"Interrogative" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... said Mirabeau, "M. de Malouet has assured me that you understood and approved of the grounds for the explanation I desire to have with you." "Sir," replied M. Necker, "M. Malouet has told me that you had proposals to make to me; what are they?" Mirabeau, hurt at the cold, interrogative tone of the minister and the sense he attached to the word proposals, jumps up in a rage and says: "My proposal is to wish you good day." Then, running all the way and fuming all the while, Mirabeau arrives ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... they were silent, observant and unusually abstemious. To say that Nevins had astonished everybody by an exhibition of feeling and an access of conscience would be putting it mildly. But the fact was indisputable. He himself, after adjournment, exhibited to the interrogative major two long letters, recently received from San Francisco, in graceful feminine hand, and signed "Your sad but devoted wife, Naomi." One of these referred to Lieutenant Loring, "whom Geraldine met at West Point and saw frequently the summer and ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... ultimate intervention of the police. And then the favors! Why should I present several gentlemen with pearl stick pins, when I have none myself? To be sure I might give my best man the ticket for mine, and he could redeem it whenever he had four dollars, but generally speaking, the answer is in the interrogative." ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... ensue, and say that I hold myself entitled to demand exact fulfilment of orders. For you, when I reflect that you are Prussians, can I think that you will act unworthily? But if there should be one or another who dreads to share all dangers with me, he,"—continued his Majesty, with an interrogative look, and then pausing for answer,—"can have his Discharge this evening, and shall not suffer the least reproach from me."—Modest strong bass murmur; meaning "No, by the Eternal!" if you looked into the eyes and faces of the group. ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... seems to occur simultaneously to both, bringing their eyes up to one another's faces, in a fiance mutually interrogative. Blew is the first to put ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... is hardly to be over-estimated; his standards being the most definite in the world, the most easily and promptly appealed to, and the most identical with what happens to be the practice of the French genius itself. The Englishman is not-quite so well off, but he is better off than his poor interrogative and tentative cousin beyond the seas. He is blessed with a healthy mistrust of analysis, and hair-splitting is the occupation he most despises. There is always a little of the Dr. Johnson in him, and Dr. Johnson would have had woefully little patience with that tendency to weigh ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... of hers, was honest. If she knew the secret of the world, she would not have told it to Ricky-ticky; he was much too young. Men, in Poppy's code of morality, were different. But this amazing, dreamy, interrogative look was not the sort of thing that Poppy was accustomed to, and for once in ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... it. For note you, all these interrogative categories must be met, faced, resolved and answered exactly—or you have no more knowledge of the matter than the Times has of economics or the King of the Belgians of thorough-Bass. Yea, if you miss, overlook, neglect, or shirk by reason of fatigue or indolence, so much ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... uttered the single word in an ejaculatory and interrogative tone, as only a certain number of old-fashioned Americans can. Spoken in that peculiar way it can mean a good deal, for it can convey suspicion, or approval or disapproval and any degree of acquaintance with the circumstances concerned, from almost total ignorance ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... She moved away from the window and stood by the fireplace. Fielding crossed to her. 'Drake gave me one other piece of advice,' he said hesitatingly,—'not about business. It concerned me and just one other person.' He pitched the remark in an interrogative key. ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... forecast a future without such causes and without such effects; but Ricker would not let this pass, even in the semi-ironical temper Maxwell had given it. He said it was rank socialism, and he cut it out in the proof, where he gave the closing sentences of the article an interrogative instead of an ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... alien's name is appended that of the monarch whose subject he calls himself, but a republic is outside the experience of one constable, who leaves an interrogative blank after Cristofer Switcher, born at Swerick (Zuerich) in Switcherland. The surname so ingeniously created appears to have left no pedagogic descendants. In some cases the harassed Bumble has lost ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... imperative mood; self, first person singular; mind, imperfect tense; eyes, positive; voice, in the superlative degree; nose, the interrogative point. ...
— The Boarding School • Unknown
... stood there a moment longer, looking away from him. If she was touched by the way he spoke, the thing was conceivable. His voice, always very mild and interrogative, gradually became as soft and as tenderly argumentative as if he had been talking to a much-loved child. He stood watching her, and she presently turned round again, but this time she did not look at him, and ...
— The American • Henry James
... mean? The quadruped was evidently smitten with some sudden fear; but who and what was the enemy it dreaded? So mentally inquired Karl and Caspar; but before either had time to shape his thought into an interrogative speech, the shikaree ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... be at the end of a chapter in his book, and he closed the volume, uttering only the single negative participle, with the interrogative inflection, as he glanced at his charge in ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... Booth and Mr. Bramwell Booth in respect of their legal obligations to other persons, or to the criminal and civil law, I have been as careful as I was bound to be, to put any difficulties suggested by mere lay commonsense in an interrogative or merely doubtful form; and to confine myself, for any positive expressions, to citations from published declarations of the judges before whom the acts of "General" Booth came; from reports of the Law Courts; and from the deliberate opinions ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... smiled. William faced five little grimy-faced boys on the bench before him, showing wide unblinking eyes turned up in coldly rational interrogative stares, with a figuratively bulging she-bear in the retina of each, and it was too ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... herself crowns. It all falls strangely on the ears of one not a Nuremberger. "The master-singer?..." he falters. "Are you not one?" Eva asks incredulously, wistfully. And when in his effort to grasp the situation exactly he continues asking questions, she answers his interrogative: "The bride then chooses?..." with complete forgetfulness of every maidenly convention, by an ardent, honest "You, or no one!"—"Are you gone mad?" Magdalene grasps her arm, shocked and flustered. She ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... thought it best you shouldn't," Anne said, always faintly interrogative. "So long as we needn't say who we are. They'd know ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... height and Hugh still on the interrogative line when there came from behind the curtain a voice skilfully ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... captain, turning to expectorate on the pavement, after the manner of far-sighted sailors who are about to find themselves on carpet. The man made a slight grimace, and craned forwards with an interrogative ear held ready ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... unshaven chin, cunningly interrogative. The intervening months had altered him, not pleasantly. The tramp of the Dear Me had been unattractive; this man ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... her with the most winning interrogative eyes. His whole manner implied that everything which touched and concerned her touched and concerned him; and, moreover, that she had given him in some sort a right to share her thoughts and difficulties. ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... love-making which involves lies, all sham heroics and shining snares, assuredly must go out of a higher order of social being, for here more than anywhere lying is the poison of life. But between these data there are great interrogative blanks no generalization will fill— cases, situations, temperaments. Each life, it seems to me, in that intelligent, conscious, social state to which the world is coming, must square itself to these things in its own way, and fill in the details of its individual moral ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... room, inspecting the furnishings and knickknacks. Finally, he turned, and, with an interrogative note in ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... face. On this I scanned his countenance with attention, and remarked that it wore a singularly odd look,—the look of a man advanced in years and experience. But that I surmised to be a not unusual effect of severe fever. "How old do you suppose the patient to be?" asked the interrogative voice. "About twenty years old, I suppose," said I. "He is a year old," rejoined the voice. "A year! How can that be?" "If you will not allow that he is only a year old, then you must admit that he is sixty-five, ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... Dublin, the kings and heralds of arms." The privilege of wearing a Collar of SS., so far as the various persons enumerated are concerned, is a mere official privilege, and can scarcely be cited in reply to [Greek: Ph].'s interrogative, except upon the principle, "Exceptio probat regulam." The persons now privileged to wear the ancient golden Collar of SS. are the equites aurati, or knights (chevaliers) in the British monarchy, a body which includes all the hereditary order of baronets in England, Scotland, and Ireland, with ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 43, Saturday, August 24, 1850 • Various
... Mary looked puzzled—interrogative. But she checked her question, and drew him back instead to his narrative—to the small incidents and signs which had gradually revealed to him, among even his brother clergy, years before that date, the working of ideas and thoughts like his own. ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of my tones created some impression upon those feeble minds. Indeed, the President went so far as to turn an interrogative glance upon the Count. But Chatellerault, supremely master of the situation, shrugged his shoulders, and smiled ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... comparative. conj. conjunction. dat. dative. dem. demonstrative. f. feminine. freq. frequentative. gen. genitive. ger. gerundive. impers. impersonal. indecl. indeclinable. indef. indefinite. infin. infinitive. interrog. interrogative. loc. locative. m. masculine. n. neuter. part. participle. pass. passive. perf. perfect. pers. personal. plur. plural. prep. preposition. pron. pronoun or pronominal. rel. relative. sing. ...
— Ritchie's Fabulae Faciles - A First Latin Reader • John Kirtland, ed.
... keenest curiosity, as though he hoped to obtain some revelation, to draw some secret from him. He could still hear the man's voice—a voice of very peculiar tone, somewhat harsh and strident, with an interrogative inflection at the end of each sentence. Again he saw those pale, pale eyes under the great prominent forehead, eyes that at times assumed a hideous, glassy, dead look, and at others lit up with an indefinable gleam that savoured of madness. Those hands too, he ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... of my stateroom with an interrogative "Mr. Jacobus?" I was met by a quiet "Yes," uttered with a gentle smile. The "yes" was rather perfunctory. He did not seem to make much of the fact that he was Mr. Jacobus. I took stock of a big, pale face, hair thin on the top, whiskers also thin, of a faded nondescript ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... was interrogative, Hunterleys hesitated for a moment. Then he continued with a little ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... make me talk by well-concerted questions. Children are best approached through the interrogative mood. It offers just so many nails set in a sure place upon which to hang conversation. He was a handsome, well-set-up young fellow, and, if somewhat graver by nature and habit than most of Cousin Molly Belle's beaux, ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... This interrogative 'portion of divine scripture' is forcibly illustrated by an anecdote, related with most effective dryness by a friend of ours. An elderly gentleman, accustomed to 'indulge,' entered the bar-room of an inn in the pleasant city of H——, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... and justice, which were the animating life of the bill, Fox's terse sentences contrast strangely with the somewhat more lumbering and elaborate paragraphs of Burke. "What," he exclaims, putting his argument in his favorite interrogative form,—"what is the most odious species of tyranny? Precisely that which this bill is meant to annihilate. That a handful of men, free themselves, should exercise the most base and abominable despotism over millions of their fellow-creatures; ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... similarities seemed to make the choice wise. With a long vividly striped stockinet neck wrinkling like a mousquetaire glove, the neat small head that so closely fitted his own neat small head, the tweaked, interrogative ears,—Beautiful-Lovely, the Wolf Hound, reared up majestically in his own chair. He also, once convinced that the mask was not a gas-box, resigned himself to the inevitable, and corporeally independent of such vain ...
— Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... was not difficult to tell which was the "doctor." The professional face was unmistakeable: and I knew that the tall pale man, who regarded me with interrogative glance, was a disciple of Esculapius, as certainly as if he had carried his diploma in one hand and his door-plate ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... with an interrogative glance of surprise at the readiness of his answer; then, with half a sigh, said, 'There are your pearls, sir; I cannot establish our right, though I verily believe it was the cause of our last ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... up at our appearance, gave an interrogative glance first at Menken and then, at me, and evidently ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... you what you Now, Sir? (and an have had to eat, Sir? interrogative look.) St'k, Sir? Yezzir! shill'n, Sir! 'taters, Sir? I have had a beef-steak, with boiled Yezzir! twop'nce, that's one-and-three, and potatoes; I have also had a fried sole, bread a penny, one-and-three and some bread, and two is one-and-five, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... Indian, until we came out upon the open water. Thence a paddle of two miles along the coast brought us to another little stream flowing into the lake. As we came to its mouth Kawaybawgo was feasting upon a duck he had killed and broiled, of which he offered me a portion with a smile and interrogative grunt which seemed to compassionate my wet, weary and forlorn appearance. A splendid pike, two feet long, came gracefully out of the stream and hung motionless in the clear water. I pointed him out to the Indian and the Hattie's captain, both of whom were ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... you, Rabbi—the decree of the Caesar"—the keeper threw an interrogative glance at the Nazarene, then continued—"brought most of those who have lodging in the house. And yesterday the caravan passing from Damascus to Arabia and Lower Egypt arrived. These you see here belong to ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... little forward from his position of obscurity to where the strong afternoon sunlight found its subdued way through the Holland blinds. The politely interrogative smile faded from her lips. She seemed to pass through a moment of terror, a moment during which her thoughts were numbed. She sank into the chair which her visitor gravely held out for her, and by degrees she ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... length of the room again, and then she stopped before her brother, laying her hand upon his arm. "They are not to come and see me," she said. "You are not to allow that. That is not the way I shall meet them first." And in answer to his interrogative glance she went on. "You will go and examine, and report. You will come back and tell me who they are and what they are; their number, gender, their respective ages—all about them. Be sure you observe everything; be ready to describe to me the locality, the accessories—how shall ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... The interrogative "see?" that Murphy used to punctuate his sentences was invariably accompanied with a gesture of his hand that resembled a baseball umpire's gesture in calling a runner safe at a base more than anything ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... silent pair were quick to avail themselves of even its scant shelter from the overpowering sun. They had not proceeded far, before Johnson, who was walking quite rapidly in advance, suddenly brought himself up, and turned to his companion with an interrogative "Eh?" ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... landlord, a man of subdued appearance, accompanying the lady of the house to church. Subsequently, as I came in one evening rather earlier than usual, the same person was leaning against the railings by the hall-door, smoking a cigar. He greeted me as I passed in, addressing me in an interrogative manner with one word, the only one I ever ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... when he visits the garden. "See-see, see-saw," he sings, but there is a tone of anxiety betrayed in the simple, sylvan strain that always seems as if the bird needed reassuring, possibly due to the rising inflection, like an interrogative, of the last notes. ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... word "like" at the end of an interrogative sentence, in the Five Towns, is a subject upon which a book ought to be written; but not this history. The essential point to observe is that Helen got up from the bench ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... expresses simple curiosity; "What ever are you doing?" expresses surprise; "What the devil are you doing?" expresses anger—we need not run farther up the scale. Nor is this use of "ever" an innovation, licentious or otherwise. "Ever" has for centuries been employed as an intensive particle after the interrogative pronouns and adverbs how, who, what, where, why. For instance, in The World of Wonders (1607), "I shall desire him to consider how ever it was possible to get an ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... of the position in which her ladyship is being placed by this temporary separation from her family?" ventured Lady Bereford, with full interrogative force that at length afforded an opportunity ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... formal, masked Charley Steele, looking calmly through the interrogative eye-glass. By the time he reached his office, greetings became more subdued. His prestige had increased immensely in a few short hours, but he had no more friends than before. Old relations were soon re-established. The town was proud of his ability as it ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... mountains lift up their heads! In this sentence the thought is expressed with strong emotion. It is called an Exclamatory Sentence. How and what usually introduce such sentences; but a declarative, an interrogative, or an imperative sentence may become exclamatory when the speaker uses it mainly to give vent to his feelings; as, It is impossible! How can I endure it! ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... meaning glance at Annie Day. Annie raised her eyebrows, looked interrogative, then her face subsided into a satisfied expression. She asked no further questions, but she gave Rosalind an affectionate pat ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... as much as their children.—We agreed, however, in our estimate of the superior advantages which children of both sexes enjoy in the present day, from the improved and extended views of the authors of school-books. She was warm in her praises of the Interrogative System of some recent authors; and I found she was no stranger to the merits of the Universal Preceptor, and of the elementary Grammars of Geography, ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... ended in impressive silence. As we streamed out of the laboratory, aglow with his electric fire, Sebastian held me back with a bent motion of his shrivelled forefinger. I stayed behind unwillingly. "Yes, sir?" I said, in an interrogative voice. ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... was the short, thick-set being who had solved the problem of asking us to get up, moving with gestures that seemed, almost all of them, intelligible to us, inviting us to follow him. His spout-like face turned from one of us to the other with a quickness that was clearly interrogative. For a time, I say, we were taken ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... interrogative omnibus word, he would clench one fat fist and knead the air downward with it, to illustrate the process of putting down greediness with an ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... healthful, but play. To Overland it was life. Winthrop saw himself as he was. His improved health scoffed at the idea of becoming sentimental about it. He laughed, and Overland, turning, regarded him with bushy, interrogative brows. ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... words previously given and the instructor giving the meaning of the new words only. Then making use of the first idiomatic expression "il y avait," an explanation is given, showing how it can be changed into the interrogative form "y avait-il?" and the pupils are questioned rapidly as follows, using ...
— Contes et lgendes - 1re Partie • H. A. Guerber
... gracious inclination of the head, and an interrogative brightening of the eyes, "Mr. Marchdale ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... employment gives a nervous jerky style which is tiresome and irritating. Among American writers Stephen Crane is an awful example of this "bumpety-bump" method of expression, though his later works show a tendency to greater ease. The exclamatory and interrogative sentences, of which amateurs use so many, under the mistaken impression that they lend vivacity and vividness, should be totally eschewed. They offend against almost every principle of the short story, and they have nothing ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... Circe was the daughter of Helios (the Sun) by the ocean-nymph Perse. On 'island,' see note, l. 21; and with this use of the verb fall comp. the Latin incidere in. The sudden introduction of the interrogative clause in this line is an example of the ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... demonstrative. excl., exclusive (of personal pronouns, excluding the person addressed). exclam., exclamation. genit., genitive. gu, marks a noun as taking the suffixed pronouns gu, mu, na. incl., inclusive (of personal pronouns, including the person addressed). interj., interjection. interr., interrogative. metath., metathesis. n., noun. na, marks a noun as taking the suffixed pronoun in the third singular only. neg., negative. neut., neuter. obj., object. part., particle. partic., participle. pers., ...
— Grammar and Vocabulary of the Lau Language • Walter G. Ivens
... called Fame, dancing again across his path,—this transitory torch of world-approval! Fame in London! ... What was it, what COULD it be, compared to the brilliancy of the fame he had once enjoyed as Laureate of Al-Kyris! As this thought passed across his mind, he gave a quick interrogative glance at Villiers, who was observing him with much wondering intentness, and his handsome ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... in the half darkened library, sitting with his back turned to the light, and his eyes fixed with a curious stare into vacancy, when the door opened, and Rochester entered unannounced. Saton rose at once to his feet, but the interrogative words died away upon his lips. Rochester's fair, sunburnt face was grim with angry purpose. He had the air of a man stirred to the very depths. He came only a little way into the room, and he took up his position with his back to ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... sunless side of the small mouldy houses and pausing very often to look at nothing in particular. It was all very hot, very hushed, very resignedly but very persistently old. A wheeled vehicle in such a place is an event, and the forestiero's interrogative tread in the blank sonorous lanes has the privilege of bringing the inhabitants to their doorways. Some of the better houses, however, achieve a sombre stillness that protests against the least curiosity as to what may happen in any such century as this. You wonder, as you pass, what ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... laddie?" she said to the dog, who answered with a low whine, half-regretful, half-interrogative. It may be he was only asking, like Esau, if there was no residuum of blessing for him also; but perhaps he too was puzzled what to conclude about the boy. Janet hastened to the door, but already Gibbie's ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... for me when, in response to my interrogative "Yes?" my companion said "That is all" and closed the book. We had extracted the pith and marrow of six considerable volumes in ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... point with which I am now concerned is this—When in plain reason the question is seen to be irrational, why in intuitive sentiment should it not be felt to be so? The answer, I think, is, that the interrogative faculty being usually occupied with questions which admit of rational answers, we acquire a sort of intellectual habit of presupposing every wherefore to have a therefore, and thus, when eventually we arrive at the last of all possible wherefores, ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... OBS. 2.—In interrogative sentences, the auxiliaries shall and will are not always capable of being applied to the different persons agreeably to their use in simple declarations: thus, "Will I go?" is a question which there never can be any occasion to ask in its literal sense; ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... (lit. after thee) is here used in the modern sense of "still" or "yet." The interrogative prefix A appears to have dropped out, as is not uncommon in manuscripts of this kind. Burton, "After ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne |
