"Motive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for wishing to know the contents of the letter," said Mrs. Hamilton sternly. "I will not open it, unless Conrad consents, but I will call on the brokers and question them as to their motive in addressing it to ...
— The Store Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... concert, and equally fortunate that men of knowledge, judgment, and literary ability have left us their impressions of the event. The desirability of replenishing an ever-empty purse, and the instigations of George Sand, were no doubt the chief motive powers which helped the composer to overcome his dislike ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... every motive for armed resistance to Great Britain, the American colonies could hardly have attempted it until after the conclusion of the French and Indian War. Until the second half of the eighteenth century the British colonies were both weak and ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... hallucination, for which he entertained profound contempt; and he honestly pitied the delusion that pinned its faith on human truth and virtue. He was a provoking melange of antiquarian attainments and modern scepticism. When, sometimes, I ventured to disabuse his mind of his darling scorn for motive and responsibility, I had the mortification to discover that I had but helped him to an argument against myself: it was simply "my peculiar interest to do so." Money, money, money! that ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... motive of the man's insistence now. Jake was showing him a side of his character he had hardly suspected. It was the human nature in the man asking for a confirmation of his worst fears, in reality his worst knowledge. For he was well ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... a leading motive in the publication of this work, is to record the manly defences which the people among whom the author lives have made of the creed of their fathers, and to enable them to refute, in a simple, practical manner, ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... of this examination still remained a secret between those who made it, and the Puritan, who had probably found its motive in the written warranty which had been submitted to his inspection. That it proceeded from fitting authority, none might doubt; and that it was in some manner connected with the events that were known to have wrought so sudden and so great a change in the government of the ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... of credit. This is the case with several books printed by Jehan Petit for Thielman Kerver, Paris, of which an example is given in the previous chapter; Wynkyn de Worde used Caxton's initials for a time on his Mark, but the only motive which could have prompted this was an affectionate regard for his master. Some of the books which Jannot De Campis printed at Lyons for Symon Vincent contained not only the printer's, but two examples of the ...
— Printers' Marks - A Chapter in the History of Typography • William Roberts
... hard on you if you depended on me to bring you good spirits." God knows she had not meant to pain him; she had said it in all innocence, without any veiled thought or ulterior motive; but when Irgens's head drooped and he said quietly, "Yes, I understand!" it occurred to her that several interpretations might be placed upon this sentence, and she added hurriedly: "For you do not see me very often. By the way, I am going ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... Sir Lucien stood watching the singular pair and smiling in his ironical fashion. The motive which had prompted him to leave the neighboring house and to seek the companionship of Sin Sin Wa was so obscure and belonged so peculiarly to the superdelicacies of chivalry, that already he was laughing at himself. But, nevertheless, in this house and not in its ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... the spirit of independence, if not of stubbornness, was strong in Mrs. Samuel, Jr. At length, what seems to have been the true motive, jealousy on the part of the husband, appears in the record by the father, and from all the evidence Samuel might well be jealous, as future events will show. To return to the Diary: "Sam and his Wife dine here, go home together in the Calash. ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... and knew not how he had come into it, or how he should go out of it." Being detained during a consultation with the Bank solicitor, he suddenly lifted up the sash and jumped out of the window. On being taken and asked his motive, if innocent, he said, "It ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... if in wonder at such brutality, and in truth, his own mind was not entirely at ease. If by any chance the story were true,—if there was a woman at his doors freezing to death, how could he sit enjoying the fire? But, on the other hand, could any one have a more evident motive for deception than his informant? What better opportunity for escape could be arranged? It was so evident, so impudent as to be almost convincing. What more likely for instance, than that the hut was a regular rendezvous for criminals ...
— The Burglar and the Blizzard • Alice Duer Miller
... sum that seems princely considering that I was making only eighteen dollars in Chicago, and that it costs so much less to live here. Hendricks guarantees my wages, so that Adrian cannot stand me off. Hendricks has another motive for wanting me to come here. The waterworks franchise will come up for renewal June first of this year, and Mr. Hendricks is for municipal ownership. Carnine and the State Bank are against municipal ownership, because the water company does ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... the mask of prudent selfishness, which he wore so naturally that it was hard to give him credit for any other features; but this time Dr. May was not deceived. He fully estimated the sacrifice, and would have prevented it if he could; but he never questioned the sincerity of the motive, as it was not upon the surface; and the token of dutiful affection, as coming from the least likely quarter of his family, touched and comforted him. He dwelt on it with increasing satisfaction, and answered all hurries and worries with, 'I shall have time when Tome is come;' re-opened old ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... all the machinery of social evolution has been reduced by Marxian socialism to the law of the Struggle between Classes. This theory not only gives us the secret motive-power and the only scientific explanation of the history of mankind; it also furnishes the ideal and rigid standard of discipline for political socialism and thus enables it to avoid all the elastic, vaporous, inconclusive ...
— Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin, Spencer, Marx) • Enrico Ferri
... proposed to me, some of you know that I was not very ambitious to accept it, at first. I was taught to believe that there were more or less certain important duties which would lie in my power. This, I confess, was my chief motive in going into it—at least, in reconciling the objections felt to such things; for if I can do anything to honour you and my dear old Alma Mater, why should I not do so? (Loud cheers.) Well, but on practically ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... is sometimes so interpreted, the theory that classes are based upon commonality of interests does not imply that men are never actuated by other than selfish motives; that a sordid materialism is the only motive force at work in the world. Marx and Engels carefully avoided the use of the word interests in such manner as to suggest that material interests control the course of history. They invariably used the term economic ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... relations had lived together, had brought variety of sorrow. But they were well- nigh healed now—those once so poignant griefs—the scars remaining only as deeper lines of natural expression. It was visible, to their surprise, that he penetrated the motive of the mass said so solemnly, in violet, on the Innocents' Day, and understood why they wept at the triumphant antiphons:—"My soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowler!"—thinking intently of the little tombs which had recorded carefully almost the ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... in real estate elsewhere, or are interested in diverting traffic in certain directions; again, under corporate management, it is for the interest of the company to haul a commodity as far as possible over its own lines (with the government owning all the lines this motive will lose its force), and thus traffic is forced into unnatural channels. For instance: much of the grain from Kansas should find its way to foreign markets via the short route to the Gulf, the distance to tide water by this route being less ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... different motive, which will a little distinguish the offenders. For though one should have a vanity in ruining another's reputation, yet the other may only have an ambition to advance his own. And I beg leave, my lord, ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve
... decided plan, and more out of curiosity than from any other motive, the chums proceeded from one tree to another, examining each as they reached it, and marvelling all the time at what they decided as being one of the most remarkable freaks of Nature that they had ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... new era which began to show its features clearly in the early nineteenth century. On the one hand, a new motive had arisen to favour a more rapid increase of population. Small children could tend machinery and thereby earn wages to increase the family takings. This led to an immediate result in increased population and increased prosperity. But, on the other hand, the rapid increase of population always ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... of the extensive commerce of this part of the East, such as statistics of imports and exports, &c., &c. His is the ungracious task to reform abuses; perhaps, like Hamlet, he thinks "the times are out of joint," and he "was born to set them right." Or it may be that he is influenced by the same motive as the Irishman, who, upon the eve of a presidential election in the United States, was asked to cast his vote for the party which aspired to place their candidate upon the chair, after ousting the incumbent. ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... cried out in his shrill, querulous voice: "And this witness, gentlemen of the jury, who roams about mysteriously at night in strange gardens, and finds out all sorts of psychological and artificial subterfuges to hide the tender motive of his nightly excursions, can you put any reliance upon him when he says he suddenly saw a shadow appear and disappear? Shadows which, to put it mildly, can only originate in his overheated brain? What did ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann
... false colors, I fear," reflected the young engineer. "A pretty bold and difficult imposture, I should think. Are his credentials false or stolen? But how to explain his motive? He doesn't like railroading, and the system and the vouchers he is at so much trouble to get and preserve make this business decidedly mysterious. If it wasn't for those features, I would feel it my duty to report the affair ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... is anything to clean, because you never give a thing a chance to become dirty. There is cold meat for lunch, as you yourself informed me, so there's no cooking on hand. This house goes by machinery, with Elspeth to stoke up the motive power. What can be left for you? I can't ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... benefit from it in the protection given to their crops. The steamboats in interior waters will be exchanged for iron whalebacks, and new forces of a new nature, as yet only partly developed, such a electricity, will contest with steam as a motive power. ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... the mainspring of action. So one must prepare himself to struggle successfully. To hate, to cause to be feared, are the proper motives for life. They are life. Fear is a stronger and far more universal human motive than love. Therefore we Germans want to be feared rather than to be loved. So we hate because it engenders fear in others. To love is already half a surrender and ends logically in death. With Christ ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... As my principal motive for visiting the Spanish capital was the hope of obtaining permission from the government to print the New Testament in the Castilian language, for circulation in Spain, I lost no time, upon my arrival, in taking what I considered to ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... What motive could he have? What earthly use could this old will be, when one of more recent date lay in that tin box? Daireh could not have answered the question. He kept it on the off-chance of being able to make something ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... had been a kind of idol to whom she had sacrificed much, and now that her idol had fallen she wanted to make the idol pay. Or no, was that it? Leslie afterwards searched her heart, and felt that she could truly say that her strongest motive in compelling this confession had been to get the burden of the knowledge of it off ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... of monkeys, unlike those mentioned above, have for their chief motive not the accurate description of various features of behavior but instead knowledge of the functions of various portions of the brain. His results, therefore, although extremely interesting and of obvious value to the comparative psychologist, ...
— The Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes - A Study of Ideational Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... in with the searching party. She had her fears, as usual. Cora by reputation was not timid, and she had that reputation to maintain just now. As a matter of fact, she knew perfectly well that the man who took the trouble to crawl around the house had some sinister motive in doing so. Bess had not really seen him do it, so when she went in, along with the boys, she had scarcely any fear of running down either a sneak thief or a tramp, both varieties of undesirable citizens being common ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose
... never spoke of his domestic matters. He was evidently poor; yet he must have had some slender independence, since he could afford to make so merry over the fact that his culture of ideal beauty had never brought him a penny. His poverty, I supposed, was his motive for neither inviting me to his lodging nor mentioning its whereabouts. We met either in some public place or at my hotel, where I entertained him as freely as I might without appearing to be prompted by charity. He seemed ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... complete, his drinking was, if not moderate, not extraordinary for his time and his associates. But when a man's ambition is limited to mere success—when fame and a flash for himself are all he cares for, and there is no truer, grander motive for his sustaining the position he has climbed to—when, in short, it is his own glory, not mankind's good, he has ever striven for—woe, woe, woe when the hour of success is come! I cannot stop to name and examine instances, but let me be allowed ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... when we consider the subject in all its bearings, it may be more truly asserted that, with any form of government not absolutely despotic, the progress of North America, peopled by a civilised and energetic race, with every motive to industry and enterprise in the nature of the country itself, must necessarily have been rapid. An unbounded extent of fertile soil, with an increasing population, were circumstances which of themselves were sufficient to ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... proffer, for he entertained an exalted opinion of Shelley's genius—in itself an inducement. He also knew of his deeds of bounty, and from their frequent social intercourse he had full faith in the sincerity of his proposal.... Keats said that, in declining the invitation, his sole motive was the consciousness, which would be ever prevalent with him, of his being, in its utter extent, not a free agent, even within such a circle as Shelley's—he himself nevertheless being the most unrestricted of beings.' Mr. Clarke seems to mean in this passage ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... New York with her tug trailing behind moved obliquely down the dock, her stern gliding along the side of the Titanic some few yards away. It gave an extraordinary impression of the absolute helplessness of a big liner in the absence of any motive power to guide her. But all excitement was not yet over: the New York turned her bows inward towards the quay, her stern swinging just clear of and passing in front of our bows, and moved slowly head on for the Teutonic lying moored to the side; mats were ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley
... addition to her affection for Shady Dell Farm, she has an objection to St. Bridget's Well, and thus is strengthened by a double motive, I do not know. She may consider it a relic of popish superstition; she may be a Protestant donkey; she is a Dissenter,—there's ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... meat is a very poor one, mine is a very good piece," and before I could realise what she was about, she exchanged the pieces. Of course I could do nothing but accept it, with thanks. I had to approve of the motive, even if I did not applaud the deed. It was an act of kindness that we are not all ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... in this controversy, perhaps because a certain loneliness, of which he was censcious, might be assuaged by the company of another trouserless person—or it may be that his motive was more sombre. Possibly he remembered that Verman's trousers were his own former property and might fit him in case the promise for five o'clock turned out badly. At all events, Verman finally yielded under great ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... enthusiasm. She could do the grand work then, because her country needed it, thus illustrating that strong New England trait, latent power, a power of which we know nothing till it is called out by some mighty need. There have been earnest purpose, determined will, pure motive, and unselfish heroism in New England; but their depth and strength have never been "guessed" till manifested ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, April, 1886 • Various
... worry too much over what's gone by," went on the Doctor, clumsily. "Breaking the law's breaking the law, Ah'm not denying that; but it makes a lot of difference what the motive is, and you've suffered your share of punishment, too. It's the right of every man to begin afresh. Avoid mud and give yo' horse a firm take-off, and he'll leap as clean as a whistle for you. Lawd, Ah'm getting plumb religious," ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... holding his head high, and there was a certain amount of applause. The two men before me cheered vociferously. 'That is the right way to look at it,' one of them said. My eyes were upon them, with no particular motive; and I could not help starting, as I saw suddenly underneath their applause and laughter a snarl of cursing, which was the real expression of their thoughts. I felt disposed in the same way to curse the speaker, though I knew no ...
— The Little Pilgrim: Further Experiences. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... and contempt, and innocent mirth they abominated. It was, however, a cast of mind that formed men for great and manly actions, as it adopted principle, and that of an unselfish character, for the ruling motive, instead of the gratification of passion. Some of these men were indeed hypocrites, using the cloak of religion only as a covering for their ambition; but many really possessed the devotional character, and the severe republican virtue, which others only affected. ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... it doesn't matter whether he is sincere or not, he is powerless to hurt us. I don't see any motive for his pretending to be friendly if he is not, but I own that I should like him better if he sulked and would have nothing to say to us, as would ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... fifty miles an hour, regards his situation with composure; but the unlettered engineer, whose eye is on the track,—who notes every slippery curve, swollen stream and overhanging bowlder,—who feels the motive power of that proud train swaying and plunging like a restless demon beneath his feet, is apt ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... volume of Odes, and in the preface expressed his hope that it might be successful as an attempt to bring poetry back from the didactic and satirical taste of the age, to the truer channels of fancy and description. The motive of this attempt was, however, more praiseworthy than its success ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... Right was the man's Left, and she took it not from any motive of goodness but just because her child appealed to her as powerfully as his dinner appealed to the man. And which was the nobler instinct? In prehistoric times, gentlemen, they were both equally noble, for the instinct of the man was as essential to ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... is one of the best and most saving of secondary motives. I shall honour you, Gilbert, if you do so use it as to raise and support you, though of course I cannot promise that she can be earned by it, and even that motive will not do alone, however ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that I should be able to chastise the old Gascon for his insolent boasting at my expense. This friendly office he proffered on pretence of the regard he had for his countrymen; but I afterwards learned the true motive was no other than a jealousy he entertained of a correspondence between the Frenchman and his wife, which he did not think proper to resent in person. Be this as it will, I accepted his offer and practised his lessons with such application, that I soon believed ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... according to the ration of the deposit bill, the sum of $306,122; and similar results would follow the comparison between the small and the large States throughout the Union, thus realizing to the small States an advantage which would be doubtless as unacceptable to them as a motive for incorporating the principle in any system which would produce it as it would be inconsistent with the rights and expectations of ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson
... jests and laughter, while the young ladies, applying their lips once more to a leaf of grass-ribbon each had in her hand, produced such sounds as, according to their father, might, Orpheus-like, have drawn stones and brickbats after them, but from a murderous rather than a magnetic motive. ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... silent for a moment, as he had done on an earlier occasion; but this time his motive was different. Roused beyond any feeling of self-consciousness, he waited as by right for the full attention of the House; then quietly, but with self-possessed firmness, he moved the motion ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... simply, though solidly, upon itself. These men are deaf to the symphony of the Silences; blind to the horizonless areas of the Unknown; unresponsive to the touch of the Impalpable; oblivious to the machinery of the Moral Universe—in a word, indifferent to the mysterious Motive of Nature's all-pervading Soul. In such mental organisms, opinion, once deflected tangentially from the central Truth, acquires an independent and stubborn orbit of its own. But the Absolute Truth is so large, and human opinion so small, that ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... right!" sternly said Berthe Louison. "Let our casual association be one of a mere money interest. We can find each other out easily. You have no motive to injure me, your own interest now and always lies the other way. I only wish to have some one at hand when I am ready to face the embryo Sir ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... these inconsistent persons, John Wesley inquired: "Allowing them to be as stupid as you say, to whom is that stupidity owing? Without doubt it lies altogether at the door of the inhuman masters who give them no opportunity for improving their understanding and indeed leave them no motive, either from hope or fear to attempt any such thing." Wesley asserted, too, that the Africans were in no way remarkable for their stupidity while they remained in their own country, and that where they had equal motives and ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... words, Miss Douglas," she returned. "Gwen, I am most delighted that your honour is cleared, and regret I harboured so unjust a suspicion against you. I confess it was the affair of the broken china that prejudiced me in your disfavour. It supplied so strong a motive. Why didn't you come and tell me about that right away when if happened instead of trying to settle it in such a crooked fashion? It wasn't straight and square, was it? Have I ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... in its own home is righteous. No one is hurt by this honest gain. Griffins are said to dig for gold and to delight in the contemplation of this metal; but no one blames them, because their proceedings are not dictated by criminal covetousness. For it is not the act itself, but the motive for the act, that gives it ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... the principle of arbitrary power now embodied in Southern society, the last motive for a dissolution of the American Union will have vanished forever. Should that principle only decline to a subordinate authority, with the certainty of gradual extinction, the interests of freedom will ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... his witness. I will say, this is the malice of a rival. Yes, sir, you forget that you have let out the motive of this wicked slander. You love me yourself; Heaven forgive me for profaning the ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... of Shakspere—they are not comic, but merely queer. Hugo's defective sense of humour is shown in the way in which he frequently takes that one step which, Napoleon said, separates the sublime from the ridiculous—exaggerating character and motive till the heroic passes into melodrama and melodrama into absurdity. This fault is felt in his great prose romance "Notre-Dame de Paris" (1831), a picture of mediaeval Paris, in which the humpback Quasimodo affords ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... and candid regard for the rights and reasonable susceptibilities of other nations,—none of which is contravened by the step here immediately under discussion,—the annexation, even, of Hawaii would be no mere sporadic effort, irrational because disconnected from an adequate motive, but a first-fruit and a token that the nation in its evolution has aroused itself to the necessity of carrying its life—that has been the happiness of those under its influence—beyond the borders which heretofore have sufficed for its activities. That the vaunted blessings of our economy are not ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... lesson concerning the essential difference between wishing and willing, and the folly of all motive-mongering, while the ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... 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 ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... thirds, fell to the two groups of three ships each, which by Byron's mismanagement were successively exposed to be cut up in detail by the concentrated fire of the enemy. The British loss in spars and sails—in motive-power—also exceeded greatly that ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... understand your motive," she said, looking down at him more pleasantly than she'd ever done, "and it's very good of you and all that. But if you'd only left things as they were, and let us all go, and other ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... inconsiderable observation, and which appear to me all-important to the permanency of your felicity as a people. These will be offered to you with the more freedom, as you can only see in them the disinterested warnings of a parting friend, who can possibly have no personal motive to bias his counsels. Nor can I forget, as an encouragement to it, your indulgent reception of my sentiment on a former and ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... when the Potato Blight had become an accepted fact by all except those who had some motive for discrediting it, he began to think that to finish the railways, already projected in Ireland, would be the best and promptest way of employing its people upon reproductive works. He was a great enemy to unprofitable labour. ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... concocted and carried out was certainly a genuine triumph. Steve openly congratulated the two efficient cooks on their "masterly skill"; though Max laughingly warned the others to "beware of the Greeks bearing gifts," for there might be a base motive hiding behind all that glib praise. Steve protested that he meant every word of it; but then it was well known that Steve hated to do any cooking himself, and hence was fain to laud the efforts of others ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... my virility. It is never quite passion that does the business—it is the dress that passion wears. I became bored—that was all. Boredom, which is another name and a frequent disguise for vitality, became the unconscious motive of all my acts. Beauty was behind me, do you understand?—I was grown." He paused. "End of school and college period. Opening of ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... as a poet and a satirist of the first order, Goldsmith had the sense and manliness to tell them what they called satires were but tawdry lampoons, whose turbulence aped the quality of force, whose frenzy that or fire. Beside, Churchill had a stronger motive than prejudice or whim: the great hero of his poem was Garrick; and as Barry was his most formidable rival, he had little scruple to sacrifice ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... Rosalind, she was only too glad to catch at the support of the medical authority and to abstain from question or suggestion; for the present certainly, and, unless her silence—as might be—should seem to imply a motive on her part, to maintain it until her husband revived the subject by disclosing further recollections of the bygone time. Happily Sally knew nothing about it; that her mother was convinced of. And Sally wasn't likely to know anything, for Vereker's professional discretion could ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... scientific, philosophical, and religious matters, so that direct evidence is lacking as to how far Shakespeare was acquainted with what was being written in these fields. On the other hand, the profundity of his insight into human motive and behavior, the evidences of prolonged and severe meditation on human life and the ways of the world, and the richness of the philosophical generalizations that lie just below the surface of his greater plays, make it difficult to believe that in these fields ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... in the line of least resistance. Hence there is a driving towards truth in all books on matters where the writer, though exceptionally gifted is normally constituted, and has no private axe to grind. Copernicus had no motive for misleading his fellowmen as to the place of the sun in the solar system: he looked for it as honestly as a shepherd seeks his path in a mist. But Copernicus would not have written love stories scientifically. When it comes to sex relations, the man of genius ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... are neither better nor worse than you or I; they get over their professional horrors, and into their proper work; and in them pity, as an EMOTION, ending in itself or at best in tears and a long-drawn breath, lessens,—while pity, as a MOTIVE, is quickened, and gains power and purpose. It is well for poor human nature ...
— Rab and His Friends • John Brown, M. D.
... security, I went up to London. Now I was in my eighteenth year; and, during this period it was that I passed through that trial of severe distress, of which I gave some account in my former Confessions. Having a motive, however, for glancing backwards briefly at that period in the present series, I will ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... conversation at Miss Winthrop's, she had evidently felt and acted differently. If her heart remained cold and untouched, if as yet neither faith nor love had any existence therein, what was the inspiring motive? Why should deep discouragement change suddenly ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... those not the least who, unhappily, found themselves in opposition to him in many important matters. For, in spite of much that many people must wish otherwise in his career as Bishop, it was really a very remarkable one. Its leading motive was high and genuine public spirit, and a generous wish to be in full and frank sympathy with all the vast masses of his diocese; to put himself on a level with them, as man with man, in all their interests, to meet ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... I agree with you in your feeling of sadness about the going of the Old Stock. I am an enthusiast over the Melting Pot idea myself. But whatever the motive power within you, I heartily endorse your ideals for the Projects. But I am still not convinced that you are the man for your job, in spite of your engineering ability. Engineering ability is not rare. A great many engineers ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... thrust forward showed himself the unyielding autocrat, who, in the rough and tumble of politics, had ruled his party with a rod of iron. This man whose wonderful talents and personality had fitted him for his chosen position of champion of the plain people, and whose great motive power, against all odds, that had forced him into the first place in their hearts, was his sincere and ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... Mrs. Adams divined the motive of Hyde's early visit; she opened her eyes wide, and looked at him with a comprehension so clear and real that Hyde was compelled to answer, and acknowledge her suspicion by a look and movement quite as unequivocal. Yet this instantaneous understanding contained ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... in time, will not be a speck in our country. Provision is already made in Connecticut for abolishing it. And the abolition has already taken place in Massachusetts. As to the danger of insurrections from foreign influence, that will become a motive to kind ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... Silence, the soul with the good, unselfish motive, held his own against the dark discarnate woman whose motive was pure evil, and whose soul was on the ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... remorselessly. That sight of Hilda showed her, too, what must have been the height and the depth and the full extent of the plot against her young, undefended life—its cruelty, and the baseness of its motive. It was to take her place that Hilda had betrayed her. Out of such a motive had arisen such foul ingratitude and such deadly crime. Yet in her generous heart, while her mind understood this much, and her judgment condemned ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... are of pure Fire, have therefore an eternal and unchangeable being; they are on the extremest verge of the universe, and corresponding to them at the centre is another fiery sphere, which, itself unmoved, is the cause of all motion and generation in the mixed region between. The motive and procreative power, sometimes called Love, is at other times called by Parmenides Necessity, Bearer of the Keys, ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... and that was the supposition that they had stolen the Lucifer—the "fallen Angel," as Natasha had now re-named her—for purposes of piracy and private revenge; but that was negatived by the fact that Tamboff knew that he only had a certain supply of motive power which he could not renew, and which, once exhausted, left his air-ship as useless as a steamer without coal. His only reasonable course, therefore, would be to sell the vessel to the Tsar, ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... men of "the fall of '49 and the spring of '50." Not since the Crusades, when the best blood of Europe was spilt in defense of the Holy Sepulchre, has the world seen a finer body of men than the Argonauts of California. True, the quest of the "Golden Fleece" was the prime motive, but sheer love of adventure for adventure's sake played a most important part. Later on, the turbulent element arrived. It was due to the rectitude, inherent sense of justice and courage of the pioneers that they were held in check and, by force ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley
... raising-pins had passed on—acted as pounders, or pestles, in the mortars placed below them. Subsequently, notable progress was made in Camarines Province by Spaniards, who, in 1888, employed steam power, whilst in Pagsanjan (La Laguna) animal motive power was substituted by that of steam. Also, near Calamba, in the same province, water power was eventually employed to advantage. In Negros, near the village of Candaguit, there was one small rice-machinery plant worked by steam power, brought by a Spaniard ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... the motive for suppressing the passages. But even after making allowance for the natural timidity and apprehensiveness of the publishers' reader, I cannot quite understand why those particular passages were cut out. Here ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... place; and the difference of innocence and guilt he looked down upon as an affair beneath his attention. I had not therefore the prejudices to encounter in recommending myself to him, that I have found so peculiarly obstinate in other cases. Add to which, the same motive, whatever it was, that had made him so profuse in his offers a little before, had probably its influence on the ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... out of with all speed, were he ever so unhappy as to fall into it. It is true that, apart from civil government, violence would reign on earth. But it is not true that to live apart from civil government is the natural condition of mankind. It is not true that the only motive which draws men into civil society is the fear of violence, as though there were no such facts and exigencies of human nature as sympathy, friendship, intellectual curiosity, art, religion. It is not true that the one reason for the existence of the ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... ominous words, the last the abbess had spoken, still rang in his ears, like the judge's sentence in those of a condemned criminal. False, vile, faithless! Could it be? Could Rita, by importunity, intimidation, or from any other motive, have been induced to listen otherwise than with abhorrence to Baltasar's odious addresses? Herrera could not, would not, think so; and yet how was he to interpret the words of the abbess? Were they the mere ravings of delirium, or had ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... said affectionately, "would you mind telling me what on earth possesses you to come down here to-night? I'm not asking out of mere curiosity, nor do I believe that is the motive that ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... ever such folly, such arrant "faking" as this! What has philosophy, religion, politics to do with operatic music? It cannot express any one of them. Wagner, clever charlatan, knew this, so he worked the leading-motive game for all it was worth. Realizing the indefinite nature of music, he gave to his themes—most of them borrowed without quotation marks—such titles as Love-Death; Presentiment of Death; Cooking motive—in Siegfried; Compact theme, etc., etc. The list is a lengthy one. And when taxed ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... we genially encouraged their stammering and delightful attempts at human speech, we should be in a far more wise and tolerant temper. A child has a knack of making experiments in life, generally healthy in motive, but often intolerable in a domestic commonwealth. If we only treated all commercial buccaneers and bumptious tyrants on the same terms, if we gently chided their brutalities as rather quaint mistakes in the conduct of life, if we ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... Sims likely to be in for a long run. Therefore, congratulations to Mr. CHUDLEIGH, who is in the proud position of "Sole Lessee and Manager," of the Court. Odd, as a correspondent remarked in a letter to Mr. Punch last week, is the coincidental resemblance of the master-motive of the plot to that of Incognita at the Lyric; viz., the young man refusing to marry the girl with whom he is really in love, because he is in love with the very same young lady without knowing her name or anything about her. But hath not the old Spanish Comedy-writer, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 5, 1892 • Various
... protection of the people. Those who undertake the responsibility of management or employment in this industry do so with the full knowledge that the public interest is paramount, and that to fail through any motive of selfishness in its service is such a betrayal of duty as warrants uncompromising ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Calvin Coolidge • Calvin Coolidge
... a difficult business to convict van Heerden," said the superintendent when his chief had gone, "you see, in the English courts, motive must be proved to convict before a jury, and there seems no motive except revenge. A jury would take a lot of convincing that a man spent thousands of pounds to avenge a wrong done to ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... being held in position by spikes as shown. This makes an easy adjustment. Seat the heavier of the riders on the latter seat, moving it toward the center until a balance with the lighter rider is reached. A rope tied to the crosspiece about 2 ft. from the center, for the "motive power" to grasp, completes ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... struggles, get into a state of bliss, which reminds those who see it, of intoxication, as soon as they are permitted to enter aristocratic circles, or can be seen in public with barons and counts; and above all, when these treat them in a friendly manner, no matter from what motive, or when they see a prospect of a daughter of theirs driving in a carriage with armorial bearings on the panels, as ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... largely and liberally granted in England; half the males have no vote and are not likely to get one. It was never granted in reply to pressure from awakened sections of the democracy; in every case there was a perfectly clear motive for granting it solely for the convenience of the aristocrats. The Great Reform Bill was not passed in response to such riots as that which destroyed a Castle; nor did the men who destroyed the Castle get any advantage whatever out of the Great Reform Bill. The Great Reform Bill was passed ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton
... another thing. A lady of the house wanted! That's the motive. I should not wonder if he came home as much to look for a lady-wife as to set the Stebbings to rights; or, if not, he is driven to it by having the Whites ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in, de Laubardemont showed Grandier his manuscript against the celibacy of the priests, and asked if he acknowledged it to be in his own handwriting. Grandier answered in the affirmative. Asked what motive he had in writing it, he said it was an attempt to restore peace of mind to a poor girl whom he had loved, as was proved by the two ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... king, advancing towards the officer with a gesture full of majesty, "you are not assigning me the true reason. You wish to quit my service, it may be true, but you disguise from me the motive of ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... engine carefully. He knew considerable about such things, and yet he fancied, he might have more or less trouble with the motive power of this Lake Superior boat; for it was of rather an ancient pattern, and had evidently ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter
... is why I came to Africa—that is why I want to make money. I do not mind confessing to a low greed of gain, because I think I have the best motive that a man can have for wanting to ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... victorious, and made a cruel use of his victory. Conscious of the defect in his own title to the throne, he attempted to exterminate the royal race, by putting to death all the children of the sun descended from Manco Capac, whom he could seize either by force or stratagem. From a political motive, the life of the unfortunate Huascar, who had been taken prisoner in a battle which decided the fate of the empire, was prolonged for some time; that, by issuing orders in his name, the usurper might more easily establish ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... traced an imperfect outline of what I take to be the more important motive of the book. But there is a second pattern hardly less essential—namely, the criticism of the management and, a fortiori, of the conception of principle, in relation to the International Bread Shops. Arising out of this interwoven theme we come ...
— H. G. Wells • J. D. Beresford
... Lupin had foreseen that Shears would accept the battle! Nay, more, the letter written by Lupin proved that he himself wished for the battle and that it formed part of his intentions to measure swords once more with his rival. Why? What possible motive could urge him to re-commence ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... Grenville refused to discuss or explain the stoppage of certain cargoes of grain destined for French ports. His private correspondence with Auckland shows that this measure was due to the fear that the French would store the corn for the use of the army that was threatening Holland. That motive of course could not be disclosed to Chauvelin; and Grenville declined to explain it at all until the resolutions arrived at in Paris were clearly ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... According to him the common element in all these poems was the attraction which the play of world-life had for the poet, and this had found varied expression in each and every one of them. The unfulfilled desire to enter into this larger life was the fundamental motive throughout. ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... sneaking chap was jealous of your intimacy with the Minford family; that he wrote the anonymous letters to the old man, in a different hand, and that he either committed the murder, or knows something about it. His motive for annoying Miss Minford I can understand—for this city is full of just such well dressed scoundrels; but the motive of the murder I can't comprehend. But mark me—- this fellow has some knowledge of it; and we must hunt him up. And, first, let us ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... destruction of the old-time life of the Colonial city. William Gilmore Simms was the head and mentor of the brilliant little band, and the much younger men, Paul Hamilton Hayne and Henry Timrod, were the fiery souls that gave it the mental electricity necessary to furnish the motive power. Through all the coming days of trial and hardship, of aspiration and defeat, of watching from the towers of high achievement or lying prone in the valley of failure, not one of that little circle ever lost the golden memory of those magic evenings in the home of the ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... fraud, whereas that upon salt would employ a great number of additional officers in the revenue, wholly depending upon the ministry, whose influence in elections they would proportionably increase. They even hinted, that this consideration was one powerful motive for proposing the revival of an odious tax, which was in effect an excise, and would be deemed a step towards a general excise upon all sorts of provisions. Finally, they demonstrated that the salt-tax introduced numberless frauds and perjuries in different articles ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... of the field, the dooryard, and the home interior, and range from the happiest to the most sombre subjects. They show also considerable variety in artistic motive and composition, and taken together fairly represent the scope ...
— Jean Francois Millet • Estelle M. Hurll
... The self-deluded people flatter themselves that their elections are contests of principles, whereas they are only struggles of interests. They are very fond of the word slagthrit, "principle"; and when they believe themselves acting from some high moral motive they are capable of almost any monstrous injustice or stupid folly. This insane devotion to principle is craftily fostered by their political leaders who invent captivating phrases intended to confirm them in it; and these deluding ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... mathematics upon practical life, though they should not be regarded as the motive of our studies, may be used to answer a doubt to which the solitary student must always be liable. In a world so full of evil and suffering, retirement into the cloister of contemplation, to the enjoyment of delights which, however noble, must always be for the few only, ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... possible for us to know what we are while we ignore what God is for us and what we owe Him? Oh, how few there are who know themselves! The first condition necessary to secure this knowledge, so important and so precious, is profound humility, which unsparingly reveals the real motive of all our actions, the uncompromising antagonist of our ...
— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi
... less pretentious and artificial in design and to so construct them that the cost of maintenance will be reduced to the minimum. This will save money and lessen the danger of exhibitions of bad taste and encourage that simplicity which should be the controlling motive of sincere art.—Garden ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various
... strange being was subject to an uncertainty of judgment, issuing in ambiguity of enterprise, and giving an impression of well-kept secrecy, due often to the fact that divided by mental conflict he had no secret to tell. He understood truth, but under the pressure of strong motive would invariably deceive. He sometimes, out of curiosity, would listen to the voice of conscience, and could imitate neatly on occasion the scrupulous language of a man of honour; but the consideration that one of two courses was honest, and the other not, never entered into his motives for action. ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... central aim of their doctrine, viz., the insufficiency of good works and the sole efficacy of faith. His mythological subjects appeal directly to the eye like real portraits; and sometimes also by means of a certain grace and naivete of motive. We may cite as an instance the Diana seated on a stag in a small picture at Berlin, No. 564. The Fountain of Youth, also at Berlin, No. 593, is a picture of peculiar character; a large basin surrounded by steps and with a richly adorned fountain forms the centre. On one ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... outlawed all the senators who had joined Sulla—a suicidal step, which would contrast fatally with Sulla's crafty moderation. [Sidenote: Burning of the Capitol.] It was about this time that the Capitol, and in it the Sibylline books, were burnt. Some people said that Carbo burnt it, though what his motive could be is difficult to conjecture. Sulla very likely regretted the loss of the Sibylline books as much as any man. [Sidenote: Sulla's situation at the close of 83 B.C.] With this the first year of the civil war ended. Sulla ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... Recreation Grounds early in the morning, noticed that the face and body of the statue were completely covered with leaves and some black substance, which on examination proved to be tar. They speedily lodged information at the police station. Everything seems to point to party spite as the motive for the outrage. In view of the forth-coming election, such an act is highly significant, and will serve sufficiently to indicate the tactics employed by our opponents. The search for the perpetrator (or perpetrators) of the dastardly act is being vigorously prosecuted, ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... (1836) it is hard to know what to say; on the whole, it seems the most doubtful of his works in motive and quality. John Jacob Astor, now an old man, was anxious to perpetuate the fame of his commercial exploits, and was lucky enough to subsidize for this purpose the most prominent American writer of the day. The adventures of the various expeditions sent out to ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... the proprietor should place the fishermen altogether into your hands?-If the motive is good, I think that should be the case. At least we should prefer to have the ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... and saved any necessary explanation regarding her early walk to Byestry. As it was really on Pia's account that she had gone to Mass, she wished to avoid mentioning that she had been. Of course Pia could not possibly have guessed the real motive, but Miss Tibbutt had a feeling, which reason told her to be quite foolish, that in some odd way she might guess. And she did not ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... virtue, and the repose of millions;—that the controversy be managed on both sides with sincerity; that is, that nothing be produced, in the writings of either, contrary to or beyond the writer's own knowledge and persuasion;—that objections and difficulties be proposed, from no other motive than an honest and serious desire to obtain satisfaction, or to communicate information which may promote the discovery and progress of truth;—that, in conformity with this design, everything be stated with integrity, with method, precision, and simplicity; ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin
... himself a pirate on Tralee, and here off Garen he'd claimed the same status. But no Mekinese, as yet, knew why he'd outlawed himself, nor his purpose in challenging a line battleship to fight. It seemed like the raving, hysterical hatred of men with no motive but hate. But it wasn't. The Isis could have sent down a missile with a limited-yield warhead if its only purpose had been to kill or to destroy. He could have blasted the warship without warning and it was unlikely that it was alert enough to send ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... bought Desire new shoes and a frock today. It is strange, but he seems to take a certain care of her. Why? I do not know. I have wondered about his motives until I fancy things. What motive could he have ... except that maybe he is not all evil? Maybe be cares for the child. She is so sweet—No. I must not deceive myself. Whatever his reason is, I know that ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... matriculated in 1556.[21] He was about thirty when he rather unexpectedly graduated as a bachelor of Arts at the University of Toledo.[22] Why he preferred to take his degree at Toledo instead of at Salamanca is not clear; it is plausibly conjectured that economy may have been his motive, as the obtaining of a bachelor's degree at Salamanca was an expensive business.[23] Confirmation of this conjecture is afforded by the fact that he speedily returned to his allegiance, was 'incorporated' as a bachelor at Salamanca ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly
... and shortly after the servants withdrew, Lady Studley left Sir Henry and me to ourselves. She gave me another warning glance as she left the room. I had already quite made up my mind, however, to tell Sir Henry the motive of my visit. ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... "Both Joe and I do believe we know who it was, but we aren't sure because we don't understand yet what that man's motive might be. I'd tell you, only I don't like to accuse anybody until there is cause for it. But that's what brought me down here this morning—that and because I wanted to tell Miss Burrell that Garry is safe, and will continue to be from now on, I hope. Those were two of my reasons for coming, at ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... I hate you still—that is, I do not like you—I have forgiven you. I believe you to be kind and generous, although the enemy of my brother; that if you did oppose him and cast him into prison, you did so with a loyal motive; you cannot help making mistakes, for you are but human. And I do not forget that if it were not for you he would not be a bridegroom to-day. Also, you are not responsible for being an Estenega; so, although I do not forgive the blood in you,—how could I, and be worthy to bear the name ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... no means satisfied myself, by my secret experiment, that it was not sinful to carry a burden on the Sabbath day. If God did not punish me on the spot, perhaps it was because of my youth or perhaps it was because of my motive. ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... every vice, and one whom his friends had found it out of their power to reclaim. With well-feigned tears of regret, she upbraided herself for having ever allowed him to enter her house—ascribing her motive to humanity, and a desire to reclaim him from his errors; and hinting, when she could, that I had defeated her good intentions, and ruined myself. Alas! how true the latter part has proved to me! ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... sought roads further west, intending to reach the main road leading from Elevation to Raleigh. [Footnote: Id., pp. 163, 164, 187-189.] At Smithfield we learned that Johnston was at Raleigh, but we did not know that he had heard of Lee's surrender and had no longer a motive to hold tenaciously to the central part of the State. [Footnote: Id., p. 777.] It was on our march of Tuesday, the 12th, that the news of the surrender reached us, and was greeted with extravagant demonstrations of joy by both officers and men. [Footnote: For a vivid description of the ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... his body and his soul, to keep the one warm, and to teach the other Greek and Spanish. I am aware, indeed, in part, that I am nourishing a rival who will far surpass me; and this is an additional motive, and will be ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... procure which had been the prime motive that had lured her out of her retreat that afternoon, caught her eye now, and she shivered a little as, from where it lay on the floor, the headlines seemed to leer up at her, and mock, and menace her. "The White Moll....The Saint of the East Side ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... motive power is furnished the torpedo in transit for its propellers. A gyroscope keeps it on a plane and upright. A striker on the nose of the torpedo is released by a fan which revolves in the water. The nose of the ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... cooperation. Having no implied engagements to ratify, no rewards to bestow, no resentments to remember, and no personal wishes to consult in selections for official station, I shall fulfill this difficult and delicate trust, admitting no motive as worthy either of my character or position which does not contemplate an efficient discharge of duty and the best interests of my country. I acknowledge my obligations to the masses of my countrymen, and to them alone. Higher objects than personal aggrandizement gave ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson
... said, speaking his slow, precise English. "Nothing premeditated is done without a motive. You are of these people who live in Kaintock, their blood is your blood; why then do you wish to have ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... with much the same motive, Mrs. Arnold gave Agnes her approbation to go and perform her Christian duty to ...
— Angel Agnes - The Heroine of the Yellow Fever Plague in Shreveport • Wesley Bradshaw
... in our rural districts by the cures is great, and this influence is well merited, for it is never abused—and never used unless for the benefit and happiness of the flock confided to their care. Without any motive of a personal nature, without ambition in any sense to which that word can apply, they preach the Catholic religion in all its simplicity, accepting and considering as brothers all those who really desire to follow the example ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... manner. He surely owed me nothing for refusing a case against him, and must have known that my motives for so doing were not personal. But if I did not understand him, I liked him decidedly from that night forward, and I hoped that his advances had sprung from some other motive than politeness. And indeed we gradually drifted into a quasi-friendship. It became his habit, as he went out in the morning, to drop into my room for a match, and I returned the compliment by borrowing his coal oil when mine was out. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the faintest additional flush pass over Elsie's already crimson cheek, and guessed that Peggy's revelations had been a little too true and minute. What motive had she to conceal anything about him when she was relating her own experiences to divert the minds of the two poor girls in their troubles and perplexities? Was this the solution of his refusal in the railway carriage? ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... much incensed against him, on account of the small sum found in the treasury of the fort, which amounted only to 54,000 Rs. The prince was firmly persuaded that the Company had somewhere concealed a vast treasure, which had been his principal motive to push the attack of the place. He had threatened Mr. Holwell very severely unless this treasure were found, and dismissed him to consult with his fellow-prisoners. This was bad news, for it was evidently impossible ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... efficient of these was Mr. George Mason, with whom he had occasional conversations on the state of affairs. His friends the Fairfaxes, though liberal in feelings and opinions, were too strong in their devotion to the crown not to regard with an uneasy eye the tendency of the popular bias. From one motive or other, the earnest attention of all the inmates and visitors at Mount Vernon, was turned to England, watching the ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... tampered with ancient copies, it generally originated in a desire to smooth over the indecencies of the heathen authors, and so render them less liable to corrupt the holy contemplations of the devotee; and while we blame the pious fraud, we cannot but respect the motive that dictated it. ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... reports of what they heard, with ears particularly open to any answers the Egyptian clergy might please to give. Yet pleasure was not the object of their journey. Science, as themselves said, curiosity, as their enemies alleged, was the motive for their encountering perils by land and water. Indeed we recollect only three travellers, either among the Greeks or Romans, who can properly be considered as journeying for pleasure. These were Herodotus—the prince of tourists, past, present, or to come,—Paullus ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne |
