"Inspiration" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... they say; but you're a great scout just the same. Bob,..." (Here he addressed his friend as though he were present), "That was the best thing you ever did when you sent your green kid brother down to me. You knew how I could help him if I would and you knew what an inspiration he would be to me. This is a great old world and a great old college. What would life be without real friendship? What would one do without,—" but musing, he dropped off ...
— Over the Line • Harold M. Sherman
... the Lord of Hosts had given him inspiration; as if the angels were pouring words into his mouth just for him to utter," replied Mrs. Boynton. "Your father was spell-bound, and I only less so. When he ceased speaking, the child's mother crossed the room, and swaying to and fro, fell at his feet, sobbing and wailing and imploring God to ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Nature holds within our easy reach, she would gratefully acknowledge many obligations; first of all, for the plan on which "Bird Neighbors" is arranged; next, for his patient kindness in reading and annotating the manuscript of the book; and, not least, for the inspiration of his perennially charming writings that are so largely responsible for the ready-made audience now awaiting ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... many martyrs, whose blood, so willingly offered up by them, was the chief occasion of spreading their religion over a vast number of nations, it is not to be imagined how inclined they were to receive it. I shall not determine whether this proceeded from any secret inspiration of God, or whether it was because it seemed so favourable to that community of goods, which is an opinion so particular as well as so dear to them; since they perceived that Christ and His followers ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... vital thought, an inspiration. She set down the ice-pitcher on the veranda floor, and ran up-stairs and got the letter she had written him. When at last he noisily bade her father and mother, "Well, goodnight. I forgot I woke ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells
... babe. The eyes of the Soft did not wander; they were kept snug beneath their lids with well-trained reverence; and this genius of the fire always appeared as soon as the glow began to fade, as if by inspiration. In my large chamber, draped with white muslin over rose color and drab damask, a superb fire glowed. I must make an end of ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... lastly my Lady Crew come out, and left the young people together. And a little pretty daughter of my Lady Wright's most innocently come out afterward, and shut the door to, as if she had done it, poor child, by inspiration; which made us without, have good sport to laugh at. They together an hour, and by and by church-time, whither he led her into the coach and into the church, and so at church all the afternoon, several ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... representative men are always single, resting on nothing outside themselves. We have thus on the one side the tradition of a class, which suffices for the occasions of ordinary life, and on the other the inspiration of awakened individuals, stirred up by occasions which are more than ordinary. After the spirit of the oldest men of God, Moses at the head of them, had been in a fashion laid to sleep in institutions, it sought and found in the prophets a new opening; the old fire burst out ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... you has no need to write," the prior would reply. "No, you speak from inspiration; you open your mouth, and the words of God flow from ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... a hoarse voice almost in his ear. It gave him quite an unpleasant start, but, suppressing his first inspiration, which was to say the Life Guards, he ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 24, 1917 • Various
... insurgents concerning the murder of Archbishop Sharpe. The more violent among them did, indeed, approve of this act as a deed of justice, executed upon a persecutor of God's church through the immediate inspiration of the Deity; but the greater part of the presbyterians disowned the deed as a crime highly culpable, although they admitted, that the Archbishop's punishment had by no means exceeded his deserts. The insurgents differed ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... taken deeply and quietly, should be interspersed all through these exercises for extreme relaxation. They prevent the possibility of relaxing too far. And as there is a pressure on every muscle of the body during a deep inspiration, the muscles, being now relaxed into freedom, are held in place, so to speak, by the pressure from the breath,—as we blow in the fingers of a glove ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... in the halls of legislation were conversant with sacred history, they might get fresh inspiration from the views of the Patriarchs ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... "Surely," thought I, "the man who has fought his way through the triple line of a West African surf ought to be able to swim twenty or thirty fathoms in this sea!" The idea seemed to come to me as an inspiration; and, undeterred by the thought that the individual who should essay the feat of swimming from the one ship to the other would be seriously hampered by being compelled to drag a lengthening trail of light rope behind him, I turned to the ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... This small volume opens with Coleridge's 'Rime of the Ancyent Marinere,' and is followed by Wordsworth's short but exquisite poems of the Alfoxden time, and is closed by the well-known lines on Tintern Abbey. Wordsworth reaches about the highest pitch of his inspiration in this latter poem, which contains more rememberable lines than any other of his, of equal length, save perhaps the Immortality Ode. It was the result of a ramble of four or five days made by him and his sister from Alfoxden in July 1798, and was composed ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... hands in an ecstasy of inspiration. "Good! We'll wheel it home. We can make it by ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... "Ariosto derived inspiration from our serene atmosphere, and our delicious climate. He is the rainbow which appeared after our long wars; brilliant and many-hued, like that herald of fine weather, he seems to sport familiarly with life; his light and gentle gaiety is the smile ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... insured his success. How widely different in method and surroundings from the poet's exercise of the creative faculty in the calm of thought and retirement, on a selected topic and in selected hours of inspiration, was his entering, with little notice or preparation, into a case involving complicated questions of law and fact, with only a partial knowledge of the case of his antagonist! met at point after point by ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... his Egeria; her visible inspiration almost cowed him. "Isn't that a pretty large theme?" he questioned. "Wouldn't it require a good deal ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... bestowed upon them as a term of reproach, in consequence of their apparent convulsions which they laboured under when they delivered their discourses, because they imagined they were the effect of divine inspiration. ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... you to guard a thing he does not want and has deserted himself? He will never come back. Now ask what you want of me. The price, whatever it is! And where do you come by this false notion of duty?" he demands with an inspiration. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... he said, "when there is more time. It is all because of that road you discovered, little one, that Road of the Loving Heart. I don't wear a ring as Eugenia does, to remind me of it, but I've been carrying the inspiration of it in my memory, ever since she wrote me all that you had taught her ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... we hear the words of inspiration: "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints"; "Thy dead shall live again"; and in hope we wait. The weary pilgrim has reached her resting-place. She lies in the chamber of Peace, whose windows open ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson
... exclaimed, "pure, generous, noble wine, to wash away the rank drops from our lips, that are more suited to our blades! to make our veins leap cheerily to the blythe inspiration of the God! and last, not least, to guard us from the damps of this sweet chamber, which alone of his bounteous hospitality our Porcius has vouchsafed to us!" And on the instant, the master—for they dared trust no slaves—bore in two earthen vases, one ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... left behind me, in finding myself once more on the broad ocean. As for Neb, the fellow was fairly enraptured. So quickly and intelligently did he obey his orders, that he won a reputation before we crossed the bar. The smell of the ocean seemed to imbue him with a species of nautical inspiration, and even I was astonished with his readiness and activity. As for myself, I was every way at home. Very different was this exit from the port, from that of the previous year. Then everything was novel, and ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... delegation, however, decided to present Morton's name and submit his candidacy to a vote. I was selected to make a nominating speech. If there is any hope, an orator on such an occasion has inspiration. But if he knows he is beaten he cannot put into his effort the fire necessary to impress an audience. It is not possible to speak with force and effect unless you have faith in ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... the story. At the end a sudden inspiration came to him, and he mentioned how Sophie had received her Christmas present from Miss Gladys, and how she had kept her ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... understanding, but that, after having duly made his preliminary studies of the laws of the medium through which he is to manifest it, it shines into, it reveals itself, as it were, intuitively to the divining soul. Far lower in its sphere than that infallible inspiration which speaks to us through the sacred pages of Holy Writ of the things immediately pertaining to our relations with God, true artistic power must still be considered as inspiration, since it is constantly arriving ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... "I am here to bless and educate, without money and without price, all the struggling ones who come under my wings?" That institution has for twenty-six years been crying shame on miserliness and cupidity. That free reading-room has been the inspiration of five hundred free reading-rooms. ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... Prosecutor and his assistants were on their feet, excitedly shouting objections, which were promptly overruled. Taken unawares, they fought for time; thunder was loosed, forensic bellowings; everybody lost his temper—except Joe; and the examination of the witness proceeded. Cory, with that singular inspiration to confide in some one, which is the characteristic and the undoing of his kind, had outlined his plan of operations to the witness with perfect clarity. He would first attempt, so he had declared, to incite an attack upon ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... verses. Be that as it may, I later on met several men who had known "Jim" Gillis intimately and they all agreed that he possessed a keen sense of humor and had at command a practically inexhaustible stock of stories, upon which he drew at will. Whether Bret Harte derived any inspiration from "Jim" Gillis may perhaps always remain in doubt; but that Mark Twain did, there cannot, I ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley
... orthodox article, yet convict it of confusion or formalism; and which shall give to the Unitarian what he aims at by his negation of the popular article, without leaving him any longer a reason for denying it. The essay on Inspiration is an instance of this. Mr. Maurice says very truly, that it is necessary to face the fact that important questions are asked on the subject, very widely, and by serious people; that popular notions are loose and vague about it; that it is a dangerous thing to take refuge in a hard theory, ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... not faith, and strong belief!' cried Hugh, raising his right arm aloft, and looking upward like a savage prophet whom the near approach of Death had filled with inspiration, 'where are they! What else should teach me—me, born as I was born, and reared as I have been reared—to hope for any mercy in this hardened, cruel, unrelenting place! Upon these human shambles, I, who never raised this hand in ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... is the organ of the movement, since it gives the news of the movement, voices the wrongs of women, and furnishes data as well as inspiration with which to work, it is important that it reach the largest number of women possible each week with its message, and so far as is possible for a paper, convert them into efficient, consecrated workers, possessed with the ideal of equality ...
— The Torch Bearer - A Look Forward and Back at the Woman's Journal, the Organ of the - Woman's Movement • Agnes E. Ryan
... his countenance glowing with a fierce inspiration that made it grand through all its ugliness—"there! what woman could paint that?—or rather, what man! Alas! how feeble we are—we, the boldest followers of an Art which is divine.—Truly there was but one among us who was himself ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... I know not—call it an inspiration if you will; but the thought arose in me: if southing is latitude, why isn't westing longitude? Why should I have to change westing into longitude? And then the whole beautiful situation dawned upon me. The meridians of longitude ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... is everything in life. It gives the inspiration to the artist, amorous desires to young people, clear ideas to thinkers, the joy of life to everybody, and it also allows one to eat heartily (which is one of the greatest pleasures). A sick stomach induces scepticism unbelief, nightmares and the desire for death. I have often noticed ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... general notion, very few of the great modern inventions have been the result of a sudden inspiration by which, Minerva-like, they have sprung full-fledged from their creators' brain; but, on the contrary, they have been evolved by slow and gradual steps, so that frequently the final advance has been often almost ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... has presented a mass of data which will be welcomed by engineers engaged in water purification work, because complete operating records form a substantial basis for improvement in the art, and are often the inspiration for interesting discussions and the exchange of experiences of different observers whose views ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXXII, June, 1911 • E. D. Hardy
... religious houses from the hand of a king.[182] The event was realised, two hundred years afterwards, by our Henry the Eighth. The protestant writers have not scrupled to declare that in this instance he was divino numine afflatus. But moral and political prediction is not inspiration; the one may be wrought out by man, the other descends from God. The same principle which led Erasmus to predict that those who were "in power" would destroy the rich shrines, because no other class of men in society could mate with so mighty a body as the monks, conducted ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... to come and go, even smiled grimly as he did so, and, except at those moments when he met him face to face, forgot that Aladdin existed. Margaret enjoyed Aladdin hugely, and unconsciously sat for the heroine of every novel he began, and the inspiration of every verse that he wrote. When Aladdin reached his eighteenth year and Margaret her sixteenth there was such a delightful and strong friendship between them that the other young people of the town talked. Margaret in her heart of hearts was fonder of Aladdin than of anybody else—when ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... having declared in his favour in his great matter, "by the inspiration of the Most High," ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... ordinances; in a divine order, which we ought to seek to realize here on earth; in a law, in a providential design, which we all ought, according to our powers, to study and to promote. I believe in the inspiration of my immortal soul, in the teaching of Humanity, which shouts to me, through the deeds and words of all its saints, incessant progress for all through, the work of all my brothers toward a common moral amelioration, toward the fulfilment of the Divine ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... said, in his earlier life; and the most illustrious of them would have rejoiced to preserve such a legend in immortal rhyme,—especially if he could have had some of our wine of Sunshine to help out his inspiration!" ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... art have recently made great progress; thousands of people gifted with a certain amount of talent cultivate every branch, but art seems to fly from civilization! Technicalities make headway, but inspiration frequents artists' ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... Lentulus and the rest, made preparations to deliver them all forcibly and rescue them from death. Cicero learned of this beforehand and occupied the Capitol and Forum betimes by night with a garrison. At dawn he received from above an inspiration to hope for the best: for in the course of sacrifices conducted in his house by the Vestals in behalf of the populace, the fire, contrary to custom, shot up in a tongue of great length. Accordingly, he ordered the praetors to ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... professionals confess it. The best professional photographers freely admit that they have drawn much inspiration from the ...
— Pictorial Photography in America 1921 • Pictorial Photographers of America
... some of the writers who have influenced me most do not belong to it. High-minded and untiring workmen, they have spared no pains to produce a poetry finer than that of any other country in our time. Poetry so full of beauty and feeling, that the study of it is at once an inspiration and a despair to the artist. The Anglo-Saxon of our day has a tendency to think that a fine idea excuses slovenly workmanship. These clear-eyed Frenchmen are a reproof to our self-satisfied laziness. Before the works ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... if it were composed for us, and yet it was written two thousand years ago," said the clergyman, as he closed the book. "In every age man has been forced to acknowledge the guiding hand which leads him. For my part I don't believe that inspiration stopped two thousand years ago. When Tennyson wrote with ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... State within whose jurisdiction it is found; you have no property in your invention outside of the limits of your State; you cannot go an inch beyond it." Would not this be so? Does not every man see at once that the right of the inventor to his discovery, that the right of the poet to his inspiration, depends upon those principles of eternal justice which God has implanted in the heart of man; and that wherever he cannot exercise them, it is because man, faithless to the trust that he has received from God, denies ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... though they themselves could not otherwise become famous; whereas, among those who aspire to become eminent politically as orators and statesmen, (13) there are some who cannot see why they should not be able to do all that politics demand, at a moment's notice, by inspiration as it were, without any preliminary pains or preparations whatever? And yet it would appear that the latter concerns must be more difficult of achievement than the former, in proportion as there are more competitors in the field ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... considered her from a little distance. His face was serious, thoughtful, and anxious. A great thinker wrestling with a great problem. He passed his hand over his forehead, raised his eyes to the sky, getting inspiration by a painful delivery; but suddenly his face lit up—the spirit from ...
— Parisian Points of View • Ludovic Halevy
... knows, Lord, he's a powahful wuthless bird, but he's all I'se got. I'se jus' an' ol' slave, Massa, what's been free since de War, an' Job, sah, he understan's me. Lord, I doan wanta live no mo' if I has to kill ol' Job. Send me an inspiration, Lord, an' tell me how I can save his wuthless ol' hide. Save him an'—an' ...
— Uncle Noah's Christmas Inspiration • Leona Dalrymple
... such I held a newspaper to be to a young man in his forming period. Not until I was well on my feet as a magazine- writer did I do much work for newspapers. I am a believer in regular work, and never wait for an inspiration. Temperamentally I am not only careless and irregular, but melancholy; still I have fought both down. The discipline I had as a sailor had full effect on me. Perhaps my old sea days are also responsible ...
— The House of Pride • Jack London
... had a sudden inspiration. He signalled Mapia who was sitting by the stream, smoking his pipe as usual. Unstrapping the tent, the old man presented it to the Indian. And while Mapia's face did not change expression, somehow the professor knew that ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... mark. Life can never be altogether what it was before for any of us. New generations will spring forth innocent of the memories which are ours and the unexpressible lessons of our day. But for us it has been, with all its tragedy and vast destruction, a day of illumination and inspiration. ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... have already settled themselves for correspondence. Barque is standing up. He stoops over a sheet of paper flattened on a note-book upon a jutting crag in the trench wall. Apparently in the grip of an inspiration, he writes on and on, with his eyes in bondage and the concentrated expression of a horseman at ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... massacre is reluctantly conceded in the pamphlet, which was published immediately after, as an apology of the court for the hideous crime; and an attempt is made to justify it, which is worthy of the source from which it drew its inspiration: "Now this good-will of the people to sustain and defend its prince, to espouse his quarrel, and to hate those who are not of his religion, is very praiseworthy; and if in this execution [the massacre] some pillaging has taken place, we must excuse the ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... genius are rarely of that type. They are more often unassuming and averse to anything like a personal combat. Such a man was Obed Hussey, inventor of the reaper. Honest and conscientious, enured to hard and unremitting toil, with the inspiration of a new idea for the benefit of mankind burning in his brain, he applied himself in the face of immense difficulties to the production and perfection of the great gift which he gave to the world. He was a man at once so humble and so broad in his kindness, so loyal ...
— Obed Hussey - Who, of All Inventors, Made Bread Cheap • Various
... she was a contributor to the Southern Literary Messenger, in which her earlier poems first made their appearance. Though a native of Philadelphia, she was loyal to the South during the Civil War, and found inspiration in its deeds of heroism. Beechenbrook is a rhyme of the war; and though well-nigh forgotten now, it was read, on its publication in 1865, from the Potomac to the Gulf. Among her other writings are Old Songs and New and Cartoons. Her ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... the blood through the lungs and throughout the body. The gold medal pigs of Mr. Moreland were in a similar condition, if anything, worse; for they snored and gasped for breath, their mouths being opened, as well as their nostrils dilated, at each inspiration. From a pig we only expect a grunt, but not a snore. These animals, only twelve months and ten days old, were marked 'improved Chilton breed.' They, with their fellows just mentioned, of eleven months and twenty-three days, had early come to grief. Three ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... detain me at any cost. Then he flew up the stairs, changed into his disguise, Carissimo barking all the time furiously. Whilst he was trying to pacify the dog, the latter bit him severely in the arm, drawing a good deal of blood—the crimson scar across his face was a last happy inspiration which put the finishing touch to his disguise and to the hoodwinking of the police and of me. He had only just time to staunch the blood from his arm and to thrust his own clothes and Carissimo into the wall cupboard when the gendarme and I burst ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... this inspiration, I requested her to plead for me. Her answer came as a slap in the face, as I had always imagined her above the common cant of ordinary religionists. She stated that life was full of trials. I must try and bear this little cross patiently, ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... the Infinite Power works through and for us—true inspiration—while our part is simply to see that our connection with this power is consciously and perfectly kept. And, when we come to a knowledge of the true nature, a knowledge of the true self, when we come ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine
... the 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 ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... back to him mingled with other ingredients in wholesome fruit. Carbonic acid is death when it combines with the blood,—as it does when we inhale it; but not so when it enters the stomach in small quantities. One inspiration of it is enough to make us dizzy,—as when we enter an old well or stoop over a charcoal fire; but a draught of water fully charged with it is exhilarating and refreshing, as we know by repeated experiences at marble fountains that meet us ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... she begged. "I am seeking for an inspiration. In my younger days I used to trim hats. I don't suppose anything I could do would be of any use here, but one ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... inspiration. Well, I fancy that altered his purpose; for we menfolk are unfortunately not always so firm in our principles as ...
— Hedda Gabler - Play In Four Acts • Henrik Ibsen
... "laurelled hero and crowned philosopher," stretching out his hands to the God he but dimly saw, and yet enunciating moral truths which for wisdom have been surpassed only by the sacred writers of the Bible, to whom the Almighty gave his special inspiration. I turn reluctantly from him ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... provides its own water-supply, it lights its streets, it has recently acquired control of its street-car lines, and every passenger is notified as a shareholder that 55 per cent of the profits comes into the city treasury. And now under this inspiration and yet of its own will it has begun a transformation of itself into the likeness of what it dreamed in those evanescent buildings and courts and columns and statues and frescoes out by the opalescent waters of its sea. ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... of inspiration leave their sources parched and dry, Scalding tears of indignation sear the hearts that beat too high; Chilly waters thrown upon it drown the fire that's in the bard; And the banter of the critic hurts his heart till it grows hard. At the fame your muse ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... of inspiration. "Some sandwiches," he repeated helplessly, "oh, some cheese sandwiches and jelly ones and chicken and olive, I ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... towards the still small hours of the morning, in which we so far unbend as to take a single glass of hot whisky and water. We will neither defend the practice nor excuse it. We state it as a fact which must be borne in mind by the readers of this article; for we know not how, whether it be the inspiration of the drink or the relief from the harassing work with which the day has been occupied or from whatever other cause, yet we are certainly liable about this time to such a prophetic influence as we seldom else experience. We are rapt in a dream such as we ourselves ...
— Samuel Butler's Canterbury Pieces • Samuel Butler
... places, about a dozen men were holding a fort against an army. They were using every wile and trick and dodge that ingenuity or inspiration could provide them with, and they were mostly contriving to hold out. But there were none who did anything more daring or more unusual than to march to the attack of a city, with a hostile fakir in the van, and nothing else but their eleven selves and their rifles to assist them. There is a tremendous ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... members separated from a congregation of Trinitarian dissenters in Parliament Court Chapel, Bishopgate street; they rejected the doctrine of the trinity, the atonement, and other points of Calvinism; then the sacraments and the immateriality of the soul; and lastly, the inspiration of the scriptures and public worship, for they have neither singing nor praying in their assemblies, and regard the Bible only as ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 11, November, 1880 • Various
... bedraggled, lime-covered clothes may give you some idea. I cut a passage for myself up those perpendicular walls as the boy did up the face of the natural bridge in Virginia. Do you remember that old story in the Reader? It came to me like an inspiration as I stood looking up from below, and though I knew that I should have to work most of the way in perfect darkness, I decided that a man's life was worth some risk, and that I had rather fall and break my neck while doing ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... become a bore in her presence, is only another intricacy in the many puzzles that constitute the labyrinth of love. So long as he flutters unsinged about its flame, the moth is all the happier for the warmth of the candle, all the livelier for the inspiration of its rays. Dick Stanmore, turning into the Kensington Road, was the insect basking in those bright, alluring beams; but Dick Stanmore on the farther side of Kew felt more like the same insect when its wings have been ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... apt a prophet Mr. Gladstone was in his forecast in the House of Commons in 1870, and one more quotation adds testimony to his inspiration—though from what direction it came I will ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... So, when she had once passed the Slap, Kirstie was received into seclusion. She looked back a last time at the farm. It still lay deserted except for the figure of Dandie, who was now seen to be scribbling in his lap, the hour of expected inspiration having come to him at last. Thence she passed rapidly through the morass, and came to the farther end of it, where a sluggish burn discharges, and the path for Hermiston accompanies it on the beginning of its downward path. From this corner a wide view was ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... missed so much. Still, the instinct for beauty, fragile as it is, does persist.... I was surprised to feel so many of my old emotions awake on coming to Paris. So much that hasn't been real to me for years! I have gained much inspiration ...
— Read-Aloud Plays • Horace Holley
... phantom Pinta. I awoke much refreshed, and with the feeling that I had been in the presence of a friend and a seaman of vast experience. I gathered up my clothes, which by this time were dry, then, by inspiration, I threw overboard all ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... for its study; to bring the passions and feelings into action, and let the Within have its record and history as well as the Without. In all this our contemplative analyst began to allow that the French were not far wrong when they contended that Shakspeare made the fountain of their inspiration,—a fountain which the majority of our later English Fictionists have neglected. It is not by a story woven of interesting incidents, relieved by delineations of the externals and surface of character, ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VI • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... sat there, solitary in his bedroom, his hands dropped down by his side, his pipe hung from his mouth on to his breast, and his eyes, turned up to the ceiling, were lighted almost with inspiration. Men there at the congress, Mr. Chaffanbrass, young Staveley, Felix Graham, and others, had regarded him as an impersonation of dullness; but through his mind and brain, as he sat there wrapped in his ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... her own as to the cause of her father's sudden awakening. She was sure that his interest in Nan was the inspiration of it, quite as much as alarm at the low ebb of his fortunes. In the general confusion into which the world had been plunged, Phil groped in the dark along unfamiliar walls. It was a grim fate that flung her back and forth between father and mother, a shuttle playing across the broken, tangled threads ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... papers, and never did Dave and Roger work harder than they did during the final hour. One question in particular bothered our hero a great deal. But at almost the last minute the answer to it came like an inspiration, and he dashed it down. This question proved a poser for the senator's son, and he passed in his paper without attempting ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer
... of this year Mrs. Prentiss wrote Little Susy's Six Birthdays, the book that has given so much delight to tens of thousands of little children, wherever the English tongue is spoken. Like most of her books, it was an inspiration and was composed with the utmost rapidity. She read the different chapters, as they were written, to her husband, child and brother, who all with one voice expressed their admiration. In about ten days the work was finished. The manuscript was in a clear, delicate hand ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... the sixth century before Christ there appeared in Northern India one of those great personalities who in a measure draw their inspiration directly from above.... When he says, 'As a mother at the risk of her life watcheth over the life of her child, her only child, so also let every one cultivate a boundless good-will towards all beings, ... above and below and across, unobstructed, ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden
... the father of Juliana, "great men treated actors like servants, and, if they offended, their ears were cut off. Are we, in brave America, returning to the days when they tossed an actor in a blanket or gave a poet a hiding? Shall we stifle an art which is the purest inspiration of Athenian genius? The law prohibits our performing and charging admission, but it does not debar us from taking a collection, if"—with a bow in which dignity and humility were admirably mingled—"you deem the ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... imperturbable, square, smileless face of the soldier he found himself, for the first time in his life, without anything particular to say. Grant nodded slightly and waited. His caller wished something would happen. It did. His inspiration returned. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Presbyterian ministry, and the idea of her lecturing on Darwin or Herbert Spencer was deeply shocking to her mother and aunts. In one sense the family had staked its literary as well as its spiritual hopes on the literal inspiration of Genesis: what became of "The Fall of Man" in the light of ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... guests, "I must say that you did very well, and Jessica, too." He beamed on the bride, with a wide patronizing smile that caused her new dignity to vanish in a giggle of ready appreciation of the irrepressible Hippy. "I hoped that you, Reddy, would glance at me for inspiration. There you stood, like a wooden Indian, I mean a marble statue, and never winked. But as you stood there a beautiful thought came to me. I understood precisely why the name of 'Reddy' was appropriate to you. The electric light shone softly down upon your gleaming Titian locks, as though to call attention ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... brick walls, blocked windows, and strong green ivy clasping even the stacks of chimneys with its twigs and tendons, as if with sinewy old arms, had made up a rich attractive mystery, of which I was the hero. Estella was the inspiration of it, and the heart of it, of course. But, though she had taken such strong possession of me, though my fancy and my hope were so set upon her, though her influence on my boyish life and character had been all-powerful, I did not, even that romantic ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... affection of Auguste Comte for his idolized Clotilde de Vaux. Although Comte was bound to a woman whom he had married in the flush of erotic desire and whom he found entirety uncongenial, Clotilde became the inspiration of his later life, and held his affection without the aid of any material bond because she so closely resembled the ...
— Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard
... like ethnology, study the Jews. Study the Germans, too. What peoples they both are—utterly unlike, yet full of the inspiration of thoughts and deeds and persistence. Persistence—there is a word of might it will ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... of heathen, attracted by the unique sight of so large a concourse of women, swelled the numbers at the daily evangelistic meetings, and it was an inspiration to see the new church packed with women and girls quietly and reverently listening to the Gospel message. A room was set apart where silence was observed, that those who wished to do so might pray without fear ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... waves from the threshing-paddle so unexpectedly overwhelmed him, he had just time to draw a deep inspiration before he was environed by death. The most skillful swimmer in the world cannot sustain himself in sea-foam, or in the white caps of the breakers. The only safe course when thus caught is to hold ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... was hot; it had been a hot day. Link was tired. He dreaded the labor of exploring ten acres of undergrowth for his two missing cattle. An inspiration came to him. Pointing to the three stolidly waiting cows at the bars he waved his arm in the general direction of the ...
— His Dog • Albert Payson Terhune
... this out the day of their talk concerning Lester, when they forded the stream on horses and asked for Bissell. Under the circumstances Bud developed a genius for inspiration that was little short ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... you, my good Reine, let me follow my own fancy; an artist is a being of inspiration and spontaneity. Meanwhile, you make your bust too prominent; there is no necessity for you to look as if you had swallowed a whale. L'art n'est pas fait pour toi, tu n'en as pas besoin. Upon my word, you have a most astonishing bust; ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... against the door that Sykes was holding, there came from some deep-hidden well of memory an inspiration. There was a man he had once met—a man who had confided wondrous things; and now, with the knowledge of these others who had conquered space, he could believe wholly what he had laughed and joked about before. That man, too, had claimed to have ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... up buying books and periodicals; no new volumes to be seen in his room except works of travel (preferably guide-books) and grammars and dictionaries of foreign languages. For all such works of general uplift and inspiration as the intending tourist in Europe might expect to profit by, he depended on circulating libraries or the shelves of friends. I myself lent him a book of travels in the Dolomites, and scarcely know, now, whether I did well or ill. Raymond, ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... mechanical element in music renders certainty in the performer's intentions necessary beforehand, to a much greater degree than in a merely dramatic performance; and thus a singer can seldom do the things which an actor sometimes does, upon the sudden inspiration of the moment, occasionally producing thus extraordinary effects. Some of the things my sister did were perfect—I speak now of her acting: they were as fine as some of Pasta's great effects, and her whole performance reminded ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... write a poem about my own "Breezy" and the bunch of lilacs at the gate; but not being a poet I have had to keep wanting; but just repeating this gaily tripping tribute over and over, I suddenly seized my pencil and pad, and actually under the inspiration, imitated (at a distance) half ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... Tell." It was something of an anomaly that, though Rossini's opera had made its appearance during the many years of Italian domination whenever a tenor came who could be counted on to make a sensation with his high notes in the familiar trio of men, Auber's opera, its inspiration as a type, had had so few representations that it had passed out of memory except for its overture. But the history of "La Muette" is full of anomalies. Its story is Neapolitan and there is Neapolitan color in its music; but it is nothing if not French. It inspired Rossini to write "William ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... of the Pic du Midi de Bigorre, its body filled the whole valley of Luz, St. Sauveur, and G['e]dres, and its tail was coiled in the hollow below the cirque of Gavarnie. It fed once in three months, and supplied itself by making a very strong inspiration of its breath, whereupon every living thing around was drawn into its maw. It was ultimately killed by making a huge bonfire, and waking it from its torpor, when it became enraged, and drawing a deep breath, drew the bonfire into its maw, and died in agony.—Rev. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... call still infinitely far away to write, and on hot afternoons when the others were napping she would steal down to the big cool parlor with a pencil and pad. Here in the quiet of the darkened room, with strained mind and thoughts on tiptoe for inspiration, she would try to write, but the stories were crude and childish. Sometimes she would read over Professor Green's letter of advice about writing. "Be as simple and natural as if you were writing a letter," he had said, and her efforts to be natural and simple ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... and delightfully sympathetic. There was, he felt, the very choicest inspiration in the narrative, always growing and expanding, of his father's earlier career, before Mrs. Shrimplin came into his life, and as Mr. Shrimplin delicately intimated, tied him hand and foot. The same grounds of mutual understanding ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... true happiness shining from my eyes; if you see around me brave sons and fair daughters, with whose promise of usefulness as men and women you are not ill-pleased; if, indeed, there is any good or any virtue in me or mine, know as the source, the fountain-head, the inspiration of it all, the sweetest woman in the whole wide world, there she ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... influence with the King proving vain—for Charles was as well aware of its inspiration as of the Chancellor's value to him—that crew of rakes went laboriously and insidiously to work upon the public mind, which is to say the public ignorance—most fruitful soil for scandal against the great. Who shall say how far my lady and the Court were responsible for the ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... which we are dealing with the mystical contents of the Gospels, such a point of view is neither to be accepted nor rejected. But attention must certainly be drawn to such an opinion as the following: "Measured by the standard of consistency, inspiration, and completeness, these writings leave very much to be desired, and even measured by the ordinary human standard, they suffer from not a few imperfections." This is the opinion of a Christian theologian (Harnack, Wesen ...
— Christianity As A Mystical Fact - And The Mysteries of Antiquity • Rudolf Steiner
... question, being now fully before Congress, came up in a variety of ways in rapid succession, on most of which occasions Mr. Clay spoke. Adding to all the logic of which the subject was susceptible that noble inspiration which came to him as it came to no other, he aroused and nerved and inspired his friends, and confounded and bore down all opposition. Several of his speeches on these occasions were reported and are still extant, but the best of them all never was. During its delivery the reporters ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... I read in the paper that Mr. Ravengar had committed suicide, I had just enough money in my pocket to pay my expenses to London, and to keep me a few days here. And I did so want to come! I did so want to come! I came by the morning train. It was an inspiration. I waited for nothing. I meant to write to Mr. Darcy that same night, but that same night I caught sight of him here in Sloane Street, so I knew it was no use writing just then. And I didn't care for him to see me. I thought I would give him time to return. As a matter of fact, I wrote ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... Only while writing his poems and his prose did he find self-oblivion—an astonishing state, in which time is shrivelled up and consumed, in which great inspiration consoles her chosen ones with divine exultation for all burdens, for all ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... is," replied Escott. "His memory seems to me to have suffered from something, and he simply supplies its place in conversation from his imagination, and in action from the inspiration of the moment. The methods of society are too orthodox for such an aberration, and as his friends doubtless pay a handsome fee to keep him here, old Congers labels him mad and locks the ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... country in every life, some great up-towering peaks which dominate the common plain. There should be an upland district, where springs are born, and where rivers of inspiration have their birth. "I will lift up mine ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... Address to the Electors of Bristol ranks in the political classics of England. As a debater in the House Mr. Davis may well be cited as an exemplar. He had no boastful reliance upon intuition or inspiration or the spur of the moment, though no man excelled him in extempore speech. He made elaborate preparation by the study of all public questions, and spoke from a full mind with complete command of premise and conclusion. In all that pertained to the graces of oratory he was unrivaled. He died ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... he came to question the death-stricken man, and saw the look in the dull eyes and heard the vague, inarticulate words, the good German, so far from losing his head, rose to the very heroism of friendship. Man and child as he was, with the pressure of despair came the inspiration of a mother's tenderness, a woman's love. He warmed towels (he found towels!), he wrapped them about Pons' hands, he laid them over the pit of the stomach; he took the cold, moist forehead in his hands, he summoned back life with a might of will worthy of Apollonius of Tyana, laying kisses on his ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... pressure of possession and detention. "As good for you yourself, that—or still better," he went on—"than I and my grievance were to have found you. Talk to we, talk to we, Newton Winch!" he added with an immense inspiration of charity. ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... will ever recover it—think of these, ye summer tourists who wander, sketch-book in hand, through the "warbling woodland" and along "the resounding shore," and talk about being enterprising followers of the fine arts! Try it in Iceland a while, and see how long your inspiration will last! Take my word for it, unless you be terribly in earnest, you will postpone your labors till the next day, and then the next, and so on to the day that ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... Nemesis looking over the city of Vengeance. As the long tongues of flame licked the broad colonnade of the National Hotel, and shot a wreathing pillar of fire and smoke high into the air, M'liss extended her tiny fist and shook it at the burning building with an inspiration that at the ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... need of taking counsel with herself before deciding on any important matter, the forest had been her refuge and her inspiration. The refreshing solitude of the valleys, watered by living streams, acted as a strengthening balm to her irresolute will; her soul inhaled the profound peace of these leafy retreats. By the time she had reached the inmost shade of the forest her ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... heard of how the weavers work in the famous Gobelin tapestry factories in Paris. They know nothing of the beauty of the pattern being woven. They work on the "wrong" side, the under side of the web. They miss the inspiration of seeing the rare beauty they themselves are making. All the weaver sees is the apparent tangle of many coloured threads and thread ends, while he thrusts in his needles according to the card of instructions. ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... very dream-like and strange: the awful, overwhelming, crushing sound of the wind seemed to press upon my brain so that I could not for a long time think, only lie and try to breathe without catching each inspiration in a ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... degree indefinite, the chief smoked in silence for a minute or two, and gazed at Slowfoot with that dreamy air which one assumes when gazing into the depths of a suggestive fire. Apparently inspiration came at last—whether from Slowfoot or not we cannot tell— for he turned solemnly to ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... Elcuanams had caused him to glance again to the trail where they were pointing. There his horrified eyes had seen what seemed a miracle, but a most unfortunate miracle for him Padre Urbano himself, a sight as unmistakable as unbelievable. Panic seized him, but on the instant he had an inspiration, too: he was caught, and something awful was bound to happen; but why not at least make an attempt to disarm the Father's indignation by being caught in the attitude of worship, which the Padre was everlastingly inculcating? It might not mitigate his wrath, but then it might. ...
— The Penance of Magdalena & Other Tales of the California Missions • J. Smeaton Chase
... but he is fickle and must marry fortune. But Hunsdon—he is quite independent, and as steady as"—she glanced about in search of a simile, remembered West Indian earthquakes, and added lamely—"as the Prince Consort himself." Then she felt that the inspiration had been a happy one, and continued with more animation than was her wont: "You know they ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... was always an inspiration. In contrast to the lonely dingy meal at the Hustler Dairy Lunch of his Zapp days, he sat next to a trimly shirtwaisted Nelly, fresh and enthusiastic after nine hours' sleep. So much for ordinary days. But Sunday morning—that was paradise! ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... sketchy warrior stepped, with a very martial air, upon the paper. Then an artist ought to come next;—only she could not think of any way of indicating his calling without the aid of some conventional emblem. A mere look of inspiration might belong to a poet or a preacher as well as to an artist. Besides which, she was by no means sure that she knew how to paint a look of inspiration. And then it came to her that, unless she could paint just that, her picture must be a failure; ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... Light of Mankind? Undismayed by universal rejection, unfaltering in spite of the curling lips of incredulity and scorn, unbroken by the near approach of certain martyrdom, He presents Himself before the world as its Light. Nothing in the history of mad, fanatical claims to inspiration and divine authority is to be compared with these assertions of our Lord. He is the fontal Source, He says, of all illumination; He stands before the whole race, and claims to be 'the Master-Light of all our seeing.' ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... of taking it up myself, of my being the one to bring Karl back to his work, seemed to come to me like some great divine light. I suppose," she concluded, simply, "that it was what you would call a moment of inspiration." ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... father of modern anatomy, who revolutionized the science in the Renaissance time. Mondino had devoted himself to the subject with unfailing ardor and enthusiasm, and from everywhere in Europe the students came to receive inspiration in his dissecting-room. Within a few years such was the enthusiasm for dissection aroused by him in Bologna that there were many legal prosecutions for body-snatching, the consequence doubtless of a regulation of the Medical Department ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... wherever he chooses to go. He isn't a hanger-on in Society. He isn't even dependent upon Bohemia for his entertainment. You can't seriously imagine that a man with his possessions is likely to risk his life and liberty in becoming the inspiration of a band ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... carry the music away in your soul, either in definite memories or in a refreshed and more joyous frame of mind, or it is of no avail that you attended, so from social intercourse it is absolutely necessary that you carry away the inspiration of meeting others and the thoughts that they have given you, and garner from those help and guidance in your life, or the most elaborate of toilets, the most perfect of manners, and the most ceremonious of customs ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... taken to London, subjected to a mock trial, tortured, and put to death with ignominy. On the 23rd August, 1305, his head was placed on London Bridge, and portions of his body were sent to Scotland. His memory served as an inspiration for the cause of freedom, and it is held in just reverence to the present hour. If it is true that he did not scruple to go beyond what we should regard as the limits of honourable warfare, it must be remembered that he was fighting an enemy who ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait
... of that more fundamental question, namely, the right conception of the Christian Church, is apt to be too much lost sight of. About this, though men still do not, they ought to be able to agree, and it should be our common inspiration, both impelling us and guiding us in ...
— The War and Unity - Being Lectures Delivered At The Local Lectures Summer - Meeting Of The University Of Cambridge, 1918 • Various
... meant, that Mr. Darwin's views being false, the opposition to "religion" which flows from them must be needless. But I suspect this is not the right view of the meaning of the passage, as Mr. Mivart, from whom the Quarterly Reviewer plainly draws so much inspiration, tells us that "the consequences which have been drawn from evolution, whether exclusively Darwinian or not, to the prejudice of religion, by no means follow from it, and are in ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... generation which colonised America, toward the past, the present, and the future worlds. Bacon's "Great Restoration" is no longer a guide to scientific method; but his prefatory statements as to his objects and hopes still offer a lofty inspiration. ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... picturesque, might be the word for the present dress of Englishwomen. It forms in itself a lovely picture to the eye, and is not merely the material or the inspiration of a picture. It is therefore the more difficult of transference to the imagination of the reader who has not also been a spectator, and before such a scene as one may witness in a certain space of the Park on a fair Sunday ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... pictures all painted under inspiration to my father, he carefully put on his pince-nez and studied them very closely. After that he said he must reserve his judgment. When they went to the Academy and were promptly refused, he drew a long face and said I had better have gone into the Indian Civil Service as he wished. Subsequently, ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... what position was I now, towards the apostles? Could I admit their inspiration, when I no longer thought them infallible? Undoubtedly. What could be clearer on every hypothesis, than that they were inspired on and after the day of Pentecost, and yet remained ignorant and liable to mistake about the ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... was too slender to be mistaken for that of the present chatelaine of Quesnay: in Miss Elizabeth's regal amplitude there was never any hint of fragility. The lady upon the slope, then, I concluded, must be Madame d'Armand, the inspiration of Amedee's "Monsieur has much to ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... providential instrument, and frankly to declare that she did not write the book; "God wrote it." In her own account, when she reached the death of Uncle Tom, "the whole vital force left her." The inspiration there left her, and the end of the story, the weaving together of all the loose ends of the plot, in the joining together almost by miracle the long separated, and the discovery of the relationships, is the conscious ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... inspiration, born of a growing fear for the stability of his house of cards, so flimsy in construction, he ran down to Jitomir, and the half-crazed adventurer only lingered an hour with the Intendant of Madame Alixe Delavigne's grand old domain. He found the bird flown. Had he been duped? A permission to view ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... morning of perception opened the door of my soul. New yet old, unknown yet longed for, those words fell like golden sun-rays into the room of my understanding; they bathed me with light, and baptized me with tenderness, while I stood at the fount of living inspiration. That grand old man, then about seventy-two years of age, talked to the assembled congregation from this text: "For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God; an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens" ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... contention of creeds which once appeared the central themes of human interest are now {4} regarded by millions of busy men and women as mere echoes of ancient controversies, if not mere mockeries of the problems of the present day.' The Church under the inspiration of this new feeling for humanity is turning with fresh interest to the contemplation of the character of Jesus Christ, and is rising to a more lofty idea of its responsibilities towards the world. More than ever in the past, it is now felt that Christianity must vindicate itself as a ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... was the bright dawn that ushered in the noon-day sun of freedom in 1787. And we have every reason to believe that the Proprietary's charter of liberty with its attendant blessings, served as an example, an incentive, and an inspiration to some at least of the framers of the Constitution, to extend over the new Republic, the precious boon of civil and ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... can hardly understand. "A solemn trifler," Lord Morley has called him; and it is difficult to know why his easy declamation was so long mistaken for profound thought. Much, doubtless, is due to that personal fascination which made him the inspiration of men so different as Pope and Voltaire; and the man who could supply ideas to Chatham and Disraeli cannot be wholly devoid of merit. Certainly he wrote well, in that easy elegance of style which was the delight of the eighteenth ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... events and influences of his boyhood, the story of his most famous book, "Self-Help," is just what might be expected. It is a story full of inspiration. ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... did not write very much. The total body of his poetry is small. He wrote in the rare leisure-hours of an exacting profession, and he wrote only in the early part of his life. In later years he seemed to feel that the "ancient fount of inspiration"[1] was dry. He had delivered his message to his generation, and wisely avoided last words. Then it seems indisputable that he wrote with difficulty. His poetry has little ease, fluency, or spontaneous ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell |
