"Yawn" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Newhall, with a sepulchral yawn; "Sunday has come at last, and I am glad. It is called a day of rest, but is no day of rest for me. I have a thousand things to do this forenoon; one hour has passed away already, and I don't know ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... under a strong blue sky, Turnbull got up out of the grass and fern in which he had been lying, and his still intermittent laughter ended in a kind of yawn. ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... suited for that kind of life? Can you picture me devoting myself to the keeping of a house tidy, the overseeing of meals? I fancy I see myself spending the long, quiet evenings, my husband busy in his office or out among his patients while I dose and yawn and grow fat and old and ugly, and the great world forgetting. Dick, I should die! Of course, I love Barney. But I must have life, movement. I ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... adversaries. The triumph comes with time, and the turbulent waves of controversy recede into gentle ripples of approval. And for many a cause for which men have suffered and died, posterity has but a yawn. "Just think of it—all that fuss and all that ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... witching time of night, When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world: Now could I drink hot blood, And do such bitter business[106] as the day Would quake to look on. Soft! now to my mother. O, heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom: Let me be cruel, not unnatural; ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare
... ways at once. The conventions of the short story allow of little space for the retrospection necessary to such an introduction; and when the writer begins to say, "But first let me explain how all this came about," the reader begins to yawn, and the charm of the opening sentences is forgotten in the dreariness of the ensuing explanations. This method is of the modern school of short story writers, but Hawthorne, in "The Prophetic Pictures," gives us an excellent example of how it may be ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... I neuer stood on Ceremonies, Yet now they fright me: There is one within, Besides the things that we haue heard and seene, Recounts most horrid sights seene by the Watch. A Lionnesse hath whelped in the streets, And Graues haue yawn'd, and yeelded vp their dead; Fierce fiery Warriours fight vpon the Clouds In Rankes and Squadrons, and right forme of Warre Which drizel'd blood vpon the Capitoll: The noise of Battell hurtled in the Ayre: Horsses do neigh, and dying men did grone, And Ghosts did shrieke and ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... Never stay too late; You will wear your welcome out If you hesitate! Just before they're tired of you, Just before they yawn, Before they think you are a Goop, And wish that you were gone, While they're laughing with you, While they like you so, While they want to keep you,— That's the ...
— More Goops and How Not to Be Them • Gelett Burgess
... Coquenil and then, with a yawn and a shrug of indifference, he called to the dog, while Caesar growled ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... hither an army of the Greeks in vain, and has now returned home into his dear native land, with empty ships, having left behind him brave Menelaus.' Thus will some one hereafter say: then may the wide earth yawn ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... appeared the more keen and the more alert; the Englishman seemed undecided what to do next, remained silent, toying with the pistol. He even smothered a yawn. Chauvelin saw his opportunity. With the quick movement of a cat pouncing upon a mouse he stooped and seized that packet of papers, would then and there have made a dash for the door with them, only that, as he seized the packet, the string which held it together ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... along very well," said Bartley, with a careless yawn. "There wasn't much chance to get acquainted." Some of the loggers were as handsome and well-made as he, and were of as good origin and traditions, though he had some advantages of training. But his two-button cutaway, ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... had followed the falls-filled Snake and the calmer Columbia, which plow for a thousand miles or more among basaltic bastions buttressing the mountain sides, or through the lava lands where cavernous chasms yawn and abysmal depths echo back the sullen roar ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan
... disgusted," she replied, stifling a yawn. "But that is because you are a slave to words. If you called that plant an animal, you would find its occupation perfectly natural and pleasing. And why should you not call it ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... the trees, and advanced to the piazza. "Welcome, wanderers," went on Miss Martha, repressing a yawn. "I think I shall bequeath Sylvia to you now, ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... decent and fitting curtains and other furniture, of good stuff, but neither costly nor tawdry, and convenient, but not dazzling, light, are the proper requirements in the furnishing of an opera-house. As for the persons who go there to look at each other—to show their dresses—to yawn away waste hours—to obtain a maximum of momentary excitement—or to say they were there, at next day's three-o'clock breakfast (and it is only for such persons that glare, cost, and noise are necessary), I commend to their consideration, or at least to such consideration as is ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... said the land-owner, suppressing a yawn. "But we can't send them this wood, you know, or even get it down Oil Creek, where ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... forlornest of all created animals when it rains. Who can help laughing at sight of a flock of them huddled up under lee of a barn, limp, draggled, spiritless, shifting from one leg to the other, with their silly heads hanging inert to right or left, looking as if they would die for want of a yawn? One sees just such groups of other two-legged creatures in parlors, under similar circumstances. The truth is, a hen's life at best seems poorer than that of any other known animal. Except when she is setting, I cannot help having a contempt for her. ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... never forget the day when he, Rogers, Moore, and myself, spent the time from six at night till one o'clock in the morning, without a single yawn; we listening to him, and he talking ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... mechanically taking the card (it was a quarter-plate) in hand, and smothering a yawn; for the hour was late, the day had been laborious, and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and beds are the legitimate places for dozers. But there is no accounting for that conquering spirit of all-besetting drowsiness that attacks us at sundry times and places. It is in vain that we lengthen our limbs into an awakening stretch—that we yawn with the expressive suavity of yawning no more—that we dislocate our knuckle bones, and ruffle the symmetry of our visage, with a manual application; like the cleft blaze of a candle, drowsiness returns again. Well, then, what manner of reader is he ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... this sensible girl," says Miss Kavanagh, with a carefully manufactured yawn. "Really, dear Dicky, you must forgive me if I say I haven't gone into it as yet, and that I don't suppose I shall ever see the ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... to my room to write some letters," said he, with a yawn. "Would you like to read them before they ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... sound of the girl's step in the doorway Mrs. Coombe opened her eyes. They were very filmy to-night, blank, contented. Her nervousness seemed to have left her. Perhaps she was half asleep, for she yawned, an open, ugly yawn, which she did not trouble to raise ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... is a simple affair. You are first sent for by the Master-at-Arms, who glares, thrusts papers into your trembling hand and ejects you violently in the direction of the Demobilising Office. Here they regard you curiously, stifle a yawn, languidly inspect your papers and send you to the Paymaster, who, after wandering disconsolately round the Pay Office, exclaiming pathetically, "I say, hasn't anyone seen that Mixed Muster book? It must ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156., March 5, 1919 • Various
... not the same. Men fall in love—or protest as much. And at wine they boast of their good fortunes, swearing each that his mistress is the fairest, and bragging till I yawn to listen.... And yet you say ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... fixed to the spot. Darkness had closed in around her, and she clung to the banisters to save herself from the gulf which seemed to yawn before her feet. The ringing of a bell, the drawing-room bell summoning Mrs. Enderby's maid, brought her back to consciousness, and with trembling limbs she regained her room. It was as though some ghastly vision ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... de Garcia's face fall a little, for he wished to be rid of me for ever. Still he did not think it politic to interfere beyond saying with a slight yawn: ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... at the conduct of the young man; and he soon began to suppose that this was not the person he was to fight, but probably a keeper, who was examining into his condition. After submitting to this scrutiny a few minutes, he gave a mighty yawn, which startled the spectators, but which delighted the Absolute Fool; for never before had he beheld such a depth of potentiality. He knelt in silent delight at this exhibition ...
— The Bee-Man of Orn and Other Fanciful Tales • Frank R. Stockton
... than the wolves, comrade," said Punch, yawning violently, an act which was so infectious that it made his companion yawn too. ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... honeycomb. apertion^, perforation; piercing &c v.; terebration^, empalement^, pertusion^, puncture, acupuncture, penetration. key &c 631, opener, master key, password, combination, passe- partout. V. open, ope^, gape, yawn, bilge; fly open. perforate, pierce, empierce^, tap, bore, drill; mine &c (scoop out) 252; tunnel; transpierce^, transfix; enfilade, impale, spike, spear, gore, spit, stab, pink, puncture, lance, stick, prick, riddle, punch; stave in. cut a passage through; make way for, make ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... o'clock he begins to yawn like a trained seal. That's how I came to fall in with—this." He indicated the giggling Clyde. "I didn't have ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... awake, but had apparently no proper recollection of the events of the night, which even to Rachel had begun to seem unreal, like a waning hallucination. The doctor gave orders, with optimism, and left, sufficiently reassured to allow himself to yawn. At a quarter past eight Louis had departed to his own affairs, on Rachel's direct suggestion. And when Mrs. Tams had been informed of the case so full of disturbing enigmas, while Rachel and she drank tea together in the kitchen, the daily domestic movement ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... walk for Bernard Maddison. Two sensations were struggling within him for the mastery, fear and despair at the terrible crisis which seemed to yawn before his feet, and that sweet revolution of feeling, that intense, yearning love, which had suddenly thrown a golden halo over his cold barren life. But as he left the road and took the moorland path along the cliff, the battle suddenly came to an end. Before him stretched the ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... light; and the Ianthe will run up before it like a race-horse. I should not be much surprised if he were here to breakfast." "And that we may be up in time for him, if perchance he should let us to bed forthwith," said Frank with a heavy yawn. ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... after all, be of the wild kindred, since he evidently had no mind to face the owner of the gunyah by daylight. Then, with hackles raised, and bodies shrinking backward among the leaves, they saw Bill come out, and yawn, and stretch his arms, and go to look at Jess, under her shelter. Now as it happened, Finn stumbled upon a fresh wallaby trail that morning, a trail not many minutes old; and he followed it with growing excitement for a number of miles. To his nose it was more or less the ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... matters it how faultlessly we paint or write or sing if no one will care to look or read or listen? He is all fault that hath no fault at all, and we poor outsiders all but yawn in ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... the safe side, make such preparations as our future enemies, whosoever they may be, will dislike to hear of. Accordingly you are to order the peasants to dig a series of pits with wide mouths near the mountains of Caprarius and the parts round about the walls[857]; and let such a chasm yawn there that there shall be no possibility of ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... said the baron, "will it be changed?" and he poked the fire to conceal a yawn. Excellent man! his time latterly had been more given to the investigation of opera than of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... not be shut out from all advantages), but the intruder would not keep quiet. A brother of dolorous whine was engaged in prayer, when poodle evidently thought that the time for response had come, and gave a loud yawn that had no tendency to solemnize the occasion. I resolved to endure it no longer. I started to extirpate the nuisance. I made a fearful pass of my hand in the direction of the dog, but missed him. A lady arose to give me a better chance at the vile pup, but I discovered that ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... those slaves cannibal men, Baas. Think they eat the Arabs and like them very much," he said with a yawn, then ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... said he, with a great, broad, bottomless yawn, "and get to bed as soon as you can. I shall sound the horn at daybreak; and we've got the cattle to fodder, and nine cows to milk, and a dozen other things ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... beard of the Prophet, it takes a long time to get a husband for this princess of yours, Menouni," observed the pacha with a yawn. ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... Then a dark, irregular line, running right and left, and roughly parallel with the crest of the range, came into view. It was an eighth of a mile in length and the narrow width rapidly increased until there was a rent or yawn of several hundred feet, zigzagging from one side to the other. The dark color of this chasm was due to rocks and ground, and marked the break between the two sections or divisions of the avalanche. The upper ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... buttonhole a ridiculous artificial flower. This type of comic singer is unknown in American concert-halls of any grade, though he is sometimes seen at the German concerts in the Bowery of the lowest class. Here he is very cordially esteemed. The ladies behind him yawn in a furtive manner under cover of their bouquets, but the audience is hilarious over him as he sings about his friend Thomas from the country, who came up to Paris to see the sights and shocked everybody by his dreadful manners. He put his muddy ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... I take myself to be as much tied down by a certain degree of good manners to you, as by other degrees of them to other people. Were I to show you, by a manifest inattention to what you said to me, that I was thinking of something else the whole time; were I to yawn extremely, snore, or break wind in your company, I should think that I behaved myself to you like a beast, and should not expect that you would care to frequent me. No. The most familiar and intimate habitudes, connections, and ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... thou hast much the best of the matter, even in the way of amusement, reverend pilgrim, though to the looker-on it would seem otherwise. The difference between us, pious Conrad, is just this—that thou laughest in thy sleeve without seeming to be merry, whereas I yawn ready to split my jaws while I seem to be dying with fun. Your often-told joke is a bad companion, and gets at last to be as gloomy as a dirge. Wine can be swallowed but once, and laughter will not come for ever for the same folly. Cospetto! ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... the air was tinged with warm gold. Somewhere the sun had risen. In a little, Scrope heard a dropping sound of firing, and a few moments afterwards the rattle of a volley. The battle was joined. Scrope saw the trench again yawn up before his eyes. The Major was right. This morning, again, Lieutenant Scrope had the harder ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... settled, the new aristocrat could yawn and stretch like any aristocrat under the old dispensation, and then as the sound of running water from the bathroom ceased, stick his toes ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... lady smiled as she heard him speak, and had not an unfortunate yawn accompanied those two tender words, in all probability they would have terminated this chapter. But the word yawn is not found in Love's dictionary, and consequently the unlucky husband was forced to rise from his bed preparatory to going forth to perform deeds of ...
— The Home in the Valley • Emilie F. Carlen
... gracefully the Psalms of David into verse; La Grande Seneschale, always supreme in taste, patronised Pierre Ronsard—and this was why Pierre sometimes found that when he "talked fine to King Francis," the King would yawn in his face, or whistle and move off to some ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... by Pilar's long lashes drooped, and the Cherub, catching her in the act of stifling a yawn, laughingly ordered her off to bed. "You haven't had enough sleep these last few nights to keep a cigarron alive," said he. Soon afterwards his own eyes began to look like those of a sleepy child, and he excused himself with all the ceremony of Spanish leave-takings. Dick and I were left ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... and hopes of many young men who on the strength of platform popularity look for triumph at Westminster. The House of Commons, whatever may be its drawbacks, has some human qualities, is kindly to beginners, has a respect for sincerity, an undisguised yawn for bores, and a cold contempt for swollen-headed young members who try to impress it with their capacity. When once a member has passed the stage of initial forbearance due to a new-comer, there grows upon him the fact that the House of Commons is ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... was broken. He started to his feet, and with the courage of terror extreme, opened the door—not opened it a little, as if he feared an unwelcome human presence, but pulled it, with a sudden wide yawn, open ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... who had listened in silence to the recital, was the first to break the spell. She rose, fluffed up her hair, straightened her blouse, and politely suppressed a yawn. ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... drinkable. Coburn got into a cab and gave the driver the address, and made sure of the revolver in his pocket. He was frightened. He was either going to meet with a monster from outer space, or be on the way to making so colossal a fool of himself that a mental asylum would yawn ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... constant surprise to some employers that servants should insist on having the same human wants as themselves. Ladies who yawn in their elegantly furnished parlors, among books and pictures, if they have not company, parties, or opera to diversify the evening, seem astonished and half indignant that cook and chambermaid are more disposed to go out for an evening gossip than to sit on hard chairs ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... talking part of the Virginian, which had been nine days asleep, gave its first yawn and stretch of waking. Without preface, he suddenly asked me, ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... seem'd, an adder all on fire, As the dark pepper-grain, livid and swart. In that part, whence our life is nourish'd first, One he transpierc'd; then down before him fell Stretch'd out. The pierced spirit look'd on him But spake not; yea stood motionless and yawn'd, As if by sleep or fev'rous fit assail'd. He ey'd the serpent, and the serpent him. One from the wound, the other from the mouth Breath'd a thick smoke, whose vap'ry ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... secured the provender, and was ready to resume his journey, he began to yawn, and to exhibit the most ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... when the fight was fought and won, And there was Peace as still as Death On everything beneath the sun. Just as I started to draw breath, And yawn, and stretch, and pat myself, — The grass began to whisper things — And every tree became an elf, That grinned and chuckled counsellings: Birds, beasts, one thing alone they said, Beating and dinning at my head. I could not fly. I could not shun it. Slimily twisting, slow and blind, It ...
— Young Adventure - A Book of Poems • Stephen Vincent Benet
... want, coming here at this hour in the morning," Bimbo said, with a yawn. "I was just dreaming that I could live without work, when you roused me. What is up that ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... asleep; when the lighted windowpanes have ceased to cast their gleams upon the snow; when the streets are deserted, the pool-rooms closed, and the last good-fellow has gone to bed, and only oneself is awake, then we have the full enjoyment of our quiet study lamp-light. We may yawn once or twice, a creak on the stair may startle us,—but we do not go to bed. We reach out our hand for some favorite volume, Stevenson's Garden of Verses, Underwoods, or Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights: and read far on into the night towards cock-crow. We ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... a priori grounds; unless, indeed, we hold this necessity to be not at all practical, but merely physical, viz., that our action is as inevitably determined by our inclination, as yawning when we see others yawn. It would be better to maintain that there are no practical laws at all, but only counsels for the service of our desires, than to raise merely subjective principles to the rank of practical laws, which have objective necessity, and not ...
— The Critique of Practical Reason • Immanuel Kant
... awkwardly-constructed stanza, a female, uncomely and ungraceful, is represented as standing in the attitude of a yawn, not indicated by the gaping mouth, but by the contorted person, and arms twisted behind the back. She is close to a stained-glass window, whose gaudy colours are challenged by her own bright blue dress, the object of the artist throughout appearing to be violent ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... only novelists. They had manner and method. But they were both too limited in their field, too much concerned with sexual relations, that most tedious of topics (in literature, not life), the very thought of which made one yawn. Queer thing, how novelists couldn't leave it alone. It was, surely, like eating and drinking, a natural element in life, which few avoid; but the most exciting, jolly, interesting, entertaining things were apart from it. Not that Jane was not quite willing to accept with approval, as part of the ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... occurred to him that, fixed as he was to his place, to uproot himself was utterly impossible. Meanwhile Madame Astier, sitting on the edge of an armchair in her dressing-gown, with a lace wrap round her head, watched his proceedings and murmured between yawn and yawn with placid irony, ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... were, no doubt, well supplied with furs, robes, and provisions for a several hours' journey; his own pork barrel was quite empty, and his blankets worn. He half smiled, extended his long arms in a decided yawn, and turned back into his cabin to go to bed. Then he cast a final glance around the interior. Everything was all right; his loaded rifle stood against the wall; he had just raked ashes over the embers of his fire to keep it intact till morning. Only one thing slightly troubled him; a grizzly ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... inconsistency of the formulation, the picking up of the different threads of thought without following out any one of them to its conclusion, are characteristic of this type of definitions. They are as devoid of vitality as a long drawn-out yawn, and their want of logic is exasperating. The merest tyro can see that one can profess the principles they embody without being a Jew. There are many sects that would heartily subscribe to all of them. Universalists, Deists, Theists, Unitarians, and even Ethical Culturists hold ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... by the path just then, and Nils rose, with a yawn. "Mother, if you don't mind, Eric and I will take a little tramp before bedtime. It ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... pretty salutation, crossed the lawn, passed her husband, who had just ridden up on a powerful sorrel, and called brightly to Coursay: "Take me fishing, Jack, or I'll yawn my head ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... shouldering twin baskets. The smell of joss-sticks, fish, and sour betel, the subtle sweetness of opium, grew constantly stronger, blended with exhalations of ancient refuse, and (as the chairs jogged past the club, past filthy groups huddling about the well in a marketplace, and onward into the black yawn of the city gate) assailed the throat like a bad and lasting taste. Now, in the dusky street, pent narrowly by wet stone walls, night seemed to fall, while fresh waves of pungent odor overwhelmed and steeped the senses. Rudolph's chair jostled through ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... want at this early hour?" said Godfrey with a heavy yawn. "Now do be quiet, Tony, and give a man time to pull ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... a fair one," said the lady in an odd voice. It was so odd that Hays looked up. But she had somewhat altered her position, and was gazing at the ceiling, and with her hand to her face seemed to have just recovered from a slight yawn, at which he hesitated with a new and ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... yawn by Messrs. Pauncefote and Smith, who politely waited upon him for his subscription, a request which Culver, as president, and Gosse, as secretary, were also in attendance to see ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... from myself, or you, that the earnestness which was awakened in those days is dying out in these. The richer classes of every country are tempted from time to time to fits of laziness—fits of frivolity and luxury, surfeits, in which men say, with a shrug and a yawn—"Why be very much in earnest? Why take so much trouble? Somebody must always be rich, why should not I? Somebody must enjoy the money, why should not I? At all events, things will last my time." And that such a surfeit has fallen upon the rich of this land, is a fact; for that this is the tone ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... to my lady that my lady was very glad to keep her. She could make caps like a Parisian milliner; she could dress her exquisitely; she could read for hours in the sweetest and clearest of voices, without one yawn, the dullest of dull High Church novels. She could answer notes and sing like a siren, and she could embroider prie-dieu chairs and table-covers, and slippers and handkerchiefs, and darn point lace like ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... certitudes, For whose calm eyes and modest ears Time writes the rule and text of prudes— That, surpliced, stoops a nuptial head, Nor chooses to live blindly free, But, with all pulses quieted, Plays tunes of domesticity— That Love I sing of and have sung And mean to sing till Death yawn sheer, He rules the music of my tongue, Stills it or quickens, there or here. I say but this: as we went up I heard the Monthly give a sniff And "if the big dog makes the pup—" She murmured—then repeated "if!" The caudle on a slab was placed; She ...
— The Heptalogia • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... fire, which was out; at Modestine, standing meekly by the tree to which he was tied; at the raindrops bounding off Aggie's round and prostrate figure—and I rebelled. Every muscle was sore; it hurt me even to yawn. ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Jimmy stay up till at least half-past ten, even though he was "jolly sleepy." He had slept for at least two hours in the forest. She ought to have remembered that, but she had forgotten it, and when, at a quarter to nine, on an enormous yawn, Jimmy had announced that he thought he would "turn in and get between the sheets," she had almost eagerly acquiesced. She wanted her boy asleep, soundly asleep that night. When the clock had struck nine he had already traveled beyond the land ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... says Tita, with a yawn, "but I'll stay a minute or two. Why, what we arranged was, that we should ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... old Tompkins will have to rap pretty loud to make me budge at eight bells," said Tom with a portentous yawn, as he peeled off his reefing jacket and turned in "all standing," as he expressed it, with the exception of his boots. He was too tired to undress; and besides, he thought, in his lazy way, what was the use of his doing so when ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... thinking had grown rusty, and as she sat before the hearth ideas came slowly. The room was dim—lighted only by the firelight; and in that dimness her mind began to stir and stretch and yawn itself awake, like a creature that had been hibernating through a long, dark winter. Suddenly the widow of the Richest Trustee broke out into a feeble little laugh—a convalescing laugh that acted as if it was just getting ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... from Boccaccio and from the tale of the Monk in Chaucer. The "litel hevynesse" which the knight noticed in the monk's stories is particularly well imitated, so much so that Lydgate himself stops sometimes with uplifted pen to yawn at his ease in the face of his reader.[838] But his pen goes down again on the paper, and starts off with fresh energy. From it proceeds a "Troy Book, or Historie of the Warres betwixte the Grecians and the Troyans," of thirty thousand ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... will ignore outraged ties of blood, and treat on the ground of mere humanity? Let me conclude, for it is sickening and loathsome to a man of my age, to see his long silent household graves yawn, and give up uncalled—their sheeted dead. For some years the money sent, was a quietus, and I was left in peace. I was lonely; it was, hard work to forget, because I could never forgive; and the more desolate the gray ruin, the more nature yearns to cover ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... Philip went to bed earlier than usual, saying, with a yawn, as he took the light to go up stairs, "How sleepy I am!" But, instead of going to sleep, he never was more wide awake. He lay till all in the house were asleep, till he heard the clock strike twelve, then arose, went ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... through the tangle of bushes in front of the cave where Nero had hidden. The lion rolled over, stretched out his heavy paws with their big, curved claws, and opened his mouth and yawned, just as you have often seen your dog or cat yawn after a sleep. ...
— Nero, the Circus Lion - His Many Adventures • Richard Barnum
... all stretch and yawn. The Captain climbs the ladder to the sleeping loft. Patch follows with the candle, warming the Captain's seat for speed. The Duke comes next, carrying his one boot which he has removed before the ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... business like other men. You play it heart and and all of you. No matter what you believed and intended a wife would be only a brief diversion. There is that magnificent Bob, eating his head off in the stable. You would buy me a beautiful mansion and leave me in it to yawn my head off, or cry my eyes out because of my helplessness and inability to save you. This disease of business would be corroding you and marring you all the time. You play it as you have played everything else, as in Alaska you played the life of the trail. Nobody could be ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... by the bridle. She shut the door behind them and drove home the great bolts. Servants came tumbling out to take the horses and do their duty; Count Eustace, a brother of Jehane's, got up from the hearth, where he had been asleep on a bearskin, rubbed his eyes, gulped a yawn, knelt, and was kissed by Richard. Jehane stood apart, mistress of herself as it seemed, but conscious, perhaps, that she was being watched. So she was. In the bustle of salutation the Abbot Milo found eyes to see what manner of sulky, beautiful ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... the sole and surly occupant of the sitting-room, where he had thrown himself at full length upon the sofa, to lie and yawn over the newspaper, which he vowed was as stale as ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... round the struggling Nymph, with piercing cries, Pursued the chariot, and invoked the skies;— Pleased as he grasps her in his iron arms, 190 Frights with soft sighs, with tender words alarms, The wheels descending roll'd in smoky rings, Infernal Cupids flapp'd their demon wings; Earth with deep yawn received the Fair, amaz'd, And far in ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... up at her. It was rather singular that she did not ask what Maggie did think. Perhaps she was afraid of a certain British honesty which characterized the girl's thought and speech. Instead she rose and indulged in a yawn which may have been counterfeit, but ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... think his name is Nolly. He's a book agent, and I promised to buy some histories from him," and Baxter pretended to yawn, as if he was ...
— The Rover Boys at School • Arthur M. Winfield
... bodies, which as another [1627]"Proteus, or a chameleon, can take all shapes; and is of such force (as Ficinus adds), that it can work upon others, as well as ourselves." How can otherwise blear eyes in one man cause the like affection in another? Why doth one man's yawning [1628]make another yawn? One man's pissing provoke a second many times to do the like? Why doth scraping of trenchers offend a third, or hacking of files? Why doth a carcass bleed when the murderer is brought before it, some weeks after the murder hath been done? Why do witches and old women fascinate ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... Palemon, up a rocky steep, Whose summit trembles o'er the roaring deep, With painful step he climb'd; while far above Sweet Anna charm'd them with the voice of love: Then sudden from the slippery height they fell, While dreadful yawn'd beneath the jaws of hell. 690 Amid this fearful trance, a thundering sound He hears, and thrice the hollow decks rebound: Upstarting from his couch, on deck he sprung, Thrice with shrill note the boatswain's whistle ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... in the middle of a tremendous yawn. "I'm tired to death," he wailed, "and I CAN'T arrange a Princess, or anything more, at this time of night. And my mother's sitting up, and DO stop asking me to arrange ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... one of them asks with a yawn what is happening, the woman who keeps the cafe that crouches at the corner of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... it were not for that ride to-morrow, I could sleep all day," added Eleanor, hiding a yawn. ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... necessary to remember that it is expressly subtitled "Romans Goguenards," thereby preparing the reader for the reverse of seriousness. That reverse, especially in young hands, is a difficult thing to manage. "Guffaw" and "yawn" are two words which have actually two letters in common; y and g are notoriously interchangeable in some dialects and circumstances, while n and u are the despair of the copyist or the student ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury |
