"Involuntarily" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... needlework, in company with Tzu Chuan. She felt however thoroughly dejected and out of sorts. So she strolled out of doors along with her. But catching sight of the newly sprouted bamboo shoots, in front of the pavilion, they involuntarily stepped out of the entrance of the court, and penetrated into the garden. They cast their eyes on all four quarters; but not a soul was visible. When they became conscious of the splendour of the flowers and the chatter of the birds, they, with listless step, turned their course towards ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... dug into the palms of my hands as I entered the shack, and his head turned slowly as I came in, and in his eyes I saw the confession his babbling had revealed to me. But then an expression of pain came also, that made me involuntarily look at Frenchy's little crucifix on ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... way lacking courage, but failing in will and steadiness, in a dozen seconds Mawg involuntarily shifted his gaze, and ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Cazalette, on the other side of the round table at which we sat, had stopped eating, and that, knife and fork still in his queer, claw-like hands, he was peering at me under the shaded lamps, his black, burning eyes full of a strange, absorbed interest. I paused—involuntarily. ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... nearer to him on the instant, as it were instinctively, almost involuntarily. "P'r'aps some day, Billikins!" she said, with a little, quivering laugh. "But not yet—not if I've got to go to the Hills away ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... a great change in her husband's appearance. He looked much thinner and older than formerly, she thought. There were harassed lines in his face, and its worn contours and shadowed eyes called aloud to the compassionate womanhood within her, to the mother-instinct that involuntarily longs ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... yet seen me: but how was I, unarmed as I was, to defend my family? Involuntarily I moved along the side of the house towards the window, which was open; and, most happily for me, I saw, standing in a corner of the room near the window, a loaded gun. I was able to reach it with my hand, though the window, as ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... Involuntarily Singleton straightened his rounded shoulders, and a smile touched the corners of his mouth. Even his own desperate condition for the moment was erased from his mind in the pride he felt in his daughter. Then over him swept ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... to close the book and put it back in its place. As I did so, I glanced up involuntarily towards the skylight, as if I half expected to find a pair of eyes staring down on me. Yet the book contained nothing but these mere trivialities. Whatever my apprehension, I was (as "J. Harper" would have said) "agreeably disappointed." I climbed on deck again, ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Involuntarily she shrank back out of sight. The next instant the schooner had faded away into the fog. The ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... his host chatted for a few minutes on various topics. The gilt titles on the imposing "Lives of Great Naval Commanders," having received their share of the general dusting, now shone forth resplendent, and the Captain noticed Ralph's eye as it involuntarily turned toward them. ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... his horse, and standing for a moment on the hill that rises near the bridge, retraced, with his almost blinded sight, the long and desolated lands through which he had passed; then involuntarily dropping on his knee, he plucked a tuft of grass, and pressing it to his lips, exclaimed, "Farewell, Poland! Farewell ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... involuntarily whistled, a great light suddenly bursting in upon my hitherto darkened understanding. Courtenay frowned a warning to me, and I hastened on to say: "That will be a big haul, certainly. Why, Carera, you will be able to retire from the sea altogether, and live like ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... interred in a particular spot in the church of this monastery—and the solemn charge he had delivered to her to destroy certain papers, without examining them.—She recollected also the mysterious and horrible words in those manuscripts, upon which her eye had involuntarily glanced; and, though they now, and, indeed, whenever she remembered them, revived an excess of painful curiosity, concerning their full import, and the motives for her father's command, it was ever her chief consolation, that she had strictly ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... was sitting next to the door, opened it suddenly, with unexpected effort, for the landlady, whose ear was fast to the keyhole, staggered into the room involuntarily. ...
— Paul the Peddler - The Fortunes of a Young Street Merchant • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... pleasurable, and the mirth did not sound hollow, but wrung from the heart. Yet, as Eugenie from time to time contemplated the young people, whose eyes ever sought each other—so fair, so tender, and so joyous as they seemed—a melancholy shadow darkened her brow, and she sighed involuntarily. Once the young wife, Madame d'Anville, ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... "Involuntarily, madam, involuntarily; not you but your charms led him astray. Nevertheless, without this incentive the circumstance would never have taken place, and I think you should consider your beauty as a mitigation ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... again to the forester's garden. I had wrapped myself closely up in my cloak, slouched my hat over my eyes, and advanced towards Minna. As she raised her head and looked at me, she started involuntarily. The apparition of that dreadful night in which I had been seen without a shadow was now standing distinctly before me—it was she herself. Had she recognised me? She was silent and thoughtful. ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al.
... him swiftly, and there was a sternness in her face that made the fool recoil involuntarily and wince as if at a coming blow. But there was little anger in the girl's clear speech as she condemned ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... he is working for as well as mine—I mean ours." Then a thought came into his head that was in every way worthy of him. "Suppose we took the boat, and left him behind!" The notion seemed so ludicrously wicked that he laughed involuntarily. ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... Midgley (who is at present in Keighley), a fellow-Volunteer, whispered in my ear, "Do you know that old gentleman across the aisle?" "No," replied I. He told me he was no less a personage than Mr Jefferson Davis, Ex-president of the Confederate States of America. Instantly my mind was involuntarily set a-thinking about the American Civil War, and its four years of human butchery—all brought about by this man in front of me who was now coolly listening to the word of God! However, the service was over, and the Volunteers filed out of the church ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... first gasp of amazement—Neale turned and walked out of the room, and out of the church. It was a hot Sunday and the walks were bathed in sunshine. Neale involuntarily took the path across the Parade in the direction of the ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... What are you doing here? I thought——" The speaker broke off abruptly, and his glance strayed involuntarily to the ground. The new-comer nodded, and, sitting down on the bunk, pushed his cap ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... the words involuntarily, not intending that they should be heard. Little he thought Cripps or any one would heed them. But Cripps did heed them. His quick ear caught the words, and they had a meaning for him; for he might be able to cheat and browbeat and ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... contained for him, had he known it, a pleasing hint. It must be confessed that she no longer wished to go into his presence without adding a little grace to her usually plain attire; and now that she was thinking so deeply of him she involuntarily raised her hand to adjust her coquettish nurse's cap, which by some feminine magic all her own she ever contrived to make a becoming head-dress rather than a ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... without thought, the words involuntarily escaping Kearney's lips. But the counterfeit abbot, so far from feeling offence at them, broke out into a ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... that he had offered a florin for a little bread and cheese, and then a dollar, and even more. Being again refused, he complained heavily; but gradually he weaned himself from asking for it, though at times he betrayed involuntarily how much he ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... She glanced involuntarily across the studio where the others had gathered over the new collection of mezzotints, and at her glance Neville raised his head and smiled at her, and encountered ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... inspection-work included. Thence, at Breslan for three days more: with dinners of state, balls, illuminations, in honor of the Duke of York,—our as yet last Duke of York, then a brisk young fellow of twenty-two; to whom, by accident, among his other distinctions, may belong this of having (most involuntarily) helped to kill Friedrich ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... faces as they looked past him to something behind; then as he himself turned quickly to see what it was, he beheld their father and two of the servants approaching; and Res Vychan pointed sternly to the two dark-leaded boys, now involuntarily quailing beneath the fiery indignation in his eyes, ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... his soliloquy, the Egyptian involuntarily rose. He paced rapidly the narrow space of that star-roofed floor, and, pausing at the parapet, looked again upon the grey and melancholy heavens. The chills of the faint dawn came refreshingly upon his brow, and gradually his mind resumed its natural and collected calm. He ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... plaits that hung below her waist, and her face, curiously childlike so seen, was framed in the banded masses. Mary could suddenly see what she had looked like as a little girl. So moved was she by the charm that, Puritan as she was, she found herself involuntarily saying:—"Oh, Mrs. Upton, ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... see my uncle," said Cousin Henry, turning his eye involuntarily towards the shelf on which the volume of sermons was resting. "I am afraid I can't offer you much ...
— Cousin Henry • Anthony Trollope
... frowning in rugged grandeur close upon them, as it seemed. Struck with admiration and astonishment at this unexpected revelation of the deep ravines and stern and gloomy gorges that scored its front, over which hung a blue haze, Phillip, almost involuntarily, named them on the moment; the Blue Mountains. Next morning the explorers ascended Richmond Hill, from whose crest they looked across a deep, wooded valley to the mountains still many miles away. After a hasty examination of the country on the banks of the ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... Circassian coat, the dagger in a cracked sheath, the bloated but still rosy face, the dishevelled but still thick hair.... My God! It was Misha! He had already come to begging alms on the highways!—I involuntarily uttered an exclamation. He recognised me, shuddered, turned away, and was about to withdraw from the window. I stopped him ... but what was there that I could say to him? Certainly I could not read him a lecture!... In silence I offered him a five-ruble bank-note. With equal silence ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... the man involuntarily looked down at his chest. Garry noted this glance, and immediately decided that the search would not have to go further than the two pockets in the woollen shirt ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle
... broke the forest stillness. It was answered by the distant howl of the dogs, and then near at hand the night was startled by the defiant howl of many wolves, long, loud and terrible in unexpected suddenness, and so close that the boys involuntarily rose ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... exclaimed the knight fiercely; and suddenly he rose and extended his arms, and said some strange words that Eileen did not understand; and all at once it appeared to her as if some thick white pall were spreading over her, and her eyelids began to close, and involuntarily she sank back. ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth
... things into Eve's giddy Head, was by creeping close to her one Night, when she was asleep, and laying his Mouth to her Ear, whispering all the fine things to her, which he knew would set her Fancy a Tip-toe, and so made her receive them involuntarily into her Mind; knowing well enough that when she had form'd such Ideas in her Soul, however they came there, she would never be quiet till she had work'd them up to some extraordinary ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... involved blame of the woman his love for whom now first, when on the point of losing her for ever, threatened to overmaster him—he wandered to the stables, which he found empty of men and nearly so of horses, half-involuntarily sought the stall of the mare his father had given him on his last birthday, laid his head on the neck bent round to greet him, and sighed a sore response to her soft, ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... left uncultivated, according to this theory, was that of human love—this being considered destructive, or, at least, greatly prejudicial, to progress and efficiency in any other direction. The professor could not at the moment recall who it was had evolved this scheme, but it became involuntarily connected in ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... ladies, who had long undergone the reproach and disgust of their husbands; while Peregrine set up his throne among those who laboured under the disease of celibacy, from the pert miss of fifteen, who, with a fluttering heart, tosses her head, bridles up, and giggles involuntarily at sight of a handsome young man, to the staid maid of twenty-eight, who, with a demure aspect, moralizes on the vanity of beauty, the folly of youth, and simplicity of woman, and expatiates on friendship, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... the memory of sorrow, wrong, and trouble is the lot of all mankind, and that mankind would be the happier, in its other memories, without it. Go! Be its benefactor! Freed from such remembrance, from this hour, carry involuntarily the blessing of such freedom with you. Its diffusion is inseparable and inalienable from you. Go! Be happy in the good you have won, and ...
— The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin • Charles Dickens
... my peril and the excitement of the coming struggle I felt the chill of his fear. Never had I seen so grim, so desolate, so God-forsaken a place! Involuntarily I shivered. ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... determined to buy something of the man. He took up a small, very beautifully cut pocket perspective, and by way of proving it looked through the window. Never before in his life had he had a glass in his hands that brought out things so clearly and sharply and distinctly. Involuntarily he directed the glass upon Spalanzani's room; Olimpia sat at the little table as usual, her arms laid upon it and her hands folded. Now he saw for the first time the regular and exquisite beauty of her features. ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... had to go to London and brought back for me a pair of 12-inch globes. They were invaluable to me. The first stars which I learnt from the celestial globe were alpha Lyrae, alpha Aquilae, alpha Cygni: and to this time I involuntarily regard these stars as the birth-stars of my astronomical knowledge. Having somewhere seen a description of a Gunter's quadrant, I perceived that I could construct one by means of the globe: my father procured for me a board of the proper shape with paper pasted ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... all this time, as I've never, never spoken. It was to be enough for me, from the first, that the child was my niece—from the moment she was my brother's daughter. As for her veritable mother—!" But with this Pansy's wonderful aunt dropped—as, involuntarily, from the impression of her sister-in-law's face, out of which more eyes might have seemed to look at her than she had ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... hurriedly, "for having involuntarily forestalled you just now. I had just bought the book you ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... "Ready!" and the twenty rifles came up to the soldiers' hips as though by machinery. At the second word of command the barrels glinted in the sun as the men planted the rifle-butts in the hollow of their shoulders. Jim involuntarily cast his eyes skyward as he waited for the final word, and his lips were seen to ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... dismounted three times that morning; twice to mend fence, and once more involuntarily. He determined, with a mighty vow to the bow-legged god of all horseflesh, to learn to stay on ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... 'Lord Colquhoun,' a distinguished judge who had lately been raised to the peerage, and whom we often met at dinners; then 'Miss Rowena Colquhoun'; and then in the midst, we fancied, of an unusual stir at the entrance door—'Miss Francesca Van Buren Monroe.' I involuntarily touched the Reverend Ronald's shoulder in my astonishment, while Salemina lifted her tortoise-shell lorgnette, and we gazed silently at our ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the ship rose so languidly to meet a sea, and the water weltered so loudly in her hold, that Dick involuntarily seized ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was breathing. This warmth, so oppressive, and the monotonous sound stealing in through the aperture of the desk, caused an irresistible drowsiness, and her eye-lids heavy with the weight of tears, involuntarily closed. When the master, astonished at the perfect stillness with which, after awhile, she endured the restraint, softly peeped within, she was lying in a deep sleep, her head pillowed on her arm, the tear-drops glittering on her cheeks. Cramped as she was, the unconscious grace ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... narrow a squeak as I have ever beheld, sir," he exclaimed, as he joined the skipper. "If it had not been for that half-board that we involuntarily made, we should never have ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... had made in his campaigns and even in politics. His son made no rejoinder, but it was evident that whatever arguments were presented he was as little able as his father to change his opinion. He listened, refraining from a reply, and involuntarily wondered how this old man, living alone in the country for so many years, could know and discuss so minutely and acutely all the recent European ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... there in her terror, the impact of the bullet felt like the blow of a stick upon her cheek-bone rocking her head. Her cheek felt warmly numb. She pressed a quick hand involuntarily against it, and drew it away ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... her hands before her face. She sat trembling and cowering before this accuser. Involuntarily she said in her heart, "This is the true love. I have been blind—blind!"—but her words were frozen up—she bent forward as if under ...
— A Canadian Heroine - A Novel, Volume 3 (of 3) • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... of which had made a wide green margin all along its course. Not a day passed by, that the world was not the better because this man, humble as he was, had lived. He never stepped aside from his own path, yet would always reach a blessing to his neighbor. Almost involuntarily, too, he had become a preacher. The pure and high simplicity of his thought, which, as one of its manifestations, took shape in the good deeds that dropped silently from his hand, flowed also forth in speech. He uttered truths that wrought upon and moulded the lives of those who heard him. ...
— The Great Stone Face - And Other Tales Of The White Mountains • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the truth appear. The reader must not accept anything simply because we say it, but because he sees it to be true. Now, as to this matter of insanity, let him think calmly. The word is one that gives us a shock; and, as we hear it, we almost involuntarily thank God for the good gift of a well-balanced mind. What, if from any cause this beautiful equipoise should be disturbed and the mind lose its power to think clearly, or to hold the lower passions in due control? Shall we exceed the ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur
... torn and cancelled scraps of paper, he took one letter that remained entire. Involuntarily holding his breath as he opened this document, and 'bating in the stealthy action something of his arrogant demeanour, he sat down, resting his head upon one hand, and ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... there was a sound of bolts being drawn; and presently the door opened and a big, burly, elderly man, his touzled hair touched with grey, and his body enveloped in a long white nightgown, appeared; holding a candle above his head. As the light fell upon the two hooded figures he involuntarily drew back with a gasp, whereupon Phil and Dick stepped into the passage, closing the ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... is the index of the mind—that when a man fixes his eye on us we are the subject of his thoughts, and that a being gifted with a soul like ourselves is employing its energies and setting its machinery at work about ourselves. It is this conviction that makes us modestly, and almost involuntarily, shrink ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 540, Saturday, March 31, 1832 • Various
... exchanged glances, and, as the former struck his staff down heavily upon the earth in advancing towards the great, rough door of the building, the latter's fists clenched involuntarily, and the dog pricked up his ears and ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... Involuntarily I again looked at my mother's face. There was exulting triumph on it, mingled with a look of terrible hatred. I did not know what it meant, nor could ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... woman, the least real of the creatures in this Hoffmanesque den, said to Gazonal: "Cut!" the worthy provincial shuddered involuntarily. That which renders these beings so formidable is the importance of what we want to know. People go to them, as they know ...
— Unconscious Comedians • Honore de Balzac
... the sight, and even with the name of the Rhine. When the Austrians, in one of the last actions of the campaign of 1813, carried the heights of Hockheim, in the neigbourhood of Mentz, and first came in sight of that river, they involuntarily halted, and stood for some minutes in silence; when the Prince Marshal coming up to know the cause of the delay, their feelings burst forth in peals of enthusiastic acclamation, as they again advanced to the charge. The Prussian corps ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... left arm; the leg remaining paralytic. About this time, the right half of the body was instantaneously and completely palsied. He has continued ever since in this wretched state, getting worse rather than better, passing his stools and urine, involuntarily. He lies on his back, and, with the exception of the left arm, he is completely paralytic on both sides, from the neck downwards. The sense of feeling is very much impaired—there is no distortion of ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... in a gaze of stupefaction upon Galliard's face, Kenneth took the paper. Then slowly, involuntarily almost it seemed, he dropped his glance to it, and read. He was long in reading, as though the writing presented difficulties, and his two companions watched him the while, and waited. At last he turned the paper over, and examined seal and superscription as if suspicious ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... all times solemn and impressive, is peculiarly earnest and searching in this treatise. The dead will arise involuntarily and irresistibly—conscience uncontrolled, must testify the truth, yea, all the truth to the condemnation of the soul and body, unless cleansed from sin by faith in the Redeemer and the sacred influences of the Holy Spirit. The books will be opened, and every thought and word ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... an obscure discernment of judgment which it calls feeling, that all the "ideas" [Footnote: The common understanding being here spoken of, I use the word "idea" in its popular sense.] that comes to us involuntarily (as those of the senses) do not enable us to know objects otherwise than as they affect us; so that what they may be in themselves remains unknown to us, and consequently that as regards "ideas" of this kind even ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... the work falls in a woman's lap, of its own accord, and the needle involuntarily ceases to fly, it is a sign of trouble, quite as trustworthy as the throb of the heart itself. This was what happened to Miriam. Even while Donatello stood gazing at her, she seemed to have forgotten his presence, allowing him to drop out of her thoughts, and the torn glove to fall from her idle ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... is apt to be caught between the teeth and bitten. The blue look now gradually decreases. A frothy saliva, which may be bloodstained from the bitten tongue, escapes from the mouth. The urine and bowel contents may escape involuntarily. The length of time of this stage is variable. It may last two minutes. The contraction becomes less violent and the patient gradually sinks into the condition of deep sleep, when the breathing is noisy and stertorous, the face looks red and swollen, but no longer bluish. The limbs ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... the dark heads of the rocks showed above the water. These were easy enough to avoid, the danger lay in those hidden beneath its surface, and whose position was indicated only by the occasional break of a sea as it passed over them. Every time the Seabird sank on a wave those on board involuntarily held their breath, but the water here was comparatively smooth, the sea having spent its first force upon the outer reef. With a wave of his hand Tom directed the helmsman as to his course, and the little yacht was ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty
... throttle wide and the old rattletrap seemed fairly to leap ahead, its wheels spurning the ground. The lights of the other car which had theretofore seemed dimmed were switched to full brightness. Before the blinding glare in his eyes, Frank involuntarily ducked his head. ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... hottest and most deleterious Ethiopian regions with impunity, which they attribute to their habit of daily fumigation of the naked body with sulphur. It was interesting to know whether sulphurous emanations, received involuntarily, have a like effect. From inquiries made by M. Fouqu, it appears that in Sicily, while most of the sulphur mines are in high districts and free from malaria, a few are at a low level, where intermittent ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... My hands came together involuntarily. At that instant, with the memory before me of the vision I have just described, I almost wished that it had been my hate, my anger which had brought those tell-tale marks out upon that livid skin. I should have suffered less. I should only ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... not glad to see me, Eve?" he said, for the movement Eve had involuntarily made was to put out her hands as if ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... back his long hair. "I was once called Don Pedro Garcia," said he; "tell me," he added, as all four of us rose involuntarily at this startling announcement, ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... book of the "Ethics", and in the second chapter, Aristotle, dealing with certain actions which, though bad in themselves, admit of pity and forgiveness because they were committed involuntarily, through ignorance, instances 'the man who did not know a subject was forbidden, like Aeschylus with the Mysteries,' and 'the man who only meant to show how it worked, like the fellow who let off the catapult' ([Greek: ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... begun. It is sufficient that the accused, having committed a crime within one State and having left the jurisdiction before being subjected to criminal process, is found within another State.[198] The motive which induced the departure is immaterial.[199] Even if he were brought involuntarily into the State where found by requisition from another State, he may be surrendered to a third State upon an extradition warrant.[200] A person indicted a second time for the same offense is nonetheless a fugitive from justice by reason ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... door of Mrs. Browning's room, but something impelled her to stop. A fear seized her, while involuntarily she clutched Rosa's ...
— Rosa's Quest - The Way to the Beautiful Land • Anna Potter Wright
... night's rain, and also the silvery sound of a distant convent bell that was associated with his earliest recollections. They both seemed to be reproaching him for his desertion of his home, and he involuntarily checked the old pony, and made as if he would turn back. Miraut and Beelzebub, seeming to understand the movement, looked up at him eagerly, but as he was in the very act of turning the horse's head he met Isabelle's soft eyes fixed on him with such an entreating, ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... Ellen involuntarily put her hand to her face to see if Nancy spoke true. Somewhat reassured to find a very decided ridge where her companion's nose was wanting in the line of beauty, she answered in ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... preparatory to an evening party. I used to stand proudly at her knee, admiring the high color of her cheek, and uncommon brilliancy of her fine dark hazle eye, while her voice, remarkably rich and clear, involuntarily swelled the chorus parts of ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... they were at the house door. They passed in and ascended the stairs to the second story, then climbed a narrow, ladder-like flight to the garret. Involuntarily they had paused to listen at the foot of the stairs, but it was very quiet, not a sound of movement, not so much as the sigh of a man breathing. The wife turned pale and put both her shaking hands on ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... superfluous to remark that precisely the members of our party's military organization assumed in October an attitude of extraordinary caution and even some skepticism toward the idea of an immediate insurrection. The closed character of the organization and its officially military character involuntarily inclined its leaders to underestimate the purely technical and organizational resources of the uprising, and from this point of view we were undoubtedly weak. Our strength lay in the revolutionary ...
— From October to Brest-Litovsk • Leon Trotzky
... sharp report, louder than any that had gone before, and, involuntarily, Mollie raised the spiked wheel. The ice boat slowly ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Winter Camp - Glorious Days on Skates and Ice Boats • Laura Lee Hope
... into the hall and out into the garden. Involuntarily he looked after her with considerable admiration. She held herself well, that quiet woman. She waited for him in the drive, and as she did so Tony's words came back to her: "I used to feel frightened inside, but I wouldn't let him know it, and then—it was funny—but quite sunnly I wasn't ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... that by some artful turn he would at length wind into the usual courses of defence,—that when his unfaltering and almost stern accents paused, men were not prepared to feel that his speech was finished, and the pause involuntarily jarred on them as untimeous and abrupt. At length, when each of the audience slowly awoke to the conviction that the prisoner had indeed concluded his harangue, a movement, eloquent of feelings released from a suspense, which had been ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... letters and devoutly pressed them to his lips; when his eye falling on the superscription, "To our venerable brother Francisco Ximenez de Cisneros, archbishop elect of Toledo," he changed color, and involuntarily dropped the packet from his hands, exclaiming, "There is some mistake in this; it cannot be intended for me;" and abruptly quitted ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... and his big fists involuntarily closed. He had felt in his face the breath of the spirit that is ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... Miriam smiled involuntarily, Grace looked surprised, Elfreda indifferent, and Anne amused. The word "woman" seemed absurdly out of place from the lips of this girl who looked as though she had just been promoted ...
— Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... bat, as Butsey had done, and resumed his position. But the memory of the sound the ball had made when it had whistled by his ears had unnerved him. Before he could summon back his heroic resolves Carter, with a sudden jerk, delivered the ball. Involuntarily Stover stepped back, the ball easily and slowly passed him and cut ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... his name, and of the consequences both to ourselves and others of fidelity to our trust—it requires that these thoughts be so thoroughly impressed, and the heart so permeated, warmed, and animated by their influence, that they shall become, as it were, inherent elements of moral action, involuntarily suggesting themselves as often as occasions for their operation arise. But all this is but another process of thought and emotion descriptive of the spiritually minded. It also requires the same intellectual and moral discipline which is essential ...
— The Faithful Steward - Or, Systematic Beneficence an Essential of Christian Character • Sereno D. Clark
... Orsino involuntarily thought of a sphynx as he looked at the massive brow, the yellow, sleepy eyes, and the heavy mouth. He wondered how the late Aranjuez had lived and what ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... players returned to their seats and their game, whilst Calavar and his companions, forming themselves into a circle, stationed themselves round the two players. Calavar, who was himself a chess player, looked on with interest, and could not prevent himself from involuntarily considering each ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... unexpectedly pronounced, awakened in him the most sorrowful recollections, and tore open a wound but badly healed. This name recalled to him an event which had rudely extinguished his youth and spoilt his life. Involuntarily, he carried his thoughts back to this epoch, so as to taste again all its bitterness. An hour ago, it had seemed to him far removed, and already hidden in the mists of the past; one word had sufficed ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... Ransom involuntarily to himself. "And Georgian's face!" he felt obliged to add, as the light fell broadly across her. "But not Georgian's ways and not Georgian's nature," he impetuously finished as ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... them good enough to remove. At last we came to a clearing, and I quite despair of making you understand how romantic and lovely this open space in the midst of the tall trees looked that beautiful spring morning. I involuntarily thought of the descriptions in "Paul and Virginia," for the luxuriance of the growth was quite tropical. For about two acres the trees had been nearly all felled, only one or two giants remaining; their stumps were already ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... got a better opinion of mountain travel by this time," Cummings said laughingly, as Neal involuntarily halted. "In such a climate the shade of the trees ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis
... cocks came off the land with that clearness which all sounds assume in a fog. Suddenly Colonel John, crouching in the bow, where was scant room for Bale and himself, saw a large shape loom before him. Involuntarily he uttered a warning cry, O'Sullivan echoed it, the men tried to hold the boat. In doing this, however, one man was quicker than the other, the boat turned broadside on to her former course, and before the cry was well off O'Sullivan Og's lips, it swept violently athwart a cable hauled taut ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... bonnet of the vogue of 1840; huge, monstrously trimmed and bedecked with a perfect garden of artificial flowers. The color of the dress was salmon-blue, with pink ribbons. Altogether it was a fearful get-up, and, involuntarily, I looked about me expecting to see people stopping, a crowd forming. But no one appeared to notice the little old woman except myself, and as she drew near I discovered that she wore spectacles and a fringe of iron-gray hair ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... Involuntarily I felt a little chill of disgust pass through me. Deceit of any kind specially repels me, and deceit towards some one trusting, confident, ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... plain-featured lad, uninteresting except to the parental eye; the younger a beauty, a bewitching, plump, curly-headed cherub of four years, with widely-opened grey eyes and a Cupid's bow of a mouth. Margot let Jim pass by with a nod, but her hand stretched out involuntarily to stroke Pat's cheek, and ruffle his ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... the right and left, the great Roche Melon and Roche Michel soaring to the clouds. The valley then contracts and winds round a great rocky chasm (the Wild Gorge), where the hills are veritably rent asunder, passing through which one involuntarily shudders, and dreams of being in the land of some Titanic race, whose rocky thunder-bolts are ready to fall upon and crush the small, fragile creatures who have ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... involuntarily to the subject I last explained to you, my dear child, and I find that I have a great deal ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... the dusty stage that had brought her from the station over the prairies to the unpretentious little house where Wesley Brooke lived. A young girl, so like what Ogden Greene's wife had been fifteen years before that Theodosia involuntarily exclaimed, "Phoebe," came to the door. Beyond her, ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... attraction for children, and the depth of his weeds invested him with a melancholy interest, which has also great charms for the young. Then, to crown all, he mourned the loss of a young mother—and so did I. I involuntarily showed off Rubens as he approached, and he lingered and watched us. By a sort of impulse I took off my little hat, as I had been taught to do to strangers. He lifted his with a dismal grace ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... what we require at present, so that there may be no need for going in debt. 3, It is true, I might have goods on credit, and to a very considerable amount; but, then, the result would be, that the next time we were again in straits, the mind would involuntarily be turned to further credit which I might have, instead of being turned to the Lord, and thus faith, which is kept up and strengthened only by being EXERCISED, would become weaker and weaker, till at last, ...
— A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Third Part • George Mueller
... said the Baronet, sighing involuntarily. "And what of that?" he resumed, in a tone affectedly cheerful"it is only a house we can't get out of, after allSuppose a fit of the gout, and Knockwinnock would be the sameAy, ay, Monkbarnswe'll call it a fit of the ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... my sperm coming, and could not stop it, my arse jogged and pushed my prick involuntarily between her fingers, pleasure suddenly overwhelmed me, and kissing her I spent in her hand—all the work of half a minute. Then burning shame came over me, I could kiss her no longer, dared not look her in the face, nor keep my hand between her thighs, but rose ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... spiritual writers. The will is often regenerate and right; the will often bends, as Bunyan has it, to that which is good; but behind the will and beneath the will the heart is still full of passions, affections, inclinations, dispositions that are evil; instinctively, impulsively, involuntarily evil, even 'in natures most sincere.' And hence arises a conflict, a combat, a death-grip, an agony, a hell on earth, that every regenerate and advancing soul of man is full of His will is right. If his will is wrong; if he chooses evil; ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... Involuntarily Elsie glanced about her, and a pang went to her heart as she noticed that every article of luxury, almost of comfort, had disappeared; the pictures were gone from the walls, the pretty ornaments from mantel and centre-table; coarse cheap matting covered the floor in lieu of ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... a faint smile touched the corners of Clymer's clean shaven mouth and his eyes traveled involuntarily toward the over-dressed female whose charge of assault and battery against her husband had brought Clymer to the police court as a "character" witness in ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... between the consequences of an invention and the invention itself. We have said that intelligence is modeled on matter and that it aims in the first place at fabrication. But does it fabricate in order to fabricate or does it not pursue involuntarily, and even unconsciously, something entirely different? Fabricating consists in shaping matter, in making it supple and in bending it, in converting it into an instrument in order to become master of it. It is this mastery that profits humanity, much ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... estate; and he now managed the pastry trade so dexterously, that he gained great reputation in Damascus. Bedreddin, seeing so great a crowd gazing attentively upon Agib and the black eunuch, stepped out to view them himself. Having cast his eyes particularly on Agib, he presently found himself involuntarily moved. He was not struck like the crowd, with the shining beauty of the boy; a very different cause, unknown to him, gave rise to his commotion. It was the force of the blood that worked in this tender father, who, laying aside all business, made up to Agib, and, with an engaging ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... air, and Carlyle involuntarily held his breath. He had not realized that the dive was nearly forty feet. It seemed an eternity before he heard the swift compact sound as ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... three (for the doctor had joined them) turned involuntarily towards the dim grassy bank amid the tossing trees purple with twilight, where they had last seen the brown man swaying in his strange prayers. ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... go of hope and the umbrella, and collapsed with her romance into a chair; and she thought of Quimby's warning about the "soiled invisible," and barely suppressed a groan. Involuntarily she stole a glance at this too-visible person, and shuddered. Could she reconcile "C," her visionary, interesting, witty and gentlemanly "C" of the wire, with this musk-scented being of greasy red hair, cheap ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... the shepherd involuntarily. "And surely we've zeed him! That little man who looked in at the door by now, and quivered like a leaf when he zeed ye and ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... 'how could any one go to sleep when my mamma queen was singing'?' His mother stooped down to him, pressed a long kiss upon his brow, and a tear fell from her eyes upon his golden hair. I saw it, and involuntarily my eyes filled; I could not hold back my tears, aud went softly out to compose myself. Sire, I see you still before me—this beautiful queen and her children—and it is with me to-day as ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... lost, came the six thousand gold crowns, which were worth all three hundred thousand francs of to-day, so much do we go on decreasing in value every day. The king ordered the crowns to be arranged upon a table, and well lighted up, so that they shone like the eyes of the company which lit up involuntarily, and made them laugh in spite of themselves. They did not wait long for the three misers, whom the varlet led in, pale and panting, except Cornelius, who ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... and longs for the end of the dull assembly; with Sophronus all are pleased, and contented with themselves in their knowledge of matters which they find worthy the consideration of a man of sense. Admiration is involuntarily paid the former: to the latter it is given joyfully. The former receives it with envy and hatred; the latter enjoys it as the sweet fruit of goodwill. The former is shunned; the latter courted ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... old gentleman's cheek began to flush involuntarily, and he muttered, "The cat's out of ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of old friends and of old times, but their talk was not all unconstrained, because, you see, they couldn't refer to those former times and scenes without recalling, involuntarily, some day or some hour when they two were together, and when there seemed a chain between their hearts which nothing in the world could break. It was an awful commentary on the quality of human love and human pledges that things should be as they had been and as ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... I said, with bravado, holding out my hand. She dug her teeth into one of my fingers. It hurt so that I involuntarily ground my own teeth, but ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... remember! His heart almost turned over with the joy of knowing that she had really noticed and remembered him. Involuntarily his glad fingers closed down upon the gloved ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... flotsam and jetsam on the sands of life, one keen look into his self-satisfied light eyes was enough to learn the secret of his failure; failure which, go where he would, seek as he might, could never be turned into success. Nick's heart pitied the man, while it shut involuntarily against him. ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... surveyed more closely the strange battle. The fawn, becoming more and more enraged, did not suspend hostilities at their approach. They paused involuntarily when, within a few feet of the object, which proved to be a tremendous rattlesnake, some five feet in length, and as thick as a man's arm. It was nearly dead, its body, neck, and head, exhibited many bloody gashes cut by the sharp hoofs of the fawn. Every time the fawn ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... gratitude, and how delightful it is to me to feel them all! Since I have parted from you, I have felt still more than when I was with you the peculiar value to me of your sympathy and kindness. I find my spirits sink beyond my utmost effort to support them when I leave you, and they rise involuntarily when I am near you, and recall the dear trains of old associations, and the multitude of ideas I used to have with him who is gone for ever. Thank you, my dear aunt, for your most kind and touching letter. You have been for three months daily and ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... friends. It seems to yourself that you are immeasurably reticent. You know, of a certainty, that you project only the smallest possible fragment of yourself. You yield your universality to the bond of common brotherhood; but your individualism—what it is that makes you you—withdraws itself naturally, involuntarily, inevitably, into the background,—the dim distance which their eyes cannot penetrate. But, from the fraction which you do project, they construct another you, call it by your name, and pass it around for the real, the actual you. You bristle with jest and laughter ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... did not begin till near twelve o'clock. The opening to the whole then took place, by the entrance of the managers of the prosecution; all the company were already long in their boxes or galleries. I shuddered, and drew Involuntarily back, when, as the doors were flung open, I saw Mr. Burke, as head of the committee, make his solemn entry. He held a scroll in his hand, and walked alone, his brow knit with corroding care and deep labouring thought,—-a brow how different to ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... enclosed was covered with as tempting a spread of dainties as ever fascinated the eyes of a crowd of little people. For a whole minute, longer than a full hour of ordinary schoolboy enjoyments, they had to stand facing that sight, involuntarily attitudinising for the plunge. At the end of that long minute, the signal sounded, and, in an instant, there was a scene in the ring that would have made the soberest octogenarian shake his sides with the laughter of his youth. The encircling multitude of youngsters darted upon the thickly-scattered ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... partner. "And here is another idea that is well calculated to appeal to almost anybody. It has just occurred to me quite involuntarily while you were speaking. Many of our clients want to know if they cannot send the judge, who is trying the case, a present of some sort, or maybe loan him a little money; and it is always distressing to be obliged to tell them—usually— ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... in her face. Carroll regarded her even in the midst of the distressful stress of affairs with a look of admiration. It was an absent-minded regard, very much as a mourner might notice a stained-glass window in a church while a funeral was in progress. It was the side-light of grace on affliction involuntarily comprehended, from long training, by the exterior faculties. Carroll even ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... And, indeed, he would have good cause to wax loquacious—with a wild and interesting people all around him, danger to be faced every day, and many a marvellous incident happening. It is in circumstances like this that we involuntarily complain that so few ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... reached Demarara every hat and cap belonging to the ship's company, with a single exception, had been involuntarily given, as a propitiatory offering, to the god of Ocean. This exception was a beaver hat belonging to the captain; and this would have followed its leaders, had it not been kept in a case hermetically sealed. After the captain's stock of sea-going hats and caps had disappeared he wore around his ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... contrary, this very process, when normally conducted, is the basis of our educational processes. But when they are thus conglomerated and consolidated outside the conscious mind, and function automatically, involuntarily, by themselves, then they have become dangerous to the mental stability. Their pressure and influence may be felt in the conscious life—in fantastic imaginations, in fears, phobias, and obsessions—in morbid dreams—in morbid emotional and moral reactions throughout the entire ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... away past him over the sea, as if in thought. So intently did she look that he involuntarily turned his head, and the action recalled her to herself. She brought her fine straight brows together for a moment, and then raised them with the action of a thinker who has decided ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... hands with her at the moment he began speaking, and he had continued to hold her hand. Now, when she did not answer, she felt a light but firmly insistent pressure as of his drawing her to him. Involuntarily, she half-yielded to him, her desire for the moment stronger than her will. Then suddenly she drew herself away, though permitting her hand still ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... Anabela and Fergus. Her eyes rested upon me for an instant; then she turned them, full of feeling and confidence, upon Fergus. I knew I could not speak, but I was desperate. In speech lay my only hope. I could not stand beside Fergus and challenge comparison in the way of beauty. Purely involuntarily, my larynx and epiglottis attempted to reproduce the sounds that my mind was calling upon my vocal organs to ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... to shiver and shrink in silence at this enormous breach of etiquette—to use a mild term. Involuntarily the ten pairs of oars in the royal barge hung in mid-air, paralyzed by that sudden outrage. The great, glittering structure, impelled by momentum, glided forward directly under the bows of Rebecca's boat and ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... be so false-hearted as to break faith with him to-night; she would meet him and say good-bye? She should meet him, whether she liked it or not; and if Dixon were with her so much the better,—and Tom's fists clenched involuntarily. ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford
... Jack involuntarily uttered a cry of dismay, and the sergeant dropped down on one knee to assist the fallen man. To every one's astonishment, however, the latter rose to his feet unaided, looking rather dazed and gasping for breath, and picking ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... I visited him in Weimar, and stood before him, I involuntarily glanced at his side to see whether the eagle was not there with the lightning in his beak. I was nearly speaking Greek to him; but, as I observed that he understood German, I stated to him in German that the plums on the road between Jena and Weimar ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot |
