"Lapsing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... long scene the tender stream of melody flows on, never lapsing into anything approaching prettiness or feebleness, flooding us with an overwhelming sense of a far-away past, while full utterance is found for Eva's anxiety, then her despair, and her wish, timidly spoken, to give herself to Sachs ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... roused himself. "It's a queer thing," he began a propos of nothing, abstractedly toying with his peche Melba and lapsing into thoughtful ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 5, 1920 • Various
... which it is strangely unlikely but some will be out of order; and yet, if any one be so, the whole fabric falls of necessity to the ground: and he that shall put them together, and maturely consider all the possible ways of lapsing and nullifying a priesthood in the Church of Rome, will be very inclinable to think that it is a hundred to one, that among a hundred seeming priests, there is not one true one; nay, that it is not a thing very improbable ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... declared that he would ask the Grand Inquisitor of France for an authorisation which should hold good for the diocese of Beauvais. Meanwhile he consented to act in order to satisfy his own conscience and to prevent the proceedings from lapsing, which, in the opinion of all, must have ensued had the trial been instituted without the concurrence of the Holy Inquisition.[2207] All preliminary difficulties were now removed. The Maid was cited to appear on Wednesday, the 21st ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... and merciless dogma, which we trust will soon cease to darken and distort the beneficent character of God. Indeed it might have been evident to him before that in looking upon herself as a castaway, Jane's sensitive spirit was gradually lapsing into the gloomy horrors of predestination. But this blindness of the father to such a tendency was very natural in a man to whose eye familiarity with the doctrine had removed its deformity. The old man looked upon her countenance with an expression of mute affliction almost verging ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... like to congratulate the authors, Messrs. LECHMERE WORRALL, and HAROLD TERRY, on having given the public what they want, without lapsing into banality. The attraction of the first two Acts was not, perhaps, fully sustained in the third, but they gave us quite a cheerful evening; and at the fall of the curtain the audience was so importunate in their applause that Mr. DENNIS EADIE had to break it to them that, though the loss of their ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 16, 1914 • Various
... at him, roused by Blood's pregnant tone out of the mental lethargy into which he had of late been lapsing as a result of the dehumanizing life he lived. Then he nodded understanding and ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... wild-flowers blushed 'mid silence and shade; Where, hid from the gaze of the garish noon, They were slily wooed by the trembling moon. It rose—for the guardian zephyrs had flown, And left the valley that night alone. No sigh was borne from the leafy hill, No murmur came from the lapsing rill; The boughs of the willow in silence wept, And the aspen leaves in that sabbath slept. The valley dreamed, and the fairy lute Of the whispering reed by the brook was mute. The slender rush o'er the glassy rill, As a marble shaft, was erect and still, And no airy ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich
... love and friendship ... in times past have drawn me ... back from England to Philadelphia." If the remark referred to an affection for Miss Read, it was probably no more trustworthy than are most such allegations made when lapsing years have given a fictitious coloring to a remote past. If indeed Franklin's profligacy and his readiness to marry any girl financially eligible were symptoms attendant upon his being in love, it somewhat taxes the imagination to fancy how he would have conducted himself had he not been the ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... even as even the rainiest clime, Life were even as even this lapsing shore, Might not aught outlive their trustless prime: Vainly fear would wail or hope implore, Vainly grief revile or love adore Seasons clothed in sunshine, rain, or rime Now for me one comfort held in store Stands a sea-mark ...
— A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... that which saw her leave me On the rugged ridge of Waterstone, the peewits plaining round; And a lapsing twenty years had ruled that—as it were to grieve me - I should near ...
— Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... half lying on the sofa in Mrs. Willoughby's arms—'I know they are trifles; I know that. But make every day full of them, every day repeat them! Oh, it's awful! I wonder I don't break down!' She turned again to Mrs. Willoughby, lapsing from vehemence to melancholy as the notion occurred to her. 'Connie, I believe I shall—break down altogether. You know I'm not very strong.' She put her arms about Mrs. Willoughby, and clung to her in the intensity of her self-compassion. 'You can't imagine the strain it is. And ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... could find to say. Their minds were fast lapsing into childhood once more. Punch's unedifying life was fostering languor within their breasts. When the drama drew to its close with the appearance of the devil, and the final fight and general massacre ensued, Helene in leaning back pressed against Henri's hand, ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... do better than take M'Corkindale's hint, and accordingly betook myself to Glenmutchkin, along with the Captain of M'Alcohol, and we quartered ourselves upon the Factor for Glentumblers. We found Watty Solder very shakey, and his assistant also lapsing into habits of painful inebriety. We saw little of them except of an evening, for we shot and fished the whole day, and made ourselves remarkably comfortable. By singular good-luck, the plans and sections ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... entries was as follows. Having migrated from the Stanhopes' at Chevening to a neighboring old house in Kent, he wrote, "What a comfort it is, after staying with people who are too clever, to find oneself with people who are all refreshingly stupid!" If it were not for the danger of lapsing into indiscretions like these—indiscretions of which Hare seemed altogether unconscious—interesting anecdotes might be here ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... Harvey," he said slowly, for the moment lapsing into the name by which he had called his friend in their childhood; "since you came back from Johannesburg, you've not been the same man. ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... slowly between looking at my watch to know the tide change, and dozing as I lay in the cabin—the dingey being of course astern; until in the middle of the night, lapsing through many dreams, I had glided into that delicious state when you dream that you are dreaming. On a sudden, and without any seeming cause, I felt perfectly awake, and yet in a sort of trance, and lying still a time, seeking what could possibly have awakened ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... of the native sovereigns more than once reduced the extramural Tartars to subjection. Between the two races there existed an almost unceasing conflict, which had the effect of civilizing the one and of preventing the other from lapsing into lethargy. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... through the gathering night to turn him into the smoothest way, lapsing into jerky, ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... no sound from the silent, vast assembly. The President's large figure stood before them, at first inspired, glorified with the thrill and swing of his words, lapsing slowly in the stillness into lax, ungraceful lines. He stared at them a moment with sad eyes full of gentleness, of resignation, and in the deep quiet they stared at him. Not a hand was lifted in applause. Slowly the big, awkward man slouched back across the platform and sank into ...
— The Perfect Tribute • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... with an air of relief, as the maid entered with the tray. And he steadily resisted all my attempts to return to the subject of Lady Muriel until the evening had almost worn itself away. Then, as we sat gazing into the fire, and conversation was lapsing into silence, he ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... thing. You and this old lady are the only members of the company who carry away an untarnished reputation from this episode. As for me, I have been made a perfect fool of. As for the rest of them,"—I waited for words to come, and, finally lapsing into melodrama, said—"as for the rest of them, I leave them to the company of ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... woman's heart. Like her father, she disliked him; and if, like her father, she would openly let him see and hear it—but doesn't she? What had he to offer her? How could he overcome her father's dislike? He felt in his soul what would come to him finally, but then, in the lapsing time? And she avoided ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... well-nigh fixed time brought forth Each breast that ranges raving round about Upon the mighty mountains and all birds Aerial with many a varied shape. But, lo, because her bearing years must end, She ceased, like to a woman worn by eld. For lapsing aeons change the nature of The whole wide world, and all things needs must take One status after other, nor aught persists Forever like itself. All things depart; Nature she changeth all, compelleth all To transformation. Lo, this moulders down, A-slack with weary ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... consider it a providential deliverance if they escape in the meantime the effects of evil communication and example."[20] While Montreal had a better water supply, it remained practically in darkness during the winter nights, through the lapsing in 1836 of its earlier municipal organization.[21] Strangers were said to find the provincial self-importance of its inhabitants irritating. At the other extreme of the province, Mrs. Jameson found fault with the citizens of Toronto for their social conventionalism. ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... transport them to the ocean, as it does to-day, until, compensation no longer being afforded by the upheaval of the continents, the last foot of dry land will sink for the last time beneath the water, the last mountain-peak melting away, and our globe, lapsing like any other organism into its second childhood, will be on the surface—as presumably it was before the first continent rose—one vast "waste of waters." As puny man conceives time and things, an awful cycle will have lapsed; ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... plenty of people who would let you have one, if you would give her a good home and be kind to her," Caroline began, lapsing for the moment ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... "Och, oh," she cried, lapsing into her Highland speech, "it iss ashamed of myself I am, but no one has done that to me for many a ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... course of their progress gradually darkened into a confused nightmare-like state. It was not sleep, but a stupor in which they kept on their horses instinctively, from no voluntary effort of their own. The state of exhaustion and weakness into which they had been lapsing during the perilous journey must have had much to do with their feelings, and robbed them of the power to feel more than a dull, numbing pain which came and went as their steeds ambled or walked unchecked or guided by rein, for even the ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... you're asking me ower much at last," said Archie, profoundly moved, and lapsing into the broad Scots. "Ye're asking what nae man can grant ye, what only the Lord of heaven can grant ye if He see fit. Ay! And can even He? I can promise ye what I shall do, and you can depend on that. But how I shall feel—my woman, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... have to fear, in all this, is of lapsing into indolence and solitary enjoyment, guarding and hoarding our own happiness. We must measure the effectiveness of our enjoyment by one thing and one thing alone—our increase of affection and sympathy, our interest in other minds ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... his tears, Allan launched himself into the full violence of his recital, stumbling recklessly over his figures of speech, lapsing into idioms that it taxed his hearer to follow. Had she been less acquainted with the Caribbean dialects she would have missed much of the story, but, as it was, she followed him closely, urging him on with sharp expressions of amazement and nods of understanding. Rapidly she ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... years and then lapsed unless renewed. The thirty treaties negotiated by our nation in 1913 and 1914 with three-quarters of the world, providing for investigation of all disputes before hostilities can begin, run for five years and then, instead of lapsing, continue until one year after one of the parties to the treaty has formally demanded its termination. Note the difference: the old treaties gave the presumption to war—the new treaties give the presumption to peace. As our constitution requires a two-thirds ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... Lapsing into silence, his face went ruminative and then sad. With a sudden indrawing of breath he freed himself from his reverie, and bending over from his saddle patted a buckskin neck in affectionate tattoo. Tawny ears turned backward in appreciative fellowship, but without any break ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... to fear Fred's memory was lapsing; but somehow, poor fellow, smiles have been more in his ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... shocking to Houston, but it was infinitely worse for Sager and Pederson, since neither of them had been expecting it. Pederson, who had already been slightly distracted, got the major brunt of the force. He managed to jerk his gun free, but his brain was already lapsing into unconsciousness. ...
— The Penal Cluster • Ivar Jorgensen (AKA Randall Garrett)
... wizard pointed, Arthur saw a great hand, clothed in white samite, stretched above the lapsing waves, and in its grasp was a long two-handed sword in a ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... infused into the flattened lace at the neck, and a pin (removed at some sacrifice from her own toilette) was darned in at the back to prevent any cowardly lapsing. The short white cotton gloves that called attention to the tanned wrists and arms were stripped off and put in her own pocket. Then the wreath of pine-cones was adjusted at a heretofore unimagined angle, the hair was pulled softly ...
— The Flag-raising • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... keep this idea of synthetic human effort and of conscious constructive effort clear first to himself and then clear in the general mind. For it is an idea that comes and goes. We are all of us continually lapsing from it towards individual isolation again. He needs, we all need, constant refreshment in this belief if it is to remain a predominant living fact in ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... bough, my position was lofty enough to serve as an observatory, not for starry investigations, but for those sublunary matters in which lay a lore as infinite as that of the planets. Through one loophole I saw the river lapsing calmly onward, while in the meadow, near its brink, a few of the brethren were digging peat for our winter's fuel. On the interior cart-road of our farm I discerned Hollingsworth, with a yoke of oxen hitched to a drag of stones, that ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... that night Grace busied herself with the troublesome hooks and eyes. Elfreda jerked off the new gown. Her temper was rising. "This is what comes of cultivating freaks," she muttered, lapsing into her old rudeness. "I might have known she'd do something. Catch me ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... almost fainted and was lapsing into French, laughing and crying alternately, telling him to go, yet clinging ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... eager eyes in the Town Square had recognized the flag, and Standish lapsing from the martinet into the exile waved Gideon ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... they had retained sufficient power to trample on the liberties of the people, while they were not strong enough to form a barrier against the encroachments of the absolute monarchs who succeeded, or to prevent the power eventually lapsing into the hands of the Church. "Consequently, theocracy gained the ascendency, formidably aided and strengthened by the odious tribunal whose installation shadowed even the glorious epoch of Isabel and Fernando, ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... truth. Men who are never flagrantly dishonest are at times unveracious in small matters, colouring or suppressing facts with a conscious purpose; and writers who never stole an idea nor pretended to honours for which they had not striven, may be found lapsing into small insincerities, speaking a language which is not theirs, uttering opinions which they expect to gain applause rather than the opinions really believed by them. But if few men are perfectly and persistently sincere, Sincerity is nevertheless ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... favor of the cession, and immediately afterwards they returned to their homes and told the frontier people what had been done. There was a general feeling that some step should be taken forthwith to prevent the whole district from lapsing into anarchy. The frontiersmen did not believe that Congress, hampered as it was and powerless to undertake new responsibilities, could accept the gift until the two years were nearly gone; and ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... humble, his make-believe spirit all snuffed out. He observed at last how pale and set was his sister's face, and he realized something of the sacrifice she had made. Never in all his life was Richard so near to lapsing from the love of himself; never so near to forgetting his own interests, and preferring those of Ruth. Lady Horton sat silent, her heart fluttering with dismay and perplexity. Heaven had not equipped her with a spirit capable of dealing with a situation ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... looking for their families. On every side were cries of joy on recognition of those whom fear and terrible forebodings had buried under the blackened remains of once happy homes. But mingled with exclamations of joy were sobs and wails of anguish, as some now realized in the lapsing hours that absent members of the ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... talking, as an old pensioner will talk, of byegone times, of my experiences in a long railway career, and my companion, himself a rising railway man, seemed greatly interested. As we sauntered along, the conversation now and again lapsing into a companionable silence, he suddenly said: "Why don't you write your reminiscences? They would be very interesting, not only to us younger railway men, but to men of your own time too." Until that moment I had never seriously thought of putting my reminiscences on ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... crocus sheds his rays of gold. And wandering there for ever The fountains are at play, And Cephisus feeds his river From their sweet urns, day by day. The river knows no dearth; Adown the vale the lapsing waters glide, And the pure rain of that pellucid tide Calls the rife beauty from the heart of earth. While by the banks the muses' choral train Are duly heard—and there, Love ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... festival (which falls on the 15th of July) caused wine and dessert to be carried out thither, where the three drank to their common pastime and discoursed of it in the cool of the evening within earshot of the lapsing water. On many other evenings they met to smoke their pipes here, my father and Mr. Grylls playing at chequers sometimes, while my uncle wrapped and bent, till the light failed him, new trout flies for the next day's ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... so in any real sense be his. There does not exist such a power of possessing as he would arrogate. There is not such a sense of having as that of which he has conceived the shadow in his degenerate and lapsing imagination. The real owner of his demesne is that pedlar passing his gate, into a divine soul receiving the sweetnesses which not all the greed of the so-counted possessor can keep within his walls: they overflow the ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... and in it are a fat mullet, four breadfruit, some taro and plenty of ifi (chestnuts). For to-day is Saturday, and I have cooked for to-morrow as well as for to-night." Then lapsing into his native Hawaiian (which both my companion and I understood), he added, "And most heartily are ye welcome. In a little while the oven will be ready for ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... widow, seeing his case. The miller said something about coming in presently; but Anne pressed him to stay, with a tender motion of her lip as it played on the verge of a solicitous smile without quite lapsing into ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... should call at the same time with messages from England, bogus and with no reference to himself. The servant (the same man who drugged my wine to-night) returned to his regiment with the information that I was living a Paris with the other officer, who, returning to England, on his furlough lapsing, was called out by my husband, who was worsted in the duel. My lover was waited on by the man he had wronged (I mean his brother officer, not my husband), who implored him to own up. My lover said it would ruin him; he had nothing but his sword; he must ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... feel that Messrs. Boardman and Warner can oversee your local Medical Board and keep the institution from lapsing into the dry rot of a purely ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... most masculine,—and Bradley, eventually forgetting her presence, plunged into an earnest, sympathetic, and intelligent account of the condition in which he found the invalid at St. Moritz. The old man at first listened with an almost perfunctory courtesy and a hesitating reserve; but as Bradley was lapsing into equal reserve and they drove up to the gates of the quadrangle, he unexpectedly warmed with a word or two of serious welcome. Looking up with a half-unconscious smile, Bradley ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... hand, Mr. Armadale!" cried Pedgift Senior, warmly; "I honor you for being so angry with me. The neighborhood may say what it pleases; you're a gentleman, sir, in the best sense of the word. Now," pursued the lawyer, dropping Allan's hand, and lapsing back instantly from sentiment to business, "just hear what I have got to say in my own defense. Suppose Miss Gwilt's real position happens to be nothing like what you are generously determined ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... How could she explain that by lapsing from his duty so far, even at her request, he had ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... companies, such as those to the Levant and to the Indies, were allowed to exact from merchants, in exchange—as was held—for the protection they afforded them in far-off and dangerous seas. The Levant Company was now dissolved, and James seized on the duties it had levied as lapsing naturally ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... change? Why had no inkling of it crept to his ears? Why was she, the passionate pleader for the decencies of life whom he had last watched so patiently and heroically imparting the mastery of the pianoforte to seven little English children in a squalid Paris pension, now lapsing back into the old and fiercely abjured avenue of irresponsibility? Why had she weakened and surrendered, when he himself, the oldtime weakling of the two, had clung so desperately to the narrow path of rectitude? And what ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... the election," said Hull, lapsing into sullen silence. And certainly he had no reason to worry about the election. He had the Citizen's Alliance and the Democratic nominations. And, as a further aid to him, Dick Kelly had given the Republican nomination to Alfred Sawyer, about the most unpopular ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... sir, but I've done nowt to deserve it," cried the lad, lapsing for the moment into the ...
— Tommy • Joseph Hocking
... of ahm that," said Aladdin, lapsing into full brogue; "oi'm a hireling sojer, mahm, and no inimy ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... look up through it from the lake, or down through it to the transparent waters. We both ascended and descended, no very easy matter, the steep and crumbling path, and rested at the summit, beneath the trees, and at the foot upon the cool mossy stones beside the lapsing wave. Nature has carefully decorated all this architecture with shrubs that take root within the crevices, and small creeping vines. These natural rains may vie for beautiful effect with the remains ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... aware of all the exigencies of the case," Daniel Tuxbury had replied, lapsing into stateliness, as he always did when his sister waxed too forcible ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... wine-cup, it came "heeled," ready for what might befall. From Tomaso, the ragpicker in the farthest rear cellar, to the Signor Undertaker, mainstay and umpire in the varying affairs of life, which had a habit in The Bend of lapsing suddenly upon his professional domain, they were all there, the men of Malpete's village. The baby was named for the village saint, so that it was a kind of communal feast as well. Carmen was there with ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... confirmed the ministerial proposal to demand French help against Austria. But all this brave show of energy vanished with the pressing danger, and Bologna, which, by its manly courage, had galvanised the whole bloodless body-politic, now hastened the hour of dissolution by lapsing into a state of deplorable anarchy, the populace using the arms with which they had driven out the Austrians, to establish a reign of murder and pillage. L.C. Farini restored something like order, but the general weakness of the power of government ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... Latin like a duck to water. What could be done in Drumtochty was done for him, and he's working night and day, but he'll have a sore fight with the lads from the town schools. Na, na, neighbours," said the Dominie, lapsing into dialect, "we daurna luik for a prize. No the first year, ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... the broken will To cling to such poor stays as will abide (Although the waves be wild and angry still) After the lapsing of the swollen tide. No fear of further loss, no hope of gain, Naught but the apathy of ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... consequence. We come and go. We cannot alter the course of nations or the fate of mankind; but the people, the great mass of humanity, are moving up or down. They are marching on, keeping step with civilization and human progress; or they are lapsing back toward barbarism and darkness. The people today make peace and make war—not a sovereign, not the whim of an individual, not the ambition of a single man; but the sentiment, the friendship, ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... which the little river, the Fyllot, ran. It was the boundary of the Aveley estate, and it here joined another stream, the Rode, which came in from the south. The path went through the copse, dense with hazels, and there was always a musical sound of lapsing waters hidden in the wood. The birds sang shrill in the thicket, and Father Payne said, "This is the juncture of Pison and Hiddekel, you know, rivers of Paradise. Aveley is Havilah, where the gold is good, and where there is bdellium, if we ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... fought I saw her as I had last seen her, standing against the bank of sand, her dark hair, half braided, drawn over her bosom and hanging to her knees. Her eyes haunted me, and my lips yet felt the touch of her hand. I fought well,—how well the lapsing of oaths and laughter ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... Mr. Davidson it was in Mr. Joseph Simpson's studio, the one under mine in Edwardes Square. He was making a bust of Rabindranath Tagore; and as the great mystic poet disconcerted him by continually lapsing into meditation under this process, thereby emptying his beautiful face of all expression whatever, I had been called down from my studio to talk to him, so as to lure him, if possible, from meditation and keep his features in play. Mr. Davidson made a very fine bust ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... uneasily. "I started doing that some time ago, sir," he explained. "You see, their language is quite dissimilar to either my own or to Galactica, and I have yet to learn to think in it. I wanted to avoid any possibility of lapsing away from it, so I translated my instructions and notes, hoping to keep myself constantly reminded to refrain from using Galactica at any time." He spread ...
— Indirection • Everett B. Cole
... gracious! That was the very thing I had to tell her that morning—that I too was ordered abroad. An estate to be settled—some bothering old claim that had been handed down from generation to generation, and now springing into life again by the lapsing of two lives on the other side. But how to tell her as she looked up into my face with the half-pleading, half-imperious smile that I knew so well? How to ...
— On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell
... person announced that they were dogs, and that an idiosyncrasy of Chinese dogs was to fight. Several wags joined in, and all appeared, through the traveling nincompoop, to know all about my past and present, lapsing into a desultory harangue upon all men and things foreign. The street reminded me of Clovelly—rugged and ragged—and the people were wrinkled and wretched; and, indeed, being a Devonian myself by birth, I should be excused of wantonly intending to hurt the delicate feelings ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... large family, and their pursuits and habits were very simple; yet the summer was lapsing toward the first pathos of autumn before they found themselves all in such case as to be able to take the day's pleasure they had planned so long. They had agreed often and often that nothing could be more charming than an excursion down ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... drawing-room, where it was Ida's custom at this hour to play her kind patroness to sleep with all the dreamiest and most pensive melodies in her extensive repertoire, the girl suddenly faltered in her playing, wandered from one air into another, and with a touch so uncertain that Aunt Betsy, who was fast lapsing into dreamland, became broad awake again all at once, and wanted to ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... times when Tallisker hoped that it was but a temptation, and would be finally conquered. Men do not lose the noble savor of humanity in a moment. Even on the downward road good angels wait anxiously, and whisper in every better moment to the lapsing soul, "Return!" ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... had about them an air of high comedy so irresistible, and so many of the ladies whom they served were personages of the Odeon or the Comedie Francaise, that only the smell of the coffee saved the scene from lapsing into the unrealism of the ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... for their after life-work. In the second place, when the emphasis is laid strongly upon the function of the University as an institution for the carrying on of scientific and literary research there is the danger of again lapsing into the old fallacy that knowledge for knowledge' sake is an end in itself, that the object of education is to acquire and organise systems of means which function in the attainment of no practical end, and that ...
— The Children: Some Educational Problems • Alexander Darroch
... Sigurd seemed satisfied, and lapsing into the calm, composed manner which had distinguished him all day, he led the way as before, and they resumed their march, this time in silence, for conversation was well-nigh impossible. The nearer they came to the yet invisible Fall, ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... perform adjustive actions mechanically which in previous generations were performed intelligently. This mode of origin of instincts has been appropriately called (by Lewes—see "Problems of Life and Mind" {54a}) the 'lapsing of intelligence.'" {54b} ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... sort of ocean-hasheesh, or wholesome aliment, I never knew, but certain it is that, from the moment its juices passed my lips, a strange and delightful quietude stole over my weary senses, fast lapsing, as these had seemed, into unconsciousness when I left my place ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... slower and slower; consciousness dwindled to a point, the animal in him stretched itself, purring. A delightful numbness invaded his mind and his body. He was not asleep, he was not awake, stupefied merely, lapsing back to the state of the faun, ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... resources should be made, because, as capital sought investment, in banks, manufacturing, and various commercial enterprises unknown to the earlier generations, [ad] the fairness of the old system of taxation was lapsing. The mixed committee, including several Tolerationists and having an Episcopal chairman, that was to report upon the religious situation, gave no encouragement to dissenters. The spring session allowed one barren act to pass, the "Act to secure equal rights, powers, ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
... stimulus of the few wants that sent him hunting or fishing kept up his physical health. Never a lover of rude freedom or outdoor life his sedentary predilections and nice tastes kept him from lapsing into barbarian excess; never a sportsman he followed the chase with no feverish exaltation. Even dumb creatures found out his secret, and at times, stalking moodily over the upland, the brown deer and elk would cross his path without fear or molestation, or, idly lounging in his canoe within ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... neighborhood. But before the year 1730 the fervid and violent and wonderfully brief early enthusiasm of this Society had long been waning, and the Society, winning no accessions and suffering frequent losses in its membership, was lapsing into that "middle age of Quakerism"[139:1] in which it made itself felt in the life of the people through its almost passive, but yet effective, protests ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... was brought at once. Her father wrote out the nonsense verse on his knee and made a funny little illustration in the margin. 'Oh, I say!' said Jimbo, watching him, while Monkey, lapsing into French, contributed with her usual impudence, 'Pas tant mal!' They all loved ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... her bare foot into the soft cement of Calvary Alley on the first. Moreover—wonder of wonders for transatlantic fiction!—the author is able to write about children, and the contrasted lives of rich and poor city dwellers, without lapsing into sentimentality, O si sic omnes! But either American bishops are strangely different from the English variety, or Mrs. RICE, following Mr. WELLS'S example, has permitted herself an episcopal burlesque. In either case the resulting portrait is hardly worthy of an otherwise ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 24, 1917 • Various
... which glided sometimes into no too earnest discussion of the difficult subjects occupying their student hours; surrounded by the vapours of whisky-toddy, and the smoke of cutty pipes, till far into the short hours; then hurrying home, and lapsing into unrefreshing slumbers over intended study; or sitting up all night to prepare the tasks which had been neglected for a ball or an evening with Wilson, the great interpreter of Scottish song—it is hardly to be wondered ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... Peter of the family, and a great source of trouble. He may justly be accused at times of lapsing into disloyalty. He was guilty both on the island and after his arrival in England of committing the same fault, but in this latter instance he may have had a purpose, as he was asking favours from men who were bitterly hostile to his benefactor. He knew they would be glad ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... Jack, I don't at all approve. It will be hard enough, I've no doubt, to keep you from lapsing into barbarism, and I shall never allow you to set up a den, a regular Bluebeard's room, all by yourself. I promise never to put your table in order, but I wouldn't trust the best of men with the care of a closet or a bureau-drawer for a single week, much less of an entire room with two closets, ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... "Ah-h!" said Harrigan, lapsing suddenly from Spanish into his Irish brogue. "Thrue for ye, man! John Bull will take the Kaiser by the throat. In time of peace, why, to hell with England, say I, like all good Irishmen; but in time av war-r, it's shoulder ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... car she chattered feverishly and he listened, lapsing into one of the silences which her ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... of Wandenong. The boldest and most off-hand of them, however, could never discover what Barbara Golding did not choose to tell. She was slight, almost frail in form, and very gentle of manner; but she also possessed that rare species of courtesy which, never declining to fastidiousness nor lapsing into familiarity, checked all curious intrusion, was it ever so insinuating; and the milliner and dressmaker was not less self-poised and compelling of respect ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... chief, who took a step or two forward by the help of his blunted and rusted sword, while the relics of the defenders stood round, cheering hoarsely and feebly, and trying to cheer again, but breaking down in the effort and lapsing into silence, each man craning forward eagerly to ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... not full needfully, Steadfast and faithful is not shown to be, By length of time my heart would that assay Whereon itself was set to love alway— To wit, a husband with that true love filled Such as no lapsing time has ever killed. This, then, was the sole reason that I drew My kin to hinder for a year or two That closest tie which lasts till life is not, And whereby woe is oftentimes begot. Yet sought I not to have you wholly sent Away; ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. V. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... among the leaves, the water ripples in the distance. The mysterious noises of night grow shriller for a while, then fainter, until at midnight there is scarcely a sound. How strangely solemn to sit here by this lapsing soul, that but a little while ago was the veriest stranger to him! He has sent Denise to bed, Violet is sleeping with childhood's ease and unconsciousness. A week hence and everything will be changed for her; she will never be a ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... delusion,—reasons which seemed to make it impossible that she should attract a suitor. Who would dare to marry Elsie? No, let her have the pleasure, if it was one, at any rate the wholesome excitement, of companionship; it might save her from lapsing into melancholy or a worse form of madness. Dudley Venner had a kind of superstition, too, that, if Elsie could only outlive three septenaries, twenty-one years, so that, according to the prevalent idea, her whole frame would have been ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... rides off and leaves the bride of an hour. Perhaps you will never be really married after all, for God, Who gives sons-in-law, can also take them away, especially when He was not asked for them. Ah!" he went on, lapsing into French, as was his wont when moved, "qui vivra verra! qui vivra verra!" Then, shouting this excellent but obvious proverb at the top of his voice, he struck his horse with the butt of his gun, and galloped away before I ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... Muir, lapsing into the broad Scotch he was so fond of using when enjoying himself, "ye'll see the sicht o' yer life the day. Ye'll get that'll be o' mair use till ye than a' ...
— Alaska Days with John Muir • Samual Hall Young
... gazed at him mournfully. "Eh, eh, hinny, I ken all about it," she whispered, lapsing into broader Scotch in her agitation. "Ye can't hide things from your Auntie Elspie. Ye're wearyin' to be away to the war, I ken as well ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... mingled joy and pain, And memories old and sadly sweet; While, timing to its minor strain, The waves in lapsing ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier |
