"Bated" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... recognised him at once as the chief of the outlaws, and a man with a reputation for ruthless savagery that had caused his name to become a word of terror among the whites on the island, only to be mentioned with bated breath. ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... "Bated in spirit, and with pinions clipped, Of all the means my father left me stripped, Want stared me in the face, so then and there I took to scribbling ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... triumphant sculptor comes forward to claim the wondrous creation as the work of his brain and hand. Heralds, in thunder tones, repeat, "Who is the sculptor of this group?" No one can tell. It is a mystery. Is it the work of the gods? or—and, with bated breath, the question passes from lip to lip, "Can it have been fashioned by ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... it does not seem to be in her to dislike any one, it must be out of a harmless guile, felt to be comforting to servant-ridden householders, that she always speaks of "those Irish," her neighbors, with a bated breath, a shaken head, a hand lifted to the cheek, and ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... faithful to the trusteeship of the most priceless legacy that the past has left to the present and to the future? If this is not our function in the scheme of things, then what is our function? Is it to stand with bated breath to catch the first whisper that will usher in the next change? Is it to surrender all initiative and simply allow ourselves to be tossed hither and yon by the waves and cross-waves of a fickle public opinion? Is it to cower in dread of a criticism that is not ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... with bated breath," said the Skeptic, "precisely as every one, including its graduates, mentions it. I admit that Miss Lockwood's school is a place where rich young savages are turned out polished members of society. But there's been more ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... keepsakes, I now sat down by Georgia and listened with bated breath to the sound of grandma's approaching footsteps. ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... fortnight of the outbreak of the mutiny, men spoke with bated breath about the Act of God. It burst at the moment when India's reins were in the hands of some of the worst incompetents in history. A week found strong men in control of things—the right men, with the ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... but your answer. Remember I am flint if you are steel, hence the less often we are smitten together in this enquiry, the fewer may be the revealing sparks. Babet Blais, here is an affair of blackest tinder, whereon your bated breath has blown already, until it glows upon your guilty face, as grimly as the lurid East that brews a rainy day, to you the ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... precipitates gelatine completely, gives a bluish-black coloration with iron salts, and gives a precipitate with aniline hydrochloride. To investigate its tannoid properties, the mixture was brought to the acidity 1 gm 10 c.c. N/10 NaOH and a piece of bated calf skin was then introduced into a solution measuring about 2 B. After eighteen hours the pelt was nearly tanned through, and a further twenty-four hours completed the tanning process, after which a light fat-liquor was given. The dried leather was ...
— Synthetic Tannins • Georg Grasser
... had either failed or refused; some said one, some said the other, and the prevalent belief in Sudsville circles, as well as in the barracks, was that Captain Wren was going crazy over his troubles. And now there were women, ay, and men, too, though they spake with bated breath, who had uncanny things to say of Angela—the ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... saw that there were two people sitting high on the crest of that cascade. Wondering, Chick and the rest marched on through the silent crowd; all standing with bared heads and bated breaths. The worshipping Thomahlians filled every inch of that enormous place. Only a narrow lane permitted the procession to pass towards that ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... I own, an audacious and unjustifiable change of the text; but yet, as a mere conjecture, I venture to suggest 'bastards,' for ''bated.' As it stands, in spite of Warburton's note I can make little or nothing of it. Why should the king except the then most illustrious states, which, as being republics, were the more truly inheritors of the Roman grandeur?—With ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... Vecchio are several large specimens of his work that must have been once esteemed for their own sake. Now their chief value lies in the fact that they are a Hop-Smith production, having been painted by a pleasing writer and a charming gentleman, and so we point them out with forefinger and bated breath. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... see her go. But she remained poised for several seconds, the sunlight full upon her slim, straight figure and bare, upraised arms. Her hair, that had begun to dry, fluttered a little in the breeze. The splendour of it almost dazzled the onlooker. He sat with bated breath. She was like a young goddess, invoking the spirit of ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... from them, and the next moment was swallowed up in the yawning blackness. They waited with bated breath until, after a seeming eternity of night and silence, they heard his returning footsteps, and ran forward to meet him. As he was carrying something clasped to his breast, they supported him to the opening. But at the same moment the object ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... conveyed them to Gibraltar, where several suffered; others were forwarded to England, and condemned there. The story of the capture was long a standing topic in the unarmed merchantmen that passed her track. As the emigrant, even now, approaches the supposed latitude, he hears with bated breath the fate of the Cumberland, whenever a strange sail ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... of the Lee races had there been such an exciting scene as this. Jay Gardiner's face is as white as death, as, with bated breath, he watches the two thorough-breds. Every one rises to his feet in the hope of catching a full view of ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... time give their countenance and approbation to certain performances in this day. Welcome be the return of good sense, good taste, and charity, or rather justice. No apology for the stage. None is needed. It has but to be named to be honored. Too long the world talked with bated breath and whispering humbleness of "the poor player." There are now few poor players. Whatever variety of fortune and merit there may be among them, they have the same degrees of prosperity and respect as come to members of other avocations. There ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... the dogs, because of his having the advantage in the start, and because of his cunning in turning to account everything which will tell in his favor and against his pursuers. In the same way I know plenty of English friends who speak with bated breath of fox-hunting but look down upon riding to drag-hounds. Of course there is a difference in the two sports, and the fun of actually hunting the wild beast in the one case more than compensates for the fact that in the other the riding is apt to ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... Advancing noiselessly, and softly feeling for the latch, his hand encountered a bunch of keys depending from the lock, but happily did not set them jingling. As softly, he lifted the latch, when, almost of itself, the door opened a couple of inches, and, with bated breath, he saw the back of a figure he could not mistake—that of Mrs Catanach. She was stooping by the side of a tent bed much like his own, fumbling with the bottom hem of one of the check curtains, which she was holding towards the light ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... shivering in fortune's smile, Taking his joy with bated, doubtful breath; This other, gnawed by hunger, all the while Laughs in the teeth of ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... to Sally—the only witness of the exploit—was that Hester Sommers had been carried off in the manner related by an apparently friendly British sailor. This she told soon after to Peter the Great, and this was the substance of the communication which Peter the Great, with glaring eyes and bated breath, made to George Foster, who received it with feelings and expressions that varied ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... dramatic and thrilling love story, we watch with bated breath the unfolding of a high life drama of absorbing interest. Rank and wealth, pride and prejudice, vice and villainy, combine in a desperate and determined effort to break off a romantic and thrilling love match, the development, temporary rupture and final ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... misconduct. On a day, when he was unruly beyond all pardon, Russell took down the birch and invited him up before the school to receive the usual punishment. The great occasion had come. The children waited with bated breath. The boy refused openly, sneeringly. The next moment, he thought lightning had struck him. He was grabbed by the neck, held with a grip of iron despite all his struggles, whipped before the gaping school, taken to the door and kicked out ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... prosecution was brief, but remarkably astute. He troubled himself very little about the law of Blasphemy, although the jury had probably never heard of it before. He simply appealed to their prejudices. He spoke with bated breath of our ridiculing "the most awful mysteries of the Christian faith." He described our letterpress as an "outrage on the feelings of a Christian community," which he would not shock public decency by reading; and our woodcuts as "the grossest and most disgusting caricatures." ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... under his arm and the monkey on his shoulder, with both paws tightly clasped around his neck, Toby made his way out of the tent with beating heart and bated breath. ...
— Toby Tyler • James Otis
... the white mantle of fog, they drifted slowly away, watching with bated breath the misty outlines of the towering spars grow feinter and fainter, and then vanish altogether, till, although they were but forty yards away, the position of the Brekenbridge was discernible only by ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... to follow and to serve the good Which my word published and my life declared. Thus the lone hermit of the mountain-top Descended leader of a band of saints, And midway 'twixt the summit and the vale I perched my convent. Yet I bated not One whit of strict restraint and abstinence. And they who love me and who serve the truth Have learned to suffer with me, and have won The supreme joy that is not of the flesh, Foretasting the delights of Paradise. This faith, to them imparted, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... and presently the pound of hoofs was clearly audible returning on the same trail through the woods of the lake shore. The approach of strangers is charged with a tremendous significance to those immured in a wilderness. They bated their ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... shogun the strength of the Bakufu began to wane steadily, and the restoration of the administrative power to the sovereign came to be discussed, with bated breath at first, but gradually with increased freedom. It is undeniable, however, that the decline of the Tokugawa was due as much to an empty treasury as to the complications of foreign intercourse. The financial ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... ever since. I hated him, but I was always pleasant to him. He wasn't worth being angry with. He always did rotten things. He knew more filthy things than the other boys, and he was a bully—a beastly bully. I think he knew that I bated him, but we were on perfectly good terms. I think he was always a little afraid of me, but it's curious to remember that we never had a quarrel of any kind, until the day when I ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole
... thorough-going individuality and the undaunted courage of her opinions, which leads her to say frankly, if she think so, that Martin Tupper is a greater poet than Shakespeare, yet I have, on the other hand, met a young American matron who confessed to me with bated breath that she and her sister, for the first time in their lives, had gone unescorted to a concert the night before last, and, mirabile dictu, no harm had come of it! It is in America that I have over and over again heard ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... God, the Vishnu, or Preserver, a tutelar deity, a Lar, a guardian. Onyambe is the Bad God, Typhon, Vejovis, the Ahriman or Semitic devil; Shiva the Destroyer, the third person of the Aryan triad; and his name is never mentioned but with bated breath. They have not only fear of, but also a higher respect for him than for the giver of good, so difficult is it for the child- man's mind to connect the ideas of benignity and power. He would harm if he could, ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... deliver you. As moat abated captives to some nation That won you without blows. And bated is used in a kindred sense in the Jew ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... mountain. He is prowling about for chickadees, no doubt, a troop of which I saw coming through the wood. When pursued by the shrike, the chickadee has been seen to take refuge in a squirrel-hole in a tree. Hark! Is that the hound, or doth expectation mock the eager ear? With open mouths and bated breaths we listen. Yes, it is old "Singer;" he is bringing the fox over the top of the range toward Butt End, the Ultima Thule of the hunters' tramps in this section. In a moment or two the dog ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... over entirely to warlike pursuits. Some days we slope arms by numbers; and other days we clean dixies and indent for new boots. Night by night we guard our approaches and prod the tyres of oncoming motors with fixed bayonets. Every morning the man who held up General FRENCH tells us about it with bated breath over our bated breakfasts. It is one of the finest traditions of the corps that General FRENCH is held up by us every night. We have our own sentries' word for it. This is especially interesting in view of the persistent reports that he is in a totally different part of France. ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 9, 1914 • Various
... for the peasants, but that the Little Russian stood up for them, and tried to show that the peasants, too, must be taught to comprehend the good. She understood Andrey better, and he seemed to her to be in the right; but every time he spoke she waited with strained ears and bated breath for her son's answer to find out whether the Little Russian had offended Pavel. But although they shouted at the top of their voices, they ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... head" as he himself owned, "might err," but "whose heart could not deceive." Traveling by packet from New Orleans, this essential witness was heralded by the impatient prosecution, till at last he burst upon the stage with all the eclat of the hero in a melodrama—only to retire bated and perplexed, his villainy guessed by ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... they strained their eyes and spoke with bated breath, never a sight of boat or canoes was obtainable for hours after the latter were swallowed up by the trees which shrouded the creek at ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... at him steadily and he stopped laughing. In the bated hush of the courtroom he said softly, "What a pity I'm not an alien too. You could have ...
— The Mightiest Man • Patrick Fahy
... of that little hill, where Cunard, McDougal, St. John, Starr, and scores of others lie cold in death. They think of the wounded and suffering, and speak to each other of the terrible ordeal through which they have passed, with bated breath and in solemn tones, as if a laugh, or jest, or frivolous word, would be an insult to ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... out the sheath And shook the fallow brand; And there a while with bated breath, And hearkening ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... played somewhere behind the curtain. The dancer's movements were wholly without sound. The quivering, whirling feet scarcely seemed to touch the floor, it was a dance of inspiration, possessing a strange and irresistible fascination, a weird and meteoric rush, that held the onlookers with bated breath. ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... exclaimed Minnie in a whisper as she closed the book, "and the fever's gone. You said she would be safe—" and she stood with bated breath while the ...
— Hollowmell - or, A Schoolgirl's Mission • E.R. Burden
... strange audience of turbaned priests and veiled women showing their great approval in murmuring undertones of "kylie khoob" and involuntary acclamations of "Mashallah! mash-all-ah!" as they witness with bated breath the strange and incomprehensible scene of a Ferenghi riding a vehicle, that ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... followed, and stood amazed to see it vanish through the carven panelling, though door could he find none. Therefore was he sore perplexed and oft would touch the dewy flowers as half expecting they should vanish also. Now upon a certain dawn he had hid himself within the shadows and waited with bated breath and heart strangely a-throb. And with the day-spring she came again, tall and gracious in her clinging draperies and long green veil. Then, even as she bent to lay the flowers upon the grave came Beltane, soft of foot, and spake ere she ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... be, I own, an audacious and unjustifiable change of the text; but yet, as a mere conjecture, I venture to suggest "bastards," for "'bated." As it stands, in spite of Warburton's note, I can make little or nothing of it. Why should the king except the then most illustrious states, which, as being republics, were the more truly inheritors of the Roman grandeur?—With my conjecture, the sense would be;—"let higher, ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... my spaniel slept, whilst I baused[37] leaves, Tossed o'er the dunces, pored on the old print Of titled words, and still my spaniel slept. Whilst I wasted lamp oil, bated my flesh, Shrunk up my veins, and still my spaniel slept, And still I held converse with Zabarell, Aquinas, Scotus, and the musty saws Of antique Donate: still my spaniel slept. Still on went I: first an sit anima, Then, an' 'twere mortal. O hold, hold! At that they are at ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... host, Mrs. Ballantyne retired; the bottles passed round twice or thrice in the usual way; and then James rose once more, every vein on his brow distended, his eyes solemnly fixed upon vacancy, to propose, not as before in his stentorian key, but with "'bated breath," in the sort of whisper by which a stage conspirator thrills the gallery,—"Gentlemen, a bumper to the immortal Author of Waverley!" The uproar of cheering, in which Scott made a fashion of joining, was succeeded by deep silence, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... criticism somewhat better, cherish the Sentimental Journey (in spite of its indifferent French) and believe in the genius that created it. But the Briton reads it with shyness, and the British critic speaks of Sterne with bated breath, since Thackeray told it in Gath that Sterne was a bad man, and the ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... clerks of the great house talk of that dreadful day with bated breath—for as bloody Hector raged through the Greeks, so did the great Meeson rage through his hundred departments. In the very first office he caught a wretched clerk eating sardine sandwiches. Without a moment's hesitation ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... convenient silence at critical points where speech would be natural but ruinous, by which Schiller leads up to his climax. There is no other play of his, early or late, the entanglement of which is so palpably artificial; so like a child's house of cards, built up with bated breath lest a breath should topple it over. According to Boettiger, Schiller once took note of what some critic had remarked upon this lavish use of silence in 'The Bride of Messina' and expressed surprise that any one could so misconceive ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... desperado. But everyone felt that eventually Lanning would draw the deputy marshal away from his posse, and then the outlaw would turn, and there would follow a battle of the giants. The whole mountain desert waited for that time to come and bated its breath in hope and fear ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... not that for which youth hoped; But she hath blessings all her own, Thoughts pure as lilies newly oped, And faith to sorrow given alone: Almost I deem that it is thou Come back with graver matron brow, With deepened eyes and bated breath, Like one who somewhere had met Death. "But no," she answers, "I am she Whom the gods love, Tranquillity; That other whom you seek forlorn. Half-earthly was; but I am born Of the immortals, and our race Have still some sadness in our face: He wins me late, but keeps me long, Who, dowered with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... on. Suddenly there was a mysterious silence in the hall, followed by a kind of suppressed stir. Every one seemed: to be speaking with bated breath, or, if moving, walking on tiptoe. It was ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... and walked down the road until once more he came to the plank crossing and the passage-way between the colonel's and Bachelors' Row. Here again he stopped short, and waited with bated breath and scarcely-beating heart. The faint light he had seen before again illumined the room and cast its gleam upon the old gray wall. Even as he gazed, there came silently to the window a tall, white-robed form, and a slender white hand ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... liked to talk to Hender first, but Hender would not arrive for another hour, and nothing had ever seemed to her so important as that Dick should lodge with them. It was therefore with bated breath that she waited for Ralph to speak. They could not hope, he said, to find a nicer lodger; the little he had seen of him made him desirous of renewing the acquaintance, and he continued all through breakfast to eulogize Mr. Lennox. His ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... curiosity on part of the younger woman as to the composition of the passenger list. Even before they were beyond the rocky scarp of Alcatraz, for few things are impossible to a pretty woman, she had been able to secure a copy and to say, with bated breath, to the languid invalid: "At least he's not going on this ship. It might be better if he were." For Miss Geraldine Allyn had not lost faith ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... bated breath Dick listened until the growl was repeated. The walls of the cave took it up, and it was repeated over and over again ...
— The Rover Boys out West • Arthur M. Winfield
... nations,—to have universal peace. This woman, who had all the graces and charms of her sex, never inspired Napoleon with ambitious or haughty thoughts. While the war lasted, she was anxious, unhappy; waiting anxiously with bated breath for news, ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... wretched even if the discomfiture of his hopes for the Commonwealth had been as final and as irretrievable as his biographer supposes. But Milton knew that though disastrous it was not final or irretrievable. He had implicit confidence in the indestructibility of moral force, and he "bated no jot of heart or hope." He could see the limits of the reaction and he knew that, though great and calamitous in proportion to the errors of the Republican party, it had not changed in a day the character and fundamental tendencies of the nation. ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... alarm ran through the city, in curiously muffled tones that blanched the bravest faces,—a visitant, then feared beyond measure, that science had not been able to cope with. People spoke of it with bated breath. It was not simply among the poor and destitute, or those indifferent to cleanliness and order, but it spread everywhere,—the dreaded, ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... the nearest tree-branch. Then, clinging like a monkey, she swung herself from limb to limb until the lowest branch was reached. The drop to the ground was—even for Pollyanna, who was used to climbing trees—a little fearsome. She took it, however, with bated breath, swinging from her strong little arms, and landing on all fours in the soft grass. Then she picked herself up ...
— Pollyanna • Eleanor H. Porter
... similar measure; but pains were taken to make the Czar and the world believe that this measure was intended to protect the Porte from its own subjects, and not from him. Indeed, the allies seemed to name Russia with "'bated breath;" while Russia was filling the world with boasting, fabricating reports of successes over the tribes of Central Asia, pushing a force even to Bokhara, and menacing and wheedling Persia by turns. The Petersburg Gazette threatened that if England went to war, peace should ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... been reading an account of the evidence given at the inquest, devouring it eagerly, with pale face and bated breath. And as she read her chest rose and fell quickly, her dark eyes were filled with horror, and her lips were ashen grey. The light had faded from her pretty face, her cheeks were sunken, her face haggard and drawn, and about ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... Charter' steamer, and was watchman for the night. When I went on board I was not quite sober, and I lay down on the forecastle. After a while I thought I heard something fall overboard, when I ran on to the deck, but could not see anything. I listened with bated breath, but not a sound could I hear; at length I shouted, but there was no answer. A plank had been put from the 'Ann Scarborough,' into our 'Taffelrail,' and as this plank had fallen down, I thought it was its fall I had heard and nothing else. I got a boat hook and ...
— The Hero of the Humber - or the History of the Late Mr. John Ellerthorpe • Henry Woodcock
... object lay some distance ahead of them. With bated breaths they crept cautiously forward; it might be a ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... young—But he remembered, with bated breath, times at school when he had suddenly wanted to twist arms, to break things, to hurt, when suddenly a fierce hot pleasure had come upon him, when a boy had had his ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... bronzed and war-worn veterans; the rattle and roar of the guns and caissons as they thundered on their mission of death; the glittering sheen reflected from a thousand sabres, had all passed by and left us in the desolated town. We lived, as it were, with bated breath and eager ears, our nerves tensely strung with anxiety and suspense waiting to catch the first sound of that coming strife, where we knew so many of our bravest and best must fall. At last came the news of that terrible fight at ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... myself, in proper attitude, on the gnarled root of an old tree, overhanging a lovely ravine, I proceeded to the reading part of the play, and must of course be too much absorbed to hear the approaching footsteps, to which I listened with bated breath. So I did not look up when they stopped at my side, or until a pleasant ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... imploring face, And tears that quenched the wild fire in my heart. I pressed her hand and passed into the hall, While she stood sobbing in a flood of tears, And he stood choked with anger and amazed. But as I passed the ivied porch he came With bated breath and muttered in my ear— 'Beggar!'—It stung me like a serpent's fang. Pride-pricked and muttering like a maniac, I almost flew the street and hurried home To vent my anger to the silent elms. 'Beggar!'—an ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... white slavery game, eh?" she said, with bated breath. "Good gracious, Mr. Barnes, if this story ever gets into the newspapers you'll be ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... before noon when they entered the bay and came to anchor in the midst of the motorboat fleet. The lads had Lord Hastings removed ashore immediately and listened to the diagnosis of the surgeon with bated breath. ...
— The Boy Allies Under the Sea • Robert L. Drake
... scarcely knew what was passing—still less how it had come about. It was said that Janus had died of malignant fever, due to the terrible malaria of the coasts where he had been hunting. Yet some hinted that there were natural poisons, as of the marshes, and others—more fatal: but this was with bated breath and kept well without the innermost circle of the court, for no one really knew. It was easy to talk of poison, but far less easy to make assertions implicating those who might be innocent; and, meanwhile, the ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... again broke out and fastened itself upon the minds of the people, and the miracle of it was spoken of among them with almost bated breath. ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... He gets as gooid stuff as thee, an' better too, aw'l be bun' for't! But aw should like to know ha' it is 'at his wage is five shillin' a wick less nor it wor, for aw've heeard nowt abaat ony on 'em bein' bated, an' aw should ha' done if they had, for ther's two or three lives i' awr street 'at works at th' same shop, an' they'd ha' been safe to tell me. But what ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... evidently too late for an interview. The windows were blank in the white light; only one—her bedroom—showed a light behind the lowered muslin blind. Her draped shadow once or twice passed across it. He was turning away with soft steps and even bated breath when suddenly he stopped. The exaggerated but unmistakable shadow of a man stood beside her on ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... thought he, but then the recollection of Bland's treachery brought his teeth together with vengeful force. He found his voice a trifle tremulous as he spoke, but his words had the brave ring the men had learned to look for, and every one listened with bated breath. ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... was haggling for some fine fruit under the peristyle of the Palace, I heard the people talking with bated breath of the accident that had befallen the beautiful Dogess. I inquired again and again of several people, and at last a big, uncultivated, red haired fellow, who stood leaning against a column, yawning and chawing ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... and crouched against the fence, throwing the rifle forward, and peering into the shadows. As he stood there, balancing the gun once more in his hands, old instincts began to stir, old battle hunger to rise, and old realizations of primitive things to assault him. Then, when they had waited with bated breath until they were both reassured, he rose and swung the stock to his shoulder several times. With something like a sigh of contentment, he said, ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... hand and asked that the chain of silence should be shaken; and when one of the guards had shaken the rattling chains and all were listening with bated breath he took up and made his plea, demanding prompt justice on the ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... gesture he bade Foulet go to him. I watched beneath lowered lids. Thank God he had called Foulet first. Foulet had dabbled in the psychology of insanity. Foulet would know how to act, and I would ape him. Coldly, mechanically Doctor Semple ran him through a few tests. I watched with bated breath. The doctor ...
— The Floating Island of Madness • Jason Kirby
... limited circle of St. Rest to those wider spheres of fashion, the splendours of which, mere country-folk are not expected to have more than the very faintest glimmering conception. Even in that independent corner of opinion, the tap-room of the 'Mother Huff,' her name was spoken with almost bated breath, though Mr. Netlips was not by any means loth to spare any flow of oratorical eloquence on ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... frank, ingenuous, and modest young men, open as the day, to learn navigation and at once betray secretiveness, reserve, and self-importance as if they had achieved some tremendous intellectual attainment. The average navigator impresses the layman as a priest of some holy rite. With bated breath, the amateur yachtsman navigator invites one in to look at his chronometer. And so it was that our friends suffered such apprehension at ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... was known to possess something much less common, and far more potent than beauty,— and that was a fascinating, compelling spiritual force, which magnetised into strange submission all who came within its influence,— and many there were who admitted, though with bated breath that 'An' if she chose' she could easily become a ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... with bitter heart and sere The same sea's word unchangeable, nor knew But that mine own life-days were changeless too And sharp and salt with unshed tear on tear And cold and fierce and barren; and my soul, Sickening, swam weakly with bated breath In a deep sea like death, And felt the wind buffet her face with brine Hard, and harsh thought on thought in long bleak roll Blown by keen gusts of memory sad as thine Heap the weight up of pain, and break, and leave Strength ...
— Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... through the room like a projectile from a coast-defense gun. Serina listened with bated breath as Horace read the confirmation. ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... Now thou wilt rise! A prince who might have gone with gods to wive Nor bated them in choice! This to my face! I, Husak, fawn on woman! Out with her! Drag her to death! ...
— Semiramis and Other Plays - Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet • Olive Tilford Dargan
... way? They looked at him with bated breath but after a little space they saw him rise slowly to his feet and stagger inland toward a low point where a lofty palm tree was writhing and twisting in the fierce wind. He was too good a seaman not instantly to see what was required of him, for, waving his hand toward ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... nightfall, when the lights come in, The moth attracted woos and meets her death, So do I seek Thy light to wander in, Though fearfully and with half-bated breath. So do I seek all knowledge of Thy stars, Which move in and without my vision's reach; Maybe yet burning with internal wars, Or shaking as this world ...
— Eyes of Youth - A Book of Verse by Padraic Colum, Shane Leslie, A.O. • Various
... echoed along the rocks and beyond, and he waited with bated breath for a reply, but, as before, ...
— Dave Porter in the Far North - or, The Pluck of an American Schoolboy • Edward Stratemeyer
... of next was an old; enormous, rat-infested brick house in a small street off the Strand. Strangers were taken in front of the meanest possible, begrimed, yellowy, flat brick wall, with two rows of unadorned window-holes one above the other, and were exhorted with bated breath to behold and admire the simplicity of the head-quarters of the great financial force of the day. The word thrift perched right up on the roof in giant gilt letters, and two enormous shield-like brass-plates curved round the corners on each side of the doorway were the only shining ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... another that "not so very long ago no Campbell would have dared to set foot in the Macdonald country." Not far away there were still living at that time two old ladies—Macdonalds—whose small house was a museum of Stuart relics, and who still spoke of the Pretender with bated ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... all Esther with bated breath could say. The colonel eyed the bouquet a moment and then turned to his book. He was on his sofa, and seemingly gave no further heed ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... looks were so; His bearing, prospects, birth, all these Might well, with small suit, greatly please; How greatly, when she saw arise The reflex sweetness of her eyes In his, and every breath defer Humbly its bated life to her; Whilst power and kindness of command. Which women can no more withstand Than we their grace, were still unquell'd, And force and flattery both compell'd Her softness! Say I'm worthy. I Grew, in ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... With bated breath she groped beneath the little mound, scarce daring to hope that the treasure remained where she had left it; but, to her infinite relief and joy, her hand came at once upon the barrel of the heavy weapon and then upon the bandoleer ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Joseph Hooker writes to me: "The interest excited was intense, but the subject was too novel and too ominous for the old school to enter the lists, before armouring. After the meeting it was talked over with bated breath: Lyell's approval, and perhaps in a small way mine, as his lieutenant in the affair, rather overawed the Fellows, who would otherwise have flown out against the doctrine. We had, too, the vantage ground of being familiar with the ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... circumstanced that Lizzie's brougham could hardly make its way up to the door. But way was at once made for her when Frank handed her out of it, and the policemen about the place were as courteous to her as though she had been the Lord Chancellor's wife. Evil-doing will be spoken of with bated breath and soft words even by policemen, when the evil-doer comes in a carriage, and with a title. Lizzie was led at once into a private room, and told that she would be kept there only a very few minutes. Frank made his way ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... spoon would lay open the secret tabernacle of the golden rock. There, might some Red-Beard await his hour; there might one find the treasures of the Forty Thieves. And so I quarried on slowly, with bated breath, savoring the interest. Believe me, I had little palate left for the jelly; and though I preferred the taste when I tool cream with it, I used often to go without because the cream dimmed ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... believe thee:—and beshrew my soul But I do love the favour and the form Of this most fair occasion, by the which We will untread the steps of damned flight; And like a bated and retired flood, Leaving our rankness and irregular course, Stoop low within those bounds we have o'erlook'd, And calmly run on in obedience Even to our ocean, to our great King John.— My arm shall give thee help to bear thee hence; For I do see the cruel pangs of death Right ...
— King John • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... rut of commonplace. Our pulses are no longer stirred at the mere mention of the word MAGIC, and even BLACK MAGIC is coldly discussed where not so very long ago none would have dared to speak it save with 'bated breath.' Yet we are all mystics by birth, and scarce one of us there is who as a child has not experienced the fear of darkness. We cannot explain it, and though the child may soon be taught to laugh at his fear, yet none the less was he endowed with ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... reading the letter, for it was written quite clearly in Derrick's face. He looked ten years younger, and if any of his adoring readers could have seen the pranks he was up to that morning in our staid and respectable chambers, I am afraid they would no longer have spoken of him "with 'bated breath and ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall
... are washed until the dirt and salt are out; they are worked in paddle-wheels, if necessary, until soft; they are limed; unhaired; and bated, or puered. By puering I mean that they are put through a liquid that takes out all the lime; if the lime is not carefully soaked out the skins will be burned and hard and cannot be tanned properly. ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett
... the beautiful, radiant, still-smiling face of the young girl, and then at the impressive features of the elder lady, Weldon Gardner, with bated breath and a dazed expression ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... hush amidst all the great audience; such a heavy silence as comes only when many are waiting, and all with bated breath. The Emperor's face was terrible. His cheeks were of a greenish, livid tint, and there was a singular rotary movement of the muscles of his forehead. It was the countenance of an epileptic. He raised the whip to his shoulder, and took a ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... I distinctly heard the sound of a gun, though it seemed to be at a great distance. We listened with bated breath. Again there came a faint boom, and at the same instant a crash, which told us that the ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... Very gently, and with bated breath, they stole up the village. The horses were still standing with their reins thrown over a hook in the wall. Very quietly the boys unhooked the reins, but the horses moved uneasily, and objected to their mounting them, for ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... in reality startled the lady shrouded in that great travelling shawl, for once out of doors she stood full half a minute listening with bated breath, and one foot advanced, ready to spring away if any sound reached her. Then she walked on with less desperate haste, bending her course through the shrubberies towards a grove of trees that lay between the ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... reform. At the time he commenced his work, the subject was a very disagreeable one to Scottish ears, and he had to bear the apathy not only of his fellow-countrymen, but also of his fellow-professors. He has never, however, bated a jot of heart, and he is now beginning to reap his reward. Several of the reforms which he advocated at the commencement of his agitation, and which were at first met with something approaching to contempt, have been ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... eyes. She thought of the lion, the ferocious creature that she had never seen. She thought of the massive strong woman who knew and feared him. Then she remembered the desolate old grandparents and their hopeless, helpless poverty. "I'll resk the lion," she said with a tremulous bated voice. ...
— Una Of The Hill Country - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... in his excitement, and both watched Mr. Quince with bated breath as he took long, slow strides toward the tool-shed. He tried the door and then went into the house, and even before his reappearance both gentlemen knew only too well what was about to happen. ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... repudiation of the President in such a matter as this is, to my mind, the humiliation of the United States in the eyes of the civilized world." The President could not be sent back to say to Spain "with bated breath" (even in his most solemn moments Mr. Lodge cannot resist the commonplace) "we believe we have been too victorious and that you have yielded us too much and that I am very sorry that I took ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... windows the missionaries watched with bated breath; with wonder and fear they saw the long lines of dusky forms. When they were in the clearing the savages busied themselves with their packs. Long rows of teepees sprung up as if by magic. The savages had come to stay! The number of incoming visitors did not lessen until noon, when ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... stand But that her vertue guards it and protects it From blastinges and heavens thunders. There shee lyves Lyke to a ritche and pretious Jewell lost, Fownd shyninge on a doonge-hill, yet the gemme No wyse disparadged of his former worthe Nor bated of his glory; out of this fyre Of lust and black temptation sheis [sic] returned Lyke ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... back! look not upon this bold embrace, Nor view the calmness of the wanton's face; With joy unspeakable and 'bated breath, She keeps her last, ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... were his passes, so ubiquitous his point. Had he but stood his ground there might have been a speedy end to him, but he retreated slowly towards the door of the antechamber. Valerie still stood there, watching with fearful eyes and bated breath that tremendous struggle which at any moment she expected to see terminate in the death of her ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... he, with somewhat bated breath. And no wonder; for a more doleful, uncanny, half-made spot I never saw. The sad forest ringed it round with a green wall, feathered down to the ugly mud, on which, partly perhaps from its saltness, partly from the changeableness of the surface, no plant would grow, save a few herbs ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... and flog him for his idleness; his mother hearing his lesson with one arm around him and the other hand holding the sweetmeat she would give him if he succeeded. He did not notice that Rolf's eyes were gradually closing, and his bated breath lengthening into long even sighs. He ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... hand she returned to a point near the center of the room, and with bated breath and glowing, determined eyes, ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... a moral and intellectual impulse, a striking geographical appearance was explained, and for ages pious Greeks looked with bated breath upon the rock at Sipylos which was once Niobe, just as for ages pious Jews, Christians, and Mohammedans looked with awe upon the salt pillar at the Dead Sea which was once ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... of which he slew with a stroke from his powerful tail, after which he proceeded to drag their mangled carcases into his lair. We waited an hour, when, just before sundown, the reptile came forth again on his way to the water. We watched him with bated breath, and Sylvia, who now, for the first time, began to understand the trap I had set, could hardly contain her excitement. When the crocodile came to the sand-pit we had dug on the road he sank down, when ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... the gong followed a sound of many footsteps and a buzz of subdued conversation. Keeping well back in the welcome shadow I watched, with bated breath, the opening of the door ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... and den, He ran his lunatic rounds, and howled for the flesh of men; All day long he ate not, nor ever drank of the brook; And all day long in their houses the people listened and shook— All day long in their houses they listened with bated breath, And never a soul went forth, for the sight of the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... nearest to the door, and one after another related horrible tales of blood, murder, and vengeance—then, alas! Only too frequent occurrences in their unhappy land—each bringing some frightful contribution from her own province, each enhancing upon the last-told story, and ever and anon pausing with bated breath at some fancied sound, or supposed start of one of the others; then clinging close together, and renewing the ghastly anecdote, at first in a hushed voice that grew louder with the interest of the story. Eustacie alone ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and in a bondsman key, With bated breath, and whisp'ring humbleness, Say this—Fair sir, you spit on me last Wednesday; You spurned me such a day; another time You called me dog; and for these courtesies I'll lend ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... of Abbe Duchayla spoke of him with bated breath, and, when he himself looked into his own heart and recalled how often he had applied to the body the power to bind and loose which God had only given him over the soul, he was seized with strange tremors, and falling on his ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the nature of a recital, as Mr Broun himself took possession of the piano stool, to illustrate the effect which he wished produced. Then the girls in adjoining rooms would find their attention wandering from their books, and little groups "changing form" would linger outside the door listening with bated breath. Ah! if one could only play ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... there come painful moments when all timidly, secretly, at the bottom of their hearts long for his death; and only the children fear the death of someone near them, and always feel horrified at the thought of it. And now the children, with bated breath, with a mournful look on their faces, gazed at Nikolay and thought that he was soon to die; and they wanted to cry and to say something friendly ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... circus in a mountain town. The mountaineers swarmed from far and near, and lined the streets on every hand with open mouth and bated breath, as the grand procession, with band, and clown, and camels, and elephants, and lions, and tigers, and spotted horses, paraded in brilliant array. The excitement was boundless when the crowd rushed into the tent, and they left behind them a surging mass ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... people to the margin of the hill, A hundred breaths were bated, a hundred hearts stood still. For, hark! from out the rapids came a strange and creaking sound, And then a crash of thunder which shook ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... formula taught by the priests for centuries. I pointed to the board on which hung the edicts prohibiting Christianity, and told them I believed in that doctrine, and that Christ was the One adored and loved by us. A volley of naru hodos, spoken with bated breath, greeted this announcement, and I could only understand the whispered "Why, that is the sect whose followers will go to hell!" The old ladies could not walk fast, and we soon parted, after many a strange question concerning morals, customs ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... with staring eyes and bated breath. And Dorian had actually risked his life in an attempt to save Jack Lamont! If Dorian only had known! But he would never know, never now. She had heard of the fight between Dorian and Lamont, as that had been common gossip for a time; but ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson
... grace. The great province of Szechuan, which has a population greater than the population of France, declared its independence; and the whole Northern army on the upper reaches of the Yangtsze was caught in a trap. The story is still told with bated breath of the terrible manner in which Yuan Shih-kai sated his rage when this news reached him—Szechuan being governed by a man he had hitherto thoroughly trusted—one General Chen Yi. Arming himself with a sword and beside himself with rage he burst into the room where his favourite concubine ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... wives; but such was the custom; and why should it surprise me more than marriage itself? From time to time one of our rich acquaintances would disappear, his family be broken up, his wives and houses shared among the elders of the Church, and his memory only recalled with bated breath and dreadful headshakings. When I had been very still, and my presence perhaps was forgotten, some such topic would arise among my elders by the evening fire; I would see them draw the closer together and look behind them with scared eyes; and I might ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... labour rendered useless, and their chance of escape destroyed at the very last moment? These, and a hundred other surmises, chased each other rapidly through the lads' minds as they listened with bated breath to the noise of the approaching footsteps. Each, however, pulled himself together, and by the time that the cell door was opened the lads presented absolutely expressionless faces to their enemies. The door clanged open, ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... stood open upon horrible passages and staircases, little children, barefooted, with one miserable garment on, sat on grimy stone steps, or played wretchedly about the sidewalks, impeding the passers of a better class who hastened with bated breath, amidst the fever-breeding nuisances, along to railway stations whence they would escape to country ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... were upon him, that ears were listening slyly to his breathing, that lips were rustling in bated whispered comments upon the fury with which he took this ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... said. "I have no patience with people who let me bite them, and do not try to bite back. I bit them all, more or less, in the end, and left them bathing each other's sores, so to speak, and exclaiming with bated breath at my cleverness. Fools and blockheads! just because I've got a banking account that would buy half of them up, and never miss it. As if I didn't know, when I'm in that mood, I'm ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... us, for ever and ever, Greed, sick with envy, and nets lifted high, Full of inherited hatred. Every one saw it, and every one felt The secret venom, gushing forth, Year after year, Heavy and breath-bated years. But hearts did not quiver Nor hands ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... years hence, when we have atomic | | engines, and when we have solved the | | riddle of the atom. | | | | You will follow the hair-raising | | explorations and strange ventures | | into far-away worlds with bated | | breath, and you will be fascinated, | | as we were, with the strangeness of | | it all. | ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... were gone, Trimmer's iron personality showed itself in a quiet hectoring, which made him the other's master. Mr. Trimmer was financially quite independent of his employer's ill humors. He was wealthy, and his name was mentioned by the other servants with 'bated breath. He was the owner of three saloons which he had bought from time to time. In short, Mr. Trimmer was a moneyed man. His was one of those strange natures which work in grooves and cannot get out of ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley |
