"Impulse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the basket, lifted by the eager, slim hand of Miss Atwater, rose to disclose two cats of an age slightly beyond kittenhood. They were of a breed unfamiliar to Florence, and she did not obey the impulse that usually makes a girl seize upon any young cat at sight and caress it. Instead, she looked at them with some perplexity, and after a moment inquired: "Are they really cats, ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... contrast with its opposite that each of these ideas is brought into full manifestation. As the feeling of an internal power of self-determination elevates the man above the unlimited dominion of impulse and the instincts of nature; in a word, absolves him from nature's guardianship, so the necessity, which alongside of her he must recognize, is no mere natural necessity, but one lying beyond the world of sense in the abyss of infinitude; consequently it exhibits itself as the unfathomable ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... troubles our pleasure at seeing them terrified, bleeding, writhing in the horrible suffering we inflict on them, seeking to flee on their poor broken paws or desperately beating their wings, which can no longer support them. . . . The excuse is the impulse of that imperious atavism which the best of us have not the ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... one does not feel actual pain,—and what contents may be called a blessing; but it is a sort of blessing that extinguishes hopes and views, and is not so luxurious but one can bear to relinquish it. I seek amusements now to amuse me; I used to rush into them, because I had an impulse and wished for what I sought. My want of Mr. Essex has a little of both kinds, as it is for an addition to this place, for which my fondness is not worn out. I shall be very glad to see him here either on the 20th or 21st of this month, and shall have no engagement till the 23d, and will ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... the low murmur of voices. Then the inner door opened; he was showing a man through to the outer office. The man stumbled over the rug, and at his exclamation Ernestine looked up. Her own face paled; she half rose from her chair;—the native impulse to do something. She looked at Dr. Parkman. His face was entirely masked. The man passed into the outer room, leaving behind him something which caused Ernestine's ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... stories the priest, his wife, or his labourer is held up to ridicule, and in all the proverbs and popular sayings where the clergy are mentioned it is always with derision. The people shun the clergy, and have recourse to them not from the inner impulse of conscience, but from necessity. . . . And why do the people not respect the clergy? Because it forms a class apart; because, having received a false kind of education, it does not introduce into the life of the people the teaching ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... so long a journey before me I had to resist the impulse to share my provisions with them; but before we left, George carried a few ounces of tea up the hill. There was a merry chase as each tried to possess herself of the treasure. They were like children in their delight. A pair of moccasins ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... such as to give a safe, home-like feeling to the shy and doubtful of the company. But Tom knew better than injure his chance by precipitation: he would wait until the dancing was more general, and the impulse to movement stronger, and then offer himself. He stood therefore near Letty for some little time, talking to everybody, and making himself agreeable, as was his wont, all round; then at last, as if he had just caught sight of her, walked up to her where she stood flushed and eager, and ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... him. There, kneeling on the flags, praying unceasingly before a wooden crucifix, fevered by vigils and penances, he soon passed out of contemplation into ecstasy, and began to feel in himself that inward prophetic impulse which summoned him to preach ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... preposterous. Wogan felt very much inclined to sweep that curtain aside and tell his visitor how he had escaped from Newgate and played hide-and-seek amongst the chimney-pots. And although he restrained himself from that, he allowed his anger to get the better of his prudence. Under the impulse of his anger he acted. It was a whimsical thing that he did, and though he suffered for it he could never afterwards bring himself to regret it. He deliberately knelt down and kissed the instep of the foot which protruded from ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... through epidemics before, but never one like this, and now his energy was gone. For the first time in his life the impulse had come upon him to own defeat and surrender. Other men, younger doctors than he, should take up the fight. As for him, he could not battle against such odds. He would give it up; he would go away. He would take this little boy with ...
— A Melody in Silver • Keene Abbott
... ago. She knew exactly that for truth now. Long ago she had learned that whatever impulse had moved Clarence Breckenridge to ask her to marry him was quickly displaced by his vision of Billy's need as being ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... lamentations of a Dean from darkest Deanery, now transported to the Grace-haunted region of Overton! When first I set foot in this desolate waste, my primary impulse was to lift my venerable voice in a piercing wail of anguish. Only my overwhelming respect for the powers which sit sternly in Overton Hall, and a well-founded fear that I might be bundled off the campus to some fell institution for the demented, prompted me to refrain from howling. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... decide. Here is a mixture of three Powers founded in the Nature of Man; calculated to call forth the rational Faculties in the great points of Legislation, into exertion; to cultivate mutual Friendship, and good humour; and finally to enable them to decide, not by the impulse of passion, or party prejudice, but the calm Voice of Reason, which is the Voice of God:—In this mixture you may see your "natural, and actual Aristocracy among mankind," operating among the several Powers in Legislation, and producing the most happy Effects. But the Son of an excellent Man ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... a 'canon' [29] fixed against self-slaughter, which restrains him from leaving, out of his own impulse, this whilom paradise, this 'unweeded ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... Baptistery gates was made public, this announcement being the spring from which many rivers flowed. In that year Lorenzo Ghiberti, a young goldsmith assisting his father, was twenty-one, and Filippo Brunelleschi, another goldsmith, was twenty-two, while Giotto had been dead sixty-three years and the impulse he had given to painting had almost worked itself out. The new doors were to be of the same shape and size as those by Andrea Pisano, which were already getting on for seventy years old, and candidates were invited to make ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... against his shoulder, and finding it the best place in the world to be. "I never said I was going to take charge at all!" Then the impulse of confession seized her. "Will you hate me, if I ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
... was hoping you would come," said the latter so eagerly that Betty knew her impulse had been a correct one. The old woman had wanted some one—some one who understood—to pour out her ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope
... tastes from his father, who became a general in the English army. He had few advantages of education in his youth, though in later life he became studious, and had much love for mathematics. A soldier's life was his ambition, and fame was his dominating impulse. His indomitable spirit governed his physical weakness. The natural kindness of his nature rose superior to the irritability sometimes caused by his ill-health, and made him always sympathise with the ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... natures who are most tolerant of gayety? They know that gayety means impulse and vigor, that generally speaking it is disguised kindliness, and that if it were a mere affair of temperament and mood, still ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... or two. That is a universal experience in the labor movement everywhere. But it does not therefore follow that nothing has been gained. Even a group so loosely held together that it melts away after the first impulse of indignation has died out is often successful in procuring shorter hours or better wages or improved conditions for the trade or shops of their city. Besides each individual girl has had a little bit of education in what cooeperation means, and ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... perpetrated in the heart of the European capital specially devoted to amusement: what I describe took place in the most distant portion of Europe, where Nature is lovely and man, alas, the creature of impulse, the prey of those who lead him into ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... are the criteria according to which the Sceptic orders his daily life, as he cannot be entirely inactive, and they affect life in four different ways. They constitute the guidance of nature, the impulse of feeling; they give rise to the traditions of customs and laws, and make the teaching of the arts important.[5] According to the tradition of laws and customs, piety is a good in daily life, but it is not in itself an abstract good. The Sceptic of Sextus' time also inculcated ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick
... Dallas climbed down to say good-by. In all their lives, few caresses had ever passed between father and daughter, and those had been during her babyhood. But now, moved by a common impulse, each reached out at parting to clasp the other. And there were tears in ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... the iambic poets he would learn to express with energy his indignation at meanness, feebleness, wrong, and tyranny, while from the lyric poets he would learn the language suitable to every genial feeling and impulse of the human heart. And in reciting or singing all these, how would his power of terse, idiomatic expression, his sense of poetic beauty and his ear for rhythm and music be developed! With what a treasure of examples ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... company was constantly diminishing as they journeyed on, for the dangers were so many that death in various forms was constantly cutting them off. The survivors, full of sadness, and hurried on by some irresistible impulse, could not stop long in the way. All they could do was to give those who had fallen a hasty burial and then join in the ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... he was between the sheets with a hot-water bottle at his toes and a huge breakfast inside him that Roland learned the name of his good Samaritan. When he did, his first impulse was to struggle out of bed and make his escape. Geoffrey Windlebird's was a name which he had learned, in the course of his mercantile career, to hold in something approaching reverence as that of one of the mightiest business brains of ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... at last left the cottage only to go to the airship for supplies. He seldom even looked toward the lake. It was a long time since he had walked about its shores, but one afternoon the impulse came to wander that way again. He was amazed that the water was disappearing so rapidly. The body of the monster now lay more than fifteen rods from the water's edge, though it had been killed on the ...
— Omega, the Man • Lowell Howard Morrow
... Temple, and the brother of the princess. They, of course, whispered the wondrous secret to the warders, who in turn conveyed it to their friends, and the news spread like wildfire. The whole town "was moved, and the first impulse was to communicate to Madame Royale" the joyful intelligence that her brother still lived. Crowds flocked to see the interesting prisoner and to do him homage, and the turnkeys, anxious to err on ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... when, the morning papers having gone to press, the boys came down into the office with the night-gang of reporters to spend the dog-watch, according to their wont, in a game of ungodly poker. They were flush, for it had been pay-day in the afternoon, and under the reckless impulse of the holiday the jack-pot, ordinarily modest enough for cause, grew to unheard-of proportions. It contained nearly fifteen dollars when Rudie opened it at last. Amid breathless silence, he then and there made the only public ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... moved away from the broken auto, and looked at each other. Then, by a common impulse, they started toward the lonely house, which was set back ...
— Tom Swift and his Photo Telephone • Victor Appleton
... disagreeable necessity of turning the other cheek. If it be not tempered by spirit, it is apt to arouse contempt. The duke remained silent for the space of a minute or two. He was evidently struggling to suppress a good impulse. Then he turned to ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... beholdeth his own self as solely the agent, he, dull in mind, beholdeth not. He that hath no feeling of egoism, whose mind is not sullied, he, even killing all these people, killeth not, nor is fettered (by action).[300]—Knowledge, the object of knowledge, and the knower, form the three-fold impulse of action. Instrument, action, and the agent, form the three-fold complement of action.[301] Knowledge, action, and agent, are declared in the enumeration of qualities to be three-fold, according to the difference of qualities. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... anniversaries are held in Cincinnati, the first week in November, when all the great objects of Christian effort receive a renewed impulse. ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... thoughts, and my bosom heaved short and quickly as I revolved them; but as I turned my gaze for the last time towards the gallant army I was leaving, a pang of sorrow, of self-reproach, shot through me, and I could not help feeling how far less worthily was I acting in yielding to the impulse of my wishes, than had I remained to share ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... the Dane quietly. "From my point of view, the story is over. Ferguson's decision: that is the whole thing—made more interesting, more valuable, because the repetition of the thing proves beyond a doubt that he acted on principle, not on impulse. If he had flung himself into the life-boat because he was a coward, he would have been ashamed of it; and whatever he might have done afterwards, he would never have done that thing again. He would have been sensitive: not saving his own life would have turned into an obsession with him. But ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... silently, pulling at his beard. He made no reply to Undershaw's admiring comments; and the doctor wondered whether he was already ashamed of the impulse which had made him do ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... tell these tales with all the harrowing particulars and to find in each some evidence of the goodness of God to herself. Often Susan could let her run on and on without listening. But not that night. She resisted the impulse to bid her be silent, left the room and stood at the hall window. When she returned Mrs. Tucker was in bed, was snoring in a tranquillity that was the reverse of contagious. With her habitual cheerfulness she had adapted herself to her changed condition without fretting. She had ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... recognized that they are the product of a cultivated intellect, a bright fancy, and a feeling heart. A rich spiritual life breathes throughout the work, and there are occasional manifestations of fervid impulse and ardent feeling. Yet there is no straining of expression in the poems nor is there any loose fluency of thought. Throughout there is sustained elevation and lofty purpose. Her least work, moreover, is worthy of her, because it is always honest work. With a quiet simplicity ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... all those years, did Jamie seem willing to talk to, at the office, and that man was Harleston Bowdoin. Had he not loved her? Jamie never spoke of her; but Harleston had a happy impulse, and would talk to the old man about Mercedes. Away from business, Jamie would walk in all the places where her feet had trod. He would go to King's Chapel Sundays; and he looked up John Hughson again, ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... impulse on John Ellison's part, and an innocent purchaser of the mill would have laughed at him; but he stepped nearer to Colonel Witham and said, earnestly, "You'll have to let me in here some day, Colonel Witham. The mill isn't yours, and you know it." And he added, quickly, ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... deep plume of his broad-rimmed hat could not conceal the deep blue restless eyes, the delicate complexion, and rich brown clustering hair; the varying expression of features, which if not regularly handsome, were bright with intelligence and truth, and betraying like a crystal mirror every impulse of the heart—characteristics both of feature and disposition wholly dissimilar ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... first impulse to keep him out, for he wore an ugly look. But in a moment she realized that the direction of affairs was not in her control. He came straight forward with a mastery that ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... his voice and eyes. Moved by some sudden impulse not entirely guileless, she looked full at him and let her hand remain ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... down the stairs, snatching at his cap and reefer as he started, though he could not have told why he picked up these garments. Dave and Greg, acting on some mysterious impulse, grabbed up their reefers and hats, and went down the stairs hot-foot after their chum ...
— The High School Freshmen - Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... hands and watery, washed-out gray eyes, who spoke with a faint indefinable accent that was hauntingly reminiscent of the Cockney, and that was yet not Cockney of any brand she had ever encountered. Whatever they were, they were self-made men, she concluded; and she felt the impulse to shudder at thought of falling into their hands in a business way. There, they would ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... the bench from judicial bribery has been gradual in most of the European countries. In France it received an impulse in the 16th century from the high-minded chancellor, Michel de L'Hopital. In England judicial corruption has been a crime of remarkable rarity. Indeed, with the exception of a statute of 1384 (repealed by the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... method observed—no attempt to keep under cover. There was no time either for caution or concealment. I acted under instantaneous impulse, and with but one thought—to charge forward, scatter the stallions, and, if yet in time, save her from those hurling heels and fierce ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... annoyance which, once uttered, is remembered; which may burn like a blistering wound, or rankle like a poisoned arrow? If a child be crying or a friend capricious, or a servant unreasonable, be careful what you say. Do not speak while you feel the impulse of anger, for you will be almost certain to say too much, to say more than your cooler judgment will approve, and to speak in a way that you will regret. Be silent until the "sweet by and by," when you will be calm, ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... man of impulse, a poet. He got off the train at the next station, bought a piece of meat at a butcher shop, and captured the vagrant on the outskirts of the town. The return trip was made in the baggage car, and so Wolf came ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... thing, the noses of the horses behind touching the backs of the vehicles in advance, all bespattered with ebon mud—ebon mud that stuck like Jews' pitch. At times the mass, receiving some mysterious impulse far in the rear, away among the coiled thoroughfares out of sight, would, start forward with a spasmodic surge. It seemed as if some squadron of centaurs, on the thither side of Phlegethon, with charge on charge, was driving tormented humanity, with all ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... h'impulse, sir. But put a case that they're in the knockin' down style too?—then I'm left in the road, and Miss 'Azel ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... know that we ought to be surprised at anything in the conduct of this extraordinary man. The principles by which he regulated himself, if he had any that were fixed and determinate, and was not impelled to his actions by the impulse of the moment, were so different from those of other men, that it is difficult to reduce them to the same standard, or, indeed, to assign them to any standard. Be it as it may, so accustomed was Mr. Armstrong to his ways, that so singular a thing did not impress ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... was too late. What mad impulse possessed him I cannot say; but certain I am, from my knowledge of his character, that it was no foolish bravado or schoolboy desire to show off, that seduced him to so wild a freak. The fact was, but for the depth below, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... set in a good ship. Arrived in Virginia, I was treated with great courtesy in Williamsburg, and the Governor gave me welcome to his home for the sake of his old friend; and yet a little for my own, I think, for we were of one temper, though he was old and I young. We were both full of impulse and proud, and given to daring hard things, and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... know how many refugees fled to that little spot in the water, and that dark indeed have been the careers of some of them. Whether the hunted feeling of their fathers of generations back still lurks in these young Sicilians, I do not know, but certainly their first impulse is one of defense. At the simplest question there appears suddenly, even in the smallest child, the defiant flash of the dark eyes and the sullen setting of the mouth. The question—what does your father do?—or, what is your mother's name?—arouses their ever-smoldering suspicion, ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... determining how far he could trust the power of his untried wings to take him out of harm's way. After a moment's pause, with a loud chirrup, he launched out and made tolerable headway. The others rapidly followed. Each one, as it started upward, from a sudden impulse, contemptuously saluted the abandoned nest ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... her settled determination to unbend to him in no way and to have no dealings with him, were stronger than her impulse; and ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... 98) he admits that 'as all wish for happiness, the Greatest Happiness principle will have become a most important secondary guide and object, the social instincts, including sympathy, always serving as the primary impulse and guide.' This is just what Mr. Mill says, only instead of calling the principle a secondary guide, he would call it a standard, to distinguish it from the social impulse, in which, as much as Mr. Darwin, he recognises the base and foundation."—"Pall Mall Gazette," April 12th, 1871.) How ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... van der Windt did not answer, and I hoped that her thoughts had hopped to some other branch of the subject; but presently she broke out, as if impelled by impulse to utter her thought ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... swept into the girl's face. For the moment she forgot Gregory, and was only conscious of an unreasoning impulse which prompted her to take the hands held out to her. Then she rose and faced ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... little back den, that she told her what had befallen her father. From that day, Virginie had never stirred out of the gates, or crossed the threshold of the porter's lodge. I do not say that Madame Babette was tired of her continual presence, or regretted the impulse which made her rush to the De Crequy's well-known house—after being compelled to form one of the mad crowds that saw the Count de Crequy seized and hung—and hurry his daughter out, through alleys and backways, until ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... name to Mary. Still more incomprehensible is the conduct of the betrothed parties, according to this arrangement of events. Had Mary been visited by an angel, who had made known to her an approaching supernatural pregnancy, would not the first impulse of a delicate woman have been to hasten to impart to her betrothed the import of the divine message, and by this means to anticipate the humiliating discovery of her situation, and an injurious suspicion on the part of her affianced husband? But exactly this discovery Mary ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... infinitely preferred to beating. Mr Bonnycastle perceived that he had conquered the boy by one hour's well-timed severity. He therefore handed him over to the ushers in the school, and as they were equally empowered to administer the needful impulse, Johnny very soon became a very ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... addressed favoured him with a quizzical glance from between half-closed lids, and probably checking an impulse to remark that he happened to know that his questioner sometimes ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... had been shut within these seemingly solid walls had vanished utterly away; and then a sobbing murmur, that presently swelled into moans and cries of terror, arose from the throng; and in a moment more, seized by a common impulse, the whole company bowed downward, in suppliant dread of the gods by whom such ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... Anglaise," seemed to have come very near to him in the last few moments. He saw her blue eyes brim with tears at his harsh words—he thrilled as he had thrilled with the overmastering impulse which had made him take her into his arms—her hand lay once more in his hand, as it had lain, ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... golden rays of the sun. Already the shadow of the Cathedral seemed to envelop her, and she was on the point of entering her own garden by the little gate which separated it from the Clos, without having once glanced behind her. But on the threshold she turned quickly, as if seized with a kind impulse, not wishing that he should think she was angry, and confused, ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... painful endeavors, these midnight vigils, these weary studies, before which heart and flesh are failing? What have I gained? I have pushed my researches wide and far; my life has been one long and weary lesson; I have shut out from me the busy and beautiful world; I have chastened every youthful impulse; and at an age when the heart should be lightest and the pulse the freest, I am grave and silent and sorrowful,' and the frost of a premature age is gathering around my heart. Amidst these ponderous tomes, surrounded by the venerable ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... time Frank had ever been under fire, and he was thoroughly frightened; but he knew that it was his duty to resist the rebels, and to do them as much damage as possible; so, instead of looking round for a safe place to hide, his first impulse was to run up on deck after a gun. This he knew was a dangerous undertaking, for the vessel lay close to the bank, the top of which was on a level with the boiler-deck; and behind the levee, scarcely half a dozen rods distant, were the guerrillas, who were ready to shoot the first ...
— Frank on a Gun-Boat • Harry Castlemon
... remarks will have reference to this system, as I consider it the best. We will start with plants that have just been set out. If fruit is our aim, we should remember that the first and strongest impulse of each plant will be to propagate itself; but to the degree that it does so it lessens its own vitality and power to produce berries the following season. Therefore every runner that a plant makes means so much less and so much smaller fruit from that plant. ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... bridge, the battle at, the first of the Revolution below the Roanoke, ii. 119; impulse given by the victory at, to the Revolution ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... impulse of the moment a man proceeds to make love, he generally does it up ship-shape; but if he, with malice aforethought, lays deliberate plans, he finds it the most awkward traverse to work in the world to follow them—but I did not know this. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... alas, young men, I fear you are doomed to forfeit your lives as the cost of rescuing an old man who is not long for this life in any event. I wish that you had been far away and had never had the brave impulse to risk your young lives ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... Professor T.B. Maury has stated that "the origin of cyclones is found in the tendency of the south-east trade-winds to invade the territory of the north-east trades by sweeping over the equator into our hemisphere, the lateral conflict of the currents giving an initial impulse to bodies of air by which they begin to rotate." Cyclones having thus originated, Professor Maury considers that they are continued and intensified by the vapour condensed in their vortex forming a vacuum.* (* "Quarterly Journal ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... dock and pushed my way through the crowd. Outside the court-house I came face to face with Sir Thomas Colford. A sudden impulse moved me ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... tortoise and in Daphnia is reduced to about one-half if the temperature is lowered 10 deg C., and Maxwell, Keith Lucas, and Snyder found the same influence of temperature for the rate with which an impulse travels in the nerve. Peter observed that the rate of development in a sea-urchin's egg is reduced to less than one-half if the temperature (within certain limits) is reduced by 10 degrees. The same effect of temperature upon the rate of development holds for the egg of the frog, ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... lips part, as if for a last breath ere he reached the goal. It was like a child finding little by little the use of its limbs, the testimony of its senses, at a definite moment. With all its poetic impulse, it is an age clearly of faithful observation, of what we call realism, alike in its iconic and heroic work; alike in portraiture, that is to say, and in the presentment of divine or abstract types. Its workmen ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... be ventured with much confidence. There had been great changes of opinion. It would not be fair to say that the movement towards skepticism had been accelerated. Rather, the movement which had its inception back in the days of Reginald Scot and had found in the last days of James I a second impulse, which had been quietly gaining force in the thirties, forties, and fifties, was now under full headway. Common sense was coming into ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... how shall he whose mission is to bring The soul to worship at its rightful shrine, Seeing in Beauty what is most divine, Give out the mightiest impulse, and thus fling His soul into the future, scattering The living seed of wisdom? Shall there shine From underneath his hand a matchless line Of high earth-beauties, till the wide world ring With the far clang that tells a missioned ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... something very different from insanity, in anything like the usual meaning of that word. No doubt it might develop into insanity. The longing for death might become an irresistible impulse to self-destruction; the disorder of feeling and will might extend to sense and intellect; delusions might arise; and the man might become, as we say, incapable and irresponsible. But Hamlet's melancholy is some way from this condition. It is ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... knew the best manner of interesting the imaginations of the Russians in what they read. This imagination however has not as yet manifested itself either in the fine arts or in poetry. They reach a certain point in all things very quickly, and do not go beyond that. Impulse makes them take the first steps: but the second belong to reflection, and these Russians, who have nothing in common with the people of the North, are as yet very little capable ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... renowned, may the great god (Anu), the father of gods, who named my reign, turn him back, shatter his sceptre in pieces, curse his fortunes; may Bel the lord who fixes the fates, whose command is not set aside, who extended my sovereignty, cause for him an endless revolt, an impulse to fly from his home, and set for his fortune a reign of sighs, short days, years of want, darkness that has no ray of light and a death in the sight of all men. May he decree with his heavy curse the ruin of his city, the scattering of his people, the removal of his sovereignty, the disappearance ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns
... nothing really Greek. We do not hear of Eros, either as the mystic mania of Plato, or as the winged boy of Meleager. Love in Lucretius is something deeper, larger, and more elemental than the Greeks conceived; a fierce and overmastering force, a natural impulse which men share in common with the world of things.[1] Both the pleasures and the pains of love are conceived on a gigantic scale, and described with an irony that has the growl of a roused lion ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... privilege to read at leisure and to examine in detail a play which, when presented upon the boards, sweeps the auditor along in a whirlwind of emotion.... The triumph of nature, with its impulse, its health, its essential sanity and rightness, over the cryptic formulas of convention and Puritanism, marks the meaning of the play.... Yet because it is a great drama, it may mean that to one and quite another thing to another, but meaning this, or meaning that, it must make, ...
— The Faith Healer - A Play in Three Acts • William Vaughn Moody
... deepening, Hannibal, returning from the well with a pail of water, heard the gate-latch click, and, looking up, saw Zell hurrying out with hat and shawl on, and having the appearance of carrying something under her shawl. He felt a little surprise at first, but then, Zell was so full of impulse, that he concluded: ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... been gained to affect that most unstable and mobile substance, nervous tissue. It is certainly quite conceivable that certain nervous centres in the brain (which centres, we cannot say) might be set into actual operation by some such process; or at least that the impulse or energy supplied in this manner might be sufficient to release the nervous energy stored in the cell, much as the trigger of a rifle would, when pressed, release the energy contained within the cartridge. Such "hair trigger" action has been postulated by both William ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... think I have always been afraid—all my life—" Without warning she threw her hands out wildly and broke into choking sobs, crying with the abandon of a frightened child. Yet no one could have mistaken the impulse of her grief. It was ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... abandonment of the protective policy by Great Britain and the United States new and important markets have already been opened for our agricultural and other products, commerce and navigation have received a new impulse, labor and trade have been released from the artificial trammels which have so long fettered them, and to a great extent reciprocity in the exchange of commodities has been introduced at the same time by both countries, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... prodigal son. But it is one thing if a painter, brought up in a school of realism, introduces such scenes, and quite another thing if a poet, accustomed to an ideal or mythological framework, is driven by inward impulse into realism. Besides which, priority in point of time is here, as in the descriptions of country life, on the side of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... dear to John Verney, because here, where mists were chill and blinding, he had been impelled to leave the broad high-road and take a path which led into a shadowy future. In obedience to an impulse stronger than himself he had taken the short cut to what ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... An impulse must be given to a boy's training. The time is past for the rule-and-rote method. The rule can be learned better by a manual application than by committing a ...
— Electricity for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... Europe protested. Priests should direct the conscience, but ought not to exercise any external or corporal jurisdiction over the citizens. I have suppressed feudal rights; and every one may set up inns, ovens, mills, fisheries, and give free impulse to his industry. The selfishness, wealth, and prosperity of a few did more injury to your agriculture than the heats of the extreme summer. As there is but one God, one system of justice only should exist in a state. ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... drenched fields, and dripping sky. My back was toward the courtyard, that is, "three-quarters" to it, and about noon I became distracted from my work by a strong self- consciousness which came upon me without any visible or audible cause. Obeying an impulse, I swung round on my camp-stool and looked up directly at the gallery window of the salon of the ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... least 500,000 men chosen on the principle of universal liability to service. An important part of the President's address was that in which he distinguished between the German people and the German government. With the former, he asserted, we had no quarrel, for it was not upon their impulse that their government acted in entering the war. But the latter, the Prussian autocracy, "was not and never could be our friend." Once more he disclaimed any desire for conquest ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... kitchen at midnight, with no fire and the air not much above the zero point. The truth is, I had miscalculated the distance of the descent—instead of falling one foot, I had fallen five. My first impulse was to ascend by the way I came down, but I found that impracticable. Then I tried the kitchen door; it was locked. I tried to force it open; it was made of two-inch stuff, and held its own. Then I hoisted a window, and there were the rigid iron bars. If ever I felt angry at anybody it was at myself ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... currents were branches of the equinoctial current, that flows from east to west—the first, which was farthest off from land, being on the return towards the east; and the second, which was found nearer to the land, having still enough of its original impulse to direct it onwards by the coast to the southern point of Africa, from which it would afterwards be deflected. Similar circuits are well known to be performed by the equinoctial current, in the Atlantic Ocean, on both sides ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... the vortex of pleasure, imagined a total indifference and universal negligence to be the most agreeable concomitants of youth, and the strongest indication of an airy temper and a quick apprehension. Vacant to every object, and sensible of every impulse, he thought that all appearance of diligence would deduct something from the reputation of genius; and hoped that he should appear to attain, amidst all the ease of carelessness, and all the tumult of diversion, that knowledge and those accomplishments ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... York night life probably still unfamiliar to him, the cattleman felt a surprise he carefully concealed. He guessed that this was a belated attempt on the part of Miss Whitford's fiance to overcome the palpable dislike he had for her friend. If so, the impulse that inspired the offer was a creditable one. Lindsay had no desire to take in any of the plague spots of the city with Bromfield. Something about the society man set his back up, to use his own phrase. But because ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... without complaining. When I first saw the boys, I expected to see them pull on this cord in different directions, as their attention was attracted by different objects. I soon perceived that this did not happen. The slightest impulse of one to move in any direction is immediately followed by the other; so that they appear to be influenced by the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 401, November 28, 1829 • Various
... the whole terrible affair, and realised it as absolute fact! My first impulse was to leap from the corroboree and go and reassure the unhappy victims in person, telling them at the same time that they might count on my assistance to the last. It was not advisable, however, to withdraw suddenly from the festivities, for fear ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... not here intend to enter upon a critical or literary analysis of the play, or to point out dramatic merits or defects, but we should like to make its readers feel with us the holy ardor and impulse of the writer and the spiritual import of the work. The action is without surprise, the doom fixed from the first; but so glowing is the canvas with local and historic color, so vital and intense the ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... classify Bjoernson's writings for the purpose of rendering some critical account of the man's work, the first impulse is to group them into the three divisions of fiction, lyric, and drama. But the most obvious fact of his long literary life is after all not so much that he has done great work in all three of these fundamental forms, as that the whole spirit and method ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... enormous boa constrictor. The monster raised his head to a height of five or six feet, directing it from one edge to the other of the ravine, and menacing his assailants with his forked tongue; but the dogs, more active than he was, easily avoided his attacks. My first impulse was to shoot him; but then it occurred to me to take him alive, and to send him to France. Assuredly he would have been the most monstrous boa that had ever been seen there. To carry my design into execution we manufactured nooses of cane, strong enough to resist the efforts ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... market-women, with their apple-bloom complexions, crowding around him, shows a somewhat withered face and figure, less genial than the handsome Heidelberg professor as he stands at Worms. But it was Erasmus, probably, who, among many other things he did while in England, lent an important impulse to the acting of plays by students. He, no doubt, was no further interested than to have masterpieces of Greek and Latin drama represented, that the students might have exercise in those languages; but before the reign of Henry ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... even in St. Petersburg, a single book-store.[29] The Russian sovereigns had wished to take from civilization only that which would add to their despotic power. Desiring to perpetuate the monopoly of authority, they sought to retain in their own hands the privileges of instruction. The impulse which Alexander had given to the cause of education spread throughout the empire, and the nobles, in the distant provinces, interested themselves in establishing schools. These schools were, however, very exclusive in their character, admitting none but ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... And he rested one powerful hand on her buckskin-clad shoulder while his lewd fingers moved, gently caressing the soft flesh underneath. A wild, panicky desire set Keeko half mad to fling his filthy hand from its contact. But she resisted the impulse. She knew she dared not risk it in his present mood and condition. Filled with unutterable loathing ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... an instant the motive that prompted the question, and the impulse to express her appreciation of it would not be denied. She extended her hand with an assumption of royal graciousness that did not cloak her gratitude. "Good-bye, Sir ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... of being an intruder Cytherea was about to step back and out of the room; but at the same moment Miss Aldclyffe turned, saw the impulse, and told her companion to stay, looking into her eyes as if she had half an intention to explain something. Cytherea felt certain it was the little mystery of her late movements. The other withdrew her eyes; ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... room. I had been fascinated by it from the first, fascinated enough to long to see it closer, and to hold it in my hand. But I was ashamed of this fascination—ashamed, I mean, to have any one know that I could be moved by such a childish impulse; so, instead of taking the box itself, which might easily be missed, I simply abstracted the tiny vial, and, satisfied with its possession, carried it about till I got to my room. Then, when the house was quiet ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... village or countryside having committed the crime. Granted he might have slipped past us somehow, and gone for the Squire. But why should he go for him in the wood? How did he know he was in the wood? You remember how suddenly the poor old boy bolted into it, on what a momentary impulse. It's the last place where one would normally look for such a man, in the middle of the night. No, it's an ugly thing to say, but we, the group round that garden table, were the only people who knew. Which brings me back to the one point in your remarks which I happen ...
— The Trees of Pride • G.K. Chesterton
... fulfill the purpose of a biography, in giving an exact and lively picture of the central figure and of his environment better than any other ever written. Previous to this, Boswell had spent some time on the Continent, and, driven by the peculiar form of hero-worship which was his overmastering impulse, he visited Corsica and became intimate with Pascal Paoli, the patriot who freed the island from the Genoese, but was subsequently conquered by the French, In 1768 Boswell published 'An Account of Corsica, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... scarcely afforded me one pleasant hour: my dear and tender wife could not but take notice of it, which drew those affectionate speeches from her: My dear, said she, I am really persuaded that some secret impulse from Heaven occasions in you a determination to see the island again; nor am I less sensible, but your being engaged to me and these dear children is the only hinderance of your departure. I know my dear, if I were in the grave, you would not ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... particular, since the raw material, the plant, the tools, the very roof that covered them, were all his! In this new human condition was a powerful reinforcement, from another angle of approach, of the humanistic impulse. Man's interest in himself, which had been sometimes that of the dilettante, largely imaginative and even sentimental, was reinforced by man's new distress ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... system are multiplying yearly under the impulse of immigration, of the rapid development of the newer States and Territories, and the consequent demand for additional means ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson
... can only conjecture. Possibly an increasing love for liquor had led to domestic differences, which his pleasure-loving nature would not brook. Certain it was that he was not like his wife. He was not a man in whom the moral sense was uppermost. He was governed by impulse and she by fixed moral and religious principles. He drank and she abhorred the habit. She tried first moral suasion to induce him to abandon the habit, and once, in a moment of wifely and motherly indignation, she broke up one of his drinking parties in her ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... leaning out of the open window, the night was soft and warm. Norma looked at her wrist watch; it was nine o'clock. A sudden mad impulse took her: she would go over to Jersey, and see Rose. It was not so very late, the babies kept Rose and Harry up until almost eleven. She thirsted suddenly for Rose, for Rose's beautiful, pure little face, her puzzled, earnest blue eyes under black eyebrows, her ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... complaint to his mother; for he knew that by doing so, he had given her trouble, instead of being a comfort and help to her, in the midst of her sorrows. Besides, he had broken his resolution; for he had most firmly resolved not to complain; he had yielded to the strong impulse of the moment, and now he was afraid he never should gain self-control. But there was nothing to be done, but to make stronger efforts to be contented and useful in his new home. He humbly asked God to enable him to do better, and to pardon ...
— Arthur Hamilton, and His Dog • Anonymous
... under any circumstances to be 'bliss,' is rank heresy to your well-known views; but I understand your present impulse is engendered by seeing our dear friend ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... could not answer with any elemental impulse; she had no understanding of "being part of the storm"; instead, she watched the horizon. "Oh!" she said, flinching. "I don't like it. What shall we do? Maurice, ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... ("No, no!") "Look around you. Look at the faces of yer brothers and sisthers, worn and starved. Look at yer women-kind, old before they've been young. Look at the babies at their mothers' breasts, first looking out on a wurrld in which they will never know a happy thought, never feel a joyous impulse, never laugh with the honest laughther of a free and contented and God-and-government-protected people. Are yez satisfied with this?" ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... the blue pump!" she cried softly. She felt like going up to it and hugging it, but fortunately she did not yield to the impulse. ...
— Four Girls and a Compact • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... defiance of Don Roderick increased his surprise. When the herald had retired, he turned an eye of suspicion on Count Julian. 'Thou hast represented thy countrymen,' said he, 'as sunk in effeminacy and lost to all generous impulse: yet I find them fighting with the courage and the strength of lions. Thou hast represented thy king as detested by his subjects, and surrounded by secret treason, but I behold his tents whitening the hills and dales, while thousands are hourly ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... not off, the racket on either side; now confidently asserting themselves by a semi-turbulent merriness; now all babble and bubble and surface; now dark, deep, and masterful through hidden force under a calm countenance; now tearing, and dashing, and running away with quickly scattered impulse. ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... presented his mistress, while employed at her toilette in adjusting her hair, which was remarkable for its beauty and luxuriance, and which she regarded as the apple of her eye. Afflicted by the unwelcome intelligence, she cut off half of her lovely tresses on the impulse of the moment, and sent them as her answer to the Count's letter. Struck by this unequivocal proof of the sincerity of her devotion to him, the Count returned to his allegiance to a mistress so devoted, and thenceforward retained it until ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... the left, the Hudson shone through the trees, and before dusk we swept across Lake Mahopec. I heard a voice singing to the dip of oars, and had to be held down by five men to restrain an involuntary impulse to quit ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... the hypothesis of the case, is true also of the Parent Mind, for at the stage where the initial movement of creation takes place, there are no existing conditions to compel action in one direction more than another. Consequently the direction taken by the creative impulse is not dictated by outward circumstances, and the primary movement must therefore be entirely due to the action of the Original Mind upon itself; it is the reaching out of this Mind for realization of all that it ...
— The Dore Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... nothing but Gian Galeazzo Visconti (who seemed to have spent his life either in murdering his relations or founding churches), or marble from the valley of Tosa, or German architects who had made the building differ from any other in Italy, or the impulse Napoleon had given to work on the facade, or the view from the roof all the way to Como with the Apennines and lots of other mountains whose names I'd never heard; but presently as we got out into the suburbs the road began to be so awful that no one could talk rationally ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... a chattering voice, and from the huts six others, naked as herself, came, stared at the whites, and then, as if driven by the same impulse, and just like rabbits, darted into ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... reference to anybody, blew a shattering blast. It was a strange rousing noise, that made the heart beat. The summons was almost magical. Everybody came running, as if at a signal. And then the crowd in one impulse moved to ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... Terran steadily as if there were no difficulty in seeing through the brilliance of the beam to the man who held it. And, oddly enough, Shann experienced no repulsion toward its reptilian appearance as he had upon first sighting the beetle-Throg. On impulse he put down his torch on a rock and walked into the light to face squarely the thing ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... creating myriads of things or the appearance of different things, for there is only one thing. That is how the mystics talk—isn't it? You know more about them than I do. If to every man some woman represented more of this impulse than any other woman, he would be unable to separate himself from her; she would always be a light in his life which he would follow, a light in the mind—that is what Evelyn is to me; I never understood it ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... crimson with shame! Think of one of these hunted human beings—a beautiful young girl, just at that sweet and tender, almost holy period of life, the verge of womanhood, when every man of the land should start up with a noble impulse to throw the arm ...
— Shadows of Shasta • Joaquin Miller
... Anarchists. In the early 'eighties, when they developed their great mass following, the mass of the workers were just learning to organize to resist the fierce exploitation of a ruthless capitalism. The great eight-hour strike movement led by the "Chicago Anarchists" gave an enormous impulse to trade union organization everywhere and it was for this that the employing interests had them hanged. When, for example, the older Chicago unions nowadays go out on parade on Labor Day, banner after banner bears the historic dale of 1886. Indeed, the A. F. ...
— Labor's Martyrs • Vito Marcantonio
... sympathetic aspirations which bound them together and gave their intercourse a very stimulating quality. The action and reaction upon each other of a group of young men of generous aims are peculiarly delicate and influential, affecting the very sources of individual strength and impulse. ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... defect in the constitution of nature, tending to mischief, it will lie upon those who maintain the position, to shew, why an extraordinary interposition did not take place rather to prevent the ship's striking, than to prevent her being beaten to pieces after she had struck. A very slight impulse upon the ship's course would have caused her to steer clear of the rock; and if all things were not equally easy to Omnipotence, we should say that this might have been done with less difficulty than a calm could be produced by suspending the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... began the young husband and broke off uncertainly. His troubled eyes went to the kind resolute face opposite, and the little roll of greenbacks dropped to the floor unheeded. "Fact is," said the young fellow, carried away by that impulse toward confidence which the sight of Persis was likely to inspire in the least communicative, "fact is we're having the deuce of ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... of life were becoming revolutionised for her. She was no longer like the girl she always had been before. She felt herself growing profoundly self-conscious, self-inquiring. She who had hitherto been the merest creature of impulse—generous impulse, surely, almost always—now found herself studying beforehand every word she ought to speak and every act she ought to do. She lay awake of nights cross-examining herself as to what precise words she had spoken that day, as to what things she had done, what gestures even she had ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... come to Alfred's literary achievements, we find no tendency to exaggerate or embellish the sober truth. His hand is manifest in the Laws, and strongly surmised in the Chronicles. In both these vernacular products we find a new start, a fresh impulse, under Alfred. But that which stamps a peculiar character on his Translations is that here we discern a new stride in the elevation of the native language to literary rank. Latin was no longer to be the sole ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... even the invincibles of the South fled their lines in sudden impulse, giving up an almost impregnable position. The haughty old artillerist, Braxton Bragg, was forced to officially admit that stampede. He added a few dozen corpses to his disciplinary "graveyards," "pour encourager les autres." Panic may attack even ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage |
