"Avidity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fearing a return of pride on the part of his interlocutor, who sustained her part in the dialogue by little whines and grumblings, he threw her a fourth piece of sugar, which she seized with greater avidity from having been kept waiting. This time, without being called, she came to take her place at the window. The chevalier's triumph was complete. So complete, that Mirza, who the day before had given signs of so superior an intelligence in discovering Bathilde's return, ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... was passed to each then, swallowed with avidity, and then Wilton sighed as he helped to secure the tompion ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... West continued to be the man who shared his time between his rifle and his plough. The numerous buffalo were butchered with an endless avidity by the men who now appeared upon the range. As the great herds regularly migrated southward with each winter's snows, they were met by the settlers along the lower railway lines and in a brutal commerce were killed in thousands and in millions. The ...
— The Passing of the Frontier - A Chronicle of the Old West, Volume 26 in The Chronicles - Of America Series • Emerson Hough
... WRITERS. The French literature of the Norman period is interesting chiefly because of the avidity with which foreign writers seized upon the native legends and made them popular in England. Until Geoffrey's preposterous chronicle appeared, these legends had not been used to any extent as literary material. Indeed, they were scarcely known in England, though familiar to ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... with a deep hostility to everything that was outside a strictly literal interpretation of the Scriptures. Full of devotion and self-abnegation in his desperate struggle with the powers of evil, he read the Holy Book with avidity, and was constant in his attendance at theological conferences. Thus, nourished on the marrow of the Scotch theologians, he returned to Australia and was ordained to the priesthood at Alma. Soon afterwards he was appointed minister to the Congregational ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot
... has been destroyed not by its enemies but by its too ardent devotees. The horrid banquet, devoured with avidity for so many years, has become so highly seasoned that the jaded palate at last cries out for something different, and, according to Peacock, finds what it desires in "the vices and blackest passions of our nature tricked out in a masquerade dress of heroism and disappointed benevolence"—an ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... his victim with an eye of avidity and triumph. His eager curiosity wandered over her hoard of charms; and his brutal passion was soothed with the contemplation of her disorder. Already in imagination, he had possessed himself of a decisive advantage over so apparent a weakness; and his ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... prevented him from basking in the rays of the earthly Venus. Before leaving Paris he had had an intrigue with a certain Mile. M———, a somewhat frivolous and unscrupulous beauty, who had bled his not overfilled purse with the avidity of a leech. Berlioz heard just before returning to Paris that the coquette was about to marry, a conclusion one would fancy which would have rejoiced his mind. But, no! he was worked to a dreadful rage by what he considered such perfidy! His one thought was to avenge himself. ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... lessons and forming his political creed from a most unlikely source, apparently. This was the Weekly Dispatch, a paper that in those days was scarcely thought to be proper reading for young people. He read it, however, with avidity, and there is no doubt that it had much to do with forming his political character, and in laying the foundation of the sturdy inflexibility with which he held to his political principles. One of his early friends says, "He liked the Weekly Dispatch. The politics, being racy, had ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... some well-fed philosopher, whose meat and drink turn to gall within him; whose blood is ice, whose heart is iron; could have seen Oliver Twist clutching at the dainty viands that the dog had neglected. I wish he could have witnessed the horrible avidity with which Oliver tore the bits asunder with all the ferocity of famine. There is only one thing I should like better; and that would be to see the Philosopher making the same sort of meal himself, with the ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... intellectual activity. Even when they pursue truth, they desire as much as possible of what we may call human scenery along the road they follow. They dwell in the heart of life; the blood sounding in their ears, their eyes laying hold of what delights them with a brutal avidity that makes them blind to all besides, their interest riveted on people, living, loving, talking, tangible people. To a man of this description, the sphere of argument seems very pale and ghostly. By a strong expression, ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hunting-shirt over her, for the air was shrewdly cool. In the dying coals I saw pictures, wherein Kirst, Dale, and Lost Sister paraded in turn; the fate of each the result of race-hatred, and a race-avidity to possess the land. And a great fear came over me that the girl leaning against the walnut, the mass of blue-black hair seeming to bow down the proud head, was destined to be added to the purchase-price the frontier ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... where, in place of antiphonaries, heavy ledgers reposed on reading-desks. Like leprosy, the avidity of the age was ravaging the Church, weighing down the monks with inventories ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... man that one, by his death, might ransom all the rest. The lot was cast, and it fell on La Chore, the same wretched man whom Albert had doomed to starvation on a lonely island. They killed him, and with ravenous avidity portioned out his flesh. The hideous repast sustained them till the land rose in sight, when, it is said, in a delirium of joy, they could no longer steer their vessel, but let her drift at the will of the tide. A small English bark bore down upon them, ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... first story,—"The Two Voices, or the Shadow and the Shadowless,"—is a sweet thing, as is also the one entitled, "The Diamond Fountain." Indeed, the whole number, and there are ten, will be read with avidity. Their moral is as pure as ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... were winging through the air—driven now by the breeze, or lingering over our heads as if afraid to be soiled by the earth, which we were bent to open where the dead then lay—or some time before lay—a mass of putrefaction; yet dear to the feelings of the bereaved, and sought now with greater avidity than when the body was arrayed in the smiles of beauty, and filled with living, breathing love. The husband spoke nothing; and George was silent, save for the deep sobs that burst from him as he looked upon the woe-worn form of his father, who stalked ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... convicts particularly happy in fertility of invention and exaggerated descriptions; hence, large fresh-water rivers, valuable ores, and quarries of limestone, chalk, and marble were daily proclaimed soon after we had landed. At first we hearkened with avidity to such accounts, but perpetual disappointments taught us to listen with caution, and to ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... was rather absent, and she took wine. These were all the circumstances that her anxious sister could fix upon, during dinner, for silent comment. After dinner, having eaten an orange with something like avidity, Margaret withdrew for a very few minutes. As the door ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... upon knowledge, and liberty, to the beasts of the field, for they are incapable of such truths. But these themes are forbidden to slaves, not because they cannot, but because they can and would seize on them with avidity—receive them gladly, comprehend them quickly; and the masters' power over them would be annihilated at once and for ever. But I have more frequently heard, not that they were incapable of receiving ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... severely judged. He lived in a time when the worst examples abounded, a time of court intrigue and state revolution, when nothing was certain for a moment, and when all who were possessed of any opportunity to make profit, used it with the most shameless avidity, lest the golden ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... civilization, — and his indebtedness to Southern scenery will be the more apparent in later chapters of this book. All the while his genius had been steadily growing. When the time came he was a prepared man — ready to seize with avidity every ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... hold up large caravans of ships to the number of three hundred or more at the very gates of the English Channel. And the worst of it was that there was no ransom that we could pay to satisfy his avidity; for whatever evil is wrought by the raiding East Wind, it is done only to spite his kingly brother of the West. We gazed helplessly at the systematic, cold, gray-eyed obstinacy of the Easterly weather, while short rations became the ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... mediator, a final judge, a future saviour, a king, god, conqueror and legislator, who was to restore the golden age upon earth,* to deliver it from the dominion of evil, and restore men to the empire of good, peace, and happiness. The people seized and cherished these ideas with so much the more avidity, as they found in them a consolation under that deplorable state of suffering into which they had been plunged by the devastations of successive conquests, and the barbarous despotism of their governments. This conformity between the oracles of different nations, ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... there was no salvation for this country until six heads of the principal persons in administration were laid upon the table. Eleven days after, this same gentleman accepted a place of lord of trade under those very ministers, and has acted with them ever since!" Such was the avidity of bidders for the most trifling production of Fox's genius, that, by the addition of this little record, the book sold for ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... contract. We have in this very period formed a new taste—or taken a new lease of an old one—for reading history, which had been dormant all through our first and second youth. We expect to see the time when we shall read the Elizabethan dramatists with avidity. We may not improbably find a delight in statistics; there must be a hidden charm in them. We may even form a relish ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... stage all these things of which I have spoken, and more. He saw the fight at Nombre de Dios, the capture of the rich galleon, the sacking of Maracaibo. I do not know whether other boys of that time were reading the American authors with such avidity, or whether it was by some chance that these books were thrown in his way. Washington Irving, Fenimore Cooper, Prescott, Emerson (in parts), Longfellow, Whittier, Bryant, Edgar Allan Poe, Lowell, Holmes, not to mention Thoreau, ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... others caught at the suggestion with avidity, and in a very few minutes each of the boys was mounting the fire-escape once again, this time with a large sheet of ice, not unlike a heavy pane of glass, under ...
— The Rover Boys on Snowshoe Island - or, The Old Lumberman's Treasure Box • Edward Stratemeyer
... surer, and the free laborer will pass a hundred times sooner from his present condition to that of a serf attached to the soil. Formerly, the length of time required to effect the seizure curbed the usurer's avidity, gave the borrower an opportunity to recover himself, and gave rise to a transaction between him and his creditor which might result finally in a complete release. Now, the debtor's sentence is irrevocable: he has but a few days ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... producing a volume of 'Monte Cristo'. She seized the book with avidity, and, after running her eyes over the pages, turned inquiringly to ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... regent was recklessly extravagant, but his expenditure was always upon self or the gratification of self. A hundred examples of his selfish nature might be given, but cui bono? Everything he could get hold of, which could minister to his own personal gratification, he grasped with avidity. In this spirit he appropriated the jewels and spent on himself the whole of the money belonging to his late father's estate, amounting to L120,000. His ministers did not dare to oppose his greed, or tell him that this ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... notable trophy as the tomb of Ceadwalla, the royal catechumen, which was erected and inscribed by Sergius I., disappeared from the Vatican, and was irretrievably lost, together with innumerable monuments of ancient art and piety, owing to the calamities of the times, the avidity of the workmen, and the ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... honors my father's memory shall be deposited as a most sacred family property in that room of mourning where once his son and grandsons used to receive with avidity from him lessons of patriotism and active love of liberty. There the daily contemplation of it will more and more impress their minds with that encouraging conviction that the affection and esteem of a free nation is the most desirable reward that can be obtained ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... exhibited a remarkable love of reading, and as no one took the trouble to direct my tastes, I seized every book which came within my reach and devoured it, with the avidity of a hungry and unoccupied mind. My father was a gentleman of pure and elegant taste, and had he dreamed that I was exposed, without guardianship, to dangerous influences, he would have shielded and warned me. But he believed ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... granted a supply, the largest by far that had ever been given to a king of England, yet scarcely sufficient for the present undertaking. Near two millions and a half were voted, to be levied by quarterly payments in three years. The avidity of the merchants, together with the great prospect of success, had animated the whole ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... power is not sure, because the dispositions of its heir apparent are not sure. But whether the present be truce or peace, it will allow time to mature the conditions of the alliance between France and the two empires, always supposed to be on the carpet. It is thought to be obstructed by the avidity of the Emperor, who would swallow a good part of Turkey, Silesia, Bavaria, and the rights of the Germanic body. To the two or three first articles, France might consent, receiving in gratification a well-rounded portion of the Austrian ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... avidity, and repaired to his tent. But what was his confusion and surprise to find, on examining his present, that it was nothing but a fragment of a human skull. "And is this," exclaimed he, "the mighty gift that they bestow on kings and heroes? Is this ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... type of steamer passenger and hotel guest who may, or may not, be a climber. This one searches out potential acquaintances on the passenger list and hotel register with the avidity of a bird searching for worms. You have scarcely found your own stateroom and had your deck chair placed, when one of them swoops upon you: "I don't know whether you remember me? I met you in nineteen two, at Countess della Robbia's in Florence." Your memory being woefully ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... idioms of the original. Coming out in connection with translations from the Spanish and German, and with original pieces which immediately took their place among the favorite poems of every household, they could not be expected to attract general attention. But scholars read them with avidity, for they found in them the first successful solution of one of the great problems of literature,—Can poetry pass from one language into another without losing its distinctive characteristics of form and expression? ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... At least it is correct as far as it goes, but leaves us very far from a complete explanation of this unpleasant survival. So scandalous is the interrelation of the armament firms[11] which has developed the world's trade in munitions and explosives into one obscene cartel; so cynical is the avidity with which their agents exchange their trade secrets, sell ships and guns, often by means of diplomatic blackmail, to friend or foe alike, and follow those pioneers of civilisation the missionary, the gin merchant ...
— The World in Chains - Some Aspects of War and Trade • John Mavrogordato
... hook, but its disposition seemed scarcely to have warranted these trifling blows. I was moved to compassion as it sat upon the jaw-bone of a whale, which projected beneath the tafrail, at one moment devouring pieces of its mother and sister with avidity, and at the next stretching its throat and blaring out mournfully, when a fragment of ice met its view, passing astern as we sailed on our course. It was about the size of a sheep, and after their ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 362, Saturday, March 21, 1829 • Various
... great swampy plains, from which the greater part of the snow had been melted by the warm south wind, leaving exposed, over hundreds of acres, vast quantities of this jointed grass, on which the geese feed with such avidity. The frost was still in the ground, and so there was no difficulty on the part of the hunters in arranging their shooting nests and decoys as they desired. The camp was made very similar to those already described. ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... matter of surprise that, rendered desperate by her accumulated disappointments and misfortunes, Marie de Medicis at this moment welcomed with avidity the suggestions of Chanteloupe, who urged her to revenge upon the Cardinal the daily and hourly mortifications to which she was exposed. At first she hearkened listlessly to his counsels, for she was utterly discouraged; but ere long, as he ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... astonished to see itself surpassed by the reality, caught fire; enthusiasm possessed these people, as in the times of Austerlitz and Jena; numerous groups collected round the couriers, whose tidings were listened to with avidity; and the inhabitants, in a transport of joy, never separated without exclamations of "Long live the emperor! Long ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... Religionis," etc., he began to think himself highly culpable for neglecting such a means of information, and took himself severely to task for this sin, adding many acts of voluntary, and to others unknown, penance. The first opportunity which offered, of course, he seized the book with avidity, but on examination, not finding himself scholar enough to peruse its contents, set his heart at rest; and, not thinking to inquire whether there were any English books written on the subject, followed his usual amusements, and considered his conscience as lightened of ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... way to a natural desire of hunger and dived at the curate's delight, forgetting entirely the crumb-begetting habits of cake. "Try one of those," I went on, indicating the topmost plate, and to my delight she helped herself, almost with avidity. "You remember, Penelope, how we used to loiter near the kitchen when we ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... money. Hesitatingly she asked to have her due, but it was refused on some excuse of having a large payment to make on that very day. Again she turned to go, but again turned to ask for only a part of what was her own. One dollar was thrown her with an unkind remark. The first she seized with avidity, the last ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... of the sound, that they conceive it to be supreme felicity. This is indeed Vanity of Vanities, and if such deluded Men ever come to their Senses, they will find it to be vexation of Spirit. When they reflect on their own folly, and injustice in having received the breath of Applause with avidity, and great delight, for Merrit which they are conscious they never had; and that many who have been the loudest in sounding their praises, had nothing in view, but their own private, and selfish interests, it will excite in them the feelings of shame, remorse, ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... look of satisfaction came into his eyes and he smiled happily. Next his look changed to a nasty look of determination, and he abruptly got up, tossing a bank-note on the table which Old Meg grabbed with avidity, calling down Heaven's blessings on the handsome gentleman until Paul, running up-stairs, could hear ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... "On the Philosophy of the Unconditioned," which I came upon, by chance, in an odd volume of the Edinburgh Review. The latter was certainly strange reading for a boy, and I could not possibly have understood a great deal of it;[37] nevertheless I devoured it with avidity, and it stamped upon my mind the strong conviction that, on even the most solemn and important of questions, men are apt to take cunning phrases for answers; and that the limitation of our faculties, in a great number of cases, ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... party who were not very tall travelled, as they themselves expressed it, between two high green walls, over which they could not see; and these green walls were composed of rich grass which the ponies ate with avidity. On a subsequent occasion when we visited this valley we had to call to one another in order to ascertain our relative positions when only a few yards apart; and yet the vegetation was neither rank nor coarse, but as fine a grass as I have ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... this kind are sought and read with avidity, especially by children, and are well calculated to excite their attention, inform their understanding, and improve them in the art of reading, the greatest care has been observed to render the style easy, the language comprehensive, and the description natural. ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
... supply of money was now the question, and one most difficult to be answered. But an unexpected stroke of good fortune was in store for us. Strolling into the bar-room of the principal hotel, I saw a play-bill stuck up on the wall. This I read with avidity; and then, to my great satisfaction, I became aware of the fact that an old friend of mine, one Bill Pratt, a travelling actor and manager, had "just arrived in Lancaster with a talented company of comedians, who would that evening have the honor of appearing before the ladies and gentlemen ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... was accustomed to having his business offers snapped up the instant they were made, the younger man's deliberation piqued his interest and respect as almost nothing else could have done. He had thought the terms suggested very generous and had expected them to be seized with avidity. It was something new to have a penniless youth waver as to whether ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... they passed, searching among the ruins for plunder, occasionally turning up some trifle upon which they pounced with the avidity of children, and examining the half-burnt remnants of chairs, tables and stands, etc. Here and there they pulled the black, twisted nails forth, that looked like worms burnt to a cinder, and carefully preserved them for future use. Every metallic substance was seized as a prize, and ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis
... from the shore, we got out our fishing-lines. So beautifully clear was the water as the sun shone down into it, that we could actually see the fish take the hook. They bit with wonderful avidity, and in a short time we caught as many rock-cod and other fish as we required. After this we stood along the coast, seldom within sixty miles of it, yet in sight of the snowy summits of the towering Andes. This part of the ocean is called by whalers "the off-shore fishing ground," ...
— The Two Whalers - Adventures in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... closed his eyes on every appearance of decline in the prosperity of the West Indies, he also seized with avidity every indication of the successful operation of his scheme, and magnified it both to himself and to the world. He made haste, in particular, to paint in the most glowing colors the rising prosperity of Jamaica.[175] His narrative was hailed with eager delight by abolitionists in ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... deal. To the same class may be referred the persona who lay themselves out for saying disagreeable things, the "candid friends" of Canning, the "people who speak their mind," who form such pests of society. To find fault is to right-feeling men a very painful thing; but some take to the work with avidity and delight. And while people of cultivation shrink, with a delicate intuition, from saying any thing which may give pain or cause uneasiness to others, there are others who are ever painfully treading upon the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... his uncle and Constantia, excusing his absence by the uncontrollable avidity he felt to engage in the cause of his injured Prince, to whose commands he promised a strict obedience, and vowed to be sedulously attentive to all his new duties. To Constantia he added that he hoped to return worthier of her, and to feel in future the glorious ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... which resulted after days and nights of anxiety and overtaxed strength of body and mind, in a low state of health and spirits that almost unfitted him for his accumulated business, which, nevertheless, he continued to prosecute with avidity. This was about the year 1841. I do not recollect how long his ill health lasted, but I well remember how his flesh went away—how pale he was—how he perspired at night, from nervous prostration, ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... constant delight and surprise, and nothing astonished or pleased him more than the avidity with which she took up German. This language was like play to her, and by the time she was ten years old she spoke, and read, and wrote it almost as well as ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... not yet come, and I subdued the momentary impulse and proceeded with my scrutiny of the people about me. The jury looked tired, with the exception of one especially alert little man who drank in even the most uninteresting details with avidity. But they all had good faces, and none could doubt their interest, or that they were fully alive to the significance of ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... scarce, but they got a sufficiency of either small bok or birds to supply their wants; and, whether it was the constant change, the fresh air, the rich meat essence which Dick partook of with avidity, or whether it was a combination of the effect of all these, the change in the boy was magical. He could take a long ride now without feeling weary, and wanting in appetite; he was ready to buckle ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... studies was very wearisome and uninteresting. When the 28th of August came—the date for breaking up camp and going into barracks—I felt as though I had been at West Point always, and that if I staid to graduation, I would have to remain always. I did not take hold of my studies with avidity, in fact I rarely ever read over a lesson the second time during my entire cadetship. I could not sit in my room doing nothing. There is a fine library connected with the Academy from which cadets can get books to read in their quarters. ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... the picker-up and the payer exceedingly contented. Meanwhile Peter with difficulty restrained Leslie from "picking up" stray pieces of mosaic from tessellated pavements, and other curios. Oddly together with Leslie's feeling for the costly went the insane and indiscriminate avidity of the collecting tourist. ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... Jerrold, John Forster, Marston, Wilkie Collins, and other men of prominent intellectual distinction, has given a remarkable prestige to this play, independent of its actual merits. It can not fail to be sought with avidity, both from interest in the occasion, and the popularity of the author. Nor is it altogether unworthy of his great reputation. The construction of the plot shows his usual fertility of resource, and the dialogue, which is various and spirited, is managed with no small skill. The scene is ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... this quite thrilling—I took it in with avidity. "And if she dies without doing anything, what becomes ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... cold, queenly—he had acquired strength of character, loftier ideals, and a sense of the value of intellectual gifts, which had kept him singularly free from and indifferent to, the temptations of the senses. He had learnt to drink mental stimulants with avidity. He had made one or two brilliant successes in literature, and was looked upon as a supremely "odd ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... a new and overmastering horror, bethought him of Jack's admonition about the water. He slipped down from the tree, gathered the large moist leaves that clustered near the pool and held them to the burning lips, Jones swallowed the drops with a hideous gurgling avidity, clutching the boy's hand ravenously to secure a more copious flow. There was a tin cup in the holster under the invalid's head. Taking this, Dick dipped up water from the black pool between the green leaves; the hot lips sucked it in at ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... her father, who was always authoritative and sentimental; Manning, who was always Manning. And most of the others she had met had, she felt, the same steadfastness. Goopes, she was sure was always high-browed and slow and Socratic. And Ramage too—about Ramage there would always be that air of avidity, that air of knowledge and inquiry, the mixture of things in his talk that were rather good with things that were rather poor. But one could not count with ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... the nature and situation of man; must reject appearances, which may be false, though specious; and must search for those rules, which are, on the whole, most USEFUL and BENEFICIAL. Vulgar sense and slight experience are sufficient for this purpose; where men give not way to too selfish avidity, or too extensive enthusiasm. ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... so many go to the morgue, merely to see dead bodies. No; the curiosity that impelled me, and the avidity with which I pursued the object of my study, was not ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... article, I must not deprive myself of the pleasure of congratulating you heartily on another. Since October 1802 no article on foreign affairs has been so apropos as your Cuban one of last October. Here it has been read with avidity and universal satisfaction, and I believe it will do much to guide influential opinion in England at this crisis. I hope to see you return to the subject in January. Remember that your January number, as far ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... unrolls with emotion the frightful misfortunes that assailed France during the reign of King John. The temerity, the improvidence of that monarch; the disgraceful passions of the King of Navarre; his treacheries; the barbarous avidity of the nobility; the seditious disposition of the people; the sanguinary depredations of the great companies; the ever recurring insolence of England; all this is expressed without disguise, yet with extreme moderation. No trait reveals, no fact even foreshadows ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... rightly-conceived tight place; he does much more than this—he believes, irresistibly, in the necessary, the precious "tightness" of the place (whatever the issue) on the strength of any respectable hint. It being thus the respectable hint that I had with such avidity picked up, what would be the story to which it would most inevitably form the centre? It is part of the charm attendant on such questions that the "story," with the omens true, as I say, puts on from this stage the authenticity of concrete existence. It then is, essentially—it begins to be, though ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... Orders in Council. He told me in direct terms, 'the Universal monopoly of Commerce'; that they had long desired an excuse for such measures as the Orders in Council, and that the French decrees were exactly what they wished, and the opportunity was seized with avidity the moment it was offered. They knew that the Orders in Council bore hard upon the Americans, but they considered ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... down again on that day, and she sat down on several other days. Felix, while he plied his brush, told her a great many stories, and she listened with charmed avidity. Her eyes rested upon his lips; she was very serious; sometimes, from her air of wondering gravity, he thought she was displeased. But Felix never believed for more than a single moment in any displeasure ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... some said it was the prospect of national expansion. In any event the country got tired of its long fit of sulks; trade revived, railroads set about mending their tracks, mills opened—a current of splendid vitality began to throb. Men took to their business with renewed avidity, content to go their old ways, to make new snares and to enter them, all unconscious of any mighty purpose. Those at the faro tables of the market increased the stakes and opened new tables. New industrial companies sprung up overnight like mushrooms, watered and sunned by the ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... part liked with a mild and subdued liking. Everybody likes good and well-made bread; but nobody goes into raptures over it. Few persons like caviare; but those who do like it are very fond of it. I never knew but one being who liked mustard with apple-pie; but that solitary man ate it with avidity, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... by the pack of heathens around her," Mrs. Dr. Van Buren retorted, feeling a good deal guilty herself for having been instrumental in bringing about this unhappy match, and in proportion as she felt guilty, seizing with avidity any other offered cause for Ethie's wretchedness. "I've heard even more about them than you told me," she went on to say. "There was Mrs. Ellis, whose cousin lives in Olney—she says the mother is the ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... ebb, but, as she herself expressed it, she "seemed to have always one little window looking out into life," and in the spring she rallied sufficiently to take a few drives and to sit on the balcony of her apartment. She came back to life with a feverish sort of thirst and avidity. "No such cure for pessimism," she says, "as a severe illness; the simplest pleasures are enough,—to breathe the air and ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... that as the key had been left in the lock, there could be no harm in looking in. Her husband became as curious as she. Of course, the first things they saw were the prearranged books. They were seized upon with avidity probably with the expectation of finding something smutty, but to their surprise, and especially that of the doctor, it was quite ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... from Borneo wore his clothes wrong side out, as it is well known wild men from Borneo always do; and he ate grass with avidity. Wry-mouthed and squint-eyed, he was the incarnation of the ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... only to high office but even to the love of women. Tachibana Hiromi was one of the leading literati of his era. He rendered into most academical terms the Emperor's intentions towards Mototsune. From time immemorial it has always been a canon of Japanese etiquette not to receive anything with avidity. Mototsune declined the rescript; the Emperor directed Hiromi to re-write it. Thus far the procedure had been normal. But Hiromi's second draft ran thus: "You have toiled for the welfare of the country. You have aided me in accordance with the late sovereign's will. You are ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... have received the fatal impulse that led to my ruin. But the cursory glance my father had taken of my volume by no means assured me that he was acquainted with its contents, and I continued to read with the greatest avidity. When I returned home my first care was to procure the whole works of this author, and afterwards of Paracelsus and Albertus Magnus. I read and studied the wild fancies of these writers with delight; they appeared to me treasures known to few besides myself. I have described myself as always ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... Treveri had shut their gates against Caesar Decentius, was chosen to defend that people. After him, Asclepiodotus, and Luto, and Maudio, all Counts, were put to death, and many others also, the obdurate cruelty of the times seeking for these and similar punishments with avidity. ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... against every human ill, had yet never experienced or been habituated to prosperity. Accordingly, excess of good fortune and unrestrained indulgence were the ruin of men whom no severity of distress had subdued; and so much the more completely, in proportion to the avidity with which they plunged into pleasures to which they were unaccustomed. For sleep, wine, feasting, women, baths, and ease, which custom rendered more seductive day by day, so completely unnerved both mind and body, that from henceforth their past victories rather than their present ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... Further, in the diverging sects of the Christian religion, we find that its progressiveness is to be measured, not by the numbers of its women adherents, but by their relative freedom. The women of America, who belong to a thousand sects, who follow new ones with avidity, who even make them, and who also leave them all as men do, are women, as well as those of Spain, who remain contented Romanists, but in America the status ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... took up the idea with avidity. Coffee houses increased in number. The demand outstripped the supply. In the seraglio itself special officers (kahvedjibachi) were commissioned to prepare the coffee drink for the sultan. Coffee was in ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... desires, who have always cherished with grateful affection those who devote themselves to study and who add anything either ingenious or useful to the opinions of our forefathers, yet we have always desired with more undoubting avidity to investigate the well-tested labours of the ancients. For whether they had by nature a greater vigour of mental sagacity, or whether they perhaps indulged in closer application to study, or whether they were assisted in their progress by both these things, one thing we are ...
— The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury • Richard de Bury
... one who obtains the fruition of all his wishes, and one who casts off every wish, the latter, who renounces all, is superior to the former who obtains the fruition of all. No one could ever attain to the end of desire.[526] Only he that is destitute of knowledge and judgments feels an avidity for protecting his body and life.—Forbear from every desire for action. O my Soul that art possessed by cupidity, adopt tranquillity by freeing thyself from all attachments! Repeatedly hast thou been deceived (by desire and hope). How is it that thou dost not still free ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... story that had filled my childhood with tragic horror? How should I ever cease to see the pale face of the murdered man, with its fixed, open eyes? How should I not say: "I will avenge thee, thou poor ghost?" Poor ghost! When I read Hamlet for the first time, with that passionate avidity which comes from an analogy between the moral situation depicted in a work of art and some crisis of our own life, I remember that I regarded the Prince of Denmark with horror. Ah! if the ghost of my father had come to relate the drama of his death to me, with ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... peace and good government were not in need of that aid and countenance which they ought always to receive, and, I trust, ever will receive, against the vicious and turbulent, I should have caught with avidity the opportunity of restoring the militia to their families and homes. But succeeding intelligence has tended to manifest the necessity of what has been done, it being now confessed by those who were not inclined to exaggerate ...
— State of the Union Addresses of George Washington • George Washington
... telegrams of the local centre. At Chicago, the New York paper is forty hours behind the news; at San Francisco, thirty days; in Oregon, forty. Before California had been reached by the telegraph, the New York newspapers, on the arrival of a steamer, were sought with an avidity of which the most ludicrous accounts have been given. If the news was important and the supply of papers inadequate, nothing was more common than for a lucky newsboy to dispose of his last sheets at five times their usual price. All this has changed. A spirited local press ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... the seashore, he would most probably have said that the males subsist on decaying vegetable matter and moisture of slime. It is, however, more important to know what the female subsists on. We know that she thirsts for warm mammalian blood, that she seeks it with avidity, and is provided with an admirable organ for its extraction—only, unfortunately for her, she does not get it, or, at all events, the few happy individuals that do get it are swamped in the infinite multitude of those that are doomed by ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... of Pamphylia). There appeared a great and black dragon which came in clouds, and let down his head into the water, whilst his tail seemed turned to the sky; and the dragon drew the water to him by drinking, with such avidity, that, if any ship, even though laden with men or any other heavy articles, had been near him when drinking, it would nevertheless have been sucked up and carried on high. In order however to avoid this danger, it is necessary, when people see it, at once to make a great uproar, ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... criticism have ever recovered the eruption which they both made at the beginning of this century into the fashionable world. The poems of Lord Byron were received with an avidity that resembles our present avidity for sensation novels, and were read by a class which at present reads little but such novels. Old men who remember those days may be heard to say, 'We hear nothing of poetry nowadays; it seems quite down.' ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... therefore, to the multitudes who will, I trust, devour this book with avidity, I have so far explained our ancient manners in modern language, and so far detailed the characters and sentiments of my persons, that the modern reader will not find himself, I should hope, much trammelled by the repulsive dryness ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... covered with scales, perfectly resembles that of the Calamus rotang. It has somewhat the taste of the apple. When arrived at its maturity it is yellow within and red without. The araguato monkeys eat it with avidity; and the nation of the Guaraounos, whose whole existence, it may be said, is closely linked with that of the moriche palm-tree, produce from it a fermented liquor, slightly acid, and extremely refreshing. This palm-tree, with its large shining leaves, folded like a fan, preserves a beautiful ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... the country over the mountains; that the suspension of this encouragement, by the proclamation of October 1763, was merely temporary, untill the lands were purchased from the natives;—that the avidity to settle these lands was so great, that large settlements were made thereon, before they were purchased;—that although the settlers were daily exposed to the cruelties of the savages, neither a military force, nor repeated proclamations could induce them ...
— Report of the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations on the Petition of the Honourable Thomas Walpole, Benjamin Franklin, John Sargent, and Samuel Wharton, Esquires, and their Associates • Great Britain Board of Trade
... commerce bore down those speculative objections. The East India commodities were so essential for animating all other branches of trade, and for completing the commercial circle, that all nations contended for it with the greatest avidity. The English company flourished under this exportation for a very long series of years. The nation was considerably benefited both in trade and in revenue; and the dividends of the proprietors were often high, and always sufficient to keep ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... and ways of wronging girls, Jerry," she said slowly. I couldn't see her face, of course, but I knew that her eyes must have been searching him sidelong under their lashes with peculiar avidity. "Of course, I don't say that there was anything wrong, but you'll admit that Una's hunting you out the way ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... welcomed Julian's advances with avidity, nestled into his arms, but when he walked toward Valentine, struggled to escape and ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... since his arrival in Peru had been of inestimable value to him, and he had made the very utmost of it; he therefore felt confident of his ability to carry through his task to the satisfaction of his employers and with credit to himself, and he entered upon it with avidity and keen enjoyment. Moreover, he was tactful, and possessed the happy knack of managing those under him in such a way that he was able to extract the very last ounce of work from them without offending their susceptibilities, or causing them to feel that ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... the occasion of her asking him a question of this kind that he charged her, with a humorous emphasis in which, also, if she had been curious in the matter, she might have detected a spark of restless ardor, with having an insatiable avidity for facts. "You are always snatching at information," he said; "you will never consent ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... containing which "guoties-cumque sitit oeger, large bibit." When I have recalled the humane common-sense of Captain Cook in the matter of preventing this disease; when I have heard my friend, Mr. Dana, describing the avidity with which the scurvy-stricken sailors snuffed up the earthy fragrance of fresh raw potatoes, the food which was to supply the elements wanting to their spongy tissues, I have recognized that the perfection of art is often a return ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... have said it would appear that there is not at present any great literary movement in Holland; but on the contrary, there is great literary activity. The number of books published is incredible, and it is marvellous with what avidity they are read. Every town, every religious sect, every society, has its review or newspaper. Besides this, there is a multitude of foreign books: English novels are in the hands of all; French works ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... done this than the watchers saw him start upright again. He was undoubtedly devouring the thrilling news item on the front page with "avidity"—-at least, that was what Jim Pettigrew would have called it, had he been at his favorite job of "writing up" the doings of Scranton ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson
... without crack or flaw, twenty perfectly new and symmetrically straight nails, and one jack-knife. This being agreed to, the articles were at once handed over; the native receiving them with great avidity, and in the absence of clothing, using his mouth as a pocket to put the nails in. Two of them, however, were first made to take the place of a pair of ear-ornaments, curiously fashioned out of bits ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... Michigan cavalry was recruited under the title of "Copeland's Mounted Riflemen." One of the most picturesque figures in America before the war was John C. Fremont, known as "The Pathfinder," whose "Narrative," in the fifties, was read by boys with the same avidity that they displayed in the perusal of the "Arabian Nights." Fremont had a regiment of "Mounted Riflemen" in the Mexican war, though it served in California, and the youthful imagination of those days idealized it into a corps d'elite, ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... heavy rain the whole country is covered with a bright green carpet, but in summer, and, indeed, most of the year, the short scrub which here takes the place of grass is sombre in tint. Nevertheless cattle devour these apparently withered shrubs with avidity and thrive upon them. Again, when the warm tints of the setting sun flood the whole expanse of desert, there is a short-lived beauty in the rugged kopjes with all their fantastic outlines sharply silhouetted against the glowing sky. The farms on the Karroo, and, in fact, ...
— With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett
... say this work will be found the most circumstantial, and assuredly the most authentic, upon the subject of which it treats, of all that have yet been presented to the public of Great Britain. The press has been prolific in fabulous writings upon these times, which have been devoured with avidity. I hope John Bull is not so devoted to gilded foreign fictions as to spurn the unadorned truth from one of his downright countrywomen: and let me advise him en passant, not to treat us beauties ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... departure in every direction in order to reach a complete understanding of his subject. From each and every detail one is driven to consider the whole; the only thing that matters is that one go to work in the right way, with strength, intelligence, and avidity. Let one choose several different points of departure, working through from each of them to the whole, and one will grasp the whole all the more surely, and comprehend the wealth of detail all the more fully. Accordingly, by sinking ...
— Louis Agassiz as a Teacher • Lane Cooper
... voting for William C. Ruger of Onondaga, and he now caused it to be understood that under no circumstances would Grace be acceptable. The merchant's name once upon the list, however, the Boss snapped it up with avidity, while the Germans muttered because three of the five city candidates were Irishmen. Thus the campaign ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... necessary for making the plans to scale before the teacher in manual training would allow him to take up the work of construction. The boy had always lacked interest in both arithmetic and drawing, and consequently was dull in them. Under the new incentive, however, he took hold of them with such avidity that he soon surpassed all the remainder of the class, and was able to make his calculations and drawings within a term. He secured his automobile a few months later, and still retained his ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... for any possible hurt to his vanity. He could have owned them as his at any moment, had he chosen to do so. He did not read criticisms of his books, but was satisfied, as one of his friends observed, "to accept the intense avidity with which his novels are read, the enormous and continued sale of his works, as a sufficient commendation of them."[398] In the case of Byron, as always when the public approved the works of one of his brother authors, he considered ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... qualities could be appreciated as well as felt in an almost equal degree by all classes of his various readers. Thousands were attracted to him because he placed them in the midst of scenes and characters with which they were already themselves acquainted; and thousands were reading him with no less avidity because he introduced them to passages of nature and life of which they before knew nothing, but of the truth of which their own habits and senses sufficed to assure them. Only to genius are so revealed the affinities and sympathies of high and low, in ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... for the avidity with which he sought knowledge, and his honesty was outraged at an early age, being punished by his father for telling the truth of goods on sale, thereby losing a purchaser. Again his soul revolted when at Marseilles in 1799, where ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... which will be read with avidity, as it ought to be, it is so brightly and frankly written, and with such evident knowledge of the temperaments and habits, the friendships and enmities of schoolboys."—New ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... is curious to note what most interests visitors in certain departments. Straight University sends large numbers of imaginary letters written by pupils from various parts of the world. The visiting public read these letters with as much avidity as if the innocent epistles were real letters, and the neat manuscripts are already well thumbed. One of the best letters, all things considered, is from a pupil from Honduras, who has only been studying English two years. His letter, signed ...
— The American Missionary—Volume 39, No. 02, February, 1885 • Various
... proved that while the elementary gases and their mixtures, including among the latter the earth's atmosphere, were almost as pervious as a vacuum to ordinary radiant heat, the compound gases were one and all absorbers, some of them taking up with intense avidity ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 • Various
... little dog ran up to her and dropped his bread at her feet; she picked it up and ate it with avidity. Soon she looked quite recovered, and Cherry, delighted, was trotting back again to his kennel, when he heard loud cries, and saw a young girl dragged by four men to the door of the palace, which they were trying to compel her to enter. Oh, how ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik |
