"Curiosity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... people were eager, and further, he was aware himself of an itching curiosity concerning those untold tales. "The fishing has been good," he said judiciously, "and we have oil in plenty. So ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... suffered nervously. From ages of 7 to 18 the subject had epileptic convulsions. From 16 to 21 he indulged in normal sexual intercourse. At about that time he had often to pass a playground and at times would urinate there; it happened that the children watched him with curiosity. He noticed that when thus watched sexual excitement was caused, inducing erection and even ejaculation. He gradually found pleasure in this kind of sexual gratification; finally he became indifferent to coitus. His erotic dreams, though ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Curiosity was roused, though it failed in procuring the desired intelligence. She might be half-woman half-fish for aught they knew. She always came from the water, and was very kind to them and the babe. Such was the sum of the information; yet when they spoke of the child there was evidently a sort ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... horseback; but he had as often been thrown off, before he could contrive to seat himself; so that this was the first time they had seen any body ride a horse. What Captain Clerke and I began, was, after this, repeated every day, while we staid, by one or another of our people. And yet the curiosity of the natives continued still unabated. They were exceedingly delighted with these animals, after they had seen the use that was made of them; and, as far as I could judge, they conveyed to them a better idea of the greatness of other nations, than ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... around Nuremberg; before its walls the hostile armies encamped; gazing on each other with dread and respect, longing for, and yet shrinking from, the moment that was to close them together in the shock of battle. The eyes of Europe turned to the scene in curiosity and alarm, while Nuremberg, in dismay, expected soon to lend its name to a more decisive battle than that of Leipzig. Suddenly the clouds broke, and the storm rolled away from Franconia, to burst upon the plains of Saxony. Near Lutzen fell the thunder ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... curiosity as to when Jimmy would make his first speech in the House, and on what subject. The press gallery, to a man, was willing to bet that it would be interesting, and not one-hundredth part so long as the first speech made by "The Big Wind." ...
— William Adolphus Turnpike • William Banks
... she let herself drop on her forepaws to nibble the nice, green grass, Keesa, on peeping out, found his own mouth close to the ground. Out of mere curiosity he tasted a little bit of the herbage, sniffing it very carefully, first of all, with his funny little nose, and behaving, unknown to himself, in the way that all kangaroos behave when they first begin ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... curiosity, for she had not yet related what he most desired to know,—how she had become the slave of the count. Haidee saw at a glance the same expression pervading the countenances of her two auditors; she exclaimed, ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... 'I have no great curiosity to see it,' he remarked, with a laugh. 'It will be much as yesterday's. Zounds! though I have never risen to see one in my life, I have looked on many a hundred ere I ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the envelope with considerable curiosity, and uttered an exclamation of surprise, as a bank-note ...
— Timothy Crump's Ward - A Story of American Life • Horatio Alger
... Well-acted, on my life! Your curiosity Runs open-mouth'd, ravenous as winter wolf. 185 I dare not stand in its way. [He shows ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... afternoon before he saw either of his relatives. He had had occasional glimpses of the negro servant-girl and also of a gaunt stable-man, both of whom favoured his partially obscured abode with frank interest and curiosity. A clumsy, silent hound came up to the intervening fence several times during the afternoon and inspected the newcomers with seeming indifference, an attitude which misled Zachariah into making advances that ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... appointment and were about to set to work to-morrow morning to make a new world, I would begin by getting together all the people in this one that I knew, or had noticed anywhere, who seemed to have in them the spirit of experiment. Any boy or girl or man or woman that I had seen having the curiosity to try the different kinds and different sizes of right and wrong, or that I had seen boldly and faithfully experimenting with the beautiful and the ugly so that they really knew about them for themselves—would be let in. I would put these people ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... opens on the street (the military road), where there is a constant stream of passers by. There is not an hour in the day that there are not spectators peering in at doors and windows with idle curiosity or eager interest. Sometimes there are not more than three or four, but often as many as eighteen or twenty. Let me tell you of the various persons who composed this outside audience, as I watched them one morning. A native policeman, a business ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 54, No. 01, January, 1900 • Various
... Itasca. Much interesting matter concerning the lake and its vicinity has been written by Schoolcraft, Beltrami and Nicollet, but the exceeding difficulty of reaching it, and the absence of any other inducements thither than a spirit of adventure and curiosity, make visitors to its solitudes few and far between. Itasca is fed in all by six small streams, each too insignificant to be called the river's source. It has three arms—one to the south-east, about three and a half miles long, fed by a small brook of clear and lively water; one to the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... MARK TWAIN's MAIL. If the reader has any curiosity as to some of the less usual letters which a man of wide public note may inspire, perhaps he will find a certain interest in a few selected from the thousands which ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... interest in her was the chancellor of state, Minister von Hardenberg. Curiosity had at first induced him to call upon her; then her clever and piquant remarks struck him as something very strange, and at last he became a regular visitor. Of late, at his special request, the room of the patient, during ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... Mordecai, though I admit the summons is mysterious. If you will follow, I will lead the way. My curiosity impels me onward." ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... lads," he told his crew. "Tore the stern off her that time; and from this dive she'll not come up. Cappy Ricks was right. He banked on human nature, and if curiosity isn't a human trait then I'm a Chinaman. Overboard with you, and away before the old girl goes under or we'll be sucked down ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... to trust themselves here with you." He checked himself on the point of going out, and looked back distrustfully at the lighted candle. "Caution the women," he said, "to limit the exercise of their curiosity to the ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... have put an 'A,' is that a dominant eleventh, or what? or just a seventh on the D? and if the latter, is that allowed? It sounds very funny. Never mind all my questions; if I begin about music (which is my leading ignorance and curiosity), I have always to babble questions: all my friends know me now, and take no notice whatever. The whole piece is marked allegro; but surely could easily be played too fast? The dignity must not be lost; ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Mink and Mr. Squirrel and Mr. Chipmunk, and all the rest of his neighbors, telling them of his trouble and asking them to help. Now, in spite of the trouble Mr. Rabbit was forever making for other people by his dreadful curiosity and meddling with other people's affairs, all his neighbors had a warm place in their hearts for Mr. Rabbit, and they all promised that they would help him as soon as they had their ...
— Mother West Wind 'Why' Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... now at its height. I received, six years ago, while in Egypt, a vivid impression of him whom we used to style the Father of History. Spending one day at the great Pyramids, when, after I had satisfied my first curiosity, after I had filled my eyes and mind with the novelty of the spectacle, I found nothing so gratifying to the historic sense as to gaze on those most wonderful monuments of human industry, constructed certainly 5000 years ago, and to ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... number of Fraser's Magazine contains an article bearing the unmistakable impress of the Anglo-German peculiarities of Thomas Carlyle, entitled, 'An Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question', which would be interesting as a literary curiosity were it not in spirit and tendency so unspeakably wicked as to excite in every rightminded reader a feeling of amazement and disgust. With a hard, brutal audacity, a blasphemous irreverence, and a sneering mockery which would do honor to the devil of Faust, it takes ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... or of Intellectual Improvement,—including the principle of Curiosity. The tendency of this high principle must depend, as in the former cases, on its regulation, and the objects to which it is directed. These may vary from the idle tattle of the day, to the highest attainments in literature or science. ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie
... pedestal. He hastened to the nearest guard-house, and returned with some soldiers. They lifted up one of the steps and found beneath two invalids, who had got under the altar in the night, with no other design, as they declared, than a childish and obscene curiosity. The report instantly spread that the altar of the country was undermined, in order to blow up the people; that a barrel of gunpowder had been discovered beside the conspirators; that the invalids, surprised in the preliminaries ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... to the spirit sent out to West Africa as "poisonous" and as raw alcohol. It is neither. I give an analysis of a bottle of Van Hoytima's trade-gin, which I obtained to satisfy my own curiosity ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... matter of course this vague allusion reminded the little boy of the fact that the wicked Fox was still in pursuit of the Rabbit, and he immediately put his curiosity in the shape ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... girls had no intention of sitting on the bench all day. They got up and sauntered about the room, examining the skins on the walls and looking, but without much curiosity, at the rifles. They lingered longest before the shelves of butterflies and beetles, for some of the specimens were really beautiful ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Wild Rose Lodge - or, The Hermit of Moonlight Falls • Laura Lee Hope
... The curiosity in the office was almost a solid pressure, but Gloria paid it no attention. She said: "Certainly," put away the folder she had been ...
— Hex • Laurence Mark Janifer (AKA Larry M. Harris)
... satisfy your curiosity, Madam," he said; "you are surprised that a dog trainer is able to sing a little. But I have not always been what I am now. When I was younger I was ... the servant of a great singer, and like a parrot I imitated him. I began to repeat some ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... but Charles went off to inquire, nevertheless, and he followed him. I thought him a very pushing, inquisitive kind of person. I have always had a great dislike to the idle curiosity which is continually prying into the concerns of others. Ralph and I walked up and down, up and down, the now deserted platform. I spoke to him once or twice, but he hardly answered; and after a time I gave it up, ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... oaks, there to wait for some of his attendants. His Majesty had only proceeded a few yards, when, instead of the cry of the hounds, he fancied he heard the cry of human distress. As he rode forward, he heard it more distinctly. 'Oh, my mother! my mother! God pity and bless my poor mother!' The curiosity and kindness of the king led him instantly to the spot. It was a little green plot on one side of the forest, where was spread on the grass, under a branching oak, a little pallet, half covered with a kind of tent; and a basket ...
— The Gipsies' Advocate - or, Observations on the Origin, Character, Manners, and Habits of - The English Gipsies • James Crabb
... Kwong, our pet rickshaw-boy, to bring us here and we soon found that foreigners were not expected and not wanted. No one of the suave shop attendants could speak English, nor did they make the slightest attempt to wait on us. We wandered round, rather desolate, followed by looks of curiosity and disdain on the part of the clerks, and the wholly undisguised amusement and contempt of the high-class Chinese and Manchu women, who, with their liveried servants, were making the rounds of the various floors. ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... of this month an event occurred in Philadelphia that has aroused universal curiosity and interest. It was the birth of a baby elephant, which immediately became famous as being the first of his kind, so far as is known, ever born in captivity. All other elephants brought to this country for exhibition, or used in Eastern countries as beasts of burden, have ...
— Harper's Young People, March 30, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... scrambling to satisfy Tim McGrew's intellectual curiosity, yet there was a tang in the game that rendered it very interesting. He found, too, ample reward in seeing the wee invalid's face brighten ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... Constitution and Laws of the Club? I shall be so pleased if I may. It is a document which one of my daughters typewrites for me when I need one for a new Member, and she would give her eyebrows to know what it is all about, but I strangle her curiosity by saying: "There are much cheaper typewriters than you are, my dear, and if you try to pry into the sacred mysteries of this Club one of your prosperities will ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... green to the left; the green is now to the right, and the red to the left. With the most exquisite ingenuity, Faraday analyzed all those actions and stated their laws. This experiment, however, long remained a scientific curiosity rather than a fruitful germ. That it would bear fruit of the highest importance, Faraday felt profoundly convinced, and present researches are on the ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... replied, stiffly. "I came out here to rest, and I selected this place largely because it was so far from a church. I wanted to be where I should not be annoyed by requests to preach. Of course, ministers from the East would be a curiosity in these Western towns, and I should really get no rest at all if I had gone where my services would have been in constant demand. When I came out here I was in much the condition of our friend the minister of whom you have doubtless ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... some secret of our times: some boudoir story of Windsor or St. James's, which might show how royalty loves. On the contrary, "the secret" does not come out;—the reader is only tickled, his curiosity excited, and the tale, like an ill-going clock, is ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 489, Saturday, May 14, 1831 • Various
... my apple-trees congenial, there was only one piece on all my fruit land, and it was regarded as something of a curiosity. But in other parts of the neighbourhood it flourished abundantly, though I noticed that it was most frequent where the land was poorer and the trees not so luxuriant. It was also to be seen on tall black poplars, and I have a piece—planted purposely—on a hawthorn in my garden ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... of his amazing adventure seems to have been that the fear Spinrobin felt about the nature of the final Experiment was met and equalized by his passionate curiosity regarding it. Had these been the only two forces at work, the lightest pressure in either direction would have brought him to a decision. He would have accepted the challenge and stayed; or he would have hesitated, shirked, ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood
... something of the same kind," returned Norton coolly. "Have you any curiosity in the matter? If you think you can get your gun first . . . why, then, ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... companions looked on solemnly and made no sign of resistance, while the Illaka cropped on one knee and drew his little prisoner towards tie two boys, who looked on, full of curiosity, Mak's captive shrinking and trembling as he reached out for Mark's hand and made him, willingly enough, pat the little silent creature on ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... curiosity of that miserable Parisian?" cried Ferragus. "I'd burn Paris down if I lost you, my daughter. Ha! you may know what a lover is, but you don't yet know what a ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... reassuringly, and, not having curiosity enough to accept the other's offer and step across the road and see what he would get, shaded his eyes with his hand and looked with exaggerated anxiety up the road. Mr. Jobling, heavy of brow, returned to the parlor and ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... thought came into her mind that she would examine them while she waited, partly because she desired to distract her thoughts from the vision of this new and terrible ordeal which lay before her, and partly to gratify a not unnatural curiosity. ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... patriotism and prejudice into search and reverence for a Jewish king. But something told them that the new King, though born a Jew, was of universal interest and was more than human; they forefelt his divinity. Therefore they were come to the King, not to gratify their curiosity, not to speculate and debate and frame a new creed, but to worship him. There was no war between the science and the theology of these wise men. Their science did not kill their religion, and their religion did not strangle their science. ...
— A Wonderful Night; An Interpretation Of Christmas • James H. Snowden
... motion again, but Fleda no longer cared or had the curiosity to ask where they were going. The bittersweet lay listlessly in her lap; her letter, clasped to her breast, was not thought of; and tears were quietly running one after the other down her cheeks and falling on her sleeve; she dared ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... a curiosity that was natural, sought to question the child about her former life; but all she could gain was that her father ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... other people going in the same direction, for my landlady had given no exaggerated account of the curiosity which it had excited. Jacques Chacot evidently possessed the talent of a showman. He had enlarged the front of his cottage so as to form a sort of theatre, the inner part serving as a stage. We found him standing at the door with a couple of stout young fellows, his sons, ready to receive visitors, ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... The curiosity of the Assistant had been aroused at the beginning, and he determined to ascertain how far Philip's knowledge of his conduct extended, for his guilty conscience whispered that some discovery of the soldier occasioned the changed behavior. It might be caused only by suspicion, and if so, ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... Heidegger had been on the point of marriage with this young lady; but, being affected with some slight disorder, she had swallowed one of her lover's prescriptions, and died on the bridal evening. The greatest curiosity of the study remains to be mentioned; it was a ponderous folio volume, bound in black leather, with massive silver clasps. There were no letters on the back, and nobody could tell the title of the book. But it was well known to be a book of magic; and once, when a chambermaid ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... very little Consequence to Navigation: I only wished to be Certain whether or no it was the Southermost Land on or near to Terra del Fuego; but the thick foggy weather and the westerly winds which Carried us from the land prevented me from satisfying my Curiosity in this point, but from its Latitude and the reasons before given I think it must, and if so it must be Cape Horn, and lies in the latitude of 55 degrees 53 minutes South and Longitude 68 degrees 13 minutes West from the Meridian of Greenwich,* (* No doubt this was Cape Horn, ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... feeling that Peter would one day suddenly sicken of the war and that he would find himself in Paris or on the Riviera. We had an uneasy feeling that Peter would one day develop a curiosity as to the Bosch horse rations, and stroll across the line, and we should lose the Padre, a thing we could ill afford to do, for by this time he had taken us under his wing spiritually and bodily. On Sundays he would appear in our midst dragging a folding ...
— Punch, Volume 153, July 11, 1917 - Or the London Charivari. • Various
... the tambourine, and, shaking its little bells appealingly, went about among the people. They had already begun to scatter, with the wonderful agility of a crowd which has not paid. Some, however, still lingered from curiosity and with the hope of a second performance. A number of small copper coins Jingled into Gigi's tambourine. He approached the good woman who had shown an interest in him. She stooped down and thrust a piece of silver into ...
— John of the Woods • Abbie Farwell Brown
... reviewed his adventures in detail and seriatim, and was by turns indignant, sore, anxious on his own account as well as on Dorothy's, and out of all patience with himself. Mystified he remained throughout, and the edge of his curiosity held as keen as ever, you ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... Impelled by curiosity he thrust the torch between the logs and removed the earth, and found a huge bin of hewn logs carefully fitted and smoothed on the inside. The cover was not fastened, but only held in place by the weight of stones and earth piled above it. This bin was half filled with finely broken ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... the network of vertical and horizontal dikes of basalt which shot in every direction through the scoriae and conglomerate of which the cliff seemed to be composed. Innumerable sea-birds sat in the crevices and ledges of the uneven surface, or flew about us with such confiding curiosity, that by reaching out my hand I could touch their wings as they poised themselves in the air alongside. There was one old sober-sides with whom I passed a good ten minutes tete-a-tete, trying who could stare the other ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... the prerogative of mercy. Yet no suspicion crosses his mind that the Searcher of Hearts may possibly be displeased with prayers addressed to Him by the lips of those who were, all the while, saying in their hearts that they did not want their prayers to be granted, but only wanted to satisfy their curiosity to know whether they would be granted or not. Equally remarkable is the trustfulness of Mr. Galton, in opining that 'it would be perfectly practicable to select out of the patients at different hospitals under treatment for fractures, or ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... wings of the young ones grew strong; they could begin to fly about; and the parents found time for a return to pleasuring and curiosity-hunting. They began gathering in a wise assortment of broken glass and chips of platter to grace the corners of their dwelling. All but the youngest Jackdaw were enchanted with their unutterable beauty and value; they were never ...
— The Blue Moon • Laurence Housman
... twenty cubits in breadth, and thirty in height, and the porch tofore the temple was twenty cubits long after the measure of the breadth of the temple, and had ten cubits of breadth tofore the face of the temple, and for to write the curiosity and work of the temple, and the necessaries, the tables and cost that was done in gold, silver and latten, it passeth my cunning to express and English them. Ye that be clerks may see it in the ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... dirty paper. "Evidently he was not accustomed to composition; for his literary throes were so violent, that the doctor suggested that some sort of a Caesarian operation might be necessary. The precious paper was at last finished; and a great curiosity it was. We were much diverted with his reasons for not dating it. 'In this here damned climate,' he observed, 'a feller can't keep the run of the months, no how; 'cause there's no seasons, no summer and winter to go by. One's etarnally thinking it's always July, it's so pesky ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... that I was being borne forward, floating across the flat waste. For what seemed an eternity, I moved onward. I was unaware of any great sense of impatience; though some curiosity and a vast wonder were with me continually. Always, I saw around me the breadth of that enormous plain; and, always, I searched for some new thing to break its monotony; but there was no change—only loneliness, ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... in 1887, or the mouldering corpse of a doctrine that was made official in his country during the late war, or a sort of fermentation-product, to mix the figure, of a banal heresy launched upon him recently by his wife. This is the penalty that the man of intellectual curiosity and vanity pays for his violation of the divine edict that what has been revealed from Sinai shall suffice for him, and for his resistance to the natural process which seeks to reduce him to the respectable level of ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... word has been doubted. After the first I have not condescended to show such corroborative proofs as I possess. The subject became hateful to me—I would not speak of it. When men like yourself, who represent the foolish curiosity of the public, came to disturb my privacy I was unable to meet them with dignified reserve. By nature I am, I admit, somewhat fiery, and under provocation I am inclined to be violent. I fear ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... instructions where to find them. Roger discovered a pocket book that had been his desire for a long time, and a card that advised him to look under the desk in the library and see what was waiting for him. He dashed off in a high state of curiosity and came back whooping, with ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith
... for the event he had interrupted. Wishing, for obvious reasons, to avoid direct inquiry by messenger, and being too unwell to go far himself, he could learn no particulars. He was sitting in thought after a lonely dinner when the parcel intimating failure as brought in. The footman, whose curiosity had been excited by the mode of its arrival, peeped through the keyhole after closing the door, to learn what the packet meant. Directly the Baron had opened it he thrust out his feet vehemently from his chair, and began cursing his ruinous ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy
... question I could easily answer, I said that she spent most of her time in reading the newspapers; and this was true, because she always came in with her arms full of them. But there I stopped, as I never discuss my lodgers. Yet I must acknowledge that my curiosity had been roused by all this talk, and I began to watch the woman, who I soon saw was in what I would call a flustered state of mind, and as unhappy as anyone could be who hadn't suffered some great bereavement. But still I wasn't really alarmed, being misled by the ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... to the court, which was crowded with the prisoners and those who had come out of curiosity or in the hope of recognizing one of the men and getting a case for blackmail. The men were called up first, and reprimanded in a bunch, and then dismissed; but, Jurgis to his terror, was called separately, as being ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... magnificent specimens for Sir George. The entire expedition was one of wondrous interest; and I returned next day to school, big with description and narrative, to excite, by truths more marvellous than fiction, the curiosity of my class-fellows. ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... left the dining-room on Monday, after dinner, when a summons to the doctor's study came for Hamilton. As this was not an uncommon occurrence, Hamilton betrayed neither curiosity nor uneasiness, but quietly gave a few directions to his little brother, and then leisurely left the room. He was soon in the presence of Dr. Wilkinson, Mr. James Wilkinson, and an old gentleman who had a day or two before been examining his class, and who usually assisted ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... tolerably easy to be come at. Into this bay I resolved to carry the ships, there to refit and supply ourselves with every refreshment that the place could afford. As night approached the greater part of our visitors retired to the shore, but numbers of them requested our permission to sleep on board. Curiosity was not the only motive, at least with some, for the next morning several things were missing, which determined me not to ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... plant—flowers, bracts, stem, scales, and roots—is fiery red. Its color could appeal to one's blood. Nevertheless, it is a singularly cold and unsympathetic plant. Everybody admires it as a wonderful curiosity, but nobody loves it as lilies, violets, roses, daisies are loved. Without fragrance, it stands beneath the pines and firs lonely and silent, as if unacquainted with any other plant in the world; never moving in the wildest storms; rigid as if ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... put it out of my head, having no special curiosity as to the reason of the haunting, and supposing it might have been some ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... The curiosity of the boys was now satisfied, and they were about to return to the tent, when Lucien suddenly made a motion, whispering the others to remain silent. Francois first caught sight of the object which had caused this ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... interview with Dr. Rowlands. The school had already re-opened, and one of the boys in his college cap passed by the window while they were breakfasting. He looked very happy and engaging, and was humming a tune as he strolled along. Eric started up and gazed after him with the most intense curiosity. At that moment the unconscious schoolboy was to him the most interesting person in the whole world, and he couldn't realize the fact that, before the day was over, he would be a Roslyn boy himself. He very much wondered what sort of a fellow ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... always shown a keen interest in Timmy's alleged visions and presentiments. Like so many country doctors of the old school, he was a man not only of great natural shrewdness, but of considerable intellectual curiosity, and, from his point of view, by far the most inexplicable of the little boy's assertions had concerned a long vanished building which had stood, for something like three centuries, close to the parish church, right on the main ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... rather climbed, all over the island, which is hilly and rocky, and found several great stones entirely covered with the ancient carving. Moved by curiosity, we entered various caverns where idols have been found, and amongst others one large cave, which we had no sooner groped our way into than I nearly fell down suffocated by the horrible and most pestilential atmosphere. ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... that she might be provoking Constance. She did it with her eyes open. Her curiosity and concern after what Alice had told her of the preceding night's ball were becoming hard to conceal. Would Connie really engage ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and say yes. For you see well that this terrible Pollnitz will make me a martyr to curiosity. Consent, gracious princess, and then I may perhaps hear ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... This wooden-shod curiosity is anywhere from seventy to one hundred and fifty years old, gray, knock-kneed, bent in the back, and goes to sleep standing up—and stays asleep. He is the exact duplicate of the tramp in the comic opera of "Miss Hook of Holland"—except ...
— The Parthenon By Way Of Papendrecht - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the neighbourhood—I do not remember what he was doing—with a long flowing beard. We had somehow got the idea that no men except Jews wore their beards, and the natural inference with us was that this man was one of that creed. He was as much of a curiosity to us as a chimpanzee or an African lion would have been, and we were about as afraid of him as we would have been on seeing ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... moving from the post, it began to fade gradually away, as if it were a vapour, till it had quite disappeared. All this the groom saw as well as myself; and now there could be no mistake as to what it was. A third time I saw it in broad daylight, and my curiosity greatly awakened, I resolved to make further enquiries amongst the inhabitants of C——, but before I had an opportunity of doing so, I was summoned away by the death of my eldest child, and I have never been in that part ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... at a little distance, crying as if her heart would break—the younger children clustered round the bed, looking, with wondering curiosity, upon the form of death, never seen before. When the first tumult of uncontrollable sorrow had passed away, availing myself of the solemnity and impressiveness of the scene, I desired the heart-stricken ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... non-admiring eyes of casual strangers. Pleasant it is to hunt for old prints, books and other treasures amongst the dark unwholesome dens that lie in the shadow of the gorgeous church of Santa Chiara or in the musty-smelling shops of the curiosity dealers in the Strada Costantinopoli, picking up here a volume of some cinque-cento classic and there a piece of old china that may or may not have had its birth in the famous factory of Capodimonte. All this studying of historic ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... caravan outside the tembe, our flags and streamers were unfurled, the men had their loads resting on the walls, there was considerable shouting, and laughing, and negroidal fanfaronnade. The Arabs had collected from curiosity's sake to see us off—all except Sheikh bin Nasib, whom I had offended by my asinine opposition to his wishes. The old Sheikh took to his bed, but sent his son to bear me a last morsel of Philosophic sentimentality, ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... curiosity, I crept back as cautiously as I had advanced; and the two Indians, who had surveyed the camp to their satisfaction, came after me. We at once commenced a retreat in the same fashion as we had advanced, being ...
— Adventures in the Far West • W.H.G. Kingston
... a sense of distrust which the bailiff understood at once in spite of their impassible faces. Marthe let them look at the gun, to the tune of Couraut's bark; she was so convinced that her husband was meditating some evil deed that she was thankful for the curiosity ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... for an instant Madame Benet had slept, and an officer of the staff, led by curiosity, chance, or suspicion, had, unobserved and unannounced, mounted to the fourth floor. When Marie saw him he was in front of the room that held the wireless. His back was toward her, but she saw that he was holding the door to the room ajar, ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... respectively; you will meet with no difficulty in discounting them, and we will refund you the discount. We have reserved the right of giving a new title to the book. We don't care for The Archer of Charles IX.; it doesn't tickle the reader's curiosity sufficiently; there were several kings of that name, you see, and there were so many archers in the Middle Ages. If you had only called it the Soldier of Napoleon, now! But The Archer of Charles IX.!—why, Cavalier would have to give a course of history lessons before he could place ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... Not only did curiosity to learn the facts of the case attract a crowd of visitors, but there were many people who came from the pit villages near to inquire after missing husbands and sons, and loud were the wailings of women when it was found that ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... want?" she asked, partly from idleness, and yet with genuine curiosity; for she felt drawn to this boy in knee pants who was so confident and at ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... it was evident that her curiosity was aroused. When the interviewer explained the purpose of the visit, she exclaimed: "Lordy! Miss, what is de government gwine do next? For de God's truth, I never knowed I would have to tell nobody what happened back in dem days, so its jus' done ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... whisky and soda." He got up and moved to the table on which Charlot had set decanters and glasses, and was about to take the glass the dresser offered him when a tap on the door brought the conversation to a sudden stop. The actor frowned: he did not want to be bothered by more visitors. But curiosity got the better of his annoyance and he told Charlot to ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... eh? All right, Bill! 'Curiosity killed the cat,' as the feller says. An' just don't forget to remember that what a man don't know don't hurt him none. Loggin' is learned in the choppin's. Accidents happens; an' dead men tells no tales. Them that keeps ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... interesting people, I have deviated from the strict and original line of my undertaking, the merit of the subject will hide my transgression, or solicit my excuse. In the East, in the West, in war, in religion, in science, in their prosperity, and in their decay, the Arabians press themselves on our curiosity: the first overthrow of the church and empire of the Greeks may be imputed to their arms; and the disciples of Mahomet still hold the civil and religious sceptre of the Oriental world. But the same ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... a day, and was frequently accompanied by Madam de Warrens. I was greatly interested in their labor, and amused myself seeing them return to the hives, their little thighs so loaded with the precious store that they could hardly walk. At first, curiosity made me indiscreet, and they stung me several times, but afterwards, we were so well acquainted, that let me approach as near as I would, they never molested me, though the hives were full and the bees ready to swarm. At these times I have been surrounded, having ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... practices of the East. A single quotation from one author, may be sufficient to prepare the reader for any additional information, on the subject of the public separation of the sexes. "The regulations of the haram," says Dr Russel, speaking of the Moosulmauns, "oppose a strong barrier to curiosity; inveterate custom excludes females from mingling in assemblies of the other sex, and even with their nearest male-relations they appear to be under a restraint from which, perhaps, they are never emancipated, except ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... the Christians was at hand. But since that was a new spectacle for people, and no one knew how the Christians would bear themselves, all waited with a certain curiosity. The disposition of the audience was attentive but unfriendly; they were waiting for uncommon scenes. Those people who were to appear had burned Rome and its ancient treasures. They had drunk the blood of infants, and poisoned water; they had cursed the whole human race, and committed the vilest ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz |
