"Engrossing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the facts in this world that do not take hold of immortality, there is not one so intensely real, permanent, and engrossing as this of social position,—as you see by the circumstances that the core of all the great social orders the world has seen has been, and is still, for the most part, a privileged class of gentlemen and ladies arranged in a regular scale of precedence among themselves, ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... man, received everywhere; why should she not wish to show herself a little on his arm? Is it not quite natural? The husband, on the contrary, growing intolerant of society as his talent progresses, finding time short, and art engrossing, refuses to be exhibited. Behold them both miserable, and whether the man gives in or resists, his life is henceforward turned from its course, and from its tranquillity. Ah! how many of these ill-matched couples have I known, where the wife ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... high place in the literature of the profession, and his political essays were one of the features of his day. He was a man of profound learning, and it is astonishing that one so constantly occupied with the duties of an engrossing profession should have found the time for such ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... subject was inexhaustible, and kept cropping up in the midst of others; but that of Mabella Hanem, her escape from bondage and from "conversion" to Islam, and what revenge Rechid was likely to take, was almost as engrossing. ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... alcohol is clear; it is an agreeable temporary shroud. The savage, with the mansions of his soul unfurnished, buries his restless energy under its shadow. The civilized man overburdened with mental labor, or with engrossing care, seeks the same shade; but it is shade, after all, in which, in exact proportion as he seeks it, the seeker retires from perfect natural life. To search for force in alcohol is, to my mind, equivalent to the act of seeking ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... on looking back, that the terror must have left me that day. It had, for so many weeks, been so much a part of my daily life that I would have missed it had it not been for this new and engrossing interest. I remember that the long French windows of the library reflected the room like mirrors against the darkness outside, and that once I thought I saw a shadowy movement in one of them, as though a figure moved behind me. But when I ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... easily to be read between the lines of this letter, due, perhaps, to the writer's want of familiarity with society in its conventional aspect, yielded to the influence of an intellectual life, which became daily more engrossing. Cuvier's kind reception was but an earnest of the affectionate interest he seems from the first to have felt in him. After a few days he gave Agassiz and his artist a corner in one of his own laboratories, and often came to ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... remote and vague, to-day filled their horizon, for some of them dark enough. Determined to ignore that gaunt Spectre standing there, in the shadow silent and grim, they would begin to talk on themes good yesterday for an hour's engrossing conversation, but before they were aware they had forgotten the subject of their talk and found themselves sitting together dumb and looking out upon the gleam of the waters, thinking, thinking and ever thinking, ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... fixed; there was a peculiar light—almost a glitter—in his eyes; he talked on as if voicing some engrossing thought. "Of course, I'm vindictive—that's a part of the swashbuckling character; it goes with the ruffles, the jack boots, and the swagger. It is a luxury of which I am extremely jealous." Bringing his attention ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... to test my gameness by a prolonged and undisguised gaze, which he directed toward me through half-closed lids. I showed no uneasiness. I kept right on looking steadily meadow-ward, as if green fields and winding streams were much more engrossing to me than the presence of a mere stranger. I enjoyed the game I was playing as innocently, upon my word, as I would any contest of endurance. And it was in the same spirit that I took the next ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... ramble along the Rue de la Paix and through the Boulevards, like all newcomers, was much more interested in the things that he saw than in the people he met. The general effect of Paris is wholly engrossing at first. The wealth in the shop windows, the high houses, the streams of traffic, the contrast everywhere between the last extremes of luxury and want struck him more than anything else. In his astonishment at the crowds of strange faces, the man of imaginative temper felt as if he himself ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... glad to get my back against an aloe for a little shade and concealment, and sketched, and fired occasionally to be sociable, as a duck came within say eighty yards. See sketch and the futility of concealment. I thought it very delightful—the shooting was not too engrossing, the landscape was charming, and the village life interesting, and the simplicity of the whole proceeding distinctly amusing. F., one of our party, on the other side from me kept potting away regularly. He was surrounded with natives; his ideas as to what was "in shot" were great! ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... engrossing interest are still far off in the distance. Staffa, the smaller and nearer of the two, presents but an unimposing front from the quarter by which we approach, being oval in form, low, and with a gently undulating surface, in which respect it does not differ materially, except in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... by conferences on the affair. No one listened to Babbitt's bulletins about the February weather or to his throat-clearing comments on the headlines. He said furiously, "If I may be PERMITTED to interrupt your engrossing private CONVERSATION—Juh ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... see how we do it, eh, Mr. Bines? It's vastly engrossing, on my word. Here's copper just closed at 93, after opening strong this morning at 105. I hardly fancied, you know, it could fall off so many of those wretched little points. Rumours that the Consolidated has ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... to have a greater love of industry is therefore especially valuable. This result industrial education is surely bringing about. It stimulates production and increases trade,—trade between the races; and in this new and engrossing relation both forget the past. The white man respects the vote of a coloured man who does ten thousand dollars' worth of business; and, the more business the coloured man has, the more careful ...
— The Future of the American Negro • Booker T. Washington
... our supper, and there being a collection of men assembled there, inhabitants of the hamlet, we had an opportunity to get into communication with them. My uncle sold a watch, and I played on the hurdy-gurdy, by way of making myself popular. After this beginning, the discourse turned on the engrossing subject of the day, anti-rentism. The principal speaker was a young man of about six-and-twenty, of a sort of shabby genteel air and appearance, whom I soon discovered to be the attorney of the neighbourhood. His name was Hubbard, while that ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... with boldness and indiscrimination, but with a hearty good-will to help them and enjoy them, as we, in return, expect them to do us good, and be glad of us. It is a duty on our part to seek and to keep friends, and no occupation should be so absolutely engrossing as to prevent the ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... her daughter; but the company judiciously trusted more to her looks than her words. Every thing was said or hinted that could exasperate her against her former favourites: for Mad. de Coulanges had made many enemies by engrossing an unreasonable share in the conversation; and Emilie by attracting too great a portion of attention by her beauty and engaging manners. Malice often overshoots the mark: Mrs. Somers was at first glad to hear the objects of her indignation ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... voice by turns languid and lively, with now and then a curious liquid softness, perhaps insincere, yet dangerously pleasant. Questioning, hinting, she played at motherly age and wisdom. As for him, he never before knew how well he could talk, or how engrossing his sober life, both in his native village on the Baltic and afterward in Bremen, could prove to ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... The speaker was a charming woman from Boston, whose society he had found engrossing during the voyage—a woman of the polite world, voluble ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... Field said coolly. "That rascal, clever as he is, has made a mistake. Not knowing anything of legal matters in these minor points, it has never occurred to him to see whether these parchment stamps are dated or not. He simply bought a skin and got some engrossing clerk to make out the deed. Then he put in the date, and ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... thoughts were absorbed in him; she attended to him day and night, and could hardly spare a moment for anything else. Indeed, with all her affection and anxiety for the young lovers, Charles was so entirely her engrossing object, that her first feeling of disappointment at the failure of Philip's journey of investigation was because it would grieve Charlie. She could not think about Guy just then, and for Amy there was nothing for it but patience; and, good little creature, it was very nice ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that. I have a friend, an old schoolfellow of mine, a very intelligent young fellow; and we are so much the more intimate, because, our lives have fallen out very much in the same way. He was studying law while I was a house-student, he was engrossing deeds in Maitre Couture's office. His father was a shoemaker, and mine was a breeches-maker; he has not found anyone to take much interest in his career, nor has he any capital; for, after all, capital ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... became one of the Eleven, a perilously engrossing position for one who, though never slurring nor neglecting his studies, did not enjoy anything so much as the cricket-field. However, there the weight of his character, backed by his popularity and proficiency in all games and exercises, began ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... increase their holdings by adding a few acres of land which had been a part of the demesne or of a vacated holding. The case of the man at Sutton, who took up three virgates and a cotland, has already been mentioned. Another case of "engrossing," as it was called, dated from 1347-1348 at Meon, where John Blackman paid fines for one messuage with ten acres of land, two other messuages with a virgate of land each, one parcel of four acres, and another holding whose ...
— The Enclosures in England - An Economic Reconstruction • Harriett Bradley
... this to-day, when every problem of business is so engrossing, demanding a man's full time and thought. It is the rare man who can devote himself to business and be fresh for the service of others afterward. No man can, with efficiency, serve two masters so exacting as are these. Besides, ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok
... startling, are concealed in every chapter of this completely engrossing detective story. The horrible fascination of the tragedy holds one in rapt attention to the end. And through it runs the thread of a curious ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... instant, with a low cry of surprise and alarm, Barbara caught me by the arm, while she pointed to the terrace. The sight might well turn us even from our engrossing interchange of memories. There were four men on the terrace, their figures standing out dense and black against the old grey walls, which seemed white in the moonlight. Two stood impassive and motionless, with hands at their sides; at their feet lay what seemed bundles of ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... fluid is the air of romance, and whose algebraic symbol is a mark of exclamation! This sentiment, existing in some persons to a greater degree than in others, is often fostered by education and association, so as to become the all-engrossing passion. Children, of course, begin to wonder as soon as their eyes are opened upon the strange scenes of their future operations. The first thing usually done to develop their dawning intellect, is to display before them such objects as are best calculated to arrest their attention, and keep ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... there issued some new proclamation, reproving the atrocious rapacity and lawless desperation of the army. But neither Gonzaga nor Nignio had much opportunity of judging of the real cause of his cheerlessness; for, independent of the engrossing duties of their several commands, the leisure of Don John was entirely bestowed upon his nephew, Alexander Farnese, who, only a few years his junior in age, was almost a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... of the feelings with which I leaped out of the boat, and first set foot on the continent of Africa, but am prevented from describing these poetical emotions by the remembrance, equally distinct, of the more engrossing anxiety which both my companion and myself experienced about our linen, then on its way to the laundress in two goodly bundles. For the life of me, I cannot separate the grand ideas suitable to the occasion, ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... every thing around the human family inculcates the doctrine of the mysterious future, and the necessity of living principally that they be prepared to die. All they produce perishes, all they imagine perishes, as does all they love. The union of two beings may be so engrossing, in their eyes, have lasted so long, and embraced so many ties, as to seem indissoluble; it is all seeming; the hour will infallibly come when the past becomes as nothing, except as it has opened the way to ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... and said, "Well, it was engrossing. You'd better unhook the beast; he had a bad time of ...
— Warlord of Kor • Terry Gene Carr
... to believe that the day will dawn when this world will know whether Venus or Mars is inhabited? And if either or both of them shall be found to be peopled, among the many questions of engrossing interest to be studied it seems clear to me that the most important will be the moral and spiritual ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... pages exhibit the habit of Dr. Newman's mind as eminently subjective. It might almost be described as the exact opposite of that of S. Athanasius: with a like all-engrossing love for truth; with ecclesiastical habits often strangely similar; with cognate gifts of the imperishable inheritance of genius, the contradiction here is almost absolute. The abstract proposition, the rightly-balanced proposition, is everything ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... "With his usual tact and exquisite sense of propriety, he saw that it was not the time for him to step forward prominently on this highest theatre in the land. He beheld these great combatants doing battle before the eyes of the nation, and engrossing its whole regards. There was hardly an avenue to reputation save what was occupied by one or another of those gigantic figures." During Mr. Tyler's administration, he resigned. When the Mexican war broke out, he enlisted as a volunteer, ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... far-away battle of paladins in which he is contending) are finely conceived, and many of the later passages in Simon's life—his unhappy love affair with Maud Courtney, his relations with his grandmother and with William Forster, the schoolmaster—are quite engrossing and give occasion for memorable sketches of character. It is when the natural end of the story is reached, and Simon has come into his own and has just been wedded to his proper affinity, that the structure seems to me to fall with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, July 1, 1914 • Various
... prison play so far written, but first of all a human drama, not devoid of humor. Ex-Warden Osborne of Sing Sing says "It rings true," and Edith Wynne Matthison declares it "one of the most engrossing plays I have ever read." Four ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... extraordinary amount of pleasure that they can extract out of the simplest materials. To keep a shop in the corner of a garden, where the commodities are pebbles and thistle-heads stored in old tin pots, and which are paid for in daisies, will be an engrossing occupation to healthy children for a long summer afternoon. There is no reason why that kind of zest should not be imported into later life; and, as a matter of fact, people who practise self-restraint, who are temperate and quiet, ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... men—among them Mr. Josiah Quincy, whose reminiscences were to me very interesting, his accounts of conversations with John Adams perhaps more so than anything else. At various clubs I met most charming people, the most engrossing of these being Arthur Gilman, the architect: then, and at other times, I sat up with him late into the night,—once, indeed, the entire night,—listening to his flow of quaint wit and humor. The range of his powers was perhaps best shown in a repetition of what he claimed ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... And having listened to this account of incarnation, according to their portions, of gods, Gandharvas, and Rakshasas, the hearer becoming acquainted with the creation, preservation, and destruction of the universe and acquiring wisdom, is never cast down even under the most engrossing sorrows.'" ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... bad as dear Mrs. Potiphar about coming to the point of my story. But the truth is, that in such engrossing places as Saratoga and Newport, it is hardly possible to determine which is the pleasantest and most important thing among so many. I am so fond of that old, droll Kurz Pacha, that if I begin to talk about him I forget everything else. He says such nice things about people that nobody else ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... went on, minute after minute, the men perspiring and the boys' hands beginning to grow sore. How long the violent plunging and churning up of the water lasted they never attempted to guess, for the interest in the fight was too engrossing as the monster now made a rush to escape down the river, now up again, and at last made so desperate a rush straight out as if to go across, that the party were taken unawares, and were jerked right forward, losing their footing ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... had now lashed himself into a whirlwind of imaginary indignation and was pacing up and down the music room; his thoughts completely engrossing him. They were the only realities in life to him now, these thoughts, and he treasured them as philosophers do the truths of existence. All at once his eye caught a pile of music that lay on the table next to Miss Stanton's dolls' cabinet in the corner of ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... not only expensive, but often very difficult to procure; whence arose the practice of erasing old writing from it, and engrossing it a second time. Such manuscripts are called "palimpsests." Modern art has found the means of discharging the more recent ink, and thus restoring the original writing, by which means we have recovered many valuable pieces, particularly Cicero's ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... settling down to develop this thesis when suddenly, to my sorrow and to his unfeigned delight, we found ourselves, even in that land of dreams, plunged into a problem at our very doors which was more intense, more engrossing, and infinitely more mysterious than any of those which had driven us from London. Our simple life and peaceful, healthy routine were violently interrupted, and we were precipitated into the midst of a series of events which caused the utmost excitement not only in Cornwall ...
— The Adventure of the Devil's Foot • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the most cultured people of the city by his breadth of knowledge, warmth of feeling and intensity of conviction. His interest in slavery began early, and by 1845, his share in the anti-slavery struggle had become engrossing. He threw himself into it heart and soul, and no one did more to awaken the conscience of the north. His speeches, letters, sermons, tracts and lectures had an immense influence; he took an active part in aiding runaway slaves to get to Canada, and his labors were incessant ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... the war and the rise of Arminianism were almost contemporaneous. The Stadholder, who so unwillingly had seen the occupation in which he had won so much glory taken from him by the Truce, might perhaps find less congenial but sufficiently engrossing business as champion of the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... tell which will move amidst tragic circumstances of too engrossing a nature to be disturbed by archaeological interests, and shall not, therefore, minutely describe here what I observed in Nuremberg, although no adequate description of that wonderful city has yet fallen in my ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... peck at words. Communion is better than sacrament, but communion may exist without the eating of the bread, &c. Sacrament means the performance of a certain act, which is an outward and visible sign of spiritual grace. You need not fear my leaving off this subject, it is far too engrossing to me, and is ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... flat, pale, with small features; mouth beautifully shaped; hair, bright-brown and wavy; and such a pair of eyes as are rarely seen in the human or any other head,—intensely blue, with a gentle and lambent expression, yet wonderfully alert and engrossing: nothing appeared to escape ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... of wonderful tellings, dreamed of the engrossing joys of the written word. But in what form—poetry, essay, history, novel?—The extreme limitation of her own knowledge, or rather the immensity of her own ignorance, confronted her. And that partly through her own fault, for she had been exclusive, fastidious, ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... antiquities one finds at every turn objects of engrossing interest, and personally it seemed to me that many of the scenes depicted in Prescott's enchanting book, The Conquest of Mexico, might almost as well have been laid in this far-famed capital of the North. Great antiquity, isolation from the Western world, pride of race and empire, veneration ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... at last found nothing save science engrossing enough to make him oblivious of his constant ill-health, Huxley never lost his keen delight in literature and art. He was a rapid and omnivorous reader, devouring everything from a fairy tale to a blue book, and ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... on with all the strength and energy I could command. I knew that in time I could raise the cairn as high as required, but time had now become the all-engrossing subject of ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... eighteenth century the engrossing of the lands of lowland Virginia had progressed so far, the practice of holding large tracts of wasteland for reserves in the great plantations had become so common, that the authorities of Virginia reported to the home government ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... than that his vindication of himself against what he considered unfair treatment should be forgotten. He would have republished "Unconscious Memory" himself, had not the latter years of his life been devoted to all- engrossing work in other fields. In issuing the present edition I am fulfilling a wish that he expressed to me shortly before ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... repealed till 1824. The famous Statute of Laborers forbade laboring men to ask or receive more than a prescribed low sum for their labor and also forbade their moving about seeking employment. The statutes against forestalling, regrating, and engrossing were not formally repealed until 1844. In early times in New England also, statutory attempts were made to fix the price of various commodities and the wages of various kinds of workmen. Men were fined for accepting higher than the prescribed wages. ...
— Concerning Justice • Lucilius A. Emery
... forty-two. Much ink has been wasted in discussing the relations of these distinguished composers. There is no denying that Haydn neglected his young pupil, but one may find another excuse for the neglect besides that of his increasing age and his engrossing occupations. Beethoven was already a musical revolutionist: Haydn was content to walk in the old ways. The two men belonged almost to different centuries, and the disposition which the younger artist had for ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... what has been a long and engrossing task, it becomes a pleasant duty to acknowledge the help which has been received from teachers in school and college. Various chapters, either in manuscript or in the proofs, have been read by Professor James M. Leake of Bryn Mawr College; Professor J. C. Hildt of ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... crevice. The operation was lubricated with hope. Once every heart-beat—for I kept strict tally, as further mental relaxation—my boot rubbed against the rock, and each rub wore away minute particles of leather. As time passed and the work became still easier, it became more engrossing, until calmness gave way, and every nerve thrilled with excitement, and I was convinced that I would win a joyful passage from this narrow strait by dint of the resolute continuation ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... departed was Sir Thomas Denman. The Chancellor was engaged with some one at the moment, and nothing passed betwixt them but an exchange of bows. It was nearly ten years since I had seen Brougham and Denman together; the Queen's trial was then the all-engrossing topic of public consideration. Who could then have foretold that these men would have in so short a space won the confidence of a sovereign, whom they attacked with a degree of virulence which, even in those days of party violence, was generally condemned? The change ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 496 - Vol. 17, No. 496, June 27, 1831 • Various
... the kings of Israel, geography of Palestine, and that when these fantastic modes of education had been eliminated there was plenty of time and energy to be employed. The instruction in physical training was more than half play; that in the domestic subjects had an engrossing interest of its own. He proposed, first, the necessary discipline in the means for acquiring knowledge, the tools for employing it, that is to say, reading, writing, and arithmetic. After that, he believed that a certain amount of knowledge, of intellectual discipline, ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... muskrat chanced to be near by. He caught the pickerel, while the latter was preoccupied with his meal, bit clean through the back of his neck, and then and there devoured nearly half of him. In the engrossing task of cleaning his fur after this feast, and making his toilet, which he did with minute nicety on a stranded log by the shore, he promptly forgot the loss to his little family, the wrong which he had so satisfactorily and appropriately avenged. As for the remaining seven, ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... was holding a Saturday afternoon meeting at Polly Stevens's house, and the conversation, as yet, had not strayed far from the all-engrossing subject of Patty's ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells
... such a prayer for, maddened at his disappointment, and excited at the sight of blood, the Huron mercifully drove his tomahawk into her own brain. The mother sank under the blow, and fell, grasping at her child, in death, with the same engrossing love that had caused her to cherish ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... Without quite knowing it, she has cheapened her life-mate in my eyes. Without quite intending it, she has left my own husband more ignominious than he once stood. I was trying hard to school myself into a respect for his material successes. I was struggling to excuse a great many things by the engrossing nature of his work. But the motive behind all his efforts seemed suddenly a sordid one, in ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... carelessness or incompetency of the Viceroys, since it was difficult to find any man of ability who would undertake the office. And for some years things went on with very little change, great lords of different ranks having equally no object but that of controlling the Castle and engrossing the patronage of the government, and in not a few instances of also procuring large grants or pensions for themselves, each seeking to build up an individual influence which no Viceroy could ever have withstood, had they been united instead ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... engrossing was the interest felt in this event, that a public calamity had well-nigh followed. The attendants on the princes and princesses (usually most vigilant and faithful), in the excitement of the occasion, forgot their charge, and the young folks ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... Arms, take your last embrace; and lips, O! you, The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss A dateless bargain to engrossing death. Romeo and Juliet, ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... miles of their spring; aye, and rapidly add to it. At every turn they gather aid, from ash-clad dingle and aldered meadow, mossy rock and ferny wall, hedge-trough roofed with bramble netting, where the baby water lurks, and lanes that coming down to ford bring suicidal tribute. Arrogant, all-engrossing river, now it has claimed a great valley of its own; and whatever falls within the hill scoop, sooner or later belongs to itself. Even the crystal "shutt" that crosses the farmyard by the woodrick, and glides down an aqueduct of last year's bark for Mary to fill the kettle from; and even the ...
— Crocker's Hole - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... arrows, whereas it should be presented as a giant shaking the world. The secrets of the heart are seldom revealed to others. Neither Napoleon nor Josephine were probably at all aware how intense and engrossing was the affection of ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... woman"—and of the Christmas gift from their Excellencies—a case of milk; and of the present of a new cycle sent from England from "her old chief" Mr. Partridge, to replace the old one which he thought must be worn out by this time. The wonders of aviation were engrossing the world then, and she merrily imagined a descent upon her some afternoon of her friends from Scotland, and discussed ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... the Parthenon by the side of Herbert Courtland instead of by the side of George Holland; and the little laugh that Mrs. Linton gave was due to her careful observation of the latter's face when he perceived, as he did in spite of the engrossing nature of his conversation with his friend in the end stall, how his designs had been defeated by her tactics. She would not have minded having Herbert Courtland with her for the hour they might remain at the theater, ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... Conference Convention, no one, I think, can reasonably expect them to consider and deliberately act on such recommendation during the few remaining days of the present Congress. Other questions, of engrossing interest, now pending before them, and the acts of necessary legislation at the close of the session, will prevent it. It must, therefore, go over to the next Congress. Assuming that during the term of that Congress the amendments recommended by this Convention shall, by two-thirds of both ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... own behoof and favour. To the human mind the study of those relics by which the archaeologist tries to recover and reconstruct the history of the past races and nations of man, should naturally form as engrossing a topic as the study of those relics by which the geologist tries to regain the history of the past races and families of the fauna and flora of the ancient world. Surely, as a mere matter of scientific pursuit, the ancient or fossil states ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... first joining, and, with knowing looks and enticing words, try to probe his childish knowledge, and leave him half-ashamed of himself and keenly inquisitive for full initiation, if he finds that he knows nothing of this engrossing mystery? Is it right, is it fair, is it consistent with religious duty or with common-sense, that a little boy of eight, or ten, or twelve, should be sent at this impressionable age to hear for the first time of facts of human nature which must ere long be known, and are part of God's ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... Knowledge is my sole pursuit in this great war, and a most engrossing and dangerous task I find it. Yet, I would not leave it. My name is Shepard, and I am a spy. You needn't shrink. I'm not ashamed of my occupation. Why should I be? I don't kill. I don't commit any violence. I'm a guide and educator. I and ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... always gaze with a feeling of compassionate benevolence upon the retreating steps of this unfortunate gossip, who leaves with the idea of having diverted me by his monologue to which my eyes alone have listened. As a general thing, people whom you meet have started out with one dominant idea or engrossing subject, and they imagine that the universe is disposed to attach the same importance to the matter that they themselves do. These expectations are often gratified, for the streets are filled by hungry listeners ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... correspondents plot and slave and intrigue over the places on the columns. I got mine on the second column all right but no one knows if it ever will move. So, naturally, I want to be on the first. The rows are so engrossing that I have not enjoyed the country as I expected. Still, I am everlastingly glad we came. It is an entirely new life and aspect. It completes so much that we have read and seen. In spite of the bother over the war passes I learn things daily and we see beautiful ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... Motherhood, slowly and timidly, is beginning to answer, "No." It is becoming more and more visible, in this deeper, higher demand for race improvement, that we might provide better educational conditions for the young of the human species. For the all-engrossing importance of the first years of childhood, it is time that we prepared a place. This is as real a need as the need of a college or school. We need A PLACE FOR BABIES—and our homes arranged in relation ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... on; but no one interfered with us. We carried on all our operations as quietly as possible; and the only circumstances likely to arouse suspicion in the minds of the authorities, was the unusual absence of all disturbances of a minor nature within the walls, in consequence of the one engrossing freak in which most of the more turbulent spirits ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... on his brow; his eye was fixed and severe. The smile of affection that used to lighten his dark features on meeting his mistress, was supplanted by the lowering look of care; his whole soul seemed to be absorbed in one engrossing emotion, and he proceeded at ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... the lineaments of the dramatist himself, who in this play probably bade farewell to the enchanted work of his life. Prospero is in the story a scholar-prince of rare intellectual attainments, whose engrossing study of the mysteries of science has given him command of the forces of nature. His magnanimous renunciation of his magical faculty as soon as by its exercise he has restored his shattered fortunes is in perfect accord with the general conception ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... this book, (the labour of several years), from infidelity to either:—that the intrinsic worth and weight of my subject may commend these songs, both at home, and in the many Englands beyond sea, to those who, (despite the inevitably more engrossing attractions of the Present, and the emphatic bias of modern culture towards the immediate and the tangible), maintain that high and soul-inspiring interest which, identifying us with our magnificent Past, and all its varied lessons of defeat and victory, offers at ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... his day, Vanderbilt was invested with extraordinary publicity; he was extensively interviewed and quoted; his wars upon rival capitalists were matters of engrossing public concern; his slightest illness was breathlessly followed by commercialdom dom and its outcome awaited. Hosts of men, women and children perished every year of disease contracted in factories, ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... least he should have done that much, he told himself, to atone for his conduct during the bear's charge. Then he would have been in a position to claim half the mine—and get it too. Dark thoughts, curiously engrossing ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... the library and resumed his work, and was busily engaged in engrossing a deed of conveyance when the door opened and Judge Merlin entered accompanied by a tall, dark-haired, handsome, and rather prepossessing-looking man, of about fifty years of age, whom he introduced as ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... before them, with the red hair standing erect upon a turnip-like head, the man of their wish, whom they greeted with three deafening cheers. The major bowed and spread his hands, in the left of which he held the engrossing emblem of his dignity, his ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... Mahasaya through Abinash Babu, {FN1-8} an employee in the Gorakhpur office of the Bengal-Nagpur Railway. Abinash instructed my young ears with engrossing tales of many Indian saints. He invariably concluded with a tribute to the superior glories ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... to forget, in the engrossing incidents of our civil war, and its sequel, the enormous changes that were in progress in the material condition of the country, and the larger economic struggle that was being waged between the Western European Powers in regard to the supremacy in commercial undertakings, as developed by the ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... and haughty girl, who had treated the advances of the most distinguished nobles with ill-concealed scorn, and who had so presumed upon her dubious relationship to the bourgeois Minister that nothing but her own surpassing loveliness and her parent's all-engrossing influence could have ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... the loop-holes runs a wooden platform for the men to stand on. Behind the loop-holes, in the ceiling, are large hooks to hang guns on. Many of the loop-holes are labelled with men's names, written in a good engrossing hand; and between the loop-holes, and level with them, are pinned coloured postcards and photographs of women, girls, and children. Tucked conveniently away in zinc cases underground are found zinc receptacles ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett
... characteristic of the man, of Florence, and of the age. Commanding the enormous capital of the Medicean bank he contrived, at any sacrifice of temporary convenience, to lend money to the State for war expenses, engrossing in his own hands a large portion of the public debt of Florence. At the same time his agencies in various European capitals enabled him to keep his own wealth floating far beyond the reach of foes within the city. A few years of this system ended in so complete a confusion between Cosimo's trade ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... existence, or one apparently more evenly occupied. But at this period it had really a single engrossing care, and that was the rivalry with Essex. Once it had looked as if the two might become friends. Before the Islands Voyage, Essex had been closely allied both with him and with Cecil. Afterwards, on an alarm of a ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... did Mr. Opp refer to the mysterious work that was engrossing him that he reduced Mr. Gallop's curiosity to ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... imagination; and, after their second meeting at Paris, her existence was merged in love. All the crosses and vexations of their early affection only rendered this state of being on her part more profound and engrossing. ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... this which steeped the feeble soul of Twemlow in confusion. This he was used to, and could take soundings of. The abyss to which he could find no bottom, and from which started forth the engrossing and ever-swelling difficulty of his life, was the insoluble question whether he was Veneering's oldest friend, or newest friend. To the excogitation of this problem, the harmless gentleman had devoted many ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... valiant part in the campaign against Port Hudson in the following summer. It is possible to gain some idea of how the great tides of war were felt throughout the whole land by imagining the stir and turmoil thus brought, in the summer of 1862, into this remote and peaceful quarter by the engrossing struggle. ...
— The County Regiment • Dudley Landon Vaill
... else troubled me little. I fell victim to an engrossing selfishness. The quarrels and woes of my kindred went unnoticed, except when they served for a moment's amusement. To the fortunes of those with whom I had lately been so much concerned, of Wetter and of Coralie, I was almost indifferent. Varvilliers wrote ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... discarding his pseudonym and appearing as Albert de Morcerf. Paris had talked over and wondered at all this for a week, and then had completely forgotten it, turning its fickle attention to newer and more engrossing sensations. Albert's marriage and the legacy healed the breach between Eugenie and the Count of Monte-Cristo, and the young couple, together with the real Mlle. d' Armilly, had been added to the happy family in the mansion of ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... nothing but the very highest praise for this book. Deeply engrossing as a novel, pure in style, and practically faultless ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... work and carry the most responsibility. On much the same principle as the Indians used when their young men were trained to endure pain self-inflicted, we might well devote a few minutes each day to the difficult task of changing at will our attention from the thing which is engrossing it to anything else we choose; or, what is more difficult still, to blank nothingness. When we have sufficiently strengthened this power, we can turn off the current of our thoughts as we turn off the lights and ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk
... civilized world, which, we will venture to say, was unparalleled. It is within the writer's recollection, how, in the obscure mountain-town where she spent her early days, Lord Byron's separation from his wife was, for a season, the all-engrossing topic. ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... transcribing some bibliographical notes which he had brought away with him from Exeter. The work was not very engrossing, and he had leisure now and then to let his mind wander, and the direction his thoughts took was towards Mr Rimbolt's little plan of a run on the Continent for Percy and himself this summer. Jeffreys had been afraid to acknowledge to himself how much the plan delighted him. He longed ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... day I was in a raging delirium, and for nearly a week did I remain utterly unconscious of all that surrounded me, entirely engrossing the attention of my companions, and taxing their energies and ingenuity to the utmost to prevent my leaping out of the cot or doing myself some injury, in the unnatural strength and violence of the ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... to d'Ombreval, and upon hearing it he tossed aside the book that had been engrossing him and looked up, a sudden light of relief spreading ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... the opposite side of the room was suddenly opened, and Hamar Lessingham and Helen entered together. Lessingham was entirely at his ease,—their conversation, indeed, seemed almost engrossing. He came at once across the room on ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... for Jack to tell me that he was come down on a bold speculation at this unseasonable time for Cheltenham; that he was quite sure his fortune was about to be made in a few weeks at farthest, and what seemed nearly as engrossing a topic—that he was perfectly famished, and desired a hot supper, ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... loyalty better than by sensitiveness in this regard? The slightest affront or neglect must be resented, the deity's enemies must be put to shame. In exceedingly narrow minds and active wills, such a care may become an engrossing preoccupation; and crusades have been preached and massacres instigated for no other reason than to remove a fancied slight upon the God. Theologies representing the gods as mindful of their glory, and churches ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... tried to think if there were any kind of knowledge that would bespeak his interest more readily than another. Always: at her books, her music, and her work: in her morning walks, and in her nightly prayers: she had her engrossing aim in view. Strange study for a child, to learn the road to ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... for partisan service. Doubts may well be entertained whether our Government could survive the strain of a continuance of this system, which upon every change of Administration inspires an immense army of claimants for office to lay siege to the patronage of Government, engrossing the time of public officers with their importunities, spreading abroad the contagion of their disappointment, and filling the air with the tumult of ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... this mighty delight and joy engrossing they heard one of the servants of the Saint[FN526] smite the gong[FN527] upon the roof, to call the folk to the rites of their worship, and he was even ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... of Senhouse—a Senhouse with his tongue dipped in vinegar—objected that society may have demanded some of these laws in defiance of the engrossing patriarch; but Morosine shook his head. "Society is the patriarch's weapon. Society is a syndicate of patriarchs who cannot live unless all men are enslaved. Man is not by nature gregarious; he's solitary, like all the nobler beasts. Wolves and dogs hunt in herds, ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... way he went over the ethical aspect of the affair, coming to no very clear conclusion. He would have destroyed the thing himself if she had asked him, but she should have asked him. And even in his engrossing indignation he could experience a kind of spiritual blush as he recognized how safe his concession was behind the improbability of its condition. Finally he wrote a line to Janet, informing her that the portrait had sustained an injury, and postponing ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... convention[20] after the all-engrossing events of the centennial celebration assembled in Lincoln Hall, Washington, January 16, with a good array of speakers, Mrs. Stanton presiding. After an inspiring song by the Hutchinsons and reports from the various States, Sara Andrews Spencer, chairman of the congressional ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... blue robes, appeared and stood for a minute, then stole down the steps with an eagerness in every movement holding us spellbound. I have seen many splendid pageants and many sights, each of which might be the talk of a lifetime, but somehow nothing ever so engrossing, so thrilling, as that ghostly figure in flowing robes stealing across the piazza in starlight and silence—the princess of a broken kingdom, the priestess of a forgotten faith coming to her station to perform a jugglery of which she knew not ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... what Janice would have called the attorney for the prosecution, who took him to his office and insisted, much to the lover's disgust, in hearing what he had done politically. Finally, however, this all-engrossing subject to the office-seeker was, along with Philemon's patience, exhausted, and the squire told his fellow-candidate that the object of his desires could ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... (Statesman) admits rhetoric to be the handmaiden of Politics, and proposes to find in the strain of law (Laws) a substitute for the old poets. Among ourselves the creative power seems often to be growing weaker, and scientific fact to be more engrossing and overpowering to the mind than formerly. The illusion of the feelings commonly called love, has hitherto been the inspiring influence of modern poetry and romance, and has exercised a humanizing if not a strengthening influence on the world. ...
— The Republic • Plato |
