"Irresistible impulse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and-he began to shiver. An irresistible impulse took hold of him. It was like the half-smothered fear which makes guilty men go to sit at the inquests on their ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... sympathy with a thought which he was about to utter, the face of Ernest assumed a grandeur of expression, so imbued with benevolence, that the poet, by an irresistible impulse, threw his arms aloft, ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... trust, why it is that the child or youth of this sort has the characteristics which he has. It is a familiar principle that attention to the thought of a movement tends to start that very movement. I defy any of my readers to think hard and long of winking the left eye and not have an almost irresistible impulse to wink that eye. There is no better way to make it difficult for a child to sit still than to tell him to sit still; for your words fill up his attention, as I had occasion to say above, with the thought of movements, and these ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... wheeled suddenly toward the west as though by turning his back upon the fast disappearing plane he might expunge thoughts of its passengers from his memory. At the edge of the clearing he paused; a giant tree loomed directly ahead of him and, as though actuated by sudden and irresistible impulse, he leaped into the branches and swung himself with apelike agility to the topmost limbs that would sustain his weight. There, balancing lightly upon a swaying bough, he sought in the direction of the eastern horizon for the tiny speck that would be the British plane bearing away from him the last ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... day he shook like a man in the palsy. On another day he felt a fire within his breast. It is difficult to understand how he survived sufferings so intense, and so long continued. At length the clouds broke. From the depths of despair, the penitent passed to a state of serene felicity. An irresistible impulse now urged him to impart to others the blessing of which he was himself possessed. [254] He joined the Baptists, and became a preacher and writer. His education had been that of a mechanic. He knew no language but the English, as it was spoken by the common ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... young man started walking down the slope. He wore shoes, and they slipped a little on the smooth stone. Straight down toward the brink he strode. The curve of the dome made every step more perilous. It was a natural, an irresistible impulse to look on the precise place where the loved one had perished, but it appeared as if he walked to his death. Indeed, his danger was grave, for he had forgotten the shoes he wore.... Or, perhaps, he did not care! Uncle Dick uttered an oath, and leaped ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... head as if by an irresistible impulse, for he was then passing the residence of Dr. Dutton. Why he did so he could not satisfy himself, for he half expected to see Miss Nellie at the window, and he dreaded meeting her eyes; yet there was a strange fascination ...
— Under Fire - A Tale of New England Village Life • Frank A. Munsey
... that I could call her wholly mine, was on a placid autumn evening. We had strolled farther than usual, tempted by the tranquil beauty around us, and during that walk I had been strangely, wonderfully happy. Many times, as we walked silently side by side, a strong, an almost irresistible impulse seemed to force me to utter those three passionate words that have caused a flutter in the heart-beat of so many thousands since the world began; and as many times the reverence I felt for her, and the diffidence arising from it, held me back, and the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... husband; when shriek after shriek broke, in quick and startling succession, from her convulsed bosom, and she was carried, in a state of wild and fearful frenzy, into the house. The homicide was the tory husband, who, having met his victim in the fight, and acting, as he averred, under an irresistible impulse, had singled out and slain one, whom, the next moment, he would have given worlds to have been able to bring to life. [Footnote: The scene here introduced is drawn from an incident belonging to the local history of the battle of Bennington, ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... fertility of great and powerful themes to look at "The clouds poured out water," the fugue subject "The voice of Thy thunders," the biting emphasis of the passage "the lightnings shone upon the ground," and the irresistible impulse of "The earth was moved." And the supremacy of Purcell's art is shown not more in these than in the succession of simple harmonies by which he gets the unutterable mournful poignancy of "Thou knowest, Lord," that unsurpassed and unsurpassable piece of choral writing ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... entered me: a doubt of her perfect moral honesty. I don't know how else to describe my feeling that she wasn't playing fair, that in coming to my house, in throwing herself at my head (I called things by their names), she had perhaps not so much obeyed an irresistible impulse as deeply, deliberately reckoned on the dissolvent effect of her generosity, her rashness and ...
— The Long Run - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... streets in search of him; nor could an eminent vocalist of the feline tribe, la Signorina Pussetta Scracciolini, pass by without lending an ear to the wonderful list of melodies. There was another figure, too, who slackened her pace as she was passing the group, and by an irresistible impulse seemed compelled to draw near and listen; she was richly dressed in mantle and hood, which, thrown gracefully back, displayed a head and neck of aristocratic proportions; she seemed ill, however, and weak, for her delicate paws were resting on a stick, as ...
— The Adventures of a Bear - And a Great Bear too • Alfred Elwes
... departure of General Bonaparte, and the appointment which he had made of General Kleber to succeed him. This intelligence caused a painful surprise throughout the army. The most opprobrious epithets were applied to this departure. They did not consider that irresistible impulse of patriotism and ambition, which, on the news of the disasters of the republic, had urged him to return to France. They perceived only the forlorn state in which he had left the unfortunate army, which had felt sufficient confidence in his ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... her memory. Upon going to the studio she had planned not to speak about it, foreseeing that she might annoy her lover with this account; but alas, she had only to vow not to mention a thing, to feel an irresistible impulse to talk ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... and first-fruits; so they said, of that prophecy that He would pour out His Spirit upon all flesh, even upon slaves and handmaids. And these poor fishermen feel themselves impelled by a divine and irresistible impulse to go forth to the ends of the world, and face persecution, insult, torture, and death—not in order that they may make themselves lords over mankind, but that they may tell them that One is their ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... to himself several such lectures Podtyagin, the head ticket collector, begins to feel an irresistible impulse to get to work. It is past one o'clock at night, but in spite of that he wakes the ticket collectors and with them goes up and down the railway carriages, ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Moved by an irresistible impulse I rose from my chair and held out my hand. The maire took it in mild surprise. "Monsieur," I said frankly, if crudely, "you are a brave man. And you have ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... and self-possessed in that hour of danger. He steered the boat with consummate skill, and succeeded in keeping her afloat for some time. On she rushed, as if driven by an irresistible impulse, amid the cheers of the crowd, and the prayers of many that she might safely reach the land. The brave fellows who manned her struggled hard and well, but in vain. When the boat was little more three hundred yards from the shore an immense ...
— Saved by the Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... be, and above all else, he had the strongest intuitive perception of truth. He could strip a case of its toggery and go right to its vitals. He was bold, clean, fearless, and impetuous, and when convinced he had right on his side would fight through all the courts, with irresistible impulse. He was susceptible to argument, but seemed absolutely ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... did not impress her as being the man to hold up her fainting head or ease her bruised heart. He had an icy look under his polished exterior which repelled this keen-eyed spinster, and as she remembered the coldness of his ways, she felt herself seized by an irresistible impulse to be near this young creature when the blow fell, if only to ease the tension of her own heartstrings, which at that moment ached keenly over the part she had felt herself obliged to play ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... room, Wolfgang's eyes at once rested greedily upon the basket, which Pedro had again closed, as if he guessed what treasure lay within. Samson's glance went straight to the sleeping dwarf, and an almost irresistible impulse to kick the inert figure possessed him. But he restrained himself, and colored high when he ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... as the curtain fell, separating the house full of noisy applause and the stage littered with bouquets, where the white gown of Juliet swept over scattered camellia blossoms, the two singers were seized with an irresistible impulse, as though their love, a shade artificial, had but awaited the emotion of a splendid success to ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... Following an irresistible impulse, he early in their acquaintance told Helen Pomeroy more of himself than he had ever told any other human being; and his confidences at last included a bowdlerized account of his wretched marriage. But though they soon became friends, and though he went on seeing a great ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... while I was there. And that's not natural. But it's not what you see and hear: it's what you feel. It's terribly hard to explain, but the place appeals most powerfully to the emotions. You feel an irresistible impulse to go to Something's assistance. Of course my eyes were skinned, so I saw the treachery. But I felt the appeal." He halted and threw out a hand. "Imagine a serpent disguised as a beautiful woman in distress—that's Gramarye. And if I'd been there a month, instead of a ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... was a photograph in my father's study of the Delphic Sibyl from the Sistine Chapel, that for a time held my heart, and—Yes, there was a girl in a tobacconist's shop in the Harbury High Street. Drawn by an irresistible impulse I used to go and buy cigarettes—and sometimes converse about the weather. But afterwards in solitude I would meditate tremendous conversations and encounters with her. The cigarettes increased the natural melancholy ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... unable to comprehend the motives that led me to take such a course. My eyes were not blinded. I must have seen that each stride placed me further and further away from my darling, erecting a fresh obstacle between us; still, some irresistible impulse appeared to hurry me on—although, I could not but have known how vain it would be for me to recover my lost footsteps: how hard a matter to change my direction, and look upwards to light and happiness once more! Glancing ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... besides the dramatic temperament, a large amount of the lyrical temperament, and a large amount of the meditative, but unaccompanied by metaphysical speculation. In Shakespeare we find, besides the dramatic temperament, a large amount of the meditative accompanied by an irresistible impulse towards metaphysical speculation, but, on the whole, a moderate endowment of the lyrical temperament, judging by the few occasions on which he exercised it. For fine as are such lyrics as “Hark, hark, the lark,” “Where ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... this with a smile; but her voice trembled a little, and I perceived that a soft dew had gathered over her eyes. By an irresistible impulse I rose, and stealing softly behind her, clasped my arms round her neck, and kissing her forehead whispered, "Forgive me, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... recital, added to her knowledge of the facts just named, scarcely left a doubt of the truth of his statement on her mind. Her ear was now bent achingly towards him, in expectation of a continuance of his history, but he still remained in the same attitude of absorption. An irresistible impulse caused her to extend her hand, and remove his own from his eyes: they were filled with tears; and even while her mind rapidly embraced the hope that this manifestation of tenderness was but the dawning ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... have been drawn, and very ingenious sophistry employed, to prove that the best of people may, within certain limits, crack jokes, or laugh at jokes cracked for them. These efforts to accommodate stern dogmas to that pleasant stubborn fact in man's constitution, his irresistible craving for play, and irresistible impulse to laugh at whatever is really laughable, are about as necessary as would be an essay maintaining the harmlessness of sunshine. The fact has priority over the dogmas, and is altogether too strong to need the patronizing special-pleading they suggest. Instead of going into the metaphysics ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... certain families to live in great luxury, they returned to the ways of older aristocracies, and, with other wants, felt the necessity of a court about them, ladies and gentlemen in waiting, pages and jesters. Nature abhors a vacuum, so a class of people immediately felt an irresistible impulse to rush in and fill the void. Our aristocrats were not even obliged to send abroad to fill these vacancies, as they were for their footmen and butlers; the native article was quite ready and willing and, considering ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... the liberties of the Province; and Mrs. Gordon looked curiously and not unkindly at the latent rebels. "England will have foemen worthy of her steel if she turns these good friends into enemies," she reflected; and then, following some irresistible impulse, she rose with the company, at the request of Joris, to sing ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... through the water. We were rocked by the gentle movements of the shallop. The light sounds of the night came to us more distinctly in the bottom of the boat, sometimes causing us to start. And I felt springing up within me a strange, poignant emotion, an infinite tenderness, something like an irresistible impulse to open my arms in order to embrace, to open my heart in order to love, to give myself, to give my thoughts, my body, my life, my entire being ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... to an end, John was seized with an almost irresistible impulse to bolt. His turn had come. He must stand up to sing before nearly six hundred boys, who would stare down with gravely critical and courteously amused eyes. And already his legs trembled as if he were seized ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... could be." I think we were genuinely anxious to see this undesirable climax; in some measure as a matter of experiment, to which all boys are prone, and in which dangerous experiments, and experiments likely to be followed by explosion, are naturally preferred. Partly, too, from an irresistible impulse to "raise a row," and take one's luck of the results. This craving to disturb the calm current of events, and the good conduct and composure of one's neighbours as a matter of diversion, must be incomprehensible by phlegmatic people, who never feel it, whilst some ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... of cold fish, as did some of the girls he knew. She was dressed in a half-formal house-gown, and the one curl of her waving brown hair that would persistently straggle down upon her forehead was in its accustomed place. He had always been obsessed with a nearly irresistible impulse to put his ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... obligation to observe it; that a believer is freed from the "bondage of good works." Others, though admitting the perpetuity of the law, declared that it was unnecessary for ministers to exhort the people to obedience of its precepts, since those whom God had elected to salvation would, "by the irresistible impulse of divine grace, be led to the practice of piety and virtue," while those who were doomed to eternal reprobation "did not have power ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... descendants from the Mayflower, the fated womb of which, in her first voyage, sent forth a brood of Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock, and, in a subsequent one, spawned slaves upon the Southern soil,—a monstrous birth, but with which we have an instinctive sense of kindred, and so are stirred by an irresistible impulse to attempt their rescue, even at the cost of blood and ruin. The character of our sacred ship, I fear, may suffer a little by this revelation; but we must let her white progeny offset her dark one,—and two such portents never ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... priority of particular discoveries concerns us all the less, since we hold that, at any time, and among any civilized people, a man may appear who, starting with very scanty preparation, is driven by an irresistible impulse into the path of scientific investigation, and through his native gifts achieves the most astonishing success. Such men were Gerbert of Rheims and Roger Bacon. That they were masters of the whole knowledge of the age in ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... By an irresistible impulse I held out my hand, and the words, 'Let me see it,' involuntarily passed my lips. He was evidently reluctant to grant the request, but while he hesitated I snatched it from his hand. Recollecting myself, however, the minute after, I ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... heart, which was to be united in death with the shade of his father: a child of Roderick's was still alive. During the storming of his castle the murderer's daughter had been carried away into safety by a faithful suitor, whom she, however, detested. I had an irresistible impulse to call this maiden 'Adelaide.' As even at that early age I was a great enthusiast for everything really German, I can only account for the obviously un-German name of my heroine by my infatuation for Beethoven's Adelaide, whose tender refrain ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... the foot caught the crumbling edge of his retreat, covering him with a shower of light mould. For the second time he experienced the sickening, paralyzing agony of fear. This was succeeded by an irresistible impulse to break cover. He sprang into the main shaft once more, determined to take advantage of the first outlet. A shadowy blue glimmer shone before him, and he quickened his pace towards it. Suddenly the light was extinguished, the walls ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... the majority in turning all the rest into insane asylums. It is the demoniac element, the raving of some particular demon, that creates greatness either in men or nations. Power is maniacal. A mysterious fury, a heavenly inspiration, an incomprehensible and irresistible impulse, goads humanity on to achievements. Every age, every person, and every art obeys the wand of the enchanter. History moves by indirections. The first historic tendency is likely to be slightly askew; there follows then an historic triumph, then an historic eccentricity, then ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... an irresistible impulse, his eyes sought the level of the audience. Ah, fatal blunder! He stammered, but with an effort raised his eyes ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... dressed at your wedding. It shall flow down naturally in all its beauty—and no hand shall brush it but mine." She pressed her lips on Minna's head, and devoured it with kisses; then, driven by some irresistible impulse, pushed the girl away from her, and threw herself on the sofa with ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... with a great deal less embarrassment than if I were addressing a gathering of entire strangers. I am not much of a hand at speaking, and have always felt somewhat nonplussed at finding myself in a position of this nature. In my whole career I never experienced but one irresistible impulse to make a public address of any length, and that was upon that unhappy occasion to which the greatest and grandest of my great-grandmothers has alluded, and that only as the chain by which I was suspended in mid-air tightened about my vocal chords. At that moment I could have talked ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs
... twilight darkled in the streets. Figures moved like shadows, and now and again a light flashed out. Tall and slight, she stood out against the darkening sky, her face half averted from me, and I knew not what it was, but an almost irresistible impulse came on me to put my fortune to the touch. But I thought of De Ganache. She was his promised wife. I thought of what I had to offer, and this and that gave me strength, and so ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... customary gratuitousness of wholesale panegyric, I was surprised to find the union with Gemma Donati characterised as "calm and cold,—rather the accomplishment of a social duty than the result of an irresistible impulse of the heart," p. 15. The accomplishment of the "social duty" is an assumption, not very probable with regard to any body, and much less so in a fiery Italian of twenty-six; but the addition of the epithets, "calm and cold," gives it a sort of horror. A reader of this ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... off the feeling that something was going to happen to Harry which would get him into trouble, and he wanted to assure himself that as yet nothing had gone wrong. Whenever one has this sort of vague feeling about a friend, there is a natural and irresistible impulse to go and look after him, ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... flutter; he was amazed at his own temerity, but the situation filled him with a delicious sense of adventure, and an irresistible impulse within him urged him on. The girl had risen, and, without the slightest embarrassment or coquettish reluctance handed him her drawing-board. He saw at a glance that she was sincere in disclaiming the name of an artist. The drawing was a mere simple outline of a group, representing ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... science unless he possess a private fortune, and unless he can resolve to give up all intention of improving it. Yet, how few thus situated are likely to undergo the labour of the acquisition; and if they do from some irresistible impulse, what inducement is there for them to deviate one step from those inquiries in which they find the greatest delight, into those which might be more immediately useful to ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage
... longer, and opened the door. Everything was still in the motionless caravan, except—it struck him oddly even then—the unconcerned prattling voice of Susy from one of the nearer wagons. Perhaps a sudden feeling that this was something that concerned HER, perhaps an irresistible impulse overcame him, but the next moment he had leaped to the ground, faced about, and was ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... hero took his ill-fledged flight to perch upon distant sprays, and to pick his meat from the hand that caters for the sparrow. This was the pivot upon which the whole life of Hodgkinson turned. The irresistible impulse of a vigorous genius would, most probably, under any other circumstances, have sent him ultimately to the goal of his destination; but this event hastened it, most unpropitiously hastened it, and, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... of his excited imagination. He saw the horses plunging over the precipice, and an abyss seemed to open beside him—the abyss of eternity; when, lo! from the depths of the abyss there appeared a globe of fire (un globe de feu) encircled with the Cross; and the irresistible impulse was stirred in him to throw aside the world for ever, and embrace God,—“Not the God of philosophers or of savants,” but “the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob—the God of Jesus Christ,” from whom he had been severed, but from whom he felt ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... of its history, we know nothing; but looming through the mists of antiquity we can discern an heroic figure, whose superior attainments won for him the lordship of his own generation, and divine honours from those that succeeded. Whether moved by an irresistible impulse, or impelled by more powerful neighbours, it is impossible to say; but certain it is that at some period, not perhaps very long before the Christian era, under the guidance of this personage, a sun-nurtured people moved across the face of Europe, in a north-westerly direction, and after leaving settlements ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... frost. Then, said Marx, when this contrast has completed itself, the situation will be no longer tolerable. "Then the knell of the capitalistic system will have sounded." The producers will assert themselves under the pressure of an irresistible impulse; they will repossess themselves of the implements of production of which they have been so long deprived. "The expropriators will in their turn be expropriated," and the labourers thenceforth owning the implements of production collectively, all the wealth of the world will ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... sent my New Year's article, the result of one of those peculiar experiences which sometimes occur to us writers. I had planned an article, gay, sprightly, wholly domestic; but as I began and sketched the pleasant home and quiet fireside, an irresistible impulse wrote for me what followed,—an offering of sympathy to the suffering and agonized whose homes have forever been darkened. Many causes united at once to force on me this vision, from which generally I shrink, but which sometimes will not be denied,—will ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... his voice broke the demure silence, one of the nearest—a young girl of apparently seventeen—turned towards him with a quick and an apparently irresistible impulse, and as quickly turned away again. But in that instant Key caught a glimpse of a face that might not only have thrilled him in its beauty, its freshness, but in some vague suggestiveness. Yet it was not that which ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... and had come to Carlisle upon an irresistible impulse. Steadily magnetized by the spirit of the "wild, sweet thing" who had withstood him at the price of his hand, yearning had once more conquered pride, and again he had returned, again an astonishment to himself. In view of such abasement of ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... argument as old as the garden of Eden but to Ruth and Larry it was as if it were being pronounced for the first time for themselves, here in the dead of night, in the old House on the Hill, as they felt themselves drawn to each other by the all but irresistible impulse ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... stoop, one," we bent our knees till we sat on our heels. "Heads up, hands on the hips, there!" said Mr. Greene of our division, as some one obeyed an almost irresistible impulse to keep his balance by putting out his hand. The man obeyed, but at that instant the ship gave a lurch, and the poor chap fell over on his head and almost rolled down ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... and perhaps you can cure my folly if I tell it, and yet I am ashamed," murmured the girl. Then yielding to an irresistible impulse to ask help and sympathy, she added, in an almost inaudible tone, "I came away to escape ...
— The Mysterious Key And What It Opened • Louisa May Alcott
... your work—you'll do just what you did before I came up." She was holding herself in by main strength; why, she could not tell —fighting an almost irresistible impulse to hide her face on his ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... was that certain ideas rose involuntarily to my mind, or that I was acting under some irresistible impulse, I said to her—'Ah, madame, you committed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... descended, and thus the great warrior departed from the sight of men, a sense of heavy depression came on the whole assembly. Prince Albert was deeply moved, and the aged Marquess of Anglesey, the octogenarian companion in arms of the deceased, by an irresistible impulse stepped forward, placed his hand on the sinking coffin that contained the remains of his chief in many battles, and burst ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... had in consigning to oblivion the sheets relating my visit to Nemours. I often think that I have not served the cause of letters as I wanted to, since, with all my laborious work I have never written a book. And yet when I recall the irresistible impulse of respect which prevented me from committing toward a dearly loved master a most profitable but infamous indiscretion, I say to myself, "If you have not served the cause of letters, you have not betrayed it." And this is the reason, now that Fauchery is no longer of this world, ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... is not what they are doomed to suffer, but how they are formed to bear. Take a being of our kind, give him a stronger imagination, and a more delicate sensibility, which between them will ever engender a more ungovernable set of passions than are the usual lot of man; implant in him an irresistible impulse to some idle vagary, ... in short, send him adrift after some pursuit which shall eternally mislead him from the paths of lucre, and yet curse him with a keener relish than any man living for the pleasures that lucre can purchase; lastly, fill up the measure of his woes by bestowing ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... under an elm-tree, and, looking up, he perceived that from the fork upward one half of it was dead; mistletoe had sucked the life out of it, and lower and lower to the main body, deeper and deeper to the vital heart of it, the sap was being drawn away. An irresistible impulse impelled him to take the jack-knife from his pocket, and as far as he could reach cut away this alien and deadly growth. The sympathy into which he was come with the dying tree was positively painful to him, and yet he was withheld ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... sometimes happens) that the criminal is a good sort after all, he is just as likely to warn his prey, once he has all proofs of the guilt and a conviction is certain. Possibly this is his way of taking the sting from his irresistible impulse to ferret out hidden mysteries. But it is rather inconvenient, and he has hurt himself by it—hurt himself badly. They were tired of his peculiarities at the capital, and wanted to make his years an excuse to discharge him. I happened to get wind of it, and it was my weakness ...
— The Case of the Golden Bullet • Grace Isabel Colbron, and Augusta Groner
... impersonal as to be almost a sign of boredom in itself, and Mrs. van Cannan, little accustomed to have her charming advances met in such fashion, turned away with a pucker on her brow to a more grateful audience. At the same moment, an irresistible impulse drew Christine's glance to Saltire in time to receive one of those straight, significant looks that indescribably disturbed her. Nothing there of the impersonality his words had betrayed! It was a clear ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... and looked down upon the spring as if he were about to drink, but instead of doing that, he drew his scimitar, and plunged it into the water, and called out with a loud voice the name of "Iskander!" three times. Whereupon Iduna, actuated by an irresistible impulse, came forward from her hiding-place, but instantly gave a loud shriek when she beheld ...
— The Rise of Iskander • Benjamin Disraeli
... to political jurisdiction. It is to be observed, in the first place, that in the United States the tribunal which passes sentence is composed of the same elements, and subject to the same influences, as the body which impeaches the offender, and that this uniformity gives an almost irresistible impulse to the vindictive passions of parties. If political judges in the United States cannot inflict such heavy penalties as those of Europe, there is the less chance of their acquitting a prisoner; and the conviction, ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... in Dogberry's sense of the word—it was "not to be endured." And then, the downright absurdity of the undertaking! for admitting that the proprietors might prevail on some poor idiot to act as coachman, where were they to entrap a dozen mad people for passengers? We often experience an irresistible impulse to interfere, in some matter, simply because it happens to be no business of ours; and the case in question being, clearly, no affair of mine, I resolved to inquire into it. I went into the coach-office, expecting to be told, in answer to my very ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 471, Saturday, January 15, 1831 • Various
... came home, and did not go away again till all was over. Christie never knew very well how those days passed. She remembered running down the lane to meet her sister in the twilight, and the irresistible impulse that came over her to tell of the terrible fear that had come upon her as she sat that night with her father's hand on her head. She called herself foolish and weak, and hastened to tell her sister how ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... the foot of the cherry tree. At least I had no intention of playing the spy, and when I heard Frederick's voice, and knew instinctively that Phyllis was with him, I quickened my pace that I might not be a sharer of their secrets. But an irresistible impulse made me pause when I heard the foolish ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... half-hour would bring us easily to Montepulciano. He was a native of the place. He knew perfectly well that he would be shut up with us in that carriage for two mortal hours of darkness and down-pour. And yet, such is the irresistible impulse in Italians to say something immediately agreeable, he fed us with false hopes and had no fear of consequences. What did it matter to him if we were pulling out our watches and chattering in well-contented undertone about vino nobile, biftek, and ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... Garfield, July 2, 1881, by a disappointed seeker for office made that President the martyr of civil service reform, and gave an irresistible impulse to the movement to alleviate the evils of what is known as the "spoils system." Notwithstanding the opposition of politicians and newspapers representing the vicious and ignorant element, civil service reform has made ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... world, had laughed and wept, grown old and died. It showed no signs of the decrepitude of age, and raised up its head proudly like the monarch of the forest; but a deep rent in its heart showed that decay was at work, and that the lofty tree would, one day, he laid low in the dust. Led by an irresistible impulse, Rudolph ascended the mound, and entered the little chamber in the oak. The boy was exhausted by fatigue and excitement, and, insensibly, his eyes closed, and his weary frame was wrapt ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... shall not be thought an officious man on this occasion; but, if I am, I cannot help it, being driven to write, by a kind of parental and irresistible impulse. ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... thinking with a natural melancholy that he had seen the sun set for the last time on his student life, and reflecting on the possibilities of the future and perhaps on opportunities wasted in the past, the memory of that evening last June recurred strongly to his imagination, and he felt an irresistible impulse to play once more the "Areopagita." He unlocked the now familiar cupboard and took out the violin, and never had the exquisite gradations of colour in its varnish appeared to greater advantage than in the soft mellow light ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... to the almost irresistible impulse which tempted me to fly from the painful scenes and fearful discouragements which met me at Gainesville, Alabama, these ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... with an invitation from Miss Whedell, the three callers sat down. Mr. Maltboy gravitated by a natural instinct to the side of his charmer. Mr. Overtop was drawn by an irresistible impulse into the vicinity of Mrs. Frump, having detected in her general appearance certain indications of what he called "a sensible woman." Mr. Quigg, feeling that he was one too many, took a "seat equally removed from the two ladies, and commenced playing soft tunes on his hat, ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... being near her. He had no heart to walk in any other direction. If he strolled out in the morning, or in the quiet of the evening, he proceeded almost instinctively towards the manse; and if he passed any distance beyond it, an irresistible impulse caused ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... thinking of the year which saw my first exodus from London. On an irresistible impulse, I suddenly made up my mind to go into Devon, a part of England I had never seen. At the end of March I escaped from my grim lodgings, and, before I had time to reflect on the details of my undertaking, I found myself sitting in sunshine at a spot very near to where ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... Wang's gardening and of these precautions—there was nothing else to look at—was amused at the thought that he, in his own person, represented the market for its produce. The Chinaman had found several packets of seeds in the store-rooms, and had surrendered to an irresistible impulse to put them into the ground. He would make his master pay for the vegetables which he was raising to satisfy his instinct. And, looking silently at the silent Wang going about his work in the bungalow in his unhasty, steady way; Heyst envied the Chinaman's obedience to his ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... near one o'clock, and the storm had increased to a perfect hurricane. The miserable man had eaten nothing that day; he tottered off with weakness, and was numbed with the cold. By an irresistible impulse he wandered in the direction of his former home in Broadway. He found the house brilliantly illuminated—strains of heavenly music issued from it—lovely forms flitted past the windows, and peals of silvery laughter mingled with the howling of the tempest. A grand party was ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... of opposition to your views; for it is not unknown to you that, from an excessive predilection for the ancient poets, I have often been unjust to the modern. According to your doctrine I can now be at one with myself, since I no longer need to contemn that which, under certain conditions, an irresistible impulse compelled me to produce; and it is a very pleasant feeling to be not altogether dissatisfied with one's self and ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... alive, but in imminent peril of his life and thinking of her. So strongly at times did this strange fancy move her that once she fully believed she heard him call her by name. She put down the pannikin of tea from her lips untasted, and with difficulty suppressed an almost irresistible impulse to cry out. But there was no sound to be heard outside save the dull thud of some snow falling from ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... when a third and similar rendezvous was appointed, at which the French officer presented himself with the same punctuality and inexhaustible patience. He had waited several hours, when suddenly, instead of witnessing the arrival of his brethren, he heard the clash of swords; and moved by irresistible impulse, he rushed towards the spot from which the noise issued and seemed to recede as he advanced. He soon arrived at a spot where a frightful crime had just been committed, and saw a man weltering in his blood, attacked by two assassins. ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... Jack remembered him, Donald MacRae had been a silent man, who never talked of how he felt, how things affected him, who never was stricken with that irresistible impulse to explain and discuss, to relieve his troubled soul with words, which afflicts so many men. It seemed as if he had saved it all for that final summing-up which was to be delivered by his pen instead of his lips. He had become articulate ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... class is hostile to progress, through fear of its results; too often the lower class is indifferent to it, from ignorance of the benefits it confers. The middle class has never ceased to tend towards progress, with all its strength, by an irresistible impulse, and even at the peril of its dearest interests. A great statesman who must be judged by his doctrines, and not by the chance of circumstances, M. Guizot, has shown us that the Roman Empire perished from the want of a middle class in the fifth century of our era, and we ourselves know with what ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... be glad. But this time I shall not go for my mother's sake alone. Something deeper is drawing me. I can't quite analyze it. It is a call"—he laughed a little—"such as men describe who enter the ministry,—an irresistible impulse, as if I were to find something there that I ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey
... to herself, happily putting things away and humming an air. Queed watched her in annoyed silence. His adamantine gravity inspired her with an irresistible impulse to levity; so the law of averages claimed ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... Yes, there was one distinct, slow tramp of feet, which made itself a clear path through the air, and reached their ears; the measured laboured walk of men carrying a heavy burden. They were all drawn towards the house-door by some irresistible impulse; impelled thither—not by a poor curiosity, but as ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... victims as the most active and zealous of his brother practitioners. And as victim after victim fell a sacrifice to as cruel, wicked, and debasing a superstition as it is possible for the mind to conceive, so did my anger burn the more fiercely, until I felt an almost irresistible impulse impelling me to spring to my feet, and, with my pistol levelled at the king's head, insist upon an end being ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... massacred; but we have no reason to suppose, that they, or any of the rest concerned in this extraordinary instinct, are aware of the matter beforehand; and the same is to be said of the combats between the Queen-bees; they appear to be the result of an irresistible impulse, brought about, by the sudden pressure of a necessity. Bees appear to be very happy, during far the greater portion of their existence. A modern writer, of whom it is to be lamented that a certain want of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 545, May 5, 1832 • Various
... They have an infinite interest and curiosity in the hubbub of human moods and crotchets that surrounds us all. And when one leaves their doorsill one has a genial momentum of the spirit that carries one on rapidly and cheerfully. One has an irresistible impulse to give something away, to stroke the noses of horses, to write a kind letter to the fuel administrator or do almost anything gentle and gratuitous. The Caliphs of the world don't know it, but that is the effect they produce on ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... seemed to bear some strange allusion to his own peculiar situation; and his curiosity became so excited, that without reflecting on the impropriety of his conduct, or its consequences, he, as it were, impelled by an involuntary yet irresistible impulse, advanced in the direction whence the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... lucky heir, gathered the ripe fruit from the tree of art which had blossomed so marvellously. God was no longer sought in the depth of the soul, all emotion was projected into the world of sense. Churches were built, not from an irresistible impulse, but as store-houses of the pictures which were painted with amazing rapidity. The fundamental principle of personality was externalised in the Renascence. Vanity and boasting, traces of which frequently appeared in the age of chivalry, ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... of insurrectionary thought was Denis Diderot. Diderot (1713-1784) was born to be an encyclopaedist, and a captain of encyclopaedists. Force inexhaustible, and inexhaustible willingness to give out force; unappeasable curiosity to know; irresistible impulse to impart knowledge; versatile capacity to do every thing, carried to the verge, if not carried beyond the verge, of incapacity to do any thing thoroughly well; quenchless zeal and quenchless hope; levity enough of temper to keep its subject free ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... this reaction, you give yourself suggestions that your right hand will now rise and touch your chin. As soon as it does, you will fall into a deeper state and lower your hand. Here are the suggestions that you can use: "As I count to ten and even before I reach the count of ten, I shall have an irresistible impulse to slowly raise my hand to my chin. As I progress with the counting, my hand will slowly rise, and the impulse will become stronger and stronger. As soon as my hand touches my chin, the impulse will leave. I will then lower my ...
— A Practical Guide to Self-Hypnosis • Melvin Powers
... other word for it. Well, on these occasions, when, instead of departing next morning, our impromptu guests have sometimes been forced to wait until such time as the rain or the wind should cease; their pent-up animal spirits became often too much for them, and they would feel an irresistible impulse to get rid of some of their superfluous health and strength by violent exercise. I set my face at once against "athletic sports" or "feats of strength" being performed in my little drawing-room, although they were always very anxious ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... have married the daughter of Prester John? {356} The Lion, after giving a side-glance at the writer through his left spectacle glass, seemed about to reply, but was unfortunately prevented, being seized with an irresistible impulse to contradict a respectable doctor of medicine, who was engaged in conversation with the master of the house at the upper and farther end of the table, the writer, being a poor ignorant lad, sitting of course at the bottom. ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... silently to us as I hurried Aunt Phoebe out of the room; but as I was going down the stairs an irresistible impulse came ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... caught her breath in a sob. "Shall I be—to blame?" She was moving towards the door now. With an irresistible impulse Aunt Olivia gathered her in her arms, and covered her lean little face ...
— Rebecca Mary • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... Harness (Fields knows—Rev. William—did an edition of Shakespeare—old friend of the Kembles and Mrs. Siddons), writing to me about it, and saying it was "a most amazing and terrific thing," added, "but I am bound to tell you that I had an almost irresistible impulse upon me to scream, and that, if anyone had cried out, I am certain I should have followed." He had no idea that, on the night, P——, the great ladies' doctor, had taken me aside and said: "My dear Dickens, you may rely upon it that if only ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... tell us how near we are to be affected or elected unto the Romany, who belong to out-of-doors and nature, like birds and bees. Centuries more than we think of have fashioned that disposition in the black-blooded people, and made it an irresistible impulse. Thus the poetical essence of Manru's character is accounted for, and the librettist has given it an expression which is ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... their future bliss rather than their present duty; and are therefore continually careless of its direct commands, with easy excuse to themselves for disobedience to them. Whereas the Norman, finding in his own heart an irresistible impulse to action, and perceiving himself to be set, with entirely strong body, brain, and will, in the midst of a weak and dissolute confusion of all things, takes from the Bible instantly into his conscience ...
— The Pleasures of England - Lectures given in Oxford • John Ruskin
... 'An irresistible impulse hath carried me into this chamber!' exclaimed the prophetess. 'The light haunted me like a spectre; and wheresoever I moved, it seemed ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... irresistible impulse to hug her with both arms again, and they happened to be on the verge of the river current. Hardacre and Finlayson both shouted, "Look out, sir!" but he was not looking out—his sailor eyes were otherwise occupied, and ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... A robin hopped out from the cover of wet leaves and peered at him questioningly with its bold bright eye. Acting on an irresistible impulse he set his foot on the gnarled root of the old wistaria and started to climb to the window-sill. Three minutes sufficed him to reach it—he looked into the little room, —the room which had formerly been the study of the "Sieur Amadis de Jocelin"—and there ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... the boats being joined together in groups of four and decked over. Somebody told me that Quincy was the richest town of its size in the United States. When I heard this, I was immediately overcome by an irresistible impulse to throw my feet. No "blowed-in-the-glass profesh" could possibly pass up such a promising burg. I crossed the river to Quincy in a small dug-out; but I came back in a large riverboat, down to the gunwales with the results of my thrown feet. Of course I kept all ...
— The Road • Jack London
... puffing after its long run. Roderick knew that if he chose he could slip out, leap on that train and go speeding away up through the forest and be in Algonquin before morning. He felt for a moment an almost irresistible impulse to do it, to fling away everything and go back. But he would look like a fool, and the people would laugh at him, and quite rightly. He ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... difference, however, that his prophetic glance saw the land of social freedom and justice when centuries of bondage still separated him from it, whilst I see it when mankind is already actually equipped ready to step over its threshold. Like him, I felt an irresistible impulse vividly to depict what agitated my mind. Thus, putting aside for awhile the abstract and systematic treatise which I had begun, I wrote this book, which can justly be called 'a political romance,' though it differs from all its predecessors of that category in introducing no unknown ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... and that apparently capricious abstraction of himself from the society not only of his friends, but of his own family, in which he from time to time persisted. He confessed to occasional accesses of an almost irresistible impulse to flee to the labyrinthine shelter of some great city like London or Paris,—there to dwell solitary amid a multitude, buried by day in the cloister-like recesses of mighty libraries, and stealing away by night to some obscure lodging. Long indulgence ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... surged through his veins; an irresistible impulse overwhelmed; for there, in inconceivable negligence, lay the shagreen case which he had so reluctantly returned to its owner only the ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... I look as much astonished when he called, as if it hadn't been all settled two days previous? But how was I to know that Mrs. Harris would turn out to be an old love of his? How was John to know, when he felt such an irresistible impulse to be kind to the old man, that his hair had grown white loving his mother? How was the old man to know why he loved John so well, and thought him one of the finest young men he had ever seen? How was I to ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... preyed on him. It was after the war that something took him back to Fayette County, and on a pleasant day he climbed the rocks to take a last look at the scenes that had been brightened by love and saddened by regret. He had not been long on its summit when an irresistible impulse came upon him to leap down where the girl had fallen, and atone with his own blood for the shedding of hers. He gave way to this prompting, and the fall ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... wandering teacher, trying to convince scattered people here and there of the Truths he had discovered. Within a fortnight—a wonderful fortnight truly—he had become the leader of a mighty movement that gathered adherents and grew of itself, spreading with an irresistible impulse until, only a few years later, one Englishman out of every ninety was a member of the ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... not finish her sentence, but Heideck knew well enough what she had omitted to say. An irresistible impulse made him answer— ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... and heave. Again, so, heave." The sergeant sat down suddenly as the bayonet came out, and immediately crawled to the subaltern. "There'll be another with him, sir, for a cert." The two peered over the bank towards the German lines, while drawn by an irresistible impulse Samuel crept towards the dead man. He peered into the distorted face, he looked at the still twitching body, and an uncontrollable fit of shuddering took him and gripped him. His knees knocked together; his tongue stuck to ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... was not allowed her. With one accord, and as if prompted by an irresistible impulse, the men rushed upon her, seized her, and ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... circumstances, the captain suddenly called out to him in Dutch, "Step on board, young man, or you'll be left behind!" He was startled by the sum mons; he saw that the sloop was cast loose, and was actually moving from the pier; it seemed as if he was actuated by some irresistible impulse; he sprang upon the deck, and the next moment the sloop was hurried off by the wind and tide. Dolph's thoughts and feelings were all in tumult and confusion. He had been strongly worked upon by the events that had recently befallen him, ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... frequent state. Their action is irregular and spasmodic, and it resembles the struggles of expiring nature far more than the great and uniform action of health. It is not the chorea that used to be described, in which there was an irresistible impulse to excessive action, and which was best combated by complete muscular exhaustion; but the foundation of this disease is ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... hasten to add, he was not so well pleased with it but that among his friends he maintained for the present a rich reserve about it. He had no irresistible impulse to describe generally how he had disinterred a strange, handsome girl whom he was bringing up for the theatre. She had been seen by several of his associates at his rooms, but was not soon to be seen there again. His reserve might by the ill-natured have been termed ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... a student, I thought myself qualified in time to become an author. My inquiries have been much diversified and far extended, and not finding my genius directing me by irresistible impulse to any particular subject, I deliberated three years which part of knowledge to illustrate by my labours. Choice is more often determined by accident than by reason: I walked abroad one morning with a curious lady, and, by her inquiries ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... loyal chivalry of love which felt respect the more for the careless guardianship to which his Helen was intrusted, he refrained from that parting kiss which their pure courtship warranted, for which his lip yearned. But as he lingered, an irresistible impulse moved Helen's heart. Mechanically she opened her arms, and her head sank upon his shoulder. In that embrace they remained some moments silent, and an angel might unreprovingly have heard their hearts ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... from the door at the tone and substance of this apparently unconsciously uttered apostrophe. She was standing with her hands clasped, and her eyes fixed on the ground. By an irresistible impulse he approached her. "Lady Sara," said he, with a tender reverence in his voice, "there is penitence and prayer to a better Parent in those words! Look up to Him, and He will save you from yourself, and bless ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... occupied by a burial vault. In the crypt chapels were a number of statues, in marble and bronze, most of them rude, antique, yet not of indifferent workmanship, especially one before which the jestress, in spite of the exigency of the moment, stopped as if impelled by an irresistible impulse. This monument, so read the inscription, had been erected by the renowned Constable of Dubrois to his young and faithful ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... thirst for gain, which seems to be a leading characteristic of the times, calls into action every human faculty, and gives an irresistible impulse to the power of invention; and where lucre becomes the reigning principle, the possible sacrifice of even a fellow creature's life is a secondary consideration. In reference to the deterioration of almost all the necessaries and comforts of existence, ...
— A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons • Fredrick Accum
... finish his letter to Clara; but a glance through the window showed him Olimpia still in her former posture. Urged by an irresistible impulse he jumped up and seized Coppola's perspective; nor could he tear himself away from the fascinating Olimpia until his friend and brother Siegmund called for him to go to Professor Spalanzani's lecture. The curtains before the door of the ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... solution of the difficulty, Lady Lydiard became conscious of an irresistible impulse to summon Isabel to her presence and caress her. In the nature of a warm-hearted woman, this was only the inevitable reaction which followed the subsidence of anxiety about the girl, after her own resolution had set ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... a reality, and were the craftily concealed history of his own wrongs, sufferings, and revenge. And this old man! who was he? He joined the Warden's account of the family to the Doctor's legends. He could not believe, or take thoroughly in, the strange surmise to which they led him; but, by an irresistible impulse, he acted ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... As he gazed at her, she seemed to see horror in his eyes. Twice he tried to speak, but apparently could not bring himself to do so. He looked towards the tent where Androvsky was sleeping, then at Domini; then, as if moved by an irresistible impulse, he leaned from his saddle, made over Domini the sign of the cross, and rode away ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... that sightless, soundless country life, and long days spent among old books? But if a man is weak, he doesn't want to assent beforehand to his weakness; he wants to taste whatever sweetness there may be in paying for the knowledge. So it is that it comes back—this irresistible impulse to take my plunge—to let myself swing, to go where liberty leads me." He paused a moment, fixing me with his excited eyes, and perhaps perceived in my own an irrepressible smile at his perplexity. "'Swing ahead, in Heaven's name,' you want ...
— Eugene Pickering • Henry James
... was automatic; I could no more have stayed the deadly blow than I can now hope to escape its consequences. Revolt from almost a lifetime of pitiless, persistent persecution filled me with an irresistible impulse to destroy and ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... senseless than atrocious—Mariette remained for a moment dumbfounded, not realizing the full meaning of the horrible words. But when their full sense burst upon her, she clasped her two hands together and shrank back in terror; then, unable to restrain her sobs any longer, and yielding to an irresistible impulse, she threw her arms about the sick woman's neck and, covering her face with tears and kisses, ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... A sudden and irresistible impulse had led him to the barber-shop in his hotel at the outset; he could not wait till after breakfast to have his beard removed. The result, when he beheld it in the mirror, had not been altogether reassuring. The over-long, thin, tawny moustasche which survived the razor ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... upon the scene of dramatic labour, he had to serve his private apprenticeship, to which the apprenticeship of the age in the drama, had led up. He had to act first of all. Driven to London and the drama by an irresistible impulse, when the choice of some profession was necessary to make him independent of his father, seeing he was himself, though very young, a married man, the first form in which the impulse to the drama would naturally show itself ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... and irresistible impulse to obey the call of the dying man came over him, and as he arose mechanically, the mother and her child turned towards the door, and he followed after them. On emerging into the street, he became conscious of a great and sudden change in external nature. On retiring from his ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... her arms about his neck, and began to pray: "Oh, Lord, convert my father!" Soon the man's heart was melted and he began to pray for himself. The child's father was three miles from the chapel when she began praying for him. He was packing goods in a wagon and felt impressed with an irresistible impulse to return home. Driving rapidly to his house, he left the goods in his wagon and hastened to the chapel, where he found his daughter crying mightily to God in his behalf; and he was led ...
— Children's Edition of Touching Incidents and Remarkable Answers to Prayer • S. B. Shaw |
