"Involuntary" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... perplexed, and Lady Mary blandly curious. Pauline alone seemed as though by instinct to realize what lay beneath their hostess's words. Her face seemed suddenly to grow tense. She shrank back—a slight, involuntary movement, but ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a quick, involuntary look at Chase's face. Browne's tall fellow-countryman was now leaning against the rail beside her chair. She saw a look of surprised amusement flit across his face, succeeded almost instantly by a hard, ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... these convulsions last more than three hours. They are accompanied with expectorations of a muddy viscous water, brought away by violent efforts. Sometimes streaks of blood have been observed in this fluid. These convulsions are characterized by the precipitous, involuntary motion of all the limbs, and of the whole body: by the construction of the throat — by the leaping motions of the hypochondria and the epigastrium — by the dimness and wandering of the eyes — by piercing shrieks, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... other, and everything was quiet again. Hermann stood leaning against the cold stove. He was calm; his heart beat regularly, like that of a man resolved upon a dangerous but inevitable undertaking. One o'clock in the morning struck; then two; and he heard the distant noise of carriage-wheels. An involuntary agitation took possession of him. The carriage drew near and stopped. He heard the sound of the carriage-steps being let down. All was bustle within the house. The servants were running hither and thither, there was a confusion of voices, and the rooms were lit up. Three ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... repeated in surprise, turning and casting an involuntary glance at the small mirror on the wall opposite in a vain effort to catch a full view ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... (to whom that small warm hand belonged), though she was the class beauty, and long established in the office. Now, all at once, a peculiar and heretofore entirely unfamiliar sensation suddenly became important in the upper part of his chest. For a moment he held his breath, an involuntary action;—he seemed to be standing in a shower ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... involuntary, but a time came when a tour in Palestine was almost as much the fashion as it is to-day. The conquests of Thothmes III. had made Syria an Egyptian province, and had introduced Syrians into the Egyptian bureaucracy. Good ...
— Patriarchal Palestine • Archibald Henry Sayce
... needful &c (requisite) 630. fated; destined &c v.; elect; spellbound compulsory &c (compel) 744; uncontrollable, inevitable, unavoidable, irresistible, irrevocable, inexorable; avoidless^, resistless. involuntary, instinctive, automatic, blind, mechanical; unconscious, unwitting, unthinking; unintentional &c (undesigned) 621; impulsive &c 612. Adv. necessarily &c adv.; of necessity, of course; ex necessitate rei [Lat.]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... of disposal. Such institutions must probably at one time have existed among the Italians; traces of them may perhaps be found in particular institutions of ritual, e. g. in the expiatory goat, which the involuntary homicide was obliged to give to the nearest of kin to the slain; but even at the earliest period of Rome which we can conceive this stage had long been transcended. The clan and the family doubtless were not annihilated in the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... hunting passionately. His time was passed in firing at a mark, instead of studying; and he spent the money extracted from the old doctor in buying powder and ball for a wretched pistol that old Gilet, the sabot-maker, had given him. During the autumn of 1806, Maxence, then seventeen, committed an involuntary murder, by frightening in the dusk a young woman who was pregnant, and who came upon him suddenly while stealing fruit in her garden. Threatened with the guillotine by Gilet, who doubtless wanted to get rid of him, Max fled to Bourges, met a regiment ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... that last sting of his vengeance; yet, as he saw the faces of the men on whom he flung the insult, he felt for the moment that he might pay for his temerity with his life. He put his hand above his eyes with a quick, involuntary movement, like a man ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... He gave one quick glance up at her, and a bright, boyish smile, as if telling her not to be afraid, which all the audience understood, and answered by an involuntary, long-drawn breath. I looked at Susy. The girl's colorless face was turned to George, and her hands were clasped as though she saw him already dead before her; but she could be trusted, I saw. She would utter no sound. I had only time to glance at her, and then turned to my work. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... stairway, and was already sinking into its trap-like entrance. His head and shoulders alone appeared above the line of wall, when some half-involuntary thought induced him to stop and look back. The coward had partly got over his fright now that he had arrived within reach of succour, and he glanced back from a feeling of curiosity, to see if the struggle between Garcia and the cibolero was yet over. He meant to stop ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... case of most of us, this tide of unconscious influence flowing from us without any deliberate or set purpose on our part, our involuntary contribution to the common life, is far more powerful for good or for evil than anything which we ever do by way of active purpose to influence another's life, and this because our unconscious influence is the reflex on the outer world of what we are in ourselves; it is ...
— Sermons at Rugby • John Percival
... her with its secretive, elemental sheaths of rock, of tree, of cloud, of sunlight. Through her thrilling skin poured the multiple and nameless sensations of the living organism stirred to supreme sensitiveness. She could not lie still, but all her movements were gentle, involuntary. The slow reaching out of her hand, to grasp at nothing visible, was similar to the lazy stretching of her limbs, to the heave of her breast, ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... contested in this manner); and old Jobst, then above seventy, was like to have given much trouble: but happily in three months he died; ["Jodocus BARBATUS," 21st July, 1411.] and Sigismund became indisputable. Jobst was the son of Maultasche's Nullity; him too, in an involuntary sort, she was the cause of. In his day Jobst made much noise in the world, but did little or no good in it. "He was thought a great man," says one satirical old Chronicler; "and there was nothing great about ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... had contrived to conceal his feelings. The boy was indeed braced to resolution, bat the resolution was equally visible with the agitation in the awe-stricken brow, varying colour, tightened breath, and involuntary shiver, as he took the oath. Again Leonard looked up with one of his clear bright glances, and perhaps a shade of anxiety; but Aubrey, for his own comfort, was too short-sighted for meeting of eyes from ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... venerated and immaculate Virginian who once bore the name of Marshall through a long career of judicial honor and usefulness. The general interest in this appeal to the past was impressive. The members of the house drew together around him; even his persecutors paid an involuntary tribute ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... exclamation was almost involuntary. She shrank back a little into the shadow. "It was a ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... keepers, who died within an hour, and Abbot was so greatly distressed by the event that he fell into a state of settled melancholy. His enemies maintained that the fatal issue of this accident disqualified him for his office, and argued that, though the homicide was involuntary, the sport of hunting which had led to it was one in which no clerical person could lawfully indulge. The king had to refer the matter to a commission of ten, though he said that "an angel might have miscarried after this sort.'' The commission was equally divided, and the king gave a ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... is, I hope—he may find our housekeeping such as he can enjoy," she said, with an involuntary expression of surprise; for she had scarcely had a doubt that her husband would have preferred evading the visit of his fine ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... glanced from them to me, and read my cowardly mind; but she waited till they passed, as they did after an involuntary faltering in front of us, and were keeping on down the path, looking at the benches, which were filled on either hand. She ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... echoed the prayer which was so proper to the situation of both. But the tone of voice was so different from the harsh and dissonant sounds of the dwarf's enunciation, that Peveril was impressed with the certainty it could not proceed from Hudson. He was struck with involuntary terror, for which he could give no sufficient reason; and it was not without an effort that he was able to utter the question, "Sir ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... of the deputation sent to the king, spoke on the same side, but having inadvertently used the expression sovereign, in speaking of the king, and that the legislative power was vested in the Assembly and the king, this blasphemy and involuntary heresy raised a terrible storm in the chamber. Every word of this nature seemed to them to threaten a counter-revolution; for they were still so near despotism, that they feared at each step again to fall into its toils. The people was a slave, ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... I have come about," she said, with an involuntary and shrinking glance at the sketches ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... therefore, to a fair trial, being certain that even if I should fail in my main purpose, and be unable to induce in my reader the confidence of judgment I desire, I shall at least receive his thanks for the suggestion of consistent reasons, which may determine hesitating choice, or justify involuntary preference. And if I should succeed, as I hope, in making the Stones of Venice touchstones, and detecting, by the mouldering of her marble, poison more subtle than ever was betrayed by the rending of her crystal; and ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... the train. Until she saw him, Ella had never known what it was to love—perchance she did not now—but at least she had experienced those fluttering sensations, those deep and strange emotions, those involuntary yearnings of the heart toward some object in his presence, that aching void in his absence, which the more experienced would doubtless put down to that cause, and which no other being had ever even for a moment awakened in her breast. For something like half an hour the two rode on ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... not to be considered without solicitude when, in a war which peculiarly appealed to patriotism, compulsion must be used to bring involuntary recruits to maintain the contest. Yet the relaxation of the patriotic temper was really not so great as this fact might seem to indicate. Besides many partial and obvious explanations, one which is less obvious should also be noted. During two years ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... father looked at each other in surprise, while the Colonel by a half involuntary movement stepped between his accuser and the door; and Ida noticed that his face was ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... This death made a deep impression on the child's mind, and for a while dwelt so constantly in his memory that, on one occasion, when Laure was being scolded by her mother for an offence which the culprit aggravated by a fit of involuntary tittering, he approached his sister and whispered in her ear, with a view to restoring her gravity: "Think of ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... jerk his head back, heard his involuntary cry of horror. Then she heard another cry: an excited warning shout. She whirled around in time to see a Ganymedan running toward them from behind. A deadly pencil-ray pointed straight at her companion. Without a moment's hesitation she sprang at Grant, pushed him violently so ...
— Pirates of the Gorm • Nat Schachner
... has this young life been ruined for?" said the aunt. "What is especially painful to me is that I am the involuntary cause of it." ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... the regiments came upon the plateau. Not till then did they see the enemy, the awaited, the dreamed-of foe, the giant whose voice they had heard at Manassas. They saw him now, and they yelled recognition. From a thousand dusty throats came a cry, involuntary, individual, indescribably fierce, a high and shrill and wild expression of anger and personal opinion. There was the enemy. They saw him, they yelled,—without premeditation, without cooperation, each man for himself, Yaai, Yai ... Yaai, Yaai, Yai.... Yaai! ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... cried in a moment of involuntary enthusiasm, "What a spectacle, Uncle! Do you not admire these variegated shades of lava, which run through a whole series of colors, from reddish brown to pale yellow—by the most insensible degrees? And these crystals, they appear ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... what in my opinion might seem a better plea for these people than any they have made use of. If obscurity or poverty were to exempt a man from satire, much more should folly or dulness, which are still more involuntary; nay, as much so as personal deformity. But even this will not help them: deformity becomes an object of ridicule when a man sets up for being handsome; and so must dulness when he sets up for a wit. They are not ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... 1. In all the territory of the United States not embraced within the limits of the Cherokee treaty grant, north of a line from east to west on the parallel of 36 degrees 30 minutes north latitude, involuntary servitude, except in punishment of crime, is prohibited whilst it shall be under a Territorial government; and in all the territory south of said line, the status of persons owing service or labor, as it now exists, shall not be changed by law while such ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... all the others were in a dream. Prayer mastered them by main force. They did not bow, they were bent. There was something involuntary in their condition; they wavered as a sail flaps when the breeze fails. And the haggard group took by degrees, with clasping of hands and prostration of foreheads, attitudes various, yet of humiliation. Some ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... nervous, involuntary deprecation. "Why should you suppose I would touch it roughly?" There was that in her voice which cried put that she would rather not touch it at all; but Lindsay, on the brink of his confidence, could not suppose it—did not hear it. He ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... his shoulders. "While you are drilling your soldiers," he said, "I am drilling myself. If a man yonder sneezes, I can name his tribe. A sneeze, being involuntary, cannot be artificial, and therefore it is the true index of race and character. Take the Oriental Express any night from Paris to Vienna. If you will sit up late enough and walk up and down the aisle, you may tell from the sneezes ...
— The Turquoise Cup, and, The Desert • Arthur Cosslett Smith
... her had always been dreams that had led him into strange byways, through dangerous, though flowery paths! To what end? To see her start, her eyes wide with involuntary dread, shrinking? Could he not thus interpret that look he had seen by the flare of a carriage lamp, when she had ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... which filled up our days in camp:—the duties of the guard, alternately roasted under the glaring sun of the parapet, and suffocated in the crowded guard-tent; the varied employments of the police,—the scavengers and involuntary retainers of the day,—now scrambling in irregular file down the bluff carrying pails and canteens for water, now bearing from the commissariat huge armfuls of bread, or boxes of hard tack, or quarters of ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood
... only to glance at Herbart's Aesthetics. The beautiful is distinguished from the agreeable and the desirable, which, like it, are the objects of preference and rejection, by the facts, first, that it arouses an involuntary and disinterested judgment of approval; and second, that it is a predicate which is ascribed to the object or is objective. To these is added, thirdly, that while desire seeks for that which is to come, taste possesses in the ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... I shall do: I have no broken bones,—only a sprain;" and again he stood up and tried his foot, but the result extorted an involuntary "Ugh!" ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... to be virtuous it needs first of all to be done "knowingly," secondly to be done "by choice," and "for a due end," thirdly to be done "immovably." Now the first of these is included in the second, since "what is done through ignorance is involuntary" (Ethic. iii, 1). Hence the definition of justice mentions first the "will," in order to show that the act of justice must be voluntary; and mention is made afterwards of its "constancy" and "perpetuity" in order to indicate the ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... most numerous and most needs protection, he is to all intents and purposes disfranchised. What will follow as the final outcome we do not know, but that is the beginning of his attempted re-enslavement. It is beyond any question that his return to involuntary servitude in some condition or conditions, the disarming him of the ballot being the initial step in the proceeding, is seriously contemplated, if not deliberately planned. Indeed, under the name of "peonage" the work of re-establishing a system of ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... With an involuntary jerk at the reins I brought my team to its haunches and reached for my revolver. Quite needless: with the quickest movement that I had ever seen in anything but a cat—almost before the words were out of the horseman's mouth—May ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... vomiting of dark coffee-ground material are often prominent features. Death is usually impending when the skin becomes cold and clammy, the mucous membranes livid, the pulse feeble and fluttering, the discharges involuntary, and when a low form of muttering ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... suppose it will make the will not stand!" cried Sylvia, with involuntary eagerness. Then she quailed before her husband's stern gaze. "Of course I know it won't make any difference," she said, feebly, and drew her darning-needle through ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... ever have a child of mine.' 'Sure, father,' cried Moses, 'you are too severe in this; for heaven will never arraign him for what he thinks, but for what he does. Every man has a thousand vicious thoughts, which arise without his power to suppress. Thinking freely of religion, may be involuntary with this gentleman: so that allowing his sentiments to be wrong, yet as he is purely passive in his assent, he is no more to be blamed for his errors than the governor of a city without walls for the shelter he is obliged to afford an ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... when everybody's abroad!" Sarah Gailey added gloomily, with her involuntary small ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... a disappointment; the thrill, the pallor, the involuntary start, were totally absent; and the first act of the little play was a failure. But Mrs. Easterfield hoped for better things when the curtain rose again. She conducted Mr. Hemphill to the Foxes and let Olive go away with her book; and, ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... apt to reveal the heart's purpose or set of mind. Whatever you are most set upon, whatever your favorite fads or hobbies or inclinations or moods are, they are apt to appear in that involuntary train of thinking. Now this can be cultivated. It can be cultivated chiefly by the cultivation of the controlling purpose of your life, and then by trying to give directions to the undercurrent, and ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... embarrassing position at first for poor Malanya, but, after a while, she learnt to bear it, and grew used to her father-in-law. He, too, grew accustomed to her, and even fond of her, though he scarcely ever spoke to her, and a certain involuntary contempt was perceptible even in his signs of affection to her. Malanya Sergyevna had most to put up with from her sister-in-law. Even during her mother's lifetime, Glafira had succeeded by degrees in getting the whole household into her hands; every one from her father downwards, submitted ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... wished the morrow to come, that she might announce her happiness to the very involuntary and very unconscious accomplice of Marius, the worthy ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... from Pelliter. He looked at MacVeigh, his chief. He made an involuntary movement forward, but Billy was ahead of him. He had flung down his rifle, and in an instant was on his knees at Deane's side, supporting his emaciated figure ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... Even with organs where this is not the case, the action is slackened very materially at times, as in the case of the heart and lungs during sleep. They must continue to work, though more slowly, and the part of the nervous system which carries on their involuntary and mechanical action, has also then a partial relief. But the only rest for the thinking brain is to be found in normal sleep. From the instant when, in the morning, we become conscious of the external world, to the instant late at night, or, it may be, early ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... obedient to the laws." I must say that I found this to be true. The fares of all public conveyances are now fixed, and the attempts which drivers occasionally make to cheat you, seem to be rather the involuntary impulses of old habit than deliberate intentions to do you wrong. You pay what is due, and as your man merely rumbles internally when you turn away, you must be a very timid signorin, indeed, if you ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... were shrivelled up save one, which burst as he gazed. And beside, stern as a Druidess, sat his grandmother in her chair, feeding her eyes with grim satisfaction on the detestable sacrifice. At length the rigidity of Robert's whole being relaxed in an involuntary howl like that of a wild beast, and he turned and rushed from the house in a helpless agony of horror. Where he was going he knew not, only a blind instinct of modesty drove him to hide his passion from the ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... sound escaped the organist. He had gazed at Mr. Rush till he seemed possessed of nightmare. So wild, so haggard, so awful, the man's face appeared to him, that the cry, an involuntary one, expressed better than any inquiry could have done, how much disturbed he was. The stranger heard, and seemed to understand, for at the sound he rose quickly, and laid the picture on the counter; not gently; at the same time he ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... her eyes were riveted on the agile and vigorous form of Eau-douce, as he stood erect in the stern of the light boat, governing its movements. As soon, however, as she reached a point where she got a view of the fall, she gave an involuntary but suppressed scream, and covered her eyes. At the next instant, the latter were again free, and the entranced girl stood immovable as a statue, a scarcely breathing observer of all that passed. The two Indians seated themselves passively on a log, hardly ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... raised his weary eyes to that heaven they had searched throughout long nights to read thereon one line of the universal law; they encountered a ray of that sun which he so well knew motionless amid the moving spheres. Remorse entered his heart: an involuntary cry burst from the believer's soul: Eppur si ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... This Involuntary stage of Creation is sometimes called the "Outpouring" of the Divine Energy, just as the Evolutionary state is called the "Indrawing." The extreme pole of the Creative process is considered to be the furthest ...
— The Kybalion - A Study of The Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece • Three Initiates
... But involuntary errors of the copyists are insufficient to explain all the bewildering changes which disfigure many of the books of the Sacred Scriptures. The gradual evolution of the Hebrew religion from virtual polytheism to the strictest ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... same moment another stone hurled through the break sent the Voiceless Speech toppling; it lay crumpled in a pathetic feminine sort of heap, subject to ribald laughter, but Penny Evans' involuntary cry of protest was cut off by his partner's hand on his shoulder. "They're Noonan's men, Penny; it's a ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... humanity and civilization are now one big family, with interests, spiritual as well as commercial, interlocking to a degree that no disturbance of any part of the civilized globe can exist without seriously affecting the rest. A disturbance in one quarter must make quite innocent bystanders involuntary victims, to the serious detriment of ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... once, but the ideas that enter our minds may be drawn from their receptacle in the memory and worked over again and again. Ideas have to be put side by side, separated, grouped, and arranged into connected series. There is, no doubt, some tendency in the mind toward involuntary assimilation, but it greatly needs culture and training. Many people never reach the thinking stage, never learn to survey and reflect. The tendency of the mind to work over and digest knowledge should receive ample culture in the schools. There is a mental inertia produced ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry
... would have been in keeping with the spirit of the times. Congress had recently rejected a proposition made to Washington by the Polish Order of Knights of Divine Providence that their order should be officially extended to the United States. The other eliminated provision, forbidding slavery and involuntary servitude in the territory after the year 1800 except as a punishment for crime, is important not only as the first attempted restriction of the slavery system by the National Government, but also as furnishing an interesting comparison with the later sentiment on this unfortunate controversy ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... and the mouth lost its expression of resolute endurance. She found Mr. Lindsay highly cultivated in his tastes, polished in his manners, and possessed of rare intellectual attainments, while the utter absence of egotism and pedantry impressed her with involuntary admiration. Extensive travel and long study had familiarized him with almost every branch of science and department of literature, and the ease and grace with which he imparted some information she desired respecting the European schools of art contrasted favorably ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... they magnetized him, so that he might not turn away from them: entranced him, that he would not break their charm, had he been able: and then the long tufted eyelashes droop so softly over those blazing suns—that I do not in the least wonder at Charles's impolite, perhaps, but still natural involuntary stare, and his mute abstracted admiration: the poor youth is caught at once, a most willing captive—the moth has burnt its wings, and flutters still happily around that pleasant warming radiance. How his heart yearned for something to love, some being ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... she was bound to fulfill all the duties of a mother—duties which, from the time when she insisted on having a "big doll," that she might dress it, not like a fine lady, but "like a baby," had always seemed to her the very sweetest in all the world. Her heart leaped with a sudden ecstasy, involuntary and uncontrollable. ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... kinds of love, social love and natural love; voluntary love and involuntary love. An accomplished and deserving young man loves a woman; he loves her, and deserves to be loved in return; she wishes to love him, and when alone thinks of him; if his name is mentioned, she blushes; if any one says in her presence, "Madame B. used ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... to the point of involuntary swallowing. It does not mean forcibly holding the food in the mouth, counting the chews, or otherwise making a bore of eating. It merely means giving up the habit of forcing food down, and applies to all foods, even to liquid foods, which should ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk
... saw her hand go to her pocket in a movement which must have been involuntary, for her countenance did not change, and she made the ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... suddenly became riveted upon the clawlike right hand of the hag. An involuntary muscle, following the half-ordained bidding of the brain, had moved perhaps three inches toward her breast. There, it stopped, and slipped ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... here a minute!" called the fat man. As they approached, the aviators with him turned from their work. One, a slender fellow with swarthy skin and a scrubby black mustache, scowled when he looked at John Ross, and as Bob Giddings and Tom Meeks got their eyes on him, they gave an involuntary start, for they recognized in the man the fellow they had seen hanging around the fair-grounds in Yonkers when their machine was ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... supposed that she, having been the slave and companion of Alexis, was a party with him in his treasonable designs; but in the course of the examinations it appeared very fully that whatever of connection with the affair, or participation in it, she may have had, was involuntary and innocent, and the testimony which she gave was of great service in unraveling the mystery of the whole transaction. In the end, the Czar expressed his satisfaction with her conduct in strong terms. He gave her a full pardon for the involuntary aid which she had rendered Alexis in carrying ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott
... conception which occurs towards the end of the book is the lie in the soul; this is connected with the Platonic and Socratic doctrine that involuntary ignorance is worse than voluntary. The lie in the soul is a true lie, the corruption of the highest truth, the deception of the highest part of the soul, from which he who is deceived has no power of delivering ...
— The Republic • Plato
... in a dilemma. Kenyon's words were so true, so apt, that they brought involuntary tears to her eyes. She could get rid of the lump in her throat only by working herself up into a rage: she could dissipate the tears only by making her eyes flash with anger. The melting mood was not to her taste. She chose the more ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... be restored by medicines and diet, and for this I have to thank my faithful servants! You will learn how constantly I am in the open air when I tell you that to-day for the first time I properly (or improperly, though it was involuntary) resumed my suit to my Muse. I must work, but do not wish it to be known. Nothing can be more tempting (to me at least) than the enjoyment of beautiful Nature at these baths, but nous sommes trop pauvres, et il faut ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... helping them, they flew forward. The wave rose higher and higher behind them—it looked almost as steep as a wall—and an involuntary cry broke from several of the men as the ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... our boots and putting on the slippers we had purchased. This done, we proceeded into the interior of the edifice, with which I confess myself greatly disappointed; as the tout ensemble displays no magnificence, and the impressions on the gazer's mind, partake of none of that involuntary admiration and religious awe, which the sight of an old English cathedral, or the splendid churches of Italy, never fails to produce. One of its greatest defects arises from want of loftiness in the dome, the diameter ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... other hand, the process that has been going on has been quite involuntary and is as ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... ceremony a sumptuous repast, served in the well-known style of Messrs. JENNINGS AND WILLARD, was discussed with universal gout. For the toasts regular and volunteer, and speeches voluntary and involuntary, we must refer the reader to the daily journals 'of that period;' while we simply add, that from soup to Paaes eggs, schnaaps, and pipes, every thing passed off with unwonted hilarity and spirit. May we live to see fifty kindred gatherings ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... now standing in another and far different relation to each other. Though AEnone musingly gazed upon his face and listened to his voice, until the realities of the present seemed to shrink away, and the fancies of other years stole softly back, and, with involuntary action, her hand gently toyed with his curls and parted them one side, as she had once been accustomed to do, it was with no love for him that she did it now. He was only her friend—her brother. He had been kind to her, and perhaps, if necessary, she might even now consent ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... States and the people and States in the said territory." Freedom of worship, the usual rights of person and property, and the obligation of private contracts were guaranteed. Religion, morality, and education were to be forever encouraged. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude was to be permitted. In imposing these conditions Congress undoubtedly exceeded its powers under the Articles of Confederation, for that document nowhere confers upon Congress the power to make binding contracts, nor for that matter ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... sense of her own destinies, would have protected her. Flattered as she was to find herself surrounded by admirers, she saw no lover among them. No man here realized the poetical ideal which she and Anna Grossetete had been wont to sketch. When, stirred by the involuntary temptations suggested by the homage she received, she asked herself, "If I had to make a choice, who should it be?" she owned to a preference for Monsieur de Chargeboeuf, a gentleman of good family, whose appearance and manners she ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... was involuntary. Here, under his very hands, was the man who was the cause of their misfortunes—who had committed crimes, no telling how many, and who had perhaps shot one of their comrades. And yet Bud was risking his life to save this creature. Was it fair ...
— The Boy Ranchers on Roaring River - or Diamond X and the Chinese Smugglers • Willard F. Baker
... continuing the strife, the Templar and the unknown knight at length encountered, hand to hand, with all the fury that mortal animosity, joined to rivalry of honour, could inspire. Such was the skill of each in parrying and striking that the spectators broke forth into a unanimous and involuntary shout of delight ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... in the west, mantling the heavens and the earth with a thousand gorgeous dyes, then all was calm, and silent, and magnificent. The late swelling sail hung lifelessly against the mast; the seamen, with folded arms, leaned against the shrouds, lost in that involuntary musing which the sober grandeur of nature commands in the rudest of her children. The vast bosom of the Hudson was like an unruffled mirror, reflecting the golden splendor of the heavens; excepting ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... 1865, Mr. Seward, then Secretary of State of the United States, made proclamation that the amendment had been ratified by twenty-seven of the thirty-six States then composing the Union, and that slavery and involuntary servitude were from that time and forever forth impossible within our limits. Such was then the universal opinion in all America. It was our example that wrought the abolition of slavery in Brazil, and in colonies of Spain and Portugal; it has led to the extermination ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... that I have greatly admired; the confessed imitators give me all the discomfort without the relieving admission of caricature; the parallel instances I have always wanted to rewrite; while, on the other hand, for many totally dissimilar workers I have had quite involuntary admirations. It isn't merely that I don't so clearly see how they are doing it, though that may certainly be a help; it is far more a matter of taste. As a writer I belong to one school and as a reader to another—as a man may like to make optical instruments and collect old china. Swift, Sterne, ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... fault was an involuntary one. If an indiscretion on my part reduced me to a situation in which, during some time, I was deprived of the use of reason, so that it was no longer my guide, and allowed me to fall into a very gross mistake, the rest was the work of the cruelty of fate. My heart, overcome by your favours, ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... on one side, and on the other, instinctively with a frightened girl's action, she let go Kells's arm and slipped her hand in his. He seemed startled. He bent to her ear, for the din made ordinary talk indistinguishable. That involuntary hand in his evidently had pleased and touched him, even hurt him, for ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... we believe, been the first to appreciate the importance of this element in our states of consciousness; and it is one of his merits that he shows how constant and large an element it is. Further, the relations of voluntary and involuntary movements are elucidated in a way that was not possible to writers unacquainted with the modern doctrine of reflex action. And beyond this, some of the analytical passages that here and ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... appear. Our actions are not the pure and unmingled results of our desires; they are the offspring of many various and mixed conditions. In that which seems to be the most voluntary decision there enters much that is altogether involuntary—more, perhaps, than we generally suppose. And, in like manner, those who are imagined to have exercised an irresponsible and spontaneous influence in determining public policy, and thereby fixing the fate ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... spoken with a sort of involuntary outburst. For a moment Captain Burnett turned his head aside. He felt rebuked by this crude, boyish enthusiasm, which had gone so straight to the heart of things. Why was he, the grown man, so selfish, so impatient, when this ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... efforts of the project had been centered on bringing the intact ship back into the present, chance had triggered controls set by the dead alien commander. A party of four, Ashe, Murdock, Fox, and a technician, had then made an involuntary voyage into space, touching three worlds on which the galactic civilization of the far past was now marked ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... for you; there's rue for you." Strange and involuntary is the law of association! I can never see the garnishing and seasoning herbs of the garden without thinking of the mad words of distraught Ophelia. I fancy, however, that we are all practical enough to remember the savory soups and dishes rendered far more appetizing ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe
... her representation. No feeling had yet reconciled her for a moment to any act, word, or look that would be a confession to the world: and what she most dreaded in herself was any violent impulse that would make an involuntary confession: it was the will to be silent in every other direction that had thrown the more impetuosity into her confidences toward Deronda, to whom her thought continually turned as a help against herself. Her riding, her hunting, her visiting and receiving of visits, were ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... an involuntary listener, felt the presence of a crisis, the chill of fate impending. But, as ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... lover, and the share he had borne in the mysterious occurrence, that now caused her to lapse from her wonted inaccessibility to impressions of the sort. As the climax of the narrative approached, her interest became deeper, and her absorption more profound. An involuntary shudder passed over her form, and a slight contraction of the nerves of her face was perceptible, when Gerald described to his attentive and shocked auditory, the raising of the arm of the assassin; and her emotion at length assumed ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... that the spirit thus closely affined with my own was enabled, through its innate potencies, or through some agency of which we are ignorant, to impress upon my bodily perceptions its uncontrollable emotions? That this manifestation was made through what physiologists call the unconscious or involuntary action of the mind was proved by the incredulity and surprise of Blanche when I told her of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... proceeded to utilize her naval superiority to appropriate what remaining French colonies most suited her purpose. In this way she possessed herself of Malta (1800), St. Lucia, Tobago (1803), and Mauritius (1810). Then, too, the dependence of Holland upon France, involuntary though it was most of the time, afforded her an opportunity to seize such valuable Dutch colonies as Ceylon (1795), Guiana (1803), and South Africa (1806). The sorry subservience of the Spanish Bourbons to Napoleon gave Great Britain a similar chance ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... softly to sentimentalise of loss. It was mere living nature that it should be so. He would be as always, a beloved wonder of dearness and beauty when his hour came and she would look on and watch and be so cleverly silent and delicately detached from his shy, aloof young moods, his funny, dear involuntary secrets and reserves. But at any moment—day or night—at ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... creates brilliant and novel results.... The value of the products of our imagination depends of course on the number, accuracy, and clearness of our impressions; on our judgment and taste in selecting or rejecting the involuntary combinations, and to a certain extent on our power of voluntarily combining them." As to religion, he says, "There is no evidence that man was aboriginally endowed with the ennobling belief in the existence of an omnipotent God." On the contrary, evidence proves that there are ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... within the portieres than someone caught her hand, and she saw Maximilian bending over it. There was an involuntary warmth in his formal courtier grace. The only other occupant of the hacienda sala was Bebello, the greyhound. He sprang up from a Hungarian bear rug, and frisked about her joyfully. Her greeting to him was equally sincere. Quietly releasing her hand, she patted him fondly, and cooed ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... replied that in a matter of so much importance, devolving questions of momentous interest, it would be obligatory on him to consult the Secretary of the Treasury. I said I trusted he would so facilitate affairs that I might at an early hour disembarrass myself of my involuntary prisoners. I returned on board, and the day passed without any answer. The next morning I determined to go at once to headquarters and find out the cause of the delay by ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... below him and then made an involuntary movement to regain the ship's deck. Far below him, or so at least it seemed, were mountains of tumbling green water, huge, relentless, irresistible, rushing on by thousands, to shatter themselves with dreadful force against the ship's side. It seemed simple madness ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... cadence of each separate performer—the human voice in every key which the extremes of youth and age might produce, there was a sensation effected which I cannot well describe—a terrible jarring of the brain. The fact that the involuntary tears rolled down the cheeks of those infants who sat passively on their mothers' shoulders, not appreciating the cause of lament, but merely as listeners, must prove that these sounds are calculated to ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey |
