|
|
|
More "Impulsive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I looked bewildered but said nothing. At length Umslopogaas, whose nature, for a Zulu, was impulsive and lacking in the ordinary ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... delighted with my news, and said that all I had to do was to write an act introducing my characters, and that I ought, for the sake of contrast, to give her a mother. Some impish spirit suggested to me the idea of making a mother much younger than her daughter, that is, a very flighty ordinary woman, impulsive and feather-brained, with a mania for attending sales and collecting odds and ends at bargain prices. Full of this idea I wrote the first ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... Loring. "He's so interested in the impulsive attempt to make his million dollars that I think I could persuade him. He seems to be really serious ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... exclamation was accompanied by such a look of dismay and wounded sensibilities that O'Moy, meeting this, and noting the honest manliness of Tremayne's bearing and countenance; was there and then the victim of reaction. His warm-hearted and impulsive nature made him at once profoundly ashamed of himself. He stood up, a tall, martial figure, and his ruggedly handsome, shaven countenance reddened under its tan. He held out ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... hope to pursue their midnight trade unseen. But whether the influences that make for further progress, or those that threaten to undo what has already been accomplished, will ultimately prevail; whether the impulsive energy of the minority or the dead weight of the majority of mankind will prove the stronger force to carry us up to higher heights or to sink us into lower depths, are questions rather for the sage, the moralist, and the statesman, whose eagle ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... "Idiot!" the impulsive Frenchman told him. "Haven't you heard of Germans hiding up in a hayrick—hiding as spies? It's a chance; let's take ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... beginning to be appreciated by the farmers. In August of 1824 he was united in marriage with Clarissa Beecher, a woman of remarkable strength of character and kindness of disposition, and one who in after years was of the greatest assistance to the impulsive inventor. Two years later he removed again to Philadelphia, and there opened a hardware store. His specialties were the valuable agricultural implements that his firm had been manufacturing, and after the first distrust of home made goods had ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various
... not GO IN for what they counted scholarship, they could hardly believe him interested. Cosmo regarded everything from amidst associations of which they had none. In his instinctive reach after life, he assimilated all food that came in his way. His growing life was his sole impulsive after knowledge. And already he saw a glimmer here and there in regions of mathematics from which had never fallen a ray into the corner of an eye of those grinding men. That was because he read books of poetry and philosophy of which they had never heard. For the rest, he passed his examinations ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... he had hoped that his eloquence might persuade the marabout to a more impulsive agreement. "I will do what thou askest," he answered, "though it means delay, and delay is hard to bear. When I passed through the douar, my father's chief caids were on the point of leaving for Algiers, to do honour to the Governor ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... head of his class?" she finished triumphantly. "And it's smarter than ever you'll be yourself with your little books. Oh, childy!" She caught the little girl, doll and all, into an impulsive embrace. ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... impulsive," said Lucia speaking very rapidly. "I daresay I'm impulsive, and if my impulses lie in the direction of extending such poor hospitality as I can offer to my friends, and their friends, I am not ashamed of them. Far otherwise. But when I see and observe ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... his home. But Eugene generally declined his invitations, as he preferred spending his vacations at the watering places in the North, with their fashionable and not always innocent gayeties. Young, vivacious, impulsive, and undisciplined, without the restraining influence of a mother's love or the guidance of a father's hand, Leroy found himself, when his college days were over, in the dangerous position of a young man with vast possessions, abundant leisure, unsettled principles, and uncontrolled desires. He had ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... An explosion of impulsive gratitude responded to the hint. There was a new "saloon" just opened in Main Street,—Betty should stop there and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... free lump empty liberty rational capital impotent reason Capitol impetuosity irrationality grave impulsive ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock
... cruel, boastingly impious, and a scoffer at matters religious, his later descendants were generally tender of heart, soft of manner, and of great piety. Whereas, in early manhood he had been fiery and impulsive, quick of decision and immovable of opinion, his progeny were increasingly inclined to be deliberate in judgment and vacillating of purpose. So many of his descendants entered the priesthood that the family was threatened with extinction, for in the course of time it had become a ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... Louise was high-spirited, impulsive, courageous, imaginative—the very foil of her slow-going Frederick, with his church restorations forevermore. The Queen, always for an aggressive policy, by her sympathy encouraged the Prussian war party; patriots, restive under the indecision ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... may take you, Scrooge—this Spirit of Democracy—to some of the charity organizations I know about. I realize that you are prejudiced against that sort of thing, it seems so cold and calculating, compared with your impulsive way of doing good. And you will ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... girl had electrified Cornelia Vertessy; indeed, she, the gentler, calmer of the two, was quite carried away by Maria's courage, energy, readiness of resource and impulsive enthusiasm, so that she considered the most fantastic projects which the Polish lady elaborated on the spur of the moment with the rapidity of cloud formation, as perfectly ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... passage in triple time—a sort of grotesque interlude, like the dance of sprites upon the sward. Then came a swift agitato finale—a breathless, hurrying, trembling movement, descriptive of flight, and uncertainty, and vague impulsive terror, which carried us away on its rustling wings, and left ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... the crumbling steps to the soft sward and looked about her with a little murmured note of happy expectation. She loved the place at once, and gave up to the ecstasy of loving it "good and hard," she would have said. These impulsive passions of her nature had always made her greatest joys. They were like robust bewildering playmates. She took them to her heart, and into her bed at night to help her dream. There was nothing ever more warm and grateful than Lydia's acceptances ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... intelligent women is better than their characters. Goodness in a woman, as we understand it, seems to imply necessarily a certain imaginative fixity. Miss Grammont has an impulsive and adventurous character. And as I have been saying she was a spoilt child, with no discipline.... You also are a person of high intelligence and defective controls. She is very much at loose ends. You—on account ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... self-respectful smile, that said, as plainly as words could say: "Oh! I know women: they are amiably impulsive, ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... up in a second," laughed Marjorie, making a dive for the stairs. The next instant she had caught the immovable little figure at the landing in an impulsive embrace. "Poor old Lieutenant, I'm so sorry," was her contrite cry. "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. Listen, dear. I'm going over to see Connie this afternoon after school and ask her to let me tell you everything you wished to know about ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... belongs. The reader will remember that Lohengrin in his final address declares himself son of Parsifal, the King of the Grail; and it is with this Parsifal that Wagner's last work is concerned. Parsifal, like Siegfried, represents free human nature in its spontaneous, impulsive action. He is styled in the text, "Der reine Thor" (the guileless fool), who, in consonance with the old mythological idea, overcomes the evil principle and gains the crown by dint of pure natural impulse. The opera differs ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... virtue of conjugal fidelity. When followed out to the better end what is the good of it—where does it lead? Why should a man be tied to one woman when he has love enough for twenty? The pretty slender girl whom he chose as a partner in his impulsive youth may become a fat, coarse, red-faced female horror by the time he has attained to the full vigor of manhood—and yet, as long as she lives, the law insists that the full tide of passion shall flow ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... from hunting he was faint from hunger, and cast a greedy eye on some pottage that Jacob had prepared. But Jacob would not give his hungry brother the food until he had promised, by a solemn oath, to surrender his birthright to him. The clever man of enterprise, impulsive and passionate, thought more, for the moment, of the pangs of hunger than of his future prospects, and the quiet, plain, and cunning man of tents availed ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... drowsiness that would not come, and she arose at once and wrote a brief and businesslike letter to the landlord of the little New Hampshire inn where she had been delayed for a couple of hours in the fall. In the morning, true to her impulsive nature, she besieged her father until he gave his permission for her to take her maid and a quiet elderly cousin of his and go away for a complete rest before the ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... Keap is only twenty-three. Why, she hardly knew her husband, even! It was one of those sudden, impulsive affairs that would overwhelm any girl who hadn't seen a man for four years. And then he enlisted in the Spanish War, and ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... this to herself when out upon the sunny stillness rang a sharp, lamentable cry, such as a child might utter in an extremity of fear or pain. The sound seemed to strike a sudden horror upon the day's bright face, and Jane shivered. She made an impulsive step out into her corn-field, hardly knowing what she meant to do. And then she saw the doctor alighting from the wagon, and pausing to speak to a ...
— A Prairie Infanta • Eva Wilder Brodhead
... her Poems, which, though somewhat impulsive and overwrought, met with remarkable public favor. Such poems as "The Cry of the Children," which voices the protest of humanity against child labor, appealed tremendously to the readers of the age, and this young woman's fame as a poet ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... yield; and the soft zephyr of freedom will then fan the fair fields of Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas; Louisiana will feel its refreshing influence; and the Lone Star, (Texas), cannot long stand alone, in her opposition, to the rights of man, and the impulsive calls of humanity. The shades of Washington and Clay will then hover over the states of Virginia and Kentucky, and around them will cluster, a convoy of angels, and the spirits of the fathers of American freedom; all watching with intense interest ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... rested not with him but with her parents. What right had he to point it out to them, and above all how was he to do it? He halted irresolutely at what he believed was his sober second thought, but which, like most reflections that take that flattering title, was only a reaction as impulsive and illogical as the emotion ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... The impulsive boy caught up the paddle, and rose to his feet; but it was like unto him who first puts on skates. It flashed from beneath him, and he was precipitated headlong into the water. The others, as a matter of ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... fellow inbound and with a Red flag up, but again the gen'ral said, "Paysheeons, paysheeons, senor admiral," and raises one hand to restrain my impulsive motions. ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... was eminently social in his nature, and frank to a fault; his opinions were never concealed of men or measures; and these were, though apparently hasty, the honest convictions of his judgment, notwithstanding their apparent impulsive and hasty character. Like his tutor, Mr. Crawford, he cared little for ceremony or show; and in every thing he was the kernel without the shell: his character was marked before his company in five ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... captain. If young master will take a poor mariner's gift, there it is, for the sake of his love to the calling, and Heaven send him luck therein." And the good fellow, with the impulsive generosity of a true sailor, thrust the horn into the boy's hands, and walked ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... I can, my dear," said the other, eagerly. "At least I can tell you what is best and safest. Is it not for a girl to go by her father's advice—her father's wishes? Then she is safe. Anything else is wild, dangerous. My dear, you are far too impulsive. You do not think of consequences. It is all the affair of the moment with you, and how you can do some one you love a kindness at the instant. Your heart is warm, and you are quick to act. All the more reason, I say, that you should go by ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... husband threw Mrs. St John Deloraine almost alone on the world (for her family had, naturally, been offended by her good fortune), she left the gray old squarsonage, and went to town. In London, Mrs. St John Deloraine did not find people stiff, With a good name, an impulsive manner, a kind heart, a gentle tongue, and plenty of money, she was welcome almost everywhere, except at the big County dinners which the County people of her district give to each other when they ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... high sentiment, is tranquil, without aggressiveness, the voice has more of the wavelike rise and fall, and at the pausing places the tone is gradually diminished, rather than abruptly broken off. In the case of quickly impulsive, passionate feeling, the speech is likely to be much varied in pitch, broken by frequent abrupt stops, and decisive inflections. In the case of the expression of tenderness or pathos, there is a lingering tone, with the quality and inflection ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... awkward and rather jolly girlhood into a peculiarly determined new kind of womanhood over night. Her adventurous spirit worried him. One day he had sat in his office reading a letter announcing her homecoming. The letter seemed no more than a characteristic outburst from an impulsive girl who had but yesterday fallen asleep at evening in his arms. It confused him to think that an honest ploughmaker should have a letter from his little girl talking of the kind of living that he believed could only lead a woman ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... The first class could only guess. No cadet knew, unless it were Holmes, what Prescott's intentions were about quitting the corps in the near future. And Greg, usually both chatty and impulsive, could be as cold and silent as a sphinx where his chum's secrets ...
— Dick Prescotts's Fourth Year at West Point - Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps • H. Irving Hancock
... always to be calm, oracular, weighty; always to be sure of himself; but his temperament was incurably nervous, restless, and impulsive. He could not be still, he could not wait. Instinct drove him to action for the sake of action, instinct made him seek continually for notice, prominence, comment. These fundamental appetites had urged him into public life—to the Borough Council and the ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... joy, Bearing the Grail within the covered shrine, While bells were chiming in the lofty dome. And then the lad—for he was Parsifal— Tight clutched his heart in sorrowful distress As King Amfortas groaned in bitter woe. He stood in utter anguish overcome, Breathing impulsive with deep sympathy, But spake no single word, nor gave one sign That he had understood the solemn feast, Or seen the glory of the Holy Grail. And when the last knight left the festal hall And all the doors were closed, then Gurnemanz Came ...
— Parsifal - A Drama by Wagner • Retold by Oliver Huckel
... was thinking how I might use her, and the thought was not agreeable. She was so lovely in her fresh young womanhood, so impulsive and yet so self-possessed, so utterly ignorant of what was passing in this war-racked land of mine, that I hesitated to go gleaning here for ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... and shake her crutch at Godolphus, who, perceiving his mistress's line of action, at once, in his impulsive Irish way, barked defiance at ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... as a rule that a friendship formed on this stop-gap principle, and too rapidly, is not likely to endure. Such a friendship is not a sane or a wise relation, for friendship is like scholarship: if it is worth anything at all it comes slowly. Impulsive, quickly forced friendships are not wise investments; the very fact that they come so quickly implies an unbalanced state of idealizing, or lack of self-control. This does not mean that one is ...
— A Girl's Student Days and After • Jeannette Marks
... he cried, running up and hugging her in his boyish, impulsive way. Jefferson had always been devoted to his mother, and while he deplored her weakness in permitting herself to be so completely under the domination of his father, she had always found him ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... Ballads was withdrawn, though they were reissued in the same year, when Mr. Swinburne published a reply to his critics. Nevertheless, although the graver and, we may say, the higher judges of what was admissible to a nineteenth-century poet were entirely against him, it cannot be denied that the impulsive youth of that generation felt the enchantment of Mr. Swinburne's intoxicating love-potions—were sorely tempted to dash down Tennyson on the drawing-room table, and to join the wild dance round the ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... on ahead of him over these grand old mountains," added the princess, with enthusiasm, her cheeks glowing in pleased anticipation. "And we have to thank you, Mr. Adorjan, for the suggestion." With an impulsive movement she extended her hand to the young artist, who scarcely ventured to touch ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... book without sending its author to prison. "Necessary" to murder a sweetheart because she has changed her mind during a man's long absence! The wildest anarchist plot never included a more diabolical idea. Brainless, selfish, impulsive young idiots are only too apt to act on that principle if their proposals are not accepted; the papers contain cases nearly every week of poor girls murdered for refusing an unwelcome suitor; but the world is beginning to understand that it is illogical and monstrous to ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... in his stead. This, it soon turned out, was a great mistake. Fages and Serra did not work well together, and, at the time of the founding of San Luis Obispo, relations between them were strained almost to breaking. Serra undoubtedly had just cause for complaint. The enthusiastic, impulsive missionary, desirous of furthering his important religious work, believed himself to be restrained by a cold-blooded, official-minded soldier, to whom routine was more important than the salvation of the Indians. Serra complained that Fages opened his letters and those of his fellow missionaries; ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James
... published a story Described by The Leadenhall News as "too gory." One governess after another was tried, But none of them stopped and one suddenly died. Then she went for a while to a wonderful school Which was run on the plan of the late Mrs. BOOLE; But no "ethical safeguards" could ever restrain So impulsive a heart and so fertile a brain; And a fire, for the kindling of which she was held Responsible, led to her ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 28, 1920 • Various
... finds its way into the lymphatic vessels is probably as follows:—I have already mentioned the inconceivable delicacy of the capillary vessels, those last ramifications of our arteries and veins. It needs all the impulsive power of the heart to enable the blood to force its way through these narrow passages; and minute as are the globules, it would seem that they have but just room to pass, for in examining under the microscope a corner ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... life, spending the early spring-times in the maple-sugar camp, the later weeks in gardening and gathering stove-wood, the summers in picking and spinning wool, and the autumns in drying apples, I found little opportunity, and that only in winter, for books or play. My father was a generous-hearted, impulsive, talented, but uneducated man; my mother was a conscientious, self-sacrificing, intelligent, but uneducated woman. Both were devotedly religious, and both believed implicitly that self-abnegation ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... word. Posthumus, then, is presented to us in the beginning of the play as perfect, a model to young and old, of irreproachable virtue and of all wonderful qualities. In the course of the play, however, he shows himself very nimble-witted, credulous, and impulsive, quick to anger and quicker still to forgive; with thoughts all turned to sadness and to musing; a poet—ever in extremes; now hating his own rash errors to the point of demanding the heaviest punishment ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... of the wary and elusive moonshiner. Nevertheless, it was impossible, on either of these obvious bases, to account for the fact of something withheld in the stranger's manner, some secret exultant knowledge of the phenomenon which baffled the mountaineer's speculation. Hite, all unaware that in his impulsive speech he had disclosed the fact of his hazardous occupation, began to feel that, considering his liability to the Federal law for making brush whiskey, he had somewhat transcended the limit of his wonted ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... more impetuous would have started to rush out on the bridge, in order to tell Max what they thought of him; only that several cool-headed men kept these impulsive ones back. ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie
... was led into that unreasoning attack upon property and authority to which Thackeray deprecatingly alludes. Because the poor are unhappy, according to his philosophy, therefore are the rich, most of them, their direct oppressors, and ruling bodies, tyrants. Fiercely upright and aggressively impulsive in his championship of the lowly, he was anything but sound and thorough in his premisses; and had he the power he might have wielded later, his defects as a political economist would infallibly have brought about disaster. "His Radicalism," his son has told us, "was that of a ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... from her chair, and dismayed at the astonishing swiftness of her changed mood, Halloway took an impulsive step toward her. His arms were still receptively outstretched, but suddenly he felt that attitude to have become absurd. An altered light shone in her eyes now, and it was unpleasantly suggestive of contempt. She turned, absent-mindedly carrying ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... himself analyzing her character. Refined—yes. Intelligent—beyond a doubt. She talked with her father in a quiet, authoritative way which left no doubt on that score. Graceful, tender, sincere, too—her tones to her impulsive brother and her younger sister proved that. And a will of her own she had. The firmly set, full lips were eloquent of character. He liked that above all things in a woman. He ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... excessive delight upon the night air. Neighbors clasped hands and embraced each other to express their gladness. Many were too full for utterance; they broke down in tears with their first attempt to join in the general acclaim. Such a varied, impulsive, uncontrollable expression of joy was never before ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... "at that name of Merridy, that ring, and all. Why—why, I thought you might be the missing girl I told you of—you remember, that day up on Lee's Creek—so I had to see; but, dear me, I should have been more considerate—I should have explained. The trouble is I'm a nervous man, and I get impulsive streaks on me sometimes that I can't control. I'm sorry I spoiled your dress, but I'll get ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... boy, active, quick, strong of limb and of body. He had earnest, serious eyes of gray-blue, like those of his father. His mouth and chin were delicate, like his mother's. And he was thoughtful, rather than impulsive. ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... Howard's presence in the room. On the threshold of a terrible deed, his thoughts were leagues away. Like a man who is drowning, and close to death, he saw with surprising distinctness a kaleidoscopic view of his past life. He saw himself an innocent, impulsive school boy, the pride of a devoted mother, the happy home where he spent his childhood. Then came the association with bad companions, the first step in wrongdoing, stealing out of a comrade's pocket in school, the death of his mother, leaving home—with downward progress ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... She tossed off his thanks with a little shrug. "They are so impulsive, my boys ... like children, you know.... I was ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... was just a trifle uneasy concerning that member of the little party. There was a shadow of a reason why he should feel that way, too. He could only too easily remember how impulsive Jerry had hinted that he felt a great temptation to try to find out what the secret of the hermit's house was. At the time he expressed this longing Frank had taken him severely to task; and Jerry had promised faithfully to forego all effort to pry into matters that ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... boyish and impulsive about Gibberne at times. Before I could expostulate with him he had dashed forward, snatched the unfortunate animal out of visible existence, and was running violently with it towards the cliff of the Leas. It was most ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... ordinary revolutionists whose fiercest hatred for Diaz and his tyranny after all was only that of honest and ordinary patriots. Here was something else, they knew not what. But Vera, always the most impulsive, the quickest to ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... special care was bestowed upon the young men of the University, who had gathered about him, in the spirit of a most enthusiastic discipleship, out of all Germany, and indeed out of nearly all Christendom. To the last he continued to be a young man himself, as fresh, impulsive and eager, and with as entire a freedom from all appearance of assumption and authority, as though his pupils and he were merely peers. There was at once a warmth, a blandness and a child-like simplicity of manners, which made him the idol of every heart. ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... between the visit of the royal children to Rhuddlan and this present visit to Carnarvon, Joanna had grown from a child to a woman, and was no longer able to run about with her brothers at will, though she still retained her old fearless, independent spirit and impulsive generosity of temperament, and was a universal favourite, despite the fact that she gave more trouble than any of her ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... for Comrade Nat Scott," suggested impulsive Red; and they were given with such a vim that many of the big bullfrogs along the farther bank jumped into the ...
— Pathfinder - or, The Missing Tenderfoot • Alan Douglas
... upon the wrack, and stood before him with downcast and averted head, but he could still see the tears falling like diamond-drops in the clear moonlight. He turned irresolutely away, but he had made only a single step before he was vividly back again with an impulsive and imploring hand ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... enough to win all the prizes in my class at the Treguier College. The palmares happened to be seen by one of the enlightened men whom M. Dupanloup employed to recruit his youthful army. My fate was settled in a twinkling, and "Have him sent for" was the order of the impulsive Superior. I was fifteen and a half years old, and we had no time to reflect. I was spending the holidays with a friend in a village near Treguier, and in the afternoon of the 4th of September I was sent for in haste. ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... Miss Vanderwall assented quickly. "But Billy's impulsive, and affectionate, at least, and Rachael is neither. Anyway, Billy's at the age now when she can't think of anything but herself. Her frocks, her parties, her friends—that's all ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... in the following terms: "O Cais, do not let your wrath be stirred up against Hadifah, for he is verily a man headstrong and unjust in his actions. O Cais, if you persist in holding to the bet, great disasters will follow. Both you and he are impulsive and passionate, and this is what causes me to feel anxiety about you, Cais. Put aside your private feelings, be kind and generous, and it will come to pass that the oppressor himself will become ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous
... of the age was hospitality. There were no public inns in those times, hence a sort of gentle necessity compelled the entertainment of wayfarers. The hospitality accorded was the same free and impulsive welcome that the Arab sheik of to-day extends to the traveller whom chance brings to his tent. But while hospitable, the nobles of the heroic age were often cruel, violent, and treacherous. Homer represents his heroes as committing without ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... His artist pleasure in the theater was indulged without his father's knowledge. He would go to the play, come home for nine o'clock prayers, go up to bed, and climb out of his bed-room window, and run back and see the after-piece. So come evasions of undue restraint. But with all this impulsive liveliness, young Washington Irving's life appeared, as he grew up, to be in grave danger. When he was nineteen, and taken by a brother-in-law to Ballston springs, it was determined by those who heard his ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... To believe that it did is the error of an impulsive and uninformed scepticism. But priestcraft developed it, systematised it, enforced it, and perpetuated it. This could not be effected, however, except in alliance with the temporal power; and accordingly, in every country—savage, barbaric, or civilised—the priests ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... patiently. "It isn't the love of a friend, or a comrade, or a sister, that Freckles wants from you; it is the love of a sweetheart. And if to save the life he has offered for you, you are thinking of being generous and impulsive enough to sacrifice your future—in the absence of your father, it will become my plain duty, as the protector in whose hands he has placed you, to prevent such rashness. The very words you speak, and the manner in which you say them, prove ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... as a lady. He hesitated only a second, then followed her, overtook her at the entrance to her room. She, hearing him coming, did not face about and put him back in his place with one haughty look. Instead, she in impulsive, most ill-timed panic, quickened her step. When the woman flees, the man, if there be any manhood in him, pursues. He caught ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... prepared for this. He feared that he had offended her, and her impulsive declaration swept him from his feet. He watched her face eagerly, hungrily, as she went on, talking very rapidly, and making no effort to disengage her hands, which he held clasped ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... Borrow came into conflict with this impulsive missionary free-lance was in March 1838, when he heard from the Rev. W. H. Rule that Graydon was on his way to Andalusia. Borrow immediately wrote to Mr Brandram that he, acting on the advice of Sir George ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... not mad, but rash and impulsive, and just now had done a very foolish thing, and put me into a most awkward position. Ai! Ai! what trouble and vexation I had through ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... he feels—to presume upon this semi-confidence of an impulsive girl, whoever she is. True, her beauty in that last glory of the sunset puts resolution to the test. But he has no right, and there's an end on't! "I will tie Achilles up," he says. "I should not like ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... to greet his visitor; but stopped short on, seeing how pale, haggard, and feeble the old man looked. And his impulsive exclamation of: "Oh, judge, I am so glad to see you," changed at once to the commiserating words—"How sorry I feel to see you so indisposed! Have you been ill long?" he inquired, as he placed his easiest chair ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... report. We were adopted recently by a magpie. He was a gentle creature of impulsive habits and strong woodpecking instincts. Arsene we called him. For some days he gladdened us with his soft bright eye. But when we came to know him well and I relied on him to break the shells of my eggs every morning ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol 150, February 9, 1916 • Various
... life than about his work. His work has the mystery which belongs to the complex; his life the much greater mystery which belongs to the simple. He was clever enough to understand his own poetry; and if he understood it, we can understand it. But he was also entirely unconscious and impulsive, and he was never clever enough to understand his own character; consequently we may be excused if that part of him which was hidden from him is partly hidden from us. The subtle man is always immeasurably easier to understand than ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... from the gentle "Unknown," I find that the question, "What advantage has the stage over other occupations for women?" is asked by a Mrs. Some One more often than by the more impulsive and less thoughtful girl writer, and it is ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... treated with the creative skill of genius; but also in the etudes, the preludes, nocturnes, scherzos, ballads, etc., with which he so enriched musical literature. His genius could never confine itself within classic bonds, but, fantastic and impulsive, swayed and bent itself with easy grace to inspirations that were always novel and startling, though his boldness was chastened by deep study ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... this, a deep, significant, impulsive world had already interested me. Through my adventure with Gretchen and its consequences, I had early looked into the strange labyrinths by which civil society is undermined. Religion, morals, law, rank, connections, custom, all rule only the surface of city existence. The streets, ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... time and every way; feels, I say, that something new, something unexpected is really about to happen: something that will surely leave a deep mark on his imagination, and last through all his life. I mean that peculiar radiation of impulsive energy issueing from anything really great, vibrating and palpitating from afar, fitting the soul to emotion ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... the artist to the subject. He divined the kind of man the first John Wingfield was; divined it almost as written in the chronicle which Jack kept in his room in hallowed fraternity. Only he bore hard on the unremitting, callous, impulsive aggressiveness of a fierce past age, with its survival of the fittest swordsmen and buccaneers, which had no heroes for him except the painters, poets, and thinkers ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... him the door in his glorious Paris. My solemn asseverations that my patroness—no doubt only in fun—was deliberately distorting my account of my former visit to him, apparently pacified him so far as I was concerned, and, on the other hand, he had no doubt already formed his own opinion of the impulsive singer. He certainly regretted that he could not remember my visit in Paris, but it nevertheless shocked and alarmed him to learn that any one should have had reason to complain of such treatment at his hands. The ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... longer she stood there, as though a light—a long-hidden truth—were slowly forcing itself upon her mind. Then, with impulsive movement, she hurried through the dining-room, threw open the kitchen door, and startled the domestics ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... the hearts of the good old couple. They came to Hinkle's again and again; they invited her to their old-fashioned but splendid home in one of the East Seventies. Miss Merriam's winning loveliness, her sweet frankness and impulsive heart took them by storm. They said a hundred times that Miss Merriam reminded them so much of their lost daughter. The Brooklyn matron, nee Ramsey, had the figure of Buddha and a face like the ideal ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... began to listen. The clatter of crockery did not cease in the adjoining room. People were still eating there with that impulsive voracity which had spread from one to the other end of Lourdes. And all at once a voice was ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... and soon after he left the table and went into the library. Florence sat for a moment abstractedly; then with her old impulsive ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... of the armies of Christendom, as he was entitled to do as sovereign of the Holy Roman Empire, and lead them to recover the holy places. But while most princes delayed and waited to know what others would do, the impulsive and emotional Richard took the cross the next morning, men said, after he had learned the news. This he did without the knowledge of his father who was shocked to learn of it, and shut himself up for days, understanding ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... an arm of succor, the artillery serves, 1st, to give impulsive force to the attacking columns; 2d, to assist in arresting, or at least in retarding, the offensive movements of an enemy; 3d, to protect the avenues of approach, and to defend obstacles that cover a position; and, 4th, to ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... each blinded to the other. "Forgive me," he decided to say at last, and his voice had a little quiver of emotion, and he laid his hand on hers upon her knee. "I am the most foolish of men. I was stupid—stupid and impulsive beyond measure to burst upon you in this way. I—I am a love-sick idiot, and not accountable for my actions. Will you forgive me—if I say ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... prejudicial to the race, as I have pointed out in Hereditary Genius, but may be permitted to do so again. The doctrine would only be followed by the prudent and self-denying; it would be neglected by the impulsive and self-seeking. Those whose race we especially want to have, would leave few descendants, while those whose race we especially want to be quit of, would crowd the vacant space with their progeny, and the strain of population would thenceforward be just as pressing as before. There would ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... was so different. By which he meant so dangerously, so disastrously feminine and innocent and pretty. He knew now (she had "jolly well shown him") that Winny could take care of herself; but Violet, no; she was too impulsive, too helpless, too confiding. To think of her waiting for him like that—for a fellow she'd never met before—in Oxford Street at closing-time! How did she know that he wasn't a blackguard? Supposing it had been some other fellow? Ranny's muscles ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... kept our places at a safe distance from his chain. My aunt, with a woman's impulsive contempt of danger when her compassion is strongly moved, stepped forward to him. The superintendent caught her by the arm and checked her. "Take care," he said. "You don't know him ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... was a light-hearted young man, intelligent, high-spirited, and impulsive. He conversed with me about the events of the war, and speculated freely in relation to the future. He spoke of the defeat of General Hull as an event which might have been expected. When I expressed an opinion that our national vessels would be more successful on the sea, he appeared ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... Lady Conway came about—a regular schemer—a woman I never could abide. She had married off her own daughters, and wanted her niece to practise on, that was the fact. Victoria says she always knew that she, Maude I mean, was very impressionable and impulsive, and so she wanted to have her out of harm's way; but one could not prevent her aunt from getting hold of her and taking her out. Then people told us of her goings on with that scamp Clanmacklosky and that sister of his. Victoria talked to her by the yard, but she denied it, ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in his own way literary, and had written two or three pamphlets, one on his favourite subject—that of health. He seems to have been a man of much originality, many peculiarities, and much kindness of heart. He was evidently impulsive, like his celebrated son, and he certainly made a culpable mistake, and a cruel one for his family, when he rashly concluded that he would always remain a bachelor, and arranged that his income should die with him. He afterwards hoped to repair ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... on her feet. Impulsive, loving and quick to act, she put her hands on Hester's shoulders and touched her lips warmly and affectionately. "But you have friends. I want to be one, Hester. You know I've always liked you and I'd love you if you'd give ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird
... pen reached such a level of literary art that Edmund Clarence Stedman called her one of the leading women in the American literature of the century. Miss Woolson spent the latter years of her life in Europe, changing her residence frequently. Gracefully impulsive and independent, she had a gypsy instinct for the roving life of liberty out-of-doors; yet in character and demeanor she was so serenely poised, so self-contained, with such inviolable reserve and dignity, that she was, as Stedman put ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... more blest, whom Summer's heat, Whom Spring's impulsive stir and beat, Have taught no feverish lure; Whose Muse, benignant and serene, Still keeps his Autumn chaplet green Because ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... his hand toward the door, and then for a moment or two he looked startled, for in a quick, impulsive way the boy darted forward and caught ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... whisky-and-soda which the genial monarch had pressed upon him. As he walked, the futility of his situation came home to him more and more. Whatever he did, he was bound to displease somebody; and these Paranoyans were so confoundedly impulsive when ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... accordance with the prejudices of the other, the friendship might have continued. Much as he desired this, it does not seem to have occurred to him to even try to make a good impression. Utterly lacking in self-control, he remained the same headstrong impulsive creature, while in Goethe's company, that he had always been. Whether or not the story is true of his meeting the Imperial family while with Goethe and disdaining even to answer their salutations, walking on and compelling the party to divide so as to give him the middle of the ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... having to resign the posts he occupied, lost much of the sympathy of the Cape Dutch. The Uitlanders, also, who had previously enjoyed this sympathy now forfeited it, all the Dutch being inclined to quote the impulsive act of Dr. Jameson as an example of British treachery, and to look upon Mr. Kruger in the light of a hero. Indeed, many of the British, who took merely an outsider's interest in the state of affairs, laboured under the impression that Mr. Kruger was a simple-minded, ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... cried the impulsive little equestrienne, throwing both arms about Phil's neck. "I wish my boy could have seen you do that! It was splendid. You're a hero! You'll see what a craze the people will ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... parish, and sometimes Mrs. Maxa, to avoid confusion with the wife of the present rector. It is as if there were two Mrs. John Smiths, one of whom is called Mrs. Helen; Maxa being, of course, a feminine Christian name. Of the five children the eldest is the high-spirited, impulsive Bruno, who is just of an age to go away to a city school. Next comes his sister Mea, whose fault is that she is too submissive and confiding. Kurt, the second boy, is the most enterprising and humorous of the family; whereas, Lippo, another boy, is the soul of obedience and formality. Most original ...
— Maezli - A Story of the Swiss Valleys • Johanna Spyri
... irrational. Its use avoids the wastefulness of the trial-and-error method. By its insistent employment, dormant powers of reasoning are awakened, and the danger that attends instinctive, spontaneous, impulsive, or emotional acceptance of conclusions (page 9) is lessened. The evil effects of an inclination to dodge the issue or of a disinclination to face the facts are thus also avoided. The fallacy of employing the reasoning power to ...
— Sound Military Decision • U.s. Naval War College
... than a mile he keeps on, in headlong reckless rushing. Until fatigue overtaking him, his terror becomes less impulsive, his fancies freer from exaggeration; and, believing himself far enough from the scene of danger, he at length desists from flight, and comes to a ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... in the second act of Major Barbara are not by me, or even directly by Euripides. They are by Professor Gilbert Murray, whose English version of The Baccha; came into our dramatic literature with all the impulsive power of an original work shortly before Major Barbara was begun. The play, indeed, stands indebted to him in more ...
— Bernard Shaw's Preface to Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... listened to the impassioned speech of Henry in the Virginia House of Burgesses against the Stamp Act of Parliament. But the fiery eloquence of his friend Henry only fanned a flame that already burned in the breast of Jefferson. Impulsive by nature, by education and training a democrat, he naturally espoused the cause of his countrymen. The peculiar condition of the colonies furnished the opportunity to Jefferson's wonderful faculty for writing. The orator could not be heard by all the people ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... Mildred was impulsive and kind-hearted, notwithstanding the very decided fit of jealousy which was now over her. She put her arm round Judy and tried to ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... his horse, and the two gallant but impulsive and singular men rode off, followed only by Jack Stillwell and the prince's aide de camp. At ten o'clock they overtook the troops, and Peterborough ordered a total change of ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... very, very slowly, upon the first scene of Barnard Haw's masterpiece of satire; and the lovely firing-line quivered, blue batteries opening very wide, lips half parted in breathless anticipation. And about that time Harrow almost expired as a soft, impulsive hand closed ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... long, lonely journey. Her farewell song was long remembered in the cabins, and the old mother sat and wept for her lost child. No intimation had been given her of Harriet's intention, for the old woman was of a most impulsive disposition, and her cries and lamentations would have made known to all within hearing Harriet's intended escape. And so, with only the North Star for her guide, our heroine started on the way to liberty, "For," said she, "I had reasoned dis out ...
— Harriet, The Moses of Her People • Sarah H. Bradford
... of course. The South is impulsive, is in earnest, and the Southern soldiers will fight to conquer. The North will yield, when it sees the South is in earnest, rather than engage in a ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... Henry VII. was neither overbearing nor devoid of tact, and from the doubtful character of his title to the throne he was obliged to be circumspect in his dealings with the nation. It was not so, however, with Henry VIII. He was a young, impulsive, self-willed ruler, freed from nearly all the dangers that had acted as a restraint upon his father, surrounded for the most part by upstarts who had no will except to please their master, and intensely popular with the merchants, ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... the ear, but a great number of observations convinced us that its seat is immediately above the ear." The truth is that the convolutions which terminate on the temporal bone over the ear are only on the border of Destructiveness, and produce only an irritable and impulsive temper. The true Destructiveness extends fully an inch under the surface of the middle lobe, along the petrous ridge of the temporal bone, and is manifested externally just behind the ear by the ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, October 1887 - Volume 1, Number 9 • Various
... Aunt Ellinor—kind, busy, and impulsive, and always anxious to entertain the girls when they came for their fortnightly visit—pushed aside her papers and immediately gave her whole attention to the ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... was Jan. The man of business gave his consent, but he implored his "impulsive friend," as he termed the artist, not to ruin the lad by indulgence, but to keep him in his proper place, and give him plenty to do. In conformity with this sensible advice, Jan's first duties in his new home ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... crumbling steps to the soft sward and looked about her with a little murmured note of happy expectation. She loved the place at once, and gave up to the ecstasy of loving it "good and hard," she would have said. These impulsive passions of her nature had always made her greatest joys. They were like robust bewildering playmates. She took them to her heart, and into her bed at night to help her dream. There was nothing ever more warm and grateful than Lydia's acceptances ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... never having violated one prohibitive commandment, and yet at last be fit only for the place of the unprofitable servant—he may not have committed either sin or crime, yet never have felt the pulsation of a single unselfish emotion. Another, meanwhile, shall have been hurried by an impulsive nature into fault after fault—shall have been reckless, improvident, perhaps profligate, yet be fitter after all for the kingdom of heaven than the Pharisee—fitter, because against the catalogue of faults there could perhaps be set a fairer list of acts of comparative ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... them all last night, and they thought I was on the eve of conversion. I half wish I were, or on the eve of anything else. Any change from my present state would seem a relief. But a man cannot go into these things like an impulsive girl, even if he believes in them, which is more than I do. I seem to have fallen into a state of moral and physical imbecility, in which I can ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... an' trokin's," said she, settling the white muslin band which she wore across her brow wrinkleless and straight, where it had been disarrayed by the onslaught of her impulsive granddaughter. ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... was sombre and grave. The unhappy culprit sustained herself as best a woman might, under the heavy weight of a thousand unrelenting eyes, all fastened upon her, and concentrated at her bosom. It was almost intolerable to be borne. Of an impulsive and passionate nature, she had fortified herself to encounter the stings and venomous stabs of public contumely, wreaking itself in every variety of insult; but there was a quality so much more terrible in ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... kid upset the milk over Freddie's trousers, and when he had come back after changing his clothes he began to talk about what a much-maligned man King Herod was. The more he saw of Tootles, he said, the less he wondered at those impulsive views of his ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... decided, while Mr. Fortescue built up another rounded structure of words, had a likeness to each of her parents, but these elements were rather oddly blended. She had the quick, impulsive movements of her mother, the lips parting often to speak, and closing again; and the dark oval eyes of her father brimming with light upon a basis of sadness, or, since she was too young to have acquired a sorrowful ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... he was impulsive, even impetuous. Beneath his seeming cold exterior and admirable self-control—the discipline of the master artist—lay the moods and tenses of the musical temperament. He knew little or nothing outside of music and did not care to learn. I tried to interest him in politics. ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... difficult to spoil a human being, entirely, who has spent the first ten years of life under pure domestic influences. Chester's daughter had carried a heart of gold to the Alms House, and she brought all this wealth away; but she was an impulsive, sensitive girl, and if Mrs. Farnham had no influence strong enough to pervert her nature, she had the power to thwart and annoy her beyond her ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... our consciences, the more we shall feel these things and the more the tendency will be to cloud our days. It is true that we shall feel displeased over things, and it is very natural to manifest our displeasure in some way. Some people are very impulsive and speak before they stop to think what they are saying or what the result will be, and thus they are continually making clouds for themselves. There are times when we must resolutely take hold of ourselves when ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... denounced it in language of characteristic violence, and maintained to the last that Rodney never intended it, as every one now agrees was the truth. Nelson presumably also approved Howe's cardinal improvement, or even in his most impulsive mood he would hardly have called him 'the first and greatest sea officer ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... unchanging vibration, and that vibration merely enough to admit of the crosswise interblending of other threads with its own. This warp seemed necessity; and here, thought I, with my own hand I ply my own shuttle and weave my own destiny into these unalterable threads. Meantime, Queequeg's impulsive, indifferent sword, sometimes hitting the woof slantingly, or crookedly, or strongly, or weakly, as the case might be; and by this difference in the concluding blow producing a corresponding contrast in ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... listening to the Major's flood of irritating words, and glancing now and then at Derrick's grave, resolute face, which successfully masked such bitter suffering, I couldn't help reflecting that here was courage infinitely more deserving of the Victoria Cross than Lawrence's impulsive rescue. Very patiently he sat through the long dinner. I doubt if any but an acute observer could have told that he was in trouble; and, luckily, the world in general observes hardly at all. He endured the Major till it was time for him to take a Turkish bath, ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall
... gentle of voice and impulsive in action, was dragging the sacks from the rear of the wagon before Moody had finished his speech. A knife shone in his hand, and they heard the ripping sound as it bit through the tough canvas. The outlaws crowded around and began ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... this choice of name, he was rather sorry; it was like his sister's impulsive kindness—impulsive in everything—and he could imagine how Ruth's humility had touched her. He was sorry, but ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... furiously. It was too ridiculous—weak, sentimental, to be so sensitive to kindness. But he was so tired, so lonely, so disappointed. He touched Ma Snow's ginger-colored hair caressingly with his finger tips and the impulsive, boyish action made for ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... no," Lena exclaimed. "I'm afraid you think me entirely too informal already. I—I'm so stupid and impulsive. I'm always doing wrong things and not thinking till afterward. Good-by, and thank ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... garden-bench surrounded by her young men, a big woman in black, with a long black veil, talking vivaciously, using her hands in quick, expressive gestures, patting their cheeks, leaning forward to give their hands an impulsive squeeze. When she laughs, which is often, the black line of a mustache on her upper lip makes the white of her teeth whiter still. The days when she isn't there, the convalescents flirt with the nurses. There is nothing horrible ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce
... unjust imprisonment. He was now in the first vigour of manhood, with a mind exquisitely cultivated and familiar with the poetry and learning of his day, a nature singularly lofty and devout, a fearless and vehement temper. There was a hot impulsive element in his nature which showed itself in youth in his drawing sword on a neighbour who denounced him to his father, and which in later years gave its characteristic fire to his eloquence. But his intellect was as clear and ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... full toward me, and even in the dimness I saw her quick and full sympathy—an impulsive flash that was instantly gone. But it had ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... Consequently, desiring it no longer, we usually cast it from us, and pass onwards to seek fresh perfection. For the circumstance that that was not what occurred with respect to my own relation to Dimitri, I was indebted to his stubborn, punctilious, and more critical than impulsive attachment to myself—a tie which I felt ashamed to break. Moreover, our strange vow of frankness bound us together. We were afraid that, if we parted, we should leave in one another's power all the incriminatory ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... taught, the theory of life he enforced, proved themselves capable of arousing in great masses of men an enthusiasm of piety which was hardly surpassed in the first days of Christianity, of eradicating inveterate vice, of fixing and directing impulsive and tempestuous natures that were rapidly hastening toward the abyss. Out of the profligate slave-dealer, John Newton, Methodism formed one of the purest and most unselfish of saints. It taught criminals in Newgate to mount the gallows in an ecstasy of rapturous devotion. It planted ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... would rather accept the Colonel's judgment than yours, Bess,' said Ida. 'You are so impulsive ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... arose, naturally enough, through too careless, too inquisitive, and too impulsive a temperament. But of late, it is a rare thing that I sleep soundly at night. There is a countenance which haunts me, turn as I will. There is an hysterical laugh which will forever ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... lack of damask roses in her cheeks, she seemed a healthy child, and certainly showed great capacity of energetic movement in the impulsive capers with which she welcomed her venerable progenitor. She shouted out her satisfaction, moreover (as her custom was, having never had any oversensitive auditors about her to tame down her voice), till even the Doctor's dull ears were full of ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... incidentally introduced. Mr. Michael George Conway, a man of considerable literary and oratorical powers, but not distinguished for any very rigid piety, introduced the subject, evidently with the view of exciting Mr. O'Connell's impulsive character against the species of restraint under which his sinister friends were continually hinting he was held. The speech breathed the most fervent spirit of Catholic piety, seasoned with bitter invectives against what Mr. Conway ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... make friends too rapidly. It may be laid down as a rule that a friendship formed on this stop-gap principle, and too rapidly, is not likely to endure. Such a friendship is not a sane or a wise relation, for friendship is like scholarship: if it is worth anything at all it comes slowly. Impulsive, quickly forced friendships are not wise investments; the very fact that they come so quickly implies an unbalanced state of idealizing, or lack of self-control. This does not mean that one is not to form pleasant acquaintances from the very ...
— A Girl's Student Days and After • Jeannette Marks
... man looked at him kindly and shook his head. "Nein," he said. "It is not for the money I shall do it. It is because I have seen you before—when he played. You shall hear him and see him. Come." He put aside the youth's impulsive hand, and led the way up a winding, dark stairway, through a little door in the organ-loft. Groping along the wall he ...
— Unfinished Portraits - Stories of Musicians and Artists • Jennette Lee
... with the natives who occupy it. The men never appeared without their spears, shields, and assegais. They are fond of ornaments, the ordinary one being a tube of gourd thrust through the lower lobe of the ear. Their colour is somewhat like that of a rich plum. Impulsive and avaricious, they forced their way into the camp to obtain gifts, and thronged the road as the travellers passed by, jeering, quizzing, and ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... so impulsive a gentleman," the Bishop said. He had not moved, but at a signal from him The McMurrough, the O'Beirnes and two of the other young men had thrust themselves forward. "You must give up your sword, Colonel ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... moment after this impulsive entrance, and the governess turned toward Mrs. Foss a face that, benign and enlightened though it was, called up the memory of faces seen in good-humored German comic papers. The expression of her smile said ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... army sympathized with this impulsive act. The heads of the dead, borne on the points of spears, were shown the garrison, and at once the gates were thrown open, the hungry troops supplied with food, and a general fraternization took place. Joy in the fall of the tyrant was universal throughout the empire, ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... Philip simply; "I am sure you do. I am impulsive and impractical, but heart and soul, and body and mind, I simply want to do the will of God. Is it ...
— The Crucifixion of Philip Strong • Charles M. Sheldon
... he will; I am sure I hope he will. But, doctor, he has such dangers to contend with; he is so warm and impulsive that I fear his heart will bring him into trouble. Now, you know, unless Frank marries ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... promise," responded the generous, impulsive old man. "Dorothy, Madge, and you are all in this world whom I love. Nothing shall make trouble between us. Whatever happens, we ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... he to point it out to them, and above all how was he to do it? He halted irresolutely at what he believed was his sober second thought, but which, like most reflections that take that flattering title, was only a reaction as impulsive and illogical as ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... suggestion was made to him, however, Dr. Dudley shook his head promptly, and his impulsive daughter began at once to form other plans. "Mother wouldn't," she told herself. "No use asking her. Dear! dear! if there were only somebody besides me! Perhaps I can coax ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... exclaims she, quickly; and then, with a little impulsive gesture, she draws herself up and looks him fair in the eyes. "If I had known you were there," she says, bravely, though evidently frightened at her own temerity, "I—I—am almost sure I should have ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... know but little of the Old Italian School of Singing. We do know, however, that the old Italians were an emotional and impulsive people. Their style of singing was the flexible, florid, coloratura style. This demanded freedom of action and emotional expression, which more largely than anything else accounts ...
— The Renaissance of the Vocal Art • Edmund Myer
... contents of the child's own experience. It is as if they said: Is life petty, narrow, and crude? Then studies reveal the great, wide universe with all its fulness and complexity of meaning. Is the life of the child egoistic, self-centered, impulsive? Then in these studies is found an objective universe of truth, law, and order. Is his experience confused, vague, uncertain, at the mercy of the moment's caprice and circumstance? Then studies introduce a world arranged on the basis of eternal and general ...
— The Child and the Curriculum • John Dewey
... might quite properly be termed active service would be accompanied by no bitter heartburnings and regrets. Rather—yes, many times rather—would he con a fleet of battle-ships through the tortuous turnings of Smith Island Sound than again personally conduct one attractive and impulsive young female through the hotel-strewn shoals of Europe. There was that German baron in Switzerland, that dashing young lieutenant of cavalry in Vienna, and that persistent Englishman—oh, that persistent Englishman!—who ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... "An impulsive gentleman," said Meekin to Macklewain, as the sound of Mr. North's footsteps died away in the distance. Macklewain shook his ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... purser's office and helped himself to the register, finding the name of Romola Borria in full, impulsive handwriting, giving her address as Hong Kong, Victoria; and a long list of Dutch names, representing quite likely nothing more harmful than sugar and coffee men, with perhaps a sprinkling of copra and ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... Mercedes leading. Like Nell, she wore white, and she had a red rose in her hand. Dick would scarcely have recognized anything about her except her eyes and the way she carried her little head, and her beauty burst upon him strange and anew. She was swift, impulsive in her movements to ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... deeply into the wood, her confidence increased; she stepped more firmly, removed her hat, shook out her long black tresses, listened to the songs of birds piping in the tops of trees, and exulted in the consciousness of freedom and of kinship with these natural objects. With a sudden and impulsive movement, she drew near to the smooth trunk of a great beech, put her arms around it, laid her cheek against it and kissed the bark. She was prompted by the same instinct which made St. Francis de Assisi ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... been enough to fire the impulsive, passionate Burns with a sullen hatred, the next events would have been. For Code received his insurance without a dispute and, not long afterward, while in Boston for the purpose, had picked up the almost new Charming ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... face and figure—a doubt, not real enough to convince him of its presence, just real enough to deflower a perfect faith. And perfect faith, to Jon, not yet twenty, was essential. He still had Youth's eagerness to give with both hands, to take with neither—to give lovingly to one who had his own impulsive generosity. Surely she had! He got up from the window-seat and roamed in the big grey ghostly room, whose walls were hung with silvered canvas. This house his father said in that death-bed letter—had been built ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... proceeding any further; I should have said that Christ is a myth. If it had been consistent, and had disclosed to me a person of mean and ambitious aims, I should have said, Christ is a deceiver. Again, if it had exhibited a person of weak understanding and strong impulsive sensibility, I should have said Christ is ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... of honor, but is lacking in the sense of simple honesty, and, circumstances favoring him, would defalcate and commit infamies which do not trouble his conscience, for he obeys without questioning the oscillations of his ideas, which are always impulsive. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... their own ideals, dear lady, and she may have had a man in view whom she did look up to, honor, and love. Is not that a reasonable theory?" And the doctor's eyes, full of sympathy and deference, watched his impulsive patient narrowly withal. How well he knew her! She fell instantly into ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... the leader of the Montanists, fiery, impulsive, the strong preacher, the vigorous writer, the bold controversialist, organized a sect which survived him, though finally disorganized through the influence of Augustine, the master theologian of the early Church, ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... not venture to mention much greater names, but I have them in my mind), as they now appear, and were perhaps obliged to be: men of the moment, enthusiastic, sensuous, and childish, light-minded and impulsive in their trust and distrust; with souls in which usually some flaw has to be concealed; often taking revenge with their works for an internal defilement, often seeking forgetfulness in their soaring from a too ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... testimonies of Lessing's devotion are of importance in defining his attitude toward Yorick. They attest the fact that this was no passing fancy, no impulsive thought uttered on the moment when the news of Sterne's death was brought to him, and when the Sentimental Journey could have been but a few weeks in his hands, but a deep-seated desire, born of reflection and continued admiration.[18] ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... underlying cardinal maxims of political philosophy, it touched the very bedrock of primary human rights. Such a subject furnished material for the inborn gifts of the speaker, his intuitive logic, his impulsive patriotism, his pure and poetical conception of legal and ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... an impulsive man, who acted on the spur of the moment," Merrick answered; "but the strangest part of that is, that he did not return to the city at all. He bought a ticket for New York, but the conductor informs me there was no such ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... such an hour?' He shuddered, sighed and rolled My blanket round him; then came a gush of words: 'The first of causes, Damon, namely Love, Eldest and least resigned and most unblushing Of all the turbulent impulsive gods. A quarter of an hour scarce has flown Since lovely arms clung round me, and my head Asleep lay nested in a woman's hair; My cheek still bears print of its ample coils.' Athwart its burning flush he drew my fingers And their tips felt it might ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... sunk—would the Admiralty tell her?—the Captain knocking his pipe out, as Jacob knew, rising to go, stiffly stretching to pick up Mrs. Flanders's wool which had rolled beneath the chair. Talk of the chicken farm came back and back, the women, even at fifty, impulsive at heart, sketching on the cloudy future flocks of Leghorns, Cochin Chinas, Orpingtons; like Jacob in the blur of her outline; but powerful as he was; fresh and vigorous, running about ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... "Yes, indeed!" cried impulsive Edith. "Even during our short acquaintance I have discovered that, in many things which I ought to know, her knowledge is superior to mine; that for keeping a secret she has no equal; and that with it all she is one of the dearest and sweetest and most lovable ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... keys, and slips them into her pocket) A bunch of his keys; they are safer in my pocket than in Izod's—poor Izod is so impulsive. (she crosses to R. C., goes up the steps and calls at door. Calling) Squire! Squire! Here's Gilbert Hythe with two men. Don't let 'em bring ...
— The Squire - An Original Comedy in Three Acts • Arthur W. Pinero
... sister kinder than Hyacinth, impelled by that impulsive sweetness which was her chief characteristic, and also, it might be, moved to lavish generosity by some scruples of conscience with regard to her grandmother's will. Her first business was to send for the best milliner in Oxford, ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... it so; you must be born again yourself; you must be changed, and become as a little child, in order to enter the kingdom." We remember that Peter, who was probably not half as good as Nicodemus, an impulsive soul, was nevertheless enough of a little child, in openness of heart, to see that this was the kingdom of heaven,—this teaching and life of Jesus,—and that Jesus was ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... delay was very irritating to the impulsive English king, who was now really in love with Anne Boleyn. Gradually Henry's former effusive loyalty to the Roman See gave way to a settled conviction of the tyranny of the papal power, and there rushed ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... looked up, as though to see whether he really meant to go at that moment. She had no idea that he really thought of taking her at her word and parting then and there. She did not realise how true it was that she was much older than he and she had never believed him to be as impulsive ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... always have an opinion about everything, and they will not always know what they are going to do. There will be a deferential holding back of judgment, and walking softly with God. It is our headlong, impulsive spirit that keeps us so constantly from hearing and following ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... done to turn the millions of North India from such darkness as that? Nothing, beyond the brief and impulsive efforts of Thomas. There does not seem to have been there one genuine convert from any of the Asiatic faiths; there had never been even the nucleus ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... idyllic. Yet the question remains, and may long remain, whether the manner in which the negroes were brought into touch with civilization resulted in the greater blessing or the greater curse. That manner was determined in part at least by the nature of the typical negroes themselves. Impulsive and inconstant, sociable and amorous, voluble, dilatory, and negligent, but robust, amiable, obedient and contented, they have been the world's premium slaves. Prehistoric Pharaohs, mediaeval Pashas and the grandees of Elizabethan England esteemed them as such; and so great a ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... the pencil-end he was chewing, but the officer maintained his solemn air, for which act of self-restraint he was undoubtedly grateful when in another minute she gave a quick impulsive shudder not altogether assumed, and vehemently added: "But I couldn't stand the sight; no, I couldn't! I'm an awful coward when it comes to things like that. Nothing in all the world would induce me to look ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... sudden impulsive movement toward her, then restrained himself, pressed his lips together and ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... got, if they had left "The Excursion" for the smaller pieces on the Daisy, and the Celandine, the Broom, the Thorn and the Yew. In thus talking he gained his end without knowing it, for, instead of a mere routine lawyer and impulsive Irishman, Miss Carmichael found in her companion an intelligent, thoughtful, and cultured acquaintance, whose society she thoroughly enjoyed. Occasionally an unconscious and half-timid lifting of her long eye-lashes towards his animated, handsome face thrilled ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... know about that," said Miss Vane; "but if you had an impulsive niece to supply with food for the imagination, you would be very glad of anything that seemed to combine practical ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... a low impulsive titter of amusement the yellow girl restored a vase to its place and turned into ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... look was for her, and that it could be justified by any word that she had ever spoken or any duty that she had neglected? With one hand lightly resting upon the table, her right foot thrown forward in impulsive readiness to spring into his extended arms, but her whole form drooping and shrinking with dismay, her face pale, and the smile which she had called upon it now faintly and painfully flickering in a deathlike manner about her whitened lips, as it glided ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... make friends for itself, but only genius can give to its creations the divine power of winning love and veneration. Enthusiasm cannot cling to what itself is unenthusiastic, nor will he ever have disciples who has not himself impulsive zeal enough to be a disciple. Great wits are allied to madness only inasmuch as they are possessed and carried away by their demon, While talent keeps him, as Paracelsus did, securely prisoned in the pommel of his sword. To the eye of genius, the veil of the spiritual world is ever rent asunder ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... are. It is lamentably true that comparatively few of the inhabitants of earth are growing people; most of them are content with a slow, dull routine of daily life. I'd rather see persons full of zeal and purpose, even though their impulsive nature might lead them to commit many mistakes, rather than one ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... while she sat patiently to Mr. Vane when he came next day, she asked many questions; and though somewhat discouraged by his replies, confided to him her hopes and begged his advice. Being a wise man as well as a good and kindly one, he saw at once that this life would not be safe for the pretty, impulsive, and tenderly reared girl, left so unprotected in a world full of trials and temptations. So he told her it would not do, except so far as she would allow him to make several studies of her head in various characters ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... played lawn tennis with them, she fenced surprisingly well; but she had refused to join the "Devil's Own"—the Inns of Court Volunteers, for prudent reasons; and though it had leaked out that she was a good swimmer—that tiresome impulsive Honoria had spread it abroad—she resolutely declined to give proofs of her prowess in swimming baths. Her associates were not so young as the undergraduates she had met in Newnham days: they were an average ten years older. Their language at times made David blush, but they had more discretion ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... Merwyn made an impulsive spring forward in his defence, but a dozen forms intervened, and his effort was supposed to be as hostile as that of the rioters. The very numbers that sought to destroy Kennedy gave him a chance, for ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... her with a glad cry, expecting her to rise. She remained seated, her hand extended. This indifference on her part may have been the result of cool premeditation. In any event, it served to check the impulsive ardour of the Prince, who, it is to be feared, had lost something in the way of self-restraint. It is certain— absolutely certain—that had she come forward to meet him, she would have found herself imprisoned in a pair of ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... woe of the world, over the life and death of millions, which raised a mortal, not otherwise formed for greatness, so far above common humanity to a semblance of divinity. Perhaps it was the instinctive craving to take part in the grand impulsive expression of thousands of others that had carried away each individual. It was beyond a doubt a mysterious force which had compelled every one to do as his neighbors did as soon as ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... development seems to have startled the unforgiving Sherif. It was no part of his policy to alienate his followers, still less to add to those of his rival. After all, the quality of mercy was high and noble. He would at last graciously forgive the impulsive but repentant disciple. He wrote him a letter to this effect. But it was now too late. Mohammed replied with grave dignity that he had committed no crime, that he sought no forgiveness, and that 'a wretched Dongolawi' would not offend by his presence the renowned Sheikh el Sherif. After ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... mother's words come true, that a love far greater than any she had known might be in store for her; some one, handsome, charming, ardent, loving, sympathetic, kind; some one to be friend and brother and lover all in one; above all, some one with thoughts and feelings akin to her own—some one impulsive ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder
... to exclaim with respect to the prediction: "I dinna believe in sic things mysel', but, some way or ither, they aye come true." Lizzie's father and her whole family are said to have been highly respectable. Her truant and impulsive disposition led her, however, into conduct and habits that deprived her of the respect and help of her friends; and necessity at length appears to have constrained her to act the part of a fortune-teller, which she is known to have ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... returned from Europe, was considered eminently beautiful. It was in my second summer that she visited my father's house, where he was living with his servants and my old nurse, my mother having but recently left him a widower. Laura was full of vivacity, impulsive, quick in her movements, thoughtless occasionally, as it is not strange that a young girl of her age should be. It was a beautiful summer day when she saw me for the first time. My nurse had me in her arms, walking back and forward on a ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... and Rose were to dine with Lady Caroline the week after Erica's arrival. On the very day of the dinner party, however, Rose was laid up with a bad cold, and her mother was obliged to write and make her excuses. Late in the afternoon there came in reply one of Lady Caroline's impulsive notes. ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... time previous to the death of Miss Custis, her mother, despairing of her recovery, had centred her hopes in her son, John Parke Custis. This rendered Washington's guardianship of him a delicate and difficult task. He was lively, susceptible, and impulsive; had an independent fortune in his own right, and an indulgent mother, ever ready to plead in his behalf against wholesome discipline. He had been placed under the care and instruction of an Episcopal clergyman at Annapolis, but was occasionally at home, ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... you entered seems to have closed its ponderous jaws behind you, and shut you in,—there to remain till some supernatural power rend the mountains and give you egress. The mood of mind changes with the scene. The beauty soothed and softened you; now you grow impulsive and stern. The awful forms around you blend with the soul, as it were, and impart something of their own vastness to it. You feel yourself carried into the very presence of that Power which sank the foundations ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... in a friendly spirit to warn you; but I must say that for a man who married a girl, as you married Ruth, in direct opposition to the wishes of her family, you take a curious view of your obligations. Ruth has always been a headstrong, impulsive girl, and it is for you to see that she is protected from herself. If you are indifferent to her welfare, then all I can say is that you should not have married her. You appear to ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... still talking with Mr. Snubbins in the opening between the two cars. "Oh, Nan!" cried the impulsive one, rushing to meet her ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... or seven-and-thirty, powerfully built, and with that solidity of gesture and firmness of tread sometimes so marked with strong men. A mere glance at him showed he was a cold, silent, somewhat haughty man, not given to hasty resolves or in any way impulsive, and it is just possible that a long acquaintance with him would not have revealed a great deal more. He had served in a half-dozen regiments, and although all declared that Henry Lockwood was an honourable fellow, a good soldier, ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... ill, you know; only Dr. Morison says I shall have to lie down a lot until I get quite all right again. Everybody is so kind to me, it's not a bit hard. Please don't cry." And she stretched out her hand towards Maud, who seized it and covered it with impulsive kisses. ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... of his epoch—impulsive, sentimental, ardent in all that he espoused, without the slightest notion of humor, though imaginative as a dreamer; love, war, and his State, Virginia, were passions that he thought it a duty to uphold at any and all times. He colored under ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... occasionally gave way to fits of deep despondency, and again was over-confident, while the causes of these changes were not very apparent, and seemingly resulted more from temperament than anything else. She feared that the bad habits of long standing, combining with his capricious and impulsive nature, would speedily betray him into his old ways. She was sure this would be the case unless the strong and steady hand of God sustained him, and she had tried to make him realize the same truth. This he did in a measure, and was exceedingly distrustful; and yet he ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... on most subjects. He possessed exquisite taste, a passionate love of music, flowers and all things beautiful; rather visionary, poetical and a dreamer; he was not practical, like his wife; warm-hearted, impulsive, energetic Frau Schmidt, who was noted for her executive abilities. I can imagine the old Professor saying as Mohammed has been quoted as saying, "Had I two loaves, I would sell one and buy hyacinths to feed my soul." Impulsive, generous to a fault, quick to take offense, ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... you find you want me when you get settled, I'll come," she answered, and, giving Leslie's little gloved hand an impulsive squeeze, she said, "Good-night," ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... observable to the very last. It is not easy for us at this distance of time, and with our colder Northern temperament, to comprehend the romantic feelings of attachment subsisting between Schubert and some of his friends,—feelings which, however, are by no means rare among the impulsive youth of South Germany,—but his naive simplicity, cheerful and eminently sociable disposition, insensibility to envy, and incorruptible modesty, were qualities calculated to transform the respect due to his genius into a strong personal liking. Schubert was, in truth, a child of nature, one ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... tricks. If Macdonald sinned in one direction, Alexander Mackenzie had already begun his course of almost too austere rectitude in another. Opposition kept a keen eye on governmental misdoings, and George Brown, impulsive, imprudent, often lacking in sane statesmanship, and, once or twice, in nice honour, still raised himself, the readers of his newspaper, and the Assembly which he often led in morals, if not in politics, to a plane not far below that of the imperial Parliament. But ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... a glance at him. It seemed to her that he walked as if he did not know where he was or who was beside him. Her heart smote her. When they were deep in a hazel thicket, she stole out a small impulsive hand, and slipped it into his, which hung beside him. He started. Presently she felt a slight pressure, but it relaxed instantly, and she took back her hand, feeling ashamed of herself, and aggrieved besides. She shot on in front of ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... favourite accompaniment to his voice, a clear sweet tenor, and he sang well. I was not so susceptible to the "concord of sweet sounds" as he was, but could draw a little, paint a little, string rhymes together; and so we never failed to amuse and interest each other. He was impulsive, clever, quick of temper, ingenuous, and indignant at any want of truth or candour in others; generous to a fault and tender hearted as a woman. I was more patient than he, slower in wrath, yet we sometimes quarrelled over trifles but, like lovers, were quickly reconciled; ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... were such as pleased him and engaged his attention. He made no attempt to analyze his feelings towards her. He was not one to probe his own heart, nor had he the resolution to break away from temptation, even when recognized as such. Easy-going, good-natured, impulsive, with a spice of his mother's selfishness in his nature, he allowed himself to follow his inclinations without consideration whither they might lead him, and ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... great many other boys,—even like some of those who have been brought up judiciously and carefully,—Noddy was not very fond of work. He was bold and impulsive, and had not yet acquired any fixed ideas in regard to the objects of life. Bertha Grant had obtained a powerful influence over him, to which he was solely indebted for all the progress he had made in learning and the arts of civilized life. Wayward as ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic
... sort of person he had expected to see in Miss Hetty Gunn. This was an impulsive, outspoken, loving woman, without a trace of any thing masculine about her, unless it were a certain something in the quality of her frankness, which was masculine rather than feminine; it was more purely objective ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... her steadily; and the girl, who felt the impulsive desire to wound him too strong for her, made ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... sympathy, with tears that flow for other people's ills, and smiles that light outward their own beautiful thoughts. We have lots of clever girls, and brilliant girls, and witty girls. Give us a consignment of jolly girls, warm-hearted and impulsive girls; kind and entertaining to their own folks, and with little desire to shine in the garish world. With a few such girls scattered around, life would freshen up for all of us, as the weather does under the spell ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... Harding," he resumed, "I accept. It would astonish them as has only known H. H. on his financial side to see him agree to a reduction of profits like this without a kick. But I'm a man of impulse, I am. Get me on my soft side and a kitten ain't more impulsive than old H. H. And o' course the business of this expedition ain't jest business to me. It's—er—friendship, and—er—sentiment—in short, there's feelin's that is more than worth their weight ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... and Jacob, I suppose we are all drawn at the outset to Esau; our heart goes out to him, as we read, the impulsive, the impetuous, the affectionate, and we feel a corresponding dislike of Jacob's craft and cunning, and selfish calculations. There can be no doubt, we say, which was the meaner ...
— Sermons at Rugby • John Percival
... tight-lipped mood and his bad temper were growing by the day. Under the circumstances I ultimately wasn't sorry that he refused. In truth, there were too many seals ashore, and it would never do to expose this impulsive fisherman to ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... A very impulsive woman, and yet, as you may say, a very keen and clever one in many respects. I don't think she ever wanted to marry and certainly I can call home no adventures in the way of courting that fell to her lot. And yet a pleasant woman, though not comely. In fact, ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... accumulating force and skill, oust him from his present elevated and natural position. Once admit them to authority, and the limits of their dominion must be prescribed by their own sense of honour, or by the opportunities afforded them of supremacy and independent action. Michael the impulsive saw and felt this most acutely, and took occasion, from their eagerness, to insure a proper equilibrium of the forces before permitting them to coalesce. There lived in the same city with Michael, and within a quarter of a mile of the banking-house, an individual to whom he turned his thoughts ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... who had written it was very like the letter. Immaculate and perhaps somewhat hard, delicate, and in will a little weak, impulsive and undecided, well-bred, and strikingly typical of the ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... can't say these things right," he gulped out with a swift, impulsive rush. "What I want to say is that's how I feel when anything happens amiss your way. I want to say it don't matter if it's Beasley, or—or jest things that can't be helped. I want to get around and set ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... camp-fire, but evidence of this screaming which will bear sober cross-examination is scant." In the fall of 1875 we were camping in a little clearing on the bank of the Racquette River; one of our guides, an impulsive Frenchman, started out alone one night, without waking us, and succeeded in shooting a deer. Down the river he came, shouting and making a terrible racket to express his delight; the whole party was awake and out of the tent by the time he reached the landing. Lifting the deer out of ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 50, October 21, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... officers volunteered to add their services. This gallant band was composed of the flower of the English army.... It was indeed "an incredible extravagance to send a handful of such heroes against such an army," but Leicester can scarcely be blamed for failing to restrain the impulsive ardor which animated his entire staff. Sidney's characteristic magnanimity betrayed him that day into a fatal excess. He had risen at the first sound of the trumpet and left his tent completely armed, but observing that Sir William Pelham, an older soldier, had not protected ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... tempest which had driven her company to the shelter of the inn at the crossroads, all had racked her, by reminding her that the hours were flying, and that soon the fault she had committed would be irreparable. One impulsive attempt to redeem it she had made; but it had failed, and, by rendering her suspect, had made reparation more difficult. Still, by daylight it had seemed possible to rest content with the trial made; not so now, when night ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... resignation in the girl's soft voice brought Peter a qualm for laughing at her. He laid an impulsive hand on ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... of life, his singleness of aim, his earnest striving after a standard of holiness seldom to be found even amongst those who professed to practise the higher life, aroused the deep admiration of the impulsive and warm-hearted Dalaber. He sought his rooms, he loved to hear his discourses, he called himself his pupil and his son, and was the most regular and enthusiastic attender of ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... boyish, quivering touch, so withheld from anything but boyishness, even the impulsive humility of his thin, kneeling body, were inexpressibly soothing, inexpressibly comforting. She did not draw away her hands. She let them ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... Mastered by desire impulsive, By a mighty inward urging, I am ready now for singing, Ready to begin the chanting Of our nation's ancient folk-song Handed down from by-gone ages, In my mouth the words are melting, From my lips the tones are gliding, From my tongue they wish to hasten; When ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... the choice of his means. Wine and women, which too often led Philip to forget the duties of government, had no charm for Perseus; he was as steady and persevering as his father had been fickle and impulsive. Philip, a king while still a boy, and attended by good fortune during the first twenty years of his reign, had been spoiled and ruined by destiny; Perseus ascended the throne in his thirty-first year, and, as he had while ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... common-sense and forcible expression, free from wearisome redundancy or the suggestion of an irony that might strike above the heads of the jury. He gained the confidence of clients of all sorts—some of curious, impulsive, and not over-strict character, who might, perhaps, have landed a weaker or less rigidly high-principled advocate in serious blunders; and I do not think that he ever lost a client whom he had once gained.' But the first step was not easy. His solitary ways, his indifference to the lighter pursuits ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... bright, her cheeks were flushed, and it was plain that her impulsive nature was flaming with determination. The shadows were deep in the corners of the saloon, and the man in the stateroom door was not noticed by the three who stood there in the patch of light cast by the ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... consequences to America and humanity had the Rebellion, even then being vaguely devised by Southern Hotspurs, burst upon the nation in the winter of 1856, with the nation's sword of commander-in-chief in the hand of the impulsive Fremont, and Lincoln, inheriting the patient wariness and cool blood of three generations of pioneers and Indian-fighters, wielding only the powerless gavel of Vice-President? But the hour of destiny ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... at perceiving the awful extent to which she had compromised herself with this man by her impulsive visit. Lightly and philosophically as he seemed to take it—as a thing, in short, which every woman would do by nature unless hindered by difficulties—it was no trifle to her as long as he was ignorant of her justification; and this she determined ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... ridiculously and dangerously beyond his means. He could find no rational excuse for the deed. But he had done it. And men again wondered. Men had wondered when he led the Countess out to waltz. That was nothing to this. What! A smooth-chinned youth giving houses away—out of mere, mad, impulsive generosity. ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... that he was impulsive, headstrong, swift in most things, this girl possessed the unique faculty of rendering him acutely self-conscious, and it annoyed him the more, therefore, to find how timorous he could be in putting her feelings to the test. That was the one thing he could never ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... precis of the world's economic wisdom serves not only as a trustworthy text-book, but also as an authoritative denotement of old economic landmarks. In the light it casts on bygone commercial and political conditions, the rapid progress and impulsive changes in present-day methods of trade and legislation become clearly outlined ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... must rest a little, and though Stas is indeed impulsive, nevertheless, where Nell is concerned you may always depend upon him. Moreover, I sent him a postal card not to ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... and commands, and by this articulating process become much more firmly entrenched. Then from the existence of miscellaneous maxims and prohibitions, taught by the elders and linked with whatever impulsive and haphazard punishments are customary, to the formulation of legal codes, with definite penalties attached to specific infringements, is an easy transition. With the invention of written language these laws could become still better fixed and more clearly known. The appointment ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... awake from this dream I must waken the maid!" But awe of the so august and quiet sleeper again restrains him. He does not touch her, but lingeringly gazes at her "blossoming mouth," bows till the warm fragrance of her breath sweeping his face forces forth his impulsive cry: "Awake! Awake! Sacred woman!" He waits with suspended breath. She has not heard. She does not stir. An infinite weakness overtaking him, a mortal coming less, "I will drink life," he sighs, "from sweetest lips, ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... the chiffon tunic of her frock which caught in the hinge. But Mlle. Celie made much clearer impressions in the mould than the man. Yet on the floor of the carriage there is no trace of her shoes. Again I say there is something here which I do not understand." And he spread out his hands with an impulsive ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... of course, a most unorthodox thing for Ingred to blurt out family affairs, and Father and Mother would have been justly indignant had they known, but she was impulsive, and without much worldly wisdom, and Mr. Hardcastle seemed sympathetic, so on the spur of the moment she told him the urgency of Athelstane's need, and how she was trying to meet it. He sat quite quiet for a short ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... sound my wretched lung. [With impulsive candor] My dear Ridgeon: I'll be frank with you. Whats the matter in this house isnt lungs but bills. It doesnt matter about me; but Jennifer has actually to economize in the matter of food. Youve made us feel that we can treat ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • George Bernard Shaw
... nature aided largely in this heroine worship, but she impressed herself on other minds because she was so much an individual, because her personality was of a kind to command reverence and devotion. It was not merely young and impulsive natures who were thus attracted and inspired, for Edith Simcox says that "men and women, old friends and new, persons of her own age and of another generation, the married and the single, impulsive lovers and hard-headed philosophers, nay, even some who ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... twenty rooms, was located in a grove of high trees. The boathouse, ample and attractive in every way, and the sight of several skiffs that had been made fast to the dock caused George to exclaim in his impulsive manner, "There isn't a place like it in all the world! I never saw such a spot before ...
— Go Ahead Boys and the Racing Motorboat • Ross Kay
... does not answer. She stares at me with wide-open eyes; and my impulsive phrases strike with such force against her stupefaction that each one of them seems by degrees to fall back upon myself. I in my turn am left utterly dumfounded; she is so ill at ease that I myself become nervous; her astonishment ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... her wonderingly, saw young Allyne standing near, his eyes turned wistfully upon herself. She flushed a little, and so did he; then, with an impulsive movement, he made a ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... would try to be less impulsive," he was saying to his wife. "Anything in the nature of business you would be so much ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, October 6, 1920 • Various
... honor of Ethel Post, which was a marked social success. The two girls had become thoroughly well acquainted over their golf and had received great benefit from each other's society. Miss Post's calm philosophical view of life had a quieting effect on impulsive Grace, while Grace's energy and whole-hearted way of diving into things proved a ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... often, however. At these places are men who watch the tables and lend money to players. They demand outrageous interest, and they must be paid soon, or there are anxieties. Knowing the good income from the scheme of the hotel, one of these birds of prey took advantage of Monsieur Moore's impulsive nature. The ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... jealous love you bring to me, (As yonder green, impulsive sea Unto the shore doth come and go,) In passion tides would ebb ...
— Daisy Dare, and Baby Power - Poems • Rosa Vertner Jeffrey
... you going to do about it?" Mabel demanded at last. "Believe me, old dear, he's got a bad eye. Now listen here," she said with impulsive generosity. "I've got a scheme. I'll draw enough ahead to send you back. I'll do it to-morrow, ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... and said, "Please do!" (Mem. I must try to remember that an impulsive manner is not suitable to ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... of one of Eleanor's rapid speeches, in the course of which she could pass with astounding swiftness from one mood to another, always left Margaret with a slight feeling of bewilderment. In the present instance she had been greatly moved by Eleanor's impulsive appeal to her not to think badly of her, and had just been about to assure her that indeed she had never judged her conduct hardly when Eleanor had gone on to justify herself, to speak of her future plans, and had wound up as suddenly by refusing ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... Finch would feel on the matter. Theodora had written to her, and received one of her warm impulsive answers, as inconsistent as her whole nature; in one place in despair that her friend's happiness had been sacrificed—in another, rejoicing in her freedom from such intolerable tyranny, and declaring that she was the noblest creature and the naughtiest, and that ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... vagaries of an impulsive but generous soul. To subdue my passions shall hereafter be my law. After conquering all the nations in the universe, it is ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... famous guest that he presently decided to keep him in Weimar, if possible, by making him a member of the Council of State. Goethe was the more willing to remain, since he detested his law practise, and his income from authorship was pitifully small. Moreover, he saw in the boyish, impulsive, sport-loving prince a sterling nature that might be led in the ways of wise rulership. For the nonce this was mission enough. He took his seat in the Council in June, 1776, with the title of Councilor of Legation. At first there was not very much for him to do except to familiarize ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... that, having so signally failed to be of use to Leila in other ways, she would at least serve her as a warning. She had even abstained from defending herself, from making the best of her case, had stoically refused to plead extenuating circumstances, lest Leila's impulsive sympathy should lead to deductions that might react disastrously on her own life. And now that very thing had happened, and Mrs. Lidcote could hear the whole of New York saying with one voice: "Yes, Leila's done just what her mother did. ...
— Autres Temps... - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... the laugh of the old days, the impulsive free laugh of an untroubled spirit, a laugh like a chime of bells, was Joan's answer; then ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... wonder that the wife was grateful? Few—few women indeed are insensible to the power of continued kindness; they may have a heart of stone for the impetuous impulsive lover, but habitual tenderness-that seems so unselfish—touches the finest chords of their nature, and awakens affection that might have lain dormant through a long life, but for this one sweet influence. Thus it was that the wife of five years loved her husband with an almost adoring ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... It's complacent—self-conscious," burst from Jack. "You look as if you were thinking far more about your own brooding than about your father. Antigone is self-forgetting; absolutely self-forgetting." So his rising irritation found impulsive, helpless expression. In the slight silence that followed his words he was aware of the discord that he had crashed into an apparent harmony. He glanced almost furtively at Mrs. Upton. Had she seen—did she guess—the anger, for her, that had broken into these peevish words? She ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... suppression of piracy in the Channel rewarded by an unjust imprisonment. He was now in the first vigour of manhood, with a mind exquisitely cultivated and familiar with the poetry and learning of his day, a nature singularly lofty and devout, a fearless and vehement temper. There was a hot impulsive element in his nature which showed itself in youth in his drawing sword on a neighbour who denounced him to his father, and which in later years gave its characteristic fire to his eloquence. But ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... only too soon leave off thinking of his appetite; for when his heart is occupied, his palate will give him little concern. When he is a man, a thousand impulsive feelings will divert his mind from gluttony to vanity; for this last passion alone takes advantage of all others, and ends by absorbing them all. I have sometimes watched closely those who are especially fond of dainties; who, as soon as they awoke, were thinking of what they should eat during ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... feet two, gentle of voice and impulsive in action, was dragging the sacks from the rear of the wagon before Moody had finished his speech. A knife shone in his hand, and they heard the ripping sound as it bit through the tough canvas. The outlaws ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... photographs of bridges and stations—"vast terminal improvements", "a masterpiece of modern engineering", "the highest, greatest and most architectural of bridges". Of the official under whom these miracles were being wrought—President Mellen—we read: "Nervously organized, of delicate sensibility, impulsive in utterance, yet with an extraordinarily convincing power for vividly logical presentation." An industrial Shelley, or a Milton, you perceive; and all this prodigious genius poured out for the general welfare! "To study ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... her "ohs" Anne cast herself into Marilla's arms and rapturously kissed her sallow cheek. It was the first time in her whole life that childish lips had voluntarily touched Marilla's face. Again that sudden sensation of startling sweetness thrilled her. She was secretly vastly pleased at Anne's impulsive caress, which was probably the reason why ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Black Hawk was impulsive, hopeful and credulous, and so was easily imposed upon; he had an ardent love for the beauties of nature; he was deeply religious, and said that he never took a drink of water from a brook without sincere gratitude to the Great Spirit ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... another palace, the Great Trianon; but it was the Little Trianon which caught the queen's fancy; and, on her expression of a wish to have it for her own, the king at once made it over to her; and, pleased with her new toy, Marie Antoinette, still a girl in her impulsive eagerness for a fresh pleasure (she was not yet nineteen), began to busy herself with remodeling the pleasure-grounds with which it was surrounded. Before the time of Le Notre, the finest gardens ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... out the letter again, and ran down its impulsive staccato sentences, affecting to ignore what a gust of fresh air, high spirits, and good fellowship this flimsy bit of paper wafted into the jaded club-room. On reperusal, it was full of evil presage— 'Al scenery'—but what of equinoctial storms and October fogs? Every ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... faith was founded only on love for a human being, and when Lady Rens, who was intensely passionate and impulsive, suddenly threw all her principles to the winds, and ran away with a Hungarian musician, who had made a furor one season in London by his magnificent violin-playing, her husband, stricken in his soul, and also wounded almost to the death in his pride, abandoned ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... suppose I made a weak fool of myself before them all last night, and they thought I was on the eve of conversion. I half wish I were, or on the eve of anything else. Any change from my present state would seem a relief. But a man cannot go into these things like an impulsive girl, even if he believes in them, which is more than I do. I seem to have fallen into a state of moral and physical imbecility, in which I can only ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... other personality that had marred his fair hopes in his mine—that perverse, impulsive, overweening inner spirit that took the helm at each crisis of his life—was a rage to make the gods above weep if they did not laugh at the jest. And this blind, drunken self that rose up within him to sit leeringly in judgment on his acts, it judged not so ill, ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... they had, in the end, decided that the tears which he had shed on hearing of my grandmother's illness were genuine enough; but they knew, either instinctively or from their own experience, that our early impulsive emotions have but little influence over our later actions and the conduct of our lives; and that regard for moral obligations, loyalty to our friends, patience in finishing our work, obedience to a rule ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... been impulsive," said Lucia speaking very rapidly. "I daresay I'm impulsive, and if my impulses lie in the direction of extending such poor hospitality as I can offer to my friends, and their friends, I am not ashamed of them. Far otherwise. ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... the partner were all alike perfect, and I experienced that entire delight of physical enjoyment which I believe nothing but a valse under such circumstances can give. When it was over I turned to Alan, and exclaimed with impulsive appeal, "Oh, I am so happy,—you must be happy too!" He smiled rather uncertainly, and answered, "Don't bother yourself about me, Evie, I am all right. I told you that we Mervyns had bad nerves; and I am rather tired. ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... and don't you forget it. First, my sister, a Zane all through, which is saying enough. Then as sweet and fiery a little Indian princess as ever stepped in a beaded moccasin, and since, more than one beautiful, impulsive creature. Being in authority, I suppose it's natural that all the work, from keeping the garrison ready against an attack, to straightening out love affairs, should fall upon me. I'll take the care off your shoulders; I'll keep these young ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... one? Then we can talk. Tell me," Miss Saunders lowered her voice, "is Mrs. Baxter in? Oh, damn!" she added cheerfully, as Susan nodded. Susan glanced back, before the door closed, and saw her meet the old lady in the hall and give her an impulsive kiss. ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... efforts an assurance of spontaneity that we do not have often. We know this at least certainly, that the child tries to dance for its own pleasure, and not for any by-end of ostentation and conformity. If we did not know it we should see it. There is a sincerity, a directness, an impulsive truth, about their free gestures that shows throughout all imperfection, and it is to us as a reminiscence of primitive festivals and the Golden Age. Lastly, there is in the sentiment much of a simple human compassion ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of her superb young womanhood intensely alive. Yet—there was too a significant wild shyness about her. My presence seemed at once to put her on her guard. The music of her voice was suddenly hushed, as though she had hurriedly, almost in terror, thrown a robe of reticence about an impulsive naturalness not to be displayed before strangers. As for the storekeeper, he was evidently a familiar acquaintance. He had known her—he said, after she was gone—since ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... always telling Matilda so. She is so impulsive. But as you may have matters of business, Mr. Prosper, on which to speak to Miss Thoroughbung, I ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... skilled in the "gay science" of the troubadour. But of the political capacity which was the characteristic of his house he had little or none. Profuse, changeable, false from sheer meanness of spirit, impulsive alike in good and ill, unbridled in temper and tongue, reckless in insult and wit, Henry's delight was in the display of an empty and prodigal magnificence, his one notion of government was a dream ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... studious man, cold, taciturn, and self-contained as a rule, caring little for general society and devoted to his profession, the want in his life, the blank in his wifeless and childless home, was not to him what it would have been to a more impulsive, less self-reliant nature. If sometimes he instituted an involuntary comparison between his contracted hoped and interests as contrasted with those of other men, books, his work, his studies, soon consoled him. He hardly knew there was a yearning in his breast—a vague, ...
— A Bachelor's Dream • Mrs. Hungerford
... an influence she did not acknowledge, and an original capacity which she never saw. Her view of feeling was mainly theoretical, for she was led in her attitude towards the facts of life, not by sentiment, but by reason. Hers was a thoughtful rather than an impulsive mind, and given to logic ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... day at the house of a friend a M. de Paratte, a colonel in the king's army, and who afterwards became major-general, but who at the time we are speaking of was commandant at Uzes. He was of a very impulsive disposition, and so zealous in matters relating to the Catholic religion and in the service of the king, that he never could find himself in the presence of a Protestant without expressing his indignation at those who had taken up arms against their prince, and also those who without taking up ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... unhesitating, clean-cut decisions. Such judgments on the spur of the moment are not always right, but they are apt to be pretty conclusive. Irregular, jerky nods are signs of irritability, of rash or very impulsive decisions, and often of unreasoning prejudice. The nod made directly forward signifies frankness, dignity, and straight thinking. The tilting of the head a little to one side suggests a habit of indirectness and a ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... forecast, this must be a rare city. Its people, as a community, have signal good qualities and grave defects: they are intelligent, vivacious, courteous, obliging, generous and humane; eager to enjoy, but willing that all the world should enjoy with them; while at the same time they are impulsive, fickle, sensual and irreverent. Paris is the Paradise of the Senses; a focus of Enjoyment, not of Happiness. Nowhere are Youth and its capacities more prodigally lavished; nowhere is Old Age less happy or less respected. Paris has tens of thousands who would eagerly pour out their hearts' ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... resumed, "I name no names. The soul of delicacy and discretion, as of modesty and kindness, I name no names. But as for myself, that I am young I acknowledge. Those whom the gods love are ever young. Yet I am old enough, at least, to be capable of fresh, impulsive feelings. I am old enough to have cast the crude, harsh pessimism of inexperience. I am old enough to have outlived my disillusions. I am old enough to have learned that the good things of life are good, and to understand that the rose-buds in the garden are there to be gathered. ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... One impulsive act on the part of a woman had overthrown all the fine-spun plans of the subtlest spirit that ever attempted to work its will in the face of ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... very eager to be king, very full of far-reaching schemes. Few things in history are more striking than the sudden change, at this moment, from the rule of middle-aged men or (as men of fifty were then often called) old men, to the rule of youths,—from sagacious, worldly-prudent monarchs—to impulsive boys,—from Henry VII. to Henry VIII., from Louis XII. to Frangois ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... life and death. He had completely forgotten Howard's presence in the room. On the threshold of a terrible deed, his thoughts were leagues away. Like a man who is drowning, and close to death, he saw with surprising distinctness a kaleidoscopic view of his past life. He saw himself an innocent, impulsive school boy, the pride of a devoted mother, the happy home where he spent his childhood. Then came the association with bad companions, the first step in wrongdoing, stealing out of a comrade's pocket in school, the death of his ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... desirous of cultivating it to make no resolution, to commit themselves to no impulsive action, without first withdrawing into themselves and taking five or six deep breaths in the manner we have described in ...
— Poise: How to Attain It • D. Starke
... was of Adelaide that Florian thought: of the tall, impulsive, and yet timid, fair girl who was both shrewd and innocent, and of her tenderly colored loveliness, and of his abysmally unmerited felicity in having won her. Why, but what, he reflected, grimacing—what if he had too ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... yet at last be fit only for the place of the unprofitable servant—he may not have committed either sin or crime, yet never have felt the pulsation of a single unselfish emotion. Another, meanwhile, shall have been hurried by an impulsive nature into fault after fault—shall have been reckless, improvident, perhaps profligate, yet be fitter after all for the kingdom of heaven than the Pharisee—fitter, because against the catalogue of faults there could perhaps be set a fairer list of acts of comparative generosity ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... from the beginning, we all knew how it would end. He had always been so quiet and conventional, although by nature an impulsive man; always so temperate and abstemious, although a man with a quick appreciation of pleasure; always so cautious and practical, although an imaginative man, that when, at last, one by one he loosed ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... prominent virtue of the age was hospitality. There were no public inns in those times, hence a sort of gentle necessity compelled the entertainment of wayfarers. The hospitality accorded was the same free and impulsive welcome that the Arab sheik of to-day extends to the traveller whom chance brings to his tent. But while hospitable, the nobles of the heroic age were often cruel, violent, and treacherous. Homer represents his heroes as committing without a blush all sorts of fraud and villanies. Piracy ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... distasteful requirements by a gentlemanly suavity; Sergeant Blossom, self-respecting and respected, perpetually finding something to do to render the general hardships more endurable, and going about it with so little ostentation that it too often passed unappreciated; Hazard, genial, impulsive, generous; Howland, who, on the march, bore the heaviest burden with the least murmuring; and with exemplary fidelity was ever to be found in his place as the guide of the company, plodding along ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood
... last, 'and answer me. Let me see that your morals are not yet utterly corrupt, and that you are still capable of listening to the voice of reason. Impulsive folly I can overlook, but stubborn obstinacy—never! My son...' there was a catch in his breath... 'Mihail Semyonitch has promised to marry you? Hasn't he? Answer ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... is very young and impulsive; that she is a foreigner and therefore inexperienced in our strict etiquette will not excuse her slightest mistake in the eyes of our severe Roman dames, who would be prejudiced against the sister of Napoleon were she ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... French are elated. It's because we lost the Montmorency battle. The Royal Americans and the Grenadiers were too impulsive. We tried to rush slopes damp and slippery from rain, and we were cut up. I received a wound there, and so did Wilton, but neither amounts to anything, and I want to tell you, Lennox, that, although we're depressed, we're not withdrawing. Our general is sick ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... name is that of Goldsmith, and, though deeply influenced in technique and choice of subjects by his association with English men of letters and by his residence in England, in spirit he remained Irish to the end—generous, impulsive, and improvident in his life; genial, gay, and tender-hearted in his works. The Vicar of Wakefield was Dr. Primrose, but he might just as well have been called Dr. Shamrock. No surer proof of the pre-eminence of Irish wit and humor can ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... resign the posts he occupied, lost much of the sympathy of the Cape Dutch. The Uitlanders, also, who had previously enjoyed this sympathy now forfeited it, all the Dutch being inclined to quote the impulsive act of Dr. Jameson as an example of British treachery, and to look upon Mr. Kruger in the light of a hero. Indeed, many of the British, who took merely an outsider's interest in the state of affairs, laboured under the impression that Mr. Kruger was a simple-minded, long-suffering, ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... urging the men. Each man became an impulsive volcano and drove his paddle into the water with such force and fury that the canoes almost leaped out of the river ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... these things been enough to fire the impulsive, passionate Burns with a sullen hatred, the next events would have been. For Code received his insurance without a dispute and, not long afterward, while in Boston for the purpose, had picked up the almost new ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... its seat upon the wrack, and stood before him with downcast and averted head, but he could still see the tears falling like diamond-drops in the clear moonlight. He turned irresolutely away, but he had made only a single step before he was vividly back again with an impulsive and imploring hand upon ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... Mr. Fortescue built up another rounded structure of words, had a likeness to each of her parents, but these elements were rather oddly blended. She had the quick, impulsive movements of her mother, the lips parting often to speak, and closing again; and the dark oval eyes of her father brimming with light upon a basis of sadness, or, since she was too young to have acquired ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... had not the courage to break the fearful news to the impulsive little woman, unaided and alone. She stopped her carriage at a little distance from the house, to beg the support of Roth, who lived close by. But Caroline had heard the carriage-wheels—had looked out—had seen her ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... for this. He feared that he had offended her, and her impulsive declaration swept him from his feet. He watched her face eagerly, hungrily, as she went on, talking very rapidly, and making no effort to disengage her hands, which he ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... Miriam Yankovitch, and Sadie Todd, and Donald Gordon. On the way Peter had met Tom Duggan, and the mournful poet revealed that he had composed a new poem about Mac in the "hole." Immediately afterwards came Grady, the secretary, his pockets stuffed with his papers. Grady, a tall, dark-eyed, impulsive-tempered Irish boy, was what the Socialists called a "Jimmie Higgins," that is, one of the fellows who did the hard and dreary work of the movement, who were always on hand no matter what happened, always ready to have some new responsibility ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... are more desirable to me Than all I staked in an impulsive hour, Making my youth the sport of chance, to be Blighted or torn in its most perfect flower; For I think less of what that chance may bring Than how, before returning into fire, To make my dearest memory of the thing That is but now my ultimate ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... achieved unless there had been soldiers to make it effective? The men had confidence in their commanders and were responsive to their genius. In attack they exhibited impulsive courage, and in defense possessed unyielding firmness. They made days and places forever historic, when their pay was money in little more than name, their garments torn, their rations coarse and scant. Footsore they charged against the dense Blue lines, or made those rapid marches that ...
— Reminiscences of a Rebel • Wayland Fuller Dunaway
... she spoke of herself and Philip somehow recalled to his mind other couples, married lovers starting out somewhere, and his heart tightened perceptibly. After they were gone he sat thinking for a long time, and his impulsive feeling clarified into certainty. Claire and Philip were in love. Perhaps they did not know it yet themselves, and had not spoken, perhaps they had; at any rate, they were in love. It had grown between them in his very presence, and he, doubly blind fool, had not known. If he could have seen, ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... gladly have sent the waiting gentlemen to the right about, for, though he was only twenty, "Gov" Prime, as a junior at Columbia, had been ingenuously devoted to the little lady from the very first evening he saw her. A boy of frank, impulsive nature was "Gov"—a boy still in spite of the budding mustache, the twenty summers and the barely passed "exam" that wound up the junior year and entitled him to sit with the seniors when the great university opened its doors in October. Studies he hated, but tennis, polo, cricket, ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... she had been so impulsive in telling him all that Dr. Harpe had whispered over the afternoon tea at Mrs. Symes's now fashionable Thursday "At Home." It was the first of the coveted cards which Mrs. Terriberry had received and Dr. Harpe took care to adroitly convey the information that the invitation was ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... length. He finished: "You people have twenty Stuart tanks, and a couple of thousand soldiers and cops and undercover-men, here, guarding against sabotage. Don't you realize that a workman who makes stupid or careless or impulsive mistakes is just as dangerous to the plant as any saboteur? If somebody shoots you through the head, it doesn't matter whether he planned to murder you for a year or just didn't know the gun was loaded; you're as dead one way as the other. I should think you'd thank me for trying to eliminate ...
— Day of the Moron • Henry Beam Piper
... exalted in every time and every way; feels, I say, that something new, something unexpected is really about to happen: something that will surely leave a deep mark on his imagination, and last through all his life. I mean that peculiar radiation of impulsive energy issueing from anything really great, vibrating and palpitating from afar, fitting the soul ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... Friedrich is a courageous fellow and he is apt to speak his mind. You remember how he mimicked the military. My husband and I think he makes enemies by his impulsive temper. You know what musicians are. They talk right out. We think his enemies put difficulties in his way. And so nothing is settled. We keep waiting and here we are. Elsa wants to marry. She wants children!" ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... stalls of a darkened theatre watching the performances upon a brilliantly lighted stage, himself—himselves among the characters, for there was a past and a future self for him to look at and ponder upon. The present self hardly counted. All the old ambitions, desires, urgencies, which had been his impulsive forces were gone—quiescent anyhow. He was as sexless, as cool, as an ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... "The boy is a many-sided animal, with budding tastes, clamorous appetites, primitive likes and dislikes, varied interests; an idealist and hater of shams, a reservoir of nerve force, a bundle of contradictions, a lover of fun but a possible lover of the best, a loyal friend of his true friends; impulsive, erratic, impressionable to an alarming degree." Furthermore, the boy is maturing, traversing the path from boyhood to manhood, is unstable, not only in his growth, but also in his thought, is restless because of his natural instability, and sometimes suffers from headiness and independence. ...
— The Boy and the Sunday School - A Manual of Principle and Method for the Work of the Sunday - School with Teen Age Boys • John L. Alexander
... to open, and a loved hand to beckon him within. But it remained pitilessly shut, and the little boy had to accommodate himself as well as he could to a new phase in his mental history—the being excluded—left out in the cold. After making an impulsive step toward the door he turned, plunged his hands into his pockets as if to keep them from attacking the handle of that closed door, and walking to the window, gazed out, silent and motionless. I watched; I was compelled to watch. He was listening with every faculty, every fiber, ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... sound, unfamiliar enough in the Astoria—the sound of someone whistling. Even as Zoe started, wondering if she could trust her ears, Severac Bablon took both her hands, in the impulsive and strangely imperious ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... clutches of that dread hell of which for certain moments I had felt the flaming grasp; he because of a sudden degrading realization that he had attempted to practise on a faithful comrade in arms a cowardly and contemptible piece of treachery. My impulsive gratitude for the measure of justice granted me made his avaricious greed seem even to him despicable, and for an instant Henry H. Rogers ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... governor of Messina, lively and light-hearted, affectionate and impulsive. Though wilful she is not wayward, though volatile she is not unfeeling, though teeming with wit and gaiety she is affectionate and energetic. At first she dislikes Benedick, and thinks him a flippant conceited coxcomb; but overhearing a conversation between her ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... If she had been weaker, if she had been of the quieter, frailer sort, instead of being, as she was, elastic, impulsive, recuperative, she might have been crushed. She was wounded in her heart of hearts, but all her pride and hardihood, of which she had not a little, had now taken up arms against outrageous fortune. She was stung at every thought of August and his letter, of Betsey Malcolm ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... Peggy. In the little box-room over the study. About fifteen, I believe. Haven't the least idea. In a few weeks from now," said Mrs Asplin, answering all the questions at once in her impulsive fashion, the while she walked round the table, stroked Maxwell's curls, bent an interested glance at Robert's collection, and laid a hand on Esther's back, to straighten bowed shoulders. "She is Arthur's sister, so ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... I, reachin' out my hand impulsive. "And I don't care how many cubist pictures you paint up there so long as ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... of its fidelity. Similar qualities had characterized her acting, and they spring from a nature which a close observer has described as clear in perception yet swayed by fantasy; strong of will yet impulsive as quicksilver; finding enjoyment now in animated discussion, now in impetuous riding, now in absolute repose; full of maternal tenderness, yet fond of splendor and the excitements of society; a nature, in short, abounding in contrasts, but substantially that of a true, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... supremacy of self-control," says Herbert Spencer, "consists one of the perfections of the ideal man. Not to be impulsive—not to be spurred hither and thither by each desire that in turn comes uppermost—but to be self-restrained, self-balanced, governed by the joint decision of the feelings in council assembled, before whom every action shall have been fully ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... on, "that you will pardon me if I say that in England custom does not sanction certain freedoms which in the colonies seem to be regarded as of no moment. I am not of this opinion. Miss Peniston is, I hope, to be my wife. She is young, impulsive, and—well, no matter. Some men take these things coolly; I do not. I am sure you will have the good sense to agree with me. When a woman is pledged to a man, it is fit that she should be most guarded in her relations with ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... far from being displeased, Mrs. Payton seemed rather to enjoy her daughter's impulsive outburst, merely cautioning her not to overheat and overexcite herself too much, as the day gave promise of ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... taken a strong fancy to Dick from noticing his willing manner and anxiety to oblige those who had been kind to him at the station, an impression that was more than confirmed subsequently when she witnessed his gallant conduct in plunging into the water to try and save the impulsive Bob. ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... above her head were raised her beautiful bare arms; from her shoulders the loose folds of her mantle floated backward, wing-like—and before us, in the flesh, as in the flesh it was of old before the Grecian sculptors, was the motive of those nobly impulsive, urgent statues of which the immortal ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... the darned thing!" exclaimed Captain Cai. His action, however, was less impulsive than his speech: he removed the hat carefully, lowering his head and clutching the brim between both hands. A small ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... busily engaged on the stage that the storm broke forth which compelled the clergyman to spend the night on the islet, as already described. Of course the storm also forced Winklemann to remain at the station. But that impulsive youth's regard for his "moder" would not permit of his giving in without a struggle. When he saw that the gale increased rapidly, he resolved to start off without delay. He launched his canoe; a half-breed in his employment managed the bow paddle, but they found that their united ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... people, and then his army and navy. The inference was unavoidable that the young Kaiser meant to be a Frederick the Great rather than a "citizen Emperor," as his father had longed to be known. The world has now learnt to discount the utterances of the most impulsive of Hohenzollern rulers; but in those days, when it knew not his complex character, such an army order seemed to portend the ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... Irish Celts, is that of being anthropophagi; and the statement of St. Jerome, that he had seen two Scoti in Gaul feeding on a human carcass, has been claimed as strong corroboration of the assertions of pagan writers. As the good father was often vehement in his statements and impulsive in his opinions, he may possibly have been mistaken, or, perhaps, purposely misled by those who wished to give him an unfavourable impression of the Irish. It is scarcely possible that they could have been cannibal as a nation, since St. Patrick never even alludes to such a custom ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... his attaching qualities, his social, generous nature, his gaiety and "frolicsomeness;" even his finical taste in dress, and his evident proneness to fall too hastily in love, have a value in the portrait, as contrasting with the gloomy colours in which the story sinks at last. The warm, impulsive spirit speaks in every action of his life, from the hour when—a young child, in exile—he strikes his axe into the skull of his foster-father's murderer, to the last grand scene near Svalderoe. You trace it in his absorbing grief for the death of Geyra, the wife of his ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... that the unexpected happened. With a quick little impulsive movement, Genevieve stepped to the new boy's side, and held out ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
... upset the milk over Freddie's trousers, and when he had come back after changing his clothes he began to talk about what a much-maligned man King Herod was. The more he saw of Tootles, he said, the less he wondered at those impulsive views ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... am so sorry you have been so ill!" exclaimed the impulsive girl, taking my hand in both of hers, and sitting down beside me. "I haven't had a chance of coming to see you before; though we've always managed—I mean auntie and I—to hear about you. I would have come to nurse you, but it was no ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... dear!' she said; and with the impulsive generosity of her kind, glanced round and slipped a silver piece ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... same faulty, impulsive, enthusiastic creature I ever was, dear mother. No change of circumstances will, I fear, change my nature; and the sight of these dear old haunts will only deepen the regret I ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... farther into a confused whirl of lights, tones and colors. Her impulsive and sensuous nature, struggling hitherto with the drab commonplace of everyday events and people, was fascinated. It was almost as she had visioned it in her soul; full of lights, music, thrilling accents, ecstatic swoons, strong ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... paper, from which the above extract is taken, the names of fourteen Lonins, or bravos. These impulsive patriots did not restrict their assaults to the aggressive foreigner, but assailed also the nobles who acceded to the foreigners' demands. Several times ministers of state were attacked in the streets, while surrounded by ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Genevieve, that I make superhuman efforts; but no one is master of his thoughts. They are so impulsive and rapid that they seem to escape the control ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... of my tactful speeches. It was culpably, might indeed have been wilfully, ambiguous; and yet it was the kind of clumsy and impulsive utterance which has the ring of a good intention, and is thus inoffensive except to such as seek excuses for offence. My instincts about Mrs. Lascelles did not place her in this category at all. Nevertheless, the ensuing pause was long enough to make me feel uneasy, and my companion only ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... answered, instinctively suppressing a sigh. She began to realize a little what a strange being she had married. With an impulsive need of protection she held him close, hiding her face in his neck. The reality ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... the war had brought a sailor husband. Captain Thomas May, wounded rather severely at Jutland, lost his heart to the plain but attractive young woman with a fine figure who nursed him back to strength, and, as he vowed, had saved his life. He was an impulsive man of thirty, brown-bearded, black-eyed, and hot-tempered. He came from a little Somerset vicarage and was the only son of a clergyman, the Rev. Septimus May. Knowing the lady as "Nurse Mary" only, and falling passionately in love for the first time in his life, he proposed ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... prolonged and more painful than can be described. Sooner or later, even those natures which offer the strongest resistance to the ravages of the poison succumb, and pass hopelessly to the same destruction. Mr. Jocelyn's sanguine, impulsive temperament had little capacity for resistance to begin with, and he had during the last year used the drug freely and constantly, thus making downward advances in months that in some instances require years of moderate indulgence. Moreover, as with alcohol, many natures have an unusual and ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... Dick's impulsive answer with a quick snatch at his elbow. He looked his questioner straight ...
— Facing the German Foe • Colonel James Fiske
... character that did not supply the place of an enlightened firmness. He had married (1770) Marie Antoinette, the daughter of the Empress Maria Theresa. The vivacious young queen, as well as the youthful king, at first charmed the people. But her disregard of court etiquette, and her gay, impulsive ways, provoked the dislike of many high in station, and exposed her to the natural but unmerited suspicion, on the part of the people, that she had faults worse than mere indiscretion. A great scandal connected with a diamond necklace, which an unprincipled woman, the Countess ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... made to him, however, Dr. Dudley shook his head promptly, and his impulsive daughter began at once to form other plans. "Mother wouldn't," she told herself. "No use asking her. Dear! dear! if there were only somebody besides me! Perhaps I can coax ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... be free. The white people of the South are banded, Mr. President, not in prejudice against the blacks—not in sectional estrangement—not in the hope of political dominion—but in a deep and abiding necessity. Here is this vast ignorant and purchasable vote—clannish, credulous, impulsive and passionate—tempting every art of the demagogue, but insensible to the appeal of the statesman. Wrongly started, in that it was led into alienation from its neighbor and taught to rely on the protection of an outside force, it cannot be merged and lost in the two great parties ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... no impulsive Italian, but a sober-minded Englishman of sturdy good sense, and Ambrose was reasonable enough to listen and only drop in a few groats which he knew to ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... country; he consequently proposed to take a crossroad, which lay between that of Lens and that of Bethune. They obtained information at Ablain, and a statement of their route was left for Grimaud. About seven o'clock in the morning they set out. De Guiche, who was young and impulsive, said to Raoul, "Here we are, three masters and three servants. Our valets are well armed and yours ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Darius, quick and impulsive in every thought and action, sprang to the ground as Zoroaster finished speaking, and coming to him, took both his hands and kissed ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... were on making this discovery it is scarcely possible to describe. My first act was to look up and exclaim as before, "God help me!" But there was nothing impulsive or involuntary in the prayer this time. I fully realised the extent of my danger, and, believing that the hour had come when nothing could save my life but the direct interposition of my Creator, I turned to Him with all the fervour ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... fundamentally denying; and not, only so far as would transcend the known limits of human nature: surely "majesty and sanctity" are not inconsistent with many weaknesses. But our judgment concerning a man's motives, his temper, and his full conquest over self, vanity and impulsive passion, depends on the accurate knowledge of a vast variety of minor points; even the curl of the lip, or the discord of eye and mouth, may change our moral judgment of a man; while, alike to my friend and me it is certain that much of what is stated is untrue. ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... Dutton followed the ungovernable, impulsive movement, with his eye, and for the first time he became aware in whose presence he had been exposing his native baseness. Wine had not so far the mastery of him, as to blind him to all the consequences, though it ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... nobler for the sublime criticism of ocean. Talent may make friends for itself, but only genius can give to its creations the divine power of winning love and veneration. Enthusiasm cannot cling to what itself is unenthusiastic, nor will he ever have disciples who has not himself impulsive zeal enough to be a disciple. Great wits are allied to madness only inasmuch as they are possessed and carried away by their demon, While talent keeps him, as Paracelsus did, securely prisoned in the pommel of his sword. To the eye of genius, the veil of the spiritual world is ever ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... two brothers, Esau and Jacob, I suppose we are all drawn at the outset to Esau; our heart goes out to him, as we read, the impulsive, the impetuous, the affectionate, and we feel a corresponding dislike of Jacob's craft and cunning, and selfish calculations. There can be no doubt, we say, which was the meaner character to ...
— Sermons at Rugby • John Percival
... cried, holding out both her hands to him with a sudden impulsive gesture. "Come! let ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to the snares held out for his perdition. And though as yet he honestly shrank from proposing to Beatrice or himself a marriage without the consent, and even the knowledge, of his parents, yet Randal was quite content to leave a nature, however good, so thoroughly impulsive and undisciplined, to the influences of the first strong passion it had ever known. Meanwhile, it was so easy to dissuade Frank from even giving a hint to the folks at home. "For," said the wily and able traitor, "though we may be sure of Mrs. Hazeldean's consent, and her ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... people move in the same set," returned Errington, feeling absurdly curious, and yet not knowing how to get at the train of recollection or association which underlay her words—words evidently unstudied and impulsive. ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... or intention to treat them with injustice. Conscious that they might be crowded out by the greater energy and enterprise of white settlers—that they could no longer depend on their means of livelihood in the past, when the buffalo and other game were plentiful, these restless, impulsive, illiterate people were easily led to believe that their only chance of redressing their real or fancied wrongs was such a rising as had taken place on the Red River in {394} 1869. It is believed that English settlers in the Prince Albert district secretly fomented the rising with the hope ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
Copyright © 2025 Dictionary One.com
|
|
|
