"Lap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to his lair she sang low, in the hope of being heard and rescued. It was well that she did so, for her brothers, who were hunting in the wood, recognized her voice and softly followed. Peering in at the cave where Tiger made his home, they saw him sleeping soundly with his head in Sarah's lap. Cautiously, slowly, she drew away, leaving a block of wood for his head to rest upon, and crept out of the cavern. Then the boys entered, and with their guns blew the head of the beast into bits, cut his body into four parts, buried them at the north, south, east and west edges of the wood; ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... sounds in plenty. The whistling call of some night bird, the distant lap, lap of water which he associated with the river curving through the long-deserted city, the rustle of grass as either the wind or some passing animal ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... so sweet—they remind me of my child's grave; the sea does not look the same—it reminds me of my boy!" and she rocked herself backwards and forwards for some time, while Valmai stroked with tender white fingers the hard, wrinkled hand which rested on her lap. "Well, indeed," said the old woman at last, "there's enough of my sorrows; let us get on to the happy time when your little life began, you and your twin sister. When you were washed and dressed and laid sleeping together in the same cradle, no one could tell which was which; but dir anwl! who ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... imperious-looking girl, was lolling in a hammock, directing the deliberations of Sattie Felton, aged seventeen, who was sitting on the floor holding a dog's head in her lap, and of Grace Sinclair, aged twenty, who was in possession of a stool and a box of chocolate creams. A very important matter was being discussed, and that was why everybody was talking at once, and how it came about that a young ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... fleet, white wings thy music made its way Back o'er the waves to Ireland's holy shore; Close nestled in her bosom, each wild lay Mixed with her sighs—'twas from her deep heart's core She called thee: "'Gille Machree'[7] come home, I pray— In my green lap of shamrocks sleep, asthore!" ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... go wandering by cliff or sea-shore, by rocky beds of running water, under dark-browed caverns, and on high crags; now on our cape, among the majestic rocks, I watch the swaying of the smooth deep-violet waters below, changing into indigo as they lap the rough clefts, or I loiter on the beach to see the fishers about their boats, weather-worn mariners, and youths in the fair strength of manly beauty, like athletes of the old world: and always I bring back something for ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... fought their way through the crowded rooms to the luncheon-table, and Miss Herrick got Wilbur his chocolate and his stuffed olives. They sat down and talked in a window recess for a moment, Wilbur toeing-in in absurd fashion as he tried to make a lap ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... his mouth with her finger, would put up her lips to kiss him, would say, every moment, 'I like you much,—much!' with all Davy's earnestness, though with just so much of her mother's modesty as made her turn pink and shy, and put herself completely over the chair into Seraphael's lap when we laughed at her." And Philippa, and Philippa's conversation, capers, and cat! an impossibility to those who have never experienced her whirlwinds of exuberance,—and to those who have, a reproduction ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... intellectual, not affectional. You are yet more acquaintances than companions. As sun changes from midnight darkness into noonday brilliancy, and heats, lights up, and warms gradually, and as summer "lingers in the lap of spring;" so marriage should dally in the lap of courtship. Nature's adolescence of love should never be crowded into a premature marriage. The more personal, the more impatient it is; yet to establish its Platonic aspect takes more ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... seated in his arm-chair, upon his lap Alkmene, when the crown prince entered. "Bon jour, mon neveu! pardon me," said he, with a friendly nod, "that I remain seated, and do not rise to greet the future ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... that day in June so long ago, were pronounced the following words, as true now as yesterday, as they will be henceforth, forever: "Born a hero, whom nature taught and cherished in the lap of innumerable toils and dangers, he was terrible in battle.... But from the amiableness of his heart, when carnage ceased, his humanity spread over the field like the refreshing zephyrs of a summer's evening. ... He pitied littleness, loved goodness, admired greatness, ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober
... to her lips she lifts the lovely boy, What answering looks of sympathy and joy! He walks—he speaks—in many a broken word, His wants, his wishes, and his griefs are heard; And ever, ever to her lap he flies, Where rosy sleep comes on with sweet surprise, Locked in her arms, his arms across her flung, That name most dear forever on his tongue. As with soft accents round her neck he clings, And cheek to cheek her lulling song she sings, ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... of us send deluges of love to you and Harmony and all the children. I dreamed last night that I woke up in the library at home and your children were frolicing around me and Julia was sitting in my lap; you and Harmony and both families of Warners had finished their welcomes and were filing out through the conservatory door, wrecking Patrick's flower pots with their dress skirts as they went. Peace and plenty abide with ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... cons of her problem with agonised uncertainty. He was now as healthy as any normal infant of his age, and was in the care of an experienced and trustworthy nurse. At Wynthrop Manor he would be in the lap of luxury, wanting for nothing, and his grandparents would be sure to bring him up in the way he should go, till she and Ray came home together on his next furlough ... (after the War!—whenever that might be!). But all her baby's pretty ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... shouted Caper, breaking through the crowd, and running up-stairs two steps at a time, he nearly walked into the lap of a tall female model, named Giacinta, dressed in Ciociara costume, who was calmly seated on the stair-case, glaring at another female model, named Nina, who stood leaning against the door of ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... four pairs of eyes, of varied color and character, swept the wind-blown wilderness of tender green, and gazed questioningly at the high-piled thunderheads above. A small boy, with an abundance of yellow curls and white collar, almost precipitated himself into the prim lap of a ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
... mountain, and kindly is she, Who nurses young rivers and sends them to sea. And, nestled high up on her sheltering lap, Is a little red house with a little straw cap That bears a blue feather of smoke, curling high, And a bunch of red roses cocked over one eye. And the eyes of it glisten and shine in the sun, As they look down on Gosh ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis
... this circle sat a young woman with dark hair and a kindly keen face. On her lap was a little boy of four years with a club foot. As she gently caressed the foot, from which the clumsy boot had been removed, she told in a crooning tone, mingled with endearing phrases, of the rapid improvement which had already begun and would soon be complete. The foot was getting better; ...
— The Practice of Autosuggestion • C. Harry Brooks
... on Hallowe'en betoken good or bad luck. If a cat sits quietly beside any one, he will enjoy a peaceful, prosperous life; if one rubs against him, it brings good luck, doubly good if one jumps into his lap. If a cat yawns near you on Hallowe'en, be alert and do not let opportunity slip by you. If a cat runs from you, you have a secret which will be revealed ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... been playing for perhaps an hour, when a sudden exhaustion seized upon her, and her hands fell nerveless and inert upon her lap; she dropped her chin upon her breast and closed her eyes. She was ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... thoughts; and the body dejected and languishing with desire; and thence it is that sometimes proceed those accidental impotencies that so unseasonably surprise the lover, and that frigidity which by the force of an immoderate ardour seizes him even in the very lap of fruition. —[The edition of 1588 has here, "An accident not unknown to myself."]— For all passions that suffer themselves to be relished and digested are ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... bed, which I have before mentioned as one of the chief articles of furniture in the kitchen. Close beside her couch sat Victorine, still wearing the white dress put on for the fete; and at her feet was Mimi, whose head rested on her lap, and who was evidently in the sweet ...
— The Young Lord and Other Tales - to which is added Victorine Durocher • Camilla Toulmin
... was laughing, and Flaxie began to hope her own behavior of yesterday was forgotten. But no, her mother called her into the nursery after breakfast, and said, as she took her in her lap: ...
— The Twin Cousins • Sophie May
... soon as it has a being in the soul, is like the child that has a being in the mother's lap; it must have something to feed upon; not something at a distance, afar off, to be purchased (I speak now as to justification from the curse), but something by promise made over of grace to the soul; something ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... One little black duck, turning round its head, One big black duck—see, he's gone to bed. One little lady-duck, motherly and trim, Eight little baby-ducks bound for a swim. One lazy black duck, taking quite a nap, One precious duck, here on mother's lap. ...
— Baby Chatterbox • Anonymous
... disclose the story of that case, and who it was that commanded him to spell Lionel with a 'J,' and not chatter about it afterwards. I plead guilty to a most horrible curiosity on that point." And so saying, Mr. Cottrell dropped the cigar-case into Blanche's lap, and crossed the deck in obedience to Lady Mary's ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... procured; and with considerable exertion all Mrs Greenow's boxes, together with the more moderate belongings of her niece and maid, were stowed on the top of it, round upon the driver's body on the coach box, on the maid's lap, and I fear in Kate's also, and ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... me from you! Oh, cruel friend! Let me lay my head upon your lap again, Bee, and sob out all this anguish here. I must, or my heart will burst. I love Ishmael! His love is the heaven of heavens from which Ambition has cast me down. I love Ishmael! Oh, how much, my reason, utterly overthrown, ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... Colonel Howell to let him go with the first boat, but in his refusal their patron was adamant. The only man to accompany each boat as it started on its flight was an experienced member of the crew who sat on the bow with a canoe practically in his lap. He was ready to launch this any moment to rescue the steersman, but both attempts were engineered by the veteran river men with no other bad results than the shipping of ...
— On the Edge of the Arctic - An Aeroplane in Snowland • Harry Lincoln Sayler
... this office writes is hard to get," he said thoughtfully. "It don't fall off the trees into your lap. But we might do it if we gave up a couple of our smaller companies. If we threw out the German National and the Spokane Fire, we might ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... on his heels and started toward the men who were waiting. He singled one and clapped brisk hands smartly with the air of a man who wanted to wake himself from the abstraction of bothersome visions. "Well, Mister Public Works, how about the last lap of paving on McNamee Avenue? Can we open up tomorrow? I plan on showing our arriving legislative cousins clean thoroughfares ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... out of ice. In the dark of a doorway a woman sits hunched under a brown shawl. Her head nods, but still she jerks a tune that sways and dances through the silent street out of the accordion on her lap. A little saucer for pennies is on the step beside her. In the next doorway two guttersnipes are huddled together asleep. The moonlight points out with mocking interest their skinny dirt-crusted feet and legs stretched out over the icy pavement, and the filthy ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... I had always done, I bathed Sam's great big pink-and-white foot in hot water and then in cold, sitting on the floor with a bath-towel in my lap to get at it while Sam wriggled and squirmed at both hot and cold just as he ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... long as the Rehearsal was performed, and kept his word. Pope took his revenge by many incidental hits at Cibber, and Cibber made a good-humoured reference to this abuse in the Apology. Hereupon Pope, in the new Dunciad, described him as reclining on the lap of the goddess, and added various personalities in the notes. Cibber straightway published a letter to Pope, the more cutting because still in perfect good-humour, and told the story about the original quarrel. He added an irritating ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... very early on the first of May to behold this amazing Change, and when he came near the Statue he saw a Number of People, who all ran away from him in the utmost Consternation, hating never before seen a Lion follow a Man like a Lap-dog. Being thus left alone, he fixed his Eyes on the Sun, then rising with resplendent Majesty, and afterwards turned to the Statue, but could see no Change in the Stone.—Surely, says he to himself, there is some mystical Meaning in this! This Inscription must be an AEnigma, the hidden Meaning ...
— Goody Two-Shoes - A Facsimile Reproduction Of The Edition Of 1766 • Anonymous
... Cousin Charley seated Alfred on the top of the raft, the clothing of both boys being piled on his lap that they might not get wet. The raft was pushed off, Cousin Charley insisting that he was a stern wheel tow boat, kicking his feet out of the water to imitate the splash of the wheel. The boat did not make great headway but backed and went ahead ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... lovely woman, and well fitted to adorn a mansion. On the occasion when Jack appeared he found Mrs. Speir seated in her library. There were tears in her eyes, and as the detective entered a photograph slid off her lap and fell to the floor. The detective leaped forward to restore it, and as he raised it from the floor he caught a glimpse of the face, and he stood gazing in rapt ...
— A Successful Shadow - A Detective's Successful Quest • Harlan Page Halsey
... busy, prosaic sort of person, tied to town... I want you to count your first month as beginning from today. My wife and boy have already started, and are probably in Moscow by now. We shall find them in the lap of nature. We will go alone, like two bachelors, ha, ha!" Sipiagin laughed coquettishly, through his ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... of Saint Ursula-of-the-Lake, the gate of Mary's home-to-be: and in a big, bare parlour, with long windows and a polished oak floor that reflected curious white birds and dragons of an escutcheon on the ceiling, Reverend Mother had received them. She had taken Mary on her lap; and when, after much talk about school and years to come, the child's father had gone, shadowy, dark-robed women had glided softly into the room. They had crowded round the little girl, like children round a new doll, petting and murmuring over her: and she had been ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... familiarity. They seem to consider it as an undeniable proof of the general kindness with which their dependents are treated. It is as good a proof of it as the maudlin tenderness of a fine lady to her lap-dog is of her humane treatment of animals in general. Servants whose claims to respect are properly understood by themselves and their employers, are not made pets, playthings, jesters, or companions of, and it is only the degradation of the many that admits of this ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... of easy transport, rapid correspondence, the remittance of specie, and the shipment of light manufactured goods to every corner of the world; it has invited foreigners from every land to her shores and her markets; and it has been the means of throwing the raw material of the whole world into the lap of the British manufacturer and artisan, and enabling them thus to control the ...
— Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post • Thomas Rainey
... heart, her head veiled, and the dark robe floating about her slender feet divine. Speedily they came to the house of Celeus, the fosterling of Zeus, and they went through the corridor where their lady mother was sitting by the doorpost of the well-wrought hall, with her child in her lap, a young blossom, and the girls ran up to her, but the Goddess stood on the threshold, her head touching the roof-beam, and she filled the doorway with the light divine. Then wonder, and awe, and pale fear seized the mother, and she gave place from her high seat, and bade the Goddess be seated. But ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... still further, dear Mr. Blagg. We must make this poor Indian's cause our own. We must agitate the matter. I hope that when this paper has been read to-night" (and Miss Slopham looked down at the roll in her lap), "you will be willing to write something about it to your papers. I want the influence of your pen ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... came on board the Louisiana. One of the officers gave a ludicrous account of a poor girl, who had fled from her home on the river bank as the fleet was passing, with no clothing except her night dress, and no earthly possession but a lap-dog which she held in her clasped arms. She had sought the same place of refuge and as the shells and shot would whistle over her head she would dive like a duck under the water; and every time she rose above the surface, the lap-dog would sneeze ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... felt, rather than saw, a glance fixed upon her. Mrs. Lawrence was wide awake, lying back in her chair, her dark eyes bent on Anita, whose hands lay idle in her lap. ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell
... She will have a son, and I shall call him Somasarman. When he is old enough to be danced on his father's knee, I shall sit with a book at the back of the stable, and while I am reading, the boy will see me, jump from his mother's lap, and run towards me to be danced on my knee. He will come too near the horse's hoof, and, full of anger, I shall call to my wife, 'Take the baby; take him!' But she, distracted by some domestic work, does not hear me. Then I get up, ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs
... thin th' barn is worth. This man says no matther how industhrees an American painther is, no matther if he puts on his overalls arly in th' mornin' an' goes out with a laddher an' whales away all day long, he can hardly arn a livin', while th' pauper artists iv Europe is fairly rowlin' in th' lap iv luxury. Manny a la-ad that started in life with th' intintion iv makin' th' wurruld f'rget that what's his name—Hogan's frind—ye know who I mane—Michael Angelo—ever lived, is now glad to get a job decoratin' mountain scenery ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne
... bony frame and thought of Aunt Cindy's soft, fat, ample lap. A wistful look crossed his childish face as he dropped down in front of her and laid his head against her knee, then the bright, beautiful little face took on an angelic expression as he closed his eyes and softly chanted: "'Now I lays me down to ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... thy mind — to force the gates, and hurl Javelin and blazing torch upon our homes — Do what thou wilt: cut off the source that fills Our foaming river, force us, prone in thirst, To dig the earth and lap the scanty pool; Seize on our corn and leave us food abhorred: Nor shall this people shun, for freedom's sake, The ills Saguntum bore in Punic siege; (26) Torn, vainly clinging, from the shrunken breast The starving babe shall perish in the flames. Wives at their husbands' hands shall ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... Ithamore, lie in my lap.— Where are my maids? provide a cunning [154] banquet; Send to the merchant, bid him bring me silks; Shall Ithamore, my love, go in ...
— The Jew of Malta • Christopher Marlowe
... attractive woman up to forty-five to get a reasonably satisfactory husband if she will work to get him as a man works to make money. She can't sit on a chair and twirl her thumbs and wait for a husband to drop into her lap out of the skies like a ripe plum. She must bend destiny to her purposes. She must make sacrifices, create opportunities, move about, use the intelligence that God has given her. The world is full of men who are half ready to ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... over her shoulder. To justify this she should have been engaged on some particular task of the needle, easiest performed when seated. Mr. Alibone, to whom her voice sounded unusual, looked round to see. He only saw that her hands were in her lap, and no sign was visible of their employment. This was unlike his experience of Aunt M'riar. "Find the weather trying, ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... forgive my reckless grief! Forgive me that this rebel, selfish heart Would almost make me jealous for my child, Though thy own lap enthroned him. Lord, thou hast So many such! I have—ah! ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... presided over woods, and the fruits that grew in them; agreeable to which, (in some figures) he has a lap full of fruit, his pruning-hook in one hand, and a young cypress tree in the other. Virgil mentions the latter as a distinguishing attribute of this god: the same poet, on another occasion, describes him as crowned with wild flowers, and mentions his presiding ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway
... any girl who chances to read the foregoing and packs her trunks for this tropical spot, let me warn her that it is so hot that the powder stays on about as well as water on a duck's back, and a lizard is liable to drop in her lap at any time. At least that is what happened to the smallest debutante of our party, Miss Sallie Glide, at one of the dances given in honor of the San Francisco Delegates. And while some of the young couples of our party were strolling through ...
— The Log of the Empire State • Geneve L.A. Shaffer
... ankers brak, and the topmasts lap, It was sic a deadly storm; And the waves cam o'er the broken ship, Till a' her sides ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... through this brutal, bloody war. I thought of the widows away in our own land as I looked at her sitting there, so silently and sadly, with her thin white hands clasped on the black folds of her lap. On one hand I plainly saw the gold circle shining, which a few months ago had meant so much to her; now, alas! only the outward and visible sign of all she had been and of all that she had lost. Behind her the snow-white wall of the house, sparkling in the red rays ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... can his horror and distress, when, on reaching the spot from which the sounds proceeded, he discovered his daughter seated upon the ground, with her dead lover's head upon her lap, uttering peal after peal of blood-curdling laughter, as she strove to bind up the bruised and lacerated body in strips of linen torn from ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... and Captains and Grandees and Lords of the land and men of war in band, and in very sooth there appeared the might of the house of Abbas[FN37] and the majesty of the Prophet's family. So he sat down upon the throne of the Caliphate and set the dagger[FN38] on his lap, whereupon all present came up to kiss ground between his hands and called down on him length of life and continuance of weal. Then came forward Ja'afar the Barmecide and kissing the ground, said, "Be the wide world of Allah the treading of thy feet and may Paradise be thy dwelling-place ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... moments, the luxurious restfulness of fatigue. Slowly she would pull off her long, clinging gloves and he would hold his breath with joy as she unsheathed her marvelous arms and hands. And then very tenderly, he would lift them to his lips, one by one, laying them down on her lap again where he could see them. And they would smile at one another—a faint smile hers would be, seen as it were, through the veils of her exquisite reticencies. And then because she knew it made him happy, she would take off her hat and release the shimmer ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco
... travelling as lightly as possible, I started for Bennett. How good it seemed to get off unimpeded by an outfit, and I sped past the weary mob, struggling along on the last lap of their journey. I had been in some expectation of the trail bettering itself, but indeed it appeared at every step to grow more hopelessly terrible. It was knee-deep in snowy slush, and below that seemed to be literally ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... Bertha to her self-possession, and in a little time her tears ceased, and moving to the window she stood there looking out upon the landscape. The monotonous click of the needles ceased, and she knew that her mother had laid down her work in her lap and was regarding her. She turned, with a ...
— Bulldog And Butterfly - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... fecundity of plant-life from ten to twelve thousand feet above sea level, and the relation of these mountain tributaries to the San Juan, which runs from east to west, not remotely from the base of these mountains, in such a manner as to invite and receive into its lap, so to express it, the vegetable wealth developed in these mountain chains, are facts that force themselves upon the ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... telegrams were not quite as common as they are now. In the first place, they cost a shilling instead of sixpence, which made a vast difference in their number. Kitty's face turned slightly pale, she gripped the telegram, shook little Dolly off her lap, stood up, and, turning her back to the girls, proceeded to open it. Her slim, long fingers shook a little as she did so. She soon had the envelope torn asunder and had taken out the pink sheet within. ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... his name sooner than any other that I know on. For he ain't a man and he ain't a boy; but jest a short, half-grown up chunk of a fellow, with bunchy shoulders, and a big head, with a mouth like an oven, and long lap ears like ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... lonely Carol who trotted to the flat of the Johnson Marburys for Sunday evening supper. Mrs. Marbury was a neighbor and friend of Carol's sister; Mr. Marbury a traveling representative of an insurance company. They made a specialty of sandwich-salad-coffee lap suppers, and they regarded Carol as their literary and artistic representative. She was the one who could be depended upon to appreciate the Caruso phonograph record, and the Chinese lantern which Mr. Marbury had brought back ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... pictures when they're shut:— I see a fountain, large and fair, A willow and a ruin'd hut, And thee and me and Mary there. O Mary! make thy gentle lap our pillow; Bend o'er us, like a ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... at last. "All this morning hast thou sat there with that knitting on thy lap, and scarce worked a round at it. And your violin—why, Frida, you have not played on it for weeks, and even Hans notices it; and Wilhelm says to me no longer ago than this morning, 'Why, wife, what ails our woodland ...
— Little Frida - A Tale of the Black Forest • Anonymous
... great closet full of beautiful things to wear, but they were all dressing-gowns and slippers and shawls; and there were drawers full of toys and games, but they were such as you could play with on your lap. There were no ninepins, nor balls, nor bows and arrows, nor bean bags, nor tennis rackets; but, after all, other children needed these more than Carol Bird, for she was always happy and contented, whatever she had or whatever she lacked; and after the room had been made so lovely for her, ...
— The Bird's Christmas Carol • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... coach—his hat bedecked with ribbons, a pipe in one hand and flourishing a pewter pot in the other. It hardly need be added that he was more than half tipsy. Nevertheless, even in this state, he was well received; and after he had smothered her with kisses, dandled me on his knee, thrown into her lap all the pay he had left, and drank three more pots of porter, they went very ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... yourself into the lap of mother nature: to take her really for mother and sister; stoically and religiously to cut off from your life what is mere gratified vanity; obstinately to resist the proud and the wicked; to make yourself humble with the unfortunate, to weep with the misery of the poor; nor desire ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... Jonathan had no doubt sent them, or the people in the house had called them in, or the scent of an approaching death had drawn them thither. He beheld his own funeral, heard the chanting of the priests, and counted the tall wax candles; and all that lovely fertile nature around him, in whose lap he had thought to find life once more, he saw no longer, save through a veil of crape. Everything that but lately had spoken of length of days to him, now prophesied a speedy end. He set out the next day for Paris, not before he had been inundated with cordial wishes, which the ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... costume, which makes a ball of this description at home so wooden and wanting in go. At a fancy ball in India "the devil" acts accordingly, and manages his tail with adroitness and grace. It is a fact that at a recent fancy-dress ball in Lahore a game was played on the lap of a lady who appeared as "chess," with the chess-men which had formed her head-dress. This Mussoorie ball, being the last of the season, was to excel all its predecessors in inventive variety. A padre's wife conceived the bright ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... Popular-Tree or Pine, And fashion'd like a Trough for Swine: In this most noble Fishing-Boat, I boldly put myself afloat; Standing erect, with Legs stretch'd wide, We paddled to the other side: Where being Landed safe by hap, As Sol fell into Thetis' Lap. A ravenous Gang bent on the stroul, Of (f) Wolves for Prey, began to howl; This put me in a pannick Fright, Least I should be devoured quite; But as I there a musing stood, And quite benighted in a Wood, A Female Voice pierc'd, thro' my Ears, Crying, You ...
— The Sot-weed Factor: or, A Voyage to Maryland • Ebenezer Cook
... other boys. For hours he could not be separated from these dreams, though he wailed piteously in them. They had to do, I think, with the riddle of his existence. At such times it had been Wendy's custom to take him out of bed and sit with him on her lap, soothing him in dear ways of her own invention, and when he grew calmer to put him back to bed before he quite woke up, so that he should not know of the indignity to which she had subjected him. But on ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... who are in the car may elect to adopt a standing attitude, or to seat themselves, but no player may seat himself in the lap of another without the second player's consent. The object of those who elect to remain standing is to place their feet upon the toes of those who sit; when they do this they score. The object of those who elect to sit is to elude the feet of ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... hostile arms speaks fearful prophecies of coming troubles. The gallant warrior starts from soft repose—from golden visions and voluptuous ease; where, in the dulcet "piping time of peace," he sought sweet solace after all his toils. No more in Beauty's siren lap reclined he weaves fair garlands for his lady's brows; no more entwines with flowers his shining sword nor through the livelong lazy summer's day chants forth his love-sick soul in madrigals. To manhood roused, he spurns the amorous flute, doffs from ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... better far In Want's most lonely cave till death to pine, Unseen, unheard, unwatched by any star; Or in the streets and walks where proud men are, Better our dying bodies to obtrude, Than dog-like, wading at the heels of war, Protract a curst existence, with the brood That lap (their very nourishment!) ...
— Lyrical Ballads 1798 • Wordsworth and Coleridge
... rich stuffs and his house and his land; and Peter sold all his precious books; and they carried all the gold to a square in front of the old church of St. George, and St. Francis sat on the steps with his lap full of money, and gave away great glittering handfuls to all the poor people ...
— Stories of the Saints by Candle-Light • Vera C. Barclay
... her small brown hands clasped tightly together in her lap now. There is something nervous in the tension of them. Where, where is Margaret? For all that, she looks back at her mother-in-law with a clear and ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... eagerly. "Doctor Young is in the right. Procrastination has been my curse since I was in leading-strings. It has grown with my growth, and strengthened with my strength. It has ever been my besetting sin—my companion in prosperity and adversity; and I have slept upon it, like Samson on the lap of Delilah, till it has shorn my locks and deprived me of my strength. It has been to me a witch, a manslayer, and a murderer; and when I would have shaken it off in wrath and in disgust, I found I was no longer master of my own actions and ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... most vicious, by far, of all the idle tramps, is the tramp who pretends to have been a gentleman. 'Educated,' he writes, from the village beer-shop in pale ink of a ferruginous complexion; 'educated at Trin. Coll. Cam.—nursed in the lap of affluence—once in my small way the pattron of the Muses,' &c. &c. &c.—surely a sympathetic mind will not withhold a trifle, to help him on to the market-town where he thinks of giving a Lecture to the fruges consumere nati, on things in general? This shameful creature lolling about hedge ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... he owed his birth and his training, as she sat at the back of the platform with bended form and wearing her widow's cap. He rushed to her, took the medal from his breast, and, casting it and his diploma into her lap, threw himself on his ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... the village—some of whom I could have sworn were true and sympathetic—only shrugged their shoulders. 'Que voulez-vous, Madame? Children of bourgeois as well as of aristos were often taken up by the State to be brought up as true patriots and no longer pampered like so many lap-dogs.' ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... lives are in God's hands. It ain't in nature to go up and down this broad river, special at night, when the stars are shining overhead, and the dark woods are as quiet as death, and there ain't no sound to be heard but the lap of the water against the bow for a man not to have serious thoughts. It ain't our way to talk about it. I think we try to do our duty by our employers, and if a mate is laid up, he need never fear getting on a shoal for want of a helping hand; and ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... carry it ever bent towards the ground. They delight much to abide in mire and mud. 'Tis a passing ugly beast to look upon, and is not in the least like that which our stories tell of as being caught in the lap of a virgin; in fact, 'tis altogether different from what we fancied.[NOTE 5] There are also monkeys here in great numbers and of sundry kinds; and goshawks as black as crows. These are very large birds and capital ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... Should be Used. Depth of Mortises. Rule for Mortises. True Mortise Work. Steps in Cutting Mortises. Things to Avoid in Mortising. Lap-and-Butt Joints. Scarfing. The Tongue and Groove. Beading. Ornamental Bead Finish. The Bead and Rabbet. Shading with Beads ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... sobbed, as he stumbled towards her chair and fell to his knees before her, burying his face in her lap. ...
— Friendly Fairies • Johnny Gruelle
... hat or coyfe, which hath an hole in the crowne, fit for the spire to come through it: and vnder the fore-said ornament they couer the haires of their heads, which they gather vp round together from the hinder part therof to the crowne, and so lap them vp in a knot or bundel within the said Botta, which afterward they bind strongly vnder their throtes. Hereupon when a great company of such gentlewomen ride together, and are beheld a far off, they seem to be souldiers with helmets on their heads ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... was, I thought, just that she had conquered herself, and set herself to hear what I had to say, before answering me as I wished. She moved very slowly back to her chair, and sat down, crossing her hands on her lap. That was all that I thought it was, so little did I know women's hearts, and ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... a pause. Mrs. Sewall was tapping her bag with a rapid, nervous little motion. I was keeping my hands folded tightly in my lap. We were both making an effort to control our feelings. We sat opposite each other without saying anything for a moment. It was I who ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... the four girls had reached the woman's side. Grace knelt beside her, then sat down on the pavement, raising the stranger's head until it rested in her lap. The woman lay white and still, although on placing a hand to her heart Grace found that it was beating faintly. Calling for water, she dashed it in the woman's ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... decision is left to God, according to Prov. 16:33, "Lots are cast into the lap, but they are disposed of by the Lord": sortilege of this kind is not wrong in itself, as Augustine declares [*Enarr. ii in Ps. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... were embark'd for Ireland; wretched we, With awkward winds and with sore tempests driven, To fall on shore, and here to pine in fear Of Mortimer and his confederates! K. Edw. Mortimer! who talks of Mortimer? Who wounds me with the name of Mortimer, That bloody man?—Good father, on thy lap Lay I this head, laden with mickle care. O, might I never ope these eyes again, Never again lift up this drooping head, O, never more lift up this dying heart! Y. Spen. Look up, my lord.—Baldock, this drowsiness Betides no good; here even ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe
... on top of the broiled steak and roll the steak so that the edges lap over each other and the dressing is completely covered. Fasten together with skewers or tie by wrapping a cord around the roll. Strips of bacon or salt pork tied to the outside or fastened with small skewers improve the flavor of the ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 3 - Volume 3: Soup; Meat; Poultry and Game; Fish and Shell Fish • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... prisoner! his eyes have broken gaol! And again he who has learned to love an art or science has wisely laid up riches against the day of riches; if prosperity come, he will not enter poor into his inheritance; he will not slumber and forget himself in the lap of money, or spend his hours in counting idle treasures, but be up and briskly doing; he will have the true alchemic touch, which is not that of Midas, but which transmutes dead money into living delight and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sat in a rocking chair in the shade of the porch. She held a bowl of purple river apples in her lap. Her papyrus-like hands moved quickly as she shaved the skin from one. In a matter of seconds it was peeled. She looked up over her bifocals at the ...
— One Martian Afternoon • Tom Leahy
... one of the hands that lay wearily in Cara's lap and she did not withdraw it. She only lay back in the leather upholstery and said nothing. Finally he ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... an unheard of rate of speed, slamming along over the road as if he had been sent for in great haste, and reaching his big fur glove back now and then to pat the old buffalo robe that was tucked snugly over Bonnie's lap. ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... supper, bringing the last full milk-pails with them, they found the pork and potatoes burnt to a frazzle, the girls all talking at once, and Austin bending over his mother, who sat in the big rocker with the tears rolling down her cheeks, and a hundred-dollar bill spread out on her lap. ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... gratitude for the great victory, lavishes gifts upon Beowulf; but Grendel's mother must be reckoned with. Beowulf finds her at the sea-bottom, and after a desperate struggle slays her. Hrothgar again pours treasures into Beowulf's lap. Beowulf, having now accomplished his mission, returns to Sweden. After a reign of fifty years, he goes forth to meet a fire-spewing dragon that is ravaging his kingdom. In the struggle Beowulf is fatally wounded. Wiglaf, ...
— Anglo-Saxon Grammar and Exercise Book - with Inflections, Syntax, Selections for Reading, and Glossary • C. Alphonso Smith
... of comfort. The dark lashes fell like a soft curtain over her eyes, obscuring the merry gray that had overcome his apprehensions. Her breathing was deep and regular and peaceful. One little gloved hand rested carelessly in her lap, the other upon her breast near the delicate throat. The heart of Baldos was troubled. The picture he looked upon was entrancing, uplifting; he rose from the lowly state in which she had found him to the position of admirer in secret ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... came crying the forfeits. Molly Brunton knelt down, her face buried in her mother's lap; the latter took out the forfeits one by one, and as she held them up, said ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... the court, farthest from the heavy gateway, was the box of the concierge, who was a brisk little shoemaker, forever bethwacking his lap-stone. If I remember right, the hammer of the little cordonnier made the only sound I used to hear in the court; for though the house was full of lodgers, I never saw two of them together, and never heard them talking across the court from the upper windows, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... and causing her sacred waters to roll over the spot where their ashes lay. He succeeded in carrying out his resolution after conquering many difficulties. Urvasi literally means one who sits on the lap. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... long since, in the lap Of THETIS, taken out his nap, 30 And, like a lobster boil'd, the morn From black to red began to turn, When HUDIBRAS, whom thoughts and aking, 'Twixt sleeping kept all night and waking, Began to rub his drowsy ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... certainly was not imitation. A female goat very near delivery died; Galen cut out the young kid, and placed before it a bundle of hay, a bunch of fruit, and a pan of milk; the young kid smelt to them all very attentively, and then began to lap the milk. This was not imitation. And what is commonly and rightly called instinct, cannot be explained away under the notion of its being imitation." (Lecture ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... of the countless and difficult calculations that are made instantly by the divine mind in every part of the universe. The path of every snowflake that lazily pursues its tortuous course, and rests upon the lap of earth, is marked out, not by any law or agent, but by God himself. He calculates instantly the cyclone's path, the movement of every particle of air, the direction, velocity and path of every raindrop. A law could not do it. The wisest man could not do it. But ...
— The Evolution Of Man Scientifically Disproved • William A. Williams
... goodly scene— Yon river, like a silvery snake, lays out His coil i' th' sunshine, lovingly; it breathes Of freshness in this lap of ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... the girl under discussion flashed a luminous glance of flat contradiction at the speaker), "and I know I am asking a great deal, but—but—" But the boldness had evaporated along with the remainder of what he had to say, for with Dic's first words Justice dropped her knitting to her lap, took off her glasses, and gazed at the unfortunate malefactor with an injured, fixed, and icy stare. Dic retired in disorder; but he soon rallied his forces and again ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... eyes and let her hands fall, palms upward, on her lap. She felt tired and perplexed. There had come a parting of the ways. Apparently the ninth year was a dangerous year. What must she do? Was Mary more ignorant than she seemed or—more knowing? What had Mary ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... meek and unassuming curate entered into an abode of misery and sorrow, which would require a far more touching pen than ours to describe. A poor widow sat upon the edge of a little truckle bed with the head of one of her children on her lap; another lay in the same bed silent and feeble, and looking evidently ill. Mr. Clement remembered to have seen the boy whom she supported, not long before playing about the cottage, his rosy cheeks heightened into a glow of health and beauty by the exercise, and his fair, thick-clustered hair blown ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... and seating himself on a bushel basket which he turned upside down, a couple of cats sprang in his lap, another got on his shoulder, and he went on talking while I thrust an arm through one of the rounds of the ladder, and leaned back against it as ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... God Almighty bless you for ever and ever!" said Eleanor; and falling on her knees with her face in Mary's lap, she wept and sobbed like a child: her strength had carried her through her allotted task, but now it was ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... to my relief alone. When Sacha brought me into the room she was doing what I think I had never seen her do before, sitting unoccupied, her eyes staring in front of her, her hands folded on her lap. ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... the mother said one day: "I wonder what she wanted in that room, and what she was doing in it." And she opened the door, and there she saw a fire on the hearth, and the girl sitting one side of it, and a child in her lap, and the son sitting the other side, and two children in his lap. For she had brought him back from ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others
... ventured to propose a plan on which I had previously been ruminating; though I had foreseen no means of putting it in practice. Every man had heard of the fortunes acquired in the east, and of the wealth which had been poured from the lap of India. The army there was at all times open to men like myself; youthful, healthy, and of education. 'Tis true I had been of opinion that there were strong moral objections to this profession: but these my ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... mighty queer, and the woman made it worse by being so excited. She could hardly tell when she had seen the bag last, or where. First she said she had had it in her lap and then she said she guessed she had put it on a hook ...
— The Rover Boys in Alaska - or Lost in the Fields of Ice • Arthur M. Winfield
... in the lap of ignorance, in the season of alarm, in the bosom of calamity, that mankind ever formed his first notions of the Divinity. From hence it is obvious that his ideas on this subject are to be suspected, that his notions are in a great measure false, that they are always afflicting. Indeed, ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... had adopted this boy under very sad circumstances. She was at the time thirty-six years old. She was disfigured, having in her infancy slipped off her nurse's lap into the fireplace, and getting her face so shockingly burned that it ever afterward presented a frightful appearance. This deformity had made her resolve not to marry, for she did not want any man to marry her ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... had shifted her position till, instead of her full face, her profile was turned toward him. Looking away toward the paddock that lay brilliant in sunshine on the skirts of the apple orchard, she asked in low slow tones, twisting her hands in her lap: ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... Smith-Lessing. She is a Franco-American, a political adventuress of the worst type, living by her wits. She is ugly enough to be Satan's mistress, and she's forty-five if she's a day, yet she has but to hold up her finger, and men tumble the gifts of their life into her lap, gold and honour, conscience and duty. At present I think it highly probable that you are her ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... into her lap, trying to lick her face. He was not in the least anxious to decide upon any "next place." Sitting there in Patricia's lap, in the shade of a wide-spreading maple, seemed a very agreeable method ...
— Patricia • Emilia Elliott
... recipes. If the weather is warm it will be necessary to place the Charlotte on ice for an hour or two, but in the winter it will turn out without this. The biscuits for a Charlotte Russe should be made quite straight, and in arranging them in the mould they should lap slightly ...
— Nelson's Home Comforts - Thirteenth Edition • Mary Hooper
... behind him, spread his legs apart, and sat down sidewise so that he could reach the inkwell. He overhung his chair so generously that from the front he appeared to be perched precariously upon its edge or to be holding some one in his lap. "Where are those cable blanks!" he cried, irritably, stirring up the confusion in front ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... John, that thou 'rt hindering me from quenching my thirst? Go thou and bring thy steel cap full of water for Master Allerton, and when I see him revived I'll go right gladly to lap water out of my hand ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... "I'll bet he's no more an invalid than I am. Just coddling himself, that's all. Got the private car habit, too! Why, I knew Marc Runyon when he thought an upper berth was the very lap of luxury; knew him when he'd grind his teeth over payin' a ten-dollar fee to a doctor. And now he's trying to buy back his digestion by hiring a private physician, is ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... whose look she perceived a certain gloom of recognition. Recognition, for that matter, sat confessedly in her own eyes: she knew the three, generically, as easily as a schoolboy with a crib in his lap would know the answer in class; she felt, like the schoolboy, guilty enough—questioned, as honour went, as to her right so to possess, to dispossess, people who hadn't consciously provoked her. She would have been able to say where ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... chronic inclination to roll, and that suddenly, by fits and starts. The fiddles were on the tables for nearly a week: but they did not prevent more than one of us finding his dinner suddenly in his lap instead of his stomach. However, no one was hurt, nor even frightened: save two poor ladies—not from Trinidad- -who spent their doleful days and nights in screaming, telling their beads, drinking weak brandy-and-water, and informing the hunted stewardess that if they had known what ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... and radiant person put her in good humor immediately. She borrowed a thimble—not because she cared whether she had one or not, but because she knew a thimble was a part of the game—and settled herself in a corner, her ragged pieces in her lap. For an hour she plodded along and Harmony played. Then the girl put down her bow and turned to the corner. The little doctor was jerking at a ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... hands lying before her in her lap, in the same hard tone as if the words were cut in ebony; with the same fixed lips—the same pale, unsmiling severity of face; above which the abundant hair, streaked with early gray, was almost entirely lost in the ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... they with my coolie,—for he came from the other side of the range,—nor he with me. But I laughed, and every one else laughed, and in five minutes I was sitting on the grass under the walnut trees, offerings of flowers and mulberries on my lap, and while the whole population sat around on stone walls and house roofs, the village head man took off my shoes and rubbed ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... snorted, and swished her tail, as though protesting that the blow was unnecessary. She could not do the impossible, and that he was asking of her. But his forcible request was the nervous result of his knowledge that the last lap of the race had been entered upon and the home stretch was not far off. It must be now ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... seemed to know for a camisole. Over all he laid a charming lilac silk gown, and under the hem in the most natural attitude peeped the little party slippers. A small lace and velvet bonnet with streamers was hung at the apex of the creation, and in her lap (for the time has come to use the feminine pronoun) he spread the gauzy fan. He hung over her tenderly, as an artist over his subject—each fold must be in place—the empty sleeves curved just so—one fancied a rounded chin ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... languid king. Portsmouth sat near, fanning the passion of a poor young fool, who hung about her like a moth; but Charles was not a lover to be spurred. As Portsmouth played her ruse the more openly a contemptuous smile flitted over the proud, dark face of the king, and he only fondled his lap-dog with indifferent heed for all those flatterers and foot-lickers ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... pervaded the "Parlors." Soon the windows had to be lowered from the top. Mrs. Sieppe and old Miss Baker sat together in the bay window exchanging confidences. Miss Baker had turned back the overskirt of her dress; a plate of cake was in her lap; from time to time she sipped her wine with the delicacy of a white cat. The two women were much interested in each other. Miss Baker told Mrs. Sieppe all about Old Grannis, not forgetting the fiction of the title ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... just over three years of age, and is one of the most famous child-pictures by that great master. The picture shows Little Penelope in a white dress and a dark belt, sitting on a stone sill, with trees in the background. Her mittened hands are folded in her lap, and her eyes are demurely cast down. She is wearing a high mob-cap, said to have belonged ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... years ago that I lay in my mother's lap New born to life, nor knowing one whit of all that should hap: That day was I won from nothing to the world of struggle and pain, Twenty-five years ago—and to-night am I ...
— The Pilgrims of Hope • William Morris
... thunder-clouds and bright as snow-drifts. We were one day pointed to a certain hill where, it is said, Peden was hunted by dragoons, and found shelter in the heart of a mist-cloud, which he called "the lap of God's cloak." In answer to prayer he thus found safety in the secret place of the Most High; heaven seemed to touch earth where he knelt ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... been reading them half the day, but feeling all the while that to read about things which you never can see is like hearing about a beautiful dinner while you are starving. For almost the first time in his life he grew melancholy; his hands fell on his lap; he sat gazing out of the window-slit upon the view outside—the view he had looked at every day of his life, and might look at for endless ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... of a watch on the floor. I have an apron about one yard wide, and in the corners of it are eyelet-holes, so that I can pin it to the bench when I am working; I have strings to it, but do not generally tie them around me, but let it be loose in my lap as I have to jump up, to attend to customers in the shop. In the shop where I learned my trade (in London, England), every workman was compelled to wear an apron, and so much waste of property and valuable time was saved; the saving of ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... dressing-gown, "of red-brown (MORDORE) velvet; black breeches, and boots which came quite up over the knee. His hair was not dressed. Three little benchlets or stools, covered with green cloth, stood before him, on which he had his feet lying [terribly ill of gout]. In his lap he had a sort of muff, with one of his hands in it, which seemed to be giving him great pain. In the other hand he held our Sentence on the Arnold Case. He lay reclining (LAG) in an easy-chair; at his left stood a table, with various ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... although the world was ringing with criticism of Methuen we in Kimberley blamed nobody. Even the "Military Critic" was dumb. Lord Methuen rose in our estimation to the level of a hero, who had driven the enemy before him from Orange River, to fail only in the last lap. Even now, perhaps, the people of Kimberley, looking back at the events of the past, would be reluctant to join in the criticism his name evokes. The facts, of course, speak for themselves; and it did seem strange to see soldiers ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... remarks were ignored by Minx, who, finding herself dropped from Ingred's lap, took a flying run up his back, and settled herself on his shoulder, rubbing her head into his neck. He scratched her under the chin, swung her gently down, and shook a ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... in the water fur a couple of minutes. And then, all of a sudden, a live fish come a-whirling out of that hole, which he had ketched it with his hands. It was a big bullhead, and its whiskers around its mouth was stiffened into spikes, and it lands kerplump into Mis' Rogers's lap, a-wiggling, and it kind o' horns her on the hands, and she is that surprised she faints. Mis' Primrose, she gets up and pushes that fish back into the cistern with her foot from the floor where it had fell, and she ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... applied to a drawing frame. In the process of drawing down the roll of cotton—the sliver—four things may happen making it necessary to stop the machine. A sliver may break on the way from the can to the drawing rollers, or the supply of cotton may become exhausted; the cotton may lap or accumulate on the drawing rollers; the sliver may break between the drawing rollers and the calender rollers; or the front can may overflow. In each and all of these cases the electric circuit is instantly completed; the parts between ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882 • Various
... at my knitting, and Joseph reading his Bible near the table (for the servants generally sat in the house then, after their work was done). Miss Cathy had been sick, and that made her still; she leant against her father's knee, and Heathcliff was lying on the floor with his head in her lap. I remember the master, before he fell into a doze, stroking her bonny hair—it pleased him rarely to see her gentle—and saying, 'Why canst thou not always be a good lass, Cathy?' And she turned her face up to ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... this prolonged uncertainty that's so hard to bear," remarked Ravonino to Mark one day, lifting his hands high above his head, and letting them fall, with the clanking chains, into his lap. ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... apron gave, as she did pass, An odour more divine, More pleasing, too, than ever was The lap of Proserpine. ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... sitting there so disinclined to exert herself, her hands lying idle in her lap, a feeling akin to fury came over him. Why did she not do something? Why did she not paint? That confounded meadow in the Alps was surely not the only place where she could work. Was it not ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... or three dogs, similar to those seen at Brierly Island. One young woman was seen carrying about in her arms and fondling a very young pig—an incident which afforded us as much amusement as a lady's lap-dog, with one end of a ribbon round its neck and the other attached to a wasp-waisted damsel, would have caused among ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... seated on the floor, and the fatal paper was on her lap. She had been endeavouring, in vain, to learn what had so sensibly affected Maltravers, for, as I said before, she was unacquainted with his real name, and therefore the ominous paragraph did not ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... child up in his strong hands and placed him in the lap of the old lady. Hugh noticed that she started, and stared hard at the chubby face of little Joey, just as the deacon had done; and then she turned her wondering eyes toward her husband. There was a look akin to awe in their depths, something that told how the ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... belled and laden with water casks and kyacks of grub, the sheep owners hustling about with an energy that was almost a mania, Hardy sat beneath the ramada of the ranch house with dog-fighting Tommy in his lap and pondered deeply upon the spectacle. A hundred thousand sheep, drifting like the shadows of clouds across the illimitable desert, crossing swift rivers, climbing high mountains, grazing beneath the northern pines; and then turning south again and pouring down ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... 4th, President Wilson led his first contingent of drafted "soldiers of freedom" down Pennsylvania Avenue in gala parade, on the first lap of their journey to the battlefields of France. On the same afternoon a slender line of women-also "soldiers of freedom"-attempted to march ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... when seraph hands unbar the gates of morning, and the last ray of golden light that paused at the flame-wrought portals of expiring day to look reluctant back. Another change came over the face of nature, and delicate-footed spring seemed to have come again with her lap full of leaves and blossoms. The trees cast aside their long-worn garniture of green, and flaunted proudly in gorgeous robes of gold and crimson. The blushing rose once more sought the thorny stem that had slept so long desolate; and the changeful-hued touch-me-not ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... loop of her husband's music it suddenly became insipid, futile, and lacking in those enchantments for which she yearned. Her eyes dropped to the shapely hands meekly folded in her lap, dropped because the bold, interrogative expression on Rentgen's face disturbed her. She knew, as any woman would have known, that he admired her—but was he not Richard's friend? His glance enveloped her ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... element of fear, which will keep the realization just so much farther away, to enter in; but, on the contrary, continually water with firm expectation all the forces thus set into operation. Do not then sit and idly fold the hands, expecting to see all things drop into the lap,—God feeds the sparrow, but he does not throw the food into its nest,—but take hold of the first thing that offers itself for you to do,—work in the fields, at the desk, saw wood, wash dishes, tend ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine
... two glasses at hand. Campbell, in the manner of a musical critic of some skill, leaned back in a chair with his brawny arms folded behind his head and his eyes half closed. Harrigan, tilted back hi a chair, rested his feet on the edge of a small table and swept the guitar which lay on his lap. In the midst of a high note he saw the ominous pair standing in the door, and the music died abruptly on ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... was present at this concert (if I may so call it), and Madam Dacier sat in his lap. He asked much after Mr. Pope, and said he was very desirous of seeing him; for that he had read his Iliad in his translation with almost as much delight as he believed he had given others in the original. I had the curiosity to inquire whether he had really writ that ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... big hunt going on in this world, and women are the ones only a short lap ahead. Can we turn and make good the fight—or won't we be torn to death? It has come to this it seems: women must either be weak, and cling so close to man that she can't be struck, keep entirely out of the ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... work. To dip the paddle at the proper inclination, now right, now left; to keep the head down stream; to empty the little pool that gathered in the lap of the apron; to screw up the eyes against the glittering sparkles of sun upon the water; or now and again to pass below the whistling tow-rope of the Deo Gratias of Conde, or the Four Sons of Aymon—there was not ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... fire," but it was no such matter. The nurse-maid ran out in a fright, to a neighbour's, and her dress spontaneously combusted as she ran. The people attributed these and similar events, to something in the coal, or in the air, or to electricity. When the nurse-girl, Emma Davies, sat on the lap of the school mistress, Miss Maddox, her boots kept flying off, like the boot laces in ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... him. So finally they reached the bank and gathered around Comgall, talking to him all at once and telling him how much they liked the look of him. And one great white swan fluttered into the old man's lap and sat there letting himself be stroked and patted, stretching his long neck up to Comgall's face and trying to kiss him ...
— The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts • Abbie Farwell Brown
... brought up in the world, and on the ruinous extravagance of their young stepmothers, Madame de Nailles and Jacqueline—their last visitors having departed—were resting themselves, leaning tenderly against each other, on a sofa. Jacqueline's head lay on her mother's lap. Her mother, without speaking, was stroking the girl's dark hair. Jacqueline, too, was silent, but from time to time she kissed the slender fingers sparkling with rings, as they came within reach of ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... with special reference to a personage whom she called 'Prince of Wiles.' This enthusiast declared with pride that she had stood at a certain street corner for seven hours, accompanied by a child of five years old, the same who now sat on her lap, nodding in utter weariness; together they were going to see the illuminations, and walk about, with intervals devoted to refreshments, for several hours more. Beyond sat a working-man, overtaken with liquor, who railed vehemently ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing |
