"Unsought" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... me sweet whispers, Half in answer, half in thought:— "Be but strong, impassioned mortal! Love will come to thee unsought; Love is the divine Irene,— It is given, ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... 8th of March 1804, some time after the arrest but before the trial of General Moreau, I had an audience of the First Consul, which was unsought on my part. Bonaparte, after putting several unimportant questions to me as to what I was doing, what I expected he should do for me, and assuring me that he would bear me in mind, gave a sudden turn to the ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... man's leg in its mouth. Though rough and rude, those strains are rife Of things kin to immortal life, Which touch the heart and tinge the cheek, As deeply as divinest Greek. In simple words and unsought rhyme, Give me the songs of ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow
... under her successor. Quickly though insensibly the temper of the nation suffered eclipse. The high hopes and the ardency of the reign of Elizabeth saddened into a profound pessimism and gloom in that of James. This apparition of unsought melancholy has been widely noted and generally assumed to be inexplicable. In broad outline its causes are clear enough, "To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive." The Elizabethans were, if ever any were, hopeful ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... might be near him, asked even the grave, sad face of the moon herself, whether he had dared too much, dared in the wrong way. But he repented of this doubt immediately. Was it he himself who had spoken? No, the words had come unsought to his lips, the Spirit had spoken. He closed his eyes in an effort of silent prayer, his face still raised towards the moon, as a blind man lifts his sightless eyes towards ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... travelling through the world in search of him: I have been in farthest Greece, and through the bounds of Asia, and coasting homewards, I landed here in Ephesus, being unwilling to leave any place unsought that harbours men; but this day must end the story of my life, and happy should I think myself in my death, if I were assured my ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... time I did not confine myself so much to my own church, but frequently went out to preach in other places, as opportunities occurred; and these were, for the most part, brought about by remarkable and unsought-for incidents. ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... Seymour finally accepted, he neither apologised nor explained. "The nomination," he wrote, "was unsought and unexpected. I have been caught up by the overwhelming tide which is bearing us on to a great political change, and I find myself unable to resist its pressure."[1186] Those who recalled the Governor's alleged tortuous course at Chicago and ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... homage paid to honours worn Lightly, as that which comes to one unsought; Nor to thy high desent, oh nobly born Nor ...
— Verses and Rhymes by the way • Nora Pembroke
... her, till my soul With very eagerness went forth towards her, And issu'd at my eyes.—Was there a gem Which the sun ripens in the Indian mine, Or the rich bosom of the ocean yields? What was there art could make, or wealth could buy, Which I have left unsought to deck her beauty? What could her king do more?—And yet ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe
... influence of the twelve signs, has but little, if any, real knowledge of this matter above and beyond the purely physical symbolism above mentioned. And perhaps it is as well that such a benighted condition prevails, and that the Divine, heavenly goddess is unsought and comparatively unknown. The celestial Urania, at least, in such isolation remains pure and undefiled. She is free from the desecrating influence ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... wings and crow as thou pleasest. You go in search of adventures, but adventures come to me unsought for; and oh! in what a pleasing shape came mine, since it arrived in the form of a client—and a fair client to boot! What think you of that, Darsie! you who are such a sworn squire of dames? Will this not match my adventures with thine, ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... said the youth, burning with enthusiastic admiration of the young creature before him, "These proud words slander the noblest heart that ever beat in a woman's bosom. My mother loves you for yourself. All the better that God sent you to her unsought, as he does the wild flowers. Lina, the pride which reddens your cheek, would be ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... recounting some of the propitious things which have come to him all unsought, he said: "How fortunate I have always been! My name should have been 'Felix.'" But since "John" means "the gracious gift of God," we are content that he was named ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... care," he reiterated passionately. "Heaven above knows that; but I do not hope to make you believe me. Constance, I can give neither you nor any living being the explanation of that awful day. But I swear to you that the meeting was unsought by me. I could not help myself. I do not know how all this has come about. I understood from Standon ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... Ever faithful sleep, dost thou too forsake me, like my other friends? How wert thou wont of yore to descend unsought upon my free brow, cooling my temples as with a myrtle wreath of love! Amidst the din of battle, on the waves of life, I rested in thine arms, breathing lightly as a growing boy. When tempests whistled through the leaves and boughs, when the summits of the lofty ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... murdered by the piratical desperadoes of the West Indies, can never be known. Somewhere on the coral-strewn bed of the blue seas of the tropics lie the mouldering hulks of those good ships, and the bones of their gallant crews. There will they lie, unknown and unsought, until earthly warfare is over for all men, and the ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... races can be anything but a curse to the blacks. It is the missionary alone who seeks nothing for himself. He has chosen an unselfish life. If honour comes to him, it is by no choice of his own, but as the unsought tribute which others, as it were, force upon him. Robert Moffat has died in the fullness both of years and honours. His work has been to lay the foundations of the Church in the central regions of South Africa. As far as his influence and that ...
— Robert Moffat - The Missionary Hero of Kuruman • David J. Deane
... which, when we last parted, appeared to me invincible, prevented my having ever even attempted to make an impression on the heart of the woman I love: and if you knew her, count, as well as I do, you would know that her love could 'not unsought be won.'" ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... interpose, To lard with wit thy hungry Epsom prose. And when false flowers of rhetorick thou would'st cull, Trust Nature, do not labour to be dull; But write thy best, and top; and, in each line, Sir Formal's oratory will be thine: Sir Formal, though unsought, attends thy quill, And does thy Northern Dedications fill. Nor let false friends seduce thy mind to fame, By arrogating Jonson's hostile name. Let father Flecknoe fire thy mind with praise, And uncle Ogleby thy envy raise. Thou art my blood, where Jonson has no part: What share have we in Nature ...
— English Satires • Various
... passive. Things arranged themselves without effort, and by some subtle affinity we learned that we had gained a friend. The history of every true friendship is the brief description of Emerson, "My friends have come to me unsought; the great God gave them to me." There was an element of necessity in this, as in ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... and for the first time since she had been a child a few tears had wet her pillow. She could not have told exactly why she had cried, for she had not felt anything like sadness, and tears were altogether foreign to her nature. But the unsought return of all the impressions of the evening had affected her strangely, and she felt all at once shame, anger and regret—shame at having been so easily deceived by the play of a man's face and voice, anger against him for the part he ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... far beyond the time when I should become sixty-four years old. Hence I cheerfully relinquished in 1882 any reasonable ambition I may ever have had to command the army. My ultimate succession to that command in 1888 was, like all other important events in my personal career, unsought and unexpected. Hence whatever I did from 1888 to 1895 was only a little "extra duty," and I have had no reason to find fault on account of the "extra- duty pay" which I received, though none of it was in money. I am inclined to think it a pretty good rule for a soldier to wait until ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... the most supreme joy possible to a human being, and you are too lazy to reach out your hand. Why, another man would toil night and day, risk life and limb for such a woman; yet she drops into your arms unsought—a ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... doing whatever was right in your own eyes, and never once doing wrong in mine, nor shocked a taste that had been morbidly sensitive till now? And whence had you that happiest gift, of brightening every topic with an unsought gayety, quiet but irresistible, so that even loomy spirits felt your sunshine, and did not shrink from it? Nature wrought the charm. She made you a frank, simple, kind-hearted, sensible, and mirthful girl. Obeying nature, you did free things without indelicacy, displayed ...
— The Village Uncle (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... I feel the furrow's course, Deep sinking inward to the source of thought; The deeper sinking if I seek its source, Or try to crush its agony, unsought, O! tell thy secret, thou stern vampyre, Care! E'en for Philosophy thou hast a snare, For in thy quest she wears the galling chain, Making the burden more, the ...
— The Emigrant - or Reflections While Descending the Ohio • Frederick William Thomas
... oppose Vanessa's flame; And, though her arguments were strong, At least could hardly wish them wrong. Howe'er it came, he could not tell, But sure she never talk'd so well. His pride began to interpose; Preferr'd before a crowd of beaux! So bright a nymph to come unsought! Such wonder by his merit wrought! 'Tis merit must with her prevail! He never knew her judgment fail! She noted all she ever read! And had a most discerning head! 'Tis an old maxim in the schools, That ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... seemed to be inconclusive, but as they sought the answer, a clear sign appeared as it were by the way, and unsought. Julian was watching haggardly. He snarled a question at Jim. His cook-boy's big round eyes showed very big and very round just now. He was watching with ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... as a weapon against the imprudent creature who had signed it. But the marquis's rigid demeanor frightened him. How could he divert his attention, get rid of him? An opportunity presented itself unsought. A tiny sheet, written in a senile, tremulous hand, had found its way between those same letters, and attracted the attention of the charlatan, who said with ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... his imperative duty to do so; and if the ball has been given for a lady who dances, he should include her in his attentions. If he wishes to be considered a thorough-bred gentleman, he will sacrifice himself occasionally to those who are unsought and neglected in the dance. The consciousness of having performed a kind and courteous ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... said he, "taken the oath of office without mental reservation, and with the determination to do to the best of my ability all that it requires of me. The responsibilities of the position I feel, but accept them without fear. The office has come to me unsought. I commence its duties untrammeled. I bring to it a conscientious desire and determination to fill it to the best of my ability, and to the satisfaction of the people." He declared that on all subjects he should have "a policy ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... O vision grave, Take all the little all I have! Strip me of what in voiceless thought Life's kept of life, unhoped, unsought!— Reverie and dream that memory must Hide deep ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various
... one or another cause, were what is called nervous. Few of them were so happily constituted as to need from me neither counsel nor warnings. Very often such were desired, more commonly they were given unsought, as but a part of that duty which the physician feels, a duty which is but half fulfilled when we think of the body as our ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... The unsought honor of this public banquet, in his own country, organized by the most eminent men of the day, calling forth eulogies of him in the public press of the whole world, was justly esteemed by Morse as one of the crowning events of his long career; but an even greater honor was still in store ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... never eared greatly, As worth a man's while; Peradventures unsought, Peradventures that finished in nought, Had kept me from youth and through manhood till lately ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... medicine at stated hours—as the swinging of dumb-bells or chairs; but is itself the enterprise and adventure of the day. If you would get exercise, go in search of the springs of life. Think of a man's swinging dumb-bells for his health, when those springs are bubbling up in far-off pastures unsought by him! ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... is passed, Man shall find grace; And shall Grace not find means, that finds her way, The speediest of thy winged messengers. To visit all thy creatures, and to all Comes unprevented, unimplored, unsought? Happy for ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... have no contempt for laurels, but I will not run after a thing which could have no value for me, unless it came unsought, and because it ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... to the sinner unsought, and is so far unavoidable. It is purely and entirely the work of the Holy Spirit upon the sinner. The human will has nothing whatever to do with the first beginnings of conversion. Of this our Confessions testify: "God must first come to us." "Man's will hath no power to work the righteousness ...
— The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church • G. H. Gerberding
... his door she came and prayed for food, * And sued his ruth for what her misery made: He leant to error following his lusts, * And hoped to enjoy her as her wants persuade; But he knew little of what Allah willed; * Nor was Repentance, though unsought, denayed. Fate comes to him who flies from Fate, O Lord, * And lot and daily ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... to the exclusion of pious thoughts which should occupy it in prayer, of which the office is a high form; or they may be thoughts which arise from previous laziness, thoughtlessness, pre-occupation or some engrossing worldly affair. Involuntary distractions are those which come unbidden and unsought to the mind, are neither placed directly, nor by their causes, by the ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... Casino in the small hours of the night, one of those moments in which nervous insomnia causes a person to see things in an extraordinary light in which they stand out clearly. Don Benito Valls, the rich Jew, was very fond of him. Several times he had intervened, unsought, in his affairs, saving him from immediate ruin. It was due to personal liking for Febrer and to respect for his name. Valls had a single heiress, and, moreover, he was an invalid; the prolific exuberance characteristic of his race had not been fulfilled in him. His daughter Catalina, ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... suffrage; while in frigid Russia the 22,000,000 newly-emancipated serfs are already claiming a voice in the government; while here, in our own land, slaves, but just rejoicing in the proclamation of emancipation, ignorant alike of its power and significance, have the ballot unasked, unsought, already laid at their feet—think you the daughters of Adams, Jefferson, and Patrick Henry, in whose veins flows the blood of two Revolutions, will forever linger round the campfires of an old barbarism, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... no great pains to gain the place which was his due. If he loved glory like the true artist that he was, "he never tired himself in its pursuit." Perhaps he had an instinctive feeling that it would come to him some day unsought. ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... and that first week of the relapse was to Jean and Henriette the dreariest and saddest in all their long, unsought intimacy. Would their suffering never end? were they to hope for no surcease of misery, the danger always springing up afresh? At every moment their thoughts sped away to Maurice, from whom they had received no further ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... understand in the least my view of a writer and his writings," I said. "It is not a voluntary thing, led up to by pre-determination. There can be no question of making up. I never try to write nor to think. I do not invoke my own ideas. They spring into being of themselves, quite unsought. And, in a measure, ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... walk'd alone, And phantasies, unsought for, troubled him. Something within would still be shadowing out All possibilities, and with these shadows 95 His mind held dalliance. Once, as so it happen'd, A fancy cross'd him wilder than the rest: To this in moody ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... unasked, unsought, Love gives itself, it is not bought Nor voice nor sound betrays Its ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... beats high with a single hope, Which has come on a sudden when unsought; In all the wide world there is only scope For a single hope and a single thought. O why should a wide world have more than this? When after all has been done and been said, 'Tis a single grief or a single bliss That rekindles a life or ...
— Harry • Fanny Wheeler Hart
... and a higher class—the "Interpreters of Nature." Yet even here the convergence of two distinct lines of research was wholly fortuitous, and skilful combination owed the most brilliant part of its success to the unsought bounty ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... I may never again meet the greater number of you on earth; allow me thus informally to tender you my hearty thanks for many well remembered acts of unsought kindness and unexpected hospitality. That your future years may be many and prosperous, and your embarkation on the Great Voyage which succeeds the journey of life may be serene and hopeful, is the ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... and half to himself, "if the shadow of that villain Streone is on Eadmund as on me, I will not strike for myself—as yet; and Cnut shall win other men's praise before I give him mine or go to him unsought." ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... go on, for I am curious to know, with an honest desire to enlarge my circle of knowledge. Will you tell me, Miss Lothrop, what are the pleasures in your mind when you speak of their coming unsought?" ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... themselves move harmonious numbers, and give birth, if genius as well as piety be there, to religious poetry. Cadences and epithets are indeed often sought for with care, and pains, and ingenuity; but they often come unsought; and never more certainly and more easily than when the mind recovers itself from some oppressive mood, and, along with a certain sublime sadness, is restored to the full possession of powers that had for a short ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... to become the lord and master of such a monster! I allowed myself to be tempted, and undertook the adventure. The means came unsought for by me, and the only thing that I had to do was to show myself more perverted and satanic than she was herself. And so ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... who linger still Here in your fortress on the hill, With placid face, with tranquil breath, The unsought volunteers of death, Our cheerful General on high With careless looks may ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with the enthusiasm that might have been expected. Many a man was tramping London in search of employment and finding none, therefore even the ladies who were so solicitous about Joe's welfare thought he should be thankful that work came unsought. He said he would do his best, which is, when you come to think of it, all that we have a right to expect from ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... Yet I'm resolved to search for thee: The search itself rewards the pains. So though the chymist his great secret miss, (For neither it in art nor nature is) Yet things well worth his toil he gains; And does his charge and labour pay With good unsought ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... with the wolf gave him an unsought, and in some respects undesirable, notoriety; but that he did not court this notoriety is shown by the fact that for the next twelve or thirteen years he lived quietly on his farm, attending to his duties as a cultivator of the ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober
... much address my cousin avoids adding, and 'very uninteresting, and very ugly, and very disagreeable, and very much unsought,' and fifty other things she might add with such perfect truth and modesty! But is it true, that the theatre was open only ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... a Liberal Unionist, and as such was elected in 1895 a member of the House of Commons by Dublin University. In view of the many comments that he was not successful in parliamentary life, I may say that the election not only came to him unsought, but that he recognized that he was too old to adapt himself to the atmosphere of the House of Commons; he accepted the position in the belief which was pressed upon him by many friends that he could in Parliament ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... Ambition what had I to do? Little with Love, and least of all with Fame; And yet they came unsought, and with me grew, And made me all which they can make—a Name. Yet this was not the end I did pursue; Surely I once beheld a nobler aim. But all is over—I am one the more To baffled millions which have ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... Mr. Chapin was elected Mayor of the city of Cleveland. The honor was not only unsought, but he was in entire ignorance of the whole affair until after his election. His name had not been mentioned in connection with that or any other office when he left the city on a business trip that kept him absent for several days. In the meantime the nominating convention of the Union Republican ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... experienced by the fond girl herself. Frances had, with the keen eye of jealous love, easily detected the attachment of Isabella Singleton to Dunwoodie. Delicate and retiring herself, it never could present itself to her mind that this love had been unsought. Ardent in her own affections, and artless in their exhibition, she had early caught the eye of the young soldier; but it required all the manly frankness of Dunwoodie to court her favor, and the most pointed ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... had lived mostly among people of artistic or literary propensities—how much soulless inhumanity that might involve. For all I know, she has no adequate idea of it to this day. When I first heard of the affair the mischief was done, and I knew better than to interpose my unsought opinions. She was of age, and there was absolutely nothing against him from the conventional point of view. Then I dare say his immense wealth would cast a spell over almost any woman. Mabel had some hundreds a year of ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... to be Tennyson's original reading of the Quest of the Grail. His own mysticism, which did not strive, or cry, or seek after marvels, though marvels might come unsought, ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... seven moons I proclaimed my Joy from the house-top—and yet no one heeded me. And my Joy and I were alone, unsought and unvisited. ...
— The Madman • Kahlil Gibran
... upon which, drawing his bridle within his arm, he bowed once more, and turned away in an opposite direction; while I, glad to be relieved of an unsought-for companionship, returned alone ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... order nor bend his opinions to those of others. He put behind him the temptation to take advantage of great fame when it suddenly came to him. When publishers were eager for his work he spent the same time in preparing his books as when he was poor and unsought. He labored at the smallest task to give the best that was in him; he wrote much of his work in his heart's blood. Hence it is that through all of his books, but especially through Past and Present and Heroes and Hero Worship, one feels ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... ecstasy of unsought happiness could not last, however. During the ensuing days Ivan was obliged to banish dreams, and yield himself to preparations for that change which, though it should have brought something of eager anticipation to his boy's mind, ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... that there is "many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip"— which we have no reason to doubt—it is not less true that many a cup of good fortune is, unexpectedly and unsought, raised to the ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne
... fair! how modest! how discreet! How bashfully demure! See how they blush, as they've been taught, At this publicity unsought! How English and ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... sure the ruddy hue is Love's: to woo Love's Fountain we must mount the ruddy hue. That is her garden's precept, seen where shines Her blood-flower, and its unsought neighbour pines. Daughter of light, the joyful light, She bids her couples face full East, Reflecting radiance, even when from her feast Their outstretched arms brown deserts disunite, The lion-haunted thickets hold apart. In love the ruddy hue declares great ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... statement," answered Mainwaring, with a powerful effort at composure. "There are moments when, listening to Lucretia, when, charmed by that softness which, contrasting the rest of her character, she exhibits to none but me, struck by her great mental powers, proud of an unsought triumph over such a being, I feel as if I could love none but her; then suddenly her mood changes,—she utters sentiments that chill and revolt me; the very beauty seems vanished from her face. I recall with a ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... rebellious crowd. Was this all? No, by the Prophet! Thou, by right my captive, didst leave thy prison but to head mine armies. And this day, the traitor subject—the secret foe—was the leader of a people who defy a king. This night thou comest to me unsought. Thou feelest secure from my just wrath, even in my palace. Thine insolence blinds and betrays thee. Man, thou art in my power! ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... hearts like wells green-mossed and deep As ever summer saw, And cool their water is, yea, cool and sweet; But you must come to draw. They hoard not, yet they rest in calm content, And not unsought will give; They can be quiet with their wealth unspent, ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... homage, and sound wise tone of thought, where she had so few to love or lean on. She thought that she ought to try to put herself out of the way of her cousins at home as much as possible, and so she did not try to make time to write to Clara, and time did not come unsought, for her father's health did not improve; and when they returned to Lima, he engrossed her care almost entirely, while his young wife continued her gaieties, and Mary had reason to think the saya y manto disguise was frequently donned; but it was so much the custom of ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... vital temperament, perfect mental and physical health; pure, highly cultured mind and a wealth of personal magnetism—that silent charm of mysterious potency—pervading and surrounding her like the perfume of sweet flowers, winning the unsought admiration, friendship and fidelity of all who came within the radiance of her powerful magnetic aura. All this, and more, Fillmore Flagg perceived and felt. He walked and talked as one in a dream. Never before had he met so fair a vision of female loveliness, with grace so winning, ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... deep as the depths unsought Whence faith's own hope may redeem us nought, Filled full with ardour of pain sublime His mourning song and his ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Commissioner by the way—saw and held his tongue. He was an Englishman; but knew how to believe. Which shows that he was different from most Englishmen. He knew that it was dangerous to have any share in the little box when working or dormant; for unsought Love is ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... know, and never will; that is, he never cared for me, nor guessed how foolish I was to give him my love unsought." ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... be shall by no means be brought To pass, and that which is to be shall come, unsought, Even at the time ordained: but he that knoweth not The truth is still deceived and finds ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... made in Ireland) at a republication. It is proper that I should state, that the persons with whom I was subsequently acquainted, whose names had occurred in that publication, were made my acquaintances at their own desire, or through the unsought intervention of others. I never, to the best of my knowledge, sought a personal introduction to any. Some of them to this day I know only by correspondence; and with one of those it was begun by myself, in consequence, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... worthy to perform the most menial service for Him whose advent he announced. "I am content," he said in effect, "to be a voice, raised for a moment to proclaim the King, and soon dying on the desert air, whilst the person of the crier is unnoticed and unsought for; but I may not presume to unloose the latchet of his shoes.... There cometh after me He that is mightier than I, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... came in contact. It led him to treat with fullest consideration all who were in the least degree under his direction, and converted in consequence the toil of subordinates into a pleasure. It impelled him to do unsought everything which lay in his power for the success of those in whom he felt interest. Many a young writer will recall his words of encouragement at some period in his own career when the quiet appreciation ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... regulated by principles or controlled by circumstances that it was neither vicious nor turbulent. Intrigue was never employed as the means of its gratification, nor was personal aggrandizement its object. The various high and important stations to which he was called by the public voice were unsought by himself; and, in consenting to fill them, he seems rather to have yielded to a general conviction that the interests of his country would be thereby promoted, than to an avidity ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... with such prismatic changes, and oblique catchings of the light, that even sympathy goes wrong. Mrs. Warrender thus caught from Chatty the representation of an agitated soul in which there was all the sensitive shame of a love that is given unsought, mingled with a tender indignation against the offender who perhaps had never meant—But the mother on this point took a different view, and there rose up in her mind on the moment, a hundred cheerful, hopeful plans to bring ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... passion for fame which renders him at once the most solitary and the most dependent of men. Me—I belong to the multitude—I am one of themselves. They cannot point the finger at me. I am released from that needless necessity to distinguish myself from others—from that pledge, given unsought to a heedless world, to leave behind an enduring memento of my existence. I can be filled with daily life, as with daily bread. Life is indeed a freedom—I can give all ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... ghosts are gone From lightless fields of mint and euphrasy: There sings no wind in any willow-tree, And shadowy flute-girls wander listlessly Down to the shore where Charon's empty boat, As shadowed swan doth float, Rides all as listlessly, with none to steer. A shrunken stream is Lethe's water wan Unsought of any man: Grass Ceres sowed by alien hands is mown, And now she seeks Persephone alone. The gods have all gone up Olympus' hill, And all the songs are still Of grieving Dryads, left To wail about our woodland ways, bereft, The endless summertide. ...
— A Handbook for Latin Clubs • Various
... strove to hide his chagrin;—no wonder. Taken at disadvantage, and in a moment of weakness, the old pleader was obliged to perceive that the wager of mental duel between himself and the witness had been decided against him; and to feel that, in an unsought encounter and fair affray, he had been publicly worsted. To add to his mortification, the witness walked from the box with the air of a conqueror, and cast an insolent look of triumph around the court and upon his antagonist, ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... grieved, could scarce forbear a smile Upon the metamorphosis in view,— 'Farewell!' they mutually exclaim'd: 'this soil Seems fertile in adventures strange and new; One 's turn'd half Mussulman, and one a maid, By this old black enchanter's unsought aid.' ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... house and those in it, there leapt into it the temptation to tell all to this man, a magistrate, and appeal to him in the girl's behalf. He could not speak to a more proper person, if he sought the city through; and here was the opportunity, brought unsought, to his door. But then he had not the girl's leave to speak; could he speak without her leave? He shifted his feet, and to gain time, "No," he said slowly, "there are two or three who lodge in ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... I have lived in pleasant thought, As if life's business were a summer mood: As if all needful things would come unsought To genial faith still ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... Ben was busy with his oil-can. Three cars had been cut out from the train and run to a platform close at hand. It was high time they were off again, but the conductor was held in the office, whither he had gone for orders, as well as to report concerning their unsought passenger. Toomey was still angered against Cullin, between whom and himself there was ever more or less friction, but Geordie had begun to take a fancy to him. Cullin would never have said what he did had he known the identity of Toomey's pupil, and ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... who had caused Francis's death, and willingly at that moment if he could have gone out into the night and killed a German, and met his death himself in the doing of it, he would have gone to his doom as to a bridal-bed. But by degrees, as the stress of these unsought imaginings abated, his thoughts turned to Francis himself again, who, through all his boyhood and early manhood, had been to him a sort of ideal and inspiration. How he had loved and admired him, yet never with a touch of jealousy! And Francis, whose letter lay open by him on the ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... no hurry, to-morrow will do as well. I like not advice unsought. I'll have none of it. I will go where, when and how ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... to have discovered America; it was far more than Amerigo Vespucci deserved to have this discovery given his name, by which it will be known forever; but this honor, though unmerited, was at the same time unsought. ...
— Amerigo Vespucci • Frederick A. Ober
... on Gaetulian sands, Or caught by tempests on th' AEgean brine, Or at Mycenae in the foemen's hands, With annual honours will I hold divine, And head with fitting offerings the shrine. By chance unsought, now hither are we led, Yet not, I ween, without the God's design, Where lie the ashes of my father dead, And greet a friendly port, ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... own transcendent loveliness. So soft was her step, it failed to make even a sound, and but for the magical thrill imparted by her genial touch, as other unobtrusive beauties, she would have glided away un-perceived—unsought. A strange sadness rested upon her features, like icy tears upon the robe of December, as she pointed to the contending elements without, and bade me contemplate ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... our fancies aught Of verse would still require, Helicon's hill remains unsought; And without heed we but inquire, Why the ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... change of food; His mind as well: the sweetest harp of heaven Were hateful if it played the selfsame tune Forever, and the fairest flower that gems The garden, if it bloomed throughout the year, Would blush unsought. The most delicious fruits Pall on our palate if we taste too oft, And Hyblan honey turns to bitter gall. Perpetual winter is a reign of gloom; Perpetual summer hardly pleases more. Behold the Esquimau—the ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... great deal, Mattie walked slowly away, leaving Mark greatly relieved. Aunt Betsy was as much as he cared to have on his hands at once, and as he led her up the steps, he began to wonder more and more what his mother would say to his bringing that stranger into her house, unbidden and unsought. ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... no longer a malicious spirit of evil who took delight in thwarting her, but a poor, fretful old lady whose soul was bound in shallows. And Aunt Matilda? Rosemary's eyes filled at the thought of Aunt Matilda, unloved and unsought. Nobody wanted her, she belonged to nobody, in all her lonely life she had had nothing. She sat and listened to Grandmother, she did the annual sewing, and day by day resented more keenly the emptiness of her ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... angel,—and that she should die unloved! Why does not somebody come and carry off this noble woman, waiting here all ready to make a man happy? Philip, do you know the pathos there is in the eyes of unsought women, oppressed with the burden of an inner life unshared? I can see into them now as I could not in those earlier days. I sometimes think their pupils dilate on purpose to let my consciousness glide through them; indeed, I dread them, I come so close to the nerve of the soul itself ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... Might bear him company in the quest of him: 130 Whom whilst I labour'd of a love to see, I hazarded the loss of whom I loved. Five summers have I spent in furthest Greece, Roaming clean through the bounds of Asia, And, coasting homeward, came to Ephesus; 135 Hopeless to find, yet loath to leave unsought Or that, or any place that harbours men. But here must end the story of my life; And happy were I in my timely death, Could all my travels ...
— The Comedy of Errors - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... to know what to do. The one unthinkable thing would be to leave King unsought for. Suddenly it occurred to me to try that door underneath the steps; so I kissed my hand irreverently to the quarterguard of harridans, and turned my back on them—which I daresay was the most unwise move ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... Dr. Bryant, do not scorn me for my love!—'tis not a common love; for it I have lost every earthly comfort and blessing; for this struggled and toiled, and braved numberless dangers. I have loved you better than everything beside! Turn not from me, and think contemptuously of the worship given unsought! If you cannot love me, do not, oh, do not despise me! Let me a little while longer be with you, and see you; I will not trouble or incommode any one—do not leave me. Oh, Dr. Bryant, do ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... flashing memory of the Indian girl's face as she had whisperingly asked him if he could not leave Helen, the very note in her voice sounded in his ears, and, he knew what it was no harm for him to know then, that this child of the wilderness had given him her love, unsought. She had loved him, and she had died for him, whilst a man who had loved her, now wept over her poor body. The tragedy of it all shook him, and the irony of Jean Benard's grief was almost beyond endurance. A great humility filled his heart, and whilst he acquitted himself of ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... the attainment of the purpose. Many of these young men will tell us that, as long as they were hoping and striving and longing, mountains of difficulty rose before them; but that when they fashioned their hopes into fixed purposes aid came unsought to help them on ...
— An Iron Will • Orison Swett Marden
... virgin donned, and but some wight She feared might come to aid him as they fought, Her courage earned to have assailed the knight; Yet thence she fled, uncompanied, unsought, And left her image in his heart ypight; Her sweet idea wandered through his thought, Her shape, her gesture, and her place in mind He kept, and blew love's fire with ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... conquering sound of his coming feet. And, through the dreams of all, waved aimlessly the mighty wand of the blind master—Fate—giving death to a passion for glory here; disappointment bitter as death to a noble ambition there; and there giving unsought fame where was indifference to death; and then, to lend substance to the phantom of just deserts, giving a mortal here and there the ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... however, judges that this oblivion may not have been unsought, since one who had believed himself the object of a direct message from God, would have little taste for intercourse with his fellow men; and he suspends his story for a moment to ask himself how such a one would bear the weight of his experience; ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... have handed on to the Middle Ages the tradition of Greek philosophy by his Latin translations of the works of Aristotle. Called early to a public career, the highest honours of the State came to him unsought. He was sole Consul in 510 A.D., and was ultimately raised by Theodoric to the dignity of Magister Officiorum, or head of the whole civil administration. He was no less happy in his domestic life, in the virtues of his wife, Rusticiana, and the fair promise of his two ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius
... I heard his softer love song, and found his nest in the heart of a New Brunswick forest. Till then it was not known that he ever built south of Labrador. But even that, and the joy of discovery, lacked the charm of this rare sweet carol, coming all unsought and unexpected, as good things do, while our own birds were spending the Christmas time and singing ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... more than the white hairs on his head were the sage thoughts in his mind; his wrinkles and furrows were inscriptions that Time had graved, and in which he had written legends of wisdom that had been tested by the tenor of a life. And Ernest had ceased to be obscure. Unsought for, undesired, had come the fame which so many seek, and made him known in the great world, beyond the limits of the valley in which he had dwelt so quietly. College professors, and even the active men of cities, came from far to see and converse with Ernest; ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... God Insight on Daire, and aloud he cried, "A kingly man, of mind unmovable Art thou; and as the rock beneath my tower Shakes not in storm so shakes not heart of thine: Such men are of the height and not the plain: Therefore that hill to thee I grant unsought Which whilome I refused. Possession take This day, lest hostile demon warp my mood; And build thereon thy church. The same shall stand Strong mother-church of all thy great ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere
... that rich men cannot buy, That learning is too proud to gather up; But which the poor and the despised of all Seek and obtain, and often find unsought? Tell me—and I will tell thee what is ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... as the Convention adjourned, finding myself out of harmony with prevailing opinion as to the certainty of war and necessity for preparation, I retired to my estate, determined to accept such responsibility only as came to me unsought. ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... heart and mind pretty full, and a stronger, stranger aversion to ever going back to the shop again. This new, unexpected, and unsought-for friendship embarrassed the poor ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... apostrophising. It was sermon-day, and he had to write his discourse that very afternoon. A quaint idea seized him. 'Aha,' he said, almost gaily, in his volatile irresponsible fashion, 'I have my text ready; the hour brings it to me unsought; a quip, a quip! I shall preach on the Pool of Bethesda: "While I am coming, another steppeth down before me." The verse seems as if it were made on purpose for me; what a pity nobody else will understand it!' And he smiled quietly at the conceit, as he got the scented ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... observed in the Apostle's words here. He felt that their attitude to Christ determined his affinities with men. He could have no deep and true fellowship with others, whatever their name to live, who were daily 'seeking their own,' and at the same time leaving unsought 'the things of Jesus Christ.' They who are not alike in their deepest aims can have no real kindred. Must we not say that hosts of so-called Christian people do not seem to feel, if one can judge by the company they affect, that ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... disastrous conclusion in a majority of business enterprises, I confess the life of a New England farmer is to be preferred. It was so ordered that opportunities, which I never could have made for myself, came to me unsought and without effort. Such education as I have, a miscellany of odds and ends of learning, and such things as I have accomplished, are the chance results of various and disconnected impulses; and God himself has given me my beautiful ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... Whilst puss, less nice, e'en in the scorching window, On t'other side, sits winking to the sun. No sound is heard but humming of the bee, For she alone retires not from her labour, Nor leaves a meadow flower unsought for gain. ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... brightly and cheerfully through the chinks and crevices of both door and lattice; but the pilgrim's couch was yet unsought. His vigils had been undisturbed, save when the baying of some vagrant and ill-disciplined dogs, or the lusty carol of some valiant yeoman, reeling home after a noisy debauch, startled him from a painfully-recurring thought, to which, however, the mind involuntarily turned ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... myself by the banisters, made shift to get up with less fatigue than I expected from ancles so weak. But oh! Jack, what was Sixtus the Vth.'s artful depression of his natural powers to mine, when, as this half-dead Montalto, he gaped for the pretendedly unsought pontificate, and the moment he was chosen leapt upon the prancing beast, which it was thought by the amazed conclave he was not able to mount, without help of chairs and men? Never was there a more joyful heart and lighter heels than mine joined together; yet both ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... stiffened since the storm. It was too cold to be agreeable, and even the nail-customers, usually so early at the barn, were now at home hugging the kitchen stove. Pip stood alone at the grand flower table. His blossoms lay unsought upon the table. ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand
... existence. She could not put him away from her heart all at once. The weak heart still fondly clung to the dear familiar image. But the more intensely she had felt the cold neglect of Valentine, the more grateful to her seemed the unsought affection of ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... our grasp, Some other thing is given; sometimes Our wish is gained, and gifts unsought Are ours; these ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... that when the race really started the pursuer was nearly half a mile to the bad. But he had not recently consumed four Banbury cakes and two apples. Super-Banbury cakes of the dear old days, when margarine was ninepence a pound, flour unlimited, and currants unsought ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... choicest Patriots nearest the scene. One other circumstance we will note: that a careful Municipality, liberal of camp-furnaces, has not forgotten provision-carts. No member of the Sovereign need now go home to dinner; but can keep rank,—plentiful victual circulating unsought. Does not this People understand Insurrection? ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... loss: and there was nought. My sentience wholly sped: No sound, no feeling, sight, or thought: Yet I knew with a vacuous dread I lay a thing by God unsought,— Dead, dead,—for ever ...
— Iolaeus - The man that was a ghost • James A. Mackereth
... is grateful. No matter that it comes unsought, and comes not for the seeking. You do not discuss the reasonableness of your gratitude. You only know that your whole being bows with humility and utter thankfulness to him who thus crowns you monarch ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... he must have regretted that he had consented to cross swords with his lank opponent, for he had been forced into many an awkward corner. There is a popular tradition that the presidential nomination came to Lincoln unsought; but this is anything but true. On the contrary, in those debates with Douglas, he was consciously laying the foundation for his candidacy two years later. He used every effort to drive Douglas to admissions and statements ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... him all we can. You have been telling me you—you cared for me, and now that we are about to part I—I don't know what to say to you—unless it is: Give up this intention of yours to seek adventure, and come with us. It seems to me you need not hunt for excitement here; it will come unsought." ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... last, his passion had begun to fold its wings, and he grew dimly aware of a beating at the door of the solitary chamber in which he sat. He knew nothing of the enormity of which he was guilty—presenting unsought the city of Antwerp with a glorious phantasia. He did not know that only upon grand, solemn, world-wide occasions, such as a king's birthday or a ball at the Hotel de Ville, was such music on the card. When ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... think YOURSELVES secure; You may be grateful for the gift divine— That grace unsought, which made your black hearts pure, And fits your earth-born souls in Heaven ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
... and surprised ; he expatiated warmly upon the sweetness of character of all the royal family, and then begged me to consider the very peculiar distinction shown me, that, unsolicited, unsought, I had been marked out with such personal favour by the queen herself, as a person with whom she had been so singularly pleased, as to wish to settle me with one of the princesses, in preference to the thousands of ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... talker, as all good Spaniards are nowadays, but a talker in earnest and with his heart in it, he is varied, like the subjects of his conversation, and, still more, like the passions which they awake in him. And here I find an unsought reason in intellectual support of that intuitional observation which I noted down in starting—that Unamuno resembles the Welsh in that he is not ashamed of showing his passions—a thing which he has often to do, ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... never ask if she is engaged for it. He may request the pleasure or honor of her company for the next dance, and he will learn from her answer whether she be free, without compelling her to acknowledge at the last moment that she has been hitherto unsought. ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... whose object is not to console. It is easier for you to tell me the cause of your sorrow than, very simply, to speak of the deeper, the weightier reasons that induce your instinct to cling to this life whose distress you bemoan. Which of us finds not, unsought, many thousands of reasons for sorrow? It is doubtless of service that the sage should point out those that are loftiest, for the loftiest reasons for sorrow must be on the eve of becoming reasons for gladness and joy. But reasons ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... come to thee unsought, With nothing can his love be bought, His soul thine own will know at sight, With him thy heart can speak outright. Greet him nobly, love him well, Show him where your best thoughts dwell, Trust him greatly and for aye; A true friend comes ...
— For Auld Lang Syne • Ray Woodward
... waiting for an opportunity to suggest to him that his company had not only been unsought, but actually forced upon him, and even under his solemn protest. But before he could do so, Mr. Scrake was in the street; whereupon, on ascertaining that he was out of the hearing of Mr. Kornicker, he muttered to himself: 'It was no go. Waited for him two hours; then spent an hour in pumping ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... tone of light intercourse, the question was framed in a way to remind him that his good offices were unsought; and for a moment Selden was checked by it. The situation between them was one which could have been cleared up only by a sudden explosion of feeling; and their whole training and habit of mind were against the chances of ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... more than his Jewish dignity will justify. Nor will he question the reasonableness of so doing, although he may not care to spend any logic upon its support. How much more if he be a man who would love his neighbour if he could, will the higher condition unsought have been found in the action! For man is a whole; and so soon as he unites himself by obedient action, the truth that is in him makes itself known to him, shining from the new whole. For his action is his response to his maker's design, his individual part in the creation ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... low-browed, sibyl-eyed woman was vastly his inferior in all save beauty and wealth, she knew that even his failure to marry the widow would furnish no justification for the further indulgence of her own foolish and unsought preference. ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... riveted by these specks. They were all walking in directions radiating from the fallen man in a manner—the image came unsought to his mind—like the crowd dispersing ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... world, of affairs, mature, experienced, whom she hardly knew. It was charming she told herself, exciting. Life never had seemed half so delightful. Romantic, she felt Romance, unseen, intangible, at work all about her. And love, which of all things knowable was dearest to her, came to her unsought. ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... when the kindly eyes of the venerable naturalist beamed upon the monkey-figure dangled by undergraduates before him from the galleries, in addition to a solitary link of a huge chain, no doubt representing "the missing link." In 1878 the honour, long withheld, and certainly unsought, of being elected a corresponding member of the Paris Academy of Sciences in the section of Zoology, was his; and that tardy body recognised late the man whose supremacy in science it had done nothing either to foster or to approve. In 1879 ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... that of one so much younger, and, I grieve to say it, so far inferior in all respects. What congenial companionship could I promise myself? What confidence could I repose—what esteem could I entertain—for a silly girl, who, without warrant and utterly unsought, bestows her love (if, indeed, what you say be true) upon a man who never even dreamed of such folly, and is old enough to be ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... of the dollars—they were not coming unsought, and in order to make sure of them they must be looked for in their own habitat. This the women did on horseback, in wagons, carriages, steam cars and automobiles. They were found in the shops, offices and stores, ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... in the white sunlight. In the morning, when the nurse opened the blinds, that sunlight swept radiantly into the room, lavish with its caresses; always spending, always giving, the symbol of a loving care that had been poured out on her, unasked and unsought. It was sweet to rest, to sleep. And instead of the stringent monster-cry of the siren, of the discordant clamour of the mill bells, it was sweet yet strange to be awakened by silvertoned chimes proclaiming peaceful hours. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Men live by the primal energies of love, faith, imagination; and happily it is not given to every one to live, in the pecuniary sense, by the artistic utilisation and sale of these. You cannot make ideas; they must come unsought ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... limb of it! The Stage grew narrow while thou grewst to be In thy whole life an Exc'llent Comedie. To these a Virgin-modesty which first met Applause with blush and feare, as if he yet Had not deserv'd; till bold with constant praise His browes admitted the unsought for Bayes. Nor would he ravish fame; but left men free To their owne Vote and Ingenuity. When His faire Shepherdesse on the guilty Stage, Was martir'd betweene Ignorance and Rage; At which the impatient Vertues of those few ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in Ten Volumes - Volume I. • Beaumont and Fletcher
... that her services to the cause of Khem, which she loved, brought with them their own reward. But when I praised so fine a spirit, she burst into angry tears and left me wondering. For I knew nothing of the trouble at her heart. I knew not then that, unsought, this woman had given me her love, and that she was rent and torn by pangs of passion fixed like arrows in her breast. I did not know—how should I know it, who never looked upon her otherwise than as an instrument ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... unwarrantable advantage of her, thus to intrude on her privacy? But then—ah! how fatally, if not fortunately, that "but then" often comes in to seal our fate—"fix our flints," as backwoodsmen are fond of putting it!—but then, was not the opportunity unsought—quite accidental? Would it not be utterly absurd, as well as disingenuous, to pass her and pretend not to see her, with his botanical box full of her own ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... had been less uninviting, I should not have looked forward with such high beating of the heart to that cold home Anita was making for me. No, I withdraw that. It is fellows like me, to whom kindly looks and unsought attentions are as unfamiliar as flowers to the Arctic—it is men like me that appreciate and treasure and warm up under the faintest show or shadowy suggestion of the sunshine of sentiment. I'd be a little ashamed to say how much money I handed out to beggars and street gamins that day. ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips |
