"Unerring" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... influence us separately by their own weight, some, although they appear trifling by themselves, still, when all collected together, have great influence. And in such probabilities as these there are sometimes some unerring and peculiar distinguishing characteristics of things. But what produces the surest belief in a probability is, first of all, a similar instance, then the similarity of the present case to that instance sometimes even a fable, though it is an incredible one, has ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... were innumerable packages in silver-paper and pink ribands. There was a pyramid of bandboxes. There was a virgin forest of boot-trees. And rustling quickly hither and thither, in and out of this profusion, with armfuls of finery, was an obviously French maid. Alert, unerring, like a swallow she dipped and darted. Nothing escaped her, and she never rested. She had the air of the born unpacker—swift and firm, yet withal tender. Scarce had her arms been laden but their loads were lying lightly between shelves ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... is the simple religious. Her one guide being the will of her superiors, she is ever sure of following the right path, and has no fear of being mistaken, even when it seems that her superiors are making a mistake. But if she ceases to consult the unerring compass, then at once her soul goes astray in barren wastes, where the waters of grace quickly fail. Dear Mother, you are the compass Jesus has given me to direct me safely to the Eternal Shore. I find it most sweet to fix my eyes upon you, and then do the Will of my Lord. ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... shooting-fish; tiny little broad fellows, beautifully banded, whose peculiarity was the adroitness with which they would lie in wait for any unfortunate fly that settled on the edge of an aquatic leaf, and then fire—or rather, water—off at it a tiny globule, with such unerring aim, that the insect was generally brought down into the water and swallowed. Three or four would sometimes sail round one after the other shooting at a fly in turn till it was knocked off, when a rush took ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... club's register. In the Assembly the party numbers about 250 members. On passing all the posts of the fortress in review, we may estimate the besiegers as occupying one-third of them, and perhaps more. Their siege for two years has been carried on with unerring instinct, the extraordinary spectacle presenting itself of an entire nation legally overcome by ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... that Chang was helped to a decision by a friendly visit from a British man-of-war, whose captain, in answer to a question about his artillery, informed Chang that he had the bearings of his official residence, and could drop a shell into it with unerring precision at a distance of three miles. He was also aided by the influence of Mr. Fraser, a wide-awake British consul. Fraser modestly disclaims any special merit in the matter, but British missionaries at Hankow give him the credit. They say that, learning ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... affect you? Heaven, I doubt not, has happiness still in store for you—perhaps greater than you could have enjoyed in that connection. If the conviction of any misconduct on your part gives you pain, dissipate it by the reflection that unerring rectitude is not the lot of mortals; that few are to be found who have not deviated, in a greater or less degree, from the maxims of prudence. Our greatest mistakes may teach lessons which will be useful ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster
... assemble, as if by appointment, around the farmer's grain-field, and quietly wait for the breakfast signal, which is the rising of the sun, then enter the enclosure together, and having fed just one hour by their unerring chronometer, they retire, to return at sunset for another hour's feeding. This was their first visit to Mr. Jones's patch; doubtless the trampled and scattered corn ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... word he took her hand and led her back through the labyrinth she had threaded in her bewilderment. A dim light filled the place, but with unerring steps her guide went on till ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... advantage of propinquity without allowing appetite to be dulled by habit! The cleverest girl may miscalculate where her own interests are concerned, may yield too much at one moment and withdraw too far at the next: it takes a mother's unerring vigilance and foresight to land her daughters safely in the arms of wealth ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... best blacksmith of the village, and a solid merchant, and a dexterous lawyer, and the handiest coachman of the stable, and a well known stage-driver on a prominent public route, and a butcher with an unerring cleaver, and a jolly tar whose vessel never missed stays with his hand at the wheel; do you suppose that these men are going to charge like so many nameless Hessians? Why, it is a personal matter with every one of them. They go in under orders, to be sure, but they ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... earth has yielded a generous return to the labor of the husbandman, and every path of holiest toil has led to comfort and contentment; by His loving kindness the hearts of our people have been replenished with fraternal sentiment and patriotic endeavor, and by His unerring guidance we have been directed in the way of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... sadder than to be without God, and without hope, in a world like this? With all our science how little we know! How terrible the thought that we have no unerring guide! With all our powers how feeble we are! How terrible the thought that we have no almighty friend! And vast and numberless as are the provisions that are made for our happiness, how often we are thwarted, how prone we are, even in the midst of plenty, to be dissatisfied; and ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... congratulations. He jerked out a response, which Miss Pix received with as much delight as if he had flowed freely, like Mr. Manlius, who was now playing upon Mr. Le Clear an analysis of Nicholas's character, which he had read with unerring accuracy, as Mrs. Manlius testified by her continued, unreserved agreement. Indeed, the finding of his aunt by Nicholas in so unexpected a manner was the grand topic of the evening; and the four ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... since. The last canto of Marmion and the last few 'Aventiuren' of the Nibelungen Lied are perhaps the only things in all poetry where a set continuous battle (not a series of duels as in Homer) is related with unerring success; and the steady crescendo of the whole, considering its length and intensity, is really miraculous. Nay, even without this astonishing finale, the poem that contained the opening sketch of Norham, the voyage from Whitby to Holy Island, the final speech ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... in the first company continued to fall in appalling numbers before the riflemen's unerring aim. The Riverlawns pressed them with renewed zeal, and they fell back into the gap made by the flankers. In this manner the second platoon came into their proper position, while the first company, now ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... "By thy unerring Spirit led, We shall not in the desert stray; We shall not full direction need; Nor miss our providential way; As far from danger as from fear, While love, almighty ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... case of a rolling ship," Kennedy continued, alternately covering and uncovering the mirror, "the beam of light which this mirror reflects always goes back, unerring, to its source. It would do so from an aeroplane, so high in the air that it could not be located. The returning beam is invisible to anyone not immediately in the path of the ray, and the ray always goes to the observer. It is simply a matter of pure mathematics practically ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... old, Village wights true and bold, Unerring in hand and in eye, Learned skill in their craft With yew-bow and shaft, Wand to splinter, ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... courtesy. He liked this cheerful Mexican better than ever. In another hour they started, turning into the Vera Cruz road, and following often the path by which great Cortez had come. Ned's burro, little but made of steel, picked the way with unerring foot and never stumbled once. He rode in the midst of the lancers, who were full that day of the Latin joy that came with the sun and the great panorama of the Mexican uplands. Now and then they sang songs of the South, sometimes Spanish and sometimes ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... after the Oriental method—that is to say, he is always doing something, but is economical of energy rather than time. If there are more ways than one of doing a thing, he has an unerring instinct which guides him to choose the one that costs least trouble. He is a fatalist in philosophy, and this helps him too. For example, when he transplants a rose bush, he saves himself the trouble ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... walked again as long as his strength would allow, but before night sank down in the extremity of despair. It was not until the third day of his misfortunes that he was tracked up by a party sent in search of him, and guided by friendly natives, who followed his many devious steps with unerring eyes. ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... million; each to be preserved until a better is produced, and the old ones to be all destroyed. In living bodies, variations will cause the slight alterations, generation will multiply them almost infinitely, and natural selection will pick out with unerring skill each improvement."[15] (p. 226) "Let this process," he says, "go on for millions of years," and we shall at ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge
... and all the men working with good will, the retreat, notwithstanding the burthen with which it was encumbered, was made with a rapidity greatly exceeding the advance. Nick led the way with an unerring eye, even selecting better ground than that which the white men had been able to find on their march. He had often traversed all the hills, in the character of a hunter, and to him the avenues of the forest ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... slightest colour, thin as water, tells; how it glitters in body; how the brush flies—now here—now there; it seems as if face, hands, sky, thought, poetry, and expression were hid in the handle, and streamed out as it touched the canvas. What magic! what fire! what unerring hand and eye! what power! what a gift of God! I bow, and am grateful.' On March 24 he came to the fatal decision to paint his own original designs for the House of Lords in a series of six large pictures, and exhibit them separately, a decision founded, as he believed, on ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... Christian, the Hamlet, hero of all time, and Shallow and Slender from the fat pastures of English rural life, come all together, each as true as if on him alone the poet's eye had fixed. And Scott is like him, setting before us with unerring pencil the old superstitious despot of mediaeval France, the bustling pedant of St. James's, the ploughmen and shepherds, the churchmen, the Border reivers and Highland caterans, the broad country lying ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... the people of Nippon have been wending slowly, but with tireless perseverance and unerring instinct, toward their far-off goal, which to the unbiased historian will seem not merely legitimate but praiseworthy. Their intercourse with Russia was the story of one long laborious endeavor to found a common concern which should enable Japan to make headway on her mission. Russia was just the ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... we called the schoolmaster, behind his back in Drumtochty, because we loved him, was true to the tradition of his kind, and had an unerring scent for "pairts" in his laddies. He could detect a scholar in the egg, and prophesied Latinity from a boy that seemed fit only to be a cowherd. It was believed that he had never made a mistake in judgment, ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... notions of its character; but they are not wholly unfounded. Magicians, whose symbols are the Arabic numerals, and whose arcana are mathematical computations, daily foretell events in that building with unerring certainty. They pre-discover the future of the stars down to their minutest evolution and eccentricity. From data furnished from the Royal Observatory, is compiled an extraordinary prophetic Almanack from which all other almanacks are copied. It foretells to a second ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... man before him, and his unerring instinct told him that this livid, worn face had known not only ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... of men, and one of the most conscientious and accurate of archaeologists and collectors. The baron died in 1874. The 'objets d'art et de haute curiosite,' brought together by him with infinite pains and unerring taste into his chateau of Lavanture, were dispersed under the hammer of the auctioneer, and Lavanture itself passed into the possession of ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... A poor petty work for ambition's fond dream,— But what if that note be a need-be to blend And quicken the score from beginning to end? To show forth the mind of the Master, who guides With baton unerring Time's mixture of tides, The good with the evil, the blessing and bane, The Amazon rushing far into the main, Until, from this skill'd combination of notes, Bound earth to ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... you, one has but 'to know,' in order to be exempt from the sins and sorrows of the ignorant. Has it ever been so? Grant that you diffuse among the many all the knowledge ever attained by the few. Have the wise few been so unerring and so happy? You supposed that your motto was accurately cited from Bacon. What was Bacon ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... the profound darkness of the night, and the probability of encountering some desperate characters abroad. At every turn and angle, even where a deviation from the direct course might have been least expected, and could not possibly be seen until he was close upon it, he guided the bridle with an unerring hand, and kept the middle of the road. Thus he sped onward, raising himself in the stirrups, leaning his body forward until it almost touched the horse's neck, and flourishing his heavy whip above his head with the fervour of ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... things—and which, be it said in passing, was due to Mr. Palgrave's giving way at that point to his personal enthusiasm—the "Golden Treasury" in form, in scope, and in arrangement, as well as in almost unerring taste, is the best model of what an anthology should be which is to be found in ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... exquisitely unerring adaptations of orchids as a family to their insect visitors, no group of plants has greater interest for the botanist since Darwin interpreted their marvellous mechanism, and Gray, his instant disciple, revealed the hidden purposes of our native American species, no less wonderfully constructed ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... also the corresponding faith, and when this is the case, the answer is sure. Faith, in this use of the word, is a special gift, and may be given to some and withheld from others, also given at one time and withheld at another, just as God in His infinite and unerring wisdom may decide. This kind of faith is one of the special gifts of which we have an account in the 12th of 1st Corinthians, and differs, therefore, from the grace of faith or the power of believing the gospel unto salvation when it is presented, which is given to all men, and for the exercise ...
— The Theology of Holiness • Dougan Clark
... his bestial or human prey; without implements, without arms, save the ball of heavy flint, to which, that his sole possession and defence might not be lost, he had attached a long cord of plaited thongs; thereby recovering as well as hurling it with deadly, unerring skill." ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... scrap-book, inscribed with the proper dates, for the instruction and entertainment of his descendants. In fact, he had lately been found showing the book to a boy of three, who picked out his figure by its long nose, and said "Granpa!" with unerring decision. ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... what Rose had seen some time ago, but had not taken it upon her to put in so many words for Annie's benefit. It was of this moment she had, by an unerring instinct, stood in mortal terror, from the first dawn of her acquaintance with Harry Ironside, to the afternoon when he had succeeded in getting an introduction to her in the matron's room at St. Ebbe's, soon after the scene in the operating theatre. Then he ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... subcutaneous adipose membrane are removed by careful dissection from the cervical region, certain structures are exposed, which, even in the undissected neck, projected on the superficies, and are the unerring guides to the localities of the blood-vessels and nerves, &c. In Plate 4, the top of the sternum, 6; the clavicle, 7; the "Pomum Adami," 1; the lower maxilla at V; the hyoid bone, Z; the sterno-cleido-mastoid ...
— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise
... of the earth, and showed them their own land in relation to the others. Out of that same pocket reference book of mine came facts and figures which were seized upon and placed in right relation with unerring acumen. ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... thus, my friend, every one thinks that honour consists in something different from the rest. And why, then, should not the bravo think that honour consists in reaching the perfection of his trade, and in guiding a dagger to the heart of an enemy with unerring aim?" ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis
... Convention, fighting a world in arms and with an armed revolt on its own soil, showed titanic power, but in its struggle to circumvent one simple law of nature its weakness was pitiable. The louis d'or stood in the market as a monitor, noting each day, with unerring fidelity, the decline in value of the assignat; a monitor not to be bribed, not to be scared. As well might the National Convention try to bribe or scare away the polarity of the mariner's compass. On August 1, 1795, this gold louis of 25 francs was worth ...
— Fiat Money Inflation in France - How It Came, What It Brought, and How It Ended • Andrew Dickson White
... became as quick as fingers, and she raced along over the uneven ground with such force of tread that, being a woman slightly heavier than gossamer, her patent heels punched little D's in the soil with unerring accuracy wherever it was bare, crippled the heather-twigs where it was not, and sucked the swampy places with a ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... of a cave, he aimed unerring arrows at them; then came others and still others, until he ...
— Three short works - The Dance of Death, The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller, A Simple Soul. • Gustave Flaubert
... voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing, for ever and ever." Such were the ecstatic vision which Bunyan enjoyed, drawn from the unerring pages of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... greater number of fleet members. While the Indian, then, can scarcely be said to yield to the white in this respect, he lacks obviously that mental quick-sightedness which, with the latter, defines, as it were, intuitively, the exact location on the field, of a friend, and, with unerring certitude, calculates the degree of force that shall be needed to propel the ball, and the precise direction its flight shall take, in order to insure its reposing on the net of that friend. In the frequently ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... Norman arrow laid low,— When the shield-wall was breach'd by the shaft, —Thou art avenged by the bow! Chivalry! name of romance! Thou art henceforth but a name! Weapon that none can withstand, Yew in the Englishman's hand, Flight-shaft unerring in aim! As a lightning-struck forest the foemen Shiver down to the stroke of the bowmen:— —'O to-day is a day will be written in story To the great world's end, and for ever! So, let the boy ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... roads and bad roads and no roads at all Martique found his way across country with unerring sagacity, until they found themselves at a level crossing a few miles ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... friend? Words may deceive, eyes seldom can. And there had been love in his eyes. Not mere liking, but actual love. She had seen it, felt it, with that almost unerring instinct that women have, whether they return the love or not. In the latter case, they seldom doubt it; in the former, they ...
— The Laurel Bush • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... should remain shrouded, and approach their dazzling brilliancy—just as the dolphins are attracted from the depths of ocean, by the brightness of the fisherman's lanterns, though they are, alas! to find destruction there, and perish by the sharp harpoons hurled pitilessly at them with unerring aim. I know but too well that the waves will be reddened by my blood; but as I cannot live without your favour, I do not fear to meet death thus. It may be strangely audacious, on my part to pretend to the privileges of gods and ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... met him once or twice professionally, I had never hitherto seen him operate; and his method was little short of miraculous. It was stimulating, inspiring. With unerring touch he whittled madness, death, from the very ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... Shows forth what heaven holds, earth and hell: Makes present true images of the absent; Gains strength: and drawing with straight aim, Wounds, lays bare and frets the inmost heart. Attend now, thou base hind unto the truth, Bend down the ear to my unerring word; Open, open, if thou canst the eyes, foolish perverted one! Thou understanding little, call'st him child, Because thou swiftly changest, fugitive he seems, Thyself not seeing, ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... days. He seldom drank even of "the cup that cheers and not inebriates," never anything stronger; and my impression is that one great reason for his extreme temperance was that his aim as a marksman might be perfect and unerring. He did not marry till somewhat late in life, owing to his inability to support a wife in addition to the care of his mother and sister, although I have heard my father say to him, jokingly, "Scott, it would not cost you so much to keep a wife as it does to keep all these ...
— 'Three Score Years and Ten' - Life-Long Memories of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and Other - Parts of the West • Charlotte Ouisconsin Van Cleve
... instantaneous. Silently, but with unerring certainty, something small, round, and deadly, fell plumb from the library ceiling to where the settle had formerly stood against the hearthstone. Finding nothing there but vacancy to expend itself upon, ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... nations. Gifted by nature with a strong character, its strength was greatly developed by the way in which he came into personal contact with God in the study of His Word. He yielded no slavish subservience to any Church or priest, however good, but tested all doctrines by the unerring standard of God's truth. "Take the Holy Spirit," he used to say, "for your teacher, and you will never want another word from man on questions of doctrine." He never shrank from facing difficulties, ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... But an unerring instinct told me that the sound of Max's voice would be a strong cordial to the invalid, it was so long since she had heard or seen him. As we sauntered under the oak-trees I knew ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... of his eye, and from that time he looked at all things on the 'bright side.' His very love could think upon its object without a tear, and look forward to a pure and eternal re-union. At last the hour of dissolution came. I knew it by its unerring symptoms; yet still I listened to his passionate, poetic converse. It was for the last time; I was in the chamber of death. What observer can mistake it; the darkened windows, the stillness, the grouping, the subdued sobs, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... forth the long horse-hair cord, with the iron hook attached to it. She hastened to comply with the wishes of her strange little ally, and, as she stepped back in obedience to another sign, the hook, thrown with unerring aim, caught securely in the iron railing of the little balcony. Chiquita tied the other end of the cord to the branch to which she was clinging, and then began to cross over the intervening space as before; but ere she was half-way over, the knot gave way, and poor Isabelle for one ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... Grim is a genius? He can take longer chances in a crisis with a more unerring aim than any man I ever knew. Surely ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... You have failed in everything you have attempted, and you will continue to fail until you consider those moral principles—those rules of conduct which the race has built up, guided by an unerring instinct of self-preservation. Humanity defends herself against those who attempt to subvert her; and none, neither Napoleon nor the wretched scribbler such as you ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... our days and bright, And happy will our nature be, When love is an unerring light, And joy its own security. 20 And bless'd are they who in the main This faith, even now, do entertain: Live in the spirit of this creed; Yet find that other strength, according to ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... dismissed my caution with a laugh and an elated gesture. Pooh! Nothing, nothing could happen to the brig, he cried, as if the flame of his heart could light up the dark nights of uncharted seas, and the image of Freya serve for an unerring beacon amongst hidden shoals; as if the winds had to wait on his future, the stars fight for it in their courses; as if the magic of his passion had the power to float a ship on a drop of dew or sail her through the eye of a needle—simply because it was her magnificent ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... 'Gluttons who give high prices for delicacies, are very worthy to be called generous.' In short I am resolved, from this instance, never to give way to the weakness of human nature more, nor to think anything virtue which doth not exactly quadrate with the unerring rule ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... of the channel, and the spreading all about him of a most powerful and beneficent influence. This effect has often been called an answer to prayer, and has been attributed by the ignorant to what they call a "special interposition of Providence," instead of to the unerring action of the great and ...
— Thought-Forms • Annie Besant
... hands the unerring balance of fate. Close to his throne stand the two inexhaustible urns—the one filled with good fortune and happiness, the other with misfortune and misery. Out of these is mixed a dose of life to every mortal man; and as the draught is, so are one's ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... lead and iron were wasted, and but few men hurt,—though Dr. Khayme maintained that the waste became a crime when men were killed,—I have had a feeling of disgust whenever I have read the words "unerring rifles." More lies have been told about wars and battles, and about the courage of men, and patriotism, and so forth, than could be set down in a column of figures as long as the equator. From April 13 to May 4 ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... yellow." On the other hand they have our sympathy, and the reader is tossed about by the alternate undertow of the strong currents which control the conduct of this farming folk. Sometimes they obey only their own unerring instincts, as in that vivid situation of the shy, departing suitor when Karin Ingmarsson suddenly breaks through convention and publicly over the coffee cups declares herself betrothed. The book is a succession of these brilliantly portrayed situations that clutch at the ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... uncanny shrewdness had moved her many a time before to amazement and admiration. This quickness of intellect was hers also, but in a far smaller degree. She could leap to conclusions herself and often find them correct. But Nick—Nick literally swooped upon the truth with unerring precision. She had never known him to miss his mark. But this time—could he be right this time? It was such a monstrous notion. Its very contemplation bewildered her, carried her off her feet, made her giddy. She began to be a little frightened, to cast back her ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... an hour we were sufficiently close to the main body to open our fire, and broadside after broadside were poured in, answered by the batteries on the coast, with unerring aim. Notwithstanding the unequal contest, I have the pleasure of informing you, that in less than half an hour we succeeded in capturing three of the vessels (named as per margin), and finding nothing more could be done for the honour of his Majesty's arms, as soon ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... with his feet, and his roar would intimidate many foes. I never felt tired of admiring this noble creature, and through the monotony of the desert would watch for hours his ceaseless tread and unerring path. Carrying his head low, forward, and surveying everything with his black brilliant eye, he marches resolutely forward, and quickens his pace at the slightest cheer of the rider. He is too intelligent and docile for a bridle; ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... bow, in which position she opened a destructive fire of great guns and small-arms on the British frigate, who could only return it with her bow-guns. The riflemen in the Constitution's tops continued firing all the time with unerring aim. Captain Dacres was severely wounded, as were several of his officers. At length the Guerrier's foremast and mizzen-mast were carried over the side, leaving a defenceless wreck, rolling her main-deck guns in the water. From ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... and seeking to pierce its meaning, grew alarmed. There seemed to be a menace in it. Did she know or guess something of the hidden events of that night, or had she played the spy since? He turned pale as he considered these possibilities. Women had an unerring instinct for a secret once their curiosity was aroused. But he had been careful, very ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... him to auctions of pictures, where the English gentry were expected to be purchasers. I was not a little surprised at his intimacy with people of the best fashion, who referred themselves to his judgment upon every picture or medal, as to an unerring standard of taste. He made very good use of my assistance upon these occasions; for when asked his opinion, he would gravely take me aside, and ask mine, shrug, look wise, return, and assure the company, that he could give no opinion upon an affair of so much importance. Yet there was sometimes ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... she liked him still better now that the week had wrought its changes, what could be said of his impressions? Attractive as she had appeared in the grime and dust and heat of the railway car, now in that dainty gown of cool white lawn, open at the rounded throat, she saw with woman's unerring eye the unspoken approval if not open admiration in his face. Not yet nineteen, she had lived a busy, earnest, thoughtful life. The Cranstons had known her from early maidenhood. She was a child in the Southern garrison in the ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... had not drank up the dew-drops that sparkled like gems on herb and foliage before the young hunter had again resumed his march. He followed with unerring precision the trail of the fugitives through thorny thicket and quaking morass, and ere the evening sun had dropped behind the hills, he came upon the encampment of his foe. The party had flung themselves upon the soft turf, beneath the drooping ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... grateful by their side, Or through their channel dry; They led me through the thicket damp, Through brake and fern, the beaver's camp, Through beds of granite cut my road, And their resistless friendship showed: The falling waters led me, The foodful waters fed me, And brought me to the lowest land, Unerring to the ocean sand. The moss upon the forest bark Was pole-star when the night was dark; The purple berries in the wood Supplied me necessary food; For Nature ever faithful is To such as trust her faithfulness. When the forest shall ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year • Various
... seizing the infant with both arms and aided by the knees, gives it a violent whirling motion, that would seem rather calculated to shake the child in pieces than to produce the effect of soft slumber; but the result was unerring, and in a few seconds the ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... above "untoward coincidences"—thou must cancel the words "accident" and "fate" from thy vocabulary of trial. God, thy God, was there! If there be perplexing accompaniments, be assured they were of His permitting; all was planned—wisely, kindly planned. Question not the unerring rectitude of His dealings. Though apparently absent, He was really present. The apparent veiling of His countenance is only what Cowper calls "the severer aspect of His love." Kiss the rod that smites—adore the hand that lays low. Pillow thy head on that simple, yet grandest source ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... leper, cursing some gamblers, and restoring a girl possessed with a devil. The second and third works excel the first, and are impulsive and able performances. These paintings met with merited applause, and gained for their author the pre-eminent title "Andrea senza errori'' (Andrew the unerring)—the correctness of the contours being particularly admired. After these subjects the painter proceeded with two others—the death of S. Filippo and the children cured by touching his garment,—all the five works being completed before the close of 1510. The youth of twenty-three was ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... blessed makes this realm, which thou dost mount, Ordains its providence to be the virtue In these great bodies: nor th' all perfect Mind Upholds their nature merely, but in them Their energy to save: for nought, that lies Within the range of that unerring bow, But is as level with the destin'd aim, As ever mark to arrow's point oppos'd. Were it not thus, these heavens, thou dost visit, Would their effect so work, it would not be Art, but destruction; and this may not chance, If th' intellectual powers, that move these stars, ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... his ideals, he had given to the King of Prussia and to the Neapolitan Bourbon copies of two of the statues which adorned his Nevsky bridge—statues representing restive horses restrained by strong men; and the Berlin populace, with an unerring instinct, had given to one of these the name "Progress checked,'' and to the other the name "Retrogression encouraged.'' To this day one sees every- where in the palaces of Continental rulers, whether great or petty, his columns of ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... round of person, buoyant and joyous of soul: the American queens of beauty (their faces sparkling of love and gentleness) moved to and fro, like sylphs of some fairy land, making splendid the scene. The dashing New Yorker, her smiles, unerring arrows, piercing whither she shot them; the vivacious and intelligent daughter of Massachusetts, all sensitive, modest, and graceful; the placid belle of Pennsylvania, whose fair complexion drew upon her all ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... tribble," and with two assistants he falls upon the congested mass within. They perform prodigies of strength, handling huge trunks that ought to have filled some woman with repentance as if they were Gladstone bags, and light weights as if they were paper parcels. With unerring scent they detect the latest label among the remains of past history, and the air resounds with "Hielant train," "Aiberdeen fast," "Aiberdeen slow," "Muirtown"—this with indifference—and at a time "Dunleith," and once "Kildrummie," with much contempt. By this time stacks of baggage of ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... little donation, Fairbanks," the man said. "There's a newspaper man among them. He's correspondent for some daily press association. Been writing up 'the heroic dash—brave youth at the trestle—forlorn hope of an unerring ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... well-founded. unqualified, absolute, positive, determinate, definite, clear, unequivocal, categorical, unmistakable, decisive, decided, ascertained. inevitable, unavoidable, avoidless[obs3]; ineluctable. unerring, infallible; unchangeable &c. 150; to be depended on, trustworthy, reliable, bound. unimpeachable, undeniable, unquestionable; indisputable, incontestable, incontrovertible, indubitable; irrefutable &c. (proven) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... dog, an animal by no means contemptible in the eyes of the Bedouins. [18] As they advanced, the graceful little sand antelope bounded away over the bushes; and above them, soaring high in the cloudless skies, were flights of vultures and huge percnopters, unerring indicators of ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... judge had no doubt, in his opinion, avoided each horn of the dilemma—the abomination mentioned in Scripture—punishing the innocent or letting the guilty go free—by tracking guilt with well breathed sagacity, and unravelling imposture with unerring skill;—a Jesuit had been unkennelled, a spectacle as gratifying to a serious Protestant in those days, as running down a fox to a thorough sportsman;—a plot had been discovered which might have made Lancaster Castle "to topple on its warders" and "slope its head to its foundations," ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... carried far enough to preserve the labourer from follies of opinion, but a moderate culture had been sufficient to deter him from the vices of life. And only to the sons of Wisdom, as of old to the sages of the East, seemed given the unerring star, which, through the travail of Earth and the clouds of Heaven, led them at the ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... by in silence, O Bacchus, bold in combat; nor thee, O Virgin, who art an enemy to the savage beasts; nor thee, O Phoebus, formidable for thy unerring dart. ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... to smoke a pipe in the police camp with him on one or two occasions, had asked him to come more or less as a personal favour. For though Stanley knew the road perfectly he knew very little about the surrounding country itself; and Mr. Pym, with his unerring instinct, had quickly discovered that Carew's mind was a well of knowledge on most things Rhodesian. So the taciturn soldier joined the cavalcade, though he succeeded in attaching himself to Mr. Pym and riding well ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... dog-gone!" said the man, throwing the ear of corn with unerring aim at the head of the nearest porker and beckoning to Rodney with both hands. "Come out of the road. Come up behind the bresh and ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... for on my sire Th' unerring doom was spent; I heir not his ill-luck, I trow, Nor with ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... Again Sohrab the glow of battle warms; With scornful smiles, "Another deer!" he cries, "Come to my victor-toils, another prize!" The damsel saw his noose insidious spread, And soon her arrows whizzed around his head; With steady skill the twanging bow she drew, And still her pointed darts unerring flew; For when in forest sports she touched the string, Never escaped even bird upon the wing; Furious he burned, and high his buckler held, To ward the storm, by growing force impell'd; And tilted forward with augmented wrath, But Gurd-afrid aspires to cross ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... hit Wyatt in the face was the thrown-away match. But for the unerring aim of the town marksman great events would never have happened. A tomato is a trivial thing (though it is possible that the man whom it hits may not think so), but in the present case, it was the ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... account of his sallying forth, of his battle with Rama and of his death by the fiery dart of that hero occupies two Cantos which I entirely pass over. Indrajit again comes forth and, rendered invisible by his magic art slays countless Vanars with his unerring arrows. He retires to the city and returns bearing in his chariot an effigy of Sita, the work of magic, weeping and wailing by his side. He grasps the lovely image by the hair and cuts it down with his scimitar ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... less delight th' attentive sage, T' observe that instinct which unerring guides The brutal race, which mimics ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... principle which lies at the foundation of the law of nations is contained in the divine command that "all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you do ye even so to them." Tried by this unerring rule, we should be severely condemned if we shall not use our best exertions to arrest such expeditions against our feeble sister Republic of Nicaragua. One thing is very certain, that a people never existed who would ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... at each other. The traders in a small group had every man his rifle. Had the Indians in their resistless strength come rushing simultaneously upon them, they could easily have been trampled into the dust. But it was equally certain that twelve bullets, with unerring aim, would have pierced the hearts of twelve of their warriors. The Indians were very chary of their own lives. They were never ready for a fight in the open field, however great might be the odds ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... very little is known. Some say she died of hay-fever; others say it was nasal catarrh; but only her old mother, with a woman's unerring instinct, guessed the truth: in reality she died of a broken ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... guard-room, who drew back to allow Mrs. Markham and Eleanor to pass. A little child, one of Eleanor's old Presidio pupils, who, recognizing her, had followed her into the guard-room, now emerged with her, and momentarily disconcerted at the presence of the Commander, ran, with the unerring instinct of childhood, to the Senor for protection. The filibuster smiled, and lifting the child with a paternal gesture to his shoulder by one hand, he extended the other to ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... unerring force to the same conclusion. She held in her hands the strong frame, the stout heart, the ruling mind. All were concentrated in Jean Letocq. He, then, must be offered up as a fitting sacrifice. By ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... merely of another individual of the same variety is often strongly prepotent over its own pollen, when both are placed at the same time on the same stigma. In those great families of plants containing many thousand allied species, the stigma of each distinguishes with unerring certainty its own pollen from that ...
— The Effects of Cross & Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom • Charles Darwin
... on the stamp and impress of Rome. The East, indeed, remained Greek in language and feeling, but even there Roman law and government prevailed, Roman roads traced their unerring course, and Roman architects erected majestic monuments. The West became completely Roman. North Africa, Spain, Gaul, distant Dacia, and Britain were the seats of populous cities, where the Latin language was spoken and Roman ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... headlong flight. In these perilous achievements, wonder is excited less by the surpassing agility of these little creatures, frequently encumbered as they are by their young, which cling to them in their career, than by the quickness of their eye and the unerring accuracy with which they seem almost to calculate the angle at which a descent will enable them to cover a given distance, and the recoil to ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... with their rifled guns. Then came a great puff of smoke. It was a Rebel caisson blown up by one of Griffin's shells. It was a continuous, steady artillery fire. The gunners of the Rebel batteries were swept away by the unerring aim of Griffin's gunners. They changed position again and again, to avoid the shot. Mingled with the constant crashing of the cannonade was an irregular firing of muskets, like the pattering of rain-drops upon a roof. At times there was a quicker ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... come, in their proper environing conditions, as it is for the earth, in its present cosmical relations, not to respond to its axial rotation. "Let the earth bring forth" is just as much an outspoken law of nature, and one as inexorably obeyed, as that unerring force of gravity which led Leverrier, in the faith of his inductions, to indicate the precise point in the heavens where the far-off planet, now bearing his name, might be ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... of a weapon so deadly as this, together with the agility and daring and the unerring marksmanship of the forest dwarfs, seem sufficient to give them absolute control of the animals of the African wilds. The lion, the elephant, and the buffalo, the largest and fiercest of the beasts of field and forest, are powerless before the virulent venom of the arrows of the ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris
... inviolable sanctity. Hence we imagine the wrath with which Rome would behold Commodus, under the eyes of four hundred thousand spectators, making himself a party to the contests of gladiators. In his earlier exhibitions as an archer, it is possible that his matchless dexterity, and his unerring eye, would avail to mitigate the censures: but when the Roman Imperator actually descended to the arena in the garb and equipments of a servile prize-fighter, and personally engaged in combat with such antagonists, having previously submitted to their training ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... some copse, following a devious footpath, but Richard caught sight of him again soon after. Then the quarry was missed once more, as he crossed one of the hop-gardens; yet, always the same, Richard dogged him with unerring patience ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... only heightened the horrors of his situation. When he fell, the affectionate creature would catch the flap of his coat, or his arm, in his teeth, and attempt to raise him; and as long as his master had presence of mind, with the unerring certainty of instinct, he would turn him, when taking a wrong direction, into that which ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... came and went in Winston's nostrils—the one and unerring facial sign of displeasure he ever exhibited, if we except a certain hardening of eye and contour that chiselled his lineaments into a yet closer ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... the heart of every slave parent will make its own comments, involuntarily and correctly, as soon as each heart shall make the case its own. Those who are not parents will draw their conclusions from the promptings of humanity and philanthropy:-these, enlightened by reason and revelation, are also unerring. ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth
... this route followed the coast from London to Land's End, through Wales north to Oban and Inverness, thence to Aberdeen and back to London along the eastern coast. He chose the best roads with unerring knowledge and generally avoided the larger cities. On the entire route which he outlined, we found only one really dangerous grade—in Wales—and, by keeping away from cities, much time and nervous energy were saved. ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... Perhaps, instead of sending workmen out to scattered jobs in a single car, it will be cheaper to send each worker out in a car of his own. That is happening with salesmen. The public finds its own consumptive needs with unerring accuracy, and since we no longer make motor cars or tractors, but merely the parts which when assembled become motor cars and tractors, the facilities as now provided would hardly be sufficient to provide replacements for ten ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... was only for a moment! Recalling his manhood and her weakness, he stopped, and bracing his foot against a stone, with a graceful flourish of his lasso around his head, threw it in the air. It uncoiled slowly, sped forward with unerring precision, and missed! With the single cry of "Saved!" the fair stranger sank fainting in his arms! He held her closely until the color came back to her pale face. Then he quietly disentangled the lasso ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte |
