Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




More "Impulse" Quotes from Famous Books



... contributed the manuscript of the "Attaque du Moulin," and it was at Maupassant's house that the five young men gave in their contributions. Each one read his story, Maupassant being the last. When he had finished Boule de Suif, with a spontaneous impulse, with an emotion they never forgot, filled with enthusiasm at this revelation, they all rose and, without superfluous words, acclaimed him as ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... a nobleman and a sans-culotte, a Christian and a Mussulman, is wicked and profligate, not from the impulse of the moment or of any sudden gust of passion, but coldly and deliberately. He calculates with sangfroid the profit and the risk of every infamous action he proposes to commit, and determines accordingly. ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith

... with post-marks—provided he could have done so honestly—he would have read every one of them.' There is the true Boswell in this characteristic confession, the Boswell that read in the private diaries of Johnson, and, with an eye to biographical materials, had admitted an impulse to carry them off, and never see him more. 'Why, sir,' said the doctor, 'I do not think you could ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask

... his heel, said to someone behind him: "Let's get away from all these girls!" The tears burnt in Jeremy's eyes, hot and salt. He clenched his fists and gazed upon a garden that swam in a mist of tears and sunlight. He felt a sudden strange impulse of family affection. He would like to have gathered behind him his father and mother, Mary, Helen, Hamlet, Uncle Samuel—yes, and even Aunt Amy, and to have advanced not only upon Ernest, but upon the whole Dean's family. It would have given him great pleasure ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole

... horse—a gray. It cantered majestically to the top of a dune, and stood there—head erect, nostrils quivering, ears alert, cresting the hillock like a statue. Stephen shivered. For instinctively he knew this to be the gray stallion, the cross-bred, that had trampled the form beside him. His first impulse was to mount Pat and spur him in a race for life; his second impulse was to crouch in hiding in the hope of escaping the keen scrutiny of that merciless demon. He chose the race. Springing to his feet, he leaped for Pat, and he grasped the saddle-horn. ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton

... passed in the morning of the 13th it appeared to me that we had all the men of the village and a number of women with us. this may serve in some measure to ilustrate the capricious disposition of those people who never act but from the impulse of the moment. they were now very cheerfull and gay, and two hours ago they looked as sirly as so many imps of satturn. when we arrived at the spring on the side of the mountain where we had encamped on the 12th the Chief insited on halting to let the horses graize ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... must we find out, whether Love appears and makes himself known externally, whether his home is the soul itself, his bed the heart itself, and whether he consists of the same composition as our own substance, the same impulse as our own powers. Finally everything naturally desires the beautiful and the good, and therefore it is useless to argue and discuss, because the affection informs and confirms itself, and in one instant desire joins itself to the desirable, as ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno

... extended her small hand with friendly impulse. "I'm very glad to meet you, sir. Are you going to spend some ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland

... Me.' But yet, when that dark Power stood by His side, and said, 'If thou be the Son of God, cast Thyself down,' it was a real temptation and not a sham one. There was no wish to do it, no faltering for a moment, no hesitation. There was no rising up in that calm will of even a moment's impulse to do the thing that was presented;—but yet it was presented, and, when Christ triumphed, and the tempter departed for a season, there had been a temptation and there had been a conflict. And though obedience be a joy, and the doing of His Father's will was His delight, as it must needs ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... did he repeat the injunction in every tone,—anger, furious anger, the drunkenness of blood demanding blood enveloped him. His first impulse was to stop a cab and hurl himself into it, in order to escape the irritating street, to rid his body of the necessity of walking and choosing a path—to stop a cab as for a wounded man. But at that hour of general home-coming the square was crowded ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... an uncontrollable impulse, they all three rushed out into the garden; and far beyond them, in the sunlight, they did indeed catch one parting gleam of gauzy wings, as the fairy vanished. When the professor led the way into the room again, and, rather crestfallen, looked at the tall empty bottle and the stopper, ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang

... Barry gave way to the impulse to confide in his friend, to whom all his boyish confidences had been given. "Rose is a real good sort, and wouldn't for the world let Toni suspect that he knows he's married beneath him, as the ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes

... of settlement had been inspired by an impulse separate from that of others. Alike as some of them were, in having as a moving cause a desire to escape from persecution, religious or political, or otherwise to better conditions, they were divided by years, if not by generations, ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various

... beyond this negative merit; for I had originally a benign nature; and, as I advanced in years and thoughtfulness, the gratitude which possessed me for my own exceeding happiness led me to do that by principle and system which I had already done upon blind impulse; and thus upon a double argument I was incapable of turning away from the prayer of the afflicted, whatever had been the sacrifice to myself. Hardly, perhaps, could it have been said in a sufficient sense at that time that I was a religious man: yet, undoubtedly, I had all the foundations within ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... everything which can help him to get on in the world, who seizes every experience in life and grinds it up into paint for his great life's picture, who keeps his heart open that he may catch every noble impulse, and everything which may inspire him,—that youth will be sure to make his life successful; there are no "ifs" or "ands" about it. If he has his health, nothing can keep him ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... thought I perceived the broad sheet of glass shifting its position in relation to the bed; I riveted my eyes upon it with intense scrutiny; it was no deception, the mirror, as if acting of its own impulse, moved slowly aside, and disclosed a dark aperture in the wall, nearly as large as an ordinary door; a figure evidently stood in this, but the light was too dim ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... it was different. The Irish army with its French contingent fell back, after the battle of the Boyne, to the Shannon, and there again made a stand; while Louis, receding from his first angry impulse, continued to send reinforcements and supplies. But the increasing urgency of the continental war kept him from affording enough support, and the war in Ireland came to a close a little over a year later, by the defeat at Aghrim and capitulation ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan

... darkness the form seemed large and grotesque, and his first impulse was to cast aside the hand and to ...
— Three Young Pioneers - A Story of the Early Settlement of Our Country • John Theodore Mueller

... come within his contact, that nerved my arm and engrossed my heart. Bear witness, Heaven, I am not a vindictive man! I have, it is true, been extreme in hatred as in love; but I have ever had the power to control myself from yielding to its impulse. When the full persuasion of Gerald's crime reigned within me, I had thralled my emotion; I had curbed it within the circle of my own heart, though there, thus pent and self-consuming, it was an agony and a torture; I had resisted the voice ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... pretty room as you should have, darling, fitted up in blue and rose-buds, or—no, Morris green and Pompeian-red would be prettier, perhaps. What a joy it would be to choose pictures for it,—pictures, every one of which should be an impulse in the best Art direction! And how you would revel in the garden, and in the fruit! My strawberries are the finest I ever saw; I have two Alderney cows and quantities of cream. Don't you think you could be happy to come and be my own little ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge

... explorers, namely, the spread of the Christian religion. This desire of theirs, too, seems to have been thoroughly genuine and deep-seated; and it may be doubted whether the discoveries would have been made at that period but for the impulse given to them by the most religious minds longing to promote, by all means in their power, the spread of what, to them, was the only true and saving faith. "I do not," says a candid historian [Faria y Sousa] of that age, "imagine that I shall persuade the world that our ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps

... stood firm, however, and the local papers, used to this kind of thing, merely spoke of the shock as 'severe.' Earthquakes are demoralising; but they bring out all the weaknesses of human nature. First is downright dread; the stage of—'only let me get into the open and I'll reform,' then the impulse to send news of the most terrible shock of modern times flying east and west among the cables. (Did not your own hair stand straight on end, and, therefore, must not everybody else's have done likewise?) ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling

... miles a second or even rather more. The stresses set up are, in such cases, very difficult to estimate. It has not yet been done. Parallel lines of greatest stress or impulse ought to be formed as in the ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly

... artists of the Renaissance found themselves familiar with masterpieces wholly beyond their power to create, and produced by a foreign people who had enjoyed the incomparable advantage of arriving at their artistic apogee through natural stages of growth, beginning with impulse and ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell

... expression in another. Roughly speaking, it might have been said of him that youth and hope in women—particularly youth when combined with beauty and ambition in a girl—touched him. He responded keenly to her impulse to do or be something in this world, whatever it might be, and he looked on the smart, egoistic vanity of so many with a kindly, tolerant, almost parental eye. Poor little organisms growing on the tree of life—they would burn out and fade soon enough. He did not know the ballad of the ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... garden. It was not bolted. I lifted the latch and entered. A light stood in the hall. I was not mistaken as to the character of the house; it was evidently that of people of fortune. On my right hand was a door which I conceived led into the room where I had seen the lady. An impulse I could not resist induced me to open it. The noise caused by my so doing made the lady turn her head. Her countenance was very pale and tearful. She looked up at me; her eye brightened: I sprang ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston

... coaxial telephone cables linking Europe with North America. telefax - facsimile service between subscriber stations via the public switched telephone network or the international Datel network. telegraph - a telecommunications system designed for unmodulated electric impulse transmission. telex - a communication service involving teletypewriters connected by wire through automatic exchanges. tropospheric scatter - a form of microwave radio transmission in which the troposphere is used to scatter and reflect a fraction of the incident radio waves back to earth; ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... can now that impulse paint, Which fires the mother's breast? Nor toil, nor danger, makes her faint; ...
— Ballads - Founded On Anecdotes Relating To Animals • William Hayley

... thick smoke that precedes the volcanic eruptions of Etna, Vesuvius, and Hecla, I feel an impulse to fumigate, at [now] 25, College-Street, one pair of stairs room; yea, with our Oronoko, and if thou wilt send me by the bearer, four pipes, I will write a panegyrical epic poem upon thee, with as many books as there are letters in thy name. Moreover, ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle

... turned to the left, he would have come presently to a public beach and would have had his swim conventionally and in due time. But some impulse told him to turn to the right, and he began to wander westward along the edge of the cliffs—always on his left hand, space and the sea, and on his right, lawns or gardens or parapets crowned by cactus plants in urns, and behind these a great variety of houses—French chateaux and marble palaces ...
— The Beauty and the Bolshevist • Alice Duer Miller

... own kindling, but blown up by something Divine within her. If she indulges this Thought too far, and humours the growing Passion, she at last flings her self into imaginary Raptures and Extasies; and when once she fancies her self under the Influence of a Divine Impulse, it is no Wonder if she slights Human Ordinances, and refuses to comply with any established Form of Religion, as thinking her self directed by ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... weary of the heterogeneous. The Zone of Consciousness stands revealed in all its grotesqueness. 'Time is,' you cry, but to give thought its impulse, and you hasten on if perchance you may discover the direction of the life-principle. What you had taken for reality is but its cross-section - so does this empirical realm stand to the higher world of your spirit, even as a ...
— The Fourth Dimensional Reaches of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition • Cora Lenore Williams

... every sphere of thought and action which will be at once refining, ennobling, and redeeming; they will so establish correct habits of living, so sanctify the altars of home, so adorn the walks of social life, that the very heart of the great body of society will throb anew with fresh impulse of life and send out its currents of health and strength to ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver

... of meat and fish. Mademoiselle Saget, in her turn, began to sniff at a plate of cold fried fish. The price of it was three sous, but, by dint of bargaining, she got it for two. The cold fish then vanished into the bag. Other customers now arrived, and with a uniform impulse lowered their noses over the plates. The smell of the stall was very disgusting, suggestive alike of greasy dishes and a ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola

... gave us the Tarantella with all the beauty of natural movement and free floating drapery, and with all that splendid grace of pose which animates the antique statues and pictures of dancers. They swayed themselves in time with the music; then, filled with its passionate impulse, advanced and retreated and whirled away;—snapping their fingers above their heads, and looking over their shoulders with a gay and a laughing challenge to each other, they drifted through the ever-repeated figures of flight and wooing, and wove for us ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells

... continues to defy our exploration, as well as all mutual operation between the finite and the infinite. The reason, on transcendental grounds, makes the following demand: There shall be a communion between the formal impulse and the material impulse-that is, there shall be a play instinct—because it is only the unity of reality with the form, of the accidental with the necessary, of the passive state with freedom, that the conception of humanity is completed. Reason is obliged to make this demand, because ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various

... presuppose Education in the ordinary sense. But they wish to bring about Education in a higher sense, and therefore they veil the last form of their ideal in the mystery of secrecy.—To one who lives on contented with himself and without the impulse toward self-culture, unless his unconcern springs from his belonging to a savage state of society, the Germans give the name of Philistine, and he is always repulsive to the student who ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz

... however, he spoke, the wild cheer of the hands spurring him up and giving an impulse to the slow current of his thoughts and words— the Dane not being prone, like Captain Snaggs, to talking for the mere pleasure ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson

... the bridge end, to give zeal to the workmen and speed to the work. On the financial aspect I would not willingly dwell. The "Eleven Thousand Virgins of Cologne" rotted in the stream where she was beautified. She felt not the impulse of the breeze; she was never harnessed to the patent track-horse. And when at length she was sold, by the indignant carpenter of Moret, there were sold along with her the "Arethusa" and the "Cigarette", she of cedar, she, as we knew so keenly on a portage, of solid-hearted English oak. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Marcia's first impulse was to catch up the little fellow and his gift in her arms, and baptize them with a flood of tears from her own overcharged heart! But she hadn't taught boys in a Mission Sunday school class for nothing—Joe ...
— Christmas Stories And Legends • Various

... that he shows his wonted tact and insight. A great man hardly ever fails to awaken Gibbon into admiration and sympathy. The "Great Athanasius," as he often calls him, caught his eye at once, and the impulse to draw a fine character, promptly silenced any prejudices which might interfere with faithful portraiture. "Athanasius stands out more grandly in Gibbon, than in the pages of the orthodox ecclesiastical historians"—Dr. ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison

... revolution has passed away, and the crisis reached and left, when a constitution is to be framed, and new principles are to be brought to their test, that the steady process of a sound judgment is called into requisition. Then it is that the reformer yields to the statesman; that impulse retires before reason; that passion and confusion become subordinated to the elements of order and the authority of intellect. Many have been both the reformers producing and the statesmen correcting, revolutions; minds which, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... or the Bedouin, do not cultivate, or divide their labour, or trade, or save, or look to the future, have shed little of the primitive passions of other animals of prey, the tigers and the wolves, who have no economics at all, and have no need to check an impulse or a hate. But industry, even of the more primitive kind, means that men must divide their labour, which means that they must put some sort of reliance upon one another; the thing of prey becomes a partner, ...
— Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell

... amount of lock on each pallet, and advised the removal of the balance, because if we left the balance in we could not readily tell exactly when the tooth passed on to the impulse plane; but if we touch the fork lightly with an oiling tool or a hair broach, moving it (the fork) carefully away from the bank and watching the arc indicated by the hand A, Fig. 72, we can determine with great exactness the angular extent of lock. The diagram at Fig. 75 illustrates how this ...
— Watch and Clock Escapements • Anonymous

... made her vaguely uneasy. What did these casual amateurs know about the domestic problem, anyway? Kane, who was always anxious to avoid details; Sandy, all youthful enthusiasm and ignorance, and Owen Sargent, quoting his insufferable mother? For some moments she had been fighting an impulse to soothe them all with generalities. "Never mind; it's always been a problem, and it always will be! These new schemes are all very well, but don't trouble your dear heads about ...
— The Treasure • Kathleen Norris

... surrey swept even with the sidetracked tramp, the bright-eyed girl, seized by some merry, madcap impulse, leaned out toward him with a sweet, dazzling smile, and cried, "Mer-ry Christ-mas!" in ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... thinking of the year which saw my first exodus from London. On an irresistible impulse, I suddenly made up my mind to go into Devon, a part of England I had never seen. At the end of March I escaped from my grim lodgings, and, before I had time to reflect on the details of my undertaking, I found myself sitting in sunshine ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing

... These emotions tell us how near we are to be affected or elected unto the Romany, who belong to out-of-doors and nature, like birds and bees. Centuries more than we think of have fashioned that disposition in the black-blooded people, and made it an irresistible impulse. Thus the poetical essence of Manru's character is accounted for, and the librettist has given it an expression which is ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... Sand-man's acquaintance took deeper root. Often when my mother had gone past, I slipped quickly out of my room into the corridor, but I could never see anything, for always before I could reach the place where I could get sight of him, the Sand-man was well inside the door. At last, unable to resist the impulse any longer, I determined to conceal myself in father's room and there wait ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... religious poetry on earth; yet they contain sallies that savour rankly of the man of blood. On the other hand, Alfred de Musset had a poisoned and a contorted nature; I am only quoting that generous and frivolous giant, old Dumas, when I accuse him of a bad heart; yet, when the impulse under which he wrote was purely creative, he could give us works like Carmosine or Fantasio, in which the last note of the romantic comedy seems to have been found again to touch and please us. When Flaubert wrote Madame Bovary, ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson

... dialect of Dutch known as "The Taal," for when the speaking of Dutch was made compulsory for them, they evolved a simplified form of the language more adapted to their French tongues. I suspect, too, that the artistic impulse which produced the dignified Colonial houses, and built so beautiful a town as Stellenbosch (a name with most painful associations for many military officers whose memories go back twenty years) ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton

... a creature of impulse and it was now for the first time in her life that she recognised this fatal barrier on the woman's side. With the recognition came the ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole

... this attitude of my father. I felt, somehow, that he was to blame for the tears of my Jeanette. I could have fallen upon him, doing him bodily injury, so great and terrible was my anger. With an effort, I conquered this first mad impulse and waited, with hands so tightly clenched that the nails ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield

... the sensation would have for him been enough. But since simians love to be noticed, it does not content them to have a conception; they must wrestle with it until it takes a form in which others can see it. They doom the artistic impulse to toil with its nose to the grindstone, until their idea is expressed in a book or a statue. Are they right? I have doubts. The artistic impulse seems not to wish to produce finished work. It certainly deserts us half-way, after ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day

... Tenor went on. He sang of the sun and the sea, gliding from one strain to another, and unconsciously keeping time to the measure as he rowed, now making the little boat leap forward with a fine impulse, now almost resting on his oars till their progress through the water was scarcely perceptible, and now stopping altogether while he lingered on ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... deeply sympathetic, and by sudden impulse stooped and kissed her cheek, saying, "Never mind, Miss Merival, it ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland

... that he could not at once re-collect his thoughts, and determine how to approach the quiet unconscious man, who, in reach of his spring, fronted his overwhelming physical strength with the habitual air of dignified command. His first impulse was that of violence; his second impulse curbed the first. But Darrell now turns quickly, and walks straight on; the figure quits the mouth of the passage, and follows with a long and noiseless stride. It has nearly gained Darrell. With what ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... exercise, the most eager huntsman feels a necessity for rest. His face needs caressing by the morning breeze: he halts, however, not from necessity, but by that instinctive impulse which tells him that ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin

... of triumphant joy flashed through her, and instantly died away. She wished to cry out, to confess, to say something, she knew not what. But David Leone is dead rang in her ears, and at the same moment she remembered what the impulse had been which brought ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine

... closer and closer every day round the vaunted capital of modern civilization. You know better than we do what is passing in the provinces, but I can answer for it that the Parisians, low as they have fallen, are not so lost to every impulse of honour as to be ready to welcome back in triumph the prime cause of their degradation, the man of December and of Sedan. Titania, in the Midsummer Night's Dream, idealizes the weaver, and invests him with every noble attribute, and then as soon ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere

... again before the public with another book of "California Sketches." The kind treatment given to the former volume, of which six editions have been printed and sold; the expressed wishes of many friends who have said, Give us another book; and my own impulse, have induced me to venture upon a second appearance. If much of the song is in the minor key, it had to be so: these Sketches are from real life, and "all lives ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald

... not here intend to enter upon a critical or literary analysis of the play, or to point out dramatic merits or defects, but we should like to make its readers feel with us the holy ardor and impulse of the writer and the spiritual import of the work. The action is without surprise, the doom fixed from the first; but so glowing is the canvas with local and historic color, so vital and intense the movement, so resistless, the "internal evidence," if we ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus

... was already within close rifle-shot of the column, and I sat down on the ground to watch their movements. Sometimes the whole would stand still, their heads all facing one way; then they would trot forward, as if by common impulse, their hoofs and horns clattering ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... A sudden impulse seized her as Mr. Larned rose and took her hand in greeting, Mrs. Dinsmore being called from the room at the same moment by a servant, who said that some one was waiting in the hall to ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley

... and also he heard them through the ears of Elinor, gauging the effect which every word would have upon her. At last he could bear it no longer. He was driven to her side to bear a part of her burden, even to prevent her from hearing, which would be something. He resisted the impulse to throw down his book, and only placed it very quietly on the table, and even in a deliberate way, that there might be no appearance of feeling about him—and made his way by degrees, pausing now and ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant

... had thus avoided him. When in the Scotch garden he came on Jackman syringing the rose-trees, he said to him, "Your mistress has gone to London," and abruptly turned away, angry that he had been obliged by a mysterious impulse to tell him that: ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... to what I believe to be the impulse of sympathy and opinion throughout the United States, I earnestly suggest that the Congress authorize the Treasury of the United States to make to the struggling government of Armenia such a loan as was made to several of the Allied governments during the war, and I would ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... now used, long heavy shells move quietly off under the impulse of a gradual evolution of gas, the presence of which continues to increase till the projectile has moved a foot or more; then ensues a contest between the increasing volume of the gas, tending to raise the pressure, and the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various

... in his own county town bein' refused a three-cent postage stamp by a low-lived Yankee, who had never known a gentleman in his life! The colonel's first impulse was to haul the scoundrel through the hole and caarve him; but then he remembered that he was a Talcott and could not demean himself, and drawin' himself up again with that manner which was grace itself he requested the loan of a three-cent postage stamp until he should communicate with his factor ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith

... don't let us forget the law—of which it is an axiom, that it is not the severity of punishment, but the certainty of it, that holds the wrong-doer in check! With this safe and commodious asylum the plow line can remain the exclusive aid to agriculture. If a man murders, curb your natural impulse! Give him a fair trial, with eminent counsel!" The judge tried not to look self-conscious when he said this. "If he is found guilty, I still say, don't lynch him! Why? Because by your hasty act you deny the public the elevating and improving spectacle of a legal execution!" When the applause ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester

... interested in one of the members." And the smile that the Senator bestowed upon Everett aroused a keen desire for murder in the first degree. There was a challenge and a warning in it and a cunning, too, that was deeper than both. Controlling his impulse to smash the Senatorial bulldog jaw, Everett's mind ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess

... is something arduous, because its tendency is to overcome and rise above obstacles. Now these two are not to be reduced to one principle: for sometimes the soul busies itself with unpleasant things, against the inclination of the concupiscible appetite, in order that, following the impulse of the irascible appetite, it may fight against obstacles. Wherefore also the passions of the irascible appetite counteract the passions of the concupiscible appetite: since the concupiscence, on being aroused, diminishes anger; and anger being roused, diminishes concupiscence in many cases. This ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... outwardly whether he felt what he said, or whether he did not. His words had painted such a picture of forlornness on my mind, that I had mechanically half raised my hand to take his, while he was addressing me; but the sight of him when he ceased, checked the impulse almost as soon as it was formed. He did not appear to have noticed either my involuntary gesture, or its immediate ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins

... between John Muir and myself was of that fine sort which grows and deepens with absence almost as well as with companionship. Occasional letters passed from one to the other. When I felt like writing to Muir I obeyed the impulse without asking whether I "owed" him a letter, and he followed the same rule—or rather lack of rule. Sometimes answers to these letters came quickly; sometimes they were long delayed, so long that they were not answers at all. When ...
— Alaska Days with John Muir • Samual Hall Young

... her deep, penetrating gaze upon him; and, though this in no wise embarrassed him—for he had no shameful secrets of past or present—it showed him how useless it would be to try to conceal anything from her. Naturally, on first impulse, he wanted to hide his interest in the daughter; but he resolved to be absolutely frank and true, and through that win or lose. Moreover, if Mrs. Belding asked him any questions about his home, his family, his connections, he would not ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey

... overtake her until she came to a bank too steep for her to surmount without aid. He sprang up and extended her his hand. Assuming an expression as if she were unconscious who was helping her, she took it, and he drew her up to his side. Then with a sudden, audacious impulse, half hoping she would not be angry, half reckless if she were, he clasped her closely in his arms, and kissed her lips. She ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy

... spring was chilled by cold rain, driving in from the bay and sweeping through the half budded woods. The tide went up St. John River with an impulse which flooded undiked lowlands, yet there was no storm dangerous to shipping. Some sails hung out there in the whirl of vapors with evident intention of ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... then, strolling through the hall, with a watchful eye alert lest a speck of dust should have escaped Sarah, he saw his master cross the garden and strike across the park in the direction of Hawkins' farm. Every one else was out, Allenby knew not where. An impulse for fresh air fell upon him, and he sauntered ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce

... who get married have something to take back about each other," said Staniford, rather sheepishly. "However," he added, with an impulse of frankness, "I don't know that I should have dreamt of it myself, and I don't blame you. But ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells

... girl went on, raising her voice, "that I hadn't got myself engaged. It happened because of a misunderstanding, and I did it on the impulse of the moment; all the same, it can't be helped. And I was pretty jolly before I met Henry, and—I don't know—I may be pretty jolly again. If I go right out of his life now—why, I shall only think, I ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge

... long time the curious whirls and antics of the odd little creatures in their black-and-white coats held Jasper's gaze in a fascinated stare. Then the man, obeying an impulse that he scarcely understood himself, made his purchase, gave explicit directions where and when it was to be sent, and left the store. Then, and not until then, did Jasper Hawkins fully realize that to his Uncle Harold—the rich old man who must be petted and pampered, and never ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter

... and on condition of his submitting to his liege Philip the Good all other instruments he might make in the future. There is nothing singular in the early date of this invention, for the 15th century was distinguished for the extraordinary impulse which the patronage and appreciation of the dukes of Burgundy gave to automatic contrivances of all kinds, carillons, clocks, speaking animals and other curiosities due to Flemish genius.[4] No contemporary illustration is forthcoming, but in 1615 Solomon de Caus, who avowedly owed his inspiration ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... came under my notice during my sojourn in the interior of Africa. If my account should not entirely harmonise with preconceived notions as to primitive races, I cannot help it. I profess accurately to describe native Africa—Africa in those places where it has not received the slightest impulse, whether for good or evil, from European civilisation. If the picture be a dark one, we should, when contemplating these sons of Noah, try and carry our mind back to that time when our poor elder brother Ham was cursed by his father, and condemned ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke

... to take any notice of Egerton; and the morning was half-gone, and he had scarcely looked from his desk. But a sudden impulse or wish to rest awhile, made him pause and lay down his pen. And this is what met his eyes. Mr Prichard was standing with his back to the boys, writing some directions on the class notice-board, not hurrying himself, and quite lost in what ...
— Wilton School - or, Harry Campbell's Revenge • Fred E. Weatherly

... the good priest this seemed a little exaggeration on her part. But she had seen much that day of which she had never dreamed, and in her generous heart there was a sort of fierce wrath against so much misery, with a strong impulse to share it or cure it, to face the devil on his own ground, and beat him to death, hand to hand. It was perhaps foolish of her to walk to her own gate, but there was nothing to be ashamed of in the feeling which prompted her to ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford

... the impulse to raise his eyes. The very beard on Palmer's chin was quivering with the fervor of his beseechings. All were bowed in respectful reverence except Jake—he was gazing nowhere, the ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field

... Zachariah saw that at a distance of fifty yards there was a constable following him. He came on slowly until he was abreast of a narrow court, when suddenly there was a pistol-shot, and he was dead on the pavement. Zachariah's first impulse was to rush forward, but he saw the constable running, followed by others, and he discerned in an instant that to attempt to assist would lead to his own arrest and do no good. He managed, however, to reach the Major, and for two or three moments they stood stock-still ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford

... "I have just about got an irresistible impulse to peep. I was telling Eileen last night of a dress I saw that I thought perfect. It suited me better than any other dress I ever did see. It was at 'The Mode.' This box is from 'The Mode.' Could there be a possibility that she sent it up ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter

... out there over the river; the sky frosty-clear, and black. Bells had not begun to ring as yet. And obeying an obscure, deep impulse, Keith wrapped himself once more into his fur coat, pulled a motoring cap over his eyes, and sallied forth. In the Strand he took a cab to Fitzroy Street. There was no light in Larry's windows, and on a card he saw the words ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... that he had made a mistake, that he had entered the wrong house; and naturally his impulse was to continue his descent and secure his retreat. But the pause had brought the two men who had entered face to face with him, and they showed no signs of giving ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman

... handsome and stylish young lady, fond of dress and gay society, and without a notion of domestic responsibility or duty. Like most women who are not positively bad, she had in her heart a desire to be right, but she didn't know how. She was all impulse, and gave way to whims and feelings, as if helpless in any effort to manage her own waywardness. As a natural consequence there were constant jars between the pair. Fred took to his clubs and mingled with men of the race-course ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous

... things confide to him, what was her father's position and her own after the years which must have brought so much change. She would tell him that she was soon to be publicly betrothed to a young scholar, who was to fill up the place left vacant long ago by a wandering son. He foresaw the impulse that would prompt Romola to dwell on that prospect, and what would follow on the mention of the future husband's name. Fra Luca would tell all he knew and conjectured, and Tito saw no possible falsity by which he could now ward off the worst consequences of his former dissimulation. ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... country, by the obligations of the social compact; he was made for his species, by the Christian duties of universal charity; he was made for all ages past, by the sentiment of reverence for his forefathers; and he was made for all future times, by the impulse of affection for his progeny. Under ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... 1918. My remembrance of the man, when I got his letter from France—and it was approved, apparently, by one of his regimental officers, for a censorial signature, was upon its envelope—was a regrettable and embarrassing check to my impulse to cry Victory. I found it hard, nevertheless, in the moment when victory was near, to forgive the curious lapse that letter betrayed in a fellow who did not try for exemption but volunteered for the infantry, and afterwards declined a post which would have saved him from ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson

... no fear but that she will," said Emlyn, who perhaps had revolved in her mind, since her first impulse, what it would be to nurse Stead in that hovel, with two such displeased companions as Goody and Patience. More to pacify Steadfast's uneasy eyes than for her own sake, Patience gave her a drink of milk and a piece of ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge

... one way of saying that the processes of repair and waste are constantly going on in the body. Every action of the body, every impulse of the mind uses up some cell-matter, which must then be passed from the body as waste. This is called tissue disintegration. New cells to repair tissue waste are built up from the nutriment which the blood carries from the alimentary canal after the process of food digestion ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen

... comes unbidden. A blind ungovernable impulse seems to hold sway in the passions of the affections. Love is blind and seems to completely subdue and conquer. It often comes like a clap of thunder from a clear sky, and when it falls it falls flat, leaving only the ruins of ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols

... the chief signs of his greatness. What he did had a lasting influence upon our literature. He tapped the wellspring of English prose. Mainly owing to his initiative, from his day till the Conquest all the literature of importance was in the vernacular, and the impulse so given to the language as a literary vehicle was strong enough to preserve it from extinction during the Norman domination, when it was superseded as the court and official language. But, so far as the making and ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage

... Turgot. But with the philosophic sentiment of the necessity of reforms, the prince had not the feeling of a reformer; he had neither the genius nor the boldness; nor had his ministers more than himself. They raised all questions without settling any, accumulated storms, without giving them any impulse, and the tempests were doomed to be eventually directed against themselves. From M. de Maurepas to M. Turgot, from M. Turgot to M. de Calonne, from M. de Calonne to M. Necker, from M. Necker to M. de Malesherbes, he floated from ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... calculation he tossed the book into the open bag on the further side of the room, rose, and stretched himself. Deering stifled an impulse to scoff at his silk pajamas as hardly an appropriate sleeping garb for one who professed to have taken vows of ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson

... impulse in the direction of liberal improvement was intermittent, and was checked by a natural diffidence and infirmity of purpose. The messenger who was to summon Machault was recalled as he mounted his horse. Turgot was sacrificed to gratify the queen. Necker's second ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... the basis of operations against England in their attempt to secure the independence of Ireland. One and all they had determined to join the expedition as volunteers, and Nicholas, who entertained a lurking suspicion that Kate had crossed the American frontier under some mysterious impulse or influence, half made up his mind to make one of the invading army also. This suspicion was based upon the fact of Kate's having no friends or relatives in the States, save those at the Rock, while she had several in Canada in the ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh

... patient, and thoughtful, weighing duly every step taken, bestowing the greatest pains upon the comfort and well being of his troops, and careful as to every detail that could bring about success in his operations, Conde was passionate and impetuous, acting upon impulse rather than reflection. Personally ambitious, impatient of opposition, bitter in his enmities, his action and policy were influenced chiefly by his own ambitions and his own susceptibilities, rather than by the thought of what effect ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty

... himself on the verge of a proposal—with an effort he choked back the impulse. "You're just the romantic age," she continued—"fifty. Twenty-five is too worldly-wise; thirty is apt to be pale from overwork; forty is the age of long stories that take a whole cigar to tell; sixty is—oh, sixty is ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... form was the more exasperated against the pretty child, the lovely Jewess' son, because she herself could have no children in spite of efforts worthy of a locomotive engine. A diabolical impulse prompted her to plunge her young stepson, at twenty-one years of age, into dissipations contrary to all German habits. The wicked German hoped that English horses, Rhine vinegar, and Goethe's Marguerites would ruin the Jewess' child and shorten his days; for when ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac

... to his brig with a headlong impulse, as a man dashes forward to pull away with his hands a living, breathing, loved creature from the brink of destruction. "Hold him! Stick to him!" vociferated the lieutenant at the top of the bridge-ladder, while ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad

... hitherto drifted adown the stream of circumstance because his fellows have also drifted; then, with the deepening tides of his passion, the old spirit of knight-errantry descends upon him with its mystic mantle of white samite. And slowly out of this deepening torrent of bewildered impulse and devotion is born a new man—a man with a soul—a man who can dare all things, do all things, endure all things, for the sake of the woman he loves. At the baptism of her touch he becomes whole, and shapes his life to noble ends. Even if he can't ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various

... to be excluded. There are ship officers who know the requirements excellently, but who are almost paralyzed when the dangerous conditions suddenly threaten. Their ability for action is inhibited. In one moment they want to act under the stimulus of one impression, but before the impulse is realized, some other perhaps rather indifferent impression forces itself on their minds and suggests the counteraction, and in this way they vacillate and remain inactive until it is too late to give the right order or to ...
— Psychology and Industrial Efficiency • Hugo Muensterberg

... town Jack was proceeding down the river when, with a sudden impulse, which he could not explain, he ...
— The Hilltop Boys on the River • Cyril Burleigh

... door and went to the window, where he stood still, looking out into the dusk, and turning his back upon Greif. The latter paused an instant, and then came forward and laid one hand upon his friend's shoulder. He acted still under the same impulse of generosity which had first prompted him to keep ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford

... following a lead, Amarilly at once resolved to establish a regular costuming business. It even occurred to her to hire out the lace waist, but thoughts of wedding bells prevailed against her impulse to open this ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates

... involuntary exile, ostracism; penal servitude, hard labor; galleys &c 975; beating &c v.; flagellation, fustigation^, gantlet, strappado^, estrapade^, bastinado, argumentum baculinum [Lat.], stick law, rap on the knuckles, box on the ear; blow &c (impulse) 276; stripe, cuff, kick, buffet, pummel; slap, slap in the face; wipe, douse; coup de grace; torture, rack; picket, picketing; dragonnade^. capital punishment; execution; lethal injection; the gas chamber; hanging ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... forced forward by the blast of air rushing from the pipe at the stern. It was the same principle as that on which a sky rocket is shot heavenward, save that gases produced by the burning of powder in the pasteboard rocket form its moving impulse. ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood

... even guess, but be that as it may, on awaking, he heard, medley of several voices in the next room, all engaged in an earnest conversation, as was evident, not merely from the disjointed manner of their pronunciation but a strong smell of liquor which assailed his nose. His first impulse was to arise and escape by the window, but on reflection, as he saw by the light of their candle that the door between the two apartments was open, he deemed it safer to keep quiet for a little, with ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... and there on the floor of the room, courtseying to the ladies, stood the ex-barmaid of the "Choughs". His first impulse was to hurry away—she was looking down, and he might not be recognized; his next, to stand his ground, and take whatever might come. Mary went up to her and took her hand, saying that she could not go away without coming to see her. Patty ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... tent. It was blowing a little now. The moon was surging along behind little, grey, running clouds. It would rain before daylight. A haunted shiver swept through my back as I stole along the path. I repeated poetry rapidly aloud to crowd out uncanny imaginings. I had a silly, sick impulse to run back to the big house and sleep on ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... sounds pleasantly in the mind. It gives to man all that the natural man desires: the opportunity of exercising his activities to the full; the sense of power; the feeling that life is a slave, not a master; the knowledge that some great industry has quickened into life under the impulse ...
— Success (Second Edition) • Max Aitken Beaverbrook

... understood, play is the ideal type of exercise for the young, most favorable for growth, and most self-regulating in both kind and amount. For its forms the pulse of adolescent enthusiasm beats highest. It is unconstrained and free to follow any outer or inner impulse. The zest of it vents and satisfies the strong passion of youth for intense erethic and perhaps orgiastic states, gives an exaltation of self-feeling so craved that with no vicarious outlet it often impels to drink, and best of all realizes the watchword ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... some impulse in his mind which kept questioning him as to how he felt. He was conscious of other strange ideas which seemed to be impressed upon his brain, but this one thought concerning his indisposition clamored insistently over the lesser ideas. It even seemed just ...
— The Jameson Satellite • Neil Ronald Jones

... the excuse of not having seen that he was a hypocrite. I felt his hypocrisy at once, and my first impulse was to jump for my breastworks. But instantly my vanity got behind me, held me in the open, pushed me on toward him. If you will notice, almost all "confidence" games rely for success chiefly upon enlisting a man's vanity to play the traitor ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips

... will not go there. I know the man too well to believe it. The impulse for flight came upon him, and he was persuaded that it might be an open door. But he will not carry the plan through. His conscience will not permit him to hire himself under a false name to a man who believes him an orthodox priest holding his own views. Garret will never ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green

... occasional breakage and yolk-stained rompers. For I share in that delight myself, since egg-gathering always gives me the feeling that I'm partaking of the bounty of Nature, that I'm getting something for next-to-nothing. It's the same impulse, really, which drives city women to the bargain-counter and the auction-room, the sublimated passion to adorn the home teepee-pole with the ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer

... is instinctive in the heart of a good woman, or perhaps it was because she had read the Christian Bible; but whatever the origin of the impulse, Marguerite was charitably inclined and wished to make personal sacrifice for the benefit of other beings less well situated than herself. While she was still a resident of the Free Level she had talked to me of this feeling and of ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings

... father, had ever recognised in the criminal an abnormal being driven by an irresistible atavistic impulse to commit anti-social acts, but many had observed (cases of the kind were too frequent to escape notice) the existence of certain individuals, nearly always members of degenerate families, who seemed from their earliest infancy to be prompted by some fatal impulse to do ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero

... out or get her neck wrung," said Linda. "I truly think she has been redeemed. She has been born again. She has a new heart and a new soul and a new impulse and a right conception of life. Why, Peter, she has even got a new body. Her face is not ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter

... brain within the skull is a prisoner, connected to the 'outside' by the five standard sensory channels of sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. Stimulate a channel, and the result is a certain wave-shape of electrical impulse that enters the brain and—sort of like the key to a Yale lock—fits only one combination of cells. Or if no previous memory is there, it starts its own new collection of cells to linking and combining. When we repeat and repeat, ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith

... it has happened to me—well, for instance, to take offence simply on purpose, for nothing; and one knows oneself, of course, that one is offended at nothing; that one is putting it on, but yet one brings oneself at last to the point of being really offended. All my life I have had an impulse to play such pranks, so that in the end I could not control it in myself. Another time, twice, in fact, I tried hard to be in love. I suffered, too, gentlemen, I assure you. In the depth of my heart there was no faith in my suffering, only a faint stir of ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky

... to their origin these are found to arise from different brain centres. Thus it was clear that a hitherto unrecognized duality of function pertains to the entire extra-cranial nervous system. Any impulse sent from the periphery to the brain must be conveyed along a perfectly definite channel; the response from the brain, sent out to the peripheral muscles, must traverse an equally definite and altogether different course. If either channel is interrupted—as by ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... poesy of the feeling lay not in the beauty of the objects, but in the moral effect of the traditions, to which these objects served as talismans of the memory. The scene at sunset reminded him of the Highlands, but it was those reminiscences which similar scenes recalled, that constituted the impulse which gave life and elevation to his reflections. There is not more poesy in the sight of mountains than of plains; it is the local associations that throw enchantment over all scenes, and resemblance ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt

... seeking their own advantage, and that some of them, especially the Duke of Burgundy, had cruel wrongs to avenge: it will be more easily understood that France had reached a period of depression and apparent despair which no principle of national elasticity or new spring of national impulse was present to amend. The extraordinary aspect of whole districts in so strong and populous a country, which disowned the native monarch, and of towns and castles innumerable which were held by the native nobility in the name of a foreign king, could scarcely have been possible under other ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant

... informed us, in a solemn and important manner, that we were now approaching to the places where the Turcomans generally lie in wait for caravans, and directed that we should all march in a compact body, and invited us to make preparations for a desperate resistance in case we were attacked. The first impulse of my master was to tie his gun, sword, and pistols on one of his baggage mules. He then complained of an affection in the bowels, and so abandoning all his former intentions of engaging in combat, wrapped himself up in the folds of his cloak, put on a face ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier

... predisposition to crime, like the alcoholic inheriting a weak will, or with insane or epileptic tendencies that may lead early to criminal conduct; but it is not yet proven that a majority of offenders are hereditary perverts. A stronger reason for crime is the unsatisfied desire or the uncontrolled impulse that drives a man to take by force that to which he has no lawful claim. This desire is strengthened by the social conditions of the present. In all grades of society there are individuals who resort to all sorts of means to get money and pleasure, and those who ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe

... history. Without enumerating all the divisions, we see Yankees, Germans, Irish, Scotch, Italians, Frenchmen, Norwegians, and Dutchmen,—all in one army; and, grandest spectacle of all, moved by one common impulse to put down this rebellion, and to save for all future time the principle upon ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis

... to it was something easier said than done, yet the idea seemed to take root in my mind; and how or why it ever came about I can no more tell than I can fly, but somehow or other, it matters not what was my impulse or idea or expectation, the truth is, without saying a single word, I pulled out my knife and the bit of flint which I had found and carefully preserved the day before, and then struck one upon the other (as if it were quite mechanical) above the Dean's little bit of cotton stuff, which lay upon ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes

... as I was strolling on the quay, I came across a man I believed I recognized, though I could not place him with certainty. I instinctively went more slowly, ready to pause. The stranger saw my impulse, looked at me, and fell ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various

... constitution. The want of discipline and human learning was supplied by the occasional assistance of the prophets, [106] who were called to that function without distinction of age, of sex, [1061] or of natural abilities, and who, as often as they felt the divine impulse, poured forth the effusions of the Spirit in the assembly of the faithful. But these extraordinary gifts were frequently abused or misapplied by the prophetic teachers. They displayed them at an improper season, presumptuously disturbed ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... "My first impulse was to get hold of the oars, for the roar of the breakers already filled my ears. A better idea suggested itself immediately after, and that was to load my gun. This was a delicate business, but I set about it with all ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid

... acted on a motive, and never on an impulse, and who concealed his real objects behind ostensible ones, imagined that everybody else was governed by the same principle of action; and, therefore, frequently deceived himself by attributing designs to others that never existed but ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... truth. His example may shew us, that some degrees of bodily weakness and mental depression may be most happily cured by active exertion in the service of mankind. Perhaps there never existed a more striking proof how far a noble impulse, communicated to the mind by a project of extensive Benevolence, may invigorate a frame not equal in health, strength, and stature, to the common standard of men. It is a prudential maxim of the celebrated Raleigh, ...
— The Eulogies of Howard • William Hayley

... she rose and stood by his side, and then with a sudden impulse she laid her hand with outspread fingers upon the page ...
— Patty Fairfield • Carolyn Wells

... senator, with his ardent nature, and his impulse to take part in every conflict, had raised a regiment of volunteers principally composed of men from the Pacific coast. It was known as the California Regiment, and was encamped near Washington.**** On the 1st of ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... somewhere, to do something, without success. Work as she would, day and night, assisted by the kindly neighbors and the frightened children, she could not stay the progress of that fatal disease; and on the fourth it terminated in the going out of that life which, with all its faults, had been kindly in impulse at least. ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry

... Bruce's first impulse was to jump from the truck and leave it to its fate, but when he heard the manager's frantic appeal to save the precious film he climbed quickly over the back of the high seat. In another instant he grasped the steering wheel and jammed his foot down upon ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump

... awakens a certain ideal melancholy favourable to the reception of more important impressions, it will produce in the reader all that the writer experienced in the composition. I resigned myself, as I wrote, to the impulses of the feelings which moulded the conception of the story; and this impulse determined the pauses of a measure, which only pretends to be regular inasmuch as it corresponds with, and expresses, the irregularity of the imaginations ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... the deformity, the reproach, and the misery of all deviations from it. Yet it is to be remembered, that the laws of mere morality are of no coercive power; and, however they may, by conviction, of their fitness please the reasoner in the shade, when the passions stagnate without impulse, and the appetites are secluded from their objects, they will be of little force against the ardour of desire, or the vehemence of rage, amidst the pleasures and tumults of the world. To counteract the power of temptations, hope must be excited ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... Travers. "I know you didn't go out there to meet any one; it was just a natural impulse for a little adventure, wasn't it? And I deserve my reward for getting you home safely. ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton

... an extensive trade carried on upon the Columbia, which must have existed before the coast was frequented by foreign traders; but to which the foreign trade has given a new impulse. The great emporium of this trade is at the falls, the Shilloots being the carriers between the inhabitants above and below. The Indians of the Rocky Mountains bring down bear's-grease, horses, and a few skins, which they exchange for beads, pounded fish, and the roots ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley

... shooting those who opposed his invasion. In all times, among the most savage tribes and in civilized society, women have been moved to heavenly pity by the sight of a prisoner, and risked life to save him—the impulse was as natural to a Highland lass as to an African maid. Pocahontas went further than efforts to make peace between the superior race and her own. When the whites forced the Indians to contribute from their scanty stores to the support of the invaders, and burned their dwellings and ...
— Widger's Quotations of Charles D. Warner • David Widger

... embassy on behalf of the odious subscription-list, yet I had now no reason whatever for hiding the truth from this noble-hearted woman. I felt as though something were now being fulfilled which I had always been entitled to expect, and my only impulse was an immediate desire to show my gratitude to this rare lady by at least doing something for her. All the friction which disturbed our later intercourse sprang solely from my inability to fulfil this desire, in which I felt ever more and more confirmed by her singular ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner

... But then the whole affair was a mystery, totally out of keeping, in all its details, with the characters of these women, save—and what a fearful exception I here make—the awful end, which, alas! bespoke the fiery rush and impulse to destroy which marked Carmel's ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green

... conduct are formed slowly in the best minds and exist at first merely in what Plato would have called "the intellectual sphere," or in what would have been called at a later date in Palestine the "kingdom of heaven." But the strongest impulse of mankind is to realise its ideals. Its fervent prayer, which once uttered can never cease, is "on earth as it is in heaven," and the ideals developed in man's spiritual life gradually take shape in laws and become prohibitions and injunctions backed by ...
— Britain at Bay • Spenser Wilkinson

... the National Government was called upon to solve. It cannot be said that the solution was successfully reached, for the blunders in transportation were among the most costly, exasperating, and dangerous of the war. But the efforts to reach it provided the impulse which soon after resulted in the settlement of Western New York, the appearance of the germs of such flourishing cities as Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse, the opening up of the Southwest Territory, between Tennessee and New Orleans, and ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various

... cases is precisely the same. On the contrary, I think it probable that there are varieties and complexities quite beyond our present speculation. But at least these cases fall for us under the same primary or obvious category; they are all cases where a thought, a feeling, an impulse, a picture, has been transferred from one mind to another without the agency of the recognized organs ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various

... proceeded to a spot near the office and halted. His first impulse to rush after Sorenson had been promptly suppressed, as cooler judgment ruled. To seek his quarry in that throng would be labor wasted, while to reveal his identity would be to court a disastrous interference ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd

... personage, and for the whole of the first day remained on board, impatiently, but in vain, prying into each boat that left the shore for the dusky forms of some of his quondam friends. His pride, however, could not long withstand the desire of display. Yielding to the impulse of vanity he, early the following morning, took his departure from the ship. Those who witnessed the meeting described it as cool on both sides, arising on the part of his friends from jealousy; they, perhaps, judging from his costume ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc

... relatives. We are assured that when Sylla, having withstood for a while the entreaties of his own best friends, persons of distinguished rank, at last yielded to their importunity, he exclaimed—either by a divine impulse, or from a shrewd conjecture: "Your suit is granted, and you may take him among you; but know," he added, "that this man, for whose safety you are so extremely anxious, will, some day or other, be the ruin of the ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... revealed to him By force of his own fair works' competence. The same blue waters where the dolphins swim Suggest the tritons. Through the blue Immense Strike out, all swimmers! cling not in the way Of one another, so to sink; but learn The strong man's impulse, catch the freshening spray He throws up in his motions, and discern By his clear westering eye, the time of day. Thou, God, hast set us worthy gifts to earn Besides Thy heaven and Thee! and when I say There's room here for the weakest man alive To live and die, there's room too, I repeat, For ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... not be waived one side in the interest of the thing which he desires to do. So you must guard yourself very carefully, no matter what the department of life may be that you are facing, if you find yourself doubting under the impulse of your own wishes, if you are trying to argue yourself into the belief that you may be permitted to do something which you very much want ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage

... distinction is that animals make no improvements; while the knowledge, and skill, and the success of man are perpetually on the increase. Animals, in all their operations, follow the first impulse of nature or that instinct which God has implanted in them. In all they do undertake, therefore, their works are more perfect and regular than those ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... said; and his eye glanced towards Martin, and across the waves: but while every oar bent with the exertions of the rowers, as the great wave came towering towards them, he beheld the pale face of his father, and dare not obey the evil impulse that had seized him. The boat came safely across the reef to land, but the evil thought remained in his blood, and roused up every little fibre of bitterness which had remained in his memory since he and Martin had been comrades. But he could not weave the fibres together, ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen

... banking-book barely reached fifteen hundred pounds. I snatched up my check-book, wrote a draft for the whole amount, and ordered one of my clerks to run to the bank and get it cashed before the doors closed. What impulse urged me on, except the blind impulse of hurry and bewilderment, I can't say. I acted mechanically, under the influence of the vague inexplicable fear which the man's extraordinary parting words had aroused in me, without stopping to analyze my own sensations—almost without knowing what I ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins

... of the first Communes is well known. It is the same in all parts of Western Europe, though the essential characteristics are nowhere more evident than in Belgium. Trade gave the first impulse. It had been practically annihilated by the Norman invasions and the wars of the ninth century. Using the natural waterways of the country and the sea routes, it revived slowly, and we know, through the discovery of Flemish ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts

... was one of repulsion, and the impulse was to run away. But there was fascination, too, in the hag-like visage of those grim brick walls, checkered with innumerable dirty windows and trussed up, like a paralytic old crone, with rusty fire-escapes. It was the fascination of the mysterious ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson

... 1909, the idea began to crystallize into a definite purpose. In that month President Taft, at a banquet at the Fairmont Hotel, declared that the Canal would be opened to commerce on January 1, 1915. That announcement gave the final impulse to the growing determination. The success of the Portola celebration that summer had given the city confidence in its ability to carry out a great festival undertaking. In fact, it was at a meeting of the Portola committee that ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber

... wanted for any special purpose, or racing about after the peasant women. His favorite attitude was one of concentrated immobility. He was capable of standing for hours at a stretch in the same place with his eyes fixed on the same spot without stirring. He never moved except on impulse, and then only when an occasion presented itself for some rapid and abrupt action: catching a running dog by the tail, pulling off a woman's kerchief, or jumping over a big hole. It need hardly be said that with such parsimony of movement Savka was as poor as a mouse and lived worse ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... My first impulse was to acquaint the Queen with these astounding revelations, but it soon struck me that, to tackle a man of such importance as the Count, we could not do without the King. I at once sent my secretary with a note, imploring his Majesty to ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... of their adoption by means of advantageous Creole marriages. Love, too, sheer uncalculating love, impelled not a few Whites to enter the hymeneal state with the dusky captivators of their affections. When rich, the white planter not seldom paid for such gratification of his laudable impulse by accepting exclusion from "Society"—and when poor, he incurred almost invariably his dismissal from employment. Of course, in all cases of the sort the dispensers of such penalties were actuated by high motives which, nevertheless, did not stand in the way of their meeting, in the ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas

... resentment, though perfectly careless of her, and though becoming attached to another, still he could not see her suffer, without the desire of giving her relief. It was a remainder of former sentiment; it was an impulse of pure, though unacknowledged friendship; it was a proof of his own warm and amiable heart, which she could not contemplate without emotions so compounded of pleasure and pain, that she knew ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... permitted by the State to exist within it, has been received. Desirous as I am that emancipation shall be adopted by Missouri, and believing as I do that gradual can be made better than immediate for both black and white, except when military necessity changes the case, my impulse is to say that such protection would be given. I cannot know exactly what shape an act of emancipation may take. If the period from the initiation to the final end should be comparatively short, and the act should prevent ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... was what she thought he had been doing. Little did she know how little like play it was. Jerry had to stifle the impulse to tell her all he had been through in the ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson

... entertain no doubt, but in its application it is not enough that the value of lands in a particular locality may be enhanced; that, in fact, a larger amount of money may probably be received in a given time for alternate sections than could have been realized for all the sections without the impulse and influence of the proposed improvements. A prudent proprietor looks beyond limited sections of his domain, beyond present results to the ultimate effect which a particular line of policy is likely to produce upon all his possessions and interests. The Government, which is ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin Pierce • Franklin Pierce

... generous impulse he slipped the enchanted bridle off the head of Pegasus, and took ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various

... great hail-storm, which slew more than the swords of the Israelites, but touched not the Israelites. In this situation of things the sun appears over Gibeon eastward and the moon over Ajalon westward. When Joshua saw it, moved by a grand impulse, he said: "Sun, stand thou still over Gibeon; and thou, moon, over the valley of Ajalon." See Joshua 10: ...
— The Christian Foundation, February, 1880

... person exiled by the Emperor, and formerly popular, could collect fifty trusty conspirators in all France; at least, as long as our armies are victorious, and organized in their present formidable manner. Should anything happen to our present chief, an impulse may be given to the minds now sunk down, and raise our characters from their present torpid state. But until such an event, we shall remain as we are, indolent but submissive, sacrificing our children and treasures ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith

... smooth brow wrinkled with thought, and her eyes gleaming with a strange, new light. There was a shadow on her fair face, a grieved, injured expression, as if her mother's treachery had hurt her cruelly. She knew the letter was withheld, and her first impulse was to demand it at once. But Anna dreaded a scene, and dreaded her mother, too, and after a moment's reflection that her Charlie would write again, and Adah, who now went regularly to the office, would get it and bring ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes

... disclosing the ground; and then, when the whole of the hostile enemy should be in full pursuit, we were to charge them in break and put them to rout. All happened as was anticipated; We mustered about three hundred and fifteen men, acting under one single impulse, and sanguine as to success. On came ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat

... him that he was soon coming to lunch with them, to read his new play to the family. Esperance was wild with excitement. The time of waiting for the event seemed interminable to her. Her father tried in vain to calm her with philosophical reflections. Creature of feeling and impulse that she was, nothing could ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt

... in quality of paint. In 1892 Mr. Brownell said of Monticelli in his French Art—a book that every student and amateur of painting should possess—that the touch of Diaz, patrician as it was, lacked the exquisiteness of Monticelli's; though he admits the "exaggeration of the decorative impulse" in that master. For Henley Monticelli's art was purely sensuous; "his fairy meadows and enchanted gardens are that sweet word 'Mesopotamia' in two dimensions." Henley speaks of his "clangours of bronze and gold and scarlet" and admits that "there ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker

... George Duncan Ludlow, who had received his appointment on the separation of that province in 1784. The forward-looking jurist was Thomas Andrew Strange who became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in 1791.[12] The same impulse for liberty which about this time was noted in the upper country manifested itself from time to time by the sea. Slaves ran away from their masters; the masters pursued and imprisoned them. Some blacks claimed freedom without fleeing. When a writ of habeas corpus came ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various

... the affair with a final rush. New actors soon appeared on the scene. These were a boat's crew of the fur-traders under a young man of St. Malo, one Des Prairies, who, when he heard the firing, could not resist the impulse to join the fight. On seeing them, Champlain checked the assault, in order, as he says, that the new-comers might have their share in the sport. The traders opened fire, with great zest and no less execution; while the Iroquois, now wild with terror, leaped and writhed ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... on her Plummer pedestal. For she was laboring with the impulse to refuse to listen to this intruder, to drive her away—to say: "I won't believe a word you say! You may as ...
— Rebecca Mary • Annie Hamilton Donnell

... by the shoulders as one does a child, the impulse in him strong to shake her, his heart ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs

... race, how to hold its own against the hostile forces everywhere leagued against it. Life was a perpetual struggle, and, let dreamers say what they might, could never be anything else; he, for one, perceived no right that he had to claim exemption from the doom of labour. Had he felt an impulse to any other kind of work, well and good, he would have turned to it; but nothing whatever called to him with imperative voice save this task of tilling his own acres. It might not always satisfy him; he took no vow of one ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing

... its efficacy to it. (Dunglison, New Remedies.) As for Sulphur, "the common people have long used it as an ointment" for scabies. (Rees's Cyc. art. "Scabies.") The modern cantiscorbutic regimen is credited to Captain Cook. "To his sagacity we are indebted for the first impulse to those regulations by which scorbutus is so successfully prevented in our navy." (Lond. Cyc. Prac. Med. art. "Scorbutus.") Iron and various salts which enter into the normal composition of the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... Joan, and watched the smile of sleep grow and wane faintly on the lips of the child as the rhythm of her singing lifted and fell. One half of her mind was empty, that part where Dan should have been, and a dozen times she checked an impulse to turn to him in the place where he should be sitting and invite him with a smile to share her happiness. When her eyes moved they only fell on the gaunt, intent face of Buck or the leonine head of Haines. Whistling Dan was gone and if he ever came again her ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand

... of derivative grandeur, propagated to ages so remote from itself, and sustained by manners so different from the spirit of her own,—we may faintly measure the strength of the original impulse given to the feelings of men by the sacred majesty of the Roman throne. How potent must that splendor have been, whose mere reflection shot rays upon a distant crown, under another heaven, and across the wilderness of fourteen centuries! Splendor, thus transmitted, thus sustained, ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey

... were now worked up to a condition of irresponsible madness. Another such impulse from the Medicine Man, and the thirsty knives would ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby

... traits on record of the peculiar disposition of the hero of Waterloo. It bespeaks at once the soldier and the politician. He answers the letter with military precision, but with political astuteness—he pretends to be ignorant of the object I had in sending it. His ready reply was the first impulse of the man; his crafty and guarded mode of expression was the cautious act of the minister. Had I been disposed to have written a second time to my illustrious correspondent, I now had a fine opportunity of doing so; but I preferred letting ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 14, 1841 • Various

... kind of tug at him. His sentimental, maternal side heaved to the top. A great impulse to hurry out and put his arms round them seized him, but he frowned and overcame it. He didn't want to go soft now. Nor was this the moment, his nicely brought up soul told him, his soul still echoing with the voice of Clark, to put his arms ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim

... is described as a favor very liberally bestowed on all ranks of the faithful, on women as on elders, on boys as well as upon bishops. When their devout minds were sufficiently prepared by a course of prayer, of fasting, and of vigils, to receive the extraordinary impulse, they were transported out of their senses, and delivered in ecstasy what was inspired, being mere organs of the Holy Spirit, just as a pipe or flute is of him who blows into it. [75] We may add, that the design of these visions was, for the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... mangled and crushed into the grave. The lure and the deterrent—love of sensuous pleasure and fear of dissolution—are as deceitful as all the other causes of pain and pleasure in this world of appearance. Schopenhauer puts it tersely thus: "As we are decoyed into life by the utterly illusory impulse to voluptuousness, even so are we held fast therein by the fear of death, which is certainly illusory in an equal degree. Both have their immediate source in the Will, which in ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon

... 'Thank you'! A flash of a glance behind her which called me, even if she did not mean it as a call—and so, on I fare in a lunatic's dream. Own up! I have dreamed that some day I will see her again. And down in the depths of me stirs that impulse of the male which makes the peacock spread his feathers and silly man perk in front of a mirror. Why not give in to the sense of heredity once in a while even though it means beating up a tramp and making myself more of a mark ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day

... were standing near the edge of the cliff and talking earnestly together, but as Hermione and Artois came towards them they turned round as if moved by a mutual impulse. Ruffo took off his cap and Vere ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens

... Green meant business, and he began to feel around for his ticket. The conductor advanced to within eleven feet of the bear when all at once the animal sprang at him, growling and showing his teeth. Green's first impulse was to pull the bell rope, and order the cuss to get out of the ice house, but he saw the bear coming through the air towards him, and there was not four hours to lose, so he drew the revolver, took aim at the bear's left eye, and ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck

... to whom they used to give a dime for bringing telegraph messages from the office in which he was employed. The benefits which he then derived from the use of a free library in that city, have added to his good impulse, to create such a vast number of libraries in many lands that his honored name throws into the shade the names of Bodley and Radcliffe in England, and that of Astor in America. The mention of this latter name tempts me to narrate an amusing story of old ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler

... his first suggestion of panic—of how easily, in the face of so much peril, anyone could lose his head, and rush into danger, instead of escaping the risks by which he was surrounded. For his strong impulse now was to start into a run, and to begin to ascend the slope diagonally. But at the first dozen steps, he found he was loosening the ashes, which began to glide toward the chasm faster and faster, and that if he continued with so much ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn

... near Boston, and not too far from Concord. Such a pretty room as you should have, darling, fitted up in blue and rose-buds, or—no, Morris green and Pompeian-red would be prettier, perhaps. What a joy it would be to choose pictures for it,—pictures, every one of which should be an impulse in the best Art direction! And how you would revel in the garden, and in the fruit! My strawberries are the finest I ever saw; I have two Alderney cows and quantities of cream. Don't you think you could be happy to come and be my own little Curly, ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge

... broke down the bars of convention, and brought her enduring friendships among the men of learning. This was especially the case with Doctor Morton, Dean of the School of Surgery. Yielding to a harmless impulse of curiosity, the girl one afternoon had set out on a trip of exploration, and had chosen the Anatomy building to begin with. Many odd sights greeted her eager gaze as she peered into classrooms and exhibit cases; but she met with no one until she chanced to ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... protective power—trial by jury? It is almost an apology for them to imagine, that one or more of them were actually part of the gang. Self-preservation, under instant danger, (involved in a just verdict,) is less revolting than the less urgent degree of the same natural impulse, implied in the hypothesis of pure selfish and most dastardly dread of some remoter evil to self from the ill-will of those impugned by a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various

... slave emancipated, but not by moral means. He lived to see the sword cut the fetter. After this had taken place, he was too young to retire, though too old to gather laurels of literature or to seek professional honors. The impulse of humanity was not at all abated. His soul still flowed on for the great under-masses of mankind, though, like the Nile, it split up into scores of mouths, and not all of them were navigable. After a long and stormy life his sun went down in glory. All the English-speaking ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... and the ugly staircase had not been reformed. Colonel Hitchcock came into the house, and without looking into the study went upstairs. Sommers started to intercept him in the hall, but restrained the impulse. Miss Hitchcock appeared in a few moments, advancing to greet him with a frank smile, as if it were the most natural thing ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... procreant truth exhale From me, before my forces fail; Or ere the ecstatic impulse go, Let all my buds ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various

... true poet, whose impulse, like fate, overturns all opposition, Drayton is not to be thrown out of his avocation; but intrepidly closes by promising "they shall not deter me from going on with Scotland, if means and time do not hinder me to perform as much as I have promised in my first song." Who ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... it, he asked himself what excuse he had for saying it. If he had stopped to analyze the impulse, he would have seen how absurd, unreasonable and uncalled for his words were. But he had no time to analyze; like a diver who plunges suddenly, on some mad impulse, into a whirlpool, he had cast ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham

... believing that they are coming to a land flowing with milk and honey. In most cases any change with them would be for their advantage; and so the ranks of Mormonism are recruited, not from any truly religious impulse in the new disciples, but through a desire to better their ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou

... pale, ascetic face, and with the restless eyes of an enthusiast, dressed in black and badly dressed, and with a severe and narrow intelligence. But he had prepared himself to forgive her personality, for the sake of the high and generous impulse that inspired her. And when he was presented to her as she really was, and found her young, lovable, and nobly fair, the shock of wonder and delight had held him silent during the whole course of her ...
— The King's Jackal • Richard Harding Davis

... poise and dignity of the girl was the first impression Northrup always got. He had never quite grown accustomed to it; it was like a challenge—his impulse was to test it. It threatened ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock

... true that a million of men and women waste a day on a pursuit which brings them into contact with filthy intemperance, stupid debauch, unspeakable coarseness? The eruptive sportsman tells us that the sight of a good man on a good horse should stir every manly impulse in a Briton. What rubbish! What manliness can there be in watching a poor baby-colt flogged along by a dwarf? If one is placed at some distance from the course, then one may find the glitter of the pretty silk jackets pleasing; but, should one chance ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman

... agricultural domain was being occupied in the West, commerce and manufactures were not neglected. American merchantmen visited every sea, no longer in dread of hostile Briton or Barbary pirate, and internal commerce received a mighty impulse from the steamboat. Meanwhile the foundations were laid of those vast manufacturing interests which were yet to overshadow commerce in the East. As early as 1810, the domestic manufactures of all descriptions were worth $127,694,602 annually, ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

... but there was something in the resolve to make this visit forthwith and conquer all show of feeling, which was a sort of file-biting and counter-irritant. And without his distinctly recognizing the impulse, there certainly was present in him the sense that Celia would be there, and that he should pay her more attention than he ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... the mover in this business, and as such, is, properly speaking, the agent. But if we were super-naturally informed that the mind thus exerted was made to do so by the mysterious and irresistible impulse of a superior being, we should instantly declare that being the agent, and the mind irresistibly influenced only a passive instrument, and no more to blame than the gunpowder. Now, if the sinner is passive he is no more to blame or praise than the passive instruments ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 12, December, 1880 • Various

... the giddy whirling moments flew! The moon had set; I heard the midnight chime, Hope is more brave than fear, and joy than dread. And I could wait unmoved the parting time. It came; for, by a sudden impulse drawn, She, risen, stepped out upon ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow

... It is the Wave of Joy! It moves quickly! It takes you upon its sparkling crest! Whence the diamond lights of happiness flash! Merrily flash! It heaves you swiftly on! On! On! Ah! Yes! Nearer! Nearer still! One more impulse and you are there! It lifts its glittering form again! And NOW!—Oh, Mr. Cinch! you are in the Current! the CURRENT! Do you not feel its swift influence? The Current of Truth! Brightly, joyously, swiftly does this Spiritual Gulf Stream ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg

... by a sudden impulse of religious generosity extremely unusual in those days, immediately sang the psalm which the king ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... the thin partition in Ida's room. They were very terrible to her. They broke down the remnant of her excuse that the child was an imposition. They woke all her woman's tenderness, and the impulse to console carried her in a few moments ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge

... in silence. Every spark of human feeling had evidently been stifled in him. The Juggernaut of Paris, in rolling over him, had broken every generous impulse, flattening him into a pulp of brutal selfishness. That is why his face was so smooth and cold, his eyes so dull and his voice so monotonous. I understood it all now. I changed the subject. I did not know where it would lead if I kept on. ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith

... this action seemed a wanton cruelty; it was rather the wanton recklessness which belongs to a wild boy accustomed to gratify the impulse of the moment—the recklessness which is not cruelty in the boy, but which prosperity may pamper into cruelty in the man. And scarce had he reloaded his gun before the neigh of a young colt came from the neighbouring paddock, ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... person in that beautiful dress; but his satisfaction therein was cruelly disturbed when he discovered, towering and blazing among and above the genuine Glengarries and Macleods and MacGregors, a figure even more portly than his own, equipped from a sudden impulse of loyal ardour in an equally complete set of the self-same ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... I cared? There she was leaning toward him, the flames from the fire dancing softly before her face, giving her dark hair a hundred new lights and shadows. Her lips were parted, and in her eyes was silent entreaty. I felt a sudden unaccountable impulse to snatch up the volume of Rabelais, to face my father again, weapon or no ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand

... visited him in the evening along with young Mr. Burke. He said, 'It is strange that there should be so little reading in the world, and so much writing. People in general do not willingly read, if they can have any thing else to amuse them[671]. There must be an external impulse; emulation, or vanity, or avarice. The progress which the understanding makes through a book, has more pain than pleasure in it. Language is scanty, and inadequate to express the nice gradations and mixtures ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell

... muddled thinking there is the development of her initial assumption. While the groundwork of man is perfection, this perfection has been blemished and man is impelled to recapture it in the sublime. Yet instead of analyzing this impulse, Miss Reynolds appears to take it for granted. Nor does she consider how perfection is to be achieved in taste, preferring to conclude with a diatribe in the manner of Rousseau on the depravity of the times and the corrupting ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Taste, and of the Origin of - our Ideas of Beauty, etc. • Frances Reynolds

... Tommy, and the silence that followed should have been unpleasant to him; but he went on calmly: "Doubtless it was a mere impulse that made him jump into the pool, and impulse is not courage." He was quoting Grizel now, you observe, and though he did not look at her, he knew her eyes were fixed on him reproachfully. "And so," he concluded, "I suppose Captain ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie

... healthy athletic exercise or game; by the ruined brain overstrained in order to win some paltry prize! It is melancholy to observe how many lives have been broken down, ruined or corrupted in attempts to realise some supreme and unattainable desire; through the impulse of overmastering passion, of powerful and perhaps irresistible temptation. It is still sadder to observe how large a proportion of the failures of life may be ultimately traced to the most insignificant causes and might have been avoided without any serious effort ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... does it knowing what he does, but the people cannot even know; for how can that know which has neither been taught anything noble by others nor perceived anything of itself, 71 but pushes on matters with violent impulse and without understanding, like a torrent stream? Rule of the people then let them adopt who are foes to the Persians; but let us choose a company of the best men, and to them attach the chief power; for ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus

... that in the sweeping lines and broad surfaces of these Byzantine sculptures we obtain, so far as I know, for the first time in the history of art, the germ of that unity of perfect ease in every separate part, with perfect subjection to an enclosing form or directing impulse, which was brought to its most intense expression in the compositions of the two men in whom the art of Italy consummated itself and expired—Tintoret and ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin

... Indeed, it seems difficult to see how one could convince a man on hedonistic or utilitarian grounds that a course of conduct on which he was bent, and to which he was allured by the overmastering impulse of a vehement nature, and which promised him sensible gratification, possibly even material advancement, was not legitimate. I do not press this, nor do I suggest that moral elevation of life is not discernible amongst professors of this interpretation of ethics equally with those ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan

... solid as a rock, and the bolts are steel, but nothing could withstand that ramming for long." Gentleman Geoff had rallied his waning strength to meet that new note of quickened impulse. ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant

... my views upon an important subject which has recently agitated the nation to almost a fearful degree, I am moved by no other impulse than a most earnest desire for the perpetuation of that Union which has made us what we are, showering upon us blessings and conferring a power and influence which our fathers could hardly have anticipated, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson

... we fear with regard to Expropriation is exactly the contrary. We are afraid of not going far enough, of carrying out Expropriation on too small a scale to be lasting. We would not have the revolutionary impulse arrested in mid-career, to exhaust itself in half measures, which would content no one, and while producing a tremendous confusion in society, and stopping its customary activities, would have no vital power—would merely ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin

... self-conscious in a high degree, but only as a part of his general activity of mind; only in so far as he could not help being an extremely intelligent spectator of his own doings and feelings: these themselves came from springs of character and impulse much too deep and strong to be diverted. He loved also, with a child's or actor's gusto, to play a part and make a drama out of life: but the part was always for the moment his very own: he had it not in him to pose for anything ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... places of worship was a bambino, a holy infant, done in wax, and covered with cheap ornaments such as a little girl would like to beautify her doll with. Many a good Protestant of the old Puritan type would have felt a strong impulse to seize this "idolatrous" figure and dash it to pieces on the stone floor of the little church. But one must have lived awhile among simple-minded pious Catholics to know what this poor waxen image and the whole baby-house ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... you like it," she said. "I like it, too." Then, with a sudden feeling of friendship, an odd sense of intimacy, a quick impulse of common ...
— A Reversion To Type • Josephine Daskam

... they are pushed forward and drawn back by the hand, if the ends of the blades are at some distance from the centre, the oars foam with the waves of the sea and drive the ship forward in a straight line with a mighty impulse, while her prow ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius

... His first impulse was to forswear society, and to escape mortification in future, by refusing all invitations. If he had been a weakling such an outcome would have followed a false start. It is only a man who can pluck the blossom of success out of the very bramble ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston

... The Frenchman resisted the impulse to leap back in surprise, but his eyes narrowed till they were slits in his face. So! This Englishman did not know that this had been the last day of the sacrifices, that at midnight a hecatomb of pigs was to ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various

... with another—the appearance of some slight, slim draped "antique" of Vatican or Capitoline halls, late and refined, rare as a note and immortal as a link, set in motion by the miraculous infusion of a modern impulse and yet, for all the sudden freedom of folds and footsteps forsaken after centuries by their pedestal, keeping still the quality, the perfect felicity, of the statue; the blurred, absent eyes, the ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... of self-government.' ... In our greedy chase to make profit of the negro, let us beware lest we cancel and tear to pieces even the white man's charter of freedom.... If all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do as to the existing institution. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia—to their own native land. But, if they were all landed there in a day, they would all perish in the next ten days; and there are not surplus shipping and surplus ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... world. He wanted to come,—he longed to fly. Outside were sunshine, sweet air, trees, food,—inside only darkness. The smallest coaxing would bring him out; but coaxing he was not to have. He must decide for himself; the impulse must be from within. ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller

... that she was telling the truth, Moran could see but one reason for her evident fright: she was afraid of him. The suggestion of that strengthened the impulse which her beauty stirred in him. If she ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony

... her in the next moment; but that first impatient salutation was about as warm a welcome as any which Miss Paget received from her father. In sad and bitter truth, he did not care for her. His marriage with Mary Anne Kepp had been the one grateful impulse of his life; and even the sentiment which had prompted that marriage had been by no means free from the taint of selfishness. But he had been quite unprepared to find that this grand sacrifice of his life should involve another ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon

... of occasionally kneeling by my bedside and saying my prayers, and this night I felt the impulse to do so. I tried to thank God for my recovery. I said the Lord's Prayer; it is a universal petition and thanksgiving; it did not too nearly touch my woes; it allowed itself to be said, but when I came to something nearer, ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill

... perhaps still keeping. She wondered if his work were over, if the final stroke had been drawn. And as she pictured him there, signing his pact with evil in the loneliness of the conniving night, an uncontrollable impulse possessed her. She must drive by his windows and see if they were still alight. She would not go up to him,—she dared not,—but at least she would pass near to him, would invisibly share his watch and hover on the ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton

... needs and we so much desire to sell. By the simultaneous abandonment of the protective policy by Great Britain and the United States new and important markets have already been opened for our agricultural and other products, commerce and navigation have received a new impulse, labor and trade have been released from the artificial trammels which have so long fettered them, and to a great extent reciprocity in the exchange of commodities has been introduced at the same time by both countries, and greatly for the benefit of both. Great Britain ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... stood six feet high; it would have been quite a leap to me unencumbered; with the breast and back weights, and the twenty pounds upon each foot, and the staggering load of the helmet, the thing was out of reason. I laughed aloud in my tomb; and to prove to Bob how far he was astray, I gave a little impulse from my toes. Up I soared like a bird, my companion soaring at my side. As high as to the stone, and then higher, I pursued my impotent and empty flight. Even when the strong arm of Bob had checked my shoulders, my heels continued their ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... whoop and crash of falling and bursting shells kept us alternately ducking our heads and raising them again to see "where that one went," for curiosity is many times a stronger impulse than fear. ...
— From the St. Lawrence to the Yser with the 1st Canadian brigade • Frederic C. Curry

... But the large proportion of such fish do not travel very far from the mouth of the river in which they were born and the natural impulse for fresh water at spawning-time leads them naturally to the nearest stream. So, it is imperative that some fish be allowed to go up-stream, or in other words, that salmon-catchers allow a certain proportion to escape their ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... threw up both feet. Then he placed his feet upon the floor and rose on them and gave Ignace Prochnow a set oratorical appreciation of his qualities as a thinker and a draughtsman, and then, swept away by a sudden impulse to spread the news of this magnificent new "find" right under their own roof, he rushed downstairs to communicate ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller

... connections, and having no enthusiasm about my destination, I stayed over in the town nearest Top Hill. In a local paper I read of the arrest of a 'hardened young criminal.' I was curious to see what species of my sex that might be, and followed my impulse to visit her at the jail. Your friend, Bender, gave me permission to visit the 'hardened young criminal.' She was a girl of my own age, size, and altogether what I or any girl could easily have been had it not been for the accident of birth, conditions ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates

... agree to call rapid thought and noble impulse by the name of inspiration? After our subtlest analysis of the mental process, we must still say that our highest thoughts and our best deeds are all given to ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou

... its ignition, nor yet an inflammatory combustion of the air, which is dissolved in large quantities in the upper regions of space, but these meteors are rather a fall of celestial bodies, which, in consequence of a certain intermission in the rotatory force, and by the impulse of some irregular movements, have been hurled down not only to the inhabited portions of the Earth, but also beyond it into the great ocean, where we can ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt

... James had looked on Buckingham as his pupil. Charles clung to him as his friend. Nor was the new king's policy likely to be more national in Church affairs than in affairs of state. The war had given a new impulse to religious enthusiasm. The patriotism of the Puritan was strengthening his bigotry. To the bulk of Englishmen a fight with Spain meant a fight with Catholicism; and the fervour against Catholicism ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green

... of art he goes like a whirlwind, keen, certain, unfailing in his aim, unsparing in means, carried forward by such an impulse of will and self-confidence that nothing can withstand him. Sure of his own powers, as he was when he carved in secret the crucifix which was to cover poor Donatello with confusion, he saw before him, over his carvings, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various

... her artists and men of letters. Which is to say that the life of the Republic has been practical rather than artistic, and it is only of late years, except for a sporadic instance here and there, that any genuine artistic impulse ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson

... corner by the stile, beyond which the willows were splendid against the blue with silvery aments and golden pollen, they turned by mutual impulse and retraced their steps. "I've simply had no one to talk to down here," she said. "Not what ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells

... was the more deceived, and have to thank you for a salutary lesson. You chose to count me as a cipher in your rolls of conquest; for six months you left me to my fate; and you come here to-day - prompted, I doubt not, by an honourable impulse - to offer this tardy reparation. No: ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson

... answer. I hoped the storm would blow over, after a puff or two. But Blackeyes, without any ill-nature, I think, which was not in her, had got into the gale. She slipped out of bed and came to my side, putting her hand on my shoulder and bringing her laughing mouth down near my ear. A very angry impulse moved ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell

... a sharp descent and was crooked too, and the man (who although not drunk had the air of being flushed with some strong drink) went down it so fast that Clennam lost him as he looked at him. With no defined intention of following him, but with an impulse to keep the figure in view a little longer, Clennam quickened his pace to pass the twist in the street which hid him from his sight. On turning it, he saw the ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... brother. Do not think I can part from you so," and by an irresistible impulse, she turned to her cousin, and felt herself folded for a few seconds in his arms, and ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence

... you," she said suddenly, moved as it were by a strange impulse; "I have long wished for occupation—some useful work, though I should have liked something less terrible than helping to trace a murderer; still, I will ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton

... from among the other German states, and united into a new whole, though, at the same time, care was taken in other respects to keep up the ancient connection with the empire. Thus we see that the elevation of the Elector to a royal title was an important, nay, even a necessary, impulse to the progress of Prussia, which we cannot even in thought separate from the whole ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson

... table, and ignoring Somers, ran out to the hall, saying something about looking after the surprise for the supper. To my surprise, Somers followed her, not hastily, but rather deliberately, and, quelling an absurd impulse to go, too, I turned to Norman Steele, ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells

... hardly say that. But she has aroused my curiosity. She is a very peculiar girl, evidently a creature of impulse and determination. I certainly feel sorry for her. Her position is a very painful one. She has been married only a few months, and now her husband has to face the most awful accusation that can be brought ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow

... unexpected apparition before him, which seemed to issue from a cloud, Guiche uttered a cry and stretched out his arms toward her; but every word perished on his lips, and his strength seemed utterly abandoning him. His right hand, which had followed his first impulse, without calculating the amount of strength he had left, fell back again upon the bed, and immediately afterward the white linen was stained with a larger spot than before. In the meantime, the young man's eyes ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... were boys, most rude boys, and obeyed the impulse of rude nature which bids the deer herd fall upon any stricken hart, the duck flock put to death any broken-winged brother or sister, and on all hands the ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall

... expressing towards you no other feeling but a mild and affecting benevolence; to hear that mysterious man, whose every word was historical, yielding, as if for your sake alone, to the irresistible impulse of the most frank and confiding disclosure; and that voice, so caressing while it addressed you, was it not the same, whose lowest whisper rang throughout all Europe, announced wars, decided battles, settled the fate of empires, raised or destroyed reputations? What vanity could resist ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... Grandfather's generation and undoubtedly profoundly influenced my father and my uncles in all that they did. It suggested shining mountains, and grassy vales, swarming with bear and elk. It called to green savannahs and endless flowery glades. It voiced as no other song did, the pioneer impulse throbbing deep in my father's blood. That its words will not bear close inspection today takes little from its power. Unquestionably it was a directing force in the lives of at least three generations of my pioneering race. Its strains will be found running through ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... is not my own,' continued Daddy, dangerously near to wumbling. 'It comes through me only. It develops, apparently, when I'm asleep,' he repeated. He sat up and leaned forward. 'And, I believe,' he added, as on sudden reckless impulse, 'it comes from you, Henry. Your mind, I feel, has brought this cargo of new suggestion and discharged it into me—into every one—into the whole blessed village. Man, I think ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood

... men who attain? Or Man? Or not even he, but God? We do not know. We know only the impulse and the call. The gleam on the snow, the upward path, the urgent stress within, that is our certainty, the rest is doubt. But doubt is a horizon, and on it hangs the star of hope. By that we live; and the science blinds, the renunciation ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson

... broken window and beheld Gavroche fleeing at the full speed, towards the Marche Saint-Jean. As he passed the hair-dresser's shop Gavroche, who had the two brats still in his mind, had not been able to resist the impulse to say good day to him, and had flung ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... at my side, eating his good food and drinking his fine liquor, and sharing both with me and pressing me to help myself to his generous provision—if it was so, I say, then he was of an indescribable cruelty which it makes me cringe to think of, and I would prefer to believe that the impulse to bring about my death came from a sudden temptation springing from a sudden chance. And yet—God knows it is a difficult problem ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher

... seemed to see the events of her whole life pass before her in quick succession, but saw none filled with bitterness like the present. Her eyes filled with tears. She felt a violent impulse to look round once more, to see him once more, to measure with her eyes the extent of her loss, and then to hurry on again. But however great her sorrow for her wrecked happiness she dare not look round, for she knew it would be equivalent to ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov

... on the steps of Madame Odintsov's house, the friends could perceive that they had acted injudiciously in giving way so suddenly to a passing impulse. They were obviously not expected. They sat rather a long while, looking rather foolish, in the drawing-room. Madame Odintsov came in to them at last. She greeted them with her customary politeness, but was surprised at their hasty return; and, so far as could be judged ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... and drank, the Cherub circulated among them, and soon was primed with the abbreviated life-story of each person, though he had apparently asked no questions. Somehow, it was the first impulse of the most reserved soul to confide in the Cherub; and when the meal was finished, and no excuse remained for lingering, the wild birds, tamed by kindness, ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... with merely replying, and to leave it there. I thought it due to me that Eustace too should concede something, in the way of an assurance which might quiet my mind. As usual with me, the words followed the impulse to speak them. "Eustace," I asked, "are you quite cured of those cruel doubts which once ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins

... closely wrapped figure of a man was observed making its way among the crowd, with a dark and sinister expression upon his face betraying his lawless character. He was here prompted by no devotional impulse, but to watch and mark some intended victim. As we came out of the cathedral, long lines of natives were seen, men, women, and children, sitting on the edge of the sidewalks, or squatting near the low garden wall of the church, eating tortillas, while an earthen jar of pulque ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou

... tastes from his father, who became a general in the English army. He had few advantages of education in his youth, though in later life he became studious, and had much love for mathematics. A soldier's life was his ambition, and fame was his dominating impulse. His indomitable spirit governed his physical weakness. The natural kindness of his nature rose superior to the irritability sometimes caused by his ill-health, and made him always sympathise with the joys, sorrows, ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot

... every different aspect; and dangerous as it was, the steady review which she took of the various perils accompanying her purpose, furnished her with plausible devices for obviating them. Love and generous compassion, which give singly such powerful impulse to the female heart, were in this case united, and championed her to the ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... by one impulse, the whole line closed in with a run upon the gates of the inclosure. The mules, impelled by the sudden rush, dashed forward pell-mell, blocking up ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid

... stabbed downwards. It was done in a moment, almost before she realized the nature of the impulse that possessed her. Straight into the back of his hand the weapon drove, and there from the sheer force of the impact broke ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell

... cottage in a triumphant mood. He had won his point and that had pleased him for a time; then, as he began to ponder upon that point and its consequences his triumph changed to misgiving and doubt. He had had no idea, until that forenoon, of marrying again. His proposal had been made on impulse, on the spur of the moment. He was not sure that he wished to marry Hannah Parker. But he had pleaded and persuaded her into accepting him that very night. Even if he wished to back out, how could he—now? He was conscious of an uneasy ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln

... methinks there is some small track to the cause of this effect, if you come to the effluvia of bodies. For smell, voice, breath, and the like, are effluvia from animal bodies, and material parts that move the senses, which are wrought upon by their impulse. Now it is very likely that such effluvia must continually part from animals, by reason of their heat and motion; for by that the spirits are agitated, and the body, being struck by those, must continually ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... boy was a decisive event with Jurgis. It made him irrevocably a family man; it killed the last lingering impulse that he might have had to go out in the evenings and sit and talk with the men in the saloons. There was nothing he cared for now so much as to sit and look at the baby. This was very curious, for Jurgis had never been interested in babies before. But then, this was a very unusual ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... words that rang through the hall, he declared that the entire nation was united, the Deputies and the spectators in the galleries could sit still no longer. They rose, with them at first some Socialists, then all of them, carried away by the impulse of the moment; the members of the Federal Council, of the press, diplomats and the crowds in the galleries joined them. The whole multitude cheered and clapped its hands frantically. It reflected truly the spirit of the whole nation. The Speaker, who under ordinary circumstances would ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various

... learning there may be gained from a book-seller's letter to Aldus from Cracow, December 1505, ordering 100 copies of Constantine Lascaris' Greek grammar. For some months Ellenbog heard lectures there on astronomy, which remained a favourite subject with him throughout his life. Then an impulse came to him to follow his father's footsteps in medicine, and at the advice of friends he went back across half Europe to Montpellier, which from its earliest days had been famous for its medical faculty. In the long vacation of 1502 he spent two months with ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen

... it her soul was still in the clouds, where it had been driven by the music of the fiddle; thus, what she assumed to be a normal sequence of a train of thought was only a sublime impulse. She would marry Cutty. More, she would be his wife, his true wife. For his tenderness, his generosity, his chivalry, she would pay him in kind. There would be no nonsense; love would not enter into the bargain; but there would be the fragrance of perfect understanding. ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath

... half fainting, and did as she had been commanded. If there had been any little lurking impulse to beg for another week or month, it died of fear. If she had any confession to make of other wishes than those chosen for her, she postponed it. Matteo might be behind the door listening, or in the next room or at the window. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various

... Creed, needs to be put into active use, and will be when we believe it as distinguished from assent to it. When we believe that all who live unto God in the Body of His dear Son are inspired with active love one toward another, we shall ourselves feel the impulse of that love, and be compelled both to seek an outlet for it toward all other members of the Body, and also will equally feel compelled to seek our own share in the action of that love by asking for the prayers of the saints for ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry

... Archy's first impulse, as he recovered himself a little in the silence which followed, was to turn, open the door, and flee. But he hesitated. It would be right into the hands of the enemy. Besides, the terribly chilling sounds he had heard had ceased, ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn

... in my younger days, before he became so well-known; and also because I learn that you were a friend of my poor nephew John Ravensbury.' He looked over his shoulder to see if his daughter were within hearing, and, with the impulse of the solitary to make a confidence, continued in a low tone: 'She, poor girl, was to have married John: his death was a sad blow to her and to all of us.—Pray take a seat, ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... news of the truants; but, one evening, Amarendra Babu was sitting in his parlour, spelling out a spicy leader in the Indian Mirror, when, to his unqualified amazement, Jogesh stepped in and unbidden took a seat. Amarendra Babu's first impulse was to shout for help and eject the intruder with every species of ignominy, but second thoughts ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea

... ground for the rising bourgeoisie. The East Indian and Chinese markets, the colonization of America, trade with the colonies, the increase in the means of exchange and in commodities generally, gave to commerce, to navigation, to industry, an impulse never before known, and thereby, to the revolutionary element in the tottering feudal ...
— Manifesto of the Communist Party • Karl Marx

... yet no call for him to go to the front, and he would stay to match his wits against those of the great Mr. Sefton; he had been drawn unconsciously into a conflict—a conflict of which he was perhaps unconscious—and every impulse in him told ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... coming forward to lecture, he inaugurated a new era of intellectual prospects for the sons of toil, implicitly he promised that he would himself, from time to time, come forward to co-operate with a movement that had owed its birth to his own summons and impulse. But if he cannot honorably release himself from engagements voluntarily assumed, on the other hand he cannot justly be loaded with the responsibility of a continued participation in the Details of the ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey

... private scholar, William Turner and who not, began to vaunt their smattering of Latin in English impressions."[250] Thomas Nicholls, the goldsmith, translated Thucydides; Queen Elizabeth translated Boethius. The mention of women in this connection suggests how widely the impulse was diffused. Richard Hyrde says of the translation of Erasmus's Treatise on the Lord's Prayer, made by Margaret Roper, the daughter of Sir Thomas More, "And as for the translation thereof, I dare be bold to say ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos

... it—urge us to do or avoid—for which reason is not responsible. Reason, if we bring these emotions to it, cannot even pronounce upon them. Yet in them and from them springs the life of the soul and the conviction of immortality. 'To act on impulse'—who but daily realizes that commonplace in his own experience? The mind does not only play tricks and laugh at reason in dreams while we sleep. It laughs at reason while we wake, and the sanest spirit experiences inspired moments, mad moments, unaccountable impulses ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts

... admired him for that, even from the first glance; and, afterward, I put me up three new mirrors: I did not mean to be outdone by my cat, I intended to look tidy every minute, and there is nothing like mirrors to tell the truth. Credit for the initial impulse, ...
— American Cookery - November, 1921 • Various

... was something easier said than done, yet the idea seemed to take root in my mind; and how or why it ever came about I can no more tell than I can fly, but somehow or other, it matters not what was my impulse or idea or expectation, the truth is, without saying a single word, I pulled out my knife and the bit of flint which I had found and carefully preserved the day before, and then struck one upon the other (as if it were quite mechanical) above ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes

... continue to borrow. Besides, it may be proper to observe that the incidental protection thus afforded by a revenue tariff would at the present moment to some extent increase the confidence of the manufacturing interests and give a fresh impulse to our reviving business. To this surely no ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan

... being mutually attractive, far more than this! I preach to you that, through help of eyes that are dim, of ears that are dull, by instinct of something yet undefined—call it soul—it wants no less a name—Man has a native impulse and attraction and yearning to merge himself in that harmony and be one with it: a spirit of adoption (as St Paul says) ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... a deep easy-chair in his own room, and thought over the situation. His first impulse had been to be furiously angry with his father; but the latter having instantly explained that there was nothing to be said against the Duchessa, Giovanni's anger against the Prince had turned against himself. It was bitter to think ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford

... person, or pastel tints to a man who is color-blind. They simply didn't register. His mind was up to par, and he could be a charming companion. He could experience the most kindly of emotions and most generous of impulses, which he put into practice. But he also had a normal person's impulse to less admirable behavior, and he simply could not understand that there was any difference between impulses. He put the unpleasing ones into practice too. He'd been on the moon to avoid extradition because of past impulses which society ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... chief conspirator had so often and so lightly used the language of the League, about "falling overboard accidentally," that he had become familiar with the idea; and, perhaps, the deed seemed less terrible to him than it really was. When the act was done, on the impulse of the moment, he realized his own situation, and that of his victim. He would have given anything at that instant, as he looked down upon the dark waves, to have recalled the deed; but it was too late. Self-reproach ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic

... Britain, which he had in hand for forty years. Nor is it only the Miltonic sentence which is incoherent; the whole arrangement of his topics is equally loose, disjointed, and desultory. His inspiration comes from impulse. Had he stayed to chastise his emotional writing by reason and the laws of logic, he would have deprived himself of ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison

... to the left, he would have come presently to a public beach and would have had his swim conventionally and in due time. But some impulse told him to turn to the right, and he began to wander westward along the edge of the cliffs—always on his left hand, space and the sea, and on his right, lawns or gardens or parapets crowned by cactus plants in urns, and behind these a great variety of houses—French ...
— The Beauty and the Bolshevist • Alice Duer Miller

... I was wounded," continued Count Claudieuse, "my first impulse was instinctively to rush forward to the place from which the gun seemed to have been fired at me. I had not proceeded three yards, when I felt the same pain once more in the shoulder and in the neck. This second wound was more serous than the ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau

... a strong impulse that I should sometime recover my liberty, though it was impossible to conjecture by what means, or to form any project with the least hope of succeeding. The ship in which I sailed was the first ever known to be driven within sight of that coast, ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan

... fragrant cup of Mocha, about the hour day was breaking, I started for home, and having arrived, I plunged beneath the blankets to rest my wearied body. Near noon I was awakened by the medical attendant feeling my pulse. On opening my eyes, the first impulse was to hide the neglected potions, which I had carelessly left exposed upon the table, but a glance partially relieved my fears about its discovery, for I had fortunately thrown my cravat over it and hid it from view. As Victor predicted, the doctor ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various

... have been disagreeable: thus he had secretly ordered his destruction. I at once desired Ibrahim at all hazards to renounce so horrible a design. Never did I feel so full of revolution as at that moment; my first impulse was to assist Kalloe to dethrone Kamrasi, and to usurp the kingdom. Ibrahim had an eye to business; he knew, that should he offend Kamrasi there would be an end to the ivory trade for the present. The country was so rich in ivory ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker

... And all this sculptured gospel seems to bring home to one, better than the volumes of the learned, what Buddhism really meant to the masses of its followers. It meant, surely, not the denial of the soul or of God, but that warm impulse of pity and love that beats still in these tender and human pictures. It meant not the hope or desire for extinction, but the charming dream of thousands of lives, past and to come, in many forms, many conditions, ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson

... would have discovered this with the victorious satisfaction of finding fault. But orderliness prevailed. No; the mat at the front door had been displaced by Rowan's foot as he had hurried from the house. (The impulse was irresistible: she adjusted it with her toe and planted herself on it with a sense ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen

... her bearing martial. I caught the infection and felt a great impulse stirring in me that was like what one feels when he hears the roll of the drums and the tramp of ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain

... Miss Perkins thawed to such a degree, that something glittered on her hand as she bent over the pink pinafore again, better and brighter than her biggest diamond; Emma got up and went to Polly with a face full of affectionate respect, while Fanny, moved by a sudden impulse, caught up a costly Sevres plate that stood on the etagere, and laying a five-dollar bill in it, passed it round, quoting Polly's words, "Girls, I know you 'll like to help poor little Jenny 'begin again, and do ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott

... irresistible impulse I rose from my chair and held out my hand. The maire took it in mild surprise. "Monsieur," I said frankly, if crudely, "you are a brave man. And ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan

... off my horse, and by dint of great exertion, worked him up the river-bank as quietly and quickly as possible, then led him gently away out on the prairie. My first impulse was not to go back to the cattle; but as we needed them very badly, I concluded to return, put them all on their feet, and light out mighty lively, without making any noise. I started them, and, oh dear! I was afraid to tread upon a weed, lest it would snap and bring the Indians ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... all agree to call rapid thought and noble impulse by the name of inspiration? After our subtlest analysis of the mental process, we must still say that our highest thoughts and our best deeds are ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou

... the seething water, glanced past rocks and sprang over falls, Tom expected her to capsize every moment. At last he saw below them a stretch of quiet water, and two or three minutes later they were floating upon it, and as if by a common impulse all ceased rowing. ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty

... God for innocence, dearer than Art, That lights on a by-way which leads to the heart, And led by an impulse no less than divine, Walks into the temple and sits at the shrine. I would rather pluck daisies that grow in the wild, Or take one simple rose from the hand of a child, Then to breathe the rich fragrance of flowers that bide In the gardens of ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... attending the "readings" of Charles Dickens. When the "Christmas Carol" was read, as Mr. Dickens pronounced the words, "Bless his heart, it's Fezziwig alive yet," a dog, with some double bass vocalism, stirred, perhaps, by some ghostly impulse, responded: "Bow! wow! wow!" with a repetition that not only brought down the house wildly, but threw Mr. Dickens himself into such convulsions of humor that he could not proceed with his readings. "Bow! wow! wow!" was General ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... with a crash into the swollen torrent beneath. By this time I was beside the carriage. Finucane had now clambered to the box, and regardless of the death and ruin around, bent upon his murderous object, he lifted the light and girlish form above his head, bent backwards as if to give greater impulse to his effort, when, twining my lash around my wrist, I levelled my heavy and loaded hunting-whip at his head. The weighted ball of lead struck him exactly beneath his hat; he staggered, his hands relaxed, and he fell lifeless to the ground; the same ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... young lady was in the habit of bestowing upon men and women impartially—upon persons of either sex who happened to meet with her approval. She did not know what made her incline to like this man, neither did she seek to know. In a quiet, British way Miss Delafield was a creature of impulse. Her likes and dislikes were a matter of instinct, and, much as one respects the doctrine of charity, it is a question whether an instinctive dislike should be quashed by an exaggerated sense of neighborly duty. Steinmetz she liked, and there ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman

... number than is generally supposed have little or no sexual feeling. A second class of women, more numerous than these, but still small as compared with the whole of their sex, are more or less subject to strong passion. Those of the first class can no more form an idea of the strength of the impulse in other women, than the blind can of colors. They therefore often err in their judgments. The third class comprises the vast majority of women, in whom the sexual appetite is as moderate as all ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys

... lady, fond of dress and gay society, and without a notion of domestic responsibility or duty. Like most women who are not positively bad, she had in her heart a desire to be right, but she didn't know how. She was all impulse, and gave way to whims and feelings, as if helpless in any effort to manage her own waywardness. As a natural consequence there were constant jars between the pair. Fred took to his clubs and mingled with men of the race-course and the billiard halls, and Lizzie ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous

... he was fired by a passionate desire to aid; nor when occasion had arisen had he hesitated to sacrifice self for another's good. But such altruism was born of impulse and never considered. The spectacle of the universe absorbed him, and listening for the Pythagorean music of the spheres he sometimes became deaf to the voices of those puny lives about him. His attention being called to them, however, his solicitude was sweet and sincere, but once removed ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer

... awfully shocked?" he inquired rather anxiously, "but a sudden impulse has come over me to go there. I believe it is the will of the Unknown. ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell

... as in the home, children have the first claim to consideration. The recreative impulse is strong in them. When they graduate from the home into the school they find opportunity for the expression of this impulse through their new associations. On the way to and from school and at recess they have ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe

... speaking of one. He was at the brightest period of masculine growth, for his intellect and his emotions were clearly separated: he had passed the time during which the influence of youth indiscriminately mingles them in the character of impulse, and he had not yet arrived at the stage wherein they become united again, in the character of prejudice, by the influence of a wife and family. In short, he was twenty-eight, and ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy

... point admitted, and even in the way she brushed it aside he felt that she was generous. Yet something in him—perhaps the primitive hunting instinct, perhaps a more sophisticated Scotch impulse to explore the very roots of every matter, tempted him to say, "He gives up a good deal, doesn't he, ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... of lead before they had moved a yard. For a moment they stood undecided, and then hearing the cries and curses that rose unceasingly from the top end of the kraal, and bewildered by the storm of bullets, they as by one impulse rushed down towards the thorn-stopped entrance. As they went we kept pouring our fire with terrible effect into the thickening mob as fast as we could load. I had emptied my repeater of the ten shots it contained and was just beginning to slip in ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard

... I did not know what train I could catch, but I made haste, and, on the way down in the elevator, I felt in my pocket to see if I had my commutation ticket, when my hand struck the patent nursing-bottle. My first impulse was to drop it in the car, but on second thought I decided to keep it, for I knew that when you saw it and heard the story you would understand perfectly why I was ...
— The Water Goats and Other Troubles • Ellis Parker Butler

... away. He had thoroughly frozen up again into the Nathanael of old, whose coldness jarred against every ardent impulse of Agatha's temperament—rousing, irritating her ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)

... heavy features, hoarse voices, flabby necks and painted eyes; and all of them, like automatons, moved simultaneously upon the same impulse, flung the same enticements with the same tone and uttered the identical queer words, the same odd inflections and the ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... Spurn'd Heliodorus. All the mountain round Rings with the infamy of Thracia's king, Who slew his Phrygian charge: and last a shout Ascends: "Declare, O Crassus! for thou know'st, The flavour of thy gold." The voice of each Now high now low, as each his impulse prompts, Is led through many a pitch, acute or grave. Therefore, not singly, I erewhile rehears'd That blessedness we tell of in the day: But near me none beside his accent rais'd." From him we ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... and steady breeze, Nicol had given way to idleness, and had made fast the main-sheet, instead of holding it in his hand, ready for all emergencies. This, and not unnaturally, on such a squally coast, Rob MacNicol had constituted an altogether unforgivable offence; and his first impulse was to jump down to the stern of the boat and give the helmsman, caught in flagrante delicto, a sounding whack on the side of the head. But a graver sense of justice prevailed. He summoned a court-martial. ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black

... the powers that be. They must describe Mr. Lloyd George as using his eloquence to rouse the mob, whereas he has really shown considerable cleverness in damping it down. It was probably under the same impulse towards a mysterious misfit of names that people denounced Dr. Inge as ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton

... the people dispersed, and Mark and his friends were returning to their quarters when they were arrested by a party of soldiers. As usual, their first impulse was to resist violently, but wisdom was given them in time, and they went quietly along. Of course Mark protested vehemently both in English and in broken Malagasy, but no attention whatever was paid to his words. They were led to a prison which ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne

... strangely sometimes. Threads which should lie smooth and straight alongside of each other and make no confusion, get all snarled, and twisted, and thrown crosswise of each other by just a little breeze of influence, or some slight impulse on one side. And so it ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner

... Her first impulse was to call out, her second prompted caution, and she pinched herself hard to make sure whether she was awake or not. There was no doubt about it—she was not asleep; the pinch hurt considerably, and the man was still there. He was apparently ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield

... And the lesson was given by a method so gentle, that no nervous, cerebral, or mental function was in any degree irritated or morbidly excited by it. Moreover, no one who knows any thing of the workings of the infantile mind can doubt that the impulse in the right direction given by this conversation was not only better in character, but was greater in amount, than could have been effected by either of the other methods of management ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott

... after we had sat down, one of the natives hastily rose, and without appearing to deliberate, but as if actuated by a sudden impulse, strode rapidly down to us, and in the most unceremonious way possible, presented his lighted pipe for us to smoke. We received him as kindly as we could, and prevailed upon him to take a glass of wine; which he had no sooner drank off, than he ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall

... glared at each other, each in swift suspicion of treason. The Lady of Harby was the quickest to act upon impulse. She snatched up the pistol that lay upon the table and levelled it with a ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... hatred, and that meanness which made it necessary to him to have a master. In truth, what the planters of Carolina and Louisiana say of black men with flat noses and woolly hair was strictly true of Barere. The curse of Canaan was upon him. He was born a slave. Baseness was an instinct in him. The impulse which drove him from a party in adversity to a party in prosperity was as irresistible as that which drives the cuckoo and the swallow towards the sun when the dark and cold months are approaching. The law which doomed him to be the humble attendant of stronger spirits resembled the law which ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... the passage, and wishing "Monsieur" good-morning, congratulated him with tears of honest sympathy in her glittering, bold black eyes. He did give a five-franc piece to the alert and well-dressed waiter, who looked as if he had never been in bed, and never required to go. It may be this impulse of generosity reminded him that five-franc pieces were likely to be scarce with him in future, and an unpleasant association of ideas brought the lawyer's letter to his mind. There it lay, square and uncompromising, between his watch and his cigar-case. He ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville

... Fox and Bouverie, for this change of front. The openness, the charm, the self-effacing patriotism of the Minister thenceforth drew him as by an irresistible magnet. The brilliance and joviality of Fox and Sheridan counted as nothing against the national impulse which the master now set in motion and the pupil was destined to carry to further lengths. There was a natural sympathy between these men both in aim and temperament. It is a sign of the greatness of Pitt that from ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... which has many parallels in Germany. The farmer's lawsuit is his point of honor; and he will carry it through, though he knows from the very first day that he shall get nothing by it. The litigious peasant piques himself, like Mr. Saddletree, on his knowledge of the law, and this vanity is the chief impulse to many a lawsuit. To the mind of the peasant, law presents itself as the "custom of the country," and it is his pride to be versed in all customs. Custom with him holds the place of sentiment, of theory, and in many cases of affection. Riehl justly urges the importance of simplifying ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot

... to reach the bayou levee. The quarry was already in midstream, wielding an efficient canoe paddle. On impulse Val shouted after him, but he never turned. A rifle lay across his knees and there were some rusty traps in the bottom of the flimsy canoe. Then Val remembered that Pirate's Haven lay upon the fringe of the muskrat swamps where Cajun and American squatters still ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton

... truth, they are widely removed from that. They are warm-hearted, emotional, impulsive, enthusiastic, their tears come at the mildest touch, and it is not hard to move them to laughter. They are the very children of impulse. We are cold and self-contained, compared to the Germans. They hug and kiss and cry and shout and dance and sing; and where we use one loving, petting expressions they pour out a score. Their language is full of endearing diminutives; nothing that they love ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... and closely masked, . . and walking steadfastly between these, came a slim girl clad in white, veiled from head to foot and crowned with a wreath of lotus lilies. All the congregation, as though moved by an impulse, turned to look at her as she passed,—but her features were not as yet discernible through the mist-like ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... an impulse to go out and see what had happened. She had decided to stay in the house. But when footsteps sounded on the porch and a rap on the door, she unhesitatingly opened it. Four Mexicans stood close. One of them, quick as thought, ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey

... I said, I was about to be hurled against the berg of ice, the wind seemed to bear me up. No doubt it was a long hollow at the foot of the ice that sent the wind upwards, but my mind was quick. Instead of resisting the impulse, I made a bound, and went up into the air and over the berg. It was a very low one," added the wizard, as a reply to some exclamations of extreme surprise—not unmingled with doubt—from some of ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne

... a mistake to tell a great deal in the inquiry-bringing letter, unless you can reasonably hope to close a sale. A man will act on impulse in ordering a dollar article, but he isn't likely to be impulsive about an insurance policy. If you give him the entire canvass on an insurance policy at the first shot, it will have to be of extraordinary ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous

... in the foresail, it could not have passed more than two yards directly over my head. I was taken by surprise. Everybody knows that the rushing that the shot makes is excessively loud. As the illustrious stranger came on board with so much pomp and ceremony, I, from the impulse of pure courtesy, could not do otherwise than bow to it; for which act of politeness the first-lieutenant gave me a very considerably ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... wondered at that the little Lalee should feel surprise at an apparition,—so unexpected, in such a place, and under such circumstances. It is not to be wondered at that her first impulse should be to rouse her companion ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid

... before, was overshadowed by the religious changes which his marriage involved. Although he was a worshipper of Yahweh, as the names of his children prove (cp. also xxii. 5 seq.), his wife was firmly attached to the worship of the Tyrian Baal, Melkart, and led by her he gave a great impulse to this cult by building a temple in honour of Baal in Samaria. This roused the indignation of those prophets whose aim it was to purify the worship of Yahweh (see ELIJAH.) During Ahab's reign Moab, which had been conquered by his father, remained tributary; Judah, with whose king, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... at the Augustine, and he seemed about to answer; but, checking the impulse, he bowed in submission. At the same time, a wild, painful ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... general progress of Europe, his work must be judged as mainly for good. Austria was the chief barrier to European progress, and that barrier he broke. But a far greater impulse to the general progress of Europe was given by the idea of toleration which he thrust into the methods of European statesmen. He, first of all statesmen in France, saw that in French policy—to use his own words—"A Protestant ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various

... seeking, which strangely troubled him. As the stranger's eyes followed him and lingered with a singular curiosity on Randolph's dress, he remembered with a sudden alarm that he was wearing the suit of the missing man. A quick impulse to conceal himself came upon him, but he as quickly conquered it, and returned the man's cold stare with an anger he could not account for, but which made the stranger avert his eyes. Then the man got into the boat beside the boatman, and the two again towed away the corpse. The head rose and ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... up as an impulse, an instinct; it would not be doubted, it utterly refused to be spread ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... painting, to the study of which he applied for sometime, and, as tradition informs us, with considerable success. But nature, and the impulse of a vigorous genius, pointed out another road to him. He abandoned the pencil, and devoted his whole labours to the study of morality, philosophy and poetry. The drama being most congenial to his ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various

... waggon, and then the tethering ropes were fastened to the horses' saddles; the Zulus and the boys took their head; the word was given to start; the ropes that had been secured to different parts of the waggon tightened; and though the horses could not pull as if they were properly harnessed, the impulse they gave relieved the weary oxen, and after half an hour's toilsome drag, the waggon was drawn to the top of the incline, and the travellers had the pleasure of seeing that a tolerably ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn

... until a comparatively recent period. Vul-lush III., indeed claims to have been the first to give him a prominent place in the Assyrian Pantheon; and it may be conjectured that the Babylonian expeditions of this monarch furnished the impulse which led to a modification in this respect of the Assyrian religious system. The later kings, Sargon and his successors, maintain the worship introduced by Vul-lush. Sargon habitually regards his power as conferred upon him by the combined favor of Merodach and Asshur, while ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson

... to gaining it, he began to make real progress and find satisfaction in it. The comfort of being good dawned upon him once more, but still there was much to contend with; he had acquired such a habit of prevarication that, if by any means taken by surprise, his impulse was to avoid giving a straightforward answer, and when he recollected his sincerity, the truth came with the air of falsehood. Moreover, he was an arrant coward, and provoked tricks by his manifest and unreasonable terrors. It was no slight exercise of patience that Norman ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... or the freedom to discuss them, and partly to the false principles of the rhetorical training already described. The general desire was to show cleverness, wide reading, and information; there was no impulse to great creation or to exhibitions of profound feeling. Epigram and "point" are no less compassed in the overstrained epic of Lucan, and in the philosophic essays of Seneca, than in the satires of Persius. It is probable that what have been called intellectual ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker

... he usually has when I have talked with him. I gave him as good a report as I could, reminding him of the great change in the attitude of all Latin-America caused by the President's patient policy with Mexico. When he said, "Mexico is a bad problem," I couldn't resist the impulse to reply: "When Mexico troubles you, think of—Ireland. As there are persons in England who concern themselves with Mexico, so there are persons in the United States who concern themselves about Ireland. Ireland and Mexico have each given trouble for two centuries. Yet these people ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick

... launched from the "Rhode Island," had started, manned by a crew of picked men. A mere heroic impulse could not have accomplished this most noble deed. For hours they had watched the raging sea. Their captain and they knew the danger; every man who entered that boat, did it at the peril of his life; and yet all were ready. Are not such acts as ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders

... quantities in a Christian. The moment the new life of the risen Christ is wrought in a believer and he is linked up by the Holy Ghost to the glorified body of the Son of God he has in him all the impulse and power of the highest morality, the most exalted purity, the rarest spirituality and the discernment of spiritual things. All that is self-evident—but the Son of God came into this world and went through ...
— Why I Preach the Second Coming • Isaac Massey Haldeman

... Swiss cow-bells and stags carved in wood, Chinese idols that wagged their heads, little images of performing cats, teacups, a whole shelf full of toys. Not one of them but had some minute fragment of his wife's personality adhering to it. He remembered the insane impulse that came upon him last year to smash them, sweep the lot of them on to the floor. To-night he could have kissed them, cried over them. "T-t-t-tt! What affecting absurdity!" That was the way he went on. And now he sat down by her writing-table, and ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair

... original elements of the system itself, but was the effect of conquest; and, as far as I can discover, the appropriation to individuals of land which was common to all, was mainly brought about by conquest, and was guided by impulse rather than ...
— Landholding In England • Joseph Fisher

... in Peter's authority, whether he restrained Gentile believers from the use of certain meats or had them baptized with water. In both cases Peter's Jewish education was his impulse and not Christ. ...
— Water Baptism • James H. Moon

... despair, not knowing what to do, many leaped into the raging breakers which swept by alongside, and, helplessly whirling round and round, were soon hidden beneath the waves. One after the other the poor wretches rushed up on deck; many, following the impulse of the first, leaped overboard to meet a like speedy death; others, clinging to the wreck, were washed overboard; some of the stronger still clung on; ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston

... It seemed echoing in greater volume from one passage that slanted down more sharply than the rest. Spud followed it, clinging with hands and feet to the steep-pitched floor; but some sudden impulse seized him and compelled him to stop at intervals while he drew a pistol from his belt. Its grip was of steelite that rang sharply as a bell when he struck it upon the walls. And he tapped out the general call of the Service time after time; then strained ...
— The Finding of Haldgren • Charles Willard Diffin

... establishment of ten new states in the territory northwest of the Ohio, a republican form of government for each of them, and no property qualification for either the electors or the elected. "Following an impulse of his own mind," he proposed the everlasting dedication of the northwest to free men and free labor, by providing that after the year 1800 there should be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of them. While Jefferson's ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce

... Monthault, "a more enlarged view of mankind should discover to you a worthier lover; one whose passion for you is founded on discriminating preference, not the cold impulse of satiated habit; one who could give distinction to beauty, and lead it from obscurity into the splendour it deserves; should such a one sue for the favour of ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... Alps, we are after all but children of the century. We follow its inspiration blindly; and while we think ourselves spontaneous in our ecstasy, perform the part for which we have been trained from childhood by the atmosphere in which we live. It is this very unconsciousness and universality of the impulse we obey which makes it hard to analyse. Contemporary history is difficult to write; to define the spirit of the age in which we live is still more difficult; to account for 'impressions which owe all their force to their identity with themselves' is most difficult of all. We must be content ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... portrait with a wistful, well-nigh solemn look. Not being able, hampered by a dog in her arms, to clasp her hands, she expressed the same impulse by clasping the dog close to her breast in token that her wishes for her dearest friend's good were more than wishes, were ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall

... honest-hearted, but full of a young man's fire and impulse, of an artist's susceptibility to outward beauty, of the ready delight of educated taste in fresh, natural, responsive cleverness—was ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... pains with my education,—at least with those parts of it which were congenial to her taste and mine; for, to follow with ardour whatever was the impulse and fancy of the moment, was at once the charm and the danger of my aunt's character. She could not resist the temptation of initiating me, perhaps too early, into those studies which captivate the imagination ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton

... consider the fact that it was in the second century of the city that the Greek states in Lower Italy advanced from the pure clan-constitution to a modified one, which placed the preponderance in the hands of the landholders, we shall recognize in that movement the impulse which called forth in Rome the Servian reform—a change of constitution resting in the main on the same fundamental idea, and only directed into a somewhat different course by the strictly monarchical form of the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... true, That as ofttimes but ill accords the form To the design of art, through sluggishness Of unreplying matter, so this course Is sometimes quitted by the creature, who Hath power, directed thus, to bend elsewhere; As from a cloud the fire is seen to fall, From its original impulse warp'd, to earth, By vicious fondness. Thou no more admire Thy soaring, (if I rightly deem,) than lapse Of torrent downwards from a mountain's height. There would in thee for wonder be more cause, If, free of hind'rance, thou hadst fix'd thyself ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... spoke, the wild cheer of the hands spurring him up and giving an impulse to the slow current of his thoughts and words— the Dane not being prone, like Captain Snaggs, to talking for the mere pleasure of hearing his ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson

... healthy foundation, but rather secretly and artfully to undermine the whole intellectual and social fabric, under the plea of liberty and human rights. Everybody admits that the writings of the philosophers gave a great impulse to the revolutionary storm which afterwards broke out. Ideas are ever most majestic, whether they are good or evil. Men pass away, but principles are indestructible and of perpetual power. As great and fearful agencies in the period we are contemplating, they are worthy ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord

... new life by the name of one of his former opponents. His eyes flashed, his lips quivered with rage, and he half turned his horse, as if about to proceed to Herrera's house and put his threat into execution. The impulse, however, was checked ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... the sex problem; Conditioning of the sexual impulse; Vicarious expression of the sexual impulse; Unconscious factors of the sex life; Taboo control has conditioned the natural biological tendencies of individuals to conform to arbitrary standards of masculinity and femininity; Conflict between individual ...
— Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard

... as he may, repent it as he often does," says Robert Waters, "the man of genius is drawn by an irresistible impulse to the occupation for which he was created. No matter by what difficulties surrounded, no matter how unpromising the prospect, this occupation is the only one which he will pursue with interest and pleasure. When his ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... partly foreseen by Napoleon; he was informed by Caulaincourt how steadily it was crystallizing into a fixed determination. To the observer the moment seemed critical, but the great adventurer was still able to ride the storm. Whence the impulse came is not easily determined, but he turned to Talleyrand as an agent likely to be useful in such complications. The intriguer came forward promptly, and, receiving the Caulaincourt despatches, together with a verbal explanation from ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... and the hopefulness and forbearance of Ferguson's course, gives us some reassurance. Apropos of which latter reference I dined with Ferguson at the Lord Mayor's, last Tuesday, and had a grimly distracted impulse upon me to defy the toast-master and rush into a speech about him and his noble art, when I sat pining under the imbecility of constitutional and corporational idiots. I did seize him for a moment by the hair of his head (in proposing ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens

... merely for the regulation of outward conduct. It is the moral law—the primal standard of righteousness established by the Creator for His creatures. There is not an impulse of the inmost soul that is not reached by it. It is the word which, living and powerful, is "sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer

... desire to become fashionable, or, as is most likely, by the wish to create in Sir Charles a virtuous foil to him whom he thought the wicked, witty, delightful, and detestable Lovelace? Whatever the reason, it is a thousand pities that he gave way to his impulse. ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang

... preservation, but the end has been achieved in a quite unreasoning manner. In the animal world at large there is certainly no conscious desire for the production of offspring, nor is there with the mass of human beings. There is the desire to gratify an impulse, and very little more. And for the strengthening of an instinct there need not be, nor is there, any consciousness of its social value. All that is necessary is that it shall be useful. Natural selection attends to ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen

... and Addison's Campaign has been very properly denominated a Gazette in rhyme. Common prose differs from poetry, as treating for the most part either of such trite, familiar, and irksome matters of fact, as convey no extraordinary impulse to the imagination, or else of such difficult and laborious processes of the understanding, as do not admit of the wayward or violent movements either of the imagination ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt

... assume as he looked at her, was caught, unfortunately, by Paolina, as she was on the point of tendering him her thanks in her impetuous way for what she heard he had done for her brother. She stopped short in surprise, and evidently repressed a vehemently resentful impulse, while a look unpleasant for him came into her eyes. She went over then and took him by the hand in the same way she had seen him take her own on his arrival, and spoke coldly enough a few words which were meant to convey her thanks. She didn't look at him again, not even when she presently ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie

... deeply religious man, a pastor of souls, and he revived the religious and moral life of men, far and wide, not only in his own day, but long after his life on earth had closed. He made the Studion the centre of a great spiritual influence, which never wholly lost the impulse of his personality or the loftiness of his ideal. The forms of mediaeval piety have become antiquated, and they were often empty and vain, but we must not be blind to the fact that they were frequently filled with a passion for holy living, and gave scope ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen

... honourable members of an honourable profession; and although they have formerly sworn to purchase no old book but Machlinia's first edition of Littleton's Tenures, yet they cannot resist, now and then, the delicious impulse of becoming masters of a black-letter chronicle or romance. Taste and talent of various kind they both possess; and 'tis truly pleasant to see gentlemen and scholars, engaged in a laborious profession, in which, comparatively, 'little vegetation quickens, and few salutary plants take ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... that there is no such thing as a truly congenital sexual inclination towards children. Such inclinations often appear, indeed, in congenitally tainted or weak-minded individuals; but he considers that we have no right to speak of the perverse impulse as being itself congenital. Even if we admit this, and refuse to recognise the existence of a congenital perverse impulse towards children, still we have to admit that certain opportunities and conditions may not ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll

... joint. Then my soul said within me, See there a piece of mechanism to which that other you marvel at is but as the rude first effort of a child,—a force which not merely suffices to set a few wheels in motion, but which can send an impulse all through the infinite future,—a contrivance, not for turning out pins, or stitching button-holes, but for making Hamlets and Lears. And yet this thing of iron shall be housed, waited on, guarded from rust and dust, and it shall be a crime ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell

... to liberty again. At the thought the blood rushed to his heart, and he gasped for breath. For the moment, as he gazed into her face and saw with what sisterly sympathy and compassion she looked upon him, the impulse came into his mind to refuse the proffered freedom, and ask only to remain and serve her for life. But then came such floods of memories of his native place, which he had never expected to see again—and its hills and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... I think," Judy decided almost tenderly. Behind her thought was a caring, generous impulse; the motherly instinct sent her mind to the collection for the clergyman's comfort. But romance stirred too; she wanted to look her best. Her two main tendencies seemed very much alive this Sunday morning. The hat and the ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood

... mother, and, yielding to the impulse to repay him in some way for his kind words about her ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky

... emotion, "Chaplain, I am in a hard case. Swearing is my besetting sin. If I become vexed with my work, or anything else, that is my resort at once. In the meetings, I hear preaching, prayer and singing, under the influence of which, I feel a strong impulse to leave my sinful ways, and seek to become good and live an upright life. Almost resolved on this, I go to my work and am there forced to hear more or less profanity. They will swear at me, and I fall to swearing, ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby

... position rightly to understand its precious significance, if we try to represent to ourselves the state of mind of the man to whom it was granted. I have already touched upon that; let me, in the briefest possible way, recapitulate. As I have said, the momentary impulse to the cowardly crime passed, and left a melted heart, true penitence, and profound sorrow. One sad day slowly wore away. Early on the next came the message which produced an effect on Peter so great, that the gospel, which in some sense is ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... quarter, the light from the chandelier and branches against the walls, striking on gilding at all points, quite dazzled their sight for a minute or two; it caused Faith to move forward with her eyes on the floor, and filled Christopher with an impulse to turn back again into some dusky corner where every thread of his not over-new dress suit—rather moth-eaten through lack of feasts for airing it—could ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... and struck out my best. I must have been swimming for more than an hour when I landed. I found myself a little tired, and very much benumbed, barefooted, en chemise, and not able to see ten yards before me, it was so dark. My first impulse was to fall on my knees and thank Providence; after which, curious to say, my military schooling came to my aid in the 'extension motions,' which brought some little feeling into my limbs, and enabled me to continue my work. After feeling my way for about half an hour along the shore, shouting ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... offense, inflict it without listening to a word of excuse. Never forgive that in one that you would punish in another, but treat all alike, showing no favoritism. By pursuing such a course, you convince them that you act from principle and not from impulse, and will certainly enforce your rules. Whenever an opportunity is afforded you for rewarding continued good behavior, do not let it pass—occasional rewards have a much better ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox

... the worm that my youth's bloom decays, She sees my springtime wasted as it flees; And, marv'ling at the rigour that gainsays The heart's sweet impulse, my reward decrees. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various

... had had flashing hopes that it did not mean as much to Monty as she had thought. But down underneath, the fear that he was unhappy seemed the only certain thing in life. She felt that she must make sure. And together with the very human desire to know the worst, was the puritanical impulse to ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon

... papers together now. There was no longer any excuse for lingering. He had given and repeated his assurances that all these abuses which she so lamented should be remedied, and she had thanked him again and again. Both felt that the time to part had come. And yet both felt an impulse to postpone it. It was her consciousness of this feeling which now made Bettina act. There was an influence from his very presence ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder

... western impulse coming in contact with the barrier of the Atlantic sprang the commerce and enterprise of modern times. The younger Michaux, in his "Travels West of the Alleghanies in 1802," says that the common inquiry in the newly settled ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... By a mutual impulse the young couple, when they had at last gained the cool open air, crossed the street to the side where over-hanging trees shaded the infrequent lamps, and they might be comparatively alone. The wife had taken her husband's arm, and pressed closely upon it as ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... strongly to feeling and stimulates the growth of that series of great emotions that make so large a part of character. It may excite ambition and a thirst for power or wealth or give an impulse to labor and self-denial; it may teach us sympathy and love for our fellow-men, or arouse anger, hatred and defiance; it may give us a keener discrimination of right from wrong and lead us far on our search for truth, even into the calm of ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester

... any one told me I should write this letter, I could not have believed it possible. But strange things happen in our lives—things over which we seem to have no control; we are swept on by an impulse and a power which most often guide us for our good. I hope it may be ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)

... decided to make her a present of the three Chinese mats. She had bought three of Planchet upon his last visit, and those we had just purchased would bring her set up to six. Lest we should repent our impulse, we did them up there and then and sent them off by Fitch the ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates

... that he was Mary's father, and as such had every right to be told of all concerning her; but supposing he were, and that he followed the impulse so natural to a father, and wished to go to her, what might be the consequences? Among the mingled feelings she had revealed in her delirium, ay, mingled even with the most tender expressions of love for her father, was a sort of horror of him; a dread of him as a blood-shedder, ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell

... over-tired mind to fasten itself on the most intolerable chance within the range of its forebodings.... Putting her head out, she listened; but she could not distinguish his breathing from that of the other pairs of lungs about her. She longed to get up and look at him, but she knew the impulse was a mere vent for her restlessness, and the fear of disturbing him restrained her.... The regular movement of his curtain reassured her, she knew not why; she remembered that he had wished her a cheerful good-night; and the sheer inability to endure her fears a moment longer made ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton

... Miss Edgeworth, but she was not carried away by the natural impulse of the moment. She realised the many difficulties and dangers of the unknown; she looked to the future; she turned to her own home, and with an affection all the more felt because of the trial to which it was now exposed. The many lessons of self-control and self-restraint ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)

... Montreuil, which I take pleasure in narrating, since it proves how carefully Napoleon examined both the fortifications and improvements being made in the towns, either by his personal orders, or from the impulse given by him to these important departments of public service. After investigating the work done in the past year on the fortifications of Montreuil, and having made a tour of all the ramparts, the Emperor returned to the citadel, whence he again emerged to visit the exterior works. An arm of ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... Amy! You do encourage him.' Patricia was stricken afresh with a generous impulse of emotion on Jack's behalf. 'I mean, by not telling him straight out. Surely you can't keep a man waiting like that? ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton

... the perpetrators of the crime, and, indeed, he had nothing but vague conjectures to go upon, though to him they amounted to complete certainty. But he was ready to ruin himself if he could only "crush the scoundrels"—his own words. Pyotr Stepanovitch had guessed fairly correctly at this impulse in him, and he knew himself that he was risking a great deal in putting off the execution of his new awful project till next day. On his side there was, as usual, great self-confidence and contempt for all these "wretched creatures" and for Shatov in particular. He had for years despised ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... pictured in their countenances; they seemed quite regardless of consequences, and, with loud outcries, implored their husbands and fathers to desist. Completely overcome by this distressing scene, the combantants let fall their weapons by mutual impulse, and peace was soon restored. It was determined that Tatius and Romulus should reign jointly in Rome, with equal power, and that an hundred Sabines should be ...
— Domestic pleasures - or, the happy fire-side • F. B. Vaux

... important to the Protestants of southern France was the refuge they found in Montauban. Regnier, the same Huguenot gentleman who had himself been rescued from slaughter at Paris by the magnanimity of Vezins,[1258] was the instrument of its deliverance. On finding himself safe, his first impulse was to hasten to Montauban and urge his brethren to adopt instant measures for self-defence. But despair had taken possession of the inhabitants. They had heard that the dreaded black cavalry of the ferocious Montluc, the men-at-arms of Fontenille, and other troops, were on the march against ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... into the apartment honoured by the august presence of Lord Glenmorris. That personage was dividing the sofa with three spaniels and a setter; he rose hastily when I was announced, and then checking the first impulse which hurried him, perhaps, into an unseemly warmth of salutation, held out his hand with a pompous air of kindly protection, and while he pressed mine, surveyed me from head to foot to see how far ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... and delicate pathos, though in the highest degree artificial and forced; but do we ever arise from reading him, like a giant refreshed by wine? Sterne, in fact, has even less of the true philosophy of life than Rabelais. He affords no stimulant to joyous, healthy action, awakens no impulse to gladden life, or to make sorrow less and hope greater. It may be all very touching, very comic, very ingenious, but it is not healthy or joyous. And Swift? An immense fund of laughter, doubtless, had the witty ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... interview between the Princess and Madame de Groeneveld, wife of the eldest son. That lady was besought to apply, with the rest of the Advocate's children, for pardon to the Lords States, but to act as if it were done of her own impulse, and to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley









Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com




Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |