"Involuntarily" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... occasioned in my mind great indignation with regard to the reports just mentioned, and great solicitude lest General Wilkinson's conduct and Burr's situation might lead to occurrences which Colonel Burr would deprecate, and which involuntarily would put him ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... feel a little electric shock striking you in the head, seizing your heart at the same time—that is the moment of genius" (Buffon). "In the course of my life I have had some happy thoughts," says Du Bois Reymond, "and I have often noted that they would come to me involuntarily, and when I was not thinking of the subject." Claude Bernard has voiced the ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... of Descartes: "If he was mistaken about the laws of motion, he was the first to divine that there must be some." Buffon divined the epochs of nature, and by the intuition of his genius, absolutely unshackled by any religious prejudice, he involuntarily reverted to the account given in Genesis. "We are persuaded," he says, "independently of the authority of the sacred books, that man was created last, and that he only came to wield the sceptre of the earth when that earth was found worthy ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... more brought her to the elbow of the rail; here, in the very act of turning to follow it down to the basement, she halted involuntarily, ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... None of us had slept well, and all were thinking of the same subject. Mrs. Jelf had evidently been crying; Jelf was impatient to be off; and both Captain Prendergast and myself felt ourselves to be in the painful position of outsiders, who are involuntarily brought into a domestic trouble. Within twenty minutes after we had left the breakfast-table the dog-cart was brought round, and my friend and I were on ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... for her cook-books and her satiric sketches), when speaking of people silent from stupidity, supposed kindly to be full of reserved power, says: "We cannot help thinking that when a head is full of ideas some of them must involuntarily ooze out." ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... in a sober condition, and therefore rough, taciturn, and inclined to demand, Satan only knows what price. Akaky Akakiyevich felt this, and would gladly have beat a retreat, but he was in for it. Petrovich screwed up his one eye very intently at him, and Akaky Akakiyevich involuntarily said, ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... immediate surroundings. I had no sooner arrived at the landing than I heard a man's voice, somewhere above in the second story, speaking with a note of determination that demanded some sort of recognition from the person addressed. The clear, ringing, resolute tone made me involuntarily pause and listen. ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... We have been two hours involuntarily playing the spy upon you. Ah! I know a part of the country where travellers that take no more precautions than you would soon find their heads stripped of the skin. But ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... Mr. Markland sighed involuntarily, but made no answer. He, too, felt troubled whenever his thoughts turned to his daughter. Yet had he become so absorbed in the new business that demanded his attention, and in the brilliant results which dazzled him, that to think, to any satisfactory ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... not sufficiently considered all these advantages, began to look a little confused, and the physician thus went on:—'All that you have to complain of is, that you have been involuntarily your own dupe, and cheated into health and happiness. You went to Dr Ramozini, and saw a parcel of miserable wretches comfortably at dinner. That great and worthy man is the father of all about him; ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... burst involuntarily from every mouth. All present started up in bewildered excitement; all surrounded her; all had listened uneasily to her wild, disconnected sentences. All felt that something had happened, something had gone very ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... while they watched in silence; once she leaned a trifle too far over the star-lit gulf and, recoiling, involuntarily ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... keeping my mind in His holy Presence, and recalling it as often as I found it wandered from Him. I found no small pain in this exercise, and yet I continued it, notwithstanding all the difficulties that occurred, without troubling or disquieting myself when my mind had wandered involuntarily. I made this my business as much all the day long as at the appointed times of prayer; for at all times, every hour, every minute, even in the height of my business, I drove away from my mind everything that was capable of interrupting ...
— The Practice of the Presence of God the Best Rule of a Holy Life • Herman Nicholas
... kind of you—" He involuntarily raised his hand to his face. "I've grown a beard, I see. Let's see how I look with a beard." He stepped to a looking-glass on the wall, took one look, ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... that a priest could speak to a gentleman so boldly. Now, that damned old landlubber'—I beg your pardon, sir," broke in my curate, "the words escaped me involuntarily." ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... returned in a soft grey crepe de chine, with a big grey hat and feathers, she was such a pretty picture that Patty involuntarily exclaimed in admiration. ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... have suspected something and dropped off in the yard or at the shops," said Halkett. And at the saying of it he shrank back involuntarily and added: "Ah! Look at ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... placing his other hand over his eyes, he sat in that posture for some minutes. On raising his head the tears were running as if involuntarily down ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... have for some time perceived an host of horrors approaching from that quarter. I know your worth and honour. I depend upon your friendship, and conjure you, by all the ties of it, to free me at once from the most miserable suspense, by owning you have involuntarily captivated the heart of ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... men, dying rich—actually rich. The professor pulls his beard, and involuntarily glances round the somewhat meagre apartment, that not all his learning, not all his success in the scientific world—and it has been not unnoteworthy, so far—has enabled him to improve upon. It has helped him to live, no doubt, and distinctly outside the line of want, a thing to be grateful ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford
... observers; that a remark made by a bad observer CANNOT be right; an observer who deserves to be damned you would utterly damn. I feel entire deference to any remark you make out of your own head; but when in opposition to some poor devil, I somehow involuntarily feel not quite so much, but yet much deference for your opinion. I do not know in the least whether there is any truth in this my criticism against you, but I have often thought I would tell ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... harmonically or otherwise embellishing the work (while preserving the original idea and characteristics), so as to thoroughly re-create it, so completely destroying the very sensing of the original timbre that one involuntarily exclaims, 'Truly, this never was anything but a violin piece!' It is this, the blending and fusion of two personalities in the achievement of an art-ideal, that is the result of a ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... sufficiently sane. I was like a mad carpenter making a box. Were he ever so convinced that he was King of Jerusalem, the box he would make would be a sane box. What I feared was a shrill note escaping me involuntarily and upsetting my balance. Luckily, again, there was no necessity to raise one's voice. The brooding stillness of the world seemed sensitive to the slightest sound, like a whispering gallery. The conversational tone would almost carry a word from one end of the ship to the other. The terrible ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... be among the conquered, even on any terms of association. Besides, one involuntarily catches the impulse of the moment. The sentiment that surrounds you—perhaps by physical laws which you cannot resist—for the moment becomes your own; and even when you know the object of exultation to be worthless or absurd, you are controlled ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... Involuntarily the hand of her listener touched his breast, the first sign he had made that her story moved him. Jacqueline, watching him keenly, smiled, and demurely looked away. Her next words seemed to dance from her lips, as with head bent, like a butterfly poised, ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... the comment as a tribute to her delicacy, a proof of his strength. It was this strength that drew her, so that she swayed toward him involuntarily; but even though it contained an element of possible cruelty, it was not purely physical. Perhaps a realisation of this fact allowed her to shelve upon him entirely the responsibility ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... came noiselessly in. I could not tell at the moment who it was. I watched him cautiously. He stood still, looking first at the bed, whose curtains were down, then around the room. For one moment I thought him looking at me, and involuntarily my eyelids closed, lest he might know himself watched. He put up his hand, and pushed back the heavy hair from his forehead. It was only Mr. Axtell. The relief was so great that I spoke,—softly, it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... character. He had not reduced all these unreasonable men's notions to a system by which to measure femininity. He did not even know he had them. An excessive constitutional refinement and keenness of perception made him involuntarily look for such scrupulous delicacy as belonging of course to every woman he was thrown in contact with. He had always been disappointed, at first with a feeling of half disgust with himself and others, that his dreams were so different from the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... passed away. At times my sufferings were so intense that cries of agony involuntarily escaped my lips; then I became calmer, and sank into a kind of lethargy. When I awoke, I was surprised to ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... better—thought thinks, involuntarily—that they should remain in this ignorance, through the little span of Time still left them, in a state which is a best decay? Would it not be best that the few hours left should run their course, and that the two should either pass away to nothingness and peace, as may be, or—as ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... o'clock in the afternoon, the major had retired to his room to repose himself. Soon after the corporal entered the room so secretly that he presented a loaded musket within a few inches of his head, and, as Providence would have it, the gun missed fire. The noise awoke the major, who involuntarily seized the muzzle, and, while looking the fellow full in the face, he cocked the gun and again snapped it; but it missed fire the second time. With that the major sprang up in bed and wrenched the gun out of the assassin's hands, ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... wind," he vouchsafed, but his thoughts went at once to Blake. Involuntarily he looked over his shoulder and quickened his pace. She felt his ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... course as an explorer. He was however survived by many of his followers, among them by the physician and naturalist Steller, to whom we owe a masterpiece seldom surpassed—a sketch of the natural conditions and animal life on the island, never before visited by man, where he involuntarily passed the time from the middle of November 1741, to the end of ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... on the Riva, we involuntarily held our breath as we came in sight of the huge lake, for it is easy to forget that this is the Adria. The waters lay unruffled before us, not a ripple disturbed those glassy depths which reflected every tree and cottage on the opposite bank. Each star found its double twinkling in that ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... eyes are so placed that it can see not only on all sides, but even behind, rendering it next to impossible for an enemy to approach undiscovered. As we reflect on these and numberless other points for admiration presented by the giraffe, we involuntarily exclaim with the Psalmist, "Oh, Lord! how manifold are thy works; in wisdom hast thou made ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... Ailsa Mowbray's eyes. She knew she was unjust. She knew she was going back on her given word. She despised the thought. It was treachery. Yet she knew that both had become definite in her mind from the moment when Jessie had involuntarily ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... popularity, he suffered himself to be persuaded to evince a talent for the real, the individual; and he brought in his POOR BILL!! When we hear the minister's talents for finance so loudly trumpeted, we turn involuntarily to his POOR BILL—to that acknowledged abortion—that unanswerable evidence of his ignorance respecting all the fundamental relations and actions of property, and of the ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... might have made the dreams of Charlemagne possible. It was frivolous because the rising instinct of the age was for religious, political, and commercial freedom in a far intenser degree than those who lived in that age were themselves aware. A considerable republic had been evolved as it were involuntarily out of the necessities of the time almost without self-consciousness that it was a republic, and even against the desire of many who were guiding its destinies. And it found itself in constant combination with ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... shrank away from him involuntarily. "What a death's head!" she thought. "A sly, wicked face, and awful eyes. He looks frightened. ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... which come audibly from among the trees. Miss Wodehouse gave a little start when she heard it: again she hesitated, and looked in with such a wistful face that Sarah, the housemaid, who had been about to slam the door hastily upon the too tender butcher, involuntarily held it wide open for the expected visitor. "No, not to-day thank you," said Miss Wodehouse. "I hope your mistress is quite well; give her my love, and say I meant to come in, but I have a bad headache. ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... received it from Martin's hand, and carried it to the light, where he adjusted precisely his bowed spectacles, and, in his slow, methodical way, proceeded to investigate the contents. As he caught sight of the word and its initials his hand involuntarily closed to crush the papers, and his gaunt form straightened. In his mild blue eye sprang fire. He turned to Martin, his voice vibrant with an emotion carefully suppressed through the nine long years of his ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... understand that there was neither mockery nor frivolity in the laugh, that it proceeded involuntarily from the sudden relaxation of overstrained nerves. At the moment Mehetabel was aware of one thing only, that she had nothing more to fear, that her baby was safe from pursuit. It was this thought that dominated her and caused the laugh of relief. ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... the army. Across the novelty leather-goods counter Mr. Jimmie Fitzgibbons leaned the blue-shaven, predacious face that head waiters and underfed salesgirls know best over a hot bird and a cold bottle. Men's hands involuntarily close into tight fists when his well-pressed sleeve accidentally brushes their wives or sisters. Six-dollar-a-week salesgirls scrape their luscious rare birds to the bone, drink thin gold wine from thin, gold-edged glasses, and curse their God ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... my horse, of his own accord, broke into a canter, while I, almost involuntarily, trolled forth a well-known ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... wondered what new devilry was in his mind. He seemed to sweep the church with a glance. Nothing could have escaped that swift, searching look. His eyes were even raised to where I was, so that I involuntarily drew back, though I knew he ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the gate and stepped up and held out my hand, and involuntarily she wiped her own hand (which was covered with meal from the porridge she was ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... tread of a scared animal she turned back again into the kitchen, and, closing the door softly, leaned against it with ghostly face. She quickly stuffed the corner of her apron into her mouth to keep back the scream of agony that involuntarily rose to her lips. Her thin hands were tightly clinched and her body ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... On my right hand was the piece of water before mentioned, and on my left a deep precipice, said to have, as I have since learned, a receptacle at the bottom for venomous creatures; in short, I gave myself up as lost, for the lion was now upon his hind legs, just in the act of seizing me; I fell involuntarily to the ground with fear, and, as it afterwards appeared, he sprang over me. I lay some time in a situation which no language can describe, expecting to feel his teeth or talons in some part of me every moment; ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... whenever he and his mare passed her gate. Mrs. Richie's lack of common sense seemed to delight the sensible William. When he was with her, he was in the frame of mind that finds everything a joke. It was a demand for the eternal child in her, to which, involuntarily, she responded. She laughed at him, and even teased him about his shabby buggy with a gayety that made him tingle with pleasure. She used to wonder at herself as she did it—conscious and uneasy, and resolving every time ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... so suddenly and in such a domineering tone, that Marietta involuntarily drew back. Since her first meeting with the son, when he had seemed so stupid and silent, and had run off so precipitately, she had decided within herself that he was not of sound mind. Now the thought came to her that his weakness was ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... author's private conviction. Often we shall not strain a point or do our critical sense much violence if we assume that these recurring thoughts are Shakespeare's own. I purpose to call attention to a few of those which bear on large questions of government and citizenship and human volition. Involuntarily, they form the framework of a political and moral philosophy which for clear-eyed ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... to eat with them, but if he were invited he intended to refuse. In spite of himself, he could not help glancing now and then toward the tent. The door-flaps had not been let down, but there was no light inside. Turning involuntarily that way, as iron turns to a magnet, at last he saw a man and woman come out of the tent. But the woman ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... them, when he saw that he was looking as if he would like it. So the three went off to the billiard-rooms; Tom in such spirits at the chance of being tried in the crew, that he hardly noticed the exceedingly bad exchange which he had involuntarily made of his new cap and gown for a third-year cap with the board broken into several pieces, and a fusty old gown which had been about college probably for ten generations. Under-graduate morality in the matter of caps and gowns seems to ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... recent monuments look like those which have stood for centuries. On one of these stones lies a recumbent figure, with what looks not unlike a lance clasped in the hand and laid across the breast. Involuntarily one thinks of the stone Crusaders, who lie in their armour, clasping their half-drawn swords, awaiting the Resurrection morning. It is the monument of Grace Darling, who here lies at rest with her oar still clasped in ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... (1) For the most, the best, and the mightiest things that we know we are indebted to Life itself. The sum of perceptions which a human being absorbs into himself up to the fourth or fifth year of his life is incalculable; and after this time we involuntarily gain by immediate contact with the world countless ideas. But especially we understand by the phrase "the School of Life," the ethical knowledge which we gain by what happens in ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... opened the 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
... pirate Blackbeard, uttered in a commanding tone the words recorded at the close of our first chapter, he pointed with his finger towards the ship, and as the earl involuntarily turned his eyes in the same direction, he observed a small brig then about two miles off, making all sail towards the island, which caused him to say, in answer ...
— Blackbeard - Or, The Pirate of Roanoke. • B. Barker
... sublime simplicity, stole over Nellie as she stood silently by Ned's side in the full moonlight and gazed. Over her angry soul, tortured by the love she hardly knew, its pure languor crept, soothing, softening. She looked up at the silvery disc and involuntarily held out her hands to it, its radiance overpowering her. She wrenched her eyes away from it suddenly, a strange fearfulness leaping in her who knew no fear; the light at the South Heads flashed before her, the convent stood ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... tap with increased pressure." "This was not satisfactory with any adjustment of time relations so long as the stress of all three beats was the same. In attempting to make them all equal I almost involuntarily fell into the habit of emphasizing the ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... was finished, and the two younger men pushed back their chairs and looked at each other; then they looked at their companion, who, with vacant eyes, was staring at the opposite wall so intently that the other two involuntarily glanced around at it. ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... did not receive a check; though his present position was thus comparatively secure, and his prospects thus brilliant, he felt ill at ease, and deeply dissatisfied with himself. He could not acquit himself of blame for the part he had played, though involuntarily, in the arrest of Hugh Calveley. It was inexpressibly painful to him; and he felt it as a reproach from which he could not free himself, to have risen, however unexpectedly on his own part, by the unfortunate Puritan's fall. How could he ever face Aveline again! ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... and went into that of her charge. Mollie was still asleep—sleeping like a babe, with lips apart, and cheeks softly flushed, and loose, golden hair falling in burnished masses over the pillow. Involuntarily Mrs. Sharpe paused. ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... two wrinkles, or rather two deep furrows, and more than a dozen lines on her cheeks and eyelids; at the same time her head and body shook with the laughter, until at last her cough began to interrupt the bursts, and between laughing and coughing the old lady involuntarily spluttered all over my face. Humiliated, and full of disgust, I escaped rapidly thence to my mother's room, where I washed myself with soap and water, and began to muse on the ...
— First Love (Little Blue Book #1195) - And Other Fascinating Stories of Spanish Life • Various
... was standing opposite him, and I involuntarily leaned against the wall behind me, but suddenly thought, "Be careful. You'll break the glass in the picture of Whistler's Mother, and you'll be sorry." It brought me up standing, and he didn't notice. Isn't the ...
— A Hilltop on the Marne • Mildred Aldrich
... mistake, what works disfranchisement by participation in rebellion and what amounts to such participation. Almost every man—the negro as well as the white—above 21 years of age who was resident in these ten States during the rebellion, voluntarily or involuntarily, at some time and in some way did participate in resistance to the lawful authority of the General Government. The question with the citizen to whom this oath is to be proposed must be a fearful one, for while the bill does not declare that ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... out of the chair by his hair. Up, slowly—to his full height, and when his knees had locked stiff the hand let him go, and he swayed a little on his feet. There was a suggestion of awful stillness in his face, in his movements, in his very voice when he said "They shouted"—and involuntarily I pricked up my ears for the ghost of that shout that would be heard directly through the false effect of silence. "There were eight hundred people in that ship," he said, impaling me to the back of my ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... shape of a man, long, young, and slender. The face was sharply cut, refined, impassioned, and intellectual. A smile of cynical contentment dwelt on the strong mouth. The eyes were fixed on something before him. Involuntarily the priest's followed them, and lingered. A tree also broke the open—one which never had been there before—and it bore an intoxicating similitude to the features and form of a surpassingly ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... a little nearer, and looking about involuntarily for a ladder). "Penelope, do you know the penalty of saying such sweet things ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... ape over some dying prey, and piercing with his ravenous claws to its very heart, seemed to him to possess a sublime intelligence and power; he felt that he, ordinarily so courageous, should have defended his life feebly in this instance, and his eyes involuntarily sought the paper. ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... looked involuntarily toward the phosphorescent line of breakers. Over there? Once it had meant France. Now it came to him with a new meaning. Beyond the gleaming waves he fancied he could see the jagged shore-line ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... Kirkwood's eyes involuntarily followed Tommy's. He withdrew them at once, but not before he saw the troubled blush that reddened the girl's averted face. It struck him, though he was not deeply versed in blushes, that it was not quite the expression of happy, maidenly consciousness, ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... Involuntarily Paul caressed the left sleeve of his khaki coat, where the red silk badge that indicated his right to the exalted office of assistant scoutmaster was fastened, just above the silver one telling that he was also a second class scout ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... and takes the improper. Then as to the assignment to each man of a capital proportioned to his capacity to begin life with, what certainty is there that the rules of strict right will be followed? that wrong will not often be done, both voluntarily and involuntarily? Are your chiefs to be infallible and impeccable? Still the movement interested me, and many of its principles took firm hold of me and held me for years in a species of mental thraldom; insomuch that I found it difficult, if not impossible, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... wanted. In answer to this advertisement Mr. Leonard came. He was a man above the medium height, and possessed a frame not large but compactly built. His forehead was low and narrow; while the back of his head looked exceedingly intellectual. Looking at him from the front you would involuntarily exclaim: "What an infamous scoundrel." Looking at him from the rear you would say: "There certainly is brain power ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... country is not taught to suspect everyone she meets, unless a rare occurrence presents itself, and when involuntarily the defense instinct asserts itself. While, on the other hand, the city girl has had it drilled into her, as it were, from the time she could walk, that she must regard people with distrust, not speaking to strangers anywhere, accepting ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... you speak?" involuntarily escaped from Nigel, as the old man for a moment paused; "of him? Methought yon portrait was of an ancestor of Bruce, or wherefore ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... marvellous richness of her life has been marred by the imprisoned conditions of her body, and infinitely more sad and far-reaching have been the baleful consequences upon millions of her offspring, dwarfed, weakly, sickly, enfeebled in body and soul. A mother whose thoughts have voluntarily or involuntarily been held in the atmosphere of the physical nature, necessarily imparts to her child a legacy of animality which, like the corpse of a dead being, clings to the soul throughout its pilgrimage. Terrible as have been fashion's ravages on woman's physical health, the curse which she ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... cars joined together by a wooden vestibule; one was used as a sleeping room the other was a tiny beach eating place. Jim looked in cautiously through the window and his eyes widened and his hand went involuntarily to where his revolver usually hung. He remained there a full half minute taking in the scene within while the engineer stood a little ways back in apparent indifference, but he was carefully taking in the whole situation. A short distance away the waters ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... into the pit of the seaman's stomach, he gave a gasp and a sneeze, the latter of which almost overturned Poopy, who chanced to be gazing wildly into his countenance at the moment. At the same time he involuntarily threw up his right arm, and fetched Corrie such a tremendous backhander on the chest that our young hero was laid flat on his back, half stunned by the violence of the fall, yet shouting with delight that his rugged friend still lived ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... universality by which we instinctively and invariably correct or defend that sentiment if it be challenged. The moment we are perplexed in regard to what we ought to do or what judgment we ought to pass on something already done, we instinctively, almost involuntarily, endeavour to disentangle the act from all attendant circumstances and to see whether our sentiment of approval or disapproval would still hold good in quite other surroundings. We try to get, at the principle ...
— The Relations Between Religion and Science - Eight Lectures Preached Before the University of Oxford in the Year 1884 • Frederick, Lord Bishop of Exeter
... nations, it follows that every reciprocity treaty is equivalent on our part to a treaty of abdication, and that, instead of agreeing to an act of mutual convenience, we resign ourselves, knowingly or involuntarily, to a sacrifice." ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... as this menace came. Do you see what you and your world was meant to us, Man of Earth?" Zezdon Afthen raised his dark eyes to the terrestrian with a look in their depths that made Wade involuntarily resolve that Thet and all Thessians should be promptly consigned to that limbo of ...
— Invaders from the Infinite • John Wood Campbell
... weakness and force, between darkness and light, which all sensitive and generous natures must wage in their own souls at least once—perhaps many times—in their lives. Memory, in such moments, plays like an electric storm;—all involuntarily he found ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn
... and meadows. One evening as I was returning to Colorado Springs from a long tramp through one of the canyons of the mountains, a western meadow-lark sat on a small tree and sang six different tunes within the space of a few minutes. Two of them were so exquisite and unique that I involuntarily sprang to my feet with a cry of delight. There he sat in the lengthening shadows of Cheyenne Mountain, the champion phrase-fluter of the irrigated meadow in which he and a number of his comrades ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... fulfilling his predictions, had so increased my reverence for the work, that I regarded it as a kind of political oracle. I did not, however, destroy it without an apologetic apostrophe to the author's benevolence, which I am sure would suffer, were he to be the occasion, though involuntarily, of conducting a female to a prison ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... involuntarily to obey those imperious words. I took the seat she indicated, a carved stool, drawn near the chest, and saw her just lifting out a long string of blue flashing stars. It was like a toy, like one of those strings you hang upon a Christmas tree, only a hundred times more brilliant. "See how pretty!" ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... left my babes a-crying, and I must do it; and when this is gone, I must depend upon Him who feedeth the young ravens when they cry. But," she added, with a heavy sigh, "he said it was worth a great deal more than that." There was a peculiar tenderness and affection in the manner in which she, involuntarily perhaps, made this reference to some one who was not present; and the rising tear trembled and glistened in her eye, like the jewel in ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... Involuntarily I started forward to intercept. The notion of her heading into the vastness and the gloom was appalling; the inertness of that increasing group, formed now of both men and women collected from all the camp, maddened. So I would ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... better of an angry command, which I knew he would not obey, and turned through the arched moulding that marked the entrance to the upper hall, and at his direction opened a door. As I paused involuntarily on the threshold, Brutus deftly slipped past, set the candle on a stand, and bent over my saddle bags. Still chuckling to himself, he dropped my pistols into his shirt bosom. Then his grin died away. His low forehead became creased and puckered. ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... only originate from your belief that I had a claim to the virtues, truth, candour, and sincerity. I detest the character of a hypocrite, and flatter myself no part of my past conduct can fix it upon me. Then permit me, with solemn truth, to declare, that when I see your name in the prints, I feel involuntarily an animating glow, and it immediately brings to my recollection incidents sometimes producing pleasing, and at others painful sensations, in which we have been mutually engaged and gone hand in hand. Although, to borrow the language ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... women, are much oftener led by their hearts than by their understandings. The way to the heart is through the senses; please their eyes and their ears and the work is half done. I have frequently known a man's fortune decided for ever by his first address. If it is pleasing, people are hurried involuntarily into a persuasion that he has a merit, which possibly he has not; as, on the other hand, if it is ungraceful, they are immediately prejudiced against him, and unwilling to allow him the merit which it may be he has. Nor is this sentiment so unjust and unreasonable ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... Eyes should treat, Roosevelt rose as if to comply. As he rose he struck quick and hard with his right fist just to the left side of the point of the jaw, and, as he straightened up hit with his left, and again with his right. The bully's guns went off, whether intentionally or involuntarily no one ever knew. His head struck the corner of the bar as he fell, and he lay senseless. "When my assailant came to," said Roosevelt, "he went down to the station and left on a freight." It was eminently characteristic of Roosevelt that he tried his best to avoid trouble, ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... eyesight of one of their daughters, the Gladstones made a journey to southern Italy, and an eventful journey it proved. For Italy it was, that now first drew Mr. Gladstone by the native ardour of his humanity, unconsciously and involuntarily, into that great European stream of liberalism which was destined to carry him so far. Two deep principles, sentiments, aspirations, forces, call them what we will, awoke the huge uprisings that shook Europe in 1848—the principle of Liberty, the sentiment ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... injured by so unforeseen an occurrence; and I rely on the regard of Congress for the equitable interests of our own citizens to adopt whatever further provisions may be found requisite for a general remission of penalties involuntarily incurred. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 1: James Madison • Edited by James D. Richardson
... the meeting was already over. My companion evidently found more pleasure in my person than when I was a mere child; I felt moved and flattered by the pleasure he took in pressing his face against certain parts of my body. On a second occasion, one day, I seemed involuntarily about to transgress decency, but again, as before, separated myself, and remained ignorant of what it was on which I had verged in my excitement. At another meeting, however, I had been allowed to prolong my embrace and to ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... there is no subtler compliment to a woman than to address her as if she were a man. It must be done involuntarily, as was the case with this utterance of Otway's. Irene rewarded him with a look such as he had never had from her, ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... I tell you. There won't be any paying on account with that bill: it'll be all or nothing. All, perhaps; and, if so, something more than all"—he laid down his clasp-knife and almost involuntarily put a hand up to his cheek—"but nothing, most like. I put that slip of leather there to remind me, but I don't need it. 'Twelve-seventeen-six'—better scratch ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... time, but at length the flames caught, and a crimson glow slowly made its way round the circle of fuel. The captive soon felt the scorching heat. He was tied in such a way that he could move his body, and he involuntarily shifted his position to escape the pain,—an evidence of nervousness that afforded the highest delight to his tormentors, who expressed their exultation in yells, dances, and wild gesticulations. The last hour ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... he makes are so great that it is well if he is not worse for hours after. If it is a whispered conversation in the same room, then it is absolutely cruel; for it is impossible that the patient's attention should not be involuntarily strained to hear. Walking on tip-toe, doing any thing in the room very slowly, are injurious, for exactly the same reasons. A firm light quick step, a steady quick hand are the desiderata; not the slow, lingering, shuffling foot, the timid, ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... man seemingly of about twenty-four or twenty-five years of age. He had a mild but noble bearing, and his aspect denoted habitual meditation. His eyes were remarkably piercing and expressive; in short, he was one of those men at whom we are led involuntarily to cast a glance of respect, without very well knowing why; perhaps it might be owing to the gravity of his demeanour, perhaps to the peculiar decorum of his deportment, or perhaps to the scrupulous propriety of his dress. He raised his eyes from the book he held in ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... hear opposition to constituted authority openly preached by the instructors of "the nation," and witness the eagerness of the "national press" to free itself from the terrible suspicion of coming to the assistance, even involuntarily, of the government in its struggle ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan
... satisfaction. After all he had done the strongest thing, he thought. He had wanted to come up, he had come. Yet what happened later on that afternoon must be traced to the indignity he had experienced in the elevator; the girl was worrying him intolerably, so much so that when she came out he involuntarily drifted into criticism. ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... resolves, and launched me again into sexual pleasures. I may remark also, curious as it may seem, that instead of fattening, and getting strong by abstinence, I got just the reverse. Every time I spent involuntarily on my night-shirt, I awaked fatigued, agitated, nervous. I lost appetite, got thinner and thinner, and more and more miserable the ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... of her face struck her; it struck her also that that was not the light of any earthly love,—that it had no thrill, no blush, no tremor, but only the calmness of a soul that knows itself no more; and she sighed involuntarily. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... weird and ghostly a figure the General was strangely moved. There was something startling in such an apparition. At first there came involuntarily half-superstitious thoughts. He recalled all those mysterious beings of whom he had ever heard whose occupation was to haunt the seats of old families. He thought of the White Lady of Avenel, the Black Lady of Scarborough, ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... government and Mexico, a caravan of twenty-nine traders, on their way from Independence to Santa Fe, beheld, just after a storm and a little before sunset, a perfectly distinct image of the Bird of Liberty, the American eagle, on the disc of the sun. When they saw it they simultaneously and almost involuntarily exclaimed that in less than twelve months the Eagle of Liberty would spread his broad plumes over the plains of the West, and that the flag of our country would wave over the cities of New Mexico and Chihuahua. The student of the classics will ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... Mrs. Ray gazed vacantly and steadily Rotha sat with a book in her hand. She tried to read, but the words lost their meaning. Involuntarily her eyes wandered from the open page. At length the old volume, with its leathern covers clasped together with their great brass clasp, dropped quietly ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... moment the flush on the face of the young woman faded away, but it quickly returned. Apparently involuntarily, she rose to her feet. Turning to the captain, ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... Edith," said he, involuntarily; "but still set apart, I pray you, some remains of the old childish ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... sardonic face over me became blurred. I tore futilely at my throat to break his choking grip. All the world was a roaring chaos to my fading senses. Then in the blur I saw horror sweep his expression. His fingers involuntarily loosened. I got a breath of blessed air, ...
— Beyond the Vanishing Point • Raymond King Cummings
... the noise of voices were heard in the 'ci devant' parlour, and on the steps he met the little waif with the pitcher of beer; in the street the boys who had gathered around the ambulance were playing baseball. Hodder glanced up, involuntarily, at the window of the woman he had visited the night before, but it was empty. He hurried along the littered sidewalks to the drug store, where he telephoned an undertaker; and then, as an afterthought, telephoned the hospital. The boy ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... them, and the bullet and the steel of the enemy are arrested in their course; they do not dare—how should they dare—to touch them, coming from the musket and the hand of heretics? Dear Caballuco, seeing you, seeing your bravery and your nobility, there come to my mind involuntarily the verses of that ballad on the conquest of the Empire ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... Involuntarily West and Miss Weyland had halted; and now they stared at each other with a kind of wild surmise which rapidly yielded to ludicrous certainty. West broke ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... squeezed the dime and hurried toward the nearest restaurant. But the transaction had been witnessed by a boy as hungry as he, and hardened to the street. How Junior came to be sprawling on the sidewalk he never knew; only that his hand involuntarily opened in falling and he threw it out to catch himself, so he couldn't find the dime. Before noon he was sick and reeling with sleeplessness and hunger. He was waiting when it was Mickey's time to lunch, but he did not come, and in desperation Junior really ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... 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 you see, is too ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... weakening. There is something in Leglise which involuntarily sides with me and pleads with me. There are moments when he does not know what to say, and formulates trivial objections, just because there are others so ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel
... convinced was Frona that she glanced involuntarily at St. Vincent's hands, and saw there the rusty-brown stains on the cuffs of his ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... under the fear of Eugene, pressed inside the door as she spoke, and he stood aside half involuntarily. "I beg you to let me see her," she repeated. She looked at the stately wind of the stairs up to the second floor, as if she were minded to ascend without ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the surrender occurred, the dread wheel was in operation in many places, and drawn men were in custody of the proper officials preparing to go to the front. But all this was stopped, and none were happier than those who involuntarily had been held thus for military duty, ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... fixed—staring at the set features before him. Then, with a quick catching of his breath, he made one step to his cousin's side and laid his hand on the unyielding shoulder. The affectionate, familiar terms in which they had always addressed each other sprang involuntarily to ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... heavy into an immense chest, which they carefully locked. The boy in a frolicsome mood, thoughtlessly tapped at the window, when they all instantly started up with consternation so strongly depicted on their countenances, that he shrunk back involuntarily with an undefined feeling of apprehension; but before he had time to reflect a moment longer, one of the men suddenly darted out at the door, and seizing the boy roughly by the shoulder, dragged him violently into the cottage. "I am not what you take me for," said ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 355., Saturday, February 7, 1829 • Various
... 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— that it ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... admirer, taking all shapes with the greatest facility, and playing the most opposite parts in order to arrive at the different ends he proposed to himself; and nevertheless was but little capable of seducing. His judgment acted by fits and starts, was involuntarily crooked, with little sense or clearness; he was disagreeable in spite of himself. Nevertheless, he could be funnily vivacious when he wished, but nothing more, could tell a good story, spoiled, however, to some ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... Glancing involuntarily at each other, the young men exchanged meaning smiles, while the doctor whispered softly: "Verdant—that's sure. Wonder if she'll ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... mingling surprise with rage and pain. Involuntarily, the longshoreman fell back a pace, and lifted a hand to his face. As he did so, with another down-jerk of the chin, and another leap, once more the scoutmaster rammed him—upon the left eye. And followed this up with a lightning stroke on ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... Mihalevitch. The appearance of this man, almost his only acquaintance in Moscow, on the society of the girl who had suddenly absorbed his whole attention, struck him as curious and significant. The performance ceased to interest Lavretsky, and at one pathetic part he involuntarily looked at his beauty: she was bending forward, her cheeks glowing. Under the influence of his persistent gaze her eyes slowly turned and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... a step back involuntarily, and the color seemed to leave his face, as if terrified at our hero's sudden and unexpected ...
— Under Fire - A Tale of New England Village Life • Frank A. Munsey
... as I have said, I must have been precipitated head-foremost; but I was conscious, at length, of a swift, flinging motion of my limbs, which involuntarily threw themselves out, so that at last I must have fallen in a heap. This is more likely, from the circumstance, that when I struck the sea, I felt as if some one had smote me slantingly across the shoulder and along ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... she; and involuntarily turned her face towards his. He hung back from imprinting the expected kiss: at which Betty started as if she had received a poignant wound. She moved away so suddenly that he hardly had time to follow her up the ladder to prevent ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy |
