"Unerring" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in the first company continued to fall in appalling numbers before the riflemen's unerring aim. The Riverlawns pressed them with renewed zeal, and they fell back into the gap made by the flankers. In this manner the second platoon came into their proper position, while the first company, now re-enforced by the two companies ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... of the unerring bow, The god of life, and poetry, and light, The Sun, in human limbs arrayed, and brow All radiant from his triumph in the fight. The shaft has just been shot; the arrow bright With an immortal's vengeance; in his eye And nostril, beautiful ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... and he shuddered as he thought of the gruesome tidings which must await La Pommeraye on that lonely northern isle. He shuddered, too, as he thought of De Roberval. Fate is sometimes slow-footed, but he felt certain that it must at last rush with unerring speed to the destruction of the man who ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... assistance, and after some time, accompanied him to auctions of pictures, where the English gentry were expected to be purchasers. I was not a little surprised at his intimacy with people of the best fashion, who referred themselves to his judgment upon every picture or medal, as to an unerring standard of taste. He made very good use of my assistance upon these occasions; for when asked his opinion, he would gravely take me aside, and ask mine, shrug, look wise, return, and assure the company, that he could give no opinion upon an affair of so much importance. Yet there was sometimes ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... I with unerring truth, Inspir'd by memory's magic power, Pourtray thee, grac'd in ripening youth, ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... do possess them, notwithstanding what the devil and the world may say to the contrary. God has given you a body, but ever remember that he has given you a mind to regulate that body. To the animals he has given bodies, and indued them with instincts which we may say are unerring; whereas man's mind, in consequence of sin, is prone to err; but then again, in his mercy, he has enabled man to seek for strength from above to counteract the effects of sin, and so to regulate his mind that it may properly guide the body. I have no faith in high principles, ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... could be no doubt on another point: he was much quicker of movement than the iron-limbed Taggarak. The open space would give full freedom to both, and this quickness would not be hampered at all during the fight between them. Moreover, Deerfoot was an unerring judge of distance, and knew on the instant when to dodge and when to strike. Therefore he feared not, but with that old Adamic strain in his nature, ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... patient. He was lying on his right side with one arm slightly raised in quite a natural attitude for one sleeping. His features, although the pallor of death was upon them and they were relaxed, showed no sign of suffering. The blow had been unerring, and had no doubt penetrated to the heart. The crime had been committed swiftly, and the murderer ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... The monster, unconscious of danger, was still above water. As the boat drew near, old Tom was standing up in the bow, harpoon in hand, ready to plunge it into the whale's side. Its flukes were just going up as, with unerring aim, he darted his weapon, which sunk deep into its side. With rapid strokes the boat was backed away, and old Tom returned aft to manage the line, now running rapidly out as the whale sounded. The second ...
— The Voyage of the "Steadfast" - The Young Missionaries in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.'—But within their limited range the inferior animals perform their proper labours with an unwearied industry, and an unerring precision, which call forth our wonder and admiration. Of these remarkable qualities we have given abundant examples in the preceding pages; and they are not without moral instruction. Elevated as our minds are in the comparative scale ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 486 - Vol. 17, No. 486., Saturday, April 23, 1831 • Various
... an Idaho tribe of the Shoshones and was the only person who could speak the language of the Indians that would be met on the way or who had ever been over the route to be traveled. With her baby in her arms she was the unerring guide through the almost impenetrable mountain passes and on several occasions saved not only the equipment and documents but the lives of the party. In recognition of this service the women of Oregon formed the Sacajawea Association, with the following ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... in the most populous town, I have been received with the utmost enthusiasm: in fact, in no part of England have I ever been more warmly greeted, or received more unequivocal marks of respect from all ranks and classes. I announce this fact with much satisfaction, as it is an unerring mark of the feelings with which the measures which I have adopted for the public good have been regarded by the great majority of the inhabitants of the two provinces." It is quite clear, however, that Lord Durham had not conciliated the great body of the people. During the month of September, those ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... warriors who have found a grave I' the maw of wolf or hound, or winged bird That flying homewards taints their city's air. These are the shafts, that like a bowman I Provoked to anger, loosen at thy breast, Unerring, and their smart thou shalt not shun. Boy, lead me home, that he may vent his spleen On younger men, and learn to curb his tongue With gentler manners than ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... but with unerring certainty, something small, round, and deadly, fell plumb from the library ceiling to where the settle had formerly stood against the hearthstone. Finding nothing there but vacancy to expend itself upon, it swung about for a moment on what looked like a wire or a whip-cord, ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... The birds never encroach on their store until the snow has covered the ground, then they begin to draw upon their bank; and it is a curious fact that the bills of these birds are always honoured, for their instinct enables them to detect the bad nuts with unerring certainty, so that their bank is always filled with good ones. This matter of selecting the good nuts is a mere chance with men, for often those shells which seem the soundest, are found to contain a grub ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... the more recent Blaine and Cleveland canvass of 1884. Everything that could be tortured into apparent wrong was served up to listening thousands. Van Buren had about him the genius of Edwin Croswell, the unerring judgment of Benjamin F. Butler, the wisdom of William L. Marcy, the diplomacy of Benjamin Knower, and the scintillating brilliancy of Samuel A. Talcott; but like McGregor, Van Buren sat at the head of the table. He cautioned Noah, he complimented Coleman, he kept Southwick ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... neither spot nor blemish; and as the soul walks out upon the highways of its life, dim whispers and faint intuitions try to teach the road it ought to travel to the stars. Happy the man who understands the story and walks with unerring feet the divine lanes of life and light until the ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... of Chimari, who never forgive The fault of a friend, bid an enemy live? Let those guns so unerring such vengeance forego? What mark is so fair as the breast of ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... correct judge of mental and moral worth. Without stopping to give logical reasons for her course, perhaps, she still chooses with unerring judgment ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... the cutaneous nerves, but the whole system, become habituated to the high temperature. From these facts we learn that the sensations, are not always a correct index of the real temperature. A well-adjusted thermometer will indicate it with unerring certainty. ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... ditch—plank resting on parapet, balanced by weight of patriots—he hovers perilous. Such a dove towards such an ark! Deftly thou shifty usher; one man already fell, and lies smashed, far down there, against the masonry. Usher Maillard falls not; deftly, unerring he walks, with outspread palm. The Swiss holds a paper through his port-hole; the shifty usher snatches it, and returns. Terms of surrender—pardon, immunity to all. Are they accepted? "Foi d'officier—on the word of an officer," answers half-pay Hulin, or half-pay ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... road further to the west. The outcome of these two days of fighting was most serious for the allies. They lost 35,000 men in killed, wounded and prisoners—a natural result of their neglect to seize Fortune's bounteous favours on the 25th; a result, too, of Napoleon's rapid movements and unerring sagacity in profiting by the tactical ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... present condition of Navy, making it dominant on all seas, is mainly due to him. Recognized as fitting thing that he should be placed in charge of weapon that with patient endeavour, supreme skill, unerring foresight he had forged. Never yet in time of war have these Islands been in such safe keeping. With K. K. at the War Office and JACK FISHER at the Admiralty British householder may sleep in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 18, 1914 • Various
... mighty Monarchs met in adverse arms, Sable and white; assist me to explore, 5 Ye Serian Nymphs, what ne'er was sung before. No path appears: yet resolute I stray Where youth undaunted bids me force my way. O'er rocks and cliffs while I the task pursue, Guide me, ye Nymphs, with your unerring clue. 10 For you the rise of this diversion know, You first were pleased in Italy to show This studious sport; from Scacchis was its name, The pleasing record of your ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... helpless condition, Carson rushed to his assistance, jumped from his horse, placed himself in front of his fallen companion, and shouting at the same instant for his men to rally around him, shot the foremost warrior dead with his unerring rifle. ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... believed that no selection has been included that is not a masterpiece. This belief is based primarily on the fact that most of the specimens have been chosen and approved by generation after generation of children, culled out from the light and worthless as by an unerring hand, through the most pragmatic ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... present, opinion will widely vary as to the wisdom of the several conclusions announced by that tribunal. This is to be anticipated in every instance where matters of dispute are made the subject of arbitration under the forms of law. Human judgment is never unerring, and is rarely regarded as otherwise than wrong by the unsuccessful ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... useless stream, a force superior to the force of instinct had traced a long, greenish canal, calm, peaceful, deliberate; that flowed steadily across the country, across the crumbling stones, across the obedient forest, on its clear and unerring, unhurrying way from its distant source on the horizon to the same tranquil, shining lake. And I had at my feet before me the image of the two great destinies offered ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... science. He could not prove he was not a fool! When one comes to think of it, Ripton did choose the only possible way, and we should all of us have considerable difficulty in proving the negative by any other. Ripton came on the unerring fist again and again; and if it was true, as he said in short colloquial gasps, that he required as much beating as an egg to be beaten thoroughly, a fortunate interruption alone saved our friend from resembling that substance. The boys heard summoning ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... shoulder. They were the orphan children of the village themselves, and needed to be perpetually adopted. They were as good-hearted and lovable a pair as it was possible for man and woman to be; all the stray dogs and hungry cats and needy tramps found their way to the Sawyer house by unerring instinct, and Jake was never to be seen on his way to or from his mill without a troop of children climbing all over him. Nevertheless, he and his wife were a great care to their neighbors. Not once ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... is not mocked; "whatsoever a man," or a woman either, "soweth, that shall he also reap."' For remember that there are other ways of pulling down walls than these gross and palpable transgressions with the body; and there are other sorts of retributions which come with unerring certainty besides those that can be taken notice of by others. I do not want to dwell upon these at any length, but let me just remind you of one or ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... many ups and downs was her new, unforeseen, and whimsical existence to consist? She thought about that as she fell asleep in Desiree's great easy-chair; but she thought of her revenge, too—her cherished revenge which she held in her hand, all ready for use, and so unerring, ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... have rocked and toppled of late, but our King and Queen, by their unsparing and unfaltering devotion to duty, by their simplicity of life and unerring instinct for saying and doing the right thing, have not only set a fine example, but strengthened their hold on the loyalty of all classes. And King Albert, who defied Germany at the outset, shared the dangers of his soldiers in retreat and disaster, and throughout the ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... and luminous view of Rickman's character. What really counted was the alertness of his whole attitude to honour, his readiness to follow the voice of his own ultimate vision, to repudiate the unclean thing revealed in its uncleanness; above all, what counted was his passionate sincerity. With her unerring instinct of selection Lucia had again seized on the essential. The triumph of Rickman's greater qualities appealed to her as a spectacle; it was not spoiled for her by the reflection that she personally had been more affected by his failure. If she showed her insight into Rickman's character by ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... exception—when soldiers are billeted with them, is to learn who is the officer in charge, in order that they may lose no time in bringing their complaints to him. The Mother Superior of the Hospice selected Talbot with unerring zeal. His days were made miserable, until in self-defence he thought of formulating a new calendar of "crimes" for his men, in which would be included all the terrible offences which the Mother Superior told off ...
— Life in a Tank • Richard Haigh
... to suppose that the perfection of sea officers consisted in a turn of mind and temper resembling the boisterous element they have to deal with, and have condemned all literature and science, as effeminate and derogatory to that ferocity, which, they would falsely persuade us, was the most unerring characteristic of courage, yet it is to be hoped that such absurdities have not at any time been authorized by the public opinion, and that the belief daily diminishes. If those who adhere to these mischievous positions were capable of being influenced by reason, or swayed by example, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... arms, save the ball of heavy flint, to which, that his sole possession and defence might not be lost, he had attached a long cord of plaited thongs; thereby recovering as well as hurling it with deadly, unerring skill." ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... afternoon of unclouded sunshine. Chris lay back in her seat, somewhat wearied but quite content, watching the cornfields with their red wealth of poppies, watching the long, white road before them, and now and then the unerring ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... Franklin told in a remarkable manner the story of a remarkable life. He displayed hard common sense and a practical knowledge of the art of living. He selected and arranged his material, perhaps unconsciously, with the unerring instinct of the journalist for the best effects. His success is not a little due to his plain, clear, vigorous English. He used short sentences and words, homely expressions, apt illustrations, and pointed allusions. Franklin had a most interesting, varied, and ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... but there were the other trimmers to be examined, and though it would have puzzled a stranger, Dave went back with unerring accuracy to the next one that ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... were correct this time, for the regiment was soon sent to the right of the road, and ordered to deploy as skirmishers. A battery was thrown forward in front of the felled timber; but before a gun could be fired, two officers and two privates were seen to fall before the unerring aim of the rebel sharpshooters, occupying the rifle pits which dotted the cleared land in ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... fact, during this long course of services in the Mediterranean, the whole of his conduct had exhibited the same zeal, the same indefatigable energy, the same intuitive judgment, the same prompt and unerring decision which characterised his after-career of glory. His name was as yet hardly known to the English public; but it was feared and respected throughout Italy. A letter came to him, directed "Horatio Nelson, Genoa;" and the writer, when he was asked how he could ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... his 'disparagement of heath and highlands,' as he confessed to Scott, Lamb was as instant and unerring in his appreciation of natural things, once brought before them, as he was in his appreciation of the things of art and the mind and man's making. He was a great walker, and sighs once, before his release from the desk: 'I wish I were a caravan driver or a penny post man, ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... happy lot to rise in the realm of oratory by the power of his poetic spirit higher than any American, save probably Emerson, has done in other fields of literature. On the theme of slavery, where his unerring moral sense had free sway, he became our supreme orator, transcending even Webster in grandeur of thought and beauty of its expression. His periods are not as sonorous as the Olympian New England orator's, but their accents will reach as far and resound ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... was born at Liege, is described as of almost uncanny sharpness, with senses and perceptions as keen as an Indian. He was able to find his way through the woods and pass the German sentinels with unerring accuracy. ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... settle the category under which the boy is to be classed. A few apparently trivial accidents of his first few weeks at school often decide his position in the general regard for the remainder of his boyhood. And yet these are not accidents; they are the slight indications which give an unerring proof of the general tendencies of his character and training. Hence much of the apparent cruelty with which new boys are treated is not exactly intentional. At first, of course, as they can have no friends worth speaking of, there are always plenty of coarse and brutal minds ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... that banded them against young Gourlay. "Gunk" and "chaw" are the Scots for a bitter and envious disappointment which shows itself in face and eyes. Young Gourlay could never conceal that envious look when he heard of a glory which he did not share; and the youngsters noted his weakness with the unerring precision of the urchin to mark simple difference of character. Now the boy presses fiendishly on an intimate discovery in the nature of his friends, both because it gives him a new and delightful ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... with his friend, he undertook to paint some frescoes independently, and that work earned for him the name of "Andrea senza Errori"—Andrea the Unerring. Then, as now, each artist had his own way of working, and Andrea's was perhaps the most difficult of all, yet the most genius-like. There were those, Michael Angelo for example, who laid in backgrounds for their paintings; but Andrea painted ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... education A something somehow have obtained, Thus, praised be God! a reputation With us is easily attained. Oneguine was—so many deemed [Unerring critics self-esteemed], Pedantic although scholar like, In truth he had the happy trick Without constraint in conversation Of touching lightly every theme. Silent, oracular ye'd see him Amid a serious disputation, Then suddenly discharge a joke The ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... First one horse had died, then another, until at last they were reduced to only three; still they had pushed on, for the blacks told a tale of a magnificent waterhole where the water was permanent, and Anderson had a certain amount of faith in the unerring wisdom of the children of the soil where water was concerned. So he pushed on, hoping against hope, till the younger man, more fearful, perhaps more prudent, persuaded him to turn back. But it was too ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt
... crown was given in Rome for preserving the life of one citizen, Mr. Boulton should be covered with garlands of oak! By this machinery four boys of ten or twelve years old are capable of striking thirty thousand guineas in an hour, and the machine itself keeps an unerring account of the ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... and apostates. If a Mormon tries to sneak off to California by night, after converting his property into cash, their knives have the inevitable duty of changing his destination to another state, and bringing back his goods into the Lord's treasury. Their bullets are the ones which find their unerring way through the brains of external enemies. They are the Heaven-elected assassins of Mormonism,—the butchers by divine right. Porter Rockwell has slain his forty men. This is historical. His probable private victims amount to as many more. He wears his hair braided behind, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... Unerring signs are seen In stars above us. There are gods who still Protect unhappy lovers: and our Queen Venus rains fire on ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... replied Mr. Swinton; "to study man is only to study his inconsistencies and his aberrations from the right path, which the free-will permitted to him induces him to follow; but in the study of nature, you witness the directing power of the Almighty, who guides with an unerring hand, and who has so wonderfully apportioned out to all animals the means of their providing for themselves. Not only the external, but the inward structure of animals, shows such variety and ingenuity to surmount all difficulties, and to afford them all the enjoyment their nature is capable of, ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... not even time for remonstrance at himself. The feeling hit him as always before, straight and unerring, a surging impact that smashed forward and stopped him in his ...
— We're Friends, Now • Henry Hasse
... The unerring aim of our gunners paralysed, for a time, the initiative of the Turkish Staff. This tremendous reply was unexpected. And the British shells burst in their magazines, their supply depots, their headquarters dug-outs in a startling way. Never was gunnery so deadly. ...
— The Kangaroo Marines • R. W. Campbell
... it with a natural outburst of his leading quality. In truth no previous act or word of Baumgartner's had inspired such confidence as this unerring piece of insight. It seemed to the boy a perfect miracle of discernment. He was not old enough to know that what he would have done, in his weakness, most grown-up men and women of his temperament ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... at Norfolk, Virginia. In the course of his address, an elector on the Breckinridge ticket interrupted him with two questions. Though taken somewhat by surprise, Douglas with unerring sagacity detected the purpose of his interrogator and answered circumstantially.[866] "First, If Abraham Lincoln be elected President of the United States, will the Southern States be justified in seceding from the Union?" "To this I emphatically answer no. The election of a man to the presidency ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... purposes and plans to high perfection, and in the invention of tales, ballads and poems, to be recited at their entertainments and feasts, they evinced the most admirable taste and skill;—a taste and skill which, as they resulted not from the operation and influence of artificial rules, but from the unerring instinct of genius, have never been surpassed. In fact, the poetical inventions of those early days, far from having been produced in conformity with rules, were entirely precedent to rules, in the order of time. Rules were formed from them; for ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... she worked, her hands swift, sure, capable, unerring. It was done. She was right. The under-table of the skull had been fractured; there was the bone pressure upon the underlying area of brain-tissue. She had removed the pressure and with it any true pathological ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... of curing his friend of his degrading vice, for a true friend's instinct in all that belongs to the inner life is unerring as a dog's sense of smell; a friend knows by intuition the trouble in his friend's soul, and guesses at the cause and ponders it ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... bit, or three fips, fur nary a fowl; the fust shot allers brings down the bird; they're all cocksure on the trigger—ary man on 'em kin hit a turkey's eye at a hundred paces.' This was true; and in such schools were trained the unerring marksmen who are now 'bringing down' the bravest youth of our country, like fowls at a ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... meeting of the delegates from the Branches of the Sanitary Commission. Her executive ability was signally manifested in her management of the affairs of the Association, in her rapid and accurate dispatch of business, her prompt and unerring judgment on all difficult questions, her great practical talent, and her earnest and eloquent appeals to the auxiliaries. Yet fearless and daring as she has ever been in her denunciation of wrong, and her advocacy of right, and extraordinary as are the abilities ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... mixed with the professed subject and occasion of this detail; and as they want the authenticity of recorded evidence, I could lay no claim to credit in my relation of them. At some period I may be induced to offer them to the world, my ultimate and unerring judges, both of that and of every other trait ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... nail where it would go. He never worried his acquaintance with controversy, never introduced religious topics unseasonably, never cast his pearls before unappreciative animals. But when he saw a chance, an opening, a sympathetic tendency, or a weak spot, he fastened on it with unerring instinct. His line was rather admonitory than persuasive. When he thought that the person whom he was addressing had an inkling of the truth, but was held back from avowing it by cowardice or indecision, he would utter the most startling warnings about the danger ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... oriental learning were laid bare for the students of the Jewish and Arabic traditions. What we may call the Aryan and the Semitic revelations were for the first time subjected to something like a critical comparison. With unerring instinct the men of the Renaissance named the voluminous subject-matter of scholarship Litterae Humaniores ("the more human literature"), ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... not so, for on my sire Th' unerring doom was spent; I heir not his ill-luck, I trow, Nor with ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... too ignorant to realise their danger. It was only the terror in Theo's face that frightened her—Theo, the sister who was so strong, so tall, so all-wise, in the trustful little one's innocent eyes. But though unconscious of all their peril, the child's unerring instinct pointed to the true, unfailing Refuge for all ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... romantic devotion. What Miss Mitford once said of herself was true, hers was the instinct of the bee sucking honey from the hedge flower. Whatever sweetness and happiness there was to find she turned to with unerring directness. ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... the street, but the fugitives had disappeared in the darkness; their gentle tread was not heard on the pavement, and no observer was near to indicate the course they had taken. The whole scheme of Cassier's bold disguise flashed with unerring conviction on the stranger's mind—the voice, the eye, the gait were Cassier's. He was familiar with the family, and in the hurried glance he got of the youths rushing by the saloon door he thought he recognized the contour of Alvira's beautiful face. He hastened to communicate ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... slough-hounds should be maintained in every district of Cumberland, bordering upon Scotland. They were of great value, being sometimes sold for a hundred crowns. Exposition of Bleau's Atlas, voce Nithsdale. The breed of this sagacious animal, which could trace the human footstep with the most unerring accuracy, is ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... caught his breath and stood still, quite still. It was a ladder. Some one was climbing down. Branch after branch the climber touched with unerring instinct and ran off noiselessly through the orchard ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... known to the natives as ikan sumpit (literally "fish with a sumpitan") and to science as Toxodes jaculator. But it is unique among the finny tribe in possessing the curious power, on corning to the surface, of being able to squirt from its mouth a tiny jet of water. This it uses with unerring aim against insects, such as flies, grasshoppers and spiders, resting on plants along the edge of the streams, causing them to fall into the water, where they become an easy prey to these Dyaks of the deep. It ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... the Rebels. The advancing brigade is in solid column of regiments, the Second Iowa in front, then the Twenty-fifth Indiana, the Seventh and Fourteenth Iowa,—four firm, unwavering lines, which throw their shadows forward as they advance. Birges's sharpshooters, with their unerring rifles, are flung out on ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... down at the gate with a great confidence, though also a trembling in my heart. He who had known how to choose him among all the others, would not He guard him? It was a proof to me once again that heaven is true, that the good God loves and comprehends us all, to see how His wisdom, which is unerring, had chosen the best ...
— A Beleaguered City • Mrs. Oliphant
... contradict me, Eleanor! If there is one characteristic more plainly developed in me than another it is my unerring taste. This butter is not fresh. But do not mind. I am not complaining. Do not think that. I merely passed the remark. And if you are really going to get me my usual quantity of cream, will you do so now? Cold ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... existence, because the night has fallen? No, dear husband, no! There are bright stars smiling above us in token of his unerring return. We know that the morning cometh after a season of darkness; and so, after our spirits have lingered awhile in the realm of shadows, the light will break in from above. Has it not ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur
... the case of a rolling ship," Kennedy continued, alternately covering and uncovering the mirror, "the beam of light which this mirror reflects always goes back, unerring, to its source. It would do so from an aeroplane, so high in the air that it could not be located. The returning beam is invisible to anyone not immediately in the path of the ray, and the ray always goes to the observer. It is simply a matter of pure mathematics practically applied. The angle ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... second as the deputy turned away,—"Yes, but by G-d I don't like his looks!" His sense of sight was also so acute that having lost the choice of position, when the coin was tossed, and being turned with his face to the sun, even through the glare he saw, with unerring distinctness of outline, the black-coated figure of his opponent moved into range—saw the perfect outline of his features, and how the easy, supercilious smile, as he threw away his cigar, appeared to drop ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... the unerring estimate which Elise had made. He began gathering up the reins, preparatory to resuming his way. Elise paid no attention ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... that we always hear of the "fall of man," not the fall of woman, showing that the consensus of human thought has been more unerring than masculine interpretation. Reading this narrative carefully, it is amazing that any set of men ever claimed that the dogma of the inferiority of woman is here set forth. The conduct of Eve from the beginning to the end is so superior to that of Adam. The command not to eat of ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... identified it in the daytime. But when all was indistinguishable, in the darkness of the night, they could only trust to the skill of the dusky guide, who seemed able at any time to pick his way with unerring accuracy through ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... unusually manifested. And so far from being a dangerous guide, it is the truest part of your being. It is even truer than your consciences. A man's conscience may be utterly perverted and led astray; but so long as the feelings of romance endure within us, they are unerring,—they are as true to what is right and lovely as the needle to the north; and all that you have to do is to add to the enthusiastic sentiment, the majestic judgment—to mingle prudence and foresight with imagination and admiration, ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... He foresaw with unerring vision that the conflict was inevitable and irrepressible—that one or the other, the right or the wrong, freedom or slavery, must ultimately prevail and wholly prevail, throughout the country; and this was the principle that carried the war, once ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... to these instances. There are many parts of Miss Edgeworth's earlier stories, and of Miss Mitford's sketches and descriptions, and not a little of Mrs. Opie's, that exhibit the same fine and penetrating spirit of observations, the same softness and delicacy of hand, and unerring truth of delineation, to which we have alluded as characterizing the purer specimens of female art. The same distinguishing traits of woman's spirit are visible through the grief and piety of Lady Russel, and the gayety, the spite, and ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... breed, in sexual tribes Parental taints the nascent babe imbibes; Eternal war the Gout and Mania wage With fierce uncheck'd hereditary rage; 180 Sad Beauty's form foul Scrofula surrounds With bones distorted, and putrescent wounds; And, fell Consumption! thy unerring dart Wets its broad wing in Youth's ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... really understood nothing whatever of the merits of the case, with that unerring instinct which invariably leads them to a right conclusion, sided unanimously with the seamen; while a few of the more timid among the male passengers regarded Carter as a sort of hero- martyr, Mr ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... congested mass within. They perform prodigies of strength, handling huge trunks that ought to have filled some woman with repentance as if they were Gladstone bags, and light weights as if they were paper parcels. With unerring scent they detect the latest label among the remains of past history, and the air resounds with "Hielant train," "Aiberdeen fast," "Aiberdeen slow," "Muirtown"—this with indifference—and at a time "Dunleith," and once "Kildrummie," with much contempt. By this time stacks of baggage of varying ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... knolls, And fierce and fiercer war's red river rolls. With bright-hued pennants flying from each lance The gayly costumed Kiowas advance. And bold Comanches (Bedouins of the land) Infuse fresh spirit in the Cheyenne band. While from the ambush of some dark ravine Flash arrows aimed by hands, unerring and unseen. ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... exquisitely cultivated gentlemen of their class and generation. But more serious than this, he was not only insensitive to his surroundings in the external sense, he was not sensitive to his environment at all. What chance could such a man have against Mr. Lloyd George's unerring, almost medium-like, sensibility to every one immediately round him? To see the British Prime Minister watching the company, with six or seven senses not available to ordinary men, judging character, motive, and subconscious impulse, perceiving what each was thinking and even ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... Nature waits her guests to greet, Where disappointments cannot come, And Time guides, with unerring feet, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... a moment! Recalling his manhood and her weakness, he stopped, and bracing his foot against a stone, with a graceful flourish of his lasso around his head, threw it in the air. It uncoiled slowly, sped forward with unerring precision, and missed! With the single cry of "Saved!" the fair stranger sank fainting in his arms! He held her closely until the color came back to her pale face. Then he quietly disentangled the lasso from ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... essays. In these, whatever their occasion, he shows himself the clearest-eyed critic of human life, never the dupe of the phrases and pretences, the theories and conventions, that distort the vision of most writers and thinkers. He has an unerring instinct for realities, and brushes aside all else with rapid grace. In his lately published Amateur Emigrant he describes one ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Walter Raleigh
... over a freshly-roasted partridge which lay on a blue dish. He plunged a long fork into the back of the bird, and raised it in the air with his left hand. In his right he held a long glittering carving-knife. He was giving one of his world-famous exhibitions of carving. In four swift, unerring, delicate, perfect strokes he cleanly severed the limbs of the partridge. It was a wonderful achievement—how wondrous none but the really skilful carver can properly appreciate. The chefs emitted a hum of applause, and Rocco, long, lean, and graceful, ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... can load," cried Enoch, darting past me and leading a way on the open border of the swale, with long, unerring leaps from one raised point to another. The Indians raced beside him, crouching almost to a level with the reeds, ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... foresight was unerring, and his will was strong, but the facts were too stubborn even for him. It proved impossible to fly our machines in formation until about a year later. The first formation flying seen over England during the war occurred on the 23rd of ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... I appreciate it. I am honored by the outspoken confidence of the man I know you to be, not only from what I have read of your political course, which I wholly approve, but from Mrs. Blennerhassett's reports of your conversation. Her judgment is unerring. I defer to it. You will confer a great favor on me by explaining, in detail, your ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... a man converses with the most ordinary Lacedaemonian, he will find him seldom good for much in general conversation, but at any point in the discourse he will be darting out some notable saying, terse and full of meaning, with unerring aim; and the person with whom he is talking seems to be like a child in his hands. And many of our own age and of former ages have noted that the true Lacedaemonian type of character has the love of philosophy even stronger than the love of gymnastics; ...
— Protagoras • Plato
... season, and the variety of scenes which each season displays to the discerning eye. Numberless worlds surround us, all formed by the same Divine Architect, which roll through this vast expanse, and all conducted by the same unerring law of nature. A survey of nature, and the observations of her beautiful proportions, first determined man to imitate the divine plan, and study symmetry and order. The architect began to design; and the plans which he ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan
... dog-gone!" said the man, throwing the ear of corn with unerring aim at the head of the nearest porker and beckoning to Rodney with both hands. "Come out of the road. Come up behind the bresh and ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... the poor girl, for I believe she really cared for the youngster; and as for her looks, they were quite up to the average. But some evil sprite seemed to have got into Begglely's camera. It seized upon defects with the unerring instinct of a born critic, and dilated upon them to the obscuration of all virtues. A man with a pimple became a pimple with a man as background. People with strongly marked features became merely adjuncts to their own noses. One man in the neighbourhood had, undetected, worn ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... of the house. This is why, after two years of widowerhood, having already passed his sixtieth year, although still physically quite youthful, he remarried. Careless of opinion, obeying only the dictates of his own heart and mind, and following also the intuitions of unerring instinct, which was superior to the understanding of those who thought it their duty to oppose him, he married, as Boaz married Ruth, a young woman, industrious, full of freshness and life, already completely devoted to his service, and admirably fitted to satisfy that craving for order, peace, ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... see it more clearly now than ever. Nature is run by unerring, unchangeable law; why should not all spiritual operations come under the same principle? Formality, after all, is the highest ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... fervor of its author, and with more than his ordinary research and elaboration. He informs us that his purpose has been to help the inquiring soul and young Christian with counsel taken immediately from the unerring word: he has therefore studied conformity to scripture, rather than novelty of thought, and plainness more than grace of style. Yet there is in this volume much of the author's usual boldness of originality and peculiar felicity of expression. Our readers have been ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... to have the chance of looking on while some one else did the work. She was intently conscious of her companion's presence, but he seemed to forget all about her, as wading slightly forward into the stream he cast his fly in slow, unerring circuit. How big he looked, how strong and masterful; how graceful were the lines of his tall lean figure! From where she sat Margot could see the dark profile beneath the deerstalker cap, the long straight nose, the firmly-closed ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... him slightly and looked straight into his eyes that were devouring her face and form. The unerring instinct of a pure nature warned her against that look. He caught her to him—but she stemmed both hands against his ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... begin, and promised that he would support him. At this interview, Mack said he would march in ten days; and, by his conversation and address, seems to have temporarily withdrawn our hero from the contemplation of his actions, that unerring criterion of character. The judgment which Lord Nelson had first formed of General Mack, on this principle, has since appeared to be just. With such a general as Mack, and such a minister as our hero describes ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... drive? Ver' good carriage," said a voice out of the dimness. Monte Carlo cabmen are unerring in ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... not accomplished by the aid of either sight or scent, for usually the returning animal seems to follow a comparatively straight line. It is, or seems to be, a consciousness of direction that is as unerring as the magnetic needle. Reason, calculation, and judgment err, but these primary instincts of the animal ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... drives to drink. Will the world learn that we never learn anything that we did not know before? The artist, the poet, painter, musician, and novelist go straight to the food they want, guided by an unerring and ineffable instinct; to teach them is to destroy the nerve of the artistic instinct, it is fatal. But above all in painting ... "correct drawing," "solid painting." Is it impossible to teach people, to force it into ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... prayer died from her lips, when there came into her chamber the three unerring Fates who spin the destinies of men. White-robed and garlanded, they stood beside the babe, and with unwearied fingers drew out the lines of his untried life. Clotho held the golden distaff in her hand, and twirled and twisted ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... intricate movements could go on without resulting in a series of collisions and disasters. Yet, with all this bewildering whirling, twisting, and intertwining, the ships were guided on their courses with consummate skill and with an unerring accuracy which was marvellous ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... in mien, yet, with a sorrowing soul, Anxious his gaze—for in the sweltering surge Three sons of Saul were battling with the rest; His first-born, Jonathan; Abinadab; And Melchi-shua—idols of his life! Around him like a hurricane of hail The pinioned shafts with aim unerring sped, Bearing dark death upon their feathery wings. The clashing sword its dismal carnage made As foe met foe; and flashing sparks out-flew As blade crossed blade with murderous intent. The outcry rose—"They ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... Society is one who, having in early life abdicated every claim to independent thought or action, is content to attach himself to the skirts and coat-tails of the great, and to exist for a long time as a mere appendage in mansions selected by the unerring instinct of a professional tuft-hunter. It is as common a mistake to suppose that all tuft-hunters are necessarily of lowly birth and of inferior social position, as it is to believe them all to be offensive in manner and shallow ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various
... he had to deal; he knew if he met Aphiz, as he proposed, there would be a chance for his life, but if he failed him, he feared the unerring aim of his rifle. He was no coward—both of them had faced the enemy together, but he lacked the moral courage that is far more sustaining than mere dogged bravery, or contempt for immediate danger. Thus influence, at sunset he ...
— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray
... clearer, now that I have followed a campaign. And if, as I had proposed, I could have witnessed the further fortunes of the illustrious Garibaldi, I think that some of his compatriots would have been found equally inconsistent. Let no man believe that the noblest cause is fought out alone by the unerring motives of duty and devotion. The masses are never so constant. They cannot appreciate an abstraction, however divine. Any of the gentlemen in question would have preferred their biscuit and fat pork before the political ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... came in doubt, but they remained silent and departed reverent. Wider and wider grew her circle of devoted friends—wild and desperate men who rarely knew a roof and whose hands stayed at no deed, but who knew with unerring accuracy the value ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... Stillwell was matching his cool nerve and steady marksmanship against the exultant dominance of a savage giant. It was David and Goliath played out in the Plains warfare of the Western continent. At the crucial moment the scout's bullet went home with unerring aim, and the one man whose power counted as a thousand warriors among his own people received his mortal wound. Backward he reeled, and dead, or dying, he was taken from the field. Like one of the anointed he was mourned by his people, ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... God's unerring foreknowledge is symbolized by the "Book of Life."(586) Christ Himself said to His Apostles: "Rejoice in this, that your names are written in heaven."(587) The "Book of Life" admits neither addition nor erasure. This does not, however, mean that a man is unable to change ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle
... bold almost to the point of brutality, and even Hermia recognized its individuality, wondering at the capacity for analysis which had made the painter's delineation of character so remarkable, and his brush so unerring. She stole another—a more curious—glance at him. The hideous goggles and the rumpled hair could not disguise the strong lines of his face which she saw in profile—the heavy brows, the straight nose, the thin, rather sensitive ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... Jerusalem, or Rome, or London. 'The cloud-capt towers-the gorgeous palaces-the solemn temples-yea, the great globe itself, shall dissolve, and, like the baseless fabric of a vision, leave not a wreck behind.' Or in language far more solemn and striking, because they are the unerring words of truth, 'The heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also, and the works that are therein, shall be burned up.' Then shall the Holy City-the New Jerusalem-descend from heaven, and all the ransomed of the Lord shall ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... misfortune of mere thinkers (and this present amygdaloid mass, this breccia book, exemplifies it well) to stumble frequently upon fancies too good not to have been long ago appropriated by others like-minded. A read, or heard, hint may be the unerring clue, and we vainly imagine some old labyrinth to be our new discovery: education renders up the master-key, and we come to regard ancient treasuries as wealth of our own amassing, from which we deem it our right to filch as recklessly as he from the mint of ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... go to Orchomenus, whither that unerring seer, whom ye met aforetime, foretold your voyage. For there is another course, signified by those priests of the immortal gods, who have sprung from Tritonian Thebes. As yet all the stars that wheel in the heaven were not, nor yet, ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... women boarded the stage; and Mat Bailey took in charge a small leather valise, smuggled out of the back door of the bank and handed to him carelessly. Mat received it without the flicker of an eyelash. Nevertheless, he scrutinized the eight new passengers, with apparent indifference but with unerring judgment. All except two, a man and a woman, were personally known to him. And these excited less suspicion than two well-known gamblers, ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... possessed with a devil. The second and third works excel the first, and are impulsive and able performances. These paintings met with merited applause, and gained for their author the pre-eminent title "Andrea senza errori'' (Andrew the unerring)—the correctness of the contours being particularly admired. After these subjects the painter proceeded with two others—the death of S. Filippo and the children cured by touching his garment,—all the five works being completed before the close of 1510. The youth of twenty-three was already ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia |
