"Impulsive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... impulsive and acted on the spur of the moment," Darrell replied; adding, in lower tones, "the mistake was in giving one so young and inexperienced a commission involving so much responsibility ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... children in an uneven, impulsive way. She would sometimes gather them passionately to her heart; she would sometimes forget them. The year before they had spent part of the summer with their grandmother Pontellier in Iberville. Feeling secure regarding their happiness and welfare, she did ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... his close attention to detail; and his gift in speaking of clear common-sense and forcible expression, free from wearisome redundancy or the suggestion of an irony that might strike above the heads of the jury. He gained the confidence of clients of all sorts—some of curious, impulsive, and not over-strict character, who might, perhaps, have landed a weaker or less rigidly high-principled advocate in serious blunders; and I do not think that he ever lost a client whom he had once gained.' But the first step was not easy. His solitary ways, his indifference to the lighter pursuits ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... and his party were driven out, Perikles passed a decree that six hundred Athenian volunteers should sail to Sinope, and become citizens there, receiving the houses and lands which had formerly been in the possession of the despot and his party. But in other cases he would not agree to the impulsive proposals of the Athenians, and he opposed them when, elated by their power and good fortune, they talked of recovering Egypt and attacking the seaboard of the Persian empire. Many, too, were inflamed ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... husband London free lump empty liberty rational capital impotent reason Capitol impetuosity irrationality grave impulsive ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock
... ambition always to be calm, oracular, weighty; always to be sure of himself; but his temperament was incurably nervous, restless, and impulsive. He could not be still, he could not wait. Instinct drove him to action for the sake of action, instinct made him seek continually for notice, prominence, comment. These fundamental appetites had urged ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... doctrines of the Revolution, while the Marquis de St. Cyr and his family fought inch by inch for the retention of those privileges which had placed them socially above their fellow-men. Marguerite, impulsive, thoughtless, not calculating the purport of her words, still smarting under the terrible insult her brother had suffered at the Marquis' hands, happened to hear—amongst her own coterie—that the St. Cyrs were in treasonable correspondence with Austria, hoping to obtain the Emperor's support ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... a moment after this impulsive entrance, and the governess turned toward Mrs. Foss a face that, benign and enlightened though it was, called up the memory of faces seen in good-humored German comic papers. The expression of her smile said to the company that she was guiltless in the matter of this invasion. ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... she probably gave him the warmest place in her heart, but she was a remarkably reserved, composed, and undemonstrative child, by no means addicted to caresses, and only in moments of deep feeling betrayed into an impulsive passionate gesture, or a ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... the dark earth. This was followed by a wild, elfin passage in triple time—a sort of grotesque interlude, like the dance of spirits upon the lawn. Then came a swift agitato finale—a breathless, hurrying, trembling movement, descriptive of flight, and uncertainty, and vague impulsive terror, which carried us away on its rustling wings, and left us all in emotion ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... gentleman; "she's as gentle and biddable as a lamb. I've only to say a word, and she's off like a shot to do my bidding; and she does it with such a sweet smile too." There was a touch of pathos in the old trader's voice as he said this. He was a man of strong feeling, and as impulsive in his tenderness as in his wrath. "But that rascal Charley," he continued, "is quite different. He's obstinate as a mule. To be sure, he has a good temper; and I must say for him he never goes into the sulks, which is a comfort, ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... King's agents, the ensuing adventure of the sea-fight, with Hamlet's daring act of hot-headed personal intrepidity, his capture and subsequent release on terms giving no less patent proof of his cool-headed and ready-witted courage and resource than the attack had afforded of his physically impulsive and even impetuous hardihood—all this serves no purpose whatever but that of exhibiting the instant and almost unscrupulous resolution of Hamlet's character in time of practical need. But for all that he or Hamlet has got by it, Shakespeare might too evidently have spared his pains; and for all ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... her poor little romance, builded upon so slight a foundation as an impulsive boy's ephemeral interest, was over. He would not come again—and she cared. She put her hand to her throat. It ached with the lump in it—yes, ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... budding tastes, clamorous appetites, primitive likes and dislikes, varied interests; an idealist and hater of shams, a reservoir of nerve force, a bundle of contradictions, a lover of fun but a possible lover of the best, a loyal friend of his true friends; impulsive, erratic, impressionable to an alarming degree." Furthermore, the boy is maturing, traversing the path from boyhood to manhood, is unstable, not only in his growth, but also in his thought, is restless because of his natural instability, and sometimes suffers from headiness and independence. ...
— The Boy and the Sunday School - A Manual of Principle and Method for the Work of the Sunday - School with Teen Age Boys • John L. Alexander
... as the old land-surveyor and finally head of the nation, Washington. Master Walsh was an Irishman by birth, though "caught young," as Dr. Johnson remarked, to account for any distinction acquired by natives of Scotland; and he displayed much of that impulsive temperament imputed to the people of Erin's Green Isle. He dressed in the old style, his gray hair gathered into a queue, and wearing top-boots to the last. He was an excellent classical scholar, as well as mathematician. The pupils he ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... be one of the pillars of the earth, one of those miraculous human beings who are mixed in just the right proportions, so that they aren't pulled two ways at once. Two ways! Most of us are pulled a thousand ways! It is one of the injustices of the earth that such people aren't loved as much as impulsive, selfish, brilliant natures like dear little Mark's. Paul has had such a restful personality! Even when he was a baby, he was so straight-backed and robust. There's no yellow streak in Paul, such as too much imagination lets in. I know all ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... gory." One governess after another was tried, But none of them stopped and one suddenly died. Then she went for a while to a wonderful school Which was run on the plan of the late Mrs. BOOLE; But no "ethical safeguards" could ever restrain So impulsive a heart and so fertile a brain; And a fire, for the kindling of which she was held Responsible, led to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 28, 1920 • Various
... an extremely penetrating critic, as inferior in energy to the former. So far as our knowledge goes at present, what is popularly known as "energy" or "go" is just as likely to be a certain net preponderance of a varied miscellany of impulsive qualities over a varied miscellany of restraints and inhibitions, as it is to prove a simple indivisible quality transmissible intact. We are so profoundly ignorant in these matters, so far from anything worthy of the name of science, that one view is just as permissible and ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... make it dignified and hieratic, disguise from us how utterly natural and simple it all is. I do not think that reverence and tradition and awe have done us any more grievous injury than the fact that we have made the Saviour into a figure with whom frank communication, eager, impulsive talk, would seem to be impossible. One thinks of Him, from pictures and from books, as grave, abstracted, chiding, precise, mournfully kind, solemnly considerate. I believe it in my heart to have ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... regretted her rash act ... After all, an impulsive girl might bite a man in the arm in the excitement of the moment and still have a sweet, ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... the latter story reproduce the principal features of almost a score of other Australian novels published within the last few years. The love-affairs of a beautiful, impulsive girl, sighing for knowledge of the great world beyond the limits of her narrow experience; the influence upon her of a fascinating and gentlemanly Englishman, with aristocratic connections and a dubious past; ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... a beautiful girl about twenty years of age, her hair and eyes were black—in fact she was a decided brunette. She was fiery, impulsive and amorous. We had a thousand things to converse about, and in a few hours all our old friendship was reknit, and we became more intimate than ever. Of ...
— The Life and Amours of the Beautiful, Gay and Dashing Kate Percival - The Belle of the Delaware • Kate Percival
... of MONTAIGNE, written about a generation later, the spirit of the Renaissance, which had filled the pages of Rabelais with such a superabundant energy, appears in a quieter and more cultivated form. The first fine rapture was over; and the impulsive ardours of creative thought were replaced by the calm serenity of criticism and reflection. Montaigne has none of the coarseness, none of the rollicking fun, none of the exuberant optimism, of Rabelais; he is a refined gentleman, who wishes to charm rather than to electrify, ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... take him with me. The obstinate Canadian refused, and I could clearly see that his tight-lipped mood and his bad temper were growing by the day. Under the circumstances I ultimately wasn't sorry that he refused. In truth, there were too many seals ashore, and it would never do to expose this impulsive fisherman to ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... cry of joy, she sprang into his arms, clasped her fingers tightly behind his neck, and rained impulsive ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo
... out the letter again, and ran down its impulsive staccato sentences, affecting to ignore what a gust of fresh air, high spirits, and good fellowship this flimsy bit of paper wafted into the jaded club-room. On reperusal, it was full of evil presage— 'Al scenery'—but ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... her Poems, which, though somewhat impulsive and overwrought, met with remarkable public favor. Such poems as "The Cry of the Children," which voices the protest of humanity against child labor, appealed tremendously to the readers of the age, and this young woman's fame as a poet temporarily overshadowed that of Tennyson and Browning. ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... the life of boys. However, it was a very mild form of runaway, twenty-five miles, and its objective my old home; not the lure of the sea nor the army, nor yet the adventures of the dime novel hidden in the hay mow. No, it was none of these, but strangely in contrast to them, an impulsive, passionate awakening of memory, an attempted escape from a future, which had been shown to me as in a vision, and from which I shrank ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... soon exposed this trick. Disguised as a pedler, he spread his goods, a shield and a spear among them, before the maidens. Then an alarm of danger being sounded, the girls fled in affright, but the disguised youth, with impulsive valor, seized the weapons and prepared to defend himself. His identity was ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... surface. They have not the pleasure of a long, deep gaze into immeasurable depths. And so they think her designing and clever, and (God save the mark!) even intellectual, when perhaps she has a wealth of love and devotion and heroism stored up behind that impulsive disposition and those dazzling black eyes which would do and dare more in a minute for some man she had set that great heart of hers upon than your cool-blooded, tranquil blonde would do in forty years. A ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... a step backward, then with an impulsive movement strode close up to him, his face unnaturally flushed and his eyes glittering with an ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... Benson this choice of name, he was rather sorry; it was like his sister's impulsive kindness—impulsive in everything—and he could imagine how Ruth's humility had touched her. He was sorry, but he ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... more impulsive, gave a cry when she read it, and, falling on her knees, thanked God for having heard her prayers, and saved her ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... meant for impulsive Jerry, just to notify him that under no conditions must he dream of making Frank's ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... friend, colaborer, and adviser of Luther. Luther was a resolute, energetic, impulsive man; Melanchthon was quiet, reserved, and conciliating. There is no doubt that these two men of such opposite dispositions exerted a salutary influence upon each other,—Luther stimulated and encouraged Melanchthon; ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... should kiss him, "before everybody"—the erratic and inconsiderate conduct of women in kissing boys was one of his trials. However, she was more judicious. She went on: "I knew I could trust you to be just, Oscar. Only you must remember that Ned isn't impulsive like you; it takes him a long time to get over things. You have made him unhappy and he may not be ready to forgive you at a minute's notice. But if you persevere, I am sure he will understand you and you will be ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... own lit up with renewed hope and he followed her in and touched her timidly on the arm. The girl turned, revealing a face rosy with cold, and a pair of warm gray eyes fringed in lashes of black, eyes that frankly offered a glimpse of a girl's impulsive heart brimming ...
— Uncle Noah's Christmas Inspiration • Leona Dalrymple
... just in time for dinner," he exclaimed, "so come in. There are others here who will rejoice to once more see you whom we thought dead long ago." And as these two dear, warm-hearted, impulsive friends dragged me in through the open window I became aware that the entire Mendouca family were in the drawing-room; and by them, too, I was very cordially welcomed, though, naturally, with a little more ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... the battle was fought, was one heap of dead bodies, and continued to be mentioned in the Arab chronicles under the name of Martyrs' Causeway. But the Arabs of Spain were then in that unstable social condition and in that heyday of impulsive youthfulness as a people, when men are more apt to be excited and attracted by the prospect of bold adventures than discouraged by reverses. El-Samah, on crossing the Pyrenees to go plundering and conquering in the country of the Frandj, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... was quite in accordance with his romantic, impulsive nature; and having made up his mind to save this black girl, he could not rest until the ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... name no names. The soul of delicacy and discretion, as of modesty and kindness, I name no names. But as for myself, that I am young I acknowledge. Those whom the gods love are ever young. Yet I am old enough, at least, to be capable of fresh, impulsive feelings. I am old enough to have cast the crude, harsh pessimism of inexperience. I am old enough to have outlived my disillusions. I am old enough to have learned that the good things of life are good, ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... say, that something new, something unexpected is really about to happen: something that will surely leave a deep mark on his imagination, and last through all his life. I mean that peculiar radiation of impulsive energy issueing from anything really great, vibrating and palpitating from afar, fitting the soul to emotion ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... Mr Walton, I am so sorry you have been so ill!" exclaimed the impulsive girl, taking my hand in both of hers, and sitting down beside me. "I haven't had a chance of coming to see you before; though we've always managed—I mean auntie and I—to hear about you. I would have come to nurse you, but it was no use thinking ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... you're my age, Sally dear, you'll see there are ways and ways of looking at things. Everything can't be wrapped up in a nutshell. We're not Ancient Phoenicians nowadays, whatever papa may say. But you're a dear, impulsive ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... business! Convinced of its reality, he yet could not see it. The thing existed in his mind, not as a picture, but as a piece of irrefutable evidence. Larry had not meant to do it, of course. But it was murder, all the same. Men like Larry—weak, impulsive, sentimental, introspective creatures—did they ever mean what they did? This man, this Walenn, was, by all accounts, better dead than alive; no need to waste a thought on him! But, crime—the ugliness—Justice unsatisfied! Crime concealed—and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... in the sewing room until Katherine, followed by a maid, entered with tea and cakes. Some dress materials that rested on a gypsy table were swept aside by the impulsive Katherine, and the table, with the tray upon it, was placed at the right hand of Dorothy Amhurst. When the servant left the room, Katherine sidled to the long sewing table, sprang up lightly upon it, ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... room and told him that he would have to go to bed two hours earlier than usual that night as a punishment for his misdeed. Now we all know that "the days of youth are long, long days," and the many events of that day had completely crowded out of the little boy's mind the trivial, impulsive act of the morning. The punishment could not arouse in him any feeling but that ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... true?" he insisted, giving her an impulsive little shake. She sat up on his knees, wide-eyed and wet-cheeked ...
— The Rose Garden Husband • Margaret Widdemer
... been so petted, so feted, so adored. He might have been a pasha, had he been a Turk. The promising down on his upper lip—the object of his own secret solicitude and Olympia's gibes during the junior year—was quite worn away by the kissing he underwent among the impulsive Jeannettes of the village, who had a vague notion that soldiers, like sailors, were indurated for battle by adosculation. Jack may have believed this himself, for he took no pains to disabuse the maidens as to the inefficacy of ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... "Needs must with so impulsive a gentleman," the Bishop said. He had not moved, but at a signal from him The McMurrough, the O'Beirnes and two of the other young men had thrust themselves forward. "You must give up your sword, ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... Heedless, impulsive, Patricia had at least the gift of winning her way right to a child's heart; and without a moment's hesitation the child put a pair of clinging little arms ...
— Patricia • Emilia Elliott
... while Mr. Fortescue built up another rounded structure of words, had a likeness to each of her parents, but these elements were rather oddly blended. She had the quick, impulsive movements of her mother, the lips parting often to speak, and closing again; and the dark oval eyes of her father brimming with light upon a basis of sadness, or, since she was too young to have acquired a sorrowful point of view, one might say that the ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... and questioned me with her glance. I gave her the word, but she was not satisfied and pointed to my eyes. I told her, and she repeated the word, making it sound like 'ice.' She pointed up to the sky, then to my eyes, then back to the sky, with movements so quick and impulsive that she distracted me, and I had no idea what she wanted. She got up on her knees and wrung her hands. She pointed to her own eyes and shook her head, then to mine and ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... meaning that probably it never can be recalled (compare BENEVOLENCE). The Revised Version uses love in place of charity in 1 Cor. xiii, and elsewhere. Love is more intense, absorbing, and tender than friendship, more intense, impulsive, and perhaps passionate than affection; we speak of fervent love, but of deep or tender affection, or of close, firm, strong friendship. Love is used specifically for personal affection between the sexes in the ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... external nature in a way never known before. The physical improvements wrought by man upon the earth's surface I conceive as at once preparations for, and causes of, the possible development of higher types of humanity, beings less strong in the impulsive parts of our nature, more strong in the reasoning and moral, more fitted for the delights of social life, because society will then present less to dread ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... colour came into the clear delicacy of her cheeks, and the frank eyes moistened. She came up to him as he sat, and took his hand in both hers, pressing it warmly. "Ah, Mr. Chillingly," she said, with impulsive tremulous tones, "look round, look round this happy, peaceful home!—the life so free from a care, the husband whom I so love and honour; all the blessings that I might have so recklessly lost forever had I not met with you, had I ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Lyonors' castle, what does each in turn typify? What does the poet mean by making the first three contests increasingly difficult? by the terror which the fourth knight inspires? by the easy victory over him? What does Lynette represent in her impulsive and persistent ...
— Teachers' Outlines for Studies in English - Based on the Requirements for Admission to College • Gilbert Sykes Blakely
... She recoiled at the word, remembering how sorely her pride and feelings had been wounded by him she once held to be the best friend she had. She never could hold him as such any more. Her impulsive anger exaggerated even to wickedness the vanity of a man who fancied every woman was in love with him. She forgot all Major Harper's good qualities, his high sense of honour, his unselfish kindheartedness, his generous, gay spirit She set him down at once ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... the elder woman in her childish, impulsive way, and thanked her with many little German phrases of gratitude. Von Rittenheim raised her hand to ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... find you want me when you get settled, I'll come," she answered, and, giving Leslie's little gloved hand an impulsive squeeze, she said, "Good-night," and ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... stirred with the stranger's manner and voice, with the tenderness of his idle touch, that instead of re-entering the house she turned back again and observed the pair from a screened nook. Really she argued (being little less impulsive than Anna herself) it was very excusable in Anna to encourage him, however she might have contrived to make his acquaintance; he was so gentlemanly, so fascinating, had such beautiful eyes. The thought that he was several years her junior ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... isolation would be at worst a group isolation, and there can be no doubt that my friend is right in pointing out that there is much more social toleration for an act committed under the sanction of a group than for an isolated act that may be merely impulsive misbehaviour ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... an impossible supposition," said the practical Barbicane; "unless that impulsive force had failed; but even then its speed would diminish by degrees, and it ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... organization of wonderful versatility and commands influence and wins applause in vocations calling for spirit and vigor displayed at short and frequent intervals, rather than for continued tension on the nerves and muscles. He is warm, enthusiastic, generous, impulsive, and deficient in the selfish propensities and in ambition. He loves display and would like to have power, but is inadequate to the continued effort and the endurance necessary to obtain it. He wields a more potent influence in the pulpit, on the rostrum or in journalism. ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... after her wonderingly, saw young Allyne standing near, his eyes turned wistfully upon herself. She flushed a little, and so did he; then, with an impulsive movement, he ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... not want you to take me under compulsion!" exclaimed the Spaniard, quickly. "I would like to go—as your friend!" and he threw out his hands in an impulsive, appealing gesture. "As a ...
— The Moving Picture Boys at Panama - Stirring Adventures Along the Great Canal • Victor Appleton
... Burroughs, with the heroism of perfect breeding, turned away his eyes, and suppressed the enthusiastic answer that had risen to his lips. He would not add to her confusion by accepting as extraordinary the impulsive expression of her feelings. So he simply said, after a moment ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... village of Ruthwell, on the 22d September 1818. Lewis was slender, and of low stature. His countenance was sharp, and his eye intelligent, though frenzied with excitement. He always expressed himself in the language of enthusiasm, despised prudence and common sense, and commended the impulsive and fanciful. He published, in 1816, a small volume, entitled "The African Slave; with other Poems and Songs." Some of his lyrics are not unworthy of a place in the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... eyes were fixed upon him with a strange steadiness, as if perhaps they had been resting upon him for some minutes and she had forgotten herself. It was a little thing perhaps, but it was enough for his hot blood and swift-veering impulsive nature. He had just given the final stroke; he was panting, glowing. The people were shouting, rising in their seats, and repeating his name with caressing, applauding epithets attached to it. Chance had brought him near the seat in which she sat, with Jovita and Jose and ...
— The Pretty Sister Of Jose - 1889 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... almost deceiving eagerness, for the opening of a door, a footfall, the sound of a voice that was young. Mrs. Ackroyd, Lady Archie Brook—they looked surely twenty years younger than she did. She had been a fool! She had been a passionate, impulsive fool! ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... tired arms refuse the axe to rear, And claim a respite from the sylvan war; But not till half the prostrate forests lay Stretch'd in long ruin, and exposed to day) Then, nor till then, the Greeks' impulsive might Pierced the black phalanx, and let in the light. Great Agamemnon then the slaughter led, And slew Bienor at his people's head: Whose squire Oileus, with a sudden spring, Leap'd from the chariot to revenge his king; But in his front he felt the fatal wound, Which pierced ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... of the lack of damask roses in her cheeks, she seemed a healthy child, and certainly showed great capacity of energetic movement in the impulsive capers with which she welcomed her venerable progenitor. She shouted out her satisfaction, moreover (as her custom was, having never had any oversensitive auditors about her to tame down her voice), till even the Doctor's dull ears were ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... by a mere accident. He had chanced to be seated on her right hand at a formal dinner-party in town. Very little had passed between them then, but later, through the medium of his host, he had sought her out, and called upon her. Within a week he had asked her to be his wife. And Nan Everard, impulsive, dazzled by the prospect of unbounded wealth, and feverishly eager to ease the family ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... generous, impulsive old man. "Dorothy, Madge, and you are all in this world whom I love. Nothing shall make trouble between us. Whatever happens, ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... She had not turned her head away as had her sister. In fact, in spite of being two years younger than Ruth, Alice often showed more spirit. She was of an impulsive nature, and Mr. DeVere used to say she was very like her dead mother. Ruth was tall and fair, and of a romantic nature. Alice ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms - Or Lost in the Wilds of Florida • Laura Lee Hope
... Genevieve, that I make superhuman efforts; but no one is master of his thoughts. They are so impulsive and rapid that they seem to escape ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... its National Board. Every dollar subscribed has a definite channel designated for its expenditure and so there is no big treasury fund to quarrel over. There is always a sufficient number of experienced members to hold the younger and more impulsive recruits in check. Being one of the oldest women's organizations in existence it has accumulated a large store of wisdom and judgment. Even where people disapprove its purposes they cannot fail to ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... subject, in a happy moment she took up this humble one lying at her own door and allowed her self to write naturally even as in her most intimate letters. This is the reason of the vitality of Our Tillage; it was simple, natural, and reflected the author herself, her tender human heart, her impulsive nature, her bright playful humorous spirit. There is no thought, no mind stuff in it, and it is a classic! It is about the country, and she has so little observation that it might have been written in a town, ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... plan from seventeen on was to live in Italy. But it was I, after all, who went to Italy year after year, while John led Lord knows what thriftless life in Florida. From the last morning when he had wheeled, in our old big room, and dashed across it and thrown his arms around me in his own impulsive, irresistible way—since that morning I had never seen him. Letters, plenty. More money was needed always. John always thought that the world ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... gang aft agley'? Well, instead of proceeding, as originally intended, to the delightful environs of Glencaid, for a sort of a Summer vacation, I have, on the impulse of the moment, decided upon crossing the Styx. Our somewhat impulsive red friends out yonder are kindly preparing to assist me in making a successful passage, and the citizens of Glencaid, when they learn the sorrowful news of my translation, ought to come nobly forward ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... was a long report—sheet after sheet closely written. And in the middle of his work he broke off to read again the letter that he had written the night before. With a quick, impulsive gesture he kissed the name it bore. Then he ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... you injure your foundation by—branding it with his notoriety, in an impulsive and—and fruitless generosity. For it would be fruitless. You, of all people, must understand that the burden on the other side is—impossibly heavy. ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... say piqued, by this curious reticence; he begged hard for names; but Medhurst was adamant. "No, no," he replied; "we detectives have our own just pride in our profession. If I told you now, you would probably spoil all by some premature action. You are too open and impulsive! I will mention this alone: Colonel Clay will be shortly in Paris, and before long will begin from that city a fresh attempt at defrauding you, which he is now hatching. Mark my words, and see whether or not I have been kept well informed of the ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... himself. Passionate, impulsive, and often unreasonable, his mind was singularly well-balanced and never before had it succumbed to obsession. He had taken the war as a normal episode in the history of a world dealing mainly in war; not as a strictly personal experience designed by ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... was no place in the world. And not only willing but anxious. I couldn't credit him with generous impulses. For it seemed obvious to me from what I had learned that, to put it mildly, he was not an impulsive person. ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... hunting he was faint from hunger, and cast a greedy eye on some pottage that Jacob had prepared. But Jacob would not give his hungry brother the food until he had promised, by a solemn oath, to surrender his birthright to him. The clever man of enterprise, impulsive and passionate, thought more, for the moment, of the pangs of hunger than of his future prospects, and the quiet, plain, and cunning man of tents availed himself ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... was eminently a practical man, impulsive, as we learn from his imprudent marriage at nineteen, but with a strong sense of duty. His mother, who was Welsh, brought him up in habits of thrift and industry very unlike those of his ancestors, ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth
... gross breach of confidence, of which Mr. Adams, like other impulsive and confiding persons, often had been the victim, those letters were sold by Cunningham's heir in 1824, while the writer and many of the parties referred to were still alive. They were published as a part of the electioneering ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... to the prediction: "I dinna believe in sic things mysel', but, some way or ither, they aye come true." Lizzie's father and her whole family are said to have been highly respectable. Her truant and impulsive disposition led her, however, into conduct and habits that deprived her of the respect and help of her friends; and necessity at length appears to have constrained her to act the part of a fortune-teller, which she is known to have practised ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... would go down with sorrow to the grave. Still, what is glory without risk? Were he my own son, I should say, 'let him go.' Only, brother earl, caution thy noble son and heir, that the youngster is very much more likely to fail in discretion than in valour. He is one of those excitable, impulsive creatures who will, as I expect, fight like a wildcat, and ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... disguise themselves in order to pass from one cantonment to another. In a brief period, I created a feeling entirely different, and made the character of British officers respected and beloved. In the Gwalior territories the same result was obtained by the same means. However impulsive on other occasions, Lord Ellenborough behaved magnanimously after his victories over the Gwalior troops; but in sparing the State, he acted, I believe, against the feelings of his Council, amongst whom the doctrines of ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... confidence which should subsist between mother and daughter be once lost or disturbed; let the girl once fear to think aloud to her mother, and the charm is broken, and dangers encompass her around. No thoughtful woman can see a girl, thus alone, carried away by her impulsive feeling, devoting herself to the worship of some prominent man who dares to encourage or permit such tribute, without longing to step between and defend her, as Spenser's Britomart did the innocent Amoret from what she knows is the unseen, unfelt, ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... disturbed by the noise of roysterers. It was the summer home of a number of quiet people from the south—fishing men chiefly, who loved to hear the water rushing about their legs on the edges of the deep salmon-pools of the Conquhar Water. There was Cole, Radical M.P., impulsive and warm-hearted, a London lawyer who had declined, doubtless to his own monetary loss, to put his sense of justice permanently into a blue bag. There was Dr. Percival, the father of all them that cast the angle in Glen Conquhar, who now fished little in these degenerate days, but instead told ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... cynical repudiation [cheers] of a solemn treaty on the avowed grounds that when a nation's interests required it, right and good faith must give way to force. ["Hear, hear!"] The war has been carried on, therefore, with a systematic—not an impulsive or a casual—but a systematic violation of all the conventions and practices by which international agreements had sought to mitigate and to regularize the clash of arms. [Cheers.] She has now, I will not say reached a climax, for ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... should first achieve an important and decisive victory. Grant very quietly folded up the letter, put it by for future reference, and proceeded with the plans of his campaign, saying nothing. To Rosecrans's open, impulsive, and honorable nature, engaged with all his powers in furthering the interests of the Government and the general welfare of his command, this letter was an insult, and he treated it accordingly. On March 6th he prepared his reply, and forwarded it to Washington. In this letter he informs ...
— The Army of the Cumberland • Henry M. Cist
... always telling Matilda so. She is so impulsive. But as you may have matters of business, Mr. Prosper, on which to speak to Miss Thoroughbung, I ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... the impulsive reply. "I told you I didn't want the money. I have more than six hundred pounds a year, and never spend ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... man of earnest politics, of good company, wrapped in his own scheming, not impulsive, doing nothing beyond that which he intended, without abruptness, without hard words, discreet, accurate, learned, talking smoothly of a necessary massacre, a slaughterer, because ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... bells were chiming in the lofty dome. And then the lad—for he was Parsifal— Tight clutched his heart in sorrowful distress As King Amfortas groaned in bitter woe. He stood in utter anguish overcome, Breathing impulsive with deep sympathy, But spake no single word, nor gave one sign That he had understood the solemn feast, Or seen the glory of the Holy Grail. And when the last knight left the festal hall And all the doors were closed, then Gurnemanz Came to the ...
— Parsifal - A Drama by Wagner • Retold by Oliver Huckel
... an impulsive man is afraid of himself, and seldom carries out his first angry intentions. That is our chance of salvation. If, upon the receipt of your bomb-shell, M. Fauvel, unable to restrain himself, rushed into his wife's room, and cried, 'Where are your diamonds?' Mme. Fauvel will ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... twenty miles distant from Carthage, and began a partial blockade of the capital. On the 15 th December Belisarius met the Vandals in battle-array. The fight was more stubbornly contested than that of Ad Decimum; but Tzazo fell in the thickest of the battle, and again the impulsive nature of Gelimer was so moved by the sight of a brother's blood that he renounced the struggle for his crown and galloped away from ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... which the results were very incommensurate. Pile-driving was, in Mr. Nasmyth's words, conducted on the artillery or cannon-ball principle; the action being excessive and the mass deficient, and adapted rather for destructive than impulsive action. In his new and beautiful machine, he applied the elastic force of steam in raising the ram or driving block, on which, the block being disengaged, its whole weight of three tons descended on the head of the ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... the keys, and slips them into her pocket) A bunch of his keys; they are safer in my pocket than in Izod's—poor Izod is so impulsive. (she crosses to R. C., goes up the steps and calls at door. Calling) Squire! Squire! Here's Gilbert Hythe with two men. Don't let 'em ...
— The Squire - An Original Comedy in Three Acts • Arthur W. Pinero
... of anything for which their owner was not good enough. This impression upon him was so strong that he said, with blurting awkwardness, that she looked charming as she was, and needed not the slightest change. The value of this impulsive remark was fully appreciated by Dora, but she gave no sign of it, and simply said that if he were ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... pressure of the arm about her with an impulsive hug. "Oh, I knew you'd think of something perfectly lovely," she cried. "That would be much the best way, for she is so timid and quiet you couldn't keep her from being a wall-flowah at an ordinary ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... to take a box, as in the small enclosure it was easier to keep an eye on the children, and make sure they did nothing they ought not to. For the little Maynards were impulsive, and though Pompton was wise and sensible, he was not entirely accustomed to their ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells
... commonly impulsive and inquisitive, the first to come forward was one of the two friends of Don Antonio's wife, and her question was, "Tell me, Head, what shall I do to be very beautiful?" and the answer she got was, "Be ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... crape fan and swayed it. In the dining-room my guests proceeded with their lonely salad toward a probable lonely dessert. At thought of that dessert and of that salad, a suggestion, partly impulsive and partly flavoured with some faint reminiscence, at once besieged me, and in it I divined ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... smiled sadly at the impulsive Irishman's remark. He could see that he had moved every fibre of his feeling heart and warm nature and that he was following every incident of his terrible story of atrocities and sufferings with an ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... doors were open and a cool breeze, making the circuitous route of the passage ways, swept through the room, bulging a newspaper which he held opened out in front of him. He was scanning the headlines to catch the impulsive moods of the world. The parlor was not far away, down the hall, and voices reached him. And then there came the distressing hack, hack, of a hollow cough. He put down the newspaper, got up, and slowly strode about the room, not shaking with joviality as he walked. ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... fallen short of the standard. But even so he would seem a more natural personage to haunt the still quadrangles of the College than his antagonist, Mr. Gladstone, who was an honorary Fellow of the College, but whose impulsive, eager vivacity would harmonize ill with the spirit ...
— Oxford • Frederick Douglas How
... part of the book it is remarked that voluntary movements are preceded, not only by reflex, but also by "impulsive movements," the ceaseless activity of young infants being due to purposeless discharges of nervous energy. Reflex movements are followed by instinctive, and these by voluntary. The latter are first shown by grasping at objects, which took place in Preyer's ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... that the young man did not think of laughing. He had thought it wiser to prepare his irascible friend, lest the Baron might make some allusion to the grand event during the course of the conversation, and that the other might not make some impulsive remark. ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... as they stood in the hall. "I was too hasty; the intense desire to save you dictated my impulsive question, and your prompt answer was called forth by the rashness of a man who, in all the heat of his fervent love, sought to avert an impending danger. But you shall not be compelled thus to resign your freedom. Tell me now calmly if you can love me a little; if otherwise, ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus
... notion of maternal and paternal instincts; but the children don't often seem in folk-tales, to have a similar impulsive affection for their ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... him by shutting our eyes. You misconceive me if you imagine I think him capable of coolly plotting his cousin's death; but it is not outside the limits of the possible that what has happened a thousand times may have happened once more. Men less impulsive than Richard"— ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... those from which Gypsy was entirely free, and to which she had a special and inborn aversion. On the other hand, many of Gypsy's failings were not natural to Joy. Gypsy was always forgetting things she ought to remember. Joy seldom did. Gypsy was thoughtless, impulsive, always into mischief, out of it, sorry for it, and in again. Joy did wrong deliberately, as she did everything else, and did not become penitent in a hurry. Gypsy's temper was like a flash of lightning, hot and fierce and melting ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... making him a member of the Council of State. Goethe was the more willing to remain, since he detested his law practise, and his income from authorship was pitifully small. Moreover, he saw in the boyish, impulsive, sport-loving prince a sterling nature that might be led in the ways of wise rulership. For the nonce this was mission enough. He took his seat in the Council in June, 1776, with the title of Councilor of Legation. At first there was not very much ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... Aunt Ellinor—kind, busy, and impulsive, and always anxious to entertain the girls when they came for their fortnightly visit—pushed aside her papers and immediately gave her whole attention to the snapshots which ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... have obscured her attractions, there can be little doubt that she was so. What her character was, we can only conjecture from the tenor of our story: though we have reason to suspect that she was passionate, impulsive, and somewhat vain of her ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... really has a passionately affectionate nature and he would like to love Turgenieff in the warmest way possible; but unfortunately his impulsive feeling encounters nothing but a kindly, good-natured indifference, and he can by no means reconcile himself ...
— Reminiscences of Tolstoy - By His Son • Ilya Tolstoy
... but it sounded rather as an invitation to continue the siege in a less impulsive manner. So did Desmond construe what she had said, and his spirits reflected the satisfaction which the belief afforded him. When she joined them at lunch Kathleen found the two as full of spirits as if they had been children. Their laughter and jests were an offence to many who were ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... at the post who had real power were the garrison physicians. One of these, Dr. John Emerson was a giant in body and impulsive in spirit. On a certain day in early winter when the quartermaster was distributing stoves to the officers, Dr. Emerson asked for one for his negro servant. This the quartermaster refused, saying that there were not enough in store; whereupon the doctor insinuated that the ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen
... the boys, had seen from the first this danger. Quicker witted than the others, he had thought of the hill that lay before the runaways. But his shout of warning to Teddy had come too late to stop that impulsive youth, and ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport
... impulsive welcome did not, of course, escape the keen eyes of the sisters-in-law, which, in such matters as these, were ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... character is unmistakably revealed. No writer, ancient or modern, is more frank than he. He neither hides his own faults, nor desires his friends to hide theirs from him; [118] his verses are the honest spontaneous expression of his every-day life. In them we see a youth, ardent, unaffected, impulsive, generous, courteous, and outspoken, but indifferent to the serious interests of life; recklessly self-indulgent, plunging into the grossest sensuality, and that with so little sense of guilt as to appeal to Heaven as witness of the ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... man of thirty. There were paragraphs cut from newspapers, telling of his genius as a soldier, his prowess as a mountaineer and hunter of big game, with dramatic anecdotes of his haughty courage in time of danger, his impulsive charities, his well thought out schemes for the welfare of his subjects ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... citizen of the antecedents, ardent patriotism, and impulsive nature of Rutherford B. Hayes would enter the army in the war for the Union, was to be looked for as a thing of course. He had been in the habit of obeying every call of duty, and could not therefore disobey when duty called loudest. He regarded the war waged for the ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... a comfort to him afterward to recall that he submitted to her impulsive caress without ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... words merely give my imagination a letter of introduction to my reason. They burrow among the foundations of my life and being. At least—you have done me no wrong...." He knew the words were wild, impulsive, yet he could find no better. Above all things he wished to ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... to Rhuddlan and this present visit to Carnarvon, Joanna had grown from a child to a woman, and was no longer able to run about with her brothers at will, though she still retained her old fearless, independent spirit and impulsive generosity of temperament, and was a universal favourite, despite the fact that she gave more trouble than ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... hand!" cried impulsive, honest old Forty-nine. "That's enough. You're hungry. Sit down there. And quick, Carrie, pour us the California wine. Here's a gourd, there's a yeast powder can, and there's a tin cup. Thank you. Here's to you. Ah, that sets a fellow all right. It warms the heart; and, ...
— Shadows of Shasta • Joaquin Miller
... of sight until he saw his father leave the chapel, followed closely by Ann and Gwilym. The bent head and subdued appearance of the old man went straight to the sailor's warm, impulsive heart. With a single step he was at his father's side, taking his arm and linking ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... unkind;—she evidently intends to perform all her own duties punctually and faithfully, and expects others to do the same. I often look at her with wonder, her nature is so different from mine,—never impulsive, always cool and steady,—full of ceaseless activity, yet never hurried, and seemingly never perplexed. I sometimes think she sees the whole of her life mapped out before her, and takes up every event in order. With the exception of the servants, we are the only occupants of the house, Eleanor ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... greeting, that afternoon. Then, on a sudden, she rested both hands upon my breast. When she did that you tingled all over, in an agreeable fashion. "It was uncommonly decent of you to remember", said this impulsive young woman. "It was dear of you! And ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... envelope and read—a blurred, scrawled, miserable letter; the words erased with passionate strokes, and blotted with hot tears, and scored out in impulsive misery. It was long, yet at a glance he scanned its message and its meaning; at the first few words he knew its whole as well as though he ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... Anura among the Amphibia are saltatory, but their leaps are usually single, or repeated only a few times, not sustained gallops. The exceptions among the Mammalia still more tend to prove the close correspondence between the 'impulsive' mode of progression and the dislocation of the male gonads. In the Monotremata there is no scrotum, the testes are in a position similar to that which obtains in Reptiles, and they are the only Mammals in which these organs are anterior to ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham
... impulsive people repent them of their generosities as soon as the magnanimous fervour has cooled. The grandeur of Paragot lay in the fact that he never repented. He was fantastic, self-indulgent, wastrel, braggart, ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... sympathized with this impulsive act. The heads of the dead, borne on the points of spears, were shown the garrison, and at once the gates were thrown open, the hungry troops supplied with food, and a general fraternization took place. ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... time, and with our colder Northern temperament, to comprehend the romantic feelings of attachment subsisting between Schubert and some of his friends,—feelings which, however, are by no means rare among the impulsive youth of South Germany,—but his naive simplicity, cheerful and eminently sociable disposition, insensibility to envy, and incorruptible modesty, were qualities calculated to transform the respect due to his genius into a strong personal liking. ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... General Grant was never impulsive, and always met his officers in an unceremonious way, with a quiet "How are you" soon putting one at his ease, since the pleasant tone in which he spoke gave assurance of welcome, although his manner was otherwise impassive. When the ordinary greeting was over, he usually waited for his ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... eminent, and successful Roman, who devoted most of his leisure to moral philosophy, than as a real philosopher by habit and profession. And in this point of view his very inconsistencies have their charm, as illustrating his ardent, impulsive, imaginative temperament. He was no apathetic, self-contained, impassible Stoic, but a passionate, warm-hearted man, who could break into a flood of unrestrained tears at the death of his friend Annaeus Serenus,[57] and feel a trembling solicitude for the welfare ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... unnecessary collision with the privates, but to take the responsible officer aside and make him privately understand that he must answer for such lack of instruction or of discipline among his men. An impulsive man is too apt to meddle with details, and so to weaken the sense of responsibility in the intermediate officers, who hate to be ignored or belittled before the soldiers. But if Rosecrans's method was not an ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... task, my dear," he replied with a smile, gently stroking her hair the while, "and I do not think we are justified in undertaking it. How many times during our travels, Mary Louise, has your impulsive and tender heart urged you to assume the burdens of other people? You seem to pick up a trail of sorrow or unhappiness with the eagerness of a bloodhound and I have all I can do to call you off the scent. One small ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... considered, the woman from whom even J. Rodney Potts must flee in terror would not be of a sort to excite the imagination pleasurably. A less impulsive man than Solon Denney might have found cause for misgiving in this circumstance of Potts's prompt exodus. In the immediate flush of his triumph, however, the editor of the Argus had no leisure for negative reflections, and when ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... a rather impulsive young lady," said Miss Davis disapprovingly. "I wish she had taken a fancy to some one else than my pupil. You must try to forget her, Hetty. Girls like her, with wealth and power and nobody to control them, are apt to become capricious, and work mischief with people ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... arises from the fact that a man so many-sided, so impulsive, so progressive, so modern—one might almost say so American—should have altered so little either in character or policy during quarter of a century. This is due to what we have called his mediaeval nature. He is ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... me, I speak as one gentleman to another, but—you must have noticed that Americans are unpopular with our troops. Eh? They are impulsive, these troopers; accidents cannot be prevented. Suppose something should happen to you? There is the trouble. You came to Cuba to enjoy its climate; you cannot be expected to remain indoors. Of course not. Well! Among our soldiers ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... lined. The success of these informal Scripture lessons led him to establish a religious paper for young people called The Youth's Companion, in which some of our hero's early verses appeared. His wife, Hannah Parker, is described as a charming woman, lively, impulsive, and emotional. Her son, Nathaniel, whose devotion to her never wavered, used to say, 'My veins are teeming with the quicksilver spirit my ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... There is no sharp line between them, but it depends upon the degree of objectivity my feeling has attained at the moment whether I say "It pleases me," or "It is beautiful." If I am self-conscious and critical, I shall probably use, one phrase; if I am impulsive and susceptible, the other. The more remote, interwoven, and inextricable the pleasure is, the more objective it will appear; and the union of two pleasures often makes one beauty. In Shakespeare's LIVth sonnet are ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... given herself up to her daughter's education; but the same moderation which she had had in her love, held in check the impulsive and morbid quality which is sometimes in motherhood, when the child is the only creature upon whom the woman can expend her jealous need of loving and being loved. She loved Minna much, but was clear in her judgment of her, and did not conceal any of her imperfections any more than she ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... I going to?" I ejaculated in a delirium of entrancing sensations—"Ah oh! oh!—what's going to happen, I'm bursting!" and my head fell on her shoulder as I lay nearly lifeless, all the extatic emotions of the impulsive gushes throbbing from me, as her grot seemed to grip and suck every drop of my life, so as to mingle the very essence of our being in the recesses of what I now ...
— Forbidden Fruit • Anonymous
... strength; and the ship was just entering the narrow passage between the island and the point that formed one termination of the bay, heading, of course, toward the tree to which the warp had been secured. It was an impulsive feeling, rather than any reason, that made me give the vessel a sheer with the helm, so as to send her directly through the passage, instead of letting her strike the rocks. I had no eventual hope in so ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... not without friends, who helped him as far as they could, and advised him as much as they dared; but he seems to have been a man who could not be assisted, because in matters of art he allowed no outside interference, and he was naturally impulsive. Money ran through his hands like water through a sieve, though it is only fair to point out that he was very generous, and could not lend a deaf ear to any ...
— Rembrandt • Josef Israels
... theory cannot fail in any such way, because all I have been able to find out hitherto regarding the vibration of vortices,[2] whether cored or coreless, does not seem to imply the liability of translational or impulsive energies of the individual vortices becoming lost in energy of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 460, October 25, 1884 • Various
... "You are very impulsive, Rosy—in spite of your years," said Oliver, with his usual quietness. "I assure you I do not wish to interfere; and you must set it down to brotherly affection if I sometimes feel inclined to wonder what you mean ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... Englishy tricks an' trokin's," said she, settling the white muslin band which she wore across her brow wrinkleless and straight, where it had been disarrayed by the onslaught of her impulsive granddaughter. ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... two races (the Israelites and the Edomites) that they respectively represent. Of the two brothers, Esau is in many ways the more attractive. He suggests the open air and the fields, where he loved to hunt. He is easy-going, ingenuous, and impulsive. His faults are those of not being or doing. As long as he had enough to eat and was comfortable, he was contented. He is the type of the world's drifters. Since Aram was far distant he disregards the wishes of his parents and marries one of the daughters of the land. No ambition stirred him ...
— The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament • Charles Foster Kent
... a moment, thinking of Roger, blunt, loyal, impulsive Roger, hoping that nothing serious ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... you, I'd go to bed," continued Wally, all gentle solicitude. She took an impulsive step ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... nor yet so pure, as it had been up to this moment. It often happens that certain actions of human life seem, literally speaking, improbable, though actual. Is not this because we constantly omit to turn the stream of psychological light upon our impulsive determinations, and fail to explain the subtile reasons, mysteriously conceived in our minds, which impelled them? Perhaps Eugenie's deep passion should be analyzed in its most delicate fibres; for it became, ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... determined new kind of womanhood over night. Her adventurous spirit worried him. One day he had sat in his office reading a letter announcing her homecoming. The letter seemed no more than a characteristic outburst from an impulsive girl who had but yesterday fallen asleep at evening in his arms. It confused him to think that an honest ploughmaker should have a letter from his little girl talking of the kind of living that he believed could only lead a ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson |
