"Irresistible impulse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the delight of being near her. He had no heart to walk in any other direction. If he strolled out in the morning, or in the quiet of the evening, he proceeded almost instinctively towards the manse; and if he passed any distance beyond it, an irresistible impulse caused him ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... Foster's mind. The man might be dying of his wounds. He spoke to him again in French and Spanish, but still got no reply! Then he listened intently for his breathing, but all was as silent as the tomb. With an irresistible impulse, yet instinctive shudder, he laid his hand on the man and passed it up until it reached the face. The silence was then explained. The face was growing cold ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... with. He was glad he was here. He was another angle of light on the poetic world around us, another unsuspected facet of the bright surface of the world. Surfaces were for him, too, something to be "deepened" with a fresh vividness. He had the irresistible impulse to decorate and to decorate consistently. His sense of decoration was fluid and had no hint of the rhetorical in it. He felt everything joined together, shape to shape, by the harmonic insistence in life and in nature. A flower held a ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... to do so. For every one has felt, that when a paroxysm of laughter has seized him at a misbecoming time and place, the efforts which he made to suppress it, nay, the very sense of the impropriety of giving way to it, tend only to augment and prolong the irresistible impulse. ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... strolled farther than usual, tempted by the tranquil beauty around us, and during that walk I had been strangely, wonderfully happy. Many times, as we walked silently side by side, a strong, an almost irresistible impulse seemed to force me to utter those three passionate words that have caused a flutter in the heart-beat of so many thousands since the world began; and as many times the reverence I felt for her, and the diffidence arising from it, held me back, and the words remained ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... cannot command. Now I know you will; you would not make me beg twice for anything?" She drew closer to him as she spoke and put her hand coaxingly upon his arm. With an irresistible impulse he took the hand in his and lifted it to his lips in a lingering caress that could not be mistaken. It was all so quick and so full of fire and meaning that Mary took fright, and the princess, for the moment, ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... eminent vocalist of the feline tribe, la Signorina Pussetta Scracciolini, pass by without lending an ear to the wonderful list of melodies. There was another figure, too, who slackened her pace as she was passing the group, and by an irresistible impulse seemed compelled to draw near and listen; she was richly dressed in mantle and hood, which, thrown gracefully back, displayed a head and neck of aristocratic proportions; she seemed ill, however, and weak, for her delicate ...
— The Adventures of a Bear - And a Great Bear too • Alfred Elwes
... could stand the suspense no longer, and opened the door. Everything was still in the motionless caravan, except—it struck him oddly even then—the unconcerned prattling voice of Susy from one of the nearer wagons. Perhaps a sudden feeling that this was something that concerned HER, perhaps an irresistible impulse overcame him, but the next moment he had leaped to the ground, faced about, and was running ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... moment, in sympathy with a thought which he was about to utter, the face of Ernest assumed a grandeur of expression, so imbued with benevolence, that the poet, by an irresistible impulse, threw his arms aloft, ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... Your Majesty would understand me," he said in a tone intended for the Royal ear alone, and with more emotion than he had yet displayed. As he spoke, too, he lifted his hand in obedience to an involuntary and apparently irresistible impulse. ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... her breath in a sob. "Shall I be—to blame?" She was moving towards the door now. With an irresistible impulse Aunt Olivia gathered her in her arms, and covered her ...
— Rebecca Mary • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... reproduce it exactly, if possible. This difference between habit and suggestion in action is illustrated in the case of a long-suffering kitten in the hands of a resourceful child. The sight will arouse in another child an irresistible impulse to try the same experiment, while it always leads his ...
— The Unfolding Life • Antoinette Abernethy Lamoreaux
... fighting. Fighting against an irresistible impulse—an impulse as new and strange to him as though born of another world—an impulse to find Chloe Elliston, to take her in his arms, and to crush her close against his wildly ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... life, as Jack remembered him, Donald MacRae had been a silent man, who never talked of how he felt, how things affected him, who never was stricken with that irresistible impulse to explain and discuss, to relieve his troubled soul with words, which afflicts so many men. It seemed as if he had saved it all for that final summing-up which was to be delivered by his pen instead of his lips. He had become articulate only at the ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... well as through the applied branches), I was thus encountered and appealed to by the unity, the simplicity, and the unalterably necessary course, of human development and human education. I became impelled by an irresistible impulse towards the setting forth of that unity and simplicity, with all the force, both of my pen and of my life, in the shape of an educational system. I felt that education as well as science would gain by what I may call a more human, related, affiliated, ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel
... He had an irresistible impulse to hug her with both arms again, and they happened to be on the verge of the river current. Hardacre and Finlayson both shouted, "Look out, sir!" but he was not looking out—his sailor eyes were otherwise occupied, and so he did not perceive the enemy of ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... national sense of energy and fitness gradually superimposed itself upon the national Puritanism, and from that marriage sprung a keen Wille zur Macht, a lusty will to power.[42] The American Puritan, by now, was not content with the rescue of his own soul; he felt an irresistible impulse to hand salvation on, to disperse and multiply it, to ram it down reluctant throats, to make it free, universal and compulsory. He had the men, he had the guns and he had the money too. All that was needed was organization. The rescue of the unsaved could ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... to frequently trouble the thinker with the problem of heredity. Whence came that irresistible impulse towards poetry in Ovid which showed itself from his earliest youth and in the end overcame the vigorous opposition ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... several such lectures Podtyagin, the head ticket collector, begins to feel an irresistible impulse to get to work. It is past one o'clock at night, but in spite of that he wakes the ticket collectors and with them goes up and down the railway carriages, inspecting ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... His Spirit on them with gifts of language, eloquence, wisdom, and healing, as mere earnests and first-fruits; so they said, of that prophecy that He would pour out His Spirit upon all flesh, even upon slaves and handmaids. And these poor fishermen feel themselves impelled by a divine and irresistible impulse to go forth to the ends of the world, and face persecution, insult, torture, and death—not in order that they may make themselves lords over mankind, but that they may tell them that One is their Master, even Jesus Christ, ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... that something was going to happen to Harry which would get him into trouble, and he wanted to assure himself that as yet nothing had gone wrong. Whenever one has this sort of vague feeling about a friend, there is a natural and irresistible impulse to go and look after him, and to be ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... With an irresistible impulse he sprang forward, and caught the little girl in his arms, and sought, by caresses, to soothe her fears, and hush her cries of terror. But those cries had caught the watchful ear of Janet; and, with all the speed that she could use, she came running from ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... satisfactory for its feeling and its facts, but which ended in little better than the customary gratuitousness of wholesale panegyric, I was surprised to find the union with Gemma Donati characterised as "calm and cold,—rather the accomplishment of a social duty than the result of an irresistible impulse of the heart," p. 15. The accomplishment of the "social duty" is an assumption, not very probable with regard to any body, and much less so in a fiery Italian of twenty-six; but the addition of the epithets, "calm and cold," gives it a sort of horror. A reader of this article, ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... the fatal shooting-match, Bartja had followed Croesus' advice and had gone off to Sais with his young wife. They found Rhodopis there. She had yielded to an irresistible impulse and, instead of returning to Naukratis, had stopped at Sais. Bartja's fall on stepping ashore had disturbed her, and she had with her own eyes seen an owl fly from the left side close by his head. These evil omens, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... not take his life in his hand by reason of the act. It was not the love of fame surely which brought them over so many hundreds of miles, which made so many of them endure real physical privation, which drew all by a common, an irresistible impulse to congregate for an unpopular purpose within reach of the teeth and the claws ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... to it. Those silent mushrooms of smoke were shrapnel shells bursting unpleasantly close. For a moment, the young observer felt himself seized by an almost irresistible impulse to take refuge under the coaming surrounding his seat. He uttered an involuntary exclamation ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... are the exquisiteness, the number, and the extraordinary development of the instincts of insects. But is instinct the sole guide of their actions? Are they in every case the blind agent of irresistible impulse? These queries, I have already hinted, cannot, in my opinion, be replied to in the affirmative; and I now proceed to show that though instinct is the chief guide to insects, they are endowed also with ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... implicitly when I tell you that the only reason for my continuing to live is the irresistible impulse of creating a number of works of art which have their vital force in me. I recognise beyond all doubt that this act of creating and completing alone satisfies me and fills me with a desire of life, which otherwise ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... in his fury with an almost irresistible impulse to fly at his brother and seize him by ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... how kind of you!" Miriam cried, holding out both hands, as if led by an irresistible impulse. "But you are so generous. All your friends have discovered that. I always think of St. Francis sharing his cloak with the ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... of the child! The little Caterina!" she exclaimed impetuously, rising and taking a few steps away from him with the irresistible impulse of offended dignity. ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... neither bird nor beast while I was there. And that's not natural. But it's not what you see and hear: it's what you feel. It's terribly hard to explain, but the place appeals most powerfully to the emotions. You feel an irresistible impulse to go to Something's assistance. Of course my eyes were skinned, so I saw the treachery. But I felt the appeal." He halted and threw out a hand. "Imagine a serpent disguised as a beautiful woman in distress—that's Gramarye. ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... temperament, and a large amount of the meditative, but unaccompanied by metaphysical speculation. In Shakespeare we find, besides the dramatic temperament, a large amount of the meditative accompanied by an irresistible impulse towards metaphysical speculation, but, on the whole, a moderate endowment of the lyrical temperament, judging by the few occasions on which he exercised it. For fine as are such lyrics as “Hark, ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... up and their fortunes irrevocably linked together. Nor is there any ground for supposing that marriages are to any great extent influenced by reflections of this sort, which seem unable to make any head against the irresistible impulse of individual attachment. ...
— The Republic • Plato
... Little, a little chagrined. He had expected to plunge straight into lurid encounters and felt an almost irresistible impulse to draw two revolvers, let loose a yell of defiance, and shoot ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... and thus the great warrior departed from the sight of men, a sense of heavy depression came on the whole assembly. Prince Albert was deeply moved, and the aged Marquess of Anglesey, the octogenarian companion in arms of the deceased, by an irresistible impulse stepped forward, placed his hand on the sinking coffin that contained the remains of his chief in many battles, ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... back to Fayette County, and on a pleasant day he climbed the rocks to take a last look at the scenes that had been brightened by love and saddened by regret. He had not been long on its summit when an irresistible impulse came upon him to leap down where the girl had fallen, and atone with his own blood for the shedding of hers. He gave way to this prompting, and the ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... consulted about this and had spoken the truth from his heart, could he have explained the irresistible impulse that had urged him to climb the steep road up the mountain on that ...
— The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp • Katherine Stokes
... had been a sad one for me, when your thrilling tones stole upon my ear, and roused me from my reverie. I listened to every note of that old ballad. Although those words had long been familiar to me, they seemed new and strange that night. An irresistible impulse led me to the spot where you had sunk down in your helplessness. From that hour to this you have been the ruling influence of my life. I have loved you with a devotion which few men have power to feel. Tell me, Honoria, have ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... priority of particular discoveries concerns us all the less, since we hold that, at any time, and among any civilized people, a man may appear who, starting with very scanty preparation, is driven by an irresistible impulse into the path of scientific investigation, and through his native gifts achieves the most astonishing success. Such men were Gerbert of Rheims and Roger Bacon. That they were masters of the whole knowledge of the age in their several departments was a natural consequence of the spirit in which ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... had been a lioness in his defense later on, when he had given way to that first irresistible impulse to dip his fingers in the till and get away with what he thought would be unnoticed petty cash. It had been her fault that the thing had happened, of course. She could have given him a decent amount of spending ...
— Divinity • William Morrison
... in the greatest peril, when a strange and unaccountable, but at the same time irresistible impulse, moved Antonio to go to her rescue. He was forcing his way through the crowd with this intention, when the object of the popular fury turned her head towards him. Her veil was for a moment partially drawn aside, affording a glimpse of her features in profile; and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... by an irresistible impulse to learn the worst, followed Lord James to the room occupied by the engineers. Blake cut short his vacillating in the doorway with a curt invitation to come in and sit down. Having satisfied what he considered the requirements ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... shook and thundered so that its pulse pervaded all my body with its violence. I held in curb a mad, almost irresistible impulse to rush in after her, crying out that I was a poet ... that this was the true romance ... that we must throw aside the conventions ... that ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... hers is. I would speak to her. I am not wise or learned; but orators never pleaded as I would plead to her for my Ernest's heart." Still her eye glanced upon the picture; and I suppose her heart realized an actual presence, though her judgment did not; for by some irresistible impulse she sank slowly down and stretched her clasped hands toward it, while sobs and words seemed to break direct from her bursting heart. "Oh, yes! you are beautiful, you are gifted, and the eyes of thousands wait upon your ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... home, and did not go away again till all was over. Christie never knew very well how those days passed. She remembered running down the lane to meet her sister in the twilight, and the irresistible impulse that came over her to tell of the terrible fear that had come upon her as she sat that night with her father's hand on her head. She called herself foolish and weak, and hastened to tell her sister how much better he had been through the day, how he had walked down the ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... and surprised, he looked into her brimming eyes and met there the look he had sometimes seen in the eyes of his mother, of M'ri, and once in the eyes of Janey. Moved by an irresistible impulse, he stooped ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... had the less merit in this my return, because I was driven, by an irresistible impulse to it; and could not ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... out of the way as something unpleasant to think of. But with a curiosity that is perhaps a little morbid, I sometimes let my thoughts dwell on these cases, wondering whether the dead man may not have carried to the grave with him the secret of some strange perplexity, some passion or craving or irresistible impulse, of which perhaps his intimates, and certainly the coroner's jury, can have had ...
— Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... it was a moral death—I am quite unable to comprehend the motives that led me to take such a course. My eyes were not blinded. I must have seen that each stride placed me further and further away from my darling, erecting a fresh obstacle between us; still, some irresistible impulse appeared to hurry me on—although, I could not but have known how vain it would be for me to recover my lost footsteps: how hard a matter to change my direction, and look upwards to light and happiness once more! Glancing back at this period—as I do now with horror—I cannot ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... irresistible impulse, Don Luis leaped to the girl's side, seized her by the arm and said, ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... with that loyal chivalry of love which felt respect the more for the careless guardianship to which his Helen was intrusted, he refrained from that parting kiss which their pure courtship warranted, for which his lip yearned. But as he lingered, an irresistible impulse moved Helen's heart. Mechanically she opened her arms, and her head sank upon his shoulder. In that embrace they remained some moments silent, and an angel might unreprovingly have heard their hearts beat through ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... were not without foundation, nor were his precautions without effect. While Italy rejoiced in her deliverance from the Goths, a furious tempest was excited among the nations of Germany, who yielded to the irresistible impulse that appears to have been gradually communicated from the eastern extremity of the continent of Asia. The Chinese annals, as they have been interpreted by the earned industry of the present age, may be usefully applied to reveal the secret and remote causes ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... beautiful structure, rising fifteen stories above the ground, and surmounted with an artistic tower, which could be seen from almost any part of the city. The home of the city's greatest daily, it looked as if it were always welcoming strangers to the metropolis, and Archie felt an irresistible impulse to enter. Everything connected with a newspaper had for him the greatest fascination, and he knew he would enjoy seeing through this wonderful building, which was almost wholly occupied by the departments of the Enterprise. So he entered the door, and passed from one floor to another, finally ...
— The Adventures of a Boy Reporter • Harry Steele Morrison
... your work—you'll do just what you did before I came up." She was holding herself in by main strength; why, she could not tell —fighting an almost irresistible impulse to hide her face on his ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... as being so, even captivating, to an eye which had been gratified perhaps to satiety with the ordinary forms of female beauty. She did not appear to notice how closely she was observed; but, as if acting under an irresistible impulse, derived from the sounds to which she seemed to listen, she undid the bodkin round which her long tresses were winded, and flinging them suddenly over her slender person, as if using them as a natural veil, she began to dance, with infinite ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... defects into virtues, Praising his courage and strength, and even his fighting in Flanders, As if by fighting alone you could win the heart of a woman, 645 Quite overlooking yourself and the rest, in exalting your hero. Therefore I spake as I did, by an irresistible impulse. You will forgive me, I hope, for the sake of the friendship between us, Which is too true and too sacred to be so easily broken!" Thereupon answered John Alden, the scholar, the friend of Miles Standish: 650 "I was not angry with you, with myself alone I was angry, Seeing ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... her writing! By an irresistible impulse I held out my hand, and the words, 'Let me see it,' involuntarily passed my lips. He was evidently reluctant to grant the request, but while he hesitated I snatched it from his hand. Recollecting myself, however, the minute after, ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... own choice—if you could call it so,—starting this way, instead of in the friendly atmosphere of the Jaipur Residency. But was there really such a thing as choice? The fact was, he had simply obeyed an irresistible impulse,—and to-morrow he would be glad of it. To-night, after that interminable journey, his head ached atrociously. He felt limp as a wet dish-clout; his nerves all out of gear ... Perhaps those confounded doctors ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... perhaps you can cure my folly if I tell it, and yet I am ashamed," murmured the girl. Then yielding to an irresistible impulse to ask help and sympathy, she added, in an almost inaudible tone, "I came away to ...
— The Mysterious Key And What It Opened • Louisa May Alcott
... the conflict of Murat's troops with the inhabitants of Madrid, had become known in the Spanish cities before the middle of May. On the 20th of the same month the Gaceta announced the abdication of the Bourbon family. Nothing more was wanting to throw Spain into tumult. The same irresistible impulse seized provinces and cities separated by the whole breadth of the Peninsula. Without communication, and without the guidance of any central authority, the Spanish people in every part of the kingdom armed themselves against the ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... the departure of General Bonaparte, and the appointment which he had made of General Kleber to succeed him. This intelligence caused a painful surprise throughout the army. The most opprobrious epithets were applied to this departure. They did not consider that irresistible impulse of patriotism and ambition, which, on the news of the disasters of the republic, had urged him to return to France. They perceived only the forlorn state in which he had left the unfortunate army, which had felt sufficient confidence in his ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... we expected to meet these grim strangers then. That July day came back to me as if it had been but the day before. I believe I never missed Hubbard so much as at that moment. I never felt his loss so keenly as then. An almost irresistible impulse seized me to go on into our old trail and hurry to the camp where we had left him that stormy October day and find if he were not after all still there and waiting for me ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... sat down to finish his letter to Clara; but a glance through the window showed him Olimpia still in her former posture. Urged by an irresistible impulse he jumped up and seized Coppola's perspective; nor could he tear himself away from the fascinating Olimpia until his friend and brother Siegmund called for him to go to Professor Spalanzani's lecture. The curtains before the door of ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... she had him going. The manliness that had possessed him departed. He bowed low, and said something about "irresistible impulse" and "forever carry in his heart the memory of"—and she suggested that he catch ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... such as the rocks send back to the valleys, when the voice is raised above its natural key in order to reach the caverns and savage recesses of inaccessible precipices. Strains like these readily recall the glens and the magnificence amid which they were first heard, and hence, by an irresistible impulse, the mind is led to indulge in the strongest of all its sympathies, those which are mixed with the unalloyed and unsophisticated delights ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... that they were tremulous with pleasure and delight at their little trick. He felt himself mean, sordid, a fool; he longed to punish himself, to rend his heart. A few tears rose to his eyes; by an irresistible impulse he sprang up, clasped Adelaide in his arms, pressed her to his heart, and stole a kiss; then with the simple heartiness of an artist, "I ask for her for my wife!" he exclaimed, ...
— The Purse • Honore de Balzac
... now see one with great composure. I can account for this curiosity in a philosophical manner, when I consider that death is the most awful object before every man, whoever directs his thoughts seriously towards futurity. Therefore it is that I feel an irresistible impulse to be present at every execution, as I there behold the various effects of the near approach of death.' He maintains 'that the curiosity which impels people to be present at such affecting scenes, is certainly a proof of sensibility, not ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... is not what they are doomed to suffer, but how they are formed to bear. Take a being of our kind, give him a stronger imagination, and a more delicate sensibility, which between them will ever engender a more ungovernable set of passions than are the usual lot of man; implant in him an irresistible impulse to some idle vagary, ... in short, send him adrift after some pursuit which shall eternally mislead him from the paths of lucre, and yet curse him with a keener relish than any man living for the pleasures that lucre can purchase; lastly, fill up the measure of his woes ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... Bruce, or it might be the daring patriotism of his enterprise was appreciated by the gallant English knight; certain it was that, though Sir Henry's bearing had been somewhat haughty, his brow knit, and his head still covered, as he passed up the hall, by an irresistible impulse he doffed his helmet as he met the eagle glance of the Bruce, and bowed his head respectfully before him, an example instantly followed by ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... midst of active spirits comes the irresistible impulse to a somewhat partisan warfare. The critic, if he could view himself from some empyraean perch, remote in time and place, might smile at his own vehemence. In the clash of aims he must, after all, take sides, for it is the tendency that is momentous; and he will ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... affray occurred in broad daylight. At the sight of the blood they had shed there was a revulsion of feeling on the part of the troops, and after a moment of surprise and horror the soldiers, prompted by an irresistible impulse, raised the butts of their rifles in the air and shouted: "Long live the National Guard!" The general in command, being powerless to control his men, went off to Vincennes by way of the quays and the people remained masters of the Bastille ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... Maupassant. Now and again, in the course of the past year or so, it had occurred to me that I might be a writer. But I had not felt the impulse to sit down and write something. I did feel that impulse now. It would indeed have been an irresistible impulse if I had ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... over the precipice, and an abyss seemed to open beside him—the abyss of eternity; when, lo! from the depths of the abyss there appeared a globe of fire (un globe de feu) encircled with the Cross; and the irresistible impulse was stirred in him to throw aside the world for ever, and embrace God,—“Not the God of philosophers or of savants,” but “the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob—the God of Jesus Christ,” from whom he had been severed, but from whom he felt he never more would be severed; abiding in Him in “sweet ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... absurdity of the undertaking! for admitting that the proprietors might prevail on some poor idiot to act as coachman, where were they to entrap a dozen mad people for passengers? We often experience an irresistible impulse to interfere, in some matter, simply because it happens to be no business of ours; and the case in question being, clearly, no affair of mine, I resolved to inquire into it. I went into the coach-office, expecting to be told, in answer to my very ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 471, Saturday, January 15, 1831 • Various
... the poet's privilege of seeing into the man's mind; and makes him think before us in a long and impassioned soliloquy, which sets forth the hidden motive of his deed. As Mr. Browning conceives him, he did not mean to kill himself. He did so in a final, irresistible impulse to manifest his faith, and to test the foundations of it. It has had for its object, not the spiritual truths of Christianity, but its miraculous powers; and these powers have of late been symbolized to his mind by the Virgin of the Ravissante.[79] The conflict ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... entered the room, Wolfgang's eyes at once rested greedily upon the basket, which Pedro had again closed, as if he guessed what treasure lay within. Samson's glance went straight to the sleeping dwarf, and an almost irresistible impulse to kick the inert figure possessed him. But he restrained himself, and colored high when he met ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... been on the point of retreating, but the girl's distress altered my mind. By an irresistible impulse I rose and stood ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... days of his most insatiable pride, and had remained ever since in Wolsey's chapel at Windsor; Nelson's flag was to have been placed over the coffin, but as it was about to be lowered, the sailors who had borne it, as if by an irresistible impulse, stepped forward and tore it in pieces, for relics. Dean Milman, who, as a youth, was present, says, "I heard, or fancied I heard, the low wail of the sailors who encircled the remains of their admiral." Nelson's trusty companion, Lord Collingwood, who led the ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... farmer who died after having witnessed the death of his sons. On seeing the public mourning of the Free States, on hearing the minute gun discharged in the capital of the State of New York on the day of execution, one might have foreseen the irresistible impulse which has just ended in the triumph ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... upon it—"white with the whiteness of what is dead;" and, feeling as if all the men were looking at him, as indeed most of them were, kept staring, or trying to stare, at other things in the room. But all at once, from an irresistible impulse, he faced round, and ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... day he felt a fire within his breast. It is difficult to understand how he survived sufferings so intense, and so long continued. At length the clouds broke. From the depths of despair, the penitent passed to a state of serene felicity. An irresistible impulse now urged him to impart to others the blessing of which he was himself possessed. [254] He joined the Baptists, and became a preacher and writer. His education had been that of a mechanic. He knew no language but the English, as it was spoken ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... young children, in the bleakest part of the civilized world. There was not the slightest necessity for the greater portion of the labour performed by the old lady: but she seemed to work from some irresistible impulse; her limbs continually swaying to and fro, as if there were some indefatigable engine concealed within her body which kept her ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... closed door, struggling against an almost irresistible impulse to return and take her in his arms. Did he not love her? What other was this that filled his heart? Could he honestly say, "Jane, I want you for my wife"? He could not. Miserable and cursing himself ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... was holding it tighter to his face—against his lips. The birch bark died as suddenly as it had flared up; he heard her breathing quickly, he saw her great eyes melt away like lustrous stars into the returning gloom, and a wild, irresistible impulse moved him. He raised his free hand to the dark head, and drew it down to him, holding it against his feverish face while he whispered Rameses's prayer of thankfulness ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... oars dropped from her hands and every muscle in her body went limp. Then the impulse came to jump in the water after the child. Seizing the row-lock, she was about to plunge, blindly, heedlessly, but obeying the irresistible impulse, when something white appeared on the water, right at her very side. It was Gladys's white dress, and Dolly made a grab for it just as it was again about ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... of the world," says Macrobius, "is nature itself" [as the soul of man is man himself], "always acting through the celestial spheres which it moves, and which but follow the irresistible impulse it impresses on them. The heavens, the sun, great seat of generative power, the signs, the stars, and the planets act only with the activity of the soul of the Universe. From that soul, through them, come all the variations and changes of sublunary nature, of which the heavens and celestial ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... was seized with an irresistible impulse to purchase the chest, and having a small silver coin of not more value than a silver penny, said to himself, "I will try my fate, possibly it may contain something valuable; but if not, I will disregard the disappointment;" ordered it to be conveyed ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... in Europe listened to her entranced, as she changed from language to language; and when at last the triumphant strains of the Song of the Revolution came floating down from her lips through the still night air, an irresistible impulse ran through the listening millions, and with one accord they took up the refrain in all the languages of Europe, and a mighty flood of exultant song rolled up in wave after wave from earth to heaven,—a ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... the loss of which brought them to their degraded position of prisoners. Having constantly before their eyes the garb and stamp of their infamy, reformation, if not impossible, is extremely difficult. Pass them on the highways at any time; and, in obedience to an irresistible impulse, they will leave off their work to look at you, and the comparison of your dress and condition, with their own distinctive costume and forced occupation, instead of awakening a spirit of hope and a determination to regain freedom, induces ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... all personal, all political feelings are quelled—all strife of party is hushed—that we are incapable, whatever be our opinions, of refusing to acknowledge transcendant merit, and of denying that we feel the irresistible impulse of unbounded gratitude; and I am therefore asked to do this service, as if to show that no difference of opinion upon subjects, however important—no long course of opposition, however contracted upon public principles—not even long inveterate habits of public opposition—are able so far ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... out from the cover of wet leaves and peered at him questioningly with its bold bright eye. Acting on an irresistible impulse he set his foot on the gnarled root of the old wistaria and started to climb to the window-sill. Three minutes sufficed him to reach it—he looked into the little room, —the room which had formerly been the study of the "Sieur Amadis de Jocelin"—and ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... anything; my nerves were still jangling to that shrieking, and to the clang of the iron doors that had closed behind me. I had an irresistible impulse to get hold of the iron candlestick and smash it home through the skull of the turnkey—as I had done to the men who had killed Seraphina's father... to kill this man, then to creep along the black passages and murder ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... irresistible impulse I rose from my chair and held out my hand. The maire took it in mild surprise. "Monsieur," I said frankly, if crudely, "you are a brave man. And you ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... forth a brood of Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock, and, in a subsequent one, spawned slaves upon the Southern soil,—a monstrous birth, but with which we have an instinctive sense of kindred, and so are stirred by an irresistible impulse to attempt their rescue, even at the cost of blood and ruin. The character of our sacred ship, I fear, may suffer a little by this revelation; but we must let her white progeny offset her dark one,—and two such portents never sprang from an ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... laboratory stood apart from the house in the long, narrow garden at the back, and as he approached the door he stopped for a moment, and an almost irresistible impulse to go away and have nothing more to do with the unholy work in hand took possession of him. Then the love of his science and the longing to hear the marvels which could only be heard from the lips that had been silent for centuries overcame his fears, and ...
— The Romance of Golden Star ... • George Chetwynd Griffith
... berth, sometimes for a short while falling into a troubled state between waking and sleeping. In both states he saw visions, now a wild dance of faces, now a single stark face, which tormented him and would not budge. Yet an irresistible impulse gathered in him to keep his mental eye open for the devilish play ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... hopes, to love men for their weakness and their greatness, and to belong to humanity through the heart, the intelligence and the soul. Then an unknown power takes possession of us, as the wind of the sails of a ship, and bears us toward pity and justice. And yielding to its irresistible impulse, we say: I cannot help it, something is there stronger than I. In so saying, the men of all times and places have designated a power that is above humanity, but which may dwell in men's hearts. ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... convulsed bosom, and she was carried, in a state of wild and fearful frenzy, into the house. The homicide was the tory husband, who, having met his victim in the fight, and acting, as he averred, under an irresistible impulse, had singled out and slain one, whom, the next moment, he would have given worlds to have been able to bring to life. [Footnote: The scene here introduced is drawn from an incident belonging to the local history ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... dazzled eyes. It stopped with a great exhaled breath of relief and stood panting and puffing after its long run. Roderick knew that if he chose he could slip out, leap on that train and go speeding away up through the forest and be in Algonquin before morning. He felt for a moment an almost irresistible impulse to do it, to fling away everything and go back. But he would look like a fool, and the people would laugh at him, and quite rightly. He could not ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... to creep into his arms under the folds of the blanket and he sensed the soft crush of her hair, the touch of her lips, the warm encircling of her arms about his neck. Closer to him pressed the mystery, until the beating of her heart was a living pulse against him; and then—suddenly, as an irresistible impulse closed his arms to hold the spirit to him, his eyes were drawn to the heart of the fire, and he saw there for an instant, wide-eyed and speaking to him, the face of Yellow Bird the Indian sorceress. ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... west toward Broadway, still, I suppose, thinking of him subconsciously: for a few moments later, some irresistible impulse caused me to glance around. And there he was, walking after me, on the opposite side of the street! Then, in a flash, I understood. He ...
— The Holladay Case - A Tale • Burton E. Stevenson
... burial vault. In the crypt chapels were a number of statues, in marble and bronze, most of them rude, antique, yet not of indifferent workmanship, especially one before which the jestress, in spite of the exigency of the moment, stopped as if impelled by an irresistible impulse. This monument, so read the inscription, had been erected by the renowned Constable of Dubrois to his young and ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... slavery, and who could find no relief from, this distress except in raising some voice to the ear of Christianity. Fearful of the jealousy of political interference, Lord Shaftesbury published an address to the ladies of England, in which he told them that he felt himself moved by an irresistible impulse to entreat them to raise their voice, in the name of a common Christianity and womanhood, to their American sisters. The abuse which has fallen upon him for this most Christian proceeding does not in the least surprise him, because ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... Black Castle of his daydream, where, if all went well with him, he alone would be the "foreigner." A longing for companionship came upon him. He wanted some one who would laugh and talk airy nonsense, some one whose mind would not be running everlastingly in the political groove, and an irresistible impulse urged him to ask for a ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... he lay in breathless silence, too frightened even to stir, and panic-stricken lest the violent beating of his heart should arouse the mysterious visitor. But at length, impelled by an irresistible impulse, he sat up in bed and opened his eyes. The room was aglow with a phosphorescent light, and in the depths of the glittering mirror he saw a startling reproduction of ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... An irresistible impulse had carried her from the house. She wanted to see Billy. It was still early and a lantern flickered in the Norton barnyard. She ran along the snowy road and down the drive of the Norton yard, pausing beside a lilac bush to see whether it was Billy or his father just entering the cowshed. ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... pitiable fate, in a world whose atmosphere is too sharp for this the tenderest blossom of human life. Two beings created for each other feel mutual love at the first glance; every consideration disappears before the irresistible impulse to live in one another; under circumstances hostile in the highest degree to their union, they unite themselves by a secret marriage, relying simply on the protection of an invisible power. Untoward ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... curtain fell, separating the house full of noisy applause and the stage littered with bouquets, where the white gown of Juliet swept over scattered camellia blossoms, the two singers were seized with an irresistible impulse, as though their love, a shade artificial, had but awaited the emotion of a ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... those habits of seclusion, and that apparently capricious abstraction of himself from the society not only of his friends, but of his own family, in which he from time to time persisted. He confessed to occasional accesses of an almost irresistible impulse to flee to the labyrinthine shelter of some great city like London or Paris,—there to dwell solitary amid a multitude, buried by day in the cloister-like recesses of mighty libraries, and stealing away by night to some obscure lodging. Long indulgence ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... this movement of insurrectionary thought was Denis Diderot. Diderot (1713-1784) was born to be an encyclopaedist, and a captain of encyclopaedists. Force inexhaustible, and inexhaustible willingness to give out force; unappeasable curiosity to know; irresistible impulse to impart knowledge; versatile capacity to do every thing, carried to the verge, if not carried beyond the verge, of incapacity to do any thing thoroughly well; quenchless zeal and quenchless hope; levity enough of temper to keep its subject free from those depressions of spirit ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... too willing, but, as she thought of it, it seemed quite safe, and she could tell her friends, she rapidly reflected, that she had been swayed by irresistible impulse of mercy. That ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... with a smile; but her voice trembled a little, and I perceived that a soft dew had gathered over her eyes. By an irresistible impulse I rose, and stealing softly behind her, clasped my arms round her neck, and kissing her forehead whispered, "Forgive ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... to look at her, red chasing white from his face at every breath; then, yielding to an irresistible impulse, he went to her, grasped her folded hands in both of his, and looked into her eyes for one burning moment. The hot blood flamed to her face. ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... vegetable patch? What was there to interfere? Nothing. These men well knew that except for the flag station there was not a habitation within ten miles, and the ruggedness of the hills barred them to every form of traffic except the irresistible impulse of railroad enterprise. ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... that time, and replied with a smile to the ringing cheer that greeted him. The cheer was echoed again and again by the men on shore. Major Beak attempted to grasp his hand, but failed. Mr Blurt, feeling an irresistible impulse, tried to embrace him, but was thrust aside, fell, and rolled ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... an invitation from Miss Whedell, the three callers sat down. Mr. Maltboy gravitated by a natural instinct to the side of his charmer. Mr. Overtop was drawn by an irresistible impulse into the vicinity of Mrs. Frump, having detected in her general appearance certain indications of what he called "a sensible woman." Mr. Quigg, feeling that he was one too many, took a "seat equally removed from the two ladies, and commenced playing soft tunes on his hat, and looking ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... knowing that there was one in it to whom she could turn in need. For she felt that she could turn to Starling; he alone, apparently, had measured the full depth of her trouble; nay, had silently predicted it from the beginning. And to-day, as he stood before her, she had an almost irresistible impulse to speak. Just a word-a human word would have been such a help to her! And how ridiculous the social law that kept the old man standing there, impassive, respectful, when this existed between them! Her tragedy was his tragedy; not in the same proportion, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... cold fish, as did some of the girls he knew. She was dressed in a half-formal house-gown, and the one curl of her waving brown hair that would persistently straggle down upon her forehead was in its accustomed place. He had always been obsessed with a nearly irresistible impulse to put his finger through ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... the colyumist's job is the number of people who drop in to see him, usually when he is imprecating his way toward the hour of going to press. This is all a part of the great and salutary human instinct against work. When people see a man toiling, they have an irresistible impulse to crowd round and stop him. They seem to imagine that he has been put there on purpose to help them solve their problems, to find a job for their friend from Harrisburg, or to tell them how to find a publisher for their poems. Unhappily, their ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... irresistible impulse came to her; she could not hate or hurt this fair, gentle lady whom the countess had put in her place, and whom her husband did not love; a great impulse of pity came over her, a sweet and generous compassion filled ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... epaulette and the gold belt, how did you feel when you went downstairs and heard the scabbard of your sabre go clink-clank on the steps, when with your cap on one side and your arm akimbo you found yourself in the street, and, an irresistible impulse urging you on, you gazed at your figure reflected in the chemist's bottles? Will you dare to say that you did not halt before those bottles? ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... patriotism a positive law; there is no perfect Christian who is not also a perfect patriot. For our religion exalts the antique ideal, showing it to be realizable only in the absolute. Whence, in truth, comes this universal, this irresistible impulse which carries at once the will of the whole nation in one single effort of cohesion and of resistance in face of the hostile menace against her unity ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... continually struck with the likeness there drawn of the pilgrim—the more he contemplates the two pictures of Christian experience, so much the more striking is their similarity. The one is a narrative of facts, the other contains the same facts allegorized. Thus, by an irresistible impulse from heaven upon the mind of a prisoner for Christ, did a light shine forth from the dungeon on Bedford bridge which has largely contributed to enlighten the habitable globe. The Pilgrim has been translated into most of the languages ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... extreme liveliness of the jay which makes it more distressing to the mind to see it pent in a cage than other birds of its family, such as the magpie; just as it is more distressing to see a skylark than a finch in prison, because the lark has an irresistible impulse to rise when his singing fit is on. Sing he must, in or out of prison, yet there can be little joy in the performance when the bird is incessantly teased with the unsatisfied desire to mount and pour out his music ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... said in broken tones. Then suddenly, as though acting under an irresistible impulse, she threw her arms wildly about his neck and kissed him passionately again ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... to this longing for society was the passion which the first generation of pioneers had for the wilderness. When the population of one settlement became too thick, they were seized by an irresistible impulse to "follow the migration," as the expression went. The easy independence of the first hunter-agriculturalist was upset by the advance of immigration. His range was curtailed, his freedom limited. His very breath seems to have become difficult. So he sold out at a phenomenal profit, ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... very great. At the age of thirty-two, he had buried four wives. The fifth was a desperate fury, who gave him great trouble as long as he lived. After preaching about six years in Philadelphia, he was seized with an irresistible impulse to visit England. No persuasions could divert him from the purpose; and in September, 1787, he arrived, almost penniless, and a total stranger, in the great metropolis of the British empire. He preached in different parts of London, and, ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... won't have it dressed at your wedding. It shall flow down naturally in all its beauty—and no hand shall brush it but mine." She pressed her lips on Minna's head, and devoured it with kisses; then, driven by some irresistible impulse, pushed the girl away from her, and threw herself on the sofa with a cry ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... and children, coming toward me; and by it rode a gentleman on horseback. His horse was rearing among the hissing geese, but neither horse nor geese appeared to engage him; his eyes were fixed upon me. The horse swerved so near that its long mane almost brushed against me. By an irresistible impulse I laid my ungloved hand upon it, but did not look at the rider. Carriage and horseman passed on, and William resumed his pace. A vague idea took possession of me that I had seen the horseman before ...
— Lemorne Versus Huell • Elizabeth Drew Stoddard
... suddenly called out to him in Dutch, "Step on board, young man, or you'll be left behind!" He was startled by the sum mons; he saw that the sloop was cast loose, and was actually moving from the pier; it seemed as if he was actuated by some irresistible impulse; he sprang upon the deck, and the next moment the sloop was hurried off by the wind and tide. Dolph's thoughts and feelings were all in tumult and confusion. He had been strongly worked upon by the events that had recently befallen him, and could not but think that ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... Suddenly an irresistible impulse seized me—to rush upon her, to dash syringe, tabloids, glass, and all, from her hands. I must have obeyed it—I was on the tip-top point of obeying—my body already leant prone: but at that instant a voice at the opened ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... cried Lucilla, joyously, and alive to no other interpretation of his words. Godolphin was transported beyond himself; and clasping Lucilla in his arms he covered her cheeks, her lips, with impassioned and burning kisses; then suddenly, as if stung by some irresistible impulse, he tore himself away; and fled ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... two men met for the first time, in 1844, they were drawn together by an irresistible impulse. They were kindred spirits. Marx had gone to Paris mainly for the purpose of studying the Socialist movement of the time. During his editorship of the Rhenish Gazette several articles had appeared on the subject, and he had refused ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... respecting the explosive that had been employed, preferring as he did to assume full responsibility for the deed which was about to cost him his life. Moreover, Guillaume, on turning round, in compliance with an irresistible impulse, had perceived Victor Mathis still motionless behind him: his elbows ever leaning on the rail of the partition, and his chin still resting on his hands, whilst he listened with silent, concentrated passion. His face had become yet paler than before, and his eyes glowed ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola |
