"Spontaneously" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the method to determining the orbital motions of double stars was pointed out by Fox Talbot in 1871;[1439] but its use for their discovery revealed itself spontaneously through the Harvard College photographs. In "spectrograms" of Zeta Ursae Majoris (Mizar), taken in 1887, and again in 1889, the K line was seen to be double; while on other plates it appeared single. A careful study of Miss A. C. Maury ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... many literary acquaintances, some of whom had reached a high station in public esteem; and her entrance into the best literary circles of the metropolis was thereby facilitated; but the position which she was entitled to claim was spontaneously conceded to talents such as hers, set off by engaging and unaffected manners, warmth and benevolence of heart, equanimity and ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... too, that seemed to recall a mysterious dream or vision I had once passed through. Whether it was caused by the music or the kindly expressions of love for one another on the faces of the players I know not, but nevertheless great tears spontaneously rolled down my cheeks, the first I ever recollect having shed, and at the conclusion of the piece I remained transfixed to the spot for several minutes ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... Crowninshield had so wrathfully bestowed on him was unquestionably deserved. It fitted him like a glove. The fact that the great man had afterward sought to palliate the sting of the term did not actually help matters any. What he had thought in the beginning and so spontaneously declared was what he really believed, and as his dispirited retainer observed to himself, who could ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... had a pott of composition in his garden these seven yeares that beares nothing at all, not so much as grasse or mosse. He makes his challenge, if any man will give him xx li. he will give him an hundred if it doth not beare wheate spontaneously; and the party shall keep the key, and he shall sift the earth composition through a fine sieve, so that he may be sure there are no graines of wheat in it He hath also a composition for pease; but that he will not warrant, not having yet tryed ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... often made audible, which came spontaneously like oracles from afar, as I strode homewards with Hannah by my side. Her, meantime, I seemed to hear; for at times I seemed and I intended to answer her. But answer her I did not; for not ten words of all that she said did I really and consciously hear. ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... beginning. Since 1880, or even 1895 or 1900, it has been transformed in many significant ways. In the beginning it was spasmodic in its outbursts, innocent in its purposes, and narrow in its outlook. It sprang up almost spontaneously in a number of different places and in a number of different detached movements; and its adherents did not look much beyond a victory at a particular election, or the passage of a few remedial laws. Gradually, however, it increased in definiteness, persistence, and ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... fancifully. After all, it is a detail of psychology familiar enough to all whose business or inclination brings them in contact with difficult affairs of any sort. Swiftly and spontaneously, when chance or effort puts one in possession of the key-fact in any system of baffling circumstances, one's ideas seem to rush to group themselves anew in relation to that fact, so that they are suddenly rearranged ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... the first to try (to open it), but all by common consent, after simply looking at it, referred and proposed it with respect and reverence to one alone; who, finally, not so much to exhibit her own glory as to succour those unhappy ones, and while in a sort of doubt, the urn opened as it were spontaneously of itself. But what shall I say to you of the applause of the nymphs? How can you imagine that I can express the extreme joy of the nine blind men, when, hearing that the urn was open, they felt themselves sprinkled with the desired waters, they opened their eyes and saw the two suns, and felt they ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... grape "Pluck'd from the purple vine; all plac'd around "In spreading baskets: snow-white honey fill'd "The central space. The prime of all the feast, "Was looks that hearty welcome gave, and prov'd "No indigence nor poverty of soul. "Meantime the empty'd bowls full oft they see "Spontaneously replenish'd; still the wine "Springs to the brim. Astonish'd, struck with dread, "To view the novel scene, the timid pair "Their hands upraise devoutly, and with prayers "Excuses utter for their homely treat, "At unawares requir'd. ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... wisdom to fathom? No, gentlemen; it is a claim clearly defined, firmly established; never yet doubted, never yet denied: it is a claim, not only recognized in the common-law of every land, protected in the statute-books of every nation, but it is a claim, gentlemen, which springs spontaneously from the heart of every human being—it is the right of a son to his father's inheritance. A right, dear alike to the son of one of our merchant princes, and to the son of the porter on ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... inherited effects of the use and disuse of parts; and in an unimportant manner—that is, in relation to adaptive structures whether past or present, by the direct action of external conditions, and by variations which seem to us, in our ignorance, to arise spontaneously." This passage, summarising Darwin's whole inquiry, and explaining his final point of view, shows how very inaccurate may be the popular notion, as expressed by the Duke of Argyll, of any supposed additions to the causes of change of species as ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... It was very rarely that Jasper had heard her laugh at all, and never so spontaneously as this. He ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... not act for itself independently of its fellows. A closer examination shows the nature of the network which keeps the members of this association so tightly bound. Any attempt to untangle the ties, more firmly fastens them. When any one State talks of separation, the others become spontaneously knotted together. When a section blusters about its particular rights, the rest feel each of theirs to be common to all. If a foreign nation hint at hostility, the whole Union becomes in reality united. And thus in every contingency from which ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... I find very strange and curious to watch—how spontaneously, and instinctively, all young men dislike me. Have I ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... general outline of the Roman Constitution spontaneously granted to his subjects by Pius IX. Its merits, in all civil or political matters, are certainly equal, if not superior, to those of the English Constitution, from which in great part it was borrowed; its faults ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... to honor the acknowledged abundance of their merits. The subjects were entertaining and important, and enchained my attention. By degrees I became familiar with many names and a copious terminology, which I grasped more willingly as I was afraid to write down a rhyme, however spontaneously it presented itself, or to read a poem, for I was fearful that it might please me at the time, and that perhaps immediately afterwards, like so much else, I should be forced to ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... him then more important than all others. Starting at last about nightfall, he took counsel of Petronius also whether to the lines describing the catastrophe he might add a few magnificent blasphemies against the gods, and whether, considered from the standpoint of art, they would not have rushed spontaneously from the mouth of a man in such a position, a man who was ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... jealousy. The personal and the public sentiments are so invariably blended in his mind that neither he nor anybody else could have analysed their composition. He was apt to be the more moody and irritable because his resentments clothed themselves spontaneously in the language of some nobler emotion. If his friends are cold, he bewails the fickleness of humanity; if they are successful, it is not envy that prompts his irritation, but the rarity of the correspondence between merit and reward. Such a man is more faithful to his ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... qualities that shaped Beethoven's musical personality).... Her impatient melodies leap and dash with youthful life, while her accompaniments abound in harmonic hairbreadth escapes." Before he became acquainted with the later French idiom Harvey W. Loomis "spontaneously breathed forth the quality of spirit which we now recognize in a ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... the country, I hasten to send it to you, that you may have it published in this state, where surely it will excite the same indignation as in an immense majority of the inhabitants of the capital, who, jealous of the national glory, and decided to lose everything in order to preserve it, have spontaneously proclaimed the re-establishment of the federal system, the whole garrison having followed this impulse. There is no medium between liberty and tyranny; and the government, relying on the good sense of the nation, which will not see with indifference the slavery that is preparing ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... take place in the capitals, and by means of contagion spread through the country; but this is not a constant rule. We know that during the French Revolution La Vendee, Brittany, and the Midi revolted spontaneously ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... he might think proper. She embraced with satisfaction this occasion of testifying her gratitude to the king and nation for the important services she had received in the late war—favors she the more valued and should not forget as they were spontaneously bestowed.... We were as fully entitled to every succor from her as if ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... small canvas Lucien Simon has a large picture painted with the bravura for which he is famous. The atmosphere of this fine interior is simply and spontaneously achieved, and the three figures of mother, nurse and balky baby are excellently drawn. The still-life by Moride, to the left of this picture, shows all the earmarks of the modern school without sacrificing a certain delicacy of handling ...
— The Galleries of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... other requisite—appropriate natural objects—it is to be remarked that some objects exist or grow up spontaneously, of a kind suited to the supply of human wants. There are caves and hollow trees capable of affording shelter; fruits, roots, wild honey, and other natural products, on which human life can be supported; but even here a considerable ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... to the climate; grow spontaneously in every state in the union, and ten degrees north of the line of the union. The Madeira, Lisbon and Malaga Grapes, are cultivated in gardens in this country, and are a rich treat or desert. Trifling attention only is necessary for their ...
— American Cookery - The Art of Dressing Viands, Fish, Poultry, and Vegetables • Amelia Simmons
... friendly and social affections." The question before us is, How heavy a "tax" ought the government of a federal republic to impose on these interests? Every friend of freedom and of human improvement answers spontaneously, that nothing but a clear necessity can justify any tax at all upon such subjects, and that the tax should be reduced, in all cases, to the very lowest practicable rate. The experience of the British government, the prodigious increase of correspondence produced by cheap postage, and the immense ...
— Cheap Postage • Joshua Leavitt
... consonant to my wishes, being impressed with the liveliest sentiments of affection for those who have so long, so patiently, and so cheerfully, suffered and fought under my direction; having from motives of justice, duty, and gratitude, spontaneously offered myself as an advocate for their rights; and having been requested to write to your excellency, earnestly entreating the most speedy decision of congress upon the subjects of the late address from the army ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... privilege, of religious and secular authority, presented a firm front to the anarchists and radicals. The Jacquerie in France and Wat Tyler's followers in England, the Albigeois of Languedoc and the Hussites of Bohemia, were overwhelmed by armies of conservatives spontaneously banded together in defence of the established order;—while this spirit prevailed among the ruling classes, there was little fear that a revolution of any kind would be effected by a sudden stroke. As in domestic politics, so too ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... writers the two whose names occur most spontaneously to the mind as typical examples are, perhaps, Henry James and W.D. Howells. Of these the former has identified himself so much with European life and has devoted himself so largely to European subjects that we, perhaps, ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... petroleum available to the uses of mankind, Drake was its discoverer, and his achievement seems really a greater one than that of the men who first made apparent our beds of coal, iron, copper, or even gold. For Drake really uncovered an entirely new substance. And the country responded spontaneously to Drake's success. For anything approaching the sudden rush to the oil-fields we shall have to go to the discovery of gold in California ten years before. Men flocked into western Pennsylvania by the thousands; fortunes were made and lost almost instantaneously. ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... her home, and economic dependence the only compulsion sufficiently stringent to force her to endure such unhappiness, the solution of the problem of finding independent employment for women may cause a great number of childless unhappy marriages to break up spontaneously, whether the marriage laws are altered or not. And here we must extend the term childless marriages to cover households in which the children have grown up and gone their own way, leaving the parents alone together: a point at which many worthy couples discover ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... agent is understood an agent that is able to act without restraint, or spontaneously. The word 'free,' therefore, bears a very different meaning when applied exclusively to the Will, and when applied more generally to the living organism. For we may properly say that a man, or an animal, is free when he, or it, is at liberty to act in accordance ...
— Mind and Motion and Monism • George John Romanes
... Moscow, offences against discipline are dealt with by the offenders' fellow-prisoners. The convict population on the island of San Stefano compiled spontaneously a Draconian code to quell internal ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... can, and unfortunately do withhold our love from him even when the light of faith is superadded to the knowledge we may have of him from the teachings of nature. Not so in heaven. There, the blessed see God as He is; and therefore, they love Him spontaneously, ...
— The Happiness of Heaven - By a Father of the Society of Jesus • F. J. Boudreaux
... should be applied to the positive after being printed, but the picture should be allowed to dry spontaneously. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 207, October 15, 1853 • Various
... shoulders beneath the trees surrounding Copse Hill. He was not mechanical or systematic in his poetic work, but followed the impulse of inspiration. "The poetic impulse," his son tells us, "frequently came to him so spontaneously as to demand immediate utterance, and he would turn to the fly leaf of the book in hand or on a neighboring shelf, and his pencil would soon record the lines, or fragments of lines, that claimed release from ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... of her Quaker training, it had developed in her a very personal religion, a strong sense of duty, and a high standard of ethics, which always remained with her. It had fostered a love of mankind that reached out spontaneously to help the needy, the unfortunate, and the oppressed, and this now became the driving force of her life. It led her naturally to seek ways and means to free the Negro from slavery and to turn to the temperance movement to wipe out ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... him, and he was prepared for anything—a laugh, applause, indignation, or all together. But he was not prepared for what came. And it came so suddenly and spontaneously from the groundlings and the body of those in the amphitheatre that he was almost scared by it—as a boy may be scared who has held a match to a sun-scorched hayrick. It was a hurricane of furious applause. Men leapt to their feet, sprang up on to the benches, ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... easily and spontaneously such sketches dropped from his pen, I am reminded of a passage in one of Mendelssohn's letters to my mother; he sends her the Mailied and says: "This morning a song came to me. I really must write it down for you." So, too, from the first the pen-and-ink compositions came to du Maurier. His ...
— In Bohemia with Du Maurier - The First Of A Series Of Reminiscences • Felix Moscheles
... of the mosaic law were constituted particularly, to avert the people from idolatry and false religion, and at the same time to keep them clear of all uncleanness.[60] To this end conspired the prohibition of eating blood, carrion, or animals that died spontaneously, swines flesh, and that of several other creatures.[61] For all these meats yield a gross nutriment, which is improper and prejudicial in diseases of ...
— Medica Sacra - or a Commentary on on the Most Remarkable Diseases Mentioned - in the Holy Scriptures • Richard Mead
... not to see that the myriad worship of "Saviours" all over the world, from China to Peru, can only be ascribed to the natural working of some such law of human and tribal psychology—from earliest times and in all races the same—springing up quite spontaneously and independently, and (so far) unaffected by the mere contagion of local tradition. To suppose that the Devil, long before the advent of Christianity, put the idea into the heads of all these ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... desire for righteousness finds expression in a readiness to endure persecution, to support the burden of duty in the midst of worldly conflict; and finally in the highest stage the light of virtue shines through the clouds of struggle and breaks forth spontaneously, irradiating all who come into contact with it, and constituting man the servant of humanity, the light of the world.[7] Or we might turn to the apostle Paul, who regards the virtues as the fruit of the Spirit, describing them in general as 'love, joy, peace, long-suffering, ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... left hand by the tongue just forward of the hammer, in such a fashion that the horrid greased rag from Hans's hat was held tight over the lock and cap. Then I shook hands with the others and when I came to Miss Hope I am proud to add that she spontaneously and of her own accord imprinted a kiss upon my mediaeval brow. I felt inclined to return it, but ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... I was suspended in astonishment. Every sentiment, at length, yielded to my sympathy. Every new accent of the mourner struck upon my heart with additional force, and tears found their way spontaneously to my eyes. I left the spot where I stood, and advanced within the verge of the shade. My caution had forsaken me, and, instead of one whom it was duty to persecute, I beheld, in this man, nothing but an object ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... these faults have been corrected by several attempts, the method gives a confidence, a sense of sureness, which makes the real telling to a real audience ready and spontaneously smooth. Scarcely an epithet or a sentence comes out as it was in the preliminary telling; but epithets and sentences in sufficiency do come; the beauty of this method is that it brings freedom instead ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... constituted a very great part of their ordinary food, and they gladly availed themselves of the variety and abundance of esculent roots growing spontaneously, in the lands irrigated by the rising Nile, as soon as its waters had subsided; some of which were eaten in a crude state, and others roasted in the ashes, boiled or stewed: their chief aliment, and that of their children, consisting of milk and cheese, roots, leguminous, ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... idea grows in the mind by remaining there; it becomes familiar and distinct, and is viewed in its relations; it leads to other aspects, and these again to others.... Such intellectual processes as are carried on silently and spontaneously in the mind of a party or school, of necessity come to light at a later date, and are recognised, and their issues are scientifically arranged." Consequently, though dogma is unchangeable as truth is unchangeable, this immutability does not exclude progress. In the Church, such ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan
... motor-car. He suffered terribly for two days and died on 19 March. His death is not only a sorrow to me, but a loss to the interests of the cause we have at heart, for Roland had begun to make the most delightful remarks quite spontaneously. On the last evening before the accident, he came to me and—without having been questioned—rapped out: "Rolf ark bei (s) d arm roland" ( Rolf has badly bitten poor Roland). I was not able at ...
— Lola - The Thought and Speech of Animals • Henny Kindermann
... more tenderness, but I dismiss all that when I mentally survey your other qualities. I have thought of fifty things to say to you of the TOO FAR sort, not one of any other; so that your prohibition is very unfortunate, for by it I am doomed to say things that do not rise spontaneously to my lips. You say that our shut-up feelings are not to be mentioned yet. How long is ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... and strong serrated edges. There the Hig, an aloetic plant with a point so hard and sharp that horses cannot cross ground where it grows, stood in bunches like the largest and stiffest of rushes. [8] Senna sprang spontaneously on the banks, and the gigantic Ushr or Asclepias shed its bloom upon the stones and pebbles of the bed. My attendants occupied themselves with gathering the edible pod of an Acacia called Kura [9], whilst I observed the view. Frequent ant-hills gave an appearance of habitation to ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... other great soldiers have resembled him; and perhaps it may be inferred that the practical habit of thought and accommodation of theory to the actual purposes of life pre-eminently required by their profession, leads them spontaneously to decline speculative uncertainties, and to be satisfied only with things that are ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... towards the town he laughed outright, freely, spontaneously; threw his head back with merriment, and then glued his eye to the glass again. What he had seen was a girl of about five years of age with a man, in La Rue d'Egypte, near the old prison, even then called ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... substance, which determines its accidental qualities. All matter, as substance, must have an energetic substance or nature, which is the internal principle of movement. Therefore whatever moves spontaneously, and in virtue of an internal force, must feel this motion, and desire it. All matter feels that it is, and that it exists by itself. It has therefore, consciousness of its own nature. Life consists in the activity of the internal substantial energetic nature. Death is ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... there had sprung up spontaneously a mutual liking, which it is hard to tell the cause of. For Ephie knew nothing of Maurice's tastes, interests and ambitions, and he did not dream of asking her to share them. Yet, with the safe instincts of a young girl, she chose ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... where Flinders is believed to have first landed on Kangaroo Island is now marked by a tall cairn, which was spontaneously built by the inhabitants, the school children assisting, in 1906. An inscription on a faced stone commemorates the event. The white pyramid can be seen from vessels using Backstairs Passage.* (* See the account of the making of the cairn, by C.E. Owen Smythe, I.S.O., who initiated and ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... the ridges and hills between them are composed of oak openings. To form an idea of these oak openings, imagine an inland country covered with splendid trees, about as thickly planted as in our English parks; in fact, it is English park scenery, Nature having here spontaneously produced what it has been the care and labour of centuries in our own country to effect. Sometimes the prairie will rise and extend along the hills, and assume an undulating appearance, like the long swell of the ocean; it ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... large cock which permits some of the supersalted water to be forced overboard by the pressure of the steam. In some cases, in which the boiler applied to an engine is of inadequate size, the pressure within the boiler will fall spontaneously to a point considerably beneath the pressure of the atmosphere; but it is preferable, in such cases, partially to close the throttle valve in the steam pipe, whereby the issue of steam to the engine is diminished; and the pressure in the boiler is thus maintained, ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... supernatural transformation of appearance, which the fire of his own eloquence never failed to work in him. For as his mind rolled along, and began to glow from its own action, all the exuviae of the clown seemed to shed themselves spontaneously. His attitude, by degrees, became erect and lofty. The spirit of his genius awakened all his features. His countenance shone with a nobleness and grandeur which it had never before exhibited. There was a lightning in his eyes which ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... Spontaneously to God should tend the soul, Like the magnetic needle to the Pole; But what were that intrinsic virtue worth, Suppose some fellow with more zeal than knowledge, Fresh from St. Andrew's college, Should nail the conscious needle to the north? I do confess that I abhor and shrink Prom schemes, ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... the seeds of fungi are scattered so universally over the world that, only comply with the conditions, and you will produce them everywhere. Prepare the bed it loves, and a mushroom will spring up spontaneously, an excellent food, like manna from heaven. So superstition says, kill your deadliest enemy, and plant him, and he will come up in a delicious fungus, which I presume to be this; steep him, or distil him, and ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... general, which was caparisoned in splendid style, violently dragged along the man who held the reins, and plunging into the stream, disappeared. It is said also, that the first eagle which was raised, turned round spontaneously. Added to this, it happened that, as they were giving out the rations to the soldiers after crossing the river, lentils and salt were given first, which the Romans consider to be symbols of lamentation, and are accustomed to place before the dead; and, as Crassus was haranguing the ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... been clear to you, dear reader, you must have remarked that in those savages are to be found real treasures of uprightness, honesty and common sense. And the first seeds of these virtues were sown by nobody for they bud and blossom in their souls as spontaneously as from the bosom of great Mother Nature the marvellous multitude of flora rises up towards the sun, ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... out spontaneously, "we are going away to-morrow. I wish I were going to stay with you and ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... a blow but he was meeting it bravely. Having believed that Isabel had given him this same advice quite spontaneously, it was with a shock that he realized that she had offered it in similar terms to Congdon. There was no question as to the identity of the girl who had bidden Congdon plant his back to the wall and defy the world; no one but Isabel would ever have ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... any want of feeling, but from her constitutional incapacity for dwelling uselessly upon painful emotions. She had indeed practised cheerfulness as a duty in order to soothe her husband's anxieties, and it had become part of her character. The moral equilibrium of her nature recovered itself spontaneously as wounds cure by themselves quickly in thoroughly sound constitutions. She devoted her spare time in earlier years and almost her whole time in later life to labours among the poor, but was never tempted to mere philanthropic sentimentalism. A sound common ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... something to be pleaded for Voltaire. Much of his irreligion doubtless arose from a defective and unimpassioned nature, but part of it was noble, and rested upon his intolerance of cruelty, of bigotry, and of priestcraft—but still more of these qualities not germinating spontaneously, but assumed fraudulently as masques. But very little Coleridge had troubled himself to investigate Voltaire's views, even where he was supposing himself to be ranged ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... served him with my sword. That sword, sir, however, can never now be drawn against the man who has saved my life; and, indeed, though I have known many changes and chances, yet I remember no one moment of joy and satisfaction greater than this, when I think that, spontaneously, I have refused to take a share in criminal designs against my benefactor, though I knew him not to be so, and have revealed the schemes against his life, ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... Nathaniel Johnson introduced the raising of silk into the country, which is an article of commerce exceedingly profitable, and, by proper encouragement, might have been made very beneficial both to the colony and the mother country. Mulberry trees grew spontaneously in the woods, and thrived as well as other natural productions. The great demand for silk in Britain made it an object of the highest consequence. About the beginning of March the worms are hatched from ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... numbers who perish on the way to the coast and on the sea, the wholesale murders committed by the Waiyau to build up Arab villages elsewhere—these things Mukate often tried to turn off with a laugh, but our remarks are safely lodged in many hearts. Next day, as we went along, our guide spontaneously delivered their substance to the different villages along our route. Before we reached him, a headman, in convoying me a mile or two, whispered to me, "Speak to Mukate ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... having violently seized Umbria and the Marches of Ancona, must also have a mock plebiscitum, in order, no doubt, to make it appear that these provinces were spontaneously annexed to his kingdom. The fall of Gaeta and the conquest of Naples by Garibaldi encouraged the ambitious monarch in these unjustifiable annexations, and although generally condemned by the European press, he most audaciously issued a proclamation ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... I know that nothing happens to man, which has not long since been ordained by the decree of Fate and of the stars, I will not be the man to resist the determinations of Fate and the stars, but will spontaneously abdicate my royal power, and consider myself for the future, as carrying on the government of this island as your king's viceroy. So bring your ships into the harbour, and order the rest of your companions to land in safety, so that ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... men. 'He that planted the ear,' the Psalmist exclaims, 'shall he not hear?' And, considering his church and his day, that is not a bad remark of Cardinal Bellarmine on that psalm,—'the Psalmist's word planted,' says that able churchman, 'implies design, in that the ear was not spontaneously evolved by an act of vital force, but was independently created by God for a certain object, just as a tree, not of indigenous growth, is of set purpose planted in some new place by the hand of ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... assume that the whole works in much the same way as we ourselves work. If this be so we may expect to find that Nature will work as an artist works, that is, out of his own inner consciousness, spontaneously generating and continually creating new and original forms approaching (through a process of trial and error experimentation) more and more closely to that ideal of perfection which he has always, though often unconsciously, before him. And ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... of wood and earth. In the north many such villages would be called towns. What a difference between our cleanly cottages, and the filthy huts and half-stalls of the north. The very waters in the south are clear, flowing, rustling; in the north muddy, sneaking, stagnant. There the fountains gush spontaneously from the rocks; here they must first be dug out of the earth. The south extracts its treasures from the soil; the north more from commerce and manufactures. There the national capital is more in the hands of the nobility (the church) and the peasantry; here more in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 398, November 14, 1829 • Various
... memory, he never forgets what he appears to have understood. Let us add, to complete the magical and incredible character of the phenomenon that, according to Krall's own statement, the horse was not taught beyond the point of extracting the square root of the number 144 and that he spontaneously invented the manner of extracting all ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... Low Countries and it seemed a worthy achievement to accomplish what so many famous soldiers and statesmen had failed in. It is doubtless due to the genius of Farnese that the Spanish yoke was again fixed on the neck of the southern of the two confederacies into which the Burgundian state had spontaneously separated. Welcomed by a large number of the signers of the Treaty of Arras, [Sidenote: 1579] he promptly raised an army of 31,000 men, mostly Germans, attacked and took Maastricht. A sickening pillage followed in which no less than 1700 women ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... may move the disembodied entity to spontaneously return to the sorrowing ones left behind, but this spontaneous return is rare in the case of persons of the type we are just now considering. If they are left at peace, they will generally sleep themselves quietly into ...
— Death—and After? • Annie Besant
... the force which resists has to be summoned by a direct effort of the will, and the moment that effort relaxes the force fails, and the besiegers swarm upon the fortifications. That which makes for our destruction, everything that is horrible, seems spontaneously active, and the opposition is an ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... you. Never imitate, but graft your own work on to the old, reverently, and only changing from it so far forth as you, like itself, have also a living tradition, springing from mastery of craft—naturally, spontaneously, and inevitably. ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... undirected. This is the assumption of the Boston reviewers, and of Mr. Agassiz, who insists that the only alternative to the doctrine, that all organized beings were supernaturally created just as they are, is, that they have arisen spontaneously through the omnipotence ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... the ocean, dispersed the clouds, which were not half so dense as those he had left. All that was human in him rejoiced at the sight of reviving life, and he viewed with pleasure the mounting sap rising to expand the herbs, which grew spontaneously in this wild—when, turning his eyes towards the sea, he found that death had been at work during his absence, and terrific marks of a furious storm still spread horror around. Though the day was serene, and threw bright rays on eyes for ever shut, it dawned ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... an empty hypothesis when I say, that were it possible that industry should concentrate itself upon a single point, there must, from its nature, arise spontaneously, and in its midst, AN IRRESISTIBLE ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat
... conception as a basis, Leibnitz deduced his doctrine of pre-established harmony, whereby the numerous independent substances composing the world are made to form one universe. He believed that by virtue of an inward energy monads develop themselves spontaneously, each being independent of every other. In short, each monad is a kind of deity in itself—a microcosm representing all the great features of ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... here to descend to particulars. Wheat, barley, and other small grains, with hemp, flax, and tobacco, can be produced in all the valleys, without irrigation. To produce maize, potatoes, and other garden vegetables, irrigation is necessary. Oats and mustard grow spontaneously, with such rankness as to be considered nuisances upon the soil. I have forced my way through thousands of acres of these, higher than my head when mounted on a horse. The oats grow to the summits ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... windows do not open of themselves; and you therefore conclude that something has opened the window. A second general law that you have arrived at in the same way is, that tea-pots and spoons do not go out of a window spontaneously, and you are satisfied that, as they are not now where you left them, they have been removed. In the third place, you look at the marks on the window-sill, and the shoemarks outside, and you say that in all previous experience ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... wholesome opinions were not entirely original on the part of Mayenne, nor produced spontaneously, was plain from the secret instructions given by Philip to his envoys, Don Bernardino de Mendoza, John Baptist de Tassis, and the commander Moreo, whom he had sent soon after the death of Henry III. to confer with ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... than to a result imposed upon him. Holding entirely aloof from natural philosophy and the scientific spirit, the first condition of which is to have no prior faith and to reject that which does not come spontaneously, he remained in a state of equilibrium which would have been fatal to convictions less urgent than his. The supernatural did not excite any natural repugnance in him. His scales were very nicely adjusted, but in one of them was a weight ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... the former, would render nominal and nugatory the transcendent and precious right of the people to "abolish or alter their governments as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness,"(2) since it is impossible for the people spontaneously and universally to move in concert towards their object; and it is therefore essential that such changes be instituted by some INFORMAL AND UNAUTHORIZED PROPOSITIONS, made by some patriotic and respectable citizen or number of citizens. They must have recollected ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... sailors say, and was standing at the salute, waiting for orders. Dear me, what a rustler he was after the slumbrous way of Manuel, poor old slug! All my heart, all my affection, all my admiration, went out spontaneously to this frisky little forked black thing, this compact and compressed incarnation of energy and force and promptness and celerity and confidence, this smart, smily, engaging, shiney-eyed little devil, feruled ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... not have to wait for the element of time to make over every cell. That may be done spontaneously and instantly. There is no limitation to the power of God so I shall not set a time limit for my healing, knowing that all things are possible with the Father. I affirm that now I have that which ...
— The Silence • David V. Bush
... it played over the grave of many a dead comrade; the semi-mutinous—the cavalry became peaceful and patriotic again as their band-master played the old air after having asked permission to try HIS hand on them; it is the same that burst forth spontaneously in our barracks, on that glorious morning when we learned that the war was over, and it was sung, with words adapted to the occasion, by some good rebel friends of mine, on our first social meeting after the ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton
... philosophic romance in the curious history of the early settlement of Mount Wollaston, or Merry Mount. In the slight sketch here attempted the facts recorded on the grave pages of our New England annalists have wrought themselves almost spontaneously into a sort of allegory. The masques, mummeries and festive customs described in the text are in accordance with the manners of the age. Authority on these points may be found in Strutt's Book ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... With a man as mysterious as my cousin, it is not easy to find out what is going on in his heart. Anyhow, I have no right to complain of him; as soon as he discovered my love for Reine, did he not, besides ignoring his own claim, offer spontaneously to take my message? Still, there is something queer at the bottom of it all, and whatever it costs me, I am going to find ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... the thought which determines the quality of the action, and not vice versa, and since thought is free, it is at liberty to direct itself to the highest principles, which thus spontaneously reproduce themselves in the outward acts, so that both thoughts and actions are brought into harmony with the great eternal laws and become one in purpose with the Universal Mind. The man realises ...
— The Hidden Power - And Other Papers upon Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... thou create, a first movement, a spontaneously rolling wheel—a creating one shalt ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... no consequence; commonly disappearing spontaneously, and requiring no medical treatment. If, however, it does not go off in two or three days, a tea-spoonful of castor oil should be given once, or oftener, ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.
... say," replied the Professor spontaneously. "Lord Mortimer has seen Shag and knows ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... desired by the body, what can be the affinity and the relation, in what consists their concurrence and concord? Leibnitz (and there was already something of the same nature suggested by Descartes) believes that all the forces of the world act, each spontaneously; but that among all the actions they perform there exists an agreement imposed by God, a concord establishing universal order, a "preestablished harmony" causing them all to co-operate in the same design. Well, then, between the soul, ...
— Initiation into Philosophy • Emile Faguet
... another rapidly as ever, and with the greatest of regularity. But thrust his head out as far as he would, there was no glare visible, as there had been the year before when the haystack was either set on fire or ignited spontaneously from being built up too wet. Then the whole of the western sky was illumined by the flames, and patches of burning hay rose in great flakes high in air, and were ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... schooner uttered these words with a cheering voice, his men spontaneously shouted, and the whale-boat darted away from her companion, and was soon lost in the gloomy shadows cast from ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... explain and secure the acceptance of a constitution and procedure carefully thought out to suit each case. It will be readily believed that associations of farmers which will meet these conditions are not likely to be spontaneously generated; hence the necessity for a plan and for the machinery to ...
— The Rural Life Problem of the United States - Notes of an Irish Observer • Horace Curzon Plunkett
... and do show themselves spontaneously in haunted houses, why the necessity of musical instruments, professional medium, and sitting round a table with fingers linked? Surely, when one comes to think of it, the modus operandi of the seance, besides being extremely undignified, is somewhat superfluous. Tin trumpets, twopenny tambourines, ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... the centurion found his joy in being devoted to the Roman Empire, it took charge of him with all its power and glory. Dear friends, how are we to attain to this blessed position in which the Kingdom of God shall fill our hearts with such enthusiasm that it will spontaneously be first every day? The answer is, first of all give up everything for it. You have heard of the Roman soldier who gave up his soul, his affection, his life, who gave up everything, to be a soldier; and you have often seen, in history ancient and ...
— The Master's Indwelling • Andrew Murray
... awakened it, and fed it with specimens they could understand. But Uncle Felix poked it into yet greater activity by giving them something that no one could ever possibly understand! He stimulated it so that it worked in them spontaneously and of its own accord. He made it grow. And no amount of Aunt Emilies in the world could ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... spontaneously from conscious possession of Christ's riches. We cannot here enter on the mysteries of Christ's emptying Himself of His riches of glory. We can but touch the stupendous fact, remembering that the place ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... respects the most remarkable performance of the middle ages. It was enriched, moreover, with other elaborate compositions, displaying occasional glimpses of a buoyant fancy, or of sensibility to external beauty, to say nothing of those delightful romantic ballads, which seemed to spring up spontaneously in every quarter of the country, like the natural wild flowers of the soil. But the unaffected beauties of sentiment, which seem rather the result of accident than design, were dearly purchased, in the more extended pieces, at the expense of such a crude mass of grotesque ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... Piers laughed, spontaneously this time, and, finding it a way of escape, gossiped about his own achievements with ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... well-meant pleasantry, perhaps not conceived in the best of taste, sounded in his own ears wretchedly flat and vapid. He regretted it spontaneously; the girl ignored it. ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... The fact that most of us have had the disease, and have recovered, conclusively demonstrates its curability. Those individuals who fail to recover promptly do not possess the vitality to throw it off spontaneously. If at this time—the real beginning of the disease—it is discovered, and the right treatment instituted, we immediately supply the organism with the ingredients it is deficient in and we are justified in looking for favorable results if the patient ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... have done were I to recount the many objects which involuntarily strike my imagination in the midst of my work, and spontaneously afford me the most pleasing relief. These appear insignificant trifles to a person who has travelled through Europe and America, and is acquainted with books and with many sciences; but such simple objects of contemplation suffice me, who have no time to bestow on more extensive observations. ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... not turn a deaf ear to these censurers. I was aware of all the inconveniences and perils to which I thus spontaneously exposed myself. No one knew better the value of that woman whom I called mine, or set a higher price upon her life, her health, and her ease. The virulence and activity of this contagion, the dangerous condition ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... The allusion referred to is the following: "By the kindness of a Scottish Hamburg merchant, whose name, known to the whole mercantile world, he must not mention; but whose honorable courtesy, now and before spontaneously manifested to him, a mere literary stranger, he cannot soon forget,—the bulky Weissnichtwo packet, with all its Custom-house seals, foreign hieroglyphs, and miscellaneous tokens of travel, arrived here in perfect safety, and free of cost."—Sartor ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... constant liability to engorgement of blood in the brain, and to apoplexy, epilepsy, etc. When the enlargement once makes its appearance, it continues to increase in size as long as the person lives, unless appropriate treatment be resorted to. It never disappears spontaneously. These tumors are much larger than those not familiar with them would suppose from their outward appearance, as they extend under and are bound down by the muscles on each side of the neck, so that they become ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... streams are arranged in prismatic forms, constituting basalt, and frequently passing into what under other circumstances would be styled trap by the Wernerians. Now, we know that when streams of lava enter the sea, they spontaneously assume the prismatic structure. Hence we may infer, that these ancient volcanoes originally gave vent to their craters beneath the level of the sea, at a time when the rocks through which they penetrated, and over which their streams have passed, were beds of the primitive ocean. The trap ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... with a tender and solicitous concern, but they did not see much, in her outward demeanour at least, to give them cause for alarm. She was certainly graver, preoccupied, and rather sad; but, again, her natural gaiety would over-flow more spontaneously than it had done for long, thus showing that pride and womanly feeling had been wounded; the heart ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... particular strain or line but what irritates and antagonizes me in any environment is the presumption on the part of the creator of that environment that theirs is the only world-view. I suppose the really strongest thing in me is an instinctive spirit of contradiction, for I always rise spontaneously against anything and everything that is proclaimed to me as being so. This is perhaps rather sweeping but it is more or less so. People influence me never by what they tell me but by the general impression they make on me and that I see them ...
— Nelka - Mrs. Helen de Smirnoff Moukhanoff, 1878-1963, a Biographical Sketch • Michael Moukhanoff
... who knew me best at that time are still alive, beneficed clergymen, no longer my friends. They could tell better than any one else what I was in those years. From this time my tongue was, as it were, loosened, and I spoke spontaneously and without effort. A shrewd man, who knew me at this time, said, "Here is a man who, when he is silent, will never begin to speak; and when he once begins to speak, will never stop." It was at this time that I began to have influence, which steadily ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... is now imploring your protection, Demea; let her obtain from you spontaneously what the power {of the law} compels you to give. I do entreat the Gods that what befits you may at once be done. But if your sentiments are otherwise, Demea, I will defend both them and him who is dead to the utmost of my power. He was my kinsman:[57] ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... exorbitant price. The milk is not pure in its original state, and being afterwards adulterated, it is scarcely fit for any purpose in a family. The first object in the article of food, is wholesomeness; and grass growing spontaneously on good meadow-land is in general deemed most proper for cows intended to supply the dairy. The quantity of milk produced by those which feed on sainfoin is however nearly double to that of any other provender: it is also richer in quality, and will yield a larger ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... other and better remedies. A spontaneously elected Assembly passed ordinances which attest the sincerity of the general desire for reform. In 1728 the informing zeal of Lord Vere Beauclerk elicited a decisive step from the Board of Trade, and Captain Henry Osborne was appointed the first Governor of Newfoundland (1729), ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead
... specimens must be made, at his Highness's private expense, in London. M. Ferdinand de Lesseps, of world-wide fame, volunteered, in the most friendly way, to submit chantillons of the rocks to the Parisian Acadmie des Sciences, of which he is a distinguished member. The Viceroy was also pleased spontaneously to remind me of, and to renew, the verbal promise made upon my return from the first Expedition to Midian; namely, that I should be honoured with a concession, or that a royalty of five per cent. on ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... borders of the Everglades, at Key West, Florida, bids fair to become as extensive and as profitable as at Bermuda, whence, at present, we receive the bulk of our supplies. The wild root, which the Indians call Compti, grows spontaneously over an immense area of otherwise barren land. It is easily gathered, and is first peeled in large hoppers ingeniously contrived, and thrown into a cylinder and ground into an impalpable pulp. It is then washed and dried in the sun, baked and broken ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... criticism with mingled emotions. If it was true that Hegel had anticipated me, my claims to priority of discovery would vanish, even though the idea had come to me spontaneously; but, on the other hand, the disappointment at this thought was neutralized by the reflection that I should gain the support of one of the most famous philosophers, and share with him the sneers and the ridicule bestowed upon my theory. I wrote to Mr. ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... spontaneously in the mind, after feeling particular instances of kindness, without reflection on the past conduct or general character; it exceeds the merits of its object, and is connected with a feeling of generosity, rather than ...
— The Bracelets • Maria Edgeworth
... flowers, according to the season, doubled a sprig of cane in half, added a leaf, twisted some damp thread round the whole, and broke off the thread with her strong young teeth. The little bunches seemed to spring spontaneously from the layer of moss, so rapidly did she stick them ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... A.D.) was the author of the Silviae, Thebaid, and Achilleid. The "Silviae" are the rude materials of thought springing up spontaneously in all their wild luxuriance, from the rich, natural soil of the imagination of the poet. The subject of the "Thebaid" is the ancient Greek legend respecting the war of the Seven against Thebes, and the "Achilleid" was intended to embrace all the exploits of Achilles, but ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... ACETYLENE.—The effect of excessive retention of heat in an acetylene generator upon the gas itself is very marked, as acetylene begins spontaneously to suffer change, and to be converted into other compounds at elevated temperatures. Being a purely chemical phenomenon, the behaviour of acetylene when exposed to heat will be fully discussed in Chapter VI. when the properties of the gas are being systematically dealt with. Here it will be sufficient ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield
... daughter, Americans of the lower class, though willing to spend any number of dollars for their own pleasure, expected that every penny they disbursed should receive its full equivalent in service; the place therefore offered so gracefully and spontaneously to Mademoiselle de Nailles was far from being a sinecure. Jacqueline received her salary on the same footing as Justine, the Parisian maid, received her wages, for, although her position was apparently one ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... jolly and worth while, and expects you do too. Obviously he finds zest in ordinary human things, and not a little humour, also, for there is more often than not a twinkle in his eyes that gives character to his friendly smile—that extraordinarily ready smile, which comes so spontaneously and delightfully, and which became a byword over the whole continent of ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... cried Harding. "You are mistaken, Spilett. A malignant fever does not declare itself spontaneously; its ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)
... opportunity I was looking for came, as opportunities often do come, spontaneously and unexpectedly, yet in shape so questionable that it was open to doubt whether, if I accepted it, my second condition would not ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... is seldom seen, and it is difficult to meet with its young, which has suggested to some persons the strange idea that vultures come from some other world to pay us their rare visits, which are like those occurrences which, according to the soothsayers, do not happen naturally or spontaneously, but by the ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... said, that the same "horrid suggestion" presents itself spontaneously to her, on the reception of his letter; or rather, that the letter itself acts upon her mind as the prophecy of the Weird Sisters on the mind of her husband, kindling the latent passion for empire into a quenchless flame. We are prepared to see the train of evil, ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... characteristic of the Lias; for when the shales are deeply impregnated with bitumen and pyrites, they undergo a slow combustion when heaped up with faggots and set on fire; and in the cliffs of the Yorkshire coast, after rainy weather, they sometimes spontaneously ignite, and continue to burn for several months. 10. As we passed through the works, on our way to the clay, we observed a sort of reservoir, into which the clay, after being freed from its impurities, ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... from Jinnie to the boy, and a cry broke from her. Before her was the child for whom, in spite of the evidence of her smiling lips, she had truly mourned. The wan, blind face was turned upward, the golden hair lying in damp curls on the lovely head. Spontaneously the woman reached forward and took the little hand in hers. All the mother within her leaped up, like a brilliant flash ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... that are bestowed out of mere politeness, and such as spring from the heart! The first seem always forced; the latter, alas! are granted without thinking, like those pure and limpid streams which spontaneously flow from their native sources. Though the feelings of pity I showed for Don Silvio moved the Prince, yet I unwittingly betrayed their shallowness, whilst my very looks, during this torture, always told him more ...
— Don Garcia of Navarre • Moliere
... different times; and shews that idleness and reading hard were with him relative terms, the import of which, as used by him, must be gathered from a comparison with what scholars of different degrees of ardour and assiduity have been known to do. And let it be remembered, that he was now talking spontaneously, and expressing his genuine sentiments; whereas at other times he might be induced from his spirit of contradiction, or more properly from his love of argumentative contest, to speak lightly of his own application to study. It is pleasing to consider that the old gentleman's gloomy prophecy ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... the raps, or for levitation,' he says, 'but one with a double top seems to give best results.' His sitters use wooden chairs with cane seats, and my own experience is that a bare floor helps. He especially directs that the guide be consulted—'let the phenomena come as spontaneously ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... sat down on the sofa. "I think I understood you rightly, when you desired me, less than a month ago, to inform Lord Ballindine that circumstances—that is, his own conduct—obliged you to decline the honour of his alliance. Did you not do so spontaneously, and of your ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope |
