"Curiosity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... completely drowned his voice. The reporters were seated in a row just under the platform, in the place where the orchestra plays in an ordinary theater. Phillips made no attempt to address the noisy crowd, but bent over and seemed to be speaking in a low tone to the reporters. By and by the curiosity of the audience was excited; they ceased to clamor and tried to hear what he was saying to the reporters. Phillips looked at ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... were reported ahead on the horizon. We pushed forward with some curiosity, but unfortunately a sudd of vegetable rafts had closed the passage for a short distance, which required about an hour to ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... accomplishment, she should take the veil. Her advancement would speedily follow, for, with such a face and figure, she would make a capital lady abbess, especially in Italy, to which country she would probably be sent; ladies of her hair and complexion—to say nothing of her height—being a curiosity in the south. With a little care and management she could soon obtain a vast reputation for sanctity; and who knows but after her death she might become a glorified saint—he! he! Sister Maria Theresa, for that is the name ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... she hastened to the window—the officer was standing in his accustomed place, with his eyes fixed upon her. She drew back, a prey to curiosity and agitated by a feeling which ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... parentage, lost for a while in the press of war and exciting events, returned. He felt intuitively that Master Hardy, like Willet, knew who and what he was, and he also felt with the same force that neither would reply to any question of his on the subject. So he kept his peace and by and by his curiosity, as it always did, disappeared before ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... followed you out that night, with no definite purpose in my mind. Perhaps it was curiosity to see what a romantic woman, about to be married to a man she does not love, would do, I stood outside the hedge of arbor vitae while you were inside. I saw the tall, shadowy figure which bent its head upon your hand, and I saw you put your mouth where his had ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... made in six days; that astronomy, and geology were devices of wicked men, instigated by wicked ghosts; that gazing at the sky with a telescope was a dangerous thing; that digging into the earth was sinful curiosity; that trying to be wise above what they had written was born of ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll
... described as the Paul Pry of canine society. His insatiate inquisitiveness induces him to poke his nose into everything; every strange object excites his curiosity, and he will, if possible, look behind it; the slightest noise arouses his attention, and he wants to investigate its cause. There is no end to his liveliness, but he moves about with almost catlike agility ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... has observed that its walls, streets, public places, churches and old monasteries, with the legends of three centuries clinging to them, give you, when you enter under its massive gates, hoary with age, [344] the idea of an "old curiosity shop," or, as the name Henry Ward Beecher well expresses it, "a picture book, turning over a new leaf at each street." It is not then surprising that the inhabitants should have resorted not only to the pen of the historian ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... great hardship for Miss Betty, as, since plunging into the Revolution with her great-uncle, she had lost some curiosity concerning the men of to-day, doubting that they would show forth as heroic, as debonnair, gay and tragic as he. He was the legendary hero of her childhood; she remembered her mother's stories of him perhaps more clearly than she remembered her mother; and one of the older ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... of the expressions that is probably oftenest heard is surprise that the men of preceding generations and especially university men did not occupy themselves more with the world around them and with the phenomena that are so tempting to curiosity. Science is usually supposed to be comparatively new and nature study only a few generations old. Men are supposed to have been so much interested in book knowledge and in speculations and theories of many kinds, that they neglected the realities of life around them while spinning fine ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... on the other. Quite completely are these two studies separated, each from the other. A man may be most active and successful as a practising designer, and successful in an artistic way, too, with no knowledge and little thought of the history of his own branch of art, and with little curiosity as to its philosophy or its poetry. And, on the other hand, a man may be a very earnest student, and a happy and delighted student of the history and criticism of art, and know nothing, and care as little, about the profession or practice of any art, or about ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various
... away, but the truth of the Lord endureth for ever. Without respect of persons God speaketh to us in divers manners. Our own curiosity often hindereth us in the reading of holy writings, when we seek to understand and discuss, where we should pass simply on. If thou wouldst profit by thy reading, read humbly, simply, honestly, and not ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... first, we cannot expect a school to purvey more than a grip of general principles. Even that is seldom given. The second should enable a man to extract as much happiness as possible out of his spare time. The secret of happiness is curiosity. Now curiosity is not only not roused; it is repressed. You will say there is not time for everything. But how much time is wasted! Mathematics. . . . A medieval halo clings round this subject which, as a training for the mind, has no more value than whist-playing. ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... could scarcely make her out. My own deficiency in not understanding much English increased my difficulty, but I understood her to ask "Who I was, and whither I was going." This she repeated until, having sufficiently excited her curiosity, I opened my mouth very wide, kept my tongue quite close so that it might seem as if I had none, and with my fingers to my ears made a gesture that I was deaf and dumb. She then said, "Poor man, poor man," with great feeling and gave me a welcome. So I sat before the fire, and commenced drying ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... ones, their feet vainly reaching toward the distant floor, Commanded everlastingly to keep still and to be still, As if immobility were the climax of all excellence; Hard lesson for quick nerves, and eyes searching for something new. Nature endowed them with curiosity, but man wiser than she Calling himself a teacher, would fain stiffen them into statues. No bright visions of the school-palaces of future days With seats of ease, and carpets, and pianos, and pictured walls, And green lawns, pleasantly shaded, stretching wide for play, And knowledge ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... present at the Hotel de Lille, which is situated very conveniently in the midst of all the most interesting objects of curiosity to a stranger in Paris,—the palace of the Tuileries, the Palais Royal, the Bibliotheque Royale, or Royal Library, and numerous other places, all within a few paces of us. On New Year's Day the equipages of the nobility and foreign ambassadors, etc., who paid their respects ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... Unfortunately, the curiosity that made me turn round brought about the mishap to which I have alluded, nearly making Tom Bowling, junior, your present informant, lose the ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... Therefore, Sir Walter, what I would take leave to suggest is, that if in consequence of any rumours getting abroad of your intention; which must be contemplated as a possible thing, because we know how difficult it is to keep the actions and designs of one part of the world from the notice and curiosity of the other; consequence has its tax; I, John Shepherd, might conceal any family-matters that I chose, for nobody would think it worth their while to observe me; but Sir Walter Elliot has eyes upon him which ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... his whole body of men, leaving the defile unguarded. Perhaps Hannibal, in arranging the surprise, had known something of the commander and what to expect of him; or he may merely have counted—as he had often done before—on the effects of curiosity. But time after time he traded on the weakness ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... questioned in the 18th century, and in 1808 Sir Humphry Davy (Phil. Trans., 1808, p. 303) was able to show that lime was a combination of a metal and oxygen. His attempts at isolating this metal were not completely successful; in fact, metallic calcium remained a laboratory curiosity until the beginning of the 20th century. Davy, inspired by his successful isolation of the metals sodium and potassium by the electrolysis of their hydrates, attempted to decompose a mixture of lime and mercuric oxide by the electric current; an amalgam of calcium was obtained, but the separation ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... Curiosity, moreover, always impels towards that which is least known. External appearances having been studied, the form and function of internal organs were investigated. Physiology and comparative anatomy were born and developed; researches abounded and observers ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... of my observation may be of interest to my readers. After removing a lot of old rubbish when ratting I came upon a nest of just- born Rats, and, in curiosity, I cut the tails off the lot, and then put the young Rodents back, leaving the nest undisturbed. When I returned next day, I found the old Rat had carried all her young away, and, later, I found the same tailless lot in another part of the building, and, after disturbing them again, I found ...
— Full Revelations of a Professional Rat-catcher - After 25 Years' Experience • Ike Matthews
... lad carefully removed it from his neck and laid it upon the top of his clothes ere he rushed, with a joyous shout, and placed himself immediately beneath the foaming water of the fall. The sight appeared to arouse a feeling of very powerful curiosity in the breast of the Indian, for it was only with the utmost difficulty that he contrived to retain his attitude of passivity until the more deliberately moving Bannister had joined his friend upon the slab beneath the fall; but no ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... half-formed leaves, had risen to the height of two feet. It was impossible to ascertain the species of these plants, their form, colour, and aspect having been changed by the absence of light. These traces of organization amidst darkness forcibly excited the curiosity of the natives, who examined them with silent meditation inspired by a place they seemed to dread. They evidently regarded these subterranean plants, pale and deformed, as phantoms banished from the face of the earth. To me the scene recalled ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... away, having never raised her eyes to note the stare of curiosity, the suppressed smile, the glance from eye to eye, which had trod upon her introduction to the company. Haward, remaining with his friends and acquaintances, gathered grapes for the blooming girl and the withered beauty, and for a ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... that a Reader seldom peruses a Book with Pleasure 'till he knows whether the Writer of it be a black or a fair Man, of a mild or cholerick Disposition, Married or a Batchelor, with other Particulars of the like nature, that conduce very much to the right Understanding of an Author. To gratify this Curiosity, which is so natural to a Reader, I design this Paper, and my next, as Prefatory Discourses to my following Writings, and shall give some Account in them of the several persons that are engaged in this Work. As the chief trouble of Compiling, Digesting, and Correcting ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... safely asserted that its merit was more deeply felt and more generously acknowledged by American than by English readers. The fact that its essential form and local coloring were purely and genuinely English, and thus gratified the curiosity felt in this country concerning the social habits and ways of life in the mother-land, while on the other hand its spirit was in sympathy with the most liberal and progressive thought of the age, may sufficiently ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... would convey but a small idea of the truth to state how many hundreds of millions of cubic miles of ice could be hailed at the sun every second without affecting its heat; but, if any one has any curiosity to know, it is 287,200,000 cubic ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... eagerly to the homecoming of her brother Bert and she also awaited with some curiosity ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... made a slight acknowledgment, and stared at Samuel with a look in which curiosity and hauteur were equally mingled. She was a brunette with dark hair, and an almost Oriental richness of coloring. She was lithe and gracefully built, and quick in her motions. There was eager alertness in her whole aspect; her glance was swift and her voice imperious. One ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... exceeding 200,000 pardaos[205], but the quantity of ammunition was exceedingly great. The number of brass cannon was prodigious, those of iron not being deemed worthy of account. Among the brass ordnance were three basilisks of prodigious size, one of which was sent by De Cuna as a curiosity to Lisbon, which was placed in the castle of St Julian at the mouth of the Tagus, where it is known by the name of the Gun of Diu. Among the papers belonging to Badur and his treasurer Abd' el Cader ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... of walls and battlements a momentary tinge of rose colour, a sight well worth the effort demanded by early rising. Sparrow-hawks and pigeons were fluttering over their nests on the deserted battlements, a stork eyed me with solemn curiosity from the minaret of a near mosque, and only the earliest wayfarers were astir. How slowly the men seemed to do their work, and how rapidly the morning wore on. Ropes and palmetto baskets refused to fit at the last moment, two mules were restive until ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... must begin farther off. Upon yonder hill, from which I first beheld the valley in which Rosenvik lies (the hill is some miles in the interior of Smaaland) do you descry a carriage covered with dust? In it are seated Bear and his wedded wife. The wife is looking out with curiosity, for before her lies a valley so beautiful in the tranquillity of evening! Below are green groves which fringe mirror-clear lakes, fields of standing corn bend in silken undulations round gray mountains, and white buildings glance amid the trees. Round about, pillars of smoke are shooting ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... philosophy is not a mere matter of intellectual curiosity. It has an intimate connection with life. As a man thinks, so is he, to a great extent, at least. How, then, can one afford to remain critical and negative? To counsel this seems equivalent to advising that one abandon the helm and consent to float at the mercy of ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... where most of all the prospective purchaser's interest must be aroused. Here the most felicitous publicity inspiration is needed—and the problem is to indicate the story, yet not tell it, and to pique curiosity to the buying point. On books of a serious nature a jacket note is just as essential, if not more so, but the problem is different. The prospective purchaser of such a book as "Irish History and the Irish Question," "The Flower Garden," for example, has an interest in the subject already ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... superfluous speculation than to go into the slums and see what it is that tells there. That is a test of what is central and what is surface, in Christianity. I do not know any better discipline for a man whose religion is suffering from too much leisure and curiosity than to take a course of evangelistic work. He will find out then where the power is, and a great many cobwebs will be blown away. Be sure of this, that convictions unspoken, like plants grown in a cellar, will get very white in the stems, and will bear no fruit. Be sure of this, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... comprehension of the stranger's object. Curiosity, however, prompts Sorel at this point to an inquiry: "'Ow much 'e goin' ...
— In Madeira Place - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... Nea-Paphos, celebrated for the worship of Venus, the residence of the Roman proconsul, Sergius Paulus,—a man of illustrious birth, who amused himself with the popular superstitions of the country. He sought, probably from curiosity, to hear Barnabas and Saul preach; but the missionaries were bitterly opposed by a Jewish sorcerer called Elymas, who was stricken with blindness by Saul, the miracle producing such an effect on the governor that ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... of their existence in other histories of the period. Had I relied only on the conventional work, I might never have known of their great underground struggle against what you term society. It was only in the actual contemporary volume itself, the curiosity titled U.S.A. Confidential by one Lait and one Mortimer, that I had descried that, throughout the world, this great revolutionary organization flexed its tentacles, the plexus within a short distance of where ...
— The Day of the Boomer Dukes • Frederik Pohl
... curiosity turned their heads and they saw in front of one of the huts a group of four persons. They were a man, a woman, a child of perhaps fourteen, and a babe in its mother's arms. The man lay stretched at full ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... not a safe stand for little people; not a fitting place for them to be, either. Perry should have more sense and less curiosity, thought Major Dene, as he sent the stump of his cigar hissing and sputtering into the placid blue water at his feet, and rose to join the children and accompany them home; for it was their tea-time, and going on quickly for the dinner-hour at Westfield, the comfortable ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... predominates in him; his intellectual curiosity and facility are very great. He is a vagabond by nature, both mentally and physically; he roams over the domains of science as he did over his beloved hills, at random, plunging into theology, logic, law, astronomy, "an harde ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... Mr. King says of it: "No piece of antique worked agate hitherto known equals in magnitude and curiosity the ornament discovered among the bronze and iron articles of the treasure. It is a sphere about six inches in diameter, black irregularly veined with white, having the exterior vertically scored with incised lines, ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... aroused from their lethargy, and watched with keen curiosity the approaching canoes. When from the largest there stepped forth a young girl—a rather remarkable-looking young girl—there was a name spoken by a tall Indian boatman, who stood near the two strangers. ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... details of this life beyond, it is better perhaps not to treat them, for the very good reason that they are small details. We will learn them all soon for ourselves, and it is only vain curiosity which leads us to ask for them now. One thing is clear: there are higher intelligences over yonder to whom synthetic chemistry, which not only makes the substance but moulds the form, is a matter of absolute ease. We see them ...
— The New Revelation • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Robert slid back into his seat. He could feel exultant glances sting and pierce him on every side. And yet when the door closed he had to look up. He was driven by a relentless curiosity to meet the worst. Mr. Ricardo had resumed his place. He did not so much as glance at Robert. He clung on to the lapels of his coat and blinked up at the window as though nothing had happened. But there was something impish twitching at the ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... in a cultivated feminine hand, utterly unlike the scrawl that had first excited the editor's curiosity, and ran ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... examination of the glottis he had the satisfaction of proving that all his theories with regard to the emission of the voice were absolutely correct. Beyond that he did not see that anything further was to be gained except to satisfy the curiosity of those who might be interested in seeing for themselves the forms and changes which the inside of the larynx ...
— Resonance in Singing and Speaking • Thomas Fillebrown
... stinging paragraphs without a feeling of disappointment that de Vergennes would not let them reach their destination. Such a bolt should have been sent hotly home, not dropped to be picked up as a curiosity by ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... entertaining," said the artistic house-hunter; "still they fail to explain the absorbing mystery of this house being to let at L40 a year." The problem raised his curiosity, but though he made inquiries he found no reason for the remarkably low rent or the continued emptiness of the house. It was a specimen puzzle for the house-hunter. A large house with a garden of about half an acre, ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... the pack from off his shoulders as he spoke and fell to unstrapping it, while the round face of the lass (her eyes big with curiosity) peered down at him through the grated ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle
... to tell my brother," she said. "For my own curiosity, though, are you certain that some personal distrust or dislike for women hasn't influenced your ...
— The Deadly Daughters • Winston K. Marks
... were, if the shack were ever visited and promised to be of use to the enemy. Later by daylight a comrade making the patrol came back with the joke on his buddie who in the darkness had mistaken a huge snowshoe rabbit's tracks, made out of curiosity smelling out the man's tracks. Often the patrol sled would travel for hours through a fairy land. The snow-laden trees would be interlaced over the trail, so that the sled travelled in a wonderful crystal, grey, green and golden tunnel. Filtering ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... might the better fancy herself one of that heroic ring. When she opened them again it was to behold Diana coming through the gate that led into the Barry field and looking so important that Anne instantly divined there was news to be told. But betray too eager curiosity ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... afterwards people, from curiosity, came to look at a heap of human bones in a thicket near, bleached by winter's rain and summer's sun, while some of the older men, pointing to the ghostly relics, would say, "Those are the remains of Sherman's houseburners." And such were the scenes from the Saltkahatchie to ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... would lead to their discovery; but it had quite the opposite effect, for it caused Swankie to turn round and examine the trinket with much curiosity. ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... the landau: he observed that the gaiety of his apparel might seem odd on such an occasion, but that he had particular reasons for wearing that suit of clothes; he took notice of the vast multitude which crowded round him, brought thither, he supposed, by curiosity to see a nobleman hanged: he told the sheriff he had applied to the king by letter, that he might be permitted to die in the Tower, where the earl of Essex, one of his ancestors, had been beheaded in the reign of queen Elizabeth; an application which, he said, he had made with the more confidence, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... published diplomatic correspondence. Giving due praise to the speeches of Bright and Beesly, and commenting on press assertions that "the extraordinary numbers there were only brought together by their curiosity to hear Mr. Bright," Henry Adams continued: "That this was not the case must have been evident to every person present. In fact, it was only after he closed that the real business of the evening began." Then followed speeches and the introduction of ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... of a half hour they were both back at the house, and Kit's curiosity led him to desert his post to find out what Ted's strange ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... trees smaller and the land less fertile than in the neighbourhood of Chaleur and its rivers. On a point at the entrance of the harbour of Gaspe—an Indian name having probably reference to a split rock, which has long been a curiosity of the coast—Cartier raised a cross, thirty feet in height, on the middle of which there was a shield or escutcheon with three fleurs-de-lis, and the inscription, Vive le Roy de France. Cartier then returned to France by way of the strait of Belle ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... steady-going England an idea of the inconvenience of revolutions, that its owner and occupant should in 1848 have been starving in the midst of magnificence, and that it should have been impossible for him to find a purchaser for some small curiosity, if he had wished to sell it to buy bread. Part of the cost of the house had been defrayed by Madame Hanska, but Balzac had evidently overstepped her limits, and had involved himself seriously in debt. One of the alleged reasons given by the lady for the ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... a soft duster over his cabinet of bibelots which not even Foljambe was allowed to touch. It was generally understood that he had inherited them, though the inheritance had chiefly passed to him through the medium of curiosity shops, and there were several pieces of considerable value among them. There were a gold Louis XVI snuff box, a miniature by Karl Huth, a silver toy porringer of the time of Queen Anne, a piece of Bow china, an enamelled cigarette case by ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... order, the North West Mounted Police. Not while he lived would Cameron forget the scene that followed. With an air of lazy nonchalance the youngster strode quietly up to the desperado flourishing his gun and asked in a tone that indicated curiosity more than anything else, "What are you doing ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... of New York (1670), and in Virginia the progress of affairs was dealt with by William Stith (1689-1755), Robert Beverly (f. 1700), and William Byrd (1674-1744). Each settlement in turn, as it came into prominence or provoked curiosity, found its geographer and annalist, and here and there sporadic pens essayed some practical topic. The product, however, is now an indistinguishable mass, and titles and authors alike are found only in antiquarian lore. The distribution of literary activity ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... their friends at home and by their employers, and had been questioning as to the distribution which they could make of their supplies. Reinforced by four of their number, the delegation in search of hungry people was increased to fourteen in number, and with a certain curiosity, it must be confessed, they went together to try their ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... rather, doing what all true Dickensians do, telling each other verbatim long passages which both of us knew quite well already. We were really in the atmosphere of the older England. Fishermen passed us who might well have been characters like Peggotty; we went into a musty curiosity shop and bought pipe-stoppers carved into figures from Pickwick. The evening was settling down between all the buildings with that slow gold that seems to soak everything when we went ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... aside to let pass a man who hangs long at their heels. The approach of a staggering, talkative peon was always an occasion for alertness, and one that came holding a hand behind him was an object of undivided curiosity until the concealed member appeared, clutching perhaps nothing more interesting than a cigar or a banana. Mexicans in crowds, mixed with liquor and "religion," were always worth attention; and here was just such a mixture, for the fiesta was in honor of the Virgin, and the ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... the above-mentioned consider the local historians, who have searched with laborious curiosity into the transactions of some one particular nation. These men, wishing by all means to enrich and adorn the Sparta which they had gotten for their own, and to that effect not passing over in silence even such things as banquets of unusual splendour, ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion
... the curious object on the beach. None of them had ever seen such a funny old gum boot, and surely none of them had ever seen such a funny little oyster. They tore the pale, knotted little thing from her foster-mother, and handled her with such rough curiosity that even had she been a robust oyster she must certainly have died. At any rate, the little oyster was dead now; and the bereaved perch with green fins must have known it, for he swam up and down his ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... produced at the Space Navy base on Mars, by a small force of experts whose skills were almost as closed to the general scientific and technical world as the secrets of a medieval guild. The old A-bomb was an historical curiosity, and there was nobody on Ullr who had more than a layman's knowledge of the intricate technology of modern nuclear weapons. There were plenty of good nuclear-power engineers on Gongonk Island, but how long would it take them to design and build ...
— Ullr Uprising • Henry Beam Piper
... terrace, except Gedeonovsky, who quietly took his departure. During the whole of Lavretsky's conversation with Marya Dmitrievna, Panshin, and Marfa Timofyevna, he sat in a corner, blinking attentively, with an open mouth of childish curiosity; now he was in haste to spread the news of the new arrival ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... The curiosity which Zanoni has excited among those who think it worth while to dive into the subtler meanings they believe it intended to convey, may excuse me in adding a few words, not in explanation of its mysteries, but upon the principles which ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... not forgotten the affair of the kettle-drum. One morning she said to her little son, "Gustavus, your curiosity about the kettle-drum and the clarionet shall be satisfied: your cousin Philip will come here in a few days, and he is well acquainted with the colonel of the regiment which is quartered in Monmouth: he shall ask the colonel to let us have the ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... of Candelaria. Beware. This parish has been invaded by one of the wicked sects of Protestantism, and, having the sacred duty of warning my parishioners, I give them to understand that should any one of them attend, even from mere curiosity, to hear the false and pernicious propaganda, or accept tracts or books that come from the propagators of Protestantism, he will be excommunicated from the true and only Church of Jesus Christ, Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman, wherein resides the infallible authority. Beware, then, ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... curiosity to know who it could be that invited him to dinner, told the messenger that he would come without fail; and the messenger forthwith returned. Scarcely had he arrived when the king, with all his ministers, came riding over the bridge to dine with the fool. On the arrival of ...
— Emelian the Fool - a tale • Thomas J. Wise
... little-known near-by places, namely, that the charm of their attractions amply repays one for any special labour involved in getting to them, with the additional advantage, regardless of the fact that a stranger appears somewhat to the native as a curiosity, that they are "good value for the money paid." Perhaps the cheapest Continental tour, of say three weeks, that could be taken, amid a constantly changing environment, if one so choose, would ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... instant service and trotted ahead into the darkness. The woman's horse, being comparatively fresh and restless, danced a little in an effort to follow, but I restrained him with a light hand on the bit, and for a moment we sat waiting in silence. Then her natural curiosity prompted a question. ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... far in the rear, reaching for some botanical curiosity, on the other side of a wet ditch, or they would certainly have put a stop to this conversation, which was not very profitable to any of the parties concerned. Dora was rather a matter-of-fact little person, and a very good implement for teazing with, as she did not at all suspect ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and forced to go to my Lord Mayor's, about the business of the pressed men; and indeed I find him a mean man of understanding and dispatch of any publique business. Thence out of curiosity to Bridewell to see the pressed men, where there are about 300; but so unruly that I durst not go among them: and they have reason to be so, having been kept these three days prisoners, with little or no victuals, and pressed out, and, contrary ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... Evelyn's "Kalendarium Hortense," also published in the same year, we find a black page represented, bearing a closed Umbrella or Sunshade. It is again evident that the Parasol was more an article of curiosity than use at this period, from the fact that it is mentioned as such in the catalogue of the "Museum Tradescantium, or Collection of Rarities, preserved at South Lambeth, by ...
— Umbrellas and their History • William Sangster
... the ladies' curiosity; and Lady Jones said, She would be loath to desire to hear any thing that would give me concern; but should be glad I would give leave for it. Indeed, madam, said I, I must beg you won't insist upon it. I cannot bear it.—You shall see ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... round me, lay down, and was soon unconscious in sleep. I woke early in the morning, and having nothing particular to do, I crept out of my blanket and put all things straight; and then, more out of curiosity than from any other motive, proceeded to the poor Frenchman to ascertain if he was yet living; but his death must have taken place some hours before, as he was ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... situated on a fine grassy knoll, shaded by handsome trees, and inclosed with a well kept hedge; it is just out of reach of village eyes and ears, but not beyond the pale of village curiosity. Anybody there can tell you by what right I address good Mrs. Marston as my aunt, and pretty Dora as my cousin, while being not in the least related to either. My dear mother, now deceased, when a young widow, possessed of some property and a little boy, married Miss Dora's uncle, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... nature—human nature—which can only meet to hate each other. These two crossed glances once, and each was displeased with what he saw in the other. The Greek saw a handsome, good-natured, bronzed face, the thoughtful eyes whereof looked at him with an expression of curiosity and analysis. The Englishman saw a pair of languid eyes, which flashed instantaneous defiance and anger back to scrutiny. The Greek went by, and in his after passages looked no more at Barndale, who continued to watch him with an unaccountable, disliking regard. The crowd had completed ...
— An Old Meerschaum - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... straight legs, only slightly disfigured by an injury to the ankle, to show how shamefully unfair it was to compare them with the lower limbs of a misshapen dwarf. Finally, the figure of the apple-dealer—a hideous pygmy form, with the head of an old man, like enough to his own—roused his curiosity. What was the point of this image? What peculiarity was it intended to satirize? The basket which hung about the neck of the figure was full of fruit, and the object he held in his hand might be an apple, or might ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Captain Malan, returning suddenly. We passed the sentry between white enamelled walls of speckless small arms, and since that Royal Marine Light infantryman was visibly suffocating from curiosity, I winked at him. We entered the chintz-adorned, photo-speckled, brass- fendered, tile-stoved main cabin. Moorshed, with a ruler, was demonstrating before the frame-plan ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... books at this epoch, when he is most fitted to enjoy them. When romance and other delights have blankly vanished—"gone glimmering through the dreams of things that were"—he is scarcely fitted to trust the worth of his own impressions. Reading from mere idle curiosity or with critical intentions, and reading with delight, with eager absorption in the story and an eager desire to know how it turns out, are two different matters. The loss of this capacity for enjoyment of the every-day ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... considerable curiosity among leading members to know what the United States really intends to do; and during the day Sir Julian Pauncefote and others have called to talk over the ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... appearance of wealth and comfort. He at once concluded that it belonged to some old French seigneur who, after the conquest of the Province by the British, had retired to the seclusion of his estates, and there spent the evening of his life in the philosophic calm of solitude. He had no further curiosity about it, however, and would probably have passed on, had he not casually caught sight of a couple of figures coming down the stairs to the open space in front. The distance was considerable, and the intervening trees broke the line of vision ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... uncle when the latter came to examine the pictures of the House of Claes. Hearing from Martha that the Abbe de Solis was in the gallery, Marguerite, anxious to see so celebrated a man, invented an excuse to join her mother and gratify her curiosity. Entering hastily, with the heedless gaiety young girls assume at times to hide their wishes, she encountered near the old abbe, clothed in black and looking decrepit and cadaverous, the fresh, ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... found that old Tom's report was correct—the Dominie was at breakfast with Mr Drummond. The new usher had charge of the boys, and the governors had allowed him a fortnight's holiday to visit an old friend at Greenwich. To save expense, as well as to indulge his curiosity, the old man had obtained a passage down in the lighter. "Never yet, Jacob, have I put my feet into that which floateth on the watery element," observed he to me; "nor would I now, but that it saveth ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the hotel where he found Andy surrounded by a crowd to whom he was relating his adventures and giving a history of his eccentric passenger in his own way. When they saw Paul he was an object of the wildest curiosity. The crowd poured into the hotel after him and invaded the dining room, so he had to remonstrate with the landlord who unceremoniously shouldered-them out. The news of Paul's arrival on the coast seemed to have spread with the rapidity of a ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... white duck breeches, and a straw hat as little picturesque as it was comfortable or convenient. Neither revenge nor enemy lay ahead, of him; he travelled for his pleasure, and so pleasantly that even Time was his friend. Health was the salt of his daily fare, and curiosity gave him appetite for every minute ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... nothing more than half the courts to be seen in the old quarters of Paris. Or, indeed, the delicate foot-prints, and articles of female luxury would have hardly caught attention, much less sustained it with so feverish curiosity, in any one of the courts opening upon the Rue de ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... earnest conviction, formed in long, intimate, unreserved communications with him, personally and by letter, that in the privations, sufferings, and dangers he has passed through, during the last eight years, he has not been actuated by mere curiosity; or the love of adventure, or the thirst for applause, or by any other object, however laudable in itself, less than his avowed one as a messenger of Christian love from the Churches. If ever there was a man who, by realizing the ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... would first consent to my going to England, which he would never do, he said, while he lived; on the other hand, I said it was in my power to make him willing when I pleased—nay, to make him entreat me to go; and this increased his curiosity, and made him importunate to the highest degree, but it was ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... weeks since the investigation referred to had been committed to Messrs. Tulks & Crowe, private inquiry agents; and long before this he had grown careless whether they succeeded or not. An impulse of curiosity; nothing more. Well, yes; a fondness for playing with secrets, a disposition to get power into his hands—excited to activity just after a long pleasant talk with Lilian. He was sorry this letter had come; yet it made ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... afterwards remember to have heard the name of Karl Marx mentioned, or the title of "Capital." He was equally ignorant of Auguste Comte. These were the two writers of his time who most influenced its thought. The bit of practical teaching he afterwards reviewed with most curiosity was the course in Chemistry, which taught him a number of theories that befogged his mind for a lifetime. The only teaching that appealed to his imagination was a course of lectures by Louis Agassiz on the Glacial Period and Paleontology, which had more influence on his curiosity than the rest ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... country, from which curiosity promises so many gratifications, his Excellency about this time undertook an expedition into the interior parts of the continent. His party consisted of eleven persons, who, after being conveyed by water to the head of the harbour, proceeded in a westerly ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay • Watkin Tench
... show them anything they wished. Now the princess was as beautiful as the sun, and when Ciccu looked upon her his heart went out to her, and he longed to have her to wife. The princess saw what was passing in his mind, and how she could make use of it to satisfy her curiosity as to the golden stairs; so she praised him and flattered him, and put cunning questions, till at length Ciccu's head was quite turned, and he told her the whole story of the fairies and their gifts. Then she begged him to lend her the purse for a few days, so ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... gazing into the fire; her tone when she spoke was that of a sensible person considering some subject only remotely interesting to her. 'I suppose,' she said steadily, but with a touch of curiosity, 'that Mrs. Avory will always continue to think that to be true for ever and ever to Toffy is the most noble and virtuous action in ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... beautiful vase, the richest classic painting, produces on the uncultivated eye no more valuable or lasting impression than the sight of a sailing ship for the first time produces on the mind of a savage. That is to say, the impression at the best is of wonder, not of delight or curiosity at all. In the picture galleries, it is true, the dull eyes are lifted and the weary faces brighten, because here, if you plea, we touch upon that art which every human being all over the world can appreciate. It is ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant |
