"Engrossing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have found the work engrossing, because the need of a book of the kind which makes it easy for the teacher to bring his pupils ahead more rapidly and intelligently by giving him an oversight of the entire teaching-material of the violin and under ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... of this kind many months were spent, for Foster was a painstaking worker. He finished all his paintings with minute care, having no capacity for off-hand or rapid sketching. During this period the engrossing nature of his work—of which he was extremely fond— tended to prevent his mind from dwelling too much on his condition of slavery, but it was chiefly the knowledge that Hester Sommers was under the same roof, ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... Albizzi. The foundations he prepared for future action were equally characteristic of the man, of Florence, and of the age. Commanding the enormous capital of the Medicean bank he contrived, at any sacrifice of temporary convenience, to lend money to the State for war expenses, engrossing in his own hands a large portion of the public debt of Florence. At the same time his agencies in various European capitals enabled him to keep his own wealth floating far beyond the reach of foes within the city. A few years of this system ended in so complete a confusion between Cosimo's trade ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... Except for engrossing duties, with time to think and brood, I should have been thrown into tortures with the possibilities. There was always the chance, too, that Zoe in the desperation of the moment might run away ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... distinctions with regard to wit in its relations to fancy and judgment. Addressed to "a friend in the country," it surveys in a rapid and engaging manner the productions of Isaac Bickerstaff and his followers which are engrossing the interest of London. In other words it is an early example of a popular eighteenth-century form, of which Goldsmith's more extended Inquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning is ...
— The Present State of Wit (1711) - In A Letter To A Friend In The Country • John Gay
... engrossing occupation of every one, especially of the only two creatures with whom he could converse, made Arthur more desolate than ever. He lay down under an ilex, and his heart ached with a sick longing ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with the Earl looking to that end. He was interested—much interested in Myles and in the coming jousting in which the young warrior was to prove himself, but he was interested in it by way of a relaxation from the other and more engrossing matter. So, though he made some passing and half preoccupied inquiry about the feast he was easily satisfied with the Earl's reasons for not holding it: which were that he had arranged a consultation for that morning in regard to ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... last, however, certain influence causes me to let it go in the revised and improved form here presented, and may it prove as valuable and engrossing to the general public as it has to 20,000 subscribers to ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... Sydney Campion was, at this juncture of his career, public affairs were, on the whole, less engrossing to him than usual; for a new element had entered into his private life, and bade fair to change many of ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... a very gentle hand he deprived her of this engrossing pastime. "I want you to attend to me for ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... mark for arquebus or pistol, and the weapons that had so lately hung over the hearth at Nid de Merle were now aimed again and again at the heads and corslets of Guisards, with something of the same exulting excitement as, only higher, more engrossing, and fiercer than, that with which the lads had taken aim at a wolf, or ridden after a fox. Scaling-ladders were planted and hurled down again; stones were cast from the battlements, crushing the enemy; and throughout ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to overcome present difficulties is predicted. To lock one, denotes successful enterprises and well chosen friends. A broken one, signifies failure and discordant surroundings. To be troubled to get through one, or open it, denotes your most engrossing labors will fail to be remunerative or satisfactory. To swing on one, foretells you will engage in idle ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... as justifying the impression, conveyed by his letter, that he knew but little of what was going on until his return in the earlier half of October. Actual absence at a distance, the larger part of the time, and engrossing cares in getting up expeditions and supplies for them while he was at home—particularly as, from the beginning, he had passed over the business of the Court entirely to his Deputy, Stoughton—it is not difficult to suppose, had prevented his mind being much, if at all, turned towards it. We ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... engrossing romance of the Soudan deals with the siege of Khartoum and the death of the hero, Gordon, and the Epilogue with the retribution which England exacted from the Arab hordes. Between the two is placed a dramatic story of love ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... which death, getting the upper hand, carries its victim away. The Chaldaeans had not such clear ideas as to what awaited them in the other world as the Egyptians possessed: whilst the tomb, the mummy, the perpetuity of the funeral revenues, and the safety of the double, were the engrossing subjects in Egypt, the Chaldaean texts are almost entirely silent as to the condition of the soul, and the living seem to have had no further concern about the dead than to get rid of them as quickly and as completely as possible. They did not believe ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... true to his resolution, and said not another word. Talbot was as silent as he. Each had thoughts which were all-engrossing. Neither spoke, but each knew perfectly well that the other was wide awake, and ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... and with the completest self-abnegation that is consistent with healthy individuality, be the true form of religion, Mr. Mill exhibited such genuine and profound religion—so permeating his whole life, and so engrossing his every action—as can hardly be looked for in any other man of this generation. Great as were his intellectual qualities, they were dwarfed by his moral excellences. He did not, it is true, aim at any fanciful ...
— John Stuart Mill; His Life and Works • Herbert Spencer, Henry Fawcett, Frederic Harrison and Other
... or misappreciation of values the proceed! Verily we need a new Political Economy written, deeper than that of Malthus or Smith, to inform them. Our precious time, our cordial regards, the diversion of our mind from our regular duties, the neglect of already engrossing relations in our business or profession, the surrender of body and soul, they require for the prey of idlers and strangers! Had our correspondents drawn upon us for a sum of money, had a highwayman bid us stand and deliver our purse, we should not have been so much out of pocket. But we cannot ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... of modern French composers, and an acute critic and skilful conductor as well, was born, Dec. 11, 1803, at La Cote St. Andre, in France. His father was a physician, and intended him for the same profession. He reluctantly went to Paris and began the study of medicine; but music became his engrossing passion, and medicine was abandoned. He entered the Conservatory as a pupil of Lesueur, and soon showed himself superior to all his masters, except Cherubini,—which aroused a strong opposition to him and his compositions. ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... same with alcohol.... The true place of alcohol is clear; it is an agreeable temporary shroud. The savage, with the mansions of his soul unfurnished, buries his restless energy under its shadow. The civilised man, overburdened with mental labour, or with engrossing care, seeks the same shade; but it is shade, after all, in which in exact proportion as he seeks it, the seeker retires from perfect natural life. To search for force in alcohol is, to my mind, equivalent to the act of seeking for the sun in subterranean gloom until all is night.... In respect ...
— Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade
... made the whole difference. But so engrossing had Dave found the contemplation of Michael Ragstroar and his yellow jug, so exciting particularly was its disappearance into the swing-door of the Wheatsheaf, that he forgot even the new mud that the men had spaded up with their spades. ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... or lovely nature, in the perils of the forest, or its overwhelming peacefulness, still there had been two phantoms, the companions of his way. Like all other men around whom an engrossing purpose wreathes itself, he was insulated from the mass of human kind. He had no aim,—no pleasure,—no sympathies,—but what were ultimately ...
— The Prophetic Pictures (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the pestilence, and the avenging of the death of Laius, are all secondary and subordinate considerations to the loves of Theseus and Dirce, as flat and uninteresting a pair as ever spoke platitudes in French hexameters. So much is this the engrossing subject of the drama, that OEdipus, at the very moment when Tiresias is supposed to be engaged in raising the ghost of Laius, occupies himself in a long scene of scolding about love and duty with Dirce; and it is not till he is almost bullied by her off the stage, that he suddenly ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... was yet decided to penetrate into the heart of a semi-independent State where, if anything happened, the Anglo-Indian officials would not—if even they could—protect me, since I should have crossed over without their permission. But I never even gave that a thought, but was bent upon one engrossing idea—to find and see my Guru. Without breathing a word of my intentions to any one, one morning, namely, October 5, I set out in search of the Mahatma. I had an umbrella and a pilgrim's staff for sole weapons, with a few rupees in my purse. I wore the yellow garb and cap. Whenever I was ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... enjoy the peaceful country life which he had planned for himself, and in making these arrangements he took care to find his son abundant and varied employment. But all his well-meant efforts were in vain. Luis could not detach his thoughts from one all-engrossing subject; and at last, although Count Villabuena had expressly forbidden any correspondence between his daughter and young Herrera, the latter, after some weeks' absence, unable to resist any longer ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... sadly at the impulsive Irishman's remark. He could see that he had moved every fibre of his feeling heart and warm nature and that he was following every incident of his terrible story of atrocities and sufferings with an all-engrossing interest. ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... of Europe, she must, till she acquired strength enough to assert her own right, acknowledge some one. As well, perhaps, Britain as another; and it might have been as well to have been under the states of Holland as any. The same hopes of engrossing and profiting by her trade, by not oppressing it too much, would have operated alike with any master, and produced to the colonies the same effects. The clamor of protection, likewise, was all a farce; because, in order to make that ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... A brilliant and engrossing story of love and adventure and Russian political intrigue. A revolution, the recall of an exiled king, the defence of his dominion against Turkish aggression, furnish a series of exciting pictures ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... festbestimmten grundsatze der Regierung,' etc., etc., etc. You can imagine the rest. Dear me! I wish I could get back to the sixteenth and seventeenth century. . . . But alas! the events of the nineteenth are too engrossing. ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... according to their portions, of gods, Gandharvas, and Rakshasas, the hearer becoming acquainted with the creation, preservation, and destruction of the universe and acquiring wisdom, is never cast down even under the most engrossing sorrows.'" ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... made them instantly acquainted. Emily, although confiding in the fullest manner in the truth and worth of her lover, had felt an inexplicable sensation of pleasure, as she heard the earl speak of his sister by the name of Marian; love is such an unquiet, and generally such an engrossing passion, that few avoid unnecessary uneasiness while under its influence, unless so situated as to enjoy ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... experiences, close and full, as his mother liked them in regard to fact, and generously philosophized on the side of politics and religion for Whitwell. The Eastern question became in the snow-choked hills of New England the engrossing concern of this speculative mind, and he was apt to spring it upon Mrs. Durgin and Cynthia at mealtimes and other defenceless moments. He tried to debate it with Jombateeste, who conceived of it as a form of spiritualistic ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... price list is not of engrossing interest, but the tables of Diocletian furnish us a picture of material conditions throughout the Empire in his time which cannot be had from any other source, and for that reason deserve some attention. This consideration emboldens ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... had not been so engrossing as Stephen's. They had met Miss Bradley, to be sure; and Mr. Bradley was a well-to-do man with two sons and one daughter who had been named Cleanthe, after the heroine of a story Mrs. Bradley had read in her girlhood. Mr. Bradley had wanted his daughter called Priscilla, ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... that you are designing him a tedious dark Compliment; And accordingly he will either regard you with Hatred or Contempt;—Much less should a Person, who introduces himself as a Subject of Raillery, insist long upon it; For either he will be offensive in engrossing all Attention to himself; or if the Company are pleas'd, it ...
— An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) • Corbyn Morris
... with, thank Heaven!" The speaker was a charming woman from Boston, whose society he had found engrossing during the voyage—a woman of the polite ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... and was sent away with thanks. Then I began to dress myself with very trembling hands. This was new work to me, this horrible deception. But all remorse for that, was swallowed up in the one engrossing thought and desire which had usurped my soul for ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... the native tongue as quickly as possible, and being able to give their whole time and attention to it, this is easily accomplished. It is of importance that they should do so, otherwise they could not carry on the duties of the mission; but by thus engrossing the knowledge, they obtain great influence over the minds of the natives. We ourselves were sadly puzzled by a correspondence we had with two native chiefs, who had been taught to read and write by some of the Society; but their acquirements being in their native language, were ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... of being well settled in the world is both natural and laudable; but then great care ought to be taken to moderate this passion, in order to prevent it from engrossing the mind too much; for it is the nature of ambition, not only to stop at nothing that tends to its gratification, but also to be ever craving new acquisitions, ever unsatisfied with the former.—One favourite point is no sooner gained, than another appears in view, and is pursued ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... I worked on with all the strength and energy I could command. I knew that in time I could raise the cairn as high as required, but time had now become the all-engrossing subject of my thoughts. ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... he said. 'You gentlemen mustn't think that I haven't been following your most engrossing conversation. I guess I haven't missed a syllable. I find that a game of Patience stimulates the digestion after meals and conduces to quiet reflection. John S. Blenkiron is with you ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... Lahiri Mahasaya through Abinash Babu, {FN1-8} an employee in the Gorakhpur office of the Bengal-Nagpur Railway. Abinash instructed my young ears with engrossing tales of many Indian saints. He invariably concluded with a tribute to the superior ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... The books were engrossing, and it was later than usual when she came down stairs to get tea, but Mrs. Derrick was out. That wasn't very strange. Faith went through the little routine of preparation,—then she took another book and sat down by the sweet summer air of the open ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... classes, and the lower taking pattern from the higher, the whole mass was learned. In England, the very reverse of this takes place. Here, for the most part, those alone frequent our towns, whose doom it is to labour for their bread, they have no leisure from the engrossing pursuits of wealth; business, like a jealous mistress, leaves them no time for other objects. In spite of various disadvantages of soil and climate, the taste for rural pursuits seems part and parcel of our nature, and that species of the genus homo, the country gentleman, seems peculiar to our ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... carefulness of the man's attire, but gained no clue as to his calling. To avoid stupid staring he turned to watch a game of faro. Its fascinations were rapidly engrossing his attentions and luring him onward toward a reckless desire to tempt the goddess of chance, when he presently beheld McCoppet turn away from his man and ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... remained as chaplain and as tutor, and, until Gaspard should be old enough to profit by his instructions, Cecile and I entreated him to accept us as pupils. I had begun to feel the need of some hard and engrossing work to take off my thoughts alike from my great sorrow and my pressing anxieties about my English home, so that I wished to return to my Latin studies again, and the Abbe helped me to read Cicero de Officiis again, and likewise some of the writings of St. Gregory the Great. He also ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Warricombes intimacy was soon established. Sidwell saw much of her, and liked her. To this meditative English girl the young American offered an engrossing problem, for she avowed her indifference to all religious dogmas, yet was singularly tolerant and displayed a moral fervour which Sidwell had believed inseparable from Christian faith. At the Gales' house assembled a great variety of intellectual people, and with her father's ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... alteration in her dress, and went down, perfectly calm, and outwardly at ease, to a tete-a-tete dinner with her son. When they were left alone at the table she suddenly changed the subject from the commonplace to the engrossing theme occupying both their minds, and, leaning towards him, ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... perfect recollection of the feelings with which I leaped out of the boat, and first set foot on the continent of Africa, but am prevented from describing these poetical emotions by the remembrance, equally distinct, of the more engrossing anxiety which both my companion and myself experienced about our linen, then on its way to the laundress in two goodly bundles. For the life of me, I cannot separate the grand ideas suitable to the occasion, ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... to the British envoy's reading of his orders, and the matter terminated in a fruitless exchange of argumentation.[200] In April, 1808, Rose quitted the country, and redress for the "Chesapeake" injury remained in abeyance for three years longer. Interest in it had waned under more engrossing events which had already taken place, and it was relegated by both Governments to the background of diplomacy. Admiral Berkeley had been recalled, as a mark of his Majesty's disapproval. He arrived in England in the beginning of 1808, some ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... of life. Even if we insist that the interests connected with getting a living are only material and hence intrinsically lower than those connected with enjoyment of time released from labor, and even if it were admitted that there is something engrossing and insubordinate in material interests which leads them to strive to usurp the place belonging to the higher ideal interests, this would not—barring the fact of socially divided classes—lead to neglect of ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... is clear; it is an agreeable temporary shroud. The savage, with the mansions of his soul unfurnished, buries his restless energy under its shadow. The civilized man overburdened with mental labor, or with engrossing care, seeks the same shade; but it is shade, after all, in which, in exact proportion as he seeks it, the seeker retires from perfect natural life. To search for force in alcohol is, to my mind, equivalent to the act of seeking for the sun in subterranean ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... you to get me the inclosed list of books, which I find are culpably absent from my library. It is a very engrossing prospect, this child's mind: it is a blank parchment, ready for any writing, and apparently anxious ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... any Expence in Apparel or Learning. Her eldest Daughter to this day would have neither read nor writ, if it had not been for the Butler, who being the Son of a Country Attorney, has taught her such a Hand as is generally used for engrossing Bills in Chancery. By this time I have sufficiently tired your Patience with my domestick Grievances; which I hope you will agree could not well be contain'd in a narrower Compass, when you consider what a Paradox I undertook ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... of the war and the rise of Arminianism were almost contemporaneous. The Stadholder, who so unwillingly had seen the occupation in which he had won so much glory taken from him by the Truce, might perhaps find less congenial but sufficiently engrossing business as champion of the Church ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... scarcely now any trace of his tower, though time has not exerted so cruel a hand against his brother Johnny Armstrong's residence, which lies in the Hollows near Langholme. We know no tumult of the emotions of what may be called antiquarian sentiment, so engrossing and curious as that produced by the headless skeleton of "auld Gilnockie's Tower," as it is seen in the grey gloaming, with a breeze brattling through its dry ribs, and a stray owl sitting on the top, and sending his eldritch screigh through the deserted ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... either above natural reason, or seem something opposite to it, that can engage natural beholders, and far less the prosecution of a temporal worldly interest of the people of God, to the destruction of all opposite to it, at least to the diminishing of all other men's gain and advantage, the engrossing of all earthly privileges into the hands of saints. That is such a thing that never entered into the heart of the shining lights of the primitive times. O how doth the stream of their exhortations run cross to this notion! I am sure there is nothing in its ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... keep one's mind idle, you know; for, even when engaged in an abstract contemplation of the most engrossing theme, the fancy will stray off into by-paths that lead to strangely dissimilar ideas and very ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... unfavorable pressure, a bill to render women eligible to employment in the State House. Besides the large number engaged in manual labor, a woman is now postmaster of the House of Representatives, and many others are employed as stenographers, typewriters and engrossing clerks, the Governor himself having a ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... way to Tilbury I occupied myself with the hackneyed but engrossing pursuit of pondering over my affairs. Apart from my own private interest in the matter, which after all was a fairly poignant one, the mysterious adventure in which I was involved filled me with a profound curiosity. ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... a most engrossing conversation, for mother looked flushed and a little excited, as she always did when anything happened out of the common, and Miss Ruth had the amused ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... do? Set it down to his own deceiving fancy and go back to his handbook? Return to the wholesome realities of stalking and trailing which filled those engrossing pages? Poor Peter Piper felt that he had made a sort of bold excursion from Piper's Crossroads into the realm of miracles and that he had better not let that weird apparition over beyond the graveyard dupe and mock him. Perhaps he had ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... can do the most work and carry the most responsibility. On much the same principle as the Indians used when their young men were trained to endure pain self-inflicted, we might well devote a few minutes each day to the difficult task of changing at will our attention from the thing which is engrossing it to anything else we choose; or, what is more difficult still, to blank nothingness. When we have sufficiently strengthened this power, we can turn off the current of our thoughts as we turn off the ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk
... With the constant bandying of compliment, joke, and repartee, among the merry and self-satisfied lordlings who assumed the right of engrossing the conversation, course after course came and passed in rapid succession, till a sufficient variety of viands and other substantial esculents had been served to warrant the introduction of the lighter delicacies ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... a declining industry, other things are not less engrossing. The land must be tilled, and is tilled. Hay is the greatest crop, and the mere round of the seasons brings for a community used to agriculture a discipline and a course of labor, which make life regular ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson
... recovering Louisburg, had laid the scheme (the particulars of which shall be exhibited in their due place) for engrossing the whole empire of North America, and in a manner for extirpating the English interest there. Notice of this was, soon after the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, given to the English Government by their Governors in America, and proper instructions were dispatched to them to resist ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... Although he had the MS. with him at his residence in the Palazzo Altieri—a circumstance which gave rise to the belief at the time that it had disappeared during the French occupation of Rome—he could only bestow upon the arduous task the scanty leisure available from more engrossing duties. The work was therefore so imperfectly done that the cardinal himself was reluctant to publish it; and the learned and honest Barnabite under whose editorial auspices it appeared was obliged to append a formidable ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... the Popes of Rome, engrossing what they pleased of political rule into their own hands, extended their dominion over men's eyes, as they had before over their judgments, burning and prohibiting to be read what they fancied not; yet sparing in their censures, and the books not many which they so dealt with: till Martin V., by ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton
... in this mighty delight and joy engrossing they heard one of the servants of the Saint[FN526] smite the gong[FN527] upon the roof, to call the folk to the rites of their worship, and he was even ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... our manual labor is never engrossing or exhausting. It is no more than is necessary to keep the body in health. I do not see how you remain well here, you people ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells
... the first, the remark was made by Quintilian, that, in youth, we can most easily pass from one study to another. The reason of this, however, is, that youth does not take very seriously to any study. When a special study becomes engrossing, the alternatives must rather be recreative than acquisitive; not much progress being made in what is slighted, or left over to the exhaustion caused by attention to the favourite topic. A more precise answer can be made to the second and third queries, namely, as to ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... if this consultation and debate had gone on, it is impossible to say, as the farther consideration of the subject was all at once interrupted, by new occurrences which here suddenly intervened, and which, after engrossing for a time the whole attention of the company assembled, finally controlled the decision of the question. A crowd of peasants and shepherds were seen coming from the mountains, with much excitement, and loud shouts and outcries, bringing ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Monte Carlo to see what it was like, and went into the famous gambling saloon, and stood for a while looking at the faces of the players. I could not see anything very different from what I see now; the people who were engaged in that all-engrossing pursuit might have been in church, they were so quiet, so orderly, and so apparently passionless. Yet I felt—it may have been a preacher's prejudice—that the moral atmosphere of that place was one in which I did not want to remain; there was something bad ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... personal advantage, but with the deepest filial love and gratitude have we assembled this day. Of all professions and callings, from many States, from public business and from engrossing private pursuits,—you, my young friend who have just come, with hesitation and ingenuous fear, to add your name if you may, to the honored rolls of the college, and you Sir,[37] whose memory runs back to the beginning of the century, the oldest or nearly the oldest living alumnus ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... have no information as to the details of this case or the terms of settlement, but we do find that on February 1, 1867, the law firm of Townsend, Dyett & Morrison rendered a bill for $538.85 to B.L. Judson and William H. Comstock for "Supervising and engrossing two copies of agreement with George W. Comstock on settlement" and for representing the two parties named in several actions and ...
— History of the Comstock Patent Medicine Business and Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills • Robert B. Shaw
... well said that love is represented as a little Cupid shooting tiny arrows, whereas it should be presented as a giant shaking the world. The secrets of the heart are seldom revealed to others. Neither Napoleon nor Josephine were probably at all aware how intense and engrossing was the affection ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... the dearth of corn, arising in a great measure from the iniquitous practice of engrossing, was so severely felt by the common people, that insurrections were raised in Shropshire and Warwickshire by the populace, in conjunction with the colliers, who seized by violence all the provisions they could find; pillaging without distinction the millers, farmers, grocers, and butchers, until ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... belonging to various members of the royal family, presents a complete history of the Emperor's life. More than a hundred apartments, large and small, were obliterated to make room for the galleries of portraits—a most engrossing exhibition to students of French history. Carlyle said, "I have found that the Portrait was a small lighted candle by which the Biographies could for the first time be read, and some human interpretation be ...
— The Story of Versailles • Francis Loring Payne
... possible to gain some idea of how the great tides of war were felt throughout the whole land by imagining the stir and turmoil thus brought, in the summer of 1862, into this remote and peaceful quarter by the engrossing struggle. ...
— The County Regiment • Dudley Landon Vaill
... become ever more engrossing, as the Divine impulse is yielded to; so that what now occupies but a comparatively small portion of time and energy will become with us, as with the great Apostle, an exercise which we prosecute ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... despotic governments are the most favourable to the cultivation of the arts and sciences. There is, perhaps, a general truth in this, and the causes are not difficult of recognition. In a republican or constitutional government, politics are the all-engrossing topics of a people's thought, the never-ending theme of conversation;—in purely despotic states, such discussions are prohibited, and the contemplation of such subjects confined to a few restless or patriotic spirits. It must also be ever the policy of absolute monarchs ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... Palmerston and Cavendish. On the Tory side, young Gladstone, then still a student at Oxford, came into notice by his warm speech against the proposed reform. Parliament was reopened with another hot debate on the all-engrossing bill. It was passed to a second reading by a strong majority of 135 votes. Scarcely had this been accomplished when the government was embarrassed by William Cobbett's state trial for sedition. Throughout the ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... holdings by adding a few acres of land which had been a part of the demesne or of a vacated holding. The case of the man at Sutton, who took up three virgates and a cotland, has already been mentioned. Another case of "engrossing," as it was called, dated from 1347-1348 at Meon, where John Blackman paid fines for one messuage with ten acres of land, two other messuages with a virgate of land each, one parcel of four acres, and another holding ...
— The Enclosures in England - An Economic Reconstruction • Harriett Bradley
... Madame were ready to return to Paris, and it became necessary to arouse him. The transitory effects of the champagne had now sub sided; but when De Chaulieu recollected what had happened, nothing could exceed his shame and mortification. So engrossing indeed were these sensations that they quite overpowered his previous ones, and, in his present vexation, he, for the moment, forgot his fears. He knelt at his wife's feet, begged her pardon a thousand times, swore that he adored her, and ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... his letter by the side of these specimens, and blushed at the contrast; yet, after all, her own writing, though trembling and irresolute, was far from a bad or vulgar hand. But emulation was now fairly roused within her. Vaudemont, pre-occupied by more engrossing thoughts, and indeed, forgetting a danger which had seemed so thoroughly to have passed away, did not in his letter caution Fanny against going out alone. She remarked this; and having completely recovered her own alarm at the attempt that ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... day, much to Ethelberta's surprise, there was a letter for her in her mother's up-hill hand. She neglected all the rest of its contents for the following engrossing sentences:— ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... to Lexington in the summer of 1814, "in manners a Frenchman, but in medical doctrine and practice thoroughly English." The public was quick to detect that he had improved his time while away. "His profession had become the engrossing object of his thought, and he applied himself to it with undeviating fidelity. He made himself its slave." One who knew him well wrote of him: "He had no holidays. He sought no recreation; no sports interested ...
— Pioneer Surgery in Kentucky - A Sketch • David W. Yandell
... life she heard a young man declare with determination that he was in a hurry to leave her. Even a sensible young woman who is pretty must feel some sort of momentary pique because a young man can have engagements so summary and so engrossing. ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... so engrossing that all the thoughts of Tanglewood Park and the mystery concerning it had entirely escaped Dorothy's memory for the time being. But Roger had determined to know all about that "scream," and only yesterday he had had a long talk with ...
— Dorothy Dale's Queer Holidays • Margaret Penrose
... object of primal interest to the Jesuits, and above all to the Jesuits of France. A letter from Jogues, written during his captivity, had already reached France, as had also the Jesuit Relation of 1643, which contained a long account of his capture; and he had no doubt been an engrossing theme of conversation in every house of the French Jesuits. The Father Rector was putting on his vestments to say mass; but when he heard that a poor man from Canada had asked for him at the door, he postponed the service, and went ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... have no leisure now for attending to any thing but its own and our preservation; and the time seems not far distant when the cares of war and expenditure will come upon it once more with their all-engrossing importance. But when better times shall arrive (whoever may live to see them), it will be worthy the consideration of any government whether the institution of an Academy, with salaries for its members (in the nature of literary or lay benefices), might not ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... so busy with her tumultuous thoughts that she spoke only a word now and then, allowing Mrs. Cosgrove to talk at large on this engrossing theme. ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... justification for chairs, by way of instance, and certainly an excuse for raising beds above the floor. But the wounded angel, like the metal machine, is only a device whereby the searching examination of our author may be displayed in an engrossing and intimate form. And in The Wonderful Visit, that exuberance we postulated, that absorption in the development of idea, is more marked; in the unfolding of the story we can trace the ...
— H. G. Wells • J. D. Beresford
... satiric drama. This is a mixed and lower species of tragic poetry, as we have already in passing asserted. The want of some relaxation for the mind, after the engrossing severity of tragedy, appears to have given rise to the satiric drama, as indeed to the after-piece in general. The satiric drama never possessed an independent existence; it was thrown in by way of an appendage to several tragedies, and to judge from that we know of it, was always ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... with his tongue dipped in vinegar—objected that society may have demanded some of these laws in defiance of the engrossing patriarch; but Morosine shook his head. "Society is the patriarch's weapon. Society is a syndicate of patriarchs who cannot live unless all men are enslaved. Man is not by nature gregarious; he's solitary, like all the nobler beasts. Wolves and dogs hunt in herds, but not the great cats; ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... not see, was that the very force of her own affection was what alarmed Mary, and caused her reserve. To a mind used to balance and regulation, any sensation so mighty and engrossing appeared wrong; and repressed as her attachment had been, it was the more absorbing now that he was all that was left to her. Admiration, honour, gratitude, old childish affection, and caressing elder-sisterly protection, all flowed in one deep, strong current; but the very depth made her diffident. ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... those who have not free admissions to the play will very obligingly take up with an occasional order. It sometimes gives one a melancholy but mixed sensation to see one of the better sort of this class of politicians, not without talents or learning, absorbed for fifty years together in the all-engrossing topic of the day: mounting on it for exercise and recreation of his faculties, like the great horse at a riding-school, and after his short, improgressive, untired career, dismounting just where he got up; flying abroad in continual consternation ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... as these, longing to depart, yet determined to remain, he impatiently awaited Goisvintha's approach, until the rising of the storm with its mysterious and all-engrossing train of events forced his thoughts and actions into a new channel. When, however, his interviews with the stranger and the Gothic king were past, and he had returned as he had been bidden to his appointed ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... walked on, it may well be supposed that the strange occurrences of the last few hours were the engrossing theme ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... admitting that they would like to have married. Deep in their own hearts, however, almost all of them must feel the sadness of their unfulfilment, comfort themselves how they may with other interests. Those that have engrossing occupations should be thankful, for the woman whose whole heart is set on finding a husband and who fails to attain this object generally becomes fretful, bitter, disappointed and useless in every way. But women whose minds are sufficiently broad to hold other ideals than the matrimonial ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... the curtain unseen, like the ingenious manager of Punch and his wife Joan, and enjoying the astonishment and conjectures of my audience. Then might I, perchance, hear the productions of the obscure Peter Pattieson praised by the judicious and admired by the feeling, engrossing the young and attracting even the old; while the critic traced their fame up to some name of literary celebrity, and the question when, and by whom, these tales were written filled up the pause of conversation in a hundred circles and coteries. This I may never enjoy ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... art cannot be taught at all—it has always been an accepted American conviction that poetry is a thing which may be thrown off at any time as a side issue by highly organized persons, most of whose time and strength and faculties are engaged in a vigorous and engrossing hand-to-hand bout with the wolf on the threshold—a most practical, philistine wolf, moreover, which never heard of rhyme or rhythm, and whose whole acquaintance with prosody is confined to a certain greedy familiarity with frayed masculine and ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... sound made by the gorging, a distinct sound born of gluttony, not audible, but to be felt by my sensitive surfaces, a sort of emanation, not from the gorgers, but born from the engrossing intensity of the gorging act. I shall always remember it, a distinct 'ummmmmmm,' constant, and rising and falling at times to a trifle faster or ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... woman assumed an expression of indomitable resolution. She looked like one incapable of a weakness—like one who, mastered by an engrossing purpose, feels that all else is trivial, and to be as little regarded as the dust which the traveller shakes from ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... admiral, of negligently stranding Her Majesty's Ship "Iron Duke." Much interest naturally centred around this trial; the reporters from the local papers exerting themselves to the utmost for information on such an engrossing topic. On the third day the sentence of the court was announced:—the captain and Mr. Clarke to be reprimanded, and the staff-commander to be ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... gave still more astonishing evidence of his precocious scientific capacities. His father, perceiving his strong scientific bent, and desirous that he should first of all acquaint himself with languages before the absorption of the severer, but more engrossing, study seized him, had withdrawn from his sight all mathematical books, and carefully avoided the subject in the presence of his son when his friends were present. This, as might be expected, only quickened the curiosity of the boy, who frequently ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... patience, trying to attract his absorbed attention from its engrossing speculation; till he grew irritable, and got up, asking why I would not allow him to have his own time in taking his meals? and saying that on the next occasion I needn't wait: I might set the things down and go. Having uttered these words he left the house, slowly sauntered down the garden path, ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... where I practise. When I first visited him, I found him a poor emaciated creature, sick of the world, dying of ennui, thirsting after morbid excitements, yet shuddering at the recollection of what he had witnessed. I saw at once that he was a victim of some engrossing master passion, that had fed upon the natural feelings and sentiments, till his whole soul was under the power and operation of the presiding demon; and got him to give me an account of the manner in which he ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... warriors, while side combatants of various ages fought their mimic battles, blending the whole in a scene of wild excitement and confusion. Grey Eagle was an expert archer, but he had found his equal; hence the conflict was so long, and had, from its even tenor, become so engrossing. One instant's hesitation would probably decide the contest with critics so quick to perceive with both eye and ear the least deviation from their standard customs. After passing successively through the exercise ...
— Birch Bark Legends of Niagara • Owahyah
... did not quite come up to the mark required by some. The objection does not seem to have been against his talents or learning, but, rather, that he did not take hold with sufficient vehemence, or handle with sufficient zeal and warmth, points then engrossing attention. One or two expressions in the papers which proceeded from his opponents seem to hint that he had not the degree of strictness or severity in his aspect or ways thought necessary in a minister. Papers ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... two girls had fallen into the habit of doing their chores together and telling each other secrets. Birdie's had mostly to do with boys, and it was not long before Nance felt called upon to make a few tentative observations on the same engrossing subject. ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... the heathen or compelling him to come in? The wife and children could neither be taken nor left alone. In fact, the missionaries found to their great surprise, as all experienced men have found, that the care of a family is a never-ceasing, all-engrossing responsibility. The outside work could be very small indeed; all had to centre in that one spot, home. They cultivated small gardens, and in this way eked out their subsistence on the small salaries received from the ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... able to send him a fresh sum. The money he brought home would not have made him a rich man in America, but it would go a long way in the dale, and the soil and flocks at Ashness could be improved by modern methods and carefully spent capital. Kit had begun at once and found his task engrossing, but when the day's work was over he felt a gentle melancholy and a sense of loneliness. Adam and Peter had gone and he had loved them both; he knew he would not meet their like again. Yet he had not lost them altogether. They had, so to speak, blazed the trail for him, and he must try ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... no answer and she stole another quick look at him. This mastery of a fellow creature was by far the most engrossing pastime life had offered her. There was something about him, a suggestion of depths hidden and shut away from her that filled her with the venturesome curiosity of Fatima opening the ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... done, I was still at a loss to see how I could recross the Loire in face of the Vicomte de Turenne's enmity. I might have troubled myself much more with speculating upon this point had I not found—in close connection with it—other and more engrossing food for thought in the capricious behaviour ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... the point of disappearance to-day. Things that yesterday seemed remote and vague, to-day filled their horizon, for some of them dark enough. Determined to ignore that gaunt Spectre standing there, in the shadow silent and grim, they would begin to talk on themes good yesterday for an hour's engrossing conversation, but before they were aware they had forgotten the subject of their talk and found themselves sitting together dumb and looking out upon the gleam of the waters, thinking, thinking and ever thinking, while nearer and ever more terrible moved the Spectre ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... the city was in a blaze of excitement. All the burning questions of the hour—the rapid mobilization of the army and the prospect of a speedy advance on Cuba—were forgotten in the one engrossing topic of young Mrs. Jeffrey's death and the awful circumstances surrounding it. Nothing else was in any one's mouth and but little else in any one's heart. Her youth, her prominence, her union with a man of such marked ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... engrossing volume was a large folio from her husband's own hand, in which he had recorded every experiment of his scientific career, with its original aim, the methods adopted for its development, and its final success or failure, with the circumstances to which ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... (for she was a widow acknowledging five-and-twenty) ordered the grinning shop-boy, who was chopping the 'lump,' to take home them 'ere dips to a customer who lived at some distance. Wiggins, not aware of the 'ruse,' felt pleased with the absence of one who was certainly 'de trop' in the engrossing 'tete-a-tete.' We will pass over this preliminary conversation; for a whole week the same scene was renewed, and at last Mrs. Warner and Mr. Wiggins used to ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... gardener and naturalist, and he brought home some new varieties of shrubs and flowers, out of which he makes a fair amount of money. His principal craze, however, as I understand it, was to add to his knowledge on the engrossing subject of Beetles. He has written some papers on them since his return, and they tell me he has made his mark, and will soon be considered a leading authority. I must say, however, that the whole thing seems to me of supreme unimportance. What on earth can it matter whether there are ten varieties ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... without thinking—how it would end; and as for her father, he, good easy man, had done thinking about it altogether: not that his affection for her was in any wise abated, but his mind was taken up with something else more engrossing, and, as perhaps he thought, more important, than watching the actions of two ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... have a Notice on another subject, which is at present engrossing the speculations of all Europe, namely, the gold-country on the Yenissei. Krasnoyayk, the capital, stands in a plain in the centre of the district, where the mania of gold-washing broke out about fifteen years ago. Some individuals have been singularly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... reluctance of will? If some course has all at once struck us as wrong which we had been long accustomed to do without hesitation, has there been no 'murmuring' before we yielded? A voice has said to us, 'Give up such and such a habit,' or 'such and such a pursuit is becoming too engrossing': do we not all know what it is not only to feel obedience an effort, but even to cherish reluctance, and to ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... America into the arena of world-politics, the introduction of American influence into Oriental affairs, and the establishment of American authority in the Philippine archipelago, all render the history of those islands and their, numerous peoples a topic of engrossing interest and importance to the reading public, and especially to scholars, historians, and statesmen. The present work—its material carefully selected and arranged from a vast mass of printed works and unpublished manuscripts—is offered to the public with the intention ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... dangerous aspect of the doctrine. It prescribes a course of systematic ungodliness, a practical disregard of the future, and an engrossing attention to things seen and temporal, as if these were virtues in which mankind are greatly deficient, and as if their general prevalence would be a prelude to a secular millennium, or the commencement of an atheistic paradise. But the purely negative part of the ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... historians of the decline and fall of the Roman empire, have concurred in ascribing to these two causes—viz. the decay of agriculture and ruin of the agricultural population in Italy, and consequent engrossing of estates in the hands of the rich—the ruin of its mighty dominion. But it is not generally known how wide-spread had been the desolation thus produced; how deep and incurable the wounds inflicted on the vitals of the state—by the simple consequences of its extension, which enabled ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... else troubled me little. I fell victim to an engrossing selfishness. The quarrels and woes of my kindred went unnoticed, except when they served for a moment's amusement. To the fortunes of those with whom I had lately been so much concerned, of Wetter and of Coralie, I was almost indifferent. Varvilliers wrote to me, and I answered in ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... education had made him a coldly calculating man, jealous of his honor, but immersed in schemes for his own aggrandizement, and superbly invulnerable to the blandishments of sentimentality; hence his amazement, when the deep and engrossing love of his life burned away that selfishness which was citadel of his affections. Because his infatuation had cost him so much, that was alluring alike to vanity, pride, and ambition, a fierce hunger for revenge ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... the hum of voices told that each was doing her best to outdo her neighbor. Near the center of the room a group of girls stood talking. It was evident that the theme of their conversation was not engrossing, for twice their leader, Betty Chase, had replied at random while her eyes roved toward the door, and Valerie Dare remarked that her chum had been reading such a romantic story, that she was eagerly looking for a knight ...
— Dorothy Dainty at Glenmore • Amy Brooks
... but a few minutes at this engrossing occupation when from the door of a nearby burrow popped suddenly a small brown owl. The bird appeared with a haste which seemed to ruffle its dignity considerably. It was followed at once by its mate. The two blinked in the strong light, and turned ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... when every problem of business is so engrossing, demanding a man's full time and thought. It is the rare man who can devote himself to business and be fresh for the service of others afterward. No man can, with efficiency, serve two masters so exacting as are these. ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... their attention, therefore, he shouted, and at the top of his voice; but to no purpose. The deafening roar of the cataract hindered him from being heard; and partly, perhaps, the engrossing occupation in which the ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... hypnotized; glued to (the TV, the window, a book); breathless; preoccupied &c (inattentive) 458; watchful &c (careful) 459; breathless, undistracted, upon the stretch; on the watch &c (expectant) 507. steadfast. [compelling attention] interesting, engrossing, mesmerizing, riveting. Int. see!, look, look here, look you, look to it!, mark!, lo!, behold!, soho!^, hark, hark ye!, mind!, halloo!, observe!, lo and behold!, attention!, nota bene [Lat.], N.B., note well; I'd have you to know; notice!, O yes!, Oyez!, dekko!^, ecco!^, yoho!, Phr. this is to give ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... point Kate entertained convictions that she did not express. She was only glad that Belle's curiosity, usually robust enough concerning ranch happenings, was now under more engrossing pressure. ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... passionate love his heart can hold, will venture to say that he could have done without the love of a brother? Who will say that he could have done without the love of the dog whose bones have lain mouldering in his garden for twenty years? It is enough to say that there was a more engrossing, a more marvellous love ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... acts. The victim begins to shrink spiritually; he develops a fancy for parlours with a regulated temperature, and takes his morality on the principle of tin shoes and tepid milk. The care of one important body or soul becomes so engrossing, that all the noises of the outer world begin to come thin and faint into the parlour with the regulated temperature; and the tin shoes go equably forward over blood and rain. To be overwise is to ossify; ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... against him, he would not give way. With the true spirit of a Sadhak, he devoted himself to the realisation of the great dream of his life. And, for the next ten years, the one tap, jap and aradhana of his life—the one all-engrossing idea of his mind—was how to make the plant give testimony by means of its ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
... for a minute, then stole down the steps with an eagerness in every movement holding us spellbound. I have seen many splendid pageants and many sights, each of which might be the talk of a lifetime, but somehow nothing ever so engrossing, so thrilling, as that ghostly figure in flowing robes stealing across the piazza in starlight and silence—the princess of a broken kingdom, the priestess of a forgotten faith coming to her station to perform a jugglery of which she knew not even the meaning. It was my versatile friend ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... the practice become of deferring to the opinions of their leaders that it engendered an apathy among the people against considering political and public matters which were not altogether of engrossing importance. Public meetings would be poorly attended, and at elections not half the votes were recorded. "Let the elected heads see to it; they are paid for doing the controlling and thinking work"—that used to be the general feeling. ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... always held, and will continue to believe, that the presence of that "green-eyed monster," as the passion is euphuistically termed, is inseparable from all cases of real, thorough, heart-felt, engrossing love—still, jealousy is no excuse for ill-manners. "Noblesse oblige" always. There is no half-way medium; no middle ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... his working dress, and said everything that was civil and proper about the pleasure of unexpectedly seeing me again so soon. There was something rather preoccupied, I thought, in those brightly resolute eyes of his; but I naturally attributed it to the engrossing influence of his scientific inquiries. He was evidently not at all taken in by my story about coming to Barkingham to fish; but he saw, as well as I did, that it would do to keep up appearances, and contrived to look highly interested immediately in my parchment-book. ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... inexhaustible, and kept cropping up in the midst of others; but that of Mabella Hanem, her escape from bondage and from "conversion" to Islam, and what revenge Rechid was likely to take, was almost as engrossing. ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... the governing motive of commerce, all over the world, is the love of gain. It differs from the love of gain in its lower aspects, merely in its greater importance and its greater activity. These cause it to be more engrossing among merchants than among the tillers of the soil: still, facts prove that this state of things has many relieving shades. The man who is accustomed to deal in large sums is usually raised above the more sordid vices of covetousness and avarice in ...
— New York • James Fenimore Cooper
... public policy and of education. One of the noblest orations I have ever heard was an offhand speech of his on receiving for the university museum a cast of the Laocon from the senior class; yet this speech was made without preparation, and in the midst of engrossing labor. He often showed, not only the higher qualities required in a position like his, but a remarkable shrewdness and tact in dealing with lesser questions. Typical was one example, which taught me much when, in after years, I was called to similar duties at Cornell. The ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... He left the dinner-table early, and, on going upstairs to coffee, either affected not to know or did not remember George Colman's celebrity as a wit, and inquired of Mrs. Jones who that Mr. Colman was? Mr. Harris joined them at this moment, and apologised for his friend Colman engrossing so much of the conversation to himself, adding, that he was the spoiled child of society, and that even the Prince Regent listened with attention when George Colman talked. "Ay," said Curran, with a melancholy smile, "I now ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... between Phineas Finn and Mr. Bonteen had now become the talk of the town, and had taken many various phases. The political phase, though it was perhaps the best understood, was not the most engrossing. There was the personal phase,—which had reference to the direct altercation that had taken place between the two gentlemen, and to the correspondence between them which had followed, as to which phase it may be said ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... opium-consumer, when deprived of this stimulant, there is nothing that life can bestow, not a blessing that man can receive, which would not come to him unheeded, undesired, and be a curse to him. There is but one all-absorbing want, one engrossing desire—his whole being has but one tongue—that tongue syllables but one word—morphia. And oh! the vain, vain attempt to break this bondage, the labor worse than useless—a minnow struggling to break the ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day |
