"Listener" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... idea there. He likes to talk about himself, and explain to me his views on morals as manners, but he is not the least interested in me. I am a very good listener, you know. Grandmamma ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... the man. "Whose was it?" He did not learn the name, but it was a young man of great promise, whose father was abroad upon his travels. "The father was much famed for his wisdom and justice." "Was it Solon?" cried the listener. "It was." Solon burst into tears, tore his hair, and beat his breast; but Thales took his hand, saying, "Now you see, O Solon, why I have never married, lest I should expose myself to griefs such as ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... establishing, as it were, a prescriptive right of way between herself and her husband, and treading under foot the very flowers that should have grown only for their own two selves in the intimacy of their home. She became gradually a less animated, but was still, he thought, an interested listener, when he came home after being in the society of his lady friends, and recounted his triumphs. If this was so, she at all events began to be more particular about her own dress and appearance, and set to work now to systematically cultivate the social talent which she ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... an 'indeed,' or 'really,' was all that was needed by way of reply; and he was forced sometimes to stop to enable him to eat, and this kept him from being oppressive. But as he found her so good a listener, there was no getting rid of him; for when the gentlemen joined the ladies in the drawing-room, he devoted himself entirely to Miss Leicester—to Lucy's intense amusement. At last Ada grew compassionate, and got Charles to ask Isabel to sing, and to introduce Mr. Lascelles to Miss ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... groanings and sobs, forming altogether a ghastly confusion of terror and mourning and mirth. Chains were rattling, fierce and stern voices uttered threats and the scourge resounded at their command. All these noises deepened and became substantial to the listener's ear, till she could distinguish every soft and dreamy accent of the love-songs that died causelessly into funeral-hymns. She shuddered at the unprovoked wrath which blazed up like the spontaneous kindling of ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... listener cries, With a sweet look of sympathy in her young eyes: "And then you were lonely, poor Grandma! I know, But so ...
— Grandma's Memories • Mary D. Brine
... cried I, detaining her, 'I should not dare to again address you after the repulse of last night, had I not just now been an inadvertent, but delighted listener to your own sweet confession that you loved me. Let me say in return that I love you as wildly, tenderly, passionately, as if I, like you, had been born under a southern sun; that I cannot be happy without you. Forgive me for ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... fine example of Browning's skill in the use of dramatic monologue. (See Introduction.) The Duke is skilfully made to reveal his own character and motives, and those of the Duchess, and at the same time to indicate the actions of himself and his listener. ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... this fine evening put me in mind of it; it is Mrs Barbauld's Ode." And then putting myself into due attitude, I mouthed it through, much to my own, and still more to Mr R's satisfaction. That was a curious, a simple, and yet a cheering scene. My listener was swaying to and fro, with the cadences of the poetry; I with passionate fervour ranting before him; and, in the meantime, his rod and line, unnoticed by either, were navigating peacefully, yet rapidly, down the river. When ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... me with his long bony hand. "Sit down, and let me hear my voice using again its mother tongue—you were always a good listener—for the last eight years I have hardly spoken it. Can you stand the room? The windows ought to be open, but what does it matter? I may as well get accustomed to the heat before ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... Miss Chubb, turning to that young lady, who had taken only the part of a passive listener to this colloquy, and was gazing over the railing at the sinking sun, "surely YOU can tell us something about this poor young man. If I don't mistake, you are the only person he ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... and law in his household, for all its members, parents and children, masters and servants. He entertained hospitably his full share of "the godly preachers," who were the wandering luminaries, and, in some respects, the angelic visitants of those days. He was evidently a very patient listener to sermons, though we have not the proof in any surviving notebooks of his that one of his excellent son John's furnishes us, that he took pains to transcribe the heads, the savory passages, and the textual attestations of the elaborate, but utterly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... gossip and news into local history of considerable size. As in the busier world men talk of last year's elections, here these old bits, and scraps, and odds and ends of history are retailed to the listener who cares to listen—traditions of the War of 1812, when Beresford's fleet lay off the harbor threatening to bombard the town; tales of the Revolution and of Earl Howe's warships, tarrying for a while in the quiet harbor before they sailed up ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... short simple school-girl salon pieces. The Buchers were a real orchestra. With the ladies at the piano, the old Herr at the flute, Ernst at the violin and Rudi at the 'cello, they could play a dozen programmes and furnish enjoyment for the listener. ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... depressing influences of the Academical Crypt, we forget all but our admiration of JANAUSCHEK'S superb acting, and the exceptional command which she has gained over a language so vexatious in its villanous consonants as our own. And we express to every available listener the earnest hope that SKEBACH and FECHTER will profit by her success, and at once begin the study of English, with the view of devoting their efforts ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 33, November 12, 1870 • Various
... you not up to them better, Collet Pardue?" asked the neighbour who was the listener to poor Collet's list of grievances. "Can't you rouse yourself and see ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... particular, rapidly found themselves to be kindred spirits. In each was ingrained a powerful love of adventure. Alick, a great reader, who had devoured already his father's little library, which was made up for the most part of books on seafaring subjects, found in Ned Dempster a listener who hungered for as much of that exciting fare as Alick could manage to ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... ever written—poems, fancy sketches, visions, romances, tales, and the heap was increased daily with all kinds of aimless sonnets, stanzas, canzonets. All these he read to Olimpia hour after hour without growing tired; but then he had never had such an exemplary listener. She neither embroidered, nor knitted; she did not look out of the window, or feed a bird, or play with a little pet dog or a favourite cat, neither did she twist a piece of paper or anything of that kind round her finger; she did not forcibly convert ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... forest-filled valley with green tracery, while warm sunlight beat through. So, in contrast to the past, I found it comforting to lounge away the time there with a fair companion, while glancing down the glistening metals I told how we had built the line. Alice was a good listener, and the tale may have had its interest, while—and this is not wholly due to vanity—no man talks better than when he speaks to a sympathizing woman of the work that he is proud of. It was no disloyalty ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... carefully and with a student's precision, over the grounds of Martial's arguments, for the satisfaction of Jacqueline. Much pride as well as joy had he in the service; for he reverenced his teacher, and feared nothing so much, in these repetitions, as that this listener, this animated, thinking, feeling Jacqueline, should lose anything by his transmission of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... attain even with a pen. He has a wonderful memory and can repeat, without missing a single word, even his extempore speeches. He has attained this facility by study and constant practice, for he does nothing else day or night: either as a listener or speaker he is for ever discussing. He has passed his sixtieth year and is still only a rhetorician, and there is no more honest and upright class of men living. For we who are always rubbing shoulders with others in the Forum and in the lawsuits of everyday life, cannot help picking up a good ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... sharpening his tone did away with the doubt in the mind of the hidden listener. She had said to herself that the woman was here by appointment, and that this hour had been chosen because the meeting ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... Oswald, who had been an amused listener to the conversation, broke in, "you have had evidence, but lately, that it is not so. Had you not been able to read the priest's missal, he would have seen, at once, that you were not a monk; but the fact that you did so, ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... something of use to them. I believe that such a church and such a Sunday school would at the end of a few years be the most intelligent collection of people in the United States. To teach the children all of these things and to teach their parents, too, the outlines of every science, so that every listener would know something of geology, something of astronomy, so that every member could tell the manner in which they find the distance of a star— how much better that would be than the old talk about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and quotations from Haggai and Zephaniah, ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... and her listener, both of whom were sitting on the floor, was instantaneous. Each started and sat rigidly intent for a moment; then, as the sound of approaching footsteps became audible, one girl hastily slipped a little volume under the counterpane ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... interest in his repeated failures. From the time he was seven years old Cyrus Hall McCormick became his father's closest companion. Others might ridicule and revile, but this chubby, bright-eyed, intelligent little boy was always the keenest listener, the one comfort which the father had against his jeering neighbors. He also became his father's constant associate in his rough workshop. Soon, however, the older man noticed a change in their relations. The boy was becoming the teacher, ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... with unrestrained frenzy. He seemed hardly to know what he was saying, or that he had a listener. Claudet stood contemplating him in sullen silence: "Aha!" thought he, with bitter resignation; "I have sounded you at last. I know what is in the bottom of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... moment later as he crossed over to the client's chair that Myra caught sight of him from the schooner's deck. The child cowered back into the shadow of the deck-house, her eyes intent again on the listener leaning out from the quay-door. He could not even see what she had seen; and if Tom was in talk with anyone inside her own ears caught no sound of it. Nevertheless her uncle's attitude left no room to doubt that he was playing the spy, and trying, ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... no need for her to ask any questions about the event of yesterday. All that was known by every one had been told to Mr. Leigh already by an early visitor, and he, full of horror and sympathy, was able to tell the terrible story over again to a listener, whose deep and agonizing interest ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... the various expressions which are the natural and true reflection of the state of the mind, but to the strained attention which draws the facial muscles, not at all in sympathy with the speaker, but as a consequence of the tense nerves and contracted muscles of the listener. "I do not understand why I have this peculiar sort of asthma every Sunday afternoon," a lady said to me. She was in the habit of hearing, Sunday morning, a preacher, exceedingly interesting, but with a very rapid utterance, and whose ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... Barron's his obstinate and offended listener had become quite convinced of the justice of her own conclusions. The sarcasm had settled it. She knew, now, that she had been right all along in her suspicion of the porcupines. And with this certainty her indignation suddenly disappeared. It is such a comfort to be certain. So now, instead ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... was McFarlane—which it was not—and told a wily tale of having been directed to a logging camp where hands were needed, of alighting at the wrong station and losing his way in an attempted short cut through the woods. Meanwhile his listener, a man of weather-beaten face and a great shock of gray hair, observed him with shrewd attention. At ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... and he seemed to enjoy his power, and yet to suffer in the telling, without perhaps being fully conscious of it. The oars dropped from his hands and fell in against the thwarts of the boat, and he clasped his knees and looked up as he talked, not regarding at all his single silent listener. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... beginners who are still struggling with their art, should awaken in the heart of the intelligent listener not contemptuous criticism, but should be one means of realizing one's own vocal defects and the ...
— Caruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing • Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini
... pompous swagger of infantry drum-majors, all combine to vary the scene and amuse the eye. But in Turkey this is not so. All are equally dirty and unkempt, while the hideous attempts at music have very far from a soothing effect. An attentive listener may hear a single voice four times in the day calling to prayer, a custom which, under no circumstances, is ever omitted. Of the internal response to this appeal I am of course unable to judge, but from ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... said the corporal, "when she told me herself that she cared more for me than she did for him, I wasn't going to stand any of his talk—" The corporal's listener was so sleepy that he could only ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... the small house and the small life she had led in it, even about the furniture and the bric-a-brac, confessing to her occasional clearances and the deception she had to practise on her father about them. He was very silent, but he was a good listener. Soon he began to smoke, but did not ask leave. This might be rudeness, but seemed a rather cousinly sort of rudeness, and ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... and tell one another long and irrelevant stories, all about nothing. When the auditor remarks, "Your story is indeed a sad one—but go on," a shudder goes through the house, which becomes a groan ten minutes later when the listener says: "You have told me your history—now hear mine!" He tells it; it proves, if possible, duller and more irrelevant than the other man's. A love-scene follows, characterised by all the sparkle and brilliancy of "Temperance Champagne"; the House witnesses the fall ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, April 2, 1892 • Various
... carelessly (for if there were spies about, I did not want to arouse suspicion), and stopped where the light fell full on me, for I knew well the value of impressing Black Hawk with the splendor of my dress. For the benefit of any possible listener, I told him that the governor's halls were hot and I must needs get a draft of cold air before I could go back to my dancing. Then I talked to him of Daniel Boone, for he had been with us on our trip to his home, and ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... elephant, having buried his four bullets in as many buffaloes, fired three charges of No. 1 shot he had for killing guinea-fowl. The quaint remarks and merriment after these little adventures seemed to the listener like the pleasant prattle of children. Mbia and Mantlanyane, however, killed one buffalo each; both the beasts were in prime condition; the meat was like really excellent beef, with a smack of venison. ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... of mind, is good, we, feeling it to be a means only, do very properly seek its good effects, and our last justification is always that it produces good states of mind. Thus, when asked why we call a patent fertiliser good, we may, if we can find a listener, show that the fertiliser is a means to good crops, good crops a means to food, food a means to life, and life a necessary condition of good states of mind. Further we cannot go. When asked why we hold a particular state of mind to be good, the state of aesthetic contemplation ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... all their wholesome joys as well as in their little bothers and perplexities. I understand them, you see; and let me tell you it is no easy matter to understand the little lads and lassies." He sent to each listener his beaming glance, and, permitting it to come to rest upon ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... front of the speaker, holding a babe in her arms, while a little fellow sprawls out on the ground beside her, drawing on the sand with his finger. Though we cannot see her face, we know that she is an absorbed listener, and Jesus seems to ...
— Rembrandt - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... colony was thought to be inimical to the best interests of the master class. Ignorance was the sine qua non of slavery. The civil government and ecclesiastical establishment ground him, body and spirit, as between "the upper and nether millstones." But the Negro was a good listener, and was not unconscious of what was going on around him. He was ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... Knowe was favorable both for storyteller and listener. It commanded a wide view over all the border country, with its feudal towers, its haunted glens, and wizard streams. As the old shepherd told his tales, he could point out the very scene of action. Thus, before Scott could walk, he was made familiar with the scenes of ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... would probably give a direction to the imaginations of all the others; unless, indeed, the ventriloquist himself, by his words, or his own movements, as is usually the case, should assume the initiative. Every ventriloquist takes especial care to direct the imagination of his listener to the desired point, either by what he says, by some gesture, or by some movement. Such, undeniably, is the fact in regard to ventriloquism; for we know enough of the philosophy of sound, to be certain it can he nothing ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... jockey, taking a whiff, "make your conversation as short as possible, whether in Latin or Dutch, for, to tell you the truth, I am rather tired of merely playing listener." ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... point of the discussion Bob Smithers joined the disputants, and having been an unseen listener to these objurgations; and, having a natural antipathy to the blacks, and a vindictive desire to annoy his lately discovered rival, had a corresponding inclination to support Mr. Rainsfield's determination to punish ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... most wonderful listener that any one could wish to have, though he himself was rather silent. If the talk turned on great questions of knowledge, morality, the object of life, Dorfling's share in the conversation consisted in the following half-audible remark: "Yes, it is a powerful and interesting subject. I have just ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... black, and well made; the buttons were all on. His shirt was clean. I took note of this, for he had a dissipated look, and a rumpled shirt would have been natural. A man's linen tells on him before his other clothes. His listener had evidently been impressed by him also, for he arose, and said, abruptly, "Let's go and take a drink." To my surprise "No. 4" declined. "No, I thank you," he said, with promptness. I instinctively looked at him again ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... had known before, her father had been, even in his weakness, her tyrant; Wullie had been her playmate all her life; the doctor, all alone and friendless in a small, remote village, had found in her an intelligent listener, and had talked quite impersonally to her, as a safety-valve for his own loneliness. To them all she had been just a girl in certain circumstances; her circumstances and not herself had really been the thing that impressed them; she was just someone ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... the left the main road which led to it, struck into the fields, the strange and solemn beauty of the landscape, lighted up, by numberless lamps, to the verge of the horizon, fascinated my eyes, and rendered me for some time an inattentive listener to the ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... affair as much as 'tis yours!" answered Peace sharply, and the listener in the hay below fancied there was the suggestion of ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... the exaggerated information on the then new divorce laws which Beaucock imparted to his listener was the result of ignorance, and how much of dupery, was never ascertained. But he related such a plausible story of the ease with which Grace could become a free woman that her father was irradiated with the project; and though ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... within a pace of us and was an interested listener appeared not to temper her expressions ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a silent and attentive listener. All through the solemnities of the sermon, that seemed written for his sake, and to point right at him, he had never moved his keen, steady eyes away from the preacher's face. The text of that ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... a sheaf of notes, but in reality he had the various points of the case at his finger tips. "You will excuse me if I talk on very private matters," he said, apologetically, "but as we are alone," again Mrs. Krill glanced at the curtain and thereby confirmed Hurd's suspicions of an unseen listener, "you will not mind my ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... acquire. A part of the good abbe's words, however, were wholly incomprehensible to him; but, like the aurora which guides the navigator in northern latitudes, opened new vistas to the inquiring mind of the listener, and gave fantastic glimpses of new horizons, enabling him justly to estimate the delight an intellectual mind would have in following one so richly gifted as Faria along the heights of truth, where he was so much ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... her laugh, other stories that made her feel like crying. And—he brought out the best there was in her. She was presently talking of the things about which she had always been reticent—the real thoughts of her mind, those she had suppressed because she had had no sympathetic listener, those she looked forward to talking over with Dumont in that happy time when they would be together and would renew the intimacy interrupted since ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... down in the mile race; now he was singing one of his old child's hymns; now he was laughing over the downfall of Mr Bickers; now he was making a speech at the debating society. It was impossible for the listener to follow all his wild incoherent talk, it was all so mixed up and jumbled. But if Railsford harboured any doubts as to the correctness of his surmise about the picture, the circumstantial details of the outrage repeated over and over in the boy's wild ravings ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... McChesney's listener, suddenly. "How a woman like you can waste her time on the road is more than I can see. And—I want to thank you. I'm not such ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... mean that these surf boat crews are paid to save the cargo, and that human life is left to the care of the government?" cried a listener indignantly. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... 'butt' of me - his banter was too good-natured for that - but he treated me as Dr. Primrose treated his son after the bushel-of-green-spectacles bargain. He invented the most wonderful stories, and told them with imperturbable sedateness. Finding a credulous listener in me, he drew all the more freely upon his invention. When, however, he gravely asserted that Jonas was not the only man who had spent three days and three nights in a whale's belly, but that he himself had caught a whale with a man inside it who ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... an intent listener during these discussions. "It does seem that the old statement, 'that necessity is the mother ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... was repeated, the listener's face grew stern, and when Polly came to the end of her story he fingered the little silver elephant upon his desk before ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... the fight again and again before they lay down to rest, telling her he had done this and that, and what he would do to the next beast of the sort. The reiteration was tiresome enough, or would have been to an outside listener, but to Emmeline it was better than Homer. People's minds do not improve in an intellectual sense when they are isolated from the world, even though they are living the wild and happy ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... did not seem like the same person she had known under the same name, he was so much more free and pleasant and bright to talk than he had ever been to her before, or in her observation, to anybody. He talked to a very silent listener, albeit she lost never a word nor a tone. She wondered at him and at everything, and stepped along wondering, with a heart too full to speak, almost too full ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... whom and his mother there had been differences, chiefly brought on by my Lady Walham, of course, which had ended in the almost total estrangement of mother and son. Lady Kew then administered her advice, and told her stories with Ethel alone for a listener; and in a most edifying manner, she besought Miss Newcome to menager Lord Kew's susceptibilities, as she valued her own future comfort in life, as well as the happiness of a most amiable man, of whom, if properly managed, Ethel might make what she pleased. ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... changed, as he spoke, to one of fierce enthusiasm, and his listener shuddered. Then, sinking his voice, he went on, as ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... the tone of the man seemed to his listener uncalled for—in a sense reproachful, singular. Harris bridled in ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... That is why I want to walk with you. I wish to give you a piece of my mind, and it won't be pleasant to listen to, I can assure you. So there must be no listener but yourself." ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... chamber-candlestick in hand, and she was in the act of stepping out, when her step was arrested by words which seemed to pierce into the listener's brain:— ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... the widest freedom, was decided on as the most feasible method. The new camp must be located well above Hackberry Grove, and to provision it for man and horse was one of the many details outlined in meeting the coming winter. Joel was an attentive listener, and having held cattle by one system, he fully understood the necessity of adopting some other manner of restraint. In locating cattle, where there was danger of drifting from any cause, the method of riding lines was simple and easily understood—to patrol the line liable ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... have said too much of myself, especially to you, in whom singly the grievances of all our allies alike find a listener. You will learn the truth from those who think themselves restored to life by my administration. And while all with nearly one consent will praise me in your hearing as I most desire to be praised, so will your two chief client ...
— Letters of Cicero • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... special care to the accenting of words.[50] This has been done so that the signs that have been placed correctly over the accented letter will allow the listener to understand the meaning of the words and the sentences of the speaker. For instance, qixi has the accent on both ; fbicxi has it on the first i and on the a.[51] This same {110} arrangement will be respected in the dictionary, with ...
— Diego Collado's Grammar of the Japanese Language • Diego Collado
... charms in nature, In a daisy, I; Cleon hears no anthems ringing 'Twixt the sea and sky; Nature sings to me forever, Earnest listener, I; State for state, with all ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... I would urge that a play, any more than a novel, need not be dramatic, employing the term as it is usually employed. In so far as it suspends the listener's interest, every tale, however told, may be said to be dramatic. In this sense The Golden Bowl is dramatic; so are Dominique and Persuasion. A play need not be more dramatic than that. Very emphatically a play ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett
... "I wish you could hear the beautiful, tender, winning way in which she boasts of her husband. She's as proud of him for going and leaving her as she is of you for staying! Fact is, I can't tell which of you she's proudest of." She gave her listener a fascinated smile, with which he showed himself at such a loss to know what to do that she liked him still ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... all the time to be saying something that sounded cheerful and encouraging. But his voice came only as a vague murmur to the listener's ears. Presently, however, there came a word which set his pulses tingling. Madame said something about "Gentilly," and directly afterwards: "You will have to be very careful, my dear M. Bertin. The chateau, I feel ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... "though I fear you will find me a moody companion, and a somewhat silent one; but then, I shall be the better listener, so light your pipe, sir, and, while ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... secret weight in her bosom. She always opens up her heart to the nearest listener. This probably relieves Aggie, but it does not make her a cheerful companion. Eight o'clock and darkness came, and still no Tish. I went into the cave and brought out my gun, and Aggie roused Mr. Muldoon and explained the situation to ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... that the fire had already died out:—well that a dark cloud rolled up before the moon:—well that the narrator could not see the face of his listener, when he said that: ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... readers out of ten will have had the worldly wisdom to skip; and the tenth is soon satiated: yet a tithe is something, at least so think the modern Levites; so, then, on second thoughts, a victim who is so good a listener must not be let off quite so cheaply. However, to vary a little this melancholy musing, and to gild the compulsory pill, Reserve shall be served up sonnet-wise. (P. S. I love the sonnet, maligned as it is both by ill-attempting friend and ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... attract to her, and appeared satisfied when any one individual of a particular kind got a fragment of her bread. Meanwhile she talked eagerly to the little ones, calling their attention to the different birds. Drawing near, I also became an interested listener; and then, in answer to my questions, she began telling me what all these strange fowls were. "This," she said, glad to give information, "is the Canadian goose, and there is the Egyptian goose; and here is the king-duck coming towards us; and do you see that large, beautiful ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... once complied, and related all that the reader already knows, in a deep, serious tone of voice, for he felt that in the captain he had a sympathetic listener. ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... few books anything that was as good as the gossip one could hear by chance in France. The intimate yarn of the observant soldier home on leave, who could trust his listener, is superior to much one sees in print. In that way I heard the best story of the War. If it could be put down as it was given to me it would be a masterpiece. But it cannot be reproduced. It came ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... words dashed upon the silent listener, until the speaker suddenly bethought himself and stopped in abashment,—this man he was rebuking had been to him as a father in God, his kind friend from childhood, and first among the great and good. Almost overwhelmed by his own temerity, ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... another story thereof, wherein were I minded to swerve from the fact, I had very well known to disguise and recount it under other names; but, for that, in the telling of a story, to depart from the truth of things betided detracteth greatly from the listener's pleasure, I will e'en tell it you in its true shape, ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... bodies of animals and were ever hovering near. The ghosts of the dead and male and female demons were birds, like the birds of Fate which sang to Siegfried. When the owl raised its melancholy voice in the darkness the listener heard the spirit of a departed mother crying for her child. Ghosts and evil spirits wandered through the streets in darkness; they haunted empty houses; they fluttered through the evening air as bats; they hastened, moaning dismally, across ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... already acquired a knowledge of European politics which many men of sixty would have envied. In figure he was tall, with a tendency already manifested to put on flesh, good-looking, genial and sympathetic in manner, a bon vivant, passionately fond of dancing and society, an excellent talker or listener as the occasion demanded. His intelligence was quick, his powers of handling details and of grasping broad principles were alike remarkable. He wrote with ease, clearness, and precision; he knew what hard work meant and revelled in it. Unfortunately he ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... fact they are indispensable, if the spirit is to express itself without restraint. And the greater mechanical command one has the less noticeable it becomes. All that suggests effort, awkwardness, difficulty, repels the listener, who more than anything else delights in a singing violin tone. Vieuxtemps often said: Pas de trait pour le trait—chantez, chantez! (Not runs for the ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... had been among the highest.' He spoke not with pride, but in a low and deep voice which went to the heart of the listener, and brought the tears to her eyes. It was not like that of the painter in the heavenly city, who rejoiced and was glad in his work, though he was but as a humble workman, serving those who were more great. But this man had the sorrow of greatness ...
— The Little Pilgrim: Further Experiences. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... are the secret speakings of slander, to the slandered and to the listener thereto alike, and are as foxes in relentless temper. Yet for the beast whose name is of gain[10] what great thing is gained thereby? For like the cork above the net, while the rest of the tackle laboureth deep in the sea, I ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... when, immediately after his appointment, his vote for the orphan school had been solicited for the two boys, and he had been asked to subscribe to the Comment on the Philippians. Mr Audley felt that he had a sympathising listener, and was not slow to tell the whole story of the family—what the father had been, what Felix now was, and how his influence and that of little Lancelot had told upon their young inmate. The Bishop listened with emotion, ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of time Charles developed into a fanatic on the subject of the Negro oppression and neglected business to indulge in wild tirades whenever he could find a listener. He became more anxious to make converts than to obtain subscribers, and the more conservative darkies began to get afraid of him. Meanwhile he got into touch with certain agitators in the North and made himself a distributing agent for their literature, ...
— Mob Rule in New Orleans • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... the renowned Charlemagne, the knight's smooth, pale cheek flushed with pride, for the blood of that great emperor flowed warm in his veins. When the pardon of all sins was promised by Christ's vicar to the soldier of the cross, the listener started. To his mind came the recollection of past exploits,—deeds glorious in the eyes of the world, but which left a sting in that tender conscience. And the troubled ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... appreciative critic a singular feeling of his own indiscretion—almost of his own cruelty. They are so light, so slight, so tenderly trivial, that simply to mention them is to put them in a false position. The author's claim for them is barely audible, even to the most acute listener. They are things to take or to leave—to enjoy, but not to talk about. Not to read them would be to do them an injustice (to read them is essentially to relish them), but to bring the machinery of criticism to bear upon them ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... to the heart of the unhappy listener like the touch of ice to the hand. There was a kindling light of hope in Miss Burton's face, and something in her tone that indicated the courage of an unfaltering trust as she ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... heard enough. Rarely had key-hole listener been so well rewarded. She glided back to her room, and threw herself on her bed. She was none too soon. In a few minutes afterwards steps were heard in the passage and then came a rap upon her door. The fair conspirator ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... always opening afresh, and on descending the shallow steps, they told off into groups, where all talked at once, with lively gesticulation. A few faces had the strained look that indicates the conscientious listener; but most of these young musicians were under the influence of a stimulant more potent than wine, which manifested itself in a nervous ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... a great principle," cried Evans, "to the petty effect of a good story on an appreciative listener. I realise your predicament. But don't you see that in establishing and regulating a place like that the city of Boston has instinctively sanctioned my idea? You may say that it is aiding and abetting the tramp-nuisance by giving vagrants food and shelter, but other philosophers ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... incoherent words which issued from her lips. She incessantly called on her father to save himself, and then would talk about Brian, and sing snatches of song, or would sob broken sentences about her dead mother, until the heart of the listener ached to hear her. No one was allowed into the room except Sal, and when Dr. Chinston heard the things she was saying, although used to ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... settlement, and this launched Mr. Pennypacker upon a favorite theme of his. He liked to predict how the colony would grow, sowing new seed, and already he saw great cities to be. He found a ready listener in Lucy. This too appealed to her imagination at times, and if at other times interest was lacking, she was too fond of the old man to let him know it. Presently when she had finished she filled the pail and stood up, straight ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... head at the cigars and went on to tell him of all that had happened since the murder of Crone. He was a good listener—he took in every detail, every point, quietly smoking while I talked, and never interrupting me. And when I had made an end, he threw up his head with a ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... to some satisfactory compromise? Thereupon he plunged into the statistics of the earnings and expenses of the road (with the aid of his note-book), and made the absolute necessity of retrenchment plain. Meanwhile, as he talked he studied the attentive listener before him; and Harry, on his part, made quite as good use of his eyes. Armorer saw a tall, athletic, fair young man, very carefully, almost foppishly dressed, with bright, steady blue eyes and a firm chin, but a smile under his mustache like a child's; it was ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... was an excellent listener, Lady Maulevrier's vivacity never flagged throughout the dinner, happily not so long as a modern banquet, albeit more ponderous and not less expensive. From the turtle to the pines and strawberries, Lady Maulevrier held her host or her right-hand neighbour in interested conversation. She ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... a very extensive prevalence; and since advice cannot be given but to those that will hear it, a patient listener is necessary to the accommodation of all those who desire to be confirmed in the opinion of their own wisdom: a patient listener, however, is not always to be had; the present age, whatever age is present, is so vitiated and disordered that young people ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... merely an inharmonious vocal go-as-you-please, in which each frog is the embodiment of the idea that upon its jubilant efforts the honour and reputation of the race as vocalists depend. But to one class of listener the opera is decently if not scientifically constituted. There is the loud and cheerful, if not shrill, bleating of the soprano, the strenuous booming of the bass, the velvety softness and depth of the contralto and the thin high tenor. Hordes of the alert, ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... begs Luca to exhort his friends to study the sacred writings, for only what a man has learned in life does he possess in death. Luca then reads and explains to him the story of the Passion according to the Gospel of St. John; the poor listener, strange to say, can perceive clearly the Godhead of Christ, but is perplexed at His manhood; he wishes to get as firm a hold of it 'as if Christ came to meet him out of a wood.' His friend thereupon exhorts him to be humble, since this was only a doubt sent ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... and proceeded to fill the dying lamp with fresh oil from a tin can she had brought in her capacious basket. Then sitting down on the foot of the narrow cot, she began and recounted the events of the morning to her anxious listener, ending with: ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... into that pleasant arbour, where honeysuckles, ripened by the sun, like ungrateful minions, forbid the sun to enter." This arbour, into which Hero desired Margaret to entice Beatrice, was the very same pleasant arbour where Benedick had so lately been an attentive listener. ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... a brief description of my morning's adventure, but there was something in my listener's face that called forth detail after detail, and her eyes kindled as I told the tale of the battle that won Omega in the stock Board, and the fight that rescued the fruits of victory in the office ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... as perfect as that of the great violinists, her high notes had the rarefied quality of the E string finely touched. It was a flawless, if a purely popular, performance; and the musical heart of one listener in that crowded room was too full for mere applause. But he waited with patient curiosity for the encore, waited while courtesy after courtesy was given in vain. She had to yield; she yielded with a winning grace. And the first bars of the new song set one full heart beating, so that the earlier ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... coquettish anxiety, her shoulders rocked in a stream of inaudible tones whose tempo seemed now hurried, now excessively slow. Suddenly she seized something and held it before her,—it was a mirror; glancing into it, she recoiled with a shudder and let it fall, so that the listener could hear the clinking of the broken glass; then she went up to the window, tore her dress from her bosom, laid her hand upon her bare breast and looked straight in the direction where Monsieur Seguret was standing. He crouched down as if a gun had been ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... gladly told what he knew of the varied exploits of the twins, and his eager listener absorbed every word. At length when Allison could think of no more, and the afternoon shadows grew long, ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... lips, and wandering fishy eyes, standing in the corridor of the concierge lodge. He had not uttered a word, nor had he hurried the good landlady in her explanations and excuses. It was Inspector Loup's custom. He assumed the attitude of a professional listener. Seldom any one had ever resisted the subtle power of that silent interrogation. Even the most stubborn and recalcitrant were compelled to yield after a time; and those who had sullenly withstood the most searching and brutal interrogatories ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... yourself. Come, and see, and approve, if you can. Will you come? There's a meeting; there's to be a resolution. Question—Shall we second the King of Sardinia, Piedmont, and Savoy? If so, let us set this pumpkin, called Milan, on its legs. I shall be an attentive listener like you, my friend. I ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... does increase enormously from listening to stories, but it is difficult to imagine that any one could rise to real heights in story-telling with this as an aim or end. That the narrator should clothe his living story in words expressive of its atmosphere, and that the listener should in this way gain such power over language, that he, too, can fitly express himself is ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... curious appetite just then demanded of the moral theorist. For so pronounced a lover of sincerity as Monsieur de Montaigne, there was certainly a strange ambiguousness in the result of his lengthy inquiries, on the greatest as well as on the lightest matters, and it was inevitable that a listener should accept the dubious lesson in his own sense. Was this shrewd casuist only bringing him by a roundabout way to principles he would not have cared to avow? To the great religious thinker of the next century, ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... the front parlor of the old house," James Thorold continued, resetting the scene until his only listener knew that it was more real to him than the room through which he paced, "when some one said, 'Mr. Lincoln.' I looked up to see a tall, awkward man standing in the arched doorway. Other men have said that they had to know Lincoln a long time to feel ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... some other persons who rank high in their own opinion, was very apt, when he could have no other auditor, to hold conversation with one who was sure to be a willing listener—I mean with himself. He was now brushing and arranging Lord Glenvarloch's clothes, with as much composure and quiet assiduity as if he had never been out of his service, and grumbling betwixt whiles to the following purpose:—"Hump—ay, time cloak and jerkin were through my hands—I question ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... Make thyself rich, and then the Muse Shall court thy precious interviews, Shall take thy head upon her knee, And such enchantment lilt to thee, That thou shalt hear the lifeblood flow From farthest stars to grass-blades low, And find the Listener's science still Transcends the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... articulate. And, for a moment I knew my former pain that I could not share this joy, this beauty, with others of my kind, that, except for myself, the loveliness seemed lost and wasted. There was no spectator, no other listener; the sweet spring night was lavish for no audience; the revelation had been repeated, would be repeated, a thousand thousand times without recognition ...
— The Garden of Survival • Algernon Blackwood
... his listener a pleasant nod, and hurried on towards the mate, while Fitz joined Poole, who had nothing now to do, and they occupied themselves in keeping watch for the expected boats and going about amongst the men, whose general appearance seemed to Fitz to be that they were going to ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... to do with the higher diplomacy is aware that diplomatic language stands in a class by itself. It is a language specially designed to deceive the chance listener. ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... technical skill of a man she added a feminine lightness of touch, that in airy lightness, and grace, melting tenderness and sweetness is past description. Her violin now seemed to breathe and sigh. The tears would come to the listener's eyes he knew not why. The tears were in the tones. The sorrow of her life exhaled in chastened sweetness from the strings. Her heart ran out on her finger tips ...
— Camilla: A Tale of a Violin - Being the Artist Life of Camilla Urso • Charles Barnard
... looked meditatively at the ground set apart for "College," and seemed to be making a mental calculation. Then Plausaby proceeded to unfold the many advantages of the place, and Albert was a pleased listener; he had never before suspected that Metropolisville had prospects so entirely dazzling. He could not doubt the statements of the bland Plausaby, who said these things in a confidential and reserved way to the fat gentleman. Charlton did not understand, but Plausaby did, that what ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... it. When the minister rose to speak, he had a message that cheered the hearts of his hearers. Austin sat attentively listening, his serious eyes dwelling on the face of the speaker. Pastor Gray was soon attracted to the earnest young listener, and when the service closed, hurried back to grasp his hand and speak to him. Others of the members also made him welcome with pleasant greetings and hearty invitations to return and worship with them again. ...
— The Hero of Hill House • Mable Hale
... the Sistine Chapel when I heard them for the first time in Rome in 1855 when they sung the "Sicut Cervus" of Palestrina. They roared in a head-splitting way without the least regard for the pleasure of the listener, or for the meaning of the words they sang. It is difficult to believe that this music was ever composed to be executed in such a barbarous manner, which, it seems to me, differs completely from our musical conceptions; and it is a great mistake also in ...
— On the Execution of Music, and Principally of Ancient Music • Camille Saint-Saens
... the listener than the talker, but when his eyes met those of the visitor, Conscience fancied she detected an instinct of vague hostility in those of the host and a dubiousness in those of the guest. It was as if ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... it," interrupted the eager and trembling listener; "and O Arthur, how I have tried and wept and prayed to induce him to break off from them; for I felt they would ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... cool drawing-rooms pleasant chat beguiled the summer hours, sweet songs floated out upon the air, or the more stirring notes of "Dixie" or "The Bonnie Blue Flag," played with a spirit and vim which electrified every listener. ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers |
