"Forgetfulness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... said to himself, "but monuments to oblivion? They are not memorials of the dead, but memorials of the forgetfulness of the living. How vain it is to send a poor forsaken name, like the title page of a lost book, down the careless stream of time! Let me serve my generation, and ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... Manicamp, saluting the princess, "let us bury this affair altogether in forgetfulness, for it will probably never be ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... words, seemed intended to lull the soul into a forgetfulness of all beside, and fill it only with soft ideas:—it had at least this effect upon the lady, who had closed her eyes, and was in reality lost to every other sense than that of hearing.—Natura, either was, or pretended to be, equally transported, and sunk insensibly upon her bosom, without any ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... them in their actual strife; to deal with questions, not in an abstract shape, but mixed up with the affections, passions, relations of human creatures, is a course which must lead him, it is thought, into a great forgetfulness of his office, and of all that is involved ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... and as was the opinion of many at the time, rigid construction in the following year 1912 was ordered to be discontinued. This decision coincided with the disbanding of the Naval Air Service, and for a time rigid airships in this country were consigned to the limbo of forgetfulness. After the Naval Air Service had been reconstituted, the success which attended the Zeppelin airships in Germany could no longer be overlooked, and it was decided to make another attempt to build a rigid airship in conformity with existing Zeppelin construction. The ...
— British Airships, Past, Present, and Future • George Whale
... changed, in the effort to rediscover the lost vocal forms of the Greek drama. The new problem was that of finding, for every moment and every speech of the drama, a form of utterance suitable to the sentiment and the occasion. Thus entered into music, through the ministry of self-forgetfulness, the most important principle which has actuated its later progress, the principle namely, of dramatic expression—in other words, the representative principle, the effort to represent in music something ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... from a reverent familiarity with the works of our great predecessors and contemperaries, there is a pernicious error which has been fostered by many instructed minds, rising out of their reverence for greatness and their forgetfulness of the ends of Literature. This error is the notion of "models," and of fixed canons drawn from the practice of great artists. It substitutes Imitation for Invention; reproduction of old types instead of the creation of new. ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... by declining himself, and by absence, to expel his and the passion of his enemies; which in Court was a strange device of recovery, but that he knew there was some ill office done him, that he durst not attempt to mend any other ways than by going aside, thereby to teach envy a new way of forgetfulness, and not so much as to think of him; howsoever, he had it always in mind never to forget himself; and his device took so well, that, at his return, he came in, as rams do by going backwards, with the greater strength; and so continued to the last in the Queen's grace.' Nothing, it is ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... the Long Hand, it was showed to him that the sons of Tuireann had got all the things that were wanting to him against the battle with the Fomor; and on that he sent a Druid spell after them to put forgetfulness on them of the rest of the fine that they had not got. And he put a great desire and longing on them to go back to Ireland; so they forgot that a part of the fine was wanting to them, and they turned back again ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... had an old school-friend, a young barrister from London, staying with him, and that both had been asked to supper that evening at Cotherstone's house. But Cotherstone's annoyance was not because of his own forgetfulness, but because his present abstraction made him ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... was Leon gone In moody wandering to the wood alone; And in the night, how many a broken dream Of bliss, or terror, seemed to shake his frame. How Florence too, in long abstracted fit Of soul-wrapt musing, for whole hours would sit; Nor even the power of music, friend, or book, Could chase her deep forgetfulness of look; And how, when questioned—with an indrawn sigh, In vague and far-off phrase, she made reply, And smiled and struggled to be gay and free, And then relapsed in dreaming reverie. How when of Leon she was forced to speak, Unbidden crimson ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake
... sofa on which Elena had lately sat; he thought: 'It serves me right for going to that old rascal,' and he tried to sleep.... But the illness had by now complete mastery of him. His veins were throbbing violently, his blood was on fire, his thoughts were flying round like birds. He sank into forgetfulness. He lay like a man felled by a blow on his face, and suddenly, it seemed to him, some one was softly laughing and whispering over him: he opened his eyes with an effort, the light of the flaring candle smote ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... life they were to lead began at once. And yet it seemed at times to Honora as though this higher life were the gift the fates would most begrudge: a gift reserved for others, the pretensions to which were a kind of knavery. Merriment, forgetfulness, music, the dance; the cup of pleasure and the feast of Babylon—these might more readily have been vouchsafed; even deemed to have been bargained for. But to take that which supposedly had been renounced—virtue, sobriety, security, respect —would this ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... on the banners, and the various devices, to another, without trembling in the voice or tears in the eye? If ever she shall glide along the streets, she whose early race-course was Salt Lane, if ever like a lady she shall walk there, will it be at the price of forgetfulness of all this humble sport and joy,—as a sustainer of feeble "social fictions," and a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... the pathetic speech of Henry V.'s father when he vainly seeks that sleep which thousands of his poorest subjects enjoy. The sleepless king points to the irony of reclining on the kingly couch beneath canopies of costly state when sleep refuses to weigh his eyelids down or steep his senses in forgetfulness. The king is credited with control of every comfort; but he is denied by nature comforts which she places freely at command of the humblest. So again does Richard II. soliloquize on the vain pride which imbues the king, while death all the time grins at his pomp and keeps ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... procession was past and gone, as all processions pass and go, vanishing down the shores of forgetfulness; when barons, marquises, dukes, and dons were gone, with their pennants and banners; when the last lancers had gone prancing past and were lost to sight down the circuitous avenue, Sooty Will, with drooping tail, stood by the palace gate, dejected. He was sour and ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... regions swept by a fiery wind as on the icy shores where calm descends from heaven with the cold; it is not blood but fire that flows in the veins. So Tahoser languished and fainted, though she breathed perfumes, surrounded herself with flowers, and drank draughts that bring forgetfulness. Music wearied her or overexcited her feelings; she had ceased to take any pleasure in the dances of her companions; at night, sleep fled from her eyelids, and breathless, stifling, her breast heaving with sighs, she would leave her sumptuous couch and stretch herself out ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... foresee such a crisis. Even the Solons of Wall Street had not anticipated it. It was not his fault. He had meant to make all right in a few years. What was that they said was paved with good intentions? He could not remember. He seemed to have strange fits of forgetfulness lately. He must see that everything was put in proper shape in the event of his death. People died suddenly ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... poorest little seamstress on her list. So she interested her in her charities, drawing her by degrees into the active work of them until her unhappy little niece had learned the beautiful gospel of self-forgetfulness. Afterward, when mother was married and had the happiness of her five daughters at heart, she induced each one of us to take up something of absorbing interest, in order that there might be no empty, idle days when discontent could creep in. That is ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston
... We come not to compel, but call again; We come not to destroy, but edify; Nor yet to question things already done; These are forgiven; matters of the past; And range with jetsam, and with offal, thrown Into the blind sea of forgetfulness. ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... with vulgar reproaches. What a charming scene could then have been staged, of sensitive genius misunderstood by coarse-grained labour; of vision-drunken youth berated by undreaming age! But she was not a young lady, and could derive no felicity from forgetfulness of such a kind, for with the poor the urgencies of the immediate task are raised to such compelling interest that only a genius could neglect them with satisfaction. Therefore Loveday never thought of forgetting the milk for her aunt, but ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse
... to expect a reverse of fortune, it had all the effect of a thunder-bolt in a clear sky. I stood stunned, the words which I was dictating to my secretary dying on my lips. For I knew the King too well, and had experienced his kindness too lately to attribute the harshness of the order to chance or forgetfulness; and assured in a moment that I stood face to face with a grave crisis, I found myself hard put to it to hide my feelings from ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... so farewel, sad sigh; And come instead demurest meditation, To occupy me wholly, and to fashion My pilgrimage for the world's dusky brink. No more will I count over, link by link, My chain of grief: no longer strive to find 980 A half-forgetfulness in mountain wind Blustering about my ears: aye, thou shalt see, Dearest of sisters, what my life shall be; What a calm round of hours shall make my days. There is a paly flame of hope that plays Where'er I look: but yet, I'll say 'tis naught— And here I bid it die. Have not I caught, Already, ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... parade. We were ordered to be under arms at eight o'clock, but it was more than two hours after that when the reviewing cortege came on the ground. The officers were very hilarious over some grotesque story with which Mr. Lincoln had seasoned the conversation, and which seemed to have caused some forgetfulness of the appointment with the troops. We were reviewed by divisions, and I met the party with my staff, riding down the lines with them, and answering the inquiries of the President and the general as to the history and the ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... Miss Langdon. Do you wish to correct that statement by any change of name? Was it a slip of the tongue, caused by momentary forgetfulness?" ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman
... if by magic the drawn faces of all his associates would clear, the night editor would laugh and forget to look at the clock, we would resume our toil, momentarily forgetful of the high pressure under which we labored, and working the better for the forgetfulness; and the Penguin Person, the smile still expanding his mouth, would tilt down his chair and work with us, only faster. If he had serious thoughts, he never disclosed them to us—seriously. When he opened ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... present, works without wages, and is only nineteen years old, appears before the sight of a pious old lady, in the simple apparel of a man engaged in shaving. The watch thus kept up is never relaxed, while prudence, on the contrary, has its moments of forgetfulness. Curtains are not always let down in time. A woman, just before dark, approaches the window to thread her needle, and the married man opposite may then admire a head that Raphael might have painted, and one that he considers worthy of himself—a National Guard truly imposing when under arms. Oh, ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... talked of politics and our outlook. We were interested to the pitch of self-forgetfulness. We weighed persons and forces, discussed the probabilities of the next general election, the steady drift of public opinion in the north and west away from Liberalism towards us. It was very manifest that in spite of Wardenham and the EXPURGATOR, we should come into the new ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... cannot forget them. If you had failings of the same kind and I could recollect any instances where you had spoken pettishly or ill-natured to me, our accounts would then have been balanced, they would have called for mutual forgetfulness and forgiveness; but when, on reflection, I find nothing of the kind to charge you with, my conscience severely upbraids me with ingratitude to you, to whom (under Heaven) I owe all the little knowledge of ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... vile cook; and our good-natured cadet Mr. U——, who was exceedingly willing, but profoundly ignorant of the elements of cookery. For fear of being tempted into another digression, I will briefly state that during that week I lived in a chronic state of hunger and heartburn, and sought forgetfulness from repeated attacks of indigestion, by decorating my servants' rooms. They opened into each other, and it would have been hard to find two prettier little nests. Each had its shining brass bedstead with chintz hangings, ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... much excited. Love for his child, and apprehension for her safety, were feelings that were, perhaps, too prominent and apparent in the good and faithful minister of heaven; they betrayed him at times into a self-forgetfulness, and a warmth of expression, of which he repented heartily as soon as they occurred. Originally of a violent and wayward disposition, it had cost the continual exercise and the prayers of a life, to acquire evenness of temper and gentleness of deportment, neither of which, in truth, was easily, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... thee that thou must buy vile things with those which are costly and great in the esteem of men. For wonderfully vile and small, and almost given up to forgetfulness, doth true heavenly wisdom appear, which thinketh not high things of itself, nor seeketh to be magnified upon the earth; many honour it with their lips, but in heart are far from it; it is indeed the precious pearl, which is ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... neck of each, and resting almost my entire weight on their shoulders, I managed to scuffle along, very slowly and with fearful pain, towards Les Arenes. We paused now and then, under the deep shadow of a wall, for me to regain my strength. I was astonished at my mother's utter forgetfulness of herself in her care for me; and said, "Were you much ...
— Jacques Bonneval • Anne Manning
... eager Titanic life gazing and struggling on walls and ceilings; the long vistas of white forms whose marble eyes seemed to hold the monotonous light of an alien world: all this vast wreck of ambitious ideals, sensuous and spiritual, mixed confusedly with the signs of breathing forgetfulness and degradation, at first jarred her as with an electric shock, and then urged themselves on her with that ache belonging to a glut of confused ideas which check the flow of emotion. Forms both pale ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... were sworn to deliver the sepulchre of Christ. Then news came that Jerusalem had been taken from the Turks by the Khalif of Egypt, and the Christians were struck with deep remorse that the Holy City had been again captured, and not by the followers of Christ. Ashamed of their delay and forgetfulness of their sacred mission, the Crusaders resumed their march to the Holy City, eight months after ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... ailments grew secondary, were overlooked, actually lessened. There need be nothing esoteric in saying that a vital interest in life is as essential to health as to happiness. One need consider only the practical and physical effects of interest and self-forgetfulness, serenity and self-resource. ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... Breaking and crowding my way into its very midst, I cleared a spot large enough to recline upon, interlaced the surrounding brushwood, gathered the fallen foliage into a bed, and lay down with a prayer for sleep and forgetfulness. Alas! neither came. The coldness increased through the night. Constant friction with my hands and unceasing beating with my legs and feet saved me from freezing. It was the most terrible night of my journey, and when, with the early dawn, I pulled myself into a standing posture, it was to realize ...
— Thirty-Seven Days of Peril - from Scribner's Monthly Vol III Nov. 1871 • Truman Everts
... you for so kindly forgiving the piece of negligence I acquainted you of in my last. Young fellows are often guilty of voluntary forgetfulness in those affairs; but I assure you mine was quite ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... required to man the disabled ships; and transports brought out cargoes from the depots to fill up the skeleton ranks of the different companies. Among the various blessings left us in this life of suffering is forgetfulness of past evils; and the yellow fever was in a short time no longer the theme of ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... continued for a day or two, unless we are very frequent communicants, so that we may lose none of the preciousness of the blessing by our own forgetfulness or ingratitude. ...
— The Discipline of War - Nine Addresses on the Lessons of the War in Connection with Lent • John Hasloch Potter
... hotel at Mentone where Tony Brabazon and his uncle happened to be staying. It seemed as though fate had deliberately mocked him—perpetrating a bitter jest at his expense. Ever since he had quitted Silverquay he had been roving from place to place, seeking forgetfulness, and had at last turned his steps toward Monte Carlo, hoping that in the keen concentration and excitement of pitting his wits against the god of chance he might temporarily drown the memories that pursued him. And then, who should he encounter ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... forming a quasi-historical narrative, the saga; in others, elaborated by a poetic fancy and enriched by the imagination, it becomes a fairy tale, the maerchen. Again, the myth being a product of creative thought, existing in words only, as language changes, it alters through forgetfulness of the earlier meanings of words, through similarities in sounds deceiving the ear, or through a confusion of the literal with the metaphorical signification of the same word. The character of languages also favors ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... this obvious truth. The young and untried heart hugs itself in the bitterness of its emotions, and takes a pride in believing that its anguish can end but with its existence; and it is not till time hath almost steeped our senses in forgetfulness that we discover the mutability ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... still sobbing 'It's a lie! A lie!' at last spoke. It was a young fellow of the huerta whom she had never seen again... an indiscretion committed one evening... she no longer remembered. No, she could not remember!... And she insisted upon this forgetfulness as if ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... companions. After half an hour's waiting Dick, almost weeping with rage and wrath, caught a passer-by, who introduced him to a friendly policeman, who led him to a four-wheeler opposite the Albert Hall. He never told Mr. Beeton of Alf's forgetfulness, but . . . this was not the manner in which he was used to walk ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... he said, "God is against me! And yet a few hours ago I dared to think that He had guided me to a haven of rest and forgetfulness! ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... in a low voice, "I believe there is one in this very castle far worse tried than thou—a cross borne which is ten times heavier than thine, and has no rose-bud twined around it. And it is carried with the patience of an angel, with the unselfish forgetfulness of Christ. The tool is going very deep there, and already the portrait stands out in beautiful relief. And that cross will never be laid down till the sufferer parts with it at the very gate of Heaven. At least, so it seems to me. As the years go on it grows ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... passages in "Philander," "Narcissa," and "Lucia," there is hardly a trace of human sympathy, of self-forgetfulness in the joy or sorrow of a fellow-being, throughout this long poem, which professes to treat the various phases of man's destiny. And even in the "Narcissa" Night, Young repels us by the low moral tone of his exaggerated lament. ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... drown self-pity, hardening the woman to summon scruples in relation to her unworthiness. He might choose to forget, but the more she admired, the less could her feminine conscience permit of an utter or of any forgetfulness that she was not the girl Browny, whom he once loved—perhaps loved now, under some illusion of his old passion for her—does love now, ill-omened as he is in that! She read him by her startled reading ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... vividness in these respects became for him, in the special conditions, almost an obsession; and though the obsession sharpened his pulses, adding really to the excitement of life, there were hours at which, to be less on the stretch, he directly sought forgetfulness. He knew it for the queerest of adventures—a circumstance capable of playing such a part only for Lambert Strether—that in Paris itself, of all places, he should find this ghost of the lady of Woollett more ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... came to lose their exemption from local taxation and to pay the town penny to the alderman like the rest of the burgesses. "In some way, I don't know how,"—as Jocelyn grumbles about just such an unnoted change,—by usage, by omission, by downright forgetfulness, here by a little struggle, there by a little present to a needy abbot, the town won freedom. But progress was not always unconscious, and one incident in the history of Bury St. Edmunds, remarkable if only ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... but a sleep and a forgetting. The soul that rises with us, our life's Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar; Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... to exist, and grew rapidly to the full measure of his gigantic powers. With what vehemence, with what policy, with what exact discipline, with what dauntless courage, with what self-denial, with what forgetfulness of the dearest private ties, with what intense and stubborn devotion to a single end, with what unscrupulous laxity and versatility in the choice of means, the Jesuits fought the battle of their Church, is written in every page of the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... superintending their efforts to supply soup and such articles of diet as the surgeons had ordered. "Ole miss" now shone to advantage and had the executive ability of a general. In cool, sharp, decisive tones she gave her orders, which were obeyed promptly by assistants awed into forgetfulness of everything else except the great, solemn emergency. All differences had disappeared between the two ladies, and they began consulting at once how best to meet the prolonged demands ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... hand, and stroking Watch with the other; whilst she is returning the compliment by patting Neptune's magnificent head. There they stand, as much like lovers as may be; he smiling, and she blushing—he never looking so handsome nor she so pretty in all their lives. There they stand, in blessed forgetfulness of all except each other; as happy a couple as ever trod the earth. There they stand, and one would not disturb them for all the milk and butter in Christendom. I should not wonder if they were fixing the ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... give my heart's blood to subdue to a mood of womanly tenderness and dependence. Up to this, my position is that of a very humble courtier in the presence of a queen, and she takes care that by no momentary forgetfulness shall I lose ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... in the highest degree, is the essence of tragic representation; so is sport of the comic. The disposition to mirth is a forgetfulness of all gloomy considerations in the pleasant feeling of present happiness. We are then inclined to view every thing in a sportive light, and to allow nothing to disturb or ruffle our minds. The imperfections and the irregularities of men are no longer an object of dislike and compassion, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... who to dumb forgetfulness a prey, This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd, Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, Nor cast one longing, ling'ring ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... heard and what was demanded of her, her normal expression was one of an almost childish and happy content. She poured her glass of Chianti into a tumbler, and filled that up with water, and sipped it as a canary sips. She made little pellets of bread with her dainty white fingers—but that was in forgetfulness—that was in her eagerness of listening. ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... kingdom for skill as well as beauty. Thus the years slipped away, during which Geirlaug grew to be a woman. Now and then she caught glimpses of Grethari as he rode out to hunt in the forest, but when she saw him coming she hid herself behind the great trees, for her heart was still sore at his forgetfulness. One day, however, when she was gathering herbs, he came upon her suddenly, before she had time to escape, though as she had stained her face and hands brown, and covered her beautiful hair with a scarlet cap, he did not guess her to ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... a national boast that we "muddle through" our troubles, and I suppose it is true and to our credit that by virtue of a certain kindliness of temper, a humorous willingness to make the best of things, and an entirely amiable forgetfulness, we do come out of pressures and extremities that would smash a harder, more brittle people only a little chipped and damaged. And it is quite conceivable that our country will, in a measure, survive ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... general alienation which pervaded all around at Streatham. His visits, which, heretofore, had seemed galas to Mrs. Thrale, were now begun and ended almost without notice: and all others,—Dr. Johnson not excepted,—were cast into the same gulph of general neglect, or forgetfulness;—all,—save singly this Memorialist!—to whom, the fatal secret once acknowledged, Mrs. Thrale clung for comfort; though she saw, and generously pardoned, how wide she was ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... transcendently beautiful that hunters have been astonished into forgetfulness of their guns, and no triumph was ever greater, for to recognize an attractive creature and lift the gun to take its life seems to be a single operation of many who carry the ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... though he was, as the reader may suspect, a little inclined to forgetfulness, never wanted more than a hint to remind him, overhearing their discourse, immediately suggested to himself that this was his own horse, and that he had forgot to pay for him, which, upon inquiry, he was certified of by the gentlemen; who added, that the ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... that, are impressed upon your memory with the most laborious minuteness, and shouted after you over and over again as long as you are within hearing. If the utmost anxiety to give the utmost quantity of good advice could always avail against accident or forgetfulness, no traveller in Cornwall who asks his way as he goes, need ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... discreet Manicamp, saluting the princess, "let us bury this affair altogether in forgetfulness, for it will never ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... would try to cure it; but having taken such measures as were necessary, you would not think the cure likely to be promoted by perpetually watching the wounds, or thinking of them. On the contrary, you would be thankful for every moment of forgetfulness: as, in daily health, you must be thankful that your Maker has veiled whatever is fearful in your frame under a sweet and manifest beauty; and has made it your duty, and your only safety, to rejoice in that, both in yourself and in others:—not indeed ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... to ride in. But he never told anyone—even his mother—the whole story of his adventures. Perhaps he did not remember them clearly himself; for the fairies protect their secrets well, and draw in sleep the veil of forgetfulness over much that we have seen ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... been in a remarkably quiet time, when party movements were neither ebbing nor flowing, so that he had forgotten how strong and vigorous the democratic feeling was amongst the population of these States. This is a forgetfulness to which all men are liable who long occupy official position, and who seldom have to submit themselves to that severe and rude competitive examination which the plan of popular elections establishes. Unfortunately for him, he was not responsible ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... sat there resting her head on her hand, looking thoughtful but worried. Though it was so late, she had not retired. The thrush that Ayrault had often in life admired, and that she had for some reason brought up-stairs, was silent and asleep. "Happy bird!" he said, "you obtain rest and forgetfulness on covering your head; but what wing can cover my soul? I used to wish I might flutter towards heaven on natural wings like you, little thrush. Now I can, indeed, outfly you. But whatever I do I'm unhappy, and wherever I go I'm in hell. What is man in ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... unmentioned in this history, just as my mind left them unmentioned in that interminable final week. Our life went on precisely as before—Mabel unreal and outwardly so still; Frances, secretive, anxious, tactful to the point of slyness, and keen to save to the point of self-forgetfulness. ...
— The Damned • Algernon Blackwood
... first draught, to faithful love, Bruennhilde, I drink to you!" With which secret toast to the absent beloved he sets the horn to his lips and drains it—to the motif of Evil Enchantment, the motif of the Cup of Forgetfulness, closely resembling the Tarnhelm-motif, but sweeter,—cruel as a treacherous caress. This whole passage, surpassingly exquisite to the ear, is painful to the heart as hardly another in the opera, fertile as this is in tragic moments. It marks the ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... who drags a chain like a guilty thing. She is a woman who wears a mask, like a thing that is a leper. The fire cannot purify her. The waters cannot quench her anguish. Nothing can heal her! no anodyne can give her sleep! no poppies forgetfulness! She is lost! She is a lost soul! - That is why I call Lord Illingworth a bad man. That is why I don't want my boy to be ...
— A Woman of No Importance • Oscar Wilde
... form of speaking, except that of dramatic recitation, is the liability to impairment of voice so great as it is in debating. One of the several excellent features of debating is that of the self- forgetfulness that comes with an earnest struggle to win. But perhaps a man cannot safely forget himself until he has learned to know himself. The intensity of debating often leads, in the case of a speaker vocally untrained, to a tightening of the throat ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... married to Viscount, afterwards Earl, Fauconberg. The Fauconbergs took revolutions calmly and, despite the disinterment of their great relative, accepted the Restoration gladly and lived to chuckle over the Revolution. The forgetfulness, no less than the vindictiveness, of men is often surprising. Marvell, who played the part of Laureate during the Protectorate, produced two songs for the conventionally joyful occasion. The second of the two is decidedly ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... telegraphing as she desired, but in the hall below he had met with an old acquaintance who talked with him so long that he entirely forgot his errand until Katy recalled it to his mind, making him feel very uncomfortable as he frankly told her of his forgetfulness. ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... the hurried and brief meeting between Bartlett and Gertie Higgins, but he had seen enough to cause forgetfulness of mundane things. For an instant he stared after the vanished vision. Then he stepped blindly forward, tripped over something—"his off hind leg," so Captain Sol afterwards vowed—and fell sprawling, the ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... lips. He would have taken her in his arms again, but the movement and the touch of his hand roused her to the fearful consciousness that she had no longer a right to seek consolation in his companionship. She broke away, terrified and oppressed, with a feeling of guilt at her momentary forgetfulness. ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... weariness of labour without end, it has such infinitude of woe to regard in its prisons, in its homes, in its battlefields, in its harlotries, in its avarices, in its famines; it is so heart-sick of them all, that it would fain be lulled to forgetfulness of its own terrors; it asks only to laugh for awhile, even if it laugh ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... she, 'I know another cause of thy disease, one, too, of grave moment. Thou hast ceased to know thy own nature. So, then, I have made full discovery both of the causes of thy sickness and the means of restoring thy health. It is because forgetfulness of thyself hath bewildered thy mind that thou hast bewailed thee as an exile, as one stripped of the blessings that were his; it is because thou knowest not the end of existence that thou deemest abominable and wicked men to be happy and powerful; while, because thou hast ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius
... his family as something seldom to be shared, even with an intimate friend. Of individual women we hear and see little in Athens, but of NOBLE WOMANHOOD a great deal. By a hundred tokens, delightful vase paintings, noble monuments, poetic myths, tribute is paid to the self-mastery, the self-forgetfulness, the courage, the gentleness "of the wives and mothers who have made Athens the beacon of Hellas"; and there is one witness better than all the rest. Along the "Street of Tombs," by the gate of the city, runs the long row of stele (funeral monuments), inimitable and chaste memorials to the beloved ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... the condition of the brute! I ask, if proficiency must imply profligacy, would you not rather find a man break down in his verbs than in his virtue? Would you not prefer a little inaccuracy in his declensions to a total forgetfulness of the decalogue? And, lastly of all, what man of real eminence could have masqueraded—for it is masquerading—for years in this motley, and come out, after all, with even ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... than twenty years, came back to him with divine beauty and diviner joy. Mnemosyne, that guardian angel of the soul, brought from her treasure-house gifts of laughter and tears; the laughter sweet with singing, and the bitterness of the tears eternally lost in the Water of Forgetfulness. ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... simplicity, which may be defined as forgetfulness of self. There is nothing more fatal to agreeable Conversation than thinking perpetually of one's self. Young persons, on first going into society, are very apt to fall into the error of supposing that all eyes and ears are fixed upon them, to observe how awkwardly or how gracefully they ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... nature and its specific varieties. It may be defined, generally, as that state of mind which involves either the denial or the doubt of the existence and government of God as an all-perfect Being, distinct from the created universe; or which leads to the habitual forgetfulness and wilful neglect of His claims as our Creator, Preserver, and Lord. This state of mind, whether evinced by words or by actions, contains in it the essence of Atheism, and it is recognized in Scripture, in each of its two aspects, as an evil alike natural and prevalent. The words of the ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... self-respect and their honor. Let these miscreants make haste to seize the price of their perfidy before popular contempt and loathing shall sweep them forever out of sight into the abyss of infamy and forgetfulness which is appointed for the traitors to Liberty. If the question of the real will of the people of Kansas had been referred back to them for settlement, it would have been humiliating enough to have had to exult over it as a victory of Freedom. With ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... speak of me as generous, or noble, since Miriam is dead, and I who have followed her through life desire to follow her through death, hoping that there I may find a kinder fortune at her hands, or if not, forgetfulness. You who will live long, must drink deep of memory—a bitterer cup. Marcus, farewell. Since die I must, I would that it had been in open fight beneath your sword, but Fate, who has given me fortune, but no true favour, appoints me to the ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... nine years at Carthage—nine years that he squandered in obscure tasks, in disputes sterile or unfortunate for himself and others—briefly, in an utter forgetfulness of his true vocation. "And during this time Thou wert silent, O my God!" he cries, in recalling only the faults of his early youth. Now, the silence of God lay heavy. And yet even in those years his tormented soul had not ceased to appeal. "Where wert Thou then, O my God, while ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... Pauline was winning golden opinions among the women at the camp by the hearty, unaffected way in which she went about making herself generally useful. O blessed simplicity, how adorable art thou in man and woman! Self-forgetfulness was a salient point in Pauline's character, and, being conjoined with strong powers of sympathy, active good-will to man and beast, and more than the average of intellectual capacity, with an under-current of rippling fun, the girl's influence ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... whim, a fantastic, unaccountable whim; the whim of a woman seeking forgetfulness, not counting the cost nor caring; simply a whim. She had brought him here to crush him for his impertinence; and that purpose was no longer in her mind. Was she sorry? Did he cause her some uneasiness, some regret ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... "the star of Lethe," the word "star" makes us see him as the poor ghosts do who are awaiting his convoy, while the word "Lethe" intensifies our sympathy by making us feel his coming as they do who are longing to drink of forgetfulness. And this again reacts upon the word "star," which, as it before expressed only the shining of the god, acquires a metaphysical significance from our habitual association of star with the notions of hope and promise. Again nothing can be more fanciful than this ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... He didn't help me; and I couldn't help myself. I tried! Ah, how I tried! But there was something—her eyes, it was—eyes that burnt and seared!—I tried to kill myself, as Parmalee did. I couldn't.... And the only forgetfulness lay in drink—drink that sapped my strength and drained my veins and shrivelled my brain. Tell me it's a dream, Tom—that it's all but a vile, horrible, grewsome dream! Tell me that I'm the kind of a man ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... ultimately conceded to Ireland, the political party which may be responsible for the carrying of the scheme, will have to look forward to a long period of exclusion from public confidence. However the British people may be worried or deluded into forgetfulness of their duty to themselves and to Ireland, the working of a Dublin Parliament will soon rouse them, the reaction will set in; and the authors of the scheme will have before them as lengthened a banishment ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... set an example followed by most of the more thoughtful religious travellers since his time. Very significant is it to see the New Testament injunction, "Remember Lot's wife," so utterly forgotten. These later investigators seem never to have heard of it; and this constant forgetfulness shows the change which had taken place in the ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... Tibbie, plays are the most amazing and marvellous things in the world! Not a one of the officers could I recognise, so changed they were, and they did us females to the life. 'T was so enchanting that at times I found myself gasping through very forgetfulness to breathe, and I was dreadfully rallied and quizzed because I burst into tears when the poor minor seemed to have lost both his love and his property. But how can I touch off my feelings, when, in the fourth act; the villain ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... self-forgetfulness, of lowliness! O power of meekness, Whose very gentleness and weakness Are like the yielding, but irresistible air! Upon the pages Of the sealed volume that I bear, The deed divine Is written in characters of gold, That never shall ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... were the deep humility expressed in this prayer, the discernment of the great work that he was called to do; the earnest desire to be fitted to do it nobly and well, and the utter forgetfulness of ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... successions, have regarded the evolution of usages (of a word, a rite, a dogma, a rule of law), as if it were an organic development analogous to the growth of a plant; we hear of the "life of words," of the "death of dogmas," of the "growth of myths." Then, in forgetfulness of the fact that all these things are pure abstractions, it has been tacitly assumed that there is a force inhering in the word, the rite, the rule, which produces its evolution. This is the theory of the development (Entwickelung) of usages and institutions; it was started ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... a lively memory for the uses of forgetfulness, Carlo, When you had scourged me well, you thought it proper to raise me up and give me comfort. I was wicked for serving the king, and therefore the country, as a spy; but I was to persevere, and cancel my ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... (heanton), while she having intercourse with five becometh a harlot. Therefore, O learned one, as thou art well-acquainted with the scripture on this subject, why dost thou, beguiled by desire of offspring, tell me so in seeming forgetfulness of the ordinance?'" ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... applying both their hands to the side of the boat in which they stood, and, pushing with all their might, in order to push it towards a place of safety. This implies the grossest ignorance, or at least the total forgetfulness for the time of the most obvious and ordinary of the natural laws; and yet I have found that these persons had quite enough of wit to manage all their ordinary affairs, and to get along respectably in society. I think there is some analogy between this case and the case of those who, intelligent ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... I, really? I'm so glad!" cried Rowena, smiling. But Dreda noticed with amazement that she didn't seem a bit conceited; if such a curious thing could be believed true, there was a hitherto unknown modesty and self-forgetfulness about her manner. "You look a darling yourself," Rowena added affectionately. "Are you going to get a lot of prizes to make us proud of ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... waves as he paced the deck in the dim light before dawn, straining his eyes for the first sight of land? To the end of all things that night would remain with him, a ghastly memory. And since then he had not known one full hour of forgetfulness. The days and the nights had succeeded each other as in a torture-chamber. His body had wasted; his mind ever renewed its capability of anguish. With all appearances against Egremont, could he preserve the nice balance ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... got a pretty strong will, and I've never done as I see so many chaps do, find forgetfulness in drink—but there's no saying what a man may come to. It's the nights that are the worst. I'm glad to get up at dawn and see to the beasts. And there's that infernal watching of the sky—looking out all the time for clouds that don't come—or if they ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... said, holding out his hand, "but you know that I love you, and that though your carelessness and forgetfulness chafe me sorely at times, I mean ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... to look backwards, is like walking backwards—against our proper formation; the mind does not readily adopt the habit, and when once adopted, it will readily return to its natural bias. Oblivion is, therefore, an easier obtained boon than we imagine. Forgetfulness of the past is purchased by increasing our ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... human wants. Demons infest that path, and numerous and unhappy are the wanderings of millions who stray from its course; sometimes in reluctance to proceed; sometimes in an indiscreet haste to move faster than their fellows, and always in a forgetfulness of the great rules of conduct that have been handed down from above. Nevertheless, the main course is onward; and the day, in the sense of time, is not distant, when the whole earth is to be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, "as ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... naval and military victories at Mobile and Wilmington, were fruitful in wounds, sickness, and death. Never had the gentle and patient ministrations of woman been so needful as in the last year of the war; and never had they been so abundantly bestowed, and with such zeal and self-forgetfulness. ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... ask you now, O Friend, who, I would fain believe, have followed me thus far with no hostile eyes, to glide in tranced forgetfulness through the white blooms of May and the roses of June, into the warm breath of July afternoons and the languid pulse of August, perhaps even into the mild haze of September and the "flying gold" of brown October? In narrating to you the fruition of my hopes, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... the true believers in your realm." He turned on his heel, and I followed him out of the room after making a brief salutation to the old man, cowering among his cushions, a ceremony which Isaacs omitted, whether intentionally or from forgetfulness, I could not say. We passed through the house out into the air, and mounting our horses rode away, leaving the double row of servants salaaming to the ground. The duration of our private interview with the ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... a kind of comeliness and sweet harmony and proportion between such works, as the love of God and man, the use of all for his glory, of whom all things are, and man's reasonable being. Such a thing doth suit and become it. Again, other things, as the hatred of God and men, neglect and forgetfulness of him, drunkenness and abasing lusts of that kind, do disagree, and are indecent to it. O how happy was Adam, when holiness and righteousness were not written on tables of stone, but on his heart, and when there was no need of external persuasion, but there was an inward impulse, inclining him ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... able to wait till her manuscript brought forth some fruit; if not—well she dared not think of the reverse. She listened to the soft, regular breathing of her daughter, who was wrapped in refreshing slumber, and thanked God for the quick forgetfulness of youth. It was like a fresh draught of life and hope to think of her courage and perseverance in finding out and affronting her miserly uncle. Good must ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... in April, and as, with characteristic forgetfulness, he failed to bring it back, Martie, chancing to pass his office one day, determined to go in and get it for herself. She had never been in John's place of business before. She went from the spring warmth and dazzle of the street into ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... do not let him suffer for a momentary forgetfulness of right feeling. When he comes to be married to that foreign lady, and ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... have been much better if she had gone down herself to speak to this admirably persistent lover. Was she not drifting somewhat into the character of coquette, even if her ground of offence—a word of Christopher's about somebody else's mean parentage, which was spoken in utter forgetfulness of her own position, but had wounded her to the quick nevertheless—was to some extent a tenable one? She knew what facilities in suffering Christopher always showed; how a touch to other people was a blow to him, a blow to them his deep wound, although he took ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... of one another be, brethren and sisters, if we would imitate the Lord. We should never forget that genuine forgiveness implies a complete forgetfulness of all trespasses in the past. Our Lord says: "If ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses." To forgive from the heart is to forgive in love; and love thinketh no ill of one's ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... otherwise ordered by both houses; and that this day particularly is to be kept with the more solemn humiliation, because it may call to remembrance our sins and the sins of our forefathers, who have turned this Feast, pretending the memory of Christ, into an extreme forgetfulness of him, by giving liberty to carnal and sensual delights; being contrary to the life which Christ himself led here upon earth, and to the spiritual life of Christ in our souls; for the sanctifying and saving whereof Christ was pleased both to take a human ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... been consigned to forgetfulness, if it had not been for the Chevalier de Ville-Follet's indiscretion. He felt angry at being interrupted in the middle of the business, and remembering he had seen my man just before fixed on him as the informer. Meeting him in the street the chevalier reproached him for spying, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Fortunately Mr. Winter had been a good oar in his day, and had pulled in one of the first four-oars in which the University races had commenced some thirty-five years before; and Tom, who had set his mind on managing his uncle, worked him up almost into enthusiasm and forgetfulness of his maladies, so that he raised no objection to a five o'clock dinner, and an adjournment to the river almost immediately afterwards. Jervis, who was all-powerful on the river, at Tom's instigation got an arm-chair ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... introduced, but beyond a passing glance of admiration Custance relegated her to forgetfulness. She was, however, determined to know him, and she engineered a second meeting ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... solace and forgetfulness of the unpleasant life he was leading in helping the stricken Moriarty family. Annie, the maid at the apartment, he swore to secrecy. She must not tell Miss Caroline of his visits to her parents' home. Doctor Henry, also, though he could not understand why, promised silence. Caroline ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... totally forgotten the poor fellow—the contrast between this forgetfulness and the anxiety and contrition of the two preceding nights, actually surprised Ormond: he could hardly believe that he was one and the same person. Then came excuses to himself: "Gratitude— common civility—the peremptoriness of King Corny—his passionate temper, when opposed on this ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... the death-beds of fathers, of mothers, and of dearly loved children. In a word, I did not act professionally, for I never sent in my bills; my patients paid me when and how they could. To their honour, I am bound to say that I rarely had to complain of forgetfulness. Besides, my appointments permitted me to live sumptuously, to have eight horses in my stables, and to keep open house to my friends and the strangers who visited Manilla. Soon, however, what my friends designated a coup-de-tete caused me to ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... stripe on his blue sleeve; there was Edward Green, a captain; there was Peter Allinson, a color-bearer. At their head, taller, handsomer, dearer than ever to Adam's jealous eyes, walked Henry Foust. In an instant of forgetfulness Adam waved his hand. But Henry did not see; Adam chose to think that he saw and would not answer. The veterans passed, and Adam drew back and was lost ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... matter now. Unfortunately it was also, as Mollie expressed it to herself "so short ago" that she could remember Prue's words only too plainly: "You must not ask questions however much you want to." It is true that she had broken the rule once, but it had been in forgetfulness, not deliberately. Dick and Jerry were perhaps less picturesque in the manner of their vows, but they certainly had no intention of breaking them. It was Aunt Mary who unconsciously ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... a restless night, followed by an hour't complete forgetfulness, that more nearly resembled the swoon of exhaustion than the sleep of health, Ishmael awoke to a new sense ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... was lying in the hospital with his eyes closed, and Pan was bathing his father's brow with water, using his injured arm now and then out of forgetfulness, but putting it back in the sling again as soon as ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... cavern, by the reflection of the fire above; and if we hear the echo of voices, we suppose it belongs to those passing shadows. The soul, in its present condition, is an exile from the orb of light; its ignorance is forgetfulness; and whatever we can perceive of truth, or imagine of beauty, is but a reminiscence of our former more glorious state of being. He who reverences the gods, and subdues his own passions, returns at last to the blest condition from which he fell. But to ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... you, my dear friend, were taken chiefly from a recent letter from Monsieur Marie-Gaston. On leaning of the brave devotion shown in his defence his first impulse was to rush to Paris and press the hand of the friend who avenged himself thus nobly for neglect and forgetfulness. Unfortunately the evening before his departure he met with a dangerous fall at Savarezza, one of the outlying quarries of Carrara, and dislocated his ankle. Being obliged to postpone his journey, he wrote to Monsieur Dorlange ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... weary hours of toil, It brought forgetfulness to debtors; Time and again from wretched men ...
— A Little Book of Western Verse • Eugene Field
... to "stand still and not fidget," with Aunt Izzie fussing away and lecturing, and now and then, in a moment of forgetfulness, sticking her needle into one's chin. Katy bore it as well as she could, only shifting perpetually from one foot to the other, and now and then uttering a little snort, like an impatient horse. The minute she was released she flew into the kitchen, seized ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge
... overwhelming conclusion of the story. If to the reader, as to the bystanders, that scene brings one unbroken pain, it is not so with Lear himself. His shattered mind passes from the first transports of hope and despair, as he bends over Cordelia's body and holds the feather to her lips, into an absolute forgetfulness of the cause of these transports. This continues so long as he can converse with Kent; becomes an almost complete vacancy; and is disturbed only to yield, as his eyes suddenly fall again on his child's corpse, to an agony which at once breaks his heart. And, finally, though ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... the first time at Mrs. Taylor's house at a function given in honor of a Right Honorable Nobody from Essex. The Right Honorable has gone down into the dust of forgetfulness, his very name lost to us, like unto that of the man who fired the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard |
