"Motive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the desire to abolish slavery, but the bitterness aroused by the political considerations of the advantage given to one party or the other by the establishment or non-establishment of slavery in a new territory. The motive which impelled the United States to make war on Spain was not, as most Europeans believe, any desire for an extension of territory, any more than it was, as some Americans would say, a yearning to avenge the blowing up of the Maine; it ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... very simple, "such as"—Lingard would say—"such as might have happened to anybody." He went ashore with the intention to look for some stream where he could conveniently replenish his water casks, this being really the motive which had induced ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... readers to bear in mind that the friendship of these people for an almost unknown white man was inspired by no unworthy motive. Kusis and his people, as well as the King and Queen, knew that when the brig was lost I had saved nothing whatever from the wreck. Such little clothing as I had with me had been given to me by the ...
— Concerning "Bully" Hayes - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... being brought against him by one or more of his elder sons, of having become childish from age, and of being incapable of managing his own affairs. An alleged partiality for a grandson by a second wife is said to have been the motive of the charge. In his defence he contented himself with reading to his judges his Oedipus at Colonos, which he had then just composed (or, according to others, only the magnificent chorus in it, wherein he sings the praises ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... distinguished diplomat, the Comte de Laroche-sur-Loiret, at the station at Malines with Lady Georgina. It is true, at his politest moments, I often caught the undercurrent of a wicked twinkle in his eye, and felt sure he was doing it all with some profound motive. But his external demeanour was everything that one could desire from a well-trained man-servant; I could hardly believe it was the same man who had growled to me at Florence, 'I shall be even with you yet,' ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... sole motive which could have kept him at that time in that certain locality, was to speak alone with Miss Lady. Even thus favored by circumstances, he found this purpose difficult to accomplish. Now it was Colonel Blount who passed moodily across the ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... market-men. The private cook is a volcano in a house, slumbering at times, but always ready to burst forth into destructive eruption. True repose is out of the question, and we are told that "the motive for foreign travel of perhaps one-half of Americans is rest from household cares and the enjoyment of good attendance, freed from any responsibility in its organization ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various
... supreme delight! Early in the morning, he sat up in bed, awaiting my usual gift. It is much easier to buy doves and game-cocks than it is to buy a pacer, as you know, and aside from that, I was also afraid that so valuable a present might render my motive subject to suspicion, so, after strolling around for some hours, I returned to the house, and gave the lad nothing at all except a kiss. He looked all around, threw his arms about my neck. 'Tell me, master,' he cried, 'where's the pacer?' ('The difficulty ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... that the U.S. agreed to release them reached England on January 8, 1862.) And what a wretched thing it will be if we fight on the side of slavery. No doubt it will be said that we fight to get cotton; but I fully believe that this has not entered into the motive in the least. Well, thank Heaven, we private individuals have nothing to do with so awful a responsibility. Again, how curious it is that you seem to think that you can conquer the South; and I never meet a soul, even those who would most wish it, who thinks ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... contrast to that of Poleon and the trader, both of whom had fallen silent and gloomy, and in whom the hours wrought no change. The latter had tacitly acknowledged his treachery towards Stark on the previous night, but beyond that he would not go, offering no motive, excuse, or explanation, choosing to stand in the eyes of his friend as an intended murderer, notwithstanding which Poleon let the matter drop—for was not his friend a good man? Had he not been tried in a hundred ways? The young Frenchman knew there ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... never be made to say anything else. Nothing more as to his motive was ever known. All the same, the scandal was a terrible one. The regiment was inclined to believe that Melanie, incensed by the captain's defection, had contrived to entrap the major, telling him some abominable stories and prevailing upon ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... be frank, it was not. My motive in addressing you, without the right to take such a freedom, was egotistical. I came here to clear myself; I—I was afraid you must think me a humbug, ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... twin generalizations upon which the edifice of modern Socialism rests. Like the first, and like the practical side of all sound religious teaching, it is a specific application of one general rule of conduct, and that is the subordination of the individual motive to the happiness and welfare of ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... him, and the flooded Oise bereft him of his canoe. "On my tomb, if ever I have one," he wrote, "I mean to get these words inscribed, HE CLUNG TO HIS PADDLE." The paddle he chose was his pen. It was the motive power which forwarded him along the river of life, through shoals and rapids. When but a wee toddling bairn, he drew his nurse aside and commanded her to write, as he had a story to tell. He dictated to his mother, too, when a boy of six, an essay on Moses. ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • E. Blantyre Simpson
... a noisy waltz of Strauss, opening with such a loud and rapid trill that Gedeonovsky was quite startled. In the very middle of the waltz she suddenly passed into a pathetic motive, and finished up with an air from "Lucia" Fra poco... She reflected that lively music was not in keeping with her position. The air from "Lucia," with emphasis on the sentimental passages, ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... the subject with which the present work deals cannot well be over-estimated. Our age may properly be called the Era of Woman, because everything which affects her receives consideration quite unknown in past centuries. This is well. The motive is twofold: First, woman is valued as never before; and, second, it is perceived that the welfare of the other half of the human race depends more largely upon the position enjoyed by ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell
... a sweetener of toil is love! love to a dear earthly parent, and still more love to Christ: there is no drudgery in the most menial employment where that is the motive power. ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... 1914, three days after war had been declared, I sailed from Quebec for England on the first ship that put out from Canada. The trip had been long planned—it was not undertaken from any patriotic motive. My family, which included my father, mother, sister and brother, had been living in America for eight years and had never returned to England together. It was the accomplishing of a dream long cherished, which favourable circumstances and a sudden influx of ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... gentleman! How incredible it seems that such awful crimes can be committed in our quiet neighborhood? who could have been so guilty; and what motive could have prompted such ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... William? To suppose that there could be such inconsistency without dishonesty would be not charity but weakness. Those who were determined to comply with the Act of Parliament would do better to speak out, and to say, what every body knew, that they complied simply to save their benefices. The motive was no doubt strong. That a clergyman who was a husband and a father should look forward with dread to the first of August and the first of February was natural. But he would do well to remember that, however terrible might be the day of suspension and the day of ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... loved him and wanted to please him. There was no wrong in keeping secret what concerned themselves so closely, till he was ready to make it public. Her own dear mother, from whom she had kept nothing in her life, would be the first to understand and appreciate her motive, as she was the most sympathetic woman in the world, and wanted nothing so much as ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... perform, alleging as a reason that the northern department had always been considered a separate command, and that he had never done more than advise. These reasons do not look very weighty or very strong, and it is not quite clear what the underlying motive was. Washington never shrank from responsibility, and he knew very well that he could pick out the best man more unerringly than Congress. But he also saw that Congress favored Gates, whom he would not have chosen, and he therefore probably felt that it was more important to have some one whom ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... was absurd. Then she thought of mentioning, in an off-hand way, that she would like to put some money out at interest, and thus, perhaps, induce Miss Barbara to propose a business transaction. But this would not do. Even Miss Barbara would suspect some concealed motive. Idea after idea came to her, but she could think of no satisfactory plan of getting that ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... as he was descending the St. Lawrence in sight of Montreal, and he lost them with the rest of his effects. What increases the value of the present discovery is, that the original narrative goes much more into detail than the one published by Thevenot. The motive which prompted and the preparations which were made for the expedition are fully described, and no difficulty is found in tracing its route. There is also among the papers an autograph journal by Marquette, of his last voyage from ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... whether he dared seek to make her his own. He was fully as loath as Donald Keith to appear in the role of fortune-hunter. Would Mr. Dinsmore and his daughter, so noble themselves, be ready to impute so unworthy a motive to him? He hoped not, he believed they would judge him by themselves. And they who so fully knew and appreciated all that Violet was must see and believe that no man whose affections were not already engaged could be thrown into intimate association with her day after day, as he had been ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley
... Destiny, and of the grey girl the silhouette of whose hand was imprisoned beneath the brass bowl on his study desk. For by now he was quite satisfied that she and none other had trespassed upon the privacy of his rooms, obtaining access to them in his absence by means as unguessable as her motive. Momentarily he considered taking Bannerman into his confidence; but he questioned the advisability of this: Bannerman was so severely practical in his outlook upon life, while this adventure had been so madly whimsical, ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... "The motive for sacrificing or destroying property on occasion of death will be referred to in treating of their religious ideas. Wailing for the dead is continued for a long time, and seems to be rather a ceremonial performance than an act of spontaneous grief. The duty, of course, belongs ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow
... a look of calm consideration; "somebody did it, undoubtedly; and that makes the difficulty of the whole affair. 'Cui bono,' as the lawyers say. Two persons only could have had any motive, so far as wealth and fortune go. The first and most prominent, your father, who, of course, would come into every thing (which made the suspicion so hot and strong); and the other, a very nice gentleman, whom it is ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... precipitate, and we endeavoured to invest it with a semblance of hypocrisy not usually thought necessary in warfare; but it was in no sense dignified, and only a child, too young to differentiate between right and wrong, could have failed to recognize the true motive which prompted our withdrawal. ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... of Palla's tongue to say something; and she remained silent—lest this man misinterpret her motive—and, perhaps, lest her own conscience ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... slightest clue to guide them. Of course, there was the fact itself, as evidenced by the bodies of the three victims; but the authorities were quite ignorant of the circumstances that had attended and of the motive that had inspired the crime. Certainly, they might hope with the powerful means of investigation at their disposal to finally arrive at the truth in the course of time, and after repeated efforts. ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... different are the conditions between the still air of a room and those of the open sky. His insight into the difficulties of the problem cannot have been less than that of his successor, Coxwell, who, as the result of his own equally wide experience, states positively, "I could never imagine a motive power of sufficient force to direct and guide a balloon, much less to enable a man or a machine to fly." Even when modern invention had produced a motive power undreamed of in the days we are now considering, Coxwell declares his conviction ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... Don Quixote, of Till Eulenspiegel, of Hero's Life, and Elektra. But it may be confessed without much fear of contradiction that for him Wagner is his model—even in Salome, where the head of John the Baptist is chanted to the tune of Donner's motive from Rheingold. ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... if he persist in living he will have to brave many winters in that passage, for he is not an old man. What instinct compels him to bear his dark life? Is he afraid to kill himself? Does this fear spring from physical or from religious motives? Fear of hell? Surely no other motive would enable him ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... publish any unfortunate internal episode that would redound to its discredit. So shocked was he at the assassination of the ruler of Ts'i by an usurping family in 481, that, even at his venerable age, he unsuccessfully counselled instant war against Ts'i. His motive was perhaps doubtful, for the next year we find a pupil of his, then in office, going as a member of the mission to the same usurper in order to try and obtain a cession of territory improperly held. This pupil ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... perceived his reasons for it. I have often amused myself in calculating what his motives were for such and such things, and I generally found them very cogent ones. But Hector had a droll stupidity about him, and took up forms and rules of his own, for which I could never perceive any motive that was not even farther out of the way than the action itself. He had one uniform practice, and a very bad one it was; during the time of family worship, and just three or four seconds before the conclusion of the prayer, he started to his ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... class of the people; and, instead of setting a good example to their men, are leading them into every kind of mischief, one species of which is plundering the inhabitants, under the pretence of their being Tories." To this political motive he himself would not yield, and a sample of his appointments was given when a man was named "because he stands unconnected with either of these Governments; or with this, or that or tother man; for between you and me there is more ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... was already a received doctrine that, when two objects impinge upon one another, the momentum lost by the one is equal to that gained by the other. This proposition it was deemed necessary to preserve, not from the motive (which operates in many other cases) that it was firmly fixed in popular belief; for the proposition in question had never been heard of by any but the scientifically instructed. But it was felt to contain a truth; even ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... died, tell you his intention to do this?" pressed Marie, feeling less interest in the Dutch embalmer's method than in the sinuous motive of a man who could ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... leave to the Public, but now, at all events, you know, kind Reader, that to me, the "Imperatorskoye" appears a noble woman, because she was absolutely faithful to the man she had selected as her mate, through the one motive which makes a ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... perplexed," said Kettle, "seeing that ye know not my motive. The truth is, that I had a plan in my head, which was to enter Harald's service, that I might act the spy on him, and so do my best for one who, all the time I have been in thraldom, has been as kind to me as if he had ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... must face the question of the Colonel's motive in leaving this legacy to his niece, for my aunt's sake. Bear in mind how Lady Verinder treated her brother from the time when he returned to England, to the time when he told you he should remember his niece's birthday. And ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... found himself, to feel the full effects of its danger. The republican sergeant sat immediately in front of him, and each kept his eye fixed on the other's face; not that either of them had any object in doing so, any particular motive for watching the other's countenance, but soon after day-break the gaze of each had become fixed, and it seemed as though neither of them were able ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... the roadbed, and other real estate, rolling stock, and all other personal property whatsoever (except its franchise and the non taxable shares of stock issued by other corporations) in this State, of each railway corporation, whatever its motive power, now or hereafter liable for taxation upon such property, the canal bed and other real estate, the boats and all other personal property whatsoever (except its franchise and the non taxable ...
— Civil Government of Virginia • William F. Fox
... European Protestants, rich or poor, who came within the clutches of the savages that administered the cruelties of the Inquisition. The canting crowd shrieked against the monstrous impiety of such notions, but their efforts to prove purity of motive were unavailing. ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... men who did not agree with him, he never failed to do what he thought was right. His wisdom and justice were so great that, in all these years, the wisest men have found little in the actions of Washington they would change. Jefferson said of him that no motive of interest or friendship or hatred could influence him; "he was in every sense of the word a wise, a good and a ...
— George Washington • Calista McCabe Courtenay
... in red to throw up the white limbs and contours of my models, and this had something to do with it, for hardly any colour shows off white flesh to better advantage, though pale blue in this matter runs it close; but this was not the prompting motive. Rather it was that in England where all is so cold and tame and grey, from morals to colours, I liked to surround myself with this glowing barbaric crimson, ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... that the pecuniary motive was really the motive at the bottom of Anne's journey south. Remembering that Geoffrey's trainers had removed him to the neighborhood of London, he was inclined to doubt whether some serious quarrel had not ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... antenna for the broadcaster, and the rat's tail is the pickup antenna. As long as the rat is crawling right on the rail, only a microscopic amount of power is needed for control, not enough for the Nipe to pick up with his instruments. Each rat carries its own battery for motive power, and there are old copper power cables down there that we can send direct current through to recharge the batteries. And, when we need them, the copper cables can be used as antennas. It took us quite a while to work ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... despite opposition. As he looked through the break of the trees, he saw the masts of a brig lying at anchor off the extremity of the point on which the house was built, and understood that the cottage commanded communication by water as well as by land. Could there be a special motive in choosing such a situation, or was it mere chance? He was uneasy, but ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... Parliament, and they were to move him a vote of thanks, he cried out: 'Fathers and brethren, the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, and you do not know it. For I had a deep, malicious, revengeful motive in my heart behind all my fine and patriotic speeches in Parliament. I hated Montrose more than I loved the freedom of the Kirk. Spare me, therefore, the sentence of putting that act of shame on your books!' It was discoveries like this that accumulated in John Livingstone's ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... be able to show, that a motive of this kind must have operated in the case of these round towers, otherwise "all the antiquarians" could not have been so sadly puzzled about what to the rest of the world appears ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 335 - Vol. 12, No. 335, October 11, 1828 • Various
... Constance should not behave in this very natural manner if she chose to, Marian was about to defend Constance warmly by denying all motive to her return, when that event took place and stopped the discussion. Marian and Nelly spent a considerable part of their lives in bandying their likes and dislikes under the impression that they were arguing important ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... however, were by no means the chief motive of the Jesuits in founding their journal, and the controversial character began soon to preponderate in their articles. Protestant writers received but little mercy in the pages of the "Journal de Trevoux," and the battle was soon raging in every country of Europe between ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... some work as nurse. Beginning casually to help on an urgent case, she went on to other cases, training herself, learning to take his place wherever she could. She thought to come closer to him in this way, but she suspected that he understood her motive, that her work did not seem quite sincere to him. She was looking ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... flung Upon the homage Sanpeur rendered her Unworthy jest and spiteful words, for well He hated him with grudge despiteous. Full oft his wrath was roused to such a point He could not hold his peace; even to the King He jeered one day at visionary knights. The keen-eyed King, with intuition, knew The motive of his speech,—"Our knight, Sanpeur, But contradicts your verdict, Torm, and proves That which the great King Arthur taught,—the man Is strongest who can claim a strength divine From whence to draw his own." Sir Torm had grown More wrathful in his heart at this, and kept Sanpeur ...
— Under King Constantine • Katrina Trask
... Home Rule to an infatuation such as that suggested above, would certainly have the air of implying that the writer thought the Home Rule doctrine a peculiar or untenable one. Similarly, Browning's choice of a motive for Strafford has very much the air of an assumption that there was nothing to be said on public grounds for Strafford's political ideal. Now this is certainly not the case. The Puritans in the great struggles of the reign of Charles I. may have possessed ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... the exact repetition, at the foot of Eva's bed, of the shape pendulous at the foot of his was hardly enough to account for the fixity with which he envisaged it, and for which he was to find, some years later, a motive in the (as it turned out) hardly generous fear that Eva had already made the great investigation "on her own." Her very regular breathing presently reassured him that, if she had peeped into "her" stocking, she must have done so in sleep. Whether he should wake her now, or wait for their nurse ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... Mlle. Percillie, Auguste's mistress, that statements to this effect had been made in her presence by both Auguste Ballet and himself, he said that it was not true; that he had never been to her house. "What motive," he was asked, "could Mlle. Percillie have for accusing you?" "She hated me," was the reply, "because I had tried to separate Auguste from her." Castaing denied that he had driven with Auguste to Lebret's office on October 8. Asked to explain his sudden possession of 100,000 ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... conceive, why, in this primitive state, one man should have more occasion for the assistance of another, than one monkey, or one wolf for that of another animal of the same species; or supposing that he had, what motive could induce another to assist him; or even, in this last case, how he, who wanted assistance, and he from whom it was wanted, could agree among themselves upon the conditions. Authors, I know, are ...
— A Discourse Upon The Origin And The Foundation Of - The Inequality Among Mankind • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... during the last four years of his power was not without some influence on my prompt submission to the Government which succeeded his. I, however, declare that this consideration was not the sole nor the most powerful motive of my conduct. Only those who were in Paris at the period of the capitulation can form an idea of the violence of party feeling which prevailed there both for and against Napoleon, but without the name of the Bourbons ever ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... world remained to be discovered, Peter felt that it must be in the North Pacific. When it is recalled that Spain was supposed to have found in Peru temples lined with gold, floors paved with silver, and pearls readily exchanged in bucketfuls for glass beads, it can be realized that the motive for discovery was not merely scientific. It was one that actuated princes and merchants alike. And Peter the Great had an additional motive—the development of his country's merchant shipping. It was this that had induced him ...
— Pioneers of the Pacific Coast - A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters • Agnes C. Laut
... mark if this change in domestic matters would continue. To my surprise, and, I am ashamed to say, not altogether to my gratification, I found that it did continue. I was suspicious as to the motive and reason for this change, and therefore not satisfied. So I took the improvement in my poor wife's temper and conduct very surlily; the real fact being, I now believe, that I was inwardly vexed by being forced to feel that she was showing ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... body of the French nobility and the middle class of citizens were reduced to a servile attendance on the court, as the only means of advancement and reward. Every species of industry and merit in these classes was sedulously discouraged; and the motive of honorable competition for honorable things, being withdrawn, no pursuit or occupation was left them but the frivolous duties, or the degrading pleasures ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... but unhappily they had forgotten wine; this forgetfulness was by no means astonishing to girls who seldom drank any, but I was sorry for the omission, as I had reckoned on its help, thinking it might add to my confidence. They were sorry likewise, and perhaps from the same motive; though I have no reason to say this, for their lively and charming gayety was innocence itself; besides, there were two of them, what could they expect from me? they went everywhere about the neighborhood ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... from the spurious productions ascribed to the same age, plead strongly in their favour as trustworthy witnesses. The writer makes no lofty pretensions as a Roman bishop; he speaks of himself simply as at the head of an humble presbytery; and it would be difficult to divine the motive which could have tempted an impostor to fabricate such unpretending compositions. Though given as the veritable Epistles of Pius by the highest literary authorities of Borne, they are certainly ill calculated to prop up ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... know, further, that the same methods continued to be followed by the Romans until they passed beyond the confines of Italy, and began to reduce foreign kingdoms and States to provinces: as plainly appears in the fact that Capua was the first city to which they sent a praetor, and him from no motive of ambition, but at the request of the Capuans themselves who, living at variance with one another, thought it necessary to have a Roman citizen in their town who might restore unity and good order among them. Influenced by this example, and urged by ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... beginning of the second third of the nineteenth century, the issue as to American slavery was distinctly drawn, and the leading parties to it had taken their positions. Let us try to understand the motive and ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... helix, and the paddle-wheel constitute at present the means of propulsion that are exclusively employed when one has recourse to a motive power for effecting the propulsion of a boat. The sail constitutes an entirely different mode, and should not figure in our enumeration, considering the essentially variable character of the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 415, December 15, 1883 • Various
... The blind not only seek for partners in life, but are sometimes sought by seeing persons; and numerous instances have occurred within my knowledge. It is true, that despair of success in any other quarter, or an equally unworthy motive, may induce some to seek for partners among the blind, or the blind to unite with the blind; but still, ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... ignition of internal-combustion engines (p. 101) to the induction coil. This is a device for increasing the voltage, or pressure, of a current. The two-cell accumulator carried in a motor car gives a voltage (otherwise called electro-motive force E.M.F.) of 4.4 volts. If you attach a wire to one terminal of the accumulator and brush the loose end rapidly across the other terminal, you will notice that a bright spark passes between the wire and the terminal. In reality ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... partly inclosed by screen-work, or annexed to a church, a transept, or an additional chapel, endowed as a chantry, in order that remembrance might be specially and continually made of them in the offices of the church, according to the then prevailing usage; which chantries having been abolished, one motive for church-building ...
— The Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture, Elucidated by Question and Answer, 4th ed. • Matthew Holbeche Bloxam
... spectator to be truly prophetic, as the later peace movement showed, in seeking a motive for the U-53's proceedings. It considered that Germany sought to force the United States to propose peace terms, regardless of whether the Entente Allies were ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... often defended the lives and fortunes of his fellow-citizens, was rewarded with legacies to the amount of a hundred and seventy thousand pounds; [108] nor do the friends of the younger Pliny seem to have been less generous to that amiable orator. [109] Whatever was the motive of the testator, the treasury claimed, without distinction, the twentieth part of his estate: and in the course of two or three generations, the whole property of the subject must have gradually passed through ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... house. It was now that he was induced to make his will, and this by an agency so singular as to deserve being mentioned. The Rev. Mr. Whittle broached the subject one day, not with any interested motive of course, but simply because the "meeting-house" wanted some material repairs, and there was a debt on the congregation that it might be a pleasure to one who had long stood in the relation to it that Deacon Pratt filled, to pay off, ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... he exclaimed. "I don't know jest what the motive of that swab is, but I know he was lying from first to last." Ruth was sobbing, and could not speak, but her little hand stole into the young man's, and ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... was drawing her gently toward him. Then he bent his head until it was close to hers, and his breath was upon her cheek as it had been that other night—and the longing to know that it was hers, a caress, pure in its motive, hers, snatched out of all that had gone before that sought to rob her of the right to ever know it, fascinated her, held her spellbound, possessed her. Closer his lips came to hers, closer, until they touched her—and then, with a cry, she sprang ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... were not likely to come along during the storm. Jennie slept while Duane watched. The saving of this girl meant more to him than any task he had ever assumed. First it had been partly from a human feeling to succor an unfortunate woman, and partly a motive to establish clearly to himself that he was no outlaw. Lately, however, had come a different sense, a strange one, with something personal and ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... will tell you, as briefly as I can, the whole of what I have to say; but you'll excuse me also in a previous question, for what curiosity is not my motive; but it is necessary to be answered before I can proceed; as you will judge when you ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... "What possible motive!"—he said. "For it is evident that the shot was fired of intent, and evident that you yourself think so. ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... child from poverty and nameless degradation, ignorance, and a sordid life hopeless of better fortune, and opening to him the whole realm of mighty possibilities in an American life—did not imply any love for the little individual whom he thus benefited. It had some other motive. ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of the field, the dooryard, and the home interior, and range from the happiest to the most sombre subjects. They show also considerable variety in artistic motive and composition, and taken together fairly represent the scope ...
— Jean Francois Millet • Estelle M. Hurll
... satisfied with such a conclusion. It offers him none of that aspect of personality which his yearnings demand. This infinite, and eternal, and universal is no intellect at all. It is passionless, without motive, without design. It does not answer to those lineaments of which he catches a glimpse when he considers the attributes of his own soul. He shudderingly turns from Pantheism, this final result of human philosophy, and, voluntarily retracing his steps, subordinates his ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... man replied; "and let me tell you further that this match is not one subservient to the ends of utility or profit; for, were such the motive, the very end would be defeated. Dorothy must love the man she marries, with all her heart and soul; and you can readily understand, ostracized as we are, how difficult it has been to find such ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... have need of it to save herself, for the stragglers in her wake were now impelled by a more dangerous motive than mere curiosity or mischief. The cry of "Witch" had awakened cruel depths in their breasts, and they pressed forward in close ranks with less noise ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... himself to the safe with all the pain which walking caused him, the wounded man must have been impelled by some strong and unusual motive. It couldn't be that he had suspected Wilson and Jo of theft, because, in the first place, he must have seen at a glance that the safe was undisturbed; and in the second, that they had not taken advantage of their opportunity for ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... half-mile that lay between the station and her house on her own brisk feet, and sent on her maid and her luggage in the fly that her husband had ordered to meet her. After those four hours in the train a short walk would be pleasant, but, though she veiled it from her conscious mind, another motive, sub-consciously engineered, prompted her action. It would, of course, be universally known to all her friends in Riseholme that she was arriving today by the 12.26, and at that hour the village street would be sure to be full of them. They would see the fly ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... and Margaret Rodgers are instances of a singular providence; for they did confess, the same morning that the court did last sit, of their own proper motive, their being neither ministers nor judges beside them ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... to lay hands upon her. At first she thought that they wished to tear her to pieces in revenge for her having slain two of their fellows, but presently she realized that they were prompted more by curiosity than by any sinister motive. ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... case with the word motive, in speaking of human volitions. A motive power in mechanics is one that produces motion; and hence the application of the word to the occasion or reason of any particular act of choice, with the all but inevitable fallacy of confounding the idea of a mechanical force with that of an influence upon the mind. That there is ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... her domestics and friends, despatched a messenger to her husband, to request that a servant might be sent to her with one of the asses, for the purpose of going to pay a visit to the man of God. As she had not told him the motive of this sudden determination, he remonstrated, because it was "neither new moon nor sabbath," that is, neither the usual time of secular or sacred journeys. [47] He was, however, easily satisfied when she intimated that she had a good ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... than by voluntary contribution, or in the hands of paid public officials, can never have the spirit of charity nor be correctly called a charity. Boston's public charitable institutions, so called, are not charities at all; the motive is not sympathy, but necessity. The money for the support of paupers is not paid with benevolent intentions by the tax-payers, nor do the inmates of almshouses so receive it. I have been engaged in gathering statistics, and have found sixty-three per cent of all persons who applied for assistance ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... Her motive was to gain time, and if possible to obtain the opportunity of shifting the money from the place where she had first put it into another and safer one. "I want to be able," she thought, "of swearing that I have no money with me in this house. If I can only get it ...
— Midnight In Beauchamp Row - 1895 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... incensed. He is the more keenly hurt when his most sacred feelings are suddenly outraged. Finish off his equipment with a hot, passionate temper, and his resentment is likely to strike as blindly and as effectively as a bolt from a surcharged thunder-cloud. It is the motive that either palliates or makes the crime. A moment's previous reflection often stays the hand from a deed which a lifetime of after regret can ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... have therefore an eternal and unchangeable being; they are on the extremest verge of the universe, and corresponding to them at the centre is another fiery sphere, which, itself unmoved, is the cause of all motion and generation in the mixed region between. The motive and procreative power, sometimes called Love, is at other times called by Parmenides Necessity, Bearer of the Keys, Justice, ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... turn to shake his head. "Your guess is as good as mine. There are a lot of angles to this case none of us understand. It looks deliberate, but where's the motive?" ...
— The Ultroom Error • Gerald Allan Sohl
... of his estate. Nor was Daniel Granger slow to take advantage of his urbane humour. For some reason or other, that gentleman was keenly desirous of acquiring Mr. Lovel's friendship. It might be the commoner's slavish worship of ancient race, it might be some deeper motive, that influenced him, but about the fact itself there could be no doubt. The master of Arden was eager to place his coverts, his park, his library, his hot-houses, his picture-gallery—everything that he possessed—at the feet of his ruined neighbour. Yet ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... envied songster. Ambitious of song, practising and rehearsing in private, she yet seems the least sincere and genuine of the sylvan minstrels, as if she had taken up music only to be in the fashion, or not to be outdone by the Robins and Thrushes. In other words, she seems to sing from some outward motive, and not from inward joyousness. She is a good versifier, but not a great poet. Vigorous, rapid, copious, not without fine touches, but destitute of any high, serene melody, her performance, like that of Thoreau's squirrel, always ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... his house, and learn how he made such perfect imitations, eh? Was that your motive, instead of having ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter
... give it up at the moment it can be of the most use to us?" and she threw a glance at her daughters that would have discovered her motive to Mrs Wilson, which was lost on her son; he, poor soul, thinking she found it convenient to support the interest he had been making for the place held by his father one of more emolument than service, or even honor. The contending parties were so equally matched, that this situation was ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... as few women would have dared to take—deliberately setting an example of new liberty—her position in the eyes of all who knew her remained one of proud independence. Rhoda's character was specially exposed to the temptation of such a motive. For months this argument had been in her mind, again and again she decided that the sensational step was preferable to a commonplace renunciation of all she had so vehemently preached. And now that the moment of actual choice had come she felt able to dare everything—as far as the danger ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... solidly, upon itself. These men are deaf to the symphony of the Silences; blind to the horizonless areas of the Unknown; unresponsive to the touch of the Impalpable; oblivious to the machinery of the Moral Universe—in a word, indifferent to the mysterious Motive of Nature's all-pervading Soul. In such mental organisms, opinion, once deflected tangentially from the central Truth, acquires an independent and stubborn orbit of its own. But the Absolute Truth is so large, and human opinion ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... the class of persons who seem to be capable, and who really are, except where their own personal safety or comfort is concerned. They always have a reason and an answer, simply because others do not take the trouble to fathom the motive for this sacrifice. Dorothy had determined to find Tavia, and whatever her excuses, they were all subservient ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... error, I find my burden a heavy one; and notwithstanding the quiet of conscience I gain, if it weren't for the salary, I'd quit to-morrow, Al, danged if I wouldn't. It makes me tired to have even you sort of hint that I'm actuated by some selfish motive, when, in truth and in fact, I live but to gather widows and orphans under my wing, so to speak, and give second husbands a good start, by means of policies written on the only true plan, combining participation in profits with pure ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... not myself find such charges excessive. From a very different motive, Nemours put me as much out of temper as it had done my great predecessor a hundred years before. Will it be believed that a town memorialized by the great, perhaps the greatest, French novelist, could not produce its title of honour, in other words a copy ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... ingenious as brazen. As a matter of fact, Macpherson had found only an insignificant portion of his extensive work in popular ballads; and what little he had found he had expanded and changed out of all semblance to genuine ancient legend. Both the guiding motive of his prose-poem (it is his as truly as King Lear is Shakespeare's), and the furore of welcome which greeted it, may be understood by recalling the position of the sentimental school on the eve of its appearance. The sentimentalists ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... mirror. "I'm sunburnt enough to look like a Sikh." And a feeling of bitter resentment was growing against him now, stronger than I had felt before, knowing as I did that in spite of his kindness, and the friendly feeling he professed, he was moved by the strong motive of making me his most ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... the motive of which is nothing but affection or sympathy, may be deserving of moral approbation and really good, who that has ever had a dog of his own will deny that animals are capable of such actions? Mr. Mivart indeed says:—"It may ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... they escape? Separate as soon as possible, and scatter in all directions, make their way to small, isolated places, change their appearance as much as possible, and each shift for himself. To remain together increases the risk of capture for each and all. There must be some powerful motive to make them take such risks. Such men risk nothing except for money. But there are no banks here to be looted, no strangers to be waylaid in dark alleys, not even a blind ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... tother for one. When Noah cust Ham he laid the foundashens uv Dimocrisy. Ham wuz turned into a nigger because Noah got intoxicated. His misfortune originated with wine; and whisky, wich is the modern substitoot therefor, bein the motive power uv Dimocrisy, hez bin persekutin him ever sence. I attriboot the decline uv the Dimocrisy to the bleachin out uv the Afrikin, and that's why I oppose amalgamashen. Yoo can't hate a mulatter only half ez much ez yoo kin ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... reliance; and when he addressed a few words to them, before they closed with the enemy, he knew how to suggest the most effectual encouragement in a situation so new to them all. To the miners, he appealed by their honour and spirit as Cornishmen; a motive which the feelings of his own bosom told him would, above all things, animate theirs. Probably there is no place where local pride prevails so strongly as in the west of Cornwall. The lower classes, employed for the most part in pursuits which require the constant ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... from North America are generally posthumous, and we can prove nothing as to their origin. Were they marks of honor made in some religious rite? Were they openings to allow the spirit of the departed to revisit the body it had abandoned? or, to suggest a far more worldly and revolting motive, were they merely holes through which to pick out the brains of the dead. A missionary, in a letter dated from Fort Pitt (Canada) in 1880, describes the mode of scalping practised by the Redskins, and says that they often take a round piece of skull as well ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... world's redemption rests upon the relationship which the Christian is able to create between himself and his oppressor. This course has nothing in common with resistance; it is the opposite of surrender, for its whole purpose and motive is the triumphing over evil by acceptance of all that it brings.... The resistance of evil, whether by way of violence or 'non-violence' is the way of this world. Resignation to evil is the way of weak surrender, and yields only a powerless resentment; ...
— Introduction to Non-Violence • Theodore Paullin
... be right, though I am unwilling to believe it. Her judgment is entitled to the more weight in this severe decision, that it is ever inclined to the side of a too favorable opinion of character and motive. You know her nature too well, to believe her capable of exaggerating the faults of even the humblest. Yet, though such are her apprehensions, she manifests the same calm and even carriage as on the approach of more ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... the white people of this country. In all his education and feeling he was an American of the Americans. He came into the Presidential chair upon one principle alone, namely, opposition to the extension of slavery. His arguments in furtherance of this policy had their motive and mainspring in his patriotic devotion to the interests of his own race. To protect, defend, and perpetuate slavery in the States where it existed Abraham Lincoln was not less ready than any other President to draw the sword of the nation. He was ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... came from God, who had chosen her for His prophetess, and when Joshua, in passionate excitement, owned that the longing for her was his principal motive for toiling for the people, who were as unknown to him as they were dear to her, her heart suddenly seemed to stop beating and, in her mortal agony, she could not help ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... domestic life. The woman, therefore, as well as the man in a corresponding class of life, would be under the necessity of performing certain duties at certain times according to circumstances. This may be a motive for not giving her the preference in an election, but it cannot be a reason for legal exclusion. Gallantry would doubtless lose by the change, but domestic customs would be improved by equality in this ...
— The First Essay on the Political Rights of Women • Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat Condorcet
... will be surprised at receiving a letter from the frontier, my motive for writing is this. I am a mountaineer—that is a trapper a good many years ago I met with your father Horace Greely on the plains, and greatly admired the old gentleman. The way I came to make ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... him when I am dead, and if he turns from the Lord and seeks the pleasures of the world, my heart sickens. I meant it for the best when I brought him with me up to the Holy Mountain, but that was not the only motive—it seemed to me too hard to part altogether from the child. My God! the young of brutes are secure of their mother's faithful love, and his never asked for him when she fled from my house with her seducer. I thought he should at least not lose his father, and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... than one, who truly estimates the importance of her station. A man, who feels that the destinies of a nation are turning on the judgement and skill with which he plans and executes, has a pressure of motive, and an elevation of feeling, which are great safeguards from all that is low, trivial, ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... to reconcile all the improbabilities of its being so: the substitution of another, after the real shell had been burnt in the castle-court, may do credit to those who cherish the hero's name; always provided no less generous motive induced the act; but the tale told to prove its identity is, ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... soul, but he was not content with this. On the receipt of my letter, he had taken a new house only to give up the best part of it to me. No doubt he calculated on not losing in the long run, as after I had left he would probably have no difficulty in letting the apartment, but his chief motive was to oblige me. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... simplicity, in unwise goodness of heart? If Don Ippolito were altogether self-deceived, and nothing but her unknowing pity had given him grounds of hope? He himself had suggested this to the priest, and how with a different motive he looked at it in his own behalf. A great load began slowly to lift itself from Ferris's heart, which could ache now for this most unhappy priest. But if his conjecture were just, his duty would be different. He must not coldly acquiesce ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... avoidance of chaos: he cultivates habits by the clock, he forms committees, governments, hierarchies, laws, constitutions, by which (as he hopes) a system of society will work in tune. But these are childish imitations, underplay on the great motive: ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... Ashburnhams wanted especially to go there and I didn't especially want to go there myself. But, you understand, there was no objection. It was part of the cure to make an excursion three or four times a week. So that we were all quite unanimous in being grateful to Florence for providing the motive power. Florence, of course, had a motive of her own. She was at that time engaged in educating Captain Ashburnham—oh, of course, quite pour le bon motif! She used to say to Leonora: "I simply can't understand how you can let him live by your side and be so ignorant!" Leonora ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... the Place de la Concorde, and up the Champs Elysees as far as the Arc de Triomphe; this is the route I take in going. Arrived at the arch, I cross over, and come back by the same roads, but on the other side of the way. I have a motive in this. There is a certain second-hand book-shop on the opposite side of the Boulevard des Italiens, which draws me by a wholly irresistible attraction. Had I started on that side, I should have gone no further. I should have looked, lingered, purchased, and gone home to read. ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... regarded it as a mode of warning, had claimed for it a certain ethical efficacy in the formation of character, had praised it as something that taught us what to follow and showed us what to avoid. But there was no motive power in experience. It was as little of an active cause as conscience itself. All that it really demonstrated was that our future would be the same as our past, and that the sin we had done once, and with loathing, we would do ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... one of the desperate design, the other of the exhausted body; while in the knit brow, and the iron lines, and even in the settled ferocity of expression, there was yet something above the stamp of the vulgar ruffian,—something eloquent of the motive no less than the deed, and significant of that not ignoble perversity of mind which diminished the guilt, yet increased the dreadness of the meditated crime, by mocking it ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... welcome, unless the husband is particularly anxious to get into hot water, and commit suicide upon his domestic happiness; for nothing so effectually disturbs the tranquillity of a family, as open opposition of religious creeds. Women become religious, in the every-day acceptation of the word, from any motive rather than a conviction of the truth or reasonableness of any particular creed. It would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to define the motive that carries women into the pale of any particular church. I have heard of an old lady, ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... expectation of thee! Without doubt, we may all go there under the pretext of supervising our cattle stations, for, O monarch, it is proper that kings should frequently repair to their cattle stations. If this be the motive put forth, thy father, O prince, will certainly grant thee permission!' And while Duryodhana and Karna were thus conversing laughingly, Sakuni addressed them and said, 'This plan, free from difficulties, was what I also saw for going ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... was what happened in Orbajosa, for in those days there were no glorious deeds to celebrate, nor was there any motive for weaving wreaths or tracing triumphal inscriptions, or even for making mention of the exploits of our brave soldiers, for which reason all was fear and suspicion in the episcopal city, which, although poor, did not lack treasures in ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... some of the readers of the Journal are unfamiliar with the idea of the home library. In a few words, this is its motive and its plan: To help the children of the poor in developing and ennobling their lives by giving them books and ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... occurred, but he said little; he could not agree in any praise of Mr Slope, and it was not his practice to say much evil of any one. He did not, however, like the visit, and simple-minded as he was, he felt sure that Mr Slope had some deeper motive than the mere pleasure of making soft speeches ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... of my experience both in city and country, I feel—yes, I know—that the real motive power of this democracy lies back in the little country neighbourhoods like ours where men gather in dim schoolhouses and practice the invisible patriotism of ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... guess it's a case of the pot and the kettle. I'm not blaming your girl overmuch; although a bad woman is always worse than a bad man. In this case, Elizabeth acted from hate, and Blair from love; the result is the same, of course, but one motive is worse than the other. But never mind that—Blair has got her, and he will be faithful to her; for a while, anyhow. And Elizabeth will get used to him—that's Nature, and Nature is bigger than a girl's first fancy. So if David doesn't interfere—you think he won't? you don't know ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... "The motive," cried Tom, "that may be easily explained; and I doubt not but you will find, although it may at present appear a little mysterious, Sparkle will be fully able to shew cause and produce effect. He is however a man of honour and of property, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... for the most part without any ennobling conception of their calling. They were much given to gluttony and drinking; and there was an unthinkable amount of scandal and backbiting and jealousy. But it was only by degrees that he realized this, for he had one great motive in common with them—they were all possessed with a sense of the greatness of the Lockmans, and none of them wanted anything better than to talk for hours about the family and its wealth and power, and the habits and tastes of ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... said. "I don't want to put you out. I am really not a vulgar, greedy doctor pushing myself into a case with which I have no concern, for some self-interested motive. I can assure you that I have more than enough to do with illness in London and should be thankful to escape from it here. ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... continued their depredations, heedless of the orders communicated to them by the English commissioners. They carried their raids up to the walls of Sarlat, even at the time of vintage, although this season was much respected in the Middle Ages by violent men, from a motive that was perhaps not disinterested. They seized the bullocks that were harnessed to the waggons, and bore them off to their strongholds. It is but fair to add, however, that the Sarladais did not formally submit to ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... manners should not be shallow and superficial. Lord Chesterfield says that the motive that makes one wish to be polite is a desire to shine among his fellows and to raise one's self into a society supposed to be better than his own. It is unnecessary to state that Lord Chesterfield's good manners, fine as they appear, ...
— The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman
... tempers!" thought Jeanne, impatiently. Her plans seemed to be thwarted when she least expected it. For a few moments she was silent, revolving in her mind the wisdom of taking Victorine into her counsels, and confiding to her the motive she had for wishing her to be seen by Willan Blaycke. But she dreaded lest this might defeat her object by making the girl self-conscious. Jeanne was perplexed; and in her perplexity her face took on an expression as if she were grieved. Victorine, ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... situate about half a mile from the old hall, now in ruins; but covered all over, within and without, with emblems of the Trinity. This lodge is known to have been built by Sir Thomas Tresham; but his precise motive for selecting this mode of illustrating his favourite doctrine was unknown until it appeared from a letter written by himself about the year 1584, and discovered in a bundle of books and papers inclosed, since 1605, in a wall in the old mansion, and brought to light about twenty ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 213, November 26, 1853 • Various
... have said, neither miraculous nor difficult of comprehension. In the first place, the sudden change in the direction of the vital energy (which, whatever view we take of it and its origin, is acknowledged by all schools of philosophy as most recondite, and as the motive power) must produce results of some kind. In the second, Theosophy shows, as we said before, that a man consists of several men pervading each other, and on this view (although it is very difficult ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... flaw in its construction. He imagined a perpetual circulation of combustible materials, alternately surrendering and regaining chemical energy, the round being kept going by the motive force of the sun's rotation.[1160] This, however, was merely to perch the globe upon a tortoise, while leaving the tortoise in the air. The sun's rotation contains a certain definite amount of mechanical power—enough, according to Lord Kelvin, if directly converted into heat, to ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... but long to thank the Superior and Sister Constance, and to obtain Dr. Lee's advice as to future management. Her coming was great joy to Cherry, who had dreaded the meeting almost with a sense of guilt, though still hoping Felix had been silent on her motive; and Wilmet did not betray him, but only treated her sister with a mixture of almost shy tenderness and reverence. Nor did Cherry dare to ask a question as to Wilmet's own affairs, nor even about Ferdinand Travis, lest she ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and girls of to-day are the newspaper writers and readers of the future, and the habits which young writers form cling to them afterwards. Of course many of the faults which the worse kind of journalists commit in writing would not occur to boys and girls; but one fault leads to another. The motive at the root of most poor and showy writing is the desire to "shine." The faults which seem so detestable to the critical reader seem very ingenious and brilliant to the writer of poor taste. To the journalist, as ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill
... CHESTERTON'S fancy, is not a fellow of panther-like physique. For him no sudden pouncing on the frayed carpet-edge, or the broken collar-stud dyed with gore. He carries no lens and no revolver. Flashes of psychological insight are more to him than a meticulous examination of the window-sill. When the motive is instantly transparent, why bother about the murderer's boots? In the circumstances it is perhaps fortunate for the reverend sleuth that he nearly always happens to be in either at the death or immediately after it, instead of being summoned ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 18, 1914 • Various
... be one of his family, travelling alone for accomplishment of a vow, or left behind by some accident, to whom, therefore, it would be but right and prudent to use every civility in his power, especially as she seemed unacquainted with the Lowland tongue. Such at least was the only motive the Sacristan was ever known to assign for his courtesy; if there was any other, I once more refer it to his ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... King of Sicily. She was taken prisoner in the battle of Tewkesbury, and immediately committed, to the Tower, from which she was ransomed by Louis the Eleventh, of France. This King, however, who was never known to forget himself, and act otherwise than selfishly, had a very different motive than humanity for this apparent generosity: having gained possession of the person of Margaret, he immediately rendered her his own prisoner, and caused her father to be informed that if he wished to ransom her, he must give up all his hereditary ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... that the greatest characters are those who flatter themselves the most in the comparisons they draw between themselves and others, between others and themselves. It may perhaps be asked what was Madame's motive for an attack so skillfully conceived and executed. Why was there such a display of forces, if it were not seriously her intention to dislodge the king from a heart that had never been occupied before, ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... more descriptive of the manner and matter of the Poems—I might indeed have called the majority of them Sonnets—but they do not possess that oneness of thought which I deem indispensible (sic) in a Sonnet—and (not a very honorable motive perhaps) I was fearful that the title "Sonnet" might have reminded my reader of the Poems of the Rev. W. L. Bowles—a comparison with whom would have sunk me below that mediocrity, on the surface of which I am ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... might be paying for the privilege of hunting in another man's territory. A less experienced man would have been strongly tempted to the more direct question. But Sam knew that the faintest hint of ulterior motive would not be lost on the Indian's sharp perceptions. An inquiry, carelessly and indirectly made, might do no harm. But then again it might. And it was better to lose two years of time in the search than a single grain of confidence ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... it was to be a trading community pure and simple, with its object frankly to make money. Second, it was to be composed of men without families and familiar with hardship. And third, there was no religious motive or bond. That such an unidealistic enterprise should not flourish on American soil is worth noting. The disorderly, thriftless rabble, picked up from the London streets, soon got into trouble with the ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... causes or beginnings. The Soul is the centre of your being,—the compass of your life-journey,—the pivot round which, whether you will or not, you shape your actions in this world for the next. If you lose that mainspring of motive, you lose all. Your conduct, your speech, your expression in every movement and feature all show the ungoverned and ungovernable condition in which you are. God is not mocked,—and in many cases,—taking the grand majority of the human ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... enterprise of the kind in which the State concerns itself. It would have been a perfectly proper aspiration on the part of French statesmen to seek for opportunities of development in a region as yet scarcely touched by European energy. But there is no more reason for attributing this motive to Bonaparte in 1800, than to the Ministers of Louis XV and Louis XVI, or to the Government of France during the Revolution: and that ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... Jehovah,' and in yet another aspect is expressed in saying 'God is love,' viz. the thought which sounds familiar, but which has in it depths of strength and illumination and joy, if we rightly ponder it, that, to use human words, the motive of the divine action is all found ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... weeded out the over privileged and we have not effectively lifted up the underprivileged. Both of these manifestations of injustice have retarded happiness. No wise man has any intention of destroying what is known as the profit motive; because by the profit motive we mean the right by work to earn a decent livelihood for ourselves and ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... gentlemen, or to gain your silence, by practising upon your feelings. Be silent. I am not the less ruined, not the less disgraced, not the less utterly undone. Be silent; my honour, all the same, in four-and-twenty hours, has gone for ever. I have no motive, then, to deceive you. You must believe what I speak; even what I speak, the most degraded of men. I say again, never, never, never, never, never was my honour before sullied, though guilty of a thousand follies. You see before you, gentlemen, the unhappy victim of circumstances; of circumstances ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... wanting in what, in some ways, is the most characteristic verse of our time, especially that of our secondary poets. In your own pieces, particularly in your MS. 'A Revenge,' I find Rossetti's requirement fulfilled, and should anticipate great things from one who has the talent of conceiving his motive with so much firmness and tangibility—with that close logic, if I may say so, which is an element in any genuinely imaginative process. It is clear to me that you aim at this, and it is what gives your verses, to my mind, great interest. ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons |
