"Disconcerting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he turned out of his bunk at daybreak one morning. The barometer stood at 29.41'. For two or three days the vessel had encountered dirty weather, but there had been signs of improvement when he turned in, and it was decidedly disconcerting to find that the glass had fallen. His vessel was a small one, and he was a little uneasy at the prospect of being caught by a cyclone while in the imperfectly-charted waters of the ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... shout advice to me, or scream out, "It's over! Run!" This happened two or three times; and although I knew they were trying to help me, which in itself was cheering and encouraging, it was very distracting and disconcerting. But after some time I lost it all, and became engrossed in the game. I think in 1907 Miss Sutton was much steadier and played a better all-round game, but I do not think she had quite the same terrific fore-hand drive as in ...
— Lawn Tennis for Ladies • Mrs. Lambert Chambers
... feasible undertaking. But his discursive mind ricochetted off to the laying of the Transatlantic cable, in '65; and he dwelt on that epoch-marking work with such minuteness of detail, and such confident mastery of names, dates, and so forth, that I half-resented—not his disconcerting fund of information, but his modest reticence on other subjects of interest. It is a morally upsetting thing, for instance, to discover that the unassuming Londoner, to whom you have been somewhat loosely explaining the pedigrees of the British Peerage, ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... this, and knowing that he was more than a match for the villain, he got up from his camp stool leisurely, and with great composure told the man: "Certainly, I will be very glad to have some one along who knows the trail so well." To be told that he knew the trail must have been disconcerting to the man, but not one word did he ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... slung about our necks on shortened belts, and, whenever the opportunity offered, watched the beach and jungle. We were kept on the alert, for we could not shake off the disconcerting feeling that we were being watched from the brush by the pirates, getting ready to ambush us at their leisure the minute we relaxed ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... he told us. "Look here, you young cubs, it's horribly disconcerting to have you of all people telling me ...
— The White Invaders • Raymond King Cummings
... controversy, just like any two non-revolutionary people! Repeating over the same arguments which had gone on in the local between Norwood, the lawyer, and Schneider, the brewer; only this time Jimmie was taking the side of Norwood! Jimmie found himself face to face with the disconcerting fact that his devoted friend Meissner was a German—and therefore in some subtle way different from him, unable to ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... afternoon was that strangest of phenomena, a formal ceremony of civilized life performed in the abashing and disconcerting presence of naked emotion. Arnold and Judith sat on opposite sides of the pergola, Judith shining and radiant as the dawn, her usually firmly set lips soft and tremulous; Arnold rather pale, impatient, oblivious to what ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... Serb, the enmity of the Magyar is disconcerting. By crossing the Danube, Serbia has become genuinely part of Europe; she has turned her back on the Balkans and the eternal strife on barren empty hills. The new Serbia can afford to forget and forgive Bulgaria, ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... the night, as Hunterleys and Lane passed out through the grudgingly opened door, was sufficiently disconcerting. A little murmur of dismay broke from the assembled crowd. Nothing was to be seen but a dense bank of white mist, through which shone the brilliant lights of the automobiles waiting at the door. Monsieur le Directeur hastened about, doing his ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... slowly to her mother's side, with disconcerting dignity, all out of proportion to her four ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... amazing what effect the monosyllable had upon him. The mask which he carried always with him fell suddenly away. He turned upon her with an abruptness almost disconcerting. His eyes were lit with fire, and there was a strange ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... given him very little definite information, and it was disconcerting to recognize that he must now rely entirely upon his ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... disconcerting but for one reason: Christopher was ceasing to notice her. He was a man who often, when walking abroad, and looking as it were at the scene before his eyes, discerned successes and failures, friends and relations, episodes of childhood, wedding feasts and funerals, the ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... and the tone of his voice brought the quick colour to her cheeks; it was so wonderful, so disconcerting to be looked at and spoken to in that way. She caught her breath and wondered if it were not a dream after all. "Dear," another of those deep, searching looks, "this is a big, primitive country and we do things in a most summary way out here sometimes. You must tell me if I go too fast; ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... for the almost inevitable high roast and frequently the disconcerting chicory addition, coffee in France might be an unalloyed delight—at least this is how it appears to American eyes. One seldom, if ever, finds coffee improperly brewed in ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... not physically obtrusive, yet there were moments when her presence in a room oppressed him. She had further that disconcerting quality of all great personalities, the power to pursue and seize, a power so oblivious, so pure from all intention or desire, that there was no flattery in it for the pursued. It persisted when she was gone. Neither time nor space removed her. He could not get ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... ranks of the writers who charm without leaving upon one's mind the slightest suspicion that they are weak. It is true that Daudet's stories do not attain the tremendous impressiveness that Balzac's occasionally do, as, for example, in La Grande Breteche, nor has his clear-cut art the almost disconcerting firmness, the surgeon-like quality of Maupassant's; but the author of the ironical Elixir of Father Gaucher and of the pathetic Last Class, to name no others, could certainly claim with Musset that his glass was his own, and had no reason to ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... reassuring, for it certainly would not have been used in conjunction with any less conspicuous but more incriminating form of poison. That lump of sugar was now in my pocket, reserved for careful examination at my leisure; and I reflected with a faint grin that it would be a little disconcerting if it should turn out to contain ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... dress, and to which Elizabeth referred as her dark blue. Seen thus, in the room which was her own expression, there was a certain nobility about her very simplicity, a steadiness about her eyes that was almost disconcerting. ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... disconcerting lady gave my thoughts a boldness they had otherwise wanted. For two days the image of Catriona had mixed in all my meditations; she made their background, so that I scarce enjoyed my own company without a glint of her in a corner of my mind. But now she came immediately near; I seemed ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to the present and flushed. He dreaded admitting to a nightmare—especially to Ali whose poise he had always found disconcerting. ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... his friend, and could positively see no feature of it that was not a feature of Mrs. Scales's face. Also, the elderly woman held her body in exactly the same way as the young man. It was entirely disconcerting. ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... acceptance of his offer was a bit disconcerting. Raish was rather sorry that he had not said five. However, to do him justice, the transaction was more or less what he would have called "chicken-feed stuff." Mr. Pulcifer was East Wellmouth's leading broker in real estate, in cranberry bog property, its leading promoter of ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... explanations seemed powerless to affect the public mind, and as he looked back he dated his decline from the appearance of her first article. It had done all the mischief he had feared. Not only were his old stock-holders dissatisfied, but wherever he went for aid he found a disconcerting lack of response, a ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... toward him had not changed; she still dealt with him as the school teacher deals with the unruly scholar—with a personal aloofness that promised an ever-widening gulf if he persisted in defying her authority. Calumet got this impression and it grew on him; it was disconcerting, irritating, and he tried hard to shake it ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... him. They fitted him no longer; they began to fall away from him. Now, as he stood here on the bustling platform, it was as if they had all disappeared—been left somewhere behind him outside the station. With the two large bags which the porter was looking after—both of a quite disconcerting freshness of aspect—and the new overcoat and shining hat, he seemed to himself a new kind of being, embarked upon a voyage ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... unduly exercised over the step Anne had taken. In fact, George was bursting with pride in his sister. Apparently he had no other thought than that everything would turn out right and fair for her in the end. But the covert, anxious, analysing look in Lutie's eyes was always present and it was disconcerting. ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... long residence in Paris has made me more critical than I used to be in such matters; but I do not remember having met any woman in society with manners more nearly perfect than Mrs. Courtney's. Ethel Leigh used to be, upon occasion, painfully abrupt and disconcerting; and her movements and attitudes, though there was abundant native grace in them, were often careless and unconventional. Of course, I do not forget that niceties of deportment, without sound qualities of mind and heart to back them, are of trifling ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... casual glances at their unusual visitors. But when the great gates of the palace were readied his attention was challenged and held, for though mere marvels may become the air one breathes, beauty will never cease to amaze, and the vista revealed was of almost disconcerting beauty. ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... His features were rather drawn out, without a single wrinkle, and devoid of any expression that showed emotion, the jaw-bone narrow and sharp, and the eyes as inexpressive and motionless as the rest of the face, but with a cold, penetrating glance that was extremely disconcerting. ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... long breath. How eternally disconcerting human beings are! There she had been so fatuously sure, out there on the walk home, that she knew exactly what was in that old white head. And all the time it had been this. Who could have made the faintest guess at that? It occurred to her for the first ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... conjecture where we now are. I ask for the reading of the resolution before the Senate." This opening sentence was a piece of consummate art. The simple and appropriate image, the low voice, the calm manner, relieved the strained excitement of the audience, which might have ended by disconcerting the speaker if it had been maintained. Every one was now at his ease; and when the monotonous reading of the resolution ceased Mr. Webster was master of the situation, and had his listeners in complete control. With breathless attention they ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... selling, cursing and laughing, carrying out rebellions and little plots as though the centuries that stretch ahead were still her willing slaves, has in the end become to onlookers a veritable nightmare. Puzzled by a phenomenon which is so disconcerting as to be incapable of any clear definition, they have ended by declaring that an empty Treasury is an empty rule, adding that as it is solely from this monetary viewpoint that the New China ought to be judged, their opinion is ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... one book, a sort of inevitable and scarcely necessary sequel to it. They range themselves along the line of a somewhat erratic development, from Baudelaire, through Goncourt, by way of Zola, to the surprising originality of so disconcerting an exception to any and ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... important factor in the situation than the sheer indifference to England, with a latent bias towards hostility, which is so widespread in America. To the English observer, this indifference is far more disconcerting than hatred. The average Briton, one may say with confidence, is not indifferent towards America. He may be very ignorant about it, very much prejudiced against certain American habits and institutions, very thoughtless and tactless in expressing his prejudices; ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... were blinded by the lustrous dazzle. Oh, well! It was all in the day's work, all in the difference between nineteen and thirty-nine, he told himself as patiently as he was able. And his mother at thirty-nine, he realized with disconcerting clearness, was infinitely older than Professor Mansfield's wife at sixty. Indeed, he sometimes wondered if she ever had been really young, ever really young enough to forget her heritage of piety in healthy, worldly zeal. Whatever the depths of one's filial devotion, it sometimes ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... else. I think perhaps his trouble must be mental—some gnawing sorrow that keeps him awake at night. I don't mind driving Pleurisy where people know me and know that I do feed him occasionally, but it is disconcerting when I meet strangers to have kind-looking old ladies shake their heads at me. I know what they're thinking, and I believe Pleurisy really enjoys it, and then when I drive past a farmhouse to see the whole family run out and hold their sides is not a pleasure. Talk about scattering ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... had been thrown open and that a gentleman with his face covered in lather was gazing down upon her—at first angrily, then archly. Quite desperate now she framed her request in what French she could command, scarcely able to wait for the reply. The result was disconcerting. The shaving gentleman became excessively gallant, entreated his fair visitor to remain where she was for a tiny instant until he could descend and admit her, implored her with expansive gestures not on any account to go away and blight his life. As the sweep of the arm and the shrug of the shoulders ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... dashed on the rocks. Then it met a curling wave, into which it plunged like an impetuous charger, and was checked for a moment by its own violence. Presently an eddy threw the canoe a little out of its course, disconcerting Charley's intention of shaving a rock, which lay in their track, so that he slightly grazed ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... accept this suggestion. She sat down upon a chair in a disconcerting silence, and waited. Garratt Skinner crossed his arms behind his head ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... shown some discontent, and had insisted on the nomination of commissioners to control the accounts and the disbursements of the subsidies. But it seemed improbable that among this class of men any would be found capable of penetrating the manifold combinations of the king, and disconcerting his designs. ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... looked away from the disconcerting brown eyes and down at her hand, against his shoulder, her own little hand, with the careful manicure and the dull polish that was all her mother permitted; bare of rings, though Norah had given her a beautiful garnet ring for Christmas. ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... hideous bright spots where pictures had hung, the splintered flooring, the great, gaunt windows—and she gave in. She had met with snub after snub, and cut after cut, in her social climb, she had had the cook quit in the middle of an important dinner, she had had every disconcerting thing possible happen to her, but this—this was the last bale of straw. She sat down on a suitcase, in the middle of the biggest ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... his finest, awkwardest, most disconcerting slows. The cautious batsman was proof against its syren-like allurements, and stepped back to block what any one else would have stepped forward to slog. The ball broke up sharp against his bat, and Grandcourt began to breathe again as they saw its ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... considered whether it was not time to set the apparatus going. For I had prepared a little surprise for Piragoff and I was now rather doubtful how he would take it. Besides, I was not enjoying the proceedings as much as I had expected to. Piragoff's lack of nerve was disconcerting. ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... to the disconcerting size of the engine," he continued, "the wooden rails which had been laid during the previous season had warped with the snows and were in anything but desirable condition. So altogether the prospect of trying out the enterprise, on which a good deal of money had already been spent, was not ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... that curled slightly as it left his forehead; eyes that were taking on the intent, straightforward look that had been his father's and that went straight to the heart of a business proposal with disconcerting directness. But the lips were not set in the hard lines that had marked Harkness Senior; they could still curve into boyish pleasure to mark the enthusiasm ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... Crudely disconcerting, these scientific discoveries. Or is it not rather hard to be dragged to earth in this callous fashion, while soaring heavenward on the wings of our edifying reflections? For the rest—the old, old story; a simple, physical explanation of what used ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... them. They did not matter very greatly because they were far away at the back of the nave, and nobody need look at them; but on Foster's preaching days certain of the aristocracy also retired, and this was disconcerting because their seats were prominent ones and their dresses were of silk. Often Lady St. Leath was one of these, but to-day she was sunk into a kind of stupor and did not move. Mrs. Combermere, Ellen Stiles and Mrs. Sampson were the ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... compiled in Whitehall from the hunting tales of the travelers or the fairy-tales of the missionaries, and marked "very secret." But these secrets are like most secrets of the African continent, very disconcerting to ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... fastenings upon dwelling-houses in Japan—we found neither chairs nor tables, the people all sitting, eating, and sleeping upon the floors, which were as neat and clean as a newly-laid table-cloth. The humility and deference of all classes was quite disconcerting, for when we entered or departed from a house, the host, hostess, and children bowed their heads until their foreheads touched the floor. Japanese women, both in features and general appearance, are far from prepossessing, but we were told there were marked exceptions ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... a second supply, the Kansas shifted again with a disconcerting suddenness. The water in the cabin swirled across the floor as the ship was restored to an even keel. The movement dislodged the packet of letters. It fell, and Elsie rescued it a second time. Christobal watched ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... had been strutting in all the pride of a proprietor, she held the stage. More. Neither our discomfited host nor his sisters could divine what was toward, and the fact that their guests crowded eagerly about Adele, encouraging her to "let them have it," was more disconcerting than ever. ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... falling across her. It would have been easy for Hamilton to run him through, had he instantly followed up the advantage. But the moonlight on Alice's face struck his eyes, and by that indirect ray of vision which is often strangely effective, he recognized her lying there. It was a disconcerting thing for him, but he rallied instantly and sprang aside, taking a new position just in time to face Father Beret again. A chill crept up his back. The horror which he could not shake off enraged him beyond measure. Gathering fresh energy, he renewed the assault ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... . . that wallabies are 'the women of the native race' cannot but be disconcerting to the well-regulated colonial mind." [He adds a footnote]: "It is on record that a journalistically fostered impression once prevailed, to high English circles, to the effect that a certain colonial Governor exhibited immoral tendencies by living on an ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... her voice has a metallic ring, even though the metal has, as it were, grown dull and rusty. Also, she speaks of everyone, herself included, in the most rough and downright terms, yet terms which are so simple that, though her talk may be disconcerting to listen to, it could ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... recluse; the failings, that is to say, of a man who had lived much alone, and found himself driven to an old-maidish care of health and nerves, if a delicate physique was to do its work. He had fads; and his fads were often unexpected and disconcerting. One day he would not walk; another day he would not eat; driving was out of the question, and the sun must be avoided like the plague. Then again it was the turn of exercise, cold baths, and hearty fare. It was all done with ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... darling." Leonore thought this was a mean trick, of apparently sustaining the conventions of society, while in reality outraging them horribly, but she was helpless to better his conduct. Twice unwittingly he even called her "Leonore" (as he had to himself for two months), thereby terribly disconcerting the owner of that name. She wanted to catch him up and snub him each time, but she was losing her courage. She knew that she was walking on a mine, and could not tell what chance word or deed of ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... the inclement weather would be harmful. Before I could answer her we were startled to hear quite close to us a faint cry. I got up and looked around, and so did Devaka, for she is brave, my wife. But we could not find anything to account for the disconcerting sound. ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... ill-treatment was not consistent with the grandeur. For Kate had taken to talking very big, as if she was an immensely important personage, receiving much respect wherever she went; and though Armyn once or twice tried putting in a sober matter-of-fact question for the fun of disconcerting her, she was too mad to care or ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... twitched. It was so like this capable child of hers to be arranging the future, at nineteen, ready to be a mother to herself in case her natural mother failed her. But as she got quickly into the dress laid out for her, her hands shook a little. It is disconcerting to discover that one is no longer the parent of children, ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... him. "You know, Lord Henry, you really are a little disconcerting. You are one of those people who make one feel one ought to ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... which in practice amounts to saying that nothing makes them feel so spiritually homeless as the discussion of values and an invitation to examine first principles. Ideas, most of the time, cause them genuine distress, and are as disconcerting as an idle office boy, ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... the hearty and easy manner which he always assumes with those he has been told are distinguished Americans and with that quizzical expression in his sharp eyes which, though attractive, is described as most disconcerting, replied. ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... the gaze of the multitude, but Mr. Heatherbloom at the back faced them on the little step which served as concert stage. There were no limelights or stereopticon pictures to add to the illusion,—only the disconcerting faces and the light of day. He never before knew how bright the day could be but he continued to stand there, in spite of the ludicrous and trying position. He sang, a certain daredevil light in his eye now, a suspicion of a ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... my understanding of myself absurdly. I agree I have more minds than one, and 'tis disconcerting to try in haste to ascertain which is the best. Indeed, I do not wish to make a false step and do that 'twould make ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... ruefully, "I would get right off this train and go back to Tillbury, much as I have counted on this trip. No, honey," she added, laughing at her own extravagance, "there's no need of your getting excited, for I have no idea that we shall meet Linda at Palm Beach. Only she has the most disconcerting way of popping up in places ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... planet, and he was still in that crude phase of juvenile revolt in which one speaks one's thoughts of the mess humanity has made of its world. But, unfortunately, the Mayoress of Middleton was deafish, so that he could not even shock her with his epigrams. It was extremely disconcerting to have his bland blasphemies met with an equally bland smile. On his other hand sat Mrs. Samuels, the buxom and highly charitable relict of 'The People's Clothier,' whose ugly pictorial posters had overshadowed ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... lines?" He looked at me keenly for a moment before replying. Doctor Winchester's look at such moments was apt to be disconcerting. It would have been so to me had I had a personal part, other than my interest in Miss Trelawny, in the matter. As it was, however, I stood it unruffled. I was now an attorney in the case; an amicus ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... obvious good, and its diminution often desirable in any planet's history, yet among simians it will be apt to come from second-rate motives. Greed, selfishness or fear-thoughts will be the incentives, the bribes. Contrivances, rather than continence, will be the method. How audacious, and how disconcerting to Nature, to baffle her thus I Even into her shrine they must thrust their bold paws to control her. Another race viewing them in the garlanded chambers of love, unpacking their singular devices, might think them ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... uttered opinions, however clumsily, upon "government" and "reform" from the pulpit of San Nicolo, in the dignified and interested presence of a ducal secretary, the bancali, and the disconcerting throng of gondoliers who were intolerant of speeches and impatient for their vote; and he had retired shamefacedly, like an awkward boy, while his jejune remarks were elaborately discussed by the judges. And because his views—if he had any—had not been over-luminously ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... responsive chord in the other sleeping animals. They would grunt in unison, in more subdued tones, after which the old walrus would drop his head to resume his interrupted nap. Their contempt for us was somewhat disconcerting. ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... enough in Paris to have a salon if one knows how to give dinners. Some squares of Bristol board engraved by Stern and posted to good addresses, will attract with an almost disconcerting facility, a crowd of visitors who will swarm around a festive board ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... meanderings of this Memoir we too often catch a glimpse of Butler measuring giants with the impertinent foot-rule of his common sense. One does not like him the less for it, but it is, in spite of all the disconcerting jokes with which it may be covered, a futile and ridiculous occupation. Persistently there emerges from the record the impression of something childish, whether in petulance or gaminerie, a crudeness as well as a shrewdness of judgment and ideal. Where Butler ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... could be very, very happy fulfilling every one of those conditions if she were woman enough," answered Caroline Darrah Brown, looking straight into his eyes with her beautiful, disconcerting, dangerous ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... help thinking it fortunate and salutary for us that the Celtic poets have taken to sounding its note so boldly. Whatever else they do, on the conventional ideals of this generation they speak out with an uncompromising and highly disconcerting directness. As I said just now, they are held, if at all, by a long and loose chain to the graven images to which we stand bound arm-to-arm and foot-to-foot. They fly far enough aloof to take a bird's-eye view. What they see they declare with a boldness which is the more ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the thought was cheering. Perhaps it was her way of serving notice on his rivals that her real interests lay in another direction. But the disconcerting thing about it was that it seemed to ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... ancient habits of military obedience. All looked forward with anxiety to the result; but no one with more apprehension than Cromwell. His life was at stake. The Levellers had threatened to make him pay with his head the forfeit of his intrigues with Charles; and the flight of that prince, by disconcerting their plans, had irritated their former animosity. On the appointed day ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... The moment came with disconcerting suddenness, and Mr. Redman uttered a loud grunt as he landed on the ground, flat on his back. With a spring he lifted himself up, and the next instant he had thrown the slight figure of the Pony Rider Boy so heavily that everything about Tad grew black. He felt himself going. Then all at ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... explained a little later. They had been searching for an interpreter, so that I might be put through another inquisition. This interpreter was about the most incompetent of his class that one could wish to meet. His English was execrable—far worse than Chinese pidgin—and he had an unhappy and disconcerting manner of intermingling German and English words, while either through a physical defect or from some other cause, he could not ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... the family gift a shade disconcerting, a little later, when after her uncle kissed her he held her off at arm's length and studied her face. Tony's eyes fell beneath his questioning gaze. For almost the first time in her life she had a secret to keep ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... was far from being the school of discretion and good manners that Paragot frequented in his youth, but such was his personal influence that when he reappeared in his usual place no one dared allude to the disconcerting incident. Paragot had recovered from the chastened mood and was gay, Rabelaisian, and with great gestures talked of all subjects under heaven. One of the International Exhibitions was in prospect and many architects' offices ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... a turn of events unexpected and most disconcerting. Not for a moment did they really want her to accept their dare. Why, whoever heard of a girl doing such a thing? The very thought scandalized them deeply. Indeed, they would stop her if they could, ...
— The Hickory Limb • Parker Fillmore
... a violent commotion and a whirring noise among the weights and ropes below him had quite subsided, that this terrified Haymaker became himself again. Nor was he startled without reason; for these rattling, bony skeletons of clocks are very disconcerting in their operation, and I wonder very much how any set of men, but most of all how Dutchmen, can have had a liking to invent them. There is a popular belief that Dutchmen love broad cases and much ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... hurl his javelin at him without detection. Grimcke conceived this was certain to take place, and, if he remained where he was, nothing could save him from the treacherous assault. It was a matter, therefore, of self preservation that dictated the brief retreat with the hope of thus disconcerting the savage. ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... her face, and it remained there, enhancing the vivid richness of her beauty. She was dizzy with a strange and disconcerting intoxication. She seemed to be in a world of unrealities and incredibilities. Her ears heard with indistinctness, and the edges of things and people had a prismatic colouring. She was in a state of ecstatic, unreasonable, inexplicable happiness. All her misery, doubts, ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... presence, mind, that was disconcerting. The old lady was somehow sinister in her silent intensity, in her subtle power of infiltration. Emily seemed, so far as I could see, thoroughly cowed. Strain as she would at her leash, the keeper held her, and the tedious pattern ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... [Aix], Brignolles and le Muy, striking the Mediterranean at Frejus. En route he was inveigled into a controversy of unwonted bitterness with an innkeeper at le Muy. The scene is conjured up for us with an almost disconcerting actuality; no single detail of the author's discomfiture is omitted. The episode is post-Flaubertian in its impersonal detachment, or, as Coleridge first said, "aloofness." On crossing the Var, the sunny climate, the romantic outline of the Esterelles, the charms of the ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... was that he never tried to conceal it. He looked at it with surprise and discussed it with disconcerting frankness. He was no more abashed in learning new and better ways of conducting himself than he would have been in learning a new language. He laughed good-humoredly at his mistakes and seldom committed the same one a second time. His limitations ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... Mark still showed little willingness to converse, the girls were evidently beginning to find themselves again, occasional gigglings heralding their return to normality. But the concentration of the united attention of the family for Morgan's benefit was somewhat disconcerting. The girls vied with each other in pressing plum-cake upon him, and seemed to view his refusal as a personal rebuff. He did not understand just then that each considered a bit of her own niceness went into the cake when held towards him with her own hand, and that it was this niceness ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... at all, it was in her haughty stillness, as though she voluntarily put all expression out of her face until the recital was ended. The effect on Miss Lucilla, as they sat side by side on a sofa, was slightly disconcerting, so that she came ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... in evident distress. Bertie's face had grown quite serious, even stern. He was looking at her with a directness which for the first time in their acquaintance she found disconcerting. ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... amendment campaign, was at last obliged to submit what he had to say in the form of a "brief," which filled six closely printed pages. He was followed by Paul Littlefield representing the Men's Campaign Committee of the Pennsylvania Women's Anti-Suffrage Association. His experience was more disconcerting than that of Mr. Carter, who had freely stated the expenditures of his association and his own salary while Mr. Littlefield refused any information on these and other points. He brought a message from Mrs. Horace Brock, president of the association, saying: "The women of our State ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... story, as he obviously did, was not so disconcerting to her as it would have been to most young women. Taciturn as she was, it was not by reason of timidity, but rather that her own motives seemed too clear to her to be worth stating. She was, perhaps, rather given to assume her prerogative right to be different. Her first ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... interfere; and orders were accordingly issued, that, within four days, the two Counts Gamba, father and son, should depart from Tuscany. To Lord Byron this decision was, in the highest degree, provoking and disconcerting; it being one of the conditions of the Guiccioli's separation from her husband, that she should thenceforward reside under the same roof with her father. After balancing in his mind between various projects,—sometimes thinking of Geneva, and sometimes, as we ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... she did consent to listen, Philip felt before he had talked five minutes, that she was putting herself in Edith Carr's place, and judging him from what the other girl's standpoint would be. That was so disconcerting, he did not plead his cause nearly so well as he had hoped, for when he ceased Elnora ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... enchants like an entrance of the horns. The best caviare in Russia, the worst actor on Broadway, the most virtuous angel in Heaven! Such superlatives are transcendental. And yet,—so rare is perfection in this world!—the news swiftly follows, unexpected, disconcerting, that the best Pilsner in Vienna is far short of the ideal. For some undetermined reason—the influence of the American tourist? the decay of the Austrian national character?—the Vienna Bierwirte freeze and paralyze it with too ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... And the disconcerting strangeness of it was in this: that though she was no longer the woman child, yet with one flash of her gold-curtained eyes had she reduced me to my ancient schoolboy clumsiness. She was a woman, but, I was again an awkward, stammering boy, rebelliously declining to believe that a state she ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... Disconcerting hitch. Most of the Sisyphus' crew, including the captain, want to take their wives along. I find it difficult to believe them all uxoriously wed—at any rate this is not a pleasure excursion. Agreed the captain should take his and told him to effect ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... all. They were too civilized and familiar. He let trickle through his fingers still more astonishing and bizarre stones, and finally selected a number of real and artificial ones which, used together, should produce a fascinating and disconcerting harmony. ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... surprised, was at the same time pleased with the ready, or at least the unrepugnant acquiescence of Hayraddin in their change of route, for he needed his assistance as a guide, and yet had feared that the disconcerting of his intended act of treachery would have driven him to extremity. Besides, to expel the Bohemian from their society would have been the ready mode to bring down William de la Marck, with whom he was in correspondence, ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... was given when she saw that his surprise contained the bitter and disconcerting element ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... consolation to the dying." I shook my head. I even had to cut the argument short by going into the house. I felt an imperative need to get the door closed between us. The habit I have—you know it well, it is often enough disconcerting to me—of getting an ill-timed comic picture in my mind, made me afraid that I was going to laugh at the wrong moment. If I had, I should never have been able to explain to her, and hope ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich |
