"Inspiration" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fierce, desperate, clearheadedness of a strong, cool-nerved man face to face with despair, a voice—a female voice, lifted in song—sounded across his path, nearer and nearer. And now a wave of hope, of relief, surged through Laurence Stanninghame's heart, for there flooded in upon him, as with an inspiration, a way out of the situation. For he knew both the voice and the singer, and at that moment a turn in the bushes brought the latter ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... every note, and saw her fingers playing it on the piano; now smiling, over what she liked; now shaking her head over what displeased her. This spirit he took as the critic and judge of the whole work. There have rarely been such instances of actual personal inspiration in any work of art, and certainly none which do more credit to the absorption of the artist-mind in the worship of its idol. Furthermore, much of the composition was done at the home preparing for Caroline's actual presence, and he wrote those suave and optimistic pages of music to an accompaniment ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... who stood at work, Patient and accurate, full fourscore years, Cherished his sight and touch by temperance; And, since keen sense is love of perfectness, Made perfect Violins, the needed paths For inspiration and high mastery." ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... prophecy, a cure or a devastating curse. Moreover, social tradition treasures the memory of these revelations, and, blending them with the contributions of humbler folk—for all of us dream our dreams—provides in myth and legend and tale, as well as in manifold other art-forms, a stimulus to the inspiration of future generations. For most purposes fine art, at any rate during its more rudimentary stages, may be studied in connection ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... Keese with the daughter of George Pomeroy and Ann Cooper. Renewing in all ways the charm and grace of its early days, "Edgewater," as the home of Mr. George Pomeroy Keese, the grandson of Fenimore Cooper's youngest sister Ann, commands at the foot of the lake its length, breadth, beauty, and inspiration. ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips
... qualify that a little. Nothing persuaded me that this guidance, so infallible, so constant, owed its origin to what men call a being; I certainly found no name for it; exactness, I think, might place its truest description in some such term as energy, inner force or inspiration; yet I must admit that, with its steady repetition, there awoke in me an attitude towards it that eluded somewhere also an emotion. And in this emotion, in its quality and character, hid remotely a personal suggestion: ...
— The Garden of Survival • Algernon Blackwood
... greater width than length, ran parallel to the facade; the other, which was longer than it was wide, stood at right angles with the former, exactly opposite to the entrance. The decoration of these chambers took its inspiration from the scheme which prevailed in the time of the Memphite dynasties, but besides the usual scenes of agricultural labour, hunting, and sacrifice, there were introduced episodes from the public life of the deceased, and particularly the minute portrayal of the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... father's handwriting, which he had often seen before in account-books and memoranda, and read eagerly some trifling poems, which did not show much genius, nor much mastery of language and rhythm,—such poems, in short, as a self-educated man, with poetic taste and feeling rather than poetic inspiration or artistic culture, might compose with credit, but not for fame. But suddenly, as he turned over these "Occasional Pieces," Leonard came to others in a different handwriting,—a woman's handwriting, ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a few fanatics to divine inspiration increased the evil. While the Reformation had continually appealed from the pretended authority of the Church to the real authority of the holy Scriptures, these enthusiasts not only rejected the authority of the Church, but of the Scriptures also; they spoke only of an inner word, of an internal ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... 'Hermes' is a scribal error for 'Herines,' and that the scribe has added 'thou' out of his own head, to keep 'Hermes' company. The context bears this out; for the author utterly rejects the inspiration of the Muses in the preceding stanza, and proceeds to invoke furies, harpies, and, to use his own expression, 'all this lothsome sort.' Many of the lines almost defy scansion, so that no help is to be got from observing the run of the lines. Nevertheless, this fresh instance of the occurrence ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... the old-time pastor-preacher is becoming as rare as the former general practitioner; when the lines of division between speaker, educator, expert in social hygiene, are being sharply drawn—as though new methods insured of themselves fresh inspiration, and technical knowledge was identical with spiritual understanding—it would be worth while to dwell upon the culture of the pastoral office and to show that ingenuity is not yet synonymous with insight, and that, in our profession at least, card-catalogues cannot take the place of the personal ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... O Henry! always striv'st thou to be great 335 By thine own act—yet art thou never great But by the Inspiration of great Passion. The Whirl-blast comes, the desert-sands rise up And shape themselves; from Heaven to Earth they stand, As though they were the Pillars of a Temple, 340 Built by Omnipotence in its own honour! But the Blast pauses, and their shaping spirit Is fled: the mighty Columns were but ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... thing with another. You can't leave a girl alone anywheres here, unless she's taken in by some perfessor or ranger or guide or cook or chauffeur or something, who comes along and carries her off to show her the bears or Old Faithful or Inspiration Point or something. Seems to me like we've heard them words before, too—and then there's Lovers' Leap and the Devil's Slide. We've even got them in Ioway, where the hills ...
— Maw's Vacation - The Story of a Human Being in the Yellowstone • Emerson Hough
... Changelings, and the Coniurer writeth downe their Sayings in a Booke, groveling on the ground, as if he whispered to the Devil to tell him the truth, and so expoundeth the Letter, as it were by inspiration. Many other foolish Rites they have, whereupon they doe dote ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... crossed the viaduct and stopped to gaze round-eyed upon a pile of empty coffins meant for the bodies of the identified dead found up and across the river in the ruins of Johnstown proper. As they gazed the Sergeant, seeking transportation for the coffins, came along. A somewhat malicious inspiration of military genius lighted his eye. With the best imitation possible of a regular army man, he shouted to the idlers, "Each of you men take a ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... benevolence of heart. In him the afflicted and the poverty-stricken ever found a sympathising friend, and if none of the rewards which the ruling faction were ready to shower on the Irishman of his position who looked to the Castle for inspiration, fell to his share, he enjoyed a recompense more precious in the prayers and the blessings of the poor. The steps of his door were crowded with the patients who flocked to him for advice, and for whom he prescribed gratuitously—not without some reluctance, ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... the bactrian's frame With anger was inflated, Till, growing larger, he became Egregiously elated; For inspiration's sudden spell Had pointed ...
— Fables for the Frivolous • Guy Whitmore Carryl
... indirectly connected with Rousseau's energetic attack upon another great Encyclopaedist leader, the famous Letter to D'Alembert on Stage Plays. "There," Rousseau said afterwards, "is my favourite book, my Benjamin, because I produced it without effort, at the first inspiration, and in the most lucid moments of my life."[344] Voltaire, who to us figures so little as a poet and dramatist, was to himself and to his contemporaries of this date a poet and dramatist before all else, the author of Zaire and ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... spiritual dignity. Why are you incenst against him who comes forward to meet you and all mankind with his love? Did you know how his doctrine comforts me, how he lifts up my soul and guides it heavenward, how in his mouth piety and religion find the words and images of inspiration, which bear his scholars as with the wings of the spirit into the regions above the earth, you would not think and speak thus harshly of him. Learn to know him more nearly; seek his intercourse; and you will soon be moved by penitence and love to abjure ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... doxology is the refrain or final stanza of each of his three long hymns, "Morning," "Evening" and "Midnight," printed in a Prayer Manual for the use of the students of Winchester College. The "Evening Hymn" drew scenic inspiration, it is told, from the lovely view in Horningsham Park at "Heaven's Gate Hill," while walking to and ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... man?—a creature without inspiration, Gross of form and feature, dull of inclination? Or was his primordial self a something higher? Fresh from test and ordeal ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... to speak a few earnest words to Umslopogaas, pointing out that matters must go no further as regards Thomaso, whom I knew that he and his people hated, Goroko went back to the circle and was seized with a new burst of inspiration. ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... dabbled in verse, he sketches and he has written, but without brilliancy. Accident made him a lawyer, but he was really intended to be an artist; he would have produced no masterpiece, for genius is not in him, but he would have been happy in his work and perhaps have given inspiration to men of greater talent. Without being a fanatic or dogmatic, he is strongly religious; religion to him has a meaning and is not merely a convention; he has a code which he has always observed and ideals which he has preserved; he is charitable in his judgments and has never allowed ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... California mine-owner, the negro, and perhaps a stray visiting Indian chief, represent widely differing and highly interesting forms of life and opinion. Whenever native genius has cast aside foreign influence and has found inspiration in American traditions and institutions, the extent and richness of its literary ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... the deep sea of passionate sex is a greater disaster still. And now we have only these two things: sex as a fatal goal, which is the essential theme of modern tragedy: or ideal purpose as a deadly parasite. Sex passion as a goal in itself always leads to tragedy. There must be the great purposive inspiration always present. But the automatic ideal-purpose is not even a tragedy, it is a slow humiliation ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... even more than a hope. It was an inspiration, a passion. For it the Jews 'passed through fire and water,' enduring tribulation and death for the sake of the Unity. All the Jewish martyrologies ...
— Judaism • Israel Abrahams
... music of the carnival was under the direction of the competent leadership of Mr. Gustav Hinrichs, who, with his splendid military band, gave pleasure to thousands of spectators and inspiration to the able participants, quickening their steps and urging them on each night to even better work. The executive committee spared no pains to make every part attractive to the public. Every convenience of the spectators was promptly attended to. New attractions were added from day to day, ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... while in a state of bad health, produced, in the course of a few hours, one or two thousand rhymed lines, some of which he repeated in our hearing afterwards, and which were full of point and poetry. We cannot see that Caedmon's lines betray any weird inspiration; but when rehearsed the next day to the Abbess Hilda, to whom the town-bailiff of Whitby conducted him, she and a circle of learned men pronounced that he had received the gift of song direct from heaven! They, after one or two other trials ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... Lord confirm as an authoritative bestowal, the name which, through inspiration, had been assumed by His obedient children, The Church of Jesus Christ. The Lord's explanation as to the one and only Name by which the Church could be appropriately known is cogent and convincing. It was not the church of Lehi or Nephi, of Mosiah or Alma, of Samuel or ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... had to hurry off to school, and it was a pity to call them early: they had lessons to learn in the afternoon. To them the garden was work, not play as it should have been; so they failed to gain that contact with mother earth which gives inspiration as well as health; they failed to acquire a love of nature, became infected with the germ of gregariousness, preferred the glare of lights, the rush of hurrying crowds, and lost the relish for fresh air and quiet. This second generation came to the city boarding-house and flat as soon as ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards
... unique and of quite exceptional interest, but because it strikes precisely that note of real antiquity that underlies the modern din and bustle of Antwerp, though apt to be obscured unless we listen needfully. Happy, indeed, was the inspiration that moved the city to buy this house from its last private possessor, Edward Moretus, in 1876. To step across this threshold is to step directly into the merchant atmosphere of the sixteenth century. The once great printing house ...
— Beautiful Europe - Belgium • Joseph E. Morris
... with defeat perching amid her freckles. "He's got ye this time," her face said, and the elder's expression of placid satisfaction affirmed the same opinion. But Timmins rose to a sudden inspiration. ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... the party were now really ill from the foul stench in which they had lived so long. The visions of liberty that had first lured them to desperate efforts under the inspiration of Rose and Hamilton had at last faded, and one by one they lost heart and hope, and frankly told Colonel Rose that they could do no more. The party was therefore disbanded, and the yet sanguine leader, with Hamilton for ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... reminding one of the St. Sebastian of Guido Roni in the museum of the Capitol; a face of the noblest manhood, without a single coarse feature. His manner, although quiet, gave the impression of keen enthusiasm, or, more rightly speaking, of unworldly inspiration. All who saw him were powerfully attracted, but half-unconsciously felt a slight doubt whether even so fine a specimen of manhood was quite fitly organized and equipped for the strife of existence. At the university he had ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... deep shadows from the trees. There they expected to find him, breathing the air of orange blossoms, gazing enraptured into the water, and on the gold fish and the swans and the fountains. He would be teasing Nature for a sonnet's inspiration. ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... are technically superior to the first two, inasmuch as they show mastery of a more difficult form. But their appeal is not so great; there is lacking a something that might be inspiration, personal sympathy—some indefinable essential that the author himself has taught us to expect. They are less hamsunsk than most of Hamsun's work. Hamsun is at his best among the scenes and characters he loves; tenderness and sympathy make up so great a part of his charm that he is hardly recognizable ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... The very thought of him, faring quietly about among his hills and lakes, murmuring his calm verse, in a sober and temperate joy, looking everywhere for the same grave qualities among quiet homekeeping folk, brings with it a high inspiration. But we tend to think of Wordsworth as a father and a priest, rather than as a brother and a friend. He is a leader and a guide, not a comrade. We must learn that, though he can perhaps turn our heart the right way, towards the right things, we cannot ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... vehicles began to move along the highway, with that alert perception peculiar to a state of excitement, and which seems to be a sort of inspiration, she became aware that her headlong pace and distracted air might bring on her remark and suspicion. She therefore put the boy on the ground, and, adjusting her dress and bonnet, she walked on at as rapid a pace as ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... myself, when I am at a loss, "Never mind, we shall have it at seven o'clock to-morrow morning." If I have forgot a circumstance, or a name, or a copy of verses, it is the same thing. There is a passage about this sort of matutinal inspiration in the Odyssey,[164] which would make a handsome figure here if I could read or write Greek. I will look into Pope for it, who, ten to one, will not tell me the real translation. I think the first hour of the morning is also favourable ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... power and liberality of thought were apparent, not only in continual amplification and illustration of scriptural story by the artist's own invention, but in the acceptance of profane mythology, as part of the Scripture, or tradition, given by Divine inspiration. ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... name of God, he preaches content to the poor and oppressed, flatters the rich and powerful, and makes religious tyranny the handmaiden of political privilege, he blasphemes. And when he takes the Bible in his hand, and says it was written by the inspiration of God, ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... Spencer girl—or a Spicer—going to college! Miss Cordelia gasped. If Mary had been noticing, she might not have pursued her inspiration further, but her mind was running along a breathless panorama of Niagara Falls, Great Lakes, Chicago, the farms of the Middle West, Yellowstone Park, geysers, the Old Man of the Mountain, Aztec ruins, redwood forests, orange groves and at the end of the vista—like a statue at ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... This line marks a change in the direction of David's thought. Up to stanza X it was the glorious past that he had been urging upon Saul's attention. But now he realizes that true inspiration comes not so much from a re-living of one's achievements, as from the thought of the permanence of ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... his studies the great name of Brunellesco was still the inspiration of all Florence, and we cannot doubt that Leonardo was open to it, since we find among his sketches the plan of the church of Santo Spirito[Footnote 1: See Pl. XCIV, No. 2. Then only in course of erection after the designs of Brunellesco, though he was already dead; finished in 1481.] and a lateral ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... felt nerve and resolution fail her. She looked at Mrs. Hurd and wrung her hands. The mother was muttering and moving, but not yet fully awake; and Willie lay as before. Hardly knowing what she was doing, she drew the curtains back, as though inspiration might come with the light. The rain-clouds trailed across the common; water dripped heavily from the thatch of the cottage; and a few birds twittered from some bedraggled larches at the edge of the common. Far away, beyond and beneath ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and Hamilton Fish lieutenant-governor to fill the vacancy occasioned by Addison Gardiner's election to the new Court of Appeals. The president of this seceders' mass-meeting was Churchill C. Cambreling, an old associate of Martin Van Buren, but its leader and inspiration was John Van Buren. He drafted the address to the people, his eloquence made him its chief orator, and his enthusiasm seemed to endow him ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... out, we pray" Hereat he paused; his better heart Strove strongly then; prompted a worthier part Than coldly to endure his doom. Speak out? Ay, speak, and for the brave, Who else no voice or proxy have; Frankly their spokesman here become, And the flushed North from her own victory save. That inspiration overrode— Hardly it quelled the galling load Of personal ill. The inner feud He, self-contained, a while withstood; They waiting. In his troubled eye Shadows from clouds unseen they spy; They could not mark within his breast ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville
... be the word for the present dress of Englishwomen. It forms in itself a lovely picture to the eye, and is not merely the material or the inspiration of a picture. It is therefore the more difficult of transference to the imagination of the reader who has not also been a spectator, and before such a scene as one may witness in a certain space of the ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... of the uncultivated in our own days, undoubtedly, with somewhat different aspect, presented themselves at Rome. The enthusiasms, the visions, the loud preaching and praying, the dull iteration and reiteration of inspired truth till all the inspiration is driven out, were all probably to be heard and witnessed in the early Christian days at Rome. Not all the converts were saints,—and none of them were such saints as the Catholic painters of the last three centuries have prostituted Art and debased Religion ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... introduced into Swedish poetry by Runeberg. Although born of Swedish parents, he was brought up in Finland, his mind being nurtured in the traditions and the mixed racial influences of his new fatherland. Thus he breathed a new spirit, and a new inspiration, drawn from the realities of life, into poetical fiction. He was a realist in the best sense of that much-misused word. He sought his ideals in life, instead of outside of it and above it in imaginary creations. ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough
... destroyed because the white man came here only to gratify his cupidity. The priests could bring no inspiration sufficient to overcome the degradation caused by the traders. The Marquesan saw that Jesus had small influence over their rulers. Civilization lost its opportunity because it gave precept, ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... — N. imagination; originality; invention; fancy; inspiration; verve. warm imagination, heated imagination, excited imagination, sanguine imagination, ardent imagination, fiery imagination, boiling imagination, wild imagination, bold imagination, daring imagination, playful imagination, lively imagination, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... stagnant self-complacence, and you discern no essential difference. "Water's water," you say, with your broad, stupid generalization, and go oozing along contentedly through peat-bogs and meadow-ditches, mounting, perhaps, in moments of inspiration, to the moderate sublimity of a cranberry-meadow, but subsiding with entire satisfaction into a muck-puddle; and all the while the little brook that you patronize when you are full-fed, and snub when you are hungry, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... refreshment which occasionally comes when one has gone body and soul out of doors, or when one is delivered over to the enchantment of sober and elevating music, and suddenly made aware of the better things that have been long forgotten. Such experiences are a moral inspiration. It is as though, the clamor of the world being for the moment shut out, one hears at last the voices that speak with authority. For an instant the broad sweep of truth flashes upon eyes that have been too intently watchful of affairs near at hand. The ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... Then an inspiration flashed on Godfrey's bewildered mind. Suddenly he recollected that, by the direction of heaven, Mrs. Parsons had sewn a ten shilling piece into the lining of his waistcoat, "in case he should ever want any money sudden-like." He undid that garment and heedless of the mockery of ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... "How splendid! Such an inspiration! Only think, my love, you were to be kept bright and cheerful, and what could be better for ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... must use representation. Thus a man will paint an execution, and, fearing to miss with his first barrel of significant form, will try to hit with his second by raising an emotion of fear or pity. But if in the artist an inclination to play upon the emotions of life is often the sign of a flickering inspiration, in the spectator a tendency to seek, behind form, the emotions of life is a sign of defective sensibility always. It means that his aesthetic emotions are weak or, at any rate, imperfect. Before a work of art people ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... salt-junk. Thereafter, the rum buzzing in his head, he ran on in a vivacious way upon all things under the sun, save himself, so that the windy night seemed very far away, indeed, and the lamplight and fire to lend an inspiration to his nimble tongue, until, in a lull of the engaging discourse, he caught my uncle peering greedily into the cabin, all but licking his lips, his nostrils distended to the savor, his flooded eyes fixed upon the fresh beef ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... an ascendant in public assemblies. Vane was noted in all civil transactions for temper, insinuation, address, and a profound judgment; in all religious speculations, for folly and extravagance. He was a perfect enthusiast; and fancying that he was certainly favored with inspiration, he deemed himself, to speak in the language of the times, to be a man above ordinances, and, by reason of his perfection, to be unlimited and unrestrained by any rules which govern inferior mortals. These whimseys, mingling with pride, had ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... still the meaning of the affair remained to him a mystery. By way of answer, he fell to sucking at his pipe with such vehemence that at length the pipe began to gurgle like a bassoon. It was as though he had been seeking of it inspiration in the present unheard-of juncture. But the pipe only gurgled, et ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... like Gordon! I wonder he consents to have a name at all. When I was telling some one about the young men who work under his orders—the young savants—he said I must not say that—I must not speak of their working 'under his orders.' I don't know what he would like me to say! Under his inspiration!" ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... 2 combined) spirit, spiritual, perspire, transpire, respire, aspire, conspiracy, inspiration, expiration, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... and this is simpler than the scratch {108} reflex, which consists of a rapid alternation of flexion and extension by one leg, while the other is stiffly extended and supports the trunk. Coughing, which would be called a reflex rather than an instinct, consists of a similar alternation of inspiration and forced expiration, and swallowing consists of a series of tongue, throat and gullet movements. These compound reflexes show that we cannot accept the simple definition that is sometimes given for an instinct, that it is a compound of reflexes. Such a ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... faces of the women one by one, and talking softly to himself in a way that had grown upon him as his age increased. 'Yet they are very well: that one with her shoulder turned is pure and charming—the brown-haired one will pass. All very harmless and innocent, but without character; no soul, or inspiration, or eloquence of eye. What an eye was hers! There is not a girl among them so beautiful. . . . Tipman! Come and take it away. I don't think I will subscribe to these papers any longer—how long have I subscribed? Never mind—I take no interest in these things, and I suppose I must ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... does no more than set at rest the fable of the "Romanoff Execution," it will have done its work by characterizing the source and methods and objects of its inspiration. If it raises the presumption of generosity in quarters generally subject to suspicion, it will be equally praiseworthy for expelling the darkness that has always hovered around Imperial thrones. If it ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... startling unfolding of the poetic gift, of this passage of a soft and dreamy boy into the keenest, boldest, sternest of poets, the free and mighty leader of European song, was, what is not ordinarily held to be a source of poetical inspiration—the political life. The boy had sensibility, high aspirations, and a versatile and passionate nature; the student added to this energy, various learning, gifts of language, and noble ideas on the capacities and ends of man. But it was the factions of Florence which ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... family and the young clerics attached to the palace chapel; he was the life and soul of the Academy of the palace, and we have still, in the Dialogue of Pepin (son of Charlemagne) and Alcuin, a sample of the intellectual exercises in which they indulged. It was under his inspiration that Charles wrote his famous letter de litteris colendis (Boretius, Capitularia, i. p. 78), and it was he who founded a fine library in the palace. In 790 Alcuin returned to his own country, to which he had always been greatly attached, and stayed there some time; but Charlemagne needed him to combat ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Jehovah.' If our religion does not drive the wheels of daily life, so much the worse for our life and our religion. But, above all, this charge reminds us that the secret of right living is to imitate God. These peasants were to find direction, as well as inspiration, in gazing on Jehovah's character, and trying to copy it. And we are to be 'imitators of God, as beloved children,' though our best efforts may only produce poor results. A masterpiece may be copied in some wretched little newspaper blotch, but the great artist ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... property for residential purposes in several cities. The decision in this case was broad, comprehensive and far-reaching. This important, fair and equitable decision has given the colored American new hope and new inspiration. It has strengthened and intensified his loyalty and devotion to his country, his government, its flag and its institutions. It makes him feel that with all of its faults and shortcomings, our form of government is superior to, and better than that of any other, and that by a few more decisions ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... proved an inspiration to Mr. Burroughs cannot be doubted. Possibly we should never have had him as a nature writer at all, had he spent his impressible youthful years in a less favored locality. It is, however, a curious fact that the town which produced this lover of nature ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... splendour of their coming faded—faded imperceptibly day after day; Denton's eloquence became fitful, and lacked fresh topics of inspiration; the fatigue of their long march from London told in a certain stiffness of the limbs, and each suffered from a slight unaccountable cold. Moreover, Denton became aware of unoccupied time. In one place among the carelessly heaped lumber ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... readers of all ages. Students of piano, violin or other instruments need to know how the great composers lived their lives. In every musical career described in this book, from the old masters represented by Bach and Beethoven to the musical prophets of our own day, there is a wealth of inspiration and practical guidance for the artist in any field. Through their struggles, sorrows and triumphs, divine melody and harmony came into being, which will bless the world for ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... saw any one else except you, and Maude, who sat beside you. I knew you would be there, and I looked the room over, missing you at first, and feeling as if something were wanting to fire me up; then, when I found you, the inspiration came, and if I began to flag ever so little, I had only to look at your blue eyes and my blood was ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... victories." Roswitha doubtless had some similar idea, but for the present her joy over the new arrival knew no bounds. Without further ado she called the child "little Annie," which the young mother took as a sign. "It must have been an inspiration," she said, "that Roswitha hit upon this particular name." Even Innstetten had nothing to say against it, and so they began to talk about "little Annie" long ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... still more mysterious sparkle of the midnight stars. This sense of the presence of the shadow of immensity—immensity itself cannot be felt any more than measured—this sight like that vouchsafed to Moses of the "backparts" of the Divine—the Divine itself cannot be seen—has been the inspiration of all the highest poetry of the world—of the "Paradise Lost," of the "Divina Commedia," of the "Night Thoughts," of Wordsworth and Coleridge, of "Festus," and, highest far, of the Hebrew Prophets, as they cry, "Whither can we go from Thy presence? ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... occupied by a charming old English gentleman, a perfect example of the old school, learned, benevolent, and very fond of animals and feathered pets. No one can tell what chance it was that brought the unhappy and wounded young rook to the window of this good man. But possibly it was a real inspiration on the part of the young bird. Toby was wet, weary, wounded and hungry, and as he looked in upon the cheerful wood fire and the kindly face of the master of the house, his longing expression was met by ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... impassioned vehemence, and the most redundant energy of gesture, he went on to declaim against the influences of civilisation upon language and manners as being fatal to all real poetry. If the true inspiration yet existed upon earth, it burned in the hearts and brains of men far removed from cities, salons, and the clash and din of social influences. Your only true poets were the unlettered peasants, who poured forth their hearts in song, not because they wished to ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... thoughts and profound confessions in these letters, which would have commanded the praise of Goethe, had they been written by a rival; and coming, as they did, from a devotee who declared that she drew her inspiration from him alone, they must have filled his soul with incense, of which that burned by the priest in the temple of the gods is only an emblem. To be brief and compendious on this book, it appears to be a heart unveiled. German ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... London morning journals had been making a great feature of the Scarnham affair from the moment Parkinson, on Starmidge's inspiration, had supplied the Press with its details, and it had that day printed an exhaustive resume of the entire history of the case, brought up to the discovery of Frederick Hollis's body. Easleby bought a copy of this issue as soon as he and Starmidge returned to town, and carefully blue-pencilled ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... the division of labour implies a common understanding among the workers, and in history no such understanding exists. Except in the preparatory operations of external criticism, each worker follows the guidance of his own private inspiration; he is at no pains to work on the same lines as the others, nor does he pay any regard to the whole of which his own work is to form a part. Thus no historian can feel perfectly safe in adopting the results of another's work, as may be done in the established sciences, for he does not know ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... advice as to shopping, recommending Herbault for toques and Juliette for hats and bonnets; he added the address of a fashionable dressmaker to supersede Victorine. In short, he made the lady see the necessity of rubbing off Angouleme. Then he took his leave after a final flash of happy inspiration. ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... unduly by the indescribable quality of her glances. The German woman was quite ordinary; there were two boys to look after; they were ordinary, too, I presume; and Flora, I understand, was very attentive to them. If she taught them anything it must have been by inspiration alone, for she certainly knew nothing of teaching. But it was mostly "conversation" which was demanded from her. Flora de Barral conversing with two small German boys, regularly, industriously, conscientiously, ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... shod good Winnie in such a manner that she could not sink in the snow; and he clad her over the loins with a sheep-skin dyed to her own colour, which the wild horses were never tired of coming up and sniffing at; taking it for an especial gift, and proof of inspiration. And Winnie never came home at night without at least a score of ponies trotting shyly after her, tossing their heads and their tails in turn, and making believe to be very wild, although hard pinched by famine. Of course Tom would get them all into his pound in ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... interesting fact that this impressiveness depends only in a slight degree upon the fulfillment of the old dreams and prophecies. To be sure they are fulfilled; but we are not required to put faith in the inspiration either of the Arab soothsayer or of the Christian monk. Their vaticinations might be mere fallible guess-work; Don Cesar might live and give them the lie, so far as any external constraint is concerned. But he himself feels that the heavy hand of fate is upon him and that continued life would ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... uplifted on his tormentors, his mate ceased to bale out the pea-soup, and the whole ship seemed paralysed. The boatswain, having checked himself in the middle of his long-winded dinner-tune, drew a fresh inspiration, and dashed off into the opposite sharp, abrupt, cutting sound of the "Pipe belay!" the essence of which peculiar note is that its sounds should be understood and acted on with the ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... the greater part of the night I lay awake, musing upon the work which I had determined to execute. For a long time my brain was dry and unproductive; I could form no plan which appeared feasible. At length I felt within my brain a kindly glow; it was the commencement of inspiration; in a few minutes I had formed my plan; I then began to imagine the scenes and the incidents. Scenes and incidents flitted before my mind's eye so plentifully, that I knew not how to dispose of them; I was in a regular embarrassment. At length I got out of ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... finger; it would not go over the middle joint, but persisted in sticking fast just where the one he bought stopped. It was a magnificent little affair—almost enough to bribe a girl to say "Yes" for the pleasure of wearing it, and Maurice congratulated himself on the happy inspiration. Being in a tempting shop, he also bethought himself of carrying out with him some trifling gifts for his old friends; and by the time he had finished his selection, he found to his great satisfaction that he might return to the hotel for his luggage, ...
— A Canadian Heroine - A Novel, Volume 3 (of 3) • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... so that the face look upward, all the back part of the head being under water, and its weight consequently in a great measure supported by it, the face will remain above water quite free for breathing, will rise an inch higher every inspiration, and sink as much every expiration, but never so low as that the water may come ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... You're an inspiration, Senator. Just like that dago or Dutchman or whoever he was who tried to smash up the windmills. But you ...
— Makers of Madness - A Play in One Act and Three Scenes • Hermann Hagedorn
... slept, loved, and hated, like another; my life was as the vapor and is not; but this I saw and knew: this if anything of mine, is worth your memory." That is his "writing"; it is, in his small human way and with whatever degree of true inspiration is in him his inscription, or scripture. That is ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... its present message began to be heard through their first though faltering interpreter, Christian Conrad Sprengel, a German botanist and school-master, who upon one occasion, while looking into the chalice of the wild geranium, received an inspiration which led him to consecrate his life thence-forth to the solution of the floral hieroglyphics. Sprengel, it may be said, was the first to exalt the flower from the mere status ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... act or function of breathing; the act by which air is drawn in and expelled from the lungs, including inspiration ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... all is a snare to the unhappy; the smallest matter brings the sick mind back to its woes; but the greatest evil of certain woes is the persistency which makes them a fixed idea pervading our lives. A constant sorrow ought rather to be a divine inspiration. You love flowers for themselves, whereas I love them as I love to listen to fine music. So, as I was saying, the secret of a mass of things escapes me. You, my old friend, you have a passion,—that of the horticulturist. When you return to town ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... historical relationship, we can trace in the lofty moral and spiritual teachings of the former, as contrasted with the grotesque and polytheistic representations of the latter, the veritable action of the Spirit of God upon the minds of men. Modern research has, in fact, raised the doctrine of inspiration from a vague and conventional belief to the level of an ascertained fact, evidenced by observation. Just as a scientific man can watch his facts under his microscope or in his test tubes, so such comparison as has been suggested, between Genesis and the cuneiform tablets, enables us to watch ...
— Gloria Crucis - addresses delivered in Lichfield Cathedral Holy Week and Good Friday, 1907 • J. H. Beibitz
... greatest Minister that ever governed England. Foremost among the gifts by which he acquired his supreme ascendency must be placed his power of parliamentary speaking. He was not, as his father was, an orator in that highest sense of oratory which implies something of inspiration, of genius, of passionate and poetic rapture; but he was a public speaker of extraordinary merit. He had while still a youth what Coleridge aptly termed "a premature and unnatural dexterity in the combination of words," and this developed into "a power of pouring ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... an inspiration I plunged my shaking hand into my great-coat pocket and pulled out a brandy-flask. Miss Jencks had taken it from ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... for religion and temperance, and exhorted the little boys to be good and diligent and try to become like him some day. The speakers won the deathless hatred of the house by these delays, but at last there was an end and hope revived; inspiration ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... was too slender to be mistaken for that of the present chatelaine of Quesnay: in Miss Elizabeth's regal amplitude there was never any hint of fragility. The lady upon the slope, then, I concluded, must be Madame d'Armand, the inspiration of Amedee's "Monsieur has ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... in spirit with the prophets named in the three preceding chapters, Amos, Hosea, and Micah. It is by no means impossible that he had listened to the sermons of Hosea, and thus caught from him his inspiration. He must certainly have known Micah personally, for they lived and preached only some twenty-five or thirty miles apart—Micah in the village of Moresheth and Isaiah ...
— Hebrew Life and Times • Harold B. Hunting
... gratitude to Dr. W.W. Willoughby, not only for his careful criticism of this study during its preparation, and for the helpful suggestions by which he has attempted to correct some of its obvious deficiencies, but especially for his kindly inspiration at ...
— Neutral Rights and Obligations in the Anglo-Boer War • Robert Granville Campbell
... the exclusion of other motives. We have seen that the Utopian child takes many things in his stride which other children would regard as distasteful. If they are not distasteful to him, the reason is that he does them, not from a sense of duty, but under the inspiration of love,—love of life, love of Egeria, love of his schoolmates, love of his school. And the longer he can remain on the high plane of love, the better it will be ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... genius, as the world understands that term. It was by probity, industry, perseverance, a well-strung nerve, and an iron will, that they conquered the obstacles before them, and acquired that true greatness which has made their names preeminent among the famous of earth, and their example the inspiration of American youth. Circumstances may do something for us; we can do more for ourselves. We must have faith, we must be in earnest.' The healthful American spirit which pervades the 'Address,' characterizes not less prominently ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... to strengthen her husband's life and exalt her own? Never perhaps, as she had preconceived them; but somehow—still somehow. In this solemnly pledged union of her life, duty would present itself in some new form of inspiration and give a new meaning ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... surrounded by wooded hills, the ruins of Tintern Abbey stand. The somber-looking heights, which close in to the east and west, create the atmosphere of loneliness and separation from the world so sought after by the Cistercian monks, who doubtless found inspiration in the grandeur of the surrounding mountains and in the peacefulness of the sweet valley below. Tho the church of the Early English abbey is roofless and the central tower gone, the noble structure, with its many graceful arches, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... impressive earnestness he told her his name was Neumann, repeating it three times, almost as if in defiance of contradiction; that his niece was his deceased brother's child; that her Christian name—here he was swept away by inspiration—was Maria-Theresa; that he had saved enough as a teacher of German in London to retire into the country; and that he was looking for a cottage in which to spend his ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... just how Walter is making out," thought the doctor. Then, after a pause, he resumed, with a sudden inspiration: "Why shouldn't I know? I'll go over to Euclid to-morrow with out giving Walter any intimation of my visit, and ...
— Walter Sherwood's Probation • Horatio Alger
... French nation. Our conception of the French people derived from books, chiefly novels of a questionable nature, are entirely wrong. The French soldier is cool and intrepid and they "carry on" their work without the slightest "fuss." The pose of the nation is an inspiration and ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie |
