"Insensibly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... modes of thought, make this encouragement more and more difficult each decade. The naturally inclined eccentric finds his sharp outlines rubbed off by unavoidable attrition with a larger world than owns him. Insensibly he lends himself to the shaping hand of new ideas. He gets his reversible cuffs and paper collars from Cambridge, Massachusetts, the scarabaeus in his scarf-pin from Mexico, and his ulster from everywhere. He has passed out of the chrysalis state of Odd Stick; he has ceased to be parochial; ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... heart of youth cannot be compressed into one constrained shape long at a time. Tom presently began to drift insensibly back into the concerns of this life again. What if he turned his back, now, and disappeared mysteriously? What if he went away—ever so far away, into unknown countries beyond the seas—and never came back any more! How would she feel then! The idea of being a clown recurred ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... of Gibbon, whose father nipped, in a similar way, his attachment for Mademoiselle Susan Curchod, afterward Madame Necker:—"After a painful struggle, I yielded to my fate: I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son; my wound was insensibly healed by time, absence, and the habits of a new life." It is difficult to conceive of Gibbon's wound as a deep one, or of his struggle as painful. But Wilson, whose affections were far stronger, suffered much. He almost made up his mind to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... but necessary, mode of using the voice. The difficulty, of laying this only foundation of real sterling excellence in the vocal art, is very great, and much care and study is indispensable. Those who have occasion to use the voice loudly in the open air, insensibly acquire the power of thus eliciting the voice. The chest tones in which many of the "Cries of London" are often heard in the streets of the metropolis, are a familiar example of nature's teaching; another instance of which may probably still be found among the "bargees," of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... hurried off by the floods which surrounded us. The whole heavens were in a blaze; the thunderbolt burst, fell, and burned the main-mast of the French brig Nantaise, which was anchored at a little distance from our island. After this horrible detonation, calm was insensibly restored, whilst the hissing of serpents and howlings of the wild beasts were the only sounds heard around us. The insects and reptiles, creeping out of the earth, dispersed themselves through all the places of our cottage which water had not covered. ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... bazaars, of the splendors of the time of Haroun, of harems and golden palaces. Black afreets continually arose from the depths of our talk, and expanded, like the one the fisherman released from the copper vessel, until they blotted everything bright from our vision. Insensibly, we yielded to the occult force that swayed us, and indulged in gloomy speculation. We had talked some time upon the proneness of the human mind to mysticism, and the almost universal love of the terrible, ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... must come to her room to practice and receive instructions in singing. Camilla's instrument was the violin. She could sing with more than ordinary skill and in perfecting her phrasing and in improving her style in vocal music Madam Sontag insensibly improved her violin music. All of Camilla's music was examined by the great singer and in those stray hours picked up between the demand of concerts and travel much of ...
— Camilla: A Tale of a Violin - Being the Artist Life of Camilla Urso • Charles Barnard
... text she was illustrating, the artist insensibly followed lines she deemed imaginary, yet when the sketch was completed, the ensemble suddenly confronted her as a miniature reproduction of a very distant scene, that had gladdened her childish heart in the blessed ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... medium of schools or teachers. The spirit of the age; the general tone of thought, the prevalent habits of social intercourse, the political tendencies which were moulding the destiny of the nation,—these must have told, more insensibly indeed but more powerfully, on the mind of Seneca than even the lectures of Sotion and of Attalus. And, if we have had reason to fear that there was much which was hollow in the fashionable education, we shall see that the general aspect of the society by which our young philosopher ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... He decided in his own mind, at the end of a few months, that she was cold, if not heartless. This discovery, which ought to have wounded his vanity, inspired him, on the contrary, with a deeper respect for her; insensibly this reserve reacted upon himself, for love is a fire whose heat dies out for want of fuel, and its cooling off is more sudden when the flame is more on the surface than ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... Jim's dreams were coloured only—tinged, as it were, by this impression of fear approaching from somewhere insensibly upon him. His consciousness, at first, refused to be drawn back from that enchanted region where it had wandered, and he did not immediately awaken. But the nature of his dreams changed unpleasantly. He saw the sheep suddenly run huddled together, as though frightened by the ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... archaic and vicarious manner of life. The like is true of the breakdown and redintegration of devout ritual after such a revulsion. The priestly office, the scheme of sacerdotal life, and the schedule of devout observances are rehabilitated only gradually, insensibly, and with more or less variation in details, as a persistent human sense of devout propriety reasserts its primacy in questions touching the interest in the preternatural—and it may be added, as the organization ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... Black Rat, as the old mill shook and the heavy stones thuttered on the grist. "To possess—er—all this environment as an integral part of one's daily life must insensibly of course ... ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... to such a height, and compounde and kneade such opposite and contradictory tempers humour and interests, into a consistence, that contributed to his designes and to ther owne destruction, whilst himselfe grew insensibly powerfull enough, to cutt off those by whome he had climed, in the instant, that they projected to demolish ther owne buildinge. What Velleius Paterculus sayd of Cinna, may very justly be sayd of him, Ausum eum quae nemo auderet bonus, perfecisse quae a nullo nisi ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... good, as I may call it, than if he had been let alone at his meeting at Bedford, to preach the gospel to his own auditory, as it might have fallen out; for none but priest-ridden people know how to cavil at it, it wins so smoothly upon their affections, and so insensibly distils the gospel into them, and hath been printed in France, Holland, New England, and in Welsh, and about a hundred thousand in England, whereby they are made some means of grace, and the author become famous; ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... day passed prosperously through. It was our policy to keep the enemy in view, and I took my turn to be his watchman with the rest. I think his spirits rose as he perceived us to be so attentive, and I know that mine insensibly declined. What chiefly daunted me was the man's singular dexterity to worm himself into our troubles. You may have felt (after a horse accident) the hand of a bone-setter artfully divide and interrogate the muscles, and settle strongly on the injured ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... tropics, and to the beauty of which no pencil can do justice. The moon appeared in the midst of the firmament, surrounded by a curtain of clouds, which was gradually unfolded by her beams. Her light insensibly spread itself over the mountains of the island, and their distant peaks glistened with a silvery green. The winds were perfectly still. We heard among the woods, at the bottom of the valleys, and on the summits of the rocks, the piping cries and the soft notes of the birds, ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... love-affair is the matter of the first half, Kumara's fight with the demon the matter of the second half. Further, it must be admitted that the interest runs a little thin. Even in India, where the world of gods runs insensibly into the world of men, human beings take more interest in the adventures of men than of gods. The gods, indeed, can hardly have adventures; they must be victorious. The Birth of the War-god pays for its greater unity ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... sound constitution, public and private worth, are primarily due to heredity, and if they are taught to realize the fact that one marries not an individual but a family, the eugenist believes that better matings will be made, sometimes realized, sometimes insensibly. ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... doing it. Then came a few sad reproaches from her, and their correspondence ceased. Meanwhile, having had his youthful fling, he settled down as a steady young man of business. One day he was surprised to observe that he had of late insensibly fallen into the habit of thinking a good deal in a pensive sort of way about Ida and those German days. The notion occurred to him that he would hunt up her picture, which he hadn't thought of in five ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... vast power in public opinion, and Honor, who at Kilmore had lived according to a model of her own choosing, now found herself insensibly falling in with the general tone of the College, and acquiring the mental shibboleths of her schoolfellows. Naturally all this was not accomplished at once, and "Paddy Pepper-box", as she was still nicknamed, had many outbreaks ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... and Miss Effie both cry out "Oh!" in delighted doubt of his intention. They both insensibly drifted a little ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... figure. In his right hand they sometimes placed a sickle or scythe; at others, a key, and a circumflexed serpent biting its tail, in his left. He sometimes was pictured with six wings, and feet of wool, to show how insensibly and swiftly time passes. The scythe denoted his cutting down and subverting all things, and the serpent the revolution of the year, quod ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway
... insensibly melted from the scene; and for the rest of the day our neighbourhood was left in peace and a good deal in solitude. But the tranquillity was only local; din and perandi still flowed in other quarters: and we had one more sight of Gilbert ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Insensibly the crime became again the subject of conversation. It was agreed, that, the first thing in the morning, M. Tabaret should install himself at Bougival. He boasted that in eight days he should examine all the people ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... side paid for mistaken devotion or for actions forbidden to their sex, with a greater expiation than did this lady when, seated on that wayside rock, she was forced to admire the young leader's noble disdain and loyalty to principle. Insensibly she dropped into reverie. Bitter memories made her long for the innocence of her early years, and regret that she had escaped being a victim of the Revolution whose victorious march could no longer be arrested ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... friend begin to rave, and insensibly[96] led him towards the house, that we might be joined by some other company; and am convinced that the widow is the secret cause of all that inconsistency which appears in some parts of my friend's discourse, though he ...
— The De Coverley Papers - From 'The Spectator' • Joseph Addison and Others
... This brief discussion of the relation between public and playwright will suffice for our purposes. In the course of it we have insensibly encroached upon the next topic: the relation of public and actor. Who after all is the chief factor in the success or failure of a drama, in spite of the oft misquoted adage, "The play's the thing?" The actor! The actor, who can mouth and tear a passion to tatters, or swing a piece of trumpery ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... imperfections in the constitutions of states (and that many such exist the diversity of constitutions is alone sufficient to assure us), custom has without doubt materially smoothed their inconveniences, and has even managed to steer altogether clear of, or insensibly corrected a number which sagacity could not have provided against with equal effect; and, in fine, the defects are almost always more tolerable than the change necessary for their removal; in the same manner that highways which wind among mountains, by being much frequented, ...
— A Discourse on Method • Rene Descartes
... is the serious aim of human endeavours; this suggests to him the afterthought that, although playthings, they are the playthings of the Gods, and that this is the best of them. The cynical, ironical fancy of the moment insensibly passes into a religious sentiment. In another passage he says that life is a game of which God, who is the player, shifts the pieces so as to procure the victory of good on the whole. Or once more: Tragedies are acted ...
— Laws • Plato
... serve to indicate the importance which attaches to the early training of childhood. Among the children even of the well-to-do often enough the hygiene of the mind is overlooked, and faulty management produces restlessness, instability, and hyper-sensitiveness, which pass insensibly ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... frame, he endeavored to persuade himself, that, if the powers of man, seconded by such noble resolution, could bear one harmless through so severe a trial, the youthful captive before him might hope for success in the hazardous race he was about to run. Insensibly the young man drew nigher to the swarthy lines of the Hurons, and scarcely breathed, so intense became his interest in the spectacle. Just then the signal yell was given, and the momentary quiet which had preceded it was broken by a burst of cries, that far exceeded any before ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... as soon as they were uttered, but he would not humble himself to say so. Alexina had taken Stephen's part and her manner to Josie assumed a tinge of coldness. Josie quickly noticed and resented it, and the breach between the two girls widened almost insensibly, until they barely spoke when they met. Each blamed the other and cherished ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... inconsistence with the general course of official life in England at that time. Probably no great injustice would be done in suggesting a baser motive. The ministry doubtless aimed at one or both of two things: to keep a certain personal hold upon him, which might, insensibly to himself, mollify his actions; and to discredit him among his countrymen by precisely such fleers as had been cast against him in the Massachusetts Assembly. More than once they sought to seduce him by offers ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... the highest ambition of my time, I had set my barque on a great circle, and almost before I realized it the barque was burdened with a wife and family and the steering had insensibly become more difficult; for Maude cared nothing about the destination, and when I took any hand off the wheel our ship showed a tendency to make for a quiet harbour. Thus the social initiative, which I believed should have been ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... which does not have its significance; not a glade, not a thicket but has its analogy with the labyrinth of human thought. Who is there among those whose minds are cultivated or whose hearts are wounded who can walk alone in a forest and the forest not speak to him? Insensibly a voice lifts itself, consoling or terrible, but oftener consoling than terrifying. If we seek the causes of the sensation—grave, simple, sweet, mysterious—that grasps us there, perhaps we shall find it in the ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... not perceive then that Irving's charm came largely from Cervantes and the other Spanish humorists yet unknown to me, and that he had formed himself upon them almost as much as upon Goldsmith, but I dare say that this fact had insensibly a great deal to do with my liking. Afterwards I came to see it, and at the same time to see what was Irving's own in Irving; to feel his native, if somewhat attenuated humor, and his original, if somewhat too studied grace. But as yet there was no critical ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Insensibly the number of moving bodies increased. The consolidation was imperceptible in the murk, but nevertheless it took place. We ceased to find clear spaces where we could gallop; a trot became impossible. We were hemmed in. A rank animal odor mingled with the taint of smoke. Gradually the muffled ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... are thus conscious of their false position; they have a vague sort of feeling that, in recognizing the military authority of the Convention, they admit its authority in full; insensibly they glide down this slope, from concession to concession, until they reach complete submission. From the 16th of June, at Lyons,[1164] "people begin to feel that it ought not break with the Convention." Five weeks later, the authorities of Lyons "solemnly ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... conceive the interest with which these bold travellers gazed on the Starry Queen, the final object of their daring journey. She was now insensibly approaching the zenith, the mathematical point which she was to reach four days later. They presented their telescopes, but her mountains, plains, craters and general characteristics hardly came out a particle more sharply than if they had been ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... It is well to be able to leap a fence without being thrown. It is better to know how to stop and open a gate and shut it after you, lest some day you should have a horse which cannot leap, or a sprained wrist which may make the leap imprudent for yourself. You can acquire the seat almost insensibly while learning the management, but you must study in order to learn the management. However, you came mainly for enjoyment to-night, I think. Go ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... ignorance and incredulity, madam, that they feed themselves. The mind, once rejecting useful information, insensibly leans to superstition and conclusions on the order of nature, that are not less prejudicial to the cause of truth, than they are at variance with the first principles of ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... at once, but could not account for the fact, that the worthy gentlemen were cutting at each other, and the timid girl became insensibly alarmed at the unaccountable sharpness of their brief encounter. She looked with an anxious countenance, first at one, and then at the other, but scarcely knew what to say. Woodward, however, who was better acquainted with the usages of society, and the deference due to the presence ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition, which assume the colors, and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force; the frontlet on her brow would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of freedom and independence; but in its stead would soon be substituted an imperial diadem, ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... tenure. Some precious things you do not lose, but your newly acquired vision fails you shortly. Suddenly, while you are comparing, valuing, and criticizing, the old scales fall over your eyes, you insensibly slip back into the well-worn grooves, and behold all outward and most inward things in nearly the same light as your untraveled ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... and the sanctity of the mortified monks made a deep and solemn impression on the tender hearts of the young visitors, who felt the delicacy of their position in enjoying a forbidden hospitality. The example of the evangelical perfection practised by these holy servants of God insensibly drew Charles and Henry to love the sublime virtues they practised. Nothing impressed them more than the solemn chant of the Office at midnight. The slow, solemn enunciation of each word by a choir of hoary anchorets rolled in majestic ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... half-spiral revolution. The corneous external coat is very soft, distinctly fibrous, and at the base not much thicker than a human nail; the osseous core full of vascular grooves, and inside very cellular, the pair scarcely weighing four pounds. The skin passes insensibly to the horny state, so that there is no exact demarcation where the one commences or the other ends. The dimension of a horn are:—length measured on the curve, three feet seven inches; circumference at base, two feet; circumference midway, one foot six inches; circumference two thirds ...
— Delineations of the Ox Tribe • George Vasey
... forward to its end with eagerness. It is better to think of a return to civilisation, not as an end to hardship and a haven from ill, but as a close to an adventurous and pleasant life. In this way, risking little, and insensibly creeping on, you will make connections, and learn the capabilities of the country, as you advance; all which will be found invaluable in the case of a hurried or disastrous return. And thus, when ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... {to proso aiei kleptomenos}: "stealing thy advance continually," i.e. "advancing insensibly further." Some take {kleptomenos} as passive, ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... life-history of syphilis into three periods or stages, referred to, for convenience, as primary, secondary, and tertiary. This division is to some extent arbitrary and artificial, as the different stages overlap one another, and the lesions of one stage merge insensibly into those of another. Wide variations are met with in the manifestations of the secondary stage, and histologically there is no valid distinction to be drawn between ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... of hell, was exercised from the vilest motives of malice or gain by some wrinkled hags or itinerant sorcerers who passed their obscure lives in penury and contempt. Such vain terrors disturbed the peace of society and the happiness of individuals; and the harmless flame which insensibly melted a waxen image might derive a powerful and pernicious energy from the affrighted fancy of the person whom it was maliciously designed to represent. From the infusion of those herbs which were supposed to possess a supernatural influence, it was an easy step ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... an expedient to effect it more insensibly, by planting it with the quick: Let every fifth or sixth be an holly-set; they will grow up infallibly with your quick; and as they begin to spread, make way for them by extirpating the white-thorn, till they quite domineer: Thus was my hedge first planted, without the least ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... sound; and the place where kindred spirits mingle in social praise and worship is far more attractive than the scenes of worldly pleasure. But, alas! from time to time it happens that some who bear the Christian name and who have rejoiced in Christian hopes, insensibly lose their relish for the Scriptures. If they continue to read them daily, it is no longer with such appreciation of their power and beauty as makes them the bread of life, refreshing and invigorating the soul. Their minds are occupied ...
— Food for the Lambs; or, Helps for Young Christians • Charles Ebert Orr
... achievement which is due to the unconscious shifting of these standards of right and wrong themselves. It is not merely that we fail to do that which we know to be right, but at times the very idea of right itself is strangely altered. The good insensibly assimilates to itself certain elements of evil which we allow and accept without full realization of the significance of this moral alchemy to which the most fundamental of our ideas are often times subjected. The idea of right no longer ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... an experiment, will find himself insensibly repeating it, and after a time he may have quite a number of officers and committees, who are entrusted with various departments of business. He will have a secretary, chosen by ballot, by the scholars, to keep a record of all the important transactions in the school, ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... his flirtation with Mademoiselle d'Argencourt, found himself almost insensibly drawn to Mary Mancini. Though there were many in his court more beautiful in person, there were none who could rival her in intellect and wit. Though naturally timid, her reserve disappeared when in his presence. ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... Toward the end of summer, Charles-Norton found himself insensibly altering the glorious ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... have been the result of Newton's observations relative to slavery in the English colonies, his feelings of dislike insensibly wore away during his residence at Lieu Desiree; there he was at least convinced that a slave might be perfectly happy. It must be acknowledged that the French have invariably proved the kindest and most considerate of masters, and the state of bondage is much mitigated in the islands which appertain ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... of preparation for a continually developing life is great, it is imperative that every energy should be bent to making the present experience as rich and significant as possible. Then as the present merges insensibly into the future, the future is taken ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... poignant anguish, taking his almost expiring daughter in his arms, for a while supported her head upon his breast, and wiped away the tears that trickled down her cheeks. 26. He most tenderly embraced her, and drawing her insensibly to some shops which were on the side of the forum, snatched up a butcher's knife: "My dearest lost child," cried Virgin'ius, "thus, thus alone is it in my power to preserve your honour and your freedom!" So ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... debilitate the liver by over-stimulation, nor irritate the stomach and bowels by disturbing the delicate processes of digestion, neither does it act with severity upon the blood, but it operates so gently, insensibly, and yet with so much certainty, that it excites the surprise and ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... and insensibly conforming to her manner of life. She was drifting. She did not know where. She never thought of towards what end or ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... riches, and the mental energy and activity produced by centuries of freedom, remained for the benefit of the first generation of slaves. Yet this was the commencement of a rgime by whose gradual operation all the civilization which had been gained insensibly faded away, until the empire, which had conquered and embraced the world in its grasp so completely lost even its military efficiency that invaders whom three or four legions had always sufficed to coerce were able to overrun and occupy nearly the whole of its vast territory. ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... nothing; and without some such extermination one would suppose that a great mass of them must have remained in the country, their lot the obscure and, so to speak, underground lot of a subject race, but yet insensibly getting mixed with their conquerors, and their blood entering into the composition of a new people, in which the stock of the conquerors counts for most, but the stock of the conquered, too, counts for ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold
... are in continual difficulty as regards distinguishing species from varieties; they do not recognize the fact that species are only constant as long as the conditions in which they are placed are constant. Individuals vary and form breeds which blend so insensibly into the neighbouring species, that the distinctions made by naturalists between species and varieties, are for the most part arbitrary, and the confusion upon this head is becoming ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... habits, a good reader, a neat writer, a safe thinker, with a snug and well-fenced mental pasturage, which his sermons kept cropped moderately close without any exhausting demand upon the soil. Olive had grown insensibly into her religious maturity, as into her bodily and intellectual developments, which one might suppose was the natural order of things in a well-regulated Christian—household, where the children are brought up in the nurture ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... time passed, this feeling grew insensibly less; so that when, a few days later, the thought occurred to me that it might be possible to clamber down and have a look into the hole, I was not so exceedingly averse to it, as might have been imagined. Still, I do not think, even then, that I really intended to try any such foolhardy adventure. ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... possible," was the answer. "We have instructed Durand-Savoyat to allow no one to remain there." And the discussion continued. Nevertheless the sound of voices insensibly increased, and ultimately grew so distinct that it became necessary to see what it meant. Carnot half opened the door. The room and the ante-chamber adjoining the room where we were deliberating were filled with Representatives, ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... read at length in his essays and his letters—from them we get to know not only the facts of his life but almost insensibly we get a knowledge of the man himself such as cannot be conveyed in any brief summary. He is as a friend, a loved friend, whom it seems almost sacrilegious to summarize in the compact sentences of a biographical dictionary, of whom it would be a wrong to write if the writing were to be ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... ourselves definite ends and purposes. The distinct consciousness of some object at present before us, imparts a manifold greater interest to the contents of any volume. It imparts to the reader an appropriative power, a force of affinity, by which he insensibly and unconsciously attracts to himself all that has a near or even a remote relation to the end for which he reads. Anyone is conscious of this who reads a story with the purpose of repeating it to an absent friend; or an essay or a ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... Profiting by his growing familiarity as neighbor, he went to school, as it were, at the model farm of the gentleman-farmer, and submitted to him the direction of his own domain. By this quiet compliment, enhanced by his captivating courtesy, he advanced insensibly in the good graces of the old man. But every day, as he grew to know M. de Rameures better, and as he felt more the strength of his character, he began to fear that on essential points he ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... tell you that insensibly we had fallen into the habit of taking our tea by my study fire. Tea, you know, is a mere nothing in itself, its only merit being its social and poetic associations, its warmth and fragrance; and the more socially and informally ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... feeling of shame lingered as the younger sister followed with a spirited vivace. Her hollow-cheeked pallor remained unstained, but her thin lips were set and her hard eyes were harder. She played with determined nonchalance and an extraordinarily facile rapidity, and Miriam's uneasiness changed insensibly to the conviction that these girls were learning in Germany not to be ashamed of "playing with expression." All the things she had heard Mr. Strood—who had, as the school prospectus declared, been "educated in Leipzig"—preach ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... united in him as to justify the claim first put in by himself and afterwards maintained by his sect to a place beside the few great poets who exalt men's minds, and give a right direction and safe outlet to their passions through the imagination, while insensibly helping them toward balance of character and serenity of judgment by stimulating their sense of proportion, form, and the nice adjustment of means to ends. In none of our poets has the constant propulsion of an unbending will, and the concentration ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... Ali has faithfully described the first ostentatious interview, in which the conqueror, whose spirits were harmonized by success, affected the character of generosity. But his mind was insensibly alienated by the unseasonable arrogance of Bajazet; and Timur betrayed a design of leading his royal captive in triumph to Samarkand. An attempt to facilitate his escape, by digging a mine under the tent, provoked the Mongol Emperor to impose a harsher restraint; and in his ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... gloves, she will be more careful the next day that they are in their proper places. If she is late at recitation because her pencil was not to be found at the call, she will finally conclude that it would be a better plan to keep arithmetic, slate and pencil together; and so, almost insensibly, her books and appointments generally will fall into groups and classes in her desk. Not only there, but at home, will the same effect be seen; and not only now, but through all her life, the habit will run. It needs only a moment's reflection to show how great will be the result. ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... Ney was shot. The spot, which had been stained with his blood, was at this moment covered by skittles, and groups of stout lads were enjoying themselves in all directions. It should seem that nothing but youthful sports and pastimes had ever prevailed there: so insensibly do succeeding occupations wear away all traces of the past. I paused for half a minute, casting a thoughtful eye towards the spot. The Abbe Betencourt moralised aloud, and Dom Brial seemed inwardly to meditate. We now reached the Observatory. The Sub-Principal was ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... incentive of early genius, was hid beneath her pillow, and read and re-read with tireless avidity. Those illustrious heroes of antiquity became the companions of her solitude and of her hourly thoughts. She adored them and loved them as her own most intimate personal friends. Her character became insensibly molded to their forms, and she was inspired with restless enthusiasm to imitate their deeds. When but twelve years of age, her father found her, one day, weeping that she was not born a Roman maiden. Little did she then imagine that, by talent, by suffering, ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... History," and then caricatured in his "True History," wherein is contained the account of a trip to the moon, a piece which must have been enjoyed by Rabelais, which suggested to Cyrano de Bergerac his Voyages to the Moon and to the Sun, and insensibly contributed, perhaps, directly or through Bergerac, to the conception of "Gulliver's Travels." I have added the Icaro- Menippus, because that Dialogue describes another trip to the moon, though its satire is more especially directed ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... the more you approach to it the more you lose the thought of Swift. The eager passion of the meaning beats upon the mild drapery of the words. So you could not express the plain thoughts of an Englishman in the grand manner of a Spaniard. Insensibly, and as by a sort of magic, the kind of manner which a man catches eats into him, and makes him in the end what at first he ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... the farm, insensibly Crane drifted into coveting the mare. He fell to wondering whether The Dutchman might not beat Lucretia. A question of this sort was one of the few he discussed with Langdon. Crane had smoked his cigar out, had settled the trend ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... everybody enjoyed, but the Democratic Party did not change its policy nor did it lose adherents. The Mexican War was prosecuted and bigotry political and religious continued to flourish. They may have contributed though, insensibly, to a public opinion that became formidable in the end but the effect was not as perceptible as was the effect of Garrison's legend that slavery was a covenant with hell and a league with death, which had its place at the head of the Liberator through ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... justly compared to the seats of an amphitheatre. (9/8. Pernety "Voyage aux Isles Malouines" page 526.) The quartz rock must have been quite pasty when it underwent such remarkable flexures without being shattered into fragments. As the quartz insensibly passes into the sandstone, it seems probable that the former owes its origin to the sandstone having been heated to such a degree that it became viscid, and upon cooling crystallised. While in the soft state it must have been pushed up through ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... unblushing &c (shameless) 885; unanimated; vegetative. callous, thick-skinned, hard-nosed, pachydermatous, impervious; hardened; inured, casehardened; steeled against, proof against; imperturbable &c (inexcitable) 826 [Obs.]; unfelt. Adv. insensibly &c adj.; aequo animo [Lat.]; without being moved, without being touched, without being impressed; in cold blood; with dry eyes, with withers unwrung^. Phr. never mind; macht nichts [G.], it is of no consequence &c (unimportant) 643; it cannot be helped; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... is that half wakeful feeling of repose and indulgence! And then the music rises—gentle and almost undistinguishable at first from the singing ripple of the water—then clearer and more distinct, but with still a tinkling ripple in every cadence, and the name of the listener insensibly blended. Flattery has come with indulgence, and the subtle wine of its intoxication is mounting to his brain. Then he turns dreamily on his couch of moss, and looks over the bank into the river. Above the water white hands are circling and snowy bosoms are gleaming, and in the midst is one form ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... Miss Hitchcock insensibly drew herself up and walked more quickly. The boulevard, usually gay with carriages in the late afternoon, was absolutely deserted except for an occasional shop-boy on a bicycle. Sommers, hatless, with a torn coat, walking beside a somewhat bedraggled young ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... confess that, as time drew on, Henrietta Ponsonby, if she had ventured to inquire, could have little hesitated as to the state of her own feelings. Her companion, her constant companion, for such Mr. Ferrers had now insensibly become, exercised over her an influence, of the power of which she was unconscious,—only because it was unceasing. Had for a moment the excitement of her novel feelings ceased, she would have discovered, with wonder, perhaps with some degree of fear, how changed she had ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli
... Captain Delano at the time, charitable man as he was. Rather another idea. Because observing so singular a haggardness combined with a dark eye, averted as in trouble and shame, and then again recalling Don Benito's confessed ill opinion of his crew, insensibly he was operated upon by certain general notions which, while disconnecting pain and abashment from virtue, invariably link ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... introduced by the Jesuits. "The five pleasant walks, of which the central one has nine terraces, with a pyramid at each extremity, and leads to the Casa de Recreio, or pleasure-house of the governor-general, erected in 1817 by Governor Vice-Admiral Luiz da Motta Feio," have insensibly faded away; the land is a waste, poor grazing ground for cattle landed from the south coast, whilst negrokins scream and splash in ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... up, Mrs. Warricombe's mind and temper were insensibly modified by influences which operated through her maternal affections, influences no doubt aided by the progressive spirit of the time. The three boys—Buckland, Maurice, and Louis—were distinctly of a new generation. It needed some ingenuity to discover their points ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... we are naturally led to feel a strong interest in the persons who are the subjects of them, and we sometimes insensibly form opinions of their characters which are far too favorable. This Menzikoff, for example, notwithstanding the enterprising spirit which he displayed in his boyhood, in setting off alone to Moscow to seek his fortune, and his talent for telling stories and ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott
... usual topics of conversation had been exhausted, the behaviour of Damon became insensibly more particular, he pressed her hand with the most melting ardour, and a sigh ever and anon escaped from his breast. He paid her several very elegant compliments, though they were all of them confined within the limits of decorum. Delia, on the other hand, though she apparently ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin
... for I had insensibly brought myself to admire her in every thing she said or did; and there was so much gracefulness, humility, and innocence in her whole behaviour, and I saw so many melting scenes between her lady and her, that I found I could not master ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... legal punishment can scarcely be said to be in theory possible; the sacredness of the blood-tie lending to any chastisement that may be inflicted on an erring kinsman the purely religious complexion of a sacrifice, an act of excommunication, a penance, or what not. Thus almost insensibly we are led on to the subject of religion from the study of the legal sanction; this very term "sanction," which is derived from Roman law, pointing in the same direction, since it originally stood for the ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... great conflicts of the modern church was impending. But it was only to prophetic minds in the middle of the eighteenth century that it was visible in the greatness of its proportions. The vice of drunkenness, which Isaiah had denounced in Samaria and Paul had denounced at Ephesus, was growing insensibly, since the introduction of distilled liquors as a common beverage, to a fatal prevalence. The trustees of the charitable colony of Georgia, consciously laying the foundations of many generations, endeavored ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... suggestive aspect of the town more salient. If you read even now, on the ground itself, the story of the settlement and the first century's life of Salem and the surrounding places, a delicate suffusion of the marvellous will insensibly steal over the severe facts of the record, giving them a half-legendary color. This arises partly from the imaginative and symbolic way of looking at ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... forgotten what human emotion was like, only saw in her anger a miracle which made her a thousand times more beautiful than before, and as he looked upon her glowing cheeks and gleaming eyes some instinct insensibly transmitted through many generations awoke to sudden life in some unused ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... order of stars belongs also a colonnaded spectrum, but reversed; the light is thrown the other way. The three broad zones of absorption which interrupt it are sharp towards the red, insensibly gradated towards the violet end. The individuals composing Class IV. are few and apparently insignificant, the brightest of them not exceeding the fifth magnitude. They are commonly distinguished by a deep red tint, and gleam like rubies in the field of the ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... also beginning to be remarked, and spoke yet more in his commendation. Those with whom he principally associated—the gay, the dissipated, the thoughtless, the sinners and publicans of the more polished world—all appeared rapidly, yet insensibly to themselves, to awaken to purer thoughts and more regulated lives. Even Cetoxa, the prince of gallants, duellists, and gamesters, was no longer the same man since the night of the singular events which he had related ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the day of Madame de St. Cyr's dinner, an event I never missed; for, the mistress of a mansion in the Faubourg St. Germain, there still lingered about her the exquisite grace and good-breeding peculiar to the old regime, that insensibly communicates itself to the guests till they move in an atmosphere of ease that constitutes the charm of home. One was always sure of meeting desirable and well-assorted people here, and a contre-temps was impossible. Moreover, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... explaining my new system of metaphysic, I have been sitting in my armchair in my favourite attitude, with the two front feet raised a couple of inches off the floor. By swaying my body to and fro, I have insensibly gained ground, and I find myself with a start close to the wall. This is the way in which I travel when I am ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... curiosity, was surprise at the presence of a princess ascending a throne reared so near the scaffold stained with the blood of one of her near relatives. This cruel memory offended the feeling of propriety peculiar to the French and especially to the Parisians. They were insensibly pained by this reminder which made too evident the sacrifice extorted from Austria, and they felt that their victory had been carried too far. They condemned the imitation of Louis XVI., whose sad fate was attributed to a similar selection." But the fickle crowd which assembled, eager for ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... give. If that was what she wanted, why, nothing, nothing could take it away. And it was truly . . . in this hour of silence and searching . . . she saw that it was truly what she wanted. It was something in her which had grown insensibly to life and strength, during all those uncounted hours of humble service to the children. And it was something golden and immortal in ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... the sight of the water seemed to reanimate her, and she plunged in as if she would have come to me. At first she swam rapidly, and I looked at her with tears in my eyes, and almost as breathless as herself; insensibly her strength failed her, while the dogs seemed to grow more and more earnest in their pursuit. Soon some of them reached her, and, stopped by their bites, she ceased to advance. At this moment, M. de Monsoreau appeared at the border of the lake, and jumped off his horse. Then I collected ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... almost behold the growth of vegetation; the earth is so generous, nature so kind and loving, that without entertaining any aspiration for a residence, or a wish to breathe the baleful atmosphere longer than is absolutely necessary, one feels insensibly drawn towards it, as the thought creeps into his mind, that though all is foul beneath the captivating, glamorous beauty of the land, the foulness might be removed by civilized people, and the whole region made as healthy as it is productive. Even while staggering under ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... prose; for he is as careless as any one of the whole century about exact grammatical sequence, and seems to have had no objection on any critical grounds to the long disjointed sentence which was the curse of the time. But his own ruling passion insensibly disposed him to a certain brevity. He liked to express his figurative conceits pointedly and antithetically; and point and antithesis are the two things most incompatible with clauses jointed ad ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... saying, 'My love was always to thee, and thou art in my love.' And I was ravished with the sense of the love of God." Brother Lawrence wrote, "You must know that the benevolent and caressing light of God's countenance kindles insensibly within the soul, which ardently embraces it, a divine and consuming flame of love, so rapturous that one puts curbs upon the ...
— An Interpretation of Friends Worship • N. Jean Toomer
... any truth at all, to confess it is to deny its opposite, to cleave to this is to reject that, to love the one is to hate the other. I fear—I know—that there are many minds among us who began with simply catching this tone of tolerance, and who have been insensibly borne along to an enfeebled belief that there is such a thing as religious truth at all, and that the truth lies in the word of God. Dear friends! let me beseech you to take heed lest, while you are only conscious of your hearts expanding with the genial glow of liberality, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... down the stairs; when, losing all forbearance, he hastily flew after her, and endeavouring to stop her, called out, "If you do not hate and detest me,—if I am not loathsome and abhorrent to you, O quit me not thus insensibly!—Cecilia! my beloved Cecilia!— speak to me, at least, one word of less severity! Look at me once more, and tell me we ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... Insensibly the day had passed into evening, and the horizontal rays of the sun were dazzling their eyes as they returned to the hotel for tea. In giving orders for this meal they had left the illustrated weekly behind, and it was now clear ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... work which, several ages ago, being yesterday, Nettie had taken the children in to see. Of all things that had happened between that moment and this, perhaps the impulse of escaping out into the open air without anything to do, was one of the most miraculous. Insensibly Nettie's footsteps quickened as she became aware of that extraordinary fact. The hour, the temperature, the customs of her life, were equally against such an indulgence. It was a comfort to recollect that, though everything ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... ethereal diffusion from its equable surface. Perhaps it was fancy, perhaps it was from nervous excitement; but a slight chill seemed to radiate from the still goblet, and bring down the temperature of the terrace. Mr. Clinch and his companion both insensibly shivered. ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... preserve her dignity, and was determined that "as the husband is, the wife is," should not be true in her case. But he did lower her insensibly, nevertheless. As her life became more and more unendurable she became a little reckless in speech; it was a sort of safety-valve by means of which she regained her composure, and I soon began to recognise the sign, and to judge of the amount she had suffered ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... Insensibly to him silence now reigned in the house; he heard, but without noticing, the opening and shutting of doors. Then suddenly midnight sounded on the clock of the adjoining bedroom, and the voices of Claude and Camille ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... brings them in appearance nearer to the world. But the nearer they resemble the world in this respect, the more they are found to mix with it. They are of course the more likely to be seduced from the wholesome prohibitions of the society. The language therefore of the Quakers has grown up insensibly as a wall of partition, which could not now, it is contended, be taken away without endangering the innocence ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... friends. They saw the dim glow of the student lamp in his quarters, as they jingled cheerily away. They were coming homeward, toward ten o'clock. The moon was shining brilliantly along the bold heights of the southern bank, and, insensibly, chat and laughter gradually ceased as they came again in sight of the twinkling lights of Frayne, and glanced aloft at a new-made scaffolding, standing black against the sky at the crest of Fetterman Bluff. "Eagle Wing roosts high," said a thoughtless ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... reflecting goniometer. In specimens, where the change has been less complete, when moistened and examined under a strong lens, the most interesting gradation can be traced, some of the rounded particles retaining their proper forms, and others insensibly melting into the granulo-crystalline paste. The weathered surface of this stone, as is so frequently the case with ordinary limestones, assumes a ...
— Volcanic Islands • Charles Darwin
... were both of goodly height, Madame Ratignolle possessing the more feminine and matronly figure. The charm of Edna Pontellier's physique stole insensibly upon you. The lines of her body were long, clean and symmetrical; it was a body which occasionally fell into splendid poses; there was no suggestion of the trim, stereotyped fashion-plate about it. A casual and indiscriminating observer, in passing, might not cast a second glance upon the figure. ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... sense of fatality got the mastery over his cowardice, and as Taurus Antinor watched the twitchings of that distorted face, he could note that insensibly a resolution to follow his advice had found its ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... pamper the appetite; so that it was a long time before she could be brought to desist from so pernicious a practice. As, however, the mind of Matilda strengthened, and she began to employ herself diligently in those new branches of education now imparted to her, she insensibly became weaned from this bad practice; and at length, inspired with a sincere desire to imitate her young friends, she broke herself entirely from this disgusting habit, and willingly adopted, in every thing, the simple wholesome fare partaken ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland
... or, at least, too remote from realization to be more than a vision, or a theory, and if, more fortunate than most, they retain their higher principles unimpaired, yet with respect to the persons and affairs of their own day they insensibly adopt the modes of feeling and judgment in which they can hope for sympathy from the company they keep. A person of high intellect should never go into unintellectual society unless he can enter it as an apostle; yet he is the only person ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... Insensibly I began to keep better hours. On wet and stormy nights, in the thick of the folly and the fun, the thought would persist in coming to me of Otoo keeping his dreary vigil under the dripping mangoes. Truly, he had made a better man of me. Yet he was not strait-laced. And he knew nothing ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London |
