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Unsought

adjective
1.
Not desired.  Synonym: undesired.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Unsought" Quotes from Famous Books



... willow arch, and tried to analyze not only the power he had over her, but also the man himself. "I have claimed to papa that I am a woman, and I should act like one," she thought. A few things grew plain. Her interest in Burt had been a purely natural growth, the unsought result of association with one who had proved congenial. He was so handsome, so companionable, so vital with spirit and mirthfulness, that his simple presence was exhilarating, and he had won his influence like the sun in spring-time. ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe

... contain?" asked Kilshaw. He was annoyed at this unsought publicity, but he saw at once that he must ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope

... Rosmer and fair Ellenlyle, What time the blood-crow's flight was south, Bearing a man's leg in its mouth. Though rough and rude, those strains are rife Of things kin to immortal life, Which touch the heart and tinge the cheek, As deeply as divinest Greek. In simple words and unsought rhyme, Give me ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow

... attempts (of which several had been made in Ireland) at a republication. It is proper that I should state, that the persons with whom I was subsequently acquainted, whose names had occurred in that publication, were made my acquaintances at their own desire, or through the unsought intervention of others. I never, to the best of my knowledge, sought a personal introduction to any. Some of them to this day I know only by correspondence; and with one of those it was begun by myself, in consequence, however, of a polite verbal ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... of hours when I was young, And happiness arose unsought; When she, the whispering woods among, ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun

... The wish must not be father to the thought. She must be sure that she is beloved and desired. She must throw out the most delicate feelers, so sensitive that they will at once detect coldness, and withdraw into the shell of her reserve. She must not offer herself unsought. She may not fling herself into the arms ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux

... I'm resolved to search for thee: The search itself rewards the pains. So though the chymist his great secret miss, (For neither it in art nor nature is) Yet things well worth his toil he gains; And does his charge and labour pay With good unsought experiments ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... From my fate there's no retreating— Love commands, and I obey; How with joy my heart is beating At the fortunes of to-day! Life is filled with strange romances— Love is blind, the poets say; When he comes unsought, the chance is Of his ...
— Poems • George P. Morris

... a change has wrought That you so frankly speak Of "seeking" honors once unsought Because you "scorned ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce

... alien Sedley interpose, To lard with wit thy hungry Epsom prose. And when false flowers of rhetorick thou would'st cull, Trust Nature, do not labour to be dull; But write thy best, and top; and, in each line, Sir Formal's oratory will be thine: Sir Formal, though unsought, attends thy quill, And does thy Northern Dedications fill. Nor let false friends seduce thy mind to fame, By arrogating Jonson's hostile name. Let father Flecknoe fire thy mind with praise, And uncle Ogleby thy envy raise. Thou art my ...
— English Satires • Various

... last, his passion had begun to fold its wings, and he grew dimly aware of a beating at the door of the solitary chamber in which he sat. He knew nothing of the enormity of which he was guilty—presenting unsought the city of Antwerp with a glorious phantasia. He did not know that only upon grand, solemn, world-wide occasions, such as a king's birthday or a ball at the Hotel de Ville, was such music on the card. When he flung the door to, it had closed with a spring lock, and for the ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald

... agency of such men as Moffat and his like that the contact of the white and black races can be anything but a curse to the blacks. It is the missionary alone who seeks nothing for himself. He has chosen an unselfish life. If honour comes to him, it is by no choice of his own, but as the unsought tribute which others, as it were, force upon him. Robert Moffat has died in the fullness both of years and honours. His work has been to lay the foundations of the Church in the central regions of South Africa. As far as his influence ...
— Robert Moffat - The Missionary Hero of Kuruman • David J. Deane

... 1882, under the auspices of the Dartmouth College Alumni Association, among other able addresses, one by Hon. Edward S. Tobey was especially remarkable for the evidence produced as to Mr. Webster's religious opinions, which, unsought, had come to his knowledge during a period of forty years. Mr. Tobey, upon request, used the material facts of this address in the preparation of an article for this Magazine. In this connection it is of interest to recall the fact that Mr. Tobey united ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various

... boy, and you have your warmth, your happiness, your joy, unspeakable joy, the most supreme joy possible to a human being, and you are too lazy to reach out your hand. Why, another man would toil night and day, risk life and limb for such a woman; yet she drops into your arms unsought—a found treasure." ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien

... of charity and mercy. The greater part of these are never known, for they are done in private, out of the public sight, and for the mere love of doing good. Where fame has come to them, because of the success which has attended their labours in a more general sphere, it has come unsought and unexpected, and is often felt as a burden. Who has not heard of Mrs. Fry and Miss Carpenter as prison visitors and reformers; of Mrs. Chisholm and Miss Rye as promoters of emigration; and of Miss Nightingale and Miss Garrett ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles

... compositions; though at the same time we may observe, that, amidst the most elegant simplicity of thought and expression, one is sometimes surprised to meet with a poor conceit, which had presented itself unsought for, and which the author had not acquired critical ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume

... rolling back, instead of tumbling in thick, barbaric "bang" into her eyes, spoke of other than savage teaching; and the dainty make of her moccasins; the soft, pliant folds of the leggins that fell, Apache fashion, about her ankles, all told, with their beadwork and finish, that this was no unsought girl of the tribespeople. Even the sudden gesture with which, never looking back, she cautioned some follower to keep down, spoke significantly of rank and authority. It was a chief's daughter that knelt ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King

... said the youth, burning with enthusiastic admiration of the young creature before him, "These proud words slander the noblest heart that ever beat in a woman's bosom. My mother loves you for yourself. All the better that God sent you to her unsought, as he does the wild flowers. Lina, the pride which reddens your cheek, would be abashed ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens

... Seymour finally accepted, he neither apologised nor explained. "The nomination," he wrote, "was unsought and unexpected. I have been caught up by the overwhelming tide which is bearing us on to a great political change, and I find myself unable to resist its pressure."[1186] Those who recalled the Governor's alleged tortuous course at Chicago and again at Albany in ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... Dr. Johnson's Dictionary. I suppose he meant by it, 'with an obstinate resolution, similar to that of a sullen man.' BOSWELL. Southey wrote to Scott:—'Give me more lays, and correct them at leisure for after editions—not laboriously, but when the amendment comes naturally and unsought for. It never does to sit down doggedly to correct.' Southey's Life, iii. 126. See ante, i. 332, for the influence ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell

... task of this book. His brother preachers will know what it is to be captured by a text which comes uninvited and persistently demands to be preached upon. How often such an arrest finds its subject unwilling, doubtful of his powers, afraid to be obedient to the unsought command! So came the subject of this essay to the writer thereof. For long he tried strenuously, though vainly, to make his escape to the refuge of some other topic wherein he might, less daringly, discharge the responsibilities of this lectureship. He disclaims, ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson

... superseded muscle, the kindly life-blood is apt to throb dull as the measured beat of the steam-engine. But the getting back to them is now a matter of effort, of set purpose, a stepping aside out of our ordinary course; they are no longer unsought influences towards the making of character. So perhaps the time of them has gone by, here in this second generation of steam. Pereunt et imputantur; they pass away, and are scored against not us but our guilty ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame

... This honor was unsought by me. The public prints had, as usual, discussed the choice of president of the Senate, but I made no mention of it to any Senator. I was gratified with the choice, chiefly because it would, in a measure, relieve me from burdensome details, ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... what had I to do? Little with Love, and least of all with Fame; And yet they came unsought, and with me grew, And made me all which they can make—a Name. Yet this was not the end I did pursue; Surely I once beheld a nobler aim. But all is over—I am one the more To baffled millions which have ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... of itself, all unsought! This wisdom had I of a Fool i' the forest. Go learn you of this same Fool and sigh not, ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol

... propensities—how much soulless inhumanity that might involve. For all I know, she has no adequate idea of it to this day. When I first heard of the affair the mischief was done, and I knew better than to interpose my unsought opinions. She was of age, and there was absolutely nothing against him from the conventional point of view. Then I dare say his immense wealth would cast a spell over almost any woman. Mabel had some hundreds a year of her ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley

... word that was spoken the imperious Will that would force him to compass its ends, even from the land of Death. It was not wholly the unsought responsibility, the burden of the wealth, the memory of his mother that buttressed his determination to refuse this stupendous thing, it was also his fierce, vehement desire to escape the enforced compliance with that still living ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant

... whisperingly asked him if he could not leave Helen, the very note in her voice sounded in his ears, and, he knew what it was no harm for him to know then, that this child of the wilderness had given him her love, unsought. She had loved him, and she had died for him, whilst a man who had loved her, now wept over her poor body. The tragedy of it all shook him, and the irony of Jean Benard's grief was almost beyond endurance. A great humility filled his heart, and whilst ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns

... the race really started the pursuer was nearly half a mile to the bad. But he had not recently consumed four Banbury cakes and two apples. Super-Banbury cakes of the dear old days, when margarine was ninepence a pound, flour unlimited, and currants unsought after ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole

... the Caves were beginning to dread their good fortune. Plenty was being showered upon them with so lavish and sudden a hand that they looked at it askance, distrustful of the unsought-for largess. For a week or more their hunting-grounds had been swarming with game, in amazing and daily increasing numbers, till there was little more of chance or of excitement in the hunt than in plucking a ripe ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts

... is wrought as a ring or a starbright sphere, With craft of delight and with cunning of sound unsought, That the heart of the hearer may smile if to pleasure his ear ...
— A Century of Roundels • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... frozen veins, no kindling thought Light up those eyeless sockets wherein naught But hate could dwell if once they flashed the fire Of being, or the doom-gift of Desire Should curse thy life, unbidden and unsought. Poor snow man with thy tattered hat awry, And broomstick musket toppling from thy hands, 'Tis well thou hast no language to decry Thy poor creator or his vain commands; No tear to shed that thou so soon must die, No voice to lift in prayer where no ...
— Pan and Aeolus: Poems • Charles Hamilton Musgrove

... she submitted to that father! It was a wonder to herself how she found the will and contrivance to run away from him. About finding her mother, her only notion now is to trust; since you were sent to save her and we are good to her, she trusts that her mother will be found in the same unsought way. And when she is talking I catch her feeling like ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... neck, with the thick bosses of my buckler, even these inferior things were set above me, and pressed me down, and no where was there respite or space of breathing. They met my sight on all sides by heaps and troops, and in thought the images thereof presented themselves unsought, as I would return to Thee, as if they would say unto me, "Whither goest thou, unworthy and defiled?" And these things had grown out of my wound; for Thou "humbledst the proud like one that is wounded," and through my own swelling was I separated ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine

... Francis's death, and willingly at that moment if he could have gone out into the night and killed a German, and met his death himself in the doing of it, he would have gone to his doom as to a bridal-bed. But by degrees, as the stress of these unsought imaginings abated, his thoughts turned to Francis himself again, who, through all his boyhood and early manhood, had been to him a sort of ideal and inspiration. How he had loved and admired him, yet never ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson

... longer a malicious spirit of evil who took delight in thwarting her, but a poor, fretful old lady whose soul was bound in shallows. And Aunt Matilda? Rosemary's eyes filled at the thought of Aunt Matilda, unloved and unsought. Nobody wanted her, she belonged to nobody, in all her lonely life she had had nothing. She sat and listened to Grandmother, she did the annual sewing, and day by day resented more keenly the emptiness of her life. ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed

... namely, that it was her duty, or whether it was that passion came to her, unsought, somewhat late in life, and therefore all the stronger, she herself would perhaps have been unable to declare. Certain only it is that at over thirty years of age this clever, sensible, clear-seeing woman fell ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome

... strive much more than wonder at their fate. 30 Their present lot was what they had foreseen, And dared as what was likely to have been; Yet still the lingering hope, which deemed their lot Not pardoned, but unsought for or forgot, Or trusted that, if sought, their distant caves Might still be missed amidst the world of waves, Had weaned their thoughts in part from what they saw And felt, the vengeance of their country's law. Their sea-green ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... answered Chris lightly and kindly, Charley was not elated over his unsought leadership. Vague suspicions were flitting through his mind, and his new responsibility was weighing heavily upon his young shoulders. As the evening wore on he still sat silent, buried in thought. The captain was reading aloud from an old newspaper he had ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... be recollected, that I was informed immediately after receiving the veil, that infants were occasionally murdered in the Convent. I was one day in the nuns' private sick room, when I had an opportunity, unsought for, of witnessing deeds of such a nature. It was, perhaps, a month after the death of Saint Francis. Two little twin babes, the children of Sainte Catharine, were brought to a priest, who was in the room, for baptism. I was present while the ceremony was performed, with the Superior and several ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk

... each lay poesy—for woman's heart Nurses the stream, unsought and oft unseen; And if it flow not through the tide of art, Nor win the glittering daylight—you may ween It slumbers, but not ceases, and if checked The egress of rich words, it flows in thought, And in its silent mirror doth reflect ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins

... met, there had been from the first a halo of romance about their association, and she had come to be, even before he could realize it, the one fair woman in whom was centred the fealty and devotion of his loyal nature. He dare not hope: he would not expect that one like her could so soon, so unsought, unwooed, have learned to look upon him as anything more than a friend whose loyalty to Grace, her one intimate, and whose friendship for Mrs. Stannard had conspired to make him an object of interest in their daily talk. With the humility of true manhood he well knew that his name, clouded with the ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King

... compared with those which were experienced by the fond girl herself. Frances had, with the keen eye of jealous love, easily detected the attachment of Isabella Singleton to Dunwoodie. Delicate and retiring herself, it never could present itself to her mind that this love had been unsought. Ardent in her own affections, and artless in their exhibition, she had early caught the eye of the young soldier; but it required all the manly frankness of Dunwoodie to court her favor, and the most pointed devotion to obtain his conquest. This done, ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... to thee, all unsought, I have stolen an hour from thought, And peace and power thou canst give in that hour, Which thy rival ...
— Poems of Sentiment • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... care," he reiterated passionately. "Heaven above knows that; but I do not hope to make you believe me. Constance, I can give neither you nor any living being the explanation of that awful day. But I swear to you that the meeting was unsought by me. I could not help myself. I do not know how all this has come about. I understood from Standon ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice

... the disadvantage of an unsought notoriety, or reputation, or whatever his local fame might be called. A man with a fighting name must live up to it, however distasteful the strife and turmoil, or move beyond the circle of his fame. Move he would not, could not, although it seemed a foolish thing, on reflection, ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden

... is pleased to take a resolution to resign her government, and I am commanded hither upon that occasion, though altogether unsought for by me. ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke

... and making the reader regret its sudden cessation. But the main quality of these poems is that of extraordinary grasp and insight, uttered with an uneven vigor sometimes exasperating, seemingly wayward, but really unsought and inevitable. After all, when a thought takes one's breath away, a lesson on grammar seems an impertinence. As Ruskin wrote in his earlier and better days, "No weight nor mass nor beauty of execution can outweigh one grain or ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson

... Commissioner by the way—saw and held his tongue. He was an Englishman; but knew how to believe. Which shows that he was different from most Englishmen. He knew that it was dangerous to have any share in the little box when working or dormant; for unsought Love is a ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... of February I received a letter from the President of Congress, enclosing the resolves of the 20th, whereby I was unanimously elected the Superintendent of Finance of the United States. This appointment was unsought, unsolicited, and dangerous to accept, as it was evidently contrary to my private interest, and if accepted must deprive me of those enjoyments, social and domestic, which my time of life required, and to which ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various

... unheeded and unsought, on soft mossy banks, not the less lovely because unknown, and just above our dwelling-place a large oak spread abroad its leafy branches. It was a favourite tree of the birds, they felt so secure there, sheltered ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer

... two who died together clung to each other so that neither could swim. Every imaginable way in which death could be sought was employed by these hopeless blacks, though, indeed, the hardships of the voyage were such as to bring it often enough unsought. ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot

... surprised ; he expatiated warmly upon the sweetness of character of all the royal family, and then begged me to consider the very peculiar distinction shown me, that, unsolicited, unsought, I had been marked out with such personal favour by the queen herself, as a person with whom she had been so singularly pleased, as to wish to settle me with one of the princesses, in preference to the thousands of offered candidates, of high birth and rank, but ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay

... do you really suppose that if I had had friends I should have been left thus long unsought? I have no friends, Doctor Rocke, except yourself, newly sent me by the Lord; nor any relatives except a young daughter whom I have seen but twice in my life!—once upon the dreadful night when she was born and ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... ailments; or merely that money attracted money: whatever the cause, his practice had of late made giant strides. He was in demand for consultations; sat on several committees; while a couple of lodges had come his way as good as unsought. ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson

... as with most of the dollars—they were not coming unsought, and in order to make sure of them they must be looked for in their own habitat. This the women did on horseback, in wagons, carriages, steam cars and automobiles. They were found in the shops, offices and stores, at ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various

... have cared to lift up his voice against the Government in war time. Personally, I should not want to give utterance even now to anything in the way of criticism. But the complaints which were presented below came to me, unsought and unsolicited, and represented such a variety of sources and such just and unselfish points of view that I think it proper, for the sake of history, to ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock

... to snare her, Although with cunning wrought, Have only served to scare her, And now she'll not be caught. To those who best could spare her, She ever comes unsought. ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray

... lost his grip upon the world, had voluntarily, being too sensitive, severed all connections save those he had to maintain with that portion of the community interested in the paying of his bills. Now, since he had met all material obligations, he thought the world would come to him again unsought. It did not come. ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo

... cause for wonder in her statement, and not welcoming at all this unsought escort, Sylvia made no answer. There was another silence, and then, looking in the starlight at her companion, the girl saw with consternation that the quiet tears were running down her cheeks. She stopped short, "Oh ... oh!" she cried. She caught up the other's hand in a bewildered surprise. ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield

... remained. I was described as a dangerous malcontent, who had deserted his native land. I nevertheless remained an honest man; one who could provide for his necessities without the favour of courts; one whose acquaintance was esteemed. In Vienna alone was I unsought, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck

... ended? The diggers left the island in disgust. If the gold is there in quantity, there in quantity it remains to the present time, unsought for. The subject of gold is so generally interesting, and in this case of such importance to the colony, that, believing as I do that it does exist in large quantities, I must claim the reader's patience in going ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... wild, troubled days, Misjudged alike in blame and praise, Unsought and undeserved the same The ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... Don Juan, turning to his comrade, who Though somewhat grieved, could scarce forbear a smile Upon the metamorphosis in view,— 'Farewell!' they mutually exclaim'd: 'this soil Seems fertile in adventures strange and new; One 's turn'd half Mussulman, and one a maid, By this old black enchanter's unsought aid.' ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... vision or naturally go his way, he has no right to expect her, much less to compel her to go his way. What is the use of dragging an unwilling companion through morasses of uncongenial thought to unsought ends? What is the use of dragging even a willing pretender, who has no inherent will to seek and live ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells

... Mart. Sure as God hears me, and 'taint cause I'm old and unsought either. I'll look after her, ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock

... tender air, thy virtuous daughter, Which we call mollis aer; and mollis aer We term it mulier; which mulier I divine Is this most constant wife, who, even now Answering the letter of the oracle, Unknown to you, unsought, were clipp'd about ...
— Cymbeline • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]

... In fancy we behold Adam winning Eve, "for she would be wooed, and not unsought be won." Won she was, and Adam was brought to the sum of earthly bliss. They dwell together in sweet accord, Adam fears for her safety when apart from him. Evil threatens them. Together they would be ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton

... quizzical amusement. He knew that she hated his intimacy with Comus, and he was secretly rather proud of his influence over the boy, shallow and negative though he knew it to be. It had been, on his part, an unsought intimacy, and it would probably fall to pieces the moment he tried seriously to take up the role of mentor. The fact that Comus's mother openly disapproved of the friendship gave it perhaps its chief interest ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki

... an equal suddenness, explanation offered itself then and there. It came unsought, its horror of certainty utterly unjustified; and it came in ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood

... time when I should become sixty-four years old. Hence I cheerfully relinquished in 1882 any reasonable ambition I may ever have had to command the army. My ultimate succession to that command in 1888 was, like all other important events in my personal career, unsought and unexpected. Hence whatever I did from 1888 to 1895 was only a little "extra duty," and I have had no reason to find fault on account of the "extra- duty pay" which I received, though none of it was in money. I am inclined to think it a pretty ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield

... fair she be?" He had discarded her with the Dover cliffs, and resumed possession of himself and his seeing eye. By this time a course of desultory journeying through Brittany and the West of France, a winter in Paris, a packet from Bordeaux to Santander had cured him of his hurt. The song came unsought to his lips, but had ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett

... occurred to him to entertain any one or anything except a deep regard for Beatrice; and one turns with positive relief to have a glimpse of the parasite—Mr. Smurge, I presume, 'whose gratitude was as boundless as his appetite, and his presence as unsought as it appeared to be inevitable.' But now, how gracious and admirable is the central figure—radiating gratitude, but not too much of it; never intrusive, ever within call; full of dignity, yet all amenable; quiet, yet lively; ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm

... to that dolorous time in a woman's life when she no longer has the power of attracting male attention—which power is not a matter of age, but merely of mind and spirit. And yet there were depths in her, Larkin found, unsuspected because unsought. ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan

... it that rich men cannot buy, That learning is too proud to gather up; But which the poor and the despised of all Seek and obtain, and often find unsought? Tell me—and I will tell thee what is ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper

... the roses blow Unsought, and shed their tangled sweets, I sit and hark, or in the starry dark, Or when the night-rain on the ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various

... abundantly meets all my wants, and gives me far more than I need. If with all my might I had sought to obtain a lucrative place, either as a preacher of the Gospel, or in some other way, I should not have had more, I have reason to believe, if as much, as, unsought, unasked for, so far as it regards man, I receive day by day out of the loving hand of my Heavenly Father. When I look at His kindness to me in saving my guilty soul, I am overwhelmed with the boundlessness of His love and grace towards ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Fourth Part • George Mueller

... rises vividly to mind when I consider the article of Mr. Henry Clews on "Wall Street, Past, Present, and Future." This article came unsought and unexpected to the editorial desk of THE ARENA. I confess that I doubted its genuineness. For why should Mr. Clews address the public through the columns of THE ARENA? What has THE ARENA done to merit such distinction? Satisfying myself that ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various

... him, ere to you he will seem worthy of your love," so brawn, you must taste it, ere to you it will seem to have any taste at all. But 'tis nuts to the adept,—those that will send out their tongues and feelers to find it out. It will be wooed, and not unsought be won. Now, ham-essence, lobsters, turtle, such popular minions, absolutely court you, lay themselves out to strike you at first smack, like one of David's pictures (they call him Darveed), compared with the plain russet-coated ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb

... than once he must have regretted that he had consented to cross swords with his lank opponent, for he had been forced into many an awkward corner. There is a popular tradition that the presidential nomination came to Lincoln unsought; but this is anything but true. On the contrary, in those debates with Douglas, he was consciously laying the foundation for his candidacy two years later. He used every effort to drive Douglas to admissions and statements which ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson

... in vain had he grown old: more than the white hairs on his head were the sage thoughts in his mind; his wrinkles and furrows were inscriptions that Time had graved, and in which he had written legends of wisdom that had been tested by the tenor of a life. And Ernest had ceased to be obscure. Unsought for, undesired, had come the fame which so many seek, and made him known in the great world, beyond the limits of the valiey in which he had dwelt so quietly. College professors, and even the active men of cities, came ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells

... enjoyed his work with the Lunar Company. Young and full-blooded, he liked novelty and adventure, life in the open, new scenes and faces. As a film actor he did not have to seek sensations. They came to him unsought. He had the faculty of projecting himself with all his mind into the business of the moment, so that he soon knew what it was to be a noble and self-conscious hero as well ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine

... sunlight. In the morning, when the nurse opened the blinds, that sunlight swept radiantly into the room, lavish with its caresses; always spending, always giving, the symbol of a loving care that had been poured out on her, unasked and unsought. It was sweet to rest, to sleep. And instead of the stringent monster-cry of the siren, of the discordant clamour of the mill bells, it was sweet yet strange to be awakened by silvertoned chimes proclaiming peaceful hours. At first she surrendered to the spell, and had no thought of the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... offer came as it did—unsought by you. You will feel happier in accepting it. 'Infinite sympathy is needed for the infinite pathos of human life'—more especially of a boy's life. The first, second, third, requisite for a master is, in my judgment, sympathy. As I look back on my own school days, I cannot ...
— Letters to His Friends • Forbes Robinson

... casual and unsought. But between these and the dreams of sleep there is a kind of waking hallucinations which some people can purposely evoke. Such are the ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang

... dream, every thought, every hope of her existence. She could not put him away from her heart all at once. The weak heart still fondly clung to the dear familiar image. But the more intensely she had felt the cold neglect of Valentine, the more grateful to her seemed the unsought affection ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... I am, you may be sure that I shall not stay here to await Prince Karl of Auersperg, and his unsought honors." ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler

... not come unsought, or otherwise, to Philip's fellow volunteer from the Faringfield house, Mr. Cornelius. The pedagogue, with little to say on the subject, took the rebel side as a matter of course, Presbyterians being, ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens

... his awful veil and discovered their hoarded iniquity of deed or thought. Many spread their clasped hands on their bosoms. There was nothing terrible in what Mr. Hooper said—at least, no violence; and yet with every tremor of his melancholy voice the hearers quaked. An unsought pathos came hand in hand with awe. So sensible were the audience of some unwonted attribute in their minister that they longed for a breath of wind to blow aside the veil, almost believing that a stranger's visage would be discovered, though the ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... to be inconclusive, but as they sought the answer, a clear sign appeared as it were by the way, and unsought. Julian was watching haggardly. He snarled a question at Jim. His cook-boy's big round eyes showed very big and very round just now. He was watching with ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps

... from hence new pleasure springs; For Styles are dignify'd, as well as Things. Tho' Sense subsists, distinct from phrase or sound, Yet Gravity conveys a surer wound. The chymic secret which your pains wou'd find, Breaks out, unsought for, in Cervantes' mind; And Quixot's wildness, like that King's of old, Turns all he touches, into Pomp and Gold. Yet in this Pomp discretion must be had; Tho' grave, not stiff; tho' whimsical, not mad: In Works like these if Fustian might appear, ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte

... and that first week of the relapse was to Jean and Henriette the dreariest and saddest in all their long, unsought intimacy. Would their suffering never end? were they to hope for no surcease of misery, the danger always springing up afresh? At every moment their thoughts sped away to Maurice, from whom they had received no further word. They were told that others ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... link my life with that of one so much younger, and, I grieve to say it, so far inferior in all respects. What congenial companionship could I promise myself? What confidence could I repose—what esteem could I entertain—for a silly girl, who, without warrant and utterly unsought, bestows her love (if, indeed, what you say be true) upon a man who never even dreamed of such folly, and is old enough to ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... my brow I feel the furrow's course, Deep sinking inward to the source of thought; The deeper sinking if I seek its source, Or try to crush its agony, unsought, O! tell thy secret, thou stern vampyre, Care! E'en for Philosophy thou hast a snare, For in thy quest she wears the galling chain, Making the burden more, the more she'd soothe ...
— The Emigrant - or Reflections While Descending the Ohio • Frederick William Thomas

... have myself seen her, as have many. Know, then, that her name, which she would not even permit thee to inquire, is Happiness. Thou saidst the truth to her, that she is capricious for she imposeth conditions that man cannot fulfill, and delinquency is punished by desertion. She cometh only when unsought, and will not be questioned. One manifestation of curiosity, one sign of doubt, one expression of misgiving, and she is away! How long didst thou have her at any time before ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce

... torture lurks within a single thought When grown too constant, and however kind, However welcome still, the weary mind Aches with its presence. Dull remembrance taught Remembers on unceasingly; unsought The old delight is with us but to find That all recurring joy is pain refined, Become a habit, and we struggle, caught. You lie upon my heart as on a nest, Folded in peace, for you can never know How crushed I am with having you at rest ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell

... nevertheless accords with all the material points of the Critique of the Theoretical Reason as closely and directly as if each step had been thought out with deliberate purpose to establish this confirmation. Such a thorough agreement, wholly unsought for and quite obvious (as anyone can convince himself, if he will only carry moral inquiries up to their principles), between the most important proposition of practical reason and the often seemingly too subtle and needless remarks of the Critique of the Speculative Reason, occasions ...
— The Critique of Practical Reason • Immanuel Kant

... and gracefully spoken ideas on the topics broached. As a society girl she met him on this neutral ground without the slightest restraint or embarrassment. As he also talked well she had no scruple in enjoying a pleasure unsought by herself, especially as it might lead to the punishment which she felt that he deserved. Smilingly she had assured herself, when he was announced, "If he's a rebel at heart, as I've been told, I've met the enemy before either Mr. Lane ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe

... do not scorn me for my love!—'tis not a common love; for it I have lost every earthly comfort and blessing; for this struggled and toiled, and braved numberless dangers. I have loved you better than everything beside! Turn not from me, and think contemptuously of the worship given unsought! If you cannot love me, do not, oh, do not despise me! Let me a little while longer be with you, and see you; I will not trouble or incommode any one—do not leave me. Oh, Dr. Bryant, do ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans

... other sound, however near, could be heard, and would start and look behind me for a foe. I realised the identity of that mood of nature in which these waters were poured down with such absorbing force, with that in which the Indian was shaped on the same soil. For continually upon my mind came, unsought and unwelcome, images such as had never haunted it before, of naked savages stealing behind me with uplifted tomahawks. Again and again this illusion recurred, and even after I had thought it over, and tried to shake it off, I could not help starting and looking behind me. What I liked ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various

... most of the smuggling companies along the coast, although he embarked little of his own wealth in the business, and never assisted in an actual run of the goods. He had ceased to borrow actively now, for other people's money came to him unsought, to ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... know, and never will; that is, he never cared for me, nor guessed how foolish I was to give him my love unsought." ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes

... to looking after the executive side of the work at Tuskegee, and raising the greater part of the money for the support of the school, I cannot seem to escape the duty of answering at least a part of the calls which come to me unsought to address Southern white audiences and audiences of my own race, as well as frequent gatherings in the North. As to how much of my time is spent in this way, the following clipping from a Buffalo (N.Y.) paper will tell. This has reference to an ...
— Up From Slavery: An Autobiography • Booker T. Washington

... vision grave, Take all the little all I have! Strip me of what in voiceless thought Life's kept of life, unhoped, unsought!— Reverie and dream that memory ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various

... might have come on unsought, from cold and exhaustion; and not a day passed but he wandered through the neighbouring woods, turning up the heaps of dead leaves, as if it were possible her dear body could be hidden there. Then another horrible thought recurred, and before each night ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot

... to a contemplation of this wonderful new industry that had sprung up unsought in their midst; and the luck of Scipio was upon everybody's lips. Nor was there only the wonder of it in every mind, for, after the first feelings of envy and covetousness had passed away, the humor of the thing ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum

... and there was nought. My sentience wholly sped: No sound, no feeling, sight, or thought: Yet I knew with a vacuous dread I lay a thing by God unsought,— Dead, ...
— Iolaeus - The man that was a ghost • James A. Mackereth

... very many women who, from one or another cause, were what is called nervous. Few of them were so happily constituted as to need from me neither counsel nor warnings. Very often such were desired, more commonly they were given unsought, as but a part of that duty which the physician feels, a duty which is but half fulfilled when we think of the body as our ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell

... these two was, that Walford could not be made to see that his presence was distasteful to Lucy; whilst Leicester was provokingly blind to the fact that the fair girl loved him with all her pure, simple little heart. She had not given her love to him unsought, it must be understood—far from it; George Leicester had been one of the earliest, as he was one of her most constant and devoted, admirers; he was unremitting in his attentions to her whenever he was in port; but the simple fellow was so doubtful ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood

... it to his wife. "If it was so, Isabel, she was more reprehensibly foolish than I should have given Barbara's good sense could be; for a woman may almost as well lose herself as to suffer herself to love unsought. If she did give her love to me, I can only say, I was entirely unconscious of it. Believe me, you have as much cause to be jealous of Cornelia as you ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood

... 'Counsel unsought is worth nothing,' replied, rudely, Ardan son of Gorla. 'It would be little indeed that I am fit for if I cannot drive three cows out to pasture and keep them safe from the wolves that may come down from the mountains. Therefore, good father, I will take service ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various

... ready at a touch to fall into his hand; and though Regina felt that this low-browed, sibyl-eyed woman was vastly his inferior in all save beauty and wealth, she knew that even his failure to marry the widow would furnish no justification for the further indulgence of her own foolish and unsought preference. ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... be true that there is "many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip"— which we have no reason to doubt—it is not less true that many a cup of good fortune is, unexpectedly and unsought, raised to the lips ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne

... in the last paragraph. With these exceptions, when he undertakes, bona fide, an extemporaneous address, he should make no preparation of language. Language is the last thing he should be anxious about. If he have ideas, and be awake, it will come of itself, unbidden and unsought for. The best language flashes upon the speaker as unexpectedly as upon the hearer. It is the spontaneous gift of the mind, not the extorted boon of a special search. No man who has thoughts, and is interested in them, is at a loss for words—not the most uneducated man; and the ...
— Hints on Extemporaneous Preaching • Henry Ware

... "Obstacles which, when we last parted, appeared to me invincible, prevented my having ever even attempted to make an impression on the heart of the woman I love: and if you knew her, count, as well as I do, you would know that her love could 'not unsought be won.'" ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth

... glad cheer King Guha cried, With Bharat's answer gratified: "Blessed art thou: on earth I see None who may vie, O Prince, with thee, Who canst of thy free will resign The kingdom which unsought is thine. For this, a name that ne'er shall die, Thy glory through the worlds shall fly, Who fain wouldst balm thy brother's pain And lead ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... circumstances, that it was neither vicious nor turbulent. Intrigue was never employed as the means of its gratification, nor was personal aggrandizement its object. The various high and important stations to which he was called by the public voice, were unsought by himself; and, in consenting to fill them, he seems rather to have yielded to a general conviction that the interests of his country would be thereby promoted, than ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... to himself—the voices of the Davencotts, of William Loyd Grove, echoed from a distance on his hearing—and he tried to re-arrange his bearing toward his unsought discovery: this was of enormous importance. He must at once regulate his approach to Mrs. Grove, get himself firmly in hand; the situation, for him particularly, had far-reaching unpredictable possibilities. For all her exactness, Savina Grove had a very exclusive and ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer

... inability—or 'fraud,' as the imperfection in mediumship is often called. This will be the case until they can have the only condition which is suitable for spiritual communion—passive trust and confidence. Real tests cannot come when sought with materialistic conditions. The tests come unsought, unasked for." ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita

... realized the identity of that mood of nature in which these waters were poured down with such absorbing force, with that in which the Indian was shaped on the same soil. For continually upon my mind came, unsought and unwelcome, images, such as never haunted it before, of naked savages stealing behind me with uplifted tomahawks; again and again this illusion recurred, and even after I had thought it over, and tried to shake ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller

... ATTENTION.—Attention may be secured in three ways: (1) It is demanded by some sudden or intense sensory stimulus or insistent idea, or (2) it follows interest, or (3) it is compelled by the will. If it comes in the first way, as from a thunderclap or a flash of light, or from the persistent attempt of some unsought idea to secure entrance into the mind, it is called involuntary attention. This form of attention is of so little importance, comparatively, in our mental life that we ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts

... cylinder of white paper resting in the hollow of his palm, in profoundest concentration pondering the problems it presented: what it was, what possession of it meant to Michael Lanyard, what safe disposition to make of it pending welcome relief from this unsought and most ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph

... with her alone. The embarrassing sense of her position had heightened her color and brightened her eyes. She stood, leaning one hand on the table, confused and irresolute, her firm and supple figure falling into an attitude of unsought grace which it was literally a luxury to look at. I said nothing; my eyes confessed my admiration; the writing materials lay untouched before me on the table. How long the silence might have lasted I cannot say. She abruptly broke it. Her instinct warned ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins

... genius; they proceed rather from certain morbidly stimulated impulses of his moral nature which he forced his artistic genius to subserve. He had true pathetic power, simple yet subtle, at his command; but it visited him unsought, and by inspiration from without. It came when he was in the dramatic and not in the introspective mood; when he was thinking honestly of his characters, and not of himself. But he was, unfortunately, too prone—and a long ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill

... lean on. She thought that she ought to try to put herself out of the way of her cousins at home as much as possible, and so she did not try to make time to write to Clara, and time did not come unsought, for her father's health did not improve; and when they returned to Lima, he engrossed her care almost entirely, while his young wife continued her gaieties, and Mary had reason to think the saya y manto disguise ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge

... but they are like the alternate periods of feeding and working in animals; each prepares and will be followed by the other. Therefore does beauty, which, in relation to actions, as we have seen, comes unsought, and comes because it is unsought, remain for the apprehension and pursuit of the intellect; and then again, in its turn, of the active power. Nothing divine dies. All good is eternally reproductive. The beauty of nature reforms itself in the mind, and not for ...
— Nature • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... Gladstone and his party adopted it, he became a Liberal Unionist, and as such was elected in 1895 a member of the House of Commons by Dublin University. In view of the many comments that he was not successful in parliamentary life, I may say that the election not only came to him unsought, but that he recognized that he was too old to adapt himself to the atmosphere of the House of Commons; he accepted the position in the belief which was pressed upon him by many friends that he could in Parliament be ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes

... these instances the persons were subject to the control of others, the way seemed dark, trying and utterly disappointing, and the opportunities, that prepared the way for important transitions, came unsought and in ways wholly unexpected. The things that proved of greatest importance in every instance were the intelligence, integrity, patience and ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger

... place for a display of learning. If "The Antiquary" were published in these times, it would be pronounced pedantic. Readers are apt to skip names and learned allusions and scraps of Latin. As a story I think it inferior to "Guy Mannering," although it has great merits,—"a kind of simple, unsought charm,"—and is a transcript of actual Scottish life. It had a great success; Scott says in a letter to his friend Terry: "It is at press again, six thousand having been sold in six days." Before the novel was finished, the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord

... servant of the Lard, and he has graciously blessed my endeavours. One whom I visited is earnestly seeking the Lord; and another, who has long been indebted to my husband, gave me a sovereign towards the amount-unsought, unasked, and unexpected!" ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth

... well of their own hurts, or never to get well of them, but also from gold-sleeved, gray-breasted new suitors of Anna (over-staying their furloughs), whom she kept from tenderer themes by sprightly queries that never tired and constantly brought forth what seemed totally unsought mentions of the battery. And she had gathered the tale from Greenleaf as well. Constance, to scandalized intimates, marvelled at her sister's tolerance of his outrageous version; but Miranda remembered how easy it is to bear with patience (on any ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable

... ne'er his angry bark foregoes, Touched by the beggar's moan of human woes; The shady porch ne'er offered a cool seat To pilgrims overcome by summer's heat. [65] 245 Yet thither the world's business finds its way At times, and tales unsought beguile the day, And there are those fond thoughts which Solitude, [66] However stern, is powerless to exclude. [67] There doth the maiden watch her lover's sail 250 Approaching, and upbraid the tardy gale; At midnight listens till his parting oar, And its last ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight

... answered that it could not be—but neglected to point out to him that almost any vagary might be expected of human nature, when it could produce such a deviation from the recognized types as a man of his position agitated about such an unsought obscurity as Miss Hallowell. He continued to debate the state of her mind as if it were an affair of mightiest moment—which, indeed, it was to him. And presently his doubt strengthened into conviction. ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips

... fair! how modest! how discreet! How bashfully demure! See how they blush, as they've been taught, At this publicity unsought! ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

... and in the early days of his attachment Smith had never been weary of outlining Elfride. The lay-figure of Stephen's sketches now initiated an adjustment of many things. Knight had recognized her. The opportunity of comparing notes had come unsought. ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy

... the grave, sad face of the moon herself, whether he had dared too much, dared in the wrong way. But he repented of this doubt immediately. Was it he himself who had spoken? No, the words had come unsought to his lips, the Spirit had spoken. He closed his eyes in an effort of silent prayer, his face still raised towards the moon, as a blind man lifts his sightless eyes towards the silver splendour ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro

... let Justice still control, Weighing the guerdon to the toil!—What then? A god alone claims joy—all joy is his, Flushing with unsought light the cheeks of men. Where is no miracle, why there no bliss! Grow, change, and ripen all that mortal be, Shapen'd from form to form, by toiling time; The Blissful and the Beautiful are born Full grown, and ripen'd from Eternity— No gradual changes ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various



Words linked to "Unsought" :   unwanted



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