"Inspiration" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that Fanny Brandeis had chosen. On the face of things you would have said she had chosen well. The inspiration of the roller skates had not been merely a lucky flash. That idea had been part of the consistent whole. Her mind was her mother's mind raised to the nth power, and enhanced by the genius she was trying to crush. Refusing to ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... the "moving effigies which ennoble for all time the charming and venerable fronts of our cathedrals"; that he would express a whole system of philosophy, new to me, by the use of marvellous imagery, to the inspiration of which I would naturally have ascribed that sound of harping which began to chime and echo in my ears, an accompaniment to which that imagery added something ethereal and sublime. One of these passages of Bergotte, the third or fourth which I had detached ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... not slept all night, mounted her bicycle and rode out into the fresh and brilliant sunlight on a forlorn hope. An idea had come to her as an inspiration which, though unlikely, was not an impossibility. In the search for the missing ones, every road in the District was being scoured without success. Since the rain had obliterated all tracks there had been nothing to guide any one in the quest, and nothing had been gleaned from villagers. ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... his features lighted up with a happy inspiration—"then you will appreciate my situation. I fondly cherished my old picture of you in my memory. Now I have lost it, and I can not help regretting the loss. I do not mean, however, to imply that this new acquaintance—this ...
— A Good-For-Nothing - 1876 • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... says (Gen. ad lit. ii, 15): "We must confess that when the truth is foretold by astrologers, this is due to some most hidden inspiration, to which the human mind is subject without knowing it. And since this is done in order to deceive man, it must be the work of ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... braggadocio that never failed to make good Butch Brewster wrathful, the happy-go-lucky youth possessed not the slightest idea of how the problem was to be solved. He just uttered his rash promise, and then trusted to his needed inspiration to illuminate a way out! And, as the Bannister campus well knew, Hicks had solved more than one torturing question by an inspiration that flashed on his intellect, when all hope of a satisfactory ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... his loves and beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought or feeling can preserve an individual life beyond the grave, that all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of man's achievements must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins—all these things if not quite beyond dispute, ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... God to be his witness that he would follow the purest inspiration of his life. But to return to the monastery! He reminds Servatius of the circumstances under which he entered it, as they lived in his memory: the pressure of his relations, his false modesty. He points out to him how ill monastic life had suited his constitution, ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... inspiration to have such a listener. Under the encouragement of her sympathy I found an unwonted flow of words and ideas. Laughter and tears shone in her eyes as the ludicrous and sorrowful parts of my experience ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... to prolong this delicious tremor which with him was ever the forerunner of inspiration, and more especially of poetic inspiration, and he determined in a moment upon the metrical form into which he would pour his thoughts, like wine into a ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... these. Balaam requires the king of Moab to build him seven altars, and to prepare him the same number of oxen and of rams. The sacrifice being over, he retires alone to a solitude sacred to these occasions, there to wait the Divine inspiration or answer, for which the foregoing rites were the preparation. And God met Balaam, and put a word in his mouth; {16} upon receiving which, he returns back to the altars, where was the king, who had all this while attended the ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler
... of the Roman families of Orsini and Colonna, caused a vacancy in the papal office for more than two years. Then by a sudden whim, which in the event of a successful result would have been called an inspiration, the name of a hermit, Peter, whose austerities in his cell on Monte Murrone in the Abruzzi had won him great reverence, was suggested apparently in all sincerity to the wearied and perplexed Cardinals. He was elected and took the title ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley
... this stage of suffering—the duties of an arduous profession are exclusive of those dreamy moods of the mind, which have little in common with the doings of every-day life; yet, on this occasion, I felt all the inspiration of the sad muse; and, were I to endeavour to account for it, I could only seek for the cause in the aspect of the night, and the unusual nature of the vocation, operating, at the moment, on a mind loosened from the ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... you claim a verse of me, good friend, As from the inspiration of the place; Well then,—from pastoral trash may taste defend Your pleasant Leasowes, and the human race! The Gentle Shepherd's day has had an end, Nor even could melodious Shenstone here (False and inflated, we must all allow), Excite one glowing thought or pensive tear Unless indeed of wrath or ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... full and deliberate inspiration let the expiration of the element h be gently effected, until the lungs are exhausted—the aspiration coming from the very depths of the throat. Let this be repeated with the syllable haeh, audibly whispered. ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... the example of Alfred, Howell collected his clergy and bards at his hunting-lodge at Tenby, a palace built of peeled rods, and there, after fasting and praying for inspiration, the collective wisdom of the kingdom compiled a body of laws, which the King afterward carried in person to Rome to receive the confirmation of the Pope; and much edified must the Romans have been if they chanced to glance over the code, since, besides many wise and good laws, ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... J. P. laughed he stopped to consider. The enemy flew to defend his "bawlin'" and there was no time to see if he really had made a joke. But he was suspicious, and the suspicion put him into a good humour. A sudden inspiration seized him; he caught the book Lawyer Ed was brandishing and, opening it, laid it carefully on the top ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... way under him. Caught! The rider was none other than his sister Nancy! It was all over now, for a certainty. He knew it; he had about one minute to live. She was too near, so he dared not fly. Then a brilliant inspiration came to him. He quickly passed his hand over his face. The disguise was complete. Vidocq's wonderful eye could not have penetrated to ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... knowledge of the future, and power to divine the thoughts of others, are always adduced, and with reason, as solid proofs of the presence and inspiration of the Holy Spirit; but if the demon can sometimes perform the same things, he does it to mislead and induce sin, or simply to render true prophecies doubtful; but never to lead to truth, the fear and love of God, and the edification of those around. ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... images into allegorical deformities; and receded from the beautiful in proportion as they indulged their false conceptions of the sublime. Besides, a painter or a sculptor must have a clear idea presented to him, to be long cherished and often revolved, if we desire to call forth all the inspiration of which his genius may be capable; but how could the eastern artist form a clear idea of an image that should represent the sun entering Aries, or the productive principle of nature? Such creations could not fail of becoming stiff or extravagant, deformed or grotesque. But to the Greek, ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the earlier elements of the Renaissance, the passion for knowledge and glory, were not of the kind to give a new impulse to painting. Nor was the passion for antiquity at all so direct an inspiration to that art as it was to architecture and sculpture. The love of glory had, it is true, led such as could not afford to put up monumental buildings, to decorate chapels with frescoes in which their portraits were timidly ...
— The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance - Third Edition • Bernhard Berenson
... when looking back over past numbers, with their articles on night operations, local guides, reconnoitring, organization of transports, reserves, signalling, and so forth, that one sees how it is that they were able to hold up Dublin for a solid week; but Eoin McNeill owed his inspiration entirely to the ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... feel in times, with vapour etern: they feel in their seasons, by the emission of an eternal breath or inspiration (that God loves, &c.) ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... But it cannot be disguised that Burke had thoroughly persuaded himself that it was indispensable in the interests of English freedom to strengthen the party hostile to the court. As we have already said, dread of the peril to the constitution from the new aims of George III. was the main inspiration of Burke's political action in home affairs for the best part of his political life. The India Bill strengthened the anti-court party by transferring the government of India to seven persons named in the bill, and neither appointed nor removable by the crown. In other words, the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... Here and there are heard cries of "Hurrah for the Charter! Hurrah for liberty of the press!" But they are drowned by those of "Long live the King!" Everything seems to go as he wishes, and Charles X. feels that the review, which his timid ministers regarded as dangerous, is an inspiration. So far it is for him only a triumph. But suddenly, as he appears in front of the Seventh Legion, he remarks the persistence with which a group of the Guards is crying, "Hurrah for the Charter!" The monarch perceives a sentiment of unfriendliness. A National ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... Dick Gilder, by some inspiration of love, changed his attitude. "Just the same," he said cheerfully, "you are my wife, and I'm going to keep you and ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... to the full my suspicions regarding the source of M. Auguste's inspiration. I believed firmly that there was a spirit present, but it was not the spirit of the deceased theosophist, rather of a monarch who is very ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... on getting out to the Nut Growers' Association meeting this year and having the pleasure of seeing all of my old friends once more and getting the inspiration that fills the air at our meetings. I find it absolutely necessary, however, to cut off all distractions until I can get two books finished. Work upon them has been delayed and the line of thought changed so often that it becomes a duty to confine ...
— Northern Nut Growers Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-First Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... another; my life was as the vapor and is not; but this I saw and knew: this if anything of mine, is worth your memory." That is his "writing"; it is, in his small human way and with whatever degree of true inspiration is in him his inscription, or ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... think of this particular summer, for Lilavate Singh was with us. The thought of her always brings help and inspiration. ...
— The Khaki Kook Book - A Collection of a Hundred Cheap and Practical Recipes - Mostly from Hindustan • Mary Kennedy Core
... "Dead Souls." Another friend, Jukovski, exercised a powerful influence, and gave invaluable aid at several crises of his career. Jukovski had translated the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey;" his enthusiasm for Hellenic poetry was contagious; and under this inspiration Gogol proceeded to write the most Homeric romance in Russian literature, "Taras Bulba." This story gave the first indubitable proof of its author's genius, and to-day in the world's fiction it holds an unassailable ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... all high and supernatural things, go to him for information and knowledge; for though there be a spirit in man, this person's inspiration must give him understanding. Wherefore, O thou Mr. Recorder, keep low and be humble, and remember that the Diabolonians that kept not their first charge, but left their own standing, are now made prisoners in the pit. Be therefore content with ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... free from anxiety about the issue, Dr. Ryerson, at that time Principal of the College, visited me in my room. I shall never forget that interview. He took me by the hand; and few men could express as much by a mere hand-shake as he. It was a welcome, an encouragement, an inspiration, and an earnest of future fellowship and friendship. It lessened the timid awe I naturally felt towards one in such an elevated position,—I had never before seen a Principal of a College,—it dissipated all boyish awkwardness, and awakened filial confidence. He ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... usual, the men took a middle position. Theirs was the pleasure of critics, which, being founded on the judgement, lasts long, and is without disappointment at the close. It was sufficient that the ladies should lend the inspiration of their bonnets to this fine match. Their presence on the field is another beautiful instance of the generous yielding of the sex simply to grace our amusement, and their acute perception of the part they ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... shall always love and reverence you for it. You will always be my ideal. If I ever do anything worth while it will be because of you. In everything I shall ever attempt I shall try to do it as if you were to pass judgment upon it. You will be a lifelong inspiration to me. Oh, I am bungling this! I can't tell you what I feel—you are so pure, so good, so noble! I shall reverence all ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... immediately to be in his element, never mind what it is—a paper-knife and a book to open, or a flower to pull in pieces, or a pair of scissors and a bit of thread to snip, or even the end of a stick to suck—and he draws inspiration, and what is more to the purpose, conversation, from any and ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... An inspiration came suddenly to Marjorie during cricket, and when the game was over she rushed away to unburden herself of it. She had thought several of the performers might be in the recreation room, but she found nobody there except Chrissie, who sat writing ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... spots like a leopard. At the house of the first citizen there was a little fir-tree in a wooden box, from whose branches hung oranges, sweetmeats, and toys. And the cook of the first citizen had pinned behind her back the two strings of her cap, as she only did on her days of inspiration when she was sure of succeeding with her famous sugar-candy. And then the scholars spoke, too, of what the Christ-child would bring to them, of what he would put in their shoes, which they would, of course, be very careful to leave in the chimney ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... week for Kit Rhodes to conclude that the girl behind the bars had a true inspiration regarding his own position on her ranches. There was no open hostility to him, yet it was evident that difficulties were ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... noble in thought, all that is original, all that partakes of inspiration, has come down to us from the classics," said Mr. Dale. "But take your gift, Pauline. Now, my dear children, I beseech of you, don't keep me any longer from my ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... densely-packed hold. What the relief of that whiff of fresh air must have been to the unhappy blacks can only be faintly imagined; but that it was ineffably grateful to them was evidenced by the deep murmur of delight, and the loud, long-drawn inspiration of the breath that swept from end to end of the hold the moment that the hatch was withdrawn, as well as by the upward glance of gratitude that instantly greeted us from the upturned eyes of those who were placed nearest the hatchway! But what a sight that hold presented when in the ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... instinct,'' writes M. Bourdeau, "without any moral inspiration, which dreams of pulling humanity down to the lowest level, and for which any superiority, even of culture, is an offence to society. . . it is the sentiment of ignoble equality which animated the Jacobin butchers when they struck off the head of a ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... cannot give himself the lie, so he cannot overthrow his own order of working, nor yet contradict that testimony that his servants, by his inspiration, hath given of his order of working with them. But he must do the first, if he saith to us—and that after we have received his own testimony, that we are under grace—that yet we are under ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... and my father take great trouble in educating me to sugceed him in his businezz, and so I did, like you see. And the same with Dubroca and with Castanado—Ducatel he's different he's come into that antique businezz by his mizfortune and he's—oh, he's all right only he's not of the same inspiration to be of that li'l' clique. He's up-town Creole and with the up-town Creole mind. And those De l'Isle' they also got a son, and Mme. Alexandre she have a very amiable daughter; and, laz', not leazt, you ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... all your old dogmas," she went on with unruffled face, "you'd better go to work to get a new set. I've just heard of some sort of a society got up by women out in Cambridge, where they deduce the ethnic sources of prophetic inspiration—whatever that means!—from the 'Arabian Nights' and 'Mother Goose.' You might find ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... showed his experience and good judgment of character by saying: "My friend, won't you take a drink?" From what I have said, it is unnecessary to record my answer. We spent the greater part of the night in pleasant social intercourse, drawing inspiration from the depths of the demijohn, which had seemed so far removed from my grasp but ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... happiness shining from my eyes; if you see around me brave sons and fair daughters, with whose promise of usefulness as men and women you are not ill-pleased; if, indeed, there is any good or any virtue in me or mine, know as the source, the fountain-head, the inspiration of it all, the sweetest woman in the whole wide world, there ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... told of a prophecy to the effect that France could only be delivered from the English by a virgin, and so she, though only a peasant girl, yet full of a strange, eager heroism which was almost inspiration, applied to the king for ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye
... we'd stalled sure and gone into a tail-spin. All the time I was thinkin' how to say 'Cheer up' to the old dame in French, but all I could think of at first was 'Bravo' and 'Vous-ate tray jolee!' Still it was sorta stupid walkin' along and no conversation, so I guess I musta had an inspiration or something, and I sez, pointing ahead at the coffin, 'Mort avec mon Dieu.' The old lady lost her step at that, because I suppose she was surprised by a Yank speakin' good French, most of 'em relyin', like ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... called Impressionist, in which ballet dancers and jockeys, burlesque actresses, masked balls, and all the humours of the side scenes are represented with the sublime audacity of an art which disdains finish, and relies on chic, fougue, chien, flou, v'lan, the inspiration of the moment. Lesbia blushed as she looked at the ballet girls, the maskers in their scanty raiment, the demi-mondaines lolling out of their opera boxes, and half out of their gowns, with false smiles and frizzled hair. And ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... members of the communities; they were the most influential; they were selected because of their special fitness for the work to be done; they were leaders of the people, not followers; they did not take inspiration from the people, but brought it to them; and having selected these men the people deferred to their judgment to act for them and protect their interests. Here, then, we arrive at the first principle involved in representation, ...
— Proportional Representation Applied To Party Government • T. R. Ashworth and H. P. C. Ashworth
... struggles, the battles, hopes and fears, disappointments and successes, joys and sorrows, anxieties and rewards of those long busy years, this fixed idea of an united Empire was his guiding star and inspiration. I, who can speak with something like authority on this point, declare that I do not think any man's mind could be more fully possessed {179} of an overwhelming strong principle than was this man's mind of this principle. It was the 'Empire' and 'England's precedent' ...
— The Day of Sir John Macdonald - A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion • Joseph Pope
... with religion and morals; it has served the purpose of penetrating the mysterious depths of things. It has had an enormous patriotic value. Homer to the Greeks was a Bible, a textbook of morals, a history, and a national inspiration. In any case, it may be said that an education which does not succeed in making poetry a resource in the business of life as well as in its leisure, has something the matter with it—or else the poetry ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... imagination. The plans he had made for her became commonplace. One could not talk over with her the matter-of-fact details of marrying and of housekeeping and of salaries. And those things that yesterday had filled him with inspiration, that had appeared to him the most wonderful things in life, that had been associated with the stars, seemed tawdry. She had been to London to see the Queen, and the flavor of that adventure was still ...
— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... enforced his arguments and insured his success. How widely different in method and surroundings from the poet's exercise of the creative faculty in the calm of thought and retirement, on a selected topic and in selected hours of inspiration, was his entering, with little notice or preparation, into a case involving complicated questions of law and fact, with only a partial knowledge of the case of his antagonist! met at point after point ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... return were received northern manufactures, northern books and northern ideas. Northern newspapers came to the South; and except for matters of local information, or local policy, a large class of her readers drew their inspiration chiefly from journals of New York—catholic in their scope as unreliable ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... afterwards, and to the end of her life remembered, that as she pressed her hands on Sydney's arm and looked up in his face, imploring him to do no hurt to Solomon, there was a braced purpose in the arm and a kind of inspiration in the eyes, which not only contradicted his light manner, but changed and raised the man. She was too much occupied then with fears for the brother who so little deserved her affection, and with Sydney's friendly reassurances, ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... agreement. I do not think that Jefferson could do this, or Hamilton either, and I cannot rid myself of the suspicion that Jefferson furnished Philip Freneau, who came from New York to Philadelphia to edit the anti-Washington newspaper, with much of his inspiration if not actual articles. The objective of the "Gazette" was, of course, the destruction of Hamilton and his policy of finance. If Hamilton could be thus destroyed, it would be far easier to pull down Washington also. Lest the invectives ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... of the vision of the political world, and from a definite inspiration to democracy becomes a dim and remote possibility of the future, Social Reform takes its place. Not only in Great Britain, but throughout Europe, the social reformers or "revisionists" are gaining the mastery over the ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... you should consider. Many times those who testify so beautifully and graphically in describing their sanctification are under an inspiration, and the blessing is set forth in glowing colors. For the time being their trials and discouragements are forgotten, their struggles to keep the victory are out of mind, and they speak in the highest praise of the work God has ...
— Adventures in the Land of Canaan • Robert Lee Berry
... She was by now perfectly well aware that they were not only rather difficult to arrange, but would be infinitely more difficult to express. She sighed once or twice rather heavily, gazing thoughtfully at the bronze chrysanthemums the while, as if seeking inspiration from their feathery brown faces. And then the door opened and Father Dormer came in in his cassock, which he always wore in ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... somewhat remarkable. A stylist would not allow these ornaments, or attempts at flourishes—just look at these unfinished tails!—but it has distinction and really depicts the soul of the writer. He would like to give play to his imagination, and follow the inspiration of his genius, but a soldier is only at ease in the guard-room, and the pen stops half-way, a slave to discipline. How delightful! The first time I met an example of this handwriting, I was positively astonished, and where ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... up and stared into the deep brown eyes. Just as Kut-le had become to her the splendor of the desert, so had Molly become the brooding wisdom of the desert. With sudden inspiration she grasped ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... if the constitution has formally conferred these powers, the constitution on these points is a dead letter, because it contravenes an unwritten constitution of higher authority, viz., the inner inspiration of the ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... Mahan, 'Nelson was careful to put his subordinates in possession both of his general plans and, as far as possible, of the underlying ideas.' The same biographer tells us, what is well worth remembering, that 'No man was ever better served than Nelson by the inspiration of the moment; no man ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge
... friends,' but in a state of mind from circumstances which occasionally occur to 'us youth,' that rendered it necessary for me to apply my mind to something, any thing but reality; and under this not very brilliant inspiration it was composed. Being done, and having at least diverted me from myself, I thought you would not perhaps be offended if Mr. Murray forwarded it to you. He has done so, and to apologise for his doing so a second time is the ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... portrait is a work of real merit. And whatever slight ability I may possess has of course been freely spent on it. But there is something else to consider—there is ability, but there is also the element of inspiration, and whatever I may have lacked in the one you have bountifully given me in the other. If others should think the portrait a success, I must thank not myself but you. And beyond the success of the picture itself, which at best can only be for a day, you have given me what no one ever gave ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... the Virgin Mary; but, on the contrary, in England, and still more especially in the English colonies, under the pernicious influence of the Protestant heresy engendered by revolts of truly diabolical inspiration, the wife and maid are in some sort the opprobrium of humanity. The example, moreover, comes from an exalted place, as is known. The whole world is acquainted with that which John Bull does not himself confess, namely, the private history of ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... a cross-road ahead of them and teams rattling from the opposite direction toward the fire, approaching along the highway they were travelling. Collisions seemed inevitable. But in a moment of inspiration the Cap'n grabbed the trumpet that hung from its red cord around his neck and began to bellow in ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... small definite sections, but with a wide and large view, whither all this discovery, this investigation, was tending. The investigation, worthless and minute enough in itself, as it seemed to be when examined at a single point, had at least this value, that some principle, some inspiration for life could be extracted from it, something which would permeate slowly the thought of the world, set pulses beating, kindle generous visions, and teach men ultimately the lesson that, once learnt, puts life into ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... of the high-born were to be exchanged for the bold and fiery words of reformers sprung from the people. Excluded from the luxurious capital, the Huguenots were, during a long series of years, to draw their inspiration from a city at the foot of the Alps—a city whose invigorating climate was no less adapted to harden the intellectual and moral constitution than the bodily frame, and where rugged Nature, if she bestowed wealth with no lavish hand, manifested her impartiality ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... spirit of heroism acts by a sort of inspiration, and wants neither the experience of history nor the doctrines of philosophers to direct it. But do not arts and sciences render men effeminate, luxurious, and inactive? and can you deny that wit and learning are often made ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... the Scriptures as the basis of their belief, but interpret and complete the doctrines therein contained by means of the occasional inspiration or internal enlightenment of their ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... her sister's martyrdoms scarcely quenched) was none of her least remarkable actions; but the support and establishment thereof, with the means of her own subsistence amidst so powerful enemies abroad, and those many domestic practices, were, methinks, works of inspiration, and of no human providence, which, on her sister's departure, she most religiously acknowledged—ascribing the glory of her deliverance to God above; for she being then at Hatfield, and under a guard, and the Parliament sitting at ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... Beatrice she was eight years old. From that hour he says he loved her. She was the inspiration of his early poem; and afterward, in the Divine Comedy, she became the embodiment of his conception of divine wisdom. She was married quite young to Simon di Bardi, a citizen of Florence. She died in 1290, when only twenty-four ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... ashes, Shreds all woolly from out that soft smooth surface arisen. Lastly before their feet lay fells, white, fleecy, refulgent, Warily guarded they in baskets woven of osier. They, as on each light tuft their voice smote louder approaching, 320 Pour'd grave inspiration, a prophet chant to the future, Chant which an after-time shall tax of ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... benevolence, to direct the future, the destiny of—ah—the destiny of—But surely you know what I mean, Mr. Bingle. Now, I am not questioning the sincerity of your motives. I am heartily in accord with the original inspiration which led you to take these poor waifs into your home. But, don't you see, the idea works both ways. Charity begins at home, to be sure, but I submit that it all depends upon the character of the home. I do ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... fine minting than we can afford to lose. Ruskin has explained to us how the decadence of Gothic architecture commenced through care bestowed on window tracery for itself instead of as an avenue or vehicle for the admission of light. Read "words" for tracery, "thought" for light, and we see how inspiration avenges itself so soon as diction is made paramount; artifice, which demands and misses watchful self-concealment, passes into mannerism; we have lost the incalculable charm of spontaneity. Comparison ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... it has been learned that there is considerable variation in the dramatization of the ritual. One circumstance presents itself forcibly to the careful observer, and that is that the greater number of repetitions of the phrases chanted by the Mid[-e] the greater is felt to be the amount of inspiration and power of the performance. This is true also of some of the lectures in which reiteration and prolongation in time of delivery aids very much in forcibly impressing the candidate and other observers with the importance ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... on the Arch of Peace. It meant, do you wish to go up there? I give it as a specimen of guide-English. These are the people that make life a burthen to the tourist. Their tongues are never still. They talk forever and forever, and that is the kind of billingsgate they use. Inspiration itself could hardly comprehend them. If they would only show you a masterpiece of art, or a venerable tomb, or a prison-house, or a battle-field, hallowed by touching memories or historical reminiscences, or grand traditions, and then step aside ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... foundations of a Roman brick-kiln were discovered on the site of the brewery. A few old houses—the relics of the old cloth-working days—may be found amongst the crowd of cottages on the banks of the stream. The road to Wells runs through a beautiful valley, which, by some sinister inspiration, has been chosen as the site ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... races receives almost invariably the fullest acknowledgment; the inhabitants of the great island cease to look towards Germany, Denmark and Scandinavia, for their ancestors or for the sources of their inspiration; they look rather, like their new French companions, to Rome, Greece and Troy. This policy produced not only momentous social results, but also very important literary consequences; the intellectual connection with ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... Greek Philosophy: it becomes Retrospective, and in Philo the Jew and Apollonius of Tyana leans on Inspiration, Mysticism, Miracles. ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... glory of the meadow, the light, the luxurious shadows, the indolent clouds reclining on their azure couch. Such thoughts can only be expressed in fragments, like a sculptor's chips thrown off as the inspiration seizes him, not mechanically sawn to a set line. Now and again the blackbird feels the beauty of the time, the large white daisy stars, the grass with yellow-dusted tips, the air which comes so softly unperceived by any precedent rustle of the hedge, the water ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... "but that land was overlooked and forgotten? It is so near the 'ungranted lands,' which must be wilderness, I suppose!" Slowly a dim purpose struggled in Draxy's brain. It would do no harm to find out. But how? No more journeys must be taken on uncertainties. At last, late one night, the inspiration came. Who shall say that it is not an unseen power which sometimes suggests to sorely tried human hearts the one possible escape? Draxy was in bed. She rose, lighted her candle, and wrote two letters. Then she went back to bed and slept peacefully. In the morning when she kissed her father ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... Santa Catalina, signalized by his receipt of the tuna button, had so increased Major Dare's pride in him that when the boy renewed his request that he be allowed to enter the Bureau of Fisheries, his appeal received attention. The inspiration that he had gained from the whole-hearted enthusiasm of the professor was evident in all that the boy said, and his father was surprised to find how much the lad really had learned about the work of the Government during his experiences ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... the framework of society, and, as much by inspiration as by law, governed the outward actions of men, the human mind was in complete, and almost universally willing, subjection to theological influence. The state of war, or of readiness for war, which ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... the messenger had even had time to disappear round the first bend in the path, Allan found his inspiration. ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... creation of a work of art, for all its appearance of directing matters, is the merest weathercock in the wind of the subconscious intention. As an example of how utterly it is possible to misunderstand the springs of inspiration in a poem, we may take the following remark of B. B. Rogers: It is much to be regretted that the phallus element should be so conspicuous in this play.... (This) coarseness, so repulsive to ourselves, was introduced, it is impossible to doubt, for the express purpose ...
— Lysistrata • Aristophanes
... moistening it with distilled water, and then decanting and filtering the liquor thus obtained. He tried this liquor then mixed with Malaga wine, on his patients, without obtaining any appreciable result. Suddenly, as he was beginning to grow discouraged, he had an inspiration one day, when he was giving a lady suffering from hepatic colics an injection of morphine with the little syringe of Pravaz. What if he were to try hypodermic injections with his liquor? And as soon as he returned home he tried the experiment ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... the colonel, "you make me think you're speakin' the truth anyhow." Then, with a sudden inspiration, he exclaimed: "By the great Sammy, I've got an idea!" and then, as he saw Ranald waiting, added, "But I guess I'll let it soak till we get down to ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... his face, and as he finished, the face of the priest grew clearer and decided, and calmly exultant. And as Latimer ceased he bent his head above his daughter's, and said in a voice that seemed to speak with more than human inspiration. "My child," he said, "if God had given me a son I should have been proud if he could have spoken as this young man ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... each old poetic mountain Inspiration breathes around, Every shade and hallow'd fountain Murmurs deep a ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... upon whom the choice had fallen, greeted it with the loudest and most extravagant demonstrations of delight. Do we not know that in such dangerous times, in times of such tension and unrest, any resolution that really is a resolution is accepted as an inspiration from Heaven? Thus it came to pass that the "dear good count" and all his gentleness and piety were forgotten, and every one cried, "By Saint Mark, this Marino ought long ago to have been our Doge, and then we should not have yon arrogant ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... listened attentively to his discussion of deep problems, and he was agreeably surprised to learn that she could readily follow him in the discussion of these themes; so that the long winter evenings spent with her either at her home or at his own became a source of great inspiration to the young man who had not lost sight or the mission assigned to him by the beloved Uncle Zed. Dorian talked freely to Carlia on how he might best fulfill the high destiny which seemed to lay before him; and Carlia ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson
... conveyance. He could not call it a coach! It certainly was not a buggy—neither was it a jaunting car—what should he say—he looked earnestly, and even imploringly at his mistress, as if to convey some sense of his difficulty, and then, as it were, catching a sudden inspiration, ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... impeditus; 'tis a frequent disease; and they have a ground of what they say, forth of Areteus and Plato. [6310]Areteus, an old author, in his third book cap. 6. doth so divide love melancholy, and derives this second from the first, which comes by inspiration or otherwise. [6311]Plato in his Phaedrus hath these words, "Apollo's priests in Delphos, and at Dodona, in their fury do many pretty feats, and benefit the Greeks, but never in their right wits." He makes them all mad, as well he might; and he that ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... but the citadel of a king. The Cyrenaic, on the other hand, did not seek to make impervious the surface of contact with nature and society, but sought to heighten its sensibility, that it might become a medium of pleasurable feeling. For the inspiration with which it may be pursued this ideal has nowhere been more eloquently set forth than in the pages of Walter Pater, who styles himself ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... a housekeeper without inspiration? No. In the words of the old church-service, "Her soul must ever have affiance in God." The New Jerusalem of a perfect home cometh down from God out of heaven. But to make such a home is ambition high and worthy enough for any woman, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... with a terrible whisper of earnestness, addressed her in these words: "Mistress, before we gang hame, doon wi' a whang o' cheese and a farl o' cake—it'll no' cost ye much—and I'll ha'e a tussle wi' him for't yet." She gladly complied with his request. His excitement gave him inspiration, and over that cheese and oatcake, he delivered himself of such a grace as had never before proceeded from his lips. A murmur of involuntary admiration greeted the conclusion. James was comforted, and once ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... fellow. It was just a sudden inspiration, you know. Don't mention it, and you may like to get off that rhyme into another. But I say, Greenfield, we shall have a stunning paper for the first one. Tom Senior has written no end of a report of the last meeting of the Sixth Form Debating Society, quite in ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... big square room in the eastern end of the house, I set up a handmade walnut desk which I had found in LaCrosse, and on this I began to write in the inspiration of morning sun-shine and bird-song. For four hours I bent above my pen, and each afternoon I sturdily flourished spade and hoe, while mother hobbled about with cane in hand to see that I did it right. "You need watching," she ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... brows, flitted most pleasant visions of Wiltshire farmers jogging into Sherborne fair, their heaviest shillings in their pockets, to buy (unless old Aubrey lies) the lotus-leaf of Torridge for its weight in silver, and draw from thence, after the example of the Caciques of Dariena, supplies of inspiration much needed, then as now, in those Gothamite regions. And yet did these improve, as Englishmen, upon the method of those heathen savages; for the latter (so Salvation Yeo reported as a truth, and Dampier's surgeon Mr. Wafer after him), when they will deliberate of ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... charge of a prosperous school at Prattville, Alabama, he married Miss Mary Day, of Macon, Georgia. It proved a union in which Lanier found perpetual inspiration and comfort. His new-found strength and happiness are reflected in more than one of his ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... by breaking our ideals, by crushing our enthusiasm, by robbing us of our inspiration, ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... paper, and instantly little twin blistered blobs like tearmarks appeared on its clear surface. They were not tears, though—they were drops of sweat wrung from the major's brow by the pains of creation. Again he poised his pencil and again he halted it in the air—he needed inspiration. His gaze rested absently upon the pistol; absently he picked it up and ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... quite came round to the hour of eleven on Tuesday. Time has a great deal to do with weddings, evidently. People who wish to be married must be ready at the fateful moment, otherwise they have to wait—forever, perhaps. "Plenty of time"—suddenly a flash of direct inspiration seemed to coordinate her scattered faculties. She saw clearly a plan, a beautiful, simple plan to prevent the marriage. What if Mary should not wake in plenty of time for the wedding? What if the hour, the wedding hour, should ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... of the inspiration of Scripture. While he argued that it was out of the question to suppose the miracles literally true, he pretended to believe in the fantastic theory that they were intended allegorically as figures of Christ's mysterious operations in ...
— A History of Freedom of Thought • John Bagnell Bury
... with a quick, gripping caress onto Firio's shoulder. An inspiration had come to the mind of action, just as a line comes to a poet in a flash; as one must have come to the ancestor many times after he had gone into a tight place trusting to his wits and his blade to bring him out. ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... understanding transcends the man? The wonder of the island is but the alphabet of wisdom. The secrets of life and death and being itself are in my grasp. The hidden things that come near to you in beauty, in dream, in inspiration are mine and my people's. All these I can make yours—I offer you life of a fullness such as the people of the world do not dream. I will love you as the gods love, and as the gods we will live and love—it may be for ever. Nothing of high wisdom shall be unrevealed to us. We shall ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... and works will be early struck by three things,—his sudden burst into song, the maturity of his work from the first, and his self-knowledge and self-estimate. The fit of inspiration came upon him suddenly; it was like the flowering of the orchards in spring; there was little or no hint of it till almost the very hour of the event. Up to the time of the appearance of the first edition of "Leaves ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... It was composed of all sorts and conditions of men, educated and uneducated, dishonest and less so, of the good, the bad, and the—unexposed. Parasites came there to find victims, politicians for votes, reporters for news, and artists of all kinds for colour and inspiration. It was the place of assembly for a number of really bright men, who after days of hard and often unrewarded work came there and drunk themselves drunk in each other's company, and when they were drunk talked of the ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... he said in his mind, watching the gate through which Netty must enter the gardens. "It matters little if she does not. For I do not know what I shall say when she does come. Must leave that to the inspiration of the moment—and the moonlight. She is pretty enough to make ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... of nonsense was seized upon by the Winnebagos as a grand inspiration. When Agony and Oh-Pshaw arrived at Carver House with their Ceremonial dresses in neat packages under their arms and their lists of honors in their hands they found the Winnebagos forming a procession out by the back gate. Sahwah headed the parade, holding up above her head a huge kite ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... an inspiration. I turned down the inside pocket of my coat; and there, stitched into it, was the label of my tailor's with my name written on it. I had often wondered why tailors did this; obviously they know how ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... problems, and discussing all the pros and cons of their solution, with no little subtlety and dialectical skill. In some of these poems we might even seem to be receiving a philosophical lesson, in place of a poetic inspiration, if it were not for those powerful imaginative utterances, those winged words, which Browning has always in reserve, to close the ranks of his argument. If the question is stated in a prosaic form, the final answer, as ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... about them, an absurd atom in the great cosmic order; yet the soul that looked out of his squinting, wistful eyes held all the potentialities of life, and embodied the eternal sadness and the eternal inspiration of human endeavor. ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... so large. Such women do not inspire a poet. Women should be little creatures that fear you. They should have thin plaintive voices, and in shrinking from you should be as slight to the touch as a cobweb. It is not possible to draw inspiration from a woman's beauty unless you comprehend how easy it would be ...
— The Jewel Merchants - A Comedy In One Act • James Branch Cabell
... by saying, "If Heaven has made me the depositary of these teachings, what can my enemies do against [Page 91] me?" Nobly conscious of a more than human mission, so pure were his teachings that, though he taught morals, not religion, he might fairly, with Socrates, be allowed to claim a sort of inspiration. ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin |
