"Empty" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... That is mine to know, An empty house That is cold with woe; Like a prison grim With its bars of black, And it won't be home ...
— When Day is Done • Edgar A. Guest
... Treatise on Repentance, or those I heard preached by Dr.——; if I gave up the faith, that the life of Christ would precipitate the remaining dregs of sin in the crisis of death, and that I shall rise in purer capacity of Christ; blind to be irradiated by his light, empty to be possessed by his fullness, naked of merit to be clothed with ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... exclaimed Patricia in disappointment as she looked about her. The low-ceiled whitewashed apartment into which they had descended from the winding iron stair was sepulchrally bare and empty in the flicker of its noisy gas jets, the rusty gas stoves at its farther end emphasizing its general ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... that could stand a wild bob cat, so I put several sheets of sticky tanglefoot fly paper in the bob cat's cage and opened the door of the cage, after the crowd had gone into the main tent to the big show, and the menagerie tent was empty except the keepers. They were all asleep under the wagons, and the animals had all curled down for a nap, and the freaks were on their platform lolling around, waiting for the main show to be out so they could do ...
— Peck's Bad Boy at the Circus • George W. Peck
... will. Behold, I greet you with an empty Till— Ah! Fellow-Sinners, of your Charity Seek not the Reason of ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... along the street till an empty cab passed them, and putting her into it he returned to ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... little did he think that he would yet be the foremost actor of his time, and his awkward mate the literary dictator of London. Oh! this game of life is a great play! The blissful uncertainty of it all! The ambitions, plans, strivings, heartaches, mad desires and vain reaching out of empty arms! The tears, the bitter disappointments, the sleepless nights, the echoes of prayers unheard, and the hollow hopelessness of love turned ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... sixty-third birthday soothed one such outburst. The tedium of life, with no more to do in it—why couldn't it end? The lights were out, the flowers were dead—and yet the unhappy actors had to stay and stay and stay, idling on the empty, darkened stage. (That was how Mrs. Hilary, with her gift for picturesque language, put it.) Must it be empty, must it be dark, Neville uselessly asked, knowing quite well that for one of her mother's temperament it must. Mrs. Hilary ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... through a spacious vestibule above, where the walls seemed all composed of small door panels, touched with long-faded gilding; whence he was ushered into the sitting-room in which he had already been received. It was empty, and the servant told him that Madame la Comtesse would presently appear. He had time, while he waited, to wonder whether Bellegarde had seen his sister since the evening before, and whether in this case he had spoken to her of their talk. In this case Madame de Cintre's ...
— The American • Henry James
... consecutive pages. Thus, while each of the beatitudes, each of the parables, and each of the series of generations in the genealogies of our Lord, are marked off into separate paragraphs by the small empty spaces referred to, there is no break in the text from the twenty-fourth verse of the seventeenth chapter of the Gospel of St. Matthew to the seventeenth verse of the twentieth chapter. So much has space been economised, that when the writer finished ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... are at home.—O my breath is nearly gone. You soldiers are so accustomed to marching and countermarching, that you drag me over hedge and briar, like an empty baggage-wagon. Look at my arm, young Mars, you've made it as red as pink, and as rough as—then my hand—don't attempt to kiss it, you—wild man of ...
— She Would Be a Soldier - The Plains of Chippewa • Mordecai Manuel Noah
... of those lands Whence painting, sculpture and the drama sprung; See starved Trinacria's outstretched, empty hands, And all the classic ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... It may ofttimes be necessary, and it is far less harmful, to insert a glycerine suppository into the rectum, than to get into the enema habit. The injection of a large quantity of water into the lower bowel will mechanically empty it; but the effects are atonic and depressing ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... after the King's intention to quit the capital had become known, Persano and Villamarina disguised themselves, and in company with their partisans mingled with the crews of the fleet, whom they induced by bribes and persuasion to empty the boilers and to cripple the engines of their ships. When, on the 6th, King Francis, having announced his intention to spare the capital bloodshed, went on board a mail steamer and quitted the harbour, accompanied by the ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... to be thrown away on the strong-willed youth, until that moment when the Spirit of God laid hold of him. Then, as if a lamp had been lit in the empty house, his whole nature was transfigured. He was still the same sturdy, happy, self-reliant lad; but he was also a youth with a purpose in life. He no longer allowed passing fancies to rule his conduct, but, fixing his eye upon one goal, he began splendidly to ...
— The Story of Garfield - Farm-boy, Soldier, and President • William G. Rutherford
... flew by four more birds alternately black and white. And, as the black ones passed Babbulkund darkened, and when the white ones appeared her streets and houses shone. But after the sixth bird there came no more, and Babbulkund vanished from her place, and there was only the empty desert where she had stood, and the rivers Oonrana and Plegathanees mourning alone. Next morning all the prophets of the King gathered before their abominations and questioned them of the dream, and the abominations spake not. But when the second night stepped down from ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany
... months of May and June, in consequence of excessive calm weather, the air of this island is exceedingly intemperate and unhealthy; at which season the sheikh and the other inhabitants go all to Dallac, leaving Massua entirely empty. All the coast of the bay of Massua on the main-land is extremely mountainous, till you come to a place called Arkiko[278] by the sea-side, where there are many wells of water, where the coast is more clear and open, with many fields ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... She put her empty cup on a table beside her, and folding her hands behind her head leaned back in her chair as thought after thought ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... bidding Chet good-bye, Dunk had not come in. Andy lay awake some time waiting for him, wondering what he would say when he did come in. But finally he dozed off, and awaking in the morning, from fitful slumbers, he saw the other bed empty. Dunk ...
— Andy at Yale - The Great Quadrangle Mystery • Roy Eliot Stokes
... could force myself out of the crowd, and escape into the road, Margaret and Mr. Mannion had hurried into a cab. I just saw the vehicle driving off rapidly, as I got free. An empty cab was standing near me—I jumped into it directly—and told the man to overtake them. After having waited my time so patiently, to let a mere accident stop me from going home with them, as I had resolved, ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... experience of their elders. It would be a happy thing if we could put old men's heads on young men's shoulders; but no method of performing the operation has, as yet, been hit upon. It might answer as well, if old men could empty their heads into the heads of the young. But this is a task almost as difficult as the former. The heads of the young are generally full of foolish thoughts, and vain conceits, and wild dreams of what they are to be, ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... sir!" said she, in a grating voice, "and what now? Oh! Mr. Summers, is it you? You're welcome, sir! I wishes I could offer you a glass of summut, but the bottle's dry—he! he!" pointing, with a revolting grin, to an empty bottle that stood on a niche within the hearth. "I don't know how it is, sir, but I never wants to eat; but ah! 't is the ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... been lost again, and given up to the Saracens, the titles remained to be quarreled about among the Crusaders. There was particularly a great quarrel at this time about the title of King of Jerusalem. It was a mere empty title, for Jerusalem was in the hands of the Saracens, but there were twenty very powerful and influential claimants to it, each of whom manoeuvred and intrigued incessantly with all the other knights and commanders in the army to gain partisans to his side. Thus ...
— Richard I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... case Great Expectations is an empty coincidence; and indeed it is not in the books of the later Dickens period (the period of Great Expectations) that we should look for the best examples of this sanguine and expectant spirit which is the essential of the man's genius. There are plenty of good examples ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... stand fifteen or twenty minutes at the bar-room door and finally leave without a passenger, and Daniel saw the same carriage at the rear door equally long, which also left there empty. Upon coming down James Martin evidently took in the situation at a glance, for, giving my son a pinch, he said: "Mr. Haviland, let us go into the dining-room and call for supper." This was to give the drunken rabble time to leave so that ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... he moved quickly to Marette's room and looked in. His first glimpse was of the bed. It had not been used. The room was empty. ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... "The blast was from in front of us, he didn't double back! Must be another colony near our own, and he stumbled out of this overgrown mess and right into it. There was simply an empty ship—" ...
— The Women-Stealers of Thrayx • Fox B. Holden
... a canteen. The trembling fingers of the tenderfoot unscrewed the cork. Tipping the vessel, he drank avidly. One swallow, a second, then a few trickling drops. The canteen had been almost empty. ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... eyeing the lawns and windows of the house through narrow gaps between the boarding of the fence. He prolonged the pleasures of anticipation thus, and, besides, he wished to see if the place was occupied or empty. It looked unkempt rather, the gardens somewhat neglected, and yet there hung an air of occupancy about it all. He had heard the house had changed hands several times. But it was difficult to see clearly; the sunshine dazzled; the lilac and laburnum scattered ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... that we might be friends, but I know it cannot be. My blessing men would shrink from, if they knew what you do; but may God bless you for your kindness to me." And standing motionless in the dusky passage, they heard the footsteps die away in the empty corridors, and the rattle of the wheels of the vehicle which bore him ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... the stormy light shining in the other's. Laval had not stirred. He still lay sprawled on the ground. Quite abruptly the hand gripping the automatic pistol was thrust into the pocket of the black coat. When it was removed it was empty. The man took a quick step ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... she passed into the cottage-garden, where sunflowers and Michaelmas daisies in great profusion were tangled along the low red-brick garden-walls, under some poplar trees yellow-flecked already. A single empty chair, with a book turned face downward, stood outside an open window. Smoke wreathing from one chimney was the only sign of life. But, standing undecided before the half-open door, Gyp was conscious, as it were, of too ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... innocence and natural feelings, he could blurt out follies with his mouth, he was not a machine to utter perfect speech! At the same time, I was beginning to outgrow the painful impressions of my interview; my spirits were beginning to revive; and at the jolly, empty looks of Mr. Rowley, as he ran forward to relieve me of the box, St. Ives became ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was almost abandoned. Most of the ambitious line of hangars were empty, now, with faded grass thick before the great doors that no one ever opened. A recent fire had destroyed a group of ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... was clear. She heard once more Joy's faint cry in the distance and knew that it depended on her to rescue her friend. The empty hand clutched and found another tough root, and slowly, now, she brought first one foot then the other to the ledge. She was saved! But would she reach ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... a ladder With hodded heads, but these stretched forth a pole From the wall's pinnacle, they placed a pulley Athwart the pole, a rope athwart the pulley; To this a basket dangled; mortar and bricks Thus freighted, swung securely to the top, And in the empty basket workmen ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... put ourselves in their power at all? They're at present barking up the wrong tree. Let them bark up another wrong 'un. Why shouldn't the House remain empty? I take it we're here to protect the Princess. Well, we'll have done that ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... and no match for me. I easily and gently laid him on his back, in a voiceless and half-suffocated state—throwing myself right over him, to keep his legs quiet. When I saw his face getting black, and his small eyes growing largely globular, I let go with one hand, crammed my empty plaster of Paris bag, which lay close by, into his mouth, tied it fast, secured his hands and feet, and then left him perfectly harmless, while I took counsel with myself how best to secure ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... jest. A transient calm the happy scenes bestow, And, for a moment, lull the sense of woe. At length awaking, with contemptuous frown, Indignant Thales eyes the neighb'ring town. [d] Since worth, he cries, in these degen'rate days, Wants ev'n the cheap reward of empty praise; In those curs'd walls, devote to vice and gain, Since unrewarded science toils in vain; Since hope but sooths to double my distress, And ev'ry moment leaves my little less; While yet my steady steps no [e]staff ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... Assistant Theatre will be to reimburse the Proprietors of the other two, at the full season, for the expensive establishment they are obliged to maintain when the town is almost empty, it is proposed, that the scheme of business to be adopted in the new Theatre shall differ as much as possible from that of the other two, and that the performances at the new house shall be exhibited at a superior price, and shall commence at ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... of October was spent in carrying the cargoes over a portage of thirteen hundred yards in length and in launching the empty boats over three several ridges of rock which obstruct the channel and produce as many cascades. I shall long remember the rude and characteristic wildness of the scenery which surrounded these falls; rocks piled on rocks ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... hopes they held out to him, he came into Italy, they put him to death, their fellow-citizens having offered to restore them to their country upon this condition. It behoves us, therefore, to remember how empty are the promises, and how doubtful the faith, of men in banishment from their native land. For as to their faith, it may be assumed that whenever they can effect their return by other means than yours, ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... that seemed to argue that Zingarella made no distinction between chairs and people, she took her seat between the sculptor and the writer. She laughed, and yet it was not laughter; she spoke, and her words were empty; she stretched out her hands, and the gesture was lifeless. She fixed her eyes on no one; she merely gazed about. She had a habit of shaking her bracelet in a way that aroused sympathy. And after ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... will deny me gracious Madam, Being a stranger, and so little fam'd, So utter empty of those excellencies That tame Authority; but in you sweet Lady, All these are natural; beside, a power Deriv'd immediate from your Royal brother, Whose least word in you may ...
— A King, and No King • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... Hot pestilence beat her mortiferous wings O'er all my kingdoms, am I not bound in soul, To empty all our academies of doctors And Aesculapian spirits ...
— The Noble Spanish Soldier • Thomas Dekker
... inmates to the Iroquois; it was therefore surrounded by a strong palisade, and, in time of danger, a part of the garrison was detailed to defend it. Here Mademoiselle Mance took up her abode, and waited the day when wounds or disease should bring patients to her empty wards. ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... all the way home, letting one car after another pass him on the street, now so empty of other passing, and it was almost eleven o'clock when he reached home. A carriage stood before his house, and when he let himself in with his key, he heard talking in the family-room. It came into his head that Irene had got back unexpectedly, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... obeyed. After she had waited for some minutes, the Mother Eldress appeared, and taking her hand, led her along the gallery to an empty room, which, not having been used for many months, the floor ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston
... the cheese could not have been improved on. Good cheer brought good custom, and with the exception of one small table near the door every place was occupied. Half-way through my meal I happened to glance in the direction of that empty seat, and saw that it was no longer empty. Poring over the bill of fare with the absorbed scrutiny of one who seeks the cheapest among the cheap was Laploshka. Once he looked across at me, with a comprehensive glance at my repast, as though to say, "It is my two francs you are ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... odd scene to watch in dumbshow. Mrs. Cleve shook hands, and Lawrence was held for more than the conventional moment. He remained standing till she pointed to her cavalier's empty chair: then dropped into it, but sat forward leaning his aim along the balcony, while she, drawn back behind her curtain, was almost drowned in shadow except for an occasional flash of diamonds, or an opaque gleam of white and dimpled neck. An interlude entirely decorous, and yet, so ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... his hand and watched the blood dripping from his fingers. Then he took a self-cocking revolver from his belt and fired shot after shot into the bodies of the dead baby and the dying mother. Twice the hammer clicked on an empty shell before he ceased to pull the trigger, and he slowly turned away, pushing his empty pistol into his belt. As he did so he found himself face to face with Jones, but a different Jones than the one he had known. This Jones' face was white ...
— Montezuma's Castle and Other Weird Tales • Charles B. Cory
... the streets of Rome, a thousand years ago! 'Twas common talk." The Captain of the Star tilted his cup and was grieved to find it empty. ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... the field, we would hear her laugh, clear and fresh from the rocks beside the streams, as he told her some fine story of his England. He stayed here a month and a week, and then departed, saying he would come again next year, and the house was empty and silent after he left. But after a time we grew used to it once ...
— Elsket - 1891 • Thomas Nelson Page
... clearly than before," said Mrs. De Lisle, "your present duty to your husband. He thought that he was gaining a wife, and you, in wedding him promised to him to be a wife—promised with a deep conviction in your soul that the words were empty utterances. The case is a sad one, viewed in any aspect; but pardon me for saying, that you were most to blame. He was an ardent lover, whom you had fascinated; a man of superficial character, and not competent, at the time, to weigh the consequences of an act he was so eager to ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur
... under the pretext of "printing the news," inflicts upon us, is nothing benefited in intellectual gifts or permanent knowledge. What does he learn by his assiduous pursuit of these ephemeral will o' the wisps, that only "lead to bewilder, and dazzle to blind?" He absorbs an incredible amount of empty gossip, doubtful assertions, trifling descriptions, apocryphal news, and some useful, but more useless knowledge. The only visible object of spending valuable time over these papers appears to be to satisfy a momentary curiosity, and then the mass of material read passes almost wholly out of ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... got better, got worse. Her acting remained mediocre to bad. At the fifth rehearsal after the break with the stage-director, Mildred saw Crossley seated far back in the dusk of the empty theater. It was his first appearance at rehearsals since the middle of the first week. As soon as he had satisfied himself that all was going well, he had given his attention to other matters where things were not going well. Mildred knew why he was there—and she acted and sang ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... brothers walked forwardes they saw the Princess approaching them with somewhat unusual under her arm, which when they met, proved to be a golden casket whereof they knew naught. Quoth they, "O our sister at early light we espied thee going to the pleasure- grounds with a gardener-lad empty handed, but now thou bringest back this golden casket; so disclose to us where and how thou hast found it; and haply there may be some hoard close hidden in the parterre?" Perizadah replied, "Sooth ye say, O my brothers: I took this lad with me and made ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... call with which Jesus honoured him. He thought he was hardly dealt with to be offered a patent of Heaven's nobility—he was so very rich! Things filled his heart; things blocked up his windows; things barricaded his door, so that the very God could not enter. His soul was not empty, swept, and garnished, but crowded with meanest idols, among which his spirit crept about upon its knees, wasting on them the gazes that belonged to his fellows and his Master. The disciples were a little further on than he; they had left ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... bite at a fresh wound, and discovering a new enemy, turned upon Toby who fired again, but with no apparent effect. Hoping to plant a bullet in the bear's head, Toby held his ground. He threw the lever forward to eject the empty shell, and jerked it back to insert a fresh cartridge with undue haste, and to his consternation it jammed. He jerked at the lever, but it would not move. Beads of perspiration broke out upon his forehead. The bear was less than a dozen feet ...
— Left on the Labrador - A Tale of Adventure Down North • Dillon Wallace
... Midhir and Angus, they waited a while for Fuamach to come and join them. And when she did not come they were uneasy in their minds, and Angus hurried back to Brugh na Boinn. And when he found the sunny house empty, he went in search of Fuamach, and it was along with Etarlaim, the Druid, he found her, and he struck her head off ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... noisy with drays; at the side was the slip of the dock itself, with its warm, green, swaying water, upon which a jostled crowd of various craft was rocking sleepily in the summer morning. The floor of the room was bare. Between the windows, on one side, was an open, empty stove; on the other were two high desks, with stools. An eight-day clock ticked comfortably upon the wall, and on either side of it were two pictures, wood-cuts, eked out with rude splashes of red and blue by some primitive process of lithography: the one represented the "Take of a Right Whale ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... crossing those arid reaches William Isham, who had fiddled so blithely for them every evening in the Utah hills, sank down beside the trail; and the others passed him with empty canteens, unable to give him any help. Some of the stragglers buried his body a few days ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... ravine. In an instant he followed headlong, tripped once or twice on the wet grass, but was up every time like lightning, and once more in swift pursuit. The fugitive turned once, raised his pistol and pulled the trigger again, evidently forgetful that it was empty. When the hammer snapped on the trigger he uttered a low cry of anger and hurled the useless weapon into the grass. Then he whirled around and faced Dick, who was coming ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... veglione at eleven, the ladies calling for Colville, as before, in Mrs. Bowen's carriage. He felt rather sheepish, coming out of his room in his mask and domino, but the corridors of the hotel were empty, and for the most part dark; there was no one up but the porter, who wished him a pleasant time in as matter-of-fact fashion as if he were going out to an evening party in his dress coat. His spirits mounted in the atmosphere of adventure ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... dress and laughed and sang, and in the evening played blindman's buff with the children. There was a shadow over the home, although Grannie talked quietly in the corner of the Blessed Prince of Peace, and of the true reason for Christmas joy. Jim's place was empty, but no one remarked it. The children were too happy to miss him, and the elder members of the party were too wise to say what ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... the sword myself: take it; and hit The innocent mansion of my love—my heart: Fear not; 'tis empty of all things but grief. Cymbeline, ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... carefully observed for me during a considerable period three cases of hypochondria, in which the grief-muscles were persistently contracted. In one of these, a widow, aged 51, fancied that she had lost all her viscera, and that her whole body was empty. She wore an expression of great distress, and beat her semi-closed hands rhythmically together for hours. The grief-muscles were permanently contracted, and the upper eyelids arched. This condition lasted for months; she then recovered, and her countenance ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... country is situated on deltas of large rivers flowing from the Himalayas: the Ganges unites with the Jamuna (main channel of the Brahmaputra) and later joins the Meghna to eventually empty into the Bay ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... empty, and he felt that it would be better for what was left in one to be poured into the other, so that the supplying might still go on while more was fetched, when it suddenly struck him that there was something wrong. In the darkness he could dimly make out two ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... up this Monday to the sound of the blackbird, and the world, which had seemed rather empty twelve hours before, was now brisk and alluring. His prowess in quick shaving assured him of his youth. "I'm no' that dead old," he observed, as he sat on the edge of he bed, to his reflection ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... out together. They were heard. An answering hail came back. Soon the puff-puff-puff of the Barracouta's exhaust was driving rivets through the fog. A little later they were on board the sloop, answering the inquiries of Jim and Budge, while the empty pea-pod towed astern. ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... expended forty-two caps trying to make the gun go off. When the forty-second cap missed also, Mr. Fogg thought, perhaps, there might be something the matter with the inside of the gun, and so he sounded the barrels with his ramrod. To his utter dismay, he discovered that both barrels were empty. Mrs. Fogg, who is nervous about firearms, had drawn the loads without telling Fogg. The language used by Mr. Fogg when he made this discovery was extremely disgraceful, and he felt sorry for it a moment afterward. As he grew cooler he loaded ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... amusement; on the other hand, they sometimes seem overwhelmingly important. Chiefly one realizes the enormous importance of food to a soldier. Shortage of sleep, over-marching, severe fighting, sink into insignificance beside an empty stomach. Any infantry soldier will tell you this; and it is on them, who form the bulk of a field force, that the strain really tells. Mounted men are better able to fend for themselves. (I should say, that an artillery driver has in the field ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... small and deserted one, tenanted only by a few half-starved monks of one of the lower orders of the Church, was wrapped in a profound gloom. There was no sound from the half-ruined chapel or the long, empty corridors. The storm had ceased, and the casements no longer rattled in the wind. To the man who lay there, nursing his fast-ebbing strength, it seemed indeed like the silence before the one last tragedy of death, looming so black and ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... walled in by the lofty mountains that traverse it—and such seas existed coeval with its formation; could I create those seas without giving them an outlet, not even allowing the smallest rill to drain them, in process of time they would empty themselves into the ocean, and leave everything as it now ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... examining each corner of his empty study, then took his sapphire-tipped golden staff from under his arm, placing it carefully on a rack built into his chair arm, where it would be convenient to his ...
— The Weakling • Everett B. Cole
... gifts we need the baptism of the Holy Ghost. When this consecration comes there will be no cry of an empty treasury. We shall no longer be weary with the bleating of lost sheep, to whom we have to say, I have no means and no shepherd to ...
— Five Sermons • H.B. Whipple
... that lines of greater length, or figures of greater area must be put nearer the center than shorter or smaller ones—'A short line must be farther than a long one, a narrow farther than a wide, a line farther than a square; an empty interval must be larger than one filled, and so on.' And for colors, "blue, maroon and green, the dark colors, are the farthest out; white, red and orange, the bright colors, are nearest the center. This means that a dark color must be farther out than a bright ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... to the barn." She handed them to Jim. "You'll find a spigot there, and cold water's best for egg-stains. I left some rags in the empty box-stall that you can use to clean your shoes, and then, if you'll give me your clothes that you've got on now, I'll soak them and get them out while the sun's high; corduroy takes a long ...
— Anything Once • Douglas Grant
... on Sundays Lucy would sit with anxious, eager expectation till she saw the Sidney pew filled; if Mr Sidney was present it was an hour or two of bliss; if, as was frequently the case, his place was empty, she would bow her head to hide the tears of vexation and disappointment which started ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... a sentimental ballad, or a ditty of a nature that would shock the average young Englishman, all are sung through with stern earnestness, without a laugh, without a false note. At the end, the chairman calls "Prosit!" Everyone answers "Prosit!" and the next moment every glass is empty. The pianist rises and bows, and is bowed to in return; and then the Fraulein enters to refill ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... a table with a bottle (nearly full of wine) and a glass upon it and two candles that were blown out suddenly soon after being lighted. He is pointing at an empty chair and at a stain upon the ground before it that might be almost covered with a hand. These objects lie directly within his range. An excited imagination might suppose that there was something in them so terrific as to drive the rest of the composition, not only the attendant big-legged boys, ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... any insult, and withdraw to England or Flanders. Lord Wentworth and fifty other persons, to be chosen by the Duke of Guise, remained prisoners of war; with this exception, all the soldiers were to return to England, but with empty hands. The place was left with all the cannons, arms, munitions, utensils, engines of war, flags and standards which happened to be in it. The furniture, the gold and silver, coined or other, the merchandise, and the horses passed over to the disposal of the Duke of Guise. ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... was gone, leaving her alone, did Yellow Bird come out into the day. She saw the food placed at her tepee door. She saw the empty places where the homes of her people had stood, and in the wet sand of the beach the marks of their missing canoes. Then she turned her pale face and tired eyes to the sun, and unbraided her hair so that it streamed glistening all about her and covered the white sand when she sat ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... natural to him who was born loyal, audacity to him who grew up timid and scrupulous. The impulsive lover of good, who has fallen through the very warmth of his nature, develops into the deliberate sensualist. Natures sensitive and enthusiastic grow absolutely empty of power to revolt against what is unjust or foul. A great writer once said of himself in middle life: 'I am proud and intellectual, but forced by the habits of years to like the base and dishonourable from which I formerly revolted.' Little children have the seeds of ...
— Four Psalms • George Adam Smith
... Old, with an empty drinking horn in his bony hand, sat by the hearth looking vacantly into the dead embers of the fire. Sweyn the Silent stood beside him with his thumbs stuck in his leathern girdle; while Roderic ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... to a hotel, patronized almost exclusively by teachers, near the schools and lecture halls. Large front suites and rooms were out of the question for Kate, but luckily a tiny corner room at the back of the building was empty and when Kate specified how long she would remain, she secured it at a less figure than she had expected to pay. She began by almost starving herself at supper in order to save enough money to replace her hat with whatever ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... against the wooden bar at his back, and resting his paddle across the canoe, "Venus tells me that the sun is about to bestir himself, and something within me tells me that empty space is a bad stomachic; so, out with the pemmican bag, ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... Bernard, with many graces of person, by his own confession, takes nothing seriously. As to that matter of religious beliefs, "the breeze of the age, and of science, has blown [222] over him, as it has blown over his contemporaries, and left empty space there." Still, when he saw his childish religious faith departing from him, as he thinks it must necessarily depart from all intelligent male Parisians, he wept. Since that moment, however, a ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... streets, on his way to his quarters, the Raven Inn—for he had been ejected from the Buck's Head—but he could not help himself. As he was dripping and swearing on the brink of the pond, wondering how he should get to the Raven, an empty fly drove past, and Mr. Drake immediately stopped it; but when the driver saw that he was expected to convey not only a passenger, but a tolerable quantity of water as well, and that the passenger, moreover, was Sir Francis Levison, he refused the job. His fly was fresh lined with red velvet, and ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... still short of the pinnacles touched by Western capitals. They weren't empty of goods, luxury goods as well as necessities, but they weren't overflowing with the endless quantities, the hundred-shadings of quality and fashion that you expected in ...
— Combat • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... with her rug and cushion and book, and it was not until she was quite settled that she took cognizance of an empty ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... of keeping all the Russian Princes on the same level and thereby rendering them all equally feeble, they were constantly bribed or cajoled into giving to one or more of their vassals a pre-eminence over the others. At first this pre-eminence consisted in little more than the empty title of Grand Prince; but the vassals thus favoured soon transformed the barren distinction into a genuine power by arrogating to themselves the exclusive right of holding direct communications with the Horde, ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... Where are the mourners? Where are the prognosticators of ruin, desolation, and woe? Where are the riots and disorders, the bloodshed and the burnings? The prophets and their prophecies are alike empty, vain, and unfounded, and are alike buried ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... into execution. Miss Riley was led over to the piano by the widow, with the usual protestations that she was hoarse. It took some time to get the piano ready, for an extensive clearance was to be made from it of cups and saucers, and half-empty glasses of negus, before it could be opened; then, after various thrummings and hummings and hawings, the "Bewildhered Maid" made her appearance in the wildest possible manner, and the final shriek was quite worthy of a maniac. ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... was becoming decidedly restless. At one moment he would rave about the glorious scenery; the next, plunge into a brown study of the Tulliwuddle rent-roll; and then in an instant start humming an air and smoking so fast that both their cases were empty while they were yet half an hour from Torrydhulish Station. Now the Baron took to biting his nails, looking at his watch, and answering questions at random—a very different spectacle from ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... of the tailor-bird, that uses its long bill as a needle, to sew the dead and the living leaf together, of which it makes its light nest, lined with feathers and gossamer: of the fish called the 'old soldier,' that looks out for the empty shell of some dead animal, and fits this armour upon himself: of the Jamaica spider, that makes himself a house under ground, with a door and hinges, which door the spider and all the members of his family take care to shut after them, whenever they ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... uncleanness of a woman suffering from a flow of blood denotes the uncleanness of idolatry, on account of the blood which is offered up. The uncleanness of the man who has suffered seminal loss signifies the uncleanness of empty words, for "the seed is the word of God." The uncleanness of sexual intercourse and of the woman in child-birth signifies the uncleanness of original sin. The uncleanness of the woman in her periods signifies ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... odious monster. The tyrant who is described as having rattled his chariot along a bridge of brass over the heads of his subjects, was, no doubt, inwardly laughed at; but what if this mock Jupiter, not satisfied with an empty noise of his own making, had amused himself with throwing fire-brands upon the house-tops, as a substitute for lightning; and, from his elevation, had hurled stones upon the heads of his people, to show that he was a master of the destructive bolt, as well as of the harmless voice of the ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... at that. It is enough; too much. What, in the reconstruction of a life, are, in retrospect, its triumphs but empty shards, drained and discarded, the litter of a picnic party that has fed ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... annoyed by bees, ran, quite accidentally, into an empty barrel lying on the ground, and looking out at the bung-hole, ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... uniform-case and a cocked hat-box subjected to the 'perfect politeness' of certain unpleasant officials: where collections of natural history are plundered by paid thieves, [Footnote: When we last landed at Liverpool (May 22), the top tray of my wife's trunk reached us empty, and some of the choicest birds shot by Cameron and myself were stolen. Since the days of Waterton the Liverpudlian custom-house has been a scandal and a national disgrace.] and where I have been obliged to drop my solitary ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... figure of misery, the anxious bench below him was by now empty. Most of the witnesses were gone and most of the spectators, and all the newspaper men but two. He whetted a lean and crooked forefinger like a talon on the edge of the docket book, turned the page and called ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... the utmost civility and confidence: and, among other favours, made me a present of a silver-hilted hanger, and a pair of pistols mounted with the same metal, which fell to his share in plundering the enemy. We arrived safely at Morant, and, going on shore, pitched upon an empty storehouse; which we hired for the reception of the wounded, who were brought to it next day, with beds and other necessaries; and four of the ship's company appointed to attend ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... Yorkshireman, as they bustled out with their loads. The warehouse itself gave evident proof of great antiquity. It was not one of your fine, light, lofty, mahogany-countered, banker-like establishments of modern times, where the stock-in-trade often consists of books and empty canisters, but a large, roomy, gloomy, dirty, dingy sort of cellar above ground, full of hogsheads, casks, flasks, sugar-loaves, jars, bags, ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... shall have no more bargains after you are gone, that's certain. But, Jack, you'll be on board of vessels coming from the East and West Indies, and all other parts of the world, and they have plenty of pretty things on board, such as shells, and empty bottles, and hard biscuit, and bags of oakum; and, Jack, they will give them to you for nothing, for sailors don't care what they give away when they come from a long voyage; and so mind you beg for me as much as you can, that's a good ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat |
