"Empty" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... alone in her pretty drawing-room, with a book lying open, but unheeded, on her lap. She was looking away from its pages, seemingly into the garden without, but rather into empty space. ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... or two more (five in all), and I shall repossess myself of Lido, and I will rise earlier, and we will go and shake our livers over the beach, as heretofore, if you like—and we will make the Adriatic roar again with our hatred of that now empty oyster-shell, without its ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... as Thou saidst; His power can still Our empty lives to fulness fill; Can charge with hope, with zeal inspire, And kindle life, and light, ...
— Hymns from the East - Being Centos and Suggestions from the Office Books of the - Holy Eastern Church • John Brownlie
... appetites! I never saw such an appetite as that stove had for hay. Why, that stove had a worse appetite than Old Blacky. It devoured hay all the time, just as Old Blacky would if he could; and even then its stomach always seemed empty. The man twisted all of the time, and I fed it constantly, and ...
— The Voyage of the Rattletrap • Hayden Carruth
... half an hour, standing on the heaving deck and shooting at bottles floating on the rolling swell, I found that I broke each bottle at the first shot. The supply of empty bottles giving out, Mr. Pike was so interested that he had the carpenter saw me a lot of small square blocks of hard wood. These were more satisfactory. A well-aimed shot threw them out of the water and spinning into the air, and I could use a single block until ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... of Prince Carlos is the amazing Marquis of Posa. In a cynical foot-note of the year 1845 Carlyle quotes, with seeming approval, Richter's comparison of Posa to the tower of a light-house,—"high, far-shining, empty". But what would Jean Paul have had? Is it not quite enough for a light-house to be high and far-shining? One does not see how its usefulness would be enhanced by filling it with the beans and bacon of practical politics. Here surely one must side with Schiller and never think of criticising him ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... matter, for we were hundreds of miles from land and the sky always clear for observations. Few of the watch got much sleep, because of the perpetual bracing; and all the while the ship rolling and sending, in the long, glassy ocean swell, unsteadied by the empty sails, which swung out with one lurch as though full, and then slapped back all together against the masts, with a swing and a jerk and a thud that made every spar tremble, and the vessel herself quiver in unison. Nor were we alone. ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... and catching up my words! Who said I disliked you? We were not talking of likes or dislikes. We were talking of knowing each other properly. I wouldn't trouble my head if you were an ordinary, empty-headed girl, but I know you are not. There is another side to your character, and I want to see and know you in it, but you evade me, and refuse to show yourself. I suppose I am not worth the trouble ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... brighter colors than you do, Wilbur," mused Selma. "I used to consider things like that as wrong; but I suppose that was because our fathers wished Europe to understand that we disapproved of the luxury of courts and the empty lives of the nobility. But if people here with purpose have money, it would seem sensible to ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... you never to be without your purse, and never to let it be empty. Your aunt will counsel you about your clothes. About your books we trust to yourself. And pray don't forget, when you make sleeping visits, to recompense the trouble you must unavoidably give to servants. And if you join any party to any public place, make a ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... followed her still—what was it? Oh, dreadful, dreadful life! oh, fruitless love and longing!—was it relief? The mother tried to get that look out of her mind as she drove silently and slowly home, creeping up hill after hill. There was no need to hurry. All that she was going to was an empty and silent house, where nobody awaited her. What was that look on Elinor's face? Relief! to have it over, to get away again, away from her old home and her fond mother, away to her new life. Mrs. Dennistoun was not a jealous mother nor unreasonable. She said to herself—Well! ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... But we,—we empty heart and home Of life's life, love! we bear to think You're gone,... to feel you may not come,... To hear the door-latch stir and clink Yet no more you,... ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... absolute—princes, priests, prophets, and people (xxii.); and this corruption has characterized her from the very beginning—Samaria and Jerusalem, the northern and southern kingdoms alike (xxiii.). So the end has come: the filth and rust of the empty caldron—symbolic of Jerusalem after the first deportation in 597 B.C.—will be purged away by a yet fiercer fire. The besieged city is at length captured, and, like the prophet's wife, it perishes ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... too pure, your mind too high, To prize such empty pomp and state; You leave such scenes without a sigh To court the joys that on ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... Gradasso breaks his spear, He wounds the empty air, with fury vain. This in the feathered monster breeds no fear; Who to a distance shifts, and swoops again. While that encounter made the Alfana rear, Thrown back upon her haunches, on the plain. The Alfana ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... and bloody traces of the march of the Goths.... The whole territory of Attica, from the promontory of Sunium to the town of Megara, was blasted by his baleful presence; and, if we may use the comparison of a contemporary philosopher, Athens itself resembled the bleeding and empty skin of a slaughtered victim.... Corinth, Argos, Sparta, yielded without resistance to the arms of the Goths; and the most fortunate of the inhabitants were saved, by death, from beholding the slavery of their families and the conflagration of ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... looked at a little room to the right in which the manager awed prospecting tenants. Usually it was empty. It was empty then. Mrs. Austen looked, passed on and, preceding Margaret, entered a lift that floated them to the home on which ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... exclaimed the woman musingly, as she continued to peer, with a mystic expression of countenance, into a small and apparently empty teacup, which she turned slowly round and round in her skinny hand, muttering at intervals in an ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... says that "an empty bag cannot stand upright;" neither can a man who is in debt. It is also difficult for a man who is in debt to be truthful; hence, it is said that lying rides on debt's back. The debtor has to frame excuses to his creditor for postponing payment of the money he owes him, and probably also ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... of this treacherous and dishonourable action on the part of the Captain of Soissons, Jeanne cried out that if she had him, she would cut his body into four pieces, which was no empty imagining of her wrath. As the penalty of certain crimes it was the custom for the executioner, after he had beheaded the condemned, to cut his body in four pieces, which was called quartering. So that it was as if Jeanne had said that the traitor deserved ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... empty hand held out. There was never a glance of his eye to the battle of the Dane and the beast. Four feet from his hand was the hanging rein, his eyes to the eyes of the black, his tones steadily lower, never rising, never ceasing. His loose fingers closed upon the bridle rein; his ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... this was empty Pageantry and too expensive Glory. She ran herself in Debt to uphold this Appearance, mortgaged her Estate, and bartered her Stock, for the vain Applause of flattering Knaves, and scoundrel Tradesmen. It was Time to pull ...
— The True Life of Betty Ireland • Anonymous
... upstairs, where I remained, unconscious of what was passing, till Emma came to me and said the carriage was ready, and General Dundas advised me to go that evening to Brussels, but I need not hurry myself. I asked her if the room below was empty. She assured me it was; and I went down and remained some time beside the body. There was such perfect peace and placid calm sweetness in his countenance, that I envied him not a little. He was released: I was left ...
— A Week at Waterloo in 1815 • Magdalene De Lancey
... been to his cousin's apartment and found it locked. He now entered the great hall, and at first glance thought it empty. To his alarm and astonishment, however, he saw that the sealed door had been broken open. He approached it with anxiety, and found his wife's cousin, the doughty duelist, lying pale and lifeless on the threshold. Beside him lay a large stone which had ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... left us, pride of the Wapanachki?" he said, addressing himself to the dull ears of Uncas, as if the empty clay retained the faculties of the animated man; "thy time has been like that of the sun when in the trees; thy glory brighter than his light at noonday. Thou art gone, youthful warrior, but a hundred Wyandots are clearing the briers from ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... (without God and without right). For Germany, the saving of Switzerland from the hands of the Radicals is simply a vital question. If they are victorious there, in Germany likewise torrents of blood will flow; I will answer for that. The murder of Kings, Priests, and Aristocrats is no empty sound with them, and Civil War in song, writing, word, and deed, is their watchword. "Toute charite bien entendue commence par soi-meme." So they begin with their own country, true to this "Christian" (!) motto. If they are allowed to proceed, surely ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... of a custom. They gave most generously, that older generation. Visiting us, Max's mother would slip a bill into my always empty purse when we went shopping; or mine would drop a gold piece into my top bureau drawer for me to find after she had gone. And there were always ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... very large one, we could see that, for after two hours' hard pulling we got near enough to throw a harpoon, and after it was fixed he jumped clean out of the water. Then there was the usual battle. It was fierce and long; so long that I began to fear we would have to return empty-handed to the ship. We put ten harpoons into him, one after another, and had a stiff run between the fixing ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne
... two of the boldest had touched him, and found no outward injury upon him; and this had sent their eyes back to the automobile with increased awe. Eliza La Heu summoned one of the onlookers, an old negro; at some word she said to him he hurried back and returned, leading his horse and empty cart, and General was lifted into this. The girl took her ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... the lawn was trampled down, and there were new-made graves in the edge of the grove. Fences were prostrate, and partly burned. Horses and live stock had disappeared. The negro quarters were nearly empty, the majority of the slaves having followed the Union column. Confederate officers, who were welcome, honored guests but a few hours before, were on their way to Washington as prisoners. Desperately wounded and dying men were in the ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... she enjoyed the conscious satisfaction of returning to Constantinople with the chains of St. Peter, the right arm of St. Stephen, and an undoubted picture of the Virgin, painted by St. Luke. [76] But this pilgrimage was the fatal term of the glories of Eudocia. Satiated with empty pomp, and unmindful, perhaps, of her obligations to Pulcheria, she ambitiously aspired to the government of the Eastern empire; the palace was distracted by female discord; but the victory was at last decided, by the superior ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... how foolishly the name tinkled out of that empty and foolish past! Yet what a power it had over him when he was three and twenty! Of all the savage epithets which he afterwards attached to its owner, probably she merited a few. She was a flirt, at all ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... causes empty aching gaps in vitality. This aching is what most people regard as evil: it is the unpleasant cure of evil. It takes all shapes of suffering—of the body, of the mind, of the heart, of the spirit. It is altogether beneficent: without this ever invading ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... handsome old man, magnificently dressed, whom she placed upon her left hand. She seated herself in a large gilded arm-chair at the middle of one side of the table, which was oblong in form. Another seat, rather more ornamented, was at her right, but it remained empty. The young Marquis d'Effiat, seated in front of his mother, was to assist her in doing the honors of the table. He was not more than twenty years old, and his countenance was insignificant; much gravity and distinguished ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Harrier—a young one—shot in Herm in July of that year. She adds that—"It was brought to Mr. Couch to skin. He found a whole Lark's egg, and also the shell of another, in its throat. He showed me how the whole egg was sticking in the empty shell ...
— Birds of Guernsey (1879) • Cecil Smith
... year's intimate life which she had enjoyed with her boy, and became more and more thankful that she had been enabled thus to get up out of her selfish grief of the summer before—when death took her other children from her—and empty her own life into the larger channel of life around her. She was pleased to think of the good fruits that had arisen from her plans for her boy's vacation trips, not only upon him but upon other mothers who had been led to follow her example. She thought of the Christmas week she ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... dinner, and relaxing his mind for the moment in a fresh research into the Manchester Guide, an individual, who had also been dining in the same apartment, rose from his table, and, after lolling over the empty fireplace, reading the framed announcements, looking at the directions of several letters waiting there for their owners, picking his teeth, turned round to Coningsby, and, with an air ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... bore the appearance of a boy sullen and unhappy over some circumstance. Frank thought he had never seen a more dissatisfied face than that of this lad. He shuffled along after the farmer in an ungracious fashion, and taking the first empty seat flopped ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... high expectations. But we were disappointed. The space contained nothing; it was smeared with cobwebs and hairy mould; but outside of a few empty bottles and the gloomy darkness there was nothing. We tapped the walls and floor and ceiling. Beyond all doubt the place once held a secret; if it held it still, it was cleverly hidden. After an hour or two of search we returned to the upper ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... can tell? It is as empty of intelligent meaning as a rubbish-heap. Yet these men claim to get their charter from Whitman. I do not think Whitman would be enough interested in them to feel contempt toward them. Whitman was a man of tremendous personality, and every line he wrote had a meaning, and his whole ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... colored posts, which served to carry the curtains, which shut out the interior of the box from the eyes of the curious world. The red and white curtains were now cast aside, and one could see a mass of iron poles, rags, weights, empty barrels, hoops with and without purple silk paper, the use of which was ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... warm day. Then it is that one would like to imitate the mode of life of the native at Sierra Leone, as somebody has described it: stroll into the market in natural costume,—buy a water-melon for a halfpenny,—split it, and scoop out the middle,—sit down in one half of the empty rind, clap the other on one's head, and ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... know, And titles are but empty names; I would, perhaps, be Plenipo,— But only near St. James; I'm very sure I should not care ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... benefit of Mrs. Granger with a jointure of three thousand per annum, than he had been wont to show himself for the behoof of Miss Lovel without a sixpence. She drew a great deal; but somehow these favourite pursuits had lost something of their charm. They could not fill her life; it seemed blank and empty in spite of them. ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... come of a chief's house. All the while the three of them sought in their pockets, and by what I could make out, they had the matter of half a farthing among the party; which made me smile a little to see all Highland folk alike for fine obeisances and empty sporrans. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... they were within thirty feet, and then Frank handed his rifle to Billy and went forward with empty hands to show that ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall
... was empty, save for several black-gowned figures moving slowly towards an enormous building, which flanked one side of a square or market-place, at the end of ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... of the country is situated on deltas of large rivers flowing from the Himalayas: the Ganges unites with the Jamuna (main channel of the Brahmaputra) and later joins the Meghna to eventually empty into the Bay ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... formerly containing such rare and valuable books, is now a bedroom—the shelves half empty, the books scattered about, some of them piled up in a corner and used as a table. Henry said that, when any one wanted to light a fire or a pipe, they simply tore a page out of a book. What did they care? Was it not one of the "exigencies ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... through several splendidly furnished rooms. The pleasant warmth of the air revived him, and he felt very hungry; but there seemed to be nobody in all this vast and splendid palace whom he could ask to give him something to eat. Deep silence reigned everywhere, and at last, tired of roaming through empty rooms and galleries, he stopped in a room smaller than the rest, where a clear fire was burning and a couch was drawn up closely to it. Thinking that this must be prepared for someone who was expected, he sat ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... of nations! there she stands, Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe; An empty urn within her withered hands, Whose holy dust was scattered long ago. Childe Harold, Canto ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... worse. Her acting remained mediocre to bad. At the fifth rehearsal after the break with the stage-director, Mildred saw Crossley seated far back in the dusk of the empty theater. It was his first appearance at rehearsals since the middle of the first week. As soon as he had satisfied himself that all was going well, he had given his attention to other matters where things were not going well. Mildred knew why he was there—and she acted and sang ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... possession of the ring, and Gunter is slain; but when Hagen tries to take the ring, the hand of the dead hero is raised in warning. Then Bruennhilde solemnly and proudly advances in the light of the torches and bids the empty clamor cease, for "this is no lamenting worthy of a hero." She orders a funeral pyre to be built, and Siegfried is laid thereon. She contemplates the dead hero with passionate love and sadness, and then solemnly turning to those about her, exclaims: "Those who efface the fault of the ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... wouldst me have," and withal began in this manner. "If any shall define chance to be an event produced by a confused motion, and without connexion of causes, I affirm that there is no such thing, and that chance is only an empty voice that hath beneath it no real signification. For what place can confusion have, since God disposeth all things in due order? For it is a true sentence that of nothing cometh nothing, which none of the ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... him nothing. A lifted foot struck an empty soap box with a clatter to wake the seven sleepers. Instantly he knew it had been put there for him to stumble over. A strong searchlight flooded the stairs and focused on him. He caught a momentary glimpse of a featureless ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... forestry for at least part of their livelihood. Most manufactured goods and petroleum products must be imported. The islands are rich in undeveloped mineral resources such as lead, zinc, nickel, and gold. However, severe ethnic violence, the closing of key business enterprises, and an empty government treasury have led to serious economic disarray, indeed near collapse. Tanker deliveries of crucial fuel supplies (including those for electrical generation) have become sporadic due to the government's inability to pay and attacks against ships. Telecommunications are threatened ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... to authors, whose sentiments can neither sanction adduced arguments or illustrate technical allusions. The enquiry will be made with some reference to science, but more to convince by demonstration than to confound by abstruse perplexities. So that, while empty declamation is avoided, the principles of truth are meant to be investigated by reason and experience. With this view, the Nature of Green, Souchong, and Bohea teas is first considered. To judge of the nature of these herbs with equal candour and propriety, it may be necessary ...
— A Treatise on Foreign Teas - Abstracted From An Ingenious Work, Lately Published, - Entitled An Essay On the Nerves • Hugh Smith
... the mouth of the Toba, those same piles had been the support of long boom-sticks, within which floated hundreds of logs. On the flat beside the river there had stood the rough shacks of a logging camp. Donkey engines were puffing and grunting in the woods. Now the booming ground was empty, save for those decaying, teredo-eaten sticks, and the camp was a tumbledown ruin when he passed. He wondered if the valley of the Toba were wholly deserted, if the forests of virgin timber covering the delta of that watercourse ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... anything. A poor lad doesn't know enough to stop at the right time when once he begins; when he's thrown away one penny it pulls a dozen along after it. But you mustn't think I'm a miserable miser. Many a man has gone away empty-handed from the big farm-houses and has got what he needed from me. I didn't forget who has blessed my work and will soon demand an account from me.' At this I looked the little man up and down with great respect; nobody could have told what was in him from his looks. Before we separated I wanted ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... find a seat—that is, if you choose to sit," said the servitor sneeringly, to Robin, pointing at the same time to an empty corner ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... sat, overwhelmed by all that she had done and had left undone. The emptiness and silence of the house brought to her a sense of loneliness. The street outside was empty and silent too, except for two old women who walked by with heavy, dragging steps. One of the two was talking in a patient, pathetic voice, but loudly, for ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... were on the search for fugitives, and who would naturally be well acquainted with the positions where hiding-places would be likely to be situated. The moment they looked into the cupboard, its shallowness would suggest to them that there must be a wide empty space behind it, and by setting to work with axes, picks, and crowbars, they would soon discover by force the secret she was ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... I marry?" replied the girl. "I have a rich father and mother. Our lodge is good. The parfleches are never empty. There are plenty of tanned robes and soft furs for ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... compartments held the contents of each boll; from sixty to eighty bolls were required to yield a pound in the seed; and three or four pounds of seed cotton furnished one pound of lint. When a boll was wide open a deft picker could empty all of its compartments by one snatch of the fingers; and a specially skilled one could keep both hands flying independently, and still exercise the small degree of care necessary to keep the lint fairly free from the trash of the brittle dead calyxes. As to ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... his seat and looked back. He had entered it by that very road, a beggar on foot and in rags; he was leaving it in broadcloth and fine linen, visible tokens of his altered fortunes. More than this, he could thrust his hands deep down into his once empty pockets and hear the clink of gold and silver. The judge slowly withdrew his eyes from the last gray roof that showed among the trees, and faced the east and the future with ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... Pray, pray do not be so impetuous. Don't jump at such frantic conclusions! I assure you, my words are not empty sound. I mean 'em, every one. I'll do anything in reason for you or your ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... the recent talk about Mark, although Mrs. Delaport Green had tried to sigh out some insinuations on the subject in talking to him. Perhaps he was a less receptive listener than of yore, when he had more empty spaces in his mind than he had this year. He received, indeed, a faint impression that Mrs. Delaport Green was sentimentalising over some disappointment she was suffering under acutely with regard to the popular preacher, and had felt her motive to be curiosity ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... hospital which had received his foster-brother, very ill from several severe wounds; and when at last he rose from his bed, and staggered out into the court, one sleeve of his military coat hung limp and empty at his side. If Jean Moreau had not given his life for Captain Henri, he had laid down in his service what was almost as dear,—his good right arm. This was the story of it. In a part of the field where the battle raged most fiercely, Captain De Lorme's company, ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... soon perceived that the gully was empty, so far at least as its course was straight; and with that he hastened into it, though his heart was not working easily. When he had traced the winding hollow for half a mile or more, he saw that it forked, and one part led to the left up a steep red bank, and the other to the right, ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... churchyard possessed an empty tomb, in which the smugglers were wont to store their goods until a favourable time came to set them on the road. Any objections that those in authority might have had were silenced by an occasional tub. But of this more in the ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... loop of chain hanging down from the end-board of the truck. Johnnie guided a foot through it stirrup-wise and reared himself into an empty wagonbed. Then as the wheels began to turn, he faced round, knelt comfortably, and let Broadway swiftly ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... by the empty fly awhile, but Laura did not reappear. He thereupon entered the fly and told the driver to take ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... said Nyoda, coming to a halt when she discovered that they were so far in the lead, and seating herself on a stone fence she helped herself to the blackberries which grew against it, and held out a handful to Sahwah. Opposite them was an old, tumble-down house, weatherbeaten and bare of paint, its empty window sashes gaping like eyeless sockets. The girls had named it the "Haunted House," and wove many a tale of mystery about it. Beside it was an apple orchard, its trees dying of old age, and under one of them was a grave ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... satisfaction of learning, before he went into winter-quarters, that the Russians had retired beyond the Vistula, and that the Austrians and Swedes had departed out of Brandenburg, Silesia, and Pomerania. Still his situation was a critical one. His losses in men had been great, his coffers were empty, and his recruiting was therefore difficult: he looked forward to the campaign of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... present moment Athanase, leaning pensively on his elbow at the breakfast table, was twirling his spoon in his empty cup and contemplating with a preoccupied eye the poor room with its red brick floor, its straw chairs, its painted wooden buffet, its pink and white curtains chequered like a backgammon board, which communicated with the kitchen through a glass door. As his back was to the ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... of locusts in their desolating voyage, so is a luxuriant farm in the Soudan a point for the tax-collectors of Upper Egypt. I have frequently ridden several days' journey through a succession of empty villages, deserted by the inhabitants upon the report of the soldiers' approach; the women and children, goats and cattle, camels and asses, have all been removed into the wilderness for refuge, while their crops of corn have been left standing for the plunderers, who ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... the servants were bringing on the fruit; and with the fruit they were setting on the table a beautiful old fashioned silver pergne, that was never used but for great occasions. Generally it was adorned with fruit and flowers; to-day it was empty, and the attendants proceeded to arrange upon it very strange looking things; packages in white paper, books, trinkets, what not; and in the middle of all a little statuette of a Grecian nymph, which was a great favourite of Daisy's. Daisy began to guess ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... wit. We, who deprive our judgment of the right of determining, look indifferently upon the diverse opinions, and if we incline not our judgment to them, yet we easily give them the hearing: Where one scale is totally empty, I let the other waver under an old wife's dreams; and I think myself excusable, if I prefer the odd number; Thursday rather than Friday; if I had rather be the twelfth or fourteenth than the thirteenth at table; if ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... and slender form, arrayed in cool white blouse and trousers, really a goodly thing to behold. This day, too, he must have come afoot, but his net and box lay there beside him, and his hunt had been without profit, for both were apparently empty. Possibly he had devoted but little time to netting insects. Possibly he had thought to encounter bigger game. If so his zest in the sport must have been but languid, since he had so soon yielded to the drowsy influences of the day. There was resentment in ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... "I merely shipped an empty box. I knew very well that Dyer would try to get back the desk, hoping I had not discovered its secret, so I deceived him and gained time by proving that I had sent a ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... I love you. That's got nothing to do with it. Here's one of father's empty notebooks. Say yes, and ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke
... cross, or a diamond. Any figure you like, standing close together. You had better outline it first on the turf, with sticks, or pebbles, so as to see that it is rightly drawn; then get into it and enlarge or diminish it at one side, till you are all quite in it, and no empty space left. ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... York's population doubles Virginia's. Virginia's exports have been about stationary at $3,000,000; New York's have risen from $2,500,000 to $87,000,000. New York almost trebles Virginia in valuation, even including slaves. So he compares North Carolina and Massachusetts; the empty port of Beaufort and the teeming one of Boston; the northern State with a production from manufactures, mines, and mechanic arts double the whole cotton crop of the South. So he compares South Carolina and Pennsylvania. Again: Sail down the Ohio, and you will find the lands ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... ask you how many boarders left you when they heard I was sick in the attic with the smallpox." Mr. Hopkins told him they all left. "So I understand, Mr. Hopkins, but will you tell me how many came in before night—how many empty beds did you have while I lay ill with smallpox?" Hopkins was hedging, but he had to answer that all his beds were full; that he had no room for more than came, but he said he felt sure that his house had been injured at least $50. Finally Tom Barnum happened to think of the window pane ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... three strong men against two now," Yussuf had said, "for we will not count the wounded master, or the young effendi here. The men shall empty the boat of water, and they shall take ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... goin' out again till you've shaken off the water, Joe. You're dripping like a Newfoundland;" said Captain Rumway, as Chillis put down his empty glass, and turned toward the door, which he had entered not five minutes before. This thoughtfulness for his comfort, however, only meant, "Stay till you've taken another drink, and then maybe you will tell us a story;" and Chillis knew the bait ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... for if he suspects that aught is amiss it will be the ruin of us all. Lose no time in selling your wares, and when the ship is freighted for her homeward voyage let one of you come up to the house and give me a sign. I will not come empty-handed, but will bring with me vessels of gold to pay for my passage. Furthermore, I have charge of my master's child, a knowing little lad; and, if it be possible, I will bring him with me, that ye may sell him for a ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... indeed dead, his task was done; but he had felt so assured that he still lived that he could not bring himself to expel the belief. It was the lack of knowledge that he could not endure, the thought of returning to the woman he loved empty-handed, of seeing once more the soul-hunger in her eyes, and being unable to ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... bare and empty. At one end there was a kind of dais on which was placed a few chairs. The young man walked up to this and turned to beckon Juliet, for whom he placed a chair. She still lingered at the door and ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... new set of tea-things, and a double set, too! If we manage well, they'll last us easily to the holidays. Till you came, I was obliged to slip into other fellows' rooms, and sharp a cup of tea. Now, let us regularly lock up everything in my cupboard, for it's quite empty; how comfortable we shall be; and your pictures, Kennedy, make the ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... after the poet and the coachman had breakfasted like old friends; six empty bottles testified that neither one nor the other were likely to die of thirst. The poet grumbled internally to himself as he thought of the three bottles of Clos-Vougeot, one of Leoville, two of Moulin-au-Vent, that had been consumed, and the fellow not drunk yet. Then he determined ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... outbreak of the war, it will be observed that he puts the time required by South Africa to recover from the economic ravages of the war at "not many years." In point of fact, two and a half years after the surrender of Vereeniging nothing remained but the scattered graveyards upon the veld, the empty tins still tinkling upon the wire fences by the railways, and an occasional blockhouse, to remind the traveller of the devastating struggle from which the country had so recently emerged. This estimate of the period of recuperation ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... command the approbation of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. It is simple and primitive, but decidedly not humane. Ingenuous youth holds the ant by its head and shoulders, sucks out the honey with which the back part is absurdly distended, and throws away the empty body as a thing with which it has now no further sympathy. Maturer age buys the ants by the quart, presses out the honey through a muslin strainer, and manufactures it into a very sweet intoxicating drink, something like shandygaff, as I am credibly informed by bold persons who have ventured ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... not shown much more interest than the Grand Duke: quite a third of the hall was empty. Christophe could not help thinking bitterly of the crowded halls at his concerts when he was a child. He would not have been surprised by the change if he had had more experience: it would have seemed natural to him that there were fewer people come to hear him ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... Assembly time. To belong to a dissenting body, and yet to cook early and late for the purpose of fattening one's religious rivals, is doubtless trying to the temper; and then she asserts that 'meenisters are aye tume [empty].' ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... covert whispering of Assistant District Attorneys and postoffice inspectors, the dangling maps and the piles of documents—when I had asked myself, "Is all this real, or are they transient symbols importing a concealed significance?" Then, to my imagination, the empty walls would seem to melt away, and I saw a great, benign face and figure above the bench of the judge, holding a trial of those who labored so busily—a trial not entered in the books, and alien from that which occupied us; and recording judgments, ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... rule. Don't you go and take me for a gentleman, or we sha'n't agree. Wait till I'm as arrogant, and empty, and lazy as they are. I am a ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... pretentious hotels with drawn shutters had the air of a summer resort out of season. The war had cut off Italy's greatest source of ready money—the idler. Naples was living to itself a subdued, zestless life. Cook's was an empty inutility. The sunny slopes of Sorrento, where during the last generation the German has established himself in all favorable sites, were ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... not in the world a country whose inhabitants are more timid; and the whole place is capable of being easily put into a state of defence. Your people that may come here, if they should wish to become masters of the products of other lands, will have to take them by force or retire empty-handed. In this country they will simply have to trust their persons in the hands of the savages." The facts being that the inhabitants were extremely fierce and warlike and irreconcilably hostile; that the river was a trap ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young |
