"Instinct" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... who knew it best to have been always in fact democratic at heart, in all the vital habits of her thought, in all the intimate relationships of her people that spoke for their natural instinct, their habitual ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman
... My natural instinct was to start back, and this had the effect of dragging the crab out of its lurking place, and I ran to the opening holding out my arm, just as the crab dropped with quite a crash into the little channel, and ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... exclamation was caused by the sight of an open gate some distance ahead, through which a rough cart-track branched off from the road towards the sand-hills on the left. Richardson, with the instinct of desperation, seized upon this as the only way of escape from ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... By instinct, all turned to the side of the trail, Sam taking a position between a clump of trees and a big rock. Swiftly the sound came closer, and then of a sudden a big and wild-looking steer broke into view, lumbering along the trail ...
— The Rover Boys on the Plains - The Mystery of Red Rock Ranch • Arthur Winfield
... and shadows moving in the windows, and with an instinct of coming trouble in his heart, put Mumu under his arm, ran into his garret, and locked himself in. A few minutes later five men were banging at his door, but feeling the resistance of the bolt, they stopped. Gavrila ran up in a fearful state of mind, and ordered them all to wait there and ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... concluded triumphantly. "That's where the sporting instinct comes in. You know a thing is going to amuse and excite you. Beyond ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... consummate skill, if indeed it be not rather the instinct of the poet, has Gray avoided all mention of those objects which might awaken associations discordant with the mood of his own mind! Each epithet is full of a plaintive melancholy. There is not one that ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... did many who knew him, and had not been surprised to hear of the distinction and popular esteem which his wide knowledge, talents, and noble temper commanded, as he went onward in the world. P. was every way fitted to succeed; his aims were high, but not too high for his powers, suggested by an instinct of his own capacities, not by an ideal standard drawn from culture. Though steadfast in his course, it was not to overrun others; his wise self-possession was no less for them than himself. He was thoroughly the gentleman, gentle because manly, and was a striking instance that, where there ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... all. "Is that a heathen land?" I asked her. "Yes!" said Belle. And she laughed. She was Scotch and very religious. But later I heard her call it "New York" and say she was going there herself to buy herself some corsets. And so I was even more puzzled than ever. For some deep instinct told me you could buy no corsets in "heathen land"—least ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... instinct of abandoned children who seek to attach themselves to some one or some thing, Jeanne clung to Madame Desvarennes, who, ready to protect, and longing for maternity, took the child in her arms. The gardener's wife ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... simplicity and be ruined; and then I'll marry him off to some nice well-bred pink-face, like Jeff Saxton's pretty cousin—who may turn him into a beastly money-grubber; and I'm monkeying with destiny, and I ought to be slapped, and I realize it, and I can't help it, and all my latent instinct as a feminine meddler is aroused, and—golly, I almost went off ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... belief belonging, perhaps secretly, to a particular place, a particular class of persons, or perhaps a particular family or person, with a custom or belief which is part of a whole system belonging to a savage race or tribe; of a custom or belief whose only sanction is tradition, the conservative instinct to do what has been done by one's ancestors, with a custom or belief whose sanction is the professed and established polity or religion of a people; of a custom or belief which is embedded in a civilisation, ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... might mean little or much, according to the manner in which they were uttered, but to her hurt pride and sore, shamed woman-instinct, they were a promise, simply because there was a choking sound in Justin's voice and tears in Justin's eyes. "You 'll see me back when my luck turns, Nancy"; this was the phrase upon which she had lived for more than ten years. Nancy had once heard the old parson say, ages ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... convincingly that he would shoot himself. He didn't do that, but threatened that he would shoot her too. At that point she stopped seeing him.—Lisel Liblichlein needed a man with whom she could discuss her important, ordinary experiences. After the quarrel with Schulz she chose Kohn out of some vague instinct. Thus it happened that she made an appointment to meet him at the Kloesschen at noon on the day of the fight, in order perhaps to consult with him about choosing a dress, or about his interpretation of a role, or ...
— The Prose of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... wants require it, no doubt," replied Swinton; "but to what extent is hidden from us. Animals have instinct and ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... it. He said it would make a brooch for his wife. But a little later he brought it back to me without explanation. I could not get a ray of light on the reason of his refusal; but he looked lowering and unhappy. Had he some mystical instinct that it is just such accidental and irrational wealth that is the doom of all peasantries? Perhaps he dimly felt that the boy's pirate tales are true; and that buried treasure is a thing for robbers ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... strides since 1849, and the article, if written now, would need to take notice of other branches of inquiry, and to modify statements which are not now quite accurate; but most of the advice Mr. Darwin gives is as needful and valuable now as when it was given. It is curious to see with what unerring instinct he seems to have fastened on the principles that would stand the ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... convince him of two things. The first was that, "if the religious instincts of the human race point to no reality as their object, they are out of analogy with all other instinctive endowments. Elsewhere in the animal kingdom we never meet with such a thing as an instinct pointing aimlessly."[6] And this first conviction was only the preparation for a second. Speaking again of his Candid Examination of Theism, he says: "In that treatise I have since come to see that I was wrong touching what I constituted the basal argument ...
— God and the World - A Survey of Thought • Arthur W. Robinson
... looks earnestly for a thing that some one has desired him to have, his mind is curiously influenced and has strange directions. It is like blindfolded children playing hot and cold. There is some strange instinct in one who seeks a hidden object for his own or others' good that leads his feet into mysterious ways. I have much faith in that hidden law. Samuel, I may be able to find those pamphlets; I thought of them when I was in London. If I do, I will buy them at ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... the tastes, which excite the senses. Innocence feels healthily. To it all nature is pure. But, just as the dove trembles at the approach of the hawk, and the young calf shudders at the lion never seen before, so innocence shrinks instinctively from what is wrong by the same divine instinct. If that which is wrong seems pure, then the heart is not pure but vitiated. To the right minded all that is right in the course of this world seems pure. Abraham, looking forward to the destruction ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... her long pole. There was a cool spring in the dry creek bed near by, well hidden by a clump of choke-cherry bushes, and she turned thither to cool her thirsty throat. In the depths of the ravine her eye caught a familiar footprint—the track of a doe with the young fawn beside it. The hunting instinct arose within. ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman
... struggle against her with open force." You must be a courtier, you must have been in the presence of a king who is flattered from morning to night in all his caprices, to appreciate the frightful state in which my direct attack placed the prince de Soubise. Neither his political instinct, nor the tone of pleasantry which he essayed to assume, nor the more dangerous resource of offended dignity, could extricate him from the embarrassment in which he was thrown by my words. He could do ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... "'The instinct of women to seek a life of repose, their eagerness to attain the life of elegance, does not mean contempt for labor, but it is a confession of unfitness for labor. Women were not intended to work,—not because work is ignoble, but because it is as disastrous to the beauty of a woman ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... always showed towards his wife, received the heavy driving-mantle of sables that she dropped from her shoulders, and laid it over a chair. A frosty breath from the outer atmosphere clung to it, but the silken lining was penetratingly warm, and instinct with the sweetness of the woman, so much so that it was agony to ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... was traversing, and if Wildfire chose to roam around valleys like this one Slone would fail utterly. But the stallion had long ago left his band of horses, and then, one by one his favorite consorts, and now he was alone, headed with unerring instinct for wild, untrammeled ranges. He had been used to the pure, cold water and the succulent grass of the cold desert uplands. Assuredly he would not tarry in such barren lands ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... sharply. The cat, of course, had wakened him with a purpose, and the instant he realised this, he set it upon the arm of the chair and sprang up with a quick turn to face the empty room behind him. By some curious instinct, his arms of their own accord assumed an attitude of defence in front of him, as though to ward off something that threatened his safety. Yet nothing was visible. Only shapes of fog hung about rather heavily in the air, moving slightly ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... Concluding, however, from these symptoms, that a fierce struggle between generosity and avarice was going on in M. Derville's breast, she quietly determined on bringing an auxiliary to the aid of generosity, that would, her woman's instinct taught her, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... by the awakening of sinful lust and of shame. In his First Epistle to the Corinthians, Paul closely connects the two (1 Cor. vi. 13, 15), as he also links drunkenness and impurity (1 Cor. vi. 9, 10). Then comes the third form in which the vitality of the body displays itself: the instinct of self-preservation, setting itself against everything that interferes with our pleasures and comfort. What is called temper, with its fruits of anger and strife, has its roots in the physical constitution, and is one among the sins of the flesh. From all this, the Christian, who would be holy, ...
— Holy in Christ - Thoughts on the Calling of God's Children to be Holy as He is Holy • Andrew Murray
... that this is in great part idiosyncrasy; and that I must not trust to my own feelings, in this respect, as representative of the modern landscape instinct; yet I know it is not idiosyncrasy, in so far as there may be proved to be indeed an increase of the absolute beauty of all scenery in exact proportion to its mountainous character, providing that character be healthily mountainous. I do not mean ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... he was—a handsome bundle of selfishness, coated over with a fine gloss of seeming humility, a creature whose every instinct was richly mulched in self-conceit and yet one who simulated a deep devotion for mankind at large—he couldn't make ...
— The Thunders of Silence • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... indeed; Donna weeping on Mr. Pennycook's breast, when every instinct of her sex, even the vaguest acceptance of tradition and custom, dictated that she should have wept on Mrs. Pennycook's breast. Mrs. Pennycook realized the incongruity of the situation and was shrewd enough to attribute it to a strong aversion to her on the part of Donna Corblay. ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... Dinkle left me then, for I had only a few feet start of my pastor. You see I shouldn't a-hurried so only I sung bass in the choir and I doubt if I could have convinced him that I was working in the interests of Science and Truth. Fleeing was instinct. Gates didn't matter. They were took on the wing, and down the street I went with the preacher's hot breath on my neck. But I beat him. He tired after the first spurt and was soon left behind, so I could double ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... of Boys.—The gang is but one expression of the group instinct. It is often a nursery of bad habits that sometimes lead to crime and degeneracy, but it is capable of being used for the good of boyhood. The gang develops the virtues of loyalty to the group and loyalty to the group principles. It stimulates self-sacrifice and co-operation, honor ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... those coarse, violent, narrow sectarians anchored on a fixed idea and whose "principles consist in revolutionizing everything with cannon-balls without examining wherefore."[51114] There is no need of knowing the wherefore; the animal instinct of self-preservation suffices to impel the Jacobins onward, and, for a long time, their clear-sighted men, among them Sieyes, their thinker and oracle, have told them that "if they make peace they are lost."[51115]—To exercise their violence within they ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Future races of these animalcules erect their habitations upon the rising bank, and die in their turn to increase, but principally to elevate, this monument of their wonderful labours. The care taken to work perpendicularly in the early stages, would mark a surprising instinct in these diminutive creatures. Their wall of coral, for the most part in situations where the winds are constant, being arrived at the surface, affords a shelter, to leeward of which their infant colonies may be safely ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... female servants. Here, however, I believe that my mother was mistaken. Women of humble station, less than any other class, have any tendency to sympathize with boldness that manifests itself in throwing off the yoke of religion. Perhaps a natural instinct tells them that levity of that nature will pretty surely extend itself contagiously to other modes of conscientious obligation; at any rate, my own experience would warrant me in doubting whether any instance were ever known of a woman, in the rank of servant, regarding ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... said James, at first with the instinct of resistance; but yielding and confessing, 'Charlotte went into hysterics, and I had nothing to eat before ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to forget support, this instinct towards repayment of loyal service, was no piece of cynical calculation, no acting on the maxim that the way to get men to serve you well and support you is to make it clear to them that you always pay your debts with full interest. That Mr. Chamberlain was proud of the fact that no man could ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... thing we cannot overcome; Say not thy evil instinct is inherited, Or that some trait inborn makes thy whole life forlorn, And calls down punishment that is ...
— In Tune with the Infinite - or, Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty • Ralph Waldo Trine
... But the instinct of the young sportsman was about to be put to a still more rigorous trial. The woods became of a sudden full of game. Swift stags and graceful roebucks scampered off beneath the bushes, and a well-aimed bullet would assuredly have stopped them. Here and there turkeys showed themselves with ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... at Allahabad that Yule, in the intervals of more serious work, put the last touches to his Burma book. The preface of the English edition is dated, "Fortress of Allahabad, Oct. 3, 1857," and contains a passage instinct with the emotions of the time. After recalling the "joyous holiday" on the Irawady, he goes on: "But for ourselves, standing here on the margin of these rivers, which a few weeks ago were red with the blood of our murdered brothers ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... Yelverton was Attorney-General, himself and O'Leary, while enjoying the beauties of Killarney, had the rare fortune to witness a staghunt. The hunted animal ran towards the spot where the Attorney-General and O'Leary stood. "Ah!" said Father Arthur, with genuine wit, "how naturally instinct leads him to come to you, that you may deliver him ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... dug-out is the last word in 'unhealthiness.' It ranks next to a rammed submarine or burning aeroplane. For several minutes I awaited death or wounds with a degree of certainty no soldier ever felt in an attack. But in such emergencies instinct, which, more than the artificial training of the mind, asserts itself, arms human beings with a natural cunning for which civilization provides no scope. Life proverbially is not ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... ceilings and pillars at Penrhyn, and the use of stone from St. Helen's there, as well as the bedstead that is made of slate, and the enormous table of the same material in the servants' hall. The interest in materials is a special instinct, a kind of sympathy with Nature showing itself by appreciation of the different qualities of her products. This instinct has always been very strong in me, and I have often noticed it in others, especially in artists. Some poets are very fond of describing beautiful materials; but the instinct ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... favorable to humility, which studies and loves to lie concealed and unknown; and it was pointed out by the hidden life of Christ. It is also objected, that certain actions of some saints, which were performed by a special instinct of the Holy Ghost, are to us rather objects of admiration than imitation; but even in these we read lessons of perfect virtue, and a reproach of our own sloth, who dare undertake nothing for God. But some may say, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... Sergeant Nixon, who was glad to secure for his favorite so kind a protector, become possessed of him from the moment of his return home; and time, which had in some degree blunted the sorrow of the animal for the loss of one master, rendered equally keen his instinct of attachment for the other. Within the month he had been his, every care had been taken by Ronayne himself, as well as by his servant, to wean the mourner from the grave of Le Noir, on which, for the first few days, he had lain, absorbed ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... this is a grace to us. You come to visit your Mistres my Cosen. As if by instinct she had knowledge of your [Enter Ladie and Sister, & Dorothy. approach, she is come to meet you.—Shall I never get opportunitie with that shee waiter! If I gett her with Child my man ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... have some woman here," the girl insisted, with the feminine instinct for the natural league of women. "At least, some one to look after the house and ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... boys. "You must not stop in the Hall this time, but come to my home and we will talk over what Talladega is doing and what we ought to do," he insisted. Precious days were those, as I now recall them, with this scholarly man, so instinct with faith, so earnest and hopeful in his work, so happy in his family, and so full of plans for the time to come. We talked together of the interests of the institution which, within seventeen years, he had led on from a ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 4, April 1896 • Various
... manager of that day was usually a rude bully, generally a foreigner, who in addition to his other acquirements was able to knock down a man now and then as a lesson to the other unruly spirits under him. He was supposed to diagnose the condition of the furnace by instinct, to possess some almost supernatural power of divination, like his congener in the country districts who was reputed to be able to locate an oil well or water supply by means of a hazel rod. He was a veritable quack doctor who applied whatever remedies ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... to apprehend any evil to myself from his holding it. I cannot make myself master or proprietor of it, the property having nothing to do with the end which I propose; but I can keep possession of the thing seized till my safety be sufficiently provided for." The instinct of duty and self-preservation suggests this course. And thus it was that our government was induced to seize the navy of Denmark. And it was seized without any declaration of war on our part, for the simple reason that dispatch was necessary. If we had delayed, the Danish fleet would soon have been ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... degrading, of a grief that was pitiable. Yet it was sincere in a certain kind of vague yearning for the presence of the degraded man to whom it was written,—an affection that was more like a confused instinct than a sentiment. ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... dishonored and betrayed if I contented myself with appealing only to the understanding. It is too cold, and its processes are too slow, for the occasion. I desire to thank God that since he has given me an intellect so fallible, he has impressed upon me an instinct that is sure. On a question of shame and honor, reasoning is sometimes useless, and worse. I feel the decision in my pulse; if it throws no light upon the brain, it kindles a fire ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... De Boisseleau did not underrate the character of the Irish levies, who had retreated before twice their numbers at the Boyne; he declared himself willing to remain, and, sustained by Sarsfield, he was chosen as commandant. More than ten thousand foot had gathered "as if by instinct" to that city, and on the Clare side Sarsfield still kept together his cavalry, at whose head he rode to Galway and brought back. Tyrconnell. On the 9th of August, William, confident of an easy victory, appeared before the town, but more than twelve ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... the cockpit or cabin of our boat, and I was standing alone in the light of the midnight moons in Mars, a waif from the far earth, incomprehensibly born after death into this human presentiment and renewal in youth, and again instinct with revivified passion and desire; and breathing the atmosphere of a planet that for years I had watched through the tube of a telescope, as a floating flake of celestial fire. A delicious drowsiness ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... were, in truth, glad to part with him. From his earliest babyhood he had been known as a "limb of Satan." He was an Ishmael by every instinct of his being. And Mrs. Warren Rodney, nee Tumlin, felt that in dealing with him, in her capacity of step-mother, she daily expiated any offence that she might have done to ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... leaping strides, Bruce came up to the slain sentinel and bent over him. Dog-instinct told the collie his friend had been done to death. And the dog's power of scent told him it was a German ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... dare, that any of us should dream of this attempt to comprehend. But we who think are everyone impelled to this amazing effort to get it all together into some simple generality. It is not reason but a deep-seated instinct that draws our intelligence towards explanations, that sets us perpetually seeking laws, seeking statements that will fit into infinite, incessantly interweaving complexities, and be true of them all! There is I perceive ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... external uniformity, because they could not manage any other. They used it because they found that its rhythm perfectly expressed their poetic emotion, and because the formal relation of one line to another satisfied the instinct for co-ordination, and for the full expression of the significance of their subject-matter they relied not upon their rhythms, but upon their choice of words. The belief that when a poem is written there is one and only one metrical scheme that could possibly be ...
— The Lyric - An Essay • John Drinkwater
... its true home. There it was that it exhibited its most complete and romantic development. Yet its influence was felt everywhere and in everything. It colored all the events and enterprises of the latter half of the Middle Ages. The literature of the period is instinct with its spirit. The Crusades, or Holy Wars, the greatest undertakings of the mediaeval ages, were predominantly enterprises of the Christian chivalry ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... it will be; though her low voice has a beautiful quality, very individual. She has had no instruction in voice at all, and I shrink from handing her over to anybody; her own instinct about it has been so good. It is one of those voices that manages itself easily, without thinning as it goes up; good breathing and perfect relaxation. But she must have a teacher, of course. There is a break in the middle voice, so that the voice does ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... them 4 mares and 9 she-asses that had foals, and tie up the foals at the entrance to the Land of Darkness, but drive the dams before them. And when they wished to return they would be guided by the scent and maternal instinct of the mares and she-asses. And so it was done. (See Erdmann Temudschin, p. 478.) Ughuz, according to the Mussulman interpretation of the Eastern Legends, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... distinction between its objects; if it exerts itself promiscuously towards the deserving and the undeserving; if it relieves alike the idle and the indigent; if it gives itself up to the first petitioner, and lights upon any one rather by accident than choice—it may pass for an amiable instinct, but must not assume the name of ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... so many plays.... I am thinking of my big Autumn success.... I can feel it in the air. I can always feel it. I felt that Ivanhoe was no good, but I was over-persuaded. My instinct is always right. The business men and the ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... he was regarded as a sort of Okeeheedee—half man and half devil—he grew to be known as "The Big Black Brave of the Bushy Head." When out on his "Injun" hunts, the Fighting Nigger usually chose to be alone. His instinct told him—and that monitor rarely spoke to Big Black Burl in vain—that he must not presume too far upon that fellowship into which, in virtue of his great achievements, the White hunters had condescended to admit him; lest familiarity, which ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... The primal instinct, as the first duty, of the mother, is the nourishment of the life she has given. A very common subject, therefore, is Mary in the act of feeding her Child from her bosom. I have already observed that, when first adopted, this was a theological theme; an answer, in form, to the challenge ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... about something important too!" She throws into her whole air so much coquetry mingled with assumed bashfulness that Florence knows by instinct that the "something" has Sir Adrian for its theme, and she grows ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"
... Solomon looked up in terror, and beheld a third face, that of Robert Balfour, but transfigured. He held the glowing brand above him, so that his deep-lined features could be distinctly seen, and they were all instinct with a deadly rage and malice. There was a fire in his eyes that might well have been taken for that of madness, and Solomon's heart sank within him as ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... kind of fancy that apartment sort of idea myself. They tell you, Nancy, that when you've got the artistic temperament, that that's all you'll ever have. But there's a chance—one in a hundred—for a body to get that temperament mixed with a business instinct. It doesn't often happen. But when it does the result is—dollars. It may be, Nance—I shrewdly suspect it is a fact that you've got that marvelous mixture. Your early successes, Miss Olden, in another profession that I needn't name, would encourage ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... his being such an agent he is possessed of a taste for effective work, and a distaste for futile effort. He has a sense of the merit of serviceability or efficiency and of the demerit of futility, waste, or incapacity. This aptitude or propensity may be called the instinct of workmanship. Wherever the circumstances or traditions of life lead to an habitual comparison of one person with another in point of efficiency, the instinct of workmanship works out in an emulative or invidious comparison of persons. The extent to which this result follows depends in some considerable ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... business letters and the increasing instinct for work here as time shortens, have kept me too long from even writing a mere mamma-note to you; though not ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... puzzled, and helped him some, but Tom seemed to prefer to work alone. The old man knew nothing of that frightful malady of the great war; his own calm, keen eyes bespoke a disciplined and iron nerve. But his kindly instinct told him to make no further reference to the war, and so Tom found in him a helpful and sympathetic companion. Here at last, so it seemed, was the medicine that poor Tom needed, and he looked forward to their meals, and the quiet chats beside their lonely camp-fire, with ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... Crotchet had derived from his mother the instinct, and from his father the rational principle, of enriching himself at the expense of the rest of mankind, by all the recognised modes of accumulation on the windy side of the law. After passing many years in the Alley, watching the turn of the market, and playing many ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... good boy, he possessed the purely commercial instinct of Unyoro. He seldom arrived without a slave attendant, who carried on his head a package of something that was to ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... new experience have not belied our historic instinct. They hold out the clear hope that government within communities, government within the separate States, and government of the United States can do the things the times require, without yielding its democracy. Our tasks in the last four years ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... notorious for the character of its inmates. He had been directed to it by a pimp, who found regular employment in hanging about the docks and decoying new-comers to this den. The fellow's specious manner and proffered civility had led the simple-hearted west-countryman into the toils, and though his instinct told him that he was in unsafe company, he refrained, unfortunately, from at once making his escape. He contented himself with staying out all day, and associating as little as possible with the other inmates. From the few words which he did let drop, however, the landlady ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... our return we repeatedly saw young partridges in our path, nearly as tame as the chickens of the Casse-cour. The whir-r-ing of their wings struck a spark even from our sportsman's eye, and—a far easier achievement—started the blood in my father's veins. The instinct to kill game is, I believe, universal with man, else how should it still live in my father, who, though he blusters like Monkbarns, is very much of an Uncle Toby in disposition. He sprang from the wagon, borrowed Crawford's ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... "Schlagbaum" in the way. After the children have opened the barrier, he debates with himself to which child to give his little coin, concludes, as a "sentimental traveler," to give it to the other sex, then there is nothing left to do but to follow his instinct. He reflects long with himself whether he was right in so doing,—all of which is a deliberate jest at the hesitation with reference to trivial acts, the self-examination with regard to the minutiae of past conduct, which was copied by Sterne's imitators from ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... he rejoined sharply; and then, with the instinct that bids us appreciate the extent of our relief by passing an annoyance along, "Don't you know it's a penal ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... the pomp and pageant of imperial Rome," returned Adrian promptly. "I 've got it in the lease. Nothing like having things in leases. The business instinct—what? Put it in black and white, says I. 'La Nobil Donna Susanna Torrebianca, of the Palazzo Sebastiani, via Quattro Fontane, Rome, party of the second part.' A beau vers, is n't it? The lilt, ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... aggressor. We have learned that when we deliberately try to legislate neutrality, our neutrality laws may operate unevenly and unfairly—may actually give aid to an aggressor and deny it to the victim. The instinct of self-preservation should warn us that we ought not to let ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... white steps lead to the principal summits where golden spires gleam and everywhere are pagodas of all ages, shapes and sizes. Like most Asiatics the Burmese rarely repair, but build new pagodas instead of renovating the old ones. The instinct is not altogether unjust. A pagoda does not collapse like a hollow building but understands the art of growing old. Like a tree it may become cleft or overgrown with moss but it remains picturesque. In the ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... Item, that Master John James Rattray knows she hurts her own hand more than his. Item, that John James promised to be good throughout the session if she would let him thrash the bad ones. Item, that Master T. Sandys, himself under correction, explained to her (the artistic instinct again) how to give the cane a waggle when descending, which would double its nip. Item, that Elsie Dundas offered to receive Francie Crabb's punishment for two snaps. Item, that Master Gavin Dishart, for what he considered the honor of his school, though ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... flight was impossible, for he held her by the foot, and an instinct told her that, especially to the man she loved, the only thing to do was to make light of ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... little more, and others seeing that their comrade was obtaining that for which they had been longing, came up and held out their hands for the cup, their manner and the unmeaning look of their eyes showing that they were more influenced by the instinct of animals ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... the charm of the vivid young creature who threatened to take her by storm. In all her life she had never been deeply or warmly affected by another personality. Perhaps now she realized this dimly, and some instinct warned her subtly to avoid any departure from old habitude, even when avoidance meant the first real struggle she had ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... Mrs. Quest. He dropped the snipe and looked up, just in time to see the gun, which had leapt from her hands with the recoil, strike against the wall of the house and fall to the ground. Instantly, whether by instinct or by chance he never knew, he glanced towards the place where Edward Cossey stood, and saw that his face was streaming with blood and that his right arm hung helpless by his side. Even as he looked, he saw him put his uninjured hand ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... you! Maulevrier!—a young man who has spent some of the best hours of his youth in the company of jockeys and trainers—who hasn't the faintest idea of the fitness of things. You allow Maulevrier to be your guide in a matter in which your own instinct should have guided you—your womanly instinct! But you have always been an unwomanly girl. You have put me to shame many a time by your hoydenish tricks; but I bore with you, believing that your ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... his way, a psychologist, and he knew by instinct that this old lady would like him better if he retained his ignorant, untutored ways, than if he used the more polished speech, which he had painstakingly acquired for other kinds ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... the close proximity of the flames, and the absolute certainty of being now destroyed by them, caused a general movement throughout the living mass; and, as if actuated by an universal impulse, or guided by one common instinct, all were seen making a sudden descent ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... generous dispenser of favors when once you had learned to flatter him, to play upon his weaknesses, to smooth the path of his pleasures. All these years Peter had been forced to "crook the pregnant hinges of the knee"; it had become an instinct with him—an instinct that went back far behind the twenty years of his conscious life, that went back twenty thousand years, perhaps ten times twenty thousand years, to a time when Peter had chipped flint spear-heads at the mouth of some cave, and broiled marrow-bones ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... They could not see twenty yards away, and if they became separated in the dust storm it was not likely that they would ever see each other again. But they urged their horses on at a good rate, trusting to the instinct of the animals to take them ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... asking him if there was any more danger, but his reply was in Spanish; and at last, led by Tom—who seemed by instinct to know his way—we went down to the shore, strewn with wreck, when, seizing a rope, and drawing a boat to the sand, Tom told me to enter, and we half lay there, rising and falling upon the wave—rocked gently, but wakeful ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... improper term to express the consummate energy of this basilar organ, if we at the same time understand its gentler manifestations; and Dr. Gall was a faithful student of nature when he called this faculty the "carnivorous instinct, or disposition to murder," for that is the way that it exhibits in animals, and, unfortunately, in ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, March 1887 - Volume 1, Number 2 • Various
... intercourse between the sexes?) they will be, generally speaking, only objects of desire; and, to such women, men cannot be constant. Men, accustomed only to have their senses moved, merely seek for a selfish gratification in the society of women, and their sexual instinct, being neither supported by the understanding nor the heart, must ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... nearly as he could make out, she had found the little thing in the jungle when it was only a few days old and had reared it in place of a baby which had just died. She was a low type of woman, even for an African savage, but the maternal instinct was strong enough to make her grieve for little Consul, as the captain christened him. The monkey grieved over the separation, too, but sailors make much of animals and he soon ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe
... well, for there will now be little or no herbage for them until we arrive at Sockna, a distance of some six days. Respecting all these delays, I can say with the most heartfelt sincerity, "Here is the patience of (travellers)." The poor slaves know by instinct the encampment of the Kafer to be a friendly one, notwithstanding the Moors and Arabs persist ungenerously in teaching these poor things to call me kafer, or infidel, and to look upon me with a species of horror. For water, they come to us continually. ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... very definite idea of being able to fish while on the raft, but there was a sort of instinct which prompted him always to take his fishing line whenever he went on any excursion whatever that was connected with the water. Mr. George had a pretty definite idea that he would not be able to fish; but still he thought it a ...
— Rollo on the Rhine • Jacob Abbott
... irrational hope for self * * * are relevant" to the determination by the Florida court that "such a belated disclosure" did not spring "from the impulse for truth-telling" and was "the product of self-delusion * * * [and] artifice prompted by the instinct ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... course, by-and-by; and whenever he came to her he well knew that he would be equally welcomed: he was so sure of her. Nothing on earth or under Heaven is so fatal to a man's love as that. There was no longer any uncertainty; there was none of the keenness of pursuit dear to the old hunting instinct inherent in man; there was not even the charm of variety in her moods. She was always the same to him; always she pouted a little at first, and looked ill-tempered, and reproached him; and always she came round again ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... own needs, to release the growth on mountain sides for other uses. And when one realizes how, nearly to the extreme limits, conservation along all important lines is being practiced as an inherited instinct, there need be no surprise when one reflects that the two men, one as feeder and the other as leader, are standing in the fore of a body of four hundred millions of people who have marched as a nation through perhaps forty centuries, and who now, in the light ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King
... neighborhood is so sharp that even now, in these days of cooperative {172} effort, we find that the sordid appeal is made. "I call it waste," wrote the late Archbishop of Canterbury, "when money is laid out upon instinct which ought to be laid out upon principle, and waste of the worst possible kind when two or three religious bodies are working with one eye to the improvement of the condition of those whom they help, and with another eye directed to getting them within the circle of their own organization. ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... spirit. Well, it was a real horse, right enough, that had crushed him, and thrown him again, and broken Bill Craven's leg, and fled; and that was a real horse yonder, outlined against the sky. If some devilish instinct in the brute, or some agent of Destiny, or mere fling of chance had held him on the plateau to tantalize and lead ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... commercial or family hostelries where he will foregather with the half-educated, the half-bred, the half-souled; the offence of them is too rank for his spirit. The pretending simian class, aping the vices of the rich and instinct with the vices of the low, and frank in neither, moves the man's furious scorn. He will have realities at any cost. All said and done, the bugs of Novortovshakaya did not masquerade as hummingbirds, nor merry Giuseppi Sacconi of ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... wrong. She did not tell me what you suspect—she is not the person to proclaim such things; but yet I inferred something from parts of her discourse. I gathered more from rumour, and I made out the rest by instinct." ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... bowel movement when its necessity is not naturally indicated is as harmful as to eat a meal when it is not craved, but unquestionably it is of advantage to have the bowels move of their own accord, as the result of a natural impulse. Movements that do not come through the call of an instinct for relief are rarely satisfactory, and, though we strongly emphasize the necessity of regularity of the bowels, it is not absolutely necessary that this call should come at a certain time during each day; and though ...
— Vitality Supreme • Bernarr Macfadden
... of Glenfern? As Madame de Stael, or de Something says, "they fulfilled their destinies." Their walk lay amongst threads and pickles; their sphere extended from the garret to the pantry; and often as they sought to diverge from it, their instinct always led them to return to it, as the tract in which they were destined to move. There are creatures of the same sort in the male part of the creation, but it is foreign to my purpose to describe them at ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... of his enemy Denver was swept with a gust of passion. From the moment he had first met him, this narrow-eyed, sneering bad-man had roused all the hate that was in him; but now it had gone beyond instinct. He found him in adverse possession of his property and with a gun raised ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... mounted, man, woman, and child, for the Crows have horses in abundance, so that no one goes on foot. The children are perfect imps on horseback. Among them was one so young that he could not yet speak. He was tied on a colt of two years old, but managed the reins as if by instinct, and plied the whip with true Indian prodigality. Mr. Hunt inquired the age of this infant jockey, and was answered that ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... her own complexion. The former readily obtain employment; are even admitted into families, and treated with some degree of kindness and familiarity, while any approach to intercourse with the latter is shunned as contamination. The distinction is habitually made, and it is founded on the unerring instinct of nature. The colored prostitute is, in fact, a far less contaminated and depraved being. Still many, in spite of temptation, do preserve a perfectly virtuous conduct, and I imagine it hardly ever entered into the mind of one of these, ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... rankling in many minds; and when those traditions were growing which have coloured the whole texture of Irish thought, until, with the poor and unlettered, to be 'agin the government' is an inherited instinct, to be ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... shows, as he ever does, his profound and most logical treatment of human character. He never goes astray, being guided by a happy and true instinct. Mr. Pickwick had grown to be the most inflated of men. Flattered and followed—submitted to with the greatest deference—ordering people about—doing what he pleased—he could not stand the slightest opposition. No one was to contradict—no one to question even ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... before him, the island-studded sea, the open sea beyond, the wide swelling ocean, the desires and destinies of life all the world over. The sea lay steel-bright beneath the suffused sunlight, and seemed to gaze on the rugged land as on a beloved child instinct with vital power. Cling thou to the mighty one, or thy strength will be ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... voice. "It has all come right, dear one!" he cried like an ecstatic lover. Never in his life had he tried so hard to deceive at the sacrifice of himself. But he was fighting something as strong as the instinct of self-preservation, and his usually expressionless face gave the lie to his joyous words. Loud above his voice his ashen face was speaking to her, and she cried in terror, "What is wrong?" Even then he attempted ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... destroy the veneration of the human mind. When a man ceases to venerate he ceases to worship. Extravagance, exaggeration, and coarseness are dangers incident to all popular teachers, and these things pass easily into a strain which shocks the moral sense and deadens the instinct of piety. Familiarity with God in men of chastened mind produces a more profound veneration; in unchastened minds it runs easily into an irreverence which borders upon impiety. Even the Seraphim cover their faces ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... powers of life altogether. The sickness, therefore, though of mental origin, becomes bodily and real; but then the sufferer is often ready, in such cases, to add a little to it by feigning. An instinct teaches him that nothing is so likely to move the heart whose cruelty causes him to suffer, as a knowledge of the extreme to which it has reduced him. Essex was doubtless willing that Elizabeth should know that he was sick. Her knowing it had, in some measure, the ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... With seaman's instinct, Mascola sensed rather than saw the Richard's change of course. If he tried to make the fog he would be cut in two. If he deviated a hair's breadth at that speed he'd turn turtle. There was only one thing ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... after supper, was his favourite place for meditation. Some undeniable instinct drew him ever and again out of the deep and shut ravines of stone, to places where he could feed on distance. That is one of the subtleties of this straight and narrow city, that though her ways are cliffed in, they are a long thoroughfare for the eye: there is always a far ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... enriched himself at the expense of the people. What we have to bear in mind is that all through the centuries that followed the Renaissance the working men and women of England looked almost in vain to their poets for a faithful interpretation of their life and aims. The wonder is that the instinct for poetry did not perish in their hearts for lack ...
— Songs of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... in his relation to his elder brother. He accepted Thi-po's act without -any failure of his own duty to him, and by his own improvement of it, made his brother more glorious through it. His feeling of brotherly duty was simply the natural instinct of his heart. Having accepted the act, it only made him the more anxious to promote the good of the state, and thus he made his brother more glorious by showing what advantages accrued from his resignation ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... human could have been thoroughly enjoyable. That, however, was the real hell of it. He couldn't relax and enjoy the contest—his feet were on too slippery ground. And Copper with her unerring female instinct knew just what to do to make the footing slipperier. Sooner or later, she was certain that he would fall. It was only a question of applying sufficient pressure at the right spot and the right time. Now that she knew he desired her, she was content to ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... feverish light came into the eyes of each as they all gathered around this yellow shrine. Even the polite Paul rudely elbowed his way between the others, though his artificial "Pardon" seemed to Barker to condone this act of brutal instinct. But it was more instructive to observe the manner in which the older locators received this confirmation of the fickle Fortune that had overlooked their weary labors and years of waiting to lavish her favors on the new and inexperienced amateurs. Yet as they turned their ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... My first instinct would have endeavored to shake off the question of the other side of that wall. I would, perhaps, if younger, have rejected the whole impression, declared the girl delirious, and would not now be reciting a story, the conclusion of which never fails to catch my breath. But mine is an empirical ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... which can scarcely be decided off-hand. In my own case, it cost me some thought before I ventured to make the suggestion. I am not an emotional man, but I am conscious in your presence of the great evolutionary instinct which makes either sex the complement ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... in the main, took his side; and doubtless the national instinct was sound; for the allies had crossed the Rhine, and France once more was in danger. As in 1793, when the nation welcomed the triumph of the dare-devil Jacobins over the respectable parliamentary Girondins, as promising a vigorous rule and the expulsion of the monarchical invaders, ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... thought, which was that wire communications were expensive luxuries for the few. The telephone was, in fact, a new social nerve, so new and so novel that very nearly twenty years went by before it had fully grown into place, and before the social body developed the instinct of using it. ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... journey was scarcely accomplished with life. Many ate snow, and their mouths swelled fearfully. Nearly all were exhausted. At length they became delirious, and only reached the Advance by instinct, for they were all staggering along blindly when Peterson and Whipple met them with some restoratives. This expedition cost two men amputation, ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... This enthusiasm, this religious instinct, for what was noblest and best, led him early, as we have seen, to seek inspiration from the works of men who combined in their compositions all that the great previously existing schools had taught. Bach was never weary of learning if perchance he could attain a more lucid ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... had performed mechanically, more by instinct than by reason; and when it was done, and the tables were thus effectively turned upon his assailants, he scarcely realized how ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... salutary effect on the prosperity of Delhi; its merchants and storekeepers, trading with the inhabitants of the richly-cultivated Dooab and with more distant countries, became rich and prosperous, accumulating vast treasures, while the people, with the instinct of a penurious race, converted their ready-money into jewels and gold and silver ornaments, and safely stowed them away in hidden receptacles within ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths
... had we heard this reference to becoming Galus. Ahm had spoken of it many times. Lys and I decided that it was a sort of original religious conviction, as much a part of them as their instinct for self-preservation—a primal acceptance of a hereafter and a holier state. It was a brilliant theory, but it was all wrong. I know it now, and how far we were from guessing the wonderful, the miraculous, the gigantic truth which even yet I may only guess at—the thing ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Finally my instinct of self-preservation whispered in my ear, "Make a clean breast of it." And so, dropping the bill of fare with an air of mock despair, I said, jovially: "I'm afraid you'll have to tell me what to do, Mr. Eaton. It's no use bluffing. I have never been in such a fine restaurant in my life. I am scared ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... applicability extends to every age and every people. As Goethe remarks, "Man never knows how anthropomorphic he is." Our minds instinctively seek an explanation of the cause or causes of the different phenomena constantly occurring around us, but instinct does not supply the solution. Only by patient watching and consideration can this be arrived at; but in former ages scientific methods of investigation were either not known, or not cared for, and so men were satisfied with merely guessing at the causes of ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... a moment. Then she was herself again, and looked fearlessly up at him. She had the full use of her intellect, and her quick instinct went to the root of things. "This is the madness of jealousy," she thought. "There is only one way to deal with it. If I cry out—if I show that I am afraid—if I irritate him, it will soon, be over." She told herself in ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... Dugan— O man of wild habits, Partridges and rabbits Who hast no cares Only to set snares, Who liv'st all alone, Close to the bone And where life is sweetest Constantly eatest. When the spring stirs my blood With the instinct to travel, I can get enough gravel On the Old Marlborough Road. Nobody repairs it, For nobody wears it; It is a living way, As the Christians say. Not many there be Who enter therein, Only the guests of the Irishman Quin. What is it, what is it But a direction ...
— Walking • Henry David Thoreau
... had enough of his sort? Who would not suspect him wherever he went? Cain went about with a mark on his forehead for every one to know him by. In what respect was he better off, when men seemed to know by instinct and in the dark that he was a character to mistrust ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... is our conviction that had the women of the countries of Europe, with their deep instinct of motherhood and desire for the conservation of life, possessed a voice in the councils of their governments, this deplorable war would never have been allowed to occur; therefore, ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... will we desire to spend our hardly won cash in wiring our four-poster bed for reading lights, or to put lights under the dining table for use in searching for the lost articles that always by some instinct seek the darkest spots in the room. If there be a barn or shed on the lot, an extension carried there will be found convenient and comparatively inexpensive. In the kitchen and pantries the lights should be considered in detail so that all the various operations may be served. ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... time he had been refused; and the candour of his nature was such that he could live to think of these very passages as a proof of how right he had been—right, that is, to have put himself forward always, by the happiest instinct, only in impossible conditions. He had the happy consciousness of having exposed the important question to the crucial test, and of having escaped, by that persistent logic, a grave mistake. What better ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... the dastardly instinct which occasionally causes a poor mortal to fling all conscience to the winds when he sees an unexpected opportunity to ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... had elapsed since Milton, just settled in London after his return from Italy, had first fastened on the subject, preferred it by a sure instinct to all the others that occurred in competition with it, and sketched four plans for its treatment in the form of a sacred tragedy, one with the precise title Paradise Lost, and another with the title Adam Unparadised (Vol. II. ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... opportunities to exhibit any ability which they might have to drive nails, made not the least attempt to do so. Evidently we must either conclude that Skirrl had a peculiarly strong imitative tendency in this direction, or instead, a pronounced disposition or instinct for the use of objects as tools. It would seem fair to speak of it as an instinct for ...
— The Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes - A Study of Ideational Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... were employed in fortifying the position. Deep holes were dug along the edge of the wood, and behind these were trenches and pitfalls. Mahmud's own temper grew daily more sullen and fierce. His own fighting instinct was in favour of the attack his followers longed to deliver, but in his heart he was afraid that the result might be fatal. It was not the rifles of the infantry that he feared—of these he had no experience—but the ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... "My instinct tells me you'll be no good to us. But if you insist on wasting my time, fire ahead. Only please remember that, though I may be a monk, I'm a very ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... this flood?—So thinking and contemplating with divine insight, he bethought himself of the shape of a wild boar fond of sporting in water. And assuming the shape of a sacrificial boar shining with effulgence and instinct with the Vedas and ten Yojanas in length, with pointed tusks and a complexion like dark clouds, and with a body huge as a mountain, and roaring like a conglomeration of clouds, the Lord plunged into the waters, and lifted up the Earth with one of his tusks, and replaced it in its ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli |
