"Touching" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... returned soldier nothing is more welcome than conversation touching his experience 'in the field' with his companions, and next to this a good book written by one who has known 'how it is himself,' and who recounts vividly the scenes of strife through which he has passed. Such ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... take revenge upon Princess Desiree, and this the Fairy promised to do. Meanwhile once more Becafigue came to the capital where Desiree's father lived, and throwing himself at the King's feet, besought him in most touching words to let his daughter go with him at once to the Prince, who would surely die if he could ...
— My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales • Edric Vredenburg
... vial from her bag and uncorked it. The incense of the poppies crept subtly through the room, mingling inextricably with the mustiness and the dust. The grey cobwebs swayed at the windows, sunset touching them to iridescence. Conscious that she was the most desolate and lonely thing in all the desolate house, Miss Evelina buried her face ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... colleague, whose sympathies were closest to his own, the loyalty of whose friendship was most untainted, and upon whose character and high rank Clarendon could rely to balance the jealousy of his own promotion—too sudden not to offend the pride of the older nobility. With touching anxiety, Clarendon had sought to defend his old friend, now enfeebled by age and ill-health, from the unseemly efforts that had been made to remove him by those who sought to fill his place, but it may be doubted ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... using his strange gift. With every word his face grew a trifle whiter, but that had no effect upon his eloquence. He painted a vivid and touching picture of the shattered and wistful youth. He repeated the shaken words of remorse and love. "I want her to come East and marry me. I love her. Tell her I love her. Tell her I can give her everything she wants in all the ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... yards in front, there was something moving among the trees, and soon after a couple of the huge Indian buffaloes walked out into the open track in front, threw up their heads, one touching the other with his wide-spreading horns, and stood staring at us, as if puzzled at what ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... will diuide this our nation into two parts: into beggers, and those that susteine both themselues, and amongst others, beggers also. As touching all kinds of meats wherewith beggers and other poore men satisfie their hunger, it is no easie matter to rehearse and examine them; neither, because extreame necessity hath at some times compelled them to eate ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... "Yes, Fred, I have seen old women more miserable than that. I have seen women so old that their tottering limbs could scarcely support them, going about in the bitterest November winds, with clothing too scant to cover their wrinkled bodies, and so ragged and filthy that you would have shrunk from touching it—I have seen such groping about among heaps of filth that the very dogs looked at and turned away from ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... down again. There was no one in the room. She felt herself growing weak, as if death were touching her, and she tried to run and get help from the neighbors, when a voice near her cried out: "I haven't ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... lived in perfect unity together, we may together have part in the resurrection of the just." (In the "Epistolary Correspondence of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke and Dr. French Laurence" (Rivingtons, London, 1827), are several touching allusions to that master?grief which threw a mournful shadow over the closing period of Burke's life. In one letter the anxious father says, "The fever continues much as it was. He sleeps in a very uneasy way from time to time?-but his strength decays visibly, ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... there are no poets whose hearts remain unstirred by the exciting passion of irrepressible love, when song becomes the written testimony of the inner life. Whether it was so with Charles Mackay we have not ascertained, nor have we cared to inquire. His love-songs, however, are exquisitely touching, and among the purest compositions in the language. Certain it is that the poetical power was early manifested; for we find that, in 1836, he gave his first poems to the public. The unpretending volume attracted the attention of John Black, who was ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... sailor, touching his hat; "I understand, sir. But, Mr. Nelson, may I be so bold as to ask one question—one favor, I ...
— Frank on the Lower Mississippi • Harry Castlemon
... a camera lucida, so that a picture of the harbor, over a limited area, was thrown upon a whitened table. In this way an observer could recognize the instant an enemy's vessel arrived over a sunken mine, and could explode the latter by simply touching a button which allowed the electric current to pass to the torpedo. In the Harbor channels the torpedoes were so arranged as to be exploded on contact of an enemy's vessel with a ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... saw the men standing, with all eyes directed toward him, slowly looked over the rows of faces, smiled a bright but slightly wavering smile, turned and saluted the Commanding Officer, and sat down all trembling and shaken by this most touching tribute of sympathy ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... only at midnight that the dance was discontinued, at the suggestion of Elise. But before they separated, the Judge begged his wife to sing the well-known little song—"The First Evening in the New House." She sang it in her simple, soul-touching manner, and the joy full of peace which this song breathed penetrated every heart; even the grave countenance of the Judge gleamed with an affectionate emotion. A quiet glory appeared to rest on the family, and beautified all countenances; for it is given to song, like ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... present need and hunger for a spiritual revelation, Hilda felt a vast and weary longing to see this last-mentioned picture once again. It is inexpressibly touching. So weary is the Saviour and utterly worn out with agony, that his lips have fallen apart from mere exhaustion; his eyes seem to be set; he tries to lean his head against the pillar, but is kept from sinking ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... short off at the head, and the sputtering sulphur dropped into the stream and was quenched. He struck another, this time with success. He saw the heading; the way was clear; and he started on, holding one hand out before him, touching at frequent intervals the lower wall of the passage with ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... consideration for Jean Valjean's perilous position. He believed at that moment that he had a grave duty to perform: the restitution of the six hundred thousand francs to some one whom he sought with all possible discretion. In the meanwhile, he abstained from touching ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... Contemplation of Nature. The third, True Preparation. The fourth, the Way of Using. The fifth, Utility and Fruit. For he who regards not these, shall never obtain place among true Chymists, or fill up the number of perfect Spagyrists. Therefore, touching these five heads, we shall here following treat and so far declare them, as that the general Work may be brought to light and perfected by an intent ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... salver containing a silver cup of wine and some Rheims biscuit. He offered it to her formally; she accepted with scarcely audible thanks, and sat, barely touching the wine to her lips, crumbling the biscuit into bits with restless fingers, making the pretence of a meal serve as excuse for her silence. Monsieur glanced at her, puzzled-wise, waiting for her to speak. Had ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... sword-hilts were adorned with prodigious red and blue tassels, and the blade of Captain Pond's, in particular, bore the inscription, "My Life's Blood for the Two Looes!"—a legend which we must admit to be touching, even while we reflect that the purpose of the weapon was not to ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... touching entreaty, sometimes with imperious command, she protested, after giving him her name, that this matter could be nothing but an unfortunate mistake. Lastly, with earnest warmth, she besought him, before taking the prisoners away, to permit her to speak to the commanding general, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... cut ends pressed together. They are now warmed in the flame, and joined together, either by simultaneously warming the opposite side of the circuit or some other suitable part, so as to allow the two ends to be pushed together again after they are softened, or by gently touching the places that do not unite with a hot bead of glass, and using the glass to fill up the crack where the ends do not quite meet. Care must be taken not to leave knots or lumps of glass in the finished joint, and the latter should be well reblown, ...
— Laboratory Manual of Glass-Blowing • Francis C. Frary
... that if a menstruating woman approaches any medicine which is about to be given to a sick man she will cause his death.[1775] The Tamils think that saliva renders ritually unclean whatever it touches. Therefore, in drinking, they pour the liquid down the throat without touching the cup to the lips.[1776] The Romans held that nothing else had such marvelous efficacy as, or more deadly qualities than, the menstrual flow.[1777] Here we find that which is, in one view, evil and contemptible, regarded, ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... occasionally to see if the water continues. I have named these Daly Waters, in honour of his Excellency the Governor-in-Chief. Within a hundred yards the banks are thickly wooded with tall mulga and lancewood scrub; but to the east is open gum forest, splendidly grassed. Proceeded, occasionally touching the creek, and always found fine reaches of water, which continued a considerable way. At thirteen miles they become smaller and wider apart; at fifteen miles the creek seems to be trending more to the eastward, ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... Up till now, when these subsidies were required, I have always been able to come to Tom in the gay, confident spirit of an only child touching an indulgent father for chocolate cream. But he's just had a demand from the income-tax people for an additional fifty-eight pounds, one and threepence, and all he's been talking about since I got back has been ruin and the sinister trend of socialistic legislation ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... imitate very closely the buzz of a bee, by forcing the breath through my nearly-touching teeth. A mimic can imitate the natural sounds of many animals, and other sounds heard in Nature. This mere imitation is what Lingual Scholars have dignified by the high-sounding and rather repulsive technicality, Onomatopoieia. In the early and simple period of Lingual Science much ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... little fete at Ambleside. She would have them all in—Sandy and the landlady's two little girls—to look at them when they were dressed.—What strikes me with awe is that she has no more tears, though she says every now and then the most touching things—things that pierce to ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... no counterpart; beside it, most of the psychology of fiction seems child's play. And the truth of it is overwhelming. No wonder Stevenson speaks of its "serviceable exposure of myself." Every honest man who reads it, winces at its infallible touching of a moral sore-spot. The inescapable ego in us all was never before portrayed by such ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... "How touching that is!" thought the Captain. "She has a hundred causes for anxiety, but her first question is, 'You're safe?'" This was she whom he renounced, and this was she whom the Count of Fieramondi deceived. What were her trifling indiscretions beside her husband's infamy—the ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... too, has not been without its festivities. Alexander of Russia has been crowned with all the pomp of a successor of Catherine, and the Lord of an Empire five thousand miles long, and touching almost the Tropics, and almost the Pole. Moscow, of course, was the scene. All that barbaric pomp and European luxury could combine, was to be seen in the displays of the double coronation of the Czar and Czarina. Alexander, disdaining the royal habit of being ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... saddle and carried off into the house; where Mr. Linden and Best shook hands after a prolonged fashion, and the old servant—not that she was very old neither—turned glad, and eager, and respectful eyes upon her new mistress, touching that little hand ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... well in and made themselves as comfortable as their condition allowed. This of course was not saying much, for they were sitting on hard rock, with their heads touching ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... my household. You must try not to think too ill of him. He really is n't half a bad sort at bottom. But he 's English, and he lives in the country. So, a true English country gentleman, he has perhaps an exaggerated passion for the pleasures of the chase—and when questions touching them arise, seems simply to be devoid of the ethical sense. He 's not a whit worse than his human neighbours—and he 's a hundred times ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... safe in saying there was a half bushel of artichokes on the roots of this stalk. I then noticed that the dirt in the drills, the sides of the rows, and the middles were all puffed up. One could not stick the end of his finger in the ground without touching an artichoke. I found that the whole earth was matted with artichokes. I really believe that had I had a full acre in and could have gathered all the artichokes, I would have gotten at ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... third Fyne girl) she did not get on very well, and went to Brighton for some months to recover her strength—and there, one day in the street, the child (she wore her hair down her back still) recognised her outside a shop and rushed, actually rushed, into Mrs Fyne's arms. Rather touching this. And so, disregarding the cold impertinence of that ... h'm ... ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... France? Some of our English friends, coming to Italy through France, say that the general feeling towards England, and the affectionate greetings and sympathies lavished upon them as Englishmen by the French everywhere, are quite strange and touching. 'In two or three years,' said a Frenchman on a railroad, 'French and English, we shall make only one nation.' Are you very curious about the subject of gossip just now between Lord Palmerston and Louis Napoleon? ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... one of the most gratifying facts connected with the fugitives, the strong love and attachment that they constantly expressed for their relatives left in the South; the undying faith they had in God as evinced by their touching appeals on behalf of their fellow-slaves. But few probably are aware how deeply these feelings were cherished in the breasts of this people. Forty, fifty, or sixty years, in some instances elapsed, but this ardent sympathy and love continued warm and unwavering as ever. Children left to the ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... on driving, up the avenue. He knew everything, partly by observation, partly by instinct. He walked with his mother now, clinging with both hands to her arm, his head nearly on a level with her shoulder, and close, close to it, almost touching, his little person confused in the outline of her dress. The sunshine lay full along the line of the avenue, just broken in two or three places by the shadow of those old and useless trees, but without a speck upon it or ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... voice, he released me, and said, touching his forehead with a meaning gesture and a quiet smile, "You say you are my rival in pain. Have you ever known the rage and despair of the heart mount here? It is a wonderful thing to be calm as I am now, when that rising makes itself felt in ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the half-opened parlour door, had glimpses of that brave little sister brushing the collar of his coat in the passage, taking up loose stitches in his gloves and hovering lightly about and about him, touching him up here and there in the height of her quaint, little, old-fashioned tidiness, he called to mind the fancy-portraits of her on the wall of the Pecksniffian workroom, and decided with uncommon indignation that they were gross libels, and not ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... evenings were getting long, and after supper, as I sat smoking my pipe by the stove in the simple but scrupulously neat apartment of my host, he, in his turn, asked me about England. It is very touching the warmth with which these people in the far-off "land beyond the forest" speak of us. "We never can forget how kindly England received our patriots." This, or words like it, were said to me many times, and always the name of Palmerston came to the fore. "He cordially hated ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... any veteran soldier whom he ever had occasion to notice, no matter under what remote climate, or under what difference of circumstances. Wonderful is the effect upon soldiers of such enduring and separate remembrance, which operates always as the most touching kind of personal flattery, and which, in every age of the world, since the social sensibilities of men have been much developed, military commanders are found to have played upon as the most effectual chord in the great system which they modulated; some few, by a rare ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... endeavored to move on, but Jerome fairly crowded himself between him and the door, and stood there, his pale face almost touching his breast, and his black eyes glaring up at him with a startling nearness ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... fashion, this sailor would neither give anything for it nor hand it back. The Maori in a rage seized some bread and fish which the sailors were spreading for their lunch. The sailors closed to prevent their touching the victuals; a confused struggle took place, during which the English fired and killed two natives, but before they could load again they were all knocked on the head with the green stone axes of the Maoris. An officer ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... Nothing more touching, or in a sense more strangely beautiful, did I ever witness. Her tremulous, rapid, affectionate, eager Scotch voice,— the swift, aimless, bewildered mind, the baffled utterance, the bright and perilous eye; some wild words, some household cares, something for James, the names of the dead, Rab called ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... a thoroughly good, true, pure, sweet, and touching story. It covers precisely those phases of domestic life which are of the most common experience, and will take many and many of its readers just where they have been themselves. There is trouble in it, and sorrow, and pain, and parting, but the sunset glorifies the clouds of ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... things. But when I awoke at intervals, the ground outside the window was not the playground of Salem House, and the sound in my ears was not the sound of Mr. Creakle giving it to Traddles, but the sound of the coachman touching up ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... more touching than to behold a soft and tender female, who had been all weakness and dependence, and alive to every trivial roughness while treading the prosperous paths of life, suddenly rising in mental force to be the comforter and supporter of her husband under ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... of love, the mere emotion itself, however called into activity, secures it against all taint. No one who understands Browning in the least, can accuse him of touching with a rash hand the sanctity of the family; rather he places it on the basis of its own principle, and thereby makes for it the strongest defence. Such love as he speaks of, however irregular its manifestation ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... somewhat minded to face this same Examiner-of-all-Examiners, who came striding among the poor turnips, binding heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and laying them on little children's shoulders, like the Scribes and Pharisees of old, and not touching the same with one of his fingers; for he had plenty of money, and a fine house to live in; which was more than the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... transported to hear her talk at this rate; he thanked the Almighty for the change wrought upon her, and for touching the heart of so barbarous a creature; he also thanked her for her good disposition towards him, and omitted no arguments which he thought would have any effect to confirm her in her new religion. As a proof of the confidence he reposed in her, he gave her ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... the day of her arrival from slavery. How Mrs. Hilliard obtained the information, the impression it made on Ellen, and where she was secreted, the following extract of a letter written by Mrs. Hilliard, touching the memorable event, ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... said, after a moment or two, coming over and touching her quite gently, "Aileen! Don't cry so. I haven't left you yet. Your life isn't utterly ruined. Don't cry. This is bad business, but perhaps it is not without remedy. Come ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... corner of the rug furthest from her, in spite of all her calling and coaxing, paying her no more attention than if he had not heard her. Ellen crossed over to him, and began most tenderly and respectfully to stroke his head and back, touching his soft fur with great care. Parry presently lifted up his head uneasily, as much as to say, "I wonder how long this is going to last" and finding there was every prospect of its lasting some time, he fairly got up and walked over to the other end of the rug. Ellen followed ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... there without moving while the train rolled over him at full speed. It is true they made a preliminary investigation, from which it appeared that it was possible to lie so flat between the rails that the train could pass over without touching, but to lie there was no joke! Kolya maintained stoutly that he would. At first they laughed at him, called him a little liar, a braggart, but that only egged him on. What piqued him most was that these boys ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... the defence of him: he was a man incapable of forming plots, because his head would not hold them. He was an impulsive man, who could impale a character of either sex by narrating fables touching persons of whom he thought lightly, and that being done he was devoid of malice, unless by chance his feelings or his interests were so aggrieved that his original haphazard impulse was bent to embrace new circumstances and be the parent of a line of successive impulses, in the main resembling ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... other; and that I trust that after thirty-five years' friendship, they will still have as much confidence in one another as I have in you, my own dear Beatrice. I have written her name in one of these books," she added after a short interval, touching some which were always close to her. "And, Beatrice, one thing more I had to say," she proceeded, taking up a Bible, and finding out a place in it. "Geoffrey has always been a happy prosperous man, as he well deserves; but if ever trouble should come to him in ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was silver, if a cloud was scarlet, the artist managed to convey that these colors were important and almost painfully intense; all the red red-hot and all the gold tried in the fire. Now that is the spirit touching color which the schools must recover and protect if they are really to give the children any imaginative appetite or pleasure in the thing. It is not so much an indulgence in color; it is rather, if anything, ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... movement in that direction. She said, "Don't you go. Send one of the hands with a shotgun. I tell you I never saw anything like it. Little horrible beasts with—with—I can't describe it. To think that Red was touching them and trying to feed them. He was holding them, ...
— Youth • Isaac Asimov
... that in the reign of King Henry III. A child was born in Kent, that at two years old cured all diseases. Several persons have been cured of the King's-evil by the touching, or handling of a seventh son. It must be a seventh son, and no daughter between, ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... in luck, sir," replied the hunter, touching his cap. "We've killed more than we could carry, an', what's worse, we've killed more ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... However, he was obliged to undergo this labour; and when he had finished it, Mr. Percy, who happened to be preparing some new leases of considerable farms, was so busy, in the midst of his papers, that there was no such thing as touching upon the subject of the ball. At length the ladies of the family appeared, and all the parchments were at last out of the way—Buckhurst began upon his real business, and said he meant to delay going ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... after your excellent care of Fleur-de-Marie, whom you have saved, I could refuse you nothing. Poor child! what touching charms her features have preserved, notwithstanding her ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... the verse flow free and fast, Till even the poet is aghast, A touching Valentine at last The post shall carry, When thirteen days are gone and ...
— Phantasmagoria and Other Poems • Lewis Carroll
... going to smoke that one?" she asked, touching Torpedo Jimmy's cummerbund with the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 4, 1914 • Various
... what I may term a familiar superior (such as myself),—the hands joined palm to palm, and so applied twice or thrice to the forehead; and still other, and more and more reverential, ceremonials for gooroos, Brahmins, holy sages, and princes,—the brow touching the ground, or ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... his orders to lead his regiment on the extreme left of the Union lines in the advance into Virginia. The part assigned him was the occupation of Alexandria. He worked almost all night in his tent, arranging the business of his regiment, and then wrote a touching letter of farewell to his parents. Anticipating an engagement, he said: "It may be my lot to be injured in some manner. Whatever may happen, cherish the consolation that I was engaged in the performance of a sacred duty; and to-night, thinking over the probabilities of the morrow and the occurrences ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... he went on along the path, every step of which was haunted by the form of Lily. He reached the garden gate of Grasmere, lifted the latch, and entered. As he did so, a man, touching his hat, rushed beside, and advanced before him,—the village postman. Kenelm drew back, allowing the man to pass to the door, and as he thus drew back, he caught a side view of lighted windows looking on the lawn,—the windows of the pleasant drawing-room ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... irritation perished in disturbing thought. It wasn't, she told herself, Vigne's actions that made her fear the future so much as her, Linda's, knowledge of the possibilities of the past. Her undying hatred of that existence choked in her throat; the chance of its least breath touching Vigne, Arnaud's daughter, roused her ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... portraits," continued Mueller, still touching up the Titian, "is a very natural one—and is on the increase. Many gentlemen of—of somewhat recent wealth, come to ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... Mrs. Dodd, pleasantly, well aware that she was touching her neighbour's sorest spot, "was ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... One is the sudden inexplicable and dazzling rise on the world's stage of a totally insignificant people, the other the seeming arrest for long periods of time of the normal processes of even incipient decay. And touching the latter point, it is strange indeed that in two such widely different cultures as those of Iceland and China we should find the same law apparently at work; the periods are vastly unlike in actual, but not so in relative duration. ...
— Commentary Upon the Maya-Tzental Perez Codex - with a Concluding Note Upon the Linguistic Problem of the Maya Glyphs • William E. Gates
... much too far," he said, touching his betrothed upon the arm. "My dear Elizabeth, there is no use exaggerating; the case is unpleasant enough just ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... the shock-headed boy was staring hard too, with his mouth half open and his forehead wrinkled into furrows, till he saw Captain Marsham approach from the wheel, when he hurried forward to commence altering the coil of a rope which needed no touching and whose neatness ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... the tragic chance which had made so gallant and docile a creature appear in the guise of a wild beast, Finn did actually present both an awe-inspiring and a magnificent spectacle at this moment. His cage was seven feet high, yet at one moment Finn's fore-paws came within a few inches of touching its roof, as he plunged erect and snarling against the partition which separated him from the growling and spitting tiger. The next moment saw him crouched in the far corner of the cage, as though for a spring, his fore-legs extended, rigid as the ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... of the publishers over Cecily and the Wide World (HURST AND BLACKETT) is almost touching. On the outside of the wrapper they call it "charming," and are at the further pains to advise me to "read first the turnover of cover," where I find them letting themselves go in such terms as "true life," "sincerity," "charm" ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 29, 1919 • Various
... their temples wore The chaplets white and red their ladies bore. Their instruments were various in their kind, Some for the bow, and some for breathing wind; The sawtry, pipe, and hautboy's noisy band, And the soft lute trembling beneath the touching hand. A tuft of daisies on a flowery lea 360 They saw, and thitherward they bent their way; To this both knights and dames their homage made, And due obeisance to the daisy paid. And then the band of flutes began to play, To which a ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... palm leaves. They cluster close together along the winding brown rivers, on the edge of the jungle. Mounted very high on their stilts of bamboo, crowding each other very close together, compound touching compound for the sake of companionship and safety. Safety from the wild beasts of the forests, those that cry by night, and howl and prowl and kill; safety from the serpents, whose sting is death, shelter, protection, from all the dark, lurking dangers of the jungle—the evil, mighty ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... neglect of duty, was instantly broken, and sent on shore. 'This rigid measure of justice against his own flesh and blood, silenced every complaint, and the service gained immeasurably in spirit, discipline, and confidence.' Yet more touching was the great admiral's inexorable treatment of his favourite brother Humphrey, who, in a moment of extreme agitation, had failed in his duty. The captains went to Blake in a body, and argued that Humphrey's fault was a neglect rather than ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various
... ornaments, and costly robes and such other presents as were agreeable to them. And making unto them presents also of kine yielding milk whenever touched, with calves and having their horns decked with gold and their hoofs with silver, the son of Pandu circumambulated them. And then seeing and touching Swastikas fraught with increase of good fortune, and Nandyavartas made of gold, and floral garlands, water-pots and blazing fire, and vessels full of sun-dried rice and other auspicious articles, and the yellow pigment prepared from the urine of the cow, and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... pail and crept through the door again, drawing the crutch after him. The yardmaster passed with a bulldog at his heels, and touching his hat to the contractor, turned ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... of the palate are best made clear to us by raising the softest part behind the nose. This part is situated very far back. Try touching it carefully with the finger. This little part is of immeasurable importance to the singer. By raising it the entire resonance of the head cavities is brought into play—consequently the head tones are produced. When it is raised, the ...
— How to Sing - [Meine Gesangskunst] • Lilli Lehmann
... fatherly intervention of Dukes of Marlborough or Marquises of Ailesbury. The ideal picture of the level-headed peers restraining the youthful impetuosity of the representatives of the people from committing to-day some rash act which they would gladly repent and repeal to-morrow, is both touching and edifying. But it exists only in the minds of the philosophers, who find a reason for everything just because it is there. Members of Parliament, I have observed, seem to know their own minds every inch as well as ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... wanted to rush out again, to walk the streets all night; it was raining, but I thought that anything would be preferable to the inside of my sitting-room. Then I felt that, whatever the cost, I must go in; and, twisting the key, I pushed heavily at the door, and entered, touching as I did so the electric switch. In the chair which stood before the writing-table in the middle of the room sat the figure ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... waste a great many of the rest; and when they were come to the houses to plunder them, they found in them entire families of dead men, and the upper rooms full of dead corpses, that is, of such as died by the famine; they then stood in a horror at this sight, and went out without touching any thing. But although they had this commiseration for such as were destroyed in that manner, yet had they not the same for those that were still alive, but they ran every one through whom they met with, and obstructed the very lanes with their dead bodies, and made the whole city run down ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... vessel. It was her delight to talk on nautical subjects, and never did she really feel her great superiority over her niece, so very unequivocally, as when the subject of the ocean was introduced, about which she did know something, and touching which Rose was profoundly ignorant, or as ignorant as a girl of lively imagination could remain with the information ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... things that used to go on there in old days—the savages that lived there. And then to see those three delicately brought-up children going in and out of the parlour where old Leyburn used to sit smoking and drinking; and Dick Leyburn walking about in a white tie, and the same men touching their hats to him who had belaboured him when he was a boy at the ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... holding intercourse with a superior mind. And she obtained her wish sooner than she had dared to hope for it. That battle was fought which decided the fate of Europe, and turned so many swords into ploughshares; and Mary seemed now touching the pinnacle of happiness when she saw her lover restored to her. He had gained additional renown in the bloody field of Waterloo; and, more fortunate than others, his military career had terminated both gloriously ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... translates in two parts the story of the "Monk;" thus, in but little over three months after its English publication, the story of the poor Franciscan Lorenzo and his fateful snuff-box was transferred to Germany and began its heart-touching career. These excerpts were included by Bode later in the year when he published his translation of the whole Sentimental Journey. The first extract was evidently received with favor and interest, for, ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... me all these papers,' said Mr. Pleydell. 'I have an odd way of arranging my documents, Mr. Glossin, another person touching them puts me out; but I shall have occasion for your assistance ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... again. Well, now, what do you think was the upshot of it? Why, they were the best friends in the world ever afterwards, and would have died for one another; and if one had a glass of grog from the officers for any little job, instead of touching his forelock and drinking it off to the officer's health, he always took it out of the gun-room, that he might give half of it to the other. So, d'ye see my boys, as I said before I began my yarn, ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... hopes to illuminate. And as bears immediately on the point in hand, these gentlemanly administrators of the nation's affairs who so cluster about the throne, vacant though it may be of all but the bodily presence of majesty, are after all gentlemen, with a gentlemanly sense of punctilio touching the large proprieties and courtesies of political life. The national honor is a matter of punctilio, always; and out of the formal exigencies of the national honor arise grievances to be redressed; and it is grievances of this character that commonly afford ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... no pincers, which might maim a wing, strain it and weaken the power of flight. While the Bee is in her cell, absorbed in her work, I place a small glass test-tube over it. The Mason, when she flies away, rushes into the tube, which enables me, without touching her, to transfer her at once into a screw of paper. This I quickly close. A tin box, an ordinary botanizing-case, serves to convey the prisoners, each in her separate ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... bridge, Harry could see an officer in scarlet ride up touching his hat, and address ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... Moore are to be sought in the Irish Melodies, to which a considerable share of merit, and of apposite merit, is not to be denied: yet even here what deserts around the oases, and the oases themselves how soon exhaustible and forgettable! There are but few thoroughly beautiful and touching lines in the whole of Moore's poetry. Here ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... many a stroke divine In Dante's, Petrarch's, Tasso's line, The land of Ariosto show'd; And yet, e'en there, the canvas glow'd With triumphs, a yet ampler brood, Of Raphael and his brotherhood. And nobly perfect, in our day Of haste, half-work, and disarray, Profound yet touching, sweet yet strong, Hath risen Goethe's, Wordsworth's song; Yet even I (and none will bow Deeper to these) must needs allow, They yield us not, to soothe our pains, Such multitude of heavenly strains As from the kings of sound ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... slowly. 'It is very difficult to know what will meet one's notions. If I could, I should like to give a littlejust a littlebit of a touch to every spot that wants touching. A touch of light to the shadow, a touch of healing to the pain; a flower for every barren place. And so I should not like to give them a Christmas which they ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... exquisite instances from master hands. The Jessy of Shenstone, and the Ellen of Wordsworth, have both been betrayed and deserted. Jessy, in the course of her most touching complaint says:— ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... This was touching the most tender ground, for the First Consul held nothing in greater abhorrence than unlawful gains. A solitary voice, however, would have failed in an attempt to defame the character of a man for whom he had so long felt esteem and affection; other voices, therefore, ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... subordination of all minor matters to the great impression, which makes them points of poetic value in the collection. There are some drawings by Finch, scarcely less noticeable for their rendering of solemn twilight, tender and touching as the memory of a loved one long dead. The water-color representation is, indeed, complete and interesting; but we have only present use with five of these drawings, by Turner, and from different ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... perfectly that they certainly move without checks as without haste. So with the graver Odes—much in the majority—of Mr. Coventry Patmore's series. A more lovely dignity of extension and restriction, a more touching sweetness of simple and frequent rhyme, a truer impetus of pulse and impulse, English verse could hardly yield than are to be found in his versification. And what movement of words has ever expressed flight, distance, mystery, and wonderful approach, as they ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... of estates fixed those of parishes, and Otterbourne was curiously long and narrow, touching on Compton and Twyford to the north and north-west, on Stoneham to the south, and Hursley to the west, lying along the ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... to pick up a pin in a Parisian banker's courtyard, after his services as clerk had just been rejected by the firm, and who was thereupon recognised as a youth worthy of favour and taken into the banker's office. But this touching incident of the pin was too ancient a tradition to fit Mr. Smithson, still ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... that she had forgotten every word of it. Everything at the Maxwell ranch had on its holiday finery in anticipation of the arrival of this young lady and Mrs. Maxwell came to meet the coach that bore her beloved child. It was one of the most touching incidents that ever came up in my life, before or since. The mother reached the coach first and had the girl in her arms, crying and laughing over her, talking the Mexican language to her, but the girl never understood one word her mother was saying and the mother was at an ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... will turn again and come to meet me, "With the ghosts of all the slain flowers, "In a blue mist round her shining tresses; "In a blue smoke in her naked forests— "She will linger, kissing all the branches, "She will linger, touching all the places, "Bare and naked, with her golden fingers, "Saying, 'Sleep, and dream of me, my children "'Dream of me, the mystic Indian Summer; "'I, who, slain by the cold Moon of Terror, "'Can return across the path of Spirits, "'Bearing still my heart of love and fire; ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... not being able to come to any decision, where reasons for and against the question seemed to hold such an even balance, we determined to commit our case to Him, who has promised, that "if two of His people shall agree on earth, as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them," (Matth. 18, 19.) and, kneeling down, entreated Him to hear our prayers and supplications in this our distressed and embarrassing situation, and to make known to us His will concerning our future proceedings, whether ...
— Journal of a Voyage from Okkak, on the Coast of Labrador, to Ungava Bay, Westward of Cape Chudleigh • Benjamin Kohlmeister and George Kmoch
... of New England was echoed from Pennsylvania. The Mennonites of Germantown, in 1688, framed in quaint and touching language their petition for the abolition of slavery, and the Quaker yearly meetings responded one to another with unanimous protest. But the mischief grew and grew. In the Northern colonies the growth was stunted by the climate. Elsewhere the institution, beginning ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... have looked up at him, or held out my hand, or said a soothing word; but I was afraid, if I stirred, I should either laugh or cry; so odd, in all this, was the mixture of the touching ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... young sir; then permit me to wish you a very, 'Good day!'" and, touching the brim of his hat with the long stem of his pipe, the Venerable Man ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... with this fluid. Most persons, when this fluid is poured into them, from the body and by the will of the magnetiser, "feel a sensation of heat or cold" when he passes his hand before them, without even touching them. Some persons, when sufficiently charged with this fluid, fall into a state of somnambulism, or magnetic ecstasy; and, when in this state, "they see the fluid encircling the magnetiser like a halo of light, and issuing in luminous streams ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... closely to him. "May I love you, dearest?" He bent his head; their lips were almost touching; he held her closely. "First tell me that ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... thinks of what the beautiful Duchesse de Maufrigneuse had been under the Restoration,—one of the queens of Paris, a dazzling queen, whose luxurious existence equalled that of the richest women of fashion in London,—there was something touching in the sight of her in that humble little abode in the rue de Miromesnil, a few steps away from her splendid mansion, which no amount of fortune had enabled her to keep, and which the hammer of speculators ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac
... out that this trick was quite different. You place a book (Macaulay's Essays or what not) on the jam-pot and sit on the book, one heel only touching the ground. In the right hand you have a box of matches, in the left a candle. The jam-pot, of course, is on its side, so that it can roll beneath you. Then you light the candle ... and hand it to anybody who wants ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... into the park and gazed at the tall trees, watched the slow, black flight of the crows against the background of blue sky. Then she passed before her mirror, judged her appearance with one glance, effaced the trace of a tear by touching the corner of her eye with rice powder, and looked at the clock, trying to guess at what point of the route ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... Her voice had fallen from its glad note. She put out her hand, touching his coat sleeve timidly. It was the first time she had ever touched him save in service. But if her touch brought a thrill there was no> sign of it. Her voice dropped still lower, "What are you ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... salutation, and the boy, From under his torn hat-brim looking, answered. Then, seeing that he eyed his scrap of bread, The sailor bade him come and share it. So They fell to talk; and Jerry, with a rough, Quick-touching kindness, the boy's heart so moved That unto him he all his wrong confessed. Gravely the sailor looked at him, and told His own tale of mad flight and wandering; how, Wasted he had come back, his life a husk Of withered seeds, a raveled purse, though once With golden years ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... us overnight that a small steamer plied every other day through Noto's unfamed inland sea, leaving the capital early in the morning, and touching shortly after at Wakura. As good luck would have it, the morrow happened not to be any other day, so we embraced the opportunity to embark in her ourselves. On her, it would be more accurate to say, for she proved such a mite that her cabin ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... the procession all the way up to the Wood-nymph, who stood on the boulder at the top of the mountain. The cow walked around the rock and then turned toward the forest without any of the wild beasts touching her. In the same way all the cattle walked unmolested past ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... following where he was led; and, always preferring to make himself agreeable where there was no restraining reason, why should he not gratify the writer of articles by falling in with what he advanced? He had a light, easy way of touching on things, as if all his concessions, conclusions, and concurrences were merest matter of course; and thus making himself appear master of the situation over which he merely skimmed on insect-wing. Mr. Raymount took him not merely for a man ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... "Who that reads the touching instances of maternal affection, related so often of the women of all nations and of the females of all animals, can doubt that the principle of action is the same in the two cases?" We see maternal affection exhibited in the ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... of the emotion she had awakened in him, and, conscious only of his sympathy, had left her hand in his as she would have left it in her brother's. She was bent low over the hound, her face almost touching his big head, and as Saint Hubert looked a glistening tear dropped on Kopec's rough, grey neck. She had forgotten him, forgotten even that he was standing beside her, in the one predominant thought that filled her mind. With an ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... done with that first head that was to be spoken to, as touching the law and testament; which we have said was to be understood of the will of God spoken of in the text: "Let them that suffer according to the will of God," that is, according to his law and testament. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan |
