"Involuntarily" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of breath, and stood for a moment in the full light of the cheery blaze, one hand raised above his head as though to strike, and, presenting with his glittering eyes and working features, so terrible a spectacle of rage that his son recoiled involuntarily before him. ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... visions of beauty and fashion in smartly-cut linen gowns and the latest thing in stocks and belts and shoes and hats and gloves and parasols; not over-dressed in the least, but so correct, so up-to-date, so "well-planned," Miss Bibby involuntarily drew a heavy sigh ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... the sun dried his clothes; once or twice the bird made a sound—a plaintive little tone—and involuntarily the man moved with care, thinking not to frighten it. But caution in that regard seemed unnecessary, for the bird appeared very tame and not at all averse ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... Arthur involuntarily glanced at Hamish; the thought of his heart was, "You know why, if no one else does;" and caught Hamish looking at him stealthily, under cover of his fingers. Apparently, Hamish was annoyed at being so ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... black and white compartments—a moral and intellectual chequer-work; not that they love to make darkness, but that they luxuriate too eagerly in light: and their "over-muchness" toward some men involves an over-littleness towards others, whom they involuntarily contrast, in all their poor and peccant reality, with gorgeous idealisms. The larger half of mankind is exiled for them into a hemisphere of shadow, as dim, cold, and negative as the unlit portion of the crescent moon. Lamb's general tendency, though he too could warmly admire, was in a different ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... sweet and beautiful! She is young; and her mind is like crystal! Her sympathy is a joy! I am not an old man, and my affections were not engaged. They never had been till then. I hope I may say as much, even to a father!" My eyes involuntarily dropped. When I raised them again Mr. Trelawny was still gazing at me keenly. All the kindliness of his nature seemed to wreath itself in a smile as he held ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... Colony of New South Wales must here be closed for a time, the writer being embarked in the Britannia on his return to England. On reviewing the pages he has written, the question involuntarily arises in his mind, In what other colony under the British government has a narrator of its annals had such circumstances to record? No other colony was ever established under such circumstances. He has, it is true, occasionally ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... recognized him had we met in the street, so altered was every lineament. He passed by me quickly, saying, in a whisper that seemed scarcely to come from his lips, "Run, run! it is after me!" He gained the door to the landing, pulled it open, and rushed forth. I followed him into the landing involuntarily, calling him to stop; but, without heeding me, he bounded down the stairs, clinging to the balusters, and taking several steps at a time. I heard, where I stood, the street-door open,—heard it again clap to. I was left alone ...
— Haunted and the Haunters • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... struck such terror to his soul that involuntarily he looked to his mother for protection ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... least concern about him for it. But as much as I was hardened, and that was as much as I believe ever any wicked creature was, yet I could not help it, there was and would be hours of intervals and of dark reflections which came involuntarily in, and thrust in sighs into the middle of all my songs; and there would be sometimes a heaviness of heart which intermingled itself with all my joy, and which would often fetch a tear from my eye. And let others pretend what they will, I believe ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... through a most thorough course of education, and had a high spirit. In proportion to these great gifts of his was the allurement that they offered to follow his ambitions: and when once he had turned aside from what was best he drifted even involuntarily into what was worst. It began with his being refused a triumph over the Numantini: he had hoped for this honor because he had previously had the management of the business, but so far from obtaining anything of the kind he incurred the danger of being delivered up; then he decided ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... once I found myself at a cross path; I stopped involuntarily and thought, "I have stood here before; what is there here?" So it was. Two days before, I had here been struck by the fact that just above the knot on the bamboo stem there was a broad ring of blue-white hoarfrost, which blended imperceptibly with the ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... and Walter Espec, quite recovered from the effects of his struggle with the waves, and of the salt water he had involuntarily imbibed during his perilous adventure on the coast of Cyprus, was at Nicosia, and engaged in chivalrous exercises, in the courtyard of the house occupied by the Earl of March; when he was accosted ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... control in so far as that we must see and hear the greater part of what presents itself to us as near, and at the same time unfamiliar, unless we turn away or shut our eyes, or stop our ears by a mechanical process; and when we do this it is a sign that we have already involuntarily seen or heard more than we wished. The familiar, whether sight or ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... involuntarily. He found conversation with detectives as lively as playing at skittles with bombshells. They got on his nerves terribly, these undemonstrative gentlemen with no ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... and embraces of his mother! how many were her maxims and advices; how many her predictions of happiness. He began to look at his own form in the mirrors, and to feel in his own person the movement of desires, hopes, ambitions. Once he caught himself bowing and making gestures, almost involuntarily, before the mirrors. He laughed aloud, his mother laughed also, for she had caught him in the ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... Sommers involuntarily shrugged his shoulders. The anarchist was the most terrifying bugaboo in Chicago, referred to as a kind of Asiatic plague that might break out at any time. Before Lindsay could get his argument launched, however, ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... banks were slightly higher, while palms, pine-trees, and rubber plants succeeded the ferns. In the distance they now heard a tremendous crashing, which grew louder as the seconds passed. It finally sounded like an earthquake. Involuntarily they held their breath and grasped their weapons. Finally, at some distance in the woods they saw a dark mass moving rapidly and approaching the river obliquely. Palms and pine-trees went down before it like straws, while its head was continually among ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... to the reins to halt the pony, involuntarily. A wild thought of turning and fleeing away from this shelf of destruction launched itself upon her mind. It was folly—a thing impossible. There was nothing to do but go on. Shutting her eyes and holding her breath she felt the mare beneath her tremulously moving forward, smelling out ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... mutual friend proceeded, his attitude altered, his head was raised, his eye brightened, his features glowed, his soul was wrapt in the visions which were raised by Turl, and, unconscious of his own existence or that he spoke, his interrupting ejaculations now and then involuntarily burst forth—'That is true!—Well argued!—Do you think so?—Indeed!—I am glad of that!—Don't despond, Trevor! Don't ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... "The Ashtons!" involuntarily repeated Maude. "Are they here?—in the chateau?" And it instantly occurred to her how she should like to meet them, and parade her triumph. If ever a spark of feeling for her husband arose within Maude's heart, it was when ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Boyd cried out. "Those men were barefoot!" Involuntarily he swung one of his own booted feet out of the stirrup as if to assure himself that he still had adequate covering for ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... subdued light of the lamp Rosalind Hollis looked up and around, smiling involuntarily to see him standing there; then, serious, silent, she dropped her eyes to the pages of the volume he had discarded—volume ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... pointing the sword at me so that I involuntarily backed up although already at a ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... The Revenge is the offspring of the meditative impulse, that averts its gaze from the outward pageant of existence, to peer into the secrets of Man's ultimate destiny, and his relation to the "Universal," of which he involuntarily finds himself a part. ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... Here General Witherington involuntarily looked to his lady, while, guided by a similar impulse, her looks were turned upon him. They exchanged a momentary glance of deep and peculiar meaning, and then the eyes of both were fixed on ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... fate brought Raphael thoroughly to his senses. He immediately spread out the table-napkin with which he had lately taken the measure of the piece of shagreen. He heeded nothing as he laid the talisman upon it, and shuddered involuntarily at the sight of a slight difference between the present size of the skin and the ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... still morning air showed me whence the delicate attention had come. Was ever a respectable gentleman in such an impasse? The treacherous sand slope allowed no escape from a spot which I had visited most involuntarily, and a promenade on the river frontage was the signal for a bombardment from some insane native in a boat. I'm afraid that I lost my temper very ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... glanced behind us involuntarily. It may be that we both heard a footstep, but it is always difficult to say certainly after the event. At any rate, while in the act of turning our heads, two of the three Arabs, who had previously left the room, ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... your humbler garden plots. You were thrown at once into an invidious position. You felt that you were profiting by the needs of dignity, and that his poverty and not his will consented to your vulgar rule. Involuntarily you compared yourself with the swineherd that made Alfred watch his cakes, or some bloated citizen who may have given his sons and his condescension to the fallen Dionysius. Nor were the disagreeables purely fanciful and metaphysical, for the sway that he exercised over your feelings ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was, as I have intimated, exceedingly frail and unobtrusive in appearance; yet when we came upon this scene, the group of men about the inanimate form of her lover parted involuntarily as if a spirit had come upon them; though I do not think one of them, until that moment, had any suspicion of the relations between her and their young pastor. Being close behind her, I pressed forward too, and so it happened that I ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... some American poets, says "There is or was a Mr. Dwight who wrote a poem in the shape of an epic; and his baptismal name was Timothy;" and involuntarily we infer the sort of epic that a Timothy must write. Sterne humorously exhorts all godfathers not "to ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... before had I forgotten an engagement with Raoul. But this time I had forgotten. There had been so many miserable things to think of, that they had crowded the one pleasant thing out of my tortured brain. I drew away from him involuntarily ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... not too late to renounce our plans, she frowned severely; when I begged her to open her heart to me and I told her I would die rather than cause her one regret, she threw her arms about my neck, then stopped and repulsed me as though involuntarily. Finally, I entered her room holding in my hand a ticket on which our places were marked for the carriage to Besancon. I approached her and placed it in her lap; she stretched out her hand, screamed and fell unconscious at ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... dug into the palms of my hands as I entered the shack, and his head turned slowly as I came in, and in his eyes I saw the confession his babbling had revealed to me. But then an expression of pain came also, that made me involuntarily look at Frenchy's little ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... held out her hands to him, and Brent just as involuntarily took them in his. He was a cool and not easily impressed young man, but his pulses thrilled as he felt the ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... the fall burst upon them with such deafening violence, that they involuntarily started. It seemed as if a mighty torrent had burst its bounds and was about to sweep them away, along with the forest through which they rode. Pressing forward in eager haste, they soon found that their ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... aroused in the night by seeing a dark figure standing with his back to her only a few feet from her bed. Involuntarily the child stirred. In that instant a black-masked face turned toward her and Tania gave the single, terrified scream that Madge had heard. Before Tania could call out again, a handkerchief was tied so closely around her mouth that she ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers
... vessel, and the silence that ensued was followed by a soft tapping at the window, and the appearance of something, that resembled a big tube filled with a thick, pale blue fluid, made up of a mass of distinct veins. This tube floated into the room, and passing close to the three sitters, who involuntarily shrank away from it, disappeared in the wall, behind them. A loud crack as if the branch of a tree had broken, terminated the phenomena—the room again becoming pitch dark. But the three sitters, although they knew there would be no further ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... incapable of affecting enthusiasm, or of acting any part to show myself off; yet Mowbray's opinion and my own observations coinciding, unconsciously and involuntarily, I afterwards became more at my ease in yielding to my natural feelings and ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... of a young monarch greeting a victorious general. It seemed that, for a moment, his Majesty wished to destroy all difference of rank between himself and the man that he honoured. So studied and so inexpressibly graceful were his movements that the gaze of all around involuntarily fixed upon him. Mrs. Dallington Vere unconsciously refrained from speaking as he approached; and one or two, without actually knowing his purpose, made way. They seemed awed by his dignity, and shuffled behind Mr. Dacre, as if he were the only person who ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... for antiquity on the part of the artists, who involuntarily assume proportion and moderation to be the property of all antiquity. Purity of ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... host chatted for a few minutes on various topics. The gilt titles on the imposing "Lives of Great Naval Commanders," having received their share of the general dusting, now shone forth resplendent, and the Captain noticed Ralph's eye as it involuntarily turned ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... the Life[230] of St. Philip of Neri, where they relate his ecstasies and his elevations from earth into the air, sometimes to the height of several yards, and almost to the ceiling of his room, and this quite involuntarily. He tried in vain to hide it from the knowledge of those present, for fear of attracting their admiration, and feeling in it some vain complacency. The writers who give us these particulars do not say what was the cause, whether these ecstatic elevations from the ground ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... horse in the narrow lane, and shouted after her an injunction to make haste as, with her head bent low, she struggled down to the path to Haytersbank Farm. She saw the light in the window from the top of the brow, and involuntarily she slackened her pace. She had never seen Bell Robson, and would Sylvia recollect her? If she did not how awkward it would be to give the explanation of who she was, and what her errand was, and why she was sent. Nevertheless, it must be done; so on she went, and ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... congratulation to his wife! Was it Fournel's intention thus to show that he had forgiven and forgotten? It was not like the man to either forgive or forget. What did it mean? He left the house buried in morbid speculation, and involuntarily made his way to a little hut of two rooms which he had built in the Seigneury grounds. Here it was he read and wrote, here he had spent moody hours alone, day after day, for months past. He was not aware that some one left the crowd about the house and followed him. Arrived at ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... all authors, Shakspeare has least imitated or repeated himself. While he gives us, in many places, portraits of the same passion, the delineations are as distinct and dissimilar as they are in nature; all his personages involuntarily, and in spite of themselves, express their own characters. From his works may be gleaned a complete collection of precepts adapted to every condition of life and every conceivable circumstance of human affairs. His wit is ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... voice of a woman, and involuntarily the steps of Rose Alstine halted. Could that be her lover's mother thus addressing her son? The girl was too deeply excited to notice that the name uttered was not ...
— Five Thousand Dollars Reward • Frank Pinkerton
... cars pass toward the front with more important freight, Jeb felt that he was at last nearing the great adventure. His experience with the submarine left an indelible effect without producing anything like the result Tim would have desired. For Jeb had been involuntarily projected into that crisis before being given time to think; he had gone with the stream, not buoyed by courage but spurred by despair. Once tossed into the hideous vortex, he simply had to get out—which was vastly different from deliberately going into it with eyes ahead, as now when he approached ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... slight movements. For example, we fasten a recording device to the top of a person's head, so that his slightest movements will be recorded, then we ask him while standing perfectly still to think of an object at his right side. After several moments the record shows that he involuntarily leans in the direction of the object about which he is thinking. We find further illustration of this law when we examine people as they read, for they involuntarily accompany the reading with movements of speech, measurable in the muscles of ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... in which the canary spent his involuntarily celibate life, an ancient microphylla rose-bush, with a single imperfect bud blooming ahead of summer amid its glossy foliage, clambered over a green lattice to the gabled pediment of the porch, while the delicate shadows of the leaves rippled ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... yet more as a fantasy. She was still in such a trance-like state that she had been an hour on the little packet-boat before she became aware of the agitating fact that Mr Heddegan was on board with her. Involuntarily she slipped from her left hand the symbol ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.
... a large man, much larger altogether than myself, and as he said this I looked down involuntarily at his feet; or rather at his foot, for as he stood I could only see one. And then a sudden hope filled my heart. On that foot there glittered a shoe—not indeed such as were my own which were now resting ingloriously at Ballyglass while they were so sorely needed at ...
— The O'Conors of Castle Conor from Tales from all Countries • Anthony Trollope
... less conspicuous manner, by taking side streets, or the next parallel pavement, and appearing only at every corner in the distance. He appeared, however, close at hand, as Mae and Eric turned into their lodgings. His eyes met Mae's. She blushed involuntarily as she recognized him, and at once, in that moment, there was an invisible half-acquaintance established between the two. If they should ever meet again, they would ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... fellows had come to their senses, and so I had no difficulty in making my way through them along with my companion. We got out into the street without any difficulty. My new friend held my arm, and involuntarily made a turn to the right on leaving the door of the hall. Thus we walked along, and for some time we walked ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... her past mode of life and the new that she was hurrying toward lay the vast gulf of distance, of custom, of class even. It was bound to be crude, to be full of inconveniences and uncouthness. Her brother's letters had partly prepared her for that. Involuntarily she shrank from it, had been shrinking from it by fits and starts all the way, as flowers that thrive best in shady nooks shrink from hot sun and rude winds. Not that Estella Benton was particularly flower-like. On ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... path he followed left the open fields and entered the cool, dim forest, where all was so still and peaceful that involuntarily he changed his ...
— The Spectacle Man - A Story of the Missing Bridge • Mary F. Leonard
... place where I had found the kindliest hospitality, the utmost politeness, the most tender care, and best of all, new health and strength, and as I walked I could not help feeling terrified at the danger I had been in. I shuddered involuntarily; and at the present moment, after so many years, I still shudder when I think of the peril to which I had so heedlessly exposed myself. I wondered how I managed to go in, and still more how I came out; it seemed ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... resistance he so abhorred, was cruel: to yield was out of the question. I did what human beings do instinctively when they are driven to utter extremity—looked for aid to one higher than man: the words "God help me!" burst involuntarily ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... architecture. The domes, under Western influence, during the many centuries when Kieff was divorced from Russia, under Polish and Lithuanian rule, assumed forms which lack the purity and grace of those in Russia proper. Octagonal cupolas supported on thick, sloping bases involuntarily remind one of the cup-and-ball game. Not content with this degenerate beginning, they pursue their errors heavenward. Instead of terminating directly in a cross, they are surmounted by a lantern frescoed with saints, a second octagonal dome, a ball, and ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... more or less echoes, repeating involuntarily the virtues, the defects, the movements, and the characters of those ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... of the stranger then became exceedingly bright, and Midas involuntarily closed his eyes. On opening them again, he beheld only one yellow sunbeam in the room, and, all around him, the glistening of the precious metal which he had spent his life in ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... terrible one, with such dreadfulness of menace as to cause Whiskers and Fatty involuntarily to close their hands ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... greeted this speech with an unqualified ha! ha! and Fleda involuntarily raised her head to look at the last speaker; but there was nothing to be noticed about her, except that she was in rather nicer order than the ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... past them, and, instinctively, they grasped each other by the arm. A moan was distinctly heard; then another, louder and more terrible. A cry of agony succeeded, then a shriek, so loud and appalling that a cry of horror involuntarily ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... misfortune had no effect upon General Charles Lee, who came back to his command with as high an opinion of himself, and as low an opinion of certain other people, as he had had when he involuntarily left it. It was some time after this, at the battle of Monmouth Court House, that Charles Lee showed what sort of a man he really was. He had now become so jealous that he positively determined that he would not obey orders, and would ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... manifested in unusual intensity: humanity is a remarkably delicate fellow-feeling, greatness of soul a rare degree of self-command. (The consideration for those about one which is ethically demanded is given, moreover, to a certain extent involuntarily. The man in trouble and the merry man alike restrain themselves in the company of persons who are indifferent, or in an opposite mood, while they give rein to their emotions when with those similarly affected. Joy is enhanced ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... he cheerfully obeyed a captain, or war leader. When, therefore, Angles and Saxons entered upon a period of conquest in England, which lasted a hundred and fifty years, it became quite easy for the captain, imperceptibly, and, to a certain extent involuntarily, to add to his proper office that of law giver and administrator. In this way, especially after the exchange of Saxon for Norman administrators, the still rebellious Saxon freeman became hopelessly entangled in a network of machinery, local and ...
— A Comparative Study of the Negro Problem - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 4 • Charles C. Cook
... involuntarily from the window and looked at the twins. Their eyes were fixed, affectionate and anxious, on his face. With the quick change of mood of those whose chins are weak and whose hearts are warm, a flood of love for them gushed up within him and put out his anger. ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... wandering outcast, marked with the brand of terrible suspicion. Let her agony be sacred; it was God who sent it, and he only enabled her to endure it. With bent head, and streaming eyes, and a breast that heaved involuntarily with fitful sobs, Eric listened as though to his mother's voice, and only now and then he murmured low to himself, "O mother, mother, mother—but I am forgiven now. O mother, God and man have forgiven me, and we shall be at peace ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... back to Brockton, who was still standing at the edge of the terrace, watching the rider's progress. Slipping her hand involuntarily through the broker's arm and looking eagerly with him over the balustrade, she ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... down upon these fair Armidas with a look of such mild reproach, such sweet compassion,—not shaking off the hand, in his chivalrous devotion to the sex, which extended even to all its outcasts,—that each bold eye felt abashed. The hand was timidly and involuntarily withdrawn from the arm, and my ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... desire which was felt that no individuals should be injured by so unforeseen an occurrence; and I rely on the regard of Congress for the equitable interests of our own citizens to adopt whatever further provisions may be found requisite for a general remission of penalties involuntarily incurred. ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Madison • James Madison
... with a coolness and maliciousness of good-nature quite devilish, and August's fist involuntarily doubled itself to strike him, if only to make him cease smiling in that villainous rectangular way. But he ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... impression upon her overworked brain. That was a jovial young fellow, handsome as Phoebus Apollo, in spite of a slashing scar across one cheek. He had answered to her questions regarding his wounded foot with an accent so like that of Weldon that involuntarily she lingered beside him to add a word of cheery consolation. His was her final case, that night. As she wearily turned towards her own room, she made no effort to ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... emotion. He stands with his hands stretched out in a constrained position, every muscle tense, his breast heaving and voice trembling from the effort, and the natural result is that before he is done praying his fingers begin to twitch involuntarily and thus cause the beads to move. As before stated, their motion is irregular; but the peculiar delicacy of touch acquired by long practice probably imparts more directness to their movements than ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... nice to Betty, and she spoke to Vernon with a delicate, subtle, faint suggestion of proprietorship in her tone. At least that was how it seemed to Betty. To Temple it seemed that she was tacitly apologising to an old friend for having involuntarily broken up a dinner a deux. To Vernon her tone seemed to spell out an all but overmastering jealousy proudly overmastered. All that pretty fiction of there being now no possibility of sentiment between him and her flickered ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... house is ended," said the stranger, sighing involuntarily. "Accept from me this little Prayer Book as a souvenir; as often as thou dost read it thou wilt find consolation. On its cover is the name of that lady whom thou must ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... asked Kitty involuntarily, and in a rather awestruck voice. Her acquaintance with the ritual of the Church of Scotland was hazy, and she was evidently determined to-day to be surprised at nothing; but evidently this mysterious reference could not be allowed ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... rehearsal of "Don Giovanni" the representative of Zerlina did not act realistically enough to suit Mozart. Thereupon he went unnoticed on the stage and at the repetition of the scene grabbed the singer so rudely and unexpectedly that she involuntarily uttered the shriek which the scene called for. [The singer was Teresa Bondini, the place Prague, and the time before the first performance of the opera which took place on October ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... into a branch road which led through the woods, and which soon became a mere wood-path. Before long he heard firing in front of him, and soon he recognized the sound of whistling bullets above his head. He found himself ducking his head involuntarily, and almost for the first time in his life he was conscious of being afraid. This was a surprise to him, as his thoughts during the night whenever he had been awake had ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... minutes later he strolled into the room where the rest of the guests were seated. As he did so Lord Barminster involuntarily drew himself up with a slight frown. He had hoped that the "adventurer," as he invariably termed him, would remain in town and not thrust his unwelcome presence upon the guests at the Castle. But, in another minute, his natural courtesy reasserted itself; and, though it was patent to the least observant ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... and our tree, towards which he fortunately turned his back. They no sooner began to pour the first pail of water, than we perceived it running to the willow; this sight was too much for our prudence, and we involuntarily expressed our transport by a shout of joy. The sudden exclamation made Mr. Lambercier turn about, though at that instant he was delighted to observe how greedily the earth, which surrounded the root of his walnut tree, imbibed ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... Philippines. Everything there is imitation or careless makeshift. Even the pina embroideries, which are fabricated with such wonderful patience and skill, and are so celebrated for the fineness of the work, are, as a rule, spiritless imitations of Spanish patterns. One is involuntarily led to these conclusions by a comparison of the art products of the Spanish-American communities with those of more barbarous races. The Berlin Ethnographical Museum contains many proofs of the facts I have ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... within his vision in twos and threes until a score of them were huddled straight in front of him. They were restless and whining, and the snap of their jaws was like the clicking of castanets. He caught the glare of twenty pairs of eyes fastened on his retreat and involuntarily he shrank back that they might not see him. He knew that it was Bram who was holding them back, and yet he had heard no word, no command. Even as he stared a long snakelike shadow uncurled itself swiftly in the air and the twenty foot lash of Bram's caribou-gut ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... figured—it was arithmetic that they were working at—she would involuntarily glance up with a little inquiring smile at him, as if she assumed that, being the master, he must perceive all that was passing in her brain, as right or wrong. Phillotson was not really thinking ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... herself to say that Arthur Fletcher had behaved badly. She could not lie. She knew well that his conduct had been noble and generous. Then unconsciously and involuntarily,—or rather in opposition to her own will and inward efforts,—her mind would draw comparisons between her husband and Arthur Fletcher. There was some peculiar gift, or grace, or acquirement belonging ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... Dada repeated to herself, but while she waited to see him return she gazed across the lake by which Marcus might find his way to her. And as she lingered, idly dreaming, she involuntarily compared the two men. There were fine soldiers in plenty in Rome, and the ship-builder's son was in no particular superior to a hundred others; but such a man as Marcus she had never before seen—there ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Bertie whistling about the house, so she would most likely see him before starting—probably only at luncheon, though, which was the children's dinner. A minute before the bell rang Bluebell descended, and came full on Du Meresq in an angle of the staircase. She stopped involuntarily. He was beside her with a smothered exclamation of endearment, and an eager hand seeking hers. Had she dreamt it? The face was impassive, the hand dropped, and a careless ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... standing. A thin haze and the glare of the mighty globes of light obscured everything. A man seated in a little openwork cradle shot by from some point still higher than the little narrow bridge, rushing down a cable as swiftly almost as if he were falling. Graham stopped involuntarily to watch this strange passenger vanish below, and then his eyes went ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... behind the heavy curtains by an open window and whispered the above reflections to herself. It was a trick she had in moments of intense concentration, and the sharp, hissing sound of the last words was so distinct that she involuntarily turned to see that she had not ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... severe. Of all the appointments those that are most severely criticised are Mulgrave's and Morpeth's. It is said that Charles Kemble and Liston might as well have been sent, as the former has always imitated the one, and the latter involuntarily resembles the other. Mulgrave, however he may be sneered at, has been tried and found capable, and I think he will do very well; he has courage and firmness and no want of ability. He is besides hospitable, generous, courteous, and ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... taking all shapes with the greatest facility, and playing the most opposite parts in order to arrive at the different ends he proposed to himself; and nevertheless was but little capable of seducing. His judgment acted by fits and starts, was involuntarily crooked, with little sense or clearness; he was disagreeable in spite of himself. Nevertheless, he could be funnily vivacious when he wished, but nothing more, could tell a good story, spoiled, however, to some extent by his stuttering, which ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... then the child turns away. Or it will lie, and look at her with the strange, odd, curious look of knowledge, like a little imp who is spying her out. This is the curious look that many mothers cannot bear. Involuntarily it arouses a sort of hate in them—the look of scrutinizing curiosity, apart, and as it were studying, balancing them up. Yet it is a look which comes into every child's eyes. It is the reaction of the great voluntary plexus between the shoulders. The ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... off my breath. My senses whirled. His grim sardonic face over me became blurred. I tore futilely at my throat to break his choking grip. All the world was a roaring chaos to my fading senses. Then in the blur I saw horror sweep his expression. His fingers involuntarily loosened. I got a breath of blessed air, gasping, and ...
— Beyond the Vanishing Point • Raymond King Cummings
... instead of patience, apathy. He is a strange being, beyond our understanding, as he is too often beyond our sympathy. It is only when we see him roused to the highest expression of his religious fervor that we involuntarily feel that thrill of astonishment and awe which in our hearts we know ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... chin, an eager glance in the eye, a sensitive curve of the lip attracted his boyish egotism. The portrait was an ideal, something to live up to. Involuntarily ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... subtle sense of deceit and ill will, all that is, except Bernibus, which is why our friendship flourished so swiftly. As I laid there with thoughts of Onan and the decision that I was to make, and of all the responsibility that was put upon me involuntarily, as I thought of the conflict of past and future at the neglect of the present, as I thought about the self- obsession and overindulgence that come with wealth, and the desire for still more that accompanies it, I fell to sleep and into a place where no troubles lay, for my long day and night ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn
... Sylvia smiled involuntarily at her sister's defeat, but Prue fell back upon her last resource in times like this. With a determined gesture she plunged her hand into an abysmal pocket, and from a miscellaneous collection of treasures selected a tiny vial, presenting ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... the boys was remarkable. It was noticed that even the most careless would sometimes, during the course of the week, refer almost involuntarily to the sermon of the past Sunday, as a condemnation of what they were doing. Others were heard to wonder how it was that the Doctor's preaching, to which they had attended at the time so assiduously, seemed, after ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... choir, and let the patient pass behind the altar. There she sat down in a chair, and the doctor on a seat opposite; then he first saw, by the light of the chapel window, how greatly changed she was. Her face, generally so pale, was inflamed, her eyes glowing and feverish, all her body involuntarily trembling. The doctor would have spoken a few words of consolation, but she did not attend. "Sir," she said, "do you know that my sentence is an ignominious one? Do you know there is fire ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... an old lady who was a friend of her aunt's, and Alexia paused involuntarily, then ran across the street to see what ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... upon her knees in the bed, not regarding much that Mrs. Eberstein threw a shawl round her shoulders; and waited a minute or two, looking intensely serious and considering. Then laying her hands involuntarily together, but with ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... ever-increasing pain in the small of her back. Echoes of "Bravo! bravo!" followed her down the path and goaded her to increased exertion. A second flip on Prince's back sent him forward at such a surprising increase of speed that, involuntarily, she gripped the pommel; then, remembering her resolve, let go her hold to hang on more and ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... I, a scion of the House of P[vr]emysl. Charles IV loved to live here, and restored the place for the first of his four wives, Blanche of Valois. Other guests more or less distinguished visited here, some of them involuntarily; these latter were generally lodged in the Huderka Tower suitably fitted with oubliettes. Among these guests were two already mentioned, a leading religious light, John Augusta, Bishop of the Bohemian ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... by these flower-garlanded mounds. But, for myself, I confess that I am always awed by the presence of the dead. I cannot jest above the gravestone. My spirit is silenced and rebuked before the tremendous mystery of which the grave reminds me, and involuntarily pays: ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... of "the Order." Clambering up the long nights of stairs that lead to the hall, on a Thursday evening, the party in quest of discovery would be not a little surprised at the class of men he would notice upon the march upward; he would involuntarily button up his pockets and keep as far distant from his fellow travelers as possible, for a more God-forsaken looking class of vagabonds never before entered a respectable building, and it is a matter of some doubt whether so many graceless scoundrels ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... beautiful red and white men, with their bright muskets, drawn up in a line, they absolutely screamed with delight; nor were their wild gestures and vociferation to be silenced but by commencing the exercise, to which they paid the most earnest and silent attention. Several of them moved their hands, involuntarily, according to the motions; and the old man placed himself at the end of the rank, with a short staff in his hand, which he shouldered, presented, grounded, as did the marines their muskets, without, I believe, ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... Androvsky, but only bowed to him, lifting his white helmet. As he went away in the sun with Bous-Bous the three he had left followed him with their eyes. For Androvsky had turned his chair sideways, as if involuntarily. ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... conscious that his questions betrayed the fact that he and his wife no longer wrote to each other. The same thought appeared to strike Justine, and they walked across the lawn in silence, hastening their steps involuntarily, as though to escape the oppressive weight of the words which had passed between them. But Justine was unwilling that this fruitless sense of oppression should be the final outcome of their talk; and when they reached the upper terrace she paused and turned impulsively to Amherst. As she did so, ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... her cook-books and her satiric sketches), when speaking of people silent from stupidity, supposed kindly to be full of reserved power, says: "We cannot help thinking that when a head is full of ideas some of them must involuntarily ooze out." ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... grave and a little cold. She had had, to her amazement, a wave of tenderness for Blair; the reaction from it came in anger at Elizabeth. Elizabeth was always making trouble! "Poor Blair," she said, involuntarily. At the moment she was keenly sorry for him; after all, abominable as his conduct had been, love, of a kind, had been at the root of it. "I can forgive love," Helena Richie said to herself, "but not hate. Elizabeth never loved David or she couldn't have done what she did.... Nothing ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... only think so I would abandon the sin of gluttony at once. But that terrible face, those bony fingers, which seemed to penetrate my neck like eagle's claws!" and involuntarily he placed his hand upon his neck, as if he really expected to find lacerations there, showing that he ...
— The Boy Nihilist - or, Young America in Russia • Allan Arnold
... nothing but what I helped him to; and my heart is, every hour, more and more enlarged with his goodness and condescension. But still, what ails me, I wonder! A strange sort of weight hangs upon my mind, as Thursday draws on, which makes me often sigh involuntarily, and damps, at times, the pleasures of my delightful prospects!—I hope this is not ominous; but only the foolish weakness of an over-thoughtful mind, on an occasion the most solemn and important of one's life, next to the last scene, which shuts ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... side of the hill behind the Bar, and on the latter also, glance spots of azure and crimson, in the forms of blue and red shirted miners bending steadily over pickax and shovel, reminding one involuntarily of the muck-gatherer in The Pilgrim's Progress. But no; that is an unjust association of ideas, for many of these men are toiling thus wearily for laughing-lipped children, calm-browed wives, or saintly mothers, ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... placid day marked the beginning of the most agreeable part of the twenty-four hours; it was the time of the moon, and the shadows that fell from the cocoanut leaves were so sharply defined that one involuntarily stepped over them. After a simple dinner and a dip in the soft sea, we awaited our invariable visitor, M. Donat Rimareau, the half-caste vice-president. As it was not the season for pearl fishing, there were no white men on the island, though now and again a schooner with a ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... be shot if you don't" retorted Leslie, in a quiet, concentrated tone of voice that made the man addressed involuntarily shudder. "It is no good, men," he continued, "your comrades are prisoners ashore and utterly powerless to help you. The game is up. We are here to regain possession of this ship, and we mean to do it. And if either of you is foolish enough to offer resistance, ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... greensward is half-shaded by the wide-spreading branches of evergreen oaks that singly and in small groups are scattered at irregular intervals from one end of the pasture to the other, giving it the appearance of one of the old ancestral parks of England. As I bowl pleasantly along I involuntarily look about me, half expecting to see some grand, stately old mansion peeping from among some one of the splendid oak-groves; and when a jack-rabbit hops out and halts at twenty paces from my road, I half hesitate to fire at him, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... here is another idea that is well calculated to appeal to almost anybody. It has just occurred to me quite involuntarily while you were speaking. Many of our clients want to know if they cannot send the judge, who is trying the case, a present of some sort, or maybe loan him a little money; and it is always distressing to be obliged to tell them—usually— that it is ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... sweet, elevated expression of her face struck her; it struck her also that that was not the light of any earthly love,—that it had no thrill, no blush, no tremor, but only the calmness of a soul that knows itself no more; and she sighed involuntarily. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... he honestly thought cleverer and more experienced than himself. His chief friends in his Romagnol diocese, friends on the intimate basis of social equality and common provincial interests, were sound patriots, though not revolutionists, and the future Pio Nono involuntarily adopted their ideas and sympathies. He saw with his eyes certain abuses so glaring that they admitted of no two opinions, and these helped to convince him of the truth of his friends' arguments in favour of a completely new order ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... the old man descended, with staff in hand, and went slowly down the mountain side. Such lovely blossoms, pink, golden, and scarlet, met his eye as he gazed on the gardens of the laborers, that he involuntarily exclaimed, "I fear I have spent my days not wisely on yonder mountain top, taking at least a third of my time in climbing up and down. Richer flowers grow here in the valley; the air is softer, and the grass like velvet to the tread. ...
— Allegories of Life • Mrs. J. S. Adams
... in. Captain Clarke listened happily to the young voices until they struck up "Soft and Low over the Western Sea." They all loved it and were crooning it sweetly, but the Captain's face went white as they sang: "Father will come to his babe in the nest." "Don't!" he exclaimed involuntarily. ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... he had painted, on the bare floor, exact representations of a new quill pen and a very expensive-looking sable brush, lying all ready to be trodden upon by entering feet. Fresh visitors constantly attested the skillfulness of these imitations by involuntarily stooping to pick up the illusive pen and brush; Mr. Blyth always enjoying the discomfiture and astonishment of every new victim, as thoroughly as if the practical joke had been a perfectly new one on each ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... silence, and the fumes of choice tobacco scent the air. There, snuff and cigars and German pipes and flutes, and violins and violoncellos, divide the supremacy between them. It is the region of song and smoke. Street bands are on their mettle in Golden Square, and itinerant glee singers quaver involuntarily as they raise ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... think, for the inexperienced mariner, however unreflecting he may try to be, to view the effects of the increasing storm, as he feels his solitary vessel reeling to and fro under his feet, without involuntarily raising his thoughts, with a secret confession of helplessness and veneration that he may never before have experienced, towards that Being whose power, under ordinary circumstances, we may have disregarded, and whose incessant goodness we are prone ...
— The Loss of the Kent, East Indiaman, in the Bay of Biscay - Narrated in a Letter to a Friend • Duncan McGregor
... to hide the expression of distaste that involuntarily crossed her face. He watched the expression on her face as she realized the kiss was ...
— The Happy Unfortunate • Robert Silverberg
... accompanied his guest to the door, but on the piazza, they met Mrs. Merwyn, who involuntarily frowned as she saw Strahan's uniform, then with quiet elegance she greeted the young man. But he had seen her expression, and was ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... arises from the variety and originality of their ideas. The mind of the reader is fatigued by following out the multitude of thoughts which their works engender. At the close of every paragraph almost, you involuntarily close the book, to reflect on the subjects of meditation which it has presented. The same peculiarity may be remarked in the annals of Tacitus, the essays of Bacon, the poetry of Milton, the Inferno of Dante, the Discorsi of Machiavel. In the habit of expansion which has ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... dress in which an ancestress of ours, my namesake Alice Oke, used to go out riding with her husband in the days of Charles I.," she answered, and took her seat at the head of the table. Involuntarily my eyes sought those of Oke of Okehurst. He, who blushed as easily as a girl of sixteen, was now as white as ashes, and I noticed that he pressed his hand almost ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... incapable of thawing. In this dreary sanctuary is one of Titian's great paintings, The Martyrdom of St. Lawrence, to which (though it is so cunningly disposed as to light that no one ever yet saw the whole picture at once) you turn involuntarily, envious of the Saint toasting so comfortably on his gridiron amid all ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... Loup), suffering but voiceless. Wealth and versatility of imagination were not Vigny's gifts. His dominant ideas were few, but he lived in them; for them he found apt imagery or symbol; and in verse which has the dignity of reserve and of passion controlled to sobriety, he let them as it were involuntarily escape from the seclusion of his soul. He is the thinker among the poets of his time, and when splendours of colour and opulence of sound have passed away, the idea remains. In fragments from his papers, published in 1867, with the title Journal d'un Poete, ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... by the usual body of admirers, instead of taking his ordinary seat, remained standing by the side of the tribune. It is a familiar fact that moments of appalling suspense are precisely those in which we are most ready involuntarily to note a trifle; everybody observed that Robespierre wore the coat of violet-blue silk and the white nankeens in which a few weeks previously he had done honour ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... although he knew that not a soul in the little river village, unless it was old Captain Renfrew, could construe a line of Greek and that scarcely two had ever traveled farther north than Cincinnati, still, as Peter recalled their names and foibles, he involuntarily felt that he was telling over a roll of the mighty. The white villagers came marching through his mind as beings austere, and the very cranks and quirks of their characters somehow held that austerity. There were the Brownell ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... gate which led to the enclosure, a more ready way to Dan than opening it, he was brought within view of the pool. There it was, down in the dreary lower part, near the trees. The pool itself was distinct enough, lying to the right, and Dan involuntarily looked towards it. Not to have saved his life, could Dan have ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... cooking, I might have envied them; as it was, that somewhat voracious appetite characteristic of my family disturbed my judgment sufficiently to make me almost long to be flitted myself. I fancy it must have been when I pushed out my nose and sniffed involuntarily towards the victuals, that the gipsy man ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... government were persons sincerely disposed to do ample justice to the public creditors generally, and to that class of them particularly whose claims were founded in military service. But many viewed the army with jealous eyes, acknowledged its merit with unwillingness, and betrayed, involuntarily, their repugnance to a faithful observance of the public engagements. With this question another of equal importance was connected, on which Congress was divided almost in the same manner. One party was attached to a State, the other to a Continental system. ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... Proposition I. that surging, tempestuous passion comes involuntarily. You are heart-whole, when, as it were, the gates of your bosom open, in she sweeps, and the gates close. So far this is a faithful description of my case. Whatever it is, it came without any desire or volition on my part, and it looks ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... involuntarily, nay, in spite of friendship, good wishes, and even resolution to the contrary, it is almost impossible to prevent our being shocked by rumour, and we receive an impression whether we will or not, and that from the worst enemy; there is such a powerful sympathy between our thoughts and our interest, ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... been on entering the castle-gates some hours before. However, the knight did not make his appearance, and good breeding suggested to unwilling ears that it was time to retire. Bolko said farewell—more tenderly, perhaps, than he supposed or meant; and as the delicate hand of Emma lay involuntarily in his own, he flattered himself that he felt his pressure softly returned, and that he could perceive a smile of contentment escaping from her lips as he promised to pay a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... I involuntarily pressed the spur against the side of my horse; but he needed not that. He had already eyed the water, and sprang forward, inspirited with new energy. The next moment he was in it up ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... said Joe, almost involuntarily, and an unmistakeable gleam of pleasure lighting up her face. "But would that poison produce any effect if ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... is Francesco—Frank—" Francesco gave a faint curl of his lip, half smile, as he saluted her involuntarily in a military fashion. He was dark, rather tall and loose, with yellow-tawny eyes. He was an Italian from the south. Madame gave another look at him. "He doesn't like his English name of Frank. You will ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... Waterloo only that which is in Waterloo. Of intentional liberty there is none. The counter-revolution was involuntarily liberal, in the same manner as, by a corresponding phenomenon, Napoleon was involuntarily revolutionary. On the 18th of June, 1815, the mounted Robespierre was hurled from ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... he had began. He stood there, broken, self-accused, in a humiliation so deep, a despair so utter, that the sternest of his listeners was moved to a compassion which fought desperately with the horror his story had inspired. Involuntarily, unconsciously, those nearest him had shrunk away until he stood apart, alone, at the foot of the coffin, from which the dead, half-opened eyes seem to hold him in a stony, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... stunned at this announcement, and he involuntarily glanced at the gray streaks in the locks of the Greek scholar. The latter perceived the glance, and, knocking the ashes from his ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton
... shambles of modern art. In the company of Leslie I saw my first Titians and Vandycks, and felt, as Northcote says, on my good behavior in the presence of portraits so lifelike and inspiring. It was Leslie who inoculated me with a love of Gainsborough, before whose perfect pictures a spectator involuntarily raises his hat and stands uncovered. (And just here let me advise every art lover who goes to England to visit the little Dulwich Gallery, only a few miles from London, and there to spend an hour or two among the exquisite Gainsboroughs. No small collection in Europe is ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... at night, with lanterns?" Harriet said, quite involuntarily. And again a pang of self-contempt swept over her. It was hateful, it was incredible, but she was playing his game as calmly as if doubts and reluctance had never ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... events, be that as it may, these are the two thoughts that, involuntarily and spontaneously and immediately, sprang in this man's heart when his purged eyes saw the King on His throne. He did not leap up with gladness at the vision. Its consolatory and its strengthening aspects were not the first that impinged ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... was the passing of the softly interested expression upon Van Lennop's face, Dr. Harpe caught it and involuntarily turned her ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... Captain Dupin involuntarily shrugged his shoulders and bowed. "I have no doubt of the gallantry of the officers of the Royal Navy," he observed. An opportunity occurring, he stepped back and spoke a few words to his two lieutenants. The ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... cry rose upon the air. It reached a great pitch and died lingeringly away. It was near by and told its tale. And the woman shuddered involuntarily. It was the wolf cry of the mountains; the cry of the human. And, as if in answer, came a chorus from wolfish throats. ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... two companions leapt to the ground and prostrated themselves before him, crying, "Barung! Barung!" while all three of us Englishmen saluted, involuntarily, I think, and even the ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... (780-855), the founder, involuntarily and after his death, of the Hanbalite school of canon law, was born at Bagdad in A.H. 164 (A.D. 780) of parents from Merv but of Arab stock. He studied the Koran and its traditions (hadith, sunna) there and on a student journey through Mesopotamia, Arabia and Syria. After his return ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... did come back, gray and drear. He saw suddenly once more. I think he must have been wandering the glen with his eyes shut, as one does shut them involuntarily against the hidden dangers of black night. How different was daylight from what he had expected! He looked, and then shut his dazed eyes again, for the darkness was less horrible than the day. Had he indeed seen, or only dreamed that ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... own dread lest some day Aymer might be left alone, stranded mentally and physically in the great silent London house that was their home by force of dear companionship. Christopher saw it in a flash, saw it so clearly that he involuntarily glanced at his companion to assure himself of the remoteness of that dread chance. Hard on this thought pressed the knowledge that neither of these two men who had done so much for him made the least claim on his life or asked ought of him but success in his chosen line—and ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... question came from the enemy. Several flashes of fire broke out along the German front, and the boys involuntarily ducked their heads as bullets ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... turned her feet to a Methodist meeting from whence the sound of singing had reached her. In the prayer and exhortation, however, there were words which revealed to her the secret of faith and salvation. She felt the burden loosen and fall from her shoulders, so sensibly, that involuntarily, she turned and looked for it on the floor. In a few moments she began to realize the freedom she had gained, and started to her feet in joy ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... heart-broken father! His bare head was just touched by the rays of the setting sun behind him; his fine face, calm and composed, wore even a faint air of exultation. At this hour the travel-stained garments clothed him with a touching and not ignoble pathos. Involuntarily they told of the weary days and nights of despairing flight, which after all ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... across the Atlantic. Object after object rose in rapid succession into distinct view, was approached and passed, until leaving the calm and sheltered waters of the bay, we emerged into the ocean, and involuntarily turned to look back upon the land we had left. Long after the lesser hills and low country had disappeared, a few ambitious peaks of the highlands still met the eye, appearing as if they had advanced to the very edge of the water, to prolong the view ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... the owners of the house, and who had been forbidden to speak to me. After a while I heard her heavy, shambling footsteps coming slowly up the staircase, and passing my door on her way to the attics above; they sounded louder than usual, and I turned my head round involuntarily. A thin, fine streak of light, no thicker than a thread, shone for an instant in the dark corner of the wall close by the door-post, but it died away almost before I saw it. My heart stood still for a moment, and then ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... its huge mammals of the third. Amid many thousand various objects, and a perplexing multiplicity of detail, which it would require the patient study of years even partially to classify and know, these are the great prominent features of the gallery, that involuntarily, on the part of the visitor, force themselves on his attention. They at once pressed themselves on the attention of the intelligent though unscientific mechanics, and, I doubt not, still dwell vividly in their recollections; ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... of Antoine's aggressive thoughts. The big brute slunk to the far end of the room, sat upon his haunches, and blinked at the party in a disconcerting fashion. Then Pepin again turned upon Bastien with such a quick, fierce movement that the latter started involuntarily. ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... discarded tools. The arms of the other two were folded on their breasts. The faces were coarse and hard in outline and bristled with unkempt beards. Their expression was one of dogged defiance, and their gaze was fixed with such scowling intensity upon the void space before them that I involuntarily glanced behind me to see what they were looking at. There were two women also in the group, as coarse of dress and features as the men. One was kneeling before the figure on the right, holding up to him with one arm an emaciated, half-clad infant, while with the other she ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... did not reach it. Looking at the confused ruins which are all that remain of this wonderful collection of the most admirable products of fifteen ages of civilization, of art and of industry, the count de Beauvoir says truly that no honest man can help shuddering involuntarily. Though his sentiment of national loyalty is very strong, yet he cannot avoid exclaiming, "Let us leave this place: let us run from this spot, where the soil burns us, the very view of which humbles us. We came to China as the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... strong attraction for children, and the depth of his weeds invested him with a melancholy interest, which has also great charms for the young. Then, to crown all, he mourned the loss of a young mother—and so did I. I involuntarily showed off Rubens as he approached, and he lingered and watched us. By a sort of impulse I took off my little hat, as I had been taught to do to strangers. He lifted his with a dismal ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... the words which sprang involuntarily to Dick's lips as he gazed at the scene before him. He was filled with bitter indignation and could hardly resist the temptation to break in the window and leap ...
— The Rover Boys at School • Arthur M. Winfield |
