"Instinct" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and more than a memory to me, for whenever I take down that precious book and open it, what a host of friends do troop forth! Cavaliers, princesses, courtiers, damoiselles, monks, nuns, equerries, pages, maidens—humanity of every class and condition, and all instinct with the color ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... possessed by himself and the animals in common? and how does it happen that as his wants and needs increase and multiply the means to satisfy them also tend to increase? Now, the animal is guided wholly or mainly by instinct. In the case of many animals the whole conduct of their life from birth to death is governed by this means. In the case, indeed, of some of the higher animals, there is a limited power of modifying this government by instinct through the experience acquired ...
— The Children: Some Educational Problems • Alexander Darroch
... take care of me, and I'll build a new church, send out a missionary, give my tenth and over! Don't hurt me, and I'll be good!' Who doesn't pray like that some time or other in life? Well, you came near doing it yourself. Propitiation is an instinct, and money is all some have to offer as a bribe. To love mercy, to deal justly, and to walk humbly with one's Maker are terms too hard for most of us. Much easier to dope one's conscience with money. It's the only thing I've got, money is, and there have been times when I'd have given ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... order them all for execution in the course of this act the second. To the brazen age had succeeded an iron age; and the prospects were becoming sadder and sadder, as the tragedy advanced. But here the author began to hesitate. He felt it hard to resist the instinct of carnage. And was it right to do so? Which of the felons, whom he had cut off prematurely, could pretend that a court of appeal would have reversed his sentence? But the consequences were dreadful. A new set of characters in every act, brought with it the necessity of a new plot: for ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... intrigue is of the slightest) is a study of wealth in its effect upon the mutual relations of a small group of persons belonging to the plutocracy of pre-war America. Its special motive was to be a development of situation as between a young legatee, in whom the business instinct is entirely wanting, and his friend and adviser, whom he was presently to detect in dishonest dealing, yet refrain from any act of challenge that would mean exposure. "Refrain"—does this not give you in one ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov 21, 1917 • Various
... hang, apparently a lifeless corpse. When it has been ascertained that he is, as they term it, "entirely dead," his torture ceases, and there hangs suspended by cords, all that remains of a form that a few hours since was instinct with life and vigor. His medicine bag, which he has clung to all through the trying ordeal with the tenacity of despair, has dropped to the ground. Even this potent charm deserts its owner in his hour of greatest need, when, if at any ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... measure, depend upon him as their dearest relative, their guardian by the voice of nature, for the fulfilment of those expectations upon which depend the principal comforts and enjoyments of life? Reason, religion, justice, instinct, the whole economy of nature, both in man and the inferior animals, all teach him to secure for them, as far as in him lies, the greatest sum of human happiness; but if there be one duty more sacred and tender than another, it is that which a parent is called upon to ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... fastened by a prodigious tow-rope to a short post in the middle of the forward deck. Their driver was a truculent, brigandish, bearded old fellow in long boots, a blue flannel shirt, and a black sombrero. He sat upon the middle horse, and some wild instinct of colour had made him tie a big red handkerchief around his shoulders, so that the eye of the beholder took delight in him. He posed like a bold, bad robber-chief. But in point of fact I believe he was the mildest and most inoffensive ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... As if Olympus to a molehill should In supplication nod: and my young boy Hath an aspect of intercession which Great nature cries "Deny not.'—Let the Volsces Plough Rome and harrow Italy: I'll never Be such a gosling to obey instinct; but stand, As if a man were author of himself, ...
— The Tragedy of Coriolanus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... everywhere else parts were uniting and union was becoming organization—and neither geographical remoteness nor unwieldiness of number nor local interests and differences were untractable obstacles to that spirit of fusion which was at once the ambition of the few and the instinct of the many; and cities, even where most powerful, had become the centres of the attracting and joining forces, knots in the political network—while this was going on more or less happily throughout the rest of Europe, in Italy the ancient classic idea lingered in its simplicity, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... The blood-loving instinct of the Norsemen was never at fault in a case like this. Drawing their swords, they assailed the hidden men, and of the nine only one escaped, the other being stretched in ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... character of the girl student. Nor do they perceive that these aspirants possess much that is lacking in themselves—and that not particularly to their credit. Gorki knows that aspiration is not fulfilled without inward struggle and travail. And it is with a subtle psychological instinct that he endows the men who are struggling upward out of adversity with a deep craving for purity. Noble souls are invariably characterised by greater sensitiveness to delicacy, and this is equally the characteristic of those who are ...
— Maxim Gorki • Hans Ostwald
... Her face was pale, her brows set straight; her eyes, save when she was much moved, were like grey shadows veiling an unknown soul; her mouth, delicately curved, was scarcely reddened; her head drooped slightly on her long, slender neck, a gesture instinct with gracious humility. She was like a pictured saint: Hilarius' gaze clung to her, followed her as she left the hall, and saw her still as he sat apart while the serving men cleared the lower tables and brought in the sleeping gear ...
— The Gathering of Brother Hilarius • Michael Fairless
... the corresponding center in the child. And these rays, these vibrations, are not like the mother-vibrations. Far, far from it. They do not need the actual contact, the handling and the caressing. On the contrary, the true male instinct is to avoid physical contact with a baby. It may not need even actual presence. But present or absent, there should be between the baby and the father that strange, intangible communication, that strange ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... I understand how natural instinct rebels against the evils that have fallen upon Catholic Belgium. The spontaneous thought of mankind is ever that virtue should have its instantaneous crown and ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... moist with tears that could not be restrained. They were at the bottom of the black canyon now, the high, uplifting rock walls on either side blotting out the stars and rendering the surrounding gloom intense. The young Mexican girl seemed to have the eyes of a cat, or else was guided by some instinct of the wild, feeling her passage slowly yet surely forward, every nerve alert, and occasionally pausing to listen to some strange night sound. It was a weird, uncanny journey, in which the nerves tingled to uncouth shapes and the wild ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... know of your work, will they? When a man turns down an offer like ours, people in general will give him credit for little besides simple innocence. I'm telling you they'll be more likely to think you are controlled by some queer primitive instinct which will not allow you to properly value things. I'll leave it to your friend. What do you ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... Men, rough of dress, were smoking and playing cards. Revolvers, chips and gold was in front of each, with plenty of the latter in the center of the table. I knew not if they were friends or mountain highwaymen. Many claim that horses are dumb brutes with no instinct, but that faithful pair on leaving the trail avoided a long bend and made straight for the adobe stage ranch, sixteen miles away. On reaching it, they ran the buggy-pole through the only opening of that mud shack rousing the inmates to action ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young
... in the new version do not reflect the free play of Schiller's dramatic instinct so much as his deferential attitude towards Dalberg. Thus we know that the most important of them all, the shifting of the action back into the age of expiring feudalism, was made reluctantly. Schiller felt, and had reason ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... out his blood-shot eyes And springs of sweat did in his forehead rise; Yet was of naught but of a serpent sped, That in his bosom flew and stung him dead: And this by Fate into her mind was sent, Not wrought by mere instinct of her intent. At the scarf's other end her hand did frame, Near the fork'd point of the divided flame, A country virgin keeping of a vine, Who did of hollow bulrushes combine Snares for the stubble-loving grasshopper, ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman
... the national wealth as any material product, and that to save these from impairment is a national interest; that the recent developments of vexatiously obtrusive advertising have not grown out of any necessities of honourable business, but are partly the result of a mere instinct of imitation, and partly are a morbid phase of competition by which both the consumers and the trade as a whole lose; that restriction as regards the size and positions of advertising notices would not be a hardship ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... he approached, and was surprised at the ease with which he walked. There was less hesitation in his stride than she had thought, and he came briskly through the trees, dodging as though by instinct. ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... judging those ancients Daniel exercised an authority delegated to him by Divine instinct. This is indicated where it is said (Dan. 13:45) that "the Lord raised up the . . . spirit ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... a very ingenious fashion to prevent duck from flying away when put upon water: "The trained hawks were now brought into requisition, and marvellous it was to see the instinct with which they seconded the efforts of their trainers. The ordinary hawking of the heron we had at a later period of this expedition; but the use now made of the animal was altogether different, and displayed ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... shamelessly partisan in the proposition to suspend the Act just long enough to permit President Grant, without obstruction or encumbrance, to remove the Democrats whom President Johnson had appointed to office, that the common instinct of justice, and even of public decency, revolted. The Tenure- of-office Act was either right or wrong, expedient or inexpedient, Constitutional or unconstitutional, and it was easy to see that men could honestly differ as to its character in these respects. But it was impossible to comprehend ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... ambition, Angelique retained under the hard crust of selfishness a solitary spark of womanly feeling. The handsome face and figure of Le Gardeur de Repentigny was her beau-ideal of manly perfection. His admiration flattered her pride. His love, for she knew infallibly, with a woman's instinct, that he loved her, touched her into a tenderness such as she felt for no man besides. It was the nearest approach to love her nature was capable of, and she used to listen to him with more than complacency, while she let her hand linger in his warm clasp while the electric fire passed from ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... obedience to which he pledged all those who joined him. That this insubordination should proceed from one of those whom he most trusted, one of his old Barbados associates, was in itself a bitterness, and made him reluctant to that which instinct told him must be done. His hand closed over the butt of one of the pistols slung ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... rail, the Countess glanced upward, impelled by the strange instinct of an easily startled love, confident that prying eyes were upon her. She saw the dark forms leaning over the rail and rather jerkily brought her companion to a standstill and to a realization of his position. Anguish turned ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... personal traits which, it seems to me, are requisite to the comprehension of ethnic psychology, and therefore are desirable to both the ethnologist and the historian. The one of these is the poetic instinct. ...
— An Ethnologist's View of History • Daniel G. Brinton
... person to be pitied—a person with a morbidly sensitive imagination, conscious of the capacities for evil which lie dormant in us all, and striving earnestly to open her heart to the counter-influence of her own better nature; the effort was beyond him. A perverse instinct in him said, as if in words, Beware how you believe ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... this case, for four of the letter-writers confess quite frankly that they do not know—two of these thereupon proceeding to tell us, thus forcibly illustrating their first statement. One author exclaims, "Have instinct!"—another, "Have genius!" Where these two necessaries are to be obtained is not revealed. Equally discouraging is the Dumas declaration that "Some from birth know how to write a play and the others do not and never will." That would have killed off a lot of us—if we ...
— How to Write a Play - Letters from Augier, Banville, Dennery, Dumas, Gondinet, - Labiche, Legouve, Pailleron, Sardou, Zola • Various
... that was grumbling over the great trees on the western hill near at hand. A bolt descended among the oaks, and the deafening explosion was instantaneous. He saw in it an exhibition of divine wrath over his sin, and obeyed the primal instinct to hide himself. His mother, searching for him some time after the storm had passed, found her repentant little boy almost smothered under a quilt in this closet, and as he confessed his sin, he was tenderly shrived. Here in the open chamber ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard
... Rochemalan, when he suddenly found himself opposed by the two bodies which had come up from St. John and La Tour. Retiring before them, he next found himself face to face with the fourth detachment, which had come up from Pramol. With the quick instinct of military genius, Javanel threw himself upon it before the beaten Rocheplate detachment were able to rally and assail him in flank; and he succeeded in cutting the Pramol force in two and passing through it, rushing ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... and against which, had he but suspected it, he would have rebelled with the obstinacy of a child, he was a machine obedient to the will of another mind and to the passions of another heart, a machine which was all the more terrible in that no movement of instinct or of reason could, in his case, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... been superseded by this democratic process, which in our century is advancing at such rapid gait, there will surely be in the sphere of religion no more return to Nature than in that of economics. There will be no more the worship of any one instinct or organ, or any external object or agent. How could Carpenter have so far forgotten his own definition of health as to applaud the primitive ritualistic worship of the glories of the human body and the procession of ...
— Is civilization a disease? • Stanton Coit
... country at least was its true home. There it was that it exhibited its most complete and romantic development. Yet its influence was felt everywhere and in everything. It colored all the events and enterprises of the latter half of the Middle Ages. The literature of the period is instinct with its spirit. The Crusades, or Holy Wars, the greatest undertakings of the mediaeval ages, were predominantly enterprises of the ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... body, the Elephant is superior in intelligence to all animals, except the dog and man. He is said by naturalists to have a very fine brain, considering that he is only a beast. His instinct seems to rise on some occasions almost to the level of our practical reasoning, and the stories which are told of his smartness ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... lying thereon, oblivious to all his miserable cares and worries, passing out of reach of them on an ecstatic flight propelled by the force of the winged drug. He began to consider the possibility of obtaining chloroform. At once the instinct of secrecy asserted itself. He decided that he could not, under the circumstances, go into the drug-store in Banbridge and ask for a quantity of the drug sufficient for his purposes. He realized that to do so would be to incur suspicion. He ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... therefore not an improper term to express the consummate energy of this basilar organ, if we at the same time understand its gentler manifestations; and Dr. Gall was a faithful student of nature when he called this faculty the "carnivorous instinct, or disposition to murder," for that is the way that it exhibits in animals, ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, March 1887 - Volume 1, Number 2 • Various
... was certainly very beautiful, and perhaps, had I now seen them both for the first time, I might have acquiesced in the truth of Eveena's self-depreciation. As it was, nothing could associate with the bright intelligent face, the clear grey eyes and light brown hair, the lithe active form instinct with nervous energy, that charm which from our first acquaintance their expression of gentle kindness, and, later, the devoted affection visible in every look, had given to ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... have the right instinct: the mothers preserve their daughters, the fathers their sons, from the rough, unpleasant labors. A proper mother lets her daughter sew while she herself works among the cattle. And the daughter will do the same with her own daughter. It is ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun
... year old." Mr. Henry White, who was present, observed that if this instance had happened in or before Pope's time, he would not have been justified in instancing the swine as the lowest degree of groveling instinct. Dr. Johnson seemed pleased with the observation, while the person who made it proceeded to remark, that great torture must have been employed, ere the indocility of the animal could have been subdued. "Certainly, (said the Doctor;) but, (turning to me,) how ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... than she knew in his words, for what was in his mind and in the minds of others there in Washington, regarding her, were matters not then within her knowledge. But she was guided once more, as many a woman has been, by her unerring instinct, her sixth sense of womanhood, her scent for things of danger. Now, though she stood with face grave, pensive, almost melancholy, to give him curtsy as he passed, there was not weakness nor faltering in ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... you have felt at his conduct! indignant—amazed—ashamed! Our first prepossession against him was instinct—he conquered it by pains indefatigable to win us, and he succeeded astonishingly, for we became partial to him almost to fondness. The part he now acts against England may be justified, perhaps, by the spirit of revenge ; but the part he submits to perform of coadjutor ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... lurked a grim specter, waiting only the opportunity to grip them both in the fingers of disgrace, and make instant mock of all their plans. In spite of every effort, every lurking hope, some way I could not rid myself of the thought that Beaucaire—either through sheer neglect, or some instinct of bitter hatred—had failed to meet the requirements of his duty. Even as I sat there, struggling vainly against this suspicion, the Judge himself came forth upon the lower deck, and began pacing back and forth ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... inn, the jaded palfrey, guided by the instinct or experience which makes a hackney well acquainted with the outside of a house of entertainment, made so sudden and determined a pause, that, notwithstanding his haste, the rider thought it best to dismount, expecting to be readily ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... common: he has accustomed himself to suffer when his neighbours suffer, and to feel happy when everyone around him is happy. Directly he hears the heart-rending cry of the mother, he leaps into the water, not through reflection but by instinct, and when she thanks him for saving her child, he says, "What have I done to deserve thanks, my good woman? I am happy to see you happy; I have acted from natural impulse and ...
— The Place of Anarchism in Socialistic Evolution - An Address Delivered in Paris • Pierre Kropotkin
... well," said the Perpetual Curate, with less suavity than usual, and a sigh that nearly blew Mrs Hadwin's candle out. She saw he was discomposed, and therefore, with a feminine instinct, found more to say than usual before she made her peaceful way to bed. She waited while Mr Wentworth lighted his candle too. "Mr Wodehouse's parties are always pleasant," she said. "I never go out, you know; but I like to hear of people enjoying themselves. I insist upon ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... which he was a firm believer. He told me that his astral colors were red and blue, and that a phrenologist had told him that a bump on the back of his head indicated that he ought never to buy mining stock. With the same instinct that undid Bluebeard's and Lot's wives he had tried it, and is once more back at his job of gardening with an increased ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... instruments, that made melodious chime, Was heard, of harp and organ; and who moved Their stops and chords, was seen; his volant touch Instinct through all proportions, low and high, Fled and pursued transverse ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... of women is endowed with a stronger and stronger aspiration for a pure life. It results unconsciously from the maternal instinct, and is intended as a protection for the defenceless. Even worthless mothers feel that. But if they succumb in spite of it, and each generation of married women in its turn sinks as deep as you say, the reason ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... deserts, countries without inhabitants, or seas never navigated. Thus I might say that all prior to the commencement of these Memoirs was the barrenness of my infancy, when we can only be said to vegetate like plants, or live, like brutes, according to instinct, and not as human creatures, guided by reason. To those who had the direction of my earliest years I leave the task of relating the transactions of my infancy, if they find them as worthy of being recorded as the infantine exploits of Themistocles ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... again. She had spent a sleepless night, probably, and was dressing to go down to the garden for a breath of air. Gannett rose also; but some undefinable instinct made his movements as cautious as hers. He stole to his window and looked out through the ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... the toil that tried their patience, Fierce the fights that proved their courage, Rough the stone and tough the timber Out of which they built their order! Yet they never failed nor faltered, And the instinct of their swarming Made them one and kept them working, Till their toil was crowned with triumph, And the country of the Tejas Was ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... early, gathering roses with the dew on them, and was in the act of cutting some adorable "Mrs. Sharman Crawfords," when she found it behoved her to let down her carefully tucked up petticoats, as the Marquis of Walderhurst was walking straight toward her. An instinct told her that he wanted to talk to her about Lady ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... boy that amounts to much ever does look the part, as the actors say. So when Jimmy Sears—ragged and brazen—stood before the wronged chicken owner, rage flooded the man's bosom. He rushed around the counter end, mumbling at the boy. The instinct of fear crowded all the fine speeches out of Jimmy's head. He backed off, and exclaimed, as he saw the grocer grab a ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... flock in confession. In the presence of a people which lived by imagination and the senses alone, the Church did not consider itself under the necessity of dealing severely with the caprices of religious fantasy. It permitted the free action of the popular instinct; and from this freedom emerged what is perhaps of all cults the most mythological and most analogous to the mysteries of antiquity, presented in Christian annals, a cult attached to certain places, and almost exclusively consisting ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... of reddish-brown stones, but something longer than a man's leg and narrower than his hand, was lying there like a great flattened snake. When Loz looked at its thin edges and saw that it ran to a point, he picked up stones to chip it and make it sharp. It was the instinct of Loz to sharpen things. When he found that it could not be chipped his wonderment increased. It was many hours before he discovered that he could sharpen the edges by rubbing them with a stone; but at last the point was sharp, and all one side of it except near the end, where Loz ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... there was a wonderful horse presented to the public, who performed many curious tricks, which seemed to exhibit something far beyond instinct. Among other things, it cleared six poles, one after the other, at a distance of not more than ...
— Minnie's Pet Horse • Madeline Leslie
... checked their horses and waited: not from curiosity, but in response to the prompting of a neighborly instinct. Travellers in the desert are ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... was also possible that he might have crawled away beyond the reach of discovery into the shadows, but that was not his intention, for, though he could never decide afterwards whether he acted from instinct or reasoned his course out, he was bent on waiting for, and not escaping from, his pursuer. Nor did he know how long he waited, but it seemed a very long while before he saw a shadowy object move round and afterwards into the opposite ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... worthy Doctor Guillotin, Bailly likewise, time-honored historian of astronomy, and the Abbe Sieyes, cold, but elastic, wiry, instinct with the pride of logic, passionless, or with but one passion, that of self-conceit. This is the Sieyes who shall be system-builder, constitutional-builder-general, and build constitutions which shall unfortunately fall before we get the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... machinery, you will say, but it is impossible to describe this in a letter of moderate or immoderate size. I will only say that the ingenuity and successful performance far surpassed my expectations. Machinery so perfect appears to act with the happy certainty of instinct and the foresight ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... a woman it would be in the practical way of making her his wife. He could be a husband, never a lover. His genius, though fed by passion and virility, entertained no visions of romantic ecstasy. His instinct was ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... present, for the delight of collecting curious specimens, for the exercise of ingenuity in detecting the secret methods of Nature, for the gratification of arranging facts or objects in regular series, is an innocent and not a fruitless pursuit. Many persons are born with a natural instinct for it, and with special aptitudes which may even constitute a kind of genius. We should do honor to such power wherever we find it; honor according to its kind and its degree; but not affix the wrong label to it. Those who ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... the rest of the world is no light matter; for the many are not so far wrong in their judgment of who are bad and who are good, as they are removed from the nature of virtue in themselves. Even bad men have a divine instinct which guesses rightly, and very many who are utterly depraved form correct notions and judgments of the differences between the good and bad. And the generality of cities are quite right in exhorting us to value a good reputation in the world, for there is no truth greater ...
— Laws • Plato
... perhaps, defend it by reason. But somehow or other, I am strongly tempted to say there are occasions in life where the meanest thing a man can do is to do perfectly right. But I do not say it. It would be better to say that there are occasions when the instinct is a better guide than the reason. At any rate, I do not believe the recording angel made any trouble for ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... dream Of many a brave unbodied scheme. But form to lend, pulsed life create, What unlike things must meet and mate: A flame to melt—a wind to freeze; Sad patience—joyous energies; Humility—yet pride and scorn; Instinct and study; love and hate; Audacity—reverence. These must mate, And fuse with Jacob's mystic heart, To ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... had adopted, the logical consequence of enlightened self-interest. If he had ever heard of it, he would have made no pretence of being anything else. Greatness, declares some modern philosopher, has no connection with virtue; it is the continued, strong and logical expression of some instinct; in Mr. Jason's case, the predatory instinct. And like a true artist, he loved his career for itself—not for what its fruits could buy. He might have built a palace on the Heights with the tolls he took from the disreputable houses of the city; he was contented with Monahan's saloon: nor ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... about him—wasn't brought home to me. He proved a sympathetic though a desultory ministrant, and had in a wonderful degree the sentiment de la pose. It was uncultivated, instinctive, a part of the happy instinct that had guided him to my door and helped him to spell out my name on the card nailed to it. He had had no other introduction to me than a guess, from the shape of my high north window, seen outside, that my place ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... buffalo skin that keep out the love of brother," responded the Indian, in fawning tones that caused the listeners to feel as though they would have gladly kicked the speaker out from the tent. There was low cunning in his voice—such cringing craft as all brave men naturally despise. But it was the instinct of both to draw out the visitor's confidence. It was possibly their only hope of learning the truth of their position, thereby enabling them to make plans for their ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... country make them into drinking-cups. India was assigned as the native country of the Griffins. They found gold in the mountains and built their nests of it, for which reason their nests were very tempting to the hunters, and they were forced to keep vigilant guard over them. Their instinct led them to know where buried treasures lay, and they did their best to keep plunderers at a distance. The Arimaspians, among whom the Griffins flourished, were a one-eyed ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... high or low, about any pleasure in which he saw fit to indulge; to-day he had been shy over confessing to the commanding officer his leaning to cock-fights—a sign of his approach to the correct mental attitude of the enlisted man. Being corporal had wakened in him a new instinct, and this State-House affair was the first chance he had had to show himself. He gave the order to proceed at a walk in such a tone that one of the troopers whispered to another, "Specimen ain't going to forget ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... the man's Left, and she took it not from any motive of goodness but just because her child appealed to her as powerfully as his dinner appealed to the man. And which was the nobler instinct? In prehistoric times, gentlemen, they were both equally noble, for the instinct of the man was as essential to the fact that you and I are here gathered together in enlightened Paris, as ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... yet, competition among rival churches working in the same poor neighborhood is so sharp that even now, in these days of cooperative {172} effort, we find that the sordid appeal is made. "I call it waste," wrote the late Archbishop of Canterbury, "when money is laid out upon instinct which ought to be laid out upon principle, and waste of the worst possible kind when two or three religious bodies are working with one eye to the improvement of the condition of those whom they help, and with another eye directed to getting ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... man had caught the delirium that was abroad that night. The rage of the trapped beast was in his heart, his hand held a sword. To strike blindly, to strike without question the first who withstood him was the wild-beast instinct; and if Count Hannibal had not spoken on the instant, the Marshal's brother had said his last word in ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... quickly; "I know that it will not. The people, with their quick and unerring instinct, know those very well in whom they may confide, and I request your majesty to take graciously into consideration that it is this time the people that must render Prussia victorious. It is true, the regiments of volunteers that have already been organized ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... with the taint of inherited corruption in us, as also with the germs of pure affection and high instinct and purpose, we have to take care for ourselves and for each other that the taint does not eat out the good, by growing into sins of boyhood or of youth, or by hardening into depraved habits in our manhood. If we let our youth take an unhappy ...
— Sermons at Rugby • John Percival
... the marketplace, herding together with the instinct of sheep, who seek safety in each other's company when the shepherd and his dog are absent, and the wolf is prowling round the fold. Far from finding relief, however, they only increased each other's terrors. Each man looked ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... When it was announced to the Ephesians that the Council of that place, headed by Cyril, had decreed that the Virgin should be called "the Mother of God," with tears of joy they embraced the knees of their bishop; it was the old instinct peeping out; their ancestors would have done the ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... certain air and polish about her strain, however, like that in the vivacious conversation of a well-bred lady of the world, that commands respect. Her maternal instinct, also, is very strong, and that simple structure of dead twigs and dry grass is the center of much anxious solicitude. Not long since, while strolling through the woods, my attention was attracted to a small densely grown swamp, hedged in with eglantine, brambles, and the everlasting ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... A sure though childish instinct told her that her thoughts and feelings on this subject would meet with no sympathy. She did not like to ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner
... is no piece of mechanism merely; but a creature of thoughts and fancies, instinct with life. Standing at her vibrating helm, you feel her beating pulse. I have loved ships, as ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... natives shared freely everything they possessed with the invaders. Hospitality was with them an instinct, fostered by nature all about them; besides which it was a considerable time before they ceased to believe their guests superior beings descended from the clouds in their winged vessels. The Indians lived in villages of two or three hundred houses, built of wood and ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... had caught an instant favor, which swelled later to a tidal wave. It depicted a heroic girl in every trying circumstance of mediaeval life, and gratified the perennial passion of both sexes for historical romance, while it flattered woman's instinct of superiority by the celebration of her unintermitted triumphs, ending in a ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... almost every known esculent plant had acquired substantially its present artificial character, and that the properties of nearly all vegetable drugs and poisons were known at the remotest period to which historical records reach. Did nature bestow upon primitive man some instinct akin to that by which she has been supposed to teach the brute to select the nutritious and to reject the noxious vegetables indiscriminately ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... "pen-portraits" he is described as "a delicate, attractive, dainty little figure, as he merely walked about, much more if he were speaking: uncommonly bright, black eyes, instinct with vivacity, intelligence and kindly fire; roundish brow, delicate oval face, full, rapid expression; figure light, nimble, pretty, though so small, perhaps hardly five feet four in height.... His voice clear, harmonious, and sonorous, had something of metallic in ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... a task requiring no little strength and address, but he managed, after a few herculean efforts, to shift them aside and I saw with delight my way opened to that mysterious little door. But I did not approach it then; some instinct deterred me. But when the opportunity came for me to venture there alone, I did so, in the most adventurous spirit, and began my operations by sliding behind the casks and testing the handle of the little door. It turned, and after a pull or two the door yielded. With ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... winter-quarters at all. In private fact, Prince Karl is one of Three mysterious Elements or Currents, sent on a far errand: Grune is another: Rutowski's Saxon Camp (now become Cantonment) is a third. Three Currents instinct with fire and destruction, but as yet quite opaque; which have been launched,—whitherward thinks the reader? On Berlin itself, and the Mark of Brandenburg; there to collide, and ignite in a marvellous manner. There is their meeting-point: there ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... such a substitution. As far as the epithet was used scornfully, it was used falsely; but there is no reproach in the word, rightly understood; on the contrary, there is a profound truth, which the instinct of mankind almost unconsciously recognizes. It is true, greatly and deeply true, that the architecture of the North is rude and wild; but it is not true, that, for this reason, we are to condemn it, or despise. Far otherwise: I believe ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... Stonor, who was twenty-seven years old, these days were filled with a strange unrest; for the coming of summer with its universal blossoming was answered by a surge in his own youthful blood—and he had no safety-valve. A healthy instinct urged him to a ceaseless activity; he made a garden behind his quarters; he built a canoe (none of your clumsy dug-outs, but a well-turned Peterboro' model sheathed with bass-wood); he broke the colts of the year. Each day he tired himself out and knew no satisfaction in his work, and each ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... and of territorial aggrandisement on the Italian mainland. The career of Venice was arrested by the League of Cambray. On Carthage the policy of military aggrandisement, which was apparently resisted by the sage instinct of the great merchants while it was supported by the professional soldiers and the populace, brought utter ruin; while Rome paid the inevitable penalty of military despotism. Even when the Roman nobles ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... remoulding it nearer to the heart's desire.' His moral nature, indeed, was easy-going; he was the appropriate poet of the Court circle, with very much of the better courtier's point of view. At the day's tasks he worked long and faithfully, but he also loved comfort, and he had nothing of the martyr's instinct. To him human life was a vast procession, of boundless interest, to be observed keenly and reproduced for the reader's enjoyment in works of objective literary art. The countless tragedies of life he noted with kindly ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... mean—'It is the fall of the leaf. The bird has flown south. Follow all the migratory tribe! follow while the air is yet open to you, or stay behind with the sick and the old and the faint of heart and the fighters against instinct! Winter comes. It is time to make haste.'" He laid the feather down with a smile. "That's Adam. Well, Adam, we will see how swift the Bienville can fly! I may yet be first at New Orleans. Wilkinson and I to welcome Burr and all the motley in his river-boats with a salvo from the city ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... been taught by their unfailing instinct that summer has departed, and winter is near. They no more warble their rich melodies, or flit in and out of the bowery recesses of the honeysuckles or peep with knowing look under the eaves, or into the arbour. Other purposes prompt to other acts, and they are taking their farewell of the pleasant ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... he gazed upon them. "No chord of sympathy stirs in their bosom. Whether I go—-whether I remain—matters not to them. No, I am nothing to these children—since, at this awful moment, when they see me perhaps for the last time, no filial instinct tells them that their affection might ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... figure, as portrayed by his contemporaries—continued to belittle and revile his former pupil, while all the time he loved him, and longed for a reconciliation which never took place. La Touche had a quick instinct for discovering genius: he introduced Andre Chenier's posthumous poems to the public, and launched Jules Sandeau and George Sand. But he was soured by seeing his pupils enter the promised land only open to genius, while he was ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... come. She looked upon that dreary future and her utter desolation, and no gleam of hope stole to her darkened soul. An almost vacant expression settled on the dark countenance of the once beautiful maiden. Softly the door was pushed ajar, and the form of the Padre stood within. By instinct she seemed aware of his entrance, for raising her bowed head, the black sparkling eyes flashed, and the broad brow wrinkled into a frown dark as night. He approached her, and they stood face to face upon ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... sun flamed overhead, brazen, out of a brazen sky; the pitch bubbled in the seams, and the brains in the brain-pan. And all the while the excitement of the three adventurers glowed about their bones like a fever. They whispered, and nodded, and pointed, and put mouth to ear, with a singular instinct of secrecy, approaching that island underhand like eavesdroppers and thieves; and even Davis from the cross-trees gave his orders mostly by gestures. The hands shared in this mute strain, like dogs, without comprehending it; and through the roar of ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... of to fight or not to fight. It made his sweeping promise to mother suddenly seem to have been very ill-advised indeed. He wondered if his mother could have known that he would meet this kind of thing at school. In that first instant after Curly's blow was struck, instinct told him that fists were made to be used, and reason added that self-defense is right; and now something else was stirring in his heart—something which might not, perhaps, be wholly unexpected, under such circumstances, to stir in the heart of a boy whose grandfather ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... flaming round, While bathed in sweat from fire to fire he flew; And puffing loud, the roaring billows blew. That day no common task his labour claim'd: Full twenty tripods for his hall he framed, That placed on living wheels of massy gold, (Wondrous to tell,) instinct with spirit roll'd From place to place, around the bless'd abodes Self-moved, obedient to the beck of gods: For their fair handles now, o'erwrought with flowers, In moulds prepared, the glowing ore he pours. Just as responsive to his thought the frame ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... delivered the next day, there is not the faintest shadow of anxiety. It breathes a lofty confidence as if his soul was gazing meditatively downward upon life, and upon his own work, from a secure height. The world has shown a sound instinct in fixing upon one expression, "with malice toward none, with charity for all," as the key-note of the final Lincoln. These words form the opening line of that paragraph of unsurpassable prose in ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... half-breeds, and had received Christian names, and most of them had houses of their own, and, though hunters, fishermen and trippers, their families lived comparatively settled lives. Yet the glorious instinct of the Indian haunted them. As a rule they had been born on the "pitching-track," in the forest, or on the prairies—in all sorts of places, they could not say exactly where—and when they were born was often a matter of doubt as well. [With reference to these ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair
... mathematician of his time; none less than John Locke, the most learned philosopher of the day. Strong company this, for a young and unknown man, yet in the belief of Montague, himself a young man and a gambler by instinct, not too strong for this young Scotchman who had startled the Parliament of his own land by some of the most remarkable theories of finance which had ever been proposed in any country or to any government. ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... a little streak of yellow somewhere. It was not until the afternoon march that Fred and Will, one on either side of him, by appeals to his racial instinct and recalling the methods of the military court, induced him to do his part. Once having promised he vowed he would see the thing through to the end; but he was the weak link; he was afraid; and he disbelieved in ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... where they contentedly fed till the food was all gone. Then the fact of imprisonment first presented itself, and they vainly endeavored to escape through the interstices of the cage, never once guided by their instinct to return to liberty through the route by which they ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... continual prey? Are they, like thee, tormented by the past, alarmed at the future? Confined solely to the present, does not what you call their instinct, and what I call their intelligence, suffice to preserve and defend them, and to supply them with all they want? Does not this instinct, of which thou speakest with contempt, often serve them better than thy wonderful faculties? Is not their peaceful ignorance more advantageous to them, than those extravagant meditations and worthless researches, ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... persons, but some of them are so very thick as to have swallowed a goat at one morsel. These serpents retire in troops, as the natives report, to certain parts of the country where white ants are found in prodigious swarms, and which, by a kind of instinct, are said to build houses for these serpents, of earth which they carry in their months for that purpose, resembling ovens, and often to the number of 150 in one place[3]. The Negroes are great enchanters, and use charms upon almost all occasions, particularly ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... telegram was one of the things that affected Bettina. The telegrams sent to the lawyers, the rector, and others had been signed "Hurdly." Several of these she had seen. It seemed to her, therefore, a very delicate instinct which had caused him to refrain from the use of her husband's name in addressing her. He had always been delicate in his intuitions and expressions, or at least ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder
... walking in a lake, and now even the instinct of self-preservation must have been flickering, for he waded on, rejoicing merely in getting rid of the dog. Something in the water rose and struck him. Instead of stupefying him, the blow brought him to his senses, and he struggled for his ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... spring! It was a time of wonder and marvel; of the soft touch of silver rain on greening fields; of the incredible delicacy of young leaves; of blossom on the land and blossom in the sunset. The whole world bloomed in a flush and tremor of maiden loveliness, instinct with all the evasive, fleeting charm of spring and girlhood and young morning. And almost every night of this wonderful time the dream-child called his mother, and we roved the gray shore in ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... however, among the Parsis, and those who would most emphatically protest against the idea of their ever paying divine honours to the sun or the fire, admit the existence of some kind of national instinct—an indescribable awe felt by every Parsi with regard to light and fire. The fact that the Parsis are the only Eastern people who entirely abstain from smoking is very significant; and we know that most of them would rather not blow out a candle, if ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... is where I belong," she kept repeating to herself; but the words had no meaning for her. Every instinct and habit made her a stranger among these poor swamp-people living like vermin in their lair. With all her soul she wished she had not yielded to Harney's curiosity, and brought ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... of range riders, and Eena, who, Indian-like, never revealed the fact by word or look that he had observed the patent leather shoes, and the wonderful high collar; who, also Indian-like, in spite of these drawbacks, liked the stranger without cause, a peculiar instinct of liking that came when the young King Georgeman shook hands with him, a wholesome British ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... concerning its will, and no opportunity for the assertion of sovereignty. Lilburne and the Levellers held that democracy could be set up on the ruins of Charles I.'s Government, and the sovereignty of the people become a fact; and with a ready political instinct Lilburne proposed the election of popular representatives on a democratic franchise. Cromwell rejected all Lilburne's proposals; for him affairs of State were too serious for experiments in democracy; and Lilburne ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... we tread the varied path of life, Disaster dire demands a valued limb, We with the mood of Stoic bear the pain; While nagging tooth doth ever set us wild. 'Tis vain on deep philosophy to call When stinging gnats, unseen, do us assail; A warring instinct urges us to kill, And we delay not, till Dame Reason speaks. 'Twas but an automatic action of the mind When matter trivial late did rouse a phlegm Within my soul, which irritated sore, And on the instant I did stern resolve That, like the surgeon when an abscess ripe Action ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... those suffering from thirst, drove away sleep; and I, with others, started up to reach the river, which we were assured was not more than fifteen miles off. In four or five hours it might be reached. We pushed on at a rapid rate, our mules following willingly, instinct telling them that relief was at hand. The green trees appeared in sight, and the water, bright and limpid, was seen between them. We hurried on—men and animals together rushing into the stream, the men lapping the water up like dogs, and dipping their whole bodies in without even stopping ...
— The Gilpins and their Fortunes - A Story of Early Days in Australia • William H. G. Kingston
... return to the water." He hurried back to the camp and told his companions what he had seen. They all followed him as fast as they could scamper towards the bay. Each man got hold of a stick or weapon of some sort. The instinct of the turtle telling them that enemies were approaching, those farthest up the beach began to make their way, vigorously working their fins, towards the water. Tom and Desmond, who were ahead, managed to get their sticks under a good-sized one, which they ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... come from behind her, and the retrospect dulled his glory to the diminishing point. For indeed his approach was too consistently policemanlike, it was too crafty; his advent hinted at a gross espionage, at a mind which was no longer a man's but a detective's who tracked everybody by instinct, and arrested his friends ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... which kindleth art as of that which quickeneth to holiness. Art is not dignified by being called whimsical—or capricious. What can a man explain? The intention, behind the wind, behind the spirit, behind the creative instinct, is dark. But man is true to his own most essential character when, if he cannot refrain from prating of such mysteries, he qualifies them as hope would have him, with the noblest of his virtues; not when he speaks ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... dressed in some rustling brown taffeta stuff and carried her hat in a carefully pinned page of newspaper. Her face was sunken and lined and rouged to lessen the ravages of age, and her hair was palpably mismatched. Moreover, instinct warned that his offer would be refused, for she was one of the tall, skinny ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... on pilgrimage is an instinct which appears in most religions and at all ages. The idea underlying the practice seems to be that God is more nigh in some spots than in others, the desire to seek Him in a place where He may be found: for where God is, there men ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... instinct of modesty prevailed over love. "No," cried she, as she struggled out of his arms, trembling with excitement—"no, Feodor, it is no hour of happiness in which my honor and good name are to be buried—no hour of happiness when ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... served as a toilet-table a big stain behind the water-jug showed where a bottle of bandoline had been overturned. The little chamber, with its narrow iron bed, its two rush-bottomed chairs, and its faded grey wallpaper, was instinct with innocent simplicity. The plain white curtains, the childishness suggested by the cardboard boxes and the Dream-book, and the clumsy coquetry which had stained the walls, all charmed Florent and brought him back to dreams of youth. He would have preferred not to have known that plain, wiry-haired ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... not need to be told that this was a man hunt, destined perhaps to be one of a hundred unwritten desert tragedies. Some subtle instinct in him differentiated between these hurried shots and those born of the casual exuberance of the cow-puncher at play. He had a reason for taking an interest in it—an interest that was ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... as he realized that if these men wanted breakfast he would have to confess that there was nothing to eat in the house. At the thought his instinct of hospitality and ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... was Attorney-General, himself and O'Leary, while enjoying the beauties of Killarney, had the rare fortune to witness a staghunt. The hunted animal ran towards the spot where the Attorney-General and O'Leary stood. "Ah!" said Father Arthur, with genuine wit, "how naturally instinct leads him to come to you, that you may deliver ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... Florence, and was one of the two artists out of the thirty-four who competed, to be chosen for the task: the other was Filippo Brunellesco. You may see the two panels they made in the Bargello side by side on the wall. The subject is the Sacrifice of Isaac, and Ghiberti, with the real instinct of the sculptor, has altogether outstripped Brunellesco, not only in the harmony of his composition, but in the simplicity of his intention. Brunellesco seems to have understood this, and, perhaps liking the lad who was but twenty-two years old, withdrew ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... castle) was one of those excellent musicians here and there to be found in our provinces, worthy to compare with many a noted Kapellmeister in a country which offers more plentiful conditions of musical celebrity. Rosamond, with the executant's instinct, had seized his manner of playing, and gave forth his large rendering of noble music with the precision of an echo. It was almost startling, heard for the first time. A hidden soul seemed to be flowing forth from Rosamond's ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... everything is breathing with life, everything is marvelous, everything is solemnly triumphant. And in the soul there is something illimitable and wondrous, and throngs of silvery visions make their way into its depths. Night divine! Enchanting night! And all of a sudden, everything has become instinct with life; forests, pools, and steppes. The magnificent thunder of the Ukraina nightingale becomes audible, and one fancies that the moon, in the midst of the sky, has paused to listen to it.... As though enchanted, the hamlet ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... rambling; or that the gay Prospects of Fields and Meadows, with the Courtship of the Birds in every Bush, naturally unbend the Mind, and soften it to Pleasure; or that, as some have imagined, a Woman is prompted by a kind of Instinct to throw herself on a Bed of Flowers, and not to let those beautiful Couches which Nature has provided lie useless. However it be, the Effects of this Month on the lower part of the Sex, who act without Disguise, [are [1]] very visible. It is at this time that we see the young Wenches in a Country ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... chill of Sarah's visit seemed still to abide and shades of pleasure were dim; he might have suggested a stone bench in the dusty Tuileries or a penny chair at the back part of the Champs Elysees. These things would have been a trifle stern, and sternness alone now wouldn't be sinister. An instinct in him cast about for some form of discipline in which they might meet—some awkwardness they would suffer from, some danger, or at least some grave inconvenience, they would incur. This would give a sense—which the spirit required, rather ached and sighed in the absence of—that somebody ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... frightened, but he had an agonized instinct that if he yielded in this he would yield ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... said," returned Mrs. Rivers cautiously. At the same time she did not speak decidedly, and the frontiersman's instinct of hospitality prevailed. He knocked lightly; there was no response. He turned the door handle softly. The door opened. A faint clean perfume—an odor of some general personality rather than any particular thing—stole out upon them. The light ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... by Mr. Brown Agricultural progress —— statistics Aphides, to kill, by Mr. Creed Asparagus, French Berberry blight Birds, instinct of, by the Rev. F. F. Statham Books noticed Bouyardias, scarlet British Association Calendar, horticultural —— agricultural Camellia culture Charlock Corn averages and rents, by Mr. Willich Cuttings, to strike Diastema ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 207, October 15, 1853 • Various
... their kitchen from the road on which they had been straying. Trow, as he half saw them in the dark, not knowing how many there might be, or whether there was a man among them, rushed through them, upsetting one scared girl in his passage. With the instinct and with the timidity of a beast, his impulse now was to escape, and he hurried away back to the road and to his lair, leaving the three women together in the cottage. Poor wretch! As he crossed the road, not skulking in his impotent haste, but running at his best, another ...
— Aaron Trow • Anthony Trollope
... slumbers unseen till some happy moment awakens it, so there sleeps often in gracious and amiable characters, deep in the background, a quite vulgar spirit, which starts into life when something rudely comical penetrates into the less frequented chambers of the mind. Our instinct teaches us that in that being there lies something we must take ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... Colin, whether by some subtle instinct on coming to himself he realised how gravely he had offended, or whether in some way or other he got a hint of the Squire's threats, cannot be said. Certain it was, that he did not present himself at ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... the life of the wild things. Nevertheless it is probably true that education among the higher order of animals has its distinct place and value. Their knowledge, however simple, is still the result of three factors: instinct, training, and experience. Instinct only begins the work; the mother's training develops and supplements the instinct; and contact with the world, with its sudden dangers and ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... that every hearer ought to be as good as the preacher, but, paradoxical as the remark may appear, it is none the less true that the preacher ought to be better than those to whom he preaches. It is an absolutely sound instinct for the fitness of things—an instinct honourable to the preacher's office—which asks that he who discourses concerning the elements of piety, calling upon men to embody them in works of faith and righteousness, should ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... not very handsome," said he, "but it seems to know what it's about, and so does the rider. You're a fine guide, Cody. Like the Indian, you seem to go by instinct, rather ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... Gabrielle, is more an affair of the heart than of the head, more the instinct of taste than the choice of reason. With me the heart is no longer touched, when the imagination ceases to be charmed. Explain to me this metaphysical phenomenon of my nature, and, for your reward, I will quiet your jealousy, ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... Annie in a voice of almost passionate pain; then, with that wonderful instinct which made her in touch with all little children, she cheered up, wiped away her tears, and allowed laughter once more to wreathe her lips and fill her eyes. "Come, Nan," she said, "you and I will have ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... miles from the depot and among crevasses, which goes to show how easy it is to steer off the course under such conditions, and how creditable the navigation is when a course is kept correctly, sometimes more by instinct ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... Craig simply raised the lid of the basket. Buster already seemed to have recognized the voice of his mistress, and, with an almost human instinct, to realize that though he himself was still weak ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... every nerve and muscle in her body tense. They blamed her for the fire, then! Her instinct when she had run away had ...
— A Campfire Girl's First Council Fire - The Camp Fire Girls In the Woods • Jane L. Stewart
... enough had they been given ordinary daylight so as to look around them. The gathering gloom made it very difficult to see twenty feet away with any degree of certainty. Frank was being guided partly by instinct, and the knowledge that he had taken his ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... left his wife with that hastily invented excuse of the forgotten tobacco, turned back with a blind instinct of escape; he went to the foot of the hilly little street down which Mabel and he had lately passed, and halted there undecidedly; then he saw a flight of rough steps by a stone fountain and climbed them, clutching the wooden rail hard as he went ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... had not had enough of his sort? Who would not suspect him wherever he went? Cain went about with a mark on his forehead for every one to know him by. In what respect was he better off, when men seemed to know by instinct and in the dark that he was a character to mistrust ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... that he should complain; for, at times, he was treated extremely well, and his intimacy with Octavia progressed quite rapidly. Perhaps, if the truth were told, it was always himself who was the first means of checking it, by some suddenly prudent instinct which led him to feel that perhaps he was in rather a delicate position, and had better not indulge in too much of a good thing. He had not been an eligible and unimpeachable desirable parti for ten years without acquiring some of that discretion which is said to ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... woman, and some instinct of my nature told me that Sieur de Artigny held me in high esteem. And his was the disposition and the training to cause the striking of a blow first. That must not be, for now I was determined to unravel the cause for Cassion's eagerness to ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... spirits, like that of Essex, sometimes exhausts the powers of life altogether. The sickness, therefore, though of mental origin, becomes bodily and real; but then the sufferer is often ready, in such cases, to add a little to it by feigning. An instinct teaches him that nothing is so likely to move the heart whose cruelty causes him to suffer, as a knowledge of the extreme to which it has reduced him. Essex was doubtless willing that Elizabeth should know that he was ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... all the sagacity, perseverance, and swiftness for which they have been celebrated by travellers in northern regions, and he had frequent opportunities of observing the instinct or skill with which they pursued their way in the midst of the most violent storms, when every trace of the road had disappeared. He gives them a decided preference over the reindeer, though he states that the latter are more fleet, when put to their full speed. They are ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... of value in the world," says Emerson, "is the active soul; this every man contains within him. The soul active sees absolute truth and utters truth and creates." In other words, the individual instinct is the thing of value in the world. It is the true soul that sees and creates the truth alive, out of which is to come a still greater ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... allied! Otherwise his condition manifested itself by complete loss of memory;—the impossibility of concentrating his attention upon anything, lack of judgment, delirium and incoherence. He no longer even possessed the natural animal instinct of self-preservation, and had to be watched like an infant whom one never permits out of one's sight. Therefore a warder was detailed to keep close watch over him by day and by night in Pavilion No. 17, at the end of Healthful House Park, which had been specially ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... dark, but he knew that he had the instinct of his team to depend upon, and this was more than half ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham
... I wish I could stop here. Why should there be painful things in the world which must be written about? That pretty courtesy, that spring from the earth were poor Mignon's last. She had risen and bowed with the instinct which all players feel to act out their parts to the end, but as the curtain fell down she dropped again, this time heavily. Mr. Currie, much frightened, lifted and carried her to his wife's tent. The band, who were playing out the audience, stopped with a dismayed ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... true woman and the manner of a lady, accomplished and refined beyond most of her sex, she combines a surprising calmness of judgment and promptitude and decision of character. The popular instinct was not mistaken, which, when she set out from England on her mission of mercy, hailed her as a heroine; I trust she may not earn her title to a higher, though sadder, appellation. No one who has observed her fragile figure and delicate health can avoid misgivings ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... His instinct must have told him that Dea Flavia was loyal to the core, loyal to the Caesar and to his House, but so blinded was he by rage and humiliation and by the terror of assassination, that he saw in the earnest, simple pleadings of a young girl and devoted partisan nothing but the obstinate ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... and a Moslim, more than the most superstitious of Buddhists or Christians, is bound by a vast number of ties and observances which have nothing to do with religion. It is in avoiding these trammels that the superior religious instinct of Gotama shows itself. He was aided in this by the temper of his times. Though he was of the warrior caste and naturally brought into association with princes, he was not on that account tempted to ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... of the water. As there are many caimans in this river (which in that respect is another Nile), one of them happened to cross his course, and, seizing him, dragged him to the bottom with a rapidity which is their mode, by a natural instinct, of killing and securing their prey. The infidel, like another Jonas, beneath the water called with all his heart upon the God of the Christians; and instantly beheld two persons clad in white, who snatched him from the claws of the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... eternal, and the soul—answer ye dumb graves—did the soul come here? or went it with life to the great first cause? or is here the end of all; here, this little tenement? I shudder—is it the flesh, the instinct of life; or is it the soul which shrinks with horror from this little portal through which it must pass to eternal bliss, or eternal—horrible! Assist me to my horse, if you please. Come cousin, let us go and see old Uncle Toney—and, sir, he will teach ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... gladd'ning now the hearth, Or like the lustre of our nearest star, Fused in the common atmosphere of earth. It sports like hope upon the captive's chain; Descends in dreams upon the couch of pain; To wonder's realm allures the earnest child; To the chaste love refines the instinct wild; And as in waters the reflected beam, Still where we turn, glides with us up the stream, And while in truth the whole expanse is bright, Yields to each eye its own fond path of light,— So over life the rays of Genius fall, Give each his track ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... not only be a prisoner of the octopi, but a prisoner of the glass jar, unable ever to leave it, and more than ever at the mercy of his captor's least whim. Not that he had any delusion that he would live long in any case: it was just the simple strong instinct of self-preservation that made him grab at every ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... impression that time was on their side, owing to the impossibility of doing anything or getting anything done without the help of the associated workers. This had been the basis of their scheme, but like all such schemes it failed to take into account the instinct of self-preservation on the part of the people outside the Unions. As long as the strike leaders could point to the fleet of vessels lying idle in the harbor, the mills silent, and the street railroads ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... supremacy on the European Continent. England is always opposed to him—inevitably and instinctively. It took the Germans twenty years to prepare their people for this War. It took us two days to prepare ours. Our instinct is quick and sound; for the resources and wealth of the Continent, if once they were controlled by a single autocratic power, would make it impossible for England to follow her fortunes upon the sea. But we never stand quite alone. The smaller peoples of the Continent, who desire ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... felt." (ibid. p. 33). The Absolute Religion, which he affirms to be universally known, he defines as "Voluntary Obedience to the Law of God,—inward and outward Obedience to that law he has written on our nature, revealed in various ways through Instinct, Reason, Conscience, and the Religious Sentiment." (ibid. p. 34). Similarly, Mr. Newman says, "What God reveals to us he reveals within, through the medium of our moral and spiritual senses." (Soul, p. 59) "Christianity itself has practically confessed, what is theoretically ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... who forsook the subject. You know nothing about it; you confess that it is with you merely a blind instinct; you cannot tell me even ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various |
