"Yawn" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... by; the lavish supper was consumed; dresses and flowers lost their freshness; the musicians lost their energetic ardour; the man at the piano was seen to yawn cavernously above the keys. The guests began to depart, leaving an exhausted but happy Mrs. Batty. She had been complimented by Miss Mallett on the perfection of her arrangements, on the brilliance of the assembly, on the music and even on the refreshments, and Mrs. Batty had blessed her ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... lady that my lady was very glad to keep her. She could make caps like a Parisian milliner; she could dress her exquisitely; she could read for hours in the sweetest and clearest of voices, without one yawn, the dullest of dull High Church novels. She could answer notes and sing like a siren, and she could embroider prie-dieu chairs and table-covers, and slippers and handkerchiefs, and darn point lace ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... for something to do, and finding nothing, passed a dreary evening, till Vava had finished preparing her lessons, and said with a yawn, 'Let's go to bed, Stella. What's the good of sitting up, staring at this horrid wall-paper with those hideous flowers that aren't like any flowers that ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin
... hint, like the yawn, a broad one. The lady did not take it, however. So far she had held her own; more—had nicely secured her ends. But further communications trembled upon her tongue. The word is just—literally trembled, ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... went; gaed owre, went beyond the power of. gaffer, foreman, overseer. gait, way. gaithrin', crowd. gang, go. gangrels, wanderers, tramps. gant, yawn. gar, make, cause. gaun, going. gaun-aboot, wandering. gey, very. ghaistly, ghostly. gibbles, tools. gie, give; gie him the name, name the child after him. gillie-callum, a variety of Scots dance. gin, ...
— The Auld Doctor and other Poems and Songs in Scots • David Rorie
... spelling-book, and, calling Charley into the middle of the floor, pronounced one row of words after another for him to spell, until several pages had been gone over and not a single word missed, greatly to the pride and admiration of the father. But by nine o'clock the fire got low, and the family began to yawn. It was time to go to bed, and, without saying good-night, the different members retired to their allotted quarters,—Mr. and Mrs. Sapp to the bed by the fireplace, Jack and Charley to one bed in the back ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... seem'd, an adder all on fire, As the dark pepper-grain, livid and swart. In that part, whence our life is nourish'd first, One he transpierc'd; then down before him fell Stretch'd out. The pierced spirit look'd on him But spake not; yea stood motionless and yawn'd, As if by sleep or fev'rous fit assail'd. He ey'd the serpent, and the serpent him. One from the wound, the other from the mouth Breath'd a thick smoke, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... he assented, sleepily, in his hoarse voice, with just enough deference, no more, and barely suppressing a yawn. ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... the timber, too, are strange. Kangaroo and wallaby are as fond of grass as the sheep, and after a pelican's yawn there are few things funnier to witness than the career of an 'old man' kangaroo, with his harem after him, when the approach of a buggy disturbs the family at their afternoon meal. Away they go, the little ones cantering ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... middle of the afternoon she saw with joy that it had lulled, and though very cold, was so bright and calm that she might venture. She had eagerly opened the kitchen door to go up and get ready, when a long weary yawn from her old grandmother made her look back. The old lady had laid her knitting in her lap and bent her face down to her hand, which she was rubbing across her brow, as if to clear away the tired feeling that had settled there. Ellen's conscience instantly brought up Alice's words, ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... thousand," he repeated thoughtfully. "Yet think what that one may mean—a walking drama, a tragedy, a comedy, an epitome of life or death. There is more to be read in the face of that one than in the three hundred pages of the novel over which we yawn ourselves to sleep. Here is the train! Now let us watch the people together—that is, if you really mean that you have no ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... his solace, there was now comparative silence. Two women's voices talked together, and now and then a guitar was touched by a wandering hand. Isabel had just put up her handkerchief to conceal her first yawn, when the gentlemen, odorous of cigars, returned to ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... right," said Larry; "shows their sense! You and I are what Father Greer and the rest of them would consider rotten bad Catholics, and I believe they know it!" He got up from the limping old rocking-chair and stretched himself, with a yawn that prolonged itself into a howl. "Oh Dark Rosaleen!—or Kathleen-ni-Houlihan—or anything else you like to call yourself—if you only knew how really and sincerely devoted I am to you! I believe I'm a perfectly single-minded Irish patriot, and ye you won't believe in me, ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... sad for him. He lags the long bright morning through, Ever so tired of nothing to do; He moons and mopes the livelong day, Nothing to think about, nothing to say; Up to bed with his candle to creep, Too tired to yawn, too tired to sleep: Poor Tired ...
— Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes • Walter de la Mare
... yawn, Mr. Eric Stokes-Harding turned back to the room, which was bright with the rich golden light that poured in from the suspended globes of the cold ato-light that illuminated the snow-covered city. With a distasteful grimace, he seated himself before a broad, paper-littered ...
— The Cosmic Express • John Stewart Williamson
... to talk about it yet," added Wilton, with a yawn, for the wild scheme seemed so far off to him that he could not enter into ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... the Countess Zoya sat apart talking together until nearly midnight. Finally, with a yawn, Zoya suggested that they try to break up the party. For a little while they looked on. Not understanding the game of baccarat, Nina watched the faces ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... got up with a yawn, watching her approvingly as she crossed the tent. The easy swing of her boyish figure and the defiant carriage of her head reminded him of one of his own thoroughbred horses. She was as beautiful and as wild as they were. And as he broke them so would he break her. She was nearly tamed now, but ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... it were not for that ride to-morrow, I could sleep all day," added Eleanor, hiding a yawn. ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... fall upon hers, and looked into her eyes. The Princess stifled a yawn. This country style of love-making was a thing which she had ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... coloured advertisements. The work is all done standing; the hours are from seven until six, with half an hour at noon, and holiday at one thirty on Saturdays. It is to feed a machine that I am paid three dollars a week. The expression is admirably chosen. The machine's iron jaws yawn for food; they devour all I give, and when by chance I am slow they snap hungrily at my hand and would crush my fingers did I not snatch them away, feeling the first cold clutch. It is nervous work. Each leaf to be printed must be handled twice; 5,000 circulars or bill-heads mean 10,000 gestures ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... liked being a great actress, and how soon she would begin to storm because that photographer hadn't sent the proofs. The young woman understood this, and deigned to smile at it, but Madeline yawned a very polite and sleepy yawn, and closed her eyes. Van Bibber moved up closer, and she leaned over until her bare shoulder touched his arm, and while the woman buttoned on her absurdly small shoes, she let her curly head fall on his elbow and rest there. Any number ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... the world are you doing, Vernie?" Angie paused in the library door, stifling a yawn daintily as she slipped her evening ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... number of the unfortunate negroes. The operation was nearly completed, when we felt another terrific shock vibrate through the ship. Again and again she struck. We had just time to spring up the main-hatchway, followed by the howling terrified blacks, when the sides of the ship seemed to yawn asunder; a foaming wave rushed towards us, and at the same moment a vivid flash of lightning showed us the shore, not ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... vehemence was intense, he did not succeed in making any impression upon his companion, who with a yawn that threatened to dislocate his jaws replied: "Perhaps you are right; but I am going to bed. This need not prevent you from searching around, however; and if you find ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... acted with simple cunning. He had remained talking pugilism with Keggs in the pantry till a prodigious yawn from his host had told him that the time was come for the breaking up of the party. Then, begging Keggs not to move, as he could find his way out, he had hurried to the back door, opened and shut ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... enter to his chamber And suddenly touch him, Would he fade to a thin mist, Or glow into a fire-ball, Or burst like a punctured light-globe? It is impossible that he would merely yawn and rub And ...
— Spectra - A Book of Poetic Experiments • Arthur Ficke
... on his feet and smothers a yawn. "All very interesting, I'm sure," says he; "but really, you know, Pyramid Gordon's theories on such ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... see me, my friends?" he asked, in a gentle but sad voice. "Do you not look down wonderingly where you saw a cheerful, smiling king, upon the now bent, shrunken old man, cold and phlegmatic, who seldom speaks, and then causes every one to yawn? Oh, where have you fled, beautiful spring-time of life—wherein once we used to enliven our conversations with the wit of the Athenians, and the jest fluttered upon our lips as we glided through life in the bold enjoyment of youth? Banished is the dance, and I creep about, leaning ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... prow, Parted were the azure waves, And I saw where, far below, Yawn the vast deep's ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... of being taken off, and held up for a laughing-stock at every print-seller's window? A man must have good courage in England, before he ventures at diverting a little company by such devices: while one would yawn, and one would whisper, a third would walk gravely out of the room, and say to his friend upon the stairs, "Why sure we had better read our old poets at home, than be called together, like fools, ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... two the chap on watch began to yawn, then to nod. Pretty soon he stretched himself on the floor, facing us, pistol in hand. For a while he supported himself on his elbow, then laid his head on his arm, blinking like an owl. I performed an occasional snore, ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... two "champions" meet. In the silence which followed, the Judge was looking attentively at the back of the Colonel, and thinking that the old thief was getting about down to skin and bone. He turned with a yawn to ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... The patients yawn, Or lie as in training for shroud and coffin. A nurse in the corridor scolds and wrangles. ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... granite rock, Else to yon depths profound it you will hurl. A murky vapour thickens night. Hark! Through the woods the tempests roar! The owlets flit in wild affright. Hark! Splinter'd are the columns that upbore The leafy palace, green for aye: The shivered branches whirr and sigh, Yawn the huge trunks with mighty groan. The roots upriven, creak and moan! In fearful and entangled fall, One crashing ruin whelms them all, While through the desolate abyss, Sweeping the, wreck-strewn ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... dissolv'd, or an extinguish'd sun; (Ye sublunary worlds, awake, awake! Ye rulers of the nation, hear, and shake!) Thick clouds of darkness shall arise on day; In sudden night all earth's dominions lay; Impetuous winds the scatter'd forests rend; Eternal mountains, like their cedars, bend: The valleys yawn, the troubled ocean roar, And break the bondage of his wonted shore; A sanguine stain the silver moon o'erspread; Darkness the circle of the sun invade; From inmost heaven incessant thunders roll, And the strong echo bound from pole to ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... differ," said Stafford dryly. Rising with a yawn, he went on: "Half the marital troubles one hears about are the fault of the wife. She is often too exacting, too fond of meddling in her husband's affairs. A man who respects himself bends to no one—not even to his wife." With another ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... already finished playing, and was just about to yawn, now cannot in any way give rein to her yawns. She does not know whether she wants to be angry or to laugh. She has a steady visitor, some little old man in a high station, with perverted erotic habits. The entire establishment makes fun ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... awkwardly-constructed stanza, a female, uncomely and ungraceful, is represented as standing in the attitude of a yawn, not indicated by the gaping mouth, but by the contorted person, and arms twisted behind the back. She is close to a stained-glass window, whose gaudy colours are challenged by her own bright blue dress, the object of the artist throughout appearing to be violent opposition, not harmony. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... with a cramp in my leg that I dared not stir to relieve, or a tickling in the small of my back from which there was no escape, or a cobweb on my face I had not the courage to brush away. I have felt sleep taking possession of me, yet daring neither to yawn, nor nod my head, nor wink my eyes. I have stared fixedly at the gas, or the old china ornament on the mantelpiece, till my eyes became watery with the effort and I have suffered all the tortures of a cold in the head without the possibility either of sniffing ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... to weave himself garlands from the flowers that grew around him; but he knew not the art, and ever and anon he felt for his button-hole, wherein to stick a lily or the like. But he had no button-hole. Then he would look at himself in the well, and yawn and wish himself back in his friends' studios in London. I almost pitied the wretch, and, going up to him, I asked him how he did. He said he had never been more wretched. "Why," I asked, "was your mouth not always full of the 'Greek spirit,' and did you not mock the Christians ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... are a credit to our southern chivalry." Miss Rathburn suppressed a yawn with the tips of her ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... raging winds root up the boiling deep, And, with Destruction big, o'er Gotham sweep; Let rains rush down, till Faith, with doubtful eye, Looks for the sign of mercy in the sky; Let Pestilence in all her horrors rise; Where'er I turn, let Famine blast my eyes; Let the earth yawn, and, ere they've time to think, In the deep gulf let all my subjects sink Before my eyes, whilst on the verge I reel; Feeling, but as a monarch ought to feel, 310 Not for myself, but them, I'll kiss the rod, And, having own'd the justice of my God, Myself with firmness ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... brazenly forward, deliberately calling attention to myself when there was no need. Oh, it was sickening! I hated myself, I hated with all my heart the girls who had prompted me to such immodest conduct. I wished the ground would yawn and snap me up. I was ashamed to look up at my friends on the platform. What was Miss Dillingham thinking of me? Oh, what a fool I had been! I had ruined my own triumph. I had disgraced myself, and my friends, and poor Mr. Swan, and the Winthrop School. The ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... roused from rest One hundred children of the blest Cheat you a word or two with feet That down the noisy aisle-ways beat... Forget on narrow-minded earth The Mighty Yawn that ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... With a yawn Foyle relinquished his efforts, and his head dropped forward on his desk. In a little he was fast asleep. He was roused by a light touch on the shoulder. ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... spell was broken. He started to his feet, and with the courage of terror extreme, opened the door—not opened it a little, as if he feared an unwelcome human presence, but pulled it, with a sudden wide yawn, open as ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... wonder to me you could see anything at all after such a ram!" remarked Moses Pyne, with a yawn, as he lay back and rested his head on a tuft of grass. "The shock seemed to me ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... about the table felt free to talk as they liked. But Polly Brewster and her friend Eleanor Maynard were almost talked out by the time they finished the last bit of Sary's delicious dessert; and Barbara Maynard tried her best to hide a yawn behind her hand, while Anne Stewart, the pretty teacher who was the fourth member in the party that spent a night in the cave, was eager to continue planning for the future of the mine, but Nature demanded rest after the three ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... toward the clouds were the towering, craggy peaks, with many a rent and yawn and table-land and lesser elevation, until, as if to check the climbing ambition of the prodigious monster, nature had flung an immense blanket of snow, whose ragged and torn edges lapped far down the sides of the crests. Ages ago ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... husband while he sleeps; you have got into the habit of walking on the tips of your toes so as not to disturb the household, and your husband, in the midst of this refreshing half-sleep, has begun to yawn luxuriously; then he has gone out to his club, where he has been received like the prodigal son, while you, poor poet without pen or ink, have consoled yourself by watching your sisters follow ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... Why not be a trained nurse?—and have a hospital of her own, and gather about her, as assistants, girls who—"well, had had a tough time of it," he said, delicately. As he talked, fatigue at the boredom of his highly moral sentiments crept into her face. She swallowed an occasional yawn, and murmured to most of his statements, "Is that so?" She was sleepy, and wished ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... the congregation at the loud devotions of a detachment of the Salvation Army. After a battering of drums and a clashing of cymbals and a shouting of hymns, the worship settled to the prayer of a weak brother, who was so long in supplication that the head exhorter covered a yawn with his hand, and at the first sign of relenting in the supplicant bade the drums and cymbals strike up. Then, after a hymn, a sister, such a very plain, elderly sister, with hardly a tooth or an aitch in her head, began to relate her ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... during the process of digestion: Mr Carker became communicative and agreeable. At first, he addressed himself for the most part to Mrs Skewton; but as that sensitive lady was in such ecstasies with the works of art, after the first quarter of an hour, that she could do nothing but yawn (they were such perfect inspirations, she observed as a reason for that mark of rapture), he transferred his attentions to Mr Dombey. Mr Dombey said little beyond an occasional 'Very true, Carker,' ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... presumably the same occupation. There was nothing about the place in the least mysterious or out of the way. Even the blinds of the offices had been left undrawn. The man and the boy, who were alone visible, seemed, in a sense, to be working under protest. Every now and then the former stopped to yawn, and the latter performed a difficult balancing feat upon his stool. De Grost, having satisfied his curiosity, came presently from his shelter, almost running into the arms of a policeman, who looked at him closely. The Baron, who had an unlighted cigarette in his mouth, stopped ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... given at times to what he denominated "low down talks" such as are wont when kindred souls hold close converse. Seated in my office on one occasion, at the hour when churchyards yawn, and being as he candidly admitted in a somewhat "reminiscent" mood, he unwittingly gave expression to thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls, when I made earnest inquiry, "Doctor, what in your judgment as a medical man is to be the final destination of the human soul?" The solemn ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... yawn was stricken midway into a gasp. Marie Louise told her the story of the diabolical prayer. Lady Webling took the blow without reeling. She expressed shock, but again expressed ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... passed over the greyish countenance as the dazzling vision protruded itself before Mr. Sharpley. He drew his fingers convulsively through the mass of bristling hair (which might be designated by that color known as iron grey), and then suppressing a yawn, muttered: "It's worth the trying. The fellow's good for another five—that's a bonanza ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... another turn, and the scene is changed in a moment,—in the twinkling of an eye. The happy valley is gone,—it has vanished like a dream; and a scene of stern, savage, overpowering sublimity rises before you. Alp is piled upon Alp, chasms yawn, torrents growl, jutting rocks threaten; and far over head is the dark pine forest, amid which you can descry, perhaps, the frozen billows of the glacier, or have glimpses of those still higher and ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... delved the day before, was now in plain view to the treasure seekers. They saw the hillside yawn there in an awful paroxysm, till the aperture was several yards wide. Then, from beneath, there shot into the open, smoking rocks, debris of many kinds, and—something else! Drew, seeing this final object, shrieked aloud. His voice could not be heard above the ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... herself back into the library. The whistling did not seem to break through the smoke which surrounded Wayne. After several moments of ostentatious indifference, she threw out at him, with a conspicuous yawn: "Well, Wayne, what did you think of the terrifying ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... from sheer terror. A gulf seemed to yawn before his feet, and the Countess appeared to him in the light of the minister of wrath waiting to push him into it. With the rapidity of lightning, his whole life seemed to pass in sudden review before him—his happy childhood and guarded youth at Selwick Hall, the changed circumstances ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... flowers Of art's device, carved to delight the eyes Of those long since but dust within their graves! The hollow hearth-place, with its fluted jambs Of clammy Ethiop marble, whence, of yore, Had risen the Yule-log's animating blaze On festal faces, tomb-like, coldly yawn'd; While o'er its centre, lined in hues of night, Grinn'd the same features with the aspick eyes, And fox-like watchful, though averted gaze, The haunting demon of that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... throng looked through half-closed eyes, it saw the mighty Delmar slowly corning into her own. Taking the ball on her forty-two yard mark, Delmar sent her backfield men galloping through holes which began to yawn open in the Elliott defense. Five, ten, fifteen yards were reeled off on every play. Time was called while the Elliott line was patched up by three substitutes. But with play resumed, the Delmar steam roller continued ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman
... that is to be had for the mere act of wishing. Difficulty is essential to enjoyment. High life is as likely to tire on one's hands as any other. The Marquis, giving all the praise of manners and agreeability to Vienna, sums up all in one prodigious yawn. "The same evenings at Metternich's, the same lounges for making purchases and visits on a morning, the same idleness and fatigue at night, the searching and arid climate, and the clouds of execrable fine dust"—all conspiring to tell the great of the earth that they can escape ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... tempered with mercy, &c., which means that I'll have another now. That's the thing for ideas! Oh, certainly. Picture to yourself an editor writing like mad. He indulges in a pipe to soothe his rampant brain, and while lighting it he leans back for a complacent yawn. When he gets up again, his dominant idea is that the back of his chair must have been suffering from a diseased spine. Isn't that a striking picture? The earth hitting a poor man on the back of his head, eh? Well, it's quite ...
— Canada for Gentlemen • James Seton Cockburn
... at once of exaltation and refinement, a poet's heart in angel's form, a lyre with sounding chords ringing out elegiac epithalamia to heaven, why, perchance, should she not find him? Ah! how impossible! Besides, nothing was worth the trouble of seeking it; everything was a lie. Every smile hid a yawn of boredom, every joy a curse, all pleasure satiety, and the sweetest kisses left upon your lips only the unattainable ...
— The Public vs. M. Gustave Flaubert • Various
... at once. The conventions of the short story allow of little space for the retrospection necessary to such an introduction; and when the writer begins to say, "But first let me explain how all this came about," the reader begins to yawn, and the charm of the opening sentences is forgotten in the dreariness of the ensuing explanations. This method is of the modern school of short story writers, but Hawthorne, in "The Prophetic Pictures," gives us an excellent example of how it may be used to advantage; and the ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... attendant upon all the social functions of the season, and at many of them he appeared to enjoy himself hugely. At the musicals and purely literary entertainments, however, Miles Dawson always looked, as he was, extremely bored. Once Miss Henderson had seen him yawn at a Shelley reading. He was, in short, of the earth earthy, or perhaps, to be more accurate, of the horse horsey. Intellectual pleasures were naught to him but fountains of ennui, and being a very honest, frank ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... me how he rose at dawn To titivate the land ('Twas here that I began to yawn Behind a courteous hand), And how he thought his favourite pea Had found the soil too dry (And here I feared my yawns would be ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various
... the trees, and advanced to the piazza. "Welcome, wanderers," went on Miss Martha, repressing a yawn. "I think I shall bequeath Sylvia ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... the Nile and other African rivers to drink. Though it is clumsy in its movements on land, it makes its way swiftly through the water by means of its tail; sometimes it opens its terrible jaws, gives a great yawn, and then shuts them again with a sound which is heard far away. Mr. Arnot, a missionary in the heart of Africa, tells us that the crocodiles in the great river Zambesi drag the game which they catch ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... in the garden Green grass-plot, fresh lawn, Though pasture lands harden And drought fissures yawn. While leaves, not a few fall, Let rose-leaves for you fall, Leaves pearl-strung with dewfall, ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... say." He pretended politely to suppress a yawn, indicating that the subject bored him inordinately. ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... only wait Who haunt the chambers of the Great. He heard the chairmen come and go; He heard the Porter yawn below; Beyond him, in the Grand Saloon, He heard the silver stroke of noon, And thought how at this very time The old church clock at home would chime. Dear heart, how plain he saw it all! The lich-gate ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... good stuff, but neither costly nor tawdry, and convenient, but not dazzling, light, are the proper requirements in the furnishing of an opera-house. As for the persons who go there to look at each other—to show their dresses—to yawn away waste hours—to obtain a maximum of momentary excitement—or to say they were there, at next day's three-o'clock breakfast (and it is only for such persons that glare, cost, and noise are necessary), I commend to their consideration, or at least to such consideration ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... at that moment, indulging in a gigantic stretch and a cavernous yawn; but he finished both hastily, and rushed at his poor horse as if he intended to slay it on the spot. He only threw the saddle on its back, however, and then ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... sea-shore; but the theatres are closing like fading flowers, and shedding their chorus-girls on every outward breeze; the tables d'hote express a relaxed enterprise in the nonchalance of the management and service; the hotels yawn wearily from their hollow rooms; the greengroceries try to mask the barrenness of their windows in a show of tropic or semi-tropic fruits; the provision-men merely disgust with their retarded displays of ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... stifled a yawn. "Perhaps you didn't understand us. The men are agitating for a meeting of the board of directors. We want to be at that meeting. That's the only thing we're interested in ...
— Meeting of the Board • Alan Edward Nourse
... got back from another heavy case as your message came in," he apologized, stifling a yawn. "Tobacco is the only thing that keeps me going. Could you give me ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... the horse, and begad, Pen goes in and wins the plate. That's what I call a sensible union. A couple like that have something to talk to each other about when they come together. If you had Cupid himself to talk to—if Blanche and Pen were Cupid and Psyche, begad—they'd begin to yawn after a few evenings, if they had nothing but sentiment to ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the Florida Everglades, don't you?" asked Tommy, with a most satisfying yawn. "Well, if you haven't forgotten all about it, you'll remember that we didn't have any sleep there for a couple of nights, and that I actually began to grow thin because of being kept ...
— Boy Scouts on the Great Divide - or, The Ending of the Trail • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... seen none of these things myself but others say they has, an' believe me, I'm plumb cautious when travelin' these parts alone. Howsomever, he hain't yet skeered me 'nough to make my ha'r come out by the roots," said Pete with a yawn. "There, kick that back log over so's the fire can lick at t'other side; ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... places, which can always be bought with gold, and a free pardon and a return home. Leave that part of the business to me. I have played the game often enough to understand the moves. Meantime, you will be free and safe there. Elsewhere, the gates of a prison may yawn for ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... playful tone as he leant forward and gazed into her eyes, that shone strangely in the gloom. They expressed surprise and expectancy. Yourii longed to embrace her, yet again his courage failed him, and he pretended to stifle a yawn. ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... smothered a yawn, a deliberate yawn—not the kind you can't repress because the air is close and you feel like a goldfish when the water in the bowl has not been changed and you must gape for breath. The fat boy had been dancing attendance on her for the last hour and she was wearied ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... take all shapes; and is of such force (as Ficinus adds), that it can work upon others, as well as ourselves." How can otherwise blear eyes in one man cause the like affection in another? Why doth one man's yawning [1628]make another yawn? One man's pissing provoke a second many times to do the like? Why doth scraping of trenchers offend a third, or hacking of files? Why doth a carcass bleed when the murderer is brought before it, some weeks ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... glad the day has come at last," said Edith, as she rose that morning with a yawn. "Oh, dear, and it's going to be splendid, too. Kitty, what dress are you going to ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... you vary it. Nobody knocks like you. I suppose no two people would make three taps just the same." She was far too polite to yawn; but she made as much of the movement as she could not control, and then put a mark in her book, and laid it down. A very different girl, indeed, was she from her younger sister; a stranger would never have suspected ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... formerly. Sheepshanks is getting an old man. And if so, I suspect we shall see a good deal of Preston. He's "no blate," as they used to say in Scotland, and made himself quite at home to-night. If I'd asked him to stay, or, indeed, if I'd done anything but yawn, he'd have been here now. But I defy any man to stay when I ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... might float to me across the water. I think Tommy half expected me to suggest that we take one of the small boats, and went to his room to put on darker clothes. In a few minutes Monsieur yawned and followed him—though I rather suspected that his yawn was caused more by nervousness than the want of sleep. A moment later Gates, standing near the wheel, softly called my name, so I arose and went ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... the road, and there we made a minute examination of the statuesque passing traffic. The tops of the wheels and some of the legs of the horses of this char-a-banc, the end of the whip-lash and the lower jaw of the conductor—who was just beginning to yawn—were perceptibly in motion, but all the rest of the lumbering conveyance seemed still. And quite noiseless except for a faint rattling that came from one man's throat! And as parts of this frozen ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... the Duchesse"; his "Falle of Princes"[837] is imitated from Boccaccio and from the tale of the Monk in Chaucer. The "litel hevynesse" which the knight noticed in the monk's stories is particularly well imitated, so much so that Lydgate himself stops sometimes with uplifted pen to yawn at his ease in the face of his reader.[838] But his pen goes down again on the paper, and starts off with fresh energy. From it proceeds a "Troy Book, or Historie of the Warres betwixte the Grecians and the Troyans," of thirty thousand lines, ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... furbished arms, clang of trumpets, waving of banners and plumes, clouds of dust, clash of swords, unhorsing of knights, and outcry of heralds. When she awoke, she said emphatically to Mr. Mumbles, as he was beginning to take his morning yawn: 'I've hit it'; and gave him a sharp stroke on his ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... instance, you will see one start up suddenly and look at the hunter, who by that time is perfectly still, with an intense scrutiny that seems to say, "I declare I was almost sure I saw that move that time, but I must have been mistaken." Then, with a drowsy look, almost a yawn, down goes his head, and the hunter begins to hitch himself along again very cautiously. Suddenly up goes the seal's head so quickly that the hunter hasn't time to subside as before, but begins to roll about, blow off steam, and lift its feet around like a seal flapping ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... film is breaking; the ages have long been circling. Fellow-men! if we live hereafter, it will not be in lyrics; nor shall we yawn, and our shadows lengthen, while the eternal cycles are revolving. To live at all, is a high vocation; to live forever, and run parallel with Oro, may truly appall us. Toil we not here? and shall we be forever slothful elsewhere? Other ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... opening his mouth in a cavernous yawn. "But it'd better be soon. I like space, but not between ...
— Stand by for Mars! • Carey Rockwell
... displaying great originality of design, and ingenious artistic effects, becomes after a time rather a tiresome object of contemplation. The colonel found it so, and he relieved his strained eyes by an occasional amateur astronomical observation. On turning his head, with a yawn, from one of these, he saw inside the hut a state of affairs which caused him to ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... which shows very plainly the nature of the man, while it likewise allows the critic to escape the charge of unkindness. We all know the painstaking player, and always cheerfully acknowledge his virtues, but who shall blame us if, after giving him the benefit of his earnestness, we yawn and creep out into the lobby while ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... You are not fit to be alone." I tried to call up my pride, and laugh off the accusation against my courage, all the more, perhaps, because I felt its truth. "Do you want anything more that I can get you, Lady Speldhurst?" I asked, trying to feign a yawn of sleepiness. The old dame's keen eyes were upon me. "I rather like you, my dear," she said, "and I liked your mamma well enough before she treated me so shamefully about the christening dinner. Now, I know ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... yawn); "I shall not return until I have made the tour of Europe, and I just stepped in for ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... together.' I thought that a safe way of getting through the time. 'You are very good,' said I. 'Get a bed ready, Coffin and Purse!' Two bright little imps darted away, and the Thing turning round to me with a sulphurous yawn, said, 'I don't mind, Phil, if I lie down with you.' Surely ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... gendarmes will be here soon," she murmured amiably; "I am rather tired of waiting." She affected to stifle a yawn. ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... to Mr Parmenter, "Oh, dear! is she going to preach a sermon?" and he hid a laugh under a yawn. ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... sun excites you, And the long ages, and the lingering chill Make you pause to yawn, Opening your impervious mouth, Suddenly beak-shaped, and very wide, like some suddenly gaping pincers; Soft red tongue, and hard thin gums, Then close the wedge of your little mountain front, ...
— Tortoises • D. H. Lawrence
... those steadfast natures which can better be depended upon, which in a battle are impregnable to fear and immovable, are equally immovable when there is anything to be learned; they are always in a torpid state, and are apt to yawn and go to sleep over any ...
— The Republic • Plato
... the rubbers are safely in the hall closet, I make a great deal of todo about going into the other room, in order to give the impression that there is nothing interesting enough in the hall to keep me there. A good, loud yawn helps to disarm any suspicion of undue excitement. I sometimes even chew a bit of fringe on the sofa and take a scolding for it—anything to draw attention from the rubbers. Then, when everyone is at dinner, I sneak out and ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... early rising!" said a donkey, with a great yawn. "I wish I might sleep till sunrise. Here I am, harnessed and ready to start to town before the roosters crow. And why? To take a little fruit and a few vegetables to market. Isn't that a foolish reason ...
— Fifty Fabulous Fables • Lida Brown McMurry
... to yawn before me. The loneliness and friendlessness of my position were presented to my mind with terrific reality. A deadly swoon-like feeling ensued. To yield in this might seal my fate. I paced the floor ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... steep above it, gazed half incredulous, now that they had found the thing they sought. It looked so unbelievably adequate and modern and alive standing there, drawing its perfectly measured breath; it was so eloquent of power and the work of men's hands that there seemed to yawn a gap of half a thousand years between it and the raid in which it was being made a factor. That this pet toy of the modern millionaire should be set to work out the crude vengeance of wild men in these primitive surroundings, crowded up on a little rocky path of these savage mountains, ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... stiff, he was conscious of great emptiness. By the stars he knew that it was well toward morning. Hills bulked in the distance, with dark blobs here and there which daylight later identified as live oaks. Cliff was climbing out, and at the sound of Johnny's yawn ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... trial the Englishman, whose crimes had been many and black, bore himself with an air of complete indifference and received the sentence of the supreme penalty with a bored yawn. After he had been led on to the scaffold and just as the hood and noose were about to be placed over his head, the attendant priest, still persisting in his attempts to awaken penitence, in spite of the doomed man's ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... be penned in a corner behind a table, ordered champagne not because he wanted it but because it was etiquette, suppressed a yawn, lighted a cigarette, and reviewed the assemblage with a languid but ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... general yawn went the round of the loungers about the fire. The second guard had gone on, and when the first rode in, Joe Stallings, halting his horse in passing the fire, called out sociably, "That muley steer, the white four ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... an over, I got bored and retired to my position at square-leg, displeased with the condition on which our privilege was granted that, having organised a game, we were to remain at our posts to the end. Someone awoke Penny, who walked with a yawn to the bowler's wicket, and, graciously putting into his mouth a huge green fruit-ball, offered by one of the more minute players, said with ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... upon the thick fold of the curtain, for all was still in his mother's room, and he was mentally going on tiptoe to the door, when there was a loud yawn from the prie dieu chair close to the bed's head, and a voice almost at his ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... wept in the midnight gloom, Where the canyons yawn and the Selkirks loom, For the love that they knew ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... Mervale put aside all glum-faced discussion, with a little yawn, and sprang to his feet. "Then we can but hope that somewhere, somehow, Mistress Katherine yet lives and in her own good time may reappear. And while we speak of reappearances—surely the Lady Ursula is strangely tardy ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... opinion that this day will never come to an end," said Prince, with a yawn that nearly rent ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... at least half-past ten, even though he was "jolly sleepy." He had slept for at least two hours in the forest. She ought to have remembered that, but she had forgotten it, and when, at a quarter to nine, on an enormous yawn, Jimmy had announced that he thought he would "turn in and get between the sheets," she had almost eagerly acquiesced. She wanted her boy asleep, soundly asleep that night. When the clock had struck nine he had already traveled beyond ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... "sharpen its claws" on tree trunks, and the sound was by no means cheerful. The brute seemed bent on remaining near the little camp. I remember that Grandsir Billy said that they heard it "garp" several times; I suppose he meant yawn. The circumstance seems rather strange. He said that it "garped" like a big dog every time it sharpened its claws. Yet it did not cease to watch the ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... merry kind of mood, then, this evening: but such moods have their reactions; and half an hour later he was beginning first to yawn behind his hand and then to wear a heavy look on his face. Her Majesty observed it, too, as I could see: for she fell silent (which was the worst thing in the world to do), and began to eye him sidelong with a kind of dismay. (It was wonderful how little knowledge she had of how ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... Nello would go. Most often of all he would go to the great cathedral; and Patrasche, left without on the stones by the iron fragments of the Quentin Matsys's gate, would stretch himself and yawn and sigh, and even howl now and then, all in vain, until the doors closed and the child perforce came forth again, and, winding his arms about the dog's neck, would kiss him on his broad, tawny-colored forehead and murmur always ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... be fancies of the churl, Look to thy woodcraft,' and so leaving him, Now with slack rein and careless of himself, Now with dug spur and raving at himself, Now with droopt brow down the long glades he rode; So marked not on his right a cavern-chasm Yawn over darkness, where, nor far within, The whole day died, but, dying, gleamed on rocks Roof-pendent, sharp; and others from the floor, Tusklike, arising, made that mouth of night Whereout the Demon issued up from Hell. He marked not this, but blind and deaf to all Save that chained rage, which ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... had followed the falls-filled Snake and the calmer Columbia, which plow for a thousand miles or more among basaltic bastions buttressing the mountain sides, or through the lava lands where cavernous chasms yawn and abysmal depths echo back the sullen roar ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan
... and just as I have realised who are the road-makers, they appear in person. One immense fellow, hearing us, stands up and shows himself about six feet from us in the grass, gazes calmly, and then yawns a yawn a yard wide and grunts his news to his companions, some of whom—there is evidently a large herd—get up and stroll towards us with all the flowing grace of Pantechnicon vans in motion. We put our helm paddles hard a ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... The opera was Samson et Dalila, and a very famous tenor was making his reappearance after a long absence. Edith gave herself up to complete enjoyment of the music. Then suddenly she was startled by a yawn at her side. Burton was sitting back, his hands in his pockets, his ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the intruder showed signs of friendliness and nearer approach, I aroused Stepan, who sprang to his feet, and, with one heave of his mighty shoulders, sent the intruder flying into the darker recesses of the stancia. "It's only a Shaman," muttered the Cossack with a yawn, as he rolled back into the dirty straw, and I then regretted that I had not more closely examined this High Priest of, perhaps, the weirdest faith in existence, for an hour afterwards, when the rekindled fire had once more rendered objects clearly visible, the "Shaman" had ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... an expiration in the voice of whisper, forcing slowly all air out from the chest. Then give to this expiration vocality, producing the reverberation far back in the mouth: the resulting utterance is a hoarse exemplification of the orotund. With the mouth in the position of a yawn, making the cavity of reverberation as large as possible, repeat the exercise until the utterance can be produced smoothly and without hoarseness. 2. Form similar syllables containing other tonic elements, and make similar exercises, taking care to produce a smooth, effusive utterance. ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... things always seem so much harder to learn when one's just come back after the holidays?" propounded Marjorie Butler with a melancholy yawn. ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... friends' experiences.—And the man too: he should consider his wife's feelings as much as he did his sweetheart's. If she dislikes smoke, he should not smoke. He should not yawn in her presence. He should keep himself well-groomed and attractive. Look at that dirty cuff! I have no ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... old Tompkins will have to rap pretty loud to make me budge at eight bells," said Tom with a portentous yawn, as he peeled off his reefing jacket and turned in "all standing," as he expressed it, with the exception of his boots. He was too tired to undress; and besides, he thought, in his lazy way, what was the use of his doing so when he would have to turn out again and relieve the first mate ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... Empire district. But it was a hot noonday, the dispensary lies somewhat up hill, and the uniformless officer of the Zone metropolis is rather thickly built. Wherefore, stowing away this private bit of information under his hat, he told himself with a yawn, "Oh, I'll drag him in later in the day," and drifted down to a wide-open door on Railroad Avenue to spend a bit of the $25 reward in off-setting the heat. Meanwhile "Mac," feeling somewhat recovered from his financial extravagance, came sauntering out of the dispensary ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... died down presently, since there had been no particular damage done, and the boat was uninjured. The boys sat around for an hour or two, talking. Then some of them began to yawn, and to examine the places inside the three tents where they had stowed their blankets, carried along because the summer nights were apt to get ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... that, fixed as he was to his place, to uproot himself was utterly impossible. Meanwhile Madame Astier, sitting on the edge of an armchair in her dressing-gown, with a lace wrap round her head, watched his proceedings and murmured between yawn and yawn with placid irony, 'Really, ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... full bloom. A sound of doors closing made him open his eyes. Some one had entered the adjoining room. He heard a dress brushing against the thin partition, the turning of leaves in a book in which the reader seemed to feel no absorbing interest; for he was startled by a long sigh ending in a yawn. Was he still asleep, still dreaming? Had he not heard the cry of the "jackal in the desert," so thoroughly in harmony with the heavy, scorching temperature without? No. Nothing more. He dozed again; and this time all the confused images ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... waste of strength," said Jack Marvin, with a well affected yawn. "I got started first and called fer my cousin Dot, and by tugging her all the way I managed to get her ...
— Randy and Her Friends • Amy Brooks
... extremely awkward comes to pass, I suppose I shall have to make up my mind on the subject,' replied Rallywood with a lazy yawn, 'in the meantime it is to much trouble. Just at present my part is simple, and I look for the game ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... but my stomach declares it is half-past two. Trot along, there's a good Paddy. And don't forget to tie a pink string to my piece of meat, when you give it to the orderly. Else I may not know it's the best one." With a reluctant yawn and a glance upward towards the sun, Paddy scrambled to his feet and brushed himself off with the outspread palms of his stubby hands. Then he turned to the ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... and enormous Mansions of Silence which society has raised to Ennui in that Omphalos of town, Pall Mall, and which, because they knock you down with their dulness, are called Clubs no doubt; those who yawn from a bay-window in St. James's Street, at a half-score of other dandies gaping from another bay-window over the way; those who consult a dreary evening paper for news, or satisfy themselves with the jokes of the miserable Punch by way of wit; the men about ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... penned The Hunting of the Snark and Alice in Wonderland. And I thought I knew a thing or two, or might be even three, About a Ghoul, and a Fay or Troll, and a Brownie or Banshee. I knew that a Banshee always howled, whilst a Goblin might but yawn, I also knew that a Poltergeist was not a Leprechaun, But the Psychicals, I'm bound to say, had me on "buttered toastes" With the wonderful changes which they rang on the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 5, 1891 • Various
... cried Mina, with a yawn, and tossing back her brown unruly locks with an impatient gesture, 'isn't it slow? Can't you wake up? You haven't spoken a word for ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... rendered a little French ballad. Marya Dmitrievna did not know how to express her delight; she several times tried to send for Lisa. Gedeonovsky, too, was at a loss for words, and could only nod his head, but all at once he gave an unexpected yawn, and hardly had time to cover his mouth with his! hand. This yawn did not escape Varvara Pavlovna; she at once turned her back on the piano, observing, "Assez de musique comme ca; let us talk," and she ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... answered her question by appearing, with a stretch and a yawn, from beneath a bunk. He had heard his name in Courtenay's voice. That sufficed for Joey ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... prayers aloud, which is no better than an hypocritical show of devotion; and I am scandalised to see a man cross himself thrice at the Benedicite, and as often at Grace (and the more, because it is a sign I have in great veneration and continual use, even when I yawn), and to dedicate all the other hours of the day to acts of malice, avarice, and injustice. One hour to God, the rest to the devil, as if by composition and compensation. 'Tis a wonder to see actions so various in themselves succeed one another with such an uniformity ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... the other, stifling a yawn. "I think I'll retire. I've had a long journey and I'm awfully knocked out. By the way, old chap," he continued, coming closer to David and whispering in his ear, which made that sensitive young man draw back with a quiver of dislike, "you couldn't favor me with a few dollars, could you? ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... reaching out with pliant fingers to count the buttons on the White Linen Nurse's dress. "Oh, I'll get even with the Parpa yet!" In the midst of the passionate assertion her rigid little mouth relaxed in a most mild and innocent yawn. ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... as |-sist our moan, Help us to | sigh and groan Heavily, | heavily. Graves, yawn and | yield your dead, Till death be | uttered Heavily, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... the fight was fought and won, And there was Peace as still as Death On everything beneath the sun. Just as I started to draw breath, And yawn, and stretch, and pat myself, — The grass began to whisper things — And every tree became an elf, That grinned and chuckled counsellings: Birds, beasts, one thing alone they said, Beating and dinning ...
— Young Adventure - A Book of Poems • Stephen Vincent Benet
... sociology led her to a book on village-improvement—tree-planting, town pageants, girls' clubs. It had pictures of greens and garden-walls in France, New England, Pennsylvania. She had picked it up carelessly, with a slight yawn which she patted down with her finger-tips as delicately ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... their darning, and Connie bent earnestly over her magazine. Aunt Grace covered a yawn with her slender fingers and ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... hear such barefaced fishing for compliments?' said Charles; but Amabel, who did not like her sister to be teased, and was also conscious of having wasted a good deal of time, sat down to practise. Laura returned to her drawing, and Charles, with a yawn, listlessly turned over a newspaper, while his fair delicate features, which would have been handsome but that they were blanched, sharpened, and worn with pain, gradually lost their animated and rather satirical expression, and assumed an air of ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... jointed, The Duke stepped rather aside than forward And welcomed her with his grandest smile; And, mind you, his mother all the while 160 Chilled in the rear, like a wind to Nor'ward; And up, like a weary yawn, with its pullies Went, in a shriek, the rusty portcullis; And, like a glad sky the north-wind sullies, The lady's face stopped its play, As if her first hair had grown grey; For such things ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... crudities of life. "All vice is bourgeois, and fornication in particular tends to become sordid, outworn, vieux jeu! In youth, I grant you, it is the unexpurgated that always happens. But at my age—misericorde!—the men yawn, and les demoiselles—bah! les demoiselles have the souls of accountants! They buy and sell, as my grocer does. The satiation of carnal desires is no longer a matter of splendid crimes and sorrows and kingdoms lost; it ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... and happiness; and there is nothing which so quickly discredits itself as empty rhetoric and dialectic, or poetry that wanders in dim and private worlds. If pure music, even with its immense sensuous appeal, is so easily tedious, what a universal yawn must meet the verbiage which develops nothing but its own irridescence. Absolute versification and absolute dialectic may have their place in society; they give play to an organ that has its rights like any other, and that, after serving for a while in the ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... resting vacantly by turns upon myself and upon the square in the ceiling which at that moment framed a patch of grey sky studded with whirling snow-flakes. At last, she raised her veil with an indolent movement, put her hand on my shoulder and, with a long yawn that revealed all the pearly freshness of ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... eighteen years, never even letting her know whether he was alive or dead, why this sudden resolve to return to her? That is what I want explained to me!" he paused, as was his wont, for sympathetic comment, my aunt, instead of answering as others, with a yawn: "Oh, I'm sure I don't know. Felt he wanted to see her, I suppose," replied ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... which was out; at Modestine, standing meekly by the tree to which he was tied; at the raindrops bounding off Aggie's round and prostrate figure—and I rebelled. Every muscle was sore; it hurt me even to yawn. ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... expression for a polite young woman," replied Roderick, with a severe yawn; "anyone who comes to Paris for tea ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... rapids in their course, Like madden'd, living things rush on, With wild, unhesitating force, To where thy mighty chasms yawn. ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young
... alley-way on either side of the engine platform. The beat of the engines becomes part of his environment. He sleeps with it pulsing in his ears, so that if she slows or stops he opens his eyes. When I go up at four o'clock and call the Second Engineer, he will stretch, yawn, half open one eye, ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... curious state this which, at some time or other, exists between two loving people cast for each other's welfaring. A delicate mystery lies in it, and that is an essential strand in every true affection, but it can readily be destroyed. Break it rudely, even shock it a little, and a chasm may yawn where, before, there was a silken thread of union, tender in its fibre, ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... at it as if she were taking snuff, and pronounced it perfect. Just then the opera began. I withdrew into the shade, and Josephine was silenced for a while in admiration of the scenery and the dresses. By and by, she began to yawn. ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... with a slight yawn. "I've got here some papers somewhere;"—he began to feel in his coat pocket languidly;—"but, by the way, this is a rather dreary and God-forsaken sort of place! Let's go up to Welker's, and you can look at them over ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... sitting bolt upright, both ears and hands forgotten. For once Dolly Beatty forgot to fuss with her hat or admire her hands in the new lavender gloves two sizes too small. The choir even forgot to flirt and yawn and never once looked bored ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds |
