"Listener" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... figures of the young that still show before us and tend daily to become no more than the moving wall-paper of life. Talk is the last link, the last relation. But with the end of the conversation, when the voice stops and the bright face of the listener is turned away, solitude falls again on the bruised heart. Kirstie had lost her "cannie hour at e'en"; she could no more wander with Archie, a ghost if you will, but a happy ghost, in fields Elysian. And to her it was as if ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... her choice, Cherry stuck to her guns; and to judge from the rapt expression in her big brown eyes as the singer prophesied the lonely and tragic fate of poor unhappy Melisande, the idea of that fate proved exquisitely soothing to the youthful listener. ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... ten years' experience of men as bad and worse than Howel, and had learnt how to speak to them, and to seize the mood of the listener. He knew Howel well; and he, therefore, used the strong and powerful language of the Bible, as the priests, prophets, and apostles used it—as the word of God to man. Not diluted by their own reflections, but in its bare and grand simplicity. He had not made the Bible his study in vain. He knew how ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... to describe the "wonders" that the firm of Chaikin & Levinsky would do. Mrs. Chaikin's eyes glittered. I held her spellbound. Her husband, who had hitherto been a passive listener, as if the matter under discussion was one in which he was not concerned, began to show signs of interest. It was the longest and most eloquent speech I had ever ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... understand, Mr Atherton, that this has been done with your cognisance? That while you suffered me to pour out my heart to you unchecked, you were aware, all the time, that there was a listener behind the screen?' ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... and every man a word. Its strains have been pealing along down the centuries, and though there have been mingled the discords of warring cannon and dying men, yet to the Christian, philosopher, and historian—the humble listener—there has been a divine melody running through the song which speaks of hope and halcyon ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... remembered, though his face was turned from her. In conversation with him was a powerful man dressed in a yellow tweed suit and green scarf. He had a coarse, strong voice, and his companion a shrill, mean one, so that their remarks could be heard by an attentive listener above the ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... the poor cousin was a kind of sink down which his relatives poured domestic confidences. His discretion was well known; indeed, was he not bound over to silence when a single imprudent word would have shut the door of ten houses upon him? And he must combine his role of listener with a second part; he must applaud continually, smile on every one, accuse nobody, defend nobody; from his point of view, every one must be in the right. And so, in the house of his kinsman, Pons no longer counted as a man; he ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... the chair beside him, and recounted the story of the intermediate entertainment, intuitively omitting the part which Ilga played. That it was appreciated by her listener Polly could not doubt. ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... was done on time, and I began on John Moore in my office at my hotel in Boston just after breakfast one bleak, rainy morning the week following. I talked for five straight-away hours, and he listened. He was a good listener. On all stock things he was admirably posted, and it was not necessary to waste words. I wasted none. I knew my subject from the letter-head to "Yours truly," and I was playing for a stake that looked as big to me as the sun does ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... however, still too full of his subject to relinquish it easily under no stronger influence than the influence of a polite hint. Having lost one listener in Mrs. Blyth, he boldly tried the experiment of inviting two others to replace her, by addressing himself to ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... Gilbert's life should have furnished this unique opportunity of contact through the spoken word between him and the English people. His voice on the radio had none of the defects that marred it in a hall: his material was far better arranged, his delivery perfect. He seemed to be there beside the listener, talking in amity and exchanging confidences. The morning after his death Edward Macdonald passed a barber's shop off Chancery Lane. The man was lathering a customer's face but recognising Mr. Macdonald, left the customer and ran out ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... the least of expression of following disaster. The ardent sitter and the intending hearer and the reclaiming helper and the disturbing divider and the vigorous hearer and the alarming buyer and the deep thinker and the steady beginner, all the leader and half the seller, all the listener and all the controller, all the etcetera and all the clearer, all the continuer and the rest steadily staying somewhere, all the same what was was there and what is is here. If the rest remain then getting them all there is not laughing as each one can tell the same. They ...
— Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein - With Two Shorter Stories • Gertrude Stein
... to be a good listener. Facts he would always listen to; it was only when people told him their theories that he would interrupt with ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... furious crowd surged up to the guns, recaptured them, slewed them round, and laid them on the door. Then came the second salvo heard by the distant listener; and again, scarce taking breath, Hamilton made preparations for his new attempt. "Do you stand here and here; and you two, there and there; and all of you shoot for all you're worth at the gunners, while I and the rest again charge out and capture ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... any member of the family, had the property of being a good listener, and therefore she heard more than any one else of his Excellency O——, but yet not alone of him; Jacobi had always a something to relate to her, a something on which he wanted her consideration, and if Louise were not too much occupied with ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... deliverance. The first requisite in opera, it would appear, is that it be pervaded by an atmosphere of romanticism. Other things are necessary; the libretto must have dramatic situations; but above all, the romantic element must prevail. If it is difficult for the listener to become interested in an opera with such a libretto as is Fidelio, it must be doubly so for the composer who undertakes the task of writing music for it. A dull story hinders the play of fancy; the imagination remains dormant, and the product ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... berth beyond that. You're mistaken in your premises, sir. This is a waking-car. Ladies, go on, and oblige an eager listener. ...
— The Sleeping Car - A Farce • William D. Howells
... a thread of sound as fine as the locust spins at hot noon on his still tree-top. Its clustering columns are as a forest in which every music-flowering tree and shrub finds its representative. It imitates all instruments; it cheats the listener with the sound of singing choirs; it strives for a still purer note than can be strained from human throats, and emulates the host of heaven with its unearthly "voice of angels." Within its breast all the passions of humanity seem to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... under a pine-tree whipping two of Miss Barbara Leicester's new tea-napkins. Betty had many things to say about her English life and her friends. Mary Beck never cared to hear much about England, and it was always delightful to have an interested listener. At last the sewing was finished, and Nelly proposed that they should go a little way farther, and come out on the river bank. Harry would be coming up about this time with his fare of fish, if he had had good luck. It would be fun to ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... is certain to encounter a foolish person and a sensible person (according to Mr. Dexter's idea of sense) discussing some important social topic,—such as, Whether dancing is criminal, or, Whether people should wear stove-pipe hats. At the end of the discussion, the reverend listener appears in a paragraph as the deus ex machina of the drama, pats the victorious sensible boy on the head, and treats the foolish boy with silent contempt. It does not take much to win Mr. Dexter's ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... seemed to consist mainly in the dread of breaking strange ground, for once the first plunge over he showed none of the expected embarrassment or distress. If he could not be called talkative, he was at least an appreciative listener; not a single point of her conversation missed its due share of interest; while his deep, quiet laugh proved an incentive to fresh flights of fancy. For a whole ten days had Margot been waiting for her opportunity, ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... few months would produce a schism between him and Louis-Philippe. Everything, at the moment, however, looked so smiling, and so much outward respect was lavished on General Lafayette, that this opinion did not find favour with my listener, though, I believe, he saw reason to think differently, after another visit to court. We all got invitations to dine at the palace in a day ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... that, being an appeal to the imagination of others, every form of literature, every "deed of speech," as a friend of mine calls it, has a natural stage in the mind of the reader or the listener. Milton, let me point out, makes "gorgeous Tragedy in sceptred pall," sweep across, not the planks of a theatre, but the scholar's thought as he sits alone with his book of nights. Neither is this an expression of conceit. I do not mean that my conception of this, that, or ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... dialogue, the evil-eyed mother had sat an attentive listener, her jealous nature stirred to its ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... brain grew giddy and wild, as he heard again Lily's voice, pleading for George, wherever he might be. She did not say: "God send him back to me, who loves him still." She only asked forgiveness for the father of her boy, but this was proof to the listener that she did not hate him, and forgetful of his pain he raised himself upon his elbow, and looking over the pile of hay, saw her where she knelt. Lily, Adah, his wife, her fair face covered by her hands, and her soft, brown hair cut short ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... tour of the barns and stables. By way of easing his own sense of responsibility he had decided to tell his father what he had seen, and his telling was much like such confession of sins as many people make, soothing their consciences by an effort that does not adequately reveal the guilt to the listener. ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... short, stout man, scrupulously neatly dressed, with iron grey hair standing straight up, and a habit of dropping out his words one at a time, so that the listener had to construct quite a little history between each, in order to arrive at their meaning, and the connection they ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... Sleep? Soft closer of our eyes! Low murmurer of tender lullabies! Light hoverer around our happy pillows! Wreather of poppy buds and weeping willows! Silent entangler of a beauty's tresses! Most happy listener! when the morning blesses Thee for enlivening all the cheerful eyes That glance so ...
— Sleep-Book - Some of the Poetry of Slumber • Various
... sick-room gives way to a more natural atmosphere, many nurses do not feel at ease, they do not read aloud pleasantly, they do not care for books, and, if the patient asks for this amusement, the reading is a torment to the nurse, and I imagine it does not afford much pleasure to the listener. A nurse once gave me a graphic description of her efforts to read "Romola" to a convalescent typhoid patient. The poor nurse knew nothing of Florence or of the Italian language, and her struggles over the foreign words in that ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery
... the toils again, and the jeweller despite his fears could not help realizing what a sensation the story of his temptation would create. Brother Burge was now going round and round his room like an animal in a cage, and sounds as of a soul wrought almost beyond endurance smote upon the listener's quivering ear. Then there was a long silence more alarming even than the noise of the conflict. Had Brother Burge won, and was he now sleeping the sleep of the righteous, or—— Mr. Higgs shivered and put his other ear to the wall. Then he ...
— Captains All and Others • W.W. Jacobs
... listener a pang. His big hand closed over the one he had been caressing. "You're in a prohibition ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... arrest, and sentence of the Calcutta court, and the restoration of Mr. Fogg and himself to liberty on bail. Fix, who was familiar with the last events, seemed to be equally ignorant of all that Passepartout related; and the later was charmed to find so interested a listener. ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... meaning, and some were palpable enough. Every word that was uttered on that occasion is indelibly imprinted on my memory. Perhaps the singularity of my circumstances, and my previous ignorance of what was passing in the world, contributed to render me a greedy listener. Most that was said I shall overlook; but one part of the conversation it will be ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... head at the cigars and went on to tell him of all that had happened since the murder of Crone. He was a good listener—he took in every detail, every point, quietly smoking while I talked, and never interrupting me. And when I had made an end, he threw up his head with a significant gesture that ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... of the house—had smiled and passed on. They had no such forebodings. On the contrary nothing so diverting—nothing so enchanting—had happened around Kennedy Square in years. In fact, when one of these humorists began speaking about it, every listener heard the story in a broad grin. Some of the more hilarious even nudged each other in the waist-coats and ordered another round of toddies—for two or three, or even five, if there were that number ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... reproduction which the intellect gains at the expense of the rest of the personality is in many respects so real and so splendid, and produces results so stirring often to the heart and imagination of the listener, that in the end we put down the record not so much with a throb of pity as with an impulse of gratitude. The individual error and suffering is almost forgotten; all that we can realize is the enrichment of human feeling, the quickened sense of spiritual reality bequeathed ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and traditions of bygone times, until they grow from bits of gossip and news into local history of considerable size. As in the busier world men talk of last year's elections, here these old bits, and scraps, and odds and ends of history are retailed to the listener who cares to listen—traditions of the War of 1812, when Beresford's fleet lay off the harbor threatening to bombard the town; tales of the Revolution and of Earl Howe's warships, tarrying for a while in the quiet harbor before they sailed up the river to shake old Philadelphia ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... homes; she now only implored to be allowed to go on; she said that the badness of the people only made it more needful to do their utmost for them; there were no end to the arguments that she poured forth upon her ever kind listener, Margaret. ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... hood: prep. [hot-rodder talk] 1. Used to introduce the underlying implementation of a product (hardware, software, or idea). Implies that the implementation is not intuitively obvious from the appearance, but the speaker is about to enable the listener to {grok} it. "Let's now look under the hood to see how ...." 2. Can also imply that the implementation is much simpler than the appearance would indicate: "Under the hood, we are just fork/execing the shell." 3. Inside ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... however, soon put that out of her head by talking to her about the Wardours, and setting open the flood gates of her eloquence about Sylvia. So delightful was it to have a listener, that Kate did not grow impatient, long as they waited at the lawyer's door in the dull square, and indeed was sorry when the Colonel made his appearance. He just said to her that he hoped she was not tired of waiting; and as she replied with a frightened little "No, thank you," ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a somewhat impatient listener to the village tales—the old unhappy things, for they were mostly old and always unhappy; yet in the end I had to listen. It was her eyes that did it. At times they had an intensity in their gaze which made them almost uncanny, something like the luminous eyes ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... animated conversation, to which Zoe was a silent and absorbed listener, especially when her husband spoke; eagerly drinking in every word that fell from his lips; her face glowing, her ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley
... city, Tom and I will go to one section, while you two go to another. Visit the toughest-looking places you can find. Talk, talk to anyone that wants to talk. Buy people drinks. Let it slip that you're not exactly on the right side of the space code. Then, if you feel you have a sympathetic listener, mention Wallace and Simms. Say you have heard of the trouble they're in. Say you know them, that you're old friends, and hint that you have something that they need very badly. Just keep talking and pulling for information. ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell
... spoken with a proud assurance that gave the listener a tingling sense of something high and indomitable. Saavedra's dark eyes were ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... a good listener; it was his great quality. He kept his eyes fixed on his father's face, putting a question now ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the tone that went to the listener's heart. The door was slightly ajar and Archie took the liberty of looking into the room. Roseleaf lay stretched out in a great chair, and Gouger leaned over him, appearing for all the world like some sinister bird of prey. Mr. Weil felt for the first time in his life that there was something ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... have been better pleased had I been permitted to sit a simple listener to the eloquent tribute paid to the immortal chieftain who now reposes in death, by the speaker who has just taken his seat. The nature of my calling so far separates me from public life that I am ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... struck the right key-note, and everyone in Court hung upon his words. The silence was profound, and each listener's eager attention grew in intensity as he proceeded to detail the peculiar power of fascination—snake-like, he called it—possessed by the plaintiff. Without any assistance from turgid rhetoric, or indignant denunciation, he depicted it in a manner so simple, yet so direct, that his audience ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... with his ecstatic notes; the clarin equals the latter in quality, with a much larger variety. He is an artist of the highest order; he is "God's poet," if any bird deserves the name; he strikes the listener dumb, ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... in a way that could not but rouse the worst thoughts in the listener; and Cerizet gave the papermaker and printer a very ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... listener, do books ever really affect people like this? Most assuredly! We have only to turn to biography for the record, if we do not find living witnesses among our friends. It was said of Neander that ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... a matter that makes him dogmatic. He knows nothing of the distinction between truth and the appearances of truth. So fond is he of talking and showing off his superior intelligence and acumen, that he is never a listener in any company, unless by a kind of compulsion, and then he rarely hears any thing in the eagerness he feels to get in his word. Usually he keeps sensible men silent in hopeless astonishment at the very boldness of ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... old, conquered and betrayed! I hate thee for thy haughty shadow, cast Forever on the wall of history; I hate thee for thy Jacobin cockade, Staring upon me like a bloodshot eye; For all the murmurs sounding in thy shell, That huge black shell the waves have left behind Wherein the shuddering listener may hear The rumor of a nation on the march. I hate thee for the pride of France, whose bounds Thou hast enlarged until she scorns the world; For Beranger I hate thee, and Raffet, For all the songs and all the pasquinades, And for the halo of Saint Helena. I hate thee, hate thee. I shall not be ...
— L'Aiglon • Edmond Rostand
... her listener touched his breast, the first sign he had made that her story moved him. Jacqueline, watching him keenly, smiled, and demurely looked away. Her next words seemed to dance from her lips, as with head bent, like a butterfly poised, she addressed ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... are so placed that the pulsations of air from the one pass into the other, if blown separately the tone of each is clear; blown together there is practically no sound heard, the waves of the one streaming into the other, and a listener hears only the rushing of the air. That the conditions which produce sound are all present may be demonstrated by conveying a tube from the mouth of either of the pipes to a listener's ear, when its tone will ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... thither. Noko had the reputation of being a sort of seer, though she seldom used her gift. She sat on the stone beside her door, and a woman knelt before her, to whom she was talking in a low monotonous tone. His step startled the listener, and she sprang up. ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... and the myriads of the whole declivity reached the woman's ear but as a shrivelled and intermittent recitative. Yet scarcely a single accent among the many afloat to-night could have such power to impress a listener with thoughts of its origin. One inwardly saw the infinity of those combined multitudes; and perceived that each of the tiny trumpets was seized on, entered, scoured and emerged from by the wind as thoroughly as if it were as vast ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... enough for his astounding advice to connect with his listener's now keenly sensitive nerve centres; then deep and clear rang out, "Barry Conant." The wiry form of Bob's old antagonist leaped to ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... one another, and plotted darkly in the deepest obscurity of the hold. Each set of conspirators had its proper listener at the hatch. These, leaning too far over would bump their heads together and fight. Occasionally there was confusion amongst them: two or more would assert a right to overhear the same plot. I remember at one time the cook, the carpenter, the second ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... exercise of rocking on the front porch, where the other girls were scattered. They certainly were "scattered," for there was so much to tell and hear of the afternoon's adventure that each girl chose her own listener and her ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... rehearse, Be something better than thy verse, Make thyself rich, and then the Muse Shall court thy precious interviews, Shall take thy head upon her knee, And such enchantment lilt to thee, That thou shalt hear the lifeblood flow From farthest stars to grass-blades low, And find the Listener's science still Transcends the Singer's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... would sit against the bulk-head and bemoan his fate as long as he could get a listener, and half his discourse would be about his fish, the ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... occupied all the time she could spare from her intellectual pursuits. The worst of it was, she had little faith in the efficacy of these fictions; in uttering them she felt an unpleasant warmth upon her cheeks, and it was not difficult to detect a look of doubt in the eyes of the listener. She grew angry with herself for being dishonest, and with her husband ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... above all things a rhetorician; he was an instinctive master of those qualities in words which go to produce effects of passionate vehemence, vigorous precision, and culminating force. His great tirades carry forward the reader, or the listener (for indeed the verse of Corneille loses half its value when it is unheard), on a full-flowing tide of language where the waves of the verse, following one another in a swift succession of ever-rising power, crash ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... compliment Paul, the boy had paid him the most delicate compliment he could have done. Besides, Paul was now very much alone, and in his loneliness it was nice to have some one to speak to; so he told his eager listener the tragic circumstances that had cost his father his life. Hibbert scarcely spoke or moved all the time Paul was telling the story. He hung ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... I was a listener to the conversation, and at this juncture proffered a pair of scissors to assist in dividing the notes. It took but a short time to cut off enough "money" to pay for twenty canteens of the ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... of talking to her about the things that were troubling him—the tactics of the enemy, the desertion of friends, the dubious issue of the campaign. Curled up in a big chair, her whole attention absorbed in what he was saying Nellie made a good listener. If she did not show a full understanding of the situation, he could always sense her ready sympathy. Her ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... the supper of our life with Him, and He (the blessed, gracious One!) with us. Then naught can prevent His Voice being heard, whilst the more sweet and clear (though still ever faint, perhaps) may the echo to that Voice arise in melody within the heart, where God Himself is the gracious Listener! ...
— Old Groans and New Songs - Being Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes • F. C. Jennings
... you talk, for you seem so decided and you know so much more than I do. Cousin Mad never read much. It was always horse, and dog, and gun with him. How I'm running on and how far I am from your question! But it is such a new thing to have a listener who cares and understands. Aun' Jinkey cares, poor soul! but she can understand so little. Lieutenant, I can answer your implied question in only one way; I wish to know what is true. Do you believe there's a God who cares for us as ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... furnish a list of 100 different words the English Bible requires 531 common words, Shakspeare 164, Milton 135 only. This computation is founded on the poems; it would be curious to have the same test tried upon the prose writings, though no such test can be as trustworthy as the educated ear of a listener ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... unknown on Floral Heights, and the realms of offices and of kitchens had no alliances. But under the inspiration of the cocktails, conversation was violent. Each of the men still had a number of important things to say about prohibition, and now that each had a loyal listener in ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... the Family, was fifty-two. He did not know Jay, having only lately been culled by Mrs. Gustus—that assiduous collector—and placed in the bosom of the Family. She had found him blossoming unloved in the wilderness of a War Work Committee. He was well informed, yet a good listener; perhaps he possessed both these virtues to excess. At any rate Mrs. Gustus had decided that he was worthy of Family friendship, and, being naturally extravagant, she conferred it upon him with both hands. Mr. Russell was married to a woman who had not properly ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... seasons, and sat down in the shade of a camphor-tree, old and gnarled as he; but a sumptuous refuge, as, in truth was Gobind in the spirit. The natives said that the austerities of Gobind were the envy of the gods; that he could hold still the blood in his veins from dusk to dawn; and make the listener understand many wonderful things about himself and the ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... I was an intent listener to everything, and especially to the latter part of the spy's story. I pieced it out with what Maximilian had told me, and felt certain that Maximilian Petion and Arthur Phillips were one and the same person. ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... of one of the Minutemen being afraid of rats!" she would say with a scornful rolling of her words which seemed to wither her listener with ridicule. "Or of an ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... me, the king began to talk, and Frances seldom interrupted him save to draw him out, knowing that a talking man sooner or later tells a great deal that he should have left unsaid. This is especially true if a shrewd listener reads between ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... we follow the plainly marked road and Scripture use of a symbol when we take the oil in this parable to be that which every listener to Jesus, who was instructed in the old things which he was bringing forth with new emphasis from the ancient treasure-house of the word of God, would take it to be—namely, the sum of the influences from Heaven which were bestowed through the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... original, giving the atmosphere of the story: "This was the story the mystic told." Concluding sentence in the original, connecting it with our sense of unfathomable mysteries: "And this the listener gravely asked, 'One was chosen, the others left. Were the others less ...
— The Writing of the Short Story • Lewis Worthington Smith
... that sent a flash through the listener. "For whaat?" "I was going out, sir." "I want you this evening." There was a moment's hesitation. The officer had ...
— The Prussian Officer • D. H. Lawrence
... jumble of egoism and gallantry, his listener had been freezing visibly. On the last word she compressed her mouth to a mere line, and stabbed the unrepentant sinner with her eyes; since it was unhappily impossible to stab him with a hat-pin, which ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... were the matter. Oh, I see," as her bright, penetrating glance read her niece's face. "You have something wonderful to tell me. Draw up your chair and I will be as quiet as a mouse. I am a splendid listener, as my dear ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... the commentator, means both this and the other world. It is bound in speech in this sense, viz., that whatever is spoken is never destroyed and affects permanently both the speaker and the listener, so that not only in one life, but in the infinite course of lives, the speaker will be affected for good or for evil by the words that escape his lips. This fully accords with the discovery of modern science, so eloquently and poetically enunciated by ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... the "story-telling place" attractive he felt glad that there were others besides himself who liked to tell stories. There was such a thing as overworking a mine. He was that rare thing, a story-teller who is also a good listener. Moreover, John felt very diffident about telling one of his stories before the Master of the House, who was a man prone to speak his mind. Not that John disliked the Master of the House. Far from it. He, with the family, was pleased when the ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... the Portia Person I shall do something, I shall buy the church next door and I shall make a school. It shall be a school where you learn to do one useful thing that will earn your bread and butter. And the rest of the time—you shall dream." Babiche was a patient listener. But even Babiche yawned at all the Utopian theories with which her mistress ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... delights in the Hymn on the Nativity, and I will show you one who may never indeed be a singer in this world, but who is already a listener to the best. But how different it is from anything of George Herbert's! It sets forth no feeling peculiar to Milton; it is an outburst of the gladness of the company of believers. Every one has at least read the glorious poem; ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... like electric sparks. I had never heard anything like it in my life, nor could I have conceived it possible. With a turn for literary expression myself, and a penchant for forcible figures and phrases, I appreciated, as no other listener, I dare say, the peculiar vividness and strength and absolute blasphemy of his metaphors. The cause of it all, as near as I could make out, was that the man, who was mate, had gone on a debauch before leaving ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... listener; "of course not I know the place well. And if you, Senor Colonel, were as well acquainted with that chapparal, and what lies alongside it, as one of those you were after, you'd have dropped the search sooner. You needn't tell me more; ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... man, who took a great delight in telling interminable stories, quite independently of any satisfaction which he might derive from the consciousness of their being understood and appreciated. Even when walking alone he was always muttering something to an imaginary listener. A stranger meeting him on such occasions might have supposed that he was holding converse with unseen spirits, though his broad muscular form and rubicund face militated strongly against such a supposition; but ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... this solid certainty, the step changed to the quicker one, and ran past the door as feverishly as a rat. The listener remarked that though this step was much swifter it was also much more noiseless, almost as if the man were walking on tiptoe. Yet it was not associated in his mind with secrecy, but with something else—something that he could not remember. He was maddened by one of those half-memories that ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... twofold; it warns you against foes whom you have perhaps considered friends, and it tones down any overweening conceit you may have had concerning your own importance or ability. Listen to everything if you are wise—I always do. I am an old and practised listener. And I have never listened in vain. All the information I have gained through listening, though apparently at first disconnected and unclassified, has fitted into my work like the stray pieces of a puzzle, and has ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... a silent listener to this dialogue. He saw Harry's sober expression, and he noticed the tone in which he repeated "eighteen dollars," and he guessed the truth. He lingered after ...
— Bound to Rise • Horatio Alger
... scowled savagely, as though to impress upon his listener the importance of his next utterance, "there were more than you and the king involved in his sudden departure from Blentz and in his hasty change of policy toward Austria. To be quite candid, it seems ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... listener, seated on the boulevards, I have noticed how curious people, men and women, question the wounded who are resting there, suggesting to them answers to inquiries on the subject of the battles, the losses, and the atrocities of war; how they interpret silence as an affirmative answer and ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... to obtain. She was for some little time in the shop, because Miss Milligan always had a great deal to say about her little nephew Benjie, who was at the School as a day-boy and was likely to get a scholarship, and was just now suffering from boils. Joan was a good listener and a patient, so that it was quite late—after ten o'clock—as ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... the earlier world revived, grew plainer in the sun, till the listener found herself walking with Manisty through paths that cut the Alban Hills in the days of Rome's first imperial glory, listening to his tale of the ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and fete days he regularly accompanied his mother to the Cathedral of saint-Gatien, where he must have been an observant spectator if not consistently a devout listener. He prayed by fits and starts; and in the intervals studied closely and with an eye for effect the appearance of priestly persons and functions, with altar and stained-glass window in the background, and gathered materials for his Abbes Birotteau, Bonnet, and others. The period was ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... know, than fear I know not what," Caterina pursued. "Our most Reverend and beloved Patriarch of Venice hath given me this talisman to help me in my new land," there was a little pathetic lingering on the words, which touched her listener, "'Seek to know the truth concerning all thy people. And tell thy perplexity, if there be any, to Christ and the Madonna.' I would know that I may help the King," the young ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... as they were, they did nothing to make friends of their enemies. They came ashore in troops instead of singly. Cutlasses hung at their sides. Their tight leather belts held many a knife or clumsy pistol. Their walk on the street was a reckless swagger; and a listener who could understand French could catch in their loud conversation many a scornful sneer or braggart defiance ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... be my plan," Raskolnikoff said, as he again bent near to the face of his listener, and speaking in such a tragic whisper as almost to make the latter shudder. "I should take the money and all I could find, and make off, going, however, in no particular direction, but on and on until I came to some obscure and ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... then Plausaby, Esq., looked meditatively at the ground set apart for "College," and seemed to be making a mental calculation. Then Plausaby proceeded to unfold the many advantages of the place, and Albert was a pleased listener; he had never before suspected that Metropolisville had prospects so entirely dazzling. He could not doubt the statements of the bland Plausaby, who said these things in a confidential and reserved way to the fat gentleman. Charlton ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... me who she was,—the beautiful Sie-Thao? For a thousand years and more the trees have been whispering above her bed of stone. And the syllables of her name come to the listener with the lisping of the leaves; with the quivering of many-fingered boughs; with the fluttering of lights and shadows; with the breath, sweet as a woman's presence, of numberless savage flowers,—Sie-Thao. But, saving the whispering of her name, what the trees say cannot be understood; ...
— Some Chinese Ghosts • Lafcadio Hearn
... her voice as she said these last words—an indescribable note that seemed to express detachment from all feeling in the matter—that made her listener turn and look narrowly into her face. Still, she was not in the least prepared for the hearty laughter that greeted ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... sufficient manly pride, self-respect and sensibility for the honour of his exalted office to lift himself and his work above the sneer of the most censorious, and challenge the respect, if not the admiration, of every listener? ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... shadow of a young woman, far gone in a decline, if I could judge, and her eyes full of a trouble that came from no bodily ailment, my wits told me. She sent her people away, saying she must have the music alone. I have seldom found a better listener, Melody, or one who spoke to me more plain in silence, her spirit answering to the music till I almost could hear the sound of it. Feeling this, I let myself slip into the bow, as it were, more than I was aware of; and presently forgot her, or next thing to it, ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... write, and cipher. They lived near London, in a lane opening on a great common, with a green rail before the house, and had a good many pupils, and kept a tortoise shell cat and a canary. Not much to enlighten her listener did Sophy ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... small house and the small life she had led in it, even about the furniture and the bric-a-brac, confessing to her occasional clearances and the deception she had to practise on her father about them. He was very silent, but he was a good listener. Soon he began to smoke, but did not ask leave. This might be rudeness, but seemed a rather cousinly sort of rudeness, and was ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... listener persisted in believing his informant mistaken—peradventure he at once accepted the damaging statements; but in every case the poison had been administered, and ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... ship short-handed and in their enfeebled condition, at last made the island of Madeira, and cast anchor in the beautiful bay of Funchal, only to die there. All these things we may imagine the dying man relating in snatches to his absorbed listener; who felt himself to be receiving a pearl of knowledge to be guarded and used, now that its finder must depart upon the last and longest voyage of human discovery. Such observations as he had made—probably a few figures giving the bearings ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... from one subject to another. His gospel of affability had finally crystallized, until it seemed to be contained in the formula of the small anecdote whose point, as often as not, turned upon the foibles of men of his own profession. The effect upon his listener was to put him at his ease, and to remove entirely the impression which the bishop's explanation of his position had ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... was addressed to the cat, which Juechziger now spied sitting by the curtain, behind which Conrad was playing the part of an unwilling listener. His stepfather picked up the heavy boot-jack, and hurled it at the cat; it missed her, but struck Conrad so sharply on the shin, that though the thick curtain broke the full force of the blow, the lad could hardly suppress a cry of pain. When, a little later, he saw his ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous
... both looked up and saw me standing, unwilling listener to all that had been said. Helena moved away and pretended to be busy with the material for ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... neither wagons nor roads in those African wilds. It might have been the prolonged choking of an alligator—it might, in fact, have been anything in a region like that, where everything, almost, was curious, and new, and strange, and wild, and unaccountable; and the listener was beginning to entertain the most uncomfortable ideas of what it probably was, when a gasp and a peculiar snort apprised him that it was a human snore!—at least, if not a human snore, it was that of some living creature which ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... There were the remains of a swagger in his body and limbs as he came forward, regarding Somerset with a confident smile, as if the wonder were, not why Mr. Dare should be present, but why Somerset should be present likewise; and the first tone that came from Dare's lips wound up his listener's opinion that he did ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... he, passionately, "I will not take them." The princess looked anxiously around; she feared some one might have heard this stormy "No." She soon convinced herself that there was no listener nearer than her maid of honor; Fraulein Marshal was still near the Princess Amelia, and she was somewhat isolated by etiquette; she saw, therefore, that she dared ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... an example, the Proposition "John is not well". This of course implies that there is an Individual, to whom the speaker refers when he mentions "John", and whom the listener knows to be referred to. Hence the Class "men referred to by the speaker when he mentions 'John'" is a one-Member Class, and the Proposition is equivalent to "All the men, who are referred to by the speaker when he mentions 'John', ...
— Symbolic Logic • Lewis Carroll
... Paris-London telephone emits a short, sharp report, like the crack of a pistol, which is sometimes startling, and has created fear, but there is no danger or liability to shock. Indeed, the start has more than once thrown the listener off his stool, and has led to the belief that he was knocked ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 822 - Volume XXXII, Number 822. Issue Date October 3, 1891 • Various
... expended. The successful soldier when he returns from the field is met by a welcome proportionate to the leaves which he has added to the wreath of his country's glory. Each has his reward; to one, the admiring listener at the hearthstone; to another, the triumphal reception; to all, the respect which patriotism renders to patriotic service. To the soldier who, in the early part of the Mexican war, set the seal of invincibility upon American arms, and subsequently by a signal victory dispersed and disorganized ...
— Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis 1858 • Hon. Jefferson Davis
... for his impatient spirit? Was it that to the man, who mortified his flesh in order to free his soul from its bonds it seemed a lighter matter to be contemned as a sinner, hated of God, than to let his person and his manly dignity be treated with contempt? Was he thinking of the fair listener in the cave, who was a witness to his humiliation? Had his wrath blazed up because he saw in Polykarp, not so much an exasperated fellow-believer, as merely a man who with bold scorn had put himself in the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... first passionate outburst of scorn Lord Littimer looked at his visitor quietly. There was something almost amusing in the idea that Bell should attempt such a trick upon him. And the listener was thoroughly enjoying the scene now. There was quite an element of the farcical about it. In the brilliant light she could see Littimer's dark, bitter face and the helpless amazement on the strong features of Hatherly Bell. And, meanwhile, the man who had brought the impossible ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... conviction that the Bible is the {182} infallible word of God, will find discrepancies constantly turning into unisons under his study. And this remark leads to the second observation: that the contradictions of man may really be the harmonies of God. An uncultivated listener, hearing an oratorio of one of the great masters, would detect discords again and again in the strains; and as a matter of fact, what are called "accidentals" in music are discords, but discords inserted to heighten the harmony. Thus, as one after another ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon
... gave That honored guest should greet— Water they brought his feet to lave, And showed him honor meet. Rama and Lakshman next obtained In due degree their share— Then with sweet talk the guests remained, And charmed each listener there. The evening prayers were duly said With voices calm and low:— Then on the ground each laid his head And ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... three of her favourite poems, but with little heart in her reading, for she felt that her listener was not listening. Now and then would come an impatient sigh, or a fretful movement of the jewelled hands; once a sapphire was tossed up in the air, and fell on the floor by Margaret's feet. Only when she began the lovely "Good Night, Babette!" did Mrs. Peyton's attention seem ...
— Margaret Montfort • Laura E. Richards
... speak, about to assure Bennie that she didn't want any of the coffee, when steps sounded on the stairs. They were hurried steps; steps suggesting to the listener that five flights were nothing, after all! Rose-Marie found herself turning as a hand fell heavily upon a door-knob, and the ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... choke them with it," said Growling, "for their want of taste; but never mind that: one judicious listener is worth a crowd of such fools, you'll admit; so sit down ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... her to ask any questions about the event of yesterday. All that was known by every one had been told to Mr. Leigh already by an early visitor, and he, full of horror and sympathy, was able to tell the terrible story over again to a listener, whose deep and agonizing interest in it he ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... that his host seldom had a listener, and as he was really anxious to learn all that he could about the fur seals, these creatures that kept up the deafening roar that sounded like Niagara, he ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... very fair, her lips fine and red: her cheek not ruddy, yet nowise sallow, but clear and bright: tall she was and of excellent fashion, but well-knit and well-measured rather than slender and wavering as the willow-bough. Her voice was sweet and soft, her words few, but exceeding dear to the listener. In short, she was a woman born to be the ransom of ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... exquisite adjustment of line and mass. The luminous night which enwraps the Palisades is a solemn mighty chord. The white rhythm of this statue caresses the eye that follows it. This symphony is an intricate and wonderful wave-pattern upon a sea of billowing sound in which the listener immerses himself voluptuously. The essential significance of a work of art is not to be received apart from its form, but the form is more than merely sensuous in its appeal. Finally, therefore, the color and the composition ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes
... then, actually and literally in the first lines! The knowledge made one's heart tick a little; but, except for another shot or two from our arboreal listener, and the motionless intentness of the soldier's back at the peep-hole, there was nothing to show that we were not ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... splendid listener." He laughed. "You'll find that out for yourself, I fancy. And I know she likes people to talk to her—when they have anything to say. Tell her things; ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... sort of smile. He had found a listener at last. A moment later Lorrimer's pencil was in rapid motion. And the reporter's eyes shot little stabbing looks at Dickie's unselfconscious face. When it was over he snapped an elastic round his notebook, returned it to his pocket, and laid his hand ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... on another occasion I told a pathetic story of a little child, lost in a great wilderness, to a girl about Anita's age, and just as unaccustomed to this kind of mental fare. Next morning her mother informed me that my little listener had spent half the night sobbing and begging to be allowed to go and look for that lost child I ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... most disgraceful character; and, from motives which are not clear, she made him murder his own children to please her. At the critical moment, however, when the climax is reached, the old, old joke is played upon the listener, who is told that Setna then woke up, and discovered that the whole affair had been an afternoon dream in the ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... intelligence of these stunted, wind-blown creatures, on their island hill, took fire; and every man vowed he wished he had gone to sea, before it was too late, or even to California, when the gold craze was on. Johnnie had the tongue of the improvisator, and he loved a listener. He liked to sit out on a log, in the sparse shadow of the one little grove the hill possessed, and, with the whispering leaves above him tattling uncomprehended sayings brought them by the wind, gather the old men about him, and talk them blind. As he sat there, Mary came walking ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... of it sudden and visible, the effects are extraordinary. Let these shocks of influence be repeated again and again, and all other opinions and ideas are for the moment absorbed or excluded; the whole mind is brought into unison with that of the speaker; and the spell-bound listener, till the cause ceases, is under an entire fascination. Then perhaps the charm ceases, upon reflection, and the infatuated hearer resumes his ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... a pair which I had especially made when I went to Africa some years ago," explained Lambert elaborately, and determined to make his listener understand the situation thoroughly. "On my return I made them a present to my cousin. I understand, Mr. Silver, that Lord Garvington lent ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... buffaloes did not fall. The slayer of the young elephant, having buried his four bullets in as many buffaloes, fired three charges of No. 1 shot he had for killing guinea-fowl. The quaint remarks and merriment after these little adventures seemed to the listener like the pleasant prattle of children. Mbia and Mantlanyane, however, killed one buffalo each; both the beasts were in prime condition; the meat was like really excellent beef, with a smack of venison. A troop of hungry, howling hyenas also thought the savour tempting, as they hung ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... and ambitions, and before the boy knew it he was telling the President and his wife all about his precious Encyclopaedia, his evening with General Grant, and his efforts to become something more than an office boy. No boy had ever so gracious a listener before; no mother could have been more tenderly motherly than the woman who sat opposite him and seemed so honestly interested in all that he told. Not for a moment during all those two hours was he allowed ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok |
