"Listener" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he said he should like me to leave the beaten track pursued by such as fabricated these things. Messer Luigi, apropos of this salt-cellar, made an eloquent description of his own idea; Messer Gabriello Cesano also spoke exceedingly well to the same purpose. The Cardinal, who was a very kindly listener, showed extreme satisfaction with the designs which these two able men of letters had described in words. Then he turned to me and said: "My Benvenuto, the design of Messer Luigi and that of Messer Gabriello ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... being appealed to as an authority on the histrionic art. His interest in it had hitherto been merely that of the cultivated young man curious of all forms of artistic expression; but in reply to her questions he found things to say about it which evidently struck his listener as impressive and original, and with which he himself was not, on the whole, dissatisfied. Miss Viner was much more concerned to hear his views than to express her own, and the deference with which she received his comments called from him more ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... to the German savant, Doctor von Herzlich, who had translated Goethe's "Iphigenie in Tauris" into Greek merely as recreation, and who was now justifying his choice of certain words and phrases by citing passages from various Greek authors; a choice which the sympathetic listener, after discreet intervals for reflection, ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... intelligent sympathy, whom she had met with in a very long while. Her conversation was remarkably suggestive, alluring forth one's own ideas and fantasies from the shy places where they usually haunt. She was indeed an admirable talker, considering how long she had held her tongue for lack of a listener,—pleasant, sunny and shadowy, often piquant, and giving glimpses of all a woman's various and readily changeable moods and humors; and beneath them all there ran a deep and powerful under-current of earnestness, which did not fail to produce in the listener's mind something like a temporary ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... together rode to a certain bower, where they all disappeared. He went to the bower, and looked in through a window, and saw that within there were women, who had set up a web. They sang the poem, calling on the listener, Dorruthr, to learn the song, and to tell it to others. When the song was over, they tore down the web, each one retaining what she held in her hand of it. And now Dorruthr went away from the window and returned home, while they mounted their ...
— Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time - or, The Jarls and The Freskyns • James Gray
... Forrest recites the text (of King Lear) as though it were all prose, and not occasionally written in poetic measure; whereas, blank verse can, and always should, be distinguishable from prose by proper modulations of the voice, which a listener with a nice ear and a cultivated taste could not mistake, nor, if confounded, detect in their respective recitals: else Milton as well as Shakspeare has toiled to little ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... in his conversational power. He was always modest, but never diffident. I have seen him sit, a respectful listener, absolutely silent, while some ordinary chatterer held the company's attention for an hour. Many good talkers are unhappy unless they have the privilege of exercising their gifts. Not so he. Sometimes he had almost to be compelled to begin. On ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... for a good listener!) I suppose you're getting weary of my tale, so I'll not be long over ending it. Th' reckoning left us very bare, and we thought we'd best walk home, for it were only sixty mile, they telled us, and not stop ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... her; and before he knew what he was about, he was telling her his whole story. She listened carefully to what he said. He touched but lightly upon his wickednesses, although they were plain enough to any listener of sense, and bemoaned his fearful passion for gaming, which was sure to bring him to ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... deftly turned the talk upon New York, and the life there, and rallied all her powers to be picturesque and entertaining. She held her listener entranced with rapid, clever sketches of society and the men and women who composed it, drawing vivid pictures of its usages, beliefs, and modes of thought and expression. Gradually she glided into personalities, giving some of her individual experiences, and sketching in an acquaintance or ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... language when used for this purpose. He was conscious that it gave to the words a new life and meaning; that it seemed, as it were, to drive them home to the heart in a new fashion, and to make them the property of the listener as they could never be when a dead language was used as the medium of expression. He felt a strange thrill run through him as the story of Calvary was thus read in the low, impassioned tones of the hunchback; and he was not surprised to see that ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... silent listener, seated on the boulevards, I have noticed how curious people, men and women, question the wounded who are resting there, suggesting to them answers to inquiries on the subject of the battles, the losses, and the atrocities ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... given special care to the accenting of words.[50] This has been done so that the signs that have been placed correctly over the accented letter will allow the listener to understand the meaning of the words and the sentences of the speaker. For instance, qixi has the accent on both ; fbicxi has it on the first i and on the a.[51] This same {110} arrangement will be respected in the dictionary, ...
— Diego Collado's Grammar of the Japanese Language • Diego Collado
... the table, that is at the east end, but otherwise we all took our places haphazard from meal to meal as our conversation, or want of it, merited, or as our arrival found a vacant chair. Thus if you felt talkative you might always find a listener in Debenham; if inclined to listen yourself it was only necessary to sit near Taylor or Nelson; if, on the other hand, you just wanted to be quiet, Atkinson or Oates would, probably, give you ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... Parisian hot-houses, where so many blasting rays are concentrated, without ever losing the purity of their color or their rustic simplicity. The naive attitude of the girl and her modest glance showed Merle very plainly that she did not wish a listener. In fact, no sooner had he withdrawn than the two women began a conversation in so low a tone that only a murmur of ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... your intellect is, the easier will you find it to converse pleasantly with all. If, however, you happen to have no facility in expressing yourself, and you find it very difficult to converse with persons whom you do not know well, you can still be an intelligent and agreeable listener, and you can show by your ready smile of sympathy that you would be sociable if you could. There is no reason in the world why any one, who is not unhappy, should sit in the midst of gay companions with a face so solemn and unmoved, ...
— The Ladies' Vase - Polite Manual for Young Ladies • An American Lady
... of Blentz scowled savagely, as though to impress upon his listener the importance of his next utterance, "there were more than you and the king involved in his sudden departure from Blentz and in his hasty change of policy toward Austria. To be quite candid, it seems to me that it may be necessary to ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... asphalt of the Parade. Screened by the window curtains, I could see and hear without endangering my own privacy; and many were the odd interchanges of speech that fell from strangers unconscious of a listener. ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... His listener received the news with the concern of a friend, Lady Constantine's aspect in his eyes depending but little ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... worst soil we have," lectured Claire. evidently keenly interested in the theme of agriculture and glad of an attentive listener. "It is more coral rock than anything else. That is why Milo planted it in grapefruit. Grapefruit will grow where almost nothing else will, you know. Why, last year wasn't by any means a banner season. But he made ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... a term that is much abused and means little. The traditional cadenza is there, but it is not allowed to step out of the frame, and so perfect is the relation to what precedes and follows, that the average listener might claim that it does not exist. Without wishing to venture upon any odious grounds of comparison, I want to state frankly that it is, to me, ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... dreamed? Or are his joys and sorrows, and the actors in them, but a dream; himself a dream; the teller of this tale a dreamer, waking but now? If it be so, O listener, dear to him in all his visions, try to bear in mind the stern realities from which these shadows come; and in your sphere—none is too wide and none too limited for such an end—endeavor to correct, improve and soften them. ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... voice seemed all the time to be saying something that sounded cheerful and encouraging. But his voice came only as a vague murmur to the listener's ears. Presently, however, there came a word which set his pulses tingling. Madame said something about "Gentilly," and directly afterwards: "You will have to be very careful, my dear M. Bertin. The chateau, I feel sure, ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... A listener commented briskly. "Nay, then it is no worse than very well that she should die. For my part, I cannot abide cats since my neighbor's grimalkin ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... towards us by a violent gale, and its sole object was to seek you.'" And the others rejoined, "Allah send thee tidings of welfare!" The youth hearing these words was gladdened and joyed with exceeding joy; and presently the three Mermaidens called to one another and dove into the depths leaving the listener standing upon the strand. After a short time he heard the cries of the crew from the craft announced and he shouted to them and they, noting his summons, ran alongside the shore and took him up and bore ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... school, of her friends, of the teachers, of her life and its infinitely small miseries and pleasures. Pansy was voluble; never before had the colonel found himself relegated to the place of a passive listener. Nevertheless, he liked it, and as they passed on, under the shade of the Alameda, with Pansy alternately swinging from his hand and skipping beside him, there was a vague smile of satisfaction on his face. Passers-by turned to look after the strangely assorted pair, or smiled, accepting them, ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Nella-Rose, with the gesture inherited from a time of prosperity, rallied his forces and lied! Lied like a gentleman, he would have said. Broken and shabby as Greyson was, he appeared, at that moment, so simple and direct, that his listener, holding to the sheriff's estimate, was left with little doubt concerning what he heard. He, watching the weak and agonized face, believed Greyson was making the best of a sad business; but that he was weaving from whole cloth the garment that must cover the past, Truedale in ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... years, Mary E. Hawes, afterwards Mrs. Van Lennep, was an attentive and interested listener to the instructions given to the children at our quarterly meetings—and it is interesting to know that her mother regards the influence of those meetings as powerfully aiding in the formation of her ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... it touched it. And quite suddenly the domes disappeared. Don Francisco de Mogente rose and went towards the boat. He did not trouble to walk gently or to loosen the chains noiselessly. The wind was roaring so loudly that a listener twenty yards away could have heard nothing. He cast off and then hastened to the stern of the boat. The way in which he handled the helm showed that he knew the tricks of the old ferryman by wind and calm, ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... Russian colonel had withdrawn himself to a remote part of the room, and taken the most lively interest in the scene acted before him. A word from him would have brought the whole affair to an end, for, as an involuntary listener, he had heard all that had transpired concerning the cannoneer. Consequently he knew exactly the hiding-place in which the latter had been concealed. But it had never come into his mind to play the informer and traitor. He was only intensely interested in the issue of ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... there, with the haughty sister for a listener, that Arthur Vernon asked the gentle Mary to be his wife!—hinting at his hopes and wishes at first in answer to some expressions of gratitude from her for the service he had rendered her father, and begging her thus to repay it by giving ...
— The Young Lord and Other Tales - to which is added Victorine Durocher • Camilla Toulmin
... one else knew but his sister Aileen, his epic in twenty-four books on Brian Boromhe and the Battle of Clontarf; and she was mother enough not to predict its inevitable fate, nor audibly to detect the unconscious plagiarisms, but to be a better listener than even Aileen, who never could be withheld from unfeeling laughter at the touching fate of the wounded warriors who were tied to stakes that they might ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... chair beside him, and recounted the story of the intermediate entertainment, intuitively omitting the part which Ilga played. That it was appreciated by her listener Polly could not doubt. ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... speak, he had a message that cheered the hearts of his hearers. Austin sat attentively listening, his serious eyes dwelling on the face of the speaker. Pastor Gray was soon attracted to the earnest young listener, and when the service closed, hurried back to grasp his hand and speak to him. Others of the members also made him welcome with pleasant greetings and hearty invitations to return and worship with them again. Austin left the house cheered and comforted, with thankfulness ...
— The Hero of Hill House • Mable Hale
... night through, or rather Mac talked and I listened, and it was a treat to be a listener, ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... air, the listener could not help showing himself more boldly than he had yet done, in a rash attempt to see more than he had yet been able to discover. The music instantly ceased—the casement was closed, and a dark curtain, dropped on the inside, put a stop to all farther observation on the part of the neighbour ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... to their seats, and out of the arbored gallery of the orchestra a single swarthy-faced male singer stepped forth into the wan wake of an artificial moon, and lifted up a marvelous tenor voice in one of those weird folk-songs of the far-away that fairly tear the listener's heart out of his body—a song as sinisterly metallic as the hum of hate along a dagger-blade; a song as rapturously surprised at its own divinity as the first trill of a nightingale; a song of purling ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... to confide their escapades to him, sure of being received with an interest which might pass very well for sympathy. It was with the very young ones that he was most popular; he took on himself no irritating airs of superiority; he was a good listener; and he never flew off the handle. Such a man has the effect of a refreshing sedative on the febrile nerves of ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... to be a good listener. Facts he would always listen to; it was only when people told him their theories that he ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... and attention is as important in polite society as to converse well, and it is in the character of listener that the elegant refinement of a man accustomed to society will soonest prove itself. No matters how "flat, stale and unprofitable," the remarks of another may be, the well-bred man will listen with an appearance ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... words Aunt Rachel cast her eyes for the first time upon Edith, who had stood a silent and uncomfortable listener while her father ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... veranda Nan and Dorothy joined the others. Freddie was almost asleep in Aunt Emily's arms; Uncle William, Mr. Bobbsey, and Mr. Burnet were talking, with Bert as an interested listener; while Mrs. Manily told Aunt Emily of her mission to the beach. As the children had thought, Aunt Emily readily gave consent to have Nellie, the little cash girl, come to Ocean Cliff, and on the morrow Nan and Dorothy were to ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore • Laura Lee Hope
... grew into quaint and delicate whims of music, never the same, changing every day. Never glad: uncertain, sad minors always, vexing the content of the hearer,—one inarticulate, unanswered question of pain in all, making them one. Even the vulgarest listener was troubled, hardly knowing why,—how sorry ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... questions we may reasonably propose is in itself a strong evidence of sagacity and intelligence. For if a question be in itself absurd and unsusceptible of a rational answer, it is attended with the danger—not to mention the shame that falls upon the person who proposes it—of seducing the unguarded listener into making absurd answers, and we are presented with the ridiculous spectacle of one (as the ancients said) "milking the he-goat, and the other holding ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... O king, when recited, O thou of Bharatas race, by a reader of this kind, the listener, observant of vows all the while and cleansed by purificatory rites, acquires valuable fruits. When the first Parana is reached, the hearer should gratify Brahmanas with presents of all desirable objects. By doing this, one obtains the fruits ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... sense. And a time's soon told, And Earth is old, And my poor wits are dense; Yet I have secrets,—dark, my dear, To breathe you all: Come near. And lest some hideous listener ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various
... Colonel's ear when I last saw him as a listener to almost matchless oratory, whose rotundity of belt was to be measured by the yard, I would have addressed him as follows: "My dear Colonel, when I last saw you you were just filled out enough to be the joy ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... Courage told his attentive listener all about Master Busy's surmises and his determination to probe the secrets of the mysterious crime, which—to be quite truthful—the worthy butler with the hard toes had scented long ere it was committed, seeing ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... chiefly a listener, and often quietly weeping; and, at last, a very kindly parting, and a promise from the simple and gentle vicar that he would often ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... moment's notice. Through private influence of some fair lady, you have command of the despatches of that officer at Springport, who has the control of the naval forces there. Ha! what was that? I heard a sound up yonder. Hasten up, and see if there is any listener. It seemed to be there, where the wood ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... son of a half breed Chippewa mother and French father, took with him into silence much wilderness lore of the Northwest. He was full of stories when warmed to recital, though at the beginning of a talk his gentle eyes dwelt on the listener with anxiety, and he tapped his forehead—"So many things gone from there!" His habit of saying "Oh God, yes," or "Oh God, no," was not in the least irreverent, but simply his mild way of using ...
— The Skeleton On Round Island - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... Shall court thy precious interviews, Shall take thy head upon her knee, And such enchantment lilt to thee, That thou shalt hear the lifeblood flow From farthest stars to grass-blades low, And find the Listener's science still Transcends the Singer's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Tell me about it." The explorer drew closer. Jose knew somehow that he could trust this stranger, and so he briefly sketched his ancestral story to his sympathetic listener. "And no one knows," he concluded in a depressed tone, "how many of the thousands of victims of the Inquisition in Cartagena were sent to their doom by the house of Rincon. It may be," he sighed, "that the sins of my fathers have been visited upon me—that I am now paying in part the penalty ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... meanwhile, to note some of the heavy sighs that labored from her bosom, with little restraint as to their lugubrious depth and volume of sound, inasmuch as they could be audible to nobody save a disembodied listener like ourself. The Old Maid was alone in the old house. Alone, except for a certain respectable and orderly young man, an artist in the daguerreotype line, who, for about three months back, had been a lodger in a remote ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... foe would see his signal first. And so on, with a succession of tricks beyond Moliere, of acts of caution, foresight, patient cunning, which were listened to with infinite gusto and perfect comprehension by every listener. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... When I began to climb, the object above me was not happiness but ambition. Wealth and social place, as you say, I already had. They meant nothing to me. What I wanted was to make a name in another way—as a literary man." The dark eyes shifted back to the listener's face, the ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... generalities,—as for M. Decorde, my intentions are for open warfare;—but enough of that! I spent yesterday, a fine day, with Tourgueneff to whom I read the hundred and fifteen pages of Saint- Antoine that are finished. After which, I read to him almost half of the Dernieres Chansons. What a listener! What a critic! He dazzled me by the depth and the clearness of his judgment. Ah! if all those who attempt to judge books had been able to hear, what a lesson! Nothing escapes him. At the end of a passage of a hundred lines, ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... sheik therefore proposed that I should join him with my troops and capture all the women and children that belonged to his enemies. This was natural enough, and was a simple example of the revenge that is common to uneducated human nature. The sheik and I got on famously, and I found a good listener, to whom I preached a touching sermon upon the horrors of the slave trade, which I was resolved ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... should come back to Hooker's Bend and immediately drop into such a fracas. Old Captain Renfrew, one-time attorney at law and representative of his county in the state legislature, sat under the mulberry in front of the livery-stable and plunged into a long monologue, with old Mr. Tomwit as listener, on the uneducability ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... all landsmen, could hardly be called anything else. The doctor had once made a voyage to Fayal and from thence to England in a sailing-vessel, having been somewhat delicate in health in his younger days, and this made him a more intelligent listener to the captain's stories than ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... was turned away. Kit dwelt anxiously on the keen, pale profile, the ruined eye, the lopped arm. Was his listener incredulous? He could not say, and ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... paused and fixed his eyes upon each listener in turn, challenging disapproval, yet eager for sympathy at the same time. In place of criticism, however, he met only silence and breathless admiration. Also—he heard that distant sound they had forgotten, and realised it ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... a father he loved her, though he had played a little at fatherhood in the beginning. She was so companionable, they had so many similar tastes. He was so fond of reading to an appreciative listener, and even as he sat in the darkness, when she did not know he was alone in the study, he could see her lovely eyes raised in their tender light. He thought this her unusual wisdom and discernment, never dreaming it had been mostly his training and her receptiveness. And to think of ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... led to it, struck into the fields, the strange and solemn beauty of the landscape, lighted up, by numberless lamps, to the verge of the horizon, fascinated my eyes, and rendered me for some time an inattentive listener to the ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Baird; it's a Glasgow firm...." "Mhm," said Mr. Philip, "I know who you mean." Detestable, thought Yaverland, this Scotch locution which implies that one has made a vague or incorrect description which only the phenomenal intelligence of one's listener has enabled him to penetrate, but he set himself suavely enough to describe the instability of Spanish labour, its disposition to call strikes that were really larks, and the greater willingness with ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... five dollars each for the new people he has annexed. If there is an exchange of wives (a not-infrequent thing), the babies have to be newly parcelled out. Through all the family intricacies Mr. Conroy follows the interpreter with infinite patience and bonhomie. To the listener it sounds startling as the interpreter, presenting two tickets says, "He married these three people—this fellow." "O, he give dat baby away to Charles." When we hear in a dazed way that "Mary Catholic's son married ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... copper wire circuit like the Paris-London telephone emits a short, sharp report, like the crack of a pistol, which is sometimes startling, and has created fear, but there is no danger or liability to shock. Indeed, the start has more than once thrown the listener off his stool, and has led to the belief that he was ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 822 - Volume XXXII, Number 822. Issue Date October 3, 1891 • Various
... the tone of the man seemed to his listener uncalled for—in a sense reproachful, singular. Harris bridled in ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... and laughed aloud at the vision he had been evoking—laughed with so joyous a relish in his reminiscences that the drawn, impatient face of his listener relaxed a little. He drew a long breath, he even smiled a ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... being a woman, oblige any man by direct compliance; she could not deprive herself of her own little triumph. Or perhaps, deliberately, she sought to give this solitary listener that which it would have cost thousands of dollars for a wider public to hear. She sang first the leading arias of her more prominent operatic roles. She sang the Page's song, which had been hers in her first ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... leaned over it, while the Captain drew up another chair and pointed out the Crimea and Sebastopol, and shewed the course by which the English ships had come, for Daisy took care to ask that. Then, finding so earnest a listener, he went on to describe to her the situation of other places on the Peninsula, and the character of the country, and the severities of the climate in the region of the great struggle. Daisy listened, with her eyes varying between Capt. Drummond's face and ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner
... still be alive, yet unaware of his identity," broke in Helen, who was a keenly interested listener. She had been so accustomed to regard her husband as the only son of parents, both of whom were dead, that the mere possibility of his having ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... listener." He laughed. "You'll find that out for yourself, I fancy. And I know she likes people to talk to her—when they have anything to say. Tell her things; ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... a large straggling acquaintance with things, and could readily appear to know more than he did. He was, besides, that most agreeable person to a man with a hobby, a good listener—when he saw reason. He made himself so pleasant that the laird was not only always glad to see him, but would often ask him to stay to supper, when he would fish up from the wine-cellar he had inherited a bottle with a history and a character, and the two would pass the evening together, ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... flattery himself, was fain to give his most earnest word of commendation to the young Irishman, and even admitted that he envied Burke for being "continually the same," though he could not refrain from having a fling at him for not being a "good listener"—a deadly sin in the estimation of one who seldom wished to hear any other voice but his own. Burke, sir, he exclaimed to the obsequious Boswell—Burke is such a man, that if you met him for the first time ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... pillow. When Marble came down to turn in, he told me the cabin party had revived, and that there had been much pleasant discourse among the young people; and this in a way to cause even him to derive great satisfaction as a listener. ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... contending passions: they grow not out of sorrow, or joy, or hope, or fear, or hatred, or despair. For in the hour of affliction the tones of our fellow-creatures are ravishing as the most delicate lute; and in the flush moment of joy where is the smiler who loves not a witness to his revelry or a listener to his good fortune? Fear makes us feel our humanity, and then we fly to men, and Hope is the parent of kindness. The misanthrope and the reckless are neither agitated nor agonised. It is in these moments that men find in Nature ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... demanded. He tried having them read aloud by his father, but though Jake was always willing, he stumbled and spelled his way through the battles and adventures with a laboriousness that nearly set his young listener mad. ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... confirmation of the strange story. As Adam talked on, his eyes flashing, his voice tremulous with the pathos of the story he was pouring into the young man's astonished ears, one picture after another rose dimly out of the listener's past: The big lounge in the garret where his mother held him in her arms; the high window with the light flooding the floor of the room; the jar of blossoms into which he had ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... those with whom he was intimate. They knew him to be very hospitable and kind, and a thorough gentleman. He came of a high Scottish family, and was proud that one of his ancestral relations had his head cut off for loyalty to his King. I remember being a silent listener to the relation of some happenings which at one time or other occurred in Ireland. The postmaster was a man who, rather young in years, appeared to have had some experiences. He was telling Fraser of the ill-feeling which was existent ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... The listener's expression was one of scorn and anger. "It is worth the trouble, certainly," he exclaimed, with a mocking laugh. "A charming sentimental pilgrimage, truly; and pray who is this beloved friend, over whose resting-place he must shed a tear, and ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... would say, "What is there in this to make men fools? There is nothing in all this," I grew more vehement and painted the picture with all my skill. What malice began, my ardour perfected, until, engrossed in my fancy, I came near to forgetting that I had a listener, and ended with a start as I found Barbara's eyes fixed on mine, while she stood motionless before me. My exultation vanished, and confusion ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... feign a wish that there were fewer trains between Boston and New York, so that old Newton (that was his name) could have a better chance of staying away. But we noticed that Minver was always a willing listener to Newton's talk, and that he sometimes hospitably offered to share his tobacco with the Bostonian. When brought to book for his inconsistency by Rulledge, he said he was merely welcoming the new blood, if not young blood, that Newton was infusing ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells
... great affection for old Satanta and that he was one of the nobles of his race, and also one of the best men he had ever known regardless of race. Young Leavenworth delighted in telling his exploits among the Indians and I was no poor listener, for it always entertained me to hear some one give praise to my Indian friends. Mr. Leavenworth told me that a great many of the different tribes of Indians came to Fort Leavenworth to see his father and that he had never had any ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... turning to the Captain, and speaking in a curter manner; for so strongly was he moved by that human kindness which is vaguely called sympathy that his speech varied according to his listener. "You hear the Marquis only speaks French. It is about a fellow-countryman of his buried here. Drop in and have a glass of wine with us some evening; to-night, if you are ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... part of the life of this King, the Marquis of Lucchesini was frequently of his literary and convivial parties; but he was neither his friend nor his favourite, but his listener. It was first under Frederick William II. that he began his diplomatic career, with an appointment as Minister from Prussia to the late King of Poland. His first act in this post was a treaty signed on the 29th of March, 1790, with the King and Republic ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... habit of holding his mouth open a moment before he spoke, and looking as though he felt that his listener was impatient for his words, which were always pronounced with great deliberation. Helen had very little patience with him, and used to answer his slowly uttered remarks with a ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... her to ask any questions about the event of yesterday. All that was known by every one had been told to Mr. Leigh already by an early visitor, and he, full of horror and sympathy, was able to tell the terrible story over again to a listener, whose deep and agonizing interest in it ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... instruction. Those next for duty, as well as those in training, wished to hear what was going on, and who had shifted what to where, and how certain arrangements had worked. They were told in language not to be found in any printable book. Questions and answers were alike Hebrew to one listener, but he gathered that every boat carried a second in command—a strong, persevering youth, who seemed responsible for everything that went wrong, from a motor cylinder to a torpedo. Then somebody touched on the mercantile marine ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... training in business habits, was a good teller of a plain and straightforward tale: Appleyard, for the same reason, was a good listener. So one man talked, in low, earnest tones, checking off his points as he made them, taking care that he emphasized the principal items of his news and dwelt lightly on the connecting links, and the other listened in silence, keeping a concentrated attention and storing away ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... smiled more broadly still. He by no means followed all Fenton's vagaries of thought, but they tickled his mental cuticle agreeably. The artist had the name of being a clever talker, and with such a listener this was more than half the battle. The men who can distinguish the real quality of talk are few and far to seek; most people receive what is said as wit and wisdom, or the reverse, simply because they are assured ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... us!' cried the trembling listener; 'you cannot surely know the sorrow you would cause, nor the troubles you would have to endure. It is true we leave our kind branches but to die, but we are not carelessly trodden on; the rustling of we poor faded leaves beneath man's feet recall ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer
... to tell a fine story; and a fine story is always agreeable to a credulous listener. An agent of the Society goes into a place, and finds no difficulty in procuring a pulpit from which to address a congregation. The benevolent pastor, who, perhaps, has had neither time nor opportunity to examine the principles of the Society, ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... froightened, sure," he began, in a very solemn tone, the more to impress the anxious listener, "if Oi'm afther tillin' ye the whole ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... camp stool, he began to talk with the easy and deliberate manner of a man who had much to say. He dwelt eloquently on the minutest details of his early life, as if they were matters of the utmost importance. Keifer was not only an attentive listener, but seemed wonderfully interested. Uncle Jacob undertook to thrust in a word here and there, but Garfield was much too absorbed to notice him, and so pushed on steadily, warming up as he proceeded. Unfortunately for his ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... too cold and too weary to argue the point, so I let him have it all his own way. I believe he must have thought me rather a dull companion; but at least he gave me the credit of being a good listener. ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... is too long? Think it over, carefully. Imagine the scene on the stage. The voice must be terrifying—it must be impressive, one must believe it real. How can this be so if the speech is too long—the length itself convincing the listener of the fictitiousness of the scene? If the speech of the 'Ghost' in 'Hamlet' were not so long it would be ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... impressed with the multifarious engagements of the human decoy-spider who is probably appraising his prey through a peep-hole. By and by, the patient's anxiety is dissipated by the appearance of the pretended Medicus, and he proceeds to give all the painful details of his case, while the listener, by looks and words, does everything to increase his alarm. The history finished, questions will be asked him as to his avocations, position and income, all apparently with the view of elucidating the points ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... technical skill of a man she added a feminine lightness of touch, that in airy lightness, and grace, melting tenderness and sweetness is past description. Her violin now seemed to breathe and sigh. The tears would come to the listener's eyes he knew not why. The tears were in the tones. The sorrow of her life exhaled in chastened sweetness from the strings. Her heart ran out on her finger tips and ...
— Camilla: A Tale of a Violin - Being the Artist Life of Camilla Urso • Charles Barnard
... his account of a tiger hunt more exciting than his father's history of the run he had had after a fox. Frances was an equally welcome resource to him. Here was an opportunity, quite unexpected, of displaying his most fashionable ties and most splendid waistcoats; here was a listener for his best stories, and one who did not repay him in kind, as his father did; and here were a pair of bright eyes, that always looked brighter at his approach; and a pair of pretty lips, that pouted when he talked of ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various
... Buenaventura to prevent a single man from having all the work he may wish. Make haste and come. Do not delay. Diego." The reader finished the letter, and there was a silence of some minutes between the two, reader and listener. The former, a young man, not much more than twenty-five years of age, had a moody expression on his dark face. After reading the letter he waited for his companion to speak. But Maria, his wife, appeared not to notice ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... figure, he was a man of perfect physique. He had an expressive face and an excellent voice, well adapted to out-door speaking. In manner, he appeared somewhat pompous, and the impression he left on the mind of the listener was not so agreeable as that retained of the ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... once came forward from the rear of the hall, where he had been sitting, and mounting the platform, said: I only came forward in obedience to a call which it would be impertinence to refuse here to-night. I came to be a listener and with no sort of intention of making any speech at all, and the only right I should have upon this platform is, that for the last twenty-five years of my short life I have pleaded for those rights ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... it be true that the imbruted child of vice and pollution knows more of God and the moral law than he has ever put in practice; how much more fearfully true is it that the dweller in a Christian home, the visitant of the house of God, the possessor of the written Word, the listener to prayer and oftentimes the subject of it, possesses an amount of knowledge respecting his origin, his duty, and his destiny, that infinitely outruns his character and his conduct. If eternal punishment will come down upon those classes of mankind who know but comparatively little, because ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... about to be developed in the course of the conversation. Nothing has been said, for example, in the English, German, Yana, or Chinese sentence as to the place relations of the farmer, the duck, the speaker, and the listener. Are the farmer and the duck both visible or is one or the other invisible from the point of view of the speaker, and are both placed within the horizon of the speaker, the listener, or of some indefinite point ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... was always very difficult for me to read aloud with any listener besides herself, but she seemed so troubled at what she considered her selfishness, ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... was very great and noble," Said the moist-eyed listener then, "But one brave deed makes no hero; Tell me what he since ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... sentence? What is the point in some larger division of the speech? What is the point, or purpose, of the speech as a whole? This point, or the meaning of what is said, should be so put, should be so clear, that no effort is required of a listener for readily apprehending and appreciating it. Discussing now only the question of delivery, we say that the making of a point depends mainly upon what we commonly call emphasis. Extending the meaning of emphasis beyond the limit of mere stress, or ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... the king began to talk, and Frances seldom interrupted him save to draw him out, knowing that a talking man sooner or later tells a great deal that he should have left unsaid. This is especially true if a shrewd listener reads between his words. ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... than one who had never wandered a hundred yards from his home! Who knows not the pleasure of returning even after a brief absence, full of information, eager to impart it, and sure of a ready and attentive listener? I talked over my adventures to my brother, till any patience but his would have been exhausted; but he was the most patient of rats, quite willing to have all his adventures second-hand, without the slightest wish to become a hero, but ready, without a particle of envy, to admire the exploits ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.
... the resentful, and to the submissive sufficiently serious. He told stories with great felicity, and delighted in doing what he knew himself to do well; he was therefore captivated by the respectful silence of a steady listener, and told the same tales too often. He did not, however, claim the right of talking alone; for it was his rule, when he had spoken a minute, to give room by a pause for any other speaker. Of time, on all occasions, he was an exact computer, and knew the minutes required ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... some exciting influence over Meshach Milburn, if his changed manner could be ascribed to that article, for he resumed his strong, wild-man's stare, deepened and lowered his voice, and without waiting for any query or expression of his listener, told ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... was explaining myself, with that diabolical dual consciousness which makes us spectator and listener to ourselves, in the back of my brain—or my soul—was running this query: "I wonder what a raw battlefield looks like? I have a chance to see if I want to— perhaps." I suppose that was an attack of involuntary, unpremeditated curiosity. I ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... attention required in following a lecture with the pen, especially when the words of the professor are not taken down with slavish exactitude, but when, as is most generally the case, merely the thoughts are noted in the hearer's own language. The ideas thus gained have been assimilated and become the listener's own property. There is thus generated a steady transfusion, the surest remedy against flagging mental activity. Many a foreigner writes down the lecture in his own tongue, and values highly this training of constant translation, though, before many months, the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... swinging all's well. The deepening drum of the steaming engine as it entered the gorge walls, the straining of the injectors, and the frequent hissing check of the air as the powerful machine restrained its moving load, was music to the tired listener above. Then, looming darkly behind the tender, surprising the onlookers, even Glover himself, came the real train. Not till the roadbuilders heard the heavy drop of the big cars on the new rail joints ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... sat at his table. He talks incessantly. There is no subject upon which he has not something worth while to say. His memory is remarkable; he can quote poet after poet, or compose a poem on anything that crops up at the table. I do not think it can be said that Chesterton is a good listener. This is not in any way conceit or boredom, but is rather that he is always thinking out some new story or article or poem. Yet he is a good host in the niceties of the table; he knows if you want salt; he does not forget that wine is the ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... nodded. He seemed content, at this stage in their conversation, to assume the role of listener. ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... why I want to walk with you. I wish to give you a piece of my mind, and it won't be pleasant to listen to, I can assure you. So there must be no listener but yourself." ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... came forward, regarding Somerset with a confident smile, as if the wonder were, not why Mr. Dare should be present, but why Somerset should be present likewise; and the first tone that came from Dare's lips wound up his listener's opinion that he ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... the fir-tree's dark-green fingers Tap upon the window low, And the moon, a yellow listener, Casts ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... Laub, and others. One writer speaks of it as a "piece in which a series of double shakes, and the satanic laugh with which it concludes, are so dear to lovers of descriptive music." Its title alone almost ensures its success beforehand. The listener is, however, less impressed by the hidden diabolical inspiration than by the ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... to rave, John, now that we are under the stars, remember I am a close confidant, and a sympathetic listener. I should like to hear you rave, just to learn how an exasperatingly sensible man ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... stream flowed, until Mollie felt dazed and bewildered. Mrs Wolff evidently felt it such a treat to have a listener that she was capable of continuing for hours at a time, and it was only the sounding of the gong for lunch which brought an end ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... with its nineteen quatrains, is even less like the longer version given by O'Halloran to Miss Brooke, than the opening stanzas suggested. In them the variations were mainly textual, and when I read out O'Halloran's version to James Kelly, his son, a keen listener, declared a preference for the printed text. But the old man was of another mind. "It's the same song," he said, "sure enough, but there's things changed in it, and I know rightly about them. Some one was giving it the way it ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... of words dashed upon the silent listener, until the speaker suddenly bethought himself and stopped in abashment,—this man he was rebuking had been to him as a father in God, his kind friend from childhood, and first among the great and good. Almost overwhelmed by his own temerity, he watched ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... to vindicate his own. One evening, as I was sitting, a little apart from the rest, with two men of the London world, to whose talk—for it ran upon the on-dits and anecdotes of a region long strange to me—I was a silent but amused listener, one of the two said: "Well, I don't know anywhere a more excellent creature than Lady Castleton: so fond of her children, and her tone to Castleton so exactly what it ought to be,—so affectionate, and yet, as it were, respectful. And the more credit to her if, ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... tresses of her friend, "did I not know it were an impossibility, I should say you had lost your best friend;" and putting her dimpled mouth close to her ear, she whispered some mysterious words so softly,—so very softly, that were we disposed to turn listener, we could only have distinguished that one word,—"Delwood;" but we might have seen the delicate tinge of pink, which, tell-tale like, overspread the face and neck of the Sea-flower. Be that as it may, there was a thoughtful look lingering about those expressive features, which ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... great and honored among the tribes of the Iroquois farther back even than Hiawatha. He began at once the story of the warrior who learned to talk with the deer and the bear, carrying it on through many chapters. Now and then a delighted listener would cry "Hah!" but if anyone became bored and fell asleep it was considered an omen of misfortune to the sleeper, and he was chased ignominiously to his tepee. The Iroquois romancer was better protected than the white one is. He could ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler |
