"Inquisitiveness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in an assured, not unkindly inquisitiveness, the girls fresh and bright-faced, with crisp lovely clothes; their mother, in a smart mantle and little bonnet with knots of French flowers, greeted her with a direct question tempered by a smile. William Ammidon, smoking, was unconcerned; while ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... him in silence; the French soldiers had spent twelve years in the ceaseless exertions of an amused inquisitiveness to discover the antecedents of their volunteer; the Arabs, with their loftier instincts of courtesy, had never hinted to him a question of whence or why he had come ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... around the earth. It had courage, enterprise, intelligence, perseverance, faith in itself, the instinct of self-government and self-help, hatred of tyranny, the disposition to domineer, aggressiveness, greediness, inquisitiveness, insolence, the love of science, of liberty, and of money—all this in unlimited extent. It had one great defect, it had no country. Upon that meagre standing ground its hand had moved the world with an impulse to be felt through all the ages, but there was not soil ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... found among them "men with hats," i.e., Europeans, as well as "men with turbans." As Sund Fo was the hero of the day, and also the viceroy of the Canton province, his views carried great weight, and they were also of unfavorable omen for the future of foreign relations. But for this occasion the inquisitiveness of the aged emperor prevailed over the views of the majority in his council and also over popular prejudice. When the embassy had been detained some time at Pekin, and after it looked as if a period of vexatious delay was to herald the discomfiture of the ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... given a seat on the bench, in company with one or two other local dignitaries, one of whom, I observed with some curiosity, was that Reverend Mr. Ridley who had given evidence at the inquest on Phillips. All these folk, it was easy to see, were in a high state of inquisitiveness about Crone's murder; and from certain whispers that I overheard, I gathered that the chief cause of this interest lay in a generally accepted opinion that it was, as Mr. Lindsey had declared to me more than once, all of a piece with the crime of the previous ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... pony. Baldy stopped and eyed the foreman with vapid inquisitiveness. "Now, son, I got three things to tell you," and the foreman gathered up the reins. "First—keep on keepin' your mouth shut and tendin' to business. It pays. Second—always drop your reins over a hoss's head when you get off, whether he's trained ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... must entertain him in courts and on thrones. Now the high development of this in the American Man renders him communicative, gives him a quick interest in men; he cannot let them pass without giving and taking. Hence the much-blamed inquisitiveness,—"What is your name? Where do you live? Where are you going? What is your business? Do you eat baked beans on Sunday?" Mrs. Trollope is horrified; it is a bore; but one likes the man the better for it. He is interested in you;—that is the simple secret of all. King Carlyle calls us "eighteen ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... of the most vapid and senseless order conceivable— always prevented the son from working. Likewise, the old man occasionally arrived there drunk. Gradually, however, the son was weaning his parent from his vicious ways and everlasting inquisitiveness, and teaching the old man to look upon him, his son, as an oracle, and never to speak without that ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... stopped in their imaginary fury, and, as the dust of conflict cleared away, recognized little Johnny Peters gazing at them with mingled inquisitiveness and envy. ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... us tell him all our strange though brief history, as the reader already knows it. If he asked us questions, however, it was evidently not for the sake of inquisitiveness, but to exchange experiences, and support the conversation. He was quite as ready to impart as to solicit information; but somehow we felt towards him as if he were an elder brother or uncle; and this only proves the hermit was ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... though they were crocuses, that loves to run a golden finger along the beautiful wrinkles of old faces and light up the noble hollows of age-worn eyes; the sunlight that loves to fall with transfiguring beam on the once dear book we never read, or, with malicious inquisitiveness, expose to undreamed-of detection the undusted picture, or the gold-dusted legs of remote chairs, which ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... him the events that had led up to his presence on the raft, only omitting, of course, the object of the experiments. The doctor was very curious on this point, but his inquisitiveness was destined to go unsatisfied. Billy had no intention of betraying the boys' confidence in so important a matter as the proposed recovery of the golden galleon. The secret was theirs alone, he reflected. What ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... and trees took dim, mysterious shape; the edge of the moon peeped with glorious inquisitiveness over the clouds. Calmly, royally the moon rose. So deliberately was she unveiled, that it seemed as if she were revealing her beauty to the world for the first time, like a proud, adored mistress ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... phonetic variation as such. Hence it forms no live feature of the language-mechanism and must be ignored in defining the general form of the language. The caution is all the more necessary, as it is precisely the foreigner, who approaches a new language with a certain prying inquisitiveness, that is most apt to see life in vestigial features which the native is either completely unaware of or feels ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... females, fancifully decorated with flowers, who gazed upon me as I rose with faces in which childish delight and curiosity were vividly portrayed. After waking Toby, they seated themselves round us on the mats, and gave full play to that prying inquisitiveness which time out of mind has been attributed to ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... ban the new inquisitiveness. The intercourse with familiar spirits is condemned as a theological offence, a vainglorious and futile storming of the citadel of God. The secret of the tomb must be preserved, though the masses of Christendom have ceased to believe in the long and mouldering sleep of the centuries before the ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... Jersey, and died there when he was young. What significance this statement possessed no one ever knew; probably no one in Hillsborough cared to know. The people of that town had their own notions and their own opinions. They were not unduly inquisitive, save when their inquisitiveness seemed to take a political shape; and then it was ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... hidden, a passion for the unattainable, which kept him, with greater power than many of his contemporaries, and vastly greater science, a mere student throughout his lifetime. He resembled in some respects his great contemporary Leonardo, but while the eager inquisitiveness of the latter was tempered by a singular power of universal enjoyment, a love of luxury and joyousness in every form, the intellectual activity of Neroni was exasperated into a kind of unhappy mania by the fact that its satisfaction was the only happiness that he could conceive. He ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... to differ," was the rejoinder. "Unfortunately you are on board, and you must make the best of it, I understand from my friend—shall I say Dr. Ramblethorne—that you are both very inquisitive. Inquisitiveness is a bad trait in ones so young. You see, it has got you into trouble. The doctor has strong reasons for getting me to take care of you for some considerable time, so you will have an opportunity of seeing how we Germans ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... cablegram roused Matt Peasley's curiosity. He could not rest until he had interviewed the agent—and after that sop to his inquisitiveness he returned to the Retriever a broken man. The loyal and disgusted Murphy read the trouble in the ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... away convinced that Mrs. Folliot's inquisitiveness had been aroused, and that her tongue would not be idle: Mrs. Folliot, left to herself, had the gift of creating an atmosphere, and if she once got it into her head that there was some mysterious connection between Dr. Ransford and the dead man, she would never rest until ...
— The Paradise Mystery • J. S. Fletcher
... with the same solemnity as in the old school days when he had to meet his teacher after some of his occasional mischiefs. With these and other agreeable memories relishing my time in that office, I heard a loud applause in the store and the words "Father is here," aroused my inquisitiveness and before I could leave my chair, there was at the door of the office standing the man whom I wanted to see. Sturdy and resolute with two slow steps he now extends a welcome hand to me and as he called me by my childish nickname in response said, I, my teacher! Yes, said he, How do you do my Father? ...
— Conversion of a High Priest into a Christian Worker • Meletios Golden
... Inquisitiveness is fatal to real charm. No one cares to talk twice with a person who, no matter what his wit or ability to entertain, has betrayed one into divulging facts or making remarks which ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... be supposed that the disappearance of the village grocer from his usual post for a whole day together, and particularly on Christmas, that busiest of all days, failed to excite a degree of general curiosity and inquisitiveness as to the cause of his absence; but to the many inquiries of his friends touching that subject, he only replied by shaking his head and saying that time would show. Enough had leaked out, however, to satisfy the public that ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... He was a youth of twenty-three, of German aspect, and I think his face was somewhat seamed with small-pox. But his sweet and candid expression, his gentle and affectionate manner, were very winning. He had an air of singular refinement and self-reliance combined with a half-eager inquisitiveness, and upon becoming acquainted with him, I told him that he was Ernest the Seeker, which was the title of a story of mental unrest which William Henry Channing was then publishing ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... No. 331 opened its door herself to these two visitors. Her look of speculative interest on seeing two highly respectable elderly gentlemen changed to one of inquisitiveness when she heard what ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... others, have availed themselves of this propensity, to obtain an easy livelihood by levying contributions on the curiosity of the public. Whether this taste is to be considered as a proof of the weakness of our judgment, or of innate inquisitiveness, which stimulates us to enlarge the sphere of our knowledge, must be left to the decision of metaphysicians; it is sufficient for our present purpose to know that it gave rise to a numerous class of impostors in the shape of quacks, mountebanks, ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... she had somehow given herself a scratch upon the tip of this odd, investigating member; and it blushed for its inquisitiveness under a scrap of ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... curiosity in their nature, would then frequently approach, now stopping, now drawing nearer, till the hunter would suddenly lift his bow, drawing his arrow to let it fly at the nearest animal, which would in most instances suffer the penalty of its inquisitiveness. Still they often missed. ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... courtesy of the mountaineers, exemplified in their singular abstinence from any expressions of curiosity, accepted such account of himself as he had volunteered, and asked for no more. In the face of this standard of manners any inquisitiveness on his part, such as might have elicited points of interest for his merely momentary entertainment, was tabooed. Nevertheless, silent though he was for the most part, the relish with which he listened, his half-covert interest in the girl, his quick observation of the others, the sudden very ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... tribulation if Eden had been located in some calm and tranquil land—like Ireland. There would at least have been no snakes there to get into the garden. Now woman in her thirst after knowledge, showed her true female inquisitiveness in her cross-examination of the serpent, and, in commemoration of that circumstance, the serpent seems to have been curled up and used in nearly all languages as a sign of interrogation. Soon the domestic troubles of our first parents began. The first woman's favorite ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... fierceness of the Puritans, who dashed the mitre on the ruins of the throne; from the bold dissent and creative self-assertion of the earliest emigrants to Massachusetts; from the statesmen who made, and the philosophers who expounded, the revolution of England; from the liberal spirit and analyzing inquisitiveness of the eighteenth century; from the cloud of witnesses of all the ages to the reality and the rightfulness of human freedom. All the centuries bowed themselves from the recesses of the past to cheer in their sacrifice the lowly men who proved ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... inquisitiveness now returned. There was no servant—that was a settled point. I looked, therefore, for the extra baggage. After some delay, a cart arrived at the wharf, with an oblong pine box, which was everything that seemed to be expected. Immediately upon its arrival we made sail, and in ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... return and divide up. We did not know the guards personally, but knew their command. And so we returned to the camp to await the return of our pickets and night. It was soon noised in camp that there was a fine fat porker to be distributed after tattoo, and no little eagerness and inquisitiveness were manifested, as all wished a piece. Armed with a crocus-sack, we returned to the house; all was dark and still. We whistled the signal, but no answer. It was repeated, but still no reply. The guard had not come. Sitting down on the door step, we began our ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... to laugh at the man's effrontery, though I felt exasperated at his inquisitiveness. After all, there are things in private letters which one does not wish a stranger, and a ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... sure that you are availing yourself of the immense possibilities for copy which this extraordinary inquisitiveness on the part of the public has fortunately created, you must cultivate an attitude of mind which is constantly ...
— Journalism for Women - A Practical Guide • E.A. Bennett
... her reticent soul shrinking from the frank inquisitiveness. "I don't know anybody," she said honestly. "I never heard of ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... name Dick Rendal—knew something of the inquisitiveness and idle ways of passengers. This was his fifth trip in the Carnatic. He took no truck in passengers beyond showing them the patient politeness enjoined by the Company's rules. He knew nothing of Mr Markham, who dispensed with the services ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... looked at me, not keenly and scrutinizingly, as her brother had done, but with a kindly inquisitiveness, as though she wanted to know all about me, and to put me at my ease as soon as possible. I flushed a little at that, and my unfortunate sensitiveness took alarm. If it were only Carrie, I thought, with her ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... wearily, but he felt no resentment at the older man's inquisitiveness. Larry's face expressed too much kindliness to make resentment possible, but Richard was ill at ease to be talking thus intimately with a stranger who had but just chanced upon him. He ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... would have dared to ask such a question; and if he had, the officer, if he had made any reply at all, would very likely have told him that he would find out all about it in due time. But he expressed no surprise at George's inquisitiveness. ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon
... who pushed their inquisitiveness about ancestry to the breaking-point Patsy blinked a pair of steely-blue eyes while she wrinkled her forehead into a speculative frown: "Faith! I can hearken back to Adam the same as yourselves; but if it's some one more modern you're asking for—there's ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... Ditte spilled a basin of hot milk over herself and was badly scalded; that cured her of inquisitiveness. Maren put her to bed and treated her burns with egg-oil and slices of new potato; and it was some time before Ditte was herself again. But when she was again about, there was not so much as a scar ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... Christians and sensible people to avoid the terrible example of Doctor Faustus.' He evidently takes the thing very seriously and has purposely (as he says) omitted all 'magic formulae,' lest 'any should by this Historia be incited to inquisitiveness and imitation.' Johann Faust, according to this version, was born at Roda, a village near Weimar. (Other versions say at Knittlingen in Wuertemberg.) His parents were honest God-fearing peasants. His great abilities induced a rich relation in Wittenberg to adopt and educate him. He studied ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill
... by a crowd of runners, eager out of pure inquisitiveness to see the matter through. They passed Government House, turned into dusty Macleod Road, and in five or six minutes reached the Custom House, where, turning to the left for a short distance along the Napier Mole, the driver pulled up at a ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... very amusing circumstance in connection with Mrs. Somerville's acquaintance with Sir Walter arose out of the childish inquisitiveness of Woronzow ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... and in such a place, he could not imagine, and could hardly reconcile to his belief. He, however, listened, and when he caught her name uttered by her prostrate suitor, his rage at the discovery was unbounded. Yet his inquisitiveness to hear more, and know how she received the addresses, overcame for the moment, the first impulse of his malevolence; and kept him silent until the moment, when he dismounted from his horse, we have seen ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... said, peering into the secret drawer with a child's inquisitiveness. "Have they a ...
— Monsieur Maurice • Amelia B. Edwards
... simplest and most remunerative of industries, is almost unknown. The market grower already engaged in growing mushrooms appreciates his situation and zealously guards his methods of cultivation from the public. This only incites interest and inquisitiveness, and the people are becoming alive to the fact that there is money in mushrooms and an earnest demand has been created for ...
— Mushrooms: how to grow them - a practical treatise on mushroom culture for profit and pleasure • William Falconer
... excellencies of his mind, seems to me to be peculiarly calculated for our contemplation, and ought to form the highest pleasure of our lives. There is a principle of curiosity implanted in us, which leads us, in an especial manner, to investigate our fellow creatures; the eager inquisitiveness with which the mechanic seeks to know the history of his fellow-workmen and the ardour with which the philosopher, the poet, or the historian hunts for details that may familiarize him with, a Descartes or a Newton, with a Milton, a Hume, or a Gibbon— spring from the same source. ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... carry off her lover; and, wholly terrified, she asks, "Who are you and where do you come from?" At the moment Frederick rushes in with some confederates, only to be slain by Lohengrin. Sadly Lohengrin says that all now is ended; his hopes are shattered because his bride could not subdue her inquisitiveness for a year. In the next act he appears before the King and nobles; he relates what has happened, says that he comes from Montsalvat, where his father, Parcival, is King, and now he must return. Ortruda breaks through the crowd, and in malicious triumph ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman
... be secluded from people coming and going, and a proprietor clever enough not to be inquisitive, with a genius for minding his own business. A man who has a genius for that thing always carries it in his face, just as his opposite—the busybody—carries the traces of his restless inquisitiveness in the ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... the difference between Sioux and Pawnee had once meant life or death. "What's your business, stranger, in these parts?" was an instinctive, because it had once been a vital, question. That it degenerates into mere inquisitiveness is true enough; just as the "acuteness," the "awareness," essential to the existence of one generation becomes only "cuteness," the typical tin-pedler's habit of mind, in the ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... no doubt as to the prima facie evidence of the hostile intentions of the destroyed American steamer, with respect to the disaffected on Navy Island, as, from the acknowledged inquisitiveness of the gentler sex, there can be no doubt that Caroline would ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 30, 1841 • Various
... Kirkwood found a stump of candle in a china candlestick; the two charred ends of matches at its base were only an irritating discovery, however—evidence that real matches had been the mode in Number 9, at some remote date. Disgusted and oppressed by cumulative inquisitiveness, he took the candle-end back to the hall; he would have given much for the time and means to make a more detailed investigation into the secret ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... glancing at the rather peculiar hand, she recognised it at once. She remembered likewise, to account for the black seal, that one of the Miss Harpers had died within the year. So, whether from the spice of malice in her composition she wished to disappoint the polite inquisitiveness of the Iansons, or whether from more generous reasons of her own, Miss Bowen left her letter unopened until the meal was done; when, carelessly taking it up, she adjourned to her ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... furiously, let the sarcasm glide over them, unhit by its truth. Inez herself, indeed, was inclined to consider the governess's taunt a compliment, as proving that she was incapable of a vulgar inquisitiveness. But Laura, though she laughed docilely with the rest, could not forget the incident—words in any case had a way of sticking to her memory—and what Miss Hicks had said often came back to her, in the days that followed. And then, all of a sudden, just as if an invisible hand had opened ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... and hospitable welcome that awaited us near Aurillac, we found the peasant farmers exceedingly civil to strangers; and when once made to understand the motives of my inquisitiveness, they were quite ready to give me ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... about fifty yards off. Twenty of the savages now got on board, and proceeded to ramble over every part of the deck, and scramble about among the rigging, making themselves much at home, and examining every article with great inquisitiveness. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... was now introduced opened to my enquiring eye a new field for observation, and what I had heretofore passed over as common occurrences, became intensely interesting to me. My father felt great delight in satisfying my eager enquiries, and, instead of being annoyed at my unceasing inquisitiveness, he encouraged me to satisfy myself, and not to leave any one subject till he had made me comprehend the cause as well as ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... to listen to the raptures all over again. The eager interest of the wife disturbed her. She doubted whether Frau Manske had any real sympathy with her plan. Her inquisitiveness was unquestionable; but Anna felt that opening her heart to the parson and opening it to his wife were two different things. Though he was wordy, he was certainly enthusiastic; his wife, on the ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... intelligence of a much older child than three years (now five years), but his height, dentition, and general appearance indicate the truthfulness of the age assigned. An evidence of his symmetrical mental development appears in his extreme inquisitiveness. He wants to understand the meaning of what he is taught, and some kind of an explanation must be given him for what he learns. Were his memory alone abnormally great and other faculties defective, this ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... intending to execute a work, whether it be "to build a tower," or drain a field, "sitteth down first and counteth the cost, whether he hath sufficient to finish it." There is good sense and discretion in the inquisitiveness which suggests so often the inquiry, "How much does it cost to drain an acre?" or, "How much does it cost a rod to lay drains?" These questions cannot be answered so briefly as they are asked; yet much information can be given, which will aid one ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... at Shanghai their hearts were gladdened by seeing "on the quay a French custom-house official, with his kepi over his ear, his rattan in his hand, dressed in a dark-green tunic, and full of the inquisitiveness of the customs inspector—as martial and as authoritative as in his native land." The appearance of the population here struck our travelers as different from that of the native Chinese farther south. Those were ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... cocoa-nuts, and the curiosity of their poor inhabitants at their appearance was intense. They were chiefly fishermen or husbandmen, and notwithstanding the uncouth and remarkable dress of the Landers, they behaved to them without rudeness and even with civility, so that their inquisitiveness was not disagreeable. Speaking trumpets, it was imagined, were quite a novelty with the men at Brass, by the extraordinary rapture which they displayed for their music, which certainly was anything but melodious. It has been already stated that two of these ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... ploughing up some derelict fields which they had persuaded Sir Charles Horner to let to the Abbey rent free on condition that they were put back into cultivation. The patron himself had gone away for the winter to Rome and Florence, and Mark was glad that he had, for he was sure that otherwise his inquisitiveness would have been severely snubbed by the Prior. Father Burrowes went away as usual to preach after Christmas; but before he went Mark was clothed as a novice together with two other postulants who had been at Malford since September. Of these Brother ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... infinitesimal curls and rolls which did great credit to her maid, and gave additional height to the head and length to a thin white neck. Her light blue eyes were very direct and observant. Their expression implied both considerable knowledge of the world and a natural inquisitiveness. Many persons indeed were of opinion that Lady Selina wished to know too much about you and were on ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to write to Ellen, for he could not disguise from himself the danger which the secrecy of his connection with her must incur by his communicating with her, even through a public office, where their letters might be permitted to lie longer than the gossiping inquisitiveness of a country town would warrant him ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... Nostromo, looking down with a sort of comic inquisitiveness at the unconscious old man. "No matter," he added, with lofty negligence; "one is enough till another ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... introductory visits, scarcely anything is done or said that resembles Mission work as invented in stories, and described by the very vivid imagination, of sensational writers. The crowd is great, the noise greater, the heat, the dirt, the inquisitiveness, the endless repetition of the same questions and remarks, the continual requests for a fish-hook, for beads, &c.—this is somewhat unlike the interesting pictures, in a Missionary Magazine, of an amiable individual very ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... take much content in that phase of the situation, feeling that mere personal inquisitiveness was dignified in this case under the aegis of law and authority. It was exactly this view of the matter that most disturbed Cap'n Aaron Sproul, for that hateful Pharisee, Squire Reeves, had supplied the law to compel his own ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... who seemed in an admirable humor, stepped just outside the tent to look at the fish, and in that little interval his assistant, seized with inquisitiveness, stole up to his table, and picked up the tiny object lying ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... non-compliance will snatch the paper from him. But, should he be fortunate enough to have a mother of some rationality, who knows that this interest with which he is watching the paper burn, results from a healthy inquisitiveness, and who has also the wisdom to consider the results of interference, she will reason thus:—"If I put a stop to this I shall prevent the acquirement of a certain amount of knowledge. It is true ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... he had been prevailed on to start fairly for the walk, Mat began to ask questions with the same pertinacious inquisitiveness which he had already displayed on the day of the picture-show. He set out with wanting to know whether there were to be any strange visitors at Mr. Blyth's that evening; and then, on being reminded that Valentine had expressly said ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... not a whit dismayed by the rebuke and the air of rather contemptuous disdain with which it was uttered. He waved his revolver toward Mary, merely as a gesture of inquisitiveness, without any threat. ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... as essential an ingredient of Prussian character as conceit, indifference to the feelings of others, jealousy, envy, self-satisfaction, conceit, industry, inquisitiveness, veneration for officialdom, imitativeness, materialism, and the other national attributes that will occur to those who know Prussia, as distinct ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... this gentleman, he felt convinced that there was no chance for a situation on board. Captain Slowly was one of those mahogany-faced, moderate, slow-moving, slow-speaking, slow-eating people, that one occasionally meets with in New England, who are the very reverse of Yankee inquisitiveness, and never answer the most ordinary question, not even "What o'clock is it?" in less than half an hour; men who, in short, as they never ask any questions themselves, think it not worth their while to answer any. We have been several times horrified by such people, ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... of the journey would be the same for all of us we bought other kit, packed it, and booked passages for British East Africa. Between then and the next afternoon when the British India steamboat sailed we were fairly bombarded by inquisitiveness, but contrived not to tell much. And with patience beyond belief Monty restrained us from paying court ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... at this interrogation, and Guy, who was amused at Gussie's inquisitiveness, said ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... or satisfy his inquisitiveness, the door of the carriage was opened in haste, and the landlord sprang to offer his shoulder. A tall young man whose shaped riding-coat failed to hide that which his jewelled hands and small French hat would alone have betrayed—that he was dressed in the ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... those banana fritters are coming up," lied Ford, getting out of bed and yawning so that his swollen jaw hurt him, and relapsed into his usual taciturnity, which was his wall of defense against Sandy's inquisitiveness. ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... mile of the spot at the moment. Barnard, however, volunteered to go to the mill-dam outside, and, on a signal from us, to undo the wicket that kept back the waters from the wheel. I watched him from the window till he took his station at the spot. Just then Martha, who, with perverse inquisitiveness, had been standing caged within the iron framework of the engines, in hastening to leave it missed her footing, and stumbled backward again within its circle. A streak as of fire flashed through the place. I waved my hand; there was the sudden rush of tumbling water, a faint shriek, and then ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... him, but he pretended to be absorbed in a profound study of the patch of blue sky that gleamed between the closely leaning houses of the narrow street. I accosted him—and he brought his gaze swiftly down to my level, and stared at me with keen inquisitiveness. ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... inference coincided with suspicions he had formed, since our last interview, in consequence of certain communications from his housekeeper. It seems the character of Clithero had, from the first, exercised the inquisitiveness of this old lady. She had carefully marked his musing and melancholy deportment. She had tried innumerable expedients for obtaining a knowledge of his past life, and particularly of his motives for coming to America. These expedients, however profound and addressful, ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... was mere inquisitiveness that held Mr. Iff rooted to the spot, gaping at that uninteresting window show, it served to discover him in the guise of an admirably patient person. Fully fifteen minutes elapsed before the return of the motor-cab was signalled unmistakably by the blatant bandbox bobbing back high above the ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... that, until Aunt Olive laughed herself tired, and Uncle Daniel declared that if the other monkey was anything like this one, Toby was right when he named him Steve Stubbs, so much did he resemble that gentleman in inquisitiveness. ...
— Mr. Stubbs's Brother - A Sequel to 'Toby Tyler' • James Otis
... quite enough to excite the interest of almost all the inhabitants of Tours, who make a regular promenade of the bridge. Still, in spite of a kind of spy system, by which no harm is meant, a provincial habit bred of want of occupation and the restless inquisitiveness of the principal society, nothing was known for certain of the newcomer's rank, fortune, or real condition. Only, the owner of La Grenadiere told one or two of his friends that the name under which the stranger had signed the lease (her real name, therefore, in all probability) was Augusta Willemsens, ...
— La Grenadiere • Honore de Balzac
... writings present: they are so imbued with the essence of a common humanity that the heart that beats, the tears which start, the blood which courses through them, keep time with our own. The desire to penetrate still further into the intimacy to which they admit us is quite distinct from the vulgar inquisitiveness which pursues celebrity, or merely notoriety, into privacy. His biography has lately been published by one who recognizes the true nature of this curiosity: Paul de Musset has reserved the right of telling his brother's story, regarding it, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... said at last, with the same untouched calm. And then in a tone of whimsical inquisitiveness: 'What ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... Lacasse the saddler, his brain was like a pair of shears— it went clip, clip, clip right through everything. He now hoped that his new apprentice, with the hand of a master-workman, would go clip, clip through madame's inquisitiveness. He was not disappointed, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... there were observers of nature who argued that since birds could raise themselves by flapping their wings, man had only to make suitable wings, flap them, and he too would fly. As early as the thirteenth century Roger Bacon, the scientific friar of unbounded inquisitiveness and not a little real genius, announced that there could be made 'some flying instrument, so that a man sitting in the middle and turning some mechanism may put in motion some artificial wings which may beat the air like a bird flying.' But being a cautious man, ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... the bright-eyed young woman facing me, and not sorry to escape the Major's inquisitiveness, at once begged for the remainder of the waltz. The request was laughingly granted, and in another moment we were threading our way amid the numerous couples upon the floor. She proved so delightful a dancer that I simply yielded myself up to full enjoyment of the measure, ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... inquisitiveness about Dartrey Fenellan; owing to Fredi's reproduction or imitation of her mother's romantic sentiment for Dartrey, doubtless: a bit of jealousy, indicating that the dry fellow had his feelings. Victor touched—off an outline of Dartrey's ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... are much amused in these parts at our gallant fleet, and so early at sea; and I permit them all their conjectures, neither have they gained much allay of them from me by their inquisitiveness. ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... Amburgh is attached, and which, the fat boy told me, is about three times the size of his own—Van Amburgh taking always upwards of a dozen cages of his wild beasts. The work, he says, is very hard, but the money comes in pretty freely, which I can readily believe, as the bump of Inquisitiveness grows here with a luxuriance unknown elsewhere, and is only exceeded by its sister bump of Acquisitiveness, which two organs ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... in the thought that one was certainly speeding homewards; and experience was no longer a blind conflict of forces, but a joyful nearing of the central sum of things. At all events, what a blitheness, what a zest it gave to the genius of Plato himself! With what eager inquisitiveness, in a sort of childlike gaiety, he hurried hither and thither, catching at every point some bright indication of the delightful mystery. Plato seemed to differ from the serious and preoccupied philosophers in this, that while they were lost in a grave and anxious scrutiny ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... have begun, and you will be one of the proudest achievements of our great undertaking. We shall be able to point to you in proof that zeal for knowledge may thrive even under the pressure of secular callings; that mother-wit does not necessarily make a man idle, nor inquisitiveness of mind irreverent; that shrewdness and cleverness are not incompatible with firm faith in the mysteries of Revelation; that attainment in Literature and Science need not make men conceited, nor above their station, nor restless, nor self-willed. We shall be able to point to you in proof of ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... plead guiltless to the charge of ever having made such an insinuation," said the captain; "and do now confess to having a full share of inquisitiveness." ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley
... stood upon the wharf, the curiosity and inquisitiveness of the New England people would naturally lead them into the midst of the poor Acadians. Prying busybodies thrust their heads into the circle wherever two or three of the exiles were conversing together. How puzzled did they look ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... An apt name, you have a prying temper. I mean, some little curiosity, a sort of inquisitiveness ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... is explained as ananusandhana or the absence of inquisitiveness or curiosity. By pratibha is meant inquiry after improper things or things that are of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... very sensitive to any such inquisitiveness on the part of the opposite sex. To this cause, perhaps, and possibly, also, to the fear of causing disgust, may be ascribed the objection of men to undress before women artists and women doctors. I am told there ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... him that still continued to jar upon them was his phenomenal inquisitiveness. He appeared not to know the meaning of rudeness or impertinence; he sought to pry into everything, and seemed genuinely surprised and puzzled when Sir Reginald somewhat curtly yet courteously excused himself from complying with his request to be shown all over the ship, and have everything explained ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... all none of the business of Andre Duchemin. He lighted another cigarette, observing the group of strangers in Nant with an open inquisitiveness wholly Gallic, therefore inconspicuous. The entire clientele of the Cafe de l'Univers was doing the same; Mr. Phinuit's party was the focal point of between twenty and thirty pair of staring eyes, and was enduring this ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... evening, and would not even admit us to the ante-chamber, so that we had to stand about outside somewhere. Usually at a late hour he decided that he would not even exchange greetings with us that day. Meanwhile he was largely engaged in gratifying his inquisitiveness, as I said, or was driving chariots, killing beasts, fighting as a gladiator, drinking, enjoying the consequent big head, mixing great bowls (beside their other food) for the soldiers that kept guard over him within, and sending round cups of wine (this last ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... head quickly. If he could find Curley, or Haines, or even Patsy Marles, the clerk who worked in the liquor store—which might possibly still be open for another hour or so yet—it should not, after all, and without even any undue inquisitiveness on the part of Smarlinghue, prove very difficult to obtain the necessary information, for, if Curley had been in a deal involving fifteen thousand dollars, he was much more likely to be boastful than reticent about ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... notion in his head, he tried to find out whether David had any money with him; he wanted to be paid something on account. The old man's inquisitiveness roused his son's distrust; David remained close buttoned up ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... fancy to each other, I cannot say. My lady was of the old nobility,—grand, compose, gentle, and stately in her ways. Miss Galindo must always have been hurried in her manner, and her energy must have shown itself in inquisitiveness and oddness even in her youth. But I don't pretend to account for things: I only narrate them. And the fact was this:—that the elegant, fastidious countess was attracted to the country girl, who on her part almost worshipped ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... reverenced. Such are often the first causes of our resolves; for it is necessary to act, but impossible to know the consequences of action, or to discuss all the reasons which offer themselves on every part to inquisitiveness and solicitude. Since life itself is uncertain, nothing which has life for its basis can boast much stability. Yet this is but a small part of our perplexity. We set out on a tempestuous sea in quest of some port, where we expect to find rest, but where we are not sure of admission, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... yet specific field of scientific industry the colored man has, contrary to the belief of many, made his entry, and has brought to his work in it that same degree of patient inquisitiveness, plodding industry and painstaking experiment that has so richly rewarded others in the same line of endeavor, namely, the endeavor both to create new things and to effect such new combinations of old things as will adapt them to new uses. We know ...
— The Colored Inventor - A Record of Fifty Years • Henry E. Baker
... of this same braggadocio in an opposite direction, when he calls the "present with its political disorders simply an intermediate state,—the transmission of the natural or unconscious wisdom of the fathers, through the inquisitiveness of their children to the rational acknowledgment of that wisdom by their grandsons." ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... all had a sort of bonhommie honesty and straightforwardness, a natural courtesy and extreme good-nature, which was very agreeable. Although they were all very anxious to talk to a European—who, in these blockaded times, is a rara avis—yet their inquisitiveness was never ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... I felt a strange curiosity about this youth, but as Richard gave my inquisitiveness no food, and conducted his attentions to his charge in an orderly, business-like manner, I dismissed the subject ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... since every one desired to know who the knight was that had gained so many laurels, yet had refused, even at the command of Prince John, to lift his visor or to name his name. But their officious inquisitiveness was not gratified. The Disinherited Knight refused all other assistance save that of his own squire, or rather yeoman—a clownish-looking man, who, wrapt in a cloak of dark-coloured felt, and having his head and face half-buried ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... best known to myself, Ewart," he snapped; for he never approved of inquisitiveness ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... appearance, in the open front doors, of a strange creature with a bright pink ribbon arranged as a sort of cockade around and above its left ear—a brown, hairy, unclean-looking thing that gazed with human inquisitiveness at the approaching figures. As the elder Ranger drew down his eyebrows the creature gave a squeak of alarm and, dropping from a sitting position to all fours, wheeled and shambled swiftly along the wide hall, walking human fashion ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... enquire," said Dashall, "without the imputation of impertinent inquisitiveness, what has been the nature of ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... not sooner successful than they were is due to a combination of small things—each perhaps trivial in itself, but the whole most efficacious in perpetuating Napoleon's hold on the French. During his presence in Paris all the old inquisitiveness and boundless concern for detail seemed to return without diminution of force. Before his last departure he had won the popular heart by the model family life of the Tuileries, which, though never ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... upper parts of their bodies, only the petticoats and feet. They were indeed quiet until I advanced nearer, when one wild scream was given that would try stronger nerves than mine, and signs to keep away. It required more inquisitiveness than I possessed to proceed. I retired a few paces, warning the boat's crew to keep a good look-out, and especially from the bush end of the village, where the man ran to. I invited the dusky damsels to come to me, if they objected to my visiting them; but no, I must return whence I came; ...
— Adventures in New Guinea • James Chalmers
... The reasons are double: for, historically, such an estimate by contemporaries is of the very first value, and to the present writer Caleb Williams (1794) has never seemed a very interesting book. It is impossible to sympathise with a hero who is actuated by the very lowest of human motives, sheer inquisitiveness: and my sense of natural justice (which is different from Godwin's) demands not that he shall escape, but that he shall be broken on the wheel, or burnt at a slow fire, or made to read Political Justice after the novelty of its ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... affairs to any one except Constance and Jerry Macy. Not even Susan Atwell and Muriel Harding knew just how matters stood. Harriet remembered this in the same moment of her question, and, flushing at her own inquisitiveness, remarked hurriedly, "Everyone in school is coming ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... smuggling; had a partner-accomplice in the Customs House, and perfect arrangements aboard a certain ship. By these last double advantages, he came aboard with twenty trunks, if he so pleased, without risking anything from the inquisitiveness or loquacity of the officers of the ship; and later debarked at New York with the certainty of going scatheless through the customs as rapidly as his Inspector partner could chalk scrawlingly "O.K." upon his ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various
... most precocious child, and he received an excellent education. At the age of seven he was confirmed by a cardinal, but his childhood was difficult of control, and chastisement from his father and tutor was continual. His inquisitiveness was irrepressible. He relates that at the family supper after his confirmation, "they explained to me that God could not make contradictions—for instance, a stick with only one end. I asked whether a stick which had but one end was not a miracle. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... this for some time, and as no one fired, a mutual inquisitiveness prompted men to climb over their entrenched positions and walk out boldly into the open. ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... and watched in silence the unconscious pair who were now about two furlongs distant. The shorter of the two still loitered behind his companion, and inspected the ground with particular interest. The leader of the band, who went by the name of Black Will, muttered a curse upon his inquisitiveness. The others assented all but one, a huge fellow whom the others addressed as Jem. "Nonsense," said Jem, "dozens pass this way and are ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... glad to see Aunt Rachel go—immeasurably relieved when a musical evening was proposed by the brother and sister, seconding the motion with alacrity that called forth a pleased smile from the one, and a look of surprised inquisitiveness from ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... of the sensitiveness of a dreamer who is easily jarred. He had said to himself that the all-knowing one would only preach again about the evils of solitude and worry his head off in favour of some forlornly useless protege of his. Also the inquisitiveness of the Editor had irritated him and had closed his ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... is rich in strange curiosities, like those mystic stones which were fingered and arrayed by the pupils in that allegory of Novalis. I am not likely to regret the accident which brought me up on fairy tales, and the inquisitiveness which led me to examine the other fragments of antiquity. But the poetry and the significance of them are apt to be hidden by the enormous crowd of details. Only late we find the true meaning of what seems like a mass ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... place you are naturally a sharp, intelligent lad, with a strong predilection for study; and in the next place there was little else for you to do on this group but learn, until we started to build the cutter. Now, Billy, what you have told me relative to Van Ryn's inquisitiveness and his cross-questioning of you has greatly interested me, for a reason which I will explain later on; therefore, while I am not as a rule inquisitive, I will ask you to make a point of reporting to me the substance ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... repeated, and at last a faint light gleamed upon the windows, and the door was timorously unbarred and opened. A hard-featured hag, in a faded suit of an obsolete fashion—the genius loci—received the party. She scrutinized Lucille with a protracted stare of audacious inquisitiveness, and when she had quite satisfied her curiosity, she led the way through several halls and lobbies up the great staircase, along a corridor, through a suite of rooms, upon another lobby up a second staircase, ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... of cool speech that showed the cowboy in control of himself and master of the situation—not an easy speech to follow up with undue inquisitiveness. There was ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... the opinion that the original inquisitiveness about the sexual secret is abnormally transformed into morbid over subtlety; and yet can still furnish an impulsive power ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... whole country around her was inhabited by a rich and respectable people, principally from New-England, as much distinguished for their spirit of inquisitiveness as for their habits of industry and honesty, who had all heard from one source and another a part of her life in detached pieces, and had obtained an idea that the whole taken in connection would ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
... is in the works of Keats; its place is taken by sympathy for humanity and an extraordinary sympathy for animals. He is as far from the religious passion of Francis Thompson as he is from the sociological inquisitiveness of Mr. Gibson. To him each bird, each flower appears as a form of worship. Men and women appeal to him not because they are poor or downtrodden, but simply because they are men and women. He is neither an optimist nor a pessimist; the world is ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... are told, penetrated into the New-Netherland settlements, and threw whole villages into consternation by their unparalleled volubility, and their intolerable inquisitiveness—two evil habits hitherto unknown in those parts, or only known to be abhorred; for our ancestors were noted as being men of truly Spartan taciturnity, and who neither knew nor cared aught about anybody's concerns but their own. Many enormities were committed on the highways, where several ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... death; or to an unreflecting acquiescence in what had been instilled into him! Has such an unfolder of the mysteries of nature, though he may have forgotten his former self, ever noticed the early, obstinate, and unappeasable inquisitiveness of children upon the subject of origination? This single fact proves outwardly the monstrousness of those suppositions: for, if we had no direct external testimony that the minds of very young children meditate ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... curiosity was found in the fact, that the lady in passing had eyed me with a glance of more than ordinary inquisitiveness. Do not be too hasty in blaming me for this declaration. Hear me first. I did not for a moment fancy that that glance was one of admiration. I had no such thoughts. I was too young at the time to flatter myself with such fancies. Besides, at that precise moment I was far from being "in my zenith." ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... George, he had just sufficient money to take a third-class slow train ticket to Baden, and that was all. To avoid the inquisitiveness of the guard, he waited till the train was moving, ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... Steeles, as she expected, had now all the benefit of these jokes, and in the eldest of them they raised a curiosity to know the name of the gentleman alluded to, which, though often impertinently expressed, was perfectly of a piece with her general inquisitiveness into the concerns of their family. But Sir John did not sport long with the curiosity which he delighted to raise, for he had at least as much pleasure in telling the name, as Miss ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... tale, I came to notice that over the countenance of Prince Zaleski there grew little by little a singular fixed aspect. His small, keen features distorted themselves into an expression of what I can only describe as an abnormal inquisitiveness —an inquisitiveness most impatient, arrogant, in its intensity. His pupils, contracted each to a dot, became the central puncta of two rings of fiery light; his little sharp teeth seemed to gnash. Once before I had seen him look thus ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... on which they poked out their seven noses, and I ran at them with my spines, for a father who is not an Encyclopaedia on all fours must adopt some method of checking the inquisitiveness of the young. ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... the same time, I became more perverse in my affectation of innocence and purity—saying always to my father that I never could care for girls, and that what people married for was beyond my comprehension. Thus I threw his alarmed inquisitiveness ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... South for the benefit of my health, I arrived at Savannah, in Georgia, on the 10th of February, 1834; and, indulging the common inquisitiveness of a stranger about the place, was informed that just one hundred and one years had elapsed since the first settlers were landed there, and the city laid out. Replies to other inquiries, and especially a perusal of McCall's History of the State, excited a lively interest in the character ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... of things, Arthur Gride was appealed to. The robbery, partly owing to the inquisitiveness of the neighbours, and partly to his own grief and rage, had, long ago, become known; but he positively refused to give his sanction or yield any assistance to the old woman's capture, and was seized ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... several natives arrived, with news that the buffalo was killed and dragged into a dry bed of a rocky nullah within the jungle; and from the high bank they had seen the tiger devouring the hind-quarters. This was satisfactory, although I was afraid that the tiger might have been disturbed by the inquisitiveness of the people; however, they laughed at the suggestion, and the beaters being ready, we sallied out to make a drive for a hopeless beast that ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... Independence. Which way we turn there is a big interrogation-point, often not for information but for negation. Of the good resulting from the inquisitive spirit, we all know; of the baneful influence of inquisitiveness that has become a mere intellectual pastime or amateurish agnosticism, we likewise have some knowledge; but the evil side of this tendency has seldom been put more forcibly, I think, than in this stanza from Lanier's 'Acknowledgment': "O Age that half believ'st thou half believ'st, ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... awakened a strange thought in Philippa's mind. As soon as she reached home she rushed to the nursery, and there, seizing Dorothy, frantically kissed her; then, holding her at arm's length, she gazed with a piercing inquisitiveness into the girl's lineaments. She sighed deeply, abandoned the wondering ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... remarks which I shall make in my efforts to initiate you into the mining polity of this place. Now, you may rest assured that I shall assert nothing upon the subject which is not perfectly correct; for have I not earned a character for inquisitiveness (and you know that does not happen to be one of my failings) which I fear will cling to me through life, by my persevering questions to all the unhappy miners from whom I thought I could gain any information? Did I not martyrize myself into a human mule by descending to the bottom of a dreadful ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... came to her and said very sternly, "O Woman, you have disobeyed me, just as did the very first woman of all. And you must be punished both for your disobedience and for your inquisitiveness which has led you into the worse sin. Not until you have gathered up every one of these insects which you have permitted to escape back into the world shall you be happy. But I will give you wings to help you in the task. You shall ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... lingerie and combing out the fringe on tea-napkins. Every afternoon we are 'entertained' or give an entertainment. Of course we meet the same people over and over, but truly I like the cordiality. Even the inquisitiveness has an affectionate quality to it. I'm determined to enjoy my village and I do appreciate the homely niceties of the life here. Of course I have to 'pretend' rather hard at times—pretend, for example, that I care about certain things which are really of no moment ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... obvious device never seems to have occurred to Reynard. Among slightly teachable mammals, however, there is one group more teachable than the rest. Monkeys, with their greater power of handling things, have also more inquisitiveness and more capacity for sustained attention than any other mammals; and the higher apes are fertile in varied resources. The orang-outang and gorilla are for this reason dreaded by other animals, and roam the undisputed lords of their native ...
— The Meaning of Infancy • John Fiske
... taking note of things too slight for record, and by bringing my human spirit into manifold accordance with the companions God had assigned me—to learn the secret which was hidden even from themselves"; and this is cited as evidence of "his cold inquisitiveness, his incredulity, his determination to worm out the inmost secrets of all associated with him." Such distortion is amazing. The few poets who search constantly for truth are certainly impelled to get at the inmost of everything. But what, in Heaven's name, is the motive? Does ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop |
