected by an indifferent observer; the arrogance which is often the undercurrent of their speech, and sometimes bursts forth into sheer, undisguised insolence. Christian critics of this species have, perhaps, stung Freethought lecturers into hot resentment, when it would have been far preferable to keep cool, ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... formless and intuitive fashion she felt a slight undercurrent of distrust for Halloway, which she combated as ungenerous but could not ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... with a subtle undercurrent of concealed resolves flowing beneath its surface admiration that gave it a peculiar charm to the two people principally concerned—the one feeling that she had advanced her game by an important move; the other, that the eternal fitness of things 'was making itself ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... proper and convenient to them. We see in our own times how despotic governments can mystify their subjects, and distort contemporary history into what shape they please. But in Spanish America the system was worked to a greater extent than in any other country I have heard of; and the undercurrent of popular talk, which spreads in France and Russia things and opinions not to be found in the newspapers, had in Mexico but little influence. Scarcely any Mexican travelled, scarcely any foreigner visited the ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... reform the party from within." He was attacked for his continued support of a ministry accused of abandoning principles while "he was endeavouring to influence the members to a right course without an open rupture." There was an undercurrent of discontent drawing him away from the government. In October, 1850, the Globe contained a series of articles on the subject. It was pointed out that there were four parties in the country: the old-time Tories, the opponents of responsible government, ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... were busy packing up the butter, and her head filled with these pictures of the morrow, Arthur Donnithorne, riding by Mr. Irwine's side towards the valley of the Willow Brook, had also certain indistinct anticipations, running as an undercurrent in his mind while he was listening to Mr. Irwine's account of Dinah—indistinct, yet strong enough to make him feel rather conscious when Mr. Irwine suddenly said, "What fascinated you so in Mrs. Poyser's dairy, Arthur? Have you become an amateur of ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... the fear which stirred and perplexed the solitary traveller; for he had heard things that afternoon—seen things that he did not like but could not ignore. He recognized an undercurrent of feeling, a silence more ominous than all the heated talk, and that was where the danger lay. Something would have to be done, and that ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... when I confess that, at the time you temporarily lost your head, I was conscious of an undercurrent of feminine vanity at the thought that I was capable of inspiring a young and talented man with so sincere ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... crystalized her experiences into witty little sentences and epigrams which made her hearers feel as if they were listening to one of the people in clever books. But under all her sparkle there was a strongly felt undercurrent of true, womanly sympathy and kindheartedness which won affection as easily as her brilliancy won admiration. Nor did she monopolize the conversation. She could draw others out as skillfully and fully as she could talk herself, and Anne and Diana found themselves chattering freely to her. ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... service—Duane saw that—and rugged, powerful men of iron constitution. Despite the occasional joke and sally of the more youthful members, and a general conversation of camp-fire nature, Duane was not deceived about the fact that his advent had been an unusual and striking one, which had caused an undercurrent of conjecture and even consternation among them. These rangers were too well trained to appear openly curious about their captain's guest. If they had not deliberately attempted to be oblivious of his presence Duane would have concluded they ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... air about his attempt to be facetious that did not conceal, but rather accentuated, the undercurrent ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... met by a sombre but unalterable determination to carry the war to a successful conclusion and to spare no sacrifices which could lead to that end. Amid the humiliation of our reverses there was a certain undercurrent of satisfaction that the deeds of our foemen should at least have made the contention that the strong was wantonly attacking the weak an absurd one. Under the stimulus of defeat the opposition to the war sensibly decreased. It had become too absurd even ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Thermae was a marble court, where better known philosophers discoursed on topics of the day, each to his own group of admirers. A Christian, dressed like any other Roman, held one corner with a crowd around him. There was a tremendous undercurrent of reaction against the prevalent cynical materialism and the vortex of fashion was also the cauldron of new aspirations and the ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... was the last thing I heard as I sank below the waves, and then the water rushed into my open mouth, and I felt my cap torn from my head. Down, down I sank, struggling, yet with my eyes open, while the water became dark around me and I was drawn along by the whirling undercurrent. ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... do believe in you. You are making an odd yet vivid impression on me. I believe you will face danger just as you did Mr. Lanniere, in a half-nonchalant and a half-satirical mood, while all the time there will be an undercurrent of downright earnestness and heroism in you, which you will hide as if you were ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... this terrible apprenticeship to toil—always hungry, always tired; and had not only survived it, but emerged from it a man. When I knew him he could talk calmly of the horrors of his childhood, but there was an undercurrent of bitterness in his reference to those times which one could understand and respect. He was an ardent and convinced Liberal, and I think that I owe more to his teaching for the character of my own political views than I ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... by many in his lifetime as a coarse, hard, practical man, full of prejudices, there was yet a strong undercurrent of poetry in his nature; and, while he declaimed against sentiment, there were few men more thoroughly imbued with sentiment of the best kind. He had the tenderest regard for the character of woman. He respected her purity ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... An undercurrent of anxiety pervaded the ship, for we were running with no landmark to guide us, and with only the captain's knowledge of the bay and the tides ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson
... songs there is ever in them something of the melancholy undercurrent that has been detected under the laces and arabesques of Chopin's nominally frivolous dances. Foster's ballad form was extremely attenuated, but the melodic content filled it so completely that ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... town on the important day, his heart was like a rock in his breast. There was glorious sunshine everywhere, and a cool little undercurrent of breezes stirred every leaf into a tiny banner of victory. Up in the square, Johnson's colored band was having a final rehearsal, while on the court-house steps the team, glorious in new uniforms, were excitedly discussing the plan of campaign. ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... gone. Red fire, hilarity, and stimulants could not be used to spice this daylight gathering of men ranged in orderly rows on their settees—and subtle suggestion had already gone abroad. Yet the undercurrent of opposition to the further dictation by the party ring was shown by the applause that greeted every reference by the speaker to the conditions that existed in the party. On the text of Spinney, personating Protest, the orator preached to willing ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... crofters were hard at work hauling up spars and barrels as fast as they were tossed ashore. None of them had seen any bodies, however, and they explained to us that only such things as could float had any chance of coming ashore, for the undercurrent was so strong that whatever was beneath the surface must infallibly be swept ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... truth. Certain water-colours of his heightened by pastel, and certain landscapes, are somewhat disconcerting through the preciousness of his method; others are surprisingly spontaneous. All his work has an undercurrent of thought. In short, this Realist is almost a mystic. He has observed a limited section of humanity, but what he has seen has not been seen ...
— The French Impressionists (1860-1900) • Camille Mauclair
... formalities with an undercurrent of dislike. Shirley lost no time. He compelled the old man to run through his paces, as Holloway criticized each study in miming. Just as the capitalist would swing his arms, limp with his left leg, shift his head ever so little, ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... in America very little, and we smile cynically at the not altogether untruthful portraits of "Potash and Pearlmutter," and their vermin-like business methods. There is an undercurrent of feeling in America, that the virile blood is still there which will stop at nothing to throw off oppression, whether from the Jew or from any one else. If we are pinched too hard financially, if confiscation by the government or by individuals ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... manor house, even if he saw no one there. The crown of it all is The Wedding. The bridal pair's visit to the graves of by-gone loves is a gem of fantasy. But behind all the humor and satire must not be forgotten, in view of what was to follow, the undercurrent of courageous democratic protest which finds its keenest expression in the "Free Note" to Chapter Six. Fixlein appeared ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... know that the people of Brussels, whenever a strong wind carries the booming of heavy guns miles in from the front, think that French and English are going to recapture the city? Any day that we can hear the guns faintly, we know that there is an undercurrent of nervous expectancy running through the whole city. It goes down alleys and avenues and fills the cafes. You can see Belgians standing together, whispering. Twice they actually set the date when ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... on excellent terms with a great many members of Congress, and there was an undercurrent of suspicion in some quarters that she was one of that detested class known as "lobbyists;" but what belle could escape slander in such a city? Fairminded people declined to condemn her on mere suspicion, and ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 4. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... sad." "And terrible," adds Merejkovsky. But earlier his humour was lighter, less tinged with the tragic; in those days Pushkin never failed to be amused by what Gogol had brought to read to him. Even Revizor (1835), with its tragic undercurrent, was a trifle compared to Dead Souls, so that one is not astonished to hear that not only did the Tsar, Nicholas I, give permission to have it acted, in spite of its being a criticism of official rottenness, ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... The same queer undercurrent of melancholy, of sadness, the same hint of pain colored his words,—a subtle matter of inflection, of tone. The shadowy expression of some inner conflict hovered in his dark eyes. Again Hollister felt ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... themselves, would be perfectly easy in me if I were to make the watchword of my house, 'Never mind what people say.' On the contrary, I shall teach them that there are plenty of good people in the world; that public opinion has pretty surely an undercurrent of the water of life, below all its froth and garbage; and that in a Christian country like this, where, with all faults, a man (sooner or later) has fair play and a fair hearing, the esteem of good men, and the blessings ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... enter the bay, we must take one of two passages, one to the right of the islet, the other to the left. The fate of the Roman fleet is in my hands. I could pilot you by one of these passages, which to the eye is exactly like the other, and an undercurrent would tow your galleys onto a sunken reef. ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... unparalleled massacre, called by the world religious, was, in the French cabinet, considered merely as political; one of those revolting state expedients which a pretended instant necessity has too often inflicted on that part of a nation which, like the undercurrent, subterraneously works its way, and runs counter to the great stream, till the critical moment arrives when one ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... been right when he said the place was stiff with birds. A deep fringe of birds was constantly moving in and about and around the billabong; and the perpetual clatter of the plovers and waders formed an undercurrent to the ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... of her services at this time, and of the undercurrent of terror and sadness of this triumphal march, we can do no better than to give some extracts from her journal, kept during this period, and published without her knowledge in the Sanitary Commission Bulletin. It was commenced on the 15th of May, 1864, as she was following ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... wonderfully original; he is persuasive without argument and mystical without conventionality; he moves in the atmosphere of science and free thought, yet seems to transcend them and to be secretly religious. An undercurrent of zeal and even of prophecy seems to animate his subtle analyses and his surprising fancies. He is eloquent, and to a public rather sick of the half-education it has received and eager for some inspiriting novelty he seems more eloquent ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... boy heard the same muffled hoofs and voices die away towards the front. He began to dress himself mechanically, almost vacantly, yet conscious always of a vague undercurrent of thrilling excitement. When he had finished he waited almost breathlessly, feeling the same beating of his heart that he had felt when he was following the vanished train the day before. At last he could ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... scene is autobiographic, he having attended such an occasion at Carroll Beckwith's studio, in New York. In technique, this scene is comparable with the one of similar gaiety in "Lord and Lady Algy"—both having an undercurrent of serious strain. The tragedy motive is relieved at almost calculated times by comedy, which shows that Fitch held to the old dramatic theory of comic relief. Often this was irritating, discounting the mood he was trying to maintain. He was not as skilful in the ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The Moth and the Flame • Clyde Fitch
... sound of the coming feet brought great joy. For, after all, they were coming; and coming just in time to prevent the sense of disappointment at their delay gaining firm foothold. It was only when the coming was assured that she felt how strong had been the undercurrent of her apprehension lest they should not come ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... of whom we write was unusually romantic, for her romance consisted of a deep undercurrent of powerful but quiet enthusiasm, with a pretty strong surface-flow of common-sense. Her husband was a man of noble mind and commanding presence—a magnificent representative John Bull, with the polish of a courtier and the principles of a Christian; one who had been wisely ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... It is Nature herself that in these true painted poems mysteriously responds, that interprets to the beholder the moods of man, much as a mighty orchestra—Nature ordered and controlled—may by its undercurrent explain to him who knows how to listen what the very personages of the drama may not proclaim aloud for themselves. And so we may be deeply grateful to Herr Wickhoff for his new interpretations, not less sound and thoroughly ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips
... at the back of his mind there ran an undercurrent of thought, or as of some one talking, to the effect that the Pope's old method of remaining as a prisoner in the Vatican was a foolish and unhumble pose. (He supposed he must have read it all somewhere in history.) Surely even Catholics used to talk ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... but he refused to accommodate himself to her pace. The undercurrent of resentment in his soul gathered force. He must justify his boast to his brother, for one thing; and for another, his face smarted from her mother's ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... Jewish Legends, it is the Rabbinic writers that should form the point of departure, and not the pseudepigrapha. The former represent the main stream of Jewish thought and feeling, the latter only an undercurrent. If the Synagogue cast out the pseudepigrapha, and the Church adopted them with a great show of favor, these respective attitudes were not determined arbitrarily or by chance. The pseudepigrapha originated in circles that harbored the germs ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... learn languages, as so many people do nowadays, by visual images, there will always be an undercurrent toward saying "COP." The mind plunges hopelessly through that tangle to the elements of a speech ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... in the garden haunted Hubert during the hours of business that day. Matters were attended to with his accustomed skill, but always an undercurrent of memory presented to him Winifred's beaming face and her announcement, "I think I have begun to ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... past into the house. Miss Rosetta composedly stepped into the cab and drove to the station. She fairly bridled with triumph; and underneath the triumph ran a queer undercurrent of satisfaction over the fact that Charlotte had spoken to her at last. Miss Rosetta would not look at this satisfaction, or give it a name, but it ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... been brought to bear upon life and its questions. Besides which there is a super-sensuous reason. Often I have argued with myself that such and such a course was the right one to follow, while in the intervals of thinking about it an undercurrent of unconscious impulse has desired me to do the reverse or to remain inactive. Sometimes it has happened that the supersensuous reasoning has been correct, and the most faultless argument wrong. I presume this supersensuous reasoning, preceeding independently in the mind, ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies
... wit and humor, there was an undercurrent of agony. So great were his kindness, gentleness, tenderness of heart, that he could not live in this cruel world, especially in the period when the times were so much out of joint, without being a man of sorrows. The present writer never saw Lincoln's face but twice, once in life and once in death. ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... is proved beyond a doubt by the observations of arctic explorers, who have seen immense icebergs drifting rapidly northward against a strong current. This apparent anomaly could only be accounted for by the fact that a powerful undercurrent carried them northward; and as at least seven times more of these bergs must have been under than above water, we can easily understand how the under-current, acting on the larger mass of each berg, had power to carry it against ...
— The Ocean and its Wonders • R.M. Ballantyne
... they parted at the Gare du Nord, Cora was left with the impression that, whatever might be the undercurrent, John Derringham was strong enough to face his fate, and not give anyone the satisfaction of knowing whether in it he found pleasure ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... we have, and which forms an insuperable barrier to finding God, is the ever-recurring—we may almost say the continual—secret undercurrent of criticism and hardness towards God over what we imagine to be His Will. We need to seek God with that which is most like Him, with a will which most nearly resembles His own. To be in a state of hardness or criticism, not only for ...
— The Romance of the Soul • Lilian Staveley
... Sandford lasher, just behind the lock, is a very good place to drown yourself in. The undercurrent is terribly strong, and if you once get down into it you are all right. An obelisk marks the spot where two men have already been drowned, while bathing there; and the steps of the obelisk are generally used as a diving-board by young men now who wish to see if the ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... more than enough 'copy' to keep them busy. The narrow escape of the King from assassination, followed by his excommunication from the Church, worked a curious effect on the minds of the populace, who were somewhat bewildered and uncertain as to the possible undercurrent of political meaning flowing beneath the conjunction of these two events; and their feelings were intensified by the announcement that the youth who had attempted the monarch's life,— being proved as suffering ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... calm weather in this current, in about 74 deg. N.L., observed the temperature rising off the Yenisej to 9.4 deg. C. (17th August, 1875), and off the Obi to 8 deg. C. (10th August of the same year). As is usually the case, this current coming from the south produces both a cold undercurrent, which in stormy weather readily mixes with the surface water and cools it, and on the surface a northerly cold ice-bestrewn counter-current, which, in consequence of the earth's rotation, takes a bend to the west, and which evidently runs from the opening between ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... month was gone these were the changes it had wrought. The four so strangely bound together by ties of suffering and sin went on their way, to the world's eye, blessed with every gracious gift, but below the tranquil surface rolled that undercurrent whose mysterious tides ebb and flow in human hearts unfettered by race or rank or time. Gilbert was a good actor, but, though he curbed his fitful temper, smoothed his mien, and sweetened his manner, his wife soon felt the vanity of hoping ...
— Pauline's Passion and Punishment • Louisa May Alcott
... of material this suave, cynical, reserved man could have produced—in other words, what was his undercurrent. I interrogated. To my surprise and consternation I had found at last the author of ...
— The Writer, Volume VI, April 1892. - A Monthly Magazine to Interest and Help All Literary Workers • Various
... "An undercurrent of sympathy with the struggles of the poor, and an ability to describe their feelings, eminently characteristic of Dickens, are marked features in ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty
... and overflowing humor never obscures the deep seriousness that is the undercurrent of all his writing. A high idealism characterizes all his work. One of his greatest services to his country was the effort to create a saner and sounder political life. As he himself realized, he often moralized his work too much with a purposeful idealism. In middle ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... ungraceful bow, or does it left leg foremost; this is unbecoming in a great officer at the President's levee. Now, because he is so unfortunate as not to be so good a dancer as he is a worthy officer, he must be removed." These rhetorical flourishes, which are significant of the undercurrent of sentiment, hardly do justice to the general quality of the debate which was marked by legal acuteness on both sides. Madison pressed home the sensible argument that the President could not be held to responsibility unless he could ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... imprisonment was added the gall and wormwood of total dependence upon others; the unthinkable prospect of parting with Paul, with the Border itself—with everything that had hitherto made life worth living; and, worse than all, the undercurrent of striving to ignore that veiled danger, which he refused to name, even in his thoughts, and which lay like ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... Darwin's literary work as standing in need of anything like an apology. He always aims—and I think succeeds—at conveying his meaning in simple and direct language; and in all his works there is manifest that undercurrent of quiet enthusiasm, which was so strikingly displayed in his conversation. It was delightful to witness the keen enjoyment with which he heard of any new fact or observation bearing on the pursuits in which ...
— The Coming of Evolution - The Story of a Great Revolution in Science • John W. (John Wesley) Judd
... from the putting away of error and uniting upon the harmonious principles of truth, but simply a combination of sects, each retaining its own particular creed, but confederated for the purpose of carrying out more extensively the common points of our faith. This movement finds a strong undercurrent of favor in all the churches. And men are engaged to carry it through who are not easily turned from ...
— The United States in the Light of Prophecy • Uriah Smith
... soberly that afternoon. Touched as she was by what Mrs. Snow had said, there was yet an undercurrent of sadness in it all. She was thinking of Aunt Polly—Aunt Polly who played the game now so seldom; and she was wondering if she herself always ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... liberty and relaxation of police regulations. Nor was there any runaway chauvinism noticeable, aside from the occasional singing of patriotic songs and demonstrations like the one I just described. The keynote of popular feeling was quiet dignity, joined to determination, with an undercurrent of solemn ...
— Four Weeks in the Trenches - The War Story of a Violinist • Fritz Kreisler
... gurgling accompaniment), we were reminded of these lines from Roger's "Human Life": "And feeling hearts, touch them but rightly, pour a thousand melodies unheard before." He seemed to sing out of very wantonness, and his song seemed to have that soft undercurrent of melody heard in the chimes of Belgium—with just a hint of plaintiveness in it to make the joy and the brightness of ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... This undercurrent of suffering, which increased week by week as the writing on the wall grew longer, was in pitiful contrast to the enthusiasm with which the women sent their men and sons away to war. More than once I ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... Merrick, devoted himself to his cousin Diana, or at least lounged nonchalantly in the neighborhood of the Hindoo Booth. Mershone was very quiet. There was a speculative look upon his features that denoted an undercurrent of thought. ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... teachings never laid great stress on these; and even where they are adduced as a motive for good living, they are always made secondary to the excellence of piety here and in itself. Through the whole course of Greek thought the belief in a future state runs in an undercurrent. A striking fragment of Sophocles[15] speaks of the initiated alone as being happy, since their state after death is secure. Plato, while he reprobates the teaching which would make men good in view of the other world, and insists ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... when the country seemed in some danger, and when, mere men of business held unequal to the emergency, whatever name suggested associations of vigour, eloquence, genius rose to a premium above its market price in times of tranquillity and tape. Without effort of his own, by the mere force of the undercurrent, Guy Darrell was thrown up from oblivion into note. He could not form a Cabinet, certainly not; but he might help to bring a Cabinet together, reconcile jarring elements, adjust disputed questions, take in such government some ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Those who dared and suffered were no doubt but a few of those who really shared in the heretical view; the testimony of orthodox writers is all in support of this surmise. Equally clear is the fact that while the religious authorities were thus rigorous a steadily deepening undercurrent of opinion made for 'Latitude.' How far this Latitude might properly go was a troublesome question, but at any rate some were willing to advocate what ...
— Unitarianism • W.G. Tarrant
... undercurrent of feeling pervaded the minds of officials that there was not at all so much real distress in Ireland as the people pretended, and that there was a great deal more food in the country than there was said to be. This was sometimes openly asserted, but more frequently hinted ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... told Polly, an undercurrent of complaint at the unfairness of things in his tale. And ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... labor and capital) with the utmost efficiency." Also the best authorities, and even the government investigators themselves, are urging a speedy return to private ownership and operation at the earliest possible moment after the war. The same undercurrent of feeling, or rather conviction, is rapidly spreading among our own people in the ...
— Socialism and American ideals • William Starr Myers
... raspy feeling when the English meet Americans. On the surface we're friendly enough and our governments always express in diplomatic relations the most cordial good will; but I've always noticed in the English individual an undercurrent of antipathy for Americans that cannot be disguised. As a race the English hate us, I'm ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne
... eminently beneficial, and before they reached Canada Irene seemed perfectly restored. But her father was not satisfied. Her unwonted taciturnity annoyed and puzzled him; he knew that beneath the calm surface some strong undercurrent rolled swiftly, and he racked his brain to discover what had rendered her so reserved. Louisa's joyous, elastic spirits probably heightened the effect of her companion's gravity, and the contrast daily presented could not fail to arrest Mr. Huntingdon's attention. ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... soft, southern voice an undercurrent of such cool readiness, such confident mastery of the situation, that her fears vanished. Nor was the crowd in front slow to recognize that ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... simply looking at the two pictures which the two events painted for her fancy; and she did not know which picture she preferred. So all was still bewilderment, all still rocking from the sudden gust that had proceeded out of dear Lady Mildmay's gentle lips. But the undercurrent of wonder and of reproach that there had been in the warning May Quisante now almost missed. By an effort at last she realised its presence, the naturalness of it, and its rightness. But still it seemed to her a little conventional, something that might be supposed to be appropriate, ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... of true generosity and kindliness, I was aware of an undercurrent of illiberalism and ...
— My Impresssions of America • Margot Asquith
... he came in at breakfast with his well-remembered smile, that she did not require from him any explicit defence. While they talked she was righting herself in an undercurrent of drama with Miss Triscoe, and explaining to her that they could not possibly wait over for her and her father in Weimar, but must be off that day for Berlin, as they had made all their plans. It was not easy, even in drama where ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... wherever they may be thrown; his vast strength, his redundant health, had a power of themselves—a moral as well as physical power. He naturally possessed high animal spirits, beneath the surface of which, however, at times, there was visible a certain undercurrent of malignity and scorn. He had evidently received a superior education, and could command at will the manner of a man not unfamiliar with a politer class of society. From the first hour that Philip had seen him on the top of the coach ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... famous headings, like those of the New York papers on a balloon marriage, as, The last affinity item! A raid among the magnetisms! or, Hifalutin among prunes! However, in some subtile way, one soon divines on entering a store whether she is to be well served there, and must follow with tact the undercurrent in the shop as well as in the salon. If it be not the right encounter, ask for something there is not, and pass on to the next. Thus, "my grocer" apologizes for keeping honey, because I do not eat sweets, and proposes to open the butter trade because ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... some time yet before the crowd warmed up. Now, they only stood about and talked, and to Lescott they gave a gravely polite greeting, beneath which was discernible an undercurrent ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... and Ewbert said, "Oh, yes," as if he recognized it, and went on from it upon the line of thought which it suggested. He was aware of talking rationally and forcibly; but in the subjective undercurrent paralleling his objective thought he was holding discourse with himself to an effect wholly different from that ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... believe that any outre or adventitious source of attraction would have alone procured me the attention I have found, I would hope it may partly have arisen from their simple, unaffected appeal to those quiet, domestic, secluded feelings, which endear the still undercurrent of existence—in short, to my being content to make the best I could of the homely and confined materials to which my situation has given me access, without affecting scholarship, or aiming at romantic embellishment. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 271, Saturday, September 1, 1827. • Various
... room. One afternoon he eluded their vigilance and hurried to the office of "Campbell & Co." on the Strand. After gazing for several minutes at the empty building, he heaved a deep sigh, ran across the road, and sprang into the River Hughli. The undercurrent sucked his body in, and it was never recovered. Perhaps Mother Ganges was loath to keep a carcase so tainted in her bosom, and so whirled it southwards ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... There was an undercurrent of meaning in all this of which each man present was fully aware. Unziar was presumed to have very strong private reasons to propitiate rather than to offend the powerful Minister. But this happened to be a typical instance in which the interests of the corps over-rode those of the individual. ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... he was shocked and distressed by the sudden and horrible disaster; and yet as an undercurrent to these first natural thoughts, there ran presently a distinct notion that he would have felt the grievousness of it more keenly had Madeleine perished in that cruel manner and her sister survived to bring the ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... misgiving and doubt, for we had the necessity of believing, if we would keep ourselves still sane. All of us had noticed that so far as there was an element of terror in the strange incidents, it lay in the fact of a subtle undercurrent of connections, as if Fate were dimly pointing all the while toward the invisible culmination. Suddenly there would be a new manifestation of Auber's faculty, and a new instance would be added, illusive, baffling, and yet forming each time new threads in the vague ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... phase of what may be seen in Trafalgar Square. But with early autumn and the shortening days and the steadily increasing pressure of that undercurrent of want and misery through which strange flotsam and jetsam come to the surface, one saw, on the long benches or crouched on the asphalt pavement, lines of men and women sitting silently, making no appeal to passers-by, ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... really like to do," he whispered to me, in confidence, "is to give him one for his tete, as we say in cribbage. But suppose I must speak him fair." Did his best in that direction though undercurrent of observation in lengthy paper he read decidedly set in direction of making TATE out as a cantankerous wrong-headed person who, proposing to bestow some L160,000 in way of free gift, expected to have his wishes consulted in such ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 19, 1892 • Various
... the fine fruit of Mrs. Howe's early religious faith. It welled up in her nature from a deep undercurrent, which few would have suspected who only met her at Sam G. Ward's dinner parties and other fashionable entertainments. Yet, there was always a quiet reserve in her laughter, and her wittiest remarks were always followed ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... is!" he went on, his eyes dwelling lovingly on the interior of the restaurant. "Tophole, isn't it, Lutchester—these smart girls, with their furs and violets and perfumes, the little note of music in the distance, the cheerful clatter of plates, the smiling faces of the waiters, and the undercurrent of pleasant voices. Don't laugh at me, please, Miss Van Teyl. I've three weeks more of it, by George—perhaps more. I don't go up before my Board till Thursday fortnight. Dash it, I ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Constantine had overruled her at a committee meeting. With a flood of disconnected talk she had overwhelmed Maggie until the girl felt as though her head had been thrust into a bag of flour. Through it all there had been an undercurrent of complaint as though Maggie ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... in womanhood is strong and deep. The manifestations of the present, many of which seem to give cause for fear, are, after all, only the superficial evidence of a deep undercurrent of awakening. The ultimate driving force behind is shaping a social understanding in the woman's spirit. So surely from out of the wreckage and passion ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... felt the big thing, but he had failed to transmute it. He concealed his disappointment, and joined so easily with her in her criticism that she did not realize that deep down in him was running a strong undercurrent of disagreement. ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... was meditating. It was a mighty unpleasant business. But he was getting tired of conflict. There was an undercurrent in the lives of both that made him shrink from going deep into any domestic difference. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... caught except when the sail was down. Fold upon fold of low hills in the distance, with hamlets showing here and there at their bases by the sea. And then, almost like a part of the picture, so subtly did the sensations blend, the slow cadenced creak of the sweeps on the gunwale, a rhythmic undercurrent of sound. ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... members which compose it. Even the addition of many new ones has produced no jarring. They move in their respective orbits in perfect harmony with the central head and with each other. But there is still an undercurrent at work by which, if not seasonably checked, the worst apprehensions of our anti-federal patriots will be realized, and not only will the State authorities be overshadowed by the great increase of power in the executive department of the General Government, but the character of ...
— Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Harrison • James D. Richardson
... instrument which aroused in her an excited interest. It was very like the headpiece used by operators of telephones, and she hastened to adjust it. In a moment it was as though she were in the library. She could hear Locke's earnest laugh and in it Zita could detect an undercurrent of tenderness. Her lips compressed and her eyes hardened as she listened. Locke was speaking about a letter and it seemed to be something important. Zita was ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... attempt at a demonstration, but Judge Pomeroy rapped sharply for order, and alert court attendants were about to nip effectively any such outburst. Still, it was enough to show the undercurrent of open defiance of the court, ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... Calabar is one of the most thrilling in the history of missions, yet through it also there runs an undercurrent of tragedy— the tragedy of unseized opportunities and unfulfilled hopes. As one reads, he can fancy that he is standing by a forest at night listening to the sound that the wind brings of a strange conflict between a few brave spirits, and legions of wild and evil forces, with incessant ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... royalist undercurrent, flowing from religious and social conditions, makes more comprehensible the ease with which England drifted back into the Stuart monarchy. The younger generation, with no memory of Stuart despotism, and with a keen dislike ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... the United States Secret Service, had come over from Liverpool via Dover on a blind quest after an elusive spy. There had been a sort of undercurrent of rumor, with many extravagant trappings, that a mysterious agent of the Kaiser was on his way to Europe with secrets of a most important character. Some stories had it that he was intimately related to Bloody Bill himself; others that he gloried in a kinship with Ludendorf, while still ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... Don't cry over it!" Tony laughed carelessly. He had recovered his usual bantering manner of speech which yet always seemed to hold an undercurrent of bitterness. "It's not worth that. See, I'll chuck it away, so that it can't remind you of the unpleasant shock I gave ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... gaiety rippled over an undercurrent of pain, Stephen bent forward and touched her hand with an impulse ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... taken, is a juvenile classic. She ranks very high among the women poets of the nineteenth century, her only equal being Mrs. Browning. Besides the brief poems in Sing-Song, Miss Rossetti's "Goblin Market" and "Uphill" please young people of a contemplative mood. While there is an undercurrent of sadness in much of her work, it is a natural accompaniment of her themes and ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... testify that Mr. ZANE GREY'S The Man of the Forest (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) is a yarn told with considerable zest and with just that undercurrent of sentiment which sweeps large portions of the British public completely off its feet. In this book the heroine, Helen Rayner, and her sister, Bo, leave Missouri for their uncle's ranch in New Mexico; but before they reach their destination ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various
... wealth and ease, but there will be an undercurrent in your life of unlawful gratification of ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... to listen. The poor soul was inefficient, and he knew it: beneath all her flow of speech ran an undercurrent of wrath against the new learning and all its works. Poverty—sheer terror of a dwindling cupboard and the workhouse to follow—drove her to plead with that which she hated worse than the plague. He heard, and all the while his mind was miles away from ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Every human being makes what are called mistakes and those happened to be mine. Therefore I dismissed them to the limbo of the inevitable. . . . As your world, I am told, looks upon you as the coming dramatist, it may appeal to your imagination to visualize that secret and vital and dramatic undercurrent of what was on the surface a proud and splendid life. . . . Or, if there are regrets, it is for the weight of memories, the completeness of disillusion, the slaying of mental youth—which cannot survive ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... had a dream. She dreamed that she awoke without a soul. The sense of vacancy was awful, yet there was a singular undercurrent consciousness that no soul ever had been within her,—that it existed, but was yet to ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... involve a yearly pilgrimage from the nearer places, and a great feast every seventh year, when a holy fair is kept up for weeks round the cathedral. There is no better living specimen of the Middle Ages than such gatherings, and no doubt then, as now, there was some undercurrent of worldly excitement mingling with the flow of genuine devotion. Aachen's old cornhouse, the bridge gate and the many houses full of unobtrusive beauties of carving and metal-work lead us by hook and by crook—for the streets are very winding—out on the road to Burtschied, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... the surface, of course, ran the deep and swift undercurrent of anti-slavery feeling—a tide of passion which historians now attempt to account for on economic grounds, but which showed no trace of economic origin while it lasted. Its true quality was moral, devout, ecstatic; it ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... age, of the country where I was, of Bohun's youth and confidence, of the war, of disease and death—but behind it all happiness at the strange sense that I had to-night, that came to me sometimes from I knew not where, that the undercurrent of the river of life was stronger than the eddies and whirlpools on its surface, that it knew whither it was speeding, and that the purpose behind its force was ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... containing hundreds that have just bloomed for the first time, and marking the finest with tags upon which are inscribed a few characters that mean much to the owner, and almost nothing to anyone else, will give one an undercurrent of joy for the rest of the day. Another special pleasure that comes to the grower of choice seedlings is that of naming one for a friend, and this pleasure has been mine a number of times. The most notable example ...
— The Gladiolus - A Practical Treatise on the Culture of the Gladiolus (2nd Edition) • Matthew Crawford
... of men and women and crystallized her experiences into sparkling little sentences and epigrams which made Frances feel as if she were listening to one of the witty people in clever books. But under all her sparkling wit there was a strongly felt undercurrent of true womanly sympathy and kind-heartedness which won affection as speedily as her brilliance won admiration. Frances listened and laughed and enjoyed. Once she found time to think that she would have missed a great deal if she ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... ovarian congestion, for she felt that on the left side there was a network of sexual nerves, and retroversion of the uterus was detected some years later. Her life was strenuous with many duties, but no occupation could be pursued without this undercurrent of sexual hyperaesthesia involving perpetual self-control. This continued more or less acutely for many years, when menstruation suddenly stopped altogether, much before the usual period of the climacteric. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... the senate the question of the ratification of his brother's treaty. Even he could never have attempted to defend it; his dominant feeling was an overwhelming sense of the weight of undeserved ignominy under which he lay, tempered by an undercurrent of fear as to the danger that might follow in the track of the universal disfavour with which he and his brother were regarded. The action that he took even before the senate's opinion was known, was a proof ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... with a superficial archness which did not half cover an undercurrent of reproach, 'do you know, I think you might have told me voluntarily about that past—of kisses and betrothing—without giving me so much uneasiness and trouble. Was that the tomb you alluded to as having sat ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... from fifty to two hundred and seventy pounds. Even Maude was for an instant daunted by the sum. The sale of their furniture would hardly meet it. It was the blackest hour of their lives, and yet, always a strange sweet undercurrent of joy was running through it, for it is only sorrow, fairly shared and bravely borne, which can weld two ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... then, of which the first was "Punch and Peel" (July 24th, 1841), were, in fact, political leading-articles, satirical, ironical, bitter, and more often demagogic than humorous, though of wit and humour both there was a generous undercurrent. Punch showed himself at once a fighting man who meant to be in the thick of the fray, a politician as impulsive as Macaulay; and though Jerrold did not begin to sign his articles until the ninth week (which ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... Princess, bound for Canton with a cargo of woolen goods and ginseng. There was much that puzzled me aboard-ship—the discontent of the second mate, the perversity of the man Kipping (others besides myself had seen that wink), and a certain undercurrent of pessimism. But although I was separated a long, long way from my old friends in the cabin, I felt that in Bill Hayden I had found a friend of a sort; then, as I began my first real watch on deck at sea, I fell to thinking of my sister and ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... strange?... That last night she did it for the first time.—We were left alone on the veranda. The rest had already bid me good-by.... And all of a sudden she began to talk about those summer days of long, long ago. Her words had an undercurrent of meanings which she probably did not realize. I believe that her own youth, which she had almost ceased to understand, was unconsciously taking mine into its confidence. It moved me more deeply than I can tell you.—Much ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... Dec. 31—An undercurrent of irritation is evident over the American note on interference with American commerce; a new decoration, the Military Cross, has been ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... after her. Though Francis Madigan rarely ate anything that was prepared for the family dinner, she could remember the rare times when he had absented himself from it, and feel again the usually ignored undercurrent of the realities upon which their young ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... had kept up a musical undercurrent of disjointed comment, perceived an opportunity for joining more ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... of June 11, 1903, the plot which had been brewing in Servia ended with the assassination of the king, queen, ministers and members of the royal household of Servia. I shall not go into the undercurrent political significance of these atrocities as I had no active part in them, but I was sent down by my government later to ascertain as far as possible the prime movers in the intrigue which pointed to Colonel Mashin and a gang of officers of the Sixth Regiment. All these regicides received ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... so than the natives, who seemed to think we had dropped from the sky. They were very friendly, with an undercurrent of disappointment, having expected salvage work outside, I think. All showed embarrassing helpfulness in stowing sails, etc. We were rescued by a fussy person in uniform and spectacles, who swept them aside ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... cruel ferocity and coldness there was an undercurrent of something in Tars Tarkas which he seemed ever battling to subdue. Could it be a vestige of some human instinct come back from an ancient forbear to haunt him with the horror ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... slave, in the Polity, who, well dressed and washed, aspires to the hand of his master's daughter, corresponds curiously to Caliban attacking Prospero's cell; and there is an undercurrent of meaning throughout, in the Tempest as well as in the Merchant of Venice; referring in this case to government, as in that to commerce. Miranda[77] ("the wonderful," so addressed first by Ferdinand, "Oh, you wonder!") corresponds ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... cherry-blossoms. He had been better pleased with Maggie since she had been less odd and ascetic; he was even getting rather proud of her; several persons had remarked in his hearing that his sister was a very fine girl. To-day there was a peculiar brightness in her face, due in reality to an undercurrent of excitement, which had as much doubt and pain as pleasure in it; but it might pass ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... unconsciously, arrogate the entire conversation, interests and viewpoint to herself. Of course, there are some teachers who can still recall with sufficient vividness their own school-girl life to feel keenly the undercurrent of restraint which an older person almost invariably starts when thrown with a group of younger ones, and who possesses the power and tact to overcome it and enter the girl-world. But these are the exceptions rather than the rule, and ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... merry-making after our manner, yet one could feel the undercurrent of a triumph not difficult to understand. Not a man there but knew, or had heard his father tell, of how things used to be. Ten years ago those men were earning sixteen shillings a week for twelve hours a day; fifteen years ago they were earning twelve shillings; thirty years ago they were earning ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... thoughts reverting voluntarily to his favorite relic, which came a good second in his sympathies to his favorite nephew, and before he knew where he was he found himself encircled by the group discussing its loss, and more or less carried away on the current of their excitement. But an undercurrent of query continued to run in his mind, as to what had really happened to the boy, and what was the boy's exact definition of being ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... Van Berg the previous day, there had been a deep undercurrent of thought in Ida's mind, and she had at last concluded that she could scarcely keep her secret with any certainty while under his eyes, and especially those of Miss Burton. She was too direct and positive in her nature, and her love was too strong ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... now, moreover, that an undercurrent of circumstance existed which did not even ripple the surface of that apparently facetious brutality hurled at J. ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... people, it must be confessed; for Howard and Allie had hoped to be allowed to pose as heads of the house, while Victor had lifted up his voice in vigorous protest against the intruder. However, until Victor's rebellion, the second night, there had been no open outbreak, although there was an undercurrent of antagonism between Mrs. Pennypoker and the children, which threatened an explosion at any moment. It was a new experience for Howard and Allie to have their fun and laughter repressed, and they were far from being ready to submit to ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... the last ten years of his life, when the seeds of hereditary consumption developed themselves. As a young man he was lively and joyous, always ready for frolic, and with a great fund of humor, especially in caricature. Students of human character know how consistent these traits are with a deep undercurrent of melancholy, which colors the whole life when the immediate ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... days were passing and Mary-Clare and Northrup, with the book between them as a shield, fought their battle and won their victory, they had taken small heed of the undercurrent that was not merely carrying them ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... to feel at home. It is consistent with its own amazing laws; the laws of the incredible Balzacian genius. Profoundly moral in its basic tendency, the "Human Comedy" seems to point, in its philosophical undercurrent, at the permanent need in our wayward and childish emotionalism, for wise and master-guides, both in the sphere of religion and in the ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys
... you." Kate was trembling, but she kept talking gayly. She was praying that nothing very serious would happen. There was an undercurrent of sombreness in the ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... all the family, together with Mr. Leslie, assembled in the sitting-room; there was an undercurrent of sadness in their minds, but Hugh would allow ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... presented itself. The northern and larger of the two floes, acted strongly upon by the gale, and opposed by the smaller floe, was slowly but irresistibly swinging round, and in its sweep it had come into contact with a very large berg, which, influenced apparently by some undercurrent, was with equally irresistible force actually making its way to windward in the teeth of the gale. The result was a scene of wild chaos and confusion and destruction compared with which that upon which they had just looked was as nothing. The berg simply tore its way through ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... equator to preserve equilibrium. Thus an extensive circulation is carried on. The air that moves from the equator in the upper atmosphere, gradually sinking to the surface of the earth, finally ceases to move toward the poles, and returns as an undercurrent to the equator, where it again rises and moves ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... government functionaries the most feared and hated by anarchists, because he is most intimately associated with those too rare occasions when anarchist heads are sliced off in poor payment for anarchist crimes. This undercurrent of real tragedy—with its possibility of a crash, followed by a cloud of smoke rising slowly above the wreck of the gaily decorated ministerial box—drew out with a fine intensity the tragedy of the stage: and brought into a curious ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... the trail that Philip watched; and as he kept his vigil—that inexplicable mental undercurrent telling him that his enemies were coming—his mind went back sharply to the girl a hundred yards behind him. The acuteness of the situation sent question after question rushing through his mind, even as he gripped his club, For her he was about to fight. For her ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... and his weapons. He carries a long spear. In silence the knight un-helms, and, sticking the spear into the ground, kneels before it, and remains lost in devotional contemplation. The "Spear" and "Grail" motives mingle together in the full tide of orchestral sounds carrying on the emotional undercurrent of the drama. The knight is soon recognized by both as the ...
— Parsifal - Story and Analysis of Wagner's Great Opera • H. R. Haweis
... an effort; her natural gaiety returned to buoy her above this indefinable undercurrent ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... resorts, where cultivated, scholarly men, and women of fine sensibilities, could find rest from the struggles of the outside world. The sisters, who managed this large establishment, seemed happy in the midst of their severe and multifarious duties. Of the undercurrent of their lives I could not judge, but on the surface all seemed smooth and satisfactory. They evidently took great pleasure in the society of each other. Every evening, from six to eight, they all sat in the gardens in a circle together, ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... of the present and still greater promise for the future Alan sensed the undercurrent of unrest and suspicion in Nome. After waiting and hoping through another long winter, with their best men fighting for Alaska's salvation at Washington, word was traveling from mouth to mouth, from settlement to settlement, and from range to ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... other goods I had divided in case of loss or desertion, but had never dreamed of losing the precious quinine and other remedies; other losses and annoyances I felt as just parts of that undercurrent of vexations which is not wanting in even the smoothest life, and certainly not worthy of being moaned over in the experience of an explorer anxious to benefit a country and people—but this loss I feel most keenly. Everything of this kind happens by the permission of One who ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... emits is not great, but it is penetrating. Even as the cheery lay of the Otocompsa bulbuls forms the dominant note of the bird chorus in our southern hill stations, so does the less melodious but not less cheerful call of the flycatcher-warblers run as an undercurrent through the melody of the feathered choir of ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... that some sullen undercurrent of intense feeling drove these eddying foam bells of flattery into the stream of conversation; or was her reply merely a chance ricochet shot, more accurately effective than ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... felt ill at heart; and was filled with an undercurrent of dismal forebodings. But I strove to dispel them; and turning to my companion, exclaimed, "And pray, do you live here, Harry, in this ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... male's view of the story, but it seems like it to me, for there doesn't seem to be nearly as much life as you find in the same author's Pixie books. Well, I suppose that's not true: there is a subtle undercurrent of old love affairs revived that runs right to the very last page—and that is one of Mrs Vaizey's greatest skills. If you haven't done so, do read the little biography we have written of her, as it will help you to understand her ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... sentiments of Unionism, there were many secret friends of slavery in San Francisco. One felt them like an undercurrent, covert and disquieting. To determine where men stood, a public meeting had been called for May 11. Where Post ran into Market street, affording wide expanse for out-door gathering, a speaker's stand was built. Here the issues of war, it was announced, would be ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... with the boy and laid a hand on Cassy's shoulder, for there was an undercurrent to the conversation which boded no good. The very first words uttered had plunged Abel Baragar and his son's wife into the midst of the difficulty which she had hoped might, after all, ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... from Hawaii, has an extreme beauty altogether its own, which wins one's love, though it does not startle one into admiration like that of the Hawaiian gulches. Is it because that, though the magic of novelty is over it, there is a perpetual undercurrent of home resemblance? The dash of its musical waters might be in Cumberland; its swelling uplands, with their clumps of trees, might be in Kent; and then again, steep, broken, wooded ridges, with glades of grass, suggest the Val Moutiers; and broader ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird |
