"Impulse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... poesy of the feeling lay not in the beauty of the objects, but in the moral effect of the traditions, to which these objects served as talismans of the memory. The scene at sunset reminded him of the Highlands, but it was those reminiscences which similar scenes recalled, that constituted the impulse which gave life and elevation to his reflections. There is not more poesy in the sight of mountains than of plains; it is the local associations that throw enchantment over all scenes, and resemblance ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... seeking their own advantage, and that some of them, especially the Duke of Burgundy, had cruel wrongs to avenge: it will be more easily understood that France had reached a period of depression and apparent despair which no principle of national elasticity or new spring of national impulse was present to amend. The extraordinary aspect of whole districts in so strong and populous a country, which disowned the native monarch, and of towns and castles innumerable which were held by the native nobility in the name of a foreign king, could scarcely have been possible under other ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... informed us, in a solemn and important manner, that we were now approaching to the places where the Turcomans generally lie in wait for caravans, and directed that we should all march in a compact body, and invited us to make preparations for a desperate resistance in case we were attacked. The first impulse of my master was to tie his gun, sword, and pistols on one of his baggage mules. He then complained of an affection in the bowels, and so abandoning all his former intentions of engaging in combat, wrapped himself up in the folds of his cloak, put on a face ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... predisposition to crime, like the alcoholic inheriting a weak will, or with insane or epileptic tendencies that may lead early to criminal conduct; but it is not yet proven that a majority of offenders are hereditary perverts. A stronger reason for crime is the unsatisfied desire or the uncontrolled impulse that drives a man to take by force that to which he has no lawful claim. This desire is strengthened by the social conditions of the present. In all grades of society there are individuals who resort to all sorts of means to get money and pleasure, and those who ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... history. Without enumerating all the divisions, we see Yankees, Germans, Irish, Scotch, Italians, Frenchmen, Norwegians, and Dutchmen,—all in one army; and, grandest spectacle of all, moved by one common impulse to put down this rebellion, and to save for all future time the principle upon ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... to it was something easier said than done, yet the idea seemed to take root in my mind; and how or why it ever came about I can no more tell than I can fly, but somehow or other, it matters not what was my impulse or idea or expectation, the truth is, without saying a single word, I pulled out my knife and the bit of flint which I had found and carefully preserved the day before, and then struck one upon the other (as if it were quite mechanical) above the Dean's little bit of cotton stuff, which lay upon ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes
... as I was strolling on the quay, I came across a man I believed I recognized, though I could not place him with certainty. I instinctively went more slowly, ready to pause. The stranger saw my impulse, looked at me, and fell ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... constitution. The want of discipline and human learning was supplied by the occasional assistance of the prophets, [106] who were called to that function without distinction of age, of sex, [1061] or of natural abilities, and who, as often as they felt the divine impulse, poured forth the effusions of the Spirit in the assembly of the faithful. But these extraordinary gifts were frequently abused or misapplied by the prophetic teachers. They displayed them at an improper season, presumptuously disturbed ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... "My first impulse was to get hold of the oars, for the roar of the breakers already filled my ears. A better idea suggested itself immediately after, and that was to load my gun. This was a delicate business, but I set about it with all ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... acted on a motive, and never on an impulse, and who concealed his real objects behind ostensible ones, imagined that everybody else was governed by the same principle of action; and, therefore, frequently deceived himself by attributing designs to others that never existed but ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... truth. His example may shew us, that some degrees of bodily weakness and mental depression may be most happily cured by active exertion in the service of mankind. Perhaps there never existed a more striking proof how far a noble impulse, communicated to the mind by a project of extensive Benevolence, may invigorate a frame not equal in health, strength, and stature, to the common standard of men. It is a prudential maxim of the celebrated Raleigh, ...
— The Eulogies of Howard • William Hayley
... she rose and stood by his side, and then with a sudden impulse she laid her hand with outspread fingers upon the page ...
— Patty Fairfield • Carolyn Wells
... senator, with his ardent nature, and his impulse to take part in every conflict, had raised a regiment of volunteers principally composed of men from the Pacific coast. It was known as the California Regiment, and was encamped near Washington.**** On the 1st of ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... somewhere, to do something, without success. Work as she would, day and night, assisted by the kindly neighbors and the frightened children, she could not stay the progress of that fatal disease; and on the fourth it terminated in the going out of that life which, with all its faults, had been kindly in impulse at least. ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... Bruce's first impulse was to jump from the truck and leave it to its fate, but when he heard the manager's frantic appeal to save the precious film he climbed quickly over the back of the high seat. In another instant he grasped the steering wheel and jammed his foot down upon ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... awakens a certain ideal melancholy favourable to the reception of more important impressions, it will produce in the reader all that the writer experienced in the composition. I resigned myself, as I wrote, to the impulses of the feelings which moulded the conception of the story; and this impulse determined the pauses of a measure, which only pretends to be regular inasmuch as it corresponds with, and expresses, the irregularity of the imaginations ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... the deformity, the reproach, and the misery of all deviations from it. Yet it is to be remembered, that the laws of mere morality are of no coercive power; and, however they may, by conviction, of their fitness please the reasoner in the shade, when the passions stagnate without impulse, and the appetites are secluded from their objects, they will be of little force against the ardour of desire, or the vehemence of rage, amidst the pleasures and tumults of the world. To counteract the power of temptations, hope must be excited ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... Travers. "I know you didn't go out there to meet any one; it was just a natural impulse for a little adventure, wasn't it? And I deserve my reward for getting you home safely. ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... an extensive trade carried on upon the Columbia, which must have existed before the coast was frequented by foreign traders; but to which the foreign trade has given a new impulse. The great emporium of this trade is at the falls, the Shilloots being the carriers between the inhabitants above and below. The Indians of the Rocky Mountains bring down bear's-grease, horses, and a few skins, which they exchange for beads, pounded fish, and the roots ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... shooting those who opposed his invasion. In all times, among the most savage tribes and in civilized society, women have been moved to heavenly pity by the sight of a prisoner, and risked life to save him—the impulse was as natural to a Highland lass as to an African maid. Pocahontas went further than efforts to make peace between the superior race and her own. When the whites forced the Indians to contribute from their scanty stores to the support of the invaders, and burned their dwellings and ...
— Widger's Quotations of Charles D. Warner • David Widger
... embassy on behalf of the odious subscription-list, yet I had now no reason whatever for hiding the truth from this noble-hearted woman. I felt as though something were now being fulfilled which I had always been entitled to expect, and my only impulse was an immediate desire to show my gratitude to this rare lady by at least doing something for her. All the friction which disturbed our later intercourse sprang solely from my inability to fulfil this desire, in which I felt ever more and more confirmed by her singular ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... But then the whole affair was a mystery, totally out of keeping, in all its details, with the characters of these women, save—and what a fearful exception I here make—the awful end, which, alas! bespoke the fiery rush and impulse to destroy which marked Carmel's ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... conduct are formed slowly in the best minds and exist at first merely in what Plato would have called "the intellectual sphere," or in what would have been called at a later date in Palestine the "kingdom of heaven." But the strongest impulse of mankind is to realise its ideals. Its fervent prayer, which once uttered can never cease, is "on earth as it is in heaven," and the ideals developed in man's spiritual life gradually take shape in laws and become prohibitions and injunctions backed by ...
— Britain at Bay • Spenser Wilkinson
... the National Government was called upon to solve. It cannot be said that the solution was successfully reached, for the blunders in transportation were among the most costly, exasperating, and dangerous of the war. But the efforts to reach it provided the impulse which soon after resulted in the settlement of Western New York, the appearance of the germs of such flourishing cities as Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse, the opening up of the Southwest Territory, between Tennessee and New Orleans, and ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... cases is precisely the same. On the contrary, I think it probable that there are varieties and complexities quite beyond our present speculation. But at least these cases fall for us under the same primary or obvious category; they are all cases where a thought, a feeling, an impulse, a picture, has been transferred from one mind to another without the agency of the recognized organs ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... proceeded to a spot near the office and halted. His first impulse to rush after Sorenson had been promptly suppressed, as cooler judgment ruled. To seek his quarry in that throng would be labor wasted, while to reveal his identity would be to court a disastrous interference ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... personage, and for the whole of the first day remained on board, impatiently, but in vain, prying into each boat that left the shore for the dusky forms of some of his quondam friends. His pride, however, could not long withstand the desire of display. Yielding to the impulse of vanity he, early the following morning, took his departure from the ship. Those who witnessed the meeting described it as cool on both sides, arising on the part of his friends from jealousy; they, perhaps, judging from his costume ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... relatives. We are assured that when Sylla, having withstood for a while the entreaties of his own best friends, persons of distinguished rank, at last yielded to their importunity, he exclaimed—either by a divine impulse, or from a shrewd conjecture: "Your suit is granted, and you may take him among you; but know," he added, "that this man, for whose safety you are so extremely anxious, will, some day or other, be the ruin of the ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... revealed to him By force of his own fair works' competence. The same blue waters where the dolphins swim Suggest the tritons. Through the blue Immense Strike out, all swimmers! cling not in the way Of one another, so to sink; but learn The strong man's impulse, catch the freshening spray He throws up in his motions, and discern By his clear westering eye, the time of day. Thou, God, hast set us worthy gifts to earn Besides Thy heaven and Thee! and when I say There's room here for the weakest man alive To live and die, there's room too, I repeat, For ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... not be waived one side in the interest of the thing which he desires to do. So you must guard yourself very carefully, no matter what the department of life may be that you are facing, if you find yourself doubting under the impulse of your own wishes, if you are trying to argue yourself into the belief that you may be permitted to do something which you very much want ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... distinction is that animals make no improvements; while the knowledge, and skill, and the success of man are perpetually on the increase. Animals, in all their operations, follow the first impulse of nature or that instinct which God has implanted in them. In all they do undertake, therefore, their works are more perfect and regular than those ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... said; and his eye glanced towards Martin, and across the waves: but while every oar bent with the exertions of the rowers, as the great wave came towering towards them, he beheld the pale face of his father, and dare not obey the evil impulse that had seized him. The boat came safely across the reef to land, but the evil thought remained in his blood, and roused up every little fibre of bitterness which had remained in his memory since he and Martin had been comrades. But he could not weave the fibres together, ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... banking-book barely reached fifteen hundred pounds. I snatched up my check-book, wrote a draft for the whole amount, and ordered one of my clerks to run to the bank and get it cashed before the doors closed. What impulse urged me on, except the blind impulse of hurry and bewilderment, I can't say. I acted mechanically, under the influence of the vague inexplicable fear which the man's extraordinary parting words had aroused in me, without stopping to analyze my own sensations—almost without knowing what I ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... of the first Communes is well known. It is the same in all parts of Western Europe, though the essential characteristics are nowhere more evident than in Belgium. Trade gave the first impulse. It had been practically annihilated by the Norman invasions and the wars of the ninth century. Using the natural waterways of the country and the sea routes, it revived slowly, and we know, through the discovery of Flemish ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... was one of repulsion, and the impulse was to run away. But there was fascination, too, in the hag-like visage of those grim brick walls, checkered with innumerable dirty windows and trussed up, like a paralytic old crone, with rusty fire-escapes. It was the fascination of the mysterious ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... 1909, the idea began to crystallize into a definite purpose. In that month President Taft, at a banquet at the Fairmont Hotel, declared that the Canal would be opened to commerce on January 1, 1915. That announcement gave the final impulse to the growing determination. The success of the Portola celebration that summer had given the city confidence in its ability to carry out a great festival undertaking. In fact, it was at a meeting of the Portola committee that ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... wanted for any special purpose, or racing about after the peasant women. His favorite attitude was one of concentrated immobility. He was capable of standing for hours at a stretch in the same place with his eyes fixed on the same spot without stirring. He never moved except on impulse, and then only when an occasion presented itself for some rapid and abrupt action: catching a running dog by the tail, pulling off a woman's kerchief, or jumping over a big hole. It need hardly be said that with such parsimony of movement Savka was as poor as a mouse and lived worse ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... My first impulse was to acquaint the Queen with these astounding revelations, but it soon struck me that, to tackle a man of such importance as the Count, we could not do without the King. I at once sent my secretary with a note, imploring his Majesty to ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... "My first impulse, on coming to myself, was to feel under my pillow for the knife I had not been able to reach; if it had not been useful for defense, it might ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of their adoption by means of advantageous Creole marriages. Love, too, sheer uncalculating love, impelled not a few Whites to enter the hymeneal state with the dusky captivators of their affections. When rich, the white planter not seldom paid for such gratification of his laudable impulse by accepting exclusion from "Society"—and when poor, he incurred almost invariably his dismissal from employment. Of course, in all cases of the sort the dispensers of such penalties were actuated by high motives which, nevertheless, did not stand in the way of their meeting, in the ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... resentment, though perfectly careless of her, and though becoming attached to another, still he could not see her suffer, without the desire of giving her relief. It was a remainder of former sentiment; it was an impulse of pure, though unacknowledged friendship; it was a proof of his own warm and amiable heart, which she could not contemplate without emotions so compounded of pleasure and pain, that she knew ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... permitted by the State to exist within it, has been received. Desirous as I am that emancipation shall be adopted by Missouri, and believing as I do that gradual can be made better than immediate for both black and white, except when military necessity changes the case, my impulse is to say that such protection would be given. I cannot know exactly what shape an act of emancipation may take. If the period from the initiation to the final end should be comparatively short, and the act should prevent ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... was what she thought he had been doing. Little did she know how little like play it was. Jerry had to stifle the impulse to tell her all he had been through in the ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson
... entertain no doubt, but in its application it is not enough that the value of lands in a particular locality may be enhanced; that, in fact, a larger amount of money may probably be received in a given time for alternate sections than could have been realized for all the sections without the impulse and influence of the proposed improvements. A prudent proprietor looks beyond limited sections of his domain, beyond present results to the ultimate effect which a particular line of policy is likely to produce upon all his possessions and interests. The Government, which is ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin Pierce • Franklin Pierce
... generous impulse he slipped the enchanted bridle off the head of Pegasus, and took ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... great hail-storm, which slew more than the swords of the Israelites, but touched not the Israelites. In this situation of things the sun appears over Gibeon eastward and the moon over Ajalon westward. When Joshua saw it, moved by a grand impulse, he said: "Sun, stand thou still over Gibeon; and thou, moon, over the valley of Ajalon." See Joshua 10: ...
— The Christian Foundation, February, 1880
... person exiled by the Emperor, and formerly popular, could collect fifty trusty conspirators in all France; at least, as long as our armies are victorious, and organized in their present formidable manner. Should anything happen to our present chief, an impulse may be given to the minds now sunk down, and raise our characters from their present torpid state. But until such an event, we shall remain as we are, indolent but submissive, sacrificing our children and treasures ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... smooth brow wrinkled with thought, and her eyes gleaming with a strange, new light. There was a shadow on her fair face, a grieved, injured expression, as if her mother's treachery had hurt her cruelly. She knew the letter was withheld, and her first impulse was to demand it at once. But Anna dreaded a scene, and dreaded her mother, too, and after a moment's reflection that her Charlie would write again, and Adah, who now went regularly to the office, would get it and bring ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... disclosing the ground; and then, when the whole of the hostile enemy should be in full pursuit, we were to charge them in break and put them to rout. All happened as was anticipated; We mustered about three hundred and fifteen men, acting under one single impulse, and sanguine as to success. On came ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... him that he was soon coming to lunch with them, to read his new play to the family. Esperance was wild with excitement. The time of waiting for the event seemed interminable to her. Her father tried in vain to calm her with philosophical reflections. Creature of feeling and impulse that she was, nothing could ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... in quality of paint. In 1892 Mr. Brownell said of Monticelli in his French Art—a book that every student and amateur of painting should possess—that the touch of Diaz, patrician as it was, lacked the exquisiteness of Monticelli's; though he admits the "exaggeration of the decorative impulse" in that master. For Henley Monticelli's art was purely sensuous; "his fairy meadows and enchanted gardens are that sweet word 'Mesopotamia' in two dimensions." Henley speaks of his "clangours of bronze and gold and scarlet" and admits that "there ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... George Duncan Ludlow, who had received his appointment on the separation of that province in 1784. The forward-looking jurist was Thomas Andrew Strange who became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in 1791.[12] The same impulse for liberty which about this time was noted in the upper country manifested itself from time to time by the sea. Slaves ran away from their masters; the masters pursued and imprisoned them. Some blacks claimed freedom without fleeing. When a writ of habeas corpus came ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... the affair with a final rush. New actors soon appeared on the scene. These were a boat's crew of the fur-traders under a young man of St. Malo, one Des Prairies, who, when he heard the firing, could not resist the impulse to join the fight. On seeing them, Champlain checked the assault, in order, as he says, that the new-comers might have their share in the sport. The traders opened fire, with great zest and no less execution; while the Iroquois, now wild with terror, leaped and writhed ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... on her Plummer pedestal. For she was laboring with the impulse to refuse to listen to this intruder, to drive her away—to say: "I won't believe a word you say! You may as ...
— Rebecca Mary • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... by the shoulders as one does a child, the impulse in him strong to shake her, his heart ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... race, how to hold its own against the hostile forces everywhere leagued against it. Life was a perpetual struggle, and, let dreamers say what they might, could never be anything else; he, for one, perceived no right that he had to claim exemption from the doom of labour. Had he felt an impulse to any other kind of work, well and good, he would have turned to it; but nothing whatever called to him with imperative voice save this task of tilling his own acres. It might not always satisfy him; he took no vow of one ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... its efficacy to it. (Dunglison, New Remedies.) As for Sulphur, "the common people have long used it as an ointment" for scabies. (Rees's Cyc. art. "Scabies.") The modern cantiscorbutic regimen is credited to Captain Cook. "To his sagacity we are indebted for the first impulse to those regulations by which scorbutus is so successfully prevented in our navy." (Lond. Cyc. Prac. Med. art. "Scorbutus.") Iron and various salts which enter into the normal composition of the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Joan, and watched the smile of sleep grow and wane faintly on the lips of the child as the rhythm of her singing lifted and fell. One half of her mind was empty, that part where Dan should have been, and a dozen times she checked an impulse to turn to him in the place where he should be sitting and invite him with a smile to share her happiness. When her eyes moved they only fell on the gaunt, intent face of Buck or the leonine head of Haines. Whistling Dan was gone and if he ever came again her ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... of derivative grandeur, propagated to ages so remote from itself, and sustained by manners so different from the spirit of her own,—we may faintly measure the strength of the original impulse given to the feelings of men by the sacred majesty of the Roman throne. How potent must that splendor have been, whose mere reflection shot rays upon a distant crown, under another heaven, and across the wilderness of fourteen centuries! Splendor, thus transmitted, thus sustained, ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... were now worked up to a condition of irresponsible madness. Another such impulse from the Medicine Man, and the thirsty knives would ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... traits on record of the peculiar disposition of the hero of Waterloo. It bespeaks at once the soldier and the politician. He answers the letter with military precision, but with political astuteness—he pretends to be ignorant of the object I had in sending it. His ready reply was the first impulse of the man; his crafty and guarded mode of expression was the cautious act of the minister. Had I been disposed to have written a second time to my illustrious correspondent, I now had a fine opportunity of doing so; but I preferred letting ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 14, 1841 • Various
... kind of tug at him. His sentimental, maternal side heaved to the top. A great impulse to hurry out and put his arms round them seized him, but he frowned and overcame it. He didn't want to go soft now. Nor was this the moment, his nicely brought up soul told him, his soul still echoing with the voice of Clark, to put his arms ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... is described as a favor very liberally bestowed on all ranks of the faithful, on women as on elders, on boys as well as upon bishops. When their devout minds were sufficiently prepared by a course of prayer, of fasting, and of vigils, to receive the extraordinary impulse, they were transported out of their senses, and delivered in ecstasy what was inspired, being mere organs of the Holy Spirit, just as a pipe or flute is of him who blows into it. [75] We may add, that the design of these visions was, for the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... mangled and crushed into the grave. The lure and the deterrent—love of sensuous pleasure and fear of dissolution—are as deceitful as all the other causes of pain and pleasure in this world of appearance. Schopenhauer puts it tersely thus: "As we are decoyed into life by the utterly illusory impulse to voluptuousness, even so are we held fast therein by the fear of death, which is certainly illusory in an equal degree. Both have their immediate source in the Will, which in ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... 'Thank you'! A flash of a glance behind her which called me, even if she did not mean it as a call—and so, on I fare in a lunatic's dream. Own up! I have dreamed that some day I will see her again. And down in the depths of me stirs that impulse of the male which makes the peacock spread his feathers and silly man perk in front of a mirror. Why not give in to the sense of heredity once in a while even though it means beating up a tramp and making myself more of a mark ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... were standing near the edge of the cliff and talking earnestly together, but as Hermione and Artois came towards them they turned round as if moved by a mutual impulse. Ruffo took off his cap and Vere ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... Green meant business, and he began to feel around for his ticket. The conductor advanced to within eleven feet of the bear when all at once the animal sprang at him, growling and showing his teeth. Green's first impulse was to pull the bell rope, and order the cuss to get out of the ice house, but he saw the bear coming through the air towards him, and there was not four hours to lose, so he drew the revolver, took aim at the bear's left eye, and ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... to whom they used to give a dime for bringing telegraph messages from the office in which he was employed. The benefits which he then derived from the use of a free library in that city, have added to his good impulse, to create such a vast number of libraries in many lands that his honored name throws into the shade the names of Bodley and Radcliffe in England, and that of Astor in America. The mention of this latter name tempts me to narrate an amusing story of old ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... his first suggestion of panic—of how easily, in the face of so much peril, anyone could lose his head, and rush into danger, instead of escaping the risks by which he was surrounded. For his strong impulse now was to start into a run, and to begin to ascend the slope diagonally. But at the first dozen steps, he found he was loosening the ashes, which began to glide toward the chasm faster and faster, and that if he continued with so much ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... near Boston, and not too far from Concord. Such a pretty room as you should have, darling, fitted up in blue and rose-buds, or—no, Morris green and Pompeian-red would be prettier, perhaps. What a joy it would be to choose pictures for it,—pictures, every one of which should be an impulse in the best Art direction! And how you would revel in the garden, and in the fruit! My strawberries are the finest I ever saw; I have two Alderney cows and quantities of cream. Don't you think you could be happy to come and be my own little Curly, ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... broke down the bars of convention, and brought her enduring friendships among the men of learning. This was especially the case with Doctor Morton, Dean of the School of Surgery. Yielding to a harmless impulse of curiosity, the girl one afternoon had set out on a trip of exploration, and had chosen the Anatomy building to begin with. Many odd sights greeted her eager gaze as she peered into classrooms and exhibit cases; but she met with no one until she chanced to ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... protective power—trial by jury? It is almost an apology for them to imagine, that one or more of them were actually part of the gang. Self-preservation, under instant danger, (involved in a just verdict,) is less revolting than the less urgent degree of the same natural impulse, implied in the hypothesis of pure selfish and most dastardly dread of some remoter evil to self from the ill-will of those impugned by a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... slave emancipated, but not by moral means. He lived to see the sword cut the fetter. After this had taken place, he was too young to retire, though too old to gather laurels of literature or to seek professional honors. The impulse of humanity was not at all abated. His soul still flowed on for the great under-masses of mankind, though, like the Nile, it split up into scores of mouths, and not all of them were navigable. After a long and stormy life his sun went down in glory. All the English-speaking ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... and the ugly staircase had not been reformed. Colonel Hitchcock came into the house, and without looking into the study went upstairs. Sommers started to intercept him in the hall, but restrained the impulse. Miss Hitchcock appeared in a few moments, advancing to greet him with a frank smile, as if it were the most natural thing ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... procreant truth exhale From me, before my forces fail; Or ere the ecstatic impulse go, Let all my buds ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... true poet, whose impulse, like fate, overturns all opposition, Drayton is not to be thrown out of his avocation; but intrepidly closes by promising "they shall not deter me from going on with Scotland, if means and time do not hinder me to perform as much as I have promised in my first song." Who ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... it, he asked himself what excuse he had for saying it. If he had stopped to analyze the impulse, he would have seen how absurd, unreasonable and uncalled for his words were. But he had no time to analyze; like a diver who plunges suddenly, on some mad impulse, into a whirlpool, he had cast ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... believing that they are coming to a land flowing with milk and honey. In most cases any change with them would be for their advantage; and so the ranks of Mormonism are recruited, not from any truly religious impulse in the new disciples, but through a desire to better their ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... pale, ascetic face, and with the restless eyes of an enthusiast, dressed in black and badly dressed, and with a severe and narrow intelligence. But he had prepared himself to forgive her personality, for the sake of the high and generous impulse that inspired her. And when he was presented to her as she really was, and found her young, lovable, and nobly fair, the shock of wonder and delight had held him silent during the whole course of her ...
— The King's Jackal • Richard Harding Davis
... the impulse to personal effort which has fallen upon us, the greatness of the work that is to be done, the simplicity of the means to be employed, and the cooperation of the better kind of working men themselves, I cannot but think that the promoters of this scheme ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... impulse," she deplored, in a flustered rejection of the scheme; "it was very stupid of me to express it. Pray forget it. . . . I—I must go." She darted an uncomfortable ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... poise and dignity of the girl was the first impression Northrup always got. He had never quite grown accustomed to it; it was like a challenge—his impulse was to test it. It threatened ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... true that a million of men and women waste a day on a pursuit which brings them into contact with filthy intemperance, stupid debauch, unspeakable coarseness? The eruptive sportsman tells us that the sight of a good man on a good horse should stir every manly impulse in a Briton. What rubbish! What manliness can there be in watching a poor baby-colt flogged along by a dwarf? If one is placed at some distance from the course, then one may find the glitter of the pretty silk jackets pleasing; but, should one chance ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... agricultural domain was being occupied in the West, commerce and manufactures were not neglected. American merchantmen visited every sea, no longer in dread of hostile Briton or Barbary pirate, and internal commerce received a mighty impulse from the steamboat. Meanwhile the foundations were laid of those vast manufacturing interests which were yet to overshadow commerce in the East. As early as 1810, the domestic manufactures of all descriptions were worth $127,694,602 annually, ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... but there was something in the resolve to make this visit forthwith and conquer all show of feeling, which was a sort of file-biting and counter-irritant. And without his distinctly recognizing the impulse, there certainly was present in him the sense that Celia would be there, and that he should pay her more attention than he ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... the mover in this business, and as such, is, properly speaking, the agent. But if we were super-naturally informed that the mind thus exerted was made to do so by the mysterious and irresistible impulse of a superior being, we should instantly declare that being the agent, and the mind irresistibly influenced only a passive instrument, and no more to blame than the gunpowder. Now, if the sinner is passive he is no more to blame or praise than the passive instruments ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 12, December, 1880 • Various
... the giddy whirling moments flew! The moon had set; I heard the midnight chime, Hope is more brave than fear, and joy than dread. And I could wait unmoved the parting time. It came; for, by a sudden impulse drawn, She, risen, stepped out upon ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... It is the Wave of Joy! It moves quickly! It takes you upon its sparkling crest! Whence the diamond lights of happiness flash! Merrily flash! It heaves you swiftly on! On! On! Ah! Yes! Nearer! Nearer still! One more impulse and you are there! It lifts its glittering form again! And NOW!—Oh, Mr. Cinch! you are in the Current! the CURRENT! Do you not feel its swift influence? The Current of Truth! Brightly, joyously, swiftly does this Spiritual Gulf Stream ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... by a sudden impulse of religious generosity extremely unusual in those days, immediately sang the psalm which the king ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... the thin partition in Ida's room. They were very terrible to her. They broke down the remnant of her excuse that the child was an imposition. They woke all her woman's tenderness, and the impulse to console carried her in a few moments ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in silence. Every spark of human feeling had evidently been stifled in him. The Juggernaut of Paris, in rolling over him, had broken every generous impulse, flattening him into a pulp of brutal selfishness. That is why his face was so smooth and cold, his eyes so dull and his voice so monotonous. I understood it all now. I changed the subject. I did not know where it would lead if I kept on. ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... this action seemed a wanton cruelty; it was rather the wanton recklessness which belongs to a wild boy accustomed to gratify the impulse of the moment—the recklessness which is not cruelty in the boy, but which prosperity may pamper into cruelty in the man. And scarce had he reloaded his gun before the neigh of a young colt came from the neighbouring paddock, ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... person in that beautiful dress; but his satisfaction therein was cruelly disturbed when he discovered, towering and blazing among and above the genuine Glengarries and Macleods and MacGregors, a figure even more portly than his own, equipped from a sudden impulse of loyal ardour in an equally complete set of the self-same ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... I cared? There she was leaning toward him, the flames from the fire dancing softly before her face, giving her dark hair a hundred new lights and shadows. Her lips were parted, and in her eyes was silent entreaty. I felt a sudden unaccountable impulse to snatch up the volume of Rabelais, to face my father again, weapon or no ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... visited him in the evening along with young Mr. Burke. He said, 'It is strange that there should be so little reading in the world, and so much writing. People in general do not willingly read, if they can have any thing else to amuse them[671]. There must be an external impulse; emulation, or vanity, or avarice. The progress which the understanding makes through a book, has more pain than pleasure in it. Language is scanty, and inadequate to express the nice gradations and mixtures ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... muddled thinking there is the development of her initial assumption. While the groundwork of man is perfection, this perfection has been blemished and man is impelled to recapture it in the sublime. Yet instead of analyzing this impulse, Miss Reynolds appears to take it for granted. Nor does she consider how perfection is to be achieved in taste, preferring to conclude with a diatribe in the manner of Rousseau on the depravity of the times and the corrupting ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Taste, and of the Origin of - our Ideas of Beauty, etc. • Frances Reynolds
... impulse was to hurry to her father and tell him of her discovery; the second thought, "If I do, papa will go down there and maybe they'll kill him; and that would be a great, great deal worse than if they should carry ...
— Christmas with Grandma Elsie • Martha Finley
... Tommy, and the silence that followed should have been unpleasant to him; but he went on calmly: "Doubtless it was a mere impulse that made him jump into the pool, and impulse is not courage." He was quoting Grizel now, you observe, and though he did not look at her, he knew her eyes were fixed on him reproachfully. "And so," he concluded, "I suppose Captain ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... healthy athletic exercise or game; by the ruined brain overstrained in order to win some paltry prize! It is melancholy to observe how many lives have been broken down, ruined or corrupted in attempts to realise some supreme and unattainable desire; through the impulse of overmastering passion, of powerful and perhaps irresistible temptation. It is still sadder to observe how large a proportion of the failures of life may be ultimately traced to the most insignificant causes and might have been avoided without any serious effort ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... impulse six months back I am about to carry out in cold blood. Nichola and I began in jest and ended in earnest. We are going to take one another next month for ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... does it knowing what he does, but the people cannot even know; for how can that know which has neither been taught anything noble by others nor perceived anything of itself, 71 but pushes on matters with violent impulse and without understanding, like a torrent stream? Rule of the people then let them adopt who are foes to the Persians; but let us choose a company of the best men, and to them attach the chief power; for ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... that in the sweeping lines and broad surfaces of these Byzantine sculptures we obtain, so far as I know, for the first time in the history of art, the germ of that unity of perfect ease in every separate part, with perfect subjection to an enclosing form or directing impulse, which was brought to its most intense expression in the compositions of the two men in whom the art of Italy consummated itself and expired—Tintoret and ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... impulse was to rend the paper to atoms and grind those atoms to powder beneath her heel. But a second inspiration changed ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... Indeed, it seems difficult to see how one could convince a man on hedonistic or utilitarian grounds that a course of conduct on which he was bent, and to which he was allured by the overmastering impulse of a vehement nature, and which promised him sensible gratification, possibly even material advancement, was not legitimate. I do not press this, nor do I suggest that moral elevation of life is not discernible amongst professors of this interpretation of ethics equally with those ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... solid as a rock, and the bolts are steel, but nothing could withstand that ramming for long." Gentleman Geoff had rallied his waning strength to meet that new note of quickened impulse. ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... my views upon an important subject which has recently agitated the nation to almost a fearful degree, I am moved by no other impulse than a most earnest desire for the perpetuation of that Union which has made us what we are, showering upon us blessings and conferring a power and influence which our fathers could hardly have anticipated, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson
... we fear with regard to Expropriation is exactly the contrary. We are afraid of not going far enough, of carrying out Expropriation on too small a scale to be lasting. We would not have the revolutionary impulse arrested in mid-career, to exhaust itself in half measures, which would content no one, and while producing a tremendous confusion in society, and stopping its customary activities, would have no vital power—would merely ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... self-conscious in a high degree, but only as a part of his general activity of mind; only in so far as he could not help being an extremely intelligent spectator of his own doings and feelings: these themselves came from springs of character and impulse much too deep and strong to be diverted. He loved also, with a child's or actor's gusto, to play a part and make a drama out of life: but the part was always for the moment his very own: he had it not in him to pose for anything ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... places of worship was a bambino, a holy infant, done in wax, and covered with cheap ornaments such as a little girl would like to beautify her doll with. Many a good Protestant of the old Puritan type would have felt a strong impulse to seize this "idolatrous" figure and dash it to pieces on the stone floor of the little church. But one must have lived awhile among simple-minded pious Catholics to know what this poor waxen image and the whole baby-house ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... you like it," she said. "I like it, too." Then, with a sudden feeling of friendship, an odd sense of intimacy, a quick impulse of common ...
— A Reversion To Type • Josephine Daskam
... impulse was to run to Betty for comfort. It would be easy enough to borrow the money she needed from her, and pay her back after the holidays, but—a sober second thought stopped her. Probably the girls wouldn't want her candy then. Each of the boxes had been ordered as a special Christmas offering ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... they are pushed forward and drawn back by the hand, if the ends of the blades are at some distance from the centre, the oars foam with the waves of the sea and drive the ship forward in a straight line with a mighty impulse, while her prow ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... His first impulse was to forswear society, and to escape mortification in future, by refusing all invitations. If he had been a weakling such an outcome would have followed a false start. It is only a man who can pluck the blossom of success out of the very bramble ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... The Frenchman resisted the impulse to leap back in surprise, but his eyes narrowed till they were slits in his face. So! This Englishman did not know that this had been the last day of the sacrifices, that at midnight a hecatomb of pigs was to ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... with another—the appearance of some slight, slim draped "antique" of Vatican or Capitoline halls, late and refined, rare as a note and immortal as a link, set in motion by the miraculous infusion of a modern impulse and yet, for all the sudden freedom of folds and footsteps forsaken after centuries by their pedestal, keeping still the quality, the perfect felicity, of the statue; the blurred, absent eyes, the ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... of self-government.' ... In our greedy chase to make profit of the negro, let us beware lest we cancel and tear to pieces even the white man's charter of freedom.... If all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do as to the existing institution. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia—to their own native land. But, if they were all landed there in a day, they would all perish in the next ten days; and there are not surplus shipping and surplus ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... world. He wanted to come,—he longed to fly. Outside were sunshine, sweet air, trees, food,—inside only darkness. The smallest coaxing would bring him out; but coaxing he was not to have. He must decide for himself; the impulse must be from within. ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... that she was telling the truth, Moran could see but one reason for her evident fright: she was afraid of him. The suggestion of that strengthened the impulse which her beauty stirred in him. If she ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... her in the next moment; but that first impatient salutation was about as warm a welcome as any which Miss Paget received from her father. In sad and bitter truth, he did not care for her. His marriage with Mary Anne Kepp had been the one grateful impulse of his life; and even the sentiment which had prompted that marriage had been by no means free from the taint of selfishness. But he had been quite unprepared to find that this grand sacrifice of his life should involve another ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... of occasionally kneeling by my bedside and saying my prayers, and this night I felt the impulse to do so. I tried to thank God for my recovery. I said the Lord's Prayer; it is a universal petition and thanksgiving; it did not too nearly touch my woes; it allowed itself to be said, but when I came to something nearer, ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... perhaps still keeping. She wondered if his work were over, if the final stroke had been drawn. And as she pictured him there, signing his pact with evil in the loneliness of the conniving night, an uncontrollable impulse possessed her. She must drive by his windows and see if they were still alight. She would not go up to him,—she dared not,—but at least she would pass near to him, would invisibly share his watch and hover on the ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton
... needs and we so much desire to sell. By the simultaneous abandonment of the protective policy by Great Britain and the United States new and important markets have already been opened for our agricultural and other products, commerce and navigation have received a new impulse, labor and trade have been released from the artificial trammels which have so long fettered them, and to a great extent reciprocity in the exchange of commodities has been introduced at the same time by both countries, and greatly for the benefit of both. Great Britain ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... stood six feet high; it would have been quite a leap to me unencumbered; with the breast and back weights, and the twenty pounds upon each foot, and the staggering load of the helmet, the thing was out of reason. I laughed aloud in my tomb; and to prove to Bob how far he was astray, I gave a little impulse from my toes. Up I soared like a bird, my companion soaring at my side. As high as to the stone, and then higher, I pursued my impotent and empty flight. Even when the strong arm of Bob had checked my shoulders, my heels continued their ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... whoop and crash of falling and bursting shells kept us alternately ducking our heads and raising them again to see "where that one went," for curiosity is many times a stronger impulse than fear. ...
— From the St. Lawrence to the Yser with the 1st Canadian brigade • Frederic C. Curry
... But the large proportion of such fish do not travel very far from the mouth of the river in which they were born and the natural impulse for fresh water at spawning-time leads them naturally to the nearest stream. So, it is imperative that some fish be allowed to go up-stream, or in other words, that salmon-catchers allow a certain proportion to escape their ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... threw up both feet. Then he placed his feet upon the floor and rose on them and gave Ignace Prochnow a set oratorical appreciation of his qualities as a thinker and a draughtsman, and then, swept away by a sudden impulse to spread the news of this magnificent new "find" right under their own roof, he rushed downstairs to communicate ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... connections, and having no enthusiasm about my destination, I stayed over in the town nearest Top Hill. In a local paper I read of the arrest of a 'hardened young criminal.' I was curious to see what species of my sex that might be, and followed my impulse to visit her at the jail. Your friend, Bender, gave me permission to visit the 'hardened young criminal.' She was a girl of my own age, size, and altogether what I or any girl could easily have been had it not been for the accident of birth, conditions ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... agree to call rapid thought and noble impulse by the name of inspiration? After our subtlest analysis of the mental process, we must still say that our highest thoughts and our best deeds are all given to ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... its ignition, nor yet an inflammatory combustion of the air, which is dissolved in large quantities in the upper regions of space, but these meteors are rather a fall of celestial bodies, which, in consequence of a certain intermission in the rotatory force, and by the impulse of some irregular movements, have been hurled down not only to the inhabited portions of the Earth, but also beyond it into the great ocean, where we can ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... James had looked on Buckingham as his pupil. Charles clung to him as his friend. Nor was the new king's policy likely to be more national in Church affairs than in affairs of state. The war had given a new impulse to religious enthusiasm. The patriotism of the Puritan was strengthening his bigotry. To the bulk of Englishmen a fight with Spain meant a fight with Catholicism; and the fervour against Catholicism ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... of art he goes like a whirlwind, keen, certain, unfailing in his aim, unsparing in means, carried forward by such an impulse of will and self-confidence that nothing can withstand him. Sure of his own powers, as he was when he carved in secret the crucifix which was to cover poor Donatello with confusion, he saw before him, over his carvings, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... her artists and men of letters. Which is to say that the life of the Republic has been practical rather than artistic, and it is only of late years, except for a sporadic instance here and there, that any genuine artistic impulse ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... corner by the stile, beyond which the willows were splendid against the blue with silvery aments and golden pollen, they turned by mutual impulse and retraced their steps. "I've simply had no one to talk to down here," she said. "Not what ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... was the more deceived, and have to thank you for a salutary lesson. You chose to count me as a cipher in your rolls of conquest; for six months you left me to my fate; and you come here to-day - prompted, I doubt not, by an honourable impulse - to offer this tardy reparation. No: ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... answer. I hoped the storm would blow over, after a puff or two. But Blackeyes, without any ill-nature, I think, which was not in her, had got into the gale. She slipped out of bed and came to my side, putting her hand on my shoulder and bringing her laughing mouth down near my ear. A very angry impulse moved ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... a sharp descent and was crooked too, and the man (who although not drunk had the air of being flushed with some strong drink) went down it so fast that Clennam lost him as he looked at him. With no defined intention of following him, but with an impulse to keep the figure in view a little longer, Clennam quickened his pace to pass the twist in the street which hid him from his sight. On turning it, he saw the ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... brother. Do not think I can part from you so," and by an irresistible impulse, she turned to her cousin, and felt herself folded for a few seconds in his arms, and ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... you," she said suddenly, moved as it were by a strange impulse; "I have long wished for occupation—some useful work, though I should have liked something less terrible than helping to trace a murderer; still, I will ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton
... from among the other German states, and united into a new whole, though, at the same time, care was taken in other respects to keep up the ancient connection with the empire. Thus we see that the elevation of the Elector to a royal title was an important, nay, even a necessary, impulse to the progress of Prussia, which we cannot even in thought separate from the whole ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... table, and ignoring Somers, ran out to the hall, saying something about looking after the surprise for the supper. To my surprise, Somers followed her, not hastily, but rather deliberately, and, quelling an absurd impulse to go, too, I turned to Norman Steele, ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... hardly say that. But she has aroused my curiosity. She is a very peculiar girl, evidently a creature of impulse and determination. I certainly feel sorry for her. Her position is a very painful one. She has been married only a few months, and now her husband has to face the most awful accusation that can be brought ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... unexpected apparition before him, which seemed to issue from a cloud, Guiche uttered a cry and stretched out his arms toward her; but every word perished on his lips, and his strength seemed utterly abandoning him. His right hand, which had followed his first impulse, without calculating the amount of strength he had left, fell back again upon the bed, and immediately afterward the white linen was stained with a larger spot than before. In the meantime, the young man's eyes ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... were boys, most rude boys, and obeyed the impulse of rude nature which bids the deer herd fall upon any stricken hart, the duck flock put to death any broken-winged brother or sister, and on all hands the ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... expressing towards you no other feeling but a mild and affecting benevolence; to hear that mysterious man, whose every word was historical, yielding, as if for your sake alone, to the irresistible impulse of the most frank and confiding disclosure; and that voice, so caressing while it addressed you, was it not the same, whose lowest whisper rang throughout all Europe, announced wars, decided battles, settled the fate of empires, raised or destroyed reputations? What vanity could resist ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... Grandfather's generation and undoubtedly profoundly influenced my father and my uncles in all that they did. It suggested shining mountains, and grassy vales, swarming with bear and elk. It called to green savannahs and endless flowery glades. It voiced as no other song did, the pioneer impulse throbbing deep in my father's blood. That its words will not bear close inspection today takes little from its power. Unquestionably it was a directing force in the lives of at least three generations of my pioneering race. Its strains will be found running through ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... is not my own,' continued Daddy, dangerously near to wumbling. 'It comes through me only. It develops, apparently, when I'm asleep,' he repeated. He sat up and leaned forward. 'And, I believe,' he added, as on sudden reckless impulse, 'it comes from you, Henry. Your mind, I feel, has brought this cargo of new suggestion and discharged it into me—into every one—into the whole blessed village. Man, I think ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... men who attain? Or Man? Or not even he, but God? We do not know. We know only the impulse and the call. The gleam on the snow, the upward path, the urgent stress within, that is our certainty, the rest is doubt. But doubt is a horizon, and on it hangs the star of hope. By that we live; and the science blinds, the renunciation ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson
... broken window and beheld Gavroche fleeing at the full speed, towards the Marche Saint-Jean. As he passed the hair-dresser's shop Gavroche, who had the two brats still in his mind, had not been able to resist the impulse to say good day to him, and had flung ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... at my side, eating his good food and drinking his fine liquor, and sharing both with me and pressing me to help myself to his generous provision—if it was so, I say, then he was of an indescribable cruelty which it makes me cringe to think of, and I would prefer to believe that the impulse to bring about my death came from a sudden temptation springing from a sudden chance. And yet—God knows it is a difficult problem ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... seemed to see the events of her whole life pass before her in quick succession, but saw none filled with bitterness like the present. Her eyes filled with tears. She felt a violent impulse to look round once more, to see him once more, to measure with her eyes the extent of her loss, and then to hurry on again. But however great her sorrow for her wrecked happiness she dare not look round, for she knew it would be equivalent to ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... on the steps of Madame Odintsov's house, the friends could perceive that they had acted injudiciously in giving way so suddenly to a passing impulse. They were obviously not expected. They sat rather a long while, looking rather foolish, in the drawing-room. Madame Odintsov came in to them at last. She greeted them with her customary politeness, but was surprised at their hasty return; and, so far as could be judged ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev |
