"Instinct" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that she was only anxious, and perhaps a little disappointed, at my not seeming brighter. For, after all, everything she had done and was doing was for my sake, and I should have trusted her and known this by instinct, instead of allowing myself from the very first beginning of our coming to London to think I was a sort ...
— My New Home • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... the final and irretrievable calamity: we fear to make ourselves conspicuous, we conform to standard, we bear ourselves meekly in that station whereunto it hath pleased Heaven to call us; the herd instinct survives four-footedness. For, we note the strange but not the familiar; our thinking is to right reason what peat is to coal; the outcry of the living and the dead perverts judgment, closes the ear to proof; and our wisest fear the scorn of ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... This brings us to one more question. May we, then, pray for those who have passed on before us? Let us plainly say that there is every reason for and none against the practice. We have in favour of it the sanction of Bible witness, of primitive Church custom, of Christian and human instinct. ...
— The Life of the Waiting Soul - in the Intermediate State • R. E. Sanderson
... without any instructions except to determine what was wrong and correct it. With soldierly instinct, he recognized that the indiscipline of the camp was an effect and not a cause. But even as he gave orders for relieving the physical distress of the men, he demanded that they return ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... The untrained, unguided instinct of the actress in Laura had fostered in her a curious penchant toward melodrama. She had a taste for the magnificent. She revelled in these great musical "effects" upon her organ, the grandiose easily appealed to her, ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... instinct. As if for no reason, he gave a quick start, turned, and at the same instant was aware of both attacking parties. A last gleam of sunlight fell on the snuff-box in his left hand; his right thumb and fore-finger hung arrested, grasping the pinch. For fully half a ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... she answered, colouring; "I clung to you, that was all, more by instinct than from any motive. I think I had a vague idea that you might ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... his way back, and Harvey and Tim dragged him to safety, chilled, and his teeth chattering. Then the four grasped the rope and held hard. George Warren, with a sailor's instinct, had found a stout bush by the bank and taken a few turns ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... be one instinct that lurks in a woman's breast, ready to spring up when touched, and bloom into all sorts of beautiful and happy feelings, it is the sense of home—of pleasant domestic sway and domestic comfort—the looking forward to "a house of one's own." Many ordinary girls marry ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... cloud grew and grew. It came rolling towards us with an unearthly noise. Then it seemed to be cleft in two, as by lightning, and from its centre came marching towards us a mighty army of Amazonian warriors, in battle-array, chanting the war-song of the Mariannakookas. I must confess that my first instinct was to fly, my second to run, my third, and best, to remain rooted to the spot. When the army came within ten yards of us, it stopped, as if by magic, and a stout Amazon, of forbidding aspect, who seemed to be the Commander-in-Chief, ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 17, 1891 • Various
... walked on almost in a trance, instinct alone keeping her up, and guiding her in the wake of the enemy, when suddenly her ears, attuned to the slightest sound, by that same blind instinct, told her that the cart had stopped, and that the soldiers had halted. They had come to their destination. ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... coming in the same direction, but flying very low; it wabbled along toward them very slowly, and at last, to their great surprise, came flapping and tried to settle on the gunwale of the boat. Welch, with that instinct of slaughter which belongs to men, struck the boat-hook into the bird's back, and it was soon dispatched. It proved to be one of that very flock of ducks that had passed over their heads, and a crab was found fastened to its leg. It is supposed that the bird, to break its long ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... manners, and all other matters of taste, ought to come by instinct," said Mrs. Robert Hazlehurst; "one soon becomes tired of beings ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... perfectly well that the Drakes were not people likely to countenance an impostor. His first instinct had been to protect his sister from an unknown scamp, and he was sorry that he had spoken to her so roughly. Her distress and anxiety were apparent, and he was filled with pity for her. Since childhood they had been the best of pals, and if she loved a man who was worthy of her he would aid the ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... and bits of shell casing, and with the true instinct of a globe-trotter, thought already of mementoes to take home. His tourist tendencies, however, soon evaporated, for he was sent round on a fatigue to the landing, whence he returned a sweating, blowing trooper, with a handleless, ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... have at once perceived the value of the weapon which a Liberal had thus placed in their hands. Some of them did so, and, undoubtedly, if a man with the Parliamentary instinct of Lord Randolph Churchill had been at their head, they would at once have made deadly and, haply, destructive use of the opportunity. But Mr. Balfour was away. Lord Randolph sate, dark and solitary, at a remote seat, and Mr. Goschen can always be confidently relied upon to do the wrong ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... a body without a soul, sitting among the grass, and playing with the flowers and pebbles in the vacancy of his mind, is still a wonderful illustration of the wisdom and power of God. We behold a human being inferior in instinct and intelligence of the meanest orders of animal life, dependent upon the common charities of his kind for subsistence, yet conscious of the friend who pities his helplessness, and of the hand that administers to his wants. The Spirit of his Maker shall yet breathe ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... an affectation. She really had an obstinate objection to all those natural forces that seemed to be sterile or aimless; she disliked loud winds that seemed to be going nowhere; she did not care much for the sea, a spectacle of which I was very fond; and by the same instinct she was up against the moon, which she said looked like an imbecile. On the other hand, she had a sort of hungry appetite for all the fruitful things like fields and gardens and anything connected with production; about which she was quite practical. She practised ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... servant-girls who had returned down to their kitchen from the road on which they had been straying. Trow, as he half saw them in the dark, not knowing how many there might be, or whether there was a man among them, rushed through them, upsetting one scared girl in his passage. With the instinct and with the timidity of a beast, his impulse now was to escape, and he hurried away back to the road and to his lair, leaving the three women together in the cottage. Poor wretch! As he crossed ...
— Aaron Trow • Anthony Trollope
... when he was thwarted, but a generous dispenser of favors when once you had learned to flatter him, to play upon his weaknesses, to smooth the path of his pleasures. All these years Peter had been forced to "crook the pregnant hinges of the knee"; it had become an instinct with him—an instinct that went back far behind the twenty years of his conscious life, that went back twenty thousand years, perhaps ten times twenty thousand years, to a time when Peter had chipped flint ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... The instinct which carries the people towards the choice of the former, is justified by reason; because a man of such a character, even in its exorbitances, does not directly contradict the purposes of a trust, the end of which is a control on power. The latter character, even when it is not in its extreme, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... that affect your mutual fortune is sheer stupidity. Also, it is morally wrong. From the very nature of her she is more interested than you in strengthening the walls of your new home, in making your joint experiment in the living of life a beautiful success. Her words are the counsel of instinct, and therefore of ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... the faint, soldierly, sweet, grim smile of the preordained man-hunter. The store was her forest; and many times she raised her rifle at game that seemed broad-antlered and big; but always some deep unerring instinct—perhaps of the huntress, perhaps of the woman—made her hold her fire and take ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... Fontange, and his own efforts to get to windward, were already proving advantageous to Queen Anne's cruiser. There was some indecision on the part of the other ship, which instantly caught the eye of one whose readiness in his profession so much resembled instinct. ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... implausible tale about a man outside, the door opens, and a tall, severe-looking woman enters, carrying what at first sight appears to be a particularly skinny bolster, with the feathers all at one end. Instinct, however, tells you that this is the baby, and you rise with a miserable attempt at appearing eager. When the first gush of feminine enthusiasm with which the object in question is received has died out, and the number ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... after the flame is blown out—I took out my penknife and attacked the wick at what might be called its root; whereupon I found that where the threads had been protected by the wax they were comparatively soft and penetrable. The conclusion was obvious. True to my instinct in this matter the woman had not lifted her weapon in darkness; this candle had been burning. But here my thoughts received a fresh shock. If burning, then by whom had it since been blown out? Not by her; her wound was too fatally sure for that. The steps taken ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... cattle, then to hobble the former. This was done by fastening the fore and hind-legs on one side with an iron chain, a leathern strap passing round the fetlock. They were then turned loose to graze, their instinct inducing them, provided there was plenty of grass, to remain close to the camp. We then set to work to get wood for our fires, after filling the kettles with water; the salt meat was then put on to boil, or when we had game, that was spitted and placed on forked sticks to roast. We each ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston
... loses its awe, and veneration is mixed with tenderness. What can I say on such a subject? What can I do but repeat the ready truths which, with the quick impulse of the mind, must spring to the lips of every man on such a theme? Filial love! the moral of instinct, the sacrament of nature and duty, or rather let me say, it is miscalled a duty, for it flows from the heart without effort, and is its delight, its indulgence, its enjoyment. It is guided, not by the slow dictates of reason; it ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... turned from his contemplation of Gordon Atterbury to the double blaring pew, which went from aisle to aisle. In his heart, he would have preferred the approval of Eleanor Goodrich and her husband, and of Asa Waring. Instinct spoke to him here; he seemed to read in their faces that he failed to strike in them responsive chords. He was drawn to them: the conviction grew upon him that he did not reach them, and it troubled ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... what a sitting hen would be to a sporting man. You couldn't shoot the confiding thing; but you might wring its neck if necessary, or push it out of the way with an impatient foot. She knew her power over him to a nicety, and she knew of his secret desire for "situations," because her instinct was never at fault; but she felt nothing more than contempt, slightly charged with pity towards him. Hartley was a good-natured, idiotic man, and Hartley had principles; Clarice Wilder had none herself, ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... and in the other rooms. The window near him was still open and the perfume of the roses came in again, strangely thrilling, overpowering. But something had awakened in Dick. The sixth, and even the germ of a seventh sense, which may have been instinct, were up and alive. He did not look again at the rose garden, nor did he listen any longer to ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Flutt'ring his pennons vain, plumb down he drops Ten thousand fathoms deep, and to this hour Down had been falling, had not by ill chance The strong rebuff of some tumultuous cloud, Instinct with fire and nitre, hurried him ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... admitted, however, that this instinct is a kind of obscure thought for these inferior beings, from which reflection is eliminated, or, at least, reveals itself only as a vassal ...
— Common Sense - - Subtitle: How To Exercise It • Yoritomo-Tashi
... his years, was almost as much of a sailor and fisherman as Paul. Both of them took to the water like ducks, and seemed to understand all about a boat as if by instinct. The prospect of a day down below fired the imagination of the "young salt," and he ran up the bluff with all his might to obtain the ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams
... Through one goal or another he was to be kicked—the exercise of the Crown's prerogative to nominate Free Church Bishops, or the refusal to exercise it. And whichever expedient he was driven to in the end, he knew that on one side grandiloquent words would be written about his fine instinct for the constitutional limitations or powers of monarchy, and on the other, pained, but deeply respectful words of regret that he had been so ill-advised by his ministers—or by others. Whichever side loses, it is the football which wins the game. That, however, ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... over Neeland, and he looked up abruptly with the instinct of a creature suddenly trapped—but ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... kind of fancy that apartment sort of idea myself. They tell you, Nancy, that when you've got the artistic temperament, that that's all you'll ever have. But there's a chance—one in a hundred—for a body to get that temperament mixed with a business instinct. It doesn't often happen. But when it does the result is—dollars. It may be, Nance—I shrewdly suspect it is a fact that you've got that marvelous mixture. Your early successes, Miss Olden, in another profession that I needn't name, would encourage ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... bank. Never had its hours seemed so long, never had the noise and traffic, the tramping of feet, and the banging of doors seemed so intolerable. As early as possible he was at David's, and David, with that fine instinct that a kind heart teaches, said as he entered, "Gude evening, James. Gae awa ben and keep Christine company. I'm that busy that I'll no shut up ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... bearing is watched carefully in that land. Every action has its value. The etiquette of the desert is more strict, and more dangerous to neglect, than that of palaces, although it is simpler and more to the point, being based on the instinct of self-preservation. ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... of pleasure at the thought of appearing before the Vicomtesse, dressed as henceforward he always meant to be. The "abysses of the human heart," in the moralists' phrase, are only insidious thoughts, involuntary promptings of personal interest. The instinct of enjoyment turns the scale; those rapid changes of purpose which have furnished the text for so much rhetoric are calculations prompted by the hope of pleasure. Rastignac beholding himself well dressed and impeccable as ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... of mind cast a hue of melancholy over the pleasure the young Venetian felt in his mistress' presence. A woman's instinct has amazing aptitude for harmony of feeling; it assumes the hue, it vibrates to the note suggested by her lover. The pungent flavor of coquettish spice is far indeed from spurring affection so much as this gentle sympathy of tenderness. The smartness of a coquette too clearly marks opposition; ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... from those that are merely superfluous. All these, besides other qualities, are necessary for the successful penetration of criminal mysteries; hence it is that the average amateur, who takes up the hobby without any natural instinct, is invariably ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... said, we can easily understand, why praeternatural thirst may sometimes be a necessary instinct of nature, at other times, an unnecessary craving; why acids, acescent fruits, and weak fermented liquors quench thirst more powerfully than pure water; and lastly, why thirst, in some instances, may be relieved by emetics, when it has resisted ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... was famous for seeing things,' she said. 'I think I go more by instinct. What do you compliment me by supposing my views of dress to ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... exaggerated individualism, stands not for liberty, but for administrative anarchy. "The trouble with nineteenth century Liberalism is that, by instinct, by tradition, and by the positive precepts of its past exponents, it 'thinks in individuals.' It visualises the world as a world of independent Roundheads, with separate ends, and abstract rights to pursue those ends. Nineteenth century Liberalism is, in fact, axiomatically hostile ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... At the end of the day's work, primitive man followed primitive instinct. Gorged to repletion, they slept, or wasted their substance with the improvidence of jungle-beasts. And these were the men Chloe Elliston had pictured labouring joyously in the upbuilding of homes! Once more the feeling of hopelessness came over her—seemed smothering, ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... extraordinary faculty of turning head over heels in the air, instead of pursuing a direct course. And, lastly, the dispositions and voices of the birds may vary. Thus the case of the pigeons shows you that there is hardly a single particular,—whether of instinct, or habit, or bony structure, or of plumage,—of either the internal economy or the external shape, in which some variation or change may not take place, which, by selective breeding, may become perpetuated, and form the foundation ...
— The Perpetuation Of Living Beings, Hereditary Transmission And Variation • Thomas H. Huxley
... were always rather odd, and as a rule slip-shod, yet she wore them with a perfect ease and satisfaction. Whatever she had on, so long as she was barely tidy, she was right, beyond remark; such an aristocrat she was by instinct. ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... woman of culture, yet at the same time she was possessed of a great instinct for organisation and business enterprise—just what was needed for the kind of thing Spalton was trying to inaugurate at Eos. She fell in readily with the Master's schemes ... even with his price-tags on objects of art, his egregious overvaluation of hand illumined books ... which his wife, ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... of her determination to walk; Lescombe seemed very far off, and she had an instinct that she was an awkward fifth wheel. Either because Robin Hood walked too fast for her weary limbs, or because she felt it a greater duty to chaperon Nuttie than Annaple, she fell back on the couple in the rear, and was rather surprised at ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 1. Instinct is inherited memory. 2. Books are embalmed minds. 3. Words are the fortresses of thought. 4. A name denotes objects and connotes attributes. 5. Force is depersonalised will. 6. A somnambule only acts his dream. 7. Attention is fixation of consciousness. ...
— Assimilative Memory - or, How to Attend and Never Forget • Marcus Dwight Larrowe (AKA Prof. A. Loisette)
... 1: In judging those ancients Daniel exercised an authority delegated to him by Divine instinct. This is indicated where it is said (Dan. 13:45) that "the Lord raised up the . . . spirit ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... with these first-fruits, reaped from the fortune of the day, and retired with her spoils, which were not inconsiderable; but, intoxicated with the glory she had won, enticed by the glittering caparisons that lay scattered on the plain, and without doubt prompted by the secret instinct of her fate, she resolved to seize opportunity by the forelock, and once for all indemnify herself for the many fatigues, hazards, ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... taking and holding the fine handle that so invitingly offered itself, led the ductile youth, by that mastertool of his, as she stept backward towards the bed; which he joyfully gave way to, under the incitations of instinct, and palpably delivered up to the goad ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... form his mind upon a rule. He grows up pretty much what he was when a child; capricious, wayward, unstable, idle, irritable, excitable; with not much more of habituation than that which experience of living unconsciously forces even on the brutes. Brutes act upon instinct, not on reason; they are ferocious when they are hungry; they fiercely indulge their appetite; they gorge themselves; they fall into torpor and inactivity. In a like, but a more human way, the savage is drawn by the object held up to him, as if he could not help following it; an excitement ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... was cruel by nature, by instinct. I was a handsome, well-bred, gentlemanlike, gentle-looking little brute. My parents adored me, and I was good to them. They were so kind to me that I was almost fond of them. Why not? It seemed to me as politic to be fond of them as of anyone else. I did what ...
— The Return Of The Soul - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens
... life. Among the first words which an infant learns to utter are the words 'my' and 'mine,' and woe to the parents of twins who fail to provide their gifts in duplicate. The depth and primitiveness of this instinct would seem to cast a sort of psychological discredit in advance upon all radical forms of communistic utopia. Private proprietorship cannot be practically abolished until human nature is changed. It seems essential to mental health that the individual ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... to this, his attention being taken up by the fact that, though there was perfect silence, the tree was alive with birds and monkeys, which were huddled together in groups, as if their instinct had taught them that a terrible convulsion of nature was at hand. As a rule they would have taken flight or scampered about through the branches as soon as human beings had come to the tree, but now, as if aware of some great danger, they were content ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... flushed, and then went into the house to meet her fate. There was only one person it could be, and her instinct told her that life would be different after this interview to what it was at present. Her time of uncertainty and waiting was now at an end, and Dane Hall would soon be her ...
— The Carved Cupboard • Amy Le Feuvre
... the Home Rule troubles followed the presentation of practically universal suffrage to the half-educated and over-enthusiastic Irish, who are easily led away, apt to believe mob-orators, and, by inherited instinct, to go against ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... the first, in an external, meet-and-part sort of fashion. His bearing was so dignified yet his manner so pleasing, that she, whose instinct was a little repellent, showed him nothing of that phase of her nature. He roused none of that inclination to oppose which poor foolish Corney always roused in her. He could talk well about music and pictures and novels and plays, and she not only let him talk freely, ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... satisfaction on the detestable sacrifice. At length the rigidity of Robert's whole being relaxed in an involuntary howl like that of a wild beast, and he turned and rushed from the house in a helpless agony of horror. Where he was going he knew not, only a blind instinct of modesty drove him to hide his passion ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... helplessly in a world of possible women is significant in the character of one destined to fare forth on the Supreme Adventure. It is true, he was preserved in comparative purity though he roamed unbridled around the world. Perhaps it was the same instinct which held him apart from men in their lower moments of indulgence. He could linger where there was wine until the dregs of the company were stirred by the stimulus. All delight left him then, and he ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... survivals; as when, by the orders of Murdoch, Mrs. Jenkin must publicly taste of every dish before it was set before her guests. And thus to throw himself into a fresh life and a new school of manners was a grateful exercise of Fleeming's mimetic instinct; and to the pleasures of the open air, of hardships supported, of dexterities improved and displayed, and of plain and elegant society, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... at heart. Nobody says this, but everybody knows it. Nell, the pretty match-girl, who sells her wares in Wall-street, never approaches him, nor the newsboys; and blind men, with sagacious, half-fed dogs, steer clear of him by instinct. He doesn't tolerate paupers, and Italian hand-organs ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... have ended. But then, if such is the law of the human mind; if all society, for six thousand years, has done nothing but fall into error; if all mankind are still buried in the darkness of faith, deceived by their prejudices and passions, guided only by the instinct of their leaders; if my accusers, themselves, are not free from sectarianism (for they call themselves FOURIERISTS),—am I alone inexcusable for having, in my inner self, at the secret tribunal of my conscience, begun anew the journey of our ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... of the missionary—a squat, red-faced, pig-eyed, low-browed man, with great soft lips that opened back to his very ears: sensuality, conceit, and cunning marked on every feature—an innate vulgarity, from which the artisan and the child recoil with an instinct as true, perhaps truer, than that of the courtier, showing itself in every tone and motion—I shrank into a corner, so crestfallen that I could not even exert myself to hand round the bread and butter, for which I got duly scolded afterwards. Oh! that ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... determine, as he puts it, whether the crab possesses psychic processes. The following are the observations made by him. Experiment I. A crab was placed in a basin which contained in its darkest corner an Eledone (a Cephalopod). The crab at once moved into the dark region because of its instinct to hide, and was seized by the Eledone and drawn under its mantle. The experimenter then quickly freed the crab from its enemy and returned it to the other end of the basin. But again the crab returned to the ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... instinct was drawing her back to England, but another instinct equally strong said: 'As soon as I am rested, nothing shall prevent me ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... was so well ordered that it presented little which his enemies could use as a handle for their purpose. His only foible seemed to be a predilection for female society; while in return all the wives and daughters of the place, with the unerring instinct of their sex, seeing, that the new priest was young, handsome, and eloquent, chose him, whenever it was possible, as their spiritual director. As this preference had already offended many husbands and fathers, the decision the conspirators arrived at was that on this side alone ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - URBAIN GRANDIER—1634 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... worried his acquaintance with controversy, never introduced religious topics unseasonably, never cast his pearls before unappreciative animals. But when he saw a chance, an opening, a sympathetic tendency, or a weak spot, he fastened on it with unerring instinct. His line was rather admonitory than persuasive. When he thought that the person whom he was addressing had an inkling of the truth, but was held back from avowing it by cowardice or indecision, he would utter the most startling warnings about the ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... good boy, he possessed the purely commercial instinct of Unyoro. He seldom arrived without a slave attendant, who carried on his head a package of something that was to ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... With his unfailing instinct, Scarborough had felt—and had never permitted himself to forget—that there was some sort of wall round her for him. It was in perfect good faith that she answered Olivia: "You don't understand him. He's a queer man—sometimes I wonder myself that he doesn't get just a little sentimental. I suppose ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... Peace! the abyss is wreathed with scorn At your presumption, atom-born! What is Heaven? and what are ye Who its brief expanse inherit? 40 What are suns and spheres which flee With the instinct of that Spirit Of which ye are but a part? Drops which Nature's mighty heart Drives through thinnest ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... instinct, which nature has given to women only, Czipra felt that the new-comer would be her antagonist, her rival in everything, that the outcome would be a struggle for ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... represented the market for its produce. The Chinaman had found several packets of seeds in the store-rooms, and had surrendered to an irresistible impulse to put them into the ground. He would make his master pay for the vegetables which he was raising to satisfy his instinct. And, looking silently at the silent Wang going about his work in the bungalow in his unhasty, steady way; Heyst envied the Chinaman's obedience to his instincts, the powerful simplicity of purpose which made his existence appear almost automatic in ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... stale old recourse that he had. In a man's extremity he turns by instinct to his own tin gods for help, and you may read his whole heart ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... Besides that, these men and their followers organized the militia, gave the woodsmen a training in the manual of arms, and exercised a wide-awake and eternal vigilance for the safety of the frontier. The military instinct of the early Virginian was one of the great factors that determined the conquest and established the permanent peace of the ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... white man, as the moon to the earth, shows one side only; the other is dark and unknown. It is an instinct with him to conceal the truth—any truth—from white men; who knows to what use they will put it and him? So deeply have ages of slavery and oppression ingrained this upon black men's subconsciousness, that only one white man in a thousand ever knows or suspects what his dark brethren think, or know, ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... resources, and had science on their side. He knew that so long as he did not openly flout foreign opinion by indulging in barefaced assassinations, he would be supported owing to the international reputation he had established in 1900. Arguing from these premises, his instinct also told him that an appearance of legality must always be sedulously preserved and the aspirations of the nation nominally satisfied. For this reason he arranged matters in such a manner as to appear always as the instrument of fate. For this ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... jocular ironies would endeavor to drag the talk away from clinics, adenoids, children's teeth, epidemics and the new education. But no joke was so good that Deborah could not promptly match it with some amusing little thing which one of her children had said or done. For she had a mother's instinct for bragging fondly of her brood. It was deep, it was uncanny, this ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... Rowbottom saw was a tall, handsome, fashionably-dressed woman of about thirty-six resting with her back to an office table, the position was crouching, her fingers clung to the table's edge; her eyes, large, dark, and instinct with mortal terror, were fixed upon the stranger in the doorway. At her feet was the body of a man, a stout man of perhaps forty. The body lay on its right side, the face turned to the floor, and from somewhere in the breast ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... Kling was quite uneasy in her mind about this time, not only because the Torpedo refused to see himself in the light of that other self, and fled whenever he saw her approaching, but also because some subtle instinct told her, that under her very nose, was going on something of which the details were unknown to her, and that listen as she would, could not be ascertained. This good-looking young man, who had so suddenly appeared ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... shallops flitting hither and thither on the wide expanse of blue water, and pictured how soon Brother Emmanuel would be sailing away out of the reach of peril. Truly God had been very good in hearing and answering prayer. Edred had, by some instinct for which he could not account, addressed his prayers of late less to the blessed Virgin and more to the Son of God Himself—struck, perhaps, by the words he had heard from the lips of the heretic peddler about the "one Mediator, the man Christ Jesus." ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... between people and their names, he should have been Irish—but he was not. He was colored, and very much so. That was the reason he lived on Douglass Street. The negro has very strong within him the instinct of colonization and it was in accordance with this that Patsy's mother had found her way to Little Africa when she ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... De Vigny possessed, in a high degree, a gift which was not less rare in that age—good taste. He had taste in the art of writing, a fine literary tact, a sense of proportion, a perception of delicate shades of expression, an instinct that told him what to say and what to suppress, to insinuate, or to be left to the understanding. Even in his innovations in form, in his boldness of style, he showed a rare discretion; never did he do violence to the genius of the French language, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... and he put some constraint over himself in the effort not to be rude to her. With Herbert, however, it was different. HE was BOUND to him, and therefore in his power. Abner Holden exulted in this knowledge, and with the instinct of a petty tyrant determined to let Herbert ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... to his own lodgings rather more by instinct than by thought. He slipped into his room, looked aimlessly about, then went out again. He must be alone, yet not confined within walls. The park was not far away, but he walked by it also, on, on. This London is limitless, he thought. ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... shall fall into your hands, I shall have disappeared, under what circumstances I have not the penetration to foresee, but my instinct and all the circumstances of my nameless situation tell me that the end is sure and must be early. Go then, and first read the narrative which Lanyon warned me he was to place in your hands; and if you care to hear more, ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... this present volume to a conclusion, hoping, however, to return to the same subject shortly, but to that part of it which bears upon longevity and the phenomena of old age. In 'Life and Habit' I pointed out that if differentiations of structure and instinct are considered as due to the different desires under different circumstances of an organism, which must be regarded as a single creature, though its development has extended over millions of years, and which is guided mainly by habit and memory until some disturbing cause compels invention—then ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... amiably, and started for the fire, such being his instinct, not with the purpose of getting warm, but of cooking something. And in half an hour he had a cup of hot ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... of the woods, as it might be by instinct!" returned the scout, dropping his rifle, and turning away like a man who was convinced of his error. "I must leave the buck to your arrow, Uncas, or we may kill a deer for them thieves, the Iroquois, ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... are rung; all Paris composes one mighty, resistless mob, motiveless, aimless, but ripe for any deed of desperation. The cry goes from mouth to mouth "To Versailles! to Versailles!" Why, no one knows, only that the king and queen are there. Impetuously, as by a blind instinct, the monster mass moves on. La Fayette, at the head of the National Guard, knows not what to do, for all the troops under his command sympathize with the people, and will obey no orders to resist them. He therefore merely follows on with ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... square face stony and set, moved with a noiseless, feline, padding step towards the prone victim. A gleam of apprehension shot into Julius Fraithorn's great dark eyes, reopening now to consciousness. They fixed themselves, with an instinct born of that sudden thrill of fear, upon the lightly-closed right hand. Instantly comprehending, Saxham lifted the hand, showed that it held no instrument save the stethoscope, and dropped it again by his side, drawing nearer. Then the massive, close-cropped black ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... on this head; but not the less were all her movements soft, graceful, and fawnlike as should be those of a young girl. She was still at this time a child in heart and spirit, and could have played as a child had not the instinct of a woman taught to her the expediency of a staid demeanour. There is nothing among the wonders of womanhood more wonderful than this, that the young mind and young heart,—hearts and minds young as youth can make them, ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... and qualities of a ship under different impulses. Seamen speak of the manner in which she behaves, as if she acted by her own instinct. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... heart, could not forbear a glance of surprise, but greeted her coadjutor without embarrassment and with all friendliness. Her thoughts were too taken up with her immediate task of exploring the scene of the crime to waste time in conjecturing the reason of the young man's blushes. Yet the instinct of her sex might have told her the truth, and probably it would have but that it was blunted, or rather not exercised, ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... lifted her bowed head, and rising slowly to her feet, she genuflected before the altar. Then she turned and slipped through a door of a small side chapel, into which the black-bearded man closely followed. Paul's instinct was to follow, too, and, in the calm security of a mind made up, he retraced his steps down ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... of what Bart himself saw. That unquenchable instinct in a man's heart that if he had only tried a little harder he would certainly have attained to righteousness gave the lie to his sense of agonising struggle, with its desperate, rallies of courage and sinkings of discouragement, gleams of self-confidence, and foul suspicion of ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... Her hot little cheek pressed her father's with an acute longing for sympathy. Instinct told him of the child's need. He walked down the avenue, ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... judgment in our play. A boy or girl who is not allowed to play or who is restrained by too anxious parents is unhappy indeed. Nearly all animals play. We know, for instance, that puppies, kittens, and lambs are playful. It is a perfectly natural instinct. By proper play we build up our bodies and train our minds. The healthy man never gets too old to play. He may not care to play marbles or roll hoops, but he will find his pleasure in some game or sport like tennis, golf, horseback ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... Men, rough of dress, were smoking and playing cards. Revolvers, chips and gold was in front of each, with plenty of the latter in the center of the table. I knew not if they were friends or mountain highwaymen. Many claim that horses are dumb brutes with no instinct, but that faithful pair on leaving the trail avoided a long bend and made straight for the adobe stage ranch, sixteen miles away. On reaching it, they ran the buggy-pole through the only opening of that mud shack rousing the inmates to action and bringing ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young
... corporation servants who have no higher interest than that of the machine they serve. There was also his intimate relation with Mr. Greenfield and the debt of gratitude he owed the man who had, in every way, been a father to him. And there was the prejudice of class, the instinct that holds a man to his own peculiar people, and the argument cleverly advanced by Greenfield that the protection of The King's Basin ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... for food, my little girl," observed Mr Maclean, "and most conscientiously I believe they suffer no real pain, and although the instinct of self-preservation makes them wish to escape, I doubt even whether they are frightened when they feel ...
— Norman Vallery - How to Overcome Evil with Good • W.H.G. Kingston
... and might, if it had been allowed a natural growth, have produced a newer religion of its own, was completely shattered. It left no preservative force except that of tradition, the traditional instinct to do what has always been done, to believe what has always been believed. Pre-Christian belief and custom has thus become isolated beliefs and customs in survival. It has been broken up into innumerable ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... that it was more on his friend's account than his own. After riding some way, Jack did what under such circumstances is the only course to pursue. Going first himself, he allowed his horse to follow the path which his own instinct dictated; and by so doing, in the course of an hour the hoofs of his animal once more trod hard ground. In a short time afterwards a twinkling light appeared, far brighter, however, than the "will o' the wisp" which had before deceived them, and they rode up to the very inn which ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... American tourists, well-to-do people. Esther thought that if he had been more keenly interested or a better business man he might have developed his practice into a large and lucrative one. She recognised in him the sure instinct of the natural diagnostician, she knew enough to realise that his methods and knowledge were up to date. Even that manner of his, though a little forbidding, had the merit of inspiring confidence. One felt he was a big man and could afford to dispense ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... American life and character illustrated in the personal heroism and manliness of an American boy. It is well told, and the lessons in morals and character are such as will appeal to every honest instinct. ...
— Little Lucy's Wonderful Globe • Charlotte M. Yonge |
