"Intentness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Bayweather loose from his soft soap, pretty neatly," and gave the man before him a look of friendly understanding. He was a little startled, for an instant, by the expression in the other's bright eyes, which he found fixed on him with an intentness almost disconcerting. "Does he think I'm trying to put something over on him?" he asked himself with a passing astonishment, "or is he trying to put something over on me?" Then he remembered that everyone had spoken of Marsh's eyes as peculiar; ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... garden gate, and came in. When he came up near the seat where Henry and Rollo stood, he found the boys standing a step or two back from the flower-pot, both watching the hole with the utmost intentness. ...
— Rollo's Experiments • Jacob Abbott
... over her father's eyes, and McNally took the opportunity this afforded him to accompany his words with a meaning look that was insolent in its intentness. In spite of herself Katherine felt the blood mounting into her cheeks and forehead, and McNally, seeing the blush, made no effort to conceal his smile. Katherine did not flinch from his gaze, but returned it squarely. ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster
... discouraged, badly nourished, badly housed—working under conditions little favourable to play of the fancy or intentness of the mind—then was the time, Gissing found, to take down Forster and read—read about ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... silence, Briscoe remained motionless in his easy chair, a rueful reflectiveness on his genial face incongruous with its habitual expression. When a sudden disconcerted intentness developed upon it, Bayne, every instinct on the alert, took instant heed of the change. The obvious accession of dismay betokened the increasing acuteness of the crisis, and Briscoe's attitude, as of helpless paralysis, stricken as it were into stone as he gazed ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... large bodies of bird-shooting sportsmen I have steadily—and also painfully—been impressed by their intentness on. killing, and by the fact that they seek to preserve game only to kill it! Who ever saw a bird-shooter rise in a convention and advocate the preservation of any species of game bird on account of its beauty or its esthetic interest ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... she looks a little sad: then she smooths her dress, straightens herself, shakes her head, and is absorbed in the music, beating time with tiny foot and hand, and following every strain with an intentness which draws her brows together into a slight frown. Elise almost smiles as she glances toward her mother: she knows where to find enthusiasm at a white heat when it is wanted. With the final repetition, "Ye shall find rest to your souls," the dame rises quickly, and hastening to her daughter ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... lasted she had seen it, according to her habit of vision, with peculiar intentness, and she had seen nothing else; but from the beginning to the end, it had appeared to her mainly as an international disturbance which had upset the serene and regular course of her family affairs. For the past two years she had refused to think of it except ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... you see out there?" asked Harvey Spencer, with the sharp intentness which he had learned from his ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... their own headman, with its small, alert dark eyes reflected the intentness of his mind. His capacity had been tried over and over again in his long years of service. Then Lal Hobhouse, the best-hated man on the countryside for his ruthless genius in obtaining work from those ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... my dearest!" with no change in the mesmeric intentness of his gaze. "I want nothing more than to have you always near me. You have been a good, faithful wife, Mabel, better and nobler—a thousandfold nobler than I deserved. I have thought it all over while you were ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... transforming the gloom of the high altar into a blaze of light. With a strange sense of completion I took my place next to the chair by which Lorimer, with bowed head, was kneeling, his eyes fixed with a strange intentness on the screen which separated the outer worshippers from the chapel or gallery which was set apart for the nuns. His lips moved from time to time spasmodically, in prayer or ejaculation: then as the jubilant organ burst out, and the officiating priest ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... moment transformed. His mouth was strained and quivering, his eyes were lit with something very much like horror. Some words certainly left his lips, but they did not carry to the hearing of any one of those three people. He looked at Maraton with the fierce, terrified intentness of one who ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... had loved her fervently as a little girl, she had not taken any special pride in her entering the High School with such a fine record. She was in no sense an ambitious or an intellectual woman and the girl's vigor and intentness sometimes frightened her. She should have ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... many things for the young to learn in Africa," remarked Professor Wiseman coldly and gazing at Billy with squashing intentness; "the young do not believe many things merely because they are ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... do you expect to keep the office shut, sir?" inquired the clerk, respectfully, but still with a troubled air, and with serious eyes with the unswerving intentness of a ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... fair colouring whether they enhanced her beauty or not. It was while this discussion was in progress, Leaver forcing himself to attend sufficiently to make intelligent replies, that Charlotte Ruston suddenly turned and looked at him. He looked straight back at her, a peculiar intentness growing in his ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond
... was a woman of the world, though but little past her majority) looked upon him she was still more interested, recognizing at a glance the truth that whatever Clancy might be, he was not commonplace. This explains why he was perplexed by the intentness and soft fire of her eyes. If the way opened, she was inclined to give him "a chance." It might cost him dear, as it had others, but that was his affair. She felt that he was highly honored and distinguished in being given what she contemptuously denied to the great majority. ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... rested by her door. No. The subject was sacred to herself, and she asked no sympathy and granted no confidences. There were those who sought to draw her out, who watched her face and words with keen intentness when certain themes were discussed. But they were unable to reach the penetralia of her heart. There was a chamber of record there into which no ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... eyes opened as he flashed a keen look at Ruth. The name "Atheson" had suddenly commenced to bother him. What was it he should have remembered—and couldn't? The intentness of his gaze disconcerted Ruth. The Minister changed it to look down at his thrumming fingers, and continued in his suavest tones, following that scarcely ...
— Charred Wood • Myles Muredach
... be included among the sights," Marie said, smiling, but with something of the "princess" air which—perhaps unconsciously—she always put on with her husband's cousin. Miss Jewett, making some polite and formal little answer, gazed with glittering intentness at her hostess and Mary Grant. Her eyes, in the thin, sallow face with its pointed chin, were so brilliantly intelligent that they seemed to have a life and individuality of their own, separate from the ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... that such soft, fine abundance ever framed a man's forehead. I talked to her freely; talked of winds and tides and Indians, and was not deterred when she answered me but sparingly. I could not see her face distinctly, because of the light, but there was something in the gentleness and intentness of her listening poise that made me feel that she welcomed the safeguard of my aimless speech, but that for the moment she had no similar weapons ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... the door behind blew in and shook the flame of his lantern, and the horse sighed long and loud in the shadows behind. Once more Frank glanced at the girl; she had lowered her arm from the manger and now sat looking at him, it seemed, with a curious intentness and expectancy. ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... deliberately, to compel himself to wait; and meanwhile his sub-conscious self laboured at the scheme. Then he glanced this way and that with wide eyes; his ears sang with intentness of listening. Then, very softly he shifted his position, and found with his fingers the ring that lifted the trap-door above ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... "What do they matter—these boots and shirts and books?" He caught a few pictures from the wall and stuffed them into his pockets, and was about to plunge out into the dusk when Fan entered the room and stood looking at him with ominous intentness. ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... ready to hold forth. He liked the position of instructor and was not insensible to the flattery of Lettice's intentness on his answers. But he was a little dismayed by one of her questions, which showed the ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... with Frederick's blood and shudderingly she looked at them in the candle light. Frederick lay where she had dropped him, his fat white belly sunken and misshapened. The very stillness of him made the girl round him in a circle, watching him with an intentness which showed her superstitious fear of the stiffening dead. Then her great love for him overwhelmed her and she darted like a ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... by, and then twenty. Margaret bent steadily over her work, listening with covert intentness for the click of the street gate. Likely enough Richard had been unable to find any one to take charge of his hand-baggage. Presently Mr. Slocum could not resist the impulse to look at his watch. It was half past eight. He nervously ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... he was already filled with a new idea; hearkening with a rapt intentness, his head on one side, his face puckered; and he struck me rudely, to make me hold my peace. Then he smiled and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the sky had continued to clear; it was almost light in the forest. We made our way out of the ravine at last. "Wait here," the forester whispered to me, bent over, and raising his gun aloft, vanished among the bushes. I began to listen with strained intentness. Athwart the constant noise of the wind, I thought I discerned faint sounds not far away: an axe was cautiously chopping on ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... to jest," I answered soberly. "I should never have remarked this friar but that he gazed upon me with so great an intentness—so great that I was unable to ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... very greatest of American poetry—I think he called it the most truly American in flavor. I remember that at the luncheon he noted Ware's big, splendid physique and his Western liberties of syntax with a curious intentness. I believe he regarded him as being nearer his own type in mind and expression than any one he ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... was fast succumbing to a despair of reaching across the barrier of this critical silence and he was about to rise and leave when he happened to look about and see Sophie Carr standing within arm's length, gazing at him with a peculiar intentness, a mild look of surprise upon her vivid young ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... or two with the sleeping baby in her arms, looking down on her with a curious gentle intentness. Then she rose carefully, and as carefully deposited little Patience on the bed. This done, she untied the balloon and carried it out with her to the little landing. There was a window here into which the August moon was beginning to shine. Lydia sat down with ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... Captain?" asked Ned as von Kluck stepped along the deck with head bent forward. By his manner of nervous intentness Ned guessed that the captain was carrying a load ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... friend of yours, is he not?" she asked carelessly. Her voice was very full and rich, but she spoke slowly, as though she were accustomed to weigh each word. It struck Malcolm that she listened with some intentness to ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... animal stepped forward and moved to a tree where it had evidently been accustomed to find its feed, for it snorted impatiently and shook itself as it sniffed round the trunk. But Durham had no eyes for it; he was watching, with fascinated intentness, the figure ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... with the intentness of her single eye, his every motion, her head swaying in unconscious sympathy. Although her body sat so stiff and awkward in the chimney-seat, her spirit, inspired with the grace of love, was dancing with Manetho's. But the body kept its place, knowing that erelong he too must ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... flag up to Tom as he spoke. All four lads watched with intentness the figure on the beach, while Tom prepared to reply to his further signals with his flag ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... up as the hours crept slowly by. Now and then he lifted his head and listened with painful intentness. He felt stiff in every muscle, and yet he had a dread of making an effort to change his constrained position. He might lose control of his rigid limbs, and fall into those dread ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... will therein lieth, which dieth not. Who knoweth the mysteries of the will, with its vigor? For God is but a great will pervading all things by nature of its intentness. Man doth not yield himself to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... face. She was almost awed by the change that had come over it. The aloofness and pride which often marked it had disappeared as if by magic; the tenderness, passionate in its intentness, cast upon the little child, moved her to wonder and admiration. Later they went to the poor hovel and bent beside the humble bed on which the mother and child lay. Then it was that Priscilla played her part and made comfortable ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... that it would be good for Justin, too, and was glad that he had been persuaded to go; yet she caught him looking at her with such strange intentness a couple of times during the dinner that it discomposed her oddly. It made her a little silent; she pondered over it after she had gone up, as usual, to the baby. Was there something wrong with her appearance? She looked anxiously in the glass, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... exchange of words which followed, each cautiously exploring a way in toward a somewhat clearer understanding of the other, yet both becoming quickly convinced that they were not destined for ordinary acquaintanceship. To Miss Norvell observing her companion with shy intentness, this erect, manly young fellow with weather-browned, clean-shaven face and straightforward gray eyes seemed to evince a power of manhood she instinctively felt and surrendered to. His were those elements which a ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... came again as he had said, and brought Juliet. Each in the other, Dorothy and she recognized suffering, and in a very few moments every thing was arranged between them. Juliet was charmed with the simplicity and intentness of Dorothy; in Juliet's manner and carriage, Dorothy at once recognized a breeding superior to her own, and at once laid hold of the excellence by acknowledging it. In a moment she made Juliet understand how things were, and Juliet saw as quickly that she must assent to the arrangement ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... these pretended hags the faculty is no longer desultory and erratic. Conscious of their power, they are supposed to have subjected it to system and discipline. They apply its secret and trackless energy with an intentness and a vigour, which ordinary mortals may in vain attempt to emulate in an application of the force of inert matter, or of the different physical powers by means of which such stupendous effects have often been produced.—How ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... girl with a hungry craving in her eyes over which the lids were drawn to a slit. There was a fierce intentness in the gaze: the look of the runner who has almost reached the goal but ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... weaves to-day, in the bright facts of being captain of the track team, and holding the interstate record for the high jump, in the all-suffusing brightness of being twenty-one. Yet sometimes, in the pauses of his work, the young man frowned and looked at the ground with an intentness which suggested that even twenty-one might ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... she had placed on watch at the extreme end of the hall, she muttered some assurances as to this woman's faithfulness, and turned away with a cordial good night. Georgian watched her go with a strange and lingering intentness, or so it seemed to Ransom; then slowly entered her room ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... words Charles raised his eyes and looked at her with strange wistful intentness, but when Ruth had finished speaking he had no remark to make in answer; and as he stood, bareheaded by the gate, twirling the hasp and looking, as a hasty glance told her, so worn and jaded in the sunshine, she said "Good-bye" again, and turned ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... "Private," and motioned Lord James to follow him in. When they entered, a lank, gray-haired man sat facing them at a table-desk as plain as the clerk's. It was covered with drawings, over which the veteran engineer was poring with such intentness that he failed to ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... that whisper turned again towards the place where the dead woman lay. Seeing this movement, his anxious father wiped the moisture from his forehead. Silas Van Burnam had been silent up to this moment and seemed inclined to continue so, but he watched his younger son with painful intentness. ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... Moses"—change the second time, then turned abruptly away, just as the metamorphosis back to marble began, to find herself confronted by a fine-looking, middle-aged gentleman, who was gazing with strange intentness at her. ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... any problem in life. They are said to be unsuccessful and no one knows why. Perhaps they lack that instinctive sense of proportion that some men have—a sense as real as an "ear for music"; or perhaps they lack a willingness or a capability to think about a situation with sufficient intentness to force a clear picture of the situation with all its various features ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... outwardly she kept a solemn appearance, and even from time to time shut her eyes to encourage him. Once, when she opened them again, it was to perceive that he was becoming very hot and exhausted, and that Jacob was watching him with such an unpleasant intentness that she re-closed her eyes that she ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... purse,—plenty of it; but he was afraid to enter an eating-house, or to even approach the "snack-stand" on the edge of the circus lot. For a long time he stood afar off in the darkness, his legs trembling, his mouth twitching, his eyes bent with pathetic intentness upon the single pie and hot sandwich stand that remained near the sideshow tent, presided over by a kind-faced, sleepy ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... yourself were not altogether submissive, perhaps, when the slow-built hope of life was destroyed by some chance, as you called it, no more controllable than this paltry burning of a mill. Yet, now that the great hope was gone on which his brain had worked with rigid, fierce intentness, now that his hands were powerless to redeem a perishing class, he had time to fall into careless, kindly habit: he thought it wasted time, remorsefully, of course. He was seized with a curiosity to know what plan in living these people had ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... repeated, staring with a dull intentness at the ground between his feet. "It's an old story, and the less said about it the better. I can't discuss it with you or any one. I think it was a pity you took the trouble to watch me ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... Brumley had a psychic experience. It seemed to him as he stood observing Lady Harman with an entirely unnecessary and unpremeditated intentness, that for the briefest interval her attention flashed over Lady Beach-Mandarin's shoulder to the end verandah window; and following her glance, he saw—and then he did not see—the arrested figure, the white face of Sir Isaac, bearing an expression in which anger and horror were extraordinarily ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... royal guard, taller than most of his fellows, handsomer by far than any, he was the most noticeable figure in and about the barracks. Haddan coached him in the way he was to approach the princess, Baldos listening with exaggerated intentness and with deep ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... towards acquiring that personality which is the power of story-telling, is to have a power of life gained through the experience of having lived; to have a power of emotion acquired through the exercise of daily affairs; a power of imagination won from having dwelt upon the things of life with intentness, a power of sympathy obtained from seeing the things of others as you meet them day by day; and a first-hand knowledge of the sights and sounds and beauties of Nature, a knowledge of bird and flower, tree and ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... bone-distances, as artists say, and his hair was in crisp curls, good for the sculptor. No one ever needed to get a pair of scissors to snip it. But though anyone might have marvelled at Adrian Torrens's seeming Narcissus-like intentness on his own manifold image, he could never have surmised that cruel blindness was its apology. He could never have guessed, from anything in their seeming, that the long perspective of gazing orbs, vanishing into nothingness, ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... no doubt upon the matter, for she recalled the curious intentness of Weston's face as he sat in the firelight listening to Kinnaird's description of the house in question. Still, she was not prepared to ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... work of that, fumbling while watching Ekstrom with unremitting intentness, hoping against hope that his enemy might make one false move, one only, by some infatuate endeavour to turn the ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... Nina—was its purity. Nina showed to what a pitch it had brought her, the high, undivided passion of her genius. Under it every trace of Nina's murkiness had vanished. She had lost that look of restless, haggard adolescence, that horrible intentness, as if her hand was always on the throat of her wild beast. You saw, of course, that she had suffered; but you saw too that her genius was appeased by her suffering. It was just, it was compassionate; it had ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... and the habit, of the Widow Lewis to sit idly when she liked, but her attitude now was not that of idleness. Intentness, reposeful acceptance of life, rather, showed in her motionless, long-sustained position. She was patient, as women are; but her strong pose, its freedom from material support, her restrained power to do or to endure, gave her the look of owning something ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... grand seignior, he of the equipage with silver trimmings. If the horseman's gaze rested, not without interest, on the pleasing picture of the young actress, it was now turned with sudden and greater intentness to that of the dashing stranger, a swift interrogation glancing from ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... proceeded to fix her gaze on the furniture, the objects of virtu, the pictures, with eager intentness, so that she might be able to carry away the impressions of them in her memory. The Marechale's portrait was half-hidden behind a curtain. But the gilding and the white spaces of the picture, which showed their outlines through the midst of the ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... appalling silence to my appeal. It was not pleasant to have twelve masked faces turned upon you and to see twelve pairs of vindictive Italian eyes fixed with fierce intentness upon your face. But I stood as a debonair soldier should, and I could not but reflect how much credit I was bringing upon the Hussars of Conflans by the dignity of my bearing. I do not think that anyone could have carried himself ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... silent for a time, listening with painful intentness. Not another murmur came from the cabin. Sloan wiped his wet forehead and whispered shakily: "I wouldn't mind it so much if he'd curse and rave. But to sit like that, not making a sound—it ain't ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... found the manola, paid little attention to the preliminaries of the fight, and the first bull had already ripped up a horse before he bestowed a single look upon the arena. He gazed at the young girl by his side, with an intentness that would doubtless have embarrassed her had she perceived it. He thought her more charming than ever; and certainly a more perfect type of Spanish beauty had never sat upon the blue granite benches of the Madrid circus. With admiration amounting to ecstasy, Andres ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... where I stood in the broad embrasure of the south window, I was concealed from the room. But I could see everything through a tiny gap in the hangings. Ned sat at his desk sorting some papers. A sort of stern intentness had settled upon his face, without marring its curious faun-like beauty. I carry ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Throughout the eloquent appeal of the chief, Deerfoot stood with his hands idly folded behind him, his eyes fixed upon the face of Taggarak, whose pose gave a good view of his features, and listening in the very intentness of his soul. When the chief had uttered his last word he gathered his blanket about his shoulders and strode out of the Big Lodge, looking neither to the right nor left, and again failing to notice his wife and little ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... flickering in her voice. Donald moved, his great form coming athwart her eager, kindling eyes. She stirred, her vision evidently hindered, and Donald stepped quickly from before her, gazing with passionate intentness, his eyes shaded by his hand like one who peers into a ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... had been watching her with a painful intentness. He had not even turned his eyes to see me enter, having trusted to his ears to apprise him. At her display of concern, the skin of his face tightened; though that display was no more than any compassionate lady might have ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... over; they propped him up; he looked round rather wildly from one to the other. His face cleared. His eye fell upon Pringle, where it rested with a steady intentness. When he spoke, at last, ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... he had done so much to form. He did not even raise his hand at once in the customary salutation or blessing, but fixed his eyes upon Raymond's face, now lifted to his in questioning surprise; and not until he had studied that face with great intentness for many long minutes did he lay his hand upon the lad's head and say, in a low, deep voice, "Peace be with ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... stand upright, nor see without a candle. Upon the attic floor a map was roughly drawn in chalks of different colours, with mountains, rivers, towns, bridges, and roads of two classes. Here we would play by the hour, with tingling fingers and stiffening knees, and an intentness, zest, and excitement that I shall never forget. The mimic battalions marched and counter-marched, changed by measured evolutions from column formation into line, with cavalry screens in front and massed supports behind, in the most ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... woman, in what appeared to be a white scalloped nightcap. She had a pan of corn in her hand, and was attended by a retinue that would have rejoiced an epicure's heart. Chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, and Guinea fowls thronged around and after her with an intentness on the grain and a disregard of one another's rights and feelings that reminded one unpleasantly of political aspirants just after a Presidential election. Johnny made a dive for an old gobbler, and the great red-wattled bird dropped his wings and seemed ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... a mile of us. There was only one explanation of his appearance. He must have been concealed in the dry mossy ditch at the foot of the bank. It was possible, of course, that he might have been like us, a casual way-farer, and yet the suddenness of his appearance, the intentness of his watch, both had their effect upon me. I moved a few yards towards him, with what object I perhaps scarcely knew. A dry twig snapped beneath my feet. He became suddenly aware of my approach. Then, indeed, my ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... through half-shut eyes, the bored good humor in his face sharpened into something keener; he caught her hand as she whirled past, drawing her close to him with a murmured caress. She, pausing in her joy, looked at him with sudden intentness. ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... of the subject, was checked by the success of Bill Kirby's cast ahead. Half way across the big field, the hounds, who had been industriously spreading themselves, and examining blades of grass and fronds of bracken with the intentness of botanists, came, with a sudden rush, to a deep note from old Bellman, and, as suddenly, broke into full-cry, with the unanimity of an orchestra when the baton comes down. They headed for "Carmody's bounds," and were over that solid ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... and murmur in the circle on the platform. From the intentness with which they had followed the questions and answers, Monsignor saw that they understood English well enough. One man sprang to his feet. But simultaneously the President was on his own, and with a gesture and a sharp word ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... behind, and forgetting not only his taunts but his very existence, Glaucus passed through the gay streets, repeating to himself, in the wantonness of joy, the music of the soft air to which Ione had listened with such intentness; and now he entered the Street of Fortune, with its raised footpath—its houses painted without, and the open doors admitting the view of the glowing frescoes within. Each end of the street was adorned with a triumphal arch: and as Glaucus now came before the ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... took, however, but a few minutes, while they exchanged some conventionalities. Then Cliffe said, scrutinizing the face and form beside him with that intentness which, from him, was more generally taken as ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... on the speaker with an intentness, a cold penetration, that seemed to bore to the very recesses of his mind. In that look there was something questioning ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... and interpret to others my inner and outer being, as this one, of such nobleness in her way of thinking, such great intellectual capacity, and so free from the theological perplexities that enveloped me?" Let any one peruse, with all intentness, the lineaments of this portrait, and he will be impressed with the fact, that it is possible for woman to fulfil her mission, and become a true helpmeet. This woman was not a copy. She was not a cipher. ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton
... way, was a decidedly military-looking man long past middle life—had been studying Cleek's face with a curious sort of intentness ever since he entered the room. Now he put forth his hand in ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... of the time, be a "natural growth," and however much the "product of a long evolution," yet, if it does not mould men into fine and vigorous forms, it has to be destroyed. We "save the state" for the sake of our children, that, at least, is the New Republican view of the matter, and if in our intentness to save the state we injure or sacrifice our children, we destroy our ultimate for our ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... stood silent, considering, while Yussuf looked up with glistening-eyed intentness like an eager dog ready for the word ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... Ballantyne moved an arm. He moved it upwards without changing his attitude in any other way, or even the direction of his eyes, and he groped along the flap of the bureau very cautiously and secretly and up again to the top ledge. All the while his eyes were staring intently, but with the intentness of extreme fear, not at the despatch-box but at the space of carpet—a couple of feet at the most—between the despatch-box and the tent-wall. His fingers felt along the ledge of the bureau and closed with a silent grip upon the handle ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... would have made him change colour if keener suspicion had helped it to be read there. M. de Mauves didn't change colour, but he looked at his wife's so oddly, so more than naturally (wouldn't it be?) detached friend with an intentness that betrayed at once an irritating memory of the episode in the Bois de Boulogne and such vigilant curiosity as was natural to a gentleman who had entrusted his "honour" to another ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James
... room seemed to act as a sort of physical goad toward action. "By God, it is right!" he muttered. Then he looked at the dog crouching still with that wiry intentness before the door. The dog came of a good breed of fighters. He was in himself both weapon and wielder of weapon. He was a concentrated force. His white body was knotted with nerves and muscles. The ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
... weird effect, and I now believe that reflexion concerned in her having sunk again to her seat with her long lean but not ungraceful arms locked together in an archaic manner on her knees and her mournful eyes addressing me a message of intentness which foreshadowed what I was subsequently to suffer. She was a singular fatuous artificial creature, and I was never more than half to penetrate her motives and mysteries. Of one thing I'm sure at least: that they were considerably less insuperable ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... his rug, but her imperious gesture kept him seated. She was looking at him with an intentness which ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... upon a leafy tree limb, a gray-eyed youth watched with eager intentness their every move. The fire of hate, restrained, smoldered beneath the lad's evident desire to know the purpose of the black men's labors. Such a one as these it was who had slain his beloved Kala. For them there could be naught but enmity, yet he liked well to watch them, ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... newspapers hinted at something of the sort, I believe." He was suddenly possessed by the curious notion that he was being "pumped" by his fair companion. Indeed, a certain insistent note had crept into her voice and her eyes were searching his with an intentness that had not appeared in ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... was a strange being, and I could not resist observing him with curiosity, especially as it struck me that he regarded me at times with a curious intentness. ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... girl discovered that if she walked with such apparent aimlessness, some men looked at her with calculating eyes. She quickened her step, frightened. As a protection, she adopted a demeanor of intentness as if ...
— Maggie: A Girl of the Streets • Stephen Crane
... cheerfully responded, as, laying down her book, she arose and moved gracefully across the room toward the handsome, aristocratic-looking man at the desk, who watched her every motion with a fond intentness that betrayed a deep and absorbing affection ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... crowd in that there was something a little out of the common in the faces of nearly every one of them. The loiterers through life seemed absent. These people were relaxing freely enough,—laughing, talking, and making love,—but behind it all there seemed a note of seriousness, an intentness in their faces which seemed to speak of a career, of things to be done in the future, or something accomplished in the past. The woman who sat at the opposite table to me—tall, with yellow hair, and face as pale as alabaster—was a striking personality anywhere. Her blue eyes were deep-set, ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... went along like that, his head bent and his eyes fixed upon the ground, people often wondered whether he was thinking of anything at all, or whether such intentness did betoken a grave preoccupation. Sometimes they tested him. "What you thinkin' about, Jim?" one would ask him, when they met upon the road; but Jim never replied in any illuminating way. If he answered at all, it was only to query, "How's your gardin?" and then, as soon as ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... smooth voice replied from the speaker. Alexander X. M. Alexander, President of Outsold Enterprises—a lean, dark, wolfish man in his early sixties—eyed Kennon with a flat predatory intentness that was oddly disquieting. His stare combined the analytical inspection of the pathologist, the probing curiosity of the psychiatrist, and the weighing appraisal of the butcher. Kennon's thoughts about Alexander's youth vanished that instant. Those eyes ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... the angry blood flashed from brow to throat. Her lover saw it, and for the moment a strange intentness was in his gaze. But immediately he smiled, as a man would at some horrible phantom of his own creating, and continued with a ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock) |
