"Involuntary" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... though Harrington afterwards underwent an imprisonment for having delivered to her a letter from the admiral. Yet it is stated that the partiality of the young princess betrayed itself by many involuntary tokens to those around her, who were thus encouraged to entertain her with accounts of the admiral's attachment, and to inquire whether, if the consent of the council could be obtained, she would consent to ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... politeness to me, always gave me apprehension, that I was not what you wished me to be, because you would not find fault with me so often as I fear I deserved: and this makes me beg of you to do, as I hope God Almighty will, pardon all my involuntary errors and omissions. ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... much older one, that I am so earnest on this subject. I have been travelling now for two months in rail-cars and steamers, and I could fill a medical journal with cases of young women, married and single, whom I have met from town and country, with every ill that flesh is heir to. I have been an involuntary auditor of their charming little confidences of 'chronic headaches,' nervous feelings,' 'weak-backs,' 'neuralgia,' and Heaven knows ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... and involuntary "God help me!" he buckled himself to his mail. It was larger than ordinary, but he went with exact and patient care over it. He said to himself, "Troubles love to flock together and I expect I shall find a worrying letter from ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... in a dove's neck. Happy they in whom neither has a final victory! Happy also all who have such women to love! At one moment Ginevra would draw herself up—bridle her grandmother would have called it—with involuntary recoil from doubtful approach; the next, Ginny would burst out in a merry laugh at something in which only a child could have perceived the mirth-causing element; then again the woman would seem suddenly to re-enter and rebuke the ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... Halyard, nothing affects him—except his involuntary sea-bath, and that did him so much good that he writes me from the South that he's going on a walking-tour through Switzerland—if I'll join him. I might have joined him if he had not married the pretty nurse. I wonder whether—But, of course, this is ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... expressions, of the ebb and flow of the blood from time to time flushing her cheeks and temples, and of the vivid play of lights and shadows upon them as the flames danced and sank on the hearth. He noticed, too, with an observation new to him, and quite involuntary, the details of the room in which he stood, the white panelling of the walls, the engravings in their frames, the china ranged upon a ledge near to the ceiling. Of these things his mind took impressions with ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... War has injured the prosperity of Irish seaside resorts, demanded the restoration of excursion trains and season tickets. Mr. GEORGE ROBERTS stoutly supported the Irish Railway Executive Committee in its refusal to encourage pleasure-traffic. His decision received the involuntary support of Mr. MACVEAGH, who attempted to back up his colleague by the singular argument that the existing trains ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 20, 1917 • Various
... point Mr Gale made the happy involuntary movement of a man who has suddenly thought of ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... writer as a criminal, rather than a psychic, "Fat Boy." After all, once grant your ghost and anyone can conjure it, with appropriate circumstance, at the proper moments. Wyndfell Hall was full enough of ghosts, all ready to appear at the voluntary or involuntary instance of a young lady named Bubbles, who was one of the Christmas house-party and the owner of a rather uncomfortable gift of spook-raising. But beyond making themselves an occasional nuisance to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 24, 1920 • Various
... wounded conscience and a wounded credit, there is the same difference as between a crime and a calamity. Of two inevitable evils, religion instructs us to submit to that which is inferior and involuntary. As much as reputation exceeds every worldly good, so much, and far more, is conscience to be consulted before credit—if credit that can be called, which is derived from the acclamations of a mob, whether ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... up from her chair, which was close to his bed, and as she did so just touched his hand with hers. It was involuntary on her part, having come of instinct rather than will, and she withdrew herself instantly. The hand she had touched belonged to the arm that was not hurt, and he put it out after her, and caught her by the sleeve as ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope
... remedy this inconvenience. The pirates had only to abandon themselves to their fate. Morgan most ardently desired that some prisoner might fall into his hands, from whose confessions, either voluntary or involuntary, he might obtain some information by which to direct his march. With this intention, fifty men were detached in different directions, with a promised reward of three hundred piasters, out of the society's stock, to the man who should bring ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... crossed the hall the telephone-bell rang, and we were the involuntary auditors of Professor Challenger's end of the ensuing dialogue. I say "we," but no one within a hundred yards could have failed to hear the booming of that monstrous voice, which reverberated through the house. His answers lingered in ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle
... from the wild flash of his keen dark eyes, and drew back with an involuntary shudder. "Happy had it been for me if I had died an ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... Obeying an involuntary impulse, Wolf Hartschwert raised his hat. Within the shelter of the walls of this venerable city he had played as a boy, completed his school and student days, and early felt the first quickened throbbing of the heart. Here he had first been permitted to test what knowledge ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... refinement, from high thoughts, from chaste and temperate modes of life. Horrible it is to hear fine lads talking familiarly about the "jumpy" sensations which they feel in the morning. The "jumps" are those involuntary twitchings which sometimes precede and sometimes accompany delirium tremens; the frightful twitching of the limbs is accompanied by a kind of depression that takes the very heart and courage out of a man; and yet no one who travels ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... the balance of probabilities between lies of greater or lesser magnitude, thought that it lay in favor of the dirt road aforesaid. The mention of the thing he thought he perceived was involuntary on Sam's part at first, and his confused attempts to dissuade him he set down to a desperate lying on second thoughts, as being unwilling to ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... my success in springing a surprise upon him. That is one of my reasons for not telling you more just now. The mere fact that you knew would hamper my handling a difficult situation. The slightest involuntary gesture or look might put him on his guard, and the opportunity would be lost. It is not absolutely essential that I should gain Penreath's statement before going to the police, but if his statement coincides with my theory of the crime it will strengthen my case ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... capacity of doing anything that depends on application and industry, and it is a voluntary power, while genius is involuntary.—Hazlitt. ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... her, he had taken the precaution to lift up her dress to avoid treading on it. That, no doubt, was according to the rule; but soon after, on giving an involuntary glance in their direction, I found that Tiretta had carried his precautions rather far, and, not wishing to interrupt my friend or to make the lady feel awkward, I turned my head and stood in such a way that my sweetheart could see nothing of what was going on; this put ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... either side of her face; she was still as fresh and as brightly colored on the cheek-bone as a Nuremberg doll; her eyes were lively and bright; a closely-fitting bodice set off the slenderness of her waist. Her brow and temples were furrowed by a few involuntary wrinkles which, like Ninon, she would fain have banished from her head to her heel, but they persisted in tracing their zigzags in the more conspicuous place. The outlines of the nose had somewhat fallen away, and the tip had reddened, and ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... to the United States, and the Ordinance of 1787 for governing this territory, containing that clause on which Lincoln in the future based many an argument on the slavery question. This article, No. 6 of the Ordinance, reads: "There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted: provided always, that any person escaping into the same, from whom labour or service is lawfully claimed in ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various
... just time to shake hands with Captain Magor, whose countenance showed the sorrow and anxiety he felt, when, at a sign from Captain Roderick, several of his men seized us by the shoulders, and hurried us on board the "Vulture." Tubbs then, giving an involuntary shrug of his shoulders, as if resigned to his fate, followed us; the savage growls of the dog making us dread that he would seize one of us by the leg, and so I have no doubt that he would have done at a sign from his master. The deck of the pirate presented much the same scene as ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... one was hurt, the crowd mightily enjoyed seeing some stalwart citizen in his best clothes suddenly topple from his place of vantage on the deceitfully secure-looking but rotten branch of a tree and take an involuntary bath in his own despite. When that citizen further chanced to be clad in a suit of bright-colored velveteen the effect was much enhanced. It is my private opinion that G—— was longing to distinguish himself in a similar fashion, for I constantly saw him "lying out" on ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... rue for you." Strange and involuntary is the law of association! I can never see the garnishing and seasoning herbs of the garden without thinking of the mad words of distraught Ophelia. I fancy, however, that we are all practical enough to remember the savory soups and dishes rendered far more ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe
... an involuntary cry, or what would have been a cry, had she not been so effectually gagged. The knowledge that she lay helpless, unable to protect herself from attack, frightened her. She turned her head, straining her eyes into the semi-darkness. Something, some figure, was ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks
... possible; but it was a mere conjecture unfounded on any fact. Could there be guilt in it? He was too upright and noble to do aught that his conscience would not approve; I did not yet know of the crime there may be in involuntary feeling and therefore ascribed his tumultuous starts and gloomy looks wholly to the struggles of his mind and not any as they were partly due to the ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... awaited them at the South. These were in fine and valuable contradistinction to many cases similarly related, where they were sold on the auction block to the highest bidder. But in all candor it cannot but be supposed that in many instances the sale of the planter's own flesh and blood was involuntary. High living, neglect of the comparative relation of resource and expenditure, gambling for big stakes on steamboat and at Northern watering places, brought the evil day with attending results to the "chattel" subject to the baneful caprice of ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... writhing herself out of the window, which was now uppermost, was about to trust her portly person to chance. I caught her as she clung to the carriage with her many-braceleted arms, and was almost strangled by the vigour of her involuntary embrace as she rolled ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... our condition, our existence in time, by means of the sensuous. The latter is quite involuntary, and directly it is produced in us, we are necessarily passive. In the same manner an internal necessity awakens our personality in connection with sensations, and by its antagonism with them; for consciousness cannot depend on the will, which presupposes ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... amusing and instructive task for a man of reading and reflection to note down the instances he meets with of these old tunes coming up again and again in regular succession with hardly any change of note, and with all the old hitches and involuntary squeaks that the barrel-organ had played in days gone by. It is most amusing to see the old quotations repeated year after year and volume after volume, till at last some more careful enquirer turns to the passage referred ...
— Samuel Butler's Canterbury Pieces • Samuel Butler
... so warm that no one felt any serious effects from the involuntary bath. A portion of the wet clothing was taken off and hung on the guns set in the sand as stakes, to dry, and since their fears regarding the proximity of the Indians had been partially set at rest by Cummings' ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis
... with everything, and in her anger she loved him tenfold better than before. Had he not been blinded by his own absolute coldness he must have read her heart in the look she gave him, for his eyes met hers. But he saw nothing. The glance had been involuntary, but Unorna was too thoroughly a woman not to know all that it had expressed and would have conveyed to the mind of any one not utterly incapable of love, all that it might have betrayed even to this man ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... the calm is awful. His voice begins to grow strange and portentous. He feels it in him like something swallowed too big for the esophagus. It keeps up a sort of involuntary interior humming in him, like a live beetle. His cranium is a dome full of reverberations. The hollows of his very bones are as whispering galleries. He is afraid to speak loud, lest he be stunned; like the man ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... the circumstances she was touched by the speaker's sincerity, and grateful for the way she expressed herself. Perhaps it was this which prompted her to an almost involuntary ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... interesting object could scarcely be conceived than this charming girl, just ripening into woman, her mind mature beyond her years, and her heart agitated by the finest feelings of filial distress. Morgan gazed with involuntary approbation, while she threw her glossy ringlets from her face with one hand, and held out the other to welcome one whom she thought a pitying friend and protector ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... their boots worn off, and their putties wrapped round their bleeding feet. It is painful to add that they had been treated with a personal violence and a brutality in marked contrast to the elaborate hospitality shown by the British Government to its involuntary guests. ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of the most dangerous diseases, since they do not teach the evil which the injudicious use of movements may produce." It was the harmonious and equable increase of all the voluntary and some of the involuntary muscles which the Swedish ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... lovable imp of mischief, records his daily exploits, experiences, pranks and adventures, through all of which you follow him with an absorbing interest that never flags, stopping only when convulsions of laughter and aching sides force the mirth-swept body to take an involuntary respite from a feast ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... hour, and Abbot was so greatly distressed by the event that he fell into a state of settled melancholy. His enemies maintained that the fatal issue of this accident disqualified him for his office, and argued that, though the homicide was involuntary, the sport of hunting which had led to it was one in which no clerical person could lawfully indulge. The king had to refer the matter to a commission of ten, though he said that "an angel might have miscarried after this sort.'' ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States or any place ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... adduced in favour of this supposition. The editors of the Journal are the parties to whom we look; and as they, after being to all appearance misled by some partial writer, have made the best reparation for an involuntary error, by doing justice to the injured party, we can have no further remark ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... a girl,—well, something like his wife, or perhaps uglier, for surely it would be impossible for any one else to fall in love with Heimert; but as he took the picture in his hand an involuntary expression of surprise escaped him: ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... junebells growing right out on the ledge and I crept out to gather them. I should have known better. It broke away under me and the more I tried to scramble back the faster it slid down, carrying me with it. I thought it would go right over the brink"—she gave a little involuntary shudder—"but just at the very edge it stopped. I knew I must lie very still or it would go right over. It seemed like days. Pat was with me and I told him to go for help, but I knew there was no one at home—and I was horribly afraid," she concluded with another shiver. "I never ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... said, and sat down upon it. As she did so, she gave a look about her, and at the same time made a movement with her right hand, which I often before had noticed in women. It was the involuntary expression of the female soul, longing for a fan. A fan, however, made up no part of the paraphernalia of a sister of the ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... directing and ruling classes forced upon the working man. At first trade unionism was essentially defensive; it was the only possible defence of the workers, who were being steadily pressed over the margin of subsistence. It was a nearly involuntary resistance to class debasement. Mr. Vernon Hartshorn has expressed it as that in a recent article. But his paper, if one read it from beginning to end, displayed, compactly and completely, the unavoidable psychological development of the ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... gallant young officer had taken risk for him, had saved him from injury, perhaps death; to-day the spear meant for him had stricken down this same young officer, never to rise again. The vicarious sacrifice seemed none the less noble to the Englishman because it was involuntary and an accident. The only point clear in his mind was that had he not leant back, Barre would be the whole man and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Lamb could hold the balance in such an essay as Dream Children. Great-grandmother Field is just in her place, upright, graceful, and the best of dancers; and Alice's little right foot plays its involuntary movement in the nick of time; and when Uncle John died, the "children fell a-crying" at the narrative and asked about the mourning which they were wearing. It is all just important enough, just trivial enough, to carry its fragile burden of sentiment—so much, and no more. The charm is complete. ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... of undesirable documents and vegetations. You may view them also in the light of establishments for the manufacture and distribution of domestic perfumery, payment for which is never exacted at the moment of its involuntary purchase, but is left to be collected by a doctor,—who calls upon you during the winter, levies on you with a lancet, and distrains upon your viscera with a compound ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... saw them off; and if they had gone back to the city they would have returned to the yacht, or communicated with me in some way. And it is equally certain that when they stepped aboard the train that morning, they fully intended to return to the house. Their disappearance, therefore, is involuntary on their part; I am confident of that. Now, what can be the explanation of this most singular occurrence? Can it be that—by the way, Senor Calderon, have you had any visitors to the house during the absence of Don Hermoso and ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... duke, who had distinguished her, sitting solitary and unnoticed, above all her companions, and placed the coronal upon her brow, queen of the festival. As he returns slowly to the castle, there is an involuntary pause in the merry-making. The musicians lay down their bows, the youths stop short in the mazes of the Bacchic dance, the spectators stand up uncovered, the subtle electric chain of love and loyalty passes between ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... towards the end of the book is the lie in the soul; this is connected with the Platonic and Socratic doctrine that involuntary ignorance is worse than voluntary. The lie in the soul is a true lie, the corruption of the highest truth, the deception of the highest part of the soul, from which he who is deceived has no power of delivering himself. For example, to represent God as false or ...
— The Republic • Plato
... not groundless. Of those that have a basis, many are exaggerated. It has occurred to me to utilize as an antidote an appeal to the same great law that originally excited the instinctive involuntary reaction known as fear— the law ...
— The Origin and Nature of Emotions • George W. Crile
... higher forms again break up, and reinforce again with their separated constituents the lowest kingdom. It is a continual sequence of sacrifices from the lowest to the highest, and the very mark of progress is that the sacrifice from being involuntary and imposed becomes voluntary and self-chosen, and those who are recognised as greatest by man's intellect and loved most by man's heart are the supreme sufferers, those heroic souls who wrought, endured, and died that the race might profit by their ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant
... in public. She lives very quietly in a little Essex village," he answered, speaking with an involuntary gravity, an effect of referring to pain, that made her wonder if his mother was an invalid. She hoped it was not so, for if Mrs. Yaverland was anything like her son it was terrible to think of her ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... she had called Lauriston by his name, and he gave her arm an involuntary pressure ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher
... point where the two giants had made their involuntary dive, the river-bank was crowned with a small cane-brake, whose roots, striking through its overleaning edge, formed a ragged, yellow, rope-like fringe, that hung down almost to the surface of the water. In these roots, Burl saw a means ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... listened. Busily, from time to time, he jotted down a name or date. Then, suddenly, as she turned a page, he gave an involuntary start. He was looking at a pictured face, evidently cut from ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... may be an involuntary anachronism in my version of this legend, which is very pithily narrated in the Kan-ing-p'ien. No emperor's name is cited by the homilist; and the date of the revolt seems to have been left wholly to conjecture.—Baber, in ...
— Some Chinese Ghosts • Lafcadio Hearn
... felt that he had really betrayed himself by making the involuntary movement towards his breast-pocket, which Frank had been too shrewd not to notice. The cocked gun, and bayonet, and resolute young face below, were inexorable. ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... involuntary horror; a pang like remorse seized her mind, with the apprehension she had some share in this catastrophe, and innocent as she was either of his fall or his crimes, she no sooner heard he was no more, than she forgot he had offended ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... supplies which the island afforded: goats and fish. At the distance of half a mile from the sea, he had a small hut covered with goat skins. He had no clothes left, but an animal's skin covered his loins." We have dwelt at some length upon this involuntary hermit because he served Daniel de Foe as the original of his "Robinson Crusoe," a romance which has formed the ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... followed his involuntary betrayal of discontent was broken by Ruth, who exclaimed, with a girlish enthusiasm ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... Krool entered, his glance enveloping them both in one lightning survey—like the instinct of the dweller in wild places of the earth, who feels danger where all is most quiet, and ever scans the veld or bush with the involuntary vigilance belonging to the life. His look rested on Jasmine for a moment before he spoke, and Stafford inwardly observed that here was an enemy to the young wife whose hatred was deep. He was conscious, too, that Jasmine realized the antipathy. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... course, on learning the pre-engagement of De Secqville's affections, and being relieved from the influence which had hitherto held her to her involuntary engagement, demanded her freedom, and De Secqville, as may be supposed, offered no vexatious resistance ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... of involuntary idleness on a sledge journey may safely be reckoned among the experiences it is difficult to go through without a good deal of mental suffering. I say nothing of the purely physical discomfort of having to pass the day in a sleeping-bag. That may be endured; ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... who habituates himself in his daily life to seek for the stern facts in whatever he hears or sees, will have these facts again brought before him by the involuntary imaginative power, in their noblest associations; and he who seeks for frivolities and fallacies, will have frivolities and fallacies again presented to him in ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... at their distress, replied, "Your pardon is granted, for the insult was involuntary, though deserved, as I was an impertinent intruder on your privacy; make yourselves easy, and sit down; but you must each of you relate to me your adventures, or some story that you have heard." The cauzee and the fisherman, having recovered ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... involuntary effect of a genial temperament, Phoebe soon grew to be absolutely essential to the daily comfort, if not the daily life, of her two forlorn companions. The grime and sordidness of the House of the Seven Gables seemed to have vanished since her ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... close to the dying man, and then shrank back with an involuntary start of horror. "Leonard Davitt!" he murmured below his breath. In an instant the whole situation was clear to him. By one of those flashlights which the mind sometimes sheds on a scene before it, making the hidden places clear and turning ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... first, or the first known to us, of those interesting correspondences with ladies which show him perhaps at his very best. For in them he plays neither jack-pudding, nor coxcomb, nor sentimentalist, nor any of the involuntary counterparts which men in such cases are too apt to play; and they form not the least of his titles to the great ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... He couldn't note the involuntary expression of his gratitude, which had nevertheless been audible. Claude had need of air. Taking him in his arms, he lifted him like a baby and staggered to his feet. The body hung loosely over his shoulder as he crossed the room and ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... if he had any good books in his chest. He stared a little at first, but marking what good language I used, seeing my civil bearing toward him, he seemed for a moment to be filled with a certain involuntary respect for me, and answered, that he had been to church once, some ten or twelve years before, in London, and on a week-day had helped to move the Floating Chapel round the Battery, from the North River; ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... an involuntary one. If an indiscretion on my part reduced me to a situation in which, during some time, I was deprived of the use of reason, so that it was no longer my guide, and allowed me to fall into a very gross mistake, the rest was the work ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... what might have been a somewhat painful contretemps. On meeting the municipal band the Prussian commander, Colonel von Brausebrum, halted his soldiers and in a loud voice declared that our men were playing out of tune. Perhaps this was true, but the offence was involuntary and in any case it was hardly serious enough to call for the arrest of the whole band. Arrested, however, they were, and it was a melancholy sight to see them marched off by a corporal's guard. Mr. Zundnadel, the chief of the band, is himself of German origin, and his feelings can be better imagined ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 14, 1914 • Various
... Dick was upon was not extra large, and it merely allowed him to keep his head and shoulders out of water. Fortunately the night was not cold, so he suffered little from his involuntary bath. But he realized the seriousness of his ...
— The Rover Boys in Southern Waters - or The Deserted Steam Yacht • Arthur M. Winfield
... Bumpers, upon this Maxim, That it is better to trouble others with my Impertinence, than to be troubled my self with theirs. The Necessity of an Infirmary makes me resolve to fall into that Project; and as we should be but Five, the Terrors of an involuntary Separation, which our Number cannot so well admit of, would make us exert our selves, in opposition to all the particulars mentioned in your Institution of that equitable Confinement. This my way of Life I know would subject me ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... which he has allowed to gain a strong, habitual, and enduring hold upon action, inclination, or involuntary tendency, as to a habit or indulgence. A man may be accustomed to labor, attached to his profession, devoted to his religion, given to study or to gluttony (in the bad sense, given over, or given up, is a stronger and more hopeless expression, as is abandoned). One ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... practical effect of a parliamentary vote of "want of confidence." It means simply that the Chancellor, in such a case, is under no admitted obligation to resign. The retirement of Chancellor von Buelow during the crisis of 1908-1909 was more nearly involuntary than that of any one of his three predecessors, but persons most conversant with the circumstances agree that there was involved in it no intention of concession to the parliamentary principle. The Chancellor's fall was, in reality, only his punishment for countenancing the popular indignation occasioned ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... stared at her with a dropped jaw. Habit was powerful in him; and there was something in her anger, in that complete sweeping of him out other way, that recalled the domestic usages of former years and brought to his lips an involuntary time-worn expression: ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... transmuted in the search for larger ethical and spiritual conceptions. An enlarged insight into the possibilities of living tends to slough off selfishness and to make more habitual the occasional, and often involuntary, response to Christlike deeds and ideals. But so ingrained is our earthly nature that, in communities as in nations, periods alternate with periods, and the pendulum swings from laxity to morality, from apathy to piety, gradually shortening its arc. So in Connecticut, numbers of ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
... is said to be an involuntary passion, and it is therefore contended that it can not be resisted. This is true in part only, for, like all things else, when nourished and supplied plentifully with aliment, it is rapid in its progress; but let these be withdrawn, ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... was a great pawn-broker in the city, the other day, made a baronet of, all for his money—and why shouldn't I?" He grew a little heated with the progress of his reflections, clasping his hands with involuntary energy, as he stretched them out to their fullest extent, to give effect to a very hearty yawn. "Lord, only think ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... were scrupulously clean. Children were in rags, but they were not in filth. In no single instance was I asked for relief.... I never before saw poverty which inspired respect, and misery which demanded involuntary homage.' ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... powerful indictment of the rank and file other professional brothers and sisters, and nowhere sadder, more impressive, or more unanswerable than where she speaks of the involuntary fall of the actor into ...
— Better Dead • J. M. Barrie
... intention to characterise his excellences as a composer. The millions of mankind that he has delighted in one form or other, according to their opportunities and capacities, have spoken his best panegyric in the involuntary accents of open and enthusiastic admiration; and his name will for ever be sweet in the ear of every one who has music ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... looking through a hole sees something moving. He suspects a gallant to be inside and leaves the house to fetch the Burgomaster. No sooner has he left than Bertel and Elsa reappear, and are told by Gertrude of what has happened. They resolve to turn the Burgomaster's involuntary imprisonment to their advantage. While Gertrude and Frau Willmers go in search of witnesses, the pair of lovers enact a regular comedy in front of the cupboard. Bertel protests to his sweetheart that his loyalty ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... few drops of rain, driving horizontally, struck him. The impact was like that of leaden pellets. A splash of salt spray struck his face. It was like the slap of a man's hand. His cheeks stung, and involuntary tears of pain were in his smarting eyes. Several hundred natives had taken to the trees, and he could have laughed at the bunches of human fruit clustering in the tops. Then, being Tahitian-born, he doubled his body at the waist, clasped the trunk of his tree with his hands, ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... For a moment she turned away, in horror of the stillness in which death had fixed that countenance, never till now seen otherwise than animated; then gazed on it with a mixture of doubt and awful astonishment. Her reason could scarcely overcome an involuntary and unaccountable expectation of seeing that beloved countenance still susceptible. She continued to gaze wildly; took up the cold hand; spoke; still gazed, and then burst into a transport of grief. ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... Wrington, North Somersetshire, are filled by rhabdomancy. But it must be admitted that the phenomena of the divining-rod and table-turning are of precisely the same character, both being referable to an involuntary muscular action resulting from a fixedness of idea. Moreover, it should be remembered that experiments with the divining-rod are generally made in a district known to be metalliferous, and therefore the chances are greatly in favour of its bending over or near a mineral lode. ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... have gone on much longer without fear of his hearer interrupting him. The latter was held mute with astonishment, as well as by a kind of involuntary respect with which the words of his companion had inspired him. In all probability the negro had never before heard that a powerful and civilised people existed in that country previous to the arrival of the Spaniards. At all events he had never suspected that the man who was thus enlightening ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... subjected, any inhabitant of any State or Territory to the deprivation of any right secured or protected by this act, or to different punishment, pains, or penalties on account of such person having at any time been held in a condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, or by reason of his color or race, than is prescribed for the punishment of white persons, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and on conviction shall be punished by fine not exceeding $1,000, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... eagerness; "I knows that—I knows it and I ain't shirking. But, Master Harry, they ain't doing me right 'bout my cabin—I just wants to show you." He got out some dirty papers, and started to hobble forward, wincing with pain. Mary Taylor stirred in her seat under an involuntary impulse to help, but Cresswell touched ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... convinced more than ever of the sincerity and tenderness of my attachment to you, the involuntary hopes which a determination to live has revived are not sufficiently strong to dissipate the cloud that despair has spread over futurity. I have looked at the sea and at my child, hardly daring to own to myself the secret wish that it might become our tomb, and that ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... what can she be? and why do I feel so deep an interest in a perfect stranger, who cannot possibly be any thing to me?" were involuntary questions which the young man endeavored, ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur
... Lochleven took a step towards Mary Stuart, holding in her hand the knife which she had just been using to cut off a piece of meat brought her to taste; but the queen rose up with so great a calm and with such majesty, that either from involuntary respect or shame of her first impulse, she let fall the weapon she was holding, and not finding anything sufficiently strong in reply to express her feelings, she signed to the servants to follow her, and went out of the apartment with all the dignity that anger permitted her ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... been when he came up by it, and his fellow-passengers were of a very different description; and it must be confessed that, in the absence of Mr. Bouncer's tin horn, the attacks of intrusive terriers, and the involuntary fumigation of himself with tobacco (although its presence was still perceptible within the coach), Mr. Green found his journey from Oxford much more agreeable than it had been to that place. He took an affectionate ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... the same state of involuntary silence more than once; for sometimes I became excited to a state of desperation by the measures used against me, and then conducted in a manner perhaps not less violent than some others. My hands had been ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... require. And we should foolishly deem ourselves fortunate to be equally well cared-for in proportion to our more complex wants. Do not our common forms of prayer prove our desire for like attention? Is not the assertion of our "need of divine love" an involuntary confession that we wish to be treated like silkworms,—to live without pain by the help of gods? Yet if the gods were to treat us as we want, we should presently afford fresh evidence,—in the way of what is called "the evidence from degeneration,"—that the great evolutional ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... But while paying the involuntary tribute of swift anger towards these astute tactics of his departmental chief, Caldew realized with satisfaction that he was in the possession of a piece of valuable information which might ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... if I should fail in my main purpose, and be unable to induce in my reader the confidence of judgment I desire, I shall at least receive his thanks for the suggestion of consistent reasons, which may determine hesitating choice, or justify involuntary preference. And if I should succeed, as I hope, in making the Stones of Venice touchstones, and detecting, by the mouldering of her marble, poison more subtle than ever was betrayed by the rending of her crystal; ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... thought, a man coming from the direction of Posilipo, with a slow step and downcast eyes, passed close by the house, and Viola, looking up abruptly, started in a kind of terror as she recognised the stranger. She uttered an involuntary exclamation, and the cavalier ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... a much quicker eye than Mary's to catch the half-involuntary movement Ellen Harriott made when Blake's name was mentioned. She flashed a look of enquiry at the heiress that seemed to say, "What interest do you take in Mr. Blake? What is ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... the hitherto dauntless loquacity of Rip—for half a minute. But he made fearful amends for this involuntary display of modesty afterwards. Secundum artem, he opened all the batteries of his fascination upon her. He rolled his eyes at her with a violence approaching to agony; he bowed; he displayed in every possible and captivating attitude his one living leg—but his surpassing strength was in the ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... After that first involuntary start of surprise and indignation she stood quite still, but with a defiant chin well elevated and her shoulders back, and if she had in her turn grown pale, it was less with fright than with the contained exasperation that ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... every instinct of honor able manhood, than the horrible hypothesis that a refined, cultivated, noble Christian woman, a devoted daughter, irreproachable in antecedent life, bearing the fiery ordeal of the past four months with a noble heroism that commands the involuntary admiration of all who have watched her—that such a perfect type of beautiful womanhood as the prisoner presents, could deliberately plan and execute the vile scheme of theft and murder? Gentlemen, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... to employ, the singular or the plural verb; that is to say, has or have. The meaning must be our guide. If we mean, that the act has been done by the Tyrant himself, and that the spy has been a mere involuntary agent, then we ought to use the singular; but if we believe that the spy has been a co-operator, an associate, an accomplice, then we must use the plural verb." Ay, truly; but must we not also, in the latter case, use and, and not with? After some further illustrations, he says: ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... With an involuntary sigh of relief the people turned from the silent actors in the drama taking place under the Beautiful Gate, to learn who had spoken. A third time the shout rang out: "Thou art the King!" Now the people saw. It was a fisherman supported above the crowd on the shoulders ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... yet wish to forget. He had run full counter to his principles. It might be that he was resolved to take the consequences, and wear them like a hair-shirt, as the only means of recovering his self-esteem. No; whatever penance, voluntary or involuntary, Westray might undergo, Lord Blandamer could only look on in silence. His object had been gained. If Westray felt it necessary to pay the price, he must be let pay it. Lord Blandamer could neither inquire nor remonstrate. He could offer no compensation, ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... and pure serene, At nightfall, glides a sudden trail of fire, Attracting with involuntary heed The eye to follow it, erewhile at rest, And seems some star that shifted place in heav'n, Only that, whence it kindles, none is lost, And it is soon extinct; thus from the horn, That on the dexter of the cross extends, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... before the outbreak of the World War, he returned to Germany for the annual visit to his Baden-Baden estate, from which he was destined never again to sally forth to deeds of financial prowess, his subsequent involuntary retirement found him a huge commercial success, where B.G. Arnold was a colossal failure. It was the World War and a lingering illness that, at the end, stopped Hermann Sielcken. But, though he had to admit himself bested by the fortunes of war, he was still ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... better, but still he could not sleep. Wearied and vexed, he lay staring into the darkness till he heard steps upon the ladder, and became the involuntary witness of—the true ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Clarinda! Some involuntary drops wet your lines as I read them. Offend me, my dearest angel! You cannot offend me, you never offended me! If you had ever given me the least shadow of offence so pardon me, God, as I forgive Clarinda! I have read yours again; it has ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... snake coiled its glistening folds around his leg he would not have been more startled. But this man of iron nerve soon recovered. He frowned deeply after the first involuntary heart-throb. ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... happen to her. Feeling that it was useless to repine at her condition, or to weep over what she could not avoid, she resolved to make the best of it. There was no real hardship in her situation, and the circumstances were certainly more agreeable than when she had before been an involuntary passenger in Dock's vessel. The absence of the villain himself was perhaps her greatest consolation; but the presence of Mrs. Vincent and the children was ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... door opened and Raven, followed by Jerry, stepped into the room. As his eye fell upon the Superintendent, instinctively he dropped his hands to his hips and made an involuntary movement backward, but only for an instant. Immediately he came forward and greeted Mandy ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... in text-books for schools, advocated in the press, and applied by an energetic party to some of the most important political discussions of the day, it claimed the adhesion of all enlightened persons. It enjoyed the prestige of a scientific doctrine, and the most popular retort seemed to be an involuntary concession of its claims. When opponents appealed from 'theorists' to practical men, the Utilitarians scornfully set them down as virtually appealing from reason to prejudice. No rival theory held the field. If Malthus and Ricardo differed, it was a difference between men who ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... that, though the proper meaning of the verb "to serve" does not imply chattel slavery, it is certain that the derived noun EVEDH, evedh, translated "servant" and "bondman" in our version, is frequently used to designate involuntary servitude, the service of one "bought with money," and therefore a chattel slave. We reply, By far the most frequent use of this term, as is well known, represents either the common deferential mode of address of inferiors to superiors, or equals to equals, used then ...
— Is Slavery Sanctioned by the Bible? • Isaac Allen
... warmth of the room, she could not suppress an involuntary shudder whose cause was nameless. Suddenly, she did not want to ask any ...
— New Apples in the Garden • Kris Ottman Neville
... him, also, a final disturbing glimpse of Eliza Wetherford's girl that did indeed threaten his peace of mind. There was an involuntary appeal, a wistful depth, to her glance which awakened in him an indignant pity, and also blew into flame something not so creditable—something which smoldered beneath his conscious will. He perceived ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... touching the fate of the Francesca and my comrades intensify, until at length I felt that I could endure the suspense no longer, but must turn out and investigate for myself. I accordingly made an effort to raise myself in my cot, but instantly sank back with an involuntary groan, for not only did the effort result in an immediate and severe attack of vertigo, but I also became aware of the fact that, in addition to the injury to my head, I had received a very painful hurt in the left breast, close above my heart. To get up and dress, ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... able-bodied vagrant, it is well known that the old English laws had no mercy. When wages are low, and population has outgrown the work which can be provided for it, idleness may be involuntary and innocent; at a time when all industrious men could maintain themselves in comfort and prosperity, "when a fair day's wages for a fair day's work" was really and truly the law of the land, it was presumed that if strong capable men preferred to wander about the country, and live upon the ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... certain brutality that crept into the man's tones occasionally when he addressed her, a certain savage irritability in manner, that told the girl's keen intelligence something; some involuntary sighs of hers as she sat near him, and an increasing look of exhaustion on her face, that told him something. ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... there was a tap at her door and Iola came in, her hair hanging like a dusky curtain about her face. Margaret uttered an involuntary exclamation ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... Jean. I am getting better every minute, thanks to you fellows. Since I have your permission at last to talk about myself, I'll tell you what I've been crazy to say ever since I heard the call of the Elf's Horn and you found me." Tom gave an involuntary sigh as the events of the past few weeks came ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... work for me for whatever consideration I may please to fix upon, fairly opens the way for the doctrine, that you, in turn, may force me to render you whatever wages you may choose to exact for any services you may see fit to render. Thus slavery, even as involuntary servitude, is cut up by the root. Even the Princeton professor seems to regard it as a violation of the principle ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... though that it was very possible to catch some sort of illness and as in those parts a malady followed by death may be considered an involuntary suicide but never a homicide because.... there are no doctors to cure you, I also provided myself with a small stock of purgative lozenges, quinine, some antiseptic preparations ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... the modern execution of music is the abuse of the tremolo by both singers and instrumental performers. With singers, this quivering is often the result of a fatigued voice, in which case it is involuntary and is only to be deplored; but that is not the case with violin and violoncello players. It is a fashion with them born of a desire to make an effect at any cost, and is due to the depraved taste of the public for a passionate execution of music; ...
— On the Execution of Music, and Principally of Ancient Music • Camille Saint-Saens
... in astonishment, almost knocked off his balance with the suddenness of the attack. He still held the boot, his fingers gripping it tightly. He raised it, with a purely involuntary motion, as though to hurl it at his insidious enemy. But he did not. The arm fell to his side, and his face slowly whitened. He stared dully and uncomprehendingly at the sinuous shape that was slipping noiselessly away through the ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... little toward the door. A sudden temptation assailed me, and took me so much by surprise that I had yielded before I knew I was attacked. It was their shrinking movement that did it. My answer was almost as automatic and involuntary as their retreat. ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... was decided to confine the work of the League to the one object of securing signatures to petitions to the Senate and House of Representatives, praying for an act emancipating all persons of African descent held in involuntary servitude. They set their standard at a million names. Their scheme received the commendation of the entire anti-slavery press, and of prominent men and women in all parts of the country. The first of June headquarters were opened in Room 20, Cooper Institute, and the great work ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... individuals on religious grounds are prohibited; the utmost freedom of assembling, of speech and of the press is allowed, subject only to restraint for abuse; there is no imprisonment for debt, except where fraud can be proved; slavery and involuntary servitude, except for crime, are prohibited; wives are secured in their separate rights of property; the exemption of a part of the homestead and other property of heads of families ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... as easily frightened as a child; she starts and gives an involuntary little cry as the lightning flashes before her eyes, and the thunder seems to shake her as she kneels. She turns paler and paler as the storm continues, and can scarcely hear the concluding psalms, prayers, and exhortation, for her fear of the lightning which fitfully ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... sanguinary fleas. The discomforts and grievances of his palate under the ordeal of foreign cooking were a real relish for us. On a hot morning in the tropics, we see him pulling on his stocking with a scorpion in it, and dancing in involuntary joy under the effects of the sting. Let him dance; it is all for our amusement. Let him meet with what he will—robbers, cannibals, jungle-tigers, and rattlesnakes, the more the better—since we know that he will get off alive, and ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... being borne away by his captors. At the first sign of the attack he had guessed the object of it. He had fought valiantly against being taken, but was overpowered by the weight of numbers. He had given an involuntary call for help when first seized, but, after that, he resolved to fight alone as best he could. That was why he did not cry out when he felt the boys lift him to their shoulders, after binding his arms and legs, and ...
— Frank Roscoe's Secret • Allen Chapman
... on the jetty had touched dormant chords of sad memories; even at the very portals of the hotel the building's newness had struck a bizarre note; and now, as though to emphasize the vile crime of which he had been an involuntary witness, came the stifling knowledge that somewhere in New York an expectant bride was chafing at delay—a delay caused by an assassin's dagger, while there was not lacking even the tormenting suspicion that somehow, had ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... movements were at once rapid and cautious; nay, his very countenance indicated a fixed determination, and a perfect security of success. All eyes were turned upon him as we passed, and a sort of involuntary groan ran from rank to rank, from the front to the rear ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... of astonishment burst from the old man's lips. He put out his hand in involuntary sympathy, and the two so strangely alike, yet so wide apart in years, clasped hands. Then, as if ashamed of the momentary emotion, the old ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... for the various Turns of [the] Eye-sight, such as the voluntary or involuntary, the half or the whole Leer, I shall not enter into a very particular Account of them; but let me observe, that oblique Vision, when natural, was anciently the Mark of Bewitchery and magical Fascination, and to this Day tis a malignant ill Look; but when tis forced and affected it carries a wanton ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... big family, with interests, spiritual as well as commercial, interlocking to a degree that no disturbance of any part of the civilized globe can exist without seriously affecting the rest. A disturbance in one quarter must make quite innocent bystanders involuntary victims, to the serious detriment of ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... interrupted, so vehemently that she caught his involuntary surprise. "I don't like ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... the purpose of each edition of this pamphlet to benefit no favored class, but, according to the apostle's admonition, to "reprove, rebuke, exhort," and with the power and self-sacrificing spirit of Love to correct involuntary as well ...
— No and Yes • Mary Baker Eddy
... but modest confinement, and was now displayed in all the dazzling delicacy of youth and sex. If the officers gazed for a moment with excited look upon charms that had long been strangers to their sight, and of an order they had little deemed to find in Ellen Halloway, it was but the involuntary tribute rendered by nature unto beauty. The depth and sacredness of that sorrow, which had left the wretched woman unconscious of her exposure, in the instant afterwards imposed a check upon admiration, which each felt to be a violation of the first principles of human delicacy, and the feeling ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... When my childish heart, hungering for affection, inclined me to one of them, the other would seek to inspire me with loathing and contempt for her. In this manor-house, which they bought on the old doctor's death and to which they added the two wings, I was the involuntary torturer and their daily victim. Tormented as a child, and, as a young man, leading the most hideous of lives, I doubt if any one on earth ever suffered more ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... Virginian who once bore the name of Marshall through a long career of judicial honor and usefulness. The general interest in this appeal to the past was impressive. The members of the house drew together around him; even his persecutors paid an involuntary tribute to 'the ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... approval and disapproval that come from the spectators at a play are involuntary on the part of the spectators. They are hypnotized by the play and the acting. Who ever, on coming out of the theater after seeing a play that has pleased him, has felt a sense of happiness that his pleasure had also pleased the actor, or the author of the play, or the ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... Ellen, but"—and an involuntary sigh followed the sentence—"you know not, and I trust will never know, from experience, that 'Hope deferred maketh ...
— Woman As She Should Be - or, Agnes Wiltshire • Mary E. Herbert
... to Algeria en route to European countries with the help of smugglers, where they are often forced into prostitution, labor, and begging to pay off their smuggling debt; armed militants reportedly traffic women for sexual exploitation and involuntary servitude, and children may be trafficked for forced labor as domestic servants or street vendors tier rating: Tier 2 Watch List - Algeria took no steps to assess the scope of trafficking in the country and reported no investigations or prosecutions ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... at the new picture sufficed, and then Mr. Alexander turned from it with an involuntary sigh. Was it to look at other pictures? No. He crossed his hands behind him, bent his eyes upon the floor, and, for the period of half an hour, walked slowly backwards and forwards in his library. There was ...
— Who Are Happiest? and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur |
