"Unsought" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... science of self-defence. But George never sought out quarrels; and such was his amount of bone and muscle, and such the expression of manly resolution stamped on his countenance, that they never came in his way unsought. ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... then?... O vision grave, Take all the little all I have! Strip me of what in voiceless thought Life's kept of life, unhoped, unsought!— Reverie and dream that memory must Hide deep ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various
... itself to a contemplation of this wonderful new industry that had sprung up unsought in their midst; and the luck of Scipio was upon everybody's lips. Nor was there only the wonder of it in every mind, for, after the first feelings of envy and covetousness had passed away, the humor of the thing became apparent. And ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... honestly—don't you think there is something forward, something indelicate, in this haste to forgive? Women should never sue for reconciliation: that should always come from us. They should retain their coldness till wooed to kindness; and their pardon, like their love, should "not unsought be won." ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... could scarce forbear a smile Upon the metamorphosis in view,— "Farewell!" they mutually exclaimed: "this soil Seems fertile in adventures strange and new; One's turned half Mussulman, and one a maid, By this old black enchanter's unsought aid." ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... The unsought honor of this public banquet, in his own country, organized by the most eminent men of the day, calling forth eulogies of him in the public press of the whole world, was justly esteemed by Morse as one of the crowning events of his long career; but an even greater ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... achievements, he received the nomination for President over the names of Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and General Scott. It was a spontaneous expression of the people's confidence, unheralded and unsought. And when he was triumphantly elected over the Democratic and Free-soil candidates—General Cass, Martin Van Buren, and Charles Francis Adams—he accepted the high office in a spirit of humility and simple compliance ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... I was young, And happiness arose unsought; When she, the whispering woods among, Gave me ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... chance at it. But the weather had stiffened since the storm. It was too cold to be agreeable, and even the nail-customers, usually so early at the barn, were now at home hugging the kitchen stove. Pip stood alone at the grand flower table. His blossoms lay unsought upon the table. ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand
... it contain?" asked Kilshaw. He was annoyed at this unsought publicity, but he saw at once that he must ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... not homage paid to honours worn Lightly, as that which comes to one unsought; Nor to thy high desent, oh nobly born Nor to the aristocracy ...
— Verses and Rhymes by the way • Nora Pembroke
... thy whole life an Exc'llent Comedie. To these a Virgin-modesty which first met Applause with blush and feare, as if he yet Had not deserv'd; till bold with constant praise His browes admitted the unsought for Bayes. Nor would he ravish fame; but left men free To their owne Vote and Ingenuity. When His faire Shepherdesse on the guilty Stage, Was martir'd betweene Ignorance and Rage; At which the impatient Vertues of those ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in Ten Volumes - Volume I. • Beaumont and Fletcher
... compared with those which were experienced by the fond girl herself. Frances had, with the keen eye of jealous love, easily detected the attachment of Isabella Singleton to Dunwoodie. Delicate and retiring herself, it never could present itself to her mind that this love had been unsought. Ardent in her own affections, and artless in their exhibition, she had early caught the eye of the young soldier; but it required all the manly frankness of Dunwoodie to court her favor, and the most pointed devotion to ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... of homeshed blood from all On whom, unsought, embroiling dangers fall! Still the pale dead revives, and lives to me, To me! through Pity's eye condemned to see. Remembrance veils his rage, but swells his fate; Grieved I forgive, and am grown cool too ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... that I should take any other course. Turn from this folly and all will be serene and happy soon. I can obtain a position elsewhere. Surely, Ella, you are too true a Southern girl to have given your heart unsought, unasked to your knowledge till last night. Your very pride should rescue you from such a ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... seemed to stand before mine eyes as I lay sleepless, clear in the broad light where the full moon poured through the latticed windows; then thus addressed me, and with this speech allayed my distresses: "What Apollo hath to tell thee when thou dost [155-188]reach Ortygia, he utters here, and sends us unsought to thy threshold. We who followed thee and thine arms when Dardania went down in fire; we who under thee have traversed on shipboard the swelling sea; we in like wise will exalt to heaven thy children ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... such prismatic changes, and oblique catchings of the light, that even sympathy goes wrong. Mrs. Warrender thus caught from Chatty the representation of an agitated soul in which there was all the sensitive shame of a love that is given unsought, mingled with a tender indignation against the offender who perhaps had never meant—But the mother on this point took a different view, and there rose up in her mind on the moment, a hundred cheerful, hopeful plans to bring him back and to set all ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... until I was first satisfied that he was a person in whose delicacy and discretion I could trust. The little that he had said, thus far, had been sufficient to convince me that I was speaking to a gentleman. He had what I may venture to describe as the UNSOUGHT SELF-POSSESSION, which is a sure sign of good breeding, not in England only, but everywhere else in the civilised world. Whatever the object which he had in view, in putting the question that he had just addressed to me, I felt no doubt that I was justified—so ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... the lord and master of such a monster! I allowed myself to be tempted, and undertook the adventure. The means came unsought for by me, and the only thing that I had to do was to show myself more perverted and satanic than she was herself. And so ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... manner, and a sympathetic, thoughtful face, with that tinge of melancholy upon it which women sometimes find dangerously interesting, there was nothing so remarkable about Arthur that a woman possessing her manifold attractions and opportunities, should, unsought and without inquiry, lavish her affection upon him. There is only one satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon, which, indeed, is a very common one, and that is, that he was her fate, the one man whom she was to love in the world, ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... hand, my boy, and you have your warmth, your happiness, your joy, unspeakable joy, the most supreme joy possible to a human being, and you are too lazy to reach out your hand. Why, another man would toil night and day, risk life and limb for such a woman; yet she drops into your arms unsought—a found treasure." ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... and his party adopted it, he became a Liberal Unionist, and as such was elected in 1895 a member of the House of Commons by Dublin University. In view of the many comments that he was not successful in parliamentary life, I may say that the election not only came to him unsought, but that he recognized that he was too old to adapt himself to the atmosphere of the House of Commons; he accepted the position in the belief which was pressed upon him by many friends that he could in Parliament ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... dark there had been; perils of white blizzard, of black frost. They had run familiarly the whole gamut of hardship and danger he himself must have faced single-handed; and while full measure was accorded Weatherbee, the greater tribute passed silently, unsought, to the man who had traveled so far and ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... thanks to thee nor thank thee day by day * For whom com posed I prose and verse, for whom my say and lay? Thou lavishedst thy generous gifts ere they were craved by me * Thou lavishedst thy boons unsought sans pretext or delay: How shall I stint my praise of thee, how shall I cease to laud * The grace of thee in secresy and patentest display? Nay; I will thank thy benefits, for aye thy favours lie * Light on my thought ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... so much younger, and, I grieve to say it, so far inferior in all respects. What congenial companionship could I promise myself? What confidence could I repose—what esteem could I entertain—for a silly girl, who, without warrant and utterly unsought, bestows her love (if, indeed, what you say be true) upon a man who never even dreamed of such folly, and is old enough ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... of our own, a new web of relations; and, as many thoughts in succession substantiate themselves, we shall by-and-by stand in a new world of our own creation, and no longer strangers and pilgrims is a traditionary globe. My friends have come[281] to me unsought. The great God gave them to me. By oldest right, by the divine affinity of virtue with itself, I find them, or rather, not I, but the Deity in me and in them, both deride and cancel the thick walls of individual character, ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... merely waiting for an opportunity to suggest to him that his company had not only been unsought, but actually forced upon him, and even under his solemn protest. But before he could do so, Mr. Scrake was in the street; whereupon, on ascertaining that he was out of the hearing of Mr. Kornicker, he muttered to himself: ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... such it was; Just those two seasons unsought, Sweeping like summertide wind on our ways; Moving, as straws, Hearts quick as ours in those days; Going like wind, too, and rated as nought Save as the prelude to plays Soon to come—larger, life-fraught: ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... this childhood, in the almost cloistered seclusion of the Fichtelgebirge, with Goethe's at cosmopolitan Frankfurt or even with Schiller's at Marbach. Much that came unsought, even to Schiller, Richter had a struggle to come by; much he could never get at all. The place of "Frau Aja" in the development of the child Goethe's fancy was taken at Joditz by the cow-girl. Eagerness to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... explore The sweet, wild ways with stainless bloom inwrought, And bowers of innocence with beauty fraught, It seemed some purer voice must speak before I dared to tread that garden loved of yore, That Eden lost unknown and found unsought. ...
— Music and Other Poems • Henry van Dyke
... darkness of the wood, he had a flashing memory of the Indian girl's face as she had whisperingly asked him if he could not leave Helen, the very note in her voice sounded in his ears, and, he knew what it was no harm for him to know then, that this child of the wilderness had given him her love, unsought. She had loved him, and she had died for him, whilst a man who had loved her, now wept over her poor body. The tragedy of it all shook him, and the irony of Jean Benard's grief was almost beyond endurance. A great humility ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... a bow; upon which, drawing his bridle within his arm, he bowed once more, and turned away in an opposite direction; while I, glad to be relieved of an unsought-for companionship, returned alone ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... to looking after the executive side of the work at Tuskegee, and raising the greater part of the money for the support of the school, I cannot seem to escape the duty of answering at least a part of the calls which come to me unsought to address Southern white audiences and audiences of my own race, as well as frequent gatherings in the North. As to how much of my time is spent in this way, the following clipping from a Buffalo ...
— Up From Slavery: An Autobiography • Booker T. Washington
... hazarded the loss of them also. It is now seven years since my son left me; five years have I passed in travelling through the world in search of him: I have been in farthest Greece, and through the bounds of Asia, and coasting homewards, I landed here in Ephesus, being unwilling to leave any place unsought that harbours men; but this day must end the story of my life, and happy should I think myself in my death, if I were assured my wife and ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... unsought; yet all men might know exactly where lay the chest beneath the waves, for it mattered not how fierce blew the gale, above the gold the surface of the water was ever unbroken. At last there came one who heard the tradition, ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... surprise, added to his other unsought honors, he found himself the director of the Greek pageant, one of the performers as well, and far more popular with his fellow-players than he ...
— The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest • Margaret Vandercook
... that dolorous time in a woman's life when she no longer has the power of attracting male attention—which power is not a matter of age, but merely of mind and spirit. And yet there were depths in her, Larkin found, unsuspected because unsought. ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... that was spoken the imperious Will that would force him to compass its ends, even from the land of Death. It was not wholly the unsought responsibility, the burden of the wealth, the memory of his mother that buttressed his determination to refuse this stupendous thing, it was also his fierce, vehement desire to escape the enforced compliance with that still living Will-power. Peter Masters' ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... unsought gift of friendship was melting the morsel of ice at his heart; was reviving in him, against his will, that keen appreciation of a cultivated woman's sympathy and companionship, which, among finely tempered men, ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... to use that correspondence as a weapon against the imprudent creature who had signed it. But the marquis's rigid demeanor frightened him. How could he divert his attention, get rid of him? An opportunity presented itself unsought. A tiny sheet, written in a senile, tremulous hand, had found its way between those same letters, and attracted the attention of the charlatan, who ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... their association, and she had come to be, even before he could realize it, the one fair woman in whom was centred the fealty and devotion of his loyal nature. He dare not hope: he would not expect that one like her could so soon, so unsought, unwooed, have learned to look upon him as anything more than a friend whose loyalty to Grace, her one intimate, and whose friendship for Mrs. Stannard had conspired to make him an object of interest in their daily talk. With the ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... earnest wish it had been to save her from pain, to console her, to brighten her lonely life, had brought this fresh sorrow on her. To the misery of a loveless marriage he had added a heavier cross, an unhappy, a misplaced affection. No exultant vanity within him rejoiced at the knowledge that, unsought, she had learned to care for him. Only regret, pity for her, stirred in him. He was aware now as always that his feeling for her was not love. But she must not realise it. He must save her from the bitter mortification of learning that she had given her heart unasked. His must have been the ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... unused to meditate, And strive much more than wonder at their fate. 30 Their present lot was what they had foreseen, And dared as what was likely to have been; Yet still the lingering hope, which deemed their lot Not pardoned, but unsought for or forgot, Or trusted that, if sought, their distant caves Might still be missed amidst the world of waves, Had weaned their thoughts in part from what they saw And felt, the vengeance of their country's law. Their sea-green isle, their guilt-won Paradise, No more could shield their Virtue ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... never wilt be found, Yet I'm resolved to search for thee: The search itself rewards the pains. So though the chymist his great secret miss, (For neither it in art nor nature is) Yet things well worth his toil he gains; And does his charge and labour pay With good unsought experiments by the way." ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... in the efficacy of Mind-healing, it is sometimes wise to do so, and the end justifies the means; for he is restored through Christian Science when other means have failed. One other oc- [25] casion which may call for aid unsought, is a case from accident, when there is no time for ceremony and no ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... thoughtful and gentle, and whose habits of life are not hopelessly at war with her own. But that kind of love doesn't breed love. Your vanity would pique itself for a little while, and then you would know the curse of unsought love and murder me in your heart a thousand times a day. No, David, I have read you to little purpose if these are the things you will ask of the woman who takes your name and becomes the mother of your children." She had risen and was standing beside his chair, with her ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... there is "many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip"— which we have no reason to doubt—it is not less true that many a cup of good fortune is, unexpectedly and unsought, raised to the lips ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne
... through. It is impossible to be otherwise. It is impossible for a world which has lived through what ours has, which has recorded its doings and sufferings and speculations for our benefit, ever to be naive or spontaneous in anything. Inspiration unsought and unquestioned is a thing of the past. Study, reflection, absorption, eclecticism,—these are the watchwords of the future. If this were granted, many would still think it an open question whether art of the highest kind would in the future ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... to get up with less fatigue than I expected from ancles so weak. But oh! Jack, what was Sixtus the Vth.'s artful depression of his natural powers to mine, when, as this half-dead Montalto, he gaped for the pretendedly unsought pontificate, and the moment he was chosen leapt upon the prancing beast, which it was thought by the amazed conclave he was not able to mount, without help of chairs and men? Never was there a more joyful heart and lighter heels than ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... was elected Mayor of the city of Cleveland. The honor was not only unsought, but he was in entire ignorance of the whole affair until after his election. His name had not been mentioned in connection with that or any other office when he left the city on a business trip that kept him absent for several days. ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... kinds of ability. It manifested itself in his attitude towards every one with whom he came in contact. It led him to treat with fullest consideration all who were in the least degree under his direction, and converted in consequence the toil of subordinates into a pleasure. It impelled him to do unsought everything which lay in his power for the success of those in whom he felt interest. Many a young writer will recall his words of encouragement at some period in his own career when the quiet appreciation of one meant more to him than did later the loud applause ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... "Better had it been for thy peace hadst thou left unsought that knowledge. Yet will I tell thee thy doom. Three hundred years shall ye live in the smooth waters of Lake Darvra; three hundred years on the Sea of Moyle,[11] which is between Erin and Alba; three hundred years more at Ivros Domnann[12] and at Inis Glora,[13] ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... never again meet the greater number of you on earth; allow me thus informally to tender you my hearty thanks for many well remembered acts of unsought kindness and unexpected hospitality. That your future years may be many and prosperous, and your embarkation on the Great Voyage which succeeds the journey of life may be serene and hopeful, ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... The curtains were parted: she was standing in the gap, dimly lit by the lamp on the table behind her, waiting for our last look at each other. Slowly lifting her hand, she waved her farewell at the window, with the unsought native grace which had charmed me on the night when we first met. The curtain fell again—she disappeared—nothing was before me, nothing was round me, but the ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... first meeting with a total stranger, when I have been listening in silence to his conversation, that his past life up to the present moment, with many minute circumstances belonging to one or other particular scene in it, has come across me like a dream, but distinctly, entirely involuntarily and unsought, occupying in duration a few minutes. For a long time I was disposed to consider these fleeting visions as a trick of the fancy—the more so as my dream-vision displayed to me the dress and movements of the actors, the appearance of the room, the furniture, and ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... looked as if it had been strained through sorrow before it got to him, the verdict, so far as his understanding went, was inwardly pronounced. His mind had been working on the cruel problem and gave him, unsought, the answer. That was what she meant to do: to separate her lot from his. There never would be an Esther any more. There never had been the Esther that made the music of his ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... have the blessing that GOD delights to give to those who have dedicated themselves and their all to Him. Before considering it in detail, let us notice, first, how spontaneous and unsought is this blessing from GOD—the LORD commanded Aaron and his sons to bless Israel, to put His Name upon them; and declared His own unalterable purpose, "I will bless them." And then, let us ask ...
— Separation and Service - or Thoughts on Numbers VI, VII. • James Hudson Taylor
... kindness, and were heartily and gratefully enjoyed. Do you remember in the "Daisy Chain," how Ethel says, after the picnic, that the big attempts at pleasure generally go wrong, and that the true pleasures of life are the little unsought joys that come in the natural course of things? Dr. May disliked hearing her so wise at her age, but I think it must have been rather a comfort to Ethel to have found it out. No thought of that kind damps your pleasure when the dance or the picnic turn out a great success! And when they do ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... consequences of virtue the ends thereof. Be not beneficent for a name or cymbal of applause; nor exact and punctual in commerce for the advantages of trust and credit, which attend the reputation of just and true dealing: for such rewards, though unsought for, plain virtue will bring with her, whom all men honour, though they pursue not. To have other by-ends in good actions sours laudable performances, which must have deeper roots, motives, and instigations, to give them ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... lightless fields of mint and euphrasy: There sings no wind in any willow-tree, And shadowy flute-girls wander listlessly Down to the shore where Charon's empty boat, As shadowed swan doth float, Rides all as listlessly, with none to steer. A shrunken stream is Lethe's water wan Unsought of any man: Grass Ceres sowed by alien hands is mown, And now she seeks Persephone alone. The gods have all gone up Olympus' hill, And all the songs are still Of grieving Dryads, left To wail about ...
— A Handbook for Latin Clubs • Various
... though leaving much Unvisited, endeavoured to retrace The simple ways in which my childhood walked; Those chiefly that first led me to the love Of rivers, woods, and fields. The passion yet 5 Was in its birth, sustained as might befal By nourishment that came unsought; for still From week to week, from month to month, we lived A round of tumult. Duly were our games Prolonged in summer till the day-light failed: 10 No chair remained before the doors; the bench And threshold steps ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... fair! how modest! how discreet! How bashfully demure! See how they blush, as they've been taught, At this publicity unsought! How English ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... grinding men. That was because he read books of poetry and philosophy of which they had never heard. For the rest, he passed his examinations creditably, and indeed, in more than one case, with unexpected as unsought distinction. I must mention, however, that he did all his set work first, and thoroughly, before giving himself what he ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... embraces to the exclusion of pious thoughts which should occupy it in prayer, of which the office is a high form; or they may be thoughts which arise from previous laziness, thoughtlessness, pre-occupation or some engrossing worldly affair. Involuntary distractions are those which come unbidden and unsought to the mind, are neither placed directly, nor by their causes, by the ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... dusk hair deck With graces like thine own unsought. Ah! but such place would daze and wreck Its simple, lowly rustic thought. For so advanced, dear, to thee, It would unlearn humility! Yet do not, with an altered look, In these weak numbers read rebuke; Which are but jealous lest too much God's master-piece thou shouldst ...
— Poems • Francis Thompson
... "Inoculators" of Solomon's House—while inductions are drawn from them by another and a higher class—the "Interpreters of Nature." Yet even here the convergence of two distinct lines of research was wholly fortuitous, and skilful combination owed the most brilliant part of its success to the unsought bounty of what ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... gaping at the sun With empty grin, 'tis well no blood shall run Within thy frozen veins, no kindling thought Light up those eyeless sockets wherein naught But hate could dwell if once they flashed the fire Of being, or the doom-gift of Desire Should curse thy life, unbidden and unsought. Poor snow man with thy tattered hat awry, And broomstick musket toppling from thy hands, 'Tis well thou hast no language to decry Thy poor creator or his vain commands; No tear to shed that thou so soon must die, No voice to lift in ...
— Pan and Aeolus: Poems • Charles Hamilton Musgrove
... silence of her brother's sick-room, Graeme looked a great sorrow in the face. In other circumstances, with the necessity laid upon her to deceive others, she might for a time have deceived herself; for the knowledge that one's love has been given unsought, is too bitter to be accepted willingly. But the misery of those long silent nights made plain to her what the first sharp pang had ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... the finding. Men live by the primal energies of love, faith, imagination; and happily it is not given to every one to live, in the pecuniary sense, by the artistic utilisation and sale of these. You cannot make ideas; they must come unsought if they ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... visions which thus come unsought, contributing knowledge of things remote or even future, we may glance at visions which are provoked by various methods. Drugs (impepo) are used, seers whirl in a wild dance till they fall senseless, or trance is induced by various kinds of self-suggestion or 'auto-hypnotism.' Fasting is ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... cylinder of white paper resting in the hollow of his palm, in profoundest concentration pondering the problems it presented: what it was, what possession of it meant to Michael Lanyard, what safe disposition to make of it pending welcome relief from this unsought ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... idle imaginations of the mysteries of eternity, and guide the faiths of the families of the earth by the courses of their own vague and visionary arts: while the indisputable truths of human life and duty, respecting which they all have but one voice, lie hidden behind these veils of phantasy, unsought, and often unsuspected. I will gather carefully, out of Dante and Homer, what, in this kind, bears on our subject, in its due place; the first broad intention of their symbols may ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... his ire Which thus broke forth in words: "Vain is the hope Ye rest upon my march: speed though I may Towards my western goal, time still remains To blot Massilia out. Rejoice, my troops! Unsought the war ye longed for meets you now: The fates concede it. As the tempests lose Their strength by sturdy forests unopposed, And as the fire that finds no fuel dies, Even so to find no foe is Caesar's ill. When those ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... his self-deceit; For there was one who spake of it unsought: The shepherd-swain, who to allay the heat With which he saw his guest so troubled, thought The tale which he was wonted to repeat— Of the two lovers—to each listener taught; A history which many loved to hear, He now, without reserve, 'gan tell ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... none, Save will so eager to behold who spake, I could not choose but gaze. As 'fore the sun, That weighs our vision down, and veils his form In light transcendent, thus my virtue fail'd Unequal. "This is Spirit from above, Who marshals us our upward way, unsought; And in his own light shrouds him;. As a man Doth for himself, so now is done for us. For whoso waits imploring, yet sees need Of his prompt aidance, sets himself prepar'd For blunt denial, ere the suit be made. ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... about their Loves generally take to portraying them, and in the early days of his attachment Smith had never been weary of outlining Elfride. The lay-figure of Stephen's sketches now initiated an adjustment of many things. Knight had recognized her. The opportunity of comparing notes had come unsought. ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... be inconclusive, but as they sought the answer, a clear sign appeared as it were by the way, and unsought. Julian was watching haggardly. He snarled a question at Jim. His cook-boy's big round eyes showed very big and very round just now. He was watching with ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... grateful. No matter that it comes unsought, and comes not for the seeking. You do not discuss the reasonableness of your gratitude. You only know that your whole being bows with humility and utter thankfulness to him who thus crowns you monarch of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... forever sing to me! Oh, thus forever! The green, bright grass of childhood bring to me, 39 Flowing like an emerald river, And the bright blue skies above! Oh, sing them back, as fresh as ever, Into the bosom of my love,— The sunshine and the merriment, The unsought, evergreen content, Of that never cold time, The joy, that, like a clear breeze, went Through and through the old time! Peace sits within thine eyes, With white hands crossed in joyful rest, 50 While, through thy lips and face, arise The melodies from out thy breast; She sits ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... bygone days, closing themselves in the hill solitudes, forgot sometimes, and sometimes feared, the duties they owed to the active world, we may perhaps pardon them more easily than we ought to pardon ourselves, if we neither seek any influence for good, nor submit to it unsought, in scenes to which thus all the men whose writings we receive as inspired, together with their Lord, retired whenever they had any task or trial laid upon them needing more than their usual strength of spirit. Nor perhaps should we have unprofitably entered ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... said, That food and bliss should not be found unsought; That man should labor for his daily bread; But not that man should toil and sweat for nought. 1046 EBENEZER ELLIOTT: ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... the even tone of light intercourse, the question was framed in a way to remind him that his good offices were unsought; and for a moment Selden was checked by it. The situation between them was one which could have been cleared up only by a sudden explosion of feeling; and their whole training and habit of mind were against the chances of such an explosion. Selden's calmness seemed rather to harden ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... us good whether prayed for or unsought by us; But that which we ask amiss, do thou avert.' (The author of these lines, which are probably of Pythagorean origin, is unknown. They are found also in the Anthology ...
— Alcibiades II • An Imitator of Plato
... fostering care of the Government. Possessing as we do all the raw materials, the fruit of our own soil and industry, we ought not to depend in the degree we have done on supplies from other countries. While we are thus dependent the sudden event of war, unsought and unexpected, can not fail to plunge us into the most serious difficulties, it is important, too, that the capital which nourishes our manufactures should be domestic, as its influence in that ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 2: James Monroe • James D. Richardson
... controlled by circumstances, that it was neither vicious nor turbulent. Intrigue was never employed as the means of its gratification, nor was personal aggrandizement its object. The various high and important stations to which he was called by the public voice, were unsought by himself; and, in consenting to fill them, he seems rather to have yielded to a general conviction that the interests of his country would be thereby promoted, than to an avidity ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... in such exploits as they ventured on that day. They were off to the woods with baskets and pails as soon as they had all assembled. But for once the late wild grapes hung their tempting bunches overhead in vain. The persimmons, frost-sweetened and brown, lay under the trees unsought by Ann's nimble fingers, and the nuts pattered down on the dead leaves unheeded. While the other children raced down the hills and whooped through the frosty hollows, Ann followed gingerly in their wake, picking her way as best she could through the rustling leaves ...
— Mildred's Inheritance - Just Her Way; Ann's Own Way • Annie Fellows Johnston
... grown old: more than the white hairs on his head were the sage thoughts in his mind; his wrinkles and furrows were inscriptions that Time had graved, and in which he had written legends of wisdom that had been tested by the tenor of a life. And Ernest had ceased to be obscure. Unsought for, undesired, had come the fame which so many seek, and made him known in the great world, beyond the limits of the valley in which he had dwelt so quietly. College professors, and even the active men of cities, ...
— The Snow Image • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... ground that he could not write to order nor bend his opinions to those of others. He put behind him the temptation to take advantage of great fame when it suddenly came to him. When publishers were eager for his work he spent the same time in preparing his books as when he was poor and unsought. He labored at the smallest task to give the best that was in him; he wrote much of his work in his heart's blood. Hence it is that through all of his books, but especially through Past and Present and Heroes and Hero Worship, one feels the strong beat of the heart of ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... well it might, and the young man turned his face toward the door, determined to wait till an explanation should come unsought. ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... as have many. Know, then, that her name, which she would not even permit thee to inquire, is Happiness. Thou saidst the truth to her, that she is capricious for she imposeth conditions that man cannot fulfill, and delinquency is punished by desertion. She cometh only when unsought, and will not be questioned. One manifestation of curiosity, one sign of doubt, one expression of misgiving, and she is away! How long didst thou have her at any time before ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... in assuming that she was by no means indifferent to Mr. Clinton. The appearance of dislike was assumed as a mask, and the distance and reserve she displayed towards him were the offspring of a false pride and unwomanly self-esteem. The truth was, her heart had, almost unsought, been won. The manly bearing, personal grace and brilliant mind of Philip Clinton, had captivated her feelings and awakened an emotion of love ere she was conscious that her heart was in danger. And she had ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... ye who linger still Here in your fortress on the hill, With placid face, with tranquil breath, The unsought volunteers of death, Our cheerful General on high With careless looks may pass ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... from yellow-brown to vivid green in the white sunlight. In the morning, when the nurse opened the blinds, that sunlight swept radiantly into the room, lavish with its caresses; always spending, always giving, the symbol of a loving care that had been poured out on her, unasked and unsought. It was sweet to rest, to sleep. And instead of the stringent monster-cry of the siren, of the discordant clamour of the mill bells, it was sweet yet strange to be awakened by silvertoned chimes proclaiming peaceful hours. At ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... for seven moons I proclaimed my Joy from the house-top—and yet no one heeded me. And my Joy and I were alone, unsought and unvisited. ...
— The Madman • Kahlil Gibran
... us to this extent; these things are hidden by a thick veil from the many; they cannot see the heavenly beauty of Nature—they do not understand the fairy tale which she is ever telling. This is gentle, idyllic, fairy lore, unsought by the learned. It whispers of roses, of dancing elves, of weeping ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... Upon my brow I feel the furrow's course, Deep sinking inward to the source of thought; The deeper sinking if I seek its source, Or try to crush its agony, unsought, O! tell thy secret, thou stern vampyre, Care! E'en for Philosophy thou hast a snare, For in thy quest she wears the galling chain, Making the burden more, the more she'd soothe ...
— The Emigrant - or Reflections While Descending the Ohio • Frederick William Thomas
... meditated upon the proper course to take in order best to compass his ends. The unrest among the employees of the Rainbow Company came to him unsought, and he at once grasped the opportunity. The organisation of a miners' and millmen's union would be an obvious benefit to the rank and file; their manifestation of gratitude would naturally take the very form he most desired. ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... with a powerful effort at composure. "There are moments when, listening to Lucretia, when, charmed by that softness which, contrasting the rest of her character, she exhibits to none but me, struck by her great mental powers, proud of an unsought triumph over such a being, I feel as if I could love none but her; then suddenly her mood changes,—she utters sentiments that chill and revolt me; the very beauty seems vanished from her face. I recall with a sigh the simple sweetness of Susan, ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... children from a closet where she was concealed. The magistrate returned from your dwelling to your brother's. He was employed in hearing and recording the testimony of the only witness, when the criminal himself, unexpected, unsolicited, unsought, entered the hall, acknowledged his guilt, and rendered himself ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... must bow, And Brahma and his heavenly band! Here have I worshipped her for years And never seen the vision bright; Vigils and fasts and secret tears Have almost quenched my outward sight; And yet that dazzling form and face I have not seen, and thou, dear friend, To thee, unsought for, comes the grace, What may its ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... passion has battered a breach for them. Yet, unless he sets up as a saint, he need not hate himself for them. He is better employed, as it humbly seems to me, in giving thanks that power to resist was vouchsafed to him, than in fretting over wicked impulses which come unsought and extort an unwilling hospitality from the weakness ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... love, or indifference to the world? I was at my old puzzle again, while you unfastened the pinks, and, before the butler, who acquiesced at your frivolity in impertinent silence, you held them out to me. Only you know the preciousness of unsought-for favors. "Write me," ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... state of mind did our young man pilot his new and unsought-for recruit into the crowded mission rooms of the South End on the following Sabbath afternoon. She looked not one whit less able to compete with the terrors which awaited the teacher of the ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... should never ask if she is engaged for it. He may request the pleasure or honor of her company for the next dance, and he will learn from her answer whether she be free, without compelling her to acknowledge at the last moment that she has been hitherto unsought. ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... opera box last night In a glimmer of gems and a blaze of light, And smiling that all might see, This curious thought came all unsought— That there were ...
— Yesterdays • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... criticise the statement. I was too much enamoured of the honour to question the foundation on which it rested. Perhaps it was as well deserved as are some others of this world's distinctions! At any rate it was neither begged nor bought, but came "Like Dian's kiss, unasked, unsought." In the same year (1883) I also appeared in Edwards' Sixth Series of Modern Scottish Poets; and in 1885, more legitimately, in William Andrews' book on Modern Yorkshire Poets. My claim for this latter distinction ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... honor, all unsought, High privilege, surpassing thought That thou shouldst call us, Lord, to be Linked in work-fellowship with thee! To carry out thy wondrous plan, To bear thy messages to man; "In trust," with Christ's own word of grace To ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... so great a change has wrought That you so frankly speak Of "seeking" honors once unsought Because you "scorned ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... or how I said it. So far as regards your coming into this carriage," I added, "I feed the guard to keep it to myself, and although I will not say that your presence is unwelcome, it is certainly unsought for." ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Boulogne; the choicest Patriots nearest the scene. One other circumstance we will note: that a careful Municipality, liberal of camp-furnaces, has not forgotten provision-carts. No member of the Sovereign need now go home to dinner; but can keep rank,—plentiful victual circulating unsought. Does not this People understand Insurrection? ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... goes apace, Wind with the sea, and blood with thought, Lover with lover; and the grace Of understanding comes unsought When stars into the twilight steer, Or thrushes build among the may, Or wonder moves between the hills, And day Comes ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... eventually going abroad to study for the priesthood. On taking orders he returned to New York, and during the rest of his life was an earnest and influential, though somewhat independent toiler in the vineyard of Rome; gaining, unsought, fame as Father Hecker. His monumental work was the founding of the Paulist Fathers, a strong organization, influential in the religious life of New York, though the church and the home of the fraternity are located across the ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... and beloved—insomuch, that I persuade myself he has not one enemy in the world. At least, to this general esteem and affection for his person, his preservation must be owing; for since his attainder he has never removed far from his own house, protected by men of different principles, and unsought for and unmolested by government." To which eulogy it might be added, by those who have the good fortune to know his representatives, that the virtues here acknowledged seem hereditary ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun
... Jose Bendito!" she continued in the tone of one that is most good-naturedly inclined to give unsought-for information; "my gentle lady, I would venture to assert that you cannot guess the motive ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... merchant seamen. He made money, too, as agent for most of the smuggling companies along the coast, although he embarked little of his own wealth in the business, and never assisted in an actual run of the goods. He had ceased to borrow actively now, for other people's money came to him unsought, to be used. ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Of Science, still From all men deeply hidden! Who takes no thought, To him 'tis brought, 'Tis given unsought, unbidden! ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... the belief that their mutual positions had changed was very sweet to him. All his mind expanded in this thought, as the nerves of the opium-eater to the influence of his drug; it soothed him when he was weary; it consoled him when he was vexed; it had come to him as an unexpected, unsought good, like a ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... interrupting you. There is great doubt. She has no money but what she can earn, and such girls, unless they are exceptionally beautiful, are very likely indeed to remain unsought.' ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... all the sweetness of a gift unsought, And for the pansies send me back a thought. Pansies. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various |
