"Avidity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... continued, starting upon his task with avidity, "we will talk about him presently. This is indeed miraculous. I am most grateful—deeply grateful to you—for having ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... praise was pleasant on her lips, but I felt a little embarrassed. The clerk's eyes were fastened on the Princess Alix with a certain definite avidity of gaze. It was as if some strange animal had suddenly stiffened at the sight of prey and was watching greedily. The look repelled me; it struck horror to my marrow. I could have seized him, shaken his miserable little bones and thrown him into a weeping, cowardly heap on the floor. But as I ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... thoughts. Books of impassioned poetry, and descriptions of heroic character and achievements, were her especial delight. Plutarch's Lives, that book which, more than any other, appears to be the incentive of early genius, was hid beneath her pillow, and read and re-read with tireless avidity. Those illustrious heroes of antiquity became the companions of her solitude and of her hourly thoughts. She adored them and loved them as her own most intimate personal friends. Her character became insensibly molded to their forms, and she was inspired with ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... His avidity to heap up riches was not alone confined to the thousand different means, with which he was furnished by his authority, and the situation in which he was placed: his whole pursuit was gain: he was naturally fond of gaming; but he only played to enrich himself, and therefore, whenever he ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... and she had no clews. Life spoke to her almost exclusively through her senses, not through her mind, which was totally untrained. She was profoundly ignorant of all history, art, and politics; so the "monuments" meant nothing but their picturesqueness. She picked up the language with extraordinary avidity, and soon became her husband's interpreter, when the necessity reached beyond a ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... blood, and I determined to fit myself for the proud niche I would one day fill as Cuthbert's wife. My grandmother spoke French fluently, it was her vernacular; and my father had left some valuable and choice books. To these I turned with avidity, prosecuting my studies with renewed zest. About three months after my husband left me, Uncle Orme sent money to defray our expenses to California. Grandmother who foreboded the future, told me I had been sacrificed, abandoned, repudiated, and urged me to accompany her. In return, I indignantly ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... elementary, liberating its oxygen, and thus isolating its metallic base, which he named potassium. The same thing was done with soda, and the closely similar metal sodium was discovered—metals of a unique type, possessed of a strange avidity for oxygen, and capable of seizing on it even when it is bound up in the molecules of water. Considered as mere curiosities, these discoveries were interesting, but aside from that they were of great theoretical importance, because they showed the compound ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... to the multitudes who will, I trust, devour this book with avidity, I have so far explained our ancient manners in modern language, and so far detailed the characters and sentiments of my persons, that the modern reader will not find himself, I should hope, much trammelled by the repulsive dryness of ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... where, in place of antiphonaries, heavy ledgers reposed on reading-desks. Like leprosy, the avidity of the age was ravaging the Church, weighing down the ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... at the suggestion with avidity, and in a very few minutes each of the boys was mounting the fire-escape once again, this time with a large sheet of ice, not unlike a heavy pane of glass, ...
— The Rover Boys on Snowshoe Island - or, The Old Lumberman's Treasure Box • Edward Stratemeyer
... remarkable boys in their early life. The incidents of childhood are usually forgotten before the man's renown has given them any importance; the few anecdotes which tradition has preserved are seized upon with the utmost avidity and placed in the most conspicuous position; but in these later books we have illustrious children portrayed with a Pre-Raphaelitic ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... declined to turn the barrel-organ; but we never once knew or heard of a biped lion, literary or otherwise,—and we state it as a fact which is highly creditable to the whole species,—who, occasion offering, did not seize with avidity on any opportunity which was afforded him, of performing to his heart's content ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... haunch or other portion. When sufficiently done, it is taken out, the ashes are knocked away, and then—no civilized man, whose appetite has never been sharpened by open-air exposure in the woods, can understand the keen avidity with which the delicious ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... indelicate kind. Fish, when he can obtain them, are preferred to all other fare. Young lambs and pigs are dainty morsels, and made free with on all favourable occasions. Ducks, geese, gulls, and other sea fowl, are also seized with avidity. The most putrid carrion, when nothing better can be had, is acceptable; and the collected groups of gormandizing vultures, on the approach of this dignified personage, instantly disperse, and make way for their master, waiting his departure in sullen silence, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various
... Not long since, one of those showers which are now known to consist of the excrements of insects, fell in the north of Italy; the inhabitants regarded it as manna, or some supernatural panacea, and they swallowed it with such avidity, that it was only by extreme address that a small quantity was obtained for a chemical examination." The superstition, in this instance, though doubtless partly of a religious character, probably in part also arose from the ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... contented. Meanwhile Peter with difficulty restrained Leslie from "picking up" stray pieces of mosaic from tessellated pavements, and other curios. Oddly together with Leslie's feeling for the costly went the insane and indiscriminate avidity of the collecting tourist. ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... cries the thin voice of Garrigou's bell, and this time the unlucky priest, abandoning himself to the demon of gluttony, rushes through the missal, devouring its pages with all the avidity of an overcharged appetite. Frantically he bows; arises; makes the signs of the cross, goes through the genuflexions, abbreviates all his gestures, the sooner to be finished. Scarcely does he extend his arms to the Gospel, or strike his breast ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... moral portion of the English public a violent satire would have had better chance of success. With the higher classes the work was read with avidity and pleasure. It was not owned, because there were too many reasons for condemning it; but it found its way under many a pillow, to prove to the country how virtue and patriotism ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... point of departure in every direction in order to reach a complete understanding of his subject. From each and every detail one is driven to consider the whole; the only thing that matters is that one go to work in the right way, with strength, intelligence, and avidity. Let one choose several different points of departure, working through from each of them to the whole, and one will grasp the whole all the more surely, and comprehend the wealth of detail all the more fully. Accordingly, by sinking ...
— Louis Agassiz as a Teacher • Lane Cooper
... not till after he had recounted a number of petites histoires, more or less amusing, that Bienville came to what he called "l'affaire la plus serieuse de ma vie," while Derek drank in the tale with all the avidity the jealous heart brings to the augmentation of its pain. To the idealizing purity of his conception of Diane any earthly failing on her part became the extremity of sin. He had placed her so high that when she fell it was to no middle flight of guilt; as to the fallen angel, there was no choice ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... Armstrong was almost invisible from a cloud of smoke from a freshly lighted Havana. He held the morning paper in his hand and was perusing its columns with apparent avidity. ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey
... described him in the warmest terms of admiration—he was valiant, he said, accomplished and handsome, with no other defect than that of white hair. And so boundless was his praise, that Rudabeh, who was present, drank every word with avidity, and felt her own heart warmed into admiration and love. Full of emotion, she afterwards said privately to ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... enormously long here, and economies practised among the better classes of which few English people have any conception. Yet life is made the best of, and everything in the shape of a distraction is seized upon with avidity. Although eminently a Protestant town, shops are open all day long on Sundays, when more business seems to be done than at any other time. The shutters are no sooner put up, however, than everyone goes out for a walk or a visit, and gets as ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... was informed in politics, in eloquence, and in natural history, having had as teacher from his thirteenth to his seventeenth year Aristotle, the greatest scholar of Greece. He read the Iliad with avidity, called this the guide to the military art, and desired to imitate its heroes. He was truly born to conquer, for he loved to fight and was ambitious to distinguish himself. His father said to him, "Macedon is ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... offered friendship is very disreputable to us, and, of course, hurtful to our affairs elsewhere. I think they are short-sighted, and do not look very far into futurity, or they would seize with avidity so excellent an opportunity of securing a neighbor's friendship, which may hereafter be of great consequence ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... of them were profitable, for Fred took care that they should be charged either with matter of interest or matter provocative of mirth. And, assuredly, no newspaper of similar calibre was ever looked forward to with such expectation, or read and re-read with such avidity. It was one of the expedients that lasted longest in keeping up the spirits ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... found plenty of companions with whom he spent his idle hours, young fellows who had a taste for politics and who rapidly kindled in the newcomer a consuming admiration for Andrew Jackson. He now began to read with avidity such political works as came to hand. Discussion with his new friends and with his employer, who was an ardent supporter of Adams and Clay, whetted his appetite for more reading and study. In after years he was wont to say that these ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... daily to be putting down a vague feeling which really comes to that. You who have had experience of many men, know that you can hardly over-estimate the extent and depth of human vanity. Never be afraid but that nine men out of ten will swallow with avidity flattery, however gross; especially if it ascribe to them those qualities of which ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... in sight. With, malice aforethought the promoter of Donnaville was trading on the credulity of the very people he planned to benefit! He knew with what ease the poor rush into debt where the creditor requires nothing down; he knew also the avidity with which they grasp the first means of escape from the burden, once it becomes onerous; and at the thought ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... Queen Audovere; he saw Brunehaut in her beauty, her attractiveness and her trouble; he was smitten with her and married her privately, and Praetextatus, bishop of Rouen, had the imprudent courage to seal their union. Fredegonde seized with avidity upon this occasion for persecuting her rival and destroying her step-son, heir to the throne of Chilperic. The Austrasians, who had preserved the child Childebert, son of their murdered king, demanded back with threats their ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... the snow is white, because their confusedly mingled fibres and particles are incompetent to absorb the luminous rays. Whether, then, the cloth will sink or not depends entirely upon the dark rays of the sun. Now the substance which absorbs these dark rays with the greatest avidity is ice,—or snow, which is merely ice in powder. Hence, a less amounts of heat will be lodged in the cloth than in the surrounding snow. The cloth must therefore act as a shield to the snow on which it rests; and, in consequence of the more rapid fusion of ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... who is often called the father of the madrigal (despite the fact that madrigals were written before he was born), became chapel master of St. Mark's, Venice, in 1527. He seized with avidity the suggestion offered by the existence of two organs in the cathedral and wrote great works "for two choruses of four voices each, so that the choruses could answer each other across the church. He paid much less attention ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... our safety depended upon this futile resource: it was about the size of a crown-piece, and very incorrect. Those who have not been in situations in which their existence was exposed to extreme peril, can have but a faint knowledge of the price one attaches then to the simplest objects—with what avidity one seizes the slightest means capable of mitigating the rigour of that fate against which they contend. The compass was given to the commander of the raft, but an accident deprived us of it forever: it fell, ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... of this great work; nor are we sure that even this is not quite a useless labor, as it must find its way at once into the library of every literary gentleman throughout the country, and be read with the greatest avidity by men of every class. One of the most valuable portions of the history is the extended view which Mr. PRESCOTT has presented, at the opening of the work, of the character and civilization of the ancient ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... the orderly took a tin and dipped it in an iron bucket. The next minute he was down on one knee with an arm under the sufferer's shoulders, raising him as gently as if the task was being done by a woman. Then the tin was held to the poor fellow's lips, and the orderly smiled as he saw the avidity with which it ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... from man to man that one, by his death, might ransom all the rest. The lot was cast, and it fell on La Chore, the same wretched man whom Albert had doomed to starvation on a lonely island. They killed him, and with ravenous avidity portioned out his flesh. The hideous repast sustained them till the land rose in sight, when, it is said, in a delirium of joy, they could no longer steer their vessel, but let her drift at the will of the ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... favorite food of earth-worms, while certain other leaves are eaten by them, but not with avidity. When these two kinds of leaves are given to worms, they will carefully select the favorite food and will ignore the other, thus unmistakably evincing conscious choice. Their avoidance of light is probably the ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... years in mortification and penance, I might safely permit your stay, nor fear your inspiring me with warmer sentiments than pity. But to yourself, remaining in the Abbey can produce none but fatal consequences. You will misconstrue my every word and action; You will seize every circumstance with avidity, which encourages you to hope the return of your affection; Insensibly your passions will gain a superiority over your reason; and far from these being repressed by my presence, every moment which we pass together, will only serve to irritate and excite them. Believe me, unhappy ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... letters. She opened them with avidity, for they were certificates that there were other things in life as well as Richard with which she could occupy herself. Two were bills, the first from her dressmakers and the other from the dealer who had sold her some coloured glass a few weeks before; and there was a dividend warrant ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... already—one, slightly conscious, closely confined, peculiarly nourished, in the dark, without the possible exercise of any one of the five senses. That is prenatal. He comes into the next life. At once he breathes, often vociferously, looks about with eyes of wonder, nourishes himself with avidity, is fitted to his new surroundings, his immensely wider life, and finds his superior companions and surroundings fitted to him, even to his finest need for love. Why hesitate for a third mode of life? He loses modes of nourishment; ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... the park with freshness, the soft breeze made the trees tremble, and the earth exhaled imperceptible vapors which threw a light, transparent veil over the horizon. The three cows, standing with drooping heads, cropped the grass with avidity, and four peacocks, with a loud rustling of wings, flew up into their accustomed perch in a cedar-tree under the windows of the castle. The barking of dogs in the distance came to the ear, and in the quiet air of the close of day the calls of human voices were heard, in ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... as so many go to the morgue, merely to see dead bodies. No; the curiosity that impelled me, and the avidity with which I pursued the object of my study, was not to ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... for the notorious in the social scheme; nothing else appealed to him. He had, all his life, read with avidity of the extravagances, the ostentation, the luxurious effrontery, the thinly veiled viciousness of what he believed to be society, and he craved it from the first, working his thick hands to the bone in dogged determination ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... the very atmosphere of the heroic novels. Their extraordinary artificial elevation of tone was partly the spirit of the age; it was also partly founded on a new literary ideal, the tone of Greek romance. No book had been read in France with greater avidity than the sixteenth-century translation of the old novel Heliodorus; and in the Polexandres and Clelies we see what this Greek spirit of romance could blossom into when grafted upon ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... compunction, doubtless, on the very morrow, how thumpingly her heart had beaten at this foretaste of their being left together: she should judge at leisure the surrender she was making to the consciousness of complications about to be bodily lifted. She should judge at leisure even that avidity for an issue which was making so little of any complication but the unextinguished presence of the others; and indeed that she was already simplifying so much more than her husband came out for her next in the face with which he listened. He might certainly ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... prospect of national expansion. In any event the country got tired of its long fit of sulks; trade revived, railroads set about mending their tracks, mills opened—a current of splendid vitality began to throb. Men took to their business with renewed avidity, content to go their old ways, to make new snares and to enter them, all unconscious of any mighty purpose. Those at the faro tables of the market increased the stakes and opened new tables. New industrial companies sprung up overnight like mushrooms, watered and sunned by the easy optimism of ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... with the brief telegrams of the local centre. At Chicago, the New York paper is forty hours behind the news; at San Francisco, thirty days; in Oregon, forty. Before California had been reached by the telegraph, the New York newspapers, on the arrival of a steamer, were sought with an avidity of which the most ludicrous accounts have been given. If the news was important and the supply of papers inadequate, nothing was more common than for a lucky newsboy to dispose of his last sheets at five times their usual price. All this has changed. A spirited local press has anticipated ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... from Comte, with which to enrich my chapters in the subsequent rewriting: and his book was of essential service to me in some of the parts which still remained to be thought out. As his subsequent volumes successively made their appearance, I read them with avidity, but, when he reached the subject of Social Science, with varying feelings. The fourth volume disappointed me: it contained those of his opinions on social subjects with which I most disagree. But the fifth, containing ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... received with avidity; for this main reason, that the architecture, domestic life, and manners of the period were gradually getting more and more artificial; as I showed you last evening, all natural beauty had ceased to be permitted in ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... the key had been left in the lock, there could be no harm in looking in. Her husband became as curious as she. Of course, the first things they saw were the prearranged books. They were seized upon with avidity probably with the expectation of finding something smutty, but to their surprise, and especially that of the doctor, it was quite ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... the reading of the lower orders consists principally of a political nature; the newspapers now however have what is called a feuilleton, which embraces many subjects, and appears to interest all; the criticisms on the theatrical performances are perused with much avidity, an extreme partiality for dramatic representations still forms a considerable portion of the French character, as also a general love of music, without being at all particular as to its quality; no matter how trifling it be, as long as there is any thing of an air distinguishable it will ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... and true contour of this horn, are carefully given in plate 30, Fig. 2, as they are seen in morning sunshine. The impression which travellers usually carry away with them is, I presume, to be gathered from Fig. 1, a fac simile of one of the lithographs purchased with avidity by English travellers, in the shops of Chamouni and Geneva, as giving a faithful representation of this aiguille seen from the Montanvert. It is worth while to perpetuate this example of the ideal landscape of the nineteenth century, popular at the time when the works of ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... ascertained that there were two young calves, three or four sheep, and as many young pigs, still giving very noisy evidence of their existence. She searched about and found some food for them, which they ate with great avidity. The larger animals she told me were cows and horses; but they had fallen down, and ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... these unlawful projects; the lords-justices afterwards dismissed all the petitions that had been presented for charters and patents; and the prince of Wales renounced the company of which he had been elected governor. The South-Sea scheme raised such a flood of eager avidity and extravagant hope, that the majority of the directors were swept along with it, even contrary to their own sense and inclination; but Blunt and his accomplices still directed ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... enormous cloudy darknesses, above him and below. He was going along this path without looking back, without a thought for those he left behind, without a single word to cheer him on his way, walking as Dr. Martineau had sometimes watched him walking, without haste or avidity, walking as a man might along some great picture gallery with which he was perhaps even over familiar. His hands would be in his pockets, his indifferent eyes upon the clouds about him. And as he strolled along that path, the darkness ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... example to, the civilized world; but if Africa is abandoned by Great Britain, it will be subject to the rapacity of other nations, who, to my personal knowledge, are now directing their views towards its commerce in the contemplation of that abandonment, and who will, no doubt, seize it with avidity, as being highly lucrative and important; while the African's chains will still clink in the ears of the civilized world, his fetters be rivetted more closely, and his miserable fate be consigned to the uncertainty ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... like any other man's; he has been able to perceive the benefits of regular industry; his head has proved as clear in the apprehension of the distinction between right and wrong as that of the more highly cultivated moralist; and he receives the fundamental truths of the gospel with an avidity, and applies them—at least to the lives and characters of his neighbors—with a keenness, which show him to be not far behind the rest of mankind in sensibility and acuteness. Without referring to the testimony of the elder missionaries, which is abundant, I remember a most touching ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... net together and retiring to the back of the court together. Competitors would improve their volleying, and the double, instead of being the dreary, monotonous affair it is now, especially for the base-liner, would be varied and instructive. I am sure referees would welcome the change with avidity. The much-dreaded, interminable ladies' double event would be a thing of the past. If we played the double with the new formation, perhaps we should succeed in re-establishing the event at Wimbledon! But it is very difficult to get ladies to volley at a tournament. ...
— Lawn Tennis for Ladies • Mrs. Lambert Chambers
... blaze brightly, and Hatteraick hung his bronzed visage and expanded his hard and sinewy hands over it, with an avidity resembling that of a famished wretch to whom food is exposed. The light showed his savage and stern features, and the smoke, which in his agony of cold he seemed to endure almost to suffocation, after circling round his head, rose to the dim and rugged roof of the cave, through ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Sir Robert clutched them with the avidity of a maniac: he stared at them, enwreathed as they were by his thin, emaciated fingers, and then, bursting into a mad fit of exulting laughter, fell prostrate on the floor, before any one had sufficiently recovered ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... observations were on the dull-coloured and protected larvae, and the results of numerous experiments are thus summarised by Mr. Weir. "All caterpillars whose habits are nocturnal, which are dull coloured, with fleshy bodies and smooth skins, are eaten with the greatest avidity. Every species of green caterpillar is also much relished. All Geometrae, whose larvae resemble twigs as they stand out from the plant on their ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... Northcote, the painter. Painters by their profession are not bound to shine in conversation, and they shine the more. He lends his ear to an observation, as if you had brought him a piece of news, and enters into it with as much avidity and earnestness, as if it interested himself personally. If he repeats an old remark or story, it is with the same freshness and point as for the first time. It always arises out of the occasion, and has the stamp of originality. There is no parroting of himself. His ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... there can be no dispute that the alligator eagerly preys upon the dog whenever an opportunity offers—seizing the canine victim in his terrible jaws, and carrying it off to his aqueous retreat. This he does with an air of such earnest avidity, as to leave no doubt but that he esteems the dog ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... distance in the interior of the house—a vertical thread of light, widening towards the bottom, such as might escape between two wings of arras over a doorway. To see anything was a relief to Denis; it was like a piece of solid ground to a man labouring in a morass; his mind seized upon it with avidity; and he stood staring at it and trying to piece together some logical conception of his surroundings. Plainly there was a flight of steps ascending from his own level to that of this illuminated doorway; and indeed he thought ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the poet very gladly embraced its offer. He does not seem to have met with much success in England, but in France his reception was much more encouraging. An estate in the New World was a veritable chateau en Espagne to the mercurial Frenchmen, and they purchased with some avidity; but just as the agent's ground was prepared for a plenteous harvest news came that the Scioto Company had burst, as bubbles will, leaving to its dupes only a number of well-executed maps, some worthless parchments called ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... increased, of course, the drama of the situation. At the period of their advent Huasca was obtaining the worst of the struggle, and, seeing the possibility of salvation in the arrival of the newcomers, he sent to these beseeching their help. It can be imagined with what avidity Pizarro seized upon this pretext to enter into the domestic affairs of the nation. Atahualpa unconsciously helped to play the fate of the unfortunate Inca race still further into the hands of the Spaniards. Learning of the warlike might of the white man, he also sent an embassy ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... transactions of a person so pre-eminently distinguished will be looked for with avidity, and the author laments his inability to present to the public a work which may gratify the expectations that have been raised. In addition to that just diffidence of himself which he very sincerely feels, two causes beyond his control combine to ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... for the profit of those who happen to be owners of stock in the banks selected as depositories. The supposed and often exaggerated advantages of such a boon will always cause it to be sought for with avidity. I will not stop to consider on whom the patronage incident to it is to be conferred. Whether the selection and control be trusted to Congress or to the Executive, either will be subjected to appeals made in every form which the sagacity of interest can suggest. The banks under such a ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... a rock, looking at her watch every few minutes; and Jean and Patty played a silent game of noughts and crosses on slabs of smooth stone. The moment the half-hour was finished the girls sprang up, and commenced to chatter with renewed avidity, showing in their own lively fashion that they were not yet tired, however they might feel by the end of the day. The classes separated during the afternoon, some going for walks on the headland, and others strolling farther along the beach, searching ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... moreover, a very vivid picture of the corrupt and exhausted state of France during the middle of the fifteenth century. He has shown that the spoliation of the great merchant was a deliberately calculated act, and that the king sacrificed him without scruple or shame to the avidity of a sin- gularly villanous set of courtiers. The whole story is an extraordinary picture of high-handed rapacity, - the crudest possible assertion of the right of the stronger. The victim was stripped of his ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... of water that was used, and that was presently drunk with avidity, defiled as it was. Howard declared the cuts to be mere flesh ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... "Miss Anville will think I persecute her: yet so much as I have to say, and so much as I wish to hear, with so few opportunities for either, she cannot wonder-and I hope she will not be offended-that I seize with such avidity every moment in my power to converse with her. You are grave," added he, taking my hand; "I hope the pleasure it gives to me, will not be a subject of pain to you? -You are silent!-Something, I am sure, has afflicted you:-would to Heaven I ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... are vitalised with passion. He felt so keenly that oftentimes his phrase is the offspring of the emotion, so terse and vigorous and apt, so vivid and so potent and eager, it appears. As an instance of this avidity of wrath and scorn finding expression in words the fittest and most forcible, leaving the well-known scenes embalmed in Elia's praise, one might take the three or four single words in which Vindici (The Revenger's Tragedy), on as many several occasions, refers to the caresses of ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... has a right to be, and I easily forgive it if it be really youth. Still it is a question of degree, and what stuck out of Jasper Nettlepoint (if one felt that sort of thing) was that his egotism had a hardness, his love of his own way an avidity. These elements were jaunty and prosperous, they were accustomed to triumph. He was fond, very fond, of women; they were necessary to him and that was in his type; but he was not in the least in love with Grace Mavis. Among the reflections I quickly made this was the one that was ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... were really published for little ones. That they were the "light reading" of adults, the equivalent of to-day's Ally Sloper or the penny dreadful, is much more probable. No doubt children who came across them had a surreptitious treat, even as urchins of both sexes now pounce with avidity upon stray copies of the ultra-popular and so-called comic papers. But you could not call Ally Sloper, that Punchinello of the Victorian era—who has received the honour of an elaborate article in the Nineteenth ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White
... creation! I am no Moses; I am only a poor patient artist; but it would be a fine thing if I were to cause some slender stream of beauty to flow in our thirsty land! Don't think me a monster of conceit," he went on, as he saw me smile at the avidity with which he adopted my illustration; "I confess that I am in one of those moods when great things seem possible! This is one of my nervous nights—I dream waking! When the south wind blows over Florence at midnight it seems to coax the soul from all the fair things locked away in her ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... carrying or driving along our booty, of which they constituted a part; and some dragging even wheelbarrows filled with whatever they could remove. The fools were not likely to proceed in this manner till the conclusion of the first day, and yet their senseless avidity made them think nothing of battles and a march of ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... each other; but being still shut up in our mystery, we had not made as much advance toward any definite result as one single moment of disclosure to the people we were among would have inevitably compelled us to decide upon. We were very prudent in our outward bearing, and hardly aware of the avidity with which the concealed passion was devouring ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... wins fame by his portraits or his landscapes, they are apt to discourage any other kind of painting he may attempt. So Mr. Gladstone's reputation as an orator stood in his own light when he appeared as an author. He was read with avidity by thousands who would not have looked at the article or book had it borne any other name; but he was judged by the standard, not of his finest printed speeches, for his speeches were seldom models of composition, but rather by that of the impression which his speeches made on those who ...
— William Ewart Gladstone • James Bryce
... with reference to the tonic port, until one day I noticed that our cat (who had recently lost her kittens) seemed in a poor state of health. I gave it a few spoonfuls of the tonic port in a little milk. It drank it with avidity, somewhat to my surprise. I had one or two little things to do in the garden after that, and when I came back Eliza said that the cat had become so very strange in its manner that she had thought it best to lock it in ...
— Eliza • Barry Pain
... breeze, or lingering over our heads as if afraid to be soiled by the earth, which we were bent to open where the dead then lay—or some time before lay—a mass of putrefaction; yet dear to the feelings of the bereaved, and sought now with greater avidity than when the body was arrayed in the smiles of beauty, and filled with living, breathing love. The husband spoke nothing; and George was silent, save for the deep sobs that burst from him as he looked upon the woe-worn form of his father, who stalked away before us like a creature hurrying ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... is generally so fond of using. "Mister Blake" sounds cold and unkindly in his ears. It is the "Masther," or "His honour," or if possible "Misther Thady." Or if there be any handle, that is used with avidity. Pat is a happy man when he can address his ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... are many such records. Borellus cites an instance, and there are many others, of pregnant women eating excrement with apparent relish. Tulpius, Sennert, Langius, van Swieten, a Castro, and several others report depraved appetites. Several writers have seen avidity for human flesh in such females. Fournier knew a woman with an appetite for the blood of her husband. She gently cut him while he lay asleep by her side and sucked blood from the wounds—a modern "Succubus." Pare mentions the perverted appetites of pregnant women, and says that they have been known ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... Hiromi was one of the leading literati of his era. He rendered into most academical terms the Emperor's intentions towards Mototsune. From time immemorial it has always been a canon of Japanese etiquette not to receive anything with avidity. Mototsune declined the rescript; the Emperor directed Hiromi to re-write it. Thus far the procedure had been normal. But Hiromi's second draft ran thus: "You have toiled for the welfare of the country. You have aided me in accordance with the late sovereign's ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... you hadn't!" he sulkily said, and turned round to look amazedly at Pa. But Pa had subsided once more, and was drinking with mournful avidity from his tankard. Occupied with the tankard, Pa had neither eye nor thought for anything else. Alf resumed after the baffled pause. "Yes. You've got him all right enough...." Then: "You're trying to turn it off ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... story which will be read with avidity, as it ought to be, it is so brightly and frankly written, and with such evident knowledge of the temperaments and habits, the friendships and enmities ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... the current in order that the sound of their paddles should be heard by their enemies, and allow them time to prepare for battle. That they were cannibals, there appears no doubt; at least, they feasted on their enemies taken in battle, whose flesh they tore and devoured with the avidity of wolves. The men were put to death, while the women and children were preserved to ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... sundry Novels separately. If this were the case, it is no wonder that such fugitive Pieces are recovered with difficulty; when the two Tomes, which Tom. Rawlinson would have called justa Volumina, are almost annihilated. Mr. Ames, who searched after books of this sort with the utmost avidity, most certainly had not seen them when he published his Typographical Antiquities; as appears from his blunders about them: and possibly I myself might have remained in the same predicament, had I not been favoured with a Copy by ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... ceremony ascribing to the strongest an authority over the weakest, have immediately struck out government, without thinking of the time requisite for men to form any notion of the things signified by the words authority and government. All of them, in fine, constantly harping on wants, avidity, oppression, desires and pride, have transferred to the state of nature ideas picked up in the bosom of society. In speaking of savages they described citizens. Nay, few of our own writers seem to have so much as ...
— A Discourse Upon The Origin And The Foundation Of - The Inequality Among Mankind • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... Duncan would call several times in the course of the day. As for Tom, I had equal assurance that he would attend to orders; and as Gerard was very fond of him, I dismissed all anxiety about both, and allowed my mind to return with fresh avidity to the contemplation of its own cares, ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... this well-born, well-bred poverty! There is a pauper state, which, loathsome as it is to look upon, yet brings with it a callousness to endure all inflictions, and a recklessness that can seize with avidity whatever coarse fragments of pleasure the day or the hour may afford. But this poverty applies itself to nerves strung for the subtlest happiness. No torpor here; no moments of rash and unscrupulous gratification—unreflected on, unrepented of—which being often repeated ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... certainly have not merely wetted the tip of my lips in the stream of these (the classical) languages, but in proportion to my years have swallowed the most copious draughts, can yet sometimes retire with avidity and delight to feast on Dante, Petrarch, and many others; nor has Athens itself been able to confine me to the transparent waves of its Ilissus, nor ancient Rome to the banks of its Tiber, so as to prevent my visiting with delight ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... jaws of a sea-monster, for the purpose of averting the wrath of one of their gods; and as it was thought that the god would be appeased if they brought him one of singular beauty, the mariners of the ship seized with avidity on the sleeping Angelica, and carried her off, together with the old man. The people of Ebuda, out of love and pity, kept her, unexposed to the sea-monster, for some days; but at length she was bound to the rock where it was accustomed to seek its food; and thus, in tears and ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... Siouan tribes, games of chance were played habitually and with great avidity, both men and women becoming so absorbed as to forget avocations and food, mothers even neglecting their children; for, as among other primitive peoples, the charm of hazard was greater than among the enlightened. The games were not specially distinctive, and were less widely ...
— The Siouan Indians • W. J. McGee
... had an account of the matter, that was probably about as accurate as if I had related all the events myself, and which was also about as true as most of the jeremiads of the journals that are intended for brilliant effect. It was read with avidity by all the federalists of America; while its counterpart in the Republican Freeman, passed, pari passu, through all the democratic papers, and was devoured, with a similar appetite, by the whole of that side of ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... had improved rapidly in personal appearance, and, as far as could be ascertained from his gestures and indistinct expressions, was sensible of his protector's charity, and thankful for it. He now attempted to give to his keeper the feeble aid he could afford him; he partook of his food with less avidity, he seemed aware of what was taking place around him. On one occasion I brought his dinner to him, and sat by whilst it was served to him. He stared at me as though he had immediate perception of something unusual. It was on the same day that, whilst trifling with a piece of broken ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... of religious services with them, and then went on our way from encampment to encampment. Very glad were the poor people to see us, and with avidity did they ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... douche of cold water in his face. He came abruptly to his senses; saw clearly how this thing had come to pass: the temptation of the loose brooch to Shaynon's fingers itching for revenge, while they stood so near together in the elevator, the opportunity grasped with the avidity of low cunning, the brooch transferred, under cover of the crush, ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... At least it is correct as far as it goes, but leaves us very far from a complete explanation of this unpleasant survival. So scandalous is the interrelation of the armament firms[11] which has developed the world's trade in munitions and explosives into one obscene cartel; so cynical is the avidity with which their agents exchange their trade secrets, sell ships and guns, often by means of diplomatic blackmail, to friend or foe alike, and follow those pioneers of civilisation the missionary, the gin merchant ...
— The World in Chains - Some Aspects of War and Trade • John Mavrogordato
... found in a fair way of recovery, and suspecting that they were faint for want of victuals, I took one of the beef fruit, cut it into small slices, and presented them with it, which they devoured with avidity. ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... that name at Paris and died in 1173. "He was at the head of the Mystics in this century and his treatise, entitled the Mystical Ark, which contains as it were the marrow of this kind of theology, was received with the greatest avidity." Maclaine's Mosheim, v. iii. cent. xii. p. ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... royalists with Napoleon's aid against the republican National Assembly? These gentlemen did not notice, or did not want to notice, that Napoleon utilized the 29th of January, 1849, to cause a part of the troops to file before him in front of the Tuileries, and that he seized with avidity this very first open exercise of the military against the parliamentary power in order to hint at Caligula. The allied royalists ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx
... is eulogized by Fuller as producing superior dogs for the sport; and in Grimsby bull-baiting was pursued with such avidity, that, to increase its importance, and prevent the possibility of its falling into disuse, it was made the subject of an official regulation of the magistracy. It had been practised within the borough from time immemorial, but about the ...
— Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 475 - Vol. XVII, No. 475. Saturday, February 5, 1831 • Various
... told me that she had dined at Holt once, and evinced great interest in the house. She had brought with her an old volume containing pictures of the place as it was in some early century, a book Sir Roland had never seen before, and that he had read with avidity, for everything to do with the past history of his house appealed to him. Mrs. Stapleton had ended by making him a present of the book, and before she had left, that night Sir Roland had shown her over the ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... a standing army, which the disorders incident upon the decline and fall of the Muhammadan army had put into their hands, and which a continued series of successful aggressions upon their neighbours could alone enable them to pay or keep under control. They seized with avidity any occasion of quarrel with the paramount power which seemed likely to unite them all in one great effort to shake it off; and they are still prepared to do the same, because they feel that they could easily extend their depredations ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... connection with translations from the Spanish and German, and with original pieces which immediately took their place among the favorite poems of every household, they could not be expected to attract general attention. But scholars read them with avidity, for they found in them the first successful solution of one of the great problems of literature,—Can poetry pass from one language into another without losing its distinctive characteristics of form and expression? Dryden, Pope, Cowper, Sotheby, had answered no for Greek and Latin, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... conveyed them to my chamber. I then examined them and found that they contained pictures of a very lascivious character. In fact men and women, as naked as they were born, were performing the sexual act. I read them with avidity and they soon made me adept in sexual knowledge. One evening when Herbert had gone to Philadelphia, and my sister was confined to her chamber by sickness, I entered the drawing room with one of those prizes in my ...
— The Life and Amours of the Beautiful, Gay and Dashing Kate Percival - The Belle of the Delaware • Kate Percival
... from the Persians that I had not yet gone past. Mingled with the keen disappointment of overtaking them so quickly, is the pleasure of witnessing the Persians' camels regaling themselves on a patch of juicy thistles of most luxuriant growth; the avidity with which they attack the great prickly vegetation, and the expression of satisfaction, utter and peculiar, that characterizes a camel while munching a giant thistle stalk that protrudes two feet out of ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... the point where Mr. Oxley saw its waters covering the country; or whether it pursued a course so much more to the westward as to have been taken for the Darling by Captain Sturt. Near the Lachlan at this place the Anthericum bulbosum occurred in abundance, and the cattle seemed to eat it with avidity. ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... thirst made many of them furious; others, being too weak to contend for the water, endeavoured to quench their thirst by devouring the black mud from the gutters near the wells, which they did with great avidity, though it was commonly fatal ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park
... time of life I am a school-girl, and, on the whole, very happy in that capacity. It felt very strange at first to submit to authority instead of exercising it—to obey orders instead of giving them; but I like that state of things. I returned to it with the same avidity that a cow, that has long been kept on dry hay, returns to fresh grass. Don't laugh at my simile. It is natural to me to submit, ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... effectually to bar their passage. It was then proved that while the elementary gases and their mixtures, including among the latter the earth's atmosphere, were almost as pervious as a vacuum to ordinary radiant heat, the compound gases were one and all absorbers, some of them taking up with intense avidity the motion ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 • Various
... gentleman. All the others, great and small, raucous-voiced and shrill-voiced, fire at any hour, night or day. Aeroplanes rarely go up at night; and when no aeroplanes are up, Archibald has no interest in the war. But he is alert at the first flush of dawn, on the look-out for game with the avidity of a pointer dog; for ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... a fruit-vendor, as before reading all kinds of scientific and literary works with avidity. But this profession brought him no farther than the rest. He then went to Karazin as signalman and ...
— Maxim Gorki • Hans Ostwald
... should be restored to his liberty, and have a horse and armor given him, so that he could return home with honor. The barbarous monsters said readily that they would, and seized the arms with the greatest avidity. Two or three pairs of combatants were allowed to fight. One of each pair was killed, and the other set at liberty according to the promise of Hannibal. The combats excited the greatest interest, and awakened the strongest enthusiasm among the soldiers who witnessed them. When ...
— Hannibal - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... his voice; however, fearing a return of pride on the part of his interlocutor, who sustained her part in the dialogue by little whines and grumblings, he threw her a fourth piece of sugar, which she seized with greater avidity from having been kept waiting. This time, without being called, she came to take her place at the window. The chevalier's triumph was complete. So complete, that Mirza, who the day before had given signs of so superior an intelligence in discovering Bathilde's ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... new doctrine with avidity. In the acute letter of criticism which, while still at the Sorbonne, he addressed to Buffon, he pointedly urged it as the first objection to that writer's theory of the formation and movements of the planets, that any attempt at ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Turgot • John Morley
... him, he became alarmed, and tried to steal away; but when a child came near him, he rushed at it with a fierce snarl, like that of a dog, and tried to bite it. When any cooked meat was put near him, he rejected it in disgust; but when raw meat was offered, he seized it with avidity, put it upon the ground, under his hands, like a dog, and ate it with evident pleasure. He would not let any one come near while he was eating, but he made no objection to a dog's coming and sharing his food ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 446 - Volume 18, New Series, July 17, 1852 • Various
... restaurants, the eating-houses, the inns, the taverns, the stalls, and even in the streets. They gorged themselves with flesh, fish, game, truffles, pastry, and especially with fruit. They drank with an avidity equal to their appetite, and always ordered the most expensive wines, in the hope of finding in them some enjoyment hitherto unknown, and seemed quite astonished when they were disappointed. Superficial observers did not know what to think of this menagerie without ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... part of the castle which had for several years been shut up, and to which time and circumstance had given an air of singular desolation, might reasonably be supposed to excite a strong degree of surprise and terror. In the minds of the vulgar, any species of the wonderful is received with avidity; and the servants did not hesitate in believing the southern division of the castle to be inhabited by a supernatural power. Too much agitated to sleep, they agreed to watch for the remainder of the night. For this ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... of reading matter, voluntarily sought for and consumed by the people, at a cost of so many millions of dollars, is one of the most remarkable phenomena of the present age of wonders, and proves the avidity with which information is received, as well as the incalculable influence which the press must have on the public mind. The popular newspaper, issued in immense numbers, is in truth emphatically an American institution. Nowhere ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... detecting the mystification, the latter was disposed to believe himself a subject of interest with this person, against whose exclusiveness and haughty reserve, notwithstanding, he had been making side-hits ever since the ship had sailed. But the avidity with which the Americans of Mr. Dodge's temperament are apt to swallow the crumbs of flattery that fall from the Englishman's table, is matter of history, and the editor himself was never so happy as when he could lay hold of a paragraph to republish, in which a few words of comfort were doled ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... boy, eagerly, and he drank the half-glassful more given to him with the greatest of avidity, closed his eyes directly after, and dropped off into ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn
... or three any reference to himself, then threw them aside, and seized upon a pile of books and reviews that were lying on his table. He carried them up to the drawing-room, hesitated between a theological review and a new edition of Horace, and finally plunged with avidity into the theological review. ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... while the bits were replaced and the check fastened. Then he chewed a handful of clover with avidity and went on again as dejectedly as ever. Presently they reached a long, level stretch of road and stopped in the shade of a big ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... of the blackfellows. He is going tomorrow on foot to see if there is water in the waterholes on the road to Barcoo River. Jemmy made flour into a cake and the blackfellow and his companions ate it with avidity. I gave the blacks a comb, and Jackey pleased them very much ...
— Journal of Landsborough's Expedition from Carpentaria - In search of Burke and Wills • William Landsborough
... not have you mourn over the age of poetry and oratory, for that also is of the past. You must not forget that it is become fashionable for men to give themselves to the getting of gold, which they pursue with an avidity I fear will end in the devil getting all their souls. You, son of a fisherman, shall be the object of my solicitude. Go out upon the world; be just to all, nor withhold your generosity from those who are worthy of it. Be sure, too, that you make the objects of your ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... which so powerfully honors my father's memory shall be deposited as a most sacred family property in that room of mourning where once his son and grandsons used to receive with avidity from him lessons of patriotism and active love of liberty. There the daily contemplation of it will more and more impress their minds with that encouraging conviction that the affection and esteem of a free nation ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... going to find out the truth? Was he going to solve this enigma and discover the name of his family, the land of his birth? Truly the scene appeared to him almost chimerical. He fastened his eyes upon the wounded man, ready to drink in his words with avidity. For nothing in the world would he have interfered with his recital, neither by interruption nor gesture. He did not even observe that a shadow had appeared behind him. It was the sight of this shadow which had stopped the story of ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... in this state nobody appeared to know; not whisper was circulated as to the time of advancing, nor a surmise ventured respecting the next step likely to be taken. In our to whose rumours we had before listened with avidity, no confidence was reposed. It was quite evident, either that they had purposely deceived us, or that their information was gathered from a most imperfect source; and hence, though they were not exactly placed in confinement, they were strictly watched, and ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... have the same way of studying the men that wander in here of an evening, with other people's wives and daughters. There is so little really entertaining in this confounded world that I seize upon anything promising a change with avidity. Isaac tells me all the secrets of his queer ranch, and they prove wonderfully interesting, sometimes. You see," he added, addressing himself particularly to Roseleaf, "not a couple comes into this place that would like ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... were it not so painfully apparent. A good press-agent will, for a fee, give one as much publicity and newspaper popularity as that enjoyed by a duke, and most amazing is it that such paragraphs are swallowed with keen avidity by Suburbia. ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... that I should get that which our friend Picro expects, I would go not only to the end of Europe but as far as to the wilds of Tartary, especially as I should have the opportunity of paying attention to Greek literature, which it is my desire to devour with avidity, were it but to avoid those wretched translations, which so torment me that there is more pain in reading than pleasure in acquiring knowledge."—"Id primum scias volo, me libertatem et otium litterarum praeponere ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... his knowledge of life and manners enabled him to start those subjects of which she was most ignorant; and her mind, copious for the admission and intelligent for the arrangement of knowledge, received all new ideas with avidity. ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... O'Connett, formerly Miss Sophia Pratt. Mrs. O'Connett, a young widow, had just lost her only child, a boy about the age of the little one rescued from the cruel seas. She seized on him with feverish avidity, adopted him as her own, quitted the place for another Anglo-French town where she was not previously known, taught the child to call her "Mamma," and had never let it transpire that the boy was ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various
... on the sudden from a mere creature of instinct, to a rational and intelligent being. But when first I opened a book, after so long an abstinence from all mental nourishment,—Oh it was rapture! no half-famished beggar regaled suddenly with food, ever seized on his repast with more hungry avidity." ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... of himself and his friend Sandars. The middle, originally an article upon some not strictly political topic, had grown in their hands into a kind of lay sermon. For such literature the British public has shown a considerable avidity ever since the days of Addison. In spite of occasional disavowals, it really loves a sermon, and is glad to hear preachers who are not bound by the proprieties of the religious pulpit. Some essayists, like Johnson, have been as solemn as the true ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... should dine at Delmonico's and go to the Empire to see Ethel Barrymore, accepted with avidity, had stirred Joan to immediate action. She had hailed a taxi, said, "You'll see me in an hour, Marty," and disappeared with a quick injunction to have whatever she bought ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... Squire Headlong caught with avidity at this suggestion; and, as he had always a store of gunpowder in the house, for the accommodation of himself and his shooting visitors, and for the supply of a small battery of cannon, which he kept for his private amusement, he insisted on commencing operations immediately. Accordingly, he bounded ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock
... neighbouring mountain, a large hole was dug in the sand, and at last a scanty supply of water was obtained. This resembled the old bilge-water of a ship for foulness, but both men and oxen drank of it with avidity. ...
— Robert Moffat - The Missionary Hero of Kuruman • David J. Deane
... very thought of London, filled her with appetite. Her soul thirsted for London. It was like some enormous juicy fruit waiting for her pretty white teeth, a place almost large enough to give her avidity the sense of enough. She felt it waiting for her, household, servants, a carriage, shops and the jolly delight of buying and possessing things, the opera, first-nights, picture exhibitions, great dinner-parties, brilliant lunch parties, crowds seen from a point of vantage, the carriage ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... all her tale, and, telling it, seemed to relieve her mind while her tired body rested. Dick listened with earnest avidity. He lost not the slightest change in her expression as she spoke. He was shocked when he heard of her father; he was grieved when he imagined how she must have felt when the news came to her; he was angry when he heard ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... quite as prevalent, though not, perhaps, equally hurtful, in great cities as in the smallest village. The same people who in London delight in the perusal of newspapers of the most libellous description, and who read with avidity every publication which attacks private character, will, when removed into a congenial sphere, pick their neighbours to pieces; an amusement which cannot be enjoyed in the metropolis, where happily we do not know the names of the parties who occupy ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... I was in the lower country, I was sorry you had not time to visit that interesting section of country previous to the publication of your work (which, I understand, has been received and appreciated with avidity); for I assure you, as relates to scientific researches, you would have collected materials that would have come within its purview, and repaid you liberally for your labor, and the specimens added richly to ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... lay open and inviting children to healthful play; but instead of marbles or leap-frog or ball, he found little boys in ragged knickerbockers huddled together on the ground, "shooting craps" with precocious avidity and quarreling over the pennies that made the pitiful wagers. He heard glib profanity rolling from the lips of children who should have been stumbling through baby catechisms; and his ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... a kindly heart, and was anxious to help Brian, but there was also a touch of self interest in the matter. He had received a note from Mr. Frettlby, asking him to defend Fitzgerald, which he agreed to do with avidity, as he foresaw in this case an opportunity for his name becoming known throughout the Australian colonies. It is true that he was already a. celebrated lawyer, but his reputation was purely a local one, and as he foresaw that Fitzgerald's ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... and far from correct. He who has not been exposed to events, in which his existence was in imminent peril, can form but a faint idea of the value which one then sets upon the most common and simple objects, with what avidity one seizes the slightest means, that are capable of softening the rigour of the fate with which one has to contend. This compass was given to the commander of the raft; but an accident deprived us of it for ever: it fell, and was lost between the pieces of wood which composed our machine: we ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... stupid-looking boy at this time, his appearance not revealing the undeveloped depths of his nature. He made the acquaintance of some of the students at Yale College, and of the Rev. E. W. Dwight. These friends becoming interested in his welfare, offered to teach him. He accepted their aid with avidity, and made wonderful progress, at the same time becoming more and ...
— A Story of One Short Life, 1783 to 1818 - [Samuel John Mills] • Elisabeth G. Stryker
... French gloves, $150 per pair; and black pepper, $300 per pound. Dried sage, raspberry, and other leaves were substituted for the costly tea. Woolen clothing was scarce and the army depended largely on captures of the ample Federal stores. "Pins were so rare that they were picked up with avidity in the streets." Paper was so expensive that matches could no longer be put in boxes. Sugar, butter, and white bread became luxuries even for the wealthy. Salt being a necessity, was economized to the last degree, ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... many hopes had no regular education. She was never at school. Her mother's teaching and her own avidity for information were almost her only means of instruction. Mrs. Browne was a woman of high acquirements, both intellectual and moral, eminently adapted for the training of so sensitive a mind. For a time the child was taught ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... of the long winter night, and so I did not regret my added trouble. Poor Phoebe had to be content with an hour snatched from the busier portion of the day; but she was beginning to occupy herself now. I kept her constantly supplied with books; and Miss Locke assured me that she read them with avidity; her poor famished mind, deprived for so many years of its natural aliment, fastened almost greedily on the nourishment provided for it. From the moment I induced her to open a book her appetite for reading returned, and she occupied herself in this ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... the water at a draught, with the avidity of raging thirst, and let herself fall on the nearest chair, as if utterly overcome. Her attitude, like certain tones of her voice, had in it something masculine: the knees apart in the ample wrapper, the clasped hands ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... of conversation the Generals started, it led inevitably to a mention of food, and this excited their appetites still more. They decided to cease their conversation, and calling to mind the copy of the "Moscow News" which they had found, they began to read it with avidity. ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... innate in the human race. It seizes with avidity upon any incidents, surprising or mysterious, in the career of those who have at all distinguished themselves from their fellows, and invents a legend to which it then attaches a fanatical belief. It is the protest of romance against the commonplace ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... angel of Bimala, in order to exaggerate my own enjoyment. But Bimala is what she is. It is preposterous to expect that she should assume the role of an angel for my pleasure. The Creator is under no obligation to supply me with angels, just because I have an avidity for ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... detestable style, and eaten saturated with the pot liquor. Pot liquor is a favourite soup. I have known cottagers actually apply at farmers' kitchens not only for the pot liquor in which meat has been soddened, but for the water in which potatoes have been boiled—potato liquor—and sup it up with avidity. And this not in times of dearth or scarcity, but rather as a relish. They never buy anything but bacon; never butchers' meat. Philanthropic ladies, to my knowledge, have demonstrated over and over again even ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... kingdom was vested.[**] The opposition made to the intended resumption prevented it from taking place; but the nation saw the indignities to which the king was willing to submit, in order to gratify the avidity of his foreign favorites. About the same time he published in England the sentence of excommunication, pronounced against the emperor Frederic, his brother-in-law;[***] and said in excuse, that, being the pope's vassal, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... the thriving fortunes of Wild, our hero, who, with that great aversion to satisfaction and content which is inseparably incident to great minds, began to enlarge his views with his prosperity: for this restless, amiable disposition, this noble avidity which increases with feeding, is the first principle or constituent quality of these our great men; to whom, in their passage on to greatness, it happens as to a traveller over the Alps, or, if this be a too ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... room with the curiosity and avidity of a child, touching everything, testing the softness of the pillows, peeping into scrolls which he did not understand, tossing them aside, smelling at the perfumes in the dead woman's rooms, and the medicines she had used. He showed his ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... with more avidity, and his eyes were still further dazzled by them. After having thoroughly considered the magnificent apartment of the diamonds, in which they then were, "You are sensible," said he to the old man, "that this is, without ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various |
