"Motive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and obscured by contiguous buildings, and the walls are luxuriantly fringed and mantled with mosses, lichens, and broad leaved ivy. The proud aqueducts of the expanding city diminish the value and importance of this spring, but it was unquestionably the ruling motive which determined Romulus, or possibly an earlier colony of Greeks, to take root here, as within the wide compass of the Roman walls there is no other source of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 351 - Volume 13, Saturday, January 10, 1829 • Various
... devote the whole. A debt of $600,000,000 now is a less sum per head than was the debt of our Revolution when we came out of that struggle; and the money value in the country now bears even a greater proportion to what it was then than does the population. Surely each man has as strong a motive now to preserve our liberties as each had then ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... ruins, in the neighbourhood, as it may add a zest to his perambulations to know something about them. The descriptions will probably be brief, leaving a margin to be filled in by his own personal observation, thus affording him a motive for further enquiry, and an aim and object for the rambles, which may conduce to his health in the expansion alike of mind and of lung. Woodhall does not lie within what may be called the architectural zone of Lincolnshire. In the south, south-east, ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... The motive which determined Snofrui's choice of Medum as a site, is unknown to us: perhaps he dwelt in that city of Heracleopolis, which in course of time frequently became the favourite residence of the kings; perhaps he improvised for himself a city in the plain between El-Wastah and Kafr el-Ayat. His ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... the idea of taking money for what he regarded as part of a great public policy. "I would wish," he said, "that every individual who may hear that it was a favorite plan of mine may know also that I had no other motive for promoting it than the advantage of which I conceived it would be productive to the Union, and to this State in particular, by cementing the eastern and western territory together, at the same time that it will give vigor and increase to ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... good social position forge false banknotes; in Moscow of late a whole gang has been captured who used to forge lottery tickets, and one of the ringleaders was a lecturer in universal history; then our secretary abroad was murdered from some obscure motive of gain.... And if this old woman, the pawnbroker, has been murdered by someone of a higher class in society—for peasants don't pawn gold trinkets—how are we to explain this demoralisation of the civilised part ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... measure unpremeditated, that it was the result of a passing but irresistible temptation. Learned counsel had endeavoured to introduce some element of romance into the case; he had described the theft as the outcome of the prisoner's desire of marriage, but lordship could not find such purity of motive in the prisoner's crime. There was nothing to show that there was any thought of marriage in the prisoner's mind; the crime was the result, not of any desire of marriage, but rather the result of vicious passion, concubinage. Regarding the plea that the crime was unpremeditated, ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... Square Players were called, by many who had theatrical experience, fools. Now some term us pioneers. The future may write us fools again, or something better—the conclusion being that the difference between the fool and the pioneer lies in the outcome; the secret, that the motive ...
— Washington Square Plays - Volume XX, The Drama League Series of Plays • Various
... that the same dread of strangers, rather than any desire to do them honour, is the motive of certain ceremonies which are sometimes observed at their reception, but of which the intention is not directly stated. In the Ongtong Java Islands, which are inhabited by Polynesians, the priests or sorcerers seem to wield great influence. Their main business ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... these two men which has, in a great measure, served to give celebrity to their names; we refer to their residence, entirely alone, for more than a year, in a land filled with the most subtle and unsparing enemies, and under the influence of no other motive, apparently, than a love of adventure, of Nature, and of solitude. Nor were they, during this time, always together. For three months, Daniel remained amid the forest utterly by himself, while his brother, with courage and capacity equal to his own, returned ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... feel confidence in Caesar and immediately made him aware of what had taken place, but did not feel altogether confident that she would experience no harm. Hence she kept herself within the structure, in order that if there should be no other motive for her preservation, she might at least purchase pardon and her sovereignty through fear about her money. Even then in such depths of calamity she remembered that she was queen, and chose rather to die with the name and dignities of a sovereign than to live ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... dancing-floor. Owing to the darkness of the December afternoon, the large empty room was lit up as brilliantly as at night. For a minute they stood on the threshold, looking absently at the palms grouped in the corners and the garlands festooning the walls. It was only then that Pruyn saw the motive of her coming; and for an instant he forgot his worry in the perception that this woman ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... her husband, with a strange mixture of satisfaction and anger in his hard tones. "I have been expecting some such foolery as this for some time, and I am not blinded to the motive behind it. What do you care about those devils of Indian savages? What does Horace Spotswood care about them? Just as little! Enough, and too much, of my money has gone already to the prolonging of their ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder
... to inquire after the Duke of Cambridge's health, was struck with a cane by one Robert Pate, an ex-officer, and a severe bruise was inflicted on her forehead. The outrage was apparently committed without motive, but an attempt to prove Pate insane failed, and he was ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... killed, with a hatchet, the old moneylender and her sister, Elizabeth, and robbery was my motive." ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... rolling mill completes what the puddling hall does in the rough. Five hundred and fifty thousand tons of iron, all shaped, are taken from the forge every day. To reach such a result it requires no less than 3,000 workmen and a motive power of 7,000 horses. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... contemplated this menacing preparation. Brought up in sentiments of honor, and far removed from the black thoughts which hatred and ambition arouse in the heart of man, he could not conceive that such wrong could be done without some powerful and secret motive. The audacity of such a condemnation seemed to him so enormous that its very cruelty began to justify it in his eyes; a secret horror crept into his soul, the same that silenced the people. He almost forgot the interest ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... there on some mission. He was a prominent and useful man in his State; and he would not have left it without some very strong motive. The nephew would have given a great deal, and exposed himself to no little peril, to be able to fathom this motive. He moved away from the piazza, and went upon it at another place. If he could hear some of the ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... "His motive? With your eye for them, can you ask? A devouring ambition, that's all! Haven't you noticed that, in all except the biggest minds, ambition takes the form of wanting to command where one has had to obey? Amherst has been made to toe the line at Westmore, and now he wants Truscomb—yes, and ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... books are criticisms and incitements to change. Such a writer as Mr. Swinnerton, on the contrary, sees life and renders it with a steadiness and detachment and patience quite foreign to my disposition. He has no underlying motive. He sees and tells. His aim is the attainment of that beauty which comes with exquisite presentation. Seen through his art, life is seen as one sees things through a crystal lens, more intensely, more completed, and with less turbidity. ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... here to ask me to cure that lady, and not to give me advice. In Poland I am a Pole; in Paris I am Parisian. Every man does good in his own way; the greed with which I am credited is not without its motive. The wealth I am amassing has its destination; it is a sacred one. I sell health; the rich can afford to purchase it, and I make them pay. The poor have their doctors. If I had not a purpose in view I would ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... other hand, when a market for African slaves shall no longer be furnished in Cuba, and thus all the world be closed against this trade, we may then indulge a reasonable hope for the gradual improvement of Africa. The chief motive of war among the tribes will cease whenever there is no longer any demand for slaves. The resources of that fertile but miserable country might then be developed by the hand of industry and afford subjects for legitimate foreign ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... come, before us. The fact that the prisoner is charged with the deliberate murder of her friend—I may almost say her benefactress—with whom she had been living on terms of intimacy for a considerable time, and for no motive that has yet been suggested except a low and mercenary one, is calculated to arouse a natural repulsion in the mind, and to indispose it to believe that the charge is well-founded. But, gentlemen, these things, as they come before you, are matters of evidence. If the witnesses you are about ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... interference, since of all the Jewish institutions it was that one which only and which frequently became the occasion of wholesale butchery to the pious (however erring) Jews? The scruple of the Jews to fight, or even to resist an assassin, on the Sabbath, was not the less pious in its motive because erroneous in principle; yet no miracle interfered to save them from the consequences of their infatuation. And this seemed the more remarkable in the case of their war with Antiochus, because that (if any that history has recorded) was ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... Johnson as President. Nevertheless, you can scarcely conceive how much this affair—I mean the marriage—grieved me. My absolute nothingness suddenly stared me in the face. I saw myself as I was—a mere schoolmaster, with no motive for pride in the past, or pleasure in the present, or ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... and there is a wide sphere of political discretion in which many acts can be done which, while politically anti-constitutional, are not juridically unconstitutional. For this reason, the undue dependence upon the judiciary to nullify every law which either in form, necessary operation, or motive transgresses the Constitution has so far lessened the vigilance of the people to protect their own Constitution as to lead ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck
... all events, we must be content to feel that our imagination provides us with a motive rather than with a goal; and though it is very important that we should strive with all our might to eliminate the baser elements of life, yet we must be brave and wise enough to confess how much of our best happiness ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... was blurred by blood that, still warm, soaked it through in parts, but because, coming from a young man to a maid, in the first flush of her strength and beauty, it offered love and marriage, giving only as his reason, urging only as her motive, ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... It sounded like a riddle, but it was obvious that Mr. Jarvis's motive in putting the question was not frivolous. ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... land-breeze had already beaten down the surf, and the turmoil of the waters was in great part stilled; but the beach was strewn with sea-weeds and eel-grass, and withal presented quite a holiday appearance. From one motive and another, a considerable proportion of the inhabitants of the city had turned out. The principal attraction, as far as we could perceive, was a certain big clam, of which great numbers had been cast up by the tide. Baskets and wagons ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... well that she was as disinclined for social amusements as he was himself, but the same motive that prompted her urged him also. Each went with ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... perfectly legitimate, although it is by no means the highest motive, to appeal to feeling as a stimulus to action. We have a right to base our urging of Christian men and women to missionary work either at home or abroad, upon the ground of the condition of the men to whom the Gospel has to be carried. I know that if taken alone ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... the most usual cause of war, and not, as has been reported, glory and the capture of slaves. There is never wanting on the part of those who originate the war a reasonable motive. The vendetta system is not only recognized, but vengeance is considered incumbent on the relatives of one who has been killed, and, as a reminder, a piece of green rattan is sometimes strung up in the house. The rattan suggests that until it rots the wrong will ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... of the cab were broad unglazed windows, through which one could watch the tangle of machinery. Dynamos are bolted to the floor, purring under their shields like comfortable cats; abaft of them a twenty-horse-power Wolseley petrol-engine supplies motive power for everything. And above the dynamos, cased in studded leather, swinging a little in their ordered precession, are the two gyroscopes, the soul of the machine. To ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... literary gymnastics for the sake of his newspaper; but the voyage of the Vesta was an exceptional affair. Save incidentally—for he did send descriptive articles to The Daily Gazette—he was not out on professional business. The gymnastics were performed for my benefit—yet with an ulterior motive. He had sailed away, not on a job, but to satisfy a certain nostalgia, to escape from civilisation, to escape from Doria, to escape from desire and from heartache . . . and the deeper he plunged into the fatness of primitive life, the closer ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... all the persons whose acts it describes. The expectation of the Jews when Jesus of Nazareth first appeared,—their subsequent disappointment and rage—their hatred and impatience of the Roman government,—the perplexity of the military chief, and the motive which at length induced him to sacrifice the innocent person who was listed before him, are facts which display the most perfect accordance with the tone of civil history ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... discovered. Owen possibly might have partaken somewhat in the feeling general among all classes, that it was a right thing to protect those in distress, whatever their crimes against society. A more generous motive had influenced him, and he might have been less inclined to act as he had done should a person indifferent to him, and equally criminal in the sight of the law, have thrown himself upon his mercy. Owen did not know the full wrong O'Harrall had ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... article historically will dethrone two saints,—Williams and Lord Baltimore. You have rendered an invaluable service to history. Our Baptist and Catholic brethren will not thank you, but the rest of the world will. It is becoming clearer every day that the motive force which was behind the foundations of this Republic came from the "Lollards" and the "Beggars." I hope you will give ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... for Stephen to offer objections, though he was in a mood which made him long to push on without stopping, even though there were no motive for haste. He was ashamed of the mood, however, and hardly understood what it meant, since he had come to Algeria in search of peace. When first he landed, and until the day of Victoria's letter, he had been enormously interested in the panorama of the East which passed ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... conceited blockhead, and which, though the witness is as mad almost as yourself, will yet be enough to direct the hand of justice to the right man. There is a Charles, Sir, whom all suspect, who awaits trial, judgment, and death in this case, the wretched Charles Nutter of the Mills, Sir, whose motive is patent, and on whose proceedings a light will, I believe, be thrown by the evidence of Zekiel Irons, whatever ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... ran riot through his mind its to the motive for the theft of the Drifter. Then he decided that it must be some professional who had done the act. It was hard to fathom the ultimate plans of such an abstractor, who would not dare to use the machine in any public way and could ...
— Dave Dashaway and his Hydroplane • Roy Rockwood
... group of structures, thus elevated, was a fortress. They prove the insecurity in which the people lived; for the labor involved in constructing these platform elevations, in part, at least, artificial, would never have been undertaken without a powerful motive. One of the chief blessings of civilization is the security which a higher organization of society gives to the people, under the protection of which they are able as cultivators to occupy broad areas of land. In the Middle Status of barbarism they were compelled to live generally in villages, ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... mortal she's not in it with a man. No, it's angel or nothing with us women. I remember my Mater saying to me when I was engaged to Jack, "Sybil, now mind! enjoy the very best of health till you have been married at least ten years; and then be sure you have an excellent motive for cracking-up." [The clock tinkles out the half-hour. She glances at the clock.] Half-past-eleven! the dead of night for this house! [Rising.] I'll ...
— The Gay Lord Quex - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur W. Pinero
... good understanding, a degree of natural elocution, and that knowledge of the world which is learned in armies and courts. We are not to take the height of his ambition from his soliciting to be general for life:[19] I am persuaded his chief motive was the pay and perquisites, by continuing the war; and that he had then no intentions of settling the crown in his family, his only son having been dead some years before.[20] He is noted to be master of great temper, able to govern ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... principles upon which the proceeding against President Jackson was conducted when the sentence against him was adopted. Then everything was done with especial reference to the will of the people. Their impulsion was assumed to be the sole motive to action; and to them the ultimate verdict was expressly referred. The whole machinery of alarm and pressure—every engine of political and moneyed power—was put in motion, and worked for many months, to excite ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... hereafter that religious fervor animated the Persians in most of those wars by which they spread their dominion. We may suspect, therefore, though it must be admitted we cannot prove, that a religious motive was among those which led them to make their first efforts ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson
... many particulars of the efforts of the priests to convert the prisoners, and his account, like the rest of his story, bears the marks of truth. There was a treble motive for conversion: it recruited the Church, weakened the enemy, and strengthened Canada, since few of the converts would peril their souls by returning to their heretic relatives. The means of conversion varied. They were gentle when gentleness seemed likely to answer the purpose. Little girls ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... him in peace, and she made no further attempt upon her son's confidence. But she was not inactive for that reason. She did not, of course, admit to herself, and far less to others, the motive with which she went to pay an early visit to the Laphams, who had now come up from Nantasket to Nankeen Square. She said to her daughters that she had always been a little ashamed of using her acquaintance with ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... would aid manifestly in the due classification of all assistants at a ball. It is not to be thought that the sex is governed by any mercenary motive; but in the present organization of society a certain degree of attention to the mode in which matrimonial establishments are to be sustained ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... shield from anything of the kind. I took steps to insure that any evil which might come should fall on me only, and that"—here he turned and looked at the prisoner—"was the cause of conduct upon my part which has been too harshly judged. My only motive was to screen those who were dear to me from any possible connection with scandal or disgrace. That scandal and disgrace would come with my brother was only to say that what had been would ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... examination of the village. His principal motive in taking Estelle there was to give her some mental occupation to ward off the reaction from ...
— The Runaway Skyscraper • Murray Leinster
... had come at last, and suddenly the road was granted! The king presently let us see the motive by which he had been influenced. He said he did not like having to send to Rumanika for everything: he wanted his visitors to come to him direct; moreover, Rumanika had sent him a message to the effect ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... now in possession of the telegram, which he probably, or rather certainly, sent himself. But how he came to know anything about the girl, or what possible motive he can have had—" muttered Maitland to himself. "She has never been in any place, Miss Marlett, since she came to you, where she could have made the ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... So soon, however, as he perceived its real significance, he threw himself wholly into the movement. It must not be forgotten, moreover, that, although Hutten's zeal for Humanism made him welcome any attempt to overthrow the power of the clergy and the monks, he had also an eminently political motive for his action in what was, in some respects, the main object of his life, viz. to rescue the "knighthood," or smaller nobility, from having their independence crushed out by the growing powers of the princes ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... actions had thrust upon the United States the status of belligerent. But the American people must meet the challenge with their purpose clearly before them. "We must put excited feeling away. Our motive will not be revenge or the victorious assertion of the physical might of the nation, but only the vindication of right, of human right, of which we are only a single champion.... The wrongs against which we now array ourselves are ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... quiet, but in his soul there was a strange commotion. It would be a difficult thing to explain this motive, which belonged to his peculiarity of mind; it entered among the mysteries of the soul. The multitude call it in individuals singularity, the psychologist finds a deeper meaning in it, which the understanding is unable to fathom. We have examples of men, whose ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... themselves. At first the natural divisions consisted of the Federalists, who believed in adopting the Constitution, and those who did not. As soon as the thirteen States voted to accept the Constitution, the Anti-Federalists had no definite motive for existing. Their place was taken principally by the Republicans over against whom were the Democrats. A few years later these parties exchanged names. A fundamental difference in the ideas of the Americans sprang from their views in regard to National and State ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... happy, but from the wish to spare one's-self the troublesome duty of formulating the truth so that it would perform its heavenly office without wounding those whom it was intended to heal. He warned his hearers that the kind things spoken from this motive were so many sins committed against the soul of the flatterer and the soul of him they were intended to flatter; they were deceits, lies; and he besought all within the sound of his voice to try to practise with one another an affectionate sincerity, which was compatible not ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... believe them. It is like reading Evidence given in a Court of Justice. So anxious the story-teller seems, that the truth should be clearly comprehended, that when he has told us a matter of fact, or a motive, in a line or two farther down he repeats it with his favorite figure of speech, 'I say' so and so,—though he had made it abundantly plain before. This is in imitation of the common people's way of speaking, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... imagination of fanatics. Of course I am fully aware that many will discredit my account; but I write only for the benefit of those few who know me well enough to see in me neither a hallucinated medium, nor attribute to me any bad motive, and who have ever been true and loyal to their convictions and to the cause they have so nobly espoused. As for the majority who laugh at and ridicule what they have neither the inclination nor the capacity to understand, I hold them ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... He would be incalculably indebted to any friend visiting Cranbrook, if he would inform the Justices of her wicked ways, so that she might be safely lodged again in gaol. An idle young man, more out of thoughtless mischief than from any worse motive, undertook the task. ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... know my colleague is extremely intelligent. And, once more, I don't say that he's wrong. We shall see. At present I am only morally certain. I shall be materially certain when I know the antecedents of the accused and have established an obvious motive for his action. At the moment of your arrival I was about to open my mail. Here is a letter from the Court of Pau; it gives our man's judicial record. [He takes a paper-knife in order to ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... lords, the negligence of the Dutch is a motive which ought to incite us to vigour and despatch; since it is not for the sake of the Dutch but ourselves, that we desire the suppression of France. If the Dutch are at length convinced of the ease of slavery, and think liberty no ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... infinite God, can keep all accounts of his innumerable creatures instantaneously, and have them complete, exact and unerring? No man, nor angel, nor "law," could do it. In like manner, every spiritual act, wish, purpose, motive,—all go in to make up the spiritual life of man, in exact proportion to their worth. Not all the mathematicians and scribes in the universe could together solve the problems, that the great intellect of the Supreme Ruler is solving every ...
— The Evolution Of Man Scientifically Disproved • William A. Williams
... Moscow municipality discussed the advisability of voting a certain sum of money and putting it at the disposal of the chief officer of the city, to be discreetly employed in transactions with complacent railway officials, in order to further the work of reducing prices on necessaries of life. The motive adduced for this homoeopathic way of treating a social distemper were the conditions of life in Russia and the necessity of complying with them. But as the Statute Book does not recognize these conditions ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... indeed half so good,' said De Stancy. 'I am abroad for my health, you know, and what's like the Rhine and its neighbourhood in early summer, before the crowd comes? It is delightful to wander about there, or anywhere, like a child, influenced by no fixed motive more than that of keeping near some friend, or friends, including the one we most admire ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... I am sacrificing myself to someone and for someone. That is not the case at all. I am simply marrying for my own sake, because things are hard for me. Though, of course, I shall be glad if I succeed in being useful to my family. But that is not the chief motive ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... or how; perhaps cautiously, because I fear angering my mother, and the gentleman, perhaps a sexual instinct makes me curious, though that is not probable. I have not in fact the slightest conception of the actuating motive, but I sat up and listened. There were two females talking, laughing quietly, and moving about, I heard a rattling in the pot, then a rest, then again a rattle and knew the sound of piddling. How long I listened, I don't know, I might have dozed ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... it seemed of the utmost importance that he should assure her of his intention of never forgiving. He was convinced that his faith in her had been the foundation of his hopes, the motive of his courage, of his determination to live and struggle, and to be victorious for her sake. And now his faith was gone, destroyed by her own hands; destroyed cruelly, treacherously, in the dark; in the very moment of success. In the utter wreck of his affections ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... them the next morning, and now they were much fresher. Sap, not yet dead in some of the trees, had oozed but lately into the cuts, and his heart beat very hard. His comrades could not be far away. He might reach them the next day or the day after, and now he was actuated by a curious motive, and yet it was not curious, ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... maiden, whose beauty was of so high an order, and so peculiar a character, that it at once attracted and fixed attention. Such, at least, was the effect produced by it on Jocelyn. Shrinking from the public gaze, and, perhaps, from some motive connected with religious scruples, scarcely deeming it right to be a spectator of the passing scene, this fair maiden was so placed as to be almost screened from general view. Yet it chanced that Jocelyn, from the circumstance of being on horseback, and from his position, was able to command a portion ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... eyes suffused with tears of joy as he beheld his cherished ideals and his longing of years at last at the point of realization. What he, too, had instinctively seen in the child was now to be summoned forth; and the vague, half-understood motive which had impelled him to take the abandoned babe from Badillo into the shelter of his own great heart would at length be revealed. The man's joy was ecstatic. With a final clasp of the priest's ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... Beyond any doubt the Life does actually contradict itself; it makes Declan a cotemporary of Patrick in the fifth century and a cotemporary likewise of St. David a century later. In any attempted solution of the difficulty involved it may be helpful to remember a special motive likely to animate a tribal histrographer, scil.:—the family relationship, if we may so call it, of the two saints; David was bishop of the Deisi colony in Wales as Declan was bishop of their kinsmen of southern Ireland. It was very probably ...
— The Life of St. Declan of Ardmore • Anonymous
... a passion?"—"I am convinced, madam," continued he, "you cannot expect all the particulars of the tender scene which ensued. I was not enough in my senses to remember it all. Let it suffice to say, that that behaviour with which Amelia, while ignorant of its motive, had been so much displeased, when she became sensible of that motive, proved the strongest recommendation to her favour, and she was ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... door of the closet slowly and softly, he crept upon his hands and knees into the middle of the parlour, feeling very much like a thief, as, indeed, in a measure he was, though from a blameless motive. But just as he had accomplished half the distance to the door, he was arrested and fixed with terror; for a deep sigh came from grannie's bed, followed by the voice of words. He thought at first that she ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... Aunt Susan. This time he said that the team had worked all week, and that he felt that the horses needed rest. A new team was added to the farm assets and the next Sunday John said he was too tired himself to go away from home. Never once did he say that he had any motive which extended beyond the time at hand. Each Sunday the excuse fitted the circumstances of that particular day, and he talked of going in a general way as if it were a matter of course that they would go soon. It was clearly the duty of the young couple to ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... master scrutinized their faces and their movements on Monday in search of evidence or traces of their pranks. But at this moment the old clothier paid no heed to his apprentices; he was absorbed in trying to divine the motive of the anxious looks which the young man in silk stockings and a cloak cast alternately at his signboard and into the depths of his shop. The daylight was now brighter, and enabled the stranger to discern the cashier's corner enclosed by a railing and screened by old green silk curtains, where were ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac
... The cradle of motive and the grave of conscience. In woman this organ is lacking; so she acts without motive, and her conscience, denied burial, remains ever alive, confessing the ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... my Lady of the Ice. Why had she done so? Why did Marion let her? Why did O'Halloran announce his own wife to me as the lady whom I had saved? No doubt Nora and Marion had some reason. But what, and why? And what motive had O'Halloran for deceiving me? Clearly none. It was evident that he believed Nora to be the lady. It was also evident that on the first night of the reading of the advertisement, and nay story, he did not know that the ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... underlying all this, and I don't know what it is. But I declare to you, solemnly, that I am innocent of this charge. If you have spoken against me to-day because you thought you ought to do it, I can't blame you, but if you have done it from any wrong motive, I hope you'll confess it before evil is added ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various
... of giving, of enriching, in fine, of self-renunciation in response to the highest call of humanity is the other and complementary ideal. The motive power for this is not to be found in personal ambition but in the effacement of all littlenesses, and uprooting of that ignorance which regards anything as gain which is to be purchased at others' loss. This I know, that no vision of truth ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
... apple-tree sitting, and clothes for the children preparing, Made of worn calico, which for the purpose was doubtless presented. We were pleased by her face; she appears to be one of the right sort. Tell us, what know you about her? We ask from a laudable motive." ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... was no longer the motive power of her prayer. Tess, the squatter, was struggling with a new faith of her own. Flash after flash brightened the sky, and still she knelt, offering the sick child for her God to bless. One long peal of thunder shook the inky waters, and rumbled ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... cousin," Seton proceeded. "You will probably misread my motive for saying this. But nevertheless it must be said. It is not advisable that you should ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... tendency. A certain number of grave-faced gentlemen and a few broad-jowled ladies are visibly constrained by the force of circumstance to dine at the same table and hour, et voila tout. There is no pretence that any more sociable and neighborly motive has brought them together. Indeed, they each suspect the other of being a German, or a Nihilist, or, worse still, a Government servant. They therefore sit as far apart as possible, and smoke cigarettes between and during ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... engaged. You have assured me that I have nothing to fear at your hands, and you appear to be quite satisfied that in abducting me you have got the man you want; but I am as far as ever from understanding what your motive can be. Which of you two men is ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... Brahman threw away the apple, to the great joy of his wife, who felt a natural indignation at the prospect of seeing her goodman become immortal, whilst she still remained subject to the laws of death; but she concealed this motive in the depths of her thought, enlarging, as women are apt to do, upon everything but the truth. And she spoke with such success, that the priest was about to toss in his rage the heavenly fruit into the fire, reproaching the gods as if by sending it they had done him ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... probably she might obtain more; and she therefore declined accepting it under the conditions offered. This secret negociation became known to Florida Blanca, the Spanish minister, and it became a pressing motive for an attack on Minorca. Accordingly, having obtained the consent of the court of Versailles to co-operate, this became one of the principal objects of Spanish ambition. An expedition was fitted out with great skill and caution, and the Duke of Crillon was appointed to the command. The ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... which so many able thinkers are devoting themselves now-a-days. Herbert Spencer has his disciples and defenders, who prove themselves no contemptible adversaries of the orthodox school of religion. Very few of us probably sympathize with these modern iconoclasts who would destroy all motive for right doing in this world, by breaking down human faith in the existence of one Supreme Being; but, at the same time, no one can deny the earnestness and ability these writers bring to their work. It is quite obvious that such ...
— The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People • John George Bourinot
... a scene perhaps the most celebrated in all the mythological legends; a scene which was the origin of the sacred dance in Japan and which furnished to artists in later ages a frequent motive. The "eight hundred myriads" of Kami—so numerous have the denizens of the "plain of high heaven" unaccountably become—assemble in the bed of the "tranquil river"* to confer about a means of enticing the goddess from her retirement. They entrust the duty of forming a plan ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... the precise structure of the nuclei of the cells which originate from the nucleus of the egg-cell only, and not from a nucleus formed by the fusion of that with a sperm-cell nucleus? These and similar questions are the motive of further careful ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... of the Guild of St. Johann Vorstadt made this visit—when Holbein was back among them, as was noted, "in silk and velvet"—the occasion of a grand banquet in his honour. But the real motive for his visit was to arrange upon what terms he could meet the Council's wishes. The terms were far from ungenerous, as is shown by the contract which ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue
... to him Lena's agency in the matter, omitting, this time, to impute to her the same motive which she had done when stating the case ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... again, he only said, with a half-smile, "I would crave the lady's pardon; you would not prevent that." And then he bowed low before Dorothy Fair, and besought her to pardon, if she could, his unseemly conduct, and believe that it had for motive only the highest respect and esteem ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... conscious presentiment) of some great calamity travelling towards me; not perhaps immediately impending—perhaps even at a great distance; but already—dating from some secret hour—already in motion upon some remote line of approach. This feeling I could not assuage by sharing it with Agnes. No motive could be strong enough for persuading me to communicate so gloomy a thought with one who, considering her extreme healthiness, was but too remarkably prone to pensive, if not to sorrowful, contemplations. And thus the obligation which I felt to silence and reserve, strengthened the morbid impression ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... needed a strong arm to sustain you in your hour of trial. Laudable purpose—ah, I see you begin to feel more comfortable. I have every intention of playing the big brother to you for a few hours, weeks, or months, or till you come out of your green funk. You wonder, of course, what motive I have for intruding in this way—lying to your servant, and making myself at home in your house. The motive, so far as there is any, is the purely selfish one of finding enjoyment for myself, while incidentally being of service to you. And you're bound to admit that that's a fair offer ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... All the way from Aleppo down to Beersheba. Men like Dr. Bliss* have made such an impression that an occasional rotter might easily take advantage of it. Americans in this country—so far—stand for altruism without ulterior motive. If we'd accepted the mandate they might have found us out! Meanwhile, an American is safe." [*President of the American College at Beirut. Died 1920, probably more respected throughout the Near East than any ten men ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... motive for which I cannot now account, I rose and followed him. My belief is that I was scarcely awake; indeed, I walked along like a person in a dream. He at once left the camp, and took the way down to the lower and open ground. I was at some distance ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston
... think, I must leave you to learn later. But I should like you to know at once that I'm not keeping you here without a motive." ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... not a constant, is at least a characteristic feature of the beginning of the spiritual life as seen in history. We might, indeed, expect some crucial change of attitude, some inner crisis, to mark the beginning of a new life which is to aim only at God. Here too we find one motive of that movement of world-abandonment which so commonly follows conversion, especially in heroic souls. Thus St. Paul hides himself in Arabia; St. Benedict retires for three years to the cave at Subiaco; St. ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... of inquiry into the early history of New England is bringing forth additional facts and evolving new light, by which we are every day seeing more clearly the true motive and incentives for its colonization. But whenever the student turns to investigate the history of the aboriginal tribes, who once inhabited this part of the country, he is struck, not so much with the paucity of materials, as with the complication and difficulties which our earlier and later ...
— The Abenaki Indians - Their Treaties of 1713 & 1717, and a Vocabulary • Frederic Kidder
... "Miss Fairclough warned me of one thing. I put it on one side. It did not seem to be possible. Now I must ask you a question. You have some other motive, have you not, for choosing to come away with me? It is not only because you love me better than any one else in the world, as I do you, and therefore that we belong to one another and it is right and good that ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... savor of authenticity about them. A Raphael of his make long graced the Imperial Gallery of Russia. He did not confine himself to literal repetitions, but concocted new "originals" by combining parts of several pictures in worm-eaten panels or time-stained canvases, with such variations of motive or design as their supposed authors would naturally have made in repeating their ideas in fresher combinations,—sometimes leaving portions unfinished, ingeniously dirtying their surfaces, and giving to them that cracked-porcelain appearance common ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... Christ; and Moses esteemed reproaches for Christ, and afflictions with the people of Christ, greater riches than the treasures of Egypt or the honours at Court. And now, Sir, will you have the meaning of all? It is only a Christian motive to you to eye the highest Lord and the best interest with the greatest industry; that his honour, which is best of all, be dearer to you than all country honour: life, world, are not to be named in the day of his glory. Oh mind him who will not forget you in the least! There's ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... successive situations of the play, and not the varying manifestation of a powerfully conceived character. Francisco is a more coherent villain, and an objection made by Hazlitt to his apparent want of motive is at least equally valid against Iago; but he is of course but a diluted version of that superlative villain, as Marcelia is a rather priggish and infinitely less tender Desdemona. The failure, however, of the central figure to exhibit any fixity of character is the real weakness of the play; ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... The motive was not a high one; but Richard would have been well satisfied with it, if he could have divined it. He did divine that Mr. Slocum was favorably inclined towards him, and stood watching that gentleman's face with ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... having once imagined them as the captains of a great and righteous cause, succeeded in interpreting all their actions on the basis of postulating their single- eyed devotion to reform as their ever-dominant motive. A view so difficult to reconcile with some other stereotyped impressions has invited criticism; and it is not unusual now to be told that the changes effected by the Reformation were small, except in so far as the Church ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... As for the division of the land among the citizens, in my opinion, Lykurgus cannot be blamed for doing it, nor yet can Numa for not doing it. The equality thus produced was the very foundation and corner-stone of the Lacedaemonian constitution, while Numa had no motive for disturbing the Roman lands, which had only been recently distributed among the citizens, or to alter the arrangements made by Romulus, which we may suppose were still in force throughout ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... family ideal was the ruling motive, the house-building of the colonial period shows a more perfect adaptation to family life than any ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards
... ended his frantic struggles with one swift, ruthless blow. But why? What sort of soldiers could these be who wore the uniform of a brave, chivalrous country and yet did murder? What sort of mission were they bound upon that for no visible gain or motive they risked ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... scarcely capable of moving hand or foot, were lifted up the side, in a state almost of stupor; for they were confused by the hurry of the scene, and their fortitude had given way the moment all high motive to exertion was over. One of them, on reaching the quarterdeck, slipped through our hands, and falling on her knees, wept violently as she returned thanks for such a wonderful deliverance; but her thoughts were bewildered, ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... of disfranchisement, and to allow as much time as possible to elapse before the new system comes into practical operation. By preventing O'Connell from taking his seat his wrongs are identified with those of the disfranchised freeholders. He will have every motive for exasperating the public mind and exciting universal dissatisfaction, and there will be another Clare election, and a theatre for the display of every angry passion which interest or revenge can possibly ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... in this stirring and inspiriting speech Cyrus by dealing with the Egyptians (the only unknown quantity) strikes a new note and sets up a new motive, as it were, preparing us for the tragic struggle which is to come, which will cost Abradatas and other good men dear, not to speak of the brave Egyptians themselves (cf. Sudanese Arabs). Also note Xenophon's enthusiasm in reference to the new arming and the odds of encounter between ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... for himself, was willing she should go where no other man could have her. Though the idea seemed quixotic, though it be an anomaly in human experience, for a woman thus to sacrifice herself, I could not ascribe any other motive to her deed; for the memory of that interview she had held with her cousin's future husband in the garden was still fresh in my mind. Do you remember the words as told me by the negro who overheard them? First, the question from his lips: 'Will you undertake it? Can you go through with it without ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... motive that the lad Ericson might have in committing this crime? Was there any enmity between ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... that Chang Hsun is actuated by a patriotic motive? Surely despotism is no longer tolerated in this stage of modern civilization. Such a scheme can only provoke universal opposition. Five years have already passed since the friendly Powers accorded their recognition of ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... that Boswell's consistent and unfailing motive in cultivating Samuel Johnson was vanity, this very vanity of Boswell's has more genius in it than Johnson's vocabulary, and the important and inspiring fact remains, that James Boswell, a flagrantly commonplace man in every single respect, by the law of letting ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... beside him—oh, you're full nineteen— You need not shake your flowing locks at me— The man, your sweetheart—then I'm dumb you see; I'll let him off—you'll punish him in time, Or I've no skill in prophecy or rhyme! A nobler motive fills your bosoms now, To wreathe the laurel round the silvered brow Of one who merits it—if any can— The artist, author, and the honest man. With equal charms his pen and pencil drew Bright scenes, to nature and to virtue true. Full oft upon these boards hath youth appeared, And ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... of those who followed them; and yet religion with him was the result of an enlightened policy rather than an affair of sentiment. He was persuaded that no man called to public life could be guided by any other motive than that ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... even the thought of our own advantage provides us with another motive for great joy and gladness, because so powerful a patron, so faithful an advocate has gone before us to the heavenly court.[986] For his most fervent charity cannot forget his sons, and his approved holiness must secure favour with God.[987] For who would dare to suppose that this holy Malachy ...
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor
... cometh of evil' (or 'of the Evil One'). But this, while it tallies perfectly with the canonical reading, evidently excludes any other. It is consequent and good sense to say, 'Do not go beyond a plain yes or no, because whatever is in excess of this must have an evil motive,' but the connection is entirely lost when we substitute 'Keep your word, for whatever is more than this has an ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday
... been this: at a time of much educational enterprise and unrest, we believed that it would be advisable to collect the opinions of a few experienced teachers and administrators upon certain questions of the theory and motive of education which lie ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... speak was at that time more than a secret one, which I shrank from confessing even to myself. Genuine were the tears I shed in private for many days. My life seemed to me a blank, and I had lost the motive of action. For allowing my father to be right, and the principles advocated by Mr. Spence to be monstrous and absurd, I had been too intimately connected with the system not to feel a great void in my existence at severing ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... died, and entered his tomb in the church himself had founded. Into this sepulchre the emperor Otho III. dared to penetrate in the year 997, impelled by a motive of vile and varlet-like curiosity. They say the dead monarch confronted his living visitor in the great marble chair in which he had been seated at his own command, haughty and inflexible as in life, the ivory ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... Purity of motive and sincerity of purpose brought its own reward to them of old as it does to those of to-day who purify themselves before seeking for the knowledge and wisdom hidden within the "Holy ...
— Within the Temple of Isis • Belle M. Wagner
... the testimony of this man that the motive for the attempted robbery of my house was found out. It had no connection whatever with the other burglaries of our neighbourhood, those, probably, having been committed by low-class thieves, who had not broken into my house simply because my doors and windows ...
— The Stories of the Three Burglars • Frank Richard Stockton
... nest upon its rocky height, you can at once realize the appropriateness of its singular name—"the City in the Air." It is so high above you it seems midway between earth and heaven. Its situation is indeed unique and most strangely picturesque. Security must have been the chief motive for the selection of such a site, and certainly few cities present more formidable barriers to the advance of a foe. The plateau of rock upon which the town is built forms a kind of peninsula, inaccessible ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... was not from any kindly motive Newall had spoken up for him that morning. The bitterness of his words now told him that, and the vindictiveness in his eyes spoke even plainer than speech. Paul had been deceived, and he had been deceived. Why had he demeaned himself by asking a fellow like Newall to shake hands with him? He ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... because he could not forget his rancour; you, because... because having told him that in the King's service he would find his redemption of what was past, you would not afterwards admit to him that he was so redeemed. And this, although concern to rescue you was the chief motive of his embracing that ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... have done long months before. He had constantly been making endeavours to discover the truth about the Douglas Graham of whom his mother had spoken, but he had done so without a plan, and in a kind of haphazard way, and this was not like Paul. He felt, too, as though he had a new motive in his life. Mary Bolitho had said nothing that seemingly accounted for this, and yet he knew that her words had determined his action. A feeling of pride which he had never known before possessed him. He wanted to go to this girl with a name as good as her own. Money, ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... in London and Paris, and, in each case, been mixed up with a number of other productions, to which, whatever may be their merit, the author of the following pages has no claim. A natural desire to separate his own property, worthless as it is, from that of others, is, he begs to say, the chief motive of the publication ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... more, the temptation visited Godfrey to read the letter as something which it was not. He dismissed it, not from any conscientious motive, but simply from the doubt whether he could ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... sinned herein, O Lord God, the Creator and Disposer of all things in nature, of sin the Disposer only, O Lord my God, I sinned in transgressing the commands of my parents and those of my masters. For what they, with whatever motive, would have me learn, I might afterwards have put to good use. For I disobeyed, not from a better choice, but from love of play, loving the pride of victory in my contests, and to have my ears tickled with lying fables, that they might itch the more; the same ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... who painted my dog," said Mr. Downing, "I cannot understand the part played by Smith in this affair. If he did not do it, what possible motive could he have had for coming to me of his own accord and ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... last vestige of suspicion any one might have held as to the motive of the chieftain in failing to accept the challenge of Kenton to mortal combat. Wa-on-mon had made haste to hunt up the war party of Shawanoes that he must have known were in the vicinity, well aware that with them at his beck ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... the two nations whose attitude would in the judgment of German statesmen have the furthest reaching consequences on the war, were also the object of their unwearied attentions. And every motive which could appeal to the interest or sway the sentiment of those peoples was set before them in the light most conducive to the aims of the tempter. Those painstaking efforts were duly rewarded. ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... availed himself of the public discontent to overthrow the oligarchy and usurp the powers of a despot. And so probably it might have happened in Athens, had not the recent failure of Cylon, with all its miserable consequences, operated as a deterring motive. It is curious to read, in the words of Solon himself, the temper in which his appointment was construed by a large portion of the community, but more especially by his own friends: bearing in mind that at this early day, so far as our knowledge goes, democratical government was a thing ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... "But what motive could they have to send you away?" continued Marillac, "you are a clever workman. I have seen your work at the chateau; there are some rooms yet unfinished; there must have been some very grave reason for their not employing ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... counter question? What should be the motive with which one sings, or does anything of ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... in affairs which is, it may be, the distinguishing trait of developed manhood. You distinguish man from the brute by his intelligent curiosity, his play of mind beyond the narrow field of instinct, his perception of cause and effect in matters to him indifferent, his appreciation of motive and calculation of results. He is interested in the world about him, and even in the great universe of which it forms a part, not merely as a thing he would use, satisfy his wants and grow great by, but as a field to stretch his mind in, for love of journeyings ...
— On Being Human • Woodrow Wilson
... will find him not in the novels, where his real kindliness is too often veiled by a mock cynicism, but in his "Diary of his Voyage to Lisbon." He knew that his health was irretrievably ruined and that his years were numbered. Those are the days when one sees a man as he is, when he has no longer a motive for affectation or pretence in the immediate presence of the most tremendous of all realities. Yet, sitting in the shadow of death, Fielding displayed a quiet, gentle courage and constancy of mind, which show how splendid a nature had been ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... emotion being the point of departure for all works of art—and goes on to think. Obviously Picasso has a passionate sense of the significance of form; also, he can stand away from his passion and consider it; apparently in this detached mood it is that he works. In art the motive power is heat always; some drive their engines by means of boiling emotion, others by the incandescence of intellectual passion. These go forward by intense concentration on the problem; those swing with breathless precision from feeling to feeling. Sophocles, Masaccio, and Bach are intellectuals ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... For myself I can only say that the same exaltation of mind, the same rarefication of idea and invention, which succeeded upon my wedding-day came upon me now. As then, my ecstatic emotions crystallized themselves into a motive for a story, and without delay I set myself to work upon it. My boy was about six weeks old when the manuscript was finished; and one evening, as we sat before a comfortable fire in our sitting-room, with the curtains drawn, ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... known and understood the Vinland story, he had the strongest motives for proclaiming it and no motive whatever for concealing ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... no use save as a wonder, and it is just one of those wonders that to most people would seem to be magical. I showed it a short time ago to the prior, having explained to him beforehand how I had discovered it. He is above the superstitions of folks in general, and knowing that I could have no motive in deceiving him, was much interested; but he said to me, 'This is one of the things that were best concealed. I can quite understand that there are many things in nature of which we are ignorant. I know that what you say of decayed fish sometimes giving out light like this is perfectly true, ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... fields and homesteads of Macedonia, Moesia, and Thrace, even advancing close to the walls of Constantinople. They carefully spared certain estates outside the city, belonging to the prefect Rufinus, but this policy does not seem to have been adopted with the same motive that caused Archidamus to spare the lands of Pericles. Alaric may have wished not to render Rufinus suspected, but to conciliate his friendship and obtain thereby more favorable terms. Rufinus actually went to Alaric's camp, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... happened. Often there was a house in the wood, like the one "amidst the forest darkly green," where Snow White lived with the Dwarfs. This adventure the little child loves for its own sake. Later, when he is about eleven or twelve, he loves it for its motive. This love of adventure is part of the charm of Red Riding Hood, of the Three Bears, of the Three Pigs, or of any good tale you ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... as being united with Jesus, and consequently withdrawn from the world, which neither comprehends nor sustains it. A Christian man is bound to manifest to the utmost of his power what is the motive and aim of his life; but the devout life is, like the divine life, a mystery, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... said. It was really her admiration of you—of your attitude—your delicacy. She said that at first she hadn't believed in it: they're always looking for a hidden motive. And when she found that yours was staring at her in the actual words you said: that you really respected my scruples, and would never, never try to coerce or entrap me—something in her—poor Christiane!—answered to it, she told me, and she wanted to prove to us that she was capable ...
— Madame de Treymes • Edith Wharton |
