"Irresistible impulse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mother? Didn't he come? and didn't I look as much astonished when he called, as if it hadn't been all settled two days previous? But how was I to know that Mrs. Harris would turn out to be an old love of his? How was John to know, when he felt such an irresistible impulse to be kind to the old man, that his hair had grown white loving his mother? How was the old man to know why he loved John so well, and thought him one of the finest young men he had ever seen? How was I ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... irresistible impulse to hug her with both arms again, and they happened to be on the verge of the river current. Hardacre and Finlayson both shouted, "Look out, sir!" but he was not looking out—his sailor eyes were otherwise occupied, and so he did not perceive the enemy of love making the ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... me in a rush of smoke, and the legs of a man go bumping on the beams above. Then came another crash of timbers on the port side. I leaped off the table and ran, limping, to the deck, I do not know why; I was driven by some quick and irresistible impulse. I was near out of my head, anyway, with the rage of battle in me and no chance to fight. Well, suddenly, I found myself stumbling, with drawn sabre, over heaps of the hurt and dead there on our reeking deck. ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... youth of this sort has the characteristics which he has. It is a familiar principle that attention to the thought of a movement tends to start that very movement. I defy any of my readers to think hard and long of winking the left eye and not have an almost irresistible impulse to wink that eye. There is no better way to make it difficult for a child to sit still than to tell him to sit still; for your words fill up his attention, as I had occasion to say above, with the thought of movements, and these thoughts bring on the movements, despite the best intentions ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... temperament, a large amount of the lyrical temperament, and a large amount of the meditative, but unaccompanied by metaphysical speculation. In Shakespeare we find, besides the dramatic temperament, a large amount of the meditative accompanied by an irresistible impulse towards metaphysical speculation, but, on the whole, a moderate endowment of the lyrical temperament, judging by the few occasions on which he exercised it. For fine as are such lyrics as “Hark, hark, the lark,” “Where the bee sucks,” ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... so long appeared for them to make a pair of couples—this latter being thus a discovery too absurdly belated. The only point at which, day after day, the success appeared at all qualified was represented, as might have been said, by her irresistible impulse to give her father a clutch when the train indulged in one of its occasional lurches. Then—there was no denying it—his eyes and her own met; so that they were themselves doing active violence, as against the others, to that very spirit of union, or ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... to that of the Topsfield spectre, with much the same interest as that which Marmion exhibited at Sir David Lindesay's narrative of the appearance of the beloved Apostle to King James in Linlithgow. Apparently induced by a similar irresistible impulse to that which drew from the redoubted warrior of Scott's fascinating poem the rehearsal of his nocturnal adventure, our guest volunteered a relation quite ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... with her parents and Vane's father up through the chancel where Vane was sitting, her heart turned sick in her breast. The sacrilege, the blasphemy of it all seemed horrible beyond belief. Again and again the words rose to her lips. Again and again an almost irresistible impulse impelled her to get up, and she was only saved from doing what all that was best in her nature urged her to do, by the knowledge that, after all, she might only be expelled from the Cathedral by the Vergers, and perhaps prosecuted afterwards ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... should have married the daughter of Prester John? {356} The Lion, after giving a side-glance at the writer through his left spectacle glass, seemed about to reply, but was unfortunately prevented, being seized with an irresistible impulse to contradict a respectable doctor of medicine, who was engaged in conversation with the master of the house at the upper and farther end of the table, the writer, being a poor ignorant lad, sitting of course at the bottom. The doctor, who had served in the Peninsula, ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... entered me: a doubt of her perfect moral honesty. I don't know how else to describe my feeling that she wasn't playing fair, that in coming to my house, in throwing herself at my head (I called things by their names), she had perhaps not so much obeyed an irresistible impulse as deeply, deliberately reckoned on the dissolvent effect of her generosity, her rashness and ...
— The Long Run - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... allowed her. With one accord, and as if prompted by an irresistible impulse, the men rushed upon her, seized her, and cast her into ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... had read and admired it. The preface, he said, was affected and foolish, the poem very superior to anything in Milman. There was one fine idea in the 'Fall of Jerusalem'—that of Titus, who felt himself propelled by an irresistible impulse like that of the Greek dramatists, whose fate is the great agent always pervading their dramas. They held Wordsworth cheap, except Spring Rice, who was enthusiastic about him. Holland thought Crabbe the greatest genius ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... in Europe listened to her entranced, as she changed from language to language; and when at last the triumphant strains of the Song of the Revolution came floating down from her lips through the still night air, an irresistible impulse ran through the listening millions, and with one accord they took up the refrain in all the languages of Europe, and a mighty flood of exultant song rolled up in wave after wave from earth to heaven,—a song at once of victory and thanksgiving, for the ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... boats being joined together in groups of four and decked over. Somebody told me that Quincy was the richest town of its size in the United States. When I heard this, I was immediately overcome by an irresistible impulse to throw my feet. No "blowed-in-the-glass profesh" could possibly pass up such a promising burg. I crossed the river to Quincy in a small dug-out; but I came back in a large riverboat, down to the gunwales with the results ...
— The Road • Jack London
... looming through the mists of antiquity we can discern an heroic figure, whose superior attainments won for him the lordship of his own generation, and divine honours from those that succeeded. Whether moved by an irresistible impulse, or impelled by more powerful neighbours, it is impossible to say; but certain it is that at some period, not perhaps very long before the Christian era, under the guidance of this personage, a sun-nurtured ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... irresistible impulse came to her; she could not hate or hurt this fair, gentle lady whom the countess had put in her place, and whom her husband did not love; a great impulse of pity came over her, a sweet and generous compassion ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... at last discovered, the poor birds were dispersed, and our hero took his ill-fledged flight to perch upon distant sprays, and to pick his meat from the hand that caters for the sparrow. This was the pivot upon which the whole life of Hodgkinson turned. The irresistible impulse of a vigorous genius would, most probably, under any other circumstances, have sent him ultimately to the goal of his destination; but this event hastened it, most unpropitiously hastened it, and, in an evil hour, cast him ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... sufferers a former servant of Mrs. Thrale's. He describes Mr. Akerman, the Keeper of Newgate, as his esteemed friend. According to Mr. Croker, he defended his taste in a paper he wrote for the "London Magazine," "as a natural and irresistible impulse."—ED.] ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... vainly reason when their minds are already made up and their fortunes irrevocably linked together. Nor is there any ground for supposing that marriages are to any great extent influenced by reflections of this sort, which seem unable to make any head against the irresistible impulse of individual attachment. ...
— The Republic • Plato
... brother in the station was a scene which had fixed itself ineradicably in her memory. Upon going to the studio she had planned not to speak about it, foreseeing that she might annoy her lover with this account; but alas, she had only to vow not to mention a thing, to feel an irresistible impulse to talk ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... any of the rest concerned in this extraordinary instinct, are aware of the matter beforehand; and the same is to be said of the combats between the Queen-bees; they appear to be the result of an irresistible impulse, brought about, by the sudden pressure of a necessity. Bees appear to be very happy, during far the greater portion of their existence. A modern writer, of whom it is to be lamented that a certain want of refinement ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 545, May 5, 1832 • Various
... brilliant article that I had in consigning to oblivion the sheets relating my visit to Nemours. I often think that I have not served the cause of letters as I wanted to, since, with all my laborious work I have never written a book. And yet when I recall the irresistible impulse of respect which prevented me from committing toward a dearly loved master a most profitable but infamous indiscretion, I say to myself, "If you have not served the cause of letters, you have not betrayed it." And this is the reason, ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... not without foundation, nor were his precautions without effect. While Italy rejoiced in her deliverance from the Goths, a furious tempest was excited among the nations of Germany, who yielded to the irresistible impulse that appears to have been gradually communicated from the eastern extremity of the continent of Asia. The Chinese annals, as they have been interpreted by the earned industry of the present age, may be usefully applied ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... is rendered the more intelligible to me by the fact that I took no steps in the matter myself, even when the need for a reorganization was driven home by the conditions brought about in the War Office during the early months of the Great War. Somehow one feels no irresistible impulse to abridge one's functions and to depreciate one's importance by one's own act, to lop off one's own members, so to speak. But when Sir W. Robertson turned up at the end of 1915 to become C.I.G.S. he straightway split ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... his almost agonized parent, urged on by an irresistible impulse. "Child of my love, my prayers! Alfred, I will not see you go wrong, without one effort, one struggle to guide you in the right path. Alfred, I leave England—my heart is bursting; for Mary's sake ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... kind of you!" Miriam cried, holding out both hands, as if led by an irresistible impulse. "But you are so generous. All your friends have discovered that. I always think of St. Francis sharing his ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... what they are doomed to suffer, but how they are formed to bear. Take a being of our kind, give him a stronger imagination and a more delicate sensibility, which between them will ever engender a more ungovernable set of passions than are the usual lot of man; implant in him an irresistible impulse to some idle vagary, such as arranging wild flowers in fantastical nosegays, tracing the grasshopper to his haunt by his chirping song, watching the frisks of the little minnows in the sunny pool, or hunting after the intrigues of butterflies—in short, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... with gifts of language, eloquence, wisdom, and healing, as mere earnests and first-fruits; so they said, of that prophecy that He would pour out His Spirit upon all flesh, even upon slaves and handmaids. And these poor fishermen feel themselves impelled by a divine and irresistible impulse to go forth to the ends of the world, and face persecution, insult, torture, and death—not in order that they may make themselves lords over mankind, but that they may tell them that One is their Master, even ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... say anything; my nerves were still jangling to that shrieking, and to the clang of the iron doors that had closed behind me. I had an irresistible impulse to get hold of the iron candlestick and smash it home through the skull of the turnkey—as I had done to the men who had killed Seraphina's father... to kill this man, then to creep along the black ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... delicacies in his vegetable patch? What was there to interfere? Nothing. These men well knew that except for the flag station there was not a habitation within ten miles, and the ruggedness of the hills barred them to every form of traffic except the irresistible impulse ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... Advertizer, April 25, 1768, we find him writing: 'I myself am never absent from a publick execution. When I first attended them, I was shocked to the greatest degree ... convulsed with pity and terror. I feel an irresistible impulse to be present at every execution, as there I behold the various effects of the near approach of death.' The parallels of Charles V., Philip II., Philip IV., Charles II. of Spain, will not escape the reader, and strangely, or rather naturally enough, Boswell is found ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... was so impersonal as to be almost a sign of boredom in itself, and Mrs. van Cannan, little accustomed to have her charming advances met in such fashion, turned away with a pucker on her brow to a more grateful audience. At the same moment, an irresistible impulse drew Christine's glance to Saltire in time to receive one of those straight, significant looks that indescribably disturbed her. Nothing there of the impersonality his words had betrayed! It was a clear message from a man to a ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... (what a bad-mannered young man he had become!); "I'm tired of fomentations and things! Besides"—and this time the besides did not pause, but burst out of him like a stream from a high-pressure hydrant—"besides, it isn't what I want——" And to an irresistible impulse his right hand reached out for a brush and, crossing over to his left shoulder, began rubbing ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... boiling in his veins—that she, guilty as she was, should dare to stand there with uplifted head, and look him calmly in the face! His eye fell on the myrtle wreath which she wore—emblem of bridal purity—and it seemed to mock him anew. He felt an almost irresistible impulse to fall on her and tear her ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski
... however, only at the beginning of his career that the prophet passes through a crisis which is clearly not self- caused. Scattered all through the prophetic writings are expressions which speak of some strong and irresistible impulse coming down upon the prophet, determining his attitude to the events of his time, constraining his utterance, making his words the vehicle of a higher meaning than their own. For instance, this of Isaiah's: 'The Lord spake thus to me with a strong hand,'—an ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... I told my father's friend that I was sorry that he was come too late, but that no consideration whatever should make me run from the engagement which I had contracted with him, at my own particular request. It is true that I felt an irresistible impulse to embrace my beloved father again; that to be restored to his good opinion was a treasure to me, far surpassing all and every prospect that my sanguine hopes had painted in the most vivid colours ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... rouleaux of gold are ranged on a cabinet beside the bed. Kruitzner, who is armed with "a large and sharp knife," is suddenly confronted with his unarmed and slumbering foe, and though habit and conscience conspire to make murder impossible, he yields to a sudden and irresistible impulse, and snatches up "the portion of gold which is nearest." He has no sooner returned to his wife and confessed his deed, than Conrad suddenly appears on the scene, and at the very moment of an unexpected and joyous reunion with his parents, learns ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... him, usually when he is imprecating his way toward the hour of going to press. This is all a part of the great and salutary human instinct against work. When people see a man toiling, they have an irresistible impulse to crowd round and stop him. They seem to imagine that he has been put there on purpose to help them solve their problems, to find a job for their friend from Harrisburg, or to tell them how to find a publisher for their poems. Unhappily, their victim being merely human, is likely to grow a bit ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... spoken when, as all believed, he had been mortally wounded. The, message of mercy came, however, too late; for two of the gentlemen present, by an irresistible impulse, had run the assassin through with their rapiers. The halberdiers rushed upon him immediately after wards, so that he fell pierced in thirty-two vital places. The Prince, supported by his friends, walked to his chamber, where ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... embarrassment than if I were addressing a gathering of entire strangers. I am not much of a hand at speaking, and have always felt somewhat nonplussed at finding myself in a position of this nature. In my whole career I never experienced but one irresistible impulse to make a public address of any length, and that was upon that unhappy occasion to which the greatest and grandest of my great-grandmothers has alluded, and that only as the chain by which I was suspended in ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs
... Those silent mushrooms of smoke were shrapnel shells bursting unpleasantly close. For a moment, the young observer felt himself seized by an almost irresistible impulse to take refuge under the coaming surrounding his seat. He uttered an involuntary exclamation ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... the visitors whose conversation was greedily listened to by the little girl while supposed to be immersed in her lessons or her plays. Under such influences it would have been strange if even a less active brain had not been fired with aspirations, which took the form of an irresistible impulse when, at thirteen, Wilhelmine was allowed for the first time to visit the theatre and witness the acting of Dawison in Hamlet and other parts. Henceforth all opposition had to give way, and in her seventeenth year she made ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... miserable, and his dreams that night were full of horrors. The next day and the day after, he hung about the court-room, drawn by an almost irresistible impulse to go in, but forcing himself to stay out. Huck was having the same experience. They studiously avoided each other. Each wandered away, from time to time, but the same dismal fascination always brought them back presently. Tom kept his ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... A sudden and irresistible impulse to obey the call of the dying man came over him, and as he arose mechanically, the mother and her child turned towards the door, and he followed after them. On emerging into the street, he became conscious of a great and sudden change in external nature. On retiring from ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... the idol of some of the criminals. For if he discovers (as sometimes happens) that the criminal is a good sort after all, he is just as likely to warn his prey, once he has all proofs of the guilt and a conviction is certain. Possibly this is his way of taking the sting from his irresistible impulse to ferret out hidden mysteries. But it is rather inconvenient, and he has hurt himself by it—hurt himself badly. They were tired of his peculiarities at the capital, and wanted to make his years an excuse to discharge him. I happened to get wind of it, and it was my weakness ...
— The Case of the Golden Bullet • Grace Isabel Colbron, and Augusta Groner
... the general murmur of assent, but it was as impossible to obey as it would have been to keep feathers still in a gale, and one irresistible impulse carried the whole roomful into the hall to behold Aunt Plenty beautifully illustrating her own theory of composure by waving the tidy wildly, rushing into Dr. Alec's arms, and laughing and crying with a hysterical ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... their office, to their father, and to the nation. One of the greatest mysteries of human life is the seeming inability of pious fathers to check the vices of their children, who often go astray under an apparently irresistible impulse or innate depravity, in spite of parental precept and example,—thus seeming to show that neither virtue nor vice can be surely transmitted, and that every human being stands on his individual responsibility, with peculiar ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... Angelo's contemporary, Torreguiano, for Wolsey, in the days of his most insatiable pride, and had remained ever since in Wolsey's chapel at Windsor; Nelson's flag was to have been placed over the coffin, but as it was about to be lowered, the sailors who had borne it, as if by an irresistible impulse, stepped forward and tore it in pieces, for relics. Dean Milman, who, as a youth, was present, says, "I heard, or fancied I heard, the low wail of the sailors who encircled the remains of their admiral." Nelson's trusty companion, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... scouring the streets in search of him; nor could an eminent vocalist of the feline tribe, la Signorina Pussetta Scracciolini, pass by without lending an ear to the wonderful list of melodies. There was another figure, too, who slackened her pace as she was passing the group, and by an irresistible impulse seemed compelled to draw near and listen; she was richly dressed in mantle and hood, which, thrown gracefully back, displayed a head and neck of aristocratic proportions; she seemed ill, however, and weak, for her delicate paws were resting ...
— The Adventures of a Bear - And a Great Bear too • Alfred Elwes
... being the man to hold up her fainting head or ease her bruised heart. He had an icy look under his polished exterior which repelled this keen-eyed spinster, and as she remembered the coldness of his ways, she felt herself seized by an irresistible impulse to be near this young creature when the blow fell, if only to ease the tension of her own heartstrings, which at that moment ached keenly over the part she had felt herself obliged to play ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... is something very different from insanity, in anything like the usual meaning of that word. No doubt it might develop into insanity. The longing for death might become an irresistible impulse to self-destruction; the disorder of feeling and will might extend to sense and intellect; delusions might arise; and the man might become, as we say, incapable and irresponsible. But Hamlet's melancholy is some way from this condition. It ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... moments she had him going. The manliness that had possessed him departed. He bowed low, and said something about "irresistible impulse" and "forever carry in his heart the memory of"—and she suggested that he catch the first fire-escape ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... restore the ancient character of the country. A formal address was made by that body to the people of the United States, and was forwarded to this country. It declared that, "having deliberately resolved to live or die for freedom, the Greeks were drawn by an irresistible impulse to the people of the United States." In that early stage of the struggle, however, the address failed to excite that sympathy which, as we shall see farther on, the progress of events and a better understanding of ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... by, the foot caught the crumbling edge of his retreat, covering him with a shower of light mould. For the second time he experienced the sickening, paralyzing agony of fear. This was succeeded by an irresistible impulse to break cover. He sprang into the main shaft once more, determined to take advantage of the first outlet. A shadowy blue glimmer shone before him, and he quickened his pace towards it. Suddenly the light was extinguished, the walls of the tunnel ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... had the strongest intuitive perception of truth. He could strip a case of its toggery and go right to its vitals. He was bold, clean, fearless, and impetuous, and when convinced he had right on his side would fight through all the courts, with irresistible impulse. He was susceptible to argument, but seemed ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... every whisper; a thousand excited minds intensely dwell on the scene, shedding all their light, and ready to kindle the slightest circumstance into a blaze of discovery. Meantime the guilty soul cannot keep its own secret. It is false to itself; or rather it feels an irresistible impulse of conscience to be true to itself. It labors under its guilty possession, and knows not what to do with it. The human heart was not made for the residence of such an inhabitant. It finds itself preyed on by a torment, which it dares not acknowledge to God or man. A vulture is devouring ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... lioness in his defense later on, when he had given way to that first irresistible impulse to dip his fingers in the till and get away with what he thought would be unnoticed petty cash. It had been her fault that the thing had happened, of course. She could have given him a decent amount of spending money, instead ...
— Divinity • William Morrison
... himself several such lectures Podtyagin, the head ticket collector, begins to feel an irresistible impulse to get to work. It is past one o'clock at night, but in spite of that he wakes the ticket collectors and with them goes up and down the railway carriages, inspecting ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... and depreciatory work of Libri. The dispute as to the priority of particular discoveries concerns us all the less, since we hold that, at any time, and among any civilized people, a man may appear who, starting with very scanty preparation, is driven by an irresistible impulse into the path of scientific investigation, and through his native gifts achieves the most astonishing success. Such men were Gerbert of Rheims and Roger Bacon. That they were masters of the whole knowledge of the age in their several departments was a natural consequence ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... when I tell you that the only reason for my continuing to live is the irresistible impulse of creating a number of works of art which have their vital force in me. I recognise beyond all doubt that this act of creating and completing alone satisfies me and fills me with a desire of life, which otherwise I should not understand. I can, on ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... in disappearance, as there is a light in darkness. Scarcely had he lost sight of the lady rider than Cary felt an irresistible impulse to meet her and discover who she was. Now that she was gone, the suspicion arose again that perhaps she was the loved one whom he sought. Had he frightened her? That was not probable from the ease and deliberation of her manner. Would he catch another ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... sent forth a brood of Pilgrims upon Plymouth Rock, and, in a subsequent one, spawned slaves upon the Southern soil,—a monstrous birth, but with which we have an instinctive sense of kindred, and so are stirred by an irresistible impulse to attempt their rescue, even at the cost of blood and ruin. The character of our sacred ship, I fear, may suffer a little by this revelation; but we must let her white progeny offset her dark one,—and two such portents never sprang ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... for alcohol may be present for a time after a person has commenced to abstain from all beverages containing it. Or, it may occur periodically, as a sort of irresistible impulse. For the periodical craving Dr. Higginbotham, of England, recommends that a half drachm of ipecacuanha be taken so as to produce full vomiting. He says the desire for intoxicating drinks will be immediately removed. The craving is caused by vitiated ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... Atlantis'—with this difference, however, that his prophetic glance saw the land of social freedom and justice when centuries of bondage still separated him from it, whilst I see it when mankind is already actually equipped ready to step over its threshold. Like him, I felt an irresistible impulse vividly to depict what agitated my mind. Thus, putting aside for awhile the abstract and systematic treatise which I had begun, I wrote this book, which can justly be called 'a political romance,' though it differs from all its predecessors of that category in introducing no ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... Following an irresistible impulse, he early in their acquaintance told Helen Pomeroy more of himself than he had ever told any other human being; and his confidences at last included a bowdlerized account of his wretched marriage. But though ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... the last words in a voice of profound, even of morbid, melancholy, as if he were indeed confessing a secret crime, driven by some wayward and irresistible impulse. Uniacke looked at ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... seized with an irresistible impulse to purchase the chest, and having a small silver coin of not more value than a silver penny, said to himself, "I will try my fate, possibly it may contain something valuable; but if not, I will disregard the disappointment;" ordered ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... assumed for the first time the epaulette and the gold belt, how did you feel when you went downstairs and heard the scabbard of your sabre go clink-clank on the steps, when with your cap on one side and your arm akimbo you found yourself in the street, and, an irresistible impulse urging you on, you gazed at your figure reflected in the chemist's bottles? Will you dare to say that you did not halt before those bottles? First ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... write this, Pornic's body was divided, in some unclear way or other; the men and women had dragged the fragments on to the platform and were preparing their normal meal. Gunga Dass cooked mine. The almost irresistible impulse to fly at the sand walls until I was wearied laid hold of me afresh, and I had to struggle against it with all my might. Gunga Dass was offensively jocular till I told him that if he addressed another remark of any kind whatever to me I should ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... In later life, when the love-force for one reason or another becomes too strong to be handled either directly or indirectly in the real world, there comes the almost irresistible impulse to regress to the infantile way and to find expression by means of phantasy. After long experience Freud concluded that phantasy lies at the root of every neurosis. Jung says that a sex-phantasy is always at least one determiner of a nervous illness, ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... shattered; perhaps, I thought, by an explosion among the specimens. In another place was a vast array of idols—Polynesian, Mexican, Grecian, Phoenician, every country on earth I should think. And here, yielding to an irresistible impulse, I wrote my name upon the nose of a steatite monster from South America that particularly ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... fist in his fury with an almost irresistible impulse to fly at his brother and seize him ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... of his brother practitioners. And as victim after victim fell a sacrifice to as cruel, wicked, and debasing a superstition as it is possible for the mind to conceive, so did my anger burn the more fiercely, until I felt an almost irresistible impulse impelling me to spring to my feet, and, with my pistol levelled at the king's head, insist upon an end ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... weapon, close to his side, wrapped his cloak about him, and, though his dress was not in other respects a fit attire for slumber, any more than the place well selected for repose, yet in less than three minutes he was fast asleep. The irresistible impulse which induced him to seek for repose in a place very indifferently fitted for the purpose, might be weariness consequent upon the military vigils, which had proved a part of his duty on the preceding evening. At the same time, his spirit was so alive within him, even while he gave way to this transient ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... that on this day, on this occasion, all personal, all political feelings are quelled—all strife of party is hushed—that we are incapable, whatever be our opinions, of refusing to acknowledge transcendant merit, and of denying that we feel the irresistible impulse of unbounded gratitude; and I am therefore asked to do this service, as if to show that no difference of opinion upon subjects, however important—no long course of opposition, however contracted upon public principles—not ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... opened, and he had actually asked if Mrs. Gauntlet was at home, before he perceived that the portress was no other than his dear Emilia. She was not without emotion at the unexpected sight of her lover, who instantly recognising his charmer obeyed the irresistible impulse of his love, and caught the fair creature in his arms. Nor did she seem offended at this forwardness of behaviour, which might have displeased another of a less open disposition, or less used to the freedom of a sensible ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... felt a fire within his breast. It is difficult to understand how he survived sufferings so intense and so long-continued. At length the clouds broke. From the depths of despair the penitent passed to a state of serene felicity. An irresistible impulse now urged him to impart to others the blessing of which he was himself possessed. He joined the Baptists, and became a preacher and writer. His education had been that of a mechanic. He knew no language but the English, as it was spoken by the common ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... first to the temple, and then into the town; Nefert, obeying an irresistible impulse, had gone to her ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... was "not to be endured." And then, the downright absurdity of the undertaking! for admitting that the proprietors might prevail on some poor idiot to act as coachman, where were they to entrap a dozen mad people for passengers? We often experience an irresistible impulse to interfere, in some matter, simply because it happens to be no business of ours; and the case in question being, clearly, no affair of mine, I resolved to inquire into it. I went into the coach-office, expecting to be told, in answer to my very first question, that the advertisement ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 471, Saturday, January 15, 1831 • Various
... only one in that little party appeared to understand. They were paralyzed with amazement and unable to move a muscle. The one who did see and understand was Tad Butler. Chunky was giving way to an irresistible impulse. He was at that instant being drawn toward the ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Grand Canyon - The Mystery of Bright Angel Gulch • Frank Gee Patchin
... finish her sentence, but Heideck knew well enough what she had omitted to say. An irresistible impulse made him answer— ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... returned to the ways of older aristocracies, and, with other wants, felt the necessity of a court about them, ladies and gentlemen in waiting, pages and jesters. Nature abhors a vacuum, so a class of people immediately felt an irresistible impulse to rush in and fill the void. Our aristocrats were not even obliged to send abroad to fill these vacancies, as they were for their footmen and butlers; the native article was quite ready and willing and, considering the little practice it ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... to her with an irresistible impulse, and in a voice warmed by real emotion, exclaimed: "Ah, my poor Countess, let ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... apart from the house in the long, narrow garden at the back, and as he approached the door he stopped for a moment, and an almost irresistible impulse to go away and have nothing more to do with the unholy work in hand took possession of him. Then the love of his science and the longing to hear the marvels which could only be heard from the lips that had been silent for centuries ...
— The Romance of Golden Star ... • George Chetwynd Griffith
... Fighting against an irresistible impulse—an impulse as new and strange to him as though born of another world—an impulse to find Chloe Elliston, to take her in his arms, and to crush her close against his ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... startling succession, from her convulsed bosom, and she was carried, in a state of wild and fearful frenzy, into the house. The homicide was the tory husband, who, having met his victim in the fight, and acting, as he averred, under an irresistible impulse, had singled out and slain one, whom, the next moment, he would have given worlds to have been able to bring to life. [Footnote: The scene here introduced is drawn from an incident belonging to the local history of the battle of Bennington, and is but one among the many sad ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... arm is round a younger and less solemn form, a form of wildering beauty, whose gold hair glitters like a nimbus in the level rays of morning; with an irresistible impulse we take her into the innermost folds of our hearts, we feel her to be our own; our banner in her right hand sways and tosses on the fresh breeze, its stars, round which new suns are ever clustering, throw their dazzling light ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Brainerd, the American missionary saint, which kindled the missionary zeal of William Carey in England. On the other hand, the Life of Carey had no small influence, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, in giving irresistible impulse and definiteness of purpose to that noble band of American missionary pioneers—Mills and Nott, Newell and Judson. And their consecrated enthusiasm and purpose to labour for the conversion of the heathen nations, ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... realised only that it must have been very bitter to me to say all this. Besides, she was so crushed, poor girl; she considered herself infinitely beneath me; how could she feel anger or resentment? She suddenly leapt up from her chair with an irresistible impulse and held out her hands, yearning towards me, though still timid and not daring to stir.... At this point there was a revulsion in my heart too. Then she suddenly rushed to me, threw her arms round me and burst into tears. I, too, could not restrain myself, and sobbed as I ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... Suddenly an irresistible impulse seized me—to rush upon her, to dash syringe, tabloids, glass, and all, from her hands. I must have obeyed it—I was on the tip-top point of obeying—my body already leant prone: but at that instant a voice at the opened door behind ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... almost irresistible impulse which tempted me to fly from the painful scenes and fearful discouragements which met me at Gainesville, Alabama, these "Memories" would ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... rival. Oh, crush me, dread walls! my trembling hands mistook the phials, my lover fell indeed at my feet; but dead! dead! dead! Since then, what has been life to me I became suddenly old, I devoted myself to the sorceries of my race; still by an irresistible impulse I curse myself with an awful penance; still I seek the most noxious herbs; still I concoct the poisons; still I imagine that I am to give them to my hated rival; still I pour them into the phial; ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... and-he began to shiver. An irresistible impulse took hold of him. It was like the half-smothered fear which makes guilty men go to sit at the ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... his cigarette into the fire, and looked round. Outside was a faint, watery sunshine: but at least it was out of doors. He felt himself imprisoned and out of his element. He had an irresistible impulse to go. ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... a smile; but her voice trembled a little, and I perceived that a soft dew had gathered over her eyes. By an irresistible impulse I rose, and stealing softly behind her, clasped my arms round her neck, and kissing her forehead whispered, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... an irresistible impulse and her own terrible loneliness, she went up to Peg's empty bedroom and ...
— The Beggar Man • Ruby Mildred Ayres
... the poet's privilege of seeing into the man's mind; and makes him think before us in a long and impassioned soliloquy, which sets forth the hidden motive of his deed. As Mr. Browning conceives him, he did not mean to kill himself. He did so in a final, irresistible impulse to manifest his faith, and to test the foundations of it. It has had for its object, not the spiritual truths of Christianity, but its miraculous powers; and these powers have of late been symbolized to his mind by the ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... enlarges, as civilization progresses, it becomes more important to maintain between the different sections of our country a speedy, safe, and cheap intercourse. By so doing, energy is infused into the trade of the country, the business of the people enlarged, and made more active, and an irresistible impulse given to industry of every kind; by it wealth is created and diffused in numberless ways throughout the community, and the most noble and generous feelings of our nature between distant friends are cherished and preserved, and the Union ...
— Cheap Postage • Joshua Leavitt
... student, I thought myself qualified in time to become an author. My inquiries have been much diversified and far extended, and not finding my genius directing me by irresistible impulse to any particular subject, I deliberated three years which part of knowledge to illustrate by my labours. Choice is more often determined by accident than by reason: I walked abroad one morning with a curious lady, and, by her inquiries and observations, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... With an irresistible impulse he sprang forward, and caught the little girl in his arms, and sought, by caresses, to soothe her fears, and hush her cries of terror. But those cries had caught the watchful ear of Janet; and, with all the speed that she could use, she came running from ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... going to happen to Harry which would get him into trouble, and he wanted to assure himself that as yet nothing had gone wrong. Whenever one has this sort of vague feeling about a friend, there is a natural and irresistible impulse to go and look after him, and ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... Murat's troops with the inhabitants of Madrid, had become known in the Spanish cities before the middle of May. On the 20th of the same month the Gaceta announced the abdication of the Bourbon family. Nothing more was wanting to throw Spain into tumult. The same irresistible impulse seized provinces and cities separated by the whole breadth of the Peninsula. Without communication, and without the guidance of any central authority, the Spanish people in every part of the kingdom armed themselves against the usurper. Carthagena rose on the ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... an irresistible impulse to learn the worst, followed Lord James to the room occupied by the engineers. Blake cut short his vacillating in the doorway with a curt invitation to come in and sit down. Having satisfied what he considered the requirements of hospitality, ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... Seldom, indeed, were the strong but subdued passions of Arthur Hazleton suffered to master him, but now they had the ascendency. He never thought of calling on Mr. Mason to assist him quietly in securing the robber, as he might have done, but yielding to an irresistible impulse of vengeance, he grappled fiercely with the mask, who writhed and struggled in his unclinching hold. Something fell rattling on the floor, and continued to rattle as the strife went on. Mr. Mason, knowing that by virtue of his authority he could arrest the offender ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... his brow with a bewildered air, then, as if obeying an irresistible impulse, he followed her up ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... point, drawn by an irresistible impulse, his eyes sought the level of the audience. Ah, fatal blunder! He stammered, but with an effort raised his ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... irresistible impulse she flung reserve aside and decided to make an appeal to Braden. She would go to him and plead with him to spare himself instead of this rich old man. She would go down on her knees to him, she would humble and humiliate herself, she would cry out her unwanted ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... man's veins, his black eyes gleamed yet more brightly, his pale, high-curved nostrils quivered at every breath he drew. The throbbings of his heart unseated his thoughts and strongly took possession of the government of his body. Under an irresistible impulse he fell upon his knees beside Unorna, covering her marble hand with all his lean, dark fingers and pressing his forehead upon them, as though he had found and grasped all that could be dear to him ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... were rocked by the gentle movements of the shallop. The light sounds of the night came to us more distinctly in the bottom of the boat, sometimes causing us to start. And I felt springing up within me a strange, poignant emotion, an infinite tenderness, something like an irresistible impulse to open my arms in order to embrace, to open my heart in order to love, to give myself, to give my thoughts, my body, my life, my entire being ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... of Levi came back suddenly; she quivered, reading herself through his eyes. And yet would not his crude view be right? Suppress the consciousness as she would in her maiden breast, had she not been urged hither by an irresistible impulse? Knowing what she felt now, she could not realize she had been ignorant of it when she set out. She was a deceitful, scheming little thing. Angry with herself, she averted her gaze from the eyes that hungered for her, though they were yet unlit by self-consciousness; she ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... presented to their view, they eagerly embraced a scheme which was so big with promise, and which required of them nothing but a small contribution annually. Perceiving the fatality of this delusion, I was urged by an irresistible impulse to attempt its removal. I could not turn a deaf ear to the cries of the slaves, nor throw off the obligations which my Creator had fastened upon me. Yet in view of the inequalities of the contest, of the obstacles which towered like mountains in my path, and of my ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... while the gratification of this passion scarcely leaves leisure for despondency, at the same time that it supplies me with inexhaustible means of enjoyment. When I entered the naval service I felt an irresistible impulse to become acquainted with as many parts of the world as my professional avocations would permit, and I was determined not to rest satisfied until I had completed the circumnavigation of the globe. But at the early age of twenty-five, while these resolves were strong, and ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... to custom, set aside, in deciding to leave London that day, all logical methods of reasoning and acted on what was nothing more than an irresistible impulse, he did not attempt to belittle to himself the possible consequences that might accrue from his action. He was not following the course intelligence had directed; he was not embarking on a journey his best interests would have ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... no one answered; she heard the tick of the clock; it was the only sound. 'Mother,' she repeated, and she dared to look up, but the bed was empty. There was no mother. Lady Annabel was not in the room. Following an irresistible impulse, Venetia knelt by the side of her mother's bed and prayed. She addressed, in audible and agitated tones, that Almighty and Beneficent Being of whom she was so faithful and pure a follower. With sanctified simplicity, she communicated to her Creator and her Saviour all her distress, ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... individuals. But we can not accomplish this end by adopting a wrong method. Permanent success lies in local, rather than national action. Unless the locality rises to its own requirements, there is an almost irresistible impulse for the National Government to intervene. The States and the Nation should both realize that such action is to be adopted only as a ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... in a sob. "Shall I be—to blame?" She was moving towards the door now. With an irresistible impulse Aunt Olivia gathered her in her arms, and covered her lean little ...
— Rebecca Mary • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... that some people disappeared every now and then in this swarming mass, which was mounting up without a moment's pause, like a river compressed by an equinoctial tide, with a continuous roar under an irresistible impulse. When they got to the top of the stairs, they were scattered, and their chant died away. Nothing could any longer be heard but the tramp of all the shoes intermingled with the chopping sound of many voices. The crowd not being in a mischievous ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... nor beast while I was there. And that's not natural. But it's not what you see and hear: it's what you feel. It's terribly hard to explain, but the place appeals most powerfully to the emotions. You feel an irresistible impulse to go to Something's assistance. Of course my eyes were skinned, so I saw the treachery. But I felt the appeal." He halted and threw out a hand. "Imagine a serpent disguised as a beautiful woman in distress—that's Gramarye. And if I'd been there a month, instead ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... however, on November, 10th, 1885, I stood in the dock to receive sentence, and received from the judge a sentence of three months, I was very considerably taken aback. I remember distinctly that I had to remember where I was in order to restrain the almost irresistible impulse to interrupt the judge and say, "I beg your pardon, my lord, you have made a mistake, the sentence ought to have been two months." But mark what followed. When I had been duly confined in Coldbath-on-the-Fields Prison, I looked at the little card which is fastened on the door ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead
... check the strangers within their gates, then as suddenly halted, his eyes alight with instant recognition and rejoicing, his hand springing up in salute, even as the cadet officers at the head of the nearest tables found their feet in instant and irresistible impulse. Up, too, sprang the first captain, at the opposite side, his first thought to rebuke, his second, at sight of the halted trio, to shout with delight. Before he could gather his wits the matter was settled for him, for all. The adjutant, amazed, dropped his paper and uplifted his eyes, for his voice ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... certainty that she was going to be vanquished, as if by this grasp he had become her master, and forever. This sensation was prolonged; she was seized and drawn on, without the consent of her will, by an irresistible impulse to submit. ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... was on a placid autumn evening. We had strolled farther than usual, tempted by the tranquil beauty around us, and during that walk I had been strangely, wonderfully happy. Many times, as we walked silently side by side, a strong, an almost irresistible impulse seemed to force me to utter those three passionate words that have caused a flutter in the heart-beat of so many thousands since the world began; and as many times the reverence I felt for her, and the diffidence arising from it, held me ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Facts mingled with the dreams of his excited imagination. He saw the horses plunging over the precipice, and an abyss seemed to open beside him—the abyss of eternity; when, lo! from the depths of the abyss there appeared a globe of fire (un globe de feu) encircled with the Cross; and the irresistible impulse was stirred in him to throw aside the world for ever, and embrace God,—“Not the God of philosophers or of savants,” but “the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob—the God of Jesus Christ,” from whom he had been severed, but from whom ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... to your views; for it is not unknown to you that, from an excessive predilection for the ancient poets, I have often been unjust to the modern. According to your doctrine I can now be at one with myself, since I no longer need to contemn that which, under certain conditions, an irresistible impulse compelled me to produce; and it is a very pleasant feeling to be not altogether dissatisfied with one's ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... everyone who wishes to realise Purcell's unheard-of fertility of great and powerful themes to look at "The clouds poured out water," the fugue subject "The voice of Thy thunders," the biting emphasis of the passage "the lightnings shone upon the ground," and the irresistible impulse of "The earth was moved." And the supremacy of Purcell's art is shown not more in these than in the succession of simple harmonies by which he gets the unutterable mournful poignancy of "Thou knowest, Lord," that unsurpassed and unsurpassable piece of choral writing which Dr. Crotch, one of the ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... to look at Adelaide and her mother, and saw that they were tremulous with pleasure and delight at their little trick. He felt himself mean, sordid, a fool; he longed to punish himself, to rend his heart. A few tears rose to his eyes; by an irresistible impulse he sprang up, clasped Adelaide in his arms, pressed her to his heart, and stole a kiss; then with the simple heartiness of an artist, "I ask for her for my wife!" he exclaimed, ...
— The Purse • Honore de Balzac
... an irresistible impulse I rose from my chair and held out my hand. The maire took it in mild surprise. "Monsieur," I said frankly, if crudely, "you are a brave man. ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... 'An irresistible impulse hath carried me into this chamber!' exclaimed the prophetess. 'The light haunted me like a spectre; and wheresoever I moved, ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... of the world," says Macrobius, "is nature itself" [as the soul of man is man himself], "always acting through the celestial spheres which it moves, and which but follow the irresistible impulse it impresses on them. The heavens, the sun, great seat of generative power, the signs, the stars, and the planets act only with the activity of the soul of the Universe. From that soul, through them, come all the variations and ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... say, for it was a moral death—I am quite unable to comprehend the motives that led me to take such a course. My eyes were not blinded. I must have seen that each stride placed me further and further away from my darling, erecting a fresh obstacle between us; still, some irresistible impulse appeared to hurry me on—although, I could not but have known how vain it would be for me to recover my lost footsteps: how hard a matter to change my direction, and look upwards to light and happiness once more! ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... themselves so very unexpectedly, and, as it were, without any fixed intention on the part of the chief actor. He remembered that he had been very angry with Madame d'Aranjuez, that she had spoken half a dozen words, and that he had felt an irresistible impulse to kiss her. He had done so, and he thought with considerable trepidation of their next meeting. She had screamed, which showed that she was outraged by his boldness. It was doubtful whether she would receive him again. The best thing to be done, he ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... two ounces of cold fish, as did some of the girls he knew. She was dressed in a half-formal house-gown, and the one curl of her waving brown hair that would persistently straggle down upon her forehead was in its accustomed place. He had always been obsessed with a nearly irresistible impulse to put his finger ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... young women love well. To be on fire of an adulterous love or a blind passion, which is little better, is one thing; and to love righteously, nobly, steadily, is another thing. Woman naturally has great strength of affection. She loves by an irresistible impulse. But that love is not worthy unless it be directed to worthy objects and swayed by high moral principles. The love of a woman should be as the love of an angel. It should swell in her bosom as a great tide of moral life, binding her to beauty ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... panting and puffing after its long run. Roderick knew that if he chose he could slip out, leap on that train and go speeding away up through the forest and be in Algonquin before morning. He felt for a moment an almost irresistible impulse to do it, to fling away everything and go back. But he would look like a fool, and the people would laugh at him, and quite rightly. He could not go ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... stood musing on these circumstances, the captain suddenly called out to him in Dutch, "Step on board, young man, or you'll be left behind!" He was startled by the sum mons; he saw that the sloop was cast loose, and was actually moving from the pier; it seemed as if he was actuated by some irresistible impulse; he sprang upon the deck, and the next moment the sloop was hurried off by the wind and tide. Dolph's thoughts and feelings were all in tumult and confusion. He had been strongly worked upon by the events that had recently befallen ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... man with whom the deeper currents of the soul gradually rise to the surface; who raises himself to the height of his ethical consciousness under the stress of circumstances, rather than at the spur of some irresistible impulse. ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... your work—you'll do just what you did before I came up." She was holding herself in by main strength; why, she could not tell —fighting an almost irresistible impulse to hide her face on his breast ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... on his aged forehead. He was sitting in a corner of the box, turning his attention neither to the play nor the audience; and, what was more, not striving to attract the attention of anyone. But from behind the shoulders of the young men in the front of the box, his hand, as if directed by an irresistible impulse, turned the opera-glass, from moment to moment, toward Malvina Darvid. He felt that he ought not to look so persistently at that woman with the gleaming star above her forehead, so he dropped his ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... a believer is freed from the "bondage of good works." Others, though admitting the perpetuity of the law, declared that it was unnecessary for ministers to exhort the people to obedience of its precepts, since those whom God had elected to salvation would, "by the irresistible impulse of divine grace, be led to the practice of piety and virtue," while those who were doomed to eternal reprobation "did not have power to obey the ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... that happened to be the majority in turning all the rest into insane asylums. It is the demoniac element, the raving of some particular demon, that creates greatness either in men or nations. Power is maniacal. A mysterious fury, a heavenly inspiration, an incomprehensible and irresistible impulse, goads humanity on to achievements. Every age, every person, and every art obeys the wand of the enchanter. History moves by indirections. The first historic tendency is likely to be slightly askew; there follows then an historic ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... had entered the room, Wolfgang's eyes at once rested greedily upon the basket, which Pedro had again closed, as if he guessed what treasure lay within. Samson's glance went straight to the sleeping dwarf, and an almost irresistible impulse to kick the inert figure possessed him. But he restrained himself, and colored high when he ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... an irresistible impulse, he pushed Carter aside, and sprang down stairs three steps at a time, with Wildney following him. They went straight for the Doctor's study, and without waiting for the answer to their knock at the door, ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... as through science (and as regards the latter through pure science as well as through the applied branches), I was thus encountered and appealed to by the unity, the simplicity, and the unalterably necessary course, of human development and human education. I became impelled by an irresistible impulse towards the setting forth of that unity and simplicity, with all the force, both of my pen and of my life, in the shape of an educational system. I felt that education as well as science would gain by what I may call a more human, ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel |
