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More "Listener" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the boy had never had such a listener in his life before, he told her of other men—Stephenson, Newton, Shakespeare—and Betty took off her bonnet as her earnestness increased, and tucked it under her arm after a way ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner
... is shut. Our sheep in London's wild enough when they take fright, while these things is more like goats, and you know how they can run up among the rocks. Oh, steady, steady, out there; look sharp and shut those gates," whispered the listener. "Oh, do mind! If I sees all them legs o' mutton cutting their sticks off to the ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... ought to have an education if you want it so much," said her sympathetic listener, in a kindly tone, while she regarded the girl's eager face almost affectionately. "But are you not afraid that your cruel step-father will go after ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... has had anything to do with the higher diplomacy is aware that diplomatic language stands in a class by itself. It is a language specially designed to deceive the chance listener. ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... country had been duly memorized in song or rhyme. Occasionally they would have a school-day on which the local dignitaries would be invited, and on a number of these occasions the doctor was, for amusement's sake merely, a grave and reverent listener. On one occasion, however, he was merely passing the school, when hearing "Africa-a, Africa-a, mountains of the moo-oo-oon" drawled out of the windows, he decided to stop in and listen a while. Having tethered his horse outside he knocked at the door and was ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... The world and the Court excused him also, charmed by the facility with which he received people, the pleasure he felt in granting requests and rendering services, the gentleness and regretfulness of his refusals, and his indefatigable patience as a listener. His memory was so great that he remembered all matters submitted to him, which gave pleasure to people who were afraid of being forgotten. He wrote excellently; and his clear, flowing, and precise style was extremely pleasing to the King and Madame de Maintenon, who were ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... composer's function to write music of such a character that when well performed it will occasion an emotional reaction on the part of performer and listener. Granting this type of music, it is the function of the performer or conductor to so interpret the music that an appropriate emotional reaction will actually ensue. A recent writer calls the performer a messenger from the composer to ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... prosperous fellow-countryman who will listen to him, and will then close with a proposition that he and his compatriot shall "take something." The payment for the score naturally falls to the lot of the listener or victim, and hence has arisen a saying among Frenchmen in La Plata: "Distrust the gentleman who was at the combat of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... kiss, which hug, which answer?—all are upon him; they know their playmate, their companion, and best friend; they have hoarded up, since the preceding night, a hundred things to say, and now they have got their loving and attentive listener. "Look what I have done, father," says the chief boatman, "Tom and I together." "Well done, boys!" says the father—and Tom and he are kissed. "I have been locking baby," lisps little Billy, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... "Hm, Hm!" commented the listener, "very few whom I know. Judge Clayton from the other side, below Cairo. State Senator ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... concluded his speech and appeared to be waiting questioningly Tarzan's reply. The ape-man spoke to the other first in the language of the great apes, but he soon saw that the words carried no conviction to his listener. Then with equal futility he tried several native dialects but to none of ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... some subject in which your companion is interested, and get him to talking. Then show yourself a good listener. A woman may get the reputation of being bright and clever if she will simply show herself a good listener. To do this, she must give her attention to the person who is talking. She must seem interested. Her eyes must not wander around the room; she must not take up picture ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... moments as they fly, O John Milton, and hug them to your heart! Those were days of gold when your mother was your patient listener and friend. Her love enveloped you as an aura; and her voice, soft and low, upheld you when courage faltered. But these, too, are glorious days—days full of work, and health, and hope, and high endeavor. But these days of peace and freedom are the last ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... morning coffee had indeed much of the solemnity of a religious ceremony—or would have had, if those who looked on, had been unable to hear, or even slightly dull of hearing. For the sound of Miss Penelope's voice was charming when the listener could not hear what it said. And her dulcet tone always ran through the whole performance like the faint, sweet echo of distant music. But when the listener's ears were keen, and he could hear the things that this kind, caressing voice was saying, the threats ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... science, or politics, or social economy. About novels and poetry, travels and gossip, personal details, or anecdotes of any kind, she always made exactly the remarks which are expected from an agreeable listener; and she had sense enough to confine herself to those short expressions of wonder, admiration, and astonishment, which may mean anything, when more ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... extortions of her priests through the confessional. He explained how the benighted papist was obliged under pain of eternal damnation to confess his sins to the priest, and then was charged so much for each fault he had been guilty of. An incredulous listener wanted to know if he, the speaker, while in the toils of Rome had ever been obliged thus to disgorge in the confessional, and was answered with a triumphant affirmation. At which the wag hinted that it would be a good thing not to be too outspoken in announcing the fact as his reputation for ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... you see," exclaimed Mr. Gryce; "she had not even time to gather up her clothes;" and with a sudden movement he stooped and pulled out one of the bureau drawers before the eyes of his nonchalant listener. ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... which we were not a little proud. Scott sat at the head of the table, that is at the east end, but otherwise we all took our places haphazard from meal to meal as our conversation, or want of it, merited, or as our arrival found a vacant chair. Thus if you felt talkative you might always find a listener in Debenham; if inclined to listen yourself it was only necessary to sit near Taylor or Nelson; if, on the other hand, you just wanted to be quiet, Atkinson or Oates would, probably, give you ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... delivered himself of this long address without interruption from a listener interested in every word that related to Guy Darrell, and in every hope that could reunite him to the healthful activities ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... yo' say, sah?" exclaimed Solon, who had been an interested listener. "Yo' callin' dat ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... as much surprised at seeing him as he was at finding himself in the handsome, heavily-furnished room in Princes Gate. Stout, over fifty, and clumsily wigged, it rarely enough happened to Lady Dawning to find not only a sympathetic listener but an eager inquirer into those romantic days when love's young dream for her cousin Johnny Dexter was stifled by parental authority: "And it all ended in my becoming Lady Dawning." A sigh of satisfaction concluded the episode ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... and listen to our Father; in other words we must use the great dynamic of prayer. "More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of." We are told that one of the requisites of the really good talker is to be a good listener; the apparently good talker is in reality a 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 ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... poet's character, we must bring a serious charge against them if a deafening clamor of contradiction reverberates in our ears. In such a case their claim that they are seers, or masters of harmony, can be worth little. The unbiased listener is likely to assure us that clamorous contradiction is precisely what the aggregate of poets' speaking amounts to, but we shall be slow to acknowledge as much. Have we been merely the dupe of pretty phrasing when we felt ourselves ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... told the red man's story; far and wide He searched the unwritten annals of his race; He sat a listener at the Sachem's side, He tracked the hunter through ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... listener," he smiled. "And very clever. Because it's ordinarily rather difficult to flatter me. I'm immensely delighted with your silence, whereas ..." Dorn stumbled. He felt his speech ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... and forest-filled valley with green tracery, while warm sunlight beat through. So, in contrast to the past, I found it comforting to lounge away the time there with a fair companion, while glancing down the glistening metals I told how we had built the line. Alice was a good listener, and the tale may have had its interest, while—and this is not wholly due to vanity—no man talks better than when he speaks to a sympathizing woman of the work that he is proud of. It was no disloyalty to Grace, but when once or ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... the telephone operator, and sleeping accommodation for the orderlies, the other half was used as officers' quarters. Several officers were busy discussing plans when I arrived. The conversation might sound strange and callous to an ordinary listener. ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... as they both made a capital tea, they talked of all manner of trivial things. They were absurdly glad to see one another again, and each was ready to be amused at everything the other said. But the conversation would have been unintelligible to a listener, since they mostly talked together, and every now and then made a little scene when one insisted that the other should listen to ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... were out of keeping with the tone of the conversation hitherto, and fairly excited Bateman, who, for some time, had been an impatient listener. ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... war took place in the Wilburs' drawing-room several evenings before the opening. Charlotte, supposed to be studying in the library, became an interested listener, shielded from ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... them? A. I was. Hiram, King of Tyre, hearing the noise I made, suddenly turned his head and discovered me. He exclaimed to Solomon, "My brother, there is a listener." Solomon replied, "It is impossible, since the ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan
... it will be such bliss to me that I shall forget you completely? It isn't to be bliss, but work, hard work, and competition. It is the work that will keep me to Paris, not my happiness, my gaiety, my content with other faces. That would comfort me if I were listener, and you the speaker. But, Fanny, Fanny, I never met any one with such joy as you—it is you who change the forest and the inns we meet in, make the journeys a miracle. Don't show me another face. We have been in love without a cloud, without ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... easy matter to attain even with a pen. He has a wonderful memory and can repeat, without missing a single word, even his extempore speeches. He has attained this facility by study and constant practice, for he does nothing else day or night: either as a listener or speaker he is for ever discussing. He has passed his sixtieth year and is still only a rhetorician, and there is no more honest and upright class of men living. For we who are always rubbing shoulders with ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... meant to, Marilla, as much as could be. But you have no idea how fascinating Idlewild is. And then, of course, I had to tell Matthew about the picnic. Matthew is such a sympathetic listener. ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... whatever that Agatha was making a strenuous effort. Nobody else, however, seemed to notice it, for Winifred flung a swift glance around, and then fixed her eyes upon the dominant figure in the corn-straw dress. The sweet voice was still rising and the interested listener hoped that the accompanist would force the tone to cover it a little, and put on the loud pedal. The pianist, however, was gazing at his music, and played on until, with ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... be intoning in the void. There is always an inner history in all this, as well as an outer one—such, however, as it would take much space to relate. Mr. Reinhart's more or less alienated accent fell, by good-fortune, on a comprehending listener. He had made a satirical drawing, in the nature of the "cartoon" of a comic journal, on a subject of the hour, and addressed it to the editor of Harper's Weekly. The drawing was not published—the satire was perhaps ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... took up the plaintive strain. It was so high and sweet and clear that the listener caught her breath in ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... convey clearly to another the meaning you intend to convey, but you will be helped in this if you ask yourself the questions: "Do I know exactly what happened?" "Have I said what I intended to say?" "Have I said it so that it will be clear to the listener?" ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... the brightest and most mirthful. It was well known that he had his great fountain of humor as a safety valve; as an escape and entire relief from the fearful exactions his endless duties put upon him. In the gravest consultations of the cabinet where he was usually a listener rather than a speaker, he would often end dispute by telling a story and none misunderstood it; and often when he was pressed to give expression on particular subjects, and his always abundant caution was baffled, he many times ended the interview ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... can read it, as she prefers; that is, she chooses whether it shall address her eye or her ear. But the long-and-short alphabet of Morse and his imitators despises such narrow range. It addresses whichever of the five senses the listener chooses. This fact is illustrated by a curious set of anecdotes,—never yet put in print, I think,—of that critical despatch which in one night announced General Taylor's death to this whole land. Most of the readers of these lines probably read that despatch ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... eleven and twelve. He was happy at school: and he liked to talk all about it at home. These holidays, Hugh made a better listener than even his sisters; and he was a more amusing one—he knew so little about the country. He asked every question that could be imagined about the playground at the Crofton school, and the boys' doings out of school; and then, when Philip fancied he must ...
— The Crofton Boys • Harriet Martineau
... passed his fellow-mortals without noticing them. A friend, if observed, he greeted with a slight nod, and possibly stopped him for conversation. Once started on a subject, Percival rarely quitted it until it was exhausted; and consequently these interviews sometimes outlasted the leisure of his listener. You excused yourself, perhaps; or you were called away by some one else; but you had only put off the conclusion of the discourse, not escaped it. The next time Percival encountered you, his first words were, "As I was saying,"—and taking up the thread of his observations ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... an instant's silence, a man's ringing laugh of triumph; next, in a girl's voice, a little breathless but of a quality to make the listener prick up ears already ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... New York. He saw the bird on a bright midwinter morning when the thermometer stood at zero, and by cautious approaches succeeded in getting under the apple-tree upon which he was perched. The shrike was uttering a loud, clear note like clu-eet, clu-eet, clu-eet, and, on finding he had a listener who was attentive and curious, varied his performance and kept it up continuously for fifteen minutes. He seemed to enjoy having a spectator, and never took his eye off him. The observer approached within twenty feet of him. "As I came near," ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... walked up the slope far enough for her to see the house and store of the Fishleys. In the cool shade of the swamp we lunched, and enjoyed ourselves to the utmost. My fair companion was an interested listener, and wished to know every particular in regard to the raft, which had been the means of ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... chiefly from Greeks and Romans long dead. He had much more recent material ready to hand. But he well knew that he, who would induce another to give him calm and dispassionate attention, must not begin by treading on the toes of his listener. I shall strive to profit by his example. It is best to say only what each man can apply to his neighbor. We are all sensitive in ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... adjoining tent. Before Garfield was fairly seated on his camp stool, he began to talk with the easy and deliberate manner of a man who had much to say. He dwelt eloquently on the minutest details of his early life, as if they were matters of the utmost importance. Keifer was not only an attentive listener, but seemed wonderfully interested. Uncle Jacob undertook to thrust in a word here and there, but Garfield was much too absorbed to notice him, and so pushed on steadily, warming up as he proceeded. Unfortunately for his scheme, however, before he had gone far he made a touching ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... each case being created anew within the soul. The important point is that the occult teacher seeks to awaken in his hearers and readers the kind of thoughts which they must first call forth from within themselves, whereas he who describes some physical object indicates something that the listener or reader may observe within ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner
... so loudly before; and when at last Nic lay down in his rustling bunk, and the place had been locked and the black sentry placed at the door, it seemed to the listener as if the great goat-suckers were whirring about just outside, and the bull-frogs had come in a body to the very edge of the woods and up the ditches of ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... His listener recalled swiftly the days that had passed since the night he had seen her wet through in the cold rain at Sleepy Cat. He feared Jim's diagnosis might be right. And he had already made all arrangements to meet the occasion ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... stood a listener to their converse—a little girl with high shoulders and sharp features, on which diabolical malice was stamped. Two yellow eyes glistened through the leaves beside her, marking the presence of a cat. As the lovers breathed their vows, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... The "cold music" has seemed to the modern listener to say that he, learned and wise, shall not pass away ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... target," he would say to a listener, "your honest grandfather wore that day, and with it he forced his way through a hundred men. Well did I know him; he was my great friend, and an honest man. Few are like him ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... her bands, "when I am dead, is he never to know that I was his mother?" The anguish of that question thrilled the heart of the listener. He was affected below all the surface that worldly thoughts and habits had laid, stratum by stratum, over the humanities within. He threw his arms round Catherine, and strained her to ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... wide brim, you mean? and his face was pale—a youngish face?" Mary pressed her, with a white-lipped intensity of interrogation. But if the kitchen-maid found any adequate answer to this challenge, it was swept away for her listener down the rushing current of her own convictions. The stranger—the stranger in the garden! Why had Mary not thought of him before? She needed no one now to tell her that it was he who had called for her husband and gone away with him. ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... talks incessantly. There is no subject upon which he has not something worth while to say. His memory is remarkable; he can quote poet after poet, or compose a poem on anything that crops up at the table. I do not think it can be said that Chesterton is a good listener. This is not in any way conceit or boredom, but is rather that he is always thinking out some new story or article or poem. Yet he is a good host in the niceties of the table; he knows if you want salt; he does not forget that wine is the symbol ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... years later it was suggested that steam power might be utilized in some way to do the pulling and tugging necessary in getting an impression. At this time Richard M., one of the sons of the founder of the house, was an attentive listener to the discussions. ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... to stay at Silverbel, and this seemed to give an added touch to the child's sense of enjoyment, for Lady Helen had at last, in a shy half whisper, told the eager little listener that she did love Mr. Rochester, and, further, that they were only waiting to proclaim their engagement to the world until the happy time ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... day. Party dull and very quiet. Her eyes begin to look like ghastly hollows in her pale face. She talks to herself continually, but in a low mechanical way exceedingly wearing to the listener, especially as no word can be distinguished. Tried to see her in her own room to-day, but she ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... underplots in the drama, much of the comedy, and some of the tragedy, of life depend. Under the unsuspected mask of stupidity this worthy mistress of our intriguing valet-de-chambre concealed the quick ears of a listener, and the demure eyes of a spy. Long, however, did she listen, and long did she spy in vain, till at last Mr. Champfort gave her notice in writing that his love would not last another week, unless she could within that time contrive ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... secret weight in her bosom. She always opens up her heart to the nearest listener. This probably relieves Aggie, but it does not make her a cheerful companion. Eight o'clock and darkness came, and still no Tish. I went into the cave and brought out my gun, and Aggie roused Mr. Muldoon and explained the situation to him. ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Nan and Dorothy joined the others. Freddie was almost asleep in Aunt Emily's arms; Uncle William, Mr. Bobbsey, and Mr. Burnet were talking, with Bert as an interested listener; while Mrs. Manily told Aunt Emily of her mission to the beach. As the children had thought, Aunt Emily readily gave consent to have Nellie, the little cash girl, come to Ocean Cliff, and on the morrow Nan and Dorothy were to write ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore • Laura Lee Hope
... which he liked to impress with a vivid touch on his listener's shoulder: "Put your finger on the present moment and enjoy it. It's the only one you've got, or ever will have." This light and joyous creature could not but be a Pariah among our Brahmins, and I need not say that I never met him in any of the great ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... and sad, as he stood listening. It was possible to hear almost all the prayer through the red baize door, and the words, hackneyed though they were, and almost absurd in their pious sing-song, had a naif impressiveness and, to the listener, an intense pathos. ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... and third talks were each better attended than the preceding ones. Cora, Dot, Skeets and two other girls occupied the front row; Ted Bissell and Terry Watkins were present. Bill presided with much dignity, most carefully tuning in, making the announcements, then becoming the most interested listener, the theme being ever dear ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... and fearless face of Rod convinced his listener of the truth of his story, even though it seemed so remarkable and monstrous. The officer turned to his four companions and said something to them in a low but positive tone. From their startled looks it was soon evident that they chose to ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... are inclined to rave, John, now that we are under the stars, remember I am a close confidant, and a sympathetic listener. I should like to hear you rave, just to learn how an exasperatingly sensible man ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... far removed from masculine bass as from ultra-feminine treble, is that of a boy before his voice breaks; sweet, seductive, suavely penetrating; it ceases, and still vibrating murmurs play, echo-like, about the listener's ears, and Persuasion leaves her honeyed track upon his mind. But oh! the joy, to hear her sing, and sing to the lyre's accompaniment. Let swans and halcyons and cicalas then be mute. There is no music like hers; Philomela's self, 'full-throated ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... all that he was about to say. He then reproached him in the most indignant terms with his continual and active efforts to disturb the peace of the kingdom, recapitulating every act, and almost every word, of his astonished and embarrassed listener, with an accuracy which left no opportunity for denial; and, finally, he advised him to be warned in time, and, if he valued his own safety, to adopt a perfectly opposite line of conduct; assuring him, in conclusion, that should he persist in his present contumacy, ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... person, and has given up all designs of being a conqueror of ladies; he was too young to be admitted as an equal among men who had made their mark in the world, and of whose conversation he could scarcely as yet expect to be more than a listener. And he was too old for the men of pleasure of his own age; too much a man of pleasure for the men of business; destined, in a word, to be a good deal alone. Fate awards this lot of solitude to many a man; and many like ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... said, assuming an imperious tone, the absurdity of which amused the steady-eyed listener, "as you know, I am appointed manager here. This is my first branch, and I want to make it a success. Needless to say, I need your help, since you are my teller. I want you to see that the junior men ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... fond of her brother. I soon found that she loved to talk about him—if she had a good listener. Needless to say she had a very good ...
— Mary Marie • Eleanor H. Porter
... full-worded lament over his wife, and even when he had worked himself up to tears, went on volubly, as if a listener were a luxury to be enjoyed whenever ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... was a moment before she could control her voice: "Yes. He had promised to come to our house on Sunday evening. But instead he sent me a note—the dearest little letter—" and her hand involuntarily moved to her breast as she paused and smiled. Her listener marveled at the light that played over her countenance for a moment. "He said he had been suddenly called out of the city and might be away several days, but would see me again as soon as he could get back, ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... step more true, Ne'er from the heath-flower dashed the dew; 355 E'en the slight harebell raised its head, Elastic from her airy tread. What though upon her speech there hung The accents of the mountain tongue— Those silver sounds, so soft, so dear, 360 The listener held ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... Lord Walham; between whom and his mother there had been differences, chiefly brought on by my Lady Walham, of course, which had ended in the almost total estrangement of mother and son. Lady Kew then administered her advice, and told her stories with Ethel alone for a listener; and in a most edifying manner, she besought Miss Newcome to menager Lord Kew's susceptibilities, as she valued her own future comfort in life, as well as the happiness of a most amiable man, of whom, if properly managed, Ethel might make what she pleased. We have said Lady Kew ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... long tale short—for every day's work, although varied to the actors by thousands of minute but unnarratable particulars, would appear but as a repetition of the last, to the mere listener—to make a long tale short, on the third day he doubled back, took us directly over the same ground—and in the middle of the day, on Saturday, was roused in view by the leading hounds, from the same little swamp in which the five had harbored during the ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... Rose Roving East and Roving Verena in the Midst West The Vermilion Box A Wanderer in Venice Landmarks A Wanderer in Paris Listener's Lure A Wanderer in London Over Bemerton's London Revisited London Lavender A Wanderer in Holland ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... this special songstress sang which she did not make her own by a peculiar and powerful effort. Her instinct was to rouse, charm, fascinate her little audience. Not to move her hearers was to her not to sing, and when she sang as she wished she could sweep away his world of ideas from her listener and recreate a new one. In one song, an Italian composition called "The Dream," she always seemed to be carried beyond herself. In reading Tourgeneff's description of Iakof's singing I could only think of Sara X——: "Iakof became more and more excited; completely ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... until its arrival, shunning observation as much as possible. At length it came. No one descended from it whom I recollected ever to have seen. Rendered desperate, I followed two travellers into a public-house which they entered, along with the guard. For some time, I sat an attentive listener to their conversation. It was on indifferent subjects; and I watched an opportunity to join in their talk. Speaking with an air of indifference, I turned the conversation to the subject I had so much at heart—the local news of the city. They gave me what little they had; but not one ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... of the listener at the ventilator clicked together with a vicious snap. Before he had but guessed at the identity of the subject of this conversation. Now he knew. And they were to kill her! His muscular fingers clenched until the nails bit ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... to go on to the quarries that night, but he changed his mind before he had been long in the house, and accepted Mrs Inglis's invitation to stay to tea; and soon, to her own surprise, the mother found herself telling their plans to a very attentive listener. He looked grave, when he heard of their determination to leave Gourlay, and go and ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... girl this time; it was Mrs. Jenkin," objected Katherine, letting a box go down with a bang, for she did not want the listener in the other room to ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... it? Certain I am the alienation does not, cannot come from me. You have only to speak, Lucy, to have an attentive listener; to ask, to receive the truest answers. What can, then, prevent the confidence ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... Kitty answered with a little color, "about heroes and heroines; but, I'd like to live here, myself. Yes," she continued, rather to herself than to her listener, "I do believe this is what I was made for. I've always wanted to live amongst old things, in a stone house with dormer-windows. Why, there isn't a single dormer-window in Eriecreek, nor even a brick house, let alone a stone one. O yes, indeed! ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... the ever-varying product—a product which is new each time the part is played—are fixed. Da Ponte's Cherubino and Mozart's melodies remain unalterable. All the rest is undecided; the singer and the listener ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... noble enterprise—none other than the sacrificing of her landed estates to the uplifting of the down-trodden negro and the turning of his erring feet into the way of light and righteousness. Harry observed that as soon as one listener had absorbed the story, he turned about and delivered it to his next neighbor and the latter individual straightway passed it on. And thus he saw it travel the round of the gentlemen and overflow rearward among the ladies. He could not trace it backward to its ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... question with such bitterness of tone that his listener scanned his face intently, ...
— Flip's "Islands of Providence" • Annie Fellows Johnston
... limited to Mr. Hungerford and his hostess, while Captain Dan remained a silent and amazed listener. The young gentleman was invited to attend the reception, Serena making many apologies for the informality of the invitation, and the guest ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... perhaps being fully conscious of it. The oars dropped from his hands and fell in against the thwarts of the boat, and he clasped his knees and looked up as he talked, not regarding at all his single silent listener. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... shoulders drooped a trifle, as though their owner for the time forgot to pull himself together. He sat thus for some time, and the sun was beginning to encroach upon his refuge, when suddenly he was aroused by the faint and far-off sound of a hunting horn. That the listener distinguished it at such a distance might have argued that he himself had known hound and saddle in his day; yet he readily caught the note of the short hunting horn universally used by the southern hunters, and recognized the assembly call for the hunting pack. As it came near, all ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... his irritable listener by surprise. Arthur gasped, and tried to steal some comfort from Coroner Perry's eye. But that old friend's face was too much in shadow, and the young man was forced to meet the district attorney's eye, instead, and answer the district ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... a splendid listener." He laughed. "You'll find that out for yourself, I fancy. And I know she likes people to talk to her—when they have anything to say. Tell her things; ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... forth his tale, had a feeling that not all of it was new to his listener, but he hearkened attentively to all that the boy had to say, frowning when he heard of Anthony Crawford's insistent ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... look of malign triumph. "Ah!" he said. "You suffer, too." He was silent for an instant. "But then you think that you may yet win her," he said. "Who knows?" and he watched his listener closely, "Women are strange," he added. "She'd be flattered by your having been a scamp for her sake; she is not like the other one." He saw the light flash into Harwin's eyes and leave its bright mark along his cheek, and he smiled. ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1886. - The Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, February, 1886. • Various
... they would drink coffee or chocolate, and amuse themselves over the fire with Punch, or some warlike novel in a green or yellow cover. One of them very often read aloud to the rest; and Eric, being both a good reader and a merry intelligent listener, soon became quite a ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... success and then departed, leaving Katy to finish the dessert, which, when ready for the table, was certainly very inviting, and would have tempted the appetite of any man who had not been listener to matters not wholly conducive to ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... habit of talking to her about the things that were troubling him—the tactics of the enemy, the desertion of friends, the dubious issue of the campaign. Curled up in a big chair, her whole attention absorbed in what he was saying Nellie made a good listener. If she did not show a full understanding of the situation, he could always sense her ready sympathy. Her naive, ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... bungalows crowning the mound a bare road sloped northward to the cavalry lines. Along it the two women rode at a foot's pace; for Evelyn still had much to say, and the girl was a notable listener. But even so the parade-ground below them came rapidly into view—a level expanse of brown earth, hard as a usurer's heart, varied only by lines of featureless mud huts, and backed by the dragon's teeth of the hills, brown ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... the listener in suspense I deem derogatory to good taste and sense; And this is also why I'll nothing put as prefatory Before I launch ...
— The Old Hanging Fork and Other Poems • George W. Doneghy
... case of some who are admirable tea-party oracles, but who cannot utter half a dozen sentences in the tribune. Caroline should keep watch over herself; you vaunt silence as the surest method of being witty. In society, a good listener ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... not to say disastrous. He would have sympathized with me instantly and heartily, but the knowledge would have been as fire to tow when he got back where he could talk. I could foresee just how it would bubble out of him as he button-holed each fresh listener: "Say! you must keep it midnight dark, old man, but I met Bert Weyburn on the train: he's jumped his parole and, skipped—lit out—vanished! Not a word to any living soul, mind you; this is a dead ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... blood-curdling laugh, and the horrible truth burst upon the listener's dazed senses. She was alone with a maniac. All the stories she had ever read rushed to her memory, and the only clear idea she had was the conviction that she must, if possible, humor his vagaries till help came. She was a petted, spoiled darling, but she had great strength of will, ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... of his visit, Mrs. Scott assured him she never retired before one or two o'clock, but that she had no idea it was so late, Mr. Haxall being one of the most agreeable gentlemen she had ever met, when in fact he had not spoken a dozen words, but was a charmed listener to her interesting ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... of hope shot athwart the future into which his listener was staring. It might be so. One can never tell with women. Maurice Gordon had had considerable experience of the world, and, after all, he was only building up hope upon precedent. He knew, as well as you or I, that women will ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... the beginners who are still struggling with their art, should awaken in the heart of the intelligent listener not contemptuous criticism, but should be one means of realizing one's own vocal defects and the possible ways of ...
— Caruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing • Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini
... this good youth," the patient listener cried, when he found a chance to speak. "I thought him all pinkness, and perspiration, and purple velvet slippers, but he can pull information by the yard out of his brain, as he does cotton waste out of his pocket. Unfortunately, ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... to be a great talker. And since Betsy Butterfly was an excellent listener, they spent many ...
— The Tale of Betsy Butterfly - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... of this gift of tact, secured for himself and his message the toleration of the hearer, the preacher will proceed to make the best of the advantage thus obtained. He has made his man a listener but the great work still remains to be done, and again we say that it is of all work the hardest to accomplish. At once, let us acknowledge the impossibility of outlining a method that will be effective in every case. At once, too, ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... small sense. And a time's soon told, And Earth is old, And my poor wits are dense; Yet I have secrets,—dark, my dear, To breathe you all: Come near. And lest some hideous listener tells, I'll ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... Liberalism, not the Pope, was antichrist. The Church was above the State, and the supreme ruler of the world. Transubstantiation, which the Archdeacon abhorred, was probably true. Hurrell Froude was a brilliant talker, a consummate dialectician, and an ardent proselytising controversialist. But his young listener knew a little history, and perceived that, to put it mildly, there were ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... know her: but for what men call Beauty—the loveliness corporeal, Its most just praise a thing unproper were To singer or to listener, me or her. She wears that body but as one indues A robe, half careless, for it is the use; Although her soul and it so fair agree, We sure may, unattaint of heresy, Conceit it might the soul's begetter be. The immortal could ...
— Poems • Francis Thompson
... gentler and more courteous than ever, while Rosalind's amiability was an hourly surprise, and Lady Darcy's manner had lost much of its snappish discontent. On one occasion, when her husband made some little request, she replied in a tone so sweet and loving that the listener started with surprise. What could it be that had worked this transformation? She did not realise that when the Angel of Death has hovered over a household, and has at last flown away with empty arms, leaving the home untouched, they would be hard hearts ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... had faced the door; both had been too preoccupied to observe or hear. How long he had been a listener he alone could tell; but there stood Mr. Jerry Belknap, private detective, one hand resting on the handle of the closed door, the other holding an open ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... later as he crossed over to the client's chair that Myra caught sight of him from the schooner's deck. The child cowered back into the shadow of the deck-house, her eyes intent again on the listener leaning out from the quay-door. He could not even see what she had seen; and if Tom was in talk with anyone inside her own ears caught no sound of it. Nevertheless her uncle's attitude left no room to doubt that he was playing the spy, and ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... burden-bearer, he gives his last flapjack, tells his golden dreams, confides the location of rich veins of ore, and turns for comfort when the false lead plays out. The knowing animal provides that rarest of companionship, a sympathetic, silent, attentive listener. ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... apprehension and alarm. The bright blaze of the camp-fire—for the cold had compelled us to kindle one—no longer lit up a round of joyful faces. It shone upon checks haggard with hunger and pallid with fear. There was no story for the delighted listener—no adventure to be related. We were no longer the historians, but the real actors in a drama—a drama whose denouement might be a ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... entertaining or tiring a company by the hour together, drops his countenance as if he had been shot, or had been seized with a sudden lock-jaw, the moment anyone interposes a single observation. The best converser I know is, however, the best listener. I mean Mr. Northcote, the painter. Painters by their profession are not bound to shine in conversation, and they shine the more. He lends his ear to an observation, as if you had brought him a piece of news, and enters into it with as much ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... the act, and then collapsing suddenly with no explosion, like a bad Roman candle. He did this now, and whatever he meant to say was lost to the race; but he looked very wise the while. It was rather as if he discarded you as a fit listener, than that he discarded ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... full and square; and I read in it an angry warning. How long he had been a listener I knew not, but he had come in upon us in the ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... signals] microphone,directional microphone, mike, hand mike, lapel microphone. [devices to convert recorded sound to electronic signals] phonograph needle, stylus, diamond stylus, pickup; reading head (electronic devices). hearer, auditor, listener, eavesdropper, listener-in. auditory, audience. [science of hearing] otology, otorhinolaryngology. [physicians specializing in hearing] otologist, otorhinolaryngologist. V. hear, overhear; hark, harken; list, listen, pay attention, take heed; give an ear, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... any time," said Uncle Ike, "you're a good listener, and I always like a man that allows me to do most of the talking. By the way, we didn't get a chance to say much this time about shooting, ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... difference of opinion.) From both of those classes of disputants, my dear Jefferson, keep aloof, as you would from the infected subjects of yellow fever or pestilence. Consider yourself, when with them, as among the patients of Bedlam, needing medical more than moral counsel. Be a listener only, keep within yourself, and endeavor to establish with yourself the habit of silence, especially on politics. In the fevered state of our country, no good can ever result from any attempt to set one of these fiery zealots ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... of the year in my young life. I talked about it six months beforehand and for six months afterward. The other scholars made fun of me in school, and dubbed me "Las Lilas" because I talked so much about my grandfather's home in the country. But Paula was a most sympathetic listener. She never tired of hearing me repeat over and over our experiences at "Las Lilas." It must be confessed that I exaggerated in describing many things about my grandfather's place, until my country cousin came to believe that my grandfather's house was a palace and that the ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte
... straggling acquaintance with things, and could readily appear to know more than he did. He was, besides, that most agreeable person to a man with a hobby, a good listener—when he saw reason. He made himself so pleasant that the laird was not only always glad to see him, but would often ask him to stay to supper, when he would fish up from the wine-cellar he had inherited a bottle with a history and a character, and the two would pass ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... words had quickened it into life. Thus, as Humphrey described the events of the past forty-eight hours, and forgot pain and weariness in the enthusiasm for the courage and heroism of Sir Philip Sidney, his listener was picturing the blazing house, the flames, the suffocating smoke, and the boy whose face had been revealed to Humphrey as the face of ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... looked much too big for her narrow grave at the foot of the green cliff, in which her anchor was deeply sunk and half overgrown with thistles. Her blunt bow and the ragged stump of the figure-head rose, dark and high, above the wet beach where Captain John sat with his absorbed listener. There were rifts about her rail where the red sunset looked through. Her naked sides, that for years had been moistened only by the perennial rains and snows, showed rough and scaly like the armor of some fabled sea-monster. ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... moment he paused, struggling with overpowering emotion. Even his impatient listener, hitherto incredulous, caught the infection, and in a tone of ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... permitted to pause for a moment. There is no stopping to weave garlands of flowers, to hang in festoons, around a favorite argument. On the contrary, every sentence is progressive; every idea sheds new light on the subject; the listener is kept perpetually in that sweetly pleasurable vibration, with which the mind of man always receives new truths; the dawn advances in easy but unremitting pace; the subject opens gradually on the view; until, rising in high relief, in all its native ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... abandoned to a tinkling, splashing company of pots and pans and bowls and baths. Everybody was now disposed to be hilarious and noisy, to say startling and aggressive things; we must have sounded a queer clamour to a listener in the next room. The devil inspired them to begin baiting me. "Ours isn't the Tory party any more," said Burshort. "Remington has made it the ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... a pleasant one, though Barbara was so tired that she was hardly an intelligent listener to the music provided, and fell asleep as soon as her head ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... at the castle. But he also stopped in the midst of his course, and, looking around him, said to Graeme, "There is a thing which I could mention to thee; but it is so deep a secret, that even here, surrounded as we are by sea and sky, without the possibility of a listener, I cannot prevail on myself to speak ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... he did a singular thing. His hand was still on the knob, and only his head and the upper part of his body projected through the doorway. His attitude was that of a strained listener; and had I not been there to testify to the contrary, one might have sworn that he received a warning not to enter. The silence, however, ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... down to turn in, he told me the cabin party had revived, and that there had been much pleasant discourse among the young people; and this in a way to cause even him to derive great satisfaction as a listener. ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... scene more dramatically before his amiable listener, he recalled the most striking of his impressions for her special benefit. Once, in broad daylight, he had seen a flock of sheep in the boulevard near the Madeleine. Their tread had resounded through the deserted streets like echoes from ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... a fresh impetus to some impulse with which Rigdon had been temporizing. He recurred to it at once. "You contemplate giving it to the public," he said to Gordon; "why not try its effect on a disinterested listener first, ...
— The Phantom Of Bogue Holauba - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... quality uncommon To early risers after a long chase, Who wake in winter ere the cock can summon December's drowsy day to his dull race,— A quality agreeable to woman, When her soft, liquid words run on apace, Who likes a listener, whether saint or sinner,— He did not fall asleep ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... frank smile was utterly irresistible, and his straight manner of facing one, and of looking directly into the eyes of the person he addressed in his almost too perfect English, won any listener immediately. ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... Paternoster and Ave Maria, and earnestly begs Luca to exhort his friends to study the sacred writings, for only what a man has learned in life does he possess in death. Luca then reads and explains to him the story of the Passion according to the Gospel of St. John; the poor listener, strange to say, can perceive clearly the Godhead of Christ, but is perplexed at His manhood; he wishes to get as firm a hold of it 'as if Christ came to meet him out of a wood.' His friend thereupon exhorts him to be humble, since this was only a doubt sent him by the Devil. Soon ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... how much older I now felt than one who had never wandered a hundred yards from his home! Who knows not the pleasure of returning even after a brief absence, full of information, eager to impart it, and sure of a ready and attentive listener? I talked over my adventures to my brother, till any patience but his would have been exhausted; but he was the most patient of rats, quite willing to have all his adventures second-hand, without the slightest wish to become a hero, but ready, without a particle of envy, to ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.
... He began to tire, and nature craved repose, and the physician had urged it. Forrester readily perceived that the listener's interest was flagging—nay he half fancied that much that he had been saying, and in his best style, had fallen upon drowsy senses. Nobody likes to have his best things thrown away, and, as the reader will readily conceive, our friend Forrester had ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... answered for a moment, but Jane, used to Tobias for a listener, did not mind. Then in the darkness, Hilary laid a hand softly over the work-worn ones clasped on Jane's lap. It was hard to imagine Jane young and full of youthful fancies and longings; yet years ago there had been a Jane—not Sextoness Jane then—who had ...
— The S. W. F. Club • Caroline E. Jacobs
... disregarded it becomes fainter each time, till, at last, it is wholly silenced, and the man lives in this world, a stranger to its real life, deluded like the maniac who fancies he has attained his throne, while in reality he is on a bed of musty straw. Yet, if the voice finds a listener and servant the first time of speaking, it is encouraged to more and more clearness. Thus it was with me,—from no merit of mine, but because I had the good fortune to be free enough to yield to my impressions. Common ties had not bound me; there ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... part of the life of this King, the Marquis of Lucchesini was frequently of his literary and convivial parties; but he was neither his friend nor his favourite, but his listener. It was first under Frederick William II. that he began his diplomatic career, with an appointment as Minister from Prussia to the late King of Poland. His first act in this post was a treaty signed on the 29th of March, 1790, with the King and Republic ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... offices and of kitchens had no alliances. But under the inspiration of the cocktails, conversation was violent. Each of the men still had a number of important things to say about prohibition, and now that each had a loyal listener in his dinner-partner he ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... the hanging curtains. The movement set a score of little silver bells that dangled over the canopy to jingling. As at a signal the flutes grew louder, mingling with them was the clearer note of lyres. Now the strains swelled sweetly, now faded away into dreamy sighing, as if bidding the listener to sink again into the arms of sleep. Another vain effort to rise on his elbow. Again he was helpless. Giving way to the charm of the ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... differences, chiefly brought on by my Lady Walham, of course, which had ended in the almost total estrangement of mother and son. Lady Kew then administered her advice, and told her stories with Ethel alone for a listener; and in a most edifying manner, she besought Miss Newcome to menager Lord Kew's susceptibilities, as she valued her own future comfort in life, as well as the happiness of a most amiable man, of whom, if properly managed, Ethel might make what she pleased. We have said ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... time; it was Mrs. Jenkin," objected Katherine, letting a box go down with a bang, for she did not want the listener in the other room to hear ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... the Avenue Louise, old man," he said, after he had described her glowingly. A long, cool drink ran down his dry throat before his listener, propped up in his bed and looking upon his friend with somber eyes, ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... to me through the long winter nights and the long summer days, and the world to be without any end at all, no more than the round of the full moon! You that have no hearing, this will bring back your hearing, the way you'll be a listener and a benefit to myself for ever. I wouldn't feel the weeks ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... waltz had slowed and expanded into a passage of what might be church music, an exquisitely modulated and gently solemn chant, through which a soft, lingering song roved capriciously, forcing the listener to wonder where it was coming out, even while it ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... looked up and perceived Adrian, who was swaying in the top of the tree, as a concealed listener. "The boy must be everywhere," exclaimed Peter. "Come down, saucy lad. You appear at a ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... "A listener," he thought, in dismay as he pursued the fugitive. But he only caught a glimpse of a figure disappearing through the front door and into the darkness without, in which it ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... when read backwards, there is only one example of its use that appeals to the ear as well as the eye. This is to be found in the finale of Beethoven's sonata, op. 106, where it is applied to a theme with such sharply contrasted rhythmic and melodic features that with long familiarity a listener would probably feel not only the wayward humour of the passage in itself, but also its connexion with the main theme. Nevertheless, the prominence given to the device in technical treatises, and the fact that this is the one illustration which hardly any ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... late? They were plighted; they were one eternally; they could not be parted. She listened gravely, conceiving the infinity as a narrow dwelling where a voice droned and ceased not. However, she listened. She became an attentive listener. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... was naturally different. That gentleman never wearied of the sound of his own voice, which was, to say the truth, agreeable enough to hear. He now had a listener, who was not so cynically indifferent as Anastasie, and who sometimes put him on his mettle by the most relevant objections. Besides, was he not educating the boy? And education, philosophers are agreed, is the most philosophical ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... wicked girl!" said she, as she stood before the glass, and loosened the locks that fell like sunshine over her shoulders. But this confession, with true New-England reticence, was uttered only to one listener,—herself. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... the speaker were scarcely intelligible to the newly-waked, bewildered listener, but he understood the action of pointing to his ring: he looked down at it, and, with a half-automatic obedience to the warning, took it off and thrust it within his doublet, rising at the same time ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... shown it. I understand what he would do. He would say: I don't mean to quote from you, but this was the result of what you say. But I have the right to ask, and I do ask now, Did you not put it in such a form that an ordinary reader or listener would take it as an expression ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... of wildness, outflamings of satire on the virtues, witty defiance of the fates, and recklessness of everything save reference to women. Not a word escaped his lips whereby his keenest, most delighted listener could have probed to the heart of his mood. To the loss of his claim was attributed all his pyrotechnics, and no one, unless it was Rickart, was aware of the old proverbial "woman in the case," who had ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... was making a strenuous effort. Nobody else, however, seemed to notice it, for Winifred flung a swift glance around, and then fixed her eyes upon the dominant figure in the corn-straw dress. The sweet voice was still rising and the interested listener hoped that the accompanist would force the tone to cover it a little, and put on the loud pedal. The pianist, however, was gazing at his music, and played on until, with startling ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... to eat me up? That it will be such bliss to me that I shall forget you completely? It isn't to be bliss, but work, hard work, and competition. It is the work that will keep me to Paris, not my happiness, my gaiety, my content with other faces. That would comfort me if I were listener, and you the speaker. But, Fanny, Fanny, I never met any one with such joy as you—it is you who change the forest and the inns we meet in, make the journeys a miracle. Don't show me another face. ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... itself heard again and again, but at greater distances; and the prowling jackals and hyenas seemed to follow, for their cries grew fainter and fainter and then died out into the solemn silence of the veldt, which somehow appeared to the listener as if it were connected with an intense feeling ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... proper interval, Mr. Bruce called to pay his respects to Mrs. Littlefield. He found Miss Crowe also in the drawing-room. Lizzie and he met like old friends. Mrs. Littlefield was a willing listener; but it seemed to her that she had come in at the second act of the play. Bruce went off with Miss Crowe's promise to drive with him in the afternoon. In the afternoon he swept up to the door in a prancing, tinkling sleigh. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... away, seeking his own post to the west. Shann was still waiting for the other's signal when there arose from the camp a sound to chill the flesh of any listener, a wail which could not have come from the throat of any normal living thing, intelligent being or animal. Ululating in ear-torturing intensity, the cry sank to a faint, ominous echo of itself, to waver ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... like electric sparks. I had never heard anything like it in my life, nor could I have conceived it possible. With a turn for literary expression myself, and a penchant for forcible figures and phrases, I appreciated, as no other listener, I dare say, the peculiar vividness and strength and absolute blasphemy of his metaphors. The cause of it all, as near as I could make out, was that the man, who was mate, had gone on a debauch before leaving San Francisco, and then had the poor taste to die at the ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... looked up and saw me standing, unwilling listener to all that had been said. Helena moved away and pretended to be busy with the material for ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... day and by night. Whenever he travelled, he carried a pair of the magical instruments in his valise, and gave demonstrations on trains and in hotels. He buttonholed every influential man who crossed his path. He was a veritable "Ancient Mariner" of the telephone. No possible listener was allowed to escape. ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... my mother, tell me the day when I was born; for such an one of my companions is about to take an omen[FN194] for me." And the mother answered, "Thou was born, O my daughter, on the very night when Abu Hasan farted." Now the listener no sooner heard these words than he rose up from the bench, and fled away saying to himself, "Verily thy fart hath become a date, which shall last for ever and ever; even as ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... herself to snuff and sighed. Her listener wondered if, after all, that death-bed marriage had been entirely acceptable to the mother. Some suggestion of his thought must have come to her, ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... softening of the material. But even thus he was sufficiently good-looking. His manner, too, was good. In discussion he was easily swayed by argument and authority. With his younger compatriots he took the attitude of an inscrutable listener, a listener of the kind that hears you out intelligently and ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... more items of intelligence from the war which afford a perfect representation of the rumours and contradictions which harass the listener in Africa, especially if he is interested, as Livingstone was, in the re-establishment ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... 'Un, who had frequently been an unwilling and tired listener to very many of Handy's well-worn war stories, "are you agoing to ring in a war ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... and briefly told him Davia's story of the mountain tragedy. As he came to the climax the last vestige of the trader's insolence vanished. Nick was on his way to the store armed and—mad. Panic seized upon the listener. His bravado had ever been but the veneer of the surface. His condition returned to the subversive terror which had assailed him when he was ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... a wonderful elephant out there in the compound," said Bruce, who had remained a silent listener to ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... blood and powder stain from hair to shoes, who trudged quietly at the youth's side. He was listening with eagerness and much humility to the lurid descriptions of a bearded sergeant. His lean features wore an expression of awe and admiration. He was like a listener in a country store to wondrous tales told among the sugar barrels. He eyed the story-teller with unspeakable wonder. His mouth was agape in ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... picture to ourselves this impression of form upon matter on the analogy of speech. The speaker's words impress ideas upon the soul of the listener. So God speaks and his Word or Will impresses form upon matter. The world is created by the Word or the ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... at Dick's low "Hist," he turned a bland, inquiring gaze in his direction. Dick came close to him, and with head half averted so that he could listen for the slightest sound outside, he whispered his story. Not a sound came either from the camp or from his listener till his brief ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... perhaps on the side of plenteousness, and well served by two smart young women in black, with pink ribbons in their caps. Nor was there any lack of bright talk a good deal beyond the average. Miss Bradley was an admirable listener, and often by well-put questions or suggestions kept the ball rolling. Dinner was soon over, and coffee was served in ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... will understand thee when thou wouldst utter words of wisdom. They will solicit that ruler of men, Dhritarashtra and Suyodhana of sinful disposition, with his counsellors, to act according to the advice. When thou, O Janardana, art the speaker and Vidura the listener, what subject is there that cannot ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Miss Caroline's difficulties before him. As any common catalogue of troubles will not provoke Solon from a happy unconcern which is temperamental, I spared no details in my recital, and I observed at length that my listener was truly aroused to the bad way in which Miss Caroline found herself. He sat forward in his chair, rested one elbow upon his untidy desk, and for several moments of silence jabbed an inky pen rhythmically into the largest rutabaga ever grown in Slocum County. At last he sat back and gazed upon ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... ringing laugh was a delight. The Bishop talked much and well. His use of the pause in speaking, with a momentary compression of the lips now and then between clauses, heightened the effect of crispness in his felicitously chosen phrases. He was a good listener if one had anything to say, but he was not averse to presiding in monologue over a number of people, and often did so, for his fund of talk was so rich that others, in his presence, were sometimes slow to offer any contribution of their own. He was ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... truth and full details of which Estelle told later on. Lady Coke listened with a heart full of thankfulness for the mercies which had shielded her child. So it came to pass that Jack, resolute in his idea of duty, found a very tender, sympathetic listener ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... can't say she does," said that gentleman, who had been a surprised listener to their talk, and it annoyed him to have to confess she ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... suggestive as are his ideas, there is infinite method and system in their treatment. Avoiding thus far what is termed 'sustained effort,' and which frequently implies the same demands on the patience of the listener as on the creative power of the composer, Mr. Gottschalk's compositions contain just so much of the true poetic vein as can be successfully digested and enjoyed in a piano piece of moderate length. With the power to conceive, and the will and discipline of mind to execute, there is no reason ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... despite her age, climbed the steps violently, and burst with equal violence into the parlour, where she deposited the basket on the floor near the empty fireplace. She was triumphant and breathless. She looked at Constance, who had been standing near the door in the attitude of a shocked listener. ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... inc case wide open, do you?" INC was the International Narcotics Control agency of the F. N. But the conversation would have sounded like an innocent discussion of shipping difficulties to any chance listener on ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... right to expect anything else but commonplace words. How often are men found who can speak words on such occasions that are not commonplaces that really stir the soul, and bring true comfort to the listener? The humble listener may receive comfort even from commonplace words; but Clara was not humble, and rebuked herself for her own pride. On the second occasion of his coming she did endeavour to receive him with a meek heart, and to accept what he said with an obedient ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... The listener lost what followed. Once he thought he heard the name Tin Cup, but he could not be sure. Presently another fragment drifted to him. "...make our ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... night, with occasional fits of penitence and petting which lasted till next time. Therefore, though dying to 'fess,' he was undecided as to the best method of executing that task in the manner most aggravating to his listener and most agreeable to himself, and sat regarding her with twinkling eyes, and his curly pate in a high state of rumple, trying to appear innocently meek, ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... wish for about two thousand more, so that I could take the little wife over the wild waves and point out Paris and the Riviera to her. In Washington I met a quick talker named Ike Gibson and he played me for a good, steady listener. Ike showered me with cinches and in short order I was down with Bennings ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... the phaeton. The poor lecturer, as he seated himself, made some remark such as those he had been making for the last two days—for out of a full heart the mouth speaketh. But he spoke to an impatient listener. "D—— the South Sea islanders," said Mr. Sowerby. "You'll have it all your own way in a few minutes, like a bull in a china-shop; but for Heaven's sake let us have a little peace till that time comes." It appeared that Mr. Sowerby's little plan of having ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... their own opinion is considered essential to their gratification. Every member of her own family now became subjected to her vigilance; every word they spoke was heard with suspicion, and received as if it possessed a double meaning. On more than one occasion she was caught in the attitude of a listener, and frequently placed herself in such a position when sitting with her relations at home, as enabled her to watch their motions in the glass, when they supposed her engaged in ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... would be after dinner, on a verandah draped in motionless foliage and crowned with flowers, in the deep dusk speckled by fiery cigar-ends. The elongated bulk of each cane-chair harboured a silent listener. Now and then a small red glow would move abruptly, and expanding light up the fingers of a languid hand, part of a face in profound repose, or flash a crimson gleam into a pair of pensive eyes overshadowed by a fragment of an unruffled forehead; and with the very first word uttered Marlow's body, ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... of look, and tone and gesture, that we believe any commonly-educated person might understand the import of the passage without knowing alpha from omega. A chapter of Isaiah from his mouth involves the listener in an act of exalted devotion. We have mentioned this, to show how the whole man is made up of music; and yet Mr. Coleridge has no ear for music, as it is technically called. Master as he is of the intellectual recitative, he could not sing an air to save his life. But ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... with the full force and brilliance of her magnificent voice, and was prolonged until the thrill produced in the listener became almost painful in its intensity. Again I ask, why did this world-famous singer perform this passage always in the same way? Unreflecting people may reply vaguely that it was because the artist "sang ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... suffering which they bring with them!—what barbarous generosity!"... Do not get excited, I beg of you. Property makes of a poet either a Croesus or a beggar; only equality knows how to honor and to praise him. What is its duty? To regulate the right of the singer and the duty of the listener. Now, notice this point, which is a very important one in the solution of this question: both are free, the one to sell, the other to buy. Henceforth their respective pretensions go for nothing; and the estimate, whether fair or unfair, ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... song of parting, an intentionally pathetic song, which contains the line, "All the tomorrows shall be as to-day," meaning equally gloomy. Young singers, loving this line, take care to pronounce the words with unusual distinctness: the listener may feel that the performer has the capacity for great and consistent suffering. It is not, of course, that youth loves unhappiness, but the appearance of it, its supposed picturesqueness. Youth runs from what is pathetic, but hangs fondly upon pathos. It is the idea of sorrow, not sorrow, which ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... To any listener outside the door it would have been the reverse of obvious why the "Drink, boys, drink!" should have such an immediate and often-repeated encore; but once entered, he would have seen that all faces were at present sober, and most of them serious—it ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... silence, and the myriads of the whole declivity reached the woman's ear but as a shrivelled and intermittent recitative. Yet scarcely a single accent among the many afloat to-night could have such power to impress a listener with thoughts of its origin. One inwardly saw the infinity of those combined multitudes; and perceived that each of the tiny trumpets was seized on, entered, scoured and emerged from by the wind as thoroughly as if it were as ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... satisfied than he had been, and the conversation turned to other subjects in which the listener had no interest. Without much of an effort he turned over and went to sleep. When he woke in the morning he heard the tramp of footsteps on the deck over his head, and he concluded that the steamer was getting ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... the two ministers talking earnestly and turned toward Mrs. Wentz. The fur-trader's wife was glowing with pleasure. She held in her hand several rude trinkets, and was explaining to her listener, a young woman, that the toys were for the children, having been brought ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... Every word that was uttered on that occasion is indelibly imprinted on my memory. Perhaps the singularity of my circumstances, and my previous ignorance of what was passing in the world, contributed to render me a greedy listener. Most that was said I shall overlook; but one part of the conversation it ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... transcript, or about the ways in which humanities scholars are using information technology * Firm conclusions concerning the manner and extent of the use of supporting materials in print provided by AM to await completion of evaluative study * A listener's reflections on additional applications of electronic texts * Role of electronic resources in teaching elementary research skills to ...
— LOC WORKSHOP ON ELECTRONIC TEXTS • James Daly
... come and go as he pleases. Here is a mother sitting on the ground directly in front of the speaker, holding a babe in her arms, while a little fellow sprawls out on the ground beside her, drawing on the sand with his finger. Though we cannot see her face, we know that she is an absorbed listener, and Jesus seems ...
— Rembrandt - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... spoke more fully as she saw how deep was the listener's interest in her story; yet, when she came near the end, she almost shrank from the task. The sacred tenderness which belongs to the dead, had fallen like a veil over all her last memories of her husband; and now she wanted to share ...
— A Canadian Heroine - A Novel, Volume 3 (of 3) • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... do," said Perry, "is to project their thoughts into the fourth dimension, when they become appreciable to the sixth sense of their listener. Do I ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... organ was in itself a rich endowment; insomuch that a listener, comprehending nothing of the language in which the preacher spoke, might still have been swayed to and fro by the mere tone and cadence. Like all other music, it breathed passion and pathos, and emotions high or tender, in a tongue native to the human heart, wherever educated. Muffled ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the story of a child's grief was laid before Miss Latimer, and told with such a depth of pathos that the listener's soft womanly heart ached in response to the ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... practical tact which dealt with him. He found himself answering questions about Lady Anstruthers and her sister, which led to the opening up of other subjects. He did not realise that he began to express ingenuous opinions and describe things. His listener's interest led him on, a question here, a rather pleased laugh there, were encouraging. He had enjoyed himself so much during his stay in England, and had felt his experiences so greatly to be rejoiced over, that they were easy to talk of at any time—in fact, it was even ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... it likely that she would make mistakes and forget things; but though this was the case, there was a great deal to be liked in Maria. For one thing she was always good-natured, and such a very good listener; really interested in all Susan's information and startled at any wonderful story, for she was a country girl, and had not yet ceased to be surprised at London life. Presently, therefore, as they got further on, Susan felt bound to point out ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton
... it was, as she told me, that she one day stood unperceived in the half-open door of her master, near the lesson-hour, and heard him softly rendering a theme which stole far into places of her heart, which had been awaiting its spell unconsciously. Presently he felt that there was a listener, and, hastily brushing away a tear, he placed the music in a far corner of the room, away from his repertoire. She confessed, that, afterward, when he was not present, she had looked on that which he evidently desired to conceal; she saw written, in pencil, upon ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... they knew little—and they cared less. Of Spinoza they knew much and understood nothing—thus thought he. So he turned to other topics and conversed fluently on the matters dearest to their hearts—namely, their own works, with which he was well acquainted. They, on their part, had never met a listener more sympathetic, a critic more acute. Chandrapal left upon them the impression of his immense capacity for assimilating the products of Western thought; also the belief that they ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... away her little vanities, her frivolous desires, like a wintry wind, that left a wholesome atmosphere behind. Sitting on the bedside, Polly listened while Jane told the story, which was so new to her listener, that every word sank deep into her heart, and never ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... another little silence; and the listener was able to construct a picture (possibly in part from an active memory) of Cora's delicate hands uplifted to the gentleman's lapel and Cora's eyes for a moment ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... this. Then the lamps would not burn. We had to arrange an up-cast and down-cast chimney, in order to ensure the circulation of air in the lamp. Then there was the question of shadow;"—and so he continued, to the great edification of his listener, for five or six minutes. When a satisfactory conclusion as to the lamp had been arrived at, the learned man looked out of the window. "What place is this?" said he. "Kensal Green." "But," said the other, "how is that? I thought there was one of your great tunnels to pass before we came to ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... formerly lived for some time; and now they went over a multitude of things and people familiar to both of them, but of which Lois did not even know the names. She listened, however, eagerly; and gleaned, as an eager listener generally may, a good deal. Places, until now unheard of, took a certain form and aspect in Lois's imagination; people were discerned, also in imagination, as being of different types and wonderfully ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... repeated the distorted version of that grand old song, and somehow the frown of perplexity smoothed itself from the listener's brow. ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... indeed, in her power by its decisions for a term of years, her knowledge of the fact that I had overheard her conversation with you in my chamber when I lay stricken, helpless, if not unconscious (an unwilling listener, I assure you, Claude, to every word you uttered), would be a cause of endless misery to me and her. No, Evelyn has told me nothing, ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... so: More sweet it is to be A listener of love's ephemeral song, And live with beauty though it be not long, And die enamoured of eternity, Though in the apogee Of time there sit no individual Godhead of life, than to reject the plea ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... was romantic in a way," he proceeded, glad to have a listener, as old men are; "there's always a certain amount of romance about the court of a reigning queen. Of course you know that the Salic law did not prevail in the kingdom of Aquazilia when it was a kingdom. Yes, it was a splendid court was that of Valoro when Her Majesty Inez the Second ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... gave rather reluctant assent to his sharp remarks about the new establishment of the Thuilliers, and he did not attempt to renew the subject; but when he had Madame Phellion for a listener, he was very sure that his spite ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... royal mistress here and there with an argument. Naturally his story is especially full upon the religious side of Margaret's life—her much prayer, her humility and reverence during the services of the Church, an intent and silent listener to all teachings, only a little disposed to rebel now and then when her confessor passed too lightly over her faults. As for her charities, they were boundless. It was not for nothing that the blood of St. ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... the story absorbed her and she thought no more of Gabrielle. Considine was such an excellent listener, sitting there with his long fingers knotted and his eyes fixed on her, that she found herself subject to the same sort of mesmeric influence as had overcome Lord Halberton. He inspired her with a curious confidence, and she began to hope, almost passionately, that he would undertake the care ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... Margaret), a curtain lecturer, who between eleven o'clock at night and seven the next morning delivered for thirty years a curtain lecture to her husband Job Caudle, generally a most gentle listener; if he replied she pronounced him insufferably rude, and if he did not he was insufferably sulky.—Douglas Jerrold, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... forth his own wild notes with full fervor. Yet I have often listened vainly for hours to hear him utter anything but a few idle repetitions of monotonous sounds, interspersed with some ludicrous varieties. Why he should neglect his own pleasing notes, to tease the listener with his imitations of all imaginable discords, is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... purity of heart which made to the world-wearied man the chief charm in Evelyn Cameron. From this purity came, as from the heart of a poet, a thousand new and heaven-taught thoughts which had in them a wisdom of their own,—thoughts that often brought the stern listener back to youth, and reconciled him with life. The wise Maltravers learned more from Evelyn than ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book II • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... travelled friend, the proof of the admirable paper which opens the present number, we came to the passage which records the opinion of KEPLER, that 'the world is a vast animal, that breathes and reasons;' whereupon our listener remarked: 'No doubt of it; it is an animal; I've seen its four-quarters myself!' It was a pun worthy of a butcher. . . . WE are not so certain that the moral of 'The Independent Man' is 'an unexceptionable one.' ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... shadow, cast Forever on the wall of history; I hate thee for thy Jacobin cockade, Staring upon me like a bloodshot eye; For all the murmurs sounding in thy shell, That huge black shell the waves have left behind Wherein the shuddering listener may hear The rumor of a nation on the march. I hate thee for the pride of France, whose bounds Thou hast enlarged until she scorns the world; For Beranger I hate thee, and Raffet, For all the songs and all the pasquinades, And for the halo of Saint Helena. I ...
— L'Aiglon • Edmond Rostand
... one else with a great deal of curiosity also. He had heard the screaming of Blacky the Crow and Sammy Jay, and he had listened until he couldn't stand it another minute. He just had to know what it was all about. So at the same time Farmer Brown's boy started for the Green Forest, this other listener started towards the place where Blacky and Sammy were making such a racket. He walked very softly so as not to make a ...
— The Adventures of Buster Bear • Thornton W. Burgess
... quite suddenly the domes disappeared. Don Francisco de Mogente rose and went towards the boat. He did not trouble to walk gently or to loosen the chains noiselessly. The wind was roaring so loudly that a listener twenty yards away could have heard nothing. He cast off and then hastened to the stern of the boat. The way in which he handled the helm showed that he knew the tricks of the old ferryman by wind and calm, ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... woman's hand and heart lived in the music. To all the brilliancy and technical skill of a man she added a feminine lightness of touch, that in airy lightness, and grace, melting tenderness and sweetness is past description. Her violin now seemed to breathe and sigh. The tears would come to the listener's eyes he knew not why. The tears were in the tones. The sorrow of her life exhaled in chastened sweetness from the strings. Her heart ran out on her finger tips ...
— Camilla: A Tale of a Violin - Being the Artist Life of Camilla Urso • Charles Barnard
... with it. For a day or two after she came, he was silent and seemed nervous and excited. Now he is fond of getting the talk into his own hands, and is obviously conscious that he has at least one interested listener. Once or twice I have seen marks of special attention to personal adornment,—a ruffled shirt-bosom, one day, and a diamond pin in it,—not so very large as the Koh-i-noor's, but more lustrous. I mentioned the death's-head ring he ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... laughter,"—a discrimination which involves the whole deep originality of his mind. It is not irrelevant here to remark that at the most affecting portions of the play "Rip Van Winkle," the majority of the audience always laugh; this, though irritating to a thoughtful listener, is really an involuntary tribute to the marvellous wisdom and perfection with which Jefferson mingles pathos and humor. Again Hawthorne: "Human destinies look ominous without some perceptible intermixture of the sable or the gray." And, elsewhere: ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... pun, there could be no misconception. The Captain was unmistakably indicated; and I was so moved that I could no longer retain my secret; but walking with Milly that day, confided the little romance to that unsophisticated listener, under the chestnut trees. The lines were so amorously dejected, and yet so heroically redolent of blood and gunpowder, that Milly and I agreed that the writer must be on the verge of ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... destiny.'—The royal Bhishma, hearing these words, replied unto the chief of the Yadus, saying,—'Destiny is all powerful. The Yadus, for their benefit, had abandoned Kansa. I said this to the king (Dhritarashtra) but he minded it not. The listener that hath no benefit to receive becometh, for (his own) misery, of perverted understanding through (the influence of destiny).' Meanwhile, jumping down from his car, Partha, himself of massive and long arms, quickly ran on foot after that chief ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... which he seemed to use because he could not repress them, he told his frozen listener that his whole nature, heart and soul, had been for years bound up in Lady Joan; that he had again and again been tempted to deliver himself by death from despair; that if he had to live without her, he would be ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... was a great breath. In its suddenness and its vagueness the listener was unable to distinguish whether it came from a dozen yards down the trail, or a couple of dozen inches from his elbow. His nose, however, assured him that he had not the latter alternative to face; so he waited, his right hand upon the knife in his belt. He ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... and nobly used. When I last saw him I urged upon him the necessity of making his Will. He said he could not make it, as there was no one living whom he cared to name as his heir. Then he left London,—ostensibly on a journey for his health." Here Sir Francis paused, looking anxiously at his listener. She was deadly pale, and every now and then her eyes brimmed over with tears. "You can guess the rest," he continued,—"He took no one into his confidence as to his intention,—not even me. I understood he had gone abroad—till the other day—a short time ago—when ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... furtherance of my enterprise. One man's life or death were but a small price to pay for the acquirement of the knowledge which I sought, for the dominion I should acquire and transmit over the elemental foes of our race. As I spoke, a dark gloom spread over my listener's countenance. At first I perceived that he tried to suppress his emotion; he placed his hands before his eyes, and my voice quivered and failed me as I beheld tears trickle fast from between his fingers; a groan burst from his heaving breast. ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... burlesque details about health, disturbed sleep, dreams, visits. The chevalier could call up a languishing look, he could take on a classic attitude to feign compassion, which made him a most valuable listener; he could put in an "Ah!" and a "Bah!" and a "What DID you do?" with charming appropriateness. He died without any one suspecting him of even an allusion to the tender passages of his romance with the Princess Goritza. Has any one ever reflected on the service a dead ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... not look down to see how wide his listener's eyes grew as he answered: "Oh, I ain't fittin' to be no he'p to you, suh. Fust thing, I ain't nevah got religion, an' then I ain't well ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... particular, rapidly found themselves to be kindred spirits. In each was ingrained a powerful love of adventure. Alick, a great reader, who had devoured already his father's little library, which was made up for the most part of books on seafaring subjects, found in Ned Dempster a listener who hungered for as much of that exciting fare as Alick could ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... for her to ask any questions about the event of yesterday. All that was known by every one had been told to Mr. Leigh already by an early visitor, and he, full of horror and sympathy, was able to tell the terrible story over again to a listener, whose deep and agonizing interest in it ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... that out of her head by talking to her about the Wardours, and setting open the flood gates of her eloquence about Sylvia. So delightful was it to have a listener, that Kate did not grow impatient, long as they waited at the lawyer's door in the dull square, and indeed was sorry when the Colonel made his appearance. He just said to her that he hoped she was not tired of waiting; and as she ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... infuriated listener cried; 'you lying toad!' and shook him afresh with each sentence. 'She has run away from her friends, has she? With an Irish adventurer, eh? And you are her father? And your name is Thomas? Thomas, eh! Well, if you ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... conference was held on the slab-floored porch of the oak-shingled house, with Thomas Jefferson as a negligible listener. Since he was listening with both eyes and ears, he saw something in Mr. Duxbury Farley's face that carried him swiftly back to the South Tredegar railway station and to that first antipathetic impression. But again the suave tongue quickly ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... only listener. Ever and anon while absorbed in the entertainment, or waiting, breathless, for a new note, I was startled by a rustle, and a low "Good evenin' Missis," and glanced up to see a negro stealing along in a stealthy way. It might be a woman with a big bundle or basket on her head, ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... by the sun, like ungrateful minions, forbid the sun to enter.' This arbour, into which Hero desired Margaret to entice Beatrice, was the very same pleasant arbour where Benedick had so lately been an attentive listener. ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... too great, the relief too absolute for credence. He, the listener at the grotto? He, the avenger of the family's honour? He, the insurer of little Roger's continuance with the family at a cost the one who loved him best would rather have died himself than pay? Yes! ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... Violet and I happened to be at the window of the little reception-room overlooking the veranda, and were watching the little creature as she toddled along, and"—But Zoe paused, suddenly remembering that her listener was the father of Lulu as well as of her ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... the most wonderful listener that any one could wish to have, though he himself was rather silent. If the talk turned on great questions of knowledge, morality, the object of life, Dorfling's share in the conversation consisted in the following half-audible remark: "Yes, it is a powerful and interesting ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... Arletta, "it was your soul that brought to your senses the movements that once took place among these men in real life. Music is inspired by the soul, and likewise has a direct influence upon it. No Sageman was considered an eminent composer if his work lacked the force to convey the soul of the listener to the actual scene from whence the inspiration was derived. No doubt your inferior brain was incapable of grasping the magnificent conception of the author, but the selection being so enrapturous your soul awakened and brought your senses to the point where you could see the movements ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... moon and lamplight, leaned far across the area railings and appeared to listen to what was passing in the house. From the dining-room there came the report of a champagne cork, and following upon that, the sound of rich and manly laughter. The listener took heart of grace, produced a key, unlocked the area gate, shut it noiselessly behind him, and descended the stair. Just when his head had reached the level of the pavement, he turned half round ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... away. There was a bit of dingy veiling attached to the front of her old-fashioned hat, and Wyn saw her pull this down quickly over her face. The listener knew why, and she had to wink her own eyes hard to keep back ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... same power, as it were, of putting himself into a friend's place and entering with heart and soul into the affairs of others which made him so interested a listener to a young girl's story of her childhood's plays, made him in his later years the friend of the Samoans, the champion of Samoan liberties, and, all through his life, the one man whom the men and women who knew him loved with the love ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black
... only of real music-listening. You know, now, that music born out of the heart is the thought of a good man. Of course, beautiful thoughts of any kind should be listened to not only with attention, but with reverence. Reverence is the tribute which the thoughtful listener pays to the music of a man who has expressed himself beautifully in tone. This at once reveals to us that we should listen to what is great for the purpose of getting ideals. We hear what we hope to attain. It is said of the ...
— Music Talks with Children • Thomas Tapper
... gazing after the ascending bubble that she seemed to forget even the presence of the sage. As the airy globule ascended, she began pouring forth a stream of disconnected nonsense, seeming to speak merely for her own pleasure, as her words could certainly not be intended for the information of any listener. ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... contralto and tenor—many others are added. There are the eager and the soft, the higher and the lower notes, the quicker and the slower. It seems little to us, who know that we can speak or whisper, hammer our words together, or drawl them out. But then every listener was critically alive to the fact whether the speaker before him did or did not perform his task as it should be done. No wonder that Cicero demanded who was the optimus orator. Then the strength of body had to be matured, lest the voice should fall to "a sick, womanly ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
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