"Impelled" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... part, would so embolden the savages as to expose him to great peril. Should he avoid the conflict, to which he was challenged, and endeavor to escape, by fleeing before his enemies, he would draw them down upon him with resistless fury. Thus again he found himself impelled to rouse all the energies of his army for the slaughter of the ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... out into the darkness that cloaked the silent city from its aerial ravagers. As we walked I mused upon this modern maiden's Iliad. While a thousand hug the quiet haven, what was it that impelled the one to cut moorings and range the deep? A chorus of croaking frogs greeted our turn ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... impelled towards it. Let us not yet scrutinize too closely the main impelling forces. Few human actions originate solely in what we try to think the most ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... forbids yielding to the promptings of egoism or to those of the narrower moralities when this involves a violation of the precepts of the wider morality is axiomatic. Criminal and anti-social actions are not excused by the fact that motives which impelled their commission were ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright
... enjoyed the benefit of that "sudden change" of weather, but to them it was only a "nice spell of weather," a "lucky thing;" while to me it was full of sweet and encouraging tokens of the "loving-kindness of the Lord." And now, after so many years, I feel impelled to give this imperfect narrative, to encourage others in the day of trouble to call upon the Lord; and also, as a tribute of gratitude to Him who has "never said to the house of Jacob, seek ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... changeable. In one of his letters he calls himself 'quite an altered man,' and asserts that he is given over to 'a sort of intoxicated self-forgetfulness'—a condition to which his letters testify not at all. In a later bulletin he is nearer the mark: 'Were I not impelled by the German spirit, and desire to learn and do rather than to enjoy, I should tarry a little longer in this school of a light-hearted and happy life, and try to profit by it still more.' A truly priceless passage, this, with a solemnity transcending ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... But a motion is intangible. It is an act, of which the announcement is the visible result. "A decent respect to the opinions of mankind" prompted the Congress on July 4, 1776, to "declare the causes" which impelled it to separation. This date is accepted in the popular mind, as well as by official action, as the beginning of national existence. If recognition by other powers be assumed as the criterion, the sovereignty began in 1778, when treaties of alliance and commerce were signed with France. ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... motives which prompted English colonial enterprise in its earliest stages did not differ materially from those which prompted the Spanish and the Portuguese, the Dutch and the French. All were impelled primarily by the desire to attain wealth. But whilst our competitors never got much beyond that stage, and for the most part imagined that the only way to attain wealth was by a crude exploitation of subject ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... The road was deserted. Mrs. Grossman's house was the only one I must pass; its shutters were closed, and the yard was empty. As I drew near home a violent haste grew upon me, yet my feet seemed to impede my progress. They were like lead; I impelled myself along, as in a dream. Under the protection of our orchard wall I turned my merino mantle, which was lined with an indefinite color, spread my veil over my bonnet, and bent my shoulders, and passed down the carriage-drive, by ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... only half as anxious to see you again, my love, as I am to see my son, I must forgive her for taking you away from us." The words came from me without premeditation. It was not calculation this time, but sheer instinct that impelled me to test her in this way, once more, by a direct reference to George. She was so close to me that I felt her breath quiver on my cheek. Her eyes had been fixed on my face a moment before, but they now wandered away from it constrainedly. One of her ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... viewless monster form, that clutched my throat with iron fingers, but whose body was impalpable to the grasp of my hands. A mighty space, an eternity of time and daylight came. Then, like one in a dream, I rose mechanically, and, finding the pin I had secreted, I stood on the little wooden bench, and, impelled by some spiritual but irresistible force, I scratched on the wall the message I ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... of human motives, hunger and curiosity, impelled me to enter the house at once. Without waiting for an invitation, I went up to the door—half protected against the winter snows by a small open portico—and unceremoniously walked in. The first apartment was empty, but I noticed a low door in the wall to the ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... In spite of her fascinations he succeeds in tearing himself away, and we next find him at the castle of Wartburg, the home of Hermann the Landgrave, whose daughter Elizabeth is in love with him. At the minstrel contest he enters into the lists with the other Minnesingers, and, impelled by a reckless audacity and the subtle influence of Venus, sings of the attractions of sensual pleasures. Walter, of the Vogelweide, replies with a song to virtue. Tannhaeuser breaks out in renewed sensual strains, and a quarrel ensues. The knights ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... after we reached Palermo, when, in the first bewilderment of architects in this paradise of art and colour, we were working nobly at our sketches in that dream of delight, the Capella Palatina. He was himself an amateur archaeologist, he told us, and passionately devoted to his island; so he felt impelled to speak to anyone whom he saw appreciating the almost—and in a way fortunately—unknown beauties of Palermo. In a little time we were fully acquainted, and talking like the oldest friends. Of course he knew acquaintances of Rendel's,—someone always does: this time they were officers on the tubby ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... "Dacoits! dacoits! run, didi (elder sister), run. With these eyes of mine I saw them. I climbed a tree and saw them. Some of our bearers lie dead and they are killing the others. Fly! fly for your life!" With these words she turned and led the way with swiftness impelled by fear. ...
— Bengal Dacoits and Tigers • Maharanee Sunity Devee
... land. Every other law, both human and divine, ceases to be observed; yea, withers and perishes in contact with it. It was this paramount law of this nation and of this House that forced me, under the penalty of dishonour, to subject myself to the code, which impelled me unwillingly into this tragical affair. Upon the heads of this nation, and at the doors of this House, rests the blood with which my ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... that he oughtn't to have been left alone with such a dreadful temptation before him to slip overboard and end his sorrow or his crime." Mrs. Markham also remembered that it was about five o'clock—or was it six?—that morning when she distinctly thought she had heard a splash, and she was almost impelled to get up and look out of the bull's-eye. She should never forgive herself for resisting that impulse, for she was positive now that she would have seen his ghastly face in the water. Some indignation was felt that the captain, after ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... certain of their words and acts are identical. Indeed as we come to recognise how vigorous is the determinism controlling the actions of these visionaries, we are astonished to find the human machine, when impelled by the same mysterious agent, performing its functions with inevitable uniformity. To this group of the religious Jeanne belongs. In this connection it is interesting to compare her with Saint Catherine of Sienna,[80] Saint Colette of Corbie,[81] Yves Nicolazic, the peasant ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... Duplay's right foot slipped. In the effort to recover himself he darted out his left over the edge of the bank. Harry impelled him; the Major loosed his hold and set to work to save himself—none too soon: both his legs were over, his feet touched water, he lay spread-eagled on the bank, half on, half off, in a ludicrous attitude; still he slipped ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... feel impelled to say that the most interesting thing in Mexico, so far as my knowledge goes, is your President. It has seemed to me that of all the men now living, Porfirio Diaz, of Mexico, is best worth seeing. ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... the sky on fire. An unreal light illumined the buildings in the fairy gardens, and Mary became conscious of an invisible tide of burning life all around her which caught her in its rushing flood. She was impelled to float on a swift and shining stream which she knew was carrying many others besides herself in the same direction toward an unseen but definite end. She was like a leaf snatched from a quiet corner by the wind and forced to join the whirl of its ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... part. I suppose most men have such moments of temptation, but I suppose, also, that they act more sensibly and honourably than I did then. Her hand had dropped gently on the chair-arm, near to my own, and though our fingers did not touch, I felt mine thrilled and impelled toward hers. I do not seek to palliate my action. Though the man I believed to be her husband was below, I yielded myself to an imagined passion for her. In that moment I was a captive. I caught her hand and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... liquid, and will be transmitted to every part of the surface represented by the water in the flower-pot so that at the surface there will be a thousand columns of water, every one pressing upwards as if they were impelled by a force equal to that which compels the liquid to descend in the vertical tube; and of necessity they reproduce here," said Planchette, indicating to Raphael the top of the flower-pot, "the force introduced over ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... and shallows, its sudden risings and clamourings within its stony bed, and its water-grasses bending in the autumn wind, might well be the Kamogawa;—and the mists that haunt its shores are the very mists of Arashiyama. The boat of Hikoboshi, impelled by a single oar working upon a wooden peg, is not yet obsolete; and at many a country ferry you may still see the hiki-fun['e] in which Tanabata-tsum['e] prayed her husband to cross in a night of storm,—a flat broad barge pulled over the river by cables. And maids and wives ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... for mortification impelled me to seek and invent various kinds. It is surprising, that as soon as the bitterness of any new mode of mortification was exhausted, another kind was pointed to me, and I was inwardly led to pursue it. Divine love so enlightened my heart, and so scrutinized ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... far distant from the entrance of the cavern, and it seemed as if one draught of clear water was a luxury cheaply purchased by death itself. This, in addition to considerations more disinterested, and which I have already mentioned, impelled me forward. ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... opposed in direction to its generator, while that developed on the rupture of the circuit coincided in direction with the inducing current. It appeared as if the current on its first rush through the primary wire sought a purchase in the secondary one, and, by a kind of kick, impelled backward through the latter an electric wave, which subsided as soon as the ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... protoplasm, or the weird chromatics of spectroscopy? Beryl's head, that hitherto had turned restlessly on its pillow, became motionless; the closed eyes opened suddenly, fastened upon the lawyer's; and some inexplicable influence impelled her to stretch ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... truth so fascinating becomes the occupation that men who in other respects seem cool and phlegmatic will desert an almost assured success to join the horde rushing toward some unexplored district, impelled by the ever-flying rumors of untold wealth just brought to light. The golden goal this season is the great Gunnison Country; and soon trains of burros, packed with pick and shovel, tent and provisions, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... especially impelled to this when something new relating to such subjects is discovered and made known. We trust therefore that the public will find our renewed observations on Winckelmann, his character and his achievements a timely contribution, since the letters which are now published throw a more vivid light upon ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... inseparably mixed up in the consideration of it. Political Economy considers mankind as occupied solely in acquiring and consuming wealth; and aims at showing what is the course of action into which mankind, living in a state of society, would be impelled, if that motive, except in the degree in which it is checked by the two perpetual counter-motives above adverted to, were absolute ruler of all their actions. Under the influence of this desire, it shows mankind accumulating wealth, ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... into a pleasing harmony before the brakeman’s eyes. The tone-deaf gentleman who insists on whistling a popular melody is almost as trying as the lady suffering from the same weakness, who shouts, “Ninon, Ninon, que fais-tu de la vie!” until you feel impelled to cry, ”Que faites-vous, ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... poured out so impetuously, the face turned toward her was so eager, that Mrs. Ware could not dim its light by answering the first two questions as she felt impelled. She answered the last instead, saying that she felt as Mary did about Jack's marriage, and that it made her inexpressibly happy to think that the girl he might some day bring home as his bride was the daughter of her dear old friend and schoolmate, ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... reveal his purposes to those most concerned, seemed to have gone to the other extreme, for nothing more was heard from him. Captain Bagley took upon himself the task of directing the movements of the others, whenever they needed direction. The canoe, with its occupants, left the shore and was impelled into the Susquehanna, heading for the other bank, invisible in the gloom of the night. Before the craft had vanished, however, Ned caught sight of a couple of figures on the bank immediately in front of where he ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... of the tepid sea has thickened in the cold, do the clouds appear. But there, in the higher strata of the atmosphere they lie, thick and manifold,—an upper sea of great waves, separated from those beneath by the transparent firmament, and, like them too, impelled in rolling masses by the wind. A mighty advance has taken place in creation; but its most conspicuous optical sign is the existence of a transparent atmosphere,—of a firmament, stretched out over the earth, that separates the ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... himself that he had nothing to be concealed, and that if any one had asked him direct questions concerning his past he would have answered them boldly enough. But he knew himself to be so singularly averse to dwelling on his own affairs that he wondered why he should now be impelled to break through so good a rule. Indeed he had not the insight to perceive that Mrs. Goddard lost no opportunity of leading him to the subject of his various adventures, and, if he had suspected it, he would have been ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... honest for reputation's sake; but reputation will make the slave none the richer, nor invest him with any of the privileges of a human being—while his poverty and sense of wrong both urge him to steal from his master. A salary must be paid to an overseer to compel the slave to work; the free man is impelled by the desire of increasing the comforts of himself and family. Two hired laborers will perform as much work as three slaves; by some it is supposed to be a more correct estimate that slaves perform only half ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... one feels himself summoned or impelled to do or to endure, and from which he instinctively draws back. Aversion is the turning away of the mind or feelings from some person or thing, or from some course of action, etc. Hate, or hatred, as applied to persons, is intense and continued aversion, usually with disposition to ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... broad daylight! No wonder you were frightened. I can hardly hear myself speak; but I felt impelled to come and see how you took it. They have put an enormous bull in the adjoining den; and if you don't like his company, you will have to change your quarters, which I advise you to do at any rate; for the Basques who have him in charge are brutal fellows, whose jargon ...
— Jacques Bonneval • Anne Manning
... nothing to say, or did his silence cloak his feelings-and what were his feelings? Did his meditations outrun his habitually insulting speech as he bit his under lip and glared at him? The judge always felt impelled to talk at such times, while Mahaffy, by that silence of his, seemed to weigh and condemn ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... for particular individuals. He was in the world to reveal the Father, and all the divine compassion for sinners was in his heart. It was this mighty love that brought him to earth on the mission of redemption. It was this that impelled and constrained him in all his seeking of the lost. He had come to be the Saviour of all who would believe and follow him. Therefore he was interested in every merest fragment or shred of life. No human soul was so debased that he did ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... ultimately to desperation. In laying these painful statements before the members of his majesty's government and other influential gentlemen, the master manufacturers wish to do it respectfully, impelled by a sense of duty which they owe to the government and the public, and especially to their workmen, who have hitherto borne their sufferings with extreme patience." The distress was aggravated by a ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... thanked the instinct that had impelled me to cling tenaciously to my rifle during the moments of ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... his moccasined feet making no sound. Something impelled him to keep as quiet as the night itself. And when he came near—he was glad. For the object was Jean. He sat with his back to a block of birch twenty paces from the door of Josephine's tent. His head had fallen forward on his chest. He was ...
— God's Country—And the Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... After careful scrutiny she decided that it should, and from that time, when it was not in her hands undergoing admiration, it lay in secure repose among the treasured notes, faded flowers, and sweet-smelling rose-leaves in her writing-case. Not many days later she felt impelled to acknowledge its receipt, and, taking her materials in this precious box to a shaded corner of the pine wood, spread them out before her and was soon deep in her pleasant task. She was necessarily obliged to draw heavily upon imagination in tracing the points in the photograph ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... Paradise—namely, "getting on." I look upon it, that "getting on" is a very important matter indeed. I do not mean merely for the sake of the coarse and tangible results of success, but because humanity is so constituted that a vast number of us would never be impelled to those stretches of exertion which make, us wiser and more capable men, if it were not for the absolute necessity of putting on our faculties all the strain they will bear, for the purpose of "getting on" ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... she related to me, from time to time some of the incidents in her bitter experiences as a slave-woman. Though impelled by a natural craving for human sympathy, she passed through a baptism of suffering, even in recounting her trials to me, in private confidential conversations. The burden of these memories lay heavily upon her spirit—naturally virtuous and refined. I repeatedly urged ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... his heart. Adroitly she eluded his grasp and mingled with the throng. Gerbert followed with bursting heart, seized her in his arms, and found that the other phantoms had surrounded them. Something in the unearthly music fascinated him; he felt impelled to dance round and round, till his head reeled. And still he danced with his phantom bride, and still the maidens whirled about them. On the stroke of one the dancers vanished and the knight sank to ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... suggestive of its rise into political prominence consequent upon the acquisition of California by the United States, and upon the spread of the latter along the Pacific coast. The length and severity of the voyage round Cape Horn, then as now, impelled men to desire some shorter and less arduous route; and, inconvenient as the land transport with its repeated lading and unlading was, it presented before the days of steam the better alternative, as to some extent it still does. So ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... condition in which I found religious affairs during a recent visitation of the congregations, has impelled me to publish this Catechism, or statement of the Christian doctrine, after having prepared it in very brief and simple terms. Alas! what misery I beheld! The people, especially those who live in ...
— An Explanation of Luther's Small Catechism • Joseph Stump
... "go-ahead," the result of his absolute breaking with the Past. He can repose only in the midst of intense activity. He can sit down quietly in a town that is growing rapidly; but if it stands still, he is impelled to move his rocking-chair to one more lively. He wants the world to move, and to move unencumbered; and Europe seems to him to carry too much baggage. The American is simply the most modern of men, one who has thrown away the impedimenta of tradition. The world never ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... again. "I reckon, if you don't mind, miss," said the spokesman of one party, "ez this is our first call, we'll sorter hang out in the hall yer, until you'r used to us." On another occasion, one Whiskey Dick, impelled by a sense of duty, paid a visit to the new house and its fair occupants, in a fashion frankly recounted by him afterwards at the ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte
... my companions, and one, less cautious than myself, immediately broke forth in imprecations against it. I never was secretly opposed, but a turbulent disposition or a love for dramatic scenes, prompted by the hope of detecting either the validity or deception of such phenomena, impelled me to wink opposition to my reckless companion. In the devotional exercises, which served as a preliminary to the entrance of the mind into a superior condition, such as whirling, twisting, and reeling, we all took a part. Henry, for that was the name of the ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... punitive expeditions; of the Legations tardily bestirring themselves in their own defence, and realising that they must try and forget their private politics if they are even to live, not to say one day to resume their various rivalries and animosities. Imperceptibly we are being impelled to take action; we ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... Here I feel impelled to repeat the substance of what I have stated elsewhere,—that these rough, queer servants were, as a general rule, perfectly honest, and of irreproachable morals, besides working, in their own curious fashion, desperately hard. Our family was an exceptionally small one, and the "place" ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... arbitrary value attaching to a university degree, were in no other sense his superiors either in birth or breeding. It was evidently, then, the contemptuous attitude of his jealous scholastic rivals, as well as the accruing material advantages involved, that impelled Shakespeare in 1596 to apply, through his father, to the College of Heralds for official confirmation of a grant of arms alleged to have been made to ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... Paul's ruling principle, which both impelled him to become all things to all men, with a view to their salvation, as he has been saying, and urged him to effort and self-discipline, with a view to his own, as he goes on to say. 'For the Gospel's sake' seems to point backward; 'that I may be a joint partaker thereof points forward. We have ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... was pure and elastic, the sun shone out with uncommon splendour, lighting up the changing woods with a rich mellow colouring, composed of a thousand brilliant and vivid dyes. The mighty river rolled flashing and sparkling onward, impelled by a strong breeze, that tipped its short rolling surges with a crest ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... ridden over to tea, lounging around alone, in a state of mind as miserable as a man should be who, having come with the expectation of basking in the sunshine of Beauty's smile, finds that Beauty is out horseback riding with a rival, he was impelled to give him aid, countenance, and advice. He immediately attacked him, therefore, on his forlorn and woebegone expression, and declared that at his age he would have long ago run the game to earth, and have carried ...
— "George Washington's" Last Duel - 1891 • Thomas Nelson Page
... quite aware that this did not truly represent her husband's position. But an uneasiness of conscience impelled her ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... the old woman hardly dare to utter a syllable in the presence of her daughter-in-law? For the same reason as that which had impelled her to keep silence before her sons in former times. Her own husband had been a man of delicate health, quite unequal to the strain of managing his worldly affairs; he had married her in order that she might supply his deficiencies. She had undoubtedly increased the ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... Mr Brymer again, but the other two men hesitated, and were hanging back. The next moment they went down headlong, impelled as they were by ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... that he looked straight at him; he could have sworn that he must have been seen; and yet—apparently not. The man gave no sign, and it occurred to the Kid that perhaps he was lying in the shadow. Stealthily he wormed himself even nearer the wall: impelled by the instinct of self-preservation that would put off to the last possible moment the inevitable discovery. And hardly had he edged himself in against the wall, when with a sinking heart he heard voices ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... little and spake little, she knew that little well; and if she had gathered meagrely from life, she had at least winnowed out some small handfuls of grain from the straw and chaff. At last her sagacity impelled her to say: ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... consciousness of unity among themselves, and separation from the world at large, which, in every domestic circle, should still keep a holy place where no stranger may intrude. But this evening a prophetic sympathy impelled the refined and educated youth to pour out his heart before the simple mountaineers, and constrained them to answer him with the same free confidence. And thus it should have been. Is not the kindred of a common fate a closer ...
— The Great Stone Face - And Other Tales Of The White Mountains • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... waste are carried along, up the windward slope of the dune until they roll over its crest, where, no longer impelled by the wind, they come to rest. Thus, the crest, built forward by new material constantly added, is advancing. Valleys are filled; old stream channels are obliterated; and the inequalities of the surface are levelled ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... of their happiest moments, while they become garrulous over what displeases them. The cave of Adullam has always been the most prolific literary centre. Every man who has a grievance is fiercely impelled to self-expression. He is not content till his grievance is published to the unheeding world. And it is well that it is so. We should be in a bad way if it were not for these inspired Adullamites who prevent us from resting in slothful ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... what impelled her to do the thing, but she put out her hand and laid it on his. She felt the silky smoothness of the glove and then ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... all sensible persons concurred in the opinion that the Emperor ought to have passed the winter of 1812-13 in Poland, and have resumed his vast enterprises in the spring. But his natural impatience impelled him forward as it were unconsciously, and he seemed to be under the influence of an invisible demon stronger than even his own strong will. This demon was ambition. He who knew so well the value of time, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... commonplace man in the common ranks of life; but it has done him good to be a nobleman. Not that his tact is quite perfect. In going up to breakfast, he made me precede him; in returning to the library, he did the same, although I drew back, till he impelled me up the first stair, with gentle persistence. By insisting upon it, he showed his sense of condescension much more than if, when he saw me unwilling to take precedence, he had passed forward, as if the point were not worth either asserting or yielding. Heaven knows, ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... butcher. He was vain, sensual, frivolous, profuse, improvident. One vice of a darker shade was imputed to him, envy. But there is not the least reason to believe that this bad passion, though it sometimes made him wince and utter fretful exclamations, ever impelled him to injure by wicked arts the reputation of any of his rivals. The truth probably is, that he was not more envious, but merely less prudent, than his neighbours. His heart was on his lips. All those small jealousies, which are but too common among men of letters, but which a ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... bequeathing to him only the information imparted to his mother, that he "would have made something out of him." Wagner in the first sketch of his life, (1842) relates that for a long time he dwelt upon this utterance of his step-father; and that it impelled ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl
... walked through the village friendless, and, impelled by his swift-coming fancies, strolled far into the suburbs. A crowd was collected round a squalid negro cabin, and, less by interest than by instinct, he bent ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... followed by my companions and Gringalet. Lucien, suddenly disturbed in his sleep, scarcely had time to know what had happened. A furious uproar perfectly deafened us, and a flood of yellowish water came rushing by; I saw one of our coverings float off on its surface, and almost immediately, as if impelled by some superhuman force, the rocks came rolling down, dashing together under the ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... conceived. If his lordship had been one of the conspirators, he must have been found to have made many more thousands of pounds by the speculations of this day, than he either is or can be proved to have made hundreds. Avarice, always insatiable, which had in this case impelled the defendant to hazard every thing that was dear and valuable to him in life, stops short in the hot pursuit of its object, at the very moment when the most abundant means of gratification are brought within its reach. Does not then the inference of innocence, arising from what he did not sell, ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... duel lay at her door,' the attorney answered; 'and in that belief was impelled to do what she could to undo the consequences. Romantic, but a most ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... However, something impelled me to get up, and, rising quietly from my cot in order not to arouse the others, I went to the south ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... fish have no time to feed or rest; they may be seen ceaselessly though slowly pressing on in the shallow water at the sides of the Fraser or Thompson, as if pressed on by the weight of those behind, impelled by some all-powerful desire to get to their journey's end, to spawn and die. None return, and the lakes and pools of the rivers are filled with corpses, on which bears, eagles, and all creatures which can eat fish ...
— Fishing in British Columbia - With a Chapter on Tuna Fishing at Santa Catalina • Thomas Wilson Lambert
... winter's morning, and the tears came to his eyes once more. He did not try to sleep, so as to remain with his memories. He did not wish to lose one moment of that night in the little place, filled with the soul of Gottfried, to which he had been led as though impelled by some unknown force. But while he lay listening to the irregular trickling of the fountain and the shrill cries of the bats, the healthy fatigue of youth mastered his will, and he ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... was going on, the two boats were side by side, so gently impelled that their progress was moderate and conversation pleasant. Thinking that the Professor had slept long enough, and that he ought to know the news, Fred Ashman turned to wake him; but to his surprise, the German met his look with a smile and the remark that ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... she had done Gillian at some considerable cost to herself in the matter of personal pride, and her quick recognition of the musician's sense of fair play in renouncing his dance with her when he knew the circumstances which had impelled her to promise it—these two things had sufficed to turn Davilof's heady, emotional devotion into something more enduring and perhaps more dangerous, an abiding, deeply rooted love and passion for her which was ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... Gracie only shrank further away. She was trembling violently, so violently that Avery felt impelled to pass a sustaining ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... that the complaint must be sent to the Water Department. From the Water Department no reply could possibly come for several weeks more. And in the meantime, all the women workers in the laundry, impelled by intolerable thirst, drank ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt
... a state of mind as this that Lord Nelville wrote to Corinne. His letter was harsh and ungentlemanly. He felt this; but various confused emotions impelled him to send it: he was rendered so wretched by these internal conflicts, that he wished, at all hazards, for some circumstance or ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... the Virginia House of Delegates has been chosen as perhaps the best representative of the spirit which impelled and guided the American Revolution. It is fortunate that the ablest of the national leaders was placed in the very focus of opposition to the Constitution, so that we may take Hamilton's argument in the New York convention and Madison's in the Virginia convention, as the ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... Prescott and Motley is seen in the manner of presenting the character of Philip II. In so far as Prescott drew the picture of Philip II., it is traced with a mild, cool hand. Philip is shown as a tyrant, but he is impelled to his tyranny by motives of conscience. In Motley's The Rise of the Dutch Republic, this oppressor is an accursed scourge of a loyal people, the enemy of progress, of liberty, and of justice. Motley's feelings make ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... shriek, then a thousand shrieks. Impelled by the Frenchman's tremendous heave, the winged man shot forward and struck full, with a splashing sound, against the terrifically revolving armature. A thunderbolt seemed to explode in our faces. All in that room, we as well as the Orconites, reeled dazedly back. A stench of seared ...
— The Winged Men of Orcon - A Complete Novelette • David R. Sparks
... patience to make him draw a single stroke correctly. His unmeaning grin of good-natured acquiescence in whatever I bade him do, was more provoking than downright rebellion could have been; and I secretly agreed with my friends that the attempt would prove a complete failure, while impelled, I hardly could tell how, to persevere with redoubled efforts. Jack's uncouth bristly hair fell in a straight mass over one of the finest foreheads ever seen, and concealed it. I happened one day to put aside this mass, for the benefit of his ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... sight to see an unhorsed cowboy chase his runaway horse on foot as he is almost sure to do if caught in such a predicament. He ought to know that he cannot outrun his fleet steed in such a race, but seems to be impelled by some strange impulse to make the attempt. After he has run himself out of breath he is liable to realize the folly of his zeal and adopt a more sensible ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk
... while he has merely killed one who loved him." It angered her unreasonably when, as he turned to enter the house, Lady Saxondale put her arm through his and whispered something in his ear. A moment or two later Lady Jane, as if unable to master the emotion which impelled, hurried into the castle after them. Dickey strolled away, and she was left with Lord Bob. It would have been a relief had he expressed the slightest sign of surprise or regret, but he was as imperturbable as the wall against which he leaned. His mild blue eyes gazed carelessly at the ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... the general is angry I should hasten to him to calm him and turn aside his wrath. I have warded off many a calamity since this private way was opened, and I have been able to overhear Bonaparte. But what have I been compelled to listen to to-day! Oh, Fouche, it was God Himself who impelled me to listen! I was with him when you were announced, and I suspected that your visit purported something unusual, something dreadful. I have heard all, Fouche—all, I tell you! I know that his life is threatened, ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... separated each morning, so as to cover as much ground as possible, having agreed to return at night to the river. It was now the third day; their food was all but gone, their steeds much worn, and the signs seemed to indicate a storm. Yet the hunger of their friends and their own pride impelled them to persist, for out of many young men they had been chosen, therefore they must prove themselves equal to ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... them. As ordinary members we are both pledged to absolute obedience. I therefore place no embargo upon the return of my wife to Dorset House. But there are certain conditions, Prince, that considering the special circumstances of the case I feel impelled to propose." ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... hands in despair. Presently they all disappeared. Just then I felt myself drawn down by someone getting hold of my foot under the water, but, managing to kick off my shoe, I quickly rose again and struck out away from the spot, impelled by instinct rather than anything else, for I had no time for thought; then directly afterwards up came the masts almost with a bound, as it were, and stood out of the water, with a slight list only to starboard, with the fore, main, and mizzen tops all above ...
— The Loss of the Royal George • W.H.G. Kingston
... her full consciousness and to the significance of what she was doing. She had repeated her vows after the clergyman clearly and correctly; she had even said "I will" because her subconscious mind had impelled her to say it. The importance of the words had escaped her. It had been only her material body which stood by ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... the light skiff, no longer impelled by the ship, immediately deviated from its course; and, after making a little circuit, it became stationary, while the mass of the vessel passed on, with the steadiness of an elephant from whose back a butterfly had just ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... frequently insisted on. X. appeared to be a chosen spiritual agent, and told us many surprising things. He affirmed that, when he took a pen in his hand, an influence ran from his shoulder downwards, and impelled him to write oracular sentences. I listened for a time, offering no observation. 'And now,' continued X, 'this power has so risen as to reveal to me the thoughts of others. Only this morning I told a friend what he was thinking of, and what he intended to do during the ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... faultless ankle, in a vermilion silk stocking and low-cut cordovan leather slipper—as theatrical as the rest of her attire. Something innately aesthetical in the student, which made him adore the exquisitely wrought, impelled him now to be the slave—the devotee—the worshiper of ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... Manners! The truth of all this hullabaloo was that Rigby had a sly pension which, by an inevitable association of ideas, he always connected with the maintenance of an aristocracy. All his rigmarole dissertations on the French revolution were impelled by this secret influence; and when he wailed over 'la guerre aux chateaux,' and moaned like a mandrake over Nottingham Castle in flames, the rogue had an eye all the ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... he had gone, Paula, impelled by something or other, crossed the room to the window. In a short time she saw his form in the broad street below, which he traversed obliquely to an opposite corner, his head somewhat bent, and his eyes on ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... heart-felt prayer for help from above, and then commenced the fearful contest. The moment they turned the prow of their shallop towards the shore, the light and buoyant little vessel darted forward, impelled by both wind and tide, and mounted like a seabird on the rolling waves. The dashing spray fell ever it, almost blinding its crew, and the helm no longer had power to divert ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... there were a few, a very few, a handful out of five millions, who sometimes remembered perhaps to thank God that the Gray Seal lived—that was his reward. That—and SHE, whose mysterious letters prompted and impelled his, the Gray Seal's, acts! She—nameless, fascinating in her brilliant resourcefulness, amazing in her power, a woman whose life was bound up with his and yet held apart from him in the most inexplicable, absorbing way; a woman he had never seen, ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... this prevailing idea grew many of the interpretations and partial enforcements. A legislator, magistrate or judge might be the very opposite of venal, and yet be irresistibly impelled by the force of training and association to take the current view of the unassailable rights and superiority of property. It would be biassed, in fact, ridiculous to say that the privileges and exemptions enjoyed by the rich were altogether the outcome of corruption by bribes. There is a much ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... Something impelled me to tell Don Antonio the story of King Mycerinus of Egypt that Herodotus tells, how hearing from an oracle he would only live ten years, the king called for torches and would not sleep, so crammed twenty years' living into ten. The goblin driver listened in intervals between ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... most lamentable fact, that the practice of medicine—an art of daily necessity and application, most nearly affecting the dearest interests and well being of mankind, and to the improvement of which we are encouraged and impelled by the strongest motives of interest and humanity, of love for our neighbor and emulous zeal for professional skill and superiority therein—should, after a probation of so long a period, and recorded experience of at least two thousand years, still ...
— Allopathy and Homoeopathy Before the Judgement of Common Sense! • Frederick Hiller
... were clouded by blood and sweat Grace raise her hand as though in a last farewell, and then as she faced round once more our glances met. She said no word. I could not have heard if she had, for all sound was swallowed up in one great pulsating diapason; but she afterward said that she felt impelled to look at me, and knew that I would turn my head. And so for an instant, there where the barriers of caste and wealth had melted away before the presence of death, our two souls met in a bond that ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... address. Smarting under the pain of their wounds, and terrified by the shouting of the assailants, they were no longer governable, but without guidance or control ran about in all directions, until at length, impelled by rage and fear, they rushed into a part of the wood not occupied by the Tartars. The consequence of this was, that from the closeness of the branches of large trees, they broke, with loud crashes, the battlements or castles that were upon their backs, ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... had known that she loved him. In despair and doubt she wondered whether he could understand that she, too, had been influenced to perform her soul-wracking task by a sense of honor, of duty to her country equally as potent as that which had impelled him to participate in this terrible plan to destroy New York. Why had she not informed him that his plans were known to the United States Government's agents? Surely she could have convinced him that his was a hopeless mission. The plot would have been successfully ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... the great galleon crept toward the roadstead, impelled by the dying sea-breeze, and at length, as the wind dropped altogether and the waters of the bay became a flawless mirror reflecting the gorgeous tints of a flaming sunset, she dropped her ponderous anchor about half a mile from ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... need not be in doubt as to the correctness of the affectionate and deep perception of my endeavour, which "has proceeded both from man's need of freedom as well as of love," and which, by and with the grace of God, has been impelled to raise itself toward the "Divine."—I cannot say much on this subject; but may my works only remain no dumb witnesses, and may your intimate understanding of ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... ignorance of systematic botany; and his acquaintance with vegetable anatomy and physiology was of the slenderest. Nevertheless, if any of the less common features of plant life came under his notice, that imperious necessity of seeking for causes which nature had laid upon him, impelled, and indeed compelled, him to inquire the how and the why of the fact, and its bearing on his general views. And as, happily, the atavic tendency to frame hypotheses was accompanied by an equally strong need to test them by well-devised experiments, and to acquire all possible information before ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... announced in bold type that the Very Reverend the Dean of Dunwich would preach there on Sunday. It flashed across her mind that this was Sunday morning. An overpowering desire to look on her father's face once more—she had never seen her mother's—impelled Herminia to enter those unwonted portals. The Dean was in the pulpit. He looked stately and dignified in his long white hair, a noticeable man, tall and erect to the last, like a storm-beaten pine; in ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... you, for unfortunately there are plenty of malcontents. But in this struggle which you are going to undertake, those who will suffer most will be the defenseless and the innocent. The same sentiments that a month ago impelled me to appeal to you asking for reforms are those that move me now to urge you to think well. The country, sir, does not think of separating from the mother country; it only asks for a little freedom, justice, and affection. You will ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... the tragedy, impelled to write concerning it. He prepared the article which follows, but did not offer it for publication, perhaps feeling that his own close association with the court circles at the moment prohibited this personal utterance. There appears no such reason ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... aggravated turpitude be denied. In the sight of the same God who abhors the iniquity of the African slave-trade, neither the American slave-trade nor slavery itself can be held guiltless. From the suppression of the African slave-trade, therefore, the British Parliament, impelled by the irresistible influence of the British people, proceeded to point the battery of its power against slavery itself. At the expense of one hundred millions of dollars, it abolished slavery, and emancipated all the slaves in the British transatlantic colonies; and the government ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy |
