"Engrossing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... running commentary upon the document under his perusal. Having duly devoured the contents, he spread the sheet of paper carefully out, re-wiped his spectacles, and again commenced the former all-engrossing subject. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 6, 1841, • Various
... girls with their appetites spoilt by a surfeit of sweetmeats, every one moody and bored, as if they found each other's company intolerable, and all of them eagerly awaiting the moment when they might return to their engrossing ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... any addition to the value of the goods; forestalling was going to the place of production to buy, or in any other way trying to outwit fellow-dealers by purchasing things before they came into the open market where all had the same opportunity; engrossing was buying up the whole supply, or so much of it as not to allow other dealers to get what they needed, the modern "cornering of the market." These practices, which were regarded as so objectionable in the eyes of mediaeval traders, were frequently nothing more than what would be considered commendable ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... began their acquaintanceship, and Mary found herself strangely fascinated by plain Miss Martha Bumps. A critical analysis failed to warrant the fascination. Certainly Miss Bumps' appearance was not engrossing. To her, clothes were an economical and a social necessity. She wore her traveling gown of faded blue gingham, which of itself was inconspicuous, had it not been for two pockets of newer material on either side of ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase
... wander on foot upon the sandy shore, and sometimes he would enjoy a ride along the summit of the cliff; altogether being in no hurry at all to bring his task to an end. His occupation, moreover, was not so engrossing but that he could find leisure for taking a short railway journey once or twice a week; so that he was ever and again putting in an appearance at the general's receptions at Oran, and at the fetes given by ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... scarcely a week passed without some new development in the long and difficult struggle to improve the means of navigation. Among the scores of men who engaged in this engrossing but discouraging work, there is one whom the world is coming to honor more highly than in previous years—John Fitch, of Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky. As early as August, 1785, Fitch launched on a rivulet in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, a boat propelled by an ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... had the practice become of deferring to the opinions of their leaders that it engendered an apathy among the people against considering political and public matters which were not altogether of engrossing importance. Public meetings would be poorly attended, and at elections not half the votes were recorded. "Let the elected heads see to it; they are paid for doing the controlling and thinking work"—that used to be the general feeling. But during the past twenty ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... of both at the period of the year when one values such things highest, namely, in the fall and winter and early spring. Sunlight is good any time, but a bright, evenly tempered day is certainly more engrossing to the attention in winter than in summer, and such days seem the rule, and not the exception, in the Washington winter. The deep snows keep to the north, the heavy rains to the south, leaving a blue space central over the border ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... it was all through the crowd, the frontiersman, the hard-riding country squire, and the city swell, all mingled together, and all animated with one all-pervading and all-engrossing thought—how best to secure the freedom of the country and resist the tyranny of ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... position of a mere court of registry, possessing great privileges, on condition that it never exercises them; while the other chamber that, at the first blush, and to the superficial, exhibits symptoms of almost unnatural vitality, engrossing in its orbit all the business of the country, assumes on a more studious inspection somewhat of the character of a select vestry, fulfilling municipal rather than imperial offices, and beleaguered by critical and clamorous millions, who cannot comprehend why ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... He did not cease calling upon Mrs. Arnot, nor did the quiet warmth of his manner toward her change; but his visits became less frequent, he pleading the engrossing character of his studies, and the increasing preparation required to maintain his hold on his mission-class; but the lady's delicate intuition was not long in divining the true cause. One of his unconscious glances at Laura revealed his heart to her woman's eye as plainly as could any spoken ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... may be illustrated in persons or introduced by-the-by; into whatever colors make up the phantasmagoria of collective humanity the novelist may dip his brush, in painting his moving picture. Yet problems need not be fully appreciated, nor characters or actions profoundly understood. It must be an engrossing story, but the theme and treatment are as lawless as the conversation of an evening party. The mind plays through all the realm of its knowledge and experience, and sheds sparks from all the torches of thought, as scenes and topics succeed each ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... inconsolable. Their grief, I fear, will be lasting as it is violent. They have no resource but to plunge into affairs and drive away memory by some active and engrossing occupation. Yet they cannot always live abroad; they must at times return to themselves and join the company of their own thoughts. And then, memory is not to be put off; at such moments this faculty ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... destined to attain, they took little pains to dissemble their dislike and contempt of the new minion; and thus, ere long, De Luynes had amassed a weighty load of hatred in his heart. To him it appeared that all the great dignitaries of the kingdom, although born to the rank they held, were engrossing honours which, possessed as he was of the favour of the sovereign, should have been conferred upon himself; but the especial antipathy of the arrogant adventurer was directed against the Queen, the Marechal d'Ancre, and the President ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... few remarks to make on the famous Continental system, which was a subject of such engrossing interest. I had, perhaps, better opportunities than any other person of observing the fraud and estimating the fatal consequences of this system. It took its rise during the war in 1806, and was brought into existence by a decree; dated from Berlin. The project was conceived by weak counsellors, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... civilization, such is one great and essential part of woman's work in life. It is a work more especially her own. Man, without his helpmeet, can do but little here. His faculties are absorbed by other tasks, not more important, but more engrossing and essentially different. The finer tact, the more graceful manner, the quicker wit, the more tender conscience, are all needed here. Every woman in the country has her own share of this work to do. Each individual ...
— Female Suffrage • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... an appearance on the following day, he was first interviewed by what Janice would have called the attorney for the prosecution, who took him to his office and insisted, much to the lover's disgust, in hearing what he had done politically. Finally, however, this all-engrossing subject to the office-seeker was, along with Philemon's patience, exhausted, and the squire told his fellow-candidate that the object of his desires could ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... introduction of American influence into Oriental affairs, and the establishment of American authority in the Philippine archipelago, all render the history of those islands and their, numerous peoples a topic of engrossing interest and importance to the reading public, and especially to scholars, historians, and statesmen. The present work—its material carefully selected and arranged from a vast mass of printed works and unpublished manuscripts—is offered to the public with the intention and hope ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... send the Sergeant-at-Arms after Senators who might attempt to dodge the vote, not a single attache of the Sergeant-at-Arms' office could be named who was in sympathy with the movement against the gamblers. Incidentally, however, it was discovered that the clerk of the important Senate Enrolling and Engrossing Committee had been an employee at Frank Daroux's notorious Sausalito poolrooms. These were disquieting discoveries for ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn
... that at this period of Jackson's life devotion to duty was his guiding rule; and, notwithstanding his remarkable freedom from egotism, the traces of an engrossing ambition and of absolute self-dependence are everywhere apparent. Many of the sentiments he would have repudiated in after-life as inconsistent with humility; but there can be no question that it was a strong and fearless hand that penned on a conspicuous ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... terror. The servants still continued to pay their compliments to the baby in the same form as usual, saying, How like it is to its papa! Nor did sir Edward himself perceive the difference, his lady's illness probably engrossing all his attention at the time; though indeed gentlemen seldom take much notice ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... contact; and he would have been gladly retained by them, could he have been persuaded to remain in Germany: but his heart yearned to return to his native land, and once more proclaim there the truths which had now become to him more precious and engrossing than before. His faith had been confirmed, and his spirit quickened, by living for a time among earnest and decided Christians; and in the autumn of 1527 he set out once more for Scotland, prepared for any fate that might ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... of certain matters which he has witnessed, he has become aware that his words have been obliterated, as it were, and his remarks diverted from their original intention by the sudden and unanticipated desire of those present to express themselves loudly on some topic of not really engrossing interest. Not infrequently on such occasions every one present has spoken at once with concentrated anxiety upon the condition of the weather, the atmosphere of the room, the hour of the day, or some like detail of contemptible ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... subjects. His medical productions occupy a high place in the literature of the profession, and his political essays were one of the features of his day. He was a man of profound learning, and it is astonishing that one so constantly occupied with the duties of an engrossing profession should have found the time for such close ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... tithings in Blackmoore, whose grounds were best stored with this minerall, grewe desirous to renew this benefit," etc. To judge from several indications, this is really the passage which Dr. Borlase had before him when writing of the Jews as engrossing and managing the tin that was raised, and in that case neither is Carew a contemporary witness, nor would it follow from what he says that one single Jew ever set foot on Cornish soil, or that any Jews ever tasted the actual bitterness of ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... "Niagara," the sensation of the year, and Whittredge's "Mountain Brook," and every other subject their two busy brains could rake and scrape up except —and this subject, strange to say, was the only one really engrossing their two minds—the overturning of Mr. Judson's body on the art-school floor, and the upsetting of Miss Grant's mind for days thereafter. Once Oliver had unintentionally neared the danger- line by mentioning the lithographer's name, but Margaret ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... any of its trademarks. Unfortunately, we have no information as to the details of this case or the terms of settlement, but we do find that on February 1, 1867, the law firm of Townsend, Dyett & Morrison rendered a bill for $538.85 to B.L. Judson and William H. Comstock for "Supervising and engrossing two copies of agreement with George W. Comstock on settlement" and for representing the two parties named in several actions and cross actions ...
— History of the Comstock Patent Medicine Business and Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills • Robert B. Shaw
... Ethelberta's surprise, there was a letter for her in her mother's up-hill hand. She neglected all the rest of its contents for the following engrossing sentences:— ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... is the greatest possible difference between the sciences of psychic force and those that seek to probe the mysteries of the physical world. The question of the immortality of the human soul is infinitely more engrossing than that of the formation of the skull of neolithic man. The strictly evidential demonstration of communion between the living and the dead might be almost negligible in quantity, and yet the importance of one rap from the world of discarnate spirits, scientifically demonstrated, ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... words. Communion is better than sacrament, but communion may exist without the eating of the bread, &c. Sacrament means the performance of a certain act, which is an outward and visible sign of spiritual grace. You need not fear my leaving off this subject, it is far too engrossing to me, and is ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... time, that was all. Bassett, poring at home over the inquest records, and finding them of engrossing interest, saw the futility of saving a man who could not be found. And even Nina's faith, that the fabulously rich could not die obscurely, began to fade as the summer waned. She restored some of her favor to Wallie Sayre, and even listened ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... side of the room was suddenly opened, and Hamar Lessingham and Helen entered together. Lessingham was entirely at his ease,—their conversation, indeed, seemed almost engrossing. He came at once across the room on realising Sir ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of meeting many noted men—among them Mr. Josiah Quincy, whose reminiscences were to me very interesting, his accounts of conversations with John Adams perhaps more so than anything else. At various clubs I met most charming people, the most engrossing of these being Arthur Gilman, the architect: then, and at other times, I sat up with him late into the night,—once, indeed, the entire night,—listening to his flow of quaint wit and humor. The range of his powers was perhaps best shown in a repetition ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... abstractedly over the water. His servant Kurwenal lies idly outstretched at his feet. Isolde's eyes at once find the half-averted figure; her absorption in it becomes equal to his in the unknown object of the thoughts engrossing him. She does not hear this time the sailor at the topmast singing over again the song she had before resented; "O Irish maid, where tarriest thou? Is it the force of thy sighs which fills my sails?" Slow, involuntary, words drop from her lips, her ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... Hooker had shown clear intention of fighting a defensive battle; and perhaps Lee measured his man better than the Army of the Potomac had done. And he knew Jackson too. Should Hooker remain quiet during the day, either voluntarily or by Lee's engrossing his attention by constant activity in his front, the stratagem might succeed. And in case of failure, each wing had open ground and good roads for retreat, to form ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... has all at once struck us as wrong which we had been long accustomed to do without hesitation, has there been no 'murmuring' before we yielded? A voice has said to us, 'Give up such and such a habit,' or 'such and such a pursuit is becoming too engrossing': do we not all know what it is not only to feel obedience an effort, but even to cherish reluctance, and to let it ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... thrown out, and in due time there sprang from it a marine plant. I have never seen earth taken from so great a depth that it would not before the end of the season be clothed with a crop of weeds. Weeds are so full of expedients, and the one engrossing purpose with them is to multiply. The wild onion multiplies at both ends,—at the top by seed, and at the bottom by offshoots. Toad-flax travels under ground and above ground. Never allow a seed to ripen, and yet it will cover your field. Cut off the head of the wild carrot, ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... slowly and timidly, is beginning to answer, "No." It is becoming more and more visible, in this deeper, higher demand for race improvement, that we might provide better educational conditions for the young of the human species. For the all-engrossing importance of the first years of childhood, it is time that we prepared a place. This is as real a need as the need of a college or school. We need A PLACE FOR BABIES—and our homes arranged in relation to ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... getting free again came and took his station beside them; and they had a particularly pleasant talk, which Fleda who had seen nobody in a great while enjoyed very much. They had several such talks in the course of the day; for though the distractions caused by Mr. Olmney's other friends were many and engrossing, he generally contrived in time to find his way back to their window. Meanwhile Mrs. Evelyn had a great deal to say to Fleda and to hear from her; and left her at last under an engagement to spend the ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... you did everything you could think of for us; but you see you'd ever so many other engrossing interests, and Mary hardly ever allows her love for her husband to interfere with her all-absorbing care for the children. You gave us the best of masters in every department, and Clare to dragonize and keep us up to our preparation for these masters, as well as ever she could; but then ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... any Senatour not onely the grauest but also the promptest and wittiest in any ciuill scoffe, misliking greatly the engrossing of offices in Rome that one should haue many at once, and a great number goe without that were as able men, said thus by Counterchaunge. It seemes your offices are very litle worth, Or very few of you ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... Selkirk of Robinson Crusoe fame, and others who combined piracy with commerce and sailorism. After I had written all I thought necessary about the three former, I instinctively slipped on to Nelson as the greatest sea personality of the beginning of the last century. I found the subject so engrossing that I could not centre my thoughts on any other, so determined to continue my narrative, which is not, and never was intended to be a life of Nelson. Perhaps it may be properly termed fragmentary thoughts and jottings concerning the life of an extraordinary human force, written at intervals ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... Miss Heywood, whom her lover was now handing from the scow. She embraced her with a tenderness so unusually affectionate, that a vague consciousness of the true cause flashed across the mind of the anxious girl, recalling back all that inward grief of soul, which the deep emotion of an engrossing love had ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... could get to know him or win his confidence. They used to wonder what Fletcher did with his spare time, what were his pursuits, what were his hobbies, if he had any. They suspected that Fletcher had some hobby of an engrossing kind, since in everyday life he conveyed the impression of a man who is walking in his sleep, who acts mechanically and automatically. Somewhere else, they thought, in some other circumstances, he must surely wake up and take a living interest ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... Weston alone, it was her way to talk in this manner. She loved the sound of her own voice so well, that she was never better satisfied than when engrossing the whole conversation. Having nothing to talk of but her books, her poor people, and her family, she gave her friend the full benefit of all she could say on each subject, while Alethea had kindness enough to listen with real interest to her long rambling discourses, ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... every thing around the human family inculcates the doctrine of the mysterious future, and the necessity of living principally that they be prepared to die. All they produce perishes, all they imagine perishes, as does all they love. The union of two beings may be so engrossing, in their eyes, have lasted so long, and embraced so many ties, as to seem indissoluble; it is all seeming; the hour will infallibly come when the past becomes as nothing, except as it has opened the ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... engrossing mental interests are bad form on the golf-links, since they leave a disturbing memory in the mind to divert it from that absolute intellectual concentration which the game demands. Therefore Pickings and Booverman, ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... intended to aver that there was any privity or concert in this particular manipulation—yet it is suggestive. The Impeachment had been dragging since the 22nd of February, to May 26th—more than three months,—and had been everywhere the engrossing topic of the time. It was becoming tiresome-not only to the Senate, ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross
... impossible to leave but for a short time, and Winifred was glad of an excuse to stay with them, presiding in the quiet house with its summer lack of visitors and improved opportunity for her new and engrossing pursuit. She would go on to know God better, as she found Him mirrored in the clear, still waters of ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... and it became necessary to arouse him. The transitory effects of the champagne had now subsided; but when De Chaulieu recollected what had happened, nothing could exceed his shame and mortification. So engrossing indeed were these sensations that they quite overpowered his previous one, and, in his present vexation, he, for the moment, forgot his fears. He knelt at his wife's feet, begged her pardon a thousand times, swore that he adored her, and declared that the illness and the effect of the wine ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... by conferences on the affair. No one listened to Babbitt's bulletins about the February weather or to his throat-clearing comments on the headlines. He said furiously, "If I may be PERMITTED to interrupt your engrossing private CONVERSATION—Juh hear what ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... but there was probably some error in Donald's reckoning. The young man went home, and, on the way, having assured himself, to his own satisfaction, that he had no painful duty in regard to the captain to perform, he soon forgot all about the matter in the more engrossing consideration of his great business enterprise. When he entered the cottage, his mother very naturally asked him where he had been; and he gave her all the details of his interview with Mr. Rodman. Mrs. Ramsay was ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic
... for Jack to tell me that he was come down on a bold speculation at this unseasonable time for Cheltenham; that he was quite sure his fortune was about to be made in a few weeks at farthest, and what seemed nearly as engrossing a topic—that he was perfectly famished, and desired a hot ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... I give you a week to decide.' At the end of the allotted time we accepted the offer. This was principally Jasper's doing, for at that time I knew nothing of business, and had thought of a profession. Afterwards I liked the counting-house, and became as absorbed as others in the all-engrossing accumulation of wealth. Our father had taken a very large sum of money out of the business, and it was impossible for us not to feel for a time a considerable strain; but Jasper's skill and talent were simply wonderful, and success ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... I am not selling mine. With my temperate habits I have as good a chance of health at Bombay as in London—perhaps better. And the years I must be absent I would have been absent almost as much from you—I mean they would have been spent in work as engrossing and as hard. They will soon pass, and then I shall come home rich—rich. Do you ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... crucial moment of our country, the voice of the People demands with a single tongue, 'Where is the King?' What is he doing while his subjects tear each other in pieces in the streets of a great city? Are his amusements and his dissipations (of which we cannot pretend to be ignorant) so engrossing that he can spare no thought for a perishing nation? It is with a deep sense of our responsibility that we warn that exalted person that neither his great position nor his incomparable talents will save him in the hour of delirium from the fate of all those who, in the madness ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... inclined to believe that the reason why some old gentlemen look as if they did not care is that in fact they don't care. And there is no particular merit in looking cool while a question is being discussed, if you really do not mind a rush which way it may be decided. A keen, unvarying, engrossing regard for one's self is a great safeguard against over-excitement in regard to all the questions of the day, political, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... Franciscan Monk came and deliver'd him from his Torments, but not from Death, for he departed this miserable Life not long after: And this was the severe Fate of many Cacics and Indian Lords, who dyed with the same Torments which they were expos'd to by the Spaniards, in order to the engrossing of their Gold and ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas
... not to be discussed by us. Up to the spring of 1772, when I was twenty-three years of age and Daisy was eighteen, no word of all the countless words which young men and women have from the dawn of language spoken on this great engrossing topic had ever been exchanged between us. In earlier years, when we were on the threshold of our teens, Mr. Stewart had more than once thought aloud in our hearing upon the time when we should inherit his home and fortune as a married couple. Nothing of that talk, though, ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... "So general and engrossing was the interest felt in this event, that a public calamity had well-nigh followed. The attendants on the princes and princesses (usually most vigilant and faithful), in the excitement of the occasion, forgot their charge, and the young folks instantly seized ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... penetrate into the heart of a semi-independent State where, if anything happened, the Anglo-Indian officials would not—if even they could—protect me, since I should have crossed over without their permission. But I never even gave that a thought, but was bent upon one engrossing idea—to find and see my Guru. Without breathing a word of my intentions to any one, one morning, namely, October 5, I set out in search of the Mahatma. I had an umbrella and a pilgrim's staff for sole weapons, with a few rupees in my purse. I wore the yellow garb and ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... animosities, in feelings and purposes of a more general and absorbing nature. The powerful sympathy of thousands, lending all their united energies towards one point, and laying aside their individual pursuits, in order to contribute to the advancement of that all-engrossing aim, laid its influence upon his soul, and he joined the company, and aided in the general plans of those whom he would have joyed to have met in deadly combat. Those against whom his hostility had been less violent, he had learned to meet almost on terms of friendship, though ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... of Mr. Hastings's own nomination, was treated. Now you shall see how justice was left to shift for herself under Mahomed Reza Khan. In page 1280 of your Lordships' Minutes you will see the progress of all these enormities,—of Munny Begum's dealing in spirits, of her engrossing the trade, of her evading duties,—and, lastly, the extinction of all order in that country, and the funeral of justice itself. Mr. Shore's evidence respecting this state of the country will ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... life of a beautiful woman,—and so varied and romantic, so fruitful in incident and rich in experience, that it excites curiosity and invites speculation. It is a life difficult, if not impossible, to understand. Herein lies its peculiar and engrossing fascination. It is a curious web to unravel, a riddle to solve, a problem at once stimulating and baffling. Like the history of the times, it is full of puzzling contradictions and striking contrasts. The daughter of a provincial notary, Madame Recamier was the honored ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... consultation and debate had gone on, it is impossible to say, as the farther consideration of the subject was all at once interrupted, by new occurrences which here suddenly intervened, and which, after engrossing for a time the whole attention of the company assembled, finally controlled the decision of the question. A crowd of peasants and shepherds were seen coming from the mountains, with much excitement, ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... be truthful, I must say that I recall few indications of budding authorship, save an engrossing diary (kept for six months only), ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... allowing that his own imagination supplied that part of his dialogue with the spectre, there is nothing else which might not be fashioned in a vivid dream or a waking reverie, approaching, in absorbing and engrossing character, the usual matter of which dreams consist. That Brutus, well acquainted with the opinions of the Platonists, should be disposed to receive without doubt the idea that he had seen a real apparition, and was not likely to scrutinize very minutely the supposed ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... is this to-day, when every problem of business is so engrossing, demanding a man's full time and thought. It is the rare man who can devote himself to business and be fresh for the service of others afterward. No man can, with efficiency, serve two masters so exacting as are these. Besides, if his business has seemed ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... [Footnote: The tracts which appeared in the Disputation between the Scottish Reformer and Quentin Kennedy, Abbot of Crosraguel, are among the scarcest in Scottish Bibliography. See M'Crie's Life of Knox, p. 258.] But the engrossing nature of his occupation rendered the theologian not the most interesting companion for a solitary female; and his grave, stern, and absorbed deportment, which seldom showed any interest, except in that which ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... become more and more an engrossing passion, as Majendie left her more and more to the dominion of her motherhood. He had seen enough of the effect of rivalry. It was Anne's pleasure to take Peggy from her nurse and wash her and dress her, to tend her fine limbs, ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... man the thing never became less strange, less engrossing, or less horrible. Weston Marchmont abandoned as pure folly the attempt to accustom his mind to it or to acquiesce in it; he had not the power to cease to think of it. It was unnatural; to that he returned ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... other's hands, and at that moment no feeling of rivalry, or of competition even, entered the heart of either. Both were influenced by a pure and ardent desire to serve the woman they loved, and it would be true to say, that scarce a thought of any but Eve was uppermost in their minds. Indeed so engrossing was their common care in her behalf, so much more terrible than that of any other person did her fate appear on being captured, that they forgot, for the moment, there were others in the ship, and others, too, who might be serviceable in arresting the very calamity ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... arriving at just estimates has only made the attempt the more engrossing, as those will attest who have tracked through the mass of conflicting histories the story of the elusive lady who gave the name of Madama to the exquisite villa which Raphael designed for ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... and he and Page could find no happier common meeting-ground than an effort to bring about the closest cooeperation between the two countries. Sir Edward, far-seeing statesman that he was, had already appreciated, even amid the exciting and engrossing experiences through which he was then passing, the critical and almost determining part which the United States was destined to play in the war, and he had now sent for the American Ambassador because he believed that the President was ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... even admitting to himself that his marriage is a failure he gradually shuts himself off from any emotional expression—protects himself from the married state by sublimating his natural domestic ties, usually in some kind of engrossing work, but often in questionable ways—by hobbies, speed manias, and excesses of various kinds. In connection with this it is interesting to note that the automobile, quite apart from its utilitarian value, is coming to be a widely used means ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... real player, besides, Whist was never so engrossing as to exclude occasional remark; and some of the smartest and wittiest of Talleyrand's sayings were uttered at the card-table. Imagine, then, the inestimable advantage to the young man entering life, ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... finished her breakfast, and had withdrawn her thoughts from the engrossing subject of her dream sufficiently to grumble about the aching void where the chops should have been, she sprang up from the table and loudly tinkled ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... must, sooner or later, have been found. Had Herschel not lived, we would still, no doubt, have known Uranus long ere this. The really important point for science was that Herschel's genius should be given full scope, by setting him free from the engrossing details of an ordinary professional calling. The discovery of Uranus secured all this, and accordingly obtained for ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... heeded not those derisive words. Her mind was bent on pursuits of a far loftier and more engrossing nature. In respect to the weather—except on Sabbath mornings, when it was impossible to credit Grandpa with perfect fairness and impartiality of judgment—Grandma, it must be said, had real faith in the old ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... own behoof and favour. To the human mind the study of those relics by which the archaeologist tries to recover and reconstruct the history of the past races and nations of man, should naturally form as engrossing a topic as the study of those relics by which the geologist tries to regain the history of the past races and families of the fauna and flora of the ancient world. Surely, as a mere matter of scientific pursuit, the ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... mirror opposite Calder, and he impartially considered himself. There was, he concluded, every prospect of Miss Glyn resisting any engrossing passion ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... shall here insert an account of some remarkable achievements by the English against the Spaniards and Portuguese; who, being greatly alarmed to find out merchants extending their commerce, and trading to those parts of the world which they pretended a right of engrossing to themselves, began to treat our ships very severely, wherever they had the superiority; and when they wanted force, endeavoured to surprise them by treachery, never scrupling to violate the most solemn oaths and engagements ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... their wishes, there can be no place for them at present in their intentions. Government can have no leisure now for attending to any thing but its own and our preservation; and the time seems not far distant when the cares of war and expenditure will come upon it once more with their all-engrossing importance. But when better times shall arrive (whoever may live to see them), it will be worthy the consideration of any government whether the institution of an Academy, with salaries for its members (in the nature of literary or lay benefices), might not be ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... honor. How can the devotee show his loyalty better than by sensitiveness in this regard? The slightest affront or neglect must be resented, the deity's enemies must be put to shame. In exceedingly narrow minds and active wills, such a care may become an engrossing preoccupation; and crusades have been preached and massacres instigated for no other reason than to remove a fancied slight upon the God. Theologies representing the gods as mindful of their glory, and churches with imperialistic policies, have conspired to fan this temper to a glow, so ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... of my faults. I never thought of your settling at Cliveden in November, if your house in town is free. All my wish was, that you would come for a night to Strawberry, and that the next day I might put you in possession of Cliveden. I did not think of engrossing you from all your friends, who must wish to ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... powers and justifying, as it were, the independent career of a resident, it is astonishing how the crust of selfishness gathers over the heart in Paris; the habit of living with an exclusive view to personal enjoyment, where the arrangements of life are so favorable, becomes at last engrossing; and a soulless machine, with no instincts but those of self-gratification, is often the result, especially if no ties of kindred ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... of Roman history have been too much in the habit of representing the later Republic and early Empire as, practically, a Universal Monarchy, a Power unchecked, unbalanced, having no other limits than those of the civilized world, engrossing consequently the whole attention of all thinking men, and free to act exactly as it pleased without any regard to opinion beyond its own borders. One of the most popular enlarges on the idea—an idea quite inconsistent with the fact—that for ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson
... their father came in. He was looking very dejected, and half his bluster was gone. He held a telegram crushed in his hand, and he talked very rapidly. But he confided none of his secrets to me, and I was obliged to say good-night to these young ladies without knowing much more about the matter engrossing us than when I left their ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... it would have been impossible without an epoch of war and slavery. It is simply a matter of social progress,—a part of the succession of civilizations. The past has been inevitably a period of ignorance, of engrossing physical necessities, and of brute force,—not of freedom, of philanthropy, and of culture. During that lower epoch, woman was necessarily an inferior, degraded by abject labor, even in time of peace,—degraded ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... and are never supposed to be understood in the literal acceptation of the words; and, if their acts of generosity are but very rare, we ought to ascribe that rarity, not so much to a deficiency of generous sentiments, as to their vanity and ostentation, which engrossing all their funds, utterly disable them from exerting the virtues of beneficence. Vanity, indeed, predominates among all ranks, to such a degree, that they are the greatest egotists in the world; and the most insignificant individual talks in company with the ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... more tedious and engrossing than I had expected. Even a New York lawyer has much to learn of the law's delay in those pompous old offices amid the fog. Had I been working for myself, I should have thrown up the case in despair, but advices from our office said "Stick ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... a declining industry, other things are not less engrossing. The land must be tilled, and is tilled. Hay is the greatest crop, and the mere round of the seasons brings for a community used to agriculture a discipline and a course of labor, which make life ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson
... that they feel it so, but only to abate the edge of envy. But this is to be understood, of business that is laid upon men, and not such, as they call unto themselves. For nothing increaseth envy more, than an unnecessary and ambitious engrossing of business. And nothing doth extinguish envy more, than for a great person to preserve all other inferior officers, in their full lights and pre-eminences of their places. For by that means, there be so many screens between him ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... the side of Herbert Courtland instead of by the side of George Holland; and the little laugh that Mrs. Linton gave was due to her careful observation of the latter's face when he perceived, as he did in spite of the engrossing nature of his conversation with his friend in the end stall, how his designs had been defeated by her tactics. She would not have minded having Herbert Courtland with her for the hour they might remain at the theater, but she ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... back, that the terror must have left me that day. It had, for so many weeks, been so much a part of my daily life that I would have missed it had it not been for this new and engrossing interest. I remember that the long French windows of the library reflected the room like mirrors against the darkness outside, and that once I thought I saw a shadowy movement in one of them, as though a figure moved behind me. But when I turned sharply there was ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... with revenge in my heart, the contents of Miss Howe's letter almost engrossing me, the moment that Miss Harlowe and Mrs. Moore (accompanied by Miss Rawlins) came in: but in my countenance all the gentle, the placid, the serene, that the glass could teach; and in my behaviour all the polite, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... the middle classes, by the degradation of woman, by demoralizing excitements, by factitious life, by imperial misrule, by proconsular tyranny, by enervating vices, by the absence of elevated sentiments, by an all- engrossing abandonment to money-making and the pleasures it procured, so that no lofty appeal could be made to which the degenerate people would listen, or which they could understand. The empire was rotten to the core—was steeped in selfishness, sensuality, and frivolity, and the poison pervaded ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... sat for some time staring into the fire, as though lost in self-communion; and Cuthbert could easily imagine that affairs connected with his life in this country were engrossing his attention. ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... holding a Saturday afternoon meeting at Polly Stevens's house, and the conversation, as yet, had not strayed far from the all-engrossing ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells
... down to develop this thesis when suddenly, to my sorrow and to his unfeigned delight, we found ourselves, even in that land of dreams, plunged into a problem at our very doors which was more intense, more engrossing, and infinitely more mysterious than any of those which had driven us from London. Our simple life and peaceful, healthy routine were violently interrupted, and we were precipitated into the midst of a series of events which caused the utmost excitement ...
— The Adventure of the Devil's Foot • Arthur Conan Doyle
... own gift. You have been showing off in your line for the last half-hour; now do give Tawno a chance of exhibiting a little; poor fellow, he hasn't often a chance of exhibiting, as his wife keeps him so much in sight.' Not wishing to appear desirous of engrossing the public attention, and feeling rather desirous to see how Tawno, of whose exploits in leaping horses I had frequently heard, would acquit himself in the affair, I at length dismounted, and Tawno, at a bound, leaped into the saddle, where he really looked like Gunnar of Hlitharend, save ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... to take his thoughts off the one engrossing subject, he sat down at the table and proceeded to read over certain sententious ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... largely automatic. There was not enough traffic to bother me. The details of leaving the office so hastily had been too engrossing for thought of Alan and Babs. But now, in my little pit at the controls, my mind flung ahead. They had located him. That meant Franz Polter, for whom we had been searching nearly four years. And my memory went back into ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... beautiful story of the Frenchwoman go interesting as Mohammed Ali imagined. He had allowed the days to pass, with all their engrossing interest, without giving much thought to Margaret's coming or what she would do with herself, or how her presence would affect their ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... conversation to realize the character and pursuit of his travelling companions; but the details and tone of the dialogue were not of an interest sufficiently engrossing to keep him awake. He dozed afresh, and in the unconsciousness of a fitful sleep he passed a good many miles of his dreary ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... later that a legal-looking letter arrived, directed to him, beautifully written in the roundest and crabbiest of engrossing hands. ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... sharp pain. She saw therefore with satisfaction that the person who was seated at her left, having at the beginning engrossed the conversation, without having been requested by any one to talk, persisted with an imperturbable coolness in engrossing it to the end of the dinner. This was the old Marechal de Bassompierre; he had preserved with his white locks an air of youth and vivacity curious to see. His noble and polished manners showed a certain gallantry, antiquated like his costume—for he wore a ruff in ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... begun to be engrossing, though the bank was open, and John had hardly seated himself when Timson came into the back room and, taking a chair where he could see the counter in the front office, proceeded to investigate the stranger, of whose identity ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... the most engrossing volume was a large folio from her husband's own hand, in which he had recorded every experiment of his scientific career, its original aim, the methods adopted for its development, and its final success or failure, with the circumstances to which either event ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... shade and concealment, and sketched, and fired occasionally to be sociable, as a duck came within say eighty yards. See sketch and the futility of concealment. I thought it very delightful—the shooting was not too engrossing, the landscape was charming, and the village life interesting, and the simplicity of the whole proceeding distinctly amusing. F., one of our party, on the other side from me kept potting away regularly. He was surrounded ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... intellectual activity, constant occupation, and engrossing interest. We were apt to "foy" at our work to the extent of grudging meal-times and sleep. Indeed, at one time a habit obtained with us of leaving the table in turn as we finished our respective meals. One member of the family after another would rise, bend his or her ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... personal conference later in the day. Cumbered with many cares though he was, the kind-faced Secretary of Charities had been captured at sight by Vivian's plan of buying the old Dabney House, and bringing it to life again as a great Settlement. The problem now engrossing both was how to raise the necessary money, twenty-five thousand dollars being a large sum, particularly with the benevolent field just swept clean by the Associated Charities canvass. However, the tireless Secretary seldom despaired, V. Vivian ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... Dogberry and the watchmen, that foils so well the sad tragedy of poor Hero's heart-breaking, and contrasts in its blunders with the diamond-cut-diamond dialogue of Benedick and Beatrice, there was less difficulty. From first to last, it was engrossing labour, as hard for the trainer as the trained, yet still delightful work; for what is a conscientious manager, but an artist striving to perfect a beautiful dramatic picture? The different personages are the pieces for ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... too instant, and of a description too horrible, to admit of any which involved a more comprehensive view of his calamity; and other reflections of a more distant kind, were at first swallowed up in the all-engrossing thought of immediate death. But as his ideas became clearer, the safety of his Countess rushed upon his mind—what might she now be suffering! and, while he was subjected to a trial so extraordinary, for what were her weaker frame and female courage ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... foundations he prepared for future action were equally characteristic of the man, of Florence, and of the age. Commanding the enormous capital of the Medicean bank he contrived, at any sacrifice of temporary convenience, to lend money to the State for war expenses, engrossing in his own hands a large portion of the public debt of Florence. At the same time his agencies in various European capitals enabled him to keep his own wealth floating far beyond the reach of foes within the city. A few years of this system ended in so complete ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... done. Oh, dear me!" And the young lady, who was Mr. Hammond's star scholar, bent with puzzled, burning face, and received hot whiffs of breath from the indignant oven while she tried to discover whether the biscuits were ready to be devoured. It was an engrossing employment. She did not hear the sound of carriage wheels near the door, nor the banging of trunks on the side piazza. She was half way across the dining-room, with her tin of puffy biscuits in her hands, with the puzzled, doubtful ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... more astonishing evidence of his precocious scientific capacities. His father, perceiving his strong scientific bent, and desirous that he should first of all acquaint himself with languages before the absorption of the severer, but more engrossing, study seized him, had withdrawn from his sight all mathematical books, and carefully avoided the subject in the presence of his son when his friends were present. This, as might be expected, only quickened the curiosity of the boy, who ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... the sky, and the horses whinnied at each other as if to remind their absent riders that supper-time was approaching. But the girls did not return, and the thoughts which occupied the young wanderer were so engrossing that he did not hear a cry which began faintly and then rose to a shriek agonized enough to pierce ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... given her. She gravely laid his letter by the side of these specimens, and blushed at the contrast; yet, after all, her own writing, though trembling and irresolute, was far from a bad or vulgar hand. But emulation was now fairly roused within her. Vaudemont, pre-occupied by more engrossing thoughts, and indeed, forgetting a danger which had seemed so thoroughly to have passed away, did not in his letter caution Fanny against going out alone. She remarked this; and having completely recovered ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... part payment of the committee's indebtedness. They were of small account to Mr. Stearns. He knew them to be in good hands, and troubled himself no further about them, either the rifles or the revolvers; although keeping up from time to time a correspondence with his friend upon the all-engrossing subject. ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... Dec. 11, 1803, at La Cote St. Andre, in France. His father was a physician, and intended him for the same profession. He reluctantly went to Paris and began the study of medicine; but music became his engrossing passion, and medicine was abandoned. He entered the Conservatory as a pupil of Lesueur, and soon showed himself superior to all his masters, except Cherubini,—which aroused a strong opposition to him and his compositions. It ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... never penetrates. The dim light, the great crowds of strangely costumed people,—veiled women with their children in hand, attended by eunuchs, some chattering, some silent and aloof—but all intent on bargaining and eager for the fray. This novel and engrossing picture is made possible and is enhanced by the bewildering variety and display of Oriental goods and wares—rugs, perfumes, cosmetics, weapons, shawls, embroideries, inlaid tables, porcelains, brassware, silks, fans, jewels, ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne |
