"Gaping" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the side of the bed, where she had been sitting, and went cautiously around that gaping trap door to her chamber door, when she missed the key, and suddenly remembered that it had been in Black Donald's pocket when he fell. A shudder thrilled her frame at the ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... bow too tight, and let fly with undue violence. These hit the true direction, but their shafts do not lodge in the mark; their impetus carries them right through the soul, and they pass on their way, leaving only a gaping wound behind them. Others make the contrary mistake: their bows are too slack, and their shafts never reach their destination; as often as not their force is spent at half distance, and they drop to earth. Or if they reach the mark, they do but graze its surface; ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... the Cortlandt Street ferry and walked up Broadway, wondering what Helen would say if I called before breakfast. I could scarcely wait. I stopped in front of St. Paul's Church, gaping up at a twenty-six story building opposite; a monstrous shaft with a gouge out of its south side as if lightning had rived off a sliver. I went over to it and saw that I had come to Ann Street, where Barnum's museum used to stand. The Post Office, the City ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... blue water on a sunlit ceiling, hovered and hung above the ugly shabbiness of the engines and trucks, the rails with scattered pieces of paper here and there, the iron arms that supported the vast glass roof, the hideous funnel that hung with its gaping mouth above the water-tank. The faint blue light was the spring evening—the spring evening that, encouraged by God knows what brave illusion, had penetrated even these desperate fastnesses. A little breeze accompanied it and the dirty pieces of paper blew to and fro; then suddenly a shaft ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... shall we say of the plausible and well-dressed charlatans of our own time, who trade in false pretences, like Nicholas Knapp of old, but without any fear of being fined or whipped; or of the many follies and inanities, imposing on the credulous part of the community, each of them gaping with eager, open mouth for a gratuitous advertisement by the mention of its foolish name in any ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... shifted sidewise and another craft, heavy, lumbersome, and vastly bigger than the light boats of the rest poked its nose into its place,—and that nose was brass and round with a gaping maw,—a small cannon, scarcely big enough for the name, but a roaring ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... an old friend; run in and tell him I'm here, and you will see." The young man put his hand kindly on the elderly clerk's shoulder, much as though the latter were a gaping school-boy, and directed him ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... gaping savages wheeled their steeds round, the dismounted horsemen sprang on behind two of their comrades, and the whole band dashed away over the plains as if they were ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... to stay here and imagine that all the world is gaping at your pictures? Just think how full an average man's life is of his own pursuits and pleasures. When twenty thousand of him find time to look up between mouthfuls and grunt something about something they aren't ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... meetings. The sermon on 'Booze' is given in full, and the physical exertions of the preacher described in detail. He began with his coat, vest, tie, and collar off. In a few moments his shirt and undershirt were gaping open to the waist, and the muscles of his neck and chest were seen working like those in the arm of a blacksmith, while perspiration poured from every pore. His clothing was soaked, as if a hose had ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... experiences—the Trojan family had not done with her yet. Garrett had been absent barely more than half an hour when the servant again appeared at the door with, "Miss Trojan, Miss Dahlia, would like to see yer and is waiting in the 'all." Her hand twitching at her apron and mouth gaping with astonishment testified to her curiosity. For weeks the house had been unvisited and now, ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... a corner, shrinking away into almost nothing, as she gazed with sparkling eyes at Thore, who looked very grave, and had an almost stupid expression on his face. Ole Nordistuen sat nearly opposite him, with wide-gaping mouth. Oyvind was the first to rouse from his ...
— A Happy Boy • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... were racked with hunger. Even the nestlings, to meet the petitions of whose gaping beaks they stinted themselves without mercy, felt meagre and uncomforted. Day after day the parent birds had fished almost in vain; day after day their wide and tireless hunting had brought them scant ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... crowded near enough to recognize her, I have often seen a throng blockading the approaches to the apartment or avenue in which she and her cortege were examining the articles exhibited, and there (being kept back from a nearer approach by the Police) they have stood gaping and staring till she left, often for half an hour. This may be intense loyalty, but it is dubious civility. Even on Saturday mornings, when none but the Royal visiters are admitted till noon, and only Jurors, Police and those Exhibitors whose wares or ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... instrument. These dragons ... are represented according to the notion the Chinese form of them, enveloped in clouds, covered above the horns with long hair, with a tufted beard on the lower jaw, flaming eyes, long sharp teeth, the gaping throat ever vomiting a torrent of fire. Four lion-cubs of the same material bear the ends of the cross beams, and the heads of these are raised or depressed by means of attached screws, according to what is required. ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... shells the ships must be. "My father was, in truth," said he, "A coward, and an ignoramus; He dared not travel: as for me, I've seen the ships and ocean famous; Have cross'd the deserts without drinking, And many dangerous streams unshrinking." Among the shut-up shell-fish, one Was gaping widely at the sun; It breathed, and drank the air's perfume, Expanding, like a flower in bloom. Both white and fat, its meat Appear'd a dainty treat. Our rat, when he this shell espied, Thought for his stomach to ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... poisoned by a monomania, which, like a worm in the bud, had consumed the sweetness of his existence. Sir Richard was at rest. And since he had been discovered, that shot was, indeed, the most merciful end that could have been measured out to him. The alternative might have been the gibbet and the gaping crowd, and a moral torture to precede the end. Better—a thousand ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... patient; so appropriate-looking in dress and face, with her broad forehead full of thought, and her cheek flushed with feeling; an able tender woman in her prime, endeavouring to do Christian offices, longing to pour balm into gaping, smarting wounds, imploring to be allowed to fulfil her mission. He bowed, and stood aside; she curtsied, and passed in. He heard her voice the next moment, low, but perfectly audible, cheerful and pleasant, addressing Mistress Prissy. "My dear madam, your uncle has permitted ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... Europe and America who prate of it, how many of even these do you think it really influences, entering into their lives, refining, broadening them? Watch the faces of the thin but conscientious crowd streaming wearily through our miles of picture galleries and art museums; gaping, with guide-book in hand, at ruined temple or cathedral tower; striving, with the spirit of the martyr, to feel enthusiasm for Old Masters at which, left to themselves, they would enjoy a good laugh—for chipped statues which, uninstructed, they would have mistaken for the damaged stock ...
— Tea-table Talk • Jerome K. Jerome
... in that brightness every moment, leaping up as it consumed and flashing vividly as it leaped up. A thousand tongues of flame streamed upward through the crannies of the gaping deck, and between the wide orifices of the planks and timbers the dazzling flames gleamed; a thousand resistless arms seemed extended forward to grasp the fabric now completely at its mercy, and the ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... ground. I placed my hand in my bosom, where I felt a dull, deadening sensation. There I found the warm blood, that filled my inner garments and now trickled down my side as I endeavored to stand upright. I had been shot through the left lung, and as I felt the great gaping wound in my chest, the blood gushing and spluttering out at every breath, I began to realize my situation. I tried to get off the field the best I could, the bullet in my leg not troubling me much, and as yet, I felt strong ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... the road before us with its guardian poplars,—I doubt if people in a diligence could have got so much of these things as we. Certainly they could not have had all to themselves the lordly splendor with which we dashed through gaping villages, taking the street from everybody, and fading ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... shadow of the houses. She went through Avenue A with hanging head, feeling that the eyes of all were upon her, condemning, scorning. She hid herself in her little room, locking the door. Down beside the bed she sank and buried her face in the covers. And there she lay, racked with the pain of her gaping wounds—wounds to love, to trust, to pride, to self-respect. "Oh, God, let me die," she moaned. "I can't ever look anybody in the ...
— The Fortune Hunter • David Graham Phillips
... filled their inkhorns; the poets went without their dinners, either that they might buy paper and goose-quills or because they could not get anything to eat; Antiquity scowled sulkily out of its grave to see itself outdone, while even Posterity stood mute, gazing in gaping ecstasy of retrospection on the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... Pembrooke! [Exeunt soldiers.] So I have discharg'd my selfe of these. Hot shot![121] now to my love. Some may say the tale of Venus loving Mars is a fable, but he that is a true soldier and a Gent. as Dick Bowyer is, & he do not love some varlet or other, zounds he is worse then a gaping Oyster without liquor. There's a pretty sweet fac't mother[122] that waits on the princesse that I have some mind to; but a whorson Architophel, a parasite, a rogue, one whose face looks worse then ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... scientifically under the name of chlamydosaurus kingii. When he is undisturbed he seems perfectly inoffensive, but when he becomes angry, he becomes a veritable fiend-like reptile. In this condition he stands up on his hind legs, opens his gaping mouth, showing the most terrible teeth, which, by the way, have never been known to bite anything. Besides this forbidding display he further adds to his terrible appearance by raising the most extraordinary frill which is exquisitely decorated in ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... the embrace of the strong arms that had been thrown around him, and looked down at the gaping rent Bristow's bullet had made in the breast of his coat. The missile had passed through his thick carbine-sling and breast-belt, had cut into his coat, vest and shirt, and ploughed a deep furrow through a well-filled wallet which he carried in his inside pocket. Fortunately, it was a glancing ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon
... outskirts of the city, but progress had taken it in, and already houses, flagrantly modern and architecturally shameless, offered strong contrast to its perfect lines, its conscious dignity, its calm aloofness, and its stone walls which shielded it from gaping gaze and gave it privacy. The iron gates were closed, the shutters drawn, and from the place stillness that was oppressive radiated, a stillness ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... was echoing through the house and drawing a little crowd of gaping servants to the hall. To spare Mistress Winthrop, Mr. Caryll took it upon himself to close the door. The countess ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... this rare piece was imperfect—the back gaping and three sheets gone. But, in turning over the leaves, I saw something that brought my heart, as they say, into my mouth. So, beating down Bell from his upset price of fourpence to six bawbees, I pushed the treasure ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang
... cause of his martyrdom, hear my determination, and know that it is inflexible. I am resolved to endure the punishment; and when the blood streams from my back, and my frantic cries pierce the air until they reach your palace walls;—when in the midst of the gaping populace, my body lies stretched upon the market-place, dishonored by the hand of the executioner,—then shall your revenge have returned to you; for the whole world will point at you as you pass, and say, 'He is the father of the woman who ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... had been a pink glass bead, was now a mere spot, ambiguously located. Her red worsted lips were sadly raveled, but that she did not regret, "for it was kissin' as done it." Her yarn hair was attached to her head with safety-pins, and her internal organs intruded themselves on the public through a gaping wound in the side. Never mind! if you have any curiosity to measure the strength of the ideal, watch a child with her oldest doll. Rags sat at the head of the dinner-table, and had taken the precaution to get the headless doll on his right, with a view to eating her gingerbread as well as his own,—doing ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... critics hover here to-day, As vultures wait on armies for their prey, All gaping for the carcase of a play! With croaking notes they bode some dire event, And follow dying poets by the scent. Ours gives himself for gone; you've watched your time: He fights this day unarmed,—without his rhyme;— And brings a tale which ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... on which the bruises were fast fading, changed purple-black with rage. He whirled upon Sandy, gaping near, and ordered him to fetch his binoculars. Through them he stared long at the smoke. Then he turned to the girl ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... and hang the baby's mattress out of the window, then get the wagon and take him for a little walk along the road. In front of the house, mind—where I can see you. Don't stand there, gaping! Then come in when I call you and help me ...
— In a German Pension • Katherine Mansfield
... misfortunes they had now to contend with the blast of drought that lay over the land; with the fiery sun, that streamed from cloudless skies, beneath which the very earth shrunk from itself in gaping fissures; with the wild night wind, that shrieked and skirled with devastating breath over the wilderness beneath the cold ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... gave no evidence of slackening, his pressure on the gaping line of khaki continued unabated. No reserves, or hope of relief, were apparent. There was no alternative but to carry on day after day in continuous fighting retreat with very small numbers spread over ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... every waking hour to ameliorating the lot of the defenders of their hearth and their honor, or nursing the wounded in hospital, have been stark up against the physical side: whether making bombs in factories, bandages or uniforms, washing gaping wounds, preparing shattered bodies for burial, or listening to the horrid tales of men ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... became inky black about me, not a ray from above came down into that darkness, and the phosphorescent things grew brighter and brighter. The snaky branches of the deeper weeds flickered like the flames of spirit-lamps; but, after a time, there were no more weeds. The fishes came staring and gaping towards me, and into me and through me. I never imagined such fishes before. They had lines of fire along the sides of them as though they had been outlined with a luminous pencil. And there was a ghastly thing swimming backwards with a lot of twining arms. And then I saw, coming very slowly ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... had kept his bed a while, his distemper began to abate, and he to feel himself better; so he in a little time was so finely mended, that he could walk about the house, and also obtained a very fine stomach to his food; and now did his wife and her good friends stand gaping to see Mr. Badman fulfil his promise of becoming new towards God, and loving to his wife; but the contrary only showed itself. For, so soon as ever he had hopes of mending, and found that his strength began to renew, his trouble began ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the morris-dance. His feat was to bang, with an inflated bladder, the heads of gaping spectators. He represented the ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... fellow. Mouth half cocked; one gaping and staring at every thing he sees. To make any one laugh on the wrong, or t'other side of his mouth; to make ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... close by the narrow entrance, and as Fred searched for the exact place he uttered a cry of satisfaction, for there by the gaping rift lay two large bundles, whose contents he ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... Nothing could stop me. The day and hour were none of my choice. Sleeping and waking, I had been among the old haunts for years—had visited my own grave. Why did I come back? Because this jail was gaping for me, and he stood beckoning ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... hear what Miss Vaughan says, Richard?' she at length said, as she looked up with very red cheeks and flashing eyes; 'what do you stand gaping there for? Don't you know that all Miss Vaughan's orders are to be obeyed? Make haste and ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... hinds, seeing such perfect loveliness, made very sure that Deirdre was one of the sidhe[15] and stared at her with the round eyes and gaping mouths of wondering terror. ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... are subdivided into five families: the Wide-gaping; the Slender-Beaked; the Toothed-Beaked; the Cone-Beaked; and the Climbers, or Scansores. The family of wide-gaping birds, is that ranged first in order, occupying cases 36 to 42. The visitor will first remark the goatsuckers with their wide ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... its strength exhausted, the dragon fell, and the prince delivered a finishing stroke. None could believe their eyes when from the gaping wound so made there stepped forth a handsome and elegant prince, clad in a coat of blue and gold velvet, embroidered with pearls, and wearing on his head a little Grecian helmet with a crest of white feathers. With outstretched hands this new-comer ran ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... fog outside I got clear of the gaping crowd, but the chill of the night after that heated court pierced my very bones. I had on the clothes I had been taken in. It was June then, and now it was late in October. I remember that on the day ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... mud delights to run; Witness his lazy, lousy son! Puff'd up with pride and insolence, Without a grain of common sense, See with what consequence he stalks, With what pomposity he talks; See how the gaping crowd admire The stupid blockhead and the liar. How long shall vice triumphant reign? How long shall mortals bend to gain? How long shall virtue hide her face, And leave her votaries in disgrace? ——Let indignation fire my strains, Another villain yet remains— Let purse-proud ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... influential. Mrs. Denton's great empty house in Gower Street? A central situation and near to the tube. Lords and ladies had once ruffled there; trod a measure on its spacious floors; filled its echoing stone hall with their greetings and their partings. The gaping sconces, where their link-boys had extinguished their torches, still ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... but in the provinces the processes of typography excite such a lively interest, that customers usually preferred to enter by way of the glass door in the street front, though they at once descended three steps, for the floor of the workshop lay below the level of the street. The gaping newcomer always failed to note the perils of the passage through the shop; and while staring at the sheets of paper strung in groves across the ceiling, ran against the rows of cases, or knocked his hat against the tie-bars that secured the presses ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... waves his hat to draw his companions to him. A tall, lank fellow in the next four to me—who goes by the nickname of "'Leven Yards"—aims his carbine at him, and, without checking his horse's pace, fires. The heavy Sharpe's bullet tears a gaping hole through the Rebel's heart. He drops from his saddle, his life-blood runs down in little rills on either side of the knoll, and his riderless horse dashes ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... way, and be damned to you! I don't care what you do. Don't stand gaping there, you fools! Get to your work! Better send for the vet. Can't afford to have a valuable animal spoilt. Dimsdale, take some brandy and hot water up to my room at once, before you do anything else. ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... intellectual mule, Man's stubborn mind in woman's shape, Too hard to love, too frail to rule— A sage engrafted on an ape! To what she calls the realm of mind, She leaves that throne, her sex, to crawl, The cestus and the charm resigned— A public gaping-show to all! She blots from beauty's golden book A name 'mid nature's choicest few, To gain the glory of a nook In ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... given, a couple of the troopers stepped to their head, Ben and the corporal came up behind, and the little group of sturdy fellows was marched across into the guard-room, and afterwards into the armoury, to stand gaping at the weapons ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... its mouthlike slit was like an insatiable monster that was constantly fed, yet was still gaping for more. ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... all eager to catch a glance as we whirled past. Old men and women, middle-aged and youth, without waiting to put on a rag in addition to their night gear, were seen at the doors, windows and round the corners of log huts and dwellings, gaping with wonder and astonishment at the new, and to them ...
— Scientific American magazine Vol 2. No. 3 Oct 10 1846 • Various
... longer in sight. The men on the freighter's deck were bent over another cargo net, working at cases that evidently were heavy. Rick kept the camera on them, shooting steadily, rewinding when necessary. Then he shifted his view to the trawler. The men were standing over a gaping fish hatch. Evidently they were stowing the first load while the men on the freighter ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine
... stream of flame, which expanded and whirled round them, and for a moment they were both enveloped in a faint blaze; at the same instant a sudden gust whisked off the stranger's hat, and the sexton beheld that his skull was roofless. For an instant he beheld the gaping aperture, black and shattered, and then he fell senseless into his own doorway, which his ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... Saniel was not simple enough to be caught by words, nor was he a fop who accepts with gaping mouth all the compliments addressed to him. Why did he inspire a sudden interest in this man who had the reputation of pushing business matters to extremes? He would find out. In the mean time he ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... its author's earlier attempt at novel-writing, that difference would have given Corinne a great advantage. Delphine had been irreverently described by Sydney Smith, when it appeared a few years earlier, as "this dismal trash which has nearly dislocated the jaws of every critic with gaping." The Whigs had not then taken up Madame de Stael, as they did afterwards, or it is quite certain that Mr Sydney would not have been allowed to exercise such Britannic frankness. Corinne met with gentler treatment from his friends, if not from himself. ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... I stood motionless, gaping like an idiot into the yawn of hatch down which they had disappeared. I had been so used to think of the diamond as cunningly hidden in the Major's berth, that his disclosure was absolutely a shock with its weight of astonishment. Small wonder that ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... my courage rose. Ne'er shall my boys, MY boys (I cried), When Christmas morns their eyes unclose, Find empty stockings gaping wide! ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... should know better, since I have heard that the monks of Beaulieu could squeeze a good cup of wine from their own grapes. Know then that if these rows were dug up the wealth of the country would be gone, and mayhap there would be dry throats and gaping mouths in England, for in three months' time these black roots will blossom and snoot and burgeon, and from them will come many a good ship-load of Medoc and Gascony which will cross the narrow seas. But ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... if it wanted to lick him; then the heavy head fell, the dying animal's eyes started from their sockets, its legs grew perfectly stiff, and this time the horse was really dead, while the shafts of the sledge vainly thrust themselves into the air, like the gaping ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... was a gaping, weak-kneed idiot not to sell for what I could get!" he told his sister. "But it's just our luck. I might have known nothing decent could ever ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... gaping Teutons do) on Sunday afternoons And wonder what I am—alas! there are no German 'coons! For, if there were, I might still swing at home from tree to tree, A symbol of democracy that's woolly, blythe and free. And yet for what my captors ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... adjectives. Take an interest in the games of children; in the common round and daily task of servants and employes; in the toils and tears of working-girls; in the struggling lot of the charwoman who scrubs your floors, and the lad who cleans your boots. Do not be always gaping at the window for bands to come down the street; but be on the pavement before your house with a helping-hand and kindly word for the ordinary folk that labour and are heavy-laden. It is remarkable that in all these there are tragedies and comedies; the raw material for novels ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... tale is told to the new generation—to the little ones sitting around with open eyes and gaping mouths—they naturally ask, "Where did all this occur?" The narrator must satisfy this curiosity, and so he replies, "On yonder mountain-top," or "In ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... the exceeding size and beauty of that trout. I made him out very much bigger than he actually looked to me and I minutely described his beauty and wonderful gaping mouth. R.C. groaned and that ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... he added, would be obliged to leave the district because it would become impossible for them to live there. While we were talking two or three little barefooted boys, whose clothes had been patched over and over again, but still showed gaping places, watched and listened in the open doorway with round-eyed attention. They were robust children with health and happiness in their faces, in spite of the hard times, for the mountain air fed them, and their troubles were yet to come. They were the old man's ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... up!" the captain snapped. Malone dropped the .44 unobtrusively into his jacket pocket and complied. Then, as he came out of the car, he teleported himself back to a section of the road he'd memorized, ten feet behind the car. The four men were gaping, dumbfounded, as Malone drew his gun and shot them. Then he removed the sawhorses, got back in his car, reloaded the .44, put it back in his holster and ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... there. You slip out, Betty, and hold Jude while Mammy gets the hot water ready to wash it when it is finished. Now, Pete, an inch farther along! Whoah, Jude!" And with his long needle Sam began rapidly to draw the gaping wound together. ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... the eighth we perceived he grew sick, for he opened his mouth very seldom, and when he did, shut it again immediately; on the tenth and the eleventh he declined visibly, and began to stink a little; on the twelfth it occurred to us, which we had never thought of before, that unless, whilst he was gaping, somebody could prop up his jaws, to prevent his closing them, we were in danger of being shut up in the carcase, and perishing there: we placed some large beams, therefore, in his mouth, got our ship ready, and took in water, and everything necessary: Scintharus was to be our pilot: the ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... over this subject, he saw plainly what he had felt very strongly before—that the boat could not be sea-worthy unless he had some tar with which to plaster over the broken bow, and fill in the gaping seams; but there was no tar. Still, did it follow that there was nothing else? Might not something be found upon the island which would serve the purpose of tar? There must be some such substance and perhaps it might ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille
... main point: why do we not see you? Do not fail us. Make an alarming sacrifice, and let us see 'Henry James's chair' properly occupied. I never sit in it myself (though it was my grandfather's); it has been consecrated to guests by your approval, and now stands at my elbow gaping. We have a new room, too, to introduce to you - our last baby, the drawing-room; it never cries, and has cut its teeth. Likewise, there is a cat now. It promises to be a monster of laziness ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... gaping at this mushroom hamlet the professor appeared at the door and asked me to enter. I ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... sort, he is thinking of a ruffian who assaults girls in lanes. He is not thinking of a millionaire like White, the victim of Thaw. If he speaks of the hopelessness of feeble-mindedness, he is thinking of some stunted creature gaping at hopeless lessons in a poor school. He is not thinking of a millionaire like Thaw, the slayer of White. And this not because he is such a brute as to like people like White or Thaw any more than we do, ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... Barnabas sprang in and closed with him, and, grappled in a fierce embrace, they swayed a moment and staggered out through the gaping doorway. ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... His blood thrilled to the tireless effort of the grayish-yellow pack of magnificent brutes ahead of him; he watched the muscular play of their backs and legs, the eager out-reaching of their wolfish heads, their half-gaping jaws, and from them he looked at Jackpine. There was no effort in his running. His black hair swept back from the gray of his cap; like the dogs there was music in his movement, the beauty of strength, ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... were the people? On either side of the street the doors of the houses stood open, but no person looked out from them or loitered on the doorsteps; the square was empty; there were no women at the well, no children underfoot, no gaping crowd before gaol and pillory, no guard before the Governor's house,—not a soul, high ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... was not entirely black; the iron bars across the glass front door were visible, and, equally, I discerned the big, stiff wooden chairs in the hall, the gaping fireplace, the upright pillars supporting the staircase, the round table in the center with its books and flower-vases, and the basket that held visitors' cards. There, too, was the stick and umbrella stand and the shelf with railway guides, directory, and telegraph ...
— The Damned • Algernon Blackwood
... who were taking possession of the private boxes, engrossed all my interest and all my attention. I wore a very fine suit, but my open ruffles and the buttons all along my coat shewed at once that I was a foreigner, for the fashion was not the same in Paris. I was gaping in the air and listlessly looking round, when a gentleman, splendidly dressed, and three times stouter than I, came up and enquired whether I was a foreigner. I answered affirmatively, and he politely asked ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Wren dropped so many dainties into their gaping mouths that his wife had to tell him that she didn't dare let the youngsters have anything more to eat until ...
— The Tale of Rusty Wren • Arthur Scott Bailey
... Culture rolls its onward flood Over the broad plains steeped in Indian blood Such thoughts steady our faith; yet there will rise Some natural tears into the calmest eyes,— Which gaze where forest princes haughty go, Made for a gaping crowd a raree-show. ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... are marked As vessels to the honor of their God, May credit this strange sacrifice, and save Their souls alive. Millions shall live and die, Who ne'er shall call upon their Saviour's name, But unredeem'd go to the gaping grave; Thousands shall deem it an old woman's tale, Such as the nurses frighten babes withal; These, in a gulf of anguish an I of flame, Shall curse their reprobation endlessly, Yet tenfold pangs shall force them to avow, Even on their beds of torment, where they ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer • Charles Sotheran
... that demonstrated Mercer's taste for this branch of science. On the other side of the room a corresponding workbench was littered with a tangle of coils, transformers, meters, tools and instruments, and at the end of the room, behind high black control panels, with gleaming bus-bars and staring, gaping meters, a pair of generators hummed softly. The other end of the room was nearly all glass, and opened onto the patio and the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... as if the tide were turning a little. All this time—not long, however—Daniel had been sitting his mule, transfixed and gaping, his oddly wry eyes upon her. Now the large form of Captain Adams came striding in contentious, through ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... strong brake. We came down smartly enough, all the same. It was a grand and imposing sight we had when we came out on the ridge under which — far below — our tent stood. Surrounded on all sides by huge crevasses and gaping chasms, it could not be said that the site of our camp looked very inviting. The wildness of the landscape seen from this point is not to be described; chasm after chasm, crevasse after crevasse, with great blocks of ice scattered promiscuously about, gave one the ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... showed that man had been in these wilds, torn up the earth for its treasure, and passed on. Near the road an old iron house, that had once been a flourishing mine-hotel, was now almost hidden by a tangle of wild creepers and bush, with branches of trees thrusting their way through gaping doorways and windows. ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... turned about and faced the room like a stage manager judging of a play's setting. The luxurious furnishings, the long mahogany table warmly reflecting the lights of the heavily shaded lamp; the wide, gaping fireplace; the lurking shadows of the corners; the curtain by the opened window bellying slightly in the draught; above, in the soft radiance of the hooded electrics, the glowing, living, radiant personality of the Vandyke; below, the stark, evil face of the dead, ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... of bringing back the mysterious young lady of the jetty-interview into court, and examining her. She felt quite sure of herself and her powers of conducting the case—and she was mistaken. She knew nothing of the traps and pitfalls that were gaping for her. Her opening statement went easily though; it was ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... resource to the one and only means by which the scent might be diverted from its original course, confusion be sown in the minds of the police, and Carmel, as well as myself, be saved from the pit gaping to receive us. ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... you vowed you would, Bob," remarked the pleased captain of the Chester eleven, once more easy in his mind, and no longer seeing that horrible gaping weak ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... wherin I remained, fearing to persist, in the same posture the rest of the night. After this they removed me, laughing and howling like as many wolves, I knowing not the reason, if not for my skin, that was soe whit in respect of theirs. But their gaping did soone cease because of a false alarme, that their Scout who stayed behind gave them, saying that the ffrench and the wild Algongins, friends to the ffrench, came with all speed. They presently put out the fire, and tooke hould of the most ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... highest place under the Crown, while his hatred of those by whom he considered himself defrauded of his claims, converted him into a malcontent. He had no sympathy with the people, but he loved, as a grand Seignior, to be looked up to and admired by a gaping crowd. He was an unwavering Catholic, held sectaries in utter loathing, and, after the image-breaking, took a positive pleasure in hanging ministers, together with their congregations, and in pressing the besieged Christians of Valenciennes to extremities. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Between the clipped limes and formal borders the German shells had scooped out three or four "dreadful hollows," in one of which, only last week, a little girl found her death; and the facade of the building is pock-marked by shot and disfigured with gaping holes. Yet in this precarious shelter Sister Theresia, of the same indomitable breed as the Sisters of Clermont and Gerbeviller, has gathered a miscellaneous flock of soldiers wounded in the trenches, civilians shattered by the bombardment, eclopes, old women and children: ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... see the ceremony, the glad procession of retainers and servants, the lights flaring in all directions: we can hear the shouts and chorus of many voices, the drums beating and flutes and trumpets sounding. The huge hearth receives the mighty log, and the flames and sparks shoot up the gaping chimney. ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... region of clipped yews, frozen fountains, and high, trimmed hedges. He dragged the mule after him. Suddenly there opened up a very broad path, tiled for a width of many feet. On the left it ran to a high tower's gaping arch. On the right it sloped nobly into a grey ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... the 39th Regiment! What visions are conjured up when this name comes on the scene! Cracked and gaping plains, desolate, desert and abandoned of life, scorched beneath a lurid sun of burning fire, waterless, hopeless, relentless, and accursed: that is the picture he draws of the great interior. He had followed up Oxley's footsteps and exposed the fallacies into which that explorer had fallen, ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... he enjoyed watching them clean their teeth. It was delicious to see them, tiptoe on their hind legs at the basin, to which their noses just reached; mouths gaping wide as they scrubbed with very small toothbrushes. They were so elated by squeezing out the toothpaste from the tube that he had not the heart to refuse them this privilege, though it was wasteful. For they always ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... of Medicis; and the success of the Jesuits at this moment roused the dread of a general conspiracy against Protestantism. A Puritan lawyer named Stubbs only expressed the alarm of his fellows in his "Discovery of a Gaping Gulf" in which England was to plunge through the match with Anjou. When the hand of the pamphleteer was cut off as a penalty for his daring, Stubbs waved his hat with the hand that was left, and cried "God save Queen Elizabeth." ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... miller's house particularly impressed us with delight. All its characteristics were elegantly observed. A rivulet still runs on one side of it, which formerly used to turn a little wheel to complete the illusion. The apartments, which must have been once enchanting, now present nothing but gaping beams, broken ceilings, and shattered casements. The wainscots of its little cabinets, exhibit only a tablet, upon which are rudely penciled, the motley initials, love verses, and ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr |
