"Bated" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with strained attention; and presently the pound of hoofs was clearly audible returning on the same trail through the woods of the lake shore. The approach of strangers is charged with a tremendous significance to those immured in a wilderness. They bated their breaths to ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... and harked with bated breath. Never until now—when a Northern President of the United States should clasp hands with ex-war-Governor Pemberton would the breach be entirely closed—would the country be made one and indivisible—no North, not much South, very little East, and no West ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... white mantle of fog, they drifted slowly away, watching with bated breath the misty outlines of the towering spars grow feinter and fainter, and then vanish altogether, till, although they were but forty yards away, the position of the Brekenbridge was discernible only by a dull blurr of sickly ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... he saw at a glance that it opened at page 240 and that chapter 51 began at the top of the left-hand side, and had for a motto a verse written by Coleridge, the gist of which struck him like a flash of lightning. With burning cheeks and bated breath he read ... I'll tell you what he read later on, but I may admit at once that it had nothing whatever to ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg
... the gale had not bated a jot of its violence, and the ship labored so heavily that I had the utmost difficulty in getting out of the cuddy on to the poop. When I say that the decks fore and aft were streaming wet, I convey no notion ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... I passed wandering up and down the dry river-courses, full of water-holes and rocks and fallen trees, and overshadowed by magnificent vegetation. I soon got to know every hole and rock and stump, and came up to each with cautious step and bated breath to see what treasures it would produce. At one place I would find a little crowd of the rare butterfly Tachyris zarinda, which would rise up at my approach, and display their vivid orange and cinnabar-red wings, ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... stood there, balancing the gun once more in his hands, old instincts began to stir, old battle hunger to rise, and old realizations of primitive things to assault him. Then, when they had waited with bated breath until they were both reassured, he rose and swung the stock to his shoulder several times. With something like a sigh of contentment, he said, half ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... "Bated in spirit, and with pinions clipped, Of all the means my father left me stripped, Want stared me in the face, so then and there I took to scribbling verse in ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... of long wanderings in the twilight solitudes of Canadian forests; of dangers from wolves and the wild coyotes, half-dog, half-wolf, heard nightly howling round the Indian camp-fires; and from the intangible malice of the skunk, a beautiful but dreadful power, to be propitiated with bated breath and muffled footstep. He told, too, of the chip-munks, with their sharp twittering bark; and he contrived to invest even these tiny creatures with an atmosphere of terror—for it is well known that their temper is atrocious, and that a colony ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... bidding Brother Ambrose bear him away and flog him for his idleness; his mother hearing his lesson with one arm around him and the other hand holding the sweetmeat she would give him if he succeeded. He did not notice that Rolf's eyes were gradually closing, and his bated breath lengthening into long even sighs. ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... of this harpy hast thou Perform'd, my Ariel; a grace it had, devouring: Of my instruction hast thou nothing bated 85 In what thou hadst to say: so, with good life And observation strange, my meaner ministers Their several kinds have done. My high charms work, And these mine enemies are all knit up In their distractions: they now are in my power; 90 And in these fits I leave them, while I visit Young Ferdinand,—whom ...
— The Tempest - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... universal peace. This woman, who had all the graces and charms of her sex, never inspired Napoleon with ambitious or haughty thoughts. While the war lasted, she was anxious, unhappy; waiting anxiously with bated breath ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... altogether new state of existence both in Church and State. Even out here in the garden, in the sanctuary of their own home, with only their friend and spiritual pastor to hear them, the boys spoke with bated breath, as though fearful of uttering words which might have within them some germ of that ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... cocks with a sort of solemn awe, as if they had indeed been given by the hand of the Lord to his servant, who broke them here in his wrath. He knew that the step of the musician slackened as he followed. What holy mysteries were they not rushing in upon? He spoke in a bated voice. ...
— The Riddle Of The Rocks - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... forth and stalked in stately, fearless groups over the sunset-crimsoned lawns. There was a brown gamekeeper for nearly every head of game, wearing a pheasant's wing in his hat and carrying a short, heavy sword; and our driver told us, with an awful solemnity in his bated breath, that no one might kill this game but the king, ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... rattle and roar of the guns and caissons as they thundered on their mission of death; the glittering sheen reflected from a thousand sabres, had all passed by and left us in the desolated town. We lived, as it were, with bated breath and eager ears, our nerves tensely strung with anxiety and suspense waiting to catch the first sound of that coming strife, where we knew so many of our bravest and best must fall. At last came the news of that ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... was like a part of the green of the fields and woods all round them: the black-green of pines and spruces, the yellow-green of maples and birches, dense to the tops of the dreary hills, and breaking like a bated sea around the Lion's Head. The farmer stooped at his work, with a thin, inward-curving chest, but his wife stood straight at hers; and she had a massive beauty of figure and a heavily moulded regularity of feature that impressed such as had eyes ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... semblance of a discussion. Sir Joseph Hooker writes to me: "The interest excited was intense, but the subject was too novel and too ominous for the old school to enter the lists, before armouring. After the meeting it was talked over with bated breath: Lyell's approval, and perhaps in a small way mine, as his lieutenant in the affair, rather overawed the Fellows, who would otherwise have flown out against the doctrine. We had, too, the vantage ground of being familiar with ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... triumphantly, after an interval during which the girls had watched with eager eyes and bated breath. "That was a mean one. Thought it was going to make me rip out the whole row—but I showed it! Now, please, don't anybody drop any more. I must finish that ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope
... silent waves of the river of death, The mother is waiting still, With eager eye and with bated breath, The call ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... he bated no jot of his opposition to the war, and urged the same course upon his friends. To Linder, of Illinois, he wrote: "In law, it is good policy to never plead what you need not, lest you oblige yourself to prove what you cannot." He then counseled ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... Saturday morning, and in the afternoon we attended the sports—a depressing ceremony. The performers went through their contests, so to speak, with bated breath and a self-consciousness which, try as we might, poisoned our applause and made it insufferably patronising. Their backers would pluck up heart and encourage them loudly with Whitechapel catch-words, and anon would hush their voices in uneasy shame. Our ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... companion, followed closely by the mate and passenger; the panic-stricken steward contenting himself with remaining at the top of the hatchway at a safe distance from the object that had alarmed him, although he could not help peering down below and listening with bated breath as to what might ensue in the cabin—heedless of the entreaties of the man at the wheel, in whom curiosity had overpowered the sense of duty for the nonce and made to speak in defiance of discipline, to ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... light. Actually genuine pure gold made liquid in the fire like wine in a glass and emitting on every side of it a glowing white radiance! Each of the two workmen held his mould beneath it and the girl surveyed the scene with bated breath. ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... his face. Valmai listened with folded hands as he spoke of the narrow way so difficult to tread, so wearisome to follow—of the few who walked in it and the people, listening with upturned faces and bated breath, answered to his appeal with sighs and groans and "amens." He then passed on to a still more vivid description of the broad road, so smooth, so easy, so charming to every sense, so thronged with people all gaily dancing onwards to destruction, the sudden ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... soothing her, added to her misery by continually bemoaning Ramona's fate. The void that Ramona had left in the whole household seemed an irreparable one; nothing came to fill it; there was no forgetting; every day her name was mentioned by some one; mentioned with bated breath, fearful conjecture, compassion, and regret. Where had she vanished? Had she indeed gone to the convent, as she said, or had she fled ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... discussing him afterwards with bated breath said that never till they died could they forget her ladyship's face while he did it. "But did you notice the boy's own face? It was positively angelic." "Angelic, indeed; the little horror was intoxicated." No, there was a doctor present, and according to him it was the meal that had ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... learn the meaning of that magic word "spread." There are receptions, socials and spreads, but the greatest of these are spreads. A spread means slipping through dimly lighted corridors long after the retiring-bell has sounded its last warning; it means bated breaths, whispers and suppressed giggles. Its regalia is dressing-gowns or kimonos with bedroom slippers. It means mysterious knocks at the hostess' door; a hurried skirmish within; and when it is found that one of the enlightened is rapping for admission, there is a general exodus ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... of Abbe Duchayla spoke of him with bated breath, and, when he himself looked into his own heart and recalled how often he had applied to the body the power to bind and loose which God had only given him over the soul, he was seized with strange tremors, and falling on his knees ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... own, an audacious and unjustifiable change of the text; but yet, as a mere conjecture, I venture to suggest "bastards," for "'bated." As it stands, in spite of Warburton's note, I can make little or nothing of it. Why should the king except the then most illustrious states, which, as being republics, were the more truly inheritors of the Roman grandeur?—With ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... sensual deed had stol'n from thee Aught that were part of thy most precious love, Or made to swerve the loving soul of me, That to thy service it should duller prove; Had't made to me thy grace less gracious seem, Thy worth less worth, thy love a smaller prize, Or bated aught of thy most rich esteem, Which still grew richer in thy servant's eyes; Then were it fault too foul to find excuse, And all I writ of thee were vows untrue; My verse were nought but idle poet's use, Conceit's worn weeds lac'd o'er with wording new. ...
— Sonnets of Shakespeare's Ghost • Gregory Thornton
... believe thee:—and beshrew my soul But I do love the favour and the form Of this most fair occasion, by the which We will untread the steps of damned flight; And like a bated and retired flood, Leaving our rankness and irregular course, Stoop low within those bounds we have o'erlook'd, And calmly run on in obedience Even to our ocean, to our great King John.— My arm shall give thee help to bear thee hence; ...
— King John • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... succession the entire school marched in procession down to the incoming Eastern train to see if their expected treasure had arrived, and when at last it was lifted from the freight-car and set upon the station platform the school stood awe-struck and silent, with half-bowed heads and bated breath, as though at the arrival of ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... passed. Field's handling of the case was a marvel of legal ingenuity. There were many who were attracted to the trial by that alone. He had made his mark, and whatever he said carried weight. When he came at last to make his speech for the defence, men and women listened with bated breath. It was one of the greatest speeches that the Criminal Court ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... months. It is an irrelevant detail, but in spite of Orde's reminders, fourteen months elapsed before the work was finished. Business over, Bishen Singh hung about, reluctant to take his leave, and at last joining his hands and approaching Orde with bated breath and whispering humbleness, said he had a petition to make. Orde's face suddenly lost all trace of expression. "Speak on, Bishen Singh," said he, and the carver in a whining tone explained that his case against his brothers was fixed for hearing before a ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... fell on a silence which seemed to deepen suddenly within herself. Every thought hung bated on the sense that something was coming: her whole consciousness became a ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton
... Lady Moreham was bending forward with bated breath, and Faith watched her wonderingly as she continued, "When she looked at you, listening to what you had to say, was there ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... the next moment was swallowed up in the yawning blackness. They waited with bated breath until, after a seeming eternity of night and silence, they heard his returning footsteps, and ran forward to meet him. As he was carrying something clasped to his breast, they supported him to the opening. But at the same moment the object of his search and his burden, ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... "Duke's Place" edifice. Decorum was not a feature of synagogue worship in those days, nor was the Almighty yet conceived as the holder of formal receptions once a week. Worshippers did not pray with bated breath, as if afraid that the deity would overhear them. They were at ease in Zion. They passed the snuff-boxes and remarks about the weather. The opportunities of skipping afforded by a too exuberant liturgy promoted conversation, and ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... be such things, and yet no one in his heart doubted their existence; deny it as they might with their tongues as they sat at the supper-table and handed round the ale, out of doors in the night, the haste to pass the haunted spot, the bated breath, and the fearful glances cast around, told another tale. He endeavoured to call philosophy to his aid; he remembered, too, how many nights he had spent in the deepest forest without seeing anything, and without even thinking of such ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... family, and count on eating the dog's ration while on the trip and letting the poor brutes go hungry, just because the dogs belonged to the Company. So we put a stop to that by mixing coal oil with the dog's rations and having them bated into cakes before the trip was begun. Such a mixture made the men sick when they tried to eat it, but the dogs didn't seem to mind ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... eyes, nor close thy lips, Nor speak with bated breath; This evil shall not always last, The ...
— Poems • Frances E. W. Harper
... from out the sheath And shook the fallow brand; And there a while with bated breath, And hearkening ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... verging on the bounds of parliamentary eloquence, although he still spoke with bated breath, and to one solitary hearer. "Yes; we are becoming the slaves of a mercenary and irresponsible press—of one single newspaper. There is a man endowed with no great talent, enjoying no public ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... completely as if the earth had opened and swallowed her up. Is she dead or alive? Did the unhappy girl seek self-destruction that June night, or was she swept into that great, black whirlpool, the name of which even a girl of the workaday world mentions always with bated breath? I do not know. I never expect to know the fate of Eunice. It is only in stories that such things are made clear, usually, and this was only an incident in ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... trying to passle Fern and Rivers off among different families," she said with bated breath. "What a shame that would be! Mr. Dillon in Stillwater, the mother in Danbury Hospital, Fern with Mrs. York, and Rivers at the Weston's. Oh, they mustn't part Fern from her baby! They can't get along without each other. Ain't it too bad we don't have a Home around here like ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... much frequented, as the bridge formed only part of a short cut into a by-road which led to one or two farms on the hill- sides. Along the rails round this ascending curve the ordinary trains laboured with bated breath; and even the dashing express was compelled to slacken here a little ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... the secrets of the Chancelleries have spoken with bated breath—as though in the presence of some vision of Armageddon. On the strength of this mere talk of war by the three nations, vast commercial interests have been embarrassed, fortunes have been lost and won on the Bourses, banks have suspended payment, some ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... Of its own darkling planets,—all those lights Met, in a darker deep, the lights of earth, Lights on the sea, lights of invisible towns, Trembling and indistinguishable from stars, In those black gulfs around the mountain's feet. Then, into the glimmering dome, with bated breath, We entered, and, above us, in the gloom Saw that majestic weapon of the light Uptowering like the shaft of some huge gun Through one arched rift of sky. Dark at its base With naked arms, the crew that all day long Had sweated to make ready ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... only to find ourselves at the next word more mystified than ever. It would hardly have surprised us more if the prisoner had informed us that Mr. Darrow still lived. The excitement was so intense that thought was impossible, so we could only listen with bated breath for someone else to solve the thing for our beleaguered and discouraged minds. After a word with his colleague, ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... why Miss Smythe spoke of her with bated breath," returned Tom in the light, bantering tone which so often irritated Rose. "I might have known she lived in ...
— Miss Merivale's Mistake • Mrs. Henry Clarke
... minister, after much importunity, adopted a similar measure; but pains were taken to make the Czar and the world believe that this measure was intended to protect the Porte from its own subjects, and not from him. Indeed, the allies seemed to name Russia with "'bated breath;" while Russia was filling the world with boasting, fabricating reports of successes over the tribes of Central Asia, pushing a force even to Bokhara, and menacing and wheedling Persia by turns. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... his cries. All day long in the land, by cliff and thicket and den, He ran his lunatic rounds, and howled for the flesh of men; All day long he ate not, nor ever drank of the brook; And all day long in their houses the people listened and shook— All day long in their houses they listened with bated breath, And never a soul went forth, for the sight of the priest ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Sometimes and bring a dream of thee: She is not that for which youth hoped; But she hath blessings all her own, Thoughts pure as lilies newly oped, And faith to sorrow given alone: Almost I deem that it is thou Come back with graver matron brow, With deepened eyes and bated breath, Like one who somewhere had met Death. "But no," she answers, "I am she Whom the gods love, Tranquillity; That other whom you seek forlorn. Half-earthly was; but I am born Of the immortals, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... years younger, and if any of his adoring readers could have seen the pranks he was up to that morning in our staid and respectable chambers, I am afraid they would no longer have spoken of him "with 'bated ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall
... spurn a stranger cur Over your threshhold; monies is your suit, What should I say to you? Should I not say 'Hath a dog money? is it possible A cur can lend three thousand ducats?' or Shall I bend low, and in a bondman's key, With 'bated breath, and whispering humbleness, Say this,— 'Fair Sir, you spet on me on Wednesday last; You spurn'd me such a day; another time You call'd me dog; and for these courtesies I'll lend ...
— The Merchant of Venice [liberally edited by Charles Kean] • William Shakespeare
... to flood over Monsieur the Viscount's face; but still he spoke gently, and with bated breath. "If you wish me to suffer, citizen, let this be my witness that I have suffered. I must be very friendless to desire such a friend. I must be brought very low to ask such a favour. Let the Republic ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... take it. The next evening he was promised for a theatre-party with Siegfried Harvey; and they had supper in a private room at Delmonico's, and there came Mrs. Winnie, resplendent as an apple tree in early April—and murmuring with bated breath, "Oh, you dreadful man, what ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... for ever and ever, Greed, sick with envy, and nets lifted high, Full of inherited hatred. Every one saw it, and every one felt The secret venom, gushing forth, Year after year, Heavy and breath-bated years. But hearts did not quiver Nor hands ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... still before noon when they entered the bay and came to anchor in the midst of the motorboat fleet. The lads had Lord Hastings removed ashore immediately and listened to the diagnosis of the surgeon with bated breath. ...
— The Boy Allies Under the Sea • Robert L. Drake
... It was an error in me to think her heartless. She talked of her aunt Kiomi affectionately, for a gipsy girl, whose modulated tones are all addressed to the soft public. Eveleen spoke with the pride of bated breath of the ferocious unforgivingness of their men. Perhaps if she had known that I traced the good repute of the tribes for purity to the sweeter instincts of the women, she would have eulogized her ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... be natural but ruinous, by which Schiller leads up to his climax. There is no other play of his, early or late, the entanglement of which is so palpably artificial; so like a child's house of cards, built up with bated breath lest a breath should topple it over. According to Boettiger, Schiller once took note of what some critic had remarked upon this lavish use of silence in 'The Bride of Messina' and expressed surprise that any one could so misconceive ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... his arm and the monkey on his shoulder, with both paws tightly clasped around his neck, Toby made his way out of the tent with beating heart and bated breath. ...
— Toby Tyler • James Otis
... waited with bated breath for the return of her husband and his faithful assistants. An hour had passed and nothing could be heard or seen of them. Her fears increased each moment. At last the father returned, with saddened countenance. One of his assistants ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne
... Polly, entranced, as they listened with bated breath, "however do you think of such ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... description, and hurling invective at the Man of Wrath, who sat up in his box drinking in every word and enjoying himself thoroughly. The Man of Wrath likes novelty, and such a sermon had never been heard before. It is spoken of in the village to this day with bated ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... want to tell her that she is a creature too bright and good to come to breakfast like other folks; but somehow she has a way of keeping people at a distance, and even of repressing my pleasantries. We call her the Princess: She has to be approached with bated breath, and you must whisper your compliments if you want to fire them off at her; rear them as gently as a sucking child, in fact—and then they ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... glances as I rushed about beneath his arctic glare, now swung about and damned the helmsman's eye with soft voiced, deadly words. The mates' voices dropped low, and we listened to Yankee Swope's storm of venomous curses with bated breath. ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... enabled to continue on in its wonted peaceful course. Now a wall, as of fire, rose up between the officers; every mess in every ship was divided against itself; brothers-in-arms of yesterday were enemies of to-day; and no one spoke of the outlook at home except in bated breath and measured speech, from fear that the bitter cup would overflow then and there, and water turn to blood. Many Southern officers sent in their resignations at once, and all, both from North and South, were anxious to get home to do ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... raised his hand and asked that the chain of silence should be shaken; and when one of the guards had shaken the rattling chains and all were listening with bated breath he took up and made his plea, demanding prompt justice on the slayer of ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... was certain that the reading had changed to prayer; but not the pattering Paternosters or Ave Marias with which he was familiar enough. This style of prayer was quite different from that; and the young man, after listening for a few moments with bated breath, exclaimed to himself, in accents of ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... the Lee races had there been such an exciting scene as this. Jay Gardiner's face is as white as death, as, with bated breath, he watches the two thorough-breds. Every one rises to his feet in the hope of catching a full ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... anti-Darwinian Fellows of the Royal Society? Where are the secret conspirators against this tyranny, whom I am supposed to favour, and yet not have the courage to join openly? And to think of my poor oppressed friend, Mr. Herbert Spencer, 'compelled to speak with bated breath' (p. 338) certainly for the first time in my thirty-odd years' acquaintance with him!" My alarm and horror at the supposition that while I had been fiddling (or at any rate physicking), my beloved Rome had been burning, in this ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... undaunted courage of her opinions, which leads her to say frankly, if she think so, that Martin Tupper is a greater poet than Shakespeare, yet I have, on the other hand, met a young American matron who confessed to me with bated breath that she and her sister, for the first time in their lives, had gone unescorted to a concert the night before last, and, mirabile dictu, no harm had come of it! It is in America that I have over and over again heard language ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... to wait with bated breath the conclusion of the deliberations of the wise men of the nation met in convention at Philadelphia. Rebellion stood with hesitating step, and warring factions tacitly declared a truce. The crisis was ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... The breath of life ascended from its strong little chest that rose and fell so regularly; the joy of life glowed in its cheeks that were growing redder and redder; the blessings of life dropped from those tiny hands that it had clenched in its sleep. The woman mused in silence and with bated breath as she gazed at the child in her lap, and the man, who felt strangely moved, took its tiny fist in his large hand and examined it, smiling. Yes, ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... obedience to a moral and intellectual impulse, a striking geographical appearance was explained, and for ages pious Greeks looked with bated breath upon the rock at Sipylos which was once Niobe, just as for ages pious Jews, Christians, and Mohammedans looked with awe upon the salt pillar at the Dead Sea which was ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... prowl, beating up the Strand for women. They stayed out smoking and talking at the corners till the streets were empty. Once they sent a couple of harlots to rouse a learned old gentleman who lived in Brick Court, and with bated breath listened from the floor beneath to the ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... the throne, his face seemed to change and his legs to bend: he spake with bated breath. As he went up the hall to audience, he lifted his robes, bowed his back, and masked his breathing till it seemed to stop. As he came down, he relaxed his face below the first step and looked pleased. From the foot of the steps he swept forward with arms spread like wings; and when ...
— The Sayings Of Confucius • Confucius
... liked to talk to Hender first, but Hender would not arrive for another hour, and nothing had ever seemed to her so important as that Dick should lodge with them. It was therefore with bated breath that she waited for Ralph to speak. They could not hope, he said, to find a nicer lodger; the little he had seen of him made him desirous of renewing the acquaintance, and he continued all through breakfast to eulogize Mr. ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... that to this day the metis speak about with bated breath, and the Indians are afraid to mention at all. Heinault, who during the wrangle had concluded that his quarry was about to slip through his hands, took the opportunity of raising his gun to the shoulder. But ere he could pull the trigger there was the whistle of a bullet, ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... reasonableness of the command. But, seeing that my task is to proclaim a living Person and a historical fact, then the way to do that is to do as the herald does when in the market-place he stands, trumpet in one hand and the King's message in the other—proclaim it loudly, confidently, not 'with bated breath and whispering humbleness,' as if apologising, nor too much concerned to buttress it up with argumentation out of his own head, but to say, 'Thus saith the Lord,' and to what the Lord saith conscience says, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... figure, the only one of the group assembled to stand for Sir Gareth, watched the struggle with bated breath. This boy who had seen men like Sir Launcelot, Sir Tristram, Sir Percival and others of almost equal repute, found his friend no less able and bold. Clenched were his hands, tense the boyish figure, as with heart and soul afire ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... that he knew who she was. He usually sang this refrain to Lemuel when he came in late at night after a little supper with some of the fellows that had left traces of its cheer on his bated breath. Once he came downstairs alone in the elevator, in his shirt-sleeves and stocking-feet, for the purpose of singing it after Lemuel had thought him ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... wished bedridden," the advocate cried with bitterness. "Beshrew me, but your answer. Remember I am flint if you are steel, hence the less often we are smitten together in this enquiry, the fewer may be the revealing sparks. Babet Blais, here is an affair of blackest tinder, whereon your bated breath has blown already, until it glows upon your guilty face, as grimly as the lurid East that brews a rainy day, to you the ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... the very day it came he was dancing gloriously with, and had been saying things to, Evelyn Darrah that she one day earlier had listened to with bated breath. Now his mustache swept her pretty ear as he lowered his head in the midst of the loveliest "glide," and murmured something more, whereat she had suddenly swung herself out of the circle of his arm, swept ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... we were permitted to handle the jewelled belt presented to the pugilist by the State of Nevada, a gold brick from the citizens of Sacramento, and a model of himself in solid silver from the Fisticuff Club in New York. I still remember waiting with bated breath for Raffles to ask Maguire if he were not afraid of burglars, and Maguire replying that he had a trap to catch the cleverest cracksman alive, but flatly refusing to tell us what it was. I could not at the moment conceive a more terrible trap than the ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... surface of the dark marble. The thick sandals she had tied on to her feet roused loud echoes in the empty rooms as they fell on the stone pavements, and terror possessed Selene's anxious soul. Her fingers trembled as they held the lamp and her heart beat audibly as, with bated breath, she went through the cupolaed hall in which Ptolemy Euergetes 'the fat' was said, some years ago, to have murdered his own son, and in which even a ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... speaking against God's power to heal, to make whole? Is it not a reflection on the Divine Workman, to say that he cannot restore man to be so that He can say once more, "It is very good?" It behoves us to speak with bated breath here, but we may venture to say that the grace which made an Enoch, can make a nineteenth century saint, so lovely in his character, that all men shall say, "This is God's own work, and is like all things which ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... forth in fresh lamentation when upon waking in the morning she heard that her favorite was still absent; while her mother took the calamity so seriously to heart that she kept her bed. The slaves went about silently and spoke with bated breath, as if a death had taken place in the house. Ameres and Chebron were both anxious and disturbed, knowing that the excitement would grow every hour; while Amuba and Jethro, joining busily in the search and starting on horseback the first thing in the morning to make inquiries ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... with me, all you who love France, into one of those Parisian houses, where after dinner when the cloth has been removed, the huge road maps are spread out on the dining-room table, and every one eagerly bends over them with bated breath, while the latest communique is read. Fathers, mothers, grandmothers, and little children, friends and relatives, solemnly, anxiously await the name of their secteurs—the secteurs where their loved ones are engaged. How all the letters are read, re-read and handed about, ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... volcano. Instantly the well-tarred rigging caught, and the flame ran up the shrouds as a ladder of fire, and the whole ship was a towering mass of flame. The little band of men on the "Sumter" looked on the terrific scene with bated breath. Though they fully believed in the justice of their cause, they could not look on the destruction they had wrought without feelings of sadness. It was their first act of war. One of the officers of the "Sumter" ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... and his action before the whole world, and the repudiation of the President in such a matter as this is, to my mind, the humiliation of the United States in the eyes of the civilized world." The President could not be sent back to say to Spain "with bated breath" (even in his most solemn moments Mr. Lodge cannot resist the commonplace) "we believe we have been too victorious and that you have yielded us too much and that I am very sorry that I ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... told with bated breath about Everest as he lay half-dead in the corridor, in plain sight of the prisoners in the cells on both sides. The lights went out and Everest, unconscious and dying, was taken out. The men inside could hear the shouts of the mob diminishing as Everest was hurried to ...
— The Centralia Conspiracy • Ralph Chaplin
... fat dirty boy he was then, and fat and dirty he's been ever since. I hated him, but I was always pleasant to him. He wasn't worth being angry with. He always did rotten things. He knew more filthy things than the other boys, and he was a bully—a beastly bully. I think he knew that I bated him, but we were on perfectly good terms. I think he was always a little afraid of me, but it's curious to remember that we never had a quarrel of any kind, until the day when I ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole
... century! It was formerly a general trait among the Indians to use the, first person singular in speaking of the tribe, and to avoid, even in its name, the plural termination. Tsiskwa went on with the tone of reminiscence rather than legendary lore, and with an air of bated rancor, as of one whose corroding grievance still works at the heart, to describe how the Lenni Lenape crossed the Mississippi and fell upon the widespread settlements of the Alligewi (or Tallegwi) Indians—considered ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... sorry thing to hide my head In castle, like a fearful maid, When such a field is near! Needs must I see this battle-day: Death to my fame if such a fray Were fought, and Marmion away! The Douglas, too, I wot not why, Hath 'bated of his courtesy: No longer in ...
— The Prose Marmion - A Tale of the Scottish Border • Sara D. Jenkins
... Julia whispered, and for a while there was silence in the room, broken only by the chuckles of the baby-girl. Both women looked down, at the sound, upon the fluffy head and Julia asked, still in a bated whisper: ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... the clerks of the great house talk of that dreadful day with bated breath—for as bloody Hector raged through the Greeks, so did the great Meeson rage through his hundred departments. In the very first office he caught a wretched clerk eating sardine sandwiches. Without a moment's hesitation ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... intense flame broke out, and sizzled and crackled. With bated breath we watched. It was almost incredible, but that glowing mass of powder seemed literally to be sinking, sinking right down into the cold steel. In tense silence we waited. On the ceiling we could still see the reflection of the molten mass in the cup which it had burned for itself ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... small street off the Strand. Strangers were taken in front of the meanest possible, begrimed, yellowy, flat brick wall, with two rows of unadorned window-holes one above the other, and were exhorted with bated breath to behold and admire the simplicity of the head-quarters of the great financial force of the day. The word thrift perched right up on the roof in giant gilt letters, and two enormous shield-like brass-plates curved round the corners on each side of the doorway were the ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... are the moments whilst joy, with bated breath and folded wings, pauses on his flight; too soon, alas! is the divine elixir dashed away from ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... dim O'erhung the ways, And darkened all my days. And all who saw, With bated breath, Said, "It ...
— Bees in Amber - A Little Book Of Thoughtful Verse • John Oxenham
... Brian and Guy went away to mend the boat, while Elsie, left to herself, wandered out into the yard and entered the tool-house. There stood the grindstone in its usual place, looking a very unromantic object indeed; but the girl viewed it with almost bated breath. She had quite made up her mind that connected with that grindstone was a mystery in which the poultry-carver was somehow concerned. What this secret was she could not imagine; but the belief grew in her mind that if she had been able to summon up sufficient courage ...
— Under Padlock and Seal • Charles Harold Avery
... Congress; the flattery of visitors from here, there and everywhere who came with requests for passes to admit them to the galleries; the sense of being treated as a comrade by celebrities, whose names his father had always mentioned with bated breath; the "honorable" always written before his name; all Alcira speaking to him with affectionate familiarity; this rubbing elbows, on the benches of the conservative majority, with a battalion of dukes, counts and marquises—young ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... word with enraptured eyes and bated breath. This was the story of Love and Life and it was the first time she had ever heard it. It was as much a revelation as the Kiss. She had spent her days in the grimy Nursery and her one close intimate had been a bony woman who had taught her not to cry, employing the practical ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... admire the beauties of nature. When I had seated myself, in proper attitude, on the gnarled root of an old tree, overhanging a lovely ravine, I proceeded to the reading part of the play, and must of course be too much absorbed to hear the approaching footsteps, to which I listened with bated breath. So I did not look up when they stopped at my side, or until a pleasant ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... of Hillmen bated their breath while the beloved patriarch communed with the spirits of the long line who had heard the happy song of the bronze-lipped gong. A deep hush pervaded the plateau, now lighted with the last white rays of ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... ever-to-be-famous title, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. And what an explosion it was! The joint paper of 1858 had made a momentary flare, causing the hearers, as Hooker said, to "speak of it with bated breath," but beyond that it made no sensation. What the result was when the Origin itself appeared no one of our generation need be told. The rumble and roar that it made in the intellectual world have not yet altogether ceased to echo after more than forty ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... dream of thee; She is not that for which youth hoped, But she hath blessings all her own, Thoughts pure as lilies newly oped, And faith to sorrow given alone: Almost I deem that it is thou Come back with graver matron brow, With deepened eyes and bated breath, Like one that somewhere hath met Death: 100 But 'No,' she answers, 'I am she Whom the gods love, Tranquillity; That other whom you seek forlorn Half earthly was; but I am born Of the immortals, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... look upon the starry heavens through such an instrument as that at Flagstaff. Space for the moment seems annihilated. We are apparently transported, as observers, from our tiny planet to the confines of our solar system, and, gazing thence still farther toward infinity, we watch with bated breath the birth, the progress, and the death of worlds. To one of the most distant objects in the depths of space, known as the Ring Nebula, the author addressed the ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... fowk nor him had to goa baaht supper befoor to-day! He gets as gooid stuff as thee, an' better too, aw'l be bun' for't! But aw should like to know ha' it is 'at his wage is five shillin' a wick less nor it wor, for aw've heeard nowt abaat ony on 'em bein' bated, an' aw should ha' done if they had, for ther's two or three lives i' awr street 'at works at th' same shop, an' they'd ha' been safe to tell me. But what does ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... thought of the lion, the ferocious creature that she had never seen. She thought of the massive strong woman who knew and feared him. Then she remembered the desolate old grandparents and their hopeless, helpless poverty. "I'll resk the lion," she said with a tremulous bated voice. ...
— Una Of The Hill Country - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... Hotspur, sits heavily upon it, so that thus this Percy, being slain by my valor, is per se avenged, a plague on him! Three, say you? I would to God my name were not so terrible to the enemy as it is; I would I had 'bated my natural inclination somewhat, and had slain less tall fellows by some threescore. I doubt Agamemnon slept not well o' nights. Three, say you? Give the fellow a crown apiece for his mouldy teeth, if thou hast them; ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... some men of letters or of science which may represent no more than the wave of some popular feeling, or the views of some fashionable or dogmatising school. The bold assertions of men of science are received with awe and bated breath, the criticisms of an intellectual group of savants are quoted as though they were rules for a holy life, while the mind of the Church and her guidance are barely ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan
... thou wilt rise! A prince who might have gone with gods to wive Nor bated them in choice! This to my face! I, Husak, fawn on woman! Out with her! Drag her to death! To instant ...
— Semiramis and Other Plays - Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet • Olive Tilford Dargan
... of St. Rest to those wider spheres of fashion, the splendours of which, mere country-folk are not expected to have more than the very faintest glimmering conception. Even in that independent corner of opinion, the tap-room of the 'Mother Huff,' her name was spoken with almost bated breath, though Mr. Netlips was not by any means loth to spare any flow of oratorical eloquence ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... distributed themselves about the porch, as many as could possibly get there crowding the rail on either side of Lucile, while they all listened with bated breath to what their ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... evidence there is no doubt that to the romance writers the Grail was something secret, mysterious and awful, the exact knowledge of which was reserved to a select few, and which was only to be spoken of with bated breath, and a careful regard ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... fainted or given way? They looked at him with bated breath but after a little space they saw him rise slowly to his feet and stagger inland toward a low point where a lofty palm tree was writhing and twisting in the fierce wind. He was too good a seaman not instantly to see what was required of him, for, waving his hand toward ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... the fox at the expense of the dogs, because of his having the advantage in the start, and because of his cunning in turning to account everything which will tell in his favor and against his pursuers. In the same way I know plenty of English friends who speak with bated breath of fox-hunting but look down upon riding to drag-hounds. Of course there is a difference in the two sports, and the fun of actually hunting the wild beast in the one case more than compensates for the fact that in the other the riding is apt to ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... entirely to warlike pursuits. Some days we slope arms by numbers; and other days we clean dixies and indent for new boots. Night by night we guard our approaches and prod the tyres of oncoming motors with fixed bayonets. Every morning the man who held up General FRENCH tells us about it with bated breath over our bated breakfasts. It is one of the finest traditions of the corps that General FRENCH is held up by us every night. We have our own sentries' word for it. This is especially interesting in view of the persistent reports ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 9, 1914 • Various
... minutes the Hawk had questioned Judd, the brigand crew in the cabin had stood silent, their breath bated, their eyes watching fascinated. But now they started, and shifted uneasily. They suspected what was coming. The inexorable, seemingly ...
— Hawk Carse • Anthony Gilmore
... President has, on the whole, been treated with singular tenderness by the national party whose just expectations he has disappointed; the opposition to his schemes has, indeed, exhibited, if anything, too much of the style of "bated breath" to befit the dignity of independent legislators; and the only result of this timorous dissent has been to inflame him with the notion that the public men who offered it were conscious that the people were on his side, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... the way before them, and the blank melancholy features were turned and hardened into one single expression—watching. In a moment he had determined the exact direction of the sound. Cautiously he advanced from tree to tree, with inaudible footfall and bated breath, until he reached the outskirts of a thicket. There he expected to bring the wolf to bay. He peered long ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... ceased abruptly. With fear in their hearts and bated breath, the tribe waited again for the sound ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... in opening the case for the prosecution was brief, but remarkably astute. He troubled himself very little about the law of Blasphemy, although the jury had probably never heard of it before. He simply appealed to their prejudices. He spoke with bated breath of our ridiculing "the most awful mysteries of the Christian faith." He described our letterpress as an "outrage on the feelings of a Christian community," which he would not shock public decency by reading; and our woodcuts ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... bran-stuffed pillow comprise her bedding, and a cotton handkerchief will hold her neatly folded wardrobe. A child usually owns no toy, and many have never thought of an organised youthful festivity until they spend their first Christmas Day in school. With bated breath they hear from their elders of the joys in store, and watch secret preparations for presents to class teachers and missionaries. Excitement reaches its highest point when, with silent footstep, they creep into our courtyard ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... In sleep the matrimonial dove Was crooning; no wind waked the wood, Nor moved the midnight river-damps, Nor thrill'd the poplar; quiet stood The chestnut with its thousand lamps; The moon shone yet, but weak and drear, And seem'd to watch, with bated breath, The landscape, all made sharp and clear By stillness, as ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... came from a lantern held by some man standing in the open doorway of the old house. A moment later four others appeared from within and came out to the tumble-down porch. Bob and Hugh looked on with bated breath. What could ...
— Bob Cook and the German Spy • Tomlinson, Paul Greene
... Gunner, through the breech you passed That winged messenger of death, And having made the breech-block fast, With pounding heart and bated breath Drew back the rod of tempered steel That frees the charge and fires the fuse, I would have given much to feel My feet ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, April 12, 1916 • Various
... face, And tears that quenched the wild fire in my heart. I pressed her hand and passed into the hall, While she stood sobbing in a flood of tears, And he stood choked with anger and amazed. But as I passed the ivied porch he came With bated breath and muttered in my ear— 'Beggar!'—It stung me like a serpent's fang. Pride-pricked and muttering like a maniac, I almost flew the street and hurried home To vent my anger to the silent elms. 'Beggar!'—an ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... house and air it; Jean rejoiced that each throb of the engine brought her nearer to her beloved doggie; Uncle Bob's fingers itched to be setting in place the Italian marbles he had ordered for the new house; and Giusippe waited almost with bated breath for his first sight of America, the country of ...
— The Story of Glass • Sara Ware Bassett
... trusteeship of the most priceless legacy that the past has left to the present and to the future? If this is not our function in the scheme of things, then what is our function? Is it to stand with bated breath to catch the first whisper that will usher in the next change? Is it to surrender all initiative and simply allow ourselves to be tossed hither and yon by the waves and cross-waves of a fickle public opinion? Is it to cower in dread of a criticism that is ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley |
