"Lap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... efforts, and they had amassed wealth their children began and continued to worry. Not occupied with work that demands our unceasing energy, we find ourselves occupied with trifles, worrying over our health, our investments, our luxuries, our lap-dogs and our frivolous occupations. Imagine the old-time pioneers of the forest, plain, prairie and desert worrying about sitting in a draught, or taking cold if they got wet, or wondering whether they could eat what would be set before them ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... I was making the cap I am wearing and I was selecting from some white roses on my lap the ones I thought best. Suddenly Boris ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... was a bright, happy child. He would spring on the empress's lap, throw his arms around her neck, and kiss her, and play with the princesses on a footing of equality. He was especially devoted to the Archduchess Marie Antoinette. Once, when he fell on the polished floor, she ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... vague with forms Convulsed with cries that pierce each dome As impeached gumps seek plains unsunned, (Satellites to mounted Light!) Teem in the wind-strewn crest of thorns A phantom that a charnel urn Spewed from its lap and cancered fold,— Trophies of grim Destiny's crypt! A burning pyre, whose deadly breath Stir sighs of men as cesspools burn A harlot strewn with virgin gold That some malignant, stol'n script, Condemn'd ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque
... besides, of course I must have my literary harem, my pare aux cerfs, where my favorites await my moments of leisure and pleasure,—my scarce and precious editions, my luxurious typographical masterpieces; my Delilahs, that take my head in their lap: the pleasant story-tellers and the like; the books I love because they are fair to look upon, prized by collectors, endeared by old associations, secret treasures that nobody else knows anything about; books, in short, that I like for insufficient reasons it may be, but peremptorily, ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... find some other suggestion than that of "common or garden faking" as a solution of the mystery. There she sits, as in life, with a little knitted shawl round her shoulders and the head of a tiny child upon her lap. The eyes are closed, and give a dead look to the face, yet the features are to me quite unmistakable, and no one knew the dear old woman so well ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... heating the irons, but at last we found it. A cradle-shaped support made from biscuit-can wire was hung over the flame about an inch above it, and while the boys heated the irons, I squatted on my knees with a case of alcohol across my lap and got to work. I had watched Mr. Wardwell aboard the ship solder up the cases and I found that watching a man work, and doing the same thing yourself, were two different matters. I tried to work with mittens on; I tried to work ...
— A Negro Explorer at the North Pole • Matthew A. Henson
... to de house to git us. At firs' I was scared o' her, 'cause I didn' know who she was. She put me in her lap an' she mos' nigh cried when she seen de back o' my head. Dey was awful sores where de lice had been an' I had scratched 'em. (She sho' jumped Aunt Emmaline 'bout dat.) Us lef' dat day an' went right on to Tuscaloosa. My ma had married again an' she an' ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Mississippi Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... part;—alike the same incongruous, identical Falstaff, whether to the grave Chief Justice he vainly talks of his youth, and offers to caper for a thousand; or cries to Mrs. Doll, "I am old, I am old," though she is seated on his lap, and he is courting her for busses. How Shakespeare could furnish out sentiment of so extraordinary a composition, and supply it with such appropriated and characteristic language, humour and wit, I cannot tell; but I may, however, venture to infer, and that confidently, ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... my foster-sister: on one arm The flaxen ringlets of our infancies Wander'd, the while we rested: one soft lap Pillow'd us both: one common light of eyes Was on us as we lay: our baby lips, Kissing one bosom, ever drew from thence The stream of life, one stream, one life, one blood, One sustenance, which, still as thought grew large, Still larger moulding all the house of thought, Perchance ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... herself, and with trembling fingers raised the letter from her lap. The three typewritten lines upon the sheet were, if anything, more horrifying than the device beneath them. "Your beauty has made you rich and famous," the letter read. "Without it you could do nothing. ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks
... the voice of Tragedy. Its eyes shone; its fangs glistened and gleamed; its hands clutched the air; its tone was husky with suppressed fury; its rage would have stormed the barriers of the grave. In another moment Mrs. Bivins was brushing the crumbs from her lap, and exchanging salutations with her neighbours and acquaintances; and a little later, leading her grandchild by the hand, she was making her way back to the church, where the congregation ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... seated in the lap of her husband. Hortense sprang into her mother's arms, and encircled the neck of both father and mother in a loving embrace. Eugene caught the contagion, and by his tears and affecting caresses added to this domestic scene ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... agouti from hollow-tree house. Chinchilla the soft, musk and Canada rats, Hounds, mastiffs, wolves, foxes, and wild tiger cats; Jerboa just roused from his long winter nap, Opossum, with four little babes in her lap. The morse, seal, and otter—amphibious group! And of bisons (the humpbacked) there came a whole troop. It seems that the elk out of pride staid away, Having just shed his horns, which he does about May. The fallow and red-deer were gone to a lick, With a numerous party, ...
— The Quadrupeds' Pic-Nic • F. B. C.
... the Mozart collection in Salzburg, Mozart is painted in this dress, and he wore it with as much ease as if he had always been used to such finery. Also he never showed any embarrassment or self-consciousness when in the presence of royalty, and once jumped on the lap of the Empress, Maria Theresa, put his arms around her neck and kissed her as effusively as if she had been his mother, while he treated the princesses as if they were his sisters. Marie Antoinette was one of his great favourites ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... but when I was seated, she sank down upon her knees, and rested her head upon my lap, covering her face with her hands. I perceived in a moment that she was shedding floods of tears. Heavens! with what conflicting sensations was I at that instant agitated! 'Ah! Manon, Manon,' said I, sighing, 'it is too late to give me tears after the death-blow you have inflicted. You affect a ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost
... that she had not told him everything about her home life, even though she had rattled on as if there were nothing to conceal. He sat watching her, she looking straight before her, her small bare hands clasped in her lap. He was pitying her keenly—this child, at once stunted and abnormally developed, this stray from one of the classes that keeps their women sheltered; and here she was adrift, without any of those resources of experience which assist the girls ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... be fired; but there was no response except from the echoes that went rattling among the islands, and from the frightened birds that rose screaming and circling from the shore. No guns and no signal fires; no sign of human habitation whatever; and no sound out of the weird darkness except the lap of the water and the call of the birds . . . . The night passed in anxiety and depression, and in a certain degree of nervous tension, which was relieved at two or three o'clock in the morning by the sound of paddles and the looming of a ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... I guess," Jan answered, feeling of her doll's head. "I forgot all about her being in my lap. Oh, aren't you going to play any more, Ted?" she asked as she saw her brother toss the big coat on a chair and take ...
— The Curlytops at Uncle Frank's Ranch • Howard R. Garis
... and seating himself on a low stool by the side of his mother, and burying his head in her lap, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... first. Again the goddess upraised her massive sword, and hewed down the hellish brood by hundreds; but the more she slew, the more numerous they became. Every drop of their blood generated a demon; and, although the goddess endeavoured to lap up the blood ere it sprang into life, they increased upon her so rapidly, that the labour of killing became too great for endurance. The perspiration rolled down her arms in large drops, and she was compelled to think of some other mode of exterminating them. In this emergency, she ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... is easily seen. How dreadfully the harmless necessary cat deteriorates when it is over- fed and over-warmed. It may, for all I know, become more humane, but it becomes absolutely unfit to get its own living. What is more despicable than a lady's lap-dog, grown fat and good for nothing, and only able to eat macaroons! Even worms, according to Darwin, when constantly fed on delicacies, become indolent and lose all ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... votive offering of My Son. Make the richest feast, and thus the panting spirit, restless and weary with the jars of the wonted mortality it has just laid by, may breathe to strength: and the flesh, empty for the while of its old tenant, and now to be nursed in the lap of the Mother Earth, may be bedewed with a most gracious holiness, so that at the last day when it is sweetly reunited to its well-known companion, it may gladly flower anew and put on with joy the everlasting freshness." This ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... not refrain from looking in her direction, he saw that she was bending, with busy hands, over some willow twigs in her lap. "What in the world are you doing?" he ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... deliberately proceeded to rifle the inanimate body, when one of them, perceiving the silver badge, exclaimed, with an oath, "One of the rampant Neviles! This cock at least shall crow no more." And laying the young man's head across his lap, while he stretched back the throat with one hand, with the other he drew forth a long sharp knife, like those used by huntsmen in despatching the hart. Suddenly, and in the very moment when the blade was about to ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... them. I could presently distinguish his shrill little tones, and half a dozen women's voices, caressing, laughing with him. Yet it hurt me somehow to notice that these voices were all old, subdued; none of them could ever hold a baby on her lap, and call it hers. Joseph roused himself, came suddenly in with a great pitcher of domestic wine, out again, and back with ginger-cakes and apples,—"Till der supper be cookin'," with an encouraging nod,—and then went back to his chair, and presently snored aloud. In a few minutes, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... Nightcaps! I love them! I love you! I love you dreadfully!" Oh! how glad I was to hear that! I was glad "twenty-ten" times. It was sweeter to me, than a whole basket full of sugar candies would be to you—and I kissed her on both her round dimpled cheeks, and sat down, and took her on my lap, and hugged her to my heart, and said—"what a darling! what a dear ...
— The Little Nightcap Letters. • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... same property. Thus we find among our railroads not only first, second, and third mortgage bonds, but income bonds, dividend bonds, convertible bonds, consolidated bonds, redemption bonds, renewal bonds, sinking-fund bonds, collateral trust bonds, equipment bonds, etc., until they lap and overlap in ...
— Up To Date Business - Home Study Circle Library Series (Volume II.) • Various
... back, holding something behind her back. Even at the last moment she was half unwilling. However, she looked down, and said, in a very peculiar tone, "Here is the handkerchief he put before his face at the opera; there!" and she threw it into Zoe's lap. ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... with longing eyes, watching the motions of the cook, one of the fat roasted fellows suddenly shot from his hand and fell into the lap of the boy. The Pah Utah did not raise his head, and the act looked as if it were a voluntary one upon the part of the fish to escape the hands of its tormentors—so dexterously was ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... his great, silvery, ringleted beard. His hands were combing through it and he was frowning majestically into the distance. Next to him was the imperious Hera, Mother of the Gods. She sat with her hands folded in her lap, as if she were waiting for the end of the world to be announced. There was Mars, tough and hairy-chested, scratching his side with one hand and scowling horribly. His fierce, bearded face looked somehow out of place without ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... young fool, who hung about her like a moth; but Charles was not a lover to be spurred. As Portsmouth played her ruse the more openly a contemptuous smile flitted over the proud, dark face of the king, and he only fondled his lap-dog with indifferent heed for all those flatterers and foot-lickers and curry-favours ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... saw God's sun pursuing His westward course, to ocean's lap of gold; And yet at morn the East he was renewing With wide-spread, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... de white folks's Christmas-dinner plates, time they git thoo eatin', an' lemme scrape 'em in a pan, an' set dat pan in my lap, an' blow out de light, an' go it bline! Hush, honey, hush, while I shet my eyes now an' tas'e all de samples what'd come out'n dat pan—cramberries, an' tukkey-stuffin' wid puckons in it, an' ham ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... message brought by thee, Child of the wandering sea, Cast from her lap, forlorn! From thy dead lips a clearer note is born Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn! While on mine ear it rings, Through the deep caves of thought I hear ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... fallen to me in pleasant places." I wonder why those words came to my mind. I wished Aunt Agatha could see me now, sitting in this lovely room, with this little cherub on my lap; she would not be so despondent about the future. "I do believe it will answer; I mean to make it answer," I said to myself, energetically. Indeed, I was so absorbed in my reverie, that Mrs. Morton's soft footsteps on the thick carpet never roused me until I looked up and saw her standing ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII. No. 358, November 6, 1886. • Various
... from being dead. Besides, the hair was burned half off his head, and he was streaked raw all down one side where the fire had bitten him. He stood blinking, trying to pick up their meaning with his eyes. His maiden looked up from her mother's lap where she wept for him, and ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... libretto by Zola, is a curious mixture of socialism and symbolism. The foundation of the plot is a legend of the gold-bearing river Ariege, which is said to spring from a vast subterranean cathedral, where the infant Christ sits on his mother's lap playing with the sand which falls from his hands in streams of gold. Intertwined with this strange story is a tale of the conflict between a capitalist and the villagers whom his gold-sifting machinery has ruined. There are some fine moments in the drama, ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... the flattering of his courtiers, one day as he strolled along the shore he caused his chair to be placed at the margin of the approaching tide, and as the water crept up into his lap, he showed them how weak must be a mortal king in the presence of Omnipotence. He was a humble and righteous king, and proved by his example that after all the greatest of earthly rulers is ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye
... sweetly tune the Scottish lyre, Thanks to you for your line: The marled plaid ye kindly spare, By me should gratefully be ware; 'Twad please me to the nine. I'd be mair vauntie o' my hap, Douce hingin owre my curple, Than ony ermine ever lap, Or proud imperial purple. Farewell then, lang hale then, An' plenty be your fa; May losses and crosses ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... the evening, The time for lullabies, My son lay on my mother's lap With sleepy, sleepy eyes! (O drowsy little manny boy, With ...
— Songs for a Little House • Christopher Morley
... Depth of Mortises. Rule for Mortises. True Mortise Work. Steps in Cutting Mortises. Things to Avoid in Mortising. Lap-and-Butt Joints. Scarfing. The Tongue and Groove. Beading. Ornamental Bead Finish. The Bead and Rabbet. Shading ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... the west, glanced through the trees and lit up the faces of the three great actors who were entertaining us without money and without price. The Missourian was the star. He had been reared in the lap of luxury, had run away from college where he had been installed by a rich uncle, his guardian, and jumped down to South America. He had ridden with the Texas Rangers and with President Diaz's Regulators, had served as a scout on the plains and worked with the Mounted ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... the coming of Stephen in the little log-house that night. The little lads met him with shouts of welcome halfway down the hill, and when he came into the house there was Sophy busy with her tea-cakes, and Mrs Morely sewing her never-failing white seam, and Dolly was dancing the baby on her lap, and singing a song which brought the prairie, and their home there, and the long summer Sabbaths to his mind, and a sudden shadow to his face. Mrs Morely's face showed that her ...
— Stephen Grattan's Faith - A Canadian Story • Margaret M. Robertson
... first too deep for any words. She just sat down on the floor with the terrible portrait in her lap, and rocked herself backwards and forwards. This, then, was why her husband came home so many times in the day. It was to look at the portrait of the woman she ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... the ruffian Frank. "Thet man Fresno is rough with ladies. Now I'm gentle. ... Come an' let me spill this sack in your lap." ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... Ullah by his stirrup, Scott came to William in the brown-calico riding-habit, sitting at the dining-tent door, her hands in her lap, white as ashes, thin and worn, with no lustre in her hair. There did not seem to be any Mrs. Jim on the horizon, and all that William could say was: 'My word, how pulled down ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... or two after such divine sentiment, the ladies of Bagdad sit in the porter's lap, and indulge in a facetiousness which would have killed Pietro Aretino before ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... could only tell him everything, you would be sure to tell him the whole truth." The dog laid its head on Barefoot's lap, and looked up at her with intelligent eyes; then he seemed to shake his head, as if to say: "It is too bad, but ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... though he could not demolish completely enough the record of what he had demanded. The breeze from the garden sent the scraps fluttering over the table and across the rug, it carried the round, red seal along the tablecloth and dropped it into Janet's lap. ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... crossing the pole with a hitch knot to the stump end of the plants; when perfectly cured, which is known by the stems of the leaves being completely dry, it is then taken in a damp time, when the leaves will not crumble, from the poles and placed in large piles, by letting the tops of the plants lap each other, leaving the butts out; it remains in these heaps from three to ten days before it is stripped, depending on the state of weather, but it must not be allowed to heat. When stripped it is made into small hands, the small and broken leaves ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... they had supp-ed well, The day was all agone, Robin commanded Little John To draw off his hosen and his shone, His kirtle and his coat a pye, That was furr-ed well fine, And take him a green mant-ell, To lap his body therein. Robin commanded his wight young men, Under the green wood tree, They shall lie in that same sort, That the sheriff might them see. All night lay that proud sher-iff In his breche and in his sherte, No wonder it was, ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... Shades from out the spirit-land, Flitting, falling, downward, downward, Till they reach the shining sand. Vanish then beside the river, Where her faithless lover's bark Once was moored. The waves, all lonely, Lap the sands with ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... on a rock with a tin plate in his lap, a tin cup at his side, and an eager little lady in front of him, anxious that he should taste all her dishes and deliver ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... haunted about the springs, drinking and shrilly piping. So, when she had once passed the Slap, Kirstie was received into seclusion. She looked back a last time at the farm. It still lay deserted except for the figure of Dandie, who was now seen to be scribbling in his lap, the hour of expected inspiration having come to him at last. Thence she passed rapidly through the morass, and came to the farther end of it, where a sluggish burn discharges, and the path for Hermiston accompanies it on the beginning of ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... stand in the garth And their heads are turned to Helliskarth." The sun was falling on her knee, And she combed her gold hair silently. "To-morrow great will be the cheer At the Brothers'-Tongue by Whitewater." From her folded lap the sunbeam slid; She combed her hair, and the word she hid. "Come, love; is the way so long and drear From Whitewater to Whitewater?" The sunbeam lay upon the floor; She combed her hair and spake no more. He drew her by the lily hand: "I love thee better ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... her than I expected. She was rather nervous; but, nevertheless, she seated herself courageously with her beloved kitten in her lap, in the bo'sun's chair I had rigged for her accommodation, and held on tight, shutting her eyes as she swung off the ship's bulwarks, until she felt Bob's brawny arms receive her on the ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... generally be seen sitting on his back or on his shoulder; and many times he kept, for hours, the most awkward postures, that he might not disturb it. Frequently there was a second cat sitting by him on the table, watching how the work went on; sometimes a kitten or two lay in his lap under the table. Frogs (in bottle) floated beside his easel; and with all these creatures he kept up a most playful, loving style of conversation; though, often enough, any human beings about him, or such even as came to see him, were growled or grunted at in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various
... circumstances to tell the colour of her skin, but she had fine large Juno eyes, and her mouth was unmistakably good-humoured, as she smiled when returning my salutation. Her husband sat on the clay floor against the wall, his bare feet stretched straight out before him, while across his lap lay an immense surcingle, twenty inches broad at least, of a pure white, untanned hide; and on it he was laboriously working a design representing an ostrich hunt, with threads of black skin. He was a short, broad-shouldered man with reddish-grey hair, stiff, bristly whiskers and moustache ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... first-rate impression here. It would please you to see this stern ascetic, this despiser of Life and Humanity, with two toddlers on his lap, and Herbert at his knee, all listening open-mouthed to tales of the animal and vegetable kingdoms. The boy thinks that one who lives in the woods must be a great hunter, and clamors for bears and wildcats: Jane, in her usual unfeeling way, insists ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... conflict lies still upon the lap of the gods. Yet one thing is, we may hope, already assured. Although at the beginning of the war they came near to winning it, the Germans are not now likely to win that complete victory upon which they had calculated, and which would have brought as its prize the mastery ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir
... closed an' bolted, an' I start on another lap around ther house with Mrs. Cow a-snortin' an' a-blowin' in my immediate vicinity, an' comin' fast. Every time I hit ther ground with my hoofs I grunted 'woof.' I wuz gittin' winded, what with runnin' an' yellin', so thet I wuz gruntin' ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... forty years with other people's money overflowing into his lap as it rolled deep and steady through that little counting-house, when there occurred, or rather recurred, a certain phenomenon, which comes, with some little change of features, in a certain cycle of commercial changes as regularly as the month of March in the year, ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... in the chancel and nave. In the chapel on the south side is the tomb of Sir George Forster and his lady (1526) with their twenty attendant children. The knight's feet rest against his favourite hound and a lap dog is pulling at the lady's dress. There are also brasses to some other members of the Forster family which owned the manor during Elizabethan days. The pulpit and sounding board belong to this ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... handkerchief in vain, betook herself indignantly to her carriage. Quite unaware of any remissness on her part, Elsie settled herself comfortably—Mrs. Bennet had disposed of her luggage—folded her hands in her lap, and gazed idly out ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... opposite to each other. Mesdames Hsing and Wang simply seated themselves on two chairs, which faced the door of the apartment. Pao-ch'ai and her five or six cousins occupied the stove-couch. Pao-yue sat on his grandmother's lap. Below, the whole extent of the floor was crowded with inmates on their feet. But old lady Chia forthwith desired that a few small stools should be fetched. When brought, these were proffered to Lai Ta's mother and some other nurses, who were advanced in years and held in respect; for it was the ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... it is like a fairy tale, I do assure you, and you will see finer things than most children will tonight. Steady, now, and do just as I tell you, and don't say one word whatever you see," answered Nursey, quite quivering with excitement as she patted a large box in her lap, and nodded and laughed with ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... announced. "I thought it'd be better to have a lunch by ourselves than atop at one of these roadside dinner counters. An' now, just to make everything safe an' comfortable, I'm goin' to unharness the horses. We got lots of time. You can get the lunch basket out an' spread it on the lap-robe." ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... the light, And mother's case seemed hopeless quite, So weak and miserable she lay; And she recovered, then, so slowly, day by day. She could not think, herself, of giving The poor wee thing its natural living; And so I nursed it all alone With milk and water: 'twas my own. Lulled in my lap with many a song, It smiled, and tumbled, ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... since then; the flowers are not so sweet—they remind me of my child's grave; the sea does not look the same—it reminds me of my boy!" and she rocked herself backwards and forwards for some time, while Valmai stroked with tender white fingers the hard, wrinkled hand which rested on her lap. "Well, indeed," said the old woman at last, "there's enough of my sorrows; let us get on to the happy time when your little life began, you and your twin sister. When you were washed and dressed and laid sleeping together in the same cradle, no one could tell which was which; but dir anwl! who ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... draw Mark into the conversation; but he preferred listening and let them think that his monosyllabic answers signified a shyness that did not want to be conspicuous. Soon they appeared to forget his existence. Deep in the lap of an armchair covered with a glazed chintz of Sevres roses and sable he was enthralled by that chronicle of phantoms, that frieze of ghosts passing before his eyes, while the present faded away upon ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... prevented, however, from even looking his surprise by his father's entrance. They went to breakfast directly; but Catherine could hardly eat anything. Tears filled her eyes, and even ran down her cheeks as she sat. The letter was one moment in her hand, then in her lap, and then in her pocket; and she looked as if she knew not what she did. The general, between his cocoa and his newspaper, had luckily no leisure for noticing her; but to the other two her distress was equally visible. As soon as she dared leave the table ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... the highest crime was not murder, but thinking, and the human conscience was a captive dragged at the wheel of the ecclesiastical chariot—always and everywhere Masonry has stood for the right of the soul to know the truth, and to look up unhindered from the lap of earth into the face of God. Not freedom from faith, but freedom of faith, has been its watchword, on the ground that as despotism is the mother of anarchy, so bigoted dogmatism is the prolific source of scepticism—knowing, also, that our race has made its most rapid advance in those ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... the dory, was a scientific business. Dan managed it in the dark, without looking, while Harvey caught his fingers on the barbs and bewailed his fate. But the hooks flew through Dan's fingers like tatting on an old maid's lap. "I helped bait up trawl ashore 'fore I could well walk," he said. "But it's a putterin' job all the same. Oh, Dad!" This shouted towards the hatch, where Disko and Tom Platt were salting. "How many skates you reckon ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... conscious, he was lying on the ground, with his head in Miss Eulie's lap, and Annie was bending over him with a small flask. She again gave him a teaspoonful of brandy, and after a moment he lifted himself up, and, passing his hand across his ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... you would say, for 'sentimental nonsense'; accustomed to believe yourself the national spine—your position is unassailable. You will remain the idol of the country—arbiter of law, parson in mufti, darling of the playwright and the novelist—God bless you!—while waters lap these shores." ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Mrs. Marteen reclining on a chaise-longue in her library-sitting room, the Pekinese spaniel in her lap and Dorothy by her side. She looked weary, but not ill, and Gard felt ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... answered me in German, saying that she could not speak English. Hardly knowing what I did, I mounted the steps, and placed the child in her arms, first kissing it. Then I tossed my pocket book, containing about twenty dollars, into her lap, and, without another word or act, ran off again. As I drew near the next corner, I turned, and saw the German woman still sitting on the stoop, looking at the child, and then at the money, and then at my flying form, ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... sitting in the saddler's shop, with one of his children on her lap, watching whilst he fashioned for her a saddle, which the citizens of Vaucouleurs were to give her. Bertrand and I were to present the horse she was to ride, and I had also sent to my home for a certain holiday suit and light armour made for a brother ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... The Tyranny menaced. Ephialtes high On shoulders of his brother Otos waved For the bull-bellowings given to grand good news, Compact, complexioned in his gleeful roar While Otos aped the prisoner's wrists and knees, With doleful sniffs between recurrent howls; Till Gaea's lap receiving them, they stretched, And both upon her bosom shaken to speech, Burst the hot story out of throats of both, Like rocky head-founts, baffling in their glut The hurried spout. And as when drifting storm Disburdened loses clasp of here ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... going to the station with you," she said, replying to Peggy's look. "There'll be room enough, won't there, if Dorothy sits in my lap?" ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... And then, all of a sudden, a live fish come a-whirling out of that hole, which he had ketched it with his hands. It was a big bullhead, and its whiskers around its mouth was stiffened into spikes, and it lands kerplump into Mis' Rogers's lap, a-wiggling, and it kind o' horns her on the hands, and she is that surprised she faints. Mis' Primrose, she gets up and pushes that fish back into the cistern with her foot from the floor where it had fell, and she ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... down on a footstool, the book on her lap and one arm round him, her treasure. Penelope waited to take off his hat and pelisse, and was told to come for ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... miscarried. The disappointment and the conception of new schemes of war and conquest by the restless dictator of France, and his need of money to carry out these schemes, were controlling circumstances in leading him to throw in our lap the entire Louisiana Territory. None of these circumstances were within our procurement or knowledge; but who shall say that God was not accomplishing His designs in our behalf amid the turmoil and distressing scenes of Santo Domingo's revolt? And how can it be said that ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... pull back farther under the sofa. Without stopping to think myself, or giving him time to, I pick him up. Susan arches up and spits. I can feel the muscles in his body tense up as he gets ready to spring out of my lap. Then he changes his mind and decides to take advantage of the lap. He narrows his eyes and gives Susan a bored look and turns his head to take me in. After he's sized me up, he pretends he only turned around to lick ...
— It's like this, cat • Emily Neville
... others. One day, when she was driving near Luciennes, a little peasant boy fell under the horses' feet, and might have been killed. The queen took him to Versailles, appointed him a nurse, and installed him in the royal apartments, constantly seating him in her lap at breakfast and dinner. This child afterward grew up a most sanguinary revolutionist! It was nine years before Marie Antoinette had the blessing of any offspring; four children were after that interval, born ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... Bartlett, the main party now consisted of my own division and Henson's. My men were Egingwah and Seegloo; Henson's men were Ootah and Ooqueah. We had five sledges and forty dogs, the pick of one hundred and forty with which we had left the ship. With these we were ready now for the final lap of ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... be hanged!' shouted Caper, breaking through the crowd, and running up-stairs two steps at a time, he nearly walked into the lap of a tall female model, named Giacinta, dressed in Ciociara costume, who was calmly seated on the stair-case, glaring at another female model, named Nina, who stood leaning against the door of ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... toys—Tara's share and her own—in a tight armful, while Tara points at her with a grieved expression which does not touch Evu in the least. A word, however, sets things right. Evu beams upon Tara, and pours the whole armful into her lap. Tara smiles forgivingly, and returns Evu's share. Evu repentantly thrusts them back. Tara's heart overflows, and she hugs Evu. Evu wriggles out of this embrace, and they play for another five minutes or ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... three lines on the subject, seems inclined to countenance this practice; which is, no doubt, convenient enough for those who do not like trouble. His words are: 'A Hyphen, marked thus - is employed in connecting compounded words: as, Lap-dog, tea-pot, pre-existence, self-love, to-morrow, mother-in-law.' Of his six examples, Johnson, our only acknowledged standard, gives the first and third without any separation between the syllables, lapdog, preexistence; his second and fifth as ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... remained at the door, while the prisoner himself walked forward to the middle of the room. Commissioner von Riedau sat at his desk, his clerk beside him ready to take down the evidence. Muller sat near a window with a paper on his lap, looking the least interested of ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner
... a twitter. The old woman was seated in her chair of state, and, reaching down from the mantel-piece a pack of cards, began, after muttering a few words in a language I could not understand, to lay them very carefully in her lap; she then foretold that I should get married, but not to the person in our house, as I expected, but to another young man, whom, if I could afford a trifle, she would show me through her MATRIMONIAL MIRROR. To this I consented, ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... must admit that our philanthropy is useless, boring, and absurd. But still, you must agree, one can't sit with one's hand in one's lap; one must do something. What's to be done with ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... lady looks into the fire, too, and thinks. Then pretty soon she climbs into the Story Teller's lap and leans back, and looks into the fire and thinks ...
— Hollow Tree Nights and Days • Albert Bigelow Paine
... upwards, and having fastened him to the whipping-post, so that he can neither resist nor shun the strokes, to lash the naked body with long but slender twigs of holly, which will bend almost like thongs, and lap round the body; and these having little knots upon them, tear the skin and ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... and swallow'd up In that immense of being. There her hopes Rest at the fated goal. For from the birth Of mortal man, the Sovereign Maker said, That not in humble nor in brief delight, Not in the fading echoes of renown, Power's purple robes, nor pleasure's flowery lap, The soul should find enjoyment: but from these Turning disdainful to an equal good, Through all the ascent of things enlarge her view, Till every bound at length should disappear, 220 And infinite perfection ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... he never knew. When he opened his weary eyes again, he lay on the sward near the hedge, with his head resting upon the lap of a beautiful girl, who was contemplating him with looks of tenderest pity. By her side knelt another young girl, who was bathing his ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... landscape was utterly blotted out; simultaneously the wind died away, and a death-like silence stole over sea and shore. The faint clang, high overhead, of unseen brent, the nearer call of invisible plover, the lap and wash of undistinguishable waters, and the monotonous roll of the vanished ocean, were the only sounds. As night deepened, the far-off booming of the fog-bell on the headland at intervals stirred the ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... giuen lesse matter A better eare. Menas, I did not thinke This amorous Surfetter would haue donn'd his Helme For such a petty Warre: His Souldiership Is twice the other twaine: But let vs reare The higher our Opinion, that our stirring Can from the lap of Egypts Widdow, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... to help along Elzie's plan, the friends among. Upon his cushion he would stand, Or sit, as Elzie might command; Then down upon his blanket lie And be wrapped up like baby-bye; Would lap his milk, or dainty, sip, And shake his pretty under-lip, Thus showing teeth as white as pearl,— Then round and round would quickly whirl, Till each one seeing, cheerful, said: "For that five ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller
... for his black, curly hair was thickly shot with gray. His face in repose was not an unpleasing one, though his heavy brows and aggressive chin gave him, as I had lately seen, a terrible expression when moved to anger. He sat now with his handcuffed hands upon his lap, and his head sunk upon his breast, while he looked with his keen, twinkling eyes at the box which had been the cause of his ill-doings. It seemed to me that there was more sorrow than anger in his rigid and contained countenance. Once he looked up at me with a gleam of something ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... sceptre into while not in use. Never try to kill flies or drive carpet tacks with the sceptre. It is an awkward tool at best, and you might 'easily knock a thumb nail loose. Great care should also be taken of the royal robe. Do not use it for a lap robe while dining, nor sleep in it at night. Nothing looks more repugnant than a king on the throne, with little white feathers all ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... that moans and rakes Upon the strings of this Aeolian lute, Which better far were mute. For lo! the New-moon winter-bright! And overspread with phantom light, 10 (With swimming phantom light o'erspread But rimmed and circled by a silver thread) I see the old Moon in her lap, foretelling The coming-on of rain and squally blast. And oh! that even now the gust were swelling, 15 And the slant night-shower driving loud and fast! Those sounds which oft have raised me, whilst they awed, And sent my soul abroad, Might ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... had been the deil himself—be good to and preserve us!—rather than Christie o' the Clint-hill," said the matron of the mansion, "for the word runs rife in the country, that he is ane of the maist masterfu' thieves ever lap on horse." ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... gentlemen all. A most valuable article, this, and calls for a long purse. Look at him. A sweet thing in creeds. A creed for a king. Has any gentleman a use for the Lap ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... interest and instruction for all students labouring under difficulties. "I learned grammar," said he, "when I was a private soldier on the pay of sixpence a day. The edge of my berth, or that of my guard-bed, was my seat to study in; my knapsack was my book-case; a bit of board lying on my lap was my writing-table; and the task did not demand anything like a year of my life. I had no money to purchase candle or oil; in winter time it was rarely that I could get any evening light but that of the fire, and only my turn even of that. And if I, under such circumstances, and without ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... the ardent sportsman sits down with a groan and waits, listening to the soft lap of the tide. And then at last virtue is rewarded. First of all two wild duck come over, cleaving the air like arrows. The mallard is missed, but the left barrel reaches the duck, and down it comes with a full and satisfying thud. ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... got back it was dark, and he stood at his cottage door and looked in. Louise was sitting by the hearth, with her back to him, and her hands in her lap, rocking herself gently on her stool, and gazing into the glowing ash on the hearthstone. Opposite, on the other side of the hearth, Peter's own stool stood empty, and on the shelf beside it were the two yellow ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... cradle which she has been rocking, she lifts small Will to her lap, and he stretching frosty fingers and toes all tingling to the heat, snuggles close. He is glad Mother speaks sharply and is outdone about it; somehow this makes it ...
— A Warwickshire Lad - The Story of the Boyhood of William Shakespeare • George Madden Martin
... a shallow bowl of milky soup. Brett looked at the array of spoons, forks, knives, glanced sideways at the diners at the next table. It was important to follow the correct ritual. He put his napkin in his lap, careful to shake out all the folds. He looked at the spoons again, picked a large one, glanced at the waiter. So far so ...
— It Could Be Anything • John Keith Laumer
... in consequence of Varney in his haste to get up stairs, having inadvertently stepped into the girl's lap with one foot, while he kicked her in the chin with the other, besides scratching her nose till ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... ever-delightful "Lady of the Lake." Of course, she told it in prose and arranged it to suit our mental capacity. Our father was generally in his corner by the fire, most probably with a foot in either the lap of myself or youngest sister—the tickling going on briskly—and would come in at different points of the tale and repeat line after line of the poem— much to our ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... up and looking over the tops of the seats that others beside ourselves were ill at ease; for Granny Tucker gave such starts when she heard the sounds, that twice her spectacles fell off her nose into her lap, and Master Ratsey seemed to be trying to mask the one noise by making another himself, whether by shuffling with his feet or by thumping down his prayer-book. But the thing that most surprised me was that even Elzevir Block, who cared, men said, for neither God nor Devil, ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... ground, true enough, sat Joy, exhausted and frightened and sobbing, with Winnie sound asleep in her lap. ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... father's head in her lap, one hand smoothing his forehead while the other felt under his vest and ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... He innocently caught her in the act of looking at him. A younger woman, or a woman of weaker character, would have looked away again. Stella's noble head drooped; her eyes sank slowly, until they rested on her long white hands crossed upon her lap. For a moment more Romayne looked ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... Colonel ——'s, we traveled all night on the railroad. One of my children slept in my lap, the other on the narrow seat opposite to me, from which she was jolted off every quarter of an hour by the uneasy motion of the carriage, and the checks and stops of the engine, which was out of order. The carriage, though full of people, was heated with a stove, and every time this was replenished ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... her husband's mother slipped a warm, delicate hand into hers. Nan, leaning past Sam's knee, reached up and patted her sister-in-law's lap. Everybody else smiled, in his or her most friendly way, at Oliver's wife; and Oliver himself, though he said nothing, and merely continued to stare fixedly into the fire, looked as if he would be willing to tack pulpit stair-carpets for a living, if it would help to bring ...
— On Christmas Day In The Evening • Grace Louise Smith Richmond
... dead Christ in the embrace of his sorrowing mother, accompanied by sorrowing women and angels; that sculptured by Michael Angelo, in St. Peter's at Rome, representing the Virgin at the foot of the cross, and the dead Christ in her lap. ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... Sam with a curious light in his eyes took me to a door which he opened just a crack. Through the crack he showed me a small back room full of round iron tables. And at one of these a man, stoker or sailor I don't know which, his face flushed red under dirt and hair, held in his lap a big fat girl half dressed, giggling and queer, quite drunk. And then while Sam whispered on and on about the shuttered rooms upstairs, I felt a rush of such sickening fear and loathing that I wanted to ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... conceal, Langering, sauntering, Lapped, took in her lap, Large, generous, Largeness, liberality, Laton, latten, brass, Laund, waste plain, Layne, conceal, Lazar-cot, leper-house, Learn, teach, Lears, cheeks, Leaved, leafy, Lecher, fornicator, Leech, physician, ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... away their clothes, and painted themselves, like the Indians, with arnotto and indigo. One lay lazily picking up the fruit which fell close to his side; the other sat, his back against a cushion of soft moss, his hands folded languidly upon his lap, giving himself up to the soft influence of the narcotic coca-juice, with half-shut dreamy eyes fixed on the ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... revelation of wretchedness to the little life at her side, that the lady was dumb. Unconsciously to herself—almost unconsciously to the boy—her arms closed around him, and she lifted him into her lap. There, with his head against her breast, he concluded his story; and there were tears upon his hair, rained from the eyes that bent above him. They sat for a long minute in silence. Then the lady, to keep herself from bursting into hysterical tears, ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... materials, and upon every process of manufacture, and a further tax of six per cent on sales, to say nothing of stamps and licenses? Look at the report of the Revenue Commission,[F] which tells us that most of the duties are duplicated, till they lap over like shingles and slates, and come to ten or twenty per cent on manufactures. Look at their story of the umbrella! Think of Webster's Spelling-Book printed in London for our schools, to evade the taxes! Think of the men who go to Montreal, Halifax, and even to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... a package of bonds in Lady Clara's lap, and stood with a beaming face, regarding her puzzled look, as ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... very low and the sky was dull; there was just enough water to lap against the sides of the boat, and make it rock up and down. The boat fretted like a petulant child, and pulled at the rope as a dog pulls against its chain, but it could not get ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... seat quietly at the table. Sit firmly in your chair, without lolling, leaning back, drumming, or any other uncouth action. Unfold your napkin and lay it in your lap, eat soup delicately with a spoon, holding a piece of bread in your left hand. Be careful to make no noise in ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... general among them on the way home, with all but her; she was thinking. She even forgot her strawberries for little Winifred, which she meant to have given her in full view of her cousin. She held her basket on her lap, and looked at the water and didn't ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... grumbling, was a good deal pleased upon this day, for the route of the waggon took them by several salt-pools, whose waters the dogs rushed to lap, but came back shaking their heads and barking furiously, growling at Dick and Jack, who laughed at them, as if they were resenting a trick that had been played at ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn |
