"Irresistibly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wear." To his friend, John Campbell Shairp, Arnold wrote, a few days later: "Thyrsis is a very quiet poem, but, I think, solid and sincere. It will not be popular, however. It had long been in my head to connect Clough with that Cumner country, and, when I began, I was carried irresistibly into this form. You say, truly, that there was much in Clough (the whole prophetic side, in fact) which one cannot deal with in this way.... Still, Clough had the idyllic side, too; to deal with this suited my desire to deal again with that Cumner country. ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... facts. So they picture the discarnate individuality as a material object, or physical event, of negligible but actual mass, in which an indefinite number of memories can be stored as electronic charges. And they picture it as being drawn irresistibly to the body of the nearest non-incarnated infant. Curiously enough, the reincarnation vehicle chosen is almost always of the same sex as the vehicle of the previous reincarnation, the exceptions being cases of persons who had a previous ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper
... One is here irresistibly reminded of the car of Juggernaut, and of the Hindoo fanatics throwing themselves beneath its wheels in the belief that they would thus obtain ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... mostly unanswerable. A plaintive need of happiness, melancholy, obscure, but recurrent, mixed in his fluctuating thoughts. Finally, it pursued him, haunted him, and caught him with the strange tenacity of an incorporeal grasp. Sara, now dethroned from her place of power, loomed in all his dreams. Irresistibly, he was drawn toward the forbidden recollection of her delightfulness. There seemed no longer any danger in these musings. He had entrusted his actual life to the safe-keeping of the nicest woman he had ever known. Where then was ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... Roger also went the oppressive loneliness which had gripped Carrigan, and as he stood listening to the low voices outside, the undeniable truth came to him that he did not hate this man as he wanted to hate him. He was a murderer, and a scoundrel in another way, but he felt irresistibly the impulse to like him and to feel sorry for him. He made an effort to shake off the feeling, but a small voice which he could not quiet persisted in telling him that more than one good man had committed what the law called murder, and that perhaps he didn't fully understand what he had seen ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... I was not at my ease with her—I was not drawn to her irresistibly, as I had felt drawn to her daughter. Those dark, steady, heavy-lidded eyes of hers seemed to be looking straight into my heart, and surprising all my secrets. To say that I actually distrusted and disliked her would be far from the truth. Distrust and dislike would have protected me, ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... don't know; but we have had a dreadful experience, whatever." And presently Valmai began to hum "By Berwen Banks," Cardo irresistibly joining in with his musical bass, and once again the old ballad floated down the valley and filled ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... her for a while and then, irresistibly, inevitably, he was drawn down beside her; his arm crept around the bowed shoulders and he pressed his cheek against fragrant curls. "Flamby," he said, "dear little wild-haired Flamby. The sorrow of the world has claimed us both. Let us both be brave—and ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... poets have often nothing poetical about them except their verses. Jacobi said that, "when a man has fully expressed his thought, he has somewhat less possession of it." One would say, the rule is,—What a man is irresistibly urged to say, helps him and us. In explaining his thought to others, he explains it to himself: but when he opens it for show, ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... continual agony for me by my writing. A young author, especially if at first he does not make a success, feels clumsy, ill-at-ease, and superfluous in the world. His nerves are all on edge and stretched to the point of breaking; he is irresistibly attracted to literary and artistic people, and hovers about them unknown and unnoticed, fearing to look them bravely in the eye, like a man with a passion for gambling, whose money is all gone. I did not know my readers, but ...
— The Sea-Gull • Anton Checkov
... help the reader. The most important canon is: Do not mix your orders of birds; that is to say, abstain from surrounding a hawk tearing its prey, with various birds in all attitudes, placidly ignoring the existence of their enemy. A scene of this kind irresistibly reminds me of the stage "aside," when the villain of the piece audibly proclaims vengeance against the unconscious hero but two yards away on ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... her labors. But now the object of her search was once more removed, and a new journey more fatiguing than the others was set before her. Could she bear it?—she who even now felt the old weakness, and something even worse, coming back irresistibly upon her. Could she, indeed, bear another journey? This question she put to herself half hopelessly; but almost immediately her resolute soul asserted itself, and proudly answered it. Bear such a journey? Ay, this journey she could bear, and not only this, but many more. ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... appeared, why should his verdict now be changed or withheld? All the facts about the eye, which convinced him that the organ was designed, remain just as they were. His conviction was not produced through testimony or eyewitness, but design was irresistibly inferred from the evidence of contrivance in the ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... imperious, which one bears within one's self, within one's instinct, which spring up and develop from one hour to the other, which come from the depths of time and the race, invade the blood, the muscles and the nerves and suddenly assert themselves more irresistibly and more powerfully than pain, the word of the master himself, or the ...
— Our Friend the Dog • Maurice Maeterlinck
... well known that the sacred fire of fashion burns—or is supposed to burn—in Belgravia alone. Its warmth drew her irresistibly. Bayswater became too cold to hold her, and early in the following year it was announced that a large house in the purlieus of Grosvenor Square had been purchased by her husband. However, she was content to climb by degrees, and, in her first season ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 18, 1891 • Various
... was extremely fond of bright objects. A bit of glass or tin glittering in the light would draw him irresistibly. And one night this attraction led him into serious trouble. At dawn Ringtail was still absent, and as the morning passed and he did not return, the Hermit grew uneasy. Pal, too, seemed to miss his playmate. He wandered aimlessly about and at ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... epileptic, in whom the malady, instead of manifesting itself suddenly in strange muscular contortions or terrible spasms, develops slowly in continual brain irritation, which causes the individual thus affected to reproduce the ferocious egotism natural to primitive savages, irresistibly bent on ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... good things in wit or poetry: she was famed among her friends as a punster and parodist, and once answered at a dinner to a question what wine they used, "Oh, we drink Heidsick, but we keep mum." An irresistibly taking and womanly remark of hers, disposing in its own way of whole schemes of Calvinistic theology, was her reply to the argument for endless punishment: "Well, if God ever sends me into such misery, I know He will give me a constitution to bear it." Again, as the least laborious of the sisters, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... about their lunch-baskets. A young gentleman, the comedian of the patty, the life of the church sociable, had put on the hat of one of the girls, and was making himself so irresistibly funny in it that all the girls tittered, and their mothers looked a little ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the sword-fish makes his attack,—by rushing irresistibly upon his prey, and impaling it on his long, slender beak,— is full of risk to himself; for should his "sword" come in contact with the sides of a ship, or any substance of sufficient strength to withstand his impetuous "thrust," the chances are that the weapon either ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... the value to that cost. So here again we see the nature of an economic law: the value may not often correspond exactly with cost of production, but there is a tendency in all values to conform to that cost, and this tendency they irresistibly obey. A body possessing weight does not move downward under all circumstances (stones may be thrown upward), but the law of ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... they hardly seem to have the basis on which to build, much less the material to put up anything worth having. Only a few nations, and those of European origin, advance; and yet these think—seem irresistibly compelled to think—such advance to be inevitable, natural, and eternal. Why then is this great contrast? Before we can answer, we must investigate more accurately. No doubt history shows that most nations are stationary now; but it affords ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... This being promised, he left the room, and presently brought in Helen. She was precisely as Homer has described her, when she stood by the side of Priam on the walls of Troy, looking on the Grecian chiefs. Her features were irresistibly attractive; and her full, moist lips were redder than the summer cherries. Faustus shortly after obliged his guests with her bust in marble, from which several copies were taken, no one knowing the name of ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... aim here is to trace back the art of needlework to its beginning, without turning my eyes to the right or the left, though I cannot help feeling myself drawn aside almost irresistibly by casual glimpses of architecture, sculpture, and painting, which here and there touch very ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... itself irresistibly suggests the duality of flesh and spirit. It is the removal of the energizing mind that leaves the frame so empty and meaningless. Think of the undreaming sleep of a corpse which dissolution is winding in its chemical embrace. A moment ago that hand was uplifted to clasp yours, intelligent ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... VIII. had established absolutism in England, and Maximilian had done the same for Germany, while even the Italian republics, were being gathered into the hands of larger sovereignties. From this distance in time it is easy to see the prevailing direction in which all the nations were being irresistibly drawn. ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... a way of repeating his remarks, while his radiant face was all aglow with his hearty good-humor, that was irresistibly contagious in itself. His jovial kindness won every heart, and he was almost idolized ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis
... unique of men, for having sent me your scores of "Rhinegold" and the "Valkyrie." The work has for me the fabulous attractive power of the magnet mountain, which fetters irresistibly the ship and the sailor. H. has been with me for a few days, and I was unable to withhold from him the joy of viewing Valhall. So he tinkles and hammers the orchestra on the piano, while I howl, and groan, and roar the vocal parts; this by way of prelude to OUR great ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... the contrary, everything to attract in the look and manner of the person whose mere presence seemed to exercise such a curiously constraining influence over the wedding-party. Louis Trudaine was a remarkably handsome man. His expression was singularly kind and gentle; his manner irresistibly winning in its frank, manly firmness and composure. His words, when he occasionally spoke, seemed as unlikely to give offense as his looks; for he only opened his lips in courteous reply to questions directly addressed to him. Judging by a latent mournfulness in ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... moment—-an interval of time during which the torpedo from the American submarine and the German cruiser seemed irresistibly drawn toward each other. And then came the crash—-the impact of the torpedo's war-nose against the steel side of the cruiser, the detonation of the powerful explosive, the rending of ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... mere existence has provided a solid basis for the nebular hypothesis, and their spiral form irresistibly suggests that they are whirling round on their central axis and concentrating. Further, we find in some of the gaseous nebulae (Orion) comparatively void spaces occupied by stars, which seem to have absorbed the nebulous matter in their ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... mane, powerful forequarters, and high stepping action, Mora was irresistibly reminded of the scene in the courtyard at the Nunnery, when the Bishop rode in on his favourite white palfrey, she standing at the top of the steps to receive him. Never again would she stand so, to receive the Bishop; never again would Icon proudly carry him. The ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... that it owes to this alone the peculiar certainty supposed to distinguish it; and that in any science whatever, by reasoning from a set of hypotheses, we may obtain a body of conclusions as certain as those of geometry, that is, as strictly in accordance with the hypotheses, and as irresistibly compelling assent, on condition ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... of the tulip-pots, are absolute facts. Naturally Jokai's splendid fancy has gorgeously embellished the plain narrative of the Turkish chroniclers. Such a subject as Halil's strange career must irresistibly have appealed to an author who is nothing if not vivid and romantic, and ever delights in startling contrasts. On the other hand, the unique episode of Guel-Bejaze, "The White Rose," and her terrible ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... we have all the world love us, we must first then love all the world,—merely a great scientific fact. Why is it that all people instinctively dislike and shun the little, the mean, the self-centred, the selfish, while all the world instinctively, irresistibly, loves and longs for the company of the great-hearted, the tender-hearted, the loving, the magnanimous, the sympathetic, the brave? The mere answer—because—will not satisfy. There is a deep, scientific reason for it, either this ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine
... What there is in either of the two Spanish monarchs to liken him to the Knight of La Mancha it is difficult to see. Those who have looked upon that wonderful equestrian picture of Titian's in the Museo at Madrid, with its weird, weary, far-off expression, are irresistibly led to think of Don Quixote; but the converse is by no means so clear that on looking at Don Quixote we are tempted to think of that most unromantic of monarchs, Carlos Quinto.[15] His son is still more unlike his supposed portrait. As to the Duke of Lerma, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... more amenable to May senior, and having been put in mind by him of his home, was not ashamed to bring the thought to the aid of his eyes, when, on Sunday, during a long sermon of Mr. Ramsden's, he knew that Axworthy was making the grimace which irresistibly incited him to make ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... a single homogeneous race, working without rivals, without obstacles, without contests, for they seem everywhere to have been free to choose what sites they would for their gigantic structures. And we are irresistibly led to believe that these conditions must have endured throughout a vast extent of time, for no nation which does not look back to a distant past will plan for a distant future. The spiritual sweep and view of the cromlech-builders are, therefore, as great ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... large Genie-gift of Imitation as he had. With him the excess of this power took a very natural turn, for though he possessed through its aid, considerable facilities for music and the study of languages also, the course of events led him irresistibly to what is usually called "the fine arts." And if the old dream of the royal chariot and the twelve jet black horses was never realized to him, a higher happiness by far was his, when some years after, he and his Mother stood in the council house ...
— The Fairy Godmothers and Other Tales • Mrs. Alfred Gatty
... the same spasms, convulsions, and painful racking of the limbs which accompany such cases of this personation as are not designed deceptions. Even those accidentally present, when the effects of the ancient contagion were exhibited, became infected and were irresistibly impelled to join in the extravagance. Look at Miss Turligood and Mr. Stellato, and see if the parallel is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... Cupid must have been a woman, certainly he could ask no more deadly weapon for shattering the hearts of men. Her hair is comical. It is yellow gold, but it sticks straight out in every direction. It is the most aggravatingly, irresistibly defiant hair you ever saw in your life. It makes you kiss it, and brush it, and soak it in water, and shake Julia for having it, and then fall in love ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... it, my friend," retorted Dick. "I grant you that the water looks almost irresistibly tempting, and I have no doubt that a swim would be amazingly refreshing—if we could only be sure of going in and coming out again unharmed. But who knows what dangers may be lurking beneath that sparkling surface? The ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... they have wine to drink? she wondered. A momentary self-distrust seized her in the matter of table-manners; but she shook it off. She would watch what Gaga did. She mustn't drink too much. She must mind her step. Then, irresistibly: "What a lark!" murmured Sally. She was very demure upon Miss Summers' return, and listened with equanimity to a few remarks made by Miss Summers as to the capacity of Miss Rapson. In reality her thoughts were occupied with speculations as to the entertainment which lay ahead. So Gaga ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... her beautiful silvery light on the aged tree-tops above the crag, and flickering on the splendid foliage at the corners of the several paths, all of which ended here, some with one tree, some with a group of trees. On all sides the eye was irresistibly led along their vanishing perspectives, following the curve of a wood-path or the solemn stretch of a forest glade flanked by a wall of verdure that was nearly black. The moonlight, filtering through the branches of the crossways, made the lonely, tranquil waters, where they peeped ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... opinion," he said, "yet others immediately associated with them, and sharing in the strong inducement which prompted the crime, survive, occupying high positions and enjoying public confidence. To these persons, should my proof be submitted, public attention would be irresistibly drawn."[131] ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... thinking to herself: "No, my daughter shall not be ruined—but he! My daughter shall have the name, the title, and the fortune. If she should some day discover that she does not love him, that she loves another, irresistibly, Paul shall be driven out of France! My daughter shall be ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... farther, and soon after went softly back again; which, as it happened, was very well for him in the end. I observed that the two who swam were yet more than twice as long swimming over the creek than the fellow was that fled from them. It came very warmly upon my thoughts, and indeed irresistibly, that now was the time to get me a servant, and perhaps a companion or assistant; and that I was plainly called by Providence to save this poor creature's life. I immediately ran down the ladder with all possible expedition, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... older movements of the world, that sees all pre-existing formulae and political constitutions and political parties and organizations rather as instruments or obstacles than as guiding lines and precedents for its new developing will, its will which will carry it at last irresistibly to the conscious and deliberate making of the future of man. "We are here to get better births and a better result from the births we get; each one of us is going to set himself immediately to that, using whatever power he finds to his hand," such is the form its will must take. ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... maintaining our engagement," she said, looking irresistibly beautiful, "I may be your true and faithful wife, Sir Percival—your loving wife, if I know ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... and the towers of the two Houses of Parliament rising up into the smoky canopy, the thinner substance of which obscured a mass of things, and hovered about the objects that were most distinctly visible,—a glorious and sombre picture, dusky, awful, but irresistibly attractive, like a young man's dream of the great world, foretelling at that distance a grandeur never ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... age, he was a great walker, even when there was no question of grouse or golf—he would naturally take this path. Some strong mingled impulse had placed her there, on his road. The attraction for her of his presence, his smile, his character was irresistibly increasing. There were many days when she was restless and the world was empty till he came. And yet there were other days when she was quite cold to him; when the thought of giving her life into his hands made her cry "impossible"; when it seemed to her, as she had said to Waggin, that ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... pattering hail, and the congealed streams, we had the blue sky, the vernal zephyr, and the genial sunshine; the stream murmuring with a broader wave, as if making up for the season spent in the fetters of congelation; and that luxurious flow of the spirits, which irresistibly comes over the heart, at the ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... beautiful than Eudoxia. An infinite magic of youth and loveliness, of purity and energy, was shed over her regular features. She had the traits of a Hebe, and the form of a Juno. When she smiled and displayed her dazzlingly white teeth, she was irresistibly charming. When, in a serious mood, she raised her large dark eyes, full of nobleness and spirit, then might people fall at her feet with adoration. Countess Lapuschkin had often been compared and ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... animal, Nebsecht, is it that you feel in yourself, but God. Goodness is the most beautiful attribute of the divine, and you have always been well-disposed towards great and small; but I ask you, have you ever before felt so irresistibly impelled to pour out an ocean of goodness on another being, whether for Uarda you would not more joyfully and more self-forgetfully sacrifice all that you have, and all that you are, than to father and mother and your ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... white men and black both North and South, which were spoken from platforms and pulpits and printed in newspapers and periodicals throughout the length and breadth not only of America but the world, there are two which we feel irresistibly compelled to use in concluding this chapter and book. One is the tribute of a former student, Isaac Fisher, president of the Tuskegee Alumni Association, speaking for the graduates at the memorial exercises held at Tuskegee on December 12, 1915; the other is the tribute of one of his ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... causes of the Revolution in America, both the general fundamental cause, consisting in the factor newly introduced into social evolution by the enlightenment of the masses and irresistibly tending to equality, and the immediate local causes peculiar to America, which account for the Revolution having come at the particular time it did and for its taking the particular course it did. Now, ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... Assembly, disobeyed or submissive, appears the real monarch, the people—that is to say, a crowd of a hundred, a thousand, a hundred thousand individuals gathered together at random, on an impulse, on an alarm, suddenly and irresistibly made legislators, judges, and executioners. A formidable power, undefined and destructive, on which no one has any hold, and which, with its mother, howling and misshapen Liberty, sits at the threshold of the Revolution ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... as true to nature as it is artistically effective. For it is known that violent emotion irresistibly compels us to heap together similar sounds. Several subtle and probably unconscious instances of it are given by Peile from the Idyllic poets; but as a rule it is true of Greek as it is of English, French, and Italian poetry, ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... dancing, she swayed and bent, and imprinted on our cheeks the kiss of welcome. Some of the songs, or himines, were religious, and they were especially beautiful, the deep basses of the men mingling with the altos and thin sopranos of the women and forming a combination of sound that irresistibly reminded one of an organ. In fact, "kanaka organ" is the scoffer's description of the himine. On the other hand, some of the chants or ballads were very barbaric, having come down ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... the door, he sprang across grasping his flask, but Sweyn dashed between, and caught him back irresistibly, so that a most frantic effort only availed to wrench one arm free. With that, on the impulse of sheer despair, he cast at her with all his force. The door swung behind her, and the flask flew into fragments against it. Then, as Sweyn's grasp slackened, and he met the questioning astonishment ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... imagine a very heavy weight let somewhat gradually, but irresistibly, down upon young and tender shoulders, then gently lifted again, little by little, by a sympathizing and unlooked-for helper, and lastly tossed by him unexpectedly into the air, only to fall back with redoubled weight, and crush the frame that was but bowed before, you can form ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... have addressed some soothing flatteries to Boabdil, but the emotion and excitement were too much for her compassionate heart, heroine and queen though she was; and when she lifted her eyes upon the calm and pale features of the fallen monarch, the tears gushed from them irresistibly, and her voice died in murmurs. A faint flush overspread the features of Boabdil, and there was a momentary pause of embarrassment, which the Moor ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... Burns, M.D." was the brief inscription above the table of "office hours," and the owner of the name invariably so curtailed it. But among his friends the full name had inevitably been turned into the nickname, for the big, red-haired, quick-tempered, warm-hearted fellow was "Red Pepper Burns" as irresistibly to them as he had been, a decade earlier, to his ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... another of her old companions; and there was something in the expression of that countenance, a blending of the highest and loftiest emotions, with all the social tenderness in which woman finds her chief earthly happiness, so irresistibly attractive, that he who could turn away coldly or unmoved, must indeed be a cynic, if not the veriest stoic that ...
— Woman As She Should Be - or, Agnes Wiltshire • Mary E. Herbert
... from him, and confused ideas again ascended to his brain. As the dawn appeared, yellowishly dirty, like a splash of liquid mud on the window-panes, he started, fancying that he heard a loud voice calling to him from the far end of the studio. Then, irresistibly, despite a few brief hours' forgetfulness, all his old thoughts returned, overflowing and torturing him, hollowing his cheeks and contracting his jaws in the disgust he felt for mankind. Two wrinkles imparted intense bitterness to the expression of his face, which looked like the wasted ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... which comprises one fifth of the atmosphere, is said to be highly magnetic; and any ordinary, healthy soul can extract magnetism enough from the very air he breathes to draw at least one other soul. Some people have an amazing power of absorption and retention of this magnetism. You feel irresistibly drawn toward them—and it is all right, for they are noble, true souls. There is a great difference between their attractive force and that kind of 'power of charming' innocence that villainy often has—just as ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... no decent excuse for deserting the old place, and so came back. My intention was to sit up the greater part of the night arranging papers in the library. The days are long now, and I thought I might go to bed when morning broke. I was irresistibly sleepy, however, and went up to my room soon after one o'clock. I was determined to think of nothing unpleasant, and got quickly into bed, taking the precaution first to lock the door. I placed the key under my pillow, and, being very tired, soon fell into a heavy sleep. I awoke ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade
... composition of States. It will be found to have stamped itself on all the great departments of jurisprudence, and may be detected, I think, as the true source of many of their most important and most durable characteristics. At the outset, the peculiarities of law in its most ancient state lead us irresistibly to the conclusion that it took precisely the same view of the family group which is taken of individual men by the systems of rights and duties now prevalent throughout Europe. There are societies open to our ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... there existed of all being able to find the means to please themselves. But these were no more than the moral blotches that usually disfigure human commendation. The sentiment and the sympathies of the mass were powerfully and irresistibly enlisted in favor of the unknown maiden—feelings that were very unequivocally manifested as she drew nearer the estrade, walking timidly through a dense lane of bodies, all of which were pressing eagerly forward to get a better ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... Southern History of the War. After a later survey of the war-literature, Mr. Greeley felt justified in the candid claim that his work "is one of the clearest statements yet made of the long chain of causes which led irresistibly to the war for the Union, showing why that war was the righteous and natural consequence of the American people's general and guilty compliance in the crime of ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... to nobler sentiments, and he received their admonition gratefully. Circe aided their departure, and instructed them how to pass safely by the coast of the Sirens. The Sirens were sea-nymphs who had the power of charming by their song all who heard them, so that the unhappy mariners were irresistibly impelled to cast themselves into the sea to their destruction. Circe directed Ulysses to fill the ears of his seamen with wax, so that they should not hear the strain; and to cause himself to be bound to the mast, and his people to be strictly enjoined, whatever he might say or do, by ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... union, in which workers of all crafts and occupations, from clerks and railway porters to locomotive drivers and fitters, are organized in a single union of the entire industry. There is work enough for many years to some of the old Fabian kind in these directions; and this work will irresistibly reunite the disputants instead of perpetuating a quarrel in which, like most of the quarrels which the Society has survived, there was nothing ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease
... again on this late summer's afternoon, could fail to mark the additional charm of her magnetic personality. There was a tenderness in her face as she turned her head to and fro, a joy of living in her eyes that was quite irresistibly fascinating. ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... searching in his own way for what was missing, and turned to the perceptible world outside man. Here he came, all unexpectedly, upon ... electricity. Scarcely was electricity discovered than it drew human scientific thinking irresistibly into its own realm. Thereby man found himself, with a consciousness completely blind to dynamics, within a sphere of only too real dynamic forces. The following description will show what results this has had ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... fresh, and innocently joyful at his own transformation, while a lurking doubt in the bottom of his eyes, now and then, that it might not last, and that he must go underground again, lent him a look of pathos and humour which tickled his youthful companion irresistibly, and made his heart ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... him back to the class-room, sternly desiring two or three boys, who attempted to follow, to stay behind. Louis did not make any resistance, and Hamilton, after locking the door and putting the key into his pocket, brought him irresistibly to the front of the fire, and, placing him with his back against the table, opposite the assembled group, desired him, under pain of instant punishment, to remain where ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... her; I thought, as I was rubbing the thing down with the apron, while she held it, that I had found one of her soft dimpled hands, and I gave the luckless turkey such a tender pressure that it uttered a miserable squeak and departed this life. Melindy all but cried. I laughed irresistibly. So there were no more turkeys. Peggy began to wonder what they should do for the proper Thanksgiving dinner, and Peter turned restlessly on his sofa, quite convinced that everything was going to rack and ruin because he had ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... me, gradually increasing in quickness and volume with an irresistibly definite progression. When it was quite near the sound began to move in my nerves and blood, to urge me ...
— Synge And The Ireland Of His Time • William Butler Yeats
... {larval stage}, the process of becoming a hacker was largely unconscious and unaffected by models known in popular culture —- communities formed spontaneously around people who, *as individuals*, felt irresistibly drawn to do hackerly things, and what wannabees experienced was a fairly pure, skill-focused desire to become similarly wizardly. Those days of innocence are gone forever; society's adaptation to the advent of the microcomputer ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... the Kansas and shook her from stem to stern. The ship groaned and creaked as though she were in pain; she staggered an instant, and then swung irresistibly forward with a fierce plunge that made the plates dance and cutlery ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... them, but faith had taught her to see in those past crosses, only valuable opportunities of practising virtue and acquiring merit, therefore she gave the apprehension of their renewal no place in her deliberations. The interior attraction which sweetly but irresistibly urged her to devote herself all to God,—this it was which determined her to embrace a life of entire seclusion in the world, as soon as her affairs should be arranged. In forming her plans, she can scarcely ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... evening, in Egeria's grotto; and spoke of the absolute despair, in which he was plunged, seeing the better course, yet unable to pursue it; aiming at virtue, yet forced by his fatal oath to follow vice; marking clearly before him the beacon light of happiness and honour, yet driven irresistibly into the gulf of misery, crime, and destruction. He told her of Lucia's visit to his house; how she released him from his fatal oath! disclaimed all right to his affection, nay! to his respect, even, and esteem! encouraged him ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... figure wants. He looks at me with the tenderest and gentlest eyes (of a light brown) that I ever saw in the countenance of a man. His smile is rare and sweet; his manner, perfectly quiet and retiring, has yet a latent persuasiveness in it which is (to women) irresistibly winning. He just halts a little in his walk, from the effect of an injury received in past years, when he was a soldier serving in India, and he carries a thick bamboo cane, with a curious crutch handle (an old favorite), to help himself along whenever he ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... at this interruption; and as Stewart irresistibly drew her glance she saw him gray-faced as ashes, ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... so much interested in what was on the island as they were in what was beyond it. The ocean—the great dark, mysterious ocean drew their eyes irresistibly and set their minds to wandering. And as the days passed they were to feel the spell of ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... recollections and sympathies, are a thing unknown. Impatience, weariness, a clinging to the past, a vain wish to prolong it in an earthly future,—these are the things which shall befal us then: and they will befal us too surely, and too irresistibly, unless, by earlier watchfulness and prayer, we may have been enabled to avoid them. For vain will it be, with faculties at once weakened by the decay of nature and perverted by long habits of worldliness, to essay, ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... The danger of arguing from the former kind of infinitude to the latter can not be overstated. God alone possesses Qualitative Infinity, which is strictly synonymous with absolute perfection; and the neglect of the distinction between this and Quantitative Infinity, leads irresistibly to pantheistic and materialistic notions. Spinozism is possible only by the elevation of 'infinite extension' to the dignity of a divine attribute. Dr. Samuel Clarke's identification of God's immensity ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... Willis carefully scanned the horizon as the boat rose upon the summit of the waves; but seeing nothing, he at last leapt down again with an expression of rage that, under other circumstances, would have been irresistibly comic. Abandoning the direction of the pinnace, he went and sat down on a bulk-head, and covered his face with his hands, in an attitude ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... Trevanion; then, dropping her voice, she added, "why do you desert us so wilfully?" and, leaning her hand on my arm, I was drawn irresistibly into the lobby. The young loungers at the door made way for us, and eyed me, ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... handwriting so different from any other which she had ever examined, her thoughts were irresistibly carried back to that morning when, at the shop, she saw this handwriting for the first time on the blank leaf of the Dante; and she recalled the shuddering aversion with which her grandfather had glanced at it, and advised her to commit it to the ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... that I stood in the centre of a lunar rainbow, and that I was gazing on the reflection of myself in the mist. As I moved my arms, my body, or my head, the ghostlike figure moved, and I felt myself irresistibly changing my postures—oddly and nervously at first—then, with an awakening sense of the ridiculous in my actions—so as to make my image change and do as I did. I felt like a child placed for the first time in front of ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... the pike, and cleared it at a bound. Once the Cologne Diligence stopped the way: he charged the Diligence, he knocked off the cap of the conductor on the roof, and yet galloped wildly, madly, furiously, irresistibly on! Brave horse! gallant steed! snorting child of Araby! On went the horse, over mountains, rivers, turnpikes, apple-women; and never stopped until he reached a livery-stable in Cologne where his master was accustomed ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... had us. Morton's lamentable figure, as he stood motionless in the midst of the pool, drenched with water, and with a great patch of black mud plastered over one eye, together with Max's look of consternation at his own narrow escape, were irresistibly ludicrous, and provoked a laugh, in which, after a moment, they ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... pocket and her ideals, begin to shop again. She has renounced the theatre, she denies herself the teo-rooms, she goes apologetically and furtively (and economically) to concerts—but the swinging doors of the department stores suck her irresistibly into their quicksand of remnants ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... you, Mr. Baxter, facing it. (Yes, Mr. Jamieson, you may turn round freely, so long as you keep your hands upon the table.) Now, if you feel anything resembling sleep or unconsciousness coming upon you irresistibly, Mr. Baxter, I wish you just lightly to tap Mrs. Stapleton's hand. She will then, if necessary, break up the circle. Give the signal directly you feel the sensation is really coming on, or if you find it very ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... sons of God, and coworkers with him; we give ourselves to him without bargaining and without expectation; we follow Jesus, not because this is well, but because we can do no otherwise, because we feel that he has loved us and we love him in our turn. An inward flame draws us irresistibly toward him: Et Spiritus et Sponsa ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... will give a good footing. Intent upon the flight of my flies, I took the step without care. But the yellow patch under the brown water was not gravel; it was the face of a rock polished smoother than glass. Gently, slowly, irresistibly, and with deep indignation I subsided backward into the cold pool. The rubber boots filled with water and the immersion was complete. Then I stood up and got the trout. When I returned to the camp-fire, the others ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... of laughing or even of smiling when this point in the play is reached, the difference between Desdemona's anguish at the loss of Othello's love, and Emilia's recollection of the noble matches she might have secured, would be irresistibly ludicrous. ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... thickets soon of course resounded with their plaintive cries. A mother wolf who was sleeping there came out to see what was the matter. Now a mother, of whatever race, is irresistibly drawn by an instinct, if incapable of a sentiment, of affection, to love and to cherish any thing that is newly born. The wolf caressed the helpless babes, imagining perhaps that they were her own offspring; and lying down by their side she cherished ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott |
