"Boring" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "He has been boring you with his horses, Mr. Brice," she said. "Has he told you what a jockey Ned used to be before he weighed one hundred and a quarter?" (A laugh.) "Has he given you the points of Water Witch and Netty Boone?" (More laughter, increasing embarrassment for Stephen.) "Pa, I tell you ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... does not make a good "cat's-paw." The Sinhalese noodle joined some thieves, took readily to their ways, and was always eager to accompany them on their marauding excursions. One night they took him with them, and boring a large hole in the wall of a house,[6] they sent him in, telling him to hand out the heaviest article he could lay hands upon. He readily went in, and seeing a large kurakkan-grinder,[7] thought that was the heaviest thing ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... yes; and I really intended to answer it. But I haven't had a moment; and I knew you wouldn't mind. You see, I am so afraid of boring you by writing about affairs you don't understand and people you don't know! And yet what else have I to write about? I begin a letter; and then I tear it up again. The fact is, fond as we are of one another, Nora, we have so little ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... fit after three months in Switzerland, of course, but I think Tony found it a bit boring compared with Monte Carlo. They came straight on to Montricheux ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... left was white and the church on the right was grey; it was all there, in short—it was what he wanted: it was Tremont Street, it was France, it was Lambinet. Moreover he was freely walking about in it. He did this last, for an hour, to his heart's content, making for the shady woody horizon and boring so deep into his impression and his idleness that he might fairly have got through them again and reached the maroon-coloured wall. It was a wonder, no doubt, that the taste of idleness for him shouldn't ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... grow accustomed to my ways. If I'm boring you I can go home. Here's Captain Congleton coming; I dare say he'll be ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... were covered by a thick mattress of hemlock boughs, over which blankets were spread. On such beds as these the first inhabitants of this town slept and their first children were born. For want of chairs, rude seats were made with axe and auger by boring holes and inserting legs in planks split from basswood logs, hewn smooth on one side. Tables were made in the same way, and after a time, the floor, a bare space being left about the ...
— The Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Settlement of the Town of New Milford, Conn. June 17th, 1907 • Daniel Davenport
... anxious to increase his wealth, purchased twenty acres of land a few years ago in one of the Western States, and commenced boring for oil. After a few weeks spent in this work, he discovered to his dismay that there was not the slightest trace of oil on his land. He kept his own counsel, however, and paid the workmen to hold their tongues. About the same time it became rumored throughout New York that he had struck ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... say that instead of boring us with politics, he should have written about art, and described the picturesque aspects of the country and the local color. Then the critic bewails himself. Politics are intruded everywhere; we are weary of politics—politics on all sides. I should ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... which I plunged headlong, or a flat stone dropped by the rotting away of its supporting prop, or some sharp declivity, as though softer earth had yielded to rude implements; yet it became evident from the start that the tunnel level rapidly descended, boring deeper and deeper into the bosom of the earth. Finally, my fingers came into contact with small fragments of rock strewing the side walls, and I comprehended I must already be beneath the base of that rounded mound upon the summit of which the house of Naladi stood. ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... grieved much if he had," said Clemantiny sarcastically, all the while watching Chester, until he felt as if she were boring into his very soul and ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... By boring a hole just under the joints of each cane more than half a litre of clear water, not very fresh, but wholesome and good, gushes out. It is rather bitter to the taste and serves to restore one's forces as well ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... of the president, the jurymen and their fellow-judges. It is observable that here and there a presiding justice succeeds in boring all concerned during even criminal cases interesting in themselves; the incident drags on, and people are interested only in finally seeing the end of the matter. Other presiding justices again, fortunately the majority, understand how to impart apparent importance to even ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... I am boring you," said Marigny, leaning back in the chair and laying the cigarette on the mantelpiece. "Yet bear with me a little while, I pray you; these explanations are necessary. A sane man acts with motive, and it is only reasonable that you should understand ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... ends. Round this he passed the cord of the bow, and placed one end against his chest, which was protected from its point by a chip of wood; the other point he placed against the bit of tinder, and then began to saw vigorously with the bow, just as a blacksmith does with his drill while boring a hole in a piece of iron. In a few seconds the tinder began to smoke; in less than a minute it caught fire; and in less than a quarter of an hour we were drinking our lemonade and eating cocoa-nuts round a fire that would have ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... I known that particular sensation—thousands of eyes, boring holes in the center of my back somewhere. There were eyes; the round inhuman orbs of the dwarf chaks, the faceted stare of the prism eyes of the Toys. The workroom wasn't a hundred feet long, but it felt longer than a good many miles I've walked. Here and there the dwarfs murmured an obsequious ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... a great powerful man, with bare arms, and blackened face. When they entered, he and two other men were making the axle of a wheel. They had a great lump of red-hot iron on the anvil, and were knocking a big hole through it—not boring it, but knocking it through with a big punch. One of the men, with a pair of tongs-like pincers, held the punch steady in the hole, while the other two struck the head of it with alternate blows of mighty ...
— Gutta-Percha Willie • George MacDonald
... Adjuster. Miter Boxes. Swivel Arm Uprights. Movable Stops. Angle Dividers. "Odd Job" Tool. Bit Braces. Ratchet Mechanism. Interlocking Jaws. Steel Frame Breast Drills. Horizontal Boring. 3-Jaw Chuck. Planes. Rabbeting, Beading and Matching. Cutter Adjustment. Depth Gage. Slitting Gage. Dovetail Tongue and Groove Plane. Router Planes. Bottom Surfacing. Door ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... farmer, by chance a companion in a coach with Charles Lamb, kept boring him to death with questions, in the jargon of agriculturists, about crops. At length he put a poser—"And pray, sir, how are turnips this year?" "Why that, sir," stammered out Lamb, "will depend upon the ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... rich black mould will produce a luxuriant bush, which will yield little fruit. Decomposing sandstone, and slate, known in Jamaica as rotten rock, mixed with vegetable mould, is one of the most favorable soils. The subsoil should be also carefully examined by a boring augur, for a stiff moist clay, or marly bottom retentive of moisture, is particularly injurious to the plant. A dark, rusty-colored sand, or a ferruginous marl on a substratum of limestone, kills the tree in a few years. ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... all such measures as would in his estimation secure their good as also his own. A king should milk his kingdom like a bee gathering honey from plants.[253] He should act like the keeper of a cow who draws milk from her without boring her udders and without starving the calf. The king should (in the matter of taxes) act like the leech drawing blood mildly. He should conduct himself towards his subjects like a tigress in the matter of carrying her cubs, touching them with her teeth but never piercing ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... chances. God, what a chance she had taken this time! The picture of that court he had seen, with the girl in the witness chair and those many rows of eyes avidly fixed upon her, came back to his mind so vividly they seemed for a moment right here in the room, these eyes of the town boring into his house. Angrily he shut out the scene. And alone in the darkness, Roger said to his daughter all the ugly furious things he had not said to her upstairs—until at last he was weary ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... presence at Holwood in April 1798, when Pitt was draining the hillside near his house, so as to preserve it from damp and provide water for the farm and garden below. Young drew up the scheme, went down more than once to superintend the boring and trenching, and then added these words: "I beg you will permit me to give such attention merely and solely as a mark of gratitude for the goodness I have already experienced ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... lumbered over the plains north of the Save, on the way to Belgrade, my fellow travellers, too, thought I was bound on a mad and impossible errand. As is usual in the Near East they all cross-examined me about my private affairs with boring persistency, and their verdict was that not even a British passport would see me through. "You will never see Serbia," they declared. I did though. For, being wholly innocent of any plots, all the efforts of all the multitudinous ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... but she Not less thro' all bore up, till, last, she saw The white-flower'd elder-thicket from the field Gleam thro' the Gothic archways [3]in the wall. Then she rode back cloth'd on with chastity: And one low churl, [4] compact of thankless earth, The fatal byword of all years to come, Boring a little auger-hole in fear, Peep'd—but his eyes, before they had their will, Were shrivell'd into darkness in his head, And dropt before him. So the Powers, who wait On noble deeds, cancell'd a sense misused; And she, that knew not, pass'd: and all at once, With twelve great ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... forty-two feet in diameter, and sunk five feet into the solid rock. At the time when Ruby landed, it was being hewn out by a large party of the men. Others were boring holes in the rock near to it, for the purpose of fixing the great beams of a beacon, while others were cutting away the seaweed from the rock, and making preparations for the laying down of temporary rails to facilitate the conveying of the heavy stones from ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... series of buildings has since been erected upon these foundations, covering an area of about two acres, in which the forging, boring, welding, rolling, grinding, swaging, and polishing are done for the entire establishment. The buildings are, for the most part, two stories high, and yet so immense are the operations carried on here that numerous ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... of the guides picked out a coulee that might take us up. Coulee's good French-Canadian, but Alpinists call it a couloir. It looked like a thin, white, perpendicular streak on the face of the dark rock. But perhaps I'm boring you with these particulars." ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... the musketeer, aside; "that is, I am boring you, my friend." Then aloud, "Well, then, let us leave; I have no further business here, and if you are as disengaged ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... a belt full of ammunition around you, your rifle bolt biting into your ribs, entrenching tool handle sticking into the small of your back, with a tin hat for a pillow; and feeling very damp and cold, with "cooties" boring for oil in your arm pits, the air foul from the stench of grimy human bodies and smoke from a juicy pipe being whiffed into your nostrils, then you will not wonder why Tommy occasionally takes a turn in ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... for An Imperfect Mother (COLLINS). Here is an interesting, fascinating and certainly unusual story, in which only two characters are of any real moment, Cecilia, the imperfect mother, embodiment of the artist temperament, egotistical almost to inhumanity, who abandons her dull husband and boring daughters to "live her own life"; and Stephen, the son, who alone can give her a half-sympathetic, half-resentful understanding. You see already the cleverness of Mr. BERESFORD'S conception. Really, it is just this that works (at least for me) its undoing. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 31, 1920 • Various
... such that he could hardly hear the "Yes," for which he was listening. He listened because he was so accustomed to boring people that to know he was not boring them ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... extension. Likewise are found in this district some very rich specimens of copper ore; it has not as yet been wrought, gold being deemed a much more productive article. The sultan wishes, however, he had some boring utensils and an experienced miner, to enable him to decide whether it would be worth working under the peculiar circumstances above mentioned. Numbers of Chinese are settled in this district, and the population ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... Mahometanism prevails, between the sixth and tenth year. The ceremony is called krat kulop and buang or lepas malu (casting away their shame), and a bimbang is usually given on the occasion; as well as at the ceremony of boring the ears and filing the teeth of their daughters (before described), which takes place at about the age of ten or twelve; and until this is performed they cannot with propriety ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... a cigarette. I stood looking at him. The cold politeness of manner with which he had taken my taunt, his perfect self-mastery, filled me with wonder. He was no callow youth, that man, whoever he might be. He was boring at the floor with the end of a limber cane as he continued to ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... and were welcomed by the friendly Crees. Wigwams were appointed to the Sachem and his daughter, and the most distinguished of the Nausetts and their Pequodee allies; while the inferior Indians of both tribes were directed to form huts for themselves beneath the neigh boring trees and all were invited to partake freely of the hospitality of their hosts, and to rest at the Cree settlement for several days, before they resumed ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... 'Guardians of Humanity' care at all about the humanity you're supposed to be protecting?" she demanded viciously, the thought boring in and twisting, "or are you just loafing on the job and doing as little as you possibly can without ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... I coquette too much," she said plaintively, and Price wondered if a slight movement under the hem of Madame Delano's long skirts meant that the toe of a little gray shoe were boring into one of the massive plinths of his mother-in-law. "But tell him, maman, that you don't really mean it. I can't have Price jealous. That would be too humiliating. I'm afraid I do flirt as naturally as I breathe, but Price knows ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... enumerate his points. "You're not tired of me—though I see I'm boring you hideously; put up with it a little longer, I've nearly finished—and you'd shed quite a respectable number of tears if I were to die young. Yes, I am young though as ugly as Satan. I believe you think I'm some sort of connection, don't you? Is that why ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... up the piece ready for firing. Nearly all of these railway guns are, I understand, naval or coast-defense pieces, some of them being long-range weapons cut down to form howitzers or mortars, while others have been created by boring to a larger caliber a gun whose rifling had been worn out in use. For example, the 400-millimetre, already referred to as having proved so effective against Douaumont, was, I am told, made by cutting down and boring out a 13.6-inch naval ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... of rifle. Every rifle, owing to slight inequalities of boring, sights, and the personal errors of the firer, shoots differently. When you have ascertained its (rifle) and your own peculiar errors and you know where to set your sights to counteract these constant errors, you have determined what is commonly termed ...
— The Plattsburg Manual - A Handbook for Military Training • O.O. Ellis and E.B. Garey
... are then all lodged in houses built for the purpose, one house being for men and one for women. These are not houses which are kept permanently standing, but are specially built on each occasion on which the nose-boring operation is going to be performed. A great swelling of the patients' noses develops, and this spreads more or less over their faces. The patients are confined in the special houses until the holes in their noses are large enough and the wounds are healed. During this confinement ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... was invited to spend the week-end with some people at Stanmore. I did not want to go; a previous week-end with them had been most boring. However, I reluctantly consented to go out on the Saturday morning. When Saturday morning came I was not very much surprised to find that I had forgotten to put out my boots to ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill
... said at last, "and sometimes I feel as if I should like to do nothing else for a month to come. Then I get hot and fidgety and tired of it all. Yes, he is horribly slow. I've watched him, and instead of knocking a nail right in at once he gets boring holes and measuring and trying first one and then another till he gets one to suit him. It makes me feel sometimes as if I should like to throw books at him. I'll tell him to make ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn
... from the auger blade inside the holes show plainly that the boring was done from Number Six toward Number Seven. Take the ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... blundering, and bragging and boring, quite unconsciously. And so he will, no doubt, go on roaring and braying, to the end of time or at least so long as people will hear him. You cannot alter the nature of men and Snobs by any force of satire; as, by laying ever so many stripes on a donkey's back, ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... had here workmen to hang you a new arras. There be tricks of boring ear-holes through walls in hanging these things. So that if you have a cousin who shall catch a scullion ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... boring some holes in it, for the admission of the air, and took her servant-girl into her confidence. The box was conveyed to the apartment of Grotius, and the project explained to him. He did not relish the idea ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... conditions warrant the assertion. The soil in all the region has a depth only of from one to three feet, while underlying the shallow arable deposit is one immense bedrock, varying in thickness, the average being from three to six feet. Everywhere water may be tapped by digging through the thin soil and boring through the rock formation. The country gained its reputation as a desert, not from lack of moisture, but from lack of soil. In the pockets of the foothills, where a greater depth of soil had accumulated from the washings of the slopes above, beautiful little groves of trees might be found, ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... they had been accustomed all their lives. They had got so accustomed to the droning dreariness and trivial subtleties of the rabbis, that it had never entered their heads that there could be any other way of teaching religion than boring men with interminable pedantries about trifles of ritual or outward obedience. This new Teacher would startle all, as an eagle suddenly appearing in a sanhedrim of owls. He would shock many; He would fascinate a few. Nor was it only the dissimilarity of His teaching, but also its authority, that ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... gain a faint idea of the "skippers," "stingers," "soothsayers," "walking sticks or specters," "saw flies and slugs," "boring caterpillars," "horn-tailed wood wasps," etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.—a never-ending list. The average absolute loss of the farmers of this country from such pests is fully one million dollars ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn
... in, year out, on the same plan: cut in one piece, buttoning right down the front, they fitted her like an eelskin, rigidly outlining her majestic proportions, and always short enough to show a pair of surprisingly small, well-shod feet. Thus she stood, sipping her water, and boring with her hard, unflagging eye every girl that presented herself to it. Most shrank noiselessly away as soon as breakfast was over; for, unless one was very firm indeed in the conviction of one's own innocence, to be beneath this eye was ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... "the bow-oar," who is described as a gigantic youth "with his trousers rolled up some five feet," who was wading about the boat and rigging up some undescribed contrivance by which the cargo was unloaded, the boat tilted and the water let out by boring a hole through the bottom, and everything brought safely to moorings below the dam. This exploit gained for young Lincoln the enthusiastic admiration of his employer, and turned his own mind in the direction of an invention ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... of Velan, which had so long lain bright and cheering on their path, was now hid entirely from view. Pierre Dumont soon after pointed out a place on the visible summit of the mountain, where a gorge between the neigh boring peaks admitted a view of the heavens beyond. This he informed those he guided was the Col, through whose opening the pile of the Alps was to be finally surmounted. The light that still tranquilly reigned ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... and to my office, where I found Griffen's girl making it clean, but, God forgive me! what a mind I had to her, but did not meddle with her. She being gone, I fell upon boring holes for me to see from my closet into the great office, without going forth, wherein I please myself much. So settled to business, and at noon with my wife to the Wardrobe, and there dined, and staid talking all the ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... lighting fires at their bases, while the white men have cut down one and carried away the bark of another to exhibit in far-off lands. It took five men twenty-five days to cut down the 'Big tree,' for so it was called. They accomplished their work by boring holes in the stem, and then cutting towards them with the axe. The stump which remains has been smoothed on the top, and the owner of the property, who acted as my guide, assured me that sixteen couple could waltz on it. In one a spiral staircase has been cut, so that I was ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... cylinders or tubes, 11 feet 3 inches in length, which are connected together by internal screws. There is also a central rod within the ram, as an additional security. The ram descends into a very strong cast-iron cylinder, 21 inches internal diameter, which is suspended in a boring 40 inches internal diameter, and carried down to a depth of over 100 feet in the rock. The two iron girders under the frame of the ascending-room or cage cross the entire lift space, and then at their outer ends ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 530, February 27, 1886 • Various
... indicate another step which will show you the value of such knowledge as this if properly applied. I said that if we selected from the coloured light spectrum, separated from white light by a prism, say, the orange portion, and boring a hole in our screen, if we caught that orange light in another prism, it would emerge as orange light, and suffer no further analysis. It cannot be resolved into red and yellow, as some might have supposed, it is monochromatic light, i.e. light purely of one colour. ...
— The Chemistry of Hat Manufacturing - Lectures Delivered Before the Hat Manufacturers' Association • Watson Smith
... table burned with a steady flame, and without any of those very faint crepitations which olive-oil lamps make heard when the weather is about to change. There was not the least sound in the small house: if there were mice anywhere they were asleep; if worms were boring in the old furniture they were working silently; if any house swallows had made their nests under the eaves they were roosting. The stillness was like that of a solid and inert mass, as if all the world had been ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... present," said Dr. O'Grady. "Come along, Major. By the way, Doyle, if Thady takes a drop too much to drink, and he may, don't let him start boring Mr. ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... that I gave the Mexican authorities early notice of their whereabouts. But, pardon me,"—he stopped hesitatingly, with a slight flush, as he noticed the utterly inattentive face and attitude of Hurlstone,—"I am boring you. I am forgetting that this is only important to myself," he added, with a sigh. "I only intended to ask your advice in regard to the disposition of certain manuscripts and effects of hers, which are unconnected with our acquaintance. I thought, perhaps, I might ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... amuse children led to the discovery of the kaleidoscope. Goodyear discovered how to vulcanize rubber by forgetting, until it became red hot, a skillet containing a compound which he had before considered worthless. A ship-worm boring a piece of wood suggested to Sir Isambard Brunel the idea of a tunnel under the Thames at London. Tracks of extinct animals in the old red sandstone led Hugh Miller on and on until he became the greatest geologist ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... Catherine's if you like; we are called 'The Toshers,'" he answered, and there was a note of bitterness in his voice. "Of course," he went on, "I am boring you to death, but I must say that I should never have come to see you if my father had not made me promise that I would. He takes a tremendous interest in both your brother and you; he knows the place your brother passed into Sandhurst ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... discussion, which is always to be found in one or other of the newspapers, was the subject of conversation, and the Good Stockbroker (unmarried) was vigorously defending the Holy Estate. His moral attitude is certainly somewhat boring, but nevertheless the Good Stockbroker is one of those people to whom one really is polite. Although obvious irritation was visible on the face of the Family Egotist we listened respectfully, with the exception ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... essentially a non-Italian formation. Its connection with the Middle Ages already shows it to be foreign to the Latin mind, the mediaeval disintegration being the result of the triumph of Germanic individualism over the political mentality of the Romans. The barbarians, boring from within and hacking from without, pulled down the great political structure raised by Latin genius and put nothing in its place. Anarchy lasted eight centuries during which time only one institution survived ...
— Readings on Fascism and National Socialism • Various
... the sloping bank, searching the ground to see if I could find the gun that might reveal so much. I could feel the eyes of the inspector boring into ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny
... Boring a hole in his head to let out fumes, which (says Gordonius) "will, without doubt, do much good." ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... acrobat. We understand more clearly now that what is effective and beautiful in one language is a vice in another. Latin and Eskimo, with their highly inflected forms, lend themselves to an elaborately periodic structure that would be boring in English. English allows, even demands, a looseness that would be insipid in Chinese. And Chinese, with its unmodified words and rigid sequences, has a compactness of phrase, a terse parallelism, and a silent suggestiveness ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... tell him that she must have time, and he is gone home. I am glad he should have a little suspense—he seemed to make so certain of her. Did he think he was making love all the time he was boring me with his gas in the dormitories? I hope ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... restless Rufie and Tilly, in a bed scarcely wide enough for them, the tired oldest sister dropped down on the door-step near kind old Nate, who sat tilted back against the house wall, the legs of his wooden chair boring deep holes ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... he had known her, Margaret had confessed that she might possibly fall in love with him; and after what had passed between them in former days, he knew that the smallest mistake on his part would now be fatal to the realisation of such a possibility. He was not afraid of being dull, or of boring her, but he was afraid of wakening against him the wary watchfulness of that side of her nature which he called Margaret Donne, as distinguished from Cordova, of the 'English-girl' side, of the potential old maid that is dormant in every young northern woman until the day she ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... daughters were exhaustively energetic. It belied their colouring, which was dun and which, though of the same family, is distinct from mousey. It has infinitely more vim and a vast endurance and a great patience; also is it sullen and boring, ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... of hibernation in all stages of the life-history. In this order a few large moths with wood-boring caterpillars, the 'Goat' (Cossus) for example, undergo a development extending over several years, while at the other extreme a few small species may have three or more complete cycles within the twelve months. But in the vast majority of Lepidoptera ...
— The Life-Story of Insects • Geo. H. Carpenter
... of the hospital here. I live in the hope that some day I may write its history, and may be able to say something which will not be open to the charge of, "Oh! Another boring book about the War!" As I conceive it, my hospital book will be an analysis of the mind and character of the British working-man with his defensive armour off, and not an attempt to give any views on military or medical reform and ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... there? I hear some footing; officers, the saffi, Come to apprehend us! I do feel the brand Hissing already at my forehead; now, Mine ears are boring. ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... and also in consequence of the small amount of our planet's internal heat, the water has not undergone chemical change, and mostly lies at great depths; but, of course, well-boring is much easier work than on your world, and I expect our methods are rather in ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... larva (Fig. 2,) commonly burrows in the large stalks of the potato. It occurs also in the stalks of the tomato, in those of the dahlia and aster, and other garden flowers. It is sometimes found boring through the cob of growing Indian corn. It is particularly partial to the stem of the common cocklebur, (Zanthium sirumarium;) and if it would only confine itself to such noxious weeds, it might be considered more of a friend than an enemy. It is yearly becoming more ...
— The $100 Prize Essay on the Cultivation of the Potato; and How to Cook the Potato • D. H. Compton and Pierre Blot
... as I am of my own existence. The king, my old friend, has a morbid ulcer pressing on his brain, which will presently suffice it if no vent is given to it, and the danger is imminent. But by boring the skull I expect to release the pus and clear the head. I have already performed this operation three times. It was invented by a Piedmontese; but I have had the honor to perfect it. The first operation I performed was at the siege of Metz, ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... destruction. Even the mattresses are often but plaited thongs of leather, covered with strong linen, and stretched until they are hard as wood. All Mary Fawcett's furniture was of mahogany, the only wood impervious to the boring of the West Indian worm. This tiny house on the mountain needed but a day's work to clean it, and another to transform it into an arbour of the forest. The walls of the rooms were covered with ferns, orchids, and croton leaves. Gold and silver candelabra had ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... simplification it brought into the relations of the party, was immense. From this point of view Mr. Wilkins was simply ideal; he was unique and precious. Whenever she thought of him, and was perhaps inclined to dwell on the aspects of him that were a little boring, she remembered this and murmured, ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... that's why I was liberal yesterday.... Mr. Zametov knows I've found a treasure! Excuse us, please, for disturbing you for half an hour with such trivialities," he said, turning to Porfiry Petrovitch, with trembling lips. "We are boring you, ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... everyday thoughts, with friendship, love, selfishness, devotion, self-respect, persistency, melancholy, sorrow, ingratitude, disappointment, hope, and all the mixed-up medley of the human mind, is it possible to write four volumes which will not bore people? I am afraid of boring people, of boring them as life itself does. And yet what is more interesting than the history of the heart, when it is a true history? The main thing is to write true history, and it is just that which is so ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... at Cotton's bad temper, took out his books, drew up a scheme for study, bolted his door, and commenced to work. He slacked off when the bell went half an hour before lights out, and spent the time left him in boring a hole in his solitary shilling. He then slipped it on his watch-guard, prepared boldly to face a term of ten ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... stopped and got red and then white, and I could see the other truck men looking uncomfortable. I looked up and there was Dad Crawford on the curb boring holes into Blink with those cold gray eyes of his and looking as white as marble. No one said a word. It seemed as if the whole street became hushed and silent. I got the car around to the curb somehow and dad ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... orders of the Viceroy of Egypt, close by the fallen statue of Rameses II., at Memphis, who reigned, according to Lepsius, from B.C. 1394 to B.C. 1328, a shaft was sunk to more than 24 feet. The water which then infiltrated compelled a resort to boring, which was continued until 41 feet 4-1/2 inches were reached. The whole consisted of Nile deposits, alternate layers of loam and sand of the same composition throughout. From the greatest depth a fragment of pottery was obtained. Ninety-five ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... it is a remarkable characteristic of faults that, as a general rule, they hade to the down-throw. This will be more clearly understood when it is explained that, by its action, a seam of coal, which is subject to numerous faults, can never be pierced more than once by one and the same boring. In mountainous districts, however, there are occasions when the hade is to the up-throw, and this kind of fault is ...
— The Story of a Piece of Coal - What It Is, Whence It Comes, and Whither It Goes • Edward A. Martin
... existed in the region; several shafts had been sunk and tunnels driven in various places, and gold had been found from time to time, but was kept a secret for many months. Its presence was at last revealed to Maxwell by a party of his own miners, who were boring into the heart of Old Baldy for a copper lead that had cropped out and ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... was very sober as he nodded solemnly and said, "Indeed, Master." His burning eyes were boring directly into Cameron's own. ...
— Cubs of the Wolf • Raymond F. Jones
... slaves of habit. The King's attachment to you is like that he bears to your apartment, your furniture. You have formed yourself to his manners and habits; you know how to listen and reply to his stories; he is under no constraint with you; he has no fear of boring you. How do you think he could have resolution to uproot all this in a day, to form a new establishment, and to make a public exhibition of himself by so striking a change in his arrangements?" The young ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... come, if you possibly can," supplemented Mr. Dollond, coming forward in burlesque obedience. "We are boring each other horribly—I can answer for myself—and it would be an act of ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... eighty and she'd been seventy. He supposed she'd expect him to take up his old relationship with her again. It probably wouldn't last any longer than it had, the other time; he recalled a Fourth Level proverb about the leopard and his spots. It certainly wouldn't be boring, though. ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper
... young Mr. Bear, boring a hole in the wind, and behind him two boys, coming strong, but not in his class for speed. Our quarry gained one block in three. We just rounded a barn in time to see him jump into a wood shed behind a real ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... word to say against it, mate," replied Andrew. "But wait a bit till we come to boring and cutting through the ice, in case we are beset, and then you'll say that there is something like hard ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... direct cause of their growth is that a certain wasp (cynips galles) stings into the leaf and after depositing its egg, flies away. The egg develops into a larva and then into a full-fledged wasp, boring its way out of the gall which has served as a protection and nourisher. This accounts for the hole noticed in almost every gall. The different varieties include Aleppo. It is found upon the same trees as the valonia and contains 60 to 75 per ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891 • Various
... the fury of the blast abated, Agnes turned, and without a word, began again her boring march, forcing her way through the palpable obstructions of wind and snow. Unable to prevent her, Cosmo followed. But he comforted himself with the thought, that, if the storm continued he would get his father to use his authority against her attempting a return before ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... anatomical "out of drawing" we shall find that much of this hostile criticism is really that of empathic un-satisfactoriness, which escapes verbal detection but is revealed by the finger following, as we say (and that is itself an instance of empathy) the movement, the development of, boring or fussing lines. ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee
... saying how boring it was for a decent person to live in such a town. No theatre, no music, and at the last dance at the club there had been about twenty ladies and only two gentlemen. The young men did not dance, but spent all the time crowding round the ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... me that is boring the wather with me eyes all the toime, Jack dear; and never a thing as could escape me aigle vision. I'm a broth of bhoy when it comes to steering a boat, do ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... quarrel with Nora—then some boring people came to lunch—then I had a tiresome ride—and now Aunt Ellen has been pointing out to me that it's all my fault she has to get a new dress, because people will ask me to dinner-parties. I don't ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... all was quiet in the guard-house he had set to work, listening anxiously in the direction of the corridor during the pauses of his boring and levering. The wall was only the length of a brick thick, and after the first stone had been broken out bit by bit, it cost but little labour to widen the hole enough to ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... 'I am boring you,' said Psmith, with ready tact. 'Suffice it to say that Comrade Agesilaus interfered with the pterodactyl, which was doing him no harm; and the intelligent creature, whose motto was "Nemo me impune lacessit", turned ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... ranks among the very oldest in the world, if not the oldest, for almost from the beginning of his advent on the earth man has been tunneling and boring and making holes in the ground. Even in pre-historic time, the ages of which we have neither record nor tradition, primitive man scooped out for himself hollows in the sides of hills, and mountains, as is evidenced by geological ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing
... that," the Scientist went on, "we were able to get back to your work on the Time-Space Continuum. We have made some wonderful advances. I would like to show you—but Gunnar and Odin, I am boring you." ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... the collar away and began to dig with his nails in a wild search for the thing that had stung him, and which he fancied he felt boring its way still farther down his back. Julian Ives took his hand from his hip and slapped it against his breast, where a red-hot lance seemed to have been driven with torturing suddenness. Then he began to tear away his ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... is towards consultant, a piece of good news or an event which has long been waited for is near; if its tail, then further patience is necessary, for there will be delay; if it gallops, it gives warning that if people allow themselves to become too boring their friends may reasonably, be ...
— Telling Fortunes By Tea Leaves • Cicely Kent
... far end of which a group of seven men was assembled. They appeared to be standing round the entrance to a small tunnel, and this tunnel they had plainly been making themselves; for a number of tools for boring and picking lay about, and the faces, hands, and clothes of the assembled party plainly indicated the nature of their toil, albeit from their speech and bearing it was ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... impatiently waiting for him to confess his failure, but he never did. There was still some hundred feet of river front to be "tried out," and Jim calmly went on boring his monotonous holes. It was maddening to ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... I did. The first round was slow. Each of us was feeling the other out. I landed a few and got one in the ribs. The second round went faster. I avoided him by ducking and side-stepping, but he kept boring in, still smiling disagreeably. I didn't like that smile. He wanted to knock me out, I think, for he made several vicious swings that might have settled me, but I got away from them and kept ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... Horse discovered a Turkish well-boring party in the desert. They were under command of an Austrian engineer, but soon surrendered when they saw that they were surrounded. This made us sure that the Turkish army could not be far away, but our aeroplanes reported no signs of it. A few weeks later an attack was made ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... great dash of the gambling element in the oil-well business at Baku. Large sums are spent in boring operations, and success so often stands off that all available capital is sunk in the ground and swallowed up. Even with good signs, it is impossible to foresee the results or the extent of production, and there is also an extraordinary irregularity in the outcome of the separate ...
— Persia Revisited • Thomas Edward Gordon
... Just about the stuffiest, dullest, dead-end in the universe. You can't believe the destructive decay of a planet that is mainly agrarian, caste-conscious and completely satisfied with its own boring existence. Not only is there no change—but no one wants change. My father was a farmer, so I should have been a farmer too—if I had listened to the advice of my betters. It was unthinkable, as well as forbidden for me to do anything else. And everything I wanted to do was against the ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... to laugh and wriggle away, but the cashier's gimlet eyes kept boring him, and eventually he fished out a five-dollar bill and handed it in. Mr. Hooker placed the two bills in the envelop, sealed it, and handed it to ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... end of the stem on which the sporogonium is borne grows downwards so as to form a hollow tubular sac enclosing the sporogonium; in other cases this marsupial sac is formed by the base of the sporogonium boring into the thickened end of the stem. The sac usually penetrates into the soil and bears rhizoids on its outer surface. Kantia, Calypogeia and Saccogyna are British forms, which have their sporogonia protected in this way. The sporogonium is very similar throughout the group (figs. 8, 9). ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... which is a tool of substantial proportions, is adapted not only for ordinary drilling work, but also for turning the ends of boiler shells, for cutting out of flue holes tube boring, etc. As will be seen from our engraving, the pillar which supports the radial arm is mounted on a massive baseplate, which also carries a circular table 6 ft. in diameter, this table having a worm-wheel cast on ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various
... the weapon from the astonished Llott and was boring in with body punches that quickly had the dwarf gasping for breath. These creatures knew nothing of fighting with their hands except in the fashion of clumsy wrestlers. The thud of hard fists against ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... a finished study. The Victory also shows how the deep folds of drapery are bored preparatory to being carved, in order that the chisel might meet less resistance in the narrow spaces; this is also the case in the Martelli David. As a technical adjunct boring was very useful, but only as a process. When employed as a mechanical device to represent the hair of the head, we get the Roman Empress disguised as a sponge or a honeycomb. These tricks reveal much more than pure technicalities of art. Gainsborough's habit of using paint brushes four or five ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... there of falling. All motion seemed to lie in the uprushing vapors, dense and warm and pale violet in hue. A vast and rhythmic spiraling had possessed the Pauillac. As you have seen a falling leaf turn in air, so the plane circled, boring with terrific speed down, down, down through the mists, down ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... angry to tolerate a reply, and boring Henry more and more towards the piano] You don't admire Mrs Bompas! You would never dream of writing poems to Mrs Bompas! My wife's not good enough for you, isn't she. [Fiercely] Who are you, pray, that you should be ...
— How He Lied to Her Husband • George Bernard Shaw
... do common, simple tasks without anything like the amount of exertion required by an ordinary man, and, so long as he doesn't strain himself, or get very much excited, we may reasonably expect him to live for a good while yet. Besides, as the aneurism progresses there will come a steady, boring pain and increased shortness of breath, which will themselves ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... how it may be with you, but, personally, I detest people whose eyes and thoughts go wandering away over your left shoulder while you are talking with them. It may be, of course, that you are not much of a talker and are simply boring them, but, all the same, mental squinters are ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... sculpture from an Amazonian triumph, they crossed the long drawing-room, the erect, gilt-braided general preceding, very slowly, the white-clad feminine creature, who held one hand extended, with something boring almost into his ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... the morning, we parted company, Hanover heading south, fifty pounds of horse-meat strapped to his saddle, while I, similarly loaded, headed north. Little Hanover pulled through all right, and to the end of his life he will persist, I know, in boring everybody with the narrative ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... Sunday until the evening train East. I shall suggest to my friend that his employer, to while away the tedium of the Sunday, might care to look in upon me in the afternoon and meet a few of our best people. Nothing boring, of course. I've no doubt he will arrange it. I've written him to Portland, where ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... job, have you?" he remarked tentatively, his eyes boring into hers. "You know, I've never been satisfied with that story of yours about my seeing you—where was it you said?—at ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... pick his brains when he came home. And then he laughed and said he was a 'deuced clever fellow'—excuse the adjective—and it was a great thing to be 'as free as that chap was'—'without all sorts of boring colleagues and responsibilities.' Wasn't ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... "Like a beetle boring through wood, not like a butterfly flitting over flowers; that's what you mean, isn't it? Well, butterflies are nicer than beetles, and some of us like flowers better than dead wood. But, I say, old ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... boring of some long boom logs in preparation for the chains. Suddenly he whirled again to Wallace with so strange an expression in his face that the young man almost cried out. The uncertain light of the lanterns showed dimly ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... inclined to move off, made up his mind to submit to a talk with him under conditions as comfortable as possible. As an agent Purvis was possible; but as a companion his melancholy, his indistinct, soft voice, and the platitudes which he uttered were boring to more vigorous-minded men. ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... recollected was one of the two ships in the Arctic expedition commanded by Sir George Nares. I wondered why so many workmen were busy about her, hammering, sawing, planing, riveting, fitting and boring holes with giant gimlets, so I asked the reason for this unwonted activity, when it might have been reasonably supposed that the vessel had played her part in the service, and might have been allowed to pass the remainder of her days ...
— Tom Finch's Monkey - and How he Dined with the Admiral • John C. Hutcheson
... of him now, his eyes boring into his—"just as long as he wishes to stay, which I hope will be all his life, or until you have learned to be decent to him. And by decency, I mean companionship, and love, and tenderness—three things which your damned, high-toned notions have always deprived him of!" His voice was still ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... great roads and you will seldom meet any Germans touring in their motors for pleasure. Only Americans—English. The Germans are spoiling little time by such matters. They are busy—busy working for their Empire—busy like moles boring away to undermine the earth—busy ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... dull yarn," said Jimmy, apologetically. "I've been boring you. By the way, Dreever asked me to square up with you for that game, in case he shouldn't be back. Here ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... domestic attachments, and haunting heaths and commons, far from the resorts of man. They are very fond of water, and are never known to abound but near vast pools or rivers. They form their nests in a manner totally different from the varieties I have mentioned; boring a round hole in the sand, in a serpenting direction, and about two feet deep. At the further end of this burrow, they form their rude nest; consisting of fine grass and feathers, laid together with very ...
— Domestic pleasures - or, the happy fire-side • F. B. Vaux
... once upon a time was treated by boring a hole into the horn with a small gimlet and pouring Turpentine into the opening. This treatment is useless and harmful. It produces inflammation of the frontal sinuses of the head and chances are death of the animal will follow as a result of the ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek
... numerous. In the valleys of the Hawkesbury and Nepean rivers, the richness of the soil is very great, and the plains are extensive. One great evil, the scarcity of good water, has been very much felt in this country, but it is expected that by boring, the deficiency may be supplied. The coast of Cumberland is broken and indented by many creeks or inlets, the most remarkable of which is the noble harbour of Port Jackson. The county of Cumberland is said to contain about 900,000 ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... great mind. You should hear us talk among ourselves. Everyone knows that Popinot is the sublime hero of L'Interdiction, but for the moment some feeble Balzacian does not remember the other books he appears in, and is ashamed to ask.... But I'm boring you." ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... not some allegorical fantasy—these people who had built this place had been a race who knew the secrets of life so intimately they could manipulate the unborn child into shapes intended to give it powers and physical attributes fitting it for amphibious life, for the underground boring life of a mole, for the tending of flocks in the goat-legged men—the whole gamut of these monstrous diversions from the normal human seemed to me designed—purposely—to build a race which, like ants, has a shape ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... seldom perfect wisdom is one of the great tragedies in the drama of life. In the case of the overloving wife or mother, some one should love her enough to make her stop and think that her loving praise is not merely a question of boring her hearers but of handicapping unfairly those for whom she would gladly lay down her life—and yet few would have the courage to point out to her that she would far better lay ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post |
