"Unsought" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... drew his gaze away Right gladly from that long array, As if their presence were a blight Of pain and sickness to his sight; And slowly folding o'er his breast The fragments of his tattered vest, As was his wont, unasked, unsought Gave to the winds his muttered thought, Naming no name of friend or foe, And reckless ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... I did not confine myself so much to my own church, but frequently went out to preach in other places, as opportunities occurred; and these were, for the most part, brought about by remarkable and unsought-for incidents. ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... Him unsought, Her sister sits at rest; 'Twere better sure she rose, and wrought Some service ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... John P. Hale, Cassius Clay, and one or two of the old abolition "fanatics" ahead of all those stereotyped fames. Is not—I sometimes question—the first, last, and most important quality of all, in training for a "finish'd speaker," generally unsought, unreck'd of, both by teacher and pupil? Though may-be it cannot be taught, anyhow. At any rate, we need to clearly understand the distinction between oratory and elocution. Under the latter art, including some of high order, there is indeed no scarcity in the United States, preachers, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... Ladinas, and conducted it rather as though Dom Manuel's heart were not in the day's business. Indeed, he had reason, for while supernal mysteries were well enough if one were still a hare-brained lad, or even if one set out in due form to seek them, to find such mysteries obtruding themselves unsought into the home-life of a well-thought-of nobleman was discomposing, and to have the windows of his own house playing tricks ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... my thanks to thee nor thank thee day by day * For whom com posed I prose and verse, for whom my say and lay? Thou lavishedst thy generous gifts ere they were craved by me * Thou lavishedst thy boons unsought sans pretext or delay: How shall I stint my praise of thee, how shall I cease to laud * The grace of thee in secresy and patentest display? Nay; I will thank thy benefits, for aye thy favours lie * Light on my thought and tongue, though heavy on ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... to the exclusion of pious thoughts which should occupy it in prayer, of which the office is a high form; or they may be thoughts which arise from previous laziness, thoughtlessness, pre-occupation or some engrossing worldly affair. Involuntary distractions are those which come unbidden and unsought to the mind, are neither placed directly, nor by their causes, by the ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... fostering care of the Government. Possessing as we do all the raw materials, the fruit of our own soil and industry, we ought not to depend in the degree we have done on supplies from other countries. While we are thus dependent the sudden event of war, unsought and unexpected, can not fail to plunge us into the most serious difficulties, it is important, too, that the capital which nourishes our manufactures should be domestic, as its influence in that case instead of exhausting, as ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 2: James Monroe • James D. Richardson
... angel,—and that she should die unloved! Why does not somebody come and carry off this noble woman, waiting here all ready to make a man happy? Philip, do you know the pathos there is in the eyes of unsought women, oppressed with the burden of an inner life unshared? I can see into them now as I could not in those 'earlier days. I sometimes think their pupils dilate on purpose to let my consciousness ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... have lived in pleasant thought, As if life's business were a summer mood: As if all needful things would come unsought To genial faith still rich in ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... return by his imprest, And chill'd remembrance shudders o'er the rest. Yes, had I ever prov'd that passion's zeal, The change to hatred were at least to feel: But still, he goes unmourn'd, returns unsought, And oft when present, absent from my thought. Or when reflection comes, and come it must, I fear that henceforth 'twill but bring disgust: I am his slave; but, in despite of pride, 'Twere worse than bondage to become ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... many of earth's children to be so well mated and so heavenly-wise. The young man has been brought up to consider the house the young wife's prerogative, and she—well, she has been trained to believe that housewifely wisdom will come to her as unsought as measles. ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards
... history unknown. "For centuries it has lain as completely buried as if covered with the lava of Vesuvius. Every traveler from Yzabel to Guatemala has passed within three hours of it. We ourselves have done the same; and yet there it lay, like the rock-built city of Edom, unvisited, unsought, ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... order nor bend his opinions to those of others. He put behind him the temptation to take advantage of great fame when it suddenly came to him. When publishers were eager for his work he spent the same time in preparing his books as when he was poor and unsought. He labored at the smallest task to give the best that was in him; he wrote much of his work in his heart's blood. Hence it is that through all of his books, but especially through Past and Present ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... experiment, and not intended ever to go forth to the world—though it happened otherwise. I usually carried a lot of these writings in my hat, and by and by, unlike most other young authors, I got a publisher unsought for. This was the wind, which, on a wild day, swept my hat from my head, and tattering its contents asunder from their fold, sent them away over hill and dale like a flock of wild fowl. I recovered some where they had halted in bieldy places; others of them went further, and fell into other ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... effort at composure. "There are moments when, listening to Lucretia, when, charmed by that softness which, contrasting the rest of her character, she exhibits to none but me, struck by her great mental powers, proud of an unsought triumph over such a being, I feel as if I could love none but her; then suddenly her mood changes,—she utters sentiments that chill and revolt me; the very beauty seems vanished from her face. I recall with a sigh the simple sweetness of ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... be shall by no means be brought To pass, and that which is to be shall come, unsought, Even at the time ordained; but he that knoweth not The truth is still deceived and finds his hopes ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... with her own weight, And strangled with her waste fertility: The earth cumbered, and the winged air darked with plumes, 730 The herds would over-multitude their lords; The sea o'erfraught would swell, and the unsought diamonds Would so emblaze the forehead of the deep, And so bestud with stars, that they below Would grow inured to light, and come at last To gaze upon the sun with shameless brows. List, lady; be not coy, and be not cozened With that same ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... Frank to get away alone under the shadow of the trees. New strength and new life came to him, and new resolves and determinations formed themselves unsought and unbidden in his mind. He felt that it was a privilege and a blessing ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... with my neck, with the thick bosses of my buckler, even these inferior things were set above me, and pressed me down, and no where was there respite or space of breathing. They met my sight on all sides by heaps and troops, and in thought the images thereof presented themselves unsought, as I would return to Thee, as if they would say unto me, "Whither goest thou, unworthy and defiled?" And these things had grown out of my wound; for Thou "humbledst the proud like one that is wounded," and through my own swelling was I separated from Thee; yea, my pride-swollen ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... point of view we were absolutely passive. Things arranged themselves without effort, and by some subtle affinity we learned that we had gained a friend. The history of every true friendship is the brief description of Emerson, "My friends have come to me unsought; the great God gave them to me." There was an element of necessity in this, as in all ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... the conscience of her worth, That would be wooed, and not unsought be won. Paradise Lost, ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... be interested in this unsought, spontaneous tribute, and my purpose in writing is to pass it on to you—though I admit it has taken me a long time to ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... kindly eyes of the venerable naturalist beamed upon the monkey-figure dangled by undergraduates before him from the galleries, in addition to a solitary link of a huge chain, no doubt representing "the missing link." In 1878 the honour, long withheld, and certainly unsought, of being elected a corresponding member of the Paris Academy of Sciences in the section of Zoology, was his; and that tardy body recognised late the man whose supremacy in science it had done nothing either ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... he must have regretted that he had consented to cross swords with his lank opponent, for he had been forced into many an awkward corner. There is a popular tradition that the presidential nomination came to Lincoln unsought; but this is anything but true. On the contrary, in those debates with Douglas, he was consciously laying the foundation for his candidacy two years later. He used every effort to drive Douglas to admissions and ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... and go, unclothed with words and unsought by will, I grasp again the deep truth that the truest life is unconscious and almost voiceless; that there is no rich, true, articulate life unless there flows under it a wide, deep current of unspoken, ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... clap thy wings and crow as thou pleasest. You go in search of adventures, but adventures come to me unsought for; and oh! in what a pleasing shape came mine, since it arrived in the form of a client—and a fair client to boot! What think you of that, Darsie! you who are such a sworn squire of dames? Will this not match my adventures with thine, that hunt salmon on horseback, and will it not, besides, ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... honor, acknowledge it to his wife. "If it was so, Isabel, she was more reprehensibly foolish than I should have given Barbara's good sense could be; for a woman may almost as well lose herself as to suffer herself to love unsought. If she did give her love to me, I can only say, I was entirely unconscious of it. Believe me, you have as much cause to be jealous of Cornelia as you have ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... dumb-bells or chairs; but is itself the enterprise and adventure of the day. If you would get exercise, go in search of the springs of life. Think of a man's swinging dumb-bells for his health, when those springs are bubbling up in far-off pastures unsought by him! ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... rose before him unsought—the sweet, dark face with the expression of slight melancholy that it wore in repose, as he loved it best. It was with him when, stiff and tired, he emerged from his seclusion, and walked home through the trails of mist that hung, ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... English colloquial speech. He has numberless sentences of exquisite beauty of structure; many indeed of the circular kind, but far more of the linear; and the beauty of the latter is purer and higher than that of the former, because it is much more unconscious and unsought, and comes along of its own accord in the undivided quest of something else: for, say what you will, the true law in this matter is just that so well stated by Professor Shairp in the passage before quoted in a note on page 138: "No one ever became really beautiful by aiming ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... excused himself from this unsought honor. "Your Grace will observe," said he, "that my time is occupied to the full. The people scarcely suffer me to rest at night. Perhaps your Grace might not care for ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... start and look behind me for a foe. I realized the identity of that mood of nature in which these waters were poured down with such absorbing force, with that in which the Indian was shaped on the same soil. For continually upon my mind came, unsought and unwelcome, images, such as never haunted it before, of naked savages stealing behind me with uplifted tomahawks; again and again this illusion recurred, and even after I had thought it over, and tried to shake it off, I could not help ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... which I and so many that I loved perilled and lost life, forbid that I should take any other course. Turn from this folly and all will be serene and happy soon. I can obtain a position elsewhere. Surely, Ella, you are too true a Southern girl to have given your heart unsought, unasked to your knowledge till last night. Your very pride should rescue you from such a ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... then, that her name, which she would not even permit thee to inquire, is Happiness. Thou saidst the truth to her, that she is capricious for she imposeth conditions that man cannot fulfill, and delinquency is punished by desertion. She cometh only when unsought, and will not be questioned. One manifestation of curiosity, one sign of doubt, one expression of misgiving, and she is away! How long didst thou have her at any time ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... But let no alien Sedley interpose, To lard with wit thy hungry Epsom prose. And when false flowers of rhetorick thou would'st cull, Trust Nature, do not labour to be dull; But write thy best, and top; and, in each line, Sir Formal's oratory will be thine: Sir Formal, though unsought, attends thy quill, And does thy Northern Dedications fill. Nor let false friends seduce thy mind to fame, By arrogating Jonson's hostile name. Let father Flecknoe fire thy mind with praise, And uncle Ogleby thy envy raise. ...
— English Satires • Various
... the last, his passion had begun to fold its wings, and he grew dimly aware of a beating at the door of the solitary chamber in which he sat. He knew nothing of the enormity of which he was guilty—presenting unsought the city of Antwerp with a glorious phantasia. He did not know that only upon grand, solemn, world-wide occasions, such as a king's birthday or a ball at the Hotel de Ville, was such music on the card. When he flung the door to, it had closed with a spring ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... be heard, and would start and look behind me for a foe. I realised the identity of that mood of nature in which these waters were poured down with such absorbing force, with that in which the Indian was shaped on the same soil. For continually upon my mind came, unsought and unwelcome, images such as had never haunted it before, of naked savages stealing behind me with uplifted tomahawks. Again and again this illusion recurred, and even after I had thought it over, and tried to shake it off, I could not help starting and looking behind me. What I liked ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... at a touch to fall into his hand; and though Regina felt that this low-browed, sibyl-eyed woman was vastly his inferior in all save beauty and wealth, she knew that even his failure to marry the widow would furnish no justification for the further indulgence of her own foolish and unsought preference. ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... was servile or in any way unduly complaisant to the King or the Court. There is no evidence of anything of the sort. Neither does he appear to have been, like some of his contemporaries, unduly intent upon advancing his own selfish interests. His preferments came apparently unsought, and he refused the Primacy, although it was pressed upon him by the King on the death of Archbishop Cornwallis in 1783. Although he rose from a comparatively humble origin, 'his parents,' he tells us, 'were plain, honest, and good people' (his father was, in fact, a farmer); ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... mastered the thrill, as she turned from the vision of what his eyes besought and promised, a flow of pity, pity for his youth and pain and for all the long way he was yet to go, filled her, bringing peace, even while the sweetness of the unsought, undreamed of offering made her smile again, ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... these, and such like doctrines fill'd, Numa, 'tis said, back to his country came; And held, unsought for, the supreme command O'er Latium's realm. Blest with the nymph his spouse, And by the muses guided, all the rites Of sacrifice he taught: the people train'd, Fond of fierce war, to arts of gentle peace. When late he finish'd reign at once, and life, The Latian females, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... enough for Columbus to have discovered America; it was far more than Amerigo Vespucci deserved to have this discovery given his name, by which it will be known forever; but this honor, though unmerited, was at the same time unsought. ...
— Amerigo Vespucci • Frederick A. Ober
... my side, in relation to his employer, until I was first satisfied that he was a person in whose delicacy and discretion I could trust. The little that he had said, thus far, had been sufficient to convince me that I was speaking to a gentleman. He had what I may venture to describe as the UNSOUGHT SELF-POSSESSION, which is a sure sign of good breeding, not in England only, but everywhere else in the civilised world. Whatever the object which he had in view, in putting the question that he had just addressed to me, I felt no doubt that I was justified—so ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... lonely summers, where the roses blow Unsought, and shed their tangled sweets, I sit and hark, or in the starry dark, Or when the ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... no hurry, to-morrow will do as well. I like not advice unsought. I'll have none of it. I will go where, when and ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... photographers: how will you escape them? Don't you know that every penny paper will appear with your picture in front to-morrow, and, wherever you go, it will be thrust before your eyes? You will hear your name pronounced in all languages, and in every way, and you will not know how to escape this unsought-for and unwelcome notoriety. But if you accept my invitation, nobody will be able to stare at you or interrogate you, and you shall live as quietly and peacefully as if you were in some herdsman's hovel ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... Gladstone and his party adopted it, he became a Liberal Unionist, and as such was elected in 1895 a member of the House of Commons by Dublin University. In view of the many comments that he was not successful in parliamentary life, I may say that the election not only came to him unsought, but that he recognized that he was too old to adapt himself to the atmosphere of the House of Commons; he accepted the position in the belief which was pressed upon him by many friends that he could in Parliament be useful to ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... shall memory rehearse, Or dictate the untoward verse That truth demands? Could he refuse Thy unsought honours, darling Muse, He who in idle, happy trim, Rode just where friends would carry him? Truth, I obey.—The generous band, That spread his board and grasp'd his hand, In native mirth, as here they came, Gave a bluff rock his ...
— The Banks of Wye • Robert Bloomfield
... elected Mayor of the city of Cleveland. The honor was not only unsought, but he was in entire ignorance of the whole affair until after his election. His name had not been mentioned in connection with that or any other office when he left the city on a business trip that kept him absent for ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... genius; they proceed rather from certain morbidly stimulated impulses of his moral nature which he forced his artistic genius to subserve. He had true pathetic power, simple yet subtle, at his command; but it visited him unsought, and by inspiration from without. It came when he was in the dramatic and not in the introspective mood; when he was thinking honestly of his characters, and not of himself. But he was, unfortunately, too ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... 'Counsel unsought is worth nothing,' replied, rudely, Ardan son of Gorla. 'It would be little indeed that I am fit for if I cannot drive three cows out to pasture and keep them safe from the wolves that may come down from the mountains. Therefore, good father, I will take service with ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... be—but neglected to point out to him that almost any vagary might be expected of human nature, when it could produce such a deviation from the recognized types as a man of his position agitated about such an unsought obscurity as Miss Hallowell. He continued to debate the state of her mind as if it were an affair of mightiest moment—which, indeed, it was to him. And presently his doubt strengthened into conviction. She must be secretly pleased, flattered, responsive. She had been in the ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... It must be acknowledged that he took no great pains to gain the place which was his due. If he loved glory like the true artist that he was, "he never tired himself in its pursuit." Perhaps he had an instinctive feeling that it would come to him some day unsought. ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... of the White House swing open at the conquering sound of his coming feet. And, through the dreams of all, waved aimlessly the mighty wand of the blind master—Fate—giving death to a passion for glory here; disappointment bitter as death to a noble ambition there; and there giving unsought fame where was indifference to death; and then, to lend substance to the phantom of just deserts, giving a mortal here and there the exact fulfilment ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... model, both in the vigorous and sublime, and the pleasing and tender. In his sphere he has exhausted all the means and appliances of language. On all he has impressed the stamp of his mighty spirit. His images and figures, in their unsought, nay, uncapricious singularity, have often a sweetness altogether peculiar. He becomes occasionally obscure from too great fondness for compressed brevity; but still, the labour of poring over Shakspeare's lines will invariably meet ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... somewhat grieved, could scarce forbear a smile Upon the metamorphosis in view,— 'Farewell!' they mutually exclaim'd: 'this soil Seems fertile in adventures strange and new; One 's turn'd half Mussulman, and one a maid, By this old black enchanter's unsought aid.' ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... More than this we cannot ask; higher we cannot look; farther we cannot go. To suppose that God forgives or punishes sin, according as His mercy is sought or unsought, is to misunderstand Love and make prayer the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... The unsought honor of this public banquet, in his own country, organized by the most eminent men of the day, calling forth eulogies of him in the public press of the whole world, was justly esteemed by Morse as one of the crowning events of his long career; but an ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... beauty, but it was not for beauty he strove, or we should not so often find bits of realistic ugliness to risk the harmony of his noblest paintings. Grace and charm seemed to come to him unsought, as natural adjuncts of a vigorous and healthy nature; but his deliberate choice of types of face and form, were those which, by their strength, promised satisfaction to his love of energetic action. From the first this tendency is noticeable, for example, in the above-mentioned "Flagellation," ...
— Luca Signorelli • Maud Cruttwell
... comes to the sinner unsought, and is so far unavoidable. It is purely and entirely the work of the Holy Spirit upon the sinner. The human will has nothing whatever to do with the first beginnings of conversion. Of this our Confessions testify: "God ...
— The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church • G. H. Gerberding
... destined to be a leader of his own people. We believe that he would himself acknowledge that the chain of circumstances which led up to his being landed at Tuskegee in 1881 was entirely providential. He did not himself seek the opening; it came to him unsought at a time when his services were still urgently needed at Hampton, where he had become General Armstrong's right-hand man, or his most efficient assistant. He was still fully occupied with the large class of Indian boys during the day, and then, until a ...
— From Slave to College President - Being the Life Story of Booker T. Washington • Godfrey Holden Pike
... enthusiasms as a modern young officer may be,—while his half-fledged ambitions were hanging on the chances of active service, and the golden, remote possibility of his one day being a V.C.,—there was a peaceful honor which clung to him unsought. ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... the odd name of Pansie, and whether it was really her baptismal name, I have not ascertained. More probably it was one of those pet appellations that grow out of a child's character, or out of some keen thrill of affection in the parents, an unsought-for and unconscious felicity, a kind of revelation, teaching them the true name by which the child's guardian angel would know it,—a name with playfulness and love in it, that we often observe to supersede, in the practice of ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... honest manly homage, and sound wise tone of thought, where she had so few to love or lean on. She thought that she ought to try to put herself out of the way of her cousins at home as much as possible, and so she did not try to make time to write to Clara, and time did not come unsought, for her father's health did not improve; and when they returned to Lima, he engrossed her care almost entirely, while his young wife continued her gaieties, and Mary had reason to think the saya y manto disguise was frequently ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... should become sixty-four years old. Hence I cheerfully relinquished in 1882 any reasonable ambition I may ever have had to command the army. My ultimate succession to that command in 1888 was, like all other important events in my personal career, unsought and unexpected. Hence whatever I did from 1888 to 1895 was only a little "extra duty," and I have had no reason to find fault on account of the "extra- duty pay" which I received, though none of it was in money. I am inclined to think it a pretty good rule for a soldier to wait until he ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... Lara returned the unsought caress of Sir Henry Morgan and the means by which the buccaneers surmounted ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... harmonious numbers, and give birth, if genius as well as piety be there, to religious poetry. Cadences and epithets are indeed often sought for with care, and pains, and ingenuity; but they often come unsought; and never more certainly and more easily than when the mind recovers itself from some oppressive mood, and, along with a certain sublime sadness, is restored to the full possession of powers that had for a short severe season ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... less uninviting, I should not have looked forward with such high beating of the heart to that cold home Anita was making for me. No, I withdraw that. It is fellows like me, to whom kindly looks and unsought attentions are as unfamiliar as flowers to the Arctic—it is men like me that appreciate and treasure and warm up under the faintest show or shadowy suggestion of the sunshine of sentiment. I'd be a little ashamed to say how much money I handed out to beggars and street gamins that day. ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... fairly launched upon a political career, exceeding in length of unbroken service that of any other public man in the country's history. In fact I never accepted but two executive appointments: the first was an unsought appointment by Abraham Lincoln, after he had become the central figure of his time, if not of all time; and, second, an appointment from President McKinley as chairman of ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... narrow while thou grewst to be In thy whole life an Exc'llent Comedie. To these a Virgin-modesty which first met Applause with blush and feare, as if he yet Had not deserv'd; till bold with constant praise His browes admitted the unsought for Bayes. Nor would he ravish fame; but left men free To their owne Vote and Ingenuity. When His faire Shepherdesse on the guilty Stage, Was martir'd betweene Ignorance and Rage; At which the impatient Vertues of those few Could judge, grew high, cri'd Murther; though he knew The innocence ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in Ten Volumes - Volume I. • Beaumont and Fletcher
... affirmative seems scarcely liable to be challenged. I had undertaken an investigation which, at the outset, made for a different goal. It happens that it answered clearly enough the question propounded above: the conclusion has arisen of itself, unsought; which fact saves me from any ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... these specks. They were all walking in directions radiating from the fallen man in a manner—the image came unsought to his mind—like the ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... life were many, though always unsought. The Empress Eugenie, while regent during the absence of Napoleon III., went in person to her chateau and put around her neck the ribbon of the decoration of the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor, then for the first time bestowed upon woman for merit other ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... ye?—O ye who linger still Here in your fortress on the hill, With placid face, with tranquil breath, The unsought volunteers of death, Our cheerful General on high With careless looks may ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... existence. She could not put him away from her heart all at once. The weak heart still fondly clung to the dear familiar image. But the more intensely she had felt the cold neglect of Valentine, the more grateful to her seemed the unsought affection of Gustave Lenoble. ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... took possession of her, the one that had presided over her humble hearth and welcomed the two men there in the neighborly visits that seemed so pleasant in remembrance. What did it avail that this or that woman should declare she was unsought? She was ashamed of waging that unworthy war. She ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... unknown on the continent. In her powerful novel Aus guter Familie, Gabrielle Reuter describes the life of a German girl whose parents cannot give her a dowry, and who is doomed in consequence to old maidhood and to all the disappointments, restrictions, and humiliations of unsought women. While women look to marriage and nothing else for happiness, there must be such lives in every monogamous country, where they outnumber the men; but in England a woman's marriage is much more a matter ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... time the blood-crow's flight was south, Bearing a man's leg in its mouth. Though rough and rude, those strains are rife Of things kin to immortal life, Which touch the heart and tinge the cheek, As deeply as divinest Greek. In simple words and unsought rhyme, Give me the ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow
... till my soul With very eagerness went forth towards her, And issu'd at my eyes.—Was there a gem Which the sun ripens in the Indian mine, Or the rich bosom of the ocean yields? What was there art could make, or wealth could buy, Which I have left unsought to deck her beauty? What could her king do more?—And ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe
... in recounting some of the propitious things which have come to him all unsought, he said: "How fortunate I have always been! My name should have been 'Felix.'" But since "John" means "the gracious gift of God," we are content that he was ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... no longer a malicious spirit of evil who took delight in thwarting her, but a poor, fretful old lady whose soul was bound in shallows. And Aunt Matilda? Rosemary's eyes filled at the thought of Aunt Matilda, unloved and unsought. Nobody wanted her, she belonged to nobody, in all her lonely life she had had nothing. She sat and listened to Grandmother, she did the annual sewing, and day by day resented more keenly the emptiness of her life. It was the conscious lack ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... puzzle to know what to do. The one unthinkable thing would be to leave King unsought for. Suddenly it occurred to me to try that door underneath the steps; so I kissed my hand irreverently to the quarterguard of harridans, and turned my back on them—which I daresay was the most unwise move that I ever made in my whole life. I have done things that were more disastrous in ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... had I to do? Little with love, and least of all with fame; And yet they came unsought, and with me grew, And made me all which they can make—a name. Yet this was not the end I did pursue; Surely I once beheld a nobler aim. But all is over—I am one the more To baffled millions ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... unsought; yet all men might know exactly where lay the chest beneath the waves, for it mattered not how fierce blew the gale, above the gold the surface of the water was ever unbroken. At last there came one who heard the tradition, and set about the task of recovering the ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... comes the inability—or 'fraud,' as the imperfection in mediumship is often called. This will be the case until they can have the only condition which is suitable for spiritual communion—passive trust and confidence. Real tests cannot come when sought with materialistic conditions. The tests come unsought, unasked for." ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... like wells, green-mossed and deep As ever Summer saw; And cool their water is,—yea, cool and sweet;— But you must come to draw. They hoard not, yet they rest in calm content, And not unsought will give; They can be quiet with their wealth unspent, So ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... neither vicious nor turbulent. Intrigue was never employed as the means of its gratification, nor was personal aggrandizement its object. The various high and important stations to which he was called by the public voice, were unsought by himself; and, in consenting to fill them, he seems rather to have yielded to a general conviction that the interests of his country would be thereby promoted, than ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... first made, conscience lifted its hands in horror, because of the man's reckless wickedness; but after a little while a still louder clamor was raised by womanly pride, which bled at the thought of tolerating a love unsought, unvalued; and with this fierce rush of reinforcements to aid conscience, the insurgent heart seemed destined to summary subjugation. Until this hour, although conscious of many faults, she had not supposed ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... state, it had fed itself off mere spiritual food, and acquired the strange intensity of mere intellectual passions. We give excessive weight, in our days, to spontaneity in all things, apt to think that only the accidental, the unsought, can be vital; but it is true in many things, and truest in all matters of the imagination and the heart, that the desire to experience any sentiment will powerfully conduce to its production, and even give it a strength due to ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... tallest masts are made, While thou, poor bramble, canst produce Nothing of ornament or use." "Great tree," the modest thorn replied, "When the sharp axe shall pierce your side, In vain you then may wish to be Unsought-for, ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park
... felt a young man's enjoyment of success, so early and so distinguished. But as years went on, such motives seemed to be less influential with him. He was cured of ambition, as, one after another, its objects came to him unsought. His domestic position, likewise, had contributed to direct his tastes and wishes towards the pursuits of private life. In 1834 he had married Jane Means, a daughter of the Rev. Dr. Appleton, a former president of Bowdoin College. Three sons, the first ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... closing themselves in the hill solitudes, forgot sometimes, and sometimes feared, the duties they owed to the active world, we may perhaps pardon them more easily than we ought to pardon ourselves, if we neither seek any influence for good, nor submit to it unsought, in scenes to which thus all the men whose writings we receive as inspired, together with their Lord, retired whenever they had any task or trial laid upon them needing more than their usual strength of spirit. Nor perhaps should we have unprofitably entered into ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... fishing seasons past, had been of a variable, and not too satisfactory sort. It is not encouraging, after casting one's nets during a prolonged spell of rough weather, and confidently anticipating a good draught of fish, to perceive that, instead of fish, there is nothing in one's net save such unsought spoil as the carcase of an Egyptian ass, a basket-full of gravel and slime of no substantial utility, or quantities of stones and mud, fit for nothing but for use as missiles among ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, February 4, 1893 • Various
... she came and prayed for food, * And sued his ruth for what her misery made: He leant to error following his lusts, * And hoped to enjoy her as her wants persuade; But he knew little of what Allah willed; * Nor was Repentance, though unsought, denayed. Fate comes to him who flies from Fate, O Lord, * And lot and daily bread by ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... Dictionary. I suppose he meant by it, 'with an obstinate resolution, similar to that of a sullen man.' BOSWELL. Southey wrote to Scott:—'Give me more lays, and correct them at leisure for after editions—not laboriously, but when the amendment comes naturally and unsought for. It never does to sit down doggedly to correct.' Southey's Life, iii. 126. See ante, i. 332, for the influence ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... abscond, levant, skedaddle, absquatulat [U.S.], cut one's stick, walk one's chalks, show a light pair of heels, make oneself scarce; escape &c 671; go away &c (depart) 293; abandon &c 624; reject &c 610. lead one a dance, lead one a pretty dance; throw off the scent, play at hide and seek. Adj. unsought, unattempted; avoiding &c v.; neutral, shy of &c (unwilling) 603; elusive, evasive; fugitive, runaway; shy, wild. Adj. lest, in order to avoid. Int. forbear!, keep off, hands off!, sauve qui peut! [Fr.], every man for himself! ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... few of the commoner disorders which can be readily recognized by the layman will be noticed. Although these cutaneous troubles are often of so trivial a nature that a physician's assistance is unsought, yet the annoyance is often sufficient to make it worth while for the patient to inform himself about the ailment. Then the affections are so frequent that they may occur where it is impossible to procure ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various
... inconclusive, does not much affect the matter: these are considerations which occur only on reflection; the unprompted tendency of the mind is to generalize its experience, provided this points all in one direction; provided no other experience of a conflicting character comes unsought. The notion of seeking it, of experimenting for it, of interrogating nature (to use Bacon's expression) is of much later growth. The observation of nature, by uncultivated intellects, is purely passive: they accept the facts which present themselves, ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... scarce forbear a smile Upon the metamorphosis in view,— "Farewell!" they mutually exclaimed: "this soil Seems fertile in adventures strange and new; One's turned half Mussulman, and one a maid, By this old black enchanter's unsought aid." ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... contact of the white and black races can be anything but a curse to the blacks. It is the missionary alone who seeks nothing for himself. He has chosen an unselfish life. If honour comes to him, it is by no choice of his own, but as the unsought tribute which others, as it were, force upon him. Robert Moffat has died in the fullness both of years and honours. His work has been to lay the foundations of the Church in the central regions of South Africa. As far ...
— Robert Moffat - The Missionary Hero of Kuruman • David J. Deane
... with other men was, indeed, a serious conviction held on serious grounds. But it was also the expression of his natural good nature, and overflowed into {130} the obvious channels of kindly sociability which come to every man unsought, as well as into these deeper ones of sympathy which are only found by those who seek them. Those who know him only through Boswell are in danger of over-accentuating the graver side of his character. In Boswell's eyes he ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... separation of art from life. Our methods of studying art, making a beginning of art-study while traveling, tend to perpetuate this separation. It is only on reflection, after long experience, that we come to perceive that the most fruitful moments in our art education have been casual and unsought, in quaint nooks and unexpected places, where nature, art, and ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... lives with me still.... Since your trials were known, I have rarely, if ever, opened a page of Scripture without finding some promise applicable to thee and thine. I do not believe that I was looking for them, but they presented themselves unsought, and gave me comfort and confidence. Do not suppose, dear friend, that I am not fully aware of the peculiar bitterness and suffering which attends this trial in thy situation to thy own individual feeling; but, then, how precious and how cheering to thee must be the evidence ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... region of blind contentment, in which no moment of anguish ever visited her soul, in which she would never have the taste of life's delirium. Edna vaguely wondered what she meant by "life's delirium." It had crossed her thought like some unsought, extraneous impression. ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... are drawn from them by another and a higher class—the "Interpreters of Nature." Yet even here the convergence of two distinct lines of research was wholly fortuitous, and skilful combination owed the most brilliant part of its success to the unsought bounty of ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... wings, and what Sudden drench of dews upon The young brows, wreathed, all unsought, With the apple-blossom garlands Of the poets of those far lands Whence all dreams are drawn Set herein and soiling not The Book of ...
— The Book of Joyous Children • James Whitcomb Riley
... in this grim admission, nor the sentiment of gratitude, remained long with Jim. Another idea had taken possession of his fancy. Although the land nominated in his bill of sale had been, except on the occasion of his own temporary halt there, always unoccupied, unsought, and unclaimed, and although he was amply protected by legal certificates, he gravely collected a posse of three or four idlers from Fair Plains, armed them at his own expense, and in the dead of night took belligerent and forcible possession of the peaceful domain which the weak generosity and ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... impartial disregard for truth in either case; yet many were the authors who would go up endless back stairs to secure from that paper a flattering criticism, and then be as proud of it as if it had been the genuine and unsought utterance of a true man's conviction; and many were the men, immeasurably the superiors of the reviewers, and in a general way acquainted with their character, who would accept as conclusive upon the merits of a book the opinions they gave, nor ever question a mode ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... controlled by circumstances that it was neither vicious nor turbulent. Intrigue was never employed as the means of its gratification, nor was personal aggrandizement its object. The various high and important stations to which he was called by the public voice were unsought by himself; and, in consenting to fill them, he seems rather to have yielded to a general conviction that the interests of his country would be thereby promoted, than to an avidity ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... me; five years have I passed in traveling through the world in search of him: I have been in farthest Greece, and through the bounds of Asia, and coasting homewards, I landed here in Ephesus, being unwilling to leave any place unsought that harbors men; but this day must end the story of my life, and happy should I think myself in my death, if I were assured my wife ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... dominates them. He recognized it as part of the scheme of life, but it is usually qualified by other conditions and is only attained through persistent effort; it is never our portion until earned. It does not come unsought like pain and suffering. The Fourth Symphony is lighter than the "Eroica" which preceded it, or the C minor which comes next. The language of joy is always more or less superficial. The tragedies of life have to be told in ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... of unsought happiness could not last, however. During the ensuing days Ivan was obliged to banish dreams, and yield himself to preparations for that change which, though it should have brought something of eager anticipation to his boy's mind, ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... man, of mind unmovable Art thou; and as the rock beneath my tower Shakes not in storm so shakes not heart of thine: Such men are of the height and not the plain: Therefore that hill to thee I grant unsought Which whilome I refused. Possession take This day, lest hostile demon warp my mood; And build thereon thy church. The same shall stand Strong mother-church of all ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere
... Street, five minutes' walk from Chook's shop. At first Mrs Partridge had fretted, finding little consolation in the new ham-and-beef shop on Botany Road; and then, little by little, she had become attached to the neighbourhood. She had been surprised to find that entertainment came to her door unsought, in the form of constant arrivals and departures among the neighbours. And each of them was the beginning or the end of a mystery, which she probed to the bottom with the aid of the postman, the baker, the butcher, and the ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... he sung in his immortal strain, Though unsuccessful, was not sung in vain. All but the nymph that should redress his wrong, Attend his passion and approve his song. Like Phoebus thus, acquiring unsought praise, He caught at love and ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... them, but also from gold-sleeved, gray-breasted new suitors of Anna (over-staying their furloughs), whom she kept from tenderer themes by sprightly queries that never tired and constantly brought forth what seemed totally unsought mentions of the battery. And she had gathered the tale from Greenleaf as well. Constance, to scandalized intimates, marvelled at her sister's tolerance of his outrageous version; but Miranda remembered ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... achievements, he received the nomination for President over the names of Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and General Scott. It was a spontaneous expression of the people's confidence, unheralded and unsought. And when he was triumphantly elected over the Democratic and Free-soil candidates—General Cass, Martin Van Buren, and Charles Francis Adams—he accepted the high office in a spirit of humility and simple compliance ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... sorriest slaves of our stomach. Reach not after morality and righteousness, my friends; watch vigilantly your stomach, and diet it with care and judgment. Then virtue and contentment will come and reign within your heart, unsought by any effort of your own; and you will be a good citizen, a loving husband, and a tender father - a noble, ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... chance that such an affair should be forced upon him, and yet this was a dueling city. The hot young spirits of France had brought their customs with them into the North American wilderness, and perhaps the unsought chance, if he used it as he thought he could, would not serve him so ill ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... when I have been listening in silence to his conversation, that his past life up to the present moment, with many minute circumstances belonging to one or other particular scene in it, has come across me like a dream, but distinctly, entirely involuntarily and unsought, occupying ...
— Clairvoyance • Charles Webster Leadbeater
... at this sally was terribly expressive, and I showed all the contempt I felt for him, turning away to the sea fondly, as the hope of my liberty, since thence only should it come. He read my thoughts, perhaps, taking me by the arm with unsought pretence of ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... the corner of an eye of those grinding men. That was because he read books of poetry and philosophy of which they had never heard. For the rest, he passed his examinations creditably, and indeed, in more than one case, with unexpected as unsought distinction. I must mention, however, that he did all his set work first, and thoroughly, before giving himself ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... let Justice still control, Weighing the guerdon to the toil!—What then? A god alone claims joy—all joy is his, Flushing with unsought light the cheeks of men. Where is no miracle, why there no bliss! Grow, change, and ripen all that mortal be, Shapen'd from form to form, by toiling time; The Blissful and the Beautiful are born Full grown, and ripen'd from Eternity— No gradual changes to their ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... astrologer, much as be descants upon the influence of the twelve signs, has but little, if any, real knowledge of this matter above and beyond the purely physical symbolism above mentioned. And perhaps it is as well that such a benighted condition prevails, and that the Divine, heavenly goddess is unsought and comparatively unknown. The celestial Urania, at least, in such isolation remains pure and undefiled. She is free from the desecrating influence of ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... unloaded upon our shores annually. 2d. Let the Negro with all his moral depravity initiate any movement looking toward his withdrawal even from one part of our country to another. The scene of such activities attracts special attention, and unsought advice is poured upon his "worthless" head; words of warning flow apace, and direct steps are taken to defeat the end in view. In view of this fact, the Negro is seldom allowed to organize, secretly, for mutual protection and helpfulness, in some sections; ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... mother! Is it choice when man Obeys the might of destiny, that brings The awful hour? I sought no beauteous bride, No fond delusion stirred my tranquil breast, Still as the house of death; for there, unsought, I found the treasure of my soul. Thou know'st That, heedless ever of the giddy race, I looked on beauty's charms with cold disdain, Nor deemed of womankind there lived another Like thee—whom my idolatrous fancy ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... through their compositions; though at the same time we may observe, that, amidst the most elegant simplicity of thought and expression, one is sometimes surprised to meet with a poor conceit, which had presented itself unsought for, and which the author had not acquired ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... wore on, monotonously, and that first week of the relapse was to Jean and Henriette the dreariest and saddest in all their long, unsought intimacy. Would their suffering never end? were they to hope for no surcease of misery, the danger always springing up afresh? At every moment their thoughts sped away to Maurice, from whom they had received no further word. They were told that others ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... bride, still so meek in thy splendour, So frank in thy love and its trusting surrender, Going hence thou wilt leave us the town dim! May happiness wing to thy bosom, unsought, And Nigel, esteeming his bliss as he ought, Prove worthy thy worship, ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker
... his mind; his wrinkles and furrows were inscriptions that Time had graved, and in which he had written legends of wisdom that had been tested by the tenor of a life. And Ernest had ceased to be obscure. Unsought for, undesired, had come the fame which so many seek, and made him known in the great world, beyond the limits of the valley in which he had dwelt so quietly. College professors, and even the active men of cities, ...
— The Snow Image • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Vanessa's flame; And, though her arguments were strong, At least could hardly wish them wrong. Howe'er it came, he could not tell, But sure she never talk'd so well. His pride began to interpose; Preferr'd before a crowd of beaux! So bright a nymph to come unsought! Such wonder by his merit wrought! 'Tis merit must with her prevail! He never knew her judgment fail! She noted all she ever read! And had a most discerning head! 'Tis an old maxim in the schools, That flattery's the food of fools; Yet now and then your men of wit ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... covered with the smooth yellow crust of calcite encountered at other places, and in trying to make a dexterous turn so as to go down feet first, the descent was accomplished with uncalculated suddenness and an unsought but liberal collection of bruises. This, however, was not a happening of the unexpected and could have no attention amid scenes of wonder and beauty, and we were close to the Geysers. From a scientific point of view this is the most important portion of the cave, for here is an indisputable proof ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen
... myself by the banisters, made shift to get up with less fatigue than I expected from ancles so weak. But oh! Jack, what was Sixtus the Vth.'s artful depression of his natural powers to mine, when, as this half-dead Montalto, he gaped for the pretendedly unsought pontificate, and the moment he was chosen leapt upon the prancing beast, which it was thought by the amazed conclave he was not able to mount, without help of chairs and men? Never was there a more joyful heart and lighter heels than mine joined ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... a little study and effort to assume the same tone as the rest. One had to be on the watch for those pleasant repartees that, among the frequenters of the Rambouillet and Richelieu houses, gave the new-comer a good reputation; but after a while these happy sayings came unsought. To persons trained in such a school, what might at first sight appear subtle and refined is ordinary and natural. Whether they speak or write, their ideas take a certain form which is not the usual one; and bright, witty, and dainty ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... lit one of his own cigars and made room for Geoff at his side, an idea came to him so seductive, so simple and so compelling that he wondered why he had never thought of it before. When Geoff asked: "Are you down here for long, or are you going back on Monday?" Eric answered with unsought inspiration: ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... die. To consecrate Himself to this hard necessity, He retired to the solitude of Mount Hermon. We start, then, from the wrong point of view, if we suppose that Jesus climbed Hermon in order to enjoy spiritual ecstasy, or exhibit His glory to those three men. Ecstasy of this kind must come unsought; and the way to it lies through conflict, humiliation, self-mastery. It was not simply to pray that Jesus retired; it was to engage in the great conflict of His life. And because He felt, Himself ...
— How to become like Christ • Marcus Dods
... The week tolerably satisfactory; but how truly may we say, "A day in thy courts is better than a thousand"! This evening's unexpected, unsought, unasked, free, gratuitous mercy has made the last two hours worth more than some whole days of this week. Oh, how kind is He who knows how to win back and attract to Himself by imparting ineffable desires after what is good, even to a heart that has grown dry and dead and worldly! I have ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall
... wisdom for man or boy who is haunted with the hovering of unseen wings, with the scent of unseen roses, and the subtle enticement of melodies unheard, is work. If he follow any of these, they vanish. If he work, they will come unsought ..." ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... years to have in my medical care very many women who, from one or another cause, were what is called nervous. Few of them were so happily constituted as to need from me neither counsel nor warnings. Very often such were desired, more commonly they were given unsought, as but a part of that duty which the physician feels, a duty which is but half fulfilled when we think of the body as ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell |
