"Forgetfulness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Fortunately Mr. Winter had been a good oar in his day, and had pulled in one of the first four-oars in which the University races had commenced some thirty-five years before; and Tom, who had set his mind on managing his uncle, worked him up almost into enthusiasm and forgetfulness of his maladies, so that he raised no objection to a five o'clock dinner, and an adjournment to the river almost immediately afterwards. Jervis, who was all-powerful on the river, at Tom's instigation got an arm-chair for him in the best part of the University barge, ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... George was not the target now: the eyes of the surveillants were for the fugitives nearest safety. Whether Roger or Dalahaide were hit, George could not tell, but he kept his head above water in sheer self-forgetfulness until both had been hauled on board. Then he dived again, and when he rose to the surface he was close to the boat. It was his turn to be helped over the side and to become a target. Something whizzed past his ear, leaving it hot and wet, and ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... and sedateness, seeming now a mere child, and now an elderly person gravely inspecting matters. The frankness and simplicity were hers by nature, and the oldish ways—notably her self-possession, so quick to assert itself after an instant's forgetfulness—came perhaps of losing her mother in early childhood, and the premature duties which that misfortune entailed. She amused him, for she was only fourteen; but she impressed him also, for she was Mr. Slocum's daughter. Yet it was not her lightness, but her gravity, that ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Washington. Although he moved Washington's appointment, he began almost immediately to find fault with him, an exercise to which he was extremely prone. Inasmuch as he could see how things ought to be done, he could not understand why they were not done in that way at once, for he had a fine forgetfulness of other people's difficulties, as is the case with most of us. The New England representatives generally took their cue from these two, especially James Lovell, who carried his ideas into action, and obtained a little ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... his life like water into the mouth of King Bel. May Ea, the great ruler, whose fated decrees come to pass, the thinker of the gods, the omniscient, who maketh long the days of my life, withdraw understanding and wisdom from him, lead him to forgetfulness, shut up his rivers at their sources, and not allow corn or sustenance for man to grow in his land. May Shamash, the great Judge of heaven and earth, who supporteth all means of livelihood, Lord of life-courage, shatter his ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... which in every line and movement expressed defeat and disgrace. So they all listened who stood around; I read it as well as if I had heard the words they were hearing. I saw dejection, profound sorrow, absorbed attention, utter forgetfulness of present bodily discomfort. I noticed that one man who carried an umbrella had put it down, and stood listening in the rain. Occasionally the soldier raised his arm to eke out his words with a gesture; and then ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... things, but nothing had completely satisfied her; indeed, she hardly desired complete satisfaction. Her intellect was at the same time inquiring and indifferent; her doubts were never soothed to forgetfulness, and they never grew strong enough to distract her. Had she not been rich and independent, she would perhaps have thrown herself into the struggle, and have known passion. But life was easy for her, though she was bored at times, and she went on passing day after day with deliberation, ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... obstacle, a house, whose roof was carried off. At this moment the two cables of the anchors were broken without the voyagers being aware of it. Foreseeing the successive shocks that were about to ensue—the moment was critical—the least forgetfulness might cause death. To add to the difficulty, the balloon's inclined position did not permit of operating the valve, except on ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... pardon, this great commercial emporium—has a trick of forgetting; condensing all interests into those of the present moment. It is much addicted to believing that which never had an existence, and of overlooking that which is occurring directly under its nose. So marked is this tendency to forgetfulness, we should not be surprised to hear some of the Manhattanese pretend that our legend is nothing but a fiction, and deny the existence of the Molly, Capt. Spike, and even of Biddy Noon. But we know them too well to mind what they say, and ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... replied, "I should tell them to you poorly indeed, for the first blessing of the awakening is forgetfulness, and to-day I am awake. However, I remember how I allowed myself to be once overcome by a dream that has now vanished, but still emits its luminous trail in my eyes. I thought I had discovered, under a beautiful and attractive appearance, the richest treasure that the earth can bestow upon ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... patting Neptune's magnificent head. There they stand, as much like lovers as may be; he smiling, and she blushing—he never looking so handsome nor she so pretty in all their lives. There they stand, in blessed forgetfulness of all except each other; as happy a couple as ever trod the earth. There they stand, and one would not disturb them for all the milk and butter in Christendom. I should not wonder if they were fixing the ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... her friends who, as children when Cornelius Starkweather was alive, had haunted this old house because they loved old Mary Boyle. And May was proving, too, to the Western girl, that all New York people of wealth were neither heartless or ungrateful. Yet the crime of forgetfulness these ...
— The Girl from Sunset Ranch - Alone in a Great City • Amy Bell Marlowe
... to hear himself called by a name which was not his. Who could that Richard be? But in the hour of sweet and dreamy explanations which follow those of madness and forgetfulness, she had told him of the impression she had received in Bayreuth when she saw him for the first time among the thousand heads which filled the theater. It was he, the great musician, as he was portrayed in his youthful pictures! When she met him again in Munich ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... calf-house. Darby and Joan slept the profound, dreamless sleep of tired childhood; the dwarf was buried in an oblivion which was as much the stupor of weakness as the blissfulness of sleep. About an hour he remained sunk in sweet forgetfulness of present danger and future difficulties. Then his big head began to bob uneasily up and down, from one side to another, until it fell upon his shoulder with a sudden jerk which only partially aroused him. He opened his eyes with an effort. Where was he, and where ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... felt a sudden and sharp pain in the side, and at the same moment heard Malcolm's cry, "Ah, bloody villain, none of that!" Almost immediately I heard the clash of swords, and turning my head for a moment, saw our seconds engaged. In that same instant of forgetfulness Giraldi was upon me, lunged furiously and ran his blade through my sword arm. There was an assassination, planned and ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... Neither substance nor shadow, it must be a phantom—it may be of a dead sin—and against such, exorcism avails. I opine this exorcism lies in no cabalistic words, no crossing of the forehead, no holy name, in nothing that one can do unto or for himself, but in entire self-forgetfulness—in doing for, in sympathizing with, others. So shall this Grief step aside from your path, get away from between you and the sunshine, till ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... self-destruction—of his "going to ruin" himself. One may perceive in almost every psychologist a tell-tale inclination for delightful intercourse with commonplace and well-ordered men; the fact is thereby disclosed that he always requires healing, that he needs a sort of flight and forgetfulness, away from what his insight and incisiveness—from what his "business"—has laid upon his conscience. The fear of his memory is peculiar to him. He is easily silenced by the judgment of others; he hears with unmoved countenance how people honour, admire, love, and glorify, where he has PERCEIVED—or ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... while several of the elders of both sexes, suppressing for the time the exhibition of their specialities of selfishness, indulged in a prolonged chorus of grumbling and mutual condolence. But, in one way or other, all had been fed and housed before midnight, and sleep buried for a while in forgetfulness the troubles of the bewildered ...
— Working in the Shade - Lowly Sowing brings Glorious Reaping • Theodore P Wilson
... the thick yellow smoke shied at the chimney, and came curling out under the worsted fringe of the mantelpiece into the chilly room. Westray took this discomfort the more impatiently, in that it was due to his own forgetfulness in having sent no ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... possible), engrossed more of my time. Thus I hope you will forgive me, because, as soon as I returned, I set about writing this, as an excuse for myself, in the first place; to promise you the subject you insist upon, in the next; and to say, that I am incapable of forgetfulness or negligence to such a friend as Lady G. For I must always be your faithful and affectionate humble ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... great-grandmothers smiled in the lively dance, when they possessed the flower of beauty in the spring of life, is lost in forgetfulness. The floor that trembled under that foot which was covered with a leather shoe tied with a silken string, and which supported a stocking of dark blue worsted, not of the finest texture, is now ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... quieting him. The good nurse was unexpectedly aided, however, by the savage chief, who on repassing the window, looked in and made his black face supernaturally hideous by glaring at the refractory child. Junkie was petrified on the spot, and remained "good" till forgetfulness and sleep overpowered him. ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... must certainly have been unfettered by them: to the less brilliantly endowed, however, they have a use as being compendious safeguards against error. Let me then lay down as the best of all rules for writing, "forgetfulness of self, and carefulness of the matter in hand." No simile is out of place that illustrates the subject; in fact a simile as showing the symmetry of this world's arrangement, is always, if a fair one, interesting; every simile is amiss that leads ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... the verses must have ploughed as deeply as the Russian knout. Vitriol could not scorch more fiercely. And yet the whole passage rests upon a blunder; and the blunder is so broad and palpable, that it implies instant forgetfulness both in the writer and the reader. The idea which furnishes the basis of the passage is this: that the conduct ascribed to Addison is in its own nature so despicable, as to extort laughter by its primary impulse; but that ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... nervous tissues.[203] Mr. Buckle assures us that certain underlying but indefinable laws of society, as indicated by statistics, control human action irrespective of choice or moral responsibility. Even accidents, the averages of forgetfulness or neglect, are the subjects of computation. To support his position he cites the averages of suicides, or the number of letters deposited yearly in a given post-office, the superscription of which has been forgotten. Thus, underlying all human activity there is ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... my soiled linen for the wash. It made quite an imposing mountain in the corner of the room—fifty-four pieces. I hoped he would fancy it was the accumulation of a single week. I took up the wash-list, as if to see that it was all right, and then tossed it on the table, with pretended forgetfulness. Sure enough, he took it up and ran his eye along down to the grand total. Then he said, "You get off easy," and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a terrible thing; it resembles love, but is in every way its contrary; the jealous man desires, not the good of the loved one, but her dependence on him and his triumph over her. Love is the forgetfulness of Self; but jealousy is the most passionate form of egoism, the exaltation of the despotic, vain and greedy Self, which cannot forget and subordinate itself. The contrast ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... worried. Though it was so late, she had not retired. The thrush that Ayrault had often in life admired, and that she had for some reason brought up-stairs, was silent and asleep. "Happy bird!" he said, "you obtain rest and forgetfulness on covering your head; but what wing can cover my soul? I used to wish I might flutter towards heaven on natural wings like you, little thrush. Now I can, indeed, outfly you. But whatever I do I'm ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... Annie Brett's complete notions of the movement for the abolition of barmaids. The subject was heavy on her mind, and she lifted it off. Simon Fuge was relinquished; he dropped like a stone into the pool of forgetfulness. And yet, strange as it seems, she was assuredly not sincere in the expression of her views on the question of barmaids. She held no real views. She merely persuaded herself that she held them. When the commercial traveller, who ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... been dead so many hundred years, how dull was he, who having a real motive and cue for passion, a real king and a dear father murdered, was yet so little moved, that his revenge all this while had seemed to have slept in dull and muddy forgetfulness! And while he meditated on actors and acting, and the powerful effects which a good play, represented to the life, has upon the spectator, he remembered the instance of some murderer, who seeing a murder on the stage, was by the mere force of the scene and resemblance of circumstances ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Then abruptly he sat down before the table, put his head on his arms, and began to sob and weep like a little boy, in a perfect passion of emotion, while I, with a curious forgetfulness of my own recent despair, ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... such works, as the love of God and man, the use of all for his glory, of whom all things are, and man's reasonable being. Such a thing doth suit and become it. Again, other things, as the hatred of God and men, neglect and forgetfulness of him, drunkenness and abasing lusts of that kind, do disagree, and are indecent to it. O how happy was Adam, when holiness and righteousness were not written on tables of stone, but on his heart, and when there was ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... with hills and dotted with silent, two-penny cottages. Sometimes Picton mounted his pyramid of trunk-leather for a mile or so of nods; sometimes I essayed the high perch, and holding on by a cord, dropped off in a moment's forgetfulness, with the constant fear of waking up in a mud-hole, or under the wagon-wheels. But even these respites were brief. It is not easy to ride up hill and down by rock and rut, under such conditions. We were very soon convinced it was best to leave the ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... forgotten now, a good and a strong side. Both in philosophy and religion, the [Greek: mathaetaes] is a distinct character, and Charles Marriott was an example of it at its best. He had its manly and reasonable humility, its generous trustfulness, its self-forgetfulness; he had, too, the enthusiasm of having and recognising a great master and teacher, and doing what he wanted done; and he learned from the love of his master to love what he believed truth still more. The character of the disciple does not save a man from difficulties, ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... of another kinsman, where he would give them an evening of delight. He did not give notice of these gracious recognitions, preferring to make the event sweeter with surprise. On his part it was a generous forgetfulness of self-importance—it was as if a placid and beneficent moon had come to beam upon a cluster of stars. To the men he would quote stocks, as if, a lover of letters, he were giving a poem to a "mite society." Upon the ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... burning perfume was mounting to her head with every breath and the glow grew steadily in her body, creeping from vein to vein. No, she would not be afraid. It could never happen again. She would be on her guard after this.... Besides, the forgetfulness had been so momentary, the imprudence so very slight ... and it had helped her, too—it was already making her sleepy ... and she had needed something ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... which is not allowed to weep will drown self-pity, hardening the woman to summon scruples in relation to her unworthiness. He might choose to forget, but the more she admired, the less could her feminine conscience permit of an utter or of any forgetfulness that she was not the girl Browny, whom he once loved—perhaps loved now, under some illusion of his old passion for her—does love now, ill-omened as he is in that! She read him by her startled reading of her own ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... all because they had got a gypsy gentleman to play to, I appreciated what a life that was to them, and what it should be; not cold-blooded skill, aiming only at excellence or preexcellence and at setting up the artist, but a fire and a joy, a self-forgetfulness which whirls the soul away as the soul of the Moenad went with the stream adown the mountains,—Evoe Bacchus! This feeling is deep in the heart of the Hungarian gypsy; he plays it, he feels it in every air, he knows the rush of the stream as it bounds ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... critically—as even her friends had often stared—and realized that it was unusual, perhaps extravagant, perhaps sometimes preposterous. This readiness to sacrifice—was it not rather slavish than regally loyal? This forgetfulness of personal joy, this burnt-offering of personality—was it not contemptible? Could such actions bring into being the respect of others, the respect of any man? Had Emile respected her for rushing to Africa? Or had he, perhaps, then and through all these years, simply wondered how she could ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... of his memory. More and more did he recognize the fact that, even should he live long enough to bury the events of that hour beneath the debris of many years, the lapse of time would be insufficient to bring forgetfulness, and the recognition brought with it moral helplessness. He had, too, sufficient religious feeling to make him uneasy as to his future fate, and possessed a certain amount of imagination, which was at this time all directed towards that awful day when he and his dead father must settle their ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... spoken Gospel, as well as of its earlier premonitions, that the Bible has come to be called the word of God, and the name is true in that He speaks in this book. But much harm has resulted from the appropriation of the name exclusively to the book, and the forgetfulness that a vehicle is one thing and that which ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... the pain, and we say we have forgotten—that love can grow cold. Cold? Yes; but the cold ashes will lie there in the heart—the dust of our dead ideal! Would such a fate be Arthur's? No. There was no room in that great pulsing heart of his for anything that was cold—no room for the chill of forgetfulness. Strive as he might, he knew he could never forget. What then remained? Even in that hour a holier radiance lighted his brow. Strong to bear the burdens and sorrows of others, he had learned to cast all his care upon One who had never forsaken him—even his unrequited ...
— Beth Woodburn • Maud Petitt
... at once, stretching his long legs out before him, with lazy ease, and then drawing his knees up sharply, as if in sudden remembrance that he was a guest and they were comparative strangers. Lorraine liked him, both for the moment's forgetfulness and the sudden remembrance, and as she glanced again at his beautiful head and splendid shoulders, she was conscious of a ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... was heightened during the ensuing winter in Rome, by just the circumstance from which some comfort had been expected—the second postal delivery which took place every day; for the hopes and fears which might have found a moment's forgetfulness in the longer absence of news, were, as it proved, kept at fever-heat. On one critical occasion the suspense became unbearable, because Mr. Browning, by his wife's desire, had telegraphed for news, begging for a telegraphic answer. No answer ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... but beyond a passing glance of admiration Custance relegated her to forgetfulness. She was, however, determined to know him, and she engineered a second meeting with her ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... considered it waste of time to be always weighing herself and her feelings in a nicely-adjusted balance. 'Know thyself,' said an old thinker; but Audrey Ross would have altered the saying: 'Look out of yourself; self-forgetfulness is better ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... for she had thoroughly blasted his life! He would pretend to forget, but nevertheless he would see to it that she was undeceived, and that the injury she had done him remained an ever-present reproach to her. That would be his revenge. Real forgetfulness, of course, was out of the question. How could he assume such an attitude? As he pondered the question he remembered that there were artificial aids to oblivion. Ruined men invariably took to drink. ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... past and forgotten. The hands which had arranged their memorials with such pride and love had long since gone down to idleness, and forgetfulness also. Who cared for the family legends now? They, too, had gone down into silence. There was no one to tell Dare that the old blue enamel bowl in the hall, in which he gave Faust refreshment, had been brought back from the loot of the Winter Palace of ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... fantastic, unaccountable whim; the whim of a woman seeking forgetfulness, not counting the cost nor caring; simply a whim. She had brought him here to crush him for his impertinence; and that purpose was no longer in her mind. Was she sorry? Did he cause her some uneasiness, ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... opportunity of ascertaining what a very different thing it is to be a spectator in such a scene, from being an actor. Ashamed of the forgetfulness that had sent me to the brace, I walked on the quarter-deck, where blood was already flowing freely. Everybody, but myself, was at work, for life or death. In 1803, that mongrel gun, the carronade, had come into general use, and those on the quarter-deck ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... actual strife; to deal with questions, not in an abstract shape, but mixed up with the affections, passions, relations of human creatures, is a course which must lead him, it is thought, into a great forgetfulness of his office, and of all that ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... equanimity; I say it even with arrogance. I have been talking about the gaps of Dickens. I have been talking about the omissions of Dickens. I have been talking about the slumber of Dickens and the forgetfulness and unconsciousness of Dickens. In one word, I have been talking not about Dickens, but about the absence of Dickens. But when we come to him and his work itself, what is there to be said? What is there to be said about earthquake ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... that something had happened to their minds; then with a dumb and yearning solicitude they would softly caress each other's hands in mutual compassion and support, as if they would say: "I am near you, I will not forsake you, we will bear it together; somewhere there is release and forgetfulness, somewhere there is a grave and peace; be patient, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... his great war-sword and handed it to Noel le Jolys, who, for one of the few times in his life, astonished into forgetfulness of courtly etiquette, had been staring, open-mouthed, at the astonishing revelation that had just been made to him. The gleam of the war-worn weapon recalled him to himself and he took it from the hands ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... the correct mode of address. "Your Grace, I desire to respectfully state my position."... That was the start all right; but how did it go on? Again and again, before recovering the hang of it, he was confronted with a blank wall of forgetfulness. ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... memory of all the injuries they had heaped upon me. The man who forgets does not forgive, he only loses the remembrance of the harm inflicted on him; forgiveness is the offspring of a feeling of heroism, of a noble heart, of a generous mind, whilst forgetfulness is only the result of a weak memory, or of an easy carelessness, and still oftener of a natural desire for calm and quietness. Hatred, in the course of time, kills the unhappy wretch who delights in nursing it ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... that my Lady Castlewood's servants were out of the way, and only those heard him who would not betray him. He inquired after the adorable Beatrix, with a royal hiccup in his voice; he was easily got to bed, and in a minute or two plunged in that deep slumber and forgetfulness with which Bacchus rewards the votaries of that god. We wished Beatrix had been there to see him in his cups. We regretted, ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... the fleet. On coming out of his cell, he was surrounded by those who had injured him, who implored him to forget the injustice with which he had been treated. He partook of the sacrament with them in token of complete forgetfulness and forgiveness, and then proceeded against the enemy. The confidence of the republic had not been misplaced. His bravery, skill and foresight, together with the aid of another brave captain, Carl Zeno, saved ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... circle. With a wrench that tore his very heart-strings he set his face down the road and followed submissively in the track of the Rat, while faint, thin little smells, still dogging his retreating nose, reproached him for his new friendship and his callous forgetfulness. ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... more the homage of our hearts. Was that a childish outburst of excitement, or the glow of an aroused principle? Was it a puerile anger, or a manly indignation? Did we spring up startled pygmies, or girded giants? If the former, let us veil our faces, and march swiftly (and silently) to merciful forgetfulness. If the latter, shall we not lay aside every weight, and this besetting sin of despondency, and run with patience the race set ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... one that he had never seen, for Hecuba, that had been dead so many hundred years, how dull was he, who having a read motive and cue for passion, a real king and a dear father murdered, was yet so little moved, that his revenge all this while had seemed to have slept in dull and muddy forgetfulness! and while he meditated on actors and acting, and the powerful effects which a good play, represented to the life, has upon the spectator, he remembered the instance of some murderer, who seeing a murder on the stage, was by the mere force of the ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... of a frailty more exquisite and consummate. We account it frailty that threescore years and ten make the upshot of man's pleasurable existence, and that, far before that time is reached, his beauty and his power have fallen among weeds and forgetfulness. But there is a frailty, by comparison with which this ordinary flux of the human race seems to have a vast duration. Cases there are, and those not rare, in which a single week, a day, an hour sweeps away all vestiges and landmarks of a memorable felicity; in which the ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... in body, heartbroken at the horrible fate of Gertrudis, and foreseeing the speedy termination of the war, consequent on the concluded treaty of Bergara, he threw up his commission, and left Spain to seek forgetfulness of his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... and Mitchell, or went to church to see some of the girls we had admired at the Seminary. On other Sabbaths we returned to our places at the Burr Oak school-house, enjoying as we used to do, a few hours' forgetfulness of ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... think you have any self-conceit, but you may have a good deal of self-forgetfulness. Now I want you to call a halt and remember yourself. In this business of yours—supposing it comes to what you would consider at the ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... spite of vandalism, forgetfulness and barbarism, often of the worst description as in the mere indifference and ignorance that scattered Alfred's bones, no one has ever come to Winchester without loving it, no one has ever been glad to get away. Its innumerable visitors are all its lovers and ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton
... therefore leave them unmentioned in this history, just as my mind left them unmentioned in that interminable final week. Our life went on precisely as before—Mabel unreal and outwardly so still; Frances, secretive, anxious, tactful to the point of slyness, and keen to save to the point of self-forgetfulness. ...
— The Damned • Algernon Blackwood
... cover the grave being reserved. The visitor to a cemetery could find it in his heart to wish that when the beauty of these floral offerings has departed, the sodden remnants might be speedily removed. They speak so forcibly of forgetfulness. ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... midnight bride but when thou art bidden again To meet her here to-morrow. Strange it were, More strange than aught of all, that thou shouldst prove Dishonourable: and except thou be, these things Must all be wrought in this wise, lest her oath And mine, at peril of her soul and life, By passionate forgetfulness of thine Disloyally be broken. Swear to us now Thou wilt not break our oath and thine, or think To look ...
— Rosamund, Queen of the Lombards • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey, This pleasing, anxious being e'er resign'd, Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day Nor cast one longing, ling'ring look behind?"—GRAY: ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... an example followed by most of the more thoughtful religious travellers since his time. Very significant is it to see the New Testament injunction, "Remember Lot's wife," so utterly forgotten. These later investigators seem never to have heard of it; and this constant forgetfulness shows the change which had taken place in the ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... prepared for the heroic devotion displayed by such young officers as these at the beginning of the war. The general opinion in peace time was expressed by M. Maurice Maeterlinck when he laid it down that "courage, moral and physical endurance (if not abnegation, forgetfulness of self, renunciation of all comfort, the faculty of sacrifice, the power to face death) belong exclusively to the most primitive, the least happy, the least intelligent of peoples, those which are least capable of reasoning, of taking danger into account." It was the common ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... murdered, and it was always before his eyes that he was doomed, and that there was another man in the land, who was to rule in his stead. I tried to appease him. I told him that life to all of us is short, that in the grave there is forgetfulness, and bade him drink wine, lie in my bosom, and shut out the morrow, but it was of no avail. There was nothing to be dreaded in the thought that some one would supplant him, and other men would have ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... doubtful if either the mother or daughter heard much of Polly's grateful little speech. Patricia's face burned with shame at her forgetfulness, and she wondered what her mother would say as soon as ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... Queen had omitted putting them on. As there had been a greater affluence of visitors than usual that morning, and Her Majesty's toilet was overthronged by Princes and Princesses, I fancied in the bustle that the omission proceeded from forgetfulness. Consequently, I sent the tirewoman, in the Queen's hearing, to order the jewels to be brought in. Smilingly, Her Majesty replied, 'No, no! I have not forgotten these gaudy things; but I do not intend that the lustre of ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... father, whose life he tried to save from the tusks of a wild boar,—his sword piercing the old man instead of the beast, (a deed decreed by fate,)—he finds the lovely nymph ready to console him. She presents him with a draught from the magic well, which instantly brings him forgetfulness of the past (compare Nibelung's-ring).—The Count drinks it, and immediately glowing with love for the beautiful maiden wooes her as his wife. Melusine consents to the union under the condition that he pledges himself by a solemn oath, never ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... still, some winking, one crooked line of flaring illumination marking the Street of the Sailors, along which the notorious kantrans flourished, now ready for their nightly brood of men who sought forgetfulness in revelry. Soon, Carse knew, the faint man-noises he heard would grow into a broad fabric of sound, stitched across by shrieks and roars as the isuan and alkite flowed free. And all around the lone watcher in the sakari tree the night-monsters were crawling out in jungle ...
— The Bluff of the Hawk • Anthony Gilmore
... Snevellicci had no sooner swallowed another glassful than he smiled upon all present in happy forgetfulness of having exhibited symptoms of pugnacity, and proposed 'The ladies! Bless their hearts!' in a most ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... messmates, with a future before them that promised no more to the one than to the other, the difference in the chances which birth afforded the captain alone excepted. Clinch was a prime seaman, and as brave as a lion, too; qualities that secured to him a degree of respect that his occasional self-forgetfulness had never entirely forfeited. Some persons thought him the most skilful mariner the Proserpine contained; and, perhaps, this was true, if the professional skill were confined strictly to the handling of a ship, or to taking care of her on critical occasions. All ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Valette, "if I have unconsciously awakened thoughts which time, perchance, had well nigh soothed into forgetfulness!" ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... much in London seem to me to have tasted the lotus which, according to the fable of old, induced forgetfulness of the past, so wholly are they engrossed by the present, and by the vortex in ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... beauty that is always present to hear her-self flattered, is flattered by every one. But the absent and silent goddess, Forgetfulness, has no votaries, and is never thought of: yet we owe her much. She is the goddess of ease, though ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... phlegmatic, introduced Anthony ponderously to the problems of attention, right face, about face, and at ease. His principal defect was his forgetfulness. He often kept the company straining and aching at attention for five minutes while he stood out in front and explained a new movement—as a result only the men in the centre knew what it was all about—those on both flanks had been too emphatically impressed with the ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... sought no further solution of the reason why the Skimmer had left him so hurriedly. Fumbling a moment in a pocket, he drew forth a hand filled with broad pieces of gold. These he appeared about to lay upon the table; but, as it were by forgetfulness, he kept the member closed, and bidding the grocer adieu, he left the house, with as firm a resolution as was ever made by any man, conscious of having done both a weak and a wicked action, of never again putting himself in familial contact ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... over small and great, the poor and the strong, the bond and the free. In this solemn hour, let us pray for the quick coming of reconciliation and happiness under this common flag. But we must build again, from the foundations, in all these now free Southern States. No cheap exhortations "to forgetfulness of the past, to restore all things as they were," will do. God does not stretch out his hand, as he has for four dreadful years, that men may easily forget the might of his terrible acts. Restore things as they were! What, the alienations and jealousies, the ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... would seem that prudence can be lost through forgetfulness. For since science is about necessary things, it is more certain than prudence which is about contingent matters of action. But science is lost by forgetfulness. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... of some darkling hour, Whose fame forlorn time saves not nor proclaims For ever, but forgetfulness defames And darkness and the shadow of death devour, Lift up ye too your light, put forth your power, Let the far twilight feel your soft small flames And smile, albeit night name not even their names, Ghost by ghost passing, ...
— Sonnets, and Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... sincerity, took the baby in his arms and said over and over, "Oh, you sweet little child! You sweet little child!" Then the darkness of all those harsh years fell away from Lydia. She could afford to be magnanimous, so with a sweet silence, a loving forgetfulness of all the dead miseries and bygone whip-lashes, she accepted her strange parent just as he presented himself, in the guise of a man whom the years had changed from harshness to tenderness, and let herself ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... rest; the need of unconsciousness, of forgetfulness, was imperious upon me; I had had too many experiences during the last few hours. I stretched myself on the saloon cushions, making a pillow ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... pet for me! Let your place all vacant be; Better blankness day by day Than companion torn away. Better bid his memory fade, Better blot each mark he made, Selfishly escape distress By contrived forgetfulness, Than preserve his prints to make Every morn and ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... lived,—penitent and loving, asking forgiveness of Julia for her neglect and unkindness, and invoking blessings on her head. Julia had now, for the first time since the death of her mother, a comfortable home and a father's love and protection. Her sweetness of temper, patient endurance, and forgetfulness of herself in her labors for others, gradually overcame the scruples and hard feelings of her neighbors. They began to question whether, after all, it was meritorious in them to treat one like her as a sinner beyond forgiveness. Elder Staples and ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... of paper in the ear; and it is quite common for persons in the habit of using a tampon of cotton in the meatus to mistake the deep entrance of this substance for functional derangement, and many cases of temporary deafness are simply due to forgetfulness of the cause. A strange case is reported in a girl of fourteen, who lost her tympanum from a profuse otorrhea, and who substituted an artificial tympanum which was, in its turn, lost by deep penetration, ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... for it. Waters are imitated now, you know. My, Wiesike, what a business we could build up here if we could only start such a sanatorium! Friesack the spring of forgetfulness! Well, let us try the Riviera for the present. Mentone is the Riviera, is it not? To be sure, the price of grain is low just now, but what must be must be. I shall talk with my ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... autumn is not bare, Nor winter's rattling boughs lack lusty green: Our summer hearts make summer's fullness where No leaf or bud or blossom may be seen: For nature's life in love's deep life doth lie, Love,—whose forgetfulness is beauty's death, Whose mystic key these cells of Thou and I Into the infinite freedom openeth, And makes the body's dark and narrow grate The wide-flung ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... others, bursting forth in fire-worship from pyramid, cave, and mountain, taking the stars for the rulers of its fortune, and the sun for the God of its life; the power which so dazzled and subdued the rough crusader into forgetfulness of sorrow and of shame, that Europe put on the splendor which she had learnt of the Saracen, as her sackcloth of mourning for what she suffered from his sword;—the power which she confesses to this day, in the utmost thoughtlessness of her pride, ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... a silence very significant in the case of a Testator who was himself the member of a Christian Church, a silence not less significant in the case of the Sovereign ... a silence not to be explained by any supposed forgetfulness or intentional omission of the subject, since the inculcation of 'the principles of true religion' is expressly provided for by the Charter; a silence, therefore, apparently indicating a design that Christianity ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan
... degree, is the essence of tragic representation; so is sport of the comic. The disposition to mirth is a forgetfulness of all gloomy considerations in the pleasant feeling of present happiness. We are then inclined to view every thing in a sportive light, and to allow nothing to disturb or ruffle our minds. The imperfections ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... African, they were endowed with an inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And to this truth, as he saw it, Lincoln referred in those memorable words I have already cited bearing on our national crime in long forgetfulness of our own immutable principles. The fundamental, primal principle was indeed more clearly voiced by Lincoln than it has been voiced before, or since, in declaring again, and elsewhere that to our nation, dedicated "to the proposition that all men are created equal," has by Providence been assigned ...
— "Imperialism" and "The Tracks of Our Forefathers" • Charles Francis Adams
... life, the only real life—entire forgetfulness of self? If so, how seldom she had lived! In all her sixty years, in all her so-called "great life," for how short a time she ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... with Mr Webb, standing at the entrance-port singing out for the boat; he had forgotten his dirk, he said, and had come back to fetch it. The boat, however, had got some distance off, and he was left behind. Poor fellow, it was a fatal piece of forgetfulness for him. ...
— The Loss of the Royal George • W.H.G. Kingston
... or three pages away; he gravely explained to the congregation how he found himself situated: 'And now,' said he, 'let us just begin where the rats have left off.' I must follow the divine's example, and take up the thread of my discourse where it first distinctly issues from the limbo of forgetfulness. ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... half way between the two camps have excited hope, instead of "suspicion," and prompted some of the party to pursue the lone wanderer with kindly intent? Does not each succeeding day's entry in that journal disclose the party's forgetfulness of its declared mission to the mountains? Can any palliating excuse be urged why those men did not share with Keseberg the food they had brought, instead of permitting him to continue that which famine had forced upon him, and which ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... has noticed this untruth, and attributes it to mere forgetfulness. We leave it to him to reconcile his very charitable supposition with what he elsewhere says of the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Extravagance in dress and living, wastefulness in vain displays and in ambitious entertainments, would find no encouragement from the mistress of the Nation's mansion. The lessons of truth and piety, of purity and virtue, of charity and benevolence, of sincerity and self-forgetfulness, would be taught by example. A whole people could here find in illustration the sacredness of the family ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... of remorse tear out my living heart which in the watches of the night is ever doomed to grow again within my woman's breast, I was plunged into petty troubles of the flesh, aye and welcomed them because their irk at times gave me forgetfulness. When the savage dwellers in this land came to know that a mighty one had arisen among them who was the servant of the Lady of the Moon, those of them who still worshipped their goddess Lulala, gathered themselves about ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... in the stove was not quite out. The twilight broke, little by little, into daylight. The boy slept less heavily than the girl. At length, a ray brighter than the others broke through the pane, and he opened his eyes. The sleep of childhood ends in forgetfulness. He lay in a state of semi-stupor, without knowing where he was or what was near him, without making an effort to remember, gazing at the ceiling, and setting himself an aimless task as he gazed dreamily at the letters of the inscription—"Ursus, ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... I played that night as though I were inspired was because of the great passionate craving at my heart for forgetfulness, to shut out the memory of that man who sat almost gloomily alone in his box, waiting. And then, after it was all over, the wonder and the glory of it, he appeared suddenly in my dressing-room, elbowing his way through ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... be kept with the more solemn humiliation, because it may call to remembrance our sins and the sins of our forefathers, who have turned this Feast, pretending the memory of Christ, into an extreme forgetfulness of him, by giving liberty to carnal and sensual delights; being contrary to the life which Christ himself led here upon earth, and to the spiritual life of Christ in our souls; for the sanctifying and saving whereof Christ was pleased ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... a sun-field in the day, a gallery of stars at night, and their winds, flying from sea to sea, but gathering no taint, the deserts are treeless, and unknowing the sweetness of gardens and the glory of grass, it was not by accident or forgetfulness; for with him, the Compassionate, the Merciful, there are no accidents or lapses of any kind. He is all attention and ever present. Thus the Throne verse—'Drowsiness overcomes him not nor sleep.... His firmament spans the Heaven and the Earth, and the ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... mortal remains might pass forward to an abode yet more dreary and lonely. The pomp of attendance, to which the deceased had, in his latter years, been a stranger, was revived as he was about to be consigned to the realms of forgetfulness. ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... mutineers to defend him. At the sight of the aged admiral, the rebels stopped, and their violence abated; but they would not listen to the admiral's remonstrances and counsels; they did not understand that nothing could save them but general concord, and each, in unselfish forgetfulness, working for the public good. No! their decision was taken to quit the island, no matter by what means. Porras and his followers ran down to the shore, took possession of the canoes of the natives, and steered for the eastern ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... mountains, the frogs to croak in the pools, and the wild beasts to roar in the forests, and thought with myself, saying, It cannot be generous that all are awake in God's praise and I am wrapt up in the sleep of forgetfulness!—Last night a bird was carolling towards the morning; it stole my patience and reason, my fortitude and understanding. My lamentation had perhaps reached the ear of one of my dearly-beloved friends. He said, 'I did not believe that the singing of a bird could so distract thee!' ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... is!" says Daddy, with an exulting nod of the head, as he, to his own surprise, lets fall his cup. It was only the negro's forgetfulness in the moment of excitement. Giving a wistful look at Franconia, he commences picking up the pieces, and drawing his week's earnings from a side pocket ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... hint about there being always "a plate of soup." It was only on my way to the quay, down the ill-lighted streets, that I remembered I had been engaged to dine that very evening with the S- family. Though vexed with my forgetfulness (it would be rather awkward to explain) I couldn't help thinking that it had procured me a more amusing evening. And besides—business. The ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... every one that Grandcourt was not, like the other smokers, on the spot in time to set out roving with the rest. "We shall alight on him by-and-by," said Lord Brackenshaw; "he can't be gone far." At any rate, no man could be waited for. This apparent forgetfulness might be taken for the distraction of a lover so absorbed in thinking of the beloved object as to forget an appointment which would bring him into her actual presence. And the good-natured Earl gave Gwendolen a distant jocose ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... worse; they as they run Or bring more or more blazon man's distress. And I not help. Nor word now of success: All is from wreck, here, there, to rescue one— Work which to see scarce so much as begun Makes welcome death, does dear forgetfulness. ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... constitution has reserved to it. (Applause.) Let those who are restrained by the fear of persecutions and troubles out of their country return to it in safety. In order to extinguish hatreds let us consent to a mutual forgetfulness of the past. (The tribunes and the left renewed their acclamations.) Let the accusations and the prosecutions which have sprung solely from the events of the constitution be obliterated in a general reconciliation. I do not refer ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... much to his private danger, borne the greatest and most distinguished part in our political salvation. He is now retired from public service, with, I trust, the approbation of God, his country, and his own heart. But shall we forget him? No; rather let our hearts cease to beat than an ungrateful forgetfulness shall sully the part any of us have taken in the redemption of our country. On this day, the hero enters into the fifty-third year of his age. Shall such a day pass unnoticed? No; let a temperate manifestation of joy express the sense we have of the blessings ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... application of this maxim which gave Florence to the Medici. Cosmo I. caused to be assassinated at Venice, after eleven years' sway, the Florentine Brutus, and, as we have already said, persecuted the Strozzi. It was forgetfulness of this maxim which ruined Louis XVI. That king was false to every principle of royal government when he re-established the parliaments suppressed by his grandfather. Louis XV. saw the matter clearly. The parliaments, and notably ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... of writing down thoughts and facts for the purpose of holding them fast and preventing their escape into the dim region of forgetfulness, has been much resorted to by thoughtful and studious men. Lord Bacon left behind him many manuscripts entitled "Sudden thoughts set down for use." Erskine made great extracts from Burke; and Eldon copied ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... idiom is always there. The Waltraute scene is fine, being largely made up of old material; but I cannot say much for the scene between Bruennhilda and Siegfried. In this first act two important themes are introduced, the Tarnhelm theme and that of the draught of forgetfulness. The first is of the theatrical type: it is a leitmotiv of the same sort as Lohengrin's warning to Elsa; the other is a miracle, one of the wonders of music. It gives one in a brief phrase Siegfried's dazed sense that something has gone from him, a strange sense of loss; and it has the ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... of, since I left Virginia (which is above two Years) they will give favourable Allowances for my Accounts of such Things, and not censure me as if I endeavoured to impose Falshoods upon the World; and I hope the same will be granted for any trivial Mistakes which I may have made through Forgetfulness, or for want of Opportunity of Consultation and Advice in any small circumstantial Point, or in any ...
— The Present State of Virginia • Hugh Jones
... world. Then the sons go forth, north and south, and the daughters find husbands and joys and sorrows of their own, and both half forget them, as is nature's way. Last of all those parents die, as also is nature's way, and the half forgetfulness becomes whole as surely as the young moon grows to full. Well, well, this is a lesson that each generation must learn in turn, as you will know ere all is done. Although you are my youngest, I'll not shame to say I have loved you best of all, Hugh. Moreover, I've made such provision as ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... Argos, nor in the sweetly humming loom adorning with the shuttle the image of Athenian Pallas[39] and of the Titans, but imbruing altars with the shed blood of strangers, a pest unsuited to the harp, [of strangers] sighing forth[40] a piteous cry, and shedding a piteous tear. And now indeed forgetfulness of these matters [comes upon] me, but now I mourn my brother dead in Argos, whom I left yet an infant at the breast, yet young, yet a germ in his mother's arms and on her bosom, Orestes [the future] holder of the ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... scattered on the floor beneath, in close proximity to the chair, were two or three minute portions of wood freshly chipped off from the leg of the table; all of which looked as if some one of a nervous disposition had been sitting there, whose hand in a moment of self-forgetfulness had caught up the knife and unconsciously whittled the table, A little thing, you say; but when the question is, which of two ladies, one of a calm and self-possessed nature, the other restless in her ways and excitable in her disposition, was in a certain spot at a certain time, it is these little ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... each had flickered into life once more with the prospect of recovering and punishing her abductor. They knew that she would bitterly mourn his loss, and would probably be inconsolable for a time, but the months and years would bring forgetfulness and then—who should say what ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... being considered as a thing forgotten, men, naturally reasoning from them to those which are now present, conclude, that they also will drop into forgetfulness, and consider everything not furnished as so much saved. The Legislatures will not call forth the resources of their respective constituents. The public operations languish. The necessity of purchasing on credit enhances ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... she is mad! People cannot dwell here and retain their reason; and madness is a mercy that blesses them with forgetfulness." ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson |
