"Forgetfulness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the Tribune seemed only a disguise to private revenge. All they believed was, that Rienzi did not dare to destroy them in the face of day; forgetfulness and forgiveness appeared to them as the means designed to lull their vigilance, while abasing their pride: and the knowledge of crime detected forbade them all hope of safety. The hand of their own assassin might be armed against them, or they might be ruined singly, one by ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... afterwards Earl, Fauconberg. The Fauconbergs took revolutions calmly and, despite the disinterment of their great relative, accepted the Restoration gladly and lived to chuckle over the Revolution. The forgetfulness, no less than the vindictiveness, of men is often surprising. Marvell, who played the part of Laureate during the Protectorate, produced two songs for the conventionally joyful occasion. The second of the two is decidedly pretty for a ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... Nature's soft nurse," murmured Captain Douglas, as he sought repose from the wearing and fatiguing rounds of the last evening and remaining part of the night. Soon the "gentle sleep" was upon him, and, steeped in quiet forgetfulness, slept peacefully, regardless of toast, speeches ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... hands, which she did with increasing energy and humility. This was a terrible humiliation for such a haughty German. Madame de Maintenon at last gave way, as she had always meant to do after having satiated her vengeance. They embraced, promised forgetfulness on both sides, and a new friendship from that time. The King, who was not ignorant of what had occurred, took back Madame into favour. She went neither to a convent nor to Montargis, but was allowed to remain in Paris, and her pension was augmented. As for M. le Duc de Chartres, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... phalanxes of motor cars his gaze would turn with watchful expectation, and he took to scanning the faces of the passing thousands, a lonely, shy man with a queer glow in his eyes. That, of course, was only in moments of forgetfulness. Then he would pull himself together with a resentful irritation and tax himself with being a weak fool and stalk along ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... sound he had made was just da da, or truly and intentionally dadda, had washed him in the utmost detail, and wrapped him up in soft, warm blankets, and smothered him with kisses. A regal time that was, and four and thirty years ago; and a merciful forgetfulness barred Mr. Polly from ever bringing its careless luxury, its autocratic demands and instant obedience, into contrast with his present condition of life. These two people had worshipped him from the crown of his ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... have been checked in such silly efforts to do good through forgetfulness of the fact that usually the poorest are the proudest. Even the luxurious debris of London Club kitchens must be flung into swill-barrels for pigs, because starving men and women will not demean themselves to ask for it at the buttery-hatch. Moreover, that such are often extravagant ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... been but the unreasoning suggestions of girlish romance, too carelessly indifferent to the exigencies of poverty and diverse nationality; and that, if he had ever returned to claim her, mutual explanation and forgetfulness could have been their only proper course. There was, therefore, nothing for which she could reproach herself, or for which he could justly blame her, were he to recognize her as ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... first great kings of the world are forgotten, and the names of all those whose power we envy will drift to forgetfulness soon. What does the most powerful man in the world amount to standing at the brink of Niagara, with his solar plexus trembling? What is his power compared with the force of the wind or the energy of one small wave sweeping ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... anything against his unwavering faith, and pure and fervent love for Ellen Langton. A sorrowful and repining disposition is not the necessary accompaniment of a "leal and loving heart"; and Edward's spirits were cheered, not by forgetfulness, but by hope, which would not permit him to doubt of the ultimate success of his pursuit. The uncertainty itself, and the probable danger of the expedition, were not without their charm to a youthful and adventurous spirit. In fact, Edward would not have been altogether satisfied ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and with entire forgetfulness of his exhaustion he crept slowly forward, worming through the brush and long grass behind a snake fence. Slowly he progressed until only a muddy road intervened between him and the north end of the platform. Taking advantage of a noisy blow-off from ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster
... if, perchance, she might hear his; listened, and held her breath, and quivered all over with hope and fear: then crept back to her miserable bed, covered her head with the ragged quilt, and cried herself into a few hours of forgetfulness. ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... whom he mourns? Who, even when the tomb is closing upon the remains of her he most loved—when he feels his heart, as it were, crushed in the closing of its portal—would accept of consolation that must be bought by forgetfulness? ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof
... feelings would undoubtedly have prompted. He therefore relinquished the care of her (with great reluctance we may naturally suppose) to Bathsheba, who had inherited not only her mother's youthful smile, but that self-forgetfulness which, born with some of God's creatures, is, if not "grace," at least a manifestation of native depravity which might well ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... very delicate girls who need special care, but I am speaking to the average girl. Do not forget that a cold is a terrible thing, but also remember that it can be avoided by a little care at the right time, and by entire forgetfulness at other times. ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... their fate was interwoven. Still no consciousness of love colored Gro's attitude. She longed for Soelver's strong handclasp because it made her will strong to withstand her sorrow. She could think of herself lying upon his broad, deep breast, only however because there slumber would come in sure forgetfulness. There was moreover a tenderness in her look, when in a fleeting moment she let her glance rest upon his, such as the realization of another's goodness awakens in us, especially when the goodness is undeserved and disinterested. Yet there was never any of love's surrender. ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... this daylight world teems, And sleep comes with forgetfulness or fraught with lovely dreams; And there is magic in the touch, and music in the sigh, And, far more eloquent than speech, a ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... encouraged by example and by the impunity of lesser thieves, the greater ones soon took part in the robberies. Amurath seized part of Hungary. Mathias Corvinus took Lower Austria, and Frederic consoled himself for these usurpations by repeating the maxim, Forgetfulness is the best cure for the losses we suffer. At the time we have now reached, he had just, after a reign of fifty-three years, affianced his son Maximilian to Marie of Burgundy and had put under the ban of the ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... when he calls us off from contemplating our misfortunes is an imaginary action; for it is not in our power to dissemble or to forget those evils which lie heavy on us; they tear, vex, and sting us—they burn us up, and leave no breathing time. And do you order us to forget them (for such forgetfulness is contrary to nature), and at the same time deprive us of the only assistance which nature affords, the being accustomed to them? For that, though it is but a slow medicine (I mean that which is brought by lapse of time), is still a very effectual one. You order ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... and that my non-arrival caused considerable disappointment. I apologized as well as I could, by saying that I had been out on a scout and had got lost, and had forgotten all about the dinner; and expressed my regret for the disappointment I had created by my forgetfulness. August Belmont, the banker, being ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... for what even I have heard you say; let me warn you, madam, that you have sailed pretty close to the wind already in the way of indictable slander. You seem to forget that my wife was tried and acquitted by twelve of her fellow-countrymen. You will at least apologize for that forgetfulness before you ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... what had just occurred—a forgetfulness which insensibly carried her back to the moment when she had given me some order which involved my departure from the room—she impetuously called out over her shoulder which she had turned ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... A whim, a fantastic, unaccountable whim; the whim of a woman seeking forgetfulness, not counting the cost nor caring; simply a whim. She had brought him here to crush him for his impertinence; and that purpose was no longer in her mind. Was she sorry? Did he cause her some uneasiness, ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... of absolute self-forgetfulness and indomitable spirit occurred at another part of the line. A shell burst near to our wire and projected a tangled heap of it forward. A piece of barbed wire encircled a man's neck. The barbs bit into the flesh. ...
— Over the Top With the Third Australian Division • G. P. Cuttriss
... their association with machinery, without thinking how far the arts still come short of the trades. If any sculptor could feel it, what a magnificent bas-relief just that thing would make!" He turned round to look at the men again: in their different poses of self-forgetfulness and interest in their work, they had a beauty and grace, in spite of their clumsy ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... by them, and sank down and crept along for some distance on the ground. "A grave! dig me a grave!" sounded again in her ears, and she would have gladly buried herself, if in the grave she could have found forgetfulness of her actions. ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... mean yours truly," Aggie exclaimed, not in the least abashed by her forgetfulness in an affair that concerned herself so closely. "Hope he's brought the money. ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... to a wider vision in life and if she looks around she will find forgetfulness in helping others. It is never ...
— The Colored Girl Beautiful • E. Azalia Hackley
... inscribed on his nervous tissues.[203] Mr. Buckle assures us that certain underlying but indefinable laws of society, as indicated by statistics, control human action irrespective of choice or moral responsibility. Even accidents, the averages of forgetfulness or neglect, are the subjects of computation. To support his position he cites the averages of suicides, or the number of letters deposited yearly in a given post-office, the superscription of which has been forgotten. Thus, underlying all human activity ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... turn their minds to other thoughts, cast into the wine a drug that lulled pain and brought forgetfulness—a drug which had been given to her in Egypt by Polydamna, the wife of King Theon. And when they had drunk the wine their sorrowful memories went from them, and they spoke to each other without regretfulness. Thereafter King Menelaus told of his adventure with the Ancient One ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum
... at last, and with it forgetfulness; morning, too, came in due season, and with it, the daily call ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... is handed him from the well of life. He is not yet capable of understanding that one such as he, filled with the glory and not the duty of victory, could not but fail, and therefore ought to fail; but his dismay and chagrin are soothed by the forgetfulness the days and nights bring, gently wiping out the sins that are past, that the young life may have a fresh chance, as we say, and begin again unburdened by the weight of a too ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... am quite ashamed of not having acknowledged your kind present earlier, but that unknown something, which was never yet discovered, though so often speculated upon, which stands in the way of lazy folks answering letters, has presented its usual obstacle. It is not forgetfulness, nor disrespect, nor incivility, but terribly like all ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... Snevellicci had no sooner swallowed another glassful than he smiled upon all present in happy forgetfulness of having exhibited symptoms of pugnacity, and proposed 'The ladies! Bless their hearts!' in a most ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... which has spread over a very small part of the people and garrison of this capital; the forgetfulness of honour and duty, have caused the defection of a few soldiers, whose misconduct up to this hour has been thrown into confusion by the valiant behaviour of the greatest part of the chiefs, officers, and soldiers, who have intrepidly followed the example of the valiant general-in-chief ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... revolutions then take place in the human mind, without the apparent co-operation of the passions of man, and almost without his knowledge. Men lose the object of their fondest hopes, as if through forgetfulness. They are carried away by an imperceptible current which they have not the courage to stem, but which they follow with regret, since it bears them from a faith they love, to a scepticism that plunges ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... victor to whom she must submit. Besides, she had memories of past tenderness to cherish, smiles, words, and even tears, to con over, which, though remembered in desertion and sorrow, were to be preferred to the forgetfulness of the grave. It was impossible to guess at the whole of her plan. Her letter to Raymond gave no clue for discovery; it assured him, that she was in no danger of wanting the means of life; she promised in it to ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... excitement and to drive away sorrow by a bold diversion, the doctor supped every evening alone with His Majesty, and poured out intoxication and forgetfulness with a liberal hand. Wieduwillst did not spare himself, but wine had little effect on his strong brain; he would have defied Bacchus and Silenus together with Charming. While the prince, by turn noisy and silent, plunged into the ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... that we constantly blame others when we have only ourselves to blame; and the philosopher must acknowledge, however reluctantly, that there is an element of chance in human life with which it is sometimes impossible for man to cope. That men drink more of the waters of forgetfulness than is good for them is a poetical description of a familiar truth. We have many of us known men who, like Odysseus, have wearied of ambition and have only desired rest. We should like to know what became of the infants 'dying almost as soon as they were born,' ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... string, And both may jar: it may be, that in vain I would essay as I have sung to sing. Yet, though a dreary strain, to this I cling, So that it wean me from the weary dream Of selfish grief or gladness—so it fling Forgetfulness around me—it shall seem To me, though to none else, a not ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... lowest abyss of evil, or rises to the highest degree of virtue and glory. In the sin of Eve the first degree was a certain intemperance of language, which led her to reply to the insidious questions of the devil; in appearance this forgetfulness was very slight. To answer a question, give an explanation requested of you, clear up a doubt, render an account of a precept of the Lord, seem at first sight something natural and permitted. It is quite easy to be deceived ...
— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi
... her to do, and that was to get up and dress and go down to her father's library and read herself into forgetfulness ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey
... carried him to the castle, big enough to ride in. But he never told anyone—even his mother—the whole story of his adventures. Perhaps he did not remember them clearly himself; for the fairies protect their secrets well, and draw in sleep the veil of forgetfulness over much that we ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... author wrote this tale in entire forgetfulness of Hawthorne's "Rapaccini's Daughter," which nevertheless he had ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... had been thinking furiously during this little speech. He saw the mistake he had made in taking the high line, and his wretched forgetfulness of the fourth place at table. He must make terms, though it ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... figure was tall, and in its outline somewhat sharp and angular; but she had an ease and grace about her that made one forget she was not molded as softly and roundly as others. She seemed just the woman on whose bosom a tired, worn, over-burdened man might lay his weary head, and find rest and forgetfulness. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... cavalier, I meant to say. He asked me why I did not wear my Order of the Spur. I said I had one in my head quite hard enough to carry. He was so obliging as to dust my coat a little for me, saying, "One cavalier may wait upon another." In spite of which, the same afternoon—from forgetfulness, I suppose—he left his spur at home, (I mean the outward and visible one,) or at all events contrived to hide it so effectually that not a vestige of it was to be seen. In case I forget it again, I must tell you that ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... mind was so full of dark suspicions, that she found it difficult to lay a finger upon the real cause of the mischief. Possibly truth is only discoverable by chance. A day came, however, at length when Julie flashed out before her aunt's astonished eyes into a complete forgetfulness of her marriage; she recovered the wild spirits of careless girlhood. Mme. de Listomere then and there made up her mind to fathom the depths of this soul, for its exceeding simplicity was as ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... was streaming brightly through the open bamboos, but no one was stirring. After surveying the fine attitudes into which forgetfulness had thrown at least one of the sleepers, my attention was called off to the general aspect of the dwelling, which was quite significant of the superior ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... meet him without betraying, by some faint sign, that there was neither forgetfulness nor indifference in her mind as to ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... use it. Let me look at that chocolate. I guess I'll take some of it"—and his hand went slowly into his pocket—"but, hold on! We've got chocolate! Confound my forgetfulness; I'll buy out your store directly. Do you ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... it waste of time to be always weighing herself and her feelings in a nicely-adjusted balance. 'Know thyself,' said an old thinker; but Audrey Ross would have altered the saying: 'Look out of yourself; self-forgetfulness is better than any ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... travellers since his time. Very significant is it to see the New Testament injunction, "Remember Lot's wife," so utterly forgotten. These later investigators seem never to have heard of it; and this constant forgetfulness shows the change which had taken place in the enlightened thinking ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... reserved to it. (Applause.) Let those who are restrained by the fear of persecutions and troubles out of their country return to it in safety. In order to extinguish hatreds let us consent to a mutual forgetfulness of the past. (The tribunes and the left renewed their acclamations.) Let the accusations and the prosecutions which have sprung solely from the events of the constitution be obliterated in a general reconciliation. I do not refer to those ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... only to see the shapes of trees through the fine grey light, he was overcome by a desire to escape, to have done with this suffering, to forget that Rachel was ill. He allowed himself to lapse into forgetfulness of everything. As if a wind that had been raging incessantly suddenly fell asleep, the fret and strain and anxiety which had been pressing on him passed away. He seemed to stand in an unvexed space of air, on a little island by himself; he was free and immune ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... springs of solitude; come and drink of those fountains which are hidden in the desert, and which gush forth to heaven. Careworn soul, come, and possess that which thou desirest! Heart greedy for joy, come and taste true joys—poverty, retirement, self-forgetfulness, seclusion in the bosom of God. Enemy of Christ now, and to-morrow His well-beloved, come to Him! Come, thou whom I have sought, and thou wilt say, 'I ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... moments—that she was beset with this inability to see more than one side of a subject at a time. The odd thing about it was that one never knew which side, the pathetic or the humorous, would strike her. Generally, however, it was the one that related least to herself personally. This self-forgetfulness, with a keen sense of the ludicrous, led her sometimes, when she had anything amusing to relate, to overlook considerations which would have kept ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... of interpretation led him to the theory generally known by the name of "accommodation."(685) He felt a strong reaction against the forgetfulness shown by the old dogmatic orthodoxy, which had regarded the Bible as one book, instead of a collection or historic series of books, and had confounded together the Jewish and Christian dispensations, and taken no cognizance ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... growling at each other, as I had seen the stranger lynxes growling once before over the caribou. In a moment they had torn the carcass apart and were crouched, each one over his piece, gnarling like a cat over a rat, and stuffing themselves greedily in utter forgetfulness of the mother lynx, which lay under a bush some distance ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long
... absorbing interest for the glowing glories of the planet, seemed to be beguiled into comparative forgetfulness of the charms of his comet; but no astronomical enthusiasm of the professor could quite allay the general apprehension that some ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... Letter* duly, some time ago, with many welcomes; and have as you see been too remiss in answering it. Not from forgetfulness, if you will take my word; no, but from many causes, too complicated to articulate, and justly producing an indisposition to put pen to paper at all! Never was I more silent than in these very months; and, with reason too, for the world at large, and my own share of it in small, are both ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... on by the wearing excitement of ceaseless and excessive literary toil." As 'Ben Karshook's Wisdom,' though it has been reprinted in several quarters, will not be found in any volume of Browning's works, and was omitted from "Men and Women" by accident, and from further collections by forgetfulness, it may be fitly quoted here. Karshook, it may be added, is the Hebraic word ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... in England, believed perhaps by some, half believed by many more, which is only consistent with original ignorance, or complete subsequent forgetfulness, of all the antecedents of the contest. There are people who tell us that, on the side of the North, the question is not one of slavery at all. The North, it seems, have no more objection to slavery than the South have. Their leaders never ...
— The Contest in America • John Stuart Mill
... loud murmur of disappointment, mingled with exclamations of dissent and reproach. Once more I was plied with questions, and then, my son, there came to me, singularly clouded in forgetfulness until that instant, the memory of that fruitless message which we received about a year ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... gentleman to play to, I appreciated what a life that was to them, and what it should be; not cold-blooded skill, aiming only at excellence or preexcellence and at setting up the artist, but a fire and a joy, a self-forgetfulness which whirls the soul away as the soul of the Moenad went with the stream adown the mountains,—Evoe Bacchus! This feeling is deep in the heart of the Hungarian gypsy; he plays it, he feels it in ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... those whose daily work compels them under penalty to pay close and undeviating attention to their surroundings. This is true of sailors, hunters, plainsmen, cowboys, and tugboat captains. It was especially true of the old-fashioned river-driver, for a misstep, a miscalculation, a moment's forgetfulness of the sullen forces shifting and changing about him could mean for him maiming or destruction. So, finally, to one of an imaginative bent, these eyes, like the "cork boots," grew to seem part of the uniform, one ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... your breast;" and so he rested, now and then speaking lowly to himself, "It's only that I miss my mother; but Heaven's will be done." He repeated this many times, until the Heaven he obeyed sent him in its mercy forgetfulness, and his thoughts no longer wandered to his earthly home. I heard glad words feebly uttered as I bent over him—words about "Heaven—rest—rest"—a holy Name many times repeated; and then with a smile and a stronger ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... the discreet Manicamp, saluting the princess, "let us bury this affair altogether in forgetfulness, for it will never be quite ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... their natural end, curtailed of the due catastrophe—it is then that we find for the swift sad bright lightnings of laughter from the lips of the sweet and bitter fool whose timeless disappearance from the stage of King Lear seems for once a sure sign of inexplicable weariness or forgetfulness on Shakespeare's part, so nauseous and so sorry a substitute as the fetid fun and rancid ribaldry of Pandarus and Thersites. I must have leave to say that the coincidence of these two in the scheme of a single play is a thing hardly bearable by men who object ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Christian demonstrations of sumptuous honors and abundant alms which they give for their deceased, as we shall relate in the proper place. But I shall not defer the telling of one which may prove a matter of reprehension to our neglect and forgetfulness, in what is more important to us, namely, that they are wont to have the coffin prepared during the lifetime for their burial. They make those coffins out of one single piece, and from incorruptible woods. They keep them under their houses where they can see them whenever they descend from or ascend ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... gold, it had been very generally conceded that there was no such striking resemblance, after all, betwixt the ignoble features of the ruined merchant and that majestic face upon the mountain-side. So the people ceased to honour him during his lifetime, and quietly consigned him to forgetfulness after his decease. Once in a while, it is true, his memory was brought up in connection with the magnificent palace which he had built, and which had long ago been turned into a hotel for the accommodation ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... instantly uprooted, and dragged along to a second obstacle, a house, whose roof was carried off. At this moment the two cables of the anchors were broken without the voyagers being aware of it. Foreseeing the successive shocks that were about to ensue—the moment was critical—the least forgetfulness might cause death. To add to the difficulty, the balloon's inclined position did not permit of operating the valve, except on ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... an equally ideal hostess; the principle of both is the same. A ready smile, a quick sympathy, a happy outlook, consideration for others, tenderness toward everything that is young or helpless, and forgetfulness of self, which is not far from the ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... and pleased, to this learned dissertation. For he is rejoiced to perceive, that the thoughts of his young companion are beginning to find some abstraction and forgetfulness, of that upon which they have been so long sadly dwelling. Cypriano, too, appears to take an interest in the subject of discourse; and to encourage it the gaucho rejoins, ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... true idea of Christianity, who has not understood that it demands not so much that one should be careful about his own spiritual perfection, that he should watch himself, and by private remorse and tears seek a far-off heaven, as by a generous self- forgetfulness and self-devotion, seek to build up the kingdom of peace and love among men, and make heaven a reality here, and not the hope only of a distant future and ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... little phial of laudanum in the medicine-cupboard that always leered at me from among the other bottles like a serpent's eye. Thrice happy thought! Who would miss such a poor imitation? Even the mere soap-vending tradesmen bid us 'beware of imitations.' Dark wine of forgetfulness.... No, that was a quotation. However, here was the phial. I drew the cork, inhaled for a moment the hard dry odour of poppies, and prepared to drink. But just at that moment I seemed to hear a horrid little laugh coming out of the bottle, and ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... new life which had now fairly begun for Oliver, it was partly as he had foreseen; he was apt to forget many things, and he had a fretting consciousness of this forgetfulness. When he was in the house playing with Dolly, or reading to her, the shop altogether slipped away from his memory, and he was only recalled to it by the loud knocking or shouting of some customer in it. On the other ...
— Alone In London • Hesba Stretton
... evidently fatal to selfishness and self-assertion; and in such an atmosphere good manners will spring up spontaneously among the children, and will scarcely need to be inculcated, for the essence of courtesy is forgetfulness of self and consideration of others in the smaller affairs of social life. The general bearing of the Utopian children hits the happy mean between aggressive familiarity and uncouth shyness,—each a form of self-conscious egoism,—just as their bearing in school hits ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... Eliza, did not especially interest Smith, who continued his favorite occupation—or rather, joint occupations, of whittling and expectorating. Nevertheless, the letter to Sister Eliza was written, and not a minute sooner than was necessary; for, the little soul that was to bring with it forgetfulness for all the agony through which its mother had lived during that awful year, came very soon after the ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... alone has drawn more baronets, virtuous and vicious, handsome and hideous, than would have colonized Ulster ten times over and left a residue for Nova Scotia. Sir Pitt Crawley and Sir Barnes Newcome will live as long as English novels are read, and I hope that dull forgetfulness will never seize as its prey Sir Alfred Mogyns Smyth de Mogyns, who was born Alfred Smith Muggins, but traced a descent from Hogyn Mogyn of the Hundred Beeves, and took for his motto "Ung Roy ung Mogyns." His pedigree is drawn in the seventh ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... true," Sylvester had said coolly. But he had not felt cool. He had felt shaken and confused. The boy's entire self-forgetfulness, his entire absence of fear, had made Hudson feel that he was talking to a stranger, a ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... nearly forgot the duchess," said I. To tell the truth, I was at first rather proud of my forgetfulness; it argued a complete triumph over that unruly impulse at which I have hinted. But it also smote me with remorse. I leaped ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... a place immediately behind the bride, to hold her gloves and handkerchief, and flowers; her companions range themselves close to, and slightly in the rear of the principal bridesmaid. If any difficulties occur from forgetfulness, or want of knowledge, the woman who is usually in attendance at the church ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... which was large and somewhat distended at the middle, like that of the old Greek statues. Her glance had the expression of the moonlight of her country rather than of its sun. It was the expression of timidity mingled with confidence in the indulgence of another, emanating from a forgetfulness of her own nature. In fine, it was the image of good-feeling, impressed as well on her air as on her heart, and which seem confident that others are like her. It was evident that this woman, who was yet so agreeable, must in her youth have been most attractive. She yet had what the people (the ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... waiting Dick, almost weeping with rage and wrath, caught a passer-by, who introduced him to a friendly policeman, who led him to a four-wheeler opposite the Albert Hall. He never told Mr. Beeton of Alf's forgetfulness, but... this was not the manner in which he was used to ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... been in such a whirl that he had striven to forget everything and had strenuously kept from seeking out Nana while avoiding an explanation with the countess. He thought, indeed, that he owed his dignity such a measure of forgetfulness. But mysterious forces were at work within, and Nana began slowly to reconquer him. First came thoughts of her, then fleshly cravings and finally a new set of exclusive, tender, ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... the threats of her mother, the sick woman, who was still sobbing 'It's a lie! A lie!' at last spoke. It was a young fellow of the huerta whom she had never seen again... an indiscretion committed one evening... she no longer remembered. No, she could not remember!... And she insisted upon this forgetfulness as if it were an ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... voice and said, "Whoever he may be who says that Don Quixote of La Mancha has forgotten or can forget Dulcinea del Toboso, I will teach him with equal arms that what he says is very far from the truth; for neither can the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso be forgotten, nor can forgetfulness have a place in Don Quixote; his motto is constancy, and his profession to maintain the same with his life ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... eat. Keziah wanted to get back to her old man, and how could she go, unless Ruth kept in trim to attend to her two charges? Who could say that old Phoebe, at eighty, would not give in under the strain? Ruth had always a happy faculty of self-forgetfulness; and now, badly as she had felt the shock, she so completely lost sight of herself in the thought of the greater trouble of the principal actors, as to be fully alive to the one great need ahead, that of guarding and preserving what was left of the old life, the tending of which ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... contains two other characters who are unmatched in fiction as the incarnation of pure love and self-forgetfulness. Giles Winterbourne, whose devotion to Grace is without wish for happiness which shall not imply a greater happiness for her, dies that no breath of suspicion may fall upon her. He in turn is loved by Marty South with a completeness which destroys all thought ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... morning bath, fell in a cataract over the polished amplitudes of bosom and shoulders. Save when feeling shot them with tawny flashes—as waving branches filter mottled sunlight on brown waters—her eyes were dark as the pools of Lethe, wherein men plunge and forget the past. They brought forgetfulness to Paul of his moral tradition, racial pride, the carefully conned apology which he did not remember until, an hour later, he fed her entire stock in trade to his dog. It was better so. Black, brown or white women are alike sensitive to the language of flowers, and the lilies he ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... said he, 'that I have a proper coat, and that not contempt nor poverty, but forgetfulness, sent me to ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... of war to play the peacemaker! Surely I have chosen the safer path in open breach and battle, though would that my war was ended, and I sitting spinning again beside my dear mother." Hereon her face grew more tender and sad than ever I had seen it, and there came over me forgetfulness of my private grief, as of a little thing, and longing to ride at the Maiden's rein, where glory was to ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... Babylonia, of which the world had quite forgot the names, only vague rumors remaining in song or legend of Nimrod and Chedorlaomer and Ur of the Chaldees,—only what was preserved in the dimmest records of the Hebrew Scriptures. Empires were lost, buried in chiliads of forgetfulness; ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... rang in her ears. Her misery, made by her own thoughts, left her, as a headache leaves a sufferer when a sedative has been administered. The gentle voice, the divine attendant, achieved its work. Meg had asked for rest and for forgetfulness. Her prayer was being answered. It repeated to her the tender words of Akhnaton; it told her in Michael's own dear way the true explanation of her vision. With tightly-closed eyes and her head bowed, she saw again the whole scene. It was unnaturally vivid—the luminous figure, with the pitying, ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... all time. Counts, marquises, Churchmen—all have passed upon the scroll of those three hundred years; some left indelible marks for good, some for evil; whilst others, effete and useless, are buried in forgetfulness. The Spanish character, architecture, institutions, and class distinctions were now indelibly stamped upon the people of Mexico. The Aztec regime had passed for ever; the Indian race was outclassed and subordinate; and the mestizos, ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... and suffering. Later in life John knew what the Master's words meant. He found his place nearest to Christ, but it was not on the steps of an earthly throne; it was a nearness of love, and the steps to it were humility, self-forgetfulness, and ministry. ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... thoughts at that moment, could have known the oppression of gratitude in the heart of the agitated girl toward the stranger who had just saved her father from a horrible death, and whose presence of mind and self-forgetfulness were to be repaid by the paltry sum of thirty pounds a year! "Papa!" she exclaimed, and then in her forbearance ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... her own personality a thing which was stifling her life. Since she was a child she had craved for understanding and sympathy, but nature and her upbringing had made it impossible for her to accept them when they were offered. Lacking the power of self-expression, and consequently self-forgetfulness, her own individuality oppressed her. It was like an iron mask which she could not remove, and which ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... observed so often that several bad ice-years come together, and this was evidently none of the best. Though I would hardly confess the feeling of depression even to myself, I must say that it was not on a bed of roses I lay these nights until sleep came and carried me off into the land of forgetfulness. ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... and my sister did not arrive. Her house is at some distance from mine, and though her arrangements had been made with a view of residing with us, it was possible that through forgetfulness, or the occurrence of unforeseen emergencies, she had returned ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... a sleep and a forgetting; The soul that rises with us, our life's star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar, Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... Plautus' frequent forgetfulness of his Greek environment and the interjection of Roman references—what De Quincey calls "anatopism"—is another item of careless composition too well known to need more than passing mention. The repeated appearance of the Velabrum,[179] ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke
... past smiling fields and sleepy villages bowered 'mid the green. They rode ever by sequestered paths, skirting shady wood and coppice where birds sang soft a drowsy lullaby, wooing the world to forgetfulness and rest; fording prattling brook and whispering stream whose placid waters flamed to the glory of sunset. And thus they came at last to Blaen, a cloistered hamlet beyond which rose the grey walls of the ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... to perform a commission which a friend intrusted to you. Forgetfulness denotes lack ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... Ministers, some of whom had been stout Republicans on paper but a few years before; and by the Chamber, which, such is the blessed constitution of French elections, will generally vote, unvote, revote in any way the Government wishes. With a wondrous union, and happy forgetfulness of principle, monarch, ministers, and deputies issued the restriction laws; the Press was sent to prison; as for the poor dear Caricature, it was fairly murdered. No more political satires appear now, and "through the eye, correct the heart;" no more poires ripen on ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... dim watchfires of some darkling hour, Whose fame forlorn time saves not nor proclaims For ever, but forgetfulness defames And darkness and the shadow of death devour, Lift up ye too your light, put forth your power, Let the far twilight feel your soft small flames And smile, albeit night name not even their names, Ghost by ghost passing, flower blown down ...
— Sonnets, and Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... there are five times as many Scripture passages claiming for man that all ends in death as there are for animals. Over and over we are told that those who have died have no remembrance of God, and cannot praise Him. The Bible speaks of death as the "land of forgetfulness,"—the place of darkness, where all man's thoughts perish. Nothing more than this could be said of the ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... demonstration of the sort. Julius Caesar did not kick at this, because it was too trifling a matter. Far better would it have been for Julius Caesar had he kicked then and there, but the relation of why comes later on. Lost in their sorrows, Cocoanut and Billy communed together, and Cocoanut, in the forgetfulness of deep reflection began plaiting together the end of the string of firecrackers and the hairs in the tail of Julius Caesar. He was a good plaiter, was Cocoanut—they do such work with grasses and things in and about Honolulu, ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... other, played into each other's hands, forgotten that they were anything but parts of one great, smoothly moving, swiftly running machine. And, having so tested his fellows, each one would play with the confidence and self-forgetfulness that alone can ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... telescope, abandoning the instrument finally to observe the retreating shadow. All this we went over twenty times, while looking at the actual sun, and keeping him in the middle of the field. It was my object to render the repetition of the lesson so mechanical as to leave no room for flurry, forgetfulness, or excitement. Volition was not to be called upon, nor judgment exercised, but a well-beaten path of routine was to be followed. Had the opportunity occurred, I think the programme would ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... Forgetfulness.—There is nothing, no, nothing, innocent or good that dies and is forgotten: let us hold to that faith or none. An infant, a prattling child, dying in the cradle, will live again in the better thoughts of those that loved it, and ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... seem to be, dependent for good or evil on circumstances which we do not make for ourselves. This dependence is in itself, no doubt, a fact; but it ceases to be so for us when we contemplate it in forgetfulness of that spring of potential freedom which underlies it, and of the law of duty correlative to freedom. To the exclusive consideration of it we owe those profitless recipes for eliciting moral health from circumstances which are the plague of modern literature, and which one of our ablest writers ...
— An Estimate of the Value and Influence of Works of Fiction in Modern Times • Thomas Hill Green
... the weary hours of toil, It brought forgetfulness to debtors; Time and again from wretched men It struck oppression's ...
— A Little Book of Western Verse • Eugene Field
... artillery, and other military objects symbolical of his various campaigns; and gold plate at intervals all round the table was supplemented by triumphal wreaths. The duke told me afterward that all these decorations were due to his own forgetfulness. He had for years been accustomed to celebrate the anniversary of the battle of Waterloo by a banquet to certain officers who had been present at it, and who still survived; but the number of these had ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock |
