"Inexpressible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... when badly battered by the enemy's fire. This was the great tactical blunder which brought to nought Rodney's patient, wary manoeuvres of the past six hours. To it especially, but not to it alone, he referred in the stinging words of his despatch: "'T is with concern inexpressible, mixt with indignation, that the duty I owe my sovereign and country obliges me to acquaint their Lordships that, during the action with the French fleet on the 17th instant [and] His Majesty's, the British flag was not properly supported." ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... mention any names?" questioned the young man, desperately; and while he waited for Slogan to speak a look of inexpressible agony lay ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... dear mother leaned affectionately on his shoulder, or Lorand kissed his face, or if I nestled to his breast and plied him, in child-guise, with queries on unanswerable topics, at such a time his beautiful, melancholy eyes would beam with such inexpressible love, such enchanting sweetness would well out from them! But a smile came there never at any time, nor did any one cause ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... features of this wonderful region, where all the powers of nature are harmoniously combined, beget new sensations and ideas. I now feel that I better know what it is to be a historian of nature. Overpowered by the contemplation of an immense solitude, of a profound and inexpressible stillness, it is, doubtless, impossible at once to perceive all its divine characteristics; but the feeling of its vastness and grandeur cannot fail to arouse in the mind of the beholder the thrilling emotions of a hitherto ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, No. - 537, March 10, 1832 • Various
... time enjoyed the inexpressible delicacy of feminine refinements. He had never met this grace of language, this reserve of clothing, these poses of the weary dove. He admired the exaltation of her soul and the lace on her petticoat. ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... conveyed to a lingering pressure of her hand. He was a past master in this discreet method of expressing the inexpressible; and he had the satisfaction of seeing the colour deepen in her cheeks, as she released herself hastily, and passed on into ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... this, I placed it in a tin pan, with the skull downwards, and put the pan upon a furnace of lighted charcoal. In a few minutes, the pan having become thoroughly heated, I removed the slip, and, to my inexpressible joy, found it spotted, in several places, with what appeared to be figures arranged in lines. Again I placed it in the pan, and suffered it to remain another minute. Upon taking it off, the whole was just as you see ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... out—of the human soul! Had the lungs once heaved with breath, the heart given one throb; the eyes caught one beam of Heaven's light ere they were sealed fast in eternal darkness, she, who travailed with the infant through the inexpressible agony of birth, would have been written a mother among women; have had the right accorded her, without the cavil of formalist or the disputations of science, to claim the precious thing as her own still—a living baby-spirit that had fluttered ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... 5 Who by: inexpressible love is ours, but according to the flesh is our bishop; whom I beseech you, pray Jesus Christ, to love: and that you would all strive to be like unto him. And blessed be God, who has granted unto you, who are so worthy of him, to ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... not easy to express the inexpressible," he answered with a laugh. "Holmes is a little too scientific for my tastes—it approaches to cold-bloodedness. I could imagine his giving a friend a little pinch of the latest vegetable alkaloid, not out of malevolence, you understand, but simply out of a spirit of inquiry in order to have ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... with undoubting confidence; take His hand with humble gratitude, and with all thy heart obey His voice, which you will everywhere hear, saying, "this is the way, walk ye therein." In sickness and in health, by night and by day, at home and in crowds, He will watch over you with tenderness inexpressible. He will make you lie down in green pastures, lead you beside the still waters and guide you in paths of righteousness, for His name's sake. He will prepare a table before you in the presence of your enemies, and cause your cup to run over with blessings. ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser
... the next morning. Burgoyne had marched but six miles, yet dallied till afternoon on the spot where he had halted early in the day. He then saw, to his inexpressible dismay, the same body of Americans[54] whom he had seen opposite his encampment at Stillwater, now marching abreast of him, with the evident design of seizing the Saratoga ford before he could get to it. The road he meant ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake
... trembling of his limbs by an effort. Should he stop the engines at once and give himself away. A gust of irresolution swayed all sorts of bizarre notions in his mind. The unusual had come, and he was not fit to deal with it. In this passage of inexpressible anguish he saw her face—the face of a young girl—with an amazing strength of illusion. No, he must not give himself away after having gone so far for her sake. "You steered the course? You made it? ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... was still poor and wretched, and threw myself down at night on my hard couch, weary and worn out by the hard heavy labour of the day, a dream used to come to me, and, fanning my hot brow with balmy rustling breezes, shed about my heart all the inexpressible bliss of some single happy moment, in which the Eternal Power had been pleased to grant me in thought a glimpse of the delights of heaven, and the memory of which was treasured up in the recesses of my soul I now rest on soft cushions, and no labour consumes my strength: but if I awaken out ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... oldest member of the horde, and he had never seen anything like it before. I remember the worried, plaintive look that came into his eyes as he examined the ice. (This plaintive look always came into our eyes when we did not understand a thing, or when we felt the prod of some vague and inexpressible desire.) Red-Eye, too, when he investigated the ice, looked bleak and plaintive, and stared across the river into the northeast, as though in some way he connected the Fire People ...
— Before Adam • Jack London
... manifested by the poor creatures whom he thus rescued from misery, on their deliverance, may be imagined, but cannot well be described. Sometimes it broke forth in loud and wild demonstrations; sometimes it was deep and inexpressible, or expressed only by mingled tears of gratitude and ecstacy, rolling silently but profusely down ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... Allen we owe the inexpressible advantage of being able to read Nelson's biography unencumbered by idle speculations, denuded of the tedious detail, and yet sufficiently nautical to give an appropriate colouring to the exciting ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... 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 ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... made flesh, whose silence is inexpressible eloquence, Thou canst never be misapprehended or mistaken. Thou becomest the life of our life, and the soul of our soul. How infinitely is thy language elevated above all the utterances of human and finite articulation. Thy adorable power, all efficacious in the soul ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... lead my horse and I entered her carriage; she was alone and we at once took the road to Paris. Rain began to fall, and the carriage curtains were drawn; thus shut up together we rode on in silence. I looked at her with inexpressible sadness; she was not only the friend of my faithless one but her confidante. She had often formed one of our party when I called on my mistress in the evening! With what impatience had I endured her presence. How often I counted the ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... the plate grated against my very soul as I descended the steps; but slowly, stealthily, I crept along the wall; and at length found myself on the level floor. There was but one door on that side of the hall, the door which led to the area-room—I recollect the fact distinctly—and it was with inexpressible relief I reached it in safety, and grasped the knob in my hand. The knob turned—but the door did not open: it was locked; it was my fate to be a thief; and after a moment of new dismay, I turned again doggedly, reached the stair, and re-entered the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various
... before I left the topsail yard, making wild vomits into the black night, to leeward. Soon all was snug aloft, and we were again allowed to go below. This I did not consider much of a favor, for the confusion of everything below, and that inexpressible sickening smell, caused by the shaking up of bilge water in the hold, made the steerage but an indifferent refuge from the cold, wet decks. I had often read of the nautical experiences of others, but I felt as though there could be none ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... fancy a quite indelible impression. Who this Reverend Personage,' he says, 'that glided into the Orchard Cottage when the Sun was in Libra, and then, as on spirit's wings, glided out again, might be? An inexpressible desire, full of love and of sadness, has often since struggled within me to shape an answer. Ever, in my distresses and my loneliness, has Fantasy turned, full of longing (sehnsuchtsvoll), to that unknown ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... praised God for bringing you back to me after so many trials, and I charged my old woman to take care of you, and to conduct you hither as soon as possible. She has executed her commission perfectly well; I have tasted the inexpressible pleasure of seeing you again, of hearing you, of speaking with you. But you must be hungry, for myself, I am ...
— Candide • Voltaire
... always painful to quit a favourite spot. The heart lingers long behind, and employs the pencil of memory to paint the absent scene. Adam and Eve must have experienced inexpressible emotions when driven from their primeval residence, where all the elements, all the seasons, and all beings had contributed to their enjoyment. Never, never, could they forget those landscapes on which ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... 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 ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... night. Every moment that divided me from the hour of my liberation now seemed magnified into days. Wednesday morning at last dawned upon me. I was taken out and placed before a regiment of policemen, who each scrutinized me, and that done I received my license. With feelings of inexpressible thankfulness and gratitude to God I heard the heavy prison doors close behind me, and once more I inhaled the sweet free air ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... Hitherto she had steadily borne up against the pressure of her malady, and had not betaken herself finally to bed; but, on the closing in of the evening of my arrival at the house, she succumbed (as her brother told me at night with inexpressible agitation) to the prostrating power of the destroyer; and I learned that the glimpse I had obtained of her person would thus probably be the last I should obtain—that the lady, at least while living, would be seen by ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... letter himself. It was a letter! A whole week of excitement, all the trouble it had cost him to write, but here it was at last; he had managed to produce a letter: "To Froeken Barbro Bredesen. It is two or three times now I have had the inexpressible delight ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... upon them. After I had put back the purse in my pocket, I returned to the gaming-table with the two pieces of gold in the palms of my damp hands, prowling about the players like a sparrow-hawk round a coop of chickens. Tormented by inexpressible terror, I flung a sudden clairvoyant glance round me, and feeling quite sure that I was seen by none of my acquaintance, betted on a stout, jovial little man, heaping upon his head more prayers and vows than are put up during two or three storms at sea. Then, with an intuitive scoundrelism, or Machiavelism, ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... in all that follows, in the efforts of the irrational to express itself, there is a total lack of rationality, of all objective value? No; the absolutely, the irrevocably irrational, is inexpressible, is intransmissible. But not the contra-rational. Perhaps there is no way of rationalizing the irrational; but there is a way of rationalizing the contra-rational, and that is by trying to explain it. Since only the rational is intelligible, really intelligible, and since ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... upon General Sherman, prior to his arrival, as a man, in the providence of God, specially set apart to accomplish this work, and we unanimously felt inexpressible gratitude to him, looking upon him as a man who should be honored for the faithful performance of his duty. Some of us called upon him immediately upon his arrival, and it is probable he did not meet the secretary with more courtesy than he did us. His ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... sympathetic participation in his sufferings; for an excited native seized the halter of my horse, three more with reverently bared heads fell in on each side, and I was led away in triumph to some unknown destination! The inexpressible absurdity of our appearance did not strike me with its full force until I looked behind me just before we reached the village. There were the Major, Viushin, and Dodd, perched upon gaunt Kamchadal horses, with their knees and chins on nearly the same ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... The intermittent gusts of wind now and again interrupted its monotonous theme, but the intervals were as brief as they were violent, and in this polyphonic composition of rain, wind, and guns, the hissing of the raindrops came and went as in a fugue and with an inexpressible mournfulness. ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... of inexpressible agony, you settle down into the heart-breaking conviction that you can have no home until you have passed into that habitation not fashioned by human hands, or inhabited by ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... with Claire curtseying, having been listened to in utter dumbfoundedness by Patiomkin and Naryshkin, in childlike awe by Yarinka, and with quite inexpressible feelings by Catherine. When he is out of sight she rises with clinched fists and raises her arms and her closed eyes to Heaven. Patiomkin: rousing himself from his stupor of amazement, springs to her like a tiger, and ...
— Great Catherine • George Bernard Shaw
... rose. But at the same moment Kitty effected an escape and he and Amy were left alone. She looked quickly at the door through which Kitty had vanished, dropped her arms at her sides and uttered a little sigh of inexpressible relief. ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... am so affectionately received by the citizens of New-York and their worthy representatives, I feel myself overwhelmed with inexpressible emotions. The sight of the American shore, after so long an absence; the recollection of the many respected friends and dear companions, no more to be found on this land; the pleasure to recognize those who survive; the immense concourse of a free republican population, who so kindly welcome me; ...
— Memoirs of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... have cause for inexpressible emotions of gratitude to God for the favor we enjoy. The outlook is bright; the sky of promise calm and serene. It is said that a Grecian patriot and statesman once assumed a very weighty responsibility, which required him to leave his home and State to meet it. ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... he knew but little of women, even he knew that he was loved. He had only to ask, and it would be all his own, that inexpressible loveliness, those ever-speaking but yet now mute eyes, that feminine brightness and eager, loving spirit which had so attracted him since first he had encountered it at St. Ewold's. It might, must, all ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... placid animal when provoked has the habit of doing, came in contact with a weak part of the paling which divided Miss Firkin's back premises from Master Tyler's yard, and not only upset Mr. Lamb into a crate of crockery which he was in the act of unpacking, to the inexpressible discomfiture of both parties, but Miss Wolfe, who, upon hearing the mixture of crash and squall, ran to the rescue, found herself knocked down by a donkey who had entered at the breach, and was saluted as she rose ...
— Miss Philly Firkin, The China-Woman • Mary Russell Mitford
... obliged to draw our comparisons from human acts, and to inflict on the Lord the shame of our words. We have to employ such terms as 'union,' 'marriage,' 'wedding feast'; but it is impossible to speak of the inexpressible, and with the baseness of our language declare the ineffable immersion of the soul ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... strange that I hardly know where to begin or what I may with propriety speak. I do not yet understand myself. The most I am sure of is that I am doing a Master's will, and that the service is a constant ecstasy. When I think of the purpose I am sent to fulfil, there is in me a joy so inexpressible that I know the ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... to play upon the flute and sing by note; by notwithstanding I was of that tender age when little children are wont to take pastime in whistles and such toys, I had an inexpressible dislike for it, and played and sang only to obey him. My father in those times fashioned wonderful organs with pipes of wood, spinets the fairest and most excellent which then could be seen, viols and lutes and harps of the most beautiful and perfect construction. He was an engineer, and had ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... expressed, with his pencil, a look of Julia, that had always eluded him before. But was he to be overcome by a girl? Was life and its ambitions to be crushed out and brought to nought by one small hand? He would see. It would be inexpressible luxury to tell her once—but just once—all his passion and worship, and then, of course, remain silent forever, and go out of her presence. He wished her to know it all, so that, as she would hear ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... Without more ado the seaman rose, mounted on a chair, pushed open the trap-door, thrust his head and shoulders through, and looked round. Apparently the inspection was not deemed sufficiently close, for, to the old woman's alarm and inexpressible surprise, he seized the edges of the hole with his strong hands, raised himself up, and finally disappeared in the regions above! The alarm of the old woman was somewhat increased by the sound of her visitor's heavy ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... came back, to our inexpressible joy, and brought a great many necessary things with him; as, particularly, he brought sixty barrels of powder, some iron shot, and about thirty ton of lead; also he brought a great deal of provisions; and, in a word, William ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... changes of the seasons. They knew the time of day by the shadows of the trees; the seasons, by the times when those trees bore flowers or fruit; and the years, by the number of their harvests. These soothing images diffused an inexpressible charm over their conversation. "It is time to dine," said Virginia, "the shadows of the plantain-trees are at their roots:" or, "Night approaches, the tamarinds are closing their leaves." "When will you come and see us?" ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... Bickford was subject to fits of untimely silence which made her friends anxiously sweep the corners of their minds in search of something to say, but any one who looked at her now could easily see that it was not poverty of thought that made her speechless, but an overburdening sense of the inexpressible. ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... 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 ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... and its immense influence on the destiny, as well as on the various opinions, of mankind, is well shown by Professor Max Mueller. 'From one point of view,' he declares, 'the true history of religion would be neither more nor less than an account of the various attempts at expressing the Inexpressible' (Lectures on the Science of Language, Second Series). The witch-creed may be indirectly referred, like many other absurdities, to ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... pacified the gelding. Then Billy appeared by the wheel. "Poor Billy fell out," he said mildly. He held something up, which Bertie took. It had been Billy's straw hat, now a brimless fabric of ruin. Except for smirches and one inexpressible rent which dawn revealed to Bertie a little later, there were no further injuries, and Billy got in and ...
— Philosophy 4 - A Story of Harvard University • Owen Wister
... later it is that, field-glass in hand, the young officer is there by Patterson's side, peering eastward almost into the eye of the sun, searching with anxiety inexpressible for any sign of dust-cloud rising along the trail on which they came, for the sight he has seen down the range, now brilliant in the morning light, has filled his heart with the first real dread it has yet known. In three places, not more than four or five miles apart, down along the sunlit side ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... step. Climbing the brow of a hill about twelve miles from Basle, we obtained a charming view of the windings of the river—the broad valley through which it passes, the dark undulations of the forest, the towers and spires of the distant city, and the long line of Alps in the background, rising in inexpressible grandeur and glittering in the beams of the ...
— Scenes in Switzerland • American Tract Society
... you dare to love him!" cried the steward with inexpressible rage. "Very well! I—I detest him, and I ...
— The Story of a Cat • mile Gigault de La Bdollire
... capable of wide gradations; and the flutes were sufficiently complicated to be described by early writers as "many-toned." The Egyptian did not merely bang a drum with his fist because it made a noise, nor blow blasts upon a trumpet as a means of expressing the inexpressible. He was an educated musician, and he employed the medium of music to encourage his lightness of heart and to render ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... exquisitely lovely woman, with floating hair and clear, earnest, unfathomable eyes. Azul and the Angel sank reverently down and drooped their radiant heads like flowers in hot sunshine. I alone, daringly, yet with inexpressible affection welling up within me, watched with unshrinking gaze the swift advance of that supreme Figure, upon whose broad brows rested the faint semblance of a Crown of Thorns. A voice ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... 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 you that ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... and he was never quite sure whether he liked it or not. It was upsetting stuff he considered, vaguely disquieting and suggestive. Yet there were times when it came in useful. It said things for a chap that he couldn't say for himself. It expressed the inexpressible . . . in words. It synthesised and formulated fantastic ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... his." "God holds sinners in his hands over the mouth of hell as so many spiders; and he is dreadfully provoked, and he not only hates them, but holds them in utmost contempt, and he will trample them beneath his feet with inexpressible fierceness, he will crush their blood out, and will make it fly so that it will sprinkle his garments and stain all his raiment."21 Oh, ravings and blasphemies of theological bigotry, blinded with old creeds, inflamed with sectarian hate, soaked in the ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... not it were by reason of this appellation of grandmother which as a child he had learned to reverence, de Gery felt an inexpressible attraction towards this young girl. It was not like the sudden shock which he had received from that other, that emotional agitation in which were mingled the desire to flee, to escape from a possession and the persistent melancholy of the morrow of a festivity, extinguished ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... 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 ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... I was surprised by a call from Dannevig, who seemed again to be in the full bloom of prosperity. And yet, that inexpressible flavor of aristocracy, and that absolute fineness of type which at our first meeting had so fascinated me, had undergone some subtle change which was almost too fleeting for words to express. To put it bluntly, he had not ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... the People of Newgate conceiv'd on this Occasion is inexpressible, Te Deum was Sung in the Lodge, and nothing but Smiles, and Bumpers, were seen there for many Days together. But Jonathan Wild unfortunately happen'd to be gone upon a wrong Scent after him to Sturbridge, and Lost ...
— The History of the Remarkable Life of John Sheppard • Daniel Defoe
... when Courtland received the letter. Pat had gone down to the city for over Sunday. An inexpressible longing filled him to see Tennelly again, before his marriage completed the wall that was between them. He wanted to have a real old-fashioned talk; to look into the soul of his friend and see the old loyalty shining there. He wanted more than all to come close to him once more, ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... with inexpressible contempt and disbelief, "Well, niece or not, you may serve a turn. ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... And this happiness, this rapture of the soul which makes life seem angelic for a season, the two friends now experienced in full measure. For an hour they sat together, holding each other's hands, feeling a strange inexpressible pleasure in merely listening to the sound of each other's voices, noting the familiar tones, the old expressions, the rippling laughter so long unheard, and in gazing into each other's eyes, bright with the lustre of joy, and tender with love almost ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... the 16th which I just now receivd, is like cool Water to a thirsty Soul. It gives me inexpressible Pleasure to have it under your own Hand, that you are in the Way of Recovery from a dangerous Disorder. I earnestly pray God to restore you to perfect Health; and let me intreat you, my Dear, to be very careful ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... on her hand, and she was looking with her wide eyes, across which the swift thoughts passed like clouds over a windy sky, or dreams through the mind of a sleeper—looking out vacantly towards the mountain snows. Seen thus her loveliness was inexpressible, amazing; merely to gaze upon it was an intoxication. Contemplating it, I understood indeed that, like to that of the fabled Helen, this gift of hers alone—and it was but one of many—must have caused infinite sorrows, had she ever been permitted to display it to the ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... there utterly still in the midst of stillness—no stir in the tree-tops, no movement anywhere but the restless glow of Broome's cigar—the inexpressible sense of her stole in upon him, flooding his spirit like a distillation from the summer night. Moment by moment the impression deepened and glowed within him. Never, since that morning at Chitor, had it so ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... standing in matronly dignity. "You could do me no greater favor than to prove to me that this boy is Ralph Burnham. If I could believe that he is really my son, I would take him to my heart with inexpressible joy. Without that belief I should be false to my daughter's interest to compel her to share with a stranger not only her father's estate but also ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... little while did the wretched king strive to resist the decrees of fate. And in her own chamber, where so short a time before the little princess had known the joy of something inexpressible—something most exquisite—intangible—unknown—she sat, like a flower broken by the ruthless storm, sobbing pitifully, dry-eyed, with sobs that strained her soul, for the shameful, hideous fate that the gods had ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... and scheming for a day between this time and our departure. But it is all in vain. My engagements have accumulated, and become such a whirl, that no day is left me. Nothing is left me but to get away. I look forward to my release from this dining life with an inexpressible longing after quiet and my own pursuits. What with public speechifying, private eating and drinking, and perpetual simmering in hot rooms, I have made London too hot to hold me and my work together. Mary and Georgina acknowledge ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... light, with the ocean,—in no manner can the thrilling depth of these feelings be written,—with these I prayed as if they were the keys of an instrument.... The great sun, burning with light, the strong earth,—dear earth,—the warm sky, the pure air, the thought of ocean, the inexpressible beauty of all filled me with a rapture, an ecstasy, an inflatus. With this inflatus, too, I prayed.... The prayer, this soul-emotion, was in itself, not for an object: it was a passion. I hid my face in the grass. I was wholly prostrated, I lost myself in the wrestle, I was ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... nobody at home, Baya having gone out to the bath. The negress appeared sinister and the dwelling saddening. A prey to inexpressible melancholy, he went and sat down by the fountain to load a pipe with Barbassou's tobacco. It was wrapped up in a piece of the Marseilles Semaphore newspaper. On flattening it out, the name of his native place ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... to myself. Well, it was sweet to be the object of her anxiety and care, even on these terms—on any terms. And I felt a sort of profound, inexpressible, grateful emotion, as though no one, never, on no day, on no occasion, had taken ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... superior advantages of the young women round about her, gave Rebecca inexpressible pangs of envy. "What airs that girl gives herself, because she is an Earl's grand-daughter," she said of one. "How they cringe and bow to that Creole, because of her hundred thousand pounds! I am a thousand times cleverer and more charming than that creature, for all ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... uprooted banana plant. Some there are who, disbelieving in its unity, regard the Soul, that dwells in this physical frame consisting of the five elements, to be possessed of the attributes of desire and aversion (and others).[62] Incapable of being seen by the eye, exceedingly subtle, and inexpressible by words, it revolves in a round (of re-births) among the creatures of the earth, keeping before it that which is the root of action.[63] Having made the Soul advance towards itself which is the spring of every kind of blessedness, having restrained all desires of the mind, and having cast off ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... I acknowledge my own state, it is one cumbered with "many things." Alas! amid them how little space is there for the love of God! I have remembered the days when untold and inexpressible experiences were mine; when a child's tears and prayers were seen and heard before the throne! The stragglings of grace and nature have been great since then. I can look back to years of struggles and deliverances, years of revoltings ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall
... a letter, but dismissed the thought as the height of folly. As the time passed Sabine began to reproach herself for her cowardice. All at once she heard the clang of the opening of the main gates. Peeping from her window, she saw a carriage drive up, and, to her inexpressible delight, M. de Breulh-Faverlay alighted ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... among them for the dear objects of their pursuit. They were not long in discovering another camp a little remote from that of the Indians. They crawled cautiously round to take a survey of it. Here, to their inexpressible joy, were their daughters in each others arms. Directly in front of their camp were two Indians, with their tomahawks and other weapons within their grasp. The one appeared to be in a sound sleep, and the other ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... silence of Ellen, and the supposed rejection of his kind overtures. His unhappy state of mind had evidently an effect upon his body; he grew weaker and more querulous every day. At last a letter arrived from Ellen, which I now blush to say, gave me inexpressible joy. It announced the death of her husband— a trifling wound on the thumb having terminated in ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... to invest the death of a dear Christian friend, in our thoughts, with inexpressible peace and comfort. He, with his Redeemer, can say, "My flesh, also, shall rest in hope." If we are confident that a friend is gone to be with Christ, death is, even now, swallowed up of life; and now the thought of what the soul is to inherit, ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... the two boys impartially as far as Dennis or Jim's mother could perceive. The girl with her common sense and her foolishness and her youthfulness was an inexpressible joy to Jim's mother, who always had longed for a daughter. She had dreams about Jim and Pen that she confided to no one and she looked on Penelope's impartiality with a ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... inexpressible relief, I heard from her a low moan. I put her down on the door-step of a house close by, and sat by her side supporting her. A lamp ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... Council, and one of the most happy hours of my life. When the honored old judge and sage, sanctioning my adventure, declared that, rather than it should fail, he would join it himself, and with emotion rose to his feet; the effect was inexpressible, each person being as motionless as ...
— Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party • Martin Robinson Delany
... with a singular deliberation, "the great and respectable Boston herself, and her serene, venerable oncle, and other Boston magnificos, have of a truth done me the inexpressible honor to solicit of my degraded, papistical oncle that she shall come—that she shall of her own superior eye behold the barbaric customs ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... did not lend its proportionate consciousness to her breathing sense 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 yet subdued homage which the purest beauty fulfills its human ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... frighted with the distemper, it was a mere desolating of some of the streets. But the fright was not yet near so great in the city, abstractly so called, and particularly because, though they were at first in a most inexpressible consternation, yet as I have observed that the distemper intermitted often at first, so they were, as it were, alarmed and unalarmed again, and this several times, till it began to be familiar to them; and that even when it appeared violent, yet seeing it did not presently spread into the ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe
... had been 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 ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... 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, and of chivalrous devotion towards the ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... nature lies dormant and torpid if we are not Christians! How much of the work that is done is dreary, wearisome, collar-work, against the grain. Do not the wheels of life often go slowly? Are you not often weary of the inexpressible monotony and fatigue? And do you not go to your work sometimes, though with a fierce feeling of 'need-to-do-it,' yet also with inward repugnance? And are there not great parts of your nature that have never woke into activity at all, and are ill at ease, because ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... her in his quaint prose, "Your favors to me are everywhere. I use them and have them. I enjoy them at London and leave them there, and yet find them at Mitcham. Such riddles as these become things inexpressible; and such is your goodness." There was a choice, ever-comforting, and sacred friendship between the great John Locke and the excellent Lady Damaris Masham, the only daughter of that ornament of the English Church, the learned and ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... 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 Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... occasion, and all was gaiety and expectation; and Churchill was mortified when he saw how well the thing was likely to take, that he was not to be the giver of the fete, especially as he observed that Helen was particularly pleased—when, to his inexpressible surprise, Granville Beauclerc came to him, a few days before that appointed for the hawking-party, and said that he had changed his mind, that he wished to get rid of the whole concern—that he should be really obliged to Churchill if he would take his engagement ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... ever, with the heavy curved pillars below, supporting the round arches, while above, the numbers of little columns grew smaller and smaller as they burst forth among the broken arches of the ogives, like an inexpressible declaration of faith and love which seemed to come from the lights. In the centre, under the roof, along the ribs of the nave, there was a yellow cloud, a thick colour of wax, from the multitude ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... idea here set down, the world is indebted to Elihu Burritt, the "LEARNED BLACKSMITH," and will be indebted to him for the inexpressible benefits of the thing itself, whenever so great a boon shall be obtained. Having visited our mother country, on an errand of peace, he soon saw the value of the blessing of cheap postage, as it is enjoyed ...
— Cheap Postage • Joshua Leavitt
... 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 seeing you at the first possible ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... summer's midnight, their footsteps seemed to waken a nightingale whose cage hung from a lofty balcony there; for suddenly, at their coming, the bird broke into a wild and thrilling song, that touched them all, and suffused the tender heart of the Paronsina with an inexpressible pathos. ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... not leave his place beside the bed where the girl lay, white and still as if dead. An inexpressible compassion for the poor man filled his heart. Whatever the event should be, it would be tragical for him. "Go to sleep, Mr. Gerald," he said. "Your waking can do no good. I will keep watch, and if need be, I'll call you. Try to make yourself easy on ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells
... sat silent, and then there came over his face a look of inexpressible anguish,—a look as though the pain were almost more than he could bear. She could not keep her eyes from his face; and, in her woman's pity, she almost wished that her words had ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... that "indirect influence" which women are said to possess. Just now the admission of Wyoming as a State with woman suffrage in its constitution was hanging in the balance, but on March 26 she had the inexpressible pleasure of witnessing, from her seat in the gallery of the House, the final discussion and passage of the bill.[57] She also was arranging for the incorporation of the National-American Association, the old National, which had been a corporate ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... closed the page of his life on which he had written that brief story of love. Yet Sissy's letter was an inexpressible comfort to him. It was something to know that elsewhere a little heart was beating—so true and kind that it would have given up its own happiness—to help him ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... was not a bookmaker, and who wrote not to make converts of others to established creeds and prejudices, but to satisfy his own mind of the truth of things. In this respect we know not which to be most charmed with, the author or the man. There is an inexpressible frankness and sincerity, as well as power, in what he writes. There is no attempt at imposition or concealment, no juggling tricks or solemn mouthing, no laboured attempts at proving himself always in the right, and every body else in the wrong; he ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... and the buffaloes; as well as the fate of some unfortunate asses, which latter, to increase the sport, being made perforce witnesses of the sanguinary action, at first looked down upon it from their poles with inexpressible horror, and afterward, when their supports were shaken by the butting of the buffaloes, fell to the ground as if dead, and, with outstretched limbs, lay, expecting their fate with the greatest resignation—without making a single ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... gave her inexpressible pain to know that his motives and his character were being discussed and censured for that course of conduct for which only herself was to be blamed, and which only she could explain. A word from her would show him in a very different light before his critics. But she must not speak that word to ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... seamen. Science has robbed the sea of its secret,—is every day bearing away something of the old difficulties and dangers which made the wisest head and the strongest arm so dear to their fellows, which gave that inexpressible sense of brotherhood. Science has given us the steamship,—it has destroyed the sailor. The age of discovery is closing with this century. Up to the limits of the ice-fields, every shore is mapped out, every shoal sounded. Not ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... and habits was useful. I did not rise to the level of enjoying anything much; only the sea waves when I was in them; at other times I sat on the bank and watched the distant smokestack of a steamer going out, with an inexpressible longing and soreness of heart. Going where I would so like to go! But there was no word of that. And indeed it would not have been advisable to take me to China. I did think Egypt would not have been bad for me; but it was a ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... and circumstance, in health and sickness, in joy, in grief, in danger, in perplexity—over his food, his studies, his work, his amusements, he was ever turning a look of peculiar sweetness on me, with the two words, "Jack pray." He always smiled when so engaged, and a look of inexpressible eagerness, mingled with satisfaction and the triumph of one who feels that he has taken a secure stand, told me when he was praying, without any change of position, or looking up. There was always a mixture of anxiety in his aspect when he tried to make himself understood by his fellow-creatures; ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... in spite of my earnest desire to be clear and explicit, you have not after all fully understood the inexpressible feeling I entertain in regard to the impossibility of my ever entering into the career of London in the capacity of a newspaper editor. I confess that you, who have adorned and raised your own profession so highly, may feel inclined, and justly ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... have gone on in this tender way, when the good lady entered, and, with an inexpressible sweetness in her countenance, told us "she had been searching her closet for something very good, to treat such an old friend as I was." Her husband's eyes sparkled with pleasure at the cheerfulness of her countenance; and ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... jumped up merrily, lit a pipe, and began singing, and heard, to my inexpressible joy, some way down the road, the sound of other voices. They were singing that old song of the French infantry which dates from Louis XIV, and is called 'Aupres de ma blonde'. I answered their chorus, so that, by the time we met under the wood, ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... prince on the balcony, or showed herself to the people in an open carriage, declared there could be no happier couple than the prince and his wife; they declared that the large, dark eyes of the princess rested upon the prince with inexpressible tenderness, and that the prince always returned her glance with a joyous smile. It was therefore decided that the prince was a happy husband, and the blessings of the Berliners followed the charming princess to Rheinsberg, where ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... I have done nothing to deserve all the insults which he thought fit to heap upon me. I wanted you to know, Crystal, that my love is still yours, and that the fortune and glory which I now go forth to win I will place with inexpressible joy ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... begins to come in circulation, and then easily pick out their man. And now comes the shameful part. In plain English, the prisoner is tortured until he confesses and (if that be possible) restores the money. To keep him alone, day and night, in the black hole, is to inflict on the Marquesan torture inexpressible. Even his robberies are carried on in the plain daylight, under the open sky, with the stimulus of enterprise, and the countenance of an accomplice; his terror of the dark is still insurmountable; conceive, then, what he endures in his solitary dungeon; conceive how he longs to confess, become ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in the cows, he ought, of course, not to be very deficient in other points, else the cure may be worse than the disease. If possible, he should be taken from a pasture not superior to your own. Docility of temper in male and female is indispensable. Inexpressible mischief may be done by the introduction of wild blood into the herd, for it is sure to be inherited. I have suffered seriously ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie
... a piety so retiring as rarely to disclose itself in words, but so influential as to produce uniform benevolence of conduct. In the last hour of life, after a farewell look on a lately born and only infant, for whom she had evinced inexpressible affection, her last whispers were 'God's happiness! God's happiness!' Since the second anniversary of her decease, I have read some papers which no one had seen during her life, and which contain her most secret thoughts. I am induced to communicate to your Lordship a passage from these papers, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... the days of my weary mortal pilgrimage, did the blessed vision of the veritable Fairy Land open upon my enchanted sight! Once more I found myself in that world of inexpressible beauty! The radiance and sweetness of delicious morning were around me;—balmy were the stealthy, odorous winds;—and the fluttering verdure of that pleasant land glittered like countless emeralds, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 482, March 26, 1831 • Various
... troops marching with quick step into the town. She thought that he tried, involuntarily, to straighten his shoulders as the stalwart figures passed. She seemed to know how the sight of them must sadden him, and her heart became filled with an inexpressible pity. But when he spoke, there was not the least tinge of dissatisfaction in ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 6, June, 1891 • Various
... from the hard outline, fashioned by the Greek painter; the eyes appeared to become animated, and to return with looks of compassion the suppliant entreaties of the votaress, and the mouth visibly arranged itself into a smile of inexpressible sweetness. It even seemed to her that the head ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... of dry leaves, of warm, cypress resin and of burnt thyme and myrrh of the stony ravines and stubbly fields. On such August days the plain and the more distant mountains will sometimes be obliterated, leaving only the inexpressible suavity of the hills on the same side as the sun, made of the texture of the sky, lying against it like transparent and still luminous shadows. All pictures of such effects of climate are false, even Perugino's and Claude's, because even ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... his daughter who still saw her place to be at his side. A great comfort was she to him in these days of trial. For herself, Winifred was finding out afresh "the sweetness of an accepted sorrow." The joy of the Lord was inexpressible. She could scarcely understand the gladness that filled her soul after sacrifice "more than when their corn and their ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... most sedate young man I have ever seen;—but his sedateness is temper'd with a sweetness inexpressible;—a certain mildness in the features;—a mildness which, in the countenance of that great commander I saw at Brandon Lodge, appears like mercy sent out from the heart to discover the dwelling of true courage.—There is certainly a strong likeness between the Marquis and Lord ...
— Barford Abbey • Susannah Minific Gunning
... inexpressible honor and the delightful joy of aiding me in any way: if so, command him to do it," or words to that effect. I can't put down his smiles, and genteel looks, and don't want to if ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... and Mary's complexion now ceased to be the first objects of interest at! Glenfern; for, to the inexpressible delight and amazement of the sisters, Mrs. Douglas, after due warning, became the mother of a son. How this event had been brought about without the intervention of Lady Maclaughlan was past the powers ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... replying, put on her hat. A deep, inexpressible joy filled her heart, a treacherous joy that she sought to hide at any cost, one of those things of which one is ashamed, although cherishing it in one's soul—her son's sweetheart ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... 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 ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther |
