"Engrossing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... early on the following morning, and early informed the rest of the household that the weather was satisfactory. She flew into Ruth's room with the hot water, to wake her and set her mind at rest on a subject of such engrossing interest; she imparted it repeatedly to Charles through his key-hole, until a low incoherent muttering convinced her that he also was rejoicing in the good news. She took all the dolls out of the baskets in which Ruth's careful hands ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... autumn of the year 1867, when the reign of the Liberator was in the fulness of its fame, that a certain scandal intime began, in St. Petersburg, to divide interest with the still engrossing topic of the freed serfs. Every one in society took sides, for or against, in the quarrel and separation of the young Prince and Princess Nikitenko: both of whom had been, since their marriage, high in the graces of the Grand-Ducal circle, and leaders of the fastest set in the capital. When the trouble ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... direction, each to his own business; but it remains an open question whether their hearts were first so glued to the farm and the merchandise, that they could not be persuaded to take from these engrossing pursuits as much time as would suffice to attend upon their sovereign; or whether there was first a determination to resist the sovereign's call, and that they then introduced the business as an excuse, and fled to ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... Proposals to marry are as ready on the tongues of such men, out in the tropics, as offers to hand a shawl or carry a parasol. They are soft-hearted, bold to face the world, and very confident in circumstances. Then, too, they are ignorant of any other way to progress with a flirtation which is all-engrossing. In warm latitudes it is so natural to make an offer after the fifth dance. It is the way of the people in those latitudes, and seems to lead to no harm. Men and women do marry on small incomes; but they do not starve, and the world goes on wagging. Mary Bonner, however, whose father's rank ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... five-and-twenty) ordered the grinning shop-boy, who was chopping the 'lump,' to take home them 'ere dips to a customer who lived at some distance. Wiggins, not aware of the 'ruse,' felt pleased with the absence of one who was certainly 'de trop' in the engrossing 'tete-a-tete.' We will pass over this preliminary conversation; for a whole week the same scene was renewed, and at last Mrs. Warner and Mr. Wiggins used ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... said, Blueskin was the one engrossing topic of talk, and it added not a little to Levi's prestige when it was found that he had actually often seen that bloody, devilish pirate with his own eyes. A great, heavy, burly fellow, Levi said he was, with a beard as black as a hat—a devil with ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... contained no more than a fragment. The last page was numbered "341," and the first page "129." One hundred and twenty-eight pages, therefore, were certainly lost at the beginning, and I know not how many at the end; but what was left was sufficiently engrossing to hold me standing by the window, until the wrinkled face of the priest looked in again to inform me that unless I wished to sleep in the library, I ...
— The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary • Robert Hugh Benson
... not be permitted to take an active part in public affairs because the house is to be attended to, and the comfort and well-being of her husband and children provided for. Are the recognized duties and ordinary occupations of women necessarily so all-engrossing as to be inconsistent with any other demand upon their time or thoughts; or of so much graver importance than the duties which men owe to their business and families, as to require her constant presence and the entire devotion ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster
... point of view; but it had the suppleness which makes the graceful dancer, and was an elegant scaffolding on which to hang the picturesque costume of the day. For the rest, all that he was he had made himself, during those eighteen years of intelligent self-culture, which had been his engrossing occupation since his fifteenth birthday, when he determined to be one of the ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... Ireland, is a trial to a Minister's wife. However, the reason was simply that Prince Albert had detained him talking. ... Of course we talked a great deal with our visitors of France, Italy, Germany, and Ireland; but happily, engrossing as these topics are, the bright sun and blue sky and shining river and opening leaves and birds and squirrels would have their share of attention, and give some ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... Sergeant-at-Arms after Senators who might attempt to dodge the vote, not a single attache of the Sergeant-at-Arms' office could be named who was in sympathy with the movement against the gamblers. Incidentally, however, it was discovered that the clerk of the important Senate Enrolling and Engrossing Committee had been an employee at Frank Daroux's notorious Sausalito poolrooms. These were disquieting ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn
... rarely the most engrossing. At the Palace of Versailles the petits appartements de la Reine, those tiny rooms whose grey old-world furniture might have been in use yesterday, to me hold more actuality than all the regal salons in whose vast emptiness footsteps reverberate ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... shade and concealment, and sketched, and fired occasionally to be sociable, as a duck came within say eighty yards. See sketch and the futility of concealment. I thought it very delightful—the shooting was not too engrossing, the landscape was charming, and the village life interesting, and the simplicity of the whole proceeding distinctly amusing. F., one of our party, on the other side from me kept potting away regularly. He was surrounded with natives; his ideas as to what was "in shot" were great! Still, he told ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... things that we don't talk about to another man, even when we know each other as well as I know you. Why should we, when that which is most engrossing to us consists in those gradual shades of advance from friendship to intimacy, and from intimacy to something more sacred still, which can scarcely be written at all, far less made interesting to another? The time came at last when they were to leave ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... into images of Agnes forms without end, that upon nearer approach presented the most grotesque contrasts to her impressive appearance. But I had ceased even to comprehend the ludicrous; my agitation was now so overruling and engrossing that I lost even my intellectual sense of it; and now first I understood practically and feelingly the anguish of hope alternating with disappointment, as it may be supposed to act upon the poor shipwrecked seaman, alone and upon a desolate coast, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... that our manual labor is never engrossing or exhausting. It is no more than is necessary to keep the body in health. I do not see how you remain well here, you people ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells
... accordingly, but found it scantily attended; and after the first sitting, which was speedily over, retired to another court, and saw the women. Of this dumb show the king soon got tired; he therefore called for his iron chair, and entered into conversation, at first about the ever-engrossing subject of stimulants, till we changed it by asking him how he liked the gun? He pronounced it a famous weapon, which he would use intensely. We then began to talk in a general way about Suwarora and Rumanika, as ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... This engrossing love was not agreeable to the Widow Lawton. If less was accomplished in a day than usual, she would often exclaim, "That brat takes up too much of your time." And not unfrequently Chloe was compelled to go to the beach and leave Tommy fastened up in the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... away from a spot whose history so well accorded with the dismal trend of my thoughts. Presently, passing through a leafy lane leading back to the village, I espied at some distance in advance of me a couple walking together and apparently engaged in engrossing conversation. A second glance served to inform me that one of the pair was Miss Hamm and the other the insufferable Pomeroy. In a fit of petulance for which I am unable to account, unless it be due to my displeasure that ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... the curse of those entirely engrossing pursuits, which excite all our enthusiasm, and task every energy, and of which the statesman's and the soldier's callings are the best examples, that, when they fail us, we can find no substitute. All things else are, by comparison, stale, flat, and unprofitable. Can the brandy drinker cheer ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... once with each person, for forewarned was forearmed; still, as we had twelve Aides-de-Camp, and they were constantly changing, the pew door played its practical joke quite often enough to render the Services in the Chapel Royal very attractive and engrossing, and I noticed that no Aide-de-Camp was ever warned of his possible peril. I think, too, that the Verger enjoyed ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... ancient councils and the writings of the early fathers. The more he read, the more discontented he became with the platform upon which he and his people were standing. They and he were clearly in a minority, and his deep inward longing to be with the majority was growing into an engrossing passion. He yearned especially towards the good old unquestioning, authoritative Mother Church, with her articles of faith which took away the necessity for private judgment, with her traditional ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... men out of themselves for others. Then, too, I greatly doubt where there are such hard-worked men as the general secretaries,—days and evenings filled with work that never ends; the work the more engrossing and exacting because it combines physical and mental with spiritual responsibility. We who know this are not surprised to find the strength of these men failing. Those who employ them should carefully watch that relief is promptly given from time ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume I. No. VI. June, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... temper of Charles rendered him little capable of forming so vast a project as that of engrossing the commerce and naval power of Europe; yet could he not remain altogether insensible to such obvious and such tempting prospects. His genius, happily turned towards mechanics, had inclined him to study naval affairs, which, of all branches of business, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... was addressed chiefly to her, and, where circumstances permitted, it was exclusively so. All this, Lovel well knew, might be only that sort of egotistical gallantry which induces some young men of the present day to give themselves the air of engrossing the attention of the prettiest women in company, as if the others were unworthy of their notice. But he thought he observed in the conduct of Captain M'Intyre something of marked and peculiar tenderness, which was calculated to alarm the jealousy of a lover. Miss Wardour also received his ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... engrossing volume was a large folio from her husband's own hand, in which he had recorded every experiment of his scientific career, its original aim, the methods adopted for its development, and its final success or failure, with the circumstances ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... his working dress, and said everything that was civil and proper about the pleasure of unexpectedly seeing me again so soon. There was something rather preoccupied, I thought, in those brightly resolute eyes of his; but I naturally attributed it to the engrossing influence of his scientific inquiries. He was evidently not at all taken in by my story about coming to Barkingham to fish; but he saw, as well as I did, that it would do to keep up appearances, ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... sufficient to say, that they came to him in every shape—in all the variety of diction that the poor English language admits of—in the schoolmaster's best copy-hand, and choicest sesquipedalianism of pedantry—in the severer, but more Scriptural terms of the parish clerk—in the engrossing hand and legal phrase of the attorney—in the military form, evidently redolent of the shrewd old pensioner—and in the classical style of the young priest:—for each and all of the foregoing were enlisted in the cause of those who had ...
— The Poor Scholar - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... brown varnish, or stained with ochre, to give them an appearance of age. Thomas Warton had seen one of them, and pronounced it a clumsy forgery; the script not of the fifteenth century, but unmistakably modern. Southey describes another as written, for the most part, in an attorney's regular engrossing hand. Mr. Skeat "cannot find the slightest indication that Chatterton had ever seen a MS. of early date; on the contrary, he never uses the common contractions, and he was singularly addicted to the use of capitals, which in old MSS. ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... every painful occupation, and evincing towards her all that anxious care which a mother shows to a sick child. Eva permitted all this, and was daily more and more consumed by her untold mental sufferings. The engrossing cares which at this time occupied the family, prevented almost every one from paying attention to Eva's state of mind, and thus she was ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... abundance. Gardiner got this concession out of the miserly temperament of the old man, by persuading him that a sealer could not work to any advantage, unless he had the means of occasionally warming himself. The miserly propensities of the deacon were not so engrossing that he did not comprehend the wisdom of making sufficient outlay to secure the execution of his main object; and among other things of this nature, the schooner had sailed with a very large supply of wood, as has just been stated. Wood and onions, indeed, were ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... and startling, are concealed in every chapter of this completely engrossing detective story. The horrible fascination of the tragedy holds one in rapt attention to the end. And through it runs the thread of ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... their horizon, for some of them dark enough. Determined to ignore that gaunt Spectre standing there, in the shadow silent and grim, they would begin to talk on themes good yesterday for an hour's engrossing conversation, but before they were aware they had forgotten the subject of their talk and found themselves sitting together dumb and looking out upon the gleam of the waters, thinking, thinking and ever thinking, while nearer and ever more terrible moved the Spectre of War. ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... little lacking in form, but full of feeling. Well, Jack, as I was saying, likes reality. So do I! A firm hold on reality—that's the best thing; I was not intellectual enough for the life of thought, and I fell back on humanity—vastly engrossing! I assure you, though you would hardly think it, that even these simple people down here are most interesting: no two of them alike. My old friends say to me sometimes that I must find country people very dull, but I always say, 'No two of them alike!' Of course I ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... n'existe plus." The Victoria, which was the first hotel I ever stayed at in Russia, knew me no more. At the Metropole a preoccupied clerk said "Nima" without looking up from the news from the Silesian front which was engrossing him. I went into a terribly shabby and dirty hotel called the Amerikansky, and hoped they'd say "No," which they certainly did. Another doubtful establishment with girls on the stairs was also gorged and ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... that the terror must have left me that day. It had, for so many weeks, been so much a part of my daily life that I would have missed it had it not been for this new and engrossing interest. I remember that the long French windows of the library reflected the room like mirrors against the darkness outside, and that once I thought I saw a shadowy movement in one of them, as though a figure moved behind me. But when I turned sharply there was no one there, and ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... evidently occupied by some engrossing thought, which prevented his paying much attention to Bradley's ...
— The Young Explorer • Horatio Alger
... meeting-ground than an effort to bring about the closest cooeperation between the two countries. Sir Edward, far-seeing statesman that he was, had already appreciated, even amid the exciting and engrossing experiences through which he was then passing, the critical and almost determining part which the United States was destined to play in the war, and he had now sent for the American Ambassador because he believed that the President was entitled to a complete explanation ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... wrath and hunger pouring through these halls; cataracts of misery bursting through every door and window, and sweeping away all this splendor into never-ending blackness and ruin. I stood still, lost in these engrossing reflections, when Rudolph touched me on the arm, and led the way through a great hall, covered with ancestral portraits, into a magnificent chamber. In the center stood a large table, and around it about two score chairs, all made of dark tropical ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... divine authority. And medieval pessimism as to man's mundane condition was darker and sterner than the pessimism of the Greeks. There was the prospect of happiness in another sphere to compensate, but this, engrossing the imagination, only rendered it less likely that any one should think of speculating about man's ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... to tell which will move amidst tragic circumstances of too engrossing a nature to be disturbed by archaeological interests, and shall not, therefore, minutely describe here what I observed in Nuremberg, although no adequate description of that wonderful city has yet fallen in my way. To readers unacquainted with this antique ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... Egerton—"a true woman"—and of the Christmas gift from their Excellencies—a case of milk; and of the present of a new cycle sent from England from "her old chief" Mr. Partridge, to replace the old one which he thought must be worn out by this time. The wonders of aviation were engrossing the world then, and she merrily imagined a descent upon her some afternoon of her friends from Scotland, and discussed ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... sacrament, but communion may exist without the eating of the bread, &c. Sacrament means the performance of a certain act, which is an outward and visible sign of spiritual grace. You need not fear my leaving off this subject, it is far too engrossing to ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... portions, of gods, Gandharvas, and Rakshasas, the hearer becoming acquainted with the creation, preservation, and destruction of the universe and acquiring wisdom, is never cast down even under the most engrossing sorrows.'" ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... pain. She saw therefore with satisfaction that the person who was seated at her left, having at the beginning engrossed the conversation, without having been requested by any one to talk, persisted with an imperturbable coolness in engrossing it to the end of the dinner. This was the old Marechal de Bassompierre; he had preserved with his white locks an air of youth and vivacity curious to see. His noble and polished manners showed a certain gallantry, antiquated like his costume—for he wore a ruff in the fashion ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... her hands, scattering the splinters as who should sow dragon's teeth? I could not believe he had done anything much amiss. I imagined her grievance a trivial one. But this did not make the case less engrossing. Again and again I would take the fan-stump from my pocket, examining it on the palm of my hand, or between finger and thumb, hoping to read the mystery it had been mixed up in, so that I might reveal that mystery to the world. To ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... proceeded. With the constant bandying of compliment, joke, and repartee, among the merry and self-satisfied lordlings who assumed the right of engrossing the conversation, course after course came and passed in rapid succession, till a sufficient variety of viands and other substantial esculents had been served to warrant the introduction of the lighter delicacies of the dessert. But still there seemed to be a saving of appetite, a ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... one of these, now periodical, retreats that Mrs. Morrissy first observed the rapt attitude of her husband, and, instantly, life for her became bounding, plentiful, and engrossing. ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... there written shows that at this period of Jackson's life devotion to duty was his guiding rule; and, notwithstanding his remarkable freedom from egotism, the traces of an engrossing ambition and of absolute self-dependence are everywhere apparent. Many of the sentiments he would have repudiated in after-life as inconsistent with humility; but there can be no question that it was a strong and fearless hand that penned on a conspicuous page ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... that this was the natural man. Though why a creature such as he was should go out of his way to apostrophise, in such a manner, a publicist of Mr Lessingham's eminence, surpassed my comprehension. Yet he stuck to his subject like a leech,—as if it had been one in which he had an engrossing personal interest. ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... eye, but he was hindered from reaching the fame his genius promised as a painter by various distractions, such as the early battles of the Academy of Design in its struggles for life, domestic afflictions, and, more than all, the engrossing cares of his invention. ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... abused, I know, for (what is really the fault of the weather) keeping these two creatures here this week; the ladies hate us for engrossing two such fine fellows as your brother and Fitzgerald, as well as for having vastly more than our share of all the men: we generally go out attended by at least a dozen, without any other woman but a lively old French lady, who is a flirt of my father's, and will certainly ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... stronger than national prejudice. But the Spanish power became jealous of this encroachment among the islands, which it affected to own by virtue of Papal dispensation. Though Spain did not care to occupy it, Cuba and the Main being too engrossing, she determined that no other power should do so. She therefore took advantage of disturbances which arose there, in consequence, the French writers affirm, of the perfidious ambition of Albion, and chased both parties out of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... met Lahiri Mahasaya through Abinash Babu, {FN1-8} an employee in the Gorakhpur office of the Bengal-Nagpur Railway. Abinash instructed my young ears with engrossing tales of many Indian saints. He invariably concluded with a tribute to the superior glories ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... many men and horses; but the ancient chase, even though not terminating, as it often did, in battle, carried with it objects more important, and an interest immeasurably more stirring. If indeed one species of exercise can be pointed out as more universally exhilarating and engrossing than others, it is certainly that of the chase. The poor over-laboured drudge, who has served out his day of life, and wearied all his energies in the service of his fellow-mortals—he who has been for many years the slave of agriculture, or (still ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... correspondents plot and slave and intrigue over the places on the columns. I got mine on the second column all right but no one knows if it ever will move. So, naturally, I want to be on the first. The rows are so engrossing that I have not enjoyed the country as I expected. Still, I am everlastingly glad we came. It is an entirely new life and aspect. It completes so much that we have read and seen. In spite of the bother over the war passes I learn things daily and we see beautiful and curious things, and are ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... Writers of Roman history have been too much in the habit of representing the later Republic and early Empire as, practically, a Universal Monarchy, a Power unchecked, unbalanced, having no other limits than those of the civilized world, engrossing consequently the whole attention of all thinking men, and free to act exactly as it pleased without any regard to opinion beyond its own borders. One of the most popular enlarges on the idea—an idea ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson
... it," I answered. "Medical studies are rather engrossing and don't leave much time for ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... new to Fairchild, engrossing, exciting. Close above them were the ragged rocks of the tunnel roof, seeming to reach down as if to seize them as they roared and clattered beneath. Seepage dripped at intervals, flying into their faces like spray as they dashed through it. Side tracks appeared momentarily ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... life. Even if we insist that the interests connected with getting a living are only material and hence intrinsically lower than those connected with enjoyment of time released from labor, and even if it were admitted that there is something engrossing and insubordinate in material interests which leads them to strive to usurp the place belonging to the higher ideal interests, this would not—barring the fact of socially divided classes—lead to neglect of the kind of education which trains men for the useful pursuits. ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... semi-independent State where, if anything happened, the Anglo-Indian officials would not—if even they could—protect me, since I should have crossed over without their permission. But I never even gave that a thought, but was bent upon one engrossing idea—to find and see my Guru. Without breathing a word of my intentions to any one, one morning, namely, October 5, I set out in search of the Mahatma. I had an umbrella and a pilgrim's staff for sole weapons, with a few rupees in my ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... of your liberal journal to correspondents upon every subject of public interest, I make no further apology for addressing through the WINDSOR EXPRESS, some observations to the inhabitants of Windsor and its neighbourhood upon the all-engrossing ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest
... embroidery practically displaced the making of cabinet pictures of graceful ladies in scant satin gowns which had occupied the embroidery frame, or decorated drawing-room walls. Flowers ceased to blossom upon pincushions, and the engrossing and prevalent occupation of needlework was ...
— The Development of Embroidery in America • Candace Wheeler
... reached was no momentary physical equilibrium but a permanent truth. As Archimedes, measuring the hypothenuse, was lost to events, being engaged in an event of much greater transcendence, so art and science interrupt the sense for change by engrossing attention in its issues and its laws. Old age often turns pious to look away from ruins to some world where youth endures and where what ought to have been is not overtaken by decay before it has ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... day that succeeded the delicate conversation with Mrs. Budd, to a part of which Jack had been an auditor, the uncouth-looking steward's assistant was seen in close conference with the pretty Rose; the subject of their conversation being, apparently, of a most engrossing nature. From that hour, Jack got to be not only a confidant, but a favourite, to Mulford's great surprise. A less inviting subject for tete-a-tetes and confidential dialogues, thought the young man, could not well ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... kept her troth less well, had only availed herself of that freedom which he gave her, to disregard her promise. And this was the more strange in that I never doubted the strength of his attachment; it remained engrossing and unchanged, the largest part of his life. No alien shadow had ever come between him and the memory of the little girl with the violet eyes, to whom he at least was bound. But a shadow was there; fantastic it seemed to me at ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... greater love of industry is therefore especially valuable. This result industrial education is surely bringing about. It stimulates production and increases trade,—trade between the races; and in this new and engrossing relation both forget the past. The white man respects the vote of a coloured man who does ten thousand dollars' worth of business; and, the more business the coloured man has, the more careful ...
— The Future of the American Negro • Booker T. Washington
... her aunt gave, through the cold shiver which was then obliterating rather than engrossing her attention, and concluded that they had sent for Mr. Armstrong. But Mrs. Cathcart, ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... country, and are never supposed to be understood in the literal acceptation of the words; and, if their acts of generosity are but very rare, we ought to ascribe that rarity, not so much to a deficiency of generous sentiments, as to their vanity and ostentation, which engrossing all their funds, utterly disable them from exerting the virtues of beneficence. Vanity, indeed, predominates among all ranks, to such a degree, that they are the greatest egotists in the world; and the most insignificant individual ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... leading forlorn hopes to playing Chopin the Poles are unequalled. Mr. Conrad has returned to his old habitat in fiction. An ingenious map shows the reader precisely where his tragic tale is enacted. It may not be his most artistic, but it is an engrossing story. Compared with Chance, it seems a cast-back to primitive souls; but as no man after writing such an extraordinary book as Chance will ever escape its influence (after his Golden Bowl, Mr. James was quite another James), so Joseph Conrad's firmer grasp on the burin of psychology ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... temper, the immense bulk of her nature, the overbalance, the top-heaviness of it, was intellectual; and intellectual not in the sense of the ready society intelligence, so common among eighteenth-century women, but in the sense of actual engrossing interest and in abstract questions and ideals. The portraits done of her immediately after her marriage show, as I have said, a remarkably childish person; and childish, without much ballast of passion or even likings, the likeness sketched ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... mental aberration. His misery and dejection were intense; and such were his sufferings, that he moved about his station a mere shadow of his former self, and kept himself exclusively to his own place; attempting to relieve his feelings by engrossing his mind on his avocation. Tom Rainsfield, in the meantime, had learnt from his sister-in-law the cause of John's estrangement; and deeply sympathising with his friend, he made his visits to Fern Vale as frequent as possible, to cheer and enliven him in his dullness. Tom imagined if ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... of the common mind, and so thoroughly engrossing are the cares of common life, that only the few among men can discern through the glitter and dazzle of present prosperity the dark outlines of approaching disasters, even though they may have come up to our very gates, and are already within striking ...
— Collected Articles of Frederick Douglass • Frederick Douglass
... Ethelberta's surprise, there was a letter for her in her mother's up-hill hand. She neglected all the rest of its contents for the following engrossing sentences:— ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... engrossing tete-a-tete, for the call to supper had sounded twice before they heard and hurried into the house. The march had formed with Louise radiantly leading on the arm of papa. Claralie tripped by with Leon. Of course, nothing remained for Theophile and Manuela to do but to bring up the rear, for ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... Raff and piano with Heymann. His stay there was eminently satisfactory and profitable to himself. He found both Raff and Heymann artistic mentors of an inspiring kind; in Raff, particularly, he encountered a most sympathetic and encouraging preceptor, and an influence at once potent and engrossing—a force which was to direct the currents of his own temperament ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... was engrossing Monsieur de Lucan's attention at the time, and on the subject of which he had had a long conversation that very morning with his lawyer and his advocate, who had come over from Caen during the night, was an old family law-suit ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... introduced by-the-by; into whatever colors make up the phantasmagoria of collective humanity the novelist may dip his brush, in painting his moving picture. Yet problems need not be fully appreciated, nor characters or actions profoundly understood. It must be an engrossing story, but the theme and treatment are as lawless as the conversation of an evening party. The mind plays through all the realm of its knowledge and experience, and sheds sparks from all the torches of thought, as ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... began to study German, and in three months was reading with ease Goethe's Faust, Tasso and Iphigenia, Koerner, Richter, and Schiller. She greatly admired Goethe, desiring, like him, "always to have some engrossing object of pursuit." Besides all this study she was teaching six little children, to help bear the expenses ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... was now rampant of disorder, recognized in the short, corpulent figure before them, with the red hair standing erect upon a turnip-like head, the man of their wish, whom they greeted with three deafening cheers. The major bowed and spread his hands, in the left of which he held the engrossing emblem of his dignity, his three ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... day I was in a raging delirium, and for nearly a week did I remain utterly unconscious of all that surrounded me, entirely engrossing the attention of my companions, and taxing their energies and ingenuity to the utmost to prevent my leaping out of the cot or doing myself some injury, in the unnatural strength and violence of the fever which ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... days in the garden—digging up kava roots, stringing them on twine and hanging them up in the hall to dry, and in many another homely task. In the evening they played chess, and, as neither knew the game, they were well matched, and spent engrossing evenings over it. Sometimes they would light a lantern and walk over to see Mr. Caruthers, the lawyer, who lived more than a mile away. When he saw the flicker of their lantern through the palm-trees he would wind up ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... irregular corps, or bringing in faultless reform bills, or finding out constellations, or shooting big game, or resorting to any of our thousand-and-one safety-valves to superfluous excitement. Are crochet, or crossed letters, or charity-schools, or even Cochins and Creve-coeurs, so entirely engrossing as to drown forever the reproaches of nature, that will make herself heard? If not, surely the most phlegmatically proper of her sex does sometimes feel sad and dissatisfied when she thinks that she has never been able to care for any one more ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... emphatically did it furnish the only means of exactness, subtlety, or depth in thought. For at least three centuries, philosophy and science were without a home in the West; and though metaphysics and metaphysical theology were engrossing the mental energies of multitudes of Roman subjects, the phraseology employed in these ardent inquiries was exclusively Greek, and their theatre was the Eastern half of the Empire. Sometimes, indeed, the conclusions of ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... engrossing romance of the Soudan deals with the siege of Khartoum and the death of the hero, Gordon, and the Epilogue with the retribution which England exacted from the Arab hordes. Between the two is placed a dramatic story of love ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... campaign against Port Hudson in the following summer. It is possible to gain some idea of how the great tides of war were felt throughout the whole land by imagining the stir and turmoil thus brought, in the summer of 1862, into this remote and peaceful quarter by the engrossing struggle. ...
— The County Regiment • Dudley Landon Vaill
... engrossing days of my childhood were spent in exploring these places with my two boy companions. We would fell an oak sapling across the mouth of the hole, tie a rope, usually my pony's lariat, to the tree and slide down it to explore the depths below. ...
— Down the Mother Lode • Vivia Hemphill
... had really not noticed the speed. Her conversation with Duncan had been altogether engrossing. But now she began to appreciate the situation, and this precluded all other considerations, even ...
— The Motor Girls on a Tour • Margaret Penrose
... nature. If they were, they would know that a really absorbed and happy child is almost portentously solemn. It hasn't the time to waste on smiles; the building of sand castles and fortresses is infinitely too engrossing an occupation. A smile will greet the anticipation; it is lost in the stupendous joy of the fact. But as smiles are evidently considered de rigueur by the designers of posters, and as the mere anticipation will not allow of the portrayal of the Rickett's blue sea, ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... expression in a paralysis of generous acts. The victim begins to shrink spiritually; he develops a fancy for parlours with a regulated temperature, and takes his morality on the principle of tin shoes and tepid milk. The care of one important body or soul becomes so engrossing, that all the noises of the outer world begin to come thin and faint into the parlour with the regulated temperature; and the tin shoes go equably forward over blood and rain. To be overwise is to ossify; and the scruple-monger ends by standing stockstill. Now the man ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... none the less truly a remarkable short story because it happens to be based on fact. "The Deserter" was the last fine short story written by the late Richard Harding Davis, and "The Scar That Tripled" is the engrossing narrative of the adventure which suggested that story. Personally, I regard it as superior ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... more determined effort. We might have found some justification for chairs, by way of instance, and certainly an excuse for raising beds above the floor. But the wounded angel, like the metal machine, is only a device whereby the searching examination of our author may be displayed in an engrossing and intimate form. And in The Wonderful Visit, that exuberance we postulated, that absorption in the development of idea, is more marked; in the unfolding of the story we can trace ...
— H. G. Wells • J. D. Beresford
... Statute of Laborers forbade laboring men to ask or receive more than a prescribed low sum for their labor and also forbade their moving about seeking employment. The statutes against forestalling, regrating, and engrossing were not formally repealed until 1844. In early times in New England also, statutory attempts were made to fix the price of various commodities and the wages of various kinds of workmen. Men were fined for accepting higher than the prescribed wages. The Sunday laws in some places ...
— Concerning Justice • Lucilius A. Emery
... heard all about my godson in whom, however, I took less interest than I said I did. I took more interest in the stage at that time than in anything else, and as for Ernest, I found him a nuisance for engrossing so much of his aunt's attention, and taking her so much from London. The organ was begun, and made fair progress during the first two months of the half year. Ernest was happier than he had ever been before, ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... make them his own, and notice the new light with which they instantly shine in his eyes. He takes a new kind of care of them altogether. In mature life, all the drudgery of a man's business or profession, intolerable in itself, is shot through with engrossing significance because he knows it to be associated with his personal fortunes. What more deadly uninteresting object can there be than a railroad time-table? Yet where will you find a more interesting object if you are going on a journey, and by its means can find your train? At such ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... fallacy of a cherished affection. Henry had indeed ceased to regard his wife with the ardour of romantic passion; nor had the solid feelings of affectionate esteem supplied its place; but he loved her still, because he believed himself the engrossing object of her tenderness; and in that blest delusion he had hitherto found palliatives for her folly and consolation for all his ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... in London was more tedious and engrossing than I had expected. Even a New York lawyer has much to learn of the law's delay in those pompous old offices amid the fog. Had I been working for myself, I should have thrown up the case in despair, but advices from our office said "Stick to it," ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... series of years. In 1812, he was advanced to a higher place in the staff of the library; and in 1815, on the death of the chief librarian, Pozetti, he was appointed to fill his place. When it is considered how peculiarly engrossing the study of languages is known to be, and especially how attractive for an enthusiastic scholar like Mezzofanti, it might be supposed that for him the office of librarian could have been little more than a nominal one. But the library of Bologna to the present day ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... Latin grammar and mathematics by telling us that they were good mental gymnastics. If education is only a matter of mental gymnastics, however, I should recommend horse-racing as an ideal study for young boys and girls. The sole objection to it is that it is so engrossing; it might absorb the whole energies of the child. The safety of Latin grammar lies in its dullness. No child is tempted by it into forgetting that there are other duties in life besides mental gymnastics. Horse-racing, on the other hand, comes into our lives with the effect of a religious ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... thing never became less strange, less engrossing, or less horrible. Weston Marchmont abandoned as pure folly the attempt to accustom his mind to it or to acquiesce in it; he had not the power to cease to think of it. It was unnatural; to that he returned always; and it ousted what surely ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... in your line for the last half-hour; now do give Tawno a chance of exhibiting a little; poor fellow, he hasn't often a chance of exhibiting, as his wife keeps him so much in sight.' Not wishing to appear desirous of engrossing the public attention, and feeling rather desirous to see how Tawno, of whose exploits in leaping horses I had frequently heard, would acquit himself in the affair, I at length dismounted, and Tawno, at a bound, leaped into the saddle, where he really looked like Gunnar of Hlitharend, save and ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... Fay, but he was more occupied with his feelings about her than with herself. It was these which were now engrossing him. ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... forehead, could make such havoc of your nerves! And more especially when, in the brain or soul that lay behind, no spiritual trait answered to the physical.—Well, that was for others to puzzle over, not for him. The strong man tore himself away while there was still time, or saved himself in an engrossing pursuit. He, having had neither strength nor saving occupation, had bartered all he had, and knowingly, for the beauty of this face. And as long as it existed for him, ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... busier existence, or one apparently more evenly occupied. But at this period it had really a single engrossing care, and that was the rivalry with Essex. Once it had looked as if the two might become friends. Before the Islands Voyage, Essex had been closely allied both with him and with Cecil. Afterwards, on an alarm of a Spanish invasion in 1596, Essex and he seem to have been jointly ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... newspapers." He left the dinner-table early, and, on going upstairs to coffee, either affected not to know or did not remember George Colman's celebrity as a wit, and inquired of Mrs. Jones who that Mr. Colman was? Mr. Harris joined them at this moment, and apologised for his friend Colman engrossing so much of the conversation to himself, adding, that he was the spoiled child of society, and that even the Prince Regent listened with attention when George Colman talked. "Ay," said Curran, with a melancholy ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... to be quiet and think in such an indolent mood; and Phyllis had some reasons for finding the "thinking" engrossing. First, she had had a letter from Elizabeth, and it was in a very hopeful tone. Antony and George Eltham were doing very well, and, as Lord Eltham had become quietly interested in the firm, the squire ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... whether our Government could survive the strain of a continuance of this system, which upon every change of Administration inspires an immense army of claimants for office to lay siege to the patronage of Government, engrossing the time of public officers with their importunities, spreading abroad the contagion of their disappointment, and filling the air with ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... morning he was with the duchess, bent upon the same errand as ourselves, and seeing us, he had come to ask M. Jubinal to give them his opinion upon the value of a possible purchase. After discussing the subject, which was all-engrossing for the moment, the duchess turned to me and politely drew me into conversation. Her kindly manner set me at ease, and she soon extracted from me the information that I was about to sail for Mexico. At this she became much excited, and exclaiming, "Oh, I ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... "So general and engrossing was the interest felt in this event, that a public calamity had well-nigh followed. The attendants on the princes and princesses (usually most vigilant and faithful), in the excitement of the occasion, forgot their charge, and the young folks instantly seized the opportunity to rush out of ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... has married a well-known man, received everywhere; why should she not wish to show herself a little on his arm? Is it not quite natural? The husband, on the contrary, growing intolerant of society as his talent progresses, finding time short, and art engrossing, refuses to be exhibited. Behold them both miserable, and whether the man gives in or resists, his life is henceforward turned from its course, and from its tranquillity. Ah! how many of these ill-matched couples have I known, where the wife was sometimes executioner, sometimes victim, but ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... fifteenth century, Classic Greek art was engrossing the mind of Western Europe, classical literature was becoming the fashion and there was even an attempt to make ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood
... to deny Dr. Vereker, evidently, or else there really was something very engrossing about her G string. Sally went on, while she dog's-eared her music, which was new, to get good turning-over advantages when ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... he shouted, and at the top of his voice; but to no purpose. The deafening roar of the cataract hindered him from being heard; and partly, perhaps, the engrossing occupation in which the two ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... alcohol is clear; it is an agreeable temporary shroud. The savage, with the mansions of his soul unfurnished, buries his restless energy under its shadow. The civilised man, overburdened with mental labour, or with engrossing care, seeks the same shade; but it is shade, after all, in which in exact proportion as he seeks it, the seeker retires from perfect natural life. To search for force in alcohol is, to my mind, equivalent to the act of seeking ...
— Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade
... in tin. He had received a consignment of books upon philology and was settling down to develop this thesis when suddenly, to my sorrow and to his unfeigned delight, we found ourselves, even in that land of dreams, plunged into a problem at our very doors which was more intense, more engrossing, and infinitely more mysterious than any of those which had driven us from London. Our simple life and peaceful, healthy routine were violently interrupted, and we were precipitated into the midst of a series of events which caused the utmost excitement ...
— The Adventure of the Devil's Foot • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and Peters, three of the original planters of Salem Farms, were drawn back to England and kept there by the engrossing interest which the wonderful revolution then breaking out in that kingdom could not but awaken in such minds as theirs. Here and everywhere, a great check was given to the early progress of the country by the turn of the tide which carried such men ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... in a way—you see, I am vain enough to think that. Well, you also interested me, and I urged my aunt to press you to stay. It has been very pleasant, and when you go it will be very humdrum again; our conversation, mustering, rounding-up, bullocks, and rabbits. That, of course, is engrossing in a way, but not for long ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... language. They make a point of mastering the native tongue as quickly as possible, and being able to give their whole time and attention to it, this is easily accomplished. It is of importance that they should do so, otherwise they could not carry on the duties of the mission; but by thus engrossing the knowledge, they obtain great influence over the minds of the natives. We ourselves were sadly puzzled by a correspondence we had with two native chiefs, who had been taught to read and write by some of the Society; but their acquirements ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... mystery; for what is a German if you do not dance? He was not a mere idle spectator, nor idle at all, it is true; he made himself busy enough, taking elderly ladies to supper and serving younger ones with beef- tea; but those are not engrossing amusements. Mme. Lasalle declared he was very useful; and watched to see what it meant; but beyond that he could not be seen to look at anybody in particular, she could resolve herself of nothing. Certainly he took leave a little before Wych Hazel left the room; they were ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... subject was inexhaustible, and kept cropping up in the midst of others; but that of Mabella Hanem, her escape from bondage and from "conversion" to Islam, and what revenge Rechid was likely to take, was almost as engrossing. ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... of personal advantage, but with the deepest filial love and gratitude have we assembled this day. Of all professions and callings, from many States, from public business and from engrossing private pursuits,—you, my young friend who have just come, with hesitation and ingenuous fear, to add your name if you may, to the honored rolls of the college, and you Sir,[37] whose memory runs back to the beginning of the century, ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... delightful bungalow near Menlo Park, and here Daylight spent a number of weekends, seeing a fineness and kindness of home life of which he had never dreamed. Holdsworthy was an enthusiast over flowers, and a half lunatic over raising prize poultry; and these engrossing madnesses were a source of perpetual joy to Daylight, who looked on in tolerant good humor. Such amiable weaknesses tokened the healthfulness of the man, and drew Daylight closer to him. A prosperous, successful business man without great ambition, was Daylight's ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... were like a window between himself and a shrewd incredulous scoffing world that would turn him into a monstrosity and his story into a fable. And in a little while, perhaps in three days, he would awaken out of this engrossing nightmare, and know he was free, this black dog gone from his back, and (as the old saying expressed it without any one dreaming what it really meant) his own man again. How astonished Sheila would be; how warmly she would welcome him!... Oh yes, ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... that they may yet see them at a remunerative figure. 'Upon the whole', says an eighteenth-century writer, 'though many have acquired large estates by hops, their real advantage is perhaps questionable. By engrossing the attention of the farmer they withdraw him from slower and more certain sources of wealth, and encourage him to rely too much upon chance for his rent, rather than the honest labour of the plough. To the landlord the cultivation of ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... life of humanity. No one would now dare to maintain with my old master Seeley that history was the biography of States or with Freeman that it was merely past politics. The growth of nations, the achievements of men of action, the rise and fall of parties remain among the most engrossing themes of the historian; but he now casts his net wider and embraces the whole opulent record of civilization. The influence of nature, the pressure of economic factors, the origin and transformation of ideas, the contribution of science and art, religion and philosophy, literature and ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... great depth upon sand like that of the seashore; it was thrown out, and in due time there sprang from it a marine plant. I have never seen earth taken from so great a depth that it would not before the end of the season be clothed with a crop of weeds. Weeds are so full of expedients, and the one engrossing purpose with them is to multiply. The wild onion multiplies at both ends,—at the top by seed, and at the bottom by offshoots. Toad-flax travels under ground and above ground. Never allow a seed to ripen, and yet it will cover your field. Cut off the head of the wild carrot, and in a week or two ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... Was he like his father or his mother? Was he little or big? Did he weigh eight pounds or ten? Did he live to be a man? None of these things are recorded, and we shall never know. After this supreme event few entries appear in the diary through the years. Life has become engrossing, important. Let us hope it was sufficing and not full of failure and trouble; let us enjoy the pleasure of believing so, as we well may. The clock, the cyder, the thermometer, the little Bille: what more important matters ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... the pleasure of a word with you," says Mrs. Ball, after introducing her companion. "Baron de Bach is such a monopolist. Just see how he is engrossing Miss Rogers now. What a pretty girl she is, and how well she plays. Did you hear her and the ...
— Under the Southern Cross • Elizabeth Robins
... her so charming an acquisition to a small circle, rendered her independent of general society. Busy as a bee, sportive as a butterfly, she passed the greater part of her time in the open air, and having caught from me that very contagious and engrossing passion, a love of floriculture, had actually undertaken the operation of restoring the old garden at the Court—a coppice of brambles, thistles, and weeds of every description, mixed with flowering shrubs, and overgrown fruit-trees—to something like its original ...
— Country Lodgings • Mary Russell Mitford
... Monk came and deliver'd him from his Torments, but not from Death, for he departed this miserable Life not long after: And this was the severe Fate of many Cacics and Indian Lords, who dyed with the same Torments which they were expos'd to by the Spaniards, in order to the engrossing of their ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas
... in which he was placed, though of a nature so engrossing, did not prevent the wonder and delight with which the young Scottishman, accustomed to the waste though impressive landscape of his own mountains, and the poverty even of his country's most stately scenery, ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott |
