"Gapes" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... frequently struck us as strange, the morbid avidity with which the world seizes upon the slightest evidence of abstraction in great men, to declare that their minds are fading, or impoverished: the public gapes for every trifle calculated to prove that the palsied fingers can no longer grasp the intellectual sceptre, and that the well-worn and hard-earned bays are as a crown of thorns to the pulseless brow. It was, in those days whispered in London that the great orator had become ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... not always laugh; he who weaves fraud works his own ruin; there is no deceit which is not at last discovered, no treachery that does not come to light; walls have ears, and are spies to rogues; the earth gapes and discovers theft, as I will prove to ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... citizen is a hero-worshiper too. He knows his own and his neighbor's weaknesses, but he gapes up at the great with glamoured eyes, and listens to their smooth plausibilities as to the reading of the Gospel from the pulpit. He belongs to the large mass of those who believe, not to the small class of those who question. But for the rivalries and jealousies of ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... Romani, lately deceased, am about to chronicle the events of one short year—a year in which was compressed the agony of a long and tortured life-time! One little year!—one sharp thrust from the dagger of Time! It pierced my heart—the wound still gapes and bleeds, and every drop of blood is tainted ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... Hawkins look round sociably. Essie, with a gleam of interest breaking through her misery, looks up. Christy grins and gapes expectantly at the door. The rest are petrified with the intensity of their sense of Virtue menaced with outrage by the approach of flaunting Vice. The reprobate appears in the doorway, graced beyond his alleged merits by the ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw
... Tagliacozzo, without arms The old Alardo conquer'd; and his limbs One were to show transpierc'd, another his Clean lopt away; a spectacle like this Were but a thing of nought, to the' hideous sight Of the ninth chasm. A rundlet, that hath lost Its middle or side stave, gapes not so wide, As one I mark'd, torn from the chin throughout Down to the hinder passage: 'twixt the legs Dangling his entrails hung, the midriff lay Open to view, and wretched ventricle, That turns th' englutted aliment ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... horror, sorrow, pain, Run through the field, disguised in divers shapes, Death might you see triumphant on the plain, Drowning in blood him that from blows escapes. The king meanwhile with parcel of his train Comes hastily out, and for sure conquest gapes, And from a bank whereon he stood, beheld The doubtful hazard ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... business, even if you miss nothing else in consequence; and the inner disarray, the blow and wrench to thoughts and feelings, is most often far worse than any mere upsetting of arrangements. A chasm suddenly gapes between present and future, and the river of life flows backwards, if but for a second. It is most fit and natural to lose one's temper; but the throwing out of so much moral ballast does not help one ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... On the north, again, the parallel ridges terminate in great irregularity. The water therefore, that is collected from the parallel valley, is gathered into two great rivers, which break through those ridges, no doubt at the most convenient places, forming two great gapes in the blue ridge, which is the most easterly ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 2 (of 4) • James Hutton
... fool gapes when to a house he comes, to himself mutters or is silent; but all at once, if he gets drink, then is ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... percipient, and not his eyes. And you are very likely right, and I may be a simpleton: but, in my opinion, that knowledge only which is of being and of the unseen can make the soul look upwards, and whether a man gapes at the heavens or blinks on the ground, seeking to learn some particular of sense, I would deny that he can learn, for nothing of that sort is matter of science; his soul is looking downwards, not upwards, whether his way to knowledge is by water or ...
— The Republic • Plato
... unbounded riches. Indulge to the mistaken pride which these inspire, and wrap thyself up in the littleness of thy heart.—But no, rise above them. Suffer thy desires to wander into a larger and more dangerous field. Run with open eyes into the mouth of that destruction that gapes to devour thee! Why shouldst thou attend to the voice of destiny, to the immutable laws of the Gods, and the curse that is suspended over thee? Be a man. Bravely defy all that is most venerable, and all that is most unchangeable. Oh how I long for thy ruin! How my heart pants ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... dogs oftentimes one bone would fain catch, But yet the third do them both deceive. Even so Hypocrisy for the pre-eminence doth snatch, Which Tyranny gapes for, ye may perceive: But I must obtain it; for of me they retain All kind of riches, their states to maintain, To yield to me, therefore, they ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... irresistible. Long galled, and harassed, and maddened by the shafts, the Anglo-Danes rushed forth at the heels of the Norman swordsmen, and sweeping down to exterminate the archers, the breach that they leave gapes wide. ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... sullenly, but the effect of their presence had thrown Dorothy, the Cowardly Lion, and the Knight into a violent fit of the gapes. ...
— The Royal Book of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... Renny," was all he said, at last, between two gapes, kicking the hearthstone significantly, and stretching his arms, "not even the wife." Then he flung himself all dressed upon ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... it is all very pretty, but I cannot think how they manage it. I am sure I should be very sorry to have my lovers go about picking up my gloves. I don't have them a week before they change color; the thumb gapes at its base, the little finger rips away from the next one, and they all burst out at the ends; a stitch drops in the back and slides down to the wrist before you know it has started. You can mend, to be sure, but for every darn yawn twenty holes. I admire ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... Tribune's power defied Find an avenging god; this Crassus knew (7), Who, followed by our curses, sought the war And met disaster on the Parthian plains. Draw then thy sword, nor fear the crowd that gapes To view thy crimes: the citizens are gone. Not from our treasury reward for guilt Thy hosts shall ravish: other towns are left, And other nations; wage the war on them — Drain not Rome's peace for spoil." The victor then, Incensed to ire: "Vain is thy ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... of human misrule, sits High in Heaven's realm, upon a golden throne, Even like an earthly king: and whose dread work, Hell gapes forever for the unhappy slaves Of fate, whom he created in his sport, To triumph in ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... up and down like shutters as their owner, in solitary state, stalks up the audience chamber; worse and stronger still is it when your revered bishop uncle, of whom you have great expectations, insists at morning prayers upon those things which have been left undone, when before your earthly eyes gapes the cotton dress of Eliza the cook, whose comfortable dorsal proportions have forbidden the matutinal union of a couple or so of buttons ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... or convex according to the side from which you look at it. From one it swells out into rounded fullness; from the other it gapes as in empty hungriness. So the rich fool of the preceding parable and the anxious, troubled man of my text are the same man looked at from opposite sides or set in opposite circumstances. The root of both the rest of the one and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... stirs, gapes, stretches, yawns, rubs his lean fist in his hollow eyes, and stares at the rude incursion of daylight. He takes no notice of his wife's presence. She pours out tea for him with studied pose of hands and wrists, conventional and graceful. She respectfully requests him to condescend ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... such a scheme, so invaluable though so impossible, must, we fear, ever remain a tantalizing vision. As it is, of course many a man of real ability is drowned in the rushing waves of multitudinous authors, and his works pass undistinguished to that unknown grave which gapes so mysteriously in some hidden recess of the universe, and silently swallows yearly the vast masses of printed paper which has done its brief work and been thrown by read or unread, forgotten. It is to assist in the rescue of a struggling author from this yawning abyss that the present article ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... country of the north to handle an axe! Right, left, left, right, down it comes, with never a pause or stay, never missing by a fraction of an inch the line of the stroke! At it, Smith! Down with it! Till with a shout from the crowd the beam gapes asunder, and Mr. Smith is on the ground again, roaring his directions to the men and horses as they haul down the shed, in a voice that dominates the ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... the mad dog:—Its mouth gapes wide, it drops its saliva, its ears hang down, its tail is curled between its legs, and it slinks along the side of the road. Rav says that a dog's madness is caused by witches sporting with it. Samuel says it is because an evil spirit ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... bright, Downward we drift through shadow and light, Under yon rock the eddies sleep, Calm and silent, dark and deep. The Kelpy has risen from the fathomless pool. He has lighted his candle of death and of dool. Look, Father, look, and you'll laugh to see How he gapes and glares with ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... stand by Atkinson till he dozes. Atkinson is a fine, big fellow, and when he squats down his head is in a convenient position for observation. Presently he gapes; then his eyes shut, and his beak droops—just a very little. Then the beak droops a little more, and signs of insecurity appear about the neck. Very soon a distinct departure from the vertical is visible in that neck; it melts down ruinously till almost past recovery, and then ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... and some of its leaves are gone. The tip of one wing is missing. The head of the eagle, originally proudly and defiantly erect, has been bent backward so that, instead of a level glance, it looks upward, and there is a deep dent in it, as from a blow. And right in the breast gapes a great ragged shot-hole, which pierces the heart of the proud emblem. The eagle has seen service. It has been in action. It bears its honorable wounds. No attempt has been ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... the heavens had been cloudless. Day by day the sun had scorched and burned on, as though there was to be no more verdure, the trees are but the skeletons of their former selves, and the ground is cracked, and gapes for drink. Ah! it is soon to alter! The God who has answered by fire is about to speak in the shower, and all nature is to put on a new suit of green at the bidding ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... thirsty earth soaks up the rain, And drinks, and gapes for drink again, The plants suck in the earth, and are With constant drinking fresh and fair; The sea itself (which one would think Should have but little need of drink) Drinks twice ten thousand rivers up, So filled that they o'erflow the cup. The busy Sun (and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... "but the starfish doesn't know enough to quit. The pull he exerts is not so powerful but it is relentless and unceasing and no oyster muscle can resist it for more than a few hours. Presently the shell gapes open. The starfish lumbers over and commences to feed, other starfish often ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... two-thirds of the space. And yet it has taken me two months to write 45,500 words; and, be damned to my wicked prowess, I am proud of the exploit! The real journalist must be a man not of brass only, but bronze. Chapter IX. gapes for me, but I shrink on the margin, and go on chattering to you. This last part will be much less offensive (strange to say) to the Germans. It is Becker they will never forgive me for; Knappe I pity and do ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... difference of style is not wider than the gulf which gapes between the first style of Shakespeare and the last. But men of Shakespeare's stamp, I venture to think, do not thus repeat themselves. The echo of the passage in A Midsummer Night's Dream, describing the girlish friendship of Hermia and Helena, which we find in the first ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... beneath which, to no purpose, you lie groaning. I could point out your actual inability to live, however basely—deprived of character and credit—devoid of any relics of your fortunes! weighed to the very earth by debts, the interest alone of which has swallowed up your patrimonies, and gapes even yet for more! fettered by bail-bonds, to fly which is infamy, and to abide them ruin! shunned, scorned, despised, and hated, if not feared by all men. I could paint, to your very eyes, ourselves ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... grate on the jarring hinge. Markest thou what sentry is seated in [575-609]the doorway? what shape guards the threshold? More grim within sits the monstrous Hydra with her fifty black yawning throats: and Tartarus' self gapes sheer and strikes into the gloom through twice the space that one looks upward to Olympus and the skyey heaven. Here Earth's ancient children, the Titans' brood, hurled down by the thunderbolt, lie wallowing in the abyss. Here likewise I saw the twin Aloids, enormous ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... I dig for him that be living yet, O'er this narrow gulf he shall never get; The mouth gapes wide that 'Enough' ne'er cries; Each clod that I fling on his bosom lies; In darkness and coldness it rests on thee, With the last stroke that falls ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... hast thou not withstood, Tempest-despising tree, Whose bloat and riven wood Gapes now so hollowly, What rains have beaten thee through many years, What snows from off thy ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... Gapes—Cause: Small Y-shaped worm, about one-half inch long. May be either pale or red in color. Attaches itself to interior walls of windpipe, weakening the chick by sucking the blood, and also causing strangulation. This apparently double-headed ...
— Pratt's Practical Pointers on the Care of Livestock and Poultry • Pratt Food Co.
... too, and disappinting; Is it this Sosherlistic rot Society is so disjinting, The Hinfluenza, or Hard Times, them Hirish, or wotever is it? I couldn't 'ave 'eld on at all, I'm sure, but for the HEMP'ROR's visit. Ya-a-a-w! 'Ang it, 'ow I've got the gapes! Bring us a quencher, you young Buttons! And mind it's cool, and with a 'ed! Hour family is reg'lar gluttons For "Soshal Stir." The guv'nor, he's a rising Tory M.P., he is. And Missis all the Season through as busy as a bloomin' bee is, A gathering Fashion's honey up from every hopening ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 25, 1891 • Various
... of a predestined race, Their ruin gapes for thee. Why linger here? Go hence in silence. Veil thine orphaned face, Lest I should look on ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... dearest, what is love? 'Tis a lightning from above; 'Tis an arrow, 'tis a fire, 'Tis a boy they call Desire. 'Tis a grave, Gapes to have Those poor fools that ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... afternoon in white, but such matters as these bungled between two men will interest no one. Her hair she wore half in curls, according to the hideous custom of that day. Is it not always safe to abuse the old fashion? And at no time safer than the present, when the whole world gapes with its great, foolish mouth after every novelty. I remember that Lucille looked pretty enough; but you, mesdames, who laugh at me, are no doubt quite right, and a thousand times more beautiful in ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... beautiful. There is another life, hard, rough, and thorny, trodden with bleeding feet and aching brow; the life of which the cross is the symbol; a battle which no peace follows, this side the grave; which the grave gapes to finish, before the victory is won; and—strange that it should be so—this is the highest life of man. Look back along the great names of history; there is none whose life has been other than this. They to whom it has been given to do the really highest work in this earth— ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... astonished the foreign travelers by their strength and size. Zbyszko was continually looking at the doors and windows of the mansion, hardly able to remain quiet. There was light in one window only, evidently in the kitchen, because steam was coming out through the gapes between the panes. ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... alone—too late! too late! He gapes at the vacant air, He shouts, and he yells, and gnashes his teeth, ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... was one of your giant-gapes, papa, I should call it more than a hint,' said Molly. 'And if you want a yawning chorus the next time he comes, I'll join ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... fellow sat down in the tall leather-covered chair which Pevensey had just vacated: and this Marlowe nodded his flaming head portentously. "Hoh, look you, I am displeased, Mistress Cyn, I cannot lend my approval to this over-greedy oblivion that gapes for all. No, it is not a satisfying arrangement that I should teeter insecurely through the void on a gob of mud, and be expected bye and bye to relinquish even that crazy foothold. Even for Kit Marlowe death lies in wait! and it may be, not anything ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... on account of her heterogeneity. Your Irish immigrant at eight and ten shillings a week has as often as not never been inside any other household than her native hovel, and stares in astonishment to find that you don't keep a pig on your drawing-room sofa. On entering your house, she gapes in awe of what she considers the grandeur around her, and the whole of her first day's work consists of ejaculating 'Lor' and 'Goodness!' We once had a hopeful of this kind who, after she had been given full instructions as to how a rice-pudding was to be made, sat down and wept ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... to a ball. Mercy upon us! is this what you call dancing? A man of thirty years of age, and with legs as thick as a gate-post, stands up in the middle of the room, and gapes, and fumbles with his gloves, looking all the time as if he were burying his grandmother. At a given signal, the unwieldy animal puts himself in motion; he throws out his arms, crouches up his shoulders, and, without moving a muscle of his face, kicks out his legs, to the manifest risk ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 326, August 9, 1828 • Various
... colonnettes and other devices between and above these windows. The council-house or town-hall has a beautiful colonnade supporting arches, and a quaint nondescript creature whose abyss-like maw opens wide and gapes horribly at the beholder each time the clock strikes. A bas-relief in the hall represents a curious incident in the civic history of the town, the successful struggle of Burgomaster Gryn with a lion, the show and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... trickles between barren mountains a subterranean rill, which can only by chance be reached, for only occasionally the earth gapes, and he who would descend must do it with precipitation, ere the earth closes again. All that is gathered under the ground there is gem and precious stone. The brook pours into another river, and the inhabitants of ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... the vain, aged, highly-educated nation is satiated with beautiful things—it has myriads more than it can look at; it has fallen into a habit of inattention; it passes weary and jaded through galleries which contain the best fruit of a thousand years of human travail; it gapes and shrugs over them, and pushes its way past them ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... I would be that myself, only the half o' them young chickens goin' off with the gapes. It was a tarr'ble to do to save ...
— The Turn of the Road - A Play in Two Scenes and an Epilogue • Rutherford Mayne |
