"Listening" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... doors, but she had forgotten her window, which opened on an upper balcony, and was easily accessible to any one climbing out of the hall window. Evelyn had been listening at her door and had heard her sobs. Knowing from experience that her sister meant what she said, she had climbed out of the hall window, scudded along the little balcony, and into Maria's window. She flung herself down ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... monologuist. In our prayer-life today do we recognize sufficiently the need for listening to God? We are perhaps ready enough to ask for blessings and mercies, but that is only a part of the full life of prayer which must include also thanksgiving, lifting of the heart and mind, and quiet listening or interior prayer. There was an age in the world when this interior prayer was so much more joyful and natural a thing than the world of matter that it had to be taught "to labour is to pray." Today, when we accept the necessity of labour, ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... started back up the stream bed, towards the narrow little valley where he had wakened after that fall. Finally, finding shelter within the heart of a bush, he crouched low, listening to the noises of another world which awoke at night to take over the stage ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... this are an expert on wine. If so, you are lucky. I am an expert on nothing—nothing, anyhow, that matters. I envy all you experts tremendously. When I see a cigar-expert listening to his cigar before putting it in his mouth I wish that I were as great a man as he. Privately sometimes I have listened to a cigar, but it has told me nothing. The only way I can tell whether it is good or bad is by smoking it. Even then I could not tell you (without the assistance ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... to enfold her and silence as of a dead world settled down upon her. Drowsy as she was, she could not close her eyes nor refrain from listening. Darkness and silence were tangible things. She felt them. And they seemed suddenly potent with magic charm to still the tumult of her, to soothe and rest, to create thoughts she had never thought before. Rest was more than selfish indulgence. Loneliness was necessary ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... the offended party, his anger all at once under the influence of a more powerful feeling. He stood still, in the attitude of listening, earnestly bending forward ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... and all who are listening in your homes, must rededicate ourselves to serving the common good. We are a community, a beloved community, all of us. Our individual fates are linked, our futures intertwined. And if we act in that knowledge and ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Davies, Brouncker, and their companions had no intention of listening to the counsels of moderation. They continued to indict the poorer classes according to the clauses of the Act of Uniformity and to cite the wealthier citizens before the Star Chamber for disobedience to the royal mandates.[10] ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... down the avenue with him, listening to his angry account of the great coal strike in West Virginia, where the families of miners in their beds had been fired on from armored motor cars, and both strikers and civilians were armed ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... something to me, and your instinctive kindness and generosity of disposition induce you to be careful and considerate as to your manner of conveying it. Will your royal highness throw this kind forbearance aside? I am able to bear everything; and I am listening." ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... cases. His arms, his hands were going, his eyes were glistening, his voice had that rich, sympathetic tone which characterizes the egotist when the subject is himself. Miss Severence listened without comment; indeed, he was not sure that she was listening, so conventional was her expression. But, though she was careful to keep her face a blank, her mind was busy. Surely not since the gay women of Barras's court laughed at the megalomaniac ravings of a noisy, ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... passage of the Declaration was read that solemnly proclaims the right of reform, revolution, and resistance to oppression, the old man thundered out, 'Read that again!' and he looked proudly round on the listening audience, as he heard his triumphant vindication sounded forth in the glorious sentences of the revolutionary ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... mighty figures which guard it and then at the surrounding desert. Only once did I hear her speak and then she said, 'Beautiful, beautiful! Now I am at home.' We dined and as there was no moon, went to bed rather early after listening to the Sudanese singers as they sang ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... Fenwick wasn't listening. He had suddenly observed the second man in the room, a rather small, swarthy man, who moved with quiet precision among a row of tanks on the far side of the room. There was a startling quality about the man that Fenwick was unable to define, ...
— The Great Gray Plague • Raymond F. Jones
... while he slept an enemy came and sowed tares. Or the kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, or like a treasure found by a man in a field, or like a merchant seeking goodly pearls, etc. In listening to these parables or looking at pictorial representations of them, there develops almost unconsciously, especially among the young, a belief in their reality, in their actual occurrence at the time of Christ. In many cases this belief is widely spread, as, for example, in the story of ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller
... in the road where we had met the enemy and failed to make him ours. There I dragged myself into a patch of briars within ten feet of the road, where I lay undiscovered during the remainder of the day, listening to a variety of disparaging remarks upon Yankee valor and to dispiriting declarations of intention conditional on my capture, as members of the Opposition passed and repassed and paused in the road to discuss the morning's ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... startled at her own vehemence. "No, it wasn't like that at all, and you'd know it, if you'd been listening. With Paul, I felt close to him all the time, no matter how many miles or walls or anything else there were between us. We hardly had to talk at all, because we seemed to know just what the other one was thinking all the time, ...
— The Sound of Silence • Barbara Constant
... that a man must forfeit his own leisure and the good company of all his friends, why, to that kind of happiness I would rather bid farewell. [43] Yesterday," he added, "I make no doubt you observed yourselves that from early dawn till late evening I never ceased listening to petitioners, and to-day you see this crowd before us, larger still than yesterday's, ready with business for me. [44] If this must be submitted to, I calculate that what you will get of me and I of you will be little enough, and what ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... mentioned which appeared to have befallen the man of whom the orator is speaking in consequence of some divine interposition, or decree of destiny. For all the expectation and admiration of the hearer, and all unexpected terminations, contribute to the pleasure which is felt in listening ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... So shall the listening World be told [6]Medus, and cold Niphates guide, With all their mighty Realms controul'd, Their late proud waves in narrower tide; That in scant space their steeds the [7]Scythians rein, Nor dare transgress the bounds ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... listening. "Das good. No time lost. Come wid me, you sham nigger, an' I's gib you somet'ing to tickle you stummik. You go an' ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... washbowl storm itself out; and Emerson at Concord shall recognize it for a washbowl storming, and hold on his way. As to my share in it, grieve not for half an instant. Pantheism, Pottheism, Mydoxy, Thydoxy, are nothing at all to me; a weariness the whole jargon, which I avoid speaking of, decline listening to: Live, for God's sake, with what Faith thou couldst get; leave off speaking about Faith! Thou knowest it not. Be silent, do not speak.—As to you, my friend, you are even to go on, giving still harder shocks if need be; and should I come ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... armour of persecution, and rousing itself from a Platonic reverie on the Divine Life, to assume the hood and cloak of a familiar of the Inquisition;[9]—and the patient and enquiring Boyle, putting aside for a while his searches for the grand Magisterium, and listening, as if spell-bound, with gratified attention to stories of witches at Oxford, and devils at Mascon.[10] Nor is it from a retrospect of our own intellectual progress only that we find how capricious, how intermitting, and how little privileged to great ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... smooth round pillars; while the upper broad square windows, cedar-framed, and deeply embrasured, looked down on the floor of the piazza, where so many generations of Darringtons had trundled hoops in childhood—and promenaded as lovers in the silvery moonlight, listening to the ring doves cooing above them, from the columbary of the stucco capitals. This spacious colonnade extended around the northern and eastern side of the house, but the western end had formerly been enclosed as a conservatory—which having ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... another turn they found themselves in an open square or garden that was surrounded by many mean houses. In this square great pest-fires burned, lighting it luridly. By the flare of them they saw that hundreds of people were gathered there listening to a mad-eyed friar who was preaching to them from the top of a wine-cart. As they drew near to the crowd through which Basil was leading them, Hugh ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... door, listening tensely. He could hear nothing. He went in, and for an instant experienced that ecstatic thrill which only comes to elderly gentlemen of solitary habit who in a house full of their juniors find ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... old Maynooth man, who had been listening impatiently to these suggestions; "we forgot more theology in Maynooth ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... the heart, said Luther, and the sighs of the poor and oppressed, do make such an alarum and cry in heaven, that God and all the angels must hear the same. O, our Lord God hath a sharp listening ear. ...
— Selections from the Table Talk of Martin Luther • Martin Luther
... breakfast-room at Mr. Beaufort's, the mother and son were seated; the former at work, the latter lounging by the window: they were not alone. In a large elbow-chair sat a middle-aged man, listening, or appearing to listen, to the prattle of a beautiful little girl—Arthur Beaufort's sister. This man was not handsome, but there was a certain elegance in his air, and a certain intelligence in his countenance, which made ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... are not," said the professor, and he turned to Frank, who was excitedly listening to all that was said. "Now then, my boy," he said, "we've settled that; but I can't see that by any possibility you could come ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... of men will fail in fidelity to the great natural principle, of making their own advantage the first object; and therefore they will not be apt to listen, with the gravity which in other times and regions may have been shown in listening, to injunctions of gratitude for the willingness evinced by the higher orders to take on them the trouble of watching and guarding the people's welfare, by ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... that and crouched on the floor again listening and shivering, half with fear and half with cold. It was becoming chillier, so he judged it must be night; up here in the mountains there ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... not a light about the boat. Listening, Frank could hear no sound at first, but as he drew silently nearer he fancied he caught what seemed to be an occasional deep sigh. Then, as his eyes sought the outlines of the little gulf vessel he detected what seemed to be a bowed figure at ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen
... Well, if I were worth listening to, no doubt he'd listen. But the fact remains that I have not been able ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... than a week afterwards—for this was far on in the time of our being so together—I was bending over at her bedside with my ear down to her lips, by turns listening for her breath and looking for a sign of life in her face. At last it came in a solemn way—not in a flash but like a kind of pale faint light brought ...
— Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings • Charles Dickens
... glance into the sitting-room showed the group gathered close around the fire listening to Lem Collin's attempt at a ghost story. She was not there. He found her, then, in the parlour. She was kneeling on the floor before the glass cabinet of curiosities, and she had quite flattened her little ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... not listening. Barry had slipped from the room, and presently she followed him. Leila had seen him go, and had looked after him longingly, but of late she had seemed timid in her public demonstrations; it was as if she felt when she was under ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... a sucking babe? Thank God, I have not lived for nothing, not I." And had not the queen sternly bade her be silent, and make no more disturbance, unless she had a mind to be whipped, and sent both her and Tindaro back to the kitchen, the whole day would have been spent in nought but listening to her. So Licisca and Tindaro having withdrawn, the queen charged Filomena to tell the first story: and ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... the foot gently down, and entered the house. With closed eyes he lay in the chair, listening to her step as she walked about in the house. He lay there a long time, and when he opened his eyes again he knew that he must have been asleep, for the night had come and a big yellow moon was rising over a rim of distant hills. Turning ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... fancy roves to Spain in his dream of fair women there comes at once the picture of a dark-eyed beauty gazing out discreetly from behind her lattice window, listening to the tinkling sound of her lover's mandolin, and sighing at the ardor of his passion; or again, she may be going abroad, with lace mantilla about her shapely head, armed with her fan,—that article ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... a few steps toward him and halted, her face pallid and awestruck, and then both stood listening for anything that might break the silence downstairs. No sound came to them; that poignant silence was continued throughout long, long minutes, while the two listeners stood there under its mysterious spell; and in ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... behind,—a sight better than a battle. It is something of the same feeling one has in witnessing any wild, free careering in storms, and in floods in nature; or in beholding the charge of an army; or in listening to an eloquent man, or to a hundred instruments of music in full blast,—it is triumph, victory. What is eloquence but mass in motion,—a flood, a cataract, an express train, a cavalry charge? We are literally carried away, swept from our ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... said the Blind Mullah to the listening tribesmen round the fire. 'Whipped dogs! Because you listened to Orde Sahib and called him father and behaved as his children, the British Government have proven how they regard you. Orde Sahib ye ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... disconcerting, with his large eyes, which women must have adored, his drooping moustache, his tender, distant air. He seemed to be one of those gentle people who think too much and do evil. You would have said that he was above everything and capable of everything. Listening to her with a certain remoteness, but stirred by desire for her, he had ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse
... temples, no palm in his hand, no golden tablet on his breast, he wore no white robe embroidered with stars; in a word, he bore no insignia of the kind worn by priests—Oriental, Egyptian, or Greek—or by Roman flamens. And Vinicius was struck by that same difference again which he felt when listening to the Christian hymns; for that "fisherman," too, seemed to him, not like some high priest skilled in ceremonial, but as it were a witness, simple, aged, and immensely venerable, who had journeyed from afar to relate a truth which he had seen, which he had touched, ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... hotel table, listening to the music while they ate, and ordering from the menu cards, proved a delightful experience. The girls could scarcely eat, so interested were they in looking around the big dining-room, watching the people, and now and then catching sight of themselves ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell
... Beth, "when we were sitting on the porch, Pythagoras rolled off the roof, where he had been listening to us, and came ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... chimed in, forgetting all about his desire to leave. "I'm always sitting in on bull sessions, but I think they re rotten. About every so often I make up my mind that I won't take part in another one, and before I know it somebody's telling me the latest and I'm listening for all I'm worth." ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... acquaintance, had treated me with unvaried kindness, reposing a confidence in me which it was beyond the power of my utmost efforts to deserve; admitting me to an intimacy which I had no right to claim, and listening with patience, and the greatest good temper, to the remonstrances I ventured to make upon ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... he had heard voices. But, on listening, he found that the sound of voices came from behind the house. He quietly entered the drawing-room, therefore, walked straight across it and reached the windows on the other side. A little further, at the foot of the steps, ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... statement—his veriest words—and he was surely best aware of what occurred between himself and Mendoza, under their four eyes only. The ambassador is not represented as extremely insolent, but only pressing; and certainly there is little left of the fine periods on Henry's part about listening to the cry of the oppressed, or preventing the rays of his ancestors' diadem from growing pale, with which contemporary chronicles ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... a silence in the Hall of Dreams, where I was listening to the story of the other wise man. And through this silence I saw, but very dimly, his figure passing over the dreary undulations of the desert, high upon the back of his camel, rocking steadily onward like ...
— The Story of the Other Wise Man • Henry Van Dyke
... behind spent the remainder of the evening on the front porch, watching the deep river, the hoary mountains, the starry sky, and listening to the hum of insects, the whirl of waters and the singing of the summer breeze through the pines that clothed the precipice, and ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... highlands We come, we come; From the river-girt islands, Where loud waves are dumb, Listening to my sweet pipings. The wind in the reeds and the rushes, The bees on the bells of thyme, The birds on the myrtle bushes, The cicale above in the lime, And the lizards below in the grass, Were as silent as ever old Tmolus was, Listening to my ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... minutes' time the laager was roused by a Boer, who commenced swearing roundly at some one in a very loud voice. One man came out and posted himself on a little rise of ground, and gazed, listening, Kruger's Post way. He was joined by another, then another, until there was a group of nine of them, two dressed in long white robes. It was thought that these were women. Suddenly they all returned into the laager out of sight, only to appear again in a few minutes on horseback. ...
— The Record of a Regiment of the Line • M. Jacson
... with this expression, that Mrs. Garman was listening to Mr. Aalbom, the tall assistant master, who was holding forth about the delicacy and effeminacy of the rising generation. Mrs. Aalbom sat by the window, pretending to listen to the Consul, who was describing with great clearness, and in carefully chosen language, how the ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... hoping that the number of The Academy would not fall into the hands of the editor of the great London review, to whom I had dedicated the book after a night spent listening to him quoting from the classics, Greek, English, and Latin. "A very poor testimony, one which he won't thank me for," I muttered, and stopped before St. Clement Danes to think what kind of letter he would write to me. But he ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... My listening angel heard the prayer, And, calmly smiling, said, "If I but touch thy silvered hair Thy hasty wish ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... "And I for you;" and so their lives became one, and the melody of happy children's voices drew nearer and nearer, and listening to the sweet voice of the mother singing to her babe, and looking into the bright and rosy faces that with every glance and motion thanked him for their dower of health and honor, he blessed the great Creator ...
— Almost A Man • Mary Wood-Allen
... complimented the old gentleman. "I enjoy listening to you. I shall give you the privilege of reading all my papers ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... hand went softly up the stairs. Of all the footmarks there, making them as common as the common street, there was not one, he thought, but had seemed at the time to set itself upon his brain while he had kept close, listening. He looked at their number, and their hurry, and contention—foot treading foot out, and upward track and downward jostling one another—and thought, with absolute dread and wonder, how much he must have suffered during that ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... were purple-pansy colour or beryl green; but the "Source" itself, in its cup of stone, was like a block of malachite. There was no visible bubbling of underground springs fighting their way up to break the crystal surface of the fountain,—this fountain so unlike any other fountain; but to the listening ear came a moaning and rushing of unseen waters, now the high crying of Arethusa escaping from her pursuing lover, now rich, low notes as of an organ ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... opened her budget the squire sat quite silent, listening to her with apparent respect. She found it necessary that her description to him should be much more elaborate than that which she had vouchsafed to her daughter, and, in telling her grievance, she insisted most especially on the ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... thinking of my own problem the sounds of the lecturer were really outside of my field of attention, yet some remark now pushes itself again into the center. That does not mean that a subconscious mind is listening while my lucid mind was thinking, but it does mean that those words were unattended and remained in the periphery of the field of consciousness. But when some of the sentences stirred up in that peripheral field some important associations, ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... who sat grinning and holding a little cap for money, into which a boy flung a halfpenny, and then asked the Italian where he came from. But the answer was unintelligible to him, for it was given in a strange tongue, and George was soon tired of listening to the ...
— Georgie's Present • Miss Brightwell
... Eugene and Matilda both started. "Lucile!" With a half-stifled scream, as she felt herself reel From the place where she stood, cried Matilda. "Ho, oh! What! eaves-dropping, madam?"... the Duke cried... "And so You were listening?" "Say, rather," she said, "that I heard, Without wishing to hear it, that infamous word,— Heard—and therefore reply." "Belle Comtesse," said the Duke, With concentrated wrath in the savage rebuke, Which betray'd that he felt himself baffled... "you know That your place is not HERE." "Duke," ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... on which he had so long depended failed him now. Successful fights that he had waged, profitable crimes committed, grew pale upon his tongue. Listening in the darkness while the engine drove us through a black sea and the canvas awning flapped overhead, I felt the baffled groping ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... which he ate a good many with his creamed pollack. The sweet-tempered old woman chatted as she knitted on his blue-wool hose, but she scarcely expected more than his occasional grunted acknowledgment that he was listening. She always said it was "a joy to have somebody besides the cat around to talk to." The loneliness of shipmasters who sail the seven seas is often mentioned in song and in story; the loneliness of their wives at home is not ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... leaning over the old stone-wall, listening with keenest interest,—this man with the dark, eager face and bold black eyes? His eyes are fixed on the child; his face is aglow with wonder and delight, but with something else too,—some passion which strikes a jarring note through the harmony of the summer idyl. What is this man doing here? ...
— Melody - The Story of a Child • Laura E. Richards
... in the adventurous youth of his mind, Mr. O'Grady found the Gaelic tradition like a neglected antique dun with the doors barred, and there was little or no egress. Listening, he heard from within the hum of an immense chivalry, and he opened the doors and the wild riders went forth to work their will. Now he would recall them. But it is in vain. The wild riders have gone forth, ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... cut and dried moral texts as a part of school routine has not proved to be so effective as was expected by their promulgators. The moral education which we received in our childhood was very indirect and came from listening to stories recited by the 'Kathas' on various incidents connected with our great epics. Their effect on our minds was very great; this may be because our racial memory makes us more prone to respond to certain ideals that have been impressed on the consciousness ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
... wishes for your future, and it will be ready to be sent to Mr. Bancroft at a moment's warning. I do not care to have him know anything about us just yet; hark! what was that?" he broke off abruptly, and started into a listening attitude. ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... and logic, a ruthlessly sharpened one. His bearing as he enters is sufficiently imposing and disquieting; but when he speaks, his powerful, menacing voice, impressively articulated speech, strong inexorable manner, and a terrifying power of intensely critical listening raise the impression produced by ...
— You Never Can Tell • [George] Bernard Shaw
... this the portent of the day nigh past, And of a restless grave O'er which the eternal sadness gathers fast; Or but the heaped wave Of some chance, wandering tide, Such as that world of awe Whose circuit, listening to a foreign law, Conjunctures ours at unguess'd dates and wide, Does in the Spirit's tremulous ocean draw, To pass unfateful on, and so subside? Thee, whom ev'n more than Heaven loved I have, And yet have not been true Even ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore
... had locked the door, and put the chest of drawers against it. They listened and talked in whispers after they had gone to bed, but nothing occurred to alarm them. About eleven they had ventured to put the candle out, and had both dozed off to sleep. They woke up with a start, and sat up in bed, listening in the darkness. ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... then, as I read by the ruddy glow And the little ones sit entranced and still . . . He's drawing near, ah! I know, I know He's listening too, as he always will. He's there—he's standing beside my knee; I see him so well, my wee, wee son. . . . Oh, children dear, don't look at me— I'm reading now ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... your opinion?" he questioned. "If Dick had been listening I should have asked his, and I fancy yours is fully as valuable. Come, shall we have ...
— The Flying Mercury • Eleanor M. Ingram
... again. There had been something in the voice that held him quiet, listening, expectant. But she also was silent after that last, high note—like a meadow lark startled in the middle of ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... Francisco," the other said, grasping his arm. "Do not say a word against the council. There is no saying who may be listening." ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... beautiful!' But we do feel pity for them, and by that mere feeling of pity deny automatically the beauty of the Great Design, in the first place, and its subsequent execution. I can conceive, I think, of a lovely picture: you for instance, on a white bench, under a cedar in the starlight, listening to my delightful conversation, but I couldn't possibly draw the picture, let alone paint it. The Great Design, it seems to me, had a tremendous gift for landscape, but fell down a little when ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... and womanly, Hist. Care in listening, and stout-heartedness in holding to good counsel, is a wife's great protection. And, now, ask the Sarpent to come and speak with me, for a moment, and carry away with you all my best wishes and prayers. I shall think of you, ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... which she had entered, Barbara Morgan slipped the fastenings into place and stood, an ear pressed against the door, listening for sounds that would tell her Harlan had followed her. But beyond the door ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... walked down the passage she heard the quick trampling of many feet, and it occurred to her that some of the girls must have been listening at the keyhole. ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... every moment to the landlady to pull one of them from under his coverlet. Then he inquired why his old mantle hung before him when he had a new cloak. Next he fancied that he was standing before the prominent person, listening to a thorough setting-down and saying, "Forgive me, your excellency!" but at last he began to curse, uttering the most horrible words, so that his aged landlady crossed herself, never in her life having heard anything of the kind from him, and more so as these words followed ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... with which men rush on novelty, especially when any obstacle is thrown in the way, we pushed forward, listening impatiently to the distant thunder of the Falls. Like all obstacles, we found these before us less in reality than in report, our chief difficulty lying in the strength of the current, flowing over an unequal bottom; but in no part was the water ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... little enough to tell us of their disastrous fury in time of storm. But enough has been said on the dismal subject of wrecks. Human remains, supposed to date from the Old Stone Age, have been found at this spot; they, if they could speak, might tell us something well worth listening to. But their memories would be of a Cornwall very different from the present, and they would probably look to see St. Michael's Mount in the midst ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... stood there,—with his eyes fixed upon the mountains, listening to the spirit that spoke in the tones of the unseen instrument,—Aaron King knew, all at once, that the passing moment was one of those rare moments—that come, all unexpectedly—when, with prophetic vision, one sees clearly the end of the course he ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... artists of the nineteenth century never dreamed of supposing that the pleasures of the rich were the proper stuff of art; so it was only natural that the twentieth should go to the hotel lounges for inspiration. And, of course, it was delightful for those who sat drinking their cocktails and listening to nigger-bands to be told that, besides being the jolliest people on earth, they were the most sensitive and critically gifted. They, along with the children and savages whom in so many ways they resembled, were the possessors ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... most important names, such as square, rectangle, circle. But the children wanted to know all the names, taking pleasure in learning even the most difficult, such as trapezium, and decagon. They also show great pleasure in listening to the exact pronunciation of new words and in their repetition. Early childhood is, in fact, the age in which language is formed, and in which the sounds of a foreign language can be ...
— Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook • Maria Montessori
... appointed way, Listening to hear, and ready to obey— A cross I quickly found of plainest form, With only ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... seeing that the boys were moved to eager listening, Mrs Inglis put aside her anxious thoughts about her husband, and went on to speak of the honour and glory of being permitted to fight under Him who was promised as a "Leader and Commander to the people"—and in such a cause—that the powers of darkness might be overthrown, ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... attorney, who had forgotten his client's painful position in listening to the narrative of his ...
— Colonel Chabert • Honore de Balzac
... there was no sign of them. The long twilight faded slowly without a sound of hoofs on the drive; seven o'clock struck; and she rang the bell and asked if nothing had been seen of the Corporal and the children. The answer was "Nothing;" and she waited in growing anxiety, listening for the trample of the ponies or the sound of the children's voices, but hearing only the ticking of the clock; until unable to endure the suspense, she went out and walked first into the yard and then into the road by ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue
... his way led through Argenteuil, he was always admitted to the hotel, and having arrived that day, he had seated himself unnoticed, in his usual place in the chimney-corner. He had sprung forward with a loud cry when, in listening as the magistrate read, he heard of a corpse being discovered among the vines. But what could a blind man, and one so long absent from Argenteuil, have to communicate? Laurence Bigot regarded with a ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... quivering with excitement; her nostrils opening and shutting convulsively, and her little heart beating like a trip-hammer. She gathered her babies to her and gave them their evening meal, but all the time she was listening for ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... on about the meeting, but his passengers were silent. Under cover of listening they were both dreaming. Bradley was forecasting his life, and wondering how much she would make up of it; wondering if she would make more of it than she had of his past life. How far off she had always seemed to him, and yet she had always been a part ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... pilgrim, after listening to a dismal story on the subject, "don't be cast down, sure, whether or not. There's a Holy Well that I can direct yez to in the county—. Any one, wid trust in the Saint that's over it, who'll make a pilgrimage to it on the Patthern ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... controlled his feelings, as to leave the presence of the lady before he broke out into the bitter invectives we have recorded, and Katherine stood a minute, pressing her forefinger on her lips, listening to his voice as it grumbled along the gallery, until the sounds were finally excluded by the closing of a distant door. The willful girl then shook her dark locks, and a smile of arch mischief blended with an expression ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... day had been a very pleasant one indeed! With such enjoyable drives, and the tennis, and the ever-changing sea, we never found time hang heavily on our hands; and if we had, there was the little railway to carry us into the bustle of Bayonne for shopping or listening to the band, where ennui would speedily have been driven away. Speaking of this railway reminds us that at Anglet, one of the stations on the line, there is a very interesting convent of "Silent Sisters" within easy access from the train. Although ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough
... Carl Meason listening upstairs little knew what a narrow escape he had. He was not aware he was followed as he hurried back to the hotel nor was he aware that an accurate description of him was in ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... wounded men were brought down, and a conversation took place between one of the mates of the schooner, who was hurt, and the men who brought down the wounded, and listening to them, I found that at daylight they had discovered that an English frigate was under all sail, beating up to them, and about five miles to leeward; that in consequence, the Stella was now carrying on a running fight with the schooner ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... move away to another part of the great saloon; he stood in front of the Andrea del Sarto, looking up at it. But he was not seeing it; he was listening to what we might say. I often stood there in just that way. "He can't quarrel with you, any more than I could have ...
— The Diary of a Man of Fifty • Henry James
... hall-door, not more than three or four yards from the porch of the farm-yard gate where the Dandy stood concealed. And here he had an opportunity of witnessing the extreme skill with which Flanagan conducted this nefarious exploit. After listening for about a minute, he found that their worthy leader was not present, but he almost immediately discovered that he was engaged in placing guards upon all the back windows of the dwelling-house and kitchen. During his ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... what answer could you have made to such men? I would have entreated you, said he, who had dictated their speech to them, to speak likewise for me, or else rather to give me a little room to answer them myself, only that now I prefer listening to you; and yet at another time I should be likely to reply to them at the same time that ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... to the door, listening. She knew that the crucial moment was at hand; that there were at best but a few moments for her to live. A silent prayer rose from her parted lips. She placed the sharp point of Oda Yorimoto's short sword against her breast, and waited—waited for ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... admiral's flag was flying at the mast-head of the Triumph. As we reached her deck, we found him surrounded by officers, to whom he was issuing orders. It was some time before we could approach to pay our respects. He recognised us at once, and holding out his hand, shook ours warmly, listening with much interest to the account we gave ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston
... smell of this street of yours are grateful after what I have been listening to," said he. Then, after a moment spent in examining the adjacent outdoors, he added in a tone of wonderment. "I say, Kirk, this is really a hole of a place to live! Why ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... some sweet beguiling melody, So sweet, we know not we are listening to it, Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought, Yea, with my life and life's own ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... greyhounds muzzled at home for the same purpose. We went up the valley, where we should be most likely to fall in with the objects of our search; but not knowing how soon a deer might start out of the bushes, we walked along very silently and slowly, watching the woods before us, and listening to every sound. At length we arrived near the edge of a small opening, as we could tell by the clear breaks through the branches. It was in these glades or openings that we usually fell in with the deer; and we advanced with increased caution, ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... Coquenil was not listening; he had drawn two squares of shiny paper from his pocket, and was studying them with a magnifying glass. The judge looked at him ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... the more he fell down and worshiped her, until, at length, he was ready to give up everything for her sake, and offer her marriage. That was what she really wanted to fetch him to, for she was ambitious as well as honest—that she was! Are you listening ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... tense whispers, and the listening was now of the same tenseness. Two khaki-clad Sammies stood on the alert in the muddy ditch, dignified by the title, "trench," and tried to pierce the darkness that was like a pall of ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... again to talk, and as there really could be no objection to my listening to Crowder's ...
— The Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander • Frank R. Stockton
... and looked round to see whether they had been overheard. But the labourers carrying the hurdles, and Gregson burdened with the coil of wire, had not been listening. They stood now in a group close to the main gate waiting for their leader. The Squire walked up to them, picking his way among various articles of furniture, a cradle, some bedding, a trunk or two, which lay scattered in the road in front ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... keeping good watch," began Bibot, pompously, as the crowd closed in round him, listening eagerly to his narrative. "We've all heard of this meddlesome Englishman, this accursed Scarlet Pimpernel. He won't get through MY gate, MORBLEU! unless he be the devil himself. But Grospierre was a fool. The market carts were going through ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... sat motionless, listening to the muffled peals of the organ. Then the humiliating events of the last twenty-four hours began crowding in upon his memory: the insolent demands of his landlady; the guarded questions of Kling when he inspected the dressing-case; ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the ship, which kept afloat, much to my surprise. Her buoyant cargo supported her, although her hold was full up to the main deck, and the sea washing in and out of her forwards; and, there was I, tied up there in the rigging like a dog, listening to the melancholy sound of the breaking waves. I was, you must recollect, utterly unable to help myself, for my arms were pinioned like my legs, although my hands were loose and I could move them about: but, otherwise, I was powerless and could not stir from the ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Then they settled to listening; and as the story deepened and its marvels grew, the amazement of it made them dumb, and the interest of it took their breath. They hardly uttered a whisper during two hours, but sat like petrifactions and drank in the immortal romance. At last the tale was ended, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the bonds of the captives, who immediately descended and danced while the lute players sang beautiful canzone—at least so says Gagnolo; the cultured Duchess of Mantua, however, wrote that the music was so doleful that it was scarcely worth listening to. Isabella, however, judging by her remarkable letters, was a severe critic, not only of the plays but of all the festivities. The fourth moresca was danced by ten Moors holding burning tapers in their mouths. In the fifth there were ten fantastically dressed men with feathers on ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... Duquesne, and a lucky end to their present campaign seemed near at hand. In a few minutes, artillery and baggage, foot and horse, regulars and rangers, formed into separate and distinct columns, stood ready to move as soon as the word should be given. Just at the moment, however, when they were listening to hear the order, "Forward, march!" drop from their general's lips, they were startled by a sudden and heavy firing among the hills, which put a sudden stop to the hundred axes, and told but too plainly that the road-cutters and their guard of regulars ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... when we know they are Germans and that's all we need to know. Wait till they's a real job and you won't see me hideing behind nobody." So he says "I've got a real job for you tonight and you can go along with Ted Phillips to the listening post." ...
— The Real Dope • Ring Lardner
... his thundering? He has "fall'n on stillness" in the Spring, And even echo answers not, "In that dim land where all things are forgot," His surging sentences, his cadenced chimes Of speech that through the seven climes Wooed the many to rapt listening. ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... him for good-night, and Denny too, who, by this time, had recovered her good-humour in the interest of listening to the conversation between her mother and Herr Baby, and soon both little sister and brother were fast asleep in their cots, dreaming about the journey before them I daresay, or perhaps forgetting all about it in the much queerer and stranger journeys that small people are apt to ...
— The Adventures of Herr Baby • Mrs. Molesworth
... in little gasps, aloud: "He'll forget Edith. He'll have Jacky. He'll know how much I love him...." So, over the pebbles, out on to the spit of sand; on—on—until she reached the river's edge. She stood there for a minute, listening to the lisping chatter of the current. Very slowly, she stepped in, and was ankle deep in shallow water,—then stopped short—the water soaked through her shoes, and suddenly she felt it, like circling ice, around ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... times, repressing them when they became too boisterous, or petting and soothing when misadventure came to either of them in their gambols. At last she moved close to the elder, and began to talk. The conversation was about the children, and there was much to say, the gray-haired woman listening kindly and interestedly. Finally ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... pleased, and under the influence of this fancy she began to find new qualities in Ralph, the existence of which she had not before suspected. Sometimes the thought struck her that if he had been always like what he was now she would have loved him better, and listening to a dispute which had arisen between him and his mother regarding the purchase of the fruiterer's premises, her smile deepened, and then, the humour of the likeness continuing to tickle ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... tried to hide his anguish, and kissed his wife very gently, reassuring her with tender words. But, unable to control himself, and fearful of adding to her already excessive alarm, he hurriedly went into the next room, and there, listening to every sound, as pale as death, trembling from head to foot, he passed a quarter of an hour in intense anxiety. At last, and with difficulty, the child was born; at first it was supposed to be dead, and for seven minutes it gave no sign of life. The Emperor hastened ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... of receiving that telegram, was sitting at a small round table in the bar of The Stamford, listening in silence to certain opinions which were being expressed by his two companions in arms and partners in misfortune, the same opinions relating in a most disparaging manner to the genius, the foresight, and the constructive ability of one who in his ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... functions that are semi-judicial in drawing up criminal indictments, have much to do with the rural keepers, who are, in fact, their natural spies. Soudry, being appealed to, sent Vaudoyer to Gaubertin, who received his old acquaintance very cordially, and invited him to drink while listening to the recital ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... the last man in the world to turn religious. But the longer you live the more cause will you find to wonder at the divine spirit which bloweth where it listeth. Take these Methodists, who are to preach in Falmouth to-day. I have seen Wesley, and stood once for an hour listening to him. For aught I could discover he had no great eloquence. He said little that his audience might not have heard any Sunday in their own churches. His voice was hoarse from overwork, and his manner by no means winning. ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... to read what it liked or get off the car, invasion of their freedom would be obvious. Transit obliges them to hear what it likes or get off the car. Freedom of attention, which forced listening destroys, is a part of liberty essential to individuals and to society. The Supreme Court has said that the constitutional guarantee of liberty 'embraces not only the right of a person to be free from physical ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... Jack returned promptly, although his ears were listening attentively for a nearer approach of the girl-voice he heard within the house. "He calls it one of the big things Dade is always doing for his friends." He dropped a hand on Dade's shoulder and shook him with an affectionate make-believe of disfavor. ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... no one, Sir. But my sister Betsey was always watching and listening when Mr. M—— was courting my eldest sister, till he was obliged to complain ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt
... were engaged in a discussion of the Boer problem, which was then pressing. Father Kipling sat by listening, but made no comment on the divergent views, since, Kipling holding the English side of the question and Bok the Dutch side, it followed that they could not agree. Finally Father Kipling arose and said: "Well, I will take a stroll and see if I ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... when Paul asked if he'd care to room together while they were on leave. He was quiet on the flight, as he had been on the way down, listening contentedly, while Paul talked combat and women with Bob Parandes, another ...
— Slingshot • Irving W. Lande
... conversation going on between Dorcas Brandon and the vicar, his brother. He assisted at it, but took no part, and in fact was listening to that other conversation which sounded, with its pleasant gabble and laughter, like a little musical tinkle of bells in the distance. His gall rose, and that distant talk rang in his ears like a cool but ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... unprepared upon those topics that were introduced by others.' Johnson, in his long fits of silence, was perhaps like Cowper, but when aroused he was altogether unlike. Cowper says of himself:—'The effect of such continual listening to the language of a heart hopeless and deserted is that I can never give much more than half my attention to what is started by others, and very rarely start anything myself.' Southey's ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... virtuous; believes he never knowed happiness until he knowed you; could kiss the ground on which you have trod, and forgets all the joys of his calling to think of you and the delight of gazing at your beauty and in listening to your voice, would you then have consented ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... time not only the casual passers-by, but also the neighbouring merchants, were standing round, listening to the dispute, and trying every now and then to smooth matters between them. But at the merchant's last words Ali Cogia resolved to lay the cause of the quarrel before them, and told them the whole story. ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... you think I want to talk to you?" I demanded, warming to my subject. "I certainly do not. Neither does Miss Anthony want to talk to you, and the lady who spoke to you a few moments ago, and whom you treated so rudely, did not wish to be here. We would all much prefer to be in the other hall, listening to the speakers from our comfortable seats on the stage. To entertain you we gave up our places and came here simply because the committee begged us to do so. I have only one thing more to say. If you care to listen to me courteously I am willing to waste time on you; but ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... her own apartments, lay the queen-mother, dying, but listening eagerly for the rush of footsteps overhead, hoping and praying that Henri—the hitherto effeminate Henri who played with his sword as he would with a battledore, and who painted himself like a woman, and put rings in his ears—would not prejudice ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various |
