"Impulse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mockingly down at the bowed head of her husband, which was now pillowed in his hands, and with another burst of musical laughter, swept gracefully over to the piano, seated herself at it, struck a few chords; and then, as if driven by sudden impulse, wheeled quickly round and said: "But the runaway husband shall have something pleasant to remember the poor deserted wife by in his wanderings. Be sure, Harold, and always think of me as singing this love-lorn ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... caliber to learn from a slave. Milo kept hold of his man's hand, and at the scrape of steel leaving scabbard, he brought up his free hand and grasped the fellow's left wrist. Then, springing aside with the resistless impulse of a charging buffalo, he gained a clear space, and began to swing his victim by ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... they had entered the wagon she had decided to speak to Lucy of what she had overseen. In the first place she felt guilty and wanted to confess. Besides that the need to give advice was strong upon her, and the natural desire to interfere in a matter of the heart was another impelling impulse. So she had determined to speak for conscience, for friendship, for duty, and it is not beyond the ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... hard case. Swearing is my besetting sin. If I become vexed with my work, or anything else, that is my resort at once. In the meetings, I hear preaching, prayer and singing, under the influence of which, I feel a strong impulse to leave my sinful ways, and seek to become good and live an upright life. Almost resolved on this, I go to my work and am there forced to hear more or less profanity. They will swear at me, and I fall to swearing, too. Thus I am in a hard case." The deputy ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... passionate purity of her mouth. "No, certainly not, never," he muttered, extraordinarily stirred. He asserted to himself that he would make no such fatal mistake. The other, the errant fancy, was no more than a vagrant unimportant impulse. "Don't let these women, who cat around, upset you; probably they are thinking not so much about their husbands as they are of themselves. I've seen that Alice Lucian parked out in a limousine during a dance, and she was ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... to sketch here the development of the practice of collective bargaining, and the various concepts of industrial relationship to which the rise of trade unionism has given impulse. We are now in the midst of a struggle brought about by the efforts of the wage earners to add to their traditional rights of freedom of contract and of enterprise certain other rights. These may be collectively described as the right ...
— The Settlement of Wage Disputes • Herbert Feis
... "There is little of anything here at Asensio's house—" "It is cold before the dawn—" ... Poor little Rosa! He had always thought of her as so proud, so high-spirited, so playful, but another Rosa had written this letter. Her appeal stirred every chord of tenderness, every impulse of chivalry in his impressionable Irish nature. She doubted him; she feared he would not come' to her. Well, he would set her doubts at rest. "O God! Come quickly, if you love me." He leaped to his feet; he dashed the tears from ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... a few days after this from a station—as well as to a station—selected almost at random; such days, whatever should happen, were numbered, and he had gone forth under the impulse—artless enough, no doubt—to give the whole of one of them to that French ruralism, with its cool special green, into which he had hitherto looked only through the little oblong window of the picture-frame. It had been as yet for the most part but a land of fancy for him—the background ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... on both sides of the Atlantic the excitement over Lord Durham's mission to Canada, was darkened in the home of Lord John by the death at Brighton, on November 1, of his wife. His first impulse was to place the resignation of his office and of leadership in the Commons in the hands of his chief. Urgent appeals from all quarters were made to him to remain at his post, and, though his own health was precarious, cheered ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... was no sailor. He hardly knew the difference between the cable and the cathead. He looked the picture of distress, almost of despair. But I, being under no obligations to the brutal captain of the brig, was at liberty to obey the impulse of my feelings. I stepped over the quarter rail, grasped the topmast stay of the sloop, swung myself on the jibboom, and in the space of a few seconds after the captain had concluded his maledictions ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... the next morning to a realizing sense of her position her first impulse is to self-destruction, but she deludes herself with the thought that her "dancing" companion will right the wrong by marriage, but that is the farthest from his thoughts, and he casts her off—"he wishes a pure woman for ...
— From the Ball-Room to Hell • T. A. Faulkner
... stifled the impulse to resign his post, and the meeting adjourned without further incident. As he walked home, he was conscious of a disagreeable foreboding of something in the future which he would like to avoid. Bringing his mind to bear upon ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... impulse from a vernal wood Will teach you more of man, Of moral evil and of good, Than ...
— Alaska Days with John Muir • Samual Hall Young
... is the first impulse to be conveyed to the boy. When he recognizes this truth, it is an easy task to instill a love of exercise, gymnastics, swimming, fresh air, cleanliness and temperance in him. If these are attained, you will have tided him over the tendency to self-abuse, ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... come to a full stop, under the impulse of the moment; and Thad was pointing a little to the right, which was where the building erected on the athletic grounds stood, dimly seen ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... these springs. The tyranny of Bonaparte is represented to my eyes by this image; he makes thousands of men perish, as these wheels beat the iron, and his agents are the greater part of them equally insensible; the invisible impulse of these human machines proceeds from a will at once violent and methodical, which transforms moral life into its servile instrument. Finally, to complete the comparison, it is sufficient to seize the mover to restore every thing ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... blow, Glyn Severn nearly followed his impulse, and had hard work to check himself from falling flat upon his adversary. As it was, he dropped only upon one knee, rose again painfully, and stood with bruised and bleeding face gazing blankly at his stern preceptor, who now thundered out in his deepest tones, "What is the ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... support another and most serious objection to this theory—in the mind of all those who believe in the doctrine of evolution. The Surplus-Energy Theory considers the play-impulse, which is one of the most widespread characters of animal life, as merely an accidental thing or by-product—a mere using-up of surplus energies. It is not in any way important to the animals. This makes it impossible to say that play has come to be the very ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... radiations of ether from the sun, our chief source of light, are so rapid that billions of them enter the eye in a second of time, and the retina is of such a nature that its nerve cells are thrown into activity by these waves; the impulse is carried over the optic nerve to the occipital lobe of the cortex, and the sensation of sight is the result. The different colors also, from the red of the spectrum to the violet, are the result of different vibration rates ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... and her dress. She had hardly any more illusions as to the Jupillons than as to her own future. She had a presentiment that her money was lost so far as they were concerned. She had not even based any hopes on the possibility that this sacrifice would touch the young man. She had acted on the impulse of the moment. If she had been told to die to prevent his going, she would have died. The idea of seeing him a soldier, the idea of the battlefield, the cannon, the wounded, in presence of which a woman shuts her eyes in terror, had led her to do ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... of fifty pounds. I put the housewife into my store with a vague feeling of being rich in the world's goods, with such a little treasury of necessaries; I had really no thought of what that chance impulse was ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... The first impulse towards this work by which Saxo was saved, is found in a letter from the Bishop of Roskild, Lave Urne, dated May 1512, to Christian Pederson, Canon of Lund, whom he compliments as a lover of letters, antiquary, and patriot, ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... What B. had said about M. came into my mind and rose to my lips. I knew, or thought I knew, that if I revealed it to her she would be so angry that she would cast him off. Probably I was mistaken, but in my despair the impulse to disclose it was almost irresistible. I struggled against it, however, and when she pressed me, I praised him and strove in my praise to be sincere. Whether it was something in my tone, quite unintentional, ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... above (I-II, Q. 84, AA. 3, 4), a capital vice is one which easily gives rise to others as being their final cause. Now just as we do many things on account of pleasure, both in order to obtain it, and through being moved to do something under the impulse of pleasure, so again we do many things on account of sorrow, either that we may avoid it, or through being exasperated into doing something under pressure thereof. Wherefore, since sloth is a kind of sorrow, as stated above (A. 2; I-II, Q. 85, A. 8), ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... pleasantly, you conclude to spend the summer with them; and a bright and blissful summer it is as your young heart has ever enjoyed. You cannot stand idle, despising labor. You catch the impulse of the place and people, and none are more ready than you for tasks that test courage and strength, and make the warm sweat flood the glowing face. You are up and away in the morning before the whippoorwill closes ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... of the people have adopted the opinion that under the Constitution slavery has not a legal existence in the Territories. The triumph of this opinion is not the result of any sudden impulse. A President has been elected, and a Government will soon be organized, whose duty it will be to respect and observe the opinions of the people. You are now seeking, by the adoption of a single section, to change these opinions and this policy. Do not deceive yourselves, ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... silent; and the elder man came to the rescue. He had been thinking, and without seeming to have noticed the little passage at arms, he arose and said: "Well, Constance, I don't see that talking will do much good just now; what the occasion demands is action. My first impulse was to telegraph at once for an officer from the city force, but, on reflection, I think it better not to use the telegraph. Our every movement may be closely noted, and to send a message would be to set some one watching for the arrival of a detective, and once ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... system or order degenerates from a need into a passion, or ruling idea, it closes, as may be seen in many women who are especial house-keepers, like an unyielding skin over the mind, to the death of all development from impulse and aspiration. The same thing holds in the church: anxiety about order and system will kill the life. This did not go near to being the result with George Herbert: his life was hid with Christ in God; but the influence of his profession, ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... was still subservient to that of England and it is not surprising that the new literary impulse from Germany should have found reflection on this side of the Atlantic. This foreign influence was further aided by direct contact with Europe. By the second or third decade of the last century the studies of American scholars abroad became an important factor in our intellectual ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... thought, it is certain that the interview, from which she enjoyed the impression of having emerged so triumphantly, had brought anything but consolation to her daughter, whose first impulse was to blame herself quite angrily for having admitted to her secret places, after all so natural ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... could not help shaking him by the hand and wishing him a prosperous journey, assuring him that I would watch over his comrades like a father, while in my service. In a few instants these curious people were led by a sudden and new impulse; my farewell had perfectly delighted old Moosa and Hadji Ali, whose hearts were won. "Say good-bye to the Sit!" (the lady) they shouted to Abderachman; but I assured them that it was not necessary to go through the whole operation to which ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... The books of which his lost friend had spoken were close by him on the table. He opened one of them, and turned to a page marked by pencil lines. His sensitive nature was troubled to its inmost depths. The confession of that Faith which had upheld Penrose was before him in words. The impulse was strong in him to read those words, and think ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... claim her. The Count is full of rage, and there follows a duel in which Manrico is wounded, but though it is in his power to kill his enemy, he spares his life, without however being able to account for the impulse. ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... consent sometimes observable among the members of an animal community—how a flock of 500 birds (e. g. starlings) will suddenly change its direction of flight—the light on the wings shifting INSTANTANEOUSLY, as if the impulse to veer came to all at the same identical moment; or how bees will swarm or otherwise act with one accord, or migrating creatures (lemmings, deer, gossamer spiders, winged ants) the same. Whatever explanation of these facts we favor—whether the possession of swifter and finer means of ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... written must inevitably die. If the name of Peter Moore had but once appeared on the green silk—I could have forgotten you—and rested. But I was restrained by a most curious impulse." ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... His first impulse was one of regret. He felt a poignant humiliation to think that this young girl, a stranger in the house, should be aware of a thing of that kind concerning his father's wife. Yet, oddly enough, a second later, he realised ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... stately and imposing person in that beautiful dress; but his satisfaction therein was cruelly disturbed when he discovered, towering and blazing among and above the genuine Glengarries and Macleods and MacGregors, a figure even more portly than his own, equipped from a sudden impulse of loyal ardour in an equally complete set of the self-same conspicuous ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... and true lover of the Church, whom the late "Examiner" is supposed to reflect on under the name of Verres,[19] felt a pious impulse to be a benefactor to the Cathedral of Gloucester, but how to do it in the most decent, generous manner, was the question. At last he thought of an expedient: One morning or night he stole into the Church, mounted upon the altar, and there did that which in cleanly phrase ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... sighed sadly over them. Lorrimer was filled with an anxious tribulation, as he remembered the story of the villany that, two nights before, near the spot where they now walked, and perhaps at the same hour, had been perpetrated. An impulse, which he could not restrain, caused him to whisper his fears to his companion. Glover laughed, a little uneasily, he thought, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... startled and bewildered by mysterious words from everyone, watched his blue garments vanishing upwards, and like a man driven by irresistible necessity, muttered incoherent excuses to my amazed companions, and in a blind, unreasoning, unconquerable impulse rushed after him. But I wish I had not. There were several ladies, who, all more or less en deshabille, scampered around with their bundles of gear—sewing, babies' clothes, tin pots, hair ornaments, boxes of powder and scented ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... straightest and the squarest man in the world in a fight. But a sudden anger had flared up in him. He had an impulse to kill; to get rid of this obstacle between him and everything he wanted most in life. Without more warning than that he snatched out his revolver and fired point blank at Ronicky Doone. Certainly all the approaches to a fight had been made, and Doone might have been ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand
... felt vaguely sorry for the poor gawk, disturbed by, ashamed of the only human impulses he ever had. On the screen Allison frowned fiercely, "A crazy impulse." ...
— The Planet Savers • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... because he who shall humble himself shall be exalted. Nevertheless, pardon me for not having said what you desired. It is not I who speak, it is God who speaks in me." Finally Francis bowed to what Leo communicated to him, who only disobeyed him by an impulse of the Holy Ghost; and they conversed during the remainder of the night on the great mercy of God ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... fight, rather than retreat, Burgoyne, perhaps, acted from the impulse of a brave nature, rather than the promptings of his sober judgment, as he was bound to do; since he had known for some time that Sir William Howe had gone to Pennsylvania, without making any definite preparations to come to his assistance. Notwithstanding this assurance, that a most important ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake
... William Turner and who not, began to vaunt their smattering of Latin in English impressions."[250] Thomas Nicholls, the goldsmith, translated Thucydides; Queen Elizabeth translated Boethius. The mention of women in this connection suggests how widely the impulse was diffused. Richard Hyrde says of the translation of Erasmus's Treatise on the Lord's Prayer, made by Margaret Roper, the daughter of Sir Thomas More, "And as for the translation thereof, I dare be bold to say it, that ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... turns a nobleman and a sans-culotte, a Christian and a Mussulman, is wicked and profligate, not from the impulse of the moment or of any sudden gust of passion, but coldly and deliberately. He calculates with sangfroid the profit and the risk of every infamous action he proposes to commit, and determines accordingly. He owed some riches and the ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... We should expect from him no sacrifice or effort for an abstract cause; there is not an atom of martyr's stuff in all that softened marble; but he has a capacity for strong and warm attachment, and might act devotedly through its impulse, and even die for it at need. It is possible, too, that the Faun might be educated through the medium of his emotions, so that the coarser animal portion of his nature might eventually be thrown into the background, though ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... on tip-toe round the room. She touched the furniture and the pictures softly, as she passed them. There was in her a feeling, half fear, half reverence, for the things which had once belonged to the dead King Otto. Phillips, moved by an impulse of curiosity, crossed the room to where the torn papers lay. He stooped down and picked up some of the fragments. For the most part they were blank. On one or two there were words in a language he did not understand. Only one ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... action to restore the ring when threatened with a search, knowing that Mrs. Kildair's clever expedient of throwing the room in the dark made detection impossible? Was it a woman who lacked the necessary courage to continue, or was it a man who repented his first impulse? Is a man or is a woman the greater ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... equipoise. A formless moon soared through a white cloud wrack, and broken gold lay in the rising tide. The sonorous steps of the policeman on the bridge startled him, and obeying the impulse of the moment, he gave the officer the letter, asking him to post it. He waited for some minutes, as if stupefied, pursuing the consequences of his act even into distant years. No, he would not send the letter ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... Hills lay, dark with the everlasting greenery of the North—even, low, with only sun-browned Harney to raise its cliff-like front above the rest of the range. As though by a common impulse they reined in their horses and ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... old Rome. I often think so when I see the elaborate pains that have been taken to smash and demolish some beautiful column, for no purpose whatever, except the mere delight of annihilating a noble piece of work. There is something in the impulse with which one sympathizes; though I am afraid the destroyers were not sufficiently aware of the mischief they did to enjoy it fully. Probably, too, the early Christians were impelled by religious zeal to destroy the pagan temples, before the happy thought occurred ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... country, to which he has not given the aid of his pen, such as it was, and this whether he received remuneration or not. Indeed, the consciousness that the success of his works had been the humble means of inciting others to similar exertion in their own country, and of thus giving the first impulse to our literature, is one which has on his part created an enthusiastic interest in it which ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... struggle of '93 the qualities of nobleness and beauty which art requires in dealing with real themes. Lantenac falls into the hands of the Blues, headed by Cimourdain and Gauvain, but he does so in consequence of yielding to a heroic and self-devoting impulse of humanity. Cimourdain, true to his temperament, insists on his instant execution. Gauvain, true also to his temperament, is seized with a thousand misgivings, and there is no more ample, original, and masterly presentation of a case of conscience, that in civil war is always common ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... into night, and the lamps were lit in the streets ere I issued from that sombre church. To turn back was now become possible to me; the wild longing to breathe this October wind on the little hill far without the city walls had ceased to be an imperative impulse, and was softened into a wish with which Reason could cope: she put it down, and I turned, as I thought, to the Rue Fossette. But I had become involved in a part of the city with which I was not familiar; it was the old part, and full of narrow streets of picturesque, ancient, ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... The first impulse of the Prince of Fairoaks was to pay for the whole party, and to make away with his newspaper order as poor Costigan had done with his own ticket. But his instinct, and the appearance of the two women told him that they would be better pleased if ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... on to attack the whole of the Massacre Islands, and extirpate the race at once. They felt at this moment as if it would be an easy thing to kill the whole of the inhabitants; but Captain Morrell was not to be governed by any impulse of passion—he had other duties to perform; yet he did not reprimand the men for this feeling; thinking it might be of ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... whispered Angele. And before she could give any reason for her impulse, the miller's head and light appeared above the stairs. It was natural enough for Angele La Vigne to avoid Laurent's father. What puzzled her was to see her own barefooted father creeping after the miller, his red wool night-cap ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... alliance was fully recognized, and its consequences admitted to be the freedom of the China seas from menace of commerce-destroyers, nevertheless the fact remained that the hostilities against Tsing-tao would constitute a fresh impulse to Japanese expansion. The operations in Shantung were watched with critical eyes by many British in the foreign settlements of China. The floods had, meanwhile, subsided considerably, and on September 12 Japanese cavalry reached Tsimo, ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... that Neale saw him at a few yards distance he saw that the junior partner and amateur experimenter was evidently cleaning out his furnace. The place into which he threw the ashes was at the far end of the garden; at least three minutes was occupied in each journey. And—yielding to a sudden impulse—when Joseph made his next excursion and had his back fairly turned, Neale crossed the lawn in half a dozen agile and stealthy strides, and within a few seconds had slipped within the open ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... mode of expression he often employed when speaking of his honored brethren,—the Reverend Mather was right this time, and the irreverent doctors who laughed at him were wrong. One only of their number disputes his claim to giving the first impulse to the practice, in Boston. This is what that person says: "The Small-Pox spread in Boston, New England, A.1721, and the Reverend Dr. Cotton Mather, having had the use of these Communications from Dr. William Douglass (that is, ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... large. Those who wish to form an idea of his mind could not do better than to read his sketches of the Italian Martyrs in the "People's Journal." They will find there, on one of the most difficult occasions, an ardent friend speaking of his martyred friends with, the purity of impulse, warmth of sympathy, largeness and steadiness of view, and fineness of discrimination which must belong to a ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... "home" till Christmas. As soon as he was able to write, his father would forward him the copy of his birth-certificate, and he would likewise answer in the sense agreed upon any letters of reference or enquiry: would state the apprenticeship to architecture with Praed A.R.A., and then the impulse to go out to South Africa, the slight wound—David insisted it was slight, a fuss about nothing, because he had enquired about necrosis of the jaw and realized that even if he had recovered it would have left indisputable ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... it worries a man to keep from a friend a secret, which hitherto he has often taken great pains to conceal. The soul then feels an irresistible impulse to impart itself completely, and reveal its innermost self to the friend, in order to make him so much the more a friend. At these moments delicate souls disclose themselves to each other, and it doubtless sometimes happens that the one shrinks back in fright from its acquaintance ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... spite of this discomfiture, Lord Nugent succeeded in carrying through the commons a bill, granting the parliamentary franchise to Roman catholics in Great Britain. The bill was lost in the lords, and the question remained dormant in 1824; but in 1825 it received a fresh impulse. This time it was Burdett who, at the instance of Lansdowne and Brougham, appeared as spokesman of the catholics. His action was in some respects inopportune, as the "Catholic Association," founded by O'Connell and Sheil in 1823, ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... soul," he swore, "she shall marry Louis of France, or I will have her whipped to death on the Smithfield pillory." And in his wicked heart—so impervious to a single lasting good impulse—he ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... amusing themselves with viewing the city, they again repaired to the beach, and saw the sultan sitting with his children, as before. While they were admiring the beauty of the strufture, the younger prince, impelled by an unaccountable impulse, came up to them, gazed eagerly at them, and when they retired followed them to their lodging, which they did not perceive till he had entered with them and sat down. The old sultan was astonished at the child's behaviour, took him in his arms, kissed and fondled ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... place, it was the work of a mere passing impulse; and in the second, because I should have gained credit for being what I am not—a brave man. It will be bad enough when the truth becomes known, but it would be all the worse if I had been trading on a false reputation; therefore I particularly charged Rujub ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... donc" punctuated my news of American artists who had gone home at last. When I told him of the few who had sold pictures in America, his comment was "epatant," which he meant in no uncomplimentary sense. The Artist was an old favorite of Pierre's. I restrained his impulse to go right out to greet the Artist. Pierre entered into my idea with alacrity. The dog was given a bone and chained. The coal box was brought out from the wagon, and turned upside down for a table beside a fallen tree. When all was ready, I watched Pierre surprise the Artist. He put a napkin ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... the shore with a white light. Along with the new emotions that were choking him came an unaccustomed impulse ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... your ally. What an offer that is! Do not fight against Him. Do not contend against your best interests. Yield this morning to the best impulse of your heart, and that is toward Christ and heaven. Do not fight the Lord that made you and offers to ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... ministers. After what had happened in France it became fashionable to insult me; these people would have been afraid to seem to disapprove of what my persecutors had done by not imitating them. The 'classe' of Neuchatel, that is, the ministers of that city, gave the impulse, by endeavoring to move the council of state against me. This attempt not having succeeded, the ministers addressed themselves to the municipal magistrate, who immediately prohibited my book, treating me on all occasions with ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... characteristics—with well-formed breasts, menstruating freely and feminine in instincts—he says "mind." The intermediate grades consist, he says, of women whose metabolism leans toward the masculine type. Some have sexual desires but no maternal impulse. Others desire maternity but take no interest in sex activity, or positively shun it. The physical manifestations of masculine glandular activity take the form of pitch of voice, skin texture, shape and weight of bones, etc. Some of the inter-grades are ...
— Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard
... the graphic art, prophetically felt all his own future greatness, and cried out in rapture: 'And I, too, am a painter!' So a thorough-paced novel-reading miss, at the close of every tissue of hackneyed adventures, feels within herself the stirring impulse of corresponding genius, and triumphantly exclaims: 'And I, too, am an author!' The glutted imagination soon overflows with the redundance of cheap sentiment and plentiful incident, and, by a sort of arithmetical proportion, is enabled by the perusal of any three novels, to produce a ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... without aid. He sprang up and extended her his hand. Assuming an expression as if she were unconscious who was helping her, she took it, and he drew her up to his side. Then with a sudden, audacious impulse, half hoping she would not be angry, half reckless if she were, he clasped her closely in his arms, and kissed her lips. She gasped, ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... nevertheless O'Reilly felt a sudden impulse to make himself known to the Spaniard and to appeal directly for news of Rosa's fate. But Don Mario, he remembered in time, had a reputation for vindictiveness, so he smothered the desire. One other encounter O'Reilly ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... we must try to diminish as much as possible the mere instinctive and habitual and mechanical part of our lives, and to bring, as far as we can, every action under the conscious dominion of principle. The less we live by impulse, and the more we live by intelligent reflection, the better it will be for us. The more we can get habit on the side of goodness, the better; but the more we break up our habits, and make each individual action the result of ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling towards them but one of sympathy and friendship. It was not upon their impulse that their government acted in entering this war. It was not with their previous knowledge or approval. It was a war determined upon as wars used to be determined upon in the old, unhappy days when peoples were nowhere consulted by their rulers and wars ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... by cold rain, driving in from the bay and sweeping through the half budded woods. The tide went up St. John River with an impulse which flooded undiked lowlands, yet there was no storm dangerous to shipping. Some sails hung out there in the whirl of vapors with evident ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... how I do not know, but on the impulse of the moment I too sprang to meet it, so that its whole weight came upon the point of my spear, which was backed by my weight. The spear entered between its forelegs and such was the shock that I was knocked backwards. But when I regained ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... that had sent him to the polo grounds on the previous day. That impulse had been purely Mervian. No prince of that island had ever resisted a temptation. But it was America that was sending him now to meet his uncle with a quiet unconcern as to the outcome of the interview. The spirit of adventure was in him. It was ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... than I can bear; I have been marvellously restrained and helped; not unto us, O Lord! (2) I cannot forgive God for the suffering of others; when I look abroad upon His world and behold its cruel destinies, I turn from Him with disaffection; nor do I conceive that He will blame me for the impulse. But when I consider my own fates, I grow conscious of His gentle dealing: I see Him chastise with helpful blows, I feel His stripes to be caresses; and this knowledge is my comfort that reconciles me to the world. (3) ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for it too seemed spent and failing. "Ah!" thought I, "if I had two shillings and a sixpence instead of half-a-crown, how gladly should they have one-and-sixpence of it!" But still a wretched unbelief prevented me from obeying the impulse to relieve their distress at the ...
— A Retrospect • James Hudson Taylor
... and towards things above this world. No individual being is integral or independent; he is only part of an extensive piece of social mechanism. The inferior mind, full of rude energy and unregulated impulse, does not more require a superior nature to act as its master and its mentor, than does the superior nature require to be surrounded by such rough elements on which to exercise its high endowments as a ruling and tutelary power. ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... "My first impulse was to curse her and never see her again; but my old love for her could not be set aside, and pity soon took the place of anger. I could see that Pattmore had thrown a spell around her by his fascinating manners, and she was ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... troubled impulse, Ida drew her hand away from his, and snatched the blossoms out of her hair, meaning to throw them away. Then she hesitated, seeing her rudeness. Vibbard, who had not understood the movement, said ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... permitted myself to regret this abstinence, I experienced no sort of inconvenience from it. I wrote nothing but occasional magazine articles during pastime, find as I never wrote one except under strong impulse, I observed no lapse of facility. But by and by I sat down with a contract behind me to write a book of five or six hundred pages—the book called "Roughing it"— and then I found myself most seriously obstructed. ...
— Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade
... His first impulse was to catch Ned's arm, stoop down and hurry away to reach the shelter of the trees, ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... be Sim, and as danger was there, his first impulse was to run back to the help of the ladies and the resident. His second thought told him that he was unarmed, and such an act would be madness. It must take some time for an enemy to break into the place, and before then the soldiers ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... no greater nor more kindly and beneficent force in modern letters. To Scott, indeed, you owed the first impulse of your genius; but, once set in motion, what miracles could it not accomplish? Our dear Porthos was overcome, at last, by a super-human burden; but your imaginative strength never found a task too great for it. What an extraordinary vigour, what health, what an overflow of force was yours! ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... Demetrius. Now he stands before her alone. The little that was left of hope in her heart altogether vanishes on seeing him. An unknown something steps between them—Nature does not speak—they are separated forever. The first impulse is an endeavor to approach; Marfa is the first to make a movement to recede. Demetrius observes it, and remains for a ...
— Demetrius - A Play • Frederich Schiller
... ways and aware that in choosing one I should be renouncing all the others—for there is no turning back upon these roads of life; and once and again in such unique moments as these I have felt the impulse of a mighty power, conscious, sovereign and loving. And then, before the feet of the wayfarer, opens out the way of ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... result of a sense of duty, which has taken the Author from quieter studies during a great public crisis. He obeyed the impulse with joy, because it took the shape of verse; but with more pain, on some accounts, than he chooses to express. However, he has done what he conceived himself bound to do; and if every zealous lover of his species were to express his feelings in like manner, ...
— Captain Sword and Captain Pen - A Poem • Leigh Hunt
... Constantinople and in Athens, the spirit of the Reformers of his time took hold on Basil and, under the ascetic impulse, he visited the hermits of Arabia and Asia Minor, hoping to learn sanctity from them. He founded a convent in Pontus, which his mother and sister entered. After his ordination as "Presbyter." he was involved in the great Arian controversy, and the ability he showed ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... impulse that guided me. I wept, I prayed, and at last my mother consented, after having first sent for a so-called wise woman out of the hospital, that she might read my future fortune by the coffee-grounds ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen
... to their surprise, they found themselves in shallow water, and so waded ashore. Once on terra firma, they looked at one another from head to foot as if eyes could devour, then by one impulse flung each an arm round the other's neck, and panted there with hearts too full to speak. And at this sacred moment life was sweet as heaven to both; sweetest perhaps to the poor exiled lover, who had just saved his friend. Oh, joy to whose height what poet has ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... automobiles pouring down Sepulveda toward the San Diego Freeway, jockeying for position, shifting expertly from one lane to another to take advantage of every break in the traffic. This morning she felt only angry impatience; she choked back on the irritated impulse to drive directly into the side of a car that cut across in front of her, held her horn button down furiously when a slow-starting truck hesitated fractionally ...
— The Sound of Silence • Barbara Constant
... he was condemned, did tell Colonel Tomlinson, that he believed, that the English monarchy was now at an end: about half an hour after, he told the Colonel, "that now he had assurance by a strong impulse "on his spirit, that his ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... knew nor sought to know. We obeyed the impulse to love one another, as a bird obeys the impulse ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... Ministers and said: 'Don't bate a single atom of that Bill, or it will be impossible for any man to live in Ireland."' O'Connell called upon Lord Althorp, as the representative of the Government, to say what truth there was in this statement. Lord Althorp, taken by surprise, acted upon the impulse of the moment, which in his case was a feeling of reluctance to throw over poor Mr. Hill to be bullied by O'Connell and his redoubtable tail. After explaining that no set and deliberate communication of the nature ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... gave the impulse which enshrined the workings of the Cosmos in such graphic symbology as the above, we are not surprised to read in the Chaldaean Oracles ([Greek: logia]),[101] ascribed to Zoroaster, that "all things are generated from ...
— Simon Magus • George Robert Stow Mead |
