"Impulse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... passed over in silence she found in her nature an unaccountable pique, which steadily grew to unrest. She ventured and turned back on the woods path leading to St. James many times, each time daring farther. The impulse to go to St. James came on her at waking, and she resisted through busy hours of the day. But the family often had tasks from which Emeline was free, and when the desire grew unendurable she knelt at her secluded bedside ...
— The King Of Beaver, and Beaver Lights - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... known that the officer who accompanied Popova was the celebrated Koldo, chief of the secret service, no doubt the impulse to retreat to his apartment and get behind the bed canopies would have been stronger. He knew, however, that no detective of analytical methods would expect to find the criminal standing at his elbow, so he followed the two over to the office and ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... answer, someone else claimed his attention, and Paul was left alone. He took his bag and looked around, then, seeing the notice, "Left Luggage Office," he acted upon impulse, and left his portmanteau there, after which he went out into the streets. He had missed the connection at Bristol, and, the later train having been delayed, it was now past ten o'clock. He had bought some sandwiches on his way, so he did not feel hungry. ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... arch with frightful impetuosity. As I gazed upon the eddies of the whirlpool, I thought within myself how soon human life would become extinct there; a plunge, a convulsive flounder, and all would be over. When I last stood over that abyss I had felt a kind of impulse—a fascination: I had resisted it—I did not plunge into it. At present I felt a kind of impulse to plunge; but the impulse was of a different kind; it proceeded from a loathing of life. I looked wistfully at the ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... became so much a matter-of-course that when anything unusual occurred in the company our first impulse was to ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... talks not as Clarkson or Wilberforce, but as a public man, of "emancipating slaves," of eliminating slavery and drunkenness from the land; at the same time he speaks thus not as a politician shrewdly anticipating the coming popular impulse, but as one desiring to stir that impulse. When he said, in his manifesto in 1832, that he had "no other ambition so great as that of being truly esteemed by his fellow-men," he uttered words which in the mouths of most ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... window, where I gave him orders 'to set out for the head-quarters of Prince Jerome,' and without losing an hour to bring me a report of the siege of Breslau." Such it is to come in the way of Emperors. "The poor fellow was scarcely gone," adds Napoleon, "when I repented of my angry impulse; and I should certainly have recalled him, had I not remembered at the same minute that his presence with Jerome would be useful to me." And this was the conduct of a man then in the highest position of life, whose example ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... brooding over this defeat, which had rankled as a poisoned arrow in his breast ever since that melancholy morning we had marched away from the Great Meadows with the French on either side and the Indians looting the baggage in the rear. As we reached my quarters, we turned by a common impulse and continued onward ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... longed to improve themselves, and yet were prevented from doing so by the pernicious habits prevailing in the home, where everybody else spent the evenings talking and joking, with no effort at self-improvement, no thought of higher ideals, no impulse to read anything better than a cheap, exciting story. The aspiring members of the family were teased and laughed at until they got discouraged ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... crushed by the superstition and bigotry of the times. In the fourteenth century even, the most celebrated university in Europe, that of Bologna, bestowed its chief honors upon the professorship of astrology. But these grand developments in art and science gave a new impulse to social life. Thenceforward the interests of education began to thrive. The patronage given to popular instruction by many of the rulers of European States has imparted a lustre to their annals, which will ...
— Reflections on the Operation of the Present System of Education, 1853 • Christopher C. Andrews
... with his hands behind him, thinking back, the girls knew well, over the years. A mournful quiet was in his face. They could follow for a little way the cause of his sad thoughts, and were willing, each in her own degree of impulse, to block him in it, make running incursions into the road, twitch him by the coat and cry, "Listen to us. Talk to us. You can't go there where you were going. That's the road to hateful memories. Listen to that bird and tell ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... constant uproar, owing to his noisy jesting, and like a noted old Scottish judge he would have his joke when the life of a human being was hanging in the balance. Even on his own deathbed he could not resist the impulse. On hearing that his friend Lord Erne was also nearing his end at the same time, he called for his valet: "James," said Lord Norbury, "run round to Lord Erne and tell him with my compliments that it will ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... discontent became contagious. The people of Boston already spoke of refusing the fleet admission into their port; the generals drew up a protestation, which M. de Lafayette refused to sign. Carried away by an impulse of passion, Sullivan inserted in an order "that our allies have abandoned us." His ill humour was encouraged by Hancock, a member of congress, formerly its president, and who then commanded the militia ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... France, any more than he will buy an article of furniture or china, or a coin, emanating from a less favoured soil; nor will he willingly acquire even a volume of native origin in any state but the orthodox morocco; but his first impulse and act, if he does so under protest, is to strip and re-clothe the disreputable article, and have it put into habiliments worthy of the cabinet choisi ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... was almost as great as his. In a few moments she firmly believed he was dying. Unable to withstand her impulse, she knelt down beside him, kissed his hands and his face and his hair, exclaiming, in a low voice, "How could I? ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... yielded to all the fatal incitements of Morok, yet received a fearful blow, when he learned, by the mute avowal of Cephyse, the infidelity, of this creature, whom he had loved in spite of degradation. The first impulse of Jacques was terrible. Notwithstanding his weakness and exhaustion, he succeeded in rising from his seat, and, with a countenance contracted by rage and despair, he seized a knife, before they had time to prevent him, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... pestilent young cub of an Englishman to be got rid of? That was the question that worried Alvaros during the greater part of that night and the whole of the next day. The first impulse of the Spaniard was to deprive the Montijo family of his (Alvaros') countenance and society until, alarmed at the loss, they should dismiss the cause of it: but upon further reflection he came to the conclusion ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... ceases. No doubt this last sentence had given the last impulse towards addressing the old Balliol friend above named, now Principal of ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the furniture showed empty, and from floor to ceiling sadness filled the little room that seemed to Rodolphe vaster than a desert. Stepping forward he struck his foot against the parcels containing the things belonging to Mademoiselle Mimi, and he felt an impulse of joy to find that she had not yet come to fetch them as she had told him in the morning she would do. Rodolphe felt that, despite all his struggles, the moment of reaction was at hand, and readily divined that a cruel night was to expiate all the bitter mirth ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... that there was no money to buy with, David's first impulse had been to bring several of the gold-pieces the next time he came; but upon second thoughts David decided that he did not dare. He was not wishing to be called a thief a second time. It would be better, he concluded, to bring some food from ...
— Just David • Eleanor H. Porter
... shutters closed. No booted feet appeared below the curtains, no living eyes rolled awfully in the portrait of the salmon-coloured saint upon the wall. Yet the rustling and rasping went on, and with one impulse the defenders of sleeping innocence made for the ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... the Scriptures in reference to natural things, which are supposed to be inconsistent with the teachings of modern science. They are, in our view, of no moment whatever. Men writing or speaking under divine impulse, with a view to the promotion of religion or righteousness, would be sure, when they alluded to natural things, to speak of them according to the ideas of their times. Their geography, their astronomy, and even their historical ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... singular-looking people in their equally singular boats, and no wonder! Years and the ages had slipped away and never yet had any people but their own kind appeared on their horizon. Opposition was the natural impulse, and they signed for the Spaniards to go back, threatening attack. The effect of this on Alarcon was a command to anchor the boats out of reach in the middle of the river, though the rapidly augmenting numbers ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... are other reasons, of course—reasons more frequently emphasized—but the reason just mentioned should never be overlooked. It is as important to the race as to the woman, for through it is developed that high love impulse which, conveyed to the child, ...
— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger
... quickening impulse to the Chartist movement in England. Feargus O'Connor had been returned at the General Election of 1847 as member for Nottingham. He threw himself into a renewal of the agitation with all the strength and vigor of a madman. ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... turn, and run. But Bellew rarely acted on impulse; therefore, he set down the bulging portmanteau, seated himself upon it, and taking out pipe and tobacco, waited for his ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... acted on the impulse of the moment. They had seen that the girl wanted the two dudish young men to leave her alone, and stepping into the kitchen, Dick had tackled Dudd Flockley while Tom and Sam had given their ...
— The Rover Boys at College • Edward Stratemeyer
... about to leave school at the age of seventeen or eighteen, she is often as little able to determine what profession she wishes to adopt, as is her brother in similar case. If she is intelligent, well-trained and eager to study, her natural impulse is to go to college, and to get there, it is still usually the line of least resistance to say that she wishes to become a teacher. When there are pecuniary difficulties in the way, the decision must be taken still earlier. The unfortunate child in the elementary school used to be compelled to ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley
... bed, the usual silence ensued, and I was making my customary mental prayer and composing myself to sleep, when I heard the most piercing and heart-rending shrieks proceed from our new comrade. Every nun seemed to rise as if by one impulse, for no one could hear such sounds, especially in such total silence, without being greatly excited. A general noise succeeded, for many voices spoke together, uttering cries of surprise, compassion, or fear. It was in vain for the night-watch to expect silence: for once we forgot ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... any talking!" The meeting-up had been so unexpected and Mayo's ire was so hasty that the young man had not taken thought of what he intended to do. His impulse was to beat that fat face into pulp. He had long before given up all hope that any appeal to Fogg as a man would help. He expected no consideration, ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... sway at times have the severest restrictive laws, and how spontaneous is the instinct of discretion in some minds, it must here be added, that though Mad Jack, under a hot impulse, had countermanded an order of his superior officer before his very face, yet that severe Article of War, to which he thus rendered himself obnoxious, was never enforced against him. Nor, so far as any of the crew ever knew, did ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... not sell enough to pay the cost of printing them. As you study the books that do live, you note that they are the books that have been lived. Perhaps the books that fail have just as much of truth in them and they may even be better written, yet they lack the vital impulse. They come out of the author's head. The books that live must come out of his heart. They are his own life. They come surging and pulsating from the book ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette
... long to enjoy his triumphs, but his death made no impression on the impulse given to the fortunes of his country. The kingdom which he left to Assur-nazir-pal, the eldest of his sons, embraced scarcely any of the countries which had paid tribute to former sovereigns. Besides Assyria proper, it comprised merely those districts of ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... of table-turning is none the less certain. The common herd attribute it to spirits; Faraday to prolonged nervous action; Chevreuil to unconscious efforts; or perhaps, as Segouin admits, there is evolved from the assembly of persons an impulse, a ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... is that which puts the whole in motion. It either generates its own motive power, like the steam-engine, the caloric engine, the electro-magnetic machine, etc., or it receives its impulse from some already existing natural force, like the water-wheel from a head of water, the windmill from wind, etc. The transmitting mechanism, composed of fly-wheels, shafting, toothed wheels, pullies, straps, ropes, bands, pinions, and gearing of the most ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... with royal revenues, he stripped himself of station, wealth, almost at times of the common necessaries of life, and became, in his country's cause, nearly a beggar as well as an outlaw. Nor was he forced into his career by an accidental impulse from which there was no recovery. Retreat was ever open to him. Not only pardon but advancement was urged upon him again and again. Officially and privately, directly and circuitously, his confiscated estates, together with indefinite and boundless favors in addition, were offered ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... contracts only under the stimulus of a nervous impulse. More nerve-cells are necessary to control these more numerous muscular fibrils. The animal now moves with one end foremost, and that end first comes in contact with food, hindrances, or injurious surroundings. Here the sensory cells of feeling and their nerve fibrils multiply. ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... who give all your time to the public weal; you, who are troubled by countless annoyances and disappointments, disheartened by failure and corrupted by good fortune—you do not see yourselves. You see no one. Should some good impulse lead you to think over these matters, some flatterer breaks in and ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine
... the same. No open hostility now, but the fires of fanaticism are only smouldering, and only a breath is needed to revive the flame. Every Protestant I saw, and all the intelligent and enlightened Catholics, concur that this is so, and that Home Rule would supply the needful impulse. These men also submit that they understand the matter better than Mr. Gladstone ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... agglutinated, had become motionless like ships stranded in shoal water. Now behold them afloat again: they thicken, swell, round out their edges, detach themselves from each other and prepare to circulate in their proper channels at the first impulse which shall be given them by ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... takes the open country and the Paris road, not even the thought of the errand upon which she goes, of her death-dealing and death-receiving mission, can shake that normal calm. Here is no wild exaltation, no hysterical obedience to hotly-conceived impulse. Here is purpose, as cold as it is lofty, to liberate France and pay with her life for ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... sky grew grey, and though the sun had not yet risen the light was such that a man could see the veins upon the back of his hand and the white moons on his finger-nails. Presently, as though moved by one impulse, thousands of voices uttered a hoarse cry of ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... "and there's another!" he exclaimed in the next instant, "and another! Strike me, the water's alive with 'em'! There's a stiff on the bark, you can lay to that"; and at that, acting on some strange impulse, he called again, "Bark ahoy!" There ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... only the advanced head or shoulder, under the name of the Mettenberg, can be seen from the village. The real summits, consisting in each case of a ridge starting steeply from this elevated plateau, as if by a new impulse of angry or ambitious mountain temper, can only be seen by ascending a considerable height upon the flank of the opposite ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... blanched, her oars dropped from her hands and every muscle in her body went limp. Then the impulse came to jump in the water after the child. Seizing the row-lock, she was about to plunge, blindly, heedlessly, but obeying the irresistible impulse, when something white appeared on the water, right at her very side. It was Gladys's white dress, ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... indeed—at least the impulse was—whether the act was strictly defensible or not. Had deceased any religious convictions? That is to say, did he feel a dependence upon, or acknowledge allegiance to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... himself and prevented him from thinking. He made a weekly pilgrimage past the Quintans' house. The blinds were always drawn. It was as dead as one of those Cuban mills, standing in the desolation of burned fields. Once, greatly daring, and impelled by a sudden impulse, he went to the door and requested the address of ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... together like children. And Doris, with her head on a strong man's shoulder, and a rough coat scrubbing her cheek, suddenly bethought her of the line—"Journeys end in lovers' meeting—" and was smitten with a secret wonder as to how much of her impulse to come north had been due to an altruistic concern for the Dunstable affairs, and how much to a firm determination to recapture Arthur from his Gloriana. But that doubt she would never reveal. It would be so ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... in which, though the chief aim is to amuse through the recital of interesting events and the exhibition of original and humorous character, the reader may see something of the spirit in which misfortune should be met, and receive an impulse towards kindliness of deed and charity ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... pair, for their full moment, without speaking; only with the prolonged, the charged give and take of their gaze and, it might well have been imagined, of their passion. Hugh had for an instant a show of hesitation—of the arrested impulse, while he kept her father within range, to launch at that personage before going some final remonstrance. It was the girl's raised hand and gesture of warning that waved away for him such a mistake; he decided, under her pressure, and ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... would sweep over the young man, and he would turn to look about him with an impulse to suddenly break away and attempt to defy them all. But his every movement was anticipated, and he had the whole football team about him! There was no chance to move. He must stay it through, much as he disliked it. He ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... she was acutely conscious of his proximity and of some rapidly rising tide of emotion mounting within him. She knew the barrier against which it beat and a little cry escaped her, forced from her by some impulse that was ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... despondent Omega at last left the cottage only to go to the airship for supplies. He seldom even looked toward the lake. It was a long time since he had walked about its shores, but one afternoon the impulse came to wander that way again. He was amazed that the water was disappearing so rapidly. The body of the monster now lay more than fifteen rods from the water's edge, though it had been killed on the edge ...
— Omega, the Man • Lowell Howard Morrow
... the rhythm of the music, and appeared to be acting under some invisible impulse, and the General had such a comical look on his face, he looked so disconcerted, rolled his eyes, and seemed to be the prey to such terrible exasperation, that he might have been taken for some character in a pantomime, while his ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... his own mind. It is by going to nature that we find rules. The child or the savage orator never mistakes in inflection or emphasis or modulation. The best speakers and readers are those who follow the impulse of nature, or most closely imitate ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... Tooler, whose first impulse was to drag the dog out of the boot at all hazards, but who, on seeing the horses waiting in the road a short distance ahead for the next stage, thought it better to wait till he had reached them. "I'll make un remember this ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... occupation abroad. It was also possible, to one so reckless and changeful, that even, after receiving the legacy, a proposition from some wild comrade might have hurried him away on any continental project on the mere impulse of the moment, for the impulse of the moment had always been the guide of his life; and once abroad he might have returned to India, and in new connections forgotten the old ties at home. Letters from abroad too, miscarry; and it was not improbable that the wanderer might have written ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... more than an infamous presence. He would loyally fulfil the false, disloyal promises he had made. He would take her to wife. It was a sacrifice which her beauty and her wealth should make worth while. Upon that impulse he spoke ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... the same faces, shaded or illumined as each temperament exposed its impulse; changed and moulded by hidden thoughts, unexploited forces of character and assimilated environment. Came a sigh for Arthur Latimer, asleep after life's bright beginning and shadowed close. A thought of Eva, broken ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... "I would desire to be accursed," nor does he speak of any deliberated result of his consideration; but represents a transient passion of his soul, an actual but undetermined impulse,—an impulse existing in and for itself in the moment of its ebullience, and not completed by an act and confirmation of the will,—as a striking proof of the exceeding interest which he continued ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... well they suit! I shall have my Annette close to me! They can marry at once! My father will be satisfied. How happy they will be! It will be the repose he wants. Dear Annette, what will she not be under his training!' The joyous impulse was to keep him to dinner; but she had scruples about inviting him in Arthur's absence, and therefore only threw double warmth into her farewells. Her spirits were up to nonsense pitch, and she talked and laughed all the evening with such merriment ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... incident—and he liked to refer to it as his "first literary recollection," he said: "Long before I was old enough to read I remember buying a book at an old auctioneer's shop in Greenfield. I can not imagine what prophetic impulse took possession of me and made me forego the ginger cakes and the candy that usually took every cent of my youthful income. The slender little volume must have cost all of twenty-five cents! It was ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... Count for her lover, who however comes up just in time to 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
... My first impulse on reading Crofter's letter was to jump for joy. It meant that Tempest would stay at Low Heath, and that I was to be allowed to assist in ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... take her into his own house and cultivate the latent talent so visible in every gesture and look, took possession of him, but his natural strong sense prevailed over this impulse. Many reasons which we will not pause to mention here, arose in contest with his heart, and ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... approached, and the Queen, dazzlingly and bewilderingly beautiful, held out her hands to him, and their eyes met and they looked at each other across the gulf of fifty centuries. Impelled by an irresistible impulse coming from whence he knew not, he clasped them in his, and said, apparently by no volition of his own, ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... long afterwards that Mr. Stimcoe, having retired to cash a note for her, had brought back a strong smell of brandy and eighteen-pence less than the strict amount of her change. I knew in my heart that my new schoolmaster and his wife were a pair of frauds, and yet I choked down the impulse to speak. Perhaps Master Bates's loyalty kept me ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... Gower tribe. MacRae was the ancient Roman, for the moment, wishing all his enemies had but a single head that he might draw his sword and strike it off. Something in him hardened against that first generous impulse to repeat to Stubby Abbott what Norman had told him on the cliff at Squitty. Let the beggar make his own defense. Yet that stubborn silence, the proud refusal to make words take the place of valiant deeds expected, wrung a gleam of reluctant admiration ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... antipodes of one another." Neither is it as easy as it would seem on the surface to trace the thread of any one incident of his life through his writings. Although containing some irreconcilable passages, the four "Nights" appeared to have been born of the same impulse and to exact the same dedication: it is undeniably a shock to have their inconsistencies explained by hearing that while the "Nuits de Mai," "d'Aout" and "d'Octobre" refer to his passion for Madame Sand, the "Nuit de Decembre" and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... intervals in the higher ground beyond. He knew that the fighting there was of the old-fashioned sort, from behind protecting trees and wooded hillocks, something like the good old fights of Indians and buckskin scouts away home in the wild west of America. And he could not repress his impulse to venture ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... as the compressed air in his lungs expanded under the decreasing pressure. He let himself exhale as he rose, fighting against panic and the impulse to lock the remaining air in his lungs. That would be fatal, he knew, and he willed himself to act properly. He kept his fins moving, knowing that, if he kept his head, he would ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin
... his red brethren, felt as though the time had arrived for him to put in execution his long intended project; for, be it known, his desire for vengeance had neither slumbered nor died during the two years, but was the grand moving impulse to every important act. These years, so full of restrained wrath on his part, were years of peace to his intended victim. Ellen Walton, save the fear of Indians, and the usual trials incident to pioneer life, had spent her time in hopeful quiet, full of love's anticipated ...
— Ellen Walton - The Villain and His Victims • Alvin Addison
... Venice of every day is a dead city, with nothing left of its ancient glories but wealth. Though the millions be reckoned in lire, there are over a hundred millionaires in Venice. But of that mighty artistic and religious impulse which produced countless churches and palaces, pictures and frescoes, which strewed the very street walls with spirited sculpture, and warmed even parochial offices with priceless paintings, there ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... a means of controlling action (the so-called impulse) which it passes along the nervous connections from one part of the ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.
... gone long before my temper began to cool down, and loving my brother very much I began to blame myself a great deal. I condemned myself for not letting him throw me. I was a coward and a brute, I thought within myself, to hurt my younger brother, and acting on the impulse of the moment I hurried towards the house in ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... The boys, with one impulse, made a dash across the fence; with clenched hands and set teeth they stumbled onward; but alas, they were too far away to render ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... day's toil, stopped here, as if by a common impulse, to gaze upwards, and, gazing in silent wonder, they saw such a sight as London has never seen before. On the highest pinnacle of the Victoria tower where the flag of another nation has never before shared its ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... bit. Well, I suppose you don't like to eat and drink before me, so I'll go." [Here arose a sudden conflict in the good woman's mind, whether or not she would act on the suggestion which had been put into her head down-stairs. She was on the point of yielding to the impulse of her own good-natured, though coarse feelings; but at last—] "I—I—dare say, Mr. Titmouse, you mean what's right ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... I felt it distinctly—and not only with my hand as I grasped at his arm but" Aunt Abby hesitated an instant, then went on, "But I bit at him! Yes, I did! I don't know why, only I was possessed with an impulse to hold him—and he was slipping away. I didn't realize at the time—who—what it was, and I sort of thought it was a burglar. But, anyway, I bit at him, and so I bit at the woolen sleeve—it was unmistakable—and on it I tasted ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... pointed,—altogether a striking face, one that would be noticed in a crowd for its strength, but strangely cunning in expression, and not without ferocity. Years afterwards Saracinesca remembered his first meeting with Giovanni the innkeeper, and did not wonder that his first impulse had been to dislike the man. At present, however, he looked at him with considerable curiosity, and if he disliked him at first sight, he told himself that it was beneath him to show antipathy for ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... Affection the whole Family bore him, and embracing him, cry'd out, 'Oh my unhappy Brother.' Maria all the while had strong and wild Convulsions of Sorrow within her, 'till the working Force of her Anguish racking at once all the Passages of her Breast, by a violent Impulse, broke the Ligament that doubled in her Tongue, and she burst out with this Exclamation; 'Oh! Incest, Incest.' Dangerfield eccho'd that Outcry with this, 'O! Horror, Horror, I have enjoy'd my Sister, and murder'd my Father.' Maria running distracted about the Chamber, at last ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... and even in the way she brushed it aside he felt that she was generous. Yet something in him—perhaps the primitive hunting instinct, perhaps a more sophisticated Scotch impulse to explore the very roots of every matter, tempted him to say, "He gives up a good deal, doesn't he, for his ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... to care how he gave out the letters: all the envelopes seemed to have the same name on them: Marie Truog. Every word which he tried to decipher turned to that; so finally he tried no more, leaving the destination of the letter to be decided by the impulse of the moment. At last he arrived at that quarter of the Kurhaus where Marie held sway. He heard her singing in her pantry. Suddenly she was summoned downstairs by an impatient bellringer, and on her return found Waerli ...
— Ships That Pass In The Night • Beatrice Harraden
... checked the impulse to draw his dirk, and slowly raising his hand to the bleeding welt on his forehead, said with ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... however corrupt his nature, he is under no irresistible impulse, no constraining necessity. If he commit sin it is voluntarily. Sin is his choice and his pleasure. He does not sin because he is necessitated to do it, but because he loves it: and however willing the carnal mind may be to avail itself of sophistical reasonings to quiet conscience, ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... the youth received this present was indescribable, He appeared to yield to the blandishment of her air, in opposition to a strong inward impulse to the contrary. He bowed, and raised the victim silently from her ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... you. Among the crowd of beings flung by fate into the social life of this planet to make up a generation there are exceptional souls. If your letter is the outcome of long poetic reveries on the fate which conventions bring to women, if, constrained by the impulse of a lofty and intelligent mind, you have wished to understand the life of a man to whom you attribute the gift of genius, to the end that you may create a friendship withdrawn from the ordinary relations of life, with a soul in communion with your own, disregarding thus the ordinary trammels of ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... to trust myself," he said to Oswald, as they lay down side by side. "Never have I felt so free, since Otterburn—never, indeed, since that unfortunate day when I was wounded, and conceived the fatal idea of becoming a monk. Two or three times, the impulse to troll out a trooper's song was so strong in me, that I had to clap my hand over my mouth, to keep ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... rather more than four pounds for current expenses, he put fifteen pounds in the Post-Office Savings Bank. He thought it a wise thing to do: it prevented any chance of their spending a large sum on some sudden overwhelming impulse. ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... great remissness, negligence, weakness, fainting of Christians, in their race of Christianity, arise ordinarily from this weight that is carried about with them, that it must be some extraordinary impulse of a higher Spirit to drive us on without wearying. And because of this indisposition of the flesh, we are not able to bear much of God's presence in this life, (it would certainly confound mortality, if so much were let out of it as is in heaven) no ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... impulsive man, who could impale a character of either sex by narrating fables touching persons of whom he thought lightly, and that being done he was devoid of malice, unless by chance his feelings or his interests were so aggrieved that his original haphazard impulse was bent to embrace new circumstances and be the parent of a line of successive impulses, in the main resembling an extremely far-sighted plot, whereat he gazed back with fondness, all the while protesting sincerely his perfect innocence of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... say," remarked Julius, "that the writer of that book had what is called a 'philosophy.' He was moved by an irresistible impulse, of which he gives you the explanation when he uses that magnificent sentence about having 'the world ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban
... startled to hear the report of a rifle and to be greeted by the peculiar tearing sound made by a bullet in its flight through the air. Almost as if actuated by a common impulse the three lads crouched low ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... the animal is bound to try it again, and to both, the joy of their respective sins must be very much the same. Boys did not plan a week ahead and then go astray in cold blood, because this sin was not an act of malice aforethought—it was a sudden impulse, not a matter of the will so much as of the blood. Had one determined on Tuesday night to take Wednesday, it might have turned out in our fickle climate a cheerless day, when a boy would as soon be playing marbles in the breaks, or cricket in the ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... always to have a short prelude, we may speak to the criminal, whom some tormenting desire by night and by day tempts to go and rob a temple, the fewest possible words of admonition and exhortation: O sir, we will say to him, the impulse which moves you to rob temples is not an ordinary human malady, nor yet a visitation of heaven, but a madness which is begotten in a man from ancient and unexpiated crimes of his race, an ever-recurring ...
— Laws • Plato
... is anxious to share its joy with man and to introduce him to a new world. The American poets of this age, save Freneau in a few short lyrics, felt but little of this great impulse; but in the next period we shall see that William Cullen Bryant ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... much to be preferred to cutting your hands in moving rubbish or standing still to hand wet stones in a freezing wind. However, the pleasure of helping other people was common to all; and many of the young hearts, which tasted that pleasure in this rough day's labour, will have gained an impulse of prompt helpfulness that may serve them in other and ruder storms than that which shook the frail homes ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... path that Dutton called his own quarter-deck; "or is it merely an unmeaning generality that sometimes causes men to become the dupes of their own imaginations. Are those always our enemies who may seem to be so? or, are we so infallible that every feeling or prejudice may be safely set down as an impulse to which we ought to submit, ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... would," retorted G.J. icily, carried away by a ruthless and inexorable impulse. "You'd do anything to make her happy even for three months. Yes, to make her happy for three weeks you'd be ready to ruin my whole life. I know you and Queen." And the mild image of Christine formed in his mind, soothingly, infinitely desirable. What balm, after the nerve-racking ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... cleared the parapet at a bound, and sped towards that riderless horse, who staggered forward towards the remembered sound; but his strength failed, and he fell at her feet, she lavishing kisses upon him and sobbing, the house rising with one impulse, and white with horror! Before help could reach her ...
— A Horse's Tale • Mark Twain
... that, As stated above (Q. 123, A. 1), the moral virtues are directed to the good, inasmuch as they safeguard the good of reason against the impulse of the passions. Now among the passions sorrow is strong to hinder the good of reason, according to 2 Cor. 7:10, "The sorrow of the world worketh death," and Ecclus. 30:25, "Sadness hath killed ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... impulse is given, nobody can stop. The colonel of the regiment offered to put his band at the disposal of the committee. The landlord of the Bell (renowned for truffled turkeys, despatched in the most wonderful porcelain jars to the uttermost parts of the earth), the famous ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... my father has—at least, I hope so—abjured his past errors, and that he is, at the present moment, a firm and zealous friend to religion and order—a better royalist, possibly, than his son; for he has to atone for past dereliction, while I have no other impulse than warm, decided preference and conviction." Having made this well-turned speech, Villefort looked carefully around to mark the effect of his oratory, much as he would have done had he been addressing the bench in ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... humour for self-analysis: this requires more repose of mind than he could then command. As for the President, from whom he had not heard a whisper since the insolent letter to Grimes, which he had taken care not to show, the Senator felt only a strong impulse to teach him better sense and better manners. But as for political life, the events of the last six months were calculated to make any man doubt its value. He was quite out of sympathy with it. He hated the sight of his tobacco-chewing, newspaper-reading ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... to tell me all this?" she asked as soon as she could trust herself to speak. Her impulse was to shriek out her indignation, her horror of him, into his face. She longed to call down God's eternal curse upon this fiend; but instinctively she held herself in check. Her indignation, her words of loathing would only have added to ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... severely that it was likely to die. When Waukewa saw it he was about to drive one of his sharp arrows through its body, for the passion of the hunter was strong in him, and the eagle plunders many a fine fish from the Indian's drying-frame. But a gentler impulse came to him as he saw the young bird quivering with pain and fright at his feet, and he slowly unbent his bow, put the arrow in his quiver, and stooped over the panting eaglet. For fully a minute the wild eyes of the wounded ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... knowing how to despise it in favour of the needs of the State and the care of affairs, this minister concentrated in his own person all the other ministries, which moved only by his impulse and guiding hand. ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... years ago. Only Nuncia the youngest was left, and she was quite paralytic. From the armchair to the bed, and from the bed to the armchair was all that she could manage with great difficulty. She was also deprived of moral support, as in her sister she lost her protector from impulse. Since she was buried there was no one to keep her in order. With the sudden promotion to the category of persons sui juris, the poor "child" was a prey to great distress, everything worried her, ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... be pressed too far. The critical faculty, even where fully present, may be overpowered by the rhetorical impulse; and of all forms of poetry the epigram has the greatest right to be fanciful. "This is the Satyr of Diodorus; if you touch it, it will awake; the silver is asleep,"[17]—obviously this play of fancy has nothing to do with serious criticism. ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... not failed her, there was, nevertheless, no great ardour in Christine's bearing—merely the momentum of an antecedent impulse. They went up the aisle together, the bottle-green glass of the old lead quarries admitting but little light at that hour, and under such an atmosphere. They stood by the altar-rail in silence, Christine's skirt visibly quivering at ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... distance from them, a number of wild figures sprung out. It was a party of the enemy who had made their way through De Launey's sleeping men unobserved, and who now, knowing that further concealment was useless, were rushing forward towards the tents. Wulf's first impulse was to turn back, but young de Burg, shouting his father's battle-cry, ran forward, and without hesitation Wulf followed him. A moment later they were ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... because he is a good provider (though it is impossible to imagine her overlooking this), but because his very inferiority interests her, and makes her want to remedy it and mother him. Egoism is in the impulse: it is pleasant to have a feeling of superiority, and to be assured that it can be maintained. If now, that feeling he mingled with sexual curiosity and economic self-interest, it obviously supplies sufficient motivation to account ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... ye of them? Ye have time and place convenient, all the day or much of it, and yet ye content yourselves with an ordinary set diet. Sure this is not watching. Watching unto prayer would make all emergent occasions welcome, ye would not have any impulse of the Spirit and motion to pray, but ye would follow it, and be led by the Spirit to your duty. Ye would not hear of any rare passage of providence, or any of God's dispensations towards yourselves, and other saints, but you would think ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... murmur of astonishment ran around the vast cavern. Then, as if by common impulse, every one kneeled down, Dirola alone of all the Esquimaux remaining upright. The cave dwellers were bowing down to one ...
— Through the Air to the North Pole - or The Wonderful Cruise of the Electric Monarch • Roy Rockwood
... of a bank beaver last summer another theory suggested itself. Is not this one of the rare animals in which all the instincts of his kind are lacking? He does not build because he has no impulse to build; he does not know how. So he represents what the beaver was, thousands of years ago, before he learned how to construct his dam and house, reappearing now by some strange freak of heredity, and finding himself wofully out of place and time. The other beavers drive him away because all ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... weakness, of ravishment; and then, imagining that she was his, Lennox took her in his arms and kissed her rudely. But quick, angry thoughts rushed to her head at the first movement of his arms, and obeying an impulse in contradiction to her desire, she shook herself free, and looked at him ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... Carrion; Each with his gaze intent and fixed upon his chosen foe, Their bucklers braced before their breasts, their lances pointing low, Their heads bent down, as each man leans above his saddle-bow. Then with one impulse every spur is in the charger's side, And earth itself is felt to shake beneath their furious stride; Till, midway meeting, three with three, in struggle fierce they lock, While all account them dead who hear the ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber |
