"Unexplained" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bad tool, at once stubborn and secretive, cunning enough to recognise and to resent handling, thickheaded and vain enough to blunder ruinously. And Elmur found at the last and most important moment that for some unexplained reason he had lost the whip-hand ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... Brodnyx Church looked still more Georgian and abandoned. Its three aisles were without ornament or architecture; there was no tower, but beside it stood a peculiar and unexplained erection, shaped like a pagoda, in three tiers of black and battered tar-boarding. It had a slight cant towards the church, and suggested nothing so much as a disreputable Victorian widow, in tippet, mantle and crinoline, seeking ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... of the tributary brooks in the interior of the country. As long as these migrations of the fish are regular the natives have no difficulty in providing themselves with an abundance of food; but once in every three or four years, for some unexplained reason, the fish fail to come, and the following winter brings precisely such a famine as the one which I have described at Anadyrsk, only frequently much worse. In 1860 more than a hundred and fifty natives died of ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... general review of herself, could not compass the immediately personal, with its acknowledgement of her subserviency to touch and pressure—and more, stranger, her readiness to kindle. She left it unexplained. Unconsciously the image of Dacier was effaced. Looking backward, her heart was moved to her long-constant lover with most pitying tender wonderment—stormy man, as her threatened senses told her that he was. Looking at ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... sympathy from the uninitiated, who keep their praises for the more attractive study of Greek art. Yet some of us still turn with relief from the serene material masterpieces of Greece, soulless in their very realism and truth of expression, to the vague and happily unexplained monsters, the rigid gods and hieratic princes, who are given new names by each succeeding generation. A knowledge that behind painted masks and gilded, tawdry gew-gaws are the remains of a once living person gives even the mummy ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... whether real or fictitious, pique curiosity. Even the scholar and the practical man of affairs find relaxation in the mystery of the detective story. Real life often furnishes events sufficiently mysterious to make a special feature story that rivals fiction. Unexplained crimes and accidents; strange psychical phenomena, such as ghosts, presentiments, spiritism, and telepathy; baffling problems of the scientist and the inventor—all have elements of mystery that ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... everything. Thus, if you once begin to think about your experience at all, you are irresistibly driven on to endless further reflection. If you try to stop short anywhere in the process, the results of your reflection are found to contain unexplained contradictions, just because you have not yet fitted on the fact on which you are reflecting to everything else there is to know. All the assumptions of every-day 'common sense' and all the more recondite assumptions of the sciences are saturated with these contradictions, because both 'common ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... cure one man. When he arrived he found his patient most charming. He listened attentively to the account of his years of illness, inquired of others in the house with him, and then went to bed and to sleep. In the morning he woke with a sense of unexplained depression. In searching about for the cause he went over his interviews of the day before and found a doubt in his mind which he would hardly acknowledge; but by the end of the next day he said to himself: "What a fool I was to come so far without a more complete ...
— Nerves and Common Sense • Annie Payson Call
... privilege. The more extravagant part of the hopes expressed by the eighteenth century revolution were vague enough, and tended in the direction of supposing that the working classes would be benefited by what was to the interest of the middle class in some way quite unexplained—by a kind of magic, one may say—which welfare of the workers, as it was never directly aimed at, but only hoped for by the way, so also did not come about by any such magical means, and the triumphant middle classes ...
— Signs of Change • William Morris
... the western sky, beyond the rolling downs and bleak plains of the Cotswold Hills, shone forth the strange, mysterious, zodiacal light, towering upwards into a point among the stars, and shaped in the form of a cone. It was the first occasion this curious, unexplained phenomenon had ever come under my notice, and it was awe inspiring enough in itself. But before I had gone more than two miles of my solitary journey, great black clouds came up behind me from the south, and I knew I was racing with the storm. Then, as "the great organ of eternity ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... unresponsive; yet there was nothing forbidding about her appearance. Looking into her soft gray eyes and face still beautiful, though wrinkled and colorless, Helen was conscious of a strange feeling of attraction toward her, a sort of unexplained affinity which women in trouble or distress often feel for one another, but which the sterner fiber of man's nature rarely admits of. She moved impulsively forward, and stretched out her hands in mute invitation, but there was no response. ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... that dinner if two or three unexplained demure smiles flitted over Miss Denham's face, they might, perhaps, have been indirectly traced to these floral decorations, though they pleased her more than if a woman's hand had been visible ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Jesuits have cast a peculiar melancholy over me; this frog's blood of mine would warm to generous impulses! . . . I wonder where I have seen that younger fanatic?" The marquis mused a while, but the riddle remained elusive and unexplained. He struck the bell to summon Jehan. "Announce to Monsieur le Comte my desire to hold speech ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... be my endeavour to give definite significance, in succeeding chapters, to these expressions, which, standing unexplained and unillustrated, probably convey very little meaning. We shall then see that every work, no matter what its subject-matter, necessarily involves these three principles in varying degrees; and that its success is always ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... Chieftain is, I hope, still in the remembrance of the reader. These circumstances will serve to explain such points of our narrative as, according to the custom of story-tellers, we deemed it fit to leave unexplained, for the purpose of ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... necessary, Miss Carwell," went on the captain. "The law of New Jersey does not demand that in cases of sudden and unexplained death, unless the county physician is not satisfied with his investigation. In that matter New Jersey differs from some of the other states. The county physician will make an autopsy to determine the cause of death. If he is satisfied that it was from natural causes he gives a certificate to that ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... to so many rumours and whispers of strange happenings. Sam West got up and spoke a few words, counselling the ready assent of every one there to submit to anything that was thought necessary. He briefly commented upon their unexplained but fortuitous escape from the raider, and heaped congratulations upon their captain. Very soon after he had resumed his seat, the shrill whistle of a tug alongside indicated the arrival of visitors. ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Soloman interrupts, changing entirely the expression of his countenance, "the whole thing is out! I said there was an unexplained mystery somewhere. It was not the Judge, but me who betrayed her to the assembly. Bless you, (he smiles, and crooking his finger, beckons a servant, whom he orders to bring a julep,) I was bound to do it, being the guardian of the Society's dignity, which office I have held ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... strange or mysterious in my deeply agitated state of mind. The substance of the matter he had now explained to me scientifically, biologically, physiologically and anatomically; to this nothing need be added nor did it leave anything unexplained. ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... any belief that the deceased needed these objects. Toys, too, are found in the graves, and we may assume that these were placed in the tombs of children. The frequent presence of shells in the tombs is still unexplained. On the other hand, remains of food, dates, grain, poultry, and fish, that have been found in graves belonging to various periods, may be regarded as a proof for the existence of the belief that the dead could suffer pangs of hunger. ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... position. The remaining subjects are—a figure which has been sometimes described as that of the Eternal Father, and again as St. John the Baptist, with the Agnus Dei; St. Paul and St. Anthony breaking a loaf in the desert; the Flight into Egypt; two figures unexplained; a man seated on the ground with a bow, taking aim; the Visitation; our Lord healing the man born blind; the Annunciation; and traces almost obliterated, of the Crucifixion, on the bottom panel ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... wall is weakened, as we know from the risk of scrotal hernia in man. But from the Lamarckian point of view the facts support the conclusion that the condition is the effect of certain mechanical strains, and is of somatic origin, while the correlations here reviewed are entirely unexplained by any theory ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham
... lost a coach-dog in France, which he in vain endeavoured to find. He returned to England, where he had not long arrived before the dog appeared; but the mode of his return remained for ever unexplained, though it is more than probable that the dog's sagacity, when he had made his escape from confinement, prompted him to go to the sea-coast, where he found means to get on board some vessel bound for the ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... there are any facts supplied by experience for which the atheistic deductions appear insufficient to account, we are still free to account for them in a relative sense by the hypothesis of Theism. And, it may be urged, we do find such an unexplained residuum in the correlation of general laws in the production of cosmic harmony. It signifies nothing, the argument may run, that we are unable to conceive the methods whereby the supposed Mind operates in producing cosmic harmony; nor does it signify that its operation must ...
— Thoughts on Religion • George John Romanes
... architectural features of interest. It is very unlike any other church in Italy, and reminds one of the country churches of England. What led the Gaetanis to adopt this foreign style of ecclesiastical architecture is a circumstance unexplained. Altogether it is a most incongruous group of objects that are here clustered together—a tomb, a fortress, and a church—and affords a curious illustration of the bizarre condition of society at the time. An extraordinary echo repeats ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... this unexplained something which came between her soul and that of every other human being with whom she was in relations? Helen perceived, or rather felt, that she had, folded up in the depths of her being, a true womanly nature. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... fall, when an ocean of tears is pent up in hearts that would burst and overflow if but one drop should force its way out? Why across the sea came faint gusty stories, like low voices in the wind, of a cloistered garden and sunny seclusion—and a life of unknown and unexplained luxury. What is this picture of a pale face showered with streaming black hair, and large sad eyes looking upon lovely and noble children playing in the sunshine—and a brow pained with thought straining into their destiny? Who is ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... the story, and even when it got under way again there was an atmosphere of excitement quite unexplained ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... The very day after the grown-ups left the daisies came. Like thousands of small white birds, with bright and steady eyes, they arrived and settled, thick and plentiful. They appeared in sheets and crowds upon the grass, all of their own accord and unexplained. In a night the lawns turned white. It seemed a prearranged invasion. Judy, first awake that morning, looked out of her window to watch a squirrel playing, and noticed them. Then she told the others, and ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... rest in the stable. Suddenly he spurred on and rode furiously over the country roads, as if mad to reach a certain end. A little later, he cantered up the gravelled drive of the Four Corners, his horse wet and trembling, and he with a craving unexplained, a desire that had found a swift, ...
— The Man Who Wins • Robert Herrick
... employed and thus out of the way of less harmless things, the professor suggested that the huge grizzly be flayed. If the proposed scheme should really be undertaken, that mighty pelt, if uncomfortable to convey, would serve as a fair excuse for the young brave's as yet unexplained ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... the railway"; and he develops a phobia for cars. Perhaps at the onset of the fear he happens to have a slight pain in the arm. He makes use of the pain to explain his distress. He thinks about it and holds on to it. It serves a purpose, and is on the whole less painful than the feeling of unexplained impending disaster which is attached to no particular idea. Perhaps he happens to be tired when the conflict first gets beyond control. So he seizes the idea of fatigue to explain his illness. He develops chronic fatigue and talks proudly of overwork. In every case the symptom serves ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... hands and eyes, by his mouth. And the mother does not give reply to his question by word only, but by her actions; by her feeding and care of him, by her neglect, by her joy in him and her irritation because of him, by her coming to him and by her unexplained departures from him. All her actions are a language by which she tells her child who she is in response to the questions implicit in his actions. And her answer to him as to who she is gives him the beginning of an answer to his question as ...
— Herein is Love • Reuel L. Howe
... clear distinction between colloquial and literary forms. He apparently is suggesting that these non-colloquial forms are heard in the spoken language. Here, not only is the style left unexplained, but the translation faciendo bonam consultationem is less than ellucidating. Here the ...
— Diego Collado's Grammar of the Japanese Language • Diego Collado
... reading—I should rather say our attempts at reading—is of this character. Such attempts are the result of a tendency to regard the printed page as a fetich—to think that if one knows his alphabet and can call the printed words one after another as his eye runs along the line, some unexplained good will result, or at least that he has performed a praiseworthy act, has "accumulated merit" somehow or somewhere, like a ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... rigidly confined to Tando, but is used by many spirits as a method of collecting arrears in taxes in the way of sacrifices. I have found traces of it among Bantu gods or spirits, and it gives rise to a general hesitation in West Africa to take care of waifs and strays of unexplained origin. ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... for some unexplained reason frequently lodged in Haines' mind was that of the apparent assiduity with which Mrs. Spangler cultivated Senator Langdon's friendship. For several years she had occupied a high social position at the capital, he well knew, but various indefinite, ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... taking Charlie aside. "Pray tell us, in a few words, what has happened. The burning of the tree is a mystery to us, and we shall die of curiosity if we have to remain here for another two months with the matter unexplained." ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... the Hanse Towns of Germany owed much of their prosperity. Salt herring, even in the twelfth century, was the chief single article of their exchanges with Catholic Europe, which made a strong demand for the fish, owing to the numerous fast days. When, in 1425, by one of those unexplained vagaries of animal life, the herring abandoned the Baltic and selected the North Sea for its summer destination, a new support was given to the wealth of the Netherlands.[624] There is a considerable amount of truth in the saying that Amsterdam was built on herrings. New England, ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... covered with loose boulders, and the whole island being of volcanic origin, coarse grass is everywhere, and at about 1500 feet is an area of tree ferns and subtropical vegetation, extending up to nearly the highest parts. The withered trees of a former forest are everywhere and their existence unexplained, though Lillie had many ingenious theories. The island has been in our hands, the Germans', and is now Brazilian. Nobody has been able to settle there permanently, owing to the land-crabs. These also exclude mammal life. Captain Kidd made a treasure depot ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... scholar has ever succeeded in demonstrating Rowley's share in the play' . Given that is has been established that the play post-dates 1620, the possibility of a Dekker revision of an earlier Rowley text would appear to be implausible. The attribution to 'S.R.' remains unexplained, although it may be noted in passing that the initials are the final letters of Dekker's names, so it may just be a coded reference to Dekker. More likely perhaps, it could be the result of the editorial confusion which also pervades the compilation ...
— The Noble Spanish Soldier • Thomas Dekker
... are violating no confidence in saying that all the hopes of Mr. Motley's official residence in England have been amply fulfilled, and that the announcement of his unexpected and unexplained recall was received with extreme astonishment and unfeigned regret. The vacancy he leaves cannot possibly be filled by a minister more sensitive to the honor of his government, more attentive to the interests of his country, and more capable of uniting the most vigorous ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... a late breakfast and a discussion of the situation, it was deemed inexpedient to remain during the day, as the house was immediately on a public highway, besides the danger of such unexplained delay exciting the suspicion of the negroes on the place. We assumed the character of cattle-buyers, Mr. Pollard furnishing us with cattle-whips to make the assumption plausible. Our first objective point ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... Miss Sutcliff and the one serving maid the house boasted had gone to bed, and when, in time, he, too, retired to his room, the soaked mattress did its work in the most effectual manner. Whimpering like a hurt child over the unexplained and apparently unexplainable accident, the old man suffered his son to lead him off to his own room; and there, unable to rest on the harder mattress, and suffering agonies of pain, he lay for a long time before the door ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... still unexplained in the dread which an elephant always exhibits on approaching a fence, and the reluctance which he displays to face the slightest artificial obstruction to his passage. In the fine old tank of Tissa-weva, close by Anarajapoora, the natives cultivate grain, during the dry season, around the margin ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... she must mind and be a good girl, or detect a look in her face something like Richard's as a small boy. That drew down upon her her mother's fervent embrace, and she was sent back to the nursery very proud, and with a mysterious sense of an important and unexplained state of things, which time, by degrees, ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... wedded, Pringle set himself to goad ferret-eyed Creagan and the heavy-jawed sheriff into unwise speech. And inattentive Anastacio had a shrewd surmise at Pringle's design. He knew nothing of the fight at the Gadsden House, but he sensed an unexplained tension—and he ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... election of Mr. Adams and General Pinckney. The military skill and approved bravery of the General must be peculiarly valuable to his countrymen at these trying moments." Let us have a military Vice-President, by all means, to meet this formidable exigency of Gabriel's peck of bullets, and this unexplained three shillings in the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... really hot, if the cat would really scratch. Presently, as we have seen, I questioned God. And in those days my religion depended on my mood. I could believe anything I wanted to believe. I did believe, in all my moods, that there was a God who had made the world, in some fashion unexplained, and who knew about me and my doings; for there was the world all about me, and somebody must have made it. And it was conceivable that a being powerful enough to do such work could be aware of my actions at all times, and yet continue to me invisible. The question remained, ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... month of May. Pitt's birthday was on the 28th. Would not all who foresaw ruin for England in the supremacy of "the Doctor" welcome a demonstration on behalf of his predecessor? For more than a year Pitt's friends had been puzzled and abashed by his unexplained retirement, witness the uncharitable surmise of the usually benevolent Dr. Burgh—"Can I see Addington climb upon the stooping neck of Mr. Pitt, and not believe that it is done in hostility or in ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... the cosmical history of the Moon, had produced those bright radiating lines that diverge from the lunar volcanic craters. Sir John expressed his delight at witnessing my practical illustration of this hitherto unexplained subject, and he considered it quite conclusive. I also produced my enlarged drawings of the Moon's surface, which I had made at the side of my telescope. These greatly pleased him and he earnestly urged me to publish ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... electricity be a spiritual magnetism. As yet, we know extremely little of the laws of electricity, and we know nothing of those laws of spiritual attraction and repulsion which are perhaps the cause of electricity. There may be subtile and as yet unexplained causes, connected with the state of the nervous system, the state of the mind, the accord of two souls under peculiar circumstances, etc., which may sometimes enable a person who is in a material body to see another who is in a spiritual body. That such visions are not of daily occurrence ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... to three square yards in extent, that resemble, at a little distance, pieces of crimson carpeting, and nearer at hand, sheets of crimson bead-work, and of which almost every point and particle is a gem. From some unexplained circumstance, connected apparently with the specific gravity of the substance, it separates in this style from the general mass, on coasts much beaten by the waves; but the garnets of these curious pavements, though so exceedingly abundant, are in every instance exceedingly minute. ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... search was everywhere made for him, he was not, to the sad disappointment of the thousands intending to be in at the hanging, anywhere to be found or heard of in the country. And the mystery of his retreat, and the still unexplained mystery of his strange and ruinous influence over the man whom he at last so flagitiously murdered, were not cleared ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... the entire tube. From the bass and double quint pommers came ultimately the bassoon and contra-bassoon, and from the alto pommer, an obsolete instrument for which Bach wrote, called the oboe di caccia, or hunting oboe, an appellation unexplained, unless it had originally a horn-like tone, and was, as it has been suggested to me by Mr. Blaikley, used by those who could not make a real hunting horn sound. It was bent to a knee shape to facilitate performance. It ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 819 - Volume XXXII, Number 819. Issue Date September 12, 1891 • Various
... easy task, however, to do this; and to tell the full story of Pascal’s life is no longer possible. Its records, numerous as they are, are incomplete; all fail more or less at an interesting point of his career. They leave much unexplained; and the most familiar confidences of his sisters and niece, who have preserved many interesting details regarding him, have not entirely removed the veil from certain aspects of his character. The well-known life by Madame Périer, his elder sister, is of course the chief authentic ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... lapse of mine, it seems. Well, I do mean it, I do, I do! And you—you mean it too? You would take me even with my past, and that past unexplained, with my faults ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... confusion at the continued scrutiny, with a feeling of being looked over for some unexplained purpose, when the Reverend Mother called me, and turning to go to her I saw, by the look of pain on her face that she, too, had ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... picture of health and a desperate-looking character. Now anybody who has ever served on a jury in a criminal case knows the effect that the testimony of a police officer has on three fourths— and frequently four fourths,—of the jurors. For some unexplained,—though perhaps obvious reason,—the ordinary juror not only hates a policeman but refuses to believe him on oath unless he is supported by evidence of the most unassailable nature. The mere fact that the five officers swore ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon
... "I don't know what has come over me, but for some unexplained and inexplicable reason I am inclined to give Lazarus a lead—across that gulf, the first one, I mean, not ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... writes to the department, proposing to send an emissary to the North, to organize secret societies to destroy the enemy's stores, ships, railroad bridges, etc. by an unexplained process. ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... passed by deliberately the open door of the anteroom without speaking to me, and left the building. This may be all explained and I will charitably hope there was no intention of rudeness to me, but, unexplained, a ruder slight could not ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... overthrown system, it had been accorded to him to have Charles Darnay brought before the lawless Court, and examined. That, he seemed on the point of being at once released, when the tide in his favour met with some unexplained check (not intelligible to the Doctor), which led to a few words of secret conference. That, the man sitting as President had then informed Doctor Manette that the prisoner must remain in custody, but should, for his sake, be held inviolate in safe custody. That, immediately, ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... means whereby it could have been retained in the liquid condition, even when forced for long distances through very narrow channels. Moreover, this explanation accounts for the fact which has long remained unexplained that dikes, except those formed about volcanic craters, rarely, if ever, rise ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... ancestral spirits or by fabulous monsters. Secondly, there is sickness which is caused by the magical practices of some evil person who is using witchcraft in secret. Thirdly, there is sickness which comes from neither of these causes, and remains unexplained. It is said to be 'only sickness, and nothing more.' This third form of sickness is, I think, the commonest. Yet most writers wholly ignore it, or deny its existence. It may happen that an attack of indigestion is one day attributed to ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... that philosopher of moderation are easily traced to one of the most interesting incidents in his residence near the British Court as agent for Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. The incident is connected with the still unexplained mystery of his getting possession of the famous letters of Hutchinson, Oliver, etc. Franklin was living and directing all his practical efforts for enlightening and influencing those whom he supposed to be simply the ignorant plotters of mischief against the Colonists, under ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... equipment and learn to adjust it. As it was, many of the extreme greenhorn type marched away garbed in most sketchy fashion. Some had parts of their equipment in bags; others utilized their pockets as holders for unexplained, and to them inexplicable, parts ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... cause he had been postponing the promised visit, and thereby postponing the taking of the final step in the campaign of intimidation. The unexplained telephone call decided him, however. He would go and see Elinor and have ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... passing through his mind. Whatever perplexity he felt as to the inexorableness of her course—however little he penetrated its motive—she saw that it unmistakably tended to strengthen her hold over him. It was as though the sense in her of unexplained scruples and resistances had the same attraction as the delicacy of feature, the fastidiousness of manner, which gave her an external rarity, an air of being impossible to match. As he advanced in social experience this uniqueness had acquired a greater value for him, as though he were a collector ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... here—safe in your secret home." And then she looked out over the misty clover-grown pleasance to the country beyond bathed in brilliant moonlight. And something in the beauty of it stilled the wild ache in her heart. She would not admit into her thoughts the least fear, but some unexplained, unconquerable apprehension stayed in her innermost soul. She knew, only she refused to face the fact, that ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... funeral—appeared, closely followed by several friends of Mrs. Johnson who had come to swell the display of respect and made only vague, confused impressions upon Mr. Polly's mind. (Aunt Mildred, who was an unexplained family scandal, had ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... He knew that his case must look a little suspicious, thus unexplained, and after a brief pause for reflection determined to take the questioner into his confidence. He did this the more readily because his new ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... tie. They are not all selected for intellectual or artistic brilliance—they are the symbols of undesigned friendships, which existed before I exercised the faculty of choice. They are there, uncriticised, unexplained, these friends of mine. The modest man, you will remember, finds his circle ready-made. I am attached to them, and they to me. They understand no language, some of them, as you will see, except the language of the heart; ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... ordnance stores, was destroyed by the explosion of 3000 barrels of gunpowder with which they were freighted. Four hundred and twenty persons were killed on the spot, about 800 more were wounded, and a number of houses were leveled with the ground. The cause of the disaster remained unexplained, as not a human being was left alive who could tell the tale.——The city of Canton has been visited with a severe fever which has been very destructive, though it had spared the European factories.——The ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... as pitch. I had left Nokomee asleep in her chamber. I had avoided Holaf, who still kept a kind of amused watch over my activities, and I was free. Free to explore that weird city of plodding lives, of strange unexplained ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... kilometres by water. We left our bags at the inn, and walked to our canoes through the wet orchards unencumbered. Some of the children were there to see us off, but we were no longer the mysterious beings of the night before. A departure is much less romantic than an unexplained arrival in the golden evening. Although we might be greatly taken at a ghost's first appearance, we should behold him vanish ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... snapped a profitable bit of my father's business, as Nastasa did afterward, he would have been no more angry with him than he was with Nastasa, perhaps even less. But Latkin, under the influence of some unexplained, incomprehensible feeling of envy or greed, and perhaps also moved by a momentary feeling of honesty, had played him false in exposing him to their patron, a rich young merchant, by opening the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... more to do with them or their meaning than anyone else has. The passages must speak for themselves; they are children sent into the world—helpless infants like those Pickwickian "expletives, let loose upon society." Among these unexplained things were "my Prooshan Blue" and "Old Nobs." Sir Walter, with real Pickwickian sagacity, points to a true explanation which may be applied in other cases. "Probably it was a phrase which he had heard in a crowd, and had never asked himself ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... scattered wits, to find that the boys had no designs further upon his welfare, was truly comic. The Germans, he said, had imposed severe penalties on inhabitants who roamed about the country-side between eight o'clock in the evening and daylight. His quest remained unexplained, except in so far as a sack of something the boys did not examine might have explained it. Bob advised the old man to remain where he was till morning light, and the boys ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... felt the oddest relief, as after one more escape, at the end of each of these afternoons with her new acquaintances, afternoons in which the three seemed perpetually gliding down a steep incline and as perpetually being arrested on the brink of some unexplained plunge, she found that their atmosphere had spoiled entirely her relish for the atmosphere of her home. The home supper-table seemed to her singularly flat and distasteful with its commonplace ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... it was that her merry eye was in partnership with a merry tongue. Indeed, for some unexplained reason, she was bubbling over with congested laughter, the reason for which mere embarrassment set one inquiring. At last, between little gushes of laughter which shook her plump shoulders in a way that aroused wistful memories of Hebe, she archly asked me, with mock solemnity, if I should need ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... there had been too many graceful "concessions" all round, and of these he made himself the critic. He did not, however, identify himself with the extreme school of so-called "Imperial" thought, which seemed to consider that in some unexplained manner Great Britain had acquired a prior lien on the whole unoccupied portion of ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... must be aware," said Captain Beebee, "that his conduct, if unexplained, will bear a ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... of science to reduce incessantly the number of unexplained phenomena. It is observed, for instance, that fleshy fruits are not liable to fermentation so long as their epidermis remains uninjured. On the other hand, they ferment very readily when they are piled up in heaps more or less open, and immersed in ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... that this book may be a guide into romance and fairy-land to many children.... By way of lending no aid to what is called Education, very few notes have been added. The child does not want everything to be explained; in the unexplained is great pleasure. Nothing, perhaps, crushes the love of poetry more surely and swiftly than the use of poems ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold
... they are richer; and that for the same reason—namely, because the requisite capital is more abundant—the English and Americans use machinery while the Chinese and Russians employ merely human muscles. This leaves unexplained the principal question, whence comes this difference in wealth? and also directly contradicts the facts that the Chinese and the Russians make no use of the capital so liberally and cheaply offered to them, and that machine-labour is unprofitable in their hands ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... he, a little nettled. "Every problem becomes very childish when once it is explained to you. Here is an unexplained one. See what you can make of that, friend Watson." He tossed a sheet of paper upon the table, and turned once ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the spiritual. The hymn that follows this[19] is a bald imitation. In V. 47 there are more or less certain signs of lateness, e.g., in the fourth stanza ("four carry him, ... and ten give the child to drink that he may go," etc.) there is the juggling with unexplained numbers, which is the delight of the later priesthood. Moreover, this hymn is addressed formally to Mitra-Varuna and Agni, and not to the sun-god, who is mentioned only in metaphor; while the final words namo dive, 'obeisance to heaven,' show that the sun is only ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... the writer that the key to the explanation of much that has been the subject of dispute, or has remained unexplained, in the story about Bothvar Bjarki in the Hrlfssaga is the influence of the fictitious (in part, also historical) life of Siward, Earl of Northumberland under Canute the ...
— The Relation of the Hrolfs Saga Kraka and the Bjarkarimur to Beowulf • Oscar Ludvig Olson
... could I say to that? Nothing. With that key in her possession, and unexplained, Eleanore Leavenworth stood in an attitude of suspicion which even I felt forced to recognize. Brought to this point, I thrust the paper into my pocket, and took up the evening Express. Instantly my eye fell ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... occurrence could have. Is it a frown on our undertaking? or can it really be a movement of his kind, guiding hand? We often spoke of it: in our visit to Galilee we thought that we saw some purposes evolving; but there was still something unexplained. Now, however, the reason appears: even that event was of the Lord, in wise and kind design. But for that fall, our fathers in the deputation would not have sailed up the Danube on their way to Vienna, and Pesth would not ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar
... full of the brightest hopes, but shaded by anxiety, for he knew now that two whole years had passed away since he bade good-bye to Valmai on the quay at Fordsea. What had been her fate since then? How had she borne his long and unexplained absence and silence? And as he paced up and down the deck he was full of troubled thought, as well as ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... and, probably, a phenol, mentioned above, there may be recognized in ilang-ilang oil an aldehyde or ketone, inasmuch as upon shaking it with bisulphite of sodium I observed the formation of a very small quantity of crystals. That Gal did not obtain the like result must at present remain unexplained. Like the benzoic acid the acetic acid is, no doubt, present in cananga oil ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... misery is two-fold, (i.) Ignorance of the external world, which leads to superstition. All unexplained phenomena are ascribed to unseen, supernatural powers; often to malignant powers, which take pleasure in tormenting man; sometimes to a Supreme and Righteous Power, which rewards and punishes men for their good or evil conduct. Hence a knowledge of Physics, particularly the physics which ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... plainly show how movement, unexplained by dialogue, may be used to condense a middle action, a climax, and an opening. Now, if you will turn to the surprise ending of "The System"—which has been discussed before in its relation to ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... find in every form of life? Desire of some sort—some unexplained motive power that impels even the smallest insect on its queer travels. You must have watched some infinitesimal red spider on a fence rail, bustling along—why and whither? Who knows? And when you come to man, what a chaos ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... ask what must be the interpretation of the use of these types of composition. Must we consider the pyramid the expression of passivity, the diagonal or V, of activity? But the greatly predominating use of the second for landscapes would remain unexplained, for at least nothing can be more reposeful than the latter. It may aid the solution of the problem to remember that the composition taken as a whole has to meet the demand for unity, at the same time that it allows free play ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... really good detective story 'The Circular Staircase' can be recommended without reservation." The Philadelphia Record declares that "The Circular Staircase" deserves the laurels for thrills, for weirdness and things unexplained and inexplicable. ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... their lords upon a docile people trained to implicit obedience, would explain something of the initial success of the missions; but it would leave many other matters unexplained: the later success of the secret propaganda, the fervour and courage of the converts under persecution, the long-continued indifference of the chiefs of the ancestor-cult to the progress of the hostile ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... sacred "ordinance," with all other proprieties, was left in ruins that day. They tore along the Avenue with unexplained and most inexplicable speed, Hope being concealed by riding backward, and by a large shawl, and Blanche and her admirer receiving the full indignation of every chaste and venerable eye. Those who had tolerated all this girl's previous improprieties were ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... Mrs. Amber the young wife used to spend with her own mother, while young Mr. Amber betook himself to the strange and unexplained ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... It is generally customary to use from the time of birth and during the period of infancy a flannel band around the child's abdomen. Just how this acts is not clear, but there seems good reason for the belief that in some unexplained way the practice has the effect of warding off intestinal disturbances, and is, therefore, to ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris
... causes of the fire, but the occurrence about the same time of several highly suspicious fires in Canadian munition factories and the unexplained rapidity with which the Parliament Building fire spread with mysterious volumes of suffocating smoke, caused widespread suspicion that the disaster was of incendiary and enemy origin. A tidal wave of resentment flooded the Dominion and deep feeling was aroused against men of German birth ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... genius is not revealed to the world until it has reached its full maturity, and many aspects of it, which, perhaps, would have easily explained themselves if the gradual development had gone on before men's eyes, remain often unexplained to the last. By few, if any, of the more celebrated English men of letters is this observation so forcibly illustrated as it is in the case of Sterne: the obscure period of his life so greatly exceeded in duration the brief ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... many really different Selfs, it would follow from the infinity of the past aeons that all souls must have been released before this, none being left in the state of bondage; and that hence the actually observed distinction of souls bound and released remains unexplained. But this argumentation is refuted by the fact of the souls also being infinite. You indeed maintained that, if the souls are really separate, they must necessarily have a definite number like beans, mustard-seeds, ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... sister, the soldier made his resolution strong to give no offence by evincing inattention or impatience. But our best resolutions are frail, when opposed to our predominant inclinations. Our Antiquary,to leave nothing unexplained, had commenced with the funeral rites of the ancient Scandinavians, when his nephew interrupted him, in a discussion upon the "age of hills," to remark that a large sea-gull, which flitted around them, had come twice within shot. This error being acknowledged and pardoned, ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... upon the copy filed in the War Department of the order actually given to the troops on November 29 explains how that mistake occurred. In brief, the draft of an order prepared in writing for another purpose, but not issued, was by some unexplained blunder substituted for the oral orders actually dictated to a staff officer. It was an example of how the improvised staff of a volunteer army, like the "non-military agencies of government," may interfere ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... unexplained and unaccountable reason false to her appeared to be beyond all question. Her trusting and innocent heart could not dream of the subtle network which was being wound round her. Her secluded life had left her very ignorant of the ways of the world, and the possibility of an elaborate ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was greater than the tragedy of her poor, witless son, the hatred of old Mrs. Brenner, and her ever-present fear of Mart. She had never quite given up her unreasoning hope that some day some one might come to the house in one of Mart's long, unexplained absences and sit down and talk with her over a cup of tea. She put away the feeble hope again as she turned back into the dim room and ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... is true that very few men were imprisoned, fine being the usual punishment, but still, imprisonment there was, and so that would not seem to him strange; and as to the conduct of his master, he would be content to leave that unexplained. The Buddhist is content to leave many things unexplained until he can see the meaning. He is not fond of theories. If he does not know, he says so. 'It is beyond me,' he will say; 'I do not understand.' He has no theory of an occidental mind to explain acts of ours ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding
... was the tree which had caused the noises. The unexplained matter was that neither of the trees ever touched the walls of the house during the highest wind, and that trees could not rattle like a man playing ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... mystery clung to the professor the first two days of his stay. His arrival, late one afternoon, in the sewing-machine man's buggy, was as unexplained as it was unexpected; and when he was shown to the little girl's room, which she hospitably relinquished, he volunteered neither his name nor his place of residence. The following morning he left the house, carrying a small paper box and a black hand-bag, and crossed the fields to ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... 1811, held the post of astronomical professor at the Ecole Polytechnique, founded by Napoleon. His first published papers directed attention to his wonderful powers; and the official head of astronomy in France, the famous Arago, suggested to him the unexplained perturbations of Uranus as a worthy object for his fresh and well-armed vigor. At once he set to work in a thorough and systematic way. He first considered whether the discrepancies could be due to errors in the tables or errors in the old observations. He discussed them ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... who is required to comply with section 899B(e) who has knowledge of the theft or unexplained loss of ammonium nitrate shall report such theft or loss to the appropriate Federal law enforcement authorities not later than 1 calendar day of the date on which the person becomes aware of such theft or ...
— Homeland Security Act of 2002 - Updated Through October 14, 2008 • Committee on Homeland Security, U.S. House of Representatives
... used by the Queen she saw, lurking in the background of what was still unexplained, and therefore confused her mind, fresh and serious perils. Barine, on the contrary, gazed across them to the anticipated meeting with her lover, and was full of the gayest expectation ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... her cousin. "Oh, yes, I 'know' him; not well, but on the whole enough. I've never cultivated his society, and he apparently has never found mine indispensable to his happiness. Who is he, what is he? He's a vague, unexplained American who has been living these thirty years, or less, in Italy. Why do I call him unexplained? Only as a cover for my ignorance; I don't know his antecedents, his family, his origin. For all I do know he may be a prince in disguise; he rather looks like one, by the way—like a prince ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... further argument superfluous, his listlessness would have left Fat Joe alarmed had it not been for a recollection of the light he had glimpsed in Steve's eyes at the beginning of their sudden and unexplained return to camp the night before, and his brooding silence on the road. At the mention of Barbara Allison's name it all recurred to Joe in nicely balanced and comforting sequence. Fat Joe confessed shamelessly to a romantic soul. ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... people the word "radical" is in high favor —it is the open sesame to their sympathy. For the ordinary layman, radicalism, for some unexplained reason, is associated with the words Socialism, Anarchism, etc. The deep dyed conservative, to whom comes the picture of flaunting red at the mention of the word, would be surprised to learn in what simple cases it is often used. We have, for instance, an organization ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... Mathieu had to presume that he had secured it from La Couteau, whom Celeste had acquainted with so many things. Indeed, he learnt at Broquette's nurse-agency that a short, thickset young man with pronounced jaw-bones had come there twice to speak to La Couteau. Nevertheless, many points remained unexplained; the whole affair had taken place amid the tragic, murky gloom of Parisian low life, whose mire it is not healthy to stir. Mathieu ended by resting content with a general notion of the business, for he himself felt frightened at the charges already ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... Add the money squandered, given away, stolen, and lost, together with L1,360,000 paid to bankers for commission on loans, and you have an account of the total of the debt, excepting perhaps a million and a half or so, of which the unexplained and inexplicable disbursement does immortal honour to the discretion of ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... was driving home, he passed McKelvey's limousine and saw Sir Gerald, a large, ruddy, pop-eyed, Teutonic Englishman whose dribble of yellow mustache gave him an aspect sad and doubtful. Babbitt drove on slowly, oppressed by futility. He had a sudden, unexplained, and horrible conviction that the ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... unexplained, how many defects, how many harmful superficialities, and how many useless repetitions in this pamphlet, which I have thought over so ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl
... bird's footprints in the middle of the floor, three in the left-hand room and five in the right-hand room." The marks were identical and exactly 2 3/4 inches in width; they might be compared to the footprints of a bird about the size of a turkey. The footprints were observed at 2:30 A. M.; the unexplained phenomena had begun at 12:43 that same morning. The words about "chalk sticking to the feet" are a singularly appropriate comment on the events; but the remarkable point is that Mrs. Verrall wrote what we have said ONE HOUR AND THIRTY-THREE MINUTES ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... have described already, and we were whirling downwards through space, to find ourselves in a very little time standing safe in the caves of Nyo, breathless with the swiftness of our descent. How and on what we descended neither I nor the others ever learned. It was and must remain one of the unexplained ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... have been his first care! When questioned by the police inspector, he would not have declared that he had not made use of this poison for a very long time! the contradiction involved is proof that Dollon was sincere; therefore, we are faced by a fact which, if not inexplicable, is, at least, unexplained." ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... I tried to impart to Joe. This statement sounds so well, that I cannot in my conscience let it pass unexplained. I wanted to make Joe less ignorant and common, that he might be worthier of my society and less open ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... Conscience claims authority. But that might conceivably be mere impudence and tyranny. Moreover, there are those who feel no call to follow conscience; how could we prove to them that they ought? Is it not the height of irrationality to bow down before an unexplained and mysterious impulse and allow it to sway our conduct without knowing why? If the "ought" is really shot out of the blue at us, if there is no justification, no imperious demand for morality but the existence of this inner ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... included nearly all the men connected with the book trade, not only printers, but booksellers, bookbinders, and typefounders. There were some who, for some unexplained reason, were not enrolled. On the other hand, two of those whose names appeared in the charter died the year of its incorporation. These were Thomas Berthelet, who was dead before the 26th January 1556, and Robert Toy, ...
— A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898 • Henry R. Plomer
... Bay, as elsewhere on the coast, bad seasons for fishing came now and again. These occur when the ice holds inshore so long that the best run of cod has passed before the men can get at them; or because for some unexplained reason the cod do not appear at all along certain sections of the coast. When two bad seasons come in succession, starvation looms ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... should be held to be settled in full as long as the weal of the nation was assured. In other words, the individual sows and his offspring or the nation reaps the harvest. But Job rejects both pleas as illusory and immoral, besides which, they leave the frequent prosperity of the unrighteous unexplained. "Wherefore," he asks, "do the wicked live, become old, yea wax mighty in strength?" The reply that the fathers having eaten sour grapes, the children's teeth will be set on edge, is, he contends, no answer to the ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... other branch of the Judson family. Or what if he is hunting for an heir on the Haygarth side?" asked the Captain, with a very close watch upon Mr. Sheldon's face. Let the stockbroker be never so skilful a navigator of the high seas of life, there was no undercurrent, no cross trade-wind, no unexplained veering of the magnetic needle to the west, in the mysteries whereof the Captain was not also versed. When Columbus wanted to keep his sailors quiet on that wondrous voyage over an unknown ocean to the Western world, the diplomatic admiral made so bold as to underrate the ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... receive, teaches nothing of all this. Christianity does not demonstrate the being of a God, it simply proclaims it; hardly so much as that indeed. It supposes it, as what was already well known and generally believed. I cannot doubt that it is left thus standing by itself, untaught and unexplained, only because the subject is intrinsically incomprehensible by us. It is a great fact or truth, which all can receive, but which none can explain or prove. If it is not believed, either instinctively, or through the recognition ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... carbonate of soda and muriate of lime; the latter is present, but not the carbonate of soda. Hence I am led to the perhaps unauthorised conjecture (which I shall hereafter have to refer to) that the carbonate of soda, by some unexplained means, ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin
... times reserve can be the most selfish thing imaginable, and one might as well be reticent on a desert island as in Manicaland. Moreover, despite the tolerant manners of the country, Mills was conscious of something unexplained in his companion— something which engendered a ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... ought to feel surprise at much remaining as yet unexplained in regard to the origin of species and varieties, if he make due allowance for our profound ignorance in regard to the mutual relations of the many beings which live around us. Who can explain why one species ranges widely and is very numerous, and why another allied species has a narrow ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... drag Angela with her; but it was a surprise to both, and to one a cause for uneasiness, when his lordship began to show himself in scenes which he had for the most part avoided as well as reviled. For some unexplained reason he became now a frequent attendant at the evening festivities at Whitehall, and without even the pretence of being interested or ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... Mozart was, he possessed such integrity and independence that he refused a most liberal offer from the King of Prussia to become his chapel-master, for some unexplained reason which involved his sense of right and wrong. The first year of his marriage he wrote "Il Seraglio," and made the acquaintance of the aged Gluck, who took a deep interest in him and warmly praised his genius. Haydn, too, recognized his ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... to be done in exploring these relics of the prehistoric races; and if there should be any such in your own neighbourhood, some careful digging might produce valuable results. Perhaps something which you may find may throw light upon some disputed or unexplained question, which has perplexed the minds of antiquaries for some time. I do not imagine that the following legend will deter you from your search. It is gravely stated that years ago an avaricious person dug into a tumulus for some treasure which it was supposed ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... he repeated. "Inhibition! Inhibition! It is the term reserved for deaths that are unexplained and inexplicable: it is the term with which science covers herself when she does not wish to confess ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... assertion of her unworthiness, and an entreaty that I should not spend on her a love that she did not deserve. Her abasement and penitence compelled me to show, and indeed to feel, a good deal of tenderness for her. She was pathetic and pretty in her unusual earnestness and unexplained distress. I went the length of offering to put off my expedition until after our wedding; and, although she besought me to do nothing of the kind, I believe we might in the end have arranged matters on this footing had we been left to ourselves. But Mrs. Hipgrave saw ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... end of my sentence, I became aware of something ominous in the faces of the guests. I felt I had said something which I had better have left unsaid, and that for some unexplained reason my words had evoked a general consternation. I sat confounded, not daring to utter another syllable, and for at least two whole minutes there was dead silence round the table. Then Captain ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... witness to the plot, it seemed to her that he would scarcely be allowed to escape to repeat it far and wide. Especially was this so, as the unexplained death of a Hottentot, suspected of treachery like his master, was not a matter that would have been thought worth notice in those rough and bloody times. She may have been right, or she may have been wrong, but in weighing her decision it must always be borne in mind that she was, and until ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... from the tale of the two who lived to tell of the horribly sharp action with him. Morning, noon, and night she had heard nothing but the fight at Calabasas discussed by the men that rode in and out of the Gap—and in connection with it, de Spain's unexplained flight and disappearance. Those that knew the real story of the conspiracy to kill him did not talk much, after the disastrous outcome, of that part of the affair. But Nan's common sense whispered to her, ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... a remarkable manner, I strongly suspect that this double decomposition has here taken place. The resultant salts, however, ought to be carbonate of soda and muriate of lime, the latter is present, but not the carbonate of soda. Hence I am led to imagine that by some unexplained means, the carbonate of soda becomes changed into the sulphate. It is obvious that the saline layer could not have been preserved in any country in which abundant rain occasionally fell: on the other hand, this very ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... the colonists at this news. They knew that the landings on the satellite had been costly; that many ships had crashed as a result of the unexplained interference with the ships' instruments. And since each ship had been designed to be cannibalized into houses, workshops, and power plants, they realized the plans for the settlement would have to ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell
... clear, though there is an obscurity in the circumstance that the signet of the accused should be found with the accusation, which, being unexplained, renders the charge vague and uncertain. Have you any clue to the writing, or any means of knowing whence ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Annixter cast his cigar from him and plunged again into the work of the day. The afternoon wore to evening, to the accompaniment of wearying and clamorous endeavour. In some unexplained fashion, the labour of putting the great barn in readiness for the dance was accomplished; the last bolt of cambric was hung in place from the rafters. The last evergreen tree was nailed to the ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... shining brightly; during our whole voyage we had not had so fine a day. The wisdom which had led us to choose Oran as our place of observation seemed demonstrated. A rather excitable pilot came on board, and he guided us in behind the Mole, which had suffered much damage the previous year from an unexplained outburst of waves from the Mediterranean. Both port and bow anchors were cast in deep water. With three huge hawsers the ship's stem was made fast to three gun-pillars fixed in the Mole; and here for a time the "Urgent" rested ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... golden corridors that divide the parallel walls the workers are busily making preparation for the journey. And each one will first of all burden herself with provision of honey sufficient for five or six days. From this honey that they bear within them they will distil, by a chemical process still unexplained, the wax required for the immediate construction of buildings. They will provide themselves also with a certain amount of propolis, a kind of resin with which they will seal all the crevices in the new dwelling, strengthen weak places, varnish the walls, ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck |
