"Instinctively" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... recognize at a glance and under any costume the man whose business is with horses. Every trade and calling in life perhaps may be said to impart to its followers some distinguishing peculiarity by which the brethren of the craft at least will instinctively know each other; and amongst horse-fanciers these mysterious signs of recognition are as infallible as the signals of Freemasonry. As one penetrates still farther into Normandy on his way to the Caen races—which come off a few days after ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... for practising and studying the comparison of handwritings are abundant. Every letter written or read affords a subject, and in a surprisingly short space of time the student will find himself instinctively noting and analysing peculiarities in handwriting that probably never arrested his attention before. The principles of the art are exceedingly simple and free from complexity, and many a person who takes up the study will find ...
— The Detection of Forgery • Douglas Blackburn
... own life, than he bethought him of his other companions. Jack Tier had hauled himself up to windward by the rope that steadied the tiller, and he had called on Mrs. Budd to imitate his example. It was so natural for even a woman to grasp anything like a rope at such a moment, that the widow instinctively obeyed, while Biddy seized, at random, the first thing of the sort that offered. Owing to these fortunate chances, Jack and Mrs. Budd succeeded in reaching the quarter of the schooner, the former actually getting up on the bottom of the wreck, on to which he was enabled to float ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... attendants—generally known as his myrmidons, your Highness," replied Hatton. "Instinctively discerning, as it would seem, that all was over with their master, they had determined to quit his service, and without giving him any notice of their intention. Not content with deserting him in the hour of danger, they have robbed ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... full in Belinda's face, as he responded—'Beautiful, indeed!' The lady cast down her eyes, and suffered the animal she was riding to fall a little back. Cymon Tuggs instinctively did the same. ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... in her mind. She had known many gentlemen of fine families who had served in like situations. There were no social distinctions. On the other hand, she never felt wholly comfortable with Breitmann. There was not the least mistrust in this feeling. It was rather because she instinctively felt that he was above his occupation. To sum it up briefly, Breitmann was difficult to ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... deck to see what was happening. The vessel still steamed, but made slow progress; moreover, the list to starboard was now so pronounced that it was difficult to stand upright. On account of it nearly all the passengers were huddled together upon the port side, having instinctively taken refuge as far as possible above the water. A man with a white, distraught face staggered towards him, supporting himself by the bulwarks. It was the captain. For a moment he paused as though to think, holding to a stanchion. Robert Seymour ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... a sullen look in Benjamin's face as he silently took his seat in the log school-house the next morning. Mr. Mann saw it, and instinctively felt the dark and mysterious atmosphere of it. He went to him immediately after the opening exercises, ...
— The Log School-House on the Columbia • Hezekiah Butterworth
... independent and original to follow any particular school or master, for her only inspiration and guide were her models, always living near by and upon intimate terms with her. Thus, in all her paintings, we instinctively feel that she painted from conviction, from her own observation, nothing being added for mere artistic effect. To some extent her pictures impress one as a perfect French poem in which there is no superfluous word, in which no word could be changed without destroying the effect ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... everywhere she looked were gold-tipped wine bottles. Though it was still early, there was much hysterical laughter and much tossing about of long streamers of colored paper and confetti. As they entered she instinctively shrank away from it. Had the waiter delayed another second before leading them to a table, she would have ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... to the new generation of poets—Georg Herwegh, Friedrich Freiligrath, Dingelstedt, Hoffmann von Fallersleben, and Anastasius Gruen—who came upon the scene about 1840, cherished mechanic-democratic ideals and brought about the Revolution of 1848. Heine, by nature an aristocratic poet, who instinctively dreaded the competition of "noble bears," saw all his loftiest principles trodden into the mire by these Utopian hot-heads and the crew of politicians that came storming after them. This doctrinaire and numerical interpretation of the rights of man—for which rights in their proper application ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine
... were, on the contrary, advanced in life, as their snowy locks and white beards betokened, though they were richly dressed, and were doing their utmost to assume a youthful and debonnaire manner. Nigel on seeing the gay company instinctively drew back into a recess by the side of the walk, unwilling, if possible, to present himself before them. His cousin being ready to humour him, placed herself on a garden seat, and invited him to sit by her. Perhaps she was unwilling that the interview with her near relative should ...
— Villegagnon - A Tale of the Huguenot Persecution • W.H.G. Kingston
... or only moments—he could not have told; his eyes looked blankly out at the sun-glow, his hand instinctively clinched on the journal whose stray lines had told him in an Algerine trattoria that he had inherited what he never ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... Instinctively Dean put forth his hand under the dripping poncho and tugged at the straps of his off saddle-bag. No need for dread on that score. The bulky package, wrapped, sealed and corded, was bulging out of the side of his ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... Martin instinctively grasped the cutlass, and there is no doubt that, under the impulse of that remarkable quality, British valour, which utterly despises odds, they would have hurled themselves recklessly upon the savages, when the horrified old trader threw himself ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... with confidence till it reached the crest whence I had reconnoitred them. From this ground they could see Ord's men emerging from the woods, and the hopelessness of a further attack being plain, the gray lines instinctively halted, and then began to retire toward a ridge immediately fronting Appomattox Court House, while Ord, joined on his right by the Fifth Corps, advanced on them over the ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... bank messenger was an expert swimmer, and in an instant had seized the child and placed him out of danger. The little Indian boy clung to him instinctively, feeling ...
— A Cousin's Conspiracy - A Boy's Struggle for an Inheritance • Horatio Alger
... profited by the commotion over his head to change his place so far, as to make room for Middleton. The latter was followed by the naturalist, who, in a state of mental aberration, produced by the report of the musket, had instinctively rushed towards the rocks for cover. The trapper remained where he was last seen, an unmoved but close observer of the several proceedings. Though averse to enter into actual hostilities, the old ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Instinctively she caught Mr. Holiday's arm and clung to it, and Mr. Holiday, smiling, patted her hand and began to draw her gently toward the young man and the clergyman. It looked for a moment as if she were going to hang back, and protest, and make a scene. But just when everybody ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... white linen when eating out of doors. Saxe-blue, red or taupe linen are restful to the eyes. In fact, after one has used coloured linen, white seems glaring and unsympathetic even indoors, and one instinctively chooses the old deep-cream laces. Granting this to be a bit precieuse, we must admit that the traditional white damask, under crystal and silver, or gold plate with rare porcelains, has its place and its distinction in certain houses, and ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood
... as not to be distinguished. If Mozart, instead of playing the pianoforte at three years old with wonderfully little practice, had played a tune with no practice at all, he might truly be said to have done so instinctively. But it would be the most serious error to suppose that the greater number of instincts have been acquired by habit in one generation, and then transmitted by inheritance to succeeding generations. It can be clearly shown that the most wonderful instincts with which we are acquainted, namely, those ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... caught the reflection of the dancer's face in a mirror hanging on the wall. To her intense astonishment, she saw a look of despair, almost of terror, in Nur-el-Din's dark eyes. It was like the frightened stare of some hunted beast. Barbara was so much taken aback that she instinctively glanced over her shoulder at the door, thinking that the dancer had seen something there to frighten her. But the door was shut. When Barbara looked into the mirror again, she saw only the reflection of Nur-el-Din's pretty neck and shoulders. ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... undiscovered country. It was some time before he learned its name; and for all I know he might have expected to find wild beasts or wild men here, when, crawling in the dark over the sea-wall, he rolled down the other side into a dyke, where it was another miracle he didn't get drowned. But he struggled instinctively like an animal under a net, and this blind struggle threw him out into a field. He must have been, indeed, of a tougher fibre than he looked to withstand without expiring such buffetings, the violence of his exertions, ...
— Amy Foster • Joseph Conrad
... would be he could not have guessed to save his life. They met again for the third time in their lives. At sight of him the girl had started and flushed, had instinctively drawn back. Now she stood still, regarding him with a steadfast stare, the colour ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... curtain was being raised. And now the physician heard the sublime symphony with which the composer introduces the great Biblical drama. It is to express the sufferings of a whole nation. Suffering is uniform in its expression, especially physical suffering. Thus, having instinctively felt, like all men of genius, that here there must be no variety of idea, the musician, having hit on his leading phrase, has worked it out in various keys, grouping the masses and the dramatis personae to take up the theme through modulations and cadences of admirable ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... out his right hand, said, "My good friend, what are you going to tell me? Has Homer come to life again?" For he thought that his own exploits required nothing but posthumous fame.[297] And a young man improving in character instinctively loves nothing better than to take pride and pleasure in the company of good and noble men, and to display his house, his table, his wife, his amusements, his serious pursuits, his spoken or written discourses; insomuch that he is grieved when he remembers that his father or guardian died without ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... the crucifixion, I have read it over so many times. I should love dearly to read it aloud to my friends, some of whom are seriously inclined; it is so good, and I am sure that they have never heard it, it fits their case exactly, and we should enjoy it so much together,—but I instinctively despair of getting their ears. They soon show, by signs not to be mistaken, that it is inexpressibly wearisome to them. I do not mean to imply that I am any better than my neighbors; for, ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... was most anomalous. She had to go through the formality of seeming affectionate and tender, even when she knew that Frank did not want her to be. He felt instinctively now that she knew of Aileen. He was merely awaiting the proper hour in which to spread the whole matter before her. She put her arms around him at the door on the fateful morning, in the somewhat formal manner into which they had dropped these later years, ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... Proudies came into the diocese; and therefore the bishop was usually taken to Chaldicotes whenever Mrs. Smith paid her brother a visit. Now Bishop Proudie was by no means a High Church dignitary, and Lady Lufton had never forgiven him for coming into that diocese. She had, instinctively, a high respect for the episcopal office; but of Bishop Proudie himself she hardly thought better than she did of Mr. Sowerby, or of that fabricator of evil, the Duke of Omnium. Whenever Mr. Robarts would plead that in going anywhere he would have the benefit ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... is implanted in every human bosom for the wisest purposes, the aged person cannot but feel that he is nearer than others to that hour of separation from all the connexions and interests of time than the multitude around him—an hour at which nature instinctively shudders, and which is always regarded as painful, whatever may be the result. Corporeal suffering may be considerable; and that change of being which the mortal stroke produces has always something about it awful, ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... them while she thought of them as the healing hands of the physician, bringing hope and health; but now she knew them to be the cruel hands of the vivisector, associated with torture, from which humanity instinctively shrinks; and when he touched her, her delicate skin crisped with a shudder. She used to wonder how he could eat with hands so polluted, and once, at dessert, when he handed her a piece of orange in his fingers, she was obliged to leave it on her plate, she ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... freedom, and looked towards some goal dimly seen in vague grandeur of betterness. His condition was rather that of eyeless hunger after growth, than of any conscious aspiration towards less undefined good. He had a large and increasing delight in all forms of the generous, and shrunk instinctively from the base, but had not yet concentrated his efforts towards becoming that which he acknowledged the best, so that he was hardly yet on the straight path to the goal of such oneness with good as alone ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... outstretched rides a horse through the waves, while on his shoulders stand smaller figures of Valor (with a wreath) and Fame (with a sword) heralding the triumph. These small figures are unfortunate they hardly belong, and instinctively one ...
— An Art-Lovers guide to the Exposition • Shelden Cheney
... and indefinite. They were something like what I have heard ascribed to the eyes of the basilisk; or like that mysterious influence in reptiles termed fascination. I passed my hand over my eyes several times, as if seeking instinctively to brush away this allusion—in vain—they instantly reverted to the picture, and its chilling, creeping influence over my ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... Voices from the deep Caverns of darkness answer me: "They sleep!" I name no names; instinctively I feel Each at some well-remembered grave will kneel, And from the inscription wipe the weeds and moss, For every heart best knoweth its own loss. I see their scattered gravestones gleaming white Through the pale dusk of the impending night; O'er all alike the impartial sunset ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... intellectual and artistic sphere—as a writer, musician, mathematician, metaphysician—he stood consciously at the zenith of Greek history; but whenever he turned to politics he seems to have felt that the spring had gone out of the year. He instinctively antedated the setting of his dialogues. The characters nearly all belong to the generation of Sokrates, which had grown to manhood before the war and whose memories conjured up the glory that the ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... unaffectedly. Poor, poor, good Grifone! So very noble, so white and miserable; Heaven knows she would have satisfied him if she could. With her, to feel was to touch (if I may so put it); quite instinctively she stretched out her arms to draw him home; the good fool would have kissed his tears away if he had had any, giving him for comfort what he had screamed upon as a torment. But that was a talent denied to Grifone: he could not cry. All the same, ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... easing her knees to suit the stubborn little knees that refused to be eased, she settled down resignedly in her seat again to await the return of the Senior Surgeon. "There! There! There!" she began quite instinctively to croon and pat. ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... has always been supposed that, in any case, they must have a religion." In vain were liberty of conscience and its inviolable rights still misunderstood by the noblest spirits, the sincerity and high-mindedness of the great bishops instinctively revolted against the hypocrisy engendered of persecution. The tacit assuagement of the severities against the Reformers, between 1688 and 1700, was the fruit of the representations of Bossuet, Fenelon, and Cardinal ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Instinctively, Taylor backed into the corner behind the machine. He dropped to his hands and knees and was free of the invisible feeler! Again the orange sphere halted, as if ...
— The Whispering Spheres • Russell Robert Winterbotham
... men commonly like to tilt a chair backward on the hind legs? Even when they do not place their feet on a convenient table they are prone to tip the chair back and partly balance it on the hind legs. Why do people instinctively prefer a rocking chair as a source of comfort, even when they do not rock? The fact is that it is not the rocking that makes a rocking chair comfortable, but the position of the seat of the chair, with its ...
— Vitality Supreme • Bernarr Macfadden
... wanted me to say. [Points towards PETER. All instinctively look towards the spot to which WILLIAM points, but they ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm • David Belasco
... she grew more and more popular. Even the rudest of the audience recognized instinctively in her the goodness which they themselves lacked. Every song was an ovation. Her praises began to resound in the newspapers; and she had already received advances from the manager of one of the grand opera-houses. A bright future opened before her—a vista ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... by this unexpected permission to play truant, and somehow it seemed to lessen his desire to go. He did not understand why, but Mrs. Jo did, and, knowing the natural perversity of the human mind, counted on it to help her now. She felt instinctively that the more the boy was restrained the more he would fret against it; but leave him free, and the mere sense of liberty would content him, joined to the knowledge that his presence was dear to those whom he loved best. It was a little experiment, but it succeeded, for Dan stood silent ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... rhetoric, music, [Footnote: Being able to play the piano and admire Mendelssohn is not knowing music.] astronomy, or geometry; and are not only unacquainted with logic, or the use of reason, themselves, but instinctively antagonistic to ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin
... Prudence, who instinctively appreciated the danger—in a general sense, so to speak—left Valenciennes and came to Paris at the age of seventeen to hide there. She tried four trades, of which the most successful was that of a "super" at a minor theatre. ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... sheer force and intensity of my own passion—which is, after all, the weapon under which a woman quickest sinks. I felt that I cared more keenly for Lucia than most men of eight-and-twenty in the nineteenth century care for the women they marry. I was conscious of it instinctively; even if the memory of these last ten barren, empty years that I had lived did not convince me that a passion for any one object would be greater in myself than in men whose multiplicity of previous loves must lessen the value of ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... been of no service, and could not have been affected through natural selection, unless the young at the same time were able to partake of the secretion. There is no greater difficulty in understanding how young mammals have instinctively learned to suck the breast, than in understanding how unhatched chickens have learned to break the egg-shell by tapping against it with their specially adapted beaks; or how a few hours after leaving ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... heart immediately loosened the muscles of his little legs, and he ran for his very life. But before he actually began to run he gave one piercing scream for help, and the person he screamed to was the very person who was unwittingly the cause of his distress. It was as though he knew instinctively that the person who had created for him the terror of the Empty House, with its horrible Inmate, was also the person who could properly banish it, and undo the mischief before it was too late. He shrieked for help to the ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood
... plunged into the underbrush, crashing through it in very terror. They clung to their small suitcases instinctively. Then suddenly, as they ran on, there came the clear notes of a bugle in an ...
— The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale • Laura Lee Hope
... instinctively to the door, as if he apprehended some one was listening. Glossin rose, opened the door, so that from the chair in which his prisoner sat he might satisfy himself there was no eavesdropper within hearing, then shut it, resumed his seat, and repeated his question, "You are Dirk Hatteraick, formerly ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... top of her speed. She could get to the Smugglers' Hole more quickly if she ran round by the path to the cliffs. Without reasoning over it, she understood instinctively that the men would go there, and Alan after them. With the fleetness of a lapwing, she flew along the path through the Wilderness, and reached the cliff as the first flush of sunset was beginning to crimson the western sky. Like a ghostly ship, the vessel they had seen ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... obstacles bar the way to civilization and the normal development of new ideas, which are the foundation of progress. First of all, there is the naive and boorish ignorance of the common people; then the resistance which every established society instinctively offers to ideas of reformation. Of these two conservative forces, Russia knows but one, pure and simple ignorance, while the second, which can have art and science as powerful allies, is completely lacking. But ignorance cannot ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... to be at all inclined to make any use of his "Idealogical" argument or anything related thereto. They seem to take a common-sense stand for the testimony of the whole man, as well as for the whole truth, and to instinctively distrust any rational concept in the formation of which sensuous ...
— The Basis of Early Christian Theism • Lawrence Thomas Cole
... shifted to the tree. He instinctively dodged his head to one side as he did so. Something spirited was ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... of the place, the earnestness of his gaze, and the extraordinary attraction I felt towards him, brought the warm, bright color to my cheeks, and I instinctively dropped the veil which I had raised a moment before. As we entered the carriage, which had been kept in waiting, the horses, high-spirited and impatient, threatened to break loose from the driver's control,—when the stranger, coming ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... man or woman whose hand seems to slip from yours when you grasp theirs in greeting. Such persons are deceptive and treacherous. They may smile at you with their lips, but instinctively they regard you as their prey and will only use you for ...
— Palmistry for All • Cheiro
... run through certain streets like a madman, Jonathan's course led him instinctively to his noble patron, to whom he lamented all his unheard-of misery in outbreaks of the most violent passion. It need hardly be added, it is so self-evident a thing, that the young love-smitten advocate was, according to his own desperate assertions, the first and only individual in all the ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... found a new and beautiful stream flowing into the Murray from the north, up which the boat was now turned, natives anxiously following along the grassy banks, till suddenly a net stretched across the stream checked their course. Sturt instinctively felt he was on the river Darling again. "I directed that the Union Jack should be hoisted, and we all stood up in the boat and gave three distinct cheers. The eye of every native was fixed upon that beautiful flag as it waved over us in the heart of ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... suspense, though it appeared as if the whole night must have elapsed, the ship became more steady, and the sea broke over her less violently. "We must get a raft made," exclaimed Cousin Silas. The men seemed to look instinctively to him for orders, and willingly obeyed him. All hands set to work, some to collect the spars which had not been washed overboard, others to cut away the bulwarks and to get off the hatches— indeed, to bring together everything that would serve to ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... ferry-boat crashed against the yielding walls of the slip. Zeke, unprepared for the shock, was thrown from his balance. One of the heavy new shoes smashed down on a paw. The dog sprang and snapped. The jaws missed, because the girl tugged at the leash in the same second. Zeke instinctively kicked at the brute in self-defense. His foot took the animal fairly in the jaw, and lifted it from the floor, just as the girl turned. She cried out in shrill anger at this rough stranger's wanton attack ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... stopped. She got out and, in spite of herself, she looked up instinctively to the roof of the bus. It was ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... certain things he knew, but none he cared to argue about; and he shrank instinctively from attempting to put names to the contents of this other region, knowing well that such names could only limit and define things that, according to any standards in use in the ordinary world, were simply undefinable ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... in his room, but the Kenyah usually prefers to carry a spear when he goes hunting. In his almost daily trips to the ladang he also takes it along, because instinctively mindful of enemy attacks. The Kenyahs are physically superior to the Kayans and the other natives I met, and more free from skin disease. They are less reserved than the Kayans, who are a little heavy ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... and wordless prayer and opening every pore, organ, sense and sensibility of our spiritual being to take in His life. As the lungs absorb the oxygen of the atmosphere, as the senses breathe in the sweet odors of the garden, so the heart instinctively receives and rejoices in the affection and fellowship of the beloved One by our side. Thus we become like a tree planted by ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... prancing, pawing, chafing at the bit, and impatient to be off. "Margaret shall never mount that animal," she said; but Margaret had ruled for sixteen years, and now, at a sign from John, she sprang gayly upon the back of the fiery steed, who, feeling instinctively that the rider he carried was a stranger to fear, became under her training perfectly gentle, obeying her slightest command, and following her ere long like a sagacious dog. Not thus easily could Madam Conway manage Maggie, and with a groan she saw her each day fly over the ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... humility." Does not clearer light come for you on that law after reading these nobly pious words? And note you whose humility? How is it that the sound of the bell comes so instinctively into his chiming verse? This gentle singer is ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... a person from whom you would instinctively shrink; and had he been president or director of a bank in which you had money deposited, his general aspect would not have given you additional confidence in the stable character or just administration ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... sense instinctively came to the rescue as I approached the earth. I felt a strong gravity wrenching at my vitals and so instead of trying reverse levitation, I spread my processes so that the atmosphere caught in the folds of my skin and I came floating gently down ...
— Lonesome Hearts • Russell Robert Winterbotham
... His brow darkened, and instinctively he struck one hand with the other. "That is exactly what I expected!" he exclaimed. "The signs all pointed that way. But until this moment, my dear madam, I hoped. Yes, I had presumed to hope that I might kindle in her ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... closely, it would have carried him farther than he wished to go; that the new manner would have removed him for ever from his ideal; in a word, that too intense study of the real, would have diminished or entirely impeded fantasy and feeling. He instinctively saw these perils, and therefore kept himself constant to his old style, and while perfecting himself in it, he still remained what he always had been, and what he felt ...
— Fra Angelico • J. B. Supino
... fending the raft off the rocks that might be in their way, or keeping it from the wall-like sides which overhung them, were absurd; for as they were swept into the furious rapid, and whirled and tossed about, each man instinctively dropped his pole to crouch down and cling for dear life to the rough pieces of timber they had so laboriously notched, ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... through the attacking party, and instinctively they retreated several yards. So suddenly had they lost their leader that, for a few moments, they did not seem to understand the situation. But, on a shout from one of them to look out for themselves, ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... would give the world a great man, a man of rare spirit and transcendent power, a man with a lofty mission, he first prepares a woman to be his mother. Whenever in history we come upon such a man, we instinctively begin to ask about the character of her on whose bosom he nestled in infancy, and at whose knee he learned his life's first lessons. We are sure of finding here the secret of the man's greatness. When the time drew nigh for the incarnation of the Son of God, we may be sure ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... man uncovered with a grace astonishing. So perfect was his bearing and his bow that I rose instinctively to meet it, and match his courtesy with ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... by bad boys. The worse the boy's moral character, the more he hated Butler. But boys who were, in any sense or degree, on the right side; who were striving, however imperfectly, after what is pure and lovely and of good report, felt instinctively that Butler was their friend. His preaching in the School Chapel (though perhaps a little impeded by certain mannerisms) was direct, interesting, and uplifting in no common degree. Many of his sermons made a lifelong impression on me. His written English was always beautifully pellucid, and often ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... waiters spoke English, and they looked English in dress and manner; superficially the chambermaid was as English as one could have found her in the United Kingdom, but at heart you could see she was as absolutely and instinctively a Spanish camerera as any in a hotel of Madrid or Seville. In the atmosphere of insularity the few Spanish guests were scarcely distinguishable from Anglo-Saxons, though a group of magnificent girls at a middle table, ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... closed over him who added new lustre to the old and honored name of Quincy, all eyes instinctively turned to Edward Everett as the last of that venerated class of patriotic civilians who, outliving all dissent and jealousy and party prejudice, held their reputation by the secure tenure of the universal appreciation of its worth as a common treasure ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... on her way. She chose instinctively her path, through the kitchen garden at the back of the village, down the hill by the village street, over the little bridge that crossed the rocky stream of the Dreot, and up the steep hill that led on to the outskirts of Rothin Moor. The day, although she had no eyes for ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... him, voice and hand quivering together. But the young fellow moved away, not liking such demonstrations, and objected generally that 'he didn't see it; it was not his view.' The father felt the impassable distance between himself and his son, saw the impenetrable face and the look askance, and instinctively lifted up his voice in appeal to his rights as head of the family. A smile which he caught passing between Paul and his mother, a fresh proof of their joint share in this discreditable business, completed his exasperation. He shouted and raved, threatening to make a public protest, ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... putting up the shutters of the smaller cafes and stacking up the chairs. Now a cock crows lustily in some neighboring yard; the majority at least of the Latin Quarter has turned in for the night. A moment later you reach your gate, feel instinctively for your matches. In the darkness of the court a friendly cat rubs her head contentedly against your leg. It is the yellow one that sleeps in the furniture factory, and you pick her up and carry her to your studio, where, a moment later, ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... 'Twas at the close of a sultry day, the last of August, that I entered a forest at the foot of the Cevennes, and worn with long fatigue and misery, stretched myself upon the moss for momentary rest. On the sudden, a faint and feeble moan pierced my ear; instinctively I moved the branches at my side, and at the foot of a rude stone-cross beheld a desolate infant, unnaturally left to perish in the wilderness! It was famishing—expiring. I raised it to my breast, and its little arms twined feebly round my neck Florian! thou wert heaven's gracious instrument ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... by the fragment of a shell, and the mother was loudly wailing; some were peering out of their doorways; they stared at Marie, who crept up like a ghost. In this rookery the young couple had kept themselves apart, and had no friends. But it was instinctively known that something had happened to Jean, and only one woman was bold enough to question the wife. She answered steadily in a ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... impulse Nan rose with him. She instinctively disliked her present company and the situation; and a sudden pang of conscience had told her that not once since she had left the Bella Union had she laid eyes on the woman who had received her with so ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... faced to the left because his left was nearest to the fork, filed to the left, and then, instead of coming on the left by file into line, he moved astride the roads, and ordered "Front!" This brought the regiment in line with its back to the enemy. The men instinctively came each to an about-face, and the file closers broke through to the now rear. There was no time to correct the error. The regiment, which would have fought well under proper circumstances, from the start lost confidence in ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... herself. But when one is specially invited to be candid, one is naturally set upon one's guard. Those who by disposition are most open, are apt to become crafty when so admonished. When a man says to you, "Let us be candid with each other," you feel instinctively that he desires to squeeze you without giving a ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... his mighty fist, and Eva instinctively ducked under the monster's arm. There was an inner room. Could she reach it in time? Would the door be unlocked? At most she could ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... believe in her happiness as long as she could. She said nothing more for some time and they sat quite still, thinking widely opposite thoughts. At last she laid her hand on his; the loving little way had become familiar to her since it had come instinctively the first time. ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... glen contracted, and a wall of steep rocks on either side hemmed the shuddering traveller in. Instinctively, he struck spurs into his horse, and accelerated ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... sand-plain somewhat unexpectedly, I caused my party no little alarm; they instinctively grasped their rifles, imagining the approach of a ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... seemed supernaturally tremendous, exclaimed, Who is there? The voice was Mr. Falkland's. The sound of it thrilled my very vitals. I endeavoured to answer, but my speech failed, and being incapable of any other reply, I instinctively advanced within the door into the room. Mr. Falkland was just risen from the floor upon which he had been sitting or kneeling. His face betrayed strong symptoms of confusion. With a violent effort, however, these symptoms vanished, and ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... 1893,1894, and 1895 were dry years, the only complete failure came in 1894. In spite of the improper methods practiced by the settlers, the willing soil failed to yield a crop only one year. Moreover, it should not be forgotten that hundreds of farmers in the driest section during this dry period, who instinctively or otherwise farmed more nearly right, obtained good crops even in 1894. The simple practice of summer fallowing, had it been practiced the year before, would have insured satisfactory crops in the driest year. Further, the settlers who did ...
— Dry-Farming • John A. Widtsoe
... Such a warning as this, lightly as it would be regarded in the present century, meant something serious then; and Raymond instinctively crossed himself as he heard Gaston's words. But after a moment's pause of thoughtful silence he ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... enthusiasms of youth; but this attitude is due to aging glands alone, all things being equal. They cannot dig up the sunken tracks from the ruts in their brain and lay them elsewhere; and they instinctively protect themselves by an affectation of calm and scornful superiority, of righteous conservatism, which deceives themselves; much as I had assumed—and learned to feel—an attitude of profound indifference to my vanished youth, and refused to attempt ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... that fascinated rather than attracted and a bearing of confidence begotten of five years of triumphal success in business ventures and real-estate transactions; a man to whom men would look in a crisis; a man whom most men obeyed instinctively and one to whom women felt drawn although deep down in their hearts they ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... from this section, General Toombs was afraid that some of his old soldiers might recognize him on the road. A Federal officer advanced to the middle of the street and saluted the travelers. Their hearts bounded to their throats, and, instinctively, two hands stole to their revolvers. Pistols and spurs were the only resources. Chances were desperate, but they were resolved to take them. The officer watched them intently as they rode leisurely through the town, but ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... belongs the faery talisman. The virtue, knowing of itself and of the world, may be held a surer defence, but it is by comparison a gross and earthly buckler, with less of the glamour of romance reflected from its aegis-mirror. Somehow one feels instinctively that Una did not, on meeting with the lion, launch forth into a protestation of her chastity. Nothing, of course, would be easier than by means of a little judicious misrepresentation to cast ridicule upon the whole of Milton's conception of virtue in woman, and nowhere is it more needful than in ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... Imagination, changing figures of a kaleidoscope which employed without satisfying the mind. Of the truth of her general hypothesis she was quite convinced, nor without hope that her old friend would be restored to society and the position which she considered his due. As children instinctively know those who love them, so must Holden have originally had some idea of the feelings of Faith, and by it been drawn closer to her. Certainly, there was no one in whose society he took more pleasure, or whom he was more desirous ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... before me. As I knew something had taken possession of the jungle, I jumped on his back. While we hurried along we heard the whining snarl of a tiger, not the call of hate or killing, but the call for protection, swiftly following our lead. Being civilized, we instinctively knew the way out of the jungle to human habitation. We approached the village which was still sleeping in the morning grayness, and behind us saw horny deer, leopards, and wild cats rushing after us. Then the boars came after us, dashing out of the jungle in terror. Vast clouds of blackness were ...
— Kari the Elephant • Dhan Gopal Mukerji
... his men, who in the midst of the action had instinctively closed in mass in order to resist the mass of barbarians, giving way under pressure. He therefore ordered his ranks and files to open, so that his legionaries, closed in mass, paralyzed and forced to give way to a very strong pressure, might be able to kill and ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... entertainment; it was talked about from door to door, and every day the kitchen of the farmhouse was full of people. For instance, they put on the table in front of his plate, when he was beginning to take the soup, a cat or a dog. The animal instinctively scented out the man's infirmity, and, softly approaching, commenced eating noiselessly, lapping up the soup daintily; and, when a rather loud licking of the tongue awakened the poor fellow's attention, it would prudently ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... instinctively to pursue. But the flying thing was bound for a landing in an open square, the same one which not long since had seen the heaviest fighting. It alighted there and toppled askew on contact. Figures tumbled out of it, in torn and ragged garments fashioned in the style ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... penetrating of American thinkers, Henry James, Sr., sixty or seventy years ago wrote: "I have been so long accustomed to see the most arrant deviltry transact itself in the name of benevolence, that the moment I hear a profession of good will from almost any quarter, I instinctively look around for a constable or place my hand within reach of a bell-rope. My ideal of human intercourse would be a state of things in which no man will ever stand in need of any other man's help, but will derive all his satisfaction from the great social tides ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... seem to have preserved was a connection with the living members of the family to which they had originally belonged. It is therefore very misleading to assert that the Romans had from the beginning a belief in immortality, when we instinctively think of the immortality of the individual. The thing that was immortal was not the individual but the family. It is thoroughly in keeping with the practical character of the Roman mind that they did not concern themselves with the place in which these ...
— The Religion of Numa - And Other Essays on the Religion of Ancient Rome • Jesse Benedict Carter
... be disloyal to that passion of desire in him which he instinctively felt was, in some way or other, the necessary complement of his splendid intelligence. We must take the summing-up of Proteus when Valentine leaves him as the other half ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... said, looking up into the tree over his head, where a robin had just come to exercise his powers. But as Mr. Linden's eyes came back from the robin they caught sight of Faith at her window, and instantly he was on his feet and made her a most graceful and low reverence. Instinctively the two boys turned and followed suit—the one with his straw hat the ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... It was this circumstance, coupled with the timely notice that he saw affixed to a bookseller's window to the effect that "A Novel or Tale is much wanted," that determined him to endeavour to emulate Dr Johnson and William Beckford. He had tired of "the Great City," and his thoughts turned instinctively to the woods and the fields, where he could be free to meditate and muse ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... peculiar, unspoken sympathetic intimacies which exist between certain men and women, without the conscious volition of either. His glance or the tone of his voice was a response to her mood; he saw instinctively when she was too warm or too cold, or needed a rest. Her husband, who loved her, had no such intuitions; he had to be told clumsily, and even then might not understand. Yet she had not loved him the less because she must beat down such little barriers ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... A sad truth, although not new; Saint Paul made a similar remark to the philosophic Athenians; but the remark applies not to this age or to Saint Paul's age alone—its applicability extends to every age and every people. As Goethe remarks, "Man never knows how anthropomorphic he is." Our minds instinctively seek an explanation of the cause or causes of the different phenomena constantly occurring around us, but instinct does not supply the solution. Only by patient watching and consideration can this be arrived at; but in former ages scientific methods of investigation were ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... of dialectics and logic. Aristotle says, "To Socrates we may unquestionably assign two novelties—inductive discourses, and the definitions of general terms." Without any predecessor to copy, Socrates fell as it were instinctively into that which Aristotle describes as the double tract of the dialectic process, breaking up the one into the many, and recombining the many into the one; though the latter or synthetical process he did not often perform himself, but strove ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... but the first act of the assembly told him that his hopes were fallacious: under the plea that his presence marred the freedom of debate, he was removed from the side of Vergniaud, the president of the chamber, where he instinctively took his seat, to the box reserved for the reporters. This was the last day of the monarchy. The assembly concluded the crimes of that day by a decree suspending Louis from his kingly functions, by ordering the formation of a national convention, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... preceded the movement pioneered by Garrison, they at once accepted, as soon as it was set before them, through the agents of the American Anti-Slavery Society, in the campaign in Pennsylvania, begun in 1836. Regarding it but as the next step forward in the way they had already entered, they instinctively fell into line with the new movement, assisted in forming a society auxiliary to it, in their own neighborhood, and were constant to the end in working ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... profoundly regret." My tone had a significance which, I could see, did make her uneasy, and there was a moment, after I had made two or three more remarks of studiously bewildering effect, at which her eyes followed so hungrily the little flourish of the letter with which I emphasised them that I instinctively slipped Mr. Pudney's communication into my pocket. She looked, in her embarrassed annoyance, capable of grabbing it to send it back to him. I felt, after she had gone, as if I had almost given her my ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... poet's work—its absolute sincerity. There is no pose, no affectation of any sort. There are marks of the loving study of other poets, and these the best. We are frequently reminded of this singer and of that. The young American is instinctively loyal to the long tradition of English literature. He is content to undergo the influence of the great masters, and does not seek for premature originality on the by-paths of eccentricity. But while he is the disciple of many, he is the vassal of none. His matter is always his own, the fruit ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger |
