"Unasked" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his kind supporting arms To every child of grief; Hie secret bounty largely flows, And brings unasked relief. ...
— The Otterbein Hymnal - For Use in Public and Social Worship • Edmund S. Lorenz
... myself. He was not what we call affable. I had to wander through many offices, and finally to send in my card. I found this burly man in his private room, looking over papers on his desk. He did not look up as I came in. I took a seat, unasked, and waited. It was five minutes before he turned his head. Then he muttered a "good-morning," for we ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... the lawn to meet the officers, and, after a brief parley, Major Brockton, the senior in command, began to dispose of his men for a little rest and refreshment, promising to join the family soon in the dining-room. Miss Lou, unasked, now aided in the preparations for the morning meal. Fearing Aun' Suke would get herself in trouble, she ran to the kitchen and told the old cook to comply with all demands as best she could. She had scarcely spoken when Mrs. Baron entered. Casting a severe look on ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... know what to say—in the presence of this living tragedy of motherhood she felt so helpless, so overwhelmed with the uselessness of mere words. What right had she, a stranger from another world, to intrude unasked upon the privacy of this home? And yet, something deep within her—something more potent in its authority than the conventionalities that had so far ruled her life—assured her that she had the ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... had refused to recognise even in her own heart. She felt that her cheeks were red. Would the glow that burnt her never go?—and she bit her lips, for she was near tears. Oh, that he might not have seen! Or had she committed the sin unpardonable to a girl such as she was? Had she betrayed herself unasked? ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... men that the kingdom of heavenly beauty is near at hand. Now that forerunner disappears, for the desire of all nations has truly come; the green grass is creeping everywhere, and it is spangled with many flowers that came unasked.... ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... sought him unasked had, however, a material influence on the course of events, and must be touched on in some detail. Sigismund of Austria—first duke then archduke,—Count of Tyrol, cousin of the Emperor Frederic, was a member of the House of Habsburg. In 1449, he had married Eleanor of Scotland, ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... answered Nydia; and Diomed again impatiently summoned his daughter: she was obliged to proceed, with the main question she had desired to put to Nydia unasked. ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... at last, and came into the parlor of his suite with greatcoat and hat. In reply to Mr. Cargan's unasked question, he said: ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... bounding tide, And chance of glorious deeds;— Of help swift-born to drowning mariners; Of cheer to ships dismasted in the gale; Of succours given unasked and joyfully; Of mighty service to all ...
— Bees in Amber - A Little Book Of Thoughtful Verse • John Oxenham
... Interviews continued. Generals, judges, merchants, capitalists—the whole trying tribe of "prominent citizens"—were asked what they thought of such an attack on the fair fame of the city by one of its own sons. Less prominent citizens sent in their views unasked. Professors of crayon portraiture wrote to tell the Doctor he knew nothing of art. Lecturers to classes in civics advised him that he little realized the citizen's duty to his native town. The Noonday Worm, which had more than once praised the Doctor's public spirit, now turned on ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... engaged in a quarrel with a neighbouring chief, a day was fixed for determining the affair by the sword. Lochbuy, before the day arrived, consulted a celebrated witch as to the result of the feud. The witch declared that if Lochbuy's wife should on the morning of that day give him and his men food unasked, he would be victorious, but if not, the result would be the reverse. This was a disheartening response for the unhappy votary, his ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... not be so warped as to signify that we must or may go, uninvited, to work in other vineyards than our own. One would, or should, blush to enter unasked another's pulpit, and preach without the consent of the stated occupant of that pulpit. The Lord's command means this, that we should adopt the spirit of the Saviour's ministry, and abide in such a spiritual attitude as will draw men unto us. Itinerancy should not ...
— Retrospection and Introspection • Mary Baker Eddy
... whose course across the centuries we have indicated. The leaders in this revolution, men like Russell and Grey, complete the work which Eliot, Wentworth, and Pym began. They ask the question, else unasked, they answer the question, else unanswered—How shall a people, not itself free, a people disqualified and disfranchised, become the harbinger of a new era to other peoples, or the herald of the higher freedom to the ancient races of India—Aryans, of like blood ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... affection. The invited guests sat down to dinner in the Speisesaal, but the hotel garden was crowded with country people who paid for what they consumed. The dinner served to us and to others out here was an unusually good one, so we discovered that people who attend a wedding unasked get a spectacle, a dance, and extra fine food for their money. Towards the end of the afternoon before we left R. we looked in at the ballroom, where ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... three northern men; Kathmina was purchased by her brother, Kekluana of Pitteklaluk, for a great coat, a hatchet, a folding knife, and a spoon. These conjugal bargains Tuglavina related to brother Lister, quite unasked and without emotion; indeed his whole appearance was as if he had been possessed by an evil spirit. The brethren slept none that ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous
... I could get any further, answering my unasked question; "the same ez we lied aboord with us in the owld ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... done otherwise in justice nor yet in mercy. And still, through this right doing, what bitterness had come! His wife's, child's, guest's—his own—sensibilities had been painfully shocked. In the depths of a soldier's sorrow for a cause loved and lost, there had been the one consolation that the unasked freedom so stupidly thrust upon these poor slaves was in certain aspects an emancipation to their masters. Yet here, before his child had learned to fondle his cheek, or his home-coming was six hours old, his first night of peace in ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... Virginius to watch the town. But Sergius being attacked by the Faliscans and other tribes, chose rather to be defeated and routed than ask aid from Virginius, who, on his part, awaiting the humiliation of his rival, was willing to see his country dishonoured and an army destroyed, sooner than go unasked to his relief. This was notable misconduct, and likely, unless both offenders were punished, to bring discredit on the Roman name. But whereas another republic would have punished these men with ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... relief. This, of course, we would not do, but that we would meet with, counsel, and aid them in every way in our power, is needless to affirm. That we did do this, through every day of our stay of three months, not only our own conviction, but the unasked and unexpected testimony of both Galveston and the Legislature of the State ...
— A Story of the Red Cross - Glimpses of Field Work • Clara Barton
... and two made four. I was not above ruling my books, and had Cocker a little more at my fingers' ends than he had. But my greatest triumph has been holding my tongue. He would have thought nothing of my books, or my sums, or my black silk gown, if I had spoken unasked. So I have buried more sense in my bosom these ten days than ever I have uttered in the whole course of my life before. I have been so curt, so abrupt, so abominably dull, that I'll answer for it he thinks me worthy to be a man. But I must go back to him, my dear, so ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... of thine own self thou couldst never have done this," she cried wrathfully; nor did she stop to reflect that the fact that Psyche thus received aid, unasked, in her difficulties, was a proof that all things on earth loved and pitied her, Instead, she gave her yet ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... "Memoria Technica" very useful in helping him to remember the dates of the different Colleges. He often, of course, had to show his friends the sights of Oxford, and the easy way in which, asked or unasked, he could embellish his descriptions with dates used to surprise those who did not know how the thing was done. The couplet for St. ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... opinion on them in their presence, that we may all be at our ease. With other members, I have believed that more unreserved communications would be advantageous to the public. This has been, perhaps, prevented by mutual delicacy. I have been afraid to express opinions unasked, lest I should be suspected of wishing to direct the legislative action of members. They have avoided asking communications from me, probably, lest they should be suspected of wishing to fish out executive secrets. I see too many proofs of the ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... mediumship is often called. This will be the case until they can have the only condition which is suitable for spiritual communion—passive trust and confidence. Real tests cannot come when sought with materialistic conditions. The tests come unsought, unasked for." ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... idle tales, and make your name Spotless as lilies are. Here on my knees, Fair Preciosa! on my knees I swear, I love you even to madness, and that love Has driven me to break the rules of custom, And force myself unasked ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... may be deceived by a false character," I added on my side. I seldom ventured, at domestic consultations, on giving my opinion unasked—but the new groom represented a subject in which I felt a strong personal interest. In a certain sense, he was ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... minute or two he said nothing—hardly indeed, knowing how to speak, and looking from the corpse-like woman back to the lifelike corpse, and then from the corpse back to the woman, as though he expected that she would say something unasked. But she did not say a word, though she so turned her head that her eyes ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... going to the opera, she found that Lord Marney had got seats for her and some friend in the House of Lords, and seemed expecting the strongest expressions of delight and gratitude from her for his unasked and inconvenient kindness. Lady Marney had struggled against this tyranny in the earlier days of their union. Innocent, inexperienced Lady Marney! As if it were possible for a wife to contend against a selfish husband, at once sharp-witted and blunt-hearted! She ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... 'First of the Melitaeans.' The word here rendered 'chief' is literally 'first.' Luke's precision is shown in another direction in his diagnosis of the diseases of Publius's father, which are described by technical medical terms. The healing seems to have been unasked. Paul 'went in,' as if from a spontaneous wish to render help. There is no record of any expectation or ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... received with the most cordial welcome, and scarcely allowed even to express our gratitude. It was always they who were so eager to thank us for giving them unasked the "pleasure of our company." Their reception is always very touching. They put the best they have before you and will take nothing ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... sometimes flooded by sea-water. Upon this were hundreds of wild geese, plover, and pelicans. After they crossed it they reached a channel through which the sea-water enters, and there passed three blacks, who silently and unasked pointed out the best way ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... Cork, and principally to Nicholas Murphy, Esq., of Norwood, and Eugene M'Sweeny, Esq., I cannot fail to offer my best thanks, for the generous help they have given in promoting the sale of the First Edition, and for over-payments of subscriptions, made unasked, and with the most considerate kindness, when they found the heavy cost of the First Edition was likely to prove a loss to the convent, in consequence of expenses which could scarcely be foreseen in the increased size ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... our distinct—that is, intellectual—representation. For what can this useless fringe be, if not that part of the evolving principle which has not shrunk to the peculiar form of our organization, but has settled around it unasked for, unwanted? It is there, accordingly, that we must look for hints to expand the intellectual form of our thought; from there shall we derive the impetus necessary to lift us above ourselves. To form an idea of the whole of life cannot consist in combining simple ideas that have ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... shame had stabbed at Lord's mind. He had come, unasked, into an Eden. He didn't belong here. His presence meant pillage, a rifling of a sacred dream. The landing ...
— Impact • Irving E. Cox
... always in a hurry) and married some one else.... I don't think Miss Nancy would venture to love any man before marriage—engagements are as liable to be broken as thin ice, and it isn't best to throw away love. As for her giving it unasked!... How peacefully her life flows along—or rather, it hardly flows at all, about as much as a mill-pond—with such a small bit of heaven and earth reflected in it. Oh! that placidity!—better have ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... wouldn't see many strangers for a day or two, and listen to as little news as a woman possibly can." He laughed again, waved her a half gallant, half military salute, and was gone. The question she had been trying to frame, regarding the probability of communication with her husband, remained unasked. At least she had ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... earthly affairs, and striving to attain a condition of mind which, heedless of the joys, or pains, or wants of the body, is intent only on its final absorption into the deity. The Brahman, in this fourth stage of his life, ate nothing but what was given to him unasked, and abode not more than one day in any village, lest the vanities of the world should find entrance into his heart. This was the ideal life prescribed for a Brahman, and ancient Indian literature shows that it was to a large extent practically carried out. Throughout ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... curiously at his sister's flushed and glowing face. It seemed to him that she had never looked so young. "Many have loved you. I had begun to think you had no heart for men, no wish for anything but admiration. And now you give your heart in a day to this Russian—who must be nearly forty—unasked." ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... not give you—all unasked you went, Sons of a greater motherhood than ours; To our proud hearts your young brief lives were lent, Then swept beyond us by resistless powers. Only we hear, when we have lost our ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... on his knee, and kissed her cheek—once, and no more. But she, remembering Elspie's instructions, and prompted by her loving nature, clung about him, and requited the kiss with many another. They melted him visibly. There is nothing sweeter in this world than a child's unasked ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... Guelpho there, within whose gentle breast Heaven had infused that new and sudden thought, His pleasing words thus to the duke addressed: "Good prince, mild, though unasked, kind, unbesought, Oh let thy mercy grant my just request, Pardon this fault by rage not malice wrought; For great offence, I grant, so late commit, My suit too hasty ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... freedom which he manifests is not that which has been won, but into which he must have been born, and with that grew the ability which transfigures labor into play. Unto such a Nature the out-world presents unasked her phases of joy and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... The third person who, unasked, took an active interest in Max St. George's affairs was, of all people on earth, the last whom he or any one else would have expected to meddle with them. This was Billie Brookton, married to her Chicago millionaire, and trying, tooth and nail, with the aid of his ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... mate. Twenty times had she snubbed an ardent lover at the behest of all sorts of reasons and so-called instincts cultivated for her guidance by generations of wise men, now, all in a moment, came this moon-born impulse to give herself to him unasked. She could ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... be quoted in favour of early publication; and the practice perhaps is not in itself blameable, except when the advice of good judges is unasked, or the work itself uncorrected and negligent. To neither of these charges is the author liable. These poems, as well as the design of publishing them, have been approved of by many sincere and judicious friends; ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... of sympathy and understanding. His one desire at that moment was not to make a mistake. He decided to leave unasked the obvious question. ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... most fervid wish, in Art, helps us nothing. On the contrary, a great desire to do well in Art, more often blinds the eye and clogs the brain and causes our hand to lose its cunning. Unbidden, unasked for, unsought, often in our lightest, most careless moments, the Divine Afflatus descends ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... well trained the lost might be in some ways, their manners had not been carefully attended to, and that they had not been trained to be well behaved when making visits to utter strangers. A beast or bird that will force itself upon the hospitality of an utter stranger unasked, and then bite its host, may be well educated, but it is not polite. The boarders looked at Professor Jocolino and frowned. The professor looked stolidly at his plate, and ate hurriedly, and left the table before ...
— Mike Flannery On Duty and Off • Ellis Parker Butler
... breaking forth showed her white even teeth, and when accompanied, as it generally was, by a sudden uplifting of her soft eyes, it made her countenance very winning. She was dressed in stuff of sober colours, both in accordance with her own taste, and in unasked compliance with the religious customs of the Fosters; but Hester herself was not ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... nervous, melted from the platform, and left him to receive the laurels. He did a characteristic but very kind act, looked round for his pupil, and then, perceiving that she had beaten a retreat, sat down to the piano himself, and, unasked, gave an encore for her. A solo from Dr. Linton was an unexpected treat, especially as he was in the mood for music, and played with a sort of rapture that carried his listeners into an ethereal ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... I had approached her with so little formality, I had received all her graciousness with so little apparent sense of her condescension, I had taken my seat, nearly unasked, so completely at my ease, and I had pronounced so unceremoniously the plain "vous," without softening it off with one single "altesse royale," that I had given her reason to think me either the most forward person in my nature, or the worst bred ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... variation and natural selection, but that part of the case I look at as less important, though more interesting to me personally. As you ask for criticisms on this head (and believe me that I should not have made them unasked), I may specify (pages 412, 413) that such words as "Mr. D. labours to show," "is believed by the author to throw light," would lead a common reader to think that you yourself do NOT at all agree, but merely think it fair to give my opinion. Lastly, you refer repeatedly to my view ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... The advice was both unasked and unwelcome; it was purely . Throughout the World War the of Germany over the other Central European powers was unquestioned. Buffaloes naturally go together ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... while crossing the Atlantic in the Cymric last September. Since it was written I have been told at Kinvara that "McDonough was a proud man; he never would go to a wedding unasked, and he never would play through a town," So he had laid down pride for pride's sake, at that time of the burying ...
— New Irish Comedies • Lady Augusta Gregory
... less surprised than ourselves at Madera's skill, for his imitation of the sailors' odd steps and gestures was as exact as if he had lived amongst seamen all his life. The officers then danced a country dance, after which the chiefs, unasked, and with a sort of intuitive politeness, which rendered every thing they did appropriate, instantly stepped forward and danced several times round the quarter-deck, to the infinite ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... allotment notes in your own name since?-They were signed in that way unasked by me. I never knew about it until the men stated it in ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... "But unasked and recklessly," interrupted Ani; "otherwise you have shown yourself capable, and I am willing to spare you for a future time. But overbusy friends are more damaging than intelligent enemies. When ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... in the greatness of his undertaking; and if the civilized world with one accord gave his name to the regions he was the first in modern times to visit, it was a tribute which it deemed just and paid unasked." ...
— Amerigo Vespucci • Frederick A. Ober
... your native land with the characteristics of a delicate American girl, rather than the vigor of an English one. I fear you slighted British beef and mutton. If I were so officious as to prescribe unasked, I should put you on birds for several months, morning, noon, and evening. Don't you be officious also, Burt. It's on the end of your tongue to say that you will shoot them for her. I had no such commonplace meaning. I meant that Miss Amy should enjoy ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... it mean? Had Arkwright given up his fight? Was he playing false to himself and to Bertram by trying thus, on the sly, to win the love of his friend's wife? Was this man, whom she had so admired for his brave stand, and to whom all unasked she had given her heart's best love (more the pity of it!)—was this idol of hers to show feet of clay, after all? She could not believe ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... waste words on mere salutation; so, having welcomed Tressilian with a nod and a shake of the hand, he beckoned him to follow to Sir Hugh's great chamber, which the good knight usually inhabited. Will Badger followed, unasked, anxious to see whether his master would be relieved from his state of apathy by the ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... each past "red-letter day"! Forget not all the sunshine of the way By which the Lord hath led thee; answered prayers, And joys unasked, strange blessings, lifted cares, Grand promise-echoes! Thus thy life shall be One record of His love ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... summoning of the burgesses to war-service, and in the disposal of the conquered territory; but such a previous consultation, though usual, was not legally necessary. The king convoked the senate when he pleased, and laid before it his questions; no senator might declare his opinion unasked, still less might the senate meet without being summoned, except in the single case of its meeting on occasion of a vacancy to settle the order of succession in the office of -interrex-. That the king was moreover at liberty to call in and consult other men whom he trusted alongside of, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... chance; and so far did he go, that he sent over a couple of friends to him to induce him only to ask pardon of the king, with a promise that it would be granted. For sure the Duke of Wharton's character was anomalous. The same man who had more than once humiliated himself when unasked, who had written to Walpole's brother the letter we have read, would not now, when entreated to do so, write a few lines to that minister to ask mercy. Nay, when the gentleman in question offered to be content even with a letter from the duke's valet, he refused to allow the man ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... Bharati entered upon its second year, my second brother proposed to take me to England; and when my father gave his consent, this further unasked favour of providence came on ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... no record of any official request for this unofficial and irregular communication of the opinion of a British admiral; and, of course, when a man has allowed himself, unasked, though not unprompted, to press such a line of action, he has bound himself personally, and embarrassed himself officially, in case it turns out badly. Nelson very soon, within a fortnight, had to realize this, in the urgent entreaties of the Court not to forsake ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... every recipient have some special mark about his gifts which may lead him to trust that he has been admitted to particular favour. Let him say: "I got the same as that man, but my gift came unasked"; or, "I got what that man did; but I secured it within a short period, whereas he had earned it by long waiting"; or, "There are others who have the same; but it was not given with the same words, nor the same courtesy on the part of the giver." Yet let ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... mutually honourable and advantageous—that he wished a compact to be made when as yet no decisive blow was struck and neither party could allege being compelled to enter into an agreement—that in case congress were disposed to treat, many things yet unasked might be granted them—and that, if upon the conference there should arise good ground for an accommodation, this might lead to an acknowledgment of its authority, as otherwise the compact could not be settled. Congress ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... "It's a thing I'm glad you let me give—unasked. But I mean it, Roddy. I've meant it from the first, when I told you you were all I wanted. There wasn't any string tied ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... question remains unasked or unanswered, our best qualities, our truest thoughts and purest impulses, may be hopelessly scattered into distant regions, become defiled in bad company, or, at least, barren in isolation; the universal life rejecting or ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... no temptation of the devil; if anything the advance was from my side. I was determined to ride, and I sprang up beside the driver. We raced down the hill, clattering and banging and rattling like a piece of ordnance, and he, my brother, unasked began to sing. I sang in turn. He sang of Italy, I of four countries: America, France, England, and Ireland. I could not understand his songs nor he mine, but there was wine in common between us, and salami ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... were so. And what is more than all, God set His seal upon the work, in converting sinners. Twelve weeks I stood in this same position, whilst the Lord graciously supplied my temporal wants, through two brethren, unasked for. After this time, the whole little church, eighteen in number, unanimously gave me an invitation to become their pastor. My answer to them was, that their invitation did not show me more than I had seen before, that it was the will of God that I should ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, First Part • George Mueller
... fashion, as though he perceived nothing. "He won't ask for it—anyway till he feels he can make a fair return. He will never ask a sacrifice of you. He will break his heart sooner. The point is, Are you capable of offering the sacrifice unasked? For that is what it amounts to, now that the gods have ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... you are come in time, my dear boy," he said in a weak voice. "I have much to speak of, and my hours are numbered. I would recommend you to these kind friends, for you will want comfort and aid, though they would give it unasked." ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... rule was that the Doctor and the gardener should have the only two keys; but the rule may be said to have become quite obsolete, as the door was never locked. Sometimes the bigger boys would come through unasked,—perhaps in search of a game of lawn-tennis with Miss Wortle, perhaps to ask some favour of Mrs. Wortle, who always was delighted to welcome them, perhaps even to seek the Doctor himself, who never on such ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... otherwise? I am no beggar for the love of the saints, and few in Venice give unasked. Eat, then, without fear; seldom wilt thou ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... is, that during the course of his lectures at the Johannum, the Professor often came to a complete standstill; he fought with wilful words that refused to pass his struggling lips, such words as resist and distend the cheeks, and at last break out into the unasked-for shape of a round and most unscientific oath: then his ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... change his politics while you could snap your fingers; he may deal out deadly insult to his dearest friend; he may get him, instanter, to a monastery or a dance hall; he may elope, or hang himself—or he may write a song or poem, or kiss his wife unasked, or give his funds to the search of a microbe. Then the peripheral soul will return; and we have our safe, sane citizen again. It is but the revolt of the Ego against Order; and its effect is to shake up the atoms only that they ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... whereby she bound and laced over with set words and phrases, as with a species of emotional stays, her love and pity, not considering it decorous to give them full breath, filled Jerome with happiness and despair. He understood that Colonel Lamson had betrayed him, that Lucina, all unasked, had bound herself in love and faithfulness to him ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... bought a silk hat, and had my reward in the first glance of admiration she ever gave me. I wonder how many of my sex are as preposterous. I was, you see, abandoning all my beliefs, my conventions unasked. I was forgetting myself immensely. And there was a conscious shame in it all. Never a word—did I breathe to Ewart—to any living soul ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... of occasions felt that I had enjoyed a period of intimate communion with the divine. These meetings came unasked and unexpected, and seemed to consist merely in the temporary obliteration of the conventionalities which usually surround and cover my life.... Once it was when from the summit of a high mountain I looked over a gashed and corrugated landscape extending to a long convex of ocean that ascended ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... more learned, than the people you are with. Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket: and do not pull it out and strike it; merely to show that you have one. If you are asked what o'clock it is, tell it; but do not proclaim it hourly and unasked, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... will be able clearly to justify himself; but having lived intimately with him now fifteen months, the greatest part of the time in the same house, and been a constant witness of his public conduct, I cannot omit giving this testimony, though unasked, in his behalf, that I esteem him a faithful, active, and able minister, who, to my knowledge, has done in various ways great and important services to his country, whose interests I wish may always, by every one in her employ, be as much and ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... qualities (which undoubtedly Fletcher possessed) to render tolerable such eccentricities. Dickens made one of these stories wonderfully amusing. It related the introduction by Fletcher of an unknown Englishman to the marble-merchant's house; the stay there of the Englishman, unasked, for ten days; and finally the walking off of the Englishman in a shirt, pair of stockings, neckcloth, pocket-handkerchief, and other etceteras belonging to Mr. Walton, which never reappeared after that hour. On another occasion, Fletcher confessed to Mr. Walton his having given a bill ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... the coffee cup and looked at him as she quietly asked, "Is there any reason why it shouldn't? If you were poor, I would share your poverty without complaint, but as you told me, unasked, we are not poor. Economy carried beyond the point of virtue ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... made me uncomfortable. I took a couple of long breaths and came back into the room. Forth said, "Drink this," and I poured it down. He refilled the cup unasked, and I swallowed that too and felt the hard lump in my middle begin to ...
— The Planet Savers • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... other world there is ever an unasked question: unasked by some through feelings of delicacy; by others through the difficulty of rightly framing it. All, nevertheless, flutter round it. They approach me in a half-hesitant sort of way, eye me curiously or compassionately, and ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... is exhibited of the exterior of his shop, painted, we are told, from the most indisputable authorities of the time. Here, in Fetter, lane, the romance of the tale begins:—A lady enters, who, being of a communicative disposition, begins, unasked, unquestioned, to tell the audience a story—how that she married in early life—that her husband was pressed to sea a day or two after the wedding—that she in due time became a mother, and (affectionate creature!) left the dear little pledge at the door of the Foundling Hospital. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... God, who had brought Israel through the Red Sea, still deep down in his heart, and unexpressed, was a misgiving. And God, who does not scorn the littleness of a sincere man's faith, but rather tries to increase it, gave him, unasked and unexpected, ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... is alive, and will probably recover," said the Professor, in answer to the unasked question in ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... very interesting and important," he said, when I had finished; "really, Jervis, you are a most invaluable coadjutor. It seems that information, which would be strictly withheld from the forbidding Jorkins, trickles freely and unasked into the ear of the genial Spenlow. Now, I suppose you regard your hypothesis as having ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... and the possibility of her going away for a time, shocking as it was, seemed almost light beside it. He struggled against these thoughts, for he hated and was ashamed of them. They came into his mind unasked, and he hoped that they represented nothing of his real feeling. Suddenly his face changed, he remembered his passion for her mother. He had suffered what Evelyn was suffering now. She had divined it by some instinct; true, they were very much like each other. Nothing would ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... it paltry, but as I was asked to pay for printing the Diploma [from a Society of which he had been made an honorary member], I did not like to refuse, so I send 1 pound. But I think it a shabby proceeding. If a gentleman did me some service, though unasked to do it, and then demanded payment, I should pay him, and think him a shabby dog; and on this principle I send my ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... was at least not interested in copra. There was little else to be said in favour of myself as an ambassador. I had arrived in the Wightman schooner, I was living in the Wightman compound, I was the daily associate of the Wightman coterie. It was egregious enough that I should now intrude unasked in the private affairs of Crawford's agent, and press upon him the sacrifice of his interests and the venture of his life. But bad as I might be, there was none better; since the affair of the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and he has graciously blessed my endeavours. One whom I visited is earnestly seeking the Lord; and another, who has long been indebted to my husband, gave me a sovereign towards the amount-unsought, unasked, ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... This corresponds absolutely with what we observe in organisms generally, and explains, on the one hand, why the age of puberty marks the beginning of completed development—a riddle hitherto not only unexplained but, so far as I have seen, unasked; it explains, on the other hand, the phenomena of old age—hitherto without even attempt ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... very, very sad," she said with quaint simplicity which was part of her, "but not so bad—oh, not nearly so bad as if you had been pretending—or I mistaken. Think!—How terrible to give one's love unworthily or unasked!" ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... hand which moved over the page, a beautiful yet strong hand, was strangely scarred; and at this he caught his breath, for a thought too deep for utterance came into his heart; and then, as though the unasked question was answered, came a clear low voice which said, "These are the wounds with which I was wounded in the house ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... had been laboring within her during the last few months. Love, disappointment, a passionate nature, a sense of wrong—not least, her New-York experience—had developed, warped, and transformed her. Bressant's homage had been the first, of any value to her, which she had ever received. It had come unasked and unexpected, and had been all the more attractive, because there was something not quite regular about it. Being lost, she had felt a fierce necessity for repossessing it, under whatever form, under whatever name. To-day, ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... displeased with me, that I in my childishness could not help weeping, and that Bertalda might chance to laugh at the same moment. And upon this he builds all manner of unjust suspicions, and interferes, unasked, in our concerns. What is the use of my reproaching him, or repulsing him with angry words? He believes nothing that I say. A poor cold life is his! How should he know, that the sorrows and the joys of love are so sweetly alike, so closely linked, that it is not ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... known. No words of his would justify her, either. She was vexed at herself. Here it had turned out that she was just like any other silly girl, holding her heart in her hand, ready to bestow it unasked. In her self-accusing spirit, she forgot that looks and tones may speak volumes in ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... ashamed to so much as whisper to herself had now rushed to her lips almost of their own accord? After all those years of repression, suddenly the sweet, dim thought she had hidden in her secretest heart's heart had leaped to light and to articulate words. Unasked, unbidden, she had told him that she loved him. She, she had done this thing when, but a few moments before, her anger against him had shaken her to her very finger-tips. The hot, intolerable shame of it smote like fire into her face. Her world was cracking about her ears; everything she had ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... need;' if He has need of my mother's permission to her child He will enable her to give it. This is but the expression of a wish, and if my own mother were to be made too anxious by the granting it, let it be as if unasked by her ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... returning from a visit to the Wilsons'; and I now resolved to do him a good turn, though at the expense of his feelings, and perhaps at the risk of incurring that displeasure which is so commonly the reward of those who give disagreeable information, or tender their advice unasked. In this, believe me, I was actuated by no motives of revenge for the occasional annoyances I had lately sustained from him,—nor yet by any feeling of malevolent enmity towards Miss Wilson, but purely by the fact ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... attached herself to any other. And again came back the bitter, burning agony of shame that she had done the very thing that Mrs. Simm too late had warned her not to do; she had been carried away by the kindness and tenderness of her friend, and, unasked, had laid the wealth of her heart at his feet. So the night flushed into morning; and the sun rose upon a pale face and a trembling form,—but not upon a faint heart; for Ivy, kneeling by the couch where her morning and evening prayer had gone up since lisping infancy,—kneeling ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... the boisterous conversation or laughter; gives such a delicate perception of the rights of others as to make impossible the dictatorial or arrogant form of address the impertinent question, the personal familiarity, the curiosity about private affairs, the forwardness in giving advice or expressing unasked opinions, the boastful statement of personal possessions or qualities, the action that causes pain or inconvenience or discomfort to associates or dependents, all of which are the most common forms of transgression ...
— Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett
... giving her my opinion of her patterns, here.—Unasked indeed; but she seems, by her silence, to approve of ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... his promise; you remember our recent meeting in my father's dwelling, and he then gave an unasked promise to assist me." ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... him?" asked Beatrice, in her straightforward way, which was sometimes a shade too blunt, and was apt to betray her into asking direct questions which it might have been kinder and more delicate to leave unasked. ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... charges of his opponents were but too well founded. Says Planck: "Whatever may have moved Pfeffinger to do so, he could not (even if Flacius himself had said it for him) have confessed synergism more clearly and more definitely than he did spontaneously and unasked in this treatise." (4, 574.) Frank: "Pfeffinger goes beyond Melanchthon and Strigel; for the action here demanded of, and ascribed to, the natural will is, according to him, not even in need of liberation by prevenient grace.... His doctrine may without more ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... certain that this was the revolver?" he inquired, more to satisfy his conscience by leaving no question unasked than to voice any doubt upon ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... to accept their invitation and rest awhile beneath their hospitable roof. The mansion was old, as the dwellings of gentlefolks should be; the ladies were some of them young, and all were full of kindness; there were gentle cares, and unasked luxuries, and pleasant talk, and music-sprinklings from the piano, with a sweet voice to keep them company,—and all this after the swamps of the Chickahominy, the mud and flies of Harrison's Landing, the dragging marches, the desperate ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... seem to be prying into his poverty, if I enter unasked," said the dean to himself. And so he remained there till Puck, now acquainted with the locality, stopped at ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... tumultuous to the rescue, and suggested the shame of giving love unasked, giving it, perchance, to be scorned—and almost she resolved to stifle the infant feeling in its birth, and rise superior to the weakness. But when was ever love vanquished by cold argument, or bound ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... day thou art making me worthy of the simple, great gifts that thou gavest to me unasked—this sky and the light, this body and the life and the mind—saving me ...
— Gitanjali • Rabindranath Tagore
... deuce asked you for your opinion?" rapped out the "senor" savagely. "And what are you doing in here, anyhow? If we want the service of a vet., we're quite capable of getting one for ourselves without having him shove his presence upon us unasked." ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... as if wishing me to give an opinion upon it unasked. Unasked, however, I was in no mood to do or say anything. If any concessions were to be made—if any advances were demanded—that was the affair of the very docile pupil of Pere Silas, not mine. His eye settled upon me gently: there was mildness at the moment in its blue ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... first time of what he had lost, and a nervous tremor ran through him such as he had never felt at Delhi or Inkerman under shell or rifle fire. And the woman who had been too proud to show her love unasked, did not know whether she was glad or sorry that he had at last tasted of ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... himself with trying to devise some means to induce her to reciprocate the ardent love that filled his heart for her, not for an instant suspecting that it was already a fait accompli, and that the sweet, pure maiden had given him, unasked, her gentle, faithful heart. The bashful young baron imagined all sorts of romantic and perilous incidents in which he might constitute himself her knight and protector, and show such brave and tender devotion to her as he had ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... sing, though not without inviting Mary to join her. As the latter declined this public exhibition, as well as my uncle Ro's offering, Seneca's sister had it all to herself; and she sang no less than three songs, in quick succession, and altogether unasked. I shall not stop to characterize the music or the words of these songs, any further than to say they were all, more or less, of the Jim Crow school, and executed in a way that did ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper |
