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Inclination   Listen
noun
Inclination  n.  
1.
The act of inclining, or state of being inclined; a leaning; as, an inclination of the head.
2.
A direction or tendency from the true vertical or horizontal direction; as, the inclination of a column, or of a road bed.
3.
A tendency towards another body or point.
4.
(Geom.) The angle made by two lines or planes; as, the inclination of the plane of the earth's equator to the plane of the ecliptic is about 23° 28´; the inclination of two rays of light.
5.
A leaning or tendency of the mind, feelings, preferences, or will; propensity; a disposition more favorable to one thing than to another; favor; desire; love. "A mere inclination to a thing is not properly a willing of that thing." "How dost thou find the inclination of the people?"
6.
A person or thing loved or admired.
7.
(Pharm.) Decantation, or tipping for pouring.
Inclination compass, an inclinometer.
Inclination of an orbit (Astron.), the angle which the orbit makes with the ecliptic.
Inclination of the needle. See Dip of the needle, under Dip.
Synonyms: Bent; tendency; proneness; bias; proclivity; propensity; prepossession; predilection; attachment; desire; affection; love. See Bent, and cf. Disposition.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Inclination" Quotes from Famous Books



... games, of movements, and numerous other details. Since man is to play the active part in life, boys rejoice especially in rough outdoor games. Girls, on the other hand, prefer such games as correspond to their future occupations. Hence their inclination to mother smaller children, and to play with dolls. Watch how a little girl takes care of her doll, washes it, dresses and undresses it. When only six or seven years of age she is often an excellent nurse. Her need to occupy herself ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... for me, a very nice judgment in his discourse, he fixed his eyes very attentively on me, and though my answer was without the least reserve, yet he thought he saw some uneasiness in me at the proposal, and from thence concluded that my compliance was rather an act of discretion than inclination; and that, however I seemed so absolutely given up to what he had proposed, yet my answer was really an effect of my ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe

... curiosity, and engaged your attention: our discourse, however, revived an intention I had once formed, of communicating my thoughts on the subject to the Publick; an intention I had only dropt for want of leisure and inclination to attempt a translation of the Epistle, which I thought necessary to accompany the original, and my remarks on it. In the original, Horace assumes the air and stile of an affectionate teacher, admonishing ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace

... adit roof came down and sometimes the sides crushed in; the inclination of the vein was irregular and the dip was often awkwardly steep. Then the pines about the mine were small and damaged by wind and forest-fires. It was difficult to find timber that would bear a heavy strain, and Thirlwell walked long ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss

... sworn fidelity to the King, and obedience to herself; all the governors of fortresses had followed their example; and the great nobles, whose plans were not yet matured, and whose cupidity was for the moment satisfied, testified no inclination to disturb, or to trammel the measures of the Government. The relief afforded to the middle and lower classes by the diminution of some of the national imposts, and the abolition of others, began to produce its effect upon the popular ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... it was almost a straight declivity. There were days of the black kind of inertia when to lift the head from its sullen inclination to rest chin on chest was not to be endured. There was actually something sick in the eyes, little cataracts of gray cloud seeming to float across. She would sit hunched and looking out of them so long and so unseeingly that her very ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst

... free for any man to speak in presence of your greatness, I must say that my heart puts on a wolfish inclination to tear and to devour, hearing your speech, that these suitors should with such injustice rage, where you should have the rule solely. What should the cause be? do you wilfully give way to their ill manners? or has your government been such as has procured ill will ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... cannot repress the inclination to offer you my sympathy. I have often thought with [FN: Mrs. Ware died in the interval between those two letters she was the daughter of Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, of Cambridge, Mass. In 1827 Mr. Ware was again married to Miss Mary Lovell Pickard.] [139] pain of what ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey

... pale flower with healthy roots and a yearning for clean, free air. Dan was suddenly conscious that the young fellow's eyes were bent upon him with a wistfulness, a kind of pleading sweetness, that the reporter had no inclination to resist. He delayed speaking, anxious to say the right word, to meet the plea in the ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... constrained to say to ourselves, "What a noble passage!" "What splendid verse!" "What a sweet song!" or to use any of those unstudied exclamations which spring to the lips before we have had time or inclination to realize our impressions more definitely—then, I maintain, we are justified in calling the writer at once and definitively a poet. Whether he is a greater poet or a minor poet remains still to be estimated, but poet he is, be he Burns or Swinburne, Tennyson or Watson or Davidson. Here, for ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker

... down by the tree and talked of many things, but my father carefully avoided the mention of Marjie's name. When he gave the little girl the letter that had fallen from her cloak pocket he read her story in her face, but he had no right or inclination to read it aloud to me. I tried by all adroit means to lead him to tell me of the Whatelys. It was all to no purpose. On any other topic I would have quitted the game, but—oh, well, I was just the same foolish-hearted boy that put the pink blossoms on a little girl's brown curls and ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter

... natives of the Asiatic continent, the Persian shows no reluctance in accepting foreign ways and inventions. He may lack the means to indulge in foreign luxuries, but that is a different matter altogether; the inclination to reform and adopt European ways is ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... draw on toward the Biblical limit, the inclination to look back, and to tell some sort of story of what one has seen, grows upon most of us. I cannot hope that what I have to say will be very interesting to many. A life spent largely among books, and in ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... age arrive, you will have even less disposition to love and serve the Lord than you now have. The fetters which bind you to sinful habits will have strengthened with years until you find both the inclination and ability ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth

... humble duty to your Majesty, and cannot express how deeply concerned he is to find himself restrained from obeying your Majesty's commands, and repairing without delay to Brighton. Both his duty and his inclination would prompt him to do this without a moment's delay, if he did not find it incumbent upon him to represent to your Majesty the very important circumstances which require his presence for two or three days longer in London. ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria

... His inclination to remain in San Antonio was settled by his marriage. Dona Maria Flores, though connected with the great Mexican families of Yturbide and Landesa, owned much property in San Antonio. She had been born within its limits, ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr

... brother called Sigurd, a son of Eirik Bjodaskalle, who had long been abroad in Gardarike (Russia) with King Valdemar, and was there in great consideration. Astrid had now a great inclination to travel to her brother there. Hakon the Old gave her good attendants, and what was needful for the journey, and she set out with some merchants. She had then been two years (A.D. 965-966) with Hakon the Old, and Olaf was three years of age. As they sailed out into the Baltic, they were ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson

... home, his natural inclination was to settle at Cambridge and resume his work at Clare Hall; but, partly owing to his father's advanced age, and partly on account of his elder brother having important work in London in connection ...
— Little Gidding and its inmates in the Time of King Charles I. - with an account of the Harmonies • J. E. Acland

... broken and sad, now brought to my aunt the news of his son's death in the assault on Quebec, and, speechless with grief, showed her the young fellow's letter, writ the night before he fell. He wrote, with other matter: "I cannot resist the inclination I feel to assure you that I experience no reluctance in this cause to venture a life I consider as only lent, and to be used when my country demands it." He went on to say that, if he died, he could wish his brother William, an adjutant in the king's army, would not continue in the ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell

... designed him for a different profession, but his inclination for the one he has chosen was so strong, and his talents for it, in the opinion of some good judges, so promising, that we thought it not proper to attempt ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse

... one of the great truths of personality came upon Hugh in a summer day which he had spent, according to his growing inclination, almost alone. In the morning he had done some business, some writing, and had read a little. It was a week when Cambridge was almost wholly given up to festivity, and the little river that flowed ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... Mrs. Martin returned, and, having briefly stated what had occurred, and given directions for the child's treatment, he withdrew. His low "good-night," gently spoken to the nurse, was only acknowledged by a slight inclination of the head as he passed her. Little Johnny was restless, and constantly threatened with a return of the convulsions. His mother held him on her knee, and telling Beulah she "had been a good, sensible ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans

... dogs, the poet Byron, like his own Don Juan, had a kind of inclination, or weakness, for what most people deem mere vermin, ...
— Heads and Tales • Various

... bookes I heare of none, but only of one* [* Stephen Gosson.], that writing a certaine booke called The Schoole of Abuse, and dedicating it to Maister Sidney, was for hys labor scorned; if, at leaste, it be in the goodnesse of that nature to scorne. Such follie is it not to regard aforehande the inclination and qualitie of him to whome wee dedicate oure bookes. Suche mighte I happily incurre, entituling My Slomber, and the other pamphlets, vnto his honor. I meant them rather to Maister Dyer. But I am of late more in loue wyth my Englishe ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser

... have him. Yet I own, I cannot much felicitate any body that marries for love. It is bad enough to marry; but to marry where one loves, ten times worse. it is so charming at first, that the decay of inclination renders it infinitely more disagreeable afterwards. Your sister has a thousand merits; but they don't count: but then she has good sense enough to make her happy, if her merit cannot ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... chirping noise, not unlike the note of the sparrow." It also imitates the voice of small birds. Mr. Yarrell says "the food of the red-backed shrike is mice, and probably shrews, small birds, and various insects, particularly the common May-chaffer. Its inclination to attack and its power to destroy little birds has been doubted; but it has been seen to kill a bird as large as a finch, and is not unfrequently caught in the clap-nets of London bird-catchers, having struck at their ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton

... has the largest congregation. For ever since he first debauched the mind, He made a perfect conquest of mankind. With uniformity of service, he Reigns with general aristocracy. No non-conforming sects disturb his reign, For of his yoke there's very few complain. He knows the genius and the inclination, And matches proper sins for every nation. He needs no standing army government; He always rules us by our own consent; His laws are easy, and his gentle sway Makes it exceeding pleasant to obey. The list of his vicegerents and commanders Outdoes your Caesars or your Alexanders. They never ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... doubts increased. The nearer he came to the stranger, the more forbidding he appeared. Had the lad followed his inclination he would have turned back, but he knew his friends were watching him. Besides which, he ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis

... conquered—crushed and subjected by his will—he felt toward her. It was a crowning joy to know that he could make her break her promise, turn her from her course of desperate fidelity, and make her his own, not against her inclination, but against her ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner

... about it. For previous to her marriage with Daniel, he had never been with her; he had never sat and looked at her so attentively; he had always passed by her in great haste, and had always shown an inclination to be alone. ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... at stupidity! It may be trying some Just to keep your patience present when the dullard pounds the drum, And the discord of his rumpus fills the palace of your soul With a horrid inclination that you hardly can control; But the world keeps making music, and as on the ages fly It will learn the angel chorus, and will sing it bye ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller

... which a parish was charged with the support of its unemployed poor, rendered land-owners averse to promote marriage. About the end of the century, the great demand for men in war and manufactures made it be thought a patriotic thing to encourage population: and about the same time the growing inclination of farmers to live like rich people, favored as it was by a long period of high prices, made them desirous of keeping inferiors at a greater distance, and, pecuniary motives arising from abuses ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... again to the subject. According to the order of your Majesty, the widow or child of an encomendero who served in the conquest inherits the encomienda or income. It happens very often that the widow is young, and rich through her succession to the encomienda; and, following bad advice or personal inclination, she makes an unsuitable or improper marriage, giving that rich reward and appointment to some trader or newcomer, without merit or claim for service. Thus many honorable and deserving men, who have rendered ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume VIII (of 55), 1591-1593 • Emma Helen Blair

... that he had poured for himself had been standing, untouched, upon the keg beside him. He took it up and drank it off; then wiped his lips with his handkerchief, and passing the storekeeper with a slight inclination of his head walked toward the door. A yard beyond the man who had so coolly shown his side of the shield was a rude table, on which were displayed hatchets and hunting knives. Haward passed the gleaming steel; then, ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... age of quickening movement and restless haste it is, above all things, important to struggle against the well-nigh universal inclination to abandon all efforts for form and style. They are the great preservers of what is best in literature, the salt which ought never to lose its savor. Those who use English in public speech and public writing have a serious responsibility too generally forgotten and disregarded. I would ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various

... love either means and hopes to make her his wife, or is merely fooling her for his own abominably selfish amusement, or is insulting her and endeavouring to injure her in a manner that makes it at once her duty and her inclination to spurn him from ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... joining in the sport, and gave him the finest girl in the company as a partner. She took him by the hand; they danced three times round in a fairy ring, after which he became so happy that he felt no inclination to leave his new associates. Their amusements were protracted till he heard his master's cock crow, when the whole troop immediately rushed forward to the front of the craig, hurrying him along with them. A door opened to receive them, and he continued a prisoner ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous

... said I, 'connected with you, I cannot understand; you call yourself a thorough-going Papist, yet are continually saying the most pungent things against Popery, and turning to unbounded ridicule those who show any inclination to ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... She blushed prettily in the gloom. "I'll have to be very dignified; the train is as long as a hall carpet and I'll have to walk this way." She illustrated the royal step, bowing to him with a regal inclination of her dark head, and then broke out into rippling life and laughter so infectious that he felt he ...
— The Net • Rex Beach

... information from a person whose back he had merely seen for a couple of minutes the night before, as the reprobate in question was being ejected from the Kings Arms, he did not stop to explain. In fact, at this point he showed no inclination to continue the conversation, but bowing very politely, continued ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston

... upon his new life without the smallest sense of having done anything exceptional or even creditable. It was so perfectly obvious to him that he had to be with his mother that he had no inclination to regard himself at all in the matter; the thing was as simple as it had been to him to help Francis out of financial difficulties with a gift of money. There was no effort of will, no sense of sacrifice about it, it was merely the assertion of ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson

... "Storm-boiler;" and Gibraltar, "Gabriel Tar." How we used to wrinkle with laughter at his sallies, launched with an artistically unconscious air, until the swooping cane came swishing down on our backs! And here I was in Gabriel Tar. I vow the first inclination I felt was to write to Hugh with the date engraved on the note-paper, and indeed so I should have done, but that I had not seen him for nigh twenty years, and when last I heard of him he was married, and had learned to be ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea

... told this story, shrugged his shoulders, looked knowing and mysterious, and left his auditors to draw what inference they pleased. As they had been talking of Captain Allen, the listeners made their own conclusion as to his identity with the buccaneer. True to human nature, in its inclination to believe always the worst of a man, nine out of ten credited the story as applied to the cut-throat looking captain, and so, after this, it was no unusual thing to hear him designated by the not very flattering ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur

... office if he did not go behind the counter, he went and married for his second wife a farmer's daughter. She was an honest, sensible, comely young woman, but she had no pretensions to be a lady, and no more inclination to enter the society of the Redcross upper class than the upper class had a mind to receive her as an equal. Charles Robinson's first wife had been all very well, though she was penniless. She had been a curate's daughter, educated to fill the post of governess in high families. ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler

... the Commons denied the King's right to dispense, not indeed with all penal statutes, but with penal statutes in matters ecclesiastical, and gave him plainly to understand that, unless he renounced that right, they would grant no supply for the Dutch war. He, for a moment, showed some inclination to put everything to hazard; but he was strongly advised by Lewis to submit to necessity, and to wait for better times, when the French armies, now employed in an arduous struggle on the Continent, might be available for the purpose ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... will send me to the Tower if I do," replied Rochester; "and though his threats would scarcely deter me from acting as I think proper, I have no inclination for marriage at present. What a pity, Etherege, that one cannot in these affairs have the money oneself, and give ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... Phil. Trans., vol. lxxiv.—On some remarkable Appearances in the Polar Regions of Mars, the Inclination of its Axis, the Position of its Poles, and its Spheroidal Form.—Some Details on the real Diameter of Mars, and on its Atmosphere.—Analysis of some Observations on ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago

... seemed to occasion a strong inclination to laugh, the lawyer fell back in his arm-chair, raised his hands as if in protestation, then he fixed his brilliant eyes upon Professor Hochstedt to see how he would regard the matter. The professor did not betray the embarrassment which ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne

... of one of the rays of the three-armed pier which carries the Altazimuth. The quality of the brickwork is the best that I have ever seen, and not a single brick was disturbed beyond those actually removed. Yet the effect was to give the Altazimuth an inclination of about 23". This inclination evidently depends on the elasticity of the brickwork.'—With reference to the new S.E. Equatoreal the Report states that 'The support of the north or upper end of the polar axis has been received, and is planted within the walls of the building ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy

... chairman, much against his inclination, for he was a fighter, ruled otherwise. "The differences that separate us from one another here to-night are not differences that can be settled by argument. They are differences that are due partly to our history ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor

... sayest sooth, O wise King!" Next day came Kanmakan according to his wont; and, going in to his aunt saluted her. She returned his salutation and said to him, "O my son! I have some what to say to thee which I would fain leave unsaid; yet I must tell it thee despite my inclination." Quoth he, "Speak;" and quoth she, Know then that thy sire the Chamberlain, the father of Kuzia Fakan, hath heard of the verses thou madest anent her, and hath ordered that she be kept in the Harim and out of thy reach; if therefore, O ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... nature and inclination a sport. He can tell you at what exact hour the ball game of the day is to begin, can foretell its issue without losing a stroke of the razor, and can explain the points of inferiority of all the players, as compared with better men that he has ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock

... thickly padded with dress upon dress as to give them the look of little fat Esquimaux. The women invariably carry them on their backs, Indian fashion. Here are two Japs meeting in the middle of the street. They bow three times, each inclination lower and more profound than the preceding one, infinite care being taken to drop the proper number of inches befitting their respective ranks, and then shake their own hands in token of their ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie

... stumbling-block to others, whose philosophy is hampered by the belief that Reason is a mere handmaid to Theology, and whom I seek in this work especially to benefit. (57) But as there will be many who have neither the leisure, nor, perhaps, the inclination to read through all I have written, I feel bound here, as at the end of my treatise, to declare that I have written nothing, which I do not most willingly submit to the examination and judgment of my country's rulers, and that I am ready to retract anything, which they shall decide to be repugnant ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part I] • Benedict de Spinoza

... been produced in London by a female of the St. Bernard breed. The young animal was brought to Scotland, where it was never observed to give any particular tokens of a power of tracking footsteps until winter. Then, when the ground was covered with snow, it showed the utmost inclination to follow footsteps; and such was its power of doing so, that though its master might attempt to confuse it by walking in the most irregular fashion, and by inducing other persons to cross his path ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various

... love with him, but she wished him to be in love with her. She was, moreover, very reserved with him, and that not solely from any want of inclination to be otherwise, since in affairs of love some things are due to indifference, to inattention, to woman's instinct, to traditional custom and feeling, to a desire to try one's power, and to satisfaction at seeing its results. The reason of her prudence ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France

... 297. The inclination of the line of metal to the axis of the bore varies in guns of the same class, as well as in those of different classes. Aiming, therefore, by the line of metal cannot be relied on for definite ranges; besides that, within those ranges, it ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN

... the left on entering, but so much in the dark that it is difficult to make it out, especially as the characters at best are not easy to understand, but I recommend them to the inspection of those persons who have time and inclination to study such subjects. The view of the city from the towers affords an ample panorama, and displays the positions of the ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve

... duty and inclination coincide. The girls walked forward briskly. The interior of the cow-house was dark as an Eastern temple. The gipsies had established themselves in the dimmest corner, and were squatting on bundles of straw ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil

... and a very noble slackness which proceeds from the two strongest things on earth, confidence and charity; charity, which naturally inclines to be long-suffering, and confidence which, having assurance in its cause, dares to trust that natural inclination. Dissent in the first generation is usually admirable and almost always respectable: men don't leave the Church for fun, but because they have thought and discovered, as they believe, something amiss in her—something which in nine cases out of ten she would be the better for considering. ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine

... strikingly strange fact that, under such circumstances, the Celts should never have thought of possessing vessels of their own, if not to push the enterprises of an extensive commerce, for which they never showed the slightest inclination, at least for the purpose of shipping their colonies abroad, and crossing directly to Greece from Celtiberia, for instance, or from their Italian colony of the Veneti, replaced in modern times by maritime Venice? Yet so it was; and ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... whose father Masakado had killed, attacked the rebels in a moment of elated carelessness, shattered them completely, and sent Masakado's head to the capital. The whole affair teaches that the Fujiwara aristocrats, ruling in Kyoto, had neither power nor inclination to meddle with provincial administration, and that the districts distant from the metropolis wore practically under the sway of military magnates in whose eyes might constituted right. This was especially notable in the case of the ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... officers a definite order to shorten sail; and so that extraordinarily vague row would go on till at last it dawned upon them both, in some particularly alarming gust, that it was time to do something. There is nothing like the fearful inclination of your tall spars overloaded with canvas to bring a deaf man and an ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad

... possibly rise up to the gate of heaven and write about my angels. You know one can't sometimes sit down to the sublunary, occupation of reading Greek, unless one feels free to it. And writing poetry requires a double liberty, and an inclination which comes ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon

... family, about which so much twaddle is talked, is hateful. A new development of the family will take place, as the basis not of a predetermined lifelong business arrangement to be formally held to irrespective of conditions, but on mutual inclination and affection, an association terminable at the will of ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon

... to listen to this kind of talk, but the Lady remembered her annual bouquet, and her occasional visits from the rich lady, and restrained the inclination to remind her of the humble sphere from which she herself, the rich and patronizing personage, had worked her way up (if it was up) into that world which she seemed to think was the only one where a human being could find life worth having. Her cheek flushed a little, however, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... girl is confirmed, all manner of fancies awake!" said Otto. "She experiences a kind of inclination for the heart of man; but this may not be acknowledged, except for two friends to the clergyman and the physician. For these she has quite a passion, especially for the former; she stands in a kind of spiritual rapport with him. His physical amiability ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen

... all Jack's decorum and his discipline, to say nothing of his natural inclination, when duly encouraged, to reflect seriously and properly on any subject, as he is made of ordinary flesh and bones, his eyes will sometimes refuse to keep open under the infliction of a dull or ill-delivered discourse; so that if the person who officiates happens not to read very well, his best ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall

... lights upon the water to seize some object of food, there is a trifling exertion evinced in rising again, until he is a few feet above the waves, when once more he sails with or against the wind, upon outspread, immovable wings. With no apparent inclination or occasion for pugnacity, the albatross is yet armed with a tremendous beak, certainly the most terrible of its kind possessed by any of the feathered tribe. It is from six to eight inches long, and ends in a sharp-pointed hook extremely strong and hard. It has been humorously ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou

... he was following these from place to place to find pasture, he was always drawing something from nature or representing the fancies which came into his head, with a stone on the ground or on sand, so much was he attracted to the art of design by his natural inclination. Thus one day when Cimabue was going on some business from Florence to Vespignano, he came upon Giotto, who, while his sheep were grazing, was drawing one of them from life with a pointed piece of stone upon a smooth surface of rock, although he had never had any ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari

... moment; it needs careful consideration, and therefore I will talk it over after breakfast with you—if you can spare me an hour or two—my son, and the young Englishman, who, although only a lad, seems to have a man's head on his shoulders. My present inclination is to remain where I am, and let Weyler do his worst. I believe that, with the dispositions which we have made since Echague's attack upon us, we can hold ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood

... she ask advice. She knew they would entreat her to accept, and she needed no such incentive to her own wishes. Far on into the night Worth sat at the white-curtained dormer window, looking at the stars over the apple trees, and fighting her battle between inclination and duty. It was a hard and stubbornly contested battle, but with that square chin and those unfaltering grey eyes it could end in only one way. Next day ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... the gentlemen were in bed. It must be remembered that he had to preach, on the coming Sunday morning, a charity sermon on behalf of a mission to Mr. Harold Smith's islanders; and, to tell the truth, it was a task for which he had now very little inclination. When first invited to do this, he had regarded the task seriously enough, as he always did regard such work, and he completed his sermon for the occasion before he left Framley; but, since that, an air of ridicule had been thrown over ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope

... that Lord Salisbury's promising nephew was busy with matters which lay quite remote from politics, and was even following the path of perilous speculation. It is a first-rate instance of our national inclination to talk about books without reading them that, when Mr. Balfour published A Defence of Philosophic Doubt, everyone rushed to the conclusion that he was championing agnosticism. His friends went about looking very solemn, and those who disliked ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell

... "and yet do you know that, although I so ardently wished to mix with the world, and to follow the wars, I am anything but satisfied with what I have seen of it; and so far from feeling any inclination to return to it I rather feel more inclined to remain here, and remain in quiet and in peace. I have been disappointed, that is the truth. There is a great difference between the world such as we fancy it when we are pining for ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat

... the country. The year 1819 was a year of numerous failures, and very considerable distress, and would have furnished far better grounds than exist at present for that gloomy representation of our condition which has been presented. Mr. Speaker has alluded to the strong inclination which exists, or has existed, in various parts of the country, to issue paper money, as a proof of great existing difficulties. I regard it rather as a very productive cause of those difficulties; and the committee will not fail to observe, that there is, at ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... odd; and as I had no inclination to encounter any "madame" without some hint as to her character and business, I looked about me for some one able and willing to give me the necessary information. An upholsterer's shop in an opposite basement ...
— The Bronze Hand - 1897 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)

... crevices and fissures fifty or sixty feet deep, and each wide enough to have swallowed the entire company of Korah. At the foot of the plain lies a vast lake, into which, indeed, it may be said to slope, with a gradual inclination from the north, the imprisoned waters having burst up through the lava strata, as it subsided beneath them. Gazing down through their emerald depths, you can still follow the pattern traced on the surface of the bottom, by cracks and chasms similar to those into ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)

... alarming inclination to invert himself for the amusement of the child, but she did not seem to grasp the meaning of the offer. She fixed her eyes upon Ruggles, who made bold by what seemed a favorable sign, took a step forward and invitingly ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... his final degradation, Charles occasionally speaks with his real voice: his inborn goodness of heart, remarked before his earliest adventures, utters its protest against the self he has become; just as, on the other hand, long ere he set his foot on Scottish soil, his father had noted his fatal inclination to ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang

... served punctually at eight o'clock, and Tom Gerrard, whose equanimity was now quite restored, took his seat opposite his sister with a smiling face, and in a few minutes, under the sunshine of his genial manner, Mrs Westonley, much against her own inclination, began to thaw, and presently found herself chatting ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke

... before her, always in a pathetic or pleasing attitude; never to alarm or startle her; to keep my own secret locked in my bosom like a story of disgrace, and let hers (if she could be induced to have one) grow at its own rate; to move just so fast, and not by a hair's-breadth any faster, than the inclination of her heart. I was the man, and yet I was passive, tied by the foot in prison. I could not go to her; I must cast a spell upon her at each visit, so that she should return to me; and this was a matter of nice management. I had done it the last time—it seemed ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... (HUTCHINSON). The book appears at a most opportune date, for most of us nowadays are military critics, and here we can, if we like, compare the Russian methods of 1812 with those of 1914. On the other hand, in these strenuous days we may not have the time, even if we have the inclination, to devote ourselves to campaigns a hundred years old. For my own part, while frankly admitting the value of this book, I confess that I had sometimes to skip in an endeavour to avoid being bewildered by names and numbers. Using this desultory ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 25, 1914 • Various

... his mercy. There was the first inclination to drop him into the stream, but that was put away as quickly as it came. He gave the wretch a sudden twist, pulling him clear of the hole, and wrenched the knife from his ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... for the reduction of the militia, and it was upon this that he descanted with great vehemence. He gave a historical account of the militia from the year 1756, when he said it was increased against the inclination of George II., who was not so well acquainted with the country as his successors have been, 'when there was a Whig Administration, as there is now.' He declared his conviction that the safety of the country demanded a numerous and effective militia, that nothing should have induced him to consent ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville

... religion he comes to mistake for essential, and a thousand times the more readily because he has chosen it of himself; and religious activity he fancies to consist in battling for it. All this leaves him little leisure or inclination for culture; to which, besides, he has no great institutions not of his own making, like the Universities connected with the national Establishment, to invite him; but only such institutions as, like the order and discipline of his religion, he may have invented ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold

... Napoleon of her intention, he exclaimed, with sparkling eyes: "If we go to Paris, and if I should see the people sabred before my eyes, I shall not be able to resist the inclination to ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach

... mysteries to writing, but taught their pupils memoriter. The Irish and Scotch Druids wrote theirs, but in secret character. These were well understood by the learned men who were in great numbers, and had {70} not only genius but an ardent inclination to make researches into science. St. Patrick, then, with the general consent and applause of the learned of that day, committed to the flames almost two hundred tracts of their pagan mysteries.[77] And with his day ended the last of druidical superstition. The Druids preserved the mistletoe ...
— Mysticism and its Results - Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy • John Delafield

... on the veranda. As he did so, a negro, whose snow-white hair had earned for him from his master the sobriquet of Methusaleh, came towards the broad front steps. He was a grotesque image as he stood doffing a large palm-leaf hat, and Lenox Hildreth felt an irresistible inclination to laugh, and laughed accordingly. His morning's occupation had been one of the rare instances in which he had run counter to his inclinations. Sky blue cotton trousers showed two brown ankles before ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black

... for church-goin' or prayer meetin's or mindin' our souls in our best frocks an' bonnets—no, sir! We jest have t' get on with our work—sewin' an' cookin' an' washin'—mindin' the welfare of other folks' bodies. So while them as has time an' inclination sing their praises t' the Lord on their knees, Hermy an' me take out our praises in work, an' have t' leave our souls t' God an'—oh, well, I guess he'll take care of 'em all ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol

... that it was the Queen's birthday. The old tower was in full view from my bed, and I lay there a while looking at it, and listening to the bells, and dreaming of Whalley Abbey, and of old features of life in picturesque Blackburnshire, now passed away. I felt no more inclination for sleep; and when the knock came to my door, I was dressed and ready. There were more people in the streets than I expected, and the bells were still ringing merrily. I found the soup kitchen a lively scene. ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh

... have? I use the world; I did not make it; I did not choose it. He is the world. Through him I earn my bread and butter. I have shown him his place. Shall I try in addition to reform? Shall I make him an enemy? I have neither time nor inclination. Shall I resign and beg, or go tilting at windmills? If he were the only one it would be different; but they're all alike." Her face grew hard. "Have I shocked you?" she said as they ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois

... of duty arises, it becomes the central feeling in all inner conflicts, and it wrestles with inclination and the pleasant choice. Duty is the great inhibitor, but also it says "Thou shalt!" Ideally, duty involves self-sacrifice, and practically man dislikes self-sacrifice save where love is very strong. Duty chains a man to his task where he is inclined for ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... bribed, the next nagged, again left to his own devices for days, with strong inherited tendencies to be fought, tendencies to what he did not say. Looking at his heavy jaw and swarthy face, Kate supplied "temper" and "not much inclination to work." He had asked her to teach him, she would begin by setting him an example in the dignity of self-control; then she would make him work. How she would make that big, strong man work! As she sat there on the bank ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter

... easy to learn when one has the habit of studying them, and a slight inclination for etymology," Lady Mabel ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon

... fellowships in the College; Queen Elizabeth held strong views on the matter, even discouraging the marriage of Masters. The necessity of taking orders was somewhat relaxed in 1860. The system had its advantages—it tended to produce promotion; for the natural inclination of mankind to marry, vacated fellowships; the disadvantage was that men with a real taste for study or teaching had no certain career before them. The question of allowing Fellows to marry was raised in the eighteenth century, but met with little support and much ...
— St. John's College, Cambridge • Robert Forsyth Scott

... a cord to him? We would seek no other persuasion to go and dig for a treasure of gold, than to show us where it is hid. But strange is the rebellious and perverse disposition of man's heart. What an enmity is in it to the ways of God! What strange inclination to self-murder, ever since man destroyed himself! We cannot express it unto you; but you may perceive it well enough, both by the Lord's frequent obtesting, and protesting to us in his word, and the experience of the great barrenness of all such ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... telescopes tell us it is not so on the earth, for we can see the winter snow creep well down on its surface and remain there several months, then go away and come on the other hemisphere. We know this means great changes of climate, and as the inclination of the axis of the earth to the plane of its orbit is about the same as that of the axis of Mars, we believe we would have equally violent changes were it not for the fortunate distribution of land and water on our planet. ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan

... was in his twentieth year, was in the French service; and Blanche, who was not yet eighteen, had been hitherto confined to the convent, where she had been placed immediately on her father's second marriage. The present Countess, who had neither sufficient ability, or inclination, to superintend the education of her daughter-in-law, had advised this step, and the dread of superior beauty had since urged her to employ every art, that might prevail on the Count to prolong the period of Blanche's seclusion; it was, therefore, with extreme ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... stimulants, and excessive fatigue tend to prevent sleep. Sleeping rooms should be well ventilated, and the air maintained at a equable temperature of as near 60 deg. Fahr. as possible. An inability to sleep at the proper time, or a regular inclination to sleep at other than the natural hours for it, is a certain indication of errors of habit, or ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... But to know all this near is what I would indeed be very gladly excused, since I cannot help thinking that my husband's "old flame" has something of cold-heartedness in her, and my heart has no great inclination to become ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer

... and wayward an impulse on the part of matter as can well be imagined by the scientific mind. That the dog-germ should seek to get hold of, and differentiate them, we can well understand. The Circean witchery and enticement is all on the part of the dog-germ, not in the inclination of the molecules. ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright

... position in life is marked out for him by others, and he is left no voice in the matter, in nine cases out of ten, he is totally unfitted by nature and inclination for the post he is called to fill. So it was with my father, Edward Moncton. A person less adapted to fill an important place in the mercantile world, could scarcely have been found. He had a genius for spending, not for making money; and was so easy and credulous that any artful villain ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie

... my life felt such a strong inclination to lay my hands on what was not my own. A sword I durst not think of, but could I have got a brace of pistols, or even one solitary pistol, belonging to Napoleon, I would have thought myself the happiest man alive; but ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland

... various lovers; and it can thus remain a sort of index to the fleeting sentiments once confronted with it. Reason has, to be sure, no independent method of discovering values. They must be rated as the sensitive balance of present inclination, when completely laden, shows them to stand. In estimating values reason is reduced to data furnished by the mechanical processes of ideation and instinct, as in framing all knowledge; an absent joy can only be represented by a tinge of emotion dyeing an image ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... benches derided, the children's benches were in convulsions. The Archbishop of Canterbury nudged the Archbishop of York; Henry Compton, Bishop of London, brother of Lord Northampton, held his sides; the Lord Chancellor bent down his head, probably to conceal his inclination to laugh; and, at the bar, that statue of respect, the Usher of the ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... facts. For the untrained girl of merely average abilities, with no pronounced talent or inclination, but with an interest in persons and a pleasure in doing things for people, helping in the tasks of homemaking ought to prove suitable work. It is, however, the one vocation for the untrained girl which requires her to live in the home of her employer, thus curtailing her independence, ...
— Vocational Guidance for Girls • Marguerite Stockman Dickson

... hastened to reply, "I believe as the Holy Church commands, and doubt not Saint Ringan's power of healing; but, be it said with reverence, he hath not of late showed the inclination." ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... koennen. [It is further taught that since the Fall of Adam all men who are naturally born are conceived and born in sin, i.e., that they all, from their mother's womb, are full of evil desire and inclination, and can have by nature no true fear of God, no true faith in God.] This passage testifies that we deny to those propagated according to carnal nature not only the acts, but also the power or gifts of producing fear and trust in God. For we say that those thus born have concupiscence, and cannot ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon

... and inoffensive joke I shook hands with Tom, informing him where to find me; made Miss Katy a bow, which she returned with a charming smile and a little inclination which shook together her ringlets; and then leaving the young people to themselves, I mounted my horse, and returned to ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke

... to force, the public inclination, to give a direction, a form, a technical dress, and a specific sanction, to the general sense of the community, is the ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou

... 'let Israel go.'" Wearing the same clothing night and day, sitting on the bare floors, sleeping there in contact with companions not over-nice, no patient labor, no exterminating unguent, afforded much relief. We lost all squeamishness, all delicacy on the subject, all inclination for concealment. It was not a returned Danville prisoner who was reported to have gone into a drug store in New York stealthily scratching and saying, "I want some unguentum; don't want it for myself; only want it for a friend." But it was reported and believed that in April one of them ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague

... with a most noble bow, and dismissed the drawer with a word in an undertone. Then turning again to us, he said: "I had the pleasure of seeing you act last night, and dance," he adds with a slight inclination of his head to Moll. "Naturally, I wish to be better acquainted with you. Will it please you ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett

... England, Dr. Ryerson received the following note from Rev. Dr. J. P. Durbin, in which he said: After I parted with you at my house, I felt a strong inclination to engage your correspondence for our paper, at least once a week, if possible, for the benefit of our people and country, through the Church. Can you not write us by every packet? Information in regard to English Methodism will be particularly interesting, ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... about the matter like rational beings," she said cheerfully. "I have got over my first inclination to swoon. You must curb your very natural desire to ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace

... spirit of the woman, Hugh fought to overcome his inclination to give himself up to vaporous dreams. He became convinced that his own people were really of inferior stock, that they were to be kept away from and not to be taken into account. During the first year after he came to live with the Shepards, ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson

... amendment was carried, amid much bitterness, excluding the ex-president of the Confederacy from the benefits thereof. Northerners naturally glorified their triumph in the war as a victory for the Constitution, nor could they wholly withstand the inclination to question the motives of the secession leaders. Southerners, however loyal now to the Union, were equally bold in asserting that, since in 1861 the question of the nature of the Union had not been settled, Mr. Davis and the rest ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews

... published. "It is your satisfaction at being freed from war that leads you to take so cheerful a view," urged Alva. "My master cannot but require the application of a more efficient remedy, since the cause is common to Spain; for the disease will spread, and Philip has no inclination to lose his crown, or, perhaps, even his head." Catharine now insisted upon Alva's explaining himself and disclosing his master's plan of action. This Alva declined to do. Although Philip was as conversant with the state ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... Stoughton and Bulkely were dismissed, the colony had been commanded to send new agents within six months. In September, 1680, another royal letter had been written, in which the king dwelt upon the misconduct of his subjects, "when ... we signified unto you our gracious inclination to have all past deeds forgotten... wee then little thought that those markes of our grace and favour should have found no better acceptance amoung you.... We doe therefore by these our letters, strictly command and require you, ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams

... myself; and, permitting my companions to precede me, followed in silence, listening sullenly to their jubilations. The marquis seemed scarcely less pleased than M. de Rosny; and as the latter evinced a strong desire to lessen any jealousy the former might feel, and a generous inclination to attribute to him a full share of the credit gained, I remained the only person dissatisfied with the evening's events. We retired from the chateau with the same precautions which had marked our entrance, and parting with ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman

... dependence upon one on whom I had no claim whatever. What, then, was to be done? I examined my capital. I was handsome, but that was of no use to me; the insidious conduct of Monsieur de G—had raised to positive dislike the indifference that I felt for his sex, and I had no inclination to make a market of my personal advantages. I could sing and play well. I spoke French and English, and understood Italian. I could embroider the work well with my needle. Such were my capabilities, my stock-in-trade with which to commence the world; I was, therefore, competent to a certain ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat

... the last half-hour with a touch of amusement. He had been meditating on 'women'—the delightfulness of 'women,' his own natural inclination to their society. But how narrow is ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... army, build fortresses, and cast cannon. When the affairs of state left him any leisure he amused himself at a turning-lathe which he had set up, and also in painting majolica vases, in which art he was exceedingly skilful. He had no inclination for the higher culture—this ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius

... religious woman. Her faith was the inspiration of her whole life, and it is safe to say that from the smallest to the greatest things there was never a struggle between conscience and inclination in which conscience was not victorious. As she grew older, I fancy that she became a less orthodox member of the Church of England, to which she belonged, but her love for Christ and for His ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan

... of foreign travel, the making of many friends, and much mental energy; sometimes it gives a hint that there is an inclination to gossip ...
— Telling Fortunes By Tea Leaves • Cicely Kent

... breath and listening, in dread expectancy of hearing their pursuers clamoring at their heels; but the firing had ceased and nothing stirred amid the intense stillness that had again settled down upon the wood and the surrounding country. It was evident that the Prussians had no inclination to beat up ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... "I am not afraid, if you are. I can quite understand now why you cannot come. Good-bye!" And with a haughty inclination of her head she drove off, without deigning to notice the young man's outstretched hand. Liso was now in a very bad temper; and, having no other means of venting it, savagely silenced the children whenever they ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell

... frontier of Massachusetts, Philip was next known to be in the countries of his allies, the Narragansetts. The latter had not heartily engaged in the war; but their inclination to do so was not doubted, and it was the design of Philip to arouse them to activity. Conanchet, their sachem, in violation of his treaty with the English, not only received Philip's warriors, but aided their operations against the English, and Massachusetts, ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick

... what you've made," I suggested, whereupon he produced an outfit which appeared to be a compromise between the costume of an Italian bandit, the uniform of an Australian soldier, and the regalia of a Spanish bull-fighter. Suppressing my inclination to give way to laughter, I sketched for the grateful tailor the sort of garments to which cowpunchers—cowpunchers of the screen, at least—are addicted. If he followed my directions the King of Siam wore a costume which would make William ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell

... Italy, money is the one subject of men's thoughts; intellectual life does not exist; there is little even of what we should call common education. Those who have wealth cling to it fiercely; the majority have neither time nor inclination to occupy themselves with anything but the earning of a livelihood which for multitudes signifies the ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing

... a dogged expression; he moved uneasily on his seat, but showed no inclination to rise. In a firm, imperious tone, Joe again ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... in the study was continually in my mind; I could think of nothing else. I did not like the profession well enough to have chosen it myself, for I disliked retirement; but after an inward struggle, betwixt my inclination and my duty, I resolved, that, to please my father, I would study for the church. One day, my godfather, Captain Hartly, came to see us, and he took great notice of me. He asked me if I should like to go ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne

... pad and pencil at hand so that the message (if there is one) can be taken down without delay. The person at the other end probably has not time (and certainly has not inclination) to wait until you have fumbled through the papers on your desk and the rubbish in the drawers to locate something to write on and ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney

... fruitful of verbiage in Addison and Gray, who says with perfect truth, "I should make you sick of marble were I to tell you how it is lavished here," Smollett is sparing enough, though he evidently regards the inherited inclination of Genoese noblemen to build beyond their means as an amiable weakness. His description of the proud old Genoese nobleman, who lives in marble and feeds on scraps, is not unsympathetic, and suggests that the "deceipt of the Ligurians," which Virgil ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... philosophising that precedes. The act itself is natural, and the resolve so to act is, I fear, likewise too true a picture of the lax hold which principles have on a woman's heart, when opposed to, or even separated from, passion and inclination. For women are less hypocrites to their own minds than men are, because in general they feel less proportionate abhorrence of moral evil in and for itself, and more of its outward consequences, as detection and loss of character, than men,—their natures being ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge

... man with the blunderbuss if he had a tinder-box on him. The unknown, without speaking, produced his tinder-box, and hastened to strike a light for me. In return I gave him one of my best Havanas, for which he thanked me with an inclination of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various

... to remain only a few weeks, but after a year they concluded they could "never be content to go away and leave the spot consecrated by her death," unlike Robert Browning, who left Florence forever on the death of his wife, not having the inclination or the fortitude even ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... silent all this time. My blame was indeed turned inward. Sometimes, too, I was half-frighted at his audaciousness: at others, had the less inclination to interrupt him, being excessively fatigued, and my spirits sunk to nothing, with a view even of the best ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... portion of a Proof that had been led in support of a brieve of service; but I got enough to enable me to give the story, which I shall do in such a connected manner as to take the reader along with me, I hope pleasantly, and without any inclination to ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various



Words linked to "Inclination" :   inclination of an orbit, desire, stoop, stomach, mental attitude, position, tilt, proclivity, angle, devices, undertow, predisposition, disposition, impartiality, magnetic dip, partiality, drift, bent, inclining, partisanship, negativity, motion, movement, move, disfavor, disapproval, heterosis, tendency, spatial relation, favoritism, uranology, natural philosophy, astronomy, favor, direction, favouritism, perseveration, liking, nonpartisanship



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