"Yawn" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... there is any danger of her getting ahead faster than we do," replied the mate, with a yawn. "I believe I shall sleep well, if I don't get pitched ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic
... remarked that it was precisely that, Lena said, No. That was nothing in itself; but it would prove one way or another; and it seemed that when Norry found himself alone with Barbara, he used to yawn. ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... crazy about that man, why should not others be the same?' Then I would feel like crying, shrieking, running away and jumping out of the window while I was clearing the table and he was smoking. He would yawn in order to show how tired he was, and he would say two or three times before going to bed: 'Ah! how well I shall ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... still vigorously engaged over the pail of cold water, when a loud yawn, which died away gradually into a dreary howl, sounded from the next room, and announced that Zack was awake. In another minute the young gentleman appeared gloomily, in his night gown, at the folding doors by which the two rooms communicated. His eyes looked ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... groan, and clapping his hand over his mouth strove to make it pass muster as a yawn. It was evident that the malicious Mr. Smithson was deriving considerable pleasure from his discomfiture—the pleasure natural to the father of seven over the troubles of a comfortable bachelor. Mr. Clarkson, anxious to share ...
— Ship's Company, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... approved of Mr. Spectator's standard of virtue—"Miss Liddy can dance a jig, raise a pasty, write a good hand, keep an account, give a reasonable answer, and do as she is bid;" but then, it only made him yawn. The man was sinking down into an active-bodied, half-learned, half-facetious bachelor. He was mentally cropping dry and solid food contentedly, and, at the same time, he was a bit of a humourist. He loved his little ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... these were talking the miller began to yawn, and Tom, taking the opportunity, made another bold jump and alighted on his feet in the middle of the table. The miller, provoked to be thus tormented by such a little creature, caught hold of Tom and threw him out of the window into the ...
— The History Of Tom Thumb and Other Stories. • Anonymous
... swiftly, and it was night almost before he knew it. Yet he felt no drowsiness, no desire to yawn and get under sheets and blankets; sleep was evidently out of the question, and the hours slipped away so rapidly that it made little difference whether he sat up all ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood
... what you want, coming here at this hour in the morning," Bimbo said, with a yawn. "I was just dreaming that I could live without work, when you roused me. What is up that takes you ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... I get so sleepy while they are singing, for I never care to watch the acting. I did at first, when it was new, but now it seems insipid to see them make-believe, while the theatre is worse yet," and she gave a weary yawn. ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... separates South Holland from North Brabant. All that we saw from the ship was a wide expanse of water, two dark stripes to the right and left, and a gray sky. A French lady, breaking the general silence, exclaimed with a yawn, ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... like the timber, too, are strange. Kangaroo and wallaby are as fond of grass as the sheep, and after a pelican's yawn there are few things funnier to witness than the career of an 'old man' kangaroo, with his harem after him, when the approach of a buggy disturbs the family at their afternoon meal. Away they go, the little ones cantering briskly, he ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... trial the Englishman, whose crimes had been many and black, bore himself with an air of complete indifference and received the sentence of the supreme penalty with a bored yawn. After he had been led on to the scaffold and just as the hood and noose were about to be placed over his head, the attendant priest, still persisting in his attempts to awaken penitence, in spite of the doomed man's deafness to his prayers, ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... hour or two the chap on watch began to yawn, then to nod. Pretty soon he stretched himself on the floor, facing us, pistol in hand. For a while he supported himself on his elbow, then laid his head on his arm, blinking like an owl. I performed ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... Latin language might live! The logical result of this teaching on the eager young mind, at once logical, ductile, and obstinate, was to induce it to discover something about the Roman Empire, in order that it might cease to yawn over the declensions, and to be bored by prosody; to discover why the glorious Empire had lived and died in order to produce an elaborate mound of charred bones! Mr. Roth himself, though a classicist of the classicists, managed to make ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... pups, usually Finn, would open his eyes and yawn, realize once more how good life was, and plunge forthwith upon his still sleeping brothers and sisters, tumbling them triumphantly into the midst of a new romp before they knew whether they were on their heads ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... out across the lawn, Where huddled stand the silly sheep; My work lies idle at my hands, My thoughts fly out like scattered strands Of thread, and on the verge of sleep— Still half awake—I dream and yawn. ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... dance Jack and his friends remained in their seats. Then Hal, stifling a yawn behind his ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... beck of God from the whale's belly. The monstrous fish rolls over in the ocean, blowing portentous vapour from his trump-shaped nostril. The prophet's beard descends upon his naked breast in hoary ringlets to the girdle. He has forgotten the past peril of the deep, although the whale's jaws yawn around him. Between him and the outstretched finger of Jehovah calling him again to life, there runs a spark of unseen ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... others laughing or yawning makes us laugh or yawn. The sound of one man coughing will become epidemic in an audience. The thought of a sizzling porter-house steak with mushrooms, baked potatoes and rich gravy makes the mouth ...
— Psychology and Achievement • Warren Hilton
... endless questions to be asked and answered on both sides, but at last Dab yawned a very sleepy yawn and said: "Ford, you've had your nap. Wake up Dick there, and let him take his turn at the tiller. The sea's as smooth as a lake, and I believe I'll go to sleep for an hour or so. You and Frank keep watch while ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... you to," she hesitated, "do it—that way?" she pursued, making believe to be but lightly interested. "The curate? Oh, my!" she exclaimed, immediately changing the thought. "Your mother's awful sleepy." She counterfeited a yawn. "I never kneel to—do it," she continued. In a sharp glance she saw the wonder clearing from his eyes, the beginnings of a smile appear about his lips; and she was emboldened to proceed. "Some kneels," she said, "and some doesn't. The curate, I suppose, kneels. That's his way. Now, I don't. I ...
— The Mother • Norman Duncan
... farmer's pocket ticks a watch which to-morrow will replace with another more problematic still. But in the yard are the undisputable evidences of his wild unthrift. Old rusty mowing-machines, buggies with torn and flapping canvas, sleighs ready to yawn at every crack, all are here: poor relations in a broken-down family. But children love this yard. They come, hand in hand, with a timid confidence in their right, and ask at the back door for the privilege of playing in it. They take long, entrancing journeys ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... little yawn. He threw himself down by Mary, vowing that there was no more pleasure to be got out of pictures now that people would try to know so much about them. Mary meanwhile raised herself involuntarily to look into the farther ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... that kind of life? Can you picture me devoting myself to the keeping of a house tidy, the overseeing of meals? I fancy I see myself spending the long, quiet evenings, my husband busy in his office or out among his patients while I dose and yawn and grow fat and old and ugly, and the great world forgetting. Dick, I should die! Of course, I love Barney. But I must have life, movement. ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... of it, but ostentatiously disdainful. She took a coquettish lady's-maidish amble to the door, passing Schwartz by the way, and yawned as she looked out upon the street. Schwartz fawned after her to the door, and with a second yawn she repassed him, and returned to lie at the feet of the fat old gendarme. The absurd little drama of coquetry and worship went on until the old fellow arose with a friendly bon jour, to me, and a whistle to Lil, who followed him with a supercilious nose in the air. The despised ...
— Schwartz: A History - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... all his might to listen, though I saw his chest heave with many a suppressed yawn, and his hand under his beard, tweaking it hard; but substance could be sifted out of what Lord Erymanth said, for he had real experience, and his own parish was ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... half-dressed, yawning and stretching his arms on high. "Yu an't been an' made tay, have 'ee?" he says with delighted certainty. The cups are filled. He takes up Mam 'Idger's cup and returns with the paper roll of 'Family Biscuits.' We forage for tit-bits, feed standing, yawn again, and go out to 'see ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... the shutters, closed them and turned on the electric light. Surrounded thus by the wonted conditions of night, it was not long before he began to yawn. He removed his coat and shoes and lay back in an easy chair to meditate at ease. He faced toward the pole so that the "side weight" would tend to press him gently backward into his chair and therefore not annoy him by calling for ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... the dim light to see the big, burly policeman leaning over me, while Esau was giving vent to a noisy yawn. It was morning, indeed, and though not aware of the fact, I must have slept about ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... a pretty salutation, crossed the lawn, passed her husband, who had just ridden up on a powerful sorrel, and called brightly to Coursay: "Take me fishing, Jack, or I'll yawn ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... Empress thinks it right and fitting," replied the lady raising her shoulders, and with an expressive movement of her hands. Sabina quite took her meaning, and suppressing another yawn she ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... details of the funeral which elderly people always wish to know, went to her room, for she was tired and longed for sleep. But Harriet entered almost immediately and sat down. She barely had spoken since Monday; but it was evident that she was ready to talk at last, and Betty stifled a yawn and sat upon the edge of her bed. Harriet was a delicate subject and must be treated with vigilant consideration, except at those times where an almost brutal firmness was necessary. She looked sad and haggard, but very beautiful, and Betty reflected that with her voice she might ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... who said a smile cost nothing, else it would not have been bestowed. It had a peculiarity of its own which these same critics also objected to—it nearly always ended in a yawn. ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... Morrison, as she rose from her seat with an affected yawn and stretch. In speaking she looked at her mother, and not at the painter to whom she had been sitting for nearly two hours. The young man in question stood embarrassed and silent, his palette on his thumb, brush ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... know some reverend, all but sacred, personage before whom our tongue ceases to be loud and our step to be elastic? But were we once to see him stretch himself beneath the bed-clothes, yawn widely, and bury his face upon his pillow, we could chatter before him as glibly as before a doctor or a lawyer. From some such cause, doubtless, it arose that our archdeacon listened to the counsels of his wife, though he considered himself ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... union. A couple like that have something to talk to each other about when they come together. If you had Cupid himself to talk to—if Blanche and Pen were Cupid and Psyche, begad—they'd begin to yawn after a few evenings, if they had nothing but sentiment ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... on the fawn-skin coat, with its lining of golden-brown silk shimmering in the lamplight. She picked it up, of course, in a bored sort of way; and she was positively on the very verge of being interested in it when—would you believe it?—she attacked the third yawn—or the third yawn attacked her—and however it was, the yawn was accomplished with such dexterity, such certainty, and with such satisfaction to the lady, that she quite forgot to look at the fawn-skin ...
— Christmas Eve at Swamp's End • Norman Duncan
... which they carried on their heads; the soot which had formed their festival dress was washed off by the rain. The square itself was deserted, save for a pack of dogs and a few little boys, rolling about in the mud puddles. Once in a while an old man would come out of the gamal, yawn and disappear. In short, it was a lendemain de fete ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... that although the composition of these works admits of being exalted and decorated by the higher exertions of genius; yet such is the universal charm of narrative, that the worst novel ever written will find some gentle reader content to yawn over it, rather than to open the page of the historian, moralist, or poet. We have heard, indeed, of one work of fiction so unutterably stupid, that the proprietor, diverted by the rarity of the incident, offered the book, which consisted of two volumes in duodecimo, ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... the bridle. She shut the door behind them and drove home the great bolts. Servants came tumbling out to take the horses and do their duty; Count Eustace, a brother of Jehane's, got up from the hearth, where he had been asleep on a bearskin, rubbed his eyes, gulped a yawn, knelt, and was kissed by Richard. Jehane stood apart, mistress of herself as it seemed, but conscious, perhaps, that she was being watched. So she was. In the bustle of salutation the Abbot Milo found eyes to see what manner of sulky, ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... Snark and Alice in Wonderland. And I thought I knew a thing or two, or might be even three, About a Ghoul, and a Fay or Troll, and a Brownie or Banshee. I knew that a Banshee always howled, whilst a Goblin might but yawn, I also knew that a Poltergeist was not a Leprechaun, But the Psychicals, I'm bound to say, had me on "buttered toastes" With the wonderful changes which they rang on the good ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 5, 1891 • Various
... my company is to you!' He put it in that way, but he was really wondering whether her yawn could possibly have more to do with physical weariness from the night before than mental weariness of that present moment. Lizzy apologized, and owned that she was rather tired, which gave him an opening for a direct question on the point; but his modesty would not allow him to put it ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... company. It was noticeable that although the men were marching at "route step," when they are not required to preserve silence, few of them spoke, and very rarely, and they moved quite slowly. Corporal Henry, at the end of a prolonged yawn, asked, "Are we going to start at this hour every ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... beard of the Prophet, it takes a long time to get a husband for this princess of yours, Menouni," observed the pacha with a yawn. ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... wishing. Difficulty is essential to enjoyment. High life is as likely to tire on one's hands as any other. The Marquis, giving all the praise of manners and agreeability to Vienna, sums up all in one prodigious yawn. "The same evenings at Metternich's, the same lounges for making purchases and visits on a morning, the same idleness and fatigue at night, the searching and arid climate, and the clouds of execrable fine dust"—all conspiring to tell the great of the earth that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... died away when it occurred to him that, fixed as he was to his place, to uproot himself was utterly impossible. Meanwhile Madame Astier, sitting on the edge of an armchair in her dressing-gown, with a lace wrap round her head, watched his proceedings and murmured between yawn and yawn with placid irony, 'Really, ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... the wolves, comrade," said Punch, yawning violently, an act which was so infectious that it made his companion yawn too. ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... open door he saw young Hollingsworth rise with a yawn from the ineffectual solace of a brandy-and-soda and transport his purposeless person to the window. Glennard measured his course with a contemptuous eye. It was so like Hollingsworth to get up and look out of the window just as it was growing too dark to see anything! There was a man rich enough ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton
... aside all glum-faced discussion, with a little yawn, and sprang to his feet. "Then we can but hope that somewhere, somehow, Mistress Katherine yet lives and in her own good time may reappear. And while we speak of reappearances—surely the Lady Ursula is strangely ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... in the pit, at the representation of a certain tragedy, observed to his neighbor, he wondered that it was not hissed: the other answered, "People can't both yawn and ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... Steed appeareth none, nor pilot! Little dog, if it be thy lot To essay the dismal track Where Odysseus half hung back, How wilt thou conciliate That grim mastiff by the gate? Sure, 'twill puzzle thee to fawn On his muzzles three that yawn Antrous; or to find, poor dunce, Grace in his six eyes at once— ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... her question by appearing, with a stretch and a yawn, from beneath a bunk. He had heard his name in Courtenay's voice. That sufficed for Joey at ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... have known much about it, either, if Bob had not told me," continued Walter. "Bob, however, talked nothing else morning, noon, and night. Often I would drop asleep while he was chattering of induction coils, wave lengths, and antenna. It makes me yawn now to think of it. My goodness, weren't Ma and I sick to death of hearing nothing but radio! Bob would rush into the house at mealtime, swallow his food whole, and tear off to Hicks's with a piece of pie in his hand, leaving ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... not the same. Men fall in love—or protest as much. And at wine they boast of their good fortunes, swearing each that his mistress is the fairest, and bragging till I yawn to listen.... And yet you say you ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... my Aunt," responds Salam with lofty irrelevance. Then follows a prolonged pause, somewhat trying, I apprehend, to Aunt, and struggling with a yawn Salam says at length, "I will see ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... before," said Mr. Freeman, stifling a yawn, "but now you mention it, I really think he is a little drunk, and hardly in ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... repeated, for I did not answer the first, my mouth being expanded to its fullest stretch in a tremendous yawn. ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... I don't see a play once a year," he said, with the manner, if not the actual presence, of a yawn. "I think it's rather good. I'll tell you what, Greg, I don't see you losing any money on it," he added, with interest; "it'll run; the matinee ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... St. Domingo and the other French islands. Until they heard of the Rights of Man they were flourishing and happy, but as soon as this system arrived among them, Pandora's box, replete with every mortal evil, seemed to fly open; hell itself to yawn; and every demon of mischief to overspread the country. Blacks rose against blacks, whites against blacks—and each against the other in murderous hostility: subordination was destroyed, the cords of society snapped asunder, and every man appeared to thirst for the blood of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... His journey, He sat thus on the well.' 'Wearied' is the same word as is here used. Then, you remember how the Apostle, after he had been hauling empty nets all night in the little, wet, dirty fishing-boat, said, perhaps with a yawn, 'Master, we have toiled all the night and caught nothing.' He uses the same word as is employed here. Such is the sort of work that these women had done—work carried to the point of exhaustion, work up to the very edge of their powers, work unsparing ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... the glance, perhaps he was deceived by the yawn. At all events, he rose and expressed a desire to retire to his room. He was tired, he said, having been travelling ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... would yawn over a long preface like so much Latin, the Editor will not, in the present instance, subject them to so extraordinary a stretch of ennui, by any lengthy comment on the character of his last volume. He hopes that its contents will be found equal to either ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - No. 291 - Supplement to Vol 10 • Various
... this extraordinary case, the miller happened to yawn, when Tom, seizing the chance, made another jump, and alighted safely upon his feet in the middle ...
— The History of Tom Thumb, and Others • Anonymous
... yawn with which he was indulging himself, and got upon his feet, surprised in no small degree to find that no one had entered the room. He went to the ladder to satisfy himself, but meeting with a like measure of ill-success there, he came away in a discontented mood; not perceiving ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... me to decide in what way the time should be employed, I believe. What I have to say can be said briefly, but to you, at least, it should prove immensely interesting." She stifled a small yawn with the gloved finger-tips of her left hand. "However, of course don't let me keep you if you ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... a very weary yawn and turned her face from the light. Priscilla stepped into the hall, put on her waterproof and oldest hat and went out. She knew her way well to the little vicarage, built of gray stone and lying something like a small, daring fly against the brow of the hill. The little house looked ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... Rosemary, with a yawn, "if there was nothing more for me to do. It's such a nice day, and I'd like ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... the trail Of the slender rail The train, like a nightmare, flies And dashes on Through the black-mouthed yawn Where the cavernous ...
— Fifty years & Other Poems • James Weldon Johnson
... certain time of life certain things cease to interest: but about some things when we cease to care, what will be the use of life, sight, hearing? Poems are written, and we cease to admire. Lady Jones invites us, and we yawn; she ceases to invite us, and we are resigned. The last time I saw a ballet at the opera — oh! it is many years ago — I fell asleep in the stalls, wagging my head in insane dreams, and I hope affording amusement to the company, ...
— Some Roundabout Papers • W. M. Thackeray
... "'Parsifal' and the Thing-in-Itself," "The Swan in 'Parsifal' and its Relation to the Higher Vegetarianism." It knows the name of every leit-motif, and can nearly pronounce the German for it; it can refer to the Essay on Beethoven apropos of Kundry's scream (or yawn) in the second act; it can chat learnedly of Klingsor, in pathetic ignorance of his real offence, and explain why Amfortas has his wound on the right side, although the libretto distinctly states ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... importunate. She thought that her friend would prefer, no doubt, to sit down at some distance from her, upon a chair; she felt that she had been indiscreet; her sensitive heart took fright; stretching herself out again over the whole of the sofa, she closed her eyes and began to yawn, so as to indicate that it was a desire to sleep, and that alone, which had made her lie down there. Despite the rude and hectoring familiarity with which she treated her companion I could recognise in her the obsequious and reticent advances, the abrupt scruples and restraints which had ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... raise, To guard their dust and speak their praise; Ye, who, should some other band With hostile foot defile the land, Feel that ye like them would wake, Like them the yoke of bondage break, Nor leave a battle-blade undrawn, Though every hill a sepulchre should yawn— Say, have not ye one line for those, One brother-line to spare, Who rose but as your Fathers rose, And dared as ye ...
— An Ode Pronounced Before the Inhabitants of Boston, September the Seventeenth, 1830, • Charles Sprague
... Plymouth, or she said so, and failed, and she had managed to make herself so useful to my lady that my lady was very glad to keep her. She could make caps like a Parisian milliner; she could dress her exquisitely; she could read for hours in the sweetest and clearest of voices, without one yawn, the dullest of dull High Church novels. She could answer notes and sing like a siren, and she could embroider prie-dieu chairs and table-covers, and slippers and handkerchiefs, and darn point lace like ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... sleepy, so is Claire— "Ah!" says Mother on the stair, To little folks that yawn and blink, "The dustman's coming, ...
— London Town • Felix Leigh
... direction to see if one might discover them in hiding; she looked closely and lingeringly at the shadows under distant trees to see if these shadows moved; and she listened on every wind to try if she could distinguish a yap or a yawn or a sneeze. But she saw or heard nothing; and little by little tranquillity crept into her mind, and she began to consider that a danger which is past is a ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... escaping," he said with a yawn, for he had been up half the night. "Lo! he runs like a hare! But they will have him, ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... we have three days yet," said Holmes, with a yawn. "That is very fortunate, as I have one or two matters of importance to look into just at present. Your majesty will, of course, stay ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... said the Ensign, springing up in bed, and abruptly breaking off a loud sonorous yawn, with which he had opened the business of the day, "you won't deteen a gentleman who's on life and death? I give ye my word, an ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of doors closing made him open his eyes. Some one had entered the adjoining room. He heard a dress brushing against the thin partition, the turning of leaves in a book in which the reader seemed to feel no absorbing interest; for he was startled by a long sigh ending in a yawn. Was he still asleep, still dreaming? Had he not heard the cry of the "jackal in the desert," so thoroughly in harmony with the heavy, scorching temperature without? No. Nothing more. He dozed again; and this time all the confused ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... number one, my boy," said Dandy, with a yawn; "for if you don't, no one else will," and he shut his eyes and was fast asleep in a ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... listening to his revered grandfather bubbling forth orthodoxy. Up in Distinguished Strangers' Gallery sat a little boy on his father's knee. Long he listened to the gentle murmur, broken now and then by a yawn from a back bench, or the rustling of the manuscript as it was turned over folio by folio. It was a great occasion for him; his first visit to the Chamber which still echoed with the tones of his father's uncle, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 15, 1890 • Various
... book sometimes—sometimes Father Gratry's "Month of May," sometimes that good little book by the Abbe Berlioux. But when the people began to yawn I flung the book aside, and said a few simple words to the congregation. And I spoke out of a full heart, a very full heart, and the waters flowed over, and ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... the musketeer; from whom this separation of the two associates removed his last suspicion, and he touched Porthos lightly on the shoulder; the latter replied by a terrible yawn. "Come," said D'Artagnan. ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... orderly row and blew off the deep layers of powder she had scattered. Then he took down her street dress from its hook and slipped it deftly over her shoulders and had it buttoned up before Florette could yawn. He handed her her saucy bright hat. He flung himself into ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... Jimmie Dale, with a sleepy yawn. "Hello! Hello! Why the deuce don't you yank a man out of bed at two o'clock in the morning and have done with it, and—eh? Oh, that ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... aboud me," said Carl, with a yawn. "I pet you I vas der sleepinglessness feller in der whole bunch. If he gets avay on my vatch it vill not be pecause ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... Donk replied, and said all that he had said before, prating on till the boys began to yawn and to shift their feet from one side to the other, for they had been standing all this ...
— The Hilltop Boys on the River • Cyril Burleigh
... blackgrouse, sea eagles, gulls, albatrosses, barnacle geese. The midnight sun is darkened. The earth trembles. The dead of Dublin from Prospect and Mount Jerome in white sheepskin overcoats and black goatfell cloaks arise and appear to many. A chasm opens with a noiseless yawn. Tom Rochford, winner, in athlete's singlet and breeches, arrives at the head of the national hurdle handicap and leaps into the void. He is followed by a race of runners and leapers. In wild attitudes they spring from the brink. Their bodies plunge. Factory lasses ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... she cared for YOU," returned Stacy, with a half-yawn; "and now that you've got YOUR share she isn't going to take a breathless interest in US. And, by the way, I'd rather YOU'D remind us that we owe our luck to her than that SHE should ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... protest. Gillian's eyes filled slowly with tears. It was all a fairy story, too wonderful almost to be true. Why were they so good to her—how would she ever be able to repay the kindness lavished on her? Her thoughts were interrupted by the latest gift that rose out of his basket with a sleepy yawn and stretching luxuriously came and laid his head on her knee, looking up at her with sad brown eyes. She had always loved animals, the possession of some dog had been an ardent desire, and she hugged the big black poodle ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... thing in the Star to-day," Pat's visitor commented, as he flung it away with a yawn. "I'll let a thousand dollars of the express company's money that there will be something more interesting in ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... flagged. Mrs. Fairfax grew loquacious under the influence of sherry, but presently a reaction set in, and she began to yawn. Miss McQuinch, when her turn came, played worse than before, and the audience, longing for another negro melody, paid little attention to her. Marian sang a religious song, which was received with the respect usually accorded to a dull sermon. The clergyman ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... want her pinched." With a yawn I rose to my feet. "And now I suppose I'd better go and turn ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... she marked thee there, Stretched on the rack of a too-easy chair, And heard thy everlasting yawn confess The pains and penalties ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... of the world's madness, because of the human fear and weeping everywhere, because of the new abysses which seemed to yawn every day on every side, that both soul and senses were so abnormally overstrung. He was overwhelmed by exquisite compassions in his thoughts of Robin, he was afraid for her youngness, her sweetness, the innocent ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... not strong-minded nor literary," said Ida, with a half yawn, one day when he had been speaking with feverish ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... actions of those that move at all. The shadow of death is upon these creatures in the scorching sunshine. They stare at columns of polished granite, at a piece of weed, at one another, as though they had never seen such things before. They totter about on tip-toe; they yawn and forget to shut their mouths. Here is one, stretching out a hind leg in a sustained cramp; another is convulsed with nervous twitchings; another scratches the earth in a kind of mechanical trance. One would say ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... myself, and I'd have gone to bed some time ago if you hadn't asked me so many questions," answered Henry Stowell, with a yawn. ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer
... enter to his chamber And suddenly touch him, Would he fade to a thin mist, Or glow into a fire-ball, Or burst like a punctured light-globe? It is impossible that he would merely yawn and ...
— Spectra - A Book of Poetic Experiments • Arthur Ficke
... feet above the pavement, and three bars to cling to! I cowered to my holdfasts, envying even Croisette. My legs dangled airily, and the black chasm of the street seemed to yawn for me. For a moment I turned sick. I recovered from that to feel desperate. I remembered that go forward we must, bars or no bars. We could not regain our old ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... said Winch, with his usual enthusiasm over a new thing. "When we get these evergreens used up, we'll get some more, and make wreaths for all the tents." He worked for about ten minutes; then began to yawn. "Where's my pipe? I'm going to have a smoke. How can you have patience with that nonsense, Frank? What's the use of a wreath, anyhow, after it's made? Girl's play, I ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... heard? I thought everybody——" She stifled a yawn. "It's the wind against my face. It always makes me sleepy," she apologized. "Since you haven't heard, I suppose I oughtn't to tell you. He's become the sort of skeleton in our family cupboard—— You're still incredulous! That will please mother. She'll be almost happy when she ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... though it has been but light; and the Ianthe will run up before it like a race-horse. I should not be much surprised if he were here to breakfast." "And that we may be up in time for him, if perchance he should let us to bed forthwith," said Frank with a heavy yawn. ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... keenly examined the top of the funnel, and tried simultaneously to yawn and light a cigar. In the result he nearly choked himself. Mr. Winter, somewhat more prepared for emergencies, endeavoured to interest Gros Jean in the wonderful clearness ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... mother brings a blood-stained stiletto which she purposes to make you bathe in the lifeblood of your enemy. Never mind the Death-demons and skeletons dripping with the putrefaction of the grave, that occasionally may blast your straining eyeballs. Persevere even though Hell and destruction should yawn ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... chords ringing out elegiac epithalamia to heaven, why, perchance, should she not find him? Ah! how impossible! Besides, nothing was worth the trouble of seeking it; everything was a lie. Every smile hid a yawn of boredom, every joy a curse, all pleasure satiety, and the sweetest kisses left upon your lips only the unattainable desire ...
— The Public vs. M. Gustave Flaubert • Various
... morning is a graceless hour. Graveyards may yawn at twelve but even they are content to slumber at four. I don't believe there is anything so desolate in this world as the mental perspective one obtains at four o'clock. Tombstones are bright beacons ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... impenetrably strong! Furious and fell, tremendous to behold! E'en with a look she withers all the bold! She mocks the weak attempts of human might; Oh, fly her rage! thy conquest is thy flight. If but to seize thy arms thou make delay, Again thy fury vindicates her prey; Her six mouths yawn, and six are snatch'd away. From her foul wound Crataeis gave to air This dreadful pest! To her direct thy prayer, To curb the monster in her dire abodes, And guard thee through the tumult of the ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... eaten a doughnut, the subject is of transcendent interest; and as for one who has not—well, he should be made to feel his limitations," replied Francesca, with a yawn. "Come, let us forget our troubles in ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the attack, she said, with a poor pretense at a yawn, "So you think a man may love a woman even after—after she has turned him out of doors, ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine
... responded Gertrude, with a little yawn. She looked to right and to left, fearing that some acquaintance might be coming to see her in company with this rather shabby little companion. "Would you like to walk up the Cliffs a little way, or shall we go down to the ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... day has come at last," said Edith, as she rose that morning with a yawn. "Oh, dear, and it's going to be splendid, too. Kitty, what dress are you going to wear at the ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... one, under a strong blue sky, Turnbull got up out of the grass and fern in which he had been lying, and his still intermittent laughter ended in a kind of yawn. ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... my pretty," quoth the good uncle, stifling a portentous yawn, and striving to look wondrous wise, "Adrian, she wants to consult me, ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... stammer, and the door reply, The hall wake, yawn, and smile; the torpid stair Will grumble at our feet, the table cry: 'Fetch my belongings for me; I am bare.' A clatter! Something in the attic falls. A ghost has lifted up his robes and fled. The loitering shadows move along the walls; Then silence ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... which made Duncombe grasp the sides. At a pace which seemed to him most ridiculous, they dashed into the Rue de Rivoli, and with another sharp turn pulled up before Maxim's. The Vicomte rose with a yawn as though he had just awoke from a refreshing dream. His servant slipped off his fur coat, and he descended to the pavement faultlessly dressed and quite unruffled. The commissionaire preceded them, hat in hand, to the door. A couple of waiters ushered them ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the house of the adversaries. The triumph comes with time, and the turbulent waves of controversy recede into gentle ripples of approval. And for many a cause for which men have suffered and died, posterity has but a yawn. "Just think of it—all that fuss and all that ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... sure of the revolver in his pocket. He was frightened. He was either going to meet with a monster from outer space, or be on the way to making so colossal a fool of himself that a mental asylum would yawn for him. ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... muse on Tenier's boors, Embrowned and beery losels all; A wakeful brain Elaborates pain: Within low doors the slugs of boors Laze and yawn and doze again. ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... fellow makes some bloomin' mistakes sometimes. I am not interested very much though," continued Matlock Styles, and gave a yawn. ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... and Resplendent Royal Ruler of the Blues, has made you our slave," asserted Indigo with a yawn. ...
— Sky Island - Being the further exciting adventures of Trot and Cap'n - Bill after their visit to the sea fairies • L. Frank Baum
... rustics in a drawing-room, and who think themselves gentlemen in the dram-shop; who say, "My fields, my peasants, my woods"; who hiss actresses at the theatre to prove that they are persons of taste; quarrel with the officers of the garrison to prove that they are men of war; hunt, smoke, yawn, drink, smell of tobacco, play billiards, stare at travellers as they descend from the diligence, live at the cafe, dine at the inn, have a dog which eats the bones under the table, and a mistress who eats the dishes on the table; who ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... he could the entangled thread of the estimable lady's discourse, Walden grasped the fact, albeit vaguely, that some unexpected letter with unexpected news in it had arrived to trouble the Spruces' domestic peace. Suppressing a slight yawn, he endeavoured to assume the proper show of interest which every village parson is expected to display on the shortest notice concerning any subject, from the birth of the latest baby parishioner, to the death ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... no," replied Miss Dabbs, with difficulty suppressing a yawn, "He says you save him the ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... hurl. A murky vapor thickens night. Hark! Through the woods the tempests roar! The owlets flit in wild affright. Hark! Splinter'd are the columns that upbore The leafy palace, green for aye: The shivered branches whirr and sigh, Yawn the huge trunks with mighty groan, The roots, upriven, creak and moan! In fearful and entangled fall, One crashing ruin whelms them all, While through the desolate abyss, Sweeping the wreck-strewn precipice, The raging storm-blasts howl and hiss! Aloft strange voices dost thou ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... corner of a seat. Mrs. Parker dropped a hymn-book. Little Tommy Blake, who had fallen over while napping and hit his nose, snivelled under his breath. Madeline Brand, as she sat at the melodeon below the minister's desk, stifled a small yawn with her pretty fingers. A June bug boomed through the open window and circled around Deacon Tuttle's head, affecting that good man with the solicitude characteristic of bald-headed persons when buzzing things are about. Next it made a dive ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... With a yawn Foyle relinquished his efforts, and his head dropped forward on his desk. In a little he was fast asleep. He was roused by a light touch on the shoulder. Green ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... of a lion inflames me, and, if hell were to yawn beneath my foot, I would spring ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... does not move at all, Winter or Summer, Spring or Fall, He does not even stretch or yawn, But lies ...
— The Kitten's Garden of Verses • Oliver Herford
... as that already noticed in connection with the place. The divan has its corps of sleepers and burden of garments, and the tables yet resound with the rattle and clash of dice. Yet the greater part of the company are not doing anything. They walk about, or yawn tremendously, or pause as they pass each other to exchange idle nothings. Will the weather be fair to-morrow? Are the preparations for the games complete? Do the laws of the Circus in Antioch differ from the laws of the Circus in Rome? Truth is, the young fellows are suffering ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... themselves done at last, and the hot and tired mother, with still the anxious look on her face, stooped and took them from their fiery bed, and the father awoke with a yawn to hear himself summoned to the feast. It was later than usual; many things had detained them; four o'clock quite, and before the army of dishes could be marshaled back into shape, the bell would certainly toll for evening service. "Let the fear of the Lord be upon you." And He ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... muscle and arm-form reveals itself. It is no light praise, mind you, when one says that every touch is the record of a tireless observation—you have only to look at a great Sir Joshua to see that quite half of every canvas is merely a recipe, a painted yawn in fact, as the intensity of his vision relaxed; but in a Velasquez your attention is riveted by the passionate search of the master and his ceaseless absorption in the thing before him—and this is all ...
— The Mind of the Artist - Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and Sculptors on Their Art • Various
... began to look rather weary, especially as he detected, here and there, a yawn behind an uplifted book. All at once a peculiar gleam leaped into ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... of dreams, my one-eyed friend, as never before have I visited. You yawn? You are bored? I shoot the dregs of my glass into his distended jaws. He springs away spitting and coughing, and I lie back in my ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... noiseless nigh, Hist to the dirges o'er the sleeping sea! Dim funeral trains pass melancholy by And monotone their mournful minstrelsy. It is the grave that opes by Heav'n's decree, And steeps each thing in its sepulchral breath, The self-same grave that soon must yawn for thee, The grave wherein all darkness slumbereth, While all around is fastened in the fangs ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... "Oh! pray make no further apology," said the individual, "I make no doubt that what you did was done kindly; but there's an old proverb, to the effect, 'that you should let sleeping dogs lie,'" he added with a smile. Then, getting up, and stretching himself with a yawn, he took up his book and said, "I have slept quite long enough, and it's quite time for me to be going home." "Excuse my curiosity," said I, "if I inquire what may induce you to come and sleep in this meadow?" "To tell you the truth," answered he, "I am ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow |
