All 7 Uses of
spontaneous
in
Billy Budd
- ...with the off-hand unaffectedness of natural regality, he seemed to accept the spontaneous homage of his shipmates.
Chpt 1 *spontaneous = natural (happening or arising without plan)
- At each spontaneous tribute rendered by the wayfarers to this black pagod of a fellow—the tribute of a pause and stare, and less frequent an exclamation,—the motley retinue showed that they took that sort of pride in the evoker of it which the Assyrian priests doubtless showed for their grand sculptured Bull when the faithful prostrated themselves.†
Chpt 1
- For whether it was because the other men when ranged before him showed to ill advantage after Billy, or whether he had some scruples in view of the merchantman being rather short-handed, however it might be, the officer contented himself with his first spontaneous choice.†
Chpt 1
- For what can more partake of the mysterious than an antipathy spontaneous and profound, such as is evoked in certain exceptional mortals by the mere aspect of some other mortal, however harmless he may be, if not called forth by this very harmlessness itself?†
Chpt 11
- Now when the Master-at-arms noticed whence came that greasy fluid streaming before his feet, he must have taken it—to some extent wilfully, perhaps—not for the mere accident it assuredly was, but for the sly escape of a spontaneous feeling on Billy's part more or less answering to the antipathy on his own.†
Chpt 13
- Here the three men moved in their seats, less convinced than agitated by the course of an argument troubling but the more the spontaneous conflict within.†
Chpt 21
- At the pronounced words and the spontaneous echo that voluminously rebounded them, Captain Vere, either thro' stoic self-control or a sort of momentary paralysis induced by emotional shock, stood erectly rigid as a musket in the ship-armorer's rack.†
Chpt 25
Definition:
-
(spontaneous) behaving in an instinctive, uninhibited manner
or:
happening naturally (without planning or external force)