"Inquisitiveness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... my mind for a moment: "Mr. Falkland is the murderer! He is guilty! I see it! I feel it! I am sure of it!" Thus was I hurried along by an uncontrollable destiny. The state of my passions in their progressive career, the inquisitiveness and impatience of my thoughts, appeared ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... away convinced that Mrs. Folliot's inquisitiveness had been aroused, and that her tongue would not be idle: Mrs. Folliot, left to herself, had the gift of creating an atmosphere, and if she once got it into her head that there was some mysterious connection between Dr. Ransford ...
— The Paradise Mystery • J. S. Fletcher
... has no longer a name, but although the ship we boarded at Port Melbourne docks was designated by the number A 14, it was not hard to discover that we were on a well-known ocean-liner, for on life-buoys and wheelhouse the paint was not so thick that inquisitiveness could not see the name that in pre-war days the Aberdeen line proudly advertised as one of their most comfortable passenger-carrying ships. That meant little to us, for her trimmings of comfort had been stripped off but for ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... so sorry," answered Miss Smith contritely. "But please believe me—it was not mere cheap inquisitiveness that made me look." ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... teacher with the same solemnity as in the old school days when he had to meet his teacher after some of his occasional mischiefs. With these and other agreeable memories relishing my time in that office, I heard a loud applause in the store and the words "Father is here," aroused my inquisitiveness and before I could leave my chair, there was at the door of the office standing the man whom I wanted to see. Sturdy and resolute with two slow steps he now extends a welcome hand to me and as he called me by my childish nickname ...
— Conversion of a High Priest into a Christian Worker • Meletios Golden
... inquisitiveness, madam, but I am in search of a friend, who, I was told, was sent here nearly three years ago, being at that time the unfortunate victim of ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... her usual child-like activity, and thoughtless yet not offensive inquisitiveness, she was rummaging the cupboard and the table-drawer of my little kitchen, she discovered first two French books, a volume of Schiller, a German grammar and dictionary, and then my drawing-materials and some sketches, including a pencil-head of a pretty little cherub-like girl, one ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... to the raptures all over again. The eager interest of the wife disturbed her. She doubted whether Frau Manske had any real sympathy with her plan. Her inquisitiveness was unquestionable; but Anna felt that opening her heart to the parson and opening it to his wife were two different things. Though he was wordy, he was certainly enthusiastic; his wife, on the other ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... on camping here for a time, and looking the country over. What's your business?" asked Garry, with the true Yankee inquisitiveness. ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle
... and hospitable welcome that awaited us near Aurillac, we found the peasant farmers exceedingly civil to strangers; and when once made to understand the motives of my inquisitiveness, they were quite ready to give me ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... Emma: "I do not intend to tell any one, either, until I hear whether or not she can come; therefore check your inquisitiveness, Master George, and wait patiently, for you will not know before the 7th, when I ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... the sensitiveness of a dreamer who is easily jarred. He had said to himself that the all-knowing one would only preach again about the evils of solitude and worry his head off in favour of some forlornly useless protege of his. Also the inquisitiveness of the Editor had irritated him and had closed ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... in the voice; it subdued Kitty's inquisitiveness. And no other woman had, till recently, accomplished this feat. Kitty was proud, but there was something in her companion that she recognized but ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... amused in these parts at our gallant fleet, and so early at sea; and I permit them all their conjectures, neither have they gained much allay of them from me by their inquisitiveness. ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... Saturday afternoons. And here I may say by the way, that miscellaneous collections of "curiosities," oddities, and relics are far more attractive to children, and stimulate in them far more interest and inquisitiveness and desire for general information, than do the best scientific collections, where everything is ranked and numbered, and wherein even an Etruscan tiara or a Viking's sword loses much of its charm when placed simply ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... of the opinion that the original inquisitiveness about the sexual secret is abnormally transformed into morbid over subtlety; and yet can still furnish an impulsive power for legitimate thirst ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... froze up somehow—tho I never s'picioned that weather would have any effect on the old sanup. P'rhaps you've been hearin' all about how it happened? Feller wouldn't stop long enough to explain to us." The man's gaze was full of inquisitiveness and the others crowded around ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... the room, saw distinctly three men sitting round the table. No sooner, however, had he done so than the parson came out and said if anyone looked through the keyhole again their plans would be frustrated. This put a stop to all further inquisitiveness, and their deliberations were not ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... another in silence. Not a word escaped them, the Chiefs viewing with each other in betraying no symptom of idle curiosity or impatience. At length a Chief turned his eyes slowly towards the old Sachem, and in a low voice, with great delicacy in excluding all inquisitiveness, addressed him: ...
— Birch Bark Legends of Niagara • Owahyah
... looked Kitty squarely in the eyes, and a new, softer look came into her own, subduing what to Kitty was the challenging alertness and selfish inquisitiveness. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... work in the garden tanned her bare arms, and gave strength and beauty to her figure, while her easy circumstances freed her from care. One day a new being showed in her eyes, and looked at Pelle with the inquisitiveness of a kid. "Shall we play?" it said. Was it he or the spring that set fire to her? No matter! The pleasure was his! The sunshine entered the innermost corners of his soul, the musty corners left by the darkness of his prison-cell, and cured him completely; her freedom from care ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... his clerk had learned not to ask questions. Diplomacy in such matters was partly what the clerk was paid for. A good fellow to work for was Bill Talpers if no one got too curiously inclined. One or two clerks had been disciplined on account of inquisitiveness, and they would not be as beautiful after the Talpers methods had been applied, but they had gained vastly in experience. Some day he would do even more for this young Indian agent. Bill's cracked lips were stretched in a grin of satisfaction at ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... took the letter, her reticent soul shrinking from the frank inquisitiveness. "I don't know anybody," she said honestly. "I never heard ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... invisible hedges and trees took dim, mysterious shape; the edge of the moon peeped with glorious inquisitiveness over the clouds. Calmly, royally the moon rose. So deliberately was she unveiled, that it seemed as if she were revealing her beauty to the world for the first time, like a proud, adored mistress unrobing ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... countenance of Prince Zaleski there grew little by little a singular fixed aspect. His small, keen features distorted themselves into an expression of what I can only describe as an abnormal inquisitiveness —an inquisitiveness most impatient, arrogant, in its intensity. His pupils, contracted each to a dot, became the central puncta of two rings of fiery light; his little sharp teeth seemed to gnash. Once before I had seen him look thus greedily, when, grasping a Troglodyte tablet covered with half-effaced ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... him, he did not venture to write to Ellen, for he could not disguise from himself the danger which the secrecy of his connection with her must incur by his communicating with her, even through a public office, where their letters might be permitted to lie longer than the gossiping inquisitiveness of a country town would warrant him ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... may become the most attractive and serious of the sciences; certainly it is rich in strange curiosities, like those mystic stones which were fingered and arrayed by the pupils in that allegory of Novalis. I am not likely to regret the accident which brought me up on fairy tales, and the inquisitiveness which led me to examine the other fragments of antiquity. But the poetry and the significance of them are apt to be hidden by the enormous crowd of details. Only late we find the true meaning of what ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... fingers quiver under his grasp, but the next moment he had turned away, and her companions noticed there was a faint pink tinge in her cheeks when she rejoined them. But being wise young women, they restrained their natural inquisitiveness, and ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... I had known you ten minutes," laughed Lucien, "and I am not afraid. Shall I tell you why? I have not deceived you, nor have I any intention of doing so. This Latour is too inquisitive, and inquisitiveness is always asking for a lie. Latour got it and is quite satisfied. Mademoiselle Pauline Vaison is a woman, a woman in love, and just because she is so, is suspicious. All women in love are. So I have not told her all my plans. To complete them it was necessary to get Mademoiselle ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... felt convinced that there was no chance for a situation on board. Captain Slowly was one of those mahogany-faced, moderate, slow-moving, slow-speaking, slow-eating people, that one occasionally meets with in New England, who are the very reverse of Yankee inquisitiveness, and never answer the most ordinary question, not even "What o'clock is it?" in less than half an hour; men who, in short, as they never ask any questions themselves, think it not worth their while to answer any. We have been several times horrified by such people, and our fingers ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... could be secluded from people coming and going, and a proprietor clever enough not to be inquisitive, with a genius for minding his own business. A man who has a genius for that thing always carries it in his face, just as his opposite—the busybody—carries the traces of his restless inquisitiveness in the ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... natural bent declared itself in "figures"; in the operations, as she discovered them, of commerce; in the mysterious powers, as they appealed to her, developed in countinghouses and exerted by countinghouses. The romance of commerce! A mind double-edged, with inquisitiveness the one edge and acquisitiveness the other (as certainly Rosalie's) is a sword double-edged that will cut through the tough shell and into the lively heart of anything. No more is required than to give the young mind a glimpse of the lively heart that is there. Rosalie's ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... and, spreading, exposed the utter impossibility of many of the fables in which theological views had been expressed. Wherefore, theological oracles have in every age and country been apt to confound scientific inquisitiveness with unbelief, and to denounce physical science especially as a delusion and a snare, and its cultivators as impostors none the less mischievous for being at the same time dupes. Of course, the latter have not been slow to return the compliment. Hearing the truths discovered ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... light gleamed upon the windows, and the door was timorously unbarred and opened. A hard-featured hag, in a faded suit of an obsolete fashion—the genius loci—received the party. She scrutinized Lucille with a protracted stare of audacious inquisitiveness, and when she had quite satisfied her curiosity, she led the way through several halls and lobbies up the great staircase, along a corridor, through a suite of rooms, upon another lobby up a second staircase, ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... that he publishes the book 'as a warning to all Christians and sensible people to avoid the terrible example of Doctor Faustus.' He evidently takes the thing very seriously and has purposely (as he says) omitted all 'magic formulae,' lest 'any should by this Historia be incited to inquisitiveness and imitation.' Johann Faust, according to this version, was born at Roda, a village near Weimar. (Other versions say at Knittlingen in Wuertemberg.) His parents were honest God-fearing peasants. His great abilities induced a rich relation in Wittenberg to adopt and educate him. He studied ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill
... artless inquisitiveness than fear, this lively little acrobat stops his hammering or hatcheting at your approach, and stretching himself out from the tree until it would seem he must fall off, he peers down at you, head downward, straight into your upturned opera-glasses. If there ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... curiosity in their nature, would then frequently approach, now stopping, now drawing nearer, till the hunter would suddenly lift his bow, drawing his arrow to let it fly at the nearest animal, which would in most instances suffer the penalty of its inquisitiveness. Still ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... who seemed in an admirable humor, stepped just outside the tent to look at the fish, and in that little interval his assistant, seized with inquisitiveness, stole up to his table, and picked up the tiny object lying ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... Henry and King Richard.' William of Newburgh, indeed, the best historian of these reigns, wrote in a small Yorkshire monastery, but Roger of Hoveden and Ralph de Diceto pursued their historical work under the influence of the court. Still more striking is the universality of the intellectual inquisitiveness of Walter Map. On the one hand, in his De Nugis Curialium he chattered over the manners of his contemporaries, and in his satirical poems scourged the greed and vices of the clergy, whilst on the other hand he ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... appearance, in the open front doors, of a strange creature with a bright pink ribbon arranged as a sort of cockade around and above its left ear—a brown, hairy, unclean-looking thing that gazed with human inquisitiveness at the approaching figures. As the elder Ranger drew down his eyebrows the creature gave a squeak of alarm and, dropping from a sitting position to all fours, wheeled and shambled swiftly along the wide hall, walking human fashion ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... thoughtful, with a certain keen inquisitiveness about the eyes. The mouth was firm; yet there were gentle lines of grace about it. In spite of her coarse, dark calico garb, made in no particular fashion except with an eye to covering with the least possible fuss and trouble, she was graceful. Every movement was alert ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... interest, and impress upon us an anxiety of which we feel it difficult to rid ourselves. Accordingly, in ages when men were more prone to superstition, than at present, they sometimes constituted a subject of earnest anxiety and inquisitiveness; and we find among the earliest exercises of the art of prediction, the interpretation of dreams to have occupied a principal place, and to have been as it were ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... a whit dismayed by the rebuke and the air of rather contemptuous disdain with which it was uttered. He waved his revolver toward Mary, merely as a gesture of inquisitiveness, ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... a bandana handkerchief or two, a few yards of gaudily printed calico, a few yards of copper wire, and a handful of mixed beads to each of the women; and from the grins of appreciation of the recipients I concluded that they were all well satisfied. Then, with the inquisitiveness of the lower type of savage, they began to question me, not in a straightforward fashion, but covertly and by roundabout processes, with the view of discovering my motive for journeying so far from my own people; whereupon I told ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... at him in silence; the French soldiers had spent twelve years in the ceaseless exertions of an amused inquisitiveness to discover the antecedents of their volunteer; the Arabs, with their loftier instincts of courtesy, had never hinted to him a question of whence or why he had come upon ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... the conquest of the air. Yet there were observers of nature who argued that since birds could raise themselves by flapping their wings, man had only to make suitable wings, flap them, and he too would fly. As early as the thirteenth century Roger Bacon, the scientific friar of unbounded inquisitiveness and not a little real genius, announced that there could be made 'some flying instrument, so that a man sitting in the middle and turning some mechanism may put in motion some artificial wings which may beat the air like ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... that an outward manifestation of surprise is considered a want of etiquette and good-breeding, or rather a proof of weakness and childishness. The women, like other females, are certainly less disposed to repress this feeling of inquisitiveness than the men; and one of their great sources of amusement, when Catharine was among them, was examining the difference of texture and colour of her skin and hair, and holding long consultations over them. The young girl and her mother, who had paddled the canoe the day she ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... another million in New York." The chief was smiling and did not seem to resent this inquisitiveness in ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... The approach of the soldiers did not appear to cause these lively creatures any appreciable fear, for they often remained seated directly over their heads and regarded the unaccustomed military display with as much inquisitiveness as they evidently did with delight. Parrots in gay plumage filled the air with shrill cries, while here and there herds of antelopes were visible, who, however, always dashed away in rapid flight, in which their strange manner of springing from all fours ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... saved his life by doing so; yet quickwitted as he is, this obvious device never seems to have occurred to Reynard. Among slightly teachable mammals, however, there is one group more teachable than the rest. Monkeys, with their greater power of handling things, have also more inquisitiveness and more capacity for sustained attention than any other mammals; and the higher apes are fertile in varied resources. The orang-outang and gorilla are for this reason dreaded by other animals, and roam the undisputed lords of their native forests. They ...
— The Meaning of Infancy • John Fiske
... to say. Nor could Don. The fellow added, "Bermuda is like a little ship. I understand your inquisitiveness—one must know everyone else. ...
— The White Invaders • Raymond King Cummings
... they lay in the sleepy quiet of June, Jolly Roger answered the questioning inquisitiveness in Peter's face ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... leg of the journey would be the same for all of us we bought other kit, packed it, and booked passages for British East Africa. Between then and the next afternoon when the British India steamboat sailed we were fairly bombarded by inquisitiveness, but contrived not to tell much. And with patience beyond belief Monty restrained us from paying court ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... questions had elicited no satisfaction from her brother, and Evadne had answered simply, "Louis took a fancy to put it on my finger: I am wearing it to please him, that is all:" and even Isabelle found her cousin's sweet dignity an effectual bar against her morbid inquisitiveness. ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... himself informed me that he was employed in smuggling; had a partner-accomplice in the Customs House, and perfect arrangements aboard a certain ship. By these last double advantages, he came aboard with twenty trunks, if he so pleased, without risking anything from the inquisitiveness or loquacity of the officers of the ship; and later debarked at New York with the certainty of going scatheless through the customs as rapidly as his Inspector partner could chalk scrawlingly "O.K." upon ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various
... profound and prosy remarks which I shall make in my efforts to initiate you into the mining polity of this place. Now, you may rest assured that I shall assert nothing upon the subject which is not perfectly correct; for have I not earned a character for inquisitiveness (and you know that does not happen to be one of my failings) which I fear will cling to me through life, by my persevering questions to all the unhappy miners from whom I thought I could gain any information? Did I not martyrize myself into a human mule by descending ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... his eyes towards his judges, or towards the spectators, without betraying any emotion. Once he rose; turned his back upon the court to see what was passing behind him, and again sat down with an expression at once of inquisitiveness and indifference in his manner. Upon hearing the words: "Charles Stuart, a tyrant, traitor, and murderer," he laughed, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 277, October 13, 1827 • Various
... prayer in a magical way, and comes drawn in a magic boat; and she has a perfect right to assume that he would not have fought for her if he had not known by his arts that she was innocent. It was just over this denouement, this forsaking of Elsa because of her inquisitiveness, that many of Wagner's friends boggled; and nothing that he then or afterwards wrote in defence of it seems to me worth a moment's serious consideration. Mr. Ernest Newman suggests that perhaps Wagner was using the savage's notion that in giving up your name you are placing yourself ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... taste and artistic skill. Towards the streets the houses showed little besides bare plain walls, for the old Romans did not like the private sanctity of their homes to be disturbed at all by the noise of the streets and the inquisitiveness of people on the public roads. So it is still, if not in Italy and Greece, at any rate over all the Asiatic East. Pomp and state were only displayed in the interior. There were seen statues and busts, flourishing flower-beds under open colonnades, and in the midst of the principal apartment, ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... the rest remaining about fifty yards off. Twenty of the savages now got on board, and proceeded to ramble over every part of the deck, and scramble about among the rigging, making themselves much at home, and examining every article with great inquisitiveness. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... terrible time of it, Mr. McGaw," stated Mayo, avoiding the mate's inquisitiveness. "I am going to take these folks on board and ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... could find Curley, or Haines, or even Patsy Marles, the clerk who worked in the liquor store—which might possibly still be open for another hour or so yet—it should not, after all, and without even any undue inquisitiveness on the part of Smarlinghue, prove very difficult to obtain the necessary information, for, if Curley had been in a deal involving fifteen thousand dollars, he was much more likely to be boastful than reticent about it. It resolved itself then after all, into simply ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... as he passed her, and Duplay escaped from the room with a rapidity and stillness suggestive of a desire not to be observed. When the men were gone Cecily sank into a chair and covered her face with her hands for a minute. She looked up to find Mina regarding her, still with mingled inquisitiveness and hostility. ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... also very sensitive to any such inquisitiveness on the part of the opposite sex. To this cause, perhaps, and possibly, also, to the fear of causing disgust, may be ascribed the objection of men to undress before women artists and women doctors. I am told there is often ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... most vapid and senseless order conceivable— always prevented the son from working. Likewise, the old man occasionally arrived there drunk. Gradually, however, the son was weaning his parent from his vicious ways and everlasting inquisitiveness, and teaching the old man to look upon him, his son, as an oracle, and never to speak ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... of Jones, as surprize for a moment did that of Partridge; but he soon recovered the use of speech, and after a short preface, in which he declared he had no inquisitiveness in his temper, enquired what Jones meant by a considerable sum—he knew not how much—and what was ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... the wharf, the curiosity and inquisitiveness of the New England people would naturally lead them into the midst of the poor Acadians. Prying busybodies thrust their heads into the circle wherever two or three of the exiles were conversing together. How puzzled did they look at the outlandish sound of the French ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the diving-suit in Grant's hand, stared at Grant's face with a sharp, penetrating, unashamed inquisitiveness that made Grant use all of his will-power to stare back. ...
— The Wealth of Echindul • Noel Miller Loomis
... field of scientific industry the colored man has, contrary to the belief of many, made his entry, and has brought to his work in it that same degree of patient inquisitiveness, plodding industry and painstaking experiment that has so richly rewarded others in the same line of endeavor, namely, the endeavor both to create new things and to effect such new combinations of old things as will adapt them to ...
— The Colored Inventor - A Record of Fifty Years • Henry E. Baker
... I knew inquisitiveness to be the Superintendent's besetting sin, and, up to a certain point, I had an interest in tempting ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... execute a work, whether it be "to build a tower," or drain a field, "sitteth down first and counteth the cost, whether he hath sufficient to finish it." There is good sense and discretion in the inquisitiveness which suggests so often the inquiry, "How much does it cost to drain an acre?" or, "How much does it cost a rod to lay drains?" These questions cannot be answered so briefly as they are asked; yet much ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... find with American women, if it can be so called, and that is their inquisitiveness; I know that this is a common fault with all women, but it is most conspicuous in the Americans. They have the knack of finding out things without your being aware of it, and if they should want to know your history they will learn all about it after a few minutes' conversation. ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... things?" I said, peering into the secret drawer with a child's inquisitiveness. "Have ...
— Monsieur Maurice • Amelia B. Edwards
... for the benefit of my health, I arrived at Savannah, in Georgia, on the 10th of February, 1834; and, indulging the common inquisitiveness of a stranger about the place, was informed that just one hundred and one years had elapsed since the first settlers were landed there, and the city laid out. Replies to other inquiries, and especially a perusal of McCall's ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... inquisitiveness now returned. There was NO servant—THAT was a settled point. I looked, therefore, for the extra baggage. After some delay, a cart arrived at the wharf, with an oblong pine box, which was every thing that seemed to be expected. ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... of tacks, a hammer borrowed from a neighbor, and an hour's cheerful work completed the fortification of the Englishman's house against the inquisitiveness of passers-by. But the landlord frowned anxiously as he went past ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... the bright-eyed young woman facing me, and not sorry to escape the Major's inquisitiveness, at once begged for the remainder of the waltz. The request was laughingly granted, and in another moment we were threading our way amid the numerous couples upon the floor. She proved so delightful a dancer that I simply yielded myself up to full enjoyment ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... first free nation to put a girdle of empire around the earth. It had courage, enterprise, intelligence, perseverance, faith in itself, the instinct of self-government and self-help, hatred of tyranny, the disposition to domineer, aggressiveness, greediness, inquisitiveness, insolence, the love of science, of liberty, and of money—all this in unlimited extent. It had one great defect, it had no country. Upon that meagre standing ground its hand had moved the world with an impulse to be felt ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... even when a higher social organization succeeded. The result is that to the frontier the American intellect owes its striking characteristics. That coarseness and strength combined with acuteness and inquisitiveness; that practical, inventive turn of mind, quick to find expedients; that masterful grasp of material things, lacking in the artistic but powerful to effect great ends; that restless, nervous energy;[37:1] that dominant individualism, working for good and for evil, ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... inquisitiveness a crime, when the very thing you ask me to do is nothing if not inquisitive. Really, if you'd just stop to think how a self-respecting man can possibly bring ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... in some measure to pay me out for this scrape, and to give me another lesson in the unwisdom of too much independence and inquisitiveness in a youngster, that my parents, soon after this sad event, allowed me to get into ...
— Bear Brownie - The Life of a Bear • H. P. Robinson
... prepared the way for the victory of this principle. Even the deformities and unfavorable side of scholasticism, the many absurd questions upon which the scholastics divided, even their thousandfold unnecessary and accidental distinctions, their inquisitiveness and subtleties, all sprang from a rational principle, and grew out of a spirit of investigation, which could only utter itself in this way under the all-powerful ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... Gines, "but I will make them give over calling me so, or I will be shaved, where, I only say behind my teeth. If you, sir, have anything to give us, give it to us at once, and God speed you, for you are becoming tiresome with all this inquisitiveness about the lives of others; if you want to know about mine, let me tell you I am Gines de Pasamonte, whose life is written by ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... mystery. Cleveland, in reply to his letter, had informed him that all inquiries respecting the birth and first marriage of Lady Vargrave had failed. Evelyn evidently knew but little of either, and he felt a certain delicacy in pressing questions which might be ascribed to the inquisitiveness of a vulgar family pride. Moreover, lovers have so much to say to each other, that he had not time to talk at length to Evelyn about third persons. He slept ill that night,—dark and boding dreams disturbed his slumber. He ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... suddenly remembered the maid, whose presence she had ignored. Pascherette stood apart, a small, fairylike French octoroon, dainty as a golden thistledown; her full red lips were parted in eager inquisitiveness, and her slim, small body leaned forward, as if to catch every word; but at sight of her Dolores burst into knowing merriment, for the girl's eyes told her story. They were fastened in intense, burning adoration, not on the mistress but on ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... you know him, of course!' and to prevent any further inquisitiveness on my part he began to tell me how the body had been found at early dawn by two 'honest and early-rising Columbian Guards,' lying in the mouth of an alley ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... the King of England. His recovery was slow; he passed through a stage of profound melancholy; but this has at length dissipated, and he is at present perfectly re-established. He talks now as much as ever, on the same trifling subjects, and has recovered even his habitual inquisitiveness into the small news of the families about him. His health is also good, though he is not as fleshy as he used to be. I have multiplied my letters to you lately, because the scene has been truly interesting; so much so, that had I received my permission to pay my projected visit ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... at once. She remembered likewise, to account for the black seal, that one of the Miss Harpers had died within the year. So, whether from the spice of malice in her composition she wished to disappoint the polite inquisitiveness of the Iansons, or whether from more generous reasons of her own, Miss Bowen left her letter unopened until the meal was done; when, carelessly taking it up, she adjourned to her ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... tribulation if Eden had been located in some calm and tranquil land—like Ireland. There would at least have been no snakes there to get into the garden. Now woman in her thirst after knowledge, showed her true female inquisitiveness in her cross-examination of the serpent, and, in commemoration of that circumstance the serpent seems to have been curled up and used in nearly all languages as a sign of interrogation. Soon the domestic troubles of our first ...
— Model Speeches for Practise • Grenville Kleiser
... head, he tried to find out whether David had any money with him; he wanted to be paid something on account. The old man's inquisitiveness roused his son's distrust; David remained close buttoned ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... of the impression he made. With an insatiable inquisitiveness and an omnivorous curiosity, he was looking for the secret of power in nations. Nothing escaped him—cutlery, rope-making, paper manufacture, whaling industry, surgery, microscopy; he was engaging artists, ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... her in an assured, not unkindly inquisitiveness, the girls fresh and bright-faced, with crisp lovely clothes; their mother, in a smart mantle and little bonnet with knots of French flowers, greeted her with a direct question tempered by a smile. William Ammidon, smoking, was unconcerned; ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... longer detour in the gardens than Lady Falconer would have cared to make had she not been interested in the man by her side, whose inquisitiveness was based upon friendship, and whose most persistent interrogations had been touched with a quiet and sober tact which contrasted pleasantly with Mr. Lawrence's dictatorial manner. That genial and rubicund person was now seen approaching with Sir John, and suggested ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... school in the little town of Orland, on a certain day in December some years ago, he was at a decided loss to understand what caused such an excitement among them before they had walked the short length of the playground. The deacon had a very large bump of inquisitiveness on his bald head, which, perhaps, accounted for his great desire to know why nearly all the boys and girls had stopped beside the tiny brook that scolded and fretted all the long summer days away, but which was now closely encased in ice, and why they were apparently holding a very animated ...
— A District Messenger Boy and a Necktie Party • James Otis
... the impression left on me by this singular style, with its mixture of gravity and affectation, of carelessness and precision, of strength and delicacy; so full of sly intention for all its coldness, expressing at once inquisitiveness and indifference, abrupt, piecemeal, like notes thrown together haphazard, and yet deliberate. I seem to see an intelligence naturally grave and austere donning a dress of wit for convention's sake. The author desires to entertain as much as to teach, the ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... The chirruping chafe of bamboo shoots were so many voices that hummed in harmony with the cries of birds and the chattering of monkeys. In among the tall, golden stems, short-statured brown ghosts moved, sarong clad; little people whose eyes gazed at the intruder with soft inquisitiveness as he strode sturdily forward. And a patch of gorgeous jungle was entered to the whisk and flirt of graceful heads and slim, swift legs, all the visible signs revealed ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... following morning Captain Brown was rewarded for his gallant lack of inquisitiveness regarding the sending and the receiving of telegrams by Lucy coming to him with her ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... [The desire of knowledge.] Curiosity. — N. interest, thirst for knowledge, thirst for truth; curiosity, curiousness; inquiring mind; inquisitiveness. omnivorous intellect, devouring mind. [person who desires knowledge] inquirer; sightseer; quidnunc[Lat], newsmonger, Paul Pry, eavesdropper; gossip &c. (news) 532; rubberneck; intellectual; seeker[inquirer after religious knowledge], seeker after truth. V. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Thoughtless" (1751) she reached the full fruition of her powers as a novelist. Her heroine, like Natura, is little more than a "humour" character, whose prevailing fault is denoted by her surname.[4] Though not fundamentally vicious, her heedless vanity, inquisitiveness, and vivacity lead her into all sorts of follies and embarrassments upon her first entry into fashionable life in London. Among all the suitors who strive to make an impression upon her heart Mr. Trueworth ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... remained stiller than the crawling roots around him, and not half so easy to see. But it was no good. Up shot the dozen heads above the herbage, and two dozen vacuous eyes regarded his vicinity with empty-headed inquisitiveness. ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars |
