"Heaven-sent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the mother instinct, supreme in its selflessness, gave her the strength to continue: "We must not think of ourselves. Real love is heaven-sent. It is ours neither to give nor ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... the All-Father now and then punish, out of sheer malevolence, or in an attempt to get even with man for the results of instincts He had put into him at first creation? Was that first creation final in its wisdom; or had it been a partial blunder, needing the interference of a heaven-sent, earth-born Intercessor to set the matter right? Could the All-Wise make a blunder? If not, then why the Atoning Son? In short, aside from some mysterious force which had set certain laws to rolling like mammoth, ever-growing snowballs down the ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... portentous frown and shake of the head, that caused it to timidly wane and fall away from the porch, only however to reappear and wax larger a few minutes later at one of the side windows. The infant class hailing his appearance as a heaven-sent boon, the master was obliged to walk to the door and command him sternly away, when, retreating to the fence, he mounted the uppermost rail, and drawing a knife from his pocket, cut a long splinter from ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... no doubt as to the heaven-sent leader who was in his mind, and he had the satisfaction of detecting a gleam of eagerness ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... human and makes a slip, a clerical error, now and again sufficient to expose his flank. And then the humble fighting-man can draw his drop of blood if he is quick about it. To this same long-suffering Jimmy was vouchsafed the heaven-sent opportunity, and he leapt at it. He got a chit from H.Q., dated ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 8, 1917 • Various
... and the sweet, blessed rain, and as the schooner, under reefed canvas, plunged to the rising sea, the folk of Nukutavake, I felt certain, stood outside their houses, and let the cooling Heaven-sent streams drench their smooth, copper-coloured skins, whilst good old Teveiva gave ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... if Quisante had followed Morewood's example and taken no notice of it. He stopped, turned to her with exaggerated deference, and greeted her obvious little carrying out of the metaphor as though it were a heaven-sent light. Somehow in doing this he seemed to fall all in an instant from lofty heights to depths almost beyond eyesight. While he complimented her elaborately, Morewood turned away in open impatience. Another topic was started, the conversation was killed; ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... on going to the spot indicated he finds it, sometimes buried, sometimes hanging on a tree. The sacred treasure is then removed to a church, and the news spreads like wildfire through the district. Thousands flock to prostrate themselves before the heaven-sent picture, and some are healed of their diseases—a fact that plainly indicates its miracle-working power. The whole affair is then officially reported to the Most Holy Synod, the highest ecclesiastical authority in Russia, in ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... and who only kiss the wounds of the crucified Jew under compulsion. They will desert from the labarum, which Constantine carried to victory, to our standards; and those standards are all there, ready for use; they have been made in this city and are lying hidden in the house of Apollodorus. Heaven-sent daemons showed them in a vision to my disciple Ammonius, when he was full of the divinity and lost in ecstasy, and I have had them ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... met the "heaven-sent, life-sustaining sea-breeze;" and now the broad and well-marked Wady Makna, with its rosy-pink sands, narrowed to a gut, flanked and choked on both sides, north and south, by rocks of the strangest tricolour, ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... a very good thing for some of us. For without that Heaven-sent capacity the world could not go on ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... from the north and laying a course to weather the Head if possible before the weather broke. It was Mary's claim that Andrew had pointed it out to her and spoken of it—in a strange way, a kind of a wistful way, she said. And later that night, what better for a man on the way to exile than a heaven-sent, outbound India ship, hove to under the lee ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... fightings and fevers, we are in no condition to drive out the savages who have doubtless ere this entered into full possession of Fort Caroline. If we did regain the fort, what could we do save remain there until this heaven-sent store of provisions should be exhausted? and then would we not be in as sad a plight as before? No, your Excellency, let us return to our own land while we may, and not linger here longer in the hope of succor which seems likely never ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe
... always anxious faces! He well knew all the types from the disdainful woman of fashion, the crafty daughter of sin, the vacuous country visitor, down to the argus-eyed mere de famille, sternly resolute in her set purpose of making three dollars take the place of five, by some heaven-sent bargain. ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... because they are not engaged in the struggle for life, are more capable of this aesthetic self-forgetfulness than they will afterwards be; and they need all of it that they can get, so that they may remember it and prize it in later years. In these heaven-sent moments they know what disinterestedness is. They have a test by which they can value all future experience and know the dullness and staleness of worldly success. Therefore it is a sin to check, more than need be, their ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... been borne in upon me, Jervis," said he, "that you are the most companionable fellow in the world. You have the heaven-sent gift of silence." ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... about one foot in one bound in one-fortieth of a second, and he let rip one squeal in the process that sent away every other rat into the nearest available hole as if it had been fired there from a spring. Then the lady hedgehog took the Heaven-sent opportunity to complete her rolling-up completely, and Prickles took his own created opportunity to roll up almost more completely, and—well, they were rolled up into two balls, you see, and there is nothing more to be said ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... shaken reed? Of such poor clay? Such puny strength? That e'en throughout the breadth and length Of purer vision's stern domain We bend to serve and serve in vain? To some, indeed, strange power is lent To stand content. Love, heaven-sent, (For things or high or pure or rare) Shows likest God, makes Life less bare. And, ever and anon there stray In faint far-reaching virelay The songs of angels, Heav'nward-found, Of little ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... You flattered us, nay, you even fawned upon us in order to secure your ends, and, now that our forces have been joined with yours, ruin menaces my country and my race. You, forsooth, allow yourself to be held up as a great prophet of Islam and a Heaven-sent protector of its faith; but we who see our nation crumbling into dust owing to your selfish ambition may be pardoned if at last we look to ourselves and attempt to save what still remains to us. To work, as they say, for the King of PRUSSIA has ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 1, 1916 • Various
... will," said Bud, accepting the commission as if it were Heaven-sent, and thereafter walked behind the two with his head in the clouds. He felt that he understood this great hero of the plains and was one with him at heart. There could be no higher honor than to be the servitor of this man's lady. Bud did not stop to question how the new teacher ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... small owners could and did prosper. He was not so much the philosopher as the man of the world: he reminded us that Europe was a society while Ruskin was treating it as a picture gallery. He was a sort of Heaven-sent courier. His frontal attack on the vulgar and sullen optimism of Victorian utility may be summoned up in the admirable sentence, in which he asked the English what was the use of a train taking them ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... of his estate, and the like. And Mrs. Dunn had repeatedly, though discreetly, endeavored to find out these important details. Neither hints nor questions had resulted satisfactorily. Was it possible that this was the reason, this country uncle? If so—well, if so, here was a Heaven-sent opportunity for a little genteel and perfectly safe detective work. Mrs. Dunn creakingly ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... been party to this betrayal is going to be found big enough to run a war? I tell you that's another thing. Do you suppose a chap who's been a miserable vote-snatcher all his life is going to turn round suddenly and be a heaven-sent administrator in a war? You can take your oath Heaven doesn't send out geniuses on that ticket. What you've lived and done in fat times—that's what you're going to live and do in lean. Heaven's chucked ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... lowers Branching wide a sombre yew, Rises as to catch the showers, Jewelled showers, of heaven-sent dew. Many a one with foot unheeding, Tramples down its verdure brave, Hurrying onward, careless treading,— It is but a ...
— Welsh Lyrics of the Nineteenth Century • Edmund O. Jones
... you expect? You know what boys are. Naturally they take advantage of what to them is a heaven-sent opportunity," said little Hartopp. "What is the trouble in ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... burst out Moore, delighted with her delight. "Quicker than a flash! Collie, isn't this great? I don't mind being down on my back. And he says they call him Hell-Bent Wade. I call him Heaven-Sent Wade!" ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... string breaks most easily when it is stretched tightest. For suddenly the weary men saw the twinkle of a fire at no great distance, and conceived a hope of prolonging their lives. Thorkill thought this fire a heaven-sent relief, and resolved to go and ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... my father's time on shore was occupied in visiting persons suffering from ague, and in prescribing for them. What a blessing, indeed, can a clever medical man prove in such regions! He is like a heaven-sent messenger carrying relief to the ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston
... fever, she continued for weeks to be unconscious of her surroundings, and the busy, stolid family, who cared for her, did not think it their business to seek out her friends. They simply accepted the duty of caring for her as Heaven-sent, and left the rest ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... surprised eyes with recognition of brotherhood and opened a straight way into his confidence. In two minutes the man—perhaps a wild hawk from the Afghan hills—would be pouring out into the ear of this sahib, with heaven-sent knowledge and sympathy, the weird tale of the blood feud and litigation, the border fray, and the usurer's iniquity, which had driven him so far afield as Lahore from Bajaur. To Kipling even the most suspected and suspicious of ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... had seemed tedious enough, as dull as the trudge to her other lessons. Lizzie was not a heaven-sent teacher; she had no born zeal for her calling, and though she dealt kindlyand dutifully with her pupils, she did not fly to them on winged feet. But one day something had happened to change the face of life, and since then the climb to the Deering house had seemed like a dream-flight ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... meeting the calamity in her own fierce way, seems to have scorned the poor island that had not enough of God’s grace to keep the “heaven-sent” Minister alive. I can hardly tell why it should be, but there is a longing for the East very commonly felt by proud-hearted people when goaded by sorrow. Lady Hester Stanhope obeyed this impulse. For some time, I believe, she was at Constantinople, ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... prison-walls, like Heaven-sent hope, Fresh breezes blew, and sunbeams strayed, And with the idle gallows-rope The ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... invasion of the grafting propensities of the local police; to politicians and saloon-keepers who were in danger of being destroyed by public upheavals of one kind and another, he seemed, in hours of stress, when his smooth, genial, almost artistic face beamed on them, like a heaven-sent son of light, a kind of Western god, all-powerful, all-merciful, perfect. On the other hand, there were ingrates, uncompromising or pharasaical religionists and reformers, plotting, scheming rivals, who found him deadly to contend with. There were many henchmen—runners ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... Paul as a heaven-sent method of avoiding the difficulty, and he had just got the envelope which had held Barbara's letter out of his pocket, intending to follow Jolland's example, when the Doctor's voice made him start guiltily and replace the envelope in ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... him at Cape Coast Castle on the occasion of a joy-ride which the young officer had taken on a British man-of-war. Ali Abid had been the heaven-sent servant, and though Sanders had a horror of natives who spoke English, the English of Ali ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... are in the state of Tsin in the fourteenth of the heaven-sent Ching," retorted Hwa-mei capably. "The insatiable Ming-shu will continue to seek your life, calling to his aid every degraded subterfuge. When the nature of these can be learned somewhat in advance, as the means within my power have hitherto enabled us to do, ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... that he avoided the fatigues of the service and preferred the honours bestowed in his country upon the quiet administrators of their own estates: but his possession of particular gifts, which are military, and especially of the proleptic mind, which is the stamp and sign-warrant of the heaven-sent General, was displayed on every urgent occasion when, in the midst of difficulties likely to have extinguished one less alert than he to the threatening aspect of disaster, he had to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... fire! Not a trace of it was left to mark the spot where once it stood. The foundations of Babylon were laid above it, and no man guessed that it had ever been. And thy poems, ... the fruit of thy heaven-sent but carelessly accepted inspiration,—who is there that remembers them? ... No one! ... save THOU! THOU hast recovered them like sunken pearls from the profound ocean of limitless Memory, ... and to the world of To-day thou dost repeat the ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... gates to his victorious host and Nuernberg received him as a heaven-sent liberator. But Tilly was in the field with a fresh army, burning to avenge Breitenfeld. He had surprised General Horn at Bamberg and beaten him. At the approach of the King he camped where the river Lech joins the Danube, awaiting ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... friends and lovers, lost or dead, could bring their forms and voices before the eye and ear of flesh, there would be a world of hallucinations around us. "But it wants heaven-sent moments for this skill," and few bridal nights send a vision and a voice to the bed of a ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... and importunate; others, shrewd worldly rogues who, having run away from home after a fit of discontent or homicide, cruise vaguely about Islamism for half a lifetime, and at last return, bearded venerables, to be stared at by their kinsfolk as portents, heaven-sent, because they have freighted themselves with a cargo of fond maxims such as "The World is Illusion: all Flesh is Vanity," and similar gnomic balderdash, ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... at which even the ribald tongue of a priest might falter; and as a matter of fact, society, in just contempt for this species of argument, never hesitates to hang, for its own imagined good, its heaven-sent catholics, protestants, sheep, sheep-stealers, etc. What then, you ask, would I do with these unholy ones? To save the State would I pierce them with a sword, or leave them to the slow throes of their agonies? Ah, do not expect me to answer that question—I ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... coming to bring to the king in his peril assistance from God; the most valiant men of war were moved by the confident outbursts of her patriotic courage; and the people everywhere welcomed her with faith and enthusiasm. Joan had as yet only just appeared, and already she was the heaven-sent interpretress of the nation's feeling, the hope of the people ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... hitting Charlie Black he felt would relieve his feeling almost as much as a fight with Tim Roon. The two bad boys never lost an opportunity to torment him or Meg, and Bobby felt that here was a heaven-sent opportunity to even up ...
— Four Little Blossoms at Oak Hill School • Mabel C. Hawley
... What Heaven-sent opportunity, then, was this quarrel with Britain for all those who resented the genial complacence with which fortune's favorites, "with vanity enough to call themselves the better sort," monopolized privilege ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... and stern. He had been on the point of saying, "I never will admit it;" but the words would not come out. He must not interrupt. This was Heaven-sent advocacy. ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... now lies by the side of one who had no equal on the ocean, in the heart of her metropolis. Within the walls of her finest cathedral, what more appropriate mausoleum could be found for Britain's two most valiant defenders, Heaven-sent surely in the time of her greatest need to defend her from the hosts of ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... down to a happier, though not many to a more frugal meal than theirs that night. Sara had not then a misgiving in regard to her fitness for the position; she was so filled with the impression of its being heaven-sent, that she felt, as did the apostles of old, that "words would be given her, what she should say," and wit also, what she should do. As to the salary, it seemed princely to these modest little folk; and the only wonder was, how they should ever ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... and too grieved to go out of their way now to make much of her, and she had been left alone to brood. Thus the advent of Verisschenzko, who thrilled her always, and a possible new admirer in Denzil, seemed a heaven-sent occurrence. Amaryllis and John were undesired but unavoidable appendages who had ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... positions near the sea. He had changed the face of the war. In London there was momentary rejoicing over Howe's recent victories, but it was soon followed by distressing news of defeat. Through all the colonies ran inspiring tidings. There had been doubts whether, after all, Washington was the heaven-sent leader. Now both America and Europe learned to recognize his skill. He had won a reputation, though not yet had ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... replied, "looked upon Pickie's birth as much in the light of a miracle as if no other child had ever before been born. He was Heaven-sent to her, and she sacrificed herself completely for the better development of Pickie's individuality, or, to use the language of the reformers of those days, in 'illustrating the independence of the child's self-hood.' Nothing could have been more boundless than her enthusiasm ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... ay, we should have been in Albany ere this. In these wild times, Annie, every chance-blown straw that points at evil, is likely to prove a faithful index; and if it serve to nerve the heart for it, we may call it heaven-sent indeed. Annie,—hear me calmly, my child,—the enemy, so at least goes the rumor, are nearer than we counted on this morning, and—hush, not ...
— The Bride of Fort Edward • Delia Bacon
... saving Rufus Dawes swam with the current that was running out of the bay. For some time the burden that it bore was an insensible one. Exhausted with his desperate struggle for life, the convict lay along the rough back of this Heaven-sent raft without motion, almost without breath. At length a violent shock awoke him to consciousness, and he perceived that the log had become stranded on a sandy point, the extremity of which was lost in darkness. Painfully raising himself from his ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke |
