"Absorbed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the sacred feast in which they were to take part. But the boy's mind was far away from the things that were occupying his parent's thoughts. He was thinking over the deep mystic truths which He had so readily absorbed during the past few years, and He was looking forward in delightful anticipation to His expected meeting with the older mystics in the temples and public ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... scientist in his laboratory, trying to unite certain elements to produce new substance. Here is the beauty in her silken nest; here the lover; there the musician; yonder the peanut man and in the office building is the captain of industry: All busy bees deeply absorbed in their respective interests, and intoxicated in the belief that they are ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... pass that while I was utterly absorbed in pride and sensuality, divine grace, the cure for both diseases, was forced upon me, even though I, forsooth, would fain have shunned it. First was I punished for my sensuality, and then for my pride. For my sensuality I lost those things whereby I practiced it; ...
— Historia Calamitatum • Peter Abelard
... hitherto practised in his establishment, John's income was princely, and left a large balance to be devoted to works of general benevolence; but he perceived that, in this year, that balance would be all absorbed; and this troubled him. ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... creations here, first of the earth, man's home; and then of man himself who was to live in the home. Here at once in the beginning is mother-love. Before the new life comes the mother is absorbed in getting the home ready; the best and softest and homiest home that her mother-love can think of, and her fingers fix. The same mother instinct in the birds spends itself in getting the nest ready, and ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... we are now approaching, nearly thirtyfive thousand dollars of your bills will become due. I will not conceal from you, that although this double advance is neither beyond my means nor my disposition, yet the former is entirely absorbed by the necessities of the government, so that I shall be the more desirous, that you would enable me to meet these engagements, as I shall always find a difficulty in disposing of your paper. I speak to you frankly, since I shall always endeavor, as I have ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... originated about thus: By the act of Congress, approved March 3,1869, the forty-five regiments of infantry were reduced to twenty-five, and provision was made for the "muster out" of many of the surplus officers, and for retaining others to be absorbed by the usual promotions and casualties. On the 7th of May of that year, by authority of an act of Congress approved June 30, 1834, nine field-officers and fifty-nine captains and subalterns were detached and ordered to report to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, to ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... again, one morning, on opening the window, she uttered a cry. Mary Seyton ran to her, and the queen, without having strength to speak, showed her in the middle of the lake the tiny boat at anchor, and in the boat Little Douglas and George, who were absorbed in fishing, their favourite amusement. The young man had arrived the day before, and as everyone was accustomed to his unexpected returns, the sentinel had not even blown the horn, and the queen had not known that at ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... were so tensely absorbed in this scheme that nobody heard Boule de Suif coming in. But the Count whispered a gentle: "Hush!" which caused all eyes to look up. There she stood. There was a sudden silence and a certain embarrassment prevented them first ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... without fear. Despard could talk of his Byzantine poets, and the chants of the Eastern Church, without being in danger of reawakening painful memories. The piano stood close by, and always afforded a convenient mode of distracting attention when it became too absorbed ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... words, yet obedient, he turned his scrutiny from the trees to the grass upon which they stood, and detected there the traces of the feet of an animal. As he gazed silently at the tracks, absorbed in his thoughts, the dawn came slowly on. The Leader was the first ...
— Indian Story and Song - from North America • Alice C. Fletcher
... the lives of every one of us, when the mind is irresistibly drawn on to wonder what our own personal future shall be, as soon as life is over and death has overtaken us. We cannot help the speculation. However bound by present duties and absorbed in present interests, often, in quiet hours, in times of solitude or bereavement, or under the sense of failing hopes or failing health, in seasons of sorrow or of sickness, the mood takes hold of us; and it may be, we know not why, our eyes turn with an anxious ...
— The Life of the Waiting Soul - in the Intermediate State • R. E. Sanderson
... classed either by their dates, when ascertained, or according to their style, which must generally be allowed to cover vast areas and periods irregularly drifting down, overlapping, or being absorbed or effaced by the ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... palace, Aziel went to the apartments of Issachar. Finding no keeper at the door, he entered, to discover the old priest kneeling in prayer at the window, which faced towards Jerusalem. So absorbed was he in his devotions that it was not until he had ended them and risen that Issachar saw Aziel ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... college training; she yielded herself submissively to the "system," and established herself among the other novices on a footing of good comradeship. During the hot, vexatious days she met them with unfailing good cheer. The inspiring example of her college teachers, and not least the belief she had absorbed on the Madison campus in her girlhood, that teaching is a high calling, eased the way for her at times when—as occasionally happened—she failed to appreciate the beauty of ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... fixed upon Jerry, her eyes gleaming. There was something morbid in her suppressed excitement—something strange and unnatural in the fascination of her attention. She chewed gum constantly and was utterly absorbed, driven, it seemed to me, by some inner fire which she made no effort to control. She was primitive, savage. When Jerry's blows landed, her lips parted and she breathed hard. I think at this moment he was the only man for her, her mate in savagery, the finest human beast in the world. ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... the splendor of the Persians, the strength and discipline of the Greeks, were all merged into the Roman Empire. And more than this, these kingdoms were all idolatrous, and the religion of the Babylonians was merely absorbed in the Persian Kingdom (not destroyed); that of the Persian was perpetuated under the Greek reign; and all these found recognition in the divers forms of paganism existing under Rome. In this sense the image, as opposed to the divine kingdom of Christ, was all standing at the time of the first ...
— The Last Reformation • F. G. [Frederick George] Smith
... detect the first sound of approaching life. There is a thrill in this experience, and another when the animal you have heard comes boldly out before you. Then it is you will find that, in some mysterious way, all bodily discomfort has vanished. Your whole being is absorbed in the movements of the creature who is unconscious of your presence, and there is no room for other sensations. More animals may appear and perhaps a little drama may be enacted ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... of Bitter Almonds).—It is used in perfumery, but is very poisonous when swallowed, or inhaled, or absorbed through skin. It is used in the manufacture of aniline dyes, and may act as an industrial poison. The symptoms closely resemble those of aniline poisoning, but there is perhaps greater ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson
... and saw that the prisoner had disappeared, leaving not a ripple in the crowd to mark his trail. The absorbed faces of his hearers, and the sense of what was being done behind their backs, seized him, and he smothered a laugh. His voice flowed on, deep-toned, vibrant, working his magic upon ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... family under modern conditions is not more celibates, men and women of high ability and noble consecration to undertake wholesale service in its behalf, but rather that more of the best and the best-balanced men and women be absorbed, to necessary degree, and at the right period of life, in the task of actual transmission of their quality and tendency through the living tissues of the social organism in the vital process of parenthood. What is needed to secure that result is not only a new ideal of social obligation ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... borrowed desk-room for the carrying on of the multitudinous business relating to the general management of one of the celebrations projected in honor, and on account of, the Eighth of August. He might appear to be absorbed in important details, as he now did. But inside of him he was not happy and Jeff knew the reasons; the reasons were common rumor. This year there was to be more than one celebration; there were to be two; and the opposition, organizing secretly and stealing a march on that usually wide-awake ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... marrying man—he was wedded to science, yet he craved the companionship of the female mind. Had he and Miss Evans married, he would doubtless have continued his work just the same. He would have absorbed her into his being—they would have lived in a garret, and possibly we might have had a better Synthetic Philosophy, if ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... ruined by the war. The Colonel is absorbed in his career and spends all his salary on himself. The old gentleman doesn't know anything about his financial affairs and doesn't want to; it's beneath his dignity. Helen, who does know about them, is now earning the bread ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... creation, but, in fact, perhaps by the trespassing a little of the first upon the last, is the true advance sustained; for it must be an advance as well as a balance. But you say this will but in other words mean that forces devoted (and properly so) to production or creation are absorbed by destruction. True; but the opposing phenomena will be going on in a large ratio, and each must react on the other. The productive must meet and correspond to the destructive. The destructive must revise and ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... be given in marriage, and other similar confidences. But on discovery the previous day that Yan Ch'un's presents to her alone resembled those of Pao-y, she began to feel all the more embarrassed. Luckily, however, Pao-y was so entangled in Lin Tai-y's meshes and so absorbed in heart and mind with fond thoughts of his Lin Tai-y that he did not pay the least attention to this circumstance. But she unawares now heard Pao-y remark with a smile: "Cousin Pao, let me see that string ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... while the youngest scion of the family, a boy of about ten years, and who in the general confusion had thrust himself unnoticed into the room, stood close to the pair, with open mouth and thirsting ears and a face on which childish interest at a fearful tale was strongly blent with the more absorbed feeling ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the prohibitive price of labour—and in fact the impossibility of obtaining labour at any price in the interior—farming cannot indeed flourish to-day. The comparatively few immigrants who landed at the various ports in Brazil were at once absorbed near the coast, and seldom left the port of landing, where labour was ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... class comfortable, well educated, and well-bred. If she had been more experienced, she would have seen that he was satisfied with her appearance despite the curious looking little package, and would have been flattered. As it was, her interest was absorbed in things apart from herself. He talked about the town—the amusements, the good times to be had at the over-the-Rhine beer halls, at the hilltop gardens, at the dances in the pavilion out at the Zoo. He drew a lively and charming picture, one ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... astonishment and dread. Suddenly there broke upon him the possibility of suffering want in many forms in the future, and yet he felt ashamed of foreseeing them in this, the first day of his great calamity. Until this moment he had been too absorbed in dwelling upon the moral and social consequences of his crime, to realize how utterly worn out he was; but all his physical strength appeared to ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... went into the house to study out the letters, and the doctor being so delightfully absorbed with the stocks and bonds that it would have been unkind not to leave him alone, it struck me that the occasion was favorable for the execution of a private project for which opportunity ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... was taking lessons of life that were designed to be helpful to her if she would but let them. A thoroughly well-educated and cultured gentleman, well fitted to take high rank in society, not in the ministry, and yet thoroughly absorbed in what she had hitherto almost unconsciously set down as ministers' work was a mystery to her. Moreover, for the second time that evening, she felt a curious sense of satisfaction in being classed among the energetic workers of the world. The pretty school-girl, who had lived all her young ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... that I loved her, my first, my only idea was to ask her in marriage. Someone spoke on my behalf. She simply replied that she would never marry again. Henceforth I avoided meeting her; and as my thoughts were too wholly absorbed and occupied by her to allow me to work, I determined to travel. I was busily engaged in preparations for my departure, when one morning, in my own apartment, in the midst of all the litter of opened drawers and scattered trunks, ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... is reading aloud from one of her books of oracles. The two little genii standing behind her shoulder, and listening with absorbed attention, hold another book, not yet unclasped, ready for her. She reads her prophecy with keen, searching eyes, and a manner that is almost stern. We can see in the large, strong features the determination of ...
— Michelangelo - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Master, With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... self-assertion of the individual, which is the mark of all progress towards higher civilization. The contrapuntal mass or motet expressed the commonwealth of the Church, where the individual disappears, absorbed in the community. The nuove musiche sought to emancipate the individual, and allow him to express his own independent existence. Thus the progress of the modern musical drama presents an exact parallel to that of the Greek ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... members of the federal Senate, 26 are owners of slaves, and as effectively representatives of that interest as the 88 members elected by them to the House.'—'By this process it is that all political power in the States is absorbed and engrossed by the owners of slaves, and the overruling policy of the States is shaped to strengthen and consolidate their domination. The legislative, executive, and judicial authorities are all in their hands—the preservation, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... the damsel in scarlet stockings, who had absorbed every word of the foregoing conversation. "I should like uncle Gil to love Marian just as I love her. She is the dearest girl in the world. When we had a juvenile party last winter, it was Marian who dressed the Christmas-tree—every bit; and she ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... black lisle; a merry eye; a rather grim look about the mouth, as has a man whose life is a secret disappointment. His little daughter worshipped him. He called her Harry. When Harrietta was eleven she was reading Lever and Dickens and Dumas, while other little girls were absorbed in the Elsie Series and The Wide, Wide World. Her father used to deliver his sermons to her in private rehearsal, and her eager mobile face reflected his ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... great work in spreading the Christian faith among the poor and ignorant people over whom he stood in authority, and his beneficent gifts to the monasteries of Ely and Ramsey had won for him the reputation almost of a saint. The monks regarded him as a man of quiet and thoughtful life, absorbed in acts of charity; but he proved that he could be a man of action also, for he was soon to become the hero of one of the most famous and disastrous battles ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... sitting in the corner furthest away, his back to the engine, apparently entirely oblivious of her presence. On his knee rested a quarto writing-pad, and he appeared so much absorbed in what he was writing that Diana doubted whether he had even heard the commotion, ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... a room or compartment where there is little moisture, until the bricks are permeated to some extent with the moisture, so that they are a little easier broken. They should not, under any circumstances, be wet or soft in the sense of having absorbed an excess of water, nor should they be stored for any length of time where they will be damp. Still others break the bricks into the desired pieces and place these directly on the top of the bed, at the place ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson
... Anxiety about the condition of Spain, which was so fatal to him, cast a cloud on his brow. When hunting in the forest, he was often seen to lose himself in thought and to let his horse wander as he pleased. At the theatrical performances it was noticed that, absorbed and distracted, he appeared to think less of the play than ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... summer coats! They had followed their masters' fortunes. How many of them had already fallen under the Prussian bullets; how many had been left dying of exhaustion or starvation after our terrible rides! They seemed to sleep, absorbed in some miserable dream of nothing but burdens to carry, blows to bear, and wounds to suffer. They were hanging their heads, but had not even the strength to crop the green blades growing here and there ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... up her lips in the circle that only fat, soft-fleshed people can accomplish and laid the impartial finger on them as a sign that no more words were to be wasted, and the class, temporarily attentive to the newcomers, became absorbed again. ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... he was silent and absorbed until one asked, "Weel, what's to be done aboot coal noo? Are ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... death, anxious and absorbed, and hung over the furnace as if it depended upon his utmost watchfulness whether the liquid which it was distilling should be the draught of immortal happiness or misery. How different from the sanguine and joyous mien that he ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... and her dark eyes dwelt, impassive and melancholy, upon the sea of faces, tumultuous and blurred with clapping hands. The sound was like the roaring of the sea and she stood as a goddess might have stood at the brink of the ocean, indifferent and unaware, absorbed in dreams of ancient sorrow. The ovation was so prolonged and she stood there for so long—hardly less the indifferent goddess because, from time to time, she bowed her own famous bow, stately, old-fashioned, formally and sublimely submissive,—that every eye ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... resources. So the appeal now is not merely to be like-minded, and to be watchful for unity. He asks them now to use fully for a life of holiness the mighty fact of their possession of an Indwelling God in Christ. The details of precept are as it were absorbed for the time into the glorious power and principle—only to reappear the more largely and ...
— Philippian Studies - Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians • Handley C. G. Moule
... they are far away beyond the stars in space. But the Melbourne astronomer, M. Le Seur, suggests that the star Eta and the nebulous matter are neighbors; that the nebulous matter formerly around it, which has recently disappeared, while the star has blazed up into flames, is being absorbed and digested by the star. This has happened before, thirty years ago, to that star. Why may not our sun also absorb and burn up nebulae. But if so, what becomes of the ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... strong central government, the scene of continual anarchy among the turbulent nobles, possessing no national frontiers and no national middle class, its population being made up of nobles, serfs, and foreigners, it lay at the mercy of the ambitious surrounding kingdoms, by which it was finally absorbed. On three successive occasions was the territory of the feeble nation divided between its foes, the first partition being made in 1772, between Russia, Prussia, and Austria; the second in 1793, between Russia and Prussia; and the third and final in ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... impinged upon the Moon even when the Earth was actually interposed between the Sun and the Moon. That the outstanding rays which became visible are red may be considered due to the fact that the blue rays are absorbed in passing through the terrestrial atmosphere, just as both the eastern and western skies are frequently seen to assume a ruddy hue when illuminated in the morning or evening by the solar rays at or near sunrise ...
— The Story of Eclipses • George Chambers
... place in the foremost rank of the world's masterpieces. The great praise implied in this comparison is justly due to Allston. The texture and handling of his work are inimitable. Without any appearance of labor, all crudeness is absorbed; the outlines of objects are not so much softened as emptied of their color and substance, so that the light appears to pass them. The finishing is so judicious that the spectator believes he could see more on approaching nearer. The eye searches ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... sap of dog-wood, absorbed in a handkerchief, will fulfil every wish; and a Brandenburg remedy for fever is to lie naked under a cherry-tree on St. John's Day, and to shake the dew on one's back. Elsewhere we have alluded to ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... apostacy; but, alas! his duty was in Hurdwar, he was bound there and could not move. One day (it was during the fair) he had wandered at a distance from the river, that he might not witness the delusions of paganism, and his mind was intensely absorbed in prayer. Anon, unusual sounds broke on his ears; sounds well known, sounds reminding him of his country, of his beautiful Italy. They came from a little bower ten steps before him; and as past scenes rushed to his memory, his heart beat tremulously in ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... temper which distinguished his childhood, became with the advance of manhood a habitual benevolence, and ultimately ripened into that exalted principle of love towards God and man, which animated and almost absorbed his soul during the latter period of his life, and to which most of the following compositions bear such emphatic testimony. He seemed to tread the earth as a spirit from some better world; and in bowing to the mysterious will which has in mercy removed him, perfected by so ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... answer; the marquis, absorbed in thought, was listening in fancy to the prophetic reasons which Marie had given him in the midst of the same chiefs at La Vivetiere, urging him to abandon the struggle of kings against peoples. But the young man's soul was too proud, too ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... some relation to the necessities of the animal, considered as the slave or man. The callosities are the points on which it kneels down to receive its burden. The hump, which is a fatty secretion, is known to be absorbed into the system when the animal is pinched for food, thus forming a provision against the casualties to which it is subject in a life evidently ordained to be passed in the desert. Add to this, that its singularly ...
— Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found - A Book of Zoology for Boys • Mayne Reid
... process that seems to offer every guarantee of accuracy. The air that furnishes the carbonic acid is aspirated through the absorption apparatus by two aspirators of 600 liters capacity. The temperature and pressure of the air are carefully measured. The carbonic acid is absorbed by baryta water in three bulb apparatus. The last bulb, which serves as a check to control the operation, remains clear, and proves that no binoxide of barium is formed. The baryta water used is titrated ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... stupendous as the assertion may seem, for six weeks I did so. This resolution became a passion—a madness. I was as one walking in a sweet trance—I revelled in secret bliss, as if I had found a glorious and inexhaustible treasure. I spoke to none of my new state of mind— absorbed as I was, I yet dreaded ridicule—but I wrote hymns, I composed sermons. If I found my attention moving from heavenly matters, I grew angry with myself, and I renovated my flagging attention with inward ejaculation. I had all the madness of the anchorite upon me in the midst of ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... salient of the loop was difficult, and the foremost detachments of the intermingled battalions did not begin to fall back until nearly 10.30 a.m. One or two small bodies of officers and men, who had reached the bank at the farthest end, never received the order, and were so absorbed in their duel across the Tugela that, failing to observe the withdrawal of their comrades until too late, they were eventually cut off and taken prisoners. The rest of the brigade retired slowly in small groups, the 1st Border regiment ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... saints, witches, elves, spooks, and gypsies, the foreigners among us never acquire, or at least never so as to have the ready and delicate use of them in social life, until their foreign character has become quite absorbed in the fully developed American, and the taste, if not the material for picturing the customs and legends of the fatherland ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... nothing more than a step-mother. In the paroxysm of his rage, in the exacerbation of his mind, he loses sight of his neighbour's rights, he overlooks the gibbet, he forgets the torture; his unruly desires have become too potent—they have completely absorbed his mind; by a criminal indulgence they have given an inveteracy to his habits which preclude him from changing them; laziness has made him torpid: remorse has gnawed his peace; despair has rendered him blind; he rushes on to death; and society is compelled to punish him rigorously, for ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... the professional story-teller, surrounded from morn till night with his groups of attentive listeners, whose kindling eyes, whose faces moved by every emotion of wonder, anger, tenderness, and sympathy, whose murmured applause and absorbed silence, are the witnesses and the reward of his art. Through such a scene we recover the atmosphere of the Arabian Nights, and indeed look back into almost limitless antiquity. Possibly, could ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... distending food, not drink, which forms the large carcase. Food takes long to digest, but it is astonishing how quickly what the horse drinks is absorbed. The late Mr. Field having a horse condemned to die, kept him two days without water, gave him two buckets, and killed him five minutes after. There was not a drop of water in ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood
... on the banks of the Orange River. They have also become the subject of a very important discussion, in the various hypotheses that have been formed respecting the course of the Niger.* (* Geographers supposed, for a long period, that the Niger was entirely absorbed by the sands, and evaporated by the heat of the tropical sun, as no embouchure could be found on the western coast of Africa to meet the requirements of so enormous a river. It was discovered, however, by the ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... a chance resemblance, I suspect. Until very recently I have been absorbed in my studies, and rarely left ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... find only ruined homes and shattered fortunes, those who had retained health and strength found them taxed to the utmost. Necessity held them in bonds of iron, and the demands of helpless families absorbed them. All the same, manly hearts have been often and painfully stirred by the silent appeals of maimed and suffering comrades, and the faithful few have never ceased to hope and strive for the result now attained in ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... induced by M. de Guise to present himself at the palace, to offer his condolences to the young sovereign and his august mother;[37] and he was accordingly introduced into the private apartment of the Queen, where he found her surrounded by the ladies of her household, and absorbed in grief. As he was announced she burst into a passion of tears, and for a time was unable to welcome him; but having at length succeeded in controlling her emotion, she desired that the King should be brought to her; and he had no sooner appeared than she pointed ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... cackle of a voice caught in his throat, and grew husky, and then broke entirely. Even Young Denny, absorbed as he was in his methodical exhibition of all the evidence, became suddenly aware that the little figure beside him was swallowing hard—swallowing with great, noisy gulps, and he lifted the lantern until the yellow light fell full upon the twitching face below him, illuminating every feature. ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... Her mother, absorbed in conscientious anxiety about Sylvia's development, and deeply disappointed by the result of the visit to the hospital, ignored this laughter, nor did Sylvia at all guess that she was laughing away half the spell which Aunt Victoria had cast about her. When they went down to their supper of ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... sigh, and, suddenly remembering his errand, walked rapidly down the corridor. He paused before a round-arched, doorless portal, which led into a large sunny room. In the embrazure of one of the windows, a young girl was sitting, with a drawing-board in her lap, apparently absorbed in the contemplation of a marble relief which was suspended upon the wall. From where Cranbrook stood, he could see her noble profile clearly outlined against the white wall; a thick coil of black hair was wound about the back of her head, and a dark, tight-fitting ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... Newspapers with Woman's Pages to instruct Eve in the Complete Science of Motherhood, so that when Cain and Abel came along to bless the world with their presence, neither their father nor their mother knew what on earth to do with them. Then, too, Eve's household duties were such that they very nearly absorbed all her time, and for years the youthful scions of this first family in the land were left to the tender mercies of a kindly old Gorilla who, however amiable and willing she may have been, was hardly the kind ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... absorbed in what Major Evelyn was saying. Her lips were parted, her eyes and colour bright. The air of slackness which so often dulled her beauty had disappeared. For once she ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... both cried, but the creamy brown bird paid no attention to their gratitude: it seemed absorbed in looking for frogs ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... boot-black looked up; the General was absorbed in his correspondence. The boot-black drew a tin putty blower from his pocket, took unerring aim, and nailed in a single shot the minute hand to the dial. Going on with his blacking, yet stopping ever and anon to glance over the General's plan ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... possession of this region after some successful brushes with the enemy, and settled there, without being further troubled by their neighbours or by their former masters. The Egyptians, indeed, absorbed in their civil discords, or in wars with foreign nations, soon forgot their escaped slaves, and never troubled themselves for centuries over what had become of the poor wretches, until in the reign of the Ptolemies, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... of sight, I returned home; but my thoughts were so absorbed in what I had witnessed, that I knew not what I was about half of the time. Night came, but it brought ...
— The Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave • William Wells Brown
... one of my greatest difficulties in living out here consists in getting Kafirs to come out of town, for by doing so they miss their regular attendance at chapel and school. A few Sundays ago I went to one of these Kafir schools, and was much struck by the intently-absorbed air of the pupils, almost all of whom were youths about twenty years of age. They were learning to read the Bible in Kafir during my visit, sitting in couples, and helping each other on with immense diligence and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... brow, the angels stand ready to open the gate of the celestial city; finish thy solemn instructions to thy children, and then thou shalt enter upon the fruition of all thy patient waiting, thy fearing, fighting, trembling, doubting, shall be absorbed in immeasurable, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... dress of a burgher, but entirely black. To Beranger's despair, he was in the act of inviting his hearers to join with him in singing one of Marot's psalms; and the boy, eager to lose not a moment, grasped the skirt of the outermost of the crowd. The man, an absorbed-looking stranger, merely ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... transformed into something very like a satellite of Giovanni Bellini. Cima, who in his technical processes belongs rather to the Vivarini than to the Bellini group, is to a great extent overshadowed, though never, as some would have it, absorbed to the point of absolute imitation, by ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips
... with them their little daughter Euphemia. The coming of this beautiful, vivacious, light-hearted child opened a new chapter in Ruskin's life. Though but twelve years old, she sought to enliven the melancholy student, absorbed in art and geology, and bade him leave these and write for her a fairy tale. He accepted, and after but two sittings, presented her with this charming story. The incident proved to have awakened in him ...
— The King of the Golden River - A Short Fairy Tale • John Ruskin.
... thickly populated countries on the other side of that ocean. The population which now poured into California and Oregon was as alien in race and ideals as the Negro, and it was, perhaps, the more dangerous because, while the Negro, so far as he had not absorbed European culture, was a mere barbarian, these people had a very old and elaborate civilization of their own, a civilization picturesque and full of attraction when seen afar off, but exhibiting, at nearer view, many characteristics ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... He had halted, absorbed, in front of a moving-picture theatre. Great placards, at first but a blur of colour, suddenly forced themselves in concrete form upon his consciousness. Letters a foot high leaped out at him: "THE DOUBLE LIFE." There was the picture of a banker in his ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... been so absorbed in the terrible spectacle that they had taken no heed of time. But when the ship had gone down, they found that it was ten o'clock. Garside was a good three miles distant, so that it would be close upon eleven before they reached ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... of the horizon hidden by the enormous piles of bricks, he felt the mass of mankind mighty in its numbers. They swarmed numerous like locusts, industrious like ants, thoughtless like a natural force, pushing on blind and orderly and absorbed, impervious to sentiment, to logic, ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... and nocturnal; the latter are copious and recur frequently. So insensible is the passage of semen that the patient is usually astonished and horrified on waking to find himself and bedclothes saturated with this fluid, which is easily absorbed by the clothes, and rapidly dries up, because it has become thin, watery and effete. In addition to this loss he is subject to one equally great on almost every occasion of urinating and defecating. This also takes place without any consciousness on his part, and his only knowledge ...
— Manhood Perfectly Restored • Unknown
... way into the house, and through the hall to a massive door of mahogany with a silver door-knob. The grandeur of the place awed me, and well it might. Boy-like, I was absorbed in this. Our little mountain cabin would almost have gone into this one room. The candles threw their flickering rays upward until they danced on the high ceiling. Marvel of marvels, in the oval left clear by the heavy, rounded ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... becomes narrow, and the ascent steep, and where water is plentiful, but the stream being soon absorbed does not appear to run down the main ravine at ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... coast of Peru, where it is most used, it scarcely ever rains at all. The truth is, that it certainly requires moisture to decompose it, and enable it to enter into the juices of the plant; by no means, however, so much as is usually supposed; but, once absorbed by the roots and plants, it imparts that strength and solidity which enable them to resist both ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson
... consisted of cold dried meat and rice, the quartette seated on the ferns in the corner of the cave were unusually silent. Mark Breezy and Ravonino continued to eat for some time without speaking a word. Ebony, although earnestly absorbed in victuals, rolled his eyes about as he looked from time to time at his companions with unwonted solemnity, and John Hockins frowned at his food, and shook his shaggy head with an ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... First Consul would strike him. Even Oscar Browning is obliged to refute this unworthy fabrication as being absurd on the face of it, but it has taken ninety years to produce the authentic document from the British Archives which disproves the scandal. Napoleon was too much absorbed in things that mattered to take notice of the stupid though virulent stories that were constantly being concocted against him. When he was appealed to by his friends to have the libels suitably dealt with, he merely shrugged his shoulders, as was his custom, and said, ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... obsolescence as the economic development goes forward, and the community increases in size; while the conspicuous consumption of goods should gradually gain in importance, both absolutely and relatively, until it had absorbed all the available product, leaving nothing over beyond a bare livelihood. But the actual course of development has been somewhat different from this ideal scheme. Leisure held the first place at the start, and came to hold a rank very ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... perfected. Until now the matter had not troubled me at all. Sometimes I had gone backward and sometimes forward, but, on the whole, I had always felt encouraged. I had taken great pleasure in the work, but I had never allowed myself to be too much absorbed by it. But now everything was different. I began to feel that it was due to myself and to my fellow-beings that I should properly put this invention before the world. And how should I set about it? What steps should I take? I must make no mistakes. When the matter should become known ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... while the young man with the turned-up nose gently, yet rather familiarly, withdrew from her a long coat of ermine. Meanwhile Mrs. Ackroyde sat down, keeping on her cloak, which was the colour of an Indian sky at night, and immediately became absorbed in the traffic of the stage. It was obvious that she really cared for art, while Lady Wrackley cared about the effect she was creating on the audience. It seemed a long time before she sat down, and let the two young men sit down too. But suddenly there was applause and ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... My son! my son! where is he at this hour? The flower of my life—a flower cut by this feminine needlecase as with scissors. Ha, lord! why have I been called? Who will give me back my son, whose soul has been absorbed by a womb which gives death to all, and life to none? The devil alone copulates, and engenders not. This is my evidence, which I pray Master Tournebouche to write without omitting one iota, and to grant me a schedule, that I may tell it to God every ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... centre barrel, his arms folded and a pipe in his mouth, there sat a man in a sort of sailor-costume—trousers, guernsey, and night-cap—surveying the world, and his fellow who dragged him, with an air of placid goguenarderie. It was really a striking impression, and absorbed me, I should think, for five or six seconds. I can conceive its coming into a story very well. But Maupassant's theories would have led to his making a whole story out of it, and his followers have already ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... absorbed in thought and unconscious of time. Now he looked up, he was aware of things. He listened. Surely Gaspare had been away a long while. ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... object, there is absolutism. Interpose a medium between the two, separate the law maker from the law executor, make both the subjects or servants of the law, and then, if the people are virtuous, you can harmonize private liberty with public order. The individual must not be absorbed by the state; individual liberty must not be merged in absolutism. Nor must the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... was stimulated in no such blessed way. He was supported by no sweet dreams of any beloved one of his. As for his wife, he had forgotten all about her. But as a matter of truth he had no memory of anything, having absorbed too much fluid out of his leather wine-bag, or bota, as it is called in Spanish. On getting up in the morning Sancho Panza was grieved to find the contents ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... looking with absorbed interest into Sunni's eyes. He came out of his instant of abstraction with a start, while Jones went ...
— The Story of Sonny Sahib • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... the meteorological observations at the screen adjacent to the Hut was a small matter compared with the foregoing. First of all, it was necessary for him to don a complete outfit of protective clothing. Dressing and undressing were tedious, and absorbed a good deal of time. At the screen, he would spend a lively few minutes wrestling in order to hold his ground, forcing the door back against the pressure of wind, endeavouring to make the light shine on the instruments, ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... was an Englishman. His connection with the Real del Monte Company extended only to the manufacture of salt. But even this was an extensive affair, and had already absorbed an investment of $100,000, in order to provide the salt used in only one branch of the process of refining silver at that mine. The gentleman was now absent, but his excellent English wife and her brother knew full well how to discharge the duties of host even to an unknown stranger. ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... furnished saloon, with lines of staterooms on either side. Three passengers were seated on sofas or in armchairs. Two were engaged in reading an afternoon paper, and the third, a girl of about fifteen, had her attention absorbed by a bird cage ...
— Sam's Chance - And How He Improved It • Horatio Alger
... distance are undistinguishable in shadow, because an object which is not in the highest light is incapable of transmitting its image to the eye through an atmosphere more luminous than itself; since the lesser brightness must be absorbed by the greater. For instance: We, in a house, can see that all the colours on the surface of the walls are clearly and instantly visible when the windows of the house are open; but if we were to go out of the house ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... church every Sunday, and kept a New Testament, bound in excellent taste, on her toilet-table! The occasion suggested reflection on the system which produces average Christians at the present time. Nothing more was said by Mrs. Presty; Mrs. Linley remained absorbed in her own bitter thoughts. In silence they waited for the return of the carriage, and ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... not like him or his family. They were poor, and she distrusted the poor; and what was worse, she knew they were better born and better bred than herself, and had higher aims. Gentle Mrs. Underwood, absorbed in household cares, no more thought of rivalry with her than with the Queen; but the soft movement, the low voice, the quiet sweep of the worn garments, were a constant vexation to my Lady, who having once pronounced the curate's wife affected, held to her ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... body. Superficial people called it narrow, because the sheer length of it diverted their attention from its breadth. Visionary, yet eager for the sound impact of the visible, it was never more alert than when it, so to speak, sat still, absorbed in its impressions. It was the sport of young and rapid impulses, which it seemed to obey sluggishly, while, all the time, it moved with immense, slow strides to incredibly far conclusions. Having reached a conclusion it was ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair
... the present age is so completely absorbed in materialities, at a time when the facilities are so singularly great for a philosophy which would inquire into the constitution of our moral nature. In the North Pacific, we are in contact with tribes ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 446 - Volume 18, New Series, July 17, 1852 • Various
... children were all excited and delighted at the thought of his coming visit! Radmore was now looked upon as a fairy godfather might have been. They were too young, too self-absorbed, to realise that these wonderful gifts out of the blue never seemed to wing their way to Betty or Janet. Yet stop, there had been an exception. Last Christmas each had received an anonymous fairing—Betty, a beautiful little watch, set ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... fill in the forms required with a full brush, and a dark tint, at once, instead of laying several coats one over another; always taking care that the tint, however dark, be quite liquid; and that, after being laid on, so much of it is absorbed as to prevent its forming a black line at the edge as it dries. A little experience will teach you how apt the colour is to do this, and how to prevent it; not that it needs always to be prevented, ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... steep clay banks. The inundations of torrents like the Degh and the Ghagar after this stage is reached convert the soil into a stiff impervious clay, where flood-water will lie for weeks without being absorbed into the soil. In Karnal the wretched and fever-stricken tract between the Ghagar and the Sarusti known as the Naili ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... more frequently in the daily press and always a synonym of destruction or of something to be feared. No sooner had business revived than the great shadow of internal strife was cast over the land, and for the duration of the Civil War the peril of the nation absorbed all the ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... Absorbed in themselves, they had not noticed that a stranger, seated at a neighbouring table, had been listening with attention. He rose and, apologising with easy grace for intrusion into a conversation he could hardly have avoided overhearing, requested permission to be of service. The restaurant was ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... stay of Mr. Norton in Hillerton, and for some days afterward, the Blaisdells were too absorbed in the mere details of acquiring and temporarily investing their wealth to pay attention to anything else. Under the guidance of Mr. Norton, Mr. Robert Chalmers, and the heads of two other Hillerton banks, the three legatees set themselves to the ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... England to the higher art of music has been peculiar. In the sixteenth century and earlier it was one of the most musical countries in Europe; but from the appearance of Haendel, about 1720, German music and German composers absorbed public attention to the exclusion of the natives—no one of whom, it may be added, evinced creative powers of any high order. England was a liberal patron of all the leading German masters, from Haydn, who wrote twelve symphonies for the London Philharmonic, to Beethoven, ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... there was little real discipline outside the sphere of the commander's personal observation, that the officers had no confidence in their men and the men but little in their officers, that the superiors were absorbed in securing some measure of physical comfort, that the inferiors were listless and disobedient. The forward movement was successful, and the union with Eugene was effected on April twenty-eighth. Two whole days elapsed, however, before the enemy was found, and it ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... durable peace, I think, has absorbed every administration since the end of World War II. It has required us to seek a limitation of arms races not only among the superpowers, but among the smaller nations as well. We have joined in the test ban treaty of 1963, ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Absorbed in this abyss of painful reflections, he fell into so profound a stupor, that none of those about him could draw from him a single word. Scarcely could a nod of the head be obtained from him by dint of importunity. At length ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... Irishman. Lord Beaconsfield did it, but then he was a Jew. Gladstone did it, but then he was a Scotsman. May I add that the present Prime Minister does it, but then he is a Welshman? Englishmen, as a rule, are absorbed in action; it is to them a religion, and it takes the place ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... reproduction of the selection. This is especially valuable after the prose lessons. There should follow an oral reading of the passage by the pupils, which will serve to show the teacher how much of the feeling of the poem has been absorbed, how clearly the pupils have understood the meaning, and what misconceptions have arisen in ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... Thrum, and with this young woman he appears to have fallen in love. The affair did not last very long, but it was fierce while it was on. Anne Hathaway was temporarily forgotten, and Mistress Frum (whose father kept the Bell and Canister) engaged—aye, absorbed—the attentions of the frisky young poet. At that time Shakespeare was spare of figure, melancholy of visage, but lively of demeanor; an inclination to baldness had already begun to exhibit itself, a predisposition hastened and encouraged ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... world who sought him out in his retirement,—in love with Madame d'Epinay and Madame d'Houdetot, anon returning to the coarse servant-wench whom he had but lately made his wife, and whose children he had put in the foundling-hospital. Music at that time absorbed all minds. Rousseau brought out a little opera entitled Le Devin de village (The Village Wizard), which had a great success. It was played at Fontainebleau before the king. "I was there that day," writes Rousseau, "in the same untidy array which was usual with me; a great deal of beard and wig ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... doctor could see the picture clearly. It was an extraordinarily good one, quite in the professor's happiest style. Composition, lighting, timing, all were perfect. But it is doubtful if John Rogers noticed any of these excellencies. He was absorbed at once and utterly in the personality of the person photographed. This was a girl, bending over a still pool. The pose was one of perfectly arrested grace and the face which was lifted, as if at the approach of someone, looked directly out of the picture and into Roger's ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... the shapes; a picture appealing even forcibly to our dramatic or religious or romantic side; or contrariwise, to our scientific one. There are days when he may be deeply moved by a Guido Reni martyrdom, or absorbed in the "Marriage a la Mode"; days when even Giorgione's Pastoral may (as in Rossetti's sonnet) mean nothing beyond the languid pleasure of sitting on the grass after a burning day and listening to the plash of water and the tuning of instruments; ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee
... not the word. Neither the city nor the streets were really gay. The city, as a city, was too dead in earnest, too absorbed, too intent, to indulge in gayety. It was the greatest of all the days of the year in Coutances. In the climaxic moments of life, one is solemn, not gay. It was not only the greatest, but the busiest, day of the year for this cathedral town. Here was a whole city to deck; every ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... of Rome.—The ancient world was divided among a great number of kings, little peoples, and cities that hated one another. They never united for resistance and so Rome absorbed them one ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... mood would change. In a few days this man was going to give everybody who knew him the surprise of their lives. Had he any presentiment or intention as to the future himself? I think he had both intention and presentiment. Throughout the whole summer of 1917 his whole heart and soul were absorbed in preparation for the coming push; never did a man give his mind more completely, unstintingly, and whole-heartedly to a project than Best-Dunkley did to the Ypres offensive which was to have carried us to the Gravenstafel Ridge, then on to ...
— At Ypres with Best-Dunkley • Thomas Hope Floyd
... our interests, the whole country was never more prosperous than at the present period, and never more rapidly advancing in wealth and population. Neither the foreign war in which we have been involved, nor the loans which have absorbed so large a portion of our capital, nor the commercial revulsion in Great Britain in 1847, nor the paralysis of credit and commerce throughout Europe in 1848, have affected injuriously to any considerable ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... ceased to give him pleasure. He found his friend's wife middle-class, self-absorbed, and artificial, the friend himself donnish, cut and dried, and liable to anecdotic seizures of increasing frequency. The intimacy dwindled and was now moribund. But it never entered his mind to enquire into the whereabouts of the sister, and to continue ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... Garth at the turning of the lonnin. The blacksmith was swinging along the road, with a hoop over his shoulder. He lifted his cap as the Reverend Nicholas came abreast of him. That worthy was usually too much absorbed to return such salutations, but he stopped ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... burst into sobbing. The judge looked away into space, his dim eyes seeing nothing that was near, his face an impassive mask of colorless flesh. The old lawyer's words had stirred his blood, sluggish and cold with age, but his brain absorbed the larger part of his roused vitality, and when he spoke his voice had an unwontedly flat and ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... were green with freshness. Here arranging to await The new sun's reviving presence, Giving fancy that full scope, That wide range which it possesses, I in solitude indulged Many and many a deep reflection. Thus absorbed was I in thought When there came to me the echo Of a sigh half heard, for half To its owner retroverted. Then collecting in mine ear All my senses joined together, I again heard more distinctly That weak cry, that faint expression, That mute idiom of the ...
— The Wonder-Working Magician • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... were the horsemen, so wide the canyon's mouth, they had traveled only half-way across the span. Yet he continued to watch, wondering at the nervousness around him, conscious of steadily increasing heat upon him, until the last of the slow-moving specks, absorbed one by one by the canyon's wall, disappeared from view. Then ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... cottage was as destitute of provisions as the cell of a prisoner. The ticket-of-leave apostle lived on a little milk and crusts of stale bread. Moreover, when Mr Verloc arrived he had already gone upstairs after his frugal meal. Absorbed in the toil and delight of literary composition, he had not even answered Mr Verloc's ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... that the language of the middle ages had been corrupt, and the primal object of every scholar became now to purify his style. To this study of words, that of forms being added, both as of matters of the first importance, half the intellect of the age was at once absorbed in the base sciences of grammar, logic, and rhetoric; studies utterly unworthy of the serious labor of men, and necessarily rendering those employed upon them incapable of high thoughts or noble emotion. ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... so absorbed that he did not answer immediately, and the agent repeated the question with a little ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... close to his own and as if on the other side of the crystal. Mr. Cave was so startled and so impressed by the absolute reality of these eyes, that he drew his head back from the crystal to look behind it. He had become so absorbed in watching that he was quite surprised to find himself in the cool darkness of his little shop, with its familiar odour of methyl, mustiness, and decay. And, as he blinked about him, the glowing crystal faded, and ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... and vigilant the birds are, even when absorbed in building their nests! In an open space in the woods I see a pair of cedar-birds collecting moss from the top of a dead tree. Following the direction in which they fly, I soon discover the nest placed in the fork of a small soft maple, which stands amid a thick growth of wild cherry-trees ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... the difference being accounted for by the rain which is required to wet the surfaces before any flow off can take place, in addition to the rain-water collected in tanks for domestic use, rain required to fill up gullies the water level of which has been lowered by evaporation, and rain-water absorbed in the joints ...
— The Sewerage of Sea Coast Towns • Henry C. Adams
... long list might be made of foreigners who have mastered the English language and written it with ease and elegance, yet I cannot recall one who has so completely absorbed native idioms, who has made for himself an English mind (without losing his profound and supersubtle Slavic soul), as has Joseph Conrad. He is unique as stylist. He first read English literature in Polish translations, ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... softly. She had the idea that some one was standing outside hesitating whether to enter. Thoughts flashed quickly through her mind. This was not Norris Vine, or he would have entered his own room without hesitation. She affected to be absorbed in the magazine which she had picked up, but it was almost certain, from the fact that the door was gently pushed open another inch or two, that some one was looking through the chink. She read on unmoved, although she even fancied that she could hear the stifled ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... home, soon became delirious, and Frederick could not be persuaded to leave him. He sat down by the side of his poor friend, wholly absorbed in silence. Marcus, while he remained in that delirious state, frequently pronounced the name of Frederick. "My dear Frederick," he would sometimes say, "what could I have done to deserve being treated in this manner? Yet, I am sure, you cannot be less unhappy than myself, ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... the slightest noise. Their eyes were just on a level with the top of the partition, and they had a good view of the next cubicle. The occupants, Stephanie and her room-mate, Beth Broadway, were far too absorbed to think of looking up towards the ceiling. Their attention was concentrated on the parcel which had arrived by the post. It contained a small bottle, carefully packed in shavings, and also a typewritten letter, the purport of which seemed ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... subsequent centuries Montenegro was able to maintain its independence from the Ottoman Empire. From the 16th to 19th centuries, Montenegro became a theocracy ruled by a series of bishop princes; in 1852, it was transformed into a secular principality. After World War I, Montenegro was absorbed by the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, which became the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929; at the conclusion of World War II, it became a constituent republic of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... and she only knew she wanted to lure the porcupines back, that she might do something to them. And first, being a woman, that something occurred to her in connexion with hot water. How conclusive it would be to wait till the porcupines were absorbed in their consumption of the herring-tub, and then pour scalding water down upon them. After all, it was more important that she should vanquish her enemies than prove to a mere man that they really were her enemies. What did she care, anyway, what that Joe Barron ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... scarcely taken shape in my mind when, at a turn in the road, I came upon three of my Oneida scouts standing in the center of the road. The seven others must have gone on, for I saw nothing of them. The next moment I caught sight of something that instantly riveted and absorbed my attention. ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... discussion of every question of public interest, and exercise an important influence upon the growth and tendencies of literature and art. Indeed, the women of America are the one class in the community that enjoys that leisure which is so necessary for culture. The men are, as a rule, so absorbed in business, that the task of bringing some element of form into the chaos of daily life is left almost entirely to the opposite sex, and an eminent Bostonian once assured me that in the twentieth century the whole culture of his country would be in petticoats. By that ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... Tour was informed that the governor had a letter to give her from her aunt. She flew to Port Louis, careless on this occasion of appearing in her homely garment. Maternal hope and joy subdued all those little considerations, which are lost when the mind is absorbed by any powerful sentiment. Monsieur de la Bourdonnais delivered to her a letter from her aunt, who informed her, that she deserved her fate for having married an adventurer and a libertine; that misplaced passions brought along with ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... any white girl he had ever met. The world—his world—was all so new and marvellous to her that it was like opening its doors to some visitor from another planet. He took great pleasure in doing that service and in seeing how quickly and eagerly she absorbed everything she saw and heard and read; and he found her fresh and constant interest entirely delightful. So it soon came about that the quiet afternoons at home grew more and ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... bundle, warmed it in his bosom, and began in a neat and artistic manner to model a beautiful rose with scores of delicate petals. Whilst busy with this work he hummed to himself some of the lines of the song he had just sung, and so deeply absorbed was he in his occupation that he did not observe the handsome youth who had been standing behind him for some time and attentively ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... But I can tell you that at this rate we sha'n't get anything till midnight!" Still Pargeter sat down again, and fortunately there soon came up a waiter who had known the great sportsman elsewhere; and a moment later he was absorbed in the amusing occupation of making out a careful menu from a new ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... Ken." Patty's quick perceptions had caught the flaw in Kenneth's argument. "It isn't that. It's because you're so absorbed in your work that you'd RATHER dig and delve in it, than to go to parties. That's all right, of course, and much to your credit. But you can't blame me for liking a man who is willing to throw over ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... was arranging the medicines on the stand and jotting down his instructions on a chart sheet. He had absorbed her in a single glance, and was now defining her as he worked. After a while he ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... Kentucky and Tennessee—though there was an occasional Yankee among them. Soon after Lincoln left the place, in the spring of 1837, it began to decline. Petersburg had sprung up two miles down the river, and rapidly absorbed its population and business. By 1840 New Salem was almost deserted. The Rutledge tavern the first house erected, was the last to succumb. It stood for many years, but at last crumbled away. Salem ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... faith was in himself, his hope was for the immortality of his own works, and his charity was for the defects in those works. He is known to have been an affectionate son, an affectionate husband; but, for the rest, all the tenderness in him seems to have been absorbed into his love for such things in nature as were expressible through terms of his own art. As a man in relation to his fellow-men, he cannot, from any purely Christian standpoint, be applauded. He was inordinately vain and cantankerous. Enemies, as he has ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... was not surprised to receive a visit from the duke, because, as we have said, it was not the first by many; but he was grieved to see him sad and dejected, and instantly perceived that his whole soul was absorbed in some painful thought. As to Cornelia, having been told that the duke was there, she was seized with renewed terror, not knowing how her misfortunes were to terminate. She wrung her hands, and hurried from one side of her ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... music-lesson, so absorbed in her own thoughts that it was all as mechanical as the metronome. As she came out upon the Avenue for the walk home, she saw a group of people from a gardener's house, who had collected beside a muddy crossing, where a team of cart-horses had refused to stir. Presently they sprang ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... time." And so they started—John in front with the books, and the Doctor a pace behind, his box now in the left hand, with a handkerchief added, and the other holding up his gown, both dignitaries bare-headed, unself-conscious, absorbed in their office. ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... wisest. But I do not feel myself to be myself. I have received to-day a succession of unaccustomed influences. I have been dragged about by an impertinent locomotive; I have been induced to dine heavily; I have absorbed champagne, perhaps to the limit of my measure. These are not my ordinary ways: I am naturally thoughtful, studious and pensive. The Past, gentlemen, is for me an unfaded morning-glory, whose closed cup I can coax open at pleasure, and read ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... coast, from the St. Laurence to the Missisippi, was colonized by the French and English, (I make no account of the Dutch establishment on the Hudson nor of the Swedish on the Delaware; they being of little importance, and early absorbed in the English settlements.) If we look back only one hundred years from the present time, we find the French and English dominions here about equally important in point of extent and population. ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... found on his person, an important clue to the principal personages and objects of the revolt was promised; and I proceeded to the place of temporary detention to examine the prisoner. What an utter breaking up of the vision which had so lately absorbed all my faculties! What a contrast; was now before me to the pomps and pleasures of the fete! On a table, in the guard-house, lay a human form, scarcely visible by the single dim light which flickered over it from the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... Rambler is a masterly essay against gulosity[1373]. His practice, indeed, I must acknowledge, may be considered as casting the balance of his different opinions upon this subject; for I never knew any man who relished good eating more than he did. When at table, he was totally absorbed in the business of the moment; his looks seemed rivetted to his plate; nor would he, unless when in very high company, say one word, or even pay the least attention to what was said by others, till he had satisfied his appetite[1374], ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... dimly now, Less vivid than a half-forgotten dream, The memory of that mental excellence Comes o'er me, and it may be I entwine The indecision of my present mind With its past clearness, yet it seems to me As even then the torrent of quick thought Absorbed me from the nature of itself With its own fleetness. Where is he that borne Adown the sloping of an arrowy stream, Could link his shallop to the fleeting edge, And muse midway with philosophic calm Upon the wondrous ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... lose it by evading the lesser evil for the greater. I have heard of women who fled to poverty from dissatisfaction with a husband, but pride survived and made poverty dreadful. Pride in either case increased the discontent. You should take the step which will let pride be absorbed in duty, ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend |
