"Listening" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the people who wait at home, instead of the history of the warriors, rich credit would be given to Mrs. Golden for enduring the long, lonely days, listening for Una's step. A proud, patient woman with nothing to do all day but pick at a little housework, and read her eyes out, and wish that she could run in and be neighborly with the indifferent urbanites ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... very much?" Larry leaned forward. His voice was low, solicitous. Tony, listening, resented it a little. She didn't see why Larry had to keep his good manners for somebody outside the family. He might have spoken a little more politely to herself, she thought. She had only been trying ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... this with tresses flowing, Flashing eyes and forehead glowing, From whose lips the thunder-music Pealeth o'er the listening lands? 'Tis the first and last of preachers— First and last of priestly teachers; First and last of those appointed In the ranks of the anointed; With their songs like swords to sever Tyranny and Falsehood's bands! 'Tis the Poet—sum and total Of the others, With his brothers, In ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... one about who can get in?" "No." "Have you any meat?" "No." "Any flour or grain?" "No." "Any chickens?" "No." "Any eggs?" "No." "What do you live on?" "Nada" (nothing). The utter indifference of this boy, and the tone of his answer "Nada," attracted the attention of Colonel Mason, who had been listening to our conversation, and who knew enough of Spanish to catch the meaning, and he exclaimed with some feeling, "So we get nada for our breakfast." I felt mortified, for I had held out the prospect of a splendid breakfast of meat and tortillas with rice, chickens, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... promoters of that system which would result in happier days. How vivid of happiness was that scene presented in the plantation church, where master and missus, surrounded by their faithful old slaves, who, with a patriarchal attachment, seemed to view them with reverence, sat listening to the fervent discourse of that once wretched slave, now, by kindness, made a man! Deep, soul-stirring, and affecting to tears, were the words of prayer with which that devout negro invoked the all-protecting hand of Almighty God, that he would guide master and slave through the troubles ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... that some spy might be lurking near—some one like his late visitant—and therefore he descended once more to the room, where he felt safer. Here, after going all around, and peering out of every window, and looking also and listening at the door, he felt satisfied that he was unobserved. He now went into a corner of the room at the head of the bed and knelt down, facing the corner in such a way that he could conceal the package while examining it. Here, ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... warren joining to his outlet, many daws (corvi moneduloe) build every year in the rabbit-burrows under ground. The way he and his brothers used to take their nests, while they were boys, was by listening at the mouths of the holes, and, if they heard the young ones cry, they twisted the nest out with a forked stick. Some water-fowls (viz., the puffins) breed, I know, in that manner; but I should never have suspected the daws of building in ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... listening outside a fort on Hallowe'en heard the spirits speaking of the fatal illness of his betrothed, the daughter of the King of France. They said that if Guleesh but knew it, he might boil an herb that grew by his door and give it to the princess and make her well. Joyfully Guleesh hastened home, ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... myself of two minds in this business. I speak freely for Padahoon according to our custom which is, without discredit to the Arrow-Maker, for the leadership of the elder. But at least let us remember that the gods have high affairs; they are not always listening to the gossip of the camp-fire and hut. What word have they of Sagharawite except as the Chisera carries it? If we put the choice to them, let her know what we are thinking in our hearts. Let Simwa and Sparrow Hawk declare it so that ...
— The Arrow-Maker - A Drama in Three Acts • Mary Austin
... chagrined. Not once since she had come had he seemed interested—really interested in her music. He had asked her, it is true, in a perfunctory way what she had done, and who her teachers had been. But all the while she was answering she had felt that he was not listening; that he did not care. And she cared so much! She knew now that all her practising through the long hard months of study, had been for Cyril. Every scale had been smoothed for his ears, and every phrase had been interpreted with his approbation in view. Across the wide waste ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... I do not sell I have learnt as much from light literature as from heavy I would wait till he flung you off, and kneel to you If you have this creative soul, be the slave of your creature Imagination she has, for a source of strength in the future days Looking on him was listening Love the difficulty better than the woman Men in love are children with their mistresses Metaphysician's treatise on Nature: a torch to see the sunrise Music in Italy? Amorous and martial, brainless and monotonous Night has little mercy for the self-reproachful Not much ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the fashion in society, can do so much good as by endeavoring to reinstate conversation, and to teach in every company the nobleness of leisure and attention, that each one who speaks shall be inspired to the fullest training of his best powers by the listening expectation of the rest. No one can talk well amidst a rude jabber of voices, or a perpetual succession of interruptions. Subtile thought, sacred sentiment, eloquent emotion, and artistic speech, ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... walking southward along the shore, one would soon have left the rough clearings, and entered the primeval forest. Here, mile after mile, he would have journeyed on in solitude, when the hoarse roar of the rapids, foaming in fury on his left, would have reached his listening ear; and, at length, after a walk of some three hours, he would have found the rude beginnings of a settlement. It was where the St. Lawrence widens into the broad expanse called the Lake of St. Louis. Here, La Salle had traced out the circuit of a palisaded ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... refuse, and unless you do so refuse you are a coward and false to your profession. I do not speak here of actual deeds of sin—no one can do or join in an impure deed without knowing that he is sinning, but many think that there is no great harm in listening to and laughing at what others say. Be warned in time, it is but a very little step from laughing at to joining in bad conversation, and a very small step from words to action. The same want of courage that joins in the laugh will make it difficult to say no when tempted further. Never, ...
— Boys - their Work and Influence • Anonymous
... After listening intently for a minute or two, without hearing any sound whatever indicative of the proximity of the enemy, our eyes meanwhile growing more accustomed to the intense darkness, we pushed forward as rapidly as the nature of the ground would permit, and in about ten minutes more ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... programme. Though a strict teetotaller, he passed hours at public houses, especially in the evenings, listening to the talk of the port. It was all about the disaster in the South Seas, the heavy casualties suffered by the Three Towns, and the rotten ill-luck of the avenging battle-cruisers running upon the German mines. Not a whisper could ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... announced the honours, the girl came forward and received her beads from the Chief Guardian. Mrs. Royall had a smile and a pleasant word for each one; but when Myra Karr stood before her, she laid her hand very kindly on the girl's shoulder and turned to the listening circle. ...
— The Torch Bearer - A Camp Fire Girls' Story • I. T. Thurston
... they were therefore the worst kind of "bad medicine." She would have burnt them up if she could, but now they were no longer within her reach. Rita had one, but Send Warning and his young friend had taken possession of the others, and were "listening to them" ...
— The Talking Leaves - An Indian Story • William O. Stoddard
... equal to the task of listening to the first part of Mr. Fellowes's speech. To hear that the common and just reproach against all mankind, but especially against all Christians, of taking too keen an interest in the present, was in a large measure at least founded upon a mistake; ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... listened to these rules, and promised to obey them, and then walked on. They tried to walk slowly and steadily, listening to Jonas's story. They turned off, after a time, into a narrower and steeper path, and ascended, stepping from stone to stone The trees and bushes hung over their heads, making the walk shady ...
— Rollo at Play - Safe Amusements • Jacob Abbott
... coinage was so uniformly good that the cowry disappeared altogether from commerce during his reign. Above all things he desired to impart a fresh stimulus to literary effort, but he adopted singularly unfortunate means to secure this desirable end; for, listening to the insidious flattery of courtiers, he determined that literature should begin anew with his reign. He therefore determined to destroy all existing books, finally deciding to spare those connected with three important departments of human knowledge: ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... Can't you hear it, the silence of the prairie? Why, we might be the only two people in the world, you and me, here in this little shack, right out in the prairie. Are you listening? There ain't a sound. It might be the garden of Eden. What's that about male and female, created He them? I guess you're my wife, my ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... like the blue of Egyptian beads. You were not listening to me. You were seeing sights and ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... Norman, were walking slowly up and down the garden path in front of the old-fashioned manor farmhouse lent to them for ten days by an admiring friend. They were waiting for Somerled, who had expressed a desire not to be met at the station; and listening for the teuf-teuf of motors along the distant road prevented Mrs. West from attending to her brother's suggestions. He had had an inspiration for the new novel they were planning together, and was explaining it eagerly, for Basil was a born story-teller. Only, he had never found time ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... a delight in listening to stories. They preferred tales which dealt with the marvellous and excited their imagination, introducing speaking animals, gods in disguise, ghosts and magic. One of them tells of a king who was distressed because ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... sense in which 'sand is weighty.' You may as well be crushed under a sandhill as under a mountain of marble. It matters not which. The accumulated weight of the one is as great as that of the other. And I wish to lay upon the consciences of all that are listening to me now this thought, that an overwhelming weight of guilt results from the accumulation of little sins. Dear friends! I do not desire to preach a gospel of fear, but I cannot help feeling that, very largely, in this day, the ministration ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... reading a chapter or listening to a lecture, should find the relationships among the smaller portions of the thought that will unify the subject-matter under a very few heads. If several pages or a whole lecture can be reduced to a single point, it should be done. He should always remember that to the extent ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... to collect and peruse the remarks on this subject not only of the philosophers, who foolish[691] people say had no gall in their composition, but still more of kings and tyrants. Such was the remark of Antigonus to his soldiers, when they were abusing him near his tent as if he were not listening, so he put his staff out, and said, "What's to do? can you not go rather farther off to run me down?" And when Arcadio the Achaean, who was always railing against Philip, and advising ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... Zamenoy herself had condescended to enlighten his mind on the subject of Nina's peril, and had gone so far as to invite him to hear a few words on the subject from a priest on that side of the water. Souchey had only heard Nina's report of what Father Jerome had said, but he was listening with his own ears while the other priest declared his opinion that things would go very badly with any Christian girl who might marry a Jew. This sufficed for him; and then—having been so far enlightened by Madame Zamenoy herself—he accepted a little commission, which took him to the Jew's house. ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... ten, listening with rapt interest, his grandfather's backsliding had sounded only a few degrees more heinous than gormandising at Christmas; and since Ailie had proved obdurate when pressed, and even bribed for further information, the spark of curiosity had died out ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... organized a debating-society, (which by the way was, "in respect of unanimity of feeling and action, a lesson to most legislative bodies, and to the Congress of the United States in particular." Congress of the United States, are you listening?) and "such an organization has proved a valuable means of improvement to many persons." Witness "the Irish orator, Curran," with biography; "a living American statesman," with biography; the "highly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... of years and thousands of miles away from me. He was a king's son in Babylon, commanding the court-musicians to make sweet discourse for him. He was Saul harkening to David. He was a dreamy-eyed Pict listening to music wafted at dusk from a Roman camp about which helmeted sentries paced. He was a medieval prince, falsely imprisoned, leaning from dark and lonely towers to catch the strains of some wandering troubadour from his native Southlands. ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... grog; but he remained on, talking things over. John Massingbird sat in a cloud of smoke, drinking Lionel's share as well as his own, and listening to the rain, which had begun to patter ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... stood beside him, bootjack in hand. "If he sends them back again," he directed, "tell him to go to one of the French firms in Regent Street who cater to dainty ladies." He positively snorted with indignation, while the page, listening, whistled again and looked down at the parcel ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... faces of the great majority; doubt and disappointment, for they were eager to see their journey's end and that Williams map had aroused high hopes. Here and there a woman stood beside her husband, listening anxiously to what he said, watching his eyes as he harkened to the talk of ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... a very narrow passage, barely wide enough for one person to walk in, which extended all around the choir, with a solid wall on one side, and arches through which they could look down into the church below on the other. After walking along for several hundred feet, listening to the swelling sounds of the music, which, coming from the organ and choir below, echoed grandly and solemnly among the vaults and arches above them, until they reached the centre of the curve at the head of the cross, Mr. George and Rollo stopped, and leaned over the stone parapet, and looked ...
— Rollo on the Rhine • Jacob Abbott
... knew the secret of his cell: could she but escape—could she but seek the praetor he might yet in time be given to light, and preserve the Athenian. Her emotions almost stifled her; her brain reeled—she felt her sense give way—but by a violent effort she mastered herself,—and, after listening intently for several minutes, till she was convinced that Arbaces had left the space to solitude and herself, she crept on as her ear guided her to the very door that had closed upon Calenus. Here she more distinctly caught his accents of terror and despair. ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... happened under Sigel. The desultory firing along our changed front showed too plainly the ground we had lost the day before. In the wood, alongside of the road fronting the right centre of our line, our Regiment lay at arms,—listening to awfully exaggerated stories from stragglers,—watching the posting of artillery in our immediate front, the entry of Brigades into the wood upon our left, and their exit under skilful artillery practice,—and ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... river-banks, he had assured himself persistently that nothing should induce him to take advantage of Bob's generosity. But these good resolutions were forgotten as he lay in the palanquin which conveyed him from the landing-place to the Residency, listening, without comprehending what was said, to James Antony's gruff voice firing off items of latest intelligence like minute-guns. In a few moments he would see Honour, look into her frank eyes, hold her cool hand, begin the siege of her heart in which his faithful love—freed from the disturbing influence ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... man in Mr Pecksniff's place, if he could have dived through the floor of the pew of state and come out at Calcutta or any inhabited region on the other side of the earth, would have done it instantly. Mr Pecksniff sat down upon a hassock, and listening ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... lady went on talking about her son, and Tom, listening to her kindly attempts to draw him out of his own troubles, grew interested, and by the time they reached Winchester, where she left the train, he had shaken off his first depression. It was a long journey with several changes, and ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... that seriously affects the whole difficulty. And I am compelled to fall back on this: I don't know how to pray as I ought. But the Spirit within me will make intercession for this man as I allow Him to have free swing in me as the medium of His prayer. And He who is listening above as He hears His will for this man being repeated down on the battle-field will recognize His own purpose, of course. And so that thing will be working out because of Jesus' victory ...
— Quiet Talks on Prayer • S. D. (Samuel Dickey) Gordon
... as well have spoken to the wind. Instead of listening to his good advice, Pinocchio turned to him and said as roughly ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... woman rushed on without dropping her voice, "Oh, you need not be troubling yourselves for fear anyone should overhear! All the world knows it! Your other servants were listening with me at your door! They heard ...
— Damaged Goods - A novelization of the play "Les Avaries" • Upton Sinclair
... from their hands the purple flowerets fell, The laughing Hours stood listening in the sky;— From Pan's green cave to AEgle's haunted cell, Heaved the charm'd earth in ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... as the Scriptures, he shall be From every sin and blemish free. Whoever reads the saving strain, With all his kin the heavens shall gain. Brahmans who read shall gather hence The highest praise for eloquence. The warrior, o'er the land shall reign, The merchant, luck in trade obtain; And Sudras listening(42) ne'er shall fail To reap advantage from ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... Crows, Father: I have been listening to your words, and they sound good. I hope you are not lying to each other. The Crows have long been the friends of the whites, and we want peace for all. We want powder, and when the white Father makes us presents, I want him to give us a good ...
— Three Years on the Plains - Observations of Indians, 1867-1870 • Edmund B. Tuttle
... hour it remains the same. It is, in fact, a fine field for the agitator: the ardent passions of the people are easily worked upon; and he who is bold or artful enough to address himself to those passions, is ever sure of obtaining a listening and an ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... all these were unsuited to the sphere in which Lady Maude moved. It was, indeed, a realm where this coinage did not circulate. To enable him to address her with any prospect of success, he should be able to show—ay, and to show argumentatively—that she was, in listening to him, about to do something eminently prudent and worldly-wise. She must, in short, be in a position to show her friends and 'society' that she had not committed herself to anything wilful or foolish—had not been misled ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... before Nat made a move, then he touched Jonathan, and sat up in the canoe. The signal was passed on to James, the paddles were noiselessly taken up, and, without a sound that could be detected by the most closely-listening ear, the canoe stole out again on to the lake. Until some distance from shore they paddled very quietly, then gradually the strokes grew more vigorous, until the canoe was flying along at full speed up the lake, her course being laid so as ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... night I lay In Bruges, at the Fleur-de-Ble, Listening with a wild delight To the chimes that, through the night Bang their changes from the Belfry Of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... ride down to St. Nazaire the conversation ran wholly upon the subject of Mexico, and of the magnificent opportunities to French commerce and speculation opened up by the expedition. Of these our present errand was an earnest. In listening to them, one might have thought that Napoleon had found Aladdin's lamp, and had deposited it for permanent use at the Paris Bourse. Mining companies, colonization companies, railroad companies, telegraph ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... succeeding night of the performance was a spectator. That he may have aspired to more than that was suggested a day or two later in the following incident: A number of the boys were sitting around the stove in the Magnolia saloon, listening to the onset of a winter storm against the windows, when Whisky Dick, tremulous, excited, and bristling with rain-drops and information, ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... seemed to be listening, and the agent was encouraged to try his hand at prophesying what would happen when Jim Weeks should come down the line. When they reached the hotel both men paused, and the ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster
... or on State visits, were occasions for the dissemination of news. The ordinary citizen gathered news and information also from the pulpit and from guild and parochial meetings, and from the bellman. The only authoritative news he received at first hand he got by listening to the public ...
— Life in a Medival City - Illustrated by York in the XVth Century • Edwin Benson
... the room, and for delaying to go out again, while with all his ears he listened. But both client and lawyer were almost too careful for him; and he had learned positively nothing when the latter rose to depart. He instantly left the room, with the door a trifle ajar, and listening intently, heard his master say that Mr. Brett must come again the next morning; that he felt better, and would think over the suggestions he had made; and that he must leave the memoranda within his reach, on the table by his bedside. Ere the lawyer issued, Mewks was on his way ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... and wore a very meditative look. She did not say a word till they got to some little distance from the workshop. Then she half turned her head toward Walter, who was behind her, and said, "I suppose you know we have done a contemptible thing—listening?" ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... the house of Young. Here they found its owner, just roused by the noise of the scuffle with Adams, listening to the explanations of the women, who were purposely trying to lead him astray lest he should go out and be shot. The entrance of the four natives, armed and covered with blood, and Adams unarmed and wounded, at once showed him ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... diligently to attain that end. He was not the man to sit down supinely and let a girl calmly ignore him; so Mona presently found herself talking to him with some degree of cordiality; and what is more to the point, listening to him when he talked. It is probable that Thurston never had tried so hard in his life to win a ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... held out for a half-hour, listening, waiting, and watching in a darkness which, like that of Egypt, could be felt, and when the suspense grew intolerable I struck a match and let its blue flame flicker for a moment over the face of my watch. But the matches soon gave out and with them my patience, ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... his chest and does not use the great bellows that reach down to his diaphragm can get little carrying power. So with the throat: if it is stiff and pinched the tones will be high and forced, and listening to them will tire the audience nearly as much as making them will tire the speaker. Finally, the expressiveness of a voice, the thrill that unconsciously but powerfully stirs hearers, is largely a matter of the resonance that comes from the spaces above the ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... gives way to terror, and wanders wildly about hither and thither, he will do no good and exhaust his vital powers much sooner. He should erect some signal—as conspicuous a one as he can—with something fluttering upon it, sit down in the shade, and, listening keenly for any sound of succour, bear his fate like a man. His ultimate safety is merely a question of time, for he is sure to be searched for; and, if he can keep alive for two or three days, he will, in all probability, ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... Listening there where she sat clasping the book, she heard his steady tread patrolling the veranda; caught the faint fragrance of his brier pipe ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... already seen the only object of any interest, the large church far away down the mile-long street. We had found a festival mass in progress, as it happened to be one of the noted holidays of the year. As we stood a little to one side, listening to the sweet but unsophisticated chanting of the village lads, who had had no training beyond that given in the village school, a woman approached us with a tiny coffin tucked under one arm. Trestles were brought; she set it down on them, beside ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... in her heart-breaking monologue the old woman perceived the crowd listening to her. She looked on the spectators in astonishment, as one who starts from sleep. She recognized me who had questioned her, and became ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... Katherine was listening to the chords of the organ, and she bent forward eagerly. Her thoughts flew back to the convent where she had enjoyed a pure religious life undisturbed by the trammels of the great ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... to this after we became friends. After listening to some tale in which I could discern just the lovely truth which would best help some troubled soul in her audience, I have questioned her as to its meaning. I can see now, in memory, the short-sighted, expressionless ...
— Story-Tell Lib • Annie Trumbull Slosson
... replied Miss Heath. "You have had the advantage of listening to a cultivated man's conversation. You ought to do very well here. What do you ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... wide horizon and background for culture. She was passionately devoted to music, which inspired some of her best poems; and during the last years of her life, in hours of intense physical suffering, she found relief and consolation in listening to the strains of Bach and Beethoven. When she went abroad, painting was revealed to her, and she threw herself with the same ardor and enthusiasm into the study of the great masters; her last work (left unfinished) was a critical ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... the troops will remain the same." The day was scarcely begun (2nd December, 1805) when the allied army was on the march. The noise of the preparations in the camps had reassured Napoleon as to the direction the enemy would take. On the previous evening, whilst listening to the learned lecture of Weirother, Prince Bagration, formerly the heroic defender of the positions of Hollabrunn, had uttered under his long moustache, "The battle is lost!" In seeing his enemies advance towards the right, as he had himself announced to his soldiers, Napoleon could not withhold ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... waited till the last moment. Very cool, indeed, amid all these disputes, very far above the ever-increasing uproar in which horses' names kept recurring and lively Parisian phrases mingled with guttural English exclamations, she sat listening and taking notes majestically. ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... after which he subsided, listening to the proceedings that followed, with grave, expressionless eyes. It is doubtful if Oscar understood what it was all about, but his gravity and judicial manner sent the whole dressing tent into ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... the most terrifick manner. On the 31st of May, 1643, at a solemn fast, when they were listening to the sermon, a messenger entered the church, and communicated his errand to Pym, who whispered it to others that were placed near him, and then went with them out of the church, leaving the rest in solicitude and amazement. They immediately sent ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... listening? And you have only insulted me. You who dared only to talk of friendship, who scarcely dared hint ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... went back to Work, having saved enough ink to finish with. But a few minutes later he called to me again, and I moved to the Doorstep, where I sat listening, while aparently admiring the sea. He explained that having been thus forced, he had almost finished the last Act, and it was a corker. And he said if he had his clothes and some money, and a key to get out, he'd go right back to Town with it ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... had been listening to the conversation of two farmers the evening before, replied, "I ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... there ever such another Bunger in the watery world? Bunger, when you die, you ought to die in pickle, you dog; you should be preserved to future ages, you rascal. What became of the White Whale? now cried Ahab, who thus far had been impatiently listening to this bye-play between the two Englishmen. Oh! cried the one-armed captain, Oh, yes! Well; after he sounded, we didn't see him again for some time; in fact, as I before hinted, I didn't then know what whale it was that had served me such a trick, till some time afterwards, when ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... evening, she was kind enough to come to a box I had secured at the opera-house—a building which is almost equal to La Scala—and I had the delight of seeing Balfe's "The Talisman" acted, as well as of listening to the music. ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... things often happen in an hour than in a hundred years, and no one can say with safety, "This is a road that I shall never travel." One morning at breakfast, as Carlino, instead of listening to his father's sermon, was amusing himself by watching the flies buzzing in the air, he forgot that he had a knife in his hand, and pricked his finger in a gesture of impatience. The blood gushed forth and fell into a plate of ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... at the door, listening for the sound of hoofs, watching with impatience. Suddenly he gave a shout, and the others looked to see a small object which came whirling like a ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey
... have been as scornful as Socrates of the judgment of popular opinion. But he never would have got there, not only because he was too conservative to deny the established divinities, but because he was so entertaining that everybody liked listening to him, whatever he denied or affirmed. Socrates, on the other hand, was evidently something of a bore, with a bore's unrelieved earnestness and inopportune persistence. His saying about "letting the talk lead us where it will," is an exact description of Johnson's practice, but nothing ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... sweet, beguiling melody,— So sweet we know not we are listening to it,— Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought, Yea, with my life, and life's own secret joy; Till the dilating soul, enrapt, transfused, Into the mighty vision passing—there, As in her natural form, swelled vast ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... deers' horns to an independent gentleman whose fellows are contented with the latter decorations for their civic wreath. Willoughby, let me remark, has recently shown himself most considerate for my girl. As far as I could gather—I have been listening to a dialogue of ladies—he is as generous as he is discreet. There are certain combats in which to be the one to succumb is to claim the honours;—and that is what women will not learn. I doubt their seeing ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... which (as usual) divided my husband's bedroom from mine, I came upon my maid, Price, listening intently at my husband's closed door. This seemed to me so improper that I was beginning to reprove her, when she put her finger to her lip and coming over to me with her black eyes ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... him to know anything about it," continued David, "for I was certain that he would make me trouble; but he found it out by listening while I was talking about it, and wanted to join in with me. I told him I didn't want him, and he said I ...
— The Boy Trapper • Harry Castlemon
... him by enacting plays for a puppet theatre. This was at six years old, and at twelve we find him acting in a play with other boys, just as Motley's playmates have already described him. The hero may now speak for himself, but we shall all perceive that we are listening to the writer's ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the interests common to the country, of how the spring rains had helped the range, of Shorty McCabe's broken leg, of the new school district that was being formed. Before she knew it Kate was listening to his defense of himself in the campaign between him and her father. He found her a partisan beyond chance of conversion. Yet ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... Listening to Keaton's tale, he had dimly seen the caravan of hunted creatures crawl past him over the fading green of the prairie; the wagons with their bowed white covers; a heavy cart, jolting, creaking, lumbering mysteriously along, a sick driver hidden somewhere back under its makeshift ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... leaning forward, listening intently. "Do you mean to say that there is a country in which all the woman are fat?" ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... suggestive of exquisite peace and loveliness, no mosquitoes and many friendly beasts. He had only heard the word once by chance in connection with the mysterious place called Home, in some casual conversation when no one thought he was listening. He seized upon it instantly and it became a priceless possession, comforting in times of stress, soothing at all times, a sort of refuge from a real world that had lately been very puzzling for a ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... table there were awkward silences, followed by spasmodic local bursts of talk. Sommers, who sat between Miss Hitchcock and Mrs. Lindsay, fell to listening to his host. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... the Sixth corps moved to Chantilly, where we rested for the night. Next morning we took a new and stronger position, where we waited, listening to the roar of cannon where the cavalry was contending with the advance of the enemy, and wondering how soon our own turn would come. Suddenly, at three o'clock, the doubts seemed to be removed. An officer came dashing along the line, with the order ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... inscrutable and arbitrary power, sanctions supernatural or 'extra-experimental' beliefs of all kinds. You reject in the case of miracles all the tests applicable to ordinary instruction, and appeal to trial by ordeal instead of listening to witnesses. Instead of taking the trouble to plough and sow, you expect to get a harvest by praying to an inscrutable Being. You marry without means, because you hold that God never sends a child without sending food for it to eat. ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... could serve him who would but treat me with the kindness he might bestow upon his dog; I fancied with what zeal I could descend to very slavery for one word of affection. The streets were crowded with people; groups were gathered here and there, either listening to some mob orator of the day, or hearing the newspapers read aloud. I tried, by forcing my way into the crowd, to feel myself "one of them," and to think that I had my share of interest in what was going forward, but in vain. Of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... Anna asked curiously, a dozen times. Julia stood staring at the child blindly. One hand was about Anna's neck, the loose curls falling soft and warm upon it, the other Julia had pressed tight above her heart. She stood still as if listening. ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... young man; I know what brings you to see me; you are curious to hear my history. Draw nearer the fire, then. Mauprat though I am, I will not make you do duty for a log. In listening you are giving me the greatest pleasure you could give. Your friend will tell you, however, that I do not willingly talk of myself. I am generally afraid of having to deal with blockheads, but you I have already heard of; I know your character and your profession; you are an observer ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... you, Hildebrand," he said, earnestly, "my heart sings as it has never sung since its earliest love-flutter. I feel like a stainless god in a sacred garden, listening for the first time to the dear madness of the nightingale. No subtle Neapolitan ever stirred me as this wood-nymph does with her flaming hair and her frank eyes. No wonder the old gods loved mortal women, if they knew my royal joy with this child of ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... I became conscious that a door opposite me was open and the curtain drawn a little way back. There, in the half-light, I saw Mistress Ysolinde listening. She leaned her head aside as though it had been heavy with its weight of locks of burned gold. She pillowed her cheek against the door-post, and let her dreamy sea-green eyes rest upon me. And the look ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... On July 18th, I went by side-car to St. Omer where the Senior Chaplains of the Army were summoned to a conference. We were billeted in the large building used as the Chaplains' Rest Home, and there enjoyed the great privilege, not only of meeting one another, but of listening to some splendid addresses and lectures by those in charge. It was pleasant to re-visit St. Omer. The quaint old French town, with its rambling streets and polite inhabitants, took one away from the thoughts of war and gave one almost a feeling of home. In the smoking-room at night, we ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... men were brought down, and a conversation took place between one of the mates of the schooner, who was hurt, and the men who brought down the wounded, and listening to them, I found that at daylight they had discovered that an English frigate was under all sail, beating up to them, and about five miles to leeward; that in consequence, the Stella was now carrying on a running fight with the schooner (who was to windward of her), and trying to escape. This accounted ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... mythic citizens of 1955 prefer?—can't you see them crowding around the concert grand piano listening to the old-fashioned strains as we listen today when some musical antiquarian gives a recital of Scarlatti, Couperin, Rameau on a clavecin! Still, as Mozart and Bach are endurable now, there is no warrant for any supposition that Chopin would not be tolerated ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... and Ab worked well that winter and the youth acquired such wisdom that his casual advice to Oak when the two were out together was something worth listening to because of its confidence and ponderosity. Concerning flint scraper, drill, spearhead, ax or bone or wooden haft, there was, his talk would indicate, practically nothing for the boy to learn. That was his own opinion, though, as he ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... needed, for it cheered Peter to meet someone who talked of the possibility of his fighting again. Soon the two were deep in technicalities, the appalling technicalities of the airman. It was no good listening to their talk, for you could make nothing of it, but it was bracing up Peter like wine. Archie gave him a minute description of Lensch's latest doings and his new methods. He, too, had heard the rumour that Peter had mentioned to me at St Anton, of a new Boche plane, with mighty engines ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... by daylight. All the seats are empty and the players have gone away, and the theatre begins to whisper as empty buildings do. I think I know quite well some of the people who come to St. Malo les Bains, just by listening to what the ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... mind had so far been wandering, and who had merely nodded without listening, was struck by ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... friend," said Yates, turning to Mr. Benedict, who had dropped his knife and fork, and sat uneasily witnessing the meeting, and listening to the conversation. ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... West Indies fell almost entirely into the hands of Fonseca, bishop of Burgos, who of all the statesmen belonging to the court of Spain was least fit to have been entrusted with affairs of such importance, and who accordingly misconducted them in a most surprising manner. Listening on the one hand to the proposals of every needy adventurer, and slighting all those men on the other hand who were most likely to have pushed the new discoveries to advantage, by the knowledge they had acquired of the West Indies, by their wise conduct in the settlement of the new colonies, and the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... listening to the speeches of the revolutionists one is impressed with all the wonderful benefits that the party proposes to confer upon our citizens if it should ever rule the land. Of course very many of the proposals are made solely on the authority of the speaker ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... After listening to the wail of an old Irish peasant in Kerry, Robert Blatchford asked him what he wanted. "The old man leaned upon his spade and looked out across the black peat fields at the lowering skies. 'What is it that I'm wantun?' he said; then in a deep plaintive tone he continued, ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... without her absence having been discovered, she went about her daily routine of work and play as if nothing had happened, but every sound in the still forest caused her heart to beat fast, and she was always listening for an approaching footstep bringing news of her beloved. Then a warrior brought the tidings—Captain Smith was dead. Dead! She could not, would not believe it! Dead! He who was so full of life and vigor was not dead—that was too ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... accustomed sternness, as he stood regarding his eldest child. A gentle, sympathetic light was in his eyes as they rested on the sweet face grown older, much, in those days of anxious care. How matronly she looked! So patiently listening to, and answering every wish of the ...
— Edna's Sacrifice and Other Stories - Edna's Sacrifice; Who Was the Thief?; The Ghost; The Two Brothers; and What He Left • Frances Henshaw Baden
... thought of any kind, into the black night. The howling of a belated dog was borne toward her on the wind, at intervals, from some distant part of the suburb. She found herself following the faint sound as it died away into silence with a dull attention, and listening for its coming again with an expectation that was duller still. Her arms lay like lead on the window-sill; her forehead rested against the glass without feeling the cold. It was not till the moon struggled out again that she was startled into sudden self-remembrance. ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... been agreed between Walke and Captain Foote that in case the former was successful, he was to make it known by firing minute guns. The captain was listening intently, when through the rain and darkness the welcome signals reached his ears, and he thanked God that all had come out ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... the brilliant rooms of Mrs. Goldsborough that night with an elated spirit, seeing in herself the future hostess of the fashionable throng there assembled. Instead of standing in a corner, listening with unctuous deference or sympathy to any who chanced to come against her, as was her wont, proffering her fan, or her essence-bottle, or in some quiet way ministering to their egotism, she now stepped freely forth upon the field ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... into big and little groups. Uncle Ephraim and the judge were hob-nobbing around the fireplace, listening to Uncle Ephraim's stories and joining in the laughter which every now and then filled the room. Captain Nat was deep in a discussion with Doctor John over some seafaring matter, and Jane and Mrs. Benson were discussing a local charity ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Day at the Front, and, as I dozed off to sleep, I found myself wondering whether the next Christmas would find me still in France. Should I be listening to carols and guns at the Front, or would the message of the bells peal from a church in an adjacent street at home, and announce the coming of another Christmas to me ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... I will, so there!" and in another minute she would have been up in the sick room. But the first thing she knew, a gentle but firm hand was laid upon hers; and she found herself back again in the old rocking-chair, and listening to the Doctor's words which were quite ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... on the bank, gazing at the sparkling water, and listening to the slow step of the sentry and to the deeper sounds of the forest. Another hour crept by, and still Danton had not returned. Menard walked about the camp to make sure that he was not already rolled in his blanket; then he went to the sentry, ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... Keep the naughty temper down, and don't holler, because everybody in the outside office will hear you. They're probably listening right now. Babbitt, old dear, you're crooked in the first place and a damn skinflint in the second. If you paid me a decent salary I wouldn't have to steal pennies off a blind man to keep my wife from starving. Us married just five months, and her the ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... of untold satisfaction in watching the Southern Cross rise over the vast veldt where scarcely man's foot had trod, where the immensity of its space was equalled by its sublime, quiet grandeur. He liked to spend the night in the open air, gazing at the innumerable stars and listening to the voice of the desert, so full of attractions for those who have grown to discern somewhat of Nature's hidden joys and sorrows. South Africa became for him a second Motherland, and one which seemed to him to be more hospitable to his temperament than the land of ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... traveler did not have much of a chance to talk, if he had been so inclined, but he listened with very respectful attention to the odd observations of Uncle Jeremiah. Uncle had not talked loud, but across the aisle were two young men who seemed to be listening more intently than befitted their opportunity to hear. They were faultlessly attired, and frequently exchanged observations with each other in low tones, covertly watching Uncle and his family as if they had become very interesting personages. Presently one moved to a ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... word in the construction; and where there is reason to doubt whether the possessive case or some other ought to come before the participle, it is better to reject both, and vary the expression. Examples: "Any person may easily convince himself of the truth of this, by listening to foreigners conversing in a language [which] he does not understand."—Churchill's Gram., p. 361. "It is a relic of the ancient style abounding with negatives."—Ib., p. 367. These forms are right; though the latter might be varied, by the insertion of "which abounds" for "abounding." ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... Behind the closed door in the crowded theatre the orchestra suddenly broke into a ragtime. Challoner found himself listening to it dully. Everything felt horribly unreal. It almost seemed like a scene in a play—this hot, crowded room; the figure of the woman opposite in her expensive stage ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... Provencal palate. It sounds very well in verse, but is not very substantial. On such an occasion men would look for that fundamental dish, the plate of red haricots, seasoned with chopped onions. All in good time; this at least would ballast the stomach. Thus refreshed in the open air, listening to the song of the cigales, the gang of harvesters would take their mid-day rest and gently digest their meal in the shadows of the sheaves. Our modern Thestylis, differing little from her classic sister, would take good care not to forget the gounflo-gus, that economical resource ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... trouble than any other of their subscribers, for when he telephones to any of the government departments, or to dignitaries or officials of high rank, the operators at the central office are under the strictest orders to abstain from listening to the conversation, and are forced to rise from their seats and remove to a distance from the wires. Anyone caught disobeying in this particular is subject not only to dismissal, but to serious unpleasantness on the part ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... in vain to look beyond the heights. We cry aloud, and the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry. From the voiceless lips of the unreplying dead there comes no word, but the light of death. Hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustic of a wing, he who sleeps here when dying, mistaking the approach of death for the return of health, whispered with his latest breath, 'I am better now.' Let us believe, in spite of doubts and dogmas, and tears and fears, that these dear words are true ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... at a long table, were Czuv, King, and Breckenridge, all fully recovered, engaged in earnest conversation with Newton and Crowninshield. Alcantro and Fedanzo, the Martian scientists, were listening intently, as were the two Venerians Dol Kenor and Pyraz Amonar. The eyes of the three newcomers, however, did not linger upon the group at the table, but were irresistibly drawn to one corner of the room, where six creatures lay in the heaviest manacles afforded by the stores of ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... see the water shining in the morning sunshine, which was yellower and richer in colour now, for the season was getting on; the cold thin wintry look was giving place in this sheltered spot to the warmer feeling of spring. The little waves came lapping in softly; by listening intently and fancying a little, Biddy could almost hear the delicate sound they made as ...
— The Rectory Children • Mrs Molesworth
... and how the United States was going to join her to finish off the English in this war. Monsieur Genet said he'd justabout make the United States fight for France. He was a rude common man. But I liked listening. I always helped drink any healths that was proposed—specially Citizen Danton's who'd cut off King Louis' head. An all-Englishman might have been shocked—but that's where ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... went 'bang' some way off; and my sister, like a wise hare, scuttled away at full speed for the wood. But I only made myself smaller than usual and lay watching and listening. ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... background. In the semicircle of chairs arched from wing to wing sat the local and visiting political lights; men of all trades, these, some of them a little shamefaced and ill at ease by reason of their unwonted conspicuity; all of them listening with a carefully assumed air of strained attention to the speaker of ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... the quarter-deck, they retired to Ronald's cabin, where a considerable time was spent in giving and listening to accounts of ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston |
