"Unsought" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... our fancies aught Of verse would still require, Helicon's hill remains unsought; And without heed we but inquire, Why the coffee is ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... statement. I was too much enamoured of the honour to question the foundation on which it rested. Perhaps it was as well deserved as are some others of this world's distinctions! At any rate it was neither begged nor bought, but came "Like Dian's kiss, unasked, unsought." In the same year (1883) I also appeared in Edwards' Sixth Series of Modern Scottish Poets; and in 1885, more legitimately, in William Andrews' book on Modern Yorkshire Poets. My claim for this latter distinction was not, however, any greater, if as great, as my right to inclusion in the ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... who, from your eternal seat, Behold the world of men beneath your feet, Can you possess a happiness more sweet? My Phyllis! one dark haunting fear Our peaceful joy disturbs unsought; A rival may my ...
— The Imaginary Invalid - Le Malade Imaginaire • Moliere
... this we cannot ask; higher we cannot look; farther we cannot go. To suppose that God forgives or punishes sin, according as His mercy is sought or unsought, is to misunderstand Love and make prayer the safety-valve ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... thro' all the day They flung their laughter o'er the place; Bright as the flowers in happy May, The children shed a sweet pure grace Around this quiet home, and they To father and to mother brought The smiles of purest love unsought; It was a happy, happy spot, Too dear to be fore'er forgot. Farewell, sweet place! I came as guest; From toil, in thee I found relief, I found in thee a home and rest — But, ah! the days are far too brief. Farewell! I go, but with me come Sweet memories ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)
... the small hours of the night, one of those moments in which nervous insomnia causes a person to see things in an extraordinary light in which they stand out clearly. Don Benito Valls, the rich Jew, was very fond of him. Several times he had intervened, unsought, in his affairs, saving him from immediate ruin. It was due to personal liking for Febrer and to respect for his name. Valls had a single heiress, and, moreover, he was an invalid; the prolific exuberance characteristic of his race had not been fulfilled in him. ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... enter willingly upon the task of this book. His brother preachers will know what it is to be captured by a text which comes uninvited and persistently demands to be preached upon. How often such an arrest finds its subject unwilling, doubtful of his powers, afraid to be obedient to the unsought command! So came the subject of this essay to the writer thereof. For long he tried strenuously, though vainly, to make his escape to the refuge of some other topic wherein he might, less daringly, discharge the responsibilities of this lectureship. He disclaims, therefore, ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... though Dom Manuel's heart were not in the day's business. Indeed, he had reason, for while supernal mysteries were well enough if one were still a hare-brained lad, or even if one set out in due form to seek them, to find such mysteries obtruding themselves unsought into the home-life of a well-thought-of nobleman was discomposing, and to have the windows of his own house playing tricks on him seemed ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... last, his passion had begun to fold its wings, and he grew dimly aware of a beating at the door of the solitary chamber in which he sat. He knew nothing of the enormity of which he was guilty—presenting unsought the city of Antwerp with a glorious phantasia. He did not know that only upon grand, solemn, world-wide occasions, such as a king's birthday or a ball at the Hotel de Ville, was such music on the card. When he flung the door to, it had closed with a spring lock, and for the last ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... also. It is now seven years since my son left me; five years have I past in travelling through the world in search of him: I have been in farthest Greece, and through the bounds of Asia, and coasting homewards I landed here in Ephesus, being unwilling to leave any place unsought that harbours men; but this day must end the story of my life, and happy should I think myself in my death, if I were assured my wife and sons ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... all? No, by the Prophet! Thou, by right my captive, didst leave thy prison but to head mine armies. And this day, the traitor subject—the secret foe—was the leader of a people who defy a king. This night thou comest to me unsought. Thou feelest secure from my just wrath, even in my palace. Thine insolence blinds and betrays thee. Man, thou art in ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... philately. It teaches even the unwilling and careless. In the effort to fill the spaces in their albums they must learn what varieties they are lacking and in what these differ from other and similar varieties. Thus some knowledge must be gained, even if unsought. To the studious and the careful, in this as in other things in life, ...
— What Philately Teaches • John N. Luff
... suppress any attempts (of which several had been made in Ireland) at a republication. It is proper that I should state, that the persons with whom I was subsequently acquainted, whose names had occurred in that publication, were made my acquaintances at their own desire, or through the unsought intervention of others. I never, to the best of my knowledge, sought a personal introduction to any. Some of them to this day I know only by correspondence; and with one of those it was begun by myself, in consequence, however, of a polite verbal ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... O'er the thousands oppressed by sin and woe, O'er the long procession of those who go, Through ignorance, error, and passions low, To the unsought bed of their ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Sedley interpose, To lard with wit thy hungry Epsom prose. And when false flowers of rhetorick thou would'st cull, Trust Nature, do not labour to be dull; But write thy best, and top; and, in each line, Sir Formal's oratory will be thine: Sir Formal, though unsought, attends thy quill, And does thy Northern Dedications fill. Nor let false friends seduce thy mind to fame, By arrogating Jonson's hostile name. Let father Flecknoe fire thy mind with praise, And uncle Ogleby thy envy raise. Thou art my blood, where Jonson has ...
— English Satires • Various
... said, was not all Catos: there was something in her by this time that could thrill to the name of Greece. And Philip had been in league with Hannibal, though truly he had left him shamefully unsupported. Philip had been in league with Hannibal—with Hannibal!—Why, it was a glorious unsought fight, such as only fortune's favored soldiers might attain. The comitia vote against it? They say Hannibal has made them somewhat tired?—Nonsense! let 'em vote again! let 'em vote again!—They do so; assured pithily that it is only a question whether we fight Philip in Macedon, ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... account of skin diseases, but a few of the commoner disorders which can be readily recognized by the layman will be noticed. Although these cutaneous troubles are often of so trivial a nature that a physician's assistance is unsought, yet the annoyance is often sufficient to make it worth while for the patient to inform himself about the ailment. Then the affections are so frequent that they may occur where it is impossible to procure medical aid. Whenever an eruption of the skin is accompanied by fever, ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various
... unasked, unsought, Love gives itself, it is not bought Nor voice nor sound betrays ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... the exceptions made in the last paragraph. With these exceptions, when he undertakes, bona fide, an extemporaneous address, he should make no preparation of language. Language is the last thing he should be anxious about. If he have ideas, and be awake, it will come of itself, unbidden and unsought for. The best language flashes upon the speaker as unexpectedly as upon the hearer. It is the spontaneous gift of the mind, not the extorted boon of a special search. No man who has thoughts, and is interested in them, is at a loss for words—not ...
— Hints on Extemporaneous Preaching • Henry Ware
... face, with that tinge of melancholy upon it which women sometimes find dangerously interesting, there was nothing so remarkable about Arthur that a woman possessing her manifold attractions and opportunities, should, unsought and without inquiry, lavish her affection upon him. There is only one satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon, which, indeed, is a very common one, and that is, that he was her fate, the one man whom she was to love in the world, for no woman worth the name ever ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... pursue his theological studies, to prepare translations of Athanasius, to attend to his little parish, and generally to go about his own business so far as he might be permitted by the restlessness alike of unprovoked opponents and unsought disciples. This was the autumn of 1843. In October Manning sent to Mr. Gladstone two letters that he had received from Newman, indicating only too plainly, as they were both convinced, that the foundations of their leader's anglicanism had been totally undermined by the ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... matchless honor, all unsought, High privilege, surpassing thought That thou shouldst call us, Lord, to be Linked in work-fellowship with thee! To carry out thy wondrous plan, To bear thy messages to man; "In trust," with Christ's own word of grace To every soul ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... Theatre,' as he sees reason—scientific, as well as rhetorical reason,—for dividing and distinguishing them. But under that common designation of images, and false ones too, he subjects them to a common criticism, in behalf of that mighty hitherto unknown, unsought, universality, which is all particulars—which is more universal than the notions of men, and transcends the grasp of their beliefs and pre-judgments;—that universal fact which men are brought in contact with, in all their ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... by personal ambitions. Add to this his natural obstinacy of character and personal enmity toward me, and no surprise should be occasioned when I say that I heartily welcomed the order that lifted from me my unsought burden. ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... the Caves were beginning to dread their good fortune. Plenty was being showered upon them with so lavish and sudden a hand that they looked at it askance, distrustful of the unsought-for largess. For a week or more their hunting-grounds had been swarming with game, in amazing and daily increasing numbers, till there was little more of chance or of excitement in the hunt than in plucking a ripe mango from its branch. It was game of the choicest ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Bryant, do not scorn me for my love!—'tis not a common love; for it I have lost every earthly comfort and blessing; for this struggled and toiled, and braved numberless dangers. I have loved you better than everything beside! Turn not from me, and think contemptuously of the worship given unsought! If you cannot love me, do not, oh, do not despise me! Let me a little while longer be with you, and see you; I will not trouble or incommode any one—do not leave me. Oh, Dr. Bryant, do ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... understanding and perceiving as a child." De la Mare paints simple scenes of miniature loveliness; he uses thin-spun fragments of fairy-like delicacy and achieves a grace that is remarkable in its universality. "In a few words, seemingly artless and unsought" (to quote Williams again), "he can express a pathos or a hope as ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... unsought, Love served her many ways, And patiently Love followed her Throughout the nights ...
— The Miracle and Other Poems • Virna Sheard
... them by another and a higher class—the "Interpreters of Nature." Yet even here the convergence of two distinct lines of research was wholly fortuitous, and skilful combination owed the most brilliant part of its success to the unsought bounty of what we ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... true—and I hope is true, that there are very few men whom you would choose to marry, of yourself. It is not, indeed, to be supposed that you would wish to marry any one till you were asked: a girl's affections should never be won unsought. But when they are sought—when the citadel of the heart is fairly besieged—it is apt to surrender sooner than the owner is aware of, and often against her better judgment, and in opposition to all her preconceived ideas of what she could have loved, unless ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... My unsought fame as a medicine man continued to grow. One morning I heard a white voice outside asking, "Is the doctor in?" Billy replied: "Mr. Seton is inside." On going forth I met a young American who thus introduced himself: "My name is Y———, from Michigan. I was ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... preparatory Grace comes to the sinner unsought, and is so far unavoidable. It is purely and entirely the work of the Holy Spirit upon the sinner. The human will has nothing whatever to do with the first beginnings of conversion. Of this our Confessions testify: "God must first come to us." "Man's will hath no power to ...
— The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church • G. H. Gerberding
... frequently, think close, read nature, turn Men's manners o'er, and half your volumes burn; To nurse with quick reflection be your strife, Thoughts born from present objects, warm from life: When most unsought, such inspirations rise, Slighted by fools, and cherish'd by the wise: Expect peculiar fame from these alone; These make an author, these are all your own. Life, like their Bibles, coolly men turn o'er; Hence unexperienc'd children ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... missed his honest manly homage, and sound wise tone of thought, where she had so few to love or lean on. She thought that she ought to try to put herself out of the way of her cousins at home as much as possible, and so she did not try to make time to write to Clara, and time did not come unsought, for her father's health did not improve; and when they returned to Lima, he engrossed her care almost entirely, while his young wife continued her gaieties, and Mary had reason to think the saya y manto disguise was frequently donned; but it was so ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... stirred vaguely the thought of the mysteriousness of women, of the entire female sex. Mrs. Haim, charwoman, was just as mysterious as any other woman. As for George, despite the exhilaration which he could feel rising in him effortless and unsought, he was preoccupied by more than women's mysteriousness; the conception of destiny lingered and faintly troubled him. It was as though he had been walking on a clear path through a vast and empty and safe forest, ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... in this burning world which was still so beautiful, this alien world into which I had thrust myself unwanted and unsought. And while I mused this happened. The fiery waters of the stream were disturbed by something and looking up I saw ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... days more the Sacramento remained at anchor in the bay over a mile from the mouth of the river, and for two days and nights the Red Cross remained aboard, unsought, unsummoned from the shore. The situation became more strained than ever, the only betterment arising from the fact that now there was more space and the nurses were no longer crowded three in a room. Mrs. Dr. Wells moved into that recently vacated by the cavalry ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... opera box last night In a glimmer of gems and a blaze of light, And smiling that all might see, This curious thought came all unsought— That there were two ...
— Yesterdays • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... by reading them, perhaps also to use that correspondence as a weapon against the imprudent creature who had signed it. But the marquis's rigid demeanor frightened him. How could he divert his attention, get rid of him? An opportunity presented itself unsought. A tiny sheet, written in a senile, tremulous hand, had found its way between those same letters, and attracted the attention of the charlatan, who said with ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... RECITATIVE. Now, now's our time! ye wretches bold and blind, Brave but to God, and cowards to mankind, 70 Too late you seek that power unsought before, Your wealth, your pride, your kingdom, are ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... now endeavouring to recover myself—and such is the elasticity of my constitution, and the purity of the atmosphere here, that health unsought for, ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... conquest; by wise passiveness, rather than by restless haste; by calm and silence, rather than by noise and talk, our sensitiveness to Nature's charms is deepened and developed. That enjoyment of Nature which comes spontaneously and unsought is the only true enjoyment. That which we work up, and plan for, and talk about, is a poor and feeble imitation. The real lover of Nature is not the one who can talk glibly about her to everybody, and on all occasions. It is he who loves to be ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... I willed to do one thing, and another has been done. I will not say by myself, for I was not consulted about it; it was done instinctively. My most virtuous thoughts are not born of my musings, but spring up in me, like bright fancies to the poet; unsought, spontaneous. Whence they come I know not. I am a blind man pushed from behind; in vain, I turn about to see what propels me. As vanity, I regard the praises of my friends; for what they commend pertains not to me, Babbalanja; but ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... Majesty is pleased to take a resolution to resign her government, and I am commanded hither upon that occasion, though altogether unsought for ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... whilst I laboured of a love to see, I hazarded the loss of whom I lov'd. Five summers have I spent in furthest Greece, Roaming clean through the bounds of Asia, And, coasting homeward, came to Ephesus; Hopeless to find, yet loath to leave unsought Or that or any place that harbours men. But here must end the story of my life; And happy were I in my timely death, Could all my ...
— The Comedy of Errors • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... and never will; that is, he never cared for me, nor guessed how foolish I was to give him my love unsought." ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... gray eyes sank beneath his scrutinizing gaze, but she did not answer. How could she confess that she went out into company daily and nightly only in the hope of seeing again the one man to whom she had given her unsought heart, and for whose presence ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... longer a malicious spirit of evil who took delight in thwarting her, but a poor, fretful old lady whose soul was bound in shallows. And Aunt Matilda? Rosemary's eyes filled at the thought of Aunt Matilda, unloved and unsought. Nobody wanted her, she belonged to nobody, in all her lonely life she had had nothing. She sat and listened to Grandmother, she did the annual sewing, and day by day resented more keenly the emptiness of her life. It was the conscious ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... know all about that. You don't quite understand. I say, an offer to me—an offer unsolicited, unsought, coming like money found, like a gift from the gods. Such a thing belongs to what is commonly called good luck. Now, good luck is a thing that never by any chance has fallen to me before; never from the beginning of things to the ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... the disadvantage of an unsought notoriety, or reputation, or whatever his local fame might be called. A man with a fighting name must live up to it, however distasteful the strife and turmoil, or move beyond the circle of his fame. Move he would not, could not, although ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... of virtue the ends thereof. Be not beneficent for a name or cymbal of applause; nor exact and punctual in commerce for the advantages of trust and credit, which attend the reputation of just and true dealing: for such rewards, though unsought for, plain virtue will bring with her, whom all men honour, though they pursue not. To have other by-ends in good actions sours laudable performances, which must have deeper roots, motives, and instigations, to give them the ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... have come to thee, all unsought, I have stolen an hour from thought, And peace and power thou canst give in that hour, Which thy ...
— Poems of Sentiment • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... loss: and there was nought. My sentience wholly sped: No sound, no feeling, sight, or thought: Yet I knew with a vacuous dread I lay a thing by God unsought,— Dead, dead,—for ...
— Iolaeus - The man that was a ghost • James A. Mackereth
... and enthusiasm to tho new comer. We had some difficulty in escaping from these troublesome and unexpected demonstrations of good will; and, while hurrying from the scene of this impromptu ovation to the unsought popularity of my companion, I made him smile by hinting at the danger in which he stood of being raised to the vacant throne by those who seem not to know or care who is to ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... she had come to be, even before he could realize it, the one fair woman in whom was centred the fealty and devotion of his loyal nature. He dare not hope: he would not expect that one like her could so soon, so unsought, unwooed, have learned to look upon him as anything more than a friend whose loyalty to Grace, her one intimate, and whose friendship for Mrs. Stannard had conspired to make him an object of interest in their daily talk. With the humility of true manhood he well knew ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... Marcus was one of unsought honors and titles. At six, a knight of the Equestrian Order; at eight, one of the priests of Mars; at twelve, a rigid Stoic; at sixteen, a magistrate of the city; at seventeen, a quaestor, or revenue officer; at nineteen, a consul and Caesar; at forty, ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... resolved to search for thee: The search itself rewards the pains. So though the chymist his great secret miss, (For neither it in art nor nature is) Yet things well worth his toil he gains; And does his charge and labour pay With good unsought experiments by the way." ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... wonder in her statement, and not welcoming at all this unsought escort, Sylvia made no answer. There was another silence, and then, looking in the starlight at her companion, the girl saw with consternation that the quiet tears were running down her cheeks. She stopped short, "Oh ... oh!" she cried. She caught ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... loves, his hates, his tastes, his fancies, change. His blood and brawn demand a change of food; His mind as well: the sweetest harp of heaven Were hateful if it played the selfsame tune Forever, and the fairest flower that gems The garden, if it bloomed throughout the year, Would blush unsought. The most delicious fruits Pall on our palate if we taste too oft, And Hyblan honey turns to bitter gall. Perpetual winter is a reign of gloom; Perpetual summer hardly pleases more. Behold the Esquimau—the Hottentot: ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... solitude of Mount Hermon. We start, then, from the wrong point of view, if we suppose that Jesus climbed Hermon in order to enjoy spiritual ecstasy, or exhibit His glory to those three men. Ecstasy of this kind must come unsought; and the way to it lies through conflict, humiliation, self-mastery. It was not simply to pray that Jesus retired; it was to engage in the great conflict of His life. And because He felt, Himself so much in need of kindness and support, He took with Him the three companions He could ...
— How to become like Christ • Marcus Dods
... Republican voters of the country favored Roosevelt's nomination, and a large majority of the people favored his election as the next President. They asserted their belief that, in view of this public demand, he should soon declare whether, if the nomination came to him unsolicited and unsought, he would accept it. They concluded their ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... heart. From one point of view we were absolutely passive. Things arranged themselves without effort, and by some subtle affinity we learned that we had gained a friend. The history of every true friendship is the brief description of Emerson, "My friends have come to me unsought; the great God gave them to me." There was an element of necessity in this, as in all ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... Seymour finally accepted, he neither apologised nor explained. "The nomination," he wrote, "was unsought and unexpected. I have been caught up by the overwhelming tide which is bearing us on to a great political change, and I find myself unable to resist its pressure."[1186] Those who recalled the Governor's alleged tortuous course at Chicago ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... suddenness, explanation offered itself then and there. It came unsought, its horror of certainty utterly unjustified; and it came in this ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... judges that this oblivion may not have been unsought, since one who had believed himself the object of a direct message from God, would have little taste for intercourse with his fellow men; and he suspends his story for a moment to ask himself how such a one would bear the weight of his ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... * And Death (as prayed she) her portion made: Unto his door she came and prayed for food, * And sued his ruth for what her misery made: He leant to error following his lusts, * And hoped to enjoy her as her wants persuade; But he knew little of what Allah willed; * Nor was Repentance, though unsought, denayed. Fate comes to him who flies from Fate, O Lord, * And lot and daily bread ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... cheer King Guha cried, With Bharat's answer gratified: "Blessed art thou: on earth I see None who may vie, O Prince, with thee, Who canst of thy free will resign The kingdom which unsought is thine. For this, a name that ne'er shall die, Thy glory through the worlds shall fly, Who fain wouldst balm thy brother's pain And lead the exile ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... well of them, but also from gold-sleeved, gray-breasted new suitors of Anna (over-staying their furloughs), whom she kept from tenderer themes by sprightly queries that never tired and constantly brought forth what seemed totally unsought mentions of the battery. And she had gathered the tale from Greenleaf as well. Constance, to scandalized intimates, marvelled at her sister's tolerance of his outrageous version; but Miranda remembered how easy it is to bear with patience (on any ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... classes is unknown on the continent. In her powerful novel Aus guter Familie, Gabrielle Reuter describes the life of a German girl whose parents cannot give her a dowry, and who is doomed in consequence to old maidhood and to all the disappointments, restrictions, and humiliations of unsought women. While women look to marriage and nothing else for happiness, there must be such lives in every monogamous country, where they outnumber the men; but in England a woman's marriage is much more a matter of chance and charm than of money. If ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... what had I to do? Little with love, and least of all with fame; And yet they came unsought, and with me grew, And made me all which they can make—a name. Yet this was not the end I did pursue; Surely I once beheld a nobler aim. But all is over—I am one the more To baffled ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... to meditate, And strive much more than wonder at their fate. 30 Their present lot was what they had foreseen, And dared as what was likely to have been; Yet still the lingering hope, which deemed their lot Not pardoned, but unsought for or forgot, Or trusted that, if sought, their distant caves Might still be missed amidst the world of waves, Had weaned their thoughts in part from what they saw And felt, the vengeance of their country's law. Their sea-green isle, their guilt-won Paradise, No more could shield their Virtue ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... through and through. It is impossible to be otherwise. It is impossible for a world which has lived through what ours has, which has recorded its doings and sufferings and speculations for our benefit, ever to be naive or spontaneous in anything. Inspiration unsought and unquestioned is a thing of the past. Study, reflection, absorption, eclecticism,—these are the watchwords of the future. If this were granted, many would still think it an open question whether art of the highest kind would in the future be possible or not. But is by no means necessary ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... drew his gaze away Right gladly from that long array, As if their presence were a blight Of pain and sickness to his sight; And slowly folding o'er his breast The fragments of his tattered vest, As was his wont, unasked, unsought Gave to the winds his muttered thought, Naming no name of friend or foe, And reckless if they heard ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... enough to hate. No warmth these lips return by his imprest, And chill'd remembrance shudders o'er the rest. Yes, had I ever prov'd that passion's zeal, The change to hatred were at least to feel: But still, he goes unmourn'd, returns unsought, And oft when present, absent from my thought. Or when reflection comes, and come it must, I fear that henceforth 'twill but bring disgust: I am his slave; but, in despite of pride, 'Twere worse than bondage ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... faintly, but she did not move away from him. Suddenly that cruel repulsion which seizes mankind towards reptiles and unsought love seized Barney. He unclasped her clinging hands, and fairly pushed her away from him. "Good-night, Rose," he said, shortly, and turned, and went up the path to his ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... liable to be challenged. I had undertaken an investigation which, at the outset, made for a different goal. It happens that it answered clearly enough the question propounded above: the conclusion has arisen of itself, unsought; which fact saves me from any charge of a ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... been to save her from pain, to console her, to brighten her lonely life, had brought this fresh sorrow on her. To the misery of a loveless marriage he had added a heavier cross, an unhappy, a misplaced affection. No exultant vanity within him rejoiced at the knowledge that, unsought, she had learned to care for him. Only regret, pity for her, stirred in him. He was aware now as always that his feeling for her was not love. But she must not realise it. He must save her from the ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... besought her counsel, as one who had herself gone through a mighty trouble. Women, more especially—in the continually recurring trials of wounded, wasted, wronged, misplaced, or erring and sinful passion—or with the dreary burden of a heart unyielded, because unvalued and unsought came to Hester's cottage, demanding why they were so wretched, and what the remedy! Hester comforted and counselled them, as best she might. She assured them, too, of her firm belief that, at some brighter period, when the world should have ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the blessing that GOD delights to give to those who have dedicated themselves and their all to Him. Before considering it in detail, let us notice, first, how spontaneous and unsought is this blessing from GOD—the LORD commanded Aaron and his sons to bless Israel, to put His Name upon them; and declared His own unalterable purpose, "I will bless them." And then, let us ask ourselves the ...
— Separation and Service - or Thoughts on Numbers VI, VII. • James Hudson Taylor
... makes life valuable or memory sweet. But he used to get drunk. This explains all. Be untruthful, unfaithful, unkind; darken the lives of all who have to live under your shadow, rob youth of joy, take peace from age, live unsought for, die unmourned—and remaining sober you will escape the curse of men's pity, and be spoken of as a worthy person. But if ever, amidst what Burns called 'social noise,' you so far forget yourself as to get drunk, think not to plead a spotless life spent with those for whom you have laboured ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... be inconclusive, but as they sought the answer, a clear sign appeared as it were by the way, and unsought. Julian was watching haggardly. He snarled a question at Jim. His cook-boy's big round eyes showed very big and very round just now. He was ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... darkness of the wood, he had a flashing memory of the Indian girl's face as she had whisperingly asked him if he could not leave Helen, the very note in her voice sounded in his ears, and, he knew what it was no harm for him to know then, that this child of the wilderness had given him her love, unsought. She had loved him, and she had died for him, whilst a man who had loved her, now wept over her poor body. The tragedy of it all shook him, and the irony of Jean Benard's grief was almost beyond endurance. A great humility filled his heart, and whilst he acquitted himself of ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... the ruddy hue is Love's: to woo Love's Fountain we must mount the ruddy hue. That is her garden's precept, seen where shines Her blood-flower, and its unsought neighbour pines. Daughter of light, the joyful light, She bids her couples face full East, Reflecting radiance, even when from her feast Their outstretched arms brown deserts disunite, The lion-haunted thickets hold apart. In love the ruddy hue ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... strange inconsequence: he had shirked the intimacies of the steamer and had muffled the shock of Waymarsh only to find himself forsaken, in this sudden case, both of avoidance and of caution. He passed, under this unsought protection and before he had so much as gone up to his room, into the garden of the hotel, and at the end of ten minutes had agreed to meet there again, as soon as he should have made himself tidy, the dispenser of such good assurances. He wanted ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... yet found anything which was much worth the finding. Men live by the primal energies of love, faith, imagination; and happily it is not given to every one to live, in the pecuniary sense, by the artistic utilisation and sale of these. You cannot make ideas; they must come unsought if ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... London to set him on some career in the social reconstruction of the world. His record stood, and needed only unblushing flaunting before the eyes of Authority for it to be recognized. But Andrew Lackaday, proud and sensitive, was a poor seeker after favour. All his promotion and his honour had come unsought. He had hated the braggadocio of the rainbow row of ribbons on his khaki tunic, which Army discipline alone forced him to wear. It was Elodie, too, who had fixed into his buttonholes the little red rosette of the Officer of the Legion. That at least ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... freely round every object which met her mental gaze—sometimes too freely when she was dealing with things traditionally held sacred. But her flippancy was of speech rather than of thought, for her fundamental view of life was serious. "Life, in her view, brings much that is pure and unsought joy, more, perhaps, that needs transforming effort, little or nothing that cannot be made to contribute to an inward ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... words of praise which I have uttered for the engineers, who designed and executed this work, ought rather to have been a sentence of censure and condemnation. Hence, the invitation which came to me unsought, seemed rather to be an appeal from the grave for such vindication as it was within my power to make, and which could not come with equal ...
— Opening Ceremonies of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, May 24, 1883 • William C. Kingsley
... me unsought, and so prevent my getting on with the play. Had it not been for these, I could have let in ideas for two or three plays which have been knocking at the door. I am afraid I must wait for the cold weather. All my plays except "Chitra" were written in the winter. In that ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore
... to honours worn Lightly, as that which comes to one unsought; Nor to thy high desent, oh nobly born Nor ...
— Verses and Rhymes by the way • Nora Pembroke
... and against Copernicus, although the hypothesis of the latter affords the simpler and, scientifically, the more probable explanation. Both thinkers rejoice in their agreement with the dogmas of the Church, only that with Descartes it came unsought in the natural progress of his thought, while Gassendi held to it in contradiction to his system. It is the more surprising that Gassendi's works escaped being put upon the Index, a fate which overtook those of Descartes ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... myself he has not one enemy in the world. At least, to this general esteem and affection for his person, his preservation must be owing; for since his attainder he has never removed far from his own house, protected by men of different principles, and unsought for and unmolested by government." To which eulogy it might be added, by those who have the good fortune to know his representatives, that the virtues here acknowledged seem hereditary in the ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun
... to know what to do. The one unthinkable thing would be to leave King unsought for. Suddenly it occurred to me to try that door underneath the steps; so I kissed my hand irreverently to the quarterguard of harridans, and turned my back on them—which I daresay was the most unwise move that I ever made in my whole life. ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... that the contact of the white and black races can be anything but a curse to the blacks. It is the missionary alone who seeks nothing for himself. He has chosen an unselfish life. If honour comes to him, it is by no choice of his own, but as the unsought tribute which others, as it were, force upon him. Robert Moffat has died in the fullness both of years and honours. His work has been to lay the foundations of the Church in the central regions of South Africa. As far as his influence and that of his coadjutors ...
— Robert Moffat - The Missionary Hero of Kuruman • David J. Deane
... at her window, through the drifting shower. The curtains were parted: she was standing in the gap, dimly lit by the lamp on the table behind her, waiting for our last look at each other. Slowly lifting her hand, she waved her farewell at the window, with the unsought native grace which had charmed me on the night when we first met. The curtain fell again—she disappeared—nothing was before me, nothing was round me, but the darkness ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... for the best, doing whatever was right in your own eyes, and never once doing wrong in mine, nor shocked a taste that had been morbidly sensitive till now? And whence had you that happiest gift, of brightening every topic with an unsought gayety, quiet but irresistible, so that even loomy spirits felt your sunshine, and did not shrink from it? Nature wrought the charm. She made you a frank, simple, kind-hearted, sensible, and mirthful girl. Obeying nature, you did free things without indelicacy, displayed a maiden's ...
— The Village Uncle (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... travels—probably from Yuen-nan-fu to Tali-fu, if so far; but as a matter of fact, Rusty had wrenched his right fore fetlock between a gully in the rocks the day before and was now going lame. Dressed fairly respectably in the universal blue, my unsought companion was of middle stature, strongly built, but so clumsily as to border almost on deformity, and to give all his movements the ungainly awkwardness of a left-handed, left-legged man. He walked with a limp, was suffering (like myself) with sore feet; if not that, ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... of relations; and, as many thoughts in succession substantiate themselves, we shall by and by stand in a new world of our own creation, and no longer strangers and pilgrims in a traditionary globe. My friends have come to me unsought. The great God gave them to me. By oldest right, by the divine affinity of virtue with itself, I find them, or rather not I but the Deity in me and in them derides and cancels the thick walls of individual character, relation, age, sex, circumstance, at ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... sacred cause for which I and so many that I loved perilled and lost life, forbid that I should take any other course. Turn from this folly and all will be serene and happy soon. I can obtain a position elsewhere. Surely, Ella, you are too true a Southern girl to have given your heart unsought, unasked to your knowledge till last night. Your very pride should rescue you from such a slough ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... philosophy means. I have but said what I have been taught by one who was my master. Life, which is a mystery, came to me unasked, and I found it a most joyful thing; if death, a deeper mystery, come alike unsought, why should I doubt it will be a yet more precious gift? But look!" she continued eagerly, "is it not true that the storm is abating?—the sailors are working cheerfully. Surely there is hope. Oh! say that it is so; for, though I do not ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... other than savage teaching; and the dainty make of her moccasins; the soft, pliant folds of the leggins that fell, Apache fashion, about her ankles, all told, with their beadwork and finish, that this was no unsought girl of the tribespeople. Even the sudden gesture with which, never looking back, she cautioned some follower to keep down, spoke significantly of rank and authority. It was a chief's daughter that knelt peering intently over the ledge of rocks toward the black shadows ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... the hearts of many of us to this extent; these things are hidden by a thick veil from the many; they cannot see the heavenly beauty of Nature—they do not understand the fairy tale which she is ever telling. This is gentle, idyllic, fairy lore, unsought by the learned. It whispers of roses, of dancing elves, of weeping ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... each ready produced fruit of this wilderness, and each progeny of this stream—his exaltation is not less than imperial. He is as gentle, too, as he is great: his emotions of tenderness keep pace with his elevation of sentiment; for he says, "These were made by a good Being, who, unsought by me, placed me here to enjoy them." He becomes at once a child and a king. His mind is in himself; from hence he argues, and from hence he acts, and he argues unerringly, and acts magisterially: his mind in himself is also in his God; and therefore he loves, and therefore he ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... What time the blood-crow's flight was south, Bearing a man's leg in its mouth. Though rough and rude, those strains are rife Of things kin to immortal life, Which touch the heart and tinge the cheek, As deeply as divinest Greek. In simple words and unsought rhyme, Give me the songs of ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow
... amassed an enormous fortune. [3] This damaging circumstance gave occasion to his numerous enemies to accuse him before Nero; and though Seneca in his defence [4] attributed all his wealth to the unsought bounty of his prince, yet it is difficult to believe it was honestly come by, especially as he must have been well paid for the numerous violations of his conscience to which out of regard to Nero he submitted. Seneca is a lamentable ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... does my heart indulge the rising thought, Which still recurs, unlook'd for and unsought; My soul to Fancy's fond suggestion yields, And roams romantic o'er her airy fields. 30 Scenes of my youth, develop'd, crowd to view, To which I long have bade a last adieu! Seats of delight, inspiring youthful themes; Friends lost to ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... my thanks to thee nor thank thee day by day * For whom com posed I prose and verse, for whom my say and lay? Thou lavishedst thy generous gifts ere they were craved by me * Thou lavishedst thy boons unsought sans pretext or delay: How shall I stint my praise of thee, how shall I cease to laud * The grace of thee in secresy and patentest display? Nay; I will thank thy benefits, for aye thy favours lie * Light on my thought and tongue, though heavy ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... again to enter, and explore The sweet, wild ways with stainless bloom inwrought, And bowers of innocence with beauty fraught, It seemed some purer voice must speak before I dared to tread that garden loved of yore, That Eden lost unknown and found unsought. ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... of oysters at the Cadran Bleu, after all the adventures which come unsought to the belle of an oyster-bar, left her post for love of Cibot at the age of twenty-eight. The beauty of a woman of the people is short-lived, especially if she is planted espalier fashion at a restaurant door. Her features are hardened ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... by some sudden or intense sensory stimulus or insistent idea, or (2) it follows interest, or (3) it is compelled by the will. If it comes in the first way, as from a thunderclap or a flash of light, or from the persistent attempt of some unsought idea to secure entrance into the mind, it is called involuntary attention. This form of attention is of so little importance, comparatively, in our mental life that we ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... it is for their happiness, perhaps, that accident has never settled it for them. Nevertheless, that a male dissembler who by deluging her with untenable fictions charms the female wisely, may acquire powers reaching to the extremity of perdition, is a truth taught to many by unsought and wringing occurrences. And some profess to have attained to the same knowledge by experiment as aforesaid, and jauntily continue their indulgence in such experiments with terrible effect. ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... first Yeager enjoyed his work with the Lunar Company. Young and full-blooded, he liked novelty and adventure, life in the open, new scenes and faces. As a film actor he did not have to seek sensations. They came to him unsought. He had the faculty of projecting himself with all his mind into the business of the moment, so that he soon knew what it was to be a noble and self-conscious hero as well as an ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... she ceased to read; she turned Her face towards the laurels where I stood: Her mother spoke—O wonder! hardly learned; She said, "There is a rustling in the wood; Ah, child! if one draw near to bid farewell, Let not thine eyes an unsought ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... our grasp, Some other thing is given; sometimes Our wish is gained, and gifts unsought Are ours; these all are ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... positions had changed was very sweet to him. All his mind expanded in this thought, as the nerves of the opium-eater to the influence of his drug; it soothed him when he was weary; it consoled him when he was vexed; it had come to him as an unexpected, unsought good, like ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... every penny paper will appear with your picture in front to-morrow, and, wherever you go, it will be thrust before your eyes? You will hear your name pronounced in all languages, and in every way, and you will not know how to escape this unsought-for and unwelcome notoriety. But if you accept my invitation, nobody will be able to stare at you or interrogate you, and you shall live as quietly and peacefully as if you were in some herdsman's hovel in ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... Chapin was elected Mayor of the city of Cleveland. The honor was not only unsought, but he was in entire ignorance of the whole affair until after his election. His name had not been mentioned in connection with that or any other office when he left the city on a business trip that kept him ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... mortally afraid of him. It was his fame that made them cowards. Duane's keenness told him that at the very darkest and most perilous moment there was still a chance for him. And the blood in him, the temper of his father, the years of his outlawry, the pride of his unsought and hated career, the nameless, inexplicable something in him made ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... adventure with the wolf gave him an unsought, and in some respects undesirable, notoriety; but that he did not court this notoriety is shown by the fact that for the next twelve or thirteen years he lived quietly on his farm, attending to his duties as a cultivator of the soil and a simple citizen. During these ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober
... see the good fortune which this man owes to his prudence, to his profound wisdom. You see how, since he has concluded peace, he buys what is useful in the household and good to eat hot. All good things flow towards him unsought. Never will I welcome the god of war in my house; never shall he chant the 'Harmodius' at my table;[255] he is a sot, who comes feasting with those who are overflowing with good things and brings all sorts of mischief at his heels. He overthrows, ruins, rips ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... shall run Within thy frozen veins, no kindling thought Light up those eyeless sockets wherein naught But hate could dwell if once they flashed the fire Of being, or the doom-gift of Desire Should curse thy life, unbidden and unsought. Poor snow man with thy tattered hat awry, And broomstick musket toppling from thy hands, 'Tis well thou hast no language to decry Thy poor creator or his vain commands; No tear to shed that thou so soon must die, No voice to lift in prayer ...
— Pan and Aeolus: Poems • Charles Hamilton Musgrove
... 8th of March 1804, some time after the arrest but before the trial of General Moreau, I had an audience of the First Consul, which was unsought on my part. Bonaparte, after putting several unimportant questions to me as to what I was doing, what I expected he should do for me, and assuring me that he would bear me in mind, gave a sudden turn to the conversation, and said, "By the by, the report of my connection ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... his writings," I said. "It is not a voluntary thing, led up to by pre-determination. There can be no question of making up. I never try to write nor to think. I do not invoke my own ideas. They spring into being of themselves, quite unsought. And, in a ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... clap thy wings and crow as thou pleasest. You go in search of adventures, but adventures come to me unsought for; and oh! in what a pleasing shape came mine, since it arrived in the form of a client—and a fair client to boot! What think you of that, Darsie! you who are such a sworn squire of dames? Will ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... his chair, his broad shoulders filling the back. The news of Kate's wedding was what he had expected. Perhaps it was already over. He was glad, however, the information had come to him unsought. For an instant he made no reply to Pawson's inquiry, then he answered slowly: "Yes, and no. I have made a little money—not much—but some—not enough to pay Uncle George everything I owe him—not yet; another time I shall do better. I was down with fever for a while and that cost ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... some of the propitious things which have come to him all unsought, he said: "How fortunate I have always been! My name should have been 'Felix.'" But since "John" means "the gracious gift of God," we are content that he ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... without genius, or the miserly rewards of scholarship, or the disastrous conclusion in a majority of business enterprises, I confess the life of a New England farmer is to be preferred. It was so ordered that opportunities, which I never could have made for myself, came to me unsought and without effort. Such education as I have, a miscellany of odds and ends of learning, and such things as I have accomplished, are the chance results of various and disconnected impulses; and God himself has given me my beautiful friends. I have found ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... de Lara returned the unsought caress of Sir Henry Morgan and the means by which the buccaneers surmounted ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... And I have heard, unsought, Under the musing shadows of the beech, Wood-voices answering my unspoken thought, In ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... had come to that dolorous time in a woman's life when she no longer has the power of attracting male attention—which power is not a matter of age, but merely of mind and spirit. And yet there were depths in her, Larkin found, unsuspected because unsought. ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... with joy And gladness never ending; Angels and Saints with us Their grateful voices blending. He is our Father dear, O'erfilled with Father's love; Mercies unsought, ...
— The St. Gregory Hymnal and Catholic Choir Book • Various
... better able to give full understanding to your tale because, for love of a woman, I dwelt seven years in exile from this land, fearing lest my great love for her, which came to me all unsought, should—by becoming known to her—lead her young heart, as yet fresh and unawakened, to respond. There was never any question of breaking my vows; and I hold not with love-friendships between man and woman, there ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... me sweet whispers, Half in answer, half in thought:— "Be but strong, impassioned mortal! Love will come to thee unsought; Love is the divine Irene,— It is given, ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... Lancers, as full of heroic impulses and enthusiasms as a modern young officer may be,—while his half-fledged ambitions were hanging on the chances of active service, and the golden, remote possibility of his one day being a V.C.,—there was a peaceful honor which clung to him unsought. ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... spoken ideas on the topics broached. As a society girl she met him on this neutral ground without the slightest restraint or embarrassment. As he also talked well she had no scruple in enjoying a pleasure unsought by herself, especially as it might lead to the punishment which she felt that he deserved. Smilingly she had assured herself, when he was announced, "If he's a rebel at heart, as I've been told, I've met the enemy before either Mr. ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... his motive for repudiating the gift. What more despicable than jealousy of a man deceased? What sillier than to cast pearls before executors? Sped by nothing but the pulse of his hot youth, he had wooed and won this girl. Why flinch from her unsought dowry? ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... saw the crimson amethyst hanging from a chain round her neck. On her white breast it lay like a full drop of pigeon's blood. Where had this idea come from? Unsought, undesired, what had forced it with merciless vividness before his eyes? What part of him responded to her caresses of thanks? What had Akhnaton's jewel to ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... depths unsought Whence faith's own hope may redeem us nought, Filled full with ardour of pain sublime His mourning song and his ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... display of learning. If "The Antiquary" were published in these times, it would be pronounced pedantic. Readers are apt to skip names and learned allusions and scraps of Latin. As a story I think it inferior to "Guy Mannering," although it has great merits,—"a kind of simple, unsought charm,"—and is a transcript of actual Scottish life. It had a great success; Scott says in a letter to his friend Terry: "It is at press again, six thousand having been sold in six days." Before the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... 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 creditably, and indeed, in more than one case, with unexpected as unsought distinction. I must mention, however, that he did all his set work first, and thoroughly, before giving himself ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... permit thee to inquire, is Happiness. Thou saidst the truth to her, that she is capricious for she imposeth conditions that man cannot fulfill, and delinquency is punished by desertion. She cometh only when unsought, and will not be questioned. One manifestation of curiosity, one sign of doubt, one expression of misgiving, and she is away! How long didst thou have her at any time before ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... very eagerness went forth towards her, And issu'd at my eyes.—Was there a gem Which the sun ripens in the Indian mine, Or the rich bosom of the ocean yields? What was there art could make, or wealth could buy, Which I have left unsought to deck her beauty? What could her king do more?—And ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe
... unsought. But between these and the dreams of sleep there is a kind of waking hallucinations which some people can purposely evoke. Such are ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... amazing than that of the son of a family which had never been without influence in the community. But that influence had always been conservative. And Phil Goodrich had hitherto taken but a listless interest in the church of his fathers. Fortune had smiled upon him, trusts had come to him unsought. He had inherited the family talent for the law, the freedom to practise when and where he chose. His love of active sport had led him into many vacations, when he tramped through marsh and thicket after game, and at five ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Though somewhat grieved, could scarce forbear a smile Upon the metamorphosis in view,— "Farewell!" they mutually exclaimed: "this soil Seems fertile in adventures strange and new; One's turned half Mussulman, and one a maid, By this old black enchanter's unsought aid." ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... nature was the colonial empire, but in this it resembled the other windfalls to the house of Hapsburg in that it was an almost accidental, unsought-for acquisition. The Genoese sailor who went to the various courts of Europe begging for a few ships in which to break the watery path to Asia, had in his beggar's wallet all the kingdoms of a new world and the glory of them. For a few years Spain drank until she was drunken ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... described above (but not half so well as the miller tells it now) created in my young heart a feeling of really strong curiosity. To begin with, how could this valuable thing have got into the Moon-stream, and lain there so long, unsought for, or at best so unskillfully sought for? What connection could it have with the tragic death of my grandfather? Why was that man so tardily come to search for it, if he might do so without any body near him? ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... dreamt of many a woe, And all his warrior-guests, with shade and form Of witch and demon and large coffin-worm, Were long be-nightmared. Angela, the old, Died palsy-twitch'd with meagre face deform; The Beadsman, after thousand aves told, For aye unsought-for slept among ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... he could find no joy in the shedding of another's blood. He felt it a strange chance that such an affair should be forced upon him, and yet this was a dueling city. The hot young spirits of France had brought their customs with them into the North American wilderness, and perhaps the unsought chance, if he used it as he thought he could, would not serve him ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... brothers! I would fair have caught Some fresher fancy's gleam; My truant accents find, unsought, The ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... again, whatever she may come to as an unsexed angel,—and that she should die unloved! Why does not somebody come and carry off this noble woman, waiting here all ready to make a man happy? Philip, do you know the pathos there is in the eyes of unsought women, oppressed with the burden of an inner life unshared? I can see into them now as I could not in those 'earlier days. I sometimes think their pupils dilate on purpose to let my consciousness glide through ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... of deed or thought. Many spread their clasped hands on their bosoms. There was nothing terrible in what Mr. Hooper said—at least, no violence; and yet with every tremor of his melancholy voice the hearers quaked. An unsought pathos came hand in hand with awe. So sensible were the audience of some unwonted attribute in their minister that they longed for a breath of wind to blow aside the veil, almost believing that a stranger's visage would be discovered, though the form, gesture and voice ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... become sixty-four years old. Hence I cheerfully relinquished in 1882 any reasonable ambition I may ever have had to command the army. My ultimate succession to that command in 1888 was, like all other important events in my personal career, unsought and unexpected. Hence whatever I did from 1888 to 1895 was only a little "extra duty," and I have had no reason to find fault on account of the "extra- duty pay" which I received, though none of it was in ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... to perfection in the Gray Garden, and all the lasses and boys of Northbury were rejoiced when an invitation came to them to test their skill at a tournament here. There was no girl in Northbury more popular than Beatrice. This popularity was unsought. It came to her because she was gracious and affectionate, of a generous nature, above petty slanders, petty gossips, petty desires. Life had always been rich and plentiful for her, she possessed abundant health, excellent spirits, ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... long distances he could run and leap, and make soft, mild pretence of shouting and smiting hands. The quest was ended! rivalry gone of its own choice, guilt washed from the hands, love returned to her nest. Zosephine! Zosephine! Away now, away to the reward of penance, patience, and loyalty! Unsought, unhoped-for reward! As he ran, the crescent moon ran before him in the sky, and one glowing star, dipping low, ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... want is none the less bitter that it meets with scant sympathy in this hard world. In the breast of many an unsought woman lies a wealth of wasted treasure, treasure which no one has cared to seek, and yet what a treasure it ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... for I am curious to know, with an honest desire to enlarge my circle of knowledge. Will you tell me, Miss Lothrop, what are the pleasures in your mind when you speak of their coming unsought?" ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... nurse opened the blinds, that sunlight swept radiantly into the room, lavish with its caresses; always spending, always giving, the symbol of a loving care that had been poured out on her, unasked and unsought. It was sweet to rest, to sleep. And instead of the stringent monster-cry of the siren, of the discordant clamour of the mill bells, it was sweet yet strange to be awakened by silvertoned chimes proclaiming peaceful hours. At first she ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... from his sweet natural unselfishness, and chiefly from his living trust in God, he accepts whatever happens with equanimity, and makes no effort to alter it. He originates nothing. Prosperity comes unsought, and dangers unfeared. He does not ask for Jonathan's love, or the people's favour, or the women's songs, or Saul's daughter. If Saul gives him command he takes it, and does his work. If Saul flings his javelin at him, he simply springs aside and lets ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... 1-7, records a pronouncement unsought by the king but evoked from Jeremiah by the progress of the Chaldean arms, which had overrun all Judah save the fortresses of Jerusalem, Lachish and Azekah. Its vivid genuineness is further certified by its unfulfilled promise of a peaceful death ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... turbulent. Intrigue was never employed as the means of its gratification, nor was personal aggrandizement its object. The various high and important stations to which he was called by the public voice, were unsought by himself; and, in consenting to fill them, he seems rather to have yielded to a general conviction that the interests of his country would be thereby promoted, than to an avidity ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... though Regina felt that this low-browed, sibyl-eyed woman was vastly his inferior in all save beauty and wealth, she knew that even his failure to marry the widow would furnish no justification for the further indulgence of her own foolish and unsought preference. ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... what I am, you may be sure that I shall not stay here to await Prince Karl of Auersperg, and his unsought honors." ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler |
